Colombia's 'lost war' against cocaine

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 [DIV class=headline]Colombia's 'lost war' against cocaine [/DIV][!--Smvb--]

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[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD vAlign=bottom width=348][!--Smvb--]By Matt Frei
BBC News, Colombia [!--Emvb--][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]
[!--Emvb--] [DIV class=bo] In a damp tropical night the plane from Miami judders through the clouds on its approach to Medellin airport.



[DIV class=bo] Suddenly strange translucent patches come into view. Dozens of them in varying shapes and sizes dotted around the hilly landscape like giant stranded jelly fish, illuminated from inside, pulsating and sinister.   It turns out these are greenhouses. Medellin clings to the hills at 1,700 metres and at night the temperature drops by 10 degrees.   So the precious plants are kept reassuringly warm with artificial sunlight under plastic tarpaulins and close to the airport to allow for speedy delivery abroad.   The nurtured content is after all one of Colombia's most lucrative exports, sold for astonishing profits all over the world.   'A humble weed' I'm talking about orchids. Yes, orchids! Colombia grows 450 different species of these delicate, exotic flowers. Seventy percent of the world's orchids come from here.  



[DIV class=bo] But the orchid is, of course, not the plant for which Colombia is best known. Orchids are not turned into powder and sniffed by millions of addicts in Europe and the US.   Orchids have not fuelled a guerrilla war, displacing two million Colombians and turning them into refugees in their own country. Orchids have not created a culture of violence.   No, that distinction belongs to an altogether less decorative plant - the coca leaf.   A humble weed, once grown by the South American indigenous peoples to brew tea and numb the nausea of altitude sickness, today the alkaloid distilled from it satisfies the most prevalent drug habit in the world. Unless you want to count alcohol of course.   An estimated nine million people sniff, snort or blow cocaine in Europe alone. Each day 5,000 more people worldwide will try the drug. Once a Yuppie accessory, "coke" has become a lot cheaper and a lot more common.   'Rickety helicopter' We were taken on a helicopter tour of Colombia's newest coca fields in the Macarena National Forest by Daniel Castiblanco, a police general who is waging a lost war against the plant on behalf of his government.  



[DIV class=bo] Sporting wraparound reflector specs and with two cell phones almost permanently clamped to his large ears the general clearly enjoyed giving us our tour.   When we wanted to fly lower to take a better look at the fields he did an impression of firing a gun and smiled.   I was sitting next to the gunner who had his gloved hand on the trigger of a 3,000-rounds-a-minute machine gun, made in Austria, searching for potential foes. I was trying to decide whether to feel reassured or terrified.   Sitting on the edge of a rickety Vietnam era US helicopter without doors you can see small patches of coca fields all the way to the horizon - hundreds of them, some no bigger than a hectare, but all of them planted very efficiently, delivering several crops a year.   Next to the larger fields is a small hut or house. "We call them the kitchens!" the general bellowed over the noise of the rotor blades. "It's where the first stage of production takes place."   Pondering options The leaves are shredded, dried and then cooked with chemicals that distil the alkaloid that makes the drug.   The farmers make a lot more from coca than pineapples or bananas but their profits are miniscule compared to those earned along the winding smuggler's route that finally ends in Europe or the US.   The government here is prevented by law from using pesticide to eradicate the plants in this part of the jungle, so the only way to get rid of them is to tear them out by the root one by one.   The problem is that the eradicators are easy targets for the guerrillas. Last month the government had 900. Now they're down to 150 in this area.   Many have simply fled and the few that are left need to be guarded by hundreds of officers to provide security. In our two hour flight we must have seen more than 200 coca fields. There was only one in which people were tearing up the plants.   Despite billions of dollars in aid, the US and Colombia are losing the battle to cut the supply. Perhaps it's time to look again at the demand and ponder options like legalisation.   But that, you might say, is a far trickier story because it's about our addiction and not about their economies.



