Opium, lifeblood of Taliban economy

2001-10-19 00:51

Paris - Afghanistan, extenuated by strife, has turned in recent years to the production of opium and heroine to shore up the economy although the Taliban leadership tried to curb the industry last year.

Production of opium and heroine has boomed as farmers abandoned traditional crops such as wheat and maize for the cultivation of more lucrative poppy seeds, the basis of opium and heroine.

In 2000 the poppy production rose by more than half to 3 656 tons from 2 200 tons in 1998, according to figures from the United Nations International Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).

Poppy seeds are cultivated in 18 provinces in the country, covering 91 000 hectares in 1999 compared with 64 000 one year earlier, UNDCP figures show.

The cultivation of the plant is thought to support 1.5 million people in the country.

The yield of poppy seeds per hectare varies from 9.33kg on non-irrigated land of Badakhshan to 7.2kg on irrigated lands in Oruzgan, UNDCP says.

The poppy has been a lifeline for farmers whose traditional crops have been ravaged by harsh droughts.

Ahmed Rashid, the author of "L'ombre des taliban" (In the shadow of the Taliban), estimates: "One million Afghan farmers earn at least 700 million francs (€107 million, $96 million) thanks to the cultivation of poppies."

In 2001 poppy production fell by 74 tons after Mullah Mohammad Omar, the head of the Taliban, unexpectedly banned the cultivation of the plant in July 2000, according to the US Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA).

The poppy was eradicated on more than 75 000 hectares, UNDCP observers say, although opium stocks have not been destroyed. The stocks alone represent three years of production and have a street value close to €4.57 billion (30 billion francs), one specialist said.

The drug monitoring body, Observatoire geopolitique des drogues (OGD), said in a report published in April 2000 that the Taliban had benefited from "narcoprofits". They required poppy farms to pay them a tax of 12.5%, it said.

The fundamentalist Afghan militia also taxed laboratories $70 (€77.5) per kilogram of heroine produced and $250 was levied on each kilogram during transportation.

The OGD estimated, for example, that the production, transformation and traffic of drugs earned the Taliban $75 million in 1997.

With the fall of Afghan production, the price of a kilogram of opium had climbed in recent months on the Afghan-Pakistan border, jumping from $44 in 2000 to $400 before the September 11 attacks in the United States.

After the attacks the price of opium had nearly doubled to $746, according to the DEA. - Sapa-AFP

- SAPA