Pubdate: Sun, 02 Dec 2001
Source: Observer, The (UK)
Copyright: 2001 The Observer
Contact:  http://www.observer.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/315
Author: Mark Galeotti
Note: Dr Mark Galeotti is Director of the Organised Russian & Eurasian 
Crime Research Unit at Keele University.

BUSINESS AS USUAL FOR AFGHAN DRUGS

Afghanistan is likely to retain a central role in the global drugs trade, 
argues Mark Galeotti in this World Today essay. But even a miracle of 
western statecraft would only lead to Afghanistan's impoverished neighbours 
seizing a greater share of this lucrative trade.

Afghanistan's central role in the global narcotics trade will outlast bin 
Laden and the Taliban. A powerful and flexible network of traffickers, 
traders, producers and processors operates across factional, ethnic and 
national borders with virtual impunity, and will play a key role in shaping 
the post-intervention order. But the impact on the streets of Europe and 
the global drugs market is likely to be minimal. Afghanistan provides 
three-quarters of the world's opiates - the basis for heroin. Production 
doubled through the 1990s thanks to a malign combination of poverty and 
lawlessness, suitable local climate, a central location and, above all, 
local figures and factions that eagerly embraced its economic opportunities.

Opium is grown freely in the countryside and gathered by farmers who sell 
it to factories employed by, or paying off, the local warlord. It passes or 
is sold on through anything up to a dozen different pairs of hands, as 
stocks are consolidated into large shipments, which are then moved either 
northwards through Central Asia or westwards via Iran. In the past two to 
three years Afghanistan became not only a source of opium base but also a 
centre for processing it into heroin. This refined form is much more 
profitable, and more compact and thus easier to smuggle.

The Taliban made much of a campaign against opium production and 
trafficking at the end of last year and indeed managed to eliminate the 
majority of production in the areas under their control before lifting 
prohibitions to raise funds when military action began. While the 
restrictions drove up opium and heroin prices, there were no shortages in 
the global market. Afghanistan's neighbours reported that the flow of 
opiates out of the country only grew.

Partly this reflected the loose control of any Afghan government as many 
semi-autonomous local groups who owed the Taliban notional allegiance 
simply continued as before. But it also reflected a switch from fresh to 
stockpiled opium. The UN has estimated that as much as sixty percent of 
production may have been stockpiled each year since 1996, both as insurance 
and also to keep prices high.

Active Alliance

The Northern Alliance and other anti-Taliban factions - especially ethnic 
Pashtun groups in the east of the country - are whole-heartedly involved in 
the trade. Indeed, if anything the Northern Alliance has been more closely 
associated with narcotics than the Taliban.

The Taliban regime largely confined itself to taking a ten to twenty 
percent levy on opium harvests, heroin production, and drug shipments, 
earning it a minimum of $40-45 million annually. By contrast, the Northern 
Alliance - or at least key figures in it - have actively engaged in the 
production, sale and trafficking of opium for factional and personal gain. 
Unofficial estimates from the Tajik authorities suggested that supplies 
this year have been fairly evenly split between the Northern Alliance and 
the Taliban, even though the Taliban controlled four times as much land 
before November.

The situation is unlikely to change dramatically. Indeed, if anything it 
may worsen. The post-Taliban government will presumably be pressured by the 
west to combat the trade, but again it will have to hold together a 
coalition of local warlords unwilling to renounce the profits it provides. 
Any effective campaign would require a massive and sustained infusion of 
foreign aid, coupled with strong and equally sustained political will on 
the part of the new regime. There is little reason to expect either.

Regional competition

But even a successful clampdown in Afghanistan would not end the region's 
role in the global drug business. This is a huge economic opportunity: the 
farm gate price alone for Afghan opium is almost $300 million; the total 
value of the national crop to warlords and traffickers is in excess of a 
billion dollars. The majority of opium stockpiles in Afghanistan have been 
shifted into northern Pakistan and, especially, the Central Asian states of 
Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakstan. Not only are they substantial, but it 
would be relatively straightforward to expand production in regions of 
neighbouring countries in which state control is minimal and where drugs 
are already produced. Northern Pakistan is perhaps the least congenial new 
host, as although state control here is often weak, there are a tacit 
series of understandings between the central government and local authority 
figures, which any major expansion of drug production would break. The 
Pakistan government does have formidable powers and an extensive and 
relatively effective security apparatus to deploy if necessary.

Much the same is true of eastern Iran, an area increasingly favoured for 
stockpiling drugs bound eventually for Europe, but in which major 
cultivation is not feasible. There are even suggestions that opium is being 
grown in China's unruly eastern province of Xinjiang, some reports blaming 
corrupt army commanders, others Muslim radicals. However, the isolation of 
the region and Beijing's determination to maintain control over it will 
prevent any major expansion of drug production.

Migrating North

It is therefore far more likely that major drug production would migrate 
northwards, into Central Asia. These are countries with high levels of 
corruption at both central and local level, while state authority is 
relatively ineffective. Economic and climatic conditions are suitable, with 
large impoverished rural populations happy to adapt to crops bringing 
better returns. The UN estimates that eighty percent of the population of 
Tajikistan lives below the poverty line, for example, with monthly incomes 
of less than $10.

In such circumstances, it is hardly surprising that the production of 
marijuana, opium and ephedra - the precursor chemical for amphetamines - is 
already widespread in such regions as Syrhandarya (southern Uzbekistan), 
the Chu Valley (Kazakstan) and Gorny Badakhshan (Tajikistan). Besides 
which, the area has already become an increasingly important transit point 
for Afghan opiates, accounting for perhaps half the total outflow. Thus, 
not only are the trafficking routes already in place, but so too are the 
local structures to handle operations, from corrupt politicians, police and 
customs officers to gangs controlling transport firms and railway stations.

The Central Asian states have not yet become major centres for producing or 
processing drugs for export, but this is essentially a product of market 
forces, as Afghanistan was already a cheap, secure source. The military 
campaign and political settlement are very unlikely to have more than a 
minor impact on this. However, even if, by some miracle of statecraft and 
consensus-building, the western allies do manage to create or support a 
regime able and willing to wean Afghanistan away from the drugs business, 
the states of post-Soviet Central Asia appear admirably placed to be its 
successors.
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