Bame Duniya

Opium in Afghanistan: Legalisation is still a solution to be considered

2011-12-21T04:33:00.000-08:00

(A talk given by me at the Cato Institute, Washington D.C. on the 15th of November, 2011)

Anti-drug efforts in Afghanistan and Pakistan, how the current approach is a failure and why drug legalization would have a positive impact on broader foreign policy goals in the region.

I am grateful to Cato Institute for inviting me to talk here.
The South of Asia is a poor land, and Afghanistan is the poorest. With 42% of its population living below poverty it is no surprise that about 60% have given poverty as the reason for cultivating opium for the past nine years. Since 2002 about $ 50 bln have been spent on Afghanistan on development. Apart from improvement in education and a few roads there is little to show except in Kabul, where Afeem Mahals or Opium Palaces and attendant luxury shopping complexes have come up. 90% of the world’s opium comes from here and only 1% of the world’s seizures are here. War on Drugs has only jailed the increasing drug users.

This map gives an idea how not only Russia, Iran, Central Asia and Europe are threatened but distant N. America too, which got about 19 tons in 2009 and 22 tons in 2010. Heroin abuse in the US has been growing proportionately.
Afghanistan produces the most opium and heroin, but without Pakistan’s help its trafficking would be impossible. Congenial conditions in Pakistan ensure that for trafficking of heroin (150 t) there is no safer haven. On both sides of this open 2643 kms border between Pakistan and Afghanistan are people who have filial, cultural and economic ties with each other. None more steady than the three decade old one of narcotics.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan maps below show tribes and their locations on both sides of the border and drug routes. Most of the trafficking routes are in the south westerly Baluchistan region of Afghan and Pakistan. Till the 80s opium was cultivated in the shaded portions of the map in Pakistan. After US and UN bribed and forced out opium cultivation in Pakistan in the 80s the tribes took their poppy fields to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has about 1 mln heroin and opium addicts. The latter (around 600,000) require about a 150 tons of Afghan opium at least. Despite this opium cultivation is again increasing in Pakistan.

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Till 1979, the year Soviets invaded Afghanistan, about 150 tons of opium was being produced and mainly for local use. Between 1980 and 85 as the US supported Mujahideen started controlling more areas the production increased from 160 to 480 tons. The Mujahideen were supplied scarce fertilizers for this purpose. The table below illustrates how from 1987- the year the Soviets retreated- opium cultivation shot up.

According to a 1987 article by William Vornberger between 1980 and 1986 the US is estimated to have given around $625 mln to the Mujahideen. It was clear by now that the US, the main fiancier of the war against the Soviets, was not interested in exterminating opium at the expense of the goodwill of the Mujahideen and the Taleban.

An article in the New York Times of May, 22, 1980 wrote “We worry about the growing of opium poppies in Afghanistan and Pakistan by rebel tribesmen…… . Are we erring in befriending these tribes as we did in Laos when Air America helped transport crude opium from certain tribal areas?” And the DEA, the only US organization sincerely trying to check this trafficking, was forced to cut its strength to two from 22 agents in the 80s. CIA agents replaced them.
After occupation by US led forces in 2002 strange turns by policy makers continued. All the Taleban were not hunted down. Take the case of Juma Khan of Zaranj in Nimroz.

This is his mansion in Zaranj. No other house matches its opulence or security phobia. His house is across the road from the Governor’s office and two kms from Afghan Narcotics Force camp in Zaranj. Brazenly, caravans escorted by gun trucks such as the one below (which belonged to a rival war lord) would come and go unchecked.

In 2000 Juma Khan was the main negotiator between the Taleban and the US in discussions leading to the so called ban on poppy cultivation. In 2003 he was arrested for drug smuggling by US forces. Inexplicably released immediately, he became immensely wealthy through drug trafficking and bought properties in Dubai, Kabul and Zaranj. He was arrested from Indonesia in 2009 and has not been heard of since then.
In Time Magazine of 8.2.2004, Assistant Secretary of State International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs , Bobby Charles observed, “He’s obviously very tightly tied to the Taliban.… There are central linkages among Khan, Mullah Omar, and bin Laden.”
This is not an isolated case. In December 2005, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) seized nine tonnes of opium from the house of the then Governor of Helmand, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada. But, American and British military intelligence forces ensured that his name was not sullied. He then became a Member of Parliament. Similar is the case of Izzatullah Wasifi, once Governor of Farah Province and from 2007 the Director of the General Independent Administration of Anti-Corruption (GIAAC) for a couple of years. He was arrested in July 1987 with 600 gms of heroin in Caesar’s Palace Hotel, Las Vegas and sentenced to four years in prison. Then there was Ahmed Wali Karzai, assassinated in July this year. He was the other power centre not only in Kandhar but also all of Afghanistan because of his drug links that made him super rich after April 2002. How was he allowed to be so powerful? He had appeased both the US and the Taleban, and was assassinated because of increasing rumours that he was a CIA asset.
These were not field errors. It was high level policy decisions to use some Talebs, who also became fabulously wealthy after they started assisting the US led troops. Such dubious appeasement policies cut off good advisers/informers and left the crooks to guide enforcement. The Taliban continue to lance the benefits.
The current approach is doomed to failure, as old links have not been broken and wrong people continue to be trusted. The UNODC diagram below explains how much heroin is being exported from Afghanistan. Much of it through Pakistan.

Many well known routes, to Pakistan and Iran, that ought to have been monitored on account of the brazen traffic of contraband in both directions became free trade zones for narcotics, precursor chemicals and arms to traipse out and in.

This picture taken in late 2006 from the Afghan Customs and Border Police Post at Kurki on Lake Sistan in Nimroz – a Baluch area- bordering Iran shows how lax the control was. It still is. Those tankers and trucks at the back are from Iran and have come in bringing petrol. Precursor chemicals to produce heroin are suspected to come this way for the cost of Acetic Anhydride is still the cheapest in Nimroz. About 5-600 tons of Acetic Anhydride (AA) are required by Afghanistan every year to produce heroin. It comes through Afghanistan’s SW border with Pakistan or with its Western border with Iran.
AA seizures last year have only been 30.8 tons in the immediate vicinity of Afghanistan, and about 38 tons from countries in Central and East Europe. These figures are from Europol. All other statistics are from UNODC.
The border with Pakistan has a couple of border points that look efficient and secure. Like this one at Torkham on the Jalabad – Peshawar road taken last month.

Yet a few miles on both sides of the border heroin and opium are sold openly today. The volume of trade can be guessed at by the several rehabilitation centres set up on both sides of the border. This impression of efficient security is only for show.

The picture below also taken last month shows the village of Marko, a little before the Torkham border crossing. Opium and heroin is bought and sold openly here. But, after the revealing BBC documentry on trafficking here last year they have all become camera shy.

If this is the effectiveness of well organized check posts no wonder the unguarded Baluch border has rarely troubled narcotics and AA traffickers.
AA is carried in drums of 100 litres or jerry cans of 35 litres, and it needs a friendly atmosphere as prevails at Torkham or Kurki. In the more distant posts there was no record of intelligence, no records of earlier cases, no register of informers, nor of suspects or suspected villages, no account of secret funds not even a map showing the area and routes etc etc. Posts on the Pakistan side of the border are very well administered, but yet success is simply unknown.

The bar chart below shows

a steep fall of opium production in 2001. This was the fall that consecrated the Taleban as a principled group in the eyes of the US media and many other Governments. Never mind their persecution of women. The real story is different. It illustrates how public health was sacrificed to appease the god of commerce. These two maps show how convenient and close Gwadar in Pakistan's Makran coast is to the gas rich Turkmenistan.

US Oil companies, eager to tap the immense gas reserves in Turkmenistan, wanted a pipe line from Merv through Herat and Nimroz in Afghanistan to Gwadar on Pakistan’s west coast. To justify such a project the Taleban’s image as opium producers would have to be changed for the American public. UNODC and US Government got the Taleban to promise that they would not grow opium. In March 2001 an obedient delegtion from eight western countries and the UN were led by Taleban and Pakistanis to those areas where there was no cultivation and on return they dittoed the optimism of the west and certified that the Taleban had kept their promise.

The truth was that a very severe drought had leveled their opium crops. All other crops had been decimated too. The opium production, though much less than the previous year’s 3300 tons could have been about 6 times that of the laughable 180 tons trotted out by interested parties. Drug use of opiates in Central Asia, Iran and Pakistan continued to rise. Seizures too rose sharply. There was obviously no shortage of Afghan opium, as the charts below indicate:

India alarmed by attempts to make the Taleban into little darlings had planned a satellite survey of some cultivation areas. Photographs, soil and vegetation samples and of other crops from some regions in the south were collected. These satellite pictures of fields in Nangarhar taken in March-April of 2000 and 2001 showed that opium was sown as usual. The first set shows an increase over 2000, and the second set shows a decrease. Attempts had been made to cultivate opium as before but a severe drought had affected production. The yellow pixels are opium fields.

Despite a margin of about 30% error the results indicated that opium production could have been about 1000 tons as against 3300 the previous year.

It required 9/11 to destroy the misplaced trust in Taleban. From that date all truck with Taleban ex or present ought to have ended. But it did not. After April 2002 many were allowed to escape to Pakistan, some joined the provisional Government and opium cultivation prospered. As did the Taleban. To collect their 10% commission efficiently (in 2011 they have earned about $ 104 mln according to the UNODC) from the farmers the Taleban have one representative on the shura or village councils of all the 12000 or so opium growing villages.
The only way out of this sorry cycle of collusion, ineptitude and predictable defeat in all things narcotics is to decriminalize opium cultivation. This could reduce corruption too. The middle men and traffickers will be out. There would be no need for farmers to be ‘protected’ at 10% by the Taleban, or suffer extortion by the Afghan Border Police and Narcotics Force. Legalising opium cultivation was first suggested by SENLIS Council (now ICOS) in 2005. This sensible option was ridiculed and laughed out of all meetings. Some of Senlis’s suggestions of control were too academic and innocent to be practical. Like that of village councils being the sole authority to manage opium production. A better and practical proposal can always be worked out.
The legalization of opium cultivation would work like this. INCB notifies certain areas of Afghanistan to cultivate opium. This first step is the most difficult, but if the US puts its weight behind it will be done- like in Turkey in 1974. Then a Competent Authority of the Afghan Government will declare regions that will be allowed to grow poppy. All the regions that are producing opium now could be licensed to begin with. Farmers apply for licenses at the nearest designated office by August in the south. At the time of giving licenses the farmer signs a contract agreeing to abide by the law and also agrees that if he does not give a Minimum Yield of say 40 kgs per hectare his license for next year will be cancelled. The licenses will be given by early October. The farmers can be subsidised to buy seeds and fertilisers and insure their crop. It will be convenient for licenses to be given for fields that are multiples of 100 sq mtrs. Trained Narcotics officials will keep track of each stage of the plants’ growth till collection. At the time of lancing, when each farmer will be extracting opium every day, the village council could keep a daily record of each famer’s opium collection. Both the register and the opium stocks will be subjected to checks by the Competent Authority.
On dates publicized well in advance, opium collection centres for groups of villages will collect opium. After weighing the opium, and conducting adulteration field tests each farmer will be paid most of the contracted rate of opium. The higher the yield above the Minimum Qualifying Yield the higher the rate of payment. The final payment will be made after each farmer’s opium is assessed at the morphine manufacturing unit that will hopefully be set up in Afghanistan. Once the results are in, it will be inevitable that some farmers will not have given the Minimum Qualifying amounts. Those who cannot give good reasons will not be licensed for next year. For a few years such farmers can be guided and subsidized with alternative crops or sources of income. It is inevitable that every year some farmers will drop off. This is the scheme in a nut shell. It will take 5-10 years. Even then there will be diversion of 10-30%, but any day that is better than the present 100% that is being diverted.
Almost ten years of enforcement have come to naught. Now the only hope is in legalization. It will certainly reduce illicit opium supplies. This year about $1 bln is expected to be made by the farmers, and $65 bln by trafficking worldwide subsequently. About $ 100 mln will be extracted by the Taleban from the farmers alone. (UNODC in Afghanistan Opium survey 2011). From 2005-8 the Taleban had collected more than $600 mln from this sole surviving industry in Afghanistan. Legalization of cultivation makes economic and moral sense too. The Taleban would be starved of funds and the farmer will lead a life without fear.
This scheme will has an another advantage. Councils (shuras) in opium growing villages have been infiltrated by the Taleban. Till now no power on earth has been able to remove these eyes and ears of the Taleban, nor has any intelligence been able to ferret any one out. With legalization this villainous representation will end.
Years of exploitation bordering on slavery, where some farmers had to pawn their daughters for loans and woe to him whose field was destroyed for that would mean a missing daughter, will be an awful memory.
There were two reasons to reject this proposal. Corruption, and lack of legal demand for morphine. Till now many countries like the US, UK and India, organizations like the INCB and UNODC and pharmaceutical companies of the UK and USA have claimed that there is not enough demand. Not so says a Feb, 2011 WHO paper called *“A First Comparison between the Consumption of and the Need for Opioid Analgesics at Country, regional and Global Levels” By Mari-Josephine Seya, Willem Scholten etc. They calculate that demand for morphine is about 7 times as high as the 350 tons projected today. The world has a potential of less than 10,000 tons and to produce the required morphine of about 2400 tons it will have to be at least 18,000 tons, and theoretically all of Afghanistan’s present capacity can be utilized.
Monumental and wide spread corruption has been encouraged by enforcement. That is why perhaps the Afghan Government scoffs at this proposal. The many Government wings extort money from the opium farmers. To top it all the US led forces will not drop enforcement as that will mean they have failed. Though they are making moves towards admitting mistakes. Eradication is being used less by the US acknowledging its inhuman and unjust elements. From a high of 21,430 ha in 2003, only 3810 ha were destroyed in 2010. It is Russia, with about 2.5 mln opiate users, that is desperately insisting on eradication. In 2008 it consumed about 70 tons of heroin and 58 tons of opium.
Narcotics is an important corner stone of anxious Russia’s foreign policy in this region. Iran has similar concerns in its foreign policy. In 2006 they had funded the construction of 28 fort like check posts in Afghanistan’s west, and the border is still wide open. With the decline in opium production in SE Asia the Chinese heroin market gets most of its 45 tons from Afghanistan, and this is reflected repeatedly in their bilateral discussions. Pakistan is still not worried enough to make it even a part of its domestic policy. India is worried but apart from continuing to discuss the possibility of helping improve Afghanistan’s enforcement ability it has done nothing. At President Karzai’s visit last month a narcotics treaty was signed (third one) but nothing will come of it too. In India’s border state of Punjab all the villages on the border with Pakistan have at least half its youth addicted to Afghan heroin.
Legalisation alone will not be sufficient. To be effective this scheme will have to consider the about 3 mln opiate users in the countries neighbouring Afghanistan. If they do not get their dosage they will ensure that illicit cultivation continues. They have already seen how fragile enforcement is. To deal with this problem all these users could be registered, given opium through Government offices, dispensaries and hospitals in the affected countries of the region. It is not a preposterous suggestion as it seems. It was briefly tried in India in 1959, and as soon as it helped tackle illegal demand India signed the UN Single Convention of 1961 and it was stopped. However, after much protests UN allowed India to have one more round. In 1972 all registered addicts, about 300,000 I think, began to get subsidized opium. For ten years addiction was contained and there was little diversion from legal cultivation. However as the older addicts died, and no new ones were allowed to register diversion started. By 1999 about a hundred official users were left, while the actual number would have been about 2 mln (its 3 million now). In that year India wrote to the INCB to renew the scheme once again so that diversion could end and these people could be helped with rehabilitation too. It was rejected, as were suggestions to the Government of India to ignore the Convention and go ahead. Result: Not only is there diversion from licit fields continuing, but India’s own satellite surveys show that there is at least 20,000 hectares of illicit cultivation.
The European Parliament had on 21.9.2007 adopted *Resolution # RR/390526EN recommending legalization of opium cultivation but nothing came of it as the US did not support it. Legalisation stands a chance only if USA supports it.
About 52% of opium is converted into heroin in Afghanistan, in places like Baramcha in SW Helmand, Jalalabad, Achin and many others. In Pakistan’s Baluchistan the town of Dalbandin is similarly notorious and also for sheltering the Taleban if they are in danger in Helmand or Kandahar.
Afghanistan, which has about 1 mln or 3% of its population using opiates, has a sensible draft proposing decriminalization for users called *“Possible Framework for developing strategy for Drug Demand reduction and Drug Use Related Harm in Afghanistan 2011-2015” pending with its Ministry of Counter Narcotics for ten months. It will stay in that state I guess unless the US allows it to do so. Within the US, where every 19 seconds a drug user is arrested (Source: LEAP), this topic is taboo.
Opium production in 2011 is expected to be around 5800 tons says the latest UNODC Survey. 61% more than last year’s 3600 tons. 65% of the areas that experienced thoughtless eradication have shown an increase in production. Another bad year for enforcement. Another profitable year for the Taleban. Legalisation could end this cycle of hopelessness.
I shall end with these pictures from an old Indian magazine. The top one was taken in 1999 and the lower one ten years earlier in 1989 when President Najibullah was just about managing to hold on to power. Afghanistan cannot recover till the Taleban are defeated. I don’t think we can see this kind of joy in our life time unless appeasement is no more an option.

(India Today, 8th October, 2001)
Romesh Bhattacharji,
D 1008, New Friends Colony, new Delhi 110025.
E mail: rbhattoo@gmail.com

Khardung la is NOT the highest pass inthe world

2011-07-29T05:04:00.001-07:00

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This is a photocopy from a 1:50,000 scale Survey of India map, and it shows clearly that Som la (present day Khardung la) is about 5370 m (17613ft) high.

Khardung la (actually Som la) in October 1973

The Nubra side of Khardung la (Som La) in October, 1975. That tormentiung glacier has melted away with today's traffic!

Khardung la (Som la) in October, 1977. Its the same side in picture of October, 1973. Shows how it is beginning to grow.

Khardung la (Som La) in 2005 October. How horrible it is now.

And with these new heights they have nothing to crow about. It is only 17,580ft in height. Or 5360 mtrs.

Please see this link

Khardung la (Som La) in 2005 October. How horrible it is now.

And with these new heights they have nothing to crow about now. It is only 17,580ft in height. Or 5360 mtrs.

Please see this link to the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia, Spain. After professional readings in 2005 they gave the ehight of Khardung la as 5359.3 mtrs. The Indian Surveyof India map puts it at 5440m or 17843.2 ft.

With this lowering of height I ferevently hope that these hideous structures will disappear too.

The highest motorable road in the world is over Semo la in Tibet, China. Semo's height is 5565 m or 18,253 ft. Please see this link http://www.viewfinderpanoramas.org/ICCSemoKhardung.pdf
to the report from the Cartographic Institute of Catalonia, Spain. After professional taking altitude readings in 2005 they gave the height of Khardung la as 5359.3 mtrs. The Indian Surveyof India map puts it at 5440m or 17843.2 ft.

With this lowering of height I ferevently hope that these hideous structures will disappear too.

The highest motorable road in the world is over Semo la in Tibet, china. Semo's height is 5565 m or 18,253 ft.

The OTHER view of International Drug Day- what lies beneath the cover up

2011-06-26T08:52:00.000-07:00

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World Drug Day- - Why have drug policies failed?

June 26 is the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, established by the United Nations General Assembly in 1987. Today United Nation’s Offices of Drug and Crime (UNODC), in the developing world mainly, will be encouraging celebrations to mark World Drug Day. There will be sponsored speeches, sponsored processions waving sponsored placards, shouting sponsored slogans. This should be an opportunity to reflect on the systems that have failed to control trafficking and abuse of narcotics. It is ironical that despite decades of efforts the increasing millions of drug users have limited access to treatment services, a basic violation of the right to health or life and the traffickers are bolder.
On this day the UNODC invites a select audience (in the west no one bothers) to congratulate itself on a job done well. There are more drug users now than earlier. Evidence from UNODC’s own statistics disprove this:

Cannabis users:
147.4 million (1998) and 160 million (2008) an increase of 8.5%
Cocaine users:
13.4 million (1998) and 17 million (2008) an increase of 27%
Opiates users:
12.9 million (1998) and 17.35 million (2008) an increase of 34.5%

Then there are more than 100 mln synthetic drugs users that keep increasing every day. This day is a reminder that despite global strategies and policies, there are a growing number of drug users and traffickers.

The reason for this vast gap between hopes and performance is that the UN willfully blinds itself to reality couching its actions behind approvals by false prophets, puppet experts and committees that do what financially powerful countries want them to do.

Here is an example of how they deceive themselves. Antonio Costa, the former head of UNODC, in the 2008 World Drug Report’s Preface boasted that in 1909 there were more than 43000 (41,600 were produced in China- Source: Report of the International Opium Commission, Vol. I, 1909) tons of opium were produced and a hundred years later just about 8000, attributing this success to UNODC’s efforts. The truth is that it was the Government of the People’s Republic of China that cut the production to almost 5% by 1952. At that time China was not even a member of the UN, and yet with tongue firmly in cheek the UNODC takes credit. Consequently, in the 50s cultivation of illicit opium increased dramatically in the so called Golden Triangle.

The UNODC has a long history of misinterpreting facts, ignoring facts and shaping its policies on that of the US. It obliged the US by sending a docile team in March, 2001 that certified, after visiting one small corner of Achin in Nangarhar, that the brutal Taleban they had not cultivated opium in the Afghanistan under their control. The US wanted this certification to justify building a pipe line to carry gas from Turkmenistan through West Afghanistan. The real reason for this fall in production was that there was severe drought and the opium crop suffered proportionately. Only 180 tons or so was produced. About 8 mln suffered from hunger in 2000-1, but this reason was ignored. India’s own satellite surveys had shown that sowing of opium was as usual (Frontline 14-27, September, 2002). You play with the devil and every one suffers. Banking on this fake goodwill a Taleban delegation was taken to the US to meet leaders of the UN and the US.
The US started supporting narcotics trafficking in SE Asia from the 50s when CIA sponsored the Sea Supply Corporation and in the 60s Air America. They ferried narcotics, arms and cash for insurgents. It did not matter who they were financing as long as they were anti-communists. In The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia Alfred McCoy gives many disturbing facts and figures proving this unethical support. The same tactic was repeated in France when the CIA financed the Corsicans to bash French communists later exposed as The French Connection but glamourised in an American friendly film of the same name. Pierre Chouvy’s excellent expose of this nexus can be read in his gripping book called Opium: Uncovering the Politics of Opium. In Latin America the Contras were encouraged by the CIA to finance their hideous activities from cocaine.
In 1971 Nixon declared a War on Drugs, and soon this slogan was adopted by the UN, which provided the cloak for the US dagger. After Nixon’s grand declaration the US increased its support to narcotics trafficking as long as communists were being targeted. In SE Asia there was massive increase in opium cultivation that was tolerated by the US while as late as 2000-2 drug users were being killed in Thailand and small opium farmers in the Kachin State of Myanmar. A fact ignored by the UNODC while congratulating Thailand and Burma for a job well done. In Afghanistan of the 80s poppy cultivation was encouraged by the CIA, which was instrumental in getting most of the 80 or so DEA agents ejected from Pakistan so that the Mujahideen and the Taleban could drug finance their war against the Najibullah government of Afghanistan. In Nicaragua the US supported the Contras in their narcotics trafficking in the 80s. This is the double speak that comes naturally to the US. And the UNODC never opposed it.
The Special Session on Narcotics, which the UN had organized (UNGASS) in 1998, had claimed that the War on Drugs would be over successfully by 2015. The session in 2008 was more sober and refrained from making any predictions though it still used suspect data to express optimism.

This myopia of the UNODC is nothing new. Their War on Drugs started from 1961 when a group of so called experts articulated their fears in the Single Convention of the UN and proposed terrible punishments. These experts had declared that by 1985 there would be no coca chewing and no cannabis use (Article 49 (2) e & f) amongst many other similar laughable hopes. Coca chewing was a hasty senseless ban, and cannabis use has increased manifold. This and the other two Conventions with similar flaws the UNODC resists changing. In India, 1985 saw the emergence of the draconian NDPS Act, with the inception of which the legal use of morphine for pain alleviation came down the following year from 1 mg to .3 mg per head. As the risks of taking narcotics were high so were the prices, so was adulteration, so was needle sharing and thus so was HIV Aids.

The themes of the past ten World Drug Days have been health of the drug user ignoring the equally important trafficking component of the original idea. After all about 300 mln of the world’s 7 bln are addicted to some drug or the other. Yet health is far from UNODC’s actions. They have not yet been able to support decriminalization of drug users. Such a move will improve the health of millions of drug users the world over. This stubbornness of the UNODC towards change has forced several countries to make their own path with much more success in containing drug abuse and trafficking. UNODC still echoes only what the US thinks.. war, war, war. Despite UNODC’s insistence on health being their most urgent concern it took them more than 15 years to take the first hesitant steps in 2005 to encourage harm reduction programmes for drug users. Harm reduction means reducing the risks to the health of drug users by giving them unadulterated substitutes, access to clean needles and syringes, services for sexually transmitted infections, hepatitis and tuberculosis, pain and distress management, psycho social support and employment opportunities. As the US had objected to it, the UNODC too did not adopt it for long. After pressure from more progressive countries could not be ignored they began endorsing it tentatively.

India too has suffered from UNODC’s obtuse adherence to the Conventions. In 1971 or so a onetime exemption was given to the Government to provide subsidized opium for registered users. At that time there were about 100,000 or so. In 1999 less than a hundred were left. But the actual number of opiate users was about 2 mln. It was suggested to the UNODC then that another exemption could be given so that all these users could be identified and given subsidized opium. This move would have helped in their rehabilitation as well as prevent diversion from licit cultivation. The UNODC disagreed. India now has 3 mln opiates and several thousands of illicit opium cultivation in 7 states, and India’s narcotics establishment does not have the will to go against a mere document even though its own people are suffering and being exploited. Many other countries ignore the inconvenience of being signatories and go ahead and do what they think is best for their people. E.g. Portugal, Brazil, Netherlands etc et al.

On the 2nd of June an appeal to end the War on Drugs (WOD), organized by the Global Commission on Drugs and prepared by the prominent Trans National Institute of Amsterdam some twenty former heads of state and foreign policy chiefs of the UN, EU, US, Brazil, Mexico, Switzerland etc and the serving PM of Greece criticized WOD as a complete failure and favoured decriminalization and regulation of drugs. Users of narcotics should be offered education and treatment, rather than being incarcerated, they advised. And countries which insist on continuing a "law enforcement" approach to drug crime should focus resources on taking down high-level traffickers, rather than arresting street dealers. A positive sign even though some of these leaders did not express themselves as strenuously when they were in power. A surprise inclusion was a former Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Anan during whose tenure UNGASS 1998 reaffirmed its faith in WOD. The US drug czar Gil Kerlikowske said the report was misguided. Head of the Russian Federal Drug Control Service Viktor Ivanov said "The aim of the report is to distract attention and not to allow the international community to consolidate efforts in the fight against a drug threat". Conveniently forgetting that 50 years of doing just that has only worsened the mess. For the sake of the well being of 300 mln drug users it is to be hoped that people in power do not wait till after retirement to speak what they feel.

The world’s narcotics bureaucracy still insists that this is the only way! Now though less is heard of the term WOD the policy prevails. The UNODC adopted the philosophy of the War on Drugs as well as the phrase. For the US Government it was only a hypocritical slogan as they continued to collaborate with insurgents and drug gangs to drug finance their wars against communism. This cooperation with drug traffickers covered Asia, Europe and Latin America and spanned 4 decades.

In India basic rights for drug users is still missing. Complete absence of justice. The national health policy also has ignored the drug users. 10 mln drug users and half a million serious drug users require medical help fast, but many of them are in jail, hardly enough rehab centres and no one bothers. In 2003 I had met a heroin using male model from Tarn Taran. He told me that 20% of all the youth in the border villages of Punjab are addicted. Today more than 50% of the youth in all the villages from Pathankot to Abohar are taking Afghan heroin despite arrest rates having shot up by 35%.

The reason for the drugs to mushroom has been the US’s failure to contain its own drug users and traffickers and its support to drug trafficking all over the world to serve its immediate political ends, and the UNODC’s inability to oppose it.
The war on drugs slogan dutifully adopted by the UNODC in the 80s meant actually war on only the drug users. Not on the traffickers, who are conspicuously absent from every World Drug Day themes. Everywhere, India included, most of the people incarcerated, harassed and prosecuted have been and are drug users. Many countries are trying to humanize their laws but they have incurred the skepticism and wrath of the Western Block.
US, the country that introduced WOD to the UN, has a drug problem that is out of control despite total war on drug users. About 21,000 dead of drug over dose in 2008. 21 mln addicts several of the injecting users being as young as 12 years. Yet it presumes to dictate to the world how it ought to tackle their problem. The UNODC has no Country Office to help them, as it does in every developing nation. WOD meant incessant attacks on the weakest in their society. In California, with 170,000 prisoners (40% for minor drug crimes and most of them Black) more money is spent on incarceration than on education. In a May 2011 TNI essay “Education or Incarceration” Tom Reifer, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of San Diego wrote “With only 5% of the world’s population, the US now has 25% of the world’s prisoners; ..... One indication of fiscal priorities is that the average starting salaries of California correctional officers are higher than those of Assistant Professors at the University of California....” This is the pillar of democracy that guides the UN by the collar. Mainly because it is its largest funder. $3.9 bln in 2008. Of the $470 mln budget of the UNODC the US with about $90 mln is the single largest contributor.
The many experienced people who have worked, uninfluenced, for a long time with all kinds of narcotics problems, say that the most sensible policy is to treat drug abuse as an ailment and to completely decriminalize it. 50 years of severity has only served to worsen all statistics. Several countries from Europe and Latin America have bucked the pressure, cynicism, scorn and opposition of the US, UK and the UNODC. They have liberalized their laws for drug users. Switzerland in 1991 and Portugal in 2001 and Netherlands, Mexico, Brazil, Bolivia and Argentina too have all made laws easier for drug users. Portugal’s has been a carefully recorded change. They found that the drug abuse has come down and police is making bigger cases against traffickers. Bolivian President Evo Morales fed up with the obtuseness of the UNODC to continue with the ban on coca chewing brought a wad last year to a Conference in Vienna on drugs and chewed it to show that in his country it was a traditional pick me up with no after effects. Their high altitude miners chew it every day. He has threatened to pull out of the UN if this ban is not lifted. Hardly anyone is as outspoken as Morales. I have not heard of any specialized drug organisstions or dissenting countries aggressively pursue a review of all the three Conventions, which ought to be upper most in all agendas.

With casuistry, misrepresentation and fudging of facts being the weapons of the UNODC can there be any progress?

There is an impressive array of experience, good sense, and talent providing good guidance towards a future course of action to contain the drugs problem. All seem to accept the fact that the UNODC is indispensable. Instead of combining their energies to reform the world’s largest NGO they keep taking pot shots at it without making a dent. They are like dhows armed with bows and arrows attacking a battle ship. They should instead take charge of the steering wheel. Reform is a word that is anathema to the UN system. The UN system lacks confidence to such an extent that they fear that even a mild reform is “thin edge of the wedge” and will bring their house down. That is why in the past two years a loose coalition of countries led by the US and branding themselves as “Friends of the Convention” has come up to articulate their fears of reform. This motley collection has more money than sense, and thus a darling of UNODC.

Why does the UN shy away from reform, which is long overdue? In the past 50 years there has been change everywhere but not in the UNODC.

Indispensible it is but certainly not infallible. The UNODC is a useful organisation to coordinate world’s actions in controlling drug use. It is the only arrangement that can bring together about 190 countries to discuss common drug issues. That it has not been successful in its main goal is because it is not transparent, democratic and impervious to the clout of its large donors. It has cynically ignored those well meaning countries that have made a successful path of their own, refusing to learn from them.

The movement against UNODC’s policies has also its ample share of nuts, who say that Enforcement is responsible for drug wars and gang warfare (Report by specialists and doctors from the University of British Columbia wrote in The International Journal of Drug Policy March, 2011), and some who say that addiction to drugs is a matter of right (Harm Reduction Conference, Liverpool 2010) etc! The foolish war on drugs has spawned a similar moronic reaction. The UNODC is also the only International organisation that has the capacity to have ascendancy over this kind of extremism, but because it has so many frailties it is unable to do so. Typically of such one sided shoddy research is the fact that no one from enforcement participated. Such demented thinking harms attempts to reform as these Liliputian Quixotes are easily brushed aside and discredit the entire movement.

It ought to be realized that the well entrenched narcotics establishment as well as the UNODC cannot be dislodged. It has to be rebuilt.

Romesh Bhattacharji,

E mail: rbhatto@gmail.com
Phone: 00-91-11-26828580 & mbl- 9868279350

Cannabis- an Indian view

2011-04-05T06:08:00.000-07:00

(Malana- in Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, North India: Home of Malana Cream the world renowned hashish. A disuassion meeting in progress in Sept 2008. No success.

Top: Another attempt at preaching in November, 2009. No luck. Cannabis is still King.)

This was how I started my end of the discussion on Cannabis in a mmeting held in Lisbon shortly. The views here are entirely mine and no one in India could have influenced me.

1- Some years ago when I was posted in Calcutta in the eastern part of India I used to see workers in an adjacent plot constructing a huge building. They would cook only one meal a day. Intrigued, I investigated. They smoked 5 gms of cannabis a day and that gave them energy to do strenuous work. - - There are at least 10 million regular cannabis users in India. Almost equal to the population of Portugal. Most of them take it because of necessity. They belong to the uprooted rural poor. Cannabis maintains the illusion of a full stomach. This enables them to labour hard and long. They send most of their earnings home to support their families in the villages and pay off the vultures who lend them money at exorbitant interest. They age at 50. Don’t blame cannabis for premature ageing as some do all too eagerly in India. Its excessive exertion with little nutrition.

In some states of Northern India and Eastern India there are many bhang shops. Bhang is an extract from hemp or from the male cannabis plant. It is commonly drunk with crushed rose petals, melon seeds, almonds mixed with curd and milk. It is not covered by the NDPS Act, but is a State subject. The state licences some shops to sell bhang. There are about 800 shops in Rajasthan alone. It is supposed to be a harmless drink but too many glasses can knock out a first timer. India had specifically asked for bhang to be excluded from the Convention as it is part of a 2000 year old tradition and has also a religious function.

In addition there are many cannabis users who consume it for relaxation or for rituals and these can not be even counted.

Whenever there is large scale destruction of cannabis, the poorest get kicked in the stomach. There is always a price increase. Mercifully, such destructions are now rare, as enforcement has realized that cosmetic destruction has no purpose and complete extermination of cannabis is downright impossible.

India has had a long experience with cannabis. In 1895 there was the Royal Hemp Commission which concluded that “its effects were benign ….. & that no irreversible health or social damage occurred because of its short or long term use….” 102 years and several Commissions later there was still no proof that cannabis was harmful. In 1997 All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi the leading research hospital in India had held a workshop with the Ministry of Health after researching effects of cannabis on health for many years. They could not add much to what the Royal Hemp commission had said. As this was a Government sponsored seminar they could not go against existing policy and couched conclusions with lots of maybes, ifs and buts. However, their findings eventually influenced the Government to reduce the penalties on drug users especially those who took cannabis. From 2001 ‘small quantity‘ of cannabis meant 1 kg instead of 500 gms.

India had from 1955 to 1959 even allowed licensed cannabis cultivation.

Then came the horrendous 1961 Convention. And, after Article 49s meaningless grace period of 25 years ended, India had enacted its Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act of 1985. Today not only is cannabis cultivation and use still common all over India, it has increased immensely. The NDPS Act influenced by the First Convention could not limit cannabis cultivation and usage at all. Post 1985 people were jailed for what they had been doing openly for hundreds of years earlier.

The problem not only remains but has hit the fan and despite hopes expressed down the decades by friends of the Convention and UNGASS I & II all efforts to suppress cannabis use have decisively failed. The First Convention was made mainly by lawmakers and pharmacologists and bureaucrats far removed from actual knowledge of narcotics. Today, even though, abetted by the UN, ignorance or indifference still rules in many countries, there are many organizations that have researched this subject well and are thus against these restrictions. They ought to be heard rather than stubbornly dittoing past mistakes.

2- India is absent from most international debates because they are embarrassed by the uncontrollable cannabis production and use in India, and by the condition of the people who abuse it. In some international discussion in the 90s India had opposed any concessions. Internationally though India would agree with the US in not diluting the severity of its laws.

3- India had a relaxed attitude towards all kinds of addiction till the First Convention. In 1985 a tough law was introduced hoping the problem would go. Well, the problem of cannabis is still there and much more than any policy maker or law enforcer could have ever dared imagine. Now hashish is being produced in large quantities too.

Limited enforcement resources are the only reason that India has been soft on cannabis. Had there been more officers, the jails would have been filled with mainly cannabis users as they are the easiest to get at.

