|
U.N.: Record Afghan Drug Cultivation
FISNIK ABRASHI
AP
Monday Aug 27, 2007
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghan opium poppy cultivation exploded
to a record high this year, with the multibillion-dollar trade
fueled by Taliban militants and corrupt officials in President
Hamid Karzai's government, a U.N. report said Monday.
Afghanistan has opium growing on 477,000 acres of land, a 17
percent increase from last year's record 408,000 acres, according
to an annual survey by the United Nations Office of Drugs and
Crime.
"The situation is dramatic and getting worse by the day,"
said Antonio Maria Costa, the UNODC's executive director.
The country now accounts for 93 percent of the global production
of opium, the raw material for heroin, and has doubled its output
since two years ago, the report said.
(Article continues below)
"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 report casts doubt on the effectiveness of efforts 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 track to produce 9,000 tons of opium this year,
up 34 percent from 6,724 tons in 2006, Costa said.
The farm value of Afghanistan's annual crop is about $1 billion,
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 province has exploded to unprecedented
levels.
The southern province of Helmand alone, with 253,944 acres under
cultivation, now accounts for more than half of the national total.
"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 involved in producing the 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.
Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's acting counternarcotics minister,
acknowledged that the counternarcotics strategy has failed in
the country's south and west, which he blamed on bad local officials,
poor policing, failure in eradication and 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 needs to review its strategy at an upcoming national
conference Wednesday. He said inefficient and corrupt local officials
should be threatened with dismissal and those who curbed the production
and trade should be rewarded.
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 identify
-- 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."
|
INFOWARS:
BECAUSE THERE'S A WAR ON FOR YOUR MIND
|
|
