NEW DELHI, Feb 23 (Reuters) - South Asia's proximity to Afghanistan and Myanmar, the world's largest producers of opium, has led to a rapid rise in drug abuse in the region, according to a report released on Wednesday.
The annual report of the U.N.-aided International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said there appeared to be millions of abusers in the region, where use of heroin and synthetic drugs is growing quickly.
"South Asia is wedged between the world's two main opiate producing areas, Afghanistan and Myanmar," Renate Ehmer, the regional representative of the United Nations Drug Control Programme, told a conference to release the report.
"The transit trafficking of drugs has led to a rise in drug abuse in South Asia," she added. "We believe that there are over four million drug users in the region."
Bumper opium harvests in Afghanistan have increased the supply of heroin -- which is derived from opium -- in South Asia, the Vienna-based drug control body's report said.
The opium makes its way from poppy fields in Afghanistan through Pakistan, India and other South Asian countries to be shipped to Europe and North America.
"Western Afghanistan has seen a harvest of 4,600 tonnes of opium from which 460 tonnes of grade-four heroin -- pure enough to be injected -- can be made," INCB member Chinmay Chakravarty told the conference.
Most of this will be transported through South Asian countries, he said.
The report warned that the increase of heroin abuse by injection and subsequent sharing of hypodermic needles had contributed to a surge in the incidence of HIV/AIDS in South Asia.
A U.N. Population Fund official said last November that the number of AIDS patients in India alone would triple to 12 million in 2000 from the current estimate of four million.
Most of the opium cultivated in India is grown in fields deep within the heavily forested and far-flung northeastern states, where the country's drug abuse problem is most severe. These regions also have the highest number of AIDS sufferers.
In the early 1990s, India had almost 2.2 million drug abusers, more than 40,000 of them in the northeastern states. More recent official estimates for the number of drug abusers in the country are not available.
UN drugs report points finger at Afghanistan's Taliban
VIENNA, Feb 23 (AFP) -The United Nations voiced grave concern Wednesday at Afghanistan's growing role as a key producer of illicit drugs in Asia which are smuggled around the world, calling on governments to act.
Reporting on drug abuse in Asia, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) also lamented the rapid spread of amphetamine-type drugs across the whole Asia region, noting that China remains a major source of these.
The UN agency also warned that the fallout from Asia's economic crisis continues to hamper anti-drug programs and initiatives.
In its annual report on global drugs trends, the UN agency raised serious question marks over whether Afghanistan's Taliban leadership is really committed to tackling illicit drugs.
Large-scale illicit cultivation of opium poppy has continued to spread to areas which were previously not affected in Afghanistan, responsible for 75 percent of world opium production, noted the report.
"The commitment of the Taliban in Afghanistan to ban opium poppy cultivation and heroin manufacture remains questionable," it said, noting that 97 percent of opium poppy production occurs on Taliban-controlled land.
In addition heroin manufacture has moved to Afghanistan from Pakistan, where it has virtually disappeared.
"The Board is concerned about this grave situation, which negatively affects not only West Asia, but also Europe and the rest of the world. It urges the world community to take appropriate measures," it said.
In other comments the 75-page lamented the spread of synthetic type drugs across the Asian region.
"The abuse of and trafficking in amphetamine-type stimulants are spreading quickly across the entire region of east and southeast Asia," it said.
"China has remained a major source of clandestinely manufactured amphetamine-type stimulants. Traffickers of such stimulants appear to be targetting vulnerable groups in major urban areas, especially the young."
Meanwhile the report welcomed major reductions in opium production in Laos, Myanmar, Thailand and Vietnam. Myanmar was highlighted as a major drugs blackspot in last year's INCB report.
"China, Malaysia and Thailand remain important illicit markets for heroin and also serve as transit points for heroin destined for illicit markets in other parts of .. Asia, in north America and in Oceania" it noted.
In south Asia, the report noted the rise of heroin and synthetic drugs alongside cannabis and opium, while highlighting that "certain areas have emerged as major drug trafficking centres and/or have witnessed a rapid deterioration of the drug trafficking or drug abuse situation."
These included the Chittagong port area in Bangladesh, northeastern India, notably the states of Manipur, Mizoram and Nagaland, and the Indo-Pakistan border, as well as Mumbai and New Delhi.
Overall in Asia, the UN report also said that drug-busting efforts are still being hampered by lack of money.
"While recovery from the economic crisis has started, resource constraints are still preventing several governments and their partners from fully implementing programmes to reduce illicit drug supply and demand," it said.
The annual INCB report, released every February by the Vienna-based agency, gives detailed information on current drug trends worldwide, from Asia to America and from Europe to Africa.
The Nation - Feb 23, 2000.
Refugees set to increase, UN official warns
THE number of displaced people throughout Asia was likely to increase and their conditions worsen, unless drastic measures were taken, a senior United Nations official warned yesterday.
On-going civil wars, gross violation of human rights, the absence of proper medical help and the public's lack of education about displaced people's plight were some of the issues that governments in Asia had to seriously consider if the situation was to improve, said Francis Deng, the UN secretary general's representative on internally displaced persons.
Deng, a former diplomat and academic from Sudan, spoke to The Nation at yesterday's opening of the "Regional Conference on Internal Displacement in Asia", .a gathering of representatives from 16 nations.
He urged humanitarian agencies to continue to engage host countries with the view of eliminating the causes that forced people to be displaced.
Deng, who took his current post in 1992, introduced the guiding principles on internal displacement to the UN in 1998.
The guidelines outlined strategies dealing with various issues, including protection, assistance, reintegration and development for the displaced.
It also called for more involvement from regional and multinational organisations to help displaced people and refugees.
Some of the countries that are plagued with the problem of displaced people include Afghanistan, Sir Lanka, Indonesia, East Timor, Burma and North Korea. Some of the main reasons for their displacement include famine and civil war.
Almost 25 million people worldwide are reportedly displaced from their homes, said Deng.
The Foreign Ministry's deputy permanent secretary Chuchai Kasemsarn, in his prepared speech, said humanitarian assistance itself was not enough.
He said a global solution, that combined humanitarian aid and political and economic agendas undertaken by regional and international countries, was lacking.
"We need international solidarity to help create universal principles based on human values which can surpass the questions of sovereignty and interfere in the domestic affairs of states in order to assist civilians caught in an endless round of civil conflicts," Chuchai said.
More than 90,000 Burmese refugees are living in border camps on the Thai border, while about 800,000 foreigners from neighbouring countries are also working in Thailand, mainly as manual labourers.
An official from the UN High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangkok, Janvier de Riednatten, said 115 Burmese exiles from the Maneeloy Holding Centre had resettled to the United States since the hostage crisis at the Burmese Embassy last October.
Officials from Australia, Canada and Finland were currently conducting interviews for resettlement of Maneeloy residents.
Also, nearly 1,500 ethnic Karens in Ratchaburi's Huay Khok Moo village were in the process of being relocated to Sankhla Buri district in the neighbouring Kanchanaburi province, a district official said. They were scheduled to be transported to the new site tonight.
An all-out offensive by Burmese government troops against the Karen rebel armies and their Burmese allies had forced these Karens from their homes, fleeing to Thailand, where they were being looked after by troops of the 9th Infantry Division of the First Army Region.
That region's commander has been criticised recently for appearing to cooperate with the Burmese military.
BY SA-NGUAN KHUMRUNGROJ and
CHAIWAT PUMPUANG
The Nation
BBC-Wednesday, 23 February, 2000, 14:36 GMT
UN concerned over
drugs in Asia
Afghanistan is the world's
largest opium producer
The United Nations has voiced grave concern at Afghanistan's growing role as
a key producer of drugs in Asia and the impact that is having on the region.
In its annual report, the UN's International Narcotics Control Board
(INCB) said Afghanistan, which is responsible for 75% of the world's opium
production, is doing little to tackle the problem.
"The commitment of the Taleban in Afghanistan to ban opium poppy cultivation
and heroin manufacture remains questionable," said the report, noting that the
Taleban even collects taxes on the crop.
According to the report, 1999
saw a 40% increase in the amount of land being used to cultivate illegal opium
poppies.
Success in Pakistan
In contrast, the INCB said,
heroin manufacture had virtually disappeared from neighbouring Pakistan, having
moved to Afghanistan.
The INCB said it was concerned about the "grave situation, which negatively affects not only west Asia but also Europe and the rest of the world.
It called on the world community to act.
Rising drug abuse
The report said that one of the most worrying consequences of drug production in South Asia was the rapid rise in drug abuse in the region.
INCB member Renate Ehmer told the Delhi conference that the use of heroin and amphetamine-type drugs, largely produced by China, is growing rapidly.
The INCB warned that the increase of heroin abuse by injection and subsequent sharing of hypodermic needles had contributed to a surge in the incidence of HIV/AIDS in South Asia.
Overall, it said, the battle against drugs was still being hampered by lack of money.
But despite this, it noted that major reductions of opium production were recorded in Pakistan, Burma, Thailand, Laos and Vietnam.