Pubdate: Tue, 12 Jun 2001
Source: Times of Central Asia (Kyrgyzstan)
Copyright: 2001 The Times of Central Asia
Contact:  http://www.times.kg/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1202
Author: Barry Bearak, The New York Times

THE TALIBAN "JUST SAYS NO" IN HEROIN'S HEARTLAND AFGHANISTAN

HELMAND PROVINCE. This has been heroin's great heartland, where the 
narcotic came to life as an opium resin taken from fragile buds of red and 
white poppies. Last year, 75 per cent of the world's opium crop was grown 
in Afghanistan, with the biggest yield sprouting from here in the fertile 
plains of the country's south, sustained by the meander of the Helmand River.

But something astonishing has become evident with this spring's harvest. 
Behind the narrow dykes of packed earth, the fields are empty of their most 
profitable plant. Poor farmers, scythes in hand, stoop among brown stems.

Kilometre after kilometre, there is only a dry stubble of wheat to cut from 
the lumpy soil.

Last July, the ruling Taliban banned the growing of poppies as a sin 
against the teachings of Islam. The edict was issued by Mullah Mohammed 
Omar, referred to as Amir-ul-Momineen, the supreme leader of the faithful.

Almost every farmer complied, some grudgingly, some not. "Even if it means 
my children die, I will obey my amir," says Nur Ali, sitting in his fields, 
sipping tea. Like most Afghan men, he wore a turban coiled around his head 
like a holy bandage. "And the day my amir says I can grow poppy again, I 
will do that too," he says.

The world is unused to good news coming from Afghanistan, known these days 
as a womb for global jihad and an unsafe preservation site for Buddhist 
statues.

But US narcotics officials who visited the country confirmed earlier United 
Nations reports that the Taliban had, in one growing season, managed a rare 
triumph in the long and losing war on drugs. And they did it without the 
usual multi-million-dollar aid packages that finance police raids, aerial 
surveillance and crop subsidies for farmers.

"We used a soft approach," says Abdul Hamid Akhundzada, who leads the 
Taliban's anti-poppy program. "When there were violations, we ploughed the 
fields. At most, violators spent a few days in jail, until they paid for 
the ploughing."

The Taliban, of course, are not considered softies. They whip women for 
exposing flesh at mid-calf. They jail men for trimming their beards. They 
hold public executions in stadiums full of cheering people.

But this spring's poppy crop seems to have died a relatively quiet death.

"No one dared disobey," says Saleh Mohammed Agha, a farmer with seven 
children and a meagre wheatfield. "If they catch you, they blacken your 
face and march you through the bazaars with a string of poppies around your 
neck."

The ban was carried out through the chain of command. The wisdom of the 
Holy Koran guided Mullah Omar. He in turn communicated with his provincial 
governors, who informed their district administrators. The administrators 
then explained the ban to local mullahs and tribal elders, who passed the 
news to the farmers.

Violators were few. In the village of Loay Bagh, one elderly man tried to 
conceal his poppies in a patch of onions. The camouflage proved inadequate.

"He apologised, and we ploughed his field and did nothing else," says 
Mullah Shah Wali, the administrator in Nadali District.

Haji Din Mohammed, a tribal elder in the village of Passao, owns 60.7 
hectares. His land is nourished by an irrigation system built 50 years ago 
with US aid. Poppies were his best crop, and he still sees nothing wrong 
with them. After all, he says, he just grew the drugs. He never urged 
anyone to use them.

"But I have readily accepted the ban," he insists, seated on a fine carpet 
that only a wealthy man could afford. "I would never go against 
Amir-ul-Momineen. And I have no fear. God will provide."

Mullah Omar hails from southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban began their 
conquest of the country in 1994 as a ragtag group of students and mullahs. 
They first fought against local warlords who had busied themselves with 
thievery, rape and murder. The Taliban took Kabul, the capital, in 1996, 
and they now control 80 to 90 per cent of the country. While their stern 
version of Islam often encounters resentment in the cities, they remain 
heroes in the countryside.

Most farmers think of Mullah Omar as an Allah-appointed savior whose 
religious zeal has prompted the poppy ban despite the hardship it would cause.

