Pubdate: Thu, 24 May 2001
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2001 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Barry Bearak

AT HEROIN'S SOURCE, TALIBAN DO WHAT 'JUST SAY NO' COULD NOT

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan, May 20 - 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 percent 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 dikes of packed earth, the fields are 
empty of their most profitable plant. Poor farmers, scythes in hand, 
stoop among brown stems.

Mile after mile, 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 
Muhammad 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," said 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 said.

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 American 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 multimillion-dollar aid packages 
that finance police raids, aerial surveillance and crop subsidies for 
farmers.

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

The Taliban, of course, are not considered softies. They whip women 
for exposing flesh at midcalf. 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," said Saleh Muhammad Agha, a farmer with seven 
children and a meager wheat field. "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 apologized, and we plowed his field and did nothing else," said 
Mullah Shah Wali, the administrator in Nadali District. He was seated 
on the roof of his headquarters, not far from a 35-millimeter 
antiaircraft gun. He eagerly showed off his right leg, atrophied from 
a war wound.

Haji Din Muhammad, a tribal elder in the village of Passao, owns 150 
acres. His land is nourished by an irrigation system built a half 
century ago with American aid. Poppies were his best crop, and he 
still sees nothing wrong with them. After all, he said, he just grew 
the drugs. He never urged anyone to use them.

"But I have readily accepted the ban," he insisted, seated on a fine 
carpet that only a wealthy man could afford. His four wives - the 
maximum allowed under Islamic law - were busy with his 18 children. 
"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 percent 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 even in the face of mass 
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 summer's end, according to the United Nations. 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," said Ghulam Muhammad 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," said 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 
said.

International reaction to the poppy ban has largely been skeptical.

Inspection teams, including the American 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 recognize 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," said 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," said Mullah Muhammad Hassan, the 
governor of Kandahar Province and one of the Taliban's top figures. 
Like many of the leaders, he was maimed in the 1980's in the jihad 
against Soviet troops here. Mullah Omar lost an eye in the war; 
Mullah Hassan drags a peg along the floor instead of a right leg.

"Our people are very needy," the governor said, 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, Secretary of 
State Colin L. Powell announced a $43 million 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, fertilizer and pesticides - the things that 
will again make them successful farmers," said Bernard Frahi, who 
oversees the Afghanistan situation for the United Nations 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," 
said Muhammad Sadiq, a drug dealer in a gold prayer cap. He sat with 
a handful of friends, all of them pouring tea out of small green pots.

The smarter traders, like Mr. Sadiq, have squirreled away their opium 
and now have the look of men watching straw spun into gold. Last 
year, a kilo (2.2 pounds) of the drug sold for $110; now it is as 
high as $500.

Mr. Sadiq reached behind a hanging white blanket 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 said. "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: Josh Sutcliffe