Afghan poppy production up 15% since 2006
Last year, figures from the found that opium cultivation in Afghanistan rose 59%. Today, just more than seven full months into 2007, is up another 15%. Even more stunning, this increase comes during the middle of a $475 million anti-heroin effort by the Bush Administration:
U.N. figures to be released in Septemberare expected to show that Afghanistan‘s poppy production has risen upto 15 percent since 2006 and that the country now accounts for 95percent of the world‘s crop, 3 percentage points more than last year,officials familiar with preliminary statistics told The AssociatedPress.
Those ideas representwhat proponents call an "enhanced carrot-and-stick approach" tosupplement existing anti-drug efforts. They are the focus of the new$475 million program outlined in a 995-page report, the release ofwhich has been postponed twice and may be again delayed due todisagreements, officials said.
So how bad is it compared to a few years ago?
- In 2004, Afghanistan produced 87% of the world's heroin, according to . Just three years later, that same group will report in September that the number is now 95%.
- Between 2005 and 2006, Afghanistan increased its by 49%. In 2005, the yield was 4,100 metric tons. In 2006, it was 6,100 metric tons.
Maybe arming and relying on , many of them poppy farmers, to catch Osama bin Laden was not such a good idea. Just a thought.
by Craig Murray
SNIP
Our economic achievement in Afghanistan goes well beyond the simple production of raw opium. In fact Afghanistan no longer exports much raw opium at all. It has succeeded in what our international aid efforts urge every developing country to do. Afghanistan has gone into manufacturing and 'value-added' operations.
It now exports not opium, but heroin. Opium is converted into heroin on an industrial scale, not in kitchens but in factories. Millions of gallons of the chemicals needed for this process are shipped into Afghanistan by tanker. The tankers and bulk opium lorries on the way to the factories share the roads, improved by American aid, with Nato troops.
How can this have happened, and on this scale? The answer is simple. The four largest players in the heroin business are all senior members of the Afghan government – the government that our soldiers are fighting and dying to protect.
When we attacked Afghanistan, America bombed from the air while the CIA paid, armed and equipped the dispirited warlord drug barons – especially those grouped in the Northern Alliance – to do the ground occupation. We bombed the Taliban and their allies into submission, while the warlords moved in to claim the spoils. Then we made them ministers.
President Karzai is a good man. He has never had an opponent killed, which may not sound like much but is highly unusual in this region and possibly unique in an Afghan leader. But nobody really believes he is running the country. He asked America to stop its recent bombing campaign in the south because it was leading to an increase in support for the Taliban. The United States simply ignored him. Above all, he has no control at all over the warlords among his ministers and governors, each of whom runs his own kingdom and whose primary concern is self-enrichment through heroin.
My knowledge of all this comes from my time as British Ambassador in neighbouring Uzbekistan from 2002 until 2004. I stood at the Friendship Bridge at Termez in 2003 and watched the Jeeps with blacked-out windows bringing the heroin through from Afghanistan, en route to Europe.
Complete article posted here:
Posted by: Babalouie | 2007.08.07 at 10:23 AM