PAYING TOP DOLLAR FOR POPPIES

Coaxing Afghan farmers to plant crops other than poppies has been
tried before. As the ultimate incentive, a Canadian general is
advocating buying those alternative crops for the same price as opium

EDMONTON - The first contact that an Afghan farmer will often have
with Hamid Karzai's federal government in far-off Kabul is when an
armed government convoy comes to bulldoze the crop in his field, says
Brig.-Gen. David Fraser, the Canadian general who commanded NATO
forces in southern Afghanistan last year.

An Afghan farmer can make enough money to feed a family of five for a
year by growing opium poppies on a plot the size of an average North
American living room. "The Afghans don't see poppy any differently
than you and I would look at canola," Fraser says. "It is a cash crop."

Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of raw opium, and its
crop is ever growing. In 1986, 29,000 hectares were under opium poppy
cultivation. In 2006, after steady growth through the 1990s and
explosive growth in recent years, the number was 165,000 hectares.

But British and American policy insists upon the eradication of the
opium industry.

As a result, Afghan crews, supported by the local police and national
army, are sent out to destroy poppy fields, which often inspires the
farmers to take up arms against the Afghan central government and
their Western allies.

"It's a lose-lose situation for the government, for the international
community, for the farmer, all because we have got this thing called
poppy that we want to get rid of," Fraser says. "If we disenfranchise
the people we are actually there to support, that's not the effect
that you want."

The $3-billion question when it comes to defeating the insurgent
Taliban and stabilizing Afghanistan is what to do about the country's
lucrative opium trade, which is estimated to make up more than half
of the poor nation's economy? If the war is to be won, Fraser
realizes it will take more than fierce fighting by Canadian forces --
the kind seen last September during Operation Medusa.

Right now, the opium trade is fuelling the Taliban war machine in
Afghanistan, but so is the American and British effort to eradicate
the crop, Fraser says.

Canadian military units in Afghanistan are so uncomfortable with the
eradication program that they make sure they are well away when any
eradicating efforts are going on, and they also tell the locals it is
not their idea to deal with the issue in this way.

But Fraser wants to take a more proactive approach, so he has come up
with a new plan that he believes will go a long way in alleviating
the poppy problem.

His idea is to get Afghan farmers to plant an alternative crop, then
have the Afghan government and the international community purchase
that crop from the farmers for the same price as they would get for
their opium.

"Pay the people to grow another crop of their choosing, not our
choosing. Pay them an inflated price that is akin to poppy," Fraser says.

Farm subsidies are common in the developed world, he says. "Why don't
we just do the same thing in this country? And it will give you the
40-per-cent solution. What we're going to do is put a little bit more
money into the pocket of the farmer, and we've now interrupted the
processing chain of the dope that is being produced and getting onto
the streets of London and Moscow."

Fraser says he has talked to various ambassadors in Afghanistan about
his idea, and they listened to him keenly, partly because of the
idea's merit, but also because Canada is now taken seriously, given
the notable success of Canadian forces on the battlefield last summer
and this fall in the Kandahar area.

"We have got ourselves to the table because of what we have done," Fraser says.

Operation Medusa was a high point in last year's campaign

Fraser, who was in Afghanistan from February to November 2006, is
particularly proud of Operation Medusa in September. It was the major
Canadian battle of the 2006 Afghan campaign, which saw hundreds of
Taliban killed and captured, as the International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) drove Taliban militants from their strongholds in the
Zhari and Panjwaii districts, thwarting their plans to launch attacks
on Kandahar City.

The operation started when the local governor told Fraser he wanted
to get the grapes out of the lush grape-growing Panjwaii area to the
west of Kandahar City, along the Arghandab River. The grape trade
would restart the region's economic engine, the governor said.

When Canadian troops and aid workers went in to start this process,
they found the Taliban mustering for a series of attacks on Kandahar
City, which would show all Afghans that NATO forces were weak, unable
to protect the strategic heart of southern Afghanistan.

Rather than charge in to fight the Taliban, Fraser says he and his
officers approached tribal elders in the area and asked them for
help. "You've got the power," was the Canadian message.

"There's less than 1,000 of them (Taliban) out there, and there's one
million in Kandahar province. Why don't you guys kick them the hell
out of your communities and we're there to support you?"

Fraser realized that the situation was critical, that if he and his
forces couldn't deal with the Taliban here, Kandahar would fall and
support for the NATO mission would crumble. He told his officers that
failure was not an option.

The Taliban started to use the local populations as human shields in
skirmishes. It was clear that massive Canadian firepower was needed.
In early September, Canadian and Afghan forces engaged the Taliban
and beat them back.

"The Taliban were soundly defeated for the first time in their
history," Fraser says. "The Taliban made a big push and they lost.
What that did is it created an opportunity to build."

At the end of the battle, tribal elders approached Fraser and told
him that they had had enough and would now side with the NATO forces.

"For that battle, that was my victory, and the other thing was the
confidence of the people in Kandahar that you can continue to see
today -- there is hope now within the people that wasn't there this
time last year."

When Fraser arrived in Kandahar, he said, the streets were empty, but
by the time he left the public market was thriving and there were
traffic jams everywhere. "If the people are confident, commerce happens."

Much progress has been made since Western forces first entered the
country in 2001 to fight the Afghan-based, Taliban-backed al-Qaida
terrorist organization.

In the six years since then, the country has had free elections,
developed a functioning parliament, and got six million children into
school, one-third of those children being girls, Fraser says. Still,
the country is the fifth poorest in the world, recovering from 30
years of civil war and trying to build itself as Taliban fighters
continue to wreak havoc, especially in Kandahar province.

There will be no quick and easy solutions here, Fraser says, as the
country has no middle class and no government bureaucracy. In one
province, the education minister is building many new schools, but he
himself is illiterate.

"It's a generational problem," Fraser says. "When does it get to the
point where in fact it's running itself with less help? Twenty or 25 years."

Dealing with the opium issue is key because some of the $800 million
that flows back into Afghanistan from the $3-billion trade ends up in
the hands of the Taliban.

Think-tank is promoting a poppy-for-medicine project

There is a growing movement to have the government take over from the
drug lords and the Taliban as the major buyer of the opium harvest.
The Senlis Council, an international policy think-tank with offices
in Kabul, London, Paris and Brussels, is calling for the
implementation of a poppy-for-medicine project. Afghan farmers would
be licensed to legally grow poppies for the medicinal drugs morphine
and codeine. Poppy farmers in Turkey and India have been employed in
this way for decades.

The Senlis Council is willing to fund a pilot project in Kandahar,
says Senlis president Norine MacDonald.

"A system in which poppy is cultivated under licence for the
production of pain-killing medicines such as morphine or codeine
would help to win back the hearts and minds of the local population
because it re-engages with them and works with, rather than against, them."

Liberal Leader Stephane Dion has said Canada should back the Senlis
pilot project.

"If we do not start to think creatively about the problem of the drug
economy, the situation will never get better."

But Brig.-Gen. Fraser is skeptical that such a plan would work
because the drug lords are extremely powerful and the Afghan
government is so weak.

"We don't have a mature enough governmental system to make that work."

Right now, Afghan drug lords order farmers to plant poppy fields or
risk getting killed. At the same time, Taliban fighters shake down
the local farmers, taking much of their opium profits to fund the war
against Karzai and his allies.

If the international community stepped in and bought much of the
opium, the Taliban shakedown would continue, essentially meaning that
Western governments would be buying Afghan opium and the money would
go to the Taliban. "How do you think we can explain buying opiates
and the money gets into the wrong guy's hands?" Fraser asks. "That's
even worse."

Afghan drug lords are far more difficult and dangerous to tackle than
the Taliban, Fraser says. "I was there for nine months and I never
once found a drug convoy. I knew in my estimates that if we came
across a drug convoy that if you thought fighting the Taliban was
hard, you try fighting that convoy, because we're talking huge money.
Huge money. And these guys are ruthless. This was a very
sophisticated operation here."

Many drug dealers are simply businessmen who got into the drug trade
in the lawless vaccum created in Afghanistan after the fall of the
Taliban in 2001. The Karzai government has to determine which of the
drug lords and warlords are willing to drop their illegal trade in
favour of above-board business, Fraser says.

American officials have talked about using aerial spraying of
chemicals to destroy the poppy fields, but both Fraser and MacDonald
of the Senlis Council are against this idea.

"Aerial spraying will not achieve the effects that they want," Fraser
says. "It will actually turn off all the people against the
government and against us. As illiterate as the people are, they are
not stupid, and they will turn against us."

Adds MacDonald: "The U.S. will fuel more anger and resentment by
spraying the Afghan poppy crops -- it is tantamount to chemical warfare."

It's clear that the Karzai government needs another tool in its
toolbox, and his idea of an alternative crop program will do the
trick, Fraser says, though he admits that the Taliban will still
shake down the farmers for money that they get from selling the
alternative crop. Nonetheless, the plan is still better than the
status quo because the Taliban won't be able to make money processing
the food, as they do from helping to trade and process opium into heroin.

But Fraser doesn't expect to see his plan implemented any time too
soon. "There are no quick hits, no simple solutions. It is sailing a
big ship and it takes time for that to turn."