Speaking on the 4th day of the 6th session of the Amyotha Hluttaw (National Assembly), Kachin State Constituency # 1 MP Khet Hting Nan laid the blame for the country’s being on the top opium producers list to internal discord since Independence in 1948, reported Hot News, 14-20 March issue.

“Once Burma used to hold the position of being the most developed country in Southeast Asia,” he said. “But now it is in the lowest spot. Moreover, it has been included in the list of countries with the highest opium outputs. That is because we haven’t been able to achieve national reconciliation.”


Burma, officially known as Myanmar, ranks second only to Afghanistan among the top producers, according to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

His suggested solution was for the country’s leaders to place number one priority on unity. “Only when national unity is first, second and third, permanent peace will be achieved,” he said.

As he saw it, national races affairs should not be an appendage to either a union ministry or the President’s Office. “Establishment of a (separate) ministry to handle the national races affairs is strongly urged,” he concluded.

Khet Hting Nan is also the leader of United Democratic Party of Kachin State (UDPKS), commonly considered as an affiliate of the ruling Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP).

Burma produced about 100 tons of commercial opium per year under British rule. Experts have long pointed out that massive surge in opium output and the synthetic methamphetamine is due to the long, bloody war between successive governments and the non-Burman peoples struggling for greater autonomy that was agreed in the 1947 Panglong Agreement.