March 5, 2001

The Southeast Asian Pocket War

By Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
March 5, 2001

Having lived in Maesia near the border for some ten years now and seen many a conflict at the border and the bridge and even a few Shan related shooting skirmishes, there was something increasingly odd about the latest conflict.

Back some 7 or 8 months before, an American military officer had told me that it wasn't his business but he knew for a fact that the US Military wanted into this area in the worst kind of a way.

Shortly thereafter Admiral Fargo of the Pacific command promised the Thais drug suppresion back up.

Immediately I began seeing increased incidents along the border within the villages of the Akha Hill Tribe people whom I work with. There was an immediate increase in the number of humvee vehicles in the area and military involvement on road blocks and road patrols.

On several occasions I saw Scorpion Tanks being moved at night into the region.

I anticipated the militarization of the region under the guise of the drug war.

I was told that the Cobra Gold excercise for 2001 would be a drug interdiction excercise in Chiangrai Province.

Immediately after his election Thaksin called for a tough stance on the border drug problems. And then immediately following that we had the mortar incident here in Maesai. It is not clear how the incident began and the Burmese friends of mine tell a very different story of the sequence as compared to the Thais. The Burmese feel the Shan tricked the entire incident and the Thai fell for it or were in on it.

At any rate, real or pretend, the visual justification was there for a conflict, numerous people were dead, and Maesai became fully militarized.

But even for such a miscalculated accident if that is what it had been, the Maesai incident continued to unfold as a much more serious event than what it might appear on the surface.

The quantity of military hardware increased along the border, what could be seen easily. The number of humvees, unimogs, and army camps set up along the highway to maesai began to grow and grow. This was more than a response to a few mortars.

But that was little indication compared to what was going on in the villages of the Akha where I work. Scores of humvees, lots of new army coming in who didn't have a clue about the area and were asking the Akha villagers where the border was, where the Wa and Burmese were dug in and when shots fired had last been heard?

Rice terraces began to support netting that concealed heavy artillery that could lob well over the villages and onto the Burma side. Mortars were dug in below the villages tossing mortars half the night over the village sometimes onto the Burma side up on the hill.

Further back from these villages we documented more than 135 trucks with armour moving into the forest behind the village. Full size tanks and track mounted artillery. Sometimes they came out in plain view of the village raising their large gun barrels skyward in targeting practice.

But the military equipment, the Shan actions and the continual flow and fortification of military equipment promised something deeper. Even the Akha commented that America had moved big guns south of Chiangrai to be close by in case the Thais took a loosing hand at things in the mountains.

Certainly one most vulnerable pocket where I had often worked the fields and ridges with the Akha could be cut in a moment. I wondered if it would be a sacrificial lamb? I could not see nearly enough troops to hold back a Wa and Burmese plunge off the facing ridges.

For a long time it had been known that the Chinese had wanted a corridor to Rangoon and the Indian Ocean for a port via Burma. It was speculated that their close ties with and in the Wa ranks would facilitate this. Mass movements of Wa villagers from the north of Shan state to populate along this corridor followed the logic.

But now a new logic appeared. India and Bangledesh joined the protest against Burma, and certainly Indian felt the China threat. China was busy grabbing off much of Shan state and on inspection I found that they had built every stone bridge from Monglar on the border with China to Tachilek at Maesai and the road should have been finished this year that far. But the bridges were done, I saw them all on one trip in November.

So now the final question was, were the Shan playing a pliable drug enforcement role with Thai help as a cover for an American blocking movement on Chinese ambitions that might destabilize the entire region?

Maybe the American One China policy had gone too far?

Whatever the case, drugs could safely continue to be produced in Burma as long as there were not good flowing roads and viable alternatives to the slave like labor the poor mountain people had the only option to provide in the cultivation of opium and production of heroin as well as the safe harbor for methamphetamine labs.

On the Thai side, the severe neglect the Akha villages faced, with no poverty alliviation aid, was blatant testimony to just how fake of a drug war this was, and the free flow of drugs through the willing and unwilling ranks of the some 300 Akha border villages was decimating the Akha community both from drug use and from the violent internal friction it was causing among the people both sellers, users and resistant bystanders.

Not to worry, a large new prison waited in Chiangrai for all the unlucky males.

With drugs, prostitution, forestry taking the land, new Thai settlers moving in and every flavor of wannabee missionary there was hazard enough to be overwhelming for the Akha people. A people who can not remember a time when their villages weren't being burned, their lands taken and themselves as a people being forced to move on.

Only this time there is no where left to go that was not a dead end.

March 14, 2001

By Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand
March 14, 2001

The fish well moves down. We are below 8 meters and still digging. We have had to delay for rain which made us wet and cold and lots of mud.

We will also have to rig a pump suitable for evacuating the water from this greater depth.

At any rate, when finished, we will have an enormous supply of water for both the fish and the village huts vegetable use.

During the two months that the truck was being repaired, the Taiwanese missionaries once again attacked Mae Chan Luang village, most intensely it would appear.

The first pastor Boh Tah was now backed up by a second pastor Cheeh Urh. Working through a number of opium smokers in the village and once again without the permission and with the objection of the headman, they once again caused dissention in the village.

The Taiwanese mission from Maesai at the Maesai Baptist Church backed them with help from the Taiwan mission at Huai Krai and Chiangrai. They worked through their project at Louw Fu on the Mae Chan to Tatong Hwy near the Dawn Project run by the Chinese, a fundamentalist project that operates disguised as a drug rehab center on land donated by no other than their friend Drug Lord Khun Sa. That is why they have his big painting on the wall amid so many crosses.

At any rate, they raised sufficient ruckus that the headman insisted that if they wanted to split the village, they could not reside in the village, so already a couple houses have rebuilt down the hill below the village.

The missionaries will not leave alone one village and a split village is better than nothing they figure.

The government of Thailand allows this process and interference in the villages.

I visited this village in the rain last night. It is a long drive and a bad road.

The missions are very powerful here to impose this on the village in spite of the headman insisting that they should not be allowed to tear his village apart.

Attu is the troublemaker in the village, an opium adict and violator of other village rules. He was promised by the mission that he would be paid, that he would become the new leader of the village if he helped an overthrow. He is backed by Cheeh Urh who is from the segment of Keeh Seh Thai village on the Mae Chan Hwy where the Chinese Taiwan people have a strong hold.

Why does Taiwan have so much clout over the hilltribe in Thailand?

Why does the government allow this?

I say China could do us all a favor by overunning the place. Would sure put an end to this dictator's religion they are pushing on the hilltribe villages against the will of the majority.

The border war is in a stalemate. The bridge was going to open in word only, was a big hoopla, but no opening of course.

Not many of us would dare cross anyway, after Burma got its nose twisted and lost so many troops.

A hostage situation in the making?

Meanwhile troops continue to build up with equipment along the border and border village areas.

One soldier was sleeping in a hut next to mine when I went up on the hill, and hundreds of troops were moved up the day before I got there, the villagers paid to haul munitions and food for them, since it is very steep and the soldiers were not at all accustomed to it. They got paid handsomely so did not mind.

Course the army might just fix the road and drive up.

You can protest the Taiwan Missionary interference in the Akha villages by contacting your Thai embassy.

You must ask about their splitting of Mae Chan Luang Village in Mae Faluang District behind Doi Mae Salong.

The headman's name is Ah Bauh.

The Taiwanese who split it where from the following churches.

Maesai Baptist, Maesai, Chiangrai, Thailand Huai Krai Mission, Huai Krai, Chiangrai, Thailand Huai krai Emanuel Fellowship, Huai Krai, Thailand. One church in Chiangrai for which I do not yet have a name.

The mission operators of these missions are both Chinese, Taiwanese Chinese and American Citizens.

All these missions, as with most missions in Thailand, are supported by donations from american evangelical mission organizations and church members.

While the Akha do not have any tall standing stone Buddas, the missionaries in Thailand are no less tolerant in destroying their culture and traditions than the Talaban.

Please protest surely by contacting the Thai embassy closest to you. Ask that they contact the Ampour's office of Mae Faluang in Chiangrai Province and find out what is going on. Why are foreign nationals given the power to split villages in Thailand? Please ask them that and insist on an answer.

Matthew McDaniel
Maesai, Thailand

March 20, 2001

Dear Friends:

Today we pumped water into the fish test tanks. It has taken a very long time.

More than a year ago a group from Singapore helped lay the slab for the first set of test fish tanks. We didn't have a water supply yet and needed a well and pumps. The tanks got built and slowly filled with rain water.

Last summer I put small catfish in them which grew, breeded and then the water got thick enough till you could walk on it.

Then I got some hyacinth started, and that began to clean and cool the water. This helped a lot and provided a protective cover and compost because the water hyacinth grew incredibly fast as it is known to do.

Finally we got funding for pumps and well digging and we have been working on that for over a month now, interupted by rains that seemed out of season.

Last few days after many obstacles I got the dredge pump working and pumping and we began pumping water from eight meters to make more room for the workers, as we are going to twenty five meters at least. The well is more than five meters across.

The well will need to have a volume of water sufficient to feed a resevoir tank which can keep up with a maximum of 90 fish tanks and the vegetable watering needs of the host village during the dry season since they have no water supply for use around their huts in an otherwise fertile area. This is a relocated village. Digging will last at least for another twenty days. Finally the hole will be covered and the final piping installed to the test tanks. A drain and cleanout system for those is being installed now. There are five test tanks. If all goes well we will be adding to these for a supply of fish for the Akha mountain villages plus a few for sale locally, which the host village will manage for an income for their families.

****** Two videos will be available on the video page in a day or two, Akha.org is back up.

http://www.akha.org/akha_video.htm

The videos are on a serious nature. One is about the forced relocation of Joh Hoh Akha village near Phrao in Chiangmai Province. The Joh Hoh Akha video in particular is long, because it has much to tell. It is narrated. Download accordingly.

We were not informed about this village relocation until the situation had already become a mess. Joh Hoh Akha lives in a beautiful area.

The second video is about the Maesai war and all the equipment in town.

Troops borrowed my downstairs for three days and just moved out today. Not sure what about, the bridge does not reopen, but things at the border still touchy. Thai Airforce jets now making visits to the border area here.

Nothing visible on the Burma side, hardly anyone moves at all. *****

We will also be seeing the web site related to the "Drug War" [this site] and how it effects the lives of the Akha continue to grow. There is much good reading there, books about the history of drug production in this region and they hypocrisies involved. You may be surprised at what you find. *****

The military buildup in the region continues, showing there is not a shortage of money, humvees running about everywhere, yet no likelihood that simple concepts of poverty reduction in the villages and respect of the need for rice farming land will be recognized or applied soon.

For these are very important regional security issues for everyone of these villages.

Bunkers in the ground with sandbags would suggest the military problems here are not over.

We encourage you to contact your near Thai embassy about assurances that PTT (petroleum authority of Thailand) does not continue to plant pine and that the Akha people will be allowed to continue farming rice, while a spirit of forestry cooperation rather than mandate is built.

Matthew McDaniel
Thailand

March 28, 2001

Dear Friends:

Although we are not finished digging the well, we are now evacuating water daily which has filled the fish test tanks.

Digging on days that it doesn't rain, we are making about half a meter each day.

Ten more meters to go on what is already a big hole.

Now, the paid workers who work on this project from the host village were not very enthusiastic about it, other than the pay, I mean, that had to be super secure for them, cause if they work for me without pay, they don't eat, since they get their food money day to day as a relocated village.

But something changed yesterday. When I went down to the village I detected an immediate difference in spirit. Wasn't sure why. But then I saw that they were already using evactuation water for irrigation near to the well and that the tanks were full. Full of water. Already fish and more to buy.

Suddenly the dream, the talk, the concrete test tanks, and the fish were a real thing that had materialized and happened with a viable water supply. It was real. And so often the case here is that nothing for the people to benefit from is real.

This fish tank project is a large project. We will be building up to 19 more sets of these tanks like the test tanks. The well will supply water for all of these tanks, and the fish will serve as collective village income plus protein supply for mountain villages plus a brooding stock for mountain villages which want to invest in their own tanks as well.

Matthew McDaniel
Thailand