Burmese troops enter Thailand

Press, 6 March 1987, Page 6

Burmese troops enter Thailand

By MARK FISHER of Reuters (through NZPA) Bangkok Seven hundred Burmese troops have poured into Thailand in a mounting campaign*- to crush ethnic rebels in the lawless Golden Triangle opium-growing area, Thai military officials said yesterday. The Burmese troops chased Karen guerrillas into east Thailand on Tuesday after the Thai Army launched a separate attack on Shan forces of Khun Sa, the region’s top warlord, 320 km further north on the border, they said.

Rangoon’s forces withdrew from the Tak Province after Thai forces fired mortar shells at

them as a warning. The Thai Army’s attack on Doi Lang along the border with Burma drove Shan fighters out of the Thai part of the base, the officials said. Burmese troops were now expected to attack parts of the base on their territory.

The officials could not confirm Bangkok press reports that several Thai border police were killed when Burmese troops spilled over into Tak.

Rangoon’s troops have waged a month-long campaign to crush several minority groups fighting for autonomy in mountainous northern and eastern Burma. Thailand, in what appeared to be an unofficial plan to co-operate with Rangoon, said last

week it had Burma’s permission to invade Shan bases in that country to stamp out Khun Sa’s drug empire. The officials said Bangkok’s troops made no effort to cross the border at Doi Lang, which is on the frontier with the Chiang Rai Province in northern Thailand, and were uncertain when Bangkok would order them to do so.

Bangkok is embarrassed at the flow of heroin reaching Western countries from the Golden Triangle through its territory and is keen to stamp out its drug production, which the Shan, Karen and other Burmese rebel groups are accused of controlling. The Golden Triangle stretches from east

Burma through Thailand into Laos and supplies much of the world’s heroin.

The Prime Minister, Prem Tinsulanonda, in a Bangkok newspaper interview published yesterday, emphasised that stamping out drug smuggling was a main concern of his Government.

In an apparent reference to drug use among United States troops in Vietnam during the war there, he said: “We consider drugs a special kind of weapon which is used in warfare. Countries which have lost wars recently have lost them because their troops were addicted.”

Although Thailand forced Khun Sa’s men out of Chiang Rai in northern Thailand in 1982, they

have since returned to bases right on the border.

Rangoon revealed little of its campaign against the rebel groups and casualty figures are not known.

Thai officials say it has been intense ip' some areas close to the border, forcing thousands of Shan, Karen, Haw and other villagers to flee to several Thai provinces.

The Shan and Karen guerrillas have for years thwarted. Rangoon’s attempts to defeat them, often melting into the jungle as the Burmese Atmy passed.

It is unclear how much success Rangoon’s present campaign is having, but co-operation with Thailand could vastly improve its chances.