Rebuilding Afghanistan; The Afghans, grateful for the generous amount of international relief money sent to their country, increasingly are frustrated at the clumsy efforts of many Westerners to help them rebuild their ravaged nation

0 Comments | Insight on the News, July 8, 2003

Byline: Paul M. Rodriguez, INSIGHT

Afghanistan - Afghanistan: 34 degrees 36 minutes north latitude, 28.38; 68 degrees 55 minutes east longitude, 41.12 High in the mountains above the Crystal Lake of Qargha, where only a few months ago the reservoirs below were bone dry, people flock by foot and car and truck on Fridays to enjoy a unique type of picnic. It is for them as much a celebration of their freedom as it is a family outing of the kind one might find anywhere in the world.

But here at the source of the water that ultimately flows into the muddy filth of the Kabul River thousands of meters down the Hindu Kush, the mere fact that these Afghan people can congregate freely is for them more than a feast of heart and soul. The toughness required for these mountain tribesmen to struggle up the steep and primitive roads and rocky banks of the waterways to get here serves as a poignant reminder that though devastated by 25 years of war, these people are unconquered because they are unconquerable.

This gathering also provides an opportunity to spend time with hundreds of Afghans from all walks of life and to discuss the future of their country and the lessons that should have been learned among Westerners about the perils of nation building. The model used by foreigners to control or pacify the countryside and the villages that once ringed Kabul, the city of roses now in ruins, does not work. And as immigrants daily pour into the utterly devastated land, not only parched but rubbled and alive only with spent ordnance, these admirable people become more deeply aware of their worsening plight, and of their resentment of bizarre Western interference.

Unrest is beginning to re-emerge, soldiers are being killed as well as civilians, and armed gangs (called militias) roam the highways in deadly numbers. Demonstrations, which locals tell Insight are fomented by extremists, are on the rise and foreign-aid workers are less safe here than even a few months ago. This means work stoppages on projects such as school construction and interruptions of badly needed relief services that must move through rural areas into the villages.

Afghans are appreciative of the hundreds of millions of dollars in international relief that has been poured into their war-ravaged country, not to mention the cost of sending in and maintaining the U.S.-led coalition of military personnel who provide what security there is and much-needed relief and reconstruction assistance.

During the course of nearly three weeks in the country, it is evident that people here at all levels of society are grateful to the United States. But as one of only a handful of Westerners ever to venture so far up into these mountains to spend time with Afghans and then visit with them in their homes, mosques, hospitals and bazaars, one does not miss the hazards as innocent questions are put directly.

"Who will protect our people" once the Americans leave, asks an old man as he watches beggar children traversing the dangerous towpaths along the rushing waters above Qargha. "Where is the aid that has been promised?" he asks when this editor inquires about the mud homes clinging precariously to the battle-scarred sides of these mountains where families survived the years of tribal warfare since their resistance to the Soviets and during the struggle to rid the country of the Taliban. There also are direct questions about America's intention from youths of military age, as well as from the tea merchants who have set up tents and booths from which to sell their goods to the picnicking crowds, in which families are wearing their finest clothes, although they are not always in good shape.

"It reminds us of what it was like before the wars," the old man says as he sweeps his hand to guide this newsman's eyes over the sea of people, many too young to remember such gatherings in the past in the Pagham Mountains.

Your editor ventured into the country with a small party of Afghans determined to observe the delivery of medical supplies and books for doctors badly in need of a great deal more than that to save hospitalized patients. These patients face mortality rates upward of 30 percent at local hospitals because of rampant infection and the scarcity of even the most elementary medicines. Our broader agenda was to observe, listen and seek answers to three basic questions:

* Where's the beef in the much-publicized international aid?

* What do Afghans say that they need as opposed to what Westerners might insist they want?

* What lessons have been learned in Afghanistan that might be applied in Iraq or elsewhere?

Curiously, the more we asked for hard data on how the promised flow of money is being managed and where it is going, the more it became apparent that honest answers were almost impossible to obtain from the dozens of U.N. agencies and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) operating in the country. Yet contrary to the newspaper reports we had read, the U.S.-led military coalition and the much-maligned U.S. Agency for International Development were helpful in every way and completely forthcoming.