by David Lepeska
for The National
Salahuddin Khan seems an unlikely literary figure. A kindly, grey-bearded businessman raised in Pakistan and England, he had carved out an impressive career as a technology and marketing executive when, at the age of 57, the idea for a narrative struck him like a thunderbolt.
It was the day after Christmas 2009 and Khan fell into 14-hour days of research and writing. By mid-February he'd churned out an epic 550-page novel that offers complex, sympathetic main characters and a timely retelling of Pakistan's recent history.
"The story erupted from me in six weeks," says Khan, who had never written before. "It felt a little like going downhill on a slalom: there were posts in different places, I began to design a path through these posts and, as I got up to, like, 100 pages of this, the characters themselves began to design it for me. It's something of a blur. I was completely possessed."
Possession may be an unusual route to literary success, but in this case it worked. Since its release in July last year, the self-published Sikander has earned a handful of awards, the interest of a prominent publisher and praise from a former Pakistani ambassador.
Khan was born in 1952 in Burewala, Pakistan, to a middle-class Pashtun family forced to leave Delhi during Partition. A few years later the family relocated again, to Karachi, and from there to Doncaster, in the English county of Yorkshire, where Khan went on to study aeronautical engineering.
During a visit to Florida in April 1972, to witness the launch of Apollo 16, he fell in love with the US. He moved to Boston in 1998 and, a decade later, accepted a top marketing and strategy position in Chicago and settled with his wife and six children in the cushy suburb of Lake Forest.
That leafy, wealthy community may have reminded Khan of England, where, as the only non-white student in every one of his schools until university, he had been very aware of his outsider status, had heard the slurs and insinuations. The attacks of September 11, 2001, brought those experiences rushing back.
"9/11 raised the notion of branding," says Khan. "Everyone I think rationally understands that not every Muslim is a terrorist. The brand aspect that bothers me is the perception that Islam itself has a DNA of violence, which is a more insidious undercurrent that runs through the culture."
In the years that followed, Khan became more engaged with the Muslim community, hoping to undermine that perception. He joined the board of a local Islamic school system and the trustees of the Human Development Foundation, a non-profit group focused on development, health care and education in rural Pakistan. He became the publisher of Islamica magazine and began hosting Radio Islam, the lone US talk show focused on Muslim issues. He co-produced a short film called The Boundary, in which a Muslim man, played by the Sudan-born British actor Alexander Siddig, is stopped and interrogated by US immigration officials at New York's JFK airport.
Sikander could be seen as the culmination of those efforts. The story opens in 1986, when Sikander Khan runs away from his Peshawar home at 17 to join the mujaheddin fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan. He falls in with a group of insurgents working with the Haqqani militant network, the British military and Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISI.
Having helped to defeat the Soviets, Sikander returns to Peshawar with his Afghan bride. After 9/11 he goes back to Afghanistan to rescue his wife's relatives and former mujahedden comrades, some of whom had become Taliban. He winds up in the hands of the Americans, who ship him to Guantanamo Bay, where he is tortured during long, intense interrogations. Finally, Sikander gains his release through a family connection to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and returns to Pakistan.
After finishing his novel, Khan sent the manuscript to Akbar Ahmed, a former Pakistani ambassador to the UK and the Ibn Khaldun Chair of Islamic Studies at American University, in Washington, DC. One of the world's leading authorities on Islam, Ahmed has advised the likes of CIA chief David Petraeus and written several dramas about Islam, the US and South Asia. He said Sikander was bold and ambitious, a "Muslim Gone with the Wind".
"Most Muslim writers and scholars have made a mistake by approaching this issue in a defensive and monochromatic matter, arguing we are a people of peace," says Ahmed. "Here we have a multidimensional, multicoloured, multi-generational, multinational picture of modern-day Muslims, with characters that have all the warts and mistakes of real people, and that excited me."
Self-published by Khan's Karakoram Publications, Sikander attracted little attention upon its release. But from March to July of this year it won top honours at book festivals in Los Angeles, Paris, Hollywood and New York, as well as the National Indie Excellence Award for Multi-Cultural Fiction. Khan has trimmed and tightened the novel considerably for the 420-page fourth edition, which has a foreword from Ahmed and is being sent out this month to top review publications and leading publishers, including Little, Brown and Company.
The attention "feels phenomenal", says Khan, who hopes to write another novel, about Partition. But first he hopes Sikander pushes people to think. "Not enough is being done to affect the perception of Muslims through entertainment, or literature in particular," he says. "It's a commentary on today's news, particularly America's news, that everything now has to be squeezed between two commercials."
One name in the US news of late is Jalaluddin Haqqani. The Pashtun mujahideen was a US ally and CIA asset during the Soviet days, which is how he comes into the orbit of Khan's protagonist. Today, Jalaluddin still leads the Haqqani network, a bloody-minded militant group based in Pakistan's tribal region and suspected in the bombing of an armoured Nato bus in Kabul last month that killed 17, including 12 Americans, in the deadliest attack on the US-led coalition in the Afghan capital since the war began. US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal region in late October killed two Al Qaeda senior planners and a deputy in the Haqqani network.
Despite being an enemy of the US, the Haqqanis still work with Pakistan's ISI. "All that happened in Pakistan is that we became a victim of circumstances in the region," said Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's former president, during a lecture at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace last month.
US officials have begun meeting with Haqqani representatives, including Jalaluddin's brother, Ibrahim, in an effort to negotiate a resolution to the Afghan war. "We have to turn our attention here on the Pakistani Taliban, the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani and other terrorist groups and try to get them into a peace process," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said during a recent visit to Islamabad.
Because of its long-term relationship with the Haqqanis, the ISI is instrumental in organising the peace talks. But US-Pakistan relations have deteriorated considerably since American troops invaded Pakistan airspace to kill Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad in May. Observers worry that the ISI and Pakistani military leaders may see little advantage in bringing about legitimate negotiations.
Khan recently delivered a lecture on US relations with Pakistan and Afghanistan at the American Islamic College in Chicago. He accepts that the Pakistani military may still be working with the Haqqani network, as a hedge against future instability in Afghanistan - a real danger with the coming departure of US troops. Pakistani leaders, he says, do not feel the US is acting in their interests; in not pushing for a settlement with India regarding Kashmir, and in working towards a stable Afghanistan, the US is failing to ensure Pakistan's security.
"The American perspective is 'How do we got out of there?'," says Khan. "The strategy is an exit strategy, rather than a strategy strategy. You're really encouraging Pakistan to think independently about its strategic needs, and therefore you are not going to get a solution."
Towards the end of the book, Sikander moves to North Carolina with the help of a cousin and buys a local electrics company, where the head of security turns out to be his Guantanamo tormentor. Rather than succumbing to hate and firing him, Sikander keeps him on, becoming his friend.
"To us in the West, the Taliban and the Haqqani, they're villains and that's it, like comic-book characters," says Ahmed, who hopes to see Sikander made into a film. "But the novel gives you a much more accurate depiction, with all its complexities."
Khan intended the book as a study in the thin veneer of civilisation, an examination of the circumstances that push people towards inhumanity. When Sikander kills for the first time, shooting down a Soviet helicopter, he's shocked at how easy it is. When later faced with his Guantanamo tormentor, he is reminded of this.
"I think a willingness to be cruel and brutal is in me, in you, in us all, really," Sikander tells his torturer. "Once a system encourages operating beyond the reach of law, well then, as you so amply demonstrated, that brutality will only be limited by the forces at our disposal, no matter who we are."
-----
http://www.thenational.ae/arts-culture/books/sikander-a-pakistani-militant-turned-american-business-owner?pageCount=0
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Afghanistan. Show all posts
3.18.2011
Osama and the Arab Spring
By David Lepeska
thenational.ae
In recent months, many observers have viewed the wave of protest sweeping the Middle East as indicative of an increasing drive toward democracy and a repudiation of religious extremism. Not former US intelligence analyst Michael Scheuer -- who is convinced that al Qa'eda and other radical Islamist groups plan to fill the vacuums of power left behind.
"Get rid of the tyranny and take advantage of the aftermath," says Scheuer, referring to Egypt in particular. "I think that's what the Muslim Brotherhood is going to do, and that's what al Qa'eda will try to do. I think it's a situation that benefits them enormously."
Contrarian, Cassandra, or a bit of both, Scheuer seems most comfortable going against the grain. In recent weeks he has been promoting his new book, Osama bin Laden, which argues that Washington's misunderstanding of the al Qa'eda leader has the US fighting the wrong war, the wrong way. The Financial Times called it "a needed corrective to most of the airy generalisations about bin Laden and his followers".
The 59-year-old led the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, then advised his successor from September 2001 until the November 2004 publication of Imperial Hubris. Published anonymously, the book critiqued US counter-terrorism policies and became a bestseller. Found to be its author, Scheuer was thrust into the spotlight and relieved of his CIA duties.
He has since become an equal opportunity offender: denouncing neoconservative nation-building, the invasion of Iraq and the US-Israeli relationship; blaming the Clinton administration for repeated failures to neutralise bin Laden; and criticising fellow authors such as Steve Coll (Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens) and Lawrence Wright, (the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower) for inexpert analyses of Islamic societies.
Sitting in a Chicago hotel, bespectacled and grinning through his grey beard, Scheuer seemed more jolly uncle than monkish analyst. Then he turns to the war on terror. "We're clearly losing," he says. "And it's been through American and western obtuseness, primarily … It's almost like the Marx Brothers are in charge, but the Marx Brothers are smarter - they always win in the end."
For Scheuer, the bungling begins with bin Laden. Most observers believe the al Qa'eda leader and his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, are hiding in the badlands along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Yet continued search efforts have yielded minimal results.
Scheuer offers a litany of reasons. After 25 years in hiding, bin Laden has become an expert fugitive. It also helps that he is pious, generous, patient, deliberate - and highly successful. "There's no one in the last 50 years who has affected American life more negatively than Osama bin Laden," Scheuer adds.
Yet the CIA closed its bin Laden unit in 2005. This office had previously brought the agency's antiterrorism work under one roof, allowing an agent studying al Qa'eda in the Far East to regularly confer with a colleague looking at the Islamic Maghreb. "Now they're across the hall or in another building," Scheuer explains.
He also believes that inadequate troop numbers further undermine Western efforts to snuff out al Qa'eda. In a country bigger than France, the US's 100,000 soldiers "have to keep Karzai in power, help build a democracy, develop the economy, create a transportation and communications infrastructure from scratch, defeat the Taliban, eradicate heroin and go after Osama in their spare time".
Yet since September 11, al Qa'eda's platform has spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia and North Africa. Western forces have reportedly killed thousands of al Qa'eda militants over the years, but these casualties have been replaced by fresh, young fighters. According to Scheuer, insurgencies by their very definition are always pitted against a more powerful enemy. Thus, they place tremendous emphasis on succession.
"The next generation of al Qa'eda is likely to be a little bit more religiously extreme, certainly better educated, more savvy with the tools of modernity and perhaps a little bit more bloody-minded … And we're seeing increasing inroads among young Muslim males, especially in English speaking countries, of al Qa'eda's propaganda."
Scheuer blames two key areas of American foreign policy for continuing to inspire anti-western sentiment. "To say that Israel is a terrible burden and a costly ally for us in the Muslim world is not an opinion, it's a fact," he said.
Controversial in some circles, this view is nothing new for Scheuer. In an April 2009 episode of the Doha Debates, he blamed the Iraq War on "the American fifth column that supports Israel". His opponent, the lawyer and commentator Alan Dershowitz, called him a bigot.
He is also extremely sceptical about America's dependency on foreign oil imports, which he believes compromises the nation's relationship with Saudi Arabia.
"I don't think we can break the status quo of our policies in the Middle East until we do something about energy," adds Scheuer. However, he considers that Obama is unlikely to make that shift with elections looming next year. "In my old age I'm beginning to fear that the only thing that brings change in America is calamity."
His other fear is that this change of policy might come soon. The number of terror plots in the US has increased exponentially. Only last month the FBI arrested a Saudi citizen studying in Texas for plotting to bomb the home of George W Bush). "We're really going to be surprised how many Muslim men in the West turn to violence," says Scheuer.
As for the millions of Arabs turning to nonviolent protest, the received wisdom is that in barely two months they have offered dissatisfied Muslim youth a new path and successfully marginalised al Qa'eda. The leading terrorism analyst and Harvard professor Peter Bergen believes "al Qa'eda is irrelevant" to recent events on Arab streets. The French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu has said that, for al Qa'eda, "it's not just a defeat, it's a catastrophe."
Yet, Scheuer notes, elections and upheaval across the region have often led to a stronger presence for Islam. Islamists won Algeria's 1991 elections (only to be blocked from taking power by the military). Hamas and Hizbollah gained strength through elections in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, respectively, while Iraq's governing coalition also has Islamist leanings. And of course the 1979 revolution in Iran resulted in an unbending theocracy.
Scheuer sees Islamism again creeping across the region. Already in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, violence has returned to the streets and a political party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood has begun to regroup. Support for the Islamic Action Front, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, has increased considerably in recent weeks. In Yemen, where a bloody al Qa'eda affiliate has put down roots, the radical cleric and former bin Laden mentor Abdul Majid al Zindani called last week for the departure of the nation's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
And a recent Pew poll found 95 per cent of Egyptians believed Islam should play a large role in politics, while 85 per cent thought it had positive impact. Add to that, Scheuer contends, the Muslim Brotherhood's experience, deep roots and better organisation than any of the political parties forming in Mubarak's wake and the future appears to be set.
"Do you think 80 million Egyptians, mostly Muslim, in a time of violence, turmoil and chaos, are going to reach for an alien ideology like secular democracy?" asks Scheuer.
