Volume 14,
Number 1
January 2004
Editorial
Taking
The “Human” Out Of Human Trafficking
Small
Arms Smuggling In Southeast Asia: The Lifeblood Of Burma’s Insurgency
A
Complex Industry: Drug Production and Trafficking
The global drug trade is inextricably linked to the arms trade, since drug
production in underdeveloped countries is often the main, or only source of
money for insurgent bought weapons.
The “Golden Triangle” of Burma, Laos and Thailand is well-known
for its involvement in drug production. Of these three, Burma produces the most
heroin and is a major world arms-drug nexus, rivalled only by Colombia and Afghanistan.
In Burma, the illegal trade in narcotics, women, children, and environmental
contraband such as timber and gems are tightly linked with the trade of arms.
But, guns are not sold today for making high financial profit. Traffickers and
insurgents buy small arms for security or war purposes, or as monetary exchange.
Traffickers need access to small arms to carry out their illegal deals. All
these illegal traffics are bound by their access to small arms, without which
such activities would be difficult if not impossible to manage. In addition,
all these illegal merchandises are also known to become currencies in themselves,
with quantities of arms being exchanged for narcotics or illegal logging exchanged
for arms.
Burma’s leadership lacks an adequate legal capacity and most of all a
real willingness to confront these problems. The direct complicity of high-ranking
officers in these illicit trades has been proven over and over again. Therefore
it would be hazardous to expect that in the near future there will be any real
significant changes in Burma’s governmental strategy for dealing with
these expanding illegal trades.
To give a better picture of these interconnected themes in mass criminal trafficking,
we have decided to focus our newsletter on three main issues: Humans, drugs,
and arms… We hope that it will offer guidelines and understanding to push
ASEAN and neighbouring countries to action and an enhanced regional cooperation.
By R Sharples
Shogo Watanabe, a Japanese Lawyer, once said, “Workers are not robots,
but human beings”. I have often heard people talking about human trafficking
in terms of those trafficked being commodities, something to be bought and sold
like a bag of peanuts or a box of staples. Both these references show concern
that the humanity aspect becomes increasingly obliterated when we talk about
human trafficking, that those trafficked are seen purely for their material
benefit.
Nowhere is this more evident than in the role played by those we can call the
“demanders”: the employers in the host countries who exploit the
conditions of the source country to obtain cheap labour. These employers are
often complicit in the trafficking of the labour they need for their factories
or their farms. Traffickers take advantage, for example in Burma, of the poor
economic conditions that force people to search elsewhere for a means to survive.
They coerce, lie and make unreasonable promises to obtain the services of that
labour. They offer families incentives that are too good to refuse. They sometimes,
both smuggle and traffic the victims across borders. They use increasing globalization
and commercialization to promote materialism and what victims are “entitled”
to have. There are many facets to human trafficking, many ways it can be done
and for many reasons. There are also a plethora of causes. The one constant
throughout this though is the person demanding their services. And that demander
has gone largely without retribution in the efforts to combat human trafficking.
This has largely been a result of the reluctance of host countries to punish
the employers of those trafficked. This would mean admitting to social and economic
deficiencies that make the host countries economy reliant on cheap manual labour.
(I talk only of trafficking for manual labour here, not trafficking for sexual
exploitation). In Thailand for example the demand for trafficked persons shows
some clear long-term societal trends. Some industries, especially factories
and the fishing industry, are heavily reliant on cheap labour. Employers have
expressed concern that they wouldn’t be able to survive if they had to
pay employees the minimum wages required by Thai law. There is also Thailand’s
rapid economic development that demands increasing levels of workers while at
the same time experiencing a declining birthrate. Those trafficked are often
required to do the dirty, dangerous work that the local population is reluctant
to do thus creating a vacuum that cheap migrant labour is willing to fill.
The status of most trafficked workers remains an illegal one. This means they
are without legal protection and at the mercy of their employers. They have
no recourse for demanding a minimum wage nor to work in a safe environment and
have adequate living conditions. They have no access to healthcare, and limited
education access for their children. There is also no guarantee in cases where
those trafficked are legal workers that they will be treated any differently.
When legal employees challenge this discriminate treatment they usually find
a host country reluctant to take their side legally. In June 2003, 420 legal
Burmese workers (they had registered under the Thai Ministry of Labour Scheme)
demanded wage and working conditions improvements from their employer, King
Body Concept Co. They were paid 55 baht per day instead of the legal minimum
wage of 133 baht per day, and they were living in cramped and unhygienic accommodation.
Instead of addressing their complaints the factory owner called the local immigration
police and border patrol soldiers and had the workers deported back to Burma.
Past experience has shown that this employer is likely to rehire other illegal
workers and pay them even less, maybe 30-40 baht per day. Despite being legal
workers under Thai law these employees became the ones punished and their employer
remains largely outside the regulations of the law. In such conditions most
employers are therefore allowed to operate with illegal cheap labour and no
legal repercussions. There is an obvious void here where host countries allow
their employers to operate outside the confines of the law.
Here are some solutions then. Fine every employer found to have trafficked or
illegal workers in his factory. Set up migrant labour laws that give those trafficked,
rights under the host countries laws. Acknowledge the need for foreign labour
and regulate migrant mechanisms. Once you legalise it you also dramatically
reduce the profits made by those who traffic the victims. Address the issue
of demand in the host countries, not just the root causes of trafficking in
the source country. Admit to, and address, the economic conditions in the host
country that makes this illegal activity an inherent part of the labour system.
Get serious about punishing those who exploit, not just those who are the victims.
In Burma human trafficking isn’t just an external issue of movement
across international boundaries. Burma also has a large internal problem where
people are trafficked from rural to urban areas, as domestic help at military
bases, as forced labour on road construction and as workers at gem mines, to
name but a few.
This is the story of Naw Doh:
While we were on the way home from our farm in Toungoo District, Karen State,
Burmese troops captured us. My husband and son ran in another direction and
we thought they had escaped but we heard later that the Burmese troops killed
them. The Burmese troops took myself, my two daughters and my parents-in-law
along with their column. We had to follow them through the jungle for more than
2 months. Finally they released my parents-in-law but they made me and my two
daughters get on a truck and they took us to Rangoon. They took me to stay at
the house of Operation Commander U Thein Muang. I had to do everything as a
domestic worker, cook rice, wash the clothes, clean the chairs, clean the house,
I had to do everything for them. After we were there for not so long they separated
me from my eldest daughter, she was only 7 years old. They took her to work
for another commander and he told me he would look after her and put her through
school. While I was there I got a boil on my hand but I had to continue to cook
and I got a fever. I asked for some medicine but I only got given a paracetemol.
I had to suffer that illness for many days and it was quite painful. After a
year I finally got to see my eldest daughter. We both cried bitterly and she
told me she wanted to come back and stay with me but the Commander wouldn’t
let her. I also found out that he didn’t let her go to school, even though
he had promised he would. They let me see my daughter 3 times and the last time
she could hardly speak her native dialect anymore, they made her speak only
Burmese. I ended up staying there for 1 year and eight months and they didn’t
pay me one kyat for my work. After that they made me go and work with the Commander’s
wifes elder sister. I stayed there for 2 months but she also didn’t pay
me anything. After that I requested permission to go and see my mother and then
I escaped back to my village. I miss my eldest daughter very much. When I remember
about this tears come. My son and my husband were killed by Burmese troops and
I am separated alive from my daughter with no chance to see her again. Sometimes
I feel like I don’t want to live in this world anymore. But I still have
my youngest daughter to look after so I encourage myself to be still alive due
to my youngest daughter. But in reality I would like to die.
By C Guinard
On January 2, 2004, a Bangladesh Rifle Border Patrol operation seized a haul
of small arms and light weapons on the Bangladesh-Burma border. The weapons
included 32 anti-tank mines, 6 rocket launchers, 10 rocket launcher cells chargers,
18 grenade firing bomb chargers, landmines and other equipment. These weapons
were seized by the border patrol after a fire fight erupted with gunmen suspected
to have links with Arakanese rebels in Burma. It was the first illegal shipment
of weapons intercepted by the BDR for the year 2004. And it was only the 2nd
of January…
Reported seizures in Burma’s neighbouring countries such as Bangladesh
and Thailand may provide an idea of the size of illicit arms trade in the region
but these are likely to be just the tip of the iceberg. The question of illicit
arms trafficking has been a decades-long problem for Southeast Asia. Weapons
are essential equipment for criminal traffickers but also insurgent groups.
Where there is a demand, there is always supply. In Burma, a huge number of
ethnic minorities has been fighting for independence for more than 40 years.
Small arms smuggling has fed the long and ongoing crisis in Burma. Despite cease-fire
agreements negotiated with many ethnic rebel groups, no disarmament has been
undertaken leading to a huge availability of small arms in ethnic areas. Such
situations plunge Burma into a continuous cycle of violence and instability
which always threatens these fragile “peace” negotiations. What
are the solutions to break this vicious circle? Arms smuggling feeds insurgency
and insurgency pushes forwards arms smuggling in Burma.
