Pubdate: Tue, 22 Nov 2005
Source: BBC News (UK Web)
Copyright: 2005 BBC
Website: http://news.bbc.co.uk/
Author: Sarah Buckley
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

CENTRAL ASIA'S DEADLY CARGO

For more than a decade Central Asia has been a key conduit for the 
world's heroin, smuggled from Afghanistan to markets in Europe and Russia.

But now Central Asian governments face a new challenge - a rapid rise 
in heroin use by their own people.

According to the UN, drug abuse in the region has reached "alarming" levels.

Figures from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) point to a 
17-fold increase in opiate abuse between 1990 and 2002, as countries 
endured the upheavals of independence following the end of Soviet rule.

Drug users - mainly taking heroin - are now estimated to make up 
almost 1% of Central Asia's population, three times the rate in the 
rest of Asia.

And users are not only at risk from the drug.

"Seventy to 80% of new HIV cases are injecting drug users. It is the 
biggest threat for most governments, in terms of what this is doing 
to Central Asia," according to James Callahan, the UNODC 
representative in the region.

"Most experts feel if Central Asia doesn't get a handle on this, it 
can jump into the general population through sexual transmission," he said.

Tackling Traffickers

The most effective way to reduce heroin consumption in Central Asia 
would, of course, be to reduce the amount trafficked through the region.

But this is not easy given the region's location, its poverty, 
corruption and erratic relations between governments.

HEROIN SEIZURES 2003 (UN FIGURES)
Tajikistan - 5,600kg
Uzbekistan - 336kg
Kazakhstan - 707kg
Turkmenistan - 81kg
Kyrgyzstan - 105kg

Of the five Central Asian states, Tajikistan is seen by analysts as 
having the worst trafficking problem.

Measuring the trade is obviously difficult, and most of the available 
statistics are supplied by governments, which can have their own agendas.

But according to UN figures, Tajikistan - a country of 6.3m people, 
seized almost as much heroin in 2003 as Pakistan, home to 161m.

"If you see a nice car in Tajikistan, some say: 'I wonder how many 
kilos it cost?,'" said Svante Cornell at the Central Asia Caucasus Institute.

Tajikistan's drug trafficking problem partly stems from its poverty - 
exacerbated by civil war between 1992 and 1997 - and partly due to 
its topography. More than 90% of its land is mountainous and difficult to farm.

It also has a 1,344-km long, and inaccessible, border with 
Afghanistan, which is currently proving difficult to police.

Analysts say the Tajik guards, who took over full control of the 
border from Russia in August, are poorly trained and lack proper 
equipment, "all the way to socks and boots", said Michael Hall, 
director of the Central Asia programme at the International Crisis Group.

In some countries in the region, the trafficking problem is 
exacerbated - according to Mr Cornell and others - by high-level collusion.

"The circumstantial evidence [of this] is simply overwhelming," Mr 
Cornell said.

In Turkmenistan, a very secretive country which has refused to give 
any information on drugs to the UN in the last five years, the 
situation is unclear. But there is anecdotal evidence that it is 
involved in trafficking at the highest levels, Mr Cornell said.

Specialist success

Tajikistan's President Emomali Rakhmonov has said that trafficking 
should be stopped at its source, in Afghanistan, and has also 
complained that the international community has been slow to provide 
money and equipment to man the border.

Analysts say he has also shown some commitment to tackling 
trafficking, creating a dedicated central drugs control agency.

Gerald Moebius, the UNODC's field officer in Bishkek, said that 
having specialised drug enforcement structures had proved effective.

He said Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan both employed a central drugs 
control agency, while the other countries relied on police and 
security services.

Last year, Kyrgyzstan's agency was responsible for 60-70% of 
seizures, even though it only numbers 200 people, compared to 30,000 
staff in other law enforcement agencies, he said.

So what else can be done?

Mr Hall believes the focus needs to be on poverty alleviation programmes.

Tajikistan needs micro credit schemes, agricultural reform, and a 
banking system that can process remittances from relatives working in 
Russia and Kazakhstan, he said.

Mr Callahan said the UN was trying to promote the use of 
intelligence, so that it could target traffickers above the level of the mule.

He said that police forces in the region were "fairly militarised" 
and focus on a direct approach of stopping suspects and interrogating 
them. But the UN is pushing a system of gathering information on 
those intercepted - and putting information such as their phone 
records in a database for cross-referencing.

But in the long run, all these solutions are "band-aid approaches", 
according to Mr Hall.

"As long as there is demand for heroin in Europe and Russia, people 
will find a way to get it across," he said.
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