Kabul and Coalition getting tough on opium production

With Afghanistan set to produce another large and lucrative opium harvest this year, Kabul, with support from international organisations, is gearing up to take more serious drug-eradication measures in the world's largest opium producing country. The UN's annual survey of Afghanistan's opium poppy cultivation and production, released last October, painted a bleak picture of a drug culture spreading vigorously despite intense efforts by other countries, humanitarian organisations and charities to wean Afghan farmers off the crop. The Vienna-based UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has been surveying Afghan poppy production for the past decade and concluded that the 2003 harvest of 3,600 mt was the second-biggest recorded, surpassed only by the bumper production of 4,600 mt of opium in 1999, a year before Taliban hardliners banned its cultivation. A further cause for concern is that opium poppies are now being grown in 28 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, against 18 in 1999. The northeastern province of Badkhshan is the biggest producer. In one of his first moves on taking office in 2002, President Hamid Karzai outlawed opium poppy cultivation, trafficking and consumption while charities and other outsiders sought to develop crop substitution projects and payments to farmers to eradicate poppy growing. But lack of authority and resources have meant that these measures hardly dented the billion-dollar industry last year, income from which now exceeds the value of international aid to the Central Asian nation, observers warn. "Now this is the time to launch a more serious national and international effort against poppy cultivation across the country," Ali Ahmad Jalali, Afghan interior minister, told IRIN in the capital. Jalali said a new committment to fighting the scourge of opium production was underway. "This project will be more coordinated and organised than previous years' activities," he said. The new programme strategy includes eradication of poppy farms, a campaign against traffickers and seeking out and destroying heroin production facilities across the country. The minister pointed to lack of security and an inadequate police force as the main reasons behind increased poppy cultivation. "As a result of the [security and political] situation of Afghanistan in the last two years, even the areas that did not cultivate in the past, have used the opportunity also to grow poppy," the interior minister explained. The industry is controlled by warlords and crime cartels who use two prime routes to transport the drugs to western Europe. Raw opium is refined into heroin at illicit laboratories all over Afghanistan. The heroin is taken north, through the former Soviet republics of Central Asia and up into the Russian Urals, before heading for western Europe via Moscow and St Petersburg. Alternatively, it is dispatched to Turkey via Iran and then smuggled into western Europe via the Balkans. But government leaders needs to proceed cautiously in their fight against the growers and traffickers, observers say. Destroying opium farms without providing compensation or a viable alternative crop could produce further instability in the vast areas where Kabul's authority remains weak. Previous attempts by government to reduce poppy cultivation by force have resulted in violence. "We don't want to approach this problem through violence. Our objective is to prevent the crime and at the same time, prevent disruption," he maintained. Whether this is possible remains to be seen, but all actors are agreed concerted action is required now to stem the opium proliferation. The real danger for Afghanistan is that the production and smuggling of heroin will become ingrained to the extent that drug cartels effectively run the country. "Out of this drug chest some provincial administrators and military commanders take a considerable share," Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC chief, said. "The more they get used to this, the less likely it becomes that they will respect the law, be loyal to Kabul," he said. This process is already quite advanced. Jalali said drug smugglers often paid farmers to cultivate poppy and were now importing foreign expertise to help them create more heroin production facilities inside the country. "In other countries, cultivators are creating smugglers, in Afghanistan smugglers create cultivators," he maintained. Income from opium was put at about US $1.3 billion in 2003 by UNODC. "Our estimates indicate that the average income per opium growing family is $3,900 in 2003," Adam Bouloukos, a UNODC official in Kabul, told IRINl. Bouloukos said limited alternatives to poppy; endemic corruption and the high price of opium were the main challenges facing anti-drug campaigners in the country. But despite last year's increase huge increase in opium production, UNODC said that Afghanistan was not set to produce a bigger poppy harvest in 2004. "There is no indication of a bumper harvest," Bouloukos noted, adding that an international drug conference would be held in Kabul next week. "The drug conference on 8-9 February will be an opportunity to review the national strategy and to make action plans to implement it," he underlined. The fact that proceeds from drugs are going to fund those intent on destabilising Afghanistan has been recognised by UNODC. "Terrorists take a cut [from drug money] as well. The longer this happens, the greater the threat to security within the country and on its borders," Costa noted. The US-led Coalition in Afghanistan is starting to address the link between illegal drug production, insecurity and terrorist groups. "Drugs are a much more significant problem we believe now, than two years ago when Coalition forces got here," Lieutenant Colonel Bryan Hilferty, a Coalition spokesperson, told IRIN. Hilferty said Coalition forces were involved in drug eradication. "For the Coalition we can share intelligence with other organisations and when we find drug caches we will destroy them," he noted. Washington announced late January that Washington was planning to begin a major drug-eradication effort in Afghanistan. "We intend to be very aggressive, very proactive," Assistant Secretary, Robert Charles, who heads the State Department's Bureau for International Narcotics and Law enforcement (INL), told the Washington Times two weeks ago. According to the report, US officials have said the $310-million programme, led by the INL, would seek to designate drug kingpins for extradition and prosecution and to close the porous Afghan border to opium and heroin traffickers.