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'Opium economy' booming
18/11/2004 22:21 - (SA)
Brussels - Opium growing in Afghanistan leapt by two-thirds this year, according to a new UN report on Thursday that warns the former Taliban stronghold could relapse into a "narco-state" and terrorism haven.
After years in which poppy cultivation was suppressed by the hardline Islamic Taliban militia, the report said Afghanistan had regained its position as the world's leading producer of the basic ingredient of heroin.
"The fear that Afghanistan might degenerate into a narco-state is becoming a reality," Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the United Nations office on drugs and crime (UNODC), said at the report's launch.
Citing the "strong links between drugs and terrorism" in a country where Osama bin Laden was for long thought to enjoy the protection of the Taliban regime, Maria Costa said the report was a wake-up call to the world.
The UNODC's Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 found that opium cultivation had increased by 64 compared to 2003 in the Central Asian state, with a mammoth 131 000ha devoted to poppy farming.
The cultivation has spread to all of Afghanistan's 32 provinces and is valued at $2.8bn, equivalent to more than 60% of the country's 2003 gross domestic product, the survey said.
A bumper crop last year produced three-quarters of the world's heroin, including 90% of the heroin on Europe's streets, officials say. 'No silver bullet' "In counter-narcotics, there is no silver bullet. The opium economy in Afghanistan has to be dismantled with democracy, the rule of law and economic improvement - it will be a long and difficult process," Maria Costa said.
"It would be an historical error to abandon Afghanistan to opium, right after we reclaimed it from the Taliban and al-Qaeda."
Britain has been trying to create alternative opportunities for Afghan farmers to lure them away from the lucrative opium trade, amid criticism from US officials who want to see a much tougher approach.
The US military has denied widespread speculation in Afghanistan that it is spraying poison on poppy fields in eastern Nangahar province, potentially destroying food crops at the same time.
The UNODC urged Karzai's government to pursue four goals in 2005: eradication of opium, prosecution of major drug-trafficking cases, action against official corruption and a reinforced counter-narcotics structure.
But the UN agency said foreign governments must also do their part in Afghanistan, where thousands of US-led coalition troops are active and Nato-led peacekeepers patrol Kabul.
The international dimension is underscored by the fact that Afghanistan lacks the chemical precursors needed to turn opium into heroin, so these must be imported into the country, Maria Costa said.
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