Some in Afghanistan look back on Taliban era as the good old days

Sayed Karim, Foreign Correspondent

• Last Updated: May 22. 2009 12:30AM UAE / May 21. 2009 8:30PM GMT

MAIDAN WARDAK, AFGHANISTAN // Nostalgia for the Taliban regime comes in many forms. Some Afghans associate that time with security; others simply remember it as an era when their husband or son had regular work. Then there are those who preferred the old life because their nation was not being occupied.

In Maidan Wardak province, all these feelings have built up to create a deadly, hostile environment. Few people are happy with what the US-led war has brought them and they want the troops out.

“The only way the situation can get better is if this government is finished and a new one takes its place. The foreigners should leave this country because they can’t control anything. The Americans want to send 20,000 more soldiers but, god willing, even if they send two million more the security will get worse,” said Mohammed Nayen.

Maidan Wardak lies to the south-west of Kabul, and in the past couple of years it has become an insurgent stronghold as the Taliban edge closer to the nation’s capital.

The atmosphere changes notably on entry into the province and there is a clear sense of anxiety and danger in the air. Many residents have grown hostile towards the government after being cautiously optimistic in the immediate aftermath of the US-led 2001 invasion.

The recent deployment of additional US soldiers to the area has also stirred up controversy among a population wary of outside interference.

And with summer fast approaching the trouble might only just be beginning.

“We liked the Taliban regime because there was security. It was good for rich and poor people, everyone was happy. The Americans just go to areas where the roads are good. If the roads are bad, they don’t go there,” Mr Nayen said.

Like other locals, he described a situation in which the government has completely lost the trust of the general public. The police are violent, commit robberies and are always looking for bribes, he said, adding that they falsely arrest university and madrasa students on trumped-up charges of being insurgents.

This has led to the Taliban filling the resulting vacuum. In some areas the rebels have closed down schools and threatened families, but they have also established a parallel justice system to help solve community disputes quickly and effectively.

Law and order, more than education or democracy, is what Afghans here crave most. Habib, a 37-year-old shopkeeper, said people were unable even to get national identification cards from the government without paying exorbitant fees.

“If they can’t give these to the people, how can they solve their other problems? How can they clean away the tears?”

“In all the districts of Maidan Wardak the government just keeps control in its offices. They can’t go out from them because everything else is under the control of the Taliban.”

The capital of this province lies an hour’s drive from central Kabul, on the motorway leading south towards Kandahar. In some parts of Afghanistan it is almost possible to escape the war and catch a glimpse of what the country might one day look like in peacetime; here, a future without violence and unrest seems like a dream. Heavily armed convoys drive quickly along the main road, grimly aware of the ambushes that have regularly taken place nearby. Helicopters occasionally fly overhead and once darkness falls people retreat into their homes.

Mr Habib said every effort must be made to hold talks with the insurgents if more bloodshed is to be avoided.

“If the government wants to negotiate with the Taliban we will be happy. I don’t know if the Taliban will accept the idea of talking or not, but they are also from Afghanistan and they have their own rights,” he said.

In reality, there have been few improvements for people in rural areas throughout southern and eastern Afghanistan over the past seven-and-a-half years. Social constraints have largely remained and the presence of foreign soldiers has brought a new uncertainty to life.

Today, residents in Maidan Wardak find themselves caught between the fear of having their homes raided and their male relatives detained, and the intimidation of the Taliban. In the end, they often side with the insurgents because it seems like the safest, most natural, option.

Dressed in a burqa, Jamila, who is 30, tells people she is off to visit her mother-in-law whenever she goes to her job as a tailor. She is scared of the Taliban, but also hates the foreign soldiers. “My sons must travel far to go to school and my husband is unemployed. If you looked at my home you would think that not even animals could live there,” she said.

“I don’t like the foreigners or what they have done for this country and for its women. During the Taliban time my husband had a job, now he doesn’t. The foreigners should leave the country because it’s not just me – no one likes them. They have killed lots of people.”



skarim@thenational.ae