Pakistan's illegal
heroin economy has kept its legitimate State economy sustained since 1990 and
prevented its collapse. It has also enabled it to maintain a high level of arms
purchases from abroad and to finance its proxy war against India through the
jehadi organizations.
While no estimate
of the money spent by it on its proxy war is available, it has been estimated by
Pakistani analysts ("Friday Times" March 9 to 15,2001) that about 80
per cent of its total external debt of US $ 38 billion, that is, about US $ 30.4
billion, was incurred on arms purchases since 1990. This includes its purchases
of aircraft and missiles from China, missiles from North Korea, for which
payment was made partly in cash and partly in imported US and Australian wheat,
Agosta class submarines from France, reconditioned Mirage aircraft from France,
Lebanon and Australia and other items from countries such as Ukraine. The
clandestine procurement of nuclear technology and material from Western
countries and the Chinese-aided nuclear power station at Chashma were also
financed through external borrowing.
The use of the
heroin dollars for such purposes started after the withdrawal of the Soviet
troops from Afghanistan in 1988. In the 1980s, at the instance of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the US, the Internal Political Division of the
Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), headed by Brig (retd).Imtiaz, who worked
directly under Lt.Gen.Hamid Gul, the DG of the ISI during the later years of
Zia-ul-Haq and during the first few months of Mrs.Benazir Bhutto's first tenure
as the Prime Minister (1988-90), started a special cell for the use of heroin
for covert actions.
This cell promoted
the cultivation of opium and the extraction of heroin in Pakistani territory as
well as in the Afghan territory under Mujahideen control for being smuggled into
the Soviet controlled areas in order to make the Soviet troops heroin addicts.
After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the ISI's heroin cell started using
its network of refineries and smugglers for smuggling heroin to the Western
countries and using the money as a supplement to its legitimate economy. But for
these heroin dollars, Pakistan's legitimate economy must have collapsed many
years ago.
Not only the
legitimate State economy, but also many senior officers of the Army and the ISI
benefited from the heroin dollars. Brigadier Imtiaz was sacked by Mrs.Benazir on
coming to power in 1988 for interfering in internal politics, but was reinstated
by Mr.Nawaz Sharif on coming to power in 1990 and subsequently made Director of
the Intelligence Bureau (IB).
In fact, in Pakistan, Mr.Sharif
is seen as the creation of Brig. Imtiaz. It was he who, as head of the Internal
Political Division of the ISI in the 1980s, had persuaded Mr.Sharif, then a
small businessman in Dubai, to return to Pakistan and take over the leadership
of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML) in order to counter Mrs.Benazir's Pakistan
People's Party (PPP). Mrs.Benazir again had him sacked on her return to power in
1993 and arrested and prosecuted him on charges of indulging in illegal
activities, but he was acquitted.
After capturing power on
October 12,1999, Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's self-reinstated Chief of the
Army Staff (COAS), self-styled Chief Executive and self-promoted President, had
Brig.Imtiaz, because of his proximity to Mr.Sharif, rearrested and prosecuted
for having assets disproportionate to his known sources of income as an officer
of the ISI and the IB.
He was convicted
by a court on July 31,2001, and jailed for eight years. According to evidence
produced in the court by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB), Brig.Imtiaz
had foreign exchange bearer certificates worth US $ 20.08 million, a Pakistani
rupee account in the Union Bank with a balance of Rs.2.13 billion, a US $
account in the Deutsch Bank with a balance of US $ 19.1 million, five
residential houses, five commercial units and three shops. This huge wealth was
allegedly accumulated by him through heroin smuggling.
It is believed that there are
at least 30 such Army and ISI officers, serving and retired, who have
accumulated similar wealth through heroin smuggling.
The present estimate of
Pakistan's annual earnings through heroin dollars, including by this writer, is
about US $ 1.5 billion. It is difficult to come across precise, direct evidence
for such estimates. The estimate till now has been based on indirect evidence
such as the following:
1) The Government of Pakistan
releases its foreign exchange reserves position in two parts. The first
part gives the figures of reserves
maintained by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP). These are the amounts earned
through foreign trade, investment flows, foreign aid and loans and remittances
by overseas Pakistanis. The second part gives the figures of reserves available
with other banks. These are the deposits of resident Pakistanis, who are allowed
to maintain dollar accounts with no questions asked about the origin of the
money and about its liability for income tax. Under Pakistan Government orders,
these amounts cannot be used by the Government for its purposes though Mr.Sharif
froze them temporarily after the Chagai nuclear tests in 1998 in order to be
able to use them if the economic sanctions hit the State economy hard.
2) US dollars kept by private
citizens in their possession without being deposited in the banks. The SBP
periodically purchases these dollars to meet debt servicing and other
governmental needs.
In any analysis,
it would be reasonable to presume that the dollars kept in the bank accounts of
resident Pakistanis and the dollars in private circulation must have been
largely, if not totally, derived from the heroin trade. There cannot be any
other explanation for it because Pakistan has been having a trade deficit for
many years in succession, there has been a 73 per cent decline in foreign direct
investments and a negative flow of portfolio investments and there was no
international assistance forthcoming from October,1999, till November,2000, when
the IMF resumed its stand-by credit facilities to Pakistan.
Quoting SBP
sources, the "Business Recorder" of Pakistan (August 1,2001) gave the
following figures, which provide a fairly accurate estimate of the US dollars
available in private hands during the financial year 2000-01:
1) The SBP had $ 1.7 billion,
which was the official foreign exchange reserve of the State. In addition,
resident Pakistanis had deposits in various commercial banks amounting to US $
1.5 billion.
2) During the financial years
1999-2000 and 2000-01, despite the suspension of credit facilities by the IMF
and other multilateral institutions after the military coup, the Government
fulfilled debt servicing (debt and interest payments) obligations amounting to
US $ 7.8 billion. Out of this, US $ 4 billion came from the Govt. coffers and
the balance of US $ 3.8 billion was purchased from resident Pakistanis.
In other words, the total
amount of US $ in private circulation since the military regime came to power
was almost equal to that in the Govt. coffers, if not more.
The first direct
piece of evidence about the total value of the heroin money being pumped into
the Pakistani economy every year has come from an unexpected source---the
Taliban. Before 1998, opium was being grown in the North-West Frontier Province
(NWFP) of Pakistan and in the Nangarhar province in Taliban-controlled Afghan
territory. All the Pakistani-owned refineries for heroin extraction were located
in Taliban-controlled territory.
In 1998-2000, the Pakistani
authorities stopped the cultivation of opium in the NWFP. In 2000-01, the
Taliban too, under international pressure, ostensibly banned opium cultivation
in its territory, but did not dismantle the Pakistani-owned heroin refineries.
It demanded that international narcotics control agencies should reimburse to it
the money lost by its farmers due to this ban so that they can shift to other
crops.
US and other
foreign narcotics control officials, who visited Nangarhar, confirmed that opium
cultivation has been stopped. However, doubts remain on the following points:
1) Has the Taliban secretly
shifted the opium cultivation from the traditional areas in Nangarhar to which
international experts had access to other remote areas to which they did not
have?
2) Due to a bumper
crop and record heroin production in previous years, the prices of heroin in the
international heroin market had been coming down. Pakistani smugglers, supported
by the ISI, had enough heroin stocks to meet at least two years' demand of the
market. Was the Taliban merely suspending cultivation during this period to
stabilize the prices?
Despite these misgivings, the
US announced a contribution of US 1.5 million to international narcotics control
programs for disbursement to the Afghan farmers who have stopped poppy
cultivation. The Taliban has been describing this as worse than peanuts and
demanding much more.
This was one of
the subjects which figured during the discussions of Mrs.Christina Rocca,
US Assistant Secretary of State, with Mullah Abdus Salam Zaeef , the Taliban
Ambassador in Islamabad, and his No. 2, Mr. Sohail Shaheen, at Islamabad on
August 2. According to the "Frontier Post" of Peshawar (August 3,
2001), while briefing pressmen after the discussions, a spokesman of the Taliban
said : "We have told the US team that Afghanistan was earning 12 billion
dollars a year from the poppy cultivation and we have eliminated the poppy from
the country."
How much of this amount was
going to the Taliban and how much to the Pakistanis and the ISI, who owned all
the refineries? No direct evidence is available, but one can estimate roughly
that out of this at least US $ 11 billion per annum was going to Pakistan from
the following circumstantial evidence:
1) There are no
reports of large amounts in US dollars circulating in private hands in Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan , whereas Pakistan is awash with them.
2) There are no
large-scale development and other activities in Afghanistan which would indicate
the availability of large funds in cash. There is so much poverty due to lack of
development that thousands of Afghans have been migrating to Pakistan.
3)
Since its capture of Kabul in September,1996, the Taliban had not been
publishing its budget figures. Some details are now available for the first
time. According to these figures, during the financial year 2001-02, the Taliban
would have an estimated expenditure of US $ 82.53 million, of which US $ 43.53
million is shown as the Discretionary Fund of Mulla Mohammad Omer, the Amir. The
balance is to be spent by various departments. Quoting a study of the New York
University Centre, the "Dawn" of Karachi (June 4,2001) estimates that
the Taliban gets US $ 45 million per annum from the heroin trade, an amount
nearly equal to the Amir's Discretionary Fund.
If this figure of what the
Taliban gets is taken as reasonable, more than US $ 11 billion per annum from
the heroin trade goes to Pakistan, that is, more than Pakistani Rs. 715 billion
at one US $ equal to 65 Pak rupees. During 2000-01, the Pakistani State had a
total revenue of Rs.570.6 billion, of which Rs.471.6 billion came from taxes. That
is, Pakistan's heroin economy was 30 per cent larger than its legitimate State
economy.
Is it any wonder that its
economy does not collapse despite the worst predictions and that it is able to
defy international pressure on its
sponsorship of terrorism against India and on its support to the Taliban and
Osama bin Laden? (8-5-01)