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China feels sting of unwanted Afghan
export
By Mark Berniker
It's
no secret that heroin smugglers are running rampant
across Asia, but from all indications the problem is
getting worse, rather than better.
As opium gets
farmed, processed and shipped, primarily out of
Afghanistan and Myanmar, the export is creating a wealth
of problems, especially for the Central Asian states,
Russia and increasingly for China. Those problems range
from profiteering by crime syndicates to the spread of a
drug that is exacerbating the spread of HIV/AIDS.
While Afghanistan and Myanmar are the principal
sources of the opium crop, many of the most serious
societal problems occur when the drug crosses out of
their borders. Central Asia is one of the key transit
routes for heroin runners, who then take it, often
through Russia and Eastern Europe, but according to
experts, also increasingly into China.
China
reportedly seized nearly 20 percent of the world's
heroin in 2002. The Chinese Ministry of Public Safety
said earlier this year that it had seized 9,290
kilograms of heroin and 1,210 kilograms of opium in
2002, adding that agents uncovered more than 110,000
cases of illegal drug activities. Chinese government
authorities are starting to recognize the severity of
the heroin crisis, but it may be an even bigger problem
than it expects.
"The heroin trade is becoming a
very difficult problem for China. It brings undesirable
elements into China, the rise of illicit drug use in
China, and an increase in organized crime activity in
China," said Bates Gill of the Washington, DC-based
Center for Strategic and International Studies, and
co-author of a recent report on China and Central Asia.
The report urges the UN, the US and countries in the
region to work with China on combating the spread of
HIV/AIDS, and to stem the trafficking of drugs, people
and weapons in and out of China.
"The number one
vector for the spread of HIV/AIDS in Xinjiang is
intravenous drug use," Gill said about China's most
Western region, which borders Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and
Tajikistan. Gill said that there are a number of "active
routes" for Afghan heroin that cross China, while others
go through Myanmar, Pakistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Gill added that China is increasingly becoming a
destination for the heroin, which could present myriad
domestic social and health issues for the Chinese
government. And heroin may be coming into China from
several directions. The Vietnamese newspaper Nguoi Lao
Dong recently reported five people were arrested in
Hanoi after police found them with more than 10
kilograms of opium stuffed in watermelons they were
about to take into China. There was another recent
report of Chinese smugglers stuffing heroin in packages
of noodles destined for Australia.
There is no
question about China's association to the drug trade,
but the problems related to smuggling, crime and
addiction are particularly acute in Russia, Iran and
Pakistan. And while the authorities in Central Asia are
quick to announce heroin smuggling seizures, they, too,
still face enormous problems with bribery and the border
monitoring. The heroin scourge is a perfect example of a
regional problem, which requires international
coordination to stem its rising tide.
The
post-Taliban bloom in the Afghan opium crop is resulting
in higher volumes in the overall global heroin trade,
and while reported seizures are up, there is no
documentation for the thousands of kilograms that are
ending up with dealers and addicts in dark corners
around the world. Experts say that Tajikistan and
Turkmenistan are frequent transit points, and are
fraught with rampant border guard corruption, sometimes
involving Russians.
"A lot of the Afghan heroin
is going through Turkmenistan as its border with
Afghanistan is totally porous," said Nancy Lubin,
president of JNA Associates, a research and consulting
group, who writes and speaks about the narco-trafficking
of heroin in Afghanistan and Central Asia.
On
September 15, RIA Novosti reported that Tajik and
Russian frontier guards had confiscated over 16 tonnes
of heroin over the past five years. Rustam Nazarov,
director of Russia's Drug Control Agency, said that
Tajikistan accounts for over 80 percent of the heroin
and opium confiscated in Central Asia.
But just
as the Russian government is quick to point out the
success of its anti-drug trafficking border procedures
along its border with Tajikistan, Lubin said "Russian
border guards are viewed by some as the biggest
perpetrators of the heroin trade".
Much of the
heroin destined for Europe goes through Russia, making
it a both a destination and a transit point for crime
syndicates operating in Russia, Eastern and Western
Europe. Russian mafia involvement in trans-European drug
trafficking is well-documented, and the head of the
Russian State Committee to Control the Use of Narcotic
and Psychotropic Substances said on September 9 that
over the past decade the annual rate of drug-related
crime in Russia has increased by 15 times, drug dealing
crimes are up 80 times, and incidents involving criminal
drug organizations are up nine times. And it's not just
crime and trafficking, heroin smuggling is connected to
a growing major public health crisis in the areas around
the former Soviet Union.
On September 16, the
World Bank issued a report saying that parts of Eastern
Europe and Central Asia could face an explosive HIV/AIDS
epidemic, which could potentially stymie their economic
progress. The report said there are more than 1.2
million people in the region with HIV or AIDS, and
250,000 new infections were estimated in 2002. While not
all of the HIV/AIDS cases in Central Asia and Eastern
Europe are from shared needle use, heroin usage greatly
contributes to the spread of the deadly virus.
While international organizations have focused
much on the heroin coming out of Afghanistan, opium
farming in Myanmar continues to be a major problem. Jean
Luce Lemahieu, the head of the UN Office of Drugs and
Crime in Yangon, recently said progress has been made in
reducing opium production, but farmers need economic
support and incentives to substitute their crops. He
warned there could be a humanitarian disaster for
Myanmar's poorest minorities if opium eradication
programs wiped out their farms, with the possibility
that migrants may be subjected to human trafficking and
starvation. The US recently said that Myanmar has
"failed demonstrably" in curbing the drug trade within
its borders.
A program is under way to curb
opium farming and heroin production in Myanmar's
northeast Shan state, near the Golden Triangle in the
border areas adjacent to Thailand and Laos. Much of the
heroin going into China is said to go through the Golden
Triangle. A recent UN report said more than 20 countries
in Latin America, Central Asia and East Asia are
involved to varying degrees in production, transit
routes and drug trafficking. The report said that the
Golden Triangle may not be a major source of illicit
opium farming and heroin processing within the next few
years, but the trade is moving elsewhere in the region.
And on September 15, US President George W Bush
upped the rhetoric against North Korea's alleged
involvement in heroin drug trafficking when he said the
US would "intensify" its efforts to stop the heroin
trade from the country.
"We are deeply concerned
about heroin and methamphetamine linked to North Korea
being trafficked to East Asian countries, and are
increasingly convinced that state agents and enterprises
in the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of Korea] are
involved in the narcotics trade," Bush said in a memo to
Secretary of State Colin Powell that was released. The
US didn't give any specific evidence, but in April the
Australian government accused North Korea of links to a
ship caught trying to smuggle $146 million worth of
heroin into Australia.
While some have alleged
connections between the drug trade and terrorists, the
links point more to small groups of criminals, often
even reaching America's shores. US prosecutors in early
September said that they had broken an international
heroin smuggling ring in Baltimore, Maryland charging 11
men, catching nine of them as part of a drug trafficking
and money laundering operation. The members of the crime
ring are said to have ties in Pakistan and Thailand,
with links in Canada and around the US. Two members of
the group are still at large.
The global
trafficking of heroin requires massive resources to
combat its spread. While farmers have a strong incentive
to plant the cash crop, and there is demand from junkies
around the world, the real challenge is for
international law enforcement to better coordinate
interdiction effor ts to stop the crime of heroin
smuggling and distribution.
Mark
Berniker is a freelance journalist specializing in
Central Asian affairs.
(Copyright 2003 Asia
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