POPPIES A RED MENACE FOR AFGHANISTAN

Fields Are Alive But Those Pretty Blooms Mean Bumper Crop Of Heroin

The fields of southern Afghanistan are once again alive with poppies
and, once again, the forces charged with keeping the controversial
crop out of the ground can't seem to do a thing about it.

Millions of brilliant red, white and yellow flowers bob in the gentle
spring wind, promising a bumper crop of heroin - possibly
Afghanistan's largest - will be ready for sale on the streets of
Europe and North America by fall.

In a report finalized this week, and obtained by CanWest News Service,
the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime said while poppy
eradication in Afghanistan has increased threefold over this time last
year, the amount of crop left in the villages for harvest after
eradication is also notably on the rise.

The report also found people are attacking eradication teams more than
ever, with 16 people being killed in related violence this season,
several others injured and an unspecified number of eradication
tractors being burned.

In an interview this week, a spokesperson for the Afghan
counter-narcotics ministry touted the 15,509 hectares of poppy fields
the UN report had confirmed to have already been eradicated this year,
but said it is too early to estimate the size of this year's harvest.

"At this moment, we are still in the process of doing the survey,"
Zalmay Afzali said.

Others did not need to wait, saying unequivocally that poppy
production is on the rise, and explaining the increase is a direct
indication the people of Afghanistan have lost faith in their government.

"The people have decided the government is not able to solve the basic
problems so they have decided to grow poppies," said Colonel Mohammad
Hussain Andiwall, a liaison between the Afghan Ministry of the
Interior and the Canadian provincial reconstruction team in Kandahar.

"For five years, the government couldn't provide clinics, schools,
potable water and other social programs," he added, speaking in an
interview.

"People have heard lots and not seen anything."

Haji Mohammed Eisah Khan, an influential tribal chief and former high
court judge who quit because he could not tolerate corruption, agreed.

"Due to the weakness of the government, the Taliban has got a chance
to come again and to get stronger," the tribal chief told CanWest News
Service this week.

"The government has made promises to the people, but is doing nothing.
That is why the Taliban has a chance to come again," he added.

In the rolling desert hills that mark the border between Kandahar and
Helmand - two of Afghanistan's three largest poppy producing provinces
- - farmer Mohammed Khan is a living picture of this sentiment.

With his soft voice, gentle nature and paucity of material
possessions, Khan is among the last you would expect to find breaking
his back to help produce the world's largest supply of opium, but this
year, as in the past, Khan has spent endless hours farming a poppy
patch roughly the size of a football field to do just that.

"These poppies are all for my children," he said in a recent
interview, explaining he farms poppies mostly so he can make the
estimated $6,500 U.S. they bring him each year, but also because the
Taliban demands he do so.

"We don't have any power to fight with them," he said of the Taliban,
explaining the last time they came to his farm they arrived as a
heavily armed group of about 50 men, coming to ensure he would grow
the poppies that would help fund their insurgency.

"I know you have a lot of difficulty reporting the Taliban because of
the personal risk, but the Taliban slows down progress," Canadian
Forces Lt. Ben Rogerson told Khan during a recent conversation, urging
him to use local authorities to fight back.

"They (the Taliban) are working against the government of Afghanistan
and against development," he said.

"We need you to take that risk to help us so we can build the country
and there won't be a problem anymore."

Khan did not seem convinced.

"If we tell you guys, the Taliban will take our wives and our
daughters," he said. "They are Muslim, but they are not working like
Muslim people."

And so, with little faith his now five-year-old government can protect
him, or can even help him make anywhere close to the same amount of
money doing anything else, Khan has again joined the thousands of
other peasant farmers across the country in growing poppies, and in
supporting the Taliban.

Last year alone, the UNODC found Afghanistan had exported an estimated
$3.1 billion U.S. worth of opium, or about 92 per cent of the global
supply. The UN agency further estimated the country's farmers had
received only $760 million of that, with an average family getting
about $1,700. Presumably, the rest went to drug lords, smugglers,
insurgents and corrupt officials.

"Poppy is feeding the enemy. It is also creating a distance between
the people and their government," Hussain said.

"The situation is getting worse, not better."

Back in Kandahar City, Hussain and Khan agreed the solution to the
poppy problem is not going to come easily, although they said finding
one is absolutely crucial.

For Hussain, the path will be through providing real alternatives for
farmers.

As an example, he said, he thinks NATO should fly three fewer military
flights each day and use the money they save to buy alternative crops,
such as wheat, at the price of poppies.

When she was in Kandahar last month, Minister of International
Co-operation Josee Verner said the Canadian government was trying to
effect change through the Canadian International Development Agency.

"What we want to do is offer an alternative to farmers," she told
reporters.

"We invested I think close to

$30 million this year to offer the opportunity to the farmers to have
the alternatives to the poppy," she added, explaining the money goes
to everything from irrigation to distribution of different seeds.

At the Afghan counter-narcotics ministry, Afzali said this is not
enough.

"This is the world's problem and the international community should
have to do more to remove this problem from Afghanistan."

The UNODC report does not say if NATO soldiers have had to rescue any
eradication teams this year, although it documents a litany of
violence stemming from eradication.

In one incident, six Afghan national police officers who were part of
an eradication team died and two others were injured when their
vehicle hit a mine. In another, one farmer died and seven other people
were injured (including two government security police) during an
armed conflict over eradication.

In total, 16 people have died and several others have been injured, it
says. Nevertheless, authorities were pitching the year's efforts as a
success. According to the report, 15,509 hectares of poppies have been
eradicated this year in 1,516 villages.

Of course, many are quick to say they think the eradication that is
being done is targeting small farmers who lack the proper connections
instead of at the influential drug lords.

"Those departments going to control the poppy cultivation also are
involved in the poppy business," said Khan, the tribal chief.

Hussain supported this notion, saying the influential farmers with
large plots of land are not subject to eradication because of the
influence they carry with the officials who decide where the teams
will go.

"This was a totally and fully unjust program," he said, explaining he
feels the "weak and the people who don't have economic ability," are
the ones who suffered most.

At the counter-narcotics ministry, Afzali acknowledged there are
problems with corruption in the system, but said the government is
doing what it can to bring it under control.

"The government of Afghanistan is fighting an international market.
The government is doing everything possible to remove this problem,"
he said, adding some people are already in custody for acts of corruption.

In Kandahar province, where Canadians are operating, Governor
Asadullah Khalid had a different view.

"I will not accept this," he said in an interview this week, speaking
in English, when asked whether he employed preferential treatment when
deciding where to send eradication teams in his province.

"We eradicated poppies in eight districts. This was for everyone," he
said, adding more than 8,000 hectares of poppy crop have been
eradicated so far this year, or about three times the amount done last
year.

Although eradication has appeared to increase significantly, the UNODC
report also makes clear despite this success, the farmers and, in
turn, the Taliban who truly profit from the drug trade are still winning.

"Percentage of standing poppy in surveyed villages shows that much
more poppy is still standing in the surveyed villages compared to
2006," it says, explaining the standing poppy is a figure based on the
observations of surveyors once eradication teams have finished in a
given village.

If true, this is a significant problem for the whole of Afghanistan,
one best articulated by Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

"Poppy cultivation and producing illicit drug has tarnished the image
of Afghanistan," he said last year.

"If we do not eliminate poppy, poppy will eliminate us."