Mountains of our Minds - Afghanistan

My Queen of Kabul - Nancy Dupree

2012-02-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

Kabul, the city Nancy Dupree wrote a book on and fell in love with. Photo: Bob McKerrow

It has been most enjoyable and productive having Ebrahim Faghihi working with us on a Sri Lanka Red Cross flood recovery operation. Over dinner last night we spoke of those wonderful days in 95-96 when we spent time exploring Kabul with Nancy Dupree the great historian on Afghanistan and author of so many books on the country. Here is a photo I took of Ebrahim with Nancy in 1996 on the outskirts of Kabul..

I knew got to know Nancy in those difficult days in Kabul between 1993-96 when Nancy was living in Peshawar. She stayed at my house in Kabul on visits to Afghanistan a number of times and Ebrahim and I often did day tours of Kabul with her where she explained in minute details, every scrap of history she knew of.
Although working for the International Red Cross, I gave a lot of my spare time working with her and colleagues, rescuing treasures from the Kabul museum which was coming under bombing by the Talibans and looting from other warring factions. We also worked together on preserving the British (Foreigners) cemetary
in Kabul which hid a rich history from the time of the early Ango Afghan wars.

Honouring 45 years since the death of the great archaeologist Aurel Stein at his grave in the Kabul cemetary. Tim Johnston AFP (2nd from left) and Ahmed Gizo (right). We invited Nancy Dupree but was unable to make because of fighting in Kabul. Photo: Bob McKerrow

As I was able to travel freely in Afghanistan in the course of my work, I took photographs for Nancy of historic sites her and Louis thirty years earlier and brought her back photographs. She was so grateful and could never thank me enough.

When I published my book on Afghanistan in 2003 I dedicated it to "My Queen of Kabul, Nancy Dupree."

She was grateful to get a copy of my book but I much more grateful to have autographed copies of all her books, which guided me through Afghanistan.

She would tell me over a wine at nights of her love affair with Afghanistan and her late husband Louis Dupree. These were romantic evenings around a log fire in Kabul, with a woman 20 years older than me, recounting her early and carefree days of the 1960s.

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Kabul the city that Nancy Dupree fell in love with. Photo: Bob McKerrow
I haven't seen Nancy for 14 years but we kept in touch by email for a long time. Who better to tell her love story than C.M. Sennott from the GlobalPost who published this article in June 2009.

Enter the steel gates that lead to the courtyard and well-tended gardens of a faded, but still elegant, manse where Nancy Hatch Dupree greets us on the steps.

For a moment, you feel what it must have been like to live here in the early 1960s.

That’s when Dupree first arrived in Kabul and where she would meet the two great loves of her life. The first was her husband, Louis Dupree, the dashing American paratrooper turned world-famous archeologist. The second love was one they both shared: the cultural and historic riches of the rugged, magical landscape of Afghanistan and its people.

As an archeologist and ethnologist, Afghanistan has been the focus of their life’s work.
She and Louis, who passed away in 1989, lived through it all and suffered with the Afghans through the wars and celebrated the life that has gone on in between. She survived the dark days of the civil war here in the early 1990s and the even darker days of the Taliban. Through it all, she studied and worked to protect and preserve the country’s culture and heritage. Today, there is no Westerner who knows the Afghan people like Nancy.

Some 45 years after her arrival here, I meet with Dupree on a sunny day in the late afternoon shadows of the once-grand home where she lives part of the year in downtown Kabul.

The rest of the year she lives just across the border in Peshawar, Pakistan, still writing and researching at the age of 83. She divides her time between the two cities, tending an archive that is housed at Kabul University. The archive, an idea inspired by Louis, is dedicated to creating a resource center for all the different aid workers and Afghan experts who could no longer travel freely in war-torn Afghanistan.

She looks heartsick when she talks about the Taliban’s destruction of the two giant Buddha carvings of Bamayan. She also wants to set the record straight that she was negotiating with the Taliban leadership to protect the Buddhas, and believes the decision to dynamite them was made by a militant fringe closely connected to Al Qaeda. She insists that many in the Taliban government were opposed to the destruction, but the militants had run away with the Taliban movement.

I did day trips with Nancy out towards the Jebal Seraj in winter to view the mighty Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

She holds the secrets to so much of the politics that has gone on in Afghanistan, but at every turn the conversation comes back to the Afghan people and her love for and fascination with them and their history.

"I’m a people person," says Nancy, who apologizes that she doesn’t have much time to talk as she is heading out to a party at the embassy to meet the newly appointed American Ambassador, Karl Eikenberry, who also served as the commanding general in Afghanistan.

Right away, she wants to get into it.

Nancy still has a lot of fire in her voice and she has some stern criticism of the U.S. military and diplomatic approach in Afghanistan.

"They make strategies for people who they don’t talk to," she says, sitting on a couch in the parlor where we are talking and leaning forward with intensity.

"They sit behind the fortress with razor wire walls of the Embassy. And the rest make their strategy from behind desks thousands of miles away … They don’t seem to realize that the strategy has to be about the people," she says.

She checks her watch and says, "Sorry, I have to go put on my face now and get ready for all the diplomats. Too many of them, if you ask me."

Moments later she heads out through the steel gate, looking elegant in a long, traditional embroidered gown. She slides into the back seat and she and her driver head out down the crowded, chaotic and sometimes-perilous streets of Kabul, the city she loves.

Some new old photos of Afghanistan

2012-01-30T03:45:00.000-08:00

Over the weekend I was sorting out colour slides and scanning them. Here are a few from 1976 and my three years (1993-96) later.

On top of the Subzak Pass in 1994. The passes of the Paropamisus in the west are relatively low, averaging around 600 meters; the most well-known of these is the Sabzak between the Herat and Badghis provinces, which links the western and northwestern parts of Afghanistan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Kabul in early winter 1996. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Coming down from the Khawak Pass in the footsteps of Alexander the Great with my good friend Lola. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The damage that was caused in Kabul was tragic to witness in the early 1990s. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I first visited Afghanistan in 1976 when I was working with the Red Cross in Geneva to assist the Afghan Red Crescent on an earthquake relief operation in Samanghan. here I am in the bazaar in Herat. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Who is killing Afghanistan?

2011-12-15T05:54:00.000-08:00

The Blue Mosque in Mazar-I-Sharif which is a Shrine to Ali and revered by the Shia Muslims. Taken in 1976 when I was working for the Red Cross after a major earthquake in the north. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Bombs kill 58 in Kabul and Mazar-i-Sharif. The BBC's Quentin Sommerville: "It seems this was a co-ordinated attack; it certainly seems to have a sectarian element"

Twin attacks apparently targeting Shia Muslims have killed at least 58 people in Afghanistan.

In the deadliest incident, a suspected suicide bomb struck a shrine packed with worshippers in the capital, Kabul, killing at least 54.

Another blast hit the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif at about the same time, killing four people.

The attacks appear to be of a sectarian nature unprecedented in recent Afghan history, correspondents say.

They coincided with the Shia Muslim festival of Ashura - the most important day in the Shia calendar and marked with a public holiday in Afghanistan.

Ashura is the climax of Muharram, the month of mourning for the martyrdom of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson.

The police have cordoned off all roads to the blast site in the medieval Murad Khani district where many Shias had gathered to commemorate Ashura at the Abu Fazal mosque.

Here, at an emergency surgical centre just 10 minutes from the site, people are gathered crying and wailing. I have heard women shouting: "My son is dead, my son is dead." I have seen people with charred clothing.

Security forces have been ferrying victims to waiting ambulances. There are many wounded too. Those who were there say there are a lot of casualties. People are gathering in front of the hospital and the police are on the streets around here controlling the traffic.

Though tensions exist between Afghanistan's Sunni and minority Shia Muslims, most attacks in Afghanistan in recent years have targeted government officials or international forces, correspondents say.

When I lived for three years in Afghanistan (1993-96) I visited the Abu Fazal mosque in Kabul one of the places of today's atrocities, and the Blue Mosque in Mazar-i-Sharif. The book I wrote on Afghanistan provides prose, poetry and photographs of my favourite country and the peaceful nature of the people. Why this today?

Children hit

The near-simultaneous explosions happened at about midday (07:30 GMT).

In Kabul, the bomb went off near a gathering of hundreds of Shias singing at the Abu Fazal shrine.

Fifty-four people were killed in the blast, said health ministry spokesman Norughli Kargar, while 150 were injured.

"It was very loud. My ears went deaf and I was blown three metres [yards]," Mustafa, who uses only one name, told Associated Press news agency.

"There was smoke and red blood on the floor of the shrine. There were people lying everywhere."

Amid the chaos straight after the blast, a young girl, dressed in a green shalwar kameez (traditional dress) smeared in blood, stood shrieking, surrounded by the crumpled, piled-up bodies of children, AFP reported.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke of the unprecedented nature of the attack, saying it was "the first time that, on such an important religious day in Afghanistan, terrorism of that horrible nature is taking place".

No-one had claimed to have carried out the attacks, said Mohammad Zahir, head of Kabul's criminal investigation department.

A Taliban statement said the group had not been behind either incident.

Police said they foiled another attack elsewhere in the capital.

Thanks to the BBC for permission to run this article.

9/ll 2001- My recollections of that day and the aftermath

2011-09-04T07:01:00.000-07:00

9/11- 2001, Ferney Voltaire, France
10 September 2001 (9/10)
I had just come back from a walk past soft yellow corn fields, caressed by the early morning sun, with the Jura mountains as a backdrop on my right, and Mont Blanc on the other side of the path

On my return to my hotel I got a message from a close friend of mine in Kabul informing me that Ahmed Shah Massoud (pictured right with Bob McKerrow) is either dead or dying. He is one of Afghanistan’s greatest leaders of the last century. Some news reports say it could be the work of Osama bin Laden.
My friend Azem was also killed and Massood Khalili badly injured, the Ambassador to India and son of the great Afghan poet.

I thought at the time that something sinister was unfolding.

I think of the times I met Massoud during my stay in Afghanistan between 1993 and 96, and the hour interview I had with him before I left in August 1996. I wrote in my diary that night. “My heart bleeds for you Afghanistan; the pain and hurt you've been through. Penalised by your geographic location and the pawn of superpowers for so long.”

Flight 175 crashes at about 590 mph into the south face of the South Tower of the World Trade Centre, hitting the building between floors 77 and 85. All 65 people on board are killed. Parts of the plane leave the building from its east and north sides, falling to the ground as far as six blocks away.

I was in Ferny Voltaire France, for a Red Cross training course when this drama began unfolding..

The next day, 11 September (9/11) my mind kept going back to Ahmed Shah Massoud and his senseless killing by hired killers posing as Arab TV cameramen. Just before 4 pm, we broke for afternoon tea. As I picked up a cup of tea, the manager came running and shouting in French, something about a disaster in America. A group formed at the TV in the bar and watched an interviewer talking about a plane hitting the Twin Towers of the World Trade Centre in New York, then seconds later we saw the most spine-chilling metal and human bomb plough into the second tower Later the full story was told, Two planes were flown into the twin towers of the World Trade Centre in New York. A third was flown into the Pentagon in the state of Virginia. A fourth crashed in a field in Pennsylvania.

In my diary that night I wrote in capitals A DAY WHICH MAY CHANGE THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND THE NATURE OF TERRORISM.

I wrote on 9/11, "Massoud gone, many thousands of lives lost in the four plane hijacks......"

The scenarios began to build up in my mind; retaliations on Afghanistan yet again. Alexander the Great, The Arabs, The Turks, Chengis Khan, Timur, Persians, The British x 3, Soviet Union and now a US led westerncoalition is there.

TERROR ATTACK: The first World Trade Centre tower begins to implode in New York on September 11, 2001.

One week later (18 September) I am in Pakistan appointed to lead the International Red Cross operation as refugees from Afghanistan were beginning to come across the border. Predictions were that at least a million were expected to cross.

It was a very busy time working with the Pakistan Red Crescent getting relief supplies out to border camps, setting up reception camps and putting in water and sanitation facilities, reinforcing existing medical clincs.. I recall having outstanding colleagues like Naoki Kokawa, Patrick Fuller, Dr. Moin, Dr. Burki, Fred Grimm and John LaPointe. I remember interviews with Lyse Doucet from the BBC, John Burns LA Times and hordes of others. Here is a press release dated 21 September, 2001.

Pakistan Red Crescent gear up to respond to Afghan refugee crisis

As uncertainty continues to prevail in Afghanistan, thousands of Afghans are evacuating the country's major cities such as Kabul and Kandahar. Many are heading for the safety of mountainous areas in the interior of the country whilst tens of thousands have reportedly crossed into Pakistan despite the border remaining officially closed.

As anticipation of ever increasing numbers of Afghan refugees crossing into Pakistan grows, the Pakistan Red Crescent has already taken measures to respond to the crisis. An initial plan of action has been drawn up in consultation with the Federation and the ICRC and the first relief stocks have already left the Pakistan Red Crescent warehouses in Islamabad destined for the Baluchistan provincial branch headquarters in Quetta.

"Pakistan shares a border with Afghanistan that is over 2,000 kms long and it is relatively porous in some areas particularly the stretch adjacent to Baluchistan," says Bob McKerrow, Federations Head of delegation for South Asia. "We know that there are thousands of people waiting on the other side of the border for the chance to cross. Our immediate priority is to help those who have already crossed as well as monitoring relief supplies in the event of a major exodus."

This week the Red Crescent sent 1,000 tents, 10,000 blankets and 3,000 plastic water containers from Islamabad to Quetta. A further 2,000 blankets were also sent to Quetta from the Sind provincial branch headquarters in Karachi.

"At this point we plan to assist 120,000 refugees through our branches in North West Frontier Province and Baluchistan. It will be a major logistical challenge but we have already set up an operations room in our headquarters in Islamabad and we are identifying new warehousing space in Quetta," explains Dr. A. R Burki, Secretary General of the Pakistan Red Crescent.

The Pakistan Red Crescent is also planning to provide medical support to the refugees. Discussions are underway with government authorities in Quetta where a vacant hospital facility could be utilised by the Red Crescent. The Baluchistan branch already have four mobile health teams on standby. These teams were established with support from ECHO as part of the Red Crescent's response to the chronic drought which has affected the province for the past three years.In Peshawar the PRCS is considering utilising the Hayatabad paraplegic centre which was originally established in 1973 by the ICRC to rehabilitate war-wounded patients who had been evacuated from the conflict in neighbouring Afghanistan. The centre was handed over to the Pakistan Red CS in 1996 and has a range of facilities including ultrasound and x-ray, two fully functional operating theatres a physiotherapy unit and a workshop which produces items such as calipers, crutches and artificial limbs.

To support their work and that of other Red Cross Red Crescent Societies, the Federation has launched an appeal for nearly 8.8 million Swiss francs (5.5 million US dollars) to beef up its state of readiness to respond to the needs of large population movements following the recent attacks in the United States.

The primary focus of the appeal is to provide shelter, health care, clean water and food for up to 300,000 people both in the five countries bordering Afghanistan (Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Iran and Pakistan) and elsewhere if the need arises.
Finish of Press release

There were many of us who had worked in Afghanistan, written extensively on Afghanistan, and we were deeply worried about the current course of the war and the lack of credible scenarios for the future.

So on on December 17, 2010, I was one of a number of writers who wrote an open letter to President Obama

To the President of the United States:

Mr. President,

We have been engaged and working inside Afghanistan, some of us for decades, as academics, experts and members of non-governmental organisations. Today we are deeply worried about the current course of the war and the lack of credible scenarios for the future. The cost of the war is now over $120 billion per year for the United States alone.

This is unsustainable in the long run. In addition, human losses are increasing. Over 680 soldiers from the international coalition – along with hundreds of Afghans – have died this year in Afghanistan, and the year is not yet over. We appeal to you to use the unparalleled resources and influence which the United States now brings to bear in Afghanistan to achieve that longed-for peace.

Despite these huge costs, the situation on the ground is much worse than a year ago because the Taliban insurgency has made progress across the country. It is now very difficult to work outside the cities or even move around Afghanistan by road. The insurgents have built momentum, exploiting the shortcomings of the Afghan government and the mistakes of the coalition. The Taliban today are now a national movement with a serious presence in the north and the west of the country. Foreign bases are completely isolated from their local environment and unable to protect the population. Foreign forces have by now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Red Army.

Politically, the settlement resulting from the 2001 intervention is unsustainable because the constituencies of whom the Taliban are the most violent expression are not represented, and because the highly centralised constitution goes against the grain of Afghan tradition, for example in specifying national elections in fourteen of the next twenty years.

The operations in the south of Afghanistan, in Kandahar and in Helmand provinces are not going well. What was supposed to be a population-centred strategy is now a full-scale military campaign causing civilian casualties and destruction of property. Night raids have become the main weapon to eliminate suspected Taliban, but much of the Afghan population sees these methods as illegitimate. Due to the violence of the military operations, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Pashtun countryside, with a direct effect on the sustainability of the war. These measures, beyond their debatable military results, foster grievance. With Pakistan’s active support for the Taliban, it is not realistic to bet on a military solution. Drone strikes in Pakistan have a marginal effect on the insurgency but are destabilising Pakistan. The losses of the insurgency are compensated by new recruits who are often more radical than their predecessors.

The military campaign is suppressing, locally and temporarily, the symptoms of the disease, but fails to offer a cure. Military action may produce local and temporary improvements in security, but those improvements are neither going to last nor be replicable in the vast areas not garrisoned by Western forces without a political settlement.

The 2014 deadline to put the Afghan National Army in command of security is not realistic. Considering the quick disappearance of the state structure at a district level, it is difficult to envision a strong army standing alone without any other state institutions around. Like it or not, the Taliban are a long-term part of the Afghan political landscape, and we need to try and negotiate with them in order to reach a diplomatic settlement. The Taliban’s leadership has indicated its willingness to negotiate, and it is in our interests to talk to them. In fact, the Taliban are primarily concerned about the future of Afghanistan and not – contrary to what some may think – a broader global Islamic jihad. Their links with al-Qaeda – which is not, in any case, in Afghanistan any more – are weak. We need to at least try to seriously explore the possibility of a political settlement in which the Taliban are part of the Afghan political system. The negotiations with the insurgents could be extended to all groups in Afghanistan and regional powers.

The current contacts between the Karzai government and the Taliban are not enough. The United States must take the initiative to start negotiations with the insurgents and frame the discussion in such a way that American security interests are taken into account. In addition, from the point of view of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations – women and ethnic minorities, for instance – as well as with respect to the limited but real gains made since 2001, it is better to negotiate now rather than later, since the Taliban will likely be stronger next year. This is why we ask you to sanction and support a direct dialogue and negotiation with the Afghan Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan. A ceasefire and the return of the insurgency leadership in Afghanistan could be part of a de-escalation process leading to a coalition government. Without any chance for a military victory, the current policy will put the United States in a very difficult position.

For a process of political negotiation to have a chance of addressing the significant core grievances and political inequalities it must occur on multiple levels – among the countries that neighbour Afghanistan as well as down to the provincial and subdistrict. These various tables around which negotiations need to be held are important to reinforce the message – and the reality – that discussions about Afghanistan’s political future must include all parties and not just be a quick-fix deal with members of the insurgency.

We believe that mediation can help achieve a settlement which brings peace to Afghanistan, enables the Taliban to become a responsible actor in the Afghan political order, ensures that Afghanistan cannot be used as a base for international terrorism, protects the Afghan people’s hard-won freedoms, helps stabilise the region, renders the large scale presence of international troops in Afghanistan unnecessary and provides the basis of an enduring relationship between Afghanistan and the international community. All the political and diplomatic ingenuity that the United States can muster will be required to achieve this positive outcome. It is time to implement an alternative strategy that would allow the United States to exit Afghanistan while safeguarding its legitimate security interests.

Respectfully,

Matthieu Aikins Journalist

Scott Atran Anthropologist (University of Michigan) and author of Talking to the Enemy

Rupert Talbot Chetwynd Author of Yesterday’s Enemy – Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?

Robert Abdul Hayy Darr Author of The Spy of the Heart and humanitarian aid worker in Afghanistan during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Gilles Dorronsoro Visiting Scholar (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and author of Revolution Unending

David B. Edwards Anthropologist (Williams College) and author of Before Taliban Jason Elliot Author of An Unexpected Light

Antonio Giustozzi Author of Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop and editor of Decoding the New Taliban

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi Associate Professor, James Madison University

Daniel Korski Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relatio

Felix Kuehn Kandahar-based writer/researcher, co-editor of My Life With the Taliban

Minna Jarvenpaa Former Head of Analysis and Policy Planning, UNAMA

Anatol Lieven Professor, War Studies Department of King’s College London and author of Pakistan: A Hard Country

Bob McKerrow Author of Mountains of our Minds – Afghanistan

Alessandro Monsutti Research Director, Transnational Studies/Development Studies at The Graduate Institute, Geneva

Ahmed Rashid Journalist and author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos

Nir Rosen Fellow, New York University Center on Law and Security

Gerard Russell Research Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University

Alex Strick van Linschoten Kandahar-based writer/researcher, co-editor of My Life With the Taliban

Astri Surkhe Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway

Yama Torabi Co-Director, Integrity Watch Afghanistan

Jere van Dyk Author of In Afghanistan and Captive

Matt Waldman Afghanistan Analyst

Never ask a Frenchman to buy food for a mountaineering expedition

2011-08-19T01:40:00.000-07:00

Our camp on Kohe Jalgya at 4300 metres. The peak is at the top left. Photo: Bob McKerrow

My last climb in Afghanistan was in June 1996. I got a group of mountaineers together; Mathias Luft from France, Ross Everson an Australian, and Bruce Watson an old friend from New Zealand. In the previous three years of living and working in Afghanistan, I had done a number of trips in the Hindu Kush, and somehow I was attracted to a group of peaks known as Koh-e-Jalgya. Here was my last opportunity for my last trip into the Hindu Kush before I finished my contract

A group of local bandits I photographed and some days later they stole some of our equipment. Photo: Bob McKerrow

This was quite an expedition and the first mistake made, was letting a Frenchman buy the food without supervision. We ended up with pasta, stale and hard bread, rice, onions sugar and tea. There were no breakfast food, no milk powder, no salt, nuts, meat, chocolate meat or sardines. I wrote in my diary after six days we were starving. A group of armed locals stole equipment from us and Mathias was threatened by a soldier with an AK 47.

Approaching the Anjoman Pass from the Panjcher side of the Hindu Kush. In the background are peaks of Nuristan and Mir Sami to the right of centre. photo: Bob McKerrow

It took us five days to cross from the Panjcher Valley over Kotali Anjoman, down to Anjoman village, where we turned a sharp right up a side valley called Darrahe Paghar and set up a base camp at 4300 metres under Kohe Jalgya. The Anjoman Pass seperates Parwan province from Badakhshan province.

Our camp on the northern side of the Hindu Kush with Anjoman Pass the low depression to the right of centre. We spent a day here recovereing from a tiring crossing of the pass. Photio: Bob McKerrow

We soon realised that Kohe Jalgya was quite a technical climb and we didn’t have enough climbing equipment for such an ice climb. So Ross and Mathias headed for Kohe Jalgya and Bruce and I for another less technical climb, an unnamed peak at 5,300 metres.

Bruce Watson on a high point about 4800 metres near to Kohe Jalgya. The range in the background is part of the Jalgya massif. Photo: Bob McKerrow

On the ascent of Kohe Jalgya, Ross and Mathias spent a night half way up the peak. They made good progress the next day but found the ice climbing difficult. After negotiating the hardest part of the climb, they came to a small snow field where they had to plug through waist-deep snow near the summit. They turned back at 4 pm on the 6th of June as the weather closed in. The descent turned into an epic in worsening weather. Mathias had two axes for front pointing down the face, but Ross only had one which slowed him down. Mathias gave Ross one of his ice axes, and he used one axe and an ice screw as a dagger, to descend. About 9 pm, Mathias lost footing and fell down an icy coliour and tumbled head over heals for 300 metres, just coming to a stop before a rocky bluff. Although cut and bruised, he was able to wal on alone trying to find the tent. Meanwhile Ross continued descending alone in the dark on steep ice. Now seperated by 300 metres, Mathias managed to stagger back to their tent situated on a snow ledge. Ross kept down climbing on ice another two hours, reaching the tent at midnight.

Meanwhile at base camp, Bruce and I were anxiously waiting, for they were a day late. We had eaten our last spoon of milk powder, and had no food left, not even a cooker to make tea.

So on Saturday 8 June, Bruce and I left a note and emergency equipment under a rock cairn, and said we were leaving for the valley to buy a sheep, cook it and come up with some locals to effect a rescu

A young boy and his donkey in the Darrahe Paghar valley at the foot of Kohe Japgya. Photo: Bob McKerrow

We got down to a small hamlet in the valley about 4.30 pm and I glanced back at the mountain, and saw two specks slowly moving on the lower snow slopes of the mountain. It could only be Ross and Mathias. Bruce and I were elated. They were alive! We bought a stringy old female sheep and got the farmer to skin it, cut it up and boil it, preparing a feast for Ross and Mathias. Four hours later Mathias and Ross crossed the rising river, and joined us for a feast of mutton. Four days later we were back in Kabul.

Climbing up to the Anjoman Pass from the Badakhshan side. Photo: Bob McKerrow

For further information on mountaineering in Afghanistan, try this:http://bobmckerrow.blogspot.com/2011/08/climbing-and-exploring-in-hindu-kush.html

or this

even better

Two New Zealand Women climb new route on Koh-e-Baba-Tangi in Afghanistan

2011-08-17T21:08:00.000-07:00

My heart leapt today when I got the news that sisters Patricia Deavoll and Christine Byrch climbed Koh-e-Baba-Tangi in Afghanistan. What a magnificent achievement ! I know the Wakhan well and saw it from inside Afghanistan, and different views from Tajikistan when I worked in both countries in the 1990s.

Here is the news first hand from Pat:

Christine and I summitted Koh-e-Baba-Tangi (6515m) in the Wakhan Corridor (Afgahnistan) on the 9th August. Five days to the summit with some good steep ice, then 2 days to decend the West Ridge (line of the original 1963 ascent). Ours is only the second climb of the mountain, done via a new route up the N'NW ridge.

Took a lot out of us...but we are very pleased.The Wakhan is a beautiful remote area unlike anywhere ive been.

Now back in Khorog, Tajikistan, on our way home.

Here is further information on ttheir amazing expedition

An aerial view of the Wakhan corridor, Afghanistan.

2010 New Zealand Women’s Mountaineering Expedition to the Wakhan Corridor,

Afghanistan

Patricia Deavoll and Christine Byrch

To make the first ascent of the North West Ridge of Koh-e-Baba-Tangi (6516m) in the Wakhan Corridor

Hindu Kush Range,Northern Afghanistan

Objective:

Koh-e-Baba Tangi is in the upper Kezget Valley, at the far end of the Wakhan Corridor and is considered by many mountaineers to be the most fascinating peak in the Afghan Hindu Kush. It was first climbed by an Italian team via the West Ridge. There are accounts of this expedition in:

• The American Alpine Club Journal 1964. pp 324-235
• The British AC Journal No. 308 May 1964.

Pat and Christine wish to make the second ascent of the mountain via the unclimbed North West Ridge, which will take them into an area rarely visited by climbers, and which has certainly not had a visit in the last thirty years. If the North West Ridge doesn’t offer a safe climbing option they will make their attempt via either the unclimbed East Ridge, or via the West Ridge (route of the first ascentionists).

Members:

Pat Deavoll
Christine Byrch

Pat and Christine are sisters.

Expedition duration: 15th July 2011- 30th August 2011.

Background:

The mountains of Afghanistan’s High Hindu Kush are located in the north east of the country, in the long finger of land known as the Wakhan Corridor, which separates Pakistan and Tajikistan. These mountains are gradually being revisited by climbers, who report the area to be remote, safe and worlds apart from the on-going war with the Taliban. Peaks in the Wakhan Corridor were hugely popular in the 1960’s and 70’s, particularly among European climbers who would often reach the area overland via the “hippy trail.” They were enticed by generally easier access than found in other parts of the Himalaya/ Karakoram, more stable weather and the ability to climb without the constraints of a restrictive permit system. But after the coup d’etat in 1978 and the Soviet Invasion in 1979 the climbing became strictly off-limits and remained so for
almost 30 years.

However in 2003 Carlo Alberto Pinelli, an Italian mountaineer who in the 1960’s climbed extensively in the area (and was one of the first ascentionists of Koh-e-Baba Tangi) organised an expedition he called the Oxuz: Mountains for Peace, with the objective of climbing Noshaq (7492m), Afghanistan’s highest mountain. He wanted to let the Afghan’s know they had not been forgotten by the climbers who had benefited from their generous hospitality. The successful expedition effectively marked the beginning of a new era of climbing in the region. Over the past five years a steadily increasing number of expeditions have, once again, enjoyed the superb climbing in the Afghan Hindu Kush.

Distinctive aims and objectives of the expedition:

• For two sisters from New Zealand to make the first ascent of the North West Ridge of Koh-e-Baba Tangi (6516m) in the Wahkan Corridor of the Hindu Kush Range of Afghanistan (second ascent of mountain)

• To showcase this neglected but fascinating region to other climbers worldwide and to determine its renewed safety as a mountaineering destination.

• To show solidarity towards the people of the Wakhan Corridor by supporting their economy, which has suffered over the past three decades with the demise of tourism.

• To showcase the abilities of strong female mountaineers in a male-dominant sport. Koh-e-Baba Tangi from Kezget

• To run an environmentally sound and socially conscientious expedition.

• To make a short amateur documentary on the expedition to be gifted to Wakhan Tourism for the promotion of future tourism in the area. We are hoping that a film of two western women travelling and climbing in Afghanistan will be of use to the organisation.

• To produce feature articles for leading outdoor publication on the expedition with the intention of promoting: a) the Afghan Hindu Kush as an area to climb, and b) the abilities of strong female mountaineers.

Intended route on Koh-e-Baba-Tangi

Description of North West Ridge Route from Guide Book (Peaks of Silver and Jade)

“The ascent of the Nth/Nth/West Spur…seems to be particularly attractive. It is a varied and hard route, but probably not to dangerous, alternating stretched of rock, mixed terrain and ice. Nothing is known about the bergschrund. A rock promontory protrudes from the glacier followed by an almost vertical ice dip. On top of it the slopes are less steep but then they straighten up once more along a small rocky ridge. From here a long crossing to the right could be attempted towards a large well visible ramp that takes you near the Western Ridge… It looks like and easy route. However it is partially exposed to the possible collapse of an overhanging barrier of seracs.

Above the little rocky ridge you proceed to your left on a second ridge until you land on a small snow plateau. The plateau ends at a spur of mixed terrain. Once you have negotiated this spur, you are soon on the summit.”

Detailed itinerary/schedule:

• Day 1: Arrive in Kabul

• Day 2: Shopping for food and equipment.

• Day 3: Fly to Faizabad.

• Day 4-5-6: Organisation with Wakhan Tourism and Mountain Unity.

• Day 7: Drive to village of Ishakashum .

• Day 9: Drive to Kandud

• Day 10: Drive to Kezget.

• Day 12-13: Trek to Basecamp (with expedition staff and porters/horses)

• Day 14-32: Acclimatization and climbing of Koh-e-Baba Tangi (6516m)

• Day 32-33: Trek to Kezget.

• Day 34-35: Drive to Ishakasum

• Day 36-40: Site seeing and liaison with Mountain Unity and Wakhan Tourism.

• Day 41: Flight to Kabul.

• Day 42: Leave Kabul for New Zealand

Why Pat and Christine think they will be successful:

Pat and Christine are two highly accomplished mountaineers; between them they have over fifty years of climbing experience. Pat has been on ten expeditions to Asia in the past nine years, all to climb mountains between 6000m and 7000m in height. Three of these (2007, 2008, 2009) have been to Afghanistan’s close neighbour, Pakistan, thus she is very aware of the risks of traveling in a Muslim country during periods of political unrest. Christine has also travelled extensively in Pakistan; therefore both women know how to conduct themselves as western women in an Islamic culture.

As a mountaineering partnership they climb well together, due mainly to the fact they are sisters and have known each other for ever! They are both extremely fit, despite their age. They have chosen Koh-e-Baba Tangi because it is a mountain of moderate height (6516m) and looks to be technically within their capabilities, but also, due to its position at the far end of the Wahkan Corridor, because it offers an exciting adventure just in reaching its base.

Both are confident they can summit Koh-e-Baba Tangi, if not by the North West Ridge, then via the East or West Ridge options.

For more, see Pat's blog: http://www.patdeavoll.co.nz/?page_id=697

My heartiest congratulations Pat and to your sister Christine. I am proud to be a Kiwi.

HERE IS SOME FURTHER INFORMATION ON THE WAKHAN

ALPINE EXPLORATION OF THE WAKHAN , .authored by HENRI AGRESTI published in 1972

An expedition in the Hindu Kush combines the delight of high mountain, the loveliness of the journey and exploration. That huge massif which stretches over nearly 1,000 km. can be divided into three parts—the occidental part is 5,143 m. high at Koh-e-Baba. The central Hindu Kush with its highest part in the Koh-e-Bandakor (6,600 m.) and which presents considerable interest for mountaineering but is rather well known nowadays. The best part for the alpinist is the high Hindu Kush which groups most of the seven-thousanders and numerous six-thousanders— its culminating point is Tirich Mir (7,706 m.) ascended in 1950 by the Norwegians from the valley of Chitral in Pakistan. We are not going to refer to that area of the high Hindu Kush attainable from the south, but only about the less known part—the Wakhan. In fact, Wakhan is the narrow gully which separates the Hindu Kush from the mountains of the Soviet Pamir, but that same term is also used to characterize the northern’ part of the Hindu Kush attainable from Afghanistan.

In the whole of the Hindu Kush, the Wakhan is the part which has remained the least known up to now. The first expedition took place only in 1960. The reason why it has been so are simple. Before 1963 the access to the Wakhan was difficult because of the lack of roads. Even now, it depends on the summer season—when the torrents don’t cut the track, one can go as far as Quala Panja by jeep and by other vehicles; on the other hand, the permit to go to that region is not delivered every year so that some summers no climbing has been done, as has been the case in 1961 and 1967.

In 1960 a Japanese expedition climbed Noshaq (7 492 m) the second highest summit in Hindu Kush and the highest in Afghanistan—some days later a Polish expedition succeeded in the second ascent of the same summit. The two expeditions began the ascents of the Wakhan mountains and explored the most western part of the massif near its entrance.

1 This is a translation of one of the articles printed in an excellent booklet ‘Montagne arides du Wakhan’ by the author

In 1962 the second Polish expedition joined by four Frenchmen (Moreau, Ginat, Bruneau and Langevin) explored the valleys of Mandaras and of Urgen-Bala, climbing Koh-e-Tez (6,800 m.) and Koh-e-Mandaras (6,600 m.).

The year 1963 is one of the most important in the discovery of these mountains. Six expeditions were given the permit to get to them, and for the first time, a group of alpinists penetrated far to the east, towards the plateau of Pamir. After having explored the different valleys, among which was the valley of Lunkho, the Italians climbed Baba-Tangi (6,513 m.). However, it is once more in the region of Noshaq that the main activity of alpinists could be seen. Two Austrian expeditions, one directed by Dr. Gruber and the other by Pilz, ascended the western crest and went over the ridge to Noshaq, thus realizing the third ascent of that summit. The same year a third Austrian expedition climbed Kishmi-Khan (6,700 m.) twice.

The same summer the third Polish expedition succeeded in the first ascent of Languta-e-Barfi and the third and fourth of Kishmi- Khan after a rather elaborate attempt on the northern spur of Shakhaur (7,000 m.). That attempt foreshadowed the advent of the 6 Sporting era’ in the Wakhan. To complete the year 1963, let us mention a Swiss expedition led by Eiselin. Over and above the seven-thousander Urgen, that expedition climbed Shash-Dhar (6,550 m.) and Urup (5,650 m.). At the end of 1963 the occidental part of Wakhan was well explored, but a lot of things had to be done further to the east. There numerous summits, often difficult, but not reaching more than 7,000 m. rose along over a hundred kilometres losing height gradually as it approached the plateau of Pamir—the crossroads where the Hindu Kush meets the Pamirs, the Tien-shan and the Kara- korams. If the present political situation remains unchanged these frontier massifs will, no doubt, remain difficult of access to the alpinists for a long time.

In 1964 a German expedition directed by Von Dobeneck climbed the 7,000 m. high Langar. Then because of the persistent bad weather—which is likely to be rather rare on a massif not subject to the monsoon—undertook the longest penetration to the east ever realized up to that time by alpinists—as far as the Chinese frontier. Their account, thrilling from the exploration and adventure standpoint, contains precious details about those mountains of Asia which are still very little known.

The following year an important Czech expedition climbed seventeen summits in the Ishmurgh valley at the foot of Lunkho.

It left untouched the main problem of that part, but revealed the existence of beautiful mountains with huge and very steep face which can be compared to the north face of the Grandes Jorasses, but twice as high and reaching to about 7,000 m.

The weather was still rather bad and it prevented the Czechs from their great realizations in this area.

In 1966 again, only one expedition obtained permit to get to the Wakhan, for only the first twenty kilometres of the valley. It’s in that way that the fourth Polish expedition, joined by a Belgian, J. Bourgeois, and two French, my wife and myself, succeeded in the ascent of Noshaq (7,492 m.) by the Austrians’ route and different virgin summits of no great importance such as the Sad-Istragh (5,800 m.), M. 10 (6,000 m.), Chap Zom (5,400 m.)… During an attempt on a seven-thousander, Barban Zom near Noshaq, Potocki disappears in an avalanche. Bourgeois and Heinrich succeed in returning to the main camp after a week of superhuman efforts and thanks to much luck.

Before 1968, the discovery of the Wakhan developed fairly well in the occidental part, the central and eastern valleys, in spite of some incursions, kept their problems unresolved. All the ambitions were directed in fact towards the Lunkho region and it is in this region that five out of the six expeditions of 1968 were made. The sixth one, a group of Frenchmen led by L. Dubost, climbed Koh-e-Lakhsh (5,786 m.) at the entrance of Wakhan from its northern spur.

Going on to the east we find in the Yamit valley an Italo- Polish expedition which is said to have climbed the western ramparts of Lunkho and different summits of less importance in this valley as well as some in Khandud.

In the Khandud valley two expeditions—an Austrian and a Yugoslavian—succeeded together on the same day the ascent of Lunkho-e-Dosare (6,868 m.); a few days later, on 13 August the Austrians succeeded in climbing the central tongue of Lunkho- e-Hawar (6,872 m.). They also made the first ascents of the summits of Wala No. 321 (6,450 m.) and No. 353 (6,434 m.), as well as the second ascent of Koh-e-Hevad (6,849 m.) and with the Yugoslavians the second ascent of the Koh-e-Myani (5,632 m.). In the Ishmurgh valley where a Czech expedition went in 1965, a Scottish expedition, directed by Ian Rowe, climbed the northern spur of Lunkho-e-Hawar, but did not reach the top and had to stop 100 to 200 metres lower. During that difficult climbing, Alan North lost his left foot toes. More to the east we find in the Quala Panja valley, our expedition. The 1968 year has then been very important in the discovery and conquest of the central part of the Wakhan mountains, namely all the summits around Lunkho. Thus as far as Quala Panja all the valleys are known. Most of the summits have been reached. More to the east, however, all the summits are virgin, except for Baba-Tangi.

In 1969 seven groups went to the Wakhan. An American team (Hechtel) and an Austrian (Axt) went to Noshaq. A French group (Dabos) climbed Kishmi-Khan by opening a new route by its south-west pillar, while a Franco-Swiss group (Dittert) went to the region of Mandaras and climbed some five- thousanders. Isabelle and I went back for the third time to the Wakhan with a team from Lyon. We climbed the northern pillar of Shakhaur. A Japanese group went to the Pegish valley, and a French group to the Quala Panja valley to try Koh-e-Wakhan, the first ascent of which has been realized on the same date from the Pakistani side by Helga and Rudolph Lindner.[1]

Some summits are still waiting for lovers of beautiful problems. Lunkho-e-Hawar (6,872 m.) presents a wall 1,000-2,000 m. high and which stretches over several kilometres to the east as far as the Uparisina and to the west as far as the Lunkho-e-Dosare. More to the east, the Quala-e-Ust (6,300 m.)[2] is virgin. The seven-thousanders have often been climbed only by a single route—walls of over 2,000 m. are not rare—around Shakhaur they reach 3,000 m. Beautiful granite pillars which remind you of the southern aspects of Mont Blanc but rise to 6,000-7,000 m. here and there. Let us mention for instance those we have seen on the Sad-Istragh, the Koh-e-Setara, the Saraghrar…

Notes on Summit Identification by Dr. A. Diemberger

Rahezom Zom North = Koh-e-Wakhan

In 1968 Henry and Isabella Agresti also reconnoitred Koh-e- Wakhan, the imposing summit in the south-east corner of the east glacier of the valley of Quala Panja. For this purpose they climbed two summits beside Col. Est (5,650 m.).

Southwards from Koh-e-Wakhan, and separated by a Col, towers another high peak which appears to belong to the system of Koh-e-Wakhan. Dr. Gerald Gruber names, in OAZ Fg. 1365, these two peaks Rahezom Zom North and South Height according to Agresti: North peak 6,400 m. South peak 6,636 m. Height according to Gruber: North peak 6,535 m. South peak 6,502 m. (taken from quarter inch and from Wala maps).

In 1969 Helga and Rudolf Lindner attacked both peaks from the south, from Chitral. From the Chi-Gari glacier, that is from south-west, they reached by step cutting, the big Col between the north and south peaks. They named this beautiful and broad Col ‘Silver Saddle’.

From Silver Saddle they scaled first on 4.8.69 the North peak and thereafter on 6.8.69 the South peak. They found that the South peak was higher than the North peak. The altitude meter showed a difference of approx 120 m. It would have been purposeful—and H. Agresti and G. Gruber would have agreed to it—to give the name Koh-e-Wakhan to the North peak. It lies on the border ridge between Wakhan and Chitral and is accessible from Wakhan. The name Rahezom Zom could be for the South peak which exists totally independent of the North peak It is pushed towards Chitral. Provisional height approx: Koh- e-Wakhan above 6,400 m., Rahezom Zom about 6,550 m The Lindners found no sign of any previous climbing on the North peak. On the peak edge one could only ride. Clear peak photos show, in the east Ouala Wust, above 6,300 m„ and Baba-Tangi above 6,500 m.

An Alpine Magazine reported a scaling of Koh-e-Wakhan from the north side on 2.8.69. That is, two days before the scaling of the Lindner team. Now the problem has been cleared. On 2.8.69 a French team came from north side up to the cornices below the summit of Koh-e-Wakhan, but could not reach the summit.

Further notes on the article by Henri Agresti in the Himalayan Journal, Vol. XXIX, 1969, by Dr. A. Diemberger.

The credit to Henry Agresti regarding the opening up of the Ouala Panja Valley cannot be sufficiently stressed. A few more remarks on the article on pp. 65 and 66, and on the ridge sketch.

1. The first summit north of Koh-e-Tirma (5,950 m ) is Koh-e-Andaval, approx. 5,640 m. In 1968 it was scaled by a Scottish Team from the Ishmurgh Valley.

2. Between Koh-e-Tirma and Koh-e-Setara (6,050 m.), a group of three summits lie, one said to have a height of 6,150 m.

H. Agresti takes all these three summits under a provisional name Koh-e-Bakera. The western one is a neve summit, the eastern one a complex of rock towers. These summits have not been scaled yet (1970) and deserve an ascent.

3. Further references:

(a) H.J., Vol. XXIX, 1969, pp. 65-66, 67-69, 69-70, 71-74 (the first three being reprints from A.J., 1969).

(b) A.J., 1970, pp. 169-172 (Austrian Expedition, 1969), p. 173 (American Expedition, 1969), pp. 173-174 (French Expedition, 1969), pp. 174-175 (Franco-Swiss Expedition, 1969), pp. 175-176 (French ascent of Shakhaur, 1669) (reprinted in H.J., Vol. XXX, 1970 pp. 275-277).

(c) H.J., Vol. XXX, 1970, pp. 264-269 (Austrian Expedition, 1969), pp. 282-300 (Review of Scottish Expeditions, 1965-1970).

(d) AJ., 1971, pp. 213-214 (British Expedition, 1970), pp. 214-216 (Austrian Expedition, 1970).

(e) A.AJ., 1971, pp. 456-461 (Various Expeditions of 1970).

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[1] See Dr. A. Diemberger’s notes which immediately follow this article regarding Koh-e-Wakhan and the 1968 French Expedition to Quala Panja.

[2] Also spelt Quala Wust.

Expeditions and climbs in the Hindu Kush - Afghanistan

2011-08-14T07:06:00.000-07:00

Today I took time to update various climbs and expeditions I went on in Afghanistan during the period, 1993-1996.
John Tinker (l) and Ian Clarke with Mir Samir in the background. The route they attempted was a ridge on the face just to the left of centre to the left of a small avalanche in a snow gulley: Photo: Bob McKerrow

FROM THE AMERICAN ALPINE JOURNAL 1995
Mir Samir and ascent of P5000. After years when it was too dangerous to enter the mountains of Afghanistan, New Zealander Bob McKerrow and Englishmen Ian Clarke and Jon Tinker headed for Mir Samir in the Hindu Kush. McKerrow is head of the International Red Cross in Afghanistan and Clarke is a former Royal Marine, now head of the Halo Trust mine clearance organisation in Afghanistan.

Tinker has worked in the country a number of times in the last seven years.The three climbers set out from Kabul on September 23, 1994, acclimatizing near the Salang Pass before setting out for Parian in the upper Panjchir.

There four horses were hired to carry food and equipment up the Chamar valley to base camp at 3,400 m. Clarke's skills were put to the test when the saw air-dropped scatterable anti-personnel mines.

They established a high camp at 4,300 m on September 29.Because of the deep snow, the two Englishmen made slow progress the next day to bivouac at 4,900 meters on an unclimbed snow route on the southwest face of Mir Samir. On October 1 they made While Clarke and Tinker were climbing Mir Samir, McKerrow climbed an unclimbed peak at approximately 5000 metres, a prominent feature when viewed from the Chamar Valley. a summit attempt.but unseasonable deep snow turned the back at 5200 meters, some 600 meters from the summit.(end of article from American Alpine Club Journal, 1995)

Above, he peak climbed solo by Bob McKerrow on 1 October 1994. The peak was named P5000 by the American Alpine Journal 1995. The photo is taken from the Chamar Valley.

We spent a few night in the Panjcher valley. This trigger-happy commander put us up for a few nights free. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Tinker with parts of land mines which we found scattered through the region. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Bob McKerrow (l) with John Tinker at Base Camp on Mir Samir. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The donkey that carried our supplies in with Mir Samir in the background. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I couldn't resist putting the photo of Eric Newby taken on their attempt on Mir Samir in 1956 and an extract from his obituary in the New York Times, October 24, 2006.

Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1956, Mr. Newby set out on the trip that would make him famous: a voyage by station wagon, foot and horseback to climb Mir Samir, a 20,000-foot peak in Nuristan, a wild region in northeastern Afghanistan. The fact that he had never climbed a mountain did not deter him in the slightest.

Mir Samir. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Mr. Newby chronicled the trip in “A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush,” published in Britain by Secker & Warburg in 1958 and in the United States by Doubleday the next year. As in all his work, the narrative was marked by genial self-effacement and overwhelming understatement.

Bob McKerrow reading some pages from Eric Newby's A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush to children whose Grandfathers helped Newby. We retraced a large part of their journey, Photo: Bob McKerrow
Reviewing the book in The New York Times Book Review in 1959, William O. Douglas, a noted travel memoirist who by day was a justice of the United States Supreme Court, called the book “a chatty, humorous and perceptive account.” He added: “Even the unsanitary hotel accommodations, the infected drinking water, the unpalatable food, the inevitable dysentery are lively, amusing, laughable episodes.”

Here is the article I wrote on various climbs in Afghanistan we did between 1993 and 1996..

No foreigners have climbed in Afghanistan since the Soviets arrived in late 1978. I had heard about the passes and valleys strewn with land mines so it was with some trepidation I embarked from Kabul in October 1994 on what was probably the first expedition into the Hindu Kush for at least 17 years.
Roads in the Hindu Kush are difficult to negotiate in winter. We are heading up to the Salang Tunnel which is the only tunnel through the Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I travelled with two British climbers, Ian Clarke and John Tinker, to the Chamar valley for an attempt Mir Samir, a peak made famous by Eric Newby in his book, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush. Tinker was fresh off an ascent of Everest by a new route on the north side and Clarke was head of a British Mine clearance organisation in Afghanistan and was a necessary companion as the area had received large amounts of small scatterable mines, dropped from Soviet aircrafts to prevent the freedom fighters crossing the mountain passes.

Having lunch at our base camp with a bunch of Pashtoon soldiers returning from just being released from prison in the north, to their home in the east of Afghanistan, a journey of 400 km through remote wild mountain areas. John Tinker left, and Ian Clarke 3rd from left. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Our safety was dependent on his knowledge of mines and where battles had taken place. Tinker and Clarke attempted an unclimbed face on Mir Samir and got surprising high considering the unseasonably soft snow that had fallen.
The mountains to the extreme left of Mir Samir at the head of the Chamar Valley. Photo: Bob McKerrow

While the others were attempting Mir Samir, I climbed an unnamed peak around 5000 metres and looked over to the enticing mountains of Nuristan, formerly Kafirstan. We explored a number of neighbouring regions with the hope of returning to do further climbing. .In June 1995 I did another trip was Clarke, crossing from the Panjcher valley to southern Badakshan by way of the 4260 m Anjuman Pass.

Early 1995, Ian Clarke and I did another trip over the Anjuman Pass on a journey towards the Wakhan Corridor. Photo: Bob McKerrow

It was a unique opportunity to explore this spectacular part of the Hindu Kush and check routes on the major peaks in the area ranging from 5900 to 6500 metres.

A rather dubious group we came across. Photo: Bob McKerrow

One of the best peaks in the area in Kohi Bandak. The highlight of the trip was when returning back over the Anjuman Pass when at about 3400 metres in high alpine pastures we met about 50 Kuchi (nomad) families on their annual journey to this area. Some were on the move, other camping in their black, low-slung goat hair tents. We passed strings of camels with babies and young children with intricately embroidered bonnets, tied on the backs.

Camped at a lake on the northern side of the Hindu Kush. We crossed by Kotali Anjuman, the low pass on the right. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Kuchi nomads wending their way through the Hindu Kush.

Young girls with page-boy style hair cuts, flashed their shy blue eyes at us as we passed.

We stopped in tents to share pots of tea and watched how they cared for their animals. Young goats were inside the tent, sheltering from the hot sun, women tenderly carried young lambs in their arms, and an old lame sheep, rode past on the back of a camel. Over the hillsides women and children were gathering alpine herbs, wood, leaves and wild vegetables. Nearby an old women was weaving a carpet. This is what the mountains of Afghanistan are about, tough friendly mountain people who have a symbiotic relations with the hills. They name their children after the mountains, names such as ‘Kohzad’, meaning of the mountains.

Kuchi nomads on the move.

Despite the warmth of the people, many disasters befall them. Thousands are killed annually by avalanches and landslides. In late March word reached Kabul that a massive landslides had hit the village of Qarluk, situated high in the mountains of Badakhshan.
I was part of a Red Cross survey team that walked and rode by horse to the site. The whole village had been engulfed killing 350 people, all women and children. The landslide occurred at 11 am when the men and boys were out in the fields and the women. We arrived to find only one female survivor, 11 year old Gulnesa Beg, her arm broken in two places and with her good arm, hugging her father. A whole village wiped out by nature. Here we spent weeks running a relief operation to assist during the emergency phase and started helping these rugged Hazara people put their lives back together again.

In August this year (1996), the highlight of my time in Afghanistan was a trip to Nuristan, the legendary 'land of light'.

Parun Valley, Nuristan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The Afghan Red Cross is establishing a medical clinic in the Parun valley and I went with our medical staff. Nuristan hugs the southern side of the Hindu Kush and is been isolated from the rest of the country. Six main valleys make up Nuristan each with their own language and for four to five months of the year, the mountain passes in and out of Nuristan are blocked. In is an area where snow panthers, wolves and fox thrive in forests almost untouched by human hand, this is paradise on earth. These blue-eyed and sometimes blond haired people claim they are either descendants of the original Aryans, while others say they are descendants of Alexander the Great. In 1895 they were forcibly converted to Islam and even today their are remnants of their former pagan past. Nuristani villages cling to mountain sides, sometimes perched on peak-tops. a legacy of the past to avoid invaders. Like the mountain Tajiks, the Nuristanis are true mountaineers. In 1889 George Robertson the author of the book ‘Kafirs of the Hindu Kush’, described the Nuristanis as" 'magnificent mountaineers<-"' because of their mountain skills, fitness and agility.

Skiing near the Salang Pass. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The northern entrance to the Salang Tunnel and the men who keep the road open. February 1996. Bob McKerrow

McKerrow and Tinker sorting out gear at Base Camp in 1994. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The writer sitting on an old Soviet tank. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Our last climbs in Afghanistan were in June 1996. I went with Mathias Luft, Ross Everson and Bruce Watson. Mathias and Ross climbed Kohe Jalgya 6260m, the peak in the background in the photo above. Bruce and I climbed a 5300 m peak. Photo: Bob McKerrow

This was quite a difficult expedition and the first mistake made, was letting a Frenchman buy the food without supervision. We ended up with pasta, stale and hard bread, rice, onions sugar and tea. There were no breakfast food, no milk powder, no salt, nuts, meat, chocolate meat or sardines. I wrote in my diary after six days we were starving. A group of armed locals stole equipment from us and Mathias was threatened by a soldier with an AK 47.

Bruce Watson on our Kohe Jalgya expedition at about 4,800 metres, just above our base camp. Photo: Bob McKerrow

It took us five days to cross from the Panjcher Valley over Kotali Anjoman, down to Anjoman village, where we turned a sharp right up a side valley called Darrahe Paghar and set up a base camp at 4300 metres under Kohe Jalgya.

We soon realised that Kohe Jalgya was quite a technical climb and we didn’t have enough climbing equipment for such an ice climb. So Ross and Mathias head for Kohe Jalgya and Bruce and I for another less technical climb, an unnamed peak at 5,300 metres.

On the ascent of Kohe Jalgya, Ross and Mathias spent a night half way up the peak. They made good progress the next day but found the ice climbing difficult. After negotiating the hardest part of the climb, they came to a small snow field where they had to plug through waist-deep snow near the summit. They turned back at 4 pm on the 6th of June as the weather closed in. The descent turned into an epic in worsening weather. Mathias had two axes for front pointing down the face, but Ross only had one which slowed him down. Mathias gave Ross one of his ice axes, and he used one axe and an ice screw as a dagger, to descend. About 9 pm, Mathias lost footing and fell down an icy coliour and tumbled head over heals for 300 metres, just coming to a stop before a rocky bluff. Although cut and bruised, he was able to walk. Meanwhile Ross continued descending alone in the dark on steep ice. Now seperated by 300 metres, Mathias managed to stagger back to their tent situated on a snow ledge. Ross kept down climbing on ice another two hours, reaching the tent at midnight.

Meanwhile at base camp, Bruce and I were anxiously waiting, for they were a day late. We had eaten our last spoon of milk powder, and had no food left, not even a cooker to make tea.

So on Saturday 8 June, Bruce and I left a note and emergency equipment under a rock cairn, and said we were leaving for the valley to buy a sheep, cook it and come up with some locals to effect a rescue.

We got down to a small hamlet in the valley about 4.30 pm and I glanced back at the mountain, and saw two specks slowly moving on the lower snow slopes of the mountain. It could only be Ross and Mathias. Bruce and I were elated. They were alive! We bought a stringy old female sheep and got the farmer to skin it, cut it up and boil it, preparing a feast for Ross and Mathias. Four hours later Mathias and Ross crossed the risinf river, and joined us for a feast of mutton. Four days later we were back in Kabul.

Two of the best ! Over the years i have climbed with many high competent mountaineers but John Tinker (left) and Ian Clarke (right) are two of the best I have climbed with. We did an expedition to mir samir together and Clarke and I did a recce of the Anjuman Pass area in 1995, trying to reach the Wakhan. The central Hindu Kuah in the background.

So during the three years I lived and worked in Afghanistan, (1993-96), I was fortunate to get out to many parts of the Hindu Kush, and explore, trek and climb. With the difficult security situation today, I am so grateful to have taken that opportunity. On reflection, I suppose it was minefield mountaineering. Thanks to Ian Clarke for giving me the confidence to travel in a country that was heavily mined, and teaching me what was safe and what was not.

Scientific Expedition to study glaciers on Mir Samir Afghanistan - 1965

2011-06-26T08:01:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I got this message from Howard Horsely about going to Afghanistan as a young man.

"I was the youngest member of a scientific expedition to study the glaciers on Mir Samir in 1965. Such glaciers provide almost all the water to sustain most of the agriculture in Afghanistan. We climbed a number of neighbouring peaks and while we were there a Japanese team mounted a successful ascent of Mir Samir."

Howard Horsley

I found this very interesting article about Howard in the New Statesman.

Aid to Africa: who's counting?

Rosie Waterhouse

Published 12 September 2005

Howard Horsley is an idealist, committed to overseas aid. Over the years he has worked as a volunteer, a paid teacher and a VSO field officer in Africa. Then, in 1999, at the age of 54 and with a successful career as a headteacher in England behind him, he applied for a job with the Department for International Development (DfID). "I was thrilled by the expansion of the overseas aid programme under the newly elected Labour government and keen to make my expertise available," he recalls.

In May that year he took up a post managing the education field office (EFO) in Ghana, administering a British aid programme worth £50m over five years. He liked Accra, the capital, and made plans for his wife to join him, but within a few weeks he began to notice things at work that he didn't like. As months passed, he grew more and more concerned about what he describes as "lax financial controls, unchecked powers of patronage and the potential for mismanagement and corruption". He reported these concerns to DfID in London in e-mails, memos and telephone conversations. Yet, instead of seeing them investigated, Horsley was summarily sacked and denied a reference.

It was a personal calamity. For the past five years, this former head of a tough Grimsby comprehensive, who has a glowing Ofsted report on his record, has been unable to find work. With the vigorous support of the MP Austin Mitchell, who describes his treatment as "monstrous", Horsley has fought to have his case reviewed and his complaints investigated. Now he has decided to tell his story.

It is a story that raises important questions about DfID's control over aid spending - at a time when the G8 summit has just agreed to double aid to Africa by 2010, and when our government is assuring us that our aid money is not seeping away through corruption and poor management. And, while the government insists it has done nothing wrong, uncertainty remains about its past procedures and about the fate of no less than £18m in aid. More worrying still, it is now clear that Horsley was not the first British aid official in Accra to raise doubts about financial control.

At the time he went to Accra, Britain's policy for distributing aid had shifted from big projects to local programmes administered through the Ghana Education Service, with staff at the British education field office working alongside officials in the Ghanaian education ministry. Horsley soon heard complaints from other aid agencies, and from the Ghanaian minister and his officials, about the way money was spent and contracts awarded without adequate accounting or monitoring by DfID. Incidents included a request to authorise spending of £32,000 on office furniture, when the furniture had already been bought; the failure of DfID to provide the Ghanaian education minister with a full statement of how education aid was being spent, and the potential use of aid as, in Horsley's words, "a means of dispensing personal favours".

The most mysterious incident came after Horsley was told by the Ghanaian deputy education minister in August 1999 that Clare Short, the then secretary of state for international development, had pledged an extra £18m in aid. When none of this money turned up, Horsley made inquiries with the Ghanaian accountant general - who, he says, confirmed in September 1999 that it had been received by the government.

The money, however, did not find its way into the usual education aid channels, so Horsley, alarmed about the fate of such a sum and about the other problems he had found, wrote to London requesting a formal, independent investigation of the conduct of DfID affairs in Ghana.

Soon afterwards, on a working trip to northern Ghana, he caught typhoid and returned to Britain to recuperate. On his recovery he was called to a meeting at DfID headquarters on 6 January 2000. He thought this was to discuss the investigation he had requested and also to complete his midterm performance review, but he arrived to find that it was a disciplinary hearing. It didn't last long. Blamed for a breakdown in communication and a lack of coherence in the presentation of policy, he was sacked with immediate effect.

Horsley strenuously denied the charges and received strong support from international colleagues, but, when he returned to Ghana to assemble evidence for his appeal, he found that his filing cabinets had been emptied and his computer files professionally wiped. DfID then withdrew his formal right of appeal and threatened him with the Official Secrets Act if he spoke out.

Claiming protection as a whistle-blower under the Public Interest Disclosure Act, Horsley sought to have his dismissal investigated first by DfID itself and then at an employment tribunal. The tribunal said it had no jurisdiction because he had not been employed for long enough and had not lodged his Public Interest Disclosure Act claim soon enough. The civil service commissioners brushed him off, too, saying they could not investigate as DfID claimed he was employed on contract, not as a civil servant.

The case has outraged Austin Mitchell, who raised it in the House of Commons and has written to Hilary Benn, the current Secretary of State of International Development, asking for an independent inquiry. Mitchell told the New Statesman: "As a result of his attempt to blow the whistle on financial inadequacies and possible maladministration, this man has been out of a job for nearly six years and that's a monstrous way for DfID to behave. They made Howard a sacrificial victim. He was an embarrassment in raising these concerns. The proper procedure should have been to investigate complaints and tighten up procedures. They didn't do that."

One body that has investigated DfID aid to Ghana is the National Audit Office (NAO), which reported in a letter to Mitchell: "At no point . . . has any evidence emerged to suggest that financial impropriety or mismanagement occurred within DfID." But the letter added that "investigations revealed areas where the department might usefully tighten up its procedures and controls, which they are doing".

As for the mysterious £18m, the audit office initially said that DfID claimed no such amount had been paid to Ghana in 1999. Then, in May 2003, the NAO admitted that £18m had been paid, in 2000, as "budgetary support". It explained: "It follows that for payments of budgetary support it is not possible directly to answer the questions 'What was it for?' or 'How was it spent?', except to say that it added to the resources available to the government of Ghana." This is a remarkable admission: put bluntly, it means that neither DfID nor the NAO could say what became of £18m of British taxpayers' money.

Since that investigation, the NAO has tightened up accounting procedures for aid spending in general and for "budgetary support" in particular. Howard Horsley is entitled to some credit for this, though he has had no thanks for his efforts.

DfID maintains that any weaknesses in its financial procedures have been addressed and that Horsley's dismissal was "wholly related to his performance, which did not meet the requirements of the job". It says: "All parties across Whitehall have been satisfied that DfID acted correctly in relation to Mr Horsley's dismissal and found no evidence of financial impropriety."

Horsley authorised DfID to release documents to the New Statesman to clarify the grounds for dismissal. He says they prove that DfID never carried out the investigation he requested weeks before his dismissal and also that it ignored its own disciplinary procedures in sacking him.

But the story does not end there, for, in the course of his campaign, Horsley discovered he was not alone in raising concerns about aid to Ghana. His predecessor there had raised similar doubts about an "absence of checks and balances". Howard Tyers, who now works at Westminster University, has confirmed to the New Statesman that in his time at the Accra EFO he made "a number of complaints" about payments for an expensive office and also for Land Cruisers of an unnecessarily high specification, purchased without the usual tendering process.

Worryingly, after these complaints Tyers's tenure in Ghana also ended strangely. His contract ended in March 1999, but he asked for a three-month extension because he had to remain resident in Ghana, as his daughter was completing her A-levels. This request was rejected in London, and it was only after an appeal by the Ghanaian education ministry that he was allowed to stay. However, he was sidelined to a research project and denied access to the EFO. And, like Horsley, he found his computer files wiped.

The experiences of Horsley and his predecessor raise questions that should worry anyone who cares about aid. Does DfID respond properly to concerns about financial management? Does it ensure that new aid is spent wisely, with transparency and adequate financial controls? DfID says yes, but unless whistle-blowers are encouraged and protected, how can we be sure?

How does Horsley feel? "Angry that DfID has still held no one accountable for what was going on in Ghana; that no one has been held accountable for my entirely unjustified dismissal; that there has been no hearing, anywhere, on the merits of my case. And appalled that DfID can demand good governance in other countries and still fail to meet the most basic standards of good governance in its own internal practices." He is angry, too, at the waste of years of his career. Despite the emotional and financial costs, he remains determined not to let the matter drop.

Transparency International, which campaigns against corruption in aid and trade, would not comment on the case, but its executive director, Chandrashekhar Krishnan, was clear about one thing: "Any development organisation should have a policy of encouraging whistle-blowers and of ensuring that, if someone has suspicions to report, there is a mechanism to allow that person to express those concerns in a way which will not attract recriminations." The Horsley case does not seem to match that standard and it will deter, not encourage, future whistle-blowers.

Meaningless Language and Lessons Learned.

2011-06-12T00:54:00.000-07:00

There are many disaster practicioners out there who have been through thick and thin, and are totally committed to Lesson's Learned. But who is charged with following through on Lessons Learned? Do we have Ministers of Lessons Learned? Do we have Permanent Secretaries of Lessons Learned? Do international organistions have people in charge of Lessons Learned?

My former colleague Michael Stone, an authority on Afghanistan, Cantral Asia and, a man who knows disaster relief and recovery. Here is a lecture he gave recently.

IMPROVING EMERGENCY RESPONSE

1. What I am about to say comes from directing emergency operations with the United Nations, Red Cross and NGOs in Afghanistan, Pakistan, former Yugoslavia, Georgia and Iraq. Also, I have chaired a number of coordination bodies, and reviewed emergency programmes in many parts of the world.

2. In this brief presentation, I want to introduce 5 areas of serious common error in needs assessments. Remember, if we get it wrong, people can die – in extreme cases, we may even kill them. I will then provide solutions for these errors, developed from my own experience, and conclude with something I am working on now which needs to be incorporated in all needs assessments.

3. The most serious errors:

A. Meaningless Language.

B. Failure to Distinguish Means from Ends.

C. Observation Altering Reality.

D. Lessons Not Learned.

E. Coordination Failure.

LANGUAGE.

a. If I could receive a euro for every report I’ve read, every appeal document, and especially every evaluation, I would be rich. English is my first language, and I’m good at it, but document after document contains phrases, indeed whole paragraphs, which are meaningless. Oh yes, there is great pressure on me to pretend I understand, otherwise I may give the impression I am thick. But no, so often the phrases and paragraphs are meaningless.

COLUMN 1       COLUMN 2                   COLUMN 3
STRATEGIC        COST-BASED              CAPACITY BUILDING
INTERACTIVE    LOGISTICAL                ALLIANCE
RESPONSIVE     DISCRETIONARY        RE-ENGINEERING
RECIPROCAL      EMPOWERING           VALUES
BENEFICIARY    VISIONARY                 BENCHMARK
FUNCTIONAL   PARTICIPATORY        PARADIGM

The above words are taken from recent reports. Moving right to left, in any combination, they give the appearance of sense, but are meaningless e.g. “responsive logistical alliance”, “functional empowering capacity building”, “strategic visionary benchmark”. They can even be reversed e.g. “benchmark empowering functional”

Meaningless language itself encourages illogical or impractical thinking. The following chart, informally called the Mother of All Charts, relates to the new US surge in Afghanistan. The chart was prepared for the Joint Chiefs of Staff by a leading international firm of management consultants.

The chart is mind-bogglingly awesome in its complexity and utter uselessness, and demonstrates admirably the problem of meaningless language encouraging illogical and impractical thinking.

a. The problem, it seems to me, is that some of us don’t
Know what we are talking about. We think we do, but we don’t. The consequence can be formidable for the vulnerable in emergencies e.g. the failure of internationals to provide enough helicopters for the 2005 earthquake in Kashmir is partly the result of unintelligible needs assessments.

b. Language is important. For example, in recent years we have tended to talk of beneficiaries, rather than the most vulnerable. The two are not necessarily the same. A food distribution in an emergency, reported as reaching all beneficiaries, may have targeted millionaires!

ENDS AND MEANS.

a. In our world, we are here for one thing, to meet the needs of the most vulnerable, often in an emergency. That is the end. The means are the funds from donors, the structured organisation we may be part of, the tents, the medicines, the food and the vehicles for their delivery. But how often are the two confused! Some reports, some evaluations, and more seriously TORs, make no mention whatsoever of the most vulnerable.

b. This happens in development too. Recently I reviewed a counter narcotics programme for which $800m had been pledged. Initially, people said they were too busy to see us, but they had to, we reported directly to the donors. Yes, they were busy. About 300 were involved in various ways, working six days a week, firing
endless e mails at each other, meeting all hours of the day. But after two years, only $2m had been spent,
and most of this wasted. The mushroom project, for example, most unsuitable anyway, yielded a crop costing $27,000 a kilo! The end – to encourage farmers to turn away from the poppy – had been forgotten. The means dominated everything.

OBSERVATION ALTERING REALITY.

A. Here I would like to introduce my own adaptation of the Heisenberg Principle. Heisenberg, a father of Quantum Mechanics, made a disturbing discovery in the 1920s. That by looking at something, you alter its behaviour. His analogy was an atom under a microscope, the objective being to see the path of electrons around the nucleus. When you turn light on the slide to see the atom, the photons from the light knock the electrons into different orbits. Hence, his law that the act of observation alters what is seen.

B. We see this in so many ways in relation to needs assessments:

1. The Questionnaire, with the leading questions, encouraging one answer more than another.

2. The interviewer arriving at a destroyed village in a chauffer driven land cruiser, so obviously rich, powerful, foreign – it is all too likely the vulnerable people will provide the answer they think you want to hear.

3. The fact Finding Mission, so often a mix of relevant and irrelevant organisations for the situation, who strive for a consensus which signifies nothing. A UN response to an emergency I reviewed took three months to assemble 23 senior people from 10 different agencies. The recommendations came far too late for action, and were wrong anyway – they were based on a distorted timetable arranged by a Minister.

You know the sort of thing – with most funds going to a particular organisation for orphans, which just so happens to be run by the Minister’s brother.

In all these instances, and many others, the observer is altering reality, indeed creating a false reality. So many needs assessments are based on false realities as the act of observation altered what was seen.

LESSONS LEARNED.

A. No, they are not. I have seen this time and time again as a Consultant reviewing programmes, in particular on behalf of donors. The reasons are threefold.

1. Most organisations have no mechanism at an appropriate level for considering Report recommendations.

2. On the rare occasions when they do exist, there is no system for implementation of recommendations agreed. Some people don’t even make the distinction between agreement and implementation. To paraphrase Cervantes “It is a far cry from agreement to implementation”.

A third problem, arises from the meaningless language

I have already mentioned. Most recommendations are meaningless themselves. Like a bar of wet soap which
slips out of your hand. You know the sort of thing: “It is recommended steps are taken towards increasing
advocacy, enhancing synergy, promoting empowerment…” The list goes on. You can do absolutely nothing at all, and no one can prove you haven’t implemented such recommendations.

3. The general failure to learn and implement lessons results in the humanitarian and development world being littered by a repetition of mistakes. The wrong food in an emergency, the wrong medicines, clothes for the wrong season – or projects which destroy livelihoods e.g over supply of boats and nylon fishing nets. In a review I did on the tsunami, the mantra from so many beneficiaries was“First tsunami, then the foreigners”.

For those like me with some grey hair it is so frustrating to see the wheel continuously being reinvented, with the same mistakes being made that we made twenty years ago. A common definition of insanity is repeating the same, and expecting a different result.

COORDINATION.

1. We talk about it a lot. To outsiders, it looks as if it is happening. Generally, it is not. For two years I chaired the UN NGO coordination body for Afghanistan. So it seems to me, I know what I am talking about!

2. There are 2 key realities preventing real coordination:
a. Factually, the term itself implies some authority external to the organisation. From UN Agencies to the smallest of NGOs, each has its own constitution, its own sovereignty, an independent board to which most ultimately report. They cannot be told what to do by others.

b. Egos. Often, they are enormous. We have all met directors of operations, large and small, who are in love with power, and seek only their own glory. Shakespeare called this “the insolence of office”. They have to be the first into some emergency, they dominate coordination meetings if they attend them at all - often it is some junior. They claim in their reports to provide everything that is needed to all those in need e.g. I once led a major evaluation into the international response to the Kosovo crisis. Kosovo has a population of 2m. Adding reports of key players together, who mostly claimed comprehensive support to all beneficiaries, there had to be a population of about 22 million.

c. Real coordination, and the synergy which follows for the most vulnerable, is far more rare than is presented. Where it does happen, it usually comes down to the sociability, the friendliness and the hearts of key individuals.

SOLUTIONS.

1. I have spent some time on the problems of needs evaluation for two reasons:

a. It’s no use coordinating and integrating emergency assessments of different organisations if they are wrong.

b. The solutions are contained within the problems I have outlined.

2. Briefly:

a. With regard to unclear language: Let us be simple and clear. I know this is more difficult than being complex and long winded, but let us never speak or write an unclear sentence again, especially if we don’t understand it ourselves. Remember the old Chinese saying: “The less matter there is, the more substance there will be”.

b. With regard to means becoming more important than ends. Let us always keep in mind that we are here to identify and help the most vulnerable. So often, organisations work from their head offices to the most
vulnerable. They should work backwards, from the most vulnerable to the head office. Begin with the end
in mind. I always try to remember, that the most senior person in any humanitarian organisation is employed by the poorest, the most vulnerable people on earth. In a perfect world, their jobs would not exist. No one is
more important than the most vulnerable.

In an emergency, the whole point of our work is to meet a vulnerable person’s request. This may be
typified as “I need X goods in this quantity now” and “I will need X + Y + possibly z in this quantity for this
period”. Remember the words of the philosopher Diderot: “It is not enough to do good. Good must be
done well”.

c. In relation to our observation altering reality. Be conscious of the Heisenberg Principle in all we do. Watch those questionnaires to ensure each question is entirely objective, culturally sensitive and retains human dignity. Park your land cruisers on the edge of the village, walk in, be informal, go individually, listen – they know what they need far better than we do.

d. With regard to lessons not being learned. Let us not continue the mistake identified by the writer G.B. Shaw “Man learns from history that he learns nothing from history” For emergency needs assessments, appoint staff who have experience of running operations themselves, and who are capable of producing, with speed, clear and practical recommendations. Appoint consultants for evaluations with the same qualities. In relation to evaluations, take them seriously.

Establish a standing committee at director level for consideration of all evaluation recommendations. Clearly accept, perhaps with modification, or reject specific recommendations. Task mangers to implement recommendations with instructions to report to the standing committee on specific progress in three month’s time.

e. With regard to coordination, appreciate that agencies, organisations, NGOS have their own sovereignties. Get rid of the word coordination. Use cooperation instead. You will find this word emphasises the voluntary nature of working together, and works so much better.

In relation to egos. Remember Dostoyevsky’s immortal words: “Everybody is responsible to everyone for everything”. Appoint directors and mangers who are friendly, open, intelligent and with hearts. Those who realise they are there to help the most vulnerable and not themselves – who understand the enormous synergy, increasing significantly the impact of all we do, which arises from cooperation.

COMPOUND CRISIS.

1. I would like to conclude with a few words on something I am currently working on. It attempts to correct a serious failure in emergency needs assessments. I call it the Compound Crisis.

2. We respond usually to emergencies on an individual basis, as if they are one off. We are mistaken. Very often one disaster causes another, the second and third disasters often being more devastating than the first. Mathematics best illustrates the power of compounding.

THE POWER OF COMPOUNDING

If offered a million Euros now, or one Euro which doubles every day for only a month, most of us would choose the former. We are wrong. One Euro doubling for a month is worth far, far more than Euro one million. The figure amounts to over one billion!

3. I saw the impact of compounding most recently in Tajikistan where I was UN Emergency Coordinator. An unprecedented cold winter with record snow falls caused a food and heating emergency. This was followed, in the spring, by a second emergency, sizeable floods and landslides. By the time summer came, agricultural output was at its lowest because of substantial seed destruction and high livestock mortality in winter. Unprecedented low rainfalls then encouraged an explosion of locusts. Record high locust storms destroyed record low agricultural production.

4. It is the poor who are hit by disaster, not the rich. With the compound effect of one disaster leading to another, the same people are being hit each time. It is like being a boxer, winning one fight, and then another opponent enters the ring – you survive, but then another and another enters the ring. The ability to survive each disaster diminishes. In the end, many will die.

5. As donations for humanitarian assistance are nearly always linked to newsworthy visibility, a Compound Crisis will be unnoticed internationally, and receive little or no funding. Yet, it may be compared to a silent tsunami. In the context of global warming, the Compound Crisis will need to receive significant attention.

Thank you.

Michael Stone

Abbottabad, where Osama bin Laden was killed

2011-05-04T19:23:00.000-07:00

I met Osama bin Laden in early 1996 in Laghman province in Afghanistan.

This tall, and quite handsome man seemed a serious and likeable man. As is the Afghan tradition, when a foreigner is in an area, he called me over to his table in a small, dirty tea shop to join him and his group for tea. He asked me what I had been doing and I told him that I had been into the mountains of Nuristan with my Afghan Red Crescent colleagues where we were building a clinic, two days walk from the road. I said women die in child birth because they don't even have basic facilities and now we have a trained doctor and nurse who run the recently-opened clinic.. He congratulated us. I didn't know much about this man, but he left an impression on me. Little was I to know his future doings.

But some years later I got to know more about this man.

11 September 2001, Ferney Voltaire, France (Quote from my diary)

I've just come back from a walk past soft yellow corn fields with the the Jura mountains as a backdrop and Mont Blanc on the other side of the path.

I'm hurting today because it seems Ahmed Shah Massoud is either dead or dying. Some say it could be the work of Osama bin Laden. I think of the times I met Massoud during my stay in Afghanistan between 93 and 96, and the hour interview I had with him before I left in August 1996. My friend Azem was killed too and Massood Khalili badly injured, the Ambassador to India and son of the great Afghan poet.

Meeting with Ahmed Shah Massoud in Kabul, in 1996.

My heart bleeds for you Afghanistan; the pain and hurt you've been through. Penalised by your geographic location and the pawn of superpowers.

During the day in the workshop in Ferney-Voltaire. my mind kept going back to Ahmed Shah Massoud and his senseless killing by hired killers posing as cameramen. Just before 4 pm, we broke for afternoon tea. As I picked up a cup of tea, the ,manager came running and shouting in French, something about a disaster in America. A group formed at the TV in the bar and watched an interviewer talking about a plane hitting the World Trade Tower, then seconds later we saw the most spine-chilling metal and human bomb plough into the second tower.

In my diary that night I wrote in capitals A DAY WHICH MAY CHANGE THE FACE OF THE EARTH AND THE NATURE OF TERRORISM.

Massoud gone, many thousands of lives lost in the four plane hijacks......

The scenarios began tio build up in my mind; retaliations on Afghanistan yet again. Alexander the Great, The Arabs, The Turks, Chengis Khan, Timur, Persians, The British x 3, Soviet Union and now a US led western coalition. FINISH QUOTE FROM MY DIARY ON 9/11

Today Osama bin Laden was killed in Abbottabad, which I recall after many visits to this beautiful town beween 1994 and 2006, as a peaceful place. I visited there in May 2006 to run a disaster preparedness workshop with Irja Sandberg and Ilyas Khan, and then when the tragic earthquake struck in this region in October 2005, Abbottabad was badly affected. but the worse damage was to the north. I spent over a month in this region after the earthquak in 2005 which killed over 75,000 people.

Villagers carry relief supplies during the 2005 earthquake near Abbottabad:

Abbottabad is home to at least one regiment of the Pakistani army, is dotted with military buildings and home to thousands of army personnel and many Universities and institutes. Surrounded by hills and with mountains in the distance, it is less than half a day's drive from the border region with Afghanistan.

On the outskirts of Abbottabad, en route to the high Karakoram ranges

Where did the name Abbottabad come from?

Although, Abbottabad today is a thriving business and tourism city, it is traditionally a military city. Besides the prestigious Pakistan Military Academy (PMA) in a nearby village of Kakul, Abbottabad is home to three regimental centres of Pakistan Army and Army School of Music. The PMA provided fame to Abbottabad for many years, prior to the recent development of the city, from a non-industrial backward area, to a busy modern business, economic and academic centre. The city takes it roots from the British India, when Major James Abbott came this way in 1853 after the annexation of Punjab into the British dominion and laid the foundation of a military cantonment. He also became the first Deputy Commissioner of Hazara Division. By 1901 the population of the town and cantonment had grown to around 7,764, which today stands at 300,000. Abbottabad remained the dominating district till 1976, when one of its tehsils Mansehra was given the status of district, which now consist of Mansehra and Batagram Tehsils. Subsequently in July 1991, Haripur Tehsil was separated from Abbottabad and made district. Thus only the Tehsil Abbottabad remained, which was declared as district. Major Abbott was so mesmerized by the beauty of the area that when leaving Abbottabad with a nostalgia a, he wrote a poem expressing his love and affection for the place he founded.

What a quirk of fate.

If you want to read a more complete story on my meeting with Osama bin Laden check this link: http://bobmckerrow.blogspot.com/2008/05/late-morning-tea-with-osama-bin-laden.html

Pakistan Red Crescent medical team walking into remote earthquake villages carrying medical supplies to treat people affected by the earthquake in October 2005, which killed over 75,000. This photo is taken in the hills north of Abbottabad.

KIWI BRINGS LIGHT TO AFGHANISTAN

2011-04-14T06:01:00.000-07:00

A New Zealander is winning big play on American media this week for the way he has taken solar and wind power to the people of Afghanistan.

Tony Woods, originally of Wellington, has featured on CNN and Public Broadcasting in the US, as well as in leading magazines.

Owner and director of Sustainable Energy Services Afghanistan (SESA), he has used US$4.8 million to bring electricity to remote villages and create a model of local development.

"What our clients purchase is not solar power or wind power - they actually don't give a shit about solar," he told the latest issue of Fast Company magazine in the US.

''It's a means to an end - to stability, to employment, to growth."

The Wellington man was biking through Pakistan, en route to South Africa and China, when he noticed failed micro hydropower generators.

He asked New Zealand Aid for help and they hired him to fix the generators.

In 1999 he visited Afghanistan and realised it was perfect for renewable energy.

The northeast region had abundant water, the west has steady wind, and the south strong sunshine.

So in 2007 he moved to Kabul and started SESA and with US funding began developing solar panels and windmills.

Woods team does the installation, which doesn't require much wiring since everything stays local, and the training.

Skiing in Afghanistan

2011-03-04T22:33:00.000-08:00

In 1976 when I first worked in Afghanistan, and again from 1993-96 when I l,ived permanently for three years, I got to trek, climb and ski extensively in the Hindu Kush. In 1997 I tried to persuade my good friends Murray and Pat Reedy, to run trips to Afghanistan as I said it contained some of the best skiing, trekking and climbing in the world. Murray and Pat run trips to the Silk Route region: http://www.silkroad.co.nz/. Today, commercial skiing in Afghanistan may soon be a possibility. Let me tell you the story.

Mette-Sophie, a Norwegian aid worker accompanied me on one trip in January 1996 into the Hindu Kush. She was on cross country skiis and I used traditional skii's with touring bindings. Photo: Bob McKerrow

No foreigners had climbed in Afghanistan since the Soviets arrived in late 1978. I had heard about the passes and valleys strewn with land mines so it was with some trepidation I embarked from Kabul in October 1994 on what was probably the first expedition into the Hindu Kush for at least 17 years. I travelled with two British climbers, Ian Clarke and John Tinker, to the Chamar valley for an attempt on Mir Samir, a peak made famous by Eric Newby in his book, A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush.

John Tinker (right) and I at on one of our camps in the Chamar valley on the way to Mir Samir. Photo: Ian Clarke

Tinker was fresh off an ascent of Everest by a new route on the north side and Clarke was head of a British Mine clearance organisation (Halo trust) in Afghanistan and was a necessary companion as the area had received large amounts of small scatterable mines, dropped from Soviet aircrafts to prevent the freedom fighters crossing the mountain passes. Our safety was dependent on his knowledge of mines and where battles had taken place. Tinker and Clarke attempted an unclimbed face on Mir Samir and got surprising high considering the unseasonably soft snow that had fallen. While the others were attempting Mir Samir, I climbed an unnamed peak around 5000 metres and looked over to the enticing mountains of Nuristan, formerly Kafirstan. As I sat on this probably unclimbed, and unnamed peak, I thought to myself " this is skiing country and what huge ptential."

. It was this trip with Clarke and Tinker that gave me the confidence to venture out on further climbing and skiing trips.

On skiis in the Hindu Kush, near the Salang Pass. Photo: Bob McKerrow

From 1993-96 when I lived in Kabul, on Friday, the only day off during the week, it was possible to climb among the various 4000 metres peaks in the Paghman range from where you get spectacular views of the Hindu Kush and Hazarajat area. Climbing 4000 metre peaks in a day made living in Kabul a joy. Also for the enthusiastic skier, a two hour drive takes you to the Salang Pass at 3,878 metres an excellent ski-mountaineering area. My good friend Ian Clarke the mine clearance expert gave the opinion that when the area is likely to have land-mines, if it is covered with snow, and you are on skis, it is almost impossible to trigger of a mine as the body-weight is evenly distributed. Clarke did a lot of telemark skiing in the area between 1993 and 1995 in the Salang Pass are before taking up a ski-instructors job at Cadrona, near Wanaka, for the New Zealand winter of 1995.

So in 1995, I started skiiing in the Hindu Kush, not far from the Salang Pass, which was an hour and a half from Kabul. Above on skiis with the mighty Hindu Kush behind me. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Mette-Sphie on her cross country skiis in the Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Good snow conditions and a wonderful mountain backdrop, the mighty Hindu Kush: Photo: Bob McKerrow

Mette Sophie skiing down from the Salang Pass. January 1996. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The author, Bob McKerrow, skiing near the Salang Pass. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Last week I came across this article in the Guardian written by Jon Boone guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 27 April 2010 and I was delighted that commercial skiing may soon become possible in the Hindu Kush at Bamiyan.

The Bamiyan valley offers 'challenging skiing' reckons its first ski tourist after some hairy moments involving avalanches. Photograph: Chad Dear

In a classroom just a few hundred metres from the towering niche that once housed a giant Buddha statue, someone has pinned up a poster detailing the attributes of a good ski guide: optimistic, articulate, patient, reliable, active, cheerful, punctual and extroverted.

Sitting around a table in the middle of the room, the 10 young men who hope to become Afghanistan's first ski guides are being taught how to avoid avalanches, and the importance of taking enough food and water on trips up the snow-capped mountains that loom over the town of Bamiyan.

They have all the poster's key attributes in spades. Indeed, it's hard to think of a more agreeable bunch of enthusiastic young men, who chatter in excellent English. The only problem is the one characteristic they all lack: the ability to ski.

Last week, they had their first taste of the rapidly melting spring snow, out on the slopes of the stunning Koh-e-Baba mountain range. Their motley collection of borrowed and secondhand skis had been carted up the lush valley on the back of a donkey. The rookie skiers had ignored the classroom guidance to layer up, and hit the slopes wearing jeans and fake designer tops. Soon they were shivering.

They had just half a dozen pairs of skis, two pairs of which were borrowed from an American couple, Chad Dear and Laurie Ashley, ski consultants who believe central Afghanistan has some of the best "outback skiing" in the world. The shortage of equipment is a problem, and the mix of Telemark and alpine skis had been partly supplemented by a few pairs of "bazaar skis", lethal wooden planks knocked up by enthusiastic local carpenters. With the bindings little more than a few leather straps and the undersurface wrapped with metal, the overall effect is terrifying, as I discovered when I tried them.

"Jon, you've never done this either!" was the crushing verdict of Abdullah Mahmood, a 25-year-old novice skier, after he had watched me flounder around for a traumatic 10 minutes during which I wondered whether, despite decades of skiing experience, the sport was finally about to claim a broken leg from me.

These are the deeply humble beginnings out of which Bamiyan, an overished but heart-stoppingly beautiful province, hopes to develop a robust ski industry. There is serious weight behind the plan to encourage winter "ecotourism" here, including the province's governor, the Aga Khan Development Network and the New Zealand government (the country has troops in the province).

Dear, a development worker from Montana, says that in a few years' time Bamiyan could boast ski-rental businesses (which will probably rely, at least to start with, on the charity of the big ski manufacturers), a nursery slope with a simple tow-lift to drag beginners to the top, and maybe even some heliskiing. To start with, it is hoped that a mix of Afghans and foreigners working in Kabul will help pump-prime a ski industry, after which Bamiyan will be ready for the world. "We hope that people in Europe and the US will put it on their five-year wish list," Dear says.

He and Ashley are currently spending several days a week exploring Bamiyan's unskied peaks, with the aim of publishing a guidebook later in the year giving adventure skiers some basic information on what the Koh-e-Baba range has to offer. And while it would be easy to be cynical about trying to establish skiing in a war zone, after spending a few days with Dear, Ashley and the would-be ski guides, I am soon swept up in their enthusiasm.

For a particular type of tourist, Bamiyan is quite a draw. But it will never appeal to those who like the chairlifts, restaurants and creature comforts of a European or American mega-resort. In Bamiyan, if you want to get to the top of slope you have to propel yourself, using Telemark skis where the ankle is free to move up and down and synthetic skins are attached to the bottom. It's the sort of old-school skiing that would have been familiar to skiers in the Alps in the 1950s: a day of gruelling ascent for perhaps just one or two runs back down to the bottom. But it's worth it, says Dear: "The terrain here is just fantastic in so many ways, and we have only been exploring the eight valleys that are closest to Bamiyan centre. There are literally thousands of opportunities for beginners and experts."

Dear thinks many tourists will elect to stay above the snowline for days, skiing over huge areas, overnighting in shelters used by farmers in the summer that could be converted into winter refuges. And it's a fair bet that Bamiyan's apres-ski scene will never boast beery Brits, downing glühwein at the bottom of the chairlifts as the sun sets over the mountains. Instead it's chai, and maybe some rice, naan and greasy meat on the roof of a farmer's house.

What Dear calls the "apres-tea" experience would be worth a holiday in itself. First of all, the scenery is extraordinary. Below the snowy peaks, farmers living in mud houses busily plough their fields with ox teams. The sense of time travel is only broken with the occasional sighting of a satellite dish, a sign that, after years of neglect, things are starting to pick up here. And that is the other benefit of skiing in Bamiyan – contributing much-needed cash to subsistence farmers in the high, isolated valleys of a poor and neglected province that could use all the help it can get. Not only were the famous giant Buddhas blown up by the Taliban in 2001; the fundamentalist militia was also responsible for massacres of the largely Hazara population (Afghanistan's most put-upon ethnic group).

Today Bamiyan is an island of security in a country where insurgency has spread like a virus, and the valley is Afghanistan's main (or rather, only) tourist attraction. Visitors don't come simply for the World Heritage site where the Buddhas used to stand, but also the lakes and extraordinary natural dams of Band-e-Amir. The young men who aspire to be ski guides already try to make ends meet by showing tourists the main sites in the summer.

But despite Bamiyan's considerable charms, the summer tourism market does not add up to much: last year its historic sites were visited by 1,560 Afghans and 756 foreigners (slightly down on 2008, probably because of disruption caused by last year's presidential election). Even those low numbers generates around $250,000 a year in the three hotels the tourist authorities have information on.

But Amir Foladi, manager of the Bamiyan ecotourism programme, wants to see that increase. He hopes that by 2015 the 116 hotel beds currently available will have increased to 1,000, creating at least 1,000 jobs. He expects 10,000 foreign visitors and 100,000 Afghans to come each year, generating around $5m for the valley, excluding income from drivers, restaurants and handicraft shops.

That's big money for Bamiyan, and it would make tourism its third major source of income, behind agriculture and mining. "It's all about getting Bamiyan ready, helping hotel owners improve their facilities, so that when we are ready to receive more tourists it will be the people of Bamiyan who benefit and not outsiders," says Foladi.

And the wind is in Bamiyan's sails, with various plans to make the valley more accessible. Currently there are two main land routes from Kabul: the slow but safe road via the Sibher Pass, which despite being only 200km [124 miles] takes a gruelling eight hours, or the relatively fast but potentially lethal four-hour road trip through Taliban territory to the south.

The Sibher Pass route, which takes travellers through some unforgettable landscapes, is currently being flattened and widened by hundreds of workers, most of whom were last week inexplicably wearing fluorescent orange Royal Mail jackets. When the road is finished and covered with asphalt, the whole journey should take less than four hours – a much more attractive proposition for weekenders from Kabul who want a few days' skiing.

The country's airlines are being lobbied to start commercial flights, which may one day land at a new airport out of town. That will replace the current dirt airstrip – among the hazards of flying into Bamiyan is livestock wandering on to the runway.

And it's just possible that Bamiyan may get its Buddhas back – although this is currently the subject of a debate among conservationists, over whether the statues should be pieced back together from recovered fragments, or rebuilt afresh. Foladi says he favours the reconstruction of one Buddha, leaving one empty niche as a permanent reminder of unhappier times.

But will Bamiyan ever become more than a summer destination, even with these improvements? Ken Adams, Bamiyan's first ever ski tourist, thinks so. A former ski industry worker in the French Alps, he is now a project manager for an NGO in Kabul. Paying just $30 a night for a hotel room, he skied for seven days in Bamiyan this spring. Despite some hairy moments involving avalanches, he reckons Bamiyan is the place for anyone who wants "some pretty challenging skiing".

"For everyone else, there is just the sheer amount of snow and a season that in a normal year should continue until late May or early June," he says.

The big unknown is whether Afghans will take up skiing in any numbers. Dear and Ashley say the locals, who are already fond of sledding on homemade yakhmolaks and other winter games, have been enthusiastic. With everything under snow for five months of the year, they could certainly do with more winter distractions, says Foladi.

And skiing is not totally unknown in Afghanistan. Afghans got involved in the sport back in the 1960s and 70s, when it was last popularised by foreigners. In those days Kabul's diplomatic classes headed for the slopes at weekends at a mini-resort close to the capital. The piste even had its own basic rope-tow and was serviced by restaurants, tea shops and even a sunbathing area for the foreigners. Various ski clubs, including one run by the ministry of education and another by Kabul University, raced against each other. With the Soviet invasion of 1979, and the national resistance that rose up to fight it, the area was soon seeded with landmines and became unusable.

Mohammad Yousuf Kargar first encountered skiing as a young boy when he saw a German employee of Siemens throwing himself down a hill in Kabul. He has kept the sport going, at least within his own family. Now the national football team coach, Kargar tested the slopes of Bamiyan for the first time this winter. But he believes Bamiyan is still too far away from Kabul to be the focus of a skiing rebirth. Instead he takes his family to the Salang, a mountain pass north of Kabul. "The government really needs to take a strong decision to redevelop the old piste outside Kabul," he says. "In the meantime I am taking my family in the Salang because I don't want this sport to die in Afghanistan."

Even though Bamiyan is so untouched by violence that it feels like another country, Dear's hope that it might be ready for foreign visitors in five years seems optimistic at a time when the Taliban insurgency continues to strengthen.

Around the time I was embarrassing myself on the wooden skis, Kandahar city was rocked by a massive vehicle bomb parked outside a hotel. I was blissfully unaware of another terrible day in Afghanistan's second city as we trudged down muddy fields towards our apres-ski lunch. Later that day, a compound housing foreign contractors was attacked by an even bigger bomb.

Adams wonders whether it might be possible to fly into Kabul airport and then transfer directly on to a Bamiyan flight – essentially isolating the province from the rest of the country as far as foreign tourists are concerned. But, as Dear says, Bamiyan can only remain a bubble for so long. "You've just got to have hope that things are going to get better in Afghanistan. If the country goes down, Bamiyan will go with it.

To the President of the United States: An Open Letter on Afghanistan

2010-12-10T18:05:00.000-08:00

Mr. President,

We have been engaged and working inside Afghanistan, some of us for decades, as academics, experts and members of non-governmental organizations. Today we are deeply worried about the current course of the war and the lack of credible scenarios for the future. The cost of the war is now over $120 billion per year for the United States alone. This is unsustainable in the long run. In addition, human losses are increasing. Over 680 soldiers from the international coalition – along with hundreds of Afghans – have died this year in Afghanistan, and the year is not yet over. We appeal to you to use the unparalleled resources and influence which the United States now brings to bear in Afghanistan to achieve that longed-for peace.

Despite these huge costs, the situation on the ground is much worse than a year ago because the Taliban insurgency has made progress across the country. It is now very difficult to work outside the cities or even move around Afghanistan by road. The insurgents have built momentum, exploiting the shortcomings of the Afghan government and the mistakes of the coalition. The Taliban today are now a national movement with a serious presence in the north and the west of the country. Foreign bases are completely isolated from their local environment and unable to protect the population. Foreign forces have by now been in Afghanistan longer than the Soviet Red Army.

Politically, the settlement resulting from the 2001 intervention is unsustainable because the constituencies of whom the Taliban are the most violent expression are not represented, and because the highly centralized constitution goes against the grain of Afghan tradition, for example in specifying national elections in fourteen of the next twenty years.

The operations in the south of Afghanistan, in Kandahar and in Helmand provinces are not going well. What was supposed to be a population-centred strategy is now a full-scale military campaign causing civilian casualties and destruction of property. Night raids have become the main weapon to eliminate suspected Taliban, but much of the Afghan population sees these methods as illegitimate. Due to the violence of the military operations, we are losing the battle for hearts and minds in the Pashtun countryside, with a direct effect on the sustainability of the war. These measures, beyond their debatable military results, foster grievance. With Pakistan’s active support for the Taliban, it is not realistic to bet on a military solution. Drone strikes in Pakistan have a marginal effect on the insurgency but are destabilizing Pakistan. The losses of the insurgency are compensated by new recruits who are often more radical than their predecessors.

The military campaign is suppressing, locally and temporarily, the symptoms of the disease, but fails to offer a cure. Military action may produce local and temporary improvements in security, but those improvements are neither going to last nor be replicable in the vast areas not garrisoned by Western forces without a political settlement.

The 2014 deadline to put the Afghan National Army in command of security is not realistic. Considering the quick disappearance of the state structure at a district level, it is difficult to envision a strong army standing alone without any other state institutions around. Like it or not, the Taliban are a long-term part of the Afghan political landscape, and we need to try and negotiate with them in order to reach a diplomatic settlement. The Taliban’s leadership has indicated its willingness to negotiate, and it is in our interests to talk to them. In fact, the Taliban are primarily concerned about the future of Afghanistan and not – contrary to what some may think -- a broader global Islamic jihad. Their links with Al-Qaeda – which is not, in any case, in Afghanistan any more -- are weak. We need to at least try to seriously explore the possibility of a political settlement in which the Taliban are part of the Afghan political system. The negotiations with the insurgents could be extended to all groups in Afghanistan and regional powers.

The current contacts between the Karzai government and the Taliban are not enough. The United States must take the initiative to start negotiations with the insurgents and frame the discussion in such a way that American security interests are taken into account. In addition, from the point of view of Afghanistan’s most vulnerable populations – women and ethnic minorities, for instance – as well as with respect to the limited but real gains made since 2001, it is better to negotiate now rather than later, since the Taliban will likely be stronger next year. This is why we ask you to sanction and support a direct dialogue and negotiation with the Afghan Taliban leadership residing in Pakistan. A ceasefire and the return of the insurgency leadership in Afghanistan could be part of a de-escalation process leading to a coalition government. Without any chance for a military victory, the current policy will put the United States in a very difficult position.

For a process of political negotiation to have a chance of addressing the significant core grievances and political inequalities it must occur on multiple levels – among the countries that neighbour Afghanistan as well as down to the provincial and sub-district. These various tables around which negotiations need to be held are important to reinforce the message -- and the reality -- that discussions about Afghanistan’s political future must include all parties and not just be a quick-fix deal with members of the insurgency.

We believe that mediation can help achieve a settlement which brings peace to Afghanistan, enables the Taliban to become a responsible actor in the Afghan political order, ensures that Afghanistan cannot be used as a base for international terrorism, protects the Afghan people’s hard-won freedoms, helps stabilize the region, renders the large scale presence of international troops in Afghanistan unnecessary and provides the basis of an enduring relationship between Afghanistan and the international community. All the political and diplomatic ingenuity that the United States can muster will be required to achieve this positive outcome. It is time to implement an alternative strategy that would allow the United States to exit Afghanistan while safeguarding its legitimate security interests.

Respectfully,

Matthieu Aikins
Journalist

Scott Atran
Anthropologist (University of Michigan) and author of Talking to the Enemy

Rupert Talbot Chetwynd
Author of Yesterday’s Enemy - Freedom Fighters or Terrorists?

Robert Abdul Hayy Darr
Author of The Spy of the Heart and humanitarian aid worker in Afghanistan during the 1980s and early 1990s.

Gilles Dorronsoro
Visiting Scholar (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace) and author of Revolution Unending

David B. Edwards
Anthropologist (Williams College) and author of Before Taliban

Jason Elliot
Author of An Unexpected Light

Antonio Giustozzi
Author of Koran, Kalashnikov and Laptop and editor of Decoding the New Taliban

Shah Mahmoud Hanifi
Associate Professor, James Madison University

Daniel Korski
Senior Policy Fellow, European Council on Foreign Relations

Felix Kuehn
Kandahar-based writer/researcher, co-editor of My Life With the Taliban

Minna Jarvenpaa
Former Head of Analysis and Policy Planning, UNAMA

Anatol Lieven
Professor, War Studies Department of King’s College London and author of Pakistan: A Hard Country

Bob McKerrow
Author of Mountains of our Minds – Afghanistan

Alessandro Monsutti
Research Director, Transnational Studies/Development Studies at The Graduate Institute, Geneva

Ahmed Rashid
Journalist and author of Taliban and Descent into Chaos

Nir Rosen
Fellow, New York University Center on Law and Security

Gerard Russell
Research Fellow, Carr Center for Human Rights Policy, Harvard University

Alex Strick van Linschoten
Kandahar-based writer/researcher, co-editor of My Life With the Taliban

Astri Surkhe
Senior Researcher, Chr. Michelsen Institute, Norway

Yama Torabi
Co-Director, Integrity Watch Afghanistan

Jere van Dyk
Author of In Afghanistan and Captive

Matt Waldman
Afghanistan Analyst
--------

Alex Strick van Linschoten
Writer/Researcher
UK Mobile --- +44-7794-263019
Afghan mobile --- +93-799-667356
USA Mobile --- +1-646-338-1275

http://www.alexstrick.com/

http://www.mylifewiththetaliban.com/

skype: strickvl

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From Kabul with love - the remarkable story of Afghan, Howard Harper

2010-10-27T06:21:00.001-07:00

The last thing he would want is publicity, but former New Zealander Howard Harper, is at last getting some publicity for being one of the most committed humanitarians I have evry known. From Kabul with Love is an utterly unique book – it follows the adventures of New Zealander Howard Harper, as he embarks as a medical worker into Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The story is told through letters sent between Howard and Monika Harper, and Howard’s father, Auckland Pharmacist, Stan Harper.

Howard sets off as a young man in the 1950s first of all to Pakistan, and then to study medicine in England. In England he meets and marries a young nurse, Monika, before heading back to Pakistan – driving overland from England with a caravan in tow. Their adventures eventually take them to Afghanistan in the 1960s to work with the blind and provide relief aid.

What is remarkable about this book is the honesty of the letters. They reveal the human face of life in extremely challenging environments and of those at home in 1950s and 60s New Zealand.

Publication of this book coincides with Howard Harper being awarded the prestigious 2010 Augusta Award from Auckland Grammar School. Past winners have included many well-known New Zealanders, including Sir Ed Hillary.

For Castle Books, the other thing that has made this project unique is that it has been a truly international effort. Howard and Monika currently live in the UK. The compiler of the book, Howard and Monika’s daughter, Dr Faith Goldberg, lives in Israel. Meanwhile, the book is being published here in New Zealand and is printing in both NZ and the UK.

With an article about Howard appearing in The Listener this week, and other coverage surrounding his award, we’re looking forward to more people finding out about about this remarkable New Zealander and reading From Kabul with Love.

Parwan, an hour's drive from Kabul where Howard, Monika and children would have spent some family outings. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Here is David Lomas' article which is running cover story this week (October 23 to 29 October 2010) in the New Zealand Listener.

Why would a New Zealander want to have an Afghani passport? Clare de Lore profiles a remarkable eye surgeon who has dedicated his life to helping people

in one of the world’s most dangerous countries.

When Howard Harper filled out papers for his Afghani citizenship, the locals were astounded. Some laughed, others shook their heads. Whereas most Afghans he knew dreamed of leaving, the New Zealand eye surgeon and humanitarian was fighting to stay in the country he calls home.

The year was 2002. After decades of living and working in Afghanistan and surrounding countries, Harper had been offered a medal for his services to Afghanistan. During an audience with the Father of the Nation – previously the King – Harper pressed his case for citizenship and the passport he now proudly carries.

“I told the King, ‘I don’t want a medal, I want an Afghani passport,’” says Harper. “Because otherwise it is difficult to get in and out, and I don’t know when I might next be slung out. I did not want to be dependent on one person’s goodwill.

“After a long to-do, my name was published in the paper and finally there was an announcement in the newspaper and on the radio that Dr Harper had been given the passport and citizenship. I can vote, buy property, and I try to faithfully fulfil the obligations of a citizen.” He is one of only two foreigners granted this status.

Harper is one of New Zealand’s least-known but most impressive sons. Immaculately dressed at all times, this tall, silver-haired, modest son of Te Kuiti and Auckland displays all the grit, integrity and selflessness so admired in our better-known heroes.

During his time in central Asia, he’s seen the Russians invade and then retreat, the rise, demise and resurgence of the Taleban and the arrival of the American-led forces; he has funded and built eye hospitals, seen one of them destroyed and rebuilt it, built two schools, trained dozens of eye doctors and restored sight to many thousands of people.

Along the way, he married Monika, a Polish nurse who shares his passion for the poor. They’ve raised three daughters, in often primitive conditions. He has witnessed cruelty and kindness in equal measure and remains steadfast in his faith in God and human nature. He is loved by, and loves, the Afghan people.

Harper is currently in the UK where he has been, successfully to date, undergoing treatment for cancer. At nearly 80, he knows time is running out to complete his life’s work – his reaction is to simply work harder and faster. His sights are firmly set, health willing, on a return to Kabul.

His life has taken him a long way from Te Kuiti, where he was born in 1930 to Blyth and Esther Harper, his father a pharmacist and mother a teacher. The family moved to Auckland when Harper was a young boy, his father relocating his business to Karangahape Rd.

A bright but restless Harper left Auckland Grammar School after just two years’ secondary education. He found work in a large joinery factory where he “learnt quite a lot about bare-knuckle fighting with the other boys working there”. A building apprenticeship followed, and to this day Harper uses the experience acquired there alongside his surgical skills. After that came a stint in retail, including at two Auckland menswear stores. All the while, the young Harper was reading voraciously.

Dad gave me a book about a man called George Hunter, a Scotsman who lived all his adult life in China. That was fascinating for me. He spent his life helping people, especially in the Xinjiang province, and that inspired me.”

Harper persuaded a friend to accompany him on what was to become the trip of a lifetime. “I felt called to go to central Asia. At this point there were few openings, as the Russians had occupied most of central Asia, and the Chinese had taken over Xinjiang. The only open part was Afghanistan and northern Pakistan.”

In 1953, the two young Kiwis left Auckland on the Wanganella for Sydney, changed to a P&O liner headed for Bombay, and eventually made it to Karachi.

They headed to a language school in Muree, a hill station near Islamabad and set about learning Urdu. (Harper and his wife were later to learn Persian, Pashto, Russian and some Mongolian.)

An old Farsi man was persuaded to part with his trusty Sunbeam motorbike, giving the Kiwis the freedom to explore. “We headed up toward Gilgit on the north-western frontier and had a wonderful time sleeping in the old dak bungalows, like the old British India resting places. One night we ended up in Balakot. The next day we came across an old tribesman leading his horse, both of them lame. He pleaded with me to help him and his horse. I could do nothing for either of them.

“Then, across the river, the next thing that stirred me was a large hospital. I went in and found it full of leprosy patients, many of them with terrible deformities. There was a man trying to run the place and he told me it was an old British Empire Leprosy Relief Association hospital, abandoned by the British for several years. No one had come to help them since, apart from a small amount of money from the Government for food. There was no treatment, and I determined then that I would come back and help.”
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
At 23, Harper headed to England, where he knew he had a better chance of being able to train as a doctor than he had of making the cut for New Zealand’s only medical school at the University of Otago. He says his decision to leave Auckland Grammar early was a mistake, as he lost valuable time coming up to speed to meet admission standards.

In addition to his medical studies in London, he studied Urdu at the School of Oriental and African Studies, as well as Islamic law. “I was always the odd one out during my student days, slightly older, and I had something the other students did not: a clear and detailed ambition.”

It was at this time he also found Monika – the love of his life and his closest medical partner. When Monika was six and her sister four, they lost their mother during World War II. They were on the run from the advancing Russians, packed tightly into a train, when Monika’s mother suffered a panic attack and was thrown off onto a platform. The little girls never saw her again and fended for themselves for a while, with some kindness from strangers, until reunited with their father after the war. Monika determined to help children throughout her life. She was in London, improving her English so she could work among the poor, when she and Harper met. Monika had already gained specialist nursing qualifications at London’s famed Moorfields Eye Hospital and persuaded Harper to specialise in eye surgery.

The following years were to be an adventure in some of the least explored parts of the world. Harper and his bride set off from England for Afghanistan in a second-hand diesel Land-Rover towing an old caravan.

“We moved slowly through the rich European panorama until we finally ran out of roads in eastern Greece. As we entered the unmade roads of Turkey, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan, we discovered Monika was pregnant with Naomi. I thought this was too much to ask of her, to bump along dusty miles with poor food and restless sleep, but she stuck it out.” Not so the caravan, which literally fell apart on the rocky trails. It was abandoned just before Christmas 1962, last seen in the desert outside Baghdad with camels gazing curiously into it.

Naomi was born soon after in New Zealand and was just six weeks old when Harper took up a position at Taxila Hospital in Iran with Norval Christy, a Harvard Medical School graduate who had set up a clinic to treat anyone needing help.

“We would start operating at three in the morning. It was too hot in the daytime – the temperature would be well over 100°F. There would sometimes be more than a hundred people who turned up, and that dictated our day. We stopped for breakfast at nine, having done 100 operations, and then saw about 400 more before lunch and a nap. It was hard work but also a joy to see a patient who has been blind for years suddenly see loved ones again.”

Cataracts affect more than half the people 50 and over living in central Asia. Harper says no one knows why they are so prevalent, but cataract operations have always dominated his work.

“We would do the operation, and then after two or three days we would send them away with thick spectacles so they could see again. Each operation took just five minutes, but that was before lenses – we were just removing cataracts. Later, inserting a lens, it took about 15 minutes.” At the end of his first full year working with Christy, Harper had notched up more than 1000 cataract operations, as well as other types of eye surgery.

The Noor Eye Hospital at Darulaman in Kabul was one of Harper’s biggest and earliest projects. Built in 1966, it was badly damaged in the 1990s and Harper has since rebuilt it. In 1973, while working at his shiny new hospital, Harper was accused of “anti-State activities”. There were to be major repercussions, and not just for Harper.

Kuchi nomads in Afghanistan in the Central Highlands.

“Over the years they realised we would not participate in bribery and corruption – we did not live up to the ideals of the country. The King’s Government of the time had a particularly difficult Prime Minister and he ordered us to leave the country. So we did, and just as we were leaving, we looked up and there was a plane lumbering along overhead. We found out this was taking the King to see an eye doctor I knew in London, a retinal specialist. The King had been playing ball with his grandson and been hit in the eye and it had haemorrhaged. Normally he would have come to me, but I was being slung out so he had to lumber along in an old Russian plane to see the doctor in London. He never got back to Afghanistan as King. There was a rebellion by his cousin Daoud, who took over the country as dictator.”

Within months Harper slipped back into Afghanistan, working with some Americans at a small university in Jellalabad. Most of the people he was working among were Muslim – a relationship that worked well, despite cultural and religious differences. Women and children were seen first, a practice unheard of in Afghanistan, but it paid off. He was respected within the community.

“At the time [the 60s and 70s] people were scared stiff of going out at night, but I said I never felt more safe in any country than travelling in Afghanistan at night. People asked me how that could be, and it was that everyone knew when I was travelling and where I was going. They have an amazing bush telegraph in which people pass information to one another alone the lines of ‘this Harper, he is going here and there’, and when you got to your final destination, there would be a crowd waiting to greet you.”

He thought he’d escaped Daoud’s attention but after about a year was discovered and thrown out again. He and his family went to Iran, where he worked as professor of ophthalmology at the Mashhad University medical school before moving to the UK in 1977. They spent 15 or so years there so their three daughters (Naomi, Joy and Faith) could attend secondary schools and experience Western culture.

Monika Harper has nothing but praise for the New Zealand Correspondence School, which saw the girls through their early schooling in central Asia. They would sometimes be set tasks, such as an essay about a day at the beach – none of the girls had seen a beach, so they would write instead about a night in the desert.

Monika says her husband always saw the UK move as temporary and continued his work in central Asia. “We would go to various regions of Pakistan during those years in England. Howard built a clinic in Gilgit, which is still operating today. He had six weeks’ annual holiday – we worked for four weeks and took a break in the other two.”

Harper took up a post as consultant ophthalmologist at the Kent and Sussex Hospital in Tunbridge Wells, established the first cataract day-surgery clinic there, and wrote texts in English and Urdu on ophthalmology still in use today.

Harper’s big break – the chance of a permanent return to central Asia – came when he saw, on television, Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu and his wife being shot. It was Christmas Day 1989.

“After that, I knew it was all over for the communists in central Asia. I knew if you could shoot a dictator like that and get away with it, the whole system would come down. I immediately formed what is Vision International [his registered charity]. I knew medical services would drop once they pushed the Russians out, and in many places there were none.”

He negotiated agreements – effectively permission to stay and work – in Pakistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan. More were to follow covering Mongolia and Tashkent. Each agreement was worth about $1 million to the country concerned if Harper was allowed to get on with his fund-raising, building and training.

After leaving the UK’s National Health Service in 1995, Harper was given surplus NHS equipment, which he transported to Mongolia through Russia. In the end, it was more trouble than it was worth, he says, laughing.

“Going via Russia was like being in a den of thieves. The truck, with all this wonderful equipment, would be stopped and effectively arrested. They would claim it was overloaded, and then unload things and just steal what they wanted. By the time this happened three or four times, the load was certainly lighter. I made a big fuss, wrote letters about this and so they had a record of who I was. Next time I arrived at the border, they took me away and I ended up in prison for the night. Eventually, I gave up going through Russia.”

In more recent times, Harper says, there have always been ways of getting in and out of Afghanistan and getting around the country, and he has come to accept the risks of doing so.

Abdul is an Afghani friend of the Harpers. He agreed to comment on their work but his name has been changed to protect his identity.
“Howard’s deep love and passion for the Afghan people has led him to fluency in the language, and a deep understanding of the mindset and culture. He is trusted and Afghans have opened their lives to him. Despite his Western appearance, his attitude was always different from other foreigners in that he felt at home with Afghans and shared freely with us.”

Abdul says the Harpers took on a mammoth task in providing services to the sight-impaired.

“Their work has affected thousands of people over the decades. Howard’s name and face are familiar to many Afghans living in even the rural areas of the country as he has serviced them with his mobile eye clinics despite great hardship and danger.”

All the while, Howard and Monika lived in circumstances most New Zealanders would find intolerable. This is Harper’s own description of their house in Kabul: “A simple two-storey brick and mortar house, in one of the better districts of Kabul, close to the Parliament. We have no running water, but a pump and a polluted shallow well for water. We have to boil and filter our drinking water, as attacks of dysentery are common.

“There are scorpions of all shapes and sizes, and it is important not to run outside in bare feet! We have electricity sometimes every third day, so we don’t have a refrigerator but a small electric generator for light in the evening. Apart from a few drawbacks, we find it a good place to live.”

The couple have been sensible about personal security but argue that having security guards attracts more attention than it’s worth. Besides, they just didn’t have the money. Harper usually moves around Kabul in a car with two Afghan friends but sometimes ventures out alone.

There have been close calls. In 2009, he was alone, driving the car, after dropping a friend at Kabul Airport. “It was at the time that they changed the guard protecting the airport. I noticed an old guy going along in a shaky way in a car and I knew there would shortly be a busload of troops leaving.

“I thought, ‘I bet he is going to blow that up’, and I knew I should just keep going. I’ve learnt to think and act like an Afghan. Sure enough, there was a huge explosion and people were killed.

“If we were people trying to make money or connected to the military, the Afghans would attack us. But if they feel you are on their side and not political or military, they will be friendly in many ways you would not get in New Zealand.

“I have a friend, for example, a Pathan with a long woolly beard, and he knows every Taleban leader there is. He and I have worked together for a number of years. When I ran short of money on one of my projects, he said, ‘Don’t worry, I will borrow it for you.’ He went around his relatives, some of them high up in the Government and got 5000 here, 5000 there, and ‘here it is, use it’.

“They did want it back again – they could not afford to give it outright. This is the astonishing thing about Afghans – they will kill you if they mistrust you or think you are their enemy, but in other ways they will support you in ways you would not easily find in New Zealand or in England.”

The Harpers live on an NHS pension. Harper sold a house he owned in Algies Bay, north of Auckland, to fund one of his hospitals, his family help when they can, and he has a network of committed supporters in New Zealand and abroad who contribute from time to time. He has received large one-off donations from funding organisations in the US, Japan, Germany and the UK, but says he really relies on private donations of sums as little as $20.

Harper’s legacy includes the Noor Eye Hospital, a newly completed day eye clinic alongside it and at least a dozen self-sustaining eye clinics throughout central Asia, many of them now operating for 30 or more years, and two schools. He says there is much more to be done.

“The eye clinic we recently completed cost us about US$200,000. Our aim is to build up a team of Afghan nurses and doctors, as well as foreigners, and gradually get it self-sustaining. That means literally getting a very small fee from each patient, perhaps $50, with free treatment for the very poorest, about a quarter of them. We will take them on our own shoulders.”

Hamish McMaster heads New Zealand’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade’s Middle East and Africa Division. In early 2009, while he was our man in Iran and accredited to Kabul, he heard of Harper’s work and visited his clinic as it was being built. A long-time diplomat, McMaster describes his arrival at the dusty building site in one of the most dangerous cities in the world.

“Imagine cement bags lying on the ground, piles of bricks and Afghan workers doing their thing. In the middle of this a beautifully laid table, vinyl cloth, with china teacups and saucers, and some bread to eat. I recall Dr Harper was wearing a bow tie. And my abiding memory is of a little New Zealand flag sitting right in the middle of the table.”

McMaster says he has met other New Zealanders working in Afghanistan, but Harper stands out. And he says there’s a very good reason Harper has kept a low profile both in Afghanistan and in New Zealand.

“I would say it has been essential for him to keep under the radar in order to stay and survive so long. It is uncommon for someone to live there for that length of time, and he has survived the vagaries of Afghanistan through his humility and determination.”

McMaster rates Harper’s work in improving the lot of Afghanis on a par with efforts to improve security via construction of schools and repairing roads and other infrastructure. A New Zealand Government grant of $50,000 was personally authorised by Foreign Minister Murray McCully after he visited Afghanistan and met Harper.

“When Dr Harper’s work was brought to my attention, I took the chance, during a visit to Afghanistan last year, to include him in an official dinner. I was struck by his remarkable determination. He’s made a huge humanitarian contribution in very difficult circumstances. It’s a tough place to visit, let alone live,” says McCully.

Abdul, the Harpers’ Kabul-based friend, vouches for Harper’s standing in the community.

“He is highly respected by all Afghan people regardless of ethnic persuasion. He is honourable, someone to be trusted at all times. On one occasion the King was reported to have said we need more foreigners of his calibre to serve Afghanistan.”

While he and Monika were living in unaccustomed comfort in the UK, the Taleban gained control in Afghanistan. Harper made a week-long visit in 1997, and says he was sad to see how miserable life had become. The Noor Eye Hospital had been severely damaged, and human rights were under daily attack.

“You would talk to respectable young girls and women who were whipped for even showing a tiny bit of skin on their foot.

“I went to visit the then Minister of Health to talk about resuming work there. When I met him, I was surprised – he was an uneducated man, which was very odd for the Afghans. He looked like a cross between a mullah and a butcher. He got down on his knees, though, and begged me to start work again. I said I would only do so once things settled down a bit and he accepted that.”

In 2002, the Harpers returned “home” to Kabul.

“It was vital to get back into Afghanistan after the Taleban were defeated. They had been particularly destructive. I had never seen a country brought down to such a level. They had destroyed the infrastructure, education, the freedom of women, and there was a very narrow version of Islam that even banned music.”

Harper says the arrival of the US-led forces brought about some improvements, but they are unlikely to last. “I am always optimistic as far as the people are concerned, but once the Americans and Brits pull out, who knows what will happen? The Afghans are wonderful, but once they start fighting they are quite ruthless.

“Elections have never worked for them. They need strong leadership, almost autocratic. There is little love lost between the various tribal elements. My impression is that Afghanistan is naturally two countries, one Persian-speaking, including Kabul, and the other a Pashto-speaking country – the south-east including the north-western frontier of Pakistan, centred on Peshawar.

“Corruption is endemic in Afghanistan. Most people think if they are given a position of power, it is for them and their family’s benefit. That will never change. There are, however, some people, like the late King, who besides looking after themselves, will also consider the good of their people and look after them. That’s the best we can hope for – find these good but usually flawed men and work with them.”

Despite the poverty, corruption and danger, Harper says there is a very simple explanation for spending a lifetime in the service of strangers in some of the most hostile places on earth.

“I spent a lot of time getting a very sophisticated education in New Zealand and England. I somehow owe something back, so therefore while other people may want to stop at age 60 or 65, I feel as long as you’re in good nick and your mind is working, your hands are able and you can think straight, there is no reason not to go on longer. I take this a year at a time.

“I might not have much money, but I’ve had a very rich life.”

Howard Harper will be honoured by his alma mater, Auckland Grammar School, at a dinner in Auckland in November.

