drugs

 by Arman Sidhu

Eradicating Illicit Crops: Lessons from South America for Afghanistan

As the world’s largest producer of opium poppy, Afghanistan’s reliance on the cultivation of illicit crops is integral to understanding the shortcomings of the country’s economic development agenda. Estimates suggest that Afghanistan alone generates over 90% of the world’s opium supply, with the crop contributing over a 1/3 of the country’s GDP and creating over half a million jobs.

Though efforts to curtail the production of Afghan poppy have gone through several iterations, dating back 47 years ago when King Mohammad Zahir Shah instituted an outright ban, few initiatives have yielded promising results.

For its part, the United States has spent nearly $10 billion USD on counter-narcotic operations since invading Afghanistan almost two decades ago. Yet, the arrival of American forces coincided with an exponential rise in poppy cultivation. In 2001, poppy production was just under 180 metric tons but ballooned to 6,700 metric tons last year. Such figures were debilitating enough to cause the US to cease its focus on Afghanistan’s narcotics trade.

In spite of the setbacks endured by the Afghan government and its allies, comparative case studies of illicit crop eradication efforts offer helpful guidance. Strong demand for cocaine in the United States sparked substantial cultivation of the coca leaf in the 1980s, throughout South America’s Andean States. An increasing amount of farmland in Bolivia, Peru, and Colombia shifted from traditional cash crops such as coffee and sugarcane in favor of coca, which provided healthier and reliable margins for the agricultural community.

Just as the Taliban’s involvement in the opium trade grew, so too did the nexus of illicit crop production and insurgent groups emerge in Colombia and Peru. Coca production and trafficking was vital to the funding of leftists-armed groups such as Peru’s Shining Path and Colombia’s Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The astonishing parallels between these groups and the Taliban are striking, given their rural origins, their stated aims, and their deep reliance on the global drug trade.

Nevertheless, as exhibited in both successes and failures from the case studies of Colombia and Peru, successful eradication is not always contingent on the achievement of military objectives. Instead, by addressing the legitimate grievances of agricultural workers, governments can simultaneously pare cultivation and the security risks associated with eradication.

Lesson #1: The Failure of Forceful Eradication

In 2004, amid international pressure, then-Afghan President Hamid Karzai declared war against opium production, with an objective to eradicate the crop by 2006. Karzai’s decision was primarily motivated by a determination to cut off revenue for the Taliban, who relied on the opium trade to fund operational expenses and acquire weapons.

While the Taliban’s financial stability can certainly be attributed to the prevalence of poppy, the assumption that Afghanistan’s narcotics trade solely benefits a handful of organizations is a harmful oversimplification. Instead, the poppy supply chain unveils a far more complex web of activities that include informal networks between farmers, producers, traffickers, and warlords.

Nevertheless, the typical response to eradication often includes use of force, either through manual destruction of crop fields, or aerial eradication using planes that spray fumigants. In the case of Afghanistan, Colombia, and Peru, manual destruction is often accompanied by exchanges of gunfire that endanger security forces participating in such operations. Aerial eradication was frequently used in Colombia as a way to mitigate casualty risks to ground forces. However, the environmental and health hazards associated with harmful chemicals such as glyphosate, has drawn in the Colombian government into lengthy court battles that have disrupted the program, eroding its efficacy to combat coca cultivation.

Regardless of the method employed, forceful eradication is consistent in one regard: alienation of the rural community from state institutions and security forces. Generating goodwill between the Afghan government and its farming community necessitates a productive dialogue for eradication, an objective that cannot be achieved through unilateral military action against poppy fields.

Lesson #2: Substitutions, Subsides, and Relief as Incentives

In order to deter illicit crop cultivation, it is pertinent to understand what incentivizes its continued growth. The profit margins of opium poppies can often be 10 times the amount generated by alternative cash crops. Yet, as documented in the Nangahar province, farmers do exhibit a willingness to forego the risks associated with poppy if provided with a holistic aid program. Such programs would include crop substitution, drought/disaster relief, and subsidies designed to cover the shortfalls while farmers adjust to licit crops.

