Drug Policy Briefing Nr 29 July 2009 From Golden Triangle to Rubber Belt ? The Future of Opium Bans in the Kokang and Wa Regions By Tom Kramer In the Kokang and Wa regions in northern Conclusions & Recommendations Burma1 opium bans have ended over a century of poppy cultivation. The bans have • The opium bans have driven had dramatic consequences for local communities into chronic poverty and communities. They depended on opium as a cash crop, to buy food, clothing, and have adversely affected their food medicines. The bans have driven poppy- security and access to health care and growing communities into chronic poverty education. and have adversely affected their food security. Very few alternatives are being • The Kokang and Wa authorities have offered to households for their survival. promoted Chinese investment in mono- plantations, especially in rubber. These The Kokang and Wa cease-fire groups have projects are unsustainable and do not implemented these bans following significantly profit the population. international pressure, especially from neighbouring China. In return, they hope to • Ex-poppy farmers mainly rely on casual gain international political recognition and labour and collecting Non-Timber Forest aid to develop their impoverished and war- Products as alternative source of income. torn regions. The Kokang and Wa authorities have been unable to provide alternative • Current interventions by international sources of income for ex-poppy farmers. Instead they have promoted Chinese invest- NGOs and UN agencies are still limited in ment in monoplantations, especially in scale and can best be described as “emer- rubber. These projects have created many gency responses”. undesired effects and do not significantly profit the population. • If the many challenges to achieving viable legal livelihoods in the Kokang and The Burmese military government, the State Wa regions are not addressed, the Peace and Development Council (SPDC), has reductions in opium cultivation are also been unwilling and unable to provide unlikely to be sustainable. assistance. The international community has provided emergency aid through inter- This paper is based upon interviews with 51 national NGOs and UN agencies. However, ex-poppy farmers in the Wa and Kokang current levels of support are insufficient, and regions in February and March 2009.2 need to be upgraded in order to provide sustainable alternatives for the population. BACKGROUND The international community should not abandon former opium-growing Traditionally, the Kokang and Wa regions communities in the Kokang and Wa regions were the key opium-producing areas in at this critical time. Southeast Asia. Enforcement of opium bans since 2003 in the Kokang region and since Transnational Institute | 1 Kokang leaders on opium ban 3 “We decided to ban opium in 2002, because it is after the ban life was most difficult for the very dangerous for human beings, as it has a people. About 60 percent of the people in very bad effect on the body. There was a little Kokang could only grow enough to feed their bit of pressure from China, but the most family for six months of the year. Most of them important reason was to follow international did not have enough to eat. policy against drugs. “Luckily WFP and other agencies gave support. “Before the ban more than 80 percent of the In 2007 and 2008 the Chinese government people in our region grew opium, which they started to supply food, 1,500 metric tons of rice depended on for their livelihood. After the ban, each year. They also gave pesticide. They nobody grew opium anymore, and people could provided equivalent of 5 million Yuan (about not meet their basic needs. The first three years 730,000 US dollars) per year.” 2005 in the Wa region has caused a major IMPACT OF THE BANS transformation of the economy of the region, depriving the population of its primary The large majority of ex-poppy farmers have source of income. The bans are strictly not been able to find alternative sources of enforced and the regions remain opium-free.4 income. It has been extremely difficult for them to cultivate more food, grow alternative Both areas are under control of armed oppo- cash crops or find casual labour to solve their sition groups. This year is the twentieth anni- food gap. versary of the cease-fire agreements between the y government and the Myanmar National According to UWSP Agricultural Minister Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) in the Zhao Wen Guang: “It is hard to ban opium, Kokang region and the United Wa State Party because is has been grown here a hundred (UWSP) in the Wa region. While in the Wa years. The people stay in high mountains region the military government has no pre- with low temperature. Apart from opium, in sence except a few government representa- that kind of climate it is not possible to grow tives, there are several Burma army bases in many other crops. It is only suitable to grow the Kokang region. Relations between the millet, corn, and some beans. It is not suitable 6 military government and the cease-fire for rice.” groups are often tense. The cease-fires are merely military agreements, and there is Food security neither peace nor a lasting political solution. Food security problems are most serious in the Wa region, especially in the north, and in What impact the upcoming general elections the northern part of the Kokang region. The will have on the Kokang and Wa region is impact of the ban differed from region to unclear. The military government has region, from village to village, and household announced these will take place in 2010, but to household. This study found some very it has not set a date yet, nor has it made vulnerable households, including in some public the election law. The 2008 constitution lowland areas, facing serious difficulties. The does not address the main grievances of the most vulnerable households were those cease-fires groups. The only official ‘no-vote’ without access to land, and who could no in the country in the government-organised longer find employment in the absence of the referendum on that new constitution came labour-intensive poppy crop; or households from the Wa region. Tensions between the in villages without access roads or in isolated military government and the Kokang and Wa areas, and consequently with a prior high authorities could potentially increase, reliance on opium cultivation for household limiting access for international organisations income to secure food. to these areas.5 2 | Transnational Institute In the northern Wa region people have there was no way for them to get medical care resorted to eating less (reduced quantity), because they had no money. Access to health and/or to less nutritious food (reduced care is also limited in the Kokang and Wa quality). Various people said they were not regions due to the lack of public services, able to eat meat or fish, and instead were although NGOs have initiated some large mixing their rice with just vegetables, roots, projects to address this. Otherwise, people are or anything edible they could find in the dependent on private Chinese clinics based in forest to complement the dish. the districts towns, although most people cannot afford them. According to a Wa NGO A very small number of households reported staff member: “The villagers are very poor. that their life had improved after the poppy They have no money after the ban. They ban, because household members had been cannot buy clothes, and if they get ill, they addicted to smoking opium, causing either cannot afford to get medical assistance. They loss of the whole opium crop or indebtedness. just stay at home and wait to die.”8 A small number of households in Kokang region, mainly in lowland areas, less reliant People are often unable to send some or all of on poppy cultivation before the ban, reported their children to school, because they cannot little or no impact of the ban. Many house- afford the fees. The majority of the schools in holds were clearly not food secure before the the Kokang and Wa regions are community opium ban, and therefore some people re- schools, and annual school fees (which pay ported they did not see a great difference in the teacher’s salary) range from about 100 to their situation after the ban; they still did 280 Yuan (15-40 US dollar) per school year, have not enough to eat. depending on the number of children in the school. Apart from low attendance rates, the Access to health and education quality and quantity of current education The lack of income has reduced the possi- services is very low in both the Kokang and bility for especially the poorest of the poor to Wa regions. In some areas people have no send their children to school or seek medical school to send their children. assistance. People often said that if they fell ill Wa leaders on opium ban 7 “We have encountered several problems since four months. But in 2007 we estimated the we implemented the opium ban in June 2005. In situation relapsed, there are about five months the first year some individuals tried to grow that people have no food. The reason is that we poppy again. When we detected this we arrested had to promote alternative planting. The best them and gave prison sentences. land to promote rubber and sugarcane plantations [with investment of Chinese “Another problem is the dramatic reduction of businessmen] is also the best land for food income of ex-poppy farmers. In the past opium crops. Therefore we had to face this conflict was their only income, to buy essential items between land for food and land for alternative like salt and clothing.