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| UN Ignores The Seeds of Disaster |
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Posted by FoM on June 17, 2001 at 08:36:20 PT By Peter Beaumont, Foreign Affairs Editor Source: The Observer 
It is Harvest time in the Helmand Valley. The farmers of Afghanistan should now be picking the pale pink opium poppies for processing. But the impoverished field workers - who have no other source of income in a country racked by years of war and now devastated by drought - are idle. Fields that, according to the United Nations, last year provided three-quarters of the world's supply of heroin have not been planted this year on the orders of the Taliban, the Islamic fundamentalists who control 95% of the country. The result is that Afghanistan, which last year produced 3,200 tonnes of opium, will probably produce barely 200 tonnes this year. Experts in the drug trade describe the decision not to plant the fields for this year's harvest as an 'historic event', unparalleled in the illegal narcotics business. They also believe the Taliban's unilateral decision, far from being a cause for celebration, may have set the scene for the next disaster in the troubled international 'war on drugs'. Already, say monitors of the UN Drugs Control Programme, prices for raw opium inside Afghanistan have risen at the farm gate from £25 to £250 a kilo. Similar inflation is seen in neighbouring countries in Central Asia. They warn that in the longer term the Taliban's decision will make the planting of the opium poppy more attractive to farmers in other areas. Although the UN and other agencies have evidence that the Taliban have strategic stockpiles of the drug - believed to be between 200 and 300 tonnes, including 150 tonnes on the border with Tajikistan - intelligence officers with Britain's Customs and Excise are convinced the production of opiates in Afghanistan has been substantially curtailed. 'We do believe that the supply has been reduced this year,' said a spokesman for Customs last week. 'But it is too early to say what impact that will have on prices and supply.' The immediate impact of the Taliban's moratorium was underlined last week by the head of the UN Drugs Control Programme, Pino Arlacchi, who believed it was impossible for other producers of opium - such as Burma, Colombia, Iran and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia - to make up the deficit in the illegal trade in opiate-based narcotics. He predicted that opium and heroin prices internationally would rise by up to seven times, after having fallen sharply for a decade. What is worrying analysts is how long the Taliban will continue to prohibit the growing of poppies, faced with international indifference to its gesture. 'The reduction is probably the most dramatic event in the history of illegal drug markets, not only in scale but also in the fact that it was done domestically, without international assistance,' said Frederick Starr, of the Central Asia Institute at Johns Hopkins University in Washington. Starr believes the banning of opium production by the Taliban has been catastrophically mishandled by the UN and the international community. 'For years UN delegations have been wandering through Kabul telling the Taliban that cultivating opium was bad and that they should stop it. They talked to the Taliban about aid packages of up to £180m if they would do it, but no agreement was ever signed. By the UN's own estimation the Taliban were making no more than £18m from taxing the trade that at most was worth £107m. But the Taliban felt there was a deal in the air and they were expecting a quid pro quo for stopping opium production. 'What has happened instead is that since their declaration there has been no aid. Worse than that, new sanctions were introduced against them in December. What we can expect to happen next is for the other countries in the region to quickly take up the slack in opium production. And if the Taliban are not getting anything in return, they are not going to sit by while others corner the trade.' The net result - according to Starr and other analysts - may be an increase in global opium production. 'There has been an absolute deficit of leadership on this, particularly from Europe, the main consumer, and the UN. 'The issue is simple. The international community has got to persuade the Taliban that it is supporting them in this effort. That requires setting minimum standards for recognising the Taliban and for giving aid to the people of Afghanistan. The real cynics say this is just about getting the price of opium up by turning off the supply in the short term. Personally I don't buy that. 'The Taliban are doing this because they have been led to believe they will be rewarded if they stop the production of opium. Instead, since their declaration last year that they would stop the planting the reverse has happened.' Dr Jonathan Cave, an expert in the economics of the drugs trade who works with both the Rand Corporation, the US think-tank, and Warwick University, believes Europe may suffer unpleasant consequences from its failure to plan for an expected shortfall in heroin supply. One predicted result is an increased demand for cocaine from hundreds of thousands of non-injecting heroin users who graduated from cocaine. Another, said Cave, is an upsurge in violent crime among suppliers and processors competing for smaller supplies of a more valuable resource. 'You can be sure the criminals are responding to the new situation in the market, but no one among the white hats is even responding.' This was reiterated by Arlacchi. 'Even if in the long term this reduction of supply is a major success,' he told the New York Times last week, 'it will be sustainable only with a parallel reduction in the demand in the industrial countries.' Note: Failure to back Afghan rulers could actually boost the heroin trade. Source: Observer, The (UK) Related Articles: Iran's Drug War: Terrorized Villagers Taliban Do What 'Just Say No' Could Not Taliban Poppy-Growing Ban Will Measure Afghan Fear CannabisNews Articles - Taliban Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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| Comment #3 posted by Sudaca on June 18, 2001 at 09:14:23 PT |
| There we go , the perfect solution. How can Arlacci praise the Talibans? How can people be so blind as to ignore all these people have done to Afghanistan in the name of slowing poppy production? What they're asking for is tantamount to sending millions in aid of the OPEC every time it cuts production. ALl they need to do is to claim they're doing it to save the environment. [ Post Comment ] |
| Comment #2 posted by dddd on June 17, 2001 at 12:50:21 PT |
| ..another scam and a sham.....First off,the U.N. is pretty much a useless,corrupt puppet organization....Where is the U.N. when it comes to Colombia?.......This trashy report is just another bit of gossipaganda to condition the masses for more spending,aid, or intervention.......things are going downhill the world over.
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| Comment #1 posted by rebinator on June 17, 2001 at 10:07:55 PT |
| Interesting how the author of this piece deftly refutes the suggestion that a corrupt government is somehow trying to gain economic success (by monopolizing the heroin trade by legislating its competitors out of business) with the words "Personally, I don't buy that." Cynicism is a derisive word to describe those who point out [ Post Comment ] |
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