Pubdate: Fri, 25 Jan 2002
Source: Independent  (UK)
Copyright: 2002 Independent Newspapers (UK) Ltd.
Contact:  http://www.independent.co.uk/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/209
Author: Patrick Cockburn, in Kabul

MAIN DRUG CONTROL AGENCY IN KABUL IS EVICTED

Despite promises to crack down on the drugs trade, the new Afghan 
government has evicted the main drug control agency from its headquarters 
in Kabul and taken its vehicles.

"They literally threw us into the street," said Mir Najibullah Shams, the 
Secretary-General of the State High Commission for Drug Control. "I don't 
have a phone to call up commanders in the provinces. They didn't even leave 
us with a bicycle."

The contempt with which the new Afghan administration has treated its main 
drugs agency bodes ill for any attempt to curtail opium and heroin 
production in Afghanistan. This is despite promises by the new 
administration at the summit on aid to Afghanistan in Tokyo this week that 
it would try to reduce the flow of narcotics out of the country in return 
for $4.5bn (UKP3.2bn) from donors.

Afghanistan is the world's largest exporter of heroin and provides about 80 
per cent of Western Europe's supply and an even higher proportion of heroin 
used in Russia and Central Asia. Between a third and a half of the Afghan 
population is believed by experts to be involved in growing, producing or 
trafficking in narcotics.

Mr Shams, who has taken refuge in a room in the Afghan Foreign Ministry, 
showed a number of maps illustrating the huge increase in the mid-nineties 
in the number of provinces growing opium poppies. Mullah Omar, the Taliban 
leader, had successfully banned the planting of poppies in 1999, but the 
collapse of central government control in much of Afghanistan in the last 
two months may mean that farmers will once again produce opium.

The former headquarters of the High Commission for Drug Control is a 
substantial three-storey building which has been taken over by a newspaper 
called Payam-I-Mujaihid which supports the government. Mr Shams admits that 
its 300 employees were never able to do very much about narcotics because 
"until you solve the problems of the Afghan farmers they will produce 
drugs. What do you expect them to do when they are dressed in rags and 
their children have nothing to eat?"
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom