How Wild are the Wa?

If you believe that the Wa of Myanmar are wild savages, growing the opium that is flooding the Chinese provinces Yunnan, Sichuan, and Guizhou from where it moves further inland, you would be holding popular views these days.

But you would also be wrong and out of date.

Big changes are happening in Wa Special Region No. 2. On 26 June 2005, the Wa leaders put into force a ban on the production, sale, and use of opium. Although they declared as long ago as 1990 that they would make such a ban and that three five-year development plans would be implemented to prepare the Wa people, the actual announcement last year is causing a crisis for many families who used to grow the poppy.

By Special Region, it is meant that following a ceasefire agreement made in 1989, the Wa were given considerable autonomy over the internal affairs of their region in exchange for a vow to stay forever within the Union of Myanmar. It is the Wa Authority that dictates the internal affairs of the region. It is the Wa Police and the Wa Army that has done all the law enforcement, police work, and poppy eradication. Nevertheless, they do consult with the Government. Before enacting the opium ban, Wa leaders discussed with the Government whether to go ahead with it since the national ban is scheduled only for 2014.

Out of the approximately 600,000 people in the Wa Region, over 80 per cent were involved in poppy growing. Because of the hilly terrain and shortages of water in much of the region, the people have often suffered food shortages. They used the income they gained from selling opium to buy the food they needed.

Although this dependence on the money earned from opium sales solved the people’s immediate food problems, it led to many—often male heads of household—becoming addicted to opium. Compounding the problem was the fact that many households also grew addicted to the money they got from opium sales. Instead of practicing their traditional diverse indigenous skills, they began to buy items from clothes to tools, cigarettes and foodstuffs that they formerly produced.

For such reasons, opium poppy growing households are poorer than their neighbors who do not cultivate the crop. Instead of profiting from poppy production, almost all growers end up poorer than when they started. They big money is made instead by the cartels that market and refine it into derivatives such as heroin.

The UNODC Wa Project has now been working for several years to help the farmers find alternative livelihoods and sources of income. Starting the present phase of its activities in 1998, the project now works in over 100 villages with all of the region’s ethnic groups (mostly the many—and quite diverse—Wa, but also Lahu, Akha, Shan, Palaung and various small Mon-Khmer groups such as Tai Loi). This project specifically targets the poorest farmers with the biggest food deficits. Major activities include developing land, which in the Wa is often steeply sloping, into terraces and then introducing agricultural practices and crops that can be grown year-round.

The project focuses on skill training so that the people will be self-sufficient. Starting with a planning process involving Wa leaders at all levels, training is provided so villagers can participate in devising the plan and in doing the work. The UNODC Wa Project has introduced skills in areas such as carpentry, livestock raising, weir and canal construction and maintenance that has enabled the people to incorporate new abilities in the betterment of their changing lifestyles

Drawing on experiences dating to at least 1971, when UNODC (United Nations Fund for Drug Abuse Control as it was known then) began work with its very first project to replace the cultivation of opium poppy in northern Thailand, the agency has considerable experience in highland development in minority areas.

This is important because financial resources are limited to UNODC and the project. The area’s remotness has kept government contributions, mostly through CCDAC and NaTaLa, relatively low. In addition, political conditions have kept many potential donors from contributing funds to the work as well as minimizing the contributions of those who do support project work. The money received (from donors including the United States, Japan, Australia, Germany, the United Kingdom and others) has thus had to be used frugally and effectively.

Partly because of its remoteness and also the lack of a strong commercial community in the region, there are no banks here. Also because the Chinese yuan is the currency of choice, the UNODC arranges to transfer its funds to a bank in Mong Lein County of Yunnan, opposite the Pang Kham Project Office which is right on the international border. Project staff make regular trips to bring back the cash to the project offices in Pang Kham and Mong Pawk and to activities elsewhere.

As the 2005 ban approached, UNODC and other agencies grew apprehensive because of bad experiences brought about by a similar ban in Kokang Special Region 1. Partly because the people there did not have sufficient options for making a living after the ban and partly because the farmers depended almost completely on opium sales to cover all their economic needs, they suffered sever consequences. Malnutrition increased, the local economy plunged, school absenteeism grew, visits to health care centers declined, and out-migration soared.

