Ghanikhel, Afghanistan (dpa) – The bazaar in Ghanikhel may only be a collection
of kiosks and mud shops but it offers everything – from fertilizer to seeds,
from oil to entire engines and of course, opium, the most notorious ware on
sale.
Gelas Khan, one of the many opium sellers here, says the drug is hardly used at
home. “It is traders from Pakistan and Iran who pick it up from here to take to
makeshift laboratories for processing it into heroin,” Khan told a small group
of journalists.
Khan had agreed to be interviewed with sacks of opium behind him only after
some “persuasion” by heavily armed Taleban soldiers. Asked about the impact of
the opium, Khan displayed an indifference typical of traders here.
“We are not bothered what your people make out of it afterwards, we are just
making our living,” Khan said in a remark directed to a couple of westerners in
the group.” He sold about a tonne of opium last year.
Outside, the spectacular poppy fields with their crop primed for harvest flank
the road into Ghanikel from Jalalabad, the capital of this eastern province of
Ningarhar, and the highway linking Jalalabad with Pakistan.
The fields bear abundant witness to the bumper crop last year and the one due
to be harvested before the end of April.
Ningarhar provides some 25 per cent of the country’s total poppy output. Some
70 percent comes from the southern Helmand province and the rest from Kandahar
and the opposition-held Badakhshan in the north.
Thanks to about 4,600 tonnes of poppy produced last year, the war- ravaged
country became the biggest poppy producer, with similar projections for this
year too despite a decree from Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taleban supreme
leader, in September 1999 that farmers must cut poppy cultivation by one
third.
Another order by the Ningarhar governor, Mullah Kabir Ahmed required the
farmers to abstain from growing the drug on either side of the Jalalabad
Highway.
Those who defied the decree paid with destruction of their cash crop during a
campaign in the first fortnight of April. Mulla Hameed Akhunzada, chairman of
the State High Commission for Drugs Control (SHCDC) himself overlooked the
operation aimed at destroying some 500 hectares of land under poppy in the
province.
“Don’t expect us to eliminate poppy altogether overnight,” said Akhunzada in
the presence of Bernard Frahi, the U.N. Drug Control Programme (UNDCP)
representative, and several affected farmers.
“I borrowed 100,000 Pakistani rupees (190 dollars) to cultivate these fields, I
am destroyed now,” said a downcast farmer Bakhtawar Shah.
Another bystander, Rehmatullah, burst into tears: “You want to starve us to
death, tens of thousands of families to protect a few hundred thousand addicts
in your country,” he shouted at the foreign visitors.
But for Frahi and his colleagues the anti-poppy operation amounted to “an
historic moment.”
“The area targetted for destruction may be meagre but the mere readiness of the
Taleban to launch this operation to the annoyance of local farmers underscores
that they are ready to listen to us,” said Frahi.
But what about allegations that the Islamic militia is making millions of
dollars from the drug trade and also pocketing a local tax on the poppy
crop.
“What we receive is a land tax irrespective of the crop being grown there,”
Akhunzada said. He said poppy and opium are illicit from the Islamic point of
view and the authorities cannot accept money earned from such illegal crops and
commodities.
But he emphasised that the international doners need to extend support to the
Taleban authorities to enable them enforce a poppy reduction campaign and
dissuade farmers from growing the despised seed.
“Before we do that we must convince farmers of better gains for the country,
sort of sustainable development alternatives to this crop,” Akhunzada
said.
U.N. officials also lack evidence to support allegations of Taleban’s
involvement in the poppy farming and trade.
For people like Frahi, poppy represents a socio-economic problem; in a country
plagued with massive unemployment, a devasted infrastructure and non-existent
industry, the poppy crop ensures the farmers a credit based on the land-
holding, better profits and savings as well.
That is why, Frahi says, the success of a pilot project UNDCP launched in 1997
in Ningarhar’s Shinwar district, is crucial for future engagement; if results
convince doners that it has helped in cutting down the poppy production, they
may provide more money.
For a community of more than 64,000 people, mostly dependent on farming, the
UNDCP has repaired water channels, catered for potable water and launched some
skill development programmes for the youth.
But if the authorities continue to ignore violations by farmers and implicitly
accept continued poppy cultivation, international donations are likely to dry
up, he warns.
The Taleban authorities have their reservations too; if they clamp down on
poppy cultivation, they risk jeopardising their own political power by annoying
farmers. And if they don’t, they risk losing international support.
