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FWD: extensive information from Thailand
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Sunkmanitu tanka Isnala Najin
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Sep 13, 2003 06:23 PDT
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Lengthy message from Matthew McDaniel/Akha Heritage Foundation:
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Dear Friends:
This is a rather long email. I ask that you check through it carefully,
comments are added before articles. There are links and whole articles
reflecting on the dangerous nature of the Akha environment here in
Thailand.
Before I get started however I would like to take time to thank two very
special people, Ingrid and Tanje from Norway who have just completed two
months of research in Pah Nmm Akha on the conditions of the Akha under
occupation and forced relocation as imposed by the drug war and the Thai
government. Deeply sensitive to the Akha living conditions and the
harsh realities of their daily lives just to stay alive while in a
militarized zone and while the environment is being destroyed all around
them, Ingrid and Tanje spent an enormous amount of time interviewing
families about their lives before and after the forced relocation 12
years ago. Traveling the famous Pah Nmm road back to the old village
site they could not help but be touched by where these people HAD lived
for so many years and then what had been done to them.
As well they visited to other villages including Hua Mae Kom lower
village which had relocated 6 years ago, with 22 houses, but now is down
to 11 houses due to the fact that army arrests in that area, including
the abuse of Law Urh, have so frightened the Akha that their spouses
will be arrested on a provocation that in order to keep their families
together they have fled the area. Exactly what the Thai government
wants.
Promises of the Ampur to assist the villages still is so much hot air.
Will it materialize?
At any rate, Ingrid and Tanje left yesterday and we will certainly miss
them around the village.
The Akha Journal #2 goes to press in the next couple of days. 274 pages
paperback, this is a significant step in developing the format which I
hope to improve on a lot between now and the next copy. As well there
are numerous Akha books in the line up for layout and printing in our
effort to secure the written form of the Akha Oral literature tradition
in Akha language. We would be more than willing to get these all out in
English as well if we can find the funding. Speaking of funding, your
help is now needed to get the second journal printed, either subscribe
if you haven't or make a donation. This printing will put the three
language journal in Akha villages as well as to the english speaking
public.
Our investigation into the numbers and conditions in the Thailand
prisons for the Akha continues. A recently released prisoner from the
Chiangrai prison told me that there are now more than 10,000 prisoners
there, many of them Akha, and that the place is now so crowded that it
is impossible to sleep with your body fully in contact with the floor.
You must use the legs of another man for a pillow, and put your feet
across the body of a third party in order to sleep under the lights
which never dim, and people are getting up all night long to go to the
restroom. Like a school of fish, the entire floor turns over all night
long as people shift and try to find some comfort in their sleep.
Below is an extensive article on this subject by Paul Hunt who has been
extremely faithful in helping us set up and continue to develop our
prison work to identify the number of Akha in prison and assist them.
It should be noted, that while the US bashes Burma for the imprisonment
of Su Kyi, one person, that in Thailand the US backed drug war has put
thousands of Akha in prison. There are 70,000 Akha in Thailand. Burma
by comparison has 200,000 Akha and you would be sore pressed to find 500
Akha in prison in Burma last we checked. So just what gives? Is one
person worth so much more than thousands of Akha who at best could be
discibed as racial and political prisoners? If the Thais are going to
talk honest about why Akha sold speed pills to feed their children then
they need to also talk honest about why they took the rice lands away
from the Akha in a slow moving carefully calculated genocide of these
people right under the US nose. Cause we have careful documentation on
how this was done.
***********
Unable to draw up the article, but recently a woman running a project in
Ireland to study the cases of abuse in church residential schools quit
because the government would not allow her the tools to properly
continue the investigation.
************
Below is an article about the drug conditions in Afghanistan, that in
the US presence drug production is way up. How odd, since the US has
always been accused to have a sweet tooth for drugs when it is busy with
war, that we see troops in all the places in the world where there are
drugs or oil or both. Noting the tolerance at the moment, there in
Afghanistan, then here in Thailand there is no tolerance and half the
hill tribe are in prison based on the US backing of the drug war in
Thailand, the only country that backs the drug war anywhere it would
seem. At end of page.
**********
The Land Rover Boycott.
Here is a letter from one Akha supporter, please take note and continue
to write letters to Land Rover over their exploitation of Akha images:
lrme-@landrover.com
Dear Land Rover:
A word of advice - seriously -
In your commerical called "Procession" - you would definitely have been
better off not using the images of a violated people (the AKha) that
other people (like me, and many others) really care about . You just
make informed potential consumers, like me, mad, and help us make the
decision not to buy a Landrover. I would guess that by income,
education, lifestyle, etc, I am definitely in the demographic you are
trying to reach wth your ads, and I am having a very strong negative
reaction to your ad because of the hijacking of the Akha "look" in it.
Do you know anything about the plight of these people!?!?! It is the
same as Beneton using images of dying AIDs patients a few years back to
sell clothing to well off people. Disgusting. An apology and pulling of
the ad is in order.
Respectfully,
**********************
Ethnic Cleansing and the War on some Drugs
In this article pasted below you can see that the task force 399 or
related military group is now being added more substantially to the area
in Mae Faluang near to where I live by about 4 kilometers when in fact
there is already every tom dick and harry out there from the Thai police
and army. This is just the ongoing total militarization of the hill
tribe region where Thai flower growers and other pesticide intense
workers continue to move in and take the land, not to protect the
environment as the Akha have, but to destroy it. There are military at
every Akha and Lahu village in the area. THE US GOVERNMENT IS BACKING
THE ETHNIC CLEANSING OF THESE PEOPLE. This task force is assisted with
US TAX dollars.
On my way down to town yesterday I passed this convoy moving in near my
village, about 8 US HUMVEE's.
I will be in close contact with the Akha in the Som Mah Keh region where
Loh Mah Cheh Akha is located 500 meters away.
Your continued support is appreciated.
Matthew McDaniel
Thailand
Bangkok Post 9 Sept. 2003
WAR ON DRUGS
Special force units to scour tribal hamlets
Suspect shot dead, 500,000 pills seized
Subin Khuenkaew - Chiang Mai
Two units of the Pha Muang task force will be deployed at border
villages in Chiang Rai today, where Wa drug traffickers are believed to
be hiding.
A border source said the target areas are in Mae Ai, Mae Fah Luang and
Mae Chan districts.
A unit will be deployed in Mae Ai district's Doi Sam Sao and in the area
bordering Mae Chan district, while the other will be operating in Ban
San Ma Khet in Mae Fah Luang district and in Mae Chan district.
The source said operations will last three weeks.
As for anti-drug operations in inner areas, drug suppression and border
patrol police will be in charge.
Commander of the task force, Maj-Gen Manas Paolik, said border troops
were doing their best to suppress drugs, but there were some ``blind
spots'' along the northern border.
``The traffickers can always find a way to sneak in. But we're not just
sitting there. Once we know they are inside, we pounce on them,'' he
said.
Maj-Gen Manas said drug traffickers were taking shelter in some border
villages, particularly in Muser tribal villages.
He said that following the government's crackdown, there were now fewer
Thais involved in drug trafficking.
uA drug suspect was shot and killed yesterday in a sting operation that
netted 500,000 methamphetamine pills.
The suspect, Yutthachai sae Sin, 30, also known as Wei Chiah-long, was a
relative of drug warlord Wei Hseuh-kang.
Mr Yutthachai allegedly laundered drug money through his import and
export business in Chiang Saen district
*************************
Akha Prisoners in Thailand
By Paul Hunt
Evidence is mounting that the number of Akha prisoners in
Thailand is extremely high considering the proportion of the Thai
population of which this ethnic minority make up only a tiny part of
about 0.1%.
Poverty in their villages, forced relocations by army and
forestry, village disruptions and large-scale "orphan" removals by
missionaries, exploitation by tourism and other more shady businesses,
as well as the inept and utter failure of the "war on drugs" policy run
by corrupt officials backed by the Drugs Enforcement Agency of the
U.S.A. all compound into one reality the Akha are facing starkly -
GENOCIDE!
Caught between a rock and a hard place many are ending up in a
hard place - PRISON!
Thailand's prison population is soaring. Women prisoners at
Lard Yao prison in Bangkok are each allowed 14 inches width of floor
space to sleep, with legs overlapping with the next row of prisoners.
Overcrowding, lack of facilities and poor food cause sickness.
