June 26, 2007
Taliban Makes Afghanistan
Global Drug Centre: UN
New Delhi
There is strong evidence that narcotics trafficking in Afghanistan
is linked to the Taliban insurgency, according to Gary Lewis, the UN
Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) representative for South Asia.
"The drugs from Afghanistan travel to foreign destinations across
regions controlled by scores of warlords, insurgents who are often
affiliated with the Taliban and Al Qaeda as well as extremists from
Central Asia and Pakistan," Lewis told IANS in an e-mail interview.
Around 92 percent of the world's heroin comes from poppies grown in
Afghanistan, Lewis said.
"Opium production in Afghanistan rose almost 60 percent in 2006.
Even more worryingly, our preliminary survey in February 2007
suggested that opium cultivation in Afghanistan this year may not be
lower than the record harvest of 165,000 hectares in 2006."
According to Lewis, Helmand province in southern Afghanistan,
severely threatened by insurgency, was becoming the world's biggest
drug supplier, with illicit cultivation larger than in the rest of
the country put together and even more than entire nations such as
Myanmar and Colombia.
"Effective surgery on Helmand's drug and insurgency cancer will rid
the world of the most dangerous source of its most dangerous
narcotic and go a long way in bringing security to the region."
UNODC estimates that opium exports from Afghanistan increased by 68
percent in 2006 while morphine and heroin exports increased by 32
percent. Lewis said that about 80 percent of the opium was estimated
to flow through Pakistan and Iran.
The Afghan government, the UN and other agencies have made a far
more intense effort to eradicate opium cultivation in 2007, compared
to 2006. "However, the resistance to eradication is much more severe
compared to 2006," Lewis said.
Even when it comes to hosting illegal heroin distillation
laboratories, Afghanistan leads the region, he pointed out. "Afghan
traffickers trade in all forms of opiates, including semi-refined
morphine base and refined heroin.
"An increasing share of Afghanistan's opium is refined into morphine
base and heroin in Afghanistan itself. Helmand is also the most
significant province in terms of heroin processing and trafficking."
Compared to Afghanistan, Lewis was far happier with the situation in
the area of opium cultivation in Southeast Asia known as the Golden
Triangle. Here, there was an 85 percent fall in the area under
cultivation from 1998 to 2006, he said.
"This is an immense success. The largest reduction took place in
Myanmar. However, Myanmar still is the second largest opium poppy
grower in the world after Afghanistan."
With the reduction of opium cultivation in this region, opiates are
now being smuggled into China from Afghanistan, Lewis warned. "The
new trafficking routes from Afghanistan via Pakistan and Central
Asia to China are a potential growth area that will need more
careful monitoring."
But in the Golden Triangle area, Lewis was worried about production
of the synthetic drug methamphetamine in Myanmar. "The production is
concentrated in the Shan state, which borders China and Thailand,
and is produced mainly for export to those countries.
"The strongest growth is currently in the methamphetamine destined
for the Chinese market. In 2006, the Chinese authorities reported 55
percent of their total methamphetamine seizures as having taken
place in Yunnan province bordering Myanmar. This showed a
significant increase from the 18 percent in 2002."
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