Khun Sa snuffs it!

[GWR]

Other reports put him as 73 or 83:

http://www.mizzima.com/MizzimaNews/News/2007/Oct/116-Oct-2007.html

http://www.mizzima.com/Foto-2007/oct/Khunsa-photo.jpg
[Photo: Mizzima Times]

Notorious drug kingpin Khun Sa dead at 74

Mizzima News (www.mizzima.com)

October 30, 2007 - Khun Sa, who gained wide standing notoriety as the highest profile drug warlord of the fabled Golden Triangle, is reported to have died in Rangoon.

While various reports place his death as occurring between the dates of October 26 to 28, a police source in Rangoon said the drug kingpin died on Sunday at his residence.

Khuensai Jaiyen, editor of the Thailand based Shan Herald Agency for News (SHAN), said the former drug lord, age 74, was suffering from diabetes, high cholesterol, high blood pressure and was half paralyzed before his death.

"His body was cremated this morning at Yaywai cemetery in Rangoon without much ceremony," Jaiyen added.

Born in 1933, Khun Sa is best known for operating a massive drug operation in a virtually autonomous stretch of territory in eastern Shan State and along the Thai-Burmese border from the mid-1970s to mid-1990s, maintaining a command center in the northern Thai town of Ban Hin Taek.

Through the establishment of the Shan United Army, he portrayed himself as a freedom fighter in opposition to the central Burmese government, fighting for the rights and autonomy of the Shan peoples.

In 1996 Khun Sa dissolved his fiefdom and is said to have "surrendered" to Burmese authorities. However it is well known that he continued to live out his days in Rangoon, with little hassle from Burmese authorities.

His "surrender" came seven years after he was indicted by a New York court for drug trafficking, and at a time when Burmese authorities were keen to make a public show for their efforts in combating the trade in illegal narcotics.

The existing financial interests of Khun Sa and his family are not known in full, but his relations are rumored to continue to hold significant financial portfolios in Burma's urban centers as well as in Khun Sa's old hunting grounds along the Thai-Burmese border, including investment in a casino in the Burmese border town of Myawaddy.
http://www.mizzima.com/MizzimaNews/News/2007/Oct/116-Oct-2007.html

See also Asian Times Online article by Bertil Lintner, who famously met Khun Sa in Homong twice. By most accounts, there is a mausoleum in Homong that Khun Sa had built years ago. Although cremated in Yangon, his ashes will probably be returned to the Homong mausoleum eventually:

Part 1 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IK01Ae01.html
Part 2 http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Southeast_Asia/IK01Ae02.html

Death of a drug lord
By Bertil Lintner

CHIANG MAI, Thailand - Khun Sa, 73, once known as the "Lord of the Golden Triangle", is dead. Throughout his career as one the world's most prominent drug traffickers, he simultaneously had some very solid contacts - and protectors - in his native Myanmar and beyond.

The fact that he spent the last years of his life incommunicado inside a compound protected by Myanmar's secret intelligence service gives some indication as to how important the country's ruling junta considered it after his surrender in January 1996 to keep him isolated and quiet. And, despite his surrender, drugs are still flowing across Myanmar's borders in all directions, which shows that the networks he once created and of which he was a part are still very much intact.

..........


Recent multimedia slideshow in The Irrawaddy on Khun Sa's Old Camp Museum in Chiang-Rai Province's Terd Thai Commune:

http://www.irrawaddy.org/Multimedia/KhunSa/index.php

Years ago, Khun Sa had a base just within Thailand. Indeed, it is said he was once arrested by the Thai authorities, and that 'someone' arranged for him to escape at an appropriate price. Thereafter, he was based just across the border in Homong:

http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showthread.php?t=2530

Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khun_Sa

[GWR]

King of the Golden Triangle is dead
Published on November 2, 2007

Golden Triangle opium warlord Khun Sa may have died last week after a decade of living a reclusive life under the watchful eyes of the Burmese government, but his fall from grace began in the mid-1990s when his Mong Tai Army (MTA) began to fall apart.

Some Shan nationalists were upset with Khun Sa devoting too much attention to the "economic division" of the movement - namely the Yunnanese drug syndicates behind his network of heroin distributions. Capitalising on the MTA's internal split, Rangoon brought Khun Sa's arch enemy and business rival, the United Wa State Army (UWSA), into the picture.

Unable to keep the MTA factions together, combined with a vicious assault by Wa troops, Khun Sa finally surrendered to the Burmese authorities in January 1996 in return for amnesty.

But the end of Khun Sa and the fall of his MTA failed to put a dent in the supplies of illicit drugs out of the Golden Triangle. In fact, the situation got worse with the UWSA in firm control of drug production along the Thai-Burma border.

Wei Hsueh-kang, a UWSA commander, became a new household name for the Thai public, replacing the likes of Khun Sa and Lo Hsing-han before him.

At first, the Wa who fought the Shan alongside their Burmese counterparts were told to return to their stronghold in Panghsang on the Sino-Burma border. Rangoon issued two ultimatums, ordering the UWSA to retreat, but the Wa stood their ground. Knowing that an all-out war with the Wa would have grave consequences, Rangoon decided to make the best out of the situation.

For Rangoon, the UWSA became a bargaining chip, a proxy, perhaps, that they could use to counterbalance the Thai military. As an ally of Rangoon, Wa troops have been called on to take up arms against the Thais on a number of occasions in cross-border clashes between Thai and Burmese troops.

But at the same time, the Wa wanted to be friends with Thailand in order to lessen their dependency on Burma and China. The Thaksin administration toyed with the idea and agreed to carry out a crop-substitution project in the Wa-controlled area, trying to model it after Doi Tung, a capital-intensive showpiece project that turned what was once an opium-filled hilltop into a Swiss-like mountain camp. It was billed as a joint Thai-Burmese project aimed at improving the lives of peasants in the Wa-controlled area. But it eventually died a natural death because no one in the international community wanted to go near any project with Burma, much less the Wa.

But while it tried hard to be accepted as a legitimate power in the Golden Triangle, the UWSA could not kick the habit.

When they first began to settle down along the border, Thai troops were not really sure as to how to conduct themselves with their new neighbours. Thai and Wa troops killed time by playing volleyball over nets that were set right on the common borderline.

The Wa had hoped that the new settlements along the Thai border would become a new economic lifeline for the 20,000-strong outfit that used to be crunched up against the Chinese border. To fill these settlements that were built by Thai construction workers, nearly 100,000 villagers living in the UWSA-controlled Special Region 2 were forcibly relocated.

But nothing comes easy in the rugged hills where warlords play for keeps. The turning point came one morning in February 1999 when authorities found nine Thai villagers from Chiang Mai's Fang District beaten to death with their hands tied behind their backs. Their bodies were scattered along the border. Some said it was a drug deal gone bad. Nevertheless, all fingers pointed to newly built Mong Yawn, a southern stronghold of the UWSA, about 20 kilometres from the Son Thon Doo checkpoint, inside Shan State. The then prime minister Chuan Leekpai ordered the checkpoint closed and all Thai construction workers were told to return. Overnight, just like that, the Wa became Thailand's public enemy number one, demonised by both the authorities and the public.

If Khun Sa was an embarrassment for Thailand because he was operating from Thai soil, the UWSA was no different for the Burmese. But unlike Rangoon, Bangkok had the strong desire to be accepted by the international community as a do-gooder. This explained the 1982 offensive against Khun Sa's Ban Hin Taek base camp on the edge of Chiang Rai province. Many of his deputies were arrested in the joint Thai-US "Operation Tiger Trap".

But that was not the end of the warlord. Khun Sa and his men retreated to Hua Muang, a valley adjacent to Mae Hong Son province, and remained there until his fall from grace in 1996. Thailand also turned on the Wa after it became clear that the 20,000-strong outfit still wouldn't kick the habit. Khun Sa's former lieutenant, Maha Ja, became a mayor of Hua Muang, which is now surrounded by two Burmese battalions, while his other deputy, Colonel Yawd Serk, refused to put down his arms. Yawd Serk repositioned his men on a couple of hilltops - Doi Tailaeng and Doi Dam - opposite Mae Hong Son and Chiang Mai, respectively.

Like Khun Sa's Hua Muang, the two Dois are visited by journalists on a regular basis, in spite of a contingent of Thai troops sitting there to prevent people from crossing back and forth. A decade after his surrender, local residents continue to talk about the half-Shan, half-Chinese peasant who became a freedom fighter to some and an opium warlord to others. But he was, during his time, undoubtedly the king of all he surveyed in the Golden Triangle.

Don Pathan
The Nation

http://www.nationmultimedia.com/2007/11/02/opinion/opinion_30054565.php

[GWR]

Khun Sa: The good things about him
by admin — last modified 2007-11-20 10:25
No.14 - 11/2007
20 November 2007

http://www.shanland.org/general/2007/Khun%20Sa.jpg
[Photo: Shan Herald Agency for News]

In Germany, saying anything good about Adolf Hitler (1889-1945) could cost you your job.

At Ban Therdthai aka Ban Hintaek, Mae Fa Luang District, Chiangmai Province, it is the other way round. Saying anything bad about Khun Sa, ex-Mong Tai Army (MTA) leader who died on 28 October under virtual house arrest in Rangoon, could cost you a short stay at the village. Maybe a bang of the door in your face. Please find your way out of my house, Mister.

No doubt it is no sweat to find faults with Khun Sa (1934-2007). He had lots of them: assassination of several prominent Shan leaders including Zam Mong, Hseng Harn and Sai Lek, favoritism to yes-men especially those of ethnic Chinese origins, his insatiable appetite for the opposite sex, and others. His surrender in 1996 had brought lasting disgrace to the Shans. His downfall could be traced to his ill-considered declaration of independence in 1993 after which he found himself totally surrounded by enemies where the only way out was to give himself up to the Burma Army.

But having worked with him for ten years (1985-1995) after he “borrowed” me from my late boss Gawnzerng (1926-1991), I know he had his good side.

You don’t have to look far. In some bookstores in Chiangmai, you’ll find copies of Khun Sa: His own story and his thoughts still lying around, from where one can sample how he thought about what he was doing:

* If you have your own country but not your own government, nothing you own is secure. The money you earn is for others to take and squander; the rice you grow is to feed them; the home you build is for them to burn down; your sons are to be press-ganged as their cannon fodder and porters; and your daughters are to be raped and sold as prostitutes.

* We have a population of eight million made up of one million families (eight members to a family). If each family furnishes a soldier, then we will have an armed force of one million troops and the war will be won with ease. Shouldn’t each family be responsible for contributing one soldier?

* The Soviet Union and China, with hundreds of races and tribes, succeeded in forming nations. If we, with only 26 races, cannot do it, we are unworthy of an independent state.

* Why is Burma always in turmoil? It is because the Burmese never want to elevate any race other than their own. We cannot follow the Burmese way if we wish for a peaceful and prosperous nation. We must promote races other than the Tais to become national leaders.

* The present Union of Burma can be likened to an open human hand. The seven states are the fingers and Burma a nut in the depression in the palm’s center. If every finger is strong and each act in concert with the rest, the nut can be crushed with ease.

* Poppy cultivation was terminated in China because it had its own government. By the same logic, the termination of poppies in the Shan State is inseparable with the set up of an independent Shan government. The independent Chinese government never found the need to get any urge from foreign government to do it. Neither will we.

* Our bodies are like machines, the longer we use them, the poorer their capacities become. Unlike them, our brains are like knives, the more we whet them, the sharper they become. Therefore, we can let our bodies age, but our brains, never.

* Don’t behave like drums and gongs: they make sounds only when beaten. Act like clocks: they sound off every time the need arises.

* I want to ask those people who refuse to improve themselves: Are you afraid of Shan State becoming independent?

He was also the one who introduced Shan leaders and those aspiring to be leaders Romance of the Three Kingdoms, the Chinese classic whose clear moral is that one cannot enter politics solely on the basis of lofty ideals like truth, sincerity and principles.

I have also never known any Shan leader other than him strongly exhorting the idea that the war against the Burma Army could be won without fighting. “If you don’t want to fight, you have to have a strong army,” he used to say. “On the contrary, you will have to fight all the time, if you have a weak army.”

But six months after a mutiny took place on 6 June 1995, the panicked Khun Sa accepted defeat and surrendered himself to his sworn enemy the Burma Army.

Which proved once again that to be a successful leader, big ideas are not enough. One also need a big and stout heart and Khun Sa did not have it. “His biggest fault was he did not practise what he preached,” summed up one of his cousins who had since decided to end up his days in Thailand.

Notably, among those who mourned his downfall was the late expert on Shans, Gehan Wijeyewardene, who wrote in the Thai-Yunnan Project News, June 1996:

In Burma, attention now focuses entirely on the moral force exerted by Aung San Suu Kyi. One can only hope that this will succeed. But there can be no doubt that the forcing of Khun Sa into the arms of SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council, the former name of Burma’s ruling military council) has done Burmese freedom a great disservice.

Khuensai Jaiyen
http://www.shanland.org/general/2007/khun-sa-the-good-things-about-him

Map of Shan State:
http://www.angkor.com/2bangkok/2bangkok/forum/showthread.php?p=18478#post18478