Pubdate: Tue, 22 Mar 2005
Source: Financial Times (UK)
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 2005
Contact:  http://www.ft.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/154
Author: Jimmy Burns and Saleha Way
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin)

AFGHAN MINISTER SEEKS AID IN WAR ON HEROIN

The international community must continue to fund alternative development 
programmes in Afghanistan if the war on heroin and terrorism there is to 
succeed, Lieutenant General Mohammad Daud Daud, the country's deputy 
interior minister, said yesterday.

"This is not just a national problem, it is an international one ... Our 
message is clear. We can see the poverty of our farmers and the 
responsibility there is to provide them with additional crops and finance," 
Lt Gen Daud, who has special responsibility for combating drugs, said 
during a visit to the UK.

According to Lt Gen Daud, preliminary surveys suggest there will be a 
reduction of between 30 and 90 per cent in the amount of land being used to 
grow poppies in the coming months.

He suggested that the internationally backed eradication programme was 
beginning to show positive results after Afghanistan's opium crop reached 
4,200 tonnes in 2004, the largest annual figure since the end of Taliban 
rule. But with this year's harvest still ongoing and the absence of more 
definitive data on eradication awaiting more reliable United Nations 
estimates later this year, UK officials yesterday pointed more cautiously 
to figures of 40 tonnes being seized over the last month, and 75 tonnes 
over the last year.

"We believe there is a window of opportunity for turning the tide and there 
are some encouraging signs but we need to wait for more reliable 
statistics," a Foreign Office spokesman said.

Earlier, in an interview with the FT, Lt Gen Daud painted an upbeat picture 
of his government's new offensive on Afghanistan's rampant opium trade. He 
said police and the Afghan special counter-narcotics force, trained by UK 
special forces, were closing down heroin producing laboratories as well as 
intercepting the trade in opium poppies.

However, he described the situation as "difficult", warning that farmers 
would easily switch back to cultivating opium if tough law enforcement was 
not accompanied by sufficient financial incentives and the country's 
economic regeneration.

With a British general election likely to take place in May, the UK 
government has been anxious to retain a prominent role in Afghanistan's 
battle against narcotics. The opposition Conservative party in the UK has 
pointed to Afghanistan as the source of more than 90 per cent of the heroin 
sold on British streets as evidence that the government's war on drugs is 
failing.
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