Afghanistan - Policy Takes Aim At Drug Smuggling

[chillinwill]

KABUL -- The product is hidden in transport trucks, hauled on the back of donkeys and finally spirited through villages that straddle Afghanistan's northern border.

Being part of the world's largest heroin industry certainly has its benefits but the work, says one Afghan drug smuggler, is no walk in the park.

To move narcotics from Afghanistan's Pashtun belt -- where Canadian troops operate -- to Tajikistan, smugglers risk arrest by the police, theft at the hands of other criminals, or worse, says the Kabul-based courier, who asked not to be named.

"First, you sign your death certificate, then you start working," the smuggler said in a recent interview, as he nervously chain smoked. "People are hungry. They will kill you if they know you carry a big amount of money."

Such traffickers may soon have another danger to worry about, too. A new NATO policy would see troops from Canada and other countries play a bigger role in combating Afghanistan's massive heroin trade, effectively ending the alliance's standoff approach to the issue.

The idea is that NATO soldiers would go after narcotics operations when there is some indication they are tied to the insurgency.

A graphic illustration of that link came earlier this week in the south of Kandahar province. U.S. and Afghan troops were searching an area known for its insurgent activity when they stumbled on a drug factory and almost 40 tonnes of hashish.

Last month, American police charged a Kandahar-based man with conspiracy to traffic drugs to support terrorism, alleging that he had financed the Taliban.

"The government of Afghanistan has been saying for the last two years that NATO has to be involved in ( drug ) operations on the ground," said Zalmai Aszali, a spokesman for Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter-narcotics.

"The bullet coming out of the barrel of the AK-47 of the insurgents is being financed by drug traffickers."

Much has been made lately of the reduced poppy harvest this year, but Afghanistan still produces more than 90 per cent of the world's heroin, and NATO estimates that $50 million to $200 million of the proceeds flow to the insurgents annually. Millions more feed the corruption that eats away at the weak Afghan government.

Although the Americans and British are independently involved in the drug war, the alliance as a whole has shied away from it, with members at odds over thorny issues like poppy eradication.

But they agreed last month to begin more aggressively combating drug smugglers and factories -- although not farmers -- if a link to the insurgency is shown.

Aszali said the government would like Canadian and other international troops to attack the fast-moving drug convoys, which often use late-model SUVs that can outrun the police.

Protection for the anti-narcotics police as they crack down on heroin operations would also be appreciated, since more than 70 of them have died in clashes with the heavily armed cartels, he said. Also, satellite and other technology used by NATO could aid in uncovering the secret routes smugglers use to get drugs out of Afghanistan and pre-cursor chemicals in, said the official.

Authorities believe that convoys smuggle out huge quantities of heroin - -- several metric tonnes at a time, said Christina Oguz, head of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. She said she welcomes NATO involvement in tackling the problem.

"It's not possible to draw a watertight line between narcotics and the insurgents. Sometimes, they are the same people," she said in an interview. "You can't say 'First, we take the insurgents, then we take the narcotics.' "

Canada, for one, is concerned about the strong link between the two and the insurgent violence that results, said Jamie Christoff, a spokesman for the Canadian government in Kandahar.

It has already committed to spend $27 million on "alternative livelihoods" for farmers and is contributing $30 million to the UN drugs office in Afghanistan.

But how the new NATO agreement will affect troops on the ground is still being hammered out, Canadian and alliance officials say.

Under the previous rules, NATO forces could attack civilians involved in the heroin industry to aid "force protection," in other words if the troops were threatened directly by the drug gangs, said Brig.-Gen. Richard Blanchette, a spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force, the alliance's Afghan mission.

Under the new rules, they can get involved based on a less-definitive connection between heroin gangs and insurgents, he said.

"If there is a link but it's on the line ... in some cases, we would now be allowed to take action," he said.

Author: Tom Blackwell, Canwest News Service
Pubdate: Fri, 07 Nov 2008
Source: Regina Leader-Post (CN SN)
Copyright: 2008 The Leader-Post Ltd.
http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v08/n1010/a04.html?1042

[silenius]

Originally Posted by chillinwill

It has already committed to spend $27 million on "alternative livelihoods" for farmers and is contributing $30 million to the UN drugs office in Afghanistan.

I'm not starting to question where they got their data from.. but what exactly do they want to do with 27$ million for a whole country? pay flights & hotels for Monsanto so that they can figure out which of their sterile genetically modified crop they'll buy from the rest of the money?

If somebody has a pointer to documents outlining real plans/action proposals, I'd be grateful.