ASIA-PACIFIC: US AND UN 'IGNORING' MENACE OF DRUGS CULTIVATION

The US and United Nations have ignored repeated calls by the international
anti-drugs community to address the increasing menace of Afghanistan's
opium cultivation, threatening a rift between Europe and the US as they
begin to reconstruct the country.

With the US focused on its anti-terror campaign and the UN hamstrung by a
drugs agency discredited by the misallocation of funds by Pino Arlacchi,
its former chief, the fight against Afghanistan's drugs problem was facing
an uphill battle, diplomats and anti-drugs officials said.

The UN's international narcotics control board has approached the UN
Security Council several times regarding the issue.

"It's not so much a contentious issue but it's just not high on the radar
screen," one diplomat explained.

European governments believe one of the reasons the US is "out to lunch on
the issue", as one diplomat put it, is that Afghan heroin is not a
significant player in the US drugs market, accounting for less than 5 per
cent of consumption. Colombia, he said, was the focus of the US anti-drugs
campaign.

This is in sharp contrast to Europe, where Afghan heroin is viewed as a
main source of the region's trade in hard drugs.

The US narcotics division in the State Department has also been sidelined
in part because of its support for Mr Arlacchi, who was forced to leave UN
Drug Control Programme at the beginning of the year, leaving behind a
rudderless and severely weakened organisation.

Adding to the malaise is the difficulty Kofi Annan, the UN secretary-
general, is having filling Mr Arlacchi's position.

Italy is insisting the post go to its candidate, threatening to
withhold funding if Mr Annan chooses from among the other hopefuls,
who include an Iranian/British drugs expert and a Portuguese ambassador.

Intelligence estimates suggest that the current harvest has the potential
to produce 4,500 tonnes of opium or 450 tonnes of heroin. About 150 tonnes
of Afghan heroin has been entering the European market annually -
equivalent to 95 per cent of the European heroin trade.

After the last record harvest in 1999-2000, the then Taliban government
announced that it was freezing further production. However, western
officials now believe that the Taliban was simply stockpiling in order to
stabilise the price of raw opium.

While some of these stocks are thought to have been targeted by US
coalition forces, intelligence officials now believe the majority had
already been moved out of Afghanistan by the Taliban in the aftermath of
September 11.

But the growing insecurity in Afghanistan had slowed development agencies'
ability to begin crop substitution programmes among farmers who were about
to sow next season's poppy harvest, officials said. Cindy Hamilton-Fazey,
professor of international drug policy at Liverpool University, said: "With
a weak government in Kabul and a US government that is more interested in
oil and counterterrorism in the region than drugs, it is inevitable that
poppy cultivation is rapidly reasserting itself and that the tribal
warlords will try and maximise their revenue from it."

Additional reporting by John Mason

Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 1995-2002

ASIA-PACIFIC: Afghanistan opium crop threatens Europe

Financial Times; Feb 18, 2002

By JIMMY BURNS and CAROLA HOYOS

Afghan farmers are preparing to harvest a potential bumper opium crop that
threatens to fuel the illicit drugs trade in the surrounding region and
flood Europe with heroin by the end of this year.

According to western intelligence and customs officials, Afghans planted
vigorously in the autumn in areas liberated from the Taliban and now beyond
the control of the new administration in Kabul.

British officials believe that unless urgent action is taken militarily to
back a crop eradication and aid effort in the Helmand and Nangahar regions
within the next four weeks, a large opium crop could be ready for harvest
by June.

The assessment is provoking fresh tension between the US and its European
allies. British officials - backed by the German, Spanish and Italian
governments - want a more vigorous logistical support to be offered to a
new aid programme in the poppy growing areas which would include
construction work and crop substitution.

For the UK, the political stakes are high. Tony Blair, prime minister,
identified the opportunity for eradicating opium production in Afghanistan
when justifying British military involvement with the US bombing campaign
last October.

But now British officials say that such early optimism was misplaced, with
the US government showing little interest in evidence that opium is being
cultivated. . "The fact is that on the drugs issue it is showing limited
interest and partnership," one official said.

The United Nations security council, of which the US and UK are permanent
members, together with Russia, China and France, has not broached the
subject in earnest, in part because of Washington's ambivalence.

The UN 's drugs control agency, which had been active in combating
Afghanistan's poppy production before September 11, has been sidelined by
the misallocation of funds by Pino Arlacchi, its former head. This left
Europe without a multilateral avenue to pursue the problem, diplomats said.

Meanwhile, intelligence estimates suggest that the current harvest has the
potential to produce 4,500 tonnes of opium or 450 tonnes of heroin. About
150 tonnes of Afghan heroin has been entering the European market annually
- - equivalent to 95 per cent of the European heroin trade.

And in Afghanistan, farmers are getting ready to sow the next season's
poppy crop. "Without a crop substitution programme in place, you can't
blame the farmers," said one diplomat.