True Noval
Opium War in Golden Triangle (1)
General Ma
had his chance as mediator in early 1967 when Generals Tuan and Ly
began receiving disturbing information about Chan Shee-fu's activities
in the Shan States. The KMT's radio network was sending back reports
that the Shan warlord's brokers were buying up unprecedented quantities
of opium in the northern Shan and Wa states.
In February, Chan Shee-fu (Khun Sa) had delivered a de facto declaration of war when
he demanded that KMT caravans trading in the Wa States pay him the same
transit tax that his caravans had to pay the KMT whenever they crossed
into Thailand or Laos. When
Chan Shee-fu's caravan of three hundred mules assembled in June 1967 it
was carrying sixteen tons of raw opium worth $500,000 wholesale in
Chiangmai.
In
June the main body of Chan Shee-fu's convoy left Ving Ngun and set out
on a two-hundred-mile trek toward Ban Khwan, a small Laotian lumber town
on the Mekong River which Gen. Ouane Rattikone had designated the
delivery point when he placed an advance order for this enormous
shipment with Chan Shee-fu's broker, a Chinese merchant from Mae Sai,
Thailand.
The
caravan was to deliver the opium to the general's refinery at Ban Khwan.
As the heavily loaded mules plodded south through the monsoon
downpours, the convoy was joined by smaller caravans from market towns
like Tang Yang, so that by the time it reached Kengtung City its
single-file column of five hundred men and three hundred mules stretched
along the ridgelines for over a mile.
From
the moment the caravan left Ving Ngun, it was kept under surveillance
by the KMT's intelligence network, and the radio receivers at Mae Salong
hummed with frequent reports from the mountains overlooking the
convoy's line of march. After merging their crack units into a
thousand-man expeditionary corps, Generals Tuan and Ly sent their forces
into the Shan States with orders to intercept the convoy and destroy
it.
Shortly
after they arrived, the Shan troops warned the Laotian villagers that
the KMT were not far behind and that there would probably be fighting.
As soon as he heard this news, the principal of Ban Khwan's
elementary school raced downriver to Ton Peung, where a company of
Royal Laotian Army troops had its field headquarters.
The
company commander radioed news of the upcoming battle to Ban Houei Sai
and urged the principal to evacuate his village. During the next ten
days, while Ban Khwan's twenty families moved all their worldly
possessions across the Mekong into Thailand, Chan Shee-fu's troops
prepared for a confrontation.
Ban Khwan is hardly a likely battlefield:
the village consists of small clearings hacked out of a dense forest,
fragile stilted houses and narrow winding lanes, which were then mired
in knee-deep, monsoon-season mud. A lumber mill belonging to General
Ouane sat in the only large clearing in the village, and it was here
that the Shans decided to make their stand.
In many
ways it was an ideal defensive position: the mill is built on a long
sand embankment extending a hundred feet into the Mekong and is
separated from the surrounding forest by a lumberyard, which had become a
moat like sea of mud. The Shans parked their mules along the
embankment, scoured the nearby towns for boats, and used cut logs lying
in the lumberyard to form a great semicircular barricade in front of the
mill.
(Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
Opium War in Golden Triangle (2)
However, at 12:00 noon on July 30 the staccato chatter of automatic weapons was suddenly interrupted by the droning roar of six T-28 prop fighters flying low up the Mekong River and then the deafening thunder of the five hundred pound bombs that came crashing down indiscriminately on Shans and KMT alike.
General
Ouane, apparently somewhat disconcerted by the unforeseen outcome of
his dealings with Chan Shee-fu, had decided to play the part of an
outraged commander in chief defending his nation's territorial
integrity. With Prime Minister Souvanna Phourna's full consent he had
dispatched a squadron of T-28 fighters from Luang Prabang and airlifted
the crack Second Paratroop Battalion (Capt. Kong Le's old unit) up to
Ban Houei Sai.
General
Ouane took personal command of the operation and displayed all of the
tactical brilliance one would expect from a general who had just
received his nation's highest state decoration, "The Grand Cross of the
Million Elephants and the White Parasol".
Once
the Second Paratroop Battalion had gone upriver to Ban Khwan and taken
up a blocking position just south of the battlefield, the T-28s began
two solid days of bombing and strafing at the rate of four or five
squadron sorties daily.
To
ensure against a possible retaliatory attack on Ban Houei Sai, General
Ouane ordered two marine launches to patrol the upper reaches of the
Mekong near Ban Khwan. Finally, two regular Laotian infantry battalions
began moving down the old caravan trail from Muong Mounge to cut off the
only remaining escape route.
Under the
pressure of the repeated bombing attacks, the four hundred surviving
Shans piled into the boats tied up along the embankment and retreated
across the Mekong into Burma, leaving behind eighty-two dead, fifteen
mules, and most of the opium.
Lacking
boats and unwilling to abandon their heavy equipment, the KMT troops
fled north along the Mekong, but only got six miles before their retreat
was cut off by the two Laotian infantry battalions moving south from
Muong Mounge.
When
the Shans and KMT had abandoned Ban Khwan, the Second Paratroop
Battalion swept the battlefield, gathered up the opium and sent it
downriver to Ban Houei Sai. Reinforcements were flown up from Vientiane,
and superior numbers of Laotian army troops surrounded the KMT.
Following
two weeks of tense negotiations, the KMT finally agreed to pay General
Ouane an indemnity of $7,500 for the right to return to Thailand. According
to Thai police reports, some seven hundred KMT troops crossed the
Mekong into Thailand on August 19, leaving behind seventy dead,
twenty-four machine guns, and a number of dead mules.
Although
the Thai police made a pro forma attempt at disarming the KMT, the
troops clambered aboard eighteen chartered buses and drove off to Mae
Salong with three hundred carbines, seventy machine guns, and two
recoilless rifles.
