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Afghan farmers are preparing to sow poppies

"YOU think Americans, or the Afghan government, or the Taliban, or the warlords have any power. They are mere ripples on the surface of the pond," said Mujib (not his real name) in Imam Saheb, a small town in Kunduz.

There are reportedly 190 heroin processing labs in Imam Saheb alone.

"This is the real power," he pointed triumphantly to the boiling vat where blackish raw opium was dissolving fast into the boiling water – the first step in the low-tech process to produce heroin.

Everyone in Afghanistan understands this ugly truth. The source of power in the present day Afghanistan is poppy – yet again.

Taliban, near the end of their much-maligned regime, virtually managed to eradicate the poppy plant from Afghanistan.

Reuters, quoting IMF sources, reported on 24 September 2003, "Output [of opium poppies] dropped to just 185 tons in 2001 after Afghanistan's Taliban rulers banned production."

Since the ouster of Taliban, cultivation of opium poppies has bounced back to the record high levels of 1999 once again.

"In the two years since the 2001 invasion began raining ordnance on the cities and countryside, opium production has skyrocketed 19-fold and the country has become the major source of the world's heroin," wrote Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times 15 November 2003.

In a way, the fault lies with the poppy itself. No other plant known to mankind is capable of giving so much profit for such little effort.

The crafty poppy revealed its magic to man even when organized cultivation of grain crops was still far into the future. Sumerians called it 'Hul Bil' – the plant of joy.

Refining of raw opium into heroin is a multi-step process that can be carried in any ordinary kitchen. All you need is an open fire, a large vat, and burlap sacks for use as filters, and you are in business. By dissolving the opium into boiling water and adding certain chemicals, the process begins to obtain morphine and then to convert morphine into the fluffy power that is variously called heroin, smack, china white, black tar, horse, or brown sugar.

Commonly produced varieties of heroin are No. 3 (for smoking) and No. 4 (for injecting). Both varieties can be used for vapor inhaling, a procedure called 'chasing the dragon'. No. 4 is inferior in purity compared to No. 3.

Morphine is the main active component of opium accounting for about 10% of total substance. The process for converting morphine into heroin is called acetylation. Chemicals such as acetic anhydride and acetyl chloride are used to trigger this process.

As a rule of thumb, you can obtain 10 kilograms of heroin from every 100 kilograms of raw opium. This year's crop would yield 450 tons of pure heroin.

Let's try to estimate the street value of 450 tons of pure heroin.

The Christian Science Monitor reported on 24 July 2003, "Afghan antinarcotics officials estimate that a kilo of heroin in Afghanistan is worth from $ 5,000 to $ 20,000, but in the international black market the price soars, from $ 70,000 to $ 300,000. The value varies according to quality."

This approximation is somewhat deceptive.

The market price may be from US $ 70,000 to 300,000 but the important factor is that the volume of heroin keeps increasing as it travels from the manufacturer to the user on its tortuous route. Each intermediary handler adds substances according to his fancy from milk powder to quinine to increase the bulk and multiply profits. By the time it reaches the users in their dark alleys, the 450 tons that started from Afghanistan would be no less than 1800 tons. It would fetch a mind-boggling sum of US $ 540 BILLION to the retailers.

The smelly, gooey substance that would ultimately command half a trillion dollars of retail trade in 2004, is the main reason why there is no peace in Afghanistan.

To blame Taliban for all this is tantamount to saying that earthquake occurs when the bull shifts the world from its one horn to the other.

Taliban have no infrastructure or power or skills or resources to ensure that the farmers get the advance payments for the seed and fertilizers, protect the crop in the open fields against the government that has declared every other day that it is doing its best to uproot poppy plants, provide protection against the US forces that are astronomically superior to any number of Taliban, process the raw poppy into morphine bricks, transport the morphine bricks from the farming south to the processing north traversing the territory of at least 5 anti-Taliban warlords, convert it into heroin in the labs that abound mainly in Kunduz and Badakhshan provinces, arrange packing of the end product in precisely measured packets duly stamped with the name and address of the processing lab, and finding a network to move it across the borders into Tajikistan.

If not Taliban, who is running this sprawling racket?

The frightening truth is that the entire power structure of Afghanistan – and that includes warlords, Afghan interim government and any other entities that wield any real authority in that unfortunate country – is immersed in the drug trade.

Arnaud de Borchgrave, writing for Washington Times on 8 July 2003, tells, "A ranking Afghan official, speaking privately, said: The drug trafficking has corrupted everything in today's Afghanistan, from the central Transitional Authority in Kabul to the warlords who really run the country."

From this perspective, the American forces are a part of the problem and not a part of the solution.

James Astill, writing for Scotsman on 24 November 2003, says, "British and Afghan officials in Kabul privately complain that their efforts have been badly compromised by the US’s ongoing military campaign against the Taleban and al-Qaeda."

" The US employs local warlords to prosecute its war, including many allegedly involved in opium production. US special forces in southern Hilmand province last week told The Scotsman that they routinely patrol through opium fields, but had no orders to interfere," he says.

The warlords, who patronize the processing labs in the north and poppy crops in the south, are the ones that have corrupted the entire landscape to continue with their drug business.

