- The US-led war against terrorism and subsequent reconstruction
efforts in Afghanistan have failed to stem the flow of narcotics out of
the country. A new United Nations report finds that trafficking in Afghanistan
surged in 2002. At the same time, neighboring Central Asian states are
expressing alarm about growing security risks from drug addiction and skyrocketing
HIV/AIDS cases.
-
- Following a ban on production by the Taliban regime that
reduced opium output to relatively insignificant amounts in 2001, Afghanistan
produced 3,400 tons last year, reclaiming the title of the world's largest
producer.
-
- Efforts to control the Afghan drug flow by both the international
community and President Hamid Karzai's interim administration have so far
proven ineffective, despite an extension of the Taliban-era ban on production
in January 2002. Karzai's anti-drug strategy has focused largely on law-enforcement
activities.
-
- UN officials are critical of this approach. In the UN
report, titled "The Opium Economy in Afghanistan: An International
Problem," Antonio Maria Costa, the executive director of the UN Office
of Drugs and Crime, urged that more attention be paid to addressing the
root causes behind poppy cultivation.
-
- "Dismantling the opium economy will be a long and
complex process," Costa wrote in the report, released February 3.
"It [poppy eradication] cannot simply be done by military or authoritarian
means. That has been tried in the past, and was unsustainable. It must
be done with the instruments of democracy, the rule of law, and development."
-
- The study looks at the economic impact opium cultivation
has had not only on Afghanistan, but on the neighboring countries of Iran
and Pakistan and the Central Asian republics of Uzbekistan, Tajikistan,
Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan.
-
- In Afghanistan from 1994-2000, opium sales brought in
about $150 million per year - or $750 per family involved in its production.
By 2002, gross income had risen to $1.2 billion - or $6,500 per family,
the report says.
-
- The drug trade in the Central Asian republics has netted
traffickers about $2.2 billion. More than three-fourths of the opium sold
in Europe, and nearly all sold in Russia, now originates in Afghanistan.
-
- "From a purely commercial point of view, the success
of illicit Afghan opiates as a global commodity is remarkable," the
report notes, adding that the crop leaves subsistence farmers at the "mercy
of domestic warlords and international crime syndicates that continue to
dominate several areas in the south, north and east of the country."
-
- To develop an Afghan economy that is not dependent on
the drug trade, the report calls for a balance between the short-term and
long-term initiatives. This includes a gradual reduction of emergency food
programs which, while needed to prevent starvation, also present barriers
to other forms of agricultural development.
-
- "Given the current opium prices within Afghanistan,
it is clear that no other crop can compete with opium poppy as a source
of income," the report says. "This considerably hampers alternative
development interventions."
-
- Last October, Karzai established in Kabul a Counter-Narcotics
Directorate to coordinate the drug-fighting efforts of government ministries,
local officials, foreign anti-narcotics agencies and the United Nations.
Despite the attempt at improved coordination, Costa said the surge in opium
production raised "nagging questions" about current enforcement
efforts.
-
- "Why is the international presence in Afghanistan
not able to bring under control a phenomenon connected to international
terrorism and organized crime?" he asks in the preface to the report.
"Why is the central government in Kabul not able to enforce the ban
on opium cultivation as effectively the Taliban regime did in 2000-01?"
-
- Russia is a major transit point for Afghan opium and
heroin making its way from Central Asia to the lucrative markets of Western
Europe, and Russian officials have repeatedly complained about the continuing
drug trade in Afghanistan. Russia has more than 10,000 border guards on
the Tajik-Afghan border to prevent drug and weapons smuggling.
-
- In a January 28 interview with the Itar-Tass news agency,
the chief of staff of Russia's Federal Border Guard Service, Nikolai Reznichenko,
said that Moscow was anxious to stop trafficking. However, he indicated
that Russian interdiction efforts are lagging, in large part because of
the Afghan government's inability to curtail poppy cultivation.
-
- "No serious measures are being taken to destroy
opium poppy crops or laboratories in Afghanistan," Reznichenko said.
-
- More than 60 percent of global opiate seizures take place
in the countries bordering Afghanistan, with Iran making the most seizures,
followed by Pakistan and Tajikistan.
-
- In late January, Tajik and US officials signed a cooperation
agreement to enhance border patrol and interdiction programs. Under the
agreement, the United States will provide Tajik border guards with equipment
and training. Despite such US aid initiatives, Central Asian anti-trafficking
efforts struggle to keep pace with the rising volume of the drug trade,
local observers say.
-
- Central Asian officials in recent months have voiced
increasing concern about the destabilizing social impact of trafficking.
For instance, the HIV/AIDS infection rate in Central Asia is increasing
at the fastest pace in the world. The UN report draws a direct link between
the regional HIV/AIDS crisis and the Afghan drug trade. Opium production
contributed to a 600-fold increase in AIDS cases in Central Asia from 1994
to 2001, of which 88 percent were related to injected drug use, the report
states.
-
- Aziz Yoldashov, who heads the government's anti-trafficking
effort in Uzbekistan, told the Interfax news agency January 9 that a rise
in Afghan opium production is prompting increased drug addiction in neighboring
states. He said there were over 24,000 registered addicts in Uzbekistan.
"And this is not the full picture," he added.
-
- Editor's Note: Todd Diamond is a freelance writer who
covers the United Nations.
- http://www.eurasianet.org
-
- The Central Eurasia Project aims, through its website,
meetings, papers, and grants, to foster a more informed debate about the
social, political and economic developments of the Caucasus and Central
Asia. It is a program of the Open Society Institute-New York. The Open
Society Institute-New York is a private operating and grantmaking foundation
that promotes the development of open societies around the world by supporting
educational, social, and legal reform, and by encouraging alternative approaches
to complex and controversial issues.
-
- The views expressed in this publication do not necessarily
represent the position of the Open Society Institute and are the sole responsibility
of the author or authors.
-
- http://www.eurasianet.org/departments/insight/articles/eav020603.shtml
-
-
-
- Comment
-
- From Greg
- 2-9-3
-
- Jeff,
-
- This story on the rise of opium production out of
- Afghanistan...It's what we've been saying all along that
this Homeland
- Security is bs with a capital B. With all the airports,
shipping ports,
- trucking routes under so-called observation, there hasn't
been a one
- single drop in the dope trade yet. You'd figure illegal
drugs and bootlegged
- goods would be hit hard, a real litmus test for the effectiveness
of the Homeland
- Security and the 'Patriot' Act. But NOooooooo. Just the
opposite. Who's bs'ing whom?
-
- Greg
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