------
appeared in the 18 March 2011 The National, www.thenational.ae
thenational.ae
In recent months, many observers have viewed the wave of protest sweeping the Middle East as indicative of an increasing drive toward democracy and a repudiation of religious extremism. Not former US intelligence analyst Michael Scheuer -- who is convinced that al Qa'eda and other radical Islamist groups plan to fill the vacuums of power left behind.
"Get rid of the tyranny and take advantage of the aftermath," says Scheuer, referring to Egypt in particular. "I think that's what the Muslim Brotherhood is going to do, and that's what al Qa'eda will try to do. I think it's a situation that benefits them enormously."
Contrarian, Cassandra, or a bit of both, Scheuer seems most comfortable going against the grain. In recent weeks he has been promoting his new book, Osama bin Laden, which argues that Washington's misunderstanding of the al Qa'eda leader has the US fighting the wrong war, the wrong way. The Financial Times called it "a needed corrective to most of the airy generalisations about bin Laden and his followers".
The 59-year-old led the CIA's bin Laden unit from 1996 to 1999, then advised his successor from September 2001 until the November 2004 publication of Imperial Hubris. Published anonymously, the book critiqued US counter-terrorism policies and became a bestseller. Found to be its author, Scheuer was thrust into the spotlight and relieved of his CIA duties.
He has since become an equal opportunity offender: denouncing neoconservative nation-building, the invasion of Iraq and the US-Israeli relationship; blaming the Clinton administration for repeated failures to neutralise bin Laden; and criticising fellow authors such as Steve Coll (Ghost Wars and The Bin Ladens) and Lawrence Wright, (the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Looming Tower) for inexpert analyses of Islamic societies.
Sitting in a Chicago hotel, bespectacled and grinning through his grey beard, Scheuer seemed more jolly uncle than monkish analyst. Then he turns to the war on terror. "We're clearly losing," he says. "And it's been through American and western obtuseness, primarily … It's almost like the Marx Brothers are in charge, but the Marx Brothers are smarter - they always win in the end."
For Scheuer, the bungling begins with bin Laden. Most observers believe the al Qa'eda leader and his second-in-command, Ayman al Zawahiri, are hiding in the badlands along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border. Yet continued search efforts have yielded minimal results.
Scheuer offers a litany of reasons. After 25 years in hiding, bin Laden has become an expert fugitive. It also helps that he is pious, generous, patient, deliberate - and highly successful. "There's no one in the last 50 years who has affected American life more negatively than Osama bin Laden," Scheuer adds.
Yet the CIA closed its bin Laden unit in 2005. This office had previously brought the agency's antiterrorism work under one roof, allowing an agent studying al Qa'eda in the Far East to regularly confer with a colleague looking at the Islamic Maghreb. "Now they're across the hall or in another building," Scheuer explains.
He also believes that inadequate troop numbers further undermine Western efforts to snuff out al Qa'eda. In a country bigger than France, the US's 100,000 soldiers "have to keep Karzai in power, help build a democracy, develop the economy, create a transportation and communications infrastructure from scratch, defeat the Taliban, eradicate heroin and go after Osama in their spare time".
Yet since September 11, al Qa'eda's platform has spread from Afghanistan to Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, Somalia and North Africa. Western forces have reportedly killed thousands of al Qa'eda militants over the years, but these casualties have been replaced by fresh, young fighters. According to Scheuer, insurgencies by their very definition are always pitted against a more powerful enemy. Thus, they place tremendous emphasis on succession.
"The next generation of al Qa'eda is likely to be a little bit more religiously extreme, certainly better educated, more savvy with the tools of modernity and perhaps a little bit more bloody-minded … And we're seeing increasing inroads among young Muslim males, especially in English speaking countries, of al Qa'eda's propaganda."
Scheuer blames two key areas of American foreign policy for continuing to inspire anti-western sentiment. "To say that Israel is a terrible burden and a costly ally for us in the Muslim world is not an opinion, it's a fact," he said.
Controversial in some circles, this view is nothing new for Scheuer. In an April 2009 episode of the Doha Debates, he blamed the Iraq War on "the American fifth column that supports Israel". His opponent, the lawyer and commentator Alan Dershowitz, called him a bigot.
He is also extremely sceptical about America's dependency on foreign oil imports, which he believes compromises the nation's relationship with Saudi Arabia.
"I don't think we can break the status quo of our policies in the Middle East until we do something about energy," adds Scheuer. However, he considers that Obama is unlikely to make that shift with elections looming next year. "In my old age I'm beginning to fear that the only thing that brings change in America is calamity."
His other fear is that this change of policy might come soon. The number of terror plots in the US has increased exponentially. Only last month the FBI arrested a Saudi citizen studying in Texas for plotting to bomb the home of George W Bush). "We're really going to be surprised how many Muslim men in the West turn to violence," says Scheuer.
As for the millions of Arabs turning to nonviolent protest, the received wisdom is that in barely two months they have offered dissatisfied Muslim youth a new path and successfully marginalised al Qa'eda. The leading terrorism analyst and Harvard professor Peter Bergen believes "al Qa'eda is irrelevant" to recent events on Arab streets. The French scholar Jean-Pierre Filiu has said that, for al Qa'eda, "it's not just a defeat, it's a catastrophe."
Yet, Scheuer notes, elections and upheaval across the region have often led to a stronger presence for Islam. Islamists won Algeria's 1991 elections (only to be blocked from taking power by the military). Hamas and Hizbollah gained strength through elections in the Palestinian territories and Lebanon, respectively, while Iraq's governing coalition also has Islamist leanings. And of course the 1979 revolution in Iran resulted in an unbending theocracy.
Scheuer sees Islamism again creeping across the region. Already in post-Ben Ali Tunisia, violence has returned to the streets and a political party affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood has begun to regroup. Support for the Islamic Action Front, the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Jordan, has increased considerably in recent weeks. In Yemen, where a bloody al Qa'eda affiliate has put down roots, the radical cleric and former bin Laden mentor Abdul Majid al Zindani called last week for the departure of the nation's president, Ali Abdullah Saleh.
And a recent Pew poll found 95 per cent of Egyptians believed Islam should play a large role in politics, while 85 per cent thought it had positive impact. Add to that, Scheuer contends, the Muslim Brotherhood's experience, deep roots and better organisation than any of the political parties forming in Mubarak's wake and the future appears to be set.
"Do you think 80 million Egyptians, mostly Muslim, in a time of violence, turmoil and chaos, are going to reach for an alien ideology like secular democracy?" asks Scheuer.
------
appeared in the 18 March 2011 The National, www.thenational.ae
5.29.2010
Diplomacy works, so to speak
OHA // On a trip to Malaysia in 1989, Thabo Mbeki and his delegation from the African National Congress were forced to find new lodgings after the British prime minister, Margaret Thatcher, refused to share her hotel with “terrorists”.
Yet South Africa’s apartheid leadership had already opened a dialogue with the ANC – the political party of resistance, which decades prior had a militant wing – one that would ultimately bring an end to more than four decades of racial segregation.
Mr Mbeki went on to become president of South Africa. “In the end,” he said, during his keynote speech at the Fifth Annual Al Jazeera Forum on Monday, “the regime understood that even if it continued to resist change, ultimately it saw the negotiations as the only way with which it could bargain for some share of power.”
That theme ran throughout the forum here this week: when a conflict bogs down, talks are often the best route to peace and a share of the spoils for all. The hard part is deciding when, how and with whom to parlay.
“We need to move away from the notion of whether to engage to what kind of engagement,” said Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa programme director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict analyst. He urged the US to talk with supposedly unsavoury elements such as Hamas. “You can’t create peace by self-selecting those with whom you’ll engage.”
Discussion during the three-day event centered around some of the Muslim world’s most pressing problems, including Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan. A Monday session sought alternatives to the great tangle that is the peace process, but delivered mostly denunciations.
South African journalist and commentator Allister Sparks extended the parallels with his homeland, comparing Israel to the apartheid regime and the Palestinian territories to the camps where it kept South Africans from the black majority. “Like the bantustans, they are phoney homelands … used to deny them citizenship,” he said.
Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, attacked the other side. “It is staggering to see, despite the constraints around them, how badly the Palestinian leadership has done,” he said.
Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, was an equal-opportunity offender. He denounced Hamas for attacking civilians, said Israel’s international backers could be seen as supporting an occupation and called out the Arab world.
“Progress has been achieved neither by a charm offensive, such as the Arab Peace Initiative, or an offensive offensive,” he said.
A few possible solutions were presented. Mr Levy envisioned progressives from both sides uniting to create “a coalition, not even cooperation, but all rowing, perhaps, in the direction of 1967 de-occupation”.
Arguing that Palestinians have proven they will never give up their land, Basheer Nafi, a historian and Middle East analyst, said the one-state solution “offers the only genuine resolution to this conflict”.
Many felt that first the fighting had to cease. Ibrahim el Moussaoui, the head of Hizbollah’s media relations, said Hizbollah would not engage the US until it stopped supporting Israeli aggression.
Similarly, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, saw the country’s upcoming peace jirga, concurrent with the launch of the US forces’ campaign in Kandahar, as problematic. “Just imagine I’m talking to you but at the same time your men are attacking my home,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the forum. “This does not work – it has a negative psychological impact.”
Yet precedents abound. Oliver McTernan, the director of the conflict resolution consultancy Forward Thinking, said British officials were in direct contact with the Irish Republic Army throughout most of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Mark Perry, a US foreign affairs analyst, argued that negotiations with Sunnis intensified during the peak of violence in Iraq. “It wasn’t the surge that defeated the insurgents in Iraq, it was talking to them,” he said.
Sparks pointed again to South Africa. “If you wait until terrorists lay down their arms to begin negotiations, you’ll never get started.”
The United States refuses to negotiate directly with the Taliban, Hamas and Hizbollah, in part because it perceives them as terrorists, though others might call them freedom fighters.
Yet the Obama administration has voiced support for Afghan government negotiations with the Taliban. In February, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said: “We are talking to people.” That did not include direct contact with Taliban leaders because they had yet to renounce al Qa’eda, he said.
“The agenda of the Taliban is only a national agenda, not an international agenda,” Mr Muttawakil said during a panel discussing the issue of talking with the Taliban. The distinction distances the Taliban from other caliphate-seeking, pan-Islamist jihadi affiliates of al Qa’eda.
Last week, a Hamas official said the group wanted to establish “open and stable ties” with the United States. “The US and others, they give a distorted image of the resistance,” said Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for Hamas.
Several analysts urged the United States to alter its image of the Taliban and begin talks. The current US plan in Afghanistan is focused on peeling off and “reintegrating” moderate low- and mid-level soldiers in the hopes of weakening the Taliban’s negotiating position.
“Losers cannot be choosers,” said Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, referring to the US.
“This cannot be part of the solution,” Mr Muttawakil agreed. “There are no moderate or hardline Taliban, there is only one Taliban, under Mullah Omar, and they must talk to them.”
This may explain why gains have been minimal.
“Reintegration is not going particularly well,” said Robert Grenier, a consultant and former CIA station chief in Islamabad. “Momentum is building for some sort of political reconciliation that involves the leaders of the insurgency.”
Just last week, Taliban representatives and Afghan government delegates met in the Maldives. Mr Muttawakil dismissed these talks. “There’s a lot of money out there, and some are just using this as a business.”
To negotiate sincerely with Mullah Omar, Mr Muttawakil said, the US and Afghan governments must halt military operations, release Taliban detainees in Guantanamo and Bagram, remove the blacklist of Taliban to be captured or killed and allow the Taliban an office, an address where they can be reached.
“The Taliban don’t trust all these people,” he said. “They don’t believe all the talk.”
The Taliban might be willing to accept the Afghan constitution, which incorporates elements of Sharia. Key negotiating points would involve the system of governance and a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
“It is time to end this war,” said the former Taliban foreign minister.
----
first ran in 28 May The National, www.thenational.ae
Yet South Africa’s apartheid leadership had already opened a dialogue with the ANC – the political party of resistance, which decades prior had a militant wing – one that would ultimately bring an end to more than four decades of racial segregation.
Mr Mbeki went on to become president of South Africa. “In the end,” he said, during his keynote speech at the Fifth Annual Al Jazeera Forum on Monday, “the regime understood that even if it continued to resist change, ultimately it saw the negotiations as the only way with which it could bargain for some share of power.”
That theme ran throughout the forum here this week: when a conflict bogs down, talks are often the best route to peace and a share of the spoils for all. The hard part is deciding when, how and with whom to parlay.
“We need to move away from the notion of whether to engage to what kind of engagement,” said Robert Malley, Middle East and North Africa programme director for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based conflict analyst. He urged the US to talk with supposedly unsavoury elements such as Hamas. “You can’t create peace by self-selecting those with whom you’ll engage.”
Discussion during the three-day event centered around some of the Muslim world’s most pressing problems, including Israel-Palestine and Afghanistan. A Monday session sought alternatives to the great tangle that is the peace process, but delivered mostly denunciations.
South African journalist and commentator Allister Sparks extended the parallels with his homeland, comparing Israel to the apartheid regime and the Palestinian territories to the camps where it kept South Africans from the black majority. “Like the bantustans, they are phoney homelands … used to deny them citizenship,” he said.
Steve Clemons, director of the American Strategy Program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank, attacked the other side. “It is staggering to see, despite the constraints around them, how badly the Palestinian leadership has done,” he said.
Daniel Levy, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation, was an equal-opportunity offender. He denounced Hamas for attacking civilians, said Israel’s international backers could be seen as supporting an occupation and called out the Arab world.
“Progress has been achieved neither by a charm offensive, such as the Arab Peace Initiative, or an offensive offensive,” he said.
