Poppies diminish in the Golden Triangle

Posted by paul on November 11th, 2007 filed in Uncategorized

The Golden Triangle in

South East Asia still has the image as an area filled with brightly coulored poppy fields, heavily armed heroin labs hidden deep in the lush jungle and opium-smoking tribe peoples. However, once the notorious and mystical region was the globe’s main opium producer but today the importance of the Golden Triangle with regards to the worldwide heroin trade has significantly decreased. 

“The legendary region’s mystique may retain, and many novelists will still be inspired by

South East Asia’s Golden Triangle” stated the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime’s president, Antonio Costa. “But during the last five years we experience many indications that the region’s poppy fields are quickly vanishing” 

The significant decrease of the opium production is a main, though little recognised, success in the so called war on drugs. However, it probably will be very difficult to keep the region permanently opium-free. About 30 years ago,

Thailand,

Burma and

Laos’ northernmost areas delivered about 70 percent of the amount of opium sold globally, while the majority of the drug was used for refining it into heroin. Currently the Golden Triangle is responsible for a five percent production of the world total, claims Mr. Costa’s department. 

What did cause this? Influential China’s commercial pressure, the eradication of opium growing, and the criminal gang’s change to the easy production process of methamphetamines, are the main reasons, while ironically several insurgent groups, which only a few years ago were financially injected with drug earnings now claim they are pressuring poppy growers to eradicate their fields.

Eradication of a poppy field in Myanmar 

These events were responsible for the creation of a new major opium producing region, known as Afghanistan’s Golden Crescent area. The United Nations claims that this region now is responsible for about 90 percent of the available opium in the world. The radical Islamic Taliban controls most likely a large part of the lucrative opium production and uses the drug money to buy mainly arms. This change of location to Afghanistan has had a significant effect on the worldwide heroin trade: globally almost two times more opium production within less than 20 years.

China’s role with regards to the eradication of poppy field in the Golden Triangle was very significant. This way the Chinese government tried to stop the increasing amount of the country’s heroin addicts and by contaminated needles H.I.V. infected people. The along the Chinese border located area of Burma, which in the past was the producer for an estimated 30 percent of the nation’s opium, was recently declared opium-free by the U. N. Local Wa tribe authorities, who enjoy autonomy from Burma’s military rulers, welcomed investments from China in sugar cane, tea, and rubber plantations, while they stopped cultivating poppies.

“China’s role is severely underestimated” states Martin Jelsma, a researcher from the Netherlands who has written comprehensively on Asia’s illicit drug market.
“Their principal leverage is commercial: These certain Burmese border areas have become economically stronger linked to China than Burma’s other parts,” he continued, “For the local government its crystal clear, attracting any kind of investments can not be done without China’s cooperation.”

Burma is still the globe’s second-ranking main opium producer but the distance with the first is long. During the last 10 years, the country’s production decreased by 80 percent. For a long period insurgents used drug money to finance civil wars in the region. But now the crops are being destroyed by some of them. There is one division of the Shan State Army, a movement that long was involved in the heroin trade, states they are leading the eradication missions.

The group’s military leader, Kon Jern, says he is destroying the poppies because militias from the government and corrupt officials benefit from opium production. “They sell the narcotics, they buy arms, and with these arms they attack us,” he angrily said. The U. N. praises Myanmar’s junta with their eradication policy in the Shan areas. In politically more stable Laos, the authorities commenced a crackdown about 15 years ago to boost the country’s international reputation and due to officials realising that their own sons and daughters were at risk, claimed Leik Boonwaat, Laos’ representative for the U.N.’s Office on Drugs and Crime. In the year 1996 Laos finally outlawed opium.
 
The authorities, Mr. Boonwaat said, also experienced the production of opium barely helped the poor poppy-growing farmers. “The majority of the profit went straight into the pockets of the crime syndicates,” he claimed. Laos’ space of land cultivated for opium has decreased 94 percent since the year 1998. The country’s opium production now is so small that Laos today might be a net importer of the narcotic, the U.N. says. However, most experts are convinced that the limitations may not sustain unless farmers will find another way to earn money.

Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy is a French opium expert at Paris’ National Center for Scientific Research. He says it took the Thai government three decades to convince opium farmers growing other products. A royal project encouraged opium-cultivating hill tribes to benefit from the colder climate, which is ideal for producing coffee, green vegetables and macadamia nuts.