Gen. Ouane
Rattikone was clearly the winner of this historic battle. His troops
had captured most of the sixteen tons of raw opium, and only suffered a
handful of casualties. Admittedly, his lumber mill was damaged and his
opium refinery had been burned to the ground, but this loss was really
insignificant, since General Ouane reportedly operated another five
refineries between Ban Khwan and Ban Houei Sai.
His
profits from the confiscated opium were substantial, and displaying the
generosity for which he is so justly famous, he shared the spoils with
the men of the Second Paratroop Battalion. Each man reportedly received
enough money to build a simple house on the outskirts of Vientiane.
The
village of Ban Khwan itself emerged from the conflagration relatively
unscathed; when the people started moving back across the Mekong River
three days after the battle, they found six burned-out houses, but other
than that suffered no appreciable Loss.
At
the time it was fought, the 1967 Opium War struck most observers, even
the most sober, as a curious historical anachronism that conjured up
romantic memories of China's warlords in the 1920s and bandit
desperadoes of bygone eras.
However,
looking back on it in light of events in the Golden Triangle over the
last five years-particularly the development of large-scale production
of no. 4 heroin-the 1967 Opium War appears to have been a significant
turning point in the growth of Southeast Asia's drug traffic.
Each
group's share of Myanmar's opium exports and its subsequent role in the
growth of the Golden Triangle's heroin industry were largely determined
by the historic battle and its aftermath.
KMT
caravans still carry the overwhelming percentage of Myanmar's opium
exports, and Shan caravans have continued to pay the KMT duty when they
enter Thailand. Chan Shee-fu, of course, was the big loser; he left
$500,000 worth of raw opium, thousands of dollars in arms and mules, and
much of his prestige lying in the mud at Ban Khwan.
Moreover,
Chan Shee-fu represented the first and last challenge to KMT control
over the Shan States opium trade and that challenge was decisively
defeated. Since the destruction of Chan Shee-fu's convoy, Shan military
leaders have played an increasingly unimportant role in their own opium
trade; Shan caravans usually have less than a hundred mules, and their
opium refineries are processing only a small percentage of the opium
grown in the Shan States.
However, General Ouane's troops won the right to tax Myanmar opium entering Laos, a prerogative formerly enjoyed by the KMT, and the Ban Houei Sai region later emerged as the major processing center for Myanmar opium.
However,
General Ouane's troops won the right to tax Myanmar opium entering
Laos, a prerogative formerly enjoyed by the KMT, and the Ban Houei Sai
region later emerged as the major processing center for Myanmar opium. However, General Ouane's troops won the right to tax Myanmar opium entering Laos, a prerogative formerly enjoyed by the KMT, and the Ban Houei Sai region later emerged as the major processing center for Myanmar opium.
(Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
1972 CIA Inspector General Report Confirms Heroin Complicity
Heroin Production
The CIA's policy of tolerance
towards its Laotian allies did not change even when they began producing
heroin to supply U.S. combat forces fighting in South Vietnam.
In 1968-69, CIA assets opened a
cluster of heroin laboratories in the Golden Triangle, the tri-border
area where Myanmar(Burma), Thailand, and Laos converge. When Hmong officers
loaded opium on the CIA's Air America and the Lao Army's commander
opened a heroin laboratory to supply U.S. troops in Vietnam, the Agency
was silent. In a secret internal report compiled in 1972, the CIA's
inspector-general said the following to explain their inaction:
All this heroin was smuggled
into South Vietnam where, by 1971, according to a White House survey, 34
percent of U.S. troops were addicted.
Instead of trying to restrain
drug trafficking by its Laotian assets, the Agency engaged in
concealment and cover-up. Professor McCoy recalled that when he went to
Laos to investigate in 1971, the Lao army commander graciously opened
his opium accounts but the U.S. mission stonewalled. In a Hmong village,
where he was investigating opium shipments on Air America, CIA
mercenaries ambushed his research team. A CIA operative threatened to
murder his Lao interpreter unless he quit.
When his book was in press, the
CIA's Deputy Director for Plans pressured his publisher to suppress it
and the CIA's general counsel demanded deletions of all references to
Agency complicity. After the book was published unaltered, CIA agents in
Laos pressed his sources to recant and convinced investigators from the
House Foreign Affairs Committee that his allegations were baseless.
Simultaneously, the CIA's
inspector-general conducted a secret internal investigation that
confirmed his allegations. "The war has clearly been our overriding
priority in Southeast Asia and all other issues have taken second
place," the inspector-general said in defense of their inaction on
drugs. "It would be foolish to deny this, and we see no reason to do
so."
Smack to Crack and the Outlaw Government
By 1971 the greatest threat to
the 400,000 member U.S. military force that had invaded Vietnam was not
Communist firepower or lack of air support, it was heroin. Ninety to
ninety nine percent pure, No. 4 heroin was being sold at roadside stands
by Vietnamese children, in army camps, and at sidewalk cigarette stands
throughout downtown Saigon. The heroin epidemic was considered so
pervasive that one U.S. authority told a Newsweek reporter that "Heroin
is wrecking the U.S. Army and creating a whole new class of American
addicts.
As the heroin epidemic surged
through the force structure the army's Criminal Investigation Division
(CID) uncovered incriminating evidence that South Vietnam Major General
Ngo Dzu, commander of II Corps, was "one of the chief traffickers" in
the country. The CID investigation also revealed that the Chief of the
Laotian general staff, General Ouane Rathikone, was "deeply involved."
The conclusions of the army
investigation were sent, through channels, to the U.S. Embassy in Saigon
which ignored the findings and assembled a spirited defense of General
Ngo Dzu. "There is no information available to me that in any shape,
manner or fashion would substantiate the charges" declared the U.S.
advisor to General Dzu.
The Central Intelligence Agency
had been in Indochina since at least l949 and formed allegiances with
groups who had been trafficking in opium for centuries. The CIA
facilitated the transport logistics of the opium trade among it's allies
as part of it's mission, first to initiate a covert invasion of the
People's Republic of China using KMT irregulars, then in it's effort's
in support of the U.S. invasion of South Vietnam.