4- India has for the past 50 years been researching medical uses of cannabis as well its harmful effects. Recently Indian laboratories have found (as have many others round the world) that cannabis is good preventive for vomiting, pain and glaucoma. The only other lesson that can be learnt from India’s experience is to have a population as large as India’s and then such problems will be ignored!

A foreigner's thoughts on the Line of Control in the Great Karakoram

2011-02-24T05:31:00.000-08:00

Below is an extract from an article I stumbled upon recently. The thoughts are worth reading and considering, but acting upon them will be folly. Some time back the Mumbai based Indian mountaineer Harish Kapadia had suggested that all this entire area be turned into a park. A park!!! So that people from both sides can appreciate the rugged majesty of the Great Karakoram.

I cannot support this idea, for we can not trust Pakistan, much as I support the idea of us being friends. With our forces gone there is no doubt that their forces would sneak in. To all those people that say that this area is worthless, my reply is that this beauty is priceless.

However read on. It is a very good article and I have given the link to the rest of it. If you further explore Dr. Wheeler you will be surprised that he is a latter day Rambo Reagan, who believes that Capitalism is the cure all for all the ills in the world, everything American is right and Communists practice Black Magic!! This is much before Wikileaks. Poor sap. Wonder what he must be feeling now that the carefully built puppet regimes of the US in the the Arab world are rapidly falling. Yet, he is not all mad, as can be seen by his comments below:

" Comments about the Indo-Pak stand off on Siachen-

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/2375/2/

by Dr. Jack Wheeler at Concordia—Friday, 26th of July, 2006

Here is a picture I took of a map in a tiny Pak military encampment:

I hope you can make it out. The solid red line is the border with China. The dash-dot line snaking down perpendicular from the red line is the Line of Control (LOC), the de facto border to the left of which is Pakistan, to the right India.

The dashed red line on the Pak side is the flight path of the helicopter pilots to resupply the troops. It follows the Baltoro Glacier up to Concordia (marked on the map at 15,900 feet) then turns right and heads for Siachen.

Note on the Indian side the position closest to the LOC is the Kumar Post. This is named for the legendary Indian Army mountaineer who first explored this entire region in the 1950s, Col. Narinder "Bull" Kumar.

Seeing this map marking the Kumar Post brought a big smile to my face, for Col. Kumar has been a good friend of mine for many years. It was Bull who organized my expedition to raft the Zanskar River in the remote region of Indian Tibet in 1993.

It also brought a smile to my son Jackson's face, for he and I had lunch with Col. Kumar at the Delhi Golf Club just a week before.

Nothing characterizes the "lunacy of the legacy" of British India splitting apart than this pointless war 21,000 feet high in a glacial wasteland, where thousands of soldiers have died of frostbite, exposure, and altitude sickness, many more than have died in actual fighting.

The whole situation makes China very happy. As long as the armies of Pakistan and India are obsessed with hating and fighting each other, China gets to be Asia's only superpower and push everyone around.

China's greatest fear is peace between Pakistan and India. Should these two countries decide to "Make Money, Not War," to settle their differences and focus on how to bring free trade and prosperity to their peoples, the result would be a huge threat to Chinese hegemony in Asia.

A market bigger than China's (1.4 billion including Bangladesh vs. 1.3 billion) where all educated people speak English (English is the official language of both India and Pakistan) would be a magnet for foreign investment, sucking it out of China.

China would at last have an Asian rival, capable of standing up to it economically and militarily. If only the Pak and Indian armies could figure this out, that they could play significant roles on the entire Asian stage instead of bloodily dicking around on lost glaciers no one really cares about.

So as our helicopter lifted off from Concordia and we had our last glimpse of K2 as we started down the Baltoro Glacier, I had a flash of fantasy.

What if this magical name of Concordia stood not just for the most magnificent scenery on earth, not just for a gigantic glacial confluence, but the place where a concordance was finally reached between India and Pakistan? Where war was abandoned in place of doing business together? Where each country saw a vision of how flourishingly successful they could be through mutual cooperation, rather than how they can annihilate each other?

Well, it's a nice fantasy, I thought, one with the delicious side-benefit of really shafting the Red Chinese. Still, our coming here was once a fantasy. And now it had actually happened. About one thing I had no doubt - that I will be here and do this again next year.

By: Dr. Jack Wheeler at Concordia—Friday, 26th of July, 2006

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/2375/2/

CONCORDIA

Written by Dr. Jack Wheeler
Friday, 28 July 2006

Leh and Khardung la- Then & Now: Recording Change. No comments

2010-11-01T00:27:00.000-07:00

Pictures of a just opened Khardung la in October, 1972, October, 1975 and in August 2004 and June 2005. Two are of Leh's Main Bazar too- One was taken in 1976 and the other in 2007. In 1972 the battered Khardung la was open almost throughout the year as it is now. Is that filth necessary there?

Songs of the Snows silenced by the Wails of Women- Kashmir Diary in 3 parts (9th to the 13th of July, 2010)

2010-07-22T02:36:00.000-07:00

Part I, which is all about Kashmir's famous beguiling charm.

There were many such fields of Iris on the way to and all around Gangbal, an exquisite lake at 11,800 ft, in the NE of blighted Kashmir Valley.

And I was bowled over by views like these:

and

and this too

and

I am hurling these sense impressions at you to show that Kashmir's fabled natural splendour is still intact

So here are a few more

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Gangbal is about 22 kms from Naranag on the Wangat river, which emerges from Gangbal. It meets the Sind river near Kangan. Naranag is about a 90 minutes drive away from Srinagar. There are a couple of good hotels there. And if there is no curfew there is good food to be had. There ia an old and very impressive 10th C temple complex here.

During my trek (9th to the 12th of July, 2010) I saw many Gujars, Shepherds, Kashmiri and foreign trekkers going up to Gangbal. There was no one from the Indian plains except for me. A guide accompanying some Americans was surprised when I told him that I was from Delhi. He wished that there were more from the mainland visiting this Paradise on Earth, as the inscription in one of the Mughal pavillions in Shalimar Garden says. These pictures will show more than my words that Kashmir's hinterland is peaceful and that life goes on as it has always done for centuries. Except in the urban areas, where all kinds of mischievous stratagems are executed.
Shepherds take up their flocks in May and June and come back in September. There was one horrible instance of thougtlessness. A big forest fire that was caused by Gujars from Rajouri in September 2005. It destroyed thousands of hectares of handsome firs. All the villages helped in putting off the fire by raising huge mud walls, which were pummelled to the ground by the next season's heavy snow.

Gangbal is at the SE foot of Mt. Harmukh (16,872')- the 2nd highest mountain in Kashmir Valley. From this minnow of mountains most of the giants of the Karakorams were first seen. Harmukh ("The Face that can be seen from everywhere").

Capt. TG Montgomerie was lucky to first see the giants of the distant Karkoram from this peak in 1856. Month unknown. Harmukh has its head almost always in clouds from just a bit after sunrise till a short time before sunset. Montgomerie saw "two fine peaks very high above the general range" and markled them as K 1 and K 2. K1 later turned out to have a local name- Masherbrum. K2 is the second highest peak in the world. And still without a name. In 1857 from a lower summit (1600 ft) his friend G. Shelverton took the first observations of the Karakorams. Shelverton camped for a week on the lower cummit waiting for the weather to clear. In 1911 Kenneth Mason, former Superintendent of the Survey of India and author of the most definitive book on the Himlaaya and beyond revisited that station and "found his raised platform, 14ft square, still intact with his finely chiselled markstone firmly in position."

This peak, which does not look easy from this side, has been climbed many times. Its first recorded ascents were in 1899 by Dr. E. Neve and <r. GW Milai. These were followed by CG Bruce and AL Mumm in 1907. All the five sukmmits- Station, Western, Northern, Middle and Eastern have been climbed. In picture can be seen the Eastern and highest summit at the right and the Middle on to the left.

Before Gangbal is an another lake- Narbal. Its a smaller one and is at the S foot of Harmukh. The Wangat river flows out of Gangbal and thru Narbal to continue its breathtaking way towards the Sind.

And this spot is just one of the many in Kashmir that are worth visiting. Vishensar, Nichnai, Erin valley (from Bandipore),Tatkutti and so on.

Part II-

The Mess:

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The next three photographs are shocking. It happens all over India all the time. True. What is astonishing is the fact that this happens every day in many places all over the frightened Valley with much more determination, organisation and heartlessness than it happens anywhere else in India. Such instances of petty and compulsive theft take discontent to nearly every doorstep in that blighted Valley.

WINNING "HEARTS AND MINDS" the CRPF way:

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This Indian para military soldier is whacking in broad daylight some vegetables that he does not need. For, he gets his meals at his mess. Yet, he must for this plunder is simply the habit of his ilk. These pictures were taken by me on the Foreshore Road that skirts the Dal after Bren-Nishat Basti towards the University. Without exaggeration I estimate that there may be at least a thousand such instances of petty extortion experienced daily. Yes, daily. Multiply it by years and you will understand why the people of Kashmir are fed up. I do not deliberately mention the thousands of innocents, who have been maimed, tortured or killed and shown as insurgents in order to show that the uniformed forces are doing their dastardly job well. The horror stories of Alpha Mess, which is now going to be a luxury hotel above the Dal are too well known.

This Indian soldier is certainly NOT a Pakistani insurgent. Yet, the Government repeatedly accuses Pakistan of stoking the fires of violence in this lovely Valley. With such help Pakistan has only to sit back and say thank you. With our soldiers behaving like occupying forces the Pakistanis don't have to exert too much to cause trouble.

Do not the Intelligence Agencies report the truth? Is there any one who does?

I have been visiting Kashmir nearly every year since 1968. Every time I have been to Kashmir since 1987 I have seen these petty instances of theft in full view of people. I have seen soldiers take picture postcards from a helpless vendor in Char Chinari. I have seen soldiers take money from Hotels in Gulmarg and Pahalgam. I have seen soldiers and their officers calling traders from Kupwara to the Forest Rest House there and taking money from each of them. In Shopian these soldiers used to demand crates of apples from trucks carrying them. Sometime back, when a driver refused to give them this illegal tithe, he was killed and the familiar excuse that he was an insurgent trotted out. Their conscience is so dead, and their officers so involved, and supervision so lax, that they just don't care who sees them. This widespread extortion ranging from small thefts like these to taking blood money (claiming rewards for killing innocents is just one way) is turning the Kashmiris against the Governments of India and Kashmir.

Remember that this period of trouble started after the stolen elections of 1987, which were 'won' by Dr. Farooq Abdullah. In a prophetic editorial -Whose will in Kashmir?- The Statesman of the 7th of April, 1987 concluded thus: "Those who may have been inclined to turn a blind eye to what happened during the Kashmir elections on the premise that national security and secularism were therby strengthened would do well to reflect on the old and unfashionable adage about ends and means." Brutal oppression started after that. A situation tailor made for Pakistan to take advantage of. And they continue to do so.

If our uniformed personnel were to behave in a disciplined way there would be more peace than there is now. And the dreaded AFSPA would not be needed. Pakistan undoubtedly takes advantage of these disturbances and stokes the flames higher, but if there was no wide spread revulsion against the armed forces such agitations would be few and far between. I have not seen as much hatred and loathing for the armed forces as I have seen in Kashmir and in the North East- the other area afflicted by this draconian law. That aweful AFSPA is applied to only two areas. Jammu and Kashmir and the North East, and it is not a coincidence that in both these areas the armed forces are detested, and the people want the AFSPA to be trashed.

Peace in these conditions is impossible in our time.

Part III-

It is sad but true.

The Government is not the only one to blame. The Delhi based media, with the exception of a couple of papers, is equally responsible for pedalling one sided jingoistic accounts of insurgency gone wild and painting pictures of doom, which are then parlayed as intelligence. When innocents are shot- at Harwan in April, in Batmaloo on the 10th of July when along with 3 young boys watching a cricket match during curfew a young girl in her kitchen too was killed, in the Machil encounter where they were taken on the promise of jobs and then heartlessly shot, etc etc to name only a few, can one blame the just fury of the people? The law does not help them, the Army officers repsonsible for the Machil outrage have still not been handed to the police. And for each such case that has surfaced, many many screams are stifled. And then to make matters worse funerals of the victims are also fired upon. Firing on funerals is an old habit of the armed forces. The worst so far according to my memory has been the 22nd of October, 1993 Bijbehara Chowk firing by the trigger happy BSF that killed 37 people.

Our gentle Prime Minister had spoken fervently a couple of years ago of winning over "hearts and minds" and reducing the soldiers there. Hearts and minds are turned against us and there are more troops now than ever before. At a Press Conference on the 23rd of May, 2002, the then Prime Minister Shri Vajpayee said "Your pain and anguish is mine too. It is shared by all the people of India. We are with you in your sorrow and we will be with you in your joy."

".... I have instructed the security forces to be more mindful of human rights and be sensitive to the liberties and self respect of ordinary people.." Thus spoke our Prime Minister on the 25th of May, 2006 at Srinagar. On the 7th of June, 2010 Shri Manmohan Singh said at Srinagar " ... there are a handful of people who do not want any political process for empowering people to succeed. This is the reason that attempts to disturb the lives of the people in the Valley still continue from the across the line of control. Whenever such incidents happen, they spread terror and cause disruption in the life of the people. Our security agencies are forced to act in the wake of such incidents. During the process sometimes innocent civilians have to suffer, but whenever such incidents happen it becomes necessary to act against them. ... .. On this issue the Government policy is to protect the human rights of the people even when dealing with terrorism. The security forces in Jammu and Kashmir have been strictly instructed to respect the rights of the civilians..."

Ten years. Two Prime Ministers and nine visits later the pain is still there. Atrocities have increased and so have the troops. Apparently even the P M's directions are ignored.

I had been studying the cycle of ruthlessness in the North East and in Kashmir. I have noticed that whenever peace is returning an incident is created that raises mayhem and increases gunsmoke. More troops come in. And then more. Official ruthlessness provokes retaliation in which more innocents suffer.

On the 5th of July, when curfew was briefly lifted, a Kashmiri Sikh friend of mine was stuck (he was in an Innova) in a line of 15-20 cars. Some young boys came out suddenly and hammered only his car to pulp mercifully allowing him to get out. The other cars had Kashmiri Muslims and were not touched. Another innocent suffers for no other reason except that he is seen as a representative of the oppressive forces. How long will the assault on the innocents carry on?

This blood soaked cycle will continue unless firm and yet tolerant, imaginative and kind leadership emerges. Above all the intelligence system has to be revamped so that the truth is not hidden from the civilian policy makers. I have not till now mentioned the AFSPA, which is a refuge of scoundrels. There are enough laws to take care of insurgency here, but the armed forces want a license to kill. This umbrella has to be removed.

Is it too much to hope?

More people are being killed- not all because of the security forces- (on Sunday the 1st of August, 2010 eight were killed, some agitators died in an explosion in a police station at Khru that they had burnt) and it is now impossible to have a daily account of the dead.

I have a comparison to make though. In other parts of India when buses or trains are burnt and crowds go on a destructive rampage the operative word is restraint, but here it is shoot to kill. Without restraint.

Romesh Bhattacharji

rbhattoo@gmail.com

Bame Duniya: Audit the auditors!

2010-06-21T00:30:00.000-07:00

Bame Duniya: Audit the auditors!

Audit the auditors!

2010-06-20T23:54:00.000-07:00

India has an ages old institution called Audit and Accounts. They are supposed to be the guardians of fiscal propriety over all the Government spending in India. They act as if all funds for Government use will be misused and are in the habit of cutting down ruthlessly many financial proposals. They can not visualise the needs of development.

Had India listened to their objections it owuld be still in the 50s stage of development. That is not all they are negative about. After a project is over or deaprtment's have collected revenue or spent allocations on administration they attack with knives and magnifying glasses. They are essential for good governance, but not the way they are allowed to delay and pospone and question technical plans way beyond their competency.

In today's Indian Express of the 21st of June, 2010, is a report how the kitchen equipment bill for the Commonwealth games inceased by Rs. 13 Crores (or approx $ 3 mln) most probably because of their objections.

A tender for hiring the Kitchen equipment was released on the 27th of June, 2008. 25 bids were received and the contract allotterd to a group of firms formed by Delaware North of Australia, Taj Stats of India and PKL of London. On the 3rd of February, 2010 (!!!!!) this contract was cancelled as earnest money of about Rs. 3 million was not deposited.

Now the whole process has to restart and they will have to buy this expensive equipment. Result: Cost increase by Rs. 13 Crores (from the earlier Rs. 20 crores for hiring equipment to Rs. 33 crores for buiyng equipment). Too high a price to pay for sluggisheness. Protest government interests by all means, but not so inefficiently!

There is more to their recklessness. They pretend that they are doing their duty when they are vilified for being too particular. But this is only in some cases. Where expenses are in billions or millions they are quite lax.

For instance see the picture below:

It shows people from a civilian truck going with jerry cans to have them filled up from an Army truck in Ladakh, just above Deskit in Nubra. For decades large scale pilferage from Defence stores in the forward areas has been conducted with impunity. Every year teams of auditors scour the records and physically visit army bases but never ever find out anything more than minor faults. About five or so years ago the J & K police seized about 45 empty oil tankers going into an army base in Ladakh. They were supposedly delivering POL. That is when the scandal broke out in the open, but though some army officers and soldiers were penalised none of the army of auditors were. Had these worthies been doing their jobs this pilferage would not have become so brazen. Even now pilfered army stores like tin food and sleeping bags etc are available in shops thoroughout Ladakh. It is an unintended public service for which the army is thanked repeatedly and profusely, but their can be other prinsipled ways of being similarly generous. This way the ring leaders and the racketeers profit.

Famous Indian beauty spots have added opium to attract more! Illegal opium cultivation in Kullu and Kashmir

2010-06-16T00:06:00.000-07:00

For some years now there has been a new flower in Kashmir that has bloomed unseen only by officials. Its that same old troublesome opium poppy flower.

There have been sporadic eradications, but this half heartedness has emboldened more opium flowers to blossom in the Valley known for its lethal guns and non lethal flowers.

The two pictures below are of fields in Anantnag district of Kashmir.

This is an introduction to the rampant increase of opium poppy cultivation in the adjacent state of Himachal Pradesh. I want to show that what is happening in HP is not an isolated occurrence. It is part of a bigger and organised plan to keep the about 2.5 million opium addicts in India happy and their families unhappy.

"Ex-British MP's son dies of "drug overdose""

was the heading of a report in the Indian Express of the 15th of June, 2010.

