Transcript: Episode #193: Narcos: Myanmar
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Host 0:19
Before we start today's interview, please allow me a word or two about our podcast. Even as Myanmar plunges into a civil war because of the military's bloody coup, the international community and media organizations have all but turned their backs on the country and its people. But this humble platform is committed to staying the course. We conduct nuanced long form interviews with a variety of guests connected to Myanmar, so our listeners can better understand the ongoing crisis. Thank you for choosing to spend the next couple of hours with us today.
Host 2:00
I'm joined today on this episode of insight Myanmar podcast with Patrick Wynn, who is the author of the book Hello Shadowlands and has been living investigating reporting writing on Southeast Asia and Myanmar for some time. He's going to talk with us about the book as well as recent post coup developments. So Patrick, thanks so much for taking the time to chat with us.
Patrick Winn 2:23
Joah thanks so much for having me on. Great. So
Host 2:26
you start off your book by noting that Southeast Asia is, quote, a haven for the compulsively curious and quote, this resonated so much to readers including the former ambassador to Myanmar US Ambassador Scott Marcial, that he began his own book, imperfect partners by quoting this same line to describe his own 35 years in the region. So it's certainly a line that resonates with a lot of people reading it, it resonated with me as well. But I want to because you're the creator of this line. I want to ask you the same question. I asked Scott Marcial when I had him on here, and that's to unpack the meaning of this phrase.
Patrick Winn 3:03
For me, at least I came to Southeast Asia in 2008. Moving to Bangkok, I was immediately enthralled. I'm just a very naturally curious person. Curiosity is the trait and others that I find the most attractive and appealing. I can look I came into Bangkok. I'm sure if you grow up in Bangkok, and have always experienced that as your natural environment, it's maybe not that special. But for me, I was immediately enthralled. And once I first I set my sights on understanding Thailand learning the language. And from there I discovered Thailand's neighbor Myanmar and realized oh wait, this is actually an even more fascinating place. Myanmar. I hope people take this the right way. I don't really look at Myanmar as a single country. I look at it as a collection of nations every Burmese kid growing up learns about the the the ethnic races and Myanmar Bomar Chin Chin, Corinne Shan corny Rakhine who did that live out? Leave out Mon. Okay, so this the country of Myanmar is even more interesting because it's really a collection of of nations of people that have groups that have many times fought for their own independence to preserve their own way of life. It has even more depth and richness, I think then, I would say than any other Southeast Asian country and for my money any other country in the world, but of course, I'm limited by my own experiences. So yeah, Myanmar, I would apply that same, same phrase, it is absolutely heaven for the curious and I would apply that you know, you could ask that same question of people who were born and raised in Myanmar, they're born and raised in a fascinating country. And I've found that certain people born in certain parts of Myanmar might not be all that familiar with what's happening, say, in the mountains over here or the coast over here. So it just has a lot of complexity, which I consider to be an attribute.
Host 5:19
Yeah, that's, that's really true. And, and I think on top of the complexity, you have the close nature of the country where there's many fields where many fields of study and of academia where when you're reading books, and people trying to study under understand this, sometimes they're referencing like 100 year old and 150 year old, like British colonial tax, because nothing has been done with whatever this area of study is since. And so it's really, it's a complex place, compounded by somewhat of a black hole and a large wall.
Patrick Winn 5:51
Yeah, I make no special claim to have figured out Myanmar. Let's not even my goal. I'm not trying to figure anything out, I just consider myself to be very fortunate that I've managed to meet people in Myanmar and been able to convey their stories in English. And that's pretty much all that I'm doing. I'm just been extremely lucky to get the access that I've gotten. And I've met some of my very favorite people on earth, in the country.
Host 6:22
So in your work as well, in general, you focus quite a bit on illicit activities, organized crime. And in the introduction to your book, hello Shadowlands, you reference how you're not trying to seek out deranged personalities or greedy True Crime tales. But you're actually looking for people that are well meaning logic driven. Individuals who are choosing to live outside the law, sometimes based on the context of the societies they find themselves in. Could you explain more of the distinction and elaborate on what specifically fascinates you about this aspect of organized crime and the people who live in that world?
Patrick Winn 7:00
Sure, yeah, that's true, I don't. I try really hard not to ever view the world as through the lens of good and evil. And that really informs my reporting if there's any sort of creed that I observe when reporting it's that so I cover the the narcotics trade centered and Myanmar, the way other reporters for Bloomberg or Wall Street Journal might cover oil or might cover natural gas or might cover other aspects of the economy. It's a commodity. However, it's one of the very few commodities that morality message is affixed to that I'm 42 years old I grew up in the US I grew up during Ronald Reagan and the war on drugs I'm from the just say, no generation it was it was crammed down our throats that to use drugs was evil. The people that sell drugs are evil, and those that fight them are fighting on behalf of justice and sounds very corny. So I'm Myanmar happens to be the heartland for narcotics production in in Asia, I was about to say Southeast Asia, but the the narcotics trade and Myanmar really the the numbers on Narcotic sales are never totally certain. But it's very possible, you can make a very strong case that it has eclipsed the narcotics trade in North America, which would be centered in Mexico. This is just a giant, giant industry that shapes people's lives, it shapes how they make money, even if you're not involved in the narcotics trade. It could be somebody in your in your district or your state and Myanmar that's has more power say then the local politicians referring to the pre coup days, so to ignore it, or to look at it through this good versus evil lens like Harry Potter fighting Voldemort, this is just very childish and naive way to look at it. There are people of all up and down the morality scale, that are involved in this people that get into it and take very good care of their families and go out of their way not to hurt people. And of course, in in any corporate environment, and the money is so big that it is on the level of fortune 500 companies in any corporate environment. You have people that are absolute sharks that are absolutely ruthless, that will leave bodies in their path if it helps them make more money. And yeah, just it's just too huge to ignore it just so people understand the figures that I'm talking about. It's estimated that just the meth trade alone centered in Myanmar, but but just reputed all throughout Southeast Asia and beyond, is valued at $60 billion. And now that's on par with the legal GDP, the legal economy of the country of Myanmar. That's astounding. And I am perennial. I'm just constantly shocked that it doesn't get more attention. I'm not even saying I'm the best person to cover it. I might not. But I'm gonna do my best.
Host 10:26
Yeah, that's That's fascinating. Then when you throw in illicit Jade, it's a whole other story of the illegal economy. But you know it also when you're when you're breaking down these divergences of personalities and characters, it reminds me of the chapter that I think it was, I'm trying to recall which book this was from. So hopefully I said it right. I believe it was from Jane Ferguson's book on Shan land. And she's now she's analyzing Khun SA. And basically breaking down this concept, of course, for those who don't know, was was quite a famous rebel leader and warlord and drug runner and many other things you could put after his name, but the basic divide and trying to understand him was Did he truly care about Sean independence and, and heritage and people? Or was he just did it for himself? And her analysis at the end of the chapter is, why does it have to be one or the other? Why can't both of these things be true and a complicated figure? And, and I think also, you know, over the years, following up on what you said about the attention this is getting and the size and the importance of it, there certainly has been quite a bit of mystique about the drug barons and regions like Mexico and Colombia, I'm not just talking about reporting, but also just in kind of the pop culture lore that Netflix television shows or the documentaries or, or whatever, there's both in terms of what's happening now in these regions, as well as historically in the last several decades, there's quite a bit of media coverage, as well as just the pop culture, kind of icons of, of of what these figures represent. And when you compare that to Myanmar, there's been extremely little both in the past as well as now I guess this kind of fits in somewhat to no matter what you're looking at Myanmar is just is not and has never been covered. To the extent that other places it's always been kind of a backburner. But looking at this topic, specifically, of the drug trade, the drug barons, the personalities, the not just the regional significance, but the global significance, in your opinion, why do you think there is this discrepancy in media attention? And do you think that there are specific specific factors or dynamics that would contribute to Myanmar's drug trade receiving relatively less press coverage?
Patrick Winn 12:32
Yes, so we have to divide it into two different eras. If you ask me right now, why is the Myanmar centered narcotics trade getting less attention. That's because the narcotics that are being produced in Myanmar are not making their way to the United States. That's just true. Primarily, the the engine of the narcotics trade in Southeast Asia is methamphetamine. And just very quickly, that sold in two different forms. One is crystal meth, the type of stuff you would have seen on Breaking Bad, you put it in a little glass bowl and smoke it or you can snort it if you want to lacerate your nostrils. And then there's a pink pill called Yabba. And in Myanmar, they call it Yama, which is actually a loan word from Thai means horse pills. We can go into the etymology of that later. But basically, it's a little pink pill, that is, methamphetamine mixed with caffeine and some other binding agents to make it into a pill, you can swallow it, you can smoke it, and often it smells like vanilla. So those are the two products. And that's what's being sold. Now. Those two products, and these are some of the this is some of the best selling criminal products in the world. And they just don't happen to make it to the United States. Because in this day and age, there's enough wealth in Asia to support its own narcotics market. But that wasn't always the case that you referenced Kuhn saw back in his day, back in the day of the previous for lack of a better word drug cartel that was dominant in the region. And that was also backed by the CIA. We'll go into that if you want to. Back in those days. You had to ship your product elsewhere, if you wanted to make any money, because most people in Southeast Asia did not have enough disposable income to sustain drug addiction. And I don't mean that there were no no people that were hooked on drugs. That would be ridiculous. But as a big, big market, it just wasn't there. Most people worked on farms, they didn't handle much cash and they didn't spend much time in cities and they couldn't afford a drug habit. And the drug that was being produced in that era was heroin. Now, they were poor. ducing that by and large for the United States market. In Vietnam, G eyes came over, got a taste of, of Golden Triangle heroin, much of it produced and Myanmar liked it, it's very pure, it's very intense high, and went back to the United States and brought with them this desire to continue using that product. And so because there weren't enough people in Southeast Asia to buy this heroin, the narcotics gangs centered and Myanmar had to ship it all the way to the United States 8000 9000 miles away. And yes, it was a giant pain in the ass. It was a giant logistics hurdle for them. But they, they made it work. If you go back to those days, there actually was a fair amount of intrigue about the Southeast Asian drug trade. When they shifted to methamphetamine in the 90s, that intrigue went away. And so, of course, you know, the global media is heavily influenced by what's happening in the United States. As much as they might like to the DEA can't make a case that Southeast Asian criminal groups are sustaining drug habits here in the United States. So it doesn't make the news as much. That's pretty much it. Even though even though the business the scale of it in Southeast Asia is bigger than ever.
Host 16:27
Wow, yeah, let's there's so much there. I think maybe it could be helpful to start at the beginning of that, or at least at where it really took off. And that is, as you reference the Golden Triangle and the Golden Triangle. This is almost a mythical name almost like Shangri La, or Timbuktu that people just hear about and sometimes wonder if it's like the others if it's a real place or exaggerate or whatnot. So you've reporting on this so much, can you demystify the Golden Triangle tell us about the geography, the population, the history of the region where this all kicked off from?
Patrick Winn 16:58
Sure people define the Golden Triangle in several different ways. I'll focus on how I define it. Think I would call the Golden Triangle a narcotics producing region. In the beginning producing opium in the mountains of Myanmar. Since this is a Myanmar focus podcast, everyone knows what Shan State is okay. So Shan State, and then kind of leaking into Thailand over here leaking into Laos over here and leaking into China over there. Really talk triangle implies three countries we're really talking about for China, Myanmar, the center of it, Thailand and Laos on the periphery. The mountains of Shan State are exquisite for growing opium, they just really are. This is opium grows really well in places that have a nice long cold spell. And it grows really well in places where the soil is very alkaline. In the most perfect opium growing region, which is the WA area of Shan State, the poppies are even more potent. So because the Burmese state has never had a really good grip on Shan state, it's never had been able to exert its authority over Shan State, no matter how much it tries. People in the mountains there produce opium. And in the 1950s and 1960s. That trade was dominated by Chinese exiles who came out of China they were against Mao ism. And when Mao Zedong took over China in 1949, he pushed a really dumbing down the history of it just to get through it. Sure, super, super encapsulated, pushed out, Chinese anti communist who were supported by the CIA, CIA encouraged them to do a Bay of Pigs style invasion of China to go back in and take it back from the communist failed miserably. They attempted this several times, always failed miserably. And that group of exiles decided to take the guns they had gotten from the CIA, some of the technological equipment they've gotten from the CIA, including radios, and refocus on trafficking, opium and heroin. So they are the originators of the Golden Triangle narcotics trade. This is the KMT Yes, so it's funny. They're often referred to as KMT or Kuomintang Kuomintang being during the Chinese Civil War. It was the Kuomintang sort of fascist ish regime supported by the US and Mao Zedong's calm communist forces Kuomintang last fled to Taiwan, where they had a dictatorship there for many years. And then they had some wings that couldn't make it to Taiwan because they were so far away. They were on the Burma side, China's very large, couldn't make it all the way to Taiwan, on the coast, and so they pushed into Burma. I've spoken to a lot of those former, I call them exiles, I don't call them Kuomintang because when you ask them, or when you refer to them as gloaming, Tang, or k and t, a lot of them will say, Hey, don't call me that. They would say that we operated independently of the woman tongue in Taiwan. They didn't actually help us out that much. You know, we really out here fighting the anti communist crusade, and they didn't help us all that much. And they don't want to be considered a division of Taiwan's government. And in fairness, they really weren't. They continued to have a relationship with Kuomintang, but they really were doing their own thing. I think it is fair to call them a drug cartel in the American sense, because in the American sense cartel has ceased to be an economic term and just refers to like a narcotics supergroup. And they were certainly that 3000 Odd soldiers along the Thai Myanmar border in Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai province, continued to traffic drugs, they were the dominant heroin suppliers of the region, and they continue to receive protection from the US intelligence services. Because the Cold War was on the drug trade, whoever controls it is going to be very powerful. And the CIA would have preferred that it's run by the drug trade is managed by a vetted pro us group, because the alternative would be a communist drug cartel. And they certainly didn't want that.
Host 21:59
While they were getting the American soldiers addicted, and then using them as a vehicle to ship that same product back to the US. It's like left hand not knowing what the right hand is doing here.
Patrick Winn 22:08
Yes. And, you know, like I said, I try not to view anything in the good versus evil lens. It's very easy to make supervillains out of the CIA, we've all seen movies do that. I might enjoy those movies when I'm just hanging out on a Saturday. But instead of just trying to figure out are they evil incarnate are the drug guys evil incarnate or bla bla bla, I try not to get I do just want to express their motivation for doing that. So through their eyes, they would say, Well, look, OPM has been farmed in this region for eons. The Cold War is on communism is in the in the words of the CIA at the time, plucking Asians like ripe fruit, and there they believed in the spread of communism would eventually cover the world. And so Okay, look, you have to collude or protect or have a relationship with these these drug trafficking groups. So be it it's the lesser of two evils, and maybe we'll get around to telling them to knock off the drug trafficking someday in the future. But at this point, we can't afford it. So that would be the CIA position.
Host 23:26
Sure. Right, and so then go on with where you left off at this is I think you've led us up to concerning the Golden Triangle that started where you have the these, I was gonna say KMT or nationalist remnants, but you're differentiating that they're they're actually making the case that they're apart from that, which is news to me. I hadn't heard that. And I should also add, I have read that, in addition to perhaps the distance been a factor in them reaching Taiwan, that there was controversy for years about them being forced to leave and you know, even the US even the CIA and the embassy and Yangon, Rangoon at the time wasn't exactly talking to each other clearly about what the US was actually doing there, and how many they were actually evacuating and kind of the subterfuge of if they really were evacuating them or leading them as a, as a an anti communist force that would continue to be supported. But in any case, the ones who are not evacuated to Taiwan or do not find a way there, they stay. And so you're basically saying the drug trade starts by them, looking to do that as a way to fund their anti communist activities. And eventually, when they see that they're never really going to overtake Communist China, then it just becomes a way of life and you have a new phase. Would that be a correct way to say it?
Patrick Winn 24:46
I think that's pretty much it. Yes. And they continue, the ones that didn't get evacuated, continued to hold power in that region for quite some time. Really. We're talking about running from the earth. Early 50s all the way into the 1980s. And not many people know this. But according to my research that Kuhn saw who would later go on to be the new king of the drug trade. He was initially part of the this exile group, which is commonly referred to as Kuomintang, like, as I said, they don't like to be called that. But this exile Chinese group, he himself is half Chinese half Shan. He received seed capital, you might put it to become a sort of a mini warlord in his part of Shan State, and rose through the ranks a little bit, but he couldn't side just could not have anyone telling him what to do. He was a huge ego, he could not exist under their structure. And he just had to be doing his own thing. And so he betrayed them, made several attempts to take over the trade and finally succeeded in the mid 1970s. And then he continued to dominate the heroin trade all the way into the 90s. He held it in the mid 90s. He held it for a good, good 20 years, and it is worth stopping and pausing on consob Because this is something that the CIA understands, even though they're certainly not going to admit it in the any press release. Drugs are power. If you have drugs, you have access to power, you have tremendous finances, you can change borders, you can rally fighters, you can destabilize countries, you can start your own country and that's what coincided. Moon Pie is what he called it, which translates to Sean land. And he established himself as a Robin Hood like figure saying, these interlopers have come and they have taken valuable resources from us such as opium. And why isn't it being used to fund a Shan nation? A shine country? What was one of the Qun sock quotes? We are we're beggars sleeping on a bed of Jim's are a bit of gold paraphrasing a little bit, but why should we use this valuable resource to establish our own nation? And he did quite successfully. It's it's the CIA pays attention to these things because the CIA's job is to evaluate who has power around the world. It can it be used to weaken American supremacy or challenge American supremacy? Who do we prop up? Who do we try to? Who do who do we try to take out and so Kuhn saw was very much an enemy of the CIA and the DEA, which had come along by the 70s and 80s.
Host 28:04
And then there was that famous moment in his life where he offered a deal to the Americans to burn his stock in exchange for freedom, I believe it was, and the US turned him down. What What's your take on that
Patrick Winn 28:17
couldn't saw was actually just making an offer that the US had already accepted. This also kind of buried in the bowels of history in 1972. The DEA was on the cusp of being formed, but the war on drugs had started. And the United States, there was a fervor in the United States to have a war on drugs, in my opinion, because the foreign Vietnam wasn't working out. It didn't work out. And so they wanted a war, a new war. So amid this anti drug fervor in the United States, the DEA was on the cusp of being established. The entire anti-narcotics officials from the US went to this exile group, former Kuomintang, which the CIA always referred to as the CI F Chinese irregular forces. One of the reasons that they're not well known this is just an aside is because no one knows what the hell to call them. It doesn't make for a very cohesive one. And again, I'm referring to the same CIA protected group on the Thai Myanmar border. In 1972, they were the kings and anti narcotics agents went to them and said, through the ties, will you give up your stockpile? Will you just turn into being tea farmers? Will you leave the drug trade behind? If you want to do that? Thank you for your service to the United States. We're not going to hit you with any criminal charges. How does that sound? And under pressure, this group said, Okay, fine. So in 1972, US anti narcotics officials show up to a military base and Thailand, there's heaps heaps of opium. Many, many. I wish I could remember the the number of tonnes offhand something like 20 tonnes or something heaped with the ties, the US narcotics, anti narcotics officials burn it. And with US tax payer money, they pay $1 million to the exiles this exile group. So the US was willing to cut deals like that with certain groups. Just just I can't remember that $1 million in today's money or in the money at the time, but anyway, they paid a lot of money, I'd still want to make a factual misstatement here. Couldn't sa was looking back at that and saying, Well, you did it before, you know, now I'm the king. So if you really, if you want to win the war on drugs, cut the BS, pay me. And I'll burn my opium crop. And I think the implication was, you can continue paying me in perpetuity. You can go back and find many quotes from concise saying, Actually, I know Opium is terrible, and it's it is a blight on the world. And, you know, I want to be part of the solution. I want to get rid of it. But you got to work with me here. So when he made that offer, it wasn't so preposterous, you have to understand that the US had done something like that. Only a decade prior, so wasn't a ridiculous thing to do.
Host 31:31
Right, thanks for that background. So in going over the history that we talked about, most of the major players talked about the PLA, the Chinese Communist army, the KMT, as well as the regular forces, the CIA, and, and a little bit of the what we now call the ayos. The ethics are there. The one major player we haven't touched on is the military regime itself. Well, I guess, actually, if you want to go back far enough, you're looking at the parliamentary democracy period of who knew then leading to a win. But whatever you want to call the central authority in Rangoon at the time, that's another major player in this and their relationship to the drug trade has really changed quite dramatically over the years. So tell us about where the regime the central authority down south fits into this.
Patrick Winn 32:17
Sure. So from the NE one era, running all the way through the Qin Yoon era, and until today, they've gone by different names. But there have been in Burma, military backed drug trafficking organizations called gangs, if you want to sometimes they're so small, they're practically family clan sized groups. And the deal is started in the 60s and continues today. If you're up in the mountains, especially if you're an ethnic minority, there's a deal on the table where you can convert your militia into what was originally called a P two, I'm sorry, excuse me, actually, that's the current name was originally called a kakwa. Eat, right. He's my terrible Burmese pronunciation, KYKK washer, Self Defense Forces. And essentially, it was a license to engage in crime, namely, drug trafficking. So we're not going to this is the deal, the military or 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. If you're Sean, we need you spying on your Sean neighbors. You know, if you're law who you need to be spying on your law, who neighbors corinium Spying on your correnti neighbors. If we call upon you to fight them, you're going to have to fight them. But this is their way of tapping into the powerful narcotics trade to extend their power into the mountains. You really the thinking is not all that different than what the CIA
Host 33:56
was. I was gonna say I was just thinking that
Patrick Winn 33:59
it's just it's just frankly, practical. So up until today, now they call them p to sit but they are these small ish. Groups, almost always ethnic minorities, because that's, that's who lives up there. And that's who the Burmese regime is always concerned about rebelling can take this deal. And they look they've offered it to all the major players they've offered it to the the most powerful army in Shan State, which is the United State army. And of course they've laughed because it's not a good deal for them. They're powerful enough they can kind of give the regime politely give the regime the finger so thanks, but no thanks. So yeah, they the this is how the military is engaged in in the narcotics trade. Then if you if you want to look at throughout the history 6070s 80s 90s Until today, you'll have regional commanders who are taking kickbacks. So the the Burmese military controls the paved roads, the highways, it's very convenient if you're trafficking drugs, because it's all about logistics, you're moving something from point A to point B. The military has all the checkpoints. And so if you want to travel through that checkpoint with in the 1970s, it would be opium or heroin. Now, it would be crystal meth or Yabba, they're going to be paying a toll. And it's going to be going to the regional commander to sustain his, you know, fiefdom in that corner of Myanmar. There's no side that's not in the narcotics trade. They're just there isn't everybody is involved. At least on some level, I don't want to make too blanket of a statement because post coup things are very different. But in general, looking at the scope of the country's history, everybody has had some role to play.
Host 36:02
Right? And we'll get into post coup later in the conversation once we flesh out this context a bit more to better understand where we're at now, you reference just just recently, just how the the nature of the drugs that are being made and transported have changed. So this is also something you address in the book Hello Shadowlands. Can you tell us what they changed to and why they changed?
Patrick Winn 36:25
Why They Changed from heroin to methamphetamine,
Host 36:27
correct? Yeah.
Patrick Winn 36:29
Yeah. Heroin heroines started to fall out of vogue in the late 90s. One reason is, and if I could, because this is a Myanmar centric podcast, I can use some actual names. Way Sue Kang, he is the longtime chief financial officer of the United States Army, former protege of Khun SA, and someone who started off as a young man in a CIA backed listening post that was run by Taiwanese intelligence, listening into China. So that's just a brief background on this guy. He's he's had quite the career. wasta Kang really is the face of this transformation, the degree to which he really had his hands on pulling the levers and making things happen, you could dispute that, but he's he's, he's right at the center of it. What him and people like him realized is that producing heroin is just a bigger pain in the neck than producing methamphetamine. When you produce heroin, you have to control a lot of territory, a lot of territory because someone has to grow the opium you have to then go out and collect the opium sometimes there's a bad cold spell, and the poppies don't produce very potent opium. It's just it's subject to all of these whims of nature and and any efficiencies, then, of course, you have to get the opium down to a lab, which would usually be in the border areas of Thailand, convert it to heroin, and then you sell it to to an international distributor. That's usually how it works. Methamphetamine, oh, my god, so much easier. You you, you get barrels of chemicals from China, previously, India, but I think now mostly China, you bring those barrels to your meth lab, again, somewhere on the border, you refine them into methamphetamine, you're done. That is so that is just so much more efficient than having to worry about farmers and weather and, and law enforcement, because the DEA and the CIA can spy on what you're doing from the air from satellites. And the CIA actually had a formula back in the day that they could look down from above and see how many acres or hectares were covered in an opium poppies. And then they would apply that to a formula and try to determine how much heroin could be produced in that year. You don't want like you just no Corporation, no person associated with this wants the CIA to know anything about their business, right? So methamphetamine. People like wasta Kang, really understood that synthetics are the future. I mean, he he was on to this before the Mexican cartels were not saying he was the first to produce methamphetamine in mass, but he was the first to go pretty much all synthetic and it has paid off really well. I mean, he peed him and people like him, really charted the future of the synthetic narcotics trade in Southeast Asia. And that's what it's all about. I mean, just to give you some numbers $60 billion Lawyers estimated by the UN as the value of the methamphetamine trade, heroin, about $10 billion. So it's not nothing. 10 billion ain't nothing, but it's not math.
Host 40:11
Right? So give us break down the numbers. If you I don't know if you could do this off the top of your head, you provide this in the book, which I found really fascinating of how much it costs to actually produce a pill. And then as the pill makes it well, as the math makes it way it makes its way along to different countries, how much it ends up selling for top dollar?
Patrick Winn 40:31
Yeah, it's a really good question. I don't want to pull any figures out of my head, because they might be wrong. But I can speak in generalities, the cost per pill of Yamaha meth pills. Very, very, very, very low, very low. It the value of that pill, or the value of that kilo of crystal methamphetamine is going to jump every time you cross a border. So let's talk about how it works in the modern day. These days, the model is actually what I call the landlord model. So a group, an armed group in Myanmar, that controls territory, will allow outsiders to come in and rent them land upon which they would build the meth lab and run it. The armed group, let's just say such as the United States Army, they're going to sit back, the local commander is going to sit back, he doesn't really want anything to do with it, he's just going to receive a cut, he's going to receive his rent. So it's usually going to be a Chinese organized crime group, it's going to come in thank you for renting us the land, we're producing the meth. And then they are going to pass it off to another group that's friendly with the armed group. So this is a smuggling group that focuses on moving it down to the border, the say, the Thai border. From there, they're going to give it to yet another smuggling group that has specific expertise on getting from Burma to Thailand. That's all they do. And they may or may not have contacts with security forces on Thailand on the other side, I live in Thailand. So I'm not going to speculate on that. Maybe they do maybe they don't who can say. And then they're going to that's going to then get moved to maybe it just stays in Thailand for local consumption. It's going to be moved for ports where it can go anywhere from Australia to South Korea, to Indonesia. At each step that I mentioned, meth lab, initial smuggler cross border smuggler smuggler that gets it to the port smuggler that gets it to another country, the value is going to jump. And so by the time you get to Australia, it's going to be quite expensive. The opposite is true, the closer you are to the source, it's going to be cheaper. So if you're buying a gram of crystal meth in Bangkok, price has really fallen a lot but like a typical price over the past few years, would be something like the equivalent of 80 US dollars. All right, well, if you go up to Chiang Mai, Chiang Rai right on the border, it might be $60. I'm just kind of pulling these pulling these numbers out of the air just to to illustrate it shows that that's that's sort of the value added supply chain of how it works.
Host 43:24
Right and this gets to some of the reporting you did in kitchen stay which I want to get to because this is in your book, hello Shadowlands. I just want to give further shout out to that as we move along and encourage listeners to check that out. It's really quite a lot of great stuff in there. And before we get into the Myanmar sections, I just want to highlight you also in the book you have chapters on abortion pills in the Philippines, North Korean restaurants across Southeast Asia, you describe a crazy party town in southern Thailand that is the target of Muslim extremists and also go into the dog food trade and buy dog food I don't mean food for dogs, I mean, cooking dogs and eating them humans eating dogs in Vietnam so you you have a wide range of illicit activities that you cover just to highlight what else listeners can find if they check out your book Hello Shadowlands but getting to the Myanmar chapters was which focus on kitchen state largely and which segue into what you're saying now about the cost of the meth depending on where you are and where you're accessing it. Let's look at what you talked about in kitchen state and just how rife and terrible the problems are with drug addiction among the Christian people and what's happening with in their community. You you reference how it's gotten so bad that some Christians are actually actually suspect that there has been an intentional effort by the Braemar to flood the youth with cheap access to these drugs as a way to just completely control them and take over you. As I was reading this I was had this idea in my mind which you then read Since a few pages later where you're saying this is not unlike the some of the fears and the paranoia that different black Americans felt in the 1980s, that the the cheap drugs was a CIA or an American government plot to actually undermine the black community by flooding them and destroying their communities with these cheap drugs. So go on to describe a bit about what you wrote about in those chapters focusing on the devastation were seen within this is all pre cool again for listeners. But your what your reporting came across in terms of the devastation that the access to these drugs are causing among the kitchen people.
Patrick Winn 45:37
Yeah, so in Kachin State, referring back to some things we talked about a minute ago. There are quite a few of these, what they would call self defense forces P to sit border guard forces, you know, they're armed groups militia that are affiliated with Myanmar's military. So as I mentioned before, unwritten license to do almost anything that they want when it comes to trafficking producing narcotics. Because it's so close to the source, of course, people in Kachin State could buy these drugs very, very cheaply, even though the main market might be elsewhere. Because kitchen state, you know, the average kitchen person doesn't have a whole lot of money. They're trying to get it to countries that do have a lot of money, such as Australia. But anyway, yeah, swimming in the cities very easy to buy. When I was there, you could go into tea shops buy it, everybody knew there would be somebody in every neighborhood that would sell usually Yadavas what they could afford. Also heroin can can't cheaper heroin, in fact that the heroin that I saw there, didn't look like the pristine what they call China White, which is really high purity coveted heroin for heroin users. It was kind of gritty and orange. And it looks like an inferior, inferior quality of heroine. Anyway, it was their widely available. The kitchen, people have a long history of banding together as an ethnic group as a race and defending their homeland. I would I would argue that kitchen, like other parts of Myanmar has never been fully dominated by the central government and the kitchen. People are very proud of that. And they have many reasons to be proud of that. I think many, many kitchen people just I'm just repeating things they said. So I'm not speculating, I would like it to go back to the way things were when essentially that they got to run their own affairs, maybe through a federal system, maybe through an independent system, whatever. So in reaction to that, you had this group startup, called Pat, just on this vigilante group, basically. A lot of the guys in Pakistan had connections to the kitchen independence army, which is the main Christian resistance force, but they would go out with sticks and not guns, and they would go into communities and just snatch drug users right out of their house. I rode around on motorbikes with them in the town of Messina, which is the capital of Kachin State, and went into people's homes, they would interrogate them, you know, picture you're sitting there in your house, and like 14 guys and women roll in with vests on walkie talkies, and bamboo sticks. would ask them questions, pulled them out of there. And if they thought that they were drug users, which in every I think in every scenario that I was in, when when we would approach somebody's house, they always made that determination. Yes, we're going to take this person, and they would bring them to sort of a command center. It was on church property, but it was a small building, lit up at night. Were just very austere cement floors, bamboo walls, bring them in there and haul them before a court. They had their own court system is like a parallel society essentially, totally parallel to what the central government was running. They would just interrogate them. They didn't get the answers they were looking for. They would whack them with bamboo rods quite hard. And basically trying to pry loose information, who sold it to you who your drug using buddies so that they could have people to go snatch up the next night. And it all sounds very severe and extreme. I tried to portray this in my book Look through their perspective. I mean, they're at their wit's end, they would argue they're Baptist, mostly many cucina Roman Catholic, but the majority are Baptist. And this was just country Baptist justice is what I'd call it. I'm from the south. And that's, that's what it looked like to me. They just, they felt like they had no other option, because as you, as you said, or insinuated earlier, they believe they were under the boot of this system, 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 the parallels to how urban black communities in the United States have expressed the feelings that they've expressed around this, are there primarily, you know, I was very happy to explore the idea that it was intentional, I left thinking that it probably has more to do with neglect. The central state is more than happy to let drug producing groups, do whatever they want in the kitchen areas, and they don't want it in the Burmese areas. But the trend areas, sure. And it's beneficial for them politically, and the consequences. Yeah, who cares? Hey, maybe a bunch of kitchen guys get strung out and can't fight the central state. And that's a bonus. But I don't think that it was intrinsic to the design. So it was one of the stranger experiences of my life, because the men who were just whacking and beating these guys, these alleged drug users, they pulled out of the house. Otherwise, very nice guys, you know?
Host 51:55
Yeah, well, we should, we should mention, it's not just the assault and the beating and the imprisonment they're doing. There's a huge faith based component to this, as you mentioned, they're mainly Baptists. And as you describe in the book, it's it's not only this kind of tough love and forced withdrawal, under the assumption that these people are drug users. But it's also bringing Christian messages of accepting Jesus and coming clean to Jesus that are along with their mission.
Patrick Winn 52:21
Yes, and I don't know the effectiveness of these programs, but they're very much there. They weren't just trying to hurt people. And I should point out that they, they've left the Burmese population alone, they were only going after their own kitchen people. Once you are deemed to be a drug user, you're taken to a camp out in the jungle, where they'll feed you. There's a lot of laying of hands type of preaching and Bible study, there's a lot of sort of baptism style, dunking you underwater to so that you can be born again as a better person. And, you know, they want these people they want their own people to not be on drugs, that that was where it was coming from. Look, the way I felt was like, What do you want them to do? I mean, the Central State completely neglected them. And as a kitchen person, you're already suspected, as a minority in in Myanmar, of being seditious. I mean, they have a deep seated, fear of going into government facilities. So even if Myanmar Central State did build rehab facilities that were made of gold and gleaming, they would have serious reservations about going into them. They're make they're doing the best they could with what little they had. And I most of the reaction I got from that. That reporting from Americans who don't follow me, and my very closely was pretty negative. They thought it was barbaric and awful. And but that wasn't my my view, I tend to take a more complicated view of it.
Host 54:08
Yeah. And that was the impression I got from it. I think it's also it goes into how you approach the subjects of not wanting to be to portray someone purely on the side of the good or evil, but to want to show their motivations in what they're doing and why they're doing it. And that maybe maybe it's just that I'm more than familiar with the complexities and the lack of easy answers that come to Myanmar. But I, I thought it was both barbaric as well as as you just said, throwing your hands up and saying, Well, what do you do what what other options are there I understood the rationale of how it had come to this. And it was just tragic, to depict humanity coming to this and that, this this is what they were forced to do but given the realities of the state and of the society they were living in and the challenges that they were being faced, which I know more than enough from other experiences with other parts of Myanmar. It does become one of those things of well, you're you're not left with any good answers. And so what? As you're left with no good answers, what are the from, from a series of choices, none of which are good, which ones you decide to do? And how do you do it? Yeah, and
Patrick Winn 55:15
I would just add that narcotics for them, you know, let's look, let's say, I got addicted to heroin, and my family was trying to get me off of it. The focus would be on how the heroin was ruining my physical health and my ability to function in our society. Right? Well, there's a whole other element to it if your kitchen and we're just focusing on kitchen right now, we can do this for Shawn, we can do this for, for many other for many other ethnic groups, there's a whole other dimension in that they saw narcotics as something that fuels the machine that's grinding them down. Right. So every time you're buying heroin or buying methamphetamine, the money is going to the local armed group, which is portrayed your cause and make common cause with the military, and you're funding the guys that are making our lives miserable, a whole other element to it, and I'm sure that that goes into the ferocity of those bamboo wax, I mean, you know, they, they, when they're hitting these guys, it's coming from that place, like Don't you understand the seriousness of this and yeah, that was their perspective.
