Myanmar claims war on drugs but protects barons

Myanmar claims war on drugs but protects barons

By John Sweeney

RANGOON: It was like the opening scene of the Hollywood film
Traffic: Jeeps with smoked glass windscreens, laden with heavily
armed soldiers, zoomed through the Myanmarese rain forest,
protecting a very important person.

The dignitary was not the military junta's anti-drugs tsar but
someone much more powerful -- Myanmar's godfather of heroin, Lo
Hsing Han.

An investigation by The Observer and BBC Radio reveals the
multi-million-pound empire of Lo, the protection he receives from
the Myanmarese junta -- which proclaims it is cracking down on
heroin -- and his money-laundering operation in Singapore.

Lo and his American-educated son, Steven Law, also known as
Htun Myint Naing, come and go freely between the island state and
Myanmar, running their Asia World combine -- an upmarket front
for one of the world's biggest heroin rackets.

And business is about to get even better. The decision that
opium farming in Afghanistan is "unIslamic" has led to a cut in
opium growing from 200,000 acres in the two key provinces to just
25. That means "China White" heroin from Myanmar will move into
the gap made by the drop in supply of "Afghan Brown".

The bad news is that "China White" is much more likely to be
injected than "chased" (smoked), worsening the public health risk
of AIDS and hepatitis.

The Myanmarese regime, a pariah in the West, trumpets a tough
anti-drugs policy. The reality behind the pretense is far uglier.

Lo's protectors, the Myanmarese generals who run the State
Peace and Development Council (popularly known by its former
title, SLORC), play very rough with anyone who gets in the way of
Heroin Inc.

When Saw Lu, a prince of the Wa people opposed to the heroin
trade, informed the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration about
the drug trafficking activities of a regional army intelligence
chief, Maj. Than Aye, word got back to the junta.

According to a report of the Administration, Saw Lu was held
upside down for 56 days with an electric lead attached to his
penis. His torturers poured urine on his face; he was beaten with
chains; his captors tormented him by throwing him down next to an
empty, freshly dug grave.

Saw Lu's life was spared. Others have not been so lucky. The
heroin shipment Saw Lu reported to the DEA was destined for Lo.
Maj. Than Aye supervised the torture. For his diligence he was
promoted to a high position in SLOCR.

Lo, who has been identified as a narco-terrorist by the U.S.
State Department and spent time on death row in Yangoon in the
1970s, before he bought his liberty, lives in lavish style in two
homes, one in the Salween Village and the other in the smartest
area in Yangoon close to the 16th tee of the city golf course.

The Observer/BBC team took up golf for the day to establish
his precise address: 20-23 Masoeyein Kyang Street, Mayangone,
Yangoon. The house is all but shielded from view by a high
encircling wall and a forbidding steel gate.

Lo's infamous brand of "China White" heroin is industrially
produced in the Mong Hom-Mong Ya valley on the Chinese border,
opposite Mangshi. His operational headquarters is the Salween
Village near Nampawng, south of the town of Lashio, a base for
farmers, chemists and gunmen, serviced by local prostitutes and
burlesque dancers from Ukraine.

Lo has made so many millions from heroin that he built and
runs Yangoon's main port. Two years ago Australian police seized
a ship carrying almost half a ton of heroin originating in
Myanmar -- a huge find, enough to give every man, woman and child
in Australia a hit of heroin. The street price of heroin in
Sydney did not drop a cent.

The plainest evidence of the closeness between SLORC and Lo's
heroin empire emerged at the 1995 wedding of his son, Steven Law,
to Singaporean businesswoman Cecilia Ng.

Guest of honor was Hotels and Tourism Minister Lt. Gen. Kyaw
Ba, accompanied by three other SLORC generals and four Cabinet
Ministers.

Law is the managing director of Asia World Company Limited.
Started in 1992, it reports its "authorized capital" to be about
US$40 million. It has put an estimated $200 million into
construction projects around Yangoon. Asia World is running a
joint venture with SLORC, building and running the main new port
in Yangoon, which handles 90 percent of Myanmar's exports.

Law is not such an honored guest in the United States. He has
been declined a visa, due to "suspicion of involvement in
narcotics trafficking", according to a State Department official.

The Asia World racket also runs a supermarket chain, Myanmar's
biggest bus company -- good cover to ship the product -- and a
plastic bag factory. To make plastic bags, Lo imports large
quantities of acetic anhydride. The other use of acetic anhydride
is the manufacture of heroin.

The millions from Lo's heroin racket are reportedly laundered
in Singapore from a plush suite of offices on the 10th floor of
Shenton House, an office block on Shenton Way, in the heart of
Singapore's business district.

The Singapore company registry lists two companies run by Law,
neither of which is called Asia World. But the giveaway is a
large display sign in the Shenton House front office, depicting a
globe with the letters A and W.

Law was not there when we visited; staff said he was out of
the country.

In the past 10 years Singapore has executed at least 100 drug
traffickers for possession of small amounts of heroin, according
to Amnesty International. But the island state lets off at least
one Mr Big, scot-free.

In the heroin addict ward in Bangkok's biggest hospital, one
of the victims of the Myanmarese heroin barons lay on a bed, his
skin stretched like paper over his bones, a hideous fungal
infection creeping over his face, suggesting to the doctor that
he was suffering from AIDS.

You can see heroin addicts like him in every major city in the
world. Different faces, same dead eyes.

-- Observer News Service