Postmarked Maidan: Overgrown harvests, overrun fields of black gold

In the 2nd part of the Tirah diary, tribesmen discuss the loss of cannabis, a cash crop, to operations, displacement.

TIRAH:

With tyres spinning mud, military jeeps skid into Maidan, the headquarters of Tirah Valley, Khyber Agency. A sweet, almost pungent, aroma permeates the air – the unmistakable aroma of fresh cannabis, still in the ground.

No one is left in the valley with the obvious exception of security forces who can be seen patrolling the vast fields. The military claims to have cleared the valley of the banned group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) after an operation which started in May. This was shortly after tribesmen sowed the nurturing land with cannabis with the intention to reap the benefits of what is sold as ‘black gold’.

When locals fled overnight, chased out by the operation, they not only left fields of gold but hundreds of kilogrammes (kg) of hashish in the warehouse under their houses. While they ran for their lives, they left more than just cash and property – they left a precious cash crop.

A lost harvest

Haji Salamat, a resident of Maidan, stood at the edge of his 10-kanal field staring over his cannabis harvest. As he bent down and gently touched the jagged edges of the leaves – the fruit of his hard labour – Salamat knows what is at stake. “I had to run for my life after sowing the seed in late March.” He left 200 kilogrammes of hashish in his house because it was too big a risk and too tedious to carry it to the settled districts of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Now there is no one left to harvest the crops – two months too late, adds Salamat.

Gul Bacha Afridi’s house was torched by TTP militants when they gained control of the valley. Gul Bacha has been allowed by the security forces to return and rebuild his house. When he did arrive nine days ago, “I saw my fields with overgrown cannabis, my eyes filled with tears.” He had two options - harvest the crop all on his own, a task which usually employed five people for three days, or rebuild his house. Gul Bacha went for the latter.

The seeds of the plants are ripe now, they are dropping to the ground and will grow into wild plants which are of no use in cannabis cultivation, he explains. “I will have to wait till after the next season before I can cultivate cannabis.”

This is all Gul Bacha can grow - what his ‘forefathers grew’. It is the only crop which reaps enough to fulfil his needs in this isolated pocket of the world, remarks Gul Bacha.

Ghufran knows the overgrown plants will earn nothing and has started harvesting his one kanal field. A tribesman from Malikdin Khel, he tells The Express Tribune he knows he will not be able to make hashish or garda but he would save the land and be able to cultivate it in the incoming season.

The prize of patience

What makes Tirah special for cultivating and making hashish is the moderate climate in the summer and the red soil of the area. It is the best for hashish, says Ghufran. After harvesting the crop, the plants are hung upside down from the stem for two weeks to dry. The plant is then carefully threshed using a thin fabric, collecting the finest resin powder, garda, the first step to making hashish.

Though the powder can also be smoked, it is less common to do so. Once it has been threshed, it takes time before hashish is produced. The garda is packed inside the skin of a freshly slaughtered goat for at least three months. During this time, the oils from the goatskin combine with the resin making it a solid sticky dark green substance – ‘black gold’.

Ghufran explains the longer the garda is kept inside goat or sheep skin in a suitable environment, the better the hashish. A ‘suitable environment’ would be away from direct sunlight to avoid dehydration but not complete deprivation to avoid the product from becoming too oily.

One skin usually accommodates roughly 10kg of hashish. The final product is moved on mules to Jamrud, Landikotal and Bara tehsils of Khyber Agency. The recreational drug is then smuggled onwards to the rest of the country and across its borders.

An honest living?

Gul Faraz, a resident of Jalozai Camp, says his hashish earnings have run dry, his stockpile of the recreational drug torched and his cannabis crop has run wild – essentially rendering him broke.

“I demand the government provide us assistance to cultivate cannabis.”  The tribesmen would repay the government, claims Faraz, but at the moment they desperately need the government’s help to cultivate another cannabis crop.

Cannabis is a bread-winning crop, says Faraz. In such an isolated area, it is the only crop worth cultivating. “We are not new to this business, we have been dealing in it since hundreds of years,” he argues. It is near impossible to count how many generations of tribesmen have been involved in the growing, making and selling of hashish.

The tribesmen from Tirah in Jalozai almost mourn their overgrown harvest. They want to be repatriated to their homes as soon as possible so they can rework their land for the incoming season or else miss another cycle, another opportunity to make a living.

If the government does not want tribesmen to grow cannabis and produce hashish then it will have to take responsibility for the employment of around 40,000 people from Tirah. Or the government will have to feed and clothe them, shrugs Haji Sanab, which it in incapable of managing. “We will have to carry on with our business.”

Published in The Express Tribune, October 7^th, 2013.