Background:
Wa means “people living in mountains” and they widely believed in animal sacrifice. Within China the Wa people are found in the two Wa Autonomous Counties of Ximen and Cangyuan in Western Yunnan. (Wang Aihe,1994).The Wa population live close to towns of Kengtung and Tachileck, in the north and northeast towards the Chinese border in northern Shan State. The other enclave of the Wa people is in the Southern Shan State close to the Thailand border.With eight million people the Wa population are currently one of the 135 nationalities that make up the ethnic mosaic of Myanmar.
Wa Special Region 2 in Eastern Shan State comprising of - Mong Maw, Mong Pawk and Wein Kao districts home to the Wa people with Akha, Lahu and Tai Loi is an area where the majority of opium poppy is produced in Myanmar.
Within China the Wa people are granted nationality by the Chinese government, as a prominent group. The Mon-Khymer speaking Wa people were animistic in the days of yore, and are closer linguistically with the Palaungs.
Gradually the Tai-Kadai speakers became the dominant language group in the northern Shan State and into the sixth and seventh century of the Christian era the Shan people had established a kingdom near the Shewli river, thus pushing the Wa people speaking the Paraok language into the enclaves of the area known as Wa Hills, that falls between the Salween and Mekong rivers, in the tri-junction of northern Myanmar and south western China and northern Thailand.
Gerard Diffloth (1986) posits the Wa people of northern Myanmar to the Waic corridor. Luo(1995)puts the Wa people to the cradle of non-Chinese people at Yunnan, possibly to the reign of the Qin dynasty (3Rd century BC).
How the Drug Economy Emerged:
In the 1950s, large tracts of the Wa Hills were occupied by renegade Nationalist Chinese Kuomintang (KMT) forces that retreated across the border into northeastern Burma following their defeat by Mao Zedong’s communists in the Chinese civil war. The KMT established bases in the Wa Hills and in the mountains north of Kengtung, from which they tried on no fewer than seven occasions between 1950 and 1952 to invade Yunnan, each time driven back to the Burmese side of the border. The KMT’s presence in northeastern Burma was one reason China decided to support the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) in the early 1960s. It was only when the CPB had captured the Wa Hills in the early 1970s that its so-called people’s army began to consist of recruits from Burma and those were predominantly Wa. By the mid-1970s, the CPB had established control over more than twenty thousand square kilometers of territory in northeastern and eastern Shan State.
Since the CPB has been fighting against the Myanmar government early 1980s, and over the decades, it relied heavily on the support of various ethnic groups, predominantly the Wa people. However, in the late 1980s, discontent among the ethnic members of the CPB, particularly the Wa, grew as they felt marginalized by the party’s leadership. This discontent led to a mutiny, during which Wa forces and other ethnic groups revolted against the CPB leadership, effectively dissolving the CPB.
The CPB imploded in 1989 at Pangshang. Thereafter, it got divided into 03 (three) main groups i.e 1) United Party and Army (UWSA), 2) Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA) and 3) National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA
Today, the UWSA is one of the largest and most powerful ethnic armed organizations in Myanmar, with an estimated 30,000 active soldiers.. It remains a key player in the country’s complex ethnic conflicts and maintains a strategic relationship with China, influencing the dynamics of peace negotiations in Myanmar. UWSA’s primary territory includes the Wa Self-Administered Region, headquartered in Panghsang. Additionally, the UWSA has established control over parts of southern Shan State, including Monghsat, which is designated as Military Region 171. This area houses approximately 9,000 fighters and is strategically important due to its proximity to Thailand.
Ceasefire Agreement:
The United Wa State Army (UWSA) is one of Myanmar’s largest ethnic armed groups, having entered into a ceasefire agreement with the Myanmar government in 1989. This agreement has allowed the UWSA to retain control over its territory and maintain its military presence. Despite this ceasefire, the group’s relationship with the Myanmar government has been tense, particularly due to its strong ties with China, which provides military and logistical support.
