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Another big Afghan opium crop predicted
Daniel Dombey from London
3/12/2006
 

          Afghanistan's opium harvest in 2006 will be at least as big as last year's, a United Nations report has predicted.
The survey, produced by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime and the Afghan ministry of counter-narcotics, adds that a big rise in poppy cultivation this year is expected in the south of the country -- where Nato is set to send 7,000 troops.
After a decline in cultivation in 2005, the study reports that "the situation is different this year".
It adds: "Villagers have already planted crops on a scale equal to or exceeding that of 2005, on the basis of which opium poppy cultivation in the majority of Afghanistan's provinces is not expected to decrease in 2006. "
Although the report says a government eradication campaign this year may turn the trend around, it adds that many farmers do not believe the Kabul administration will manage to ban poppy cultivation or destroy crops.
It says that in areas such as the southern Helmand province, to which the UK is sending 3,300 Nato troops, "a sharp increase in cultivation is expected".
Kim Howells, minister of state at the UK Foreign Office, said that the drugs crackdown had previously not been sufficiently well targeted at the "wheeler dealers" who profited from drugs, and acknowledged that some Afghan regional politicians could still be involved in the trade.
He added that drugs traffickers were often well armed in Afghanistan, and were sometimes equipped with anti-aircraft weaponry. But he said it was still up to the Afghan forces -- rather than Nato -- to lead the counter-narcotics effort.
"We don't go in to knock crops down, but we try to provide a degree of security," he said.
Mr Howells cited a separate report to the UK Foreign Office that cited "encouraging signs" such as negligible levels of poppy cultivation in the country's relatively wealthy areas of Nangarhar and Laghman.
He added that the resilience of the opium harvest in the past had largely been due to good rains and a lack of crop disease and that the area of land under cultivation had been reduced last year.
But even the British report predicts dramatic increases in poppy cultivation in Helmand province, where 72 per cent of interviewees said they had increased the amount of land devoted to poppies over the previous 12 months.
Nato is expected to assume command in the south of the country in July, but will keep its stabilisation and peace-building work distinct from the combat activities by US troops in the area.

 

 
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