Are US allies growing poppy?

The News, April 3, 2005
Capital Suggestion
Are US allies growing poppy?
Dr Farrukh Saleem

Taliban-ruled Afghanistan had 4,163 acres planted with poppies. Under General John Abizaid, 510,766 acres in Afghanistan are being used for poppy cultivation (both figures from the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy). The Taliban produced 40 metric tons of opium, or the equivalent of five metric tons of heroin. Under the Commander-in-Chief of U.S. Central Command, Afghanistan produces 5,000 metric tons of opium, or the equivalent of 600 metric tons of heroin.

In 2001, Afghanistan’s entire heroin stock was worth $600 million on the streets of Frankfurt and Rotterdam. Last year’s crop could fetch upwards of $50 billion on the same streets (roughly two-third of Pakistan’s annual GDP).

Afghanistan has six neighbours; Pakistan, Tajikistan, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and China. Of the six, the Pak-Afghan border — at 2,430 km — is the longest and the most porous. According to Major-General Nadeem Ahmed, DG Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), some "70 percent of the narcotics manufactured in Afghanistan [are] either smuggled to, or transited through Pakistan."

Poppy is cultivated across the border in Afghanistan but most labs are at the border on Pakistani territory. The ‘Opium Expressway’ has three corridors: The Southern Corridor of the ‘Golden Crescent’ is through Islamabad, Sialkot, Sukkur, Karachi and into the Arabian Sea (there is a fork that goes into India). The Western Corridor takes a route between Tehran and Esfahan and further West or through Turkey and into Europe. The Northern Corridor is into Turkmenistan and through the Caspian Sea.

In 1979, Pakistan had a near zero heroin-addict population. Our current annual consumption is estimated at 100 metric tons with a million chronic heroin addicts (some estimates have up to three million drug addicts). The price at Rs50 a gram is cheap; our rate of addiction is double that of the U.S. and most Pakistani addicts are between the ages of 20 and 35.

General Tommy Franks, General Abizaid’s predecessor, recruited every Afghan warlord he could rent, bigger ones at up to a million dollars a month. The warlords took Tommy’s dollars, bought more guns, increased the size of their militia and brought more territory under their control. They took the dollars, fought the Taliban and then went for even more dollars by growing tons of poppies on territory under their control. Most CIA human assets in Afghanistan also went into the business of sowing seeds. America’s ‘war on drugs’ became subordinated to her ‘war on terrorism’ and what we have is a record high opium production (America’s budget for the ‘war on drugs’ is $19 billion while Congressional Budget Office’s estimate for the ‘war on terrorism’ falls in the neighbourhood of $200 billion).

Afghanistan’s heroin is the purest there is and it remains Afghanistan’s alternative currency. Warlords, farmers and traders all store heroin as others around the globe stash money in the bank. If the world produces a thousand metric tons of pure heroin at least 600 metric tons of that is produced in Afghanistan and some 400 metric tons of that passes through Pakistan. That’s the equivalent of Euro 30 billion (European retail price) worth of product passing through Pakistan (our annual GDP is roughly Euro 60 billion).

Not too long ago, two tons of heroin hidden in footballs was seized in Sialkot. And residential land in Islamabad is now more expensive than Beverley Hills. Is there a connection between the record high opium production across the border and Islamabad prices going through the roof?

Hamid Karzai may be the president of Kabul but drug barons closely allied to American forces are the real rulers of Afghanistan. Is Afghanistan about to become a narco-state? Why should General John Abizaid worry? The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (a component of the Executive Office of the President) says, "little Afghan heroin has ended up on U.S. streets, with most Afghan heroin marketed to neighbouring countries and Europe." Once again, as was the case during the war against the Soviets, CIA assets in Afghanistan now control the Golden Crescent’s heroin trade.

The writer is an Islamabad-based freelance columnist Email: farrukh15@hotmail.com