To understand the dynamics of the illicit arms market in Burma and to offer
practical solutions, it is necessary to analyse in which context this criminal
traffic was established and determine who are the actors involved in this illicit
trade which threatens southeast Asia’s regional stability and human security.
According to the 1997 report by a United Nations Panel of Governmental Experts1,
small arms are military-style weapons that are designated for personal use such
as revolvers or assault rifles, while light weapons are conventional weapons
that can be handled by several people working as crew. Small arms represent
many advantages for insurgent and/or trafficking groups. They are light, affordable,
easily transported, durable and simple to maintain. They are also perfectly
suited to the guerrilla tactics of these groups such as hit and run attacks.
In Burma, there are two categories of groups purchasing small arms: the resistance
groups such as the Karen National Union (KNU) or the Karenni National Progressive
Party and the drug-trafficking groups such as the United Wa State Army (UWSA)
or the remnants of Khun Sa’s Mong Tai Army. The first category has been
fighting the Burmese regime for decades. Progressively, they have lost a lot
of territory and some of their main sources of income such as teak forest or
gem mining. For these groups finding arms and ammunitions cheaply is crucial.
Today, they can only afford second-hand weapons. For the second category, money
is less of an issue. Making huge profit from selling drugs, those groups are
financially capable of being well-equipped but they are also restrained by the
type of weapons sold on the black market. Until the 1990’s, the arms sales
were mainly motivated by political interests. Since the fall of KNU headquarters
in Manerplaw in 1995, political motivation seems to have been replaced by economic
ones. Ethnic armies such as the UWSA who enjoy heroin profits and a bigger purchasing
power are replacing resistance groups such as the Karen.
Considering these two categories of small arms purchasers in Burma, a focus
is needed on the specific supply networks that provide those weapons. Beside
the black market, the most important source of weapons for any insurgent group
has always been its opponent. Weapons can be seized during insurgent operations
such as ambushes, stolen from government arsenals, or given by defectors. But
this method presents some disadvantages. It is quite hazardous for the military
strength of one group to depend only on battle victories. Thus, insurgent and
trafficking groups diversified their sources by purchasing their weapons on
the regional black market. To these groups satisfaction, Southeast Asia has
a thriving and highly well-organised trade in contraband arms, with bordering
Thailand as the major transit country.
This widespread availability of small arms in the region is mainly the result
of two distinct factors. First, Southeast Asia has been the scene of various
inter or intra-State armed conflicts. Fighting within Burma, Cambodia, Laos
and Vietnam has created the conditions for arms smuggling. During the 1960’s,
Thailand, which enjoys a central geographical location in the region, became
the preferred transit route to Cambodia for sending Chinese arms to the Khmer
Rouge, and US arms to other anti-Vietnamese factions. The arms supply networks
started to be organised, involving Thai businessmen, members of the Thai army
and police. Because of the lack of strict custom regulations, some of these
intermediaries started to smuggle weapons from the Cambodian border through
Thailand to sell them to ethnic insurgent groups in Burma where the demand was
growing and potential profit high. Today, the traffic routes remain the same.
Networks have been established for decades. Vietnam and Cambodia inherited some
two million firearms and 150,000 tonnes of ammunition after the US withdrawal
in 1975. One estimate puts the number of small arms currently in circulation
in Cambodia at 500,000 to 1 million units. With this massive number of available
weapons and existing networks, the small arms black market has flourished in
all southeast-Asia with Thailand as the key transit centre and Cambodia the
main supplier of small arms.
The second factor which helps small arms smuggling to proliferate in the region
is the current lack of strict custom control in ASEAN countries and ineffective
or unenforced law. The porous borders between Cambodia, Thailand and Burma provide
the perfect environment for arms smugglers to operate relatively easily from
one country to another. Besides, those in charge of countering the illicit trade,
whether members of the military, police or customs officials, are often involved
in the illicit trade. Involvement of Thai army officials at every level as well
as police officers has been repeatedly reported by national and international
news2. In exchange for money, they offer protection to traffickers or turn a
blind eye on the illegal shipments. They may act as middle men in the transaction
or be directly involved in selling weapons embezzled from military stocks. By
diverting large portions of legal weapons into the illegal market each year,
those officers are making substantial profits which are then laundered through
the buying of positions of power in governments and political parties.
A combination of national and regional responses is needed to reduce the illicit
trade of small arms in the region. Most of the small arms smuggled inside Burma
are recycled weapons from former conflicts. Despite UN and national efforts
to implement disarmament programs in Cambodia, the surrealistic size of arms
catchments is simply overwhelming. Effective measures to manage post conflict
disarmament must be implemented for the creation of a lasting peace. The disarmament
process must always remain on the agenda of any actors involved in the peace
process, because arms left over from a past conflict will feed again another
insurgency as well as criminal activities. ASEAN is struggling with this problem
of traditional disarmament but also with weak law enforcement, it is in the
area of law enforcement where much cooperation is needed. Despite ASEAN’s
soft-regionalism policy, the development of a regional convention on illicit
trafficking of small arms would certainly complement similar efforts made at
the UN level. Marking small arms during production in order to trace their origin
and movement would also be an efficient measure to implement.
Finally, ASEAN countries and especially Thailand should first recognise the
reality of the problem and start to actively fight corruption in their official
ranks. In February 2002, Thai Defence Minister General Chavalit Yongchaiyudh
simply dismissed the allegation published by Time Magazine2 that Thailand was
a hub for smuggling illegal weapons. By declaring “It is not true that
our Army personnel are involved in the smuggling of illegal weapons” (The
Nation, 6 Feb 02), he dishonoured all the people in Burma who died under the
fire of a weapon smuggled from Thailand. And, they were many….
Endnotes
1 Report by the Panel of Governmental Experts on Small Arms, United Nations
General Assembly Document A/52/298/, 27 August 1997.
2Guns and Money by Mageswary Ramakrishnan, Time Asia. 11 February 2002.
By R Sharples
In a global industry estimated to be worth over $400 billion annually the complexities
of relationships between the players and processes of drug production and trafficking
are often overwhelming. We often see the end product: the addiction, the fragmented
and broken lives, sometimes the deceptive glamour of using drugs. We may often
see the dealers but usually through the constructed confines of a television
screen. We don’t often see the farmer who grows the poppy or the refineries
where the poppy is ground into Grade 4 Heroin. We never see the traders, the
agents, the shareholders, the 3rd parties, the distributors, the pimps, the
investors or the high-ranking authorities who OK its production and the low-ranking
authorities who let it pass through. We barely look into the social and economic
conditions that govern both the suppliers and those who demand it. Without addressing
this complex picture of the global drug industry, can we really achieve the
drive to eradicate drugs?
In Burma that industry is estimated to be worth over $200 million per year.
It is both a source country, for opium and amphetamines, as well as a trafficking
country. In 2003 Burma was given the dubious title of the second largest opium
producer in the world. The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC)
estimated 62,100 hectares of poppy was cultivated in 2003 producing 810 tonnes
of opium. The Amphetamine trade is estimated to be worth 200 million a year
and in 2003 Thai authorities voiced concern that over 1 billion amphetamine
tablets would enter Thailand from Burma.
There seems to be general consensus that opium production is on the decrease,
UNODC figures show a 24% decrease from 2002 to 2003 in production figures, although
reports such as the recent SHAN report1 suggest these figures are highly optimistic.
This supposed decrease has been largely attributed to joint efforts by the Burmese
government and international entities, in particular UNODC. The Burmese government
eradication efforts have largely operated around destruction of poppy fields,
their “showcase” being Northern Shan State. Reports suggest that
this destruction has largely been the crops of poor poppy farmers and crops
close to the main roads and thus highly visible to international monitors. Crops
left in place were those controlled by militia’s aligned to the SPDC and
those most lucrative to their high-placed owners. Crop substitution efforts
have been marred by poor economic return, inadequate expertise, lack of training
and follow-up with farmers, and inappropriate crops for the terrain they are
to be planted in.
Success or failure…it’s hard to determine.
Success maybe in terms of a decrease in opium production…but at what cost
to local farmers and the sustainability of the local economy?
What is even more generally accepted is that amphetamine production is dramatically
increasing. According to a UNODC report in 2002 seizures of amphetamine tablets
rose more than 6-fold between 1996-2001, from 5 million to 34.2 million.2 This
shift towards amphetamine production will only create further problems. It immediately
eliminates some very seeable players of the opium production trade: the poppy
farmer, the versatile weather conditions needed to grow poppy, and the highly
visible poppy fields. On the contraire amphetamine refineries are usually mobile
and small, easy to move at the slightest warning of unwanted visitors. They
can produce substantial amounts of pills throughout the entire year, and they
are apparently flooding the Thai market with unprecedented speed.
A recent S.H.A.N. report places 93 refineries in Shan State alone, there are
also reports of refineries in Karen state. That this industry is escalating
is in little doubt. Those trying to eradicate drug production in Burma are now
faced with the danger of amphetamines merely replacing poppy in production levels
and thus maintaining Burma’s status as a major drug producer with all
its troublesome side effects.
