In the past two weeks, the globe-trotting Kevin Rudd has created quite a carbon footprint of his own visiting five countries, including a trip to Bucharest where he met leaders from the NATO countries with troops in Afghanistan. Most of the discussion was around each nation's troop numbers and who does the most dangerous job. But also under the spotlight was what to do about opium - Afghanistan's most lucrative export and the Taliban's piggy bank. Dateline sent John Martinkus to find out how the massive opium problem is being tackled - or is it?



REPORTER: John Martinkus

The southern outskirts of the Afghan capital, Kabul. The major exit and entry routes to the city are all blocked to stop insurgents and drug smugglers. Beyond here, government rule ends. A handful of Afghan counter-narcotics police are trying to stem the flow of opium and heroin that last year accounted for 93% of the world's heroin production. But their efforts amount to little more than a speed bump on the heroin highway.

OFFICER (Translation): Most of their seizures are hashish, opium and heroin. All types of drugs - hashish, opium and heroin.

The officers are trained by the international counter-narcotics effort, led by the United States.

OFFICER (Translation): When the vehicle is searched, we fill in this form giving a description of the material and the amount found. And if nothing is found we note that, and the vechicle is released.

This campaign against the opium and heroin industry in Afghanistan has already cost the US more than $500 million. But it's clear even that level of investment isn't stopping the drug trade.

WILLIAM WOOD, US AMBASSADOR TO AFGHANISTAN: Illicit drug production undermines rule of law. It fuels corruption. It discourages private investment. It undermines governance. It creates violence and instability. When the drug traffickers and the Taliban are collaborating, they collaborate effectively. When they are actually just working independently they are both going after the same aims which is to weaken the government, to weaken society, to weaken democracy, to weaken the rule of law, to foment violence, to foment instability. They're working against all of the goals that United States and Australia are seeking with the Government of President Karzai here in Afghanistan. That's the problem.

This is the main road from Kabul to the city of Jalalabad, in Nangarhar Province, on the way to Pakistan. Until recently this was the heart of the opium industry. Both sides of the road would have been lined with opium poppies, but at least here things have changed. This local TV footage shows the destruction of a small field of last year's opium crop in Nangarhar. The locals watch as their livelihood is destroyed. Now they have no income and they are still in debt to opium smugglers who advanced them money to pay for the crop. And they say compensation promised by America - fertiliser and seed for alternative crops - has simply not been delivered.

MAN (Translation): The government promised to help us with this and that, but nothing was done.

REPORTER: The aid programs have not filtered through to the people who need them. Why do you think that is?

WILLIAM WOOD: I've heard the comment, one hears it frequently, but I am not sure it is an accurate comment. Nangahar has received lots of assistance and some of it has been security assistance but most of it has been economic, developmental, humanitarian, health, education, things like that.

NORINE McDONALD, SENLIS COUNCIL: What we're seeing is a very short-term, extremely short-term, view of saying to the farmers, "Don't plant poppies," when you have not dealt with any of the knock-on effects of them not planting from their point of view.

Norine McDonald is working in Afghanistan on a project to bolster a world shortage of morphine. But her efforts have been frustrated by America's blanket opposition to opium production here.

NORINE McDONALD: The farmers throughout Afghanistan have used opium as a way to get credit to get them through the winter, so if you have a planted opium crop the local shopkeepers will advance you credit to get through the hard winter months.

McDonald believes the whole US approach to drugs has been a failure.

NORINE McDONALD: Well, it seems they have a real fixed mindset about counter-narcotics policy, which, if you want to shorthand that, that's the US 'war on drugs' mindset and they pursued that in Latin America.

Ambassador Wood's previous posting was Columbia, where he earned the nickname of 'Chemical Bill' for his campaign of aerial spraying of coca crops, a practice which resulted in law suits by local farmers brought against US Government-hired contractors. He's been criticised for promoting the same eradication policy in Afghanistan.

REPORTER: You've been a proponent of aerial spraying. What's happening with that program?

WILLIAM WOOD: I don't think I would say I have been a proponent of aerial eradication. I have been a proponent of effective eradication - 16 eradicators were killed by drug traffickers last year, we've already lost 2 this year. Aerial eradication covers more area faster and safer, but if the people won't support it, if there isn't a consensus in favour of it, then it's not appropriate.

REPORTER: Do you think eradication of basically wiping out the narcotics industry in this country is possible with the current government?

WILLIAM WOOD: I certainly do.

REPORTER: You do?

WILLIAM WOOD: I think that President Karzai is overwhelmingly the most popular political leader in Afghanistan. I think that his government is working hard. I think his government in partnership with the international community is delivering a better life to many, many Afghans. They are very clear about the threat that drugs represent.

REPORTER: Do you think the government itself is influenced by warlords and those making money out of the opium trade?

PROFESSOR WADIR HAFIZI, POLITICAL SCIENCE, KABUL UNIVERSITY: Yes, yes, yes. But he cannot change it.

REPORTER: Why?

PROFESSOR WADIR HAFIZI: Because they are strong and they are inside the government. And I have a fear, if the situation continues like this, the future government of Afghanistan will be a narco-terrorist state in Afghanistan that nobody, even the international community will not be able to control it.

The solution, according to Ministry of Counter-Narcotics spokesman Zulmay Afzali, is more money - and lots of it.

ZULMAY AFZALI, MINISTRY OF COUNTER NARCOTICS: So what I am asking on behalf of the Afghan Government is that we do need several projects and we do need a very huge amount of money to fight this evil and this evil mafia.

He says that the drug traffickers are simply too strong for the Afghan Government.

ZULMAY AFZALI: And we do need a lot of help. We need capacity-wise help, we need assistance in terms of equipping the police, training and providing them latest technology. Like I said before, with three bullets of an AK47 and somebody's wearing a sandal and standing in the desert between the border of Iran and Afghanistan, and you expect him to stop an international mafia?

At the bombed-out shell of the Soviet Cultural Centre in Kabul, I find these men smoking heroin. Drug addiction is as much a problem here as it is around the world. The addicts of Afghanistan now number more than 1 million and efforts to stop their drug supply are adding a new complexity to an already highly volatile political landscape.

NORINE McDONALD: Those that are responsible for American counter-narcotics policy in Afghanistan are now becoming responsible for providing this fertile political ground for the return of the Taliban and the growth of the insurgency here.

And any increase in Taliban strength could mean more casualties for the 1,000 Australian troops now stationed in Afghanistan.

PROFESSOR WADIR HAFIZI: The only solution, first of all, is to try internally and externally to bring peace in this country, security for this country. When there is peace, the government must be strong government, representative government, not introduced from the outside, not to become the members by relationship, but the government must be professional government - servants of the people, not ruling the people and looting the people.


GEORGE NEGUS: And to prove John's point, a few days ago the Taliban killed seven Afghan police as they were clearing a field of opium poppies.

Credits

Reporter/Camera
JOHN MARTIKUS

Editor
DAVID POTTS

Producer
ASHLEY SMITH

Translator / Fixer
ALEEM AGHA

Subtitling
ZAMAN HAKIM

Original Music composed by
VICKI HANSEN