Tajiks Struggle to Stem Tide of Drugs

Narcotics experts are predicting a surge in illicit drugs entering Tajikistan en route to Russia and Europe following the record opium harvest in Afghanistan. They are calling for joint efforts to create a security belt around Afghanistan to check the flow of drugs.



The heads of the anti-narcotics agencies and interior ministries of Tajikistan, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan have all voiced concern at this year’s harvest of 6,000 tons of raw opium. Experts from the Drug Control Agency, DCA, in Tajikistan say this is enough to manufacture 600 tons of heroin.



Local analysts fear that more drugs will be exported along the northwards route which passes through Tajikistan.



International experts say that 80 per cent of all opiate seizures in Central Asia in the last three years have taken place in Tajikistan. In January-September 2006, Tajik law-enforcement agencies seized four tons of narcotics, half of it heroin.



Tajik law enforcement officers insist that there is no drug production in the country. According to DCA head Rustam Nazarov, the bulk of the narcotics present in Tajikistan are in transit.



However, DCA analysts note with alarm that many heroin-making laboratories have been relocated to areas along Afghanistan’s northern borders, close to Tajikistan in particular, and that large stocks of heroin and opium are held here ready to be smuggled across the frontier.



The Afghan-Tajik border is more than 1,300 kilometres long and largely consists of difficult mountainous terrain, so it is easy to evade frontier controls. These factors make it an attractive route for smugglers taking narcotics to Europe.



The recent growth in transport links with Afghanistan has added to the flow of illicit substances transiting Tajikistan. For instance, new bridges are being built to connect Khorog in Tajik Badakhshan and the Darvaz district with the Afghan province also called Badakhshan. DCA officials are predicting that such crossing-points will also be exploited by international drug smuggling gangs.



DCA experts also highlight the continued shortage of manpower and technical infrastructure to protect the border. Often the drug gangs are better prepared than the law enforcement agencies.



(News Briefing Central Asia draws comment and analysis from a broad range of political observers across the region.)