WORLD FOCUS: AFGHAN DRUG WAR

Planting Season Tests Fight Against Opium Karzai Puts Poppy Farmers On Notice

JALALABAD, Afghanistan When the sun peeks over the horizon and a cold,
November fog covers the fields, Afghanistan's poppy growers get to work.

This is planting season in the country that last year regained the title of
world's largest producer of opium.

But that distinction, however dubious, may be short-lived.

Some farmers this year are not planting poppies, the source of the opium
used to make heroin. They say they fear jail because of a new government
ban on poppy growing.

Their fear could be a first sign that Afghans outside the capital, Kabul,
are following the writ of law laid down by Prime Minister Hamid Karzai.

"Now there is a government. They came around and told us not to plant or
they will arrest us," says Ghaza Gul, whose sandaled feet are cracked and
callused from farm work.

Gul was among the tens of thousands of farmers who rushed to grow poppies
when the Taliban regime collapsed last year.

Kabul fell Nov. 13 under the blistering air assault of U.S. and British
jets. Three days later, the Taliban fled Jalalabad, the capital of eastern
Nangarhar province.

Some farmers even ripped up wheat crops to replace them with the lucrative
poppy.

Karzai took office in December and was quick to order a poppy ban. But it
was too late: The farmers already had seeded their land.

This year, the prime minister was ready to crack down on violators.

"We are committed 100 percent to eradicating poppies," said Mirwais Yasini,
director of the Counter-Narcotics Department of the National Security Council.

"We know it won't be easy, but the decree is without reservation."

U.N. drug control officials in Kabul said it is too early to assess the
success of the government effort.

But in Vienna, Kemal Kurspahic of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime said
enforcement is a central issue.

"It would be unrealistic to expect Karzai's administration - coming after
23 years of total devastation of the country - to be able to effectively
implement the ban everywhere throughout the country," Kurspahic said.

Evidence of success could come next spring, when poppy plants blossom - or not.

At first, Karzai did not wage a large-scale assault on the poppy farms. At
the time, government officials and the U.N. said a revolt by farmers could
destabilize Karzai's emerging administration.

Instead, officials offered farmers $350 to destroy their crops.

Some agreed, but many complained they got a voucher instead of cash and
then had a hard time redeeming it.

Farmers in southern Helmand province, the other big opium producing region
as well as Nangarhar, say they plan to plant twice as much poppy this
season, because they never got their compensation money.

"I paid money last time for diesel for my water pump and other things, and
I want that money back," said farmer Mohammad Zarif, 32, who cultivates
along the Helmand River.

"We will never believe the government again."

Many farmers owe drug dealers who put up cash in advance for last season's
crops, explains Sakander Hayat Khan, an officer for the World Food Program
in southern Afghanistan.

"Farmers get money from these people, and they want crop back, not money,"
Khan said.