Soaring coffee price lures Laos smugglers

Press, 26 May 1977, Page 16

Soaring coffee price lures Laos smugglers

By

PAUL ULEVICH

in Nakhon Phanom,

Thailand, for NZPA.

Coffee by the tonne is keeping Mekong River smugglers awake at night. But officials in Nakhon Phanom and other Mekong River towns on the Thai bank are worried about imports more dangerous than the untaxed grown gold — guns, people and communist ideology. Muddy and wide, the Mekong forms a natural border of 1500 kilometres between Laos and Thailand, a border closed for most of its length by the vagaries of international politics.

Coffee opens the border when the sun goes down. The illicit trade is worth a small fortune. To Thai boatmen, fisherfolk tnd farmers. It means rice, medicine and consumer goods to the communist regime in Laos, which is desperately short of foreign exchange. Thai customs finds the trade in coffee beans from the rich highlands of Champassak, in Laos, a nuisance. Officials on both sides of the fabled river worry about some of the other traffic churned up when profit and

politics mix. That traffic involves suspected communist aid to insurgents in Thailand, sanctuary* for rebels battling the Laotian communists, and refugees and others interested in a quiet passage across the Mekong. “If you could see in the dark this river would look like Connecticut Avenue at rush hour,” said one Western diplomat who watches Thai-Lao relations. Other travellers along the Thai bank confirm that the border is porous.

Smuggling is not new to the Mekong. For the smugglers, most of them Thais, the' communist take-over in Laos in late 1975 merely meant a change in the rulesBefore communist forces came to power in Laos, the former French colony offered bargains in foreign goods. Customs duty was low.

Imports were taxed heavily in Thailand and smugglers shopped in Vientiane and other river cities on the Laotian bank and brought their purchases back to Thailand by moonlight.

Laotian shops offered French wines, transistor radios from Japan, even canned gefilte fish from Israel. Ironically, food, fuel and consumer goods came to landlocked Laos through the Thai port of Bangkok. Transit goods paid no tax. Relations between Thailand and Laos cooled and after clashes Bangkok ordered the border closed. At the same time Laos lost the Western aid that fuelled its economy. Shops closed, glitter ceased.

Though the Thais reopened the border at two points, the river remained closed for most of its length. Nakhon Phanom, formerly a thriving entrepot that suffered an economic disaster when a nearby American base closed, was hurt again. Now Nakhon Phanom and its customs post are sleepy places. Customs officers show up for work each morning, but enforcement of th*» order closing the river is the only duty. It’s a night job, said one

agent. Though one room at the customs shed is full of captured coffee, the agent readily admits that the patrols are no match for smugglers. Can he hear the smugglers motor-boats in the evening? “Hear them? Some nights I can see them,” he said. Once they reach Lao waters they’re safe. And the communist officials are selling the coffee. Smugglers — also not eager to have their names used — readily admit the communist authorities are only too happy to sell the coffee. They maintain that Laos has an open border, even if Thailand does not. Not so with the traffic in people. One smuggler said he charges $5O to $5OO to carry a refugee out of Laos —• and he risks being gunned down from the Lao side if troops discover his cargo. In return for coffee — which fetches record prices on the world’s markets — the Laotians get gasoline

and diesel fuel, rice and medical supplies. Trade is by barter and cash rarely changes hands. The smugglers pay the equivalent of about 40 cents a pound for coffee in Laos. They sell it for about 70 cents on the Thai side. In Bangkok it brings more than four times the original purchase price. In January, for instance, authorities in Nakhon Phanom made three arrests and confiscated about a ton of coffee beans — only a fraction of the traffic. Other homegrown Laotian products have authorities more worried. They include opium (Laos is a member of the golden triangle of opium growing countries, along with Thailand and Burma), traded in unknown quantities along the northern reaches of the river border. And each side charges the other with supplying dissidents on the other side with guns and other assistance.