Afghans Call For 'Leniency' On Opium

INTERIM LEADER INSISTS FARMERS MUST ERADICATE ALL POPPY CROPS

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Challenging the interim President Harmid Karzai,
influential elders from the nation's opium-producing provinces warned the
government Wednesday against trying to eradicate a vast crop of poppies
that is almost ready to harvest.

In a testy confrontation with Karzai, tribal leaders and commanders from
Helmand, Paktia and Nangarhar provinces demanded "leniency" in implementing
the policy, a senior government official said, because so many of the
area's farmers are unwilling to destroy a lucrative crop.

The confrontation highlighted Karzai's precarious position and the lack of
support for him in Afghan society. He needs to curb opium production to win
the backing of the international community, but doing so would undercut his
position at home, where local warlords still rule much of the country.

It was the latest action in a campaign to discredit Karzai's administration
ahead of the loya jirga, a grand council that meets in June to select a new
government.

Officials on Wednesday announced arrests in a rocket attack on
international peacekeepers Sunday and a bombing Monday that targeted the
country's defense minister.

Defense Ministry official Mir Jan said four people were taken into custody
in the eastern city of Jalalabad, where the bomb exploded near a convoy,
missing Defense Minister Muhammad Fahim but killing five people.

Five people were arrested in a Kabul neighborhood where two missiles were
fired Sunday at a German-Danish garrison of peacekeepers, according to Gen.
Din Muhammad Jurat, an Interior Ministry official. No one was injured.

Despite protests against the poppy eradication program, Interior Minister
Yunis Qanuni told Knight Ridder in an exclusive interview that he is
willing to discuss the program with local officials but that his ministry
is determined to continue its effort.

"There are some people who opposed our plans and don't want us to force
them to do it," Qanuni said. "But the U.N. and the international community
demand that we take strong action against drug trafficking."

Two years ago, Afghanistan supplied some 70 percent of the world's opium,
according to CIA statistics, until the former Taliban leadership cracked
down on cultivation.

After the Taliban regime collapsed last fall, many farmers who had once
cultivated poppies rushed back into the fields. Traditionally, Afghanistan
has been the source of much of the heroin sold in Europe and the Middle East.

Last week, the Karzai government unveiled a plan to pay farmers about $500
per acre to destroy their poppy crops, about a quarter of what they could
earn on the market.

If they refuse to comply, the government said, police will be dispatched to
uproot farmers' plants.

Many doubt Karzai's government can implement the edict, months after poor
farmers planted their crops, and provincial officials pleaded with him
Wednesday for "a looser policy and for leniency," said the senior
government official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The provincial officials warned Karzai that they would not be able to
enforce a strict edict to cut the crop out of the fields, because of local
opposition.

"They said farmers were very unhappy with the decision" to eradicate the
harvest "just now at the end of the season and that the money being paid
them was not enough," the aide said.

Also Wednesday, Karzai called on the world community to fund big
infrastructure projects, in particular roads, to make the country
economically viable and secure.

In the first meeting on how to implement pledges of $4.5 billion in
assistance to Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, the U.N. envoy for Afghanistan,
said such financing is the only way to guarantee security outside the
capital and lead the country toward peace and stability.