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RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW

2010-09-09T18:42:00.000-07:00

Are the Taliban a resistance movement or what ? There have been many debates and publications on this subject and today I came across this interesting article by W. J. Ford in the International Review the Red Cross in 1967. Here is the link: http://www.loc.gov/rr/frd/Military_Law/pdf/RC_Nov-1967.pdf

14. Practice of War
A number of instances will now be given to show the status accorded to persons taking part in fighting without being members of the regular forces.
The Boer War (1899-1902) 2
In this war the British troops found themselves confronted with Boers who had united to form commandos. They were under the command of persons appointed by the government; some of them wore uniforms and they carried their arms openly. According to Spaight the Boers observed the rules of the law of war. From reports, both from the British and from the Boers, it may be deduced that the Boers were treated as prisoners of war, provided they were captured before the British proclaimed that they had annexed the Boer Republics. The British authorities took the view that after the annexation the belligerents could no longer be regarded as regular combatants but only as rebels. Theoretically, this point of view was correct but it is doubtful whether the actual
1 Continued from our October issue.
• J. M. Spaight, War Rights on Land, 1911.
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situation warranted the annexation. At the moment annexation was proclaimed there was no peace treaty in which annexation had been agreed upon. Nor were the facts such as to warrant the unilateral British proclamation.
The Russo-Japanese War (1904-1905) 1
Both parties reported incidents which were judged under the provisions of Articles 1 and 2 of the Hague Regulations. In one case the Japanese court martial refused to recognize the right of prisoners to invoke Article 2 of the Hague Regulations, because it felt that the prisoners concerned could not be regarded as patriotic citizens, since they were convicts. The court ruled that such persons could not be expected to observe the law of war. Against this it may be argued that there is no rule depriving members of resistance movements of the status of privileged combatants because they have been convicted by a national court.
World JVar 1
In 1915 the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs published a report on the manner in which the Belgian population had resisted the German forces. 2 It was particularly the operations of the , garde civique ' that were considered to be unlawful. The Germans considered that Article 1 was not applicable, since the resistance fighters had not been placed under the command of a person who was responsible for his subordinates. Moreover, they did not wear any distinguishing mark. According to the German report, Article 2, could not be invoked either, since this Article recognizes a levy en masse only in non-occupied territory. This line of reasoning condemned
the resistance in towns like Aerschot, Andenne and Louvain.
In 1916 Belgium officially responded to the German publication
3. According to the Belgian authorities a distinction should be made between the garde civique active and the garde civique
1 Nagao Ariga, La guerre Russo-Japonaise au point de vue continental et Ie droit international d'apres les documents officiels du grand Etat-major japonais, 1908.
2 Die volkerrechtswidrige FilhrulIg des belgischen Volkskl'iegs.
3 Reply to the German White Book of May 10, 1915 .. Die volkerrechtswidrige Fuhrung des belgischen Volkskriegs", 1916.
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non active. The former were regarded as constituting an armed force. The latter had to be regarded as militias who could be-and were---called up by Royal Decree. Members of the garde civique non active had to subject themselves to the rules of Article 1 of the Hague Regulations. Although the garde civique non active were originally intended to playa part in the defence of national indepedence,
their eventual task amounted to little more than policing the non-occupied part of the country. Since the garde civique non active were no Jonger regarded as militias it was no longer necessary for them to comply with the requirements of Article 1 of the Hague Regulations.
World War II
France. -In the course of 1943 the Forces fran~aises de l'interieur
(F.F.I.) were organized in such a way that they were ready to carry out strategic duties. In its ordinance of 9 June 1944 the Comite fran~ais de la Liberation nationale defines the F.F.I. in the following manner:
Les forces fran~aises de l'interieur {( F.F.I. », sont constituees par J'ensemble des unites combattantes ou de leurs services qui prennent part a la lutte contre l'ennemi sur Ie territoire metropolitain, dont l'organisation est reconnue par Ie Gouvernement,
et qui servent sous les ordres de chefs reconnus par lui comme responsables. Ces forces armees font partie integrante de l'armee fran~aise et beneficient de tous les droits et avalltages reconnus aux militaires par les lois en vigueur. Elles repondent aux conditions generales fixees par Ie reglement annexe a la convention de la Haye du 18 octobre 1907 concernant les lois et coutumes de la guerre sur terre.
The German military authorities stated in a proclamation that captured members of the F.F.I. would be executed in accordance with the rules of military criminal law. The provisional government of the French Republic pointed out that Article I of the Hague Regulations of 1907 were being observed and that captured members
of the F.F.!. would therefore have to be treated as prisoners of war. General Einsenhower decreed:
RESISTANCE MOVEMENTS AND INTERNATIONAL LAW
"1. The French Forces of the Interior constitute a combatant force commanded and directed by General Koenig, and form an integral part of the Allied Expeditionary Force.
2. The French Forces of the Interior in the maquis bear arms openly against the enemy and are instructed to conduct their operations against him in accordance with the rules of war. They are provided with a distinctive emblem and are regarded by General Eisenhower as an army under his command."
The ICRC intervened1 and the German authorities declared orally that members of th~ EF.1. would be treated as prisoners of war. This oral declaration was never confirmed in writing.
Italy. -After the armistice of September 1943 groups of partisans
sprang up in Northern Italy. They took up arms against the Germans. The ICRC tried to induce the German authorities to regard captured partisans as prisoners of war, but their attempts failed.
Netherlands. -The resistance undertaken in the Netherlands was unique. Fighting against the Germans was restricted to smallscale
skirmishes like in Belgium. In addition the underground resistance movement performed acts of sabotage. The legal status of the underground army, the Forces of the Interior, was established on 5 September 1944 (Royal Decree). The Decree ruled that every one actively engaged in repelling the enemy was from then on a member of the Royal Netherlands Army. This decision removed any uncertainty as to the status of the persons concerned under the law of war.
Poland and Slovakia. -In October 1944 the German authorities declared that captured members of the Polish underground army would be treated as prisoners of war.! Under the provisions of the Warsaw capitulation agreement, captured Polish partisans were regarded as prisoners of war: they were subject to the 1929 Red Cross Convention. (cf. Schmid)
1 Schmid, Die volkerrechtliche Stellung del' Partisanen im Kl'iege, 1956.
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Slovak partisans were treated differently. It was decided that the 1929 Red Cross Convention did not apply to them and when captured they were not regarded as prisoners of war but were deported to Germany.
U.S.S.R. -Russian partisans did not wear any definite uniforms.!
Those who had been in the army wore their old uniforms or parts of them. According to a political commissar assigned to a partisan unit the partisans were members of the Red Army. They were instructed to operate in the rear of the enemy.
Trainin asserts that Soviet warfare was not a private affair of volunteers.2 According to Trainin the population, which belonged either to the regular army or to partisan units, used all the defensive and offensive methods in defending their country. The Russian author goes on to say that this emphasized the fact that the struggle against fascism was a people's war. Therefore the leaders of resistance
groups subordinated their operations to those of the Red Army, Soviet Russia's main military machine. They were accountable
to the people, i.e. to the Red Army and its General Staff. Trainin emphasizes the fact that the orders of the highest commander,
field-marshal Stalin, were directed not only to the Red Army but also to the men and women fighting in the partisan units.
Yugoslavia. -The struggle carried on in the Balkans by the partisans partook of the nature of military operations. The centre of Yugoslav resistance was in Serbia. The resistance fighters carried out surprise raids on the German occupation forces to capture arms, food and clothing. There was no uniformity whatsoever in the way the partisans dressed. A newcomer was instantly recognizable as such because his clothes marked him as a farmer or as a townsman.
But after a few weeks he was wearing a German fatigue cap or an Italian tunic. However, they all wore the Red Star on their fatigue caps. By 1943 their number had increased to 250,000. The German and affiliated forces undertook seven large-scale offensives against the Yugoslav partisans in all. The fifth was carried out in
1 S. A. Kovpak, Les partisans sovietiques, 1945.
• I. P. Trainin, " Questions of guerilla warfare in the law of war ", Am. Journal 0/ Int. Law, Vol. 40, 1946.
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the latter half of May and in the first few days of June 1943. During
this offensive General Kuebler, commander of the German 118th
division, issued an order that every partisan taken prisoner was to be
shot immediately and that all wells be poisoned. According to
Marshal Tito, leader of the partisans, wounded partisans were
mercilessly killed.
It may be gathered from the foregoing that the fighting of the
partisans was not as a rule limited to incidental resistance operations.
More often than not their resistance consisted of large-scale,
well-organized operations carried out by disciplined combatants.
This should have induced the Germans to control themselves when
dealing with captured partisans. Instead prisoners were shot. There
is no evidence that captured partisans were tried and granted all
the rights essential to the proper administration of justice.
15. Practice in armed conflicts not of an international character
The subject of the preceding chapter was the status of combatants
not belonging to regular armies in international conflicts. The present chapter deals with the status to be accorded to combatants
in armed conflicts not of an international character.
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939).
The fact that the conflict was essentially a civil war made the parties to the conflict decide not to apply the law of war. Siotis reports that hundreds of thousands of civilians and soldiers were killed and executed.1 Hostages were shot and women and children were not spared. The parties to the conflict treated one another as murderers. The insurgents were not accorded the status of belligerents,
because the government feared that by doing so they would weaken the position of the Spanish Republic. People may wonder whether the position of the Spanish Republic was really at stake and whether it would not have been better to recognize the rebels as belligerents, because it would probably have had a moderating effect on the fighting, which went far beyond local disturbances. This
1 Jean Siotis, Le droit de fa guerre et les conj!its armes d'un caraetere 1I0ninternational.
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alternative would have been all the more apposite, since the position of the Spanish Republic would not have suffered if its opponents had been accorded the status of belligerents. Had been possible to grant the insurgents the minimum rights provided for in Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions, it is reasonable to assume that many lives would have been saved on both sides.
The Greek Civil War (1946-1949)
According to Siotis the law of war was completely ignored during the conflict in Greece. Aiding the insurgents was a crime punishable by death. Insurgents captured with weapons in their hands were brought up before a court martial. Most of them were sentenced to death. Prisoners who refused to join the insurgents met with the same fate. The ICRC attempted to mitigate the conflict by invoking the resolution of the Preparatory Conference of Red Cross Societies of 1946. In this resolution it was suggested thatinthe case ofanarmedconflict notofaninternationalcharacter the convention be equally applied by each of the parties unless one of them explicitly refused to do so. According to Siotis, the Greek Government argued that the conflict was not a civil war. The ICRC persisted in its view and by its tenacity succeeded in securing
certain results. The Greek Government allowed the Committee to do its humanitarian work for the Greek people, which actually took the form of aid to the Hellenic Red Cross Society. The JCRe launched a large-scale drive to help people taken prisoner by Government
troops. Attempts to organize similar activities among the insurgents failed, their leader claiming that war time conditions prevented him from getting into contact with the ICRC direct.
Vietnam (1946-1954)
In spite of the fact that Vietnam was " un Etat libre ayant son gouvernement, son parlement, son armee et ses finances" the conflict was regarded as an " armed conflict not of an international character" because Vietnam was not an independent state in the international intercourse of states. France prevented Vietnam from having contact with other powers. According to Siotis the parties to the conflict seem to have been prepared, at all events initially,
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to apply the rules of the law of war. But this gradually faded when it became apparent that it was impossible to reach a compromise. The ICRC could not properly perform its duties, such as visiting and exchanging prisoners, because of material and other difficulties. Although the conflict was regarded as an armed conflict not of an international character, the French authorities felt that it did not fall entirely outside the scope of the rules of international law.
Guatemala (1954)
An international struggle broke out in Guatemala in 1954. Right from the beginning the extent of the conflict was such as to make the Red Cross Society of Guatemala accept intervention by the ICRC. This intervention consisted mainly of activities after the short-lived conflict proper had come to an end. They included visits to prisons and the submission of a report on these visits to the Minister of the Interior of Guatemala. This procedure constituted a precedent for intervention by the ICRC during and after hostilities.
Algeria
At first the Algerian conflict was just a matter of maintaining public order but soon its scope widened, so that the regular French army began to take part in the fighting. The result was that measures
based on criminal law no longer sufficed and that the conflict developed into an armed conflict not of an international character to which Article 3 of the 1949 Geneva Conventions was applicable. The French Government recognized this development and, according
to Siotis, the Algerian nationalists, too, declared that they intended to apply the Geneva Conventions. This meant that both parties had pronounced themselves in favour of applying Article 3 to this armed conflict not of an international character.
But Siotis reports that in actual practice things left much to be desired. The two parties committed many acts that were contrary to the humanitarian principles on which Article 3 was based. But the two parties repeatedly urged the persons concerned to observe the provisions of Article 3. The violations of Article 3 caused Siotis to state that the new rules of conventional law contained in this article
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were "en derniere analyse" not regarded as having obligatory force. This standpoint does not seem very satisfactory as the obligatory force of legal provisions does not depend on the number of times these provisions are violated. The competent authorities that accept the rules contained in Article 3 may be expected to be able to ensure their practical application and enforcement, which may be interpreted as proof of discipline and organisational maturity.
The rules of Article 3 are of considerable importance in the case of an armed conflict not of an international character, because the national legislations, which are adapted to normal conditions, may prove to be inadequate in the event of internal disturbances, so the possibility of excesses must not be ruled out.
(To be continued).
Dr. W. J. FORD
587

9/11 AND THE 9-YEAR WAR

2010-09-09T04:01:00.000-07:00

I received this very interesting article written by George Friedman which I post below. Food for thought ?

It has now been nine years since al Qaeda attacked the United States. It has been nine years in which the primary focus of the United States has been on the Islamic world. In addition to a massive investment in homeland security, the United States has engaged in two multi-year, multi-divisional wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, inserted forces in other countries in smaller operations and conducted a global covert campaign against al Qaeda and other radical jihadist groups.

In order to understand the last nine years you must understand the first 24 hours of the war -- and recall your own feelings in those 24 hours. First, the attack was a shock, its audaciousness frightening. Second, we did not know what was coming next. The attack had destroyed the right to complacent assumptions. Were there other cells standing by in the United States? Did they have capabilities even more substantial than what they showed on Sept. 11? Could they be detected and stopped? Any American not frightened on Sept. 12 was not in touch with reality. Many who are now claiming that the United States overreacted are forgetting their own sense of panic. We are all calm and collected nine years after.

At the root of all of this was a profound lack of understanding of al Qaeda, particularly its capabilities and intentions. Since we did not know what was possible, our only prudent course was to prepare for the worst. That is what the Bush administration did. Nothing symbolized this more than the fear that al Qaeda had acquired nuclear weapons and that they would use them against the United States. The evidence was minimal, but the consequences would be overwhelming. Bush crafted a strategy based on the worst-case scenario.

Bush was the victim of a decade of failure in the intelligence community to understand what al Qaeda was and wasn't. I am not merely talking about the failure to predict the 9/11 attack. Regardless of assertions afterwards, the intelligence community provided only vague warnings that lacked the kind of specificity that makes for actionable intelligence. To a certain degree, this is understandable. Al Qaeda learned from Soviet, Saudi, Pakistani and American intelligence during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and knew how to launch attacks without tipping off the target. The greatest failure of American intelligence was not the lack of a clear warning about 9/11 but the lack, on Sept. 12, of a clear picture of al Qaeda's global structure, capabilities, weaknesses and intentions. Without such information, implementing U.S. policy was like piloting an airplane with faulty instruments in a snowstorm at night.

The president had to do three things: First, he had to assure the public that he knew what he was doing. Second, he had to do something that appeared decisive. Third, he had to gear up an intelligence and security apparatus to tell him what the threats actually were and what he ought to do. American policy became ready, fire, aim.

In looking back at the past nine years, two conclusions can be drawn: There were no more large-scale attacks on the United States by militant Islamists, and the United States was left with the legacy of responses that took place in the first two years after 9/11. This legacy is no longer useful, if it ever was, to the primary mission of defeating al Qaeda, and it represents an effort that is retrospectively out of proportion to the threat.

If I had been told on Sept.12, 2001, that the attack the day before would be the last major attack for at least nine years, I would not have believed it. In looking at the complexity of the security and execution of the 9/11 attack, I would have assumed that an organization capable of acting once in such a way could act again even more effectively. My assumption was wrong. Al Qaeda did not have the resources to mount other operations, and the U.S. response, in many ways clumsy and misguided and in other ways clever and targeted, disrupted any preparations in which al Qaeda might have been engaged to conduct follow-on attacks.

Knowing that about al Qaeda in 2001 was impossible. Knowing which operations were helpful in the effort to block them was impossible, in the context of what Americans knew in the first years after the war began. Therefore, Washington wound up in the contradictory situation in which American military and covert operations surged while new attacks failed to materialize. This created a massive political problem. Rather than appearing to be the cause for the lack of attacks, U.S. military operations were perceived by many as being unnecessary or actually increasing the threat of attack. Even in hindsight, aligning U.S. actions with the apparent outcome is difficult and controversial. But still we know two things: It has been nine years since Sept. 11, 2001, and the war goes on.

What happened was that an act of terrorism was allowed to redefine U.S. grand strategy. The United States operates with a grand strategy derived from the British strategy in Europe -- maintaining the balance of power. For the United Kingdom, maintaining the balance of power in Europe protected any one power from emerging that could unite Europe and build a fleet to invade the United Kingdom or block its access to its empire. British strategy was to help create coalitions to block emerging hegemons such as Spain, France or Germany. Using overt and covert means, the United Kingdom aimed to ensure that no hegemonic power could emerge.

The Americans inherited that grand strategy from the British but elevated it to a global rather than regional level. Having blocked the Soviet Union from hegemony over Europe and Asia, the United States proceeded with a strategy whose goal, like that of the United Kingdom, was to nip potential regional hegemons in the bud. The U.S. war with Iraq in 1990-91 and the war with Serbia/Yugoslavia in 1999 were examples of this strategy. It involved coalition warfare, shifting America's weight from side to side and using minimal force to disrupt the plans of regional aspirants to gain power. This U.S. strategy also was cloaked in the ideology of global liberalism and human rights.

The key to this strategy was its global nature. The emergence of a hegemonic contender that could challenge the United States globally, as the Soviet Union had done, was the worst-case scenario. Therefore, the containment of emerging powers wherever they might emerge was the centerpiece of American balance-of-power strategy.

The most significant effect of 9/11 was that it knocked the United States off its strategy. Rather than adapting its standing global strategy to better address the counterterrorism issue, the United States became obsessed with a single region, the area between the Mediterranean and the Hindu Kush. Within that region, the United States operated with a balance-of-power strategy. It played off all of the nations in the region against each other. It did the same with ethnic and religious groups throughout the region and particularly within Iraq and Afghanistan, the main theaters of the war. In both cases, the United States sought to take advantage of internal divisions, shifting its support in various directions to create a balance of power. That, in the end, was what the surge strategy was all about.

The American obsession with this region in the wake of 9/11 is understandable. Nine years later, with no clear end in sight, the question is whether this continued focus is strategically rational for the United States. Given the uncertainties of the first few years, obsession and uncertainty are understandable, but as a long-term U.S. strategy -- the long war that the U.S. Department of Defense is preparing for -- it leaves the rest of the world uncovered.

Consider that the Russians have used the American absorption in this region as a window of opportunity to work to reconstruct their geopolitical position. When Russia went to war with Georgia in 2008, an American ally, the United States did not have the forces with which to make a prudent intervention. Similarly, the Chinese have had a degree of freedom of action they could not have expected to enjoy prior to 9/11. The single most important result of 9/11 was that it shifted the United States from a global stance to a regional one, allowing other powers to take advantage of this focus to create significant potential challenges to the United States.

One can make the case, as I have, that whatever the origin of the Iraq war, remaining in Iraq to contain Iran is necessary. It is difficult to make a similar case for Afghanistan. Its strategic interest to the United States is minimal. The only justification for the war is that al Qaeda launched its attacks on the United States from Afghanistan. But that justification is no longer valid. Al Qaeda can launch attacks from Yemen or other countries. The fact that Afghanistan was the base from which the attacks were launched does not mean that al Qaeda depends on Afghanistan to launch attacks. And given that the apex leadership of al Qaeda has not launched attacks in a while, the question is whether al Qaeda is capable of launching such attacks any longer. In any case, managing al Qaeda today does not require nation building in Afghanistan.

But let me state a more radical thesis: The threat of terrorism cannot become the singular focus of the United States. Let me push it further: The United States cannot subordinate its grand strategy to simply fighting terrorism even if there will be occasional terrorist attacks on the United States. Three thousand people died in the 9/11 attack. That is a tragedy, but in a nation of over 300 million, 3,000 deaths cannot be permitted to define the totality of national strategy. Certainly, resources must be devoted to combating the threat and, to the extent possible, disrupting it. But it must also be recognized that terrorism cannot always be blocked, that terrorist attacks will occur and that the world's only global power cannot be captive to this single threat.

The initial response was understandable and necessary. The United States must continue its intelligence gathering and covert operations against militant Islamists throughout the world. The intelligence failures of the 1990s must not be repeated. But waging a multi-divisional war in Afghanistan makes no strategic sense. The balance-of-power strategy must be used. Pakistan will intervene and discover the Russians and Iranians. The great game will continue. As for Iran, regional counters must be supported at limited cost to the United States. The United States should not be patrolling the far reaches of the region. It should be supporting a balance of power among the native powers of the region.

The United States is a global power and, as such, it must have a global view. It has interests and challenges beyond this region and certainly beyond Afghanistan. The issue there is not whether the United States can or can't win, however that is defined. The issue is whether it is worth the effort considering what is going on in the rest of the world. Gen. David Petraeus cast the war in terms of whether the United States can win it. That's reasonable; he's the commander. But American strategy has to ask another question: What does the United States lose elsewhere while it focuses on the future of Kandahar?

The 9/11 attack shocked the United States and made counterterrorism the centerpiece of American foreign policy. That is too narrow a basis on which to base U.S. foreign policy. It is certainly an important strand of that policy, and it must be addressed, but it should be addressed through the regional balance of power. It is the good fortune of the United States that the Islamic world is torn by internal rivalries.

This is not dismissing the threat of terror. It is recognizing that the United States has done well in suppressing it over the past nine years but at a cost in other regions, a cost that can't be sustained indefinitely and a cost that could well result in challenges more threatening than a rising Islamist militancy. The United States must now settle into a long-term strategy of managing terrorism as best as it can while not neglecting the rest of its interests.

After nine years, the issue is not what to do in Afghanistan but how the global power can return to managing all of its global interests, along with the war on al Qaeda.

This report may be forwarded or republished on your website with attribution to www.stratfor.com.

Copyright 2010 STRATFOR.

Mullah Omar says Afghan Taliban close to victory

2010-09-08T17:55:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning and the first article I read was about Mullah Omar
saying the Afghan Taliban are close to victory. Mullah Omar says his fighters are winning the war in Afghanistan and that the Nato-led campaign has been "a complete failure". I find this hard to believe although one has to acknowledge the Talibans are growing in number and achieving small victories here and there. Soldiers defending their own country always have a huge advantage, and add the religious fervour they have, one has to take Omar's statement seriously.

In a rare statement, the shadowy leader called on US President Barack Obama to withdraw his troops "unconditionally and as soon as possible".

Nato has boosted its presence in Afghanistan to 150,000 soldiers in a bid to finally defeat militants.

Mullah Omar's statement, which marked the end of the Muslim festival of Ramadan, was posted on jihadist websites and relayed by the Site Intelligence Group.

"The victory of our Islamic nation over the invading infidels is now imminent and the driving force behind this is the belief in the help of Allah and unity among ourselves," he said.

"In the time to come, we will try to establish an Islamic, independent, perfect and strong system."

He claimed that those behind the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan which overthrew the Taliban "admit themselves that all their strategies are nothing but a complete failure".

He also commanded his fighters to observe the Taliban's code of conduct and avoid harming civilians.

Spiritual head

Mullah Omar is still considered the spiritual head of the Taliban in Afghanistan, although others are believed to be in day-to-day command of the hardline movement.

President Obama ordered a further 30,000 US troops to Afghanistan last December following a review of the war.

Gen David Petraeus, who commands US and Nato forces in Afghanistan, said last month he saw "areas of progress" in the war and that momentum by the militants had been checked in their strongholds of Kandahar and Helmand.

He has made winning civilian hearts and minds a key part of his strategy to defeat the Taliban.

However, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has said that civilian casualties were undermining the counter-insurgency in his country.

He also said that US plans to begin withdrawing troops next year have given the Taliban "a morale boost".

PERMISSION GRANTED FROM BBC TO RUN THIS ARTICLE.

Check this link out about mountaineering in Afghanistan

2010-09-01T21:09:00.001-07:00

http://visitafghanistan.blogspot.com/2010/02/afghanistan-tourism-promotes-its-virgin.html

A hit off the action, a walk on the dark side

2010-08-29T07:10:00.000-07:00

Frequently I get asked about war and the people I meet in the course of my work in conflict or post conflict. My heart, my prayers and empathy goes out to those who are caught up in wars, such as the civilian population, and those who have no choice such as conscripted soldiers, child soldiers; but the others ?

"Men and women who venture to someone else’s war through choice do so in a variety of guises. UN general, BBC correspondent, aid worker, mercenary: in the final analysis they all want to do the same thing, a hit off the action, a walk on the dark side. It’s just a question of how slick a cover you give yourself, and how far you want to go.. If you find a cause later then hold on to it, but never blind yourself with your own disguise,” writes Anthony Lloyd.

Author on the war in Afghanistan, Jason Elliot, goes to Afghanistan as an 18 year old English school boy during the Soviet occupation.

Photo: Jason Elliot.

In the winter of 1996 when the Taliban were bombing the little life left in Kabul, (Jan-Feb) Anthony Lloyd stayed with me in my house. He and an English cameraman lived in the bunker in our house. We travelled to Khord Kabul where the British were routed in their retreat from Kabul in 1859. This was the front line and we were with Masoud’s troops and could see plainly, Talban soldiers moving about with RPGs. Over 300 British troops had been slaughtered in this valley in 1859.

A few years ago, Lloyd published a book called “ My War Gone By, I Miss It So, about the wars in former Yugoslavia. It's a remarkable book where a young misfit goes to war as a correspondent. He writes:

‘ Listen, said Peter, the Dutchman, ‘we don’t fight for the money, and we’re not in it for the killing. It’s about camaraderie and, sure it’s about excitement. Some are bullshitters, some are psychotics. We are neither. We are here because we want to be, and if there is a price to pay, then we are ready for that too.’

US Armed PCs during the Vietnam war. Photo: Bob McKerrow

"There was very little difference between them and anyone else who goes to war voluntarily. In their case they had taken a side and were ultimately prepared to kill. Though my reasoning for being there was still in flux, at its simplist I was there to watch, and that gave neither of us the higher moral ground. Men and women who venture to someone else’s war through choice do so in a variety of guises. UN general, BBC correspondent, aid worker, mercenary: in the final analysis they all want to do the same thing, a hit off the action, a walk on the dark side. It’s just a question of how slick a cover you give yourself, and far you want to go.. If you find a cause later then hold on to it, but never blind yourself with your own disguise.”

STOREHOUSES OF SORROW
Sometimes I wonder why I have spent so much time in conflict or post conflict regions and the answer comes to mind when I read Nicolas Bouvier, a Swiss writer and artist, He said, “ My belief is that one must have passed through fire oneself....to be able to sort out...the contents of those storehouses of sorrow, where fortunately we can also find, more often than we might have dared to expect...enough small miracles to motivate and encourage those in the field who are so often compelled, to quote a mediaeval Japanese poem, ‘to bear the unbearable and tolerate the intolerable.’

New Zealand troops involved in torture in Afghanistan

2010-08-18T20:24:00.000-07:00

I have worked in too many conflict situations in Asia and Africa, seen and heard of the use of torture, to believe the words of politicians such as John Key's response to allegations that the New Zealand SAS are handing over prisoners to the Afghan secret police, where they are likely to be tortured?

My fellow blogger No Right Turn, an experienced analyist I respect says this:

"Mr Key said when New Zealand troops handed over someone they had detained they made sure that person would not be tortured later on.

+Where the New Zealand SAS worked alongside the unit in Kabul it was not the detaining force, Mr Key told NewstalkZB.

"In that instance, it's not our responsibility when it comes to those people that are detained."
"This is simply bullshit. Kiwi soldiers are helping to capture these people. Therefore we bear moral responsibility for what happens to them. We cannot simply wipe our hands of that responsibility by drawing an arbitrary box around it and saying "not our problem", says Right Turn.

New Zealand is a better country than this. Our response to Afghan torture should be to protect people from it, not enable it. And if the SAS cannot serve in Afghanistan without colluding in torture, then they should not be there. It is that simple

So what is the background on this issue ? Questions have been raised about whether New Zealand's SAS may have handed over prisoners to an Afghan unit that is believed to use torture.

SAS members on patrol in Kabul, Afghanistan.

The British military has been banned from handing prisoners to the Afghan National Directorate of Security as it is so notorious for torture.

The Government has said the SAS worked with Afghanistan's Crisis Response Unit in Kabul, but was not directly responsible for any prisoners captured by the unit because it was not the head of the unit.

Prime Minister John Key said the SAS were not involved in torture of prisoners in Afghanistan.

If New Zealand troops detained someone there were clear written protocols about how that was done and those protocols honoured the Geneva Convention, he said.

The Geneva Convention sets out the standards for the humanitarian treatment of prisoners of war.

Mr Key said when New Zealand troops handed over someone they had detained they made sure that person would not be tortured later on.

Where the New Zealand SAS worked alongside the unit in Kabul it was not the detaining force, Mr Key told NewstalkZB.

"In that instance, it's not our responsibility when it comes to those people that are detained."

However, the SAS recorded the name of every person detained by the unit and those names were freely available to international agencies, he said.

Defence Minister Wayne Mapp said the SAS worked with the unit to capture insurgents.

"It's likely some are [transferred to the Afghan National Directorate of Security], yes," he told the Sunday Star-Times.

He was understood to be looking into the situation.

Green Party MP Keith Locke said the New Zealand Defence Force had to share responsibility for what happened to insurgents it captured.

He supported the withdrawal of the SAS from Afghanistan.

"We don't want New Zealand's good name muddied by links for the torture of prisoners, which is reputed to include beatings, electric shock treatment, and sleep, food and water deprivation."

My fellow blogger No right turn at:

http://norightturn.blogspot.com/2010/08/keys-sophistry-on-afghan-torture.html

wrote this last Sunday :

"The Sunday Star-Times has a major news story this morning: the New Zealand SAS are turning over prisoners to the Afghan secret police. Those secret police are known torturers, who use amputations, electric shocks, sleep deprivation, starvation, beatings and burns to extract "confessions". So basically kiwi soldiers are turning people over to be tortured.

Our Defence Minister's response to this? The prisoners are "an Afghan responsibility". So he's basically washing his hands of the whole matter.

Fortunately, he can't. New Zealand has specific obligations under both international and domestic law to prevent torture and not turn people over in this way. The Convention Against Torture is pretty clear:

No State Party shall expel, return ("refouler") or extradite a person to another State where there are substantial grounds for believing that he would be in danger of being subjected to torture.
While phrased in terms of immigration law, its application is wider, and applies to any transfer of any form. Domestically, the Bill of Rights Act affirms that

Everyone has the right not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, degrading, or disproportionately severe treatment or punishment.

The government's obligation to uphold this right is not limited geographically; it applies to any act or omission by any branch of the New Zealand government, whether it is done in Wellington or Kabul. If the SAS turns people over to an organisation which uses torture, or assists in their capture so they may be turned over, then they are violating it. That's exactly what the UK High Court found, under an almost identical provision in the UK Human Rights Act, when they banned the British armed forces from transferring prisoners to the NDS facility in Kabul - the same facility the SAS are sending people to.

If the government won't do the decent thing here, and ban the SAS from transferring any prisoners, then we will have to make them. The Bill of Rights Act gives us one lever for doing so. Amnesty or some other human rights group should bring a case.

(Another option is a complaint to the Ombudsman. This has the advantage that it is free, and if taken up would likely have the same result. But it would hinge on the questions of whether a decision to turn someone over to torture was "a matter of administration", and on whether anyone other than a victim of such mistreatment had standing to complain. And it would need more information than is contained in the SST story to back it up. But if any human rights group can build a case, I'd urge them to pursue this avenue as well).

Hard time for Kuch nomads in Afghanistan.

2010-08-16T04:13:00.000-07:00

I have written a number of articles on Kuchi nomads and today the editor of the Kuchi Voice wrote to me asking for my support in raising awareness of the threat they face from the Hazara people

Hazara are stealing land that has belonged to the Kuchi people for thousands of years, long before the mongols (Hazara) arrived to Afghanistan. Yet they don't respect the rights of the Kuchi people and harass them when ever it suits them. The true masters of the Hazara's is the evil's axis Iran who supports them and guides them to eliminate Kuchi people.
For further information read below or go to the Kuchi voice.

http://kuchivoice.blogspot.com/

For Kuchi nomads like Rahmat Goal's family, survival is a daily struggle

It took me eight hours to hike through the Hindu Kush mountains in Turkman Dara in northern Afghanistan to get to Rahmat's tent.
His only neighbours are the high peaks of the Hindu Kush, and the wild spring that flows through a nearby valley.
His dog, Babar, keeps a watchful eye for wolves and other dangerous animals that occasionally breach the boundaries of his territory.
"Even the tigers and lions are scared of my dog," boasts Rahmat with a grin.
Originally from south-eastern Afghanistan, Rahmat's family experienced the hardship of the Soviet occupation.

"When the Russians came, everyone fled but we couldn't, because we had hundreds of sheep, goats and camels.
"We didn't have anywhere else to go, so we stayed," remembers Rahmat bitterly.
The decision to remain in Afghanistan ended up costing Rahmat's family dear.
"One morning we left for the border with Pakistan and a landmine blew up five of my family members and killed dozens of our animals.
"It was all the more painful because we had to leave their bodies and continue," recalls Rahmat, his eyes welling up with tears.

