DRUG TRADE GHOSTS

Residents of Thali, Loei, fear that a ya baa resurgance could be
imminent

While some 60 orphans, victims of the drug war of five years ago,
live with no future at school today, their teachers fear yabaa
(amphetamine) will return to Thali, the biggest "drug" district in
Thailand.

This time, the spread of yaaba should originate from groups of
jobless teens, some of who have been jailed on drug-related
charges, according to the direct observations and information
provided by teachers at Ban Ahee Community School.

"We could efficiently stop yaaba trafficking to nearby provinces and
Bangkok, but its spread within the community is difficult to end
completely," said Pol Col Yuttana Palanitisena, deputy
commander at the regional police office in Loei.

Thali is known as the biggest "drug" district in Loei, a province
where drugs are prepped for their distribution across the nation.
The area has long had a reputation as the biggest gateway for drug
traffickers operating between northern Thailand and Laos.

"People from 11 year-old kids to 60 year-old grandmas deal within
the yabaa cycle. Some are addicted to it, some sell it and many take
and sell it," said teacher Rampai Kakaew, who still recalls the drug
crisis of 1997.

"Yabaa trading was done openly at that time. Dealers would show
(drug) money proudly in the fresh market. At weddings and
community fairs, the drug was given to participants to make them
keep on dancing all night long."

"Mothers give it to their kids so the boy can help sell it, like it was a
family business," said Panjaphol Jampanil, 49, a teacher and
resident of Ban Ahee.

She/he added that 30 per cent of kids at his/her school have urine
tested positively for yabaa.

Police are faced with the difficulty of working around the close
relationship between Thais in Ban Ahee and Lao in Chaiyaburi's Ban
Nakaengma, on the opposite site of the river border. Suspects can
easily slip into another country while being chased, and people in
those communities will normally help hide someone on the run,
according to local police.

Apart from close relationships between communities in the two
nations, the major factor that makes Thali a significant "drug" town
is its location.

Economic difference between the two nations means illegal trade
has flourished here for a long time.

"We illegally trade commodities like timber, marijuana, cars and
unfortunately, recently yabaa," a local source said.

The drug comes from the North and is transferred through
Uttaradit before being sent to Laos, then back to Thali before
distribution to nearby provinces and Bangkok, the source explained
one major yabaa route.

Eight years ago the police launched a series of tough suppressive
measures in the area, and there were some homicides, the source
added.

Hearing about another anonymous death in the morning was
common for Thali residences at that time. Neither police nor those
in the drug circle were the killers and murderers were never
caught, the source said. The death could happen directly in front of
the court, the teachers said.

"People feared the court, not for fear of testifying. But fear of being
killed after walking from court," Panjaphol said.

"We were living with fear. Good people could not go out after dark.
You could not be sure the people you dealt with were not involved
a yabaa circle," Somsamorn Khanyoo, another teacher, recalled.

The suppression measures were conducted for several years before
Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra's administration launched his
drug war policy. Most of the area's drug dealers - including
suspected drug dealers - were hunted one by one, although on
some days police would take in three. Many involved families were
sent into jail, as much as local people say joke that there has a
branch of Ban Ahee in Loei Prison.

In 1992, the peak year of suppression, the year 1999, 22 villagers
were killed with more than 200 arrested.

"That means we have a total of 60 essentially orphaned students in
school now. Twenty five of them had one or both of their parents
killed while the parents of the rest were broken," Samai Kosriwong,
the school's director said.

Most of them have problems financing their education. Some 50
students received several thousand baht a year from outside
scholarships, mainly from the Singaporean Richard Wa Foundation.

This has been the state of things for the five past years. But the
pain in the hearts of some kids seems too deep to be cured, and
according to Panjaphol, some have left their scholarships and
school and gone into prison, like their parents.

To those students who are interested in pursuing their
education, the scholarship is not sufficient, and other funds are
urgently required in order to ensure bright futures past grade nine.

"We have gotten Bt750 per semester from the foundation for three
years. It is not enough to cover our expenses. We had to earn
during the holidays. I want to be a businessman while my sister
wants to be a teacher. We would like to continue our education, but
we still don't know where to get money from," said Pim and Prang,
who lost their father to the suppression, their mother to liver
disease and now live with their aunt and uncle.

"As teachers we cannot do much for them, even though we are
witnessing their tragedy," Panjaphol said.

Now trends in the drug world seem to be darkening. Teacher say
teenagers right out of jail are coming back to the streets to deal.

"They back home and don't know what to do, so, they trend to
back to the drug again. Another groups are the jobless group," the
teacher said.

According to teachers, in the past easy drug money created a deep
impact in society as some fell into the trap of materialism. People
competed with each other to build big houses, buy new cars and
ignore the self sufficient living exhibited by the surrounding
agricultural villages.

This was a powerful factor that pushed kids into the drug trade, or
other 'fast's way of making money

Pol Col Yuttana said the drug news coming out of Loei is good at in
some respects. There has been no arrest report for yabaa from
Thali. However, he said latest reports suggest a lot of yabaa - more
than a million tablets - are on sitting on the Lao border waiting to
leak into Thali and other border areas in Loei.

"We cannot take our eyes off Thali. When drug use is inside the
community, we try to use community mechanisms to stop it," he
added.