Experts show that ethnic militias that control illegal drug trade provide the ruling junta with control over their respective territories and economic benefits to army brass in exchange for the right to produce and export narcotics.

Yangon (AsiaNews/Agencies) – In Myanmar, one of the world's major narcotics producers, there is a sinister relationship between the ruling military junta, ethnic militias and a network of opium farmers, drug financiers and narcotics traffickers. Despite the junta's claim that it is fighting drug trafficking, research by the Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN) shows that members of the Myanmar military often favours the illicit trade for personal gain.

Based on first-hand account and eyewitness reports like former drug traffickers, SHAN's research shows that ethnic militia leaders, especially among the Lahu, Kachin and Wa, run their respective territories on behalf of the military government in exchange for a free hand in making and exporting narcotics as well as running gambling dens and casinos.

These local militias fight anti-government groups, supply the national army, provide expensive gifts to officers and their wives and pay for parties and military operations. In exchange they get to grow and export drugs, including to China, under the protection of the army itself.

Military sources have justified the use of ethnic militias saying they are essential to enforce order security across the country. But Myanmar's pledge of cooperation to the United Nations and Western anti-narcotics agencies seems hollow.

Estimates concerning opium production are misleading. Even though opium cultivation has decreased, from 1,676 tonnes in 1997, to 680 tonnes in 2005, this is partly in response to an explosion of production in Afghanistan. It is also the result of draconian government policies of displacing farmers from particular ethnic groups.

For example, hundreds of thousands of civilians in Shan state have been forcibly relocated or their opium crops destroyed, leading to large-scale starvation and poverty. The same cannot be said of pro-government ethnic groups.

SHAN's research shows that cultivation has spread across north-eastern Myanmar through to favour large illegal drug traffickers in collusion with the military. (PB)

• myanmar
• drug
• cultivation
• trade
• trafficking
• shan
• state