I was watching the news today and there was a story on about Afghani farmers that grow poppy flowers as the main means of feeding themselves and their families. Apparently, this is a huge crop in Afghanistan and local and foreign authorities have started programs to destroy these crops. They have reasons for this, mainly being that the poppy seed crops pay for the Taliban's efforts to reestablish itself, and consequently many insurgent and terrorist activities. But there is a problem with how they are going about with destroying these farmer's crops. They simply destroy and do not reimburse them in any way. The Afghanistan has said that they will reimburse the farmers with $500 per acre, but UN estimates say that farmers can make $6000 with that same acre of poppy. Then, the same authorities say they will send seeds to take the place of the illegal crop, but many farmers say they haven't seen reimbursement of any kind. On the news program, they interviewed one of these farmers (who are very poor and often receive the money to start the poppy crops from warlords who loan them the money). This farmer was telling the reporters that since the troops destroyed his crops, he would have no way to pay back the loan and the only way he could possibly repay them would be to give them one of his daughters.
I'm not against them destroying these crops, but leaving these farmers helpless to feed their families and themselves is something I can not support. If we are going to support the destruction of these fields, we need to ensure that the Afghanistan government is taking care of their people in the process.
1 comments:
Giggles,
I hope you don't mind if I call you that, if not, let me know.
Excellent post. When teaching about Afghanistan it's always fun to let the students guess what Afghanistan's number one export is and see their faces when the understand that, indeed, it's illegal narcotics.
Playing Devil's advocate: I think every nation would support the elimination of "opium fields." However, is it really our job to be the watchdog of the Afghan government?
Lastly, if Afghanistan does not sell this product from their fields, what is going to happen to their economy? What is left to sell? The rocks from the Hindu Kush mountains?
If I were the leader of a Middle Eastern state, I would investing billions in inventing alternative-energy vehicles that could be sold on the international market. Their dominance can only last so long and, in Afghanistan's position, it never happened. But I do hear many of the citizens there are "highly" satisfied with their current predicament.
Charles
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