By Joellen Perry

6 June 2005

U.S. News & World Report

(Copyright (c) U.S. News & World Report)

KANDIBA, AFGHANISTAN--In a cool, mud room in this Afghan village nestled in a lush plain at the foot of the Hindu Kush, five farmers rue life on the right side of the law. For almost a decade, nearly everyone in this 184-family community worked in the drug trade, planting poppy and selling the opium to traders in the nearby town of Jalalabad. "The only ones not involved," says Wakil, a wan village elder, "were the mullah and small children." But this spring, facing the threat of government crop eradication, Kandiba's farmers planted wheat instead. Wakil strokes his hollow cheeks to demonstrate the result. "Look at us," he says, gesturing to his fellow farmers who ring the room, sipping green tea. "We have hungry faces."

Hungry faces may become even more common in the wake of a major new push to uproot the lucrative poppy economy. Newly elected President Hamid Karzai declared a national "jihad against poppies," and the international community has increased its counternarcotics aid pledges to nearly $ 1 billion. To understand the unprecedented magnitude of the challenge, consider this: Afghan opium poppy cultivation, by U.S. estimates, more than tripled last year from a near record level the year before. No other country in modern times has produced so much opium. The crop now accounts for 60 percent of Afghanistan's overall economy--and supplies nearly 90 percent of the world's opium (most of which is turned into heroin). Still, there are questions about the commitment to action by both the Afghan and U.S. governments. Amid criticism that Washington has let the problem fester, Lt. Gen. David Barno, former top U.S. military officer here, says, "Last year, the priority was the political process. This year, it's poppy."

Narcostate. Finger-pointing over who's to blame was rampant last week as Karzai visited Washington. Stung by a U.S. Embassy memo leaked to the New York Times that portrayed him as "unwilling to assert strong leadership" in the poppy fight, the Afghan president derided international antidrug assistance as "halfhearted" and called for an increase in aid. Quibbling about methods aside--the United States wants a stronger stance on crop eradication, while Karzai argues the focus should be on finding farmers other work--both governments agree the exploding opium trade threatens to turn Afghanistan into a narcostate. Says Barno, "Poppy production undermines the legitimacy and all the progress of the last three years here."

Poppy today is discussed as a handy proxy for all the forces that threaten the establishment of democracy here. Along with whatever links exist between narcotics and terrorism, no less problematic are the warlords--often the same commanders allied with U.S. forces against the Taliban--who are now involved in trafficking and resisting a democratic movement that would erode their power.

Despite a reputation as a centuries-old opium haven, Afghanistan began cultivating poppy in earnest only in the 1970s. As the country tipped into a quarter century of war, the trade thrived; aside from a one-year moratorium under the Taliban, which enforced its planting ban with beheadings, cultivation expanded. Now, like the thick dust that hangs over Afghanistan's unpaved roads, opium is everywhere. It employs up to two thirds of villagers in major poppy-producing districts as laborers, landowners, or traders. Police, widely rumored to facilitate trafficking, are said to impose an unofficial 10 percent tax on poppy crops. Afghan and international officials drop high-profile names--including current members of the ruling party--as suspected profiteers.

No quick fix. The ubiquity of the drug has tempered many notions that the poppy problem can--or should--be solved quickly. "You can't move toward stability and governance while destroying 60 percent of the economy," says New York University's Barnett Rubin, a leading expert on Afghanistan. "We would call that the Great Depression." Detractors of an eradication-focused strategy say such an approach not only targets farmers unfairly but would also make the drug more of a commodity, as traffickers command premium prices for selling reserves. In any case, aerial eradication has been ruled out for political reasons, and ground eradication has been slow and piecemeal. Teams from the U.S.-trained Central Poppy Eradication Force, armed with hand scythes, have destroyed just 250 of a targeted 17,000 acres this year.

Beyond eradication, authorities are promoting the message that cultivation is anti-Islam, as well as promising programs for rural economic development, interdiction-force training, and law enforcement reform. Those last two pillars are important. "If farmers see that law enforcement is not middleman focused," says Omar Zakhilwal of Afghanistan's Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development, "it will affect their cooperation with the government." Decades of war have taken their toll on civil society; justice reform is slow going, and the arrest and prosecution of major traffickers is rare. Part of the problem is practical: Afghanistan is still building its first counternarcotics courthouse and jail, training judges in a new counternarcotics law, and creating antidrug forces.

Paintballs. To that end, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration has been training squads in Afghanistan's new National Interdiction Unit. Since last November, four classes of 25 cadets each have graduated from the six-week training program. In a vast beige landscape outside Kabul, past shepherds herding flocks of dirty sheep, newly minted employees take an advanced course in securing a house. Clad in desert camouflage, each sporting mirrored sunglasses, the students practice in a roofless nine-room structure called the "kill house." Teams of three cadets, brandishing unloaded Beretta 9-mm pistols, enter each room SWAT-team style, shouting in heavily accented English: "Police! Come out!" as colleagues look on from atop the roofless walls. Instructors pose as enemies, shooting paintball pistols at recruits. One cadet, the back of his Darth Vader-like black helmet splattered with pink, is told: "Very nice. But you got shot in the head because you didn't look behind you."

Trainers say the Afghans are adept students--23 years of war guaranteed a generation that knows how to fight--but challenges abound. Corruption, for one, is rife. "We've seen money change hands," says a DEA contractor of an operation that ended when a high-ranking official pocketed cash and sent the NIU packing. Each recruit also ought to earn $ 70 a month from the Afghan government--but partly because paychecks are sporadic, the United States supplements salaries with an additional monthly $ 100. "It's only enough for food and shelter," says Mohammed Ismail, a 24-year-old recruit with a shock of black hair. "But I want to destroy all the drugs in my land."

A March report from the U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime, which took an early sampling of this year's Afghan poppy cultivation, showed declines in most regions but further increases in some others--supporting concerns that Karzai's reach remains limited and that districts led by well-connected warlords will pick up any slack in supply. Still, farmers in many traditional poppy-raising districts have cut back, citing fear of eradication and loyalty to the government ban. But weather may be a factor, along with pragmatism: Last year's poppy glut lowered average fresh opium prices from $ 283 a kilo to $ 92 a kilo. "Market forces currently support a reduction," notes Doris Buddenberg, the Afghanistan representative from the United Nations drug office. "The real test case will be 2006."

Take the Kandiba farmers. At a series of meetings with provincial leaders last winter, the farmers say they agreed to stop planting poppies in exchange for promises of international aid. Hajik Mohammed, 50, an elder with a deeply lined face and white curlicue beard, says he earned $ 4,662 last year from opium poppies on his 1-acre plot. This year's crop of wheat from donated seeds, he says, will bring just $ 266 total. It's not enough, he says darkly, to support his 16-member family. "If the government and the world don't keep our promise to us, we must grow opium again."

Tragically, traditional poppy-growing villages are as dependent on the plant as the addicts who crave the heroin it provides. The poppy's powerful appeal comes from the fact that nothing grows as easily or makes as much money. So the need, says Michael Kleinman of nonprofit Care International, is to create "an economy that's not based on opium." Hence the newest buzzword: alternative livelihoods. Some international organizations have ensured that in some villages, farmers start turning roses into rose oil, women learn to sew, and community credit bureaus launch lending programs--all in an effort to show Afghans the possibilities of life without the poppy.

The Kandiba farmers have their doubts about getting by without the poppy. Randhir Singh of nonprofit Relief International in Jalalabad says that's to be expected. "We need to give them a grace period," he says. "It's not a one-night job."

Some 100 miles away, in the gentle sunlight of a late afternoon, the farmers of Saheb Zudagan are busy ripping up their poppies. They eagerly show a visitor the pale fronds of three-month-old plants, breaking them in half to let the pungent, milky opium sap seep down the stems. Just a few miles off the craggy mountain road from Kabul to Jalalabad, the riverside village is a likely target for government eradicators. Working quickly, the farmers can still plant crops like onions and tomatoes. Conceding that the crops will earn far less than opium--while complaining that they've still received no help from the government--the farmers promise they won't plant poppies again. Basarmal, a laughing-eyed 19-year-old clutching a freshly pulled poppy plant, explains their survival strategy: "Allah," he says, "will provide."