Statebuilding, Conflict and Narcotics in Afghanistan: The View from Below

Abstract

This essay explores the interdependence between statebuilding, narcotics and conflict through an analysis of interviews and a survey conducted, in the spring of 2005, in the Laghman and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan. Rural Afghanistan is characterized by weak conflict-processing mechanisms, combined with a high propensity towards the escalation of violence. State-sponsored institutions for conflict processing hardly exist, and donor attempts to prop up traditional institutions, such as the village shura, as a substitute for local government have failed to produce tangible results. Farmers widely acknowledge the benefits of opium as one of the few available cash crops. As a result, competition over scarce land and propensity for violence are affected indirectly by the drug economy. The study concludes with a criticism of current poppy eradication efforts. Under an informal ‘eradication contract’, provincial leaders are induced to comply with the request of the central government to reduce opium cultivation, in exchange for increased political autonomy and the promise of donor funds.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The field-research on which this article is based was conducted in February and March 2005 in Laghman and Nagarhar provinces, in cooperation the Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit (GTZ) on behalf of Programme for Alternative Livelihoods in Kunar, Laghman and Nangarhar Provinces (PAL). We gratefully acknowledge the support of the Volkswagen-Stiftung. Earlier versions of this paper were presented in Kabul, as well as at a research seminar at the Stanford University Center for Democracy Development and the Rule of Law. We are grateful for valuable comments received at these forums. We also thank Nils Petter Gleditsch and Marc Theuss for their comments.

Notes

1. Paul Collier and Anke Hoeffler, ‘Greed and grievance in civil war’, Oxford Economic Papers, No. 56, 2004, pp.563–95.

2. Svante Cornell, ‘The Interaction of Narcotics and Conflict’, Journal of Peace Research, Vol.42, No.6, 2005, pp.751–60.

3. John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, London: Pluto Press, 2002; Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: Afghanistan, Al-Qa'ida, and the Holy War, London: Pluto Press, 2003; Alfred W. McCoy, The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade: Afghanistan, Southeast Asia, Central America, Colombia, Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 2003.

4. Michael Ross, ‘Natural Resources and Civil Conflict: Evidence from Case Studies’, for the World Bank/UC Irvine workshop on ‘Civil Wars and Post-Conflict Transitions’, 18–20 May 2001, Irvine, CA; Michael L. Ross, ‘How do Natural Resources Influence Civil War? Evidence from Thirteen Cases’, International Organization, Vol.58, No.2, 2004, pp.35–67.

5. For a well-informed overview about the positive macroeconomic impact of the drug economy in Afghanistan, see: William Byrd and Ward Christopher, ‘Drugs and Development in Afghanistan’, World Bank Social Development Papers, 2004, pp.1–25.

6. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, Kabul/Vienna: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, 2005.

7. Adam Pain, The Impact of the Opium Poppy Economy on Household Livelihoods: Evidence from the Wakhan Corridor and Khustak Valley in Badakhshan, Kabul: Aga Khan Development Network, 2004.

8. David Mansfield and Adam Pain, Alternative Livelihoods: Substance or Slogan? AREU Briefing Paper, Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation United, 2005.

9. These case studies included (1) a brief profile of the conflict, outlining what happened, when and where, (2) analysis of involved and affected actors, (3) analysis of institutional capacities of state and society to come to terms with the conflict, (4) spatial mapping of parties, incidents, movements, resources and other environmental conditions of relevance to the conflict, and (5) profiles and maps containing relevant geographical, demographic, economic and political information about the communities at village, sub-district and district levels. We coded the individual cases of conflict as primarily related to (1) competition over natural resources (land, irrigation water), (2) opium poppy economy, (3) statebuilding, (4) NGO activity (conflicts over distribution of resources by international donors and the rules and procedures advocated by them) and (5) social conflicts (conflicts over cultural norms, and social, ethnic or gender discrimination). If a case was primarily related to one of these five conflict fields, but showed secondary relations with other conflict fields, we coded this as a cross-relation. Secondary relations are given when resources, incentives, ideas or actions associated with one of the other conflict fields influence the conduct of the primary conflict identified.

10. A secondary cross-relation is recorded when resources, incentives, ideas or actions associated with another conflict field influence the conduct of the primary conflict identified.

11. The term ‘conflict processing’ builds on a sociological understanding of conflict, as reflected, for example, in the works of Lewis Coser and Georg Elwert. It is assumed that conflict is the normal state of affairs in every society, but that every society has a set of institutions in place designed to process these conflicts in a predictable, procedural and non-violent way. The term thus needs to be set apart from ‘conflict resolution’ (which implies that the dispute has been resolved for good), conflict management (which implies that the way actors engage in conflict can be managed so as to minimize damage), and conflict transformation (which implies that underlying structural tensions are resolved). See Lewis A. Coser, The Functions of Social Conflict, London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1956.

12. Most likely of Mongol origin and meaning circle, this etymology of the term jirga is, however, questioned by some Pashtun scholars, claiming that it is originally a Pashtun term. See: AliWardak, ‘Jirga – A Traditional Mechanism of Conflict Resolution in Afghanistan’, unpublished paper, University of Glamorgan, UK, 2004; Hassan M. Yousufzai, and Ali Gohar, Towards Understanding Pukhtoon Jirga: An Indigenous Way of Peacebuilding and More, Peshawar: Justpeace International, 2005.

13. In an Afghan village, one may find an NGO initiated seed-bank shura, a development shura implementing projects of an international organization and a ‘traditional’ shura doing politics side by side.

14. The National Solidarity Programme, launched in 2003, is financed by the World Bank and other donors, politically ‘owned’ by the Ministry for Rehabilitation and Rural Development (MRRD) and implemented in cooperation with an Oversight Consultant (GTZ IS) in Kabul and Facilitating Partners (UN Habitat and a range of international NGOs) in the provinces. The original task was to funnel project-bound cash down to the village level. In order to create the institutional and organizational capacities to identify viable projects at the community level, prioritize them and administer the funds made available for project implementation, the Community Development Councils were introduced as representative institutions for these tasks.

15. National Priority Programmes of the Government of Afghanistan: National Solidarity Programme Strategy, accessed at www.af/resources/npp/Drafts%20for%20Web/NSP/NSP%20Strategy.doc.

16. For all questions, the missing percentages consist of the replies ‘answer not known’ and ‘no answer given’.

17. In 2005, cultivation in Nangarhar was down by 96%, and in Qargai, the main poppy cultivating district of Laghman, by 90%. Cultivation in the more remote areas of Laghman, including Alingar, was less affected. UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, Kabul/Vienna: UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 2005.

18. Interview on 21 Feb. 2005.

19. Interview with General Daud, on 15 Feb. 2005.

20. In the poppy growing provinces researched this was 70–90% of farming households. See, Mansfield and Pain (n.8 above); the figure given for the whole of Afghanistan is 2.3 million people, or 10% of the population, in 2004, and this figure declined by 13% in 2005. See UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan: Opium Survey 2005, Kabul/Vienna: UN Office on Drugs and Crime, 2005.

21. However, due to a lack of trust in the neutrality of the central government, past endeavours to conduct national programmes for land registration have failed dramatically.