[NOTE: Michael appears four times; those sections
are noted in bold type]
CORCORAN: Whoever controls the opium poppy controls
southern Afghanistan – such is the power of this
humble plant. It was a lesson quickly learned by the
Soviets, the Mujahudeen, then the religious zealots
of the Taliban. Now it is the turn of the Americans,
descending from clear skies on Operation “Enduring
Freedom” with lofty ideals of good versus evil – only
to find they’ve landed in a grey world of compromise.
This airport is the gateway to Kandahar,
Afghanistan’s second city, capital of the biggest
opium growing region in the world. It’s now a base
for more than four thousand troops, an American led
Coalition of Canadians, Australians, Danes and
Germans, all fighting the so-called “War on Terror”.
MAJOR ROPER: [US Army] We have to eliminate, reduce,
fight, do everything we can to wipe out terrorism
here in Afghanistan.
CORCORAN: This massive military presence serves only
one purpose, to act as a base for the US led special
forces teams, now combing the mountains and deserts
of southern Afghanistan, hunting for Taliban and Al
Qaeda fugitives. But in their haste to fill the power
vacuum left by the departing Taliban, the Americans
have helped install a Governor in Kandahar with close
links to this country’s drug lords. In essence what
you have today, is an alliance between the Americans,
the Governor of Kandahar and the men responsible for
producing some 70% of the world’s opium and heroin.
Thirty kilometres outside the city of Kandahar, the
Dogs of War are unleashed. Among the crowd are
warlords, opium merchants and poppy farmers. This
gathering is illegal. Like opium production,
traditional dogfights have been banned by
Afghanistan’s interim administration. Here, both
edicts are viewed with contempt, seen as little more
than a sop to western sensibilities.
Four point five billion US dollars of foreign aid has
been pledged on the condition that opium is
eradicated but sport and business still continues
apace, a suitable distance from the west’s offended
gaze.
Up until two years ago, these fields produced more
than 70% of the world’s opium - some four and a half
thousand tonnes a year, enough to refine four hundred
and fifty tonnes of heroin. But then in a bid to win
favour with the west, Taliban Supreme Leader, Mullah
Mohammad Omar, declared a ban on poppy cultivation
and the crops vanished overnight. Now with the
Taliban gone, the poppies are back and despite the
fact that this country has been in the grip of its
worst drought in fifty years, the farmers are using
what little water they have on the crops and are
expecting a bumper harvest in May.
Of course opium never really disappeared under the
Taliban. Over-production has created a massive
stockpile, more than two years global supply. The ban
simply helped ease the glut and drive up prices but
now stockpiles are falling and farmers such as sixty
year old Mohammed Zai Akar have planted for another
season, indebted to the drug barons who provided
loans during the Taliban prohibition. He says he’d
like to grow other crops but simply has no choice.
MOHAMMED ZAI AKAR: It is necessary that I grow this.
I borrowed money from lots of Muslims and I am
obliged. If it was not for that, I wouldn’t do it.
CORCORAN: Thousands of other poppy farmers are also
caught in Mohammed’s poverty trap, working as little
more than indentured labourers for the syndicates In
war ravaged Afghanistan, opium is simply too
lucrative too ignore. Poppies require only half the
water needed for wheat, yet reap thirty times the
profit. Effective western crop substitution schemes
would be prohibitively expensive but also be
difficult to enforce because too many officials get a
cut of the drug profits. Ten per cent from the
farmers, twenty per cent from the traffickers.
MOHAMMED ZAI AKAR: These people are actually
destroying the nation. They’re just looking after
themselves – they don’t care about me.
CORCORAN: And the top United Nations Drug Control
expert here confirms what everyone anticipates, that
officials of the new regime will also expect a cut of
the action.
BERNARD FRAHI: However they could get a profit in a
different formula so it will not be under an official
tax but it will be a different formula again and get
some income yeah could be.
CORCORAN: But again it’s a better bet than foreign
aid isn’t it? No strings?
BERNARD FRAHI: No, you are perfectly right yeah, yes.
CORCORAN: To drive into Kandahar is to enter a city
much the same as the Taliban left it. This deeply
conservative town was the ideological heartland of
the Taliban movement and home to Mullah Omar. The
streets are full of demobilised but surly ex-Taliban
fighters, watched from the shadows by a thirty strong
team of American Special Forces and CIA tasked with
keeping Kandahar’s new Governor in power.
