Czechs in Afghanistan, Pt. IX: Danger is a relative concept

The essentials of humanitarian work can be very much the same wherever it is done in the world, but there is an obvious added difficulty in Afghanistan: an ongoing, 30-year state of armed conflict. In this instalment of Czechs in Afghanistan, Christian Falvey looks at the security conditions that Czech aid workers live in, as they carry out the work of redevelopment in a complicated and dangerous situation.

Kabul, photo: author

Kabul has its prettier parts, but the building that most captivated me was that of the Afghan Ministry of Transportation, a modern structure with gaping holes for windows showing charred interiors and pocked over entirely with bullet holes. Apparently it has been in that condition for more than a decade. Similar landmarks are plentiful enough so that you never forget where you are – in one of the world’s most desperate war zones. But there are more sides to the situation here, as the head of the Afghan mission of the Czech charity People in Need (PIN), Jan Štěpán, told me in their Kabul courtyard, where we spent a few hours in conversation over tea, and under a sky full of helicopters.

“Afghanistan from the side that we see it – in areas that are relatively safe, very remote villages – is not as dangerous a place as it might seem from the European perspective, or how the western media portrays it. There you would mostly see tanks and battles, you know, the U.S. Army and other armies down in the south in Kandahar and Helmand. And we don’t go to these areas, we try to be very careful, we select where we go very carefully, so it’s not as dangerous as it looks, really.”

Jan Štěpán

Not as dangerous as it looks, but that is because it truly looks extremely dangerous. Danger is simply a very relative concept in Afghanistan. You are safe in a place because no foreigner has been kidnapped there yet, because no outward conflict