Opium Nation Page 24

  The boys are interrupted by the sound of screeching brakes. They look up to see a four-door black Jeep come to a sudden halt. It’s Feraidoon’s maternal uncle Haji Ainuddin, with a man they do not know.

  “Salaam Maamaa,” Feraidoon says, greeting his uncle. Haji Ainuddin smiles at Feraidoon and offers his nephew and Yosuf ice cream.

  “Get in the car and I’ll buy you whatever you want,” Haji Ainuddin tells Feraidoon.

  “Really? Come on, Yosuf, we’ll come back soon so you don’t have to tell your mom,” Feraidoon convinces his friend.

  The boys excitedly board the Jeep. It’s the last time they are seen alive.

  Four months after the kidnapping, I sit with Halim, Yosuf’s father, in a large, sweltering room on the second floor of the Rustaq town center. Halim, forty-one, is among a hundred men who are members of the Citizens’ Council, a group formed after the demonstrations in Rustaq in 2005. The men eagerly and openly voice their complaints against the commanders in the district, who they say are still involved in the drug trade. Piram Qul and his deputy, Subhan Qul, are the targets of their anger. Many of the men here are victims of land seizures and harassment. Few of them can feel the pain that Halim expresses.

  Heroin is the root cause of his boy’s kidnapping.

  “Relatives told me that Yosuf, my youngest son, was kidnapped that afternoon. I have three daughters and now two boys. He was my third son who completed my family. I don’t have much hope that Yosuf’s alive. Ainuddin is Piram Qul’s father-in-law. I’m sure Piram Qul’s involved in the kidnapping. He came at eleven PM the night of the kidnapping from Kabul, when Ainuddin was arrested by Amniat. I went on Ariana Television and told the media that Piram Qul’s father-in-law had kidnapped the boys. A few nights later, eight armed men who work for Piram Qul stopped me. They told me that my child is alive. ‘If you want this type of exposure, then he will also die.’ I knew then that they had killed Najib’s son,” Halim says. He busies himself fixing his turban and lowers his eyes to hide the tears.

  “Why would Ainuddin or Piram Qul kill your son?” I ask.

  “Because I’m the head of nine villages of Uzbeks in Rustaq who do not support him,” Halim says. “He considers himself the Uzbek leader here, and I as an Uzbek want to distance myself from these ethnic loyalties and support someone who follows the law. I was a leader in the demonstrations against him last year. Now he’s getting his revenge on me.”

  Yosuf is still missing, but thirteen days prior to my meeting with Halim, residents who were washing their dishes in the Kokcha River found Feraidoon’s body. None of the men among the council want to tell me more about the body or how he was killed. “It’s better not to share such gruesome details,” one man says.

  Feraidoon’s father, Najib, is not among the council members. He is mourning the loss of his son at the hands of his wife’s brother. What the council members do not tell me is that Najib owed Ainuddin $30,000 in drug money. Assadullah Walwaluji, a native of Takhar, a member of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, and a critic of Piram Qul, says that Najib did not have the money to pay back Ainuddin. “He tried everything to get his money back from Najib, but he didn’t get it so he resorted to kidnapping his own nephew. Halim’s innocent in all this. As far as I know, his hands cannot reach the drug trade. Halim’s son might’ve been targeted because of Halim’s role in the demonstrations.”

  “Is Piram Qul involved in all this?” I ask.

  “Piram Qul is the one who ordered the boys to be killed,” Walwaluji says. “That would leave no proof. The kidnapping was supposed to pressure Najib to pay off his debt, but when he wasn’t able to, the children became a liability.”

  The men and women I talk to about Bashir and Piram Qul have rivalries or loyalties to each, and I search to find a neutral voice. At Concern, an Irish-based NGO that has been active in Takhar since the 1998 earthquake, I meet two aid workers, a Bangladeshi man and an Afghan man, who judge Piram Qul and Amer Bashir in a larger context of Afghanistan’s current history. The men want to remain anonymous.

