US wants Kabul to eradicate poppy fields by spraying

VIENNA, Mar 10 (Reuters) The United States is trying to convince the Afghan government that opium trafficking could be fought more effectively by spraying poppy fields with pesticides from the air, a US official said.

But the decision is up to the Afghan government and at the moment it is eradicating poppy fields with special police forces on the ground, while offering incentives to farmers to grow legitimate crops, Thomas Schweich of the US Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs said.

''There are people who say we ought to stop eradication and just provide the tools for farmers to do something else -- we don't think that's ever worked anywhere in the world,'' Schweich told reporters in Vienna yesterday.

Washington is trying to allay Kabul's concerns that spraying could estrange poor farmers and drive them in the arms of the Taliban. But Kabul's doubts may wane because of rising evidence that the poppy harvest, the raw material for opium and heroin, helps fund the Taliban insurgency, Schweich said.

But the government has no control over large parts of southern Afghanistan and can access only a fraction of the 165,000 hectares (410,000 acres) under poppy cultivation, while its incentives do not reach the entire country.

''One potential tool to improve the yield of eradication is spraying,'' Schweich said, pointing to campaigns in South America to wipe out coca fields. ''Everyone knows that spraying is an option, that it's more efficient, that it's more effective.'' But in Afghanistan concerns remain that spraying may damage people and other crops and many still remember Soviet troops using spraying as a weapon during their 10-year occupation, he added.

''There may be a point in time where the problem is so bad and where we can show the Afghan people that spraying is not bad for people, where they might want to do that,'' he said. ''But we're not there yet.'' REUTERS AD BD1122