Priming the Old Pump
Chapter 2
Prepping for my trip called for a reeducation exercise so I was up to speed on the illegal drug situation in Southeast Asia. In my case, it was sorta like preparing for the final, school exam by reading an abridged copy of Cliff’s Notes. It had been some 15 years since I was assigned to the embassy in Bangkok and I suspected much had changed since then. It turned out I was correct. Propping my laptop against the pillow on the bed, I surfed the internet for a brief overview of poppy cultivation in the region.
I finally found what I was looking for, but it was a bit difficult to decipher since I’d forgotten much of my limited ESL vocabulary over the years. Oh well, I still picked up some relevant tidbits and committed them to memory. Here was the gist:
“From the early 1950s until 1990, when Afghanistan’s opium production surpassed that of Myanmar, most of the world’s illicit opium originated in mainland Southeast Asia. This is partly because the region’s rugged hills and mountains, heavy monsoon rains and lack of transport infrastructure have long protected rebel armies and illegal opium poppy cultivation from the writ of central governments and anti-drug agencies. Myanmar’s turbulent political history and internal wars since its independence in 1948 also contributed significantly to Asia’s long reign as the global leader in illicit opium production, since the opium economy and the war economy clearly nurtured one another.”
“After decades of expansion in the Southeast Asia region, the illegal opium poppy cultivation eventually receded during the early 2000’s, from an estimated total of 390,000 acres across the region in 1998 to just 60,000 acres in 2006. In that time, cultivation almost completely disappeared in Thailand (with an all-time low of 388 acres cultivated in 2006) and seriously decreased in Laos (an all-time low of 3,950 acres in 2007) and Myanmar (an all-time low of 53,100 acres in 2006). However, poppy cultivation in Southeast Asia subsequently rebounded between 2006 and 2010, increasing by 70 percent to an estimated 102,000 acres today. A number of factors explain the regional production rebound, including uncompensated opium suppression, rising opium prices, more favorable weather and resurgent conflicts in Myanmar. As a result, Myanmar remains the world’s second-largest illicit opium producer, with most of its poppy cultivation taking place in Kachin and Shan….”
At least I was on the right tract for a change. The take-away message from the article was that Myanmar was now the big kid on the block when it came to opium cultivation in the Triangle. It trailed Afghanistan by a wide margin for the top honor, but not too shabby on its own merits. Moreover, the adjacent countries still played key roles in facilitating the distribution of the stuff abroad. At least that fact hadn’t changed over the years.
I knew it was a dangerous thing, but a little knowledge was all I had to work with at the moment. The brief, background information had nothing to do with finding Kris Amar and everything to do with looking and sounding knowledgeable in front of my future colleagues. Perception, rather than substance, often carried the day in the State Department.
Regardless, too much dry verbiage, along with too much White Zinfandel, was making me sleepy
Early the next morning, the clanging of alarm bells startled me awake. There was no time for the usual horseplay with my laptop, I had a plane and one very bad boy to catch!