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The birth of a narco
state
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - A rejuvenated campaign to
crack down on Afghanistan's booming heroin trade
could backfire and end up alienating large sectors
of the population from the government of President
Hamid Karzai, warn Afghan development and rights
groups.
In a letter sent last week to
incoming US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
the organizations, which include Care, Oxfam
International and Women's Edge Coalition, said
that massive poppy eradication efforts risk
undermining the progress the country has made
since the Taliban regime was ousted in late 2001.
"It has the potential to turn millions of
Afghans against a government which is struggling
to extend its reach and strengthen its authority,"
according to the letter, which stressed that poppy
cultivation has now spread to all 34 of
Afghanistan's provinces.
Since the
Taliban's ouster, Afghanistan has become the
world's largest producer of opium by far,
accounting for roughly 87% of the world's opium
and its heroin derivatives, according to one
recent UN report.
Because farmers can make
as much as 10 times the income of other crops,
opium has not only become the country's biggest
export; the opium trade now accounts for as much
as 40% of Afghanistan's total economy.
According to the US Office of National
Drug Control Policy, the amount of land under
poppy cultivation increased by nearly 240% and
opium production by 73% from 2003 to 2004.
As a result, the nearly 20,000 US military
troops and the 7,000 members of the International
Support Assistance Force are being pressed to add
counter-drug operations to their security and
counter-insurgency efforts. The Bush
administration had allocated US$780 million to
that end for 2005, about two-thirds of which were
to be spent on eradication.
But the groups
argue that the plans need to be revised, because
eradication, particularly aerial spraying, for
which some $152 million was earmarked, could
destabilize the countryside by depriving millions
of small farmers of their livelihoods without
providing any viable alternative.
"Widespread eradication in 2005 could
undermine the economy and devastate already poor
families without giving rural development projects
sufficient time to provide alternative sources of
income," according to the letter.
Threats
of eradication have already resulted in higher
opium prices, enriching traffickers who already
have large inventories and are spurring a shift in
production to more remote areas of the country.
Eradication without viable alternatives
and programs to pay off their debts will probably
only force farmers to mortgage their lands to the
traffickers themselves and send their children,
especially girls, into bonded labor or
prostitution, according to the groups.
"An
effective counter-narcotics strategy must
contribute to the stabilization of Afghanistan and
help authorities build a legitimate state and
economy," said Paul Barker, Care's country
director in Afghanistan.
Karzai himself
has already ruled out aerial spraying, a decision
the groups strongly agree with. When two
unidentified aircraft sprayed crops in southern
Afghanistan in November, the Afghan government
formally protested to the British and US
embassies, which, however, denied that they were
involved.
At the same time, neither Kabul
nor the groups deny that the drug trade represents
a very serious threat to Afghanistan's long-term
prospects. Indeed, some analysts say that the drug
economy and the corruption it breeds have become
so pervasive that the country could soon become a
"narco-state".
The key to addressing the
problem without causing too much collateral
damage, according to the groups, requires a
reallocation of the counter-drug money to target
the middlemen, major traffickers and their
protectors, rather than the small producers. More
credit and alternative livelihood programs need to
be directed to the farmers, they wrote, and those
programs should be closely coordinated with
existing provincial and national development
plans.
Meanwhile, law enforcement efforts
should be focused more on interdiction, the
destruction of laboratories, and arresting or
dismissing major traffickers and their political
protectors, according to the letter, which called
on Washington and other donors to commit funds and
training to build up the appropriate institutions.
US and allied intelligence collection
efforts should place a priority on identifying
major traffickers and taking punitive action, even
if they turn out to be warlords who have been
supported by Washington in the past.
Finally, the groups are calling on the
Karzai government to strictly enforce those
provisions of its constitution requiring the
disclosure of assets by high officials and to
extend this requirement to their families and top
military commanders. "Those with unexplained
assets should be dismissed," the letter stated.
Other signers of the letter included
Actionaid Afghanistan, Afghan NGOs Coordination
Bureau, the American Friends Service Committee,
Catholic Relief Services, Help the Afghan
Children, the International Rescue Committee and
Mercy Corps.
(Inter Press
Service) |
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