A few possible solutions were presented. Mr Levy envisioned progressives from both sides uniting to create “a coalition, not even cooperation, but all rowing, perhaps, in the direction of 1967 de-occupation”.
Arguing that Palestinians have proven they will never give up their land, Basheer Nafi, a historian and Middle East analyst, said the one-state solution “offers the only genuine resolution to this conflict”.
Many felt that first the fighting had to cease. Ibrahim el Moussaoui, the head of Hizbollah’s media relations, said Hizbollah would not engage the US until it stopped supporting Israeli aggression.
Similarly, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, a former Taliban foreign minister, saw the country’s upcoming peace jirga, concurrent with the launch of the US forces’ campaign in Kandahar, as problematic. “Just imagine I’m talking to you but at the same time your men are attacking my home,” he said in an interview on the sidelines of the forum. “This does not work – it has a negative psychological impact.”
Yet precedents abound. Oliver McTernan, the director of the conflict resolution consultancy Forward Thinking, said British officials were in direct contact with the Irish Republic Army throughout most of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
Mark Perry, a US foreign affairs analyst, argued that negotiations with Sunnis intensified during the peak of violence in Iraq. “It wasn’t the surge that defeated the insurgents in Iraq, it was talking to them,” he said.
Sparks pointed again to South Africa. “If you wait until terrorists lay down their arms to begin negotiations, you’ll never get started.”
The United States refuses to negotiate directly with the Taliban, Hamas and Hizbollah, in part because it perceives them as terrorists, though others might call them freedom fighters.
Yet the Obama administration has voiced support for Afghan government negotiations with the Taliban. In February, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, said: “We are talking to people.” That did not include direct contact with Taliban leaders because they had yet to renounce al Qa’eda, he said.
“The agenda of the Taliban is only a national agenda, not an international agenda,” Mr Muttawakil said during a panel discussing the issue of talking with the Taliban. The distinction distances the Taliban from other caliphate-seeking, pan-Islamist jihadi affiliates of al Qa’eda.
Last week, a Hamas official said the group wanted to establish “open and stable ties” with the United States. “The US and others, they give a distorted image of the resistance,” said Osama Hamdan, a spokesman for Hamas.
Several analysts urged the United States to alter its image of the Taliban and begin talks. The current US plan in Afghanistan is focused on peeling off and “reintegrating” moderate low- and mid-level soldiers in the hopes of weakening the Taliban’s negotiating position.
“Losers cannot be choosers,” said Hamid Gul, former head of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Agency, referring to the US.
“This cannot be part of the solution,” Mr Muttawakil agreed. “There are no moderate or hardline Taliban, there is only one Taliban, under Mullah Omar, and they must talk to them.”
This may explain why gains have been minimal.
“Reintegration is not going particularly well,” said Robert Grenier, a consultant and former CIA station chief in Islamabad. “Momentum is building for some sort of political reconciliation that involves the leaders of the insurgency.”
Just last week, Taliban representatives and Afghan government delegates met in the Maldives. Mr Muttawakil dismissed these talks. “There’s a lot of money out there, and some are just using this as a business.”
To negotiate sincerely with Mullah Omar, Mr Muttawakil said, the US and Afghan governments must halt military operations, release Taliban detainees in Guantanamo and Bagram, remove the blacklist of Taliban to be captured or killed and allow the Taliban an office, an address where they can be reached.
“The Taliban don’t trust all these people,” he said. “They don’t believe all the talk.”
The Taliban might be willing to accept the Afghan constitution, which incorporates elements of Sharia. Key negotiating points would involve the system of governance and a timeline for the withdrawal of foreign troops.
“It is time to end this war,” said the former Taliban foreign minister.
----
first ran in 28 May The National, www.thenational.ae
1.17.2010
Is the Karzai government worth Western blood and treasure?
Doha// “The Bush administration is guilty of a dereliction of duty,” said Lawrence Korb, assistant secretary of defense during the Reagan Administration, referring to the ongoing war in Afghanistan.
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
“It was criminal, what the United States did,” Korb explained. “A lot of the problems we're seeing today are a result of the fact that we went in there, created a vacuum and then walked away...President Bush promised a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan, and then never followed up.”
A full house packed the Education City studio of the BBC's Doha Debates this week as an accomplished panel took up the motion: “This House does not believe that this Afghan government is worth fighting for.” More than eight years after the US-led invasion, international forces are bogged down in guerrilla warfare with a resurgent Taliban while the President Hamid Karzai-led government is charged with election fraud, corruption and ineffectiveness.
Assisted by their host, BBC presenter Tim Sebastian, the panelists engaged in verbal battle on the legitimacy of the Karzai government, the need for international forces and the components of democracy, before a slim majority of the audience – 51 percent to 49 percent – voted to carry the motion.
“Afghanistan never wanted to be host for long to foreign troops – this is the history of Afghanistan, this is our nature,” said Shukria Barakzai, Mr Korb's co-panelist and a member of the Afghan parliament.
She was responding to a question from the audience about why the Afghan people do not protest against the continued presence of US-led forces. “But right now, we are a little baby,” she said, “and until we can stand on our own feet, we need it.”
Mr Korb pointed to the example of Iraq, where US forces had begun pulling out and would be out completely by the end of next year. “I'm very happy that President Obama, in announcing a troop increase in Afghanistan, also talked about a deadline,” he said. “The message is that this government has to clean up its act.”
Mirwais Yasini, deputy speaker of the Lower House of the Afghan parliament who briefly ran for Afghan president last year, did not see that happening anytime soon. “There is no security, there is corruption, there's no reconciliation, there are no services for Afghan citizens,” he said. “Democracy is just a slogan...we are establishing a very dirty precedent.”
Yasini's co-panelist, former US Ambassador Peter Galbraith, was fired last year from his post as a United Nations envoy to Afghanistan for accusing his boss of concealing election fraud. He said the government could not provide the security, rule of law and services necessary to support the US-led war.
“A government that is ineffective and in office by fraud cannot win the support of the population,” said Mr Galbraith. “It cannot do what it needs to make a counter-insurgency strategy work.”
Standing up from his seat in the audience, the Afghan Ambassador to Qatar, Wali Monawar, asked what sort of alternatives Mr Galbraith might offer to the current government. Mr Galbraith suggested a new election or a power-sharing political system.
Mr Sebastian pressed the point. “There is no other government,” he said. “This is the Afghan government, however ineffective or corrupt, however it fails to meet your expectations.”
Mr Galbraith pointed to the one million phoney votes estimated by European Union monitors. “Tim,” he said, “you cannot say that a govt that is in office by massive fraud is a legitimate government.”
“What do you expect?” responded Mr Sebastian. “It's hard enough to get a fair election in the United States.”
Ms Barakzai pointed out that President Karzai had received the support of the Afghan people three times – in a 2002 loya jirga, or meeting of elders, in the first presidential election, in 2004, and again last year. “Democracy is not a product,” she said. “It's always a process and this process takes decades and generations.”
“But why must it take decades and generations?” asked Mr Sebastian.
Ms Barakzia responded, “How long did it take your country to establish democracy?”
A BBC/ABC poll released this week found 68 per cent of Afghans saw the government as heading in the right direction. And Mr Korb viewed the Afghan Parliament's recent rejection of 17 of Mr Karzai's 24 proposed cabinet members as a “great step forward” for democracy. “We tend to confuse elections with democracy,” he said. “It's civil society that you have to build, that's the key thing.”
Meanwhile, Amnesty International, a rights group, said the Karzai government shows “blatant impunity” for human rights, and has released at least five major drug leaders. Further, Mr Galbraith said last year's election fraud “disenfranchised every Afghan who cast an honest vote.”
Yet more than 500 international troops died in Afghanistan in 2009.
“They're dying for the chance to give Afghans a chance to choose their own destiny,” he said. “We're interested in helping the Afghan people make their own choices, and they have a limited amount of time..after a few years we will have done all that we can.”
2.27.2009
Is Afghanistan Winnable?
Unwinnable.
That's what some analysts are calling Afghanistan, a label of great concern to the aid community as this war has become largely a hearts-and-minds affair.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton are reviewing the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to put together a new strategy before the next NATO summit in April.
The picture is not pretty.
Four Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Feb. 24, bringing the coalition death toll to 29 this year – more than double the total killed in the first two months of 2008 and the most since the war began in late 2001. Civilian casualties jumped in the past year, while kidnappings, assassinations and other attacks on the teetering Afghan government increased sharply. The Taliban are now established in 72 percent of the country, up from 54 percent a year ago.
In response, President Obama recently approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops, which will bring the U.S. total to more than 50,000. But the increased military presence is a risky step. More foreign troops are likely to bring more violence, which will lead to an increase in what David Kilcullen calls "accidental guerrillas" or locals who haphazardly take up arms against an invader, as many southern Afghans do when a battle erupts between coalition troops and the Taliban.
Thus in building schools and hospitals, solidifying government institutions and rebuilding infrastructure, successful aid and development efforts are integral to securing and stabilizing Afghanistan. Fortunately, both the European Union and NATO have in the past week intimated their willingness to boost aid.
But making Afghan aid effective has proven to be a near impossibility. Kickbacks, profiteering and all variety of corruption and incompetence are rampant, not only within the Afghan government but also among aid agencies and subcontractors.
Up to $5 billion has already been wasted, even as hundreds of thousands of Afghans are suffering from a severe drought in the north. Further, a lack of oversight and accountability leads to skimming at every level, resulting in failed and faulty projects. Finally, aid workers are increasingly under threat from attacks and kidnappings by al-Qaida, the Taliban and rogue criminals.
A recent study by a collection of U.K. aid agencies and European non-governmental organizations unveiled another problem:
"The deteriorating violence in Afghanistan does not primarily result from poverty, nor will economic incentives buy support for an opposed military presence or government. Following a long history of aid and military intervention, including during the Soviet occupation, Afghans are familiar with and suspicious of 'hearts and minds' strategies. Furthermore, aid represents a small component of most Afghans' coping strategies in times of conflict and transition. Predominant strategies include communal cooperation on rehabilitation and remittances. Interviewees in Paktia and Uruzgan repeatedly argued that security would be more fundamentally linked to improved governance and the removal of unsavory characters from positions of power."
Such perspectives are all the more convincing coming from Afghans themselves, particularly in light of seven years of fitful progress at best. With the emphasis on aid, an effective Afghanistan strategy must:
1. Incorporate clarified and shared goals. As detailed in a recent policy paper from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the people of Afghanistan – and Pakistan, for that matter – must believe their security and prosperity are the key concern of all aid and military efforts. To that end, the U.S., EU and NATO allies, along with the development community, must iterate a unified plan with achievable targets, and stick to it.
2. Involve less contracting and subcontracting, and greater oversight. Aid agencies and project implementers must take greater control and responsibility for their work – and be held accountable for it. Such adjustments will not be easy, but they are necessary if aid agencies and NGOs are to ultimately succeed in building a more stable society.
3. Focus on governance and local democracy promotion in a few key provinces. Nothing is holding back progress in Afghanistan as much as a lack of national, regional and civic leadership. Civil society organizations, democracy promotion and community involvement need to be cornerstones of regional development strategies in Helmand, Uruzgan and along the border with Pakistan, from provincial to village levels. An underlying cause of Taliban resurgence, for example, is the drug trade, which remains successful mainly because governors and other officials are given near impunity to oversee poppy farming and opium smuggling. Efforts are being made to cut back production and improve security, but aid projects need to work the other end – removing corrupt warlords and putting legitimate, democratically-elected leaders in place.
A majority of Americans still support a renewed effort to salvage Afghanistan, but U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke predicted "a long, difficult struggle" that will be "much tougher than Iraq." It could be considerably longer and more difficult if the international community fails to implement the security and economic development projects that can provide a foundation for stable democratic institutions.
--
Posted to Devex.com on February 27, 2009
That's what some analysts are calling Afghanistan, a label of great concern to the aid community as this war has become largely a hearts-and-minds affair.
U.S. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hilary Clinton are reviewing the security situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan in order to put together a new strategy before the next NATO summit in April.
The picture is not pretty.
Four Americans were killed by a roadside bomb in southern Afghanistan on Feb. 24, bringing the coalition death toll to 29 this year – more than double the total killed in the first two months of 2008 and the most since the war began in late 2001. Civilian casualties jumped in the past year, while kidnappings, assassinations and other attacks on the teetering Afghan government increased sharply. The Taliban are now established in 72 percent of the country, up from 54 percent a year ago.
In response, President Obama recently approved the deployment of an additional 17,000 troops, which will bring the U.S. total to more than 50,000. But the increased military presence is a risky step. More foreign troops are likely to bring more violence, which will lead to an increase in what David Kilcullen calls "accidental guerrillas" or locals who haphazardly take up arms against an invader, as many southern Afghans do when a battle erupts between coalition troops and the Taliban.
Thus in building schools and hospitals, solidifying government institutions and rebuilding infrastructure, successful aid and development efforts are integral to securing and stabilizing Afghanistan. Fortunately, both the European Union and NATO have in the past week intimated their willingness to boost aid.
But making Afghan aid effective has proven to be a near impossibility. Kickbacks, profiteering and all variety of corruption and incompetence are rampant, not only within the Afghan government but also among aid agencies and subcontractors.
Up to $5 billion has already been wasted, even as hundreds of thousands of Afghans are suffering from a severe drought in the north. Further, a lack of oversight and accountability leads to skimming at every level, resulting in failed and faulty projects. Finally, aid workers are increasingly under threat from attacks and kidnappings by al-Qaida, the Taliban and rogue criminals.
