Europe fails to stem rising drug tide
Traffickers are defeating overstretched police, US says
Ewen MacAskill and Rob Evans
Tuesday August 29, 2000
The Guardian
Europe is losing the war against drugs, according to intelligence reports from the US Drug Enforcement Administration obtained by the Guardian.
The reports reveal dramatic increases in drug production – from poppy crops used to make heroin in Afghanistan, to the manufacture of ecstasy in the Netherlands – and police forces stretched thin while trying to cope with Europe’s porous borders.
The drug traffickers have been so successful that they have compiled huge hidden stockpiles throughout western and eastern Europe to ensure an uninterrupted supply.
An increase in drug seizures throughout Europe and Asia is interpreted not as effective policing, but as a sign of increasing volumes.
The DEA is especially critical of the politics of the Netherlands government, expressing skepticism about the effectiveness of its liberal approach. It describes the Netherlands as “perhaps the most important drug trafficking and transiting area in Europe”. Trends in the drug trade, it says, undermine the Dutch government’s policy of discriminating between “soft” and “hard” drugs.
DEA reports on 10 countries, from Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iran, Turkey, Albania, Serbia-Montenegro, Macedonia, Croatia, Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Netherlands, were obtained by the Guardian during the past six months through the US Freedom of Information Act. They provide the most up-to-date information on the changing supply routes from the golden crescent countries – Afghanistan and Pakistan – to Europe.
The traditional route through the Balkans was disrupted by conflict throughout the 1990s, particularly the war in Kosovo last year. While variations on the route, using Croatia and Macedonia, have been adopted, much of that trade has shifted to the north.
Routes that emerged after the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 are now witnessing the biggest volume of drug trafficking, especially through the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary and Romania.
The DEA emphasis that the lifting of border restrictions within the European Union under the Schengen agreement, which Britain opted out of, has made life easier for drug traffickers.
“Although this agreement is advantageous for trade, it is also attractive to drug traffickers,” the report says.
In one especially pessimistic passage, the DEA concludes that drug traffickers have built up stockpiles that allow them to ensure smooth supplies. “In the last few years, heroin has been increasingly stockpiled in some western and eastern European locations, enabling west European travelers to take delivery of the drug closer to home,” it says.
“Turkish heroin trafficking organizations work in collusion with nationals from eastern Europe who have established heroin depots to store large quantities of heroin and release it on demand.
“These storage facilities ensure a steady, uninterrupted drug supply to west European consumers.”
A report on the Netherlands, prepared by the intelligence division of the DEA and dated June 2000, says that Amsterdam is “rather unique in that every type of drug-smuggling and distribution organization is represented for strategic and logistical purposes. It is an organizational center, a central brokerage point and a safe haven.”
Among the 100 groups which are active in drug trafficking in Amsterdam are Turks, Colombians, Kurds, Chinese, Nigerians, Israelis, Moroccans, British and Irish.
The Netherlands is the world’s biggest producer of ecstasy, a “designer drug” that is a mixture of amphetamine and mescaline. The DEA says: “The United States is increasingly a target of MDMA [ecstasy] traffickers. Quantities of ecstasy tablets are routinely smuggled to the US by air courier or in postal or express-mail packages.
The DEA’s Hague office recorded the seizure of more than 3.5m ecstasy tablets between January and October 1999 destined for the US market (seized in both the United States and Europe).
The Netherlands is also the main source in Europe for amphetamines, with virtually all shipments going to Britain, Germany or Scandinavia.
The DEA also estimates that 75% of the heroin arriving in the Netherlands is for onward shipment throughout Europe and north America.
In contrast with the official approach of the Netherlands government, which differentiates between hard and soft drug traffickers, the DEA notes: “Dutch hashish traffickers are increasingly distributing heroin, cocaine and amphetamine to other countries. This ‘poly-drug’ activity is being encountered more and more frequently.”
Smuggling is carried out by rail, air and post, but mainly by road in private cars, commercial buses and – the most popular method – in large container trucks.
The heroin trail begins in Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opium. Although a reduction in the amount of land being cultivated for poppies is predicted for this year, the trend in the volume of opium production has been steadily upwards. Production has risen by 33% in the past three years, according to US estimates, and 80% of illegal opiate products in Europe come from Afghanistan.
