Pubdate: Mon, 20 Mar 2006 Source: St. Louis Post-Dispatch (MO) Copyright: 2006 St. Louis Post-Dispatch Contact: http://www.stltoday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/418 Author: Philip Dine, Post-Dispatch Washington Bureau Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) DRUGS IN AFGHANISTAN - PLAN MESHES INCENTIVES, PUNISHMENT Kabul, Afghanistan The world's biggest helicopter arrived recently at the airport in Kabul. It is an imposing, even fearsome sight, with its bulbous head and oversized propellers that seem to reach out forever before drooping down far from the aircraft. Guy Charlton spotted it first, and his shouts stirred a planeload of bone-weary State Department and U.S. Embassy officials stretched out under blankets and jackets as they returned from a visit to the volatile Kandahar region. The United States hopes the Russian-made Halo helicopter will be key to saving Afghanistan from becoming, once again, a failed state and a terrorist haven. Charlton, senior aviation adviser at the U.S. Embassy, has leased the helicopter -at $9,000 an hour - to move men around the country so they can destroy the poppy fields that are subverting Afghanistan's fledgling democracy through the corruption, violence and illicit profits spawned by the trade in opium and heroin produced from the poppies. The Cold War-vintage MI-26 Halo can ferry 80 anti-drug troops and carry vehicles. It provides Afghan eradication troops with speed, safety and flexibility - each critical in a country whose roads are in disrepair, are under insurgent attack or don't reach remote areas. But will the offensive against drugs prove too little, too late? Until the last year or two, the United States did relatively little to combat the burgeoning poppy problem because it was focused on securing the country and building democracy. The irony is that the narcotics trafficking that was allowed to flourish now poses a severe threat to that very security and democracy. The $2.8 billion drug trade compares with a legitimate Afghan economy of $4.6 billion. Seated in his office at the new and highly fortified U.S. Embassy in Kabul, U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann says the drug trade has put Afghanistan at a crossroads. "It jeopardizes the ability to build a modern democratic government that Afghanistan has resolved to build. It is not possible to build democratic institutions on the base of large amounts of drug money," Neumann says. "Last year," he candidly acknowledges, "was not a success by any means. Afghan efforts jelled late in the growing season. Our own policies were a bit late. Our money came late. As a result, there are a whole lot of changes going into this growing season. So this year is the first real test of the policy." The strategy The new official in charge of the anti-drug effort is Tom Schweich, a wiry and energetic man of 45. A graduate of Clayton High School, Yale University and Harvard Law School, he spent 19 years with St. Louis' biggest law firm, Bryan Cave. Schweich has done three separate stints with former Sen. John C. Danforth, R- Mo., most recently as chief of staff when Danforth was ambassador to the United Nations. Three months ago, he was named to a senior post at the State Department's Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, where he coordinates an anti-narcotics Afghan policy that's two parts carrot, three parts stick. It's carried out in large measure by Afghans with help from Americans, while other countries assist in specific areas - Germany, for instance, in police training, Italy in legal reform. The enticements involve informing Afghan citizens about how heroin violates Islam's tenets while damaging their health; and offering alternative livelihoods to farmers who stop growing poppies. Each strategy bumps into inconvenient realities on the ground. A switch to legitimate crops means a steep drop in income for farmers. And touting anti-drug fatwahs - religious edicts - by Afghan clerics is countered by Taliban insurgents who argue that not growing poppy plays into the hands of anti-Islamic Western forces. As a result, the three punitive components - eradication, interdiction and prosecution - are key. Going to Helmand The poppy farmers are just now getting their first taste of the new Afghan Eradication Force. The 600-strong unit had assembled outside Lashkar Gah in Helmand province for the past couple of weeks and this weekend began swooping down on the fields. Normally divided into several teams, the force was combined because Helmand, on the border of Pakistan, is particularly dangerous and critically important. Heroin traffickers and insurgents have burned schools and clinics there and attacked local police. After the crew completed the long trek down from Kabul, it waited for supply lines to be set up and local political approval to be obtained before heading for the fields. "It's very important for me, because Afghanistan is known all over the world for drugs. This is a bad name for the people of Afghanistan," said Sayed Meskeen Wafakish, a commander who was seated in a tent as his men milled outside, brandishing their guns. "If we clean this up, we will be known as a good place. We are not stopping, because this (drug-dealing) is shameful action." Because the poppy plants are still small, the eradication forces will use tractors to wreck them; as the crop grows taller and more brittle, it is destroyed by hand. Aerial spraying, which would offend many Afghans by recalling the Soviet bombardment of the 