A recent study by a collection of U.K. aid agencies and European non-governmental organizations unveiled another problem:
"The deteriorating violence in Afghanistan does not primarily result from poverty, nor will economic incentives buy support for an opposed military presence or government. Following a long history of aid and military intervention, including during the Soviet occupation, Afghans are familiar with and suspicious of 'hearts and minds' strategies. Furthermore, aid represents a small component of most Afghans' coping strategies in times of conflict and transition. Predominant strategies include communal cooperation on rehabilitation and remittances. Interviewees in Paktia and Uruzgan repeatedly argued that security would be more fundamentally linked to improved governance and the removal of unsavory characters from positions of power."
Such perspectives are all the more convincing coming from Afghans themselves, particularly in light of seven years of fitful progress at best. With the emphasis on aid, an effective Afghanistan strategy must:
1. Incorporate clarified and shared goals. As detailed in a recent policy paper from the Center for Strategic & International Studies, the people of Afghanistan – and Pakistan, for that matter – must believe their security and prosperity are the key concern of all aid and military efforts. To that end, the U.S., EU and NATO allies, along with the development community, must iterate a unified plan with achievable targets, and stick to it.
2. Involve less contracting and subcontracting, and greater oversight. Aid agencies and project implementers must take greater control and responsibility for their work – and be held accountable for it. Such adjustments will not be easy, but they are necessary if aid agencies and NGOs are to ultimately succeed in building a more stable society.
3. Focus on governance and local democracy promotion in a few key provinces. Nothing is holding back progress in Afghanistan as much as a lack of national, regional and civic leadership. Civil society organizations, democracy promotion and community involvement need to be cornerstones of regional development strategies in Helmand, Uruzgan and along the border with Pakistan, from provincial to village levels. An underlying cause of Taliban resurgence, for example, is the drug trade, which remains successful mainly because governors and other officials are given near impunity to oversee poppy farming and opium smuggling. Efforts are being made to cut back production and improve security, but aid projects need to work the other end – removing corrupt warlords and putting legitimate, democratically-elected leaders in place.
A majority of Americans still support a renewed effort to salvage Afghanistan, but U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooke predicted "a long, difficult struggle" that will be "much tougher than Iraq." It could be considerably longer and more difficult if the international community fails to implement the security and economic development projects that can provide a foundation for stable democratic institutions.
--
Posted to Devex.com on February 27, 2009
10.24.2008
Leading Afghan Blogger Speaks
Despite decades of civil war, marauding Taliban and deadly military air strikes, Afghans have experienced some changes for the better over recent years. Health facilities, schools and roads have improved, and a fledgling media industry is finding its feet. Bloggers are off to a fast start, with Nasim Fekrat, also known as Afghan Lord, leading the way. This 25-year-old ethnic Hazara knows all too well the dangers of self-expression, but believes freedom of speech is vital if Afghanistan is to leave its bloody past behind.
When I was 11 years old my father pushed me to pray and I would not pray. One night my father raised his hands to the sky and said: "Please god, take Nasim. Kill him, take him back – I don't want him." He did this in front of me and my siblings and nobody said anything. That evening I couldn't sleep. I was thinking death would come right at that moment. I was so scared, thinking god would come to take me soon, that I kept moving my hands and legs to make sure I wasn't dead.
My mother was kind to me. After my father kicked me out of our house she gave me blankets and told me: "I can't help you, your father is very stubborn, but go to the roof and sleep there." Eventually I left and went to Kabul where a local family took me in. All I did after that was read books.
When I created my first blog I used a pseudonym – I wanted to escape my identity and to be neutral. I told people I was born in Afghanistan but that was it. I didn't want to be seen as one type of person or another. Now in my writing it's no secret: people know I'm Hazara.
I'm not a practising Muslim, I'm agnostic. Another blogger has been calling me out as a non-Muslim. I know people realise from my English writing that I don't believe in god, but in my Farsi blog I'm trying to keep that a secret. I'm not sure I'm succeeding.
In Afghanistan, when you write your opinion in the public sphere, you are labelled a racist. I've been receiving a lot of threats. Someone by the name of Coffin posted on my blog, saying "Soon I will find you", and I also received an email that said "Your days are numbered". People approach me from aid organisations that don't exist. But I've been dealing with this since 2004 when the police shut down the satirical magazine I had started, so these sorts of things are very normal for me now.
Our life, or our society, is completely different from in the west. I told my friends that as long as you have bread to eat here in Afghanistan, don't go to Europe; in Europe we are not treated as human beings. Our looks are different, our ways different. It takes a long time to match with them, to understand. When I went to Hamburg I asked two German people for directions and they completely ignored me; they turned and walked away. So I tell my friends, if you want to go to Europe, fine, just visit for a little while and come back.
Newspaper media is very new in our society. There were just one or two newspapers up until the Soviet era, which were only propaganda for political parties. At that time freedom of speech had little meaning. Now, with people coming back from Iran and other countries, Afghans are more educated, they are more interested in news and in reading. We now have more than 20 daily papers and 100 weeklies.
I don't read Afghan newspapers; most of them are not independent. They are biased towards a specific political party or organisation, or whichever donor is giving them money. We don't have a situation here in which very few people earn enough money to publish a newspaper.
All that I write is with a view to making an Afghan thinktank. I want to bring independent thinkers together who can talk about Afghanistan in a different way. I don't want a repeat of our history of massacres and tragedy. This has become my mission.
One thing I still don't know is how to deal with the past. Afghan history is full of genocide and bloodletting – and we still have warlords wielding power. So writing about the past, dealing with it, is kind of taboo in this society. It doesn't matter who you are – if you are Pashtun, Uzbek, Hazara, Tajik – whatever you write, somebody will attack you. People think we should just forget the past.
Nowadays when I see my father I kiss his hands, but he is not happy with me. He regrets what he asked god for, to take me. I can read that in his eyes. But I forgive him. Because at that moment I decided I wanted to be a man for myself, not for my father. It made me very strong and able to take care of myself. In my life, whatever I wished for, I reached out and grabbed it.
• Nasim Fekrat was speaking to David Lepeska in Kabul.
--this interview was published at http://www.guardianweekly.co.uk/ on October 17.
Left Out in the Cold
CHAR-E-QAMBAR, Afghanistan- When the fighting came to his village in south Helmand, Abdul Rahman gathered his wife and seven children and fled to this bulging refugee camp on the Western edge of Kabul. Five months later the steely-eyed 35-year-old is questioning his decision.
"We are only getting food if I can find work in the city, which does not happen very much," Rahman says through an interpreter, scanning the mud walls and torn plastic roofing of his home away from home. "My children go to sleep hungry. We have no money and nobody is helping us."
Rahman is not an exception at Char-e-Qambar, where as a result of bureaucratic balderdash, minimal health care and almost no foreign aid an estimated 5,000 Afghans are struggling to survive.
Not a refugee camp?
The United Nations High Commission for Refugees estimates there are about 250,000 internally displaced people in Afghanistan and 3.4 million Afghan refugees in Iraq and Afghanistan - the fallout of three decades of conflict. Those numbers are rising as the insurgency intensifies and insecurity spreads across Afghanistan and into Pakistan's tribal areas, from where 20,000 fled into Afghanistan in late September.
The village of Char-e-Qambar lies a dozen kilometers southwest of central Kabul. Here, on an open expanse of desert under looming mountains and a blazing sun, nearly 900 Afghan families have squeezed into a tight, ramshackle collection of tents, tarps and mud homes.
The first trickle appeared in mid-2006 but the majority arrived in early 2008, fleeing intense fighting between the Taliban and international forces in southern Afghanistan. More arrive every day, yet to UNHCR this is not a refugee camp.
"It's not officially a camp - it's a spontaneous settlement," says Nadir Farhad, spokesman for UNHCR in Afghanistan. "The decision to open a camp is totally the government of Afghanistan's. Then it can be backed by international organizations such as UNHCR and we would be responsible for the camp and be able to provide them with proper, monthly assistance."
An Afghan Ministry of Refugees spokesman says the government is conducting a survey to determine the status of camp residents - refugee, internally displaced, or other. But on several visits Devex failed to find a residents who had recently been visited by a government representative or filled out a questionnaire.
"To the best of my knowledge many are not really IDPs," Farhad says of the camp residents. "They are just squatters."
Either way, UNHCR's stance may be inaccurate.
"The government has the primary responsibility for the welfare of its people but UNHCR and other agencies have a mandate to respond to vulnerable individuals in situations of displacement," says Patrick Duplat, an advocate for the pressure group Refugees International, in an e-mail.
He added that the government does not need to make any official declarations for aid to move in - a view confirmed by a spokesperson for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Afghanistan, and other aid outfits. Duplat, who co-authored a recently released report on the refugee and IDP situation in Afghanistan, has not visited Char-e-Qambar but is aware that many residents do not receive adequate aid.
"If people are suffering," says Duplat, "it's because the response has been poor at all levels, but it is not due to a bureaucratic impediment."
Darkness falls
Makeshift, multi-colored tents press up close to hand-packed mud walls, leaving foot-wide passageways in some spots. The stench of sewage and rotting food lurks around every corner. Gaggles of wide-eyed children, some with distended bellies, prawl dusty alleyways in torn clothes, looking to relieve their hunger-borne boredom. Housewives with little to do - there is no food to cook, no house or clothes to clean - peer out from behind tent flaps, scanning for their children or good news.
In the afternoon, long-bearded men retreat from the desert sun. In dark, windowless tents they speak in low, solemn tones, the phrase "Insh'allah," or god willing, never far from their lips.
"My daughter has been sick for two or three weeks," Abdul Rahman says matter-of-factly, sitting next to his 10-year-old daughter, who lies prone, moaning and occasionally twisting her rail-thin body. "Sometimes she gets fever, sometimes she gets sick in all her body, sometimes she's bleeding from her nose and mouth."
Rahman has taken her to the camp's clinic, to no avail. Run by the Education Health Bureau of Afghanistan, a small local NGO funded by the Dutch government, the clinic operates out of a tent near the camp entrance three days a week, offering consultation and free medicine.
Pharmacist Asadrullah Siddiqui, 23, is overwhelmed with 60 or more patients per day. He has more than 100 medicines but is often unable to supply what residents need.
"The health is bad here because there's no clean water and no full meals," Siddiqui tells Devex. "It will most likely get worse during the winter."
Unable to find adequate care at the clinic Rahman went to a doctor in Kabul, who prescribed medicines costing 12,500 Afghanis, or $250. Rahman has no money, so he carries a prescription on a piece of paper everywhere he goes, hoping someone will help buy the medicine to cure his daughter.
Many camp residents are similarly desperate.
"The Americans, when the Taliban attacked our village, they just started attacking everyone," says Dadgul. The 25-year-old from Helmand, who like many Afghans goes by one name, barely escaped the fighting with his wife and three young children. "We haven't been given any food and I can't find work. This will be a long winter."
Sorgul Kasho, also from Helmand, has three children and is building a new mud room for his home, hoping it would keep his family warm during the winter.
"Sometimes we can find work and eat, sometimes we do not," the 36-year-old says. "Our children are crying for food, but we cannot feed them."
Dribs and drabs
Aid agencies and their backers have in recent months cut back their efforts because of targeted attacks and deteriorating security. Indeed, as Duplat points out in his report, refugees and the displaced have received less humanitarian aid as a result of increasing insecurity.
But Char-e-Qambar is on the edge of Kabul - headquarters for the international community and the safest place in Afghanistan.
"The ICRC concentrates its activities with regard to assisting displaced persons on the direct conflict zones," says Franz Rauchenstein, ICRC spokesman. "In Kabul and its surroundings other humanitarian actors, including the government, have access themselves."
Less than five miles from the camp, foreign workers sip frothy mocha chais and nosh on cheeseburgers at Chaila, a hip garden cafe in Karta Se. In the evenings, expat staffers and consultants kibbitz over cocktails with a foot in the pool at L'Atmosphere, a few clicks further east.
"I know they are living in a poor condition, it's very hard," says Farhad during an interview in his office at the sprawling, heavily secured headquarters of UNHCR Afghanistan. "Our preferred solution for the IDPs is to go back to their place of origin if security permits it. If the security doesn't permit it we do our utmost to provide assistance where they are."
Aid has trickled in since the spring. In July, UNHCR delivered "winterization assistance" - lanterns, blankets, small bags of coal and dozens of white plastic tarps, which can be seen underneath rags and cloth coverings on rooftops. The Afghan government delivered hundreds of 10kg bags of flour that same month.
"Still our tents are too old, we have no food, and the medical assistance is no good," says Noor Mohamed, a 26-year-old father of two from Uruzgan. "When they brought the bags of flour the police took more than half of them, to sell for profit. Please you must tell people to help us."
The Afghan Ministry says it handed out cash awards of US$100 to each family in May. Some camp residents say they received the hand-out, others complain that it was only given to the newer arrivals from the south. In August, soldiers from the Kabul headquarters of the International Security Assistance Force passed out Meals Ready-to-Eat, but only enough for a couple hundred families.
"The situation with the internally displaced in Afghanistan is of grave concern," says Duplat, from Refugees International. "The international community were not and are still not set up to respond to humanitarian crises. Rather, the emphasis is put on longer-term development and institution building, at the expense of humanitarian activities."
The lone aid group providing humanitarian assistance daily is a local outfit. Since spring, Kabul-based Aschiana has been running boys and girls schools in tents near the camp entrance. Six days a week Mohammed Wahid leads classes in Dari and Pashto before the children are fed a meal of bread and bean soup. At lunchtime, hungry families come to share their son or daughter's food, which often leads to fighting.
"Winter is near, and last year many children died due to cold weather," says Engineer Yousef, Aschiana's founding director. "If they don't receive any aid this year maybe children will die as well because the prices of food and heating have both gone up."
A bitter winter looms
In late August, an American air strike near Herat killed 90 civilians, including 60 children, according to the United Nations. This most bloody American attack added to 2008's record total of civilian deaths. The following week the British charity Oxfam warned that Afghanistan could be facing one of its harshest winters in 20 years, putting up to 9 million poor and displaced at serious risk. With drought, rising food prices and a renewed insurgency compounding the problem, the group urged the international community to act quickly to avoid a "humanitarian crisis."
Yet many aid agencies are short on staff and most have curbed operations in light of increasing insecurity across the country - particularly in the area immediately surrounding Kabul.
Duplat sees a broader, systemic problem. He acknowledges the insecurity, but says the U.N. Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's humanitarian branch "remains inadequately staffed." The result is poor coordination and few opportunities for advocates to raise humanitarian concerns. The Char-e-Qambar neglect may thus be of a piece with the international community's fitful progress in improving the lot of Afghans.
"Until there is a real humanitarian coordination both in Kabul and in the provinces," Duplat says, "delivery of emergency services - including responding to internal displacement - will remain inadequate."
-- posted to devex.com on October 13.
Former Street Child Offers Afghan Children Education, Better Life
KABUL, Afghanistan - Engineer Mohammad Yousef settled comfortably into a strong, cushioned chair before spitting out his coming-of-age tale all in a rush.
"During the civil war my father was killed by a bombing and people told my mother to go to the streets and beg but I didn't want that so I stopped my schooling," said the 39-year-old from Ghazni province, sitting in his corner office across from Shahr-e-Nau park in Kabul. "I became like a street child and earned some hand-outs to feed my mother, my sister and myself and then I noticed so many kids on the streets and I was thinking: Why we should not do something for these children? They want to become educated. They have the talent, they have the capacity and they want to become a good member of the community but the war has put them in a very bad condition."
At that time Kabul had about 10,000 street children and Yousef, then 20, went around the city asking everyone he knew and many he didn't know for funds to start a school.
"Most people thought I wanted to make an army with all these children so they wouldn't help me," Yousef recalled with a half smile.
Years of rejection passed until the American newswire Reuters offered a few thousand dollars in 1995. Yousef found a few abandoned offices, hired a couple teachers and chose the name Aschiana, which means "bird's nest" in Dari and symbolizes protection. Within a few years funding appeared from the Canadian International Development Agency, CARE International and the United Nations Children's Fund. It's been mostly smooth sailing ever since.
"Last year we had 10,000 students at seven schools and four outreach centers in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, and Parhwan," said Yousef of his organization, which now teaches refugee children as well. "So we're doing alright."
These days, an estimated 70,000 street children run loose in Kabul, hawking maps and newspapers, begging for change, and committing minor crimes at the urging of small-time gangsters. Tens of thousands more wrestle daily with hunger and idleness in cities and displacement camps across the country. For all of them Aschiana offers safety, shelter, nourishment and a sense of self, not to mention the possibility of a better life.
On a bright September afternoon sunlight streaks into a row of clean, narrow classrooms at Aschiana's Shahr-e-Nau school, where well-behaved youngsters sat rapt. In one, young girls stepped up to a blackboard and confidently called out a series of prime numbers with a pointer. In another, a rail-thin boy furrowed his brow and tucked his tongue over his lip while carving an intricate design on top of a wooden jewel box.
"I like working with wood," said 12-year-old Mohammad Balk'l, looking up. "Someday I would like to build a cabinet."
He's ambitious, not unlike the Aschiana curriculum: basic literacy, math, English, woodworking, computers, geography, physical education, arts and music. The students are aged 7 to 17, and Yousef recently added anti-drug and HIV/AIDS programs. Every student receives a full meal and must take Yousef's favorite course, peace education.
"Most of the time children learn violence, in the street, in the house; they hear about bombs," he said. "It is important that we are thinking about peace and safety and security in the future."
This year, however, Aschiana's future clouded. After months of delay in payment its main donor, the European Commission, told Yousef they were reassessing their donation. Aschiana had to scale back operations but Yousef hopes it's just temporary - in September the EC said it would release the funds soon.
Yet somehow the organization has been able to expand its reach - it's the only non-governmental organization working daily at the Char-e-Qambar refugee camp on the edge of Kabul. Since April, Aschiana has run seperate boys and girls schools there, feeding each student a lunch of bean soup and bread.
"I went and saw the situation out there and decided to work there, also hoping to gain attention of government and other NGOs to help," said Yousef, who noted that Aschiana required no special clearance because it has an agreement with the government to work in any part of Afghanistan. "These children are displaced due to war so if we can make them busy with some activities they forget the risks of war."
Aschiana is looking to grow. The life of street children in Afghanistan has taken a darker turn in recent years, with kids as young eight or 10 selling drugs and getting involved in kidnappings and even murders.
"In the future we will work with marginalized children to integrate them into the community," said Yousef. He has spoken with the police and plans to create a special class for child criminals and an emergency shelter for the most at-risk children. "There's a lot more we can do."
Yousef has begun looking outside Afghanistan for help. Only one Westerner works at Aschiana but the organization is seeking more English-speakers to contact donors and win funding, to handle the budget and communicate with international aid groups. Full-time hires as well as volunteers and interns are welcome.
"We need people with experience in development, education, psychology, management and IT," Yousef said.
Just down the hall sunlight streamed into a high-ceilinged gym, where boys in baggy judo outfits lined up to flip, kick and tumble on green and red rubber mats.
"I don't like being on the outside," said Ahmed as he paused to catch his breath. The 10-year-old from Panjshir has lived on the streets of Kabul since he was about 6. "This is so much better."
"During the civil war my father was killed by a bombing and people told my mother to go to the streets and beg but I didn't want that so I stopped my schooling," said the 39-year-old from Ghazni province, sitting in his corner office across from Shahr-e-Nau park in Kabul. "I became like a street child and earned some hand-outs to feed my mother, my sister and myself and then I noticed so many kids on the streets and I was thinking: Why we should not do something for these children? They want to become educated. They have the talent, they have the capacity and they want to become a good member of the community but the war has put them in a very bad condition."
At that time Kabul had about 10,000 street children and Yousef, then 20, went around the city asking everyone he knew and many he didn't know for funds to start a school.
"Most people thought I wanted to make an army with all these children so they wouldn't help me," Yousef recalled with a half smile.
Years of rejection passed until the American newswire Reuters offered a few thousand dollars in 1995. Yousef found a few abandoned offices, hired a couple teachers and chose the name Aschiana, which means "bird's nest" in Dari and symbolizes protection. Within a few years funding appeared from the Canadian International Development Agency, CARE International and the United Nations Children's Fund. It's been mostly smooth sailing ever since.
"Last year we had 10,000 students at seven schools and four outreach centers in Kabul, Mazar-e-Sharif, Herat, and Parhwan," said Yousef of his organization, which now teaches refugee children as well. "So we're doing alright."
These days, an estimated 70,000 street children run loose in Kabul, hawking maps and newspapers, begging for change, and committing minor crimes at the urging of small-time gangsters. Tens of thousands more wrestle daily with hunger and idleness in cities and displacement camps across the country. For all of them Aschiana offers safety, shelter, nourishment and a sense of self, not to mention the possibility of a better life.
On a bright September afternoon sunlight streaks into a row of clean, narrow classrooms at Aschiana's Shahr-e-Nau school, where well-behaved youngsters sat rapt. In one, young girls stepped up to a blackboard and confidently called out a series of prime numbers with a pointer. In another, a rail-thin boy furrowed his brow and tucked his tongue over his lip while carving an intricate design on top of a wooden jewel box.
"I like working with wood," said 12-year-old Mohammad Balk'l, looking up. "Someday I would like to build a cabinet."
He's ambitious, not unlike the Aschiana curriculum: basic literacy, math, English, woodworking, computers, geography, physical education, arts and music. The students are aged 7 to 17, and Yousef recently added anti-drug and HIV/AIDS programs. Every student receives a full meal and must take Yousef's favorite course, peace education.
"Most of the time children learn violence, in the street, in the house; they hear about bombs," he said. "It is important that we are thinking about peace and safety and security in the future."
This year, however, Aschiana's future clouded. After months of delay in payment its main donor, the European Commission, told Yousef they were reassessing their donation. Aschiana had to scale back operations but Yousef hopes it's just temporary - in September the EC said it would release the funds soon.
Yet somehow the organization has been able to expand its reach - it's the only non-governmental organization working daily at the Char-e-Qambar refugee camp on the edge of Kabul. Since April, Aschiana has run seperate boys and girls schools there, feeding each student a lunch of bean soup and bread.
"I went and saw the situation out there and decided to work there, also hoping to gain attention of government and other NGOs to help," said Yousef, who noted that Aschiana required no special clearance because it has an agreement with the government to work in any part of Afghanistan. "These children are displaced due to war so if we can make them busy with some activities they forget the risks of war."
Aschiana is looking to grow. The life of street children in Afghanistan has taken a darker turn in recent years, with kids as young eight or 10 selling drugs and getting involved in kidnappings and even murders.
"In the future we will work with marginalized children to integrate them into the community," said Yousef. He has spoken with the police and plans to create a special class for child criminals and an emergency shelter for the most at-risk children. "There's a lot more we can do."
Yousef has begun looking outside Afghanistan for help. Only one Westerner works at Aschiana but the organization is seeking more English-speakers to contact donors and win funding, to handle the budget and communicate with international aid groups. Full-time hires as well as volunteers and interns are welcome.
"We need people with experience in development, education, psychology, management and IT," Yousef said.
Just down the hall sunlight streamed into a high-ceilinged gym, where boys in baggy judo outfits lined up to flip, kick and tumble on green and red rubber mats.
"I don't like being on the outside," said Ahmed as he paused to catch his breath. The 10-year-old from Panjshir has lived on the streets of Kabul since he was about 6. "This is so much better."
-- posted on devex.com on October 10.
Aid Workers Under the Gun
KABUL, Afghanistan-Taliban gunmen attack an aid vehicle outside Kabul, killing four workers including three Western women. An Afghan staffer for a French aid group is abducted and murdered in Kunduz. Insurgents kidnap and repeatedly shoot a Japanese agricultural specialist near Jalalabad. A United Nations convoy is attacked and two Afghan doctors killed in Kandahar province.
The steady drumbeat of brutal, targeted attacks over a single late summer month have put the Afghanistan aid community on high alert. Some agencies have pulled internationals, others suspended operations; the rest remain watchful, wary and concerned.
"Because of the attacks, because of the abductions, because of the killings," said M. Hashim Mayar, who's been working with non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan for more than 15 years, "this is the worst security environment I've seen."
Mayar is deputy director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an independent aid coordinator that recently released a report revealing that insurgent attacks have increased nearly 50 percent this year. Total security incidents hit 983 in August, according to the United Nations, the hightest total since the fall of the Taliban. Through September, 30 aid workers have been killed - double last year's total - and in early October U.N. special representative Kai Eide appealed to Taliban leaders to allow aid distribution. Insecurity has spread into previously stable parts of north and central Afghanistan, encroaching ever closer to the capital.
"This is a new and recent tactic on the part of the Taliban," said Waliullah Rahmani, director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. First it was suicide bombs, he explained, and then isolating districts and provinces - now they've moved on to humanitarian agencies. "They see aid workers as furthering the government's agenda, and so they are enemy targets just like the U.S. and the Afghan army. The general security situation has never been worse, and until the military forces combat the Taliban, aid workers must learn to adjust."
Tactical shift
The ancient Persians called Afghanistan "the land of the unruly," and for the 21st century aid worker it is still no picnic. Some question what the insurgents accomplish by targeting people trying to help Afghanistan.
"In some cases it's because we're easier targets," said Ciaran Donnelly, country director for the International Rescue Committee, which suffered the vehicle attack that killed four staffers. "In some cases it's to instill fear in communities and in our staff and in the general population that nobody is safe, to create a heightened sense of intimidation."
In some cases, it's working. Shortly after the killing of 31-year-old agricultural specialist Kazuya Ito, Peshawar-Kai, which for 25 years provided medical aid and alternative livelihoods to Afghans along both sides of Pak border, pulled its 8 Japanese staffers out of Afghanistan. Several other Japanese aid organizations - including the Basic Human Needs Association and the Association for Aid and Relief - have done the same.
"Aid agencies play a crucial role in strengthening Afghanistan and helping its people," said Rahmani. "Losing them would be a major blow."
Facing greater insecurity
For the moment, most are planning to stay and continue much-needed, if circumscribed, operations.
"One very clear decision that has been made is that IRC is not leaving Afghanistan," said Donnelly shortly after the attack. IRC, which has been delivering aid in Afghanistan for 28 years, suspended operations after the attack but plans to slowly restart work by October.
"The situation is so fluid in Afghanistan these days that really to implement programs in any part of the country you have to be extremely flexible and reactive to a very fast-paced and dynamic operating environment," he said, citing plans for fewer field visits by staff and a quick trigger on suspending operations when necessary. "Any sign of threats to our staff and we'll be able to hopefully pull back in again."
Nigel Pont, country director for New York-based aid group Mercy Corps, offered a different perspective.
"The situation is worse than it's been in quite a while, across the board," Pont said during an outdoor lunch at one of Kabul's handful of high security, expat-friendly restaurants. Mercy Corps has been in Afghanistan for more than 20 years, working in agriculture and microfinance across eight provinces. "But we're confident because our national security management teams are very good."
Those teams meet regularly to make security decisions for operations across Afghanistan - about which places are safe, what precautions to take, and what time of day to move around. Like most aid organizations, Mercy Corps employs a low-profile approach, which essentially means going under the radar: no organizational signage and minimum security; unmarked cars with private plates that are used on a rotating basis and take a variety of routes to and from work; no razor wire, flags or armed security at the office; predominantly Afghan staffers who live in local housing, wear local dress and travel sterilized, without work identification, cellphone or any incriminating documents.
Some organizations go even further. Employees of the Afghan Health and Development Services, a Kabul-based aid group, travel without any paper or writing tools, thinking the Taliban assume that if you are literate, you must work with an NGO. The Spanish-funded Association for Cooperation with Afghanistan bars staffers from moving more than 10 kilometers outside the western city of Herat. Several of the female Afghan employees of Arghand Cooperative, an NGO run by former National Public Radio reporter Sarah Chayes that sells soaps and oils made from local products, have been prodded by greater insecurity in outlying districts to move into Kandahar.
The debate over low-profile operations continues apace. The attacked IRC vehicle and U.N. convoy bore identifying stickers and signage, but no protection. The Afghan government has recommended that all NGOs travel with armed escorts, while ACBAR advises all NGOs and aid organizations to operate with a low profile.
"We want overall security so that our NGOs can move freely, so that they don't need to be escorted," said Mayar. "The first goal of the [NATO-run] provincial reconstruction teams and the military forces is to bring stability, security, and that's what they should do."
In late August the civilian and military actors in Afghanistan signed a new set of guidelines, laid out by the United Nations, intended to prevent the blurring of lines between humanitarian agencies and the military. Many are hoping the new agreement will improve aid worker safety, but it may be too late.
"The Taliban, they are spreading these night letters now that whoever works for NGOs, they are spies and they should be punished," said Mayar. "They will not believe in us anymore."
But local communities might. The majority of aid workers in Afghanistan are Afghans: IRC has 550 national staff and only 10 foreigners; Mercy Corps has about 400 nationals and 10 foreigners; and the worldwide conflict zone and reconstruction staff of the United Nations is nearly 80 percent local nationals. Particularly in hostile environments, a reliance on local communities - to help guide projects, address security concerns and communicate new developments - can make or break aid efforts.
Around the capital, the noose tightens
For the first time since the Taliban left eight years ago, Kabul is becoming one of those hostile environments. A series of fierce attacks - a Taliban assault on Kabul's finest hotel, the Serena; an April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai; the Indian Embassy bombing in July, which killed 40; a massive insurgent attack that killed 10 French soldiers not far from Kabul - has residents feeling under siege.
"Day by day the attacks are closer to Kabul," Rahmani said. "If not inside Kabul city, the Taliban are certainly active very near and around Kabul. If they are not pushed back they will come to the capital."
Further, crime has been on the uptick along with a profusion of small arms. Kidnapping, murder, theft and other violent crimes have increased steadily in Kabul over the past year. As a result, security restrictions on international staffers within the city have become extremely tight.
"When I first arrived we were able to walk around, but now it's different," said Richard Nash, a development consultant who spoke to Devex in September.
Like most foreign workers, he is barred from walking outside, even a few hundred meters. And although the banged-up white-and-yellow Corollas are ubiquitous, cheap and generally safe, public taxis are off limits - transport is strictly via armored SUV.
"All the organizations seem to be cracking down more and more," Nash said, "especially over the last few months."
Most agencies have instituted phased arrivals at work or no-movement zones outside their offices in the morning, when most attacks occur. They maintain a very short list of safe cafes and restaurants and keep close tabs on their workers via mobile phones and radio networks as well as a strict curfew. Thus most expat staffers live their lives sealed inside high-riding vehicles and air-conditioned homes and offices, cut off from the very people they've come to help.
Field work in the surrounding area is nearly impossible. Provinces close to Kabul, such as Wardak, Ghazni and Logar, were easy to visit even last year. But the Afghanistan NGO Security Office has since summer been urging journalists and aid workers to fly to Bamiyan and Jalalabad instead of taking the increasingly dangerous roads. On September 12, Logar Gov. Abdullah Wardak was assassinated near his home in the town of Paghman, about 20 kilometres west of the capital.
"I'm from Wardak, right close to Kabul, and I can't even go home," said Mayar. "Last year I could, but now the road is just terrible because of the Taliban."
Roads going out of the capital in every direction but one - north, to Panjshir and the stronghold of the Northern Alliance - are now off-limits, effectively cutting off access to the central and eastern regions of the country.
What's at stake
The escalating violence has kept aid groups from many of the most needy, forced the closure of dozens of schools and health clinics and impaired vital development projects. And the timing of the aid attacks couldn't be worse; a terrible harvest, a drought, and predictions for a harsh winter have left up to 9 million Afghans facing a food shortage, according to the British charity Oxfam, which is warning of a "humanitarian crisis."
It's not just in Afghanistan. Aid workers working in conflict zones have always been aware of the threat of kidnappings and violent attacks. But the problem has doubled in the past five years, in direct relation with the need for aid and development assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 1,000 have been killed worldwide in the past 15 years, according to some estimates.
For every aid worker injured or killed, thousands of locals are left without assistance. After the killing of several Medecins Sans Frontieres workers in Somalia this year, aid agencies cut back their programming severely, further endangering the estimated 3 million hungry Somalis. Rahmani and other observers worry that if the attacks continue, the humanitarians will pack up and go home.
"People say this all the time," said Mayar, of ACBAR. "'If the security gets worse the NGOs will leave Afghanistan,' but it's not the case. The NGOs know that if they leave the insurgents will be very happy - and that's not what they want."
Either way, aid work in Afghanistan will require more safety - and courage - than ever before.
The steady drumbeat of brutal, targeted attacks over a single late summer month have put the Afghanistan aid community on high alert. Some agencies have pulled internationals, others suspended operations; the rest remain watchful, wary and concerned.
"Because of the attacks, because of the abductions, because of the killings," said M. Hashim Mayar, who's been working with non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan for more than 15 years, "this is the worst security environment I've seen."
Mayar is deputy director of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR), an independent aid coordinator that recently released a report revealing that insurgent attacks have increased nearly 50 percent this year. Total security incidents hit 983 in August, according to the United Nations, the hightest total since the fall of the Taliban. Through September, 30 aid workers have been killed - double last year's total - and in early October U.N. special representative Kai Eide appealed to Taliban leaders to allow aid distribution. Insecurity has spread into previously stable parts of north and central Afghanistan, encroaching ever closer to the capital.
"This is a new and recent tactic on the part of the Taliban," said Waliullah Rahmani, director of the Kabul Center for Strategic Studies. First it was suicide bombs, he explained, and then isolating districts and provinces - now they've moved on to humanitarian agencies. "They see aid workers as furthering the government's agenda, and so they are enemy targets just like the U.S. and the Afghan army. The general security situation has never been worse, and until the military forces combat the Taliban, aid workers must learn to adjust."
Tactical shift
The ancient Persians called Afghanistan "the land of the unruly," and for the 21st century aid worker it is still no picnic. Some question what the insurgents accomplish by targeting people trying to help Afghanistan.
"In some cases it's because we're easier targets," said Ciaran Donnelly, country director for the International Rescue Committee, which suffered the vehicle attack that killed four staffers. "In some cases it's to instill fear in communities and in our staff and in the general population that nobody is safe, to create a heightened sense of intimidation."
In some cases, it's working. Shortly after the killing of 31-year-old agricultural specialist Kazuya Ito, Peshawar-Kai, which for 25 years provided medical aid and alternative livelihoods to Afghans along both sides of Pak border, pulled its 8 Japanese staffers out of Afghanistan. Several other Japanese aid organizations - including the Basic Human Needs Association and the Association for Aid and Relief - have done the same.
"Aid agencies play a crucial role in strengthening Afghanistan and helping its people," said Rahmani. "Losing them would be a major blow."
Facing greater insecurity
For the moment, most are planning to stay and continue much-needed, if circumscribed, operations.
"One very clear decision that has been made is that IRC is not leaving Afghanistan," said Donnelly shortly after the attack. IRC, which has been delivering aid in Afghanistan for 28 years, suspended operations after the attack but plans to slowly restart work by October.
"The situation is so fluid in Afghanistan these days that really to implement programs in any part of the country you have to be extremely flexible and reactive to a very fast-paced and dynamic operating environment," he said, citing plans for fewer field visits by staff and a quick trigger on suspending operations when necessary. "Any sign of threats to our staff and we'll be able to hopefully pull back in again."
Nigel Pont, country director for New York-based aid group Mercy Corps, offered a different perspective.
"The situation is worse than it's been in quite a while, across the board," Pont said during an outdoor lunch at one of Kabul's handful of high security, expat-friendly restaurants. Mercy Corps has been in Afghanistan for more than 20 years, working in agriculture and microfinance across eight provinces. "But we're confident because our national security management teams are very good."
Those teams meet regularly to make security decisions for operations across Afghanistan - about which places are safe, what precautions to take, and what time of day to move around. Like most aid organizations, Mercy Corps employs a low-profile approach, which essentially means going under the radar: no organizational signage and minimum security; unmarked cars with private plates that are used on a rotating basis and take a variety of routes to and from work; no razor wire, flags or armed security at the office; predominantly Afghan staffers who live in local housing, wear local dress and travel sterilized, without work identification, cellphone or any incriminating documents.
Some organizations go even further. Employees of the Afghan Health and Development Services, a Kabul-based aid group, travel without any paper or writing tools, thinking the Taliban assume that if you are literate, you must work with an NGO. The Spanish-funded Association for Cooperation with Afghanistan bars staffers from moving more than 10 kilometers outside the western city of Herat. Several of the female Afghan employees of Arghand Cooperative, an NGO run by former National Public Radio reporter Sarah Chayes that sells soaps and oils made from local products, have been prodded by greater insecurity in outlying districts to move into Kandahar.
The debate over low-profile operations continues apace. The attacked IRC vehicle and U.N. convoy bore identifying stickers and signage, but no protection. The Afghan government has recommended that all NGOs travel with armed escorts, while ACBAR advises all NGOs and aid organizations to operate with a low profile.
"We want overall security so that our NGOs can move freely, so that they don't need to be escorted," said Mayar. "The first goal of the [NATO-run] provincial reconstruction teams and the military forces is to bring stability, security, and that's what they should do."
In late August the civilian and military actors in Afghanistan signed a new set of guidelines, laid out by the United Nations, intended to prevent the blurring of lines between humanitarian agencies and the military. Many are hoping the new agreement will improve aid worker safety, but it may be too late.
"The Taliban, they are spreading these night letters now that whoever works for NGOs, they are spies and they should be punished," said Mayar. "They will not believe in us anymore."
But local communities might. The majority of aid workers in Afghanistan are Afghans: IRC has 550 national staff and only 10 foreigners; Mercy Corps has about 400 nationals and 10 foreigners; and the worldwide conflict zone and reconstruction staff of the United Nations is nearly 80 percent local nationals. Particularly in hostile environments, a reliance on local communities - to help guide projects, address security concerns and communicate new developments - can make or break aid efforts.
Around the capital, the noose tightens
For the first time since the Taliban left eight years ago, Kabul is becoming one of those hostile environments. A series of fierce attacks - a Taliban assault on Kabul's finest hotel, the Serena; an April assassination attempt on President Hamid Karzai; the Indian Embassy bombing in July, which killed 40; a massive insurgent attack that killed 10 French soldiers not far from Kabul - has residents feeling under siege.
"Day by day the attacks are closer to Kabul," Rahmani said. "If not inside Kabul city, the Taliban are certainly active very near and around Kabul. If they are not pushed back they will come to the capital."
Further, crime has been on the uptick along with a profusion of small arms. Kidnapping, murder, theft and other violent crimes have increased steadily in Kabul over the past year. As a result, security restrictions on international staffers within the city have become extremely tight.
"When I first arrived we were able to walk around, but now it's different," said Richard Nash, a development consultant who spoke to Devex in September.
Like most foreign workers, he is barred from walking outside, even a few hundred meters. And although the banged-up white-and-yellow Corollas are ubiquitous, cheap and generally safe, public taxis are off limits - transport is strictly via armored SUV.
"All the organizations seem to be cracking down more and more," Nash said, "especially over the last few months."
Most agencies have instituted phased arrivals at work or no-movement zones outside their offices in the morning, when most attacks occur. They maintain a very short list of safe cafes and restaurants and keep close tabs on their workers via mobile phones and radio networks as well as a strict curfew. Thus most expat staffers live their lives sealed inside high-riding vehicles and air-conditioned homes and offices, cut off from the very people they've come to help.
Field work in the surrounding area is nearly impossible. Provinces close to Kabul, such as Wardak, Ghazni and Logar, were easy to visit even last year. But the Afghanistan NGO Security Office has since summer been urging journalists and aid workers to fly to Bamiyan and Jalalabad instead of taking the increasingly dangerous roads. On September 12, Logar Gov. Abdullah Wardak was assassinated near his home in the town of Paghman, about 20 kilometres west of the capital.
"I'm from Wardak, right close to Kabul, and I can't even go home," said Mayar. "Last year I could, but now the road is just terrible because of the Taliban."
Roads going out of the capital in every direction but one - north, to Panjshir and the stronghold of the Northern Alliance - are now off-limits, effectively cutting off access to the central and eastern regions of the country.
What's at stake
The escalating violence has kept aid groups from many of the most needy, forced the closure of dozens of schools and health clinics and impaired vital development projects. And the timing of the aid attacks couldn't be worse; a terrible harvest, a drought, and predictions for a harsh winter have left up to 9 million Afghans facing a food shortage, according to the British charity Oxfam, which is warning of a "humanitarian crisis."
It's not just in Afghanistan. Aid workers working in conflict zones have always been aware of the threat of kidnappings and violent attacks. But the problem has doubled in the past five years, in direct relation with the need for aid and development assistance in Iraq and Afghanistan. Some 1,000 have been killed worldwide in the past 15 years, according to some estimates.
For every aid worker injured or killed, thousands of locals are left without assistance. After the killing of several Medecins Sans Frontieres workers in Somalia this year, aid agencies cut back their programming severely, further endangering the estimated 3 million hungry Somalis. Rahmani and other observers worry that if the attacks continue, the humanitarians will pack up and go home.
"People say this all the time," said Mayar, of ACBAR. "'If the security gets worse the NGOs will leave Afghanistan,' but it's not the case. The NGOs know that if they leave the insurgents will be very happy - and that's not what they want."
Either way, aid work in Afghanistan will require more safety - and courage - than ever before.
-- posted on devex.com on October 10.
Down But Not Out in Kabul
KABUL, Afghanistan – Skateistan is a media darling. The nonprofit organization teaches young Afghans to skateboard and has been lauded in dozens of major radio, video, print and online outlets across four continents.
Still it teeters on the brink.
"We spent the last few months doing a lot of press and the attention is really great, but the fact is, we're broke," said Director Oliver Percovich in September, sitting on a shabby couch in the sparsely furnished Skateistan headquarters. "Getting funding is not easy, especially when you don't have a great deal of experience at it."
Ever since Percovich and Sharna Nolan, his girlfriend and a fellow Australian, first dropped their skateboards on a Kabul sidewalk in early 2007, they've been swarmed with interest - from local kids, the press and, more recently, potential donors. But turning those good vibes into money - and establishing Skateistan as a stable and valuable organization - has been a stickier proposition.
Dancing with donors
Kabul is home to an estimated 60,000 street kids. Illiteracy is rife, along with crime and drug addiction. In an effort to improve some of those young, precarious lives, Skateistan has been offering free skateboarding lessons several times a week at an empty fountain not far from central Kabul. But no funding and minimal equipment limits what it can do.
Thus Percovish and Nolan are trying to build an indoor skate school that offers free skateboarding and that will expand into personal health education, English-language courses, computer skills classes and arts instruction. The duo prepared a few polished funding proposals and has since mid-2007 been knocking on the doors of nearly every major donor - from the United States and Canada to England, Germany, Australia and several arms of the United Nations.
"Everyone expresses interest," Percovich said. "But when it comes to donating even $10, it's been a lot more difficult."
Nolan has been spearheading Skateistan's fundraising efforts, wielding the knowledge she gained during a year working for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a think tank, and on a rural project funded by the U.N. Development Program. She put together a proposal requesting $45,000 to build an indoor skate school and submitted it to the U.S. Agency for International Development via a friend - a consultant working under USAID's Assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises Development project. Nolan had come across consultants of ASMED, which funds locally-driven business projects with up to $50,000, while working with UNDP in Herat.
"They have millions and require minimal reporting and supervision, which was perfect for the Afghan management in Skateistan," Nolan said via e-mail from Darwin, Australia, where she is working on a government-backed community water project. "They deliver funds much faster than major donors and can be more flexible in their outlook. The only catch was that they needed an economic component to the proposal which we thought could be filled with merchandising."
Skateistan failed to quickly put together a compelling merchandising component and the proposal was turned down. A representative of USAID, which tends to fund much larger projects, told Devex that Skateistan "doesn't really fit into any of our objectives."
Despite the fact that Percovich and Nolan are Australian, making contact with their own government has been a long, strange trip. In early 2008 they applied for a direct assistance program. Months later they were turned down. Then Percovich, after dozens of calls and e-mails, wrangled a meeting with the Australian consul, who told him the Australian government was considering pitching in - not with money but with free shipping assistance.
Other governments have been more accessible. The Canadian aid arm expressed interest for months without settling on a funding amount. In September the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst, the German aid agency, expressed its desire to pay the wages of one full-time Skateistan employee. A recent visit to the Norwegian embassy was promising.
"The Norwegian ambassador gave me an hour of his time," said Percovich of a meeting set up with the help of a friend of Nolan's. "That was really fantastic of them. They expressed interest, support, but what that will mean in the future I have no idea."
The Afghan government promised a free plot of land if Skateistan wins funding to build their skate school. In May, Percovich found an ideal spot in Wazir Akhbar Khan, an upscale, heavily patrolled neighborhood popular with embassies and expats. The Afghan government was supportive until August, when they gave the plot to the government of Kuwait.
"I'm guessing they represented a good deal more money than we do," Percovich said.
For the major donors, Nolan believes Skateistan's size has been a disadvantage.
"As there is the same reporting requirements no matter what they give, it's to their advantage to give larger grants rather than smaller ones to save on administrative costs and paperwork," Nolan said. "Two people with big hearts and the support of dozens of kids and the broader community often can't compete against the big giants on paper."
A bit of good news
The tide may be starting to turn. In August and September Skateistan raised nearly 2,000 euros from the sale of skateboarding photos and t-shirts and two fundraisers, one in Germany and another in Australia. More recently a private Austrian donor pledged another 2,000 euros. Weeks later Electronic Arts, the American video game giant, did the same.
As of early October the pledges had yet to arrive.
But donated goods have poured in. An Australian sporting goods firm donated safety equipment. Titus, a chain of sporting goods and skate shops in Germany, will donate to Skateistan all second-hand boards sold by customers to the store from July to November. DHL has pledged $15,000 worth of shipping fees to transport goods from Germany to Afghanistan.
In late September, Percovich began to receive offers of assistance from the type of international NGOs - People in Need and Mercy Corps, namely - that USAID tends to fund. Representatives of both organizations told him they'd help find funders.
And finally, in early October, a breakthrough: the Canadian International Development Agency donated $15,000 and the Norwegian aid arm promised $30,000. Percovich was ecstatic as he left for several charity events in Germany.
"I've learned that the people who've been here three, four or more years are really impressed with what we've done because they know how difficult it is to get anything done here," Percovich said. "It's a matter of getting to the right people and hopefully we'll get there."
Still, total costs have exceeded $15,000 and Skateistan is barely scraping by. A web of charity and Percovich's personal savings keep the organization afloat. Tired of working for no pay, staffers have begun to leave.
"It's not exactly the easiest thing for an Afghan to be a volunteer on this type of project," Percovich said. "The employees we have at the moment - I don't know how long we can keep them without pay."
Costs will rise during the coming Kabul winter. Outdoor skate venues will freeze. And relationships will be strained. One already reached the breaking point: Though they remain friends and working partners, Nolan and Percovich broke off their three-year relationship this summer.
A sustainable vision
Some have questioned Skateistan's sustainability. On this issue, Percovich and Nolan still speak with one voice.
Both admit that the whole plan hinges on building the skate park. Once that's done the school would require about $1,200 per month in donations to operate as they envision. The school would be run by Afghans and a couple international volunteers. Kids would sign up for sessions and borrow equipment, all without charge. They would be required to take care of the space and the equipment, which many already do at the current space, an empty fountain in north Kabul.
"We are confident that the Afghans can manage things pretty much themselves," Nolan said. "A lot will fall on the shoulders of the project volunteers. We have no shortage of students who are keen as mustard to volunteer. The kids already sweep the fountains where we skate and are caring for the boards - it's part of the life skill training."
Percovish and Nolan hope donor interest will at some point come to fruition. Dozens of Afghan students, teachers and artists have offered to help, in various capacities. Photo and t-shirts sales represent a slow-growing revenue stream.
"There are some other ideas for business development but first and foremost is the development of social capital that allows youth in Kabul to create opportunities for themselves and solve their problems," Percovich said. "Money hasn't solved many problems in Afghanistan and it is high time to try another approach. Aid has focused on providing money when a simple link with the right person would have sufficed. Intangible assets in society are frequently ignored or undervalued simply because they are hard to value. They do make a hell of a lot of difference, though."
An uncertain future
Inside a nondescript warehouse in Melbourne, 40 new skateboards, 50 pairs of sneakers and a variety of skating supplies sit shrink-wrapped on a palette because Skateistan cannot afford the $1,200 shipping costs.
On a late afternoon in September, meanwhile, a couple dozen Afghan children made do with torn sandals, no kneepads and two beat-up skateboards. They laughed, smiled and tried out a few new tricks, but some grew frustrated with the long wait for their turn.
Kids drifted off in twos and threes as an egg-shaped, red-orange sun sank low. A couple of girls lingered, one pushing her friend across the sidewalk on a skateboard. "Could I have the board back?" Percovich asked, reaching his hand out.
The girls pushed away from him, laughing. He and an assistant chased them down and gently took the skateboard as the girls whined playfully.
With that, darkness fell on Kabul.
Still it teeters on the brink.
"We spent the last few months doing a lot of press and the attention is really great, but the fact is, we're broke," said Director Oliver Percovich in September, sitting on a shabby couch in the sparsely furnished Skateistan headquarters. "Getting funding is not easy, especially when you don't have a great deal of experience at it."
Ever since Percovich and Sharna Nolan, his girlfriend and a fellow Australian, first dropped their skateboards on a Kabul sidewalk in early 2007, they've been swarmed with interest - from local kids, the press and, more recently, potential donors. But turning those good vibes into money - and establishing Skateistan as a stable and valuable organization - has been a stickier proposition.
Dancing with donors
Kabul is home to an estimated 60,000 street kids. Illiteracy is rife, along with crime and drug addiction. In an effort to improve some of those young, precarious lives, Skateistan has been offering free skateboarding lessons several times a week at an empty fountain not far from central Kabul. But no funding and minimal equipment limits what it can do.
Thus Percovish and Nolan are trying to build an indoor skate school that offers free skateboarding and that will expand into personal health education, English-language courses, computer skills classes and arts instruction. The duo prepared a few polished funding proposals and has since mid-2007 been knocking on the doors of nearly every major donor - from the United States and Canada to England, Germany, Australia and several arms of the United Nations.
"Everyone expresses interest," Percovich said. "But when it comes to donating even $10, it's been a lot more difficult."
Nolan has been spearheading Skateistan's fundraising efforts, wielding the knowledge she gained during a year working for the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, a think tank, and on a rural project funded by the U.N. Development Program. She put together a proposal requesting $45,000 to build an indoor skate school and submitted it to the U.S. Agency for International Development via a friend - a consultant working under USAID's Assistance to Small and Medium Enterprises Development project. Nolan had come across consultants of ASMED, which funds locally-driven business projects with up to $50,000, while working with UNDP in Herat.
"They have millions and require minimal reporting and supervision, which was perfect for the Afghan management in Skateistan," Nolan said via e-mail from Darwin, Australia, where she is working on a government-backed community water project. "They deliver funds much faster than major donors and can be more flexible in their outlook. The only catch was that they needed an economic component to the proposal which we thought could be filled with merchandising."
Skateistan failed to quickly put together a compelling merchandising component and the proposal was turned down. A representative of USAID, which tends to fund much larger projects, told Devex that Skateistan "doesn't really fit into any of our objectives."
Despite the fact that Percovich and Nolan are Australian, making contact with their own government has been a long, strange trip. In early 2008 they applied for a direct assistance program. Months later they were turned down. Then Percovich, after dozens of calls and e-mails, wrangled a meeting with the Australian consul, who told him the Australian government was considering pitching in - not with money but with free shipping assistance.
Other governments have been more accessible. The Canadian aid arm expressed interest for months without settling on a funding amount. In September the Deutsche Entwicklungsdienst, the German aid agency, expressed its desire to pay the wages of one full-time Skateistan employee. A recent visit to the Norwegian embassy was promising.
"The Norwegian ambassador gave me an hour of his time," said Percovich of a meeting set up with the help of a friend of Nolan's. "That was really fantastic of them. They expressed interest, support, but what that will mean in the future I have no idea."
The Afghan government promised a free plot of land if Skateistan wins funding to build their skate school. In May, Percovich found an ideal spot in Wazir Akhbar Khan, an upscale, heavily patrolled neighborhood popular with embassies and expats. The Afghan government was supportive until August, when they gave the plot to the government of Kuwait.
"I'm guessing they represented a good deal more money than we do," Percovich said.
For the major donors, Nolan believes Skateistan's size has been a disadvantage.
"As there is the same reporting requirements no matter what they give, it's to their advantage to give larger grants rather than smaller ones to save on administrative costs and paperwork," Nolan said. "Two people with big hearts and the support of dozens of kids and the broader community often can't compete against the big giants on paper."
A bit of good news
The tide may be starting to turn. In August and September Skateistan raised nearly 2,000 euros from the sale of skateboarding photos and t-shirts and two fundraisers, one in Germany and another in Australia. More recently a private Austrian donor pledged another 2,000 euros. Weeks later Electronic Arts, the American video game giant, did the same.
As of early October the pledges had yet to arrive.
But donated goods have poured in. An Australian sporting goods firm donated safety equipment. Titus, a chain of sporting goods and skate shops in Germany, will donate to Skateistan all second-hand boards sold by customers to the store from July to November. DHL has pledged $15,000 worth of shipping fees to transport goods from Germany to Afghanistan.
In late September, Percovich began to receive offers of assistance from the type of international NGOs - People in Need and Mercy Corps, namely - that USAID tends to fund. Representatives of both organizations told him they'd help find funders.
And finally, in early October, a breakthrough: the Canadian International Development Agency donated $15,000 and the Norwegian aid arm promised $30,000. Percovich was ecstatic as he left for several charity events in Germany.
"I've learned that the people who've been here three, four or more years are really impressed with what we've done because they know how difficult it is to get anything done here," Percovich said. "It's a matter of getting to the right people and hopefully we'll get there."
Still, total costs have exceeded $15,000 and Skateistan is barely scraping by. A web of charity and Percovich's personal savings keep the organization afloat. Tired of working for no pay, staffers have begun to leave.
