Pretty fast work, and to think twenty years ago the CIA didnt seem to know what was a Mujahadeen... WELL THIS MAKES BURMA TOP OPIUM AND HEROIN PRODUCER IN THE WORLD. (if what you read below has any semblance to the "TRUTH". > > The Associated Press > February 16, 2001, > > U.N.: Taliban virtually wipes out opium production in Afghanistan; Photos > ISL102-104 > > BYLINE: By KATHY GANNON, Associated Press Writer > > DATELINE: JALALABAD, Afghanistan > > U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has > virtually wiped out opium production in Afghanistan - once the > world's largest producer - since banning poppy cultivation in July. > > A 12-member team from the U.N. Drug Control Program spent > two weeks searching most of the nation's largest opium-producing > areas and found so few poppies that they do not expect any opium to > come out of Afghanistan this year. > > "We are not just guessing. We have seen the proof in the fields," > said Bernard Frahi, regional director for the U.N. program in Afghanistan > and Pakistan. He laid out photographs of vast tracts of land cultivated > with wheat alongside pictures of the same fields taken a year earlier - > a sea of blood-red poppies. > > A State Department official said Thursday all the information the > United States has received so far indicates the poppy crop had > decreased, but he did not believe it was eliminated. > > Last year, Afghanistan produced nearly 4,000 tons of opium, > about 75 percent of the world's supply, U.N. officials said. > Opium - the milk substance drained from the poppy plant - is > converted into heroin and sold in Europe and North America. > The 2000 output was a world record for opium production, the > United Nations said - more than all other countries combined, > including the "Golden Triangle," where the borders of Thailand, > Laos and Myanmar meet. > > Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Taliban's supreme leader, banned > poppy growing before the November planting season and augmented > it with a religious edict making it contrary to the tenets of Islam. > > The Taliban, which has imposed a strict brand of Islam in the 95 > percent of Afghanistan it controls, has set fire to heroin laboratories > and jailed farmers until they agreed to destroy their poppy crops. > > The U.N. surveyors, who completed their search this week, > crisscrossed Helmand, Kandahar, Urzgan and Nangarhar > provinces and parts of two others - areas responsible for 86 > percent of the opium produced in Afghanistan last year, Frahi > said in an interview Wednesday. They covered 80 percent of the > land in those provinces that last year had been awash in poppies. > > This year they found poppies growing on barely an acre here and > there, Frahi said. The rest - about 175,000 acres - was clean. > > "We have to look at the situation with careful optimism," said > Sandro Tucci of the U.N. Office for Drug Control and Crime > Prevention in Vienna, Austria. > > He said indications are that no poppies were planted this season > and that, as a result, there hasn't been any production of opium - > but that officials would keep checking. > > The State Department counter narcotics official said the > department so far suggests there will be a decrease, but how > much is not yet clear, he said, speaking on condition of anonymity. > > "We do not think by any stretch of the imagination that poppy > cultivation in Afghanistan has been eliminated. But we, like the > rest of the world, welcome positive news." > > The Drug Enforcement Administration declined to comment. > > No U.S. government official can enter Afghanistan because of > security concerns stemming from the presence of suspected > terrorist Osama bin Laden. > > Poppies are harvested in March and April, which is why the survey > was done now. Tucci said it would have been impossible for the > poppies to have been harvested already. > > The areas searched by the U.N. surveyors are the most fertile lands > under Taliban control. Other areas, though they are somewhat fertile, > have not traditionally been poppy growing areas and farmers are > struggling to raise any crops at all because of severe drought. The > rest of the land held by the Taliban is mountainous or desert, where > poppies could not grow. > > Karim Rahimi, the U.N. drug control liaison in Jalalabad, capital of > Nangarhar province, said farmers were growing wheat or onions in > fields where they once grew poppies. > > "It is amazing, really, when you see the fields that last year were > filled with poppies and this year there is wheat," he said. > > The Taliban enforced the ban by threatening to arrest village elders > and mullahs who allowed poppies to be grown. Taliban soldiers > patrolled in trucks armed with rocket-propelled grenade launchers. > About 1,000 people in Nangarhar who tried to defy the ban were > arrested and jailed until they agreed to destroy their crops. > > Signs throughout Nangarhar warn against drug production and use, > some calling it an "illicit phenomenon." Another reads: "Be drug > free, be happy." > > Last year, poppies grew on 48,800 acres of land in Nangarhar > province. According to the U.N. survey, poppies were planted on > only 17 acres there this season and all were destroyed by the Taliban. > > "The Taliban have done their work very seriously," Frahi said. > > But the ban has badly hurt farmers in one of the world's poorest > countries, shattered by two decades of war and devastated by drought. > > Ahmed Rehman, who shares less than three acres in Nangarhar with > his three brothers, said the opium he produced last year on part of the > land brought him $1,100. > > This year, he says, he will be lucky to get $300 for the onions and > cattle feed he planted on the entire parcel. > > "Life is very bad for me this year," he said. "Last year I was able > to buy meat and wheat and now this year there is nothing." > > But Rehman said he never considered defying the ban. > > "The Taliban were patrolling all the time. Of course I was afraid. > I did not want to go to jail and lose my freedom and my dignity," > he said, gesturing with dirt-caked hands. > > Shams-ul-Haq Sayed, an officer of the Taliban drug control office > in Jalalabad, said farmers need international aid. > > "This year was the most important for us because growing > poppies was part of their culture, and the first years are always > the most difficult," he said. > > Tucci said discussions are under way on how to help the farmers. > > Western diplomats in Pakistan have suggested the Taliban is > simply trying to drive up the price of opium they have stockpiled. > The State Department official also said Afghanistan could do more > by destroying drug stockpiles and heroin labs and arresting producers > and traffickers. > > Frahi dismissed that as "nonsense" and said it is drug traffickers > and shopkeepers who have stockpiles. Two pounds of opium worth > $35 last year are now worth as much as $360, he said. > > Mullah Amir Mohammed Haqqani, the Taliban's top drug official in > Nangarhar, said the ban would remain regardless of whether the > Taliban received aid or international recognition. > > "It is our decree that there will be no poppy cultivation. It is banned > forever in this country," he said. "Whether we get assistance or not, > poppy growing will never be allowed again in our country." ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ---------------------~-~> <FONT COLOR="#000099">eGroups is now Yahoo! Groups Click here for more details </FONT><A HREF="http://click.egroups.com/1/11231/0/_/475667/_/982337991/"><B>Click Here!</B></A> ---------------------------------------------------------------------_-> Please let us stay on topic and be civil. To unsubscribe please go to http://groups.yahoo.com/group/cia-drugs -Home Page- www.cia-drugs.org OM
