Afghan Opium Trade Hits New Peak

Senlis on Poppy for Medicine http://www.senliscouncil.net/modules/Opium_licensing and http://www.poppyformedicine.net/ Afghan Opium Trade Hits New Peak U.N. Report Describes a Scale of Narcotics Production Not Seen in Two Centuries Washington Post By Colum Lynch and Griff Witte Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, August 28, 2007 UNITED NATIONS Aug. 27 -- Opium production in Afghanistan has increased by 34 percent over the past year, and the country is now the source of 93 percent of the heroin, morphine and other opiates on the world market, according to a report by the United Nations' anti-drug agency. "Afghanistan's opium production has thus reached a frighteningly new level, twice the amount produced just two years ago," says the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime's annual opium survey, released Monday in Kabul. "Leaving aside 19th-century China . . ., no country in the world has ever produced narcotics on such a deadly scale," the report notes. The surge in opium production has frustrated U.S. and NATO military commanders, who believe that the trade plays a major role in funding a Taliban insurgency that has become increasingly deadly over the past two years. Commanders also believe that the involvement of public officials in the drug trade has undermined Afghans' confidence in their government. Neighborhoods of mansions have gone up in Afghan cities in recent years, with many of the houses financed by drugs. The newfound wealth in a country that remains desperately poor has spurred resentment among many Afghans who blame their government and the international community for not doing more to give people an economic alternative to poppies. Seven years ago, the Taliban leader Mohammad Omar banned the cultivation of opium poppies -- but not their export -- on the grounds that growing them violated the principles of Islam. But the report says that Taliban leaders have reversed their position and are now using drug profits to buy weapons and logistical equipment and to pay the salaries of their militia. The vast majority of Afghanistan's opium poppies are grown along the border with Pakistan, in five southwestern provinces with a Taliban presence, according to the report. Helmand, a Taliban stronghold that accounts for half of the country's opium, "has become the world's biggest source of illicit drugs, surpassing the output of entire countries like Colombia (coca), Morocco (cannabis), and Myanmar (opium) -- which have populations up to twenty times larger." "The Afghan situation looks grim, but it is not yet hopeless," the drug agency's executive director, Antonio Maria Costa, said in a prepared statement. He cited evidence that several provinces in central and northern Afghanistan have eradicated their opium fields. The northern Afghan province of Balkh has seen a decline in opium cultivation from 17,000 acres to zero. The report attributes the drop to economic incentives and security guarantees that "have led farmers to turn their back on opium." Witte reported from Islamabad, Pakistan. Afghan opium production hits record, fueled by insurgency and corruption The Associated Press 08/27/2007 KABUL Afghan opium poppy cultivation has exploded to a new record high this year, with the multibillion dollar trade now fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in President Hamid Karzai's government, a U.N. report said Monday. Afghanistan has opium growing on 193,000 hectares (477,000 acres) of land, a 17 percent increase from last year's record 165,000 hectares (408,000 acres), according to an annual survey by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. The country now accounts for 93 percent of the global production of opium, the raw material for heroin, and has doubled its output over the last two years, the report said. "The situation is dramatic and getting worse by the day," said Antonio Maria Costa, the UNODC's executive director. "No other country in the world has ever had such a large amount of farmland used for illegal activity, beside China 100 years ago," when it was a major opium producer, Costa said in an interview in Kabul. The burgeoning drug business casts doubt on the effectiveness of projects funded by the United States and other Western donors to battle the illicit trade. It also adds pressure on Karzai to consider new ways of curbing an expansion that threatens to turn Afghanistan into a 'narco-state' where some observers warn that groups such as al-Qaida could once again find sanctuary. Karzai last year rejected U.S. offers to spray this year's crop, after Afghans said the herbicide could affect livestock, crops and water supplies fears the U.S. calls unfounded. Costa said the U.N. supports the government's position, but added that crop eradication was a key element of any strategy to combat its growth. Afghanistan is on course to produce 8,200 metric tons (9,000 tons) of opium this year, up 34 percent from 6,100 metric tons (6,724 tons) in 2006, Costa said. The farm-gate value of Afghanistan's annual crop is about US$1 billion (730 million), the U.N. survey said. The street value of the heroin produced from it is many times higher. While the number of poppy-free provinces in the country's north has increased from six in 2006 to 13 in 2007, production in the insurgency-hit southern provinces has exploded to unprecedented levels. The southern province of Helmand alone, with 102,770 hectares (253,944 acres) under cultivation, now accounts for over half of the national total. Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's acting counternarcotics minister, acknowledged that the drugs strategy had failed in the country's south and west, which he blamed on inept local officials and poor policing, but also to open borders with Iran to the west and Pakistan to the east. Khodaidad, who like many Afghans goes by only one name, said the government needed to review its strategy, and threatened to sack inefficient and corrupt officials and reward those that curbed the production and trade at a national conference scheduled for Wednesday. Costa linked the booming trade primarily to the rise of insurgent activity in the south. "The government has lost control of this territory because of the presence of the insurgents, because of the presence of the terrorists, whether Taliban or splinter al-Qaida groups," Costa said. "It is clearly documented now that insurgents actively promote or allow and then take advantage of the cultivation, refining, and the trafficking of opium," he said. Taliban militants levy a tax on farmers and also provide protection for convoys smuggling opium into neighboring countries, Costa said. Some 3.3 million of Afghanistan's estimated 25 million people are now involved in producing opium, according to the report. Costa said there was a "tremendous amount of collusion" between traffickers and government officials. "The government's benign tolerance of corruption is undermining the future: no country has ever built prosperity on crime," Costa said in a summary of the report. While urging NATO to stay clear of eradication efforts, Costa said the link between the insurgency and the trade meant the alliance had a direct interest in supporting counternarcotics operations by destroying opium labs, targeting traffickers and closing opium markets. "The opium economy of Afghanistan can be bankrupted by blocking the two-way flow of imported chemicals and exported drugs," Costa said. "In both instances materials are being moved across the southern border and nobody seems to take notice," he said. Refiners need chemicals to turn opium into heroin. The report did not say how much of the opium gets made into heroin in Afghanistan before being smuggled out. Costa also urged Afghanistan's government to submit the names of about a dozen known traffickers whom he did not name to the U.N. Security Council for inclusion alongside al-Qaida and Taliban members on a list of individuals who are barred from traveling, have their assets seized and face extradition. "The Afghan opium situation looks grim, but it is not yet hopeless," Costa said. "It will take time, money and determination worthwhile investments to spare Afghanistan and the rest of the world more tragedies." Drugs "cancer" threatens Afghanistan's survival Reuters 08/27/2007 By Jon Hemming KABUL The Afghan government and its international backers must do much more to curb the "disastrous" record drug crop, which is like a cancer threatening the survival of the country, the United Nations' drugs control chief said. Afghanistan's opium crop has risen every year since U.S.-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban government in 2001 and another record crop was recorded in 2007, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) said on Monday. "The opium situation in Afghanistan is disastrous," UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told Reuters in an interview. "There is a cancer spreading throughout the body of Afghanistan." The Taliban insurgency is driving the surge, with drug production increasing in the south of the country where security is weakest, more than wiping out progress made in the more peaceful north and centre where opium cultivation has fallen. "It is the symbiosis, the inter-linkage between the cultivation of drugs on the one hand and the insurgency on the other which creates, I would say, the greatest difficulty and the greatest threat to the government of Afghanistan, even to the survival of the country as we have known it," Costa said. Since 2001, the international community, led by the United States, has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into halting poppy cultivation, heroin processing and trafficking abroad, but costly foreign contractors take the lion's share. "A large segment of that money is actually spent on processes, on consultants, mostly on Western enterprises," said Costa. "CORRUPT OFFICIALS" International donors had given nearly $100 million to the Afghan government for counter-narcotics operations, Costa said. But, he said, "that money has actually not even been spent