The deceased Adam Coombs was just 19 years old when he died of excess of opium. His friend Ross Taylor, also 19 years old, reported "Me and Adams went for a late night stroll in the valley where we took opium. Around 3 pm the next day I woke up and found Adam sleeping. I tried to wake him up and found that his body was cold."

A sad incident. A young promising life nipped in the bud. A tree that could have grown to full height cut down by the greed of drug traffickers, and the indifference of the authoritites.

Adam Coombs was the son of Derek Coombs, a former Conservative MP from Birmingham Yardley, and perhaps that is why this untimely and unfortunate death was reported at length in news papers in India.

There is an even gloomier conclusion to this story. There have been many unexplained but similar deaths that have been given a quiet burial all over the spectacular mountain district of Kullu, Himachal Pradesh, India, but they have been unsung and unreported. All this while the menace of illicit opium cultivation has stealthily kept increasing. How many more lives will have to be lost to avarice and rapaciousness of the hoods before the enfrcement officers wake up? Or will they never wake up ? and let these deaths continue?

All the concerned narcs authorities, State and Central, are aware of it. But they act as if in fits- off & seldom on. During this year's opium lancing season the Director General of the Narcotics Control Bureau had visited some parts of Kullu that had opium cultivation. There was some eradication in places. Not enough obviously otherwise poor young Adams would still have been alive.

Opium poppy is a flower that can be seen from far away. It can't stay hid, and yet the fields are not detected in time.

- A field in Sainj Valley of Kullu-

- The Pradhan and his Deputy (Village Council Head) of Bithu Kanda, Sainj, Kullu -

- Another field with the same story-

- This Sainj field had sprinkler irrigation!-

- Many colours but the same produce-

- This cautious farmer has grown wheat next to his opium field-

This then is my brief complaint.

Here, in these exquisite surroundings, a beautiful but deadly flower blossoms in April and early May. The opium is extracted strictly for tainted profit. These people had never before cultivated opium. This dangerous agricultural habit has grown over the past 15 years or so. And it seems that it will continue to grow. People from this district, and from other parts of Himachal Pradesh and adjacent states of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir too, collect opium from here.

Earlier foreigners used to head here for cannabis and hashish, now they also get opium in addition. Cannabis is still a major agricultural product (Malana Queen is famous ), and its hashish with a THC content of 10-25% is wanted the word over. Had there been a Cannabis Cup this variety would beat even the Moroccan one, as it easily does the Afghan one (3-10% THC).

But, I was writing of opium. If this fiendish agricultural activity is not squashed in an another decade or even earlier there will be heroin from here and then gangs and gang wars. Too much a price to pay for official sloppiness. . . .

........ and don't forget there is Kashmir too that has extensive opium cultivation. Kashmir- battered and bruised from both the insurgents and the soldiers- still manages to cultivate opium in full view of both. Unless both sides are blind. Kashmir is where I started this blog from and that is how I end.

In both these states easy riders are making easy money from illicit opium cultivation. These illicit cultivators are beyond the scope of any decriminalisation. Beyond redemption.
rbhattoo@gmail.com

Inner Line Permits- An awe inspiring land denied... hopping from Land Border crossing points to China from the NE to the NW

2010-06-02T05:26:00.000-07:00

{A lonely India Check Post and China at the back}

{Shipki La on the Himachal Pradesh-Tibet Border}

Of the foolishness of the Inner Line and how it has closed India's borders with China and retarded development , &

then

Kibithoo (NE of India) to Karakorum (NW of India)

Of people & land routes to China from India

Five decades ago all these routes that I have mentioned below were open for people on either side of the border to trade, go for pilgrimage, take their flocks to graze, and visit relatives. Today, officially there are only three trading routes open. Nathu La (Sikkim), Garbayang-Lipu Lekh (Uttaranchal) and Shipki La (Himachal Pradesh). All the other wonderful paths and passes are closed shut. So the authorities would like to believe. But they are not.

{Guan Liang at Tezu Police Station, Lohit, Arunachal Pradesh}

On the 23rd of May, 2010 a Chinese, Guan Liang, was detained while blundering around Digaru Ferry Ghat (bewteen Tezu and Chowkham), in Lohit District (Arunachal Pradesh, NE of India). He had travelled about 280 kms after crossing the Indo-China border at Kahao. He had been fed by friendly people all along the way. What is surprising is that not one of the many Army and para military and State police camps that he must have passed had apprehended him. His Chinese American English accent was a sure give way, and yet not till he was literally pushed into the surprised arms of our officials by a Mishmi youth Bisip Billai did any Government Agency (and there are many) knew of his daring trek . Sad commentary on the capability of our forces who are supposed to have the eyes of the hawk and the owl.

Right across the country to the North West, in Ladakh's SE, is Dumchulle, close to the right bank of the Indus is a big Chinese market. It is there only for Indians to come and buy in bulk. They would give goods on credit and take the money only after they were sold. To get to Dumchulle, which is Indian territory in Chinese hands, one has to travel about 80 kms inside the Inner Line. There are many posts there, and yet this brazen trade goes on and on.

Just goes to show how vigilant and effective our forces are, and how pointless the whole colonial concept of the Inner Line is. The Inner Line was first introduced in 1888 by the British in the North East Frontier Agency to prevent North India traders from the Assam plains to enter into what is now Arunachal Pradesh. These traders have entered any how and have collared most of the business and contracts in that state. The genuine visitors, with nothing but friendship in their hearts, and wanderlust in their eyes, have to go through a cumbersome process of filling forms, pasting pictures to get permission to visit these magnificent border lands for a few days.

Realising the foolishness of such controls the bureaucracy is timidly withdraing the Inner Line back- a few kms at a time. This blindness is well coordinated along the entire length of the mountainous border with China. At least in Ladakh and in Himachal Pradesh practical sense is now entering the bureaucrats' files in leaps and bounds. From last year border areas like Batalik, Shyok and Turtuk are now open for tourists, but they still have to get an Inner Line permit.

It took the bureaucracy six decades to realise that good roads to the border have to be built as soon as possible. All these years were wasted in worrying that if there were good roads the Chinese would find it easier to use them to invade India. Nothing could be more damming about our lack of confidence than this silly argument, which had till now prevented development in all the border areas.

Anyway, wisdom even if it dawns late, is very welcome. The Chinese had built roads along our borders more than 50 years ago!

Till about 50 years ago the routes mentioned below were the better known ones for traditional trade to Tibet. They have the most varied, gorgeous, awesome, magnificent and inspiring scenery on this earth. Yet they are closed to Indians. Of these routes only three are open officially, but several more unofficially;

1- The border crossing points from NE to NW are :

ARUNACHAL-
2- Dibrugarh-Tezu-Walong- Kibithoo (at 1371 m - it is the lowest crossing point into Tibet from India)-Kahao- along the Lohit river which enters India here-Rima, a large town, just 10 kms or so away from the border- Chamdo (3243 m). The famous Rima Gap where within 100 kms the Salween, the Mekong, and the Yangtse flow is not far from here (this is one of the shortest {Tinsukia to Tezu = 137 kms; Tezu to Hayuliyang=103 kms; Hayuliyang to Walong=103 kms; Walong – Kibithoo= 30 kms; Kibithoo-Kahao=1.6 kms} routes to the Tibetan border from the Indian plains. Reviving of this trade will immensely improve the economy of this area.
3- Dibrugarh-Ledo-Pangsau Pass (937 m)-Mytkina (Burma)- Kunming (Yunan, China). The WW II Ledo road to Kunming already has a solid foundation. It requires clearing of trees growing on it and resurfacing and it will be ready within a couple of years. Both Kunming and Calcutta are about 1700 kms by road from Ledo.
4- Dibrugarh-Roing-Anini-Mipi- Yongop La or Zeklu La- (all around 3000 m) to Shuden Gompa (4175 m) ; (To the Idu Mishmis here Tibet is known as the place where the rivers are silent)
5- North Lakhimpur-Along-(or directly from Assam via Passighat too) –Yingkiong-Tuting (590 m)-Gelling (1829 m)-Tung la or Shouka la (3800 m) or Lamb la- Kemteng-Gya Dzong (2775 m)(Shimong Adis who inhabit this region are Lhobas in Tibet. In the village of Mankhota (1120 m) on the Yangsang chu near the border live some Khamba families from Tibet )
6- North Lakhimpur-Along-Mechuka (1890 m): means place of mediciane water that rises from the snows - up the Yagyap chu- Nepar la or Nyug La(4700 m)-Migyitun-Kyim Dzong (There’s a Kaying-Tato-Mechuka motor road now); (Pachakshiri Membas who inhabit this region are known as Moinbas in Tibet)
7- North Lakhimpur-Dapporijo-Nacho- Taksing (2400 m)-Limeking-Lhontse Dzong (This was one of the routes through which till about 40 years earlier amongst other goods Tibetan ornaments esp. brass carved bells known locally as majes used to be got- now its textiles on rare occasions)
8- Tezpur-Bomdila- Tawang-Bum la (4332 m)-Tsona Dzong (this is very close to Bhutan and Chinese goods in large quantities are being brought in through adjacent Mele La in Bhutan. Lhasa is about 600 kms away.)
9- The heights and names of the passes at S. Nos 4,5, & 6 may not be correct as they have been got from local sources, understanding whom requires a phonetically experienced ear.

SIKKIM-
10- Gangtok-Nathu la (4420 m)- Chumbi valley-Paro Dzong-Gyantse-Lhasa (3607 m). The closest port for Lhasa is Kolkatta which is about 1400 kms away. That is why the Chinese are keen on opening up the Nathu la route. Shanghai is more than 4000 kms away. Yangon about 2500 kms.

UTTARANCHAL-
11- Pithoragarh-Tawaghat-Garbyang (villages on this route that were dying have revived and old houses are looking sturdy once again. Some old customs of serais in homes have started again) -Lipu Lekh (5453 m) (This is one of the two official trade routes open now. The Customs station is at Garbyang 30 kms before Lipu Lekh)- Taklakot (where now there is an Indian and Nepali market)-Darchen
12- Munsiari-Milam (a large village of attractive houses with patiently and tastefully carved doors and windows that was inhabited till 1982 is now abandoned and a lot of history is over)-Unta Dhura-Topidunga (4500 m) (till this point foreigners are being allowed in for treks)-Kungribingri La (5357 m)- Gyanima mandi- Tirthapuri (which is on the River Satluj)-Gartok (on the Lhasa-Sinkiang highway & on the River Garlung, which is a tributary of the Indus))
13- Joshimath-Bara Hoti Plains-Niti Pass (5060 m)-Tralung-Tirthapuri Gompa;
14- Joshimath-Badrinath-Mana pass (5608 m)-Tsaparang-or Totling Gompa-(to Gartok also)-or Tralung
15- Uttarkashi-Harsil-Jadh Ganga valley- Tsangchok la-Tsaparang-Gartok

HIMACHAL PRADESH-
16- Sangla-Chitkul-Yamrang La (5487 m)- {or Uttarkashi-Harsil-Lamkhaga La-Yamrang la}- Tsaparang. From colonial times till 1950 duty used to be levied on goods crossing the border. This had forced people to use little known & dangerous routes like this one, which passed through a valley nick named Chor Gad.
17- Kalpa-Moirang-Khimokul la (4331 m)- Tsaparang
18- Shimla-Kalpa-Pooh-Shipk la (4000 m) (on the Hindustan – Tibet road and for centuries was one of the 4 most prominent trade routes along the entire border. It is open again. This is the 2nd route which has a Customs station and is right on the pass)-Shipki vlg.- Kuukh (earlier

{Looking from Shipki La in India into Tibet}

parts of Spiti and of Western Tibet till Tsaparang-Tolingmath were part of one kingdom known as Kuukh)-Karkuncham (Hqrs of Chumurti distt.)-Nortok [where there’s a 18th C stone marking a trade treaty between the kings of Rampur Bushair (where the Lavi fair, attended by traders from Tibet, Central Asia and our plains used to be held every November) and of Kuukh]- or Tsaparang or Gartok;
19- Kalpa-Pooh-Sumdoh-Kaurik-Gargunsa on the river Garlung & thence SSE for 30 kms to Gartok or 20 kms NNW to Tashigong where the river Indus meetsthe Garlung, and which is 35 kms by motorable road from Demchok in Ladakh.

LADAKH-
20- Leh-Nyoma (4207 m)-Dumchulle (4412 m)-Rudok on the south bank of Nyak Tso, which is a kind of continuation of Ladakh’s Pangong Tso,
21- Leh-Nyoma-Demchok (4322 m)-Tashigong and along the Indus to the east to Thok Yalung gold fields (16330’),
22- Leh-Nyoma-Tiggar-Kyun la (or via Hanle too)-Chumar on the Pare chu river which flows into Tibet from here (this leads to an extremely isolated & backward corner of Tibet for which getting supplies from India will be most convenient.)
23- Leh-Nyoma- Tcahaga- (& also via Chang la-Chushul to)- Tchaga la (5060 m)- Rudok.
24- Leh- Khardung la-Nubra-Saser La-Daulat Beg Oldi-Karakorum (5724 m) - Kashgar and Yarkand in Sinkiang, which are now being supplied with a lot of their essentials through Mintaka pass on the Karakorum highway from Gilgit in Pakistan. It is also the shortest way to a sea port for this part of China. The only possible advantage that a route through India’s Karakorum pass could have would be its round the year accessibility)
25- Its in Ladakh that the affects of Chinese economic offensive can be brazenly seen. At the Moti Market Chinese goods are sold in about 50 shops. In the Changthang where the Changpa shepherds tending their pashmina flock close to the border use Chinese jackets, jeans, cutlery, confectionery, torches and thermos flasks and meat in winter.

Related Information:

26- Chinese have a Singkiang - Lhasa Higway running north of and quite close to very nearly the entire Himalaya from east of Sikkim westwards. They want supply routes to some points along this route from India.
27- There were Trade Agents till 1952 in Tezu in Lohit District of east Arunachal & Rima in Tibet’s Pemyangtse or Pemako district.
28- The following 29 goods can be "exported freely" to China as border barter trade: 1- Agricultural implements; 2- Blankets; 3- Copper Products; 4- Clothes; 5- Textiles; 6- Cycles; 7- Coffee; 8- Tea; 9- Barley; 10- Rice; 11- Flour; 12- Dry Fruit; 13- Dry & fresh vegetables; 14- Vegetable oil; 15- Gur and Misri; 16- Tobacco; 17- Snuff; 18- Cigarettes; 19- Canned food; 20- Agro Chemical; 21- Local herbs; 22- Dyes; 23- Spices; 24- Watches; 25- Shoes; 26- Kerosene oil; 27- Stationery; 28- Utensils; & 29- Wheat (Ua & buck). This is according to India's Export Trade Control Public Notice No. 5(PN)/92-97 issued on 20th of July, 1992.

INFORMALLY there are now many more goods to trade with than could have been dreamt of by the drafters of this notification. E.g. coarse wool, pashm wool, tiger eye & other precious and semi precious stones, gold pellets, daggers, boots, hats, blankets, quilts, jeans, jackets, fur caps, felt hats, inverters, electronic equipment, cycles, foot wear, confectionery, crockery, thermos flasks, raw meat (during winter in Ladakh), saddles, yaks, and horses come into India and liquor esp. rum, medicines (large quantity of Indian medicines go through Kyrghystan and Kazakhstan to Sinkiang), woollen carpets, petrol and diesel, car parts, tool kits, solar panels, shawls, bicycles & sometimes even cement go from India.

In Ladakh the Chinese indirectly finance dumping of their goods by giving long term interest free credit. They demand payment only after the goods have been sold by their Indian customers. For Indian goods they pay in Rupees immediately on delivery.

The goods that are now in demand are no longer traditional, and demand for traditional goods like wool is now on a commercial scale. No longer for local use by cross border communities. The routes and methods of carrying these goods is however still largely traditional. Earlier needs were few and localized thus salt e.g. used to be a very important item to be brought in. Now as can be seen from the list above preferences have outstripped basic needs.

Despite our bureaucracy’s whimsical reluctance to acknowledge it Chinese goods are being brought in large quantities all along the border, and that State controls and monitors it closely.

29- It’s not only for Lhasa that the Chinese could be interested in opening up trade routes with India. They want traditional trade routes connecting each part of Tibet that has filial and old trade links with India to be resumed. This way they can ensure cheaper supplies. Providing these from mainland China takes time and is expensive. This situation will not be affected much even when the Sikang – Lhasa rail link is opened.
30- Across the border areas of Sikkim & Arunachal there are more populated areas in Tibet than across the border in the NW and yet very little trade activity.
31- According to an old treaty people living on either side of the Indo-China border are allowed to go fairly deep into each other’s territory. Tho’ hardly any Chinese come this way to our side, many Indians used to go far inside Tibet at least across Shipki La (7 days march inside) till 2002. From 2005 they were not allowed to go beyond Shipki village which is 1.5 kms inside Tibet. The reason was that people from these villages have become smart. They want to have their horses hired to take these goods further into Tibet. This had affected the volume of barter trade too and villages further away in Tibet had been protesting against the high handedness of the villagers from Shipki. This is what makes border life an exciting one. Never a dull moment. The pity is that very few get to live it , experience it, or report it.

Romesh Bhattacharji,
E mail: rbhattoo@gmail.com

"Moral Victory": says Paresh Barua, Commander in Chief, ULFA’s Armed Wing on 6th of December, 2009!!! Ha!

2009-12-07T04:31:00.000-08:00

About a month ago Arabinda Rajkhowa, Chairman of the United Liberation Front of Assam was arrested by the helpful Government of Bangladesh in Dacca. On the 4th of December, 2009, he, his family and some of his followers were handed over at 03.30 hrs at Dawki Land Customs Station in Khasi Hills, Meghalaya. Dawki is on the border with Bangladesh.

A minor controversy has errupted whether he was detained, arrested or he voluntarily surrendered. Does it really matter?

What matters is that a dreaded terrorist, who while insisting on strenuous jungle life and brutal urban terrorism for his followers, himself hid in plush comfort in Dacca since 1997 or so, is now behind bars.

The ULFA Chairman’s Arabinda Rajkhowa told the journalists at the CJM’s Court in Guwahati on the 5th of December that he had been arrested and had not surrendered. Paresh Barua, Chief, ULFA’s rag tag armed wing, said that that comment was a moral victory for ULFA!

ULFA preaching morality? This outfit that has cost thousands of innocent and misguided lives is now so toothless that it can only talk about moral victories, which are meaningless. Let them have a myriad of these.

Did they think about the morality of the many murders they committed in their arrogance?

