Pubdate: Sat, 27 Apr 2002 Source: New London Day (CT) Copyright: 2002 The Day Publishing Co. Contact: http://www.newlondonday.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/293 Webpage: www.newlondonday.com/news/ts-re.asp?NewsUID=FE02EF02-D534-499D-8E57-CF7146122981 ANGRY OPIUM DEALERS PROTEST RAID ON SHOPS 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. Now residents of Ghani Khiel, 36 miles east of the provincial capital of Jalalabad, are fighting mad -- and heavily armed. On Friday 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. But negotiations won't be easy -- 50 residents are in jail and the entire village is up in arms. The U.N. Drug Control Program, meanwhile, warned that it could take a decade to end poppy production in Afghanistan. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth