Afghan heroin: Terrain, tradition, and turmoil

Orbis

Volumn 49, Issue 2, 2005, Pages 275-291

  Medler, James D ^a  

^a Digital Sandbox Inc   (United States)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 14644400542     PISSN: 00304387     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1016/j.orbis.2005.01.012     Document Type: Article

References (43)

1. Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996).
2. Halford J. Mackinder, Democratic Ideals and Reality (Washington, D.C.: National Defense University Press, 1996 [1919]), which expands ideas he first presented in 1904 to the Royal Geographical Society in 1904
3. Nicholas J. Spykman, The Geography of Peace (New York, Harcourt Brace, 1944).
4. Catherine Lamour and Michael R. Lamberti, The International Connection: Opium from Growers to Pushers (New York: Pantheon, 1974), p. 177
5. Ron Chepesiuk, Hard Target: The United States' War Against International Drug Trafficking, 1982-1997 (Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 1999), p. 28. The U.S. heroin addict population also rose by 25%, to 450,000 users, between 1971 and 1982. While it is difficult to prove the precise correlation, the timing of an explosive rise in both supply and demand is suggestive.
6. Alfred W. McCoy, "What War on Drugs? The CIA Connection," The Progressive, July 1991
7. Ikramul Haaq, "The Pak-Afghan Drug Trade in Historical Perspective," Asian Survey, Oct. 1996, p. 946. Like McCoy, Haaq notes the parallels between CIA involvement in Southeast Asia and the drug trafficking activity that outlasted the relevant covert operations in both instances.
8. Going even further, John K. Cooley, Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism, 2nd ed. (Sterling, Va.: Pluto Press, 2000), p. 5, notes that never have so many South Asian drugs reached the West as in the late 1990s, which was in part a direct consequence of the CIA's support of anti-Soviet guerrillas in Afghanistan in 1979-89.
9. Drug production under the Taliban regime is discussed in U.S. DOJ, DEA, Intelligence Division, Europe/Asia/Africa Strategic Unit, "Afghanistan Country Brief: Drug Situation Report" (Mar. 2001), available at www.usdoj.gov/dea/pubs. See also Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004 (UNODC, Nov. 2004).
10. Larry Goodsen, Afghanistan's Endless War: State Failure, Regional Politics and the Rise of the Taliban (Seattle: Univ. of Washington Press, 2001), p. 102. In the 1970s, the export of fruits and nuts provided 40% of the country's foreign exchange, while roughly 60% of the world's dried fruit came from Afghanistan. The extensive orchards, vineyards, and other crops were severely impaired both by four years of drought and by the war. "The Gardens of Eden," Economist, Sept. 21, 2002.
11. Larry Goodsen "The Gardens of Eden," Economist, Sept. 21, 2002.
12. In 2004, an estimated 92% of opium cultivation took place on fertile cultivated land, effectively displacing other legitimate crops. UNODC, Afghanistan Opium Survey 2004, p. 4.
13. In addition to freeing up factional resources for continued warfare, this aid had the unintended consequence of further stimulating the cultivation of opium. "Between 1988 and 1992, over $1 billion had streamed into Afghanistan, a 'peace dividend' that turned aid into an industry on par with heroin and which, in the view of some critics, essentially assisted its transformation into the world's largest opium producer by funding the repair of its myriad irrigation systems." Michael Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind: The Taliban Movement in Afghanistan (London, UK: Pluto Press, 2001), p. 166.
14. Rashid notes that the only effective NGO activity the Taliban allowed was geared toward benefiting smuggling and drug trafficking, such as repairing roads, setting up gasoline pumps, and inviting foreign businesses to set up mobile telephone networks. Ahmed Rashid, Taliban: Islam, Oil and the New Great Game in Central Asia (New York: I. B. Tauris, 2000), p. 213.
15. Barnett R. Rubin, The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the International System (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), p. 198.
16. See also L. Goodsen, Afghanistan's Endless War, p. 102
17. A. Ewans, pp. 163-5.
18. Barnett R. Rubin, The Search for Peace in Afghanistan: From Buffer State to Failed State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1995), pp. 117, 256.
19. Supporting this observation, Rashid notes the plight of the trucking mafia operating between Kandahar and Quetta, Pakistan, which was subjected to more than twenty separate checkpoints and accompanying demands for money. The advent of the Taliban was accordingly considered a welcome development, in that it concentrated these tolls. A. Rashid, Taliban, p. 22.