Similar programs in Colombia and Peru have already demonstrated success, provided that the promises of aid materialize. Both countries have seen moderate success in efforts such as a “Coca to Cocoa” drive, in large part due to a multilateral model that includes aid, security, as well as financing options and expansion of market access for farmers to sell their crops. In the case of Afghanistan, potential crop substitutes could include saffron and wheat, but both necessitate investment in irrigation to ensure successful harvest.

Such programs tend to falter when states fail to uphold their end of the bargain with farmers. A sustainable agricultural aid program requires a long-term investment that includes more than direct subsidies. Poor profit margins of traditional cash crops are a consequence of inefficient farming practices, inadequate infrastructure, and a lack of market access. Thus, the simple provision of aid in the absence of structural investment in the agrarian economy is neither sustainable nor efficient in long-term eradication success.

Lesson #3: Pragmatism and Political Will remain Prerequisites

Afghanistan’s ascension as a “narco-state” is a consequence of poor industrialization and underinvestment in Afghanistan’s rural periphery. Instead of annihilating the industry, sixteen years of government-led war on the opium trade has only bolstered and entrenched the networks between farmers, producers, and traffickers.

The comprehensive peace deal negotiated between the Colombian government and FARC rebels offers a framework for Afghanistan’s peace process. Prior to the deal’s collapse, coca eradication in FARC territories saw a noticeable decline, serving as proof that the ongoing peace talks between the Taliban and the Afghan government could offer the best opportunity to bring about some level of control over the country’s narcotics trade.

Throughout its short-lived reign, the Taliban did manage to eradicate poppy cultivation in its strongholds. Yet, any joint enforcement with the government will only prove potent if supplemented by a comprehensive plan that address the root-causes of Afghanistan’s agricultural weaknesses. Furthermore, the entrenchment of poppy in Afghanistan’s economy means the timetable for eradication will be gradual and require the support and approval of tribal leaders. In exchange, it will be up to the government to provide the conditions for alternative employment, making poppy cultivation a choice instead of a sole solution.

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 by Ahmad Mohibi

Narcotics and Insecurity: How the Afghan-Tajik Drug Trade Derails Peace

A special field report by Rise to Peace. 

Taliban makes 10 million Afghanis daily via drug trafficking in northern Afghanistan. For years, the Taliban continue to smuggle and traffick narcotics — such as heroin —  along the Kukche River in the Darqid and Khawaja Bahawuddin districts of Takhar province.

This highly lucrative black market venture relies on two important branches. Armed smugglers transport heroin to the Dasht-e Qala district of Takhar, however, the Taliban facilitate the transnational nature of these particular shipments as they cross the border into Tajikistan.

As a result, the Taliban profits 10 million Afghanis ($127, 800 US) from this black market venture daily, excluding the shares diverted to drug traffickers and armed guards.

Heroin is not the only illicit product peddled by the Taliban. In coordination with narcotics traffickers and gunmen in the province, the Taliban import alcohol, and tablets known as “tablet K” (a synthetic drug with an unclear composition that acts as a stimulant) from Tajikistan. Many Afghans have died in recent years due to the use of such synthetic drugs and their intoxicating effects. Once narcotics such as these tablets are imported to Takhar, they are easily distributed across Afghanistan.

The Taliban control trafficking routes and cooperate with narco-traffickers based on mutually beneficial terms. The importation of alcoholic beverages (such as wine) and illegal drugs (such as tablet K) typically occurs in the north-eastern provinces of Afghanistan because they offer fewer impediments. Only a body of water — the large Kukche River —  separates the borders between Afghanistan and Tajikistan. 

Is the Afghan experience unique versus other drug hotspots?

Afghanistan is the top cultivator of opium globally and a major player in the heroin trade. Countries with similar narco-agricultural portfolios, such as Mexico and Colombia, reveal that the drug trade has certain similarities no matter a state’s location. Traffickers use violence and armed groups to ensure preferred corridors remain under their control. This often conflicts with the involvement of national security forces positioned to counter this broad human security threat. 

Furthermore, like their foreign counterparts engaged in the narco-trade, the Taliban and Tajik drug lords rely on state instability and unstable socioeconomic factors to lure individuals — such as border guards, insecure infrastructure, government officials and those in poverty — to ensure the safe passage of their contraband goods. Transnational black market schemes typically ensure the largest profits.

How do officials conspire with the Taliban to garner profits?

Drug smugglers and some former government officials work together with the Taliban to smuggle Afghan heroin to the vast market of Central Asia through Tajikistan. A former Takhar governor, who does not wish to be named, stated the following to a Rise to Peace journalist: “the war beyond Takhar is a war between the mafia of power and the heroin war that the Taliban have been able to coordinate with unarmed Marines.”

Mullah Qadar — a top Taliban commander who is also a graduate of the Shariah department at Takhar University —  told an unarmed man, who was later interviewed by Rise to Peace, that the Taliban’s leadership strongly controls the districts surrounding Kunduz province to ensure a continuous stream of income from drug trafficking and taxes imposed on the people.

Kunduz is a key province in northern Afghanistan that connects Kabul with Takhar and Badakhshan province. As it is a strategic point, the Taliban usurped control over the region from the Afghan government three times in the past 18 years

The Taliban taxes farmers in these areas under their influence to acquire funding for military operations to ensure their presence remains. According to Mullah Qadar, who worked as deputy governor of Takhar for a long time: “Taliban have various ways of income in Kunduz. When I was with them, we collected revenue from textiles, taxed farmers, and charged small fees for some businessmen selling their products or goods in an open market.”

Further insight into the northern Afghan-Tajik drug trade was offered by those interviewed.

Why did you import wine from Tajikistan when you know it’s unlawful and illegal?

We had a deal with the heroin traffickers. They gave us the goods, we transported them and made revenue to keep our resistance going. The export of heroin to Tajikistan and the import of alcohol and tablet K into Afghanistan generated the most revenue for us and the Taliban are still doing it.

How does the Taliban smuggle heroin to Tajikistan?

Taliban receives the product from Afghan drug traffickers and then coordinate with Tajik smugglers who are on the other side of the river. According to a smuggler: “Taliban have close coordination with Tajikistan’s border guards. After they get our heroin, they ship the stuff through small boats, or in most cases, via a localized water technique called Kema that has the ability to transfer drugs. 

Karghan Tapeh, which is the capital of Khatlan province of Tajikistan, is the destination of these particular contraband materials. It acts as a transit point where alcohol and tablet K are loaded and transferred to the Taliban.

Tajikistan’s Ministry of Defense spokesman Fereidun Muhammad Aliev states that ‘more than ten’ Afghan smugglers are targeted along this route annually and their bodies are surrendered to Afghan authorities. Nonetheless, he continued that the prevention of further smuggling on this lucrative route is difficult given the Taliban’s presence in the shared forests and river areas between Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

A strong Taliban presence correlates to increased trafficking in the area.

Local authorities in Takhar also confirm that the majority of regional heroin smuggling occurs along this route with help from the Taliban. Afghan officials arrest numerous smugglers attempting to transport drugs via trucks or import heroin and wine in the districts each year. A border police officer told a Rise to Peace journalist, “the presence of the Taliban has made it difficult for us to stop the import and export of illegal stuff.”

After years of presence and major funding, the Taliban now have a bazaar (market) known as Omari Town in the districts of Darqid and Khawaja Bahawuddin. This market is unlike many others in Afghanistan because people can easily buy and sell arms, ammunition, drugs, and wine. They control more than a thousand shopkeepers. Afghan security forces have destroyed most of the shops in operation, but the market continues once they are gone.

The Taliban’s next move is to create a transnational market where Afghans and Tajiks cross the border to buy each others’ goods without getting visas as is common in northern Afghanistan. They would maximize their finances and control over surrounding districts under this scenario.

Like the Afghan-Tajik border, the Taliban continuously uses Afghanistan’s borders with Pakistan and Iran for clandestine purposes. For instance, the boundary with Pakistan is typically used to facilitate the transfer of guns, donations and foreign fighters. As a result of this, the United States’ government suspended aid to Islamabad over their harboring of terrorism. 

The likelihood of the peace process is significantly reduced if the Taliban continues to fund its operations through illicit resources and narcotics while negotiating with the American and Afghan governments. It is vital to cut their finances (especially assistance from wealthy foreign donors) and block their drug trafficking routes. As long as drug trafficking remains profitable, the Taliban will continue to buy weapons, ammunition and pay fighters, which leads to a continuous cycle of war. Bankrolling the Taliban means they will not enter peace process negotiations in good faith.

Making peace at the macro-level is good, but it is imperative to pay closer attention to the sources of Taliban financing. This is important to stop the insurgency from gaining strength and subsequently challenging local governments.

It is apparent that these Taliban fighters engaged in the drug trade are self-serving bandits uninterested licit employment. Simply put, they do not care about the Islamic faith and manipulate the concept of jihad to suit their narrow personal interests. Their greater mission is accomplished as long as they make money and live in luxury. 

A copy of this report was provided to the Afghan National Security Council and the local government in Takhar province. For full reports and inquiries, please contact Rise to Peace.

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 by Alexandra Reguev

Hezbollah and the Terror-Crime Nexus

Image Credits: Foreign Policy illustration and Getty Images

As the US security apparatus continues to publicly focus on Iran’s expansion in the Middle East, it has done little to actively address the threat posed from Iran’s favorite proxy, Hezbollah, on the southern border. Hezbollah has been known to operate international money laundering and drug trafficking operations via Venezuela, Colombia and Mexico for years. These operations, other than, notably, the Lebanese Canadian Bank case, have most often been prosecuted as drug-related crimes, rather than crimes of terrorism.

Hezbollah’s drug enterprise is not separate from its terrorist activity. Hezbollah, as directed by Iran, began engaging in the drug trade from its inception in the 1980’s, “for Satan—America and the Jews. If we cannot kill them with guns, so we will kill them with drugs.” As such, the American strategy of prosecuting drug crimes connected to Hezbollah as just that, rather than as crimes of terror shows a fundamental misunderstanding of Hezbollah’s motives.

According to a 2018 CDC study, cocaine was involved in 19.4% of drug overdose deaths in 2016— cocaine which has often made its way into the US via Hezbollah channels. In recent years, the spike in prescription drug related deaths has led the Trump administration to declare a national emergency. The opioid epidemic has at least partially driven the decline in US life expectancy, and opioid overdose victims are often found to have also taken cocaine.

The CDC study claims that in 2016 alone, more than 10,000 Americans died from drug overdoses involving cocaine; that number is more than three times the amount of Americans that died in 9/11. When you take into account the stated goal of Hezbollah to use drugs as weapons to neutralize its enemies, one wonders why the American government has yet to address this activity with the same severity as it does traditional acts of terror.

There is a law on the books that could have been used to prosecute this enterprise: the United States enacted a federal terror financing statute in 1994 after 1993’s World Trade Center bombing, under which entities can be prosecuted for knowingly providing “material support or resources” to another entity to conduct terror operations.

While money laundering can often remove the evidence needed to prosecute terror financing under the 1993 statue, the proof uncovered by the Project Cassandra task force directly ties the drug trafficking funds to Hezbollah. However, up until now, the failure to do so appears to be political, as the Obama administration allegedly did not want to engender bad faith during the Iran deal negotiations.

This has resulted in severe immediate threats to US homeland security. In May, a New York court indicted Ali Kourani, a naturalized US citizen and Hezbollah operative who allegedly attempted to identify Israeli targets in New York and obtain information on John F. Kennedy International Airport security protocols. Prior to setting up shop in New York, Kourani was previously involved with a dealership in Michigan that sold used cars to Benin; it is not unlikely this business was part of the network of used car dealerships used to launder Hezbollah’s drug profits.

Even as the United States aims to keep tensions away from its soil by announcing its intent to establish a military coalition to protect commercial shipping vessels in the waters surrounding Yemen and Iran, it leaves its doorstep unguarded by failing to take direct action against these networks.

