DATE=04/11/2002

TYPE=EDITORIAL

NUMBER=0-09816

TITLE=EDITORIAL: BAN ON AFGHAN POPPY GROWING

INTERNET=Yes

CONTENT=THIS EDITORIAL IS BEING RELEASED FOR USE BY ALL SERVICES.

Anncr: Next, an editorial expressing the policies of the United States Government:

Voice: The Afghan interim government under Hamid Karzai has begun enforcing a ban on opium poppy cultivation. With international funding, the government has set up a compensation program that will offer growers about one-thousand two-hundred dollars per hectare of eradicated opium.

The United States is providing assistance to support programs aimed at diverting labor from the poppy harvest and relieving the crippling debt burden of Afghan farmers through cash-for-work projects. The U.S. also plans to continue to interdict the opium traffic by helping to build up the law enforcement and judicial systems of Afghanistan's neighbors. For the long term, the U.S. will support programs to help Afghan farmers replace the opium-based rural economy with legal ways of earning a living.

But the task ahead is far from easy. Nearly seventy-thousand hectares in Afghanistan have been cultivated in poppies in past years. Afghanistan was once a source of roughly seventy percent of the world's opium supply. The Taleban purportedly banned the crop in 2000, but since the downfall of that repressive regime, farmers have been replanting poppy seeds. The harvest season for the spring opium crop is from April through May, and farmers have vowed to stop eradication efforts. Already there have been large, sometimes violent, protests by opium poppy farmers.

Facing a potentially huge inflow of heroin from Afghanistan, the European Union countries have also offered aid. The E-U said it would provide twenty-five million dollars to help Afghan farmers give up poppy growing. In addition, nearly five-hundred thousand dollars will go to the Afghan interim government to help improve its law enforcement capabilities.

Opium and heroin cultivated in Afghan poppy fields often pass through Turkey en route to Europe. Not long ago, Turkish police seized seven-and-a-half tons of unrefined morphine, a poppy extract, which originated in Afghanistan. Police said it was the largest single haul of base morphine ever. Turkey has experience in eradicating poppy cultivation and has offered its assistance to Afghanistan.

Wiping out poppy cultivation will cost Afghan farmers profits in the short term. But over time, switching to other crops will not only replace lost income, but will also provide much needed food for a population currently unable to feed itself. Moreover, Afghan farmers would no longer be contributing to the insidious international drug trade.

Anncr: That was an editorial expressing the policies of the United States Government. If you have a comment, please write to Editorials, V-O-A, Washington, D-C, 20237, U-S-A. You may also comment at www-dot-ibb-dot-gov-slash-editorials, or fax us at (202) 619-1043.