Chapter
5
Golden Triangle and the
Golden Crescent
After having understood,
what Heroin exactly is, we can move ahead to understand the dynamics of trade
of this deadly and lethal Drug.
The world, as it exists
today, has two major opium producing areas. The ‘Golden Triangle’, consisting
of Myanmar, Cambodia and surrounding area on the North Eastern side of India
and the ‘Golden Crescent’ on the other side and consisting of Afghanistan,
North West Frontier Province of Pakistan and surrounding areas. India is, thus,
more or less sandwiched between two of the major Opium producing areas of this
world. Here, in this chapter, we will talk about the golden crescent.
Image
of the ‘Golden Crescent’ and the Golden Triangle’
The Golden Crescent
Golden Crescent is
located on the good old Silk Route; on cross roads of Central, South and
Western Asia, overlapping mountainous peripheries of three nations;
Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan, though only Afghanistan and neighbouring areas
of Pakistan known as North West Frontier Province primarily produce opium. Iran
and Turkey traditionally and primarily remained a consumer and a prominent
trans-shipment route for the smuggled opium and opiates. Afghanistan is the
primary opium producing area in this belt. On an average it produces about 90%
of the world’s non pharmaceutical grade opium.
Opium Poppy and its Sap
As on date the Golden
Crescent has a more notorious place in the history of opium production as
compared to Golden Triangle of South East Asia, the older and traditional opium
producing areas of the two. History of bumper production of opium over the
years and manufacturing of heroin becoming a massive 'cottage industry' has its
roots in the turbulent political history of the region.
Though Afghanistan was not a politically, socially and financially stable country but the ouster of Mohammad Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghans, in a coup in 1973 is considered to be the triggering point of a prolonged period of political unrest; on account of a number factors, international politics involving Russians and Americans included; and consequent turmoil within various Afghan war lords as also good chunks of mujahidin taking on to opium production in a bid to generate more and more drug money with which arms, ammunition, explosives and war machinery could be purchased. the period of turmoil is still going on in Afghanistan.
King Zahir Shah, Russian withdrawal, Mujaheddin, War lords
NATO forces in Afghanistan
At the peak of its opium production in 2007, Golden Crescent produced more that 8000 of the world’s total 9000 tons of opium. It had then almost monopolized the world market. Though the yield has come down a bit but it still is the most opium producing area in the world. This area also dominates the cannabis resin market on account of the high resin yields of the region, 145 kg per hectare of land which is almost four times than of Morocco standing at 36 kg per hectare of land. Available figures indicate that the Golden Crescent also caters to a much larger world market of Heroin, about 64% more than that of the Golden Triangle. It produces and distributes over 2,500 megatons of opiates to Africa, Europe, North American sub continent and the Central Asia and supplies to almost 9.5 million opiate users worldwide. On an average about 5300 tons of opium is estimated to be produced in Afghanistan alone of which, most is estimated to be converted into heroin. Most of the produce comes from the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand of this country. Despite worldwide efforts to capture and seize as much opium products as possible, only about 1% of heroin exported from Afghanistan in an illegal manner, is intercepted by various national governments. It clearly indicates either the ‘complicity’ or ‘a-complicity’ of the powers that be. The enormity of the problem, worldwide, can be gauged from the fact that over one million people are estimated to be involved in the business of drug trafficking.
Opium producing area in Afghanistan
Historically, in the
late 1970s, the Afghan government began to lose control of its provinces during
the Russian invasion of 1979-80 and it was during this time that Afghan
warlords flourished and with them, the production of opium. It was primarily
because the ‘regional commanders’ were in desperate search of modes to generate
money to purchase arms, ammunition and the weapons. Till this time the
smuggling route was primarily via Balkans, Turkey, Iran and
Pakistan.
Drug routes from Afghanistan
This was the time when,
in mid 1980s, the Pakistan I.S.I. started pushing drugs into India through
smugglers, who in the intelligence language, are known as ‘common sources and
resources’. When the Soviet army was forced to withdraw from Afghanistan, in 1989,
a power vacuum came up and various Mujaheddin factions started fighting against
each other for power. The West, by this time, had also discontinued its support
to them against the Soviets and consequently the poppy cultivation out there
was deliberately increased manifolds, by the warlords. It reached its peak in
1999 and the world was flooded with Opiates. Since then the poppy production in
Afghanistan has been varying slightly up and down but more or less the average
opium production has remained the same. And one of the favoured routes, besides
others as depicted in the map, remains through the Indian Punjab.
India becomes a major route
Major destination of the
Afghanistan produced opiates remains Europe and North America. Major routes
include Afghanistan on to Iran, Turkey and then in to Europe. Turkey falls both
in Asia and partly in Europe as well. Other prominent route is via Russia and
parts or the erstwhile U.S.S.R.; and then came the route through Pakistan, the
sea route via Karachi and other minor ports, besides the air route. The major
route through India is via Punjab. Trying to understand, correctly, in this
perspective, it is important to mention that the route of trade of opiates
through Iran, Turkey, Russia etc remained and still remains quite hot and
favoured one, but they have ‘problems’ of terrain, climate and the hostile
geographic, ethnic and political reasons. Seizures have been quite high on
those routes. As compared to this scenario, the smuggling of opiates produced
in Afghanistan, turned out to be easier through the Indian Punjab. To start
with, till mid 1980s, the border was almost porous and smuggling was easy,
almost a child’s play. Then later conditions in the Indian Punjab became fluid
and the concentration of the authorities got totally diverted to ensuring law
and order and peace in the state or to put it more bluntly, in ensuring that
Pakistan did not succeed in cutting Punjab from India. Besides these reasons,
more important reason because of which the drug trade through Punjab flourished
was the willing and direct involvement of some important political families of
the Indian Punjab, in the drug trade. The latter successfully also ensured
willing support of some of the black sheep in the security forces as also a
part of the central and the state government machinery in their nefarious task
of drug smuggling.
Heroin packed in plastic covers is stuffed in to PVC pipes and pushed
in to Indian side of the border
PVC pipes used to stuff in heroin
As on date the smuggling
through the Iranian, Turkish and the Russian routes was and still is primarily
being done by rich and organized ‘syndicates’ or ‘cartels’ with the help of
police and some other powerful persons who get their cut. These syndicates and
cartels are primarily based in Russia, Europe, Canada and the Unites States.
(See Annexure). Initially smuggling through the Indian borders was primarily
being done at the behest of some powerful political families of Punjab. The
direct involvement of these families still exists but there are broad
indications that this route is also in the process of being taken over by
regular drug mafia, the one owned and bring run buy Dawood Ibrahim.
As already stated,
in the initial years that is till mid 1980s and before, one of the major drug
routes were through Pakistan itself. It was both through the sea as also air
routes and it was primarily operated by the Pakistan’s I.S.I. itself. Drug
consignments used to go off Pakistan either by air or the sea routes, courtesy
the I.S.I. This was the time when Pakistan was getting huge American and
European aid in terms both of finances and military ware. A good chunk of this
money was, however, being cornered by the political bosses of Pakistan, who
primarily were members of the Pakistani armed forces. They used good chunks of
this aid to feather their own nests in Pakistan as also abroad. Major chunks of
money coming in from these ‘donor’ countries ultimately found its way to the
Swiss, American and European banks, besides the Bank of England, in the
accounts of the Pakistan’s army top brass and other politicians who mattered
from time to time. These, incidentally, were also the years of the growth of
Pakistan’s I.S.I., the all powerful Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence
that is the premier intelligence service of Pakistan which is operationally
responsible for providing ‘critical national security and intelligence input to
the government of Pakistan.
Pakistan's Dreaded ISI
Pakistan's Dreaded ISI
In the initial years the
task and the activities of this organization included support to the Afghan and
‘other mujaheddin groups’ against India ( a task which still continues because
creating internal security problems for India remains its primary task and duty
) as also in Afghanistan which was then under the Soviet occupation. In the
latter task the American C.I.A. extended total support to it. Though the role
of the I.S.I. still continues in Afghanistan but the point to be brought home
is that its primary target, directly and indirectly, still remains India. The
‘donor countries’ are fully aware of this fact but choose to keep their eyes
classed because of the so-called tactical and strategic reasons. Primary task
of the I.S.I. is to establish and run its vast network in India, be-fooling the Indian
intelligence agencies, and to create political, racial, and social as also economic unrest. And for this task it has to have access to vast amounts of
unaccounted money. In the intelligence parlance it is called the Secret Service
Fund, in short, the S.S. fund. This fund is not subject to audit in any country
and is supposed to be used only for the ‘intelligence’ related tasks. Only one
‘utilization certificate’ is required stating that, ‘it is certified that the
money has been used for the purpose for which it was intended to be used’. Is
it not easy? All the intelligence agencies all over the world use it. Since the
budgetary allocations are not enough for the nefarious things that they do,
none of them hesitates to use all sorts of dubious means to garner and
accumulate this fund. All the countries do it with impunity. Intelligence and
espionage is a dirty game where all immoral and filthiest of practices are
employed.
CIA ISRAELI MOSSAD
Russian secret services
Pakistan that is the
I.S.I., always required and requires vast amounts of unaccounted money to run
its operations in India and required funds came and still come, primarily,
thorough the smuggling of opiates and narcotics under its patronage. Initially,
they pushed narcotics into India through their henchmen, smugglers included. As
already stated, this was also the time when Indian Punjab was witnessing
serious disturbances within. I.S.I. ensured that drugs, that is, opiates; brown
sugar (as it was then called), and heroin, were pushed into India along with
the consignments of arms and ammunition. To push in drugs, along with arms and ammunition, was mandatory. Smugglers were ‘duty’ bound to carry both.
While studying the problem and the magnitude of drug smuggling at that time, I
was surprised to find that when the ‘drugs’ were first pushed in to India, they
already had a ready-made exit route to take these drugs out to their ultimate
destinations, that is the United States and parts of Europe. It did intrigue
me. I wondered as to how Indian counterparts of the Pakistani drug smugglers as
also of others overseas could find the ‘exit route’ over night. Of late, I had
to visit all intermediate ‘drug destination’ cities to understand the situation
and, as expected, I found that it was primarily the same group of erstwhile
gold smugglers, which had become, jobless on account of the stabilizing of
international gold prices. They were on the lookout for new business ventures
and since they were already in the loop, they readily opted for the smuggling
of drugs, it being a still higher return venture, though risks were almost the
same.
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