BERLIN, 31 March 2004 — Afghan President Hamid Karzai yesterday called the drug trade a “major menace” to the future of Afghanistan and said he would plead for a boost in reconstruction aid at a donors conference in Berlin.
Helping Afghanistan combat opium production is on the agenda of the international conference starting today. It is the world’s latest effort to underpin Afghanistan’s transition to post-Taleban democracy and a stronger central government. US Secretary of State Colin Powell and his colleagues from Germany, France and Britain are among the officials from some 54 countries attending the two-day meeting.
“We will be asking them to increase their assistance to Afghanistan in order for all of us to succeed in bringing about a safer, better, standing-on-its-own-feet Afghanistan, thereby also helping international security,” Karzai told reporters yesterday.
Karzai came to Berlin with a plan seeking $27.5 billion for Afghanistan for the next seven years, though pledges at the conference are expected to cover only a fraction. Donors worldwide have pledged $4.2 billion through this year.
Karzai acknowledged that his government’s efforts to destroy opium poppies — the raw material for heroin and the money source for drug lords — have been set back. “It is a major menace. We have a serious, serious problem in that area,” Karzai said. “We’ve made some mistakes in the past in that regard; we have recognized those mistakes.”
Hundreds of Afghan militia forces raided heroin laboratories in an eastern province yesterday, arresting more than 30 people and seizing large quantities of drugs and chemicals, police said.
Mian Khalil, deputy police chief of Achin district in Nangarhar province, said Afghan forces mobilized early in the day and raided dozens of drug laboratories near the border with Pakistan. The operation was ongoing, he said.
Meanwhile, a professional body in the western city of Heart said on yesterday Afghan army troops must stay in the city until elections in September to ensure free speech and the primacy of the central government. Karzai sent 1,500 troops to Herat, capital of the province of the same name, after fierce fighting this month sparked by the killing of the powerful provincial governor’s son by forces of a pro-Kabul commander who then fled the city.
Supporters of Governor Ismail Khan say the troops are not needed as security is guaranteed by his militiamen and police, while the senior US military officer in Herat told reporters on Monday the deployment was tying up troops that could be used in the fight against Taleban and Al-Qaeda militants.
