For most of its modern history, much of Thailand's side of northern frontier has remained only nominally under the political control of the Thai government. But today the area is transformed. After a sustained 20-year effort by the Royal Thai government—with the assistance of a host of international agencies, including one from the Republic of China—the northern border region has a new lease on life, and one that is not based on growing opium poppies.
Success in the region has come in great part from the efforts of the ROC's Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (VACRS), which has introduced new and more profitable cash crops to the area.
Writer John Kirby recently returned from the Golden Triangle with the following special story on the region for FCR.
Various guerrilla groups, warlord armies, and poppy-growing hill tribes used to operate in and out of northern Thailand with impunity, but the entire region has undergone striking changes since the end of the Vietnam War. Private armies have been pushed across the Burmese border, and a long-lingering communist insurgency has been overcome through a series of political and military measures. This region, known previously as a major area for cultivating opium poppies (which provide the raw ingredients subsequently refined into morphine then heroin), has seen production levels cut by 80 percent.
Economic infrastructure has improved as well, for once intensely backward and remote areas now have basic roads and electricity. Perhaps the most striking evidence of the region's normalization is the presence of thousands of back-packing, young European tourists in the once bandit-infested hills.
Success has come in the form of a wide variety of development programs under the overall title of the Royal Highland Agricultural Development Project—now commonly called the Royal Project—which in 1969 was founded by, and named for, His Royal Majesty Bhumibol Adulyadej, the King of Thailand. The key goal of the Royal Project was to eradicate the cultivation of opium poppies in northern Thailand through a program of introducing other economically viable cash crops.
Soon after the program began, it became obvious that the problem could not be solved by simple law enforcement measures, but would have to be treated as a social and economic problem as well. Over the past 150 years opium has become the basis of hill tribe economies in the Golden Triangle, and without an equally lucrative alternative to poppy cultivation the hill peoples could not divorce themselves from the trade and survive.
Because the fields of opium poppies posed an international problem, in the late 1960s the King of Thailand invited various diplomatic representatives posted in Bangkok to discuss means of suppressing the opium trade while at the same time helping the region's tribal peoples. The conclusion reached at these meetings was that the hill tribes must be convinced to produce high value cash crops instead of opium, which would raise the standard of living in the hill tribe areas. Thus, with the financial backing of the United Nations and various individual governments, the Royal Project was formally initiated in 1969.
The ROC's involvement in the Royal Project began a year later when Shen Chang-huan, then the ROC Ambassador to Thailand, was invited to the Hua Hin Rural Royal Palace where the King personally requested the assistance of the Republic of China with the project. After evaluating the general development problem, the ROC government chose the Vocational Assistance Commission for Retired Servicemen (VACRS) to take charge of the task due to its previous success in mountain resource development in Taiwan. Composed of retired army veterans, the VACRS already had a solid reputation in related work, having already introduced a number of temperate zone fruit plantations in the highlands of central Taiwan.
In charge of the preliminary survey in Thailand for the VACRS was Soong Ching-yun, who already had extensive experience in VACRS farm operations. Soong began his on-site investigations in the only practical manner: by criss-crossing the roadless highlands of northern Thailand in a Royal Thai Air Force helicopter. After two weeks of aerial reconnaissance, Soong selected Ang Khang, an isolated area on the Burmese border, as a suitable test and demonstration site. Soon thereafter, he led the first ROC team into the area to establish a base camp and start clearing a site for the first trial orchards. By early 1971, Soong was supervising the trial planting of peach, pear, persimmon, and plum saplings that had been airlifted from Taiwan.
After a seven-month observation period during which all the fruit saplings survived, Soong concluded in his formal report that the Ang Khang site could be profitably expanded, and suggested that a Royal Ang Khang Agricultural Station be established at the location.
After reading Soong's report and visiting the demonstration site, Thailand's Prince Bhisatej Rajani, chairman of the Royal Project, decided to lead a Thai agricultural delegation to Taiwan in 1972 for an on-site inspection of ROC agricultural agencies, universities, and VACRS farms. When the fact-finding tour visited the VACRS orchards at Lishan in central Taiwan, the Prince was moved to say that they offered the Royal Project a "dream come true."
After further exchange of Sino-Thai missions, the Royal Project chairman requested VACRS to prepare a long-term assistance plan for the border region, and in 1973 the ROC Northern Program was inaugurated as part of the Royal Project.
Today, normal access to the Royal Ang Khang Station is not by helicopter, but by a 10-kilometer dirt road that begins on the Fang Plain north of Chiang Mai. Zigzagging up the steep sides of the rugged range which forms the plain's western edge, the road switchbacks repeatedly through a breathtaking 1,000-meter climb up and over the ridge. After conquering the summit, the road then twists down into a deep mountain valley which forms the Thai border with Burma to the west.
Fields now provide produce for markets as far away as Chiang Mai and Bangkok, instead of opium for international drug rings.
Deep in the valley and dwarfed by the surrounding mountains, the attractive wooden cottages nestling among fragrant pines at first sight seem like a scene from Switzerland. But the Thai flag flapping in the cool clear air reminds visitors they are deep in Southeast Asian mountains instead. Behind the small central lodge, the hills are covered with large orchards of apples, apricots, and pears. Higher up are large groves of valuable Taiwan soft and hardwood trees, such as the Paulownia Taiwaniana. These cover mountainsides once desolated from the effects of the slash and burn agriculture once practiced at will by the local hill tribes.
The valley scene is far different from what Soong and his agricultural team saw upon their arrival 15 years ago. "Poppies, poppies everywhere—on every hillside as far as the eye could see," recalls ROC Agricultural Advisor Jiang Wen-ping. "It was very beautiful." Yet from such beauty came the bane of heroin. There was a major job at hand to introduce crop substitution—and to have the native hill tribes accept the Thai government's project.
Although old Ang Khang hands speak with warmth and a touch of nostalgia of the "bad old days," the tasks facing the first ROC team under Soong's leadership were daunting indeed. Much of the valley had been deforested by the mountain peoples and the soil nearly exhausted. The remaining hillsides were covered in opium poppies, the only crop the hill tribes knew how to plant. A major task was at hand, one that included overcoming rugged and remote terrain, hill tribe suspicions, and even armed bandits.
The original VACRS camp was primitive, with tough conditions for all involved. Team members had to remain in the hills for months at a time without a break from their daily work routines, and guaranteeing a steady stream of supplies to the site was a major undertaking because they had to be packed in by mule over nearly impossible terrain. To make mailers worse, the isolated camp was vulnerable to the attacks of armed mountain bandits, adding tension to project activities.
Working month after month, Soong and his team cleared the jumble left from the slash and burn agricultural methods and began planting the new species of temperate fruit trees airlifted from Taiwan. While testing the abilities of various trees to adapt to the local environment, Soong at the same time demonstrated the new crops and methods for their care to reluctant and skeptical hill peoples. Frustratingly, they would often politely accept Royal Project saplings only to destroy them later. Patience was a virtue.
Despite constant difficulties and occasional setbacks, the ROC Northern Program began literally to bear fruit. Even the severance of formal diplomatic ties between Thailand and the ROC in 1975 did not influence the agricultural progress being made in the northern hills. The local hill tribes were gradually convinced that they could actually earn more money from the legal harvesting of fruits and vegetables than the now illegal planting of poppies, and surrounding mountain peoples also began abandoning poppy cultivation.
Infrastructure development was key to the project's plans. The ROC technicians and their Thai counterparts introduced water management programs and constructed a road, which was vital for trucking in necessary materials and for assisting the hill tribes in shipping their perishable cash crops to the lowland markets in Chiang Mai and as far south as Bangkok. Additional projects introduced over the years included planting trees and building surrounding firebelts, providing mountain watersheds and a replenishable source of fuel. Soong Ching-yun, who had guided the growth of Ang Khang Station from its beginning as a collection of muddy tents, gradually became affectionately known among the local hill peoples as "Papa Soong."
Ang Khang, which is the oldest and largest of the Royal Project agricultural stations, is in many ways a microcosm of the whole project. From humble beginnings the Royal Project has grown into a wide-spread, multi-faceted program featuring a wide variety of services as disparate as rice banks, health care, and family planning. It now has its headquarters in Chiang Mai, and six research centers scattered across the region. These are patterned after Ang Khang, and at each one researchers test various fruits and vegetables for their ability to thrive under the local conditions.
Station specialists, including personnel from VACRS, are constantly introducing successful strains to the hill tribes, and they provide follow-up assistance to ensure efficient adoption of the new crops. After a central research station is in place, extension stations are set up in nearby valleys to convince other tribal peoples to join the project. Although varying degrees of progress have been attained with different hill tribe populations, word of the Royal Project's work is slowly spreading and gaining acceptance. Hill tribes that once had to be coaxed into planting Royal Project saplings and vegetables now actively request both seeds and assistance from the stations. Currently, the Royal Project employs over 500 agriculturalists and workers in 30 sites throughout the highlands, and their work influences the lives of an estimated 30,000 mountain villagers.
Initial results encouraged steady expansion of the Royal Project. Nearly 1,500 meters above the Chiang Mai Plain on the slopes of Mt. Inthanon, Thailand's highest mountain, stands a related success story. While the Ang Khang site is a two-and-a-half-hour drive north of Chiang Mai, the Royal Inthanon Station is an equivalent drive south of the city. Like Ang Khang, major progress has been made at Inthanon in raising living standards through crop substitution, but this was not always the top priority.
"At this station the problem was originally communist insurgency," says one Inthanon representative. "Only after that was solved could we turn our attention to opium. Now our chief priority is raising the standard of living."
At Inthanon this has been done through introducing the cultivation of high value fruits, berries, flowers, and vegetables. The station provides the seeds, fertilizers, and pesticides on a loan basis as well as free technical assistance, part of which is supplied by VACRS personnel who are now based in the Chiang Mai headquarters of the Royal Project. The crops from the station are sold to the Royal Project, which grades, packages, and markets the product at a 20 percent markup. Financial benefits for the farmers are impressive. A single greenhouse producing three crops of strawberries a year can earn its tenders US$2,000 a year, twice the average national income. Other berries, such as blackberries, blueberries, and kiwi fruit, are currently being tested at the site.
Inthanon's fruit orchards are also turning handsome profits. A hectare (2.47 acres) of Japanese apricots yields an income of US$1,000 per year. One Inthanon farmer who sells directly to Bangkok middlemen claims to earn US$4,000 a year from his hectare of cabbages. Gradually, the stations are beginning to attract lowland businessmen who seek to purchase directly from the farmers, a trend the Royal Project encourages.
In view of these developments, ROC team members intend to construct more storage facilities and focus greater efforts on teaching farmers how to package, transport, and market their own crops—the final transition on the road to full-fledged self-sufficiency.
It will take several more years before hill tribe opium cultivation is totally displaced through crop substitution, but it is clear what direction should be taken to solve the problems commonly associated with the region, not just in Thailand but throughout the entire Golden Triangle. According to U.S. and Thai government reports, only 5 percent of Golden Triangle opium output is now harvested from Thai territory. From a production peak of 150 tons of opium in the late 1960s, Thai opium production is expected to decline to 20 tons this year, a decline of over 85 percent. American officials in Bangkok confidently predict the complete eradication of opium poppy cultivation in Thailand by the late 1990s.
Beyond the effects of reducing the amount of heroin reaching the international market, the Royal Project is raising the living standards and quality of life in thousands of hill tribe villages through improved medical care, education, and lines of communication. The long-term success of the Royal Project and other programs like it will allow Thailand's hill tribe peoples to enjoy the kind of services lowland populations have enjoyed for decades.
Other beneficial effects of the project include protecting surviving stands of natural forest and reforesting lands laid waste by slash and burn agriculture. Furthermore, reforested highlands will reduce soil erosion and generate revenue from tourism and logging.
In recognition of the goals and achievements of the Royal Project, it was last year chosen as the recipient of the prestigious Magsaysay Award, the Asian version of the Nobel Prize. In its 1988 Award for International Understanding, the Manila-based Magsaysay Foundation's citation included a well-deserved mention of "Papa Soong" and the "technicians from Taiwan."
Although the ROC Northern Program in Thailand is not on the same grand financial scale as various other programs sponsored by the United Nations or the U.S., its grassroots assistance has been impressive indeed. For 15 years the VACRS teams have made tremendous contributions to the Royal Project and international friendship between the peoples of Thailand and the ROC. More importantly, many hill tribe peoples have a new future, and a significant dent has been made in the world's source of heroin. Both are contributions to a higher quality of life.