Pubdate: Wed, 26 Dec 2001
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2001 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.herald.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Marc Kaufman, Washington Post Service

SURGE LIKELY IN CROP OF AFGHAN OPIUM POPPY

Experts Debate Whether To Pay Or Force Growers To Halt Farming

International drug control authorities believe that opium poppy production 
in Afghanistan will increase dramatically next year, and are debating 
whether to pay or force growers to destroy their spring crops.

Afghan officials said that controlling opium farming is one of newly 
installed leader Hamid Karzai's top three priorities, and a senior U.S. 
official said it is now a "major, front-burner" issue for the Bush 
administration.

But officials agree it will be difficult to stop opium growing, 
particularly in sections of the country where the new government has 
limited authority -- such as Helmand province, the world's most productive 
poppy-growing region.

"Afghans leaving the country have reported that farmers are going back to 
poppy cultivation," said Mohammed Amirkhizi, a senior policy advisor in the 
U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime Prevention in Vienna.

He said the United Nations has not been able to verify the extent of poppy 
farming, but that "our expectation is that production will go back up to 
[the level of] previous years. The international community is extremely 
concerned."

Two years ago, Afghanistan produced more than 70 percent of the world's 
opium, which is used to make heroin. But the Taliban banned poppy farming 
last year -- whether the goal was to halt the business in response to 
international pressure or to drive up prices remains unclear -- and this 
spring's crop dropped by more than 90 percent.

Now, the expectation that poppy production will skyrocket has set off an 
international battle over how to respond. While some experts advocate a 
one-time buyback of the spring crop, others want to rely primarily on law 
enforcement. All seem to agree that in addition to punishing regions where 
poppy growing continues, international donors should reward regions that 
fight opium production, providing them with generous funds for economic 
development.

The new Afghan government is committed under an agreement negotiated in 
Bonn this month to work aggressively to eliminate poppy growing, but 
officials say it will take time. Not only is opium the largest cash crop in 
the country, but many farmers rely on loans from drug traffickers to pay 
for their fall planting and survive through the winter. Because the poppies 
were planted in October and November, the farmers have already taken those 
loans and will have no way to repay them if they don't harvest their fields.

The Washington representative of the Afghan government, Haron Amin, said 
last week that he expected Karzai to announce a renewed ban on poppy 
growing immediately, but Karzai did not mention it when he was sworn in on 
Saturday. Other drug control officials said the new prohibition was still 
under negotiation.

With the change in government in Afghanistan, some senior Bush 
administration officials have proposed a one-time buyback of opium as an 
emergency measure. However, a U.S. official involved with the issue said 
the idea met stiff opposition at international meetings on Afghan opium. He 
said many officials wanted to rely on law enforcement and on pressuring 
growers to destroy their crops.

"We are not considering any kind of a buyback, and no illicit crop 
subsidies," said the U.S. official, who argued that paying for drugs -- 
even to destroy them -- could set a dangerous precedent. "

While the United Nations and the United States have agreed in principle to 
provide billions of dollars to rebuild Afghanistan and to help farmers 
leave the poppy-growing business, that assistance will be long-term and 
most likely will not be widely available next spring, the official said.

Agencies are looking next year to approaches such as reducing the pool of 
migrant labor available to harvest the poppies and extract the opium by 
providing laborers with jobs on road construction and other public works 
programs.

But others believe more unconventional approaches will be needed in the 
spring if the poppy crop is as large as expected.

Knut Ostby, the U.N. Development Program's representative in Afghanistan, 
said that his agency and others tried for years to encourage Afghan poppy 
farmers to grow other crops through economic incentives, but that it was 
only the strict Taliban prohibition that worked.

"Some form of compensation seems to be the only way to take care of next 
year's crop," Ostby said. "To have farmers otherwise not harvest their crop 
would be very difficult for them, and unlikely to work."

A one-time buyback would be risky because it could encourage farmers to 
grow poppies in the future, he said. "But the reality is, there are not so 
many other options right now."

At the height of poppy cultivation in the late 1990s, Afghanistan produced 
more than 2,000 tons of raw opium annually, according to U.N. estimates. 
After the Taliban poppy growing ban, the figure dropped to about 185 tons 
this year.

U.N. officials report that before the Taliban's anti-opium edict, about 
half of all Afghan opium came from the irrigated fields of Helmand province 
in the south -- not a remote or hidden area, but rather some of the 
country's best and most accessible farmland. Much of the rest came from the 
eastern provinces of Kandahar and Nangahar. And a small but increasing 
amount has been grown in the northeastern province of Badakhshan, under the 
control of the Northern Alliance.

International drug control officials worry that Helmand, in particular, has 
once again become a center for poppy growing. The new government does not 
have complete control of the area -- the main road that runs through 
Helmand on the way to Kandahar and Herat is often described as being among 
the most dangerous in Afghanistan.
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MAP posted-by: Beth