top of page
Search

2/5 UNODC @ The Lao PDR & Alternative Development - The crops and the farmers

  • Benjamin-Alexandre Jeanroy
  • May 25, 2016
  • 8 min read

  • Why do farmers grow illicit crops?

Traditionally, opium was a substance of choice, firmly integrated into the society of the hills and valley tribes. Since the beginning of the communist regime and until the late 1990’s, personal cultivation and consumption were domestically allowed. A governmental decree, “allowed elderly people to cultivate a small plot of opium for personal use (but,) this exemption was abandoned in 2006.” (Bewley-Taylor & Jelsma, 2012) In this regard, “unlike Myanmar, where much of the opium is sent abroad or processed into heroin for export - much of the opium in Laos is (still) consumed locally.” (Corben, 2015)

Arguably, because of the nature and prohibition of the product, opium remains a profitable product in the Lao PDR; several kilos can be easily transported, stashed and kept for long period of time. The 2005 UNODC Opium Survey “found that poppy growers had an annual cash income of $139 while their non-growing neighbors earned $231. Although there have been general increases in rural income, incomes in former opium poppy growing villages are rising more slower than non opium poppy growing villages. This increasing disparity, along with the high price of opium,raises the likelihood that ex-growers will resume poppy cultivation. If that occurs, eliminating it again will be very hard to stop due to the reduced trust farmers will have and the spread of transnational organized criminal activity in border areas.” (Lao PDR, 2009)

Following UNGASS 1998 recommendations and goal of a “drug free world” (UN General Assembly, 1998), the Lao PDR government intensified its forced crop eradication programs. UNODC indirectly participated in the operations, to the very least by turning a blind eye on the practice. Ultimately in 2006, the production drastically lowered down to less than a thousand hectares (UNODC, 2008) which prompted the country to prematurely declare itself ‘opium free’. But in 2013, about 6,200 hectares of opium were still produced in the Lao People’s Democratic Republic (UNODC, 2014a).

Production had “peaked at an estimated 42,130 ha (380 tonnes) in 1989 but had declined to a mere 1500 ha (9 tonnes) in 2006.” (Cohen, 2009) Before that time, the relative success of AD in Northern Laos “has been hindered by the priority given to rapid opium eradication, by the consequent time constraints imposed on alternative development projects, and by the lack of the well-developed supportive markets and infrastructure.” (Cohen, 2009) The current absence of high-level internal armed conflict (contrary to neighboring Myanmar), does not seem to be enough to stem poppy cultivation, notably because of a “set of weak institutions dictated by the fiat of a few powerful families with strong ties to China.” (Eyler, 2015) Because a great amount of profitable licit crops cannot be cultivated in the compact soil of rocky terrain, opium production remains one of the only cash crops available to the most vulnerable populations of the country.

Opium poppy growing is officially considered by the Lao PDR government to be a priority. Since the end of the 1990’s when eradication programs started, the government would use UNODC opium surveys, done by helicopters, to then go on site and simply destroy the crops by force, alienating the communities depending on the illicit cultivation and further deepening their socio-economic vulnerability. No reflexion was done on the results of such actions, only counted the complete eradication of illicit poppy cultivation driven by international pressures.

As explained by U.N. Development Programme (UNDP) specialists Tenu Avafia and Javier Sagredo (2015), “for the many farmers affected by poverty, conflict, and insecurity, cultivating illicit drug crops is a viable livelihoods option, yet international drug treaties ban the cultivation of these crops and require their eradication” and therefore, bans enforcement and forced eradications “have in many cases negatively affected the public health and human rights of people living in poverty.” (Ibid.) Aside from breaching their human security principles, the destruction of livelihoods of those depending on cultivating opiate to survive does not necessarily “lead to reduced cultivation or consumption of illicit drugs, as the cultivators and traffickers simply move on to other areas.” (Ibid.)

On the side of drug production, many issues remain untold and inadequately debated. One way to consider the issue is to proclaim that illegal drugs are produced because they are highly profitable. However, as Francisco Thoumi and Jorrit Kamminga (2004) remind us “despite the high profits involved, most countries that can produce drugs do not. In other words, profitability is a necessary but not a sufficient condition for a country to produce illicit drugs. Indeed, illicit drug production occurs mainly in countries with deep institutional problems.” In the case of Lao PDR, the central government was at war with Hmong insurgents in the centre of the country until the beginning of the 21st century (1). Furthermore, it is important to realize that the grip of the central government remains limited notably over the 2/3rd of the country's mountainous regions. The empirical point remains that “illegal drug production and the development of illegal social support networks take place in countries with institutions that allow that those development.” (Thoumi & Kamminga, 2004) In accordance, policies that only intend to reduce drug profitability, lack understanding of the issue by not critically examine the root causes of drug production and trafficking. This does not necessarily mean that reproductive actions such as the operations conducted by UNODC in this aspects are necessarily done in vain. But it certainly says that “it cannot be expected that they alone solve the drug problem.” (Ibid.)

