WORLD'S OPIUM SOURCE DESTROYED

Luke Harding In Hadda Sees Dramatic Evidence Of The War Being Waged On The
Drugs Trade By The Hardline Taliban

The mud-walled village of Hadda in south-eastern Afghanistan used to
consider itself lucky. The farmers who live here had not one but two
lucrative sources of income.

There were the Buddhist relics that could be dug out in darkness from the
many ancient stupas or shrines that littered the undulating valley and its
jagged white mountains. And there was opium, a crop that flourished in neat
plots, transforming the landscape every April into a sea of green and red.

But this year things are different. In a development that has gone
unnoticed and unrewarded by the international community, Afghanistan's
fundamentalist Taliban rulers have dramatically ended the country's massive
opium trade, The Observer can reveal - a move that has also plunged Hadda's
farmers into despondency and debt.

Western sources in Kabul yesterday confirmed poppy production in
Afghanistan had virtually ceased. This follows an edict issued last year by
the Taliban's reclusive leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, declaring opium to be
un-Islamic.

The first Hadda's farmers knew of it was when a group of black-turbaned
soldiers armed with Kalashnikovs turned up in their village. 'The Taliban
came here and saw there were poppies. They hit some of the people and told
them they would be taken to prison and tortured if they planted more
seeds,' farmer Abdul Rashid said.

'Then the elders of the village talked to them and told the Taliban we
would destroy the poppies ourselves. It took us four days to do. We used a
tractor and cows to plough up the fields.'

In neighbouring villages around the orange-scented town of Jalalabad, and
in the fertile Helmand valley, which used to produce half of the country's
opium, it is the same story. Driving through southern Afghanistan last
week, The Observer found no evidence of poppy cultivation.

The trade last year produced 75 per cent of the world's heroin. It has now
vanished. The distinctive plants that grew by the roadside have
disappeared. They have been replaced by fields of lush but worthless wheat.
'I used to have one-and-a-half acres planted with poppy. Now we have
nothing,' farmer Hussain Gul complained.

'I have to feed a family of 14. Should I buy clothes for my children?
Should I feed them? Should I take them to the doctor?' he asked.

Frmer Khan Afzal added: 'I blame the Americans because they promised they
would help us. But they didn't. They have given us no assistance.'

In Hadda, last year's opium crop was destroyed by hail. But the previous
year Afzal and other smallholders who leased between one and eight acres of
land made a profit of around UKP 350 each, a fortune in Afghanistan where
the average monthly salary is UKP 3. Since the ban on poppy production was
imposed, the price of a kilo of opium has soared from 3,000 Pakistani
rupees (UKP 35) to 40,000 (UKP 470), sources say.

To date, this has had no discernible effect on the international heroin
market, thanks to massive stockpiles in countries such as Pakistan, Iran
and Turkey where the raw opium is refined. Intelligence experts from
Britain and America believe the fall in production could lead to a
worldwide shortage and price rise, although in reality production in
countries such as Burma and Colombia is likely to increase to satisfy demand.

Fr a few farmers, the Taliban ban has led to even greater wealth - those
with stockpiles of dark brown resin hidden in wet plastic bags have seen
their income increase. But the ban has caused massive hardship to ordinary
Afghans, already left reeling under the burden of war, drought and Soviet
occupation. Skilled labourers who would descend on the Helmand valley every
spring to harvest the milky-white opium are now jobless.

Faiz Ahmed Faiz, the Taliban's foreign affairs spokesman, yesterday said
his Islamic government had completely eradicated poppy cultivation. 'It was
an epic task,' he said. 'The response to this tremendous achievement from
the international community was unexpected. They imposed more and more
sanctions on us.'

The Taliban had begun by reducing opium production by a third, using
religious scholars to convince the people. They then totally wiped out
'this menace' two months ago, he added.

The reality is more complex. Hashar, as the crop is known locally, has been
growing in Afghanistan for centuries. The farmers of Hadda yesterday said
poppies had flourished in their ancient valley for as long as they could
remember: since the time of Afghanistan's deposed King Zahir Shah 30 years ago.

But under the Taliban, production increased spectacularly - to the point
where Afghanistan became the world's largest opium producer, supplying 80
per cent of Europe's heroin.

The crop was trucked across Pakistan's deserts. It was then taken by boat
across the Arabian Sea from the port of Gwadar. It also left the country
via Iran, ending up in eastern Turkey, and in convoys through Afghanistan's
lawless northern neighbours, Turkmenistan and Tajikistan. The Taliban
collected an estimated $20 million in opium taxes.

Late last year, Mullah Omar appears finally to have agreed to Western
demands to end opium production. He had hoped for some concessions in
return, including diplomatic recognition. Instead, the United Nations
imposed more punitive sanctions on Afghanistan in January because of the
country's refusal to extradite the alleged Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden.

The move badly backfired. Mullah Omar responded by destroying Afghanistan's
two giant Buddhas, a disaster that many observers believe could have been
averted.

Sceptics have questioned whether the Taliban have genuinely eradicated
poppy cultivation. But all the evidence suggests they have. 'All the
indicators are that they have done it. The prices have increased
dramatically,' one informed UN source in Kabul admitted last week.

The UN's Drug Control Programme (UNDCP), meanwhile, which compensated
farmers who switched from opium to other crops, was scrapped in December
because of a lack of funding from the US and other donors.

Hadda's farmers are now praying for a change in policy - or a change in
government. 'We don't have anything,' Rashid lamented yesterday, staring
glumly at his green wheat field as rain fell. 'All the young people have
gone to Pakistan. Ninety per cent of this area used to be cultivated with
poppy. How much money can you make from wheat?'

Of the 3,000 people who had lived in Hadda, only 300 were now left, he added=2E

Even the trade in looted Buddhist statues had dried up. Between the second
and seventh century Hadda was one of the most sacred spots in the Buddhist
world, where pilgrims came from across central Asia to venerate a fragment
of the Buddha skull and one of his teeth. But the hundreds of crumbling
stupas dating from that era had already been ransacked, Rashid explained,
by Soviet soldiers and the Mujahideen.

Their contents had been taken across the border to the frontier town of
Peshawar. Only the wheat was left and a few goats. 'We are miserable. We
have nothing. We have been forgotten by the world,' he said.