U.N. FORSAKES EFFORT TO CURB POPPY GROWTH BY AFGHANS

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 15 - Frustrated by declining support from Western
donors and the indifference of the ruling Taliban, the United Nations is
winding down efforts to persuade farmers in Afghanistan, the world's
largest producer of opium, to switch to alternative legal crops.

Ghorak, Khakrez and Maiwand, three districts of Qandahar province where the
United Nations set up pilot programs promoting alternative crops, have
recorded decreases in poppy cultivation of at least 50 percent, according
to the latest annual survey of the United Nations International Drug
Control Program.

"This demonstrates that the alternative development projects work very
well," the program's executive director, Under Secretary General Pino
Arlacchi, said here. Similar programs in Bolivia and Peru, he noted, led to
sharp declines there in the cultivation of coca, the plant used to make
cocaine.

But despite United Nations efforts to convince Afghan farmers to switch to
wheat and other food crops in return for compensatory improvements in their
lives, Mr. Arlacchi said, "Afghanistan remains by far the largest opium
supplier in the world."

Now, with United Nations funding running out and opium still Afghanistan's
leading cash crop, the pilot projects will end this year, Mr. Arlacchi
said, "given lack of financial and political support."

Afghanistan's production of opium, the essential raw ingredient of heroin,
was estimated at just over 3,600 tons this year, a decline from the record
5,100 tons in 1999.

But the drop was caused mainly by a severe drought in southern Afghanistan
and not by any effort by the Taliban to make peasants grow something other
than opium poppies. A previous decree that farmers reduce their areas under
opium cultivation by one-third has been widely ignored by the farmers and
the Taliban authorities.

Half of Afghanistan's opium is consumed as heroin by addicts in neighboring
Pakistan and Iran, Mr. Arlacchi said. The rest is smuggled out to heroin
markets in Europe, usually via Turkey and the Balkans.

Afghanistan planted nearly 203,000 acres in opium poppies this year, a
slight decline from last year, again apparently because of bad weather.
United Nations officials hoped that the drought might encourage some
farmers to revert to traditional crops. But the poor harvest may leave
indebted farmers with no choice but to keep raising opium.

Opium growing is encouraged by Afghanistan's rugged, often remote terrain
and a long-running civil war that has bred lawlessness and defiance of
authority.

Afghan farmers can earn about $14 per pound of opium, considerably more
than they do from other crops, United Nations officials say. Roughly 10
pounds of raw opium are used to produce 1 pound of heroin. At the consuming
end, the cost of a pound of uncut heroin in Europe or the United States can
exceed $40,000.

Opium poppies are grown in 22 of Afghanistan's 32 provinces, but 6
provinces in the south account for 92 percent of the opium producing area.
Moreover, 97 percent of this land is irrigated, proof that precious water
is diverted to opium poppies at the expense of other crops.

The Taliban, a militant Islamic movement that fought its way into power,
controls an estimated 91 percent of the Afghan villages visited by United
Nations surveyors, compared with 9 percent controlled by opposition forces
in the north. But the Taliban's territory contains 96 percent of the
country's opium poppy fields, up from about 90 percent last year.

Mr. Arlacchi visited Afghanistan three years ago and secured assurances of
cooperation from the Taliban, which considers drug use contrary to Islamic
precepts, at least in theory. Since then, he said, "There was no
substantial improvement in our relationship."

The United Nations drug control office will continue its annual survey of
Afghanistan's opium cultivation and harvest yield, conducted by Afghan
nationals who have been able to move about the country and interview opium
growers and local officials.

The United Nations has also encouraged a cordon by Afghanistan's neighbors
- - Pakistan, Iran, Tadjikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and China - to
block or intercept drug smugglers. Russian border guards have been deployed
along Tadjikistan's porous frontier with Afghanistan. And Iran, which has
an increasing drug problem, has stationed 20,000 police officers on its
Afghan border, Mr. Arlacchi said.

He said he believed that alternative development was an ideal solution for
the world's illegal drug problem. But the "emergency" solution in the
shorter term, he said, was for Afghanistan's neighbors to strengthen their
security belt and for Western countries to reduce the demand for heroin.