You know all this talk of "the Wa" and how the US special forces are going against them becuase they are meth and heroin dealers is grotesque. In January, 1992, DEA agents in Rangoon were contacted by U Saw Lu, a Wa prince from the mountainous poppy-growing Shan state, Chairman of the United Wa State Anti-Narcotics and Development Organization. Lu was trying to get his people out from under the heel of the Burma Army, which had enslaved them as opium sharecroppers. Lu documented the coercion of Wa farmers into growing opium by the imposition of arbitrary taxes, failure of which to pay resulted in land confiscation and imprisonment. Lu presented detailed evidence of cooperation between the regional Burma Army intelligence chief, Major Than Aye, and Wei Hsueh-kang, a Wa commander with 7,000 troops protecting a very lucrative heroin and methamphetamine operation. Prince Lu was immediately arrested by the Burma Army and mercilessly tortured, to the point of death, for 56 days, by Major Than Aye himself. Lu's torture, however, provoked Wa leaders to personally threaten Khin Nyunt with a general uprising, so he was allowed to live through it. Half a year later, the unreconstructed Lu presented the sympathetic new Rangoon DEA chief, Richard Horn, his evidence and his political program, entitled "The Bondage of Opium - the Agony of the Wa People, a Proposal and Plea." The enthusiastic Horn, who was delighted to have found a grass-roots democratic ally, forwarded Lu's plans and evidence to the DEA, by way of the American Embassy in Rangoon. Horn's reports were intercepted by Embassy Chargé d'Affaires Franklin Huddle, who insisted that Horn change the report's conclusions. Horn had insisted, as had Prince Lu, that political protection combined with subsidized crop substitution, rather than coercion, was the way to wean the Wa from opium. This, of course, threatened SLORC control of Wa territory. Huddle and his CIA operatives also bugged Horn's phone. Huddle quoted Horn's private phone conversations with his DEA superiors back in Washington verbatim in his State Department communications. The Rangoon CIA station chief, Arthur Brown, turned a copy of Lu's report over to his allies in Burmese military intelligence, who again threatened Lu's life. Horn was able to prevent Lu's murder, but at the cost of his job. In September 1993 he was forced out of the country by Huddle's State Department under pressure from the CIA. Horn, who became a DEA group supervisor in New Orleans, filed a class action lawsuit, 9/12/96, in DC's Federal District Court, alleging that the CIA, the National Security Agency and the State Department illegally surveilled him and the numerous other DEA agents who joined him in the suit. Obviously political control of the DEA, to some extent, is at stake in this groundbreaking lawsuit. Horn's response to my request for more information underscores that: "I would like to help you... However, I have been put under threat of prosecution if I reveal classified information. My attorney and I take that threat seriously. The concerned agencies have interpreted 'classified information' in the broadest possible sense. Moreover, the CIA has lobbed 'scud missiles' filled with accusations about me to DEA. This, in turn, has resulted in an OPR (Office of Professional Responsibility) investigation that has lasted for nearly four years. And finally, all information that I distribute concerning this matter is now routed through the Court Security Officer (under the Department of Justice) before I circulate it. The Court Security Officer then arranges for the other agencies, ie., the CIA, NSA and DOS to 'suggest' changes." "The changes that I have made concern only classification matters, not facts or substance. Beyond all of this, DEA must approve my public comments and all my contacts with the media." I just didn't think I was the kind of media DEA would approve. Nor could I see submitting my work for CIA review prior to publication. Until he quits the Agency, Horn is muzzled. He has received no legal or practical help from Administrator Constantine, who has refused to increase the budget for anti-intrusion equipment in DEA offices. Needless to say, Prince Lu's plans for crop substitution, which would have included economic and political protection for the poor dirt farmers he represents, went out the window. Wa farmers grow opium or else. This incident was part of a larger State Department/CIA-DEA turf war in which the State Department actually expelled three heads of the U.S. DEA from Burma, for working too closely with Burmese military intelligence. The State Department says it has engineered the suspension of economic aid to Burma, implemented an international arms embargo, blocked assistance from international financial institutions, downgraded our representation from Ambassador to Chargé, imposed visa restrictions on senior regime leaders and their families, and implemented a ban on new investment by Americans or overseas American firms. But the arms embargo, the lynch-pin of the effort, is completely vitiated by the "anti-narcotics" loophole - aid given to Burmese military intelligence by the CIA-DEA. Reports the State Department in 1998, "With support from DEA and US embassies in Rangoon and Bangkok, the Burmese and Thai governments agreed to undertake joint operations against drug trafficking along Thailand 's northern border with Burma. To this end, they agreed in principle to establish a joint antidrug task force in Tachilek, Burma, and Mae Sai, Thailand. This approach, which has been under consideration for several years, has the potential to permit coordinated enforcement operations in one of the most active trafficking areas in Southeast Asia." "Formally, the Burmese government's drug enforcement effort is led by the office of the Central Committee for Drug Abuse Control (CCDAC), which is comprised of personnel from various security services, including the police, customs, military