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Revision as of 10:54, 14 August 2012

'Kandahar calling'

Kandahar Taliban Afghanistan By S. Mudassir Ali Shah, Dawn

The security situation in Afghanistan is disquieting in southern and eastern provinces lying close to the Pak-Afghan border. This is one major reason behind the snail-pace progress in the country

IN the restive southern province of Kandahar, a spiritual base of the vanquished Taliban regime until 2001, violence has come to be accepted as a fact of life. The war-weary residents of the province — bordering Pakistan — are in the process of rebuilding their lives in an environment of fear and uncertainty. That most of suicide bomb blasts which hit the post-conflict country over the last 20 months took place in Kandahar lays bare the sheer scale and ubiquity of insecurity in the region.

“In this volatile town, you can’t rule out the possibility of a bomb explosion here or a suicide attack there. You have to be on your guard while moving around the bazaar. Dogged by this nagging sense of insecurity, I’m going to buy food items sufficient for one full week,” says a palpably disturbed Fatima. For obvious reasons, the 32-yea-old housewife is well within her rights in erring on the side of caution in a town that has long been the scene of an unrelenting insurgency.

Like Fatima, who has stopped sending her two daughters to school, most inhabitants are concerned about a spate of suicide attacks and blasts in recent months. This trail of murder and mayhem continues unabated, the heavy presence of US-led coalition troops and Afghan security forces notwithstanding. Common citizens, teachers, students, businesspeople, labourers and government servants are equally worried about the lingering turmoil.

Shah Mohammad (34), living in a Kandahar neighbourhood called Karez Bazaar, has also barred his children from going to school. “I don’t want my kids to die in an explosion or a random strike by a devious man — now a routine occurrence in the city. It will be an understatement to say we are caught in a cleft stick over the remorselessly high trajectory of violence.”

By the same token, Abdul Ahmad Mohammadyar, president of the Kandahar-based Benawa Cultural Organisation, agrees people are unsafe even inside their homes. One outgrowth of the persistent chaos is that the masses have lost faith in the government’s ability to contain, much less eliminate, the scourge of terrorism blamed on Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants.

Provincial Education Department chief Hayatullah Rafiqi confirms a sharp decline in student presence at schools owing to the continuing acts of terror. “Sisters have long been pestering me with the question: Why don’t I get them admitted to school? Indubitably, seeking knowledge is the duty of every Muslim man and woman. But I have delayed their admissions solely because of the deteriorating law and order situation.”

What is intriguing is that the security situation is all the more disquieting in southern and eastern provinces, lying cheek by jowl with the militancy-plagued Pak-Afghan border. Particularly shambolic are Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul, Paktia, Paktika, Khost, Nangarhar, Laghman, Kunar, Nuristan and Uruzgan.

Intelligence reports indicate Taliban and Al Qaeda networks continue to operate their training camps in the semi-autonomous tribal areas near the porous frontier. The militants, reportedly armed to the teeth, steal into these provinces to carry out hit-and-run attacks before they flee back to their hideouts across the border.

It is against this backdrop that several Afghan ministers and governors frequently accuse Pakistan of turning a blind eye to fighters trained and financed on its soil. Former Afghan interior minister Ali Ahmad Jalali had once told a gathering in Tokyo the Taliban had training camps, staging areas, recruiting centres and safe havens in the neighbouring country.

Widely respected as a man of character and spine, Jalali admitted operations of Pakistani military forces in the border region, primarily in the South Waziristan Agency, had been effective against Al Qaeda. But the crackdowns have done little to contain the Taliban. “This means that more efforts are needed to stop cross-border terrorist activity in Afghanistan.”

He argued: “Pakistan’s idea of constructing a fence along the border is neither practical nor politically desirable. As long as the Taliban and other terrorist groups continue to use Pakistani territory for attacks on Afghanistan, the suspicion that Islamabad is playing a double game in Afghanistan will persist.”

The former minister contends: “Fighting an insurgency requires more than military action; simply fighting insurgents will never fully eradicate them, for a vacuum will remain and inexorably attract new ones. The fuel nourishing the continuing violence must be removed, that is the desperate economic condition, the lack of governmental capacity, repression of communities by local thugs and foreign interference. Until such threats are pursued with the same intensity as the military strategy, Afghanistan will remain a volatile place, menacing international security as well as its own.”

