Pubdate: Fri, 26 Apr 2002
Source: Associated Press (Wire)
Copyright: 2002 Associated Press
Author: Kathy Gannon

AFGHAN OPIUM DEALERS PROTEST RAIDS

GHANI KHIEL, Afghanistan - Soldiers stormed in by the hundreds, smashed the 
bolted wooden doors of ramshackle shops and seized more than six tons of 
opium at Afghanistan's biggest drug market.

The raid this week was the largest show of the interim government's resolve 
to wipe out the lucrative opium trade that resumed with the fall of the 
Taliban.

But it went badly wrong.

The soldiers appeared more like a thieving party, ripping the watches off 
the wrists of store owners, pulling money from their pockets and taking 
everything in the shops - as well as the opium, shopkeepers said.

"They weren't interested in destroying our opium. They took our opium to 
sell," said Javed Khan, a store owner. "They were just thieves."

"Look! They just grabbed my watch from my wrist," said Mohammed Nabi. "They 
ordered us to sit down and then just took everything."

Now residents of Ghani Khiel, 36 miles east of the provincial capital of 
Jalalabad, are fighting mad - and heavily armed.

"We're ready to shed blood over this," Khan said.

On Friday, a rocket launcher was pointed toward the village entrance. 
Residents warned they were ready to do battle with the government if a 
settlement is not brokered by their elders, who were meeting to find a way 
out of the impasse.

Negotiations won't be easy. Fifty residents are in jail and the entire 
village is up in arms.

The elders, swathed in voluminous turbans, sat in a stark white cement 
building in Ghani Khiel. Outside, their bodyguards brandished rocket 
launchers and Kalashnikov assault rifles, and railed against Haji Abdul 
Qadir, the interim regime's governor of the eastern province of Nangarhar.

When the opium market flourished, shopkeepers in Ghani Khiel had a routine. 
They sat in their dusty courtyards on rope beds, sipping tea and waiting 
for customers.

On Friday, they gathered as usual, but their shops were shuttered and their 
mutterings were filled with anger.

They accused Qadir of sending soldiers into Ghani Kiel because most 
residents are loyal to a rival warlord, Haji Zaman Khan. Since the collapse 
of the Taliban last year, Afghanistan has disintegrated into areas 
controlled by warlords and their heavily armed men.

Outside the capital, Kabul, the interim regime's rule is weak.

At the entrance to Ghani Khiel, a graffiti-scarred board put up by the 
deposed Taliban still sits slightly lopsided. It reads: "Drug abuse is the 
greatest evil of our society. Let us save our lives, save our children's 
lives."

But inside Ghani Khiel's opium market, store owners say they aren't ready 
to change.

"When they give us roads, schools, hospitals and something that brings us 
as much money, we will stop selling it," said Gul Ahmed Shah, a store owner 
whose long gray beard was shaggy and unkempt. Other shopkeepers agreed, 
speaking at once, interrupting each other, each in turn complaining about 
the woeful state of their economy.

"We have nothing to feed our children with," said Qari Saddar.

"Who is going to pay our bills? This government?" Mohammed Naurang asked.

"They can't even bring law and order. There is no security. There is 
nothing here but opium," said Zamaryar Mahmood.

The vendors say they sell to buyers from Turkey, Iran and Pakistan.

In Afghanistan's poppy heyday - only two years ago - farmers were producing 
4,000 tons - the world's largest harvest - and selling it for only $11.35 a 
pound.

Last year the Taliban banned poppy growing, and the price soared to $360 a 
pound.

But with the collapse of the Taliban, some farmers tore up their wheat 
crops to plant poppies, which produce the opium from which heroin is 
manufactured. Now opium is selling for $55 a pound.

Interim Prime Minister Hamid Karzai also banned poppies, but so far most 
farmers have ignored the order. Karzai's government has offered money to 
farmers to destroy their crops.

But it's not enough. The government pays about $350 an acre, while poppies 
give farmers more than $2,000 per acre.

The U.N. Drug Control Program warned it could take a decade to end poppy 
produ ction in Afghanistan.

Its approach - and that of the government - will be more humane than the 
Taliban's, involving building roads and schools and creating jobs in an 
attempt to discourage poppy growing, officials say.

But Khan, the shopkeeper, said the interim government has to first deal 
with a credibility problem. No one believed the opium the soldiers took 
would be destroyed.

"You tell them, 'If it is the opium they wanted to destroy, then tell them 
to bring it right here and burn it in front of us,"' Khan said. "Then we 
will talk about the next step."
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MAP posted-by: Beth