Chapter Three: The Opium Trade

Abstract

By the middle of 2007, Afghans had become increasingly disillusioned with a state-building process that had failed to deliver the peace dividend that they were promised. For many Afghans, the most noticeable change in their lives since the fall of the Taliban has been an acute deterioration in security conditions. Whether it is predatory warlords, the Taliban-led insurgency, the burgeoning narcotics trade or general criminality, the threats to the security and stability of Afghanistan are manifold. The response to those threats, both in terms of the international military intervention and the donor-supported process to rebuild the security architecture of the Afghan state, known as security-sector reform (SSR), has been largely insufficient to address the task at hand. NATO has struggled to find the troops and equipment it requires to complete its Afghan mission and the SSR process, from its outset, has been severely under-resourced and poorly directed. Compounding these problems, rampant corruption and factionalism in the Afghan government, particularly in the security institutions, have served as major impediments to reform and a driver of insecurity. This paper charts the evolution of the security environment in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban, assessing both the causes of insecurity and the responses to them. Through this analysis, it offers some suggestions on how to tackle Afghanistan's growing security crisis.

Notes

1. All the opium-related figures used here, unless stated otherwise, are from Doris Buddenberg and William A. Byrd (eds), Afghanistan's Drug Industry: Structure, Functioning, Dynamics, and Implications for Counter-Narcotics Policy (Kabul: United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) and the World Bank, November 2006), and from the 2007 Annual Opium Poppy Survey in Afghanistan, http://www.unodc.org/pdf/research/AFG07_ExSum_web.pdf.

2. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, ‘Afghanistan's Opium Production in Perspective’, China and Eurasia Forum Quarterly: Narcotics, vol. 4, no. 1, February 2006.

3. Keeping in mind that Afghanistan then had a surplus opium stockpile of 2,900 tonnes.

4. Chouvy, ‘Afghanistan's Opium Production’, p. 124; and Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, ‘Les Territoires de l'Opium’, Olizane, 2002, pp. 64–7.

5. ‘Iran's Drug Problem’, Jane's Intelligence Review, 2 February 2007.

6. David Mansfield, Exploring the ‘Shades of Grey’: An Assessment of the Factors Influencing Decisions to Cultivate Opium Poppy in 2005/06, Report for the Afghan Drugs Inter Departmental Unit of the UK government, March 2005.

7. Jonathan Goodhand, ‘Frontiers and Wars: A Study of the Opium Economy in Afghanistan’, Journal of Agrarian Change, vol. 5, no. 2, April 2005, p. 191.

8. George Packer, ‘Knowing the Enemy: A Reporter at Large’, The New Yorker, 18 December 2006.

9. Carlotta Gall, ‘Opium Harvest at Record Level in Afghanistan’, New York Times, 3 September 2006.

10. Alain Labrousse, Opium de Guerre, Opium de Paix (Paris: Mille et Une Nuits Editions, 2005), pp. 117–20.

11. Interviews with General Daud, Deputy Interior Minister for Counter Narcotics, and international counter-narcotics officials, Kabul, May 2006.

12. Interview with UNODC official, Kabul, May 2006.

13. Interview with UK government security adviser, Kabul, May 2006.

14. A more realistic figure is in the range of 3–3.5 million: ‘Iran's Drug Problem’.

15. Interview, Kabul, May 2006.

16. By weight of opiates seized. Buddenberg and Byrd (eds), Afghanistan's Drug Industry.

17. Rubin, ‘Saving Afghanistan’.

18. ‘The Changing Structure of the Afghan Opium Trade’, Jane's Intelligence Review, 9 September 2006.

19. Gall, ‘Opium Harvest at Record Level’.

20. Barnett Rubin, The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan, 1999, http://www.eurasianet.org/resource/regional/rubin_on_afgistan.html.

21. Joanna Wright, ‘Afghanistan's Opiate Economy and Terrorist Financing’, Jane's Intelligence Review, 1 March 2006.

22. Interview with former Interior Minister Ali Jalali, November 2006.

23. Alexandre Peyrille, ‘Afghanistan Destroys 100 Tons of Opium’, Agence France-Presse, 20 April 2002. Ghani told reporters: ‘In Helmand and Nangahar provinces, 2,939,000 dollars have been paid out in total and 2,060 hectares (5,088 acres) have been destroyed … We are fully confident that local governors are on board with this programme and will support us’.

24. ‘After Victory, Defeat – Afghanistan’, The Economist, 16 July 2005.

25. Victoria Burnett and Mark Huband, ‘UK Trains Afghans in Anti-Drugs Drive’, Financial Times, 10 January 2004.

26. Michael A. Braun, Chief of Operations, Drug Enforcement Administration, Testimony Before the Committee on International Relations, US House of Representatives, 17 March 2005.

27. National Drug Control Strategy, Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Counter Narcotics, http://www.mcn.gov.af.

28. Anne W. Patterson, US Assistant Secretary for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs, Department of State, Afghanistan Interdiction/Eradication of Illegal Narcotics and US Lead Rebuilding Programs, Testimony Before the House Committee on Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs, Washington DC, 12 September 2006, http://www.state.gov/p/inl/rls/rm/72241.htm.

29. House Appropriations Foreign Operations, Export Financing and Related Programs Subcommittee Hearing on Afghanistan Interdiction, Eradication of Illegal Narcotics and Rebuilding Programs, 12 September 2006. In May 2006, only four judges were trained to tackle counter-narcotics issues for the whole country, according to a high-ranking UN official interviewed in Kabul.

30. Antonio Maria Costa, ‘Foreword’, in 2007 Annual Opium Poppy Survey in Afghanistan, Executive Summary.

31. Jean MacKenzie, Wahidullah Amani and Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi, ‘Why Afghanistan Is Losing the War on Drugs’, San Diego Union-Tribune, 17 December 2006.

32. ‘Afghan Drug Kingpin Detained in US’, Agence France-Presse, 25 April 2005.

33. ‘US Announces Historic Extradition of Taliban-Linked Afghan Narco-Terrorist to New York’, US Newswire, 24 October 2005.

34. UNODC, The Opium Situation in Afghanistan, 29 August 2005.

35. Jason Straziuso, ‘US Anti-Drug Chief: Afghan Poppies To Be Sprayed with Herbicide’, Associated Press, 2 December 2006.

36. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, ‘Afghan Opium: License to Kill’, Asia Times, 1 February 2006.

37. The International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) 2004 report points out that: ‘The Board notes with appreciation that most Governments of producing countries have adhered to its recommendations and taken action to reduce the production of opiate raw materials, those rich in morphine and those rich in thebaine, to reflect the global demand for those raw materials. For both types of raw materials, production had, until recently, been increasing at levels well in excess of global demand.’ See http://www.incb.org.

38. ‘Afghan Ministry Welcomes Senate's Condemnation of Senlis Council’, BBC Monitoring South Asia, 28 May 2006.

39. See ‘Afghan Paper Asks Senlis Council To Clarify Questions’, BBC Monitoring South Asia, 6 September 2006.