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| | Who Rules Afghanistan (Marijuana
Cannabis Fields)
Brief Description: Commanders like Crazy Shafi do not restrict themselves
to
motorcycles, women and taxation. They also intimidate journalists, kidnap
people
for ransom and are engaged in widespread land seizures...
Publication: The Nation
Publication Date (format: mm/dd/yyyy): 10/29/2004
Author Last Name: Parenti
Author First Name: Christian
All You Need To Know A To Z About
Hash, Hash Oil & Making
Hash
Main Hash Section Starting Page
Body:
It is noon in northern Afghanistan, Balkh province. The autumn sky is empty
and bright. A tough 60-year-old farmer named Mamood sits for an interview in the
shade of a tree. Surrounding us in all directions are fields of marijuana on the
verge of harvest. The plants are tall, thick and fragrant, their dark green
flowers glistening with potent oils.
Soon the crop will be cut, dried and beaten against linen in small rooms to
extract the resin that makes hashish. It's dirty work that falls primarily to
women and children. The rooms fill with dust; asthma is a common occupational
hazard. In a month the farmers will sow these same fields with opium poppy.
After each crop come the marauding gunmen who collect "taxes" of 20
percent on the harvest.
"In the past few weeks they've taken money, some vehicles and kidnapped
a girl," says Mamood. "They work for the commanders. They take
whatever they want and they will kill you if you try and stop them. When you
hear 'commander' just think 'thief' or 'murderer.' That is all they are."
Mamood is not talking about the Taliban or Al Qaeda but rather about
Afghanistan's mujahedeen warlords, or jangsalaran in Dari. These men are
America's allies, central players in the international effort to rebuild a state
in the world's third-poorest country.
These are the same men who killed 40,000-50,000 civilians during their
factional fighting in Kabul between 1992 and 1994. Under their rule chaos
reigned in much of the countryside: Militias raped, plundered and destroyed the
economy. At times there were between ten and fourteen separate currencies
circulating, each printed by a different commander. Whole villages fled; trade
and agriculture broke down. As John Sifton of Human Rights Watch puts it,
"What these guys did made Sarajevo look like kindergarten."
Now, instead of being treated as part of the problem and hunted down, the
jangsalaran are being folded into government and given new power and legitimacy
by the UN and the US-backed government of Hamid Karzai. The
"commanders" now use titles like "security chief,"
"governor," "minister" or even "presidential
candidate." International administrators justify the political inclusion of
these mujahedeen commanders as "the price of peace."
Indeed, a return to the open factional warfare of the early 1990s is
unlikely. But neither is Afghanistan headed toward real peace and prosperity.
Instead, this country of 20-25 million inhabitants is an embryonic narco-mafia
state, where politics rely on paramilitary networks engaged in everything from
poppy farming, heroin processing and vote rigging to extortion and the
commercial smuggling of commodities like electronics and auto parts. And while
the Western pundit class applauds the recent Afghan elections, the people here
suffer renewed exploitation at the hands of America's local partners.
Back under the tree in the marijuana fields, Mamood is joined by other
farmers, who recount a litany of depredations.
"A few weeks ago I had two motorcycles stolen," says Saja Hudin,
who also lives and farms in this rural community two hours from Mazar-i-Sharif.
"I had a guest and we were going to work some of my land near Kudbarq. Two
gunmen stopped us. I thought they were security or I would have tried to escape.
They took both motorcycles and all my money. I was holding 12,000 afghani for a
cousin. One of the men wanted to kill us, the other stopped him. Now I am in
debt." Hudin says that one of the perpetrators was the nephew of a local
commander, Shafi Dewana.
"Dewana means crazy," says another man in English.
Saja Hudin reported the theft to the authorities--but in Balkh province
people like Crazy Shafi are the authorities. The new Karzai-appointed governor
is Mohammed Atta, a powerful warlord and commander of the Seventh Corps of what
UN disarmament experts politely refer to as "Afghan Military Forces."
These are the private armies that now have government money and sometimes
uniforms but are not part of the US-trained Afghan National Army. Crazy Shafi is
one of Mohammed Atta's deputies.
"We had an audience with Governor Atta. I told him about the
robbery," says Saja Hudin. "He said he'd tell Shafi to give back the
motorcycles, but when I left, Crazy Shafi found me and threatened to kill me if
I went back to the governor." The farmers explain that Shafi does not
control this immediate area but holds sway along the road that leads to
Mazar-i-Sharif.
"A month ago Crazy Shafi even took a girl who traveled through his
area," says Saja Hudin. In a moment of naïveté I suggest to my driver and
interpreter that we go find and interview Crazy Shafi.
"No," says the farmer Mamood. "He is really crazy."
"Yeah, go visit him and he will fuck all of you," says a farmer to
peels of laughter from the visibly nervous crew of men under the tree.
