The New York Times

Saturday, September 11, 1999

Afghanistan Opium Record Raises UN Fears

By CHRISTOPHER S. WREN

Benefiting from a bumper harvest and wider cultivation, Afghanistan more than doubled its production of opium in the past year and now accounts for three-quarters of the

World opium crop, according to a United Nations report issued yesterday in Vienna,

The jump in production, to an estimated 5,060 tons from 2,310 last year, has alarmed the head of the United

'Mations Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention, Pino Ariacchi.

Mr. Ariacchi said he had advised Secretary General Kofi Annan that Afghan opium production was spinning out of control.

"We need a policy for Afghanistan," Mr. Arlacchi said this week in a telephone interview from Moscow, where he has been discussing drug control with Russian officials. "We cannot stay and wait and see what happens."

He said Afghanistan's record out-put could potentially flood Western Europe, the primary market for heroin refined from Afghan opium.

Based on a customary 104o-1 ratio for refining opium into heroin, the jump in production could mean as much as 270 additional tons of heroin on the world drug market in coming months, if the estimate is accurate.

Afghan traffickers have been encountering added difficulties in transporting opium after a smuggling crackdown by neighbouring Iran. Mr. Arlacchi said hundreds of tons of opium, and possibly some heroin, were believed stockpiled in Afghanistan.

In comparison, Myanmar, which for years was believed to be the leading opium producer, reaped an estimated 1,320 tons in the last year, said the survey, conducted for the

United Nations International Drug Control Program in Vienna. Mr. Arlacchi said Myanmar, formerly Burma, had reduced its output 8 to 10 percent over the last year.

Smaller quantities of opium were reportedly grown in Colombia, the source of most heroin that reaches

New York City, and in Laos, Thailand and Pakistan.

Mr. Arlacchi said Afghanistan's emergence as the leading producer confirmed a trend toward concentrating drug production in fewer countries, a factor that could make

the threat simpler to combat. Colombia produces most of the world's cocaine and has increased its cultivation of coca leaf, while Peru and Bolivia have curtailed their plantings.

The United Nations survey reported opium poppy cultivation for the first time in Jawzjan and Kunduz

Provinces of northern Afghanistan, meaning that opium is now grown in 18 of the 31 provinces. Ninety-seven percent of the opium is cultivated in areas controlled by the Taliban, the militant Islamic movement that dominates the country.

The production increase follows heavy' rains, hailstorms and earthquakes last year, problems that reduced the harvest by a quarter and led to failures in parts of central and southern Afghanistan. Farmers scrambled to make up losses by planting more poppies and now have

little incentive to scale back what has been a 43 percent increase in cultivation, the report found.

Afghanistan's remote terrain, absence of an effective central government and continuing civil warfare have helped opium thrive. The Taliban leadership has expressed disapproval of opium as contrary to Islam, but tolerates its cultivation as a cash crop and even levies an agricultural tax.

Mr. Arlacchi has contended that drug crops could be eradicated by having farmers substitute legal crops in return for development projects like schools, health clinics and roads. The new survey reports that opium production in Afghanistan declined in the Maiwand, Ghorak and Knakrez districts, where the United Nations has introduced experimental programs in cooperation with local officials.

When Mr. Arlacchi visited Afghanistan in November 1997, he asked Taliban leaders to crack down on opium production in return for development aid, but he says now that they have not followed through.