US druggies finance terrorists

2004-03-17 08:02

Lima, Peru - From the heroin addict to the casual cocaine snorter, American drug users are among the world's top cash suppliers for international terrorist organisations, the head of the US Drug Enforcement Administration said Tuesday.

"The American drug consumer is the single largest funder of terrorism in the Western Hemisphere," DEA Administrator Karen Tandy said during the opening ceremony for a three-day international drug conference being held in Peru.

"It is imperative that we end drugs as a funding source for terrorists and for those criminal organisations seeking to destabilise existing democratic governments," Tandy said.

She said that Americans alone supply the international drugs trade with $65bn each year.

"In the past, we have seized less than one percent of that drug money. Today the DEA has a new focus to follow drug money," she said.

Tandy spoke at the 22nd annual International Drug Enforcement Conference, a mostly closed-door event drawing more than 200 law enforcement officials from more than 65 nations to trade ideas and discuss counter-drug tactics.

The DEA chief commended Colombian President Alvaro Uribe for "making great strides against drug lords". Colombia leads the world in cocaine production.

But Tandy also warned of emerging trends that include increased production of ecstasy in South America, rising methamphetamine and cocaine use in Asia and the threat to Afghanistan's fragile democracy by local drug lords.

Urgent crossroads

"Afghanistan stands today at the urgent crossroads between becoming a democracy that values freedom and the rule of law and a society that subsists and is beholden to the drug trade," Tandy said. "It is a challenge for the international community to build their criminal justice institutions."

Germany, Britain and the United Nations are funding and training new counter-narcotics police in Afghanistan. But experts say it will be years before the new force is strong enough to tackle well armed smugglers and drug barons.

Last year, Afghanistan produced three-quarters of the world's opium - the raw material for heroin. Drug profits are believed to fund Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents as well as warlords resisting the authority of US-backed President Hamid Karzai.

- AP