Shocking to some, unbelievable
to others, and consistently denied by the U.S. government, the U.S.
Government and CIA at best ignored, or as the record will show actively
participated in the facilitation of the illegal drug industry, that was
"wrecking the U.S. Army".
Operation PAPER, a covert
CIA/KMT invasion of China supported by Civil Air Transport (CAT) a CIA
proprietary airline was resoundingly crushed by Chinese soldiers in
1951. Two more invasions of China were attempted as the CIA inaccurately
predicted, as they would in Cuba in 1961, that large number's of
Chinese would spontaneously rise and join the fight. Each abortive
invasion met the same fate at the first.
After these defeats the war
lords of the KMT consolidated control of the Thai Burma border areas,
expanded their tradition of opium production and shipped much of its
contraband to Bangkok not only on mules but also on CAT C-47's.
After delivering arms from
Bangkok many KMT reloaded the transports with opium for the return trip.
This aspect of the KMT's existence was hardly covert as the New York
Times reported detailed accounts of the KMT's drug trafficking as early
as 1952. As the Chinese Peoples Liberation Army was repeatedly crushing
the CIA/KMT incursions the French were struggling to hold their colonial
possessions in Southeast Asia.
The war against the Vietnamese
had become increasingly unpopular in France and the French intelligence
and paramilitary operatives in Vietnam turned increasingly to the opium
business for financial resources.
Dubbed OPERATION X, this covert
initiative came to control most of the opium trade and incorporated
Corsican gangsters for the purposes of export. Service de Documentation
Extrieure et du Contre Espionage (SDECE) was the French equivalent of
the CIA and it's program of using illegal drugs to finance an unwanted
war was top secret, known only by a few high ranking French officials.
The SDECE used its planes to transport drugs from the highlands into the
urban markets and mobilized drug gangs to fight the liberation forces.
After the French defeat in 1954
the U.S. began its direct involvement to protect the Vietnamese from
what President Eisenhower described as the "red ruler's godless goons".
South Vietnam President Diem decided to fight the "godless goons" by
resurrecting the French drug distribution network.
As opium could not be grown in
Vietnam it had to be imported from Laos by air and the CIA's CAT (now
called Air America) and Vietnamese First Air Transport Group, under the
command of Col. Nguyen Ky (later Premiere) became the mules.
By 1960, CIA asset and head of the
South Vietnamese secret police, Ngo Dinh Nhu, working with Cholon
Chinese syndicates had increased the number of opium dens to 2,500 and
incorporated Corsican mobsters as part of the transport logistics. The
secret police had a well developed drug infrastructure with Col. Ky's
air force providing most of the transit bypassing customs and using air
force bases as distribution hubs.
By 1968-69 the Golden Triangle
was producing over 1,000 tons of raw opium, much of which was now being
refined into heroin for shipment to Europe, the U.S., and South Vietnam.
The CIA reported in 1971 that
much of the Golden Triangle increases in production "appears to be due
to the sudden increase in demand by a large and relatively affluent
market in South Vietnam". This, of course, was a reference to the
500,000 U.S. troops now stationed in Vietnam who could buy high grade
no. 4 heroin everywhere, from road side stands to 14 year old street
dealers.
In 1971 New York Congressman
Seymore Halpern reported that up to sixty thousand U.S. troops in South
Vietnam were either addicted or users of heroin. Other estimates placed
the number as high as 15 percent prompting Newsweek to report in part
""heroin addiction among U.S. troops is reaching epidemic proportions
and, in the view of many American officers, now poses a greater threat
to the young soldiers in Vietnam than Communist firepower does".
The Air America fleet, another
CIA proprietary which included Iran Contra Air Force officer Richard
Secord as its logistics person, became a factor in solidifying the power
of Hmong leader Vang Pao, who was given the authority to approve rice
delivery's and opium pickups to remote villages.
These villages had been separated by
rugged mountain terrain and the introduction of air communications not
only unified these tribes but provided them with advanced capabilities
of marketing their opium. "By flying bundles of raw opium from remote
villages to refineries, the CIA allowed the Hmong to continue their cash
crop income, thus reducing the Agency's direct costs in maintaining
tribal households."
Much of the opium transhipped by
Air America was converted into no. 4 heroin for the GI market in South
Vietnam. In 1958, after a neutralist government was elected in Laos,
prohibited by John Foster Dulles in the Grand Arena, the CIA financed a
right wing political coalition.
Within three months, the
neutralist government was replaced by the right wing which included
Cabinet Minister Phoumi a CIA asset. Phoumi had controlled the Laotian
opium traffic working in collusion with Corsican and Chinese smugglers
and went on to open opium dens in Vientiene, the capital city.
In 1962 Phoumi moved to
consolidate his control over the opium trade by establishing links with
Burmese traffickers. He appointed Laotian Army General, Ouane Rattiake,
Chairman of the Laotian Opium Administration and within several months
Ouane brought the first major opium caravans across the Mekong River.
General Ouane went on to become one of
the largest drug traffickers in the Golden Triangle using Laotian C-47s
and helicopters to open new trading relations with KMT and Shan
brokers. One of the largest shipments he is known to have organized was a
winding mile long 16 ton load carried over the jagged mountain terrain
on a 300 pack horse caravan, guarded by five hundred Laotian soldiers.
This caravan provoked a battle
that came to be known in the media as the 1967 Opium War. The
confrontation, between KMT drug units and the Shan warlords who were
delivering the drugs, was a fight to control the traffic in this region.
General Ouane entered the fight with Laotian jets and a paratroop
battalion decisively defeating the opposing forces and retrieved the 16
tons of opium.
The drug war between the KMT's
1,400 troops and Ouanes 1,800 paratroopers was reported in the U.S.
media, however, it's deeper implications and the connections with heroin
sales to U.S. GI's were overlooked. General Ouane consolidated this
victory by displacing the KMT forces from the Burmese border and using
the Laotian army to tax opium shipments.