Tuberculosis is common in these prisons, as is AIDS.
Many innocent people end up in such "hard places". Victims or
scapegoats of corrupt officials. The Akha and other ethnic minorities
are easy to pick on in Thailand because they are considered less than
second-class citizens. This is genocide by consensus. The consensus
include the majority of Thai citizens who don't give a damn about what
happens to the hilltribes, other than whether they can make a profit for
themselves. The consensus includes Thai government officials, foreign
missionaries, local and transnational businesses, and TOURISTS who don't
make a noise about what is going on!
The Akha are a quiet hill-dwelling people. They don't make a
big noise about their hardship and suffering at the hands of greedy
officials, business exploiters and social-program missionaries and NGOs.
They don't mount resistance against the ever-growing threat of cultural
annihilation. But this "developing world" of ours seems not to have
space for a quiet, gentle people to live in quiet, gentle hills. There
are agendas to remove such threats to "global development".
Following are some details from three "hard places" where the
Akha certainly do not enjoy vacations down from their hills:
Akha Women In Lard Yao Prison, Bangkok
- Reported by Paul Hunt 2 Sept. 2003
Two Akha women were transfered from Chiangrai to Lard Yao Prison on
23 July. They are 25 and 26 on the list below. Both have life sentences
for amphetamines. Thai policy is to move those with long sentences from
regional prisons to prisons in Bangkok. This takes them far away from
their families and homes, making it near impossible for their relatives
and friends to visit and bring them badly needed food and support.
Ah Mee Mah Yer (7 on the list) became ill, tired and coughing in
May, but has now recovered. However, Mah Kha Ah Jaw (8 on the list) has
since become ill with TB and moved to Lard Yao prison's sick-room,
Phailin #7, where Ah Naung Cher Mue (24 on the list) still remains.
Due to very overcrowded and worsening conditions we continue to be
extremely concerned about the health of Akha prisoners.
The prisoners must pay for even basic things like hot water, decent
food, soap and washing powder. Thus they are forced to work very hard
for a pittance that can hardly cover these expenses. Someone is making
profits from this forced labour. Without outside support of relatives
the prisoners' situation is very dire indeed.
There have been recent changes in official rules which make mail
slower in getting in and out. Mail has also been lost, stolen or
mislaid.
Prison names are given first. If their Akha names differ they are
given in brackets. Age, date of arrest, sentence, prison building
number, prison work, home and other details are given if known.
1.Lum Phoo Chuen Pon Tha Kun (Ah Phaeh Byeh Cheh), 28, 22 July 2002
(sentenced 5 March 2003), 33 yrs. 4 m., #5/Room 3, from Chiangrai.
2. Nong Khrang Kavin (Mee Taw Cher Mue), amphetamines, death, Phaitun #4
Room 3, machine house, from Burma, case partner with 3 and 4, some
English.
3. Mee Yo Mah Yer, 27, amphetamines, death, Phaitun #4 Room 3, machine
house, from Burma, case partner with 2 and 4.
4. Mee Phar Yeh Maw, amphetamines, life, Phaitun #4/Room 3, bakery, from
Burma, case partner with 2 and 3.
5. Hmai Ta Meh (Ah Ber Cher Mue), 39, amphetamines, 5 Dec. 1997, life,
#5/Room 3, machine house, from Burma.
6. Ah Meeh No Sakul (Jar Pheh Dang Che), 40, amphetamines, 24 yrs.,
Phaitoon tent, from Burma.
7. Ah Mee Mah Yer, 27, amphetamines, 14 Aug. 1997, life, #4/Room 3,
Phaitoon tent, from Burma. Became sick in May 2003, but since then has
recovered.
8. Mah Kha Ah Jaw, 42, amphetamines, 25 Nov. 1997, life, handkerchief
making, from Burma, case partner with 9. Recently became ill with TB and
moved to Phailin #7 prison sickroom.
9. Bu Mue Soe, 52, amphetamines, 25 Nov. 1997, life, #5 Room 3,
embroidery, from Burma, case partner with 8.
10. Ah Ba Cher Mue, 55, amphetamines, 1998, life, embroidery, from
Burma.
11. Mee Pha Phook Phant (Mee Pha Wei Lanh), 31, 2 yrs. 6 m., in kid's
room with her baby.
