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(Christian Science Monitor/AP) – The United States is changing course on anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan, a senior official said, shifting its focus from the destruction of opium poppies to fighting drug traffickers and promoting non-narcotic crops among Afghan farmers who depend on the poppy harvest for survival.
Many analysts criticized the old policy for ignoring the economic logic that draws Afghan farmers to opium production, and said destroying their crops was no way to win their hearts and minds.
Opium is used to make heroin, and although Afghan production has dropped 19 percent in the past year, it still produces 93 percent of the world supply, according to the Associated Press. Most of that production happens in the south, where support for the Taliban is highest, generating between $50 and $70 million annually for the group, according to UN estimates.
Poppy eradication has been a tenet of US policy in Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban government in 2001. But speaking to reporters at a G8 summit on Afghanistan in Italy, US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke called it “a waste of money,” says the AP.
Mr. Holbrooke said that, rather than weaken the Taliban, the US anti-poppy effort may have actually made the group stronger, the BBC reports.
- “Spraying the crops just penalizes the farmer and they grow crops somewhere else. The hundreds of millions of dollars we spend on crop eradication has not had any damage on the Taliban.”
“On the contrary, it has helped them recruit. This is the least effective programme ever,” Holbrooke added.
The US will increase its funding of agricultural assistance programs to Afghanistan from “tens of millions of dollars a year to hundreds of millions of dollars,” according to Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini, says the AP. Holbrooke says the US will use that money “to work on interdiction, rule of law, [and] alternate crops.”
The policy shift comes after years of criticism for the poppy eradication program, which observers say ignored the economics of the Afghan drug trade.
(BBC News) – The Afghan government has said that the bumper wheat harvest expected this year can be attributed in part to its successful poppy eradication programme.
Officials say the success of the scheme – especially in Nangarhar province – has helped the country to reap its biggest wheat harvest in 30 years. However officials say the main reason for the bumper harvest is because of increased snow and rainfall. They say that the country is now almost self-sufficient in wheat.
Improved yields
An official in the ministry of counter-narcotics told the BBC that increased demand for wheat meant that it was selling for a higher price, in contrast to the the relatively low prices currently being paid for opium.
“Most farmers were not prepared to risk cultivating poppies because they were scared that the government would destroy them,” he said.
Agriculture Minister Asif Rahimi said that he was expecting the best wheat harvest for 32 years.
(Global Research) – Douglas Wankel, an American who helped create an Afghan Eradication Force using Afghani fighters and U.S. contractors from Virginia’s private DynCorp firm, said, “We’re not able to destroy all the poppy—that’s not the point. What we’re trying to do is lend an element of threat and risk to the farmers’ calculations, so they won’t plant next year.” Wankel said it was premature to judge the eradication program by the poppy cultivation figures as his effort is just getting off the ground.
“Distracted by Iraq, the U.S. only belatedly began serious counter-narcotics and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan,” Anderson says. In the vacuum, the Taliban returned, and most foreign experts and Afghan officials Anderson spoke with said Taliban holds the initiative.
One of Wankel’s mercenaries described the Afghan war as “redneck heaven.” He explained, “You get to run around the desert on A.T.V.s and pickups, shoot guns, and get paid for it. Man, it’s the perfect job.” DynCorp men said they became contractors because the pay was much higher than civilian jobs back in the States. That’s the same reason Afghan farmers give for growing poppies instead of wheat. Drug running in the past has also been a source of illicit cash for the CIA, which can spend as it pleases without Congressional oversight.
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“A US anti-narcotics program in Afghanistan has raised tensions, undermined security and endangered Australian and Dutch soldiers’ lives, a respected international foreign policy think tank has warned.
The Senlis Council claims the US Government brushed aside Australian and Dutch concerns to ram through an ill-conceived poppy eradication program in Oruzgan province, which has undermined military reconstruction efforts and created a pool of new Taliban sympathisers…
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(BBC News) – When the Dutch officer asked the policemen who was going to walk at the front of today’s patrol, they all looked nervous.
“We want you to be friendly with the people. Stop and chat to them,” said the Dutch commander. “You have to win their trust to do your job properly.”
Restraint
In everything they do the Dutch stress restraint, not warfare, trying to understand and befriend local people and make fighting the last resort. Civilian advisors and an academic who has studied Afghan tribes guide the military in every step they take.
The Dutch concentrate their forces in the towns and villages where 70% of Uruzgan’s almost one million people live, not in the more remote villages and valleys where the Taliban operate. The Dutch place less emphasis on finding and killing Taliban, more on winning over local Afghans to leave the insurgents isolated and irrelevant.
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The Dutch work closely too with the local government, the Afghan police and the Afghan army, co-ordinating and planning everything they do together. They also get involved in local tribal issues, trying to sort out disputes, to understand and influence local people.
While we were in Uruzgan the first treatment centre for drug addicts in the province opened up, as did a training school for street children. Heroin addiction is a huge problem. There are over 1,000 addicts in Tirin Kot, a town of 60,000.
They call it a “population-centric” (pdf) approach, and say it’s the best way to defeat an insurgency.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."