June 26 is the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Killid’s Mohammad Reza Gulkohi and Azeem Resalat train a spotlight on a very serious problem in Afghanistan.
June 26 is the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking. Killid’s Mohammad Reza Gulkohi and Azeem Resalat train a spotlight on a very serious problem in Afghanistan.Three peopleincluding a couple killed themselves in Nawzad district, Helmand. The farmer couple hanged themselves before the owner of the land they were cultivating opium on carried out his threat to take away their daughters if they were unable to pay the “big money” he was asking.
Mohammad Nayeem, a neighbour, told Killid: “The couple were farmers; the land in which they had planted the opium did not belong to them. The owner of the land wanted big money and had threatened the couple that if they could not pay he would take their daughters, aged 8 and 9.”
Family members say the couple was addicted to opium. Ismael, a brother, said: “Addiction is a plague which destroyed my brother’s family and sent him to the mouth of death.”
National shame
Recent statistics for Afghanistan show the number of addicts have increased, particularly in the Northern Provinces. More women are taking opium and other narcotics, says Veeda Mehran, research advisor to the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC),which published a report. The findings of the report confirm the women have picked up the habit from their husbands in the majority of cases.
Tragically Afghanistan has earned notoriety as a major source of the world’s illegal drugs. Basher, who travels abroad regularly, considers it a matter of national shame. “When you introduce yourself as an Afghan foreigners immediately think of us as terrorists and opium growers,” he said sadly.
Minister of Counter Narcotics, Mohammad Ibrahim Azhar, said, “Narcotics is a national problem. The brother-in-law of one of the high ranking government officials is addicted, the sons, brothers of ministers and generals are addicted.”
Worrying comeback
Opium production has soared in recent years setting back efforts to wipe out the crop at least in areas under government control. Naweed Elham, a journalist, believes international drug mafia has got a stranglehold because of the lack of a “strong judicial system” in Afghanistan. Profits from narcotics have financed illegal wars, he said. Only when countries join hands can the international drug mafia be busted.
UNODC (UN Office on Drugs and Crime) has time and again warned the government of the serious consequences of turning a blind eye to the narcotics problem. Yury Fedotov, executive director of UNODC told President Hamid Karzai earlier this year that Afghanistan has not had as much success in demolishing opium farms. Karzai had sought to evade the issue by declaring the country could not solve the problem alone; narcotics was destroying Afghans while the profits were going to “others”.
Expanding production
UN figures show opium cultivation has expanded by 7 percent to 131,000 hectares in 2011. Fedotovtold Killid, ” I am trying to relay the message to Afghan authorities that the task(of combating narcotics) should be done by them; not just a few departments but all government departments.”
He added that spraying fields alone will not reduce the production of narcotics, but it required decisive action by the government to tackle smuggling and the corruption that feeds on it. This year alone 10,000 hectares of opium fields were destroyed, he said, an increase of three times over the previous year.
War and trade
Following his meeting with the executive head of UNODC, President Karzai’s office announced in the daily bulletin: “Hamid Karzai insisted that terrorism and smuggling of narcotics are related; those who are involved in narcotics smuggling are not Afghans.”
Authorities in the Ministry of Counter Narcotics value the trade at 70 milliard USD per year. Minister of Counter Narcotics, Ibrahim Azhar, said farmers and smugglers collected a mere 5 percent of the profits; the international mafia pocketed the remaining.
The trade feeds on the climate of insecurity in the country. Jawed Bedar, the spokesman of the Faryab governor, said opponents of the government and narcotic smugglers have sought to restart opium cultivation.
Sharif Tabibi, a sociologist, thinks, “Armed opponents of the government seek to take over insecure areas outside government influence, and use the profits from narcotics to finance and equip their forces.”
Grassrootsviews
According to Mohammad Eshaq Shamsi, the head of the counter narcotics department in Faryab, armed opponents use force to make people cultivate opium.
A resident of Pashtoon Kot says local people are told to grow opium, and not to worry about the market. In Kohistanat district, Feroz Khan, a farmer said they have followed orders to increase the area under opium this year.
Taj Mohammad is from Ghormach district. He says that year people would worry that the government would destroy their farms. But now the area is no longer under government control, and the Taleban have told them to grow opium, and earn lots of money, like opium farmers in Helmand province.
Opium has emerged as a major crop in five provinces: Helmand , Kandahar, Farah, Uruzgan and Badghis. In Faryab it has made a come back after it was wiped out.
Jaweed Deedar, the spokesman of the Faryab governor, thinks poverty and insecurity are to blame.
