Burmese Premier's visit to doi tung augurs ill for shan

The real reasons for the visit are likely to be far more sinister.

The last high-level Burmese visit to Doi Tung was in 2000, and made by no less than Senior General Than Shwe and general Khin Nyunt who became prime minister in 2003. As a result of the trip, the Thai government supported the establishment of the "Doi Tung II" crop substitution project the following year, just across the border in Mongkarn valley in southern Shan State.

"Doi Tung II" was highly controversial due to the large-scale forced relocation of those living in the area and continued drug production by the project partners. The original, mostly Shan, inhabitants of Mongkarn Valley, had already been forcibly evicted by new Wa settlers at the outset of the project.

According to "Unsettling Moves", an in-depth report issued by the Lahu National Development Organisation in 2002, over 100,000 Wa villagers were forced from northern to southern Shan State by the United Wa State Army (UWSA) and the Burmese regime from 1999 to 2001, ostensibly as part of an opium-eradication programme. In fact, drug production by the UWSA continued to flourish along the Thai border. The resettlement simply enabled the Wa ceasefire group to expand its territory in southern Shan State, while allowing the regime to counter the influence of the main active resistance group in the area, the Shan State Army-South (SSA-South).

Most of the over 2,000 original inhabitants of Mongkarn fled as refugees to Thailand or became internally displaced. Meanwhile, the forcibly relocated Wa villagers found it difficult to adapt to their new lowland surroundings. Poor sanitation and disease led to thousands of deaths. An estimated two-thirds of the settlers fled back to the north within the first few years.

By providing some Bt20 million in funding for the Doi Tung II project, the Thai government was thus condoning and subsidising the eviction of the valley's original inhabitants, the confiscation of their lands, and the forced resettlement of the new inhabitants. The Wa military elite controlled and made profits from the orange, corn and bamboo plantations implemented under the project.

Thai support for Doi Tung II was only suspended in 2005, following the ouster of general Khin Nyunt, and the subsequent reluctance of the Burmese regime to maintain any project connected to the disgraced strongman. However, former Thai prime minister Thaksin Shinawatra declared the same year that he was still willing to support the project, and wanted to provide a further Bt70 million for it.

Meanwhile, the Doi Tung II project has spearheaded other Thai interests in the area. The Ital-Thai company is reported to have been in talks with Burmese authorities since last year to begin digging for coal in the fertile valley of Mong Kok, about 20 kilometres north of Mongkarn.

Already 120 Shan families have been forcibly evicted without compensation to make way for the mines, and a further 480 families face eviction. The mining area lies along the Kok River, and villagers are already complaining that the water has become polluted and unusable. As mining expands, the impact is likely to be felt as far downstream as Thailand, where the Kok River is a foremost tourist attraction.

This week's visit by Prime Minister Thein Sein to Doi Tung is therefore being viewed with great apprehension by local Shan. There should be no illusion that Thein Sein, once the commander of the Triangle Region in Kengtung, and notorious for his links to Wa drug-producers, is sincere about drug eradication in Burma.

The only item on Thein Sein's agenda is likely to be seeking increased support to expand and secure the Burmese regime's control over Shan State and its valuable resources. For the Shan this will only mean increased abuses, eviction and land confiscation.