PEKON: Scraping opium resin off a seedpod in Myanmar’s remote poppy fields, displaced farmer Aung Hla describes the narcotic crop as his only prospect in a country made barren by conflict.
The 35-year-old was a rice farmer when the junta seized power in a 2021 coup, adding pro-democracy guerillas to the long-running civil conflict between the military and ethnic armed groups.
Four years on, the United Nations has said Myanmar is mired in a “polycrisis” of mutually compounding conflict, poverty and environmental damage.
Aung Hla was forced off his land in Moe Bye village by fighting after the coup. When he resettled, his usual crops were no longer profitable, but the hardy poppy promised “just enough for a livelihood.”
“Everyone thinks people grow poppy flowers to be rich, but we are just trying hard to get by,” he told AFP in rural Pekon township of eastern Shan state.
He says he regrets growing the substance — the core ingredient in heroin — but said the income is the only thing separating him from starvation.
“If anyone were in my shoes, they would likely do the same.”
Myanmar’s opium production was previously second only to Afghanistan, where poppy farming flourished following the US-led invasion in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks.
But after the Taliban government launched a crackdown, Myanmar overtook Afghanistan as the world’s biggest producer of opium in 2023, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).
Myanmar’s opiate economy — including the value of domestic consumption as well as exports abroad — is estimated between $589 million and $1.57 billion, according to the UNODC.
Between September and February each year, dozens of workers toil in Pekon’s fields, slicing immature poppy seedpods, which ooze a small amount of sticky brown resin.
Aung Naing, 48, gently transfers the collected resin from a small trough onto a leaf plate.
Before the coup, which ended a brief experiment with democracy, Aung Naing was a reformed opium farmer. But wartime hardship forced him back to the crop.
“There is more poppy cultivation because of difficulties in residents’ livelihoods,” he says.
“Most of the farmers who plant poppy are displaced,” he said. “Residents who can’t live in their villages and fled to the jungle are working in poppy fields.”
In Myanmar’s fringes, ethnic armed groups, border militias and the military all vie for control of local resources and the lucrative drug trade.
Aung Naing says poppy earns only a slightly higher profit than food crops like corn, bean curd and potatoes, which are also vulnerable to disease when it rains.
Fresh opium was generally sold by Myanmar farmers for just over $300 per kilo in 2024, according to the UNODC, a small fraction of what it fetches on the international black market.
And the crop is more costly to produce than rice — more labor intensive, requiring expensive fertilizers and with small yields.
Aung Naing says he makes just shy of a $30 profit for each kilo. “How can we get rich from that?” he asks.
The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs estimates there are more than 3.5 million people displaced in Myanmar.
But fleeing conflict zones to farm opium does not guarantee safety.
“Military fighter jets are flying over us,” said Aung Naing. “We are working in poppy fields with anxiety and fear. We feel unsafe.”
Opium cultivation and production in Myanmar decreased slightly between 2023 and 2024, according to the UNODC — in part due to ongoing clashes between armed groups.
“If our country were at peace and there were industries offering many job opportunities in the region, we wouldn’t plant any poppy fields even if we were asked to,” says farmer Shwe Khine, 43.
Aung Hla agreed. With the war, he said, “we don’t have any choice.”
Opium farming takes root in Myanmar’s war-wracked landscape
Opium farming takes root in Myanmar’s war-wracked landscape
- Scraping opium resin off a seedpod in Myanmar’s remote poppy fields, displaced farmer Aung Hla describes the narcotic crop as his only prospect in a country made barren by conflict
Tens of thousands protest in Minneapolis over fatal ICE shooting
- Federal-state tensions escalated further on Thursday when a US Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop
MINNEAPOLIS: Tens of thousands of people marched through Minneapolis on Saturday to decry the fatal shooting of a woman by a US immigration agent, part of more than 1,000 rallies planned nationwide this weekend against the federal government’s deportation drive. The massive turnout in Minneapolis despite a whipping, cold wind underscores how the fatal shooting of 37-year-old Renee Good by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer on Wednesday has struck a chord, fueling protests in major cities and some towns. Minnesota’s Democratic leaders and the administration of President Donald Trump, a Republican, have offered starkly different accounts of the incident.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Minneapolis police estimate tens of thousands present at protests on Saturday
• Mayor urges protesters to remain peaceful and not ‘take the bait’ from Trump
• Over 1,000 ‘ICE Out’ rallies planned across US
• Minnesota Democrats denied access to ICE facility outside Minneapolis
Led by a team of Indigenous Mexican dancers, demonstrators in Minneapolis, which has a metropolitan population of 3.8 million, marched toward the residential street where Good was shot in her car.
