Pubdate: Thu, 24 Jan 2002
Source: Reuters (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Reuters Limited
Author: John Fullerton

FIELDS OF POPPIES PLANTED, AFGHAN OPIUM PRICES FALL

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - In autumn the fields of poppies are in bloom across 
southern Afghanistan, a sea of red, yellow, white and purple.

In the spring, the flowers have gone. In their place, long stems end in 
seed pods. Farmers make four cuts in each pod, and collect the sticky white 
juice the next day.

The opium cycle in Afghanistan is seasonal, and prices move accordingly.

Right now the planting has ended, and in Kandahar's Hazrat-ji Baba street, 
shabby little kiosks offer plastic packets of brown chips of opium at cheap 
prices.

"The price has fallen in anticipation of better supplies," said opium 
trader Noor ul Haq. "We have had some rain, and it promises to be a better 
harvest."

Before they started planting -- coinciding with the fall of the Taliban in 
December to U.S. bombs and Northern Alliance fighters -- 150,000 Pakistani 
rupees ($2,490) would buy 4.5 kg (10 lb) of raw opium.

The price has now dropped to 110,000 rupees, according to Haq.

Not Welcome

Foreigners are not welcome in muddy Hazrat-ji Baba street. The stares are 
hostile. Traders turn their faces away, children toss stones at the 
strangers' car.

The Afghanistan-Pakistan-Iran borders form the golden crescent which 
diplomats say provides the opium that is processed into two-thirds of the 
total illicit heroin smuggled into Europe.

"They used to offer the farmers cotton seed to replace poppies, and no 
doubt now there is peace the United Nations will do so again," said Haq.

"But if cotton prices don't match opium at the market, then farmers will go 
back to poppies."

The fact is that a farmer with little land can make better money with 
opium. It is a cash crop that needs little labour.

Haq was a dealer, buying opium in Jalalabad in the eastern border province 
of Nangahar and selling at a higher price in Kandahar.

The drug was plentiful in hilly Nangahar because there were springs to 
irrigate farms, while in Kandahar the land was parched from four years of 
drought.

Production was higher in neighbouring Helmand, a province bordering Iran, 
because the local kerez (an underground well) system provided the necessary 
water.

U.N. officials say Afghanistan's new interim government is committed to 
eradicating opium production, but there are problems.

Crop replacement requires funds, and until pledges of foreign aid translate 
into hard cash, it will be difficult to persuade impoverished farmers to 
give up planting poppies.

There are vast profits to be made from smuggling the processed opium -- 
down to its penultimate stage, morphine sulphate -- to the Gulf, Turkey and 
on to Europe.

Several big traders are household names here -- men who have private 
armies, a fleet of vehicles, several houses and connections that reach all 
the way into the higher echelons of politics and business at home and in 
neighbouring states.

Some were close to the Taliban, toppled in Washington's declared war on 
terrorism, a campaign triggered by the September 11 attacks on New York and 
Washington.

Friends In High Places

Others have made new friends in Afghanistan's interim government.

One sub-sect of the Achakzai tribe, for example, living on both sides of 
the Afghan-Pakistan border, has achieved wealth and notoriety for its 
alleged drug smuggling, and it has influence in Kandahar's intelligence and 
security apparatus.

The austere Taliban banned opium production, but they still profited by it.

"It is widely believed that the Taliban bought cheap and sold dear and made 
a killing," said a local opium dealer. "They stockpiled opium when it was 
cheap."

The question in Hazrat-ji Baba Street is how the United States will act on 
the issue of opium.

"They helped bring in the interim government led by Mr Hamid Karzai and his 
allies in Kandahar," said the dealer, who asked not to be identified.

"Will the Americans look the other way when they discover the 
administration has co-opted powerful smugglers into its ranks -- or will 
they try to expel them?"
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MAP posted-by: Beth