Once a Jolly Hangman (31 page)

Burma has long received support from the 'father' of Singapore, former Prime Minister Lee Kuan Yew, who appointed himself 'Minister Mentor' - a new title to ensure he remains in control for as long as he lives and perhaps from the grave as he once ominously promised in a speech. Lee is on record as a defender of the Burmese military

as the 'only instrument of government' in the country Although the detained democracy campaigner and Nobel peace prize winner, Aung San Suu Kyi, was promised release
from house arrest before the end of 2010, Lee has long said that she should stay 'behind the fence and be a symbol'. Lee also said she might not be able to rule her country without the power the military commanded. U Lwin, the secretary of her party, the National League for Democracy, said the Singapore government's decision to hang small time drug peddlers was extreme. 'Singapore is a democracy', he said. 'We here are living under a strict, harsh government, but we don't hang people in Myanmar'.

The links between Singapore and the drug lords began to surface in the 1990s and were highlighted by investigative journalists Leslie Kean and Dennis Bernstein in Covert Action Quarterly. In 1996, it emerged that the Government of Singapore Investment Corporation had coinvested with Lo in the Traders and Shangri-la hotels in Rangoon through its 21.5 per cent stake in the US$39 million Myanmar Fund. Many Singapore companies are involved in Asia World and $900 million-plus a year pours into Burma in private investment from Singapore. The contradiction of the Singapore government executing those caught with more than 15 grams of heroin while doing business with the drug masters is not lost on some in the island state. Kean and Bernstein's damning article, published in 1998, that went without challenge, was entitled 'Burma-Singapore Axis: Globalising The Heroin Trade'. Quoting Mya Maung, a Burmese economist based in Boston, they wrote: 'Singapore's economic linkage with Burma is one of the most vital factors for the survival of Burma's military regime. This link is also central to the expansion of the heroin trade'. Singapore has achieved the distinction of being the military junta's number one business partner - both largest trading partner and largest foreign investor. More than half these investments, upwards of $1.3 billion, are in partnership with Lo who controls a substantial portion of the world's opium trade. The close political, economic and military relationship between the two countries facilitates the weaving of millions of narco- dollars into the legitimate world economy.

Singapore has become a major player in Asian commerce. According to Steven Green, a former US Ambassador to Singapore, free market policies have 'allowed this small country to develop one of the
world's most successful trading and investment economies'. Singapore also has a strong role in the powerful 153-member World Trade Organisation. Indeed, the tiny island is known far and wide as the blue chip of the region, a financial trading base and a route for the vast sums of money that flow in and out of Asia. If the brutal Burma dictatorship's international pariah status is of any concern to its more powerful partner, Singapore shows no sign of it. In March 1994 following a visit of Singapore's then Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong to Rangoon, a Singapore spokesperson proclaimed, 'Singapore and Myanmar should continue to explore areas where they can complement each other'. As both countries continue to celebrate their 'complementary' relationship, the international community must take note of the powerful support this relationship provides both to its illegitimate regime and to its booming billion dollar drug trade. The Burmese military dictatorship - known by the sinister-sounding acronym SLORC (State Law and Order Restoration Council) until it changed its name to the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC) in November 1997 - depends on the resources of Burma's drug barons for its financial survival. After the military seized power in 1988, opium production doubled by the mid-1990s, equalling all legal exports and making the country the world's biggest heroin
supplier. At that time, Burma was supplying the US with 60 per cent of its heroin imports and soon after become a major regional producer of methamphetamines. With 50 per cent of the economy unaccounted for, drug traffickers, businessmen and government officials are able to integrate spectacular profits throughout Burma's permanent economy.

