U.N.: AFGHAN POLICE AIDING OPIUM TRADE

KABUL, Afghanistan --- Afghanistan's criminal underworld has
compromised key government officials who protect drug traffickers,
allowing a flourishing opium trade that will not be stamped out for a
generation, an ominous U.N. report released Tuesday said.

The fight against opium production has so far achieved only limited
success, mostly because of corruption, the joint report from the
World Bank and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said.

The findings show a "probability of high-level (government)
involvement" in drugs, said Doris Buddenberg, the UNODC's Afghanistan
representative and co-editor of the report.

The report in particular presented a strong indictment of the
Interior Ministry, which runs the country's police, and said
Afghanistan's criminal underworld could not operate without the
support of the political "upperworld."

"The majority of police chiefs are involved," one senior police
officer told the report's authors on condition of anonymity. "If you
are not, you will be threatened to be killed and replaced."

Without naming officials, the report said it was possible that
powerful interests in the Interior Ministry are appointing district
police chiefs "to both protect and promote criminal interests."

The result is a "complex pyramid of protection and patronage,
effectively providing state protection to criminal trafficking activities."

The spokesman for the counter-narcotics ministry said there is no
evidence that high-ranking officials are involved in Afghanistan's drug trade.

"If there is evidence we welcome the evidence and the arrest will be
on the spot," Zalmai Afzali said.

Poppy cultivation and the heroin it produces has become a major
problem in Afghanistan, providing funds for the Taliban insurgency
that has caused the deaths of more than 3,700 people this year.

Opium production in Afghanistan rose 49 percent this year to 6,100
metric tons. The harvest provided more than 90 percent of the world's
opium supply and was worth more than $3.1 billion.

Gen. Khodaidad, Afghanistan's deputy minister for counter-narcotics,
told The Associated Press that next year's harvest will be as large
as this year's in several key southern provinces where Taliban
militants have a heavy presence. A U.S. official has also told the AP
he expects next year's yield to be about the same.

The 210-page report, titled "Afghanistan's Drug Industry," is the
first comprehensive assessment of the country's drug production, from
poppy-growing farmers to international drug traffickers.

Barnett Rubin, director of studies and senior fellow at New York
University's Center on International Cooperation, said his research
has led to many of the same conclusions as the report's.

"There are many cases where honest prosecutors or police chiefs try
to do something about corruption, and they say they receive phone
calls from very high officials in Kabul saying to leave the people
alone," said Rubin, an expert on Afghanistan.

Like the report, Rubin said he could not name names. "Getting
indictable evidence is very, very difficult," he said. "I'm not
mentioning any individual's name to you because I don't want to be
sued or bumped off."

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemeri Bashary said the ministry has
reformed its process for selecting police chiefs.

"At the moment we don't have any problems with our police chiefs," he
said. "If the government is saying that poppy cultivation is
prohibited, so they are obliged to implement the orders of the government."

Instead of sustained declines in cultivation, successful efforts to
reduce poppy growing in one province often leads to increases
elsewhere, the report found.

"History teaches us that it will take a generation to render
Afghanistan opium-free," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director
of UNODC. "Those driving the drug industry must be brought to justice
and officials who support it sacked."

The $3.1 billion export value of last year's crop accounted for
around one-third of total economic activity in the country, and about
13 percent of Afghans are involved in the trade.