The Golden Triangle: Inside Southeast Asia's Drug Trade

Notes

Notes Introduction: Into the Thick of It 1. I use the word “Burma” throughout this book, even though the official name of the country is now “Union of Myanmar,” because most people in the English-speaking world are still not familiar with the new name and because many who regard the military junta as illegitimate continue to call the country “Burma.” 2. Officially known as the Number 2 Special Region. 3. As the text mainly deals with inhabitants from Burma, I will use the word “Shan” to refer to this ethnic group. The word “Shan” is a corruption of “Siam,” the old name for Thailand, and a name given to them by the Burmans (Elliott 1999). This ethnic group is referred to as the “Dai” in China, so I will use the word “Dai” when I discuss this group of people in China. This group is also called the “Tai” or the “Dtai.” 4. Pinyin romanization is used for most of the names of the persons and places mentioned in this book. See the appendix for the other spellings of these names that are in widespread use. 5. Della Porta and Vannucci (1999) have provided a detailed analysis of the triangular relationship between the Mafia, tycoons, and politicians in southern Italy, where these three groups of people are heavily engaged in what the authors called “corrupt exchanges.” 6. The Rangoon government called an area a special region to imply that, even though the area was still controlled by an independent armed group, it had nevertheless signed a cease-fire agreement with the authority in Rangoon and was working toward full reunification. 246 Notes to Pages 5–17 7. To ensure the confidentiality and safety of the participants in this study, all the names of the people in this book, with the exception of law enforcement officials, high-rankingarmedgroupleaders,andwell-knowndrugtraffickers,havebeenchanged. Other names, including cities, towns, and organizations, have not been altered. 8. People who trusted me the most were my research assistants and interviewers, even though they too at first wondered what my real motives were. It was only after they learned to conduct the interviews, actively participated in the arduous process of conducting the interviews in the remote Wa Hills, then cleaned, coded, and entered the data, did they come to believe that I was a legitimate researcher. The three Wa women who conducted fieldwork in a Wa village for three months were able to build a trustful relationship with their subjects quite easily. My relationship with the subjects in the Thai-Burma border areas was also relatively solid because of my contacts in the town of Mae Sai. I had no doubt that these subjects were candid in their answers. Chapter 1. The Golden Triangle and Burma 1. It might be confusing when an area within a state (Shan State) is also called a state (Wa State). Because Wa people prefer to use the word “Wa State” to characterize their territory, I will do so also. Shan State was once called the Federated Shan States and the Wa region was called the Wa States (Maule 1992). 2. The CPB was formed in Rangoon in 1939 by a group of young Burmese intellectuals . In 1948, it went underground after it decided to launch an armed struggle against the Burmese government (Lintner 1990). 3. All the figures related to opium cultivation and yields are estimates only. 4. Interview with a childhood friend, Rangoon, July 19, 2002. 5. In the early 1970s, the exchange rate was 8 kyat = $1. The kyat began to depreciate in the 1980s and its value continued to drop substantially in the late 1990s. In 2006, the Burmese government offered a tenfold salary increase to all its employees, and the kyat immediately devalued to 1,330 kyat to a dollar. 6. No one knows how many people were actually killed by the military junta; there are unconfirmed reports that the number of casualties was much higher. 7. The Association of Southeast Asian Nations is composed of Brunei, Indonesia, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar (Burma), the Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam, and Cambodia. Chapter 2. The Wa 1. In May 2005, the Wa authorities were planning to hold an international event to mark the start of the ban on opium cultivation in their territory. After the letters of invitation had been sent out to various participants both inside and outside of Burma, the Burmese authorities informed the Wa that the ceremony had...