Unconvinced, I press the point.
"No! Are you crazy?" says my driver, Mobin, in English. "He
will steal my car. Why do you think they call him crazy?" Then I realize
it's a ridiculous proposal.
Back in Mazar, I track down a local translator with an NGO, who tells me more
about the kidnapped girl. The young man, who recently returned from exile in
Pakistan and has Western sensibilities, had a tryst with the woman. She was
"modern" like him, a free spirit--"not a prostitute," he
says, "but she had been with some men." He won't tell me her name.
Crazy Shafi saw the young woman as fair game. So he kidnapped her and raped
and beat her for two days. Once released, she disappeared.
"Maybe she is in Uzbekistan or Pakistan," says the young
translator. "Nobody knows." Later in the middle of a somewhat formal
dinner with some of his colleagues, the young man leans over to me and flips
open his cell phone. On the screen is the photo of the young woman, smiling,
unveiled, looking over her shoulder. "That's the girl," he says in a
depressed, almost drunken tone.
Commanders like Crazy Shafi do not restrict themselves to motorcycles, women
and taxation. They also intimidate journalists, kidnap people for ransom and,
according to rural Afghans whom I interviewed and to the Kabul-based Afghan
Research and Evaluation Unit, are engaged in widespread land seizures.
Some stolen plots belonged to refugees who had fled Afghanistan; others were
traditional commons used by villages to pasture animals and gather firewood. The
boom in drug crops, particularly opium poppy, has put a new premium on
Afghanistan's limited arable land. "If you cannot defend your land, they
will take it," explains Mamood.
Mazar-i-Sharif sits on a flat plain surrounded by distant mountains. It is an
ugly, sprawling town, but it is filled with white doves, called kaftar. The
doves congregate at the tomb of Hazrat Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam, the
cousin and son-in-law of the prophet Mohammed. People here say that any pigeon
of a different hue will turn white within forty days of being set free in
Mazar-i-Sharif. And indeed, there are no gray or even speckled pigeons here.
Many of the people who move to Mazar are not so easily transformed. As a
prelude to becoming governor here, the warlord Mohammed Atta had his men lay
siege to the home and offices of a rival, the provincial security chief Gen.
Mohammed Akram Khakrizwal, who is almost universally acknowledged to be an
honest man committed to the rule of law. Police loyal to Khakrizwal were driven
away, and an armed standoff ensued for the next twenty days.
During the siege, Khakrizwal was resupplied with food and water by the small
garrison of British troops stationed here, but the foreign soldiers were unable
or unwilling to intervene further. Eventually some accommodation was reached and
Mohammed Atta was appointed governor of Balkh province.
Now back on the job, the barrel-chested, thickly bearded Pashtun General
Khakrizwal--in charge of a largely Tajik and Uzbek area--describes the real and
very imperfect nature of his work: "We have security here in Mazar, but in
the districts we have only 10 percent control. There are many serious
crimes--murder, drug trafficking--but even more important, there are ethnic
tensions between Pashtuns, Tajiks and Uzbeks as well as land and water
conflicts. We do our best to stop any violence between these groups and between
the political parties." The parties he refers to are Abdul Rashid Dostum's
Jumbish and Atta's wing of Jamiat, the party once led by the lionized but
actually quite vicious Ahmed Shah Massoud.
"Only some of the police are loyal to me," continues the general.
"We lack the equipment we need, but I am trying to rebuild my forces."
As for the standoff with Atta, the chief is simultaneously blunt and diplomatic.
"Atta wants power. Now he is my boss." The general's flat smile says:
Welcome to Afghanistan.
Mohammed Atta's offices are considerably more lavish than General
Khakrizwal's. The mood inside this walled compound is one of intimidating
leisure. Among the men waiting to meet Atta is a bohemian-looking Afghan film
director named Wakil Negbin. He claims to have made the only Afghan action flick
in years.
Atta's inner offices are spacious, lined with fine red Persian carpets and
furnished with long beige couches and several awkwardly futuristic overstuffed
lounge chairs. The governor is tall and lean, with closely cropped hair and
beard. He wears a superb black business suit and gold Rolex, but the clothes
seem to make him uncomfortable: he's still getting used to his new persona. We
are served tea and pistachio nuts. Armed men guard the doors.
I ask Governor Atta about the charges that his deputies, like Crazy Shafi,
are pillaging the countryside, involved in the drug trade and refusing the UN's
requests to disarm.
"I have no military forces anymore; I am just the governor," says
Atta, staring at me blankly. "My concerns now are reconstruction and
security, building schools and clinics." In fact, it's well-known that Atta
is still in command of his troops and that he refuses to demobilize according to
the UN-set schedule. And, like most governors, he keeps most of the taxes he
collects.
