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Some UN and US counter-narcotics agencies are fueling corruption,
the spread of deadly diseases, and widespread poverty in Central
Asia and Afghanistan, according to panelists at the June 13
Eurasia Policy Forum. They called for urgent re-evaluation
of programs, echoing one of the principal recommendations
of the UN Office of Internal Oversight Services, released
in its June report.
The Forum featured:
Dr. Lubin is the President of JNA Associates, Inc., a research
and consulting firm that works on assessments and projects
concerning the NIS, especially Central Asia. She has lived,
worked and traveled throughout Central Asia and the Caucasus
for over twenty-five years -- as a Congressional staffer,
University Professor, and now for JNA -- and consults for
international donors, the media, major corporations and start-up
companies. She is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations,
the Board of Trustees of the Eurasia Foundation, the Board
of Advisors of the OSI Central Eurasia Project, and other
organizations. She one of the first Westerners to conduct
doctoral research in Soviet Central Asia, where she worked
for one year at Tashkent State University, Uzbekistan (1978-79).
Antony White served from 1997-2000 as Chief of the Supply
Reduction and Law Enforcement Section of the United Nations
International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), in Vienna, Austria,
holding responsibility for drug law enforcement, alternative
development, data collection and analysis and, for a period,
the United Nations Global Programme Against Money Laundering.
During this time, much of his work related to Afghanistan,
where sound alternative development measures are seen as central
to efforts to reduce illicit opium poppy cultivation, and
to Central Asia, where the strengthening of drug interdiction
capacities has been a major priority. Prior to joining UNDCP,
he was for thirty years a police officer in the United Kingdom,
serving as a senior Scotland Yard detective for much of this
time and holding leading positions in a number of national
drug law enforcement agencies. He will shortly move to Prague
to take up a position as advisor to the Czech Government on
measures to counter money laundering and other financial crimes.
Following are excerpts from Mr. White's contribution to the
forum.
Mr. Burkard is an internationally acclaimed photojournalist,
currently working for the German magazine Stern. He
has exhibited in many world capitals and is the recipient
of several World Press awards and the Journalism Award from
the International Center for Photography. Mr. Burkard worked
for more than ten years for German Geo magazine and
has spent the last ten years accredited in Moscow for Stern,
during which time he and correspondent Katja Gloger broke
stories on the Russian mafia, KGB files, environmental degradation,
and abuses within the military and police. His experience
covering Central Asian drug issues dates from his coverage
of Operation "Mak" in Tajikistan in 1989. Since then, he has
traveled extensively in the region . His latest exposé,
on drug trafficking along the Tajik-Afghan border, appeared
in the February 22, 2001, issue of Stern.
Mr. McClean is the Director of the New York Office of the
United Nations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention
(UNODCCP). He was previously Head of the UNDCP Regional Office
in Bangkok and responsible for promoting regional cooperation
on drug control between Cambodia, China, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand
and Vietnam. Before that, he worked for the British Government
in London, New Delhi and Bangkok.
Peter Reuter is Professor in the School of Public Affairs
and in the Department of Criminology at the University of
Maryland. He is currently also Senior Fellow at RAND and Visiting
Scholar at the Urban Institute. In July 1999, he became editor
of the Journal of Policy Analysis and Management. From
1981 to 1993 he was a Senior Economist in the Washington office
of the RAND Corporation. He founded and directed RAND’s Drug
Policy Research Center from 1989-1993. Dr. Reuter is a member
of the National Research Council Committee on Law and Justice
and served on the Institute of Medicine Committee on the Federal
Regulation of Methadone (1992-1994) and the IOM panel on Assessing
the Scientific Base for Reducing Tobacco-Related Harm. He
has served as a consultant to numerous US government agencies
and to foreign organizations including the United Nations
Drug Control Program. His work is focusing increasingly on
Central Asia and Afghanistan.
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