Ouane operated five heroin
refinery's producing no.4 and his operation became the lead processor
for Burmese opium. This massive heroin operation was widely know to be
operating including a Time magazine article that reported "the kingpin
of the Laotian opium trade is General Ouane. He is reputed to own one of
Laos's two major opium refineries, and five smaller refineries
scattered along the Mekong".
Ouane, the Laotian Chief of
Staff, whose army was largely funded by the U.S., held a press
conference with U.S. reporters in 1971 where he was quoted as saying
"the opium traffic was a good thing, since it provided the Meo (Hmong)
tribesmen with a livelihood and kept them out of the hand of the
Communist Pathet Lao." Ouanes candor was apparently too much for the CIA
as he was reportedly forced to resign his army position several weeks
later, but not from his drug operations.
Heroin and Black Ghettos
These large seizures, the GI problem
and increasing media attention led to President Nixon's "war on drugs".
Announced in June of 1971 Time magazine reported that the problem had
become exacerbated since it (heroin addiction) had been traditionally
"confined to black urban ghettos" and now it appeared the "disease has
come to invade the heartland of white, middle class America."
Fearing that heroin was moving
beyond the politically and racially segregated ghettos, Nixon declared a
"national emergency" and using rhetoric future politicians would borrow
and build upon pronounced that "America's Public Enemy No. l is drug
abuse". Part of Nixon's "War on Drugs" included cooperation between U.S.
drug enforcement personnel and police of other nations.
In 1971, the U.S. Bureau of
Narcotics (DEA) sent a team of agents to Laos to investigate the
problem. Upon their arrival they were prevented from conducting
investigations by the U.S. Embassy, the CIA, and the Laotian government.
The U.S. Embassy, apparently
unaware of "America's Pubic Enemy No. 1", defended this action by
claiming that U.S. narcotics agents would be violating Laotian
sovereignty as Laos had no legal prohibitions against drugs. The State
Department, which was then demonstrating its respect for the principle
of sovereignty in neighboring Vietnam, was concerned that any pressure
on the drug traffickers might damage the war effort.
The CIA and U.S. government role
in the Southeast Asian drug trade was considered logical and pragmatic
in a region where opium had been a primary cash commodity for centuries.
Opium was and is a mammoth agro-business in this area just as coca in
the Andean nations of South America. Covert aggression required
alliances with "powerful warlords who necessarily deal in drugs" in the
U.S. war against Communist's who did not, as the experience in post
revolutionary China demonstrated.
The CIA in 1972 denied any
involvement in the drug trade while expressing "some concern that local
officials with whom we are in contact... have been or may be still
involved in the drug business". The CIA went to explain that alliances
with Laotian military officers whose drug connections were well known
while their "goodwill facilitates Agency military irregulars".
The
report concluded with the observation that the war had been the
"overiding priority" and all other issue "have taken second place. It
would be foolish to deny this, and we see no reason to do so".
Excerpt of comments by: Alfred W.
McCoy, professor of Southeast Asian history at the University of
Wisconsin; author of "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the
Global Drug Trade" (Lawrence Hill, 1991) and "The Politics of Heroin in
Southeast Asia" (1971).
At
"Drugs, Impunity and the CIA" A seminar sponsored by the Center for
International Policy's Intelligence Reform Project Dirksen Senate Office
Building, November 26, 1996. (Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
Opium War in Golden Triangle
Before
I continued on to write about my personal involvements in the 1978 army
operations against opium–trafficking ethnic insurgent armies in Shan
State I would like to explain a bit about the long history of opium.
Opium (Bain in Myanmar)
originally was not the product of Myanmar nor the infamous word a Myanmar
word. Opium reached Myanmar via sea routes across India and also land
routes across China from the Europe and the Mediterranean regions and
the Asia Minor.
Opium was originally called Ee-Phon in its native
regions and E-pha-na in Pali language the ancient and the religious
language of Indian Sub-continent. Later in India it is called Ah-Phain
or Phain and it became Bain in Mon-Myanmar language.
Thousands
of years ago Indians and Chinese didn’t even know the existence of
Opium let alone use it and become addicts. Opium propagated from Greece
and Mesopotamia towards Asia. Opium was widely used in Asia Minor since
the pre-historic ages.
In
the stone-ages opium naturally grew on the hills around the
Mediterranean Sea and there were written records of opium usage as a
medicine by the European physicians a thousand years before Jesus
Christ. Greeks and Romans also widely used opium as a common medicine.
Within
a thousand years after Jesus Christ the opium spread into East India
and China. It was said that from the neighboring Yunan Province of China
the opium eventually reached the Golden Triangle region of our Myanmar.
Opium’s Arrival in Asia from the West
Since the Mongol-dominated era in 13th and 14th centuries the traders and merchants from all over the world started coming to China because of her globally famous wealth. At the beginning the trade was done through land routes the famous Silk Road. But by the end of 15th Century most merchandise from China were transported by the sailing ships.
Due
to the basic fact that compared with the enormous size and massive
population of China most European countries are much smaller and thus
their trading with China in the popular merchandises like silk, cotton,
sugar, and various spices were extremely profitable to the Europeans.
Portuguese
were the top merchants back then and their main interest solely was
trading but their rivals English were interested in both trading and the
colonization of new territories.
Both
Portugal and England then had a worsening problem of massive trade
deficit with China as Chinese didn’t really need European products as
much as the European desires for Chinese goods and so the Europeans had
to use their precious gold and silver to pay for the goods from China.
Wicked
English merchants soon noticed the hidden problem of opium addiction in
China and started giving them chests of opium as payments for Chinese
goods. As the demand for Opium grew in China many folds the British East
India Company started establishing poppy plantations in Bengal in 1773
by introducing the European poppy seeds and European agricultural
technology into India.
Within
a few years India was producing commercial quantity of opium since the
country had a vast amount of suitable land for poppy plantations and
cheap labor for profitable high-yield production of opium. But it also
escalated the already devastating opium addiction problem among the
Chinese.
