Afghanistan supplies virtually all of the world's illegal opium1. Last year, the country's drug trade was a $4-billion business, half of which alone was produced in the south where the fighting against the Taliban insurgency2 is the fiercest. Getting Afghanistan to rid itself of poppy is a pillar of U.S. policy there, because the Taliban use profits from opium as a revenue source. For Afghans themselves, however, feelings about poppy are conflicted: It's harmful to their country and to their people, but it is also a livelihood3 for many where instability offers few alternatives.
In this last report of a four part series, VOA's Afghan service examines the efforts to prosecute4 drug dealers5 in Afghanistan. VOA's Siri Nyrop narrates6.
This little boy is one face of the poppy trade in Afghanistan.
For this boy, the ATV (All Terrain7 Vehicle) is not tearing up an illegal crop, but destroying his family's livelihood.
In an Afghan drug court, and the men on trial are notorious drug dealers.
Still, in Afghanistan it is dangerous work to go after even small fish in the country that produces almost all of the world's opium.
The Afghan judicial8 system is still a fragile work in progress. Judge Mukrima Akrami believes in her work, but she is also well aware of the threat she faces from the bigger drug dealers behind the scenes.
"I'm concerned. I feel insecure when I go out. It's because we are facing drug dealers,” Mukrima Akrami, Afghan Judge said. “They are organized criminals. My family members and I risk being kidnapped. But still, my job is important to me, and I perform it responsibly."
A man convicted, complains bitterly about what he sees as a double standard.
He says, "This is a fact that every Afghan, even the Afghan government knows. Traders support the farmers. They are government officials, high-ranking policemen and members of parliament. They are powerful people. And the big drug traders are free."
Charges of corruption9 at all levels, not just with the drug trade, have long been leveled at Afghan officials by friends and foes10 alike.
Former Director Of Counternarcotics, US Embassy Kabul agrees, "Corruption is a serious, serious problem, and the police are corrupted11 from time to time. Local government officials are corrupted; the provincial12 government officials are sometimes corrupted, so it's across the board. Unfortunately, this is becoming all too common in Afghanistan society in general, but its certainly very much there in drugs."
Interdiction13 is yielding some results, but most of the drug traffickers easily dilute14 justice.
One high-level drug lord who was arrested wasn't tried in Afghanistan. Instead, he was turned over to federal authorities in the United States.
Karen Tandy, DEA official says, "Haji Baz Mohmmad, who was extradited Friday, is one of the world's most wanted, most powerful, and most dangerous drug kingpins."
Baz Mohammad was the first defendant15 the Afghan government ever extradited for drug crimes.
"He pled guilty to being a manager of a heroin16 transportation organization through which he moved heroin from Pakistan and Afghanistan to the U.S. from 1990 through 2005. From 1994 forward, he and his organization used some of the money from the sales of the heroin in the US to support the Taliban in Afghanistan. And in exchange, they received the protection of the Taliban," Boyd Johnson, Chief of the Public Corruption Unit, U.S. Attorney's Office, New York City said.
Mohammad was sentenced to over 15 years in a US prison. But it's a long way from the American courthouse to this one in Afghanistan.
It will take time before the Afghan judicial system has the power of the criminals it must prosecute.
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