-9-
It is because of this vulnerability to both attack and delay that convoys pay taxes to the relatively small armies in Mong Ngen and Petkang. And a large predatory army like the S.U.A. specially adapted to the taxing and plundering of convoys, could, if it wished, wreak havoc in the opium trade. The S.U.A's budget, including the salaries of 1,100 men, is less than 3 million kyatts ($200,000) per year, and its commander who frequently says there's no point in fighting without profit has always hoped to be hired by Taiwan or the C.I.A.
On the other hand, he himself pointed out the disadvantage of disrupting the trade. The merchants who travel with Law Hsin Han do so because it's safer and cheaper than sending their opium by trucks. Transport by road means heavy bribes and the risk of seizure. But if convoys began to be captured regularly, then it would be safer for merchants to smuggle their narcotics in small quantities by truck and plane, and the opium business would become as fragmented as it is elsewhere. This would deprive the S.U.A. of their livelihood and it could also make it harder to find a solution to the opium trade.
6.
Communist Control of Kokang and Wah State
About a third of Shan State's opium is grown in the Communist areas of Kokang and Wah State where the Burmese have been unable to enter for about a year. Up till now the Communists have allowed merchants working with the Ka Kwa Ye to buy opium from the farmers, but during the last two years the Kokang Communists have stockpiled about 30,000 viss, and recently bought the equipment for a heroin distillery. predict whatthe Communists intend to do, stop the Ka Kwa Ye from buying opium from Kokang and Wah State presumably the Communists would be forced to look for another outlet possibly Communist Laos to prevent their farmers starving.
7.
The Opium Price and the Farmer
<<
according to Law Hsin Han None of the Ka Kwa Ye will but if the Burmese were to
We came across one village with a young and persuasive headman that had started growing opium in 1969 because of the high price at that time and which was about to change to sugar cane because of the bad crop and low price in 1973. But this village was a unique exception. Every other village we investigated seemed blindly unresponsive to the state of the market.
-
The area
For nearly 10 years some Resistance Armies have been trying to persuade villages in poor areas that have no regular cash crop to grow opium. Opium has therefore been spreading westwards across Shan State but at what seems to have been a very slow rate. commanders say that their people are so conservative that many villages refuse to grow opium when other villages only 10 or 12 miles away have been making a profit from it for years. Conversely, in some places like the Loi Kur range where it would be more profitable to concentrate on Tong Silik (the leaf which forms the outside wrapping of a cheroot) the people insist on their inefficient combination of tea, cheroot leaf and opium.
dis
We did not visit enough villages or do enough of a survey to draw any valid conclusion on what would happen if the opium price went up.
But if we had to guess, it would be that the quantity of opium produced would rise only very slowly. The reason is that opium requires a great deal of work (including 3 weedings) and most households haven't the labour or the manure to increase the production. In the days of the legal opium trade, some merchants hired labourers to plant and cultivate fields on a capitalist basis, but this ceased with Ne Win's coup and we did not hear of a single case in 1972 or 1973. This means that if the opium price were to rise, some farmers who do not grow opium might be tempted to switch
No comments yet.
Private notes are available after approval.