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| Afghanistan | |
| Karzai 'impeding Afghan drug war' | |
| 2008-07-24 | |
| Afghan President Hamid Karzai is obstructing efforts to tackle his country's drugs problem, says a former US narcotics official. Ex-US state department expert Thomas Schweich said Mr Karzai had protected drug lords for political reasons. In an article for the New York Times, he claimed "narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government". President Karzai has denied the claims, saying his government was succeeding in the field of counter-narcotics. "Nobody has done as well as us in the last seven years of in the field of counter-narcotics," he told reporters. He said his government had eradicated or greatly reduced drug production in more than half of the country's provinces. In his article, in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday, Mr Schweich also wrote that the Pentagon and the British military saw poppy eradication as a problem to be tackled later, once the Taleban had been defeated. Afghanistan's lucrative poppy crop supplies more than 90% of the world's illicit opium, the main ingredient of heroin, and is a valuable source of funds for the Taleban. Mr Schweich backed earlier claims that Nato and US military commanders had been reluctant to get involved in fighting drugs, fearing that destroying farmers' crops would alienate tribesmen and increase support for the insurgents.
But Mr Karzai denied his supporters were involved in smuggling. "I don't blame Afghans for drugs smuggling. They may do it due to helplessness and there may be only a few of them," he told reporters. "The rest are all members of the international drug mafia - it's they who benefit from this business," he said. Mr Schweich also accused the US defence department and military commanders from its Nato ally Britain of obstructing attempts to eradicate the opium crop. He wrote: "Some of our Nato allies have resisted the anti-opium offensive, as has our own Defense Department, which tends to see counter-narcotics as other people's business to be settled once the war-fighting is over." Mr Schweich claimed Britain had urged Mr Karzai to reject a US state department plan to stamp out poppy cultivation. "Although Britain's foreign office strongly backed anti-narcotics efforts (with the exception of aerial eradication), the British military were even more hostile to the anti-drug mission than the US military," he wrote. "British forces - centered in Helmand - actually issued leaflets and bought radio advertisements telling the local criminals that the British military was not part of the anti-poppy effort." The claims come as Mr Karzai prepares to run for another term in office in next year's Afghan presidential elections. Mr Schweich wrote: "Karzai was playing us like a fiddle. The US would spend billions of dollars on infrastructure development; the US and its allies would fight the Taliban; Karzai's friends could get richer off the drug trade; he could blame the West for his problems; and in 2009 he would be elected to a new term." The United Nations says that enough opium was produced last year in Afghanistan to make more than 880 tonnes of heroin with a street value of $4bn ($2bn). A British Foreign Office spokesman said: "Drugs pose a threat to the future of Afghanistan, and the UK is one of the leaders in international efforts to combat the narcotics trade. We are committed for the long haul in this challenging endeavour, through a two-pronged approach, to tackle both supply and demand. "Britain and the rest of the international community will continue to do everything we can to support the Afghan government fight the narcotics trade, and promote Afghan development." No comment was forthcoming from the state department despite a request by the BBC News website. | |
| Posted by:anonymous5089 |