because of bureaucratic inertia, delays, bickering among different ministries and so on." Only 2.5 percent of the fund had so far been used -- "an abysmal number which means there is probably about $97 million sitting around waiting". The huge profits from drugs -- worth some $3 billion a year to the Afghan economy -- have a corrupting influence on government and weaken the state's grip on parts of the country, helping the Taliban and further boosting drug production. "Certainly corruption has been a major factor facilitating the spread of this cancer," Costa said. "We are pleading with the government to clamp down on corrupt government officials ... We would welcome stronger measures against corrupt officials, their dismissals, their prosecutions, the recovery of assets." A U.N. Security Council resolution passed late last year allowed member states to add the names of drug traffickers to a list of al Qaeda and Taliban suspects in order to seize their assets, ban their travel and extradite them for prosecution. "So far no member state has submitted any name to the security council," Costa said. "We are pleading with names to be provided starting with the ones that the government of Afghanistan could provide," he said. "Some of them are walking around freely, perhaps in the palaces of Afghanistan, others are on the margins of the law." Foreign troops in Afghanistan also needed to be more active in detecting and destroying heroin laboratories and providing security to Afghan drug eradication forces, Costa said. "I believe that no military operation can be successful unless the drug trafficking is also dealt with." Failings in war on Afghan drugs BBC 08/27/2007 By Alastair Leithead The United Nations says opium production in Afghanistan has "soared to frightening record levels" with an increase on last year of more than a third. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime report says the amount of opium produced has doubled in the last two years, and that Helmand province is now the biggest single drug producing area in the world - surpassing whole countries. Despite billions of dollars of aid and tens of thousands of international troops, the 193,000 hectares of opium poppies grown in Afghanistan this year are now responsible for almost all the world's opiates, according to the UN report. "The results are very bad, terrifyingly bad," said Antonio Maria Costa, the head of UN Office on Drugs and Crime. Cultivation was at a historic level, he said, pointing out that the total yield was up 34% because the weather had made the poppies more productive. 'Serious picture' But despite the overall increase, twice as many provinces are now drug-free in northern and central Afghanistan, and the report says growing opium poppies is now closely linked to the insurgency and the instability in the south. The UN report links the Taleban to the increase in opiate production. The figures come as a major setback for British efforts to reduce the amount of opium poppies grown in Afghanistan - the raw materials for most of the UK and Europe's heroin. They are the lead nation fighting the war against drug growers and traffickers. The British ambassador, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, said: "It paints a very serious picture and we are deeply concerned. "The drugs problem is a symptom of a deeper disease and as we tackle instability, tackle disorder and the insurgency, we are facing some very big challenges on all those fronts, but as we tackle them we will see poppy production go down. "The overall conclusion is that there are no magic solutions, no silver bullets, and that this requires patience. As experience in Pakistan or Thailand shows, it takes 15 or 20 years to squeeze a cancer like this out of a society as debilitated as Afghanistan's is after 30 years of war," he said. The report recommends more determined efforts to bring security, urging the government to get tough on corruption which it says is driving the drugs trade. It lists poor governance, a weak judiciary and failing eradication programmes as contributing factors. For another year the eradication efforts were hampered not just by corruption in the national government, but also by corruption at local levels. 'Counter-drugs policy' Arguments have been put forward for a change of strategy - one campaign group is trying to pilot programmes to legalise drug production, and the American Ambassador, Bill Wood, believes aerial spraying could make a huge impact. "Yes, it's still my view," he said. "We all agree illicit narcotics are a cancer and as consulting physicians, some emphasise radiation therapy, some surgery. I'm a surgery man myself, but we all agree we have to cut the cancer out and we are committed to a much more robust effort this year. "Alternative livelihood for the farmers is one element, the second element is interdiction and the third is eradication. All three of those elements are necessary for a counter-drugs policy." And emphasis is being placed on the Afghan government to put its house in order and crack down on the drugs