June 16, 2008

Afghan prison attack stirs tensions with Pakistan

Christian Science Monitor/June 2008


Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened for the first time Sunday to send troops into Pakistan to fight militants, raising Afghanistan's longtime criticism of its neighbor for not stopping cross-border attacks to a new level.

President Karzai's statement came as NATO and Afghan forces continued hunting for 870 prisoners – including some 400 Taliban militants – who escaped Friday after a spectacular assault on a high-security prison in Kandahar Province in southern Afghanistan.

The prison break did not negate overall advances in security but could hurt public confidence, NATO spokesperson Mark Laity told the Monitor.

The incident did prompt the strongest rhetoric yet from Karzai, who like many Afghan officials has long blamed Pakistan for the insurgency in their country, claiming that Pakistan helps insurgents by providing them a haven if not actively supporting them.

Because militants come from Pakistan "to come and kill Afghan and kill coalition troops, it exactly gives us the right to do the same," Karzai said at a press conference Sunday.

The president singled out Taliban leaders Mullah Omar and Baitullah Mehsud, saying, "We will complete the journey, and we will get them and we will defeat them. We will avenge all that they have done to Afghanistan for the past so many years," Karzai said.

Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said in response that his country wants good relations with its neighbors, but that the Afghan-Pakistan border is too long to prevent people from crossing, "even if Pakistan puts its entire Army along the border."

In the hunt for escaped prisoners, meanwhile, coalition forces claimed to have killed 15 insurgents during the manhunt and arrested five people. It was not clear whether those killed or captured were involved with the prison break or had been prisoners themselves.

Friday's prison attack sent a ripple of shock felt all the way to the capital city of Kabul, raising further questions about the security preparedness of the Afghan state and the international troops supporting it.

Details of the assault in Kandahar, where the president's brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, heads the provincial council, reveal that it was well coordinated and well planned. According to the Taliban, they loaded explosives into a truck that they then rammed into the prison's front gate. As the gate fell, armed Taliban moved in, shooting prison guards who had survived.

While agreeing that security had been poor, Sayed Sami Sadat, deputy director of strategic communications in the Ministry of Interior, said there was no information to indicate whether there had been any inside help. The command-and-control structure of the prison had been destroyed in the attack, he said, and it would take time to piece the details together.

The Kandahar prison is administered by the Ministry of Justice and manned largely by guards from that ministry, as well as policemen from the Ministry of Interior. The prison guards have been trained by Canadian forces. They lead Kandahar's provincial reconstruction team and have reportedly spent $1.5 million on the training and the jail facility.

Afghanistan's prisons have a poor record of external and internal security as well as frequent reports of human rights abuses. The Kandahar prison itself saw a week-long hunger strike by prisoners that ended when a parliamentary delegation promised to look into allegations of severe abuse and torture.

Mr. Laity, the NATO spokesperson, played down the attack's significance. "Obviously it is a very serious breach of security in a carefully planned attack, and the outcome is very dismaying," he said, but added that this year has seen "significant successes putting the Taliban on the back foot operationally in many areas, and this does not set all that aside.

Militants have struck at several high-security, high-visibility targets this year, giving the impression that their operational capability has risen. This January Taliban fighters attacked the well-secured luxury Serena Hotel in Kabul. In April, militants disrupted a parade attended by several national and international dignitaries including Karzai, whom they tried to assassinate. The prison break is expected to strengthen the Taliban's morale.

NGOs call for improved Afghan aid

Al Jazeera/June 2008

As the Afghan government and the international donor community meet in Paris on June 12 to decide the future nature of assistance to the war-ravaged nation, NGOs and rights groups are urging that the needs of ordinary citizens come first.

Some $15 billion has been spent on reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan since the US-led coalition deposed the Taliban and set up a democratic-influenced government in 2000.

But international aid groups believe donor priorities continue to overlook the needs of the people.

Oxfam, the international development agency which has maintained a long-term commitment and experience in Afghanistan, is critical of both the quantity and quality of aid that has been disbursed in the country.

"So far international aid to Afghanistan has not gone far enough to alleviate the poverty and suffering of the Afghan people," Matt Waldman, Afghanistan policy advisor for Oxfam International, said in a statement provided to Al Jazeera.

"The amount of international aid has been wholly insufficient given the huge job of reconstruction in Afghanistan. Of the aid that has been given too much has been driven by the priorities of the international community and its security concerns rather [than] meeting the needs of the people and building a more effective state," he added.

Limited success

Though donor countries cite the return of six million children to school and the expansion of medical services and construction of roads as major achievements, there are limitations to the "success story".

The percentage of the population living below the minimum dietary level has increased from 30 to 35 per cent in the past year, increasing the need for food aid.

According to the National Human Development Report of 2007, literacy levels have fallen from 28.7 per cent in 2003 to 23.5 per cent in 2007.

Life expectancy figures have also fallen from 44.5 years in 2003 to 43.1 years in 2007.

Chrissie Hirst, the Chief of Policy and Advocacy in DACAAR, a development NG, says that while donors are willing to spend some amount on food aid, "they are not prepared to fund long-term intervention to provide for long-term food security".

Though 70-80 per cent of the country is dependant on agriculture, the total investment in this sector since 2001 has been only $400-$500 million.

"The agriculture sector is seriously underfunded," Hirst told Al Jazeera.

Drastic change needed


Some 35 per cent of the population are at risk
of malnutrition, agencies say [GETTY]
The Paris conference will be the venue for new benchmarks to be set as the final Afghanistan National Development Strategy, the roadmap for the next five years, is rolled out and fresh donor commitments are made. The follow-up to the London Compact of 2006 is expected to further cement the partnership between the Afghan government and international donors.

Participants are also expected to use slogans like 'Afghan first' and 'Afghan ownership' to reflect their commitment to Afghanistan. However, not everyone is convinced that Paris will result in the much-needed tectonic shift needed to bring about an alignment between donor and Afghan priorities.



Lorenzo Delesgues, the director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, an Afghan NGO that is committed to "increase transparency, integrity and accountability in Afghanistan's reconstruction process," says the status quo hinders the country's development.

"More of the same is not an option," he said.

Though foreign aid accounts for 90 per cent of all public expenditure in Afghanistan, Delesgues says "it remains highly unpredictable and too much aid is channelled outside of the government's priorities and of the core government budget".

USAID, the American aid agency, accounted last year for 40 per cent of the aid to Afghanistan. However 90 per cent of USAID spending remains outside the government budget, something that Delesgues says, must change.

"It is very important for them to increase aid but also their accountability to the government by channeling aid through the Afghan government," he said.


Government supervision required?

According to a recent report by Acbar, the coordinating agency for NGOs working in Afghanistan, 70 per cent of the aid coming in is spent outside the government budget and an estimated 40 per cent of the aid returns to the donor countries in the form of contracts awarded to implementing agencies and high salaries of expatriate experts.

According to Acbar, a foreign consultant can cost between $250,000 and $500,000 per year.

At approximately $60 per month, an Afghan civil servant with a family of four (Afghan families are usually larger) is just above the acceptable poverty level of $14 per capita per month

Reports in recent weeks indicated that the escalating price of wheat was putting the cost of food well beyond the salaries of even government employees.

"Despite high level of aid pledged, aid remains highly unpredictable and too much aid is channeled outside of the government's priorities and the government budget," Delesgues told Al Jazeera.

He believes that the lack of consultation with the local populace has meant that the Afghan population has "not yet become an actor of aid but is a subject of aid".

This is an issue that the Afghan government has said is an impediment to development.

Funding government aid

The Joint Coordination Monitoring Board (JCMB), a joint body set up to coordinate between the international donors and the Afghan government and reporting directly to the Afghan president, noted that "a significant portion of external resources provided to Afghanistan are still routed directly to projects by donors rather than to the government's budget".

The JCMB said lack of government supervision undermines the ability and flexibility of the Afghan government to commit funds to development priorities and to increase the funding of provincial based programs.

Action Aid, a development NGO has also called on the donor community to "pledge huge aid to be expensed by the Afghans themselves according to their needs and not as donors wish".

The NGO called on the international donor community to establish mechanisms at all levels, villages, districts, where people and their elected representatives are able to monitor and evaluate development work and aid distribution in their areas.

Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Policy Research and Advocacy coordinator for Action Aid Afghanistan told Al Jazeera: "Donors need to keep the needs and requirements of Afghans in mind rather than their own geopolitical and security considerations."

So Many Miles To Go

Times of India/ June 2008

KABUL: A new blueprint for the development and reconstruction of Afghanistan is expected to be finalised at the international conference in Paris today, a meeting between the inter-national donor community and the Afghan government.

The Afghan government will unveil its Afghanistan National Developments Strategy (ANDS), the equivalent of a five-year plan, and seek to raise $50 billion in donor commitment, more than three times the amount that has been disbursed by donors in Afghanistan since 2001.

Paris will certainly raise more money. However, will it answer critical questions on aid delivery and effectiveness?
Nearly seven years into the reconstruction of the country and $15 billion later, there is increasing criticism of the approach of the international community over the priorities of the aid regime. Though donor aid is inevitably tied to the interests of donor nations, it must also reflect the priorities of the recipient country. In Afghanistan, however, the pursuance of donor politics has often come at the cost of the welfare of Afghan citizens, something that long-term aid workers and organisations are increasingly articulating.

Consider the facts. While the enrolment in schools (six million children), increase of medical services, return of refugees and rebuilding of roads have been put forward as major achievements, the quality of life for the majority of Afghans has not improved to an extent commensurate with hopes, promises and expenditure.

The most recent National Human Development Report showed that literacy (23.5 per cent) and life expectancy (43.1 years) of Afghans were lower than what had been estimated at the time that the reconstruction was begun.

The country's current ranking in the Human Development Index remains one of the lowest anywhere in the world with an estimated ranking of 174, only above four other African nations.

The Human Poverty Index places it lowest while the Gender Development Index places it only above Niger. Estimates show that the amount of money spent in Afghanistan per capita has been a fraction of what was spent in rebuilding Kosovo and Timor, as the international community tried to do Afghanistan on the cheap even though the decimation of human and physical infrastructure here was much more devastating.

However, the 'cut-price' reconstruction has not been just about money. International efforts have been found lacking in terms of time and attention.

With an eye on taxpayers back home, donors have tended to focus on short-term projects with quick delivery and visible impact.

At best these projects are economically unsustainable while at worst the quick execution is often shoddy, lasting only long enough to give project implementers and donors their mandatory photo-op.

A critical example is the agriculture sector. In the past six and a half years, the sector has received only an estimated $400-500 million in donor funding.

This, despite the fact that an estimated 70 per cent of the country's population is dependant on agriculture for a livelihood and that development of ‘alternative livelihoods' has been identified as a key to weaning the country's farmers off poppy cultivation.

Laura Bush urges donors to stand by Afghanistan

Christian Science Monitor/June 2008

US first lady Laura Bush made a quick trip to Afghanistan, emphasizing the need for continued attention to the country ahead of an international donors' conference in Paris on June 12.

The Mrs. Bush met with President Hamid Karzai in Kabul Sunday after flying to Bamiyan in central Afghanistan.

Bamiyan, famed for its colossal Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban in March 2001, is also the only province in the country headed by a woman governor, Habiba Sarobi. But the province is also emblematic of problems in the aid delivery systems that have come under increasing criticism from aid workers and analysts. The province, one of the most peaceful areas in the country, suffers from economic neglect exacerbated by a difficult mountainous topography.

"Donors need to keep the needs and requirements of Afghans in mind rather than their own geopolitical and security considerations," says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, policy research and advocacy coordinator for Action Aid Afghanistan. Referring to the skewed distribution of aid that benefits provinces with conflict and penalizes the peaceful areas, Mr. Siddiqui referred to Bamiyan as an example.

Siddiqui emphasized that more money needed to be spent in Afghanistan and to be tied to the new Afghanistan National Development Strategy that is expected to be unveiled in Paris this week.

Host country France is hoping to raise $12 billion to $15 billion to help Afghanistan's reconstruction efforts. Approximately $15 billion has already been disbursed by the international community in Afghanistan.

Bush told reporters traveling with her Sunday: "We don't need to be intimidated by them. The international community can't drop Afghanistan now at this very crucial time."

It was important Afghans understood "the rest of the world is with you and that we're not going to leave you right now when the Taliban and Al Qaeda is trying to intimidate you," she said.

Bush visited a police academy in Bamiyan and spoke to around a dozen women police recruits. She later inaugurated a US-funded road-building project and was serenaded by schoolgirls from poor backgrounds.

While the Taliban banned girls from school, the United Nations says there are now more girls in education than there were boys being taught under the ousted Islamist government. "Of course we want more [girls] in school, and I think this is the key to success in Afghanistan," said Bush, a former schoolteacher. Despite progress, still only 35 percent of those in education are girls. "We want that to be 50-50," she said.

Analysts in Afghanistan, however, blame the US, the largest donor, for some of the major problems in aid delivery.

Lorenzo Delesgues, director of Integrity Watch Afghanistan, says that "it is very important for [the US] to increase aid but also its accountability to the government by channeling its aid through the Afghan government."

Mr. Delesgues says that currently 90 percent of the American aid was routed outside the Afghan government budget. Currently, approximately 70 percent of all international aid to Afghanistan is outside the government budget; a factor the Afghan government says has led to waste and erosion of authority, and hampers long- term planning.

Chrissie Hirst, the chief of policy and advocacy in DACAAR, a Danish development nongovernmental organization, says that the Paris donors' conference should focus on sustainable aid. While food aid is forthcoming, she points out donors are less willing to invest in long-term projects that will ensure food security.

• Information from Reuters was used in this report.

A media soap opera in Kabul

Asia Times/ April 2008

KABUL - A fresh deadline seeking compliance with a ban on the five Indian TV serials being broadcast by private Afghan TV channels was due to end on Tuesday. The ban, ordered by the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, has caused public controversy and a strident clash between conservatives and liberals. The truth is more multi-layered: not all those who oppose the serials are doing so out of conservative values, nor are the reasons for their defense uniformly liberal.

The serials are considered by critics to have content considered "too modern" for Afghan audiences. Meanwhile, the so-called values the shows portray are viewed as regressive, even backward, in India. By positing this case as a simple test of media freedom, there is a danger of losing sight of the



complexities that need to be addressed to strengthen the independence of the Afghan media.

The debate over the ban has been described in private national media and the international press as "the latest battle of the long-simmering war between cultural conservatives and liberals", as one reputed newspaper called it. The reality is somewhat more complex. While conservatives, including some of the religious ulema, have been consistently pressuring the government and TV channels to curtail any content that goes beyond their interpretation of Afghanistan's conservative social mores, in this instance the demand for curtailing the soap operas has more widespread support. The reasons for this are two-fold.

The story lines of some of the serials go beyond traditional family scenarios to include complex relationships that are anathema to Afghan families. Children born out of wedlock and extramarital relationships are just two salient examples. The second reason for the criticism is that the serials have allegedly become addictive to viewers, especially young children.

"My daughter is worshipping her dolls, setting then out in a row as she sees people worshipping in the serials," a liberal female member of parliament (MP)told a diplomat when asked for her views. A senior political figure - who has little sympathy for conservatives - said his children were emulating scenes from the popular Indian soap opera Tulsi. Meanwhile, a senior government official said social customs viewed in the serials were being emulated in middle-class Afghani homes.

Liberal MP Shukriya Barakzai told Asia Times Online that while she did not support the ban - which she said appeared to be a result of political machinations - she felt there needed to be more indigenous content on Afghan TV.

"Afghans have a rich history and culture," she said. "The Ministry of Information should make a strategy so that we have our own serials or other programs. Otherwise, if you ban Indian serials, some other serials, maybe from Iran and not in keeping with our culture, will take their place."

In India, soap operas face strong competition from other forms of programming as well as social and cultural activities. But, in Afghanistan - especially its urban areas - such alternatives are unavailable. In fact, there is a disproportionate emphasis on TV viewing; Afghan social customs place low priority on family activities in public spaces, leaving television as one of the foremost "family" events.

Lack of indigenous programming has also meant an over-reliance on foreign content. Bollywood's serials, slickly produced with engaging plots, have been gross earners for the channels which broadcast them. The lack of a strong and varied programming base has meant that an unprecedented number of viewers watch serials such as Tulsi, the most-watched of the five Bollywood soaps that face a ban. The serials also inhabit terrain that is culturally more familiar to the Afghan viewer. Dubbing them in Dari, the local language, has provided an additional comfort factor which has resulted in an undue influence on viewers.