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[TBODY]  [DIV class=sih]THREE WAYS TO LISTEN AGAIN [/DIV][!--Smva--][!--Spodlinkspacer--][A onclick="aodpopup('vny!://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/radio4/aod.shtml?radio4/fooc_sat'); return false;" href="vny!://www.bbc.co.uk/radio/aod/networks/radio4/aod.shtml?radio4/fooc_sat" target=_blank]Listen to the programme [/A][!--Epodlinkspacer--][!--Spodlinkspacer--][A href="vny!://downloads.bbc.co.uk/rmvny!/downloadtrial/radio4/fromourowncorrespondent/fromourowncorrespondent_20060520-1130_40_st.mp3" target=_blank]Download the MP3 (8MB) [/A][!--Epodlinkspacer--][/TBODY]

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[DIV class=ibox] [img height=152 alt="Soliders in a coca field" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41666000/jpg/_41666608_coca_ap203.jpg" width=203 border=0]   [DIV class=cap]Colombia is perhaps best known for the cocaine trade

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[DIV class=cap] [img height=152 alt="Cocaine being burnt" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41666000/jpg/_41666612_cocaine_afp203.jpg" width=203 border=0]   [DIV class=cap]Colombia is losing the battle against the suppliers

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[DIV class=cap] [img height=152 alt="Helicopter gunner looks out over mountains" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41666000/jpg/_41666614_helicopter_bbc203.jpg" width=203 border=0]   [DIV class=cap]Eradicators are easy targets for the guerrillas, so security is a big issue[/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV]

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 [DIV class=headline]The heroin trail [/DIV][!--Smvb--]

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[TD vAlign=bottom][!--Smvb--]By Alastair Leithead
BBC News, Afghanistan [!--Emvb--][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]
[!--Emvb--] [DIV class=bo] Flying over the river valleys of Helmand, southern Afghanistan, the lush green crops leap out of the monotonous beige desert landscape, spreading out as far as the eye can see.



[DIV class=bo] In the well-tended plots the farmers harvest their crop, but much of it is neither wheat nor vegetables - it's a cash crop and it's worth a huge amount of money.  Field after field is full of opium poppies and the gum the labourers are extracting is the raw material for heroin.  Helmand province in southern Afghanistan is where hundreds of British troops are already stationed and where hundreds more are currently being deployed.  Poppy politics This year Helmand will produce half of Afghanistan's opium, and the profit it will make for the traffickers and dealers as it moves its way to the UK will top one billion dollars.  The British government's commitment to Afghanistan is not just military support and reconstruction - but a pledge to taking on the drugs problem.  And when you realise that around 90% of Britain's heroin originates in Afghanistan you can see why it's an attractive political goal.  



[DIV class=bo] But on the ground it's a complex and dangerous job for the 3,300 British troops who will be on the front line against roadside bombs and suicide attackers intent on maintaining instability.  Half Afghanistan's economy is drugs dependent, and the Taleban, Al Qaeda and local warlords all make a lot of money out of narcotics - it fuels the insurgency here.  As one British military official said, the drugs problem is stamped across every level of the peace-keeping, or peace-making mission here.  It's a big business that has made allies of former enemies.  The mission is to bring stability to allow development and reconstruction, and to help extend the hand of the democratic government to areas currently out of its control.  Heroin trail Drugs and the problems they bring with them stand in the way of that mission.  Persuading people to stop growing poppies needs a combination of increasing the risk and the consequences to them of getting caught, and at the same time helping to provide them with alternative ways of making a living.  Poppy eradication is carried out by the government, but it is dangerous, labour intensive work, and what is cleared is a fraction of the total crop.  



[DIV class=bo] Mahmoud Naiam has been growing vegetables for two years now - he used to be a poppy farmer, but is now part of a USAID project which is providing training, seed and plastic greenhouses.  The aubergines and cucumbers are good and the technology gets them to market earlier and later in the season to earn the best prices, but whether this business is sustainable in the long term is the question.  "We only know how to grow poppies well," says Mahmoud. "If the aid workers give us seed and help it's fine - but if they leave, we'll go back to farming poppies."  In a police cell in central Kabul sit 31 tonnes of seized drugs - half the weight marijuana, but the rest opium, brown heroin, or the chemicals to purify the resin into a consumable drug.  Again it's a fraction of what is produced, because Afghanistan's borders with Pakistan and Iran are long and the smuggling routes are numerous and well-trodden.  From the dusty trails that meander the desert crossings, opium and heroin are trafficked out to Europe and into the veins of Britain's heroin junkies.

