Drugs In Punjab

[Raju]

'Opium financed British rule in India'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7460682.stm

It is not a coincidence that 20 years after the opium trade stopped, the Raj more or less packed up its bags and left. India was not a paying proposition any longer.

Opium steadily accounted for about 17-20% of Indian revenues.

Before the British came, India was one of the world's great economies. For 200 years India dwindled and dwindled into almost nothing. Fifty years after they left we have finally begun to reclaim our place in the world.

All the empirical facts show you that British rule was a disaster for India. Before the British came 25% of the world trade originated in India. By the time they left it was less than 1%.

How narcotics and terror are linked

How it all started?

According to an IB dossier, the entire narcotic-terror link began with 1993 Mumbai serial blasts accused Tiger Memon and Dawood Ibrahim. The dossier states that the duo were not interested in treading the terror path, but it was the fear of losing business that forced them into this.

Both Memon and Ibrahim was actively involved in the narcotics trade, until Pakistan's Inter Services Intelligence gave them an ultimatum that their supply into Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf nations would be stopped if they refused to supply arms and ammunition for terror outfits in Pakistan. Initially Dawood refused but after suffering losses he along with Memon towed the ISI line.

The IB says that the ISI is active again and plans to take the fight against India to an entirely new level in the coming years. Hence the need to supply arms and ammunition to sleeper cells and other terror modules in the country.

IB sources told rediff.com that the best way to bust terror networks is to keep a close tab on the narcotics market. According to IB sources, the narcotics trade is one of the major sources of funding terror in India.

A comprehensive study based on IB information and intercepts shows a strong link between the narcotic trade and terror networks.

IB sources say 80 percent of the funding for terrorist organisations comes from the narcotics trade and fake currency rackets. The rest comes from foreign funds, mainly from Saudi Arabia.

Narcotic dealers too play a vital role in terror networks. Not only do they supply drugs and move consignments, they are also assigned the task of gathering information. While on the job get information on the movement of police forces and areas which can be targeted. Narcotic dealers are constantly creating new routes to supply drugs. The same routes are used to bring in arms and ammunition into the country.

Terror outfits also use the narcotics trade to recruit youth, IB sources say. Boys are first trained to supply narcotics and then they graduate to arms and ammunition and bomb making depending on their calibre.

http://www.rediff.com/news/2008/jun/24terror.htm

[S1ngh]

MLA's, MP's, POLICE.... all are involved in this game.. They make millions out of this... We did 3 month study on drugs in punjab and the result was just tooooo extreme.. Punjab is gone.. (almost)...

[Raju]

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/heroin/historic.htm

History of opium cultivation

It seems in 1924, INC passed a resolution to ban opium cultivation and banned all consumption after 1947. Medicinal cultivation was legalised.

India -A case study

http://www.senliscouncil.net/documents/india_case_study

[Raju]

MLA's, MP's, POLICE.... all are involved in this game.. They make millions out of this... We did 3 month study on drugs in punjab and the result was just tooooo extreme.. Punjab is gone.. (almost)...

When did you do this study ? Which year ?

Is there an increased supply of drugs in Punjab post-invasion of Afghanistan ?

[S1ngh]

MLA's, MP's, POLICE.... all are involved in this game.. They make millions out of this... We did 3 month study on drugs in punjab and the result was just tooooo extreme.. Punjab is gone.. (almost)...

When did you do this study ? Which year ?

Is there an increased supply of drugs in Punjab post-invasion of Afghanistan ?

It was in year 2006.

Here's the Project we did: http://sikhgiving.com/project2.html

Here's the report: http://sikhgiving.com/punjab_drug_report.html

[Raju]

Do a google with keywords 'drugs, CIA, Afghanistan'.

It is very revealing.

It will reveal who are the real kingpins of the international drug trade.

[Raju]

Russian Military Oligarch Accuses the CIA and MI-6 of Flooding Russia with Drugs

There have been reports in mass media about the involvement of the U.S. military in Afghanistan in drug trafficking. I asked the well-known political scientist and specialist on organized crime Vladimir Filin to comment on this.

-Vladimir Ilyich, is it true that Americans are involved in drug business?

