POLITICS: Afghanistan Takes On the Enemy Within

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Mar 23 2005 (IPS) - A major drive has begun to counter the alarming spread of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, deputy counter narcotics minister Dawood Daoud told IPS in an interview Wednesday.

A Counter Narcotics Implementation Plan launched in December last year immediately after the election of President Hamid Karzai has led to seizure of 130 tonnes of narcotics, destruction of 90 laboratories producing drugs, and 395 arrests, Daoud said.

It is not clear just how small a beginning this is. There are no estimates of the extent of land under poppy cultivation, and what fraction of this has been neutralised since the launch of the counter narcotics plan, Daoud said.

“We have never had a verification process,” he said. “That has begun now; we set up 15 teams 20 days ago to begin that process. They will be providing an assessment later this year.”

The teams could have a long way to go in assessing the scale of the problem. Daoud said that 60 percent of national income amounting to an estimated 2.8 billion dollars a year comes from narcotics production and sales. In Afghanistan narcotics production means principally the cultivation of poppy to produce heroin.

Daoud, who was in Britain to attend a conference on ‘Drug Abuse – How can it be reduced?’ admits it will not be easy to wipe out this level of production or to tackle the firmly entrenched drug lords behind the cultivation, processing and smuggling of narcotics.

“There can be no doubt that big traffickers and smugglers were supporting the Taleban,” he said. “And naturally these traffickers do not want the central government to stand on its feet. Because when it does, it will be able to tackle, chase and arrest these people.”

Daoud acknowledged also that there could be links between traffickers and terrorists. “Our biggest security problems are in these areas of poppy cultivation.”

Poppy cultivation and the consequent production of heroin has increased since the fall of the Taleban, he said, because “the newly established government was very young, and when it came into power all institutions including economic and cultural institutions had been totally destroyed.”

In its first days, he said, the new government began by giving priority to providing security and to rebuilding the country’s institutions like the army and police. There was no effective means of countering the narcotics problem. Effective action is now following the setting up of the counter narcotics force following the December meeting, he said.

The government will still be unable to handle this problem without finding alternative income for farmers engaged in poppy cultivation, Daoud said. “And for that, we need international support.”

Britain and the United States have taken the lead in drumming up international support for Afghanistan’s counter narcotics operations.

Britain has set up a special unit within the Foreign Office to focus delivery of its efforts. Britain has reasons to be concerned; use of heroin has been rising, and 95 percent of the heroin that finds its way to the streets of Britain is believed to originate in Afghanistan.

Karzai launched the 2005 counter narcotics implementation plan in Kabul on Feb. 16 during the visit of foreign secretary Jack Straw.

“The foreign secretary and the development secretary have mounted a substantial lobbying campaign to encourage international partners to support the (counter narcotics) plan,” foreign office minister Bill Rammell said in a statement in Parliament last month.

The plan sets out activity in several areas: building institutions, an information campaign, provision of alternative livelihoods, law enforcement and criminal justice, eradication, demand reduction and treatment of addicts, and regional cooperation.