Sebastian Strangio's Blog, page 9

Myanmar struggles to kick a deadly addiction

The world’s fourth most common psychoactive habit delivers a potent buzz and lots of red saliva.

YANGON — When Myo Min Tun smiles he shows red-stained teeth, the mark of the long-time betel user. “If you chew three continuously, it’s equal to smoking a pack of cigarettes,” the 36-year-old says, picking up his daily fix of betel quids — small parcels of areca nuts and tobacco, wrapped in betel leaves coated with slaked lime.

Tun says he started chewing betel as a teenager, and now goes through about 40 parcels per day, which keep him going through long days at the tea shop where he works in downtown Yangon. “When I eat a lot, my heart beats faster,” he says. “I can’t stop.”

Betel nut — or “kun,” as it is known locally — is a popular pick-me-up in Myanmar, a mild stimulant which gives users a burst of energy similar to that from a cup of tea or coffee. In the streets of this crumbling former capital, betel sellers sit on nearly every corner. The pavement is covered in splotches of red betel juice spat out by chewers.

Use of betel nut (so-called for its combination of betel leaves and areca nuts) is common throughout Asia, but few countries chew their way through as much as Myanmar, which accounts for more than half of Southeast Asia’s betel consumption, according to the World Health Organization (WHO). Recent figures show that approximately one in four people in the cities chomp down regularly on betel quids, whose combination of areca nut, betel leaf and tobacco produce a potent buzz and a lot of excess red saliva.

But Myanmar’s kun aficionados could be getting a lot more than a stained smile. Extensive research has shown that chewing betel quids has dire health consequences, including cancer. Professor Ying-chin Ko, a researcher at China Medical University in Taiwan, who has studied the health effects of betel quids since the 1990s, says betel chewing is closely correlated with various forms of oral cancer, whether or not tobacco is included in the packages. The habit has also been linked to obesity, metabolic syndrome, and heart disease. “Betel nut is an addictive substance, and it’s not easy to give up,” Ko says.

Betel has deep cultural and historical roots in South and Southeast Asia. It is mentioned in ancient Sanskrit texts, and has turned up on teeth excavated from Bronze Age sites in modern-day Vietnam. Throughout the region it plays a role in marriage ceremonies and is prized as a folk cure for everything from acne and indigestion to bad breath. In some places it acts as a social lubricant and a prelude to courtship. In Cambodia, a traditional saying instructs, “a quid of betel nut is the prelude to all conversation.”

Today there are about 600 million betel users worldwide — most of them in Asia. The WHO ranks it as the fourth most commonly used psychoactive substance after alcohol, tobacco, and caffeinated drinks like coffee and tea. “You get dizzy the first time, but you get used to it. It’s kind of like smoking,” says betel seller Maung Oo, 50, sitting behind a table covered with stacked betel leaves and rusty tobacco tins from India, some bearing grim health warnings.

As his customers line up for their morning quid, Maung Oo works quickly, arranging the betel leaves in rows and dabbing each with sour-smelling lime solution. He adds chunks of areca nut and a sprinkle of dried tobacco to each. Sweeteners are sometimes added to taste, as are spices like aniseed or cardamom. He then wraps the quids in small plastic bags sealed with toothpicks. Who are his best customers? “Burmese, Indians, Muslims — all kinds of people,” he says, flashing his own red-stained smile. “You can see from their mouths.”

Today there are about 600 million betel users worldwide — most of them in Asia. The WHO ranks it as the fourth most commonly used psychoactive substance after alcohol, tobacco, and caffeinated drinks like coffee and tea.

In 2006 Myanmar passed a tobacco control law banning smoking and betel-chewing in public places such as schools and hospitals. But health experts say the sale of kun remains, and the ban goes virtually unenforced. “It’s very cheap. For 300 kyats [about US$0.35] you can get four packages,” says Dr. Tint Tint Kyi, a senior consultant physician at Insein General Hospital in Yangon. Treating betel addicts, she has seen first-hand how hard it is to kick the habit. Even when users are aware of the dangers, many continue to chew. “Addiction is very dangerous. Highly addicted people don’t want to listen at all,” she says. “It’s a social disease.”

Some Asian countries have instituted more stringent controls on betel nut. Last year the government of Papua New Guinea banned the practice of chewing it in the capital Port Moresby, but this was more to eradicate the red stains on the sidewalks than to promote public health.

Another problem is that many anti-tobacco laws focus on smoking rather than smokeless forms of tobacco consumption like betel quids. “This habit really undermines our efforts,” says Dr. Nyo Nyo Kyaing, a regional advisor for the World Health Organization’s Tobacco-Free Initiative. “People are still not fully aware of the hazards, enforcement is weak and the taxes are low so it is easily affordable.” In addition to educating people about the health effects of kun, she says the laws need to be updated to include betel quid in anti-smoking campaigns and regulations.

U Soe Thu, 23, is aware of the health problems, but chews kun anyway. He says a quid every few hours helps him stay alert during long shifts at a hotel in central Yangon. “I’m a bit addicted now. I can only stop for one or two days,” Thu admits, taking a small bag of green betel quids from a vendor.

“It feels like something’s missing. And then the sourness in the mouth makes me want to chew it again.”

Published by GlobalPost, August 27, 2014

Talk is suddenly cheap in Myanmar – and that could be costly

Inexpensive calls and data are coming to Myanmar after years of junta-era restrictions. But some worry that the new Internet and phone access could fuel strife between Muslims and Buddhists.

Talk is often cheap. But that hasn’t been the case in Myanmar – until now.

The insular military junta that ruled until 2011 tightly restricted communications. Internet access was sluggish and expensive. Mobile SIM cards cost north of $1,000, limiting their use to a tiny slice of the population.

But inexpensive calls and data are finally coming to Myanmar (Burma). On Thursday, the Qatar-based Ooredoo company officially launched a new national cellphone network, becoming the first foreign firm to operate in the previously closed telecommunications sector.

After years of tight control, local response has been enthusiastic. Cellphone shops in the crumbling commercial capital of Yangon were deluged with customers when the first Ooredoo SIM cards went on sale last month. Priced at 1,500 kyats ($1.60), SIMs were in such demand that they were soon being sold on the black market for up to five times their face value.

Ooredoo’s launch, which will be followed next month by that of Norwegian competitor Telenor, is set to trigger a connectivity boom here. Cellphone penetration is expected to rise to 80 percent by 2015, up from around 27 percent currently, bringing cheap calls and Internet access to even remote areas.

