Item 5 (c) Illicit Drug Traffic and Supply
world situation with regard to drug trafficking and reports of subsidiary body of the Commission


The Transnational Radical Party would like to thank the Executive Director for his invitation to observe the works of the Commission on Narcotic Drugs and wishes to extend its gratitude to the Member States of the CND for allowing us to take the floor at this time. We believe that is it of utmost importance that independent views can be freely expressed before UN bodies and that freedom of expression remain the practice in intergovernmental fora that deal with extremely important issues related to individuals' freedom and health such as narcotics.

Ever since its first participation in the negotiations of the CND the Transnational Radical Party has always expressed its concerns on the overall approach that the international community, with the adoption of the UN Conventions on drugs, has decided to pursue, an approach that in the last 30 years has not produced any benefit nor one of the objectives envisioned in those international treaties.

Since the adoption of the first international conventions, illicit drug trafficking and drug production have increased on a yearly basis the world over. And this happened despite the eventual adoption of tougher conventions by UN Member States and an incredible increase in the amount of public money spent in law enforcement as well as in other policies aimed at eradicating crops, promoting alternative development, toughening bank controls to counter money laundering and the like. Over the last three decades, production and consumption have skyrocketed all over the world, creating additional problems to countries that were, and/or still are, trying to cope with natural calamities and international or internal conflicts. Despite there seems to be a timid shift in national policies, particularly in Europe, the international situation remains firmly rooted in rigid prohibition.

The principles of prohibition have been re-affirmed and strengthened at the UN General Assembly Special Session of June 1998, where, under the leadership of United Nations International Drug Control Programme, the international community launched a solemn declaration to eradicate drugs, from the face of the earth by 2008. But what has happened during the last two years? Despite the solemnity with which the General Assembly adopted the 1998 declaration and the eventual plan of action, the UNDCP has failed to published its World Drug Report in 1999, which should have given us reliable data regarding the first year of the "drug-free" era. "The General Assembly's Special Session on international drug control, scheduled for June, would start the real war against drugs and convince nations and people that there can be a drug free world" said Mr. Pino Arlacchi, Executive Director of the Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention on the eve of the UNGASS.

Some figures have nevertheless been released by the UNDCP itself as well as by the International Narcotics Control Board and they all confirm the concerns expressed by the Transnational Radical Party throughout the preparation of the Drug Forum of 1998. We believed, and still believe, that the idea of the eradication of crop was, and still remains, questionable, if not counterproductive, and ours is not propaganda, ours is a reading of indisputable evidence.

Allow me, Mr. Chairman to clarify our views drawing the Commission's attention to the Afghan case, which could be a good example of this evidence. According to a report released on 28 February of this year, and prepared by the UNDCP for a meeting at the UN Headquarters in New York of Afghanistan's six neighbors, plus the United States and Russia, the so-called group of "Six plus Two", Afghanistan is not only the world's largest producer of opium but it is also becoming a major manufacturer of heroin.

In fact, Talibans have proven unwilling or unable to ban opium poppy cultivation and heroin manufacture. Talibans continue to collect taxes on harvested opium poppy crop and manufactured heroin. In recent UN surveys it is stated that approximately 75% of the world production of opium takes place in Afghanistan with cultivation spreading to new zones "In Afghanistan, the area under illicit cultivation of opium poppy seems to have exceeded 90,000 hectares in the 1998/1999 growing season; it thus increased by over 40% compared with the 1997/1998 growing season" INCB Reports (E/INCB/1999/1, pg. 52). In 1999, the first year of the "drug-free" era, the production of illicit crops reached a record level of about 4,600 tons, enough to meet the annual demand for opium and heroin in the region, Western Europe and the United States twice over according to UNDCP Executive Director Mr. Pino Arlacchi.

The "Six plus Two" group (made of: Pakistan, China, Tagikhistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran plus the Russian Federation and the U.S) with a mandate to find a solution to the Afghan "civil" war, has recently agreed to make a "useful contribution" to addressing Afghanistan's drug-related problems and that the UNDCCP should play a key role in facilitating their activities. The Transnational Radical Party would like to emphasize that there can be no durable peace unless justice is pursued and wishes to take this opportunity to remind this august body that the ruling Taliban militia has overthrown the legitimate government with the use of violence. As of today, only a couple of UN member states, among which Pakistan, member of the contact group, have formally recognized illegal regime, but not by the United Nations itself.

The initiation of a peace process in that country will have to take into account that fundamental human rights have been -and still are - systematically violated in the last years by a group that is now considered a possible solution to the problem. The Transnational Radical Party believes that the views on how to eliminate drug production and trafficking out of Afghanistan through a comprehensive and balanced plan will also have to take into consideration the respect of human rights in that country. If that will not be the case, all ideas shared by the group on how to promote regional cooperation including exchanging information, training law enforcement personnel, and tightening controls on chemical precursors and essential chemicals used for the manufacture of heroin and morphine base, will prove useless as they already have in the past at the cost of human lives and the international rule of law.

In a context such as the Afghan one, the estimated $62 million planned for the next four years by the UNDCCP and the $25 million foreseen for alternative development assistance for the next five years risk to be wasted or invested without the minimum possibility of an effective or reliable monitoring system, funding the Taliban militia, therefore producing additional harm to an already thorn population.

Based on the evidence of the last two years, the Transnational Radical Party is of the view that that money should not be allocated to those projects in Afghanistan. Considered the fact that, to date, there is no coherent information about the cooperation between the UNDCP and other UN agencies such as UNDP or UNICEF (which before Christmas came under attack) in that region, if, as foreseeable, the money will be invested in Afghanistan, the CND, and its Member States, should do their utmost to ensure that a special co-ordination between the various UN entities be put in place for all the alternative development projects that will be launched in the future. The Transnational Radical Party is of the opinion that a Special Rapporteur should also be appointed to asses the effectiveness of these projects and prepare a comprehensive analysis and evaluation of the cost-benefit aspect of the whole exercise in the short as well as in the medium term, as originally requested by the Economic and Social Council in its resolution 1995/40 of 27 July 1995.

Moreover, we hope that the group of "Six plus Two", at its next technical meeting in Vienna in the month of April under the aegis of the UNDCP, will also look into this crucial aspect of the Afghan question, and we call on UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, Kieran Prendergast to ensure that the eradication of crops in a country difficult to seal off because of its mountainous borders, even through the creation of a well armed "security belt" will not overrule the enjoyment of fundamental human rights.

In conclusion Mr. Chairman, the example of Afghanistan is only one of the many evidences of the "victimization " of countries and individuals by the War on Drugs. Other could have been the examples, but the scenarios would have been the same: Columbia, Burma and other South American or Asian countries. In all these nations policies of supply reduction have contributed more to the eradication of human rights and the rule of law, producing harm, than to the control of narcotic substances. The time has come to reverse this unfortunate decision making process, before it is too late. Thank you Mr. Chairman.