Indian Defence Review

The illegal narcotics trade is one of the major reasons for the continuance of insurgencies in the North-east. The consequences of trafficking in narcotics are many; for one, it is a major source of funding for the insurgent groups, the other is the spread of AIDS in nearly all the states of the North-east. The linkage between arms, drugs and insurgency depends on three inter-related factors. First, to oppose and fight the government the insurgents need weapons.

In the early stages, they procure them by snatching personal arms from complacent and ill-trained police and village guards; then as they become better organised they graduate to raiding isolated police posts, often in connivance with corrupt and sympathetic policemen. Next, as the struggle intensifies, the insurgents need more sophisticated weapons to challenge the firepower of the state for which they need funds. Very often illicit trade in narcotics is the best source to raise funds.

In the past, India’s North-east was not a producer of narcotics; whatever little was produced was for local consumption and not for illicit trade, which is a post independence phenomenon. Unlike other insurgencies, for example the LTTE of Sri Lanka that is deeply involved in illicit drug trade, the insurgents of North-east India have so far relied on other means to raise funds. We have already documented in the Chapter on Assam how ULFA soon after its formation went on a rampage to rob banks and extort money from tea gardens to buy arms from the Kachin insurgents in Myanmar.

In Nagaland and Manipur insurgent groups routinely collect taxes from each household, government contractors and employees, transporters, businessmen and even government officials including ministers. But the situation is fast changing; insurgent groups have begun to trade in illicit narcotics to raise funds to keep the insurgency going.

KMT and the American Connection

It will be interesting to digress a little to focus on how illicit trade started in this region. It all started with the American assistance to the KMT, the defeated nationalist forces of Chiang Kai Shek, which had retreated to Taiwan by May 1949. After the capture of Yunan by Mao’s People’s Liberation Army (PLA), stragglers from the defeated KMT fled to Myanmar. A part of this force under Chen-Wei trekked down to Mong Pong in the extreme South-east of Shan state and established contact with Taipei. Their declared intention was to regroup with some 5,000 other KMT remnants, who had fled to Laos and reconquer Chiang’s lost provinces, starting with Yunan. Chiang decided to reinforce them.

At this stage the Korean war started. The North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel in June 1950 backed by China and as a consequence the Americans entered the war. Although officially the Americans were not involved with KMT in Myanmar, special covert operation was started to interfere with communist activities in South-east Asia. KMT forces were supplied by air from bases in Taipei and Bangkok with American assistance. Encouraged by the Americans, KMT made two abortive intrusions in Yunan in 1951, but the expected rebellion inside Yunan failed to materialise despite American support. Another attempt in August 1952 also failed that forced the KMT to hold the line against the communists in Myanmar.

The operations required finances. KMT was now controlling Trans-Salween highlands, where high quality opium grew. Yunan opium farmers flooded the highlands to escape Mao’s ban on opium cultivation in China. Ironically, the opium traders were all Chinese. KMT imposed opium tax on farmers regardless of the type of crops they grew. Poppy cultivation with KMT encouragement spread to the hills including areas bordering India’s North-east. The American sponsored secret war continued till January 1961, when the Burmese Army backed by the PLA took control of the KMT base at Mong Pa Lio and drove them to Laos.

Almost no opium grew in areas of rebellion, and none of the rebels dealt in narcotics trade. By 1989 nearly all insurgent groups depended in some measure on the drug trade to finance their armies.

By now KMT decade long presence in Myanmar had created a thriving narcotics industry, which KMT continued to exploit from its bases in Thailand. When KMT stragglers had trekked to Myanmar in 1949, Rangoon was at war with six insurgencies. Almost no opium grew in areas of rebellion, and none of the rebels dealt in narcotics trade. By 1989 nearly all insurgent groups depended in some measure on the drug trade to finance their armies.

Linkages Between Narcotics and Arms Smuggling

The illicit trafficking in narcotics is often linked to arms smuggling, insurgency and organised crime. Illegal trade in narcotics and arms generate billion of dollars in the black market and is the major source of funding terrorism, insurgency and organised crime, which have international ramifications. It is inconceivable to fight them without fighting the menace of drug trafficking.

