UN highlights massive increase in opium cultivation

Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has increased by two-thirds, reaching an unprecedented 131,000 hectares, a new survey by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) revealed on Thursday. The survey also said that poppy cultivation spread to all 32 provinces of the country, making narcotics the main engine of economic growth and the strongest bond among previously quarrelsome populations. Despite the increased cultivation, the survey shows that bad weather and disease had lowered opium yield per hectare, resulting in output of 4,200 mt, an increase of only 17 percent. While in 2003 opium output was estimated at 3,600 mt per hectare. The new finding indicates that Afghanistan will have produced about 87 percent of the world’s illicit opium output in 2004. “The drug problem in Afghanistan has been allowed to become ever more serious. If it persists, the political and military successes of the last three years will be lost,” said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of UNODC. According to UNODC, the Afghan opium economy is valued at US $2.8 billion, equivalent to about 60 percent of Afghanistan’s 2003 GDP. Meanwhile, the number of families involved in opium poppy cultivation was estimated to be 356,000 in 2004, a 35 percent increase on the year. Costa alerted that with the growing amount of narco-money available to fund terrorism in Afghanistan along well-known trails across neighbouring countries, “the international community must commit to commensurate initiatives to support the Afghan government’s counter-narcotic drive.” The massive increase is bad news for the three governments, namely Afghanistan, the UK and the US with most at stake in the issue. For London it is an embarrassment. Having taken the international lead on the issue two years ago, the UK is one of the world’s largest per capita consumers of heroin, where 95 percent of the drug found on the streets comes from Afghanistan. For the new administration of Hamid Karzai, the first democratically mandated president in Afghanistan, the opium poppy threatens its very existence. “Looking to the extent of the cultivation, this is alarming and if we don’t control it in 2005 it will be a disaster,” Mirwais Yasini, head of the Afghan Counter Narcotics Directorate (CND), told IRIN following the release of the survey. The Afghan government blames a lack of coordination in counter-narcotics efforts, saying it caused this year’s “massive” increase. “The reason our efforts were not very fruitful is that there was no coordination, number one among the international community, the government and the organisations dealing with it,” Yasini maintained. Just one day prior to the UNODC survey, the US government announced a major new offensive against drug production in Afghanistan. Washington expects to spend an extra $780 million in the next financial year on measures including eradication of poppy fields and providing alternative livelihoods for farmers. “In fact, $780 million from the US and couple of hundred million pounds from the UK is considerable assistance and that shows their strong commitment to counter-narcotics activities in Afghanistan,” Yasini said. Currently, 6.5 million people of the country’s estimated 25 million population are said to be living in food insecurity and threatened by starvation. Yasini believes there is a lack of alternative livelihoods, which has impeded their efforts to tackle drug problems properly. “It is very very difficult, if you don’t give them [farmers] alternatives it would be very cruel just to get rid of opium in Afghanistan because farmers have depended on it for three decades,” Yasini pointed. “This is a multi-dimensional war in Afghanistan and we have to fight it form all the dimensions.” However, to do so requires a strong military force which the Afghan government simply does not have. Yasini expects the US-led Coalition forces to be directly engaged in this issue. But elements in the US military are less keen than their political masters to go after drug lords, most of whom since 11 September have been nominal allies in the hunt for Osama bin Laden, al-Qaeda and the Taliban. “What we are expecting from the Coalition is that they would become more engaged in counter-narcotics activities,” said Yasini. Confirming that key government figures including top counter-narcotics officials were involved in drug business in Afghanistan, Yasini said only poor farmers or low-profile dealers were prosecuted. “I totally agree that there have been no big mafia cases [discovered or arrested]. We have neither arrested any major trafficker nor have we removed any government official,” he conceded. He urged the new government to take a hard line on those involved whoever they were - governors, military commanders, generals and high-ranking officials. Yasini expressed hope that with the new US commitment, which has counted the poppy cultivation as a primary concern of the country, there will be major achievements next year. “We are determined and next year, hopefully, this [negative scenario] will not be the case.”