‘Hi you guys. Where you guys from? Where you guys
from?’
MAN IN CAR: ‘Kandahar.’
CORCORAN: ‘Yeah? Oh right. Is it safe to film in
around here? Is it OK for us to film around here?’
MAN IN CAR: ‘I guess so.’
CORCORAN: That night we are summoned to meet the new
Governor of southern Afghanistan at his heavily
guarded compound. Following the Taliban surrender,
Governor Gul Agha Sherzai, backed by his American
minders, seized power after a brief gun battle with
Kabul’s nominee for the job. It appears ‘might is
still right’ in the new Afghanistan but Sherzai knows
he sits in the Governor’s office at the American’s
pleasure.
GOVERNOR SHERZAI: The Americans gave me a citation
for being a hero and that’s why all the people think
I’m a military officer.
CORCORAN: This is Sherzai’s second term as Governor.
He previously ran Kandahar during the chaotic rule of
the Mujahadeen in the early 90’s, when the city first
emerged as Afghanistan’s opium capital. Top of his
agenda he insists, is the destruction of the new
opium crop.
GOVERNOR SHERZAI: I will fight very strongly against
the cultivation of opium and the production of
heroin.
CORCORAN: Given his track record, no one really takes
him seriously. Sherzai’s one anti-narcotics
achievement to date has been the forced closure of
the city’s opium market but as we discover, the trade
is flourishing elsewhere.
MICHAEL WARE: We’re driving into what use to be the
opium market now.
CORCORAN: Michael Ware is Time Magazine’s man in
Kandahar. Since the collapse of the Taliban, this
Australian journalist has spent more time than any
other foreigner delving into the dangerous labyrinth
of Kandahari politics.
MICHAEL WARE: You take away the opium and you suck
the oxygen out of this economy and you’ll be treading
on the toes of significant players who have built
empires around the opium trade, and that includes
political and military figures as well as criminal
and business figures here in Kandahar.
CORCORAN: The real business of the opium and heroin
trade is still conducted far from the city. We set
off on the three hour drive across the desert in
search of what the Governor doesn’t want us to see –
the biggest drug market in the country.
On the way, we run straight into what initially
appears to be every foreigner’s nightmare – a
roadblock of heavily armed Taliban, many still
wearing their distinctive black or white turbans but
nothing in Afghanistan is ever as it seems. These
gunmen are surrendered Talibs. Granted an amnesty,
they’re now enthusiastic recruits on America’s war on
terror.
AFGHANI MAN AT ROADBLOCK: ‘Listen to what I’m saying!
This area is desert and there is a lot of banditry.
That’s why we block the road.’
CORCORAN: ‘Some people say that you are Taliban who
have changed sides.’
INTERPRETER: [Interprets Corcoran’s comment] [Reply
by Afghan man at roadblock] ‘He says if you people
provide us with a uniform, we will change, we will
change.’
CORCORAN: A shave and a new uniform and these former
Islamic holy warriors will happily fight alongside
the American infidels, their loyalty shifting faster
than the sands. It’s a trait of Afghan politics that
continues to confound US commanders attempting to
distinguish friend from foe but for today at least,
these re-badged Talibs are content to relieve
travellers of money and valuables on the pretext of
searching for weapons.
AFGHAN MAN AT ROADBLOCK: ‘We are hungry and for the
past two days we haven’t had a proper meal. Give us
money. Give us dollars.’
CORCORAN: We managed to depart with our wallets
intact, the gunman fearing that we are somehow
connected to the Americans. Their strategically
placed roadblock just happens to guard the turnoff to
Sangin, the largest opium market in Afghanistan.
Warned against openly filming, we use a hidden
camera. Our security escort of hired gunmen,
necessary for travel outside Kandahar, clearly feel
uneasy. Governor Sherzai’s mandate is meaningless
here and we have no wish to provoke a confrontation.
‘Just one man. Just one man, one guy following behind
not with us’.
Sangin is obviously under the control of the Taliban
or surrendered Taliban, a distinction impossible for
us to make. Either way, it’s still very much business
as usual for thirty wholesalers and brokers.
‘And is it good quality, good quality product at the
moment? Good quality opium?’
TRANSLATOR: ‘Bad quality, good quality, most special
quality.’
CORCORAN: ‘Yeah. If I want to buy some, how much for
a kilo in US dollars?’
TRANSLATOR: ‘One kilo fifty thousand rupees per kg,
that is around, that comes around eight hundred
dollars.’
CORCORAN: The shops only hold samples. Serious
traffickers wishing to buy in bulk are taken to
secret warehouses in the mountains.
‘Can, can we see some product? Just show us some good
quality stuff and some ordinary quality stuff? Stay
here yeah?’
The economics of trafficking are straightforward.
These men pay the farmers around three hundred US
dollars a kilo. I’m quoted eight hundred dollars for
a kilo that would fetch me sixteen thousand dollars
were I to smuggle it to the streets of Europe.
Refined into heroin, it’s worth ten times that again.
TRANSLATOR: ‘Shall he open?’
CORCORAN: ‘Yeah why not. Open it up, yeah.’
TRANSLATOR: ‘He says do you want to taste it?’
CORCORAN: ‘Not for me’ [everyone laughing].
AFGHAN MAN AT MARKET: ‘We are buying it from the
farmers here’.
TRANSLATOR: ‘So you guys are buying it from them?’
AFGHAN MAN AT MARKET: ‘Yes, then we take it to the
border, then Iran.’
CORCORAN: ‘It must be very dangerous. I’ve been to
Iran. If they catch you in Iran with this they will
execute you.’
AFGHAN MAN AT MARKET: ‘It doesn’t matter. I don’t
care.’
CORCORAN: ‘So, these are all, these are all opium
shops too?’
Initially after the collapse of the Taliban, there
was unease here but the traders say they are now
relieved that the Americans show no intention of
closing down their operations.
TRANSLATOR: ‘Did the Americans come here?’
AFGHAN MAN AT MARKET: ‘Yes, the military came and
also another group of foreigners. They promised us a
lot and they asked us who we were – what we needed.
They asked us about the road and the irrigation
channels.’
TRANSLATOR: ‘Did the Americans ask you to close these
shops?’
AFGHAN MAN AT MARKET: ‘No, no.’
CORCORAN: One puzzling contradiction has been the
American’s lack of interest in destroying the drug
industry, the source of so much terrorist wealth. The
reason for the crop remaining untouched is an open
secret in Kandahar but one both the Americans and the
United Nations top drug control official are
unwilling to share.
‘There’s a large American contingent at Kandahar
which is a key opium poppy growing area. Why don’t
they simply go out and destroy the crops?’
BERNARD FRAHI: Just ask them. I don’t know. Just ask
the Americans. We don’t know ourselves.
CORCORAN: Why aren’t the American forces destroying
the opium crop as it is a key source of income for
the warlords, for the Taliban, for a whole range of
unpleasant people in this area?
MAJOR ROPER: Well see that’s another question that’s
really outside the purview of Task Force Rockason let
me, I don’t know if I can give you a good answer on
that.
CORCORAN: The answer lies with this man – Haji
Bashar. He is the heroin and opium overlord of
southern Afghanistan whose operations continue
unimpeded by the US presence. Bashar’s drug empire
help finance the Taliban and he was a close friend of
Supreme Leader Mullah Omar. Today he quite literally
owns Kandahar.
MICHAEL
WARE: From this point on in the centre of Kandahar,
from this roundabout all the way down this main road,
the buildings on both side of the street for another
kilometre or a little bit more, are all owned by a
man named Haji Bashar. He’s the most powerful drug
lord in southern Afghanistan. With each new
administration that comes to Kandahar, they have to
face the choice of either taking Haji Bashar on or
making a deal with him. Invariably, every government
that has taken office, has quickly come and made a
deal with Haji Bashar.
CORCORAN: On the 23rd of January this year, this
great survivor of Afghan politics surrendered his
twelve thousand man private army and promptly struck
a deal with the Americans.
MICHAEL WARE: He was brought into the new government
as an ally. He now provides much needed military
muscle that this relatively weak Governor needs. The
Americans for their part, received intelligence on a
level that I do not believe they had been receiving
before. Haji Bashar intimately knows senior members
of the Taliban. He more than anyone, has information
on where these leaders went, how they got away and he
is now proving pivotal in negotiating the surrenders
of countless Taliban commanders.