But the era of cheap calls and 3G data could be a mixed blessing for Myanmar, a country of 52 million that has recently opened to the world after decades of isolation. As the country has initiated political reforms and welcomed foreign investment, freedom has presented a dark side: a sharp rise in rumor-mongering, hate speech, and misinformation focusing on its Muslim minority.

“Information (and misinformation) about a religious incident in one state can rapidly spread to another, almost in real time,” says Aela Callan, a Knight Fellow from Stanford University who is researching hate speech in Myanmar. But, she says, if the amplifying effects of a data boom are not addressed now, “the consequences could be very serious indeed.”

In July, anti-Muslim riots erupted in Mandalay, Myanmar’s second city, triggered by blogs and Facebook posts claiming a Muslim man had raped a Buddhist woman. Social media postings by anti-Muslim extremist groups have also fanned the flames in western Rakhine State, which has been roiled by violence between Buddhists and Muslims since late 2012.

In a tense climate, it might only take “one irresponsible news story and a few thousand mouse clicks on Facebook to set Mandalay or any other major city ablaze,” wrote Burmese-American author Kenneth Wong after the Mandalay riot.

Rumor and conspiracy are nothing new in Myanmar, where decades of military dictatorship have instilled a deep distrust of official information. But in a digital age, rumors and misinformation can go viral. Internet penetration rates remain low in Myanmar, with just over a million Facebook users, and Ms. Callan says most hate speech still happens offline. But the coming data boom could have massive amplifying effects.

In the wake of the Mandalay riots, authorities blocked access to Facebook, with police chief Win Kaung claiming it was necessary to “stop the instigation” of violence. But the solution to rumor and falsehood may well be more speech, not less.“Facebook is not the main cause.… If you close Facebook, [extremists] will just use other ways,” says Nay Phone Latt, a blogger and executive director of the Myanmar ICT for Development Organization (MIDO).

In April, MIDO and other civil society groups launched the “Panzagar” campaign. Meaning “flower speech” in Burmese, the campaign challenges people to think about the consequences of their online activities by putting flowers in their mouths and posting photos of themselves to Panzagar’s Facebook site.

Mr. Latt says that the campaign is just one step in the slow process of educating people about how to ensure Myanmar’s coming Web revolution fosters a more informed society. “The Internet is just a tool,” he says. “The good guy can use [it], but the bad guy also can.”

Published by the Christian Science Monitor, August 15, 2014

In Myanmar, ​Aung San Suu Kyi’s party ​is ​at ​a crossroads

The opposition party is pushing for constitutional reforms that would allow its leader to run for president. If it fails, the party lacks new talent.

Yangon, Myanmar — Myanmar’s democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi faces an uphill battle if she is to become her country’s next president, posing new challenges for the party she led through years of military dictatorship.

A military-drafted constitution bans her from the presidency because her late husband and child are foreigners. Her opposition party is trying to change that rule before next year’s election, which is shaping up as a critical test for an unconsolidated democracy.

Should it fail, the National League for Democracy (NLD) – which is hugely popular – will struggle to find a replacement candidate. The battle over the constitution also exposes the limits of democracy under what remains a military-dominated system in Myanmar (also known as Burma).

In May, the NLD launched a two-month campaign calling for amendments to the constitution. This week it said it had collected 5 million signatures in support of its campaign.

“I dare say that there has never been a case such as this, where 5 million people supported a movement out of their own free will. This is [the] first time in our country’s history,” Ms. Suu Kyi told reporters Wednesday in the capital Naypyidaw.

US Secretary of State John Kerry arrived here Friday on a three-day visit amid criticism from the US Congress over the pace of political reforms under President Thein Sein, a retired general who is the country’s first civilian leader in five decades.

Last month Sen. Mitch McConnell (R) of Kentucky warned that the remaining US sanctions against Myanmar would be kept in place unless Suu Kyi was allowed to stand for president. As it stands, he said, the provision barring her from running would “cast a pall over the legitimacy of the election.”

But despite local support and pressure from abroad, most observers say there is little chance of constitutional change before next year’s poll.

In June, a parliamentary review committee dominated by the military-backed ruling party rejected making changes to provisions dealing with the presidency. “At the moment you’d have to say the likelihood of [changes] is very small,” says David Mathieson, a Myanmar researcher at Human Rights Watch. A change to the constitution requires 75 percent parliamentary approval, a nearly impossible task with the military controlling 25 percent of the seats.

‘Who will be successor to Aung San Suu Kyi?’

This decision poses a dilemma for the NLD, which was founded in 1988 amid nationwide protests and relies heavily on the exalted status of Suu Kyi, the daughter of the country’s most famous nationalist leader.

“Who will be successor to Aung San Suu Kyi? We have never thought about it,” says Win Htein who sits on the NLD’s executive committee. “She’s the exception. There’s nobody who can match her charisma and who can match her leadership.”

Kyaw Min Swe, chief editor of Yangon-based The Voice, says years of idolizing Suu Kyi had left the party without a Plan B because it lacked a second tier of leaders. “Everybody puts everything on her head. They raise her up a lot, like a queen or a god. Some party members worship her,” he says.

Suu Kyi will be 70 by the time of the election, and the youngest member on the NLD’s executive committee is 62 years old. Mr. Win Htein, who is 72, admitted that recent attempts to bring in young blood hadn’t yielded anyone ready to assume leadership roles during the election.

Myat Thu, the founder of the Yangon School of Political Science, said the party had benefited for years from Suu Kyi’s iconic status, but that it needed to lay the groundwork for life after “The Lady.” “They must prepare for that,” he says, “because she is mortal.”

Published by the Christian Science Monitor, August 9, 2014

 

Yangon caught between city’s past and future

With sensitive planning, Myanmar’s old capital could be stunningly transformed

It’s fair to say the Balthazar Building in central Yangon has seen better days. The rails are rusted, the Italian marble floors are cracked and the birdcage elevator hasn’t worked in more than 40 years. In the building’s central courtyard, rats poke through piles of garbage and empty plastic bottles. “We have many dangers here,” said U Aung Than, 65, a lawyer who works out of a shoebox office on the second floor. “It’s almost falling down.”

Built in 1905 by the Armenian traders and insurance brokers Balthazar & Son, this red brick structure once housed the offices of companies including Siemens. But as the decades have passed, the building has grown so dilapidated that offices have their own inner shell of corrugated iron to guard against rainwater and falling plaster. “I don’t know whether the building will be preserved or not, but every day we are working here it is very dangerous,” Than said.

