To answer your questions I will mention the important points here as this delicate & most important issue which not only damaging the name & image of my country but is also a direct threat to the lives of many innocent youths around the globe especially in Western Europe.

My late father always fought against the drug trade, he did not allowed our tribes to grow poppy, on many occassions he refused the drug barons to use our valley as a processing center for hard drugs.

In 2003 our tribes started to grow Poppy, this was actually for the first time in many years, I campaigned hard to stop my tribes from cultivating poppy and by the end of 2005 I was able to bring a full stop to the Poppy cultivation in the entire Province, I then visited President Karzai, the UN, UNDP & many other NGOs asking for help for our farmers but unfortuantely no one helped us, but till this date there is no Poppy cultivation in our entire province, this is due to the strong Tribal treaties the Tribes have signed and agreed not to cultivate Poppy. Our farmers now grows Potatos, beans, wheat & vegtibles but not Poppy.

Poppy cultivation is actually a very tricky business, as deep one go and try to find why this trade continues that much is gets complicated to learn facts and the truth, however, I have campaigned hard against the poppy cultivation and rulled out any excuses such as “If the poppy cultivation stops, many farmers will starve to death” in reply I have given my people as an example and told them “My farmers did not startved to death”, but I have never been given a satisfactory answers by the UN or other NGOs who are working with the Afghan Governmnet on Poppy cultivation and Drug productions.

At a conference on Poppyin Europe, a UN officer was describing the poppy cultivation & drug production to be a 4 Billion USD industry per year, he also told that $800 million of the $4 Billion goes to the farmers.

I could not understand when the UN says “If these Afghan farmers do not cultivate Poppy, they & their families will starve to death”. If one takes the $800 million and multiply that by 7 or 8 years then this comes to about $6 Billion USD and if you take this $6 Billion and divide it on lets see 4,000 farmers, I think we have got some millionairs not starving farmers!

The honest truth about Poppy cultivation& the Drug Trade is that men behind this trade are part of President Karzai’s Cabinet, are his immediate family members, are ministers, Memebers of Parliament, are governors of Provinces and are very large Warlords. The farmers are forced to cultivate Poppy and the land which Poppy is cultivated on belongs mostly to these powerful officials and Mafia kings. The Poppy & Drug revenues are not part of the Afghanistan’s GDP in fact the hard Cash which is earned from Poppy & Drugs by these Powerful men in the Karzai regime are invested abroad.

I am very sad that the image of my country is destroyed, my people are poor and live a hard & poor life but these evil men gets richer and richer.

I hope you got a picture of how things are in Afghanistan and could imagine the ground realities.

Many Thanks

Ajmal Khan Zazai

– Tell this mother and widow, Chief Ajmal Khan Zazai, how continuing to help the Afghan people will not perpetuate the children of the world as collateral damage to the drug trade?

The pronounced uptick in illegal Afghans caught crossing the US/Mexico border and the poppy production in Afghanistan has not gone unnoticed. While I don’t see it as the US military’s roll to dictate farm production, and how you govern your nation responsibly is your process to choose or advocate, but poppy is what Afghanistan grows for export. I have no knowledge that you or your tribes are responsible or involved in drug trafficing, and it is not my intention to imply you are involved. However, we mothers hear to eradicate the poppy will destroy your economy. Do you want to be part of a Narco state? How’s that working out for Mexico? Great, if you want to be dependent on the United States of America. Meanwhile, Pakistan is getting the billions of US dollars and resources to fight the Taliban just as Mexico gets the same deal to fight the drug cartels. While Afghanistan gets so much fertilizer from NGOs they have excess for IEDs or bombs, while growers count the money from a 15% increase over last year’s high in opium per hectare production thanks to the fertilizer too. And don’t forget to take your free wheat seed for stopping by because we wouldn’t want the price for that to be economically sustainable.

Are you looking to drum up support in America? If you’re not speaking to US farmers about grain subsidies, why not speak to the women? There are many American women who believe in our 2nd Amendment that fits into your goal of arming your tribes as for home safety. But please be aware, the mothers of America are weary that not only our husbands but our children too are expendable to Afghan farmers. I wish you luck and success.

SP

This is important work. Hats off to Chief Zazai. It seems to me that we won the war in 01 with the overthrow of the Taliban as a force in Afghanistan. We should have read the history of the “Pashtuns” prior to committing to any long-term plan. However, with that being said, what Chief Zazai is trying to do here is the only way things will eventually work themselves out in Afghanistan. The answer must be an Afghan one. The tribal social structure is not only the oldest and trusted aspect of the Afghan society, but at the current time, seems to be the most stable and dependable. It is of great importance that Chief Zazai has the support of eleven tribes, which inludes the Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and Turkmen tribes.

Are the Coalition Forces in the area supporting this movement? If so, with what? How could it be supported better?

How can we (both US and Afghan) forces support the overall spread of movements like this, and is that possible?

Please keep up the work on this. Both American and Afghan lives hang in the balance.

Karl