KILLER FUNGUS IS NO MYSTERY TO AFGHAN POPPY GROWERS

Afghanistan's Opium Producers Believe They Are Victims of a
Biological Attack by the United States

Reports of a "mysterious" fungus that has damaged opium poppy crops
in Afghanistan have hit international headlines but on the ground the
"mystery" is an open secret. Helmand farmers interviewed by BBC
Pashto service for the early-morning news programme a couple of days
ago were convinced that "they" had deliberately destroyed the crops.

The pronoun "they" is a euphemism for US secret agents, whom farmers
suspect of having sprayed the crops with the fungus. Afghan farmers
have been cultivating opium poppies for a considerable period of
time. This allows them to distinguishing between natural causes and
artificially induced problems.

In their suspicion and accusation, Afghan farmers are likely to be
ignored. The government lacks the necessary equipment to conduct
proper research. The United Nations Drugs Office in Afghanistan is
conducting research but the institution is no longer widely trusted.
As with all other mysterious incidents in Afghanistan, this story too
is likely to be lost and forgotten in the fog of war.

When the report of the fungus was first published, a reliable source
directed the author of this article to the Sunshine Project, a now
suspended non-profit organisation. In 2000, the international NGO had
published a report about "dangerous US fungus experiments", warning
against the potentially harmful impact of the fungus on biodiversity
in the target drug-producing regions.

The report said: "The strains of the fungi fusarium oxysporum and
pleospora papveracae might infect and kill plants other than coca,
poppy and cannabis in ecologically sensitive areas of Asia and the Americas."

An indication of the potential risks caused by the use of such fungi,
tailored to affect drug-producing plants, is the fact that their use
was banned in the United States itself.

Further investigation into the fungi shows that their production and
use is bordering on illegal. According to the Sunshine Project
report, the US has created genetically modified strands of the
fungus, and this, in turn, means that the product can be classified
as a biological weapon.

Farmers in Afghanistan might regard the disease affecting their crops
as artificially induced but they are probably unaware of the manner
in which the crop samples were in all likelihood collected. To trace
the probable route of sample collection leads us to a BBC Panorama
programme entitled Britain's Secret War on Drugs, broadcast in 2000.

The report takes us to Uzbekistan, to a Soviet laboratory that was
set up to conduct research into biological weapons. The laboratory
was abandoned after the collapse of the Soviet Union but resumed
operation with funding provided by US and British governments. It was
in this laboratory that pleospora papaveracea, the fungus that
affects opium poppies, was discovered, becoming the Soviet Union's
first biological weapon.

Professor Abdusattar, a scientist working at the laboratory,
explained to the BBC Panorama reporter, Tom Mangold, that samples
from Afghanistan were provided with help from the US embassy.

Scientists working on the fungus back in 2000 said that the fungus
was safe, affecting opium poppies only and that it represented no
danger to the environment and was unlikely to spread to other region.
In a manner that is typical of scientists, it was pointed out that
this assessment was to the best of scientific knowledge. A reasonable
disclaimer but hardly reassuring. An interesting aspect of the fungus
research is the fact that leading fungus researchers joined the UN's
Drugs Control Programme and their endorsement helped to ensure
British and American governments' funding of the project.

Research for a product bordering on illegality, funded with taxpayer
money from the United States and the United Kingdom, has led to the
creation of a lethal weapon against opium poppy crops in Afghanistan.

Whether the fungus presently affecting the crops in Afghanistan is in
fact pleospora papaveracea is far from clear. The UN Office on Drugs
and Crime in Kabul is conducting sample research and has been unable
to confirm the identity of the disease.

But farmers in Afghanistan are convinced that the disease has been
artificially induced. They suspect that Kabul's allies in London and
Washington are involved. The loss of the crop will subject small
farmers to financial hardship and the consequences will be felt by
entire families. Young girls are likely to become the first victim of
the situation as small farmers will not be able to pay their debts
and will have to offer the family's young girls for marriage in
substitution for the missing cash.

The resentment felt among farmers is also likely to further drive
them into the sphere of influence of the Taliban insurgents who
present themselves as friends and protectors. Environmentalist
activists in Afghanistan are equally likely to feel disenchanted as
the contradictions between official policy of environmentalism
advocated by London and Washington and the realities on the ground
fail to make sense. If women's rights groups in the US and the UK are
outraged by the fact that young Afghan girls are traded for debt, the
fact that their own governments might have implicitly supported
policies that increase risks for young girls is even more puzzling to
Afghan women activists on the ground.

Perhaps the most pertinent aspect of debates about the Afghan drugs
trade is the lack of discussion of the other side: the consumer
markets in the urban centres of the western world which have turned
opium poppy into a lucrative cash crop in a country in persistent
threat of famine. To discuss the Afghan drugs trade in isolation from
the markets that it supplies is not only morally questionable, it is
also a denial of the social problems that lead to addiction from
Moscow, to Paris and London. The small farmers of Afghanistan may not
be entirely innocent but they certainly are as vulnerable as the
addicts they supply.