intelligence, and the army. CCDAC now has 18 drug enforcement task forces around the country, most located in major cities and along key transit routes near Burma's borders with China, India and Thailand. The CCDAC, which is under the control of the Directorate of Defense Services Intelligence (DDSI) and relies, in part, on military personnel to execute law enforcement duties, continues to suffer from a lack of adequate resources to support its law enforcement mission." That is, to translate the McCaffrese, in order to fight drugs we have to arm Burmese and Thai military intelligence. Light is thrown on the function of Burmese military intelligence by an International Monetary Fund study which pointed out that Burma's foreign exchange reserves for 1991 through 1993 were only about $300 million, but that the Burma Army purchased arms valued at $1.2 billion during the period. Overt military assistance to the SLORC is dependent on its continued paper cooperation with the DEA. Covert assistance, through the ASEAN members we arm, is dependent on nothing but Burma's ability to pay. Indonesia and Singapore attach no strings to their Burmese arms sales. Those ASEAN arms end up protecting Wa heroin refineries. What we have here is the red herring military funding game. Dan Russell www.kalyx.com www.drugwar.com www.shamanshop.net ----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, April 12, 2001 11:35 AM Subject: [CIA-DRUGS] Cobra Gold is only half the sorry joke. > No I wasn't exagerating, in reality, the situation here as discribed by war is far greater and sinister than what was previously thought, with all the enforcement in the Akha village regions. > > The US gov shows no sign of any concerns for these villagers to extract their lives from the ongoing misery. > > They will be fodder in a new US adventurism. > > I intend to continue finding money to continue helping these villagers in real ways such as food security. > > Matthew > > > > Subject: > [burmanet2-l] THAILAND - Nasty Job for Task Force 399 > Date: > Thu, 12 Apr 2001 14:35:23 +0200 > From: > "S.Wansai" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > To: > "Shan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "MIZZIMA NEWS GROUP" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "MAYKHA - L" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "Irrawaddy" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "DVB" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "Burmanews" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, "BurmaNet 2" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "Burma Project" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, > "Burma Issue" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > > > > > Far Eastern Economic Review > > Issue cover-dated April 19, 2001 > > THAILAND > > Nasty Job for Task Force 399 > > By Rodney Tasker/BANGKOK and Bertil Lintner/CHIANG MAI > > U.S. Special Forces are about to join Thailand's war on drugs from Burma; a tense border and > geopolitical pressures complicate their mission > > THEY'RE NOT related but the timing may be a bad portent. As Beijing and Washington wrangle over a > U.S. spy plane, U.S. troops are starting to move into northern Thailand relatively close to the Chinese > border. The vast majority are preparing for the annual Thai-U.S. Cobra Gold military exercises in May. But > some U.S. Special Forces in the same area are more stealthily joining what will be known as Task Force > 399. > > Some 5,000 U.S. troops will come to Thailand to take part in Cobra Gold--the biggest joint U.S. military > exercise in Asia this year--and a handful will stay to join the war on drugs. The U.S. military has mounted > low-level military training missions in Thailand under a programme called Baker Torch for several years. > But the new, more secretive Task Force 399 involvement will be its most important in the kingdom. > > The task force's goal is to stem an enormous flow of drugs, particularly methamphetamines, smuggled > from Burma into Thailand. About 20 U.S. soldiers from the 1st Special Forces Group serving as > instructors will join 100 Thai Special Forces men, two infantry companies of about 100 men each and 100 > Border Patrol Police to make up the task force, according to senior Thai and foreign security officials. > Once in place, the U.S. Special Forces will be nearly 200 kilometres by road from the Chinese border. > > The U.S. instructors will officially start operating with the 3rd Army in May and join the task force in > October. The cross-border flood of methamphetamines, mainly from laboratories in areas controlled by > the Wa ethnic minority in Burma's Shan state, has reached a crisis point for the Thais. Up to 800 million > tablets are expected to inundate Thailand this year. Concern at how fast this is undermining society in an > old U.S. ally prompted the Americans to act, says a Western diplomat. > > The 15,000-strong United Wa State Army, which is aligned with Rangoon, is accused by Thai > anti-narcotics agencies of being the chief maker of the methamphetamine tablets. At the same time, > tension is high on the Thai-Burmese border following a clash near the border town of Mae Sai in > February in which dozens of Burmese troops were killed. As one Bangkok-based foreign intelligence > official says, the mission for the United States is "a high-risk game, given fragile Thai-Burma relations on > the border." > > It is also a gamble given similar, but much larger and still growing, U.S. military involvement to stamp out > drugs production in Colombia. Critics in the U.S. Congress are warning the United States could be > sucked into a bloody civil war there if U.S. troops are gradually drawn into battle with narco-guerrillas. > There is no such civil war in Thailand, but just across its borders are both sensitive Burma and > China--Rangoon's only major ally and is its main arms supplier. > > The Wa are equipped with Chinese