Pubdate: Sun, 18 Apr 2004
Source: Sun News (Myrtle Beach, SC)
Copyright: 2004 Sun Publishing Co.
Contact:  http://www.myrtlebeachonline.com/mld/sunnews/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/987
Note: apparent 150 word limit on LTEs
Author: Malcolm Garcia, Washington Bureau

HEROIN TRADE IN FULL BLOOM FOR AFGHAN POPPY FARMERS

JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Some of the Afghan warlords the United States has 
recruited to help fight Al Qaeda and the Taliban are directing 
Afghanistan's flourishing opium trade and threatening the country's 
fragile, U.S.-backed central government.

The U.S. strategy in Afghanistan has allowed some local commanders to use 
profits from drug trafficking to fund their armies and amass power under 
the umbrella of the Bush administration's war against terrorism.

U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai offers pronouncements against 
drugs coupled with vows to eradicate poppies that he doesn't have the 
strength to enforce.

"I think we have to broaden the definition of terrorist to include 
warlords," said Adam Bouloukos, deputy representative with the U.N. Office 
on Drugs and Crime in Kabul. "You have Al Qaeda and the Taliban and then 
this whole range of other characters who are just as destructive because 
they are trying to undermine the political process and they are well-armed."

This year's bumper crop of poppies, from which opium and heroin are made, 
shows that although the U.S.-led military coalition ousted the hard-line 
Taliban administration from power almost three years ago, it's had a harder 
time creating a political climate that might prevent the terrorists from 
returning.

Farmers desperately need foreign aid to help make the transition to 
profitable legal employment, where there are real opportunities.

A study by the aid organization German Agro Action, for instance, found 
that rose oil commands about the same market value as opium. A farmer can 
earn $600 to $1,000 per kilogram (about 2.2 pounds) of opium, compared with 
$1 per kilogram of rice or wheat.

But with the United States and its coalition partners increasingly 
preoccupied with trying to restore order and arrange a political transition 
in Iraq, Karzai isn't likely to get more money or support from Washington.

Some observers fear a repeat of what happened in the 1990s, when the United 
States walked away from Afghanistan after the Soviet Union withdrew its 
occupying army and the warlords' excesses contributed to the rise of the 
puritanical and repressive Taliban.

Poppies are now being grown in 28 out of 32 Afghan provinces, said Sayed 
Ghulfran, director of the Narcotic Control and Rehabilitation of 
Afghanistan, a Jalalabad-based agency sponsored by the United Nations that 
works with farmers. This year's crop is expected to yield 3,600 tons of 
opium, about 75 percent of the world's heroin. Last year, about 3,400 tons 
of opium was produced.

The United Nations has concluded that the combined income of poppy farmers 
and smugglers last year was about $2 billion, half of Afghanistan's total 
economy.

"An economy that is half illegal poses huge problems," Ghulfran said. "It's 
an economy that is not taxed. It's impossible to imagine and leads to all 
kinds of corruption. Warlords have armies of thousands of men. How do they 
pay for this?"

The obvious answer is the opium trade. 
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MAP posted-by: Keith Brilhart