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Afghanistan overtakes Myanmar in opium production; Pakistan cleared by US

WASHINGTON: Afghanistan overtook Myanmar as the world's biggest opium producer in 1999 because of good weather, high prices at planting and the connivance of the ruling Taliban, the State Department said on Wednesday.

US President Bill Clinton on Wednesday extended a ban on most forms of US aid to Afghanistan, citing failure of Taliban to crackdown on opium and heroin trafficking.

President Clinton in his annual determinations as to major illicit drug-producing and drug transit countries granted full certification to 20 countries including Pakistan, based on findings that they have cooperated fully with the United States, or have taken adequate steps on their own, to achieve the counternarcotics goals of the 1988 UN Drug Convention.

"The Taliban's full complicity in the drug trade has extended to the point where both the harvesting and trafficking of opium is taxed," said US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, presenting an annual report on the international drugs trade.

Afghanistan produced 1,670 tonnes of opium gum during the year, up 24 percent from 1,350 tonnes in 1998, said the State Department report. It was a record year for Afghanistan, which produced less than 1,000 tonnes annually until 1995.

Myanmar, traditionally the world's biggest producer, saw a sharp decline in opium output, to 1,090 tonnes from 1,750. Afghanistan and Myanmar are the only two countries which the Clinton administration refused to "certify" in both 1999 and 2000 for their cooperation in the fight against drugs. Countries which fail to qualify lose access to US aid, except for humanitarian and anti-drug purposes, and face US opposition to multilateral loans. The State Department report said the Taliban, who control between 85 and 90 percent of the country, encouraged opium cultivation by taxing it about 10 percent. "Crop taxation imparts legimacy to opium cultivation and distribution, and means that the Taliban benefit directly from the whole opium business," it argued.

In theory, the Taliban banned opium cultivation in 1997, but in practice they promote the trade to finance military activities and let the drug go on sale in bazaars, it said.

The report said: "Drug production in and trafficking from Afghanistan has funded terrorist groups, ... undermined role of law and led to frequent incidents of armed conflict between traffickers and law enforcement forces in neighbouring countries, destabilising the entire region".

The only Taliban measures against the drug trade in 1999 were to destroy a handful of drug laboratories and to eradicate between 20 and 100 hectares (50 to 250 acres) of poppy fields, a tiny fraction of the total area planted.

"The Taliban ... otherwise took no significant action to discourage poppy cultivation, seize precursor chemicals or arrest and prosecute narcotics traffickers," it said.

The State Department concluded that the prospects for controlling the drug trade in Afghanistan were dim as long as the war continued.ÑReuters/PR