The traditional route for heroin trafficking was through Pakistan and Iran, but the latter has become more problematic. The Iranian government has sent its troops into bloody battles with increasingly sophisticated drug traffickers from Afghanistan, so the traffickers have moved their routes north.
The DEA says: “Reports of heroin shipments north from Afghanistan through the central Asian states to Russia have increased. Tajikistan is reported to be a favorite destination for both opium and heroin shipments.”
Russia acts as both a consumer and transit point.
The usual destination for shipments from the central Asian states is Turkey, which “plays a significant role in the conversion of opiates from source countries in south-west Asia and the transshipment of heroin to the worldwide market, particularly Europe.”
It is estimated that four to six metric tons of heroin is either processed or transits through Turkey each month.
Relatives try to cash in on Bokassa’s palace
May join tourist trail
Former African emperor’s impoverished offspring attempt
to open home to tourists
Lucy Jones in Berengo
Tuesday August 29, 2000
The Guardian
The crumbling palace of Jean-Bidel Bokassa, the cannibalistic self-styled emperor of the Central African Republic, has seen better days.
Summer rains flood the secret underground quarters of the “imperial court”, located in a palm-tree grove 50 miles from the country’s decrepit capital, Bangui.
Madame Bokassa’s Italian bathroom tiles are chipped and the kitchen where chefs allegedly cooked the emperor’s political rivals, often serving them to visiting foreign dignitaries, is alive with rats.
The bedroom in which Bokassa slept, supposedly surrounded by piles of gold and diamonds, still bears the bullet holes of the French, who stormed the palace when they ousted him in 1979. A huge building resembling a ship, which was home to the president’s spies, stands empty.
But all this may change. The 62 children of Emperor Bokussa I, who were once the elite of this impoverished country but who now lives in rags in the palace grounds, want to turn the building into a tourist attraction.
“We are very poor. The palace is all we’ve got left,” said Jean Mboma, a grandson of Bokassa.
The Central African Republic attracts few tourists – only 4,000 last year. Even the hardiest of back packers are deterred by the prevalence of banditry and the lack of anything interesting to see or do.
But relatives of Bokassa, who died in 1996, and some government officials believe it is not only foreign visitors who can benefit from visiting Bokassa “attractions”. Central Africans need to know their history too, they say.
“He is an important character in the development of our country. We need to preserve that history, whether it’s good or bad,” said Albertine Dounia, head of the national museum in Bangui.
Expatriates recall Bokassa’s ruinous 13-year reign with fondness. “Things worked under Bokassa. The roads were good and the country was safe. The Central African Republic at that time was Africa’s best kept secret,” said one diplomat. Indeed, the former French president Giscard d’Estaing enjoyed hunting trips with Bokassa.
Central Africans often cite the university, sports stadium and sparse network of roads as achievements of the Bokassa era. But not everybody remembers with nostalgia the ruler who clubbed to death several children and who spent the equivalent of his country’s annual GNP on an extravagant coronation.
Residents of Kolongo, the location of one of Bokassa’s villas, said that living next to the dicatator was terrifying. “My brother, who was a teacher, was walking home one night past the palace grounds. He was taken inside. We never saw him again. It was a frightening time,” said Sima Fugaston, who makes a living selling the tall grasses which grow in the derelict den of the lions the president once kept.
“He used to scoop up beggars in his plane and drop them into the river,” recalled a university professor.
Exhibitions on Bokassa are outlawed in the country and his belongings, such as his gold-plated bed, are in the national museum’s basement.
“This is a sensitive subject,” said Pierre N’Dickini, director general of tourism. “Any exhibition or restoration of Bokassa’s properties needs to be done properly. This will take time.”
Bokassa’s family want to open the palace straight away. They have written to international tourist bodies to request assistance and are petitioning the government.
Constantin Ballangha, the president’s younger brother and former secretary chief, said that money was not the only issue. “Central African need to judge Bokasssa themselves. For too long we’ve been manipulated by the French. Opening the palace to the public is a start in allowing us to do this,” he said.