Palaung monks in Shan State North, on 24 October, sent an 8 point petition to Shan State Chief Minister Sao Aung Myat for effective action against increasing drug abuse in 4 townships where the Palaungs are dominant.
According to the scanned copy received by SHAN yesterday, the monks were calling for his intervention because they “are no longer in a position to teach (the people) by the way of the Dhamma (the teachings of the Buddha).
The affected townships include Muse, Namkham, Kutkhai and Mantong, all of them on the Sino-Burmese border. “In a village in Mantong township with 40 households,” it reads, “there are only two that are not using drugs.”
Among the users are women, they said.
The results of rising drug use were also enumerated:
* Decaying social system
* Decline in morals
* Lack of property security
* Many are either mortgaging or selling their tea plantations and paddies
* School age children working for a living due to breakup of their families
* Some of them working in the neighboring country to support their families
* Some of the women have been infected with contagious disease
Book cover: Still Poisoned
Still Poisoned, a report by Thai border based Palaung Women’s Organization (PWO), which was released on 25 October, has blamed successive government policy supporting local paramilitary leaders allied to the government against ethnic resistance movements to engage in the drug business. “Burma’s drug problems are set to worsen unless there is genuine political reform that addresses the political aspirations of Burma’s ethnic minority groups,” it says.
SHAN is due to launch its own annual drug report in November.
The Palaung, together with PaOs, have the largest populations among the non-Shans, 7% each, according to the pre-coup Shan State Government. They are historically known as Burma’s principal tea planters.
The Palaung prince Khun Pan Sing had served as President of the pre-independence Shan States Council.