  “All these commanders are killers,” says the Bangladeshi man, who has spent the last three years in Rustaq. “There’s no argument there, but so are members of the current government. You have to consider these men in perspective. They bring security to the area, and Piram Qul has pride, capacity, and understanding that he’s a leader. However, he has illegally captured land, kept women captive, and killed people. But he’s a force that has good potential and he’s still a war hero among the mullah population. He supports NGO work and wants to promote women’s rights and education.”

  The aid worker says the demonstrations against Piram Qul had an ethnic bias—the Tajiks wanted the educators removed simply because they were Uzbek and they wanted Tajiks to replace them. He says the Citizens’ Council includes corrupt commanders and former Communists who have also killed people and who oppose Piram Qul for being more powerful than they are.

  The Afghan aid worker agrees that in a time of anarchy after the Soviet war these commanders served a purpose and may still be a better option than the ragtag corrupt officials in the government. “There’s no documentation that the commanders are involved in the drug trade, but they must know about it. The police installed by the current government deal more in drugs than these commanders. Each road crossing has specific fees that must be paid to the police if a vehicle with heroin is passing through,” he says. “Our local economy is directly affected by the price of opium here. If it sells for less, then the value of the dollar goes down, too.”

  “Aren’t the militiamen now the police?” I ask.

  “A few, but things were more centralized under these commanders. You need a bit of a dictatorship to get things done here. Bashir did a lot for education, allowing girls to study with boys. Piram Qul’s keen on morality. The demonstrations actually strengthened Piram Qul, because it united his supporters and they went out to vote for him. Now that he’s in Parliament, no matter what anybody says, he looks the other way.”

  The aid workers do not provide the neutral voice I was looking for but rather a practical outlook on Takhar’s political landscape. I’m uncomfortable with their pragmatism. The assumption that Afghans need an iron fist to be ruled reeks of colonialist racism. But is an iron fist necessary for any country that has been at war for thirty years? For the sake of security and stability, do Afghans have to tolerate a leader who seizes their land, rapes their women, and, like the Taliban leader Mullah Omar, forces an outdated code of justice that invites the public to cheer on executions in sports stadiums? Many of my Afghan colleagues and friends tell me that Afghans are not ready for democracy because they are illiterate and have lived under a monarchy for centuries. A king—who, to them, is akin to a prophet—is needed to control the tribes and ethnic rivalries that divide Afghanistan. I think about this question throughout my travels and come to the conclusion that Afghanistan needs a strong leader, one who has the will and courage to make tough decisions. But that leader can also be a progressive democrat who enforces a federalist system that allows local freedoms. Piram Qul, Amer Bashir, and rulers like them may be a viable short-term fix, but Afghans—no matter how uneducated—deserve a benevolent and fair leader.

  Piram Qul is in Rustaq on a break from Parliament when I meet with the Citizens’ Council. I ask for a meeting with him and am promptly requested to show up at his guesthouse. We meet in the late afternoon and talk until the sun sets. The man described to me as an unforgiving brute shows me a different side. His expressive eyes sparkle when he talks. He’s relaxed and kind and exudes sincerity. His ironed turban perfectly frames his face; his fitted pirahan tomban and vest are spotless.

  I joke that his wives must take good care of him. “Yes, they do,” he replies with a grin. “But I’m not a dictator. I give them freedom.”

  “How many wives and children do you have?”

  “Six wives and twenty-three children: thirteen sons, twelve daughters. My wives are near my age
. The youngest is thirty-five, and I’m forty-five. I want to get all my children educated. My oldest daughter just finished high school. Is there any way you can find for my sons and daughters to get scholarships to study in America?” he asks seriously.

  “I can get information on scholarships for you if you’d like,” I tell him. I don’t point out to him that twelve and thirteen add up to twenty-five, not twenty-three. He says it’s hard to remember his children’s names sometimes because there are so many of them.

  Piram Qul presents himself as a simple, uneducated, honest man of the people who is open to change, women’s rights, and democracy. “I’m a populist commander, not a party commander,” he says. “I’m not an educated commander. I just knew how to fight and lead a battalion against the Communists. I will fight against the Taliban until my death. I do not believe in their way of Islam. I am a Muslim who believes in progress. I tolerate the current government. I try to be careful that the government will not be unhappy with me. It’s a sick government. Everywhere you look, there’s corruption. Our enemies won’t allow us to be in peace. Pakistan is behind most of our troubles.”

