FAGE 5
CONFIDENTIAL
is made to control what they do. Although remote frontier arcas are a low priority, there are several other more interesting reasons for the government's lack of action with regard to the apparently more serious matter of rebel armies. I would like to draw attention to five of them.
9. Firstly, the Thai authorities (and this means in this context Supreme Command Headquarters of the Thai forces) see the existence of the illegal rebel bands as insurance against invasion. They accept, and believe in, the buffer theory and the Shans, KT and all the others are the external wall of the buffer. The frontier is a long one and Thai resources are slender. The friction which the existence of the rebel bands causes in relations with Burma is not sufficiently important to outweigh the advantage of extra help on the frontier from groups "whose guns are believed to point in the right direction". The Thais therefore have no intention of interfering with the rebel groups.
s. I
10. Secondly, from the King down, there is no intention on the part of the Thais to suppress opium growing before there is a proven substitute crop of equal or greater value. This crop would have to be acceptable to the opium growers. understand that according to a consolidating convention dealing with opium growing drawn up in Geneva in 1961, this attitude of the Thais is consistent with their signature on the convention. If opium can be grown, however, it must also be bought and sold. In the present climate of world opinion with regard to ar
CONFIDENTIAL-only
be done