The British government has failed to honor its pledge to compensate Afghani farmers for eradicating poppy crops, causing widespread anger in the volatile south of the country and leading to increased support for Taliban insurgents, a new report by the Senlis Council think tank claims.

Based on interviews with farmers in the Helmand province, where 3,300 British troops will arrive over the coming months, the group claims that U.K. counter-narcotics officers promised local farmers $350 for every fifth of a hectare of poppies they destroyed.

“These farmers kept their side of the deal and eradicated their crops, but the British Government did not keep their word,” said Mohammad Gull, a local representative from the Sharwali District in Helmand who was involved in the initial negotiations with the British representatives. “In our culture this is very dishonorable and we are very angry.”

“The farmers of Helmand province are telling us that they mistrust the British and that they are angry at not being paid as promised,” said Executive Director Emmanuel Reinert. “This makes the latest British plan for securing Helmand a military and political fantasy. They will not gain support from local farmers due to the wholesale elimination of any good will for the British presence there as a result of this bad debt.”

The think tank, which also has offices in Brussels, Paris and London, favors a policy of licensing opium crops for medicinal use, as in many Western countries. If regulated strictly, the group says the policy could lead to cheaper morphine supplies for developing countries, steady incomes for Afghan farmers and less heroin in European and American cities.

New Zealand opium farmers average $50K/yr. growing for pharmcos. Seems a lot more reasonable than keeping Afghan farmers part of the local criminal class.



  1. Improbus says:

    Anyone here actually surprised by this? At this point I would help any government official (ours or others) unless forced to at gun point.

  2. BHK says:

    Well, that’s why the government is going to force you to be an agent. We’ll just make it against the law to do anything without making sure the taxes are paid and the people you deal with are in the country legally. Now you are a tax collector and an immigration control officer!

  3. Improbus says:

    Thanks BHK, where is my check?

  4. doug says:

    another lesson learned about “democracy” – get cash up front!

  5. Mr. Fusion says:

    Just tell all the farmers “the check is in the mail”. After all, they can still blame the Taliban for the crappy mail in Afghanistan.

  6. Richard McCoy says:

    “If it isn’t one ting, it’s another.”
    See if you can find a story on how the construction of the gas pipeline across Afghanistan is going.
    Don’t get much news about it here in the US.

  7. KBallweg says:

    Possibly the reason you don’t see too much about the “the gas pipeline across Afghanistan” is that Unocal and President Dick would probably not like too much publicity about it.

    Google using the full phrase “construction of the gas pipeline across Afghanistan” and read through the history of the attempts to negotiate a the construction prior to the war. Then notice that Unocal (soon to merge with Chevron?) is now back in the mix as the leading consortum to finance and control this little post war oil blessing.

    Yep there was the fact that Bin Ladin was really there, and the nasty anti-christian Taliban needed to be ousted, but wars in the middle eastern countries do tend to smell of oil in the end.

  8. david says:

    Yes, throw poppy to the wayside. Start growing legal narcotics that supply a high higher than anything else imaginable. The Supreme Court recently allowed ayahuasca, an Amazon plant containing the powerful hallucigen DMT, to be lawfully drank in tea form. You may have heard of this drug before. People who come back from “heaven” can barely talk about what they saw. Some, who have been able to utter words, have spoken of emerald cities with dwarfs running around playfully.

    —————————————————–

    From NYTimes (Dude, where’s my karma? March 23, 2003):

    “The visions become more predictable when we get to the hard-core druggies, and here we mystical eunuchs find hope. A German anthropologist, Christian Ratsch, says we don’t have to meditate or even polka to attain enlightenment. It requires only ”the right molecule to hit your brain.” Faster than you can say ”methylenedioxymethylamphetamine,” one swallow and you are at one with the universe. (Though, inexplicably, to paraphrase Woody Allen, American Express will continue to bill you separately.)

    Drugs do seem to take us somewhere, but where is still up for debate. Rick Strassman, a psychiatrist, theorizes that the hallucinogen DMT is like a rocket ship. The aliens in DMT hallucinations are real. DMT propels us into hyperspace realities where strange things exist. If you can believe superstring physicists and many-worlds cosmologists, you can believe Strassman.”

    —————————————————-

    Supreme Court decision:

    http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/S/SCOTUS_RELIGIOUS_TEA?SITE=7219&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2006-02-21-10-12-42

    —————————————————–

    The Bush administration do not want to allow this drug, DMT, because it is a shortcut to enlightenment. A quick way to “see” God face-to-face.


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