weapons, and are helping Beijing build a road network through > Burma to the Burmese coast. China deals with the Wa because they are the dominant ethnic force in > northeast Burma. Most recently, Thai intelligence officials say the Wa acquired sophisticated HN-5N > surface-to-air missiles from China. They may have come from the black market, but for the arms to reach > Burma, officials in China must, at very least, have turned a blind eye. > > Task Force 399 is supposed to confront drug traffickers in Thailand only and the U.S. Special Forces will > only be instructors. Leadership of anti-narcotics operations was taken from the police and given to the > northern-based 3rd Army by former Prime Minister Chuan Leekpai in October 1998. The U.S. component > adds to the Thai military's role on the frontline of what is Thailand's biggest national security problem. > > Thai officials say the Americans are keen to stop the Wa manufacturing and smuggling drugs--though > Task Force 399 will be based in Thailand, at Mae Rim village, just north of the major town of Chiang Mai. > > Senior Thai officers and U.S. officials are reluctant even to confirm the existence of the task force. The > Americans only stress their role in training the 3rd Army, and that the task force will help interdict drug > traffickers inside Thailand. Thai security officials say the force will have the latest night-vision and radar > equipment, backed by two American-made Black Hawk helicopters. > > In October the three-year mandate given to the army by Chuan expires. It is unclear what will happen to > anti-drugs operations under new Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. But the new U.S. role worries some > of the more nationalistic in the Thai military. "This is raising some concern among progressive ranking > officers," says Panitan Wattanayagorn, a Chulalongkorn University military affairs scholar and former > security adviser to Chuan. "They are not too happy. They also know this is not a war that can be easily > fought." > > MUDDY BORDER SITUATION > > Maj.-Gen. Anu Sumitra, the 3rd Army intelligence chief, says the task force will not confront Burmese > troops but will stay on the Thai side of the border. Even with such assurances, Panitan warns: "There is > an increasing risk of confrontation, but both sides stand to lose from confrontation. The government must > not make the Burmese feel we are representing the West." > > At an April 4 news conference following a meeting in Burma of the Regional Border Committee, Lt.-Gen. > Wattanachai Chaimuanwong, the 3rd Army's commander, appeared pleased that Burmese generals, > whom he had repeatedly criticized for alleged involvement in the drug trade, were now being cooperative. > He quoted the Burmese as promising to destroy drug laboratories identified by the Thais and to allow > verification of the destruction by "unbiased" media. > > Was Wattanachai only reflecting the position of new Defence Minister Chavalit Yongchaiyudh, who > boasts of his good relations with the Burmese military junta? A senior army officer involved in the talks > says Wattanachai was sincere. "I think the Burmese have their internal problems, including a poor > economy, and the border drugs situation has become common knowledge so they need > friends--particularly the Thais," the officer says. By internal problems, he is referring to the power struggle > between Burmese army commander Gen. Maung Aye and the junta's first secretary, Lt.-Gen. Khin Nyunt. > Whether this will affect the task force's future and the Thai army's anti-drug operations remains to be > seen. Says Panitan: "I think academics and the media know the situation well, and are watching Chavalit > closely." > > The Thai military has a list of about 60 drug laboratories, mainly controlled by the Wa, in Burma. A day > after his return Wattanachai cheekily sent the Burmese the locations of three such sites, though > observers think it inconceivable that Rangoon doesn't know where the labs are. Thai officers say that > Khin Nyunt is particularly close to the Wa. In contrast, Wattanachai told the REVIEW in December, > "Maung Aye despises the Wa." > > Senior Thai military officers say they believe Maung Aye is wary of Khin Nyunt's influence over the Wa > army. They say Maung Aye recently sent light infantry into eastern Shan state--both as a show of force > against the Thais and to undermine Khin Nyunt's power base. The officers say that the move is also > viewed as an attempt to contain the Wa fighters, whom Maung Aye would dearly like to disarm. > > Beijing, meanwhile, agreed in March to a Thai proposal that China, Thailand and Burma cooperate > against drug trafficking. Thai senior security officials have said that Chinese officials in Burma helped > resettle tens of thousands of Wa from the northern border with China to the southern border with > Thailand. They said the Chinese apparently wanted to move the drug problem away from their back door. > The officials suspect that by joining Rangoon and Bangkok, the Chinese hope to keep a closer eye on > what the U.S. military is up to in northern Thailand. > > It's shaping into a muddy border situation. As a Western intelligence official puts it, the drug-trafficking > Wa are confronted by Thai troops on the border, soon to be backed by U.S. instructors; they are > opposed by Maung Aye, supported by Khin Nyunt, and apparently armed by the Chinese--who now want > to be part of a tripartite anti-drug effort. Says the official: "If not handled properly, this could be even > messier than Colombia." > > Please let us stay on topic and be civil. > To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs > -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org > OM > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > > > Please let us stay on topic and be civil. To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org OM Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
