One of the world’s most controversial and wanted men died this past week in the Burmese city of Rangoon. Khun Sa, an ethnic Shan warlord, controlled much of the world’s heroin supply until the mid nineties. He was thought to be suffering from diabetes and high-blood pressure recently, but th cause of death is unknown. The BBC reports:
He was once one of the world’s most wanted men, with a vast drug-trafficking operation in the so-called Golden Triangle region, spanning the border of Thailand, Laos and Burma.
To his people, however, Khun Sa was a freedom fighter, not a drug smuggler.
With a private army numbering in the hundreds, Khun Sa claimed to be fighting for independence for the Shan people – an ethnic minority group based mainly in Burma.
Despite being wanted by the US and other countries in conjunction with drug trafficking, his death will do little to slow the trade. Since the mid-nineties, Khun Sa has been out of the game, having made a deal with Myanmar’s government. He lived out the last 10 years of his life in Rangoon, enjoying at least a portion of his wealth with immunity from prosecution.
Author Christopher Cox, who trekked through the Golden Triangle to interview Khun Sa in the early nineties, captured one of the few snapshots of the warlord. The book which recounts the trip, Chasing the Dragon, shows Khun Sa’s many sides. He spoke of the plans for his people and seemed to be truly respected by local tribesmen. However, it was a falling out with the very same people that caused Khun Sa to retire. Ethnic minorities still control parts of Myanmar’s poppy production. Surely the military government received some of the action in Khun Sa’s immunity deal.
Tags: , Asia, Deaths, Drug Trafficking, Heroin, Khun Sa
