Re: [osint] Hamill: Heroin's Ugly Role In Afghanistan

You'd never guess from this piece the success the Taliban enjoyed in
wiping out poppy production in their part of Afghanistan, a success we
can only envy (It is illegal to grow marijuana here, is it not; and yet
we remain one of the premiere producers). While it's true they retained
some already processed opium, the UN estimates that three-quarters of
the opium exports from Afghanistan last year came from the small part of
the country then controlled by the Northern Alliance. As the article
suggests, with the Northern Alliance now in control of the whole
country, it's a good time to invest in certain "pharmaceutical" stocks.
Forget the war on terrorism or central Asian oil;  maybe it's the
international drug cartels behind all the commotion.  

> Daniel Pineu wrote:
> 
> 
> Daniel Pinéu
> danielfrp@hotmail.com
> 
> BA (Hons) Political Science & International Relations
> Universidade Nova de Lisboa
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
> 
> > From The New York Daily News of December 10, 2001
> >
> > Heroin's Ugly Role In Afghanistan
> > By Pete Hamill
> >
> > We've seen the images of kids flying kites again in Kabul, and brave
> > women baring their faces, and shopkeepers offering satellite dishes
> made
> > from tin cans. We've seen the statesmen in Germany smiling as they
> named
> > an interim government. We've seen the bombing of Tora Bora and the
> white
> > flags of surrender in Kandahar. We've heard hourly bulletins about
> the
> > search for Mullah Omar and Osama Bin Laden.
> >
> > But nobody yet has used the one word that is crucial to
> understanding
> > Afghanistan.
> >
> > The word is heroin.
> >
> >
> > Afghan fighter against the Taliban guards in Spinboldak, across the
> > border from Pakistan, yesterday.
> > The various warlords now sporadically killing one another in
> different
> > parts of the country - and on the streets of Kandahar - are almost
> > certainly fighting to control the heroin racket. Forget about such
> > marvelous abstractions as freedom, liberty and democracy. The true
> goal
> > is far more familiar to those of us who have lived in a major heroin
> > market for five decades. They're killing for the same reasons that
> mob
> > families have killed for two generations: to control the supply of
> > smack.
> >
> > The great prize for the warlords is supposed to be hidden in those
> > endless networks of caves in the north and west of the ruined
> country.
> > According to the UN, the British Home Office and the Drug
> Enforcement
> > Administration, some of it is pure morphine base. Some has been
> > processed by Afghan labs into heroin. Tons of hashish are there,
> too,
> > say the experts, ready to flood the postwar domestic market.
> >
> > Up to 100-Pound Busts
> >
> > Nobody is certain. So far, says Steven Casteel, the DEA's assistant
> > administrator for intelligence, seizures have been small, between 40
> and
> > 100 pounds. Over the weekend, he said of the Taliban: "They are not
> > dumb. This is their savings account, and for that reason obviously a
> lot
> > of them have made every effort to move that savings account to a
> safe
> > haven outside the country."
> >
> > But even Casteel is uncertain about the basic information. Some of
> the
> > stockpile might have been destroyed by American bombs aimed at
> Afghan
> > and Arab fighters. Some must await the end of the shooting war.
> >
> > Certainly, the sheer numbers of potential profits reduce the $25
> million
> > reward for Bin Laden to tip money. Last year, the State Department
> > estimated that the Afghan crop was 3,656 metric tons, which was 72%
> of
> > the world's supply (Myanmar/Burma was a distant second.) The United
> > Nations estimated in 1999 that the value of the Afghan opium crop
> was
> > $265 million as it left the poppy farms, and that the Taliban
> extracted
> > from that sum about $40 million in taxes. A recent BBC report by
> Richard
> > Davenport-Hines stated that the profit margin for Afghan drug
> > traffickers is about 300%. We are talking here of potential profits
> in
> > the billions.
> >
> > Stashing it Away
> >
> > Last year, under pressure from UN development agencies, the Taliban
> > banned the growing of poppies. They actually took some steps to
> enforce
> > the ban, but first permitted the creation of a strategic reserve.
> They
> > stashed many tons of drugs in caves in northern and western
> Afghanistan.
> > The intent was clear: to supply the outside world while keeping
> prices
> > at a high level.
> >
> > But in the late summer of this year, the puritanical students of
> Mullah
> > Omar made a big shift. On Sept. 2, the Voice of Shariat - run by the
> > Taliban - announced that the ban on poppy growing was over. This
> might
> > have been because Mullah Omar and his fellow holy men had been
> tipped
> > about what would happen nine days later. We won't know for many
> months.
> > But there was a practical short-term reason for the lifting of the
> ban.
> > The planting season for poppy farmers would begin in late September
> and
> > they needed to buy seeds.
> >
> > Meanwhile, through the years of Taliban domination, the drug trade
> > flourished. Their rivals, the heroic freedom fighters of the
> Northern
> > Alliance, had a piece of the action. On some levels, the exchange
> was
> > simple: You give us guns and we'll give you heroin. Trucks arrived
> with
> > food, dropped off their humanitarian cargoes, and nobody asked what
> > might be hidden in wheel casings when the vehicles left Afghanistan.
> > Certainly, by all reports, every border was corrupt.
> >
> > Millions of Addicts
> >
> > In spite of the war, smuggling routes still exist. One western route
> > drives into Iran, which has 3 million heroin addicts of its own
> among a
> > population of 60 million. From Iran, after local markets are served,
> the
> > cargo is eventually dispersed into Turkey, Europe and the United
> States.
> > Iran says it has lost 15,000 dead soldiers and policemen trying to
> stop
> > the Afghan drug trade, an additional reason for its fierce
> opposition to
> > the Taliban regime. The smuggling continues.
> >
> > The southern route pushes into Pakistan, which also contains an
> > estimated 3 million addicts in its cities and refugee camps (with
> twice
> > the population of Iran). Supplies of morphine base and refined
> heroin
> > are often taken to ships operating out of Karachi on the Arabian Sea
> for
> > movement to the West. Corruption is general, on high levels and low.
> >
> > The northern route moves easily through the Central Asian republics
> -
> > with our ally, Tajikistan, a virtual narcorepublic. The shipments
> are
> > often guided by Muslim gangsters from Chechnya toward
> Kosovo-Albanian
> > syndicates, or to the hard men of the Russian Mafia. In turn,
> according
> > to the Drug Enforcement Administration, heroin passes through
> Bulgaria,
> > the Czech Republic, Romania or Hungary on its way to the lucrative
> > markets of the West, including America.
> >
> > 80% From Afghanistan
> >
> > Through these complicated, shifting routes, much Afghan heroin finds
> its
> > way to the drug supermarkets of Amsterdam, where the DEA says it is
> > auctioned among British, Irish, Israeli, Turkish, Nigerian and
> Kurdish
> > gangsters. By all accounts, heroin addiction is spreading in Europe,
> > with 80% of the supply traced by drug agents to Afghanistan. And, of
> > course, New York gets it share.
> >
> > So far, we've heard no reports of the bombing of existing poppy
> fields
> > in Kandahar or Helmand provinces. We haven't heard about a single
> major
> > drug seizure in opium storage caves around Darunta, Bhesud or
> anywhere
> > else. No significant drug busts have been made along Afghanistan's
> > porous borders.
> >
> > All of which creates a ripening odor. As Afghan warlords fight one
> > another in Kandahar for the spoils, we still don't know what private
> > arrangements were made by the U.S. to create its anti-Taliban
> alliance.
> > We certainly don't know if the continuity of the heroin trade was
> part
> > of the deal. If it was, we will live with the terrible exports of
> > Afghanistan long after Osama Bin Laden and Mullah Omar are tossed
> into
> > the rubbish heap of history.
> >
> > E-mail: phamill@edit.nydailynews.com
> >
> >
> > Original Publication Date: 12/10/01