Pubdate: Wed, 10 Apr 2002
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2002 The New York Times Company
Contact:  http://www.nytimes.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/298
Author: Dexter Filkins

DISORDERS ENDANGER RETURN OF AFGHANS FROM PAKISTAN AND IRAN

KABUL, Afghanistan, April 9 -- Fighting in the west and protests in the 
east today threatened the return of thousands of Afghan refugees from Iran 
and Pakistan as the American-backed government here showed further signs 
that it was incapable of asserting its control over large swaths of the 
country.

On the eastern border, hundreds of poppy growers, enraged by a government 
program to destroy their opium-producing crops, joined in a mass protest. 
They blocked the highway from Pakistan and immobilized more than 20,000 
people trying to return home from Pakistani refugee camps.

The protests also placed in doubt the viability of the Western-backed plan 
to prevent the resurgence of Afghanistan as a major exporter of opium.

In the west, fighting between rival warlords hindered the scheduled start 
of an effort backed by the United Nations to bring home the first of about 
two million Afghans who have been living in camps across the Iranian border.

There were conflicting reports over how many refugees were able to cross 
the border today, but aid officials expressed concern that continued 
fighting could discourage the refugees from coming across.

Officials of the interim Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai said today 
that unidentified fighters had attacked a military patrol in eastern 
Afghanistan with grenades, killing one person and wounding two.

The Afghan soldiers came under attack as they were working with American 
forces. The soldiers killed two of their assailants, Afghan officials said 
in Kabul.

The ambush took place in Paktia Province, near the site of the major 
American military assault on Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts last month. 
There have been persistent reports that Taliban and Al Qaeda forces, 
regrouping in the province and across the border in Pakistan, were 
preparing to mount guerrilla attacks.

The refugee problems, combined with reports of the ambush, added to a 
growing sense here that the effort to maintain stability faced serious 
obstacles. On Monday a bomb believed to have been intended to kill Mr. 
Karzai's defense minister, Muhammad Fahim, exploded near his motorcade, 
killing four civilians.

Earlier this week the international security force sent to maintain order 
here in the capital came under rocket fire. Last week the Karzai government 
detained more than 500 people in what it said was a plot to mount bomb 
attacks against Mr. Karzai and the former king, Mohammad Zahir Shah.

On the eastern border, hundreds of poppy growers, mostly poor and indebted 
farmers who work small plots, stopped virtually all traffic entering the 
country from Pakistan through the Khyber Pass, pelting the few passing cars 
with stones.

The police dispersed many of the protesters but failed to open the highway, 
the capital's main road link to the outside world.

Thousands of Afghans, trying to return to their homes after years in 
refugee camps, poured into the area around the border town of Torkham with 
nowhere to go. Most just sat, slept and milled about in the road where they 
had stopped.

The confrontation seems likely to continue. Today, aid workers in Kabul 
scrambled to send food and water to the stalled returnees, and Afghan 
officials vowed to press ahead with their plan to destroy the 
opium-producing crops.

The more than $50 million program, financed in large part by Britain and 
the United States, is intended to pay poppy farmers to destroy their crops 
in the weeks leading up to harvest time.

The program is a last-ditch effort to head off a resurgence of Afghanistan 
as a major opium producing country. Under the program, government officials 
would pay farmers about $1,250 per hectare, about two and a half acres, to 
destroy their poppies.

Ashraf Ghani, a senior adviser to Mr. Karzai, said the government would 
resist demands of the opium producers, whom he described as ruthless 
businessmen preying on the local farmers under their control.

"There are people who have been making fortunes out of the misery of 
others," Mr. Ghani said. "And you would expect them to raise the specter of 
violence, of instability, of threats. We are determined to move ahead."

The problem, conceded by drug control officials here, is that the cash 
offered by the government is nowhere near what farmers can earn by selling 
their poppies on the open market.

Throughout the opium producing areas, farmers are often deeply in debt to 
the warlords who preside over the opium trade. Hence, some farmers have 
reacted violently when faced with the prospect of receiving anything other 
than top dollar for their crops.

Since Sunday, nine people were reported to have been killed in clashes 
between poppy farmers and officials trying to destroy their crops.

Along the Iranian border, the repatriation effort was threatened by recent 
fighting between warlords struggling for control of border checkpoints, a 
traditional source of revenue for Afghan commanders.

Abdul Karim Barahui, a warlord near Afghanistan's southwestern border with 
Iran, told The Associated Press that a rival warlord had successfully 
captured two of his posts in an attack on Monday.

About 3,000 Afghans intending to return gathered today in Soleiman Khani, a 
repatriation camp in western Tehran. Ten buses and two trucks waited to 
take the first group to the border, about 700 miles away.

One of those at the camp was Anvar Golahmad, who fled his home in central 
Afghanistan five years ago. With all of his belongings slung in a bag over 
his shoulder, Mr. Golahmad turned to a refugee officer and told him he was 
ready.

"I am healthy and ready to go home," Mr. Golahmad said.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom