Abstract
In the last three years, since the U.S.-led toppling of the Taliban government, Afghanistan has reemerged as a major poppy producer. It may now be described as having a “narcoeconomy.” The country has hundreds of factories for manufacturing heroin, which it now supplies to different parts of the world via at least five land and/or water routes. Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah admitted the gravity of the situation at a press conference in Islamabad, Pakistan, on July 13.
A press release issued by the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy reports that poppy cultivation in Afghanistan doubled from 2002 to 2003, and now stands at a level 36 times higher than in the last year of Taliban rule. The rise in drug trafficking from Afghanistan has meant a new era of organized crime and an alarming increase in the number of drug addicts throughout the region. There are an estimated 4.5 million heroin addicts here in Pakistan, and many believe addiction is on the rise.
The Hamid Karzai government knows why it is failing to control narcotics. Afghanistan society is heavily armed, and much of the country is essentially lawless. Surprisingly favorable weather conditions have also contributed to the problem. Drug manufacturing has expanded to such an extent that the drug lords are now importing manpower from neighboring countries.
The drug business is not conducted in isolation; it is always coupled with the arms trade and organized crime. Afghanistan's countryside is ruled by warlords and an organized network of criminals. Without strong international support, Afghanistan will not escape the grip of these elements. The drug trade is subverting the task of nation building, including the establishment of a stable economy and a reliable political process.
For centuries, poppy has been cultivated in almost all of Afghanistan. Until the 1970s, though, only four provinces were truly famous for poppy–Badakhshan in the north, Helmand and Kandahar in the south, and Nangarhar to the east. But with the Soviet invasion of the 1970s, poppy production took off as civil war destroyed the social and economic infrastructure of the country. The Soviet army, the CIA, and warring Afghan factions all wanted money to meet their huge expenditures, and the drug business provided an easy supply. Heroin factories were established, chemicals imported, and workers trained. It is reported that chemists from Germany were the first to establish heroin-producing factories in the border areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
April 2004: Poppy grows in a field near Kandahar, Afghanistan.
Smuggling
To the east and southeast, Afghanistan has common borders with Pakistan and Iran. To the west and southwest, it borders on three Central Asian states–Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan. It also has a narrow border with China to the northeast. Although it is a landlocked country, this peculiar geography has made Afghanistan a very effective springboard for drug trafficking.
Most Afghan heroin is smuggled to markets in Europe and the United States. A new and favorite route to Europe is through the Central Asian states. One Asian route runs to Russia, where the demise of the communist regime has given birth to a number of criminal syndicates and mafias that partner with drug lords in the Afghan region. From Russia, the heroin is smuggled into both Eastern and Western Europe. Another Asian route ends in Turkey, another popular transit point to Central and Eastern Europe. Almost all of the yield taken from central and northern Afghanistan is smuggled out through these routes.
Iran has spent heavily in an effort to combat drug trafficking, but it remains an important smuggling route. Smugglers bring their own speedboats and small ships into Iranian seaports.
The oldest route for drug trafficking runs through Pakistan, and as a result Pakistani society has suffered a great deal. Eastern Afghan provinces use the Jalalabad-Peshawar road into Pakistan. Pakistani smugglers who use an aerial route from Islamabad and Lahore to Saudi Arabia and Europe also use this route. But strict measures at Pakistani and Saudi airports have been cutting into this trafficking method–big consignments are now more likely to be smuggled through Baluchistan, the Pakistani province bordering Afghanistan and Iran. Narcotics from southeastern Afghanistan are brought into the province and taken to the port of Karachi, where they are eventually shipped via the Arabian Sea.
Smugglers from different regions have created an informal worldwide organization. They have their own credible intelligence system and communication network. At the borders smugglers use satellite phones and coded e-mail. At the Pakistan-Iran border, they hire the services of nomads and shepherds, to whom they give long-range transmitters and satellite phones. Nomad families, who roam the border areas of Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan, are paid to keep a vigilant eye out for the movement of law enforcement. The smugglers are also reported to have a wide range of weapons, including anti-aircraft guns and rocket launchers.
The smugglers are also adept at slipping across borders. If Pakistani forces try to intercept them, they will sneak into Iranian territory. If the Iranian authorities are after them, they move inside Pakistan.
There is evidence of close cooperation between smugglers from different regions. When a consignment is to be smuggled from Afghanistan to Western Europe, the smugglers' European counterparts provide the Afghans with meticulously gathered information, including which airports have the weakest security measures, which customs staffs can be bribed, where safe land passage is available, and so on. They also keep each other informed of countermeasures being take by their respective governments.
It is ironic that while the smugglers have been using coordinated strategies to move drugs along for some time, neighboring countries have not effectively cooperated with each other. But now this situation is changing. A two-day U.N.-sponsored meeting held in Islamabad on July 6 brought together representatives from Pakistan, Iran, and Afghanistan. Pakistan and Iran had already signed a memorandum of understanding on working together to check narcotics smuggling in the region; Afghanistan was invited to attend for the first time. The three countries agreed to share drug-related information on a monthly basis. The idea of establishing a joint training program was also discussed. Earlier, on June 16, India and Pakistan had discussed the narcotics problem with particular attention to the smuggling of chemicals used in heroin production from India to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and the supply of heroin via Pakistan to various parts of India. China and Russia are also beginning to be involved in regional anti-narcotic activities.
The money
Although the price of heroin varies from time to time and place to place, there is a great deal of money to be made in the trade. The irony is that nearly all the money from the drug business goes to smugglers, dealers, and corrupt officials. Poppy farmers earn just enough to get by.
The success of the anti-narcotics effort will depend in part on increasing awareness among poppy farmers. To most of them, poppy is just a cash crop–they are not aware of the devastation caused by heroin and other drugs. It would be difficult to find a drug addict in the areas where poppy is planted. If one talks with farmers about the need to eradicate the poppy, they usually say, “For us it is not dangerous.”
The ability to control narcotics is closely linked to other law and order issues. Political and economic stability and a longer reach by the central government is the only solution. Taliban leader Mullah Omar was able to forbid poppy cultivation with a single order because he was in effective control of most of Afghanistan. Now, other measures–training and assistance in developing alternate cash crops, expansion of irrigation, and incentives for raising livestock–are as important as the formulation of new anti-narcotics laws.