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AFGHANISTAN: UN Group Wants NATO Support Against Opium Poppy

Sanjay Suri

LONDON, Jun 3 2005 (IPS) - The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime is calling for NATO support to provide the security needed for cutting down on poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

The call comes as the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) launches a renewed effort to support the Afghan government in containing corruption that is proving fertile soil for cultivation of poppies, which are used to make opium and heroin.

UNODC executive director Antonio Maria Costa visited Afghanistan this week to discuss new measures with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and with UN officials working in Afghanistan to contain the country’s expanding poppy crops.

Afghanistan is the leading producer of the heroin that is being smuggled into Western Europe and North America in increasing amounts in a trade worth billions of dollars.

UNODC has encouraged Afghan authorities to focus on the destruction of clandestine laboratories, the arrests and extradition of major traffickers, the training of the judiciary, and the removal of corrupt officials, which Costa said were ”necessary prerequisites to opium elimination.”

At the same time UNODC is calling for large-scale rural development programmes in an effort to eliminate poppy cultivation.

But in order to provide the security to make both approaches possible, Costa says the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) must play a more prominent role. ”The Afghan society is a prisoner of a past where every warlord is still a law unto himself and many officials are corrupt,” said Costa. ”In addition to eradicating drug crops, the Afghan government has to impose the rule of law.”

Costa visited Afghanistan following recent reports that eradication efforts in Afghanistan are insufficient. Poverty in the countryside has become a conducive environment for cultivation of poppy, a crop that finds ready buyers for good money.

The big money in heroin smuggling is with the drug dealers, but for many poor farmers across Afghanistan, their poppy fields are their only source of income. Afghanistan is by far the world’s largest producer of heroin, with Burma a distant second place.

There has been some success in provinces where ”people have bought into the new vision of democracy,” UNODC spokeswoman Kathleen Millar told IPS from the agency’s head office in Vienna. ”Life has changed in Kabul and some cities but in the outlying regions people haven’t got the message clearly.”

These regions have old mechanisms in place where ”tribal leaders and warlords are working with farmers,” Millar said. ”Afghanistan has never been governed in a centralised way; power has been shared by leaders of various provinces. Changes will not happen overnight.”

Such a situation leads to ”corruption and unrest, and it becomes hard for assistance providers to get in because of the security situation,” Millar said.

While in Afghanistan, Costa held talks with President Karzai and also minister of counter narcotics, Habibullah Qaderi, minister of interior Ali Ahmad Jalali, and with deputy minister of interior for counter narcotic affairs, Gen. Mohammad Daud.

The UN representative and the Afghan leaders looked at the progress made by farmers who have voluntarily abstained from drug cultivation, and the support offered by village elders and provincial authorities.

”Farmers are the weakest link in the chain,” Costa said in a statement in Kabul. ”Poverty renders them vulnerable and therefore the plea for a better life has to be addressed. Eradication can be counterproductive to a fledgling democracy if there are no economic alternatives available to farmers.”

Costa specifically stressed the need to focus on the larger problem of crime and corruption in Afghanistan, the ”universe in which drug cultivation and trafficking play a significant and dangerous role.”

International networks can support this move out of poverty and the corruption that goes with it, Costa said.

The UNODC is the custodian of the UN Convention against Transnational Organised Crime and the UN Convention against Corruption. Both conventions stress the need for member states to assist developing nations in the reinstitution of the rule of law and in building strong criminal justice systems.

”Farmers are driven by poverty; traffickers are driven by greed,” Costa said. UNODC has therefore recommended a twin approach to tackling both sides of the problem.