NAYPYIDAW: Week in Review: Myanmar still a drug country
This week, a Myanmar Times special report detailed a growing problem with methamphetamine in eastern Shan State.
Despite unprecedented record seizures of meth in Myanmar in recent years, the industry is still going strong in the Golden Triangle.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime also noted that opium poppy cultivation has been decreasing yearly but Myanmar remains the second largest producer of opium in the world.
As a regional effort cracks down on illicit drugs, crime gangs seems to be moving from cultivating poppy fields, which are easily located, to the manufacture of methamphetamine because it is easier to hide from the law.
The International Crisis Group released a report on January 8 classifying Shan State as one of the largest global producers of meth. In its report, “Fire and Ice: Conflict and Drugs in Myanmar’s Shan State,” the global security think tank noted that the country’s proximity to China and the ongoing conflicts with armed ethnic groups provide a breeding ground for the production and export of narcotics.
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Land Law takes effect
Monday was the deadline for anyone occupying or using vacant, fallow, or virgin land to apply for a permit to use the land for 30 years or face eviction and up to two years in jail under the Vacant, Fallow, and Virgin (VFV) Land Management Law.
The law has been criticised by an armed ethnic group for affecting millions of small farmers, especially in ethnic borderlands, and sparking fears of eviction and prison.
As expected, on the first day of the law taking effect, local government officials and companies started evicting villagers from disputed lands, according to lawyers in southern Myanmar.
Two cases are currently ongoing.
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Chief minister faces graft charges
On Monday, the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) filed charges against former Tanintharyi chief minister Daw Lae Lae Maw and three executives of Global Grand Services Co Ltd, a power distribution company.
The commission said it charged the former chief minister with corruption connected with a mowing contract for Dawei airport worth K400 million, allocating K1.9 billion of regional government funds to the Construction Ministry’s Road Management Department, and building fences for two compounds in Dawei that were under her husband’s name.
The three executives were charged under section 55 of the anti-corruption law.
Daw Lae Lae Maw was the first chief minister to be charged with corruption since the National League for Democracy took power in 2016.
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