http://www.freep.com/news/nw/tajik4_20040504.htm
Tajikistan at crossroads of the drug trade
Desperately poor, it fights a losing battle
May 4, 2004
BY MARK MCDONALD
FREE PRESS FOREIGN CORRESPONDENT
DUSHANBE, Tajikistan -- Heroin producers in Afghanistan, some of the
principal financiers of Al Qaeda and other terrorist
groups, have never before been so brazen or so wealthy.
With a bumper crop of opium poppies under cultivation, Afghan narco-barons
have begun stamping their brand names on the
2.2-pound bags of heroin they smuggle out of central Asia to buyers in
Moscow, London, New York and Amsterdam, the
Netherlands.
Sacks of high-quality Afghan heroin seized last week in Tajikistan carried
the trademarks Super Power and 555. Some of the
sacks, which were hidden inside foil-lined containers of instant
cappuccino mix, even included the addresses of the labs in
Afghanistan where the heroin had been refined.
Drug-control experts say the number of processing facilities in
Afghanistan has exploded over the last year, and a
Western-led campaign against opium-growing and heroin laboratories has
been a wholesale failure. The trade and huge sums of
money involved threaten to undermine vulnerable bordering nations, such as
Tajikistan.
"There's absolutely no threat to the labs inside Afghanistan," said Avaz
Yuldashov of the Tajikistan Drug Control Agency.
"Our intelligence shows there are 400 labs making heroin there, and 80 of
them are situated right along our border."
About 200,000 acres of opium poppies have been planted in Afghanistan --
opium serves as the raw material of heroin -- and
the country's late-summer harvest will produce 75 percent of the world's
heroin. That will mean further billions for growers,
smugglers, corrupt officials and Afghan warlords.
It's also likely to mean a windfall of tithes to Al Qaeda and its Islamist
brethren now said to be regrouping in the
mountains of central Asia.
"Drug trafficking from Afghanistan is the main source of sup****t for
international terrorism now," Yuldashov said.
But in recent congressional testimony about heroin flow out of
Afghanistan, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration head Karen
Tandy spoke only of "potential links" between Afghan traffickers and
terrorists. Drug agents in central Asia say they're
baffled by Tandy's hedging.
"The connection is absolutely obvious to us," said Col. Alexander
Kondratiyev, a senior Russian officer who has served with
border guards in Tajikistan for nearly a decade. "Drugs, weapons,
ammunition, terrorism, more drugs, more terrorism -- it's a
closed circle."
That circle has profound implications for the U.S.-led fight against
international terrorism. Regional diplomats, aid workers
and law-enforcement officials worry about the emergence of a central Asian
narco-nation, a country dominated by the drug
economy and effectively controlled by a heroin Mafia with roots in
Afghanistan and ties to Al Qaeda.
"We have a deep responsibility to keep these central Asian republics from
becoming failed states," said a Western diplomat in
Dushanbe who spoke on condition of anonymity. "Look what happened in
Afghanistan. It was a failed state -- and it became a
nest for terrorists."
At particular risk is Tajikistan, a desperately poor, predominantly Muslim
nation of about 7 million.
Tajikistan produces almost no opium or heroin of its own, but it has
become a natural pathway for traffickers because of its
900-mile border with Afghanistan. Also, enough heroin has been circulating
in Tajikistan that it now has galloping rates of
heroin addiction and drug crime.
The Tajik Drug Control Agency -- outmanned and outgunned -- said it
managed to seize nearly 6 tons of heroin from traffickers
last year. Senior commanders estimate they catch about 20 percent of the
traffic. Some analysts say they think it's probably
about 10 percent.
Tajikistan, isolated and landlocked, has almost no industrial economy
other than a government-controlled aluminum smelter.
The national budget is barely $300 million a year. The heroin trade alone,
Yuldashov said, is 10 times bigger.
That kind of disparity leaves many Tajiks vulnerable to corruption,
especially when the average salary is $10 a month and 80
percent of the population lives below the poverty line.
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"Endeavor to persevere"
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