Burma’s Drug Lord Generals

Jon Ungphakorn

The news blackout imposed by Burma’s military junta on its decision to forego its turn as chair of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) next year shows that it has received a severe blow to its prestige. Indeed, the decision was far from voluntary. Junta leader Senior General Than Shwe “lost face” and promptly disappeared from public view so completely that some Burmese thought he had died.

The protagonists that pressured the regime into relinquishing the ASEAN chair were not the usual Western human rights campaigners, but Burma’s closest ASEAN neighbors. This must have made the retreat doubly painful for the generals, as ASEAN was previously one of the junta’s strongest shields against international pressure.

For ASEAN, the episode was a lesson in assertiveness. It showed that persistent pressure works better than the “constructive engagement” that it had pursued, to no avail, for the eight years since Burma joined the organization.

This shift has been led by an embryonic grouping of elected regional parliamentarians known as the ASEAN Inter-Parliamentary Caucus on Democracy in Myanmar (AIPMC), of which I am a member. Established last November to spur progress on democratization in Burma, parliamentarians from Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, and Cambodia took the unprecedented step of crossing national and party lines to review critically ASEAN policy on Burma, seek the release of Aung San Suu Kyi, and disqualify Burma from chairing.

Now, we will move for the suspension of Burma’s membership of ASEAN unless Aung San Suu Kyi and other political prisoners are released and clear progress towards democracy is made through negotiations involving the Aung’s National League for Democracy and representatives of the various ethnic groups.

As elected legislators in ASEAN’s established and budding democracies, the members of AIPMC feel that our voices have merit and legitimacy. We know that Burma’s political destiny is inextricably linked to that of our own countries.

When Burma joined ASEAN in 1997, there were only 210,000 Burmese refugees and asylum seekers throughout the region. Now, nearly one million people have fled Burma’s political and economic chaos for neighboring countries, and another million people remain internally displaced. Our youth are at an all-time high risk of drug addiction from the massive flow of narcotics, particularly amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS), from Burma, while the generals there maintain congenial ties with notorious drug lords.

In mid-September, the UN Office on Drugs and Crime admitted that Burma and China were the world’s top producers of ATS. Amphetamine drugs produced in eastern Burma seem to be transported with such ease that significant quantities have been found in northeast India, on Burma’s western border. That, together with the heroin that is trafficked from Burma to India, China, Thailand, and other countries in the region, poses a serious threat to our political and economic security.

It is both tragic and inevitable that the areas of India and China bordering Burma now suffer from those countries’ highest concentration of drug addiction and HIV infection., My own country, Thailand, receives up to 900 million amphetamine pills from Burma every year, and about a third of our regular drug users are below the age of 16. If this is the impact on Thailand, what about the young people and children of Burma, who have been restricted from access to education, information, and health care?

It is scandalous that drug lords enjoy more freedom to operate than aid agencies, while basic access to food, education, and health care suffers many restrictions, with up to 70% of Burma’s children are chronically malnourished in some border areas.

Indeed, in August, World Food Program Executive Director James Morris revealed that the WFP had delivered only 430 tons of the 5,500 tons of rice earmarked for vulnerable people in Burma’s northern Arakan State because of restrictions imposed by the regime. Two weeks later, the Global Fund for HIV/AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria pulled its funding for programs in Burma, citing government restrictions that had created “an impossibly difficult environment.”

Preventing aid from reaching those in need is bad enough. But Burma’s regime actually perpetuates conditions that sustain and worsen the HIV/AIDS epidemic by restricting access to counseling, medication, and other support services. In order for HIV/AIDS programs to be effective and sustainable, affected communities must have the freedom to organize and empower themselves. Only then can they be assured access to the resources essential for treatment options.

Aung San Suu Kyi’s eloquent plea, “Please use your liberty to promote ours,” has special resonance for us in AIPMC, who enjoy the benefits of representative democracy. This is why we feel obligated to call on the highest levels of the international community – including the UN Security Council – to address the question of Burma, for we must show that we are serious about peace, democracy, and human rights. The courageous people of Burma, like people everywhere around the world, deserve what far too many of us take for granted.