1980s, won't be used. Crops that survive face interdiction efforts aided by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, which involve snagging opium or heroin as it's being transported. Success in this area left Charlie Warren, a retired state trooper from Milwaukee serving here as a security consultant, exuberant at 4 a.m. recently. He had just learned that border police had arrested five Afghan traffickers in Herat, close to Iran, as they transported 22 pounds of raw opium. "We had a training session on searching in rice bags two days ago," Warren shared, "and now they found opium in a rice bag. They're eating up this training. Everybody's pretty excited about locating contraband drugs now. They see others getting kudos, they get jealous of each other, so there's a little competition going on." Alternatives Afghans aren't shy about seeking more help. Helmand Gov. Engineer Daud recently said that the U.S. Agency for International Development had just approved his plan to provide jobs for 6,000 small farmers to wean them from poppy crops, but that he needed $8 million to offer job opportunities for others in his drug-plagued province. Schweich listened without making a commitment, later privately praising Daud: "He's trying to do things like no one ever has before." An evening earlier, Kandahar Gov. Asadullah Khalid urged U.S. diplomats to increase his funding to destroy poppies in his province while getting farmers' fruit to market. He detailed his efforts to curb suicide bombings and improve highway safety, while persuading mullahs and village councils to oppose drugs. Recently, he said, his forces arrested three highway police officers transporting 170 pounds of heroin. At his rented house in Kabul, Khalid made his plea while plying his guests with an Afghan feast that featured a huge ceramic platter of the local pilaf - basmati rice yellowed by saffron, chopped fruit and large chunks of lamb - followed by milk pudding with pistachios. U.S. officials said they would consider his request. Local authorities are being repaid for eradication efforts only after results are actually demonstrated and receipts for expenditures are verified. Afghan officials walk a thin line between coaxing poppy farmers to turning to something new and rewarding them for their illicit past. The trick, says Mohammad Nabi Hussaini, director of the Afghan poppy elimination program, is to offer economic opportunities without directly favoring former poppy growers. The government is currently, for example, pondering raising the price of surplus wheat. Afghan justice The plan's final element is to bring drug traffickers to justice while deterring others from illicit behavior, by establishing functional court systems long lacking in Afghanistan. But building up Afghanistan's legal system runs into historical and cultural obstacles. Italian diplomat Jolanda Brunetti Goetz describes her role as helping Afghans improve their legal system "without scrapping traditional Afghan tribal customs and provincial systems." "They're suspicious," she admits. "We are not Muslim, and maybe we want to impose our rules, our traditions." Unlike many developing countries, Afghanistan was not colonized and therefore wasn't left with a French or British or other legal system. It has a judicial patchwork borrowed from Egyptian, Turkish, French, Italian and other traditions - and even that essentially collapsed during 23 years of war. Moreover, only 15 percent of Afghan justice is dispensed by courts, with the rest administered by consensus through village councils of elders. Goetz says more attention should be devoted to this second path, which helped hold the country together in recent decades. But because notions of justice used in these local forums are so ancient, she's trying to persuade Afghans to substitute rulings based on the Quran, which she said is "more advanced." Prospects for success Clues as to whether Afghanistan can avoid slipping into narco-state status are likely to emerge by the fall as the size of the crop and the effectiveness of the U.S.-Afghan offensive come into focus. In the long run, other factors may well prove decisive: NOTE BULLETS Reducing corruption. Many Afghan officials are secretly engaged in the drug business or susceptible to being bribed. Afghan legal sources say privately that evidence collected over the past year against prominent provincial officials and police chiefs will spur indictments within a month or two - weeding out bad apples while sending a broader message that there is no future in narcotics. Improving the economy. Without better job prospects for Afghanis, any inroads against drugs may prove temporary. Reducing demand. Heroin production wouldn't be growing without rising demand. Many Afghans believe that consuming nations should do more to curb the appetite within their borders. "Where there is demand, there is supply, there is an offer," says Kahir Ismailee, an Afghan human rights and education activist. Patience and perseverance. U.S. Ambassador Neumann hopes modestly for "a piece of progress one year, a piece of progress the next year." One vexing problem is that enough opium has been hidden around Afghanistan that even if not a single new poppy plant were grown, processors and traffickers have enough to stay busy for years. "This will not be resolved in 10 years," says Doug Wankel, who heads the Counter Narcotics Task Force at the U.S. Embassy. "What I'd like to see is the pendulum swing, so people say this is a new Afghanistan." - --- MAP posted-by: Derek