A senior figure in the ousted Taliban regime, Ahmad Khan says key commanders of jihadi outfits such as Gulbadin Hekmatyar of Hezb-i-Islami, Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani (a famous commander of Maulvi Mohammad Yunus Khalis), Arab dissidents led by Osama bin Laden and Uzbek fighters loyal to Tahir Yuldosh have formed a broad-based alliance. Khan claims the rebels, backed by Pakistan’s religious groups, have vowed to press on with resistance to Afghan and foreign forces. All attacks in Afghanistan are prepared and led by militant commanders at Khalid Habib and Abu Las camps, situated close to the largely unmanned Pak-Afghan border.

Kandahar Governor Asadullah Khalid does not mince words in assailing Pakistan for what he calls “brazen interference” in Afghanistan. He charges it is an open secret the enemies of Afghanistan’s sovereignty, territorial integrity and stability are freely roaming around in the NWFP and Balochistan provinces of Pakistan.

“In the Frontier and Balochistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda remnants have been allowed to take up residence. They are being trained at terrorist camps there, with a view to disturbing peace in Afghanistan,” he insists. Khalid maintains the suicide attackers who killed dozens of people in a massive bomb explosion in the Spin Boldak border town days after the Muslim festival of Eid, were Pakistani citizens. Condolences for the bombers were offered in Pakistan, asserts the outspoken governor.

He says Kabul has exercised a lot of patience and restraint so far just because of its strong desire for warm ties with Islamabad. “But now we have conveyed our concerns to Pakistan formally and through diplomatic channels.”

However, Kandahar dwellers reject the gubernatorial allegations as a stock response to terrorist acts — a rhetorical flourish shorn of credibility and conviction. These accusations are a convenient smokescreen for the government’s failure to bolster security, reacts Jan Agha, a shopkeeper in the Loya Wala locality. Bomb blasts in front of sensitive government installations — bang in the middle of the city — amply reflect a total breakdown of law and order, he adds.

Echoing Agha’s views, taxi driver Abdullah (30) wonders why the heavy deployment of the Afghan National Army (ANA), police and foreign troops has been ineffective in deterring the insurgents. The cabbie charges gunmen, now masquerading as ANA soldiers and police constables, are one of the root causes of lawlessness.

Approached for comments, Governor Asadullah Khalid admits people’s complaints with regard to the security situation are pretty genuine. He hopes President Hamid Karzai will soon order deployment of more troops to the province in an attempt to stem the rot. He is confident sops like a pay raise and other incentives to law-enforcers will translate into a better security climate.

EDUCATION: Torching of schools in Kandahar and neighbouring provinces represents a big psychological fear taking a heavy toll on the impressionable minds of children. Many students sob their way back home when they see their schools reduced to ashes by obscurantist elements. Around 200 schools have been closed in Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Uruzgan in the wake of the mounting arson attacks, according to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) official Eng Abdul Qader Nurzai.

In the lawless zone, terrorists have not only set alight educational institutes, but have also circulated ‘night letters’ threatening teachers and students with death if they do not stay away from schools. “We are often warned of dire consequences in case we continue to attend the office,” complains Gul Ahmad, a schoolteacher in Sang-i-Hisarak district of Kandahar. The warnings are being fired at Ahmad after the reconstruction of his schools, burnt in the not-so-distant past.

With no end in sight to the school-burning spree, law-enforcement agencies are pondering a range of options to deal with the arsonists. The press office at the Interior Ministry has directed provincial police chiefs to boost school security. “We have instructed all police headquarters to set up security checkpoints in vulnerable areas to ensure the safety of teachers and students.”

Political analyst and former deputy information minister Abdul Jabbar Mubarez sees political motives behind the destruction of schools by anti-government elements. He thinks the saboteurs gain nothing from setting the schools afire. Afghans have finally realised the importance of education as school enrollments have doubled from three million to six million over the last four years, he reckons.

Although aid worth billions of dollars has poured into Afghanistan since 2001, there are schools without buildings, furniture and basic scholastic needs like blackboards, chalks and textbooks. In the former Taliban stronghold, there are many schools without professional teachers, or where gunmen are serving as instructors.

