KARZAI NO TRÁFICO DE DROGA

Na actual situação do Afeganistão e do regime de Karzai, a questão já nem é a da falta que fazem no governo os homens do comandante Massud que, inicialmente, ocupavam as pastas dos "Estrangeiros", da "Defesa" e dos serviços de informação e segurança, de que foram afastados pela concepção tribalista do poder (pashtun) do actual presidente. Essa questão já foi tratada em tempo aqui no Claro. A questão agora é que sem eles, sem os tadjiques do estado-maior de Massud, todo o investimento em homens e dinheiro que a NATO possa fazer no Afeganistão não terão resultados nem servirão para nada, além de reforçarem o impacto do actual discurso "nacionalista" dos talibans. Já aqui no Claro se tem dito, há anos, que Karzai sempre foi um homem ligado aos talibans (são todos pashtuns...) tal como a sua família está ligada ao tráfico do ópio e da heroína...  Agora, é Thomas Schweich, ex-Departamento de Estado, que, no New York Times, acusa os mais altos dirigentes do governo afegão de protegerem o tráfico de droga e diz que será com o dinheiro da droga que Karzai pagará a sua campanha para a reeleição em 2009! 

"Former State Department Official Accuses Afghan President of Protecting Country's Drug Trade

A former US State Department official says Afghanistan's drug trade is being protected by the country's top officials.

Thomas Schweich wrote in an article posted on The New York Times website Thursday, that US efforts to eliminate Afghanistan's poppy crops have been repeatedly thwarted by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

Schweich left his post as coordinator for Counter Narcotics and Justice Reform in Afghanistan last month.

He alleges that while Taliban militants use the opium trade to finance their insurgency, Karzai and his supporters have also used the drug trade to get rich.

He writes that the Afghan president is using the drug trade to secure his political standing in order to win reelection in 2009.

No US or Afghan officials were immediately available for comment.

According to the United Nations and the US, Afghan farmers produce 93 percent of the world's opium poppies.

A report by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime earlier this year predicted the 2008 Afghan poppy crop would be large, but smaller than it was in 2007.

Schweich also claims Karzai was able to undermine US attempts to destroy poppy crops by citing divisions among US officials.

He writes that some US military commanders obstructed counter-narcotic efforts, arguing that fighting the drug trade should not be part of the military's mission.

EDITOR'S NOTE: Karzai is history. An utter failure (apart from his attention-getting fashion statements), he is in the way of more effective Afghan leaders who have resisted the temptations of drug trafficking.

Former US official claims Hamid Karzai resisted drug enforcement arrests and eradication of poppy fields

Afghan president accused of protecting drug trade

The US government’s former point man in the fight against the heroin trade in Afghanistan has accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of obstructing counter-narcotics efforts and protecting drug lords. Thomas Schweich, who resigned last month from the State Department’s narcotics bureau, said in an article to appear on Sunday in the New York Times magazine that the Afghan government was deeply involved in shielding the opium trade.

“While it is true that Karzai’s Taliban enemies finance themselves from the drug trade, so do many of his supporters,” Schweich wrote in article posted on the newspaper’s Web site. “Narco-corruption went to the top of the Afghan government,” he wrote, adding that drug traffickers were buying off hundreds of police chiefs, judges and other officials.

Schweich also criticized the Pentagon for refusing US military support for drug eradication efforts and arguing that it was someone else’s job to clean up the drug business after the war is over. “The trouble is that the fighting is unlikely to end as long as the Taliban can finance themselves through drugs - and as long as the Kabul government is dependent on opium to sustain its own hold on power,” he said. Schweich said NATO allies have also resisted the anti-poppy offensive. “The British military were even more hostile to the anti-drug mission than the US military,” he wrote. Poppy cultivation has expanded rapidly in Afghanistan since 2006 and the country is supplying 90 percent of the world’s heroin.

Drug enforcement arrests: Schweich, who was the senior counter-narcotics official in the US embassy in Kabul for two years, said Karzai resisted drug enforcement arrests and eradication of poppy fields in wealthy areas of the Pashtun south, his power base. “Karzai was playing us like a fiddle,” Schweich wrote. “The US and its allies would fight the Taliban; Karzai’s friends could get rich off the drug trade; he could blame the West for his problems; and in 2009 he would be elected to a new term.” Poppy eradication this year will be less than a third of the 20,000 hectares that Afghanistan eradicated in 2007, he said. “An odd cabal of timorous Europeans, myopic media outlets, corrupt Afghans, blinkered Pentagon officers, politically motivated Democrats and the Taliban were preventing the implementation of an effective counter-drug programme,” he said.

Reuters