A recent report released by the United Nation Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has further exacerbated Myanmar’s contentious reputation on the international stage. It revealed that Myanmar is now the second largest opium producer in the world, second only to Afghanistan.

UNODC statistics confirm that poppy cultivation in the country increased from 21,500 hectares in 2006 to 27,700 hectares in 2007—an increase of 29 percent. UNODC staff attributed the sharp rise of the opium production in Myanmar to corruption, high-level collusion between state officials, and to weak border security, particularly on the Thai-Myanmar border.

In retrospect, Myanmar has long been associated with narcotic production, especially in the northeast of the country where various ethnic minorities, such as the Shans, the Was and the Kokangs, have direct control of production areas. In fact, the intensity of the drug trade in such areas gave its name to the world—the Golden Triangle. Today, in spite of fitful attempts by Thailand and Myanmar to wipe out poppy production, the Golden Triangle has even become a tourist attraction that draws thousands of visitors every year.

When the Myanmar government concluded ceasefire agreements with the majority of its ethnic minorities in the 1990s, many assumed that poppy cultivation would decline, with the state taking control of the poppy fields and instituting measures to find sustainable alternatives for the local people. However, what appeared to have taken place instead was a moment of epiphany, one that involved the junta realising that control of poppy production represented a golden opportunity to take over the business, in addition to other accruing other tangible advantanges.

In tandem, ethnic minorities were suspected of diverting profits from the drug trade to purchase arms from military officers particularly in areas where they were allowed to continue cultivation. For its part, the state saw partnerships with ethnic minorities to be of strategic interest - such as building up and positioning ethnic armies as a bulwark against Thailand.

Evidence of this and other pacts are well documented in anecdotes about Khun Sa, the leader of the Mong Tai Army (MTA) and the renowned ‘King of the Golden Triangle,’ who was the product of a good relationship between the Myanmar junta and ethnic druglords. In fact, it was well-known among diplomats in Yangon that after Khun Sa fell from grace in the mid-1990s, he was taken care of by the state, lived a lavish life and assumed a new role as a powerful businessman. This was quickly followed up by reports that suggested Khun Sa expended the capital gained from the nefarious drug trade to invest in various infrastructure projects in Yangon before he passed away in late October 2007.

But even when Khun Sa departed the narcotics scene in the remote part of Myanmar, new players emerged with the blessing of the junta. The United Wa State Army (UWSA), led by Wei Hsueh-kang, took control of the lucrative drug trade in the Wa-controlled area. Since then, Wei has not only outsourced drug production to other smaller ethnic groups, but he also led the effort to design a new type of drugs that were marketable, especially methamphetamines, which are known as yaa baa in Thai.

Today, drug cultivation and production have been normalised in Myanmar, a society where political fragmentation and a fragile economy remain the order of the day. The discovery of UNODC is therefore unsurprising amongst those who have monitored the evolution in the narcotic trade in Myanmar. But since the Myanmar junta has consistently denied involvement in the narcotic trade, and since proof of involvement has not been forthcoming, the question remains: who in the junta has their hands in this illicit trade?

A representative of the UNOCD Myanmar Office informed the attendees of a press conference a few months ago that he was unable to specify the rank of the government officials involved, and how they benefited from poppy cultivation and drug production. However, he indicated that local realities provided the conditions for the persistence of the narcotics trade. In concert, the same official noted that the ethnic minority-controlled areas had been unstable even with the ceasefire agreements in operation. Separately, economic hardship experienced by many army officers stationed in the border areas have compelled them to accept bribes from the druglords in exchange for a blind eye to illegal activity.

In Thailand, the harsh clampdown against drug traffickers during the Thaksin era did, to a certain extent, slow down the influx of yaa baa from Myanmar into the kingdom, in spite of the criticism the then Thai government faced for sanctioning the extra-judicial killing of drug suspects. Since the coup of September 2006 however, the relaxation of narcotics suppression in Thailand has contributed to the surge of narcotic cultivation and production in not only Myanmar, but Thailand as well. In fact, according to UNODC, poppy cultivation in Thailand also increased by 30 percent from 157 hectares in 2006 to 205 hectares in 2007.

The upswing in the production and consumption of narcotics in 2007 has undoubtedly undermined the progress of UNOCD in its drive to achieve a drug-free Southeast Asia. The key to drug eradication not only lies in national endeavour - which remains a tremendous challenge in the case of Myanmar where political reconciliation between major political and ethnic factions has not been successful - but  international cooperation as well.

Unfortunately, in the context of Thai-Myanmar relations, joint efforts on drug eradication are only evident on the surface. But in reality, such efforts have been retarded by a psychological barrier: both countries blame one another for misrepresenting the root cause of the drug trade, while at the same time insisting that drugs are a foreign problem. The externalisation of narcotics trade is a major reason that obstructs any possibility of a concerted attempt between officers from Myanmar and Thailand from genuinely cooperating to tackle the issue, let alone implementing any plan to do so.