AFGHANS BEMOAN LOSS OF HEROIN CASH CROP

DAKA VALLEY -- In an isolated mountain valley in eastern Afghanistan, a
farmer named Abdulrauf Ghazgai faces a dilemma that will help decide the
future of the world heroin trade.

Can he support his two wives and 16 children on a meagre crop of wheat and
vegetables? Or should he secretly return to cultivating the opium poppies
that were so profitable in the past?

For years, he grew bright-red fields of poppies, selling the opium harvest
to dealers who converted it into heroin and accelerated a cheap flood of
the drug into Russia, Western Europe and North America.

Because of farmers like him, Afghanistan produced a record total of 4,000
tonnes of opium last year -- an incredible 75 per cent of the world's supply.

And then, in a dramatic and unexpected move last July, Afghanistan's
militant Islamic rulers ordered a complete ban on poppy cultivation. It was
a huge victory for the global war against one of the world's deadliest drugs.

But to make the ban last, Afghanistan's farmers must make a painful
sacrifice. Already impoverished and drought-stricken, they are being told
to accept a drastic cut in income and the loss of their most profitable crop.

The farmers are demanding compensation. And unless wealthy Western
governments help, the victory against heroin could be lost.

"If this situation continues, we won't be able to survive," Mr. Ghazgai
warned. "I cannot support my family without poppies. In one or two years,
if the situation stays the same, people will start growing poppies again,
even if it is a small illegal plot. Everybody has to earn a living."

Without financial assistance, he said, his family cannot survive on the
$240 (U.S.) that he expects to receive this year from his crop of wheat,
tomatoes, onions and turnips. He figures his income would be 20 times
greater with poppies.

"The price for poppies is very high this year. The profits would be very high."

After a careful survey, officials with the United Nations Drug Control
Program concluded that Afghanistan has eliminated virtually all of its
poppy crop this year. Experts visited 2,300 villages and examined 70,000
hectares of farmland in the country's top poppy-producing districts.

The key question now is whether Afghanistan will continue to ban poppies if
no assistance is provided. The UN program warns of a "looming catastrophe"
for the farmers if they don't get economic help.

"We expected the world community to help us, so that we can support our
families and earn a living," Mr. Ghazgai said, resting briefly from his
labours in his small field.

"We accept the idea of banning poppies. We are Muslims and our scholars all
say that poppies are not good."

Authorities of the Taliban, the Islamic militia that controls 90 per cent
of Afghanistan, vow to keep enforcing their decree, even if the world fails
to provide compensation.

They have jailed hundreds of farmers who violated the ban, known as Decree 19.

After several years of tolerating (and taxing) the poppy harvest, officials
abruptly decided that opium production is a violation of Islamic law.
Moreover, they discovered the crop was causing a sharp rise in domestic
drug addiction.

But the Taliban is bitter about the lack of international support.
Officials estimate that at least $1-billion (U.S.) is needed to compensate
farmers for their lost income.

"The world community was constantly asking us to ban poppy cultivation, and
they promised to help us," said Makhdum Abdul Salam Saadat, a deputy
minister in the agriculture ministry. "We did it, but they broke their
promise to help us. They are discriminating against us. It is unfair.
People are dying in refugee camps, yet the world is refusing to fulfill
their promises to us. Everyone in our country is unhappy at this broken
promise."

Even small-scale compensation has been halted. The UN drug-control program,
hit by budget woes, ended its subsidies for crop substitution in
Afghanistan last fall.

The United States is the leading skeptic on the poppy issue. Some U.S.
diplomats have suggested the Taliban is exploiting the ban to drive up
heroin prices, producing huge profits for dealers who have stockpiled opium.

In Afghanistan, however, Western aid workers are less cynical about the
Taliban's intentions. They believe the UN should boost its aid to the farmers.

"We have to take the Taliban at their word," said a senior UN official in
Kabul. "We can't just spend our time blaming them. If the UN is unable to
provide substitute crops, wheat seeds or whatever, people will start
producing poppies again in one or two years." ...Tomorrow: Are UN sanctions
working? Afghanistan's lucrative poppy crops Opium, the essential raw
ingredient in heroin, is a milky white resin obtained from the unripe seeds
of poppy plants. Opium's main natural component is morphine, used medically
as a sedative and pain reliever.

When morphine is treated with acetic anydride, it produces heroin, which is
at least three times more powerful than morphine and is one of the world's
most lucrative illicit drugs.'