It is a super-empire, overshadowing anything else that exists in Afghanistan. Warlords double as drug barons and, in turn, serve as minor functionaries for greater drug czars.

Aleksandr Zolotykh, writing in Moskovskaya Pravda on 19 November 2003, tells, "The drug mobs in the northern provinces of Afghanistan have formed a well-developed infrastructure for the cultivation, processing, storage, and transportation of this deadly poison over the last several years. They have a criminal army under arms that is very nicely equipped in a technical regard, with a clear-cut and far-flung structure and rigid subordination."

"They conduct continuous surveillance of the official and military activity of FSB border administration subunits in Tajikistan. They carefully coordinate the actions of several groups preparing to cross the water obstacle simultaneously. And when they cross with their loads the detachments, formed of indigenous inhabitants of Tajikistan, receive fire cover both from Afghan territory and from the Tajik side," says Zolotykh.

The power structure runs mostly underground, camouflaging itself in thousands of guises but some of it can be glimpsed on both sides of the Pyanj river that defines the border between Afghanistan and Tajikistan.

Locally known as river of heroin, Pyanj is the permanent battleground between those who deal in drugs and those who try to prevent drug trafficking. Its islands, the bushes on both banks, its twisting and turning murky waters, all provide hospitable sanctuaries to drug dealers and death traps for border guards.

According to UN estimates, more than 70% of drugs produced in Afghanistan cross into Tajikistan for onward transmission to Russian, European and North American markets.

Fragile economy of Tajikistan practically stands on the drug money.

Grant Smith, former ambassador of the United States in Tajikistan, writing for The Analyst (the fortnightly web publication of Johns Hopkins University) on 1 August 2001 – little before 9-11 – said, "Some economic experts estimate that the narcotics trade amounts to as much as 30% of Tajikistan’s GDP."

Smith wrote this in August 2001. Since then, as some observers maintain, the share of drug money in overall GDP of Tajikistan has gone up to 60% if not more.

Tajikistan is the first segment of the Drug Highway that runs from Afghanistan to Europe and North America. Forces entrusted with the impossible job of blocking drug flow have proved inadequate over the years.

Tajik-Afghan border is patrolled by two tiers of guards on the Tajik side. The outer – the real – border belongs to Russian FSB (formerly KGB) and its border units, supplemented by 201 Motorized Rifle Division. Russia spends upward of US $ 30 million on the upkeep of these units. The inner flank is guarded by the troops of the Committee for Protection of Borders of Tajikistan.

In addition to regular funds from the Russian government, the supplementary budget comes through sponsorship schemes. Moscow city administration is one of the sponsors of Russian troops on Tajik-Afghan border, pouring tens of millions rubles annually to ensure that drugs don’t cross from Afghanistan into Tajikistan.

The funds are still not enough to do justice to the unattainable goal of sealing a very porous border. Citing this reason, some stretches of the border have been transferred to the direct control of Committee for Protection of State Borders of Tajikistan. A stretch of 500 kilometers of the Murgab border detachment was handed to the Committee in January this year and not long ago another segment of 100 kilometers – Kalay-Khumb – has also been given under the management of the Committee.

Deputy chairman of the committee, Nuralisho Nazarov, told journalists last month that he would like to see the entire border under the control of Tajik troops.

Insistence to takeover borders from Russian troops speaks less about the readiness of Tajik troops to prevent influx of narcotics and more about the long reach of drug barons.

As Zolotykh wrote in Moskovskaya Pravda, 19 Nov 03, "Agricultural lands are openly cultivated with opium poppies in 24 of the 30 Afghan provinces. An absolute majority of those areas are located in provinces contiguous with Tajikistan."

He also reported that in addition to Kunduz and Badakhshan, heroin processing laboratories abound in Baglan and Takhar provinces, also in the vicinity of Tajik border.

Afghanistan and Tajikistan form one contiguous zone as far as potential for drug trade is concerned. Drug traders thrive on the poverty of the general population to find couriers and cutouts.

Border guards, with their meager salaries and big families, are as pliable a material in the hands of drug barons as any other citizen.

More than three hundred drug couriers have been buried over the last few years just in the cemetery at the town of Parkhar, located not far from the Moscow border detachment. They include plenty of Tajik border guards and even one chief of a border post.

This is the story of just one stretch of the border and it tells of those who got proper burial. There is no telling how many perished in the jungles or the river. And, obviously, for every one courier who is caught or shot, there are more than 33 who succeed in their missions. The quantity of heroin that ends up in the markets, suggests that less than 3% of the drugs are caught by the law enforcement agencies.

Lieutenant General Aleksandr Markin, the top Russian officer responsible for supervision of Tajik-Afghan border, wrote in an article in Nezavisimaya Gazeta, 10 November 2003, " In the first 10 months of this year, the haul is already 4,888.095 kilograms, of which 2,575.659 kilograms has been heroin (63 percent of this "hard" drug was seized on the sector of the Moscow Border Detachment). Incidentally, the heroin figures have set a distinct, sad record for the entire 11 years that the Russian border guards have been on the Pyanj. Meanwhile, the corresponding figures for this in 2002 have already been exceeded by 22 percent, and it is looking increasingly likely that new "black" records are going to be set. For attempts are now being made to send drugs across the Pyanj in their tonne-loads. And since the start of 2003, caravans traveling by foot carrying opium poison have been arrested 97 times. All this is evidence that the anti-terrorist operation in Afghanistan and subsequent efforts to reconstruct that state have unfortunately failed to halt drug production in the country."

