Feature:
Afghan
Opium
Conundrum
--
What
to
do
with
Warlords,
Politicians
Involved
in
the
Drug
Trade?
10/7/05
Last week, Afghan Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali resigned his post, with senior government officials saying he quit over the appointment to provincial office of warlords linked to the drug trade and over the government's lack of action to combat the illicit drug economy. While Jalali's resignation is a blow to Western governments who supported his hard line on the drug issue, it is also a revealing example of a crucial dilemma faced by Afghanistan's fledgling democracy: What is to be done about members of the government or its allies who are involved with the illicit trade?
At last week's Senlis Council symposium and elsewhere in Afghanistan two models are under consideration, the criminal justice model and the reconciliation model. Just as countries that have suffered under criminal regimes, such as South Africa or Argentina, have had to choose between prosecuting former leaders and reintegrating them into society, Afghanistan faces a similar dilemma with its high-level opium and heroin traffickers and their political benefactors. It is not an easy choice, said William Boyd, an advisor to the World Bank on Afghan economic issues. "There are political costs and risks for the government no matter which way it goes," he said. "The government has a strong anti-drug strategy, but with the penetration of opium-related economic interests throughout the economy and even parts of the government, the government is in a situation of damned if you do, damned if you don't. It's a real dilemma," he said. Not for the United Nations, the United States, and other Western powers who are strongly urging the Afghan government to crack down on well-connected miscreants. The UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) has for several years urged an all-out attack on political figures and warlords linked to the trade. "It takes more than counter-narcotic efforts to fight drugs," said UNODC head Antonio Maria Costa late last month. "Fighting corruption, violence, crime and money-laundering; creating a stronger judiciary, a clean parliament, and an honest police force are all parts of the process. Without all these measures, democracy, peace and stability in Afghanistan remain threatened." The UNODC continues to press the Karzai government to go after traffickers and their supporters within the government. Its recommendations this year to the Afghan government call for the removal of corrupt governors, the arrest of corrupt officials, and the forced resignation of any member of the newly-elected Afghan parliament who has been indicted on drug charges. But international experts present at the Senlis symposium said the UNODC approach may be too simplistic, especially given conditions in Afghanistan, where the opium economy is the mainstay of the national economy and high-ranking members of the national government are implicated in the trade. "Punitive policies against drug trafficking and the drug industry are insufficient and unlikely to produce results in the long term," said Francisco Thoumi, director of the Research and Monitoring Center on Drugs and Crime at Rosario University in Colombia. "This approach reminds me of the carpenter who has only one tool, a hammer. For him, every problem looks like a nail." "In Afghanistan, with its context of great instability and with many sources of military power threatening the state, there is no quick solution," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a fellow at Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government. "Eradication is the quickest fix, but it can be very destabilizing. Pressure for a quick fix will only make things worse. In Afghanistan, there is a great need for innovative thinking because standard anti-drug policies are so problematic and socially disruptive."
"Offering amnesties to traffickers is a sensitive matter, but a licensing program and an amnesty are the only pragmatic solution," said Hugo Warner, a research fellow at the British Institute of International and Comparative Law. "Traffickers could be granted amnesty on the condition they put their profits into reconstruction of the country," he suggested. "That could be part of the incentive to switch to licensed cultivation, and it could address the need for justice and stability while allowing those higher-ups in the trade to re-engage with the state. On the other hand, compulsory prosecutions or an eradication program could destabilize the country, thus undermining the effort to build the state. The conditions in Afghanistan are conducive to an amnesty approach, and it should be considered favorably." But that notion didn't sit too well with some Afghan legal experts. Amnesty should be seen as "appeasement," said Dr. Ali Wardak, an Aghan legal scholar and professor of criminology at the University of Glamorgan in the United Kingdom, who worried such a move could lead to the creation of a narco-state. "Appeasing them would only weaken the legitimacy of the state," he said. "An amnesty would help them consolidate, and we don't want to be ruled by drug traffickers." Wardak's position was shared by a number of Afghans in attendance at the symposium, many of whom called for strict punishment of traffickers in the government. But it was not shared by Dil Aka Massoum, the former president of law enforcement affairs for the State High Commission on Drug Control, who is set to move to the Ministry of Internal Affairs as deputy for counter-narcotics matters. "We have been fighting the opium trade for 15 years, and I have to tell you I have seen no improvement; in fact, things have gotten worse," Massoum told DRCNet. "This is largely because of the war, but now the problem is the local governors who are involved in the trade, and the fact that everyone has weapons," he told DRCNet. Massoum expressed doubt that a crackdown on the drug lords was feasible. "We know that warlords and politicians are deeply involved in the traffic, and we are working on this, but nothing is ever done. If we do go after them, I am certain it will have to be a very gradual process."
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