AFGHAN FARMERS DEFY BAN ON POPPY GROWING

Rise In Opium Output Reflects Limitations Of Central Government's Authority

As far as the eye could see, the landscape was a sea of lilac
opium-poppy flowers dotted with an occasional green corn field.
"We'll be ready to harvest in a few days," said Sharifullah, casting
a jealous eye over his crop. Here in the northeastern Afghan province
of Nangahar, one of the biggest producers of opium in the country,
the fall of the Taliban last November was the signal for a
large-scale resumption of poppy growing.

Following the ban on such crops imposed by the Taliban leader, Mullah
Mohammed Omar, in July 2000, opium production in Afghanistan
plummeted from about 3,300 tonnes in 2000 - or 75% of world output -
to 185 tonnes in 2001, most of which came from regions controlled by
Ahmed Shah Massoud's troops.

Like most farmers in the small dusty village of Rodat, Sharifullah
was forced to move across the border to Peshawar in Pakistan. "When
we heard the Taliban had gone, we immediately came back and sowed our
fields," he said.

Lawang, another farmer, said: "No Taliban meant no ban. It was an
opportunity for us to get out of Peshawar. I'm so happy." Lawang owns
1.7 hectares of land, which he has sown entirely with poppy seeds.
Almost all poppy growers are in debt as a result of a system whereby
traders pay the estimated price of the crop in advance. It was
chiefly because they could not pay back what they owed that many
farmers left Afghanistan.

"This year, the traders didn't give us any money, just poppy seeds,"
says Sharifullah, who ran up a debt of $4,000 after Mullah Omar's
ban. He expects his 1.1 hectares of land to earn him $13,000. But
that sum does not include the cost of fertiliser, water for
irrigation and the considerable workforce he needs to be able to
harvest quickly.

Faced with this massive resumption of poppy growing, which the
Taliban had succeeded in stamping out in 2000 without international
assistance after allowing it to flourish for several years, Hamid
Karzai's interim government, under pressure from the international
community, had no choice but to react.

The government has just announced a plan designed to prevent the
imminent harvest from taking place. According to initial estimates by
the United Nations Programme for International Drugs Control
(UNPIDC), usually a reliable source, the crop was expected to produce
the same amount of opium as in 2000.

The government's plan, introduced on April 8, offers poppy farmers
about $1,250 per hectare to destroy their crop, or barely a 10th of
the sum that farmers in Rodat, for example, were expecting to earn.
According to Ashraf Ghani, the government's economic adviser, if
farmers refuse to comply with the plan a team made up of interior
ministry staff and provincial and local authorities "will enforce the
law" - in other words, destroy the crop.

The first attempts by the government to impose its authority did not
go down well with farmers, who on April 8 opened fire on an official
delegation in Nangahar province, killing up to four people. In the
same province demonstrators blocked the road between Jalalabad and
the Pakistani border. Violent demonstrations have also taken place in
Helmand province.

The Pakistani-based Afghan Islamic Press agency has reported that
farmers belonging to the powerful Shanwari tribe have adopted a
resolution that promises a rebellion if the government prevents the
poppy harvest this year.

Kabul's plan, which is designed to please the West, seems a little
ambitious, given that the interim government's authority does not
extend beyond the capital, Kabul, and that the warlords who now
control the provinces are the very same people who in the past relied
on income from poppy growing to stay in power.

An international expert in Kabul says: "In order to eradicate opium,
it would have been easier to negotiate with the Taliban, who had a
strong and centralised regime. If you destroy crops by force, always
supposing that such a thing is possible, you run the risk of causing
riots."

What Washington and London fear above all are disturbances in Pashtun
regions, where the war against the Taliban and al-Qaida continues,
and where local warlords have traditionally benefited from opium
money. A further danger is that the fight against drugs may be used
as a pretext for settling scores.

"People who don't have work, money, food or anything else are not
going to listen to Karzai," says Saeed Mohammed in Rodat. "We're
prepared to stop growing poppies, but only on condition we get roads,
tractors and factories that can provide us with work."