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Opium economy thrives in democratic
Afghanistan
By Thalif Deen
NEW YORK - Despite the establishment of a
democratic government and the presence of a 4,800-strong
international peacekeeping force in Kabul and its
surrounds, the cultivation of opium is continuing
unabated in Afghanistan, a new United Nations study
concludes.
The 222-page document raises
difficult questions, Antonio Maria Costa, executive
director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (ODC), said
on Monday: "Why is the international presence in
Afghanistan not able to bring under control a phenomenon
connected to international terrorism and organized
crime?" and "Why is the central government in Kabul not
able to enforce a ban on opium cultivation as
effectively as the former Taliban regime in 2000-2001?"
Costa
says that there are no simple answers to these
questions. The "opium economy" in Afghanistan is an
intensely complex phenomenon, intermingled with the
country's history, political structure, civil society
and economy.
''Spawned after decades of civil
and military strife, it has chained a poor rural
population - farmers, landless labor, small traders,
women and children - to the mercy of domestic warlords
and international crime syndicates that continue to
dominate several areas in the south, north and east of
Afghanistan," says the ODC study.
Titled "The
Opium Economy in Afghanistan: An International Problem",
it points out that the country's opium production has
increased more than 15-fold since 1979, the year of the
Soviet intervention. The opium trade was de facto legal
in Afghanistan before and throughout the Taliban
government. In 2000, the Taliban banned opium
cultivation but not the trade.
By 2000,
Afghanistan was the source of 70 percent of all the
illicit opium produced in the world. Following a decline
in 2001, production grew to high levels in 2002, making
Afghanistan the world's largest producer of opium
(followed by Myanmar and Laos), accounting for almost
three-quarters of global opium production.
In
January 2002, the government of Hamid Karzai, which was
installed by the US administration, banned the opium
trade. Despite the ban, the drug trade thrives. Revenue
from opium rose from about US$720 million in 2000 to
over $1.4 billion in 2002.
Costa says that the
establishment of democracy and the government's measures
against the cultivation, trade and abuse of opium have
been crucial steps towards solving the drug problem.
"Yet, other news has not been good," he says, adding
that last year's opium poppy harvest was among the most
bountiful in the country's history - more than 3,400
tons. Drug abuse has increased greatly in the past few
years due to prolonged human deprivation and suffering,
the breakdown of traditional social controls, the return
of refugees who developed drug problems in camps, and
the almost unlimited availability of opiates within
Afghanistan, the study says.
"Afghanistan's
opium economy can be dismantled if the government, with
the assistance of the international community, addresses
the roots of the matter and not only its symptoms,"
Costa said.
Certain elements will be essential
in any sustainable counter-narcotic policy, Costa says.
"To help poor farmers decide in favor of licit crops; to
replace narco-usury with a proper credit system and
micro-lending; to provide jobs to women and to itinerant
workers; to provide education to children, particularly
girls; to turn opium bazaars into modern commodity
markets; and to neutralize traffickers' and warlords'
efforts to keep the evil trade alive."
According
to the study, opiate trafficking profits in neighboring
countries amounted to some $4 billion in 2002, about 2
percent of Afghanistan's gross domestic product (GDP),
illustrating, said Costa, the problem's international
nature.
The study also says that 80 to 90
percent of the heroin found in European markets (both
eastern and western Europe) has traditionally been
trafficked along the so-called Balkan route
(Afghanistan, Iran, Turkey, the Balkan countries and
Europe).
Those figures show that the solution
will require an international commitment. "In other
words," Costa said, "all countries that are part of the
Afghan drug problem should be part of its solution."
(Inter Press Service)
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