Despite Taliban Vow, Afghan Opium Production Is Up, U.N. Says
By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
September 11, 1997
The Muslim fundamentalist Taliban movement has pledged to crack down on opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, but opium production there has jumped by 25 percent over the last year, with almost all of the increase occurring in Taliban-controlled areas, United Nations International Drug Control Program officials said Wednesday.
The United Nations agency's 1997 survey, scheduled for release Thursday, estimates that Afghan opium production rose to about 2,800 metric tons this year from 2,300 metric tons in 1996. United Nations officials report that Afghanistan now produces the raw ingredient for nearly half of the world's heroin.
Last year, Afghanistan ranked second to Myanmar, which produced 2,500 metric tons of opium, according to a State Department estimate.
Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the United Nations International Drug Control Program, said the increase could mean more heroin flowing into Europe at cheaper prices. European heroin users consume about 80 percent of the heroin refined from opium grown in Afghanistan. Part of the remainder reaches the American market, which is dominated by heroin from Colombia and Southeast Asia.
Mr. Arlacchi said he would raise his concern about the output of Afghan opium at meetings with other United Nations officials in New York today and on Friday.
''I want to inform them because we are very worried about the increase,'' Mr. Arlacchi said in a telephone interview from Vienna.
A United States counterdrug official in Washington expressed no surprise at the United Nations estimate of Afghanistan's opium crop. ''Production has skyrocketed, we know that, and production is sanctioned by the Taliban,'' the official said.
Officials say the Taliban, which has seized power in 22 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, now controls 96 percent of its poppy-growing areas.
The increase resulted from higher poppy yields, which were attributed to favorable weather, improved cultivation techniques and the shifting of some farmland to poppy cultivation. The total number of acres under poppy cultivation increased by only 2.8 percent, the survey estimated. United Nations survey teams based their estimate on visits to 18 provinces.
The report offered fresh evidence that the Taliban has not fulfilled its promises to crack down on opium production. Taliban officials say they cannot stop peasants from growing opium poppies without other crops to substitute, and contend that persuading them to switch depends on economic assistance from the international community.
The United States and many other countries have kept the Taliban at arm's length because of its violent rise to power and repressive policies like the relegation of women to inferior status. But international officials and journalists traveling in Afghanistan reported that the Taliban is not just tolerating opium production but also taxing it for desperately needed revenue and that Taliban militiamen have been seen guarding opium warehouses and helping transport the crop.
Taliban officials, while denying any involvement in the opium trade, concede that it is flourishing.
Afghanistan is one of six countries identified by the State Department as not cooperating sufficiently in the international fight against illegal drugs. The other countries are Colombia, Iran, Myanmar, Nigeria and Syria. The State Department report said, ''While the Taliban banned opium production in late 1996, it made no effort to enforce this ban.''