An alarming rise in drug addiction is in evidence in Kachin State in Northern Burma despite the Burmese military junta’s ongoing drug eradication programme, said local people.
The last three years have witnessed a sharp rise in opium-poppy cultivation and trading in Kachin State resulting in more people being addicted to drugs, said a source.
According to a United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) report in 2010, there has been a 50 per cent jump in opium production in Burma. Since 2006, the 21,500 hectares of poppy cultivation had increased to 31,700 hectares in 2009.
Opium production had been increasing in Burma by 315 metric tons in 2006 and 330 metric tons in 2009, reported UNODC.
Opium cultivation increased in the last three years in Kachin State in villages and townships in Danai, Kambaiti, Naga Mountains, Puta-O (Putau in Kachin), Sumprabum, Sadung and Hukawng valley, said an anonymous officer in Opium Eradication Sector of Kachin Independence Organization (KIO).
“It is difficult to prevent selling or use of drugs by KIO or religious or political groups because the Snr-Gen Than Shwe-led military government is indulging people to sell it,” said a school teacher in Myitkyina.
Civilians keep tipping off the police, when they come to know about trucks carrying heroin but police refuse to arrest the traffickers because they don’t have orders from the higher authorities. Ironically police detain civilians, who provide information about drug trafficking, said a local Kachin Baptist pastor.
Sadung village close to the China border is one of the areas with the most poppy cultivation in Kachin State.
“The road in Sadung village is full of opium smoke. Their house, their pillows and blankets reek of opium,” said residents.
University students in Myitkyina the capital of Kachin State, Bhamo (Manmaw in Kachin) and Mohnyin are addicted to drugs, which are sold in the campus and in class rooms.
University authorities in Myitkyina provide special dustbins for disposing off hypodermic needles and syringes after drugs are injected by the students. The dustbins are provided by French-based NGO Medecins Du Monde (MDM) and Holland-based NGO Artsen Zonder Grenzen (AZG).
In Myitkyina drugs such as heroin are available everywhere in the city say, local people.
Students start getting addicted to drugs from the time they are in middle school and they become regular users by the time they are in high school, said a local school teacher.
Over 75 per cent of prisoners were political activists in Myitkyina prison before the ceasefire agreement between the KIO and the junta in 1994, said a lawyer in Myitkyina. But now over the past year, 75 per cent of inmates are related to drug trafficking, he added.
The UNODC reported in February that ethnic armed groups depend on drug trafficking for continuing their armed struggle.
However, the anti-drug trafficking in-charge of the KIO in Laiza Headquarters in Kachin State, near China border contradicted the UNODC’s report and said KIO has been organizing anti-narcotic programmes since April 15, 1991 till date.
He said, KIO has been trying to prevent opium cultivation in its area of control but drug trafficking continues with influx from the border check point. The regime has failed to check trafficking in drugs and addiction.
“We do not control all areas so we cannot stop it. In Puta-O people say if KIO urges people to stop cultivating poppy they will not listen. They would rather be allowed to cultivate because their survival depends on it,” said the anonymous KIO anti-drug officer.
All natural resources like timber, gold, jade and other minerals are controlled by the junta and the Chinese, forcing locals to cultivate opium to eke out a living, because it is hard to find other means of livelihood, he added. This is a new problem being faced by Kachin State.
He said most of the poppy cultivating areas are controlled by the Burmese military junta and it is sending more troops, who are taking up positions in KIO controlled areas as a military strategy, though ostensibly for opium eradication.