In
1729 Chinese Emperor Yung Cheng (1723-1735) tried to prohibit opium in
China and again in 1796 Emperor Chia Ching prohibited opium in China.
Despite the official prohibition the massive amount of British opium
from India was still smuggled into China.
Early
in 1729 the opium imports into China was only just over 200 Chests. But
the imports grew five folds to over 1,000 Chests in 1767 and in 1820 it
grew another ten folds to over 10,000 Chests. By 1838 over 40,000
Chests of opium was imported into China illegally despite the
prohibition.
Major
exporters of opium into China then were America, England, France,
Portugal, and Dutch. Those western nations took unfair advantage over
the hapless Chinese by taking their tea, silk, and other valuable
commodities out of China in return for socially devastating opium
cheaply produced in India.
The results were the infamous Opium Wars between
China and England in the years 1839 and 1842. The Second Opium War known
as the Arrow War broke out in 1856 and 1860 between China on one side
and France and England on the other side.
China
lost all those opium wars and the victors ruthlessly raised the yearly
opium imports to China up to massive 60,000 Chests. Realizing the
military and economic benefits of opium the colonial powers even
expanded opium productions into the Mexico, Peru, and Ecuador in South
America during the period between the First World War and the Second
World War.
Opium’s Arrival inMyanmar
According to the historical records opium was brought into and distributed in Myanmar since 16th Century by the Dutch and Italian traders. In 1515 during the Taungoo Reign many Portuguese came to Myanmar and permanently settled in Martaban (Moat-ta-ma) and they brought opium along.
There
were written records describing the visit of an Italian Venetian named
Ceaser Fredrick who also bought and sold opium in then the seaport town
of Bago in Myanmar.
According
to the 1613 records of a Dutch trading company 200 pounds of opium was
purchased in Malacca and transported to Bago in Myanmar through Siam
(Thailand) and sold there at a huge profit.
In
1824 British colonial administration started legally permitting
licensed-opium-dens in Arakan and Tenasserim divisions they had captured
from the Kingdom of Myanmar after First English-Myanmar War.
Because
of widespread use of opium in Colonial Myanmar the opium production
rooted in the remote border region and the devastating effects of opium
would be bitterly felt by the whole country for more than 100 years
since. But the worst had come with America’s War in Vietnam and the
notorious CIA (Central Intelligence Agency).
This
was what Tin Maung Yin (MA) described of America’s involvement in opium
and heroin trade from the Golden Triangle of Myanmar in his translation
of Alfred W. Macoy’s “Heroin Politics in South east Asia”.
“American
foreign policy had basically encouraged a large scale opium growing and
massive heroin production in South East Asia. Since 1950s America had
supported KMT exile forces in Myanmar.
But militarily-incompetent and
cowardice KMT white-Chinese had rather wanted to run a very profitable
heroin operation than fighting the superior red-Chinese communist forces
inside China.
So
KMT put all their efforts into expanding the opium growing in the Shan
State, which was a virtually-lawless land back then, and attaining the
almost monopoly of opium and heroin trade in the Golden Triangle. KMT
even helped the CIA in recruiting the opium-smuggling war lords of Laos
to form mercenary armies against the Communists rivals in Lao.
CIA
had also supported the massive heroin-smuggling syndicates comprising
the Ministers and senior Government officials from the right-wing
Governments of South Vietnam and Laos and Thailand.
CIA
also heavily relied on the Shan Insurgents in their clandestine
operations against China in the neighboring Yunan Province while blindly
ignoring Shan’s opium smuggling activities or even encouraging the
Shans.
Shan
insurgents sent their opium to the CIA-supported Laotian Army officers
on the border and received the CIA guns from corrupt Laotians. And the
Laotian Army converted the Shan opium into pure heroin for the GI market
in South Vietnam and then the whole world.
One damaging result for our
country from the opium and heroin trade had been the prolonging of Shan
insurgency in Myanmar while CIA personnel had frequently entered Shan
State for their spy operations in Yunan. The insurgency and the
lawlessness in turn had increased the opium growing and heroin
production many folds in the Shan State.
By
1969 not just the poppy fields but also the heroin labs were
mushrooming in the so-called Golden Triangle region where Myanmar and Laos
and Thailand meets. Limitless production of heroin had begun.
CIA
also supported corrupt South Vietnamese and Laotian and Thai officials
deeply involving in the international heroin smuggling operations by
providing them with airplanes for heroin transportation.
CIA cold war strategy was thus mainly responsible for the spread of heroin menace in S.E. Asia especially our Burma.”
Above was my short explanation of how the opium fields in Burma grew massively during those 20 years between 1950 and 1970.
Thus
in our country the military operations against opium were mainly done
in the Shan State. Almost every year the opium offensives have been
launched by our army in the Lashio region and Eastern-Kengtung region of
Northern Shan State.
Most
poppy fields are in the Northern Shan State while the opium routes to
Laos and Thailand are in the Eastern and Southern Shan State. The
Kengtung area basically has common borders with China, Laos, and
Thailand.
Centering
on the course of Mekong River originated from China the Golden Triangle
of Burma and Thailand and Laos once produced more than 10,000 tons of
opium every year. That amounted to about 70% of world’s total illegal
opium production.
But
nowadays the biggest opium producer is said to be Afghanistan. The
Taliban insurgents there grew opium large scale and smuggled heroin to
America and Europe. They used the money from the heroin trade to buy the
weapons used in attacking the American and her allies now occupying
Afghanistan.
Now the notorious country producing about 70% of world illegal opium is Afghanistan.
Almost
all the opium in this world comes from nearly 4,500 mile long
mountainous strip of hilly lands from the Turkish-Anatolia Plateau in
the West to Northern Laos in the East. People from the eight countries
in that strip produce about 14,000 tons opium every year and supplied
raw opium and heroin both legally and illegally to the consumers
worldwide.