CORCORAN: Haji Bashar’s narcotics empire remains
untouched. No one has ever dared to take him on and
live, until now. One man who says he’ll try is
Kandahar’s new Police Chief, Brigadier Mohammed
Akram, though his motives for doing so are open to
question. As a former warlord and political opponent
of the new Governor, he may crave a slice of the
trade for himself. Brigadier Akram confirms that
Bashar is still very much in business and seems to
relish the prospect of a showdown with Washington’s
favourite drug baron.
MOHAMMED AKRAM: Yes, Haji Bashar’s name is mentioned
constantly. Haji Bashar is a great smuggler of the
last twenty years. His business deals in heroin and
opium and he is exporting it to Europe. Haji Bashar
is the person whose heroin has killed or addicted
thousands around the world and he is still doing the
same work.
CORCORAN: The reality in Kandahar contradicts the
message now being peddled to the world. Much has been
made of recent drug seizures. In this haul on the
border with Iran, thirty million US dollars worth of
opium, heroin and hashish is laid out for the
cameras. One foreign aid official told us the
captured shipments belong to Haji Bashar’s few
remaining rivals.
Brigadier Akram estimates the Taliban warehoused some
five thousand tonnes of opium and heroin. He claims
up to fifteen hundred tonnes is still in secret
locations near Kandahar, most of it owned by Haji
Bashar.
‘Are the Americans aware of his background? Have you
told them about this?’
BRIGADIER AKRAM: Definitely, definitely the Americans
know about this, that he was a great smuggler before
he surrendered to the Americans. The Americans raided
his home and they wanted to find out how much opium
and heroin was stockpiled there but he’d already
moved the stockpile and nothing was left in his
house. The Americans know everything about him.
CORCORAN: But a visit to Haji Bashar’s new house in
Kandahar reveals another surprise – the family of
Governor Sherzai.
MICHAEL
WARE: Well we’re now coming to Haji Bashar’s house.
This is by far the most impressive and luxurious
house in Kandahar. As a sign of the closeness of
their relationship, the Governor of Kandahar’s family
is currently staying in this house. In fact you’re
now looking at the Governor’s soldiers guarding the
drug baron’s house with the Governor’s family
inside.
CORCORAN: ‘Do you have a personal relationship with
him? What’s the extent that you know each other?’
GOVERNOR SHERZAI: I cannot call him a personal friend
and I cannot trust him personally but he and his
tribe are guaranteeing and they also guarantee
America that he will not be involved in anti-state
activities in the future
CORCORAN: But for a man who denies any personal
connection with Haji Bashar, Governor Sherzai makes a
great public display of demonstrating his bond with
Kandahar’s power broker as they chat on their US
supplied satellite phones.
ASSISTANT: [Answers phone] It’s Haji Bashar. Hello
Haji! Don’t hang up! Don’t hang up!
GOVERNOR SHERZAI: [Takes phone from assistant] Hello,
peace be upon you. May God bring you to me. Are you
well? Are you OK? Thanks be to God. God willing it
will be done. Tomorrow or the day after, you will
have to do it because we don’t have much time.
CORCORAN: Haji Bashar was out of town, apparently on
business with the Americans. We made numerous
attempts to contact him until warned that Bashar had
given orders for his gunmen to shoot any journalist
who persisted in annoying him.
The Americans insist that amid the war on terror
they’ve continued to wage war on drugs, calling in
air strikes and the special forces to destroy opium
warehouses and the estimated four hundred heroin labs
in the country but on the ground, there’s simply no
evidence to support these claims.
MICHAEL
WARE: In the American consciousness, all that really
matters is Al Qaeda and the risks to the American’s
themselves. Anything else, be it liberating these
people, be it establishing a new democratic
government, be it rebuilding this country or be it
putting a stop to the opium trade are much, much
lower priorities so I do not think it is something
that the American public or the American Government
really has at the forefront of their
agenda.
CORCORAN: America now dominates this city that
secretly thrives upon the profits of the drug trade
yet chooses not to confront the problem. 90 per cent
of Europe’s heroin originates from here. Almost none
of it ends up on American streets. One question
remains – if it were the other way around, if Afghan
heroin was finding its way into the veins of
America’s youth, would the US have been so ruthlessly
pragmatic in enlisting the help of Afghanistan’s most
powerful drug lord for the war on terror?