Word: burma
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...Until very recently, it was just an insignificant village in a sparsely populated area of northeastern Burma. It owed its remarkable transformation?and its notoriety?to a Shan Chinese druglord called Lin Mingxian. Lin had been a field commander in the Communist Party of Burma, or CPB, a formidable insurgent group that once occupied a large swath of northeastern Shan state. When the CPB collapsed in 1989, Lin led a breakaway faction of over 3,500 soldiers, taking control of an opium-rich wilderness bordering China, Laos and Thailand...
...What happened next was extraordinary. Rather than take on Lin and his well-equipped private army, Burma's generals cut a generous deal with him. In return for keeping the peace, Lin was granted immunity from prosecution and full autonomy in the Mongla region. The regime also gave him lucrative business concessions in gold, timber and gems, as well as?crucially?tacit permission to trade in opium...
...This Faustian deal was one of several the junta made with the opium warlords within its borders. They have helped Burma become one of the world's largest opium producers, and the source of at least half the heroin sold in the U.S. Soon Lin was opening new heroin-smuggling routes in Southeast Asia to get his product to the U.S. and Australia. The U.S. State Department identified Lin and his Wa allies as key players in the heroin and methamphetamines trade. A single refinery belonging to the Lin syndicate could manufacture anything up to 2,000 tons of pure...
...next stop was the National Races Museum?actually a kind of human zoo populated by members of the myriad ethnic groups living within Burma's borders. Chinese tourists streamed in boisterous high spirits through a decorative wooden gateway flanked by two lookout posts, each occupied by a man in faux-tribal dress blowing wearily on a conch shell. All the exhibits in this museum were alive, of course, although there was a lot of cheating. The young woman in Akha tribal costume standing at the gate?the one playing the Game Boy?was a local Shan. So was the Lahu...
...next stop was Mongla's opium museum. This was opened in 1997 by Lieut. General Khin Nyunt, Burma's despised spy chief and de facto leader, to commemorate the supposed eradication of drugs in the Mongla region. The museum resembled a temple, with a seven-tiered spire, gold-painted finials and lots of architectural twiddly bits. Inside were all the exhibits one would expect: photos of dead junkies; photos of generals wagging their chins over packets of heroin; photos of the same heroin (one assumed) going up in flames at various drug-burning ceremonies...