Press Briefing by Mohammad Reza Amirkhizi Representative of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and Senior Advisor on Drugs Control to the SRSG in Afghanistan - Kabul

22 July

Good morning ladies and gentlemen. First of all, before talking about the illicit drugs, for those who are not familiar with the work of UNODC, a short briefing has been prepared which outlines the areas that our office works in Afghanistan. They are mostly capacity building in drug control for the Government namely, the National Security Council and Counter Narcotics Directorate; capacity building for crime prevention in the areas of juvenile justice, reform of the prison system and for criminal justice system. In addition, capacity building for law enforcement by assisting the Ministry of Interior, in establishing the Counter Narcotics Police in Afghanistan and also a border project between Afghanistan and Iran that we are cooperating with. A project in alternative livelihood in Badakhshan, a couple of projects in drug demand reduction and of course our ongoing monitoring and research of the extent of opium production in this country.

Now, going back to the issue that I wish to share with you today. You will recall that a few days ago at the Ministry of Interior, on Saturday, 17 July, there was a press conference about poppy eradication and the work of a new Afghan Poppy Eradication Force formed couple of months ago. It was announced that within the short time of its operation, almost one thousand hectares were eradicated. What this Force did was different from any news you might have heard about eradication conducted by the governors. This force is run by the central government.

Now, this year's harvest has almost been collected and there is no need for this Force to go on with eradication any further for this year. However, the Government and the Ministry of Interior have announced that the plans are made for the next year with an increasingly active and effective Force.

The Head of this new Force, General Aghbar, said at that press briefing that they will be able to reduce poppy cultivation next year; and Minister Jalali has also made it clear that the government was expanding its capacity for eradication and interdiction to fight the increasing trafficking of narcotics in Afghanistan.

Here, I would like to raise some complementary issues to what has been said by the government officials.

We believe that eradication is a true instrument of law enforcement. But, eradication should not be seen as the only instrument in dealing with farmers. What we need to do now, and I say now because if we just take a long time before starting it will have no use. The time is now to start an awareness campaign to prevent cultivation and influence the decision of the farmers not to cultivate, so that there would be minimal use of this Eradication Force for the next year. Now, this awareness can only succeed if we address all segments of the society including the farmers. They need to be informed extensively, and this is something that perhaps you [media] could do best, that opium production, trafficking, and its abuse is against the law in Afghanistan.

Moreover, we believe that all segments of society in Afghanistan are now involved to build a democratic country with a responsible and accountable Government, which will be supported by the international community. To build or rebuild a new Afghanistan, everyone, all segments of the society here, should be aware that the production of illicit drugs in this country is going against the reputation of the country and also doesn't go very well for the competence of the people who are running this government. You and the people of Afghanistan have to be aware that if this is to be continued, the trust of the international community to continue assisting this government might be influenced and with that the personal integrity and the competence of the people, your officials, will also be questioned.

What we need to do is to have the provincial and district officials and those who have influence in different parts of the country, including religious leaders in smallest villages, to ask the people or rather to inform the people about the law, ask them not to cultivate, and inform them that the central government has the intention and commitment to use the newly created forces to deal with this problem. One would be the central government's Eradication Force and the other is of course, the Counter Narcotics Police.

You would need to give a helping hand, as media in this country, to the government, namely Counter Narcotics Directorate (CND) and the Ministry of Interior, by engaging in a massive awareness campaign whereby everyone would know about the commitment and the increasing capacity of the central government to enforce its laws, as they have focused in the past year to build such forces in order to be able to respond to this difficulty. So far, the prices for opium have been high, although in the past few months it seems that the prices are going down, and the risk of doing illegal activity has been low. We need to set the record straight and rebalance the revenue with the risk. The farmers need to become aware that the risk of having their poppy farms eradicated has increased substantially and with that they risk losing the investment they put in cultivating opium.

We at UNODC believe that to complement these efforts, there is the need to provide alternative livelihoods to the most vulnerable segments of this society. The poor farmers need to be supported. Once we are successful in preventing the production of opium, we should assist them through alternative livelihood measures. As we move towards stronger law enforcement, we have to complement our efforts with stronger support to the poor farmers. And, this is where I call on the international community as a whole to take this into account and assist the Government of Afghanistan in this endeavor.

In addition to the new Eradication Force, the Counter Narcotics Police of Afghanistan (CNPA) is strengthening its capacity to deal with trafficking. The CNPA has a headquarters in Kabul and provincial offices in seven key locations. From the second half of 2003 to June 2004, over 100 rudimentary processing laboratories have been dismantled. In the same period, Afghan counter narcotics forces have seized about 3793 kg of morphine and heroin, 5275 kg of opium and 70 thousand kg of cannabis. Since 26 June to 8 July, the Interdiction Unit of CNPA has carried out 17 operations and has seized 44 kg of morphine and heroin, 685 kg of opium and 2091 kg of cannabis. The traffickers should also be served a notice that with increasing capacity of CNPA to do interdiction operations, the risk for their operations has also increased substantially.

A couple of more issues:

One is the alleged involvement of the government officials, civilian and military, in Kabul as much as at the provincial level, in the drug economy. There would be no point in doing all the work to strengthen the capacity of the Government and risk people's lives, if some within the system are willing to let the criminal forces make their way. Without clear determination to isolate and prosecute the officials and the commanders who personally benefit from the informal tax charged to farmers and traffickers to allow them to run their business, and in some cases there are alleged direct involvement in the process from production to trafficking, all the legislation and the national strategy will be irrelevant.

Last week, the President issued a decree to arrest and prosecute those government officials who are involved in the production and trafficking of narcotic drugs. We also believe that law enforcement means interdiction, arrest, investigation, prosecution, trial and punishment. A functioning criminal justice system is a vital part of peace building in Afghanistan. Security can only be insured if offenders are brought to justice and sentences are imposed and executed in full compliance with internationally recognized standards and norms. We aim to assist the Government to achieve this competency as early as possible. UNAMA, UNODC and the international community coordinated by the United Kingdom, the lead nation on drug control in Afghanistan, are committed to provide support and assistance to the Government in all its work towards narcotics control in Afghanistan.

The other point concerns the international security involvement, notably the Coalition forces and ISAF, in the battle against the narco-economy. At a time when the Afghan national security capacity is still limited, only the Coalition Forces have the ability to assist the Afghan government in its fight against drug traffickers and clandestine laboratories. These forces would also have access to intelligence necessary to conduct such law enforcement operations, especially at the provincial level.

In closing, let me propose that at a time when we are all talking about elections and its significance as a major development in the history of Afghanistan, we call on all Presidential candidates to consider discussing about the issue openly and frankly and show their commitment towards the drug control objectives in this country.

Thank you for your attention.

Questions and Answers

[Due to technical difficulties, it was not possible to record all the questions]

Question: [inaudible]

UNODC Representative: Similar to any other UN agency we are not a police agency. We are here to assist the government in building its capacity. So, what we are doing now is to help the Ministry of Interior, the Police, the CND, to come up with rapid response initiative to the issue of prosecution and trial and as I said, we hope to have the system in place, possibly in the next few months, but as to what the Minister said I would suggest to ask him as we would not be able to comment on his views.

Question: You mentioned the drugs seized, but how many drug traffickers have been arrested and prosecuted?

UNODC Representative: I put the emphasis on the drugs seized by these Forces. I know that more than two hundred people have been arrested by counter narcotics police. How many of them have been prosecuted, how many of them have gone to the trial, how many of them have been sentenced, I am afraid I don't have the information but I can tell you, not many, and this is the issue that in response to the first question, I said needs to be dealt with immediately and this is now the focus of our work with CND, and Ministry of Interior, with the help of international community.

Question: Does UNODC have estimates on opium production?

UNODC Representative: Our annual survey work has almost been completed. We are now compiling the information and analyzing the data. The report will be out around September.

Question: Regarding the new Eradication Force, how many police officers are operating and what is the daily work procedure?

UNODC Representative: We don't have the operational information. You have to ask the Ministry of Interior and the Head of the Eradication Force.