Ahmad Mukhtar, a first-year student at the Zahir Shahi School, grumbles most of their periods go vacant because teachers either absent themselves from the school or don’t attend their classes. With 7,000 students on its roll, the school has no proper classrooms. More than 120 pupils have to sit in a squalid, makeshift tent that passes for classroom.

Interestingly enough, Education Director Rafiqi reveals he has accepted a police constable as a schoolteacher for two reasons — to overcome a chronic staff shortage and save the school from burning. For the six million pupils, there are 140,000 teachers, a ration the Education Ministry hails as an example of promoting literacy in the impoverished Central Asian country.

As per a report of the Education Department, 330 schools were inaugurated in Kandahar last year. More than 4,000 teachers are equipping over a hundred thousand boys and nearly 20,000 girls with education at these schools. Reconstruction work is completed on three schools on a daily basis, claims the Education Ministry’s annual report.

HEALTH: Like their compatriots, Kandahar inhabitants remain deprived of essential health facilities. Even for treatment of common ailments, they have to visit hospitals in Pakistan’s Quetta city. Most hospitals in Balochistan’s capital are crammed full of Afghans, who have to traverse agonisingly long distances and spend a lot of money before reaching Pakistan.

A resident of Panjwaee district of Kandahar, Khan Mohammad is at present in Quetta for medical treatment. “Initially, I visited a doctor in my native district with a malaria complaint. But my condition further deteriorated after I took the medicines he prescribed.”

Mohammad says quacks in far-flung rural areas of Kandahar are ruthlessly playing with the lives of poor patients. At private clinics, unqualified medics fleece visitors by selling them expired medicines or plain placebos. He laments the authorities concerned are paying no heed to regulating the mushrooming private clinics, where inexperienced medics have no qualms about cheating unsuspecting Afghans out of their hard-earned money.

Afghans visiting Pakistan for treatment generally gripe about the high costs and the problems they encounter during travel by bumpy and unpaved roads. They have constantly been urging the relevant ministry to provide them with dependable health-care facilities within the country on a war footing.

In Kabul, Dr Mohammad Sarwar of the Public Health Ministry acknowledges Afghans are forced to go abroad for treatment of common diseases due to non-availability of health facilities at home.

Given their scarce resources and the grinding poverty stalking the countryside, tens of thousands of Afghans lose their lives to the high prevalence of tuberculosis, diabetes, cancer, mother and child mortality rates, hepatitis-C, iodine and vitamin deficiencies and other curable diseases.

BUSINESS CLIMATE: Businesses in the province are stymied by a whole host of factors including militant-linked violence and impediments created by the regional bureaucracy. Despite these unfavourable circumstance, Kandahar-based merchants exported fresh and dried fruits worth 17 million dollars last year.

About 21 tons of dried fruits and 16 tons of fresh fruits were airlifted by Ariana Airlines planes to Pakistan, India, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Bangladesh, Ukraine, Germany and other countries, says Abdul Razzaq, president of the Kandahar Chamber of Commerce.

Determined to work their way through difficulties and disincentives, Kandahar’s traders hope they will soon make it big in their own country. Their optimism is driven by the export of fruits including raisin, figs, walnut, almonds, pistachios, peas, mulberries pomegranates, grapes and melons that earned Kandahar over $17m in 2005.

Should the present yield levels last for some years and the government successfully implement the Alternative Livelihood Programme across the country, Razzaq hopes, fruits will replace poppies as a principal cash-crop. Subsidies on farm inputs and badly-needed improvement in the irrigation system can be a welcome shot in the arm for farmers still reeling from decades of strife and years of drought.

For their part, the growers benefited by the bumper fruit produce last year are ready to move away from poppy cultivation to other crops. Pointing to encouraging income from his grape farms, Ghulam Darwesh intends to grow a third orchard. Soil and climatic conditions in much of the province are extremely propitious for horticulture.

Abdul Malik, while working on his grape gardens in Bagh-i-Pul, three kilometres west of the city, is simply delighted with last year’s yield — so much so that he is now asking other farmers to turn to horticulture for exporting their way out of poverty. Malik gives a similar piece of advice to his friend Abdul Khaliq, a long-time poppy grower.

