U.N. says Afghanistan “addicted to its own opium”
May 24, 2006
NEW DELHI (Reuters) – Government officials, lawmakers and police were linked to the drug trade across Afghanistan, making the fight against opium cultivation difficult, the head of the U.N.’s Drug and Crime office said on Wednesday.
“Unfortunately, Afghanistan is addicted to its own opium,” Antonio Maria Costa, the Under-Secretary-General of the United Nations, said after addressing a seminar on drug use in India during a visit to New Delhi.
He said the drug trade had made deep inroads into Afghan society, underming efforts to control it in the world’s largest producer of illicit opium and heroin.
“It is also because members of the local administration, police officials…and even politicians and members of parliament benefit from the trafficking and that is rendering the process of reducing the cultivation much more difficult.”
Costa said all of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces were now affected by “the drug cultivation tragedy”.
The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) was seeing a “great amount” of poppy cultivation on Afghanistan’s southern and eastern borders with Pakistan and its northern frontiers with Central Asia, he added.
“The borders are not policed… and that is part of the problem,” he said.
There has been upsurge in fighting in Afghanistan and hundreds of people including 10 U.S. soldiers have been killed in the past few months in stepped up attacks by Islamist Taliban fighters.
American and Afghan officials say many Taliban and al Qaeda fighters were launching attacks from bases in Pakistan.
Afghan President Hamid Karzai said his country’s drug trade was partially funding the Taliban and al Qaeda.
The spike in fighting was underming anti-narcotic efforts, Costa said.
“No doubt, the instability in some of the southern provinces is making the process of eradication of cultivation more difficult.”
Afghanistan’s opium output last year was about 4,500 tonnes. About 90 percent of the world’s heroin comes from the war-wracked nation whose rugged mountain terrain and history of warlords make it perfect for production of the illegal drug.
Although there was a 21 percent fall in the land devoted to poppy growing in 2005, according to the U.N., the yield per hectare rose due to favourable weather, resulting in overall output dipping just 2.4 percent.
Experts say the threat of eradication is key in persuading farmers to stop growing poppies but Karzai has opposed using aircraft to spray fields with herbicide, fearing it would anger farmers and bolster support for the Taliban in the south.