The UWSA also maintains strong alliances with other ethnic armed organizations, such as the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army (MNDAA), Ta’ang National Liberation Army (TNLA), and Arakan Army (AA). These groups, alongwith others dissatisfied with the 2015 Nationwide Ceasefire Agreement, often rely on the UWSA for weapons, which are sometimes gifted or sold at reduced prices. The UWSA’s cooperation with these groups, as well as with the Shan State Army in Shan State, further reinforces its strategic position in Myanmar’s internal conflict.
Opium in the Wa Hills are as old in Shan State history that could be traced to the fall of King Thibaw’s reign in 1885,that brought in the British as the new masters of the Burmese dominion. Living with the vagaries of nature in the Wa Hills, the infertile nature of the land had produced a crop that is opium poppy which is a poor substitute of other staple crops in the Mekong delta, like rice. The relative ease of business that accentuates the narco-economy are then hived off into a destination of choice, with swanky hotels and gambling haven that dot the Mekong river, that meanders across.
The lawless northern Myanmar region where the illegal poppy fields yields the base after which precursors like ephedrine is smuggled across the borders to make the meth, had made places like Pangkham thrive with casinos, of a Guangdong based company.The shadow economy of the drug business that goes on deep inside the ravines of the Myanmar Borderlands, are then transported across the Thai and Laos borders by the Drug Cartels, which smacks of an unholy alliance of geopolitics and state connivance.When journalists were given a glimpse of Wa state in 2016,the UWSA stoutly denied the narcotics trafficking charges.From 2000s the meth revolution started in the Golden Triangle that went by the trade name of Yaba. The explosion of Yaba (means Wild in Thai language) began to overshadow the heroin production, in areas controlled by UWSA.
The UWSP(United Wa State Party) the political wing of UWSA that oversees the administration of the Myanmar part of the Golden Triangle, that has now become a hundreds of thousands of dollars business in meth, a narcotics with a phenomenal demand. Writing in his book ‘Narcotopia’ In Search of a South East Asian Drug Cartel that survived the CIA', Patrick Winn gives a ring side view of the two parcels of Wa enclaves the southern one that is close to the Thai border that is at the centre of the meth revolution since 2000s.Win like many others who shies away from a pejorative way of looking at the booming meth trade in areas under the Wa administration, had taken a benign view.
Conclusion:
The NDAA(National Democratic Alliance Army)based in Mongla and led by Peng Jiasheng’s son-in -law, Lin Mingxian. In 1989, the SSA, Pa-O, NDAA all entered into an agreement with Tatmadaw. The UWSA based in the Thai border began to doing hostilities with the Mong Tai Army of Khunsa. In 1991, the 4 Brigade of KIA surrendered and eventually in 1994, the KIA came into ceasefire. The SSPP also came to the negotiating table. These turn of events helped UWSA and NDAA that shares a broad understanding. After 1989, Sakhon Ting Ying of New
Democratic Army Kachin began to sell illegal timber across the border in eastern Kachin State.
These small groups like Pa-O have now become Tatmadaw's extended Army in Shan State. The New Democratic Army have become militias. The NDAA become stronger by investing drug money in Mong La area, that attained considerable notoriety globally as a dangerous crime hotspot. The UWSA retained the primary role of providing arms to the different Shan insurgent groups that are aligned to it like SSPP, while fighting the RCSS, along the Thai border. The UWSA thus finds itself at the most advantageous position in the Shan State, while gaining more territory and influence post coup in Myanmar.
In a reshuffle, the UWSA appoints Bao Ai Kham as Deputy General Secretary, a post previously held by his uncle,Bao Youyi. He is the son of UWSA CnC Bao Youxiang. Another of Bao Youxisng’s nephew Bao Ai Chan will assume the deputy CnC post replacing the aging Zhao Zhongtamg. This makes the Bao family the richest and most powerful in Myanmar politics.