(Analysis and Forecast of Drug Situation Development in the Central Asian Sub-Region).
By colonel Alexander Zelitchenko, UNDCP,
Osh, Kyrgyzstan.
Annually clandestine factories of the "golden triangle" countries such as Laos, Thailand, and Mayanmar, used to produce tons of synthetic narcotics. Then the mortal products were spread all over the world, mainly in the United States and Europe. The recognized leader of international narcotic dealing hitherto was Laos, a source of raw materials for heroin - producing cartels. The country, according to official information, gathers opium, from which the "white powder" is produced in amounts not exceeding 70 tons. But Western experts estimate production to be 350 tons. Such production has given rise to legends about "heroin jungles", secessionist gangs guarding poppy plantations, and courageous Interpol workers risking their lives in this struggle.
In recent years another region, Central Asia, revealed itself in all its glory. In Kazakhstan alone the plantations of hemp, ephedra, and poppies cover more than one million hectares. At present up to 6,000 tons of anasha (hashish) ripen in the Chui Valley annually, and during the harvesting season people from all corners of the CIS come here to harvest it, just like formerly. Scare police posts and covering forces are with-standing them. This is why hashish "made in Chui" becomes increasingly often found in Germany, Greece, Holland, and Poland, to say nothing of the CIS states.
The attempts to destroy the malicious hemp have failed. Endeavors were made to suppress it with chemicals but this caused migration of sands in the deserts, and barchans and dunes appeared as a threat to the populated localities. Besides, the chemicals are also dangerous to the people and all living beings there. Academician Asanov of Kazakhstan carried out some experiments which proved promising: a control plot was bedded with another plant which ousted the hemp forever. The research, however, had to be stopped because of lack of money. Americans proposed to burn down the cannabis with cannon salvoes. You load the muzzle with a few hundred small gelatinous balls filled with a special substance able to suppress photosynthesis, and - fire! A single volley is enough for a whole hectare of hemp. It costs $800. There are hundreds of thousands of such plots, however.
Misdeeds linked to narcotics are literally galloping in Kazakhstan - in 1997 there were 22,000 such crimes registered. Another 60,000 malefactions based on drug addiction, thefts, and bloody killings in order to get money and make an injection should be added. And 23,000 drug addicts are officially registered.
Last year Kyrgyzstan officially reported 3,130 crimes of the same kind. It means that approximately each 10th misdeed committed in the republic was directly connected with the withdrawal of narcotics. Such posture of affairs testifies to increased anti-narcotics activity of the law enforcement bodies: in 1997 more than 2 tons of the malicious substance was confiscated. Still, the workers of these bodies think they manage to withdraw only 10 percent of its illegal turnover. Predominating is homebred anasha as it is called in central Asia, or hashish and marijuana. Anasha is mainly brought from Lake Issyk-Kul shores. Whole families, from kids to old people, come to harvest the poison, the most profitable "folk industry". Aliens are beaten. Lately workers of the detachment for combating the organized crime have supported "the grey eminence" of the narcomafia of one of the Issyk-Kul regions. He was an honored aksakal (the most respected elderly man), famous in the republic, awarded with the Golden Star of the Socialist Labor Hero, the last person to be suspected.
The Afghan expansion is steadily intensifying its pace. Because of high demand, super profitability and small transportation risks, opium contraband is increasingly replaced by heroin. This year alone there were 12 detentions of people with " the white powder" in south Kyrgyzstan. Another threat is nascent feminization of the narcotic dealing: each 10th carrier of narcotics is a woman. Crime and corruption on cool opium - based money is growing. Spurious American dollars from Russia meant for purchasing narcotics were identified on the Osh black market. This same place serves to "launder" the opium-based money and turn it into weapons and provisions for foreign gangs.
During the civil war in Tadjikistan, armed groupings of various views measured their mighty through opium possessions. Last year, when governmental troops rendered terrorist Sodirov's band harmless and killed the ringleader, enormous quantities of narcotics were found in the area of the fight.
Such a situation with dangerous ganging groupings have also boosted strengthening of the Russia's border troops on the Tadjik border. In 1994 they withdrew only 530 kg of opium, while the next year saw 1,690 kg of withdrawn narcotics, 1996, 2,16 tons, and 2,217 kilos last year. Two Russian soldiers of the Pyandj frontier detachment were seriously wounded during a border skirmish in early March. In the opinion of the frontier troops group leadership, this was the drug mafia's vengeance for arrest of February 28 of a batch of heroin worth $30 million!
Two years ago in Tadjikistan the very first six kilograms and 350 grams of heroin were withdrawn. While in 1997, the law enforcement bodies of the republic instituted 1,250 proceedings and withdrew 4,5 tons of narcotics, including 3,5 tons of opium and 60 kilos of pure heroin.
Afghanistan's neighborhood strongly tells on narcotic situation in Uzbekistan as well. Afghanistan actively uses automobile, railway, and water frontiers to transport narcotics through this country. Last year six groups of smugglers excellently equipped and armed were arrested here. The Uzbek anti-narcotics fighters are especially concerned about heroin-producing laboratories abroad. Since 1995 Uzbek customs bodies have stopped attempts to illegally import to Afghanistan 72 tones of precursors, chemicals without which processing of raw materials to heroin is impossible. In January, 1998, in Termez a cargo was arrested which looked seemingly tubes of toothpaste and containers with sewing machines, and appeared to be 16 tones of acetic anhydride. However, what amount of chemicals and "the white death" did not fail to cross the border there and back? Nobody knows the exact data. Uzbek narcotics have squeezed a great deal of narcotics produced in Afghanistan. Hundreds of hectares of soporific poppies have been illegally planted here since Soviet days onward. During three months of this year the special service workers of the republic confiscated 700 kilos of various narcotic substances.
The number of drug abusers is rapidly increasing in Uzbekistan. More than 12,000 consumers are officially registered here, nine percent of them being women. Previously narcomania was considered an urban problem, while now 41 percent of registered addicts are country residence. Should we explain what it means for the country with the prevailing village population?
A real opium war raged on the Afghan - Turkmen border. Two years ago, during a mortal combat with smugglers, the head of the anti - narcotics detachment of the Turkmen Ministry of Inner Affairs was killed. In February 1997, overexcited with opium, drug pushers cut to death a militia operative who had managed to take root in their group. Having learned that there was a big batch of drugs in one of the villages, the officer came there in the guise of a purchaser, his colleague sitting with a Kalashnikov in the trunk to fence him. However, someone had betrayed the police spy, and a bloody slaughter was committed.
Significant information comes from Turkmen customs check - points, "On Oct. 31, 1997, during customs examination of a cargo at the Kushka customs check - point, it's workers and the National security Committee officers drew out 1,221 kilos and 960 grams of heroin from under pomegranates transported from Gerat to Turkey". A little bit earlier, in September, half a ton of the malicious substance was detected in a container sent by Abdul Bani firm of Kandagar. Seven and a half tons of extremely refined hashish was elicited from a hiding - place of a freight car carrying allegedly caraway - seeds from Afghanistan to Germany; another 6,058 kilos were detected in sacks of Pakistani rice going as transit goods to Byelarussia through Turkmenia.
Last year nearly 50,000 kilos of hashish was withdrawn from illegal turnover, 2.3 tones of heroin, and 7,705 kilos of opium and destroyed in Turkmenistan.
The Opium War in Central Asia
The background
A real opium war has been going on in post-Soviet Central Asia and adjacent warring Afghanistan for the past several years. Unfortunately, the history knows very well this tragic term, "the opium war."
As long ago as in 1830s, mighty Great Britain banned opium imports from drugs cultivated in India to the metropolis. Then it began to import opium to China, where the market was great and therefore the source of profits from this black business was huge. In order to oppose smuggling, the Chinese authorities began to act illegally but soon were oppressed. The drug nouveau riche, through the governmental lobby and press, accused China of efforts to hamper "free trade" and a real war, or rather a series of wars, started for several years. Furthermore Great Britain, France and the United States' armed forces were involved. As a result, China for many years was a semi-colony. History called these wars "the Opium Wars".
Many years later a similar war was begun here in the Central Asian region. It began according to the old and well-known scenario which was played, for example, in 1960-1970s in Burma, where opium poppy plantations were a source of food and arms for a separatists' army. The cocaine jungles in Colombia still nurture armed clans in a bloody struggle for power and dominance of the world drug market.
With the USSR's collapse, the opium war has overflown the former Union's
southern border and is leaving its gunpowder trace on the lands of Tajikistan,
Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. According to the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, one dollar invested in the drug business yields $12,240 profit. None of the world's businesses are as lucrative. Neither arms nor illegal migration can yield such profit. According to the same agency, the international drug mafia in 1994-1995 controlled the governments of 24 countries in the world, thus impacting the most important political decisions. The 20-year war in Afghanistan and the so-called "Tajik syndrome" are also the opium wars' continuation. It is drug money that still feed these wars.
