TALIBAN IS OBEYED, DESPITE OPIUM'S ALLURE

Farmers Obey Taliban, Despite Opium's Allure

HELMAND PROVINCE, Afghanistan -- This has been heroin's great heartland,
where the narcotic came to life as an opium resin taken from fragile buds
of red and white poppies. Last year, 75 percent of the world's opium crop
was grown in Afghanistan, with the biggest yield sprouting from the fertile
plains of the country's south, sustained by the meandering Helmand River.

But something astonishing has become evident with this spring's harvest.
Behind the narrow dikes of packed earth, the fields are empty of their most
profitable plant. Poor farmers, scythes in hand, stoop among brown stems.
Mile after mile, there is only a dry stubble of wheat to cut from the lumpy
soil.

Last July, the ruling Taliban banned the growing of poppies as a sin
against the teachings of Islam. The edict was issued by Mullah Muhammad
Omar, referred to as Amir-ul-Momineen, the supreme leader of the faithful.

Almost every farmer complied, some grudgingly, some not. ``Even if it means
my children die, I will obey my emir,'' said Nur Ali, sitting in his
fields, sipping tea. Like most Afghan men, he wore a turban coiled around
his head. ``And the day my emir says I can grow poppy again, I will do that
too.''

The world is not used to good news coming from Afghanistan, known these
days as a womb for global jihad and an unsafe site for the preservation of
Buddhist statues.

But American narcotics officials who visited the country confirmed earlier
U.N. reports that the Taliban had, in one growing season, managed a rare
triumph in the long and losing war on drugs. And the militia did it without
the usual multimillion-dollar aid packages that finance police raids,
aerial surveillance and crop subsidies for farmers.

How it happened

``We used a soft approach,'' said Abdul Hamid Akhundzada, who heads the
Taliban's anti-poppy program. ``When there were violations, we plowed the
fields. At most, violators spent a few days in jail, until they paid for
the plowing.''

The Taliban officials, of course, are not known for being lenient. They
whip women for exposing flesh at midcalf. They imprison men for trimming
their beards. They hold public executions in stadiums full of cheering people.

But this spring's poppy crop seems to have died a relatively quiet death.

``No one dared disobey,'' said Saleh Muhammad Agha, a farmer with seven
children and a meager wheat field. ``If they catch you, they blacken your
face and march you through the bazaars with a string of poppies around your
neck.''

The ban was carried out through the chain of command. The wisdom of the
Koran guided Mullah Omar. He spoke with his provincial governors, who
informed their district administrators. The administrators then explained
the ban to local mullahs and tribal elders, who passed the news to the farmers.

Violators were few. In the village of Loay Bagh, one man tried to conceal
his poppies in a patch of onions. The camouflage proved inadequate.

``He apologized, and we plowed his field and did nothing else,'' said
Mullah Shah Wali, the administrator in Nadali district. He was seated on
the roof of his headquarters, not far from the perch of a 35mm
anti-aircraft gun.

Haji Din Muhammad, a tribal elder in the village of Passao, owns 150 acres.
His land is nourished by an irrigation system built a half-century ago with
American aid. Poppies were his best crop, and he still sees nothing wrong
with them. After all, he said, he just grew the drugs. He never urged
anyone to use them.

``But I have readily accepted the ban,'' he insisted, seated on a fine
carpet that only a wealthy man could afford. His four wives -- the maximum
allowed under Islamic law -- were busy with his 18 children. ``I would
never go against Amir-ul-Momineen. And I have no fear. God will provide.''

Mullah Omar hails from southern Afghanistan, where the Taliban began its
conquest of the country in 1994 as a ragtag group of students and mullahs.
It first fought against local warlords who had busied themselves with
thievery, rape and murder. The Taliban took Kabul, the capital, in 1996,
and it now controls 80 to 90 percent of the country. While their stern
version of Islam often encounters resentment in the cities, Taliban members
remain heroes in the countryside.

Most farmers think of Mullah Omar as an Allah-appointed savior whose
religious zeal has prompted the poppy ban even in the face of mass hardship
it would cause.

The country is in the fourth year of a calamitous drought. More than 1
million people face an ``unbridgeable'' shortage of food and water before
summer's end, according to the United Nations. The relatively
drought-resistant poppy would have provided some of them with vital income.
Instead, they have parched and stunted wheat.

``A lot of us simply left the land untilled,'' said Ghulam Muhammad in the
village of Shin. ``The harvest can't make up for the costs of the planting.''

Poppy was not only profitable; it spread the money around. The work was
labor-intensive. Landowners had to hire field hands to turn the soil and
collect the opium paste. The ban has denied jobs to hundreds of thousands.

Many of these laborers have now fled to Pakistan or Iran or the huge camps
that have filled up like arenas near the city of Herat. Others are found
eating roots and grass. In some villages, flour is considered too precious
to be used in bread; it lasts longer if mixed with water and cooked as a soup.

``The only money in my life is the money I owe,'' said a weathered old man
named Jamaluddin. He was tarrying around a wheat field, hoping to trade a
few hours of work for a cup of tea. ``Life is unbearable,'' he said,
summing up.

Skeptical reaction

International reaction to the poppy ban has largely been skeptical.

Inspection teams, including the American one, have found little or no
poppy. But many critics question the Taliban's motives. In earlier years,
the poppy harvest had multiplied. Why did Mullah Omar finally now decide to
just say no?

Some suspect political artifice: Only three nations, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia
and the United Arab Emirates, recognize the Taliban as a government.
Perhaps the poppy ban was a push for legitimacy.

Recent swoons in opium prices are also mentioned. The Taliban stopped poppy
cultivation, but it has not outlawed the drug's possession or its sale.
Stockpiles exist. With the price quadrupling, and more, Mullah Omar's edict
has handed some a windfall.

But aid workers inside Afghanistan tend to regard the ban as
straightforward and commendable. ``Most anyone else would have said: We'll
do this if you'll do that,'' said Leslie Oqvist, coordinator for the U.N.
regional office in Kandahar. ``But the Taliban acted unilaterally, and now
they're rightfully concerned that no assistance is forthcoming.''

Taliban officials stress that the poppy ban is rooted in religious
principles and not in any quid pro quo. Nevertheless, they are well aware
that wealthier nations often gratefully compensate Third World allies in
the drug war. American assistance to Colombia, Peru and Bolivia is
mentioned by example.

``A fair reply to what we have done would have been some acknowledgment of
the achievement,'' said Mullah Muhammad Hassan, the governor of Kandahar
province and one of the Taliban's top figures. Like many of the leaders, he
was maimed in the 1980s in the jihad against Soviet troops in Afghanistan.
Mullah Omar lost an eye in the war; Mullah Hassan drags a peg along the
floor instead of a right leg.

``Our people are very needy,'' the governor said, speaking softly but
pointedly. ``They have given up the poppy crop, and timely financial
assistance is very important.''

U.S. drought aid

Little aid has arrived for the poppy farmers. Last week, Secretary of State
Colin Powell announced a $43 million grant for drought relief in
Afghanistan. His statement mentioned ``those farmers who have felt the ban
on poppy cultivation, a decision by the Taliban that we welcome.''

But most of that money is likely to be directed at emergency food and
shelter. Torn by war hunger, Afghanistan is a bottomless well of need --
and poppy farmers will become refugees unless they find something else to
plant that will feed their families.

``People require seed, fertilizer and pesticides -- the things that will
again make them successful farmers,'' said Bernard Frahi, who oversees the
Afghanistan situation for the U.N. Drug Control Program. ``We must provide
roads, water and bridges or the poppy will come back.''

But the betting is that the ban will hold up. On a dusty lane in Kandahar,
where a few dozen stalls make up the city's main opium bazaar, the traders
talk in the past tense not only of the poppy farmer, but also of themselves.

``It's obvious our stocks are going down, and they won't be replaced,''
said Muhammad Sadiq, a drug dealer in a gold prayer cap. He sat with a
handful of friends, all of them pouring tea out of small pots.

Some traders, like Sadiq, have squirreled away their opium and now have the
look of men watching straw spun into gold. Last year, a kilo (2.2 pounds)
of the drug sold for $110; now it is as high as $500.

Sadiq reached behind a hanging white blanket at the rear of his stall and
opened two metal chests. Inside were heavy bags of opium. He pulled a few out.

``The days of the poppy in Afghanistan are over,'' he said. ``Opium will
get scarcer, the price will get higher. I'm holding on to this as long as I
can.''