Myanmar anti-drug group fears for its safety after being ambushed by poppy farmers
PUBLISHED : Saturday, 27 February, 2016, 9:45pm
UPDATED : Saturday, 27 February, 2016, 9:45pm
Agence France-Presse
A member of Pat Jasan, a grassroots organisation motivated by their faith to root out the destructive influence of drugs in Myanmar. Photo: AP
Christian anti-drug vigilantes in Myanmar said on Saturday they had halted a mission to raze poppy fields while at least 30 of their members were recovering from injuries sustained during violent clashes with unknown attackers this week.
Pat Jasan, a hardline Christian group known for flogging drug users, said it was assailed by a mob wielding explosives and stones on Thursday after it set out to destroy poppy plants against the wishes of local farmers in the hilly and far-flung Kachin state.
A January 27, 2016, photo of Pat Jasan members hiking through Kachin State. Photo: AP
Myanmar is the world’s second largest opium producer after Afghanistan, despite the government’s repeated vows to eliminate the drug trade.
READ MORE: Grassroots activists in Myanmar take anti-drug war into own hands, destroy fields of poppy
Production has boomed amid weak law enforcement in the northern war-torn frontier, where ethnic minority rebel groups seeking greater autonomy from the state have been battling the Myanmar army for decades.
Pat Jasan members uprooting poppy plants. Photo: AP
It’s believed that both ethnic militias and the Myanmar military have tapped the lucrative multibillion dollar trade to finance their long-running wars.
Impoverished farmers in the remote regions meanwhile say they have few other viable alternatives to sustain a livelihood.
The group is on a mission to destroy fields of poppy flowers from which opium and its derivative, heroin, are made. Photo: AP
The injured Pat Jasan members are now receiving medical attention at a hospital in the provincial capital Myitkyina, with tensions running high as hundreds of others camp out in a nearby township to wait for orders from above, the group’s spokesman Lum Hkawng said on Saturday.
He said the organisation’s leadership is in talks with local authorities, who stand accused of failing to protect the activists from the ambush.
Bawm Lang, a 32-year-old member of Pat Jasan, was injured in the ambush by poppy farmers. Photo: AP
“I can not say whether we will go on our way or not,” Lum Hkawng said.
The sudden attack Thursday morning came after several days of a tense stand-off between the Pat Jasan marchers and police, who had blocked the group from entering surrounding poppy fields citing concerns of armed farmers ready to hit back.
Women from Pat Jasan carrying supplies for the group. Photo: AP
Local police have not responded to repeated requests to comment.
READ MORE: Opium cultivation surges in Laos and Myanmar amid drug boom in Asia
The injured activists, seen by an AFP photographer laying side-by-side and hooked up to IVs in Myitkyina’s bare-bones hospital, are all in a stable condition, according to the group’s spokesman.
“And we arranged a safe place for the rest of the members who were attacked,” he added.
Members of Pat Jasan make camp in Lung Zar. Photo: AP
Determined to root out a scourge of heroin addictions that have eviscerated local communities, Pat Jasan formed its loose network two years ago with the backing of the powerful Kachin Baptist Church.
Its members, who don camouflage vests and combat helmets on their missions, have used forceful methods, including beating drug users, in their efforts to break addictions.