Recently the UN has published the following data: Afghanistan, which has no mandate to cultivate opium, illegally produces 3,000 tons of opium a year. It's a colossal figure. This amount of drugs can bring not only this region but the whole world to its knees.
Iran used to be a customary way to traffic drugs from Afghanistan. The raw-opium caravans went from the "golden crescent" area (an almost inaccessible joint of the Pakistani, Afghanistani and Iranian borders) to Iran, then to Turkey and on by sea to France and Italy, where it was processed into heroin. In the mid-1980s, the Iranian Islamic Revolution declared a jihad (sacral war) on the drug business; laws have been toughened, capital punishment for drug sales were introduced and specialized Islamic Guard troops were formed and trained. Some 4,500 kilometers of concrete roads were laid to the mountains, uninhabited and thus used by smugglers, for rapid maneuvering opportunities. Gorges and paths along the border are patrolled by helicopters. Iran is not a very rich country but nevertheless it has undertaken these expenses in order to protect the nation's health and to improve its reputation in the world arena. These efforts have been favored by the UN, which has allocated targeted several million dollars for anti-drug actions in Iran.
So the drug business has had to look for other ways to traffick opium, heroin and hashish to Europe.
"Celestial bliss"
The collapsed USSR's borders were unprotected in 1991-1992, before the Russia's border guard service was formed; this favored drug expansion to the former Soviet Union's Central Asian republics. By mid-1994 the police, customs, state security and border guards' operations had been somewhat adjusted in Gorno-Badakhshan in Tajikistan; but in 1992 the border situation was uncontrolled. So, opium from Afghanistan and Pakistan gushed to Gorno-Badakhshan and on to the Fergan Valley, and then to Russia and the Baltics, where a splendid sale had emerged due to big and free money. Only then did Russia recollect and begin to consolidate its contacts with the Newly Independent Republics' law enforcement bodies, look for ways to strengthen the border guard and finance joint operations on exposing drug pushers and seizing drug traffic. However, the time was lost. Too many locals found themselves involved in the drug business. Some of them had felt the smell of easy money but for many of them this business was an only source of livelihood.
Drug barons seized the control over the sale and purchase process. While buying a kilogram of opium at about $500 in Khorog, Tajikistan, they used to sell it at $1,500 in Osh, $4,000 in Bishkek, and $6,000 in Almaty. Some $500 of costs and $6,000 of income: this is the profit from a 1,500-kilometer delivery. The business was worth running the risk. So, hundreds of new opium merchants undertook this trade.
Cited below are some numbers witnessing the drug expansion in this region. While 3.5 kilograms of opium were confiscated in 1992 and about 20 kilograms between 1974 (when opium poppy plantations were prohibited in Kyrgyzstan) and 1992, the number was 153 kilograms in 1993. This number has been increasing with every next year: 198 kilograms in 1994 and 620 kilograms in 1995. In 1996, there were registered 2,922 drug-related crimes and 807 kilograms of opium confiscated. Some 2,400 drug-related crimes have been exposed, 2,125 related criminals detained and 921 kilograms of opium produced in Afghanistan confiscated over the nine months of 1997. Afghanistan is augmenting plantations. There are more and more of them in Tajikistan and even Kyrgyzstan. While 159 criminal poppy plantations were exposed in Kyrgyzstan 1990, last year there were 245 of them. The pauperized people are no more afraid of any responsibility and cultivate opium poppy openly, not far away in the mountains but in their households or yards.
The drug business is expanding and the number of drug-takers in Kyrgyzstan is growing. Some time ago they believed no threat of opium boom imperiled Kyrgyzstan. Later on, our American colleagues explained: don't be fools hoping that all the opium is going abroad from Kyrgyzstan. The drug mafia leaves some portion of opium here as it is reasonable to have "slaves" constantly dependent on this drug.
"Heroin's hostages".
In course of investigations the increasing number of crime cases, where they had to release hostages, attracted the attention of the Osh Regional law enforcement agencies in 1997-1998. It appeared that approximately one year ago the "credit of confidence" was exhausted by Osh narco-dealers and Tadjik "narco-barons" refused to provide them with drugs for sale without payment in advance or pledge. Osh narco-dealers had to change their tactics. They began to recruit the young jobless men from the local poor families from the remote provinces, promising them the "profitable job abroad". On practice these people had to accompany their "employer" to Tadjikistan and only there they realized that their role was to become "an alive pledge" for drugs.
Drug mafia's allies.
Another issue brought by the muddy opium flow is the related corruption. Presumably, this is even more terrible than opium in itself. Now we have to state that corruption is increasingly rotting Kyrgyzstan's society. It allies with the drug business to support each other. Many high-ranking officials of the government, customs and police have been involved in drug business. Recently five drug enforcement workers have been tried in Osh court, disclosed by the Ministry of Interior's security service. The preliminary investigation exposed scandalous and shameful facts. The police-uniformed offenders had been operating for many years, and had contacts in Afghanistan tied directly with the leaders of different war groups and warlords who used to directly deliver opium.
Worth mentioning is a statement by official Dushanbe, Tajikistan's capital,
of the deputy chief of the city's Department of Interior, who was detained
with 61.5 kilograms of raw opium, which he was going to smuggle to Kyrgyzstan.
Corruption is the second thing that can force an emerging democracy to the knees. It has always been a concern in Central Asia but now that it is heated with opium and colossal money, morally irresistible, is becoming especially dangerous. A police officer's monthly salary equals to $40 in Kyrgyzstan; and the drug mafia would pay 10-fold a checkpoint officer-on-duty for "keeping his eyes closed" to a car with an opium hiding place.
Also, the opium flow brings weapons. Surface-to-air grenades, analogous to Stingers, are sometimes confiscated on Kyrgyzstan's border checkpoints and right in Osh town. What for are they brought to this extremely "charged" region? This means someone needs them. Factors such as religion and ethnicity are rather acute in this region. Therefore, plenty of arms can only destabilize the situation.
Recently, Kyrgyzstan's border guards began to confiscate high-quality opium, which can only be produced in a well-equipped laboratory using sophisticated technologies. Security services have found out these laboratories "migrated" from Pakistan close to Tajikistan's border. Here it is a short way to Osh; so, the first 900 grams of heroin have been confiscated from a drug courier who was going to take the Osh-Novosibirsk flight. Due to its smaller size, heroin is easier to pack and hide; and it is difficult to find it in hiding places and even more difficult to intercept it on the mountain paths. Furthermore, a checkpoint called Irkeshtam has been recently opened in the Osh Region. This checkpoint provides access to the Karakoram Highway in China. No doubt, the Pakistan-Afghan-Tajik drug mafia will try to use this way. It is not without grounds that China's official authorities have instantly proposed to sign an agreement with Kyrgyzstan on cooperation in fighting against the drug business.
Drugs and politics.
This rather complex drug situation in Central Asia should not be neglected by the adjacent countries in adjusting their political scales. Can it be forecast that the forces involved in drug trading will be interested in keeping Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan permanently unstable? Unfortunately, yes.
I remember, being on a trip to Badakhshan in 1993. We were shaken by a message saying that a caravan of 50 trucks transporting flour and other food from Dushanbe to Khorog had been destroyed and the people killed. The investigation found no particular culprits. Who profited from this bloody action? Indeed, those who need a weak and amorphous state power unable to establish rigid order, that is, the drug mafia. As soon as some changes for agreement appear, the classical scenario is played: a "third power" interferes, blood is shed and the settlement process freezes up or is thrown backwards. Wasn't it opium that provoked therecent clash of the police and customs in Dushanbe, which took the shape of an armed confrontation?
Nevertheless, Kyrgyzstan isn't losing heart. Here they do not wait for the situation to resolve itself. Adequate measures are being taken. Recently a drug control commission has been established in Tajikistan based on the pattern of that in Kyrgyzstan. In Kyrgyzstan, it was established as long ago as in 1991. Kyrgyzstan was the CIS's first to join all UN drug conventions, which established the National Drug Research Center and adopted two state anti-drug programmes. Now Kyrgyzstan's anti-drug policy is quite clearcut and consistent.
However, neither Kyrgyzstan nor Tajikistan, even allied with Russia, can raise enough funds to combat drug smuggling in a rapid and cardinal way. In this regard, Kyrgyzstanis have a right to hope for active support from the states interested in stopping drug expansion far from their border and the UN, which has already launched an anti-drug project in the republic.
Narco-path: direction to China.
After one and half century our "Great neighbor"- China- again faces the danger of "Opium war".
Historical reference: in the middle of last century the "Heaven's Land" was flowed over the tons of cheap opium, rushed from the enthralled by the Great Britain India. China rose against... and have got the series of aggressions, called in the historical literature "Opium war".
...This time the danger is coming not from the side of friendly India. The new channel of narco-traffic appeared in Pamir, on the junction of Tadjik, China and Afghan borders, very close to the Kyrghyz territory. Already today this place became the point of very active barter- afghan opium and heroin for food and initial goods. The number of arrests of tadjik narco-couriers, made by the China border troops this year on the China territory, brought the "harvest" more than 50kg of opium!
Historical reference: the same kind of narco-trading started on the Afghan-Tadjik border in 1991 and already in 1993 leaded to the real "opium war" in the Central Asian Region. This war is going on now and nobody can foreseen the time it will come to the end. The main role in this war already belongs not to the wet opium, but to heroin.
That time, five years ago, Kyrgyzstan became the first country to sound the alarm. The reason was very serious. During nearly twenty years, since that time "the red Issik-Kul poppy" finished it's blossoming, no more then 20-25kg of opium were seized, but 153kg only during 1993.But the world society did not respond to call of Kyrghyz Government and anti-drug authorities. The consequences are well-known- the flow of afghan drugs passed "the Osh corridor", overwhelmed Asia, found thousands victims in Russia and Baltic Countries and "jumped" to Europe.
In case, China will be drawn into the afghan narco-traffic, one can not help to forecast the possible consequences.
First, according to the information, provided by China security service, the Central Asian organized crime groups are in the process of the very active fusion with China narco-Mafia. Their common aim- West Europe and USA. The shortest way to reach it for narco-cartels- the international Kara-Korum highway.
The real river of chemical pre-coursors will meet the flow of drugs halfway, the delivering of "hard hashish" made in Sinczian-Uighur Autonomic Region will become common and uneventful (during the few last years only in Kyrgyzstan 44kg of this narcotic were seized).
Second, the waive of coming narco-dollars always and everywhere provoke the huge explosion of corruption. The foundations and prestige of China were from time to time rocked by the corrupted authorities, but now the real "Niagara" of bribery is threatening to overflow it's custom's officials.
And, finally, the third. The real possibility for Afghan Modjaheddins to find in
the nearest future, on the base of the arm's-trading and fundamentalism, the common language with leaders of that groups of the Sinczian-Uighur Autonomic Region's population, who use from time to time to rise their voices for separation this territory from China. Some traces of such an illegal armed groups and their negotiations became already quite visible and took place in a very short distance from Bishkek. There is the real danger that troubled waters of drugs can bring "Stingers" and "Kalashnikovs" from very "rich" with such a "treasures" Afghanistan to Sinczian. In case of such a scenario movement, China facing the number of very serious problems...
Historical reference: as the result of aggressive "Opium wars" of United Kingdom in 1839-42 and United Kingdom and France in 1856-58, 1860 against China, the "Heaven's Land" lost Hon-Kong. During the long- long time this magical land spent under the English protectorate and was returned to the bosom of China only last year.
The possible danger of China - Afghan conflict for the buffer states- Kyrgyzstan and Tadjikistan is quite understandable. In the meanwhile, the China authorities are worried about the aggravating drug-traffic, coming close to their territory through the Osh Region of Kyrgyzstan, that is why the procedure of pass through the border check-point "Irkeshtam" in Alay Region is very severe. Uzbekistan, Tadjikistan and Kyrgyzstan are interested to reach the major seaports through this check-point and they are also ready to use the strong measures.
The UN Anti-drug Project "Osh knot" is intended to strength the close cooperation of all the involved in combating against narco-business parties and agencies. Within this Project law enforcement agencies of the countries-members will be supplied with vehicles, stabile communicational system, modern technical searching equipment, workshops and deep analysis of the narco-situation in the region, provided by the high professional experts and consultants, and the possibility for 60 custom's and police officers to study the new, advanced methods of drug control.
Historical reference: on the 27th of April this year the President of Kyrgyzstan Askar Akaev and the Chairman of China People's Republic signed the Declaration "about the strengthening and developing of friendship and cooperation between Kyrgyz Republic and China Peoples Republic. One of the chapters of this Declaration says: "Both sides will strength the cooperation in administering the law in combating against the international terrorism, organized crime, arms-smuggling, narco-business, economical crime and other kinds of crime".