Worried that such conditions might be replicated in the Wa after the 2005 ban, UNODC organized a joint assessment mission to both special regions. Participants included representatives of the Adventist Development and Relief Agency (ADRA), the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), FAO, UNDP, UNODC, WHO, and different government agencies.

The assessment mission report called for a collaborative effort that took the form of the Kokang and Wa Initiative (KOWI). Through KOWI, new partners, including the World Food Program, Agence Medicale Internationale (AMI), German Agro-Action (GAA) and Malteser have begun operations with several others planning to start soon.

The cooperation has enabled the concerned agencies to respond more rapidly to the needs of the people than if only one organization were present. Drawing on the diverse talents and resources of the KOWI partners, a multi-dimensional approach as emerged.

In the Wa, where the people continue to practice more of their traditional skills, the indigenous ability of the people has also contributed to their greater resilience in the face of the ban than of the people of Kokang. This has also helped them participate more in the planning process. Wa people serve on the staff of most of the projects conducted in the region. In one, a respected Wa leader, Khun Lu, is the UNODC project’s area manager for Mong Maw.

Through the Food for Work program of the World Food Programme, villagers get rations of rice for doing work designed to provide them with sustainable livelihoods. Activities have included constructing village water supply systems, terracing land and building hedgerows so as to prepare the areas for new farming practices. UNODC provides training in relevant skills so that the people will be able to maintain what they build as well as to expand and introduce them elsewhere. This has proven to be a cost-effective means for expanding activities and preventing food shortages in most of the Wa townships.

ADRA is the other WFP partnership agency, focusing on work in Nam Teek, the northernmost of the Wa Districts which borders Kokang where the agency is also active. Although small in Myanmar, they are quite active and have concentrated on water supplies and land development.

In other areas, AMI and Malteser have collaborated to provide health care services and education. They are working to reduce the area’s high mortality rate caused by factors such as malaria, polluted water, unsanitary practices, and a lack of understanding on the cause of various diseases. Malteser has almost entirely eliminated malaria from the Wa Region.

GAA, the newest KOWI partner, is beginning activities in Nawng Khit Township, west of Pang Kham in the center of the Wa Region. GAA has a three-year plan to work here with a focus on food security and clean water supply systems.

Many needs remain, however. UNODC is working to identify water sources to enable a sufficient water supply for the area’s agricultural and household needs.

The project is also seeking methods to sustain local education institutions. With a mixture of Myanmar government schools, Chinese curricula as well as other programs sometimes including Akha, Lahu, and Shan as well as Wa language activities, providing a suitable education for all is a challenge. Scarce financial resources and the high cost of living for teachers in remote areas where most of the educational institutions are located, further tests efforts to establish and sustain schools here as well as to pay salaries, provide textbooks and teaching materials.

UNODC is also trying to preserve natural resources. In response to the reduced supply of cash to the region following the opium ban, many Wa farmers have been collecting forest produce to sell to Chinese merchants. Much logging is also being conducted by Chinese companies. The project is exploring ways to conduct village land-use planning as well as to evaluate whether some of the forest produce sold out of the region could be cultivated as a cash crop on a sustainable and profitable basis.

Through such efforts the UNODC and partners are making significant progress. All involved in the work agree that if it fails and if opium poppy cultivation returns to the region it will be almost impossible to eradicate. Not only will this block efforts to bring the people out of poverty but it will also threaten regional relations and could well undo the peace that has prevailed here for almost two decades.

As can be seen, the wildest thing the Wa have done is to ban opium cultivation, use and sales in a peaceful way. Going around the Region during the growing season, the UNODC illicit crop monitoring team could not find any poppy cultivation at all. Many outside the Wa still cannot believe that opium has really been eliminated in Special Region No. 2 and that the thought of this happening is wild beyond comprehension. Wilder still will be the idea that alternative livelihoods can be introduced and that the area will prosper. With sufficient support and cooperation, UNODC and the other KOWI partners have the ability to do just that together with the Wa leaders and people. And that is an utterly wild idea that may just become true.

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