http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/365 /afghanistan.shtml

The Afghan government of President Hamid Karzai is investigating claims from villagers that their fields have been subjected to aerial fumigation as part of the effort to suppress opium production in the country, Agence France Presse reported this week. Afghanistan leads the world in the poppy crop, accounting for nearly 80% of global production, according to estimates by the UN Office on Crime and Drugs. After three years of relative inaction on the Afghan opium front, the US government announced a little over two weeks ago it was preparing to attack the trade (http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/363/afghanistan.shtml). According to AFP, "a flood of patients" have shown up at doctor's offices in eastern Nangahar province complaining of skin diseases they say are the result of exposure to herbicides sprayed on their opium crops last month. The farmers complained that the spray destroyed food crops and left them sick.

incised papaver specimens (opium poppies)

In Hakimabad, Dr. Mohammed Rafi Safi told AFP he had treated some 30 patients for skin conditions they blamed on the spraying. "Other illnesses such as eye and respiratory problems have also increased," said the doctor at the 20-bed Khogyani District Hospital.

The US military has denied any involvement. "US troops are not involved in eradication, which would include the spraying of poppy fields which we do not do," US military spokesman Major Mark McCann told AFP last week.

But the governor of Nangahar province, Din Mohammed, said spraying had indeed taken place. While Mohammed declined to speculate on who was doing the spraying, he did point out the obvious. "I don't know who might be behind this but you know the fact that the airspace of Afghanistan is under the control of the United States," he said.

One Hakimabad villager, Zarawar Khan, told AFP he had seen "a huge plane flying very low" overhead spraying a snow-like substance on the fields. "I saw the plane. They sprayed this thing on the fields," he said, putting his finger on a sticky substance which was slightly lighter than the earth around the seedlings.

Another villager, Hazrat Mir, who was waiting for treatment at the Hakimabad hospital, said he got ill after coming in contact with the mysterious chemical. "I got this sickness when I touched the chemicals sprayed from the air on our fields," he said. "My back, my arms and my legs, my entire body aches -- it is very hard."

As in Colombia, where the US sponsors a massive aerial eradication campaign, the spraying is less than perfectly selective. "See here," said angry villager Abdul Qadir, pointing to a wilting green onion patch next to an opium field that was also dying. "The onions are destroyed, the spinach is destroyed, the wheat and vegetables are destroyed," he said.

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