20/6/2003
The Ups and Downs of Opium Cultivation in Asia

Warning that the old Silk Road has been turned into “an opium-paved road,” the top United Nations anti-drug official this week called on the international community to help Afghanistan eliminate cultivation of a narcotic that feeds terrorism and for which it will continue to be the world’s largest producer in the coming years.

“The Afghan drug economy can be reconverted to peace and growth if the government is assisted to address the roots of the matter,” Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), told the Security Council in an open session on the Central Asian country.

Noting the need to create opportunities for alternative, licit sources of income, Mr. Costa said: “The task to rid Afghanistan of the drug economy requires much greater political, security and financial capital than presently available, to assist the rural areas affected by opium production and, above all, to improve the central government’s ability to implement the opium production ban.”

In particular, he said, the international community could develop under UN auspices a comprehensive approach to help the government in its own drug control strategy, promote concerted measures in Afghanistan and its neighbours against drug trafficking, and foster alternative development in opium-growing areas in partnership with specialized UN agencies. Such measures could include replacing local narco-usurers with micro-lending and providing jobs and education to women and children.

He emphasized that Afghan drugs provided resources for crime and terrorism – with dealers, including remnants of the previous Taliban regime and the Al Qaida terrorist network, recycling huge profits “in violence and death,” influencing politics, fomenting regional strife and feeding armed conflict to destabilize the government.

But perhaps the most serious threat came from the spreading of HIV/AIDS through drug injections and “unless the problem is brought under control, the risk of a pandemic in the region cannot be excluded,” Mr. Costa added.

Neighbouring countries, through which drugs are exported, and Europe and Russia, where heroin use feeds opium cultivation and demand reduction efforts should be intensified, need to make convergent efforts, he said.

“UNODC will contribute to the largest possible extent, stretching our work beyond Afghanistan’s borders,” Mr. Costa declared.

While opium poppy cultivation in Myanmar and Laos has shown a significant drop over the past year, suggesting that eliminating the drug trade in two sides of the infamous "Golden Triangle" may be possible, the two countries will need continued help to sustain law enforcement activities and develop alternative crops, according to a new United Nations report.

The <I>Myanmar and Laos Opium Surveys for 2003</I>, launched this week in New York by the UN Office for Drugs and Crime (UNODC), confirms the downward trend in 2002 in opium cultivation in the Golden Triangle - which also includes Thailand. The surveys show a 24 per cent decline for Myanmar and 15 per cent for Laos mostly because farmers shifted crops to rice or other grains, which together with marginal harvest levels in Thailand and Viet Nam, has reduced opium cultivation in Southeast Asia by 60 per cent since 1996.

Still, the report notes that although the current downward trend in Myanmar had been encouraging, the country remains the world's second-largest supplier of opium and heroin after Afghanistan, with the Shan State representing more than 90 per cent of the total opium poppy cultivation in the country. Laos is the third-largest opium producer.

Although their numbers are declining, more than 350,000 households in Myanmar and 40,000 in Laos will continue to derive the largest share of their income from the harvested opium - an estimated 810 tons in Myanmar and 120 tons in Laos. To sustain these declines, alternative development programmes for farmers are required, the report says. It also remains crucial to ensure that significant funding and technical assistance is provided to UNODC's alternative development, demand reduction and law enforcement initiatives.

At a press briefing at UN Headquarters in New York, UNODC Executive-Director Antonio Maria Costa attributed the decline not only to the commitment of the central governments, but also that of local communities, provinces and townships. He also stressed the importance of alternative cultivation efforts to reduce food shortages. One of the main reasons framers had been cultivating opium was because of the revenue it generated. Efforts by UN agencies to improve food security had reduced the motivation to cultivate illegal crops, he said.