“These people have been forced
to grow hash and be outlaws,
because this region has been
abandoned by the Lebanese
state and the regional and
international community,”
says Hamadan Dandash,
farmer from the Hermel district,
referring to those who
continue to grow illicit crops
despite the government’s
decade-long crackdown.
“If there weren’t patrols
everyone would grow it
because they are,
prisoners; the crisis
taken hold of them
more and more.” (,
Though still minute compared to what was grown during the war,
the last couple of years has seen an increasing number of farmers
in the Baalbek-Hermel region plant illicit crops, according
to the Internal Security Forces (ISF). “Each year the farmers try to
go back to planting hashish and poppies,” says colonel Michel
Chakkour, head of the ISF’s drug control unit, at his office in Ras
Beirut’s notorious Hobeiche building. “But we believe we destroy more
than 95% of the plantation.” Eradication of hashish crops this year was
slated to begin on July 24, but the plan was still delayed when
EXECUTIVE went to print. In mid-August there was a confrontation
between farmers and police on patrols to locate the fields. That’s not
an uncommon event, according to Chakkour, who estimates this
year has brought an increase in hash plantation. Last year the ISF
destroyed almost 8.2 million m2 (~18 hectares) of hashish and
24,520m’ of poppies. That’s up from 1998 figures of 3.3 million m’ and
2,000m’, respectively.
High on the Hermel plateau, much of which has been abandoned
and lies fallow, plots of swaying green cannabis dot the landscape.
On top of the high profits, the appeal of hashish is that it literally
grows like a weed with little care and no irrigation, while a market
is virtually guaranteed. And lines of credit are readily available
through dealers at better terms than the rare bank loans that are provided
for legitimate crops. That’s a pretty attractive combination
for an impoverished, underdeveloped region where water is scarce
and large swaths of land are not irrigated.
Emerging from the civil war, Lebanon came under intense US and
international pressure to crack down on what had become a highly
organized system of drug production and trafficking under militias,
although hashish plantation does predate the war. The eradication
program resulted in the area cultivated with illicit crops being
reduced from about 800 million m’ to 3 million m’ and Lebanon
being removed from the blacklist.
But the tragedy is that almost nothing has been done to help the region
and its farmers substitute what had been a lucrative source of income
despite this country’s success in curbing drug cultivation. It is estimated
that drug cultivation brought $80-100 million a year to the Baalbek Hermel
region and $500 million to the nation as a whole. “Lebanon
after the war was a very very weak country and state,” says Riad Saade,
agronomist and director of the Lebanese Center for Agricultural
Research and Studies (CREAL). ‘Those who wanted at that time to
eradicate prohibited crops should have simultaneously considered how
this weak and unorganized country should be structurally helped.”
What should have been done was the installation of mass irrigation
and other agricultural infrastructure, the creation of a proper marketing
system along with training and the encouragement of
agroindustry. All that should have come within the framework of a
comprehensive development program that would also aim to diversify
the region’s economy.
But the planning stage of projects intended to develop the region didn’t
even begin until after eradication. The main project aimed at the
development of the Hermel-Baalbek region was launched by the
United Nations Development Program (UNDP). The United States,
Europe and Japan were expected to be major donors to the program,
which was initially projected at about $55 million. But the money was
not forthcoming. So far just $12 million has been scrimped together
– eight years since the planning stage began. And more than two-thirds
of that amount was supplied by the Lebanese government. The UN
funding is declining and threatens to scupper the project, according
to Ghassan Seblani, the CDR representative to the program.
Though the UNDP says no concrete promises were made, it undertook
the project at the request of both the Lebanese government and
the international community. ‘There were implicit promises for the
rehabilitation of the area as has been the case in other countries that
made attempts to eradicate illicit crops,” says Christian De Clercq,
senior advisor to the UN resident coordinator in Lebanon, who was
involved in the project from the start. “Other countries may not have
succeeded but received large-scale assistance,” he explains. But Zena
Ali-Ahmad, who heads the program, says the attitude off armers must
also change: “Nothing will compare to what they made from drug cultivation.
If this is what’s expected nothing will ever be done.”
Government initiatives were meant to compliment the UN project
and would be aimed at large-scale infrastructure development
in Baalbek-Herrnel. Hariri’s Horizon 2000 plan included promises
of $300 million in funds, while the current government allocated
about $200 million, according to Seblani. But the outlying areas
have yet to become a real priority and the bulk of that money never
materialized. The largest government plan being implemented –
only to include irrigation infrastructure – is the $57 million development
project of 12 villages in the Yammoune area.
With such limited funds the projects have had almost no impact
on a region that covers about 28% of the Lebanese territory and has
a population of 250,000. “All projects to compensate or treat the
eradication of prohibited crops are folkloric and not serious,”
says Saade. “Up to now they’ve been wasting their time.” Oddly
the ISF has taken up the reigns of crop substitution – such as saffron
and pistachios – but with little thought on finding markets or
when these new plants will produce.
Not surprisingly, Dandash and other farmers are feeling disillusioned
and deceived by both the government and the international
community. “I’m not waiting for them to do anything,” he says. “I
don’t believe they will.” He has given up on the government’s
promises to install an irrigation system in the Henne! district,
spending about $8,000 to build his own well with plans for a second.
But that’s a hefty investment most locals simply cannot afford.
All this at a time when the agricultural sector is already in crisis.
Farmers in the region largely switched to common crops, but the
lack of proper regulations, norms or marketing bodies means
farmers get Little in return for their efforts, according to Saade. The
ministry of agriculture’s resources – under 0.4% of the total budget
– underscores the sector’s neglect. Improving the lot of the
inhabitants of Baalbek-Herrnel will require greater funds, which
the government doesn’t have. And many believe that significant aid
from the international community is an unlikely prospect without
a comprehensive peace settlement. In the meantime, without alternatives
for desperate farmers, the ISF may find itself with a lot more
work to do.
