People picking poppies

Campbell: Spring is a joyful time for Abdul Waheed and his family. The opium poppies they have tended so carefully are ready for harvest. Soon the heroin middlemen will arrive to buy their entire crop.

01.00.00

The village will make just enough money to survive another year.

Intv with Abdul

Abdul: It's got high value and we can get our food through it.

01.00.26

Campbell: The opium becomes a drug called heroin which hurts many people in the West. Do you worry about what happens to the opium when it leaves here?

Abdul: We don't know what it's made into or what happens to the people. We're just solving our own problems and we need it.

01.00.38

Poppy plants, map, fields of poppies

Music

Campbell: Abdul's family is just one of 200,000 families in Afghanistan who now survive by growing opium. The United Nations estimates this year's crop will produce almost half the world's supply.

01.01.13

The white sap will be dried and taken to secret laboratories to be processed into heroin. Within weeks it will start to flood the West.

It's no secret where the opium is produced in Afghanistan.

Campbell to camera

We're just near the city of Jallallabad and we picked this village at random as we drove past and saw the poppy fields.

And 90% of this year's crop has been grown on land controlled by the fundamentalist Taliban.

Interior car

Music

01.02.01

travelling through streets, tracking shot, people on streets, in car

The Taliban are a secretive movement founded on religious fanaticism and spread by warfare. In less than two years they have conquered most of Afghanistan, imposing strict tribal customs in the name of Allah.

Their involvement in drugs and the extent to which it has helped their war is a story the Taliban are not happy to be shown.

The mullahs who control the movement have banned television as un-Islamic. To be caught filming in Taliban strongholds is to risk beating or arrest.

So most of this story has been filmed in secret. A we found at their army's front line, their fanatics don't hesitate to use violence.

Shaky camera, microphone, Campbell to camera

Campbell: Well, we've just had to make a very quick escape from the front line because one of the Taliban arrived and saw as shooting and started throwing rocks at the camera.

01.03.09

That is one un-Islamic practice that they are very strict about enforcing.

Man praying in poppy field, intv with Abdul

But this is an act in clear breach of Islam they have allowed to flourish. More than 2,200 tonnes of opium crop have already been harvested. It will eventually produce more than 40% of the world's heroin.

01.03.26

Campbell: Have the Taliban tried to stop you growing poppies?

Abdul: No, they have not stopped us.

Campbell: No problems?

Abdul: No.

Drugs, Campbell talking to men

Campbell: The Taliban claim to be as pure on drugs as they are on all other Islamic bans. Najibullah Shams is their Minister for Drug Control. Unaware of our camera, he showed me posters and propaganda he said discouraged cultivation.

01.03.54

Mr. Shams even consented to a television interview. But he insisted that the camera should be pointed away from him so the sin of recording a living image would be ours, not his.

Intv with Najibullah Shams, but shot is of Campbell

Najibullah Shams: According to Islam, the Korean, the Prophet Mohammed and Shariat law the use, trafficking and planting of drugs are prohibited and this prohibition is at the top of our agenda. Certainly the campaign against drugs is at the top of our agenda.

01.04.22

Campbell: But the Minister argued farmers should be exempt from the Islamic ban until the war was over.

Najibullah Shams: They take money and credit from the international drug traffickers only for the survival of their families. They are forced to plant for the sake of their families.

Campbell: Once order was restored, he said, and the country united, poppy cultivation would end.

C's notebook, tilt up to Campbell

Najibullah Shams: The establishment of central government in Afghanistan the establishment of security and the establishment of law and order will be effective in stopping drugs like hashish and opium being cultivated.

Tracking shot from car

Campbell: The Taliban's pragmatism toward opium is in stark contrast to their uncompromising stance on every other Islamic decree. They have dragged each captured province back to an idealised Islamic past.

01.05.47

After just eight months of Taliban control, the once-sophisticated capital, Kabul looks more like a 19th century village.

Western dress has been banned along with music, smoking, alcohol, films, television - even kite flying.

Women continue to be barred from jobs and education. Those found breaching even minor decrees are publicly beaten.

Intv with Everson

Ross Everson: Just today we had a case where two women were beaten outside this office for wearing sandals.

01.06.27

Campbell: Beaten by Taliban?

Ross Everson: Beaten by Taliban. They have electric cord which they beat the women with.

Ross Everson driving in car, tracking shot from car, intv with Everson

Campbell: Ross Everson represents 70 foreign aid agencies based in Kabul. His dealings with Taliban officials leave him cynical about their promise to curb drugs.

01.06.44

RE: Too many Taliban believe that they are hurting the West with these poppies. This is what the common Taliban will tell you. I'm not saying that this is what the people at the top of the Taliban but the common man believes that we are hurting the Americans by these poppies.

01.06.56

Campbell: So it's seen as a good thing?

RE: Yes, definitely. Definitely, some of them definitely see it as a good thing. They are very happy about it.

Tracking shot of ruined buildings, people on streets

Campbell: Afghanistan's opium dependence is a direct legacy of almost two decades of war. The fighting against Soviet invaders and later between militias backed by neighbouring countries has shattered the economy, destroyed the towns and devastated the rural community.

01.07.24

Campbell walking with Abdul, intv with Abdul

Abdul's village is typical of the privations farmers face. There is no money for irrigation - so the only crop they can afford to grow is poppy.

01.07.44

Abdul: There is not much water here, but this crop needs less. Other crops need more. They would die of thirst.

