TRIESTE, Italy – The United States has announced a new drug policy for opium-rich Afghanistan, saying it was phasing out funding for eradication programs while significantly increasing its funding for alternate crop and drug interdiction efforts.
The U.S. envoy for Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, told The Associated Press on Saturday that eradication programs weren't working and were only driving farmers into the hands of the Taliban.
"Eradication is a waste of money," Holbrooke said on the sidelines of a Group of Eight foreign ministers' meeting on Afghanistan, during which he briefed regional representatives on the new policy.
The G-8 ministers "strongly appreciated" the shift, which also includes an increase in annual U.S. funding for agricultural development from a few million dollars to a few hundred million dollars, said Foreign Minister Franco Frattini of Italy, the current G-8 president.
Officials at Afghanistan's Interior Ministry and Counternarcotics Ministry could not immediately be reached for comment.
Afghanistan is the world's leading source of opium, cultivating 93 percent of the world's heroin-producing crop. The United Nations has estimated the Taliban and other Afghan militants made $50 million to $70 million of last year's opium and heroin trade.
The U.N. drug office said in a report this week that opium cultivation dropped 19 percent last year, but was still concentrated in southern provinces where the Taliban insurgency is strongest.
The head of the U.N. drug office, Antonio Maria Costa, told the G-8 meeting that the dip in cultivation was welcome "though vulnerable to relapse" without concerted international efforts to assist farmers abandon poppy cultivation to harvest other crops. In addition, law enforcement operations must be increased to disrupt drug markets, production labs and convoys, he said.
Holbrooke said the U.S. planned to do just that with its new policy shift.
"We're essentially phasing out our support for crop eradication and using the money to work on interdiction, rule of law, alternate crops," he told the AP. At the same time, Washington is upgrading its support for agriculture programs.
"That's the big change in our policies," he said. "This was widely accepted as the right thing to do."
Costa said the United Nations had determined that eradication programs were inefficient since too few hectares acres were being cleared at too high a cost.
The U.S. strategy of phasing out eradication in favor of agricultural development and drug interdiction "seems to be the winning strategy, and I'm glad that all of this has received support from the G-8 ministers," Costa told the AP.
Holbrooke said the previous U.S. policy to combat Afghan poppy, which focused on eradication programs, hadn't reduced "by one dollar" the amount of money the Taliban earned off cultivation and production.
"It might destroy some acreage," Holbrooke said. "But it just helped the Taliban."
Agriculture was among the issues taken up at the G-8 meeting on Saturday, with participants saying in their final statement that agricultural development was "key to the future of Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as other countries in the region."
"Moreover, food insecurity and chronic poverty are root causes of civil instability and forced migration," it said in calling for expanded international cooperation in agriculture to boost employment and incomes and provide farmers with alternatives to poppy production.
Associated Press reporter Alessandra Rizzo contributed to this report.
The sun sets over the New York City skyline on June 26. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
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