It may be that the familiarity of the customs, culture and values presented in the shows is what's causing consternation. Because the content comes from a similar culture, it has greater impact and influence than content that is completely alien, for example Hollywood products. As such, the Indian soaps are understandably influencing behavior patterns among Afghan viewers.

A senior official of the Ministry of Information and Culture (MIC) said he had nothing against the Indian serials, but commented that TV channels were showing them "too much". He told Asia Times Online, "By going too far some of the media organizations are closing even the existing space for media freedom. If the conservatives strike back forcefully even the existing freedoms may be lost."

Information Minister Abdul Karim Khurram, who is seen as a conservative, has argued that it is not he, but a joint meeting of the Media Commission, MPs, the ulema and media houses that made the decision to ban the soaps. According to Khurram, the decision constitutes a legal order because the Media Commission was involved in the meeting. Khurram also said the MIC would like new legislation to regulate and limit the proportion of foreign content in local media. The minister declined to discuss what steps would be taken should the MIC ban be flouted.

The saas-bahu or "mother-in-law and daughter-in-law" serials as they are called in India, are watched by mostly conservative, urban middle-class families. Most feminists and liberals view the soap operas with distaste because they allegedly stereotype male and female family roles and present everyday life through the lens of so-called "family values".

At best, the saas-bahu soaps are viewed as "traditional", and at worst anti-feminist and regressive. The marketing of family values is another reason why the serials appeal widely in Afghanistan; their heavy focus on the family being something to which many Afghans can relate.

Women outside the family structure have no place in Afghan society. This is the main reason why there has been little progress in the area of gender rights, specifically in the provision of protection mechanisms for female victims of violence.

The most popular Afghan TV channel, Tolo TV, has so far defied the ban on Indian serials. Its owners have argued that they were only following public demand. A journalists' union has called for a meeting with President Hamid Karzai, Khurram, directors of Afghan television and representatives of the Council of Religious Scholars to "find a moderate solution for the problem".

While pushing for greater leeway over the right to broadcast these five Indian serials, journalists need to be careful about who they invite to the table. A media commission, charged with arbitrating on media content, already exists, but needs to be strengthened through wider civil society and media representation. To invite others, including the president, the minister of information and the ulema to decide the fate of the serials would set a precedent that would make them legitimate stakeholders in any decision-making on media content in the future.

At a time when the media law is on hold, and there is continuous pressure from religious leaders, the government and the Taliban, the media need to emphasize the importance of the rule of law rather than arbitrary decisions in regard to televised content. The debate over these five serials also loses sight of the complexities of media content and survival, issues that need to be addressed to strengthen an independent media as well as larger progressive rights.

Debate over democratic, political and human rights - including women's rights - is being increasingly dismissed as "Western" or alien. An editorial published in the government-owned newspaper Kabul Times provided an apparent justification for domestic violence against women, arguing that nagging women provoked their husbands and other male family members to "beat them black and blue". The editorial passed without any remark from any member of the government.

Today there is greater intolerance in Afghanistan. Specifically in the expression of progressive social, cultural and political mores and also for democratization. The international community, fearful of losing its leverage, has tiptoed around these issues, taking refuge in the all-encompassing pretext of "cultural propriety".

The current debate over the Indian soaps needs to take into account the complexities of the issue. It must differentiate between conservative opposition, parental concern and the government's use of this issue as a tool to gain greater control over the media and to tame private media by hitting them in the pocket.

Any discussion should consider the need for more varied programming, indigenous content and financial viability. By lumping all opposition to the Indian family dramas into one basket and losing sight of the complexities, those espousing more progressive values could walk right into a trap that would help affirm larger space for cultural intolerance.

Afghan women turn to art

Al Jazeera/June 2008

On a dusty road in a middle class neighbourhood in west Kabul, an unassuming house looks almost as nondescript as any other except for the simple board declaring it is the Centre for Contemporary Arts in Afghanistan.