12. Mee Thum Ah Nyi, 27, heroine, 22 Mar. 2000, 24 yrs. 6 m., Phaitun
#4/Room 6, embroidery, from Mae Suay.
13. Mee Eh Mer Leh, 37, drugs, 28 Dec. 1998, life, #5/Room 3,
embroidery, from Phamee.
14. Der Ler Jay Taw, drugs, life, cooking room, from Mae Fa Luang.
15. Jant Pheng Cher Mi Cha (Ah Der Cher Mue), drugs, 44 yrs., #5/Room 3,
jewellery, from Tak Province.
16. Ah Mee Ah Yaw, 22, drugs, 12 Sept. 1998, 25 yrs., #5/Room 5,
cooking room, from Ban Ma Khum Pompt, Chiangrai.
17. Thi Da Wan Wannasarn (Mee Ju Maw Po Ku), heroine, 14 Jan. 1999,
life, #5/Room 3, machine house, from Maesai.
18. Phatcharee Jant Sa Khrang (Bu Lum Cher Mue), 45, amphetamines, 27
Feb. 1997, life, #4/Room 3, machine house, from Chiangmai.
19. Mee Seh Be Che Gu, 34, amphetamines, 7 Jan 1997, 33 yrs. 4m., #5
Room 6, machine house.
20. Sook Som Jant Sook Khar (Ah Mee Mer Leh), 43, amphetamines, 7 Nov.
1999, 33 yrs. 4 m., #5/Room 3, dining room, from Bangkok.
21. Som Porn Pitaks Kittichai (Mee Bya Maw Po Ku), 28, amphetamines, 12
Jan. 1998, life, #4/Room 3, embroidery, from Phamee.
22. Ah Miang Paw Leh, 33, 6 June 2001, 12 yrs., #5/Room 3, handkerchief
making, from Chiang Saen.
23. Bu Lu Cher Mue, soon to be released, #6/Room 3, laundry.
24. Sree Pen Khruea (Ah Naung Cher Mue), amphetamines, life, Phailin #7
sick-room, her husband died with AIDS in Chiangrai Prison 1999.
25. Am Phai (Buu Shiu Cher Mui), 21, amphetamines, arrested 9 Nov 2000,
life, from Thachileik, Burma. Transfered on 23 July 2003 from Chiangrai
Prison where she had given birth to a child which her family now cares
for.
26. Me Nay Ta Kaw, 40, amphetamines, life. Transfered from Chiangrai
Prison on 23 July 2003.
********************************
Akha Inmates of Klong Prem Men's Prison, Bangkok
- Reported by Paul Hunt - 2 Sept 2003
Two different sources have recently provided a first tentative
indication of the number of Akha inmates in Klong Prem Men's Prison,
Bangkok. Only the names and block numbers are known for most of these at
present.
Klong Prem has been a very difficult prison to get such information
out of. There is little communication allowed between prisoners held in
different blocks. Prisoners are also very wary of giving personal
details to people they don't know.
BLOCK #2
1. Arbepa Saeyang
BLOCK #3
2. Arnee Mayer
3. Ardea Mayer
4. Arsou Chermoo
5. Arthoo Mhopokoo
BLOCK #4
6. Sam Ahsang, 36, drugs, 33 yrs., Burma, transfered from Bangkwang
Prison in May 2003.
7. Ahloh Ahngeegu
8. Suvit Porn-ittikig
9. Banjob Bechegu
10. Ahsam Mayer
11. Somchai Therja
12. Suwarn Saelee
13. Sam Saeyang
14. Choo Sinmee
15. Euh Saeyang
16. Supot Saemar
BLOCK #5
17. Arpeh Laoyeepa
HOSPITAL
18. Somchai Laokeepa - works as cleaner
***********************************
Akha Men in Phitsanuloke Prison, Thailand
- Reported by Paul Hunt - 2 Sept 2003
Arnyoe Yersaw sent a letter to me from Phitsanuloke Central Prison
in Thailand dated 21 August 2003.
He gave only the Akha names and ages. He is the last on the list.
Learning English as best as he can under the conditions, he writes, "Now
Akha brother with me in Phitsanuloke Central Prison about 26 peoples. We
are very poor because relative havenet to help. I am and my Akha
brothers want you try to help." (sic)
1. Arsa Yului, 33.
2. Arsae Naeyee, 28.
3. Arkor Jupor, 44.
4. Aryae Yului, 39.
5. Arsa Mayer, 35.
6. Jorma Saeduku, 35.
7. Arpha Meitu, 46.
8. Yamui Jaryee, 60.
9. Arjei Yermear, 44.
10. Arka Chermui, 40.
11. Maepha Mopo, 45.
12. Jakui Chermui, 40.
13. Arju Chermui, 44.
14. Chijoe Morpo, 50.
15. Arso Beik, 42.
16. Yachu Aryee, 53.
17. Yakor Jaecher, 45.
18. Yuyei Beikaku, 45.
19. Artu Morpo, 46.
20. Arbio Yeipianggu, 39.
21. Arjui Mayer, 40.
22. Arna Morpo, 44.
23. Vinai Chermui, 36.
24. Arjei Phermear, 33.
25. Aryo Morpo, 36.
26. Arnyoe Yersaw, 35.
*****************************************
Boston Archdiocese agrees to settlement of $85 million in 552 sex abuse
case claims against the church. This is just the tip of the iceberg
internationally.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030910/ap_on_re_us/church_abuse&cid=519&ncid=716
Guns:
Thailand goes down the dangerous road of total gun control in a bandit
country.
I don't have a gun here, but many foreigners do, registered in the names
of their wives and otherwise. It is absolutely amazing that Taksin
continues to implement security arrangements that are chillingly
dictatorial. Police enforcement in Thailand is nearly nill when you
need help. Many crimes are related to illegal police activities as
well, people without guns in Thailand would have a whole lot to worry
about. It would also be an end to the potential of public uprising as a
result of government excesses.
Bangkok Post 10 Sept. 2003
GUN CONTROL
PM promises public hearings before ban
Post reporters
There will be public hearings and careful consideration before the
government's policy to ban guns is implemented, Prime Minister Thaksin
Shinawatra said yesterday.
There was a target date of five to six years, he said. People's rights
would be affected. However, he wanted to allow gun traders time to find
new jobs or concentrate on sales to registered sportsmen and the
government sector.
``If there are public hearings and the people agree, the change is
likely. I want to know how many people use guns in self-defence. Most of
them just have guns to feel secure,'' he said.
There was no reason to possess firearms if there was effective crime
control.
Interior permanent secretary Sermsak Pongpanich said power to issue
firearms licences had been transferred to the ministry by order of the
minister, Wan Muhamad Nor Matha. Application must be made to the Local
Administration Department. Sales of rifles and shotguns had also been
banned until Dec 31.
There are 3.17 million registered guns and many more illegal firearms.
Prison and Pregnancy:
This article only begins to touch on the terrible conditions the Akha
face.
Bangkok Post 10 Sept. 2003
HUMAN RIGHTS / PREGNANT CONVICTS
Support for leniency over incarceration
Allows mothers to nurse their infants
Anjira Assavanonda
Human rights activists and state authorities yesterday voiced support
for an amendment to the Criminal Justice Procedure Act, to allow
suspension of custodial sentences for all pregnant convicts.
The solution was aimed at offering a chance for pregnant convicts to
spend some time raising their babies before going to jail. This would
also stop the growing number of infants being born behind bars.
The issue was discussed at a seminar concerning the problems of mothers
and children in jail, organised yesterday by the Senate Committee on
Women, Youth and the Elderly, the Ministry of Social Development and
Human Security, and the National Human Rights Commission.
Karnjana Ketkarn, director of the Central Prison for Women, said the
problem of pregnant convicts had become more worrisome. Nationwide,
there were currently 177 pregnant convicts and 285 children were being
raised in jails.
She said 80% of the female inmates had been arrested on drug offences,
and most were only small dealers. Some had been caught along with their
husbands; some were innocent but had voluntarily pleaded guilty for
their partners.
Many of them were pregnant at the time of conviction. They had no choice
but to deliver the babies in jail. These children were usually kept with
their mothers for at least one year before being sent to their relatives
or welfare homes.
Ms Karnjana said it worried her because the prison environment was not
good for children's development. Most prisons were overcrowded, with
limited food and limited space to sleep.
``Many children suffer skin rashes as they have been living together
with thousands of inmates. And since they are always surrounded by
women, some even became scared when approached by men. That is somewhat
unnatural,'' Ms Karnjana said.
To solve the problem, Jarun Pakdithanakul, secretary-general to Supreme
Court president, suggested an amendment to certain articles of the
Criminal Justice Procedure Act, which he said was outdated.
``The act was endorsed almost 70 years ago. It is too old and
sub-standard,'' Mr Jarun said.
Article 246 of the act allows the court to suspend custodial sentences
only if convicts were over seven months' pregnant or had delivered a
baby less than a month prior to jail.
However, Mr Jarun proposed that the suspension be granted to all
pregnant convicts, no matter the stage of pregnancy, and that the period
of suspension be extended up to three years after child delivery. Such
regulations were being applied in other countries such as Vietnam.
``A three-year suspension would give a convicted mother enough time to
prepare her child's future,'' said Mr Jarun.
He added the new rule should also be applied to pregnant women not yet
convicted by the court but who were already in jail because they could
not afford bail.
Mr Jarun said the amendment alone would not solve the problem, which
``needs to be tackled comprehensively. Besides changing the law to
suspend jail sentences, we need to find ways to stop them from
committing crimes, and we must also prepare a system for caring and
rehabilitating both mothers and children''.
Apart from jail-born babies, there were also children who were abandoned
since either or both parents were in jail. These children needed special
attention as they were a risk group who could lead to problems in
society in the future, Mr Jarun said.
*********
US Backed Warlords
KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 7 — Along a potholed road in eastern
Afghanistan, Mohammed Jan points through a cloud of dust at a line of
mansions that seem out of place in such poverty-stricken surroundings.
''This is where the new, beautiful houses begin. They belong to the
commanders. Their money is from drugs, from smuggling. They will never
be caught. Their soldiers are working with the Americans,'' says Jan,
himself a small-time opium grower.
Nearly two years after the collapse of Taliban rule, ordinary
Afghans like Jan say they are losing faith in the United States and its
coalition partners.
They point to rampant corruption, President Hamid Karzai's weak
leadership and the behavior of U.S-backed warlords whose private armies
operate with impunity throughout most of Afghanistan.
Their disillusionment is strengthening Taliban holdouts whose
attacks are getting bolder. Nowadays the rebels don't fear being turned
over to the authorities; they say most villages give them food and
shelter.
''The big mistake is from the Americans. They want to bring peace
to Afghanistan with thieves and killers. The Americans after two years
have learned nothing,'' said Abdul Raouf, a car dealer in the eastern
city of Jalalabad. ''Every day the situation is worse.''
The American invasion of Afghanistan relied heavily on local
anti-Taliban forces, and it was inevitable that these warlords, however
unsavory, would continue to be important forces in the hunt for Osama
bin Laden and the al-Qaida network that masterminded the Sept. 11
attacks.
But Afghans increasingly wonder whether the trade-off was worth
it.
''Everybody says warlords, but who are these warlords? They are
commanders, they are government ministers,'' said Raouf. ''We didn't
like the Taliban but there was security then, there were laws. But now
anyone with a gun is the law.''
Back at the mansions, in the province of Nangarhar, a white
marble watchtower peeks over the 10-foot-high brick wall.
''Drug smuggler,'' Jan says. ''That's a commander of Hazrat
Ali's. Are the Americans crazy? We Afghans know who these people are and
what they are doing. There is no security, no development, but these
people's pockets are fat with money. We know that without the Americans
they would be nobody.''
Hazrat Ali is military chief of Afghanistan's eastern zone, a
powerful man appointed by Karzai but aligned with Defense Minister
Mohammed Fahim.
The United States says it is committed to strengthening the
central government and is putting more than $1 billion into extending
Karzai's control beyond Kabul, the capital to the whole Texas-sized
country.
U.S. officials insist that Jan's lament doesn't reflect the full
picture. They say some areas are more secure, some less; some Afghans
are optimistic, others not. They point to the reconstruction projects
that are beginning, the road that links the capital to Kandahar.
