- Afghanistan faces a "bleak" future if the world
does not act to stem the trade in heroin, a Foreign Office minister warned
yesterday.
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- Bill Rammell, the minister responsible for Britain's
role in the campaign against the drugs trade, called on the international
community to do more to help end opium production in the war-torn country,
which is responsible for 95 per cent of the heroin reaching the streets
of Britain.
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- Speaking at the start of an international conference
in Kabul aimed at raising the profile of the war against the Afghan narcotics
trade, Mr Rammell said he wanted to "galvanise" the international
community into taking action.
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- Mr Rammell said: "If we do not seize it, and that
means in the next year to 18 months, the longer-term consequences for the
flow of drugs and the future of Afghanistan will be bleak." He added:
"If we do not tackle drugs we are not going to get a secure and sustainable
future for Afghanistan."
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- The United Nations warned last year that opium production
was spreading like a cancer in Afghanistan, with the country producing
three quarters of the world's illicit opium, from which heroin is made.
The UN estimates that two thirds of all opiate users take drugs of Afghan
origin.
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- Afghanistan has re-established itself as the world's
biggest opium producer after the fall of the Taliban regime, which banned
poppy cultivation.
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- Drug agencies in Britain and other western European countries
are alarmed at the quantities of heroin from Afghanistan. The conference
of 100 international experts and 50 specialists of drugs from Afghanistan
is thought to be the first time such a high-level meeting has been held
to tackle the drugs trade in the country.
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- Mr Rammell, who is co-hosting the meeting with Hamid
Karzai, the President of Afghanistan, said Britain, Germany and the United
States were already working on a string of measures to improve policing,
beat drug trafficking and destroy crops. But he said he was looking for
"concrete outcomes" from the meeting, including promises of personnel
and other support.
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- The Department for International Development is also
spearheading programmes to introduce alternative sources of income for
poppy farmers.
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- Initiatives include a programme by Customs and Excise
to set up mobile detection units to trap heroin shipments into Kabul and
efforts to encourage the Afghan army to play a greater role in destroying
crops. DFID has also allocated £20m to schemes to encourage the growth
of kitchen gardening and poultry farming to replace poppy fields.
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- The Foreign Office fears that there is a risk of Afghanistan
becoming entrenched as a drugs economy. Mr Rammell warned that if efforts
to cut poppy production were not successful "we will continue to see
the flows of drugs to the UK and to other countries. Increasingly it will
have an impact on Afghanistan itself in that people are beginning to take
heroin and on a wide-scale basis."
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- He said the drugs trade was linked to security in Afghanistan
and helped to bankroll terrorist groups. But he insisted: "Ninety-five
per cent of the heroin on British streets is from Afghanistan so it really
is one area where foreign policy coincides with domestic policy."
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- Britain is charged with dealing with the opium poppy
trade under the Bonn agreement, which was signed at the end of the war
that ousted the Taliban from power.
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- The Government has set a target of eliminating poppy
production within 10 years. Ministers insist they can still meet the target
despite a survey by the United Nations in October which showed opium poppy
cultivation increased from 74,000 hectares in 2002 to 80,000 hectares last
year.
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- * At least 20 people were killed and 40 wounded in several
clashes in the north-eastern Afghan province of Badakhshan at the weekend.
The Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press said fighting broke out over a
dispute between two commanders about who would receive a tax on the local
poppy crop.
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- © 2004 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=489245
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