20. The statistics illustrate the level of anarchy that has resulted from decades of conflict. Nearly 2 million Afghans have been killed and between 600,000 and 2 million wounded. More than 6 million Afghans have been displaced into Iran and Pakistan, and another 2 million displaced internally. In other words, over 50% of the Afghan population was killed, wounded, or made homeless. L. Goodsen, Afghanistan's Endless War, p. 5.
21. Ibid, pp. 12-3
22. A. Magnus and A. Naby, Afghanistan, pp. 91-4.
23. B.R. Rubin, The Search for Peace, p. 140.
24. Even earlier, as Griffin notes, "With the capture of Kandahar in October 1992, the Taliban took command of the southern outlet of a smuggling empire which, since the withdrawal of Soviet forces, had expanded deep into Central Asia and beyond, opening a back door into Pakistan's heavily-protected market of 135 million people. In this prototype of a regional trading bloc...entrepreneurs inside Afghanistan and an 18,000-strong community of expatriates in the port of Karachi played - and continue to play - pivotal roles as middlemen and hauliers." A. Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind, p. 141.
25. L. Goodsen, Afghanistan's Endless War, p. 102.
26. The U.S. Office of National Drug Control Policy in 2000 estimated the region's growing addict population at between 3.5 and 5 million. ONDCP, "Drug Policy Perspectives," p. 5. Moreover, although Afghanistan shares a common border with China at the eastern end of the Wakhan Corridor, this has very limited potential as a smuggling route, given the rugged terrain involved, the lack of infrastructure, and China's easy access in all events to Southeast Asian heroin.
27. The Durand Line was drawn up by Sir Mortimer Durand as a "boundary of mutual convenience separating Afghanistan from India....Such arbitrary boundaries over sprawling tribal areas left large portions of Afghanistan's leading ethnic groups on the wrong side of its borders," particularly Pashtuns in Pakistan's northwestern border area and Baluchs in both Pakistan and Iran. A. Haaq, "The Pak-Afghan Drug Trade," p. 946.
28. Rashid also notes the inherent irony of the refusal of the Pakistani-supported Taliban to recognize the Durand Line or to drop long-standing claims to parts of Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province. This may be attributed in large measure to the resonance of "Greater Pashtunistan," within certain segments of Afghan society and a theme of successive governments for decades. A. Rashid, Taliban, p. 187.
29. During British rule, commercial opium cultivation in the Northwest Frontier Province was not officially encouraged, unlike elsewhere in colonial India, as such activity was viewed as having a potentially destabilizing effect in an already chaotic area. I. Haaq, "The Pak-Afghan Drug Trade," p. 947.
30. Ahmed Rashid, "Nothing to Declare: The political void in Afghanistan has spawned a vast smuggler's market that is crippling Pakistan's economy and threatens its neighbor's own economies," Far Eastern Economic Review, May 11, 1995. Rashid also notes that during this period the Taliban drew most of its funding from traders grateful for open roads.
31. Interpol, "International Drug Trafficking," International Criminal Police Review, no. 472-73 (1998), p. 3. By contrast, in 1980 the country reported virtually no incidence of drug abuse.
32. I. Haaq, "The Pak-Afghan Drug Trade," pp. 952-4.
33. See Rollie Lal, "South Asia's Organized Crime and Terrorist Networks," in this issue of Orbis.
34. "A Peace of Sorts," Economist, Sept. 20, 1997.
35. Douglas Franz, "Guerrilla Attacks Raise Worries in Central Asia," New York Times, Sept. 6, 2000. A week after this article appeared, the U.S. placed the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan on its list of foreign terrorist organizations, precluding its citizens from contributing money or material support to the group, as well as denying visas to or deporting members of the group.
36. Observatoire Geopolitique de Drogues, World Geopolitics of Drugs (2000), pp. 39-40.
37. Eric Schmitt, "Afghans' Gains Face Big Threat in Drug Traffic," New York Times, Dec. 11, 2004
38. Carlotta Gall, "Seven-Year Drought Puts Afghanistan on the Brink," New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004.
39. Afghani finance minister Ashraf Ghani, "Where Democracy's Greatest Enemy Is a Flower," New York Times, Dec. 11, 2004.
40. "Nation Building, or How To Handle a Warlord's Wants," Wall Street Journal Europe, Feb. 28, 2002
41. Hooman Peimani, "Afghan-based International Drug-Trafficking: A Continued Threat," Central Asia/Caucasus Analyst, May 8, 2002.
42. Stephen Graham, "Karzai Urges Afghans To Quit Trading Opium," AP, Dec. 9, 2004.
43. The necessity for and approaches to such efforts are discussed at length in Liz Alden Wiley, "Land Rights In Crisis: Restoring Tenure Security in Afghanistan," Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit - Issues Paper Series, March 2003, at www.ecoi.net.