From: [C reuters] at [clari.net] (Reuter / Alistair Lyon)
Newsgroups: clari.world.asia.south,clari.news.alcohol+drugs,clari.world.organizations.un,clari.world.asia.central+south
Subject: Opium-growing expands in Afghanistan - U.N. report
Organization: Copyright 1996 by Reuters
Date: Tue, 8 Oct 1996 15:36:42 PDT
Expires: Tue, 15 Oct 1996 8:50:48 PDT
                                         
         ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuter) - Afghan farmers desperate to  
make a living are growing more opium poppies in defiance of 
edicts issued by Islamic Taleban radicals ruling most of the 
country, a U.N. report says. 
         Opium output rose to about 2,248 tons in 1996, a 9 percent  
increase over 2,066 tons in 1995, according to the report by the 
U.N. International Drug Control Program, or UNDCP. 
         The report, received by Reuters Tuesday, said Helmand  
province in the south and Nangarhar province in the east 
accounted for some 80 percent of all poppy cultivation in 
Afghanistan, the world's main source of illicit opium. 
         Heroin is refined from opium using chemical additives.  
         Helmand has been under Taleban control for more than a year.  
The Sunni Muslim militia captured Nangarhar from an alliance of 
neutral factions last month before marching on to take Kabul. 
         Taleban leaders, bent on imposing strict Islamic sharia law  
throughout Afghanistan, have frequently denounced the use of 
narcotics, as well as trading and trafficking in drugs. 
         Saturday, the fledgling Taleban administration in Kabul  
asked the international community for help in the fight against 
narcotics. ``Educating people against drugs is a basic need of 
our people,'' Taleban-controlled Kabul Radio declared. 
         However, the UNDCP report offered no evidence that the  
Taleban, or any other Afghan faction, had taken any effective 
measures to reduce poppy cultivation in the past crop season. 
         ``In this growing season there have been no systematic  
efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation by any authority in the 
country,'' the report concluded. 
         The report, released by the UNDCP office in Islamabad, found  
``no fear by the farmers of reprisal by any local authorities.'' 
         It said Oruzgan and Kandahar provinces, both under Taleban  
control, had shown the sharpest increases in poppy cultivation, 
possibly to compensate for a Taleban ban on hashish growing. 
         The UNDCP survey said that continuing civil strife, along  
with a day-to-day devaluation of the Afghan currency, had put 
basic necessities beyond the reach of many ordinary Afghans. 
         ``In these conditions it is entirely possible that poppy  
cultivation will continue at a similar level and may also expand 
to new areas in the future,'' it said. 
         Half the villages not already cultivating opium in  
poppy-growing areas were willing to start doing so next year. 
         ``An increasing number of farmers have the expertise and  
ability to produce optimum amounts of opium, using irrigation 
and fertilizer to increase the yields of already superior 
strains,'' the UNDCP said. 
         Given estimated Afghan-Pakistani production of 2,176 tons of  
opium in 1995, the report said about 1,300 tons of opium -- 
equivalent to 130 tons of heroin -- would have been left for 
diversion to the international market after deducting the 
amounts consumed or seized in neighboring Iran and Pakistan. 
         It said some Afghan opium was sold in Pakistan, where local  
production of about 110 tons in 1995 was not enough to meet 
estimated consumption of 500 tons. Drug abusers in Iran consumed 
a further estimated 100 tons. 
         Seizures of opium and heroin in Pakistan and Iran, the other  
two countries in the so-called Golden Crescent area, totaled 364 
tons of opium equivalent in the same year. 
         Afghan-produced drugs have in the past found their way to  
markets in the West and elsewhere via Pakistan and Iran, but the 
collapse of the former Soviet Union has opened up new routes. 
         ``Opium and its derivatives are increasingly leaving the  
country through the porous borders with the Commonwealth of 
Independent States countries,'' the UNDCP report said. 
         Perhaps introduced to Afghanistan by Alexander the Great as  
a medicine, opium has become its main cash crop. Only 200 tons 
was produced in 1978, the year before the Soviet invasion. 
         Various warring Afghan factions are thought to have siphoned  
off revenue from the drug trade to finance their activities. 
         ``As a result of the devastation caused by the relentless  
conflict upon the country's regulatory mechanism, the years 
between 1990-1994 witnessed a steady and unchecked annual 
increase in poppy cultivation,'' the UNDCP report said.