Black money has given rise to money laundering, which is defined “as the conversion of profit from illegal activities into financial assets which appear to have legitimate origins.” Money laundering has become far easier with international borders becoming more and more porous: the loopholes in the international financial system enabling traffickers to disguise the ownership, purpose, source and final resting place of drug money.

Narcotics Trade and the North-east

There are two major centres of drug production in Asia; the Golden Crescent comprising Afghanistan, North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and the Central Asian Republics and the Golden Triangle comprising Myanmar, Thailand and Laos: these areas flank India in the North-west and North-east respectively. Myanmar has enormous lead over the other opium producing areas. There has been a sharp increase in the production of opium in Myanmar since 1989. This is mainly linked to the disintegration of the Communist Party of Burma in April 1989.

The ex-soldiers of the CPB are now involved in the drug trade. The Tatmadaw (the Burmese Army) has neither the ability nor the will to deal with the situation. Besides, the Military Junta in Myanmar takes a lenient view of drug trafficking in its rebellious ethnic states.

In India illicit cultivation of poppy takes place in the Himalayan foothills of Kashmir and Uttar Pradesh and in the North-east along India-Myanmar border but the production is insignificant and does not figure in the trafficking scheme. In India domestic heroin of choice is the heroin base or the brown sugar. This drug originates in India and is usually trafficked to Nepal, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and Maldives. Since 1999, Indian officers have begun to seize small quantities of refined heroin destined for Sri Lanka and Europe. Government officials estimate that 30 percent of heroin seizure are of Indian origin and acknowledge India’s emerging status as a heroin producing country.2 Apart from poppy cultivation, India is a producer of Mandrax and other synthetic drugs like met amphetamines including ‘ecstasy’ produced in Myanmar that have found significant markets in India.

Earlier it was believed that states like Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland are only links in the smuggling route, but it should be remembered that poppy cultivation in Manipur and Tripura is quite well spread. Ukhrul and Senapati districts of Manipur produce high-quality cannabis (Ganja), which moves in truckloads to Bihar and UP and thence to Nepal for its final destination in Western countries. Poppy cultivation is prevalent in Eastern Mizoram along Myanmar border. Over 100 acres under crop were destroyed between 1983 and 1987. Poppy cultivation is also prevalent in Lungleigh along the border with Bangladesh3 There is evidence of poppy cultivation in Behiang in Churachandpur district of Manipur.4 Poppy is also grown illicitly in Tirap, Chaglang, Lohit and Upper Siang districts of Arunachal Pradesh and Chandel district of Manipur.

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Acetic Anhydride Seizure in India

A related problem is the illicit production of chemicals, which are required in the manufacture of narcotic drugs and psychotropic substance. Acetic Anhydride is used in the manufacture of heroin, which is the commonest drug abuse in South Asia. India is one of the largest manufacturers of acetic anhydride, which is smuggled from India into Myanmar and Pakistan. The chemical (called precursor) is required to convert raw opium into heroin. Ease of logistics has led to refineries being set up along the Indian border as well, and this explains the spurt of heroin supply into Nagaland and Manipur in recent years.

Trafficking Routes in the North-east

Narcotics from Myanmar find their way into international markets, mainly to USA and the Western countries, via Thailand, China (Kunming), Myanmar and Eastern India. Both China and Thailand have cracked down on heroin smuggling in recent years. This has forced the drug cartels to find exit routes through North-east India. An official report prepared in August 1999 pointed out that Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland together account for the smuggling of 20 kg of heroin everyday.5 The above three North-eastern states have common border with Myanmar and, therefore, fall on the transit route of smuggling of narcotics, mainly to the Western countries.

According to officials of narcotics cell in Manipur, the major routes in the region are Behiang on the Churachandpur-Imphal route, Moreh, Kanjong in Ukhrul district and Somrah. The International Narcotics Control Board in its annual report for the year 2000 has mentioned that Manipur, Nagaland and Mizoram bordering Myanmar are the most vulnerable areas along the new drug trafficking routes. The areas to watch are Moreh, Champhai and Mokokchung.6Insurgents in the North-east are believed to be involved in narcotics smuggling from the Golden Triangle, although it is not yet all-pervasive.7 A Home Ministry report says “- – as far as North-east states of India are concerned, there are clear intelligence reports to indicate that the Naga underground organisation is involved in trafficking of drugs and precious stones since 1981. The insurgent group of Manipur is also involved in trafficking of drugs.”

