|
UN/Afghanistan:
Hopes
for
Stability,
Alternative
Development
and
Economic
Recovery
Will
Not
Contain
the
Opium
Renaissance
6/27/03
statement and information
from the International Antiprohibitionist League, http://www.antiprohibitionist.org
On June 17, the United Nations
Security Council held a special debate on Afghanistan, with most of the
discussion focusing on the production of opium used for heroin, according
to Marco Perduca, UN Representative for the Transnational Radical Party
and executive director of the International Antiprohibitionist League (IAL).
Among the speakers was Dr. Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the
UN Office on Drugs and Crime.
Perduca issued the following
statement commenting on Costa's proposals:
 |
| Marco Perduca, in Mérida |
|
In the report presented
by the Special envoy of the Secretary General to Afghanistan and by Dr.
Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime,
there is a grim picture of what Afghanistan has become after the "liberation"
from the Taliban. Despite international attention and presence in
the country (the UK fighting drugs, Germans taking care of police and security,
Italians building the justice system and the US fighting terrorists), reconstruction,
economic regeneration and prosperity are not in sight. Law enforcement
is almost impossible outside the capital, and warlords are often chosen
to act as local guarantor of stability.
And of course drugs are back
on the map.
Mr. Costa, who in the past
had delivered more optimistic statements on the issue, has today emphasized
a series of measures [he claims] should be implemented in order to eradicate
the evil crop that is again increasing and finally allow Afghani people
to live a normal life. From alternative development, to micro-credit,
from supply reduction to demand reduction abroad (80% of the heroin that
reaches Europe is produced in Afghanistan) as well as tightened control
of the borders are on UNODC's wish list. Nothing new.
In 1998, [Costa's predecessor]
Pino Arlacchi wanted to make Afghanistan the example of how to reduce drugs
through a series of measures stemming from a "zero tolerance approach"
to the problem. Costa, who chaired the 46th session of the Commission
on Narcotics last April, where the international community reaffirmed its
prohibitionist credo, is trying to promote programs that resemble more
those of the World Bank than those that an agency dedicated to the control
of drugs should take into consideration.
Arlacchi's obsession with
eradicating crops in Afghanistan went as far as striking deals with the
Taliban, while Costa's managerial style is running the risk to put the
emphasis on all the aspects related to drugs and the possible (perfect)
theoretical ways to address those issues and not to the cause of all those
problems. Costa's economical background should help him understand
what the added value of drugs is: Prohibition.
Perduca also reported that Costa's
office found "a steady downward trend" in opium cultivation in Laos and
Myanmar, 22% less land under opium cultivation since 2002 and 60% since
1996, but failed to draw the connection with the resulting (or causative)
increase of opium cultivation in Afghanistan. Perduca charged that
UNODC "had constructed a method of work to answer difficult questions with
very easy answers."
Visit http://www.antiprohibitionist.org
for further information and to read IAL's in-depth report on the use and
misuse of cultivation numbers in the UN's world drug reporting.
-- END --
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Issue #293, 6/27/03
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