Eleven years have gone by and yet the Burmese military junta’s 15-year drug eradication efforts, to end by 2014, have not been effective, according to Shan Drug Watch, a programme of SHAN focused on Burma’s drug problem.
In 1999, the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) embarked on a 15-year plan to eradicate the cultivation and production of all drugs in Burma by 2014. The total townships targeted were 51 - 43 in Shan State, four in Kachin, two in Kayah or Karenni and two in Chin state.
Till date, only 10 townships of the 51 targeted “townships” can claim to be poppy free, while the rest are still growing poppies, according to Shan Drug Watch’s draft report.
Moreover, the 10 “Free” townships were just areas in Shan State and mostly in ethnic ceasefire controlled areas: six in United Wa State Army (UWSA), one in National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA) or Mongla, two in Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) aka Kokang and one in Panghsai sub-township, Muse township, Burmese Army controlled area.
There are actually only 39 targeted townships in Shan State and not 43 townships as designated in the plan, because Mongkoe and Panghsai are in Muse Township, and the six Wa townships have been lumped into four townships, according to Khuensai Jaiyen, SHAN’s Editor in Chief.
Apart from the10 townships already mentioned and two other townships – Pindaya and Ywa-ngan-, at least 23 townships not targeted in the 15 year plan were also growing poppies: 14 townships in Shan State (six in North, five in South and three in East), five in Kachin, one in Kayah State or Karenni, two in Chin State and one in Sagaing.
“But the junta can say they can eliminate opium production by 2014, whatever the situation is now,” Khuensai said, “because they have the power to order the farmers not to grow it, when the deadline arrives. However, it will not be sustainable unless there is an effective substitution programme.”
To get rid of poppy production the people must have access to effective substitution. If there is no effective substitution for the people, then people just have to leave the country, according to him.
A poppy farmer, who just fled to Thailand said, “We can stay without planting them if we don’t have to pay a lot of taxes to the Burmese Army and if we just have to feed our own family. But now we have to pay heavy taxes to them. If we don’t plant poppies, how can we pay those taxes?”