It is here that a quiet revolution is taking place. For the first time in the country's recent history, a group of young women are learning to express their experiences, sorrows and joys growing up in war-ravaged Afghanistan through art

And they are producing remarkably sophisticated and eloquent work.

The originality of their imagination is even more extraordinary in the context of Afghanistan's tragic history of conflict and the violence which continues to be visited upon women living in this country.

The Introvert


Yalda Noori, a student at the Centre, stands
next to her painting 'Life Passages'
Sheenkai Alam, a 19-year-old Afghan school girl is displaying 'Introvert', a painting which combines an array of colours in geometric shapes; circles, bars, and blocks fragment the colours. In the midst sits the figure of a man holding his head in his hands.

"He is the Afghan trying to find himself, the colours represent the mirror of history," Alam told Al Jazeera.

Eschewing a formulaic approach for herself, she says: "What method of work I use does not matter much to me. What matters is what I have to say and how I can respond to my inner needs."

"Some think that to paint they should possess innate skills, but I believe they should possess good knowledge, open vision and awareness which is of no less value than innate talent and skills," she added.

Alam has tasked herself with expressing the state of the Afghan people following war, bloodshed and strife. She believes that Afghans are a peoples who have been robbed of their identity because of years of displacement, a plight she herself experienced as a refugee.

Her family only returned from life as refugees in the Pakistani border town of Peshawar five years ago.

Survival art

For the tens of thousands of refugees who tried to survive in makeshift camps dotting the Afghan-Pakistan border in the 1990s, there was little scope for creativity or learning traditional arts and crafts skills.

Art was an early victim of the violence and policies of successive governments in Afghanistan; if the Soviets stifled independent creativity, the mujahideen did not like the arts and the Taliban systematically destroyed what was left of it.

But now, despite continued violence in parts of Afghanistan, a small market for art has emerged, largely patronised by the Afghan elite and the expatriate community.

Most of what is available however reverts back to the traditional classical and representational art styles that existed before the 1979 Soviet invasion.

A lot of it caters to the stereotypes of Afghanistan - woman in blue burkhas, the Bactrian camel, the destroyed monuments.

They are symbolic of the repetitive picture post card clichés and the ubiquitous paintings of the famous Steve Mc Curry photograph of the green-eyed Afghan girl.

Artistic spirit


Rahraw Omarzad, himself a painter, runs the
Centre for Contemporary Arts in Afghanistan
Rahraw Omarzad, a former refugee and teacher at the Fine Arts Faculty in Kabul University, and his wife have been struggling to keep the Centre for Contemporary Art alive in hopes of galvanising a resurgent art community in Kabul.

"In this Centre I did not want [the students] to adopt one 'ism' over another. I did not want them to copy what they saw. So I have not taught them either technique or theory of modern art. They have created everything out of their own imagination and we discussed each painting on its merit," he told Al Jazeera.




Expressing an independent sense of imagination is crucial for Omarzad who encourages his students to think beyond and away from the teacher and focus on self-expression as the guiding principle.

When one of Omarzad's students created a 'dance of colours' she was unaware that she had stumbled upon a technique tried by world renown artists.

"I showed her Jackson Pollock's work after she did her painting. She was amazed."

Women expressing themselves

Unlike some Afghan youth whose families were able to go to the West, most of the women at the centre were refugees in neighbouring countries and lacked the benefits of a more sophisticated exposure to arts and culture.

Though Ommolbanin Shamsia, a 20-year old accounting student, has been painting since she was four years old, it is only at the centre that she first received formal art instruction.

She says there was little opportunity to learn art while living as a refugee in Iran. Her art work, like Alam's is widely varied in subject and technique.

In one painting, one sees only the hemline of a woman's dress and her feet at the edge of a pool of water. Reflected up from the water, however, is a young green tree.

"The woman is the regeneration of life; she represents rebirth, the beginning of life," Shamsia says.

Despite some advances, such as increased visibility in schools and the workforce, the role of women in public spaces is very limited. Even Kabul, the Afghan capital, has no women shopkeepers and many women are only allowed out of their homes for the duration of their work - whether it is to their workplace or to school.

Afghanistan's prisons hold women who are in jail for having left their homes without male permission or supervision since under the country's customary laws women are part of the household possessions.



