Prolonged negotiations and an awesome display of force by the Pakistan government apparently led to a change of heart by tribesmen who agreed to have their crops destroyed, albeit grudgingly. Prior to a meeting with the government negotiating team, hundreds of armed men had stopped officials from coming near the crop, spread over hundreds of acres in the lush green Swat valley.

The renewed US support came after Pakistan released a local employee of the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), Ayaz Baloch this month.

Police had arrested Ayaz Baloch in April 1997 charging him with ``drug trafficking and anti-state'' activities. Baloch was behind a sting operation that led to the arrest of a Pakistan Air Force officer in April 1997 forcarrying two kg of heroin in an air force plane which had flown to the US to collect spare parts and other equipment.

In retaliation, Pakistani authorities clamped down on US anti-drug operations in the country and ordered the arrest of Baloch an action that brought stinging criticism from the United States government. ``It was Baloch's arrest and not the issue of the delivery of embargoed F-16 aircraft that dominated discussions when Secretary of State Madeleine Albright visited Islamabad late last year,'' disclosed Muhammad Aziz, who works for an Islamabad-based think tank.

The resumption of assistance by the US government is aimed at eradicating poppy cultivation in Pakistan by the year 2000, only two years away. Pakistan is a significant source of opiates and cannabis, producing 75 metric tons of opium in the 1995-96 crop, although the area of cultivation declined by 51 per cent from the previous year thanks to the government's efforts. But officials fear higher production this year because of thelet-up provided by the Ayaz Baloch case. The burly tribesmen in the Swat Valley, armed to the teeth with locally-made guns, were not counting on an early end to the Ayaz Baloch saga, which for them was an unexpected bonanza.

The farmers of the area, most of them tribesmen themselves, were looking forward to their second harvest of the poppy crop, when the government forces launched the operation.

But the Americans edged on the Pakistani government forces, which numbered over 2,000 in this week's operation. The farmers pleaded for a `one-time waiver'' for their crop. The Pakistani authorities refused. Hectic discussions and promises of assistance helped avert a potentially explosive row which would have left hundreds dead.

The Narcotics Affairs Section (NAS) of the US Embassy in Islamabad told mediapersons that the US government had spent 20 million dollars of the promised 25 million dollars in nearby Mohmand and Bajaur. This money went towards providing wells, roads, seeds and fertilizers for parallelcrops. A similar scheme is in the pipeline for Dir, after the end of this week's operation.

Pakistan also battles a serious drug abuse problem. According to a 1993 United Nations survey, the country with a population exceeding 130 million at that time had three million addicts of all kinds, half of whom were heroin addicts.