  “Aren’t you part of the corruption and drug dealing?” I ask. “Why are so many people demonstrating against you, and what about this kidnapping by your father-in-law that involves drug money?”

  “I become happy that whoever has a complaint against me should have the right to complain. When they catch the person with the drugs, then they can convict him. It’s possible that my commanders or relatives do it, but I’m not responsible for their actions. I don’t protect those relatives. The law should catch those people and punish them. That’s why my father-in-law is in jail now, and he should be tried and his guilt should be proven. Up to now, the international community does not have proof against me.”

  Piram Qul is well aware that unless the international community presents evidence against him, local complaints from residents he harasses carry no weight. Implicit in our conversation is the understanding that he can continue to exercise his power against whoever stands up to him even while denying being involved in any acts of coercion.

  We discuss the impact of war, and he becomes melancholy, then emotional. “War is a disaster. It leads to ignorance and illiteracy. I’m the face of war, and there is much darkness in my heart. We have to get out of this violent cycle.”

  He claims to have given up the five thousand arms he had left over from the Soviet war to the national disarmament program. “Some of the arms the commanders under me sold to Pakistan on the black market. I don’t have the same kind of power now that I used to. I’m no longer a military man. The people here do not realize that, and they still think I run things.”

  “How common was drug smuggling when you were in charge for more than a decade?” I ask.

  “When I was in charge, people could not even plant hashish. I had brought stability. We had an earthquake in 1998. There was stability for NGOs to help the victims.”

  I hold back my next question: Was the reason that no one could plant hashish or traffic in drugs because you controlled the trafficking that passed through Rustaq? I avoid this question—I want to leave Takhar unharmed.

  I take up Azam’s offer to go to Samti, a forty-five-minute drive from Chahab center. We’ve just learned that Amer Bashir has returned after a year away and has made an agreement with the government and NATO to take up arms again and set up a garrison against the insurgency along the Kokcha River. We’re driving through the mountains in a Russian Jeep. Our driver says that a few hundred meters below is a valley used as a mass grave for casualties during the wars. I look down. The valley is too deep for me to see anything but a dark abyss. Past this death valley the landscape becomes verdant with pistachio trees, orchards, and melon fields. Then, in the distance, I see a body of water and, across it, black mountains. The water is the Amu, a river engraved in the pages of history. Dividing Afghanistan from the former Soviet Union, the Amu is calm, its water soiled and brown, its banks curved like a maze. Rustaq and Chahab lie between the Amu and Kokcha rivers. The Kokcha’s white water is loud and wild.

  We arrive in Samti village, a fertile land hugging the Amu. The air smells like morning dew; the place is unusually clean and quiet for a village. A group of young girls sit on the boulders of the riverbank and braid one another’s brunette locks. Azam summons three village elders and we all gather in a carpeted room overlooking the river. Azam is somber. He greets the elders as if he has come to a funeral. He introduces me, then lets me tell the villagers that the vicious commander they had risked their lives to drive away a year ago has just returned.

  “Bashir’s back,” I say quietly. “Just today.”

  The tribal elders pause for a moment and put their teacups down. Haji Habib, the eldest, tries to speak, but his voice cracks and his hand shakes. The silence speaks of fear and hopelessness. I do not push them to talk. I compliment them on the beauty of their village and the courage of the villagers. Azam asks them to tell me what crimes Bashir committed against them, but they remain silent. “We’d rather just forget those events and move on—but how could he come back?” Haji Habib finally says. “The Karzai government promised us that he would stay in Kabul.”

  “The government is full of lies,” Azam responds.

  The elders invite us to stay for lunch. “But I don’t think you should ask too many questions about Bashir if he’s back,” Haji Habib says. “We will be punished if we answer them.”

  When Azam and I return to Chahab, he steps out of the Jeep behind a shop so that no one can see us together. He returns home, and I call Amer Bashir on my cell phone to ask for a meeting. He agrees.

  Bashir’s house is the only painted concrete structure in the district. The other homes are one story and made of bare mud brick. When I arrive, Bashir greets me with an awkward handshake in front of the house, surrounded by his bodyguards, and one of his sons brings a table and chairs so that we can sit out on his lawn.

