-Caveat Lector-
From
http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0,2763,653590,00.html
}}}>Begin
MI5 fears flood of Afghan heroin
MI5 fears flood of heroin
Nick Hopkins and Richard Norton Taylor
Thursday February 21, 2002
The Guardian
Police and intelligence agencies have been warned that Britain is
facing a potentially huge increase in heroin trafficking because of
massive and unchecked replanting of the opium crop in Afghanistan,
the Guardian has learned.
The expectation is that the 2002 crop will be equivalent to the
bumper one of three years ago, which yielded 4,600 tonnes of raw
opium.
Deep concern within law enforcement circles, particularly MI5, MI6
and customs, has been reinforced by the latest assessment of the UN
office for drug control and crime prevention, based in Vienna.
Its field workers have just finished a study in Afghanistan and early analysis of
their work has revealed that "substantial regrowing has taken place in several
provinces". A full report will be published next Wednesday.
The UN spokesman Kemal Kurspahic warned yesterday that unless there was urgent action
to stop the crop being harvested at the end of March, then the "best ever opportunity"
to suffocate the illegal trade would be lost.
Afghanistan is the source of 75% of the world's heroin and 90% of Britain's supply.
A ban on poppy growing in Afghanistan introduced by the Taliban in July 2000, coupled
with severe droughts last year, reduced the country's opium yield by 91% in 2001, but
this had negligible effect on the market in Europ
e because traders had significant stockpiles along their traditional supply routes.
The UN estimates that these stockpiles will be exhausted by the end of this year.
Mr Kurspahic, who works for the UN office, said the organisation was in a race against
time to stop the fresh harvest restoring the traffickers' supply.
"If we don't stop the flow of drugs then everything else will have
been in vain," he said. "If there was no new production in
Afghanistan this year then shortages in Europe would be felt by the
end of the year. We don't have much time _ we have a window of
opportunity. Sustaining the ban would present the most promising ever
development in drug control."
Even though Afghanistan's interim government, led by Hamid Karzai,
introduced an extensive ban on poppy growing last month, the dearth
of law enforcement outside the capital, Kabul, has rendered it
meaningless.
"Post-war Afghanistan does not have a functioning law enforcement
capacity," Mr Kurspahic said. "We have to set up a law enforcement
and drug control mechanism as soon as we can. We cannot do much in
the aid sector until we have security."
One Whitehall official said yesterday that "enormous pressure" was be
ing put on Mr Karzai's government by the UN and western governments,
but that the situation was "immensely complicated in the current
political situation" because of fears that the issue could
destabilise the fragile administration.
"It is a political nightmare which could undermine the whole peace
process," a western intelligence source said.
Though poppies are grown throughout the country - including areas
controlled by the Northern Alliance - they are cultivated mainly in
the Pashtun-dominated south and east Afghanistan. "Isolate the
Pashtuns and you may dissuade them from backing the administration,"
the source said.
One possible solution is for European governments to buy the poppy
crop, but this would be highly controversial as well as costly. There
is also recognition that providing aid and substitute crops to poor
farmers would not necessarily solve the problem because any attempt
to control the trade would be resisted by local warlords.
Assessments of the replanting were difficult while the US bombing
campaign was at its height, but recent analyses by the British
security services and customs have sent shockwaves through the law
enforcement community.
"The replanting in Afghanistan is of sufficient order that it could
produce a second bumper crop, similar to the 1998-99 harvest," an
intelligence source confirmed.
Special report
Drugs in Britain
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2002
End<{{{
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