SPECIAL REPORT | JANUARY 2012

The murder of 13 sailors on the was the deadliest attack on Chinese nationals overseas in modern times. has responded with military muscle in the opium-growing Golden Triangle MURDERS ON THE MEKONG BY ANDREW R. C. MARSHALL ON THE MEKONG RIVER, JAN 27 REUTERS/SUKREE SUKPLANGREUTERS/SUKREE SIGN OF DANGER: A marker at the Thai village of Sop Ruak on the Mekong river at the point where the borders of , and meet.

thin line divides tourism, trade boatman, cutting his engine as he drifts just The Thai military says the victims were and terror in the Golden Triangle, inside Myanmar waters from Thailand. “It’s killed upriver before their ships floated where the lawless borders of too dangerous.” downstream into Thailand. But evidence Thailand, Myanmar and Laos It was here, according to the Thai military, gleaned from Thai officials and unpublished Ameet. that 13 Chinese sailors on two cargo ships police and military reports suggests that In Myanmar, where the jungly banks of the laden with narcotics were murdered in early some, if not all, of the sailors were still alive Mekong River vanish into the mist, lies an October. It was the deadliest assault on when their boats crossed into Thailand, anarchic realm of drug smugglers, militiamen Chinese nationals overseas in modern times. and that they were executed and tossed and pirates on speedboats. “I’m scared to But a Reuters investigation casts serious overboard inside Thai territory. go any further,” says Kan, a 46-year-old doubts on the official account of the attack. Their assailants remain unknown. Initially, the prime suspect was a heavily armed Mekong pirate who terrorizes shipping in Myanmar. But then the investigation turned to nine members of an elite anti-narcotics taskforce of the Thai military. New patrols by Chinese gunboats were supposed to restore peace to the region. But a visit to the Golden Triangle also found that attacks on Mekong shipping continue. Incongruously, just across the river from where the ill-fated ships were found moored, on the Laos side of the triangle, Reuters also discovered a vast casino complex catering to Chinese tourists. Its Chinese owner regards it as a “second homeland”; others worry it could morph into a strategic Chinese outpost.

CHINA’S MEKONG AMBITIONS The events are unfolding at a time when Myanmar is in the international spotlight. The country’s decision last year to end a half-century of isolation by freeing political REUTERS/INTERNET MEKONG PIRATE: A screenshot from Interpol web site shows Naw Kham. prisoners and reaching out to the West has the potential of to reshape this promising but impoverished nation and the entire region. extending its law enforcement beyond its down the Mekong into Thailand. The Hua The geopolitical murder mystery is set borders, down a highly strategic waterway Ping was carrying fuel oil; the Yu Xing 8 against the backdrop of Southeast Asia’s and into Southeast Asia. They come as the had apples and garlic. Sometime after they famed Mekong River, which flows from the U.S. re-engages with Asia, where Thailand is crossed the border, the ships were boarded Himalayas through China, where it is called one of its oldest military allies. by an elite Thai military unit called the Pha the Lancang, and into Myanmar, Laos, “This tough new China policy toward Muang Taskforce, named after an ancient Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. any obstacles to their Mekong commerce Thai warrior king. On the Yu Xing 8’s blood- Around 60 million people depend on the could in future be met with charges of splattered bridge, slumped over an AK-47 river and its tributaries for food, transport gunboat diplomacy,” said Paul Chambers, assault rifle, was a dead man later identified and many other aspects of their daily lives. an American academic who co-authored as its captain, Yang Deyi, the taskforce said. Beijing has invested heavily in the Mekong “Cashing In Across The Golden Triangle” The Hua Ping was deserted. as part of a strategy to expand its economic with Myanmar economist Thein Swe. “In the Aboard the two ships were 920,000 and diplomatic influence in Southeast Asia, future, some Mekong states may increasingly methamphetamine pills with an estimated dynamiting some sections to allow bigger turn to the U.S. to offset China’s influence.” Thai street value of $6 million. ships to pass, streamlining import and export The corpses of the 12 other crew members procedures, and improving shipping support METH MADNESS were soon plucked from the Mekong’s facilities. But as Chinese influence grows, it is swirling waters. Their horrific injuries were The Mekong is an increasingly lucrative encroaching on a region dominated for recorded in a Thai police report. Most victims trade route. Cargo volumes between decades by a much more profitable trade: had been gagged and blindfolded with duct Thailand’s Chiang Saen and ports in China’s narcotics. The mountainous Golden Triangle tape and cloth, with their hands bound or province have tripled since 2004, is probably named after the gold once used handcuffed behind their backs. Some had with about 300,000 tonnes of mainly to barter for opium. Today, Myanmar is the massive head wounds suggesting execution- agricultural goods now transported along world’s second-biggest opium producer after style killings; others had evidently been the Mekong every year, Mekong River Afghanistan. Methamphetamine production sprayed with bullets. Commission statistics show. here is soaring as well. Li Yan, 28, one of two female cooks among All Chinese shipping on the Mekong was Even a show of strength by China hasn’t the victims, also had a broken neck. suspended after the October massacre, tamed this wilderness. Three Myanmar which sparked popular outrage in China, soldiers were reportedly killed in December THAI INVOLVEMENT? with photos of the sailors’ bodies circulating when their joint patrol with Laos clashed with As a furious Beijing dispatched senior officials widely on the Internet. Shipping resumed five armed bandits about 20 km (12 miles) upriver to Thailand to demand answers, a suspect weeks later, with the departure of 10 cargo from the Thai border town of Sop Ruak, near for the massacre emerged: Naw Kham, the boats from the Mekong port of Guanlei -- the Mekong pirate Naw Kham’s haunt of Sam fugitive “freshwater pirate” of the Mekong, a protected by heavily armed Chinese border Puu Island. member of Myanmar’s ethnic Shan minority guards on speedboats. It was here that the two Chinese vessels whose hill tribe militia is accused of drug The patrols, ostensibly conducted with were supposedly attacked. trafficking, robbery, kidnapping and murder. Myanmar, Laos and Thailand, are a major On the morning of Oct. 5, the two cargo Naw Kham is not the only suspect. On Oct. expansion in Beijing’s role in regional security, ships, Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8, drifted 28, nine members of the Pha Muang Taskforce

MEKONG MURDERS 2 appeared before police in the northern city of so publicity shy only two photos purporting Chiang Rai to answer allegations of murder to be him exist. Both are blurred, and show Lawless Golden and tampering with evidence. During a visit a faintly smiling man with protruding ears, to Bangkok in late October, China’s vice thick eyebrows and a mop of black hair. Triangle minister of public security, Zhang Xinfeng, One of the photos is attached to an Interpol …Where traders, tourists and described this as “important progress” and red notice seeking the arrest of a fugitive pirates roam concluded: “The case has been basically Myanmar national of the same name. The cracked.” notice lists the man’s birthplace as Mongyai, Lancang R. In reality, the case is far from solved. a remote area of Myanmar’s war-ravaged Thai police have interviewed more than . CHINA 100 witnesses and are still investigating. A second big difference between Despite reports to the contrary in Chinese and Naw Kham: the drugs that allegedly Irrawaddy R. and Thai media, the nine soldiers -- who enriched them. include a major and a lieutenant -- have not Opium and are no longer the Golden MYANMAR LAOS been charged with any crime and remain on Triangle’s only products. Since the late 1990s, active military duty. secret factories in Shan State have churned Mekong R. The Pha Muang Taskforce says its out vast quantities of methamphetamine. The Golden Triangle members boarded the Chinese ships after This highly addictive drug is known across they had moored near the Thai port of Chiang Asia in pill form by the Thai name yaba THAILAND

Saen. But a prominent Thai parliamentary (“crazy medicine”) and in its purer crystalline M

A committee, which is also investigating the form as ice or shabu. CAMBODIA N Andaman T massacre, not only undermined this assertion It is now the top drug in Japan, South E Sea I V but alleged official complicity. Korea, the Philippines, Thailand, Cambodia, “Circumstantial evidence suggests that Laos and Brunei, the United Nations Office Gulf of 200 km Thailand Thai officials were involved in the sailors’ of Drugs and Crime reported in 2011. Naw deaths,” the House Foreign Affairs Standing Kham’s rise coincided with this explosion of Committee said on Jan. 12 in an apparent meth use, which transformed the ill-policed reference to the military task force. “However, Mekong between Myanmar and Laos -- Naw their motive, and whether it is connected Kham’s patch -- into one of Southeast Asia’s 2 km to the drugs found on the ships, remains busiest drug conduits. Sam Puu Island, inconclusive,” it said in preliminary findings Every year hundreds of millions of Naw Kham’s haunt seen by Reuters. Myanmar-made methamphetamine pills are Early the next morning after that report, spirited across the river into Laos or down unknown assailants on the Myanmar into Thailand. The trade is worth hundreds Mekong River riverbank lobbed two M-79 grenades at four of millions of dollars -- enough to corrupt Chinese cargo ships and a Myanmar patrol poorly paid law enforcement officials across LAOS boat. Both missed. Ten days after that, yet the region. another Chinese ship was fired upon from the Narcotics are not the Mekong’s only MYANMAR Laos bank. Again, nobody was hurt — and contraband. nobody identified for the attack. Other lucrative goods include: endangered wildlife such as tigers and pangolins; “OPIUM KING” weapons, stolen vehicles and illegal timber; Naw Kham has become a near-legendary and, in the run-up to this month’s Tet Golden figure. So many shipping attacks are celebrations, thousands of dogs in filthy Triangle attributed to this 46-year-old ethnic Shan cages bound for restaurants in Vietnam. Special that it seems as if the Mekong ambitions of There is human contraband too. Illegal Economic the Asian superpower are being foiled by a migrants from Myanmar and Laos are bound Zone medieval-style drug lord with a few dozen hill for Thailand’s booming construction or sex Sop Kings Roman tribe gunmen. industries, while a constant stream of North Ruak Casino Naw Kham started out as a lowly Koreans journey across southern China administrative officer in the now-defunct and through Laos to surrender to the Thai Mong Tai Army (MTA), said Khuensai Jaiyen, authorities, who obligingly deport them to a Shan journalist who also once served in the South Korea. THAILAND The ships, Hua same Shan rebel group. The MTA’s leader was Ping and Yu Xing 8, Khun Sa, the so-called “opium king” of the “MADE-UP CHARACTER” moored here. Golden Triangle, who had a $2 million reward Naw Kham gets a cut of “anything that makes

Chiang on his head from the U.S. Drug Enforcement money and passes through his territory,” Saen Administration until his death in Yangon in said Kheunsai Jaiyen, who runs the Shan 2007. Herald Agency for News, a leading source of But while Khun Sa was a flamboyant figure news from largely inaccessible Shan State, who courted media attention, Naw Kham is based in Chiang Mai, Thailand. He believed

MEKONG MURDERS 3 the most recent attack on a Chinese ship to him. committee in November. It stated that on Oct. happened because the crew, thinking the “There are many Naw Khams, not just one,” 5 the Pha Muang force boarded the two cargo new patrols would protect them, didn’t pay he said. “It’s like in a drama. He’s a made-up ships in Chiang Saen after learning they had the usual protection money to Naw Kham. character. He exists, but it seems he has been been attacked near Sam Puu Island. They Naw Kham proved impossible to reach for given a lot of extra importance.” reported finding the dead captain on the Yu comment: Thai boats dared not sail to Sam Lost in China’s outrage over the massacre Xing 8’s bridge and, in its hold, a cardboard Puu Island. Kheunsai Jaiyen said he was in was the possibility that the Chinese sailors box with 400,000 methamphetamine pills. hiding. were themselves involved in the drug trade. Another 520,000 pills were hidden in three The freshwater pirate has capitalized One theory holds that Naw Kham suspected sacks aboard the Hua Ping. on growing resentment towards China’s that the Chinese vessels contained large presence along the Mekong. Cheap, high- shipments of narcotics, and dispatched men volume Chinese goods are squeezing Thai to seize the illicit cargo and brutally murder “There are many and Myanmar farmers and small traders, the crew to deter others from running drugs Naw Khams, and threatening to turn Laos into what Paul through his territory. not just one. ” Chambers called “a mere way-station”. So when the crew of the Hua Ping and WHERE WAS SHIP ATTACKED? Yu Xing 8 were fished from the Mekong, The Pha Muang Taskforce, based in the Both ships were peppered with bullet- Naw Kham seemed the obvious culprit. northern Thai city of Chiang Mai, insists holes. There were 14 bullets or bullet casings Yet both Kheunsai Jaiyen and Thai MP that Naw Kham, and not its nine soldiers, is on the Hua Ping’s decks, said Thai police, Sunai Chulpongsatorn, who chairs the responsible for murdering the Chinese sailors. and two blood trails apparently indicating parliamentary foreign affairs committee, The taskforce declined to be interviewed for where bodies had been dragged and tossed remained unconvinced. Sunai believed that this story, citing the ongoing investigation. overboard. a Naw Kham legend had been created by But Reuters has obtained the taskforce’s For Pha Muang, it was just another incident attributing attacks by other Mekong bandits report of the incident to the foreign affairs in its self-declared 11-year-old mission

