Pubdate: Fri, 08 Jun 2001
Source: Radio Free Europe
Copyright: 1995-2001 RFE/RL Inc.
Contact:  Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 1201 Connecticut Ave. NW 
Washington, DC 20036
Fax: (202)457-6992
Author: Jean-Christophe Peuch

CENTRAL ASIA: CHARGES LINK RUSSIAN MILITARY TO DRUG TRADE

Drug trafficking from war-torn Afghanistan through the former Soviet Union 
has dramatically increased over the past 20 years. UN-sponsored regional 
programs have so far been unable to stem the growth of narcotics-smuggling 
to Western Europe through Russia and the Central Asian states of 
Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan. A major 
factor in the huge expansion of the Afghan drug trade may be the alleged 
involvement of some of the Russian military stationed in Tajikistan. RFE/RL 
correspondent Jean-Christophe Peuch reviews the evidence in light of new 
accusations recently made by a former Russian military intelligence officer.

Prague, 8 June 2001 (RFE/RL) -- Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, 
Central Asia has emerged as a major international drug trafficking route 
linking some of the world's largest illicit opium producers to the most 
lucrative markets of Western Europe. Analyst say the amount of drugs moving 
along the ancient Silk Road has become a major threat to the entire region, 
and beyond.

Figures published last year by the United Nations Drug Control Program, or 
UNDCP, show that 80 percent of the heroin consumed in Western Europe 
originated in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and that one-half of these drugs 
traveled there through Central Asia.

The UNDCP estimated that in Afghanistan, some 91,000 hectares of opium 
poppy were cultivated in 1999. This represented an increase of more than 40 
percent compared to the previous year.

But last summer, Taliban leader Mullah Omar officially banned opium poppy 
cultivation in all areas controlled by the militia. UNDCP officials who 
recently visited Afghanistan say that the Taliban prohibition is nearly 
total, while opium poppies continue to grow in territory controlled by the 
Northern Alliance opposition forces.

The region's drug trade, however, continues to flourish. Geography, porous 
borders, organizational chaos, local conflicts, and wide-scale corruption 
are among the main factors that have contributed to the explosion of drug 
trafficking. The trafficking, in turn, has helped criminalize Central Asian 
economies.

Some regional experts also believe that the presence of a large Russian 
military presence in the area has played a significant role in the spread 
of illicit drug trafficking.

In a report published in March 2000, the Washington-based Carnegie 
Endowment for International Peace think tank cited allegations about 
Russian soldiers headquartered in the Tajik capital Dushanbe or deployed 
along the 1,200-km-long Tajik-Afghan border. Carnegie researchers Martha 
Olcott and Natalia Udalova said that Russian soldiers were suspected of 
helping drug traffickers by providing them with transport facilities.

Yesterday Olcott told our correspondent that as long ago as two years ago 
she heard stories implicating the Russian military in the regional drug 
trade when she attended an international seminar in the Kyrgyz capital Bishkek.

"We got plenty of hints [then] that the Russian military could be involved. 
But people were not willing to address the issue of whether this was with 
the overt participation of senior military officials in place or with the 
covert participation of them. There is no question in my mind that part of 
the Russian military has been a corrupting influence in Central Asia from 
the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Part of the Russian military 
has been engaged in the illegal sale of their own weapons. And part of the 
Russian military seems to have actively facilitated the sale of drugs."

In an interview published last week (dated 29 May) in the "Moscow News" 
("Moskovskie Novosti") weekly, former Russian military intelligence officer 
Anton Surikov charged that a substantial portion of the drugs produced in 
Afghanistan had been directly shipped from the Tajik capital Dushanbe on 
board Russian military planes, helicopters, and trains.

Surikov said: "You can come to an arrangement [with custom officials] so 
that the search of military transport planes remains purely formal. The 
same goes for train convoys carrying military cargo [to Russia from 
Tajikistan]."

According to his account, Afghan opium producers usually sold drugs to 
Tajik citizens who smuggled them into Tajikistan with the active complicity 
of Russian border guards. The drugs were then put on board military planes 
or trains en route to Russia, where they were sold to local criminal gangs.

Surikov, who now is an aide to the chairman of the Duma's committee on 
industrial policy, said he was posted to Tajikistan in 1993 after the start 
of the civil war that brought President Imomali Rakhmonov to power. He 
estimated the number of senior Russian officers involved in the Afghan drug 
trade to have been between 50 and 100.

In the past, similar allegations against Russian officers serving in 
Tajikistan have appeared in both Russian and Western media. But Surikov is 
the first former officer -- and the first official, either military or 
civilian -- to publicly charge collusion between some Russian high military 
officers and Afghan drug traders.

What prompted Surikov to talk to the press now is unclear.

"Moscow News" correspondent Sanobar Shermatova specializes in Central Asian 
affairs. Shermatova told RFE/RL's Tajik Service that she had met in the 
past with a number of Russian officers, who privately confirmed that some 
of their peers had been actively involved in the Afghan drug trade.

Shermatova says that even though the Russian high command is aware of the 
situation, it has failed to do anything to prevent corrupt officers from 
illegally shipping drugs to Russia.

"For me, it has always been an enigma. How could you explain that neither 
the Defense Ministry nor any other official body has ever taken any measure 
when they have very detailed information on what is going on along the 
[Tajik-]Afghan border?" UNDCP officials told our correspondent that they 
were not aware of any possible Russian involvement in the Afghan drug trade 
and that they could therefore "neither confirm nor deny" Surikov's accusations.

In Moscow, Russian authorities have not reacted to Surikov's charges. But a 
spokesman for the Russian border guards stationed in Tajikistan dismissed 
the accusations as "groundless."

At the same time, a high-ranking Tajik official has added fuel to the 
controversy by saying that both Russians and Tajiks control drug 
transportation routes to Western Europe. In an interview with RFE/RL's 
Tajik Service, the deputy head of Tajikistan's UN-sponsored Drug Control 
Agency, Sheravliyo Mirzoavliyoyev said:

"In the course of the emergency actions that we have conducted, many drug 
traffickers have been caught. Among them are not only Tajik citizens, but 
also citizens of other countries -- notably, citizens of Russia -- Russian 
border guards, Tajik border guards, police officials, and government 
officials."

In a debate broadcast on state television earlier this year (1 February), 
Tajik officials admitted that an unspecified number of officers of the 
Interior Ministry, the Customs Office, and even the Drug Control Agency had 
been arrested on charges of complicity with drug smugglers. The debate 
followed a Tajik government Security Council meeting, during which 
Rakhmonov reportedly criticized his law-enforcement agencies for failing to 
fight drug trafficking effectively.

Four months ago, the chairman of the Tajik state committee on border 
protection, Saidanvar Kamolov, said that law-enforcement agencies and 
border guards seized only one-tenth of the drugs smuggled across the 
Tajik-Afghan border last year.

UNDCP figures show that in recent years the five CIS Central Asian states 
together were responsible for only 15 percent of all regional seizures of 
Afghan drugs, while neighboring Iran made more than half (55 percent) of 
the seizures.

The five-year civil war (1992-97) in Tajikistan, one of the poorest former 
Soviet republics, contributed substantially to the explosion of the drug 
trade in Central Asia, with both warring sides turning to trafficking to 
finance their military campaigns.

The start of large-scale drug smuggling in the Central Asia region goes 
back to the early 1980s, when Soviet soldiers fighting in Afghanistan first 
established business relations with local heroin producers. In 1996, when 
the militantly Islamic Taliban wrested control of most of Afghanistan's 
territory from forces loyal to President Burhanuddin Rabbani, it inherited 
some efficient drug-production facilities and illegal trade routes.

In the early years of its rule, out of religious conviction, the Taliban 
banned the use of drugs by Afghans. But the militia permitted the export of 
drugs and taxed the annual opium harvest. Pakistani journalist Ahmed 
Rashid, who closely follows Taliban affairs, estimates that its revenues 
from taxes on opium trade have been at least $20 million a year.

With an opium output of 3,000 to 4,600 tons annually, Afghanistan had 
accounted for an estimated three-fourths of the world's heroin supply. But 
now the UNDCP believes Afghanistan will no longer be a major player in the 
global drug trade.

Some analysts are skeptical of the UNDCP's conclusions. They argue that the 
recent end of opium-poppy cultivation could simply be the result of the 
serious drought that hit the country last year. Others suggest that it may 
also be an attempt by the Taliban to artificially drive up the price of heroin.

Surikov says that in the past, 90 percent of the 300 to 460 tons of heroin 
produced annually in Afghanistan -- and funneled to Western markets with 
the help of the Russian military -- came from Taliban-controlled territory. 
As for heroin and other opium-poppy by-products that originated in areas 
controlled by the Northern Alliance, Surikov says they reached Western 
markets "through different channels."

Carnegie Endowment analyst Olcott believes it would be a mistake to see 
drug traffickers as tied to one group or another. She says: "I would try to 
see these [drug traders] as neutral because they will deal with whatever 
regime is in place in Afghanistan. This is a business that the civil war in 
Afghanistan helped promote, not the other way [around]."
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