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Fencing will divide Kulli Musas mosque |
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KULLI MUSA: The unmarked border between Pakistan and Afghanistan passes invisibly through Kulli Musa village. Now its ethnic Pashtun residents are alarmed by a Pakistani plan to fortify parts of the frontier to stop Taliban rebels crossing over to fight Afghan, NATO and US troops on the other side.
How can we allow fencing and mining between us. We will never accept this. Not at any cost, said Dost Mohammad, a bearded, turbaned villager from Kulli Musa.
The border snakes 2,500 km through rocky mountains and across deserts and is a major front line in the US-led war on terrorism. The fiercely independent Pashtun tribes have never paid much heed to the boundary dividing their lands. Half of our village mosque is in Pakistan and the other half in Afghanistan, said Mohammad, fingering a string of prayer beads as he spoke.
His brothers home is just across the border dividing the collection of mud-walled houses lying partly in Pakistans Balochistan province and partly in Afghanistans Kandahar province.
Last year was the bloodiest in Afghanistan since US-led troops ousted the Taliban in 2001. Pakistani forces have also been battling pro-Taliban militants on their side of the frontier, and President Pervez Musharraf fears the Taliban insurgency could escalate into a peoples war because of the alienation of Pashtuns, particularly by the Afghan government.
Pakistan, which has far more troops manning the border than Afghanistan and its Western allies, hopes fencing and mining on parts of the border will end accusations it is not doing enough to stop militants from infiltrating into Afghanistan.
But the plan, announced last month, has further strained relations with Afghanistan, which says Pakistan should instead tackle Taliban sanctuaries. Part of the problem is that Afghanistan does not recognise the colonial-era border, and argues that fortifying it would split Pashtun communities spread across both sides.
More destruction: Despite the conflict, normal life goes on in one of Pakistans most deprived regions. Government people know better about fencing the border but may Allah damn those who lay mines. Theyll kill our youngsters, said Hajania, 45, a villager who regularly drives her donkey cart across the border. Were poor people, we have no hostility with anyone. Villager Hayat Khan, 50, said: Pashtun tribes have already been destroyed by the bombing and fighting. Now they want to destroy us further.
There has been a reduction in militant attacks on the Pakistani side since the military forged a pact in September with tribal leaders in North Waziristan, a semi-autonomous tribal region in Pakistan. But US forces complain of increased attacks in Afghanistan.
The border was a Cold War front line in the 1980s when Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the West backed Afghan holy warriors and foreign militants battling Soviet occupiers in Afghanistan.
The Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun, emerged from religious schools on the border in the early 1990s. Although recognised internationally, the border, known as the Durand Line after the British colonialist who drew it in 1893, has soured ties between Afghanistan and Pakistan since Pakistan was founded in 1947. Afghans say it was imposed under duress and robbed Afghanistan of Pashtun lands to the west of the Indus River.
Militants, smugglers: Pakistani border security officer Colonel Masood Ahmed believes the fencing and mines will end illegal movement. Landmines will be laid three yards apart. Passing through them will not just be difficult but impossible, Ahmed said. The Afghan governments concocted allegations against Pakistan have become routine. Its a good way to protect the international frontier.
An Afghan counterpart says the fortifications wont work. Fencing and mining wont end cross-border Taliban movement, said Lieutenant General Abdul Razaq Khan in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak. Pakistan should end Taliban training camps in its territory. The problem cant be solved by creating difficulties for the people. The crossing between Spin Boldak and the Pakistani town of Chaman is the only legal crossing point on this part of the border. Thousands of people pass through its Dosti gate every day. But countless numbers villagers, smugglers and militants stream across unofficial points up and down the border.
The secret, illegal crossings will never close, said Alam Khan, 45, who was driving a jeep loaded with fertiliser into Afghanistan through an illegal crossing. We can just bribe the Pakistani and Afghan guards. Weve been doing it for years, said Khan.
Source: Reuters, UK |
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Karzai lambasts border mine plan |
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Afghan President Hamid Karzai has criticised Pakistan's plans to fence and lay landmines along sections of its border with Afghanistan.
President Karzai said that the plans would only separate tribes and families, not prevent terrorism.
Pashtun tribes people live on either side of the Pakistan-Afghan border.
Afghanistan has long said the Taleban carry out cross-border attacks from Pakistan. Pakistan denies involvement in the attacks.
On Thursday, Mr Karzai said that removing the "sanctuaries" of terrorists would be more effective than fencing or laying mines along the border.
Concern for civilians
Fencing and mining, he told a news conference, would cause people "difficulty in movement, in trade".
United Nations officials have also criticised the plans, saying they will lead to civilian casualties.
A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman said on Tuesday that the measures would help prevent insurgents from Pakistan crossing into Afghanistan to fight Nato forces there.
Officials say that as the fence and mines would be on the Pakistani side of the 2,430km (1,510-mile) border, an agreement with its neighbour was not needed.
Additional paramilitary troops will also be deployed along the border, they say. |
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Doing it the Dutch way in Afghanistan |
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GRAEME SMITH
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
TIRIN KOT, AFGHANISTAN At the age of 23, Nisar Ahmad has seen a lot of fighting. His gang of Barakzai tribesmen was the first militia to reach Kandahar behind a wave of U.S. bombs in 2001, grabbing power in the city as the Taliban fled. The same Barakzai warriors chased the Taliban north into the mountains of Uruzgan province, and spent the past five years hunting around these craggy peaks and rolling valleys alongside U.S. special forces.
Four months ago, the hunt ended. The Dutch military took command of Uruzgan, and immediately told Mr. Ahmad's men to stop their raids and ambushes. His militia of 250 battle-hardened fighters was given a new assignment: guard duty.
On a recent afternoon, Mr. Ahmad watched his men play soccer in the confines of a Dutch military base known as Kamp Holland, and he seemed pleased with his new, quiet life.
In the last four months, this province is safer, he said. I'll tell you why. When you treat people badly, it comes back at you. When you treat people well, he said, gesturing at the quiet provincial capital of Tirin Kot, slumbering in the valley below the Dutch base, this is the result.
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Pashtuns want an image change |
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Source: BBC, UK
Pashtuns feel they are being demonised wrongly
Since 11 September 2001, Pashtuns feel they have become the most vilified ethnic group in the world.
They are angry, frustrated and now want to reclaim their identity from being lumped with the Taleban and as perpetrators of terrorism and suicide bombings.
Most Afghan prisoners held by the Americans in Guantanamo Bay in Cuba or at Bagram air base near Kabul are Pashtun.
Those who have emerged from these - and Afghan and Pakistani-run jails are also Pashtun.
So are the thousands of civilian casualties who have been bombed by mistake or carelessness in southern Afghanistan by US and Nato pilots during military operations since 11 September.
US soldiers who knocked down doors and interrogated women, alienating the population, did so largely in the Pashtun south, where American forces have been accused by locals of treating all Pashtuns as the enemy - an association that Nato is now trying to change.
Around the world we are accused of being terrorists, but tolerance is in our blood
Mehmood Khan Achakzai, Pashtun politician.
All the 80 dead victims of the Pakistani air force bombing of a madrassa in Bajaur tribal agency in Pakistan in late October were also Pashtun.
The pace of promised development, reconstruction and money spent by Western donors is slowest in Afghanistan's Pashtun south.
Pakistan's Pashtun belt is one of the most deprived regions in the country, even though it holds immense resources and generates nearly 50% of the country's hydro-electric power.
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