Where most other Asian cities saw their heritage wiped out by ugly urban sprawl, decades of isolation have largely shielded Yangon’s colonial buildings from demolition. Across downtown Yangon, many more British colonial buildings like the Balthazar still loom out of the noise and bustle, proud totems of a bygone era. “Yangon is a city that has been stuck in time,” said Ian Morley, an urban historian at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “It’s been trapped in a bubble, the era in which it was built.”

But things are changing. Over the past few years, rents in Myanmar’s largest city have soared as foreign tourists and investors flooded in. A maelstrom of commercial development suddenly threatens buildings like the Balthazar, which have moldered undisturbed for decades in the tropical heat. “Yangon is under constant pressure to pull down buildings and put up towers,” said Rupert Mann, a senior program manager at the Yangon Heritage Trust (YHT), which works to protect the city’s architectural legacy.

Yangon’s downtown grid was laid out by British town planners in 1852, at the height of the empire. Under colonial rule, Rangoon, as it was then known, grew rapidly. By the 1930s, it had become a bustling port city of some 400,000 people from across the empire, a cosmopolitan mix of Armenian and Jewish merchants, Burmese and Indian tradesmen, and expatriates from imperial centers like London, Glasgow and Calcutta ­– all of whom left their mark on the city’s urban fabric.

Around the corner from the Balthazar Building stands another Yangon landmark. Named after the family of Baghdadi Jewish traders who erected it in 1906, the mustard colored Sofaer Building once represented the empire in microcosm, housing a Reuters telegram office, a Japanese hospital, a Viennese coffee shop and stores that sold imported luxuries like Egyptian cigarettes, German beer and British textiles.

Today it too has fallen into disrepair. In the darkness, jerry-rigged electrical wiring hangs above signs advertising long forgotten companies; upstairs, residents string their laundry from top floor windows. “It would be good if the government could do some renovations,” said U Win Than, 62, who runs a tea shop in the first floor hallway, next to the derelict elevator shaft, its cast iron grille covered in a thick layer of grime and dust. “In my opinion, historical buildings like this one should be preserved.”

“It’s one organism… The heritage significance is the buildings as a collection, the way that they relate to each other as a cityscape.”

The jewel in colonial Yangon’s crown was the Secretariat, the former seat of the British administration and the site where General Aung San and eight others were assassinated on the eve of independence. Occupying an entire city block, this sprawling red brick complex – a riot of turrets, domes and shaded walkways – was an icon of British imperial prowess, repurposed by the Myanmar government after the country won its independence in 1948. But when the government relocated to the new capital Naypyidaw in 2005, the Secretariat was abandoned. Today it slumbers behind barbed wire fences, its gardens overgrown, its windows opening onto unlit passages.

But Myanmar faces many obstacles to preserving these old relics in rapidly changing Yangon, which is expected to grow into a megacity of 10 million by 2040. Though the Yangon City Development Committee (YCDC) has officially earmarked 189 buildings for protection, old structures continue to succumb to the wrecking ball, and city authorities say they are deluged with plans for modern developments. “When the government was changed [in 2011] there were many proposals for high rises and new constructions, and we had to control it,” said U Toe Aung, the head of the urban planning department at Yangon City Hall, another musty colonial landmark overlooking Mahabandoola Garden, known in British times as Fytche Square. “Some investors think we are just preventing natural development in the city. They think we want to keep Yangon city as a museum,” said Toe Aung.

Earlier this year, the YCDC endorsed a zoning plan that would see strict height limits imposed in Yangon’s downtown grid. When approved, Aung said they will lessen the demolition pressures in the downtown. At the same time, several buildings have been leased to developers who plan to turn them into condos, fancy hotels and modern office buildings. Provided the restorations are conducted well, many buildings stand to be saved.

But for the YHT, established in 2012, saving a few iconic buildings at the expense of the rest is not a solution. “It’s one organism,” Mann said of downtown Yangon. “The heritage significance is the buildings as a collection, the way that they relate to each other as a cityscape.” Over the past two years, YHT has conducted a detailed inventory of Yangon’s heritage buildings and helped draft new regulations to set up a register of heritage properties and a commission to administer them. But even with the legal framework in place, Mann said another challenge is to make sure the buildings are utilized in such a way that their preservation is economically sustainable. Then there is the legacy of Myanmar’s military dictatorship – the lack of transparency and communication between the various government bodies involved in urban planning.

Still, he remains cautiously optimistic. If it acts quickly, Yangon still has the potential to create a “world-class downtown heritage zone” that would be unique in Asia. “Knowing what to do and how to do it is not the complicated thing at all. It’s whether the authorities here have the political will to change the way they operate,” Mann said. “If it’s managed well they can have a modern city, as well as an entirely unique city.”

Published by UCANews, August 7, 2014

Dirty Old Town

In eastern Myanmar, just a stone’s throw from the Chinese border, lies a den of drug smuggling, gambling, and vice.

MONG LA, Myanmar — At first glance, it could be any dingy border town in China. Much of the population seems to speak Mandarin, the currency of choice is Chinese yuan, and it runs on Chinese cellphone networks. The kitschy, neon clock tower in the center of town even shows Beijing time — an hour and a half ahead of Myanmar. But it isn’t long before Mong La’s “special” features become apparent. At the Caixin Hotel, the stained hallways are littered with plastic cards advertising the services of prostitutes, some as young as 15. The cable connection features round-the-clock Japanese pornography, while bedside advertisements hawk sex workers billed as “Burmese girls” and “Vietnamese younger sisters.” While vice is not uncommon in China, Mong La makes little attempt to hide it. At one bustling eatery in the center of town, a Chinese madam in a tight, brown dress approached my table and offered me two shy-looking women who appeared to be in their early 20s. “Do you want younger?” she asked. “I have younger.”

Mong La is the largest town in Special Region No. 4, a 1,910-square-mile crescent of autonomous territory in Myanmar’s eastern Shan state. For more than two decades, the National Democratic Alliance Army (NDAA), the militia that runs this tiny Golden Triangle fiefdom, has survived by creating a settlement of gambling halls, low-rent hotels, and brothels. Mong La’s biggest draw is its 24 nearby casinos, which operate 24/7, attracting a steady stream of visitors from mainland China, where gambling is banned, and from the rest of Myanmar — where gambling is also against the law.

Abraham Than, 88, a retired bishop who lives next to the Catholic church overlooking town, first moved to Mong La in 1969 from Taungoo in central Myanmar, and has seen it transformed into a Chinese satellite. “When I arrived here it was all Shan farmers,” he said. “There were no houses, no buildings, nothing. During these last four, five years it has become a Chinatown. Mong La, Chinatown!”