In early February, 1991 between Hansara and Jhangi, before Jorhat, Assam, I saw from the Gypsy that I was driving about 20 meters ahead two men on a scooter shoot a cyclist as he was coming up from a house on the left had side of the road. It happened so quickly that first I thought that the cyclist had collided with the scooterists. I stopped to help the fallen cyclist. I was shocked to find that he had been shot in the chest, and was dead. By that time his mother had come up and there was an emotional scene too sad to describe. They were poor people and her son was from a neighbourhood social work organization that had refused to support the ULFA in its violent programme. I tried to chase the scooterists down but they had disappeared down one of the several leafy side lanes that dot the AT Road. This hit and run was typical of the tactics of the ULFA.

There were hundreds of such pointless executions. The ones that caused wide spread revulsion and intense disgust were the bomb blast on Independence Day at Dhemaji in 2005 that killed 13 children, and the pointless killing of a young and innocent Andhra engineer (son of very poor parents) near Naharkatia, in Upper Assam in 1995. Did such brutal acts make them feel powerful or even popular? They certainly made the ULFA filthy rich because these killings made people take their threats to kill seriously and then pay up.

The many unpardonable and unprovoked excesses of the uniformed forces was the direct result that only hammered innocent civilians most.

This then is the organization which now that it is beaten and on the run finds it convenient to talk of moral victories! Apart from still mouthing the discredited concept of independence for Assam, which no one but a few die hard supporters, who are nothing but extortionists, believe in now.

ULFA was however partly responsible for the prosperity that one sees in Assam. That is undoubtedly true. Roads, Industrial Estates, Multi billion projects, Bridges, Schools, Colleges, Industrial infrastructure, Railway lines and Medical colleges.

Ranghar, Sibsagar- where ULFA started on the 7th of April, 1977

Before the 7th of April, 1979, all Assam was a sorry under developed sight. No electrictity, bare minimum of non Assamese managed commercial activity, which was exploitative in nature, and very slow, almost reluctant, progress. From the 7th of April, the day Arabinda Rajkhowa and several others swore at Ranghar, Sibsagar, to fight for a better Assam, conditions began to change.

The attention that ULFA got the NE has caused wide spread employment and improvement for many Assamese. I was in the North East from 1985 till 1991 and was witness to much violence and repression and also slightly faster progress. Infact for a while I was an admirer of the ULFA. After their misdeeds and galloping greed became a matter of deliberate policy I abhorred them. They were no longer Knights in Shining Armour, but run of the mill gangsters. The Assam of those years had much to protest about, but not in their chosen way.

For the Assamese the genteel, tender and fond appellation of "larka log" (our boys) of the earlier years truend into disgusted contempt. And yet they have the inordinate gall to pretend to speak on behalf of the people of Assam!

The lighthouse that the ULFA promised to be through the 1980s became a flickering candle for their rank and file. That too was extinguished for them from 1997 -1999 when their leaders deserted them for foreign comforts. After that it became an organization known exclusively for its expertise in extortion and barbaric cruelty.

“Today, the dirty machinations of the colonial Indian Government have been defeated in the hands of the freedom-loving peolle of Assam. This will only enable us to march ahead into the future.” Paresh Barua said yesterday. He has been blowing away millions in Bangladesh for more than two decades. He has not been to Assam. Otherwise he would not have made such a stupid statement.

... and peace has returned to Assam.

Needless heartburn in India over a reported dam in Southern Tibet, BUT...

2009-10-15T22:55:00.000-07:00

....what's the harm, especially when our Know Alls did not even know about the dam over the Indus built in 2004!!

The first picture is of a dam over the Indus built by the Chinese. It is a dam that exists. The first picture is taken from Google Earth. The second is taken by me of Demchog. The big buildings are part of an optimistic market built by the Chinese in their part of Demchog. The electricity produced by that dam has come till Tashigong, about 15 kms beyond this Demchog.

Unlike the so called dam the Indian Express front paged in an article in its 15th October, 2009 edition that China is supposed to be building over the Brahmaputra in the Nanshan Prefecture of Tibet, this one over the Indus exits. Yet, there have been many worried analyses of this yet-to-be-confirmed construction, and our . Funny isn't it? The Chinese have denied it, and these reports are at best speculative.

This dam can not hurt India as 80% of the waters of the Mighty Brahmaputra are picked up after it enters India.

The Mighty Brahmaputra as it makes an 'S' Bend when it enters India below Spur Top is a smallish river. After that it picks up considerable waters from the Yangsang Chu at Jidu, the Siyom and the Sipi at Yembung and several others before it leaves the hills at Passighat. Around this place it more than doubles its size with the waters from the Lohit and the Dibong. After that its right bank gets the Himalayan rivers like the massive Subansisiri, the wide Kamala, the Rong, the Kameng (Bharoli), Aie, the Saralbhanga and about forty others. Its south bank too gets waters from copious rivers like the Burhi Dihing, Namdang, Dhansiri, Kalang, Kopili, Digaru, Bajbala and thirty others. These make the Mighty Brahmaputra the size that it is. Not Chinese waters.

BUT, what is more worrisome is that since 2004 China had built a run-of-the-river largely earthen dam across the Indus. It is only 100 kms or so away from the India-China border at Demchog (Ladakh), and no one has as yet mentioned it even!

It provides water for civic and agricultural needs in the Ngari Khorsum province of Western Tibet. It gives electricty for 24 hrs and round the year for the fast expanding and developed towns of Ngari and Shiquanhe (Ali in Tibetan). The former is just 15 kms west of the dam and the latter is 25 kms NNE of it.

Even though the Indus at this point and even after it has entered India at Demchog is a fledgling river there is no excuse for our spies and their latest devices not to have detected that a dam was being built more than 5 years ago. The Indus is even more of a small stream, than the Brahmaputra when it enters India, where this dam has been built. It is before its confluence with the Gargunsa Chu- the river that comes past Gartok, the ancient trading centre of Western Tibet and now a thriving electrified busy town.

Does not say much for the observation capacity of the intelligent people trained to be on the look out for just such a development, amongst others! What is worrying is not that the dam has been built, for what is wrong in building a run-of-the-river dam, but that our snoops were not able to discover that it was being built and later that it had been built! And our usually alert and alrmist journalists too are ignorant about it! This dam has subsequently been mentioned in a book called "The Empires of the Silk Road".

The picture above is of Chang la or Dumchulle La, which is since October 1962 with China. The International Border runs along the ridge. The Chinese have got territory well inside India. More than 20 kms of it here. At the base of the spur to the right is a large Chinese market selling Chinese goods. The annual turnover of this market is reportedly more than Rs. 100 crores. The customers are the Indian Changpas- the nomadic shepherds who hop from one ribo (camp) to another with their flocks of pashm goats. The markets in Nyoma, Leh etc aree filled with what they buy here. The considerate shopkeepers sell goods on credit and do not mind waiting for months for money to be paid. This market is a source of information. And, many of the Changpas who come here are supposed to bring back information to their handlers in Dungti, Loma Bend and Kiari etc. In October 2003 when this picture was taken by me I had heard reprots from some Changpas that a dam was being built over the Indus. I am sure that such reports must have been received by the intelligence agencies too. Yet, we were completely ignorant of its construction. And even now are. Dumchulle is on the right bank of the Indus and not far from the recently revived airport at Fukche, near Koyul.

That is why the status quo of this picture above has not troubled any one since October 1962!

This is of the Indus near Umlung, 20 kms before Demchog, in Ladakh. The other bank of the Indus is in Chinese hands. The International Border ought to be the Thag La pass 20 kms further and seen here. It is on the southern side of the watershed and yet instead of taking back this singularly unacceptable occupation all that we can think of is- Aksai Chin (about 45,000 sq kms), which is as impossible for us to acquire as it is for the Chinese to even dream about getting Arunachal. There are more than 5000 sq kms of Ladakh, on the southern side of the watershed, that is occupied by the Chinese since October 1962, and this vast almost continuous swath is not even being mentioned at negotiations.

Romesh Bhattacharji

rbhattoo@gmail.com

Afghanistan, the United Nations and Peter Galbraith

2009-10-06T00:45:00.000-07:00

Every one who can read has heard of Afghanistan and the United Nations.

How many have heard of Peter Galbraith? I had not till September, 2009.

He was till a week or so ago the United Nations' Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan.

What I did not know was that he was the only gutsy and principled official that the UN had. Now he has gone. Made to leave within six months of joining at Kabul. It only proves that the UN will remain a shadowy organisation lurking around the fringes of power and supporting status quo, when change is what is needed.

Especially in Afghanistan. The recent monumental fraud in Afghanistan, blessed by the UN as an election, if consecrated will make Afghanistan uncontrollable. This is what Peter Galbraith had protested about. He had said that most of the votes cast for President Karzai were fake. He also accused Norwegian Kai Eide, his senior, of failing to act upon evidence of electoral fraud.
Mr Eide responded by saying he had the full backing of the international community and the US administration, which does not mean that Mr. Eide, the International Community or the US Administration are right. Infact the last two have a history of being wrong as far as Afghanistan is concerned.

Everyone in Afghanistan knows that ballot papers in nearly every polling booth were stuffed with fake votes for Karzai. Most election observers knew about it. And yet neither the International community nor the UN uttered a squeak, till Peter Galbraith legitimised all the rumours. Well done.

Nothing less could be expected of the son of John Kenneth Galbraith. I wish him well, for with such principles he will have many opponents.

If Karzai returns there will be a "slim possibility of peace and the probability of a longer, wider, more dangerous war."- quoting Richard Tanter — out of context.

Romesh Bhattacharji

The Afghan Narcotics Tangle- Old sins cast long shadows

2009-10-01T02:00:00.000-07:00

Many seasoned heads from across the world have been banging against Afghanistan’s hard narcotics wall. Only these heads have suffered.

Not the Taleban, who continue to profit from opium production. As they had done when they were supported by the US in the 90s and till that craven appreciation was given to them for supposedly banning opium production in early 2001. After 9/11 the Taleban were in disgrace and dumped. Not all of them. Old ties still bound the US policy makers to some of the Taleban and Mujahideen. These rogue elements were accommodated in the new administration headed by Karzai, an ex-Taleban himself. That is the reason why the too optimistic clamour for victory has now been replaced by a resigned acceptance of the stench of collusion. That is why narcotics, which funds the Taleban, is here to stay.
Despite UNODC publishing inaccurate, self advancing, self deluding and self congratulatory reports giving the impression that all is well and under control. This year they have shown a 20% decline in opium poppy production, which they attribute to their efforts. It is not so. It is because of bad weather that Afghanistan produced less opium this year. Their methodology, which has always been vague, is not given in the 2009 Afghanistan Report. The UNODC experts are silent about error margins too.

They and others are repeating the mistakes of 2001 when they allowed oil politics (the UNODC Chief Mr. Pino Arlachi had most unusually met American oil executives on several occasions in 200 and 2001) to give a certificate of merit to the Taleban for not growing opium. This was the Occidental driven campaign to give a clean chit to the Taleban so that a pipeline could bring gas cheaply from Tukmenistan, through Western Afghanistan, to Pakistan and then to the recipient countries. This was the inspiration behind the sly move to give the Taleban a clean chit. Otherwise, it would have been impossible for these countries to have even the thought of dealing with the repugnant Taleban accepted by their citizens. They had forgotten at that time that there were other objectionable things about the horrid Taleban like women bashing, mutilating and murder.

However, its Narcotics that I will stick to. Today’s narcs headache is because of the earlier shoddy conciliatory policies followed by the Western powers that encouraged this explosion of opium production in that blighted country.

During the end years of the maligned Najibullah Government in Afghanistan only 10,000 hectares were under opium poppy cultivation in 1986. This means an anticipated production of about 300 tons at most as at that time the yield per hectare was not very high. Then, as Najibullah’s hold weakened and that of the US and Pakistan fed, armed and financed Mujahideen and the Taleban became stronger opium production increased. In 1987 it was 25,000 hectares. In 1988 it was 32,000 and in 1989 by when Najibullah had been overthrown it was 34,300. The next year it was 41,300 and it continued to shoot up till 2000 when it was 82,171 hectares. By this time Afghanistan was infested with the Taleban and crawling with their foreign financiers and supporters. In this disgraceful period of collusion the US had coaxed the DEA to reduce their staff in Pakistan by 80% or so leaving only a skeleton of about ten persons. The DEA was the only department in the US Government capable of doing its job sincerely, and thus it was threat. It was the US policy at that time to make opium pay for the war against Najibullah, and afterwards to reward the Taleban by allowing it to keep its growing profits.

By now the public opinion in the US was hardening against the bestial and barbarous Taleban. It would have been revolted at any truck with them. Something had to be done to remake their image.

Taleban delegations were entertained in America repeatedly. They were convinced by bribery to at least say that they were against opium production. So lo and behold in 2001 only 7606 hectares were said to have been cultivated with opium poppy. But, is it true? Thousands of journalists, experts, diplomats, soldiers and know-alls willingly suspended their disbelief and accepted this preposterous assertion certified by a UN led team of eight nations (including Pakistan) that visited one area in Nangarhar and another elsewhere in March of 2001.

Every one had collectively ignored the hard reality that in 2001 an extremely severe drought had damaged not only opium but also other crops as well in the entire region stretching from Afghanistan through Pakistan and India till Myanmar and Thailand. Opium production in all these areas had been severely hurt.

During 2000 and 2001 Indian satellites had been surveying the opium fields in Afghanistan. There is a 30% margin of error in their observations but yet they reveal a contradictory picture. According to these pictures opium had been sown but in areas where there was very severe drought the crop had been irretrievably damaged. In some parts of Nangarhar (Achin for instance) the crop had not suffered too much. However, the UN team had been taken to the NE of Nangarhar.

The eight satellite pictures reproduced above show opium poppy fields in 200 and 2001. It shows the existence (+ or – error of 30% notwithstanding) of larger tracts of opium poppy than had been accepted earlier. The yellow blobs show opium cultivation. In case of Zamindwar there was more opium produced in 2001- the year that the clean chit was given to the Taleban- than in 2000!

These pictures, taken by Indian satellites in 2000 & 2001, will have many skeptics. That will be good. Nothing like a logical discussion.
My idea that the 2001 "ban" was an eye wash is strengthened by the tables given below. The first one shows a tremendous decline in opium production for 2001. The years before and after it have high production. It is IMPOSSIBLE for a ban, even if it is by the cruel Taleban, to be imposed so quickly over such a vast territory with such little communication. In India illicit opium cultivation has been banned for 60 years and yet, despite excellent communications and efficient enforcement agencies, it has been impossible to show more than marginal success. How could the Taleban, in one year and ONLY for that ONE year, achieve a reduction by about 30%!!! And in the years following 2001 with so many arms and men even a 5% reduction in illicit cultivation is thought to be marvellous. Misquoting the Stoic poet Cleanthes' Hymn to Zeus, I can only say " Master of the bright thunderbolt, save (these UN, NATO, UK and US) men from painful ignorance." And yet the UN team of eight countries that was taken only to a corner of Nangarhar in March 2001 verified from that one corner that opium cultivation in all of Afghanistan had come down drastically. If it had it was because of the severe draught. Not because of the Taleban.

In the subsequent seizure tables I was surprised to find that there was no corresponding decrease of opiates at all. Why not? The reason is simple. Opium had been produced despite the so called Taleban ban and certified by a desperate West, but it was less because of the drought.

(All the statistics in this paper have been got from UNDCP/UNODC sources only)

Old sins cast long shadows:

The US had bent over backwards to appease the Mujahideen first and then the Taleban. After 9/11 though the US and NATO troops occupied Kabul and some areas their victory has never been complete. One reason is that some of the Taleban and Mujahideen, whom they had supported before 9/11, are still their trusted aides. They are in every form of governance in Afghanistan , which is verily a theatre of the absurd. How can these advisers, monkeys’ paws etc suddenly turn over a new leaf and abide by new rules? Impossible. If you sup with the Devil once he will not let you go. Such people will never report the truth or give the correct advice. If the inputs are all wrong it will be impossible to take the right decisions. And that is what is happening. On top of that there is enormous corruption everywhere, especially amongst the very same people who have led charmed lives from the 90s just because they were close to Pakistani and US officials. The present administration in Afghanistan is busy, as far as Narcotics is concerned, in trying to live with the criminals of the past. It can not disown them for then many scandals will emerge. That is why it is safe to spend more than a billion US $ every year and line many private pockets and groan and moan, helplessly and sanctimoniously about expanding opium production. They will not look at this problem objectively and rationally. There is at least one alternative, which could spell hope, but that has been deliberately reviled. I refer to the Poppy for Medicine proposal which suggests legalizing opium cultivation with the help of the village councils themselves.

Unless a clean break with the past has been made and earlier errors accepted it will be impossible to work solve the Narcotics tangle that Afghanistan is mired in.

Romesh Bhattacharji
rbhattoo@gmail.com

Assam Tea Estates' elite wallowing in luxury want free security!

2009-09-29T23:01:00.000-07:00

Consider this:

There are more than a thousand tea estates in Assam. Much less than half the labour working there is permanent. If they made all permanent they would have to give them many labour rights which would cut into their immense profits.

At the time of Independence there were about 800 tea estates and each one had at least a medical dispensary if not a hospital and most had schools. Today less than half of these tea estates have hospitals and fewer have schools.

At the other end the Managers and Asstt. Managers and other officials live a comfortable life in air conditioned surroundings. And to protect their creature comforts they have guards. These guards became necessary about two decades ago when there were a few abductions of tea estate officials. One of them was killed and the rest released after paying large ransoms.

For the past eight years there has been little trouble from insurgents. What trouble there is is because of restive labour demanding better pay and working conditions and even permanence.

Yesterday, I read a report in The Hindu (pg. 16 of the New Delhi Edition of 29th September, 2009) . It quoted one Mr. Aditya Khaitan, Chairman of the Indian Tea Association as demanding that the Government pay fot the tea estates' security! Can anything be more ridiculous? And alarming. This same worthy has bragged that they give a lot of facilities to the tea garden workers and these work out to be about Rs. 7/- (about US 20 cents) per day per head. Their generosity is astonishing. Omitting to mention that more than half the labour, without whom they would not be able to do produce tea at all, is temporary and thus not entitled to these so called benefits.

They have asked for the Government of India to subsidise their security saying cheekily that this has made the tea more expensive by Rs.1.50 (US 4 cents) per kg! These bleeding hearts are shedding crocodile tears about tea being expensive for the common man. Forgetting that it is their heartless pursuit for huge profits that is responsible for most of the price increases for this brew adored by the ordinary Indian as well as the elite.

I remember after a Manmohan Singh Budget in the late 80s when Central Excise Duty was removed from tea there were expensive ads palced in all the newspapers by the tea companies saying that tea will be cheaper now. It was. But for less than a month. After that the prices continued their insidious crawl ever upwards.

And for this shameless profiteering Big Business wants their security to be free? They want the Government of India to pay about US $ 3.5 mln every year for their guards. or else tea will be more expensive. Yet another excuse to raise prices.

Recession or no rescession Indians are not going to give up tea at all. They can keep charging more and more for it and people here will keep drinking it neverthless. They develop a convenient social conscience only when they have to pay taxes or get concessions otherwise they treat the tea labour as slaves.

Romesh Bhattacharji
rbhattoo@gmail.com

Afghan (The Opium Republic!) Elections: Stolen

2009-08-30T20:58:00.000-07:00

Sifting the hype from the truth... Millions voted says the Press, but some Afghans say not even 20% did!
These two pictures - taken at a Border Post on the Iranian border, a little south of Zaranj in Nimroz Province 3 years ago- show soldiers being paid their salaries. This was for the benefit of a visiting team, of which I was a part. Notice the soldier leaning rakishly against that van in the background and sneering at the drama? This was just a sham to show how honestly the soldiers were paid their salaries.

This corrupt farce is repeated in every aspect of the poor Afghan peoples' lives.

Especially and most noticeably in the General Elections that were held on the 20th of August, 2009.

The world press has praised the exercise. The Voice of America somehow managed to see this: "Afghans Brave Violence to Vote for President
By Steve Herman Kabul20 August 2009
A smiling voter holds his election ID card as he waits to vote in Kabul, 20 Aug 2009Millions of Afghans braved threats of Taliban attacks on polling stations and retaliation against voters to go to the polls Thursday. The legitimacy of the election is beholden to an acceptable turnout and the reported level of wholesale vote-buying, phantom voters and other acts of electoral corruption. Voting is taking place amid scattered explosions in the capital and other parts of the country."

From my few friends in Afghanistan I have managed to piece together a different story. A story of deceit, propaganda, lies and more lies. A falsehood that has been white washed into a justification of the US policy in Afghanistan. It has not fooled the Afghans certainly.

In south Afghanistan, especially Kandahar, Helmand and Nimroz less than 20% people actually voted. The Taliban had thundered vengeance if any one did. Yet ballot boxes are filled with votes to show that more than 50% did. Very few women turned up (the Taleban had pointedly threatened women) and yet many women seemed to have voted. Can any one, but the interested parties, believe this exercise?

In North Afghanistan the elections did approach some sort of fairness.

In Kabul the European Union election observers were not visible till 16.00 hrs. How could they then approve this election? In Spin Boldak, the Afghan town on the Kandahar-Quetta (Pakistan) Border 115% have apparently voted. Some election agent apparently got carried away! Yesterday, the 30th of August, came the news that there were fake votes stuffed in more than 550 polling booths.

Where is the International Press that was so vigilant and righteously indignant about the fraud in the Iran elections. This fraud is apparently going to be 100 times worse and yet there is not a questioning squeak from the many journalists covering the Afghan Elections.

Karzai is going to win the elections. Evey body can be rest assured, but by fixing it there is going to be no peace in Afghanistan at all. Abdullah Abdullah will be unacceptable to the Americans as he leans towards the Iranians, and thus is persona non grata. Just for show there may be an another round which will be won by Karzai. A known and corrupt evil is better than an unknown angel.

The Hazara Ramza Bashardost, who is conducting his Honesty and Anti-Corruption campaign from a tent has managed to get about 10% of the votes. He is a popular figure for his brave stand for principles, and especially after he refused to see Holbrooke, the US Negotiator, inside the US Embassy as latter cheekily expected him to do. Bashardost aksed Holbrooke to meet him in his tent. People like him provide only a comic interlude to the dreadful prospect of continuance of evil that is the fate of the Afghan peoples.

(3rd September, 2009) : Today's Indian Express reports another not surprising incident of fake voting. In Shorabak a district in Kandahar no one was allowed to vote as they were supporting Abdullah Abdullah. Yet, 23,900 ballots were sent to Kabul for counting. From all over Afghanistan reports like this are coming. Read more about it here: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/kandahar-tribal-leaders-accuse-karzai-camp-of-forging-votes/510804/

This is gangsterism plain and simple. And it will lead to violence cruel and horrible.

More reports about brazen fraud, cheating and deception are pouring in. Even the usually craven BBC has been forced to report like this http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8239500.stm .

But, whoever made these election rules (under the supervision of the US & NATO) made them very sly and unjust. They fixed a short time limit to file complaints. In India there is no time limit. Once that clever date is past no one can question the result. How very convenient to perpetuate a lie, a hoax. That is why Karzai's men kept stuffing the ballot boxes. This would not have happened without the benign nod of the US & NATO troops gallant-only-to-Karzai Government! This is not democracy. It is a cynical, dishonest dictatorship that is arrogant because of the support it gets from its puppeteers.

Poor Afghanistan. Its destined to suffer. A corrupt Government can not fight the wicked Taliban.

Opium Wars I & II were fought because the British wanted to forcibly smuggle opium into China. Opium War III is pay back time. The first two wars lasted from 1839 to 1842 and 1856 to 1860. III has already outlasted both of them put together. If elections continue to be rigged it will last decades, and Afghanistan will be known as The Opium Republic.

Romesh Bhattacharji

rbhatto@yahoo.co.in

Millions

Chongkham Sanjit's murder in Imphal,Manipur: Uniformed Atrocities

2009-08-25T03:20:00.000-07:00

On the 23rd of July, 2009 an ex-PLA youth, who had been living a normal life for some time was brutally murdered in broad daylight, in cold blood, in Khwairamband bazar in Imphal by Manipur policemen. Another in th elong line of murders committed by uniformed personnel.

This was not the first such incident and surely it will not be the last. The para military and the army have to fill their quota of insurgents eliminated and they will continue to do so in similar cowardly manner. But next time they will ensure that there are no cameras present. They will revert to killing insurgents, ex-insurgents, and innocents stealthily. The New Delhi magazine Tehelka had published pictures of the murder in its 1st August issue. Only then there was large scale revulsion, which included even our Prime Minister.

However, after the dust and the din is settled it will be the uniform that will continue to have free use of bullets. No one in the Government would like to disturb the status quo where the forces can do what ever they want under the AFSPA. There is nothing to separate them in actions from the insurgents, who are just as blood thirsty. However, it is not expected for a disciplined force to behave in brutal and callous disregard of laws and human rights.

Ever since 1956 at least such brutalities perpetrated by the armed forces have been common. In 1956 Dr. Haralu, an 82 year old popular Naga doctor, was walking near the Kohima Cemetery, Nagaland with his 5 year old grand daughter when he was needlessly shot and killed by an Army patrol. No suitable action was taken as it was felt that it would demoralise the forces. No such thought was given to the people who were nauseated by this brainless and wicked performance. Since then there have been innumerable such incidents of rape and carnage and no salutary action has been taken against any armed forces offender.

Nandita Haksar, the fearless human rights lawyer, has detailed many such atrocities in her excellent book "Naga File".
Illusion of perfect peace: Picture of fields taken from Maibamlokpaching>>
In Novmber 1987 while destroying cannabis fields in Ukhrul district of Manipur I met a lady constable from Manipur Armed Police, who were helping us in these operations. She had a closely cropped hair style, wore sun glasses and always appeared very upset. With great difficulty a heart rending story was blurted out. She was from a village near Kamjong, which is to the east of Ukhrul and not the Khamjong on way to Pallel, and was a close relative of a prominent insurgent. Her village used to be raided frequently by the Army and Assam Rifles. One night when she was just sixteen years old the soldiers raped her, killed her fatehr and permanently maimed one of her brothers. For a while she had thoughts of revenge, but her family compelled her to escape to Imphal and persuaded her to hide as a police woman.

I have written about this episode in my book on the North East called "Lands of Early Dawn."

There are innumerable other such incidents. Will the Prime Minsiter open up all of them? Can he guarrantee that these shocking brutalities will not be repeated? Is he at all interested in making more than a few sympathetic noises? Or is he hoping that public memory is short and they will forget such incidents? I can assure him that no one has forgotten any such incident. And there are many.

Five or six years or so ago there was that shooting incident in and outside the Medical College at Imphal. On a January morning an impatient CRPF soldier wanted to relieve himself but all the toilets were full. In impatient, indisciplined and typical anger of a uniformed man he kicked open a door. The youth inside retaliated by beating him up. The result: there was indiscriminate firing that killed several including an Arunachali student from the medical college, who had just come back from home leave, and was ringing up his parents to inform them that he had arrived safely. He was shot in the PCO!

In 2000, a little beyond Imphal Airport, 10 people standing at a bus stop were killed in an unprovoked brutal firing by Assam Rifles. One of those killed was an 18-year-old National Child Bravery Award winner. This is the notorious incident that led the brave lady Irom Sharmila to undertake a fast that still continues today.

Many people think that it is in the self propagating interest of the armed forces to have such incidents. For, there will be protests and some mayhem which will require to be repressed severely. Thus these goons in uniforms will not allow peace to prevail for more than a few weeks, before another human rights violation leads to a cycle of protests and suppression and demands for more funds for the forces! Just as it is happening in Kashmir, where the atrocities are even worse and don't get noticed as much. No soldier or bureaucrat or politician has the courage to stop these brutalities, which are one of the reasons that fuel insurgency.

These are only a few of the incidents. There are many more in other parts of the North East. Each has left an indelible blot on people's minds. Each such incident only feeds the insurgency, even though people of the Norht East are disgusted with the insurgents as well. Remember that heart rending sight of Metei ladies protesting naked outside the Kangla fort in the autumn of 2004? It revolted every one- except soldiers, bureaucrats and politicians. They just devised new comfort arguments to justify whatever they had been doing and will perpetrate in the future. That is why that why the Manipur Police had 74 gallantry awards out of the 212 that were distributed all over India on Independence Day this year. (Indian Express, 24th of August, 2009)

For the past few years the people of Manipur, by and large, were turning against the insurgents. Their fight would have been easier had there been no atrocities by the forces. As long as there are atrocities, it will be difficult to stop insurgency. Will there be no end? Is there no leader principled enough to put a stop to this? Till then this beautiful land will continue to hear agonising screams. Chongkham will not be the last.

The same nightmarish experiences are being heaped often in Kashmir too.

If any reader has knowledge and details of any atrocities committed by the armed forces and the insurgents any where in India I would be very grateful to share them.

Please e mail any such to me at rbhatto@yahoo.co.in + comments if you wish to add. Thank you.

Romesh Bhattacharji

Motorcylcing across the Himalaya- its been done for more than three decades

2009-08-22T07:39:00.000-07:00

Every year countless gangs on mobikes go tearing through the Himalaya, the Zanskar and sometimes touching the Trans Himalaya, without being any wiser about the giant mountain systems they pierce through on roads that have been built with so much sacrifice and labour.

They create records like Delhi to Khardung La and back in 82 hours! With digital cameras having made photography easy for morons even, beautiful photographs are immediately put on countless web sites. Continuing the fetish for publicity larger and larger groups go ‘raiding’(an obnoxious disrespectful term) the Himalaya. Every year a TV documentary or two also crops up. All have this in common- many interviews exaggerating the difficulties met and very little of the magnificent views of the mountains, lakes and passes.

On the 1st of August (?) I saw a TV programme on News X of some motoryclists talking of the “incredible” feats that they had done. One of them speaking to the camera from Kunzum la was saying that the roads were rough and sometimes there were no roads!! This statement was simply wrong. This is a 34 years old road where there is a daily bus service for more than two decades. There is no need to pad stories with such exaggerations. This happens only when little knowledge of the mountains is inversely proportionate to one’s ego. With these rushing in and out they miss out on many stunning topographical features.

I list a few only so that they can be noticed by some interested ‘marauders’ later on.

At Rhotang Pass the Pir Panjal range, that rises from Domel near Muzaffrabad in Pakistan Kashmir, is crossed. As soon as that is done one sees the spectacular collection of a myriad Himalayan peaks known collectively as the Chandra Bhagas and Mulkilas and a few more like the Gepang Goh. The mostly tarred road goes around them from –using an aviator’s lingo- from 6 O’Clock till 1 O’Clock.

Around Kalpa, Phuti Runi (it is a centuries old word meaning Split in the Great Rock, which is precisely the point where the Himalaya are pierced!) - which is by the Chandra River near Baltal below Kunzum La and much before Gramphoo, Baralacha la, and Zoji la is the Great Himlayan Crest crossed.

The Srinagar – Leh road has a few diversions to the north that lead to magnificence that wrench one’s heart.
Near Minimarg comes in a beautiful road from Kishenganga valley.
From Kargil a road goes to the troublesome border village of Batalik, on the India-Pakistan Line of Control (LOC) and then turns east along the Indus to Khaltse.

After the striking gompa of Mulbek and before Bod Kharbu a good road branches off to Achinathang, with a dramatically placed gompa, on the Indus.

On the breath taking Kargil – Padam route the good road after Parkachik goes round the Nun Kun massif from 6 O’Clock to 2 O’Clock till Pense La, after which it follows the long Durung Drung glacier for about 3 kms.

The Ladakh Range or Kailash Range, which starts at Kiris village in Pakistan where the Shyok meets the Indus and ends 15 kms after Mt. Kailash in Tibet, crosses the Indus in Ladakh at what is now known as Loma Bend. The bridge here is at the confluence of the Hanle with the Indus, which becomes an important river from this point.

If one follows the right bank road of the Indus to Tsaka village, past the Yak farm, and then to Tchaga La and Chushul one is technically in the Trans Himalaya.

At Miarsmik La (beyond Phobrang in the north of Pangong Tso)to Pamzal on the Changchenmo river is the Trans Himalaya crossed.

Across the Khardung La in Ladakh Range is Panamik on the Nubra river.
Just before this village is a soda ash plain called Pulthang.
From it juts out a grey black jumble of rocks about a km long and half as wide. Climb to the top and there is a volcanic crater with a small lake in it. The lake is called Lobame tso. Below and beyond can be seen the Nubra in its wide bed.

The second range of mountains above the eastern shores of the Pangong Tso are now, since 1962, unfortunately with China. Ani la, which is where the Line of Actual Control (LAC) is now, can be seen from all along the western shore of the beautiful lake.

After crossing Chang la towards Tankse, and before Durbug, can be seen the modest beginning of the awesome Karakoram Range. For a closer look branch off from Durbug to Shyok village above the BIG V turn of the Shyok river. From within this V starts the famous Karakoram Range which has 6 of the fourteen 8 thousand metres high peaks in the world.

At Tankse, near the Government Primary School, are two huge laminatdd boulders with Petroglyphs or rock engravings from BC and the 9th and 10th centuries. They are in hieroglyphics, Persian and Cyriac.

From Man, Merak and Kakstet villages can be seen the strange helmet shaped island of Tabo Topo on the eastern shore. The 150 kms long Pangong Range, which starts at Agham on the Shyok before Khalsar in Nubra Valley, ends about 30 kms after the Pangong Tso turns east towards Khurnak Fort soon after Kakstet village. The International Boundary between India and China once was at Khurnak Fort.

The LAC is east of and very close to the Chushul road. After Kakstet as the road turns towards Chushul, not only is the Pangong Range crossed, but Srijap on the East bank of P Tso and Yula directly south but on the west bank, are close by. They are now with China, but in October 1962, when they were snatched from India, were witness to scenes of heroic unequal battles fought between ill clad and inadequately armed Indian soldiers with the vastly superior equipped Chinese hordes.

This kind of knowledge can be gleaned only if one tarries to talk to people along the way, and not rush about with chests puffed and mouths stuffed. Take weeks off instead of days and revel in the beauty that you have had the good fortune to see.

Over the years I have talked to many such hurrying motorcyclists and was shocked to find how uniformly ignorant they were about the mountains and valleys they rush through. Infact, they were not even conscious of their ignorance.

And, if they think that these routes are difficult now, consider what they were in the 1970s when my friend Adil Tyabji and I traversed them by motorcycles many times, and in the 80s when my friend Bill Aitken did it all alone repeatedly. I have added photographs {http://bameduniya.tripod.com/motorcycling_across_the_himalaya_3_moren_decades_ago/} from that age. In Ocotber 1977 when we crossed Kunzum La, which only had a mile stone, the road after Kaza to Lossar was still being filled in and Khardung La is unrecognisable. In those days after we left Srinagar or Manali or Shimla we could not even get a clutch wire!

So don’t brag many have walked where you have had the good fortune to drive these days. And even that is being done from 35 years ago. I have done both ages ago. Walked, climbed and motorcycled.
I hope I don't sound pompous?

The pictures at the end are of the Khardung La (18,380'). The first two were taken 34 years and 35 years ago. The last one shows K La now. No thrills or fears there now. As these ladies sunning themselves after an over crowded bus stops atop the Khardung la show!

Romesh Bhattacharji

Shah Rukh Khan, ex President Abdul Kalam & ex President Bil Clinton and biased US security checks

2009-08-22T07:28:00.000-07:00

News: Last week India's most famous current actor was detained for two hours at US's NEWARK airport and grilled by ignorant US Security.

Back to the past: Three years ago or so US ex-President Bill Clinton had come to Delhi. He did not depalne from his aircraft as he did not want to go through the usual line meant for others. HE had to have special treatment. So, four limos from the US Embassy in Delhi were sent to pick him up from the airport. Now, when the Indian Security chaps wanted to frisk these US gentlemen and check their cars, they did not allow it. For 45 minutes or so this staolemate continued till the Indian Foreign Ministry oficials decided to be good hosts and allowed the cars to pick up that ex-President.
Cut to the present: Since April there have been two reported incidents of India's best being harrassed by thoughtless US Security. First it was our ex-President Abdul Kalam and now it is Shah Rukh Khan, a face recognised all over the world, who were pointlessly checked by US security. The excuse being trotted out by helpful channels in India is that this is routine security. Routine Security ? Bah. Tell that to the Marines. Its routine inefficiency and racial bias. Only they are credulous enough to believe it. What happened to their much vaunted PROFILING SYSTEM? By this so called scientific electonic system they are supposed to eliminate multiple harrassment, select targets, save time and give quick clearances.
What happened in these two case? Either their profiling sytem did not or does not work? Or, they make it a point to target well known Asians just to show how thorough and unbiased they are in their security checks. They do not subject every passenger to such checks. Why does it happen to the more important ones routinely and especially? Apart from having an inefficient system , just like their so called Smart Bombs that routinely kill civilians, the US Security picks on Asian VIPs as scapegoats to create an impression of rigid and inflexible security. TV Channels like CNN-IBN, which though Indian are puppets for the American CNN, wasted hours on this topic being more emotional and loud than sensible. Not one of them, not even the usually sensible NDTV, tried to understand what this profiling system is nor did they mention that incident of one of their ex-Presidents at Delhi Airport.