The country is in the fourth year of a calamitous drought. More than one 
million people face an "unbridgeable" shortage of food and water before 
their summer's end, according to the UN. The relatively drought-resistant 
poppy would have provided some of them with vital income. Instead they have 
parched and stunted wheat.

"A lot of us simply left the land untilled," says Ghulam Mohammed in the 
village of Shin. "The harvest can't make up for the costs of the planting."

Poppy was not only profitable, it spread the money around. The work was 
labor intensive. Landowners had to hire field hands to turn the soil and 
collect the opium paste. The ban has denied jobs to hundreds of thousands.

Many of these laborers have now fled to Pakistan or Iran or the huge camps 
that have filled up like arenas near the city of Herat. Others are found 
eating roots and grass. In some villages, flour is considered too precious 
to be used in bread; it lasts longer if mixed with water and cooked as a soup.

"The only money in my life is the money I owe," says a weathered old man 
named Jamaluddin. He was tarrying around a wheat field, hoping to trade a 
few hours of work for a cup of tea. "Life is unbearable," he says.

International reaction to the poppy ban has largely been sceptical.

Inspection teams, including the US one, have found little or no poppy. But 
many critics question the Taliban's motives. In earlier years, the poppy 
harvest had multiplied. Why did Mullah Omar finally now decide to just say no?

Some suspect political artifice: only three nations, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia 
and the United Arab Emirates, officially recognise the Taliban as a 
government. Perhaps the poppy ban was a push for legitimacy.

Recent swoons in opium prices are also mentioned. The Taliban stopped poppy 
cultivation, but they have not outlawed the drug's possession or sale. 
Stockpiles exist. With the price quadrupling, and more, Mullah Omar's edict 
has handed some a windfall.

But aid workers in Afghanistan tend to regard the ban as straightforward 
and commendable. "Most anyone else would have said: we'll do this if you'll 
do that," says Leslie Oqvist, coordinator for the United Nations regional 
office in Kandahar. "But the Taliban acted unilaterally, and now they're 
rightfully concerned that no assistance is forthcoming."

Taliban officials stress that the poppy ban is rooted in religious 
principles and not in any quid pro quo. Nevertheless, they are well aware 
that wealthier nations often gratefully compensate Third World allies in 
the drug war. American assistance to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia is 
mentioned by example.

"A fair reply to what we have done would have been some acknowledgment of 
the achievement," says Mullah Mohammed Hassan, the governor of Kandahar 
Province and one of the Taliban's top figures.

"Our people are very needy," the governor says, speaking softly but 
pointedly. "They have given up the poppy crop, and timely financial 
assistance is very important."

Little aid has arrived for the poppy farmers. Last week, US Secretary of 
State Colin Powell announced a $43million grant for drought relief in 
Afghanistan. His statement mentioned "those farmers who have felt the ban 
on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome". But most 
of that money is likely to be directed to emergency food and shelter. Torn 
by war hunger, Afghanistan is a bottomless well of need, and poppy farmers 
will become poppy refugees unless they find something else to plant that 
will feed their families.

"People require seed, fertiliser and pesticides, the things that will again 
make them successful farmers," says Bernard Frahi, who oversees the 
Afghanistan situation for the UN Drug Control Program. "We must provide 
roads, water and bridges or the poppy will come back."

But the betting is that the ban will hold up. On a dusty lane in Kandahar, 
where a few dozen narrow stalls make up the city's main opium bazaar, the 
traders not only talk of the poppy farmer in the past tense, but also 
themselves as well.

"It's obvious our stocks are going down, and they won't be replaced," says 
Mohammed Sadiq, a drug dealer in a gold prayer cap.

The smarter traders, like Mr Sadiq, have squirrelled away their opium and 
now have the look of men watching straw spun into gold. Last year, a 
kilogram of the drug sold for $110; now it is as high as $500.

Sadiq reached behind a blanket hanging at the rear of his stall and opened 
two metal chests. Inside were heavy bags of opium stuffed into heavy brown 
plastic. He pulled a few out.

"The days of the poppy in Afghanistan are over," he says.

"Opium will get scarcer, the price will get higher. I'm holding on to this 
as long as I can."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens