Thaksin says Myanmar ethnic army holds seven Thais
Thaksin says Myanmar ethnic army holds seven Thais
BANGKOK (Reuters): Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra said
on Tuesday seven Thai officers missing along the Thai-Myanmar
border since Sunday had been detained by an ethnic minority army
allied to Myanmar's military government.
Thaksin told reporters the United Wa State Army (UWSA) was
holding the Thais, military and civilian anti-narcotics
officials, in Myanmar. All seven were safe, he said.
"I have been told that they were arrested by the Wa and the
Myanmar government has promised full cooperation," Thaksin said.
Seven Thai officials from the Office of the Narcotics Control
Board (ONCB) and the Ministry of Defense, including one female
Army colonel, went to Tachilek town in Myanmar on Sunday after
attending a drugs seminar in Chiang Mai, Thai officials said.
Tumnu Sirisingha, head of the ONCB's northern office, said the
Thai officers got permission from Myanmar police to enter
Tachilek to survey drugs problems in the town, opposite the
northern Thai border town of Mae Sai.
Tumnu told reporters the group might have been captured
because they were driving a suspicious-looking vehicle which had
heavily tinted windows and high powered radios.
"The Wa may have suspected them of spying or committing a
robbery, so they captured them," he said.
The UWSA is said by Thai authorities to be a major producer
and supplier to Thailand of methamphetamine tablets. Officials
say as many as 800 million of the Myanmar-made stimulant pills
could reach Thailand this year, from 500 million last year.
Thai officials say most of the tablets are manufactured in
makeshift laboratories in areas under the control of Myanmar
ethnic minority groups which, like the Wa, have signed peace
deals with the Yangon military government in return for relative
autonomy.
The region forms part of the notorious "Golden Triangle" --
where the Thai, Myanmar and Laotian borders meet -- and is
believed by international agencies to be one of the world's top
heroin-producing regions.
Thai narcotics experts say production of methamphetamines is
increasingly supplanting opium and heroin there as the main
threat.
Thaksin has said fighting drugs is one of his government's top
priorities.
Thai Foreign Ministry spokesman Norachit Sinhaseni said
Bangkok had asked Yangon through diplomatic channels for help in
finding the missing Thais.
Myanmar officials had said their local authorities had already
sent out search parties to find the group, he said.