As for his recent military clashes with his rival Dostum: "We have had
our disagreements. Dostum is very aggressive, and when I was commander of
Seventh Corps I had to defend my people when he attacked."
Was Atta's siege of Gen. Akram Khakrizwal's offices also a defensive move?
"What happened there," says Atta in a tone of feigned apology,
"was that some of Akram's men were caught smuggling narcotics. So we had to
arrest them and fire some of the police. But that incident was really very
minor."
As we talk, a dapper Afghan journalist enters and without a word starts
shooting video on an ancient TV camera. The man has a finely sculpted goatee,
wears a brown velvet Nehru jacket, creased black slacks and spotless designer
shoes. After a few minutes he leaves. The interview goes on for another hour.
That night when Balkh state TV--the only channel available in Mazar--starts
its three-hour nightly broadcast, the dandy journalist with the goatee and funky
jacket appears behind a desk reading the news. Top item: Governor Atta's
schedule. Prominently featured: Governor Atta's "cordial meeting" with
a journalist from "an important American magazine." The newsreader
explains, "The two discussed the progress of reconstruction in Balkh and
the importance of Governor Atta's work." My translator is also named as
being in attendance. The broadcast has the creepy, stilted feel of old-school
dictatorship. We leave Mazar at dawn.
Back in Kabul, the presidential elections are approaching. At 1:30 am, the
night before the vote, I am awakened by a huge and close blast. The photographer
Teru Kuwayama and I run out to investigate. The dark streets are empty except
for packs of feral dogs. A dust storm has risen from the rubble of the city's
largely destroyed west side. Soon we find the source of the explosion: Two
rockets have hit our immediate neighborhood, exploding above a UN media
compound. There are no casualties, but the US troops guarding the area are
jumpy. "Put the fucking camera down!" shouts a soldier from behind
some floodlights. We go back to bed.
The next day more violence is expected, but none materializes. Instead of
tragedy, the vote plays out as farce. By late afternoon, it is clear that there
is massive vote fraud under way. Most of Karzai's fourteen opponents are calling
for a boycott and suspension of elections. Journalists are running back and
forth across town to find the most egregious technical errors and blatant fraud.
The crisis is getting so bad that President Karzai calls a restricted,
invitation-only press conference.
I am rolling with some scruffy American photographers. We are not on Karzai's
list, which seems to include no more than a dozen news organizations. But soon
we are joined by other journalists all demanding to get in. Finally the press
officer relents and we are slowly passed through layer upon layer of DynCorp
security guards and across the desolate gardens of the classy but run-down
Afghan presidential palace, which looks like an old European hotel. In a small,
wood-paneled conference room we meet Karzai.
"The commission will look into all of these problems, but I am sure the
vote was free," says the cloaked and karakol-wearing Karzai after a few
jokes and greetings.
Throughout the rather intimate press conference, Karzai invokes the image of
"a poor, hungry, cold Afghan woman waiting to vote. She cannot be
intimidated." Questions are sparse. Karzai seems like a nervous jollier,
trying to play down the election debacle with jokes about Lise Doucet from the
BBC. "Where is she with her sharp questions? I am ready." He
repeatedly asks for questions from "my friend Ahmed Rashid." The
distinguished Pakistani journalist has one query but declines to respond to the
president's further cajoling.
Finally I am called on. Citing specific examples, I ask about allegations
that Karzai's campaign has used fraud and intimidation--in short, warlord
tactics. The president grows angry. "What report? Human Rights Watch? They
do not understand Afghan culture. Tribal culture, it is very democratic. Tribal
elders cannot be intimidated. They do not know what is really going on. The
tribal elders from Khost were just here. They signed a document saying
everything is OK."
The UN, which essentially ran the elections, likewise does its best to calm
the situation with deft spin and dulcet tones from its smoothly effective
spokesman Manoel de Almeida e Silva. "I am not just trying to be some happy
guy. I admit there are problems. But there are also genuine efforts to sort this
out. Let's give it some time," he says, stopping politely on the way out of
the crisis meeting, his hand holding my shoulder as if we were old friends.
Before long, the crisis is being beamed back at us by the international media as
a matter of "a few glitches" or "questions about ink."
Karzai insists that democracy and freedom are winning in Afghanistan. He
denies that he will buy off his opponents and the warlords with cabinet posts,
governorships and ministries. Never mind that this is already his government's
modus operandi.
Given current dynamics, Afghanistan will remain a weak and fragmented state,
easily controlled by outside powers, its economy broken, its common people
mercilessly exploited, suffering from a low-simmering but ineffective
insurgency. One place to see this is unfolding is on the border with Pakistan.
The road from Kabul east to Jalalabad is an abysmally rutted dirt track that
ascends and descends in switchbacks up high mountains, with thousand-foot drops
at the road's edge, then passes down through some parched valleys into a desert
strewn with huge boulders. The trip takes a full day. Roadside bombs are not
uncommon here: Numerous NGO workers and journalists have been killed on this
stretch of road in the past year.
