01 February 2006
Recently there was a strange odor in the air around the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team (NZPRT) in Bamyan. It was caused by the burning of opium resin in a pit just to the rear of the Kiwi Base compound.
Image Caption: NZPRT personnel prepare a fire for the drug destruction task.
New Zealand Police Superintendent Tom Ireland (attached to the NZPRT in Bamyan, and mentor to the local Chief of Police) supervised the collection and burning of the opium. He explained that the Afghan Nation Drugs Police seized the 1,746kg of opium resin from caves near Bamyan. These caves served as temporary storage for the opium before being transported to a neighboring country for processing into heroin.
Once all necessary documentation relating to the destruction of the drugs had been completed, seals on its storage container at Bamyan Police Station were carefully checked and loaded onto trucks for transport to Kiwi Base. In order to provide maximum possible security, the opium resin was burned inside the security wire surrounding Kiwi Base. At the same time this site was visible to local Bamyan residents, so that they could see the drugs were indeed being destroyed.
Dense balls of opium resin do not burn easily. Throughout the course of the afternoon bags of resin were placed on top of a blazing wood fire. During the afternoon approximately 160 litres of waste diesel and oil was added to increase the heat in the fire. The burn continued throughout the night.
The Bamyan Governor, Habiba Sarabi, and representatives from the Afghan Ministry of the Interior, National Drugs Squad, and Bamyan Police were all extremely pleased with the way the narcotics burn had been conducted. They suggested that this burn would be used as a model for how other narcotics destructions would be conducted in Afghanistan in the future.