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Poppy Trade Blamed for Afghan Violence
EFL DARA NOOR, Afghanistan (AP) - A relief worker dies in an ambush on a blind curve up a steep mountain road. Around the bend is a poppy field, a prime suspect in a murder spree that's bogging down Afghanistan's rebuilding while its drug trade blooms. Aid groups are fleeing in terror. They blame much of their exodus from the southern third of the country on its $1.2 billion export drug crop, which purportedly finances Islamic extremist violence, ethnic blood feuds, warlord war chests, provincial property disputes and competing political movements. Don't worry, Rantburgers, the Guardian will get around to blaming us for all this. The agencies that monitor the pulse of conflict zones point to a rise in ambushes and execution-style slayings that coincide with the southeast's autumn harvest of the opium-producing flora, nature's gift to the world's heroin junkies. ``It's absolutely true that security is worse in places where people are growing poppies,'' said Diane Johnston, country director for Mercy Corps, which indefinitely suspended operations in the country last week. A member of the Omaha, Neb.-based group was killed Aug. 7. ``Narcoterrorism'' has become an increasingly entrenched factor in the violence that's meant to keep southern and eastern Afghanistan - the world's poppy belt - off-limits to outside assistance, said Paul Barker, country director for the charity CARE. ``The revenue from the poppy trade in Afghanistan is more than all the humanitarian aid combined,'' he said. In a sad way, this illustrates that trade always works better than NGO aid. Nations have committed roughly $500 million to rebuild this central Asian nation of dusty, gasp-inducing deserts and monolithic mountains. Poppy revenues brought in $1.2 billion last year, according to the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan. There are about 90 international relief groups operating in Afghanistan, but most have curtailed or avoided drilling wells, vaccinating children, and rebuilding school systems in the deadly southeast. Fred, it's about time we get a little of that $500 mil and start building the fence around Pashtunistan. I'll manage the US end from Chicago with my UN per diems mind you, and you'll be the on-site director. 'K? The September edition of CARE's policy brief - which other relief groups follow closely - said armed attacks on aid workers jumped from one a month to one every two days since September 2002. Half the country's 32 provinces - most in the south - are too risky to enter. ``There are all sorts of movements to keep Afghanistan unstable,'' Barker said. And now we know which provinces to enclose. Local authorities generally blame all violence on the extremist Taliban movement toppled from power by a U.S.-led force two years ago, but a confounding array of agendas are in play. ``It's impossible to separate out what's factional fighting, what's Taliban activity and what's drug trafficking,'' said Johnston. ``We haven't seen this type of targeting (of aid workers) in the 16 years we've been here.'' They were too busy killing each other and potting Russians before now. The violence has grown with the poppy production in Afghanistan, which produced 12 percent of the world's opium in 2001 and 76 percent last year. Good soil, decent drainage, lots of young toughs with nuttin' better to do than to guard the crop. Yasss, ideal for poppies. The fact that drug trafficking revenues have soared since the U.S. push into Afghanistan has put the Bush administration on the defensive. ``You ask what we're going to do and the answer is, `I don't really know,''' Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said recently. There's an honest answer. The impact the extremist militia had on opium production is in dispute. Though the Taliban stopped many farmers from growing the crop - some of whom were later killed by their financiers - there were numerous reports that no action was taken against people who bought, sold or stockpiled opium, said Mohammed Amirkhizi, the Afghan representative of the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime. Some skeptics argue the Taliban cut production to drive up heroin prices worldwide. However, at the time the U.N. drug control office in neighboring Pakistan said there was no evidence of stockpiling by the Taliban movement, though some commanders might be doing it. Amirkhizi said the country's transitional government mounted what it said was a successful attempt to eradicate opium production last year, but there's been no independent confirmation of results. Afghan officials in general play down the role of opium production in the country. But the Northern Alliance that fought the Taliban was known to have financed its forces with drug money. Drug money is always equal opportunity. Anti-Taliban warlords in the south, with the tacit approval of the U.S.-backed central government, last weekend sent a 220-man special operations force on an open-ended mission to go after Taliban command posts in Afghanistan. The fact that such militias frequently travel in civilian vehicles and wear robes over their camouflage fatigues has made the situation more dangerous for civilians working for humanitarian development agencies, CARE's Barker said. Since the war, the protective Western military presence in Kabul has doubled the population of the city to 3 million, said Maki Shinohara of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees. And thousands have begun returning to homes in the relatively secure north. But few will venture to the south or east. ``There is just no law and order,'' she said. ``It's the rule of the gun.'' Like always. Posted by: Steve White 2003-10-04 |
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