Initial Results of Afghan Government Anti-Drug Campaign Are Positive - Report

Amid an upswing in violence in Afghanistan ahead of parliamentary elections, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has reported encouraging news on the Afghan government's efforts to curb narcotics production.

Clashes between security forces and Islamic militants have intensified in recent weeks, as Afghanistan prepares to hold long-anticipated parliamentary elections September 18. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. In early September, for example, a joint operation mounted by US and Afghan troops in southern Kandahar Province resulted in the deaths of 13 militants and the capture of 44 others.

In addition to the Islamic radical insurgency, drug cultivation and warlordism have been widely identified as the main obstacles to Afghanistan's stabilization. In 2004, the country was the source of 87 percent of world's heroin supply. The preliminary findings released August 29 by the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC) suggest that President Hamid Karzai's administration has made gains in combating the country's drug trade. An agency statement said that it anticipates a 21 percent decline in the area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, from 131,000 hectares in 2004 to 104,000 hectares this year. Heroin is derived from the opium paste that comes from poppies.

The report attributed the drop to several factors, including a government campaign to convince farmers not to grow poppies. It also cited tougher law enforcement, including a large-scale eradication campaign, along with an appeal made by clerics to avoid poppy cultivation. In addition, market forces played a role, as an existing glut of raw opium caused a significant decline in prices paid for new product, thus prompting farmers to explore other crop options.

While the area under poppy cultivation dropped sharply, the annual yield of raw opium showed only a marginal decline – from 4,200 tons in 2004 to an estimated 4,100 tons for this year. The more productive harvest is mainly attributable to the fact that 2005 has been far wetter in many parts of Afghanistan than 2004. Thus, one hectare of land produced 39 kilos of opium in 2005, up from 32 kilos per hectare last year. "Unfortunately while so many Afghan growers cooperated with the [Karzai] administration in 2005, nature did not," the UNODC statement said.

The statement emphasized that the gains made by the Karzai government are limited and tenuous. "These achievements are fragile and could be easily reversed in the course of a season," the UNODC maintained. The statement emphasized that a comprehensive report – the 2005 Afghan Opium Survey – will be released in the fall.

"Whether this year's decline will persist or even accelerate over the years will depend on the ability to stay the policy course, to address the corollaries to illicit drugs (corruption, etc) and to sustain development assistance," the statement said.

A survey of conditions in eastern Nangarhar Province, a major poppy-growing region in Afghanistan, confirms the UNODC's view that the cultivation situation is unstable. At the same time, there is no denying that the broad effort to discourage the drug trade produced stunningly good results in Nangarhar in 2005. According to the UNODC, Nangarhar experienced a 96 percent drop in the area under poppy cultivation in 2005 over the previous year. The vast majority of land used for opium production in 2004 was planted with grain and wheat this year. The province was the recipient of over $70 million in foreign aid aimed at promoting the development of alternative crops – the highest amount earmarked for any Afghan province.

Ghous Rasulzai, the director of the Afghan government's Counter-Narcotics Department for the Eastern Region, which includes Nangarhar Province, said stringent law-enforcement initiatives were essential in encouraging farmers to plant alternative crops. Rasulzai noted that a heavy US military presence in the area helped newly trained Afghan security forces curb opium production and trafficking. Overall, the United States allocated $780 million this year toward drug-eradication efforts in Afghanistan.

Many of Nangarhar's farmers remain nervous about the future, and are looking to the government for reassurance. One such farmer is Abdullah, who lives in the Surkhrud District. He said that his family had long harvested poppies, adding that in 2004 he even rented additional land to expand his opium output. He switched to wheat this year, going along with the government's program. It turned out relatively well for him, but he noted that if he had tried to cultivate wheat in 2004, amid a severe drought, he likely would have lost most of his crop, causing a financial catastrophe for his family. "They [officials] have decided to make it [alternative crop cultivation] work in Nangarhar, but cereals are not enough. ... With grain or wheat we are too dependent on water," Abdullah said.

The ensure that the amount of land under poppy cultivation continues to decline, a rapid and broad expansion in foreign assistance to encourage job creation and alternate crop cultivation is needed, said Hajj din Mohammad, Nangarhar's governor. "The province needs infrastructure investment for projects that would keep farmers employed for months, well beyond the harvest season. Roads and bridges are essential to get our [agricultural] products to market," the governor said in an interview with EurasiaNet.

The international community has pledged $500 million for fostering development and reconstruction in rural regions of Afghanistan for 2005-2006, according to UNODC. Though a substantial sum, it may not be sufficient to ensure that momentum for alternative crop cultivation is maintained.

Even with more funding, replicating Nangarhar Province's success on a national scale would appear to be difficult, if not impossible over the near term. Resistance to eradication efforts and alternative crop cultivation schemes has been fierce in some areas of southern Afghanistan, especially in Kandahar, a bastion of Islamic militancy and perhaps the country's chief center of opium production.

To win the struggle against narcotics cultivation and trafficking, the UNODC statement suggests that the international community will need to pay greater attention to anti-poverty initiatives. "The world will not condone counter-narcotic measures that result in humanitarian disasters," the UNODC statement said. "Food security and income generation programs must remain in place, to support both farmers' decisions not to [harvest opium], and enforcement measures to eradicate the [poppies] that are planted against the law."

Karzai's government additionally needs to adopt a tougher stance against corruption, the UNODC statement indicated. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. To build on the progress made in 2005, the UNODC is calling for the removal of all government officials "found to be involved, or to benefit from the drug industry." It also is urging that governors in provinces that do not show a significant decline in opium production be removed, and calls for "zero-tolerance" against warlords involved in drug cultivation and trafficking. ""Dismantling the opium economy in Afghanistan with the instruments of democracy, the rule of law and rural development, continues to be a very complex process," the UNODC statement said.