The anything-goes ethos of Mong La hints at the broader challenges Myanmar’s government faces in securing its borderlands — a patchwork of ethnic rebel zones and warlord statelets that have eluded central control since the country’s independence in 1948. One of the smaller of Myanmar’s estimated 30-plus ethnic armed groups, the NDAA is led by the warlord Sai Leun (aka Lin Mingxian), who broke away from the Communist Party of Burma (CPB) when it collapsed in 1989. Like other factions of the CPB, the NDAA cut a deal with the military junta in Yangon, promising to end the insurgency in exchange for autonomy and lucrative business concessions, including control over the opium trade in the region of Mong La, where many of his fighters settled.

“It’s like a vacant place for law enforcement, so you can basically do anything,” Wang said.

In the mid-1990s, after coming under strong Chinese and U.S. pressure to stem the flow of drugs from the region, the NDAA announced a crackdown and in 1997 declared itself “opium-free.” That year it even built a museum in Mong La to commemorate the achievement, a musty building featuring photos of the drug-burning ceremonies and other anti-narcotics propaganda. In March 2000, the U.S. State Department was satisfied enough to report that Leun had “successfully rid his area of opium cultivation.” One senior NDAA official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “There is no more opium; it is guaranteed.” The official said that most of the region’s revenue comes not from drugs or gambling, but from Chinese plantations of banana, rubber, and corn. “Go around and see,” he said, “it’s all green, all rubber plantations up to the Mekong River.”

But some observers remain less convinced. Paul Keenan, a researcher at the Burma Center for Ethnic Studies in Chiang Mai, Thailand, said that while opium cultivation may have ceased in Special Region No. 4, it was hard to believe that there were no other drugs coming from the area, especially given the boom in methamphetamine production in eastern Myanmar over the past decade. “It just makes a lot of sense that they would continue to do it, because it’s the most lucrative thing,” Keenan said.

Special Region No. 4 has its own military force, a 2,500-strong army of ethnic Shan and Akha youths, but it’s unclear exactly what laws apply in the area. While Beijing has pressured the NDAA to shut down the casinos and crack down on illegal border crossings, businessmen and county-level authorities in China’s nearby Yunnan province also profit from Mong La’s gambling and black marketeering and do little to enforce Chinese laws, said Wang Bangyuan, a public health specialist with extensive experience working in the Myanmar-China border region. “It’s like a vacant place for law enforcement, so you can basically do anything,” Wang said.

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Myanmar’s Constitutional Uncertainty

A massive campaign for constitutional reform has ended, with uncertain results.

YANGON—On July 19 – Martyr’s Day in Myanmar – the National League for Democracy (NLD) wound up an eight-week campaign calling for changes to the country’s constitution. The campaign was launched on May 27 on the back of a series of colorful public rallies in Yangon and other cities. Since then, the NLD, along with former student leaders of the 1988 uprising against military rule, have held further demonstrationsacross the country and gathered millions of signatures in support of constitutional amendments ahead of next year’s election.

At a rally in Magwe region on July 12, NLD leader and Nobel laureate Aung San Suu Kyi urged members of the military to join the petition and win back the trust and respect of Myanmar’s people. “For the future and stability of democracy in the nation, a good relationship is needed not only between races but also among people from the military and the civilians,” Suu Kyi told the crowd.

The campaign’s main focus is on changing Article 436 of the military-drafted constitution, which requires more than three-quarters of the parliament votes to approve any amendments. Since the constitution reserves  quarter of the seats in the lower house for military candidates, and another half are held by the military-backed, ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), Article 436 effectively gives the Myanmar military a de facto veto over any changes. The NLD also hopes to alter Article 59(f), which bars any candidate from the presidency whose spouse, children, or parents are foreign citizens, barring Suu Kyi from holding the nation’s top office. (The NLD leader’s children, like her late husband Michael Aris, are British citizens).

By the end of June the party claimed it had collected 3 million signatures, and that the full number would be announced at the end of July. The petitions will then be forwarded to the president, commander-in-chief and parliament. But as the NLD’s campaign comes to an end, it remains uncertain whether it will succeed in forcing concrete changes in time for next year’s election, which the NLD is well-placed to win.

In mid-June, a parliamentary review committee charged with exploring changes to the charter voted against amending Article 59(f), dealing a blow to Suu Kyi’s presidency hopes. There have since been reports that the 31-member committee is open to changing Article 436 – even rumors that the NLD may have agreed to forego one for the other – but details about the extent and timing of the change remain vague.

Analysts say Myanmar’s constitutional conundrum has to be seen in the context of the government’s “seven-step roadmap” from military dictatorship to a sort of hybrid constitutional autocracy – what the old junta termed “discipline flourishing multi-party democracy.” Penned by the former ruling generals, and passed by a flawed referendum in 2008, the constitution was designed specifically to protect the military’s interests during the crafted reform process that has allowed Myanmar to shrug off its status as an international pariah. “It serves to preserve their power and influence, not to guarantee democratic principles,” said David Scott Mathieson, a Myanmar researcher for Human Rights Watch. “It’s an artfully constructed document to preserve military interests and perpetuate a softer form of military rule.”

The document is filled with safeguards against any outbreak of “undisciplined” democracy. In addition to reserving a quarter of the seats in the lower house for the military, it also allows the commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw to appoint key ministers and gives the military to right to act decisively during  times of “emergency.” All these provisions are in turn controlled by the constitutional master key: Article 436.

In facing down the military, the NLD and 88 Generation activists now face a circular challenge: how to encourage an entrenched military-political complex to make concessions that run directly counter to its long-term political interests. “Aung San Suu Kyi has enormous popular support. But you know, power comes out of the gun’s barrel,” said Myat Thu, the founder of the Yangon School of Political Science. “Article 436 is the entrance to the amendment of the whole constitution. The Burmese military knows that very clearly, so they will resist to the end.”

So far that’s exactly how government officials have responded to the NLD campaign. Burma’s presidential spokesman Ye Htut recently lashed out at the U.S. government for throwing its support behind changes to the constitution. “It is not the concern of the United States. It is inappropriate for us to tell how the US should amend their constitution and likewise the US should not dictate how it should be amended,” he told The Associated Press. Other senior officials have warned Suu Kyi against “challenging the army” or provoking “public disorder,” and say the decision of issue of constitutional reform should be left to the parliamentary committee, whose 31 members are drawn overwhelmingly from the USDP and the military.

