- AFGHANISTAN -- Afghans are
not easily shocked. Repeated invasion, decades of civil war and centuries
of poverty harden a place. Yet the latest atrocity to hit this nation was
stunningly brutal, even by their dismal standards.
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- It happened early on Monday afternoon, a multiple
execution
by men determined to render it impossible for the international community
to reconstruct or stabilise the country under the control of a US-
supported
government.
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- Five local workers from the Danish Committee for Aid
to Afghanistan (Dacaar) were bumping along a dirt road in an unmarked
pick-up
truck, just as they had many times before.
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- They were returning from a mission to supply water to
one of the country's thousands of miserably poor villages - a task to which
Afghan employees were assigned as the area is deemed too dangerous for
international staff. Their executioners were waiting. They held up the
truck and ordered the men to line up by the road.
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- They tied their hands. They lectured them on the evils
of local Afghans collaborating with international organisations and accused
them of ignoring a previous fatwa banning them from doing so. Then they
opened fire, spraying them from close range.
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- By the time the echoes of the Kalashnikovs had stopped
bouncing around the stark landscape, four of the Afghans - an engineer,
a driver, a mechanic and a drilling contractor - lay dead. The fifth man,
badly injured in the legs, feigned death and was later rescued by villagers
and taken to hospital.
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- Yesterday the news of the killings, in the south-eastern
province of Ghazni, was made public in the capital, Kabul. Several aid
agencies had warned that the security situation in Afghanistan was
deteriorating,
citing a sharp rise in attacks on workers from non-governmental
organisations
(NGOs) and United Nations staff - 16 last month - and the steadily rising
death toll among soldiers in the fledgling Afghan army. The latest horrors
seemed to confirm their case.
-
- After learning of the killings, the charity Care
International
said it was considering suspending its operations in Afghanistan for the
first time since the fall of the Taliban.
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- Dacaar, one of the biggest NGOs operating in Afghanistan,
was expected to cease working in areas of Taliban activity. Gorm Pedersen,
director of Dacaar, said that matters were "certainly getting
worse".
-
- The terms al-Qa'ida and Taliban are catch-alls that fail
to reflect the assortment of anti-government militia in operation in
Afghanistan.
But in this case, the killers were explicit.
-
- They told their victims that they were Taliban,
supporters
of the Islamist regime that the Americans sought to destroy after the twin
towers of New York's World Trade Centre were brought crashing down two
years ago.
-
- Though ousted from power, the Taliban are not destroyed.
Far from it. While their forces typically comprise groups of several
hundred
men, the Talbian have become more active and - in large parts of south
and south-east Afghanistan - more popular.
-
- This month, the US military launched one of the biggest
of many anti-insurgency missions by its 9,000-strong forces. They claim
to have killed more than 100 fighters in Zabul province over nine days.
This will not be the last battle. The Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar,
remains as elusive as Osama bin Laden. It seems the Americans no sooner
arrest or kill one batch of guerrillas than another appears on the horizon.
A US general said last week that the Taliban were "pouring in"
from Pakistan, though he said they were not a serious threat. Reports
abound
of new Taliban training camps in border areas. His comments came as world
attention was focusing again on Afghanistan two years after the terrorist
attacks in America. The picture is far from rosy. True, there has been
substantial rebuilding and economic growth in Kabul, where there is a large
international presence and 5,000 Nato-led peace-keeping troops.
-
- Residents interviewed yesterday expressed relief that
the repressive Taliban government was gone, and genuine appreciation at
the presence of the peace-keepers and the US troops. But that is the
capital,
an island of prosperity when compared with the rest of the country.
-
- Take Surkhab, a village 35 miles south of Kabul.
Yesterday
the whiff of hashish hung thick in the air among the mud homes, having
wafted up from a sweep of verdant-looking crops in the valley below the
village. The 500 residents are hoping for a bumper harvest.
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- Mohammed Nabi, 40, said: "In a few months' time
the smugglers will come and buy the hashish to sell to you in the
West."
A good crop should fetch $40 (£25) a kilogram, he said. Then the
village will plant their rotation crop - opium poppies.
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- The village does not appear to oppose Afghanistan's
transitional
government, but they do find it remote and powerless. "The government
never comes here," said Wali Jan, 44 , "They can't do anything
about what we are growing. We need to eat, so we will go on growing this
stuff until someone provides us with an alternative source of
money."
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- Such places have helped to restore post-Taliban
Afghan-istan
to its position as the world's number one producer of opium, providing
90 per cent of the heroin in London.
-
- Criticism abounds among aid agency officials in Kabul
of the part played by the Americans in this process. The US military is
widely accused of supporting warlords who are profiting from the booming
narcotics trade, some of whom are within the interim government of Hamid
Karzai.
-
- To this should be added a deeper concern. Faced with
a disaster in Iraq, the Americans are pressing hard for Afghanistan to
stick to its agreed timetable of holding elections next June. Their critics
say that a fair poll is impossible until the country's security situation
is improved - a move that many believe would only be possible if the
peace-keepers'
mandate is expanded beyond Kabul, a move being contemplated by Nato.
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- They fear that the US will force elections through to
claim a success, and lay the ground for pulling out before the job of
reconstruction
is close to completion. Paul O'Brien, from Care International, said:
"This
is not being driven by a realisation of the long-term needs of Afghanistan,
but by short-term political considerations in the West."
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- © 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd
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- http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/story.jsp?story=442220
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