"It's not exactly the easiest thing for an Afghan to be a volunteer on this type of project," Percovich said. "The employees we have at the moment - I don't know how long we can keep them without pay."
Costs will rise during the coming Kabul winter. Outdoor skate venues will freeze. And relationships will be strained. One already reached the breaking point: Though they remain friends and working partners, Nolan and Percovich broke off their three-year relationship this summer.
A sustainable vision
Some have questioned Skateistan's sustainability. On this issue, Percovich and Nolan still speak with one voice.
Both admit that the whole plan hinges on building the skate park. Once that's done the school would require about $1,200 per month in donations to operate as they envision. The school would be run by Afghans and a couple international volunteers. Kids would sign up for sessions and borrow equipment, all without charge. They would be required to take care of the space and the equipment, which many already do at the current space, an empty fountain in north Kabul.
"We are confident that the Afghans can manage things pretty much themselves," Nolan said. "A lot will fall on the shoulders of the project volunteers. We have no shortage of students who are keen as mustard to volunteer. The kids already sweep the fountains where we skate and are caring for the boards - it's part of the life skill training."
Percovish and Nolan hope donor interest will at some point come to fruition. Dozens of Afghan students, teachers and artists have offered to help, in various capacities. Photo and t-shirts sales represent a slow-growing revenue stream.
"There are some other ideas for business development but first and foremost is the development of social capital that allows youth in Kabul to create opportunities for themselves and solve their problems," Percovich said. "Money hasn't solved many problems in Afghanistan and it is high time to try another approach. Aid has focused on providing money when a simple link with the right person would have sufficed. Intangible assets in society are frequently ignored or undervalued simply because they are hard to value. They do make a hell of a lot of difference, though."
An uncertain future
Inside a nondescript warehouse in Melbourne, 40 new skateboards, 50 pairs of sneakers and a variety of skating supplies sit shrink-wrapped on a palette because Skateistan cannot afford the $1,200 shipping costs.
On a late afternoon in September, meanwhile, a couple dozen Afghan children made do with torn sandals, no kneepads and two beat-up skateboards. They laughed, smiled and tried out a few new tricks, but some grew frustrated with the long wait for their turn.
Kids drifted off in twos and threes as an egg-shaped, red-orange sun sank low. A couple of girls lingered, one pushing her friend across the sidewalk on a skateboard. "Could I have the board back?" Percovich asked, reaching his hand out.
The girls pushed away from him, laughing. He and an assistant chased them down and gently took the skateboard as the girls whined playfully.
With that, darkness fell on Kabul.
-- posted on devex.com on October 20.
9.15.2008
Living the Life II
My second night in Afghanistan I stroll a few blocks down the street to grab a beer at Gondamack Lodge, the high-end guesthouse and resto-bar run by a former Australian journalist. The Afghan government banned alcohol earlier this year, but they turn a blind eye to several foreigner-friendly establishments in the capital, all of which are heavily secured.
First I'm asked for my passport on the sidewalk. American, check. Then a man peeks through a sliding eye-level panel in the exterior door, sees me, slides a heavy bolt and opens. Finally a third security guy buzzes me thru two steel doors and into a tranquil green garden, where aid and development workers sip room temperature pinot, quacking ducks amble after healthy portions of pasta and beef and, from rather robust stereo speakers, Yaz worries “we're moving farther away.” I secure a picnic table next to a tree and gape.
So here it is, I think to myself, the other side of Kabul. I'd go on to find a similar scene at other ex-pat frequented hotspots – Cabul Coffee House, where the coffee is from Italy and the banana juice is swoon-inducing; Chaila, where the burgers, wraps and coffee are first-rate and missionary workers are thick on the ground; La Cantina, which has excellent burritos for the low low price of $15 and any beer you like as long as it's Heineken in a can; and the ultimate in ex-pat decadence, L'Atmosphere, a sleek indoor/outdoor restaurant/bar/cafe complete with ping-pong table, well-oiled battalion of ever-present servers and, in case the Kabul heat is getting to you, a cool, shaded swimming pool.
I order a beer and start reading the local newspaper. By the time I've finished my second cold one darkness has fallen and the novelty has waned considerably. On the walk home I fall in step with a chatty young Afghan. “You have no bodyguard?' Safeed asks me. “You are here alone? That is not good idea; there are many bad Afghans.”
Must be why the foreigners need their little islands of fantasy.
First I'm asked for my passport on the sidewalk. American, check. Then a man peeks through a sliding eye-level panel in the exterior door, sees me, slides a heavy bolt and opens. Finally a third security guy buzzes me thru two steel doors and into a tranquil green garden, where aid and development workers sip room temperature pinot, quacking ducks amble after healthy portions of pasta and beef and, from rather robust stereo speakers, Yaz worries “we're moving farther away.” I secure a picnic table next to a tree and gape.
So here it is, I think to myself, the other side of Kabul. I'd go on to find a similar scene at other ex-pat frequented hotspots – Cabul Coffee House, where the coffee is from Italy and the banana juice is swoon-inducing; Chaila, where the burgers, wraps and coffee are first-rate and missionary workers are thick on the ground; La Cantina, which has excellent burritos for the low low price of $15 and any beer you like as long as it's Heineken in a can; and the ultimate in ex-pat decadence, L'Atmosphere, a sleek indoor/outdoor restaurant/bar/cafe complete with ping-pong table, well-oiled battalion of ever-present servers and, in case the Kabul heat is getting to you, a cool, shaded swimming pool.
I order a beer and start reading the local newspaper. By the time I've finished my second cold one darkness has fallen and the novelty has waned considerably. On the walk home I fall in step with a chatty young Afghan. “You have no bodyguard?' Safeed asks me. “You are here alone? That is not good idea; there are many bad Afghans.”
Must be why the foreigners need their little islands of fantasy.
Living the Life
His speedometer is busted, stuck on 45 kph. His gums have crept halfway down his big, yellow-ish brown teeth. He likes to play wailing Afghan music about as loud as he can stand it while swerving down mountain roads. When he smiles his face, criss-crossed by cavernous creases, glows. His name is Saeed Mirza and he is the baddest driver in the Panjshir.
He wears a forest green correspondent's vest and keeps a keffiyeh wrapped rakishly around his neck. His faux-Gucci wrap-arounds sit untouched on the dash. He's got a Brett Favre-like salt-and-pepper three-day beard and his hair is cut in a chic, Roman style, with short bangs flat against his forehead. He speaks in an Anthony Quinn growl and is loved by all. Locals smile and wave as he zips through their village. He chats with policemen and security guards as if they were his cousins. He rarely goes three minutes without a full-bodied belly laugh. He drives an aging Toyota wagon across hellishly dangerous Afghan highways for a living yet this man, this Saeed Mirza, full of life and mirth and verve, may be the richest man I've ever met.
9.11.2008
An Afghan Love Story
Meraj, the bright, handsome Afghan who's been working as my interpreter, has started telling me about his love life. It begins when I ask about the dark orange stains on his hand.
"In Afghanistan, when a man gets married he puts henna on his hand," he explains over a lunch of kebabs and pulau on my first full day in Kabul. "I was married two days ago."
"Congratulations," I say. "I wish I would've come a couple days ago."
"Yes," Meraj says. "It was a very great event, with music and dancing and you would have had a very nice time.” He is 28, his wife is 18. And what's her name? “We don't mention the name of our wife,” he tells me. “Only to members of our family; even my friends don't know her name. Why should they?” He does tell me that her name is the Pashto word for blossom.
The next day we're waiting to go into a play and he gets a phone call. After he hangs up I ask if everything is alright. "No," he says. "That was my girlfriend." I ask if he means girlfriend girlfriend and he says he does. "I didn't want to tell her about my marriage because I love her so much. I have been seeing her 5 years and I love her and I don't want to lose her. But I think a classmate of hers, who was at the wedding, told her about it." He explains that his wife would be unhappy to hear about his girlfriend, who is only 17. He is worried his girlfriend will not speak to him anymore now that he is married.
"David, she is now speaking to me, but only sometimes," a slightly happier Meraj tells me a few days later. "She knows I am married and it will never be the same again." But that's fine, I say, because you love your wife, right? "Yes, of course I do, she is wonderful. But also I have lost the love of my life."
It seems twisted and very wrong, but Meraj's drama is complex. He couldn't marry the girlfriend he loved because she is from Herat, and not approved by his family. So he married a girl who was, which led to this. He's not a bad or sleazy guy, just stuck betwixt his heart and his culture.
9.10.2008
Afghan Art Imitates Life
The day after the UN released its report on Afghanistan's poppies, finding production down overall but still strong in Helmand province, the Helmand Theatre Group enacted a new short play as part of a theatre festival in Kabul. Locals had packed the hall for the previous performance, Moliere's Tartuffe, and came out strong for the Helmand group's show as well. Afghans are an active theatre audience, laughing loudly and applauding any rich actorly touches, and they were held rapt for the 30 minutes of "Drugs."
The story was simple: a poor, desperate father accepts a gift of poppies for his daughter to become bride of a local poppy farmer. Weeks later, after being beaten and suffering from too much work, the daughter comes running to her mother, sobbing. But her father, knowing that he'd be killed if he were to renege on his agreement, forces her to return. The message is clear: poppies equal power.
And in Helmand, which now produces two-thirds of Afghanistan's opium poppies and supplies about 60 percent of world supply, poppies have never been more powerful.
The story was simple: a poor, desperate father accepts a gift of poppies for his daughter to become bride of a local poppy farmer. Weeks later, after being beaten and suffering from too much work, the daughter comes running to her mother, sobbing. But her father, knowing that he'd be killed if he were to renege on his agreement, forces her to return. The message is clear: poppies equal power.
And in Helmand, which now produces two-thirds of Afghanistan's opium poppies and supplies about 60 percent of world supply, poppies have never been more powerful.
Kabul Crime Tears Social Fabric
Mohammed Sangar Ahmadzai is about as gentle and soft-spoken an Afghani as you'll ever meet. His dark hair is cut short and he's wearing a white and blue Benetton T-shirt as I sit down next to him and his friend Ali at the Delhi airport while waiting to board my flight to Kabul. The two of them are to study IT in the Indian capital soon and are returning home to get a 3-year student visa. They ask if I've got a ride at the other end and I explain how my driver-fixer-interpreter took a job in Kandahar at the last minute, leaving me without a friend in one of the world's more dangerous cities. "You don't want to take a taxi," Sangar advises. "You might get kidnapped."
We land and the three of us hop into a cab. They take me to the high-security neighborhood of Wazir Akhbar Khan and drop me at my guest house. Refusing payment, Sangar gives me his business card and invites me to lunch at his home the following day.
"I had done really well in my exams and this led to an offer to study IT in India, in Delhi," he begins, shortly afer we've put away our fair share of kofte, pulau, bread, and chaka, a thick, creamy yogurt with something of a bite. "This was a couple months ago, and I was very excited. But my father told me, 'No.'"
He pauses to take a bit of rice. "Then one night I worked late at the office and I was coming home, this was after 9pm, and I came home and as I was getting out of the car I was jumped by three men. I tried to stop them but they had guns and they kidnapped me."
Sangar says this so matter-of-factly, in such a light, straightforward tone that I think he's either kidding or insane. Turns out he's just a Kabuli, as familiar with kidnappings as Midwesterners are with snow.
The men tossed Sangar into their car, covered his eyes with one of the black and white scarves that are ubiquitous here and took him to an empty warehouse. His hands and feet were tied and bound together in front of him and he sat on the ground for five days while the kidnappers negotiated payment and release with his father. He thought they might poison him or put something in his food, so he drank only water and juice, losing nearly 15 pounds from his small frame. His aunts, mother and seven siblings gathered every night at his home, hoping for good news but fearing the worst.
"Finally one night they put me in the car and drove and drove and drove while I was blindfolded. They stopped near a field at the edge of the city, put 250 Afghanis in my hand, took the scarf from my eyes and told me to go and not look back at them or they'd shoot me. I got into a taxi and I told the driver to go to my neighborhood and gave him the money; I didn't look back," he says. "When I got home everybody was happy and they'd made food for me but I couldn't eat. My father came to me and he told me, "You are going to school in Delhi.'"
With lingering poverty and rising insecurity, crime is up in the capital. The Afghan Criminal Investigation Department reported 130 kidnappings from April through August, but the real number is more than double that; fearing the kidnappers will kill their loved one, most do not report the crime. And only about 10 percent of kidnap victims are foreigners, so it's Afghans like Sangar that are taking the brunt of it.
Pride of Afghanistan
I'm the only Westerner on Ariana Airlines flight 312 from Delhi, in a plane amongst the oldest I've seen, with half-emptied ashtrays, seatbelts of thick, heavy steel and ripped magazine pouches sagging from the seatbacks. The pilot, very excited as we land, sounds rather like Borat. “Thank you-a-very much for-a-flying Ari-ana," he says over the public address system. "And-a goodbye!”
A bit of bounce and swerve on the approach, a glimpse of green fields and we touch down. Now that I think about it, the service and the curry were excellent, I had more than enough space to make myself comfortable and the two-hour flight was pleasantly uneventful. I can't see any good reason why the thousands of UN, US and UK employees working in Afghanistan should be barred from flying Ariana. It's a decent airline with a good safety record. More importantly, it's money the Afghan economy could surely use.
A bit of bounce and swerve on the approach, a glimpse of green fields and we touch down. Now that I think about it, the service and the curry were excellent, I had more than enough space to make myself comfortable and the two-hour flight was pleasantly uneventful. I can't see any good reason why the thousands of UN, US and UK employees working in Afghanistan should be barred from flying Ariana. It's a decent airline with a good safety record. More importantly, it's money the Afghan economy could surely use.
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