INTERVIEW OF u.s. dea administration KAREN TANDY BY EL PAIS

Friday, September 15, 2006
International

Karen Tandy, U.S. DEA Administrator

“Eradicating Opium Is Critical To Stabilize Afghanistan”

“Drug trafficking feeds corruption.  Its financial flows in the world attain some €253.5 billion” 

“Plan Colombia is working.  Violence related to drug trafficking has decreased, and there is a record in extraditions to the U.S.”

Cecilia Jan. Madrid

The operation that is being developed by the international force and led by NATO in the south of Afghanistan has underlined the resurgence of Taliban insurgence.  This resistance coincides with an increase of opium-poppy cultivation in the country, which according to a UN report attains 59% in 2006, mainly in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, the Taliban bastions.  In this interview, Karen Tandy, U.S. DEA Administrator, alerts to the relation between drug trafficking and insurgence, and the need to eradicate cultivation to stabilize the country.

Tandy, who assumed charge in 2003, was in Madrid yesterday and the day before, when she met with [Spanish] Minister of the Interior Alfredo Pérez Rubalcaba and other high-ranking officials of fight against drug trafficking in order to strengthen cooperation between both countries.  The first woman who leads the powerful administration in charge of fight against drugs both in the U.S. and abroad through international cooperation described the meetings in Spain –the country that will be hosting the 25th International Drug Enforcement Conference (IDEC) in 2007— as “very positive and encouraging.”

Question: Are the Taliban fostering an increase of opium cultivation to finance themselves?

Answer:  There are reasons for concern.  The Taliban control opium production, and we think they are involved in making poppy be planted, and in the control of some of the production benefits.  It is clear that opium production in Afghanistan is feeding the activities of these insurgents.

Question:  Before the Taliban were overthrown by the U.S. in the fall of 2001, there was the highest decrease in production.  How do you interpret current increase?

Answer:  It is important to understand how the Taliban work.  They banned poppy cultivation to control the market, not to put an end to heroin production.  We have evidence that they taxed opium and heroin flow during the ban, and that they had poppy and opium stocks.  Their objective with that “ban” was to increase prices in order to get more benefits.

Question:  What does the DEA do to stop the increase of cultivations?

Answer: The DEA has a strong presence in Afghanistan.  We work in partnership with the British, who have the main responsibility for the control of drugs in the country.  The DEA is not involved in the eradication of cultivations, but it does what it does best, which is to develop intelligence to identify drug-trafficking organizations and dismantle them from top to bottom.  For this purpose, we work in coordination with the Afghan government and all neighboring countries, except for Iran, to control the inflow in Afghanistan of chemical products that are used for treating poppy and the money flow from heroin distribution.  Through these alliances, we try to cut heroin flow from Afghanistan to the outside.  We have also created a police corps against drug in Afghanistan, made up of Afghan men and women.  10% are women.

Question:  The UN has just asked NATO for a mandate to its troops in Afghanistan to fight against drug.  Do you agree?

Answer:  You should ask the military.  The important thing is that NATO is there, that there is a commitment of the international community.  It is important because an investment in the long term is going to be necessary in Afghanistan to eradicate poppy cultivation.  It is critical for the stability of the country.

Question: Are drug trafficking and international terrorism linked to each other?

Answer:  Totally.  There is certainly a connection between drug trafficking and international terrorism.  The Department of State has a list of terrorist organizations, and for a long time almost half of them had links to drug trafficking.  An example is the FARC [Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,] which not only have obtained benefits through taxes on cocaine to finance their terrorist activities, but in the long term have become traffickers themselves.  For the first time, Afghanistan, thanks to the efforts of the DEA, has extradited a trafficker, Haji Baz Mohamed, to the U.S., who declared jihad against America and carried out the fight by introducing drugs into the U.S., which kill Americans.  Another Afghan trafficker, Bashir Noorzai, is in prison in the U.S.  Both of them had connections with the Taliban.

Question: And connections between drug trafficking and Al Qaeda?

Answer:  Al Qaeda could not have existed or worked without the Taliban, and the Taliban depend on opium and heroin.  Al Qaeda training camps were in Afghanistan, where they had the protection of the Taliban, which allowed them to carry out their terrorist activities.

Question:  There is an increase of violence, of other kind, in Mexico.

Answer:  It is the violence present at the countries in the middle of production and the drug-trafficking chain.  That is why international cooperation is so important.  One of the great successes of the DEA and its Spanish counterparts has been to reduce drug flow from Colombia and Mexico to Spain.  An example is Operation Tacos, in the spring of 2005, when an entire organization was dismantled, from cocaine source in Colombia to transportation cells in Mexico, through ships, to the cells that received it in Spain.

Question:  Has collaboration on drug trafficking between the U.S. and Mexico improved?

Answer:  It is important the collaboration the U.S. gets in the whole continent, from Brazil, Venezuela, Central and South American countries.  Drug trafficking is in the heart of the instability of many governments, it is responsible for galloping consumption in the whole world, and it feeds corruption.  Financial flows from drug trafficking in the world attain some $322 billion [€253.5 billion.]  All these countries should join forces to put an end to this money flow.

Question:  The U.S. has invested $4.7 billion in six years in Plan Colombia, which expects to eliminate coca cultivations.  Is it working?

Answer: Totally.  It is working.  The commitment of the U.S. to Plan Colombia is strong.  I met with President [Álvaro] Uribe two weeks ago, and both the government and himself are strongly committed to attain the success of the Plan.  There are different signs: violence related to drug trafficking has decreased, killings, kidnappings have substantially decreased, the extraditions of great drug traffickers to the U.S. attain record numbers.  Uribe has been very courageous to face the very roots of great drug organizations.

Question:  Spanish authorities have carried out important operations against money laundering in the last year.  Does this money come from drug trafficking?

Answer:  If we look at SEPBLAC data, 60% of money in Spain are 500-euro notes, which is associated with criminal activities, especially drug trafficking.  The key to fight against drug trafficking is to stop the money flow and take illicit benefits away from these organizations.  The commitment of Spain in this fight is very strong.  You only have to look at our joint operations.

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