As leader of the NLD and during years of repression, the graceful and iconic Suu Kyi became a symbol of democratic resistance to the Tatmadaw. Mathieson said there was previously an expectation – or a hope – that Suu Kyi’s engagement with President Thein Sein, a former general, would yield some minor constitutional concessions, or some voluntary diminution of their power. But if the current standoff lays bare the crafted nature of Myanmar’s reforms, it also suggests strict limits to Suu Kyi’s moral power in the face of a deeply entrenched military apparatus.

“I think at the moment you’d have to say the likelihood of [significant amendments] is very small,” he said. “[The constitution] was fifteen years in planning, and they’re not going to start diluting it any time soon. And if they do, it won’t be until after the 2015 election, when they’re sure that all their interests are intact.” Thiha Saw, editorial director of the Myanmar Times newspaper, agreed that the military had time on its side. “The election is next year, it’s drawing closer and closer … They could drag on the process,” he said.

After half a century at the helm of Myanmar’s politics, the Tatmadaw will probably be an inevitable ingredient of the democratic mix in the run-up to the 2015 election – and beyond. “We realize that we cannot put aside the army in politics, for the time being,” said Ko Ko Gyi, a former student activist and current secretary general of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society. In the meantime, the NLD and its 88 Generation allies will have to walk a tightrope, pressing their demand for constitutional change while doing enough to reassure the military that it would retain an important national role in any future system. With Myanmar now running up against the built-in limitations of the military’s reform plan, Ko Ko Gyi said the process would be necessarily slow. “Gradually we will try to negotiate,” he said, “and struggle to be democratic.”

Published by The Diplomat, July 21, 2014

Cambodia Is Perfectly Positioned to Become a Solar Powerhouse

Phnom Penh’s first solar-powered building looks for all the world like a cube of colored Lego blocks dropped in a factory lot on the city’s industrial outskirts. Covered in some 1,350 solar panels — including large panes of multi-colored solar glass — the three-story building has the capacity to produce up to 135 kilowatts of power per hour of sunlight. The roof above the building’s parking lot is covered with solar tiles, and the product showroom across the road is fronted by even more.

For Star8, the Australia-based company that inhabits this futuristic facility, it stands as a testament to the great potential of solar technology in Cambodia. “The solar radiation here is phenomenal,” says Star8’s managing director Philip Stone. “It will revitalize and bring Cambodia into the 21st century.”

You can’t accuse Star8 of aiming low. Next month, the company will launch its first Asian production hub at this futuristic factory site in Phnom Penh, turning out products like solar panels, batteries, roof tiles, solar glass and a range of innovative sun-powered contraptions.

In the Star8 showroom, icy-cool with air conditioning, Stone shows off the range of products that will soon be produced on-site: unobtrusive batteries, solar-enabled glass and roof tiles that can be substituted for traditional building materials. The company has also developed a flexible thin-film solar panel, a descendent of the tiny solar strips that have been used for years to power pocket calculators. “We’ve developed it, modified it, intensified it,” says Stone, “so instead of just running your calculator from it, you can run your company from it.”

Cambodia is primed for a solar power boom. The power supply is so unreliable and grid electricity so expensive here that the country was one of the fastest adopters of renewable energy sources (mostly hydropower) between 1990 and 2010, according to the World Bank. Add in the sunny tropical climate, and Cambodia seems like the perfect place to harness the sun.

“Cambodia has remarkable potential for solar energy development,” says Rehan Kausar, an energy specialist at the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Kausar says the potential is helped by the falling cost of solar technology, which has dropped in some countries to around $0.13 to $0.15 per kilowatt hour — less than the cost of grid power in many parts of Cambodia.

All this offers a possible solution to the power crisis in Phnom Penh, a city where a large recent influx of rural migrants has put great strain on the power grid, resulting in frequent rolling blackouts in the hot season. Stone of Star8 says the country gets 5.5 hours of sunlight per day on average over the course of the year, including the monsoon months, when the weather is often overcast. On clear days, solar panels often begin producing power as early as six in the morning, compared to eight or nine in Western counties. “The solar starts producing at sunrise,” Stone says.

Stone speaks of a future in which everything in Phnom Penh, from homes and small businesses to satellite cities and garment factories, is powered by the sun. If Phnom Penh’s solar revolution ever comes to pass, Star8 will undoubtedly be in the vanguard. Stone shows off the large factory floor where the company will soon employ up to 250 local staff manufacturing its range of solar products. To demonstrate the potential of the technology, production will be completely powered by the sun, and will even push surplus electricity back into the power grid. In a small side-room, a bank of batteries and inverters stands side by side, their green lights blinking, small digital panels recording the oscillating flow of power from the panels.

Parked on the concrete are two prototypes of what might well become Star8’s best-known product: the solar tuk-tuk. Distinguishable from the standard Cambodian variety by its larger frame and quiet engine, the “Solartuk” (available in various models) has a top speed of 37 miles per hour. Prices start from around $2,500 — cheaper than a garden variety tuk-tuk — and financial plans are being readied for tuk-tuk drivers to be able to purchase one of the new vehicles. “We’re going into full production straight away,” Stone says. “We’ve got orders for just over a thousand.” A range of other solar vehicles are also in the pipeline: delivery vans and solar-powered trucks capable of driving 180 kilometers (112 miles) on a full battery.

Star8’s most futuristic plan is to build a solar roadway made of specially engineered slip-resistant glass. Stone says the components are ready, and the company is talking with a developer who owns concessions on National Road 4, the highway linking Phnom Penh to the coastal resort town of Sihanoukville. After building a test stretch of roadway, the ambition is to produce 140 kilometers (86 miles) of highway with the potential to light itself and provide grid-quality power for villages along the way. “It’s getting more and more viable,” he says. “If we put 140 kilometers worth of roads in, we could probably power half of Phnom Penh.”

Solar cars, solar roads, solar cities — it sounds like something out of science-fiction. But there are some big challenges to overcome if Phnom Penh is to make the leap from small, off-grid solar products like phone chargers to fully-fledged solar power eco-systems. Kausar of the ADB says to fully exploit the potential of the sun, a solar photo-voltaic plant would need to be constructed that could feed power into the national grid networks.

This would require firm government support and cooperation with the private sector. “The efficiency of solar in the Cambodian climate is very good. The thing that’s still missing is the regulatory support,” says Arjen Luxwolda, the general manger of the Phnom Penh-based solar company Kamworks. The main problem at the moment is the lack of what is known as a “feed-in tariff,” a special rate that is paid to the owners of solar power systems for surplus electricity that is fed back into the grid, an important way of off-setting the relatively high installation costs.

