LEBANON: A NEW DRUG THREAT

Lebanon's eradication of drug farming in the Bekaa valley is threatened by
the government's failure to deliver promised aid to farmers, reports David
Sharrock in London's liberal Guardian.

Under U.S. pressure, Lebanon began destroying its drug crops in 1993. By
early 1998, Lebanon was removed from the U.S. State Department's list of
drug-producing countries.

But the drug trade was a major pillar of the Lebanese economy -- especially
in the Bekaa -- and replacement crops yield a tiny fraction of the profits
once provided by cannabis or opium. Little agricultural aid has arrived.
The resulting economic depression led to violent confrontation last year
[see Regional Reports, WPR, April, 1998].

Mohammed Fawaz, the spokesperson for the central Bekaa agricultural
cooperative, predicts that if promised economic aid does not arrive, the
region will explode. "The people will go back to growing cannabis and
opium, because everyone used to have money in his pocket, and now we have
nothing. I feel betrayed by my government and by the American government,
which promised to help," Sharrock quotes Fawaz.

Checked-by: Richard Lake