THRIVING OPIUM TRADE NEXT DOOR BAD NEWS FOR INDIA

NEW DELHI: India's neighbourhood is increasingly becoming a haven for
opium production with both Afghanistan and Myanmar experiencing a big
spike in the drug crop that funds not only crime syndicates but also
Islamic terror tanzims operating from safe havens in Pakistan's wild
north-west.

The world drug report 2008, released by the UN office on drugs and
crime, identifies trends that ought to make Indian agencies sit up and
take note. Net opium cultivation in terms of percentage of
agricultural land rose by 17% in Afghanistan from 2006 to 2007 and
with regard to hectares, the increase was from 165,000 to 193,000.

The report notes that 82% of global cultivation of opium was now
located in Afghanistan and that more than half a million families were
engaged in farming the deadly crop. Not just that, the yield per
hectare had "improved, up by 15% from 37 kg/ha to 42.5 kg/ha". The
potential opium production in 2007 in Afghanistan was as high as 8,200
tonnes.

The opium trade was not only illegal, it was seriously sapping the
energies of the Afghan state as it was funding the Taliban who are
making a determined effort to re-establish their dominion over parts
of the country. The report's findings serve to deepen concern over the
Taliban-Al Qaida network becoming more entrenched as the "farm gate"
value of opium production was as high as 11% of Afghanistan's GDP in
2006 and next year was 13%.

The export value of opiates to neighbouring countries was a staggering
$3.1 billion in 2006 and touched $4 billion in 2007. What will worry
law enforcement agencies is that the number of persons involved in
opium cultivation was 3.3 million in 2007. Once the illegal trade
grows local roots, wrenching it out is all the more difficult. Taliban
have shrewdly exploited the lack of options in Afghanistan's
countryside to lure locals to the trade.

Annual incomes of $1,965 seem princely to families engaged in opium
cultivation while Afghanistan's per capita GDP is $310. Indicative
gross income from wheat per hectare is $530 compared to $4,600 for
opium. It is perhaps hardly a coincidence that cultivation has
increased in the south and west along borders with Pakistan.

The double-faced policies that Pakistan has followed with regard to
Taliban - sometimes fighting the militants and then trying to buy
peace - only benefitted drug growers.

The situation in Myanmar is also deeply worrying, with cultivation
growing by 29% from 2006 to 2007. Though on a smaller scale than
Afghanistan, the implications for India are no less
troublesome.

The drug trade is again linked to militant groups operating in the
north-east. Though China is understood to have made efforts to get the
generals ruling Myanmar to crack down on opium with the aid of Chinese
satellites, the results appear to be mixed, with eradication falling.