lords. The UN says it has given a list of names, and the British government has funded a high-security prison for the "Mr Bigs", but still there is little progress. The acting Minister for Counter Narcotics, General Khodaidad, says these targets will be pursued, but there is little evidence on the ground that this is happening, with some in the government alleged to have links with the traffickers, while the judiciary is still struggling to keep up. "Unfortunately we have failed," Gen Khodaidad said. "In security we have failed, in the drug issue we have failed. We have not done a good job in Helmand. This year we must change our strategy on how to work to handle security and tackle the poppy in Helmand province." Inside an Afghan opium market By Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Shaddle Bazaar, eastern Afghanistan Monday, 27 August 2007 Travelling on Afghanistan's main Jalalabad to Torkham road, you eventually arrive at Shaddle Bazaar, a market of around 30 shops in the eastern province of Nangarhar, on the border with Pakistan. At first glance, it looks like any other normal market offering everyday goods. But in reality, this is one of Afghanistan's biggest opium markets. Farmers from Nangarhar and other adjacent provinces bring opium to Shaddle to sell. Much of it comes from Nangarhar and Helmand - two of Afghanistan's biggest opium-producing provinces. Mud hut shop Thousands of kilos of opium are bought and sold every day. Sitting inside the shop tension between the drug dealers is visible - for a few minutes there is hot dispute and shouting over prices and the quality of the opium before the transaction is completed. There are big scales in the shop, and the assistant weighs the opium on it - Gul Mohammad is busy counting out Pakistani rupees to pay for the opium he has bought from one of his customers. In his mud hut shop he buys hundreds of kilos of opium every day and the smell of it is everywhere. Outside his shop vehicles come and go - green tea is served constantly for the visitors. But you do not have to study what is going on too closely to notice the unusual - a man carries a big bag full of hundreds of thousands of Afghanis. The dealers all carry pistols which they say is for their own protection. Customers enter the shop bringing opium packed secretly, which they refer to by its nickname as maal. They are constantly on the look-out for government informers. I am repeatedly asked not to take pictures of anyone's face, nor should I name anyone. The names of those involved in the drugs trade in this piece have been made up to protect their identity. "We could get killed or arrested," says one of the few people in the shop willing to talk to me. Europe bound Some villagers, like 18-year-old Abdullah Jan, have to walk for hours before reaching Shaddle. The tiredness on his face explains it all - if he is stopped by government agents or bandits he would lose money that feeds his family for the entire year. "I left at four in the morning and got here after four hours. I have brought 10kg of opium from my fields to sell." After a hard bargain with Gul Mohammad Khan, the opium dealer, he is getting the equivalent of $1,400 - more than he can get for any other crop. He is one of hundreds of people who travel to Shaddle bazaar to sell and buy opium. From here the opium is taken to the nearby mountains and villages in the border areas to heroin labs set up by local drug dealers, where it is processed into heroin. Eventually, it will hit the streets of Europe. The market first began to sell opium openly under the Taleban regime after they permitted the cultivation of poppies. After the fall of the Taleban in 2001, the market has been raided several times but it has re-opened again and again. In recent months, Afghanistan's elite anti-drug force has raided the bazaar with the help of foreign forces in the country - they made arrests and seized opium and heroin in large quantities. But they did not succeed in closing down the bazaar indefinitely. Last year, Afghanistan's poppy production reached record levels. The US state department's annual report on narcotics said the flourishing drugs trade was undermining the fight against the Taleban. Powerful mafia It warned of a possible increase in heroin overdoses in Europe and the Middle East as a result. Poppy production rose 25% in 2006, a figure US Assistant Secretary of State Ann Patterson described as alarming. Four years after the US and its British allies began combating poppy production, Afghanistan still accounts for 90% of the world's opium trade. The US has recently given the Afghan government more than $10bn in assistance, but most of the money will be spent on security rather than encouraging alternative sources of income. For 45-year-old Gul Mohammad Khan being a opium trader is his way of surviving. "If we had roads, clinics, factories and if there were job opportunities I would not do what I am doing now," he said. For the past 10 years Mr Mohammad has seen many regimes and local officials come and go. His shop has been raided