Only
few tons of opium is supplied to the pharmaceutical manufacturers in
Turkey, Iran, Pakistan, and India for producing legal opiate-based
medicines while the majority is converted into heroin and smuggled all
over the world.
Poppy Plants to Opium to Heroin
Every year in September and October the opium growers all over the world carefully spread poppy seeds on the prepared-land. The mature plant can grow up to 3 to 4 foot tall. In about three months the poppy plants bear beautiful flowers white or purple colored. Egg-shaped poppy fruit emerged once the petals are shed and inside the fruit is full of white latex.
And
that milky latex sap is opium. Poppy farmers collect the sap by
slitting the pods with specially curved knife and then scraping off the
sap slowly oozing out of the slits. Once out of the pods the white latex
sap transform into a brownish gum-like substance and it is raw opium.
Normally
the opium traffickers refine their raw opium into morphine base first
for the transportation as compact morphine bricks are much easier to
handle than smelly and bulky opium bundles. Usually the rickety morphine
refineries can be found near the poppy fields. Morphine refining method
is the same for all the producers from both S.E. Asia and Middle-East
even though they are separated by thousands of miles.
First
step is boiling the sufficiently clean water in a cut-down oil-drum by
firewood or charcoal fire. Once water is boiled raw opium is dropped
into the boiling water and stirred continuously till the opium is
dissolved. Then a sufficient quantity of lime is poured into the boiling
opium solution.
A
precipitate of wastes then sinks to the bottom and a white band of
opium concentrate forms on the surface. The opium concentrate is drawn
off and filtered through a piece of flannel cloth. The concentrate is
heated again in another cut-down drum and Ammonia is added and stirred
till dissolved. After a short period morphine crystallized and settled
at the bottom.
Then
the morphine solution is poured and squeezed though another piece of
flannel cloth and the white and nearly solid morphine paste is left on
the cloth. Once cooled down and dried the original 10 kilo of raw opium
would become one kilo of morphine base. Morphine base is then sent to
advance heroin laboratories to refine further into Number-4 heroin.
There are five steps in refining the morphine base to fluffy-white heroin powder.
First Step:
To produce 10 kilo heroin ten kilo of morphine base and ten kilo Acetic
Anhydrite are mixed in either a glass or ceramic container and heated.
After six hours of heating at 185 deg Fahrenheit the morphine and the
acetic combine and produce Diacetyl Morphine or impure heroin compound.
(Most clandestine heroin lab in Burma can produce only 10 kilo of heroin
a day.)
Second Step:
Water and chloroform are added to the solution to precipitate the
impurities. The solution after a draining is high grade Diacetyl
Morphine.
Third Step: After adding Sodium Carbonate to the solution and rigorous stirring the heroin compounds solidify and sink to the bottom.
Fourth Step:
Heroin compound is filtered out of the Sodium Carbonate solution and
then mixed with pure alcohol and heated by charcoal fire. Once the
alcohol is evaporated only the small solid pieces of heroin are left in
the container.
(Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
Opium War in Golden Triangle
Above
is the step by step description of refining opium to heroin the illicit
drug that could destroy the human race with its devastating effects to
the addicts and their families and their society at large.
Over
the years to eradicate the opium and heroin totally out of Myanmar our
army has sacrificed many thousands of lives of our soldiers in the
operations against opium producers and heroin traffickers and many more
thousands became cripples as they lost one or more of their limbs in
those military operations.
But
these operations are necessary as we as a nation needs to stop the
growth of opium cultivation and heroin addicts. An addict becomes
basically a useless person for him or herself and also for the people
around him or her. An addict is a danger to the society and the opium
must be totally eradicated.
I
myself have had a very dear friend who has two sons and two daughters.
He used to be very wealthy but his family became destitute within a six
years period as his two teenage sons became heroin addicts.
If
they couldn’t get the money for heroin from their parents they stole
from them. They even threatened their parents whenever they became
desperate. My friend tried to cure his sons so many times but they
always came back to their drug habit. Only many years later they managed
to kick their drug habits for good after becoming Buddhist monks in a
very strict monastery.
In
addition to large scale military operations against opium growers and
traffickers our Government has also drawn out a 15 year long-term plan
from 1999 to 2014 to totally eradicate the illicit drugs in the country.
So
now is time to continue on to write about my personal involvements in
the 1978 army operations against opium–trafficking ethnic insurgent
armies in Shan State.
I
had already served nearly ten years in South Eastern Command
(Ya-ta-kha) and during that time I’d been to Ba Htoo Military Town only
once. I was then attending the Army Corporal Training School to learn
about Infantry-Small-Arms.
I
was originally a bad shot back in the OTS (Officer Training School).
Thus I was sent to the Small Arms training by my first ever battalion
IB-17 in Pharpun. Then was the first time I’d been to Ba Htoo Town.
Ba
Htoo cantonment town was established in the honor of Colonel Ba Htoo
who was killed during the Japanese Revolution in 1945. The town was
right next to the Yat Sout Town in Southern Shan State. And so many
people called the town Yat Sout Ba Htoo.
To get to Ba Htoo we had to take the
Thazi-Shwenyaung Train. From Shwenyaung to Ba Htoo was another 36 miles
by car. Rural Ba Htoo is surrounded by the mountains and during the
summer and winter the town is most pleasant and pretty.
During
the three months training there we just shot guns, all sorts of gun.
The accommodation was good and most classes were done inside and
undercover. Food was good and we didn’t need to go far at all. So I was
really very happy in Ba Htoo that first time.
But
the second time in Ba Htoo I couldn’t be happy at all. It was during
the raining season and the training was for the infantry company
commanders. Thus we had to travel a lot on foot and the red mud of Ba
Htoo got me real bad as we had had Outdoor Exercise every bloody week.
And there were too many forty or fifty mile long L.R.Ps (Long Range
Patrols) too.
