Poppy Deal – Moon of Alabama

December 10, 2004

Poppy Deal

Karzai declares jihad on poppy cultivation and starts digging his grave.

"Poppy cultivation is more dangerous than terrorism, it is more dangerous than civil wars because this crop is not only a source of weakness, dishonour and defeat of Afghanistan, but also an internal danger."

Anti-narcotics agencies say some local warlords, government officials, police commanders and governors are implicated in the trade.

Many small farmers make 10 times as much growing opium than growing other crops. Local warlords do the collecting, processing and smuggling. An international network is distributing heroin into foreign markets. All have an interest to keep the opium cultivation going and growing.

The value of the opium trade for the local Afghan economy is said to be $4 billion (80%+ of GDP) in 2004. The end consumer market price is normally about 10 times the value of the crops. So now Karzai is betting against people who make up to $40 billion revenue per year and do not care about laws or national interest.

What are his options?

The US told him to start spraying, like in Columbia, and obviously such spraying has taken place, but the UK and the US, in control of the Afghan air space, denied knowing anything. Spraying of course does not only kill the plants, but also the people (either directly or through loss of income) and Karzai is well advised to talk against this. Anyway, just like gene modified Columbian supercoca, herb resistant plants could be expected to be developed pretty quick (Poppy Roundup Ready^® anyone?).

One could buy off the farmers by guaranteeing them revenue on different crops. The amount of money needed would be a little more than Afghans make today on opium, spread over some 10 years. These $40 billion would be well invested, but no one expects the international community to come up with such an amount. The heroin is consumed in Afghan border countries, destabilizing them, and some in European markets. The US is so far not a market and may be even interested in some drug induced social chaos in Iran and elsewhere. This may change when US troops in Iraq turn out to be well paying customers.

Karzai could also choose to just look the other way. Make a lot of international noise about those bad drugs and let the local warlords do their deals. Keep the constituency happy and keep the job. Either that, or he needs to dig fast.

Posted by b on December 10, 2004 at 18:00 UTC | Permalink

Comments

Karzai, I don’t think is too stupid.
He’ll probably make some noise for international consumption; and everything will go on as it has for the past two years.
Building Zanadu has been Bush’s singular achievement in Afghanistan
Ought to make it a sound bite:
“Leave no FuManchu or Escobar behind”

Posted by: FlashHarry | Dec 11 2004 2:27 utc | 1

A timely and relevant post, Bernhard. When I saw that article about the spraying that the USG and Karzai denied knowing about, I almost laughed. Yes, Karzai’s only hope is to speak loudly and carry a very small stick.

Posted by: maxcrat | Dec 11 2004 2:29 utc | 2

Speaking of king for a day:
It’s interesting to compare the coverage of Manuel Noriega and Yushchenko when it comes to facial blemishes.

Posted by: biklett | Dec 11 2004 3:04 utc | 3

The US told Karzai to start spraying?….Well, back in the early ’80’s, if memory serves, the US, under the guidance of that suave, thoughtful, wise and deliberate counsellor, George Schultz, told the Afghan warlords that they were free to flood the market with opium if it made them happy to do so (and it made them happy to do so). Anything to win the Cold War, gentlemen, anything at all….

Posted by: alabama | Dec 11 2004 3:15 utc | 4

If anyone hasn’t seen the film Traffik, a Brit made for TV affair, from which the US was appropriated, it’s the best thing I’ve ever seen on tv – avail. @yr. local video shop. It follows Afghan drug production, it’s effect on locals & it’s tentacles. End a bit schlocky, but the stuff in Afghanistan was interesting.

Posted by: jj | Dec 11 2004 9:05 utc | 5

OpEd in the NYT by Ashraf Ghani, Afghanistan’s finance minister: Where Democracy’s Greatest Enemy Is a Flower

First is a long-term plan for training, equipping and deploying national police, border police and counter-narcotics officers that will arrest and otherwise disrupt the high-value targets (the traffickers and processors) while also controlling our borders and enforcing the rule of law throughout the countryside. These forces will not come cheap – at least $1 billion per year for five years, over and above the current investment in building the national army.
We also need to stimulate economic growth in a way that decreases the proportionate influence of the drug economy. This will depend in great part on rebuilding the country physically: investing in energy production, improved water systems and highways – a 10-year, $20 billion challenge.
Next, we need an agricultural strategy that links farming households to domestic and international markets. With grain worth so little in comparison to opium, and agricultural productivity in Afghanistan only one-eighth that of middle-income countries, a short-term plan to substitute wheat for poppy will not work. We need market-based land reform; credit programs for small farmers and cooperatives; and government investment in light industry to fulfill the potential of our irrigable land. Preferential trade agreements that help our farmers and small businesses become part of world markets would also be vital. All this will cost at least $1 billion a year for at least five years.
Last, the government must improve our judicial system, our financial institutions and provincial governments. Arbitrary arrests and detentions of poppy farmers will bring only widespread resentment; trials and imprisonment of alleged drug traffickers without due process will undermine the credibility of the state and strengthen the drug mafia. Public institutions committed to the rule of law will not come cheaply or quickly in Afghanistan, and may take as much as $1 billion a year over 10 years.

Even less than the $40 billion in 10 years I estimated. The international community better come up with this money. It’s a lot cheaper than 40 billion a year spend by consumers on drugs plus the costs following the addiction.

Posted by: b | Dec 11 2004 9:16 utc | 6

Since 79, Afgh. has lived off the poppy trade. It is the only cash crop they have got. When the Northern Alliance was fighting the Taliban regular cease-fires (unreported) took place. As in the afternoon, twice or more a week, to let the traders move about and do their thing. Revenues from the drug trade keep all the factions in cash. Karzai knows this perfectly well…
Acres devoted have stayed quite stable with a large increase in 98 (due to poor yields in 97), and increasing slowly in years 2000 – today. (I should look that up..) It is a crop that permits the farmer to obtain credit. Expensive credit. But credit nonetheless.
Local war lords or dealers are not the only ones who benefit. Uncounted very poor families feed their children from the spin-offs and trickle-downs. (Eg. sharecroppers, itinerant laborers, small dealers, transporters, middlemen, etc.) It is multibillion dollar business, set in a free market. Free, meaning a whole corrupt circuit of pay-offs, bribes, stipends, local rings, etc. etc. No taxes. On occasion, some anti-drug discourse or phantom half-hearted clamp down is implemented. This soon passes, and people can eat again and buy school books, maybe new bedding, etc.
What does Afgh. export? Yes, some fruits and nuts. Mostly to Pakistan (which has fruit and nuts), I reckon – local trade, over the border between neighbors. Carpets. They aren’t selling in the EU, trade killed off by Ikea and China (what I see from CH.) Agriculture is difficult (terrain; most mine infested country in the world; water a problem; energy lacking – distribution-; machinery clapped out). De-mining is only an option for static efforts (herds difficult) with high returns on investment.
They do produce some textiles – cotton, wool .. cashmere? (They used to produce medecines and cement and export a lot of agricultural produce as well as livestock; pre-Soviet it was self-sufficient for food, I have read) Hum. I’ve never seen Afghan cotton, but have smoked Afghan marijuana, a long time ago, on a summer’s day in the middle of a pool.
Wasteland – poorest country in the world (say). They need RAIN, water management, passable roads (safe ones), and small credits (not jerky dollops of aid and idiosyncratic projects). Reforestation, maybe. First things.
I left out: Gas, the CIA, the Afgh Gvmt, and pipeline dreams.
Off the cuff. General picture important.

Posted by: Blackie | Dec 11 2004 17:02 utc | 7

Wasn’t Afghanistan whacked off by the Brit. Foreign Office for reasons internal to Brit. welfare rather than concern w/whether it could be a viable self-sustaining state?
Like “Kuwait” which was whacked off “Iraq” by same Brit. Foreign Office to decrease “Iraq’s” port access, thereby creating 2 much less powerful states than if “Kuwait” hadn’t been whacked off.

Posted by: jj | Dec 12 2004 0:25 utc | 8

Yes, Karzai’s only hope is to speak loudly and carry a very small stick.
Remember when Karzai was making some equally militant noises about the warlords being even worse than the Taliban, a threat to democracy, etc? Then a few months ago, he sacked one of his warlord ministers (Ismail Khan) and after some kind of violent dispute, occupied his city of Herat with the help of the Americans. Since then, it’s been fairly quiet, but we haven’t heard a lot about how the warlords MUST be disarmed. And I think they’re still not much inclined. So Karzai speaks loudly and knows enough not to smack all the warlords with his American stick. Good ol’ divide and rule, as long as he doesn’t get too cocky.
The international community better come up with this money. It’s a lot cheaper than 40 billion a year spend by consumers on drugs plus the costs following the addiction.
Yeah, that would make good sense, wouldn’t it? But as usual, people will be penny-wise and pound- foolish. Plus they need that feeling of vengeful moral superiority that comes from the War on Drugs.

Posted by: Harrow | Dec 12 2004 4:11 utc | 9

@ jj
Afghanistan was never conquered by the brits, they tried and failed. Later on it became quite a handy buffer-state between the British and Russian colonial empires.
And Kuwait was a 19th-century British colony while Iraq was a 20th-century mandate from the League of Nations. Of course they were not joined by the reasons you just stated. You could say that Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and so on were all whacked of the Arab nation by the Sykes-Picot agreement.
I don´t have my reference books with me, but I think I remember this correctly.

Posted by: A swedish kind of death | Dec 12 2004 7:11 utc | 10

NYT on drought in Afghanistan: Seven-Year Drought Puts Afghanistan on the Brink

Afghanistan remains in the grip of the most debilitating drought in living memory, now in its seventh year. Government and foreign aid officials warn that despite the outside help and a good harvest last year, the country is living on the brink, with nearly 40 percent of the population below subsistence levels.
…
“You have a recurring drought in Afghanistan, particularly because of deforestation and soil degradation,” said Susana Rico, head of Word Food Program in Afghanistan. “There is significant underlying poverty, and a significant portion of the population that are not able to feed themselves. Any shock will push more under the threshold.”
The shock this year was simply the lack of rain. Crops failed, farm laborers were left without work and food prices rose sharply, by 50 percent in some places. Wells, rivers and canals have gone dry.
…
The great Helmand River, which descends from the Hindu Kush and, along with other rivers, feeds the traditional wetlands of the Sistan Basin, has run dry in Nimruz. A new bridge spanning the Helmand at Zaranj, at the border with Iran – built by the Iranian government and officially opened in November – crosses a dry river bed.

Global warming?

Posted by: b | Dec 12 2004 10:41 utc | 11

Well I thought it might be a plague of some sort. Our God is bigger and stronger than theirs so they have to suffer a bit.
On the pratical side, perhaps a bombing campaign can be arranged to reduce the population some more, if there are fewer mouths the food should last longer, no?

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 12 2004 11:03 utc | 12

make that practical….grrr

Posted by: dan of steele | Dec 12 2004 11:11 utc | 13

Back to Main