THAI BORDER SECURITY TIGHTENED

Thai security forces were yesterday moving into border areas with Burma,
amid growing fears of ethnic fighting and drug trafficking.

The fears have been prompted by the drug-running ethnic Wa's plan to bring
50,000 families to the border. The mass relocation of an estimated 200,000
people from the Wa's northern base abutting China has infuriated many Thais,
who see it as a blatant snub to their concerns over flourishing exports of
amphetamines.

"By beefing up their physical presence [on the Thai border] they are
creating an even more formidable launching pad for their evil business,"
said a Thai narcotics official in Chiang Mai.

Thai intelligence estimates as many as 50 amphetamine factories are
operating in Chiang Mai and Chiang Rai provinces and that they are capable
of producing many times the 500 million tablets turned out there last year.

The exporters of "crazy drug", as amphetamines are known in Thailand, have
become public enemy No 1 after the drug has proven even more damaging than
heroin to many sections of Thai society.

The Thais are in no mood to believe Burmese officials, who have tried to
excuse the move by thousands of ethnic Wa minority villagers from the
Chinese border as a way of giving former opium producers land to
farm.

"We really can't like what we see. It is difficult to read this in a
positive way," said Major-General Watcharapol Prasarnrajkit of the police
narcotics suppression bureau.

Leaders of the United Wa State Army (UWSA), former communist guerillas who
have become the drug kingpins of the region, claim they will give up drug
production by 2005. Thais view this claim with cynicism as they see the
UWSA, which has relatively good relations with the Burmese army, spread
along the northern border and even as far south as the border opposite the
Thai town of Mae Sot.

"How can it not get worse? Now the Wa are producing such high quality
amphetamine that some Thais mistake it for Ecstasy. They are going full
blast over there," said a Western narcotics official in Bangkok.

Some analysts reckon the mass relocation may signal that the Wa leadership
are getting increasingly nervous over Chinese impatience with their drug
trafficking ways.

It may also provide the Golden Triangle's premier drug warlord, Wei
Hsueh-kang, with extra layers of protection. The Burmese army is likely to
calculate that increasing the hold of ferocious Wa fighters on the Thai
border will help suppress the guerilla campaign being waged by Shan rebels,
who have tried to seek outside support by also attacking drug refineries.

Rangoon has proven adept in the past at setting ethnic minority groups
against each other. But it is not clear whether the manipulators of the Wa
have calculated the longer term risks of the move that has deeply irritated
the Thais and heightened the threat of ethnic conflict in the region.