Now that the current administration has pulled out of the deal, and is faced with rising tensions from Iran, the next move should be to go after Hezbollah’s crime-terror infrastructure under terror financing laws. Project Cassandra amassed the evidence; the Trump administration should use it to protect US citizens and put pressure on Iran.

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 by Roberto Malta

Legalization of Drugs in Brazil

Brazil continues to wage war against drug trafficking, prioritizing police and arrests. This past April, President Michel Temer deployed the Army to occupy the areas controlled by drug traffickers in Rio de Janeiro. Traffickers sought to maintain the trafficking operations, stay hidden, and let the smoke settle. They planned to return and regain control of the poor communities of Rio’s favelas once the Army pulled out.

The usual response of the security forces is in many ways contradictory. They seem to cooperate and fight the drug gangs, or commandos, simultaneously. Moreover, they accept bribes and let the drug traffickers take care of the slums, in a complete absence of the state. The country is marked by constant deaths and violence, against police officers, drug traffickers, and civilians.

Luiz Eduardo Soares’ book, Elite Squad, realistically sheds light on the interactions between police and drug traffickers. The book depicts how when faced with a security system that punishes honesty, police officers only have three options: to become a corrupt and join the system, to omit oneself from the violence, or to go to war. However, the Brazilian police are ill-equipped to go to war. They remain poorly trained, poorly equipped, and poorly paid. At the end of the day, these police officers have hopes and dreams and families at home. They do not want to go to war and risk putting their head in the path of the guillotine.

So how does the war on drugs continue under a context of intense police corruption and poor working conditions? This occurs in two main ways. Firstly, elite police squads are responsible for most of the incursions against drug traffickers. The ROTA acts in Sao Paulo, while the BOPE, which is represented in Elite Squad, acts in Rio de Janeiro. They are not paid any better than the usual police, but have a much more intensive training and are better equipped. Corrupt officers have no chance on these squads and are kicked out if they happen to sneak in after the tough and humiliating training they have to go through, in order to join the squad. The second option is to deploy the armed forces, usually the army or naval fusiliers when a politician needs a boost on his approval rating or Brazil is hosting a big international event, such as the World Cup.

The growing consensus around the world, among experts, politicians, and jurists, is that the War on Drugs has failed and that it only serves to shake up the ranks of criminal organizations and exacerbated the violence in poor communities all around the world. Luis Roberto Barroso, minister of the Brazilian Supreme Federal Court, defends the legalization of drugs as a way to counter this failure. According to Barroso, after 40 years, billions of dollars, and thousands of lives ruined through killings or imprisonments, things are far worse.

The main argument of Barroso is that drugs are bad and therefore it is the role of the state to “discourage consumption, treat dependents and repress trafficking”. He adds that legalization should be applied as a means towards achieving these goals. More than that, it is important to dismantle the drug traffickers’ strongholds in Brazil, which convince and force those living in poverty to join their ranks.

Barroso also compares the current situation to the cigarette issue. Cigarettes were not forbidden, but many restrictions have been imposed on advertising, the minimum age to purchase, and hefty taxes have been applied. As a result, in the past twenty years, the consumption of cigarettes in Brazil has been cut in half.

The criminalization of drugs in Brazil assists numerous people. It helps the drug traffickers that maintain their monopoly. It also helps the politicians who are corrupt and look for a scapegoat for the angers of the population about the high violence. Furthermore, it aids the police and the perverse public security system, which is deep in corruption. The one group it does not help is the working class. They continue to live under the violence and attempt to earn an honest living. However, they are met again and again with failure because of the control and temptations that drug traffickers spread throughout the favelas.

The solution is clearly to legalize drugs, but given that criminalization benefits so many powerful people, society as a whole will keep suffering from this failed policy. While corruption reigns supreme in Brazilian politics, the poor man will keep suffering, the traffickers will keep profiting, and the police will either become more corrupt or blatantly ignore the problems. Furthermore, the elite squads will remain at war against drug traffickers. Brazil’s drug problem is a reflection of its corruption problem. Legalizing drugs could be a start on solving the larger national problems. It is better to take small measures and improve the lives of many than to do nothing at all and ignore the issues that affect millions of people.

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