Episode #193: Narcos: Myanmar
“I would encourage everybody looking at Myanmar’s drug trade, to try to see it as a trade, as a commodity,” Patrick Winn explains. “Try and look at it for what it is: a way to achieve power, a way to manipulate borders, a critical ingredient in how Myanmar’s future will unfold. Think of it as a commodity, just like oil has shaped the fate of Saudi Arabia. You should look at the mountains of Myanmar as a place where narcotics affect it. And in the future, if there is a new democratic government controlling Myanmar, it will then have a say in whether it wants to see Myanmar continue to be a place that produces vast quantities of narcotics for the entire region. Or, if that future government wants to wipe out the narcotics trade, it will have a very big task ahead of it. I just hope that people can see this for what it is and not see it in this as a as a morality play.”
Winn, a journalist and non-fiction storyteller, first visited Southeast Asia in 2008, landing in Bangkok, and was immediately fascinated by the region. His curiosity led him to write about some of the more unusual stories he came across, which ultimately led to Hello, Shadowlands, a book exploring organized crime and illicit activity across Thailand, North Korea, Vietnam, and the Philippines. His latest book, Narcotopia, due out early in 2024, continues his exploration into the history of the dangerous but lucrative Southeast Asia drug trade.
Out of all the countries he has visited and researched for his books, it is Myanmar that has a special hold on him. “I don't really look at Myanmar as a single country. I look at it as a collection of nations,” he describes. “It's really a collection of groups that have, many times, fought for their own independence to preserve their own way of life. It has even more depth and richness than any other Southeast Asian country, and for my money, any other country in the world.”
Winn’s work brings a more nuanced understanding than one typically finds when exploring the motives driving the Southeast Asian underworld’s criminal activity. “I try not to ever view the world as through the lens of good and evil,” he says, which informs his quote above about viewing Myanmar’s narcotic trade as a commodity like any other, rather than through a moral lens. “This is a giant industry that shapes people's lives. It shapes how they make money, even if you're not involved in the narcotics trade… The money is so big that it is on the level of Fortune 500 companies in any corporate environment! You have people who are absolute sharks that are absolutely ruthless, that will leave bodies in their path if it helps them make more money.”
In tracing the history of what became known as the “Golden Triangle,” Winn describes how Chinese nationalists (the Kuomintang or KMT) staged incursions from Shan state and elsewhere in northern Burma into Communist China following World War II. As it became increasingly obvious that they were never going to overthrow Mao, the KMT broke up. Some fled to Taiwan, but others stayed in Burma, where they began to cultivate opium and produce heroin. This was the height of the Cold War, and the CIA secretly began supporting their drug trafficking ventures in the hope those Chinese exiles could still find a way to undermine their Communist foes across the border. “Drugs are power. If you have drugs, you have access to power, and you have tremendous finances. You can change borders, you can rally fighters, you can destabilize countries, you can start your own country!” But Winn then wryly notes one of those ironic twists of history: Thanks to the CIA’s support of the KMT, American soldiers in Vietnam “got a taste of Golden Triangle heroin, much of it produced in Myanmar,” he says. “It's very pure, it's a very intense high. They went back to the United States and brought [back] with them this desire to continue using that product!” And as a result, America’s drug problem reached new lows.
This led to the Nixon and then Reagan administrations ramping up the so-called “War on Drugs,” and prioritizing the eradication of drug production centers worldwide. In the case of Burma, this meant going after the very cartels that had grown so strong in large part because of the money the US had funneled their way several decades prior! So even while American diplomats were barely talking to the Burmese junta at the time because of its egregious human rights violations, they did agree to work together on drug eradication. (And sadly, in yet another example of historical irony, this iteration of America’s misguided attempts to control events in that far away land also backfired, as not only did they not stop the drug trade, but the Burmese military later re-used the military equipment the US supplied them to instill terror among the country’s ethnic populations.)
This contrast in policy objectives really came to the surface following the military’s crackdown in 1988. Winn describes a bitter internal feud that played out between the State Department and the DEA. While State wanted less involvement with a regime filled with “thugs and goons”, the DEA pointed out that Burmese heroin was still flooding American cities. “‘We have to hold our noses and deal with Myanmar's regime, and go out with their police and troops and arrest traffickers the same way that we do in Mexico, so we should be in there kicking down doors,’” Winn says, parroting the DEA response. “‘We're going to have to have a relationship with this awful regime if we want to get heroin off the streets [in the US],’ which in their view mattered more to everyday Americans than waving the democracy flag in Burma, a country that, let's face it, most Americans can't locate on a map!”
