Living Under the Taleban

The reports are grim. Three men were hanged on April 1 in Helmand, executed as spies by the Taleban regime. The body of one hung for hours in Musa Qala, where the fundamentalists chased out village elders and ran up their flag in early February.



While the news sent shudders through the capital, Lashkar Gah, residents of Musa Qala were undaunted.



“I don’t care about those three men,” said shopkeeper Zia ul Haq. “They deserved to die. I am happy. We have no problems here, except the possibility of bombardment.”



Musa Qala formally fell to the Taleban in February, barely four months after a controversial agreement under which village elders promised to keep the fundamentalists out in return for a British withdrawal.



The deal brought peace to the town, which had seen months of heavy fighting, but it sent thousands of people fleeing to more secure areas, fearing that NATO bombs would soon come to unseat the Taleban.



Two months later, the Taleban are still in charge.



“I do not want to take Musa Qala by force,” said President Hamed Karzai, speaking to residents of Lashkar Gah on March 29. “I want to solve problems by negotiations with all sides.”



But just one day earlier, provincial officials were telling a different story.



“We will recapture Musa Qala,” Helmand military chief Abdul Wahid Faizi told IWPR. “We will move the Taleban out of the town. We are working on plans now, and I am sure we will do that soon.”



While the government tries to decide on its course, local residents have had to continue with their lives.



Many say they are happier now than they have been for years – and more than willing to trade a certain amount of freedom for some peace and security.



“In my life I have only had two happy periods in which I felt safe,” said Zia ul Haq. “The first time was at the beginning of the Karzai administration and the second is now, when the Taleban is controlling the district. Security is very good: there are no thieves, no kidnappers, everyone lives in safety and is able to get on with their lives. We are all happy.”



His assessment is in sharp contrast to official pronouncements.



“We have 900 families registered as refugees from Musa Qala,” said Abdulstar Muzahari, head of the department of refugees. “None of them have gone back. The only people who returned were drug traffickers and those who are linked to the Taleban. Most people hate the Taleban, they are not good to people.”



Certainly Sayed Ahmad Akaa, father of three, agrees. He has moved his family to the capital, and says that the shift is permanent.



“You could not pay me to go back to Musa Qala,” he told IWPR. “My children cannot go to school there, I cannot live. I sold all my land and am buying a shop in Lashkar Gah. I will never go back.”



Abdul Mane, another refugee, is just as adamant.



“I cannot return, because the Taleban say that I am a spy,” he said. “They have threatened me with death. I have not seen my parents in three months.”



Bu those who remain say life has never been better.



“When the government was controlling Musa Qala, you could not leave the house with 1000 rupees in your pocket (about 25 US dollars),” said Abdul Hadi. “There were thieves everywhere. But now things are quite different. Everyone is happy and feels free, you can carry gold and no one will steal it from you.”



Security concerns among Helmandis are wider than the threat from insurgents. Official corruption and police inaction made the cities unsafe, with those in uniform being seen as just as likely to perpetrate a crime as to prevent one. And residents feared government and foreign troops as much as they feared the Taleban.



“If the government cannot control the situation, we have to let the Taleban rule,” said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be named. “We were sleeping in the desert, because there were bombs and fires in our district every night between one and three a.m. When the government launches an operation, they give no warning.



“People were dying – we buried five or six bodies every day, most of them civilians. The graveyards were full. A bomb fell on one house and five members of the family were killed. The Taleban notify us when they intend to operate.”



“We hate the local authorities, because they destroyed our family,” said another local resident. “On March 22, the Taleban came to us and said ‘we are fighting tonight, protect yourselves’. So we packed up the car and went to the desert. The fighting began at seven p.m. As we were driving, the Taleban shot at our car and my wife and uncle were killed.



“We sat all night in the desert, and when we came home we found the doors to our house broken and all our belongings stolen by the local authorities. What are we supposed to do? We cannot sue the government or the Taleban, and both sides just come and beat us on our heads.”



In addition to the violence, Helmand’s most important revenue source, opium poppy, is under threat from foreign-backed eradication campaigns.



According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Afghanistan now produces over 90 per cent of the world’s heroin. And the undisputed champion of Afghan production is Helmand, where this season, according to provincial officials, more than 70 per cent of the land has been planted with poppy. Last year’s harvest made up more than 40 per cent of the Afghan total.



This means that an overwhelming majority of Helmand’s farmers have invested their economic survival in the fields of bright red flowers that dot the landscape.



The government launched a widely publicised eradication effort in February, but, once again, it has bogged down in corruption, and the results have fallen far short of expectation. The one undeniable effect seems to have been to drive farmers right into the arms of the Taleban.



“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’. The government cannot come here now, because there is another power here. It is the government of the Taleban.”



“I am growing poppy, and now I am happy,” agreed Muhammad Meer. “I do not have to worry about the government coming to destroy my crop. The Taleban is not saying anything against poppy, and they have not asked us for help. We are very happy now.”



The Taleban seem to have learned something from the past. At least for the present, they are refraining from the more excessive aspects of their former brutal rule.



“The Taleban this time do not punish people for their short beards or long hair,” said Abdul Mane. “They do not bother people for listening to music or watching television. We are very happy about the present situation in our district.”



Hamidullah agrees. “We have a new kind of life now,” he said. “Nobody asks us ‘why did you shave your beard?’ or ‘why are you watching a movie?’ This is the Taleban, but it’s a new kind of Taleban. We love our life. Come to Musa Qala. If you are here for a few days, I am sure you will never want to leave.”



IWPR is running a journalism training programme in Helmand province. This story is a compilation of trainee reports.