’HEARTBROKEN AND DEVASTATED’
The boisterous crowd, which the Minneapolis Police Department estimated in the tens of thousands, chanted Good’s name and slogans such as “Abolish ICE” and “No justice, no peace — get ICE off our streets.”
“I’m insanely angry, completely heartbroken and devastated, and then just like longing and hoping that things get better,” Ellison Montgomery, a 30-year-old protester, told Reuters.
Minnesota officials have called the shooting unjustified, pointing to bystander video they say showed Good’s vehicle turning away from the agent as he fired. The Department of Homeland Security, which oversees ICE, has maintained that the agent acted in self-defense because Good, a volunteer in a community network that monitors and records ICE operations in Minneapolis, drove forward in the direction of the agent who then shot her, after another agent had approached the driver’s side and told her to get out of the car.
The shooting on Wednesday came soon after some 2,000 federal officers were dispatched to the Minneapolis-St. Paul area in what DHS has called its largest operation ever, deepening a rift between the administration and Democratic leaders in the state. Federal-state tensions escalated further on Thursday when a US Border Patrol agent in Portland, Oregon, shot and wounded a man and woman in their car after an attempted vehicle stop. Using language similar to its description of the Minneapolis incident, DHS said the driver had tried to “weaponize” his vehicle and run over agents.
The two DHS-related shootings prompted a coalition of progressive and civil rights groups, including Indivisible and the American Civil Liberties Union, to plan more than 1,000 events under the banner “ICE Out For Good” on Saturday and Sunday. The rallies have been scheduled to end before nightfall to minimize the potential for violence.
In Philadelphia, protesters chanted “ICE has got to go” and “No fascist USA,” as they marched from City Hall to a rally outside a federal detention facility, according to the local ABC affiliate. In Manhattan, several hundred people carried anti-ICE signs as they walked past an immigration court where agents have arrested migrants following their hearings.
“We demand justice for Renee, ICE out of our communities, and action from our elected leaders. Enough is enough,” said Leah Greenberg, co-executive director of Indivisible.
DEMONSTRATIONS MOSTLY PEACEFUL
Minnesota became a major flashpoint in the administration’s efforts to deport millions of immigrants months before the Good shooting, with Trump criticizing its Democratic leaders amid a massive welfare fraud scandal involving some members of the large Somali-American community there.
Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey, a Democrat who has been critical of immigration agents and the shooting, told a press conference earlier on Saturday that the demonstrations have remained mostly peaceful and that anyone damaging property or engaging in unlawful activity would be arrested by police.
“We will not counter Donald Trump’s chaos with our own brand of chaos,” Frey said. “He wants us to take the bait.”
More than 200 law enforcement officers were deployed Friday night to control protests that led to $6,000 in damage at the Depot Renaissance Hotel and failed attempts by some demonstrators to enter the Hilton Canopy Hotel, believed to house ICE agents, the City of Minneapolis said in a statement.
Police Chief Brian O’Hara said some in the crowd scrawled graffiti and damaged windows at the Depot Renaissance Hotel. He said the gathering at the Hilton Canopy Hotel began as a “noise protest” but escalated as more than 1,000 demonstrators converged on the site, leading to 29 arrests.
“We initiated a plan and took our time to de-escalate the situation, issued multiple warnings, declaring an unlawful assembly, and ultimately then began to move in and disperse the crowd,” O’Hara said.
HOUSE REPRESENTATIVES TURNED AWAY FROM ICE FACILITY
Three Minnesota congressional Democrats showed up at a regional ICE headquarters near Minneapolis on Saturday morning, where protesters have clashed with federal agents this week, but were denied access. Legislators called the denial illegal.
“We made it clear to ICE and DHS that they were violating federal law,” US Representative Angie Craig told reporters as she stood outside the Whipple Federal Building in St. Paul with Representatives Kelly Morrison and Ilhan Omar.
Federal law prohibits DHS from blocking members of Congress from entering ICE detention sites, but DHS has increasingly restricted such oversight visits, prompting confrontations with Democratic lawmakers.
“It is our job as members of Congress to make sure those detained are treated with humanity, because we are the damn United States of America,” Craig said.
Referencing the damage and protests at Minneapolis hotels overnight, DHS spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin said the congressional Democrats were denied entry to ensure “the safety of detainees and staff, and in compliance with the agency’s mandate.” She said DHS policies require members of Congress to notify ICE at least seven days in advance of facility visits.