Both the Burmese generals and drug lords have been able to take advantage of Singapore's liberal banking laws and money laundering opportunities. In 1991, for example, the SLORC laundered $400 million through a Singapore bank which it used as a down payment for Chinese arms. Despite the large sum, Myanmar s foreign exchange reserves registered no change either before or after the sale. With no laws to prevent money laundering, Singapore is widely reported to be a financial haven for Burma's elite, including Lo and Khun Sa, another drug trafficker, also known by his Chinese name Chang Qifu. After being given an alleged makeover deal to stay out of the drugs trade, Khun Sa became a 'commercial real estate agent' with a foot in Burma's

construction industry. Already long in control of a bus route into the northern poppy-growing region where the military has always been actively involved in the drug business, he later invested $250 million in a new highway between Rangoon and Mandalay, an SPDC cabinet member confirmed. Banphot Piamdi, director of Thailand's Northern Region's Narcotics Suppression Center: "The government of Burma says one thing but does another. It claims to have subdued Khun Sa's group. However the fact is that the group came under the supervision of Khun Sa's son who has received permission from Rangoon to produce narcotics in the areas along the Thai-Burmese border'. Khun Sa's son is not the only trafficker reaping benefits in the Shan State area which borders Thailand and China and serves as Burma's primary poppy growing area.

Field intelligence and ethnic militia sources consistently reported a pattern of Burmese military involvement with drug production in these remote areas. Government troops offer protection to the heroin and amphetamine refineries in the area in exchange for payoffs and gifts, such as Toyota sedans, pistols and army uniforms. The only access to the refineries is through permits issued by military intelligence. Without them the heavily guarded areas surrounding the refineries are too dangerous to approach. The military is also involved in protecting the transport of narcotics throughout the region which the authorities have sealed off from the outside world. A 1998 US government narcotics report revealed: "There are persistent and reliable reports that officials, particularly army personnel posted in outlying areas, are involved in the drug business. Army personnel wield considerable political clout locally, and their involvement in trafficking is a significant problem'. Intelligence sources, working for ethnic leaders combating both the drug trade and the military dictatorship, reported many years ago that the pattern of government involvement extends all the way to the top - and still does to this day. The central government in Rangoon demands funds on a regular basis from regional commanders who, in turn, expect payoffs from the rank and file. The soldiers get the money any way they can - through smuggling, gambling or selling jade - with drugs being the most accessible source of revenue in Shan State. The officers in the field also 'tax' refineries, drug transporters and opium farmers. Those who can pay are allowed to run the heroin refineries.

Those who do not are arrested and physically punished with beatings. While the lower-ranked officers struggle to meet their quotas in the field, the highest levels of the government in the capital city strike deals with Burma's two top traffickers, one of whom is the prosperous partner of Singapore. With massive financial ties to Singapore, Lo is one of Burma's top investors. He, along with Khun Sa, a former 'king of opium' is a major player in the economy. In the early 1990s, Lo controlled the most heavily armed drug-trafficking organisation in Southeast Asia. He was arrested in 1973 and sentenced to death, but was freed under a general amnesty in 1980. Now, like Khun Sa, he wears the public persona of a successful businessman in Rangoon where no one does business without close government cooperation.

Although Singapore is proud of its mandatory death penalty for small-time narcotics smugglers and heroin addicts, both Lo and his son travel freely in and out of the friendly island nation. 'The family money is offshore', said a high level US narcotics official. 'The old man is a convicted drug trafficker, so his kid is handling the financial activities'. In 1996, when Law married his bride and business partner in a lavish, well-publicised Rangoon wedding, guests from Singapore were flown in on two chartered planes. According to a high-level US government official familiar with the situation, Law's wife Cecilia Ng operates an underground banking system, and 'is a contact for people in Burma to get their drug money into Singapore, because she has a connection to the government'. The official said that she spends half her time in Rangoon, half in Singapore; when in Rangoon, she is headquartered at Asia Lite, a subsidiary of Asia World. They are also sole officers and shareholders of Asia World subsidiary, Kokang Singapore Pte Ltd. Founded in Singapore in 1993 with $4.6 million, the company 'engages in general trading activities in goods/products of all kinds/descriptions'. Singapore's ventures with Asia World include both government and private investments. Kuok Singapore Ltd, a partner with Asia World in many ventures, was Burma's largest single real estate investor as of late 1996, with over $650 million invested.

