PRAISES LEBANON ILLEGAL DRUGS FIGHT

BEIRUT - Lebanon has succeeded in curbing
cultivation and trafficking of illicit drugs but needs financial aid
to support farmers who depended on the trade for decades, a senior
U.N. official said on Sunday.

"We came up with a positive impression after we visited the Bekaa
Valley and met Lebanese leaders. Lebanon has achieved real progress in
fighting drugs," Pino Arlacchi, executive director of the U.N. Office
for Drug Control and Crime Prevention (ODCCP) told Reuters in an interview.

"The problem now is how to boost agricultural development in this area
so that farmers will not need to go back to growing cannabis and
opium," he said.

Arlacchi discussed with President Emile Lahoud and Prime Minister
Selim al-Hoss ways to help Lebanon in its ongoing fight against drugs.
He also toured the Bekaa Valley, notorious for its illicit drug farms
during the 1975-1990 civil war.

Building irrigation networks in the poor rural area of Bekaa was the
main concern of the Lebanese government and the U.N. agencies helping
with development programmes.

"There is water in the Bekaa but no proper irrigation networks to
develop land cultivation and introduce alternative crops. This is
where our help should start," said Arlacchi.

He said the ODCCP has extended about $4 million in aid to help finance
development projects in Lebanon and was seeking more financial support
from developed nations to boost U.N. programmes.

"Another four million dollars aid would be extended by the ODCCP in
the near future, in about one or two years, for the same purpose," he
said.

"We are seeking the support of many countries, especially the
immediate markets for illicit drugs such as the European Union," he
added.

Estimates for the total amounts needed for development projects were
not yet available at this stage, he said.

"We will carry out our own study on the situation and the finances
needed for the projects in the near future," Arlacchi said.

A U.N. report said certain drugs may have re-emerged in the Bekaa but
in insignificant amounts, while the illicit cultivation was regularly
eradicated by law enforcement agencies.

Cultivation of illegal drugs in Bekaa reached its peak in the late
1980s, with cannabis and opium poppy plantations yielding around 1,000
tonnes of cannabis resin and 30 to 50 tonnes of heroin, the report
said.

Between 1991 and 1993 Lebanon and Syria, the main power broker there,
cracked down on illicit cultivation in Bekaa. Seizures of cannabis
resin dropped to 4.9 tonnes in 1996 from about 40 tonnes in 1994, the
U.N. report said. Heroin seizures fell to five kg per year from 50 kg
in 1993.

Cocaine seizures in Lebanon, a transit country for the drug, dropped
to 11.9 kg in 1998 compared to 16.7 kg in 1996. The ODCCP has
already allocated $14 million in technical aid to fight illicit drugs
in the Middle East.

"We need the support of governments in this region. They should
provide their own financial share to future development projects for
the sake of the well-being of this region and the world," Arlacchi
said.