by Mathias Broeckers

Wer ermöglicht die größte Heroinschwemme aller Zeiten ?

Richtig - es sind die Militärs der USA, Großbritanniens und der deutschen Bundeswehr, die mit dem Geld ihrer Steuerzahler dafür sorgen, dass in Afghanistan soviel Heroin produziert wird wie nie zuvor.

Vor der Invasion des Landes wurde in Afghanistan nur Mohn angebaut und Opium exportiert, jetzt verarbeiten große Fabriken den Rohstoff zu Heroin. Die Kolonnen schwarzer Jeeps, die den begehrten Stoff dann über Usbekistan Richtung Westen transportieren, werden an der Grenze nicht kontrolliert - an dem hochmodernen, mit EU-Geldern finanzierten Kontrollequipment zur Eindämmung des Drogenhandels werden sie vorbeigewunken.

Darüber schreibt der ehemalige britische Botschafter in Usbekistan, Craig Murray, der dieses Treiben von 2002 bis 2004 beobachtet hat, in einem erhellenden Artikel, den man jedem Knallkopf, der mehr Truppen für Afghanistan fordert, um die Ohren schlagen müßte.

Zudem nennt Murray auch erstmals ein nachvollziehbares Motiv für den in Lodon vergifteten Ex-KGB-Agenten Litvinenko:

"My knowledge of all this comes from my time as British Ambassador in neighbouring Uzbekistan from 2002 until 2004. I stood at the Friendship Bridge at Termez in 2003 and watched the Jeeps with blacked-out windows bringing the heroin through from Afghanistan, en route to Europe.

I watched the tankers of chemicals roaring into Afghanistan.

Yet I could not persuade my country to do anything about it. Alexander Litvinenko – the former agent of the KGB, now the FSB, who died in London last November after being poisoned with polonium 210 – had suffered the same frustration over the same topic.

There are a number of theories as to why Litvinenko had to flee Russia. The most popular blames his support for the theory that FSB agents planted bombs in Russian apartment blocks to stir up anti-Chechen feeling.

But the truth is that his discoveries about the heroin trade were what put his life in danger. Litvinenko was working for the KGB in St Petersburg in 2001 and 2002. He became concerned at the vast amounts of heroin coming from Afghanistan, in particular from the fiefdom of the (now) Head of the Afghan armed forces, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, in north and east Afghanistan.

Dostum is an Uzbek, and the heroin passes over the Friendship Bridge from Afghanistan to Uzbekistan, where it is taken over by President Islam Karimov's people. It is then shipped up the railway line, in bales of cotton, to St Petersburg and Riga.

The heroin Jeeps run from General Dostum to President Karimov. The UK, United States and Germany have all invested large sums in donating the most sophisticated detection and screening equipment to the Uzbek customs centre at Termez to stop the heroin coming through.

But the convoys of Jeeps running between Dostum and Karimov are simply waved around the side of the facility.

Litvinenko uncovered the St Petersburg end and was stunned by the involvement of the city authorities, local police and security services at the most senior levels. He reported in detail to President Vladimir Putin. Putin is, of course, from St Petersburg, and the people Litvinenko named were among Putin's closest political allies. That is why Litvinenko, having miscalculated badly, had to flee Russia.

I had as little luck as Litvinenko in trying to get official action against this heroin trade. At the St Petersburg end he found those involved had the top protection. In Afghanistan, General Dostum is vital to Karzai's coalition, and to the West's pretence of a stable, democratic government."