Taliban Rising (Page 4)

One region where poppy eradication has reportedly been effective is in Nangarhar. Lying east of Kabul, Nangarhar is a long, mountainous province that juts out into the tribal belt of Pakistan; its population is heavily Pashtun. "We are facing a lot of problems," says Ghulam Hazrat, a teacher and farmer in the Derazi village of the Kama district, north of the provincial capital of Jalalabad.

Last year the government promised each farmer here $350 for every half-acre not planted with poppy. But the people in Kama say the money was stolen. "Only some farmers got $150," says Hazrat. "We have no paper or books in the school. The road is bad and there is no clinic. The teachers have not been paid in three months. Maybe we will plant this year. If we don't plant we will suffer, and when people suffer, people fight."

In more remote parts of Nangarhar, eradication is even less effective. The Sherzad district lies several hours southwest of Jalalabad, at the end of a rutted dirt track. The landscape is desert canyons and barren hills punctuated by villages clustered along beleaguered little rivers flowing down from the mountains on the Pakistani border.

In the village of Toto, not far from the border, I meet Wazir, an old-school poppy farmer, who lives in a qala with his two wives. In a manner typical of rural Afghanistan, the neighboring families in this district engage in constant blood feuding, and according to Wazir crime is common throughout south Nangarhar.

Nangarhar's security reports revealed that crime was not the only issue: Twenty-three mostly war-related incidents were listed during the week I made my visit. According to the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office, there was a kidnapping threat, ongoing counterinsurgency operations and "reported infiltration of a new group of AGE/Insurgents" made up of "Arabs, Chechens and Pakistanis." Two vehicles used by "armed Taliban" were spotted in Sherzad, and there were some rocket attacks. The reports paint a picture of a region beyond government control.

"The eradication campaign came, but they just took bribes," says Wazir as we sit in his dera, a shaded outside visiting area, on rope and wooden cots called charpayi. "When we heard that they were coming we went to the district governor and negotiated a price." Wazir says that the local "commander," named Hasil, was chosen as the farmers' envoy.

"If the governor had not accepted the bribe, we were ready to fight. If a farmer loses his poppy he can't even have tea and sugar. He will borrow money from a rich person and lose his land." Wazir says emergency loans carry 100 percent interest rates.

The official rhetoric of poppy eradication is ridiculously ambitious when compared with facts on the ground. Among the "five pillars" of the strategy are "judicial reform" and "alternative livelihoods." None of that exists here. The only NGO in this district digs wells, but Wazir says that the corrupt drilling team charges a fee for what should be aid.

As the sun starts to slide down in the sky, we head back out. Halfway to Jalalabad, five armed men emerge from behind rocks. One aims an RPG at our truck while another steps into the road and levels his AK-47 at the windshield. It's an ambush. The lead gunman approaches and asks, "Is that police truck still down in the village?"

By freak luck we had noticed a Frontier Police pickup truck getting gas in the village just behind us. Thinking fast, one of my Afghan colleagues answers: "Yes. And they will be following us in a few minutes." The gunman pauses, for one very long second, and then allows us to pass. We assume these men were local thieves, or possibly Taliban, who lay in wait for us or the cops but choked at the last minute.

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