Liberated Helmandis Fearful of Taleban Revenge
Villagers give election registration team short shrift, believing insurgents could soon be back.
Liberated Helmandis Fearful of Taleban Revenge
Villagers give election registration team short shrift, believing insurgents could soon be back.
Just pack up and leave!” said Nazar Gul angrily. The middle-aged man had snuff dribbling from the corner of his mouth, and his beard rippled in the wind. “These cards you are issuing are very stiff. If we are caught with them, the Taleban will make us eat them, and they are very hard to digest.”
Nazar Gul was speaking to a registration team from the Independent Election Commission, IEC, which came to his native village of Khaja just last week. Khaja lies in Nawzad district, site of a recent major offensive led by 400 United States Marines and 100 Afghan National Army soldiers.
The mission was meant to allow the residents of Nawzad, who have been under Taleban government for the past three years, to take part in the August 20 elections.
According to Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, the operation was a success. He arrived in a US military helicopter to hoist the Afghan flag on a hilltop overlooking Khaja, and he was liberal with his praise for the US forces.
“In a very short time we managed to clear a second district of the Taleban,” he said. The first district, Khanshin, was cleared in early July. “We have raised the Afghan national flag,” continued Mangal. “This would not have been possible without the Marines.”
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson was happy to take the praise on behalf of his men, but he acknowledged that the mission was far from complete.
“The Marines, along with the Afghan forces, have cleared the main areas of insurgents,” he told the media. “But in northern Nawzad there are still people under the Taleban.”
The governor’s appearance did not generate much enthusiasm among the newly-liberated residents of Khaja. Most people sent their children to hear his hour-long speech, rather than come out themselves. Mangal, seated on his patu (scarf) and leaning against the trunk of a dead tree, spoke to a very small crowd made up mostly of teenage boys.
Even then, the governor was not the main focus of the audience’s attention.
“Who is that beautiful woman?” said local Shirin Khan, staring openly at a female Marine. “How can these people bring security? They will go, and this evening the Taleban will come, and say to us ‘Where is that beautiful foreigner?’”
Close on the heels of the governor came the IEC, determined to give the residents of Nawzad a chance to vote in the elections, now just days away.
But the villagers remained aloof. Few were willing to avail themselves of the opportunity presented.
“You will leave,” said resident Hajji Nanak Aka. “And then the Taleban will cut our throats.”
For locals, the operation was far from a success, regardless of the rhetoric.
“It is not that we are against these [registration] cards,” said one old man. “But we need security first. All of these villages are full of Taleban. What can I say to them? If the government is worried about Nawzad’s votes, they should have saved us from the Taleban three years ago. I do not want a card just one day before these elections.”
The governor and his delegation, including Helmand’s chief of public health, Enayatullah Ghafoori, the head of the department of rural rehabilitation and development, Omar Qani, and other dignitaries, climbed the hill to get an overview of Nawzad in the wake of the recent operation.
It was a tragic landscape. Many villages had been burned. The local bazaar, which had been the largest in the district, was in ruins, smoke escaping from the gaping black mouths of the bombed-out shops.
“See those burned trees?” said one Nawzad resident, who did not want to give his name. “Those were pomegranates, the best in Helmand. Lots of people used to come here. They would sit and talk to each other. We would have shuras (councils). But the foreign forces burned everything.”
Angrily, he added, “So you are here today to raise the flag. Why do it on a hillside? Go down there, where there are people. You are lying when you say you have cleared Nawzad from the Taleban. Go to the district centre, you will see what happens then.”
The man pointed bitterly at the IEC registration team.
“During the initial phase of registration, nobody came here. Instead, we got bombs. Lots of bombs. They destroyed our gardens, our homes. Why are they killing us?” he said.
From the hilltop, we could see some green in the distance, beyond the devastation.
“Those green areas you see are still full of people,” said Shirin Del, a resident of the area. “They are surrounded by mines. They are lucky.”
The police said that many of the roads were carpeted in landmines laid by the Taleban.
General Nicholson assured residents that the area would be cleared.
“We will demine Nawzad,” he said. “But for this we will need eight months. The Taleban even mined the walls. We need some time.”
But with the election countdown now being measured in hours, time has run out.
Much of Nawzad is empty. Everyone who could leave has done so, even if they only got as far as Lashkar Gah. At least in the provincial capital, they say, they can breathe without fear of foreign bombardment, or Taleban torture.
There is a new police chief, Sarwar Jan, and a district governor, Sayed Murad Agha. In their first days in office, they were rocketed more than ten times. Even now, with US Marine helicopters present, loud booms could be heard in the distance.
When you see the boys of Nawzad, many of them have scarred faces.
“It’s war,” shrugged Rahimullah, a teenager. “And I am going to take a gun and go join the [Taleban].”
They are friendly and gather round a stranger, eager to talk.
“Our brains are scrambled from the sound of these explosions,” said Toza Gul. The rest of the boys began to laugh at him. “The government is thinking of the elections. But we need schools. Oh, what great schools we had!”
When the journalists left Nawzad, so did the registration team. Back in Lashkar Gah, the head of the team, who did not want to give his name, said that he wanted to speak with the IEC head in Helmand.
“What are we doing in Nawzad?” he said. “There are no people left there to register.”
But the governor is determined to hold elections there.
“If it is possible we will have one registration centre and one polling centre in Nawzad,” he said.
“One team for all of Nawzad?” snorted Muzhtaba Mohammadi, a political analyst. “They must know that nobody will vote unless there is security. In Helmand it’s a matter of the legitimacy of the elections. They should have sent the Americans long ago. Now the Americans are here, conducting an operation, and tomorrow, during the fighting, people are supposed to vote?”
