By Sajjad Shaukat
While echoing Hobbes and
Machiavelli, Morgenthau opines that in international politics, countries act
upon various immoral activities like deceit, fraud, falsehood and so on. In one
way or the other, they also follow these tactics to fulfill their selfish aims.
But, in the modern era of electronic and social media including open diplomacy,
it is difficult for the sovereign states to continue mal-practices of the past,
as sinister politics has been replaced by world’s new trends such as
fair-dealings, reconciliation and economic development. In this respect, the
news item, “India accused of using Afghan soil for Heroin smuggling”, published
in the leading daily Dawn on March 18, 2015 verified previous reports of
India’s involvement in drug smuggling from Afghanistan.
In the recent past, a
released video by Washington Free Beacon pointed out that the US Secretary of
Defence Chuck Hagel disclosed during a speech at Oklahoma’s Cameron University
in 2011, “India has always used Afghanistan as a second front” and “has over
the years financed problems for Pakistan on that side of the border.” Earlier,
the then NATO commander in Afghanistan, Gen. McChrystal had revealed: “Indian
political and economic influence is increasing in Afghanistan…is likely to
exacerbate regional tensions.” In fact, by availing the golden opportunity of
the 9/11, India has signed a number of bilateral agreements with Kabul, during
the regime of Afghanistan’s former President Hamid Karzai in getting its hold
in Afghanistan by manipulating US strategy. New Delhi which has already invested
billion of dollars in Afghanistan, signed a wide-ranging strategic agreement
with that country on October 5, 2011 also includes to help train Afghan
security forces, while assisting Kabul in diversified projects. Apparently, it
is open strategic agreement, but secretly, India seeks to further strengthen
its grip in Afghanistan to get strategic depth against Islamabad.
In this regard, stiff
resistance of the Taliban militants against the occupying forces created unending
lawlessness in the country which has become a most suitable place for Indian
secret agency RAW to implement a conspiracy to fulfill its country’s strategic
designs against Iran, China and particularly Pakistan, while achieving
collective goals of the US against these countries including Russia. Especially,
based in Afghanistan, Indian consulates including agents of RAW, who are also supporting
Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), are behind various acts of terrorism in
Pakistan such as target killings, bomb blasts, suicide attacks, assaults on
civil and military installations including churches, religious leaders etc. to
destabilize Pakistan. They have also perennially been arranging similar
subversive acts in Balochistan.
As a matter of fact,
with the cooperation of ex-president Karzai and Afghan intelligence-National Directorate
of Security (NDS), and with the tactical assistance of American CIA and Israeli
Mossad, RAW has well-established espionage network in Afghanistan, which has
also been used for smuggling of drugs so as to obtain Indian sinister designs
in the region, particularly against While, poppy cultivation has risen to all
time high, and Afghanistan has become one of the biggest contributors of drug
proliferation in the region and beyond. And, Afghan government has failed in
controlling corruption and implementing rule of law, while international
community especially major donors are averse to such malpractices. According to
some sources, modern weapons of Indian, American and Israeli origin are
available in the markets of Afghanistan. Smuggling of latest arms from west to
Afghanistan is also being supported by the drug mafia of Afghanistan. In this
connection, Afghan President Karzai’s real brother Ahmed Wali Karzai, and high
officials have been found involved in drug smuggling for raising funds to
support insurgency in Pakistan with the support of RAW.
It would not be out of
context to mention here that primarily these are the Afghan drug Barons and
Warlords like Hamid Karzai and his brother in whose interest it is to keep the
region in state of war. It is also a known fact that Qasim Fahim, Vice
President of Afghanistan is also a warlord and a drug baron. In the recent
past, American troops destroyed poppy fields, but, they failed in stopping
poppy cultivation, because India was involved in supporting Afghan warlords and
drug In this connection, on November 2, 2009 John Burns, the chief foreign
correspondent for The New York Times, while answering questions about a New
York Times article about Ahmed Wali Karzai, exposed his ties to the nation’s
opium trade. And on October 27, 2009, the same newspaper pointed out, “The
brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country’s booming
illegal opium trade…in a large area of southern Afghanistan where the Taliban
insurgency is strongest, undermines the American push to develop an effective
central government that can maintain law and order and eventually allow the
United States to withdraw…on at least one occasion, the strike force has been
accused of mounting an unauthorized operation against an official of the Afghan
government.”
Quoting a senior
American military officer in Kabul, The New York Times elaborated, “Hundreds of
millions of dollars in drug money are flowing through the southern region, and nothing
happens in Afghanistan without the regional leadership knowing about it.” However,
besides the involvement of other Afghan entities, Indian engagement in drugs in
Afghanistan was proved in the news item of Dawn, which quoted world’s renowned
news agency, Reuters as a source and also included AFP file. It is given below.
UN officials recorded a sharp spike this year in the amount of heroin being
seized from passengers trying to fly from Afghanistan to India, a worrying
trend since the Taliban insurgency lines its pockets on the illegal drug trade.
A lack of coordination
is hampering efforts to clamp down on the route, officials said, with India blaming
Afghanistan for poor cooperation in helping to track smugglers. In January
alone, officials intercepted 44 kilograms of heroin from Afghan airports in
eight separate cases, compared to 50 kilograms of heroin and hashish seized
during the whole of last year, according to United Nations Office on Drugs and
Crime data. Most of the cases have involved passengers trying to board flights
bound for the Indian capital New Delhi after swallowing as much 2 kg of the
illegal opiate in capsules, like condoms. The spike is an “alarming trend”,
said Mark Colhoun, deputy representative to the UNODC in “These mule are small
fry,” he said. “You need to track down the networks.” The UNODC started working
with Afghan police and customs in 2013 at Kabul’s airport, and later expanded to
airports in Kandahar, Herat, and Mazar-i-Sharif. It is unclear whether the rise
in heroin being seized represents an increase in trafficking or better tracking
of smugglers. But opium cultivation in Afghanistan, which produces some 90 per
cent of the world’s illegal opiates, is on the rise.
Afghan smugglers often
travel to India under the guise of seeking medical care, said a senior official
in India’s Narcotics Control Bureau speaking on condition of anonymity. Nevertheless,
news of Dawn has verified Indian negative role of drug smuggling from Afghanistan.
Therefore, it is the right hour that the US-led international community must
take action against New Delhi, and by rolling back Indian network in
Afghanistan, which includes smuggling of drugs, especially Heroin for the
purpose of its secret strategic goals. While the western countries and Russia
are worried about instability in Afghanistan, spilling over into the former
Soviet Central Asia and about drug smuggling pushing up the numbers of
heroin addicts. Nonetheless, western donors’ aid to Kabul for bringing stability
in that country will prove fruitless, if India continues drug smuggling in
Afghanistan which has become one of the biggest contributors of drug
proliferation in the world. Sajjad Shaukat writes on international affairs and
is author of the book: US vs Islamic Militants, Invisible Balance of Power:
Dangerous Shift in International Relations
Email:
sajjad_logic@yahoo.com
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