CRISIS BLOOMS WITH POPPIES

Growers Resisting Order to Destroy

ARABAN, Afghanistan -- A bountiful spring harvest has come to Nangarhar
province. A gorgeous carpet of pink and violet flowers has sprung from the
red earth, stretching for miles past fields of young green wheat and
white-topped onions.

These are opium poppies, the first crop since the Taliban outlawed opium
growing in July 2000, reducing the crop by 96 percent. This is also the
first poppy crop since the interim Afghan government was installed in
December, and it has precipitated a crisis in Nangarhar.

In a matter of days, the poppies will be ready for extraction of the gummy
gray opium paste that is processed into heroin in Pakistan and sent via
Iran and Turkey to addicts in Europe.

But the Kabul government, under pressure from the United States and
Britain, has threatened to destroy the entire harvest unless farmers accept
token cash payments to plow under their poppies. Nangarhar's opium farmers,
a contentious lot, have responded with a volatile mixture of fear and defiance.

"Destroy my crop? Hah! The government wouldn't dare," said Abdul Ali, a
stout farmer of 25 who says he has invested 120,000 rupees, or about
$2,000, in his 6 acres of poppies in the lush Sukh Rod (Red River) valley
southwest of Jalalabad. "If they try to touch one poppy, there'll be big
trouble, I promise you."

Farmers have blocked roads, stoned passing cars, blocked returning refugees
and shot dead a provincial functionary who dared set foot on a poppy field.
Some Afghans speculate that opium had something to do with a bomb that
killed five people Monday in a failed attempt in Jalalabad to assassinate
the country's defense minister - the man who would send in soldiers to
destroy poppies.

Nangarhar is the country's second-largest opium-producing province after
Helmand in the south (where eight protesting farmers were killed by
government forces Sunday and authorities began destroying poppy crops
Wednesday). Nangarhar is also the source of the finest-quality opium paste.
The opium trade is the engine of the local economy, generating millions of
dollars for wealthy drug traffickers and smaller sums for thousands of
farmers and their laborers.

Farmers say they are insulted by the government's offer of $250 per jerib,
about half an acre. They say they earn at least $2,000 from the opium paste
produced on one jerib - many times the income from wheat or corn. On
Wednesday, the government increased the offer to $350 per jerib.

For Nangarhar's political bosses and military commanders, opium is a
delicate subject. According to the farmers, top officials profit handsomely
from the drug trade either by leasing their considerable land holdings to
opium farmers, growing poppies themselves, or charging fees to permit opium
trafficking through their territories.

There is nothing furtive or shameful about growing opium poppies here. They
grow openly on corner lots in Jalalabad, the provincial capital. People
plant poppies in their gardens.

The other day, Haji Abdul Qadir, the provincial governor, sat slumped in a
padded chair inside the governor's palace, sweat glistening on his tanned
bald head. He had just emerged from a meeting with hostile farmers - tall,
bearded, sunburned men in dirt-streaked robes who had upbraided him.

"The farmers say we are taking bread from their mouths," Qadir said, a
plaintive edge in his voice. "But what can I do? I am obligated to obey the
government. If it was up to me, I'd say begin the harvest tomorrow."

The region's security chief, the urbane and polished Haji Mohammed Zaman,
sat wearily in his orange grove, lamenting his fate. He had enough problems
maintaining day-to-day security without an opium war.