This assessment is backed by other analysts who see the violent clashes between Kukis and Nagas to control Moreh, a trading centre on Indo-Myanmar border, as a life and death struggle to control the trade in narcotics. However, a Manipuri researcher, Binalakshmi Nepram, disagrees and points out that the Manipuri insurgents in their anti-drug campaign have shot dead hundreds of drug addicts and drug peddlers.8 This could be a ploy by insurgent groups to camouflage the illegal trade with social programme. Trafficking in narcotics and threatening drug users with dire consequences go on simultaneously. The result has been to drive addicts from the towns to the countryside and disperse urban concentrations, thus making surveillance difficult.9

The prevalence of HIV positive cases is maximum in the Imphal Valley and in urban centres along the national and state highways.

1989 saw a change in the pattern of drug abuse in Mizoram from expensive heroin to cheap and legally available drugs such as Morphine, Cannabis, Pethadene, Diazepan, Nitrasum and Phensyde. The change in pattern was caused by two factors, first the crackdown on heroin smuggling in 1988 and the second, ban on Indian Made Foreign Liquor (IMFL) and introduction of prohibition in Mizoram in the same year.10 This led to use of drugs, which were legally available in chemist shops. But the trend in Manipur had changed from morphine to heroin in the mid-eighties. Since then North-eastern states had over 1,10,000 drug addicts and over 6,871 HIV positive cases. Manipur had nearly eight percent of India’s total HIV positive cases and ranked third in India. 76 percent of HIV positive cases in Manipur were intravenous drug users.11

Drug Abuse in the North-east

The prevalence of drugs has led to sharp increase in the spread of AIDS in the North-east. In Manipur the first case of HIV positive was detected in Imphal jail in July 1990. Sample HIV tests on two batches of 28 and 250 revealed as many as 80-85 percent positive cases. Soon after a few AIDS deaths were reported. The confessions of a drug queen with clientele reaching high places indicate that addiction has permeated all levels of society.

It was initially believed that AIDS was mainly spread through shared needles in intravenous injection of drug but the role of permissive sex could not be ignored. In 1993-94 some 0.8 percent of pregnant women tested were found HIV positive against a nil finding in 1990.12. The prevalence of HIV positive cases is maximum in the Imphal Valley and in urban centres along the national and state highways. In Mizoram in a survey carried out in 1994, 1407 persons were found drug addicts, out of which 109 were females.13 The prevalence of AIDS and HIV positive cases in Nagaland and Meghalaya is also widespread.

Arms Trafficking

A brief overview of illicit arms trafficking is now in order. After the split in the underground Naga movement in 1980 over the Shillong Accord (1975), the NSCN emerged as the most powerful insurgent group in the North-east. It has collected a formidable arsenal of small arms including AK rifles and rocket propelled grenades. Over the years, it has become the prime vector of proliferation of small arms in the region by virtue of its access to clandestine arms market of South-east Asia. Not only the access to clandestine market, it also controls the route through which such arms are smuggled into North-east.

The traffickers are often the leaders of insurgent groups across the border like the Zomi Revolutionary Army, which supply heroin in exchange for arms to fight against the army in Myanmar.

Most of the contraband weapons that flow into North-east originate in Cambodia, which has a surplus of such weapons from the Pol Pot days. South-east Asia arms cartels are also reported to buy weapons from erstwhile ‘East Block’ countries. Such weapons are then smuggled to the small islands off the South coast of Thailand-Myanmar border. It is believed that the route to South Asia begins in the Rangong Islands off the Thai coast from where contraband are shipped through Andaman Sea and landed in Cox Bazaar from where the arms are carried in smaller caches to different destinations in Myanmar and North-east India.14

Some of the arms are taken to CHT from where they enter the North-east region via Mizoram, Tripura or further up through the North Cachar Hills and Karbi Anglong into Nagaland. Arms are carried even further up to Sylhet and enter Meghalaya through Dawki and Baghmara from where they pass into Assam through Mankachar in Assam’s Dhubri district and then through Siliguri and Dooars into Bhutan.15

Appraisal

In the modern day insurgency, drug trafficking and gunrunning go hand in hand. While drug money is used to procure arms, arms sale in turn go to finance drug trafficking. Illicit cultivation of poppy crop benefit the whole of the population where it is grown; the profits help improve the daily life of the producer, the trafficker and the street peddlers. As a petty dealer in Moreh puts it: “It is good money, enough to find a wife.”16