 

 [img height=152 alt="Soldier in poppy field" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41673000/jpg/_41673716_poppysoldierafpok.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]Helmand's stability is intertwined with that of its opium trade

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[DIV class=cap] [img height=200 alt="Poppy fields in Helmand" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41673000/jpg/_41673546_poppyfileldspaok.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]The extent of Helmand's poppy farms can clearly be seen from the air

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[DIV class=cap] [img alt="Anti-poppy production sticker" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41673000/jpg/_41673550_poppystickerafpok.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]Helmand's anti-opium campaign is seen as integral to its future[/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV]

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 [DIV class=headline]Losing the war on Afghan drugs [/DIV][!--Smvb--]

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[/TD] [TD][/TD] [TD vAlign=bottom width=348][!--Smvb--]By Andrew North
BBC News, Lashkar Gah, Helmand [!--Emvb--][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]
[!--Emvb--] [DIV class=bo]  "Of course we're growing poppy this year," said the district chief. "The government, the foreigners - they promised us help if we stopped. But where is it?"  



[DIV class=bo] You hear similar things from many other people in Helmand province in Afghanistan - the number one opium poppy producing region in the number one opium producing country in the world.  If there's a central focus for the international and Afghan government campaign to stamp out the trade, it's here.  And here many believe drugs profits directly fund Taleban militants, for whom parts of Helmand remain a haven.  But after a small drop in Helmand's opium cultivation this year - according to UN figures - many fear a sharp increase next year.  



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[TD width=5][/TD] [TD class=fact][!--Smva--]Dealing with Afghanistan's drugs problem since the fall of the Taleban has been a big failure here - a failure that soaks into every aspect of the country's progress
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[DIV class=bo]If that happens, the British and US governments will take much of the flak. Together they have been leading international efforts to tackle the problem.  Hundreds of millions of dollars' worth of British and US taxpayers' money have been spent. But it's mostly been water off a duck's back to a business that is deeply rooted and underpins the still war-ravaged Afghan economy - especially in remote places like Helmand.   Approach questioned UK Prime Minister Tony Blair recently admitted that his government had little to show for four years of effort since the fall of the Taleban.   But recent studies call into question the international community's whole approach to the problem.  



[DIV class=bo] Helmand has become a specific challenge to the UK which is gearing up to send several thousand troops and civilian advisers to the province next spring. Tackling drugs will be top of the agenda.   I spoke to one Afghan elder - sporting a large, black Taleban-style turban, still common in this region - who asked not to be named.  He had just emerged from a council meeting with Helmand's governor and other district chiefs. Governor Sher Mohammed Akhunzada had been urging them to spread the message to farmers not to sow opium again. It's planting time now.  They heard the same message this time last year - government officials here say this year's small decline is evidence it's getting through.    But is this sustainable? There were already warning signs. While Helmand recorded a 10% decline in opium cultivation in 2005, in neighbouring Nimroz it went up by a spectacular 1,370%.  It's believed many of those involved in the Helmand trade moved to Nimroz because it is even more remote and weakly policed.  



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[TD width=5][/TD] [TD class=fact][!--Smva--]The international community has to demonstrate that it's just as concerned about the problem as it affects Afghanistan
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[DIV class=bo]And at the council meeting in the Helmand governor's guesthouse there was a restive mood and complaints that promises had not been met.  "What happened to the new roads and irrigation canals, the jobs we were told about?" the elders asked.  As always at such meetings, there were excuses too. "Why does the government tell us to stop growing opium when it's doing nothing about alcohol use and prostitution?" one man demanded.  "Opium is not mentioned in the Koran, but alcohol and prostitution are."   Evidence hard to find  Helmand is supposed to have received $55m of "alternative livelihood" development aid this year, according to the UN's drugs control agency.  



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[TD width=5][/TD] [TD class=fact][!--So--][!--Eo--][!--Smva--]We need the British to stop the smugglers
[!--Emva--][!--Smva--]Governor Sher Mohammed Akhunzada [!--Emva--][/TD][/TR][/TBODY][/TABLE]

[DIV class=bo]That's $55 for every person in the province, a quarter of the average annual income here.  But it's hard to find any evidence of it in Helmand, where the tarmac on the roads runs out well before you leave the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah.  There have been some "cash for work" schemes, employing people on basic infrastructure projects like clearing drainage ditches.  But they don't pay enough to compensate people for losing their opium incomes, especially for the poorest farmers who are often deeply indebted to local drugs barons.  British and US counter-narcotics official argue, though, that there was never any chance of a quick replacement for opium.  But in major drug-producing areas that was not how farmers and community leaders understood things, according to a new European-Union funded study about the links between Afghanistan's opium economy and conflict.  Complying with President Hamid Karzai's edicts to stop growing poppy "was explicitly seen as conditional on rapid compensation and rural development", say the authors.  



