BURMA: Drug lord Khun Sa dies
Updated
One of Asia's most notorious warlods has died. Khun Sa died in Rangoon, where he lived under the protection of the military rulers. He was 74. He once one of the world's most wanted men, with a vast drug-trafficking operation in the so-called Golden Triangle region, which includes Thailand, Laos and Burma.
Mathea Falcot former US assistant secretary of state, drugs control, during the Carter administration
Presenter: Sen Lam
FALCOT: Well, he was a very colourful, larger than life figure, half Chinese, half Shan, and he was originally known as Chan Chi-fu, and it wasn't until later years that he took the Shan name Khun Sa. He was really self-made, he developed a vast drug empire in the Golden Triangle, which is the geographic area where the borders of Burma, Thailand and Laos meet. He had enough opium traffick under his control, that he was able to fund an army called the Mok Tai Army which had 20,000 men under arms. This was several decades ago. And Burma was in those days and certainly in 70's, the 80's, and into the 90's, the major source for the world's opium, which of course is converted into heroin.
LAM: Indeed, he was so huge that he was once dubbed the Prince of Death by Washington, which of course at one point offered two million dollars for Khun Sa's capture?
FALCOT: Yes, that's what I mean. He was sort of larger than life figure. There was always a vigorous debate about whether he really was a freedom fighter on behalf of the Shan people, which is a group, an ethnic group within the Burmese territory that has long struggled from independence from the military junta. He was the head of something he called the Shan United Army, which he said was a freedom fighting group. The United States Government believed instead that it was really just a drug-trafficking organisation with a fancy name.
LAM: Indeed, as you say Khun Sa once styled himself as champion of the Shan separatists. But would you agree though, that few Shans today would mourn Khun Sa's passing, that many would just think that he used the Shan cause to lend his drugs business legitimacy?
FALCOT: Well, I think that's what history has actually proved. In 1995, there was a breakaway within his organisation, and his Mok Tai army basically crumbled and they formed a separate group, the breakaways, the Shan state national army. And after that, shortly thereafter, Khun Sa made a deal with the Burmese junta, with the generals, so that he was essentially allowed to retire to Rangoon, and live in really good comfort, considering how poor the country is. He lived very well cared for. I knew a number of people who believed that he was running a taxi concession, which was very important in Burma., that he was connected with the jewels trade, but that he had plenty of money to support him and his family in this situation. Of course, that was completely turning his back on the Shan people. And I think of course, they don't mourn his passing. He really was a thug. He was a major drug-trafficker.
LAM: Exactly, and also his organisation at one point relied very heavily on violence and murder and bribery?
FALCOT: Well, that's absolutely true in all drug-trafficking organisations. And I think he was one of the most violent. But I have to just point out that all of that ethnic fighting with the Burmese junta in the more remote areas of Burma is terribly violent. Right now, villages are being burned to the ground. It's really quite terrible. But I just want to say parenthetically, that at one point in the late 70's, Khun Sa offered to sell the United States Government the entire opium crop of the Golden Triangle. I've forgotten how much he wanted for it. But he then said that that would keep essentially all the heroin out of the United States. The Congress did not accept the deal, but it was really a very colourful kind of gesture.
