Christian activists on mission to destroy opium fields face stand-off with Burmese police

HARDLINE Christian anti-drug vigilantes are locked in a volatile confrontation with Burmese security forces near swathes of hillside poppy fields.

Three thousand activists are camped out at a military roadblock in Kachin state with a stated mission to destroy poppy production in the country’s re- mote north. The stand-off is taking place at the height of the harvest season, when raw opium is collected from the poppies in a lucrative trade for farmers, militia and security forces.

The Pat Jasan group was set up by Kachin Baptist elders two years ago to counter the region’s drug lords. It claims to have destroyed 3,500 acres of poppy fields in recent weeks. The border regions of the country, part of the historic Golden Triangle region with northern Thailand and Laos, have long been a hotbed for opium-growing. Production has surged in the past decade, in response to demand from new markets in neighbouring China.

Pat Jasan members have conducted raids on opium-producing villages with batons and flogged and restrained drug users in “cold turkey” tactics popular with many locals whose families have suffered during the epidemic. But its operations have brought inevitable conflict with poppy farmers and their powerful backers in pro-government militias, the army and the police.

A 19-year-old activist was shot dead in one confrontation last month and three members have been injured by landmines laid to protect crops. Pat Jasan temporarily suspended operations after the incidents but has remobilised activists.

The security forces have now blocked their progress amid threats by farmers to attack their teams. Kham Thu Dam Shung, a campaigner from the group, said yesterday: “If they don’t let us go through, we’ll hold a prayer meeting again on Tuesday, and then we will go through the barriers Tuesday afternoon with the help of God.”

A senior police official from the antidrugs unit in the capital Naypyidaw confirmed the vigilantes had been halted. “They are blocked for security reasons,” he said. “They might spark conflict with some local farmers there so they are blocked for a while.”