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When pressure forced the K.M.T. to adopt a low profile in 1972, most of the Chinese merchants who previously traded with them just switched to the Tangyan Ka Kwa Ye. In the case of Bo Lai Oo's army this was little more than a change of name, for in the past his convoys had usually joined up with a K.M.T. convoy at Nakar. In September 1971 the convoy consisted of 500 K.M.T. mules (of which about half belonged to merchants) and 250 Bo Lai Oo mules (50 belonged to Bo Lai Co and 200 to merchants paying Bo Lai Oo an escort charge), and this convoy was known as a K.M.T. convoy. In August 1972, however, there was a similar 750 mule convoy but the merchants were credited to Bo Lai Oo. The convoy was therefore called a Bo Lai Oo convoy though it set out from the K.M.T. base of Nakar and went to the K.M.T. base in Thailand.
This flexibility is increased by the way the Ka Kwa Ye hire soldiers to each other so that some convoys have troops from 4 or 5 groups. (In April 1973 the Vingngun group even hired 70 carbines
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without soldiers from Bo Lai Oo). At least half the mules on most convoys are contracted with their muleteers from separate mule contractors, whilst K.M.T. soldiers visiting a town usually use an identity card of one of the Ka Kwa Ye groups, and many Ka Kwa Ye in K.M.T. areas call themselves K.M.T.
As a result, when pressure was put on the K.M.T., their convoys just got smaller and the Ka Kwa Ye's got larger. And now that the Ka Kwa Ye have been 'abolished', the S.S.A. has grown and is beginning to trade in opium. The problem is therefore less a question of the group but of the soldiers, muleteers, and merchants who make up the group and who need some alternative means of livelihood if they are to be drawn away from the opium trade. (The best paid soldiers receive 60 kyatts per month, but have to buy their own meat and vegetables. They also get a bonus of 500
kyatts per convoy, but seldom go on more than 2 convoys a year. There are less than 5,000 soldiers acting as escorts in the opium trade.)
5. Weakness of the Convoys
The reason the Burmese have captured so little opium is not the strength of the convoys, but because the Burmese are hated by the villagers and deprived of information.
when we were in Mong Pan with Lt.Col. Pan Aung, he paralysed the entire opium trade in Southern Shan State with only 250 men. Except for one K.M.T./S.U.R.A. convoy, all opium movements stopped and the market fell so much that Lt. Col. Pan Aung was unable to sell the opium he captured.
Later Commander Chang of the S.U.A. failed to capture Law Hsin Han's convoy, but his arguments about tactics were all founded on the vulnerability of the average convoy. To begin with, the muleteers, soldiers and merchants are drawn from many different groups, so everyone in the opium business knows when a convoy is assembling at least a month in advance. On the day Law Hsin Han's convoy left Tachilek, the S.U.A. knew the exact number of mules and soldiers together with the names of every important trader involved. After that they were able to track the convoy day by day, and it would have been easy to harrass and break it up, if Commander Chang had not wanted the mules unharmed.
The result of his operation was that Law Hsin Han's convoy was delayed 6 weeks en route, and its departure from Tachilek was held up for two months before that. 500 mules eat over a ton of paddy a day, and with the salaries of soldiers and muleteers, the S.U.A. calculated that the 3 month delay cost Law Hsin Han more than the 200,000 kyatt tax they were demanding.