Breaking the traditional silence, General Markin wrote, " I have to stress that for a long time now the traffickers have no longer been solving the problem of trafficking narcotic substances across the border on an impromptu basis, and they have been planning whole operations, in the organization of which joint groups from Afghanistan's drug structures and the Tajik borderlands are taking part."

The enemy that the border guards face is a strong, well-organized and technically-equipped adversary, who can be very difficult to beat," he explained.

Had the Taliban been so well organized, they would not have fallen so easily.

Despite being so unusually vocal, General Markin has touched only the tale end of the problem. The deadly front paws and the ferocious head lie elsewhere.

The purpose of encouraging poppy cultivation is to obtain raw opium for converting into heroin, and the objective of producing heroin is to ship it across two continents and two oceans to sell it to drug addicts at high prices and make top dollar for all the players in the game. The man on the street is the only loser.

After bringing the drugs from Afghanistan into Tajikistan, the drug barons use a number of methods to carry the 'goods' to Russia, Europe and North America.

Transportation of goods agreement between the Russia and Tajikistan is one excellent cover for shipment of drugs. Specially made compartments in the goods trucks are used to smuggle substantial quantities of heroin to Russia.

Small time couriers, usually paid no more than US $ 300/- per trip, are also a convenient conduit for transfer of heroin from place to place.

Sometimes cars with diplomatic number plates are used to carry big lots, as happened in May 2000 when the Kazakhstan security officers stopped an automobile belonging to an advisor to the Tajikistan trade mission who was transporting 57 kg of heroin.

In November 1999, Domodedovo customs officials discovered 6.5 kg of heroin in the diplomatic luggage of Tajik couriers.

Tajik-Afghan border is probably the only serious hurdle for drug barons. Once their goods are on this side of the border, going gets easy.

The three main Tajik drug routes are via Mountainous Badakhshon, the mountain region of Shuroobod, the city of Panj, and Khatlon province. The inaccessible mountain roads are virtually unguarded, as is the case for instance with the route from Ishkashim to Khorog.

Russian border with Kazakhstan is virtually unguarded. The border posts are 30-100 km apart. Hundreds of steppe roads have long been used for drug trafficking. Heroin is shipped in passenger cars and on KamAZ trucks.

There is the same easy-going attitude in Ukraine, where about 400 transit routes from Rostov and Belgorod Oblasts lead. The siloviki simply cannot control all these routes.

Drug traders are split along the ethnic lines – there are Afghan, Tajik, Caucsus, Gypsy, Russian, Jewish groups running drugs from one point to the next, the more they get closer to Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave that is the only all-weather seaport of Russian Federation, the ethnic composition of drug controllers becomes increasingly Russian-Ukrainian-Jewish.

Nikita Kadelin, a Russian journalist, reported in Moscow Stringer on 4 November 2003, " And a former Putin associate, Viktor Cherkesov, has been appointed head of the new committee [for control of illegal trafficking of narcotics]. According to our source in Cherkesov's entourage, there is a powerful military organized crime community which from 1992 through to the present has controlled substantial drug flows from Afghanistan to Russia and Europe and is also involved in laundering "dirty" money and is actively involved in Russia's political life. The community is controlled by former intelligence officers, Afghan war veterans, and now drugs barons Vova Filin and Lesha Pribalt. The former lives in Switzerland, the latter in London. Both make quite frequent trips to Moscow, Dushanbe, Nazran, and Khankala."

With our limited resources we could not dig out enough information to expose the epicntre of this menace but we can say for sure that Taliban are in no way the managers of narco-trade in Afghanistan.

Whether they are Vova Filin and Lesha Pribalt, as Kadelin suggests, or some other people still higher up in the drug hierarchy, we cannot say with any certainty.

What we can say with any degree of confidence is that certain states are more likely involved in this business although we shall stop short of naming any countries.

Here is a hint, merely a hint, to show the real scale and reach of the empire that feeds itself on human misery. Dr. Zaher Wahab, in an interview to Narco News on 5 August 2003, said, "I heard rumors actually, that planes were landing and taking off [in Kabul] in the middle of the night, carrying drugs. For example, they go north to Russia, and then Europe, and then to all parts of the world."

To Dr. Wahab is an Afghan-American with a Ph. D. from Stanford University and he has been teaching in the Lewis & Clark University (Portland, Oregon) for the last 30 years. Recently he spent about a year in Afghanistan as an advisor to the ministry of education and had the change to observe the situation closely. We have no reason to suspect that Dr. Wahab was just shooting his mouth off to attain some notoriety. He is greatly respected in academic circles and does not need any stunts to gain cheap fame.

In the last article of this series we shall report some disturbing developments about questionable relations between drug interests and American armed forces in Afghanistan.