The production of both opium and amphetamines in Burma is largely directed at
consumers in third countries, with only a small amount for internal consumption.
The need for it to be trafficked across international borders requires a level
of complicit cooperation and corruption between neighbouring country officials
as well as high level officials in the host country. The main trafficking route
in most recent times has been through neighbouring Thailand and then on to Malaysia
and Singapore. This supposedly remains the dominant route for amphetamine trafficking.
The trafficking of opium has changed somewhat, especially since the downfall
of Khun Sa and the increased efforts by successive Thai governments to eradicate
its reputation as a major transit country for heroin trafficking. The UNODC
now estimates that over 60% of heroin is trafficked through China and distributed
through networks in Taiwan and Hong Kong.
Thailand’s recent “War on Drugs” which saw traditional trafficking
routes temporarily halted because of increased surveillance and harsh penalties,
only managed to redirect the drugs through other routes, most notably Laos and
even India. It is an obvious lesson in the “push down pop up phenomenon”.
Push down in one direction and it will merely pop up in another. While Thailand
had supposedly solved its drug problem, in reality it had merely pushed it off
on to someone else. The simple lesson learn’t here is that drug traffickers
will always find alternative routes while there are complicent players willing
to participate in this corrupt and highly lucrative business.
That there is space for multiple types of drug production in Burma and that
trafficking routes remain open, indicates there are some fundamental conditions
that allow Burma’s drug trade to continue.
So what characteristics make Burma a country that is conducive to both drug
production and drug trafficking?
The role of the governing power.
Why isn’t America a major drug producer, or Australia and Italy for that
matter? Instead they are some of the biggest consumers, but they are not producers.
Why are countries like Burma, Colombia and Afghanistan some of the biggest drug
producers in the world? What conditions exist in these countries (excluding
elements beyond human control such as weather conditions) which allow a high-level
of drug production and trafficking to occur?
Firstly is the complicity of the governing power, usually a repressive military
regime or dictatorship whose governance is based on oppression of the majority
of the people and little space for criticism.
Secondly is the existence of a corrupt system of governance at all levels. In
Burma, drug trafficking sees extraordinary levels of corruption at the local
level where officials accept bribes for their role in the process and who make
tidy profits from illegal taxation. There is also corruption within the cross-border
trafficking process and undeniably at higher levels of the government, whose
compliance is necessary for such a high level of trafficking to prosper.
Thirdly is a weak economy which encourages participation from poor farmers in
the growing of opium. A 1999 survey carried out by UNDCP found that most farmers
were involved in opium production to obtain food security or to off-set poverty.
They stated that they turned to opium production because of rice shortages.
While the Burmese government does little to rejuvenate or develop an economy
based on legal trade, the poppy farmers will continue to turn to poppy cultivation
as a means of income that their government is not providing them. A weak economy
also allows drug money generated income which is then invested into legitimate
businesses and infrastructure. Drug money investment is therefore used to sustain
an economy that is unable to be sustained by legitimate investment. This can
only be seen as indicative of the SPDC’s inability to develop a sustainable
economy based on good governance and legitimate trade and investment.
Fourthly is the lack of, or weak, infrastructure in the policing and judicial
systems that would normally combat illegal activity such as drug trafficking.
The judiciary is prone to corruption, and either fails to implement laws or
has no sufficient laws to begin with. In the border areas where both drug production
and trafficking is most prominent, judicial and policing procedures are under
the control of the military which lacks both accountability and transparency.
Burma did pass money laundering legislation in 2002 but currently there has
been no influential figures prosecuted under this law and the law is not retroactive.
It is nevertheless a sign of Burma’s attempts to address the weakness
of their judicial and policing systems.
And lastly is the existence of civil unrest, especially the presence of armed
opposition groups. This creates and unstable environment, economically, socially
and politically, which is conducive to illegal activity. It has also created
a convenient scapegoat of blame for the SPDC, although there is little evidence
that those armed groups opposing the central SPDC power are involved in the
drug trade. In fact the most notable players in the drug trade are linked to
the SPDC through cease-fire agreements.
The drug industry remains a complex business. In Burma, its continued existence
is fundamentally ingrained in its infrastructure. There are conditions that
allow drug production and trafficking to prosper and it these conditions that
will need attention if Burma is serious about eradicating drugs.
(Endnotes)
1 Show Business, Rangoon’s “War on Drugs” in Shan State, S.H.A.N.
December 2003.
2 Strategic Programme Framework: UN Drug Control Activities in Myanmar, UNODC,
October 2002