Poppystan - Karzai gets a kicking from US Embassy

United States Embassy in Kabul, the Afghan sent a 3 page cable to on May 13th to Secretary of State, Condoleeze Rice which the Washington Post claim to have seen.

This memo claims that an American-financed poppy eradication program to cut Afghanistan's huge heroin trade had been ineffective (A recently published US State Department report stated that, since 2003, the area under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan has tripled and now encompasses 510,000 hectares) in part because President Hamid Karzai "has been unwilling to assert strong leadership."

"Although President Karzai has been well aware of the difficulty in trying to implement an effective ground eradication program, he has been unwilling to assert strong leadership, even in his own province of Kandahar," said the cable, which was drafted by embassy personnel involved in the anti-drug efforts.


The cable also blamed the British, who have the top responsibility for counternarcotics assistance in Afghanistan, for being "substantially responsible" for the failure to eradicate more acreage. British personnel choose where the eradication teams work, but the cable said that those areas were often not the main growing areas and that the British had been unwilling to revise targets.

Officials worry that heroin trafficking could threaten the American-led reconstruction effort in Afghanistan and worsen corruption in the country's fledgling central government.(!)

"President Karzai is a strong partner and we have confidence in him," said the State Department spokesman, breezy Richard A. Boucher who seems to favour spectacles of the rosy tinted hue who concludes "We are succeeding in our overall effort" to address the drug problem.

American and Afghan officials decided late last year that a more aggressive anti-poppy effort was too risky. State Department officials had proposed aerial spraying of poppy-growing areas, but the plan was opposed by Chicago educated neo-con Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad and American military officials in Afghanistan who agreed, though effective at killing poppies, spraying fields by aircraft could lead to protests and unrest. (Not to mention a lot of dead fliers and downed spraying planes – mind you didn’t some of those 9/11 guys trained on crop dusters – here’s their chance!)

A spokeswoman for the British Foreign Office defended the choice of targets. (natch)"We don't believe we are picking the wrong targets, but we have a long struggle to go," she said. "We work very closely with the U.S. and other partners."

A major reason Britain picked up the responsibility for counternarcotics efforts is that some 50 tons ends up every year up in European countries compared to the 20 tons estimated to go to the United States.

Since beginning work last month, the country's Central Poppy Eradication Force, an American-trained group, has destroyed less than 250 acres, according to the two American officials. Its original goal was to eradicate 37,000 acres, but that target has recently been “reduced” to 17,000 acres. (That is 50% in my arithmetic) With the poppy harvest now under way, the actual eradication levels will probably be far lower, (you bet!) the American officials said. ( I think they have confused acres with hectares here – the UK now use the latter)

Congress recently passed a supplemental spending bill that included $260 million for the State Department's anti-drug effort in Afghanistan this year.

A senior State Department official said that Mr. Karzai had wanted the eradication team to begin work before the poppy harvest season began in March, when he felt there was a better chance of persuading farmers to give up that lucrative crop. Because of bad weather (entirely unforeseeable of course) and other delays (?) the team did not begin work until early April.

The American officials involved said they also believed that Mr. Karzai might not want to challenge local Afghan authorities and thus incite opposition and even violence ahead of parliamentary elections scheduled for next fall.

A State Department official said that the United States remained optimistic that, through a combination of eradication and reduced plantings, it could achieve a 70,000-acre reduction in poppy planting from last year's record crop, which was estimated at more than 500,000 acres.(unit of measure confusion again I think).

A Karzai spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said that foreign donors had failed to follow through on promises to help farmers shift to other crops and find other sources of income.

Mr. Karzai called for a "jihad" against drugs after his election last November, Mr. Ludin pointed out. He also noted that Mr. Karzai would risk losing his moral authority if promised assistance to the poppy farmers was not forthcoming.

"It is actually the international community that is showing a lack of seriousness, by failing to show that there is an alternative for farmers," he said.(i.e it’s not my fault Guv, I only work here)

On their first day of operations in early April, in the Maiwand district of Kandahar Province (Karzai’s hom epatch), the eradication force encountered armed farmers blocking the fields. Gunfire broke out, resulting in the death of at least one Afghan protester and the wounding of several others.

The American officials said they suspected the protesters had been organized by traffickers and local officials with a stake in the drug trade.(smart thinking there then).

Over the next eight days, according to the embassy cable, American and British officials in Kabul sought help from the Afghan minister responsible for the anti-drug effort, Habibullah Qaderi, to end the confrontation in Maiwand and a similar standoff in nearby Panjwayi. But he was unable to persuade the Kandahar authorities to help, the embassy cable said.

The embassy cable praised Muhammad Daoud, the deputy minister of the interior for the anti-drug effort, for trying to win access for the eradication teams, but it said he had "no support whatsoever from key members" of the government, "namely President Karzai."

President Karzai is due in Washington this week. Has he booked a return flight ?


PS The UN Office on Drugs and Crime remarks "The three neighboring provinces of Osh, Murghab and Andijan (common border area of Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan) called "Osh Knot" covers an intensive cross border trafficking routes.