-Yes, they are in ideal situation for this. They control the Bagram airfield from where the Air Force transport planes fly to a U.S. military base in Germany. In the last two years this base became the largest transit hub for moving Afghan heroin to other US bases and installations in Europe. Much of it goes to Kosovo in the former Yugoslavia. From there the Kosovo Albanian mafia moves heroin back to Germany and other EU countries. 3

-Why such a complex arrangement?

Drug traffickers enjoy relative safety on military bases. There is no serious control there. German police cannot work there. However, outside of military bases German law-enforcement is in effect. True, any police can be bought. But the level of corruption in Germany is not as high as, say, in Russia. This is why it is more convenient for Americans to establish distribution centers in other places. I believe that, in time, such centers will move to their military installations in Poznan, Poland, and also in Romania and Bulgaria. Poland is already a EU member. Romania and Bulgaria are expected to be in 2007. Corruption in these countries is almost as high as in Russia.

-How big is American drug traffic to Europe and who is behind it?

-About 15-20 tons of heroin a year. When Poznan become open, I think it could rise to 50, even 70 tons. Behind this business are the CIA and the DIA (Defense Intelligence Agency). Actually, this is what they did already in Indochina in the 1960s-70s and in Central America in the 1980s.

- What are the goals of these U.S. secret services?

- In the first place, it's personal enrichment. Second, special services make huge amounts of money out of drug trafficking. They can spend this money at their own discretion, without the knowledge of the Congress and even the U.S. president. Finally, with this money secret services can solve certain political problems. For example, they can enter into mutually profitable agreements with Afghan warlords, who give "protection" to drug business in their fiefdoms. This also gives secret services powerful influence on Kosovo Albanian diaspora in Europe, which is more than one million strong. It is a kind of "fifth column" of the United States in "the old Europe."

- And what are the consequences for Russia?

-The new American route for drug trafficking creates an alternative to the old ones, which included transit through Russia. The new route is no longer controlled from inside Russia, but by other forces. So the smaller drug traffic through Russia is, the weaker is the drug mafia, which has contacts with external forces.

- Does it mean that before this drug traffic was controlled by us?

-Well, how should I put it? In 1994 the Talibs came from Pakistan to Afghanistan and took control of the southern part of the country. In 1996 they entered Kabul and two years later came to Kunduz. Ahmad Shah Masud was left just with Panjshir and a small territory on the border with Tajikistan. In Tajikistan itself, after the civil war power went to the Kuliab clan. They totally depended on Russia, on our 201st Division. Masud also depended on Russia. We sent him advisors and shipments. His aviation was based in Kuliab. In other words, Masud and Tajiks completely depended on Russia's support. Our influence was dominant. True, already back then the British entered into the picture, represented by Aga Khan IV Foundation. But that had only local significance. As to "special merchandise," mainly it always went--and for now continues to go--to Europe via Iran and Turkey. No more than 15 percent ever passed through Tajikistan.

-And exactly who did this?

-Tendencies, not names are important. Before 2000, Russia was not a significant user of heroin. Its population was too poor and heroin was expensive. Besides, there was no tradition of using heroin. So the main part of "special merchandise"--25-30 tons a year--went to Kosovo Albanians in Europe. You see, it's not that simple to traffic drugs from Afghanistan to Tajikistan, from there to Russia and from Russia to Europe, former Yugoslavia. It took a serious organization with much power and good protection.

-You mean special services and the army?

- Why necessarily the army? Aga Khan IV Foundation always did this as well. And then not the entire army was involved in this.

- What did change after 2000?

Oil prices went up. Russia was getting easy money and a large internal market was created. It's easier to get "special merchandise" from Tajikistan to Russia than to move it from Russia to Europe. Monopoly and centralization does not help here. On the contrary, more effective is decentralization, a cell structure based on the multitude of predominantly small and middle-size ethnic societies, Tajik, for example. Besides the Tajik, this business attracted the government circles of Turkmenistan. The country is well located for this: the Caspian Sea, Astrakhan, and Azerbaijan. Afghan heroin comes to Azerbaijan from Iran as well. It used to come from Turkey too before last spring when they closed Batum. I believe it won't stay closed for long. In the end, all this heroin reaches Russia. Our Azeri diaspora is two million strong, the Tajik one million. There are also Gypsies, the worst of them all. In short, there exists a ready retail network for drugs. Nor do they have problems with laundering drug money in Russia. The Moscow construction business alone can take care of this! Approximately in 2002 British MI-6 and DIS (British military intelligence) took control of this drug business. They control it indirectly, of course, but very effectively.

- And how did this happen?

- In the end of 2001 the British came to the Kanduz province. It's their zone in Afghanistan. Within the multinational forces they are responsible for drugs control in the entire Afghanistan, not just in their zone in the north. To be more precise, officially they are supposed to fight poppy cultivation. Not the Americans, but the British are responsible for that. They began by flooding with drugs their own country. The use of heroin in Britain went up 1,5 times within one year. And four fifth of all heroin was trafficked through Tajikistan. After that they decided that it was enough for Britain and turned to the Russian market.

-How?

- They recruited big narcobarons, who were prominent statesmen of Tajikistan and had influence with the Tajik diaspora in Russia. This gave them an established retail network, ties with corrupt elements in police, FSB, and the customs. Besides, they had old ties with some Russians in Tajikistan, in the military and the border service, who are having financial problems after our troops withdrew from Bosnia and Kosovo. Not that they became poor, but before they did not have to count their money and now they do. In other words, these people cannot resist when their old partners in the Tajik elite approach them with "business" proposals. This is a typical commercial recruiting through intermediaries, a traditional British method.

-It turns out that the British control drug business in Russia?

-Yes, indirectly they control about 70 percent of both whole and retail sales of heroin. They do this through Tajik and Russian citizens, recruited on a commercial basis.

-What is to be done? How can we fight this?

-This situation cannot be changed radically by controlling the shipments of acetic anhydride to Asian countries. Nor the recent arrest of Gafur "Gray-haired" will solve all problems. [One of the closest associates of Tajik President Emomali Rakhmonov and the former head of the Presidential Guard, General Gafur Mirzoev was arrested in August 2004. At the time of his arrest Mirzoyev was the head of Tajik Drug Control Agency http://www.nobf.ru/engl/news/news_archive_04.html].

There must be real struggle against corruption of customs officials and in the law-enforcement agencies. But with the present Russian administration these are pure dreams. However, I believe it is possible to scale down air and rail cargo transportation from Tajikistan, which will be also in the interests of our law-enforcement services. This would make harder large wholesale deliveries. Also something must be done with migration, both legal and not. This would be a blow to the network of drug dealers. In general, we need to cut down the traffic of Afghan heroin to our country by any means possible.

- But where there is demand for drugs there will be supply.

- Anyway, one has to fight this. We need to study the experience of other countries. There is one point of view--though I strongly disagree with it--that if heroin traffic is stopped, at least temporarily, it will be replaced by cocaine. That happened in the United States in the 1970s-80s after they had left Indochina. Cocaine is, of course, a poison, but heroin is much worse.

-Why?

In the first place, heroin is more harmful to health. Secondly, cocaine is more expensive and therefore less accessible. Thirdly, there is no Colombian diaspora in Russia, and in Colombia there are not enough representatives of those organizations that "control" Russian seaports. Colombia is not a Petersburg. It's a dangerous country for FSB agents, there is a war going on, you can be kidnapped or killed. In short, the [Colombian] connection is fragmented and less vulnerable to the US and British influence. Finally, we have only few seaports that ships from Latin America can call. In contrast, our borders with Central Asia and the Trans-Caucasus are immense. So it is easy to monitor and control [cocaine traffic].

-But you said you did not agree with this viewpoint?

- Of course, I do not. It would be great to shield ourselves from all drugs. I just don't know how this can be done.

Translated by Ralph Moody

http://www.left.ru/inter/2005/narkobarons.phtml

[Raju]

It was in year 2006.

Here's the Project we did: http://sikhgiving.com/project2.html

Here's the report: http://sikhgiving.com/punjab_drug_report.html

I shall be using this report in various forums. thanks

It is also interesting that heroin is the #1 drug which is processed from poppy grown mostly in Afghanistan without any control.

[AvnitK]

it just needs to be stopped

[Raju]

I stumbled upon the drug trade and CIA link while researching on some other topic.

They are using Afghanistan as the poppy and opium cultivation centre to supply Europe and US. Some of that excess production finds its way to India.

Especially those states bordering Pakistan.