A STEP TOWARDS BREAKING A DARK EMBRACE

Efforts to clamp down on the opium trade in Afghanistan have only
swelled the power of the drugs barons and have failed to stop the
business reaching "unprecedented levels", according to the World Bank
and a United Nations agency.

Their thoughtful and well-researched report, which argues that
Western efforts at eradication are decades away from success, is the
best attempt yet to shed light on this murky economy, whose embrace
stretches from militant terrorism to the heroin on British streets.

There are now between 25 and 30 key traffickers, the majority based
in southern Afghanistan, "working closely with sponsors in top
government and political positions", says the report, which is based
on extensive local interviews by staff of the UN Office on Drugs and
Crime and the World Bank. However, all is not entirely gloomy. The
rest of the economy is growing strongly: government control of the
country has improved; and some areas cleared of drugs have stayed that way.

Afghanistan's opium economy was between UKP1.3 billion and UKP1.4
billion in the past two years, the report says - equal to 36 per cent
of the legal, non-drug economy in 2005-06. But the opium business has
remained roughly the same size, while the rest is growing.

You might ask whether in some sense the trade is helpful for
Afghanistan. After all, the country does not have many things that it
is good at, and growing opium does inject cash into the economy.

The authors, who consider this seriously, conclude all the same that
it contributes to a damaging "Dutch disease", as economists put it.
Traffickers save the proceeds or spend them on imports, which pushes
up costs and the exchange rate, making the legitimate economy less competitive.

Understandably, most attention has focused on the political damage of
the illegal trade. The report is not the first to describe how it has
fostered corruption, as farmers pay police or officials not to have
crops wiped out. However, it is more original and detailed in
analysing the causes. The best section, The political transition and
the evolution of organised crime, argues that it is out of date, by
three years, to think of "a stable Kabul, governed by a beleaguered
central government, encircled by a lawless periphery dominated by
voracious warlords".

Instead, much trafficking has moved into the hands of organised
crime, it says, beginning in 2003. Corruption in the Ministry of
Defence meant that payments intended to secure the loyalty of
warlords were stolen. "The total amount to be provided to the (armed)
groups" from the government budget was UKP50 million, but about 60
per cent was diverted within Kabul itself.

That weakened control over armed groups and encouraged them to
develop links with criminals. Political leaders are now keen to
distance themselves in public from traffickers, the report says, but
"it remains impossible to operate in the criminal underworld without
support . . . from the political 'upperworld' ".

The report also notes that "elements in the Ministry of Interior"
have become deeply involved in organising protection for criminal
rackets and in appointing tolerant police.

Nor is the report encouraging about the record of eradication
programmes, now led by Britain. It argues that the effects have been
patchy or counterproductive, felt most by the poorest, while
consolidating the trade in the hands of "fewer, more powerful,
politically connected" barons.

What should Kabul and other countries do now? Despite a fondness for
management consultant vocabulary, the report comes up with sensible
suggestions. Efforts should be concentrated in areas where farmers
have good access to land and water, and so could grow something else;
experience shows that that is where success is greatest.

It recommends focusing enforcement on areas that have not yet become
dependent on drugs (and notes that opium still takes up only 3 per
cent of farmland). The authors also urge agencies to anticipate the
inevitable, painful effects of a successful crackdown, such as
soaring rural poverty and the indebtedness of those who were relying
on future drug income.

Most urgent, they say, is the need to rip the trade out of the police
and Interior Ministry before it has become more entrenched.

They are indisputably right that this effort will take decades, even
if it works. But the volume and detail of their interviews show, as
they put it, that "it is possible to look into the 'black box' " of
Afghanistan's drug industry. That is a good start.

Afghanistan's Drug Industry www.unodc.org

6,100 Tonnes of opium produced this year, enough for 610 tonnes of heroin

Source: World Bank/UN report