Abstract

Opium poppy is effectively eliminated in those parts of Taliban-controlled Afghanistan where it has been cultivated in recent years. The cause of the dramatic reduction in cultivation this year is the Taliban prohibition. The ban is likely to have significant implications for the international community. The territory encompassed by the ban accounted for x% of the world’s illicit opium in 2000.

In the southern zone, the Taliban heartland, little evidence was found of non-compliance with the ban and none of repressive enforcement. Challenge in the southern zone is unlikely in the short term even if those worst affected receive no assistance. In the eastern zone, where Taliban control and general security are weaker, dissatisfaction is more evident. In Achin district implementation was resisted and farmers may try to replant poppy next season if no help is forthcoming. In the eastern zone as a whole, however, in the short term migration appears more likely than defiance. Without assistance in the longer term, however, it is probably only a matter of time before cultivation resumes at some level.

No displacement of poppy cultivation was found. The Mission also found no evidence to suggest that displacement has yet taken place on anything but a small scale. Time and security constraints prevented visits to all of the regions to which displacement could have occurred. It will be important for UNDCP’s annual poppy survey to pay closer than usual attention to remote areas, particularly where Taliban control is weak or challenged and where there are connections in land ownership with regions of previously intense poppy cultivation.

Mullah Omar has declared poppy cultivation to be un-Islamic, or haram. Farmers, opium traders and others say that they do not expect the ban to be lifted or its implementation relaxed. The Taliban maintain that the ban and its implementation are permanent, but they have no policies addressing the far-reaching consequences or for sustaining the reduction in cultivation other than seeking the help of the international community. There is a wide expectation that international assistance will follow elimination of poppy.

The impact of the ban on poppy cultivation cannot be isolated from Afghanistan’s wider economic and social crisis arising from structural under-development, exacerbated by the wars, the drought and population growth. The poppy ban has resulted in additional hardship for many small farmers, particularly sharecroppers and itinerant workers. Indebtedness is high. Currently, the sale of livestock and land has become a common strategy for meeting debt repayments and more immediate needs. However, deprived of their main source of income, many are unable to repay their debts and may soon have difficulty feeding their families. Many are becoming internally displaced, seeking refuge in other countries or enlisting in the Afghan or other conflicts.

The scale of stockpiles cannot be estimated. Opium traders claimed that supply would be exhausted within 2-3 months. No one admits to holding sizeable stocks. The Taliban acknowledge that stocks probably exist in Afghanistan, but maintain that large stockpiles are either outside the country or in Badakhshan. They indicate interest in addressing the practicalities of stockpile destruction and action against traffickers and invite dialogue.