Kuchi nomads moving lock, stock and barrel through the highlands of Central Afghanistan.

'Promises broken'
For as long as Afghans can remember, Kuchis have provided the backbone of the trade and commerce that occurs at the cross-section between South Asia and the Middle East.

They have also borne the brunt of Afghanistan's wars throughout the years.
When Soviet troops invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the Kuchis arguably suffered more than anyone else as they were without shelter and constantly found themselves amid the fighting.
The lifestyle of the Kuchi nomads means most of them are kept out of touch with the modern world - they still spend their lives without proper sanitation or formal education systems.
Although the life of the Kuchi has always been hard, they say things have worsened under the current Afghan government.
"Hospitals turn down our sick, and cemeteries deny our dead," says a Kuchi elder in the capital, Kabul.
''We are disappointed but we are trying to get our rights recognised. We have met President Karzai who has promised to end our suffering and we trust his word," says the elder, sipping green tea at his Kabul mansion.

The Kuchis comprise approximately six million of Afghanistan's 25 million citizens, and they primarily consist of Pashtun and Baloch nomads. Kuchis are also estimated to make up half of Afghanistan's Pashtun population.
The status quo is intolerable, Kuchis say, as they continue to be denied health care, education and electricity.
Kuchi elders are clearly frustrated with President Karzai: "We need schools, clinics and our rights. We all voted for Karzai but he never honoured his promises," says another elder.
Young Kuchis, such as 14-year-old Zar Gola, hope to attend school, but instead they must tend livestock in order to ensure their family's survival.
Zar Gola has been a shepherd for the last five years, and when she turns 16 she will have to take on more responsibilities, such as milking the animals.
She is a shy young girl with weary, weathered eyes set above long, slim cheek bones.
"When we travel for days, I do see a lot of girls and boys going and coming from school. I want to be like them but we travel all the time," says Zar Gola.
'Not worried'
Unfortunately, critics say, the Karzai administration seems only to pay attention to Kuchi demands during election years.

Kuchis often note that Naim Kuchi, the nomads' most prominent figure, was only freed from imprisonment by the US-led coalition in the months preceding the post-Taleban presidential elections of 2005.
In this time of extraordinary uncertainty about Afghanistan's future, Kuchis appear as resilient as ever.
"I love being a Kuchi because this is the life my forefathers practised, and I have no interest in leaving my tradition. We will be packing again very soon for the east of the country before winter arrives," says a Kuchi father of four.
He pauses before continuing: "I am not worried about it at all because that is the life of a Kuchi."

Thanks to Bilal Sarwary BBC News, Afghanistan, for permission to quote him.

Full information on deaths of 10 aid workers in Afghanistan,

2010-08-12T13:40:00.000-07:00

SACRIFICE: The ten civilian volunteers who were killed in Afghanistan on August 5 - Glen D Lapp, Tom Little, Dan Terry, Thomas Grams, Cheryl Beckett, Brian Carderelli, Karen Woo, Daniela Beyer, Mahram Ali, and Jawed.

The first sign of danger was the crackle of gunfire over their heads. Ten gunmen, their faces covered, rushed toward terrified humanitarian workers and began shouting "Satellite! Satellite!" - a demand to surrender their phones.

Moments later, 10 of them lay dead, including two women hiding in the back seat of a car the attackers hit with a grenade, according to an Afghan official familiar with the account the sole survivor gave police.

It is the first detailed narrative of the slaying of six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton on August 5 in remote northern Afghanistan. They were ambushed and shot August 5 after journeying about 100 miles - much of it on foot and horseback - through the Hindu Kush mountains, giving eye and other medical care to impoverished villagers.

Afghan and US investigators spent at least four hours this week questioning the survivor, a 24-year-old father of three named Safiullah. He was employed as a driver for International Assistance Mission, a nonprofit Christian organisation that has worked in Afghanistan since 1966.

Safiullah, who like many Afghans uses only one name, told investigators that the killings occurred around 7.30am or 8.30am, according to the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose details of the ongoing investigation.

The Parun Valley, high in the Hindu Kush, where the aid workers had been conducting eye and health clinics for two weeks before they were murdered. Photo : Bob McKerrow

The official, whose information has proven reliable in the past, said Safiullah, who is being held but not behind bars, gave the following account of how the killings unfolded.

At the end of the trip, the team spent their final night in a village. The next morning, riding in four-wheeled drive vehicles, they encountered a river swollen by heavy rains.

An Afghan man in the area offered to help the team as it was trying to cross the river. Two members of the team - including leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York, who had worked in Afghanistan since the late 1970s - rolled up their pants legs and waded in to find a spot shallow enough for the vehicles to ford the river.

After successfully crossing, the team stopped to take a break in a forested area at the side of the road, which ran through a narrow valley. They wanted to get ready for their long journey back though Badakhshan province and on to the Afghan capital, Kabul.

Libby and Tom Little in their home in Kabul

The Afghan man who had offered to help the group left. Then came the attack.

The gunmen rushed in, firing bullets over the medical team members' heads.

"What's happening?" Little shouted.

A gunman struck Little in the head with the back of an AK-47 rifle. Little fell bleeding to the ground. When he tried to get up, the attackers fatally shot him in the torso.
Two of three female members of the team had jumped inside one SUV to hide. The attackers tossed a grenade at the vehicle, killing them both. Then, one by one, they killed the rest of the group - except the driver.

Safiullah told investigators he believes the lead gunman was Pakistani because he yelled "Jadee! Jadee!" - a word used in several regional languages that means "hurry up." It is more commonly used in Pakistan and India than Afghanistan. He said all the attackers understood Dari and Pashto, the two main languages spoken in Afghanistan, but conversed in Pashaye, a local dialect used only in parts of the northeast corner of Afghanistan.

Safiullah said he doesn't know why he survived while two other Afghan members of the team were killed. He said he raised his arms in the air and recited verses from the Islamic holy book Quran as he begged the gunmen for his life.
The official said Safiullah speculated that the gunmen might have shot the team's Afghan cook, who was lying under one of the vehicles, because they thought he was armed. Safiullah said they might have killed the second Afghan, a guard employed at International Assistance Mission since 2007, because he was wearing a head scarf wrapped in a style favored by northern militias.

A fourth Afghan on the trip, Dr. Said Yasin, left the group a day before the killings, saying he was tired and wanted to take a more direct route back to Jalalabad where he has family. Dirk Frans, the IAM executive director, said Yasin told the team he was suffering from a kidney ailment and asked permission to leave on his own.
"He is fine now," Frans said about Yasin. "He's OK. He is well - of course extremely sad that all but one of his colleagues are gone."

After the killings, the gunmen took Safiullah with them on a seven- or eight-hour hike through a forest. During the journey, one of the gunmen spoke on a radio with a high antenna, saying, in Pashto, "Everything's finished. We killed them," Safiullah told investigators, according to the official.
The attackers stopped to pray in the evening, then continued on, walking toward a flashing light that Safiullah said was meant to guide them to a village near Barg-e-Matal, scene of heavy fighting in recent weeks between government forces and militants who crossed over from Pakistan.

There, they met up with another group of people, who asked Safiullah if he was a Muslim, his father's name, how many children he has and how he got a job working for foreigners.

The gunmen told Safiullah that he could leave, but he told investigators he feared he would be shot in the back if he did so. He said he dropped to his knees and began hugging the legs of one of the men. Eventually convinced that they had no plans to kill him, Safiullah said he started running. He said he rested by a large rock, and then despite extreme fatigue began running again.

An older man he met along the way let him briefly ride a donkey. Safiullah said he eventually found his way back to the town in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Nuristan province where the group had left their three four-wheeled drive vehicles and rented eight horses at the beginning of the trip.

The high Hindu Kush that stretch through Nuristan and Badakhshan where the 10 aid workers travelled. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The group had assembled last month in Faizabad, the capital of Badakhshan, and then drove south, according to Safiullah.
They left their vehicles in Kuran Wa Munjan and then trekked nearly half a day on foot and horseback over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley. The valley is a harsh, isolated area about 9500 feet above sea level where an estimated 50,000 people eke out a primitive existence as shepherds and subsistence farmers.

Safiullah said he was not aware of any threats to the team during the two weeks they spent walking from village to village providing medical care.

The Taliban said they carried out the attack because the team members were spying and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. IAM said it is registered as a Christian organization with the Afghan government, but does not proselytize.

"IAM would not be invited back to villages if we were using aid as a cover for preaching," Frans said in a statement. "This specific camp, led by Tom Little, a man with four decades experience in Afghanistan, has led eye camps for many years to Nuristan - and was welcomed back every time."

The bodies of four of the Americans, escorted by FBI personnel, were flown to the United States on Wednesday aboard US military aircraft, according to Caitlin Hayden, a spokeswoman for the US Embassy in Kabul. "In accordance with their families' wishes, the remains of two American citizens will remain in Afghanistan and be laid to rest here, in the country they selflessly and courageously served for so many years," she said.

I have been discussing the murder of Tom Little and his team with friends worked with in Afghanistan and one letter that I would like to record here, is from Jason Elliot who wrote a remarkable book on Afghanistan, An unexpected light.
Kia Ora mate,

I remember Libby's pancakes too, and I remember Tom as an incredibly brave and dedicated man - one of a tiny number who stuck it out during the darkest days in Kabul. As you well know, that took a special sort of person.

His character did the talking and he had no interest in prosletysing. He was one of the humblest and bravest men I ever met. I am sure too that after all those years of having cheated death, he went to his Maker with a tranquil heart. I hope he was able to give some comfort to the others with him. He toa taumata rau.

A pity we could not have sent a hundred thousand men like Tom to Afghanistan instead of soldiers.
Let's catch up soon,

Jason

Afghan medical mission ends in death for 10

2010-08-08T02:43:00.000-07:00

Tom Little, seen with Libby Little in this 2001 picture, was killed in a Taliban ambush in Afghanistan.

I had a relaxing hour by the swimming pool today in Colombo, and came back to my room after midday and was shocked to get the news that my good friend Tom Little and nine other medical workers were gunned down in cold blood, probably last Friday, in Afghanistan.

During 1993-96 when I lived in Kabul, Tom and his family lived down the road. Often I would pop round for their weekly pancake evening where we shared food, laughter and much needed company.

Tom is dead. The mighty Totara (tree) has fallen. I am empty.

I feel so angry that a group calling themselves soldiers, have brutally murdered Tom Little, and nine others people who had carried out medical work in the remote Parun Valley. Tom and his team brought sight back to people who had been blind all their lives, enabled people to walk who had been crippled by land mines, and helped thousands of others with major health problems. There are thousands of Afghans today who owe their sight to Tom Little and his teams.

Tom Little would never harm a fly. Now Libby and her three daughters are without a husband and father.

Tom and Libby have spent about 30 years in Afghanistan, rearing three daughters and surviving both the Soviet invasion and bloody civil war of the 1990s that destroyed much of Kabul. That was when I got close to Tom, Libby and their daughters during long periods of bloodshed and anarchy in Kabul.

Yes, Tom was a Christian, but from knowing the man well, he would never attempt to convert anyone to Christianity. Just being in Tom's presence was enough to know this man was real and committed to humanity.

The Parun valley is one of the remotest in Afghanistan, and in 1996 it took me three days to walk in with members of the Afghan Red Crescent. It is perched high in the Hindu Kush in Nuristan.

Tom was the team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York, who has been working in Afghanistan for about 30 years and spoke fluent Dari, one of the two main Afghan languages, Frans said. Little, along with employees from other Christian organizations, were expelled by the Taliban government in August 2001 after the arrest of eight Christian aid workers - two Americans and six Germans - for allegedly trying to convert Afghans to Christianity.

He returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban government was toppled in November 2001 by U.S.-backed forces. Known in Kabul as "Mr. Tom," Little supervised a network of IAM eye hospitals and clinics around the country largely funded through private donations.

"He was a remarkable man, and very committed to helping the people of Afghanistan," said David Evans of the Loudonville Community Church, New York, who accompanied Little on a 5,231-mile road (8,419-kilometer) trip to deliver the medical team's Land Rover vehicles from England to Kabul in 2004.

Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, at the agency's Kabul office on August 7, 2010. Relevant offers

Ten members of the Christian medical team - six Americans, two Afghans, one German and a Briton - were gunned down in a gruesome slaughter that the Taliban said they carried out, alleging the volunteers were spying and trying to convert Muslims to Christianity. The gunmen spared an Afghan driver, who recited verses from the Islamic holy book Quran as he begged for his life.

Team members - doctors, nurses and logistics personnel - were attacked as they were returning to Kabul after their two-week mission in the remote Parun valley of Nuristan province about 160 miles (260 kilometers) north of Kabul. They had decided to veer northward into Badakhshan province because they thought that would be the safest route back to Kabul, said Dirk Frans, director of the International Assistance Mission, which organized the team.

Another member of the team, British surgeon Karen Woo (left), regularly blogged about her work and life in Afghanistan, calling herself Explorer Kitten. The entries included her impressions working at a medical clinic in Kabul as a bomb detonated nearby and a search for the perfect silk cloth for a tailored gown.

The bullet-riddled bodies - including three women - were found Friday near three four-wheeled drive vehicles in a wooded area just off the main road that snakes through a narrow valley in the Kuran Wa Munjan district of Badakhshan, provincial police chief Gen. Agha Noor Kemtuz told The Associated Press.

Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid told the AP that they killed the foreigners because they were "spying for the Americans" and "preaching Christianity." In a Pashto language statement acquired by the AP, the Taliban also said the team was carrying Dari language bibles and "spying gadgets."

Frans said the International Assistance Mission, or IAM, one of the longest serving non-governmental organizations operating in Afghanistan, is registered as a nonprofit Christian organization but does not proselytize.

Frans said the team had driven to Nuristan, left their vehicles and hiked for nearly a half day with pack horses over mountainous terrain to reach the Parun valley where they traveled from village to village on foot offering medical care for about two weeks.

"This tragedy negatively impacts our ability to continue serving the Afghan people as IAM has been doing since 1966," the charity said in a statement. "We hope it will not stop our work that benefits over a quarter of a million Afghans each year."

Among the dead was team leader Tom Little, an optometrist from Delmar, New York, who has been working in Afghanistan for about 30 years and spoke fluent Dari, one of the two main Afghan languages, Frans said. Little, along with employees from other Christian organizations, were expelled by the Taliban government in August 2001 after the arrest of eight Christian aid workers - two Americans and six Germans - for allegedly trying to convert Afghans to Christianity.

He returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban government was toppled in November 2001 by U.S.-backed forces. Known in Kabul as "Mr. Tom," Little supervised a network of IAM eye hospitals and clinics around the country largely funded through private donations.

"He was a remarkable man, and very committed to helping the people of Afghanistan," said David Evans of the Loudonville Community Church, New York, who accompanied Little on a 5,231-mile road (8,419-kilometer) trip to deliver the medical team's Land Rover vehicles from England to Kabul in 2004.

"They raised their three girls there. He was part and parcel of that culture," Evans said.

Little had been making such trips to Afghan villages for decades, offering vision care and surgical services in regions where medical services of any type are scarce.

The work has long been fraught with risk, but Evans said Little was a natural for the job. He spoke the language, knew the local customs, and had the patience and diplomatic skills to handle sticky situations.

Another relief organization, Bridge Afghanistan, said on its website that the group included one of its members, Dr. Karen Woo, who gave up a job in a private clinic in London to do humanitarian work in Afghanistan. A message posted last March on the Bridge Afghanistan website said she was "flat broke and living in a war zone but enjoying helping people in great need."

In a fundraising blog posted last month, Woo said the mission to Nuristan would require hiking with pack horses through mountains rising to 16,000 feet (5,000 meters) to reach the Parun valley, a harsh, isolated area about 9,500 feet (3,000 meters) above sea level where an estimated 50,000 people eke out a primitive existence as shepherds and subsistence farmers.

"The expedition will require a lot of physical and mental resolve and will not be without risk but ultimately, I believe that the provision of medical treatment is of fundamental importance and that the effort is worth it in order to assist those that need it most," she wrote.

"The area ... we will reach is one of great harshness but of great beauty also. I hope that we will be able to provide medical care for a large number of people."

Names of the other foreigners were not released until the bodies could be brought to Kabul for identification, Frans said.

Frans told the AP that he was skeptical the Taliban were responsible. He said the team had studied security conditions carefully before continuing with the mission.

"We are a humanitarian organization. We had no security people. We had no armed guards. We had no weapons," he said.

Authorities in Nuristan heard that foreigners were in the area and sent police to investigate, according to Nuristan Gov. Jamaluddin Bader. The police provided security for the final three or four days of the mission and escorted them across the boundary into Badakhshan, he said. The escorts left after the team told them that they felt safe in Badakhshan, he added.

Frans said he last talked to Little, over a scratchy satellite phone connection, on Wednesday evening. On Friday, the Afghan driver who survived the attack called to report the killings. A fourth Afghan member of the team was not killed because he took a different route home because he had family in Jalalabad, Frans said.

The surviving driver, Saifullah, told authorities that team members stopped for lunch Thursday afternoon in the Sharron valley and were accosted by gunmen when they returned to their vehicles, according to Kemtuz, the Badakhshan police chief. The volunteers were forced to sit on the ground. The gunmen looted the vehicles, then fatally shot them, Kemtuz said.

The Afghan driver who survived "told me he was shouting and reciting the holy Quran and saying 'I am Muslim. Don't kill me,'" Kemtuz said. The gunmen let the driver go free the next day. A shepherd witnessed the carnage and reported the killings to the local district chief, who then brought the bodies to his home, Kemtuz said.

Aid workers have been often targeted by insurgents.

In 2007, 23 South Korean aid workers from a church group were taken hostage in southern Afghanistan. Two were killed and the rest were later released. In August 2008, four International Rescue Committee workers, including three women, were gunned down in Logar province in eastern Afghanistan.

In October 2008, Gayle Williams, who had dual British and South African citizenship, was killed by two gunmen on a motorcycle as she walked to work in the capital of Kabul. In late 2009, a French aid worker was kidnapped at gunpoint in the Afghan capital. Dany Egreteau, a 32-year-old worker for Solidarite Laique, or Secular Solidarity, who was seen in an emotional hostage video, was later released after a month in captivity.

NZ soldier dies in Afghanistan.

2010-08-07T06:04:00.000-07:00

Soldiers fight wars and die ! I have faniliy who died in the first World War, the Second World War, and I spent two years in the Vietnam War, and saw many New Zealanders maimed or killed. When Mothers send their children off to war, they know there is a chance of their son's body returning in a casket.

So why do we make heroes out of people fighting unwinnable wars ? NZ now realises we should never have been in Vietnam. And why on earth are we fighting in Afghanistan. And, to confuse matters further, we are putting arm carrying soldiers out to do humanitarian work. This only serves to put the true humanitarian workers at risk, and the soldiers themselves at greater risk.

My condolences go out to the family. but I ask the Government, and the soldiuer's Mothers, why do you send you sons to a war that will never have an end ?

I have a strong viewpoint on the blurring of lines and roles between soldiers and aid workers. Have a look at the story:

http://mountainsofourmind.blogspot.com/2009/11/praying-for-unemployed-grave-diggers-in.html

I post an article on the death in Afgfhanistan..

A hearse carrying the body of the first New Zealand soldier killed in Afghanistan has left Whenuapai air base.

And two wounded soldiers evacuated from Afghanistan have been taken by ambulance to hospital after a brief meeting with family on the tarmac.

A New Zealand Defence Force Boeing 757 landed at Whenuapai today after flying out of Dubai yesterday carrying the body of Lt Timothy O'Donnell, 28, of Feilding, and injured soldiers Lance Corporal Matthew Ball, 24, and Private Allister Baker, 23.

Family of Ball and Baker were allowed on the plane to meet the wounded men.

Ambulance staff then went on board and the pair were taken off on stretchers. Each was then placed in their own ambulance and their respective families were given another opportunity to speak with them before the ambulances left for hospital.

The plane then went to a far end of Whenuapai to a hanger where Lt O'Donnell's family, army comrades and top army brass waited including Major General Rhys Jones and joint forces commander Air Vice Marshall Peter Stockwell.

"The ceremony that we held was the formal bringing out of the aircraft of Tim O'Donnell's body," Army Chief Major General Rhys Jones told media.

"When it was removed from the aircraft the family was given time by themselves to connect with him and from there it was moved on to the hearse."

Lt O'Donnell's body has now gone to the Auckland Coroner for a formal autopsy.

He will then return to Whenuapai and be flown to Ohakea tomorrow for a formal ceremony by the army.

Major General Jones added that Allister and Matthew were in good spirits.

"They'd rested well, they'd been treated very well by the medical staff coming back," he said.

"They were quite upbeat, they were certainly looking forward to meeting their families again and were very thankful for the support they've been given right through.

"Their children were quite amused at the beards they'd grown, Willie Apiata style. They were very happy to have them back, they were very pleased at the condition they were in."

Maj Gen Jones said the injuries to LCpl Ball and Pte Baker were reasonably serious and it would take them time to recover.

"They will have a medical assessment tonight. They will spend one, perhaps two nights in hospital for that assessment.

"They will then be able to go home, where they can reconnect with their families far more effectively than being in the hospital.

"In the longer term, rehabilitation is their priority, so however long it takes for their physical and their mental state to be approved ... they will come back into military service."

It was likely they would attend Lt O'Donnell's funeral, a full army funeral which will be held at Linton Army Camp on Wednesday, he said.

"It's what Tim would have liked. Tim was very much an army person from his early age," Maj Gen Jones said.

"His family were very much keen to have the military being an equal part of his funeral. They have said they want to have one service as it's a tough occasion for them."

Ad Feedback Lt O'Donnell was killed in action and his two comrades and a local interpreter were injured after their patrol was ambushed while on patrol in Bamiyan Province on Wednesday.

All four were in the leading Humvee vehicle of the patrol, destroyed by an improvised explosive device (IED).

Lt O'Donnell was killed in the initial blast, and officers were reasonably certain he did not suffer, Commander Joint Forces Air Vice-Marshal Peter Stockwell said.

LCpl Ball suffered burns and cuts to his limbs, while Pte Baker had a broken foot and burns to his left arm.

Colleagues of the trio were travelling behind in a military-equipped Toyota Hilux which was immobilised by the explosion, and a group of insurgents soon after attacked the convoy with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The soldiers later destroyed this vehicle to stop it from getting into enemy hands.

''We don't know where the bomb was, how it was activated or what strength it was,'' Stockwell said.

There was no clear evidence of whether the insurgents were Taliban or criminals.

Four days after the deadly attack, the search for answers continues.

A team of soldiers is carrying out a site investigation, trying to find answers on just who was responsible for the attack.

''It's a painstaking process that they conduct initially and of course they have to be mindful of the security environment they're in given the nature of the situation up to the northeast of Bamiyan,'' Vice-Marshal Stockwell said.

He added LCpl Ball and Pte Baker were ''probably pretty lucky given the nature of that explosion''.

IEDs have reportedly accounted for around 800 of the roughly 1100 United States combat deaths in Afghanistan and have wreaked havoc with Humvees, such as the one in which Lt O'Donnell died.

But using more heavily armoured vehicles was a balance due to the poor roads in which troops operated, as cumbersome heavily armoured vehicles could be dangerous in such terrain, Stockwell said.

''Right now, we think that the armoured Humvee is the right vehicle, given the state of the roads where we're trying to operate, and the nature of the threat.''

Lt O'Donnell was farewelled in a simple but sombre and poignant ceremony in Bamiyan yesterday, where red poppies were worn in his honour. Prime Minister John Key also stated an independent court of inquiry would be held into Lt O'Donnell's death, covering areas such as military tactics, procedures and equipment.

''We also have a lot of people stationed in Bamiyan and want to make sure they are being afforded all the protection that we would expect them to be,'' Key said.

Losing a New Zealand soldier in combat was a serious issue and an inquiry was needed, Mr Key told reporters at the Pacific Island Forum in Vanuatu yesterday.

The New Zealand Defence Force (NZDF) has 106 personnel serving with the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Bamiyan. The 16th rotation arrived in April and will remain in there for about six months.

Killer landslide in Hindu Kush

2010-06-24T22:04:00.000-07:00

Gulnesa Beg the only girl to survive a landslide in a village of 750 people in the remote Hindu Kush mountains in Afghanistan. The monstrous landslide killed over 350 residents, mainly women. Gulnesa is with her Father, her only relative to survive. Photo: Bob McKerrow.

On Wednesday 15 June 2010 an earthquake in West Papua, Indonesia, triggered a landslide that engulfed and killed 17 people travelling in a bus. It brought back to mind the worst landslide I have seen that occured in Afghanistan in 1996. Here are the notes from my diary on that tragic day.

Recently I accompanied Abdul Basir on a difficult field trip to the mountain village of Qarluk in Badakshan. It took us four days to reach this village from Kabul by plane, landcruiser and the last day on foot or horse. The village of 750 people in the remote Hindu Kush had been hit some days before by a monstrous landslide that killed over 350 residents. All except three of the women in the village had been killed, along with a number of children, as they were in their homes while male members of the household were out tending animal and crops. The killer landslide silently swept down the hillside engulfing the whole village. Gulnesa Beg, the only girl to survive, was pick up by a dust and mud cloud, and hurled to safey, breaking her arm as she fell.

As we arrived in Qarluk, the survivors of the landslide, mainly men, were huddled together in an atmosphere of grief and bewilderment. Basir hugged them one by one and then spoke to them with compassion and dignity. He told them that we in the Red Cross Movement were grieving with them and that they must take heart. Basir, in his humble way, gave those men hope at a time when their whole lives had been plunged into darkness and despair.

The men who survived the landslides sit outside their tents. The village covered in mud is the light flatish area to the left of centre in the photo, Photo: Bob McKerrow

The next day, after distributing relief supplies to each surviving family, he mounted a borrowed horse and rode over a high mountain pass to two other villages in the next valley of Teshkan, where 7,000 people were under threat from a tottering mass of rock and mud high above their homes. Basir gave the village leaders support and encouraged them to evacuate immediately. Then he walked two hours along a path on the precipitous mountainside before regaining the track and his horse.

The high Hindu Kush mountains of Badakhshan from Teshkan Pass. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Abdul Bashir (left), Zalmai my interpretor (centre), and village chief (right), riding over Teshkan Pass in Badkhshan Province in Afghanistan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Minefield ski-mountaineering - Afghanistan

2010-05-27T23:22:00.000-07:00

During my 3 years in Afghanistan, 1993-96, I was able to enjoy some good skiing. It would probably more accurate to call it minefield ski-mountaineering, as my good friend Ian Clarke, the mine clearance expert from HALO trust, gave the opinion that when the area is likely to have land-mines, if it is covered with snow, and you are on skis, it is almost impossible to trigger of a mine as the body-weight is evenly distributed. Clarke did a lot of telemark skiing in the area between 1993 and 1995 in the Salang Pass are before taking up a ski-instructors job at Cadrona, near Wanaka, for the New Zealand winter of 1995. I did not take any photos of my early skiing in Afghanistan, but in early 1996, I met Mette Sophie, a young Norwegian woman, who was an expert skier. Here are a few photos:

Mette Sophie, about to start on a run down a mountain side in the central Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Mette Sophie starting a good ski run in powder snow. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Bob McKerrow enjoying a day out skiing in the Hindu Kush. Photo: Darla Milne.

On Friday, the only day off during the week, we used climb among the various 4000 metres peaks in the Paghman range from where you get spectacular views of the Hindu Kush and Hazarajat area. Climbing 4000 metre peaks in a day makes living in Kabul a joy. Also for the enthusiastic skier, a two hour drive takes you to the Salang Pass at 3,878 metres an excellent ski-mountaineering area. See photos above and below. Photos: Bob McKerrow and Darla Milne

Afghanistan on the world stage in cricket

2010-05-02T19:35:00.000-07:00

Stan and deliver: Ashgar Stanikzai, the Afghanistan all-rounder, sends Mahendra Singh Dhoni behind the wicket a message of his aggressive intent in an innings of 30. Photo: Independent Newspaper

Afghanistan 115-8 India 116-3 (India win by seven wickets): MCC see faith rewarded as the world game's most unlikely newcomers show great promise in losing against India

It is such a joy to read the papers, scan the websites and to watch on TV, Afghanistan getting good publicity for its cricketing skills.

Afghanistan made their debut in international cricket at St Lucia yesterday, which was remarkable, as Dr Johnson said of seeing a dog walking on it hind legs, because you are surprised to find it done at all. Less than a decade ago Afghanistan did not have a cricket team. It had some cricketers but most of them were stuck in refugee camps in northern Pakistan, after their families had fled from the Russian invasion in 1979. When they came home they brought cricket with them, and they have proved remarkably quick learners

Robin Marlar, when he was President of MCC in 2005-06 took up their cause, becoming one of the Godfathers of Afghan cricket, and he detected early on qualities of innocence and physical ability, a lack of inhibition backed by fearlessness in Afghanistani cricketers. They needed all these qualities yesterday on a sunny morning at the Beausejour ground in St Lucia on the second day of the World T20 tournament, and they did not disgrace themselves.

India, the experienced masters of the T20 game, won by seven wickets, needing fewer than 15 overs to reach the target. But the performance needs to be seen in the context of the past two years. In 2008 Afghanistan were admitted to the fifth division of the leagues organised for ICC affiliated and associated members There is plenty of competition at this level, and they moved smoothly up the leagues, just failing to qualify for next year's World Cup, but beating Abu Dhabi to qualify for the T20 competition in the West Indies. Thanks to Stephen Fay of the Independent for permission to run this article.

Afghan women were killed in bungled raid, Nato admits

2010-04-05T07:48:00.000-07:00

Having worked since 1971 in many conflicts around the world, I am upset everytime I hear of civilians being killed, particularly women and children.There are conventions and agreements that prohibit this, but who really cares ? Today the BBC reported that Nato has admitted that its forces were responsible for the deaths of three women during a botched night-time raid in eastern Afghanistan in February.

It had already admitted killing two innocent men in the operation, saying they were shot dead when they came out of their homes carrying firearms.

Nato now says the women were killed by shots fired at the men.

Nato officials had previously suggested the women were killed by unknown assailants hours before the raid.
There was no immediate comment from the Afghan government. Civilian deaths at the hands of foreign forces have been a source of increasing friction between it and Nato.

Some reports have suggested Nato soldiers tried to cover up the deaths of the women by removing bullets from the bodies.

'Protecting their families'
Nato initially denied involvement in the deaths of the women in the raid in the Gardez district of Paktia on 12 February, but now admits to having bungled the operation.

Mistrust imperils war on Taliban

"While investigators could not conclusively determine how or when the women died, due to lack of forensic evidence, they concluded that the women were accidentally killed as a result of the joint force firing at the men," a Nato statement said.
The statement said Nato officials would apologise and pay compensation to the family of those killed.

"We deeply regret the outcome of this operation," said a Nato spokesman.

"The force went to the compound based on reliable information in search of a Taliban insurgent and believed that the two men posed a threat to their personal safety. We now understand that the men killed were only trying to protect their families."

One relative - whose two brothers, wife and sister were killed in the raid - said the family wanted the informant tried and put to death.
"Our demand is that this spy be executed in front of the people to ensure that such bad things don't happen again," he told the Associated Press news agency.

