Three Chinese marine police hurt in Myanmar shootout: officials

FREEDOM TO DEMOCRACY IN BURMA

Tuesday, 26 February 2008

Three Chinese marine police have been injured in a gunfight with Myanmar drug traffickers in the notorious Golden Triangle along the Mekong river, Thai officials said yesterday.The Chinese boat was patrolling the river where it flows between Myanmar and Laos, under a regional co-operation scheme aimed at fighting drug trafficking in an area renowned for opium and now a major producer of amphetamines.
A second boat carrying half a dozen suspected drug traffickers opened fire as it approached the Chinese vessel, Thai navy officials said.As the boats neared, the Myanmar gang boarded the Chinese craft, shooting and stabbing some of the six police before jumping back on their own vessel to escape, said Commander Pakorn Pothichai of the Thai Navy Mission for the Mekong.The clash lasted about five minutes. The three wounded Chinese police have been hospitalised in the northern Thai town of Chiang Rai, he added.Pakorn said the gang was believed to be working to protect a drugs shipment on the river."Chinese officials apparently had a tip-off of about the drugs delivery, so the drug traffickers were trying to stop them," he said.Myanmar is the world's second-largest producer of opium after Afghanistan.
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime said in October that after nearly a decade of decline, opium production in Myanmar was up 46 percent on the previous year.The UN agency blamed the jump on "corruption, high-level collusion and weak border security."In recent years, Myanmar has also become a major producer of amphetamines.
The United States says several hundred million amphetamine tablets are produced in Myanmar every year and shipped by gangs to neighbouring China and Thailand.China, one of Myanmar's few supporters, has also publicly pressured the junta to do more to reduce the drug problem.China blames drugs from Myanmar for high rates of addiction and HIV in its southwestern Yunnan province.