  Bashir is cautious but cooperative with me. He folds one leg over the other and doesn’t touch his tea. “I don’t know why these people demonstrated against me. I did all I could for them. I built a mosque, I built a school with twenty-nine classrooms for boys, I gave them wheat, I tried to build a dam, but we didn’t have the expertise to finish it, and I gave them a paved road. They’re so unappreciative.”

  “Will you meet with them to ask why?” I ask.

  “They’re not willing to speak to me—not today, not tomorrow. We forgave the Communists. That’s the mistake of the mujahideen. We should’ve let the law punish them. Many of these demonstrators were Communists.”

  “If the Communists demonstrated because you are a mujahid, then why did the others demonstrate?”

  “People now have this democracy and press freedom and it gave them courage,” he concedes in his thick, coarse voice.

  “So will you apologize to the people?”

  “Yes, I’m sorry they’re unhappy with me. I want to serve the people here.”

  “Do you still have an army with weapons?”

  “No, I turned in all my weapons, even the antiaircraft missiles. I had a thousand men fighting with me, but now I’m just a civilian.”

  “How bad is the problem with drug trafficking here?”

  “There’s no drug trafficking,” he says matter-of-factly.

  “What do you plan to do here now?”

  “I came to make peace with the people. I may leave if they do not want me here. I have no intention of hurting anyone.”

  During the interview, my legs keep shifting, almost of their own accord. I am ready to sprint away if necessary, but I soon realize Bashir is not a danger to me and is simply trying to get good publicity. I am safe, but I wonder what he will do to the people who rose against him.

  Four years later, Azam is the head of the provincial council in Chahab and Bashir has been driven back to Kabul by the people of Chahab. Residents lobbied NATO and the U.S. coalition not to arm him or his soldier
s again. International aid money has merely built a school in Chahab town center, while the people of Samti are asking the government to provide access to clean water and health care. Drug trafficking has spread, with General Daud still the alleged kingpin in Takhar. Shipments of heroin across the border to Tajikistan are made without searches or interceptions. In Rustaq district, young Yosuf was never found and is assumed drowned in the river. The man jailed for his kidnapping, Haji Ainuddin, paid a bribe to get out and continues to traffic drugs.

  In Takhar, I feel I cannot trust anyone. Every man I speak to seems to have a bloody background mired in drugs. I’m tired of double talk. I’m anxious to return to Kabul, where I know a few clean agents who actually attempt to fight the predators of the drug trade.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The Good Agents

  The international perspective on the drug trade is that the majority of Afghans are involved in dealing drugs inside the country and it’s the Afghans who refuse to give up the illicit trade. Actually, there are Afghans who have given their lives to fight the trade, who cannot be bought off or frightened by drug lords. Idrees and Obaid are two such heroes.

  Idrees is a top member of the National Interdiction Unit trained by Blackwater and the DEA. He’s a natural policeman with a sense of civic duty and patriotism, an intelligent bodybuilder who enforces law and order both in his family and in his Khair Khana neighborhood in Kabul. He has created a system in which the neighbors on his block pile up the garbage in one area and the city garbage truck takes it away weekly. Idrees’s block is one of the cleanest in the neighborhood. At thirty-two, he’s one of four brothers and six sisters. He’s the sole breadwinner, but his family receives wheat and rice from their fields in Kunduz province in the north. Idrees’s parents spend most of their time on their land in Kunduz. He’s in charge of his unmarried brothers and sisters. He is married to his cousin Tahmina, and they have a six-year-old daughter, Hellay, and six-month-old twins, a girl and a boy, Sarah and Rahim. Idrees is a loving dad who wakes up in the middle of the night to feed his twins, who laughs and dances with his daughter. But his position as head of the household is never questioned because he has the siasat (the discipline) to ensure a timely meal, a clean house, and a moral environment—no cigarettes, drugs, or alcohol. When a member of the family steps out of bounds—for example, by neglecting their homework or chores—he need only frown, and they quickly obey. Idrees is adamant that only he water the plants in the yard.