This is Nangarhar province, which juts like a peninsula into Pakistan and
contains the infamous Al Qaeda stronghold of the Tora Bora mountain range. Most
of the province's districts are classified as no-go areas for internationals.
All the NGOs have left. The place is crawling with US Special Forces, out
hunting. When their convoys of Humvees and white Toyota trucks lurch past on the
dusty back roads, they look like landlocked pirates, wearing costumes of
mismatched camouflage, Afghan scarves, beards and assorted bush hats.
A security expert in Jalalabad tells me that there's been at least one IED
attack every day for a month, and that the local US garrison, or Provincial
Reconstruction Team, was recently besieged for five hours straight. Even so, US
casualties around here have remained fairly light.
Officially the Taliban are a big problem, but in private, security experts
acknowledge that the Taliban and their allies are isolated and under pressure
from both US troops in Afghanistan and Pakistani forces across the border. Once
backed by the Pakistani state, Al Qaeda and the Taliban are now said to rely
only on a network of retired Pakistani intelligence officers.
Although villagers warn that Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters are around and
looking for targets, the insurgency seems to have little support. "They are
in Pakistan, but they come into Nangarhar to attack," says a local
journalist. "The people here do not want them."
On our second day of driving we leave Jalalabad and head northeast into the
district of Kuna. This is poppy country, occasionally traversed by Taliban and
Al Qaeda fighters but thoroughly controlled by two warlords: Hazrat Ali, the
security chief, and Haji Din Mohammed, provincial governor.
In Khakhi village, we meet with a group of four maliks, or village leaders.
All of them farm opium poppy and were mujahedeen during the anti-Soviet jihad,
but now all speak openly of their hatred for the commanders.
"They have big houses and the best land. They will take a man's daughter
if they want. And what do we have? Nothing," says Askar Khan, who sits
hunched over on a wood and rope cot beneath a grape arbor. "All of us were
wounded fighting the Russians. We fought for America, and now we are jobless.
That is not good."
Another man shows me some gruesome scars and says he was taken to Indiana for
treatment back when he was fighting the Red Army. Once these mujahedeen liked
the United States, but now they are growing resentful. "Why does America
give these commanders positions in government?" asks Askar Khan, the chief
malik, who is slumped on the cot.
The poppy crop has already been harvested, but some of the local farmers show
me big brown blocks of opium and offer me hash. They say that drought and hunger
forced them to grow poppy. "Hazrat Ali controls the smuggling," says
one of them. The malik Askar Khan explains, "There are no schools and no
clinics in our district. The NGOs just spend money on themselves. When people
are hungry they commit sins. If we only grow wheat, we will starve."
The men allege that Mirwais Yasini, head of Afghanistan's Counter Narcotics
Directorate, has a deal with Hazrat Ali. When the harvest is done, Hazrat Ali
tells the farmers to burn their fields, then Mirwais Yasini can tell the British
(who are officially charged with running a war on poppy) that progress is being
made. Counternarcotics officials in Kabul vigorously deny these charges.
The trip back to Kabul is as slow and dusty as the trip out. After a few
hours of driving we see an overloaded passenger bus with luggage stacked on the
roof. The vehicle sways and bounces toward us. Then it sways just a bit too far
and topples over the edge of the road into a gully below. A cloud of dust rises
and momentarily obscures the wreck.
The bus sits on its roof. Three men are trapped beneath it. About a dozen
other people lie around in various states of injury: a young man limps by, his
crushed foot wrapped in a bloody scarf. An old man lies by the road moaning. The
men underneath the bus are dying; the crowd is growing frantic.
"Help! Push the bus! My brother is trapped," begs a desperate man
from down in the gully. The trapped men are migrant laborers, Afghan refugees
whose families live in Pakistan. The crowd of men starts pushing the bus back
and forth, hoping to tip it one more rotation. But chaos and panic reign, there
is no coordination to the effort and the bus weighs too much. A flatbed truck
tries to back into an edge of the bus to flip it over but it is no use. The
trapped men are being crushed. Someone says one has just died.
The whole debacle is a pathetically fitting, if clichéd, microcosm of
Afghanistan's current state: The bus and these people mean little to the great
powers that have appointed themselves masters of this place. Out here in the
desert and mountains there is no democracy, no nation building, no NGOs, no
American patrols--only an appallingly bad road that once, long ago, was a paved
link to the world and one of Afghanistan's few symbols of modernity and national
progress. Now the only sign of something like state power is a local commander's
young gunman with a bayonet on his AK-47. He commandeers a car and orders it to
take one of the wounded back to Jalalabad.
from http://www.e-ariana.com/ariana/eariana.nsf/0/96C0A9A3426E757187256F3C00681720?OpenDocument
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