Driven out of Tibet and the eastern Himalayas, the Akha have fought their way to the extreme north of Thailand and Burma. Hostile to outsiders, the Akha today are the living remnants of a former time, the bygone era of the Chinese Middle Empire. The Akha have a dangerously bad reputation: smuggling, destroying the forest, ignoring frontiers, growing opium. If they remain in the hills the Thaï will eventually destroy them, if they accept to go down to the valleys they will surely die of disease. The Akha are running out of options.
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