Afterword: Profiling System collects data about millions of risky individuals all over the world and stores their bio datas into a multi accessible electronic data system. It has usual information like home address, date of birth, occupation, past and history of crimes and odd behavious + photographs, wherever possible. The Americans consider their system to be so perfect that they have the cheek to run courses all over the world on profiling! And yet when it comes to our VIPs it suddenly collapses and reducing the US officials to making third rate excuses like miss handled baggage was the reason for detaining Shah Rukh Khan. In addition, an efficient profiling system helps to separate the good from the bad and the suspicious. What lind of a security system is this that regularly gets the wrong ones?

Another Afterword: Only when American nobs are searched at Asian Airports as our Cabinet Minister Ambika Soni threatened will these pompous and arrogant searches stop.

Romesh Bhattacharji

To reopen the broken Stilwell Road or to use the existing low level all weather excellent Lohit Valley road to China for trade

2008-04-07T07:51:00.000-07:00

Implications of the bridge over Lohit at Parsuramankund :

People from the North East keep talking about reopening the Ledo Road also known as the Stilwell Road to Kunming, China via Myktina in Myanmar for trade and tourism. They obviously do not know that there is a low level motorable road right up to the China Border along the Lohit river.
Read on.

Last June, a bridge over the Lohit river near the famous Parsuraman Kund in Wakhro district of East Arunachal Pradesh was opened. This bridge took more than 20 years to build, and for the past three months has already been making making life easy for the people of this hitherto marooned district in Aruanchal Pradesh. People from Lohit can now visit markets, educational and medical centers in Upper Assam throughout the year. Avoiding a 4 hour journey over two pontoon bridges and one ferry and over a 20 kms sand bed in the non rainy season. With the Namsai bridge over the Dihing this bridge is the last link to complete the now all weather road right up to the Indo-Tibet border at Kahao beyond Walong from Dibrugarh in Upper Assam. From Sama, the Tibetan village just across there is a good road deep into Tibet and all the way to Chengdu in Sczchewuan.
The border is around 400 kms from Dibrugarh. International trade possibilities are limitless, provided quick and right decisions are made regardless of the security phobia that usually scuttles such optimism.

There is bound to be an improvement in the economic lives of the Mishmis and Megyors (of Tibetan origin in and around Walong) and in their health. They will be able to market their vegetables and colourful sarongs easily in Upper Assam and later perhaps in adjoining Tibet. The large quantity of vegetables that are grown in the Mishmi Hills will not rot. There is a Mishmi Ladies Economic Welfare Society, amongst many others, that was preparing for just such an opportunity. The maintenance and stocking of Primary health centers and schools will also improve. This district till now used to be cut off from the neighbouring districts of Arunachal for about 5 months in a year. Five years back I had seen, in April, exam papers being ferried across the Lohit on elelphant back. It will no longer be the most cut off district in Arunachal and the North East.

The Lohit valley and hills are a continuation of the precious stones rich Precambrian rocks of Mogok range of Myanmar. Near Walong traces of pyrite and calc silicate have been found raising hope for commercial exploitation. Then there are huge amounts of limestone around Tidding just off the Tezu – Hayuliang Road. Marble deposits have been found in the Doloi valley near Tezu, Hayuliyang and Walong. Other metals that have been detected in this district are graphite, and molybedite. Their exploitation can soon bring sorely needed employment to the youth of this area, who were leaving this district for better prospects
elsewhere.

This belt from Chowkham till Walong is also an increasing illicit opium cultivating belt. Even after 60 years of independence opium is still being used for medicinal purposes by the Mishmis of the hills and the Khamptis of the plains from Dirok till Namsai as Public Health Centres are not dependable. With this all weather road enforcement will be easy and so will giving medical attention to all who need it thus hopefully spelling an end to this evil. With new economic opportunities available some of these youth cultivating opium will not need to depend on this noxious weed as their sole source of support.

A very important possibility that this bridge provides is that Arunachal and Upper Assam will have the quickest link to Tibet along the entire Indo-Tibet border. The economic benefit of such a link can accrue only when a brave policy decision is taken. Till 1952 there was a Tibetan Trade Agent posted in Tezu (before the 1950 earthquake he was in Sadiya) and an Indian one in Rima (Zayui as it is now called). With an all weather connection to Tibet available there is no reason, strategic or econominc, that these links can not be resumed. Kahao (India) is the lowest point (about 1600 m only) along the entire Indo-Tibet border and for this reason access to Tibet can be assured around the year. A few days may be lost during monsoons when there are landslides on some portions of this road. The Walong-Kibithoo (Kahao)- Zayui (2325 m) border crossing can be the most important one along the entire border 5000 kms long border. This low altitude road is a very convenient link with Eastern Tibet which being Tibet's most populous side also has the largest network of roads in all Tibet, and it is expanding too. The interior of Tibet is high altitude and getting supplies in winter is difficult. In winter Upper Assam and Lohit district can send fresh vegetables, fruit, meat etc to Eastern Tibet. It is also a much more accessible route to Kunming than the Stilwell Road, which has limited capabilities. In contiguous areas of Upper Assam are enormous deposits of low ash content coal. Sending this coal to Kunming by the Stilwell Road as many people had suggested is a pipe dream as Kunming has similar variety of coal. But to send it to Eastern Tibet is easier as they will have ready use for it. Tar for road building is an easy extract from this type of coal and with the intensified road building activity in that part of China the market for this coal will be literally at both door steps.

The closest town in Tibet is Rima or Zayui (also the Tibetan name for River Lohit). It is about 50 kms from the border. Chengtu, in the Central Chinese province of Szechwan and also the important E. Tibetan town of Qamdo can now be more accessible for Indian goods, which the resource rich industrial center of Kunming can not be. The trade possibilities are immense for both sides. From Bangda, half way to Qamdo from Zoyul a road goes to Chengdu and another to Kunming. If a route to Kunming is required this, although longer one, would be easier and cheaper than the Stilwell Road, 1300 kms of which will have to be widened and strengthened at immense cost.

For these plans to fructify political and bureaucratic will is necessary. On the 19 th of May, 2006, while addressing a press conference in Guwahati the Minister of State for Commerce, Jairam Ramesh, dismissed the opening up of the Stilwell Road as strategically unfeasible. He had given the wrong reason for the right decision. The 1700 kms long Stilwell Road linked Upper Assam with Kunming in Yunan, China during the last days of World War II. It was a one way road and was used only twice before military planners realized that supplying by air was much more effective. To reopen it would be an economically disastrous proposal. To use security as the main reason is short sighted and a weak kneed policy. What is the Indian Government worried about? That China or Myanmar will encourage insurgency? Even without their help the insurgents in the North East have survived. Do they fear that insurgents will be able to use the road to further their nefarious purposes? Insurgents will not use a patrolled road, unless security men have been bought over, and would prefer to cross through jungles.

If refineries and huge power plants can come up close to the Indo-Pakistan border in Punjab and more and more road and rail links opened to that country, why can not trade with China be resumed along the Dibrugarh-Tezu-Kahao-Rima (Zayui) road? Are the policy makers scared of Chinese goods flooding the markets in the North East? If they could only walk in any market any where in the North East and many in the rest of the country they will see that Chinese goods are in abundance in any case, and most of them have been smuggled in. A trans border road will channel this trade and at least some duties can be collected from it. Hopefully, more people in the entire belt from Jorhat-Dibrugarh upwards will improve economically and not just a few, who keep benefiting from such improvements usually. I must add that while we are too strict about even Indians visiting Walong and beyond, the Chinese have no qualms at all about letting foreigners roam at will in Zayui and even upto the border. It is the way that one looks at a situation is the key difference. For the Chinese development is the key word, while for us it is suspicion and irresponsible bureaucratic arrogance that delays inevitable change.

Strategic reasons, which no one defines or describes, should no longer be the excuse for blocking economic regeneration of the North East. With fairer distribution of resources even insurgency may be finished.

The two pictures at the beginning of this blog are of the road to Pangsau Pass via Digboi and Jagun, and the view of Shibwiyang Lake in Burma from Pangsau Pass. The two lower pictures are of the Lohit Valley road to Kahao (Kibithoo) on the Tibet Border . Compare the two roads. I needn't write more!

E mail: rbhatto@gmail.com

Romesh Bhattacharji

Afghanistan's Narcotics dilemma- a possible solution

2008-04-06T01:19:00.000-07:00

Afghanistan: Galloping opium production and insurgency. .. A solution ….#2

The problem in Afghanistan is narcotics. That it supports the Taleban insurgency is no longer a secret. Even to the Americans. US Army Genl Dan K McNeil and ISAF Commander in early 2007 admitted “I don’t believe that we can deal with the insurgency in a complete fashion without taking on the issue of poppy.” The latest UN Rapid Survey for 2007 has projected 8200 tons of opium, an increase of 34% over the previous year. This means that in 2008 the rebels will cause more mayhem. During the days of the much maligned Najibullah Government of the 80s the average area under opium cultivation was around 10,000 hectares annually, but when its fall became imminent it shot up to 25,000 in 1987 and 32,000 in 1988, after which it continued leaping. There is such a glut that opium prices have started to fall. The whole sale retail price of opium after has fallen from $ 94 per kg in 2006 to $ 86 per kg in 2007. The farmer gets about $ 35 per kg as he has to pay protection money to the Taleban and hush money to Anti Narcotics officers. Not very encouraging for a billion dollars spent annually. The narcotics trade is about 53% of Afghanistan’s GDP of $ 7.5 billion.

Illicit opium cultivation increased when the Americans encouraged the Mujahideen in the late 80s and the Taleban in the 90s to fight against the Najibullah Government. It bankrolled that war. These links, still alive, have made it impossible for the Karzai Government to even reduce opium production.

This intimacy has ensured the appointment of many ex-Mujahideen and ex-Taleban as officials in the Karzai government despite 9/11. Without American patronage this could never have happened. And it is not that the Americans are innocent of reality. In Dec 2005 from the house of the then Governor of Helmand, Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, an ex-Taleb, 9 tons of opium were seized. As he was too precious for the American and British Military Intelligence and diplomats to be punished he was installed as an MP in the Afghan National Assembly. With such splendid collaboration with narcotic traffickers there can be no reduction in the opium production in Afghanistan. Collusion and corruption are the reasons for Karzai Government’s failure in curbing opium cultivation.

There are other such shocking instances. In 2001 the West and the UN certified that the Talban had kept their promise of preventing opium cultivation. They claimed only 185 tons had been produced. In 2000 and 2001 the Indian Government had monitored by satellite some poppy growing areas of Southern Afghanistan, and they learnt that it was drought that had reduced the opium as well as other crops, and not Taleban’s restraint. Pictures #1 and # 2 show the Achin area in Nangarhar in 2000 and 2001. These pictures do not show much difference in opium cultivation, but the an obliging team from 8 nations and the UN that was escorted there by Pakistani officials and Taleban soldiers in March 2001 to a nearby area said that there was no opium crop. In some areas of Nangarhar where there was little shortage of water opium production was almost normal. The West and its embedded correspondents were so eager to be deceived that they praised and are still praising the Taleban for their imagined abstinence in 2001. This refusal to cut off ties with these bigoted unruly hordes is what is maintaining them.

For the past three years reports have been increasing about US troops facilitating narcotics trafficking to Europe and Russia. They reportedly ferry it to their air bases in Kyrghystan, Turkey and Germany. This development was inevitable as opium cultivation has somehow led an improbably charmed life. Recently, Mr. Z. Kabulov, the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan, publicly voiced his country’s concern about this trafficking by US forces.

One billion dollars a year are spent against narcotics trafficking in Afghanistan every year, and yet opium fields keep increasing. With that amount the entire opium crop could be bought easily. Iran which spends less than 1/6th this amount is thrice as successful in seizing drugs. They also loose at least 300 soldiers every year. Addiction in Iran to Afghan heroin is increasing as it has become the most important transit route for heroin to Central Asia, Europe and Russia. In 2007 Iran seized 231,352 kgs of Afghan opium as compared to Afghanistan’s 90,990 kgs. Afghanistan seized 9079 kgs of heroin while Pakistan seized 24,341 kgs, Iran 12,493 kgs and China 9085 kgs. Thus, Afghanistan which produces 93% of world’s opium and heroin seizes only 27% of opium and 10% of heroin.

In 2007 about 193,000 hectares of opium were cultivated from 21 provinces instead of 165,000 from 28 the year before. Not only is opium cultivation getting concentrated in a fewer provinces but the yield is getting higher. From 37 kgs in 2006 to 42.5 kgs per hectare in 2007. The production in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar continues to leap frighteningly every year. It more than makes up for the loss of opium from the so called opium free provinces. Now, Nimroz, the province in the SW that was only famous for producing heroin has produced 372 tons of opium in 2007 an increase of 301 tons over 2006!

There is a new Golden Triangle emerging. It covers contiguous territories of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. Within this 70% of opium is produced, 90% of heroin and all most all of it is trafficked from here.

Afghanistan has a 920 kms long border with Iran. Most of it is easy to cross deserts. The Iranians have set up 70 forts on their side of the border and have also constructed 28 forts for Afghanistan. Despite these forts, latest wireless and arms, and smartest SUVs available anything can go across or be brought in. The trickle down effect from this Iran corridor has caused a phenomenal rise in addiction. More than 2 million in Iran, and the number keeps increasing.
The most sensitive province within this province is Nimroz. That is where India is building a more than 300 kms long road from Zaranj to Delaram, where most of this province’s opium is being cultivated now. The eastern line (Map # 1) of this Golden Triangle starts from Herat and joins Zhob in Pakistan’s NWFP. The western and 600 kms long southern lines are formed by the almost straight lines of the Afghanistan-Iran and Afghanistan-Pakistan borders.
Nimroz is Baluch area, as are the adjacent lands in Pakistan to the South and Iran to the West. This region is a series of deserts. Baluch run massive and numerous refining facilities openly flourish in Baramcha and Rudbar in SW Nimroz and close to Helmand. There is no law here. Though completely Baluch it has the protection of the Taleban, and except for a few superficial shows of force like silly ones of ISAF helicopters buzzing vehicles around Baramcha this town is largely left undisturbed in its work of producing high quality heroin. A Counter Narcotics Police offical told me in Zaranj that Baramcha has such big traffickers that they buy 5-6000 kgs of opium at a time. From here escorted convoys of 5-6 SUVs carrying heroin or opium machine gun their way to either Iran or Pakistan. A Police official of Nimroz mentioned that the big traders of Baramcha are Barahavi Baluch. One of the dozen largest traffickers is Juma Khan. He is a Baluch, and all his trafficking is done under the cover of a construction company called Rudbar, tauntingly named after a place called Rudbar near Baramcha. His huge high walled house in Zaranj is opposite the modest by comparison Governor’s office. The Governor Ghulam Dastgir Azad has his own militia that protects drug convoys too. At Kerta Post near the Iran border I was in a Border Police Convoy in Sept 2006 when it was fired upon by some of his militia. He charges India’s Border Roads Organisation for more than 1000 soldiers but provides only 360. His fondness for money has made him tolerant of narcotics smuggling. In November 2007 in a counter attack on him by Taleban supported traffickers one of his sons was killed. It is impossible with the prevailing corruption to do anything to dry the flood of opium, which is the only profitable industry and it employs 14% of the population.

The only narcotics pictures from Afghanistan the world sees are of opium poppy blooming or of opium fields. A few will be of the drugs market in Jalalabad. There is much more to trafficking than that. Opium has to be refined into heroin and then there is the dusty business of transporting it.

At Kurki, in North Nimroz’s Khash desert, I was surpised to see giant oil tankers drive in from Iran to fill up smaller tankers and thousands of lined up oil drums with petrol, diesel and kerosene. This was being done under the noses of gun toting Customs and Border Police officials, who were watching the operations from the roof tops of their posts. No one was interfering. As they were all profiting from it. In Herat to the north, border smuggling is not so open but is just as audacious. In post after lonely sand swept post I heard, from the soldiers no less, the familiar refrain of drugs being moved in cavalcades protected by anti tank rockets and heavy machine guns. Destitute Afghans too are trafficked in these convoys to Iran. In return come in precursor chemicals, arms, cars and POL.

I had lunch with some wealthy villagers of Khamona, a border village, from where several large seizures of opium and heroin have been made. They scornfully said that most of these seizures are actually tributes to the troops to show that they are doing their job. The main job of these forces is to make money. No matter how. All along this border I saw nothing to justify any hope. The soldiers and some of the strutting officers are illiterate. They have bribed to be recruited. Their low salary of $60/- is insufficient in a land where an egg costs 10 cents. Optimism is only for official reports so that more money can be wasted next year. The soldiers accuse their senior officers of being so wealthy that they own palaces in Kabul’s most expensive suburbs.

Smuggling on such a scale could not have been operated so confidently and openly without corruption. In Sherpur and Wazir Akbar Khan suburbs of Kabul numerous impossibly gaudy and extravagant million dollar mansions can be seen. A few such houses can also be seen in Herat, Kandahar, Lashkar Gah in Helmand, and Zaranj in Nimroz. The most popular joke in Afghanistan is this one: President Karzai was asked “When will corruption reduce in Afghanistan.” Karzai replies: “ How much will you give me to do that?” His own brother Ahmed Wali Karzai is reported to be the biggest benefactor and protector of all drug cartels. His tribe – Popalzai- are an opium growing tribe from South Kandahar. Hamid Karzai, once an ex-Taleb himself, has to, thus, tolerate such disgusting display of wealth in a country where most of his 28 million people earn less than $40/- a month.

Enforcement, Eradication, Training, Righteous Intentions, Contractors and a one billion dollar annual budget have failed. Might has not been right for the past 6 years. It is time to give other voices a chance.

Legalise the opium cultivation. This is what the Senlis Council’s Poppy for Medicine (P4M) plan is. Senlis is a think tank based in London and has offices in Kandahar and Helmand. After three years of research they found that enforcement has failed so far, and eradication targets only the hapless few.

By this plan the village council, known as shura, will supervise cultivation. It will have the power to delicense and penalize any farmer within its fold if he diverts opium. This will eliminate the venal Government. Profits will be shared amongst the village councils for development of their villages, and some sort of a tax kept for the Government. The State and Central Government will attend mainly to the security. Thus forming a Triad of sorts. The opium collected from a cluster of villages within a province will be converted into morphine. This will introduce technology and financial management amongst the village councils. Those farmers who do not give the minimum yield of opium fixed for their fields will not be allowed to grow opium next year. This aspect is borrowed from India’s experience in licit cultivation of opium.

Every year the Minimum Qualifying Yield will be raised, and thus gradually more and more farmers will be phased out. But they will be provided with other employment or alternative crops like artemisia, zafran, apples and walnuts etc. The farmer is the “least corrupt” of the entire society in Afghanistan. It is deprivation that has forced him to cultivate opium to such an extent that now 14% of Afghanistan’s population live on opium cultivation. With poverty and creditors banging at his door the farmer pays the Taleban for protecting his opium. Senlis found that most of the farmers want to be part of the legal economy. The biggest advantage of the P4M scheme (Poppy for Medicine) is that the Taleban will in a decade or so be starved of most of the funds that are sustaining them. It may sound too simple and idealistic, but it is possible, despite the all pervading problems of corruption and terror. It will take time. Since 2002 more than $5 bln have been utterly wasted on narcotics enforcement. In these 6 years opium production has increased by 230% from 74,000 hectares and 3400 tons to 193,000 hectares and 8200 tons.

All the opium produced is illegal and uncontrollable. Even at the shaky nascent stage, whatever legal opium is recovered will be more than the 180 tons of opium being seized annually. Here could be grounds for optimism.

The advantages of this practical plan is that the farmers will be happy, the entire opium produce will no longer go for illicit purposes, there will be more funds for development at the village level and every year there will be less farmers cultivating opium. Unfortunately, the Afghanistan government is against it because the billion dollar trafficking business is at risk. The US and British are against it as their highly paid consultants and contractors who are involved in eradication, enforcement and training will have to go. It will take many years for this project to stabilize. Diversion will always be there. It can be upto 30% judging from India’s experience. But it will be better than the present 100%.

The other motivation for this scheme comes from the fact that there is not enough cheap morphine –a derivative of opium- and the most efficacious pain killer, to go around. Just 8 countries of the world consume 80% of all morphine produced, whereas most of the 20 million cancer patients are in other countries. For most others it is too expensive. The Senlis Council has calculated that at least 140 tons of extra morphine is required to meet most of the current shortage. Ironically after the exit of Najibullah’s Government morphine consumption is presently zero after the .026 mg per head consumption in 1988. These days there are thousands of war wounded too. The claim that demand for morphine has reached saturation is hopelessly wrong. If it was so why should there be need for UK's pharma major Macfarlan Smith to grow about 2500 hectares of opium almost clandestinely. Now Canada is also thinking of growing opium to produce morphine!

Three pilot projects will test this scheme before it is adopted. They calculate that from 9.25 hectares a net profit of $20,000/- can be made after selling morphine. The morphine can be sold at a rate of $7.7/- per 10 mg in Brazil for instance, where US and UK firms sell it at about $ 60/- per 10 mg. This is the most important reason for the severe opposition from these two countries only. All I say is give Senlis a chance to disprove or prove their theory.

In India too the seizures of Afghan heroin in Punjab have increased by three times as much to about 500 kgs. The increasing opium production is a threat not only to heroin using countries like UK etc, but also pipeline countries like India. Along with the increasing amounts of Afghan heroin going through India the number of addicts in Punjab’s sensitive border areas are increasing. And the biggest threat is from the huge amounts of money that is being generated by this galloping opium production. Insurgency these days is a trans-national operation. Obscure, bigoted and ultra religious extremism are uniting similar sick minds the world over. They are being financed from lucrative narcotic deals, and are now a thorn in the sides of many countries around the world and especially in Iran, Pakistan, and India.

Romesh Bhattacharji

Afghanistan's Narcs problem--- # 1

2008-04-05T23:51:00.000-07:00

Narco-trafficking in Afghanistan as a threat to international security… #1

1. Afghanistan's booming opium prodcution is a headache for the whole world. Yet apart from spending money - billions of $- nothing is

being done to prevent it. Afghanistan epitomizes the profound implications that drug trafficking has for national, regional and international security. There are other examples from South Asia too. In the NE of India some insurgent groups extort money from drug trafficking organizations to fund their activities. There are similar reports about LTTE in Sri Lanka. These illustrate the clear ramifications that drug trafficking has for domestic and regional security.
2. There are three clear facets to the drug issue. The first relates to the trafficking of chemicals described as precursors, which are essential for the manufacture of drugs such as heroin and cocaine. The second is about the vast profits that the drug trade generates and the laundering of these profits. The third and perhaps the most relevant in the context of the present subject is the use of drug generated profits for the funding of terrorist activity.
4. Opium and cocoa producing countries are few, but countries that produce chemicals to refine these drugs are many. The heroin and cocaine producers of the nether world require these chemicals, known as precursors, e.g. Acetic Anhydride (AA) and Potassium Permanganate, to produce their noxious wares. To match the demand with adequate supplies criminal gangs with trans-national capabilities are necessary.
5. In the North East of India where I worked in the late 80s and early 90s we would hear of expected large opium harvests in adjacent Myanmar. As confirmation we would come across surreptitious orders for AA from India, which is a large producer of this chemical. These would be placed complete with detailed packing instructions. During that time there were many seizures, which eventually forced the criminals in Myanmar to get their supplies of AA from China. Narcotics were a significant reason for sustaining the insurgency in that region.
6. Picture # 1 shows 35 litre jerry cans of Indian Acetic Anhydride smuggled across in wooden crates. In Myanmar they would be tied below some of the boats that cross the Yu and Chindwin Rivers and taken to Kalemyo and Mandalay for dispersal to ‘refineries’.

7. I saw similar cross border business-like efficiency amongst the traffickers operating the drug routes to India through Pakistan from 1996 60 2003. Here too Acetic Anhydride would be booked many months ahead of the opium harvest in Afghanistan. The same modus operandi, but 2500 kms away. During this period the organizations I worked with were responsible for some large seizures of opium, heroin and precursor chemicals. The narcotics traffickers had easier access in the countries involved and were far more cooperative than any enforcement organizations.

8. The drug trade reacts to the changes in the world faster than Enforcement Agencies and is using the technological, financial and electronic wherewithal of globalisation to expand its reach over many countries. As an example of the traffickers being ahead of enforcement agencies there are reports of liquid heroin being seized from Central Asia. Their ruthless enterprise depends essentially on subversion of politicians and officials. Without them, continued criminal successes, despite ammending laws, would not be possible. It is a universally accepted axiom that less than 10% of all contraband is seized, and that too by the most alert enforcement agencies that have the advantage of the latest technologies and well trained men and women. It is not weaknesses in the laws but their ineffective implementation that is the problem.
9. Picture # 2 shows heroin packets thrown over the Indo-Pakistan Border fencing in India’s Punjab. They were supposed to have been picked up by an early morning border patrol, but Customs got there first. This was rather a crude way of smuggling heroin, but the traffickers would not have attempted it had they not been confident of the complicity of officials on both sides of the border.

10. Narcotics laws and rules of several countries, including those of Afghanistan, are all very practical and have been influenced by the various U N Conventions (1961. The Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs ; 1971. The Convention on Psychotropic Substances ; 1988. The UN Convention Against Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances). These Conventions have served as excellent lode stars. Some provisions of these Conventions require changes, and these will be considered by the next UN General Assembly Special Session on Narcotics in 2009.

11. It is the close knit relationship between criminal gangs and Governments which is preventing any resolution in Afghanistan. Every year the Taleban get richer and stronger. They can finance terror all over the world. Opium cultivation in Afghanistan is more lethal because most of it is exported. Every year production goes up and despite a billion dollars being spent on enforcement not a dent is made.

The drug mafia’s depredations are not restricted to the economy. It just as naturally enters politics, and penetrates into the Government. This criminalisation of political life is very marked in Afghanistan but can also be observed, for example, in all the 12 CIS counties. In several CIS countries banks and companies were involved in laundering criminal proceeds, including money from the illicit drug trade. In 1999 in Moscow investigators found that a “Sherkhan Bank”, established by Afghans, laundered millions of dollars out of Russia.

13. Afghanistan’s narcotics laws are just as good as any other country’s, but yet there is no let up in trafficking despite enforcement organizations having more money than they can handle. The fault lies in corruption and collusion.

14. During my visits to the posts on the Afghanistan – Iran border in Herat and Nimroz province I was surprised to find that apart from a sort of an attendance register and some kind of a wireless log book there was no other documentation in most of the Border Posts. There was no evidence of any control exercised by senior officers except rare visits. Most of the posts were manned by illiterate soldiers. Even the Commander of a Border Post in Herat was unlettered. Nearly all the soldiers were young. The old experienced, and literate, soldiers having been pensioned off under an ill advised scheme. They were thought to have been perhaps tainted by their association with the Najibullah Government, during whose tenure cultivation averaged 10,000 ha. Their replacements owed their employment to bribery. They now make money to pay off debts and feed their officers. Thus destabilization begins from the lowest rung. It is just as easy to buy off higher echelons with the huge assets that the narcotics traffickers continue to accumulate. A system which is so fundamentally flawed can hardly be expected to be effective against well organized and entrenched drug cartels.

15. The Afghan narcotics scene is dominated by corrupt officials, war lords, drug lords, and above all by the Taleban. While a soldier in the Government got in late 2006 the small amount of $ 40/-, a Taleban soldier got $300/- to begin with. And all his expenses were taken care off. Taleban have a very simple system. They would ask an area’s drug lord to pay for the entire upkeep of 10 soldiers including their arms. In return their business would be protected, as it has been so far. The poor farmer, the lowest in the drug chain and paradoxically the most honest, is the one who pays the most. From the UN stated farm gate price of about $86/- per kg, the opium farmer is left with only $40/- per kg after paying bribes and protection money. Thus the criminal juggernaut rolls on feeding on greed, exploiting the vulnerabilities of a compromised enforcement apparatus and working in tandem with terror outfits in a mutually beneficial arrangement.

16. Living conditions in the Border Posts on the 920 kms Iran-Afghan border are horrible. The border is a series of deserts. Only in the north of Herat province where the thin sluggish Hirai Rud (river) marks the border is there some precipitation that nurtures woeful patches of vegetation amidst sand dunes. Its extremely hot or cold and always dusty. There is no water and the generators do not work. The poorly paid soldiers are not trained or committed enough to take risks or be honest, and rarely spend nights at their posts. In most of the posts the kitchen had never been used. No wonder the Iranians, who have posts opposite them seize more than 3 times as much narcotics as the Afghans. And spend only 15% of the amount.
17. Picture # 3 is of the comparatively ‘fertile’ village of Buniyad in North Heart. The scrub of Hirai Rud is at the back and Iran beyond. Villages such as these are ever ready to help smuggle narcotics- for a price. That Toyota inside the village is an indication of the prosperity that the drug trade has brought to these deserted frontier villages.

18. The example that their officers set is far from inspirational for the men in drug law enforcement. Those with influence get themselves posted out within days, and many of them have garish palaces in Kabul’s posh suburbs of Wazir Khan and Sherpur.

19. During the war to remove the Najibullah Government the US supported the Mujahideen and then the Taleban. It was during these years that the area under opium cultivation continued to expand reaching 193,000 ha in 2007! Quite a large number of the ex-Mujahideen and ex-Taleban who were being supported by the US then are now in powerful positions in the forces. It is impossible to expect them to eradicate the opium crop when they themselves had allowed it to flourish and profit from it. The much publicized eradication programme targets only the helpless and the poor and can not eradicate more than 15,000 ha at most annually.

20. There is an another strange system that is followed in Afghanistan. The Governors and even officials like local police chiefs run private militias. Most of these militias are anti-Taleban but also protect opium cultivation- on payment. That is the reason that the Taleban fights them. The Governor of Nimroz, has his own militia like many others. Like all others he is venal. He takes payment for providing 1000 troops from an Indian Road building organization but provided them till recently with just 300. Only after 6 of these road builders were killed by the Taleban did the security improve. His militia exclusively guards some of the most used routes to Iran. Like the one at Kerta post in northern Nimroz .

21. Picture # 4 is of Kerta Border Post in Nimroz Province. The uniformed gentleman and the two in black are part of the Governor’s private militia. Such militias are part of the drug problem.

22. Is it possible for any one to sustain such a huge militia without massive financial support? In a land that has no industry or even agriculture to have so much money is improbable, unless it is from narcotics. From the house of Muhammad Akhundzada, the then Governor of Helmand, 9 tons of opium were seized in 2005 by the DEA, which is often at loggerheads with their own diplomats and intelligence agencies. As he had been a favourite of the US and UK nothing happened to him. He is an MP in the Afghan Parliament, and in late 2006 started a large militia of his own, ostensibly to fight drug trafficking!

23. These are acts of omission and commission that have compounded the Afghan problem. If there was no corruption and collusion on such a wide spread scale the problem would not have become so intractable. Drug money buys arms and explosives to fan insurgency not only in Afghanistan, but elsewhere in the region. India, apart from Pakistan, too suffers periodically from attacks paid for from the limitless coffers of the Taleban and their cohorts.

24. There are 110 routes, along which narcotics are smuggled out of Afghanistan. About 15% of them are to Central Asia, another 20% to Pakistan, 10% to China, and the rest are to Iran. In that unfortunate country the addicts alone have doubled in the past decade to reach 2.5 mln. They have financed the construction of 28 forts on Afghanistan’s side of their border in the hope that they too would be effective. There is no chance of that.

25. Picture # 5 is of an Iranian fort taken from the Afghan one of Thane Haji Jan in Northern Nimroz. Officers in the fort across had made several seizures in 2006, whereas none from this post.

26. At Kurki post in Nimroz every day several commodities are briskly smuggled into Afghanistan and a few smuggled out. The Customs and Border Police officials posted there are not bothered. Long tankers carrying petrol and arms from Iran openly cross the border to fill up smaller Afghan tankers right under their noses and in broad day light. What they take back is any one’s guess. Humans are one item. Narcotics are probably the main contraband to make this journey. It is low in volume and high on value, and is the easiest way to pay for this constant stream of tankers and trucks. Such a huge illegal market can not function without the nearby Iranians’ complicity too. This only shows that even in a determined country like Iran, which has stringent laws, there are pockets where money power is supreme, and the staunchest disciplinarians are powerless.

27. Picture # 6 is of Kurki Border Post on the Iran border, across which all those tankers and trucks at the back have come.

28. Iran seized 231,352 kgs of opium against 90,990 by Afghanistan the source country. And Iran, Pakistan, China, Turkey, Tajikistan and Russian accounted for 69% of all the heroin seized in 2005. Afghanistan, seized a mere 10% or 9079 kgs.

29. UNODC keeps talking, as indicators of success, that 13 provinces are now opium free, but over all Kandahar and Helmand which produce 65% of opium not only make up for this presumed loss, but also increase their production by at least 30% every year. Opium from as far as Badakshan is brought to Baramcha in Nimroz for quality refining by expert Baluch ‘pharmacists’. Proving that it is safer to move the cultivation to Kandahar and Helmand where there is minimal interference from law.

30. Baramcha in the South Eastern tip of Nimroz is very close to Helmand. Here the heroin producing facilities are numerous and brazenly visible. Yet law has not reached them. Most consignments of opium to Baramcha reach it safely, suggesting some kind of official safe passage. Baramcha and most of Nimroz is a Baluch area. The contiguous territories in Iran and Pakistan are also Baluch. Tribal affiliations protect their criminal acts. Taleban guard the routes. It has become the heart of a new golden triangle. Within this triangle more than 65% of all opium is produced, about 80% of it is refined here, and about 70% of all the routes out are from this triangle. The target of Afghan drugs is mainly Europe, followed far behind by Russia and China. The Governments of these nations can not be subverted easily, but none the less many of their institutions are threatened.

31. Protection guaranteed by paying the Taleban or by bribing Government officials ensures a dramatic annual increase in production of opium. 14% of Afghanistan’s population is engaged in this activity. The farm gate value of the entire production at the rate of $86/- per kg is estimated to be about $ 1 billion. As most of the produce is exported it generates about $4 bln, which is about 53% of Afghanistan’s GDP. These figures are from UNODC. From this exercise the Taleban alone are raking in more than a $ 100 mln annually. Then the individual drug lords also get quite a sackful. With so much money floating around no one in authority in Afghanistan is keen on a solution. And the virus of insurgency is being financed from Afghanistan to vex countries close by. The explosion in a suburban train in Mumbai that killed about 200 was financed by Al Qaeda. And the never ending violent unrest in Pakistan’s Wazirstan province is directly financed by the Taleban.

32. Now there is news- not unexpected- that US servicemen too are involved in ferrying drugs to air bases in Kyrghystan and Turkey. Commenting on such reports the Russian Ambassador to Afghanistan diplomatically said that this is possible. Former US Ambassador to the UN, Richard Holbrooke wrote in the Washington Post in January “government officials, including some with close ties to the presidency, are protecting the drug trade and profiting from it.” The President’s brother Ahmed Wali Karzai is reported to be the hub for many traffickers. In the same article Holbrooke described the US counter narcotics effort in Afghanistan as “the single most ineffective programme in the history of American foreign policy.”

33. What was once an essentially domestic problem has now become the head ache of neighbouring countries. Narcotics fuelled mayhem is being spread near and far. In South Asia, West Asia, and Central Asia. Pakistan in 2005 seized 27% (24,341 kgs) of all heroin. In 2002, Turkmenistan’s Prosecutor General Kurbanbibi Atadzhanova was arrested for narcotics trafficking. In Tajikstan in 2002 more than 3 tons of heroin was seized. In the last two months of 2007 about 1 ton of opium and heroin were seized from the CIS states. Those arrested have been from all over the world.

“Something new and significant is going on in the world drugs market. In last year's World Drug Report we made the argument that drug control is working and the world drug problem is being contained. This 2007 Report provides further robust evidence of this trend. For almost every kind of illicit drug - cocaine, heroin, cannabis and amphetamine-type stimulants (ATS) - there are signs of overall stability, whether we speak of cultivation, production or consumption. Hopefully, within the next few years evidence to support this claim will become statistically and logically incontrovertible.”

This optimistic passage is from the introduction written by the Executive Director of UNODC to the World Drug Report of 2007. With 8200 tons of opium being produced in Afghanistan last year, a 34% increase over the previous year there is only “robust evidence” to the contrary.

Romesh Bhattacharji
E mail: rbhattoo@gmail.com