After
that second stay at Ba Htoo Town I got back to IB-67 at Maing-yae and I
had to prepare my company for coming operations. My only platoon
commander was Lt. Kyaw Htay. He was from Prome and a graduate of OTS
Intake 49. He was a boxer and he loved to brawl and got into trouble so
many times.
Our Battalion CO called him Mohammad Ali while his men called him Shwe Ba the most famous action actor then in Burma.
After
a whole week of intensive training and preparations my Company was
battle-ready for Aung Kyaw Moe Operation against the opium trafficking
Shan-Chinese insurgent army (MTA).
Aung Kyaw Moe Operation
One day in the August of 1978. Heavy rain was coming down non-stop. That day was a day before the D-day of Aung Kyaw Moe Operation.
All
the commanding officers participating in the Operation had to gather
inside the Battalion Meeting Hall of our IB-67 in Maing-yae for the
briefing given by the CO of Tangh-yang Tactical Command Colonel Myint
Aung.
“Okay,
all the battalion commanders and the company commanders, listen. We’re
going to smash the opium insurgents. You guys already have detail
instructions. All the assigned targets are to be attacked simultaneously
at the same time.
I
want a clear victory. Do it aggressive and do it brave. The opium
insurgents are nothing but the ruthless business operators. This
operation is an important national task in ridding our country of opium
and heroin. Try to reach your targets at appointed times. All the
columns have been given secret names.
Okay, if you guys have any question, ask me now?”
The
GSO-3 (General Staff Officer 3) Captain Nyi Shin then explained the
Operation to us by pointing out at the huge area map on the board with
his long pointing stick. The Tactical Command Chief also answered all
our questions.
“Okay, if no more question, you all are dismissed. Go back to your troops,” he then dismissed us and we came back.
Two infantry battalions from the LIDs
(Light Infantry Divisions) and our Maing-yae Company and Tangh-yang
Company under the Tangh-yang Tactical Command had been assigned for the
Operation. Since a LID battalion had five companies the whole operation
involved all together 12 infantry companies.
Back
then the opium-insurgent bases were mainly in the sector east of Lashio
City. But the season then was rainy season and not yet the poppy
harvesting time and thus the insurgents were not really active. They
were sheltering in their bases waiting for the opium harvest and it was a
right time to attack them hard at their bases.
So
the participating companies were given individual targets to strike
simultaneously as part of the army-operation Aung Kyaw Moe.
The
assigned task for my company was to leave Maing-yae by trucks to
Mang-kurt on one day before D-day and clear the area of Kone-zone near
Mone-mah at the north of Mang-kurt. The Kone-zone sector was the main
base of the well-known opium-buyer and insurgent-organizer named Khun
Yee and we were to capture him alive if we could or kill him otherwise.
As
soon as the briefing was over the Tactical Command Chief and his party
left for Tangh-yang and the LID battalion commanders returned to their
temporary camps on the Lashio- Tangh-yang Strategic Road.
That
afternoon my company left Maing-yae by three trucks for our garrison at
Mang-kurt. We were primed and ready for the battle.
Our March to Kone-zone
We reached Mang-kurt just before the sunset as none of our trucks broke down on that trip.
The
camp commander in Mang-kurt was Lt. Kyaw Ngwe and I had to explain him
our operation quietly as it was a secret operation. I also kept the
whole company inside the camp that night so that the people of little
town Mang-kurt would not notice our arrival or departure.
“Okay,
listen, the whole company, you men cook and eat now. And cook again for
the trip. CSM Khan Kyin Khaing, prepare to continue the trip tonight.
Do not let the men out of the camp at all.”
I
and Lt. Kyaw Htay then paid a visit to the house of Khun Maha the
Town-Lord and leader of the town’s pro-Government militia
Tha-ka-tha-pha.
The
Town-Lord Khun Maha once was one of the leaders of Shan opium insurgent
army (MTA). But he became an addict himself while trafficking opium.
His health deteriorating he conveniently surrendered to the Government
with his men and became the town’s militia leader.
“Oh, my captains, come on, come inside,” he greeted us and invited us in after seeing us.
“I thought I heard the trucks earlier. So, coming from where and going to where?”
“No, we aren’t going anywhere. Just replacing the men here. So any news here, U Khun Maha?”
“Not really, Captain. Did you hear anything?”
“No,
not really. But you know, no news and no news and then suddenly our
Naung-laing camp was attacked, just recently. So I’m worried!
“Don’t worry Captain. If I hear anything I’ll tell you.”
He was a close relative of MTA leader Khun Sa and also a distant relative of Kone-zone’s Khun Yee our main target.
“How about North Mang-kurt, do you hear any news there?”
“No, nothing at all. The place is quiet like before.”
We came back to the Camp after a short chat with him.
“Ko Kyaw Htay, I think Khun Yee is in his village. But Khun Maha didn’t say anything. What do you think?”
“I think he is, brother.”
“Okay, let’s eat first and then we go on once dark!”
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Rain
was heavily pouring down non-stop. It was August and torrential rain
was normal in the region. In the rainy dark night we quietly marched
from Mang-kurt to Mone-mah. The unsealed dirt road was quite wide but
the wet road was slippery and men kept on slipping and falling.
My aim was to hit Kone-zone on 6 am at the daybreak.
“Okay, Lt. Kyaw Htay, speed up your men, we need to get there in time.”
“Captain, it’s so dark, we can’t see at all. All my men have never been this area before too. To speed up is impossible.”
He was right as I couldn’t see ahead at all in the darkness and the heavy rain.
“Okay, let the point use the torchlight. Just cover the light. I don’t want the light seen from distance.”
Once
the torchlight was allowed our trip went faster. The road was straight
but a bit hilly and nearly 20 miles long. The first village on the Road
was Taung-lun a Chinese only village. Time was midnight and the whole
village was asleep. Not even a single light was seen and we just quietly
walked past the village.
“Lt. Kyaw Htay, go faster. We are competing with other units and we must reach our target on the H-hour.”
Rain
was still heavy. But it was good for us as the enemy would be caught
off-guard. Surprise attack is a prerequisite of victory in warfare. We
hit Mone-mah Village just after four in the early morning. It was a big
village with at least 100 households.
“This is Mone-mah, Captain,” Lt. Kyaw Htay quietly reported.
“Just
get us to Kone-zone. Mone-mah is other units’ target. Seems so quiet, I
think other units haven’t reached here yet. Good. We got here first and
no one knows we are on the road.”
(Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
Opium War in Golden Triangle
We
just walked past the sleeping village and after less than an hour on
the road we hit the village of Kone-zone two miles away from Mone-mah
Village. It was a small village with only about 25 households. Everyone
in the village was asleep but immediately woken up by our surrounding
and entering of their little village.
And
the villagers were fearful and really scared of us as they didn’t
expect Myanmar soldiers that early at dawn inside their opium growing
village.
“Don’t be scared. We’re not gonna do any harm. Just show us Khun Yee’s house.”
We
found Khun Yee’s prominent house right in the middle of small poor
village. Only his house was on the fenced-block. All other houses were
thatch-roofed and split-bamboo-walled but his was corrugated-iron-
sheet-roofed and pine-timber-plank-walled.
Khun
Yee wasn’t there and nor his wife. Only Khun Yee’s old parents were
there. The wife was in Tangh-yang and Khun Yee was also on a trip. We
searched the house but didn’t find anything suspicious.
“Yeah, Lt. Kyaw Htay, what do you think of the situation?”
“I
can’t say much, Captain. According to our intelligence he already had
Opium bought and accumulated here. He supposed to have at least 10 mules
and horses and also nearly 40-50 men with him here.”
“So, we just have to continue clearing the area.”
While I was discussing with Lt. Kyaw Htay Lance Corporal Nyi Kurt and his men from a guard patrol came back in.
“Captain, here we caught a Shan boy with a Carbine and a horse!”
“Wow, how did you catch him?”
“He
came in from the North with Carbine across his shoulder and leading the
horse. I called out to him in Shan to come in. So he thought we were
his men and came in and so we grabbed him.”
Lance
Corporal Nyi Kurt was a Lwela man and also fluent in Shan Language. He
was originally from Ving-ngun Shan Militia (KKY) led by Maha Pyinnyar.
When Ving-ngun Militia was disbanded and absorbed into our army he was
made a lance corporal and a section leader in my company.
He
was literate and a respected leader in his old militia and he could
speak and read both Shan and Chinese fluently. Battalion had already
promised him a promotion to a corporal very soon and then to a sergeant.
“That’s real good, Corporal. A prisoner in the early morning. Can you ask him where his boss Khun Yee is?
The
little boy soldier was in a half uniform/half mufti of camouflage shirt
and Levis Jean. He looked like only thirteen or fourteen years old. He
was just a child soldier. Lance Nyi Kurt asked him in Shan. Being a
child he didn’t dare to lie and he immediately answered.
“Captian,
boy said Khun Yee doesn’t live in the big house. Only when his wife is
here he comes back. Rest of the time he lives in his camp.”
“Oh, so where is his camp? Ask him again. That’s important.”
Nyi Kurt asked the boy again and the Shan boy quickly answered.
“Just over a mile ahead. Khun Yee is there too.”
“Hey, let’s go get them. Lt. Kyaw Htay, you come along with two platoons. CSM and a platoon stay here and guard the village,” I rapidly ordered the battle plan.
“Okay, Nyi Kurt, ask the boy to guide us there. Let’s get there quick.”
WE
left all our heavy backpacks and equipment in the village and almost
ran with just guns and light equipment on us. Day was already broken and
in the morning light we reached the opium camp in less than half an
hour.
There we found five large
thatch-roofed and thatch-walled huts just beside the wide road. But not a
single soul was there as the insurgents had already left the camp in
hurry. The largest hut was used as the stable for horses and mules and
three smaller ones were the living quarters.
The
last hut was their opium refinery. Inside were about 50 of one kilo raw
opium bundles they couldn’t carry along with them. They seemed to be
refining the raw opium not just into morphine base but also into heroin
too as we found the chemicals, glass containers, and the plastic
containers of acids used in producing heroin in the makeshift lab.
“I think they are cooking heroin here,” I thought aloud.
Soon one of our patrols caught a villager coming from the northeast and he said he just came back from his farm.
“Have you seen Khun Yee and his men on the way?”
we asked him and he said he saw Khun Yee and his men with 10 horses and
mules packed with opium bundles rushing towards Naung-lai.
“Are we chasing Khun Yee now, Captain?” Lt. Kyaw Htay asked.
“No,
too many of our troops in this area. If we go out of our grids and get
into others’ grids we can be mistaken as enemy. I already got into
serious troubles two three times with deadly friendly-fires. Let’s go
back to Kone-zone.”
At
6 in the morning I reported our actions by radio to Tactical Command at
Tangh-yang. Tactical Command ordered us to backtrack along our way and
clear the Mone-mah Village. So we carried all the stuff we captured and
rushed back to Mone-mah.
It
was too late when we got there as all the insurgents previously there
had fled and we found only the villagers. No traces of our columns
supposed to be there too.
“What happened with our columns?”
I called and asked the Tactical Command and the Command simply replied
that because of heavy rain all other columns except mine couldn’t reach
their targets in time. Especially those columns had to carry
heavy-weapons and the shells unlike us so they couldn’t travel as fast
as us.
The GSO-3 Captain Nyi Shin said in his radio message, “Captain
Thet Oo, so far only your Galone Company has reached the target. All
other columns missed their targets and the insurgents had fled.”
“That’s great. Lt. Kyaw Htay, only us the Galones reached the target in time. The rest didn’t make their targets at all,” I had to tell him that we beat other columns.
The Galone (Garuda) Column was the secret code name given to our company by the Tangh-yang Tactical Command.
(Colonel Thet Oo's "My Opium Operations")
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