TAJIKISTAN POWERLESS TO CONTROL HEROIN TRAFFIC

NEAR PIANDZH, Afghan-Tajik border, July 26 (AFP) -

Tajikistan authorities are fighting a losing battle to stamp out the growing
trade in Afghan heroin which is financing the arms purchases of the Taliban
rulers in Kabul.

Drug seizures by Tajik authorities have doubled this year, but they
represent only five percent of illegal drug shipments passing through the
former Soviet central Asian republic, according to official figures.

Seizures of Afghan heroin increased tenfold in 1999 in Tajikistan from 71 to
700 kilograms, but this year have already attained 700 kilos (1,550 pounds).

Border battles have also doubled this year, with some 50 Afghan traffickers
killed this year by Russian border guards. The Russian troops guard the
border under an agreement between Dushanbe and Moscow.

"The border guards are not just fighting ordinary traffickers, but
well-armed gangs," said Russian officer Piotr Gordienko, who has been posted
to the border, close to Piandzh, southern Tajikistan.

He says the Afghan traffickers were working for highly professional criminal
gangs "who are running big heroin laboratories in Afghanistan".

At night, the traffickers cross the winding Piandzh river which forms the
border between the two countries, in ramshackle boats, according to Russian
border guard spokesman Colonel Alexander Kondratiev.

Armed men mount guard on the Afghan side "and do not hesitate to open fire
on our guards," said Kondratiev, who added that there had been 15 shooting
incidents this year.

Since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the hilly border area which
has only sparse vegetation, has become insecure. The situation has grown
worse since the Taliban seized power in Kabul.

The so-called theology students ruling there have made trafficking in opium
and heroin, their main source of revenue for buying arms, Russian officers
say.

Iran, also used for the transit of Afghan drugs, will try to stop the trade
by building an anti-drug wall along its 940-kilometre (600-mile) border with
Afghanistan.

Last February the United Nations urged Afghanistan's six neighbouring
nations to establish a cordon sanitaire around the country to isolate it.

But the construction of a wall by the Iranians would tend to drive the
traffic through Tajikistan where authorities are powerless to halt the trade
in a country where 80 percent of the people live beneath the poverty line.

In the border villages, many inhabitants make their living from the drug
traffic.

A marked increase in the number of Tajik youths and women involved has also
been noticed in recent months, even though traffickers face the death
penalty, said Avaz Yuldashev, an aide to the Tajik presidency.