The Lebanese government and the Islamic opposition group Hizbollah, long at loggerheads on a range of issues, are both fuming over marijuana cultivation, which has sprouted into a major problem in the economically devastated country.
The government wants the marijuana wiped out, while Hizbollah has sided with poor farmers who say the crop is their lifeline in a country left shattered by decades of civil war and Israeli military occupation.
The Lebanese government on Thursday rejected a call by Hizbollah for the state to buy and destroy marijuana crops in the Bekaa Valley, according to Reuters.
“The government's priority is to combat [marijuana] cultivation, not to market and subsidize it with public money that should be spent on development," a statement issued by Prime Minister Rafiq Al Hariri's office said.
Hariri's statement said the government would adopt measures to peacefully stamp out production of hashish from marijuana grown in the Bekaa Valley.
Hizbollah, which has a large following in the Bekaa and 11 opposition deputies in Parliament, called on the government Tuesday to purchase hashish from farmers and then destroy it.
But Hariri on Wednesday called for the government to confront marijuana farmers, prompting Hizbollah to warn against such attacks and call on farmers to resist.
Bekaa's struggling farmers say the crop is all that keeps them from poverty, according to Reuters.
Cultivation has surged this year to reach 10 percent of its level during the 1975-1990 civil war, despite efforts by the government and donor countries to encourage other crops, which farmers say need intensive irrigation and cannot compete with cheap imports.
For these reasons, the head of Hizbollah’s Planning Bureau, Hussein Al Musawi, warned in his speech at a ceremony on Tuesday that force should not be used to destroy the marijuana crop.
“Do not embarrass and put us in a situation as if we were advocating for hashish. We cannot afford to see heavy machinery destroying and wasting the farmers’ year of efforts,” said Musawi, addressing Hariri’s government.
“If the government wants to destroy the marijuana plants, let it buy them from the farmers and then destroy them without using military equipment,” said the Hizbollah leader.
He called on the farmers “not to believe the government promises.”
“Take the profits from hashish before it is destroyed, and if anyone holds to his attitude and makes a mistake, you should confront him,” said Musawi. “Our women and children are fighting, so you should block roads with your bodies, without using arms against the security forces, because they are our sons.”
“We cannot sit and see our people being attacked,” added Musawi. “I call on everyone to support our farmers, who were forced to plant marijuana.” In justifying the return of the Lebanese farmers to marijuana cultivation after a 10-year halt, Musawi asked, “Who has prompted people to cultivate [marijuana]? Have the farmers benefited from planting potatoes, watermelons, tomatoes, or apricots? Where was the government when farmers planted marijuana? Why is the government raising the issue now after the marijuana have grown…and why didn’t it raise it last February or March?”
“The farmers who planted marijuana couldn’t find any other options,” he added.
Ammar Al Musawi, the Hizbollah MP representing the Hermel area in Baalabak, said: “The solution is not a security one. The government will make a serious mistake if it deals with this issue the same way it deals with criminals.”
A comprehensive program and plan should be prepared to heal the enormous damage the area has suffered, added the MP, whose area was singled out by Hariri for measures against the marijuana crop.
Lebanese Minister of Interior Elias Al Murr announced Monday that that the government would destroy this year’s crop and set up a plan to help farmers confront economic pressures and the huge problems they face selling their other crops.
Nevertheless, lawmakers in Baalabak-Hermel have called for “dealing with the issue with responsibility and caring for the people’s interests in view of difficult economic and living conditions.”
The Lebanese army, helped by Syrian forces, managed to stop the cultivation of marijuana in the area in 1993, but when the Lebanese government suspended financial aid to the farmers, some of them returned to marijuana cultivation.
Development specialists say that the cash the debt-laden government promised for alternative crop projects was not delivered to farmers, according to Reuters.
Some sources say that nobody can claim that marijuana cultivation has returned on a large scale, as the area planted at present is less than a tenth of the area cultivated in 1990 at the end of the Lebanese civil war.
Expert say that marijuana cultivation and trafficking in Lebanon generated $4 billion in 1989, which was more than 20 percent of Lebanon’s GDP.
Lebanese authorities currently operate military patrols on the main road junctions in the area, without entering the farms, to avoid friction with the local people.
At the end of March, army helicopters dropped leaflets warning farmers against marijuana cultivation and asking the local mayors to notify the government of any violations.
The action angered the area’s MPs, who accused the government of using threats and oppressive means against poor people stricken by economic crises.
Meanwhile, many Lebanese newspapers have sized up the new dispute between Hizbollah and the government as an implicit continuation of differences between the two sides over many issues, including military operations.
One particularly sore point is Hizbollah’s attacks on Israeli forces in the occupied Shabaa Farms, which spurred a deadly Israeli air strike on a Syrian position in Lebanon last month.
This is in addition to the problem of the alleged theft of international calls in areas under Hizbollah control, and the wiretapping of telephone calls which surfaced last week during the discussion of the country’s budget at the Parliament.
© 2001 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