Host 56:29
So tell us where the K fits into all this in the kitchen authorities.
Patrick Winn 56:33
The K ay ay as I understand it does make quite a bit of money from Jade. And so when you're looking at on tax, under the table, unconventional ways of making money. The Ka I think largely relies on Jade and you can see in like the Jade mining area in Kachin State, pecan, you can see that there is a scramble to dominate certain Jade mines because that money will then go into either the Myanmar military's coffers or it can go towards the Ka which will continue to sustain its rebellion. So whether or not the kitchen throughout the kitchen independence army throughout its history has ever trafficked in heroin, perhaps I mean, I have seen their name pop up and CIA documents dating back to the 70s. This at this point, look, I can't peer inside the Ka I've met Ke Ke officers a number of times, I can't peer inside their inner workings. But from what I understand, as an organization, they're genuinely opposed to narcotics. I mean, they see the big picture that it is that to engage in that is not worth it. And that it primarily sustains the Myanmar regime. And its its little allies, these militia these Kitchen Militia that have what they would say betrayed the kitchen cause and incited with the bad guys.
Host 58:06
Right. So just one more question before we move on from kitchen and look at the wider scope of this. And that's you touched upon it just now with Jade and with the illicit find the the illicit profit that comes from Jade, which is another huge profit mine for those that are involved in that and looking at kitchen. Do you see any relationship to the illicit drug trade and the illicit Jade? How are these two things intertwined? Or how do they function on separate planes?
Patrick Winn 58:37
If I had to make an observation about that, I would just note that the Jade is primarily flowing into China. China, as we all know, likely to have the largest economy on Earth at some point in this century. There's just a lot of buying power in China. So Jade flows into China, the narcotics don't flow into China. Why is that? That's because the Chinese government has, has relationships with many of the armed groups that are along the China Myanmar border, it has very close relationships with them. And it has understandings that Okay, listen, we're going to supply you with with weapons we're gonna supply it was quite sophisticated weapons, including shoulder fired missiles in the case of the United wild state army, which controls a big, big, big chunk of the Myanmar China border. However, if you're involved in drug trafficking, it ain't coming back into China. Because if you do that, we're going to cut you off. You're not going to get fuel, you're not going to get parts for your machines. You're not going to get Chinese investors, you're not going to get subsidized road crews that can come in and build your highways. You want to produce drugs, send them somewhere else. Don't send them what China has, as a government is highly highly, highly intolerant of of drug use. So yeah, J does flow into China drugs, not so much. They all flow pretty much into Thailand, which is a sort of the Mexico of Southeast Asia in as when you're thinking about drug routes, is this transit country where the drugs then flow to, to even wealthier countries? So that's, that's, that's one small observation about that.
Host 1:00:24
Great. Yeah, well put. So before moving on to post coup, which is going to have a lot to untangle. I'm wondering, during the NLD years it fit 2015 2020, where we had a transition to a semi democracy. Did that impact at all what was going on with what we were seeing in involving the production and transportation of these narcotics?
Patrick Winn 1:00:53
No, is the short answer. If the National League for Democracy had some grand plan to strike at the heart of the narcotics trade, which is so powerful in Myanmar, it certainly never panned out? You know, the NLD really didn't have much control over what the military was doing. That was the nature of their pact. Okay, we'll run the ministries that oversee education, health, the things that the military didn't want to do, or anything involving the hinterlands and guys holding guns and weapons. Nope, that was all still covered by Myanmar's military. So during the NLD years, the central government the Central Military still continued to build these relationships with drug trafficking militia up in the in the, in the highlands, in the in the hills of Shan State in the hills of kitchen. So nothing really changed. And I think it would have been extremely difficult for the NLD to even try to cut that off. I that that would have been perceived by the military as an overreach and I don't think that they would have been very successful. So I don't I don't blame them for that. You know, there's other things we can blame the NLD for doing wrong. That's not something I think they had any ability to control.
Host 1:02:21
Sure, right. Now, one of the things you in your book on is what you were just starting to understand in terms of the transport of drugs from Shan state all the way westward into Bangladesh and rural Rakhine into Rakhine State and then into Bangladesh. And you remarked in this closing chapter, how unusual and surprise you were to find drugs moving in that direction and a court and having to navigate the kind of complex checkpoints they would need to get to, to go into different areas and countries. So this I mean, it also this was also one that stood out to me, because I can't remember when you published your book, but of course, the Rohingya crisis was blowing up during that time as well. And so, in my mind, I was wondering about just this combination of extremely complex factors of the Rohingya crisis and the the exodus of refugees fleeing the violence and to Bangladesh as you also have this growing meth trade that in the math is suddenly finding its way into these camps and into Bangladesh and Rakhine State. What did you find in that reporting?
Patrick Winn 1:03:31
Well, I find myself less if I was surprised, then it's probably because I was just catching on to that trend. I'm find myself very not surprised about it. I would say the militarization of Rakhine State the flood of Myanmar central military troops into that area makes it in fact a perfect environment for the flow of drugs because you can the military can create relationships or build on these relationships with the producers who are up in Shan State, and it can have a pretty steady flow all the way towards Bangladesh. Bangladesh just it was an untapped market. Bangladesh isn't necessarily the most enticing market if you're looking at a place to sell drugs because it's not a terribly wealthy country. But it was ripe for it was ripe for expansion. Thailand, pretty saturated. I would guess if you want to buy meth pills in Thailand. You know where to get them? Probably not expanding their Bangladesh on the far side. Okay, that was right for expansion. And since then you we've seen the meth, meth sales. Sales of Myanmar produce methamphetamine into Bangladesh go up and up and up and up and it probably hasn't quite saturated. that market yet, but yeah, look there's they've got the roads, they've got the the highways, they've got the checkpoints, there's really nothing stopping the meth from flowing from Shan state all the way to Bangladesh.
Host 1:05:13
Right. So this is bringing us up to the current reality post coup, which is we're now two years plus into basic question just to kick us off, what are you seeing in the changes with narcotics that have occurred since the coup took place and the resistance and the conflict had been increasing?
Patrick Winn 1:05:30
Yeah, I'll just start by saying the coup has done no favors to my ability to report and Myanmar obviously, having interviewed PDF, then ug, people who are actively resisting, I would be afraid to go back to Myanmar. So I haven't been back since the coup, I don't really know many journalists who have unless they've gone on these very rare trips that are sponsored by the the military and I'm not interested in doing anything like that. Okay, so that that kind of poke my eyes out, so to speak. However, I've still remained very active and looking at the border areas where, frankly, the Central Military never had that great of control. Anyway, it has been said by the UN, specifically, specifically the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, that methamphetamine production has gone way up since the coup, and perhaps they're correct. I don't know they have police sources. They have police sources all throughout the region. That's their determination. Perhaps that's true, I can't independently verify that, I would just say that dynamic hasn't really changed all that much. Despite what some pretty silly claims in state media and Myanmar, I don't see the emerging resistance groups being active in the drug trade. I haven't seen that happen yet. And so the regular players that I described earlier are still doing their thing. And I don't I don't think they're done expanding. I think it may be going up. But I'm not sure the coup has had a direct relationship. What I will say is as, as fighting intensifies, in certain parts of the country, and I'm mainly thinking of Eastern Myanmar, a lot of the revolutionary activity is happening in Sudan state, which is never a thoroughfare for narcotics to begin with. So let's let's not look at that for now. But in in eastern Shan, state Karenni areas, these relationships with local militia become all the more important, because the numerous military doesn't just have to expand its troops into an area and worry about the conventional ethnic armed groups that would have been there, say 1015 20 years ago. Now it has these upstart PDF groups that it has to worry about. So it's, it's it's, it's it's paranoia, and it's, it's need to maintain security in those areas has gone up. And so I wouldn't know now I'm speculating, I wouldn't be surprised if it intensified relationships with the drug trafficking militia in those areas.
Host 1:08:39
Right. So you say that in post coup, it's generally the usual players, the main players that are still involved in narcotics. Can you refresh our memory about who these main players are today and 2023 as well as how they're benefiting? I mean, we've known how they benefited traditionally historically, through the mass profits they're making, but in a time of cool and resistance, is do you see any indication or have any thoughts about where this mass profit could be going? What it could be funding? Or is it just making rich people richer, or staying within the community as it always has?
Patrick Winn 1:09:14
Yeah. I'll address your second question. First. I'm going to go into the realm of speculation and this might be an area that makes people uncomfortable, right? But here we go. There may come a time and maybe that time has already arrived. I've seen no evidence of this, okay. But there may come a time when the pro democracy resistance groups for lack of money will be tempted to at least maybe just tax drugs passing through an area they control, because without money, your revolution is done. They know that this is not news to them. You need you need to buy food, medicine, weapons, the whole thing. So If there is any engagement in the drug trade with pro democracy forces, again, I've seen zero evidence of that. You know, one small way you could do that is just tax people coming through your area. And that's kind of the most hands off way to do it like, hey, anything that comes through here, we tax it. I have a hard time imagining them getting involved in the production and actual traffic of narcotics. But strange things can happen if this thing drags on 1015 years into the future. Is this necessarily make them the bad guys? Well, in my opinion, not necessarily drugs or power kunafa. He created a veritable nation. On the back of the drug trade. I mean, we're talking about covered 5000 square miles control big patches of border, it had its own flags, its own ID cards, some of the wildest dreams of pro revolutionary forces. Now, he got there through drugs, what was his reputation on the world stage? Awful. I mean, you know, the US government called him the king of heroin, and, you know, the prince of death and all these things. What is the reputation of the pro revolutionary forces around the world? It's very good. I mean, they're held in very high esteem, because they're seen as very, pretty pure. I don't think I'm exaggerating too much when I say that. And so you make you if some if one group, because the pro revolutionary forces are, are really varied for this kaleidoscopic, but if one group went that direction, it would have it would get smeared, right? Yeah. So and it would be a huge kick in the teeth when it came to perhaps, morale and image and ability to get legitimacy. But it would bring in money, it's a horrible choice to make. It's a horrible choice to make. And I bring it up only because war is full of horrible choices. And we'll see perhaps they'll be victorious before they have to even consider a choice like that. What I would also say is that this is highly overlooked. There is essentially a nother country inside Myanmar, that isn't talked about very much, and I'm referring to was state law state controls as much soil as the Netherlands. It has all the things that Khun saw has only more I mean, it has its own highways, schools, hospitals, again, ID cards, driver's licenses, flags, anthems, sense of sense of nationhood, if not country hood, I make a distinction between a nation and a country here. No, it's not trying to seek independence at the United Nations. Because why kick up a fuss, it doesn't need to be more central millet, Central Military forces cannot walk into Wall state, they'll get stopped like anybody else. I mean, they could show their borders. A big funder of this de facto nation is narcotics, taxing narcotics produced on their soil by outside criminal groups. Look, it works. It works. Drugs, can drugs power, I don't know how else to put it. So um, I don't know, it's really something to consider moving forward. And I may not have answered your first question. I think I just answered the latter part was forgotten the first one.
Host 1:13:37
No, well, I wanted to segue on the wall. Because that was another question I had is I mean, to me, they're the real mystery player in all of this. And they're talked about in terms of their allegiances, the relationship they have with the other CEOs with China, with the military regime, as well as with their their sense of autonomy now and how much money they're able to make through narcotics. And they and as well as the size of their army, and how developed they are and the kinds of military technology they have. And so one of the big mysteries I've seen kicked around since the start of the coup is which direction would the war go? Would they stay neutral and just want to keep what's theirs and not engage? Or would they lean this way? If they're Chinese influences? Or would they lean that way with some of the other ethnic groups? It remains a mystery. But do you have any thoughts or comments on this mystery of what the wall might be doing? What they could do or any inclinations you have?
Patrick Winn 1:14:38
Yeah, I have a lot of thoughts. I haven't talked about this publicly before but for the past four years have been in close contact with a lot of UW UW sa mostly former soldiers and including one formerly very high ranking leader. So I've looked at the war situation very closely I have a view of the wall that is not typical. I mean, the typical view of the wall I think, frankly, frankly, steeped in racism, you know, they're all barbaric headhunters that that is absolutely not true the wall have achieved this astounding feat. Look, they've got what's essentially their own de facto nation, as I just pointed out, it's right there on the map. You'd never know it. Right? So they are a nation within a nation. And when you're talking about what's going to happen to Myanmar post coup, to leave the Y out of the conversation is is irresponsible. And I like I like where you're where you're thinking Joah? Yes, we need to be asking, what role could they play? I'm gonna have to speak in generalities here because the WHA people are not a monolith. And there's, when you really get into their situation, you realize that there's a lot of debate within within that government as to how their future should look. But I'll say this much. In general, there is an attitude in wall state that the lowlanders don't really care about us. And so we're not going to go out of our way to to save the lowlanders. It's just, it's just, look, we're up here in a mountain, we're doing our own thing. And you guys have always thought that we were outcasts. And so that's just how it is. One way that they might be able to play a role is look, the while have weapons that the revolution, the pro democracy forces, need badly. Pro pro democracy forces, what do they need? First and foremost, they need rifles, automatic rifles, the war can produce their own rifles. So it would I think some of this is already happening. I don't know for sure. It would make sense that you could go and exchange cash for rifles.
Host 1:17:05
And oh, they are yeah, there's supply in other ethnic groups? Yeah. I've heard the same things too. The big question is, are the ability to you know, the air power control that the military has, and why are the only the the resistance forces are not able to acquire them, they have not been able to yet the Western Allies or if you want to call them allies, but the US and Europe has not gone anywhere close to providing them with, with any technology that would take out airstrikes that are coming with fear of how that just referencing an interview I had with Myles vining and it's who has been studying this. And so I just want to give credit where, where the views are coming from. In the interview with him, he talked about how this is really the game changer he sees as what can shift the power to the resistance movement is the incredible air superiority that the military has, and the inability of the resistance forces to get anything like this, the Western countries and anyone else really been hesitant to want to supply them for the fear of taking down a commercial jet or something else that he cited. But he referenced that there is old Soviet technology that the I believe, if I'm remembering correctly that the will have that they could make they could lend this and give use of that to other resistance fighters and Ayios. But that's not being done yet. But that's that's the that's the thing that he cited that could really be a game changer. If that was to take place.
Patrick Winn 1:18:40
That's true. The wall have these effing six shoulder fired missiles that can take down jets and nothing matters more than countering the air superiority of Myanmar's military. Don't if people that are hoping that the wall will transfer some of that to the lowlanders. Don't get your hopes up? I'm just saying it. I'll be very surprised to see that happen. What would have to happen is the wall would have to decide. Let me just back up real quick. Whatever happens, the law is speaking in generalities consider this a fight between lowlanders And so whoever emerges as they'll cut the same deal with them. Yeah, hey, we're not trying to leave Myanmar. We're gonna stay in these borders. Don't tell us what to do. That's it. Okay. So whoever wins they'll cut a deal with they would have to believe that the pro revolutionaries, the pro democracy revolutionaries are on the cusp of winning. Their big factor is this is this is the hottest debate within wha politics. How much? To what degree should they let the Chinese government tell them what to do? And this point, China's government I hope I'm not over stating this too much effectively has veto power on what the wall can do. If the wire going to make a major policy decision, they will check with the Chinese government first. That's not because they are just in love with the Chinese government. That's because they get all of their material from China. I mean, all of it. And so the phone, the mobile phones they use, it's on the Chinese telecoms grid, every their whole country is reliant on China. And so they, they're essentially a protectorate or a client state of China, just as the US has its own client states. And so the Chinese government would have to allow that, or someone within wha state would have to in pursuit of money, or because this person had their own political leanings go rogue a little bit. And so it's really complicated for them. It's really complicated for them to there has been talk, I mean, I think it's the dream of a lot of the pro democracy fighters, that the United States or Europe would provide anti aircraft weapons to them. All I would say to that is you would have this very complicated scenario where within the same country, you would have a US armed resistance force in the same country as a China back. Army. Yes. So I don't know what people at the CIA or the State Department are thinking, I'm sure they are aware of the complications that would bring up at this, you know, imagine doing that pick, essentially, it would rattle China, at the same time you have the Ukraine war going on in a similar dynamic, it gets really complicated. So yeah,
Host 1:22:01
yeah, I don't really think they're thinking anything from the conversations that I've had, I don't think there's hardly any person or department that's thinking seriously about any of this. And I think they're trying to push this away as far as possible. But this might be somewhat of a naive question. But I'm just curious, when you're talking about the wide dynamics, one of the things that we've seen with the overall resistance movement is just the incredible power and resilience. And I would say inclusivity of Generation Z, you know, they have done things in in in Myanmar right now, that we've never seen in their history in terms of the kind of vision that they're articulating and the kind of country they want to live in. And we're seeing, I know you can't make, I don't want to be naive, and thinking that how people are articulating things now with a common enemy is going to be a utopia of how they're actually going to make it. But even that being said, there are certain kinds of solidarity being voiced by younger members of ethnic backgrounds, as well as Bomar in terms of wanting to let go of certain past dynamics and support a federal democracy that is safe and inclusive of everyone. Even if that doesn't translate into actually creating an ideal federal democracy, just the mere fact that it's being talked about as something that many people I've spoken to, that have lived through this or studied this for their lives have never, never seen or recalled anything like this before of this kind of this collective solidarity and, and vision for, for how they see themselves occupying this country together. Certainly, even if you go back to 88, or even Oh, seven, you didn't see anything near like this. And so I'm wondering when we look at the divisions and the why is there anything like that there with the Gen Z? Are there any is there any degree of Gen Z? That's not so much looking at the geopolitical situation, but in a youthful exuberance, of possibility is looking at visions of a federal democracy? Or am I just naive in my head in the clouds with that? Well,
Patrick Winn 1:24:01
