INCREASE IN POPPY CULTIVATION IN PAKISTAN IN 2003

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Iqbal Khattak

 

Pakistan has been a producer of opium for exports and traditional domestic consumption since the time of Muslim rule and the British Empire. In 1979, however, the government of Pakistan responded to the problem of increased illicit opium production and trade by the enforcement of the Hadd Ordinance. The ordinance brought existing law into line with Islamic injunctions and prohibits trafficking, financing or possession of more than 10 grams of heroin or one kg of opium.

In 1979, all poppy cultivation [licit and illicit] was banned and all government-controlled processing plants and retail outlets for licit opium were closed. As a result of Hadd ordinance and partly because of massive stock pilling of opium following a bumper harvest in 1979, opium cultivation and production sharply declined in the 1980s. The government’s commitment to make Pakistan poppy-free, increased efforts in law enforcement, the impact of alternative development assistance from the international community, and a drop in retail prices for opium gum due to the massive increase in production in Afghanistan, are major factors that contributed to a further decline in opium cultivation since the mid-1990s.

An analysis of poppy harvesting trends at the national level reveals a decline in the amount harvested from 9,441 hectares in 1992 to less than 284 hectares in 1999.  Of the three main poppy growing areas, Dir district in north of Frontier province where the United Nations Drug Control Programme [UNDCP] has been active since 1985, accounted for approximately 60 percent of the opium harvested in the country. Over this period, the UNDCP spent 35 million US dollars on alternative development projects in Dir district. Alternative development interventions coupled with demonstrated government commitment led to a decrease in opium cultivation in Dir district from 3,500 hectares in 1992 to near zero in 2000, making Pakistan one of the most successful story as far as war on drugs was concerned.

However, satisfactory results in the year 2000 proved short-lived as RECORD LAND HAS BEEN BROUGHT under poppy cultivation in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in general and the North West Frontier Province in particular this year breaking the 1998 figures of 950 hectares, which were the highest in the last five years.  [SEE TABLE A]

 

1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
7488	7962	9493	7329	5759	5091	873	874	950	284	260	213	622

A: *The table shows year-wise poppy cultivation in hectares

1990	1991	1992	1993	1994	1995	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	2002
150	160	181	161	128	112	24	24	26	9	8	5	5

B: *The table shows year-wise potential production in metric tons
*The above data was provided by UNDCP

 

The illicit crop has been cultivated on a total of 3,000 hectares of land in the Frontier province, bordering Afghanistan in the west, while in Balochistan province also bordering Afghanistan and Iran, it has been cultivated on 2,000 hectares of land, according to figures released by the Pakistan government to the United Nations Drug Control Programme (UNDCP).

The poppy crop is either ready to be harvested or has already been harvested in some parts of the growing areas. The UNDCP sources say the law-enforcement agencies could destroy not more than “one-third” of the total standing crop in the NWFP until the first week of May. Meanwhile, the paramilitary force - Frontier Corps - claims it has destroyed the entire crop in Balochistan.

The FC claim, however, has drawn a question mark. The FC told the UNDCP it had destroyed the entire crop. However, armed resistance in Balochistan was much higher than in the NWFP, particularly in the Gulistan area where the paras had a standoff with armed tribesmen using RPGs (rocket-propelled grenade launchers) and other small arms and light weapons to prevent paramilitary force from destroying their crop.  Thomas Zeindl-Cronin, the UNDCP officer-in-charge in Islamabad, told me that as a matter of policy he could not challenge the FC claim. Through different sources I tried to get independent confirmation of the claim but failed to ascertain the situation accurately or verify the claim.

The paramilitary force operation against poppy in Balochistan’s Gulistan, Chaman in Qilla Abdullah district, Zhob, Barkhan and Khuzdar areas started on April 16 and it lasted for about 14 days. Some people do claim that the authorities in Balochistan province left poppy cultivated on some influential people’s lands untouched.

The Khyber Agency tribal zone, bordering Afghanistan the in North West Frontier Province, has witnessed poppy cultivation on 868 hectares of land while the Kurrum Agency, also at the border with Afghanistan, cultivated poppy on 812 hectares of land. The Home and Tribal Affairs Department in Peshawar expressed inability to destroy the crop in Khyber Agency because of “inaccessible terrain.”

Prime reason for unusually high acreage for poppy this year behind temptation among farmers to bring vast land under poppy cultivation was the pre-season high price of poppy per kilogram by the buyers. The pre-season price of per kilo poppy was reported around Rs.50,000 [around 900 US dollars].

