UN fears Afghan poppy cultivation could rise

A “cancer of insurgency” in southern Afghanistan could drive the 2007 opium poppy harvest to record levels, the UN drug agency chief warned.

The UN Office on Drugs and Crime predicted that last year’s harvest record would be broken by an increase in 15 provinces, including Helmand – the world’s largest poppy-growing region and the scene of a growing number of attacks by Taliban fighters who use opium to fund their insurgency.

The office said in a new report that, while cultivation was expected to drop in central and northern Afghanistan, the drug trade is flourishing in the south.

“On balance, the increase in the south may be greater than the decline elsewhere, causing a possible further rise in Afghanistan’s aggregate drug supply this year,” the UN said. A strong eradication campaign could lower the year-end totals, it said.

Antonio Maria Costa, UNODC executive director, said the increase in the south was a result of security problems. Many southern regions have no government presence, and farmers act with impunity. Taliban fighters protect opium growers and transport and tax the crop, he said.

Opium cultivation has surged since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001. Under strong international pressure, the former regime had enforced an effective ban on poppy growing by threatening to jail farmers – virtually eradicating the crop in 2000.

But Afghan and Western counter-narcotics officials say Taliban-led militants are now implicated in the drug trade as part of their efforts to increase their support among the people of the region and raise money to help in their fight against NATO forces.

“It’s clear that the insurgents are deriving an income, which they use to pay salaries for their foot soldiers (and) to buy weapons,” he said. Last year, opium cultivation rose an alarming 59%, deepening fears that Afghanistan is rapidly becoming a narco-state.

The UN said poppies were cultivated this year in each of 28 villages visited in Helmand province and in 27 of 29 villages visited in neighbouring Kandahar, the Taliban’s former stronghold.

The UN saw a decrease in cultivation in seven mostly northern provinces, and said there was an indication of a split in attitudes between the north and south.

President Hamid Karzai has vowed to rid Afghanistan of opium. International donors are directing hundreds of millions of pounds in development aid to rural areas to make it profitable for farmers to grow wheat, or plant orchards. Eradication teams have stepped up their campaign to destroy opium poppies in the fields before harvest.

However, critics say corrupt Afghan authorities and security forces are themselves heavily involved in the trade and are unlikely to mount a serious crackdown, while Karzai is wary of a rural backlash against his already weak government.