POPPY CROP DROPS SHARPLY IN BURMA

Wa Leaders Promise End to Opium Cultivation by Next June, but Farmers
Worry How They Will Feed Their Families

Burma's production of opium has fallen dramatically over the last 12
months. Poppy production fell by more than 50% in 2004, according to
the latest survey by the UN's anti-narcotics body.

The area under cultivation fell by nearly 30% and poppy production has
fallen by 54% since last year, Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the UN
office on drugs and crime (UNODC) told the Bangkok Post.

The UN survey is an authoritative measure of Burma's illicit drug
production. From extensive village-level surveys in Shan state, home
to most of Burma's poppy cultivation, the UN has compiled a detailed
view of the Shan poppy crop. This is verified against satellite
photographs.

Travelling around Shan state earlier this year, it was obvious that
there had been a reduction in poppy cultivation, but much of the drop
seemed to be the result of weather conditions. Severe drought had
stunted growth.

"Its the worst poppy season in my lifetime", said a local township
leader, Wei I Yung, 50. Only about 20% of poppy seeds have germinated,
according to the local UN workers who monitor the crop across Shan.

"And even those which survived are a fraction of the size of the
poppy plants that were harvested last year," said Jeremy Milsom, who
has conducted the UN's crop survey the past two years.

In northern Shan state, opium production fell by nearly 90%, though
the drop was less in areas under Wa control. Western anti-narcotics
agents believe most of Burma's illicit opium production remains in Wa
areas, though there is little doubt that even here, there has been a
dramatic fall in poppy cultivation in the last few years.

Wa leaders have promised there will be no poppy cultivation in areas
under their control after the current planting season and by the end
of June 2005 will be completely free of opium.

Bau Yuxiang, the top Wa leader has often said he would cut off his
head if the Wa failed to keep their promise.

"Opium has been with us for more than 100 years and it has been
disastrous for our health and development," the Wa chairman recently
told the Bangkok Post.

"If people plant opium and they smoke it, they don't want to do
anything else. If they stay like this, there is no hope and no future
for our people. We are very determined to stamp out poppy cultivation
in our areas," Bau Yuxiang said.

Wa leaders may be emphatic publicly, but privately they are worried
about the future, since most villagers in their area of control have
traditionally relied on their poppy crop to survive.

"We buy rice in the lean season [with the money we get from the
selling the poppy] and it pays for clothes, medicine and school books
for the kids," said Na Pha, an 80-year-old grandmother in a village
near the UN project centre at Mongkok.

"It will take three to five years for the farmers to recover from the
crisis that will follow the end of poppy cultivation," the Wa's
second in command, Shao Min Liang, admitted to the Bangkok Post
earlier this year.

Meanwhile, there are real fears of a humanitarian crisis in northern
Burma after the Wa deadline next year. More than 350,000 Kokang and Wa
farmers who have already stopped growing poppies see few alternatives
available to them, the UN drugs boss told journalists in Rangoon
earlier this year.

"This will increase to more than two million people next year," he
said.

Hundreds, perhaps thousands, of villagers have died because of a lack
of medicine and food since the Kokang stopped growing poppies last
year, according to aid experts in Burma on condition of anonymity.

While neither the UN nor the Burmese authorities will confirm this for
the record, local authorities in Shan have anecdotal evidence that
points in the same direction.. One village in west central Shan state,
Klawg Pa, was wiped out by malaria _ with 400 people killed _ in
September and October 2003, according to a provincial Wa leader.

The UN in Rangoon is also worried about the future after the Wa
deadline passes. "The lessons of the Kokang region after the opium
ban in 2003 is a warning signal for what is going to happen in the Wa
areas," Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the UNODC chief in Rangoon said.

"The population fell by 60,000 [from 200,000 to 140,000] _ with the
most people heading inland in search of a better living. Two out of
three private Chinese clinics and pharmacies closed their doors and
one in three community schools ceased operating. About 6,000 children
were forced to leave school, effectively halving the enrolment rate
compared to the previous year," Mr Lemahieu recounted.

Even the prime minister Khin Nyunt understands the problem. "The
anti-drug drive will achieve success only if the food, clothing and
shelter requirements and basic health, education, economic and social
needs of poppy farmers can be fulfilled," he told diplomats in
Rangoon recently.

The opium farmers throughout the Wa region are well aware that after
next year they will not be allowed to grow poppy and hundreds of them
interviewed by the Bangkok Post over the last 18 months are very
worried about the future.

"We don't know what we are going to do," said former poppy grower Ti
Kwan Sum. "We just hope for the best."

But that is unlikely to be enough. Crop substitution and
alternative-income generating programmes will only produce a fraction
of the money that poppy previously did. The future looks bleak,
according to UN officials. Many will turn to working in casinos, the
sex trade or other illegal occupations. Trafficking in women and
children, already a major problem, will snowball, the experts predict.

And above all with the involvement of criminal gangs especially
involving the Chinese, the region is likely to become insecure and
unstable.

The only alternative for many opium farmers may well be to return to
their century-old habits of cultivating popping.