Reconstruction, the argument goes, is bound to be slower in the
east and south of Afghanistan, where Taliban and al-Qaida fighters are
being hunted. Sometimes, Western diplomats say, solutions entail messy
compromises; when Karzai decided that the governor of Kandahar,
Afghanistan's second city, was corrupt and ineffective, he removed him
but made him a government minister.
The opium industry, harshly suppressed by the Taliban, has made a
roaring comeback.
The United Nations says production in 2002 generated up to $1.2
billion or almost a fifth of Afghan GDP. Central Asian states and Russia
are complaining bitterly about the increase in Afghan drugs flowing
north.
Those benefiting most are the commanders aligned to the
government and working with the U.S.-led coalition, say Afghans in
eastern Jalalabad who spoke to The Associated Press.
Commander Mustafa, a soldier of Zahir's and a partner with the
U.S.-led coalition, denies the allegation. In an interview at his base
near the border with Pakistan, surrounded by a dozen men with
kalashnikov rifles, he said his men would seize and destroy any drugs
they found.
A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the
drug trade couldn't possibly flourish without the patronage of
government officials and military commanders.
Human Rights Watch recently issued a 101-page report warning that
''Afghan warlords and political strongmen supported by the United States
and other nations are engendering a climate of fear in Afghanistan.'' It
named a string of men in senior government positions.
This climate of fear, the advocacy group said, jeopardizes
efforts to adopt a new constitution and hold national elections in
mid-2004.
A disarmament campaign was to have begun July 1, but the United
Nations delayed it, demanding the Defense Ministry first be reformed to
reflect Afghanistan's ethnic diversity. The United Nations wants
sweeping changes to take power away from Defense Minister Fahim's
private army.
Nearly two years since taking power, Karzai's limited reach is
allowing the corruption to flourish.
Several months ago, Karzai banned logging in eastern Afghanistan,
but it still flourishes in areas where his appointees govern.
The rock-strewn road from Kunar in eastern Afghanistan to
neighboring Nangarhar province is bumper-to-bumper with timber-laden
16-wheelers.
In Kabul, Afghan businessmen who have come back from the United
States to invest in their homeland are disillusioned.
Abdullah Aziz, who returned to Afghanistan from California where
he has lived since 1978, said he went to northern Kunduz province to
retrieve his property.
He said he brought a letter from Karzai to the governor. ''He
took the piece of paper and he said 'Karzai — he is no one here.'''
Aziz is still trying to get his property.
For Afghans, the enemy isn't Taliban but U.S.-backed warlords
http://famulus.msnbc.com/FamulusIntl/ap09-07-110911.asp?reg=ASIA
RELATED
Now we pay the warlords to tyrannise the Afghan people
http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/comment/story/0,11447,1009459,00.html
Reports of rape, looting by Afghan militiamen
Warlord's followers terrorize the helpless
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/02/15/MN110925.DTL
Bush Will Not Stop Afghan Opium Trade
The Bush administration has decided not to destroy the opium crop in
Afghanistan. President Bush, who previously linked the Afghan drug trade
directly to terrorism, has now decided not to destroy the Afghan opium
crop.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/3/28/95240.shtml
Bumper year for Afghan poppies
Money from the opium trade may diminish US influence over the warlords,
and aid Taliban.
http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0724/p06s01-wosc.html
Hidden Agenda behind the "War on Terrorism":
US Bombing of Afghanistan restores Trade in Narcotics
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO205B.html
Politics of a Bumper Crop
Opium and Afghanistan
http://www.counterpunch.org/bumpercrop.html
Record Afghan poppy crop forecast
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2861793.stm
Poppy production soars in Afghanistan
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/2202148.stm
U.S.: Taliban continue to profit from drug trade
http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/10/03/inv.drugs.terrorism/index.html
Heroin Producing Factories Being Re-Established In Afghanistan
http://www.rense.com/general17/reasd.htm
War on terror worsens war on drugs
Opium production flourishes after defeat of Taliban
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=25511
Surge in Afghan Poppy Crop Is Forecast
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A22594-2001Dec24¬Found=true
Drugs From Afghanistan Flood Russia
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=518&ncid=732&e=10&u=/ap/20030827/ap_on_re_eu/russia_drug_tide
Russia fights 'heroin attack'
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3182891.stm
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