Counternarcotics and Law Enforcement Country Program: Afghanistan

Problem

Despite a successful ban on opium production enforced by draconian penalties in Taliban-controlled areas during the 2000-2001 growing season, drug trafficking from Afghanistan continued throughout 2001, as traffickers relied on opium stockpiles as their source. Following the Taliban’s collapse in late 2001, farmers throughout Afghanistan planted 34,000 hectares of opium poppy for harvesting in the spring of 2002. Afghanistan once again became the world’s leading opium producer in 2002 by virtue of the resurgence in cultivation in a country just beginning to reconstruct central authorities.

On January 17, 2002, the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) announced a ban on poppy cultivation and followed this up with a poppy eradication program. Assisted by the United Kingdom’s compensation program, the AIA destroyed up to a quarter of the 2002 spring poppy crop. This season, uncompensated eradication by provincial governors began in October of 2002; the early start intended to allow farmers the option of replanting legal crops.

U.S. Counternarcotics Goals

• Minimize fall poppy cultivation by implementing alternative livelihoods and cash-for-work programs with major donors, the UN and the International Financial Institutions in poppy-growing areas. Employ an intensive public affairs campaign to assure Afghan buy-in;

• Establish and strengthen Afghan law enforcement institutions in order to interdict shipments and destroy opium markets, stockpiles, and distribution networks;

• Strengthen regional cooperation on drug interdiction through Drug Enforcement Administration's (DEA) Operation Containment and United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) programs; and

• Initiate rebuilding of Afghan civil society and institutions to support demand reduction programs and encourage anti-drug messages through public diplomacy campaign, prevent drug use/abuse, and instill support for rule of law.

The U.S. Government’s long-term policy is to develop alternatives to opium poppy as a source of livelihood for Afghan farmers combined with building up local judicial and law enforcement functions, creating and strengthening national drug control institutions, and coordinating with neighboring and regional counternarcotics programs. The Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs (INL) has developed a $60 million program that includes:

• $24 million for alternative livelihoods and cash-for-work programs to support licit crop production in the top poppy producing provinces.

• $10 million to establish a drug interdiction unit, support demand reduction and anti-drug public affairs projects and build the institutional capability for drug control in the Afghan Government.

• $26 million to help train an Afghan national police force and support judicial sector reform. Working with Germany, the lead country responsible for coordinating international assistance to train and equip a national police force, the U.S. will establish a training facility in Kabul to provide an 8-week basic skills program for 4,000 patrolmen, a 2-week program emphasizing human rights and modern policing techniques for 3,000 existing officers and non-commissioned officers in Kabul, and a train-the-trainer program for Afghan police trainers. We will also provide basic non-lethal police equipment, technical advisory services, and assistance with police infrastructure.