-Caveat Lector- Afghanistan gets its first party town Sunday, August 3rd, 2003
Email to Friend | Printer Friendly Version The Guardian - The old man in a turban stared in disbelief at the row of Land Cruisers parked in a smart Kabul street, their drivers waiting for the partygoers in the house where Madonna blared out. The imported alcohol and scandalous dancing, men and women together, could not be seen from the street, but Afghans have a pretty good idea about what happens on the foreigners' weekend party circuit and lurid imagination fills in the gaps. Plenty of Afghans are going to the parties too, or throwing their own, and it's a far cry from the Taliban days when fun was banned and you could be jailed for watching a smuggled Bollywood video. But with the fundamentalists long gone and thousands of well-heeled foreign aid workers and ex-pat Afghans moved in, Kabul has been transformed from dusty backwater to wild party town - for those with the cash to enjoy it. Jack Straw pointed out the change on his stopover in Kabul last month, excitedly remarking on how many new businesses he'd seen on his drive from the airport to the foreign ministry. With trouble in the Middle East, Afghanistan looks like the success story the foreign secretary and other international visitors have been praying for. But away from the boom times in the capital, under the protection of an international peacekeeping force, is another Afghanistan where private armies still rule. The growing gap between capital and country was starkly underlined this week in a report by Human Rights Watch, who bluntly said US-backed gunmen have hijacked the country outside Kabul and created a climate of fear. Straw didn't see this, and sure enough Kabul is doing very nicely. Centre of this glittering new world is the exclusive suburb of Wazir Akbar Khan, once home to senior al-Qaeda men and almost untouched by years of fighting that left much of the city scarred. Roomy houses with big leafy gardens are seeing a London-style property price boom and it's also home to the hottest restaurant of the moment, the Lau Thai, run by enterprising Thais with branches in East Timor and Kosovo. The restaurant has been such a success, replacing last year's favourite B's Place, that the family is planning to set up next in Baghdad. But if its tables are fully booked there's Italian, Chinese, Indian or German to choose from or a steak and a few beers at the Mustapha Hotel's new bar, the first to open in two decades. The days when the choice was just kebab or greasy pilau seem long ago. Later the international set head out to party in the expensive mansions they have taken out on long leases, jamming streets with cars and blasting out music until late. Afghans are so shocked that frequent warning memos have to be sent out by the UN begging party goers to tone down the wild behaviour. Afghan parties may be tamer, but plenty of Kabulis are joining in the fun. Every Friday an exodus heads out of town on picnics, banned by the Taliban and merchants and landlords are prospering. Mercedes cars are proliferating on Kabul 's potholed streets and tawdry Pakistani-style mansions covered with marble and fake Roman pillars are going up, along with a giant five-star hotel owned by the powerful defence minister, Marshall Fahim. Aid workers complain about corruption, some government departments are said to have 11-year-old schoolchildren and hosts of ghost workers on the payroll, but after years of puritanism and economic stagnation, cash is swilling around town and everybody wants to enjoy it while the chance lasts. Internet cafes have sprouted up, mobile phones are everywhere, and pirated DVDs that would have given the Taliban apoplexy are on sale. If you can ignore the beggars and grinding poverty all around, it's fun, frenetic, and a little paranoid with fears that the party could come to a premature end with a car bomb or a grenade tossed over a wall. And it's a different world to the other Afghanistan, the one which starts just over an hour's drive to the southeast. Rape, robbery and murder are common in the Pushtun lands near Kabul where US troops are still based, according to researchers for the Human Rights Watch report, Killing You is Very Easy For Us. Spokesman Brad Adams said: "Human rights abuses in Afghanistan are being committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001. "These men and others have essentially hijacked the country outside Kabul. With less than a year to go before national elections, Afghanistan's human rights situation appears to be worsening." The group's findings made depressing reading for anyone who believes Afghanistan is on the road to recovery. Kidnap for ransom, house breaking, rape and extortion of shopkeepers and drivers on the roads are widespread. Villagers live in fear of gunmen. Girls are generally too scared to go to school for fear of fundamentalists, unlike their sisters in Kabul. Journalists and political organisers are being harassed by militias and the resurrected secret police, nicknamed the New Khad after the old Communist intelligence services. One of the most horrible abuses is the rape of teenage boys by commanders. In a land where warlords frequently keep young male concubines called "jingle boys", such crimes are common. The report describes these sexual predators dragging boys away from their families at gunpoint. One resident told Human Rights Watch about a commander in Zurmat district who was creating problems in late 2002: "There were a lot of problems. There was extortion, kidnapping, and even making handsome boys dance and then have sex. One commander arrested a man . and tortured him so much he died. But he kept his corpse until the man's brother agreed to give the daughter of the dead man in exchange. This is the sort of thing that happened." Ironically, Taliban leader Mullah Omar first came to prominence by killing commanders who fought over boys they wanted to rape, and such depravity helped win the Taliban the support they needed to propel them into power. The return of the warlords threatens frightening political consequences. Adams said: "The United States and United Kingdom in particular need to decide whether they are with President Karzai and other reformers or with the warlords. "The longer they wait, the more difficult it will be to loosen the warlords' grip on power." For Kabulis, who feel safer now and have more fun than they have done for decades, the chaos out of town doesn't spoil the party for now. But they know too much about Afghan history to think it will ignore them forever. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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