SECURING AFGHANISTAN'S FUTURE

Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke candidly at the Third National
Conference on Counter Narcotics in Kabul on Wednesday. Reiterating
Afghanistan's commitment to fight the narcotics problem, and asking
the Afghan people to do their share, he asked international
stakeholders, the international community and countries of the region
to do more to help stem opium production and crack down on the drug trade.

Following the latest report released by the United Nations Office on
Drugs and Crime that shows a new high in opium production in
Afghanistan for 2007, the President also asked the international
community to expand its co-operation with the Afghan government. He
said the fact that worldwide trade of opium is in the hands of the
international criminal organizations necessitates joint international
co-operation to combat it.

The President pointed to several accomplishments, including the
increase in the number of poppy-free provinces from six to 13 over
the past year, and further reduction in several others where security
and government presence is strongest.

Alluding to the growth of opium production in several southern and
eastern provinces, especially Helmand, President Karzai blamed the
international community for failing to do enough joint planning with
the Afghan side. Although the lead country -- in this case the United
Kingdom -- has worked hard to help Afghans, he urged donors to do
more to co-ordinate security-related and anti-drug activities at the
national and provincial levels with Afghan authorities.

As demonstrated by the survey, there is a direct link between the
expansion of government authority, security and decrease in poppy
cultivation. The production levels have gone up in provinces where
criminality and Taliban activity present the greatest threats. This
means that counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency strategies need
to be further linked.

Moreover, insecurity has limited the ability of the central
government and donors to provide economic development, alternative
livelihood programs, new jobs, civil society activities, investment
and even education services.

While Afghanistan should be helped to continue to fight a culture of
impunity that exists in certain parts of its society, different forms
of practical incentives -- development, building infrastructure,
providing alternative crops, financial remuneration and job creation
initiatives -- have encouraged farmers not to revert to poppy
planting. Yet there is still more that can be done. Various
approaches to poppy eradication need to be addressed and resolved
amongst international proponents first, before they are debated and
approved by the Afghan government and parliament.

Calls from certain quarters to legalize Afghanistan's opium poppy
crop, given Afghanistan's real challenges with governance, rule of
law, institution building and national security, remain a dangerous idea.

The proposal, which calls for a licensing platform allowing farmers
to grow opium for medicinal use, will remain unfeasible for as long
as violence disrupts normalcy and prevents a viable government
presence in all regions affected by the insurgency. Illegal armed
activity, farmer harassment and a black market-driven local economy
will surely drive the license market out of business.

Conducting polls in countries like Canada about the Afghan poppy
legalization scheme (as done by the Senlis Council recently) raises
questions about the motivations, the relevance to the target audience
and the politics behind the demand for legalization. It is the
Afghans who will decide whether a certain plan is best suited to help
them resolve this all-encompassing poppy-related problem, not
political parties or interest groups overseas.

The present solution to Afghanistan's troubles lies in keeping the
population on the government's side through the accelerated buildup
and reform of administrative, judicial and security structures while
supporting intensive development and alternative livelihoods until
full security in all of Afghanistan is reached.

And we can all be certain that it will take several years of
collective effort, co-ordination and the will to address all
dimensions of this problem, much of it rooted in poverty and a
troubled history of warfare, before it is overcome.