In fact, Luxwolda says, the Cambodian government wouldn’t even need to offer subsidies for solar panels — something that is common in Western countries — as long as the state utility agreed to pay a feed-in tariff to surplus producers. Luxwolda said this is now the main obstacle to widespread adoption of solar power. “If the government just allowed people to push their power into the grid,” he says, “then it would explode.”

Published by Next City, July 21, 2014

Phnom Penh Is Arresting the Poor and Sending Them to Abusive “Vocational Centers”

In 2012, the authorities in Cambodia’s capital hung up large banners proclaiming it “The Charming City.” This new branding campaign capped off a decade in which Phnom Penh had grown rapidly from an impoverished third-world city into a small island of middle-class modernity. Over the past ten years, as Cambodia’s small economy has boomed, the city has grown by leaps and bounds. Malls and satellite cities have risen. Rutted roads have been repaired. Overgrown parks have been tamed and sculpted. Sisowath Quay, running along the Tonle Sap riverside, was once a strip of dirt where people sold beer by candlelight; today it boasts a handsome paved promenade lined with palm trees.

But Phnom Penh’s urban beautification drive has not been without its discontents. On June 9, the city’s deputy governor Seng Ratanak ordered a roundup of beggars, homeless people and children hawking newspapers and flowers at traffic lights in the center of town. The very next day, several dozen rubbish collectors and homeless people were hauled away in police trucks. Many more hid to evade capture. “They are at risk of labor exploitation and human trafficking, and we need public order,” Ratanak told the Phnom Penh Post.

Last month’s street sweeps were just the latest part of a long municipal campaign to clear the streets of beggars and purge central Phnom Penh of “unattractive” human elements — a policy that has also involved the eviction of informal urban communities from valuable inner-city land. Traditionally, street-sweeps have preceded international summits and other events that place Cambodia’s capital on the world stage. Ahead of ASEAN Summit meetings in late 2012, street peddlers and beggars were rounded up and sent to “vocational training” centers run by the municipal Department of Social Affairs. One city spokesman said the sweep was necessary to make a good impression on world leaders. He explained: “If the leaders from across ASEAN and the world see beggars and children on the street, they might speak negatively to the government.”

The attitude of city officials is best summed up in their frequent use of the word anatepadei, meaning “anarchy,” to refer to the urban poor and other “undesirables.” For the Phnom Penh municipal government, urban development consists in large part of policing the line between the chaotic and the “ordered,” by which they mean the division between the sprawling outskirts — a ring of poorly planned districts where urban amenities are patchy — and the more prosperous inner city.

Many of those who find themselves living or selling goods on Phnom Penh’s streets are the cast-offs of Cambodia’s economic revolution: recent rural migrants driven from their ancestral rice-farming villages by landlessness and poverty. Sixty-three-year-old Hao Samut, who sells jasmine garlands at the intersection of Monivong and Charles De Gaulle Boulevards, came to the city six years ago from southeastern Prey Veng province after an injury to her leg prevented her from working in the rice paddies. She took a room out near the airport for $10 per month, borrowed a few dollars from her sister to buy some jasmine wreaths and began hawking them at traffic lights. On a good day she works eight hours and takes home 20,000 riels (about $10 USD). “I can make money for living, but not for saving,” she said, fingering wreaths of fragrant jasmine bound with red strings. “I don’t want to be a beggar.”

While authorities claimed people rounded up in last month’s raids ended up at specialized NGOs offering vocational training and child protection services, human rights monitors later reported that many, including children as young as seven, ended up at the Prey Speu Social Affairs Center, a notorious facility that has been marred by allegations of abuse. Prey Speu is just one of a dozen vocational centers run by the municipal Department of Social Affairs, which purport to offer vocational training but have drawn criticisms due to their frequently appalling conditions. Am Sam Ath of the human rights group Licadho condemned the alleged use of the Prey Speu Center to house homeless people and street sellers. “They are not criminals,” he told local media.

Though she avoided being swept up in last month’s sweep, Samut has been detained twice by the authorities and once spent a night at Prey Speu. “They didn’t give me much food to eat; there was no water, no electricity, no bathroom,” she told me as the traffic rushed by on Monivong Boulevard. “I don’t want to go to Prey Speu [again]. If they arrest me, please just shoot me dead on the spot instead.”

Bushra Rahman, a spokesperson for the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights in Phnom Penh, which has monitored the recent campaign of street sweeps, said the agency was “deeply concerned” about recent developments. “People who have committed no crime should not be detained,” she said. “Persons who find themselves living on the streets often lack opportunities or have other reasons that led them to that situation, which will not be solved by rounding them up in ill-equipped facilities.” Though UN workers are not granted regular access to the Prey Speu Center — now rebranded the Porsenchey Vocational Training Centre — Rahman said that one recent visit made apparent that the facility was “drastically under-resourced and ill equipped to address the needs of many of the people resident there.”

At the park near Phnom Penh’s old market, Lim Sreng and her companions sat in a circle and talked about their run-ins with the city authorities. Sreng spends her days collecting anything she can sell: scrap metal, beer cans, plastic bottles. She lives in the park and sleeps with a tarp when it rains. She’s lost count of the number of times she has been detained, and has seen the inside of Prey Speu on numerous occasions: “Too many people live in Prey Speu. It’s very bad conditions. They give [inmates] just a bucket to go to the bathroom. They lock them in the building.”

Heng Sophea, 29, another rubbish collector from central Kampong Thom province, also escaped the dragnet. He said the authorities had made it clear that the homeless have only a marginal place in Phnom Penh’s paved, ordered, “unanarchic” future. “They said they wanted to clear the city; they said they want a beautiful city,” he told me. “But Cambodia has a lot of beggars. They can’t do the same as in Thailand.”

Published by Next City, July 11, 20

A Constitutional Conundrum

In recent years, Myanmar has shaken off its hermetic status and been embraced by the international community, but the country’s constitution remains a significant obstacle to moving beyond its militaristic past

In late May, the National League for Democracy (NLD), the political party led by democracy icon Aung San Suu Kyi, launched a public campaign seeking far-reaching changes to Myanmar’s 2008 constitution. For the first time since April 2012, when ‘the lady’ was elected to parliament amid scenes of celebration, party supporters decked out in the NLD’s red peacock-and-star insignia have reappeared on the streets in their thousands.

