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http://socrates.berkeley.edu/~pdscott/qf5.html
FLASH 5 (A): Pre-1990 Drug Networks Being Restored Under New Coalition
When we look at the Afghan leaders whom the US considers eligible to fill out an interim government, we see that many are figures implicated in drug-trafficking in the 1980s. The BBC compiled a list of these leaders in November 2001. Leading the list was President Burhanuddin Rabbani, whose home province of Badakshan became in the 1990s, while under his control, "the stepping stone for an entirely new means of conveying opiates to Europe, via Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Russia's Central Asian railway service" (Griffin, Reaping the Whirlwind, 150). Veteran General Rashid Dostum, in Mazar-i-Sharif, "was suspected of earning huge profits by exporting drugs via Uzbekistan" (Cooley, Unholy Wars, 155).
Of the seven Pashtun leaders named, three (Pir Sayed Gailani and Gulbeddin Hekmatyar, and Hazi Bashir) have been linked in the past to drug-trafficking. A fourth, Younus Khalis, is a powerful figure from drug-rich Nangahar province, and is the man with whom Osama bin Laden made contact in 1996, before offering his riches to the Taliban. The restored leader of the Eastern Shura in Nangahar province, Haji Abdul Qadir (who withdrew from the Bonn leadership conference), became rich in former times as the Afghan source of a drug pipeline involving in Pakistan Haji Ayub Afridi, "the lord of Khyber heroin dealing" (Griffin, 142-43; cf. Cockburn, Whiteout, 267).
Under the headline "US turns to drug baron to rally support ," Asia Times Online reported on 12/4/01 that "Afridi was freed from prison in Karachi last Thursday [11/29/01] after serving just a few weeks of a seven-year sentence for the export of 6.5 tons of hashish."
In the 1980s, according to Asia Times Online, "All of the major Afghan warlords, except for the Northern Alliance's Ahmed Shah Masoud, who had his own opium fiefdom in northern Afghanistan, were a part of Afridi's coalition of drug traders in the CIA-sponsored holy war against the Soviets. Sources say that Afridi's constituencies in eastern and southern Afghan provinces have been revived following the withdrawal of the Taliban, and with them the drugs trade. Commanders such as Haji Abdul Qadeer, Haji Mohammed Zaman and Hazrat Ali are once again ruling the roost in these areas. These commanders used to be the biggest heroin and opium mafia in Afghanistan's Pashtun belt."
(Hazrat Ali is currently directing the ground forces attacking the Tora Bora cave stronghold in search of Osama bin Laden. Meanwhile Haji Mohamed Zaman has complained about the US bombing of villages under his control.)
Asia Times Online speculates that the US, sensing too much Russian influence being exerted on the Northern Alliance, has decided to cultivate support from within the majority Pashtun belt by reviving the old Afridi drug network. But the independent behavior of Haji Abdul Qadir and Haji Mohammed Zaman suggests that the true restorer of the Afridi network may be Pakistan, legitimately concerned by the increasing role played in post-Taliban Afghanistan by Rabbani, the Northern Alliance, and Russia.
What we may be seeing is a revival of the Cold War games in which both the US and Russia sought control of the drug traffic, not just to fund their operations, but above all in order to deny it to their opponent.
FLASH 5 (B): Developing US-Russian Tensions over Post-Taliban Government
It has been clear that the Northern Alliance has spurned US guidance and listened to its backers in Russia, ever since the Northern Alliance seized control of Kabul in defiance of US policy. After hard bargaining at Bonn, the Northern Alliance has come away with the most important ministries in their control: defense, foreign affairs, and the interior.
Eric Margolis argues in the Los Angeles Times on 11/28/01 that "The Russians have regained influence over Afghanistan, avenged their defeat by the U.S. in the 1980s war and neatly checkmated the Bush administration, which, for all its high-tech military power, understands little about Afghanistan.
"The U.S. ouster of the Taliban regime also means Pakistan has lost its former influence over Afghanistan and is now cut off from Central Asia's resources. So long as the alliance holds power, the U.S. is equally denied access to the much-coveted Caspian Basin. Russia has regained control of the best potential pipeline routes. The new Silk Road is destined to become a Russian energy superhighway."
Margolis' pessimistic analysis ignores the extent to which Russia has to fear, as well as hope for, developments in Afghanistan. Its client states in the CIS, above all Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, have suffered from serious Islamist terrorist movements funded by drugs. Other secession movements in Chechnya, Georgia, and Abkhazia have been tied in with struggles over the local drug traffic (Cooley, 161).
Control over oil and control over drugs cannot be separated. A hopeful sign is that some in Washington hope to turn from the old Afghan warlords and their drug-financed forces, to a new younger generation of leaders, working towards a centrally financed and controlled army. (See San Francisco Chronicle, 12/5/01.)
May their counterparts in Russia work towards the same mutually beneficial solution.
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