Karzai 'wants changes'

On Sunday, Afghan President Hamid Karzai called for an end to house searches by foreign troops.

Gen McChrystal introduced new rules of engagement for Nato

"When there's an incident, he [McChrystal] comes and apologises," Mr Karzai told tribal leaders in the city, the birthplace of the Taliban.

"There've been changes in behaviour with the arrival of this new general, but we are still not convinced. I want more changes," Mr Karzai added.

Nato admits that its killing of civilians has undermined support for its mission in Afghanistan. But it points out that far more people are killed in attacks by the Taliban and other militants.
United Nations figures show the number of civilians killed by foreign and Afghan forces fell by 25% in 2009 compared with 2008. The UN says the vast majority of the 2,412 civilian deaths in 2009 were caused by militant attacks.

Gen McChrystal has introduced changes to Nato tactics aimed at cutting the risks to civilians. Measures include reducing the number of air strikes and night raids.

Kai Eide's take on the Taliban

2010-03-19T06:12:00.000-07:00

Pakistan arrests halt secret UN contacts with Taliban
By Lyse Doucet BBC News, Oslo
I thought I would post this update by Lyse, one of the best in the game.

The UN's former envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide,(pictured above) has strongly criticised Pakistan's recent arrest of high-ranking Taliban leaders.
Mr Eide told the BBC the arrests had completely stopped a channel of secret communications with the UN.
Pakistani officials insist the arrests were not an attempt to spoil talks.
Mr Eide confirmed publicly for the first time that his secret contacts with senior Taliban members had begun a year ago.
This has to be an Afghan process
He said they involved face-to-face talks in Dubai and elsewhere.
"The first contact was probably last spring, then of course you moved into the election process where there was a lull in activity, and then communication picked up when the election process was over, and it continued to pick up until a certain moment a few weeks ago," he said.
Mr Eide said there were now many channels of communication with the Taliban, including those involving senior representatives of Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
Speaking at his home outside the Norwegian capital Oslo, Mr Eide would not comment on these other channels.

Mr Eide described contacts with the Taliban as being "in the early stages... talks about talks".
He cautioned that it would take weeks, months or even longer to establish confidence, on both sides, to move forward, and to establish the "red lines" in any process.
A senior Afghan adviser to President Karzai recently told me that their contacts with the Taliban had also accelerated in recent months. He also said the arrests had affected this process.
There has been intense speculation about why Pakistan moved against what are believed to be about a dozen leading members of the Taliban movement in recent weeks.
"The effect of [the arrests], in total, certainly, was negative on our possibilities to continue the political process that we saw as so necessary at that particular juncture," Mr Eide said.
"The Pakistanis did not play the role that they should have played.... They must have known who they were, what kind of role they were playing, and you see the result today."
In an interview this week, Pakistan's military spokesman, Gen Athar Abbas, denied Pakistan had moved against these Taliban to stop any talks.
US officials have recently praised what they called a new co-operation by Pakistan.
'Senior figures'
Mr Eide was giving his first interview since ending his two-year mission this month.
Asked how high up his contacts were, Mr Eide said: "We met senior figures in the Taliban leadership and we also met people who have the authority of the Quetta Shura to engage in that kind of discussion."
The Taliban leadership council, often referred to as the Quetta Shura, takes its name from the Pakistani city of Quetta where senior Taliban are widely believed to have been based. Pakistan denies its existence in Quetta and says Taliban leaders go back and forth across their porous border.
As for the involvement of the Taliban leader, Mullah Omar, Mr Eide said: "I find it unthinkable that such contact would take place without his knowledge and also without his acceptance."
His revelations seem to confirm a growing view that at least certain members of the Taliban movement are now open to discussing a negotiated end to the war. But Mr Eide said he believed there were still disagreements.
There is also still no consensus among Afghanistan and its foreign allies about if, and how, to engage with a movement many of whose senior members are still linked to al-Qaeda.
The outgoing UN envoy, whose tenure was marked by controversy over a deeply tainted presidential election, said he hoped the upcoming "peace jirga" called by President Karzai in Kabul would help build the kind of agreement necessary to reach a consensus on the way forward.
Mr Eide said he believed it was the only way to end the war, and stressed: "This has to be an Afghan process."

RECENT TALIBAN ARRESTS
04 March 2010: Senior Afghan Taliban leader Agha Jan Mohtasim reportedly arrested in Karachi
23 February: Senior Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Abdul Kabir reportedly held in North West Frontier Province
19 February: Two senior Afghan Taliban leaders, Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammad reportedly detained in Pakistan
17 February: Pakistan confirms arrest of Afghan Taliban second-in-command Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar in Karachi

167 killed in avalanche in Afghanistan

2010-02-11T06:12:00.000-08:00

These are the brave and hardy souls that keep the tunnel and road open through the Salang Tunnel. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Using bulldozers, pick axes and shovels, rescue teams intensified their search for remaining survivors hit by avalanches on a key mountain pass in Afghanistan as the discovery of one body raised the death toll to 167.

Some 3,000 people have already been rescued from the snowbound, 4000 metre Salang Pass, which is the major route through the Hindu Kush mountains that connects the capital to the north.

Defense Ministry official Ahmad Zia Aftali said the corpse of a woman whose son was rescued a day earlier was found under the snow in the morning on the pass, 115 kilometres north of the capital. A total of 167 victims have been recovered so far.

Aftali said the Afghan side plans to ask the international coalition for additional equipment, including metal detectors, to aid in the search.

Hundreds of soldiers and police plowed through huge snowdrifts to clear the 2 miles (3.5 kilometers) of road that had been blocked off when a series of avalanches Monday sent tons of snow and ice crashing down onto hundreds of vehicles along a treacherous stretch of highway.

The road leading up to the tunnel through the Salang Pass, in Summer. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Though the road has now been cleared, it remains closed to the public to allow for emergency efforts, Aftali said. The highway that winds through the mountainside remains littered with abandoned or snow-packed cars.

Rescuers are searching farther afield looking for victims since many cars, trucks and buses were pushed far off the road by the force of the avalanches, Aftali said.

He said he is hopeful that rescue efforts can wind down by the end of the day. "I'm optimistic that today we can finish our efforts," he said.

Interior Ministry spokesman Zemari Bashary said late Wednesday that the rescue operation was "95 percent over," indicating that officials weren't expecting casualty numbers to rise significantly.

Some of the victims were found frozen to death inside their vehicles, while in other cases, their bodies were strewn along the road, he said. About 125 people were given medical treatment at provincial hospitals, he said.

More than two dozen avalanches poured tons of snow and ice on the 3,800-metre pass, closing off the 2.6 kilometre-long Salang Tunnel, a Soviet-built landmark dating from the 1960s, and the roads on both sides.

The casualty toll makes this perhaps the deadliest disaster to occur along the Salang Pass. Last year, avalanches claimed nearly a dozen lives.

Avalanches kill at least 28 in Afghanistan

2010-02-09T14:50:00.000-08:00

The photograph on the cover of my book, looks up towards the Salang Pass where the avalanche occured yesterday. Photo: Bob McKerrow

At least 28 people died and hundreds were trapped through the night in freezing cold and darkness after avalanches closed a mountain highway tunnel in Afghanistan,

Passengers trapped in the Salang pass, the main route across the Hindu Kush mountains, said by telephone that they were freezing to death and being suffocated by car fumes, and had seen cars filled with dead bodies after being stuck throon 9 February 2010.ugh the night.

A force of 600 soldiers plus police units and other emergency workers had managed to evacuate 1500 trapped people, including at least 70 who were injured, the Defence Ministry said in a statement that gave a death toll of 28.

Days of heavy snow triggered avalanches blocking the 2.6 km long Soviet-built tunnel, a historic engineering feat that links Kabul and Afghanistan's north, connecting the Indian subcontinent to Central Asia through the treacherous mountain pass at 3400 metres.

"I saw five dead bodies from a car parked behind us, and so far the government has not done enough to save our lives," Qazi Azhar, an Afghan judge who was caught in the pass, told Reuters by mobile phone.

Another passenger, Ghulam Yahya, said passengers inside the tunnel were suffering from fumes.

"Many others will die if we don't get help on time," he said.

President Hamid Karzai said he was saddened by the deaths and ordered government workers to do all possible to open the pass.

Abdul Mateen Edraak, head of Afghanistan's National Disaster and Preparedness Centre, said fears were greatest for passengers stuck in cars exposed to the extreme cold.

"Some 50 cars which are exposed to extreme weather are a concern for us but others inside tunnel are not bad," he said. "The people are stuck there for more than 24 hours and if there are no other avalanches we will hopefully bring them out by end of the day."

Edraak said there had been 17 avalanches reported so far and more than 200 trucks, buses and cars were trapped inside the tunnel, which made the rescue operation more difficult.

Heavy snowfall and rain also caused floods in the south of the country. Zalmay Ayoubi, spokesman for the governor of southern Kandahar Province, said six people had been killed and 10 were missing as a result of floods.

Ahmadzai inspires Afghanistan win

2010-01-24T18:15:00.000-08:00

Hameed Hasan (right)is pumped up after dismissing Niall O'Brien

Afghanistan pulled off their second win in the Intercontinental Cup, defeating defending champions Ireland by seven wickets to propel themselves to the top of the table.

Both teams had talked before the game about the respect they had for each other and in a fluctuating contest, Afghanistan grabbed the initiative to drive home a victory that would have seemed unlikely when Ireland began the final day 39 runs behind with all their second-innings wickets intact.

Paceman Dawlat Ahmadzai proved the difference as he burst through the top order on his way to his maiden five-wicket haul. He struck in the third over of the day to remove a becalmed William Porterfield caught behind for 14 before castling Andrew Cusack in his next over for 4. By the time he bowled Gary Wilson for 27, Ireland were tottering on 57 for three.

Offspinner Mohammad Nabi (4 for 33) then stepped into the action, taking three quick wickets with probing, accurate bowling to reduce Ireland to 101 for seven. Some lust hitting from Trent Johnson and diligent blocking John Mooney, who made 18 from 76 balls, carried the score up to 141 before a final wicket stand of 59 between Johnson and Peter Connell took the score to 202. Johnson ended up unbeaten on 63 to leave Afghanistan with 137 to get.

An early wicket for Johnson gave Ireland a sliver but a half century from Noor Ali and a 36-run partnership from wickkeeper Mohammad Shahzad and captain Nowroz Mengal guided Afghanistan home. It's a remarkable result for Afghanistan who's continued progress in international cricket has been one of the most cheering aspects of the game in recent months.

Afghanistan beat Ireland at cricket

2010-01-24T04:37:00.000-08:00

This is an historic day for Afghanistan cricket with their national side defeating Ireland by seven wickets.

Ireland 405 & 202

Afghanistan 474 & 137/3 (31.3 ov)

Afghanistan won by 7 wickets

Afghans take 2nd day honours

2010-01-23T03:07:00.000-08:00

I never thought I would see the day when an Afghan cricket team, plays an international against Ireland, and is now leading after the first innings. Well done Afghanistan!

January 22, 2010

A Afghanistan 263 for 3 (Mangal 84, Shahzad 60*, Noori 44*) trail Ireland 405 (Porterfield 78, Shenwari 4-75) by 142 runs
Scorecard

Afghanistan seized the initiative on the second day of their Intercontinental Cup game against Ireland at Dambulla, reaching 263 for 3 at stumps with Shabir Noori, on 44 not out, and Mohammad Shahzad, unbeaten on 60 from only 62 balls, holding firm.

The pair came together with the game finely balanced at 178 for 3, and added 85 in just under 20 overs to wrest the ascendancy back from Ireland after Andre Botha had ended Noori and captain Nowroz Mangal's 105-run partnership. Mangal had looked set for a maiden first-class hundred before he edged Botha through to Niall O'Brien behind the stumps to depart for 84.

Afghanistan had made a good start to their innings earlier, with Karim Sadiq and Noor Ali putting together 72 before Gary Kidd and Peter Connell struck in quick succession to remove both openers and leave Afghanistan wobbling at 74 for 2. Ireland had to wait 33 overs for their next breakthrough, however, with Noori and Mangal obstinate at the crease.

The highlight of the morning was John Mooney's unbeaten 58, which broke his duck after he had failed to score in his first two first-class innings. Ireland had resumed at 324 for 7, and were soon eight wickets down as legspinner Samiullah Shenwari snapped up Trent Johnston to claim his fourth scalp of the innings. Kidd scratched around for 18 balls before edging Hameed Hasan, but Connell was more enterprising, cracking four boundaries in his 18 before having his stumps rattled by Shapoor Zadran. His tenacious 66-run partnership with Mooney, who accumulated runs steadily at the other end, carried Ireland past 400, which had looked like a sterling effort.

The Irish badly need a victory in this game after drawing against Kenya and Scotland, but that is looking increasingly unlikely with Afghanistan making a fist of things today to build a foundation for a massive first innings total.

Ireland 405 & 1/0 (0.1 ov)

Afghanistan 474

Ireland won the toss and elected to bat

Day 3
ICC Intercontinental Cup
First-class match | 2009/10 season
Played at Rangiri Dambulla International Stadium (neutral venue)
21,22,23,24 January 2010 (4-day match)

Ireland 1st innings R M B 4s 6s SR
WTS Porterfield* c Samiullah Shenwari b Hameed Hasan 78 175 134 7 2 58.20
45.4 caught Samiullah Shenwari 170/2

GC Wilson c Hameed Hasan b Mohammad Nabi 53 114 89 9 0 59.55
28.2 caught Hameed Hasan 120/1

AR Cusack c †Mohammad Shahzad b Samiullah Shenwari 39 96 92 6 0 42.39
54.2 caught †Mohammad Shahzad 203/3

NJ O'Brien† c †Mohammad Shahzad b Karim Sadiq 66 156 119 9 0 55.46
90.1 caught †Mohammad Shahzad 316/6

AC Botha st †Mohammad Shahzad b Samiullah Shenwari 0 7 7 0 0 0.00
56.3 stumped †Mohammad Shahzad 203/4

KJ O'Brien lbw b Samiullah Shenwari 16 53 35 2 0 45.71
66.4 231/5

AR White c Karim Sadiq b Hameed Hasan 43 90 89 6 0 48.31
93.4 caught Karim Sadiq 323/7

JF Mooney not out 58 105 90 9 0 64.44

DT Johnston lbw b Samiullah Shenwari 2 23 20 0 0 10.00
100.4 328/8

GE Kidd c †Mohammad Shahzad b Hameed Hasan 4 17 18 0 0 22.22
105.2 caught †Mohammad Shahzad 339/9

P Connell b Shapoor Zadran 18 51 28 4 0 64.28
117.6 bowled 405/10

Extras (lb 13, w 2, nb 13) 28

Total (all out; 118 overs; 404 mins) 405 (3.43 runs per over)
Fall of wickets1-120 (Wilson, 28.2 ov), 2-170 (Porterfield, 45.4 ov), 3-203 (Cusack, 54.2 ov), 4-203 (Botha, 56.3 ov), 5-231 (KJ O'Brien, 66.4 ov), 6-316 (NJ O'Brien, 90.1 ov), 7-323 (White, 93.4 ov), 8-328 (Johnston, 100.4 ov), 9-339 (Kidd, 105.2 ov), 10-405 (Connell, 117.6 ov)

Bowling O M R W Econ
Dawlat Ahmadzai 11 2 32 0 2.90

Shapoor Zadran 10 1 33 1 3.30
117.6 to Connell, bowled 405/10

Hameed Hasan 24 4 91 3 3.79 (13nb)
45.4 to Porterfield, caught Samiullah Shenwari 170/2

93.4 to White, caught Karim Sadiq 323/7

105.2 to Kidd, caught †Mohammad Shahzad 339/9

Noor Ali 2 0 21 0 10.50 (1w)

Mohammad Nabi 27 3 102 1 3.77
28.2 to Wilson, caught Hameed Hasan 120/1

Samiullah Shenwari 27 5 75 4 2.77
54.2 to Cusack, caught †Mohammad Shahzad 203/3

56.3 to Botha, stumped †Mohammad Shahzad 203/4

66.4 to KJ O'Brien, 231/5

100.4 to Johnston, 328/8

Karim Sadiq 15 5 31 1 2.06 (1w)
90.1 to NJ O'Brien, caught †Mohammad Shahzad 316/6

Nowroz Mangal 2 0 7 0 3.50

Afghanistan 1st innings R M B 4s 6s SR
Karim Sadiq b Kidd 19 75 46 4 0 41.30
18.2 bowled 72/1

Noor Ali c †NJ O'Brien b Connell 53 89 71 9 0 74.64
21.3 caught †NJ O'Brien 74/2

Shabir Noori c KJ O'Brien b White 85 331 234 10 0 36.32
101.1 caught KJ O'Brien 342/5

Nowroz Mangal* c †NJ O'Brien b Botha 84 118 114 16 0 73.68
54.1 caught †NJ O'Brien 178/3

Mohammad Shahzad† c †NJ O'Brien b Botha 88 167 121 15 0 72.72
93.1 caught †NJ O'Brien 325/4

Asghar Stanikzai b Johnston 39 122 96 5 0 40.62
124.4 bowled 414/6

Mohammad Nabi c Mooney b White 64 68 127 4 2 50.39
143.1 caught Mooney 461/8

Samiullah Shenwari lbw b Botha 19 46 35 2 0 54.28
136.4 453/7

Dawlat Ahmadzai not out 7 61 48 0 0 14.58

Hameed Hasan c †NJ O'Brien b White 7 17 16 0 1 43.75
147.6 caught †NJ O'Brien 468/9

Shapoor Zadran lbw b White 2 21 15 0 0 13.33
153.2 474/10

Extras (b 1, lb 3, nb 3) 7

Total (all out; 153.2 overs; 574 mins) 474 (3.09 runs per over)
Fall of wickets1-72 (Karim Sadiq, 18.2 ov), 2-74 (Noor Ali, 21.3 ov), 3-178 (Nowroz Mangal, 54.1 ov), 4-325 (Mohammad Shahzad, 93.1 ov), 5-342 (Shabir Noori, 101.1 ov), 6-414 (Asghar Stanikzai, 124.4 ov), 7-453 (Samiullah Shenwari, 136.4 ov), 8-461 (Mohammad Nabi, 143.1 ov), 9-468 (Hameed Hasan, 147.6 ov), 10-474 (Shapoor Zadran, 153.2 ov)

Bowling O M R W Econ
P Connell 21 9 52 1 2.47
21.3 to Noor Ali, caught †NJ O'Brien 74/2

DT Johnston 26 5 88 1 3.38 (2nb)
124.4 to Asghar Stanikzai, bowled 414/6

AR Cusack 11 1 56 0 5.09

GE Kidd 24 8 68 1 2.83
18.2 to Karim Sadiq, bowled 72/1

JF Mooney 7 1 38 0 5.42 (1nb)

AR White 31.2 8 99 4 3.15
101.1 to Shabir Noori, caught KJ O'Brien 342/5

143.1 to Mohammad Nabi, caught Mooney 461/8

147.6 to Hameed Hasan, caught †NJ O'Brien 468/9

153.2 to Shapoor Zadran, 474/10

AC Botha 21 6 44 3 2.09
54.1 to Nowroz Mangal, caught †NJ O'Brien 178/3

93.1 to Mohammad Shahzad, caught †NJ O'Brien 325/4

136.4 to Samiullah Shenwari, 453/7

KJ O'Brien 12 3 25 0 2.08

Ireland 2nd innings R M B 4s 6s SR
WTS Porterfield* not out 0 0 1 0 0 0.00

GC Wilson not out 0 0 0 0 0 -

Extras (w 1) 1

Total (0 wickets; 0.1 overs) 1 (6.00 runs per over)
To bat AR Cusack, P Connell, AR White, DT Johnston, AC Botha, GE Kidd, JF Mooney, KJ O'Brien, NJ O'Brien†

Bowling O M R W Econ
Shapoor Zadran 0.1 0 1 0 6.00 (1w)

Match details
Toss Ireland, who chose to bat
Points Afghanistan 6*, Ireland 0*

First-class debuts Karim Sadiq and Shabir Noori (Afghanistan)

Umpires R Martinesz and TH Wijewardene
Match referee Ishtiaq Ahmed (Pakistan)
Reserve umpire SSK Gallage

Close of play
21 Jan day 1 - Ireland 1st innings 324/7 (JF Mooney 5*, DT Johnston 0*, 98 ov)
22 Jan day 2 - Afghanistan 1st innings 263/3 (Shabir Noori 44*, Mohammad Shahzad 60*, 74 ov)

$57,077.60. That's what the US is paying per minute for the war in Afghanistan

2010-01-05T19:10:00.000-08:00

I just got back from a holiday in Thailand where I had a chance to read all those books that have been piling up during the past year. The one that startled me the most was Greg Mortensen's (right) Three Cups of Tea. What a ripper. I have criss-crossed Greg's footsteps in northern Pakistan and in Badakhshan, Afghanistanin in the 90s and early this decade, but unfortunately we never met.

A little about Mortensen.
In July 1992, Mortenson’s sister, Christa, died from a massive seizure after a lifelong struggle with epilepsy on the eve of a trip to visit Dysersville, Iowa, where the baseball movie, ‘Field of Dreams’, was filmed in a cornfield.

To honor his sister’s memory, in 1993, Mortenson climbed Pakistan’s K2, the world’s second highest mountain in the Karakoram range.

While recovering from the climb in a village called Korphe, Mortenson met a group of children sitting in the dirt writing with sticks in the sand, and made a promise to help them build a school.

From that rash promise, grew a remarkable humanitarian campaign, in which Mortenson has dedicated his life to promote education, especially for girls, in remote regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

As of 2009, Mortenson has established or significantly supports 131 schools in rural and often volatile regions of Pakistan and Afghanistan, which provide education to over 58,000 children, including 44,000 girls, where few education opportunities existed before.

Contrast the hard-won US20,000 Greg Mortensen scrapped together for his first school in Pakistan to the US$ 57,077.60 the US is spending on the current war in Afghanistan

This story first appeared on the Tom Dispatch website.

$57,077.60. That's what we're paying per minute. Keep that in mind—just for a minute or so.

After all, the surge is already on. By the end of December, the first 1,500 US troops will have landed in Afghanistan, a nation roughly the size of Texas, ranked by the United Nations as second worst in the world in terms of human development.

Women and men from Camp Lejeune, North Carolina, will be among the first to head out. It takes an estimated $1 million to send each of them surging into Afghanistan for one year. So a 30,000-person surge will be at least $30 billion, which brings us to that $57,077.60. That's how much it will cost you, the taxpayer, for one minute of that surge.

By the way, add up the yearly salary of a Marine from Camp Lejeune with four years of service, throw in his or her housing allowance, additional pay for dependents, and bonus pay for hazardous duty, imminent danger, and family separation, and you'll still be many thousands of dollars short of that single minute's sum.
.Continues Below

A SURGE IN AFGHANISTAN?....Iraq is hardly a finished success story yet, but there's no question that violence is down, security is up, and political reconciliation is at least a distant possibility. Credit for this goes to the Five S's: Surge...
Continued From Above
.But perhaps this isn't a time to quibble. After all, a job is a job, especially in the United States, which has lost seven million jobs since December 2007, while reporting record-high numbers of people seeking assistance to feed themselves and/or their families. According to the US Department of Agriculture, 36 million Americans, including one out of every four children, are currently on food stamps.

On the other hand, given the woeful inadequacy of that "safety net," we might have chosen to direct the $30 billion in surge expenditures toward raising the average individual monthly Food Stamp allotment by $70 for the next year; that's roughly an additional trip to the grocery store, every month, for 36 million people. Alternatively, we could have dedicated that $30 billion to job creation. According to a recent report issued by the Political Economy Research Institute, that sum could generate a whopping 537,810 construction jobs, 541,080 positions in healthcare, fund 742,740 teachers or employ 831,390 mass transit workers.

For purposes of comparison, $30 billion—remember, just the Pentagon-estimated cost of a 30,000-person troop surge—is equal to 80% of the total US 2010 budget for international affairs, which includes monies for development and humanitarian assistance. On the domestic front, $30 billion could double the funding (at 2010 levels) for the Children's Health Insurance Program and the Low Income Home Energy Assistance Program.

Or think of the surge this way: if the United States decided to send just 29,900 extra soldiers to Afghanistan, 100 short of the present official total, it could double the amount of money—$100 million—it has allocated to assist refugees and returnees from Afghanistan through the State Department's Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration.

Leaving aside the fact that the United States already accounts for 45% of total global military spending, the $30 billion surge cost alone would place us in the top-ten for global military spending, sandwiched between Italy and Saudi Arabia. Spent instead on "soft security" measures within Afghanistan, $30 billion could easily build, furnish and equip enough schools for the entire nation.

Continuing this nod to the absurd for just one more moment, if you received a silver dollar every second, it would take you 960 years to haul in that $30 billion. Not that anyone could hold so much money. Together, the coins would weigh nearly 120 tons, or more than the poundage of 21,000 Asian elephants, an aircraft carrier, or the Washington Monument. Converted to dollar bills and laid end-to-end, $30 billion would reach 2.9 million miles or 120 times around the Earth.

One more thing, that $30 billion isn't even the real cost of Obama's surge. It's just a minimum, through-the-basement estimate. If you were to throw in all the bases being built, private contractors hired, extra civilians sent in, and the staggering costs of training a larger Afghan army and police force (a key goal of the surge), the figure would surely be startlingly higher. In fact, total Afghanistan War spending for 2010 is now expected to exceed $102.9 billion, doubling last year's Afghan spending. Thought of another way, it breaks down to $12 million per hour in taxpayer dollars for one year. That's equal to total annual US spending on all veteran's benefits, from hospital stays to education.

In Afghan terms, our upcoming single year of war costs represents nearly five times that country's gross domestic product or $3,623.70 for every Afghan woman, man, and child. Given that the average annual salary for an Afghan soldier is $2,880 and many Afghans seek employment in the military purely out of economic desperation, this might be a wise investment—especially since the Taliban is able to pay considerably more for its new recruits. In fact, recent increases in much-needed Afghan recruits appear to correlate with the promise of a pay raise.

All of this is, of course, so much fantasy, since we know just where that $30-plus billion will be going. In 2010, total Afghanistan War spending since November 2001 will exceed $325 billion, which equals the combined annual military spending of Great Britain, China, France, Japan, Germany, Russia, and Saudi Arabia. If we had never launched an invasion of Afghanistan or stayed on fighting all these years, those war costs, evenly distributed in this country, would have meant a $2,298.80 dividend per US taxpayer.

Even as we calculate the annual cost of war, the tens of thousands of Asian elephants in the room are all pointing to $1 trillion in total war costs for Iraq and Afghanistan. The current escalation in Afghanistan coincides with that rapidly-approaching milestone. In fact, thanks to Peter Baker's recent New York Times report on the presidential deliberations that led to the surge announcement, we know that the trillion-dollar number for both wars may be a gross underestimate. The Office of Management and Budget sent President Obama a memo, Baker tells us, suggesting that adding General McChrystal's surge to ongoing war costs, over the next 10 years, could mean—forget Iraq—a trillion dollar Afghan War.

At just under one-third of the 2010 US federal budget, $1 trillion essentially defies per-hour-per-soldier calculations. It dwarfs all other nations' military spending, let alone their spending on war. It makes a mockery of food stamps and schools. To make sense of this cost, we need to leave civilian life behind entirely and turn to another war. We have to reach back to the Vietnam War, which in today's dollars cost $709.9 billion—or $300 billion less than the total cost of the two wars we're still fighting, with no end in sight, or even $300 billion less than the long war we may yet fight in Afghanistan.

[Note: Jo would like to acknowledge the analysis and numbers crunching of Chris Hellman and Mary Orisich, members of the National Priorities Project's research team, without whom this piece would not have been possible.]

Why Canada Should get Out of Afghanistan ?

2009-11-14T15:17:00.000-08:00

Canada should pull its troops out of Afghanistan. The West's mission there is no less a "march of folly," to use historian Barbara Tuchman's phrase about the U.S. war in Vietnam, than was the Soviet attempt to impose a regime in Afghanistan with its invasion in 1979.

That invasion was the beginning of the end of the Soviet empire. Sixty years earlier, in 1919, the British decided that their own imperial effort to dominate Afghanistan was doomed and withdrew to the other side of the Khyber Pass.

In our day, the United States is involved in an unwinnable struggle for hegemony in Iraq, Afghanistan and much of the rest of the Middle East and Central Asia. Canada should stand aside.

In Afghanistan, Canadian troops are not engaged in peacekeeping. They are involved on one side in a civil war. While Canadians have been rightly proud of this country's decision to stay out of Iraq, they have paid insufficient attention to the fact that the former Liberal government drew us ever more deeply into Afghanistan. The mission now entrusted to Canadian and other coalition troops in southern Afghanistan, under the command of Canadian Brigadier-General David Fraser, is no less a war mission than the campaigns being fought by the British and Americans in Iraq.

When President George W. Bush paid a surprise visit to Kabul this week, he spoke, as always, of his determination to prosecute the war on terror. The so-called war on terror is really a struggle in which the United States and its allies are trying to impose their hegemony on a large part of the world. (The rejoinder that the Americans had to invade Afghanistan to retaliate against the 9/11 attacks is a non-starter. They had as much reason to invade Saudi Arabia, from which much of the financing of the attacks and most of the hijackers came.)

In the process, the values that are most dear to us - democracy, human rights, equality for women, freedom of speech and the right to publish our thoughts - are being preached in a contest that has little to do with any of these. In many regions of the world, democracy, freedom and human rights are seen as cynical slogans, Orwellian doublespeak, mouthed by those who want oil and other natural resources, and the strategic pathways, such as Afghanistan, that lead to these resources.

In 1900, Mark Twain offered a warning about phony humanitarianism that still rings true. "I said to myself," he wrote about the American intervention in the Philippines, "here are a people who have suffered for three centuries. We can make them as free as ourselves, give them a government and country of their own, put a miniature of the American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a brand new republic to take its place among the free nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to which we had addressed ourselves.

"But I have thought some more, since then ... and I have seen that we do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not to redeem ... And so I am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the eagle put its talons on any other land."

If Canada and the other Western powers pull out of Afghanistan, what will be the consequences for that country?

The struggle involving the government in Kabul, the remnants of the Taliban and regional warlords will continue. At the end of the civil war, the regime that emerges is unlikely to look much like a democracy that practises human rights. It could even be a fascistic theocracy.

On the other hand, the presence of Western powers, perceived in this region of the world as the forces of imperialism, will never succeed in imposing a Western-style system in the country. For centuries, the Afghans have shown an ornery tendency to throw out foreign invaders. And when, years from now, the people of the West decide to pull out of Afghanistan, withdrawal at that late date could leave an even more battered country and an even more tyrannical regime in its wake.

In the 19th century, the Europeans thought it was only natural that their empires should rule much of North Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia. In the 21st century, the Americans have not yet learned that this is folly, although recent public opinion polls in the U.S. suggest that the truth is dawning on them.

Not least, Canada should pull its troops out of Afghanistan for an old-fashioned, even politically incorrect, reason. It is not in our interest to put our young men and women in harm's way in a struggle that will not be won.

Written by James Laxer, a professor of political science at York University.

The Road to Balkh

2009-11-11T21:53:00.000-08:00

The road from Termez on the Oxus River to Balkh and then over the Hindu Kush to Kabul, has inspired great writers such as Robert Byron (The Road to Oxiana) Arnold Toynbee (Between Oxus and Jumna). Fitzroy Maclean (Eastern Approaches) and the two outstanding Great Game writers, Robert Keay and Peter Hopkirk.

On the say the US and British forced lauched their attack on Iraq, I was in the Mother of all cities, Balkh. It was also my birthday. March 21, 2003. I travelled with Ali Hassan Quoreshi and Zaman. Here is an extract from my diary and photos I have taken along that road over a 30 year period.

The entrance to The Salang tunnel as you see it coming from Mazar I Sharif. and the men who keep the road open. The Salang Pass (Persian: كتل سالنگ Kotal-e Sālang) (el. 3878 m.) is the major mountain pass connecting northern Afghanistan and Kabul province, with further connections to southern Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Salang River originates nearby and flows south.

The pass crosses the Hindu Kush but is now bypassed through the Salang tunnel, built by the Soviet Union in 1964, which runs underneath it at a height of about 3,400 m. It links Charikar and Kabul with Mazari Sharif and Termez.
The potter and his family at Istalif. Photo: Bob McKerrow

A boy and his donkey on the roadside. Photo: Bob McKerrow
The Chamar valley in the Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow
The author reading from Eric Newby's ' A Short Walk in the Hindu Kush' to some local lads in the Panjsher valley. Photo: Ian Clarke.

Mainly Uzbek soldier at a Nowruz celebration in Mazar I Sharif. Photo: Bob
McKerrow

A carpet repairer on the roadside. Photo: Bob McKerrow

At the Blue Mosque in Mazar I Sharif on Nowruz, the fertility pole is raised. Photo: Bob McKerrow

An hour and a half after leaving Kabul the road starts climbing up towards the Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The game of Bushkashi celebrating Nowruz in Kabul. Photo: Bob McKerrow
Jewett's Tower at Jabal Seraj. In 1911 an American Engineer camne to Jebal Seraj to install Afghanistan's first hydro-electric plant for Amir Habibullah. A.C. Jewett stayed here eight years and built his home and published a book, An American Engineer in Afghanistan. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Trip from Mazar I Sharif to Kabul 21 March 2003

Had a very informative and interesting visit to Mazar I Sharif. We were due to fly back Saturday 22 March 2003 by Red Cross flight but due to bad weather, it was cancelled. Then, we found out early Sunday that the flight was going from Mazar to Peshawar, Pakistan, and not Kabul. Not wanting to get stuck in Peshawar with events happening in Iraq, Quoreshi and I drove from Mazar I Sharif to Kabul. It was a 13 and a half hour trip

The Afghan Red Crescent Society, supported by the Federation in the north are doing a superb job with 17 very well run Mother and Child Health Clinics.

We also travelled up to Hairaton, on the banks of the Oxus (Amu Daraya River), just near the border of Uzbekistan to visit one project. I marvelled at the history of this great river.

We also went to watch Buskashi, Afghanistan's version of rugby on horseback where they use a headless goat instead of a ball. Great spectacle to watch,

With the war intensifying in Iraq I was expecting some strong protests here but things have been quiet so far. It could flare up at any time.

Trip schedule

0845 Left Mazar with its the typical planted fields mixed with desert patches and blowing sand over the road up to Gowr e Mar, just before the turn-off to Hairaton. Passed a herd of camels grazing just after the turn-off.

0915 50 km. Arrived at Kulm (Tashqurghan) famed for its covered bazaar. I worked here in 1976 after the big Kulm earthquake.. The city has a delightful backdrop of rocky peaks. We are now into ancient Afghanistan with its dried mud houses and from the exterior, it could be the 10th Century . For the next few km the road closes in with villages hemmed in by mud walled as the road narrows to Tangi Tashqurghan, that spectacular gap in high mountain walls through which flows the Tashqurghan River.

0945 Talhuki (now in Samanghan province). There is a distinct lack of animals compared to previous visits to this area.. With 4 years of drought animals have died, been sold or eaten for survival.

0955 Arrived at the outskirts of Samanghan (Aibak) where the trees were blooming with walnut and almond flowers, a hue of pink and white.

For the past 10 km I’ve seen many bomb craters on the road or in nearby fields that were dropped by the American on the fleeing Taliban/suspected Al Quaida. From Alexander's coins on sale in local bazaars, to recent US bomb craters, history is etched into every footstep of this journey.

0957 110 km Arrived in Aibak.

From here you leave the Tashqurghan River and climb up to Kotali Robatak with Mt. Robatak on the left. Grand views of the lower Hindu Kush and across parts of Hazarajat are so striking..

1025 (147 km) Aikak, a small settlement where the road has been washed out by heavy rains in the past few days, is so typical of these old roadside villages.

1040 Enter Baghlan province and drive through Shismasher with either freshly dug or recently planted fields on either side of the road.. Some still being ploughed. This village is nestled in a semi circle of snow covered mountains, the nearest a mere 8 km away.

1220 Arrived at Doshi at the confluence of the Surkhab and Anderab rivers. Here the road branches to Bamiyan and Salang. On entering Doshi there is a delightful tree lined avenue with a disappearing perspective up to the massive heights of the Hindu Kush

From here we then followed the Anderab river up into Khenjan district small, high-walled villages. Pink blossoms gladden the eye on the harsh mud and rock landscape.

1240 Reached Khenjan where there is a checkpoint. The landscape gets steeper with small, well irrigated wheat fields..

1250 (264 km) climbed up to Walian another small and pretty village. It is surprising how high they plant the wheat fields here..

1255 (267 km) one reaches the first of three new bridges built by the Government of Uzbekistan
The second bridge at 1258 and next at 1303. These strong and smart looking bridges have done much to improve the road and passage of heavy vehicles.

1307 Passed Char Zah the steep roadsides lined with neat rock walls, with old tanks and APC’s littering the road side. Good to see stunted pines thriving in the harsh alpine environment, leaving some semblance of bio diversity in the alpine regions..

At about 1330 about 6 km from the tunnel a large volume of vehicles decide to play ‘Machina Bushkashi’ as an undisciplined bunch of drivers try to pass each others with wheels literally hanging over precipices to get ahead of the other car.. Hundreds of trucks lined one side of the road waiting to get through the tunnel.

1338 Made very little progress and now stuck in traffic. I was bursting for a pee and ventured slightly off the road to relieve myself when I saw a red rock. “Mines,” shouted an Afghan in English. The red painted rock indicated the spot where the mines had been cleared too.

1346 Moved a hundred metres or so and then stopped again.

1420 Nearing the first portal

1445 After a lot of stops and starts, through and out of the first portal.

The next hour the ‘machina bushkashi’ continued as the traffic in one direction kept trying to pass one an other, often three abreast for no gain. A real dog eats dog madness interspersed with halts.

1515 Away again, and another 100 metre gained. The car in front of us got stuck in a gaping hole which we managed to avoid.

1530 We got stuck at the second portal close to the entrance to the Salang Tunnel (on the northern side) at 3,800 metres for about 3 hours surrounded by deep snow. A beautiful place to get stuck and we enjoyed the awesome mountain scenery and the very fresh air. A complete stranger in another car shared his dried mulberries with us and then as always, Afghan hospitality is there every time you turn. It was nice to get out and talk to people in the middle of this mountain madness as cars and buses tried the impossible to pass cars that were two and sometimes three abreast, causing even a greater jam.

At 1615 the sun set behind the Hindu Kush and there was a few moments of tranquility as the evening cold starts gnawing at your bones.. Quoreshi and I seemed the only foreigners in a crowd of over 800 Afghans in buses trucks, taxis and cars.

Then it was announced by ACTED road men that a truck and convoy were coming with a dead body from the southern side, despite the road being open only in our direction. Imagine the scene of cars and buses and trucks some three abreast, having to maneuver themselves into a single lane to let a northbound convoy through. I felt there was a need for a mountain giant to appear with a barrel of oil and a crow bar, and to pour oil over all the vehicles and prise them out one by one and stack them in an orderly line. Much to my amazement, a giant wasn’t called for somehow, the vehicles slithered and maneuvered themselves in such a way that the convoy carrying the dead body managed to crawl by.

Looking down from the Salang Pass at the road which winds up from Kabul. Photo: Bob McKerrow

After about half an hour we took off our chains and joined in a race, something like a rally car race, as all and sundry raced for Jebal Seraj and distant Kabul., passing Walang and Salang villages. Looking back over my shoulder I marvelled at the view, the star studded sky and a trail of cars and bus headlights snaking down from the skyline of the Hindu Kush.

2015 Once at Jebal Seraj, after consultation with ICRC through Younis, we decided to head for Kabul as many other cars were doing the same.

What has changed in Kabul is the rainbow colour lights you see miles ahead which illuminates and indicate the many new gas stations.

Passed three checkpoints, the final one being at Khair Khanna as we entered Kabul at 2130. At this checkpoint there was a huge illuminated portrait of Ahmed Shah Massoud, watching over Kabul and its twinkling lights.

Arrived at our House in Wazi Akbar Khan just after 2200 hours.

Another way to cross the Hindu Kush is via the Khotali Anjuman which takes you from the Panjsher valley to the Anjuman valley. Crossing the pass in 1995 with Ian Clarke. Photo: Bob McKerrow

For further reading I recommend The Road to Balkh by Nancy Nancy Hatch Dupree. Afghan Tourist Organisation, 1967

Afghanistan and the lessons of history

2009-11-10T11:05:00.001-08:00

Buskashi, the ancient game of Afghanistan requiring outstanding horsemanship and courage. Photo: Bob McKerrow

My last posting was mainly about what I see as the lines between aid agencies and the community work of the military becoming blurred in Afghanistan and other countries where there is conflict. I was also lamenting the fact that more and more humanitarian workers are being shot, maimed or killed. Little did I know then that it would come closer to home a few days later.

Last Thursday morning I went to Banda Aceh where the Red Cross is near to completing its large Tsunami rehabilitation programme. I was stunned to get a phone call late afternoon from one of the staff of the German Red Cross saying that Dr. Erhard Bauer had been shot not too far down the road from where I was. He was travelling with three Indonesian staff when a motorcycle drew up beside the vehicle with two passengers, the rear passenger fired three shots into the front passenger side window and one bullet passed through his left side and lodged inside Erhard's abdomen. Our Red Cross team in Banda Aceh speedily organised an evacuation to Singapore so the bullet could be removed. Surgery was successfully carried out and he is now stable and recovering. Thank God he was only wounded.

It was strange standing by Erhard's bedside in the hospital in Banda Aceh last Thursday night trying to provide moral support to him as he was struggling on life support equipment. Only five days early we met at a football match in Jakarta where our children were playing in opposing teams and as we both have a love of Afghanistan, we began talking about the places in Afghanistan where he lived for many years with his wife and children.

After a few hours on oxygen, Erhard removed his mask and although in pain, started talking about Afghanistan and surprisingly, we got onto the subject of Dr. Brydon, who was the sole survivor of a sixteen thousand five hundred strong retreating British army that fled Kabul in 1842 - all but Brydon were mercilessly massacred with horrific efficiency by Afghan forces lying in wait (depicted below).

For those of us who have worked in Afghanistan, the painting of Dr. Brydon (above) evokes an array of feelings. Recently, my good friend Paul Conneally posted an article on his outstanding blog

http://headdowneyesopen.blogspot.com/

Paul give his take on recent events in Afghanistan:
Last week's suicide bombing and armed raids on a guest house frequented by UN staff in Kabul got me thinking, not for the first time, of this interminable part of the world. The UN bombing had been preceded a few days before hand by a suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul that left at least 17 dead and dozens severely injured. Then, a few days after the UN bomb we had massive explosions in the crowded alleys of Peshawar's sprawling street markets that left more than a hundred civilians dead.

I remember back in 1999 when I had my Afghanistan time, the country - apart from a territory in the north - was presided over by the Taliban and an assembly of war lords. At that time there was no alcohol allowed, no women in the workforce (or anywhere else except mostly indoors), no television, no music - no fun basically. It was a tough time on many levels not least the psychological one. You have no idea how dreadfully depressing it can be to work with some twelve hundred colleagues all of whom are male with an average age of about 50! I longed for female company and I longed also for a cold beer at the end of the day.

Given the lack of social outlet and the very real security threats life was confined to work and (heavily guarded) home - a good time to catch up on my reading and experiment with some herbal teas. At that time I became fascinated with the historical writings on what is know as the Great Game - the great rivalry between the British and Russian empires that lasted the best part of one hundred intriguing years ending in 1921 with a friendship treaty between the two great foes. The prize for the Great Game was the Indian sub-continent which Britain declared the jewel in its crown and feared mightily that Russia would conquer Afghanistan and use it as a launching pad to snatch India.

So, not for the first or last time in her long and illustrious history, the nation of Afghanistan found itself at odds - through no real fault of its own - with major military powers. A victim of its own geography. But, not being one to turn down a decent offer of a good fight, Afghanistan embraced the Great Game and played both sides off against each other, much like they did with Persia during the same period and of course the Americans and the Soviets in the 1980's.

Never conquered. Never Divided.
History will show that the whole of Afghanistan has never, not once, been controlled from the centre. And, while (in western eyes) treachery and deceit are a frequent feature of their methods of warfare (rendering the Geneva Conventions culturally biased?) Afghanistan has incredibly remained solidly intact, never fragmenting along ethnic or religious lines and maintaining its borders since its inception. It clings fiercely to the origin of its name which is Sanskrit for "land of the allied tribes".

But, I digress. I did not intend a historical account, even a brief one. But it is necessary for the remainder of my tale. During those turbulent days back in 1999 we did manage to escape on rest and recreation every few months to Peshawar where the first destination was the long-established American Club - a place with cold beer, conversation with women and late night darts. At the entrance of this modest but grand old building, just before you climbed the stairs to the bar, hung a gilt-framed oil painting which always stopped me in my tracks and urged me to ponder awhile. It was an original copy of "Remnants of an Army" depicting a lone soldier, Scotsman Dr. William Brydon, at the gates of Jalalabad, which lie approximately half way along the 200 mile road between Kabul and Peshawar.

Brydon was the sole survivor of a sixteen thousand five hundred strong retreating British army that fled Kabul in 1842 - all but Brydon were mercilessly massacred with horrific efficiency by Afghan forces lying in wait (depicted above). The same Afghan forces, it should be mentioned, with whom they had been allied just a few days before - things can change very quickly in Afghanistan.

This effectively brought to an end the First Anglo Afghan War (1839 - 1842) and one of the lessons learned (for evaluation it seems was also a practice back then - makes you wonder if it is really possible to learn from our mistakes) was a telling and succinct recommendation whose relevance today is undeniable: The First Afghan War provided the clear lesson to the British authorities that while it may be relatively straightforward to invade Afghanistan it is wholly impracticable to occupy the country or attempt to impose a government not welcomed by the inhabitants. The only result will be failure and great expense in treasure and lives.

From Tipperary to Afghanistan and back
Now, that painting (shown at the top of this post), as mentioned, fairly captivated me at the time especially as I was so enamored with Peter Hopkirk's writings of the Great Game that repeatedly recalled the resilience of the Afghans throughout their long and combative history. Staring at the forlorn figure of Brydon, the lone horseman, one didn't know whether to feel pity or pride. His form embodied defeat, set against an unforgiving and alien landscape; and such were the incredible odds against his survival that you were forced to wonder whether the Afghans let him loose on purpose - a barely living testimony to their military might.

The painting was the work of an artist called Lady Elizabeth Butler. When writing this post I could not remember her name so scoured the internet until I found it - and I found out a few other aspects which struck me as interesting. Elizabeth was born in Lausanne (Switzerland) but married an Irish soldier, writer and adventurer called William Francis Butler.

William hailed from the impoverished famine fields of Tipperary and had risen to great heights in the British army. The couple returned to Ireland upon William's retirement and lived in Bansha Castle before moving eventually to the east coast of Ireland, settling down in Gormanstown Castle where they stayed till their final days and are buried at nearby Stamullen Graveyard.

Year's after my own Afghan adventure I tracked down some of Elizabeth's paintings at the Imperial War Museum in London, and I was not disappointed. I have heard that the painting of Brydon - the last remnant of a decimated army - now hangs at the Tate but will have to confirm that at a later date. It may be coincidence that a painting which had such a hold over me ten years ago somehow turned out to have strong Irish connections. Whatever the case, I'll be making my way to Stamullen cemetery the next chance I get to track down the last resting place of this incredible couple and pay them my respects.

My sincere thanks to Paul Coneally from Head Down Eyes Open

Praying for More Unemployed Grave-Diggers in Afghanistan

2009-11-04T02:15:00.000-08:00

The lines between aid agencies and the military have become blurred in Afghanistan,

Bamiyan where New Zealand troops are doing humanitarian work alongside their military duties. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The earthquake in West Sumatra has occupied every waking moment of my life in the past five weeks and has even stolen many of my sleeping hours. Midst the hundreds of emails I received was one from my good friend in Kabul, Steve Masty entitled "PIRATES.'

dear bob

i went into spinneys, the dubai-based supermarket in kabul, and looked at your 'Mountains of your Mind' book and, while well produced it looks to be a pirate addition, with no isbn number. when i go back i will bring a pencil to jot down the web address of the second publisher, different than the real one on the title page.

cheers
steve

When I told Anuj , my publisher in New Delhi, he replied " you should be ‘HAPPY’ if your book is pirated. The pirates only ‘GO FOR THE BEST’."
So the book I published on Afghanistan in 2003 has been pirated, so I am flattered. Photo: Tara Press New Delhi

However, thinking of my book is a bit selfish at this time because I am more concerned by the blurring of lines and mandates between aid agencies and the military in Afghanistan.

The other day there was a headline in most New Zealand newspapers announcing in shocked tones that there has been a shooting incident involving New Zealand troops in Afghanistan.

It went on to say "Government sources say our troops have been fired on."

When you call a plumber to unblock a sewerage pipe, he gets shit on his hands. Send soldiers into Afghanistan they are likely to get blood on their hands, especially the New Zealand soldiers who do humanitarian work in communities with an automatic rifle slung across their back. Soldiers should be in a country to support the regime their Governments are backing politically, or doing UN-type peacekeeping work. Mixing military intervention with humanitarian works only contributes to genuine humanitarian workers being mistaken as soldier/humanitarian workers.

In his recent article Empire Games in the New Zealand Listener, Gordon Campbell observes:

Meanwhile, in Afghanistan, Taliban forces have mounted major attacks in recent weeks, rendering the provinces of Zabol, Helmand and Oruzgan highly dangerous for foreign and local ground troops. Aid workers have been withdrawn from many provincial areas. In both countries, foreigners and locals engaged in humanitarian work – including the reconstruction tasks that our deployment of 61 armed engineers have been set in Iraq – are being singled out as “soft targets”.

I am terrified when I read that 61 armed New Zealand Army engineers are doing humanitarian work, probably in areas where non-armed humanitarian workers are working.

Coalition Forces doing a form of humanitarian work in Afghanistan.

In his article Afghan aid as a military weapon, Thalif Deen in Asia Times Online in August 2004 was one of the first journalists to signal the growing problem about communities that humanitarian workers and soldiers work, Afghans have become confused as to the lines between aid agencies and the military. He writes:

"There are times when aid agencies need the support of the military - as in Bosnia - but we are concerned about the increased involvement of the US and UK military in the provision of aid," said Caroline Green of Oxfam International.

"Our impartiality is vital for us to carry out our work on the ground but this has become undermined by the United States giving aid to people not on the basis of need but in exchange for information," Green told Inter Press Service (IPS).

Besides aid agencies, humanitarian assistance - including food aid and relief supplies - have also been provided by coalition forces, including the US, the UK, France, Germany and Italy, according to the US State Department. "Communities that we work with have become confused as the lines between aid agencies and the military have become blurred in Afghanistan," Green said.

Those charges have been strongly endorsed by several other international aid organizations, including Medecins sans Frontieres (MSF or Doctors Without Borders), Christian Aid and Concern Worldwide. Last week, MSF pulled out of Afghanistan after having provided humanitarian assistance there for nearly 24 years. The reasons for the organization's withdrawal included a deterioration of the security environment in Afghanistan and, more important, the misuse of humanitarian aid by US military forces in the country.

MSF also said it was unhappy with the lack of progress in a government investigation of the killing of five of its aid workers in the northern province of Baghdis in June, presumably by insurgents. MSF, which employed about 1,400 local staff and 80 international staff, ended all its operations last week.

How many more soldiers and aid workers will be buried here ? The Christian cemetery in Kabul. Photo: Bob McKerrow

I remember the first time I went to that graveyard.
It was a cold winter’s day in early 1994 when I first met Rahimullah, grave digger and caretaker of the British Cemetery in Kabul. He looked poor in tattered Shalwah Kamez and a shawl wrapped round his shoulders to keep out the biting cold. The headstones and graves were dusted with snow. In the distance the Hindu Kush range stood high above Koh Daman, the hills that skirt Kabul. Rahimullah looked about 50 then. Since the Soviets withdrew from Kabul in 1989 he hadn’t been paid. I knew that Aurel Stein, the famous Hungarian born British Archaeologist was buried here in 1943. I didn’t know that this would to prove to be the most interesting grave yard I had ever seen. Its oldest residents are British soldiers from the Anglo-Afghan wars. Like the 29 members of the 67th Foot (South Hampshire Regiment), buried in a mass grave after a failed attempt to climb a hill south of Kabul on the 13th December 1879.
All that really remains of them is part of their grave stone, stuck along one side of the cemetery wall with other fragments of history. Long lists that tell no stories other than the staccato military details of name, rank, regiment and date. In between are assorted ranks of other visitors who never made it home. Explorers, journalists, hippies who lost the trail, engineers and aid workers; Italians and Germans and Canadians and Polish and many from other countries. Their headstones tell a snippet of Afghanistan’s rich history.

Fifteen years later my heart bleeds for the killing that is going on in Afghanistan, the country that deserves peace, a country that has been penalised by its geographic locations for more than two thousand years. I FERVENTLY PRAY FOR MORE UNEMPLOYED GRAVE-DIGGERS IN AFGHANISTAN.

Anjoman mountain region, Afghanistan. A trip in May 1996

2009-09-26T18:44:00.001-07:00

Climbing with Bruce Watson at around 5500 m in the Hindu Kush. This valley is south of the mountain village of Anjoman. Photo: Bob McKerrow

A Panchjeri defending the valley with an anti aircraft gun. We drove up the Panjcher Valley and then walked over the Anjoman Pass, down to Anjoman village, then turned right into the valley leading up to some unclimbed 6000 m peaks. Photo : Bob McKerrow

At our base camp in 1996 from where we attempted a 6000 m peak. Bruce Watson, Ross Everson and Mathias (AVICEN) Ross and Mathias climbed it. Photo: Bob McKerrow

The author at over 5000 m in the Hindu Kush. Phot: Bob McKerrow

A snowy pool just below in the lower valley. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Looking to the high Hindu Kush. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Crossing the Anjuman Pass ( Kotali Anjuman). Ian Clarke, a British Halo trust de-miner. I did many crossings of this pass in 1994-96. This one was in early 1995. Photo: Bob McKerrow

Samay Hamed 9 11 children

2009-09-17T13:23:00.000-07:00

My good friend Samay Hamed sent me his most recent poem about 9/11. It is well-composed and evocative.

I wish a small rainbow of a kite
From a burnt roof in Kabul
Could fly to New York... Read More
And a colorful bird in a drawing pad page
From an orphanage room in New York
Could fly to Kabul
So children of 911 both here and there
Could understan...d
There are no just suicide bombers in Afghanistan
There are no just politicians in the US
There are children who play and dream
Of a free and fresh future
They could understand each other
And
They will meet each other as tourists
Not as soldiers

Can we learn from Napoleon and John Master's to improve the situation in Afghanistan

2009-08-16T18:44:00.000-07:00

US forces in Afghanistan should keep in mind John Masters' account of the British campaign against the Pashtuns. Here is a very provocative article by HDS Greenway - GlobalPost
Published: July 4, 2009 08:26 ET

BOSTON — Napoleon recommended that every private soldier carry a marshal’s baton in his knapsack, to inspire leadership qualities. U.S. Marines pouring into Afghanistan’s Helmand Province would be advised to carry a copy of a slim book called “Bugles and a Tiger,” the memoirs of a soldier-turned-author about campaigning against Pashtuns on the Northwest Frontier 70 years ago.

Before he turned his hand to writing novels, John Masters was a British officer fighting wily and resourceful tribesmen — the grandfathers and great-grandfathers of today’s Taliban. I have quoted Masters before in this space for his insights on the enemies America faces in those same barren hills.

The British had a partiality for martial races. “Their darlings were the pale, fierce Pathans,” as Pashtuns were then called, along with the “unbending Sikhs” of the Punjab, Masters wrote.

Then, as now, the Pashtuns were often given to religious fanaticism, and from time to time the “the magic word, Jihad” would convulse the hill country. Before Islam, Pashtuns had been resisting foreigners since Alexander of Macedon crossed the Kabul River in 327 B.C.

When they could, the British recruited Pashtuns to fight other Pashtuns. They could cover “enormous distances at high speed on foot,” Masters wrote. “Each man carried 30 or 40 rounds of ammunition, a water bottle, a bag of raisins, a few disks of unleavened bread, and a lump or two of course sugar … loping ceaselessly on at five miles an hour” for 20 or 35 miles at a time. Today’s Talibs may prefer to travel in pickup trucks or on motor bikes, but their endurance and speed on foot has not diminished, and they travel just as lightly, except that today they carry more ammunition.

“The core of our problem,” Masters wrote, “was to force battle on an elusive and mobile enemy.., (who) tried to avoid battle, and instead fight us with pinpricking hit-and-run tactics.” When the Pashtun “tried to defend something, whether a gun or a village, we trapped him and pulverized him. When he flitted and sniped, rushed and ran away, we felt as if we were using a crowbar to swat wasps.”

British troops were frustrated, “robbed of a soldier’s greatest weapon — aggression.” For they knew that “there would be no tranquility among these proud and fierce people, however quickly we forced them into mere surrender, if we fought our campaign on unnecessarily ruthless lines. In normal warfare armies bomb cities and destroy the enemy food supply without compunction, but we had to be careful not to harm women and children if we could help it, and we could not shoot on suspicion, only on certainty, and we could not damage fruit trees or destroy water channels.”

How long before the Afghans can look after their own security?

2009-08-16T16:37:00.000-07:00

With the situation in Kabul grabbing the headlines in the run up to the elections, I came across this article written earlier in the year by Anthony Paul.
Anthony Paul has reported on Asia and the Middle East for publications including Fortune, Reader’s Digest, Asiaweek, and the Singapore Straits Times. His first dispatch from Kabul came in the wake of the April 1978 communist coup.

By Anthony Paul - Special to GlobalPost
Published: February 12, 2009 15:33 ET
Updated: February 14, 2009 15:59 ET

When a suicide bomber sparked a breakout from Kandahar's Sarposa prison last June, by blowing up himself at the front gate, the local Afghan police — to no-one’s surprise — were caught unprepared.

Nearly 900 prisoners swarmed to freedom through the wrecked entrance. The 400 or so Taliban among the escapees then took over several villages near Kandahar, a blood-drenched hotbed of insurgency south of the capital.

At this point, the soldiers of the Afghan National Army (ANA), stepped in and performed impressively, working alongside NATO troops in major operation to find the escapees.

In doing so, the Afghan army units, from Kabul and Kandahar, lived up to a report last month to the U.S. Congress stating that “ANA operational capabilities grew markedly during 2008.”

The Congressional Research Service analysis noted approvingly that the ANA “deployed more than 1,000 soldiers south from Kabul, providing over half of the air lift required to transport them, within 24 hours.”

The report praised other ANA actions, including 35 combined air-assault missions in eastern provinces “most of them ANA-led,” and the ANA’s development of elite commando "kandaks," or fighting units.

These post-mortems of ANA operations are currently being used by Kabul and Washington as insights into both the Pentagon’s problems and the likely future direction of the Afghan war.

They address a question central to military strategies being devised here and in several Western capitals: When, if ever, will the embattled country’s own forces be able to maintain security without outside help?

When can young men from the United States and 41 other nations in the anti-Taliban coalition have relief from the Afghan war’s mounting death tolls. According to official figures, as of Feb. 4, 645 U.S. troops had died in the war and 422 soldiers of other nationalities.

Though the ANA is undoubtedly making some progress, the blunt, unpleasant answer to these two questions is: not for many years yet.

Before the Pentagon can begin withdrawing forces with the vigor President Barack Obama’s new administration hopes to marshal soon in Iraq, much more will need to be done to improve Afghan security forces.

Following his apparently successful counterinsurgency strategy in Iraq (a so-called “surge” involving the addition of more GIs to the forces already deployed there), General David H. Petraeus, as the new chief of U.S. Central Command, has been charged with pulling the Afghanistan effort from the brink of failure.

He has no illusions about the challenge, which may indeed be greater than he faced in Iraq. As he told Foreign Policy magazine last month, Afghanistan “has a smaller amount of educated human capital due to higher illiteracy, as well as substantial unemployment, an economy whose biggest cash export is illegal (opium), and significant corruption.”

Afghanistan’s position — straddling invasion routes between Central Asia and today’s India and Pakistan — has generated a centuries-old suspicion of foreigners. Ancient Persians dubbed the region “the land of the unruly.” The country’s mountainous spine is called the Hindu Kush (literally: place where Hindus are killed).

Most ANA recruits receive their basic training at the Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) a short drive out of the capital. Here, about 1,200 trainers teach basic combat skills, graduating a "kandak," or fighting unit, of the same number of men, 1,200, every 10 weeks.

As of late December, the Afghan army numbered about 68,000 soldiers. Another 80,000 or so Afghans are assigned to the country’s other security forces (e.g., air corps, police, border patrol). The goal is to train 134,000 for the ANA by the end of 2011.

Will a force that size mean that the Allies can leave? No one seems sure. In this eighth year of the Afghan war, the highest circles in Kabul, Washington and London continue to fiercely debate the total needed to make Afghanistan a stable, peaceful nation.

The outgoing head of the Combined Security Transition Command-Afghanistan, Major General Robert Cone, says bluntly “134,000 probably isn’t enough.” Another senior U.S. commander says total forces would have to grow to 300,000.

By some calculations even that would still be nowhere near the number needed.

The Soviet Union introduced about 130,000 troops in the 1980s. When Soviet generals, in the face of rising casualties (an estimated 26,000 fatalities by the 1989 withdrawal), decided that something like a force of 300,000-400,000 would be necessary, secretary-general Mikhail Gorbachev elected to cut and run.

The U.S. Army’s new Counterinsurgency Field Manual, a document overseen by Petraeus himself, appears to call for as many as 650,000 for Afghanistan – or more than three times the current Afghan-Coalition’s mass (and well over the 545,000 troops peak U.S. commitment in Vietnam).

Former U.S. ambassador to Kabul, Ronald Neumann, has suggested raising a large conscripted Afghan force. He gives the example of Korea, where America helped mobilize a 700,000-man South Korean army in the 1950s in a country that then had a population two-thirds of present-day Afghanistan’s.

Asked to comment, Neumann’s successor, Ambassador William Wood, politely but bluntly rejected the idea.

“All I can say is that I think we’re getting adequate numbers, and better training than they’ve ever gotten before,” he told me last year in an interview at the Kabul embassy. “Large numbers of draftees who are not adequately trained, led or equipped give us more of a problem than a solution. Unfortunately, even with the draft you can’t produce a baby in less than nine months.”