“We are doing this to survive”: The poppy harvesting in the state of Shanemar, Myanmar Narcotics news

Southern Shan State, Myanmar -Tian Win Nang JeaSats on the solid -packed ground, where it balances a kilogram (2.2 lb) of raw ophthalmic chocolate in each hand such as human weight standards.

“Every kilogram deserves about $ 250,” said Tian Win Nang, wearing a black and black fruit, said a black shirt.

The son of poppy farmers, Tian Win Nang barely outside a teenager.

“Chinese merchants pay us in advance for the harvest,” the island shows three piles of opium the size of the layers.

“We don’t know what is happening yet,” he says about the journey that will see opium goes “north to laboratories”, where it will be treated in morphine and ultimately improved to heroin.

“We are doing this to survive,” he adds.

The sun is high and the air is still in the poppy fields that cover the hills in this part of the southern state of Shan in East Myanmar.

Men and women, young and old, move their faces protected by scarves and straw hats, with quick movements and practice where hands use sharp tools to record green poppy horns before applying silently to another plant.

Slowly liquid slowly from the wound mortar on the pod. When it dries on the consistency of the gums, the same hands will form from the sticky substance, and combine it together and leave it until it dries in the sun until it reaches the consistency similar to the rough ovens.

These are daily rituals for many farmers in this part of the state of Shan near where drug shipments flowed along these mountain roads near the town of Bacon for decades. The roads are heading towards the border with the neighboring Thailand, Laos and China.

The armed conflict between the military and ethnic organizations in Myanmar in these areas led to the supply of opium cultivation and the production of drugs for generations, but the trade has risen a step with the intensive civil war in the country.

Experts say that alliances have long been present between military officers in Myanmar high -ranking, ethnic armed groups, local criminal networks, and the national boundaries that deal with logistical services for drug trafficking, refining and distribution.

“The drug trafficking has been facilitated in Myanmar by the army since the 1990s,” said Mark Varmanner, director of the Advanced Myanmar Charitable Company in London and an expert in Southeast Asia. He said: “Many officers benefit personally, and the institution as a whole reaps political benefits.”

One of the most powerful regional unions is Sam GOR, a sprawling network consisting of an alliance of competitive Chinese trio -working gangs throughout China, Myanmar, Los, Thailand and Cambodia outside.

Despite the arrest of the year 2021 and its delivery to Australia from Tse Chi Lop – a Canadian citizen of Chinese origin who is widely believed to be the leader of Sam Gor – the network is still largely intact.

The United Nations Office for Pharmaceutical and Crime (UNDC) estimates that the Sam Gor Syndicate has generated at least $ 8 billion – and perhaps up to $ 17.7 billion – in 2018 of control of between 40 and 70 percent of the wholesale metamvitamine market in the Asia Pacific region.

Although the prominent Tse Chi Lop is arrested, regional drug trade flourishes with more than 1.1 billion methamphetamine pills that were seized throughout Southeast Asia in 2023-a historical record, according to UNodc.

“We are opposed to drug production, trafficking and using them

Most metamvitamine arises from the laboratories hidden in the mountains of North Shan State and other areas on the East Myanmar border, which have become a center in the region to produce artificial drugs, and it is part of the “golden triangle” – the region that is not due to the law that includes the common borders of Myanmarm, Thailand and Laos.

But before the explosion in the production of methamphetamine, the reputable golden triangle was not due to the opium and heroin crops that it produced while under the rule of Lord Khun drugs-the undisputed drug property in the regional drug trafficking in the 1980s and 1990s.

Joon Sa is believed to have led a personal army with about 15,000 men and under its framework, many of the state of the International Center for Heroin Production. He surrendered to the military government in Myanmar in 1996 and died in Yangon in 2007, under the protection of the same generals who were protecting him for years.

“In the early eighties of the last century, the United States Control Administration estimated that 70 percent of the heroin consumed in the United States came from his organization,” Kelvin Rolli, lecturer at Swinburn University of Technology in Australia, wrote after the death of John S.

“The United States government placed a head of two million dollars at the head of (John Sa) – which was reported that it was less than what he got in one month.”

The opium has now achieved a return in the golden triangle.

After the Taliban banned poppy cultivation in Afghanistan in 2022, Myanmar returned to the world’s best producer.

In 2023, according to UNODC estimates, the poppy fields in Myanmar extended more than 47,000 hectares (more than 116,000 acres), and by 2024, about 995 tons of raw opium were produced – an increase of 135 percent ago 589 dollars in 2021. UNDC.

The volume of drug production, as United Nations reports, is associated with the civil war in Myanmar, which is now in its fourth year.

Myanmar’s economy has collapsed since the military coup in 2021, and as options narrowed, people traditionally turned into poppy cultivation as a way to survive.

The United Nations notes that the cultivation of opium population in Southeast Asia was long -related to poverty, lack of government services, economic challenges and insecurity.

The United Nations said: “Families and villages in Myanmar, which are involved in poppy cultivation and the broader opical economy, do so to supplement income or because they lack other legitimate opportunities.”

But now parts of Bacon, a military stronghold and a major drug trafficking, are under the control of the Carney Nationality Defense Force (KNDF) and other armed groups Carney fighting the ruling army.

They say they want to change things.

“We oppose drug production, trafficking and use it,” said Maui, deputy leader of KNDF.

“When we pick up the Burmese soldiers, they are full of metasta,” said Maui.

He said: “We ask where to come from and tell us, without hesitation, they are distributed by their superiors to push them to the front lines.”

“Once the war ends, we will also pursue the opium. We only want to use it for medical purposes.”

As part of anti -anti -anti -anti -anti -police efforts, Carney Police forces stop motorcycles and road vehicles in the Shan areas now.

“We stop cars and motorcycles that we do not get to know to search for drugs,” said Carney Wining Thun’s police chief, standing at a checkpoint outside a village in the Bacon area.

“We are looking for Yaba pills,” said Wayne Ning Thun, using the local name for methamphetamine.

“Until recently, this area was under the control of military militias and proteins in the militia,” Ning Theon said.

“Meth was moving freely under their supervision. They took a percentage of profits from every shipment of dates,” he said.

“I was supposed to make a lot of money.”

In the depths of the forests surrounding Pekon, a small prison holds rows of detainees arrested by the Carney police.

“Everyone was arrested here for drug trafficking,” Karenie police official told Al -Jazeera.

He said: “These are the pills that we confiscated in the past month only,” and it carries a plastic bag stuffed with small red yaba pills that are easy to hide and sell at a cheap price, but it represents a trade worth millions of dollars.

Among the prisoners in prison are Anton Lee, who was wearing glasses and a calm and humble appearance.

He told me: “They stopped me at a checkpoint with 10,000 tablets.”

He said: “I used to take them to the Thai border. I was supposed to make a lot of money,” he did not provide any other details, just to say that the profit that he hoped would win was to feed his family for a year.

Now, he faces a long time in prison.

Not far from prison, the civil war flows in Myanmar where the military system buys more advanced weapons, and the rebel forces are trying to withstand and expand their progress.

Air air strikes, drone strikes, artillery fire hammer schools, hospitals, homes and religious sites, and turning the entire villages into targets.

However, even under the fire, here in the southern state of Shan, some seem to be trying to eradicate the drug flow.

With limited resources, they tell what they can in another battle within a much larger war.