Follow the drugs: US shown the
way By Ramtanu Maitra
Drug traffickers loaded with Afghan opium
and heroin have virtually overrun and pulverized
internal security in Tajikistan, particularly
since the Taliban came to power in 1996. As most
of the Afghan drug output finds its way to
European nations (in addition to Russia), it might
be expected that the European Union, and the
United States, would make concrete efforts to help
secure the Afghanistan -Tajikistan border.
There is no dearth of lamentation by
Western political leaders about how the opiates
have endangered security and about the damage
caused to the youth. But, so far, no plan to
address the problem has been put forward.
After the Taliban were ousted from Kabul
in late 2001, opium production skyrocketed again,
breaking all-time production
records in 2004. Hundreds of
tons of Afghan heroin are now transported annually
to Europe, corrupting the continent's systems
further - and much of it passes through
Tajikistan.
Afghanistan is estimated to
produce 87% of the world's supply of opium (4,519
tons this season, down 2% from 2004), with nearly
half of the country's US$4.5 billion economy
coming from opium cultivation and trafficking.
Moreover, by early 2003, it had become
evident that US troops had forged alliances with
many reigning Afghan warlords, who ostensibly
provided support to American troops in their
battle against the various anti-US elements
conveniently lumped together as the Taliban.
Some of those dubious allies of the US
troops and the North Atlantic Treaty
Organization-led (NATO) coalition forces are
suspected to be among Afghanistan's biggest drug
traffickers, controlling networks that include
producers, criminal gangs and even members of the
counter-narcotics police force.
US-backed
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has also brought
some of these warlords into his popularly elected
government, in recognition of their clout.
But the EU, perfectly in sync with the US
approach toward Afghanistan following September
11, has put no pressure on the US to take definite
steps to reduce opium production in Afghanistan.
In fact, hardly a peep on the subject has been
heard from the top political leaders of Britain,
France or Germany - Europe's most powerful
nations.
Bureaucracy on display
At the same time, while drugs were pouring
into Tajikistan from Afghanistan, and from there
finding their way to Europe - in the process
sustaining the terrorist networks against whom
both the US and the EU had declared war in unison
- many futile bureaucratic moves were made,
ostensibly to stop Afghan drugs from coming into
Central Asia.
For instance, take the March
15-19, 2004 visit of EU External Relations
Commissioner Chris Patten to Central Asia to meet
government representatives of Kazakhstan,
Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. During the
visit, discussions with each of the four countries
reportedly ranged over a broad agenda concerned
including bilateral relations, the fight against
terrorism and drug trafficking, and the need to
accelerate the process of political and economic
reform.
"The Central Asian countries are
of strategic importance to Europe and EU
enlargement will allow us to strengthen political
and economic ties with the region, while making
clear that a sustainable and fruitful relationship
requires tangible steps to consolidate civil
rights and the rule of law," Patten intoned ahead
of his trip.
Another bureaucratic
spectacle took place more recently. On September
27-28 a donors' conference was held in Dushanbe,
Tajikistan's capital, in conjunction with the EU's
twin programs, Border Management Central Asia
(BOMCA) and the Central Asia Anti-Drug
Proliferation Program. Representatives of the US,
the European Commission (the executive arm of the
EU), Germany, France, the United Nations and
Russia took part, with Britain chairing in its
capacity as current holder of the EU presidency.
The twin programs were launched by the EU this
year when Russian border troops departed.
Under a bilateral agreement signed in
1993, Russian troops were in charge of patrols on
almost all of the 1,344-kilometer Tajik-Afghan
frontier. The Tajiks controlled just 70 kilometers
of their border with Afghanistan, in addition to
the whole of the long but inaccessible border with
China. The pact envisaged the possibility of
handing over that mission to Tajik troops at the
end of a 10-year period, at which point either
side could opt out of the agreement with a
six-month advance notice.
In December
2004, the Russians handed over 700 kilometers
comprising the easternmost section, in the
inaccessible high-mountain region of Badakhshan.
The Moskovsky section in the middle was
transferred in May, and in August the remaining
243 kilometers in the west (called the Panj
sector) came under Tajik control.
European
leaders appear to have fixed on BOMCA as a
convenient bureaucratic solution to the drug
issue. Already, EU authorities have begun to point
out how the third phase of BOMCA will prepare the
ground for BOMCA-4, which is the EU-funded
border-management program for the five Central
Asian countries, covering the period 2004 to 2007.
In line with a European Commission financing
decision of July 2003, BOMCA-3 would also be
funded under the "kick starting" Rapid Reaction
Mechanism of the EC, bureaucrats pointed out
recently.
Belling the cat The EU
and the US have no hesitation in blaming
corruption among Russian troops for the enormous
quantities of drugs that have found their way into
Tajikistan all these years. At one point, Russia's
border troops in Tajikistan numbered almost
14,000.
But while the great majority of
officers - estimated at 2,200 - and
non-commissioned officers were Russian, conscripts
and contract servicemen were for the most part
Tajiks in Russian uniform who served under the
Russian flag.
US Ambassador to Tajikistan
Richard E Hoagland, for instance, addressing a May
16-19 conference on drug trafficking in Central
Asia at Freising, Germany, said: "... In Central
Asia, the Soviet heritage of law-enforcement
agencies is that they exist primarily to protect
the stability of their governments. In principle,
of course, there is nothing wrong with this. But
there is another Soviet heritage - and that is the
intersection of government and the criminal world.
And that makes your job all the more difficult
when powerful officials are profiting from
narco-trafficking ..."
