Pubdate: Wed, 30 Jul 2003 Source: Bangkok Post (Thailand) Copyright: The Post Publishing Public Co., Ltd. 2003 Contact: http://www.bangkokpost.co.th/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/39 Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/topic/opium THAILAND REACHES OUT TO THE WORLD Thailand welcomed a high-level team of officials from Afghanistan this week. They want to see the successful crop substitution programme in Chiang Rai, and learn two things - how it works, and how it can be applied in their country. It is the second major involvement in the post-Taliban Afghanistan by Thailand, after a six-month construction project by the army in Bagram. It builds on a sometimes hesitant but positive policy which started in earnest with the peacekeeping commitment in East Timor, and which should continue. The royal-sponsored programme of substituting profitable market crops for opium is a major accomplishment, and is known in important international circles. One might say Thailand has been too modest about this achievement. In less than a generation, authorities conducted a multi-step project which had only winners. Farmers greatly increased their income and their futures with crops 10 or even 100 times more profitable than opium. Markets gained new Thai products, at home and abroad. Roads opened up the North to residents and visitors. Opium warlords like Lo Hsing-han and Khun Sa lost all influence and had to leave the country. This week, Mohamad Alim Razam, minister of light industry and foodstuffs, will lead other top Afghanistan officials to look the project over. They will concentrate on Doi Tung and the Mae Fah Luang Foundation, but will also be able to look at some of the other related projects such as treatment of drug addiction and the continuing crackdown on trafficking. Foreign drug smugglers continue to move heroin both into and through Thailand. If there is any justice, international aid for Afghanistan against its own opium scourge will flow from this. As in Thailand, farmers in Afghanistan are virtually forced to grow opium because of the lack of opportunity. During the dark days of the Taliban, Afghanistan was the world's leading opium grower, although the extremists managed to stop almost all opium crops in their last year in power, leaving farmers with almost no income. The liberation of the country last year has brought back this pernicious and enslaving crop. Thai expertise is badly needed, and the 24-member Kabul delegation seems likely to request Thai help for a crop substitution programme. Thailand seems likely to oblige, as it should. It would be yet another indication the country is ready to help the less fortunate. Thai army peacekeepers in East Timor continue to be the best liked and most effective force in that brutally poor country. The army engineers at Bagram, Afghanistan, were both popular and efficient in their reconstruction jobs. Not only is Thailand the world's top expert in crop replacement programmes. More importantly, they work. Afghanistan and Colombia both need guidance to develop plans so that farmers can empower themselves by growing higher value market crops that also are more acceptable to society. Burma has recently accepted a Thai pilot project, but has shown no enthusiasm for expanding the programme. It might be said that Thailand has a responsibility to try even harder to help less well off countries in areas where Thais are experts. The peacekeepers in East Timor, agricultural advisers in Burma - and perhaps in Afghanistan - and the Bagram engineers should herald a modest but insistent foreign policy development. Thailand is considering whether to help out in postwar Iraq. The question involves politics, of course, but should be settled chiefly on whether Thais can truly help Iraq. By reaching out to the world in occupations in which the country is strong, Thailand can build the country's image as a strong and dependable friend to the less fortunate. - --- MAP posted-by: Doc-Hawk