Roar Mikalsen - HUMAN RISING - radiofri..

Pakistan banned opium cultivation in February 1979 and Iran followed suit in April, the
absence of legal controls in the Pashtun areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan ‘attracted
Western drug cartels and ‘scientists’ (including ‘some fortune-seekers from Europe and
the US’) to establish heroin processing facilities in the tribal belt.’ All this new attention
from ‘the international drug syndicates’ apparently came before either the CIA active
intervention in Afghanistan in August 1979 or the Soviet invasion in December.” 365
For selv om Sovjet trakk seg ut av landet i februar 1989, fortsatte
Afganistan rollen som storprodusent. Krigens effekt var alt i alt den, at den
styrket ISIs maktposisjon i regionen betraktelig, samtidig som den gjorde
maktgrupperingene i land som Afghanistan og Pakistan avhengig
narkotikaøkonomien. Dette beredet grunnen for en korrumpering av
samfunnstoffet som har økt i omfang frem til i dag. Alfred McCoy beskriver
situasjonen for Pakistans del: ”After ten years of unchecked growth under
General Zia, the country’s drug trade was now too well entrenched in the
country’s politics and economy for simple police action. Conservative
economists estimated that total annual earnings from Pakistan’s heroin trade
were $8-10 billion, far larger than Pakistan’s government budget and equal to
one-quarter of its entire gross domestic product.” 366
For Afghanistans del var narkotikaøkonomiens betydning langt større. Og
den befestet sin sentrale posisjon enda mer da amerikanernes økonomiske
støtte til landet forsvant i 1989 med sovjeternes tilbaketog. McCoy forteller
videre:
”The Soviet withdrawal in February 1989 and a slackening in CIA support produced a
scramble among rival mujaheddin commanders for Afghanistan’s prime opium land,
particularly in the fertile Helmand valley of southern Afghanistan. During most of the
war, the local commander Mullah Nasim Akhundzada had controlled the best-irrigated
lands in the northern Helmand valley, once the breadbasket of Afghanistan, and
decreed that half of all peasant holdings would be planted to opium. A ruthless leader
and Hekmatyar’s bitter enemy, Mullah Nasim issued opium quotas to every
landovwner and maintained his control by killing or castrating those who defied his
directives. Known as the ‘King of Heroin,’ he controlled most of the 250 tons of opium
grown in Helmand province.” 367
Nasim ble imidlertid drept i april 1990 av soldater lojale til Hekmatyar,
som med det styrket inflytelsen sin i provinsen. Og i 1994 overtok Afghanistan
rollen som verdens ledende heroinprodusent.
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