Afghan ambassador: Economic growth, security key to stopping
drug trade
Leo Shane III
Stars and Stripes
05/14/2006
WASHINGTON — Stopping Afghanistan’s
drug trade will require years of law enforcement work and a
complete economic turnaround for the country, according to that
country’s ambassador to the United States.
“There is no quick fix,” said Said
T. Jawad, who has served in the ambassador role since December
2003. “Opium producing in Afghanistan is the result of
30 years of war and distraction.
“In an environment of total insecurity —
social, political and economic — people have leveled their
pomegranate orchards, their vineyards, and turned them into
poppy fields, because it takes only three months to harvest
poppy.”
Jawad, speaking with reporters Friday about the
future of the country, noted that despite progress in rebuilding
since 2001, Afghanistan remains the sixth poorest economy in
the world. Only 6 percent of the homes in the country have access
to electricity, and only about 23 percent of the population
has access to clean drinking water.
So for many the illegal crops have become the
only choice, Jawad said.
“If your choice is between life and death,
you’ll choose life, even if that means that your actions
are illegal,” he said. “But give the Afghan farmers
an alternative, and they’ll take it.”
Last year, Afghan law enforcement officials seized
more than 158 tons of opium and 39 tons of heroin, and cleared
about 23,000 acres of farmland being used to raise illegal crops.
Despite that, the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime estimates the country produced about 87 percent of
the world’s illegal opium trade last year.
Programs to help farmers grow other, legal crops
have had little success thus far because of poor funding. Jawad
said international leaders must realize that without an economic
solution those drug farmers have no incentive to turn away from
their only source of income.
“Forceful poppy eradication without adequate
alternative livelihood assistance can alienate the poor farmer
and strengthen narco-traffickers,” he said. “Such
quick fix solutions will push many rural communities into further
poverty and dependency on terrorists.”
To that end, political leaders are working to
reform those programs, and have set a target of providing electricity
to 25 percent of the homes in the country by 2010, and linking
at least 40 percent of the villages by easily accessible roadways
by then.
Jawad said those are not lofty goals, and would
still leave many citizens living in poverty and despair.
“But we are realistic about the challenges
we are facing.”