just to address your your the overall sentiment of what you just said, Absolutely. This is it. I mean, this is the fundamental moment it is it is absolutely ground shaking, that the lowlands to put in really simple terms, landers and the Highlanders have never been more united. That's going to be the key to this thing. They know it. Everybody who pays attention to Myanmar knows it, and it opens up all of these astounding possibilities. We're already seeing it take place. Within the WHA there aren't that many white people who speak Burmese it is taught in schools, but the primary working language at home it's it's the wall language. And then within the United States Army, which is essentially the what is the state in what state it's Chinese, and everybody speaks Chinese Chinese is taught in schools. So even When while people go on social media to express themselves, they often turn on to yen which is their version of Tik Tok. However, a big part of wass state is on the Thai border. And from there you can actually pick up the Thai 4g signal like bleeding over the mountains. And that gives them access to Facebook, as you know and and on the China telecommunications grid, Facebook, Twitter hard to access right if the VPN because there's so many watch troops spread along the Thai Myanmar border because in the 90s, they they conquered Kuhn side took his territory becoming the new kings. You see people on Facebook, and I have I follow a lot of wha like Facebook accounts. And what you will see on there a lot is just memes. trashing men online, comparing him to a dog rooting for the the young revolutionaries in the lowlands. I mean, how do you not right? So yes, those sentiments are there. And there is some interest in in, in Burmese politics, it's hard to extrapolate what the average wa thinks about the situation. Because there is still a lot of poverty in wall state, and not everybody even has a smartphone. I wouldn't rule it out there isn't changing of the guard happening in wall state now. The in the next 10 years, there will be new leadership because the older leadership will retire or passed away. The new guys are in their 40s and early 50s. They speak Burmese I'm told that's big, because the current current current leaders do not speak much Burmese at all. They speak Burmese they, they may have opinions that differ from the old guard, they may not view Burma as Oh, that's just you know, that's that the Burmese are all lowlanders. And they think we're awful. And we don't have to pay attention to them. They may have different ideas. But this is all very fresh and new. And we'll have to see what type of public profile they have and whether they express any sympathy, solidarity, etc. With the with the pro democracy revolution.
Host 1:27:37
Right, and I want to go back to what you were saying with how they just see this as a battle of lowlanders. And just open up the context of that statement. I mean, this is a statement that's true, not just in one state. And not just at this moment, but it's been one that can be the ethnic attitude towards Bomar historically going back decades, way. I don't know if you've read Martin Smith's book, the Burma insurgency in the politics of ethnicity, just an incredible book, landmark book that came out some years ago that broke down the history of all these different ethnic struggles since independence, but he's breaking down describing year by year region by region, ethnic group by ethnic group, and the changes in the in the central government and how volatile and how much infighting there was. And then at one point, he just says that like, look whether whether you're talking about a rise of a communist party about a military dictatorship, people who are Democrats and want to see democracy flourish, those that have come out of the independence movement and are nationalists, whatever the characterization of these different groups, these the various ethnic regions just see them as all Bomar who are more or less spouting the same thing. And that just it blew me away because these groups among themselves are so different. I mean, communists, pro democracy people and military regime, you couldn't come up with ideologies and worldviews that are more different than this. And yet, it also makes sense looking at it from the ethnic point of view, that however you're breaking down these largely Bomar led organizations in whatever form they're taking, whether they're the Burmese Socialist Party or the NLD or anything in between. That these are all just different variations of a Bomar lead group that are more or less espousing the same thing from their eyes and I think that's such an important historical lens to understand when you look at what the N ug is trying to do and how the N ug is made up what who it's made up of and how decisions are made. And I think that there you know it's on one hand I think it's true to say that the N ug is more aware and inclusive of this than we've seen previously but I don't know if it really goes far enough. I think that I don't know if it really understands the extent to which the N ug is not going to be seen through ethnic eyes and I'm not just looking at the the wall but the the different ethnic minorities. that are out there and how they they've suffered and been oppressed over the years. Even if this incarnation of of a democracy faction with the N ug, even if it's more advanced and inclusive than we've ever seen, I wonder if it goes far enough in terms of recognizing and responding to those concerns that it's just yet another Bomar led organization. And this goes into what you're saying, where you look at the low end people when you're looking at low land meaning and ug, the PDF forces that are functioning on the ground. And fighting against the military regime that initiated the coup in our eyes, these couldn't be these two factions couldn't be more different in terms of the kind of Myanmar they want to build and what they're espousing. But I think it's really important to take that look from ethnic eyes that this is just more of the same.
Patrick Winn 1:30:50
Yeah, well, that's why it's, it's, that's, that's, that's the real revolution, that's already happening, the beginning of this feeling of unity between the lowlands and in the highlands. And if that if that doesn't work, then the country just then the revolution won't succeed. I've even gone into trying to make contact with certain armed groups in Shan State to go visit their territory, have been talking to them online to set it up, you know, with somebody within the group that speaks English. And then they see my last name, when which is actually somewhat common Burmese last name. Right. Right. Well, well, what will you not? I'm like, I'm not Burmese. I'm like, okay, which is, which is tragic record, they should welcome a Burmese person idea. But way before they would owe me a total, a total foreigner, right. But there is that this distrust in an animosity there. It has to be figured out or, or the revolution won't succeed. And look, I would go all the way back to the the origins of the the current borders of Burma. With Myanmar. They're drawn by the British. All right, this is a colonizing force that that had already around the world created borders, in countries that are continuing to cause strife to this day. I mean, look, look, look at a country like Iraq, look at how they've drawn borders. in Sub Saharan Africa and split ethnic groups across borders, it's a natural recipe for conflict. Trying to have a a nation state out of the current borders of Myanmar is going to be really, really hard. You're working in groups that again, for eons previous to this didn't necessarily see themselves as the same. I mean, you can imagine an alternate version of history in the multiverse where Shan State is a part of Thailand, right? Sure. Shawn type people, their their languages are extremely close. This just happens to be the way it is. So it is a challenge. And the ultimate, the ultimate taboo really is in this day and age is showing empathy towards the Myanmar military perspective, right? Even Even, even I struggle with that, because the military has done some awful things to people I love. But you can at least understand how this mentality arose this really toxic racist mentality. But okay, we're, we're the majority ethnic group in the country. We're down in the lowlands, how do we force everybody, all these different groups in the hills and the mountains to do what we say? I mean, that has been the primal mission of Myanmar's military since the beginning, I mean, really carrying on the the mission of the British colonial government. It's a really, really hard problem to solve. Perhaps this Gen Z generation can do it. I mean, I think I think that it's actually possible that and that, that is that is really, really, really revolutionary. I'm, I hope that they succeed.
Host 1:34:12
Right? Yeah. That's what we're all waiting and watching. That's quite a task in front of them. I'm also curious since the coup in Myanmar, how has the political and social upheaval that's going on impacted the overall level of lawlessness in the region? In other words, in your analysis, do you anticipate any potential ramifications or spillover effects of, of of just general lack of law in these regions, and specifically with narcotics that could start to overflow and and eventually impact neighboring states? This is something other analysis appointed to that have frankly said flatly said I should say, when they're asked what it's going to take for other countries to start paying attention, they say when we start to see these problems spilling over The border in whatever form it takes when we start to see this lawlessness starting to impact other countries, and certainly we're seeing it with refugees. But there's and there's even been reports of airstrikes where the Myanmar military has flown over like, you know, Indian land or something I say might be true with Thailand, I can't quite remember. But in terms of just the general lack of lawlessness and your background and reporting on illicit activities there, do you see a potential of a spillover effect in any area,
Patrick Winn 1:35:30
I might take a different view than other people you've had on because these areas have already been pretty lawless. By lawless I mean, not under the control of the central state, which in some cases is a good thing. These areas have always been a patchwork that doesn't really fall under central government control. So that ship has already sailed. Sure. There could be some degree of increase. Whenever you have a war, you have an incentive to, frankly produce narcotics to fund that war. So there could be an uptick there, the UN without I don't think they've connected it to the the revolution yet or the or either side of the struggle yet. But they've said that the volume of methamphetamine has gone up as far as how much is being produced. So I think that it may exacerbate the current situation, but it's not a total game changer. Frankly, what I'm looking at more is what the Thai government ends up looking like in the next couple of months. This is actually going to have a huge bearing I predict on the revolution, because at present, we've had a military run government, military aligned government in Thailand, that is very friendly with the Myanmar's military government, they have certain things in common. If the Thai government goes to, to the parties that were elected in the most recent Thai election, that could be quite quite favorable to the revolution, because the would be prime next prime minister. PETA has expressed sympathy towards the revolution. And he's said some negative things about Myanmar's military stuff has to flow into Myanmar that can help them win. And I'm talking about weapons, I'm talking about medicine, things like that. You know, you have to have a non hostile border. Also, as people are fleeing violence, or you have people flowing into Thailand, either look for work or perhaps as a rear base to benefit the revolution. It's not great when the government its police force in Thailand is proactively going out there and rounding them up because your pleases their neighbors and earns them brownie points with Myanmar's military that could actually be a big game changer to ultimately my view of how the world works is I see the world as an extremely chaotic place that is impervious to good predictions. Who knows what could happen? I mean, it could be anything from another pandemic, it could be a natural disaster, it could be an assassination, it could be you know, some key person falling dead from a heart attack. Who knows could be something happening over in China or the US who knows? What the revolutionaries have done now is they've set up a structure so that if there's this concussive shock to, to the Myanmar military, they have something in place to replace it. That's what I think is really, really important. That's what they've built now. Whether that would then hold, we don't know. But I, you know, I think the next six months to a year will be very interesting with respect to Thailand, and how that affects the revolution.
