Visiting Kengtung, capital of Shan State East, that shares a border with China, Laos and Thailand yesterday, Lt-Gen Min Aung Hlaing, who oversees Shan and Kayah states, said Washington should have been assisting Burma’s ruling military junta in defeating the United Wa State Army (UWSA), seven of whose top leaders are on its blacklist.

The seven are:

Bao Youxiang            President
Bao Youri                  Deputy Secretary General
Bao Youliang            Chief of Finance
Bao Huaqiang           Deputy Chief of Construction
Wei Xuelong             Deputy Chief of Finance
Wei Xuegang            Commander, 171st Military Region
Wei Xueyun              Deputy Commander, 171st Military Region*

(*All are current offices held by the said Wa leaders, according to information released by the UWSA on 17 April 2009.)

The eighth on the list, issued by the Justice Department on 24 January 2005, on Bao Youhua, died on 26 August 2007.

The United States charged the eight defendants for “collection, transport and taxing of opium in the territories under their control; the manufacture and distribution of heroin and methamphetamine to the United States and throughout the world; and the laundering of narcotics proceeds through seemingly legitimate businesses.” They named the UWSA as a “powerful criminal syndicate and worldwide narcotics trafficking organization.”

“The Wa think, with China on their backside, they don’t need to listen to anybody,” the general was quoted as telling the officials attending yesterday’s meeting at the regional command’s headquarters, from 10:00-11:30. “They don’t realize the world knows about their involvement in drugs. They don’t realize they are wearing iron chains around their necks. If only the Americans could help us.”

The Wa together with five other ceasefire groups including the Kachin Independence Organization (KIO), Shan State Army (SSA) North, National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), Kayan New Land Party (KNLP) and New Mon State Party (NMSP) are resisting Naypyitaw’s demand to convert themselves into junta-controlled militia forces, citing that the junta-drawn constitution does not guarantee autonomous rights for non-Burman states.

Effectively easing the Wa’s burden is the fact that junta-ruled Burma itself is still on the US State Department’s list of 20 major illicit drug producing and transit countries that have "failed demonstrably” in the War on Drugs.

Nevertheless, the Wa products, both heroin and yaba are still top quality in the Golden Triangle, where Burma, Laos and Thailand meet. “But the (Naypyitaw-backed) militia groups are catching up with them,” said a businessman on the border SHAN interviewed on the weekend.
“Today, the quality of their goods may be sub-standard, not unlike Japanese products in the early years after World War II. But later they became #1. Today, the Japanese may be still #1 in quality. But the Chinese are catching up. Drug wise speaking, the militias may be likened to the Chinese and the Wa to the Japanese.”