MEKONG MUSCLE: Chinese policemen prepare for their first patrol mission along the Mekong River. REUTERS/CHINA DAILY REUTERS/CHINA

MEKONG MURDERS 4 massage complex, fashioned after a Chinese temple. The resort also offers a shooting range, complete with AK47 and M16 assault rifles, and a petting zoo. An average of about 1,000 people visit the casino every day, said Li. (Gambling is illegal in both Laos and China.) But Zhao Wei didn’t intend to create a “little ”, mimicking China’s casino-stuffed enclave on the Pearl River estuary. Li notes that Kings Romans controls an area “bigger than Macau” — three times bigger, in fact — and plans to build an industrial park and ecotourism facilities.

NEW AIRPORT Next month, said Li, construction begins on what will be the second-largest airport in Laos after Wattay International Airport in the capital Vientiane. Perhaps aware of anti-Chinese resentment, Li hailed Kings Romans as a model of REUTERS/SUKREE SUKPLANGREUTERS/SUKREE responsible investment. About 40 percent of GOLD IN THE TRIANGLE: Chinese run Kings Roman casino in Laos is no “little Macau.” the complex’s 3,000 workers were Chinese, he said, but the rest came from Thailand, “to help secure the well-being of civilians On the Laotian bank of the Mekong, clearly Myanmar and Laos. He then showed off a residing along the three-nation border.” But visible from where the ill-fated Chinese ships compound with scores of modest concrete the taskforce’s account has crucial gaps, stopped, an enormous crown rises above houses which he said were given free to said MP Sunai, the parliamentary committee the tree line. It belongs to a casino, part of local Laotians who had once lived in wooden chairman investigating the murders. a burgeoning gambling empire hacked from shacks. “These might be the happiest people Pha Muang said the ships had already the Laotian jungle by a Chinese company in Laos,” he said. docked near Chiang Saen when its soldiers called Kings Romans in English and, in Li called Laos “our second homeland.” boarded them. But if one ship had only a Chinese, Jin Mu Mian (“golden kapok”), after The SEZ certainly felt a lot like China. Most dead captain aboard, and the other no crew the kapok trees that carpet the area with croupiers are Chinese. Most gamblers pay in at all, how did they drift down the fast- flame-red flowers. Chinese yuan or Thai baht. The mobile phone flowing Mekong without running aground, Kings Romans controls a 102-sq-km signal is provided by a Chinese company. then safely moor near Chiang Saen? (39-sq-mile) special economic zone (SEZ) Street signs are in Chinese and English. “It’s a 200-tonne ship,” said Sunai. “With which occupies seven km (four miles) of prime The passports of visitors are processed by nobody steering, it would have lost control Mekong riverbank overlooking Myanmar and Chinese and Laotian immigration officers. long before it reached the riverbank.” Thailand. The company’s chairman is also the The area is protected by the Lao People’s The same point is made by a senior Thai SEZ’s president: Zhao Wei, a casino tycoon Army, said Li, but when Reuters visited, the official in Chiang Rai province who is close who hails from a poor peasant family in only car patrolling the streets belonged to to the investigation and spoke on condition China’s northeastern Heilongjang province. the Chinese police. his name and exact profession were not Zhao was unable to talk to Reuters When asked about the 13 Chinese sailors, identified. The boats could not have docked because he was preparing to welcome Li’s eyes brim with tears. “I feel so sorry for without both a captain and engineer on Laotian president Choummaly Sayasone to my compatriots,” he said. Yet he believed board, and they would probably need to a Chinese New Year festival, said Li Linjun, their deaths would have no impact on read Chinese to understand the controls, he Kings Romans tourism manager. Li offered a business because “people know that we are insisted. tour of a Special Economic Zone into which not connected to this case.” He was also convinced that some, if not he said the company had so far sunk $800 Yet Kings Romans has brushed against all, of the Chinese sailors were alive when million. both the drug trade and Naw Kham. Last their ships reached Thailand. According to Fountains and golden statues flank the April, a casino boat was seized by the witnesses, he said, four smaller boats had main road from the pier to the casino. Across freshwater pirate’s men near Sam Puu Island escorted the two ships through Thai waters the road is a banner in Chinese exhorting and 19 crewmen held for a 22-million-baht to the sound of gunfire. people to “join hands to beat drugs.” ($733,000) ransom, which Zhao Wei paid, When the ships moored, about seven men Two gargantuan lion statues guard the the Shan Herald Agency for News reported. jumped from them onto the smaller boats, entrance to the casino. Inside, beyond the Then, in September, an operation by the Thai official said, which then sped upriver security gates, a marble staircase lit by a Laotian and Chinese officials found 20 sacks again. The Thai official couldn’t say who these giant chandelier sweeps up to a golden of yaba pills worth $1.6 million in the casino men were, but believed that the military, who statue of a nameless, bare-chested Roman grounds, according to Thai media reports. had sealed off the area, watched them go. emperor. The ceilings are decorated with Li denied all knowledge of the yaba bust reproductions of Renaissance frescoes. or that the kidnapping had even taken place, GAMBLING EMPIRE Under construction nearby is a karaoke and