Host 1:39:14
Now, regarding the non narcotic trade that's going on, do you see any evidence that the profits of the narcotics are going to either via the military itself or whatever form the PT CIT is taking on that, that the profit from the narcotics are going to fund the military's oppression and attacks and assaults in trying to be back the resistance?
Patrick Winn 1:39:40
Only that all those profits, you know, those kickbacks that go to the regional commanders, some of it goes into their pockets? And I think some of it just goes into slush funds. So yeah, of course, it it benefits their side. You know how much they rely on And those bribes are out there really more like toll payments, be a better way to look at it, how much they rely on that to get by day to day. I'm not exactly sure. I just know that the economy in Myanmar as run by the state has absolutely been kicked in the head. Myanmar's military needs all the money that it can get now to. I mean, it's not it's not in very good shape. They have, of course natural resources, natural gas and Jade and all that stuff. But they need all the money that they can get to to fend off the revolution. And so yeah, every every little, every little bit helps those regional commanders, let's say if you know a genie floats down and just poof and all the narcotics disappear, and there is no drug trade, Myanmar, those guys are going to take a serious, hurting, I would be fascinated to know, to the degree to which they rely on that.
Host 1:40:57
Right. Historically, the relations between us and Myanmar, even during their darkest period when they weren't really talking about anything. There was a cooperation in terms of the drug trade. This coincided with the war on drugs that was launched in the US. And it also was, it was a time as you referenced earlier in the interview that the the the narcotics that were coming from Myanmar, were actually impacting American lives, which is not the case now. So this might be I might answer the question itself before I asked it with this piece of knowledge. But what I'm curious about is, given that there is a history of the US refusing to engage with Myanmar, anything, anything at all, during some of the darkest days, they were still engaging with them with drug eradication, that was still something that they saw as an American priority, even looking past the terrible human rights violations that the regime was, was implemented the time. Is there. Have you have you heard of or would you be surprised if there was any kind of discussion between American and Burmese military authorities on drugs particularly, or do you think that's, that's given the nature of what narcotics are being produced and where they're going? Which markets they're going to that that would not necessarily be an issue today, like it was in previous decades?
Patrick Winn 1:42:20
Well, I can answer your question pretty directly. I don't think that post coup, the DEA has a presence in Myanmar anymore, according to what I'm told. I don't know if that's public knowledge or not, but it is currently anathema for the DEA to as DEA or US federal agents to have contact with Myanmar's military regime. It's I just don't think it's happening at all. That is a break from before, I must say, if you know, the darkest days began in 1988, after the massacre in the when the regime went and just slaughtered monks and student protesters and people that listen to this podcast know what happened in 1988. Right. So what that started actually was an internal feud between the State Department and the DEA. The State Department position was no contact with Myanmar's regime is ideal. These guys are thugs and goons, and they're horrible. And, you know, there was even talk of pulling the US Embassy out of Yangon. What you had was the DEA saying, wait a minute, more heroin comes out of Myanmar than just about any other country in Asia and it's flowing into our US cities. The drug war is on I mean, as the 90s rolled in the drug war was still at a very high tempo. We have to you know, hold our noses and deal with the Myanmar's regime go out with their police and troops and go arrest traffickers the same way that we do in Mexico, you know, we should be in there kicking down doors. And this was a really really bitter and nasty feud playing out inside the US Embassy in Yangon. i We can understand the motivations of both sides. Now, of course, the State Department perspective is going to sound good to people who listen to this and think well, yeah, you know, they are the junta is horrible, and that was the right position. From the DEA position. It's like this makes absolutely no sense. We have relationships with all types of awful regimes. We're going to have to have a relationship with this awful regime if we want to get heroin off the streets, 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 pick on a map can't can't locate on a map. So that really, really intense a nasty feud that also involves the CIA, which sided with the State Department played out all through the 90s. And eventually the State Department with the help of the CIA triumphed. And it really kind of ended around the time, but by the, by like the War on Terror years, the early 2000s, the DEA had had sort of let loose of that idea of intense cooperation with with Burma's regime.
Host 1:45:44
Although it does have to be pointed out that some of the equipment they gave them for drug eradication was proven later to be used against ethnic people. So there definitely were some pretty terrible side effects of that.
Patrick Winn 1:45:56
That's true. The Yeah, just to give a little more of the background, through the 70s and 80s. Yes, the US had a anti-narcotics program with with the Navy when regime. And yes, they did give them helicopters, they gave them planes, and those helicopters and planes were repurposed to, to persecute ethnic minorities by 1988 8990. I don't know exactly when they cut them off. But I think it was the Reagan administration, they were like, no more us anything going into Burma for the time being. I think it was actually pretty, pretty difficult for for the Burmese regime, because there, they had these us helicopters, and they couldn't get replacement parts for them. So when the DEA guys would partner with them to go out and survey, Shan State, they're in these helicopters. And they're like, God, you know, I hope like the rotor doesn't fall off here. Because because they had no way to service those helicopters with parts.
Host 1:46:59
Right. So in closing, looking ahead to where we're at now, two and a half years into this resistance, and as you said just a moment ago, the uncertainty of the future, so many things can hinge on some small thing happening in one direction or the other, which then affects the whole playing field. So this is kind of an impossible question to answer not knowing the the things that could happen that surprised us that really shift. But just in general, what are you looking at? Like, What trends are you looking at? What are you curious about? What are you paying attention to someone who has lived and reported on this region and especially illicit activity in the region? What is it that you're most closely paying attention to now?
Patrick Winn 1:47:40
In two words, wah state, I think, I think was state is absolutely the most fascinating variable in this, in this conflict I've been trying to cover was state as treating it like a nation. And I just, again, I want to distinguish nation from country, they're not trying to be an independent country, but they are. They are a nation. They're an ethnic group that controls its borders, and has a sense of ethnic belonging and their homeland, and has a highly highly functioning government. And is, of course, like any government capable of doing things that that really bring a lot of harm. They're also capable of defending their homeland from total domination by Myanmar Central State, which is something that I think people in every part of the country can relate to. So I'm interested in my reporting, dropping the dropping the perspective on Wall state as the sinister drug cartel and the hills and therefore headhunters and all that stuff. I'm interested in moving past that and covering covering wall state as a de facto de facto nation. The next book, I'm not quite ready to promote it yet, but it will be out in January 2024. Looks at DEA operations and see CIA operations and Myanmar. And a lot of it focuses on Wall state and some untold stories about where to begin, how the CIA and DEA have interacted with the wall over over the past decades. And so that book will be out in early January. I'll start promoting it in a future date.
Host 1:49:33
Great. Yeah. Well, we look forward to having you on to discuss that book at length when it comes out. And in closing, any last thing you want to say or comment on of this discussion hasn't touched upon? No,
Patrick Winn 1:49:43
I think we've pretty much covered it. I would just encourage everybody looking at Myanmar's drug trade, to try to see it as a as a trade as a commodity. 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 will, Your future will unfold. The farther we get away from the draconian drug war ideology, where you're just really viewing it as a good versus evil struggle, the more clear headed you will be and this isn't Star Wars, okay? It's just not it's not, you know, Luke vs. Darth Vader. It 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 government approach a democratic government controlling Myanmar, it will then have a say in whether wants to see Myanmar continue to be a place that produces vast vast quantities of narcotics for the entire region. And if that future government wants to wipe out the narcotics trade, it will have a very, very big task ahead of it. So that's those are my thoughts. I just hope that people can can see this for what it is and not see it in this as a morality play.
Host 1:51:42
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