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Presented by Vitalino Canas,
Deputy to the Assembly of the Republic, State Secretary responsible for drug policy coordination (1995-2002)
I would like to thank Senlis Council for giving me and my partner, Nuno Aureliano, the opportunity to contribute to the Feasibility Study and for inviting me to this seminar in Kabul.
I must underline how important Afghanistan is for all of us. Democracy, peace and economic development in Afghanistan represent the core of the most important project of the Afghan people. Importantly, this project is shared by all the international community.
In the aftermath of the September 11, the international community decided to fight terrorism here and, at the same time, to help Afghan people accede to better conditions of life, to democracy, to peace and freedom. I am sure that for Afghan people a failure would be deadly. For the international community a defeat would be dramatic. Afghans and international community are closely knitted in this.
All international community is committed here: the US, Europe, neighbours of Afghanistan and many others. Even many of those which never had any strategic interest in this part of the earth, like my country, Portugal, are here, trying to help.
To fail here would undermine our credibility and our capacity for helping building security and stability. To fail here would give strength to all dictators, warlords, terrorists and criminals to challenge the international community wherever they are.
We cannot fail here, and I believe that it is necessary to strengthen our commitment and our support to the Afghan process.
This process will be slow and will require patience. To expect quick results is unrealistic. This will be for sure a step by step process. And in this step by step slow process I find very encouraging the success of the parliamentary and regional elections of 19 of September. This first political cycle of legitimating the democratic institutions is a tremendous achievement.
At this stage, we face in Afghanistan among others two major challenges: to show that the democracy model is the best model for all kind of societies; and to fight the illegal cultivation of the raw materials for heroin which are threatening our families, our kids, our friends here in Afghanistan and in the rest of the world.
Yesterday we were briefed about the Afghanistan situation. We learned that the things are deteriorating dramatically. Many Afghan citizens and families are facing the drama of heroin using and addiction.
You are not alone in this. This drama is shared by most of our countries.
Let me say something about my country and my experience. I was responsible for the drug policies in Portugal for three years. Portugal had and still has one of the strongest rates of heroin addicts in Europe. I know very well how disruptive this is, how difficult is to fight against it and the social damage that it provokes.
So I understand very well the concern of Afghan people about the production of opium poppy for heroin. And I share the conviction that eradicating illegal production of opium poppy is necessary. It is necessary for Afghanistan and it is vital for all those other countries which are being invaded by the heroin produced from the Afghan poppy, either Pakistan, developing countries, European countries or the US.
So we are together in this. In Portugal and elsewhere we don’t want all the work done in the last years to be spoiled. We don’t want low cost heroin invading our cities and our streets. In Afghanistan for sure you don’t want more and more of your people destroyed by heroin.
But how can we help? We know that we have to commit ourselves, we must be patient and we must be clever. So what is the best way to help?
As I see it, what Senlis Council is doing here is trying to find a way to help Afghanistan to solve its drug crisis. The aim shared by all of us is to discontinue the illegal production of opium. For achieving this there are theoretically two ways: the sole use of brut force; and the clever way.
Other interventions in other parts of the world are showing eloquently that brut force is not a good solution for most of our problems. So we should try the clever way.
I don’t believe that forced eradication as the sole solution is the clever way. Forced eradication campaigns destroy farmers’ livelihoods. By not providing for sustainable alternative livelihoods, eradication programmes create further disorder and insecurity.
So, what should we do?
I must stress one point: we should not set unrealistic goals.
Personally I don’t believe that we can solve the problem of illegal cultivation of opium poppy in the short term. However I strongly believe that there are solutions which create conditions for gradual elimination of illegal cultivation of opium poppy in a sustained way.
The project of licensing the production of opium with the final purpose of producing medicines while, at the same time, reducing the scale of illegal opium activities, seems to me a rather good idea.
Of course this project must be credible in all its dimensions. One of these dimensions is law enforcement.
An opium licensing framework requires the development of a targeted law enforcement and control system to prevent diversion into the illegal market. This control and monitoring system is one of the fundamental conditions identified by the Study for the good implementation of opium licensing in Afghanistan.
Yesterday several people asked if Senlis Council can guarantee that the opium poppy produced in legal context is not diverted to illegal markets. Of course neither Senlis nor anyone can guarantee such thing. On the contrary I can guarantee that there is a most probable risk that some of the poppy will be diverted to the illegal market. But furthermore I can guarantee other thing: the amount of poppy diverted into the illicit market will be incommensurably less than the quantity currently produced by illegal poppy fields for illegal markets.
By other words, although this represents a real challenge in terms of capacity, the risk of diversion within an opium licensing framework represents a more manageable risk than the current uncontrollable threat of an entirely illegal market.
As the study shows, for the success of this project a good law enforcement system is vital.
Do we have at the present moment a good and efficient law enforcement system in Afghanistan? No we don’t.
But if there is political will the existing structure and tools can be improved and adapted to the needs of monitoring the legal production of poppy and enforcing the law against those which try to disrupt the system.
Although not all of the Afghan police forces are yet fully operational, their missions, particularly that of the Counter Narcotics Police, could be broadened to include control of the production of opium for medicines. In this context, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and the NATO-led Provincial Reconstruction Teams could optimise their assistance and support role to the development of a control and monitoring infrastructure.
I would also like to draw attention to the prospect of deploying specialised seasonal forces. These forces would be well paid, properly trained and equipped in order to intensify control capacity during harvest time.
Certainly, this re-adjustment would cost some money. But the costs for the control and monitoring must be considered in light of the overall benefits, especially of establishing the rule of law and achieving social and legal stability. I understand that phase 2 of The Senlis Council Study calls for a closer investigation of the costs and arrangements to develop effective control systems.
I am particularly attracted by one of the main advantages of the licensing and regulated system proposed by Senlis Council.
By providing a more positive targeted mission for police forces, the new licensing system will contribute to building more collaborative relationships between law enforcement agencies and the rural communities. In a pure eradication system law enforcement authorities are enemies. In a regulated system law enforcement forces are partners in a common venture.
Thus, opium licensing creates the missing link between farmers and central authorities and facilitates the access and control of the central authorities in all regions of the country, especially in isolated areas. This dynamic will also allow for a more cooperative stance from the local powers and local religious leaders in establishing the rule of law in Afghanistan.
Undoubtedly, both the Afghan Government and the international community are faced with a great challenge of mobilizing and integrating traditional forms of governance and social control at the local level with more formal structures, as well as to adapt current law enforcement capacity to undertake the monitoring and control of licensed opium production. The question of how to articulate a national control system with local traditions and governance to develop a true Afghan licensing system should be further researched by Senlis Council.
With this I arrive to my concluding remarks.
Opium licensing as reviewed by the Study proposes to move away from aggressive enforcement to create a more cooperative away. The idea is to bring the relationships between farmers and central government to more collaborative ground. Enforcement and control mechanisms will reach out better.
It is my belief that opium licensing in Afghanistan will also help phase out an important part of the illegal heroin market. This “phasing out” will make possible the re-allocation of a portion of eradication funds towards monitoring and control of licensed opium production. In my opinion further investigation should look at the possible re-allocation of eradication funds, for the development of a targeted control force for licensed opium.
The proposed opium license scheme for Afghanistan represents a pragmatic solution to the drug and development crises in the country, based on scientific evidence. It will contribute to the incremental development of secure and stable environment, founded on the rule of law and the respect of rural communities.
Thank you.
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