WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States says it has garnered broad support for Afghans to mount a new drive next month to wipe out major opium poppy fields and deprive a resurgent Taliban of a key source of funds.
After spurning US calls for an aerial chemical spray campaign, Afghanistan and European countries now back a "very tough manual," albeit more dangerous ground-based eradication plan, State Department official Thomas Schweich said.
He said the plan is "an integrated part of a program" aimed at planting alternative crops, "interdicting" top drug traffickers, prosecuting corrupt officials abetting the trade, and improved public information.
"I believe we have a lot of support from the allies ...," the department's coordinator for counter narcotics and justice reform in Afghanistan told AFP after touring London and seven other European capitals at the end of last year.
"Even those that were very skittish about aerial eradication have come in now and are supportive of a ground-based eradication campaign against wealthier farmers in wealthier areas," Schweich said.
Eradication efforts have stumbled on "sort of a myth" that poppy farmers are poor, he said. "A lot of the poppy is being grown on government land. A lot of the fields are owned by corrupt officials and wealthier Afghans."
He cited a report from the Vienna-based United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime which last year said opium cultivation is no longer associated with poverty.
His argument was well-received in Europe, he added.
Eradication plans have also snagged on a failure by North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) forces to link the drug trade with the security threat posed by the Taliban as well as on arguments over methods and strategy.
But NATO has changed tack in disseminating public information, he said.
"In Helmand province, for example, NATO's new campaign is narcotics breeds insecurity," he said.
As for strategy, he said it was important to press ahead now with poppy eradication rather than wait until the justice system is capable of gathering evidence and successfully prosecuting those involved in the drug trade.
"We can't sit back," he argued.
But Washington lost its argument for the method of chemical spraying from the air, even though it is much safer than a ground campaign where he said "you have to fight your way in and you have to fight your way out."
With Afghan police and army offering security in broad coordination with NATO forces, he said, Afghan workers using tractors and other equipment will manually eliminate poppies from the farms.
The goal is 50,000 hectares under cultivation, compared to 20,000 hectares last year. The targets will also be better, he said.
Though a top ally, the British government was among those "actively opposed" to the air campaign for fear it would lose the "hearts and minds" of Afghans who recall harsh chemicals sprayed on fields during the Soviet occupation.
Germany and Sweden were also strongly opposed, he added.
In Kabul on January 2, NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander US General Dan McNeill said Afghansitan's opium production was likely to boom in 2008.
He also predicted continued Taliban-led violence, which he said was fueled by the illicit drug trade.
Robert Templer, director of the Asia Program for the International Crisis Group, was skeptical about chances for the new campaign, saying Washington has failed to ensure key steps were taken, such as building effective policing.
He was not sure the allies would cooperate either.
"I think you'll find there's far less enthusiasm on the ground, and therefore it would not surprise me if we saw some footdragging on the part of some governments" that see a different order of priorities, he said.
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