There is little
doubt that the efforts Russia made to stop drug
smuggling into Tajikistan from Afghanistan were
less than adequate. Indeed, the task only became
more difficult as the US-backed government in
Afghanistan continued to encourage opium
production to keep the warlords in its fold.
"Whoever guards the Tajik-Afghan border
will not find it easy," said Colonel Miroj
Abdulloev, Tajikistan's Drug Control Agency's
chief in the southern town of Kulyab. "It's all
because of Afghanistan. Three years ago,
everything was blamed on the Taliban. Now they are
no longer there, but yet no one can conceal the
fact that 'liberated' Afghanistan has become an
international center for drug production."
Tajik authorities have claimed repeatedly
that neither the US nor NATO exerts any pressure
on the drug warlords inside Afghanistan. "There's
absolutely no threat to the labs inside
Afghanistan," said Avaz Yuldashov of the
Tajikistan Drug Control Agency. "Our intelligence
shows there are 400 labs making heroin there, and
80 of them are situated right along our border ...
Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main
source of support for international terrorism
now," Yuldashov pointed out last year.
But
in congressional testimony about the heroin flow
out of Afghanistan in April 2004, US Drug
Enforcement Administration head, Karen Tandy,
spoke only of "potential links" between Afghan
traffickers and terrorists. Drug agents in Central
Asia say they were baffled by Tandy's hedging.
"The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said
Colonel Alexander Kondratiyev, a senior Russian
officer who has served with border guards in
Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons,
ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism
- it's a closed circle."
Tajik authorities
were equally categorical about Russia's
ineffectiveness in battling the drug smugglers.
Rustam Nazarov, director of Tajikistan's Drug
Control Agency, complained on September 23 at a
Moscow news conference that Russia had not
respected a pledge to deliver military equipment
covered in the protocol signed last October by the
heads of the border-guard services.
"I
hope that this clause of the document is
fulfilled. So far the Russian side has not
supplied one piece of military equipment," he
said. The agreement had mainly envisaged donations
of armored vehicles and communications equipment.
Tajikistan was now receiving American support,
Nazarov pointedly told the Moscow news conference.
However, it is evident that drug-smuggling
into Tajikistan and beyond cannot be stopped at
the borders unless the US and NATO are serious
about reducing opium production in Afghanistan. At
the recent donors' conference in Dushanbe,
Tajikistan's President Imomali Rakhmonov
underscored the same point when he said stopping
the narcotics flow through Tajikistan was a
short-term imperative, but the real solution was
suppressing narcotics production at the source in
Afghanistan.
Biting the
bullet Desperately poor, Tajikistan, a
predominantly Muslim nation of 7 million people,
suffered a devastating civil war between 1992 and
1997. Reports show the average wage of a Tajik
worker is $10 a month, and 80% of the population
lives below the poverty line. Under such
circumstances it is conceivable that a large
number of Tajiks would turn into drug carriers.
Tajikistan itself produces almost no opium
or heroin of its own, but the country has become a
natural pathway for traffickers because of its
border with Afghanistan. During the civil war, it
became evident to Dushanbe that drug money was
playing a significant role in revving up violence.
In recent years, Tajik authorities have
been preoccupied with efforts to contain Islamic
radicals. In 1999 and 2000, militants from the
Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) utilized
Tajik territory to launch raids into neighboring
countries.
Lately, officials have
expressed concern about the activity of a
clandestine group, Hizb ut-Tahrir, headquartered
in the United Kingdom and active throughout
Central Asia. Its stated goal is to establish a
caliphate through non-violent means.
Strapped financially, the Tajik
authorities are now caught in a twin web spun by
the terrorist-linked drug traffickers and Islamic
activists.
Tajikistan is also a victim of
the geopolitical contest between the US, Russia,
China, Iran, India, Turkey, Uzbekistan and Europe.
Located in the Pamir Mountains, Tajikistan
commands direct access to China, Afghanistan,
Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan.
Much of the
country is frozen during the winter months,
limiting access for ground troops, but airborne
forces can provide security year-round from
Tajikistan. It is also the primary site for forces
intercepting militants and drug traffickers bound
for Russia.
With the Russian troops no
longer patrolling the borders, Dushanbe is now
desperately seeking help to protect its borders.
On September 26, Minister of Foreign Affairs
Talbak Nazarov and US ambassador Richard Hoagland
signed an updated bilateral agreement on border
security measures for the Tajik-Afghan border.
Under this document, the US pledged an
additional $9 million worth of transport and
communications equipment, power generators and
other supplies to Tajik border troops, as well as
training programs.
Dushanbe is looking not
only for help from the US and NATO, but also wants
funding from the EU to beef up its Drug Control
Agency strategy. According to Roger McDermott, a
Central Asia analyst, Dushanbe's strategy is
therefore two-pronged: searching for additional
security assistance while applying pressure on
Moscow.
President Imomali Rakhmonov told
an international conference on coordinating such
assistance to protect the Tajik-Afghan border:
"Border troops have not yet been provided with
aircraft. This makes it difficult for border
guards to carry out operations."
Rakhmonov
believes that such technical aid from the EU could
be of great significance for Tajikistan, and he
appealed for help on the basis of the fight
against international terrorism and the struggle
to stem the flow of illegal narcotics through the
Tajik-Afghan border, ultimately aimed at the
European market.
There is no indication
anyone in Europe is listening to Rakhmanov,
however. It is also not clear how the EU can
control the flow of drugs out of Afghanistan
without making clear to the US, and Kabul, that
production of thousands of tons of opium is not
okay and that there exists a clear link between
the drugs and the militants the soldiers are
fighting.
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