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Afghan leaders have promised to curb the country’s opium trade, once banned under the Taliban. The measure is less about stopping the drug flow than it is about placating international donors and undercutting rival warlords. The lone bright spot for the country’s farmers is that a loophole allowing small-scale cultivation will bring them a measure of relief.
Echoing an earlier decision by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai, local provincial authorities promised Jan. 31 that government tractor brigades will uproot opium poppies now growing in southwestern Afghanistan under a “forceful” eradication campaign, according to the Associated Press. The campaign comes amid news reports that poppy farming is flourishing in Afghanistan after being banned by the Taliban in 2000.
It is extremely unlikely that local leaders intend to make a serious effort to cut Afghanistan’s lucrative opium production. Rather, the announcement is meant to placate international donors and will only be selectively enforced. Ultimately the ban will contribute to further infighting in the country, as leaders allied with the interim government – but in some cases still connected to the opium trade themselves – use the cover of “drug enforcement” to destroy their rivals’ fields.
Economics and history argue that the opium ban will be selectively enforced, if it is enforced at all. Afghanistan supplies about 70 percent of the multi-billion dollar global opium trade. International drug cartels won’t easily allow their supply chain to slip away, and poppy cultivation is simply far too profitable for many Afghans to ignore.
Numbers vary, but the United Nations estimates that Afghanistan’s opium production brought about $250 million into the country in 1999. This is far less than the roughly $900 million a year the country is scheduled to receive in foreign-aid pledges, but it also comes with far fewer strings attached and is not distributed through Afghanistan’s central government. And drug money is guaranteed income while aid pledges can be rescinded.
Control over opium production hasn’t been confined to any specific ethnic group or leader. Notable poppy growers from the past include Ahmed Shah Masood – the former Northern Alliance commander who was assassinated just before the Sept. 11 attacks – and current Pushtun strongman Hazrat Ali.
The new interim government itself is not free of drug-connected officials either. Recently appointed Kandahar governor Gul Agha, whose spokesman made the eradication announcement, has been linked to the opium trade, according to London’s The Observer. His home province of Kandahar was one of the largest sources of poppies in Afghanistan during his earlier rule as governor in the early 1990s.
Agha also reportedly has ties to Ayub Afridi, a convicted drug lord who served a short jail sentence in the United States. Afridi was recently released from a Pakistani jail and moved back to Afghanistan to work with anti-Taliban forces, according to the London Times.
Paying lip service to an opium ban, however, will result in generous dividends for local leaders. It will placate the international community for a little while and allow aid dollars to keep flowing into the country. The United Nations and other organizations will have a difficult time field-checking the ban, as much of the countryside is too dangerous to send out scores of inspectors. And concealing poppy plants among ordinary crops will make satellite detection more difficult.
Allies of the Afghan government can also use the ban to undercut rival warlords by destroying their opium fields with the international community’s blessing. Some particularly crafty warlords may even be able to squeeze some drug-eradication funds out of the United Nations or other international agencies. The violence and retaliation that will result will discredit and possibly destabilize any central government in Kabul.
The one bright spot for Afghanistan’s civilian population is that the interim government appears willing to allow small farmers to grow opium legally. This is vital relief for some of the country’s rural population, which has seen most of its irrigation systems and large-scale farms destroyed by years of warfare and drought.
The new law allows that “medicinal amounts” of opium may be freely sold in quantities under two pounds, the Associated Press reported. An Afghan farmer working a small piece of land can only produce a few pounds of opium at a time, and a few acres of opium can bring up to five to eight times the price of traditional crops like wheat.
The opium law is a political tool that will be used for personal gain and internecine rivalries. But it might relieve some of Afghanistan’s human suffering.