Agriculturist Syed Selah Muhammad Wijdan believes horticulture can be a good alternative to poppy cultivation that has brought a bad name to a country that has the dubious distinction of being the world’s largest producer of opium and heroin. Wijdan cautions Afghans, who cannot get away with poppy cultivation indefinitely, will be well advised in finding other sources of income.

So far so good. The surging exports have driven up fruit prices in the local market, giving the commoners a genuine cause for concern. A city fruit merchant, Tila Muhammad, says the prices of different pomegranate varieties almost doubled in 2006. “I don’t remember selling per seven kilos of pomegranate for more than 120 afghanis. But this year, I sold it for more than 250 afghanis — much to the chagrin of consumers.”

Moneychangers are also having a boom time. Two billion dollar changes hands every month but people in the business have their grievances against the government. Thanks to the poor law and order situation, moneychangers cannot transfer cash from Kabul to Kandahar or vice versa as flights between the two cities remain suspended. President of Moneychangers’ Association Ghulam Rasul says: “Coalition forces in Kandahar, the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), residents of Herat, Farah and Nimroz and poppy-growers bring their money to the market here to convert it into afghanis or other currencies.”

The moneychangers have certain apprehensions they want the government to address on a priority basis. Afghanistan’s central bank sells dollar to people in Kabul market alone, they say, demanding the concession should be extended to Kandahar as well.

But Muhammad Issa Turab of Da Afghanistan Bank responds, at the moment, they have no plan to sell the greenback to provincial markets for reasons of transparency and safety. “Floating dollars in the market is a computerised transaction, a facility not available in the provinces.” Only 40 of the 100 dealers in the Kandahar money market are registered with the government and thus all of them are not entitled to do business with the central bank under the relevant fiscal rules.

Needless to say, moneychangers are apprehensive about the ever-increasing incidents of robberies, which led to the killing of several people and snatching of millions of afghanis. They argue a feckless police force, hand in glove with the criminal underworld and thriving on corruption of the least dignified variety, cannot measure up to the challenge of providing traders with safety.

Haji Syed Wazir (50) recalls he launched his business in 2002 with a starting capital of $70,000 that he earned in Dubai. As his assets phenomenally shot up to $5.5m during the last three years, he lent part of the profits to small-time traders in the market. No doubt, he is on a roll. Security fears haunt him round the clock, nevertheless.

The recent suicide attacks have unnerved many traders, who cite the insurgency as a huge roadblock to sustained growth of business. In some parts of Kandahar, militants have reportedly forced farmers into growing poppies instead of fruits and cereals. Haji Shah Wali claims the intensifying militant activities have had a morale-busting effect on investor confidence. Frankly speaking, he says, entrepreneurs are in a fix over the worsening law and order during the last few months.

Equally perturbed over the vexing security question is 34-year-old Aziz Ahmad, who deals in electronics. Since 2001, his business has registered a six-fold increase from $100,000 to $600,000. There may be an upswing in his revenue, but his confidence is on a nosedive. Many investors are worried by what they call pesky searches at police checkpoints, where they are brazenly blackmailed on one pretext or another.

REBUILDING EFFORT: The much-hyped reconstruction process, consuming the lion’s share of international aid, has had no perceptible impact on the lives of ordinary Afghans. Myriad privations blighting their lives refuse to go away, though the Karzai administration and its global backers would like to have us believe that Afghanistan is fast emerging as land of unprecedented opportunities.

According to a nationwide survey commissioned by a leading Afghan news agency, an overwhelming majority of Afghans are disdainful of the rebuilding drive. Fifty-three per cent of them say the campaign has fallen short of their expectations, 35 per cent are satisfied with its pace and progress while 12 per cent are undecided.

Noorul Haq Uloomi, a member of parliament, insists both the government as well as NGOs have failed to do anything tangible for the welfare of the nation. Abdul Rahman (25) is also disenchanted with the government’s last-five year performance. He says it could not ensure uninterrupted power supply to Kabul, let alone the provinces.

However, Bibi Shireen, a 60-year-old lady in Khairkhana locality of Kabul, sees a visible change in the post-Taliban period. “The government has definitely paid due attention to people’s prosperity. One example is hospitals providing free treatment to the needy.”