Myanmar’s constitution looms as a key political issue as the country approaches national elections scheduled for late next year. Formulated by the former junta government and passed in a bogus referendum in 2008, the constitution cements the military’s dominant role in politics and effectively bars the popular Suu Kyi from the presidency. Since the reformist government of President Thein Sein took office in 2011, opposition parties, political activists and ethnic minority groups have campaigned for sweeping changes, while others have called for an opportunity to scrap the document and essentially start over.

On May 17, on an overcast morning in Yangon, Suu Kyi and members of the ‘88 Generation’ of student activists appeared at a rally, where they called for Myanmar’s powerful military to throw its support behind the idea of constitutional change. “I would like to ask the army whether they want to back down in a way that’s dignified, in a way that earns them the cheers of their people,” Suu Kyi said, eliciting cheers of her own from the 15,000-strong crowd. “Think of the country’s future and respect the public’s will, which is for you to back down from parliament, and to do so willingly when the time comes.”

Ko Ko Gyi, a former student activist and current secretary general of the 88 Generation Peace and Open Society, which is partnering with the NLD in its campaign, said the groups decided to petition the public after months of sluggish progress by the official parliamentary Constitutional Review Joint Committee, formed last year to propose changes to the charter. “Even the existing constitution allows [us] to have freedom of speech,” he told Southeast Asia Globe during a recent interview in Yangon. “We will give speech to the people and try to gather signatures from the people. That’s all – no violence.”

The constitution is rife with safeguards against any outbreak of “undisciplined” democracy.

The campaign’s main focus is on amending Article 436, which requires more than 75% of the parliament votes to approve any changes to the constitution. Since the constitution also reserves 25% of the seats in the lower house for military candidates, Article 436 gives the Myanmar military, or Tatmadaw, a de facto veto over any changes. The NLD and the 88 Generation have now begun gathering signatures from the public in support of tweaking this key provision, and will submit them to the parliamentary review committee late this month.

After that, it’s unclear what will happen. There is no doubt about the importance of constitutional change if Myanmar is to remove the military from politics and finally embrace parliamentary democracy. Tomás Ojea Quintana, the United Nations Special Rapporteur on the human rights situation in Myanmar, said in a recent statement that constitutional reform in Myanmar is “a crucial step in the transition to a more democratic nation”. The theory is simple enough. But the current constitution has to be seen in the context of Myanmar’s ‘seven-step roadmap’ from military dictatorship to a sort of hybrid constitutional autocracy – what the old junta esoterically termed “discipline flourishing multi-party democracy”.

Penned by the old military junta, analysts say Myanmar’s constitution was designed to protect the military’s interests ahead of the reform process that began when President Thein Sein took office in 2011 and has since seen Myanmar shrug off its status as an international pariah and open itself to foreign investment. As such, the constitution is rife with safeguards against any outbreak of “undisciplined” democracy. In addition to reserving a quarter of the seats in the lower house for the military, it also allows the commander-in-chief of the Tatmadaw to appoint the Ministers of Defence, Home Affairs and Border Affairs, effectively ruling out any civilian control of the armed forces.

Another provision grants legal immunity to members of the former regime who committed crimes while in office, while the constitution’s Article 59 bars any candidate from the presidency whose spouse, children, or parents are foreign citizens, preventing the popular Suu Kyi – whose children, like her late husband Michael Aris, are British citizens – from holding the country’s top office. These provisions are in turn controlled by the master key: Article 436 – the military veto over any constitutional changes. “They need to protect the generals and the former generals, they need to protect the former senior-general, and they need to protect the military’s business interests,” said Thiha Saw, editor of the Myanma Freedom Daily, “so I think they will try to retain some old styles, some old clauses, at least for a while.”

With this in mind, the NLD and 88 Generation activists now face a circular dilemma: how to force an entrenched military and the military-backed, ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) to make concessions that they have no obvious political interest in making. “Aung San Suu Kyi has enormous popular support. But you know, power comes out of the gun’s barrel, and the biggest challenge is the Tatmadaw,” said Myat Thu, the founder of the Yangon School of Political Science. “Article 436 is the entrance to the amendment of the whole constitution. The Burmese military knows that very clearly, so they will resist to the end.”

In late May, after the NLD held large rallies in Mandalay and Yangon, Hla Swe, a central executive committee member of the USDP and a former lieutenant-major in the Tatmadaw, warned that mass demonstrations posed a threat to social stability. “The NLD and 88 want to cause public disorder by stimulating people to change the constitution. They shouldn’t do that,” he told The Irrawaddy newspaper. The head of the Union Election Commission then warned Suu Kyi that by the very act of calling for charter amendment, she was “speaking outside of the boundaries of the constitution”.

Article 436 is the entrance to the amendment of the whole constitution. The Burmese military knows that very clearly, so they will resist to the end.

Government officials argue that the NLD should instead work through the official channels of the Constitutional Review Joint Committee in parliament, but progress on that front remains slow. The 31-member committee, which includes members of the opposition and ruling parties – as well, inevitably, as the military – has suggested some important changes to allow greater power sharing between the government and ethnic groups – a key gripe along Myanmar’s troubled ethnic periphery – but has remained vague on core provisions. In June, the committee reportedly voted against amending Article 59 – dealing a blow to Suu Kyi’s presidency hopes – but has previously stated it was open to changing Article 436. However, Ko Ko Gyi said it remains unclear how, or when, it will be amended.

Even then, it will still require military support if it is to pass parliament. “This is kind of like a diversion,” Myat Thu said of the committee’s work, “and it will end short of the desired amendments. They may amend some sections, but not very important sections.” Thiha Saw agreed that time was on the side of the Tatmadaw and the USDP. In the meantime, the NLD and its 88 Generation allies will have to walk a tightrope, pressing their demand for constitutional change while doing enough to reassure the military that it would retain an important national role in any future system. “They shouldn’t push too far,” Thiha Saw said. “If [the generals] feel intimidated, if they feel insecure, they will fight back. The trick is to make the military feel secure.”

However, Ko Ko Gyi said the democratic forces were being realistic, recognising that, after half a century at the helm of Myanmar’s politics, the Tatmadaw would be an inevitable ingredient of the democratic mix in the run-up to the 2015 election – and beyond. “We realise that we cannot put aside the army in politics, for the time being,” he said. “We are just trying to convince the army, and also the ruling party, that we don’t mean to threaten anybody.”

Published by the Southeast Asia Globe, July 2014

Myanmar’s wildlife trafficking hotspot

Mong La has become a hub for gambling, prostitution and illegal animal products like ivory and tiger bones.

