Opium Production Up in Afghanistan
The UN Office on Drugs and Crime has published its annual report on opium production in Afghanistan, which indicates that Afghan peasants are breaking records for opium production, in spite of the efforts of the United States, NATO and administration of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to stop them. According to the report, which was more pessimistic than experts had expected, only China in the middle of the 19th century produced more narcotics than Afghanistan does today.
UN experts established that 90 percent of the opium on the world market comes from Afghanistan. Poppy plantations expanded in area by 17 percent in the last year, from 165,000 ha. to 193,000 ha., and the harvest increased by 34 percent, from 6100 tons to 8200 tons. Proceeds from the harvest were also record-breaking at $3 billion.
The UN report noted that opium production in the government-controlled north is falling steadily and accounts for only 20 percent of the total. The remained comes from the southern provinces that border on Pakistan, exactly where NATO is active fighting the Taliban. The Taliban was much more effective in fighting opium production. In 2000, when Mullah Omar declared opium production against the tenets of Islam, production fell from 3270 tons to 185 tons. Then the Taliban lost the support of the drug barons and tribes that make their livings from the drug trade, which contributed to the victory of the Northern Alliance and its American allies.
The Taliban seems unwilling to repeat that mistake. The center of narcotics production in Afghanistan is the Helmand province, where the area of poppy production has increased 48 percent to 103,000 ha. That province's opium output is greater than that of such countries as Colombia, Burma and Morocco. Local peasants are happy to support the Taliban there, since they receive much more at market for opium poppies than they would for any other agricultural product. Opium can also be stored for 20-20 years.
The U.S. plans to spend about $100 million to aid the residents of Helmand, to counteract the influence of local drug lords. The UN sees that as a mistake, however. The peasants are likely to invest their windfall in increasing their poppy crops.
www.kommersant.com
All the Article in Russian as of Aug. 29, 2007
|
