Pubdate: Wed, 29 Aug 2007
Source: Financial Times (UK)
Copyright: The Financial Times Limited 2007
Contact:  http://www.ft.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/154
Authors: Aunohita Mojumdar, in Kabul and Alex Barker and James Blitz in London
Bookmark: http://drugnews.org/topics/poppy (Poppy)

KARZAI BLASTS WEST OVER OPIUM POLICY

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, on Wednesday launched a powerful 
attack on the international community's failure to come up with a 
coherent counter-narcotics strategy for his country, blaming the west 
for Afghanistan's explosion in opium poppy cultivation.

In the aftermath of a United Nations report showing that opium 
production soared in Afghanistan by 34 per cent last year, Mr Karzai 
said there was insufficient co-operation among members of the 
international community in the fight against drug production in Afghanistan.

The president told journalists in Kabul that part of the problem 
facing Afghanistan was that the international community had not 
respected the Kabul government's proposals to reduce poppy production.

Mr Karzai did not explain which ideas were being over-ruled, but 
said: "Wherever the government is present, the drug fight is 
successful but where the government is overshadowed it is not successful."

Mr Karzai's comments were strongly rebutted by the UK government in 
London, which is leading the international fight against opium 
production in Afghanistan.

Britain has been under pressure on the issue because this week's 
report from the UN Office of Drugs and Crime showed that the biggest 
increase in opium production last year took place in Helmand 
province, where British troops are fighting the Taliban insurgency.

"The Afghan Counter Narcotics strategy is an Afghan-owned strategy 
and supported by the international community," a Foreign Office 
spokesman said on Wednesday night.

"It has shown signs of progress in some provinces, and we are 
following the same approach in Helmand. The increase of cultivation 
in Helmand is a real concern but we are working very hard side by 
side with the Afghan authorities to provide the security that will 
allow the counter-narcotics strategy to take hold."

British officials argue there is no easy solution to Afghanistan's 
drugs problem.

"Bringing down drugs production [in Afghanistan] will take 10 to 15 
years," one senior official said on Wednesday.

British officials say production has been soaring in Helmand because 
of rising insecurity and because the Taliban are taking a more active 
role in the trade.

British officials argue that production can only be brought down by a 
balanced strategy that improves incentives for farmers to switch 
crops, better governance and more targeted eradication.

Nato has also adjusted its tactics to step up eradication in 
recognition of the links between the Taliban insurgency and the drugs 
trade. Nato will therefore provide greater support for Afghan law enforcement.

Senior US officials are keen to use aerial crop spraying as a means 
of tackling the soaring production rates in some of the country's provinces.

However crop spraying has been strongly resisted by many European, 
Afghan and Nato officials who fear it will force farmers to shift 
their support away from the Afghan government and towards the Taliban 
insurgency.

Some western officials also believe the Afghans need to be more 
proactive themselves in the fight against the narcotics trade.

"We do need high-level arrests to begin to disrupt the big 
traffickers," said one official.

"We're slowly seeing some progress on this from the Afghans."
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom