Endorsing the findings of a joint report of Sustainable Development Policy Institute (SDPI) and (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime), Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Friday said illegal money earned through drugs and arms trafficking was being used by terrorists. Therefore, global cooperation was a must to curb organised trans-national crimes.
He was speaking at the launching of the study launch on illegal economy of Pakistan “Examining the Dimensions, Scale and Dynamics of the Illegal Economy: A Study of Pakistan in the Region” at a local hotel. Senator Haji Adeel of ANP, UNODC Representative Jeremy Douglas, SDPI Director Programme Development Qasim Ali Shah and Dr Abid Qayyum Sulehri also spoke on the occasion.
Rehman Malik spoke on different dimensions of organized crime, regional and global dimensions of their networks, funding and more importantly absence of international cooperation on these heinous crimes. He urged the Western countries to help Pakistan to improve its law enforcement agencies through sharing of expertise, equipments and training. He also suggested forming an international body on investigating and taking actions against illicit money which is one of the primary sources of funding for terrorist organizations.
He said evidences suggested that terrorist organisations used sophisticated methods to strengthen their networks and to swiftly mobilise resources across the globe generated through smuggling of drugs and illegal economy. He said Pakistan was a direct victim of global war on terror and its mainstream economy and social fabric had been destroyed. He called for the need of a united action on overflow of problems from Afghanistan.
He lamented NATO and US had failed to stop cultivation of poppy in Afghanistan, adding that the money generated through the practice directly fuelled terrorism in the region and the globe, as it was widely used for weapons, trainings and other needs by terrorist organisations. He said Pakistan had also lodged complaints to NATO but they avoided action against poppy cultivation ostensibly due to their limited mandate. Malik lauded security institutions and law enforcement agencies for their sacrifices and successes against crimes despite being short of modern equipments and training. Qasim Ali Shah, while sharing the findings of study, recommended mainstreaming of efforts to curb illegal economy into development agenda framework, capacity-building of law enforcement agencies, international cooperation, education to address demand-side aspects, and further research. He said illegal economy was a subset of the informal economy and its size and scale in Pakistan had not been investigated so far, adding that Pakistan’s informal economy was estimated at $34 billion whereas illegal economy had grown up to $1.2 to 1.5 billion. He said Pakistan’s location next to Afghanistan, the world’s largest producer of opiates, made it vulnerable to drug and precursors trafficking, adding that around 44 percent of the heroin produced in Afghanistan transited through Pakistan, whose destination value was estimated at approximately US$ 27 billion.
Dr Abid said it was a shared responsibility of international community to collectively deal with this menace as no country or region cannot alone control this deep rooted. “The world has also to pay immediate attention to growing poverty and inequality, and ensure alternative sources of livelihoods to communities to stop the culture of illegal economy,” he added.
Senator Haji Adeel said illegal economy and trade in FATA stemmed from the poor socio-economic conditions in FATA, adding that the locals had no other option of livelihood but to resort to illegal economy. He added militant outfits received money from Afghanistan and that the allied forces must take actions. He said Pakistan was dragged into War against terrorism and as long as this war continued, the illegal economy would also prosper.
Jeremy Douglas noted that illegal economy was unfortunately a neglected area within the mainstream development discourse despite its impact on human security at various levels. He said the study had been conducted first time in Pakistan and its primary aim was to estimate the scale and size, understand its dynamics which was subsequently undermining the prosperity of states and citizens.
He said value of global illegal economy in 2009 was estimated at US$1.3 trillion, which was growing now and thought to be 7 to 10 percent of global economy.
Some simple facts:
* A rather large majority of people will always feel the need to use drugs, such as heroin, opium, nicotine, amphetamines, alcohol, sugar, or caffeine.
* Just as it was impossible to prevent alcohol from being produced and used in the U.S. in the 1920s, so too, it is equally impossible to prevent any of the aforementioned drugs from being produced and widely used by those who desire to do so.
* Due to Prohibition (historically proven to be an utter failure at every level), the availability of most of these mood-altering drugs has become so universal and unfettered that in any city of the civilized world, any one of us would be able to procure practically any drug we wish within an hour.
* The massive majority of people who use drugs do so recreationally – getting high at the weekend then up for work on a Monday morning.
* A small minority of people will always experience drug use as problematic.
* Throughout history, the prohibition of any mind-altering substance has always exploded usage rates, overcrowded jails, fueled organized crime, created rampant corruption of law-enforcement – even whole governments, while inducing an incalculable amount of suffering and death.
* The involvement of the CIA in running Heroin from Vietnam, Southeast Asia and Afghanistan and Cocaine from Central America has been well documented by the 1989 Kerry Committee report, academic researchers Alfred McCoy and Peter Dale Scott, and the late journalist Gary Webb.
* It's not even possible to keep drugs out of prisons, but prohibitionists wish to waste hundreds of billions of our money in an utterly futile attempt to keep them off our streets.
* Prohibition kills more people and ruins more lives than the prohibited drugs have ever done.
* The United States jails a larger percentage of it's own citizens than any other country in the world, including those run by the worst totalitarian regimes, yet it has far higher use/addiction rates than most other countries.
* Prohibition is the "Goose that laid the golden egg" and the lifeblood of terrorists as well as drug cartels. Both the Taliban and the terrorists of al Qaeda derive their main income from the prohibition-inflated value of the opium poppy. An estimated 44 % of the heroin produced in Afghanistan, with an estimated annual destination value of US $ 27 Billion, transits through Pakistan. Prohibition has essentially destroyed Pakistan's legal economy and social fabric. – We may be about to witness the planet's first civil war in a nation with nuclear capabilities. – Kindly Google: 'A GLOBAL OVERVIEW OF NARCOTICS-FUNDED TERRORIST GROUPS' Only those opposed, or willing to ignore these facts, want things the way they are.
* The urge to save humanity is almost always a false-face for the urge to rule it. – H. L. Mencken (1880-1956) American editor, essayist and philologist.
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