FusiOrari

Fusiorari continues its analysis on opium trafficking, which has its source in Afghanistan and finds in the Talibans the brains of its co-ordination. The attention of the international community - increasingly committed with finding the most efficient ways to deactivate this powerful and deeply-rooted circuit - is turned to this country, at the heart of several mechanisms parallel to or intertwined with drug trafficking.

POPPIES AND TALIBANS – Talibans are one of the main subjects interested by the Afghan drug trade: the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime estimated that in 2008 the profits Talibans laid hands onto thanks to opium production amounted to 100 million dollars, while the Congressional research service of the United States revealed that drug trafficking constitutes about 50% of their income. Therefore, the bound between poppies and the Talibans is very tight and the proof is exquisitely empiric: the provinces were Taliban’s presence is larger are also those where opium cultivation is more widespread. Opium does not only mean profits but also territory’s and population’s control, hence destabilization and weakening of local and national institutions. Drug trafficking harms the country’s social and legal fabric, by infecting politics and institutions with a rampant corruption: indeed, in order to allow convoys to move freely across the country and over the borders, government officials’ cooperation is absolutely necessary. According to American journalist Wayne Madsen, one of the prominent subjects linked to drug trafficking in Afghanistan was Ahmad Wali Karzai, President Karzai’s brother. Finally, deathly is the alliance between local and international organized crime and the Talibans: these two components intertwine their mutual interests to such an extent that they protect each other, increasing the possibility for the first to be left unpunished and for the latter to have more power to oppose the government and international forces.  In the end, it is security to be affected. It is sufficient to consider that southern provinces, where higher is the concentration of opium poppy fields, are those less safe, where rebels still dictate law and the structures of governmental power are still to be built up.

TRANSFORMATION AND EXPORTING- Opium cultivation and sale are certainly not the only mechanisms of the drug circuit in Afghanistan. First of all, the country is scattered with small laboratories for the transformation of opium into heroin, transformation requiring a chemical process and particular substances which are to be smuggled in. It is estimated that 12,000 tons of chemical substances necessary for heroin synthesis come from China, Europe, India and South Korea every year.
Once produced, processed and, if necessary, transformed, Afghan opiates are consumed domestically only by a small percentage of people (10%, but dangerously increasing, to the extent that at least 8% of adult population is a regular drug consumer), while the greatest portion is sold abroad. Three are the main exporting routes of Afghan drug: a southern route through which the southern and eastern provinces export opium and heroin to Pakistan and from there to Iran, China, India, the Middle East, Europe and Northern America; a western route, which from Herat, Farah and Nimroz reaches Iran; and finally a northern route which from Central Asian, across the rugged borders of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, penetrates the Russian Federation. The journalist Wayne Madsen, during the Alex Jones Show, stated that in 2010 it was the CIA itself which controlled opium production and trafficking in Afghanistan: in other words, the war served the U.S.A. just to obtain the monopoly on opium which from the Middle East reaches China, in that fight which is increasingly considered by China as a new edition of the opium wars. In other words, waging war to Afghanistan in order to control China.

WAYS TO SOLVE THE PROBLEM – Opium trafficking, whose beating heart is to be found in Afghanistan, is one of the main problems, together with the weakness of national and local institutions, international forces have been facing since 2001. The analysis of how the above illustrated black economy works and of the possible strategies to dismantle it, allows us to understand how the defeat of drug-trafficking in Afghanistan should be considered as the keystone to provide the country with political stability and to favour economic development as well as improving life conditions for the population. Furthermore, weakening Taliban power would undoubtedly increase security in the Western world.
A first, superficial approach to the problem could let us think that eliminating poppy fields would be sufficient to neutralize the circuit from its engine. Actually, between 2006 and 2007, the former U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan, Mr. William Wood, asked the Afghan President Hamid Karzai for the authorization, always denied, to use airplanes in order to release herbicides on poppy crops. Actually, as widely illustrated above, opium cultivation often constitutes the only means of subsistence for the population, therefore eliminating crops and fields would only mean condemning to famine thousands of families and making the relationship between Afghans and the international forces on one side and the weak national institutions on the other side still more difficult. Support and confidence are instead the fundamental ingredients to let the national government earn legitimacy and eradicate rebellion and Taliban power from this tormented country. It is sufficient to think that farmers who are victims of lands expropriation by the government or by international forces, very often address to Talibans in order to have their lands back.
A possible solution which has been found out at international stage is instead that of granting incentives to farmers who opt for alternative crops, such as grain, grapes, melons, cotton, cumin, which are particularly suited for the Afghan territory’s characteristics. Italian troops, for example,  settled in the western part of the country, have been distributing saffron crocuses free of charge to farmers for a long time. Another promising way seems to be legalizing and controlling opium production for medical purposes, as for example in the production of morphine. This would enable the extirpation of trafficking without eliminating poppy fields.
Actually,  in the second half of 2009, under Barack Obama’s presidency, even the United States modified their anti-drug strategy in Afghanistan, promoting the development of rural areas and providing incentives for alternative crops. In March 2010, for example, when British and American troops freed the cities of  Nad Alì and Mariah, soldiers were ordered not to destroy plantations but to wait for the harvest, buy and destroy it.
Furthermore, already in 2004, the U.S. government launched the Alternative Livelihoods Program, which aims at accelerating economic growth in those provinces more affected by poppy cultivation, by introducing agricultural facilities such as seeds and fertilizers, the construction or modernization of agricultural infrastructures and the financing of entrepreneurial activities. This is a sign of awareness of the fact that the road to economic development is the most effective solution for defeating drug-trafficking, even though in the long term. 
In addition, we should not be underestimate the difficulties in building the Afghan state, a process which is anything but completed. The inevitable transition, which is bringing the UN and other international actors to gradually leaving the country, imposes on them the burden of improving their actions, in order to perform their supporting activities to the population even with reduced means and to verify that Afghan governmental forces will have enough resources in order to continue their fight against drug-trafficking in the future. A  drop in attention, locally or internationally, could indeed lead to a resumption of opium poppy cultivation.