Anti-drug enforcement agencies say the international drug mafia hiked up the price to induce more farmers into poppy cultivation. Interestingly, once a bumper crop is ensured, the buyers drop the price to more than half the original price knowing the growers will have little option but to sell the crop at the end of the season. According to anti-drug NGO in Peshawar, price of a kilo of old stock opium in Pakistan was recorded at Rs.36,000 [US$620] while in Afghanistan the price of old stock per kilo was Rs.34,000 [US$586] in the beginning of this year. The price, according to buyers, has gone down further in recent weeks.

In some cases, the buyers provided the poverty-stricken farmers with poppy seeds and also cash money to maximize chances of good production this year. However, extremist religious groups’ emergence as a strong political force in the wake of October 2002 general elections in Pakistan was also regarded as one of the reasons behind the re-emergence of poppy cultivation. The Islamic groups, which used to call poppy crop as a “weapon” to use against the United States, did not denounce poppy cultivation, rather backed farmers to grow poppy.

Official sources in Bajaur Agency tribal zone said that radical Islamic party Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (Fazlur Rehman group) Salarzai area president Maulvi Fazel decreed that poppy cultivation was “Islamic.” However, the clerics call use of drugs “un-Islamic.” Since his decree, the political administration of Bajaur Agency has issued his arrest warrant, which forced him to avoid visiting Khar, agency headquarters of Bajaur, to escape arrest.

The Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Council, a conglomerate of six Islamic parties, legislators in the state assembly in North West Frontier Province have also backed farmers’ bid in the Kohistan district to grow poppy. The district, which is on main Silk Route linking Pakistan with China, has seen poppy fields for the first time. The government launched no operation yet and it was dependent on the MMA legislators’ help and support to negotiate destruction of poppy with growers. That appears coming slowly, I mean the legislators’ support to the government.

Malik Faiz Muhammad Khan of Dogram, an influential chieftain of both Sultankhel and Paindakhel tribes in Upper Dir district and also an active member of radical Islamic Jamiat-e-Islami party, defended poppy cultivation during an interview. “General sahib, referring to President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan, has got us in the crosshairs to appease the United States,” he said, defending the growers.

He says his people would continue to grow poppy unless the government helped them financially. Growing anti-US feelings also seem to have contributed to the increase in land under poppy cultivation this. North and South Waziristan agencies, two tribal zones bordering Afghanistan, have witnessed poppy cultivation for the first time. The people in the two zones are very conservatives and have strong anti-American feelings and sympathies towards the Taliban.

Mr Khan called upon the Muslims to use drugs as a “nuclear bomb” against the US “since it attacks only the Muslim” countries. “Many people think the Muslim world can use drugs as a weapon against the United States,” Jehanzeb Khan, chief of Whari country, told me at his residence in Whari in the Dir district.

A former member of a county in Dir district, Humayun Khan advocate, said that the clerics “did not oppose poppy cultivation.” Other different political parties also used the poppy issue to gain political points. He recalled that the Jamaat-e-Islami in the past used to describe poppy as a “weapon” against the United States and its belief seems unchanged.

The UNDCP spent 35 million US dollars to make both Lower and Upper Dir districts poppy-free through the Dir District Development Project (DDDP) from 1986-87 to 1998. In 1998, the NWFP Chief Minister Mehtab Ahmed Khan Abbasi sanctioned Rs270 million [US$4.655 million] when the UNDCP stopped the grant.

Mr Khan and other farmers alleged “very little money” out of the 35 million US dollars and Rs270 million [$4.655 million] was spent on bettering the lot of the farmers. “No alternative source of income was provided or there would have been no poppy today,” says Khan.

The US government is spending huge amount on efforts for poppy-free Pakistan. Narcotics Affairs Section [NAS] in the US Embassy in Islamabad believes Pakistan still needs years to make itself totally a poppy-free country. Experts at the NAS said unless communication facilities, mainly establishment of road networks, were provided in all the tribal zones poppy will be grown every year. The NAS helped the federal government construct 400 kilometres long roads in both Bajaur and Mohmand Tribal Zones. And because of road network law enforcing agencies were able to reach the area where poppy was grown and destroyed it.

But on the other hand, where there is no road network in a tribal zone anti-poppy operations were not launched. The Pakistan government made no efforts to destroy standing crop in Khyber Agency tribal zone as it did not want to annoy the tribal people in the backdrop of underconstruction road network. “We let the poppy go undestroyed because doing so we might have put our road network construction projects in jeopardy,” a senior government official said in Peshawar.

But concentrating all energies on supply reduction efforts we are ignoring demand reduction factor. And since demand for drugs has increased considerably, production is also rising. According to latest figures about drug addicts in Pakistan, there are a total of 4.1 million drug addicts, which is 2.8 percent of the total population of Pakistan. Among the 4.1 million addicts, the proportion of heroin addicts was two million, which is 50 percent of the total drug addicts. The number of drug addicts is on the rise in Pakistan. According to a survey in 1992, total drug addicts were 1.3 million. But they increased to 3.1 million in 1993 forecasting a seven percent annual increase in the number of drug addicts.

Among the drug addicts, 61% were literate, 54% were married, 26% were skilled workers, 25% were unskilled and 68% were labourers and sales personnel.

NGOs treating drug addicts complain that donor agencies these days more interested in prevention of HIV AIDS spread than rehabilitation of drug users. They say grant was diverted to anti-AIDS campaign from treatment of drug addicts since the international community appears more interested in own goals than the country, which is facing serious drug problem. They say to provide moral justification for diversion of grant from rehabilitation of drug users to anti-AIDS projects the UNDCP’s 2000 survey claims there have been 0.5 million heroin users in Pakistan. These NGOs people say since drug addicts’ number is on the increase how the number of heroin users decreased. They call for demand reduction because if it does not happen drugs will be made available everywhere, including the US and many other countries.

Aside from increased poppy cultivation this year and growing consumption of drugs in Pakistan, drug trafficking has also become a major problem again for Pakistan government. Drug smugglers are using Pakistan as transit route. Pakistan’s premier law-enforcement agency for drugs — the US-funded Anti-Narcotics Force — recorded seizures by all other law enforcement agencies in Pakistan. The report indicates that trafficking has increased. Heroin seizures increased from 4,973 kilograms in 1999 to 12,691 kilograms in 2002 while hashish seizures rose to 85,486 kilograms in 2002 from 81.458 kilograms in 1999. However, there has been marked decline in opium trafficking. In 2002, a total of 2,678 kilograms of opium were seized, which was 16,320 kilograms in 1999.

But what really worries me is the fact that drug story is not being followed in Pakistan media for the last few years. And that is mainly because of arrest of chief editor of English-language The Frontier Post daily, Mr Rehmat Shah Afridi on heroin smuggling charge. He was awarded death sentence on two counts. I believe his arrest is politically-motivated. His newspaper printed incredible stories about drugs and through his arrest the authorities sent a strong signal to other journalists they need to learn lesson. I personally experienced this when my car was stopped and a police officer said: “We have information that in this car heroin being smuggled.

 

Ties to Afghanistan

Pakistan cannot remain unaffected by political, social and economical environment in neighbouring Afghanistan. Poppy has been grown in areas that mostly border with Afghanistan. Whenever there are a leftists, nationalists or fundamentalist-led government in Kabul, similar political parties in the North West Frontier Province are also encouraged. The four-year Taliban rule in Afghanistan also resulted in strengthening of far-right Islamic groups in Pakistan’s Frontier province. The province is ruled by the alliance that supported the Taliban regime against the US attack after the 9/11 terrorists attacks in the US. The same alliance is pursuing some policies for which the Taliban were known. So, the tribe that lives on Pakistan side also lives on the other side of the Durand Line, the international border between the two countries. Their religion, language, culture and traditions more or less the same. They are inter-linked with each other. For political pressure on Islamabad, almost all the successive governments in Kabul offered special incentives for tribal people living on Pakistan side. Since vast areas have been brought under poppy cultivation in Afghanistan that country imported “skilled labourers” from Pakistan this year to take care of the crop as Afghanistan was short of qualified labourers. Each labourre was paid Rs.300 [5.21 US dollars] a day, which is quite a big amount keeping in view low wages for labourers in Pakistan. Average wage a labourer gets in Pakistan is around Rs.100 [1.73 US dollars]. But when these labourers return home they talk to their own people to suggest that growing poppy is several hundreds times profitable than going for other crops. So, they bring back with them inspiration and local people really get inspired. Secondly, officially it was said one of reasons behind increased poppy cultivation in Pakistan was involvement of Afghan nationals. The Afghans took land on lease to grow poppy in several areas particularly in tribal areas. So, much also depends as to what is happening in Afghanistan if we look at the drug problem in Pakistan. One can say each country suffers from the situation in its neighbouring country. [END]