POPPY FARMERS NEED SUPPORT

The United Nations' report that more than one million impoverished
farmers in Burma are facing a ''humanitarian disaster'' for giving up
opium cultivation is the bad news in a story that could otherwise give
the world's anti-drug campaigners cause for celebration. The
significant decline in poppy fields and opium output in Burma's Shan
state revealed by the Opium Survey 2004 of the UN's Office on Drugs
and Crime is encouraging. It shows the agency's efforts to eradicate
opium cultivation through crop substitution programmes are moving in
the right direction. Regretfully, the shortfall in the financial
support from donor countries, particularly the United States and the
European Union, are undermining the UNODC's attempt to build a safety
net needed by these people who have given up their illicit crop.

The agency revealed on Monday it was seeking $26 million over the next
five years to fund UN-related crop substitution programmes and to
ensure people have enough food, but has received only $12 million,
from donors such as Japan. The dismal support means that an estimated
260,000 households, or more than 1.2 million people in the Wa region
of the Shan state, where more than 90% of the country's poppy crops
are grown, will stand to be adversely affected. The prospect that
these people may end up facing the same fate befalling the poor
Burmese farmers who gave up opium cultivation last year was
disheartening. Shan's Kokang region gave up poppy cultivation in 2003,
and the results have been devastating. Thirty percent of the region's
200,000 people left the area in search of work and food, two-thirds of
the pharmacies closed and school enrolment plunged by 50%, according
to UNODC.

Burma, Southeast Asia's largest opium producer, has taken substantial
strides since 1996 in reducing opium production as it aims to
eradicate the crop by 2014. The areas planted with opium poppies in
Burma were cut by 29% in 2004 compared with the previous year,
according to a joint survey by UNODC and Burma's military government.

Burma has set a target to eradicate all opium cultivation in the Wa
region of Shan state by next June. Without help, the poor farmers who
live on or below the poverty line will lose their livelihood and face
greater risk of human rights abuses, human trafficking and forced
relocation.

The reluctance by the US and the EU to provide the funding support for
the UNODC is understood to be part of their policy to boycott the
military regime in Rangoon to speed up the democratisation process in
that country. However, the political pressure on the ruling Burmese
generals should not also be applied against poor, innocent villagers
who have given up their long-time traditional cash crop, and perhaps
the only crop they know how to grow.

Thailand, with a less sophisticated political backdrop and ethnic
differences, has a spent a long time battling against opium
cultivation among its highanders using the same approach. The
kingdom's success story, thanks to the support from the UN and a major
ally such as the US, has resulted in a significant drop in the opium
cultivation and heroin production along its border adjoining the
Golden Triangle. This has set a model for Burma.

But eliminating opium cultivation in our western military state where
many of the ruling generals are widely alleged to have close ties with
drug lords is a far tougher job. The UNODC will need the full support
from all countries, particularly the US and the EU, to make its
programmes in Burma a success.

More importantly, the poor villagers of Shan state must be given all
the assistance necessary to enable them to make a normal living after
giving up the opium crop. The world community cannot celebrate the
progress in its drive against opium cultivation if 1.2 million farmers
are made to suffer as a consequence.