In the lead-up to Burma’s first elections in two decades, flows of narcotics from the country have become a flood as drugs-producing rebels prepare for a showdown with the junta, experts say.

Thailand has seen the amount of illicit tablets seized surge this year and observers say nervousness about a possible military crackdown in Burma on armed minorities could be fuelling the increase.

Civil war has wracked Burma since independence in 1948 and the ‘Tatmadaw’ state army, which has ruled since 1962, has long fought to control ethnic rebel groups, some of whom have waged decades-long armed uprisings.

Thailand-based Burma analyst Aung Naing Oo said ethnic rebel groups use profits from narcotics, among other resources such as teak and jade, to fund their operations.

“The increased threat of a resumption of hostilities has led to the increased activity of drug trafficking on the border, because you need money,” he said.

Methamphetamine – known as “ice” in its crystalline form and “yaba” when produced as tablets – has been a booming industry in impoverished Burma.

Chief among the traffickers, experts say, is the United Wa State Army (UWSA), which has been able to use areas under its control to grow poppies for opium and set up factories to produce methamphetamine with little fear of interference.

The UWSA, which is the military wing of the ethnic Wa people, is one of the major rebel groups to have rejected the junta’s attempts to persuade fighters to join a borderguard force, creating tension with the government.

It also instructed citizens in its self-administered zone in Shan state to boycott the 7 November election, a move that has now been followed by Burma’s decision apparently to completely block its area from participating.

Trevor Wilson, an academic and former Australian ambassador to Burma, said last year’s military offensives, including against ethnic Chinese Kokang rebels in the northeast, meant “ethnic militias would want to be better prepared”.

He said this may explain the upturn in the amount of narcotics being trafficked, but added that secrecy in Burma and the isolation of the groups meant it was difficult to really know what was happening.

Thailand-based Saw David Taw of the Ethnic Nationalities Council – a coalition of Burmese ethnic groups – said there was “a rumour going around that people are preparing for war”.

“The Wa don’t want to start it from their side first but they will prepare. I don’t think it will affect the whole country but some areas will be affected by this tension,” he said.

On its website, the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) said the UWSA has about 20,000 soldiers and describes it as the “leading heroin and methamphetamine trafficking organisation in Southeast Asia”.

“A substantial portion of the UWSA’s drug profits have been reinvested into expanding UWSA military capabilities and areas of operation,” it said.

Thomas Pasquarello, DEA regional head in Bangkok, said it was difficult to tell the scope of the UWSA’s drug empire, but stressed “they have been a threat and they remain a threat”.

Thailand’s northern branch of the Office of the Narcotics Control Board (ONCB) reports a surge in seizures of amphetamine tablets to 10.8 million between January and August 2010, from 2.9 million in the same period last year.

However, figures from the Chiang Mai-based division show a reduction in heroin finds, from 13 kilograms captured in the first eight months of 2009 to about four kilogrammes this year.

China has also complained of large amounts of amphetamine-type stimulants entering Yunnan province through the border with Burma, according to the UN.

Methamphetamine and heroin from Burma is believed to be trafficked to countries including Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Australia.

Pasquarello said the appeal of methamphetamine is that it can be produced in small, hidden laboratories.

Even within Burma, a military push into areas which had hitherto been out of junta control helped a dramatic spike in methamphetamine seizures – up from one million tablets in 2008 to 23 million last year, according to the UN.

But the country is by no means the drug giant that it was in the late 1990s when Burma along with Laos and Thailand as part of the so-called Golden Triangle produced nearly half of the world’s opiates.

Afghanistan now produces 85 percent of the world’s heroin and morphine, according to the UN’s 2010 World Drug Report.