Mohammad Ilyas Dayee is an IWPR staff journalist in Helmand.
Nazar Gul was speaking to a registration team from the Independent Election Commission, IEC, which came to his native village of Khaja just last week. Khaja lies in Nawzad district, site of a recent major offensive led by 400 United States Marines and 100 Afghan National Army soldiers.
The mission was meant to allow the residents of Nawzad, who have been under Taleban government for the past three years, to take part in the August 20 elections.
According to Helmand governor Gulab Mangal, the operation was a success. He arrived in a US military helicopter to hoist the Afghan flag on a hilltop overlooking Khaja, and he was liberal with his praise for the US forces.
“In a very short time we managed to clear a second district of the Taleban,” he said. The first district, Khanshin, was cleared in early July. “We have raised the Afghan national flag,” continued Mangal. “This would not have been possible without the Marines.”
Brigadier General Larry Nicholson was happy to take the praise on behalf of his men, but he acknowledged that the mission was far from complete.
“The Marines, along with the Afghan forces, have cleared the main areas of insurgents,” he told the media. “But in northern Nawzad there are still people under the Taleban.”
The governor’s appearance did not generate much enthusiasm among the newly-liberated residents of Khaja. Most people sent their children to hear his hour-long speech, rather than come out themselves. Mangal, seated on his patu (scarf) and leaning against the trunk of a dead tree, spoke to a very small crowd made up mostly of teenage boys.
Even then, the governor was not the main focus of the audience’s attention.
“Who is that beautiful woman?” said local Shirin Khan, staring openly at a female Marine. “How can these people bring security? They will go, and this evening the Taleban will come, and say to us ‘Where is that beautiful foreigner?’”
Close on the heels of the governor came the IEC, determined to give the residents of Nawzad a chance to vote in the elections, now just days away.
But the villagers remained aloof. Few were willing to avail themselves of the opportunity presented.
“You will leave,” said resident Hajji Nanak Aka. “And then the Taleban will cut our throats.”
For locals, the operation was far from a success, regardless of the rhetoric.
“It is not that we are against these [registration] cards,” said one old man. “But we need security first. All of these villages are full of Taleban. What can I say to them? If the government is worried about Nawzad’s votes, they should have saved us from the Taleban three years ago. I do not want a card just one day before these elections.”
The governor and his delegation, including Helmand’s chief of public health, Enayatullah Ghafoori, the head of the department of rural rehabilitation and development, Omar Qani, and other dignitaries, climbed the hill to get an overview of Nawzad in the wake of the recent operation.
It was a tragic landscape. Many villages had been burned. The local bazaar, which had been the largest in the district, was in ruins, smoke escaping from the gaping black mouths of the bombed-out shops.
“See those burned trees?” said one Nawzad resident, who did not want to give his name. “Those were pomegranates, the best in Helmand. Lots of people used to come here. They would sit and talk to each other. We would have shuras (councils). But the foreign forces burned everything.”
Angrily, he added, “So you are here today to raise the flag. Why do it on a hillside? Go down there, where there are people. You are lying when you say you have cleared Nawzad from the Taleban. Go to the district centre, you will see what happens then.”
The man pointed bitterly at the IEC registration team.
“During the initial phase of registration, nobody came here. Instead, we got bombs. Lots of bombs. They destroyed our gardens, our homes. Why are they killing us?” he said.
From the hilltop, we could see some green in the distance, beyond the devastation.
“Those green areas you see are still full of people,” said Shirin Del, a resident of the area. “They are surrounded by mines. They are lucky.”
The police said that many of the roads were carpeted in landmines laid by the Taleban.
General Nicholson assured residents that the area would be cleared.
“We will demine Nawzad,” he said. “But for this we will need eight months. The Taleban even mined the walls. We need some time.”
But with the election countdown now being measured in hours, time has run out.
Much of Nawzad is empty. Everyone who could leave has done so, even if they only got as far as Lashkar Gah. At least in the provincial capital, they say, they can breathe without fear of foreign bombardment, or Taleban torture.
There is a new police chief, Sarwar Jan, and a district governor, Sayed Murad Agha. In their first days in office, they were rocketed more than ten times. Even now, with US Marine helicopters present, loud booms could be heard in the distance.
When you see the boys of Nawzad, many of them have scarred faces.
“It’s war,” shrugged Rahimullah, a teenager. “And I am going to take a gun and go join the [Taleban].”
They are friendly and gather round a stranger, eager to talk.
“Our brains are scrambled from the sound of these explosions,” said Toza Gul. The rest of the boys began to laugh at him. “The government is thinking of the elections. But we need schools. Oh, what great schools we had!”
When the journalists left Nawzad, so did the registration team. Back in Lashkar Gah, the head of the team, who did not want to give his name, said that he wanted to speak with the IEC head in Helmand.
“What are we doing in Nawzad?” he said. “There are no people left there to register.”
But the governor is determined to hold elections there.
“If it is possible we will have one registration centre and one polling centre in Nawzad,” he said.
“One team for all of Nawzad?” snorted Muzhtaba Mohammadi, a political analyst. “They must know that nobody will vote unless there is security. In Helmand it’s a matter of the legitimacy of the elections. They should have sent the Americans long ago. Now the Americans are here, conducting an operation, and tomorrow, during the fighting, people are supposed to vote?”
Mohammad Ilyas Dayee is an IWPR staff journalist in Helmand.
