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A Schizophrenic War

Germany Turns a Blind Eye to Afghanistan's Growing Opium Trade

By Dirk Kurbjuweit

In the international community's plan for Afghanistan everyone has a role to play. The British advise the government on how to combat drugs, the Germans assist in training the police force, and the Italians work on setting up a fair justice system -- all the institutions the Afghanis need to combat the opium trade. But so far, those institutions are failing at the task.

Editor's Note: This is the second in a three-part special. You can read the first part here.

North of Kunduz, Afghanistan

As the German troops travel through the verdant hills in this region of Afghanistan, they pass several villages built from clay. The road rises and falls, winding its way through minefields marked by red-topped white stones. They pass a boy teaching his donkey sharp turns. Soviet tank wreckage pokes out of the fields like bones, a reminder of the decades of combat this country has seen.

The soldiers wave. Again and again. Afghans show up at the roadside - a peasant with his plough, girls behind dusty school windows, 20 men in a 10-seater minibus, men scouring for landmines, crouching in the fields and staring through protective glass. Whenever Afghan characters appear, the German troops raise their hands and give a friendly wave. Not only are they the world's "best equipped" army, they are also the friendliest. "Waving is protection," explained Commander Vogler-Wandler. Wherever the soldiers go, they pass the message that they do not want to harm anybody. We leave you alone, you leave us alone is the silent pact they seem to make.

The day before, on a reconnaissance mission close to Kunduz, the soldiers came across a group of workers. They stopped to ask them what they were building. The German squad leader, a first lieutenant, went up to the men, who were dozing under a tent roof, and exchanged a few words, asking them if they needed anything. He made it clear that the troops, of course, had not come to search them. There was no reason to be afraid, he said. This last sentence caused a bit of commotion. The builders laughed and started talking all at once. "We're not afraid," their leader cried. "We are brothers," shouted another. "You are my cousin," joked a third.

The lieutenant looked a little perplexed, unsure whether to take the remarks as genuine friendship or mockery. Before driving back to their camp in Kunduz, the soldiers handed out schoolbooks to children along with light blue caps with the Airbus A340 logo on them.

The camp has all the troops could ask for -- everything from a sauna, soon to be joined by a swimming pool, a toilet and shower up to German hospital standards, and a bar where they are allowed two bottles of beer each night. The women's tent is surrounded by roses, and come Mother's Day, they can send packages home at a discount. They have built a small, pretty Germany, a Germany from a bygone era. A peaceful, tidy, well-ordered tight ship, so to speak.

The soldiers go out on patrol, of course, checking to see if the new schools are working well. And their presence is surely a significant factor in maintaining peace in the Kunduz region. But to the observer, it seems that their main concern is their own safety and comfort.

In Kunduz, as in military bases back home, boredom brings on fatigue. To fight this, the soldiers carry out their tasks with great care; to make time pass by more quickly, they constantly discuss what is to be done next. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are major events that break up the monotony of the day.

On the journey to Faizabad, the midday sun beats down through the dust kicked up by the vehicles. The convoy crosses a ford, then passes an outcrop of rock that resembles a monkey's skull. On the green hills, red corn poppies sprout out of the short grass, a preview of the vast red poppy fields that fill up the meadows beyond.

Berlin, Criminal Justice Court, Moabit

Nobody in Germany is winning the war on drugs right now, and for proof, all one need do is visit ground zero: the office of Public Prosecutor Karin Engert. The office is shabby, with stained walls and old, decrepit furniture. Here, as is so often the case in police and judicial circles, the state appears as a starving wretch. A clerk enters, stacking a pile of files on a shelf. In them are today's new cases -- around 40 -- all of which are related to narcotics. Engert's department deals with 1,300 such cases per month -- more than any other department. "Working through these files is our daily reality," she says.

Engert is wearing a black suit and large pearl earrings. Studying the documents, she marks them in red ink and forwards them to the administrative office, where they're placed in red folders and forwarded to prosecutors. They then decide whether to bring charges or if they should order police to continue investigations before the dossiers are brought before a court.

Meanwhile, in courtroom 138 in Berlin's Moabit district, lawyers are presenting cases for prosecution. Eight are on today's docket. After their journey through the bureaucracy, the dossiers become human.

In the eighth hearing, the prosecution tells a judge that the Palestinian defendant apprehended in one of the city's train stations was carrying 4.7 grams of cocaine and 114 "pellets" on him. The "pellets" amount to 27.7 grams of impure heroin.

The rest is routine. The cast is familiar, the drama the same. The atmosphere is flat, and the arguments rattle off mechanically all morning, the droning murmur making it sound like the separate hearings have merged into one long story. The cases themselves seem far from scandalous, as do the defendants, regardless of excuses or confessions. The scandal is drug-dealing in its entirety.

There's little room for clemency in this courtroom. In their testimonies, both prosecutors and judges make it quite clear that the cases are far from trivial.

The prosecution calls for a suspended sentence of 20 months for the Palestinian, while the defense says 15 months would suffice. In the end, the court decides in favor of the prosecution. Heroin is "the most dangerous of drugs," the judge says. Hence the punishment must be a strong one.

Engert joined the department in 1993. Addicts and dealers from those early days keep reappearing, in files, interrogations and trials. One has to wonder if she asks herself whether her work really makes sense.

During an interview, she takes off her glasses and leans forward. "I don't like passing by six groups of dealers in broad daylight on the way here from Wedding," she says. "The general public has a right to expect playgrounds to be free of syringes, and that their children can go to school without being pressured by drug dealers. We can't rid Berlin of all the dealers, we can only try to throw as many wrenches into their plans as we can. That's what we fight for everyday."

Spending time in Engert's office makes it clear that that the war on drugs is not being fought with winning in mind. Nobody, be it Engert, the customs officers, social workers or repentant addicts, can defeat drugs. But the war goes on, apparently unafraid to be fought without a chance of victory. Instead, success comes in many minor victories. The justice system is designed to exercise constant pressure on addicts and dealers. It could function more effectively if similar pressure were also exerted in Afghanistan.