Poppy field, poppy harvest, intv with Abdul

Campbell: The Taliban's tolerance of opium has helped their military advance. Last year, before the Taliban invaded this area, the local Mujahadin tried to stop the poppy harvest. The community revolted and welcomed in the Taliban.

01.08.09

Abdul: If the Taliban do the same thing the people will rise up against them and there will once again by anarchy.

Working with poppy stalks

Campbell: But the Taliban's involvement in drugs goes beyond mere tolerance. They have a direct financial sake in the trade continuing.

Opium is by far the most valuable crop Afghanistan produces. In each area they have conquered, the Taliban have imposed a ten percent tax on the proceeds of opium sales.

Intv with Abdul

Abdul: We used to pay the tax before, but not since the years of revolution and anarchy. Now the Taliban are collecting the tax again.

01.08.57

Intv with Shams, Campbell in shot

Campbell: The Taliban will e charging farmers a tax on the crop they have produced. Does that mean the Taliban are profiting from drugs?

01.09.08

Najibullah Shams: This type of arrangement by the Taliban has been practised for hundreds of years not only in Afghanistan but in other Islamic countries.

Computer screen, Gary Lewis at computer

Campbell: With almost every opium farm now under Taliban control, the United nations has become dependent on Taliban cooperation.

01.09.28

Gary Lewis heads the Drug Control program in neighbouring Pakistan. He's been allowed to survey drug farms, measure their likely yield and computerise their location. He has not been able to stop them

Intv with Lewis

Lewis: It's just as frustrating as seeing your son or daughter addicted to heroin, knowing that they have, if they can find the wherewithal within themselves, they have the potential to withdraw themselves from that situation but they choose not to do it.

And they have to be helped out of that situation.

Sheep in poppy field, Abdul walking into home

Campbell: The UN estimates the farmers could be persuaded to switch to other crops at a relatively minor cost. Afghanistan's total farm income is less then $100 million a year.

The drug farmers see little of the fortunes made by crime barons who sell their corp.

Abdul took us back to his simple mud brick home at the edge of the poppy fields. He said he would willingly farm something else, if he just had the money.

Campbell: You're not a wealthy man from growing poppies?

Abdul: What can we do? We are poor people and we cannot survive on other crops.

01.10.47

there is not enough water in our village. We need water. If we got enough water, then we could grow rice, melons and vegetables.

Child walking, intv with Lewis, men with guns

Campbell: But the war has become an ongoing excuse for the Taliban leaving things as they are.

Lewis: They're focused on the war. They're focused on winning it and they believe that they have a destiny to do so, everything else will come afterwards.

01.11.22

Campbell: The Taliban's war shows no sign of ending. Neither they, nor the two main opposition forces who control the north, are in a mood for compromise.

On a second visit to the front line, we were able to talk to one of the Taliban militias out of sight of their fundamentalist commanders. They were in high spirits and confident of winning.

Gun being handed to Campbell, intv with soldier, tank fire

Campbell: This will win the war for you? Do you think the Taliban will eventually rule all of Afghanistan?

Man: Yes, we will.

Campbell: But just one week earlier, the Taliban had suffered their worst ever defeat.

01.12.11

Men walking along, shaky camera, man on plane, shot from plane

The former government army lead by Ahmed Shah Massood, broke out of the Panshire Valley where they had been hold up for eight months. They have now trapped more than 2000 Taliban solders in the north and are attacking Taliban positions to the south.

Their defeat has cast serious doubt on their ability to ever win the war. The pre-condition they have set for ending the opium trade.

Masood has already banned opium in the areas he controls leaving the Taliban as the only significant faction allowing widespread opium production.

Campbell with group of men

Campbell: Tell me, you are from Egypt aren't you?

Campbell: The UN special envoy to Afghanistan Norbert Holl, has tried and failed to persuade the parties to negotiate. He believes the past month has proven the Taliban cannot unite the country by force.

Intv with Norbert Holl

Holl: I would not totally rule out the possibility of a military take-over by one side or the other over the whole territory. But what the events have shown is that even such a military take-over would not lead to stability, it would lead to political instability.

Campbell: Dr. Holl, the other thing that is happening in the midst of this crisis is the harvesting of a record opium crop which is a major security worry for the rest of the world. Are you satisfied with the Taliban's efforts to eradicate opium? Can you see any progress unless this conflict is settled?

Norbert Holl: I think we all agree that this situation is not at all satisfactory and that we have a lot of lip servicing when we ask that kind of question, to all the parties.

Man cleaning poppies, intv with young boy

Campbell: In Abdul's village, they've ceased believing that anything will change. The children are already learning the craft of producing opium.

Islam-u-dine is only 12 years old. But he has no doubt what he'll do when he grows up.

Islam-u-dine: I have to grow opium. There are no schools to go to. What else could I do?

Campbell: Do you think growing opium is a good thing or a bad thing?

Islam-u-dine: It is good for poor people but not good for the rich.

Campbell with group of men and boys

Campbell: As I left the village I was given a parting gift with a pointed message.

Farmer: Congratulations. It is the gift of death. It is enough to kill you.

Campbell:  Thank you very much.

Mountain landscape poppy plant, sunset, poppy field

Music

Campbell: For Afghanistan, opium production brings profit, not misery. The people rarely see the damage it causes other countries. And few seem to care

01.15.19

Foreigners brought death and misery to their country, and plunged it into endless war. In the eyes of many Afghans, they are now reaping its deadly harvest.

ENDS