The Poppy Eradication Superthread-Merged
- Thread starter Lockness
- Start date
- Reaction score
- 0
- Points
- 410
So to the original poster, to judge a flower and its symbolances due to the fact that it can also be used as a narcotic is pure ignorance.
You are calling Gap ignorant because he posted an article stating this?
You are calling Gap ignorant because he posted an article stating this?
- Reaction score
- 3,949
- Points
- 1,260
POPPY ERADICATION STRENGTHENING THE TALIBAN, EXPERTS AGREE
NATO Parliamentary Assembly news release PR 240508 E, 24 May 08
English -
Eradication efforts that “fail to hold out alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers are only strengthening support for the Taliban” in the most unstable provinces of Afghanistan, argues a NATO Parliamentary Assembly report presented by British MP Hugh Bayley today (Saturday) at the Assembly’s Spring Session in Berlin. “The opium trade is fuelling insurgency, and insurgency, in turn, is driving up opium production”, explained Mr Bayley to the members of the Assembly’s Economics and Security Committee. “There is a growing agreement among experts that simple eradication and interdiction will not break this vicious cycle”. In addition, militarization of the counter-narcotic effort could result in additional civilian casualties and alienate local Afghan leaders who provide Alliance forces with intelligence on the Taliban.
Mr Bailey’s comments were echoed by Douglas Bereuter, President of the Asia Foundation, an American NGO supporting several governance, civil society and education projects in Afghanistan . “Poppy eradication efforts to date have had mixed results”, said Mr Bereuter, a former US Congressman and NATO PA President, “with security and local cooperation being major hurdles; meanwhile, potential earnings from poppy cultivation continue to be far higher than the alternative livelihood options presented by the government”.
Mr Bayley was also sceptical about the feasibility of other approaches, such as legalising the opium trade through direct purchase of poppies for the production of painkilling medicines, as the demand for such drugs would not match the production. Instead, his report called for a greater focus on rural development strategies. Experiences in Thailand and Colombia indicate that eradication efforts can be successful only following the strengthening of police and state structures and the initiation of alternative crop projects. In Afghanistan , the need to ensure that farmers switching to alternative crops such as saffron or pistachios get safely to the markets also requires additional investment in state infrastructure.
In conclusion, Mr Bayley strongly encouraged legislators from both Afghanistan and Pakistan , present at the NATO PA Session, to push their respective governments to collaborate more on the narcotics problem, thus weakening the Taliban. Iran , which is also facing serious problems with illegal narcotics in its eastern region, could also be convinced to play a role in this struggle.
The NATO PA Spring Session, gathering some 340 national parliamentarians from the 26 NATO member countries, will meet for five days in Berlin in the Reichstag building, until May 27.
NATO Parliamentary Assembly news release PR 240508 E, 24 May 08
English -
Eradication efforts that “fail to hold out alternative livelihoods for Afghan farmers are only strengthening support for the Taliban” in the most unstable provinces of Afghanistan, argues a NATO Parliamentary Assembly report presented by British MP Hugh Bayley today (Saturday) at the Assembly’s Spring Session in Berlin. “The opium trade is fuelling insurgency, and insurgency, in turn, is driving up opium production”, explained Mr Bayley to the members of the Assembly’s Economics and Security Committee. “There is a growing agreement among experts that simple eradication and interdiction will not break this vicious cycle”. In addition, militarization of the counter-narcotic effort could result in additional civilian casualties and alienate local Afghan leaders who provide Alliance forces with intelligence on the Taliban.
Mr Bailey’s comments were echoed by Douglas Bereuter, President of the Asia Foundation, an American NGO supporting several governance, civil society and education projects in Afghanistan . “Poppy eradication efforts to date have had mixed results”, said Mr Bereuter, a former US Congressman and NATO PA President, “with security and local cooperation being major hurdles; meanwhile, potential earnings from poppy cultivation continue to be far higher than the alternative livelihood options presented by the government”.
Mr Bayley was also sceptical about the feasibility of other approaches, such as legalising the opium trade through direct purchase of poppies for the production of painkilling medicines, as the demand for such drugs would not match the production. Instead, his report called for a greater focus on rural development strategies. Experiences in Thailand and Colombia indicate that eradication efforts can be successful only following the strengthening of police and state structures and the initiation of alternative crop projects. In Afghanistan , the need to ensure that farmers switching to alternative crops such as saffron or pistachios get safely to the markets also requires additional investment in state infrastructure.
In conclusion, Mr Bayley strongly encouraged legislators from both Afghanistan and Pakistan , present at the NATO PA Session, to push their respective governments to collaborate more on the narcotics problem, thus weakening the Taliban. Iran , which is also facing serious problems with illegal narcotics in its eastern region, could also be convinced to play a role in this struggle.
The NATO PA Spring Session, gathering some 340 national parliamentarians from the 26 NATO member countries, will meet for five days in Berlin in the Reichstag building, until May 27.
daftandbarmy
Army.ca Dinosaur
- Reaction score
- 30,905
- Points
- 1,160
The Taliban’s Opium War: The difficulties and dangers of the eradication program.
In the main square in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, a large billboard shows a human skeleton being hanged. The rope is not a normal gallows rope but the stem of an opium poppy. Aside from this jarring image, Tirin Kot is a bucolic-seeming place, a market town of flat-topped adobe houses and little shops on a low bluff on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River, in a long valley bounded by open desert and jagged, treeless mountains. About ten thousand people live in the town. The men are bearded and wear traditional robes and tunics and cover their heads with turbans or sequinned skullcaps. There are virtually no women in sight, and when they do appear they wear all-concealing burkas. A few paved streets join at a traffic circle in the center of town, but within a few blocks they peter out to dirt tracks.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/09/070709fa_fact_anderson
In the main square in Tirin Kot, the capital of Uruzgan Province, in central Afghanistan, a large billboard shows a human skeleton being hanged. The rope is not a normal gallows rope but the stem of an opium poppy. Aside from this jarring image, Tirin Kot is a bucolic-seeming place, a market town of flat-topped adobe houses and little shops on a low bluff on the eastern shore of the Tirinrud River, in a long valley bounded by open desert and jagged, treeless mountains. About ten thousand people live in the town. The men are bearded and wear traditional robes and tunics and cover their heads with turbans or sequinned skullcaps. There are virtually no women in sight, and when they do appear they wear all-concealing burkas. A few paved streets join at a traffic circle in the center of town, but within a few blocks they peter out to dirt tracks.
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/07/09/070709fa_fact_anderson
Yrys
Army.ca Veteran
- Reaction score
- 11
- Points
- 430
Pleas of Afghan ex-poppy farmers
A two-hour drive from the city of Jalalabad, on a brain-bruising dirt road, lies Gandomak.
Farmers in this remote village in Sherzad district in eastern Afghanistan say they stopped
growing poppies last year, and are now growing wheat, vegetables and maize instead.
More than a year ago, the Afghan government backed by international forces eradicated
their poppy fields. But locals say they are still waiting for the help they were promised.
When I was last in Nangarhar province a couple of years ago I was surrounded by poppies
- pungent and many coloured - but this year I could see only golden wheat, green maize
and fruit. Farmers in Sherzad agreed to eradicate the poppies after they were promised
a road, an irrigation channel and a clinic for their village.
Sheen Goal Raza Kar was one of 1,000 farmers whose fields were wiped out - but a year
on he is still asking for what was promised to him. "Once they dropped some medicine
from their planes, it destroyed everything. Then they eradicated our fields and promised
us projects, but look nothing has been given to us," he told the BBC recently.
'Powerful people'
The tall, bearded Sheen Goal is holding a meeting among the villagers on this windy afternoon.
From the roof of his house overlooking his fields he lists his complaints. "They destroyed my fields
because I was poor and they couldn't destroy those fields belonging to the powerful people at
the time. Now I have grown tomatoes and other vegetables, but by the time I transport them
to Jalalabad, they are all rotten."
I interview the villagers over a tasty lunch of eggs, potatoes and yoghurt; as we eat we can hear
American drones patrolling the nearby White Mountains which border the Tora Bora cave complex
on the Afghan side and Parachinar in Pakistan. That's when Sheen Goal points to his fields and says:
"See for yourself what has happened to this fertile valley - there is a drought and when we collect
the harvest, we can't take it to the city in good shape."
And everyone agrees with Sheen Goal, all trying to put forward their views. Qari Osman Sherzad,
the eloquent 39-year-old village chief, says: "The Afghan government told them a year ago to stop
growing poppies and the villagers were promised alternative crops and reconstruction projects.
"As we say in Sherzad, it's give and take, not just take. Our women die before they get to hospital,
we don't have water for our fields and the road is in bad shape."
Another villager is clearly frustrated, and wants the Afghan government to asphalt the Sherzad-Jalalabad
road, so farmers like him can sell their products in Jalalabad and even transport them to Kabul. "I haven't
been able to sell anything I grow this year, so we have sent our kids to brick factories in Kabul, Jalalabad
and Pakistan to earn money. Is this justice?" the villager asks angrily as he strokes his beard.
One Afghan official in Nangarhar who requests anonymity admits the government could not deliver on its
promises. "We promised farmers roads, irrigation channels and alternative crops, but sadly those were
empty promises. Farmers feel they have been deceived."
'Where is my road?'
Sherzad district is just 55km (34 miles) east of the city of Jalalabad. It was one of the biggest
poppy-growing districts in the remote White Mountains. Like many other districts, it's an agricultural
area and thousands of families rely on their fields for their income.
It's thought the Afghan government has made a dramatic improvement in cutting the poppy crop
in Nangarhar - only a few years ago it was one of the country's biggest poppy-producing provinces.
Another farmer accuses senior Afghan officials and some tribal elders of stealing the reconstruction
money. "The world gave millions of dollars, but our government and elders stole that money. Where
is my road and the irrigation channel?" says the farmer from the village of Toto.
Poor farmers and long-suffering villagers are paying the price, says another man, Ajmal.
"I have three sons, and I have sent them all to work in brick factories. "Since my crop was destroyed,
I have been borrowing money so my family can have the money to buy food, but people want their
money back and I don't have any money."
A two-hour drive from the city of Jalalabad, on a brain-bruising dirt road, lies Gandomak.
Farmers in this remote village in Sherzad district in eastern Afghanistan say they stopped
growing poppies last year, and are now growing wheat, vegetables and maize instead.
More than a year ago, the Afghan government backed by international forces eradicated
their poppy fields. But locals say they are still waiting for the help they were promised.
When I was last in Nangarhar province a couple of years ago I was surrounded by poppies
- pungent and many coloured - but this year I could see only golden wheat, green maize
and fruit. Farmers in Sherzad agreed to eradicate the poppies after they were promised
a road, an irrigation channel and a clinic for their village.
Sheen Goal Raza Kar was one of 1,000 farmers whose fields were wiped out - but a year
on he is still asking for what was promised to him. "Once they dropped some medicine
from their planes, it destroyed everything. Then they eradicated our fields and promised
us projects, but look nothing has been given to us," he told the BBC recently.
'Powerful people'
The tall, bearded Sheen Goal is holding a meeting among the villagers on this windy afternoon.
From the roof of his house overlooking his fields he lists his complaints. "They destroyed my fields
because I was poor and they couldn't destroy those fields belonging to the powerful people at
the time. Now I have grown tomatoes and other vegetables, but by the time I transport them
to Jalalabad, they are all rotten."
I interview the villagers over a tasty lunch of eggs, potatoes and yoghurt; as we eat we can hear
American drones patrolling the nearby White Mountains which border the Tora Bora cave complex
on the Afghan side and Parachinar in Pakistan. That's when Sheen Goal points to his fields and says:
"See for yourself what has happened to this fertile valley - there is a drought and when we collect
the harvest, we can't take it to the city in good shape."
And everyone agrees with Sheen Goal, all trying to put forward their views. Qari Osman Sherzad,
the eloquent 39-year-old village chief, says: "The Afghan government told them a year ago to stop
growing poppies and the villagers were promised alternative crops and reconstruction projects.
"As we say in Sherzad, it's give and take, not just take. Our women die before they get to hospital,
we don't have water for our fields and the road is in bad shape."
Another villager is clearly frustrated, and wants the Afghan government to asphalt the Sherzad-Jalalabad
road, so farmers like him can sell their products in Jalalabad and even transport them to Kabul. "I haven't
been able to sell anything I grow this year, so we have sent our kids to brick factories in Kabul, Jalalabad
and Pakistan to earn money. Is this justice?" the villager asks angrily as he strokes his beard.
One Afghan official in Nangarhar who requests anonymity admits the government could not deliver on its
promises. "We promised farmers roads, irrigation channels and alternative crops, but sadly those were
empty promises. Farmers feel they have been deceived."
'Where is my road?'
Sherzad district is just 55km (34 miles) east of the city of Jalalabad. It was one of the biggest
poppy-growing districts in the remote White Mountains. Like many other districts, it's an agricultural
area and thousands of families rely on their fields for their income.
It's thought the Afghan government has made a dramatic improvement in cutting the poppy crop
in Nangarhar - only a few years ago it was one of the country's biggest poppy-producing provinces.
Another farmer accuses senior Afghan officials and some tribal elders of stealing the reconstruction
money. "The world gave millions of dollars, but our government and elders stole that money. Where
is my road and the irrigation channel?" says the farmer from the village of Toto.
Poor farmers and long-suffering villagers are paying the price, says another man, Ajmal.
"I have three sons, and I have sent them all to work in brick factories. "Since my crop was destroyed,
I have been borrowing money so my family can have the money to buy food, but people want their
money back and I don't have any money."
Similar threads