As a result, many budding female artists resort to painting in the privacy of their homes unlike other forms of art which may need public space.

But Omarzad believes that with such enterprises as the art centre, women may are beginning to find means to express themselves.

"Now that they have held their first exhibition and seen the response of the people they have confidence in their own creativity they and can learn about the history and techniques without becoming intimidated," he said.

Excited about his students and their work, Omarzad says he is aware the Centre could face difficult times in near future.

"Until now no one knew about [the Centre]. I am sure when we are better known there will be some opposition from the conservative people who are against art and the participation of women."

Wakhan wanderer

Himal Southasia/May 2008

text By : Aunohita Mojumdar
Photographs by : anne feenstra

Even in Afghanistan – residence of which often carries a level of fascination for those outside – going to the Wakhan corridor is considered considerably exotic. This small strip of land, making its wayward way eastward, appears distinctly disjointed from the rest of the Afghan landmass. A relief map reveals the continuities of contour, a swathe of brown that begins in the central part of Afghanistan narrowing towards the east, before then broadening out again, layered with that distinctive white colour that mapmakers use to indicate high altitude. Indeed, by the beginning of the corridor, the map is almost completely white, with the Pamir, Hindukush and Karakoram forming one of the most formidable of mountain stretches.

On a political map, however, the area forms a perfect barrier: a sliver of territory that once separated Tsarist Russia from Britain’s Indian empire. But Wakhan’s politically expedient location also comes at a cost. Though its position made it a natural route for traders travelling on Bactrian camels, yaks, donkeys and horses, modern motorised transport could not make use of this rugged route. As such, the region became progressively isolated in modern times.

Writing in the 1970s, the intrepid chronicler of Afghanistan’s heritage, Nancy Dupree, had much advice for those setting out for Badakshan, the province where Wakhan is located. “This is an exciting trip through some of Afghanistan’s most thrilling scenery,” she noted, “enjoyable only, however, if you have a strong car, spare parts, sleeping bags and an extra cache of food and petrol.” These words ring true even today. Also to be heeded is Dupree’s subsequent recommendations on securing a special permit to enter the Wakhan Corridor.

The current dispenser of permits is Commander Waheed, who fought in the force of the legendary Northern Alliance guerrilla fighter Ahmad Shah Masood. For Masood’s forces, the area, impregnable to the Taliban due to its difficult geography, was one of the few safe havens left when the Taliban took over. This was, perhaps, the sole reason that the locals were saved from the horrific ravages visited on the country’s other minority sects, such as the Shia of Hazarajat, in central Afghanistan.

To reach Wakhan today, one first has to drive or fly to Faizabad, the provincial capital. From there it takes another two days on the road, when the weather allows passage. As during Dupree’s time, the road here remains little more than a mud-and-stone track, necessitating a sturdy four-wheel-drive vehicle that can also ford the numerous streams, many without bridges. Add to this the inaccessibility of petrol and spare parts, and you have several good reasons why Wakhan remains off the map for most people.

Largely untouched
In earlier times, this area attracted empire-builders and adventurers. Chronicles of the former (those available in the Subcontinent are mainly British) are dotted with tales of low intrigue in the high mountain passes, as the armies and proxies of tsars and governor-generals fought each other. For explorers, there was a different kind of intrigue: the fascination of the unknown, such as the legendary Oxus River, the source of which had yet to be identified by the Western world. This mighty waterway, which winds its way more than 2400 km northwards before meeting the Aral Sea, is locally known as the Amu Darya, the ‘mother river’. Indeed, an ancient heritage can today be found in the many petroglyphs, thought to have been created eons ago, on boulders along the sparkling blue-grey waters of the Kokcha River en route to Wakhan.

The remoteness of Wakhan has meant that the distinct culture and language of the peoples of this area has remained essentially intact, largely untouched by the influences and cultures of the lower mainland. In the lower altitudes are the Wakhis, a community that relies on subsistence agriculture, growing mainly potatoes and wheat. They speak the Wakhi language, derived from several Iranian languages, and are Ismaili Shia, followers of the Aga Khan. In the higher altitudes are the pastoral Kyrghyz, who are generally Sunni and who speak Kyrghyz, of Turkic origin. Their large, well-fed herds of cattle are a draw for traders who arrive on Russian Kamaz trucks, exchanging cheap goods – synthetic clothes, furniture, plasticware and ugly, machine-made carpets. The traders also bring opium, which locals use as a painkiller in the absence of pharmaceutical drugs. Once addicted, the locals sell off much of their cattle to feed their habit. In turn, this forces them to breed more and more cattle, which conservationists worry could result in land degradation in the not-so-long term – an interesting study on how human addiction can affect ecology.

