U.N. reports Afghans fail to cut opium production

BY CHRISTOPHER S. WREN
New York Times

The Muslim fundamentalist Taliban movement has pledged to crack down on
opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, but opium production there has
jumped by 25 percent over the last year, with almost all of the increase
occurring in Talibancontrolled areas, U.N. Drug Control Program
officials said Wednesday.

The U.N. agency's 1997 survey, scheduled for release Thursday, estimates
that Afghan opium production rose to about 2,800 metric tons this year
from 2,300 metric tons in 1996. U.N. officials report that Afghanistan
now produces the raw ingredient for nearly half of the world's heroin.

Last year, Afghanistan ranked second to Burma, which produced 2,500 metric
tons of opium, according to a State Department estimate.

Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the U.N. Drug Control Program, said
the increase could mean more heroin flowing into Europe at lower prices.
European heroin users consume about 80 percent of the heroin refined
from opium grown in Afghanistan. Part of the remainder reaches the U.S.
market, which is dominated by heroin from Colombia and Southeast Asia.

Arlacchi said he would raise his concern about the output of Afghan opium
at meetings with other U.N. officials in New York on Thursday and Friday.

``I want to inform them because we are very worried about the increase,''
Arlacchi said in a telephone interview from Vienna, Austria.

A U.S. counterdrug official in Washington expressed no surprise at the
U.N. estimate of Afghanistan's opium crop.

``Production has skyrocketed, we know that, and production is sanctioned
by the Taliban,'' the official said.

Officials say the Taliban, which has seized power in 22 of Afghanistan's
32 provinces, now controls 96 percent of its poppygrowing areas.

The increase resulted from higher poppy yields, which were attributed to
favorable weather, improved cultivation techniques and the shifting of
some farmland to poppy cultivation. The total number of acres under
poppy cultivation increased by only 2.8 percent, the survey estimated.
U.N. survey teams based their estimate on visits to 18 provinces.

The report offered fresh evidence that the Taliban has not fulfilled its
promises to crack down on opium production. Taliban officials say they
cannot stop peasants from growing opium poppies without other crops to
substitute, and contend that persuading them to switch depends on
economic assistance from the international community.

The United States and many other countries have kept the Taliban at arm's
length because of its violent rise to power and repressive policies like
the relegation of women to inferior status.

But international officials and journalists traveling in Afghanistan
reported that the Taliban is not just tolerating opium production but
also taxing it for desperately needed revenue and that Taliban
militiamen have been seen guarding opium warehouses and helping
transport the crop.

Taliban officials, while denying any involvement in the opium trade,
concede that it is flourishing.

``Huge areas of Afghanistan are under poppy cultivation, and when we ban
it, we will have to give the farmers something in return, and the
Islamic state of Afghanistan is not in a position to do this,'' Abdur
Rahman Hotaqi, the Taliban's deputy minister of culture, told
journalists at a briefing in Kabul three weeks ago.

And Mir Najibullah Shams, secretary general of Afghanistan's
drugcontrol commission, said: ``From an economic point of view, it is
difficult to find an alternative to growing poppies. The seed is cheap
and it is not necessary to use many pesticides or much water. And it is
a robust crop.''

Afghanistan is one of six countries identified by the State Department
as not cooperating sufficiently in the international fight against
illegal drugs. The other countries are Colombia, Iran, Burma, Nigeria
and Syria. The State Department report said, ``While the Taliban banned
opium production in late 1996, it made no effort to enforce this ban.''

Posted at 7:19 p.m. PDT Wednesday, September 10, 1997