Afghan Blues
All he had to do was stamp my exit visa. But the Pakistani clerk took one look at my passport and shook his head triumphantly. “No,” he said. The Afghan border guards—elements of god knew which mujahideen faction-- were not letting anyone through. “Wait here,” said Javid, my fixer. I had seen the twin towers go up from a comfortable apartment in
1. seen poppy fields on the Afghan border,
2. toured a town totally devoted to gun-factories,
3. consistently traversed tribal areas without permits,
4. parlayed with drug dealers, addicts, pimps and prostitutes,
5. interviewed Taleban leaders, UN spokesmen and Hamid Mir,
6.chatted with a CIA operative
5. and survived nearly three weeks in Pakistan without a single stomach cramp.
In other words it had been fun.
Still, was it really wise to want to head into Afghanistan at this point? Things are wilder now than ever, months after the war began with new assassinations being a foregone conclusion and tribal rivalries stirring the cauldron of ancient Afghan dissent.
“Whatever,” I said to myself.
So there I was, a sitting duck, at the mercy of people I did not know, who were so used to conflict that peace would have been confusing, waiting at the totally insane border crossing at Torkham ready to cross into the barely controlled chaos of Afghanistan. I was tired and frustrated following a three-day paper chase through Pakistani offices in Islamabad and Peshawar that was nearly as annoying as a Britany Spears-Michael Jackson duet.
And I couldn’t even have a beer. Prohibition is no picnic. Some Time Machine had whizzed me back to the America of the 1920s. . . But then, hell, the whole trip had been like a buffet with only one dish: paranoia laced with irony. If the war on terrorism was the death of irony, no one has told the Pakstanis or the Afghans. Imagine lands where looking at women is considered bad form, but carrying weapons is considered normal, where drug smuggling and prostitution are anti-Islamic but knowingly tolerated by officials. Out of necessity, these days, Pakistan is an armed camp. There is an armed guard at every corner, in each hotel doorway, at every halfway important office or meeting place. Almost to a fault, the gun-toters are polite and often want you to take their picture. What happened to all that Muslim hatred? As for protests, I never saw one—anywhere. In fact you had to hunt for protests. Even the Taleban want to tell you about their cousin in Detroit . . . No wonder, I was confused. So I waited in Torkham, a dusty, drought-stricken madhouse, the official conduit through which the lives and goods of Afghanistan flow into the Asian sub-continent. This includes guns, drugs, refugees, and more perilously, journalists. Last November, four journalists had been murdered on the road between Jalalabad and Kabul. A few days before that three other journalists had been killed, including a German reporter from Stern. Later there was Daniel Pearl. He was just unlucky I told myself. Don’t get into a car with anyone you don’t know. That is the security advisory I issued to myself. So I waited. Suddenly I heard a couple of loud and somewhat, say, lazy explosions off in the near hills to our left. Thud, thud. What was that? A border guard sat on a chair in the shade, cradling his Ak47 and swatting flies. Big Deal. He wasn’t thinking about the proximity of Osama or his rag-tag Arab cohorts. But I was. . .
Dazed, I daydreamed. What was the appropriate response? To “smoke them out” or just “smoke up.” I looked up. I was surrounded like Gulliver by about a dozen refugee children. They regarded me with curiosity and a touch of fear. What were we doing there? Suddenly Javis appeared and handed me a card. It read: “Khyber – Afghan International, Abdul Haq, General Director.” I recognized the name. The Taleban had months before captured and executed this same Abdul Haq, a celebrated mujahideen leader, and one of the leading warlords in Afghanistan. Recently his brother, the vice-prime minister had been shot with the collusion of his own bodyguards in Kabul. Things were more dangerous now than during the war, it seemed. Ambushes waiting to happen. Factions smoldering with hatred and envy. Kashmir boiling like a kettle approaching melt-down. Javid pointed to a young man called Yousaf. Abdul Haq was Yousaf’s uncle. Yousaf was waiting for two busloads of journalists from Peshawar, which were being escorted through the border by his family, the Quadirs, who were then in charge of Jalalabad.
Javid whispered to me: “Inshallah, you have a very good chance of going with the bus.” But how much was it going to cost? I had heard horror stories of five or six hundred dollars. I didn’t have that much money with me, and they didn’t take Mastercard.
So we waited. An hour went by. Then two. Finally at about three they arrived. been sent back the previous day despite having all the proper papers. We crossed our fingers. No dice. The Pakistani visa clerk still did not want to stamp my passport because I was not on the Quadir list. What was his problem? No one in any of the fifteen government offices I had come to know intimately had ever said that my right to leave Pakistan could be decided by an official in Torkham. Finally one of the Haq fixers named Wahid, came up to me and said he could get me through with “no problem.” I would just have to go without the exit stamp. They would smuggle me back in when I was ready to come back. “You can tell them that you went with another group the other day. That group had no exit stamps." This was not necessarily a good idea. The Pakistanis were causing trouble for people with their papers totally in order. I had already been without permission to the border at Chaman, driving up from Quetta with the UAE Red Crescent, disguised as an Arab, a necessity created by another paperwork foul-up.
That’s the way the whole trip had been, full of surprises, full of being told by officials, you can’t do this and then taking a risk and going ahead and doing it anyway.
I had arrived in Islamabad expecting paranoia, absurdity and fear. I was not disappointed. The day after Kabul fell, a Pakistani workman fell through the ceiling in my hotel onto my photographer’s head, dealing him a busted Leica and a bruised hand. This event had followed an extremely insane taxi ride from the market in Rawalpindi to Islamabad at rush hour, which involved very close encounters with about 100 rickshaws, pedestrians, buses and rival drivers, many of them apparently steering while blindfolded and doing a crossword puzzle. And we had not even headed to the border yet. The border I am referring to is the 700 km. long border of the North-West Frontier province astride the Khyber Pass -- a land of impenetrable mountains and tribals who make their living mostly from smuggling. The Peshawar Plain has been invaded more times than Poland.
The province capital of Peshawar is a surreal place like something dreamt up by Salvador Dali from a brief by Hieronymous Bosch. The city buzzes with danger. Beyond is the land of the Pashtun tribes, an intransigient people, beyond the control of any government, with their own traditional tribal rules. For instance, Pashtuns will lay down their lives for a guest, yet a lingering glance from an outsider at one of their women can lead to a tribal feud that makes the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet look like a Brazilian soap opera. Everything is the opposite in the NWF province. Drugs and guns are outlawed, yet both are more plentiful and easier to come by than probably any other place in the world. While as a foreigner it is extremely difficult to talk to a woman outside of her official or business capacity, for the right price-- $50 for an “ok” girl to $1000 for a show biz personality-- you can have intimate relations in your hotel room, if you don’t mind the Pakistani secret police listening in. Peshawar might as well be a synonym for “contraband.” It may be the only city in the world in which a smuggler’s market, where you can buy everything from satellite phones to souvenir goat heads, features as a main attraction. The market is located several kilometers from the city proper, beyond the suburb of Hayatabad and the Kachagari refugee camp on the Jamud road. There’s only one drawback to the Smuggler’s Market. Foreigners are persona non grata. A sign informs: “NO FOREIGNERS ALLOWED BEYOND THIS POINT.
The truth is that the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan is a lawless Wild West zone presided over by feudal Pashtun warlords beyond the control of any government as the negotiators in Bonn found out. In the town of Darra Adam Khel, custom-made guns are manufactured “legally illegally,” by appointment to the Afridi tribal clan. In the mountains growing poppies is a way of life. With the Taleban ban on poppy growing the West can expect a bumper crop next spring, where the impact will be huge. 90% of the heroin consumed in Europe comes from Afghanistan. In the mountains on the Afghan border I saw poppy fields under renewed cultivation. Back in the city you only have to scratch the surface to find pathetic addicts, just like those on street corners in Berlin, struggling against the white heat. They crowd together under bridges in the city near the Smuggler’s Market. “This is a desk. This is a window. This is a chair. This is a flower,” one Afghan refugee addict called Sami said to me. “It is my escape.” But for most refugees there is no escape. In the Peshawar area alone there are between two and three million “displaced” people. The Pak government came up with a new term for those in new camps inside their borders: “internally displaced.” These people have no rights. They are living on borrowed time. No one makes any money on the greatest commodity smuggled through the borders, the refugees. Near Peshawar there are camps here that stretch as far as the eyes can see. Though some few Afghan smugglers of goods and drugs have earned huge mansions in the suburbs of Peshawar, the overwhelming majority is in desperate shape. Imagine a gypsy on a street corner in Berlin. Then think about millions of such desperate people at the mercy of political feuds and red tape. “Internally” or “externally” displaced?” A more apt term might be “eternally fucked.” Even though now many of them can and do head home, the question is to what? They’ve gotten used to life on the road like hobos of the American 1930s Depression. Refugees who turn to prostitution can make anything from 10 to 20 thousand rupies per night, from $150 to $200. “We are shunned everywhere,” says Soraya, who comes from Mazar-e-Sharif and lives in the Hayatabad suburb of Peshawar. “People know who we are.” Mostly the girls visit their clients or hang round in the parks waiting for a trick. Very few clients are trusted to visit at home. After payoffs to the police, Soraya and her sisters can earn 40,000 rupies or about per month on average, she says. She is very matter of fact about her work. “It’s better than living in the refugee camps,” she says.
In Peshawar a simple browse through a carpet shop can turn into a potential drug deal. I went for a walk with a friend near Green’s Hotel, the famed journalist jumping-off point for Afghanistan, and ended up in a shop owned by an Afghan called Ali from Mazar-e-Sharif, the center of drugs and prostitution in Afghanistan until the Taleban forced a re-location to Peshawar. Ali was entrepreneurial and genial, not to mention trusting. One thing led to another and pretty soon he was ushering me downstairs into his basement where he revealed enough prime hashish to get the entire University of Heidelberg high for a week.
“You want to see guns?” Ali asked, offering to take me to the gun factory town of Darra, but I was reluctant to trust him. I said I would get back to him. If I was going to Darra I wanted to do it right. Right now it’s closed to foreigners. Being caught there meant deportation or worse: hours of interrogation at the hands of Pakistani authorities. If I was going to go I wanted someone I knew I could trust to take me. I’d already been through the tribal areas to Chaman without a pass. I didn’t want to push my luck.
The next day I was on my way to Darra with Javid, who took me directly to the home of a well-known journalist, Munawar Afridi, who arranged a tour of the back streets with an armed guard. “The government is very strict about this area.” he said. “ Even though the town is well known as a gun factory, journalists like you are not allowed here right now.” About 10,000 families live in Darra. No permission is required to own a firearm. Rather the opposite. If you don’t have a gun something is wrong with you. As a result there is no crime. Absolutely zero. If you harm someone else and get away, then the tribal powers can hold your family responsible. Only the tribal assembly can sentence someone for a crime here, and they have the right to sentence you for as long as they like for whatever crime they decide you have committed. It is best to keep your head down in Darra.
Darra is the Saville Row of illegal guns. Craftsmen can copy any kind of firearm. They are so expert, though the quality can vary, that according to Munawar, workmen copied stinger missiles and sold them back to the US government at $100,000 each when Americans were paying Afghans to disarm after the Soviet war.
“You are a guest here,” Munawar told me. “We are responsible for each guest, so we cannot allow any harm to come to you. Besides any trouble caused for you would be an insult to the whole town.” By agreement the police can guard the road, but they cannot enter the back streets or houses. During our tour automatic gunfire could be heard at irregular intervals as prospective clients tested their purchases. There are 200 gun-shops in Darra and more “factories” than you can shake a stick at. In the arcades off the main streets are the hundreds of smithies and workshops, where men and boys work with hand tools and small drill presses. The workers seem to sleep with their work. Most of the tiny dirt-floored rooms had beds in them. Gunsmiths can copy any gun in 10 days. If you wish to buy a gun, the rule is to test it two times, the buyer once and the seller once. Since I wasn’t able to buy a gun or test one in the shops I was given a shot at firing a Kalashnikov. We went up on the roof of Munawar’s house, and the guard gave me his machine gun. I fired a few rounds over the rooftops into the cloudless blue sky at the mountains beyond. Out there they were looking for Osama. It was a symbolic gesture. We’d find out later that Osama bin Laden was in fact in those hills in a place called Tora Bora.
That had been a few days before. Now I was on my way from the drug and gun zone to the war zone.
Then the Quadir fixer spoke briefly with a very tall man in a turban, who seemed to be in charge. The gate flew open and I walked into Afghanistan as an honored guest with Javid by my side. The Pakistani official had been wrong. The mujahideen did want to let me through. It only cost me $100, approximately $500 less than the TV people had paid.
Javid and I grabbed a fairly well-appointed Toyota taxi—four wheels and four doors and about half a suspension -- and sped off toward Jalalabad. I was now travelling without an armed escort ninety kilometers across territory buzzing with danger listening to Nevermind on the cassette player. This situation called for special music. Javid sat in the front, and I scrunched down in the back seat pulled my woolen Afghan hat down to just over my eyes drawing my Arab scarf up to cover most of the rest of my face. We could be stopped at any checkpoint and hassled for money. But I hoped that they would ignore us in an Afghan-registered cab. I was hoping. It was a surreal dash across the Afghan plain. I was high on adrenalin like never before. I was happy. My temples were buzzing with Nirvana lyrics.
One more special message to go
Then I’m done and I can go home.
I love myself better than you
I know it’s wrong, but should I do?
I’m on a plain.
I can’t complain.
That night I sat in the restaurant with another journalist, a photographer from New York. We ate and talked about the war. Later she took me aside and said: “You must have balls the size of New York to have driven here in a taxi without an armed escort.” I laughed. She had been traveling in and out of Afghanistan for fifteen years. Her balls were bigger than mine. We retreated to my room for a much-needed glass of vodka. As we sipped the clear alcohol we went quiet, absorbed in what a lifestyle magazine might term the “Afghan experience.” It was summer. There was a war still on. A war that might go on forever like say in the Middle East or in Northern Ireland. We were all right though. We had made a separate peace. Now we could say: Been there. Done that. Got the t-shirt.