Mong La, Myanmar—In the middle of Zhangji Restaurant stood the venue’s main attraction: a long glass aquarium filled with Chinese rice wine and ginseng root. There, eerily submerged in the brown liquid, was the skeleton of a tiger, its skull and backbone visible above the alcohol. A small faucet was attached to the side of the tank, where waitresses poured out glasses for tables of Chinese tourists. The skin of another tiger was pinned to the wall above.

Tiger bone wine – or hugujiu, in Mandarin – has long been prized by wealthy Chinese, who believe it can stave off chills and improve circulation. Though the tonic has been banned for years in China, it is a common sight across the border in this small town in Myanmar. Venues on the town’s main dining strip all have tanks of tiger spirit, available for the knock-down price of 60 Chinese yuan ($10) per glass.

Many restaurants here also specialise in endangered animals. On the pavement outside the Zhangji Restaurant were cages filled with owls, geckos, monkeys, and monitor lizards. Plastic tubs held soft-shell turtles. Another restaurant down the street boasted live pangolins, an endangered species of scaly anteater whose consumption is banned under international wildlife treaties. “It’s delicious,” a waitress said, pointing her pen at the curled, scaly creatures.

A major wildlife market

Welcome to Mong La, the de facto capital of “Special Region No 4″, a sliver of territory along the Chinese border in Myanmar’s eastern Shan State. In recent years, spurred by lax law enforcement and booming demand from China, this shabby border town has grown to become a key hub of the Asian trade in endangered animals and animal products. “In terms of number and volume of the variety of species on offer, Mong La is one of Southeast Asia’s largest open wildlife markets,” said Vincent Nijman, a zoologist and anthropologist from Oxford Brookes University in the UK.

For the past two decades, the armed militia that controls this tiny enclave, population 89,000, has survived by turning it into a haven of illicit pleasures for border-hopping Chinese tourists. Glitzy casinos draw hundreds of Chinese each week from nearby Yunnan province, where gambling is banned. The influx of gamblers has in turn triggered a boom in prostitution – much of the central town seems to function as a red-light district – and a surging demand for rare animals, many of which are protected by international treaties like the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES).

Evidence of the wildlife trade can be seen everywhere around town. At Mong La’s open-air market, vendors openly sell bear bile powder, pangolin scales and the skulls of Tibetan antelopes. More upmarket wildlife stores do a brisk trade in ivory and tiger skins, which experts have traced back to poachers as far away as Africa and India. During a trip to Mong La in January this year, Nijman and a colleague from the anti-wildlife trafficking organisation TRAFFIC counted 50 raw elephant tusks and 3,300 pieces of ivory for sale around town. “The turnover of many products seems to be high and there is no other indication other than that business is thriving,” Nijman said. “Given the small size of the town, this is remarkable.”

At one wildlife boutique, a Chinese shop owner showed off a piece of polished ivory with a price tag of 5,000 yuan ($805). When asked where it came from, he chuckled nervously. “Where has it come from? I don’t know about that.”

A ‘James Bondian private police force’

Mong La has enjoyed autonomous status since 1989, when the Communist Party of Burma collapsed after decades of insurgency. The Mong La area subsequently fell under the control of the National Democratic Alliance Army, or NDAA, led by the former Maoist Red Guard Sai Leun. Like many armed rebel groups, Leun then cut a ceasefire deal with Myanmar’s military government, giving him autonomy in exchange for ending the insurgency. Since then, Leun has ruled Mong La and its gambling settlement by fiat, protected by an army of 4,500 men that US officials have likened to a “James Bondian private police force”.

Tom Kramer, a Yangon-based researcher with the Transnational Institute, said the Myanmar government lets ceasefire groups like the NDAA do more or less whatever they want, “as long as they don’t go into opposition politics”. Given the rising Chinese demand, the peculiar political arrangements in Mong La have created the perfect spot for wildlife traders.  “There’s an enormous demand in China for these products,” he said. “There’s not a lot being talked about and done about it, but it’s serious money.”

For its own part, the NDAA denies it has turned a blind eye to the illegal animal trade. One senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media, said the police frequently raided wildlife shops and confiscated contraband. “We will crack down on it,” the official said, though he admitted it was challenging. “Most of the high-end restaurants have wild animals, because when the rich people come they say, ‘I want to eat this one, I want to eat that one’. They don’t want to eat livestock raised in the farm, because of antibiotics or something.”

The turnover of many products seems to be high … Given the small size of the town, this is remarkable.

But Nijman remained unconvinced that there has been any real attempt to stem the sale of products like ivory and tiger bones – trade that appeared to have official backing. Like prostitution, the availability of banned animal products seemed to be an integral part of Mong La’s casino-based economy. “You go out gambling, in the evening you get yourself a prostitute, and then you eat the stuff you can’t eat at home,” he said. “It’s the whole package that makes it attractive.”

While China has made some recent moves to crack down on the wildlife trade, banning rare animals from official banquets and passing tough new laws against the consumption of tiger bone wine and endangered creatures like pangolins, it, too, turns a blind eye to the Chinese tourists who cross into Mong La – often illegally – to buy wild animal products. “Right near the border there are small trails. People simply walk across the border, without any documents,” said Wang Bangyuan, a public health specialist who has worked extensively in the China-Myanmar border region.

‘It’s a battle that they cannot really win’

Wang said that despite occasional large busts, the forestry police who enforce China’s wildlife protection laws also remain under-funded and ill-equipped. “It’s like drug trafficking,” he said. “It’s illegal, it’s being enforced, but the police are understaffed and they’re fighting against a business which is quite lucrative. So it’s a battle that they cannot really win.”

China has taken a harder line with the NDAA in the past. In 2003, after becoming angry that corrupt officials were losing billions of yuan in Mong La’s casinos, Chinese forces stormed across the border and shut the operations down. The NDAA responded by shifting the gambling operations 16km to the south, but the shells of derelict casinos still dot the hills around town – a reminder of the region’s heavy reliance on China. A similar crackdown took place in 2011 in Boten, a casino town on the Laotian-Chinese border, which became a ghost-town overnight after China shut off access to Chinese electricity and cellphone networks.

For now, however, local authorities in Yunnan seem happy to tolerate the economic free-for-all in Mong La. Nijman said that without action on their part, it would be hard to stem the flow of ivory and other endangered animal products.

But, “if the gambling were to stop there”, he said, “the whole thing would collapse”.

Published by Al Jazeera English, June 17, 2014