MEKONG MURDERS 5 stressing that Zhao Wei came to the Golden prepared to remain entrenched in the Greater are loading dried goods and soft drinks onto Triangle to build an economic alternative to Mekong Subregion,” said Chambers. “They another Chinese ship, the Hong Li, bound for the narcotics trade. He said he had never provide an exit for southwestern China to the Myanmar port of Sop Lui. heard of Naw Kham. “Maybe it’s gossip. entrepots in Myanmar and Thailand, and “Of course we’re worried about security, but That’s why they call this place the mysterious then to markets abroad. Such schemes in we’re encouraged by the presence of Chinese Golden Triangle.” fact need security to protect them.” patrols,” said a crew member, who only If the Golden Triangle SEZ is a distant identified himself by the family name Deng. DISTANT OUTPOST OF CHINA outpost of China, a “second homeland,” Asked about his 13 dead compatriots, he Equally mysterious was the special economic then it is poignant that 13 Chinese men and echoed what is now a common misperception zone’s future ambitions. The area it occupied women -- blindfolded, gagged, terrified -- in China: nine Thai soldiers have admitted was so large and strategically located that it could have sailed past it in the final moments their guilt and will be held responsible for the might one day be used as a Chinese military of their lives. killings. base, the Thai official in Chiang Rai said. The Hua Ping and Yu Xing 8 are still moored “We want the truth. That’s the most That might be far-fetched. But the Golden at Chiang Saen, across the river from the important thing,” said Deng, before the Hong Triangle SEZ and similar schemes elsewhere casino, their rusting flanks cordoned off with Li sailed up the Mekong and into the void. in Laos and Myanmar “signify that China is police crime-scene tape. Nearby, workers (Edited by Bill Tarrant) REUTERS/SUKREE SUKPLANGREUTERS/SUKREE DOWNSTREAM AMBITION: A model shows Chinese development plans for the Golden Triangle Special Economic Zone, where the borders of Thailand, Myanmar and Laos meet.

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