Although drug trafficking in India’s North-east is yet to become a major problem and all-pervasive, yet North-east India is fast emerging as the single most important transit point in the smuggling of narcotics in South-east Asia. The temptation is too great to resist. A kilogram of heroin at Moreh costs relatively modest rupees 4,00,000 or so. A courier gets rupees 10,000 to transport the drug from Moreh to Imphal.17 According to UNDCP, World Drug Report, 2000, the average retail price of one gram of heroin in India in 1999 was $ 5.2, while that in Netherlands was $ 42.5, in Canada $ 187.3, and in the USA $ 475.18 The Narcotics Control Bureau Annual Report 2000-2001 puts the total heroin seizures in the North-east as 10,280 kg and 8,000 kg for the years 1999 and 2000 respectively.

The traffickers are often the leaders of insurgent groups across the border like the Zomi Revolutionary Army, which supply heroin in exchange for arms to fight against the army in Myanmar. Though local officials of narcotics cell in Imphal rule out the involvement of local groups, custom officials on the Indo-Myanmar border suggest the connivance of local groups.

As observed earlier, the insurgent groups in Manipur depend mainly on extortion for raising funds, yet as the state coffers dry up, they look for alternate source of funding. It has been observed that both NSCN (IM) and NSCN (K) have been collecting 20 percent tax on the value of drugs passing through their area of control.19 NH 39 has become a vital link in an increasingly important route leading out of the Golden Triangle.

The record of seizures by Narcotics and Border Affairs Cell at Imphal shows an increasing trend in heroin seizures. As other avenues for fund raising dry up due to greater accountability being called for in the spending of public funds, insurgent groups will begin to depend more and more on drug trafficking to fill their coffers.

Notes and References

1. For a comprehensive account of KMT-American connection in the secret war in Myanmar, see Shelby Tucker, Burma: The Curse of Independence, (London: Pluto Press, 2001), pp. 164-167.
2. US Strategic Report on Narcotic Drugs, 2001. Quoted by Soma Ghosal, The Politics of Drugs and India’s North-east, (New Delhi: Anamika Publishers, 2003), p. 91 for Maulana Azad Institute of Asian Studies, Kolkata.
3. BG Verghese, India’s North-east Resurgent, (New Delhi: Konark Publishers, 1996), p. 158.
4. Soma Ghosal, n. 2., p. 65. Quoting interview with officials of Narcotics and Border Affairs cell in Imphal.
5. Binalakshmi Nepram, South Asia’s Fractured Frontier: Armed Conflict, Narcotics and Small Arms Proliferation in India’s North-east, (New Delhi: Mittal Publication, 2002), p. 121.
6. “Indo-Burma Border could become a Major Drug Production Area”, INCB, News at Mizzima.com. February 21, 2001. Quoted by Soma Ghosal, n. 2., p. 64.
7. Anindita Dasgupta, ‘A View from North-east India’ in Dipankar Banerjee, ed, South Asia at Gun Point, (Sri Lanka-Colombo: Regional Centre for Strategic Studies, 2001), p. 26.
8. Binalakshmi Nepram, n. 5., p. 123.
9. BG Verghese, n. 3., p. 133.
10. Ibid., p 158
11. Binalakshmi Nepram, n. 5., pp. 116.
12. BG Verghese, n. 3., p. 132.
13. Ibid., p. 156.
14. In February 1998, the Indian Navy in an operation code-named Operation Leech intercepted a major shipment of contraband weapons off the coast of Andaman Islands. In the encounter six members of Arakan Army, an ethnic insurgent group of Myanmar, were killed and 36 were arrested. 37 Thai fishermen who had assisted them were also taken into custody. Quoted by Anindita Dasgupta, n. 7., p. 37.
15. The Sentinel, Guwahati, February 15, 1997.
16. Anindita Dasgupta, “Small Arms Proliferation in North-east India: A Case Study of Assam”, Economic and Political Weekly, January 6, 2001, p. 62.
17. Quoted by Soma Ghosal, n. 2., p. 64.
18. Quoted by Soma Ghosal, Ibid., p. 66.
19. Ibid., p. 65.