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rice farmers in the Bangkok rice plain as well as some living up-country. On the whole, the towndwellers, with their more sophisticated lives, tend to look down on the country folk, using them when it suits them to do so.
19. Many of the splinter groups in the North are said to be hoping to establish themselves as independent states
of the Union of Burma. Karen, Shan and Kachin come within this category and have apparently been suspended in a state of conflict with theurmese army for many years without any definite conclusion to their struggle. Their political aims may well be as stated but it is hard to see them existing outside the trading rattern which has grown up in the Golden Triangle. It may be more accurate to regard these groups as professional traders who are amateur rebels rather than professional rebels who are amateur traders.
20. The theme of this letter, briefly summed up, is that economics cutweighs politics as a key to understanding the motivation of political groups in the North of Thailand. I have ranged rather wide of my local interests and hone I may be forgiven for that. May I inconclusion offer the
thought that this theme could be usefully applied to other troubled areas of Thailand?
Yours ever,
Malcolm
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