WASHINGTON, Aug 25: The US Senate has arranged for Colombia to help Afghanistan fight drug trafficking. The two countries were brought together in the drug wars by House International Relations Committee Chairman Henry J. Hyde, who sent a letter in February to the chief of Colombia’s national police, announcing the arrival of congressional staffers in Bogotá to start planning an Afghan-Colombian alliance.
“We warmly welcome the restoration of formal relations between Afghanistan and Colombia and especially the joint efforts of Colombia and its elite national police to help Afghanistan tackle the enormous problem of heroin production, which also fuels terrorism,” Mr Hyde said.
Colombia’s counter-narcotics police, aided by the US, have been able to reduce heroin exports by 67 per cent in the past five years, said Mr Hyde, making it the perfect ally for Afghanistan’s anti-drug campaign.
Colombia has begun exporting counter-narcotics know-how to Afghanistan in a bid to stem that country’s record heroin production.
Much of the emphasis will be on Colombia’s teaching the Afghans how to find and attack drug labs. On Wednesday Bogotá re-established diplomatic ties with Kabul.
Colombia has a long history of battling drug cartels and the left-wing terror group Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, known by its acronym FARC. Heroin and cocaine traffickers have threatened the country’s democratically elected government with years of deadly terror attacks and kidnappings.
Afghanistan now finds itself in a similar fix. It has become the world’s No. 1 producer of poppy, the plant from which heroin derives, as peasants cultivate the one crop they know will put food on the table. Defeating drug lords has become second only to defeating Taliban and Al Qaeda terrorists in importance for Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The two countries’ relationship took root earlier this year when Colombia’s top anti-drug police official met in Vienna with his counterpart from Kabul.
“Afghanistan and Colombia are suffering from the same problem, and we look forward to working together with sustainable international support to eliminate drug production and trafficking in the two countries,” Said Tayeb Jawad, Afghanistan’s ambassador in Washington, said on Wednesday in Bogota. He was in Colombia to re-establish diplomatic relations.
Habibullah Qaderi, Afghanistan’s minister of counter-narcotics, was in Bogotá last month to win commitments from Colombia’s police force to begin training Afghan forces.
“Colombia ... has a lot to share and help our Afghan partners with in the global struggle against drugs and terror,” Mr Hyde said.