[DIV class=bo] The implicit message from the meeting at Governor Akhunzada's guesthouse was that farmers would be planting again. Even he admits a rise in poppy cultivation is likely.  "It's not only because the farmers don't have alternatives," he says. "It's also because the Taleban and al-Qaeda are forcing them to grow poppy."  He wants more pressure put on the traffickers, the people higher up the chain who make the bigger profits and provide the market.  "We need the British to stop the smugglers," he says.  In Helmand, though, many regard the local administration as part of the problem because of widespread corruption. Many people here are calling for the government in Kabul to replace it.  Motives questioned For some time, many drug control experts and development workers have been saying similar things, that there's too much focus on farmers and eradicating their opium crops.    There is mounting concern back in the capital, Kabul, about the way things are going.  "We may be in danger," a senior Afghan government official told the BBC. "The farmers did listen to President Karzai, but they may lose confidence in him if they don't get more support."  There's scepticism, too, about the West's motives on the drugs issue, that its only real concern is reducing the supply of heroin to its own streets.  "The international community has to demonstrate that it's just as concerned about the problem as it affects Afghanistan," said the official.  Dealing with Afghanistan's drugs problem since the fall of the Taleban has been a big failure here - a failure that soaks into every aspect of the country's progress.   More and more, people are realising it's going to take a long time to reverse.

 

 

 [img height=152 alt="A farmer extracting opium from a poppy blossom" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/40877000/jpg/_40877657_afghan_drugs203.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]In 2004, Afghanistan produced 90% of the world's opium

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[DIV class=cap] [DIV class=o][img height=250 alt="Helmand governor Sher Mohammed Akhunzada" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41087000/jpg/_41087778_governor203.jpg" width=203 border=0]

 [DIV class=mva][img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/start_quote_rb.gif" width=24 border=0] We need the British to stop the smugglers [img height=13 alt="" src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/img/v3/end_quote_rb.gif" width=23 align=right border=0][BR clear=all][/DIV]

[DIV class=mva] Governor Sher Mohammed Akhunzada

     [img height=152 alt="Helmand bazaar" hspace=0 src="vny!://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41072000/jpg/_41072306_helmund4203.jpg" width=203 border=0]  [DIV class=cap]Few in Helmand are aware British troops are about to arrive[/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV][/DIV]

[Dissident]

You wanna know about how whacked US drug policy is?  Lemme say:  I don't do street drugs, but I did do pot and XTC a few times in my distant youth, and as far as I'm concerned they don't do the kind of physiological damage of tobacco and alcohol, and certainly don't produce the same societal damage that drinking does.

When I lived in Oregon I met this aging metal chick who had gone through the whole tweaker scene in Oceanside during her mis-spent youth.  When I met her she had cleaned up and was working at some film and video duplication place.  They had done a contract for the DEA, some heroin sting they pulled off in Oregon with a couple of drug dealers from Thailand.  She was editing some "hidden camera" video to use in court.  Their contact was some DEA cowboy who had spent a number of years raiding coke labs in the jungles of Central America before getting involved in this heroin deal.

According to her, he himself admitted that US Drug Enforcement probably intercepted about 1% of incoming contraband--and, in fact, most large-scale dealers even budgeted for losses from drug busts.  The guy they busted had guns and weapons-grade uranium for sale as well as drugs.  When his contact in the Thai government was extradited to the US for trial, the basis of his defence was that his English wasn't very good, and that when the undercover agents were talking about "heroin" he misunderstood them because he thought that they had said "uranium".  This was pre-9/11, and apparently the penalties for selling uranium were much lower than those for selling drugs.

Now we have a ruling clan in the US with CIA connections and rumoured ties to Central and South American drug cartels.   Heroin in Afghanistan?  Just part of the family business.