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The World's Largest Drug Field
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17685 |
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Section : |
CURRENT ISSUES
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| Issue
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6 / 1990 |
1,799 Words |
| Author
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Dennis Eisenberg
Dennis Eisenberg is an international journalist whose articles
have appeared in leading newspapers and magazines around the
world. He lives in Jerusalem. |
As the U.S. government cracks down on the Colombian drug traffic, Lebanon's lush Bekaa Valley has emerged as the largest "killing field" on the globe. Already producing 80 percent of the world's cannabis, its farmers have now planted a record acreage of poppies to cope with the growing demand for the even more profitable heroin.
Hundreds of acres of fruit orchards, wheat fields, and vineyards of the Bekaa Valley - known in Roman times as the breadbasket of the world - have been uprooted to make way for the intensive cultivation of crops in eager demand by international drug dealers.
The Syrian government, which invaded the area to "bring law and order," is an active partner with local merchants and raked in an estimated $1 billion last year. This money was desperately needed, as the Syrians have to pay off their vast debts to the Soviet Union before Moscow will supply any more sophisticated missiles, fighter planes, and other weapons for President Hafez Assad's 800,000-strong army.
Syrian troops not only guard the poppy and cannabis fields to prevent theft and ensure that supplies are not sold to competing bidders, but they also intervene to settle disputes between rival terrorist gangs, who have their own drug estates and transportation networks to Scandinavia, France, Finland, Holland, Belgium, and West Germany. Yasser Arafat's PLO (known locally as the "poppy lovers” organization") uses its links with the Irish Republican Army (IRA) to rake in massive profits from sending drugs via Holland to its network of agents in Britain, West Germany, and Ireland for international distribution. Terror groups today spend far more time as
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