The free flow of narcotics also proved to be a major, destabilizing factor in the Burmese military’s attempt to subdue its population. Unable to limit the drug flow, they instead tried to control it, by offering to look the other way so long as the group (known as a KKY, or Ka Kwe Ye) agreed in principle that it was occupying land on behalf of the military, and would do their bidding when called upon. “Essentially, it was a license to engage in crime, namely drug trafficking,” Winn explains. “The military and the Burmese police are not going to come after you. You do your thing: you traffic drugs, you produce drugs, you do whatever you need to do, you just need to hold down this territory… really the thinking is not all that different than what the CIA did.” This resulted in endemic corruption throughout the military; regional commanders “fortunate” enough to be posted around the Golden Triangle provided protection from the traffickers while ensuring the smooth transportation of their drug shipments, and in turn greatly enriched themselves in the process, while also beginning to view the areas they administered as their own, personal fiefdoms. This is a major reason why the NLD administration was unable to make any inroads in stopping the drug trade during their time in office.
More recently, many Golden Triangle drug barons have switched to producing methamphetamines (as Winn reminds us, those same narcotics made famous in Breaking Bad). “It’s so much easier,” Winn explains. “You get barrels of chemicals from China, you bring those barrels to your meth lab, you refine them into methamphetamine, [and] you're done! That is so much more efficient than having to worry about farmers, and weather, and law enforcement.”
Today, the Burmese meth trade is estimated at $60 billion, while Burmese heroin nets “only” $10 billion. And those old KMT rebels and exiles have now given way to Chinese organized crime groups, in what Winn calls a “landlord model” of drug cultivation. He describes how ethnic armed groups will “rent” the land to set up vast methamphetamine labs, in return for receiving a share of the profits, all the while distancing themselves from the actual drug production process. The drugs produced in these labs are then passed through a network of smuggling groups, each with specific expertise, ultimately increasing the price of the narcotics at each stage until they reach their destination. However, in yet another ironic twist, Winn observes that the one place the drugs produced by Chinese crime cartels in northern Myanmar certainly don’t reach in large quantities is: China! Very severe penalties and swift justice are visited on anyone found with drugs in their position there.
And yet despite the increased trade, the West now pays little attention to the Golden Triangle’s flourishing drug trade. “That's astounding and I'm just constantly shocked that it doesn't get more attention,” Winn notes. In his estimation, this is because unlike in previous eras, narcotics from this region seldom reach the US, since local demand has skyrocketed. “In this day and age, there's enough wealth in Asia to support its own narcotics market,” he explains.
Since the coup, drug production and trafficking has only increased, although Winn is unable to confirm exact numbers. He notes that while he has not seen any reports that NUG-aligned PDF units are getting involved in drug trafficking or production, he wouldn’t be surprised if at some point they at least consider taxing products passing through areas they control as a way to support their continued resistance efforts. If so, it would be a case of history repeating itself, as another ideologically-driven armed group turns to narcotics to keep its revolution alive in Myanmar.
The cheap availability of narcotics is proving to be especially detrimental to local populations. For example, Winn notes how an entire generation of Kachin youth have become addicts, leaving some to suspect the Burmese military is intentionally flooding the area with drugs to gut their community, not unlike accusations in the 1980s that that the CIA was behind the crack cocaine epidemic decimating African American neighborhoods. In response, Kachin vigilante groups have sprung up, known as Pat Jasan, which essentially abduct suspected drug users and force them into faith-based, austere detox programs, with threats of violence if they don’t reform. “This was just country Baptist justice, is what I'd call it. I'm from the South, and that's what it looked like to me. They felt like they had no other option, because they believe they are under the boot of this military imposed system that was unrelenting, and just gleeful to see their people lapse into addiction, instead of going out and picking up a rifle and resisting.”
Winn also addresses the critical issue of Wa State and their sizeable United Wa State Army (UWSA), a very important actor in this unfolding drama. He says that “essentially [it is] a another country inside Myanmar, that isn't talked about very much… A big funder of this de facto nation is narcotics, taxing narcotics produced on their soil by outside criminal groups. Look, it works! Drugs are power, I don't know how else to put it.” He explains specifically where the Wa fit into the current conflict. “One way that they might be able to play a role is that the Wa have weapons that the revolution, the pro-democracy forces need badly!” However, like many ethnic minorities, much of Wa leadership has viewed the current state of affairs as little more than lowlander Bamar groups engaged—yet again— in their own conflict. In addition, after enduring decades of racist policies, the Wa have little motivation to participate with other ethnic minorities against the Tatmadaw, particularly if they think that such actions might destabilize their region—especially as they are fully capable of defending their land. Further complicating matters is the close relationship that Chinese officials enjoy with the Wa; ie, they may need Beijing’s approval, or at least blessing, to undertake any major initiative.
Still, in spite of the uncertainty surrounding the Wa, Winn believes that there has been more solidarity among different groups since the coup than ever before. “The real revolution that's already happening, is the beginning of this feeling of unity between the lowlands and the highlands,” he says. “And if that if that doesn't work, then the revolution won't succeed.”