The Akha Hill Tribe people are caught in the center of the Drug War in the Golden Triangle. Neglected and ignored, some 300 Akha villages line the border with Burma, an extremely odd victim of the war on drugs. Neither the DEA or US AID has any time for these people, though both heroin and speed pass through their villages on the way into Thailand. No poverty allieviation efforts can be found. Neither Agency shows any awareness of these people, nor do they have any funds available for things as simple as clean water. Caught on the border, the Akha can hardly have much say in what flows through the border areas or not, neither have they much reason to be concerned. Few look out for them, and the Thai Forestry Department is busy taking the little rice lands they do have.

Some ten years ago while the US was imposing its mandate to stop opium cultivation in Thailand, the US Embassy said nothing while Akha villages were forced to relocate. The hardship which was imposed under a "crop substitution program" was of no concern and the substitution program was a lie. It was a poverty substitution program. A consistent income of even a dollar a day is unheard of in this region.

The Thai Forestry Department is taking as much land as they can from the Akha to plant into pine tree plantations and other tree farms. It is not presently known who else is invovled in these pine projects. While the Thai Forestry Department works with Petroleum Authority of Thailand to do this, Mechai who is an oil company board member, also runs PDA, Population Development Association, in Thailand, which pretends to help the Akha on the back side of the knife cut. Now PDA and PTT joint project signs can be seen near the villages, a marriage made in hell.

Naturally the result of the massive farm land theft is incredible Akha food poverty, making meth pill trading one of the only viable alternatives. Interestingly enough, a huge prison, fincanced by the same oil/forestry interests, was built to address this problem in Chiangrai.

The government-approved missions are attempting to dominate every Akha village. They believe that the Akha must see the world as Western Christians do and abandon their own culture. The missions have worked long and hard in Thailand to villify the indigenous cultures with propaganda which usually focuses on the most likely to be misunderstood areas of that culture.

Akha villages do not convert wholly to being Christian. They have no reason to. So what the missions do is find one person in the village who they can bribe with money and favors to become Christian and then further bribe that person for each additional family he pulls along. This situation can be readily identified in the villages where there is a church and the pastor has a much nicer house than the rest of the villagers. Discussions with the villagers will lead to the fact that the pastor gets paid but also taxes the villagers, while they are forbidden to practice their culture. Akha traditional villages have no problem allowing a few Christian families in their villages, but pastors who can gain control of most of the families of a village will not allow a few families to remain traditional. The missions preach endlessly against Akha culture as itself evil.

As well, in violation of the 5th article on Genocide, they remove young people to low land boarding schools and in particular young girls, so that they can have control over who they marry and their children. It is very common to see non Akha pastors married to Akha women so that they can gain some control in
the villages as well. The Akha children who are removed seldom return to their culture or village and they are told that in order to receive the benefits of the boarding school they must be Christian. As well, parents do not understand the familial and cultural alienation that is intended on the part of the missions.

The behaviour of the missions shows that the missions, which put very little money into health, water or jobs in the villages, really just want to dominate and control the villages and tax them. The villages are used as means of drawing more money for the central mission from donors overseas. Setting up new boarding schools is a very easy project to get naive parishoners to finance, and brings in a large budget. Large numbers of captive villagers and villages means increased budget. Of course, with sufficient time it also means that all these people can be taxed by the church, the first tax they will ever experience.

The connections between American missions and the CIA are very clear. Both Paul W. Lewis and Gordon Young were/are employees of the CIA. Paul W. Lewis was a long time American Baptist Missionary working with the Lahu and Akha in Burma and Thailand. He was thrown out of Burma for his connections to the CIA. As well, he was known for his sterilization program on Akha women that he defends to this day. Many of these women died or were abandoned.

Hypocritically Paul W. Lewis did all he could to collect Akha artifacts and portray himself as a sympathetic anthropologist, while the CIA was doing a huge heroin business in the Burma neighborhood. At the same time Paul W. Lewis was totally exterminating the culture in every Akha village that he tried to convert. To this day Paul W. Lewis is bitterly disliked by many Akha leaders who are trying to liberate their people from the mission domination seen in South East Asia since before the Vietnam War. Bill Young is the son of Gordon Young, a missionary in Burma also who did his best to portray a dim view of the Akha. Bill Young continues to work for the CIA and reside in Chiangmai.

The hypocrisy of it all is not lost on the Akha. In the past they were punished for not growing their quota of opium and even now the Akha in Burma have little alternative but to grow opium or gather the wood for the heroin pots. Burma oddly remains closed, and the hilltribe remains enslaved to a trade that makes billions of dollars for western profiteers who sell it on western streets. Add to this speed pills and all the drug-processing chemicals, which also come from the west. The chemicals flow through the Akha villages one way, the drugs the other, but the Akha see little of the money over which they have no control. The Akha are ignored while immense sums are spent on the drug war, begging the question of what kind of war this really is.

Matthew McDaniel has been helping to organize the Akha villages into a coherent economic and political unit capable of ensuring the survival of this threatened culture. Donations by check or money order may be sent to:

The Akha Heritage Foundation
PO BOX 6073
Salem OR 97304 USA

Matt writes:

“I came to Thailand for business in 1989 from Salem, Oregon USA and have been working with the Akha Hilltribe from Maesai, Chiangrai since 1991. I immediately noticed the incredible poverty and neglect the Akha faced and how they were made easy scapegoats.

I also noticed how opium was a factor in the villages and how many rich Chinese families in Maesai were very familiar with the Akha regarding opium but not regarding their poverty. Obviously there had been many years of fast business, before the Akha were abandoned in the changing winds of time.

Because my resources were limited I focused on first aid medicine particularly to mothers and infants who were in the greatest need. I now deliver some level of first aid service to 250 of the 300 Akha villages in Thailand. I do this with a fragmented and beat toyota four wheel drive pickup as I can find fuel money and money to buy meds and vitamins.

I then began working on building clean wells in villages but the cost of a carefully sealed well is rather expensive and finding investors difficult. However clean water makes a big difference in village health. Villages originally had clean water but forced relocations left them with dirty sump holes at their low land locations. These Villages require cement wells.

As a means of assisting the Akha to defend themselves and their culture while under rabid attack by all the mainline American and American backed missions, I began working on developing Akha literature. This work is ongoing. We currently seek money for a printing press.

I also battle the different organizations in Thailand regarding their disregard of Akha medical needs, and their policy of forced village relocations. The result of a forced village relocation is an immediate drop in nutrition, increase in stress and rapid increase in infant death.

I am supported only by the small donations of friends and, having been in Thailand for ten years, I live in a rather isolated location where I have little contact with the outside-capable world. My incredible work load in the villages prevents me from investing a lot of time in grant writing or persuing people for donations.

I also hope to find some resources to help Akha who have become imprisoned for drug related offenses. Often when their land is taken and they have no food for their families they turn to selling pills to support themselves. And Thailand is hardly a poor country. Currently Akha who are arrested on drug charges have no legal representation.

Our current needs are funds for first aid meds, vitamins, wells, and fuel. We also seek a donated humvee, or hummer without engine that we can rebuild into an off road ambulance for our uses here.”

Kalyx strongly supports this heroic frontline effort. By arrangement with Matt McDaniel, credit card donations made here, in any dollar amount desired, will be forwarded to the Akha Foundation for Matt’s immediate use in building a sustainable independent economy for the Akha.

Matt will reply to you via email on receipt of your contribution. Matt can be emailed directly at akha@loxinfo.co.th