Pubdate: Fri, 19 Jan 2007 Source: Toronto Star (CN ON) Copyright: 2007 The Toronto Star Contact: http://www.thestar.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456 Author: Rosie DiManno Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/heroin.htm (Heroin) GENERAL JOINS WAR ON DRUGS Canada's Fraser Suggests Farm Subsidies Could Loosen Poppy's Grip On Afghanistan Imagine this: A poppy board, akin to the Canadian Wheat Board, that would subsidize Afghan farmers not to grow the ruinous narcotic. Brig.-Gen. David Fraser hasn't just imagined it. He's put his thoughts down on paper and submitted the proposal to political and military authorities. It might be a radical concept. But, during his recent eight-month term as commander of the multinational brigade in southern Afghanistan -- troops from eight countries, deployed to six of the most volatile provinces, and last summer formally transferred to NATO authority -- Fraser came to grasp some harsh realties on the ground in that benighted country. The poppy cannot be burned out of Afghanistan's soul or eradicated from its economy by sledgehammer measures. Spraying it with toxins from the air or setting the fields aflame won't substantially suppress its cultivation, nor make potential allies of embittered and impoverished farmers. It certainly won't break the monopoly of a narco-alliance -- neo-Taliban and drug lords -- that has been raking in the billions, profits spiking even higher when the crop is marginally decreased, as it was in 2005 (by 5 per cent). Those profits go a long way to finance the insurgency that has killed 44 Canadian soldiers. "Counter-narcotics is an objective that we support," Fraser told the Star last week, as he passed through Toronto on his way to Europe, and a farewell tour of sorts. "But at the grassroots level, the people growing the poppy are doing so because they don't view it any differently than we look at corn or canola. "On top of that, the Taliban coerces people to grow poppy because they get the proceeds. Our fight is not with the farmer. He's not getting the bulk of the money from his crop, but it does pay well for an Afghan. So you've got to give (him) an alternative." The knot of the problem is that yields from substitutes -- melons or wheat or pulses, all traditional Afghan crops -- are nowhere near as profitable and much more difficult to grow in an arid landscape. As Fraser notes, the Afghan farmer makes no moral distinction over poppy and the criminal network it supports. It puts food on his table in the world's fifth poorest nation. "I have made recommendations to the American ambassador and the British ambassador and my military chain of command," says Fraser. "In order to achieve the kind of narcotics objectives that we need to get to, without disenfranchising the people that we are there to support, how do we get them off that thing called the poppy? What I'm suggesting is giving them an alternative to grow legitimate crops that have markets and paying them a decent price for that commodity. "You and I might call them farm subsidies. But why not subsidize farmers there to grow something that's legitimate, as opposed to something illicit? ... We have farm subsidies here. They have them in Europe, they have them everywhere, for wheat and eggs and milk." He says subsidies would not be "a panacea. ... But it's a start." It would be, further, a more practical endeavour than simply buying up the poppy yield for international medicinal purposes, as suggested by some proponents, because the therapeutic market for heroin is quite small. These have been reflective days for Fraser, since he turned over command to Dutch Maj.-Gen. Ton Van Loon in October. Much of his time has been spent meeting the families of troops killed and injured in Afghanistan. He's a soldier, but his eyes dampen when he speaks of lives lost and young bodies lamed. "I wake up every day and remember. People walking into my office with that look and I knew it was bad. The phone ringing in the middle of the night and I knew it was bad. The door-knock at three o'clock in the morning and I knew it was bad. Who's hurt? Soldiers killed, friendly fire, innocent civilians. I remember it all, like it was five minutes ago. I don't talk about numbers .. (or) body counts. It's about the number one: One soldier, every soldier." Public polls may indicate Canadians are weary of this mission, a majority opposed to the extended deployment or skeptical over its outcome. Fraser rejects those views, and points at continuing support from families of those who've died. "I challenge the claim that the situation has become worse since we arrived. The rot of the Taliban was there, but you didn't see it as much because nobody was challenging them. The year before we got there, yes, you could go to places like Sangin and have tea. But that didn't mean it was safer. It meant the Taliban ran the town and we weren't a threat to them at that stage. A year later, the government of Afghanistan shows up with a different mayor, with a chief of police, with an army and says, this is our country, we have the right to rule here, we're establishing our rule with the help of the international community. All of a sudden -- boom -- the Taliban are fighting the government of Afghanistan. So, is the situation worse? No, the situation is actually starting to go back where it should be, where you have the democratically elected government ruling that part of the province." In recent weeks alone, Taliban forces have conceded considerable territory to NATO, according to reports from the field, and insurgent leaders have been arrested and killed during raids and air strikes. Even the Taliban's media shill, Mohammed Haniff, was taken into custody. Fraser rattles off figures that quantify what NATO troops, including 2,500 Canadians, have brought to Afghanistan. "In the time I was there, we built 145 kilometres of new roads. We created 100,000 metres of canals. We elected over 400 community councils. We have a national auxiliary police program, 200 of them (in Kandahar) when I left and the program had just started -- an opportunity for males 15 to 25 years old, where they can get a job that pays them a decent salary and provides them a life expectancy longer than what the Taliban are offering." A career soldier, Fraser nevertheless understands that Afghanistan resurgent -- rather than insurgent -- isn't ultimately about battlefield victories, like last summer's Operation Medusa. It's about a vision for the future that Afghans can believe in and tangible proof of something better in the present. "You win with an idea. You don't win with a gun." - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman