In Afghan village, freedom yields to frustration

By Jason Szep

BAMIYAN, Afghanistan, April 30 (Reuters) - In a dusty vegetable stall in one of Afghanistan's poorest cities, Shamsul Ahmad points to baskets of oranges and onions and says he earns about $1 a day, barely enough to feed his wife and five children.

"It's just surviving. Nothing more. It's not what I expected this year," he said bitterly, frowning under a dark green turban.

Ahmad's view is echoed across much of Afghanistan as feelings of goodwill towards the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai yield to frustration over the slow pace of reconstruction and economic reform in a nation shattered by two decades of war.

Few areas feel the pain so acutely as Bamiyan, an impoverished city still reeling from the loss of its towering 1,600-year-old Buddhas of Bamiyan statues, among the largest ever created, that were blown apart by the hardline Taliban in 2001.

Its main ethnic group, the Shi'ite Muslim Hazaras, endured some of the worst atrocities inflicted by the Taliban, followers of the rival Sunni Muslim creed. Hundreds of Hazaras were rounded up and executed. Bamiyan City's centuries-old bazaar was torched.

Thousands fled to Pakistan or Iran.

Mohammad Nasir considers himself lucky. He escaped to Pakistan but his uncle, his cousin and his cousin's son were killed. The 25-year-old returned to Bamiyan after U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban and Karzai was installed as interim leader.

"When the Taliban were gone, that was a happy moment. Many people were happy and there was freedom. The Hazara people could return to Bamiyan. But that was more than two years ago. Now, many people are out of work," said Nasir.

"The conditions here are not good."

CAVE DWELLING

Wedged between the breathtaking Hindu Kush mountains, the capital of Bamiyan province exists much the way it did a century ago. Fields are plowed by oxen, supplies are carted by donkey and homes are built of mud, straw and logs. There is no electricity.

Just last year the poorest lived in a warren of caves in pink sandstone cliffs where monks dwelled centuries ago on either side of the once-towering Bamiyan Buddhas. Many of Bamiyan's dirt roads are impassable in winter, isolating entire villages.

"We are living like we did years and years ago," said 48-year-old Mohammad Alim, walking a path between a patchwork of wheat, barley and potato fields in the heart of Bamiyan valley. "There are no new roads. Very little here is new."

Diplomats say expectations may have been set too high when, after the fall of the Taliban, hundreds of non-government organizations descended on Afghanistan and international donors pledged $4.5 billion in aid at a Tokyo conference in early 2002.

At least half that money went to food and other emergency assistance, leaving little for serious rebuilding. Afghan officials say $8.2 billion pledged in Berlin last month by donors over three years will kick off infrastructure projects.

"We can now enter legal contracts that require a commitment over several years. This means reconstruction is possible," said a Finance Ministry official.

Aid agencies and think-tanks say the West's commitment to Afghanistan has been lackluster, and much of the aid it might have won has been diverted to postwar Iraq, which had received 10 times as much despite having roughly the same population.

Some money has trickled into Bamiyan, allowing the province to reopen a university shut by the Taliban. But a mere 200 people in a population of 400,000 are enrolled in the one-storey building.

ELECTION WORRY

Roads still disintegrate in rainstorms and the 10 doctors at Bamiyan's main hospital, a compound that relies on extensive use of tents, struggle against a tide of about 200 patients a day on average from Bamiyan city and several remote highlands.

"We treat mainly malnutrition, respiratory diseases, skin disorders, tuberculosis, leprosy. Possibly the biggest problem is maternal complications," said Dr Shair Ahsanullah, the hospital's director.

"We have cases where pregnant women in remote villages try to walk five or six hours to the hospital to give birth," he said. "Many die, meaning two deaths, including the baby."

The maternal mortality rate in isolated villages was five times worse than sub-Saharan Africa, U.N. officials said.

Resentment is brewing, a troubling sign for Karzai as elections approach.

Complicating emotions are ethnic rivalries that erupted into violence during Taliban rule and still flare across the country, where 15,500 U.S.-led soldiers are hunting for remnants of the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network.

The Hazaras are thought to be descended from Genghis Khan's marauding 13th-century Mongol armies. An ethnic minority, they were persecuted by Tajiks and the Pashtuns who led the Taliban in revenge for violent Hazara acts committed years before.

"During the Taliban, there were massacres of the Hazara, arbitrary detentions. Many homes were destroyed," said Nader Naderi of the Afghan Human Rights Commission.

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