many times but he has never been arrested. Inside, I am shown various qualities of opium and other raw material that are used to make heroin. Current prices are anywhere from 10,000 Afghanis ($201) for a kilo of dry opium - that is the best quality - to around 5,500 Afghanis ($110) for wet opium. Target traffickers According to officials, the mafia is powerful and strong. "They are so strong that we sometimes find ourselves outnumbered fighting them," says Gen Daud Daud, the deputy minister of interior in charge of counter narcotics. "In these mountains of Achin district and other border villages they have everything from heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades and of course better vehicles and more money than we do." Haji Deen Gul - who is selling 20kg of opium - is critical of the Afghan government and the international community for targeting the farmers. Instead he wants the traffickers to be targeted. "They should target the ones who are selling the heroin to Western countries. I sell my opium to feed my family and from my heroin they can even make medicine. When I have water and roads provided to me, I will stop growing poppies." Before I leave Gul Mohammad Khan's shop, he tells me selling opium is not ideally the trade he wants to be in. "I don't want my children to be in this trade and I hope that some day the world will help us. Only then can we stop the opium trade." Names of those mentioned in the article have been changed to protect their identities. UN alarmed as Afghan opium trade soars to new high KABUL, Aug 27 (Pajhwok Afghan News) Poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan have soared to new 'frightening highs' this year, the United Nations said in a bleak annual report here on Monday. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) pointed out in the 2007 Annual Opium Survey released at a news conference here, revealed much of the increase this year concentrated in the embattled south - notably in the Helmand province. UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa told newsmen the area under opium cultivation jumped to 193,000 hectares in 2007 from 165,000 last year. Similarly, the total opium harvest is expected to go up by more than a third to 8,200 tonnes from 6,100 tonnes in 2006. "The Afghan opium situation looks grim; it is not yet hopeless, nonetheless" remarked Costa, who stressed a more determined effort by the Karzai administration and the global fraternity to combat the twin threats of drugs and insurgency. Although Taliban enforced a strict ban on poppy cultivation towards the twilight of their regime, they are currently pocketing huge profits from the drugs trade, estimated at $3 billion a year. The Afghan opium accounts for more than 93 per cent of the world's illegal output, worrying the world body. According to the 21-page report, the area of land used for growing opium is now larger than the combined total under coca cultivation in Latin America - Colombia, Peru and Bolivia. No other country has produced narcotics on such a deadly scale since China in the 19th century. However, the survey pointed out, the number of opium-free provinces in the centre and north of the country more than doubled from six to 13 compared to 2006, indicating an intensification of markedly divergent trends between the north and south. As poppy cultivation declined from 7,200 hectares last year to zero in Balkh, 80 per cent of opium poppies were grown in a handful of southern provinces on the border with Pakistan, where instability is greatest. In volatile Helmand, where the Taliban insurgency is concentrated, cultivation rose 48 per cent to 102,770 hectares. The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) should more actively support counter-narcotics operations in the country, suggested Costa, who urged greater focus on the destruction of heroin labs, curbs on trafficking and rewards for the provinces where cultivation and production have come down. He went on argue: "Since drugs are funding insurgency, Afghanistan's military and its allies have a vested interest in destroying heroin labs, closing opium markets and bringing traffickers to justice. Tacit acceptance of opium trafficking is undermining stabilisation efforts." Helmand alone has emerged the world's largest source of illicit drugs, exceeding the output of whole countries like Colombia (coca), Morocco (cannabis) and Myanmar (opium). "It would be an historic mistake to let Afghanistan collapse under the blows of drugs and insurgency," warned Costa, who claimed: "Only 14 per cent of the population is involved in opium cultivation. The vast majority of Afghans want to turn their country away from drugs and crime. They deserve our support." In a brief chat on the occasion, Acting Counter-Narcotics Minister Gen. Khuda Dad promised they would announce at an upcoming national conference the names of governors and other officials, who have failed to control the increase in poppy cultivation and opium production. Reported by Zubair Babakarkhel Translated & edited by S. Mudassir Ali Shah