Other Singaporean companies are mentioned in Asia Worlds company reports. Sinmardev, another major Singaporean project linked to Lo's company, is a $207 million industrial park and port on the outskirts of Rangoon, which broke ground in 1997. Singaporean
entrepreneur Albert Hong, head of Sinmardev, described the project as the largest foreign investment in Burma outside the energy field. The Singaporean consortium leads the joint venture along with the Burmese junta, Los Asia World and a slew of international shareholders. Kuok Singapore Ltd, Lo Hsing Hans Asia World and the Burmese junta are also partners in the luxury Traders Hotel. The hotel's November 1996 opening ceremony was attended by the Singapore ambassador, the president of Kuok Singapore and briefly by Lo himself. The presiding Burmese minister publicly thanked Law and the government of Singapore 'without whose support and encouragement there would be very few Singaporean businessmen in our country'. While government and business connections in Burma and Singapore have boosted Asia World's prospects, other factors have contributed to the company's extraordinary growth. Asia World expanded from a modest trading company to become Burma's largest and fastest-growing private sector enterprise with interests in trading, manufacturing, property, industrial investment, development, construction,
transportation, import and distribution, and infrastructure. 'How is it that a company that has a humble beginning trading beans and pulses is suddenly involved in $200 million projects?', asked a US government official interviewed by Kean and Bernstein. 'Where did all that start-up capital come from?' The US government ventured a guess in 1996: it denied Law, Asia World's CEO, a visa to the US 'on suspicion of drug trafficking'. Asia World's operations now include a deepwater port in Rangoon, the Leo Express bus line into Northern Burma, and a $33 million toll highway from the heart of Burma's poppy-growing region to the Chinese border. The conglomerate also operates a wharf with freight handling, storage, and a customs yard for ships carrying up to 15,000 tons. 'If you're in the dope business, these are the types of things that you've got to have to be able to move your product', said a high level US narcotics official told Kean and Bernstein. 'They have set up institutions to facilitate the movement of drugs. And in all probability, they are using laundered drug proceeds, or funds generated from investments of drug trafficking proceeds, to build this infrastructure', he added.

More than ten years ago, the activities of Los company Asia World triggered an international narcotics investigation led by Washington. US investigators alleged that Asia World's relationship to Singapore
paves the way for the narcotics trade to be woven into all legitimate investments between the two countries. 'Singapore's investments in Burma are opening doors for the drug traffickers, giving them access to banks and financial systems', one government official told Kean and Bernstein. But despite the investigation' life in the poppy fields today is as it has always been. The Burmese junta's control of its impoverished population through crude methods such as torture, forced labour and mass killings leaves it open to international condemnation.

In contrast, Singapore takes a more sophisticated approach to repression, both at home and abroad. While the island nation's citizens have material benefits and the appearance of rule of law, they live in fear of an Orwellian government that closely monitors every aspect of their lives. The ruling party in Singapore often sues those who dare to oppose it on trumped up defamation charges, forcing many into bankruptcy or exile. Singapore has been more than willing to share its expertise in intelligence with its Burmese counterparts. The Singapore-Myanmar Ministerial-Level Work Committee was set up in 1993 in Rangoon to 'forge mutual benefits in investment, trade and economic sectors'. The committee included a former intelligence chief, Lt Gen Khin Nyunt, and other top Burmese ministers and high- level Singaporean officials. At the 23 December meeting, Nyunt urged his ministers to give priority to projects arranged by the Singaporean government. 'Pilot projects are being implemented to transfer know- how to Myanmar', said Nyunt in his address. One such project was a state-of-the-art cyber-war centre in Rangoon which could intercept a range of incoming communications, including telephone calls, faxes, emails and computer data transmission, from 20 other countries. The centre was built by Singapore Technologies, the city state's largest industrial and technology conglomerate, comprising more than 100 companies. This government-owned company also provides on-site training at Burma's Defence Ministry complex, and reportedly passes on its 'sophisticated capability' to hundreds of Burma 'secret police' at an institution inside Singapore. Burma has no external enemies but the ruling junta goes to extremes to terrorise the population through its elaborate
intelligence network. Intelligence officials have already used their newly-acquired talents from the cyber-war center to arrest pro-democracy activists, and it is well known that its feared military
intelligence often tortures its victims during lengthy interrogations.