Pubdate: Mon, 7 Jul 2008
Source: Post, The (Pakistan)
Copyright: 2008 The Post
Contact:  http://thepost.com.pk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/4587
Author: Farhat Akram
Note: The writer works as Assistant Research Officer, Islamabad 
Policy Research Institute (IPRI)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/opium
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/area/Afghanistan

OPIUM FLOWERS

Whilst the world was celebrating World Anti-Narcotics Day on June 27 
by organising seminars and conferences with loud woes of resolve to 
end the menace, in the south of Helmand province of Afghanistan Gul 
Bibi (18) was being sold to the local land owner as a 'opium bride' 
by her father for just a few thousand dollars. Her father was 
indebted to a land owner with a promise to repay at the harvest time. 
With the opium eradication drive by the government and allied forces, 
his field was also destroyed, leaving him nothing to pay back the 
loan. Opium flowers would continue to grow and multiply, till the 
spring of poverty, violation of human rights and deterioration of 
socio-economic situation of the natives would complete its interval 
in Afghanistan.

Despite the fact that there is forecast for a 'shockingly high' 
harvest for 2008 according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and 
Crime (UNODC), anguish of the natives is magnifying without light at 
the end of the tunnel. Weak governance structures and corruption has 
led these menaces to stand larger than life in this 'land of unruly'. 
Instead of providing relief to the people, the state has started 
slipping back to a point zero and moving towards a point of no return 
as the contemporary trends reflects. Much blame lies with Karzai's 
'democratic' government, which has done little to put an end to such 
practices and provide alternatives to the natives and try to win 
hearts and minds of people.

Afghanistan is in a flux today with ranking the world's poorest of 
all countries - it ranks near the bottom of the UN's human 
development index (174th out of 178 countries). It is also ranked the 
lowest on the human poverty index, is the largest exporter of the 
illicit drugs, reaching an estimated street value of $ 60 billion. 
According to the latest UNODC survey some of 3.3 million Afghans 
(14.3 percent of the population) are involved in opium cultivation. 
This does not include over 500,000 labourers and an unknown number of 
traffickers, warlords and officials. Poppies are grown just over four 
percent of Afghanistan's arable land, the value of illicit drug 
income is huge, equalling over 52 percent of the country's legal GDP 
in 2002 (compared with 24.4 percent for Burma/Myanmar and three 
percent for Colombia).

A careful analysis of the available data shows that the government's 
GDP ratio is lowest to the illicit opium income production. What is 
much worst and disturbing is that opium production trend is not only 
upward but outward. Hence this has not only regional but global 
implications as well. As one observer once notes, "It is cheaper to 
engage in illegal activity in Afghanistan than almost anywhere in the 
world. However, Iraq is catching up. Having first followed 
Afghanistan's lead in becoming a trans-national terrorism, Iraq is 
now starting to produce poppies." An estimated of 500,000 Afghan 
families support themselves by raising poppies, according to UNODC. 
Last year, those growers received an estimated $ 1 billion for their 
crops - about $ 2,000 per household. With at least six members in the 
average family, opium growers' per capita income is rough $ 300. The 
real profits go to the traffickers; their Taliban allies and the 
crooked officials' who facilitate these 'merchant! s of death' to 
operate with liberty.

It is also very significant to understand the effects of narcotics 
trade and convergence of Afghanistan into a failed state as both are 
interlinked with weak governance, corruption, shaky state building 
efforts, fragile development, unstable security and counter 
insurgency efforts by the allied forces. One expert refers that if 
there would not be narcotics there would not be any of the Taliban. 
However, narcotics and its trade is not the only one reason for the 
state of chaos in Afghanistan today. It is a combination of multiple 
causes and major among all is that weak state structure and Karzai 
government's failure to expand its control beyond certain regions. 
Karzai must realise that spitting venom for the state hosting 
millions of Afghan refugees for years would not serve the purpose, 
but he must put his own house in order.

In order to remove the menace from the very root, it is also very 
significant for Afghanistan to create the alternative livelihoods for 
farmers and people who are earlier generating their income from the 
narco-trade and money. This has been part of the national counter 
narcotics strategy which includes incentive scheme known as the 'Good 
performance fund' set up to reward villages for moving away from 
opium. Creating better infrastructure facilities like better 
irrigation system, transport infrastructures to those farmers, who 
grow other crops would do some good. Measurement of these sorts are 
necessary because other crops often face pitfalls such as the absence 
of distributors, inadequate domestic demands are few of the 
impediments that were causing the weak implementation of the counter 
narcotics strategy in the state.

Despite billions of dollars in foreign investment - the international 
community pledged an additional $ 20 billion at a donor conference in 
June - the coalition forces in Afghanistan and its government have 
failed to win over the people they are trying to protect. This means 
Afghanistan's gains since the fall of the Taliban are fragile and are 
threatened by the insurgency, which continues to rage in the south. 
The government is weak, and there is little rule of law - local 
police is seen as scarcely more than 'uniformed thieves'. Opium 
traffickers have a firm grip on the agricultural production of the 
province, providing credit, seeds and fertiliser to farmers, who have 
no other recourse than to grow the raw material for heroin - which in 
turn finances the insurgency.

Afghanistan's rise as the major factor in contribution to the world's 
illicit drug production is largely seen as a failure of the US 
policies for the country. After the removal of the Taliban regime in 
2001, the drug eradication drive has largely been failed. A major 
obstacle in getting rid of opium production is the lack of 
coordination among law enforcement agencies operated upon by the US 
and its allies and the local warlords, whose major source of power 
lies with holding opium cultivatable land. Without much of the 
incentives for the farmers and workers has added of woes of the 
locals, thus created a larger factor resulting in the rise of the 
militancy and insurgency in the country.

Helmand is the biggest opium-producing region in the world and it is 
home to a Pashtun population that has historically resisted 
centralised rule. It is, says Chris Alexander, the UN's deputy 
special representative in Afghanistan, "the place where the 
challenges that used to be nationwide have been swept like dead 
leaves into a pile." There is a need for much broader and 
comprehensive counter narcotics approach that could eradicate the 
menace and provide the relief to the ordinary Afghan, who expects 
removal of crimes and dawn of the substantial security and 
development to the land. This requires much of the efforts from 
within society and the government while multifaceted policy of the 
international actors requires much of the effort. If we all fail to 
deliver, then it would tell little about Afghanistan but much about the world.
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake