Afghans reap record opium harvest

Afghan opium production rose to record levels yet again last year, the US State Department has said, in what has become an annual announcement of failure.

Despite a programme to wipe out Afghan opium production by the Americans, the British and the government of Hamid Karzai, production in fact rose by 25 per cent in 2005-6, according to the State Department's annual drugs report.

Many farmers could be made bankrupt because their poppy fields are cleared by force. Some have even sold their own children because they can no longer afford to feed them.

Yet the policy is not working. Afghanistan still accounts for 90 per cent of the world opium trade.

"Afghanistan's huge drug trade undercuts efforts to rebuild the economy and develop a strong democratic government based on the rule of law," the report said.

In fact, opium is the only part of Afghanistan's economy that is flourishing: it was worth $3bn (£1.6bn) last year and accounted for one-third of the GDP.

The report is critical of Afghanistan's failure to do more to stem opium production, though it stresses that President Karzai's government is co-operative.

With the country virtually under foreign rule, and the US and Britain taking the lead in the fight against opium, it could hardly do otherwise. Most analysts agree that the drive against opium is alienating Afghans and increasing popular support for the Taliban.