Doi Mae Salong: Swords Into Teacups
Swords Into Teacups. A Doi Mae Salong news story.
October 1949 and deep in the hills of Chinese Yunnan, a battle had been raging for days. The 93rd Division of the Kuomintang (KMT) Army, cut off from defeated Chinese Nationalist Chiang Kai-shek’s main force, is fighting a fierce rearguard action against Chairman Mao’s all conquering Red Army. Between the 93rd and safety stands the Yuan Jiang River.
‘We lost thousands of soldiers and civilians trying to get across that river,’ says 55-year-old ex-KMT colonel Somboon Aimvitayakun, ‘but we made it across and escaped into Burma.’ Although Somboon wasn’t even born at that time, his father, Jang Pong Gow, who went on to become a KMT general, was there, a close adviser to commanding officer General Tuan Shi-wen. ‘This battle was our proudest moment,’ says Somboon.
To read the full story go to
www.cnntraveller.com/2009/07/14/swords-into-teacups/
News story by Andrew Spooner
By Andrew Spooner
www.andrewspooner.net/
For more info on Doi Mae Salong go to
www.doi-mae-salong.com/
China in Laos: Counting the cost of progress
China in Laos: Counting the cost of progress
By Daniel Allen
12 September 2009
BEIJING – At Kunming’s long-distance bus station, a sleeper bus crammed with Chinese laborers edges toward the exit, en-route to the Laotian capital of Vientiane. Despite the prospect of an uncomfortable 40-hour journey ahead, this group of wiry, chain-smoking men is buoyed by the expectation of a reasonable salary and a chance to take China’s economic miracle southward. “Laos is poor and dirty,” says one. “But we have many friends there already. We can make money and help make Laos more like China.”
The resource-rich Golden Triangle area of northern Laos, Thailand and Myanmar is no stranger to Chinese influence. Just as the Chin Haw – Han and Hui Chinese from Yunnan province – first arrived in Laos in the 19th century looking to get fat off the land, so a new wave of migrants from Yunnan and further afield is now making a beeline for the same region, looking to take advantage of opportunities thrown up by modern China’s long and powerful economic arm.
For the full story please go to Asia Times: China in Laos: Counting the cost of progress
Crackdown Spurs a Heroin Clearance Sale in Southeast Asia
Crackdown Spurs a Heroin Clearance Sale in Southeast Asia
By THOMAS FULLER
September 30, 2009
DOI CHANG MOOB, Thailand — For more than half a century heroin has been carried over the jungle-shrouded hills here, the first leg of a journey that delivers the drugs to cities as far off as Sydney and Tokyo. But antinarcotics officials are rubbing their eyes at the spectacle they are now witnessing: a flood of heroin and methamphetamine is spilling out of Myanmar as traffickers slash their inventories in a panicked sell-off
It’s a clearance sale,” said Pornthep Eamprapai, director of the northern branch of the Thai Office of Narcotics Control, who has nearly three decades of experience tracking illicit drugs from Myanmar. “Some dealers at the border are buying on credit. They don’t even need to pay in cash. This is the first time I’ve seen this.”
For the full story please go to The New York Times: Crackdown Spurs a Heroin Clearance Sale in Southeast Asia
Burma: Peace in Name Only
PEACE IN NAME ONLY
By David Scott Mathieson
War and refugees will remain a fact of life in Burma as long as the root causes of conflict in the country’s borderlands remain unaddressed.
The rout of the ethnic Kokang militia, the Myanmar National Democratic Alliance Army, in northern Burma in late August has brought into stark relief what millions of people live with in Burma every day: conflict between the central state and non-state armed militias. For decades, clashes between the Burmese regime’s army and its myriad enemies have been forcing people into hiding or across borders. What is different about the recent fighting is that it involved China—not usually a country that tolerates refugees from Burma or instability along its borders.
The cause of the latest outbreak of hostilities is the decision of Burma’s ruling State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) to pressure cease-fire groups to transform their armies into border security guard forces before next year’s election. Under the SPDC plan, which was first proposed in April, the militias would be split up into battalions consisting of 326 soldiers, mostly from ethnic militias, but with a number of Burmese government army troops and officers. The deadline for a response to the plan was June, with training to begin in October.
For full story please go to The Irrawaddy Peace in Burma
