Families eke out a living from crop that funds terrorism
Their cinderblock farmhouse, clinging to the stony slopes of northern Morocco’s Rif Mountains, is as empty as an abandoned bunker, but a closer look at their lands reveals an illicit bounty.
On the surrounding mountainsides, emerald swaths of cannabis mature under the Mediterranean sun. Abdurahman has laid out bundles of it to dry on the roof. After a few days he will take the cannabis inside, where it will dry for a month before the resin is extracted and moulded into 200-gram bricks of dung-coloured hashish.
Morocco is the world’s largest producer of hashish, but the crop that sustains the Rif is feeding more than European drug appetites — authorities fear drug gangs fund the Islamic terrorism that has struck European cities.
Small sales of Moroccan hash “almost exclusively” paid for the Madrid train bombings in March 2004 by the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, known by its French acronym, GICM, said a US military official familiar with the region.
Drugs and terror have become so intertwined, the official said, that “every time someone smokes hashish anywhere in Europe, they are funding the GICM.”
The terror link is causing Moroccan authorities to crack down on hashish growers. Since last year, Morocco, bowing to European pressure, has been razing fields in the Rif’s outlying areas. With this year’s harvest under way, the sweep has farmers alarmed.
Cannabis, illegal in Morocco but widely tolerated in the Rif, is the only crop that grows well in the stony soil, said Abdurahman, who would not give his last name because of his dubious profession.
Hashish originated in Central Asia and famously lent its name to the Assassins — a corruption of the Arabic “hashishiyin” —– a violent Islamic sect in medieval Persia that some contemporaries believed used the drug. Some 96,000 Moroccan families like Abdurahman’s, mostly in the Rif and surrounding regions, are involved in its production, according to a UN drug report.
Western European countries consume most of the estimated 98,000 tons of hashish produced in Morocco each year, UN figures say. With an estimated $13 billion turnover, it should make the farmers rich.
But “most of the people here are poor,” said Abdurahman, who lives with his five brothers, one brother’s wife and two children, and his aged mother. He said the average income of Rif families, often over 10 members, is about $3,000-$4,000 a year.
Others say Morocco’s traffickers, not growers, make the real profits by buying low at home, then selling high in Europe.
Farmers in the Rif say their best customers are the European tourists in search of a cheap high in a lovely setting.
“It’s thanks to the Europeans, and their good prices, that we live,” said one farmer, standing at the roadside next to his field to flag down possible customers.
But French and American authorities say the bulk of Morocco’s hash is sold cut-rate to Moroccan smuggling networks based in Europe, some of whom have ties to Islamic terror.
“These people aren’t criminals, they’re manipulated by the big traffickers,” explained Mohamed Milahi, the social action official who is leading the eradication programme in the Larache province.
The Larache programme and other efforts to curb cannabis growing appear to have borne fruit. According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Morocco’s hash production decreased by 61% between 2004 and 2005.
But farmers are more concerned with putting food on their tables. Eighteen% in Larache refused replacement crops and replanted their more lucrative cannabis after last year’s initial cull.
“The problem is that what (the government) considers a substitute is given in a very weak amount,” said Abdeslam Dahman, secretary-general of the TARGA Association, which promotes rural development in Morocco.
“The alternative to cannabis isn’t to push people to do traditional things — goats and olives — it’s to develop the region. It lacks roads, drinking water, even electricity,” he said.
Farmers worry that things could go especially badly in the mountainous Rif heartland if the government eventually extends full eradication there, as planned.
“Because of the snow, we can’t have the replacement methods that work in Larache,” said Abdurahman.