Allah Berdi, a 30-year-old Kuchi nomad, does not know what is going on. “We are nomadic people; we don’t know what is happening because we are always on the move,” he says with an exaggerated shrug of the shoulders.

As far as basic services are concerned, 49 per cent want the government to do the job, 20 per cent prefer the NGOs, as many ask the two to work jointly and 11 per cent are disillusioned with both.

ROAD NETWORK: Most Afghans want the Karzai administration to accord top priority to the construction of roads, which will help stimulate the country’s sluggish economic growth. More than 17 per cent underline the need for an improved road network. Roads in Afghanistan are lousy, bumpy, dusty, unpaved and dilapidated. As a result, the masses rail against the Public Works Ministry’s failure to build a satisfactory network at a fast clip.

Imranullah of the Bahsood district in the eastern Nangarhar province recalls work on the Jalalabad-Kunar Road was inaugurated two years back by then US ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad. As the project is limping along, he points out, not even five per cent of the work has been done hitherto.

“The road has been destroyed owing to decades of conflict. Drivers have upped fares, charging 15 afghanis per five kilometres,” he adds, asking the rulers to come out of their road-building inertia.

In response to people’s disillusion, Public Works Ministry representatives billboard the 3000-kilometre-long roads rehabilitated across Afghanistan over the last four years. Likewise, the ministry’s annual report says 14 major road projects are underway. As part of the ongoing scheme, four new routes have been built while the rest are being reconstructed.

Engineers think the construction of roads is central to growth of Afghanistan’s nascent economy. Hence the roads need to get priority in the current rebuilding campaign, they argue. “Roads are to the economy what arteries are to the human body,” remarks Fazal Ahmad Joya, head of the Economics Department at the Kabul University. In the same breath, however, the professor underscores the centrality of peace to non-stop economic activity.

Defence analyst Gen Asadullah Khan opines the rebuilding of the Kabul-Kandahar Highway, which has reduced travel time between the two major cities from two days to five hours, has also contributed to the improved security in the southern province. If the highway had not been reconstructed, he concludes, Afghan security forces and coalition troops would have suffered many more casualties.

NATIONAL SOLIDARITY PROGRAMME (NSP): Although the reconstruction process has slowed down due to the perilous state of security, development projects executed under the National Solidarity Programme have brought a positive change to rural Kandahar. The uplift schemes have prompted people to return to their villages and participate in the reconstruction effort.

Rural Rehabilitation and Development Director Eng Ahmad Shah Pir Ali says 61 uplift schemes have been completed in Arghandab, Dand and Daman districts of Kandahar at the cost of 31.5 million afghanis ($630,000). The reconstruction plans include digging of wells, erecting protective wall, pavement of roads, provision of electricity, construction of small bridges and vocational training courses.

The NSP implemented the projects with different timescales in line with the suggestions floated by local elders. An amount of 541 million dollars will be required to execute more projects on the boil in different districts. The schemes have gone a long way in fuelling citizen activism among Kandaharis, who have started taking part in building roads, cleaning canals and constructing protective walls.

Since the launch of the NSP, hundreds of families in the province have got access to clean drinking water and electricity. These households had been going without the basic necessities for two decades. “We are happy over the implementation of the projects suggested by the Local Council,” exclaims Khudai Nazar, busy cleaning a canal at the foot of a hill — along with dozens of villagers.

Power supply to residential areas, government offices and markets has immensely improved after the renovation of Kajaki dam. The renovation work has enabled the Energy and Water Department to provide electricity to 90 per cent of Kandahris. A $400,000 power project is, meanwhile, being executed in Dand district, where 3,200 families are expected to benefit from the plan. In three months from now, a huge generator will start power supply to the dwellers.

Experts view the NSP, the brainchild of President Karzai, as an effective engine of overdue rural development. The programme, approved by donors at the Tokyo International Conference on Afghanistan, has seen a big jump in labour wages from 80 afghanis ($1.6) to 200 afghani ($4) a day. It has also arrested the urbanisation trend.

In the final analysis, independent economists stress, long-term progress on all fronts will hinge on foolproof security, which appears a distant dream — at least at this point in time.