Even when AD programs are put in place, they are only one component among others in order for farmers to actually stop seeing growing opium as a viable option. Not only do essential infrastructures, such as roads, schools, sanitation, water and electricity services need to be integrated in the projects, but everything will remain dependent on the way the illicit crops are destroyed and replaced in the first place. The Lao PDR government, contrary to other worldwide current examples such as in Bolivia, Colombia and Thailand, has placed the eradication - forced or negotiated - of the crops, a requirement prior to the development of any AD projects. UNODC stands alongside this policy, without being able to do much about it. So what does happen for the farmers when crops are destroyed?

  • What happens when crops are destroyed?

Eradicating illicit crops is a specific requisite of the 1988 Convention (UN Convention, 1988, Art. 14), and although, the convention specifically asserts that such measures should be conducted in respect for human rights (Para. 2, the unique mention of “human right” in the treaty), the official commentary to that convention hardly mentions this requirement (UN Convention, 1988a). Similarly, aerial fumigations, none-standing its harmful health and environmental consequences (2), are not prohibited under the drug control conventions so long as risks are “weighed" (UN Convention 1988a), which for several researchers amounts to “non-consensual alternative development.” (Barret & Nowak, 2009) This way of allowing the implementation of AD programs has been problematic in many regions of the world, although in Lao PDR it has not been the most widely practiced way of destroying crops.

Other forms of destruction, without the consent of the farmers, have nonetheless been and are still being practiced prior to any AD projects implemented through and by UNODC. And because “environmental, health, and food security are inextricably linked to economic, personal, and community security as each inherently feeds into healthy living and sustainable livelihoods, crop eradication campaigns (…) forced displacement of farming communities, environmental damage, and disruption of traditional livelihoods.” (Gautreau, 2012) These results have been documented in Lao PDR and have resulted not only in the displacement of crops, but in severe human security violations of already vulnerable populations.

Additionally, as mentioned by David Mansfield, writing for the Global Commission on Drug Policy (2014), crop destruction drives up the price of illicit drug crops, leading to further production, and “increasing levels of instability.” This is particularly true in the region in the case of Myanmar, but in Laos, the results have been also particularly dreadful for the concerned populations. Indeed, “the results of crop eradication have been damaging because they have created a vicious cycle.” (NOREF, 2013 p. 2) A combination of factors, including governmental pressures, the spraying of chemicals, “the breakdown of a subsistence peasant economy, the violent persecution of vulnerable rural populations, the absence of alternative marketable crops, the sporadic and usually repressive presence of the state, the displacement of illicit crops to other areas and the restart of the cycle – has culminated in a perverse situation where the incentives to continue illicit cultivation are not eliminated.” (Ibid.)

We need to understand here that prior to any AD programs, if the eradication of the crops is presented as a requirement, forced or negotiated, the results can from the very beginning jeopardize the results of the AD programs even before its very start. Once we understand this, we are able to analyze and observe in the next article the current UNODC AD programs from a particular angle.

(1) As noted by the Hmong poet Mai Der Vang (2015), “During the Vietnam War, negotiators in Geneva agreed that Laos would remain neutral. But because the United States feared the spread of communism, the C.I.A. directed a covert operation in Laos known as the Secret War. It recruited Vang Pao, a charismatic, widely respected general, along with tens of thousands of Hmong boys and men, as fighters. For a decade and a half, Gen. Vang Pao and his Hmong guerrillas fought alongside the Americans.” The exiled Laotian further explains that when the U.S. forces “initially recruited the Hmong, they reportedly agreed to assist them if the war turned disastrous. This promise was fulfilled to General Vang Pao and his high-ranking officials, but not to the rest of the people.”

(2) As pointed by UNDP, “the herbicide used in aerial fumigation of illicit coca crops has been associated with physical and mental health problems.” (Avafia & Sagredo, 2015) This UNDP quote is similarly applicable to opium poppy fumigation.


Comments

 

UPEACE

  • Facebook - Black Circle
  • Twitter - Black Circle
  • LinkedIn - Black Circle
  • SoundCloud - Black Circle
bottom of page