Whether due to or despite this isolation, the people of the Wakhan corridor are much more open to the outsider than are their counterparts in the mainland. In many other parts of Afghanistan, there tends to be significant suspicion of outsiders; the women are also cloistered, shying away from strangers even when working in the fields. In Wakhan, however, full families will turn curious, friendly gazes towards the visitor, with women in the larger villages even coming forward to talk.

Difficult development
In the middle of the village of Qala-e-Panja, roughly midway through the Wakhan, is the old hunting lodge of Zahir Shah, the last monarch of Afghanistan. Directly opposite this is the new visitor’s centre for the Pamir National Park. Today, on top of the centre’s roof, stands master mason Afiyat Khan. He lost his father at a young age, and later joined the mujahideen. Now, he makes a living constructing buildings. But Afiyat says that this one is different. The new visitor’s centre, he hopes, marks the advent of more visitors to the area, something that would enable him to live by his real passion: mountain climbing. Afiyat has already attended training courses under the Italian mountaineer Carlo Alberto Pinelli, a pioneer in what can be called ‘post-conflict mountaineering’ in Afghanistan. In 2007, Pinelli released a book in the hopes of exciting mountaineers to the possibilities of Wakhan’s peaks, which have not been climbed in three decades.

For the less adventurous, a drive through Wakhan is just as memorable. Long, sandy stretches give way to rock faces, which give way to boulder-strewn lunar landscapes, to the greens of spring and the bright colours of autumn – all of which is pleasantly interrupted by the clear, sparkling waters of the tumbling joi, as the mountain streams are called. Surrounding each vivid palette are the mountains, each distinct in colour, texture and shape. There is a feeling of security here in Wakhan, which allows for a sense of freedom unusual in the rest of Afghanistan.

Potatoes cooked in oil are the staple diet in these parts, accompanied by thick, dry flatbread – very different from the naan of the Subcontinent, though it still goes by this name. The locals have proved remarkably resistant to moving beyond this subsistence diet. Efforts by the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) to introduce vegetables and fruits in the area have been slow to catch on. At one point in our visit, we benefited from a chance encounter with an AKDN team by receiving, as a gift, an unbelievably large cabbage. Despite its eye-popping size, however, most of the villagers had no idea that the vegetable had been grown on an experimental farm in their very own village.

Amongst other things, the AKDN has been focusing on the local ecotourism potential. The training of guesthouse owners and guides has now brought about a number of guesthouses in the area, strewn along the road up to the last motorable point. In Qala-e-Panja, it is the Shah himself who owns the only guesthouse. Unfortunately, this writer discovered the requisite toilet only at the end of the trip (it turned out to be one of the carefully locked rooms), after having spent a week squatting in the outfield in the back. These new guesthouses have become focal points for curious villagers. During our visit, we met two young girls, Barfaq and the stunningly beautiful Daulatmand. Perhaps 15 years old, Daulatmand already has a young child, but nonetheless continues to go to school every day. For some reason, this writer was drawn to her, and the bond appeared to be mutual – a small space reaching out across the divides of culture, religion and language, with a few words and many smiles.

Daulatmand reflects the positive trend of a large number of school-goers, children who come stumbling down from the mountainside villages twice a day, sunburnt and rosy-cheeked, to attend class. Hopefully, some of these children will be able to reach high school, and further on to college in Kabul and elsewhere. Wakhan badly needs its skilled workers, teachers and doctors included. The high altitude, coupled with scarce medical facilities, meagre utilities, low nutrition and lack of awareness, contributes to a sparse health network. This inevitably takes a heavy toll, especially on maternal health.

There is always a fear about whether one would be able to see someone like Daulatmand again. If she has a second child soon, will she survive the odds stacked against young mothers in the wilderness of Wakhan?