LEBANON DESTOYS OPIUM FIELDS, ARRESTS TRAFFICKERS

ZAHLE, Lebanon - Lebanese security forces dug up dozens of fields planted
with opium poppies in the eastern Bekaa Valley this week and arrested three
men during drugs raids in the area, security officials said on Saturday.

In a highly publicised campaign aimed at stamping out a re-emerging drug
trade, officials said security forces had destroyed some 420 hectares
(1,038 acres) of opium fields in the last four days.

They said more than five tonnes of hashish were confiscated in two raids in
the Baalbek-Hermel area.

The Bekaa Valley was a hive of cannabis and opium -- used to produce heroin
- -- cultivation during the 1975-1990 civil war but the government stamped
out the trade in the early 1990s under international pressure.

Drug cultivation in the area has surged over the past year despite efforts
by donor countries to encourage other crops.

Struggling Bekaa farmers say drug production keeps them from poverty since
legal crops cannot compete with cheap imports.

Development specialists say cash promised to farmers in the early 1990s for
replacement crop projects was never delivered.