FBR Report: "Opium, Logging and Gas: the Burma Army’s predatory rule over the people of Burma," Part 1

The Free Burma Rangers (FBR) is a multi-ethnic humanitarian service movement. They bring help, hope and love to people in the war zones of Burma (Myanmar). Ethnic pro-democracy groups send teams to be trained, supplied and sent into the areas under attack to provide emergency assistance and human rights documentation. Together with other groups, the teams work to serve people in need.

Part 1 of "Opium, Logging and Gas: the Burma Army’s predatory rule over the people of Burma"
Distributed by Free Burma Rangers, March, 2014

We have just returned from a series of relief missions to the Kachin and Shan States. There the Burma Army continues its attacks on ethnic minorities. Please see our reports and video of these attacks at www.freeburmarangers.org The Burma Army also over-watches opium production and logging, and protects a gas pipeline that profits them but few others. This report will be the first in a three-part series that documents the Burma Army’s predatory rule of this part of Burma. Part one is “Opium, Burma Army-controlled narcotic militias and real people,” part two is “Attacks on the people and logging” and part three is “The Shwe Pipeline and the oppression of the people.”

Family harvesting opium, 21 February 2014, Shan State, Burma.

Part 1: Opium, Burma Army-controlled narcotic militias and farmers

SHAN STATE - After conducting medical and Good Life Club (GLC) programs and documenting the Burma Army attacks in southern Kachin State, we moved to northern Shan State to work with the Ta’ang, Shan, and Kachin people there. On this mission Arakan, Kachin, Karen, Karenni, Shan and Ta’ang FBR team members served the IDPs and villagers we met.

After conducting more programs with the Ta’ang people in northern Shan State, we moved to an area of opium production. We were accompanied by elements of the Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), the Kachin Independence Army (KIA) and the Shan State Army North (SSA-N). These groups are united in their struggle for freedom in Shan State and all of Burma. They also have a policy to eradicate all narcotics. We went to the Pang Say area of Nam Kham Township, northern Shan State. Here there were opium fields around every village that we encountered. The Chinese families producing the opium are uniformly poor and some wretchedly so. Most are living in dilapidated shacks of wood, thatch, stone and tattered plastic sheeting. They are all under the control of the Burma Army-supported People Militia Force (Bi Thu Sit or Ta Ka Sa Pha in Burmese). The militia is led by an ethnic Chinese man named Kyaw Myint, who is also a member of Parliament representing Namkham No.2 constituency for the Burma government-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP). Namkham is situated on the China-Burma border close to the Muse-Riuli crossing.

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