A VISIT TO CHINA'S BURMESE PROVINCE: MONGLA AND

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 RANGOON 001598

SIPDIS

BEIJING PASS CHENGDU
STATE FOR EAP/BCLTV, EB, DRL, OES, INL
COMMERCE FOR ITA JEAN KELLY
TREASURY FOR OASIA JEFF NEIL
USPACOM FOR FPA

E.O. 12958: DECL: 12/14/2013
TAGS: SOCI EAID SNAR ECON SCUL PHUM KHIV KWMN PREL PGOV BM CM NGO
SUBJECT: A VISIT TO CHINA'S BURMESE PROVINCE: MONGLA AND
KYAINGTONG

REF: RANGOON 1339

Classified By: COM CARMEN MARTINEZ FOR REASONS 1.5 (B,D)


1. (C) Summary: Some clear themes emerged from a trip to the
Burmese corner of the Golden Triangle. The area's cities are
relatively affluent, thanks to border trade. However, this
affluence, combined with low education levels, poor
healthcare, and very little international attention, has
helped this region to become a locus of social problems such
as prostitution, HIV/AIDS, and trafficking of women. Though
the region is notorious for opium, it seems narcotics
production is waning, though peddling and drug use remain a
problem. Finally, the increasing influence of China, to
include a renminbi-denominated border economy, is a trend
that will remain for the long term. End summary.

Background: The Wild East


2. (U) In an effort to assess the social and economic
conditions in Burma's border regions, in early December two
Embassy officers visited a mountainous corner of eastern Shan
State, the country's largest administrative region, smack in
the middle of the Golden Triangle near the Chinese, Thai, and
Lao borders. This part of Shan State is still primarily wild
and inaccessible, with few roads and very little other
infrastructure. It is also a region with close ethnic ties
to Thailand and China. Though its largest single ethnic
group is Akha, the majority of people are of various Tai
subgroups or ethnic Chinese. The area is also quite diverse
religiously, with Christians comprising approximately 40
percent of the population. There is also a small Muslim
community and many animists in the hills.


3. (U) As with other border zones in Shan State (see reftel),
this area of eastern Shan State -- made up of Kyaingtong,
Tachileik, and Mongla townships -- relies far more on its
foreign neighbors than on the Burmese regime in Rangoon. The
road west to the Shan capital of Taunggyi and the main
Mandalay trade route is long and hard, passing through very
rough, mountainous, and dangerous terrain. The roads east to
China and south to Thailand are, to the contrary, very good.
Thus it is no surprise that it is its geographic, not legal,
identity that defines this region. In fact as we reached
Mongla, the absence of ethnic Burmans, the almost exclusive
use of spoken and written Mandarin, and the renminbi economy
suggested that we had crossed the border into China.

Affluence But Many Social Problems


4. (U) Kyaingtong, the hub of the three townships, is more
affluent than most towns of equivalent size elsewhere in
Burma. Tachileik, to the south, is the major point in Shan
State for legal Thai-Burma border trade. Although Mongla, to
the northeast, is not yet an official China border trade
crossing point, many products, primarily consumer goods, come
in illicitly through the extremely porous and rugged
frontier. Farmers bringing their produce to market in
Kyaingtong find they can get somewhat better prices because
traders there are often buying for export to China and
Thailand. Likewise, border towns Tachileik and Mongla enjoy
regular electricity and phone service, a luxury in the rest
of Burma, purchased from over the border.


5. (C) However, the region's comparative affluence, and
proximity to international borders (which attract many
jobless from around the country),combined with the region's
remoteness, generally poor infrastructure, and low education
levels have led to some serious social consequences.
Religious, UN, and NGO officials all point to this Golden
Triangle area as a hot zone for HIV/AIDS and trafficking in
women. Unfortunately, though, there has not yet been much
international attention to this area. A Catholic priest in
Kyaingtong told us he had been unable to raise even US$10,000
from international charities he'd contacted for grassroots
HIV/AIDS care and income generation projects to dissuade
women from going to Thailand for sex work. Currently only
U.S.-based NGO World Vision and a skeleton UNDP office
provide humanitarian aid out of Kyaingtong, and their
operations were criticized by locals for having too much
overhead and too little grassroots impact.


6. (C) Anecdotes from community leaders in Kyaingtong and
UNDP officials in Rangoon indicate that movement of young
women, voluntarily or otherwise, through Tachileik into
Thailand for sex work is a serious problem. Interestingly,
these girls are not primarily local, but originate from the
poorest parts of Burma and travel or are trafficked to the
Thai border area to work in brothels on both sides of the
frontier. Prostitution, and HIV/AIDS, are also present in
Mongla, though the girls are generally imported from Yunnan
Province. The consensus was that the trafficking and
prostitution situation would worsen if the Rangoon government
continued to tighten border trade restrictions, hurting local
economic prospects, and if the country's general economic
situation continued to decline, enticing girls to make the
long trek to look for work.

Drug Free Zone?


7. (C) Though the Golden Triangle region is historically
notorious for cultivation of opium poppies, we heard mixed
reports on the extent of current drug production and use.
According to UN officials and local businessmen in Mongla, a
boomtown built with drug proceeds in the mid-1990s, poppy
cultivation in the immediate region has decreased and
methamphetamines have not caught on. Both pointed north, to
the Wa region, when discussing current centers for opium and
methamphetamine production. However, community leaders in
Kyaingtong asserted that drug use and peddling were a growing
problem in town. A Catholic priest noted he had expelled in
2002 two boarders at his mission's orphanage for selling
drugs in the dormitory. The priest added that low-level drug
pushing is an increasingly common fall-back profession for
young men who lose their jobs in construction or trading.


8. (SBU) Poppy-substitution agricultural projects, in early
stages of development, were evident outside poverty stricken
villages along the 60-mile Kyaingtong-Mongla road. As in
northeastern Shan State (reftel),the crops produced along
this stretch (mangoes, rubber, lychees, and other cash crops)
are destined for the Chinese market. Other non-drug economic
potential in the region is not so clear. Mongla's
incongruous and flashy casinos and hopping nightclubs are
surely generating some cash, though not for locals since
nearly all the employees in these joints are short-term
Yunnanese migrants. Furthermore, business is terrible
because of a recent Chinese government effort to keep its
citizens out of the casinos by limiting tourists to short day
trips. Thus hundreds of Chinese tourists per day visit Thai
transvestite revues, a shocking pink anti-drug museum, a
Thai-owned jade emporium, and an atrocious zoo, but are
steered clear of the casinos. We heard claims of other
economic benefits coming from nearby jade and manganese
mines, and an ore processing factory in Mongla -- though
these seem marginal.

Politics: Let's Just Make Money


9. (C) There is an interesting political mixture in this
region. Though Kyaingtong and Tachileik have more dealings
with China and Thailand, they are still ostensibly under the
control of the Rangoon government and its military. Mongla
and the surrounding cease-fire-delineated Special Region
Four, on the other hand, are squarely the domain of the
National Democratic Alliance Army-Eastern Shan State
(NDAA-ESS) and its long-time leader Lin Minxiang (aka U Sai
Leun, aka U Sai Lin). For the last thirty miles to the
border, and throughout Mongla, we did not see a single
Burmese government entity, including at the Chinese border
checkpoint, other than a ramshackle immigration office in
Mongla and two public schools. In contrast, there was a
modern, multi-story building housing the Chinese PLA border
presence. The Chinese operation was very professional in
appearance, with several uniformed PLA soldiers in evidence
on their side of the checkpoint, including one standing at
attention on a raised dais.


10. (C) The political temperature in both Kyaingtong and
Mongla was low, with people focused more on border trade than
politics in Rangoon. Locals we approached were willing to
speak openly and at length about regional economic and social
conditions. Religious affairs appeared in relatively good
shape. The Christian leaders with whom we spoke told us
while they were officially constrained by Burma's
pro-Buddhist regulations, they were nonetheless able to
operate quite freely on the sly to renovate buildings, build
small new structures, and provide religious education. A
priest told us that the Ministry of Religious Affairs had, a
decade ago, even ruled in the Catholics' favor in a boundary
dispute with a neighboring Buddhist temple. In the early
morning hours we heard the call of the muezzin from
Kyaingtong's mosque.


11. (C) Our contacts had little to say about the upcoming
SPDC-managed National Convention. An FBIS-translated article
from a Shan opposition group's news agency claimed that the
leadership of Mongla was in a low-level dispute with Rangoon
authorities over the make up of Special Region Four's
delegation to the new Convention. We also learned that in
the first Convention in 1993 Mongla's delegation had pushed
for autonomy. However, the central government refused,
citing an obscure regulation requiring an autonomous zone to
have at least two townships -- Mongla has only one.
Apparently this request will be raised again in the new
Convention, though the same result is expected.

Comment: The Long Arm of China


12. (C) The most notable aspect of these trips to the Shan
border is how quickly the bonds of central Burmese control
are slipped, and how easily these ostensible Burmese towns
identify with their foreign neighbors. This is most
noticeable in the ethnic cease-fire zones that have some
legal autonomy. However, even the towns under Burmese
control -- like Kyaingtong, Tachileik, and Muse in the north
-- identify osmotically with the booming markets across the
border rather than the depressed markets of central and lower
Burma. This reality makes it clear that Rangoon's relations
with ethnic groups along the border now and in the future
will not just be about political-military issues, but also
about economic influence.
Martinez