The War in Afghanistan

TENSIONS OVER DRUG TRADE BUBBLE TO THE SURFACE

Recent Meeting at Canadian Embassy With Impatient U.S. Envoy Left
Afghan Politicians Feeling Bitter and Insulted

KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN -- Long-simmering tensions between the Afghan
government and its Western supporters over the opium trade have
broken out into angry confrontations behind closed doors recently,
including a stormy recent meeting at the Canadian embassy.

Accounts vary about exactly what happened when U.S. Ambassador
William Wood sat down with his Canadian counterpart and a gathering
of Kandahar's political leaders on July 12, but five sources who
attended the session described it as a strong sign of rising U.S.
impatience with the local government's stand on drugs.

Afghan politicians also expressed bitterness after the meeting,
saying they felt insulted by the U.S. envoy and complaining that an
argument over opium smuggling had, ironically, broken down a
discussion about the kind of agricultural policy that might encourage
farmers to grow legal crops instead of narcotics.

Afghanistan's flourishing opium trade has ranked among the most
contentious issues between the Kabul government and its backers in
recent years, but the disagreements have rarely surfaced in public.
One of the strongest recent statements came from former U.S.
counternarcotics official Thomas Schweich, who published an article
in The New York Times Magazine accusing President Hamid Karzai of
obstructing drug-control efforts and saying that senior government
officials are corrupted by opium money. The Afghan President
vehemently rejected the claims.

Even before Mr. Schweich's article was published, however, such
disagreements were already emerging in private. The meeting at the
Canadian embassy last month had been intended to bring together
diplomats, local politicians and fruit traders to talk about
promoting agricultural exports. Illegal exports weren't on the
agenda, but soon dominated the conversation.

People who gathered in the Canadians' well-appointed conference room
appear to have understood the meeting differently if they spoke
English, Pashto, or both languages, but Kandahar's provincial council
chairman, Ahmed Wali Karzai - who speaks English and understood the
U.S. envoy without translation - said he remembers the discussion
turning toward drugs when Mr. Wood complained that agricultural
exports are hampered by Afghanistan's reputation as a source of opium.

"He said there is a drug problem that stops everything. Nobody can
trust," said Mr. Karzai, who is the younger half-brother of the
President. "For example, if we ask for a visa to take our fruit to
Europe, that will be one of the issues."

When asked whether the U.S. ambassador was accusing Kandahar's
leaders of involvement in the illegal trade themselves, Mr. Karzai
said: "I don't want to make a comment on that. You know, you heard,
that's the way it was. These are all political issues. None of these
issues are legal. Drugs, these are accusations, these are
perceptions. There's no proof for the last seven years."

A spokesman for the U.S. embassy declined to comment.

What apparently galled the Afghan politicians the most was the U.S.
ambassador's suggestion that even Russia and Central Asian countries,
barely more developed than Afghanistan itself, were reluctant to
accept legitimate Afghan trade because of the opium problem.

"They say the Russian President says to build a wall around
Afghanistan to stop drugs," Mr. Karzai said. "You know, the people
who are sitting in that room had family members killed by the
Russians and they had wounds on their bodies from the Russian times,"
he said, referring to the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. "They
didn't take it well, the elders, the members of the provincial shura
[council]. They were very unhappy about this. They didn't like the
Russian example."

Mr. Wood left the meeting before it finished, saying he had other
obligations. He had promised to attend the session for an hour, and
he had already stayed 15 minutes more than the time allotted.

Canadian Ambassador Arif Lalani, who by all accounts had distanced
himself from the exchange between the Kandahar leaders and his U.S.
counterpart, tried to continue the discussion about agricultural
policy but the participants apparently lacked enthusiasm.

"The U.S. ambassador walked out," a provincial council member said.

"The meeting lost its taste afterward."

It was a disappointing result for the Afghans, who had been hoping to
get help with their fruit exports during harvest season. Kandahar's
streets are lined with vendors selling heaps of fresh melons,
tomatoes and other produce at this time of year, often getting low
prices because of plentiful supply and a need to sell quickly before
their products spoil in the summer heat.

Prices are also depressed by the monopolistic practices of Pakistani
traders who control the business by handing out loans that oblige
their Afghan counterparts to sell at fixed prices, Kandahar's
politicians say. Despite rising fuel and food costs around the world,
farmers on the Afghan side of the border get only $1 for 4.5
kilograms of grapes, and about 50 cents for 4.5 kilograms of
tomatoes, and local residents say the prices haven't changed in decades.

The Kandahar council had been hoping to break the Pakistani traders'
control of the business by setting up their own financing system and
improving cold-storage facilities.

Promoting rural agriculture is often described by Canadian officials,
and many leading experts, as the best way of slowly replacing
Afghanistan's opium with legitimate crops.

The United States also funds rural development, but U.S. officials
usually emphasize a need for eradication of the poppy fields.

Disagreements have emerged among NATO countries in recent years about
eradication, with some U.S. officials pushing for aerial spraying of
the fields and facing resistance from their Canadian and British counterparts.

In his recent article, former U.S. counternarcotics official Mr.
Schweich also criticized the Afghan President for failing to tackle
high-level corruption.

"He [Mr. Karzai] perceives that there are certain people he cannot
crack down on and that it is better to tolerate a certain level of
corruption than to take an aggressive stand and lose power," Mr.
Schweich wrote.

The President's lack of action against major drug barons was defended
by Barnett Rubin, a prominent academic on Afghan affairs, who argued
in a blog posting that Mr. Karzai cannot enforce rules that might
jeopardize the fragile government.

"He has decided not to lose power trying to do things that might fail
disastrously," Mr. Rubin said.

In public, Mr. Wood has played down the rifts over counternarcotics.

"The upcoming season offers new hope for new progress against opium
and heroin production in Afghanistan," the U.S. ambassador told a
June conference in Kabul, according to a transcript of his speech.
"The international community is increasingly united against drugs."