THE EVOLUTION OF CHAIRMAN BAO

Deep in Asia's Golden Triangle, Geoffrey York Reports, a Ruthless Drug Lord Has Had an Epiphany

PANG SANG, MYANMAR -- The drug lord arrives at the hotel in a Toyota Land Cruiser, unassumingly dressed in a checked shirt and green pants.  The only hints of his wealth are his large sapphire ring and the servile bow of the waiter who hands him a cold towel.

With his anonymous appearance and humble clothes, Bao Youxiang could be any middle-aged Asian businessman.  One of his few hobbies is 10-pin bowling -- usually at a plush new alley across from the hotel.  But when he isn't bowling, he is the kingpin of one of the world's biggest opium-producing regions, a rugged land of hilltop villages and poppy fields near the China-Myanmar border.

The man known as Chairman Bao is the ruthless commander of the 20,000-soldier United Wa State Army, led by tough Wa tribesmen whose ancestors were headhunters.  He is also a man with a $1-million ( U.S.  ) bounty on his head.

Washington accuses him of leading the world's biggest narcotics army.

Yet despite the controversy surrounding Mr.  Bao, there is mounting evidence of a radical change in his drug policies -- a change that could deal a crippling blow to the Golden Triangle drug trade and liberate thousands of people from heroin and opium addiction in his country and in the West.

In a rare meeting with journalists in his ramshackle frontier capital, he described how opium addiction has devastated many of the 600,000 people in 16 ethnic tribes he rules.

"I have to save my own people," he said.  "I have witnessed how opium has destroyed my people.  It makes my heart bleed."

Mr.  Bao vowed to end the opium trade in his remote region by July of next year.  And if the farmers keep growing poppies? He slashes his hand across his throat.  "I will chop off their heads.  And the international community can chop off my head.  It's for the survival of our people.  I give you my word."

The man is certainly no saint.  As recently as 2001, his people were responsible for 40 per cent of the world's opium.  His government still collects 7 per cent of its revenue from an opium tax.  He readily admits to using child soldiers and forced labour as routine practices.  He once ordered the relocation of 60,000 opium farmers, dooming thousands to illness and death from malaria.  "Farmers live and die at his whim," says a United Nations official in Myanmar.

Yet the UN believes that Mr.  Bao's opium ban might be genuine.  In one Wa region alone, where the UN has helped farmers to find other income, the opium poppy fields have shrunk by almost 60 per cent in the past five years.

But the drug trade has been the biggest industry in the Wa territory for more than 140 years and some observers are cynical about the proposed ban.

"If the Wa do what they say they will do, a lot of people will starve," said a diplomat in Rangoon.  "Then, in year two, they'll go back to what they were doing before."

In the remote farming villages, where every family has grown opium for generations, the villagers themselves are puzzled.

"We will suffer," says Kya Law, a father of 12 children, who earns a few hundred dollars annually by growing one or two kilograms of opium.  "We won't have any money.  My family depends on poppies to buy food and clothing.  I don't know the reason for the ban."

But UN officials in Myanmar say there are increasing signs that the ban is legitimate.  They are calling for emergency aid to the farmers to prevent a humanitarian disaster when opium revenue disappears.

The UN warns that if aid fails to arrive, the world could miss a historic opportunity to get rid of a deadly trade.  Myanmar's fate could resemble that of Afghanistan's, where opium production was virtually eliminated by the Taliban regime in 2001 but then quickly re-emerged under the new government after the U.S.-led war.

Severe food shortages could result from the opium ban, since most farmers rely on opium revenue to pay for half of their annual food needs.  Just north of the Wa territory, in the region of Kokang, farmers suffered deep hardship when an opium ban was imposed last year.  Clinics and schools closed, thousands of families abandoned the region, and children dropped out of school because they couldn't afford fees of a few dollars.  The fear is that a similar disaster could afflict an estimated two million impoverished people across Myanmar when opium bans come into effect in the next few years.

If the mysterious Mr.  Bao is sincerely planning to enforce the ban, most farmers won't dare to defy him.  In the Wa capital, even the motorized rickshaw drivers are afraid to venture close to the drug lord's luxurious villa, with its fountain and its military guard.  His army has brigade leaders in every district, ready to enforce the ban.

Some observers suspect the Wa leaders are ready to give up opium because they have found a more lucrative trade: methamphetamine tablets.  The pills are known as ya ba ( crazy medicine ) in neighbouring Thailand, where 4 per cent of the population is said to be addicted.

An estimated 700 million tablets are manufactured in underground labs in Myanmar every year for shipment to Thailand -- and some labs have been found in the Wa territory.  "For criminal groups, they are a fantastic way to keep the old networks going," says Jean-Luc Lemahieu, head of the UN drug agency in Myanmar.  "They are very low cost and the prices are high."

Mr.  Bao denied that his army is switching to methamphetamines.  But then he makes a fascinating revelation: one of his own brothers has been implicated in a methamphetamine lab and is addicted to the tablets.

"We have taken action against him," he said, his hands flailing angrily.  "He will have to undergo detoxification."