It, indeed, is distressing to learn from a news report that opium poppy production has resurfaced in Pakistan, which had been declared a poppy-free country in 2000. The disconcerting revelation was reported to have been made by no less a person than Major General Nadeem Ahmed, chief of the army-led Anti-Narcotics Force, speaking at the launch of a report by the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board. What can be all the more disquieting about the disclosure has reference to the causes he convincingly gave of the menacing return of poppy crops to Pakistan.
He mainly referred to the rather prolonged diversion of the security forces assigned with the challenging task to tackling the militants, linked to the al Qaeda network along the Afghan border. Needless to point out, the lack of needed vigil, could not but provide an opportunity to the farmers to resume cultivating the heroin-producing flowers in 2002, thereby, leading to increasing harvests since then.
Viewed in this perspective, his argument that Pakistan deserves more international help to win both the wars, on terror and drugs, should appeal to reason, as they happen to be mutually linked too. Certainly, an inauspicious development, it will be widely lamented, notwithstanding the government's unshakeable determination to pursue the dual task.
Again, as Major General Nadeem Ahmed recalled, poppies, had sprung up over some 6,700 hectares in Pakistan, pointing out that although 78 percent of the crop had been eradicated, 22 percent had remained intact, thereby helping keep plans of further expansion very much alive among those eagerly awaiting it, hence leading to the ghastly situation, as now seen developing on the poppy front.
It will also be noted that while dilating upon it, he pointedly referred to the ongoing counter-terrorist operations in NWFP, as also to moves to tackle the emerging situation in Balochistan, which have diverted key forces. Reference to these two issues hampering total eradication, cannot be viewed as an overemphasis either.
For the fact remains that deployment of Frontier Corps to guard the country's largest gas field and other installations in Balochistan has diverted attention away from the eradication of the poppy menace. The plea that simultaneous availability of the Frontier Corps in both the provinces for internal security tasks would help overcome drugs can hardly be disputed.
The same can be said about his warning that international efforts, as led by the United States, for eradication of drugs in Afghanistan - now the world's biggest producer of opium - could backfire on Pakistan.
As the ANF chief pointed out, Pakistan could witness an upsurge in poppy cultivation, besides reverse flow of labs from Afghanistan into the country along with shifting of storage sites.
As for the grimness of prospects of curbing opium in Afghanistan, one is apt to be reminded of the revelations four senior US officials made at a hearing of the House International Committee, in June last year, pointing to the Afghan government's dilemma over revival of poppy cultivation in that country.
As for its cause, reference was then made, primarily, to the Afghan President's preoccupation with efforts to create a stable security situation for the then upcoming elections. He was then stated to be desperately in need of support of the warlords controlling the poppy-growing areas.
In the event of being deprived of the huge drug money it fetched them, they were seen as remaining inclined to defy President Karzai's authority. It had also been recalled that, according to the five-year counter-narcotic strategy that had been launched, opium production was expected to decline by 70 percent by the year 2008.
For attainment of that target, the prospects of success of contemplated efforts were stated to have considerably dimmed due the government's inability to enforce its decisions beyond Kabul. It will also recalled that under the compelling force of circumstances, the Afghans could do little except looking the other way, pointing to an approach similar to the one the United States had adopted during the Afghan war of liberation from Soviet the 1980s, and which had proved counter-productive.
All in all, in the situation as now prevailing, Pakistan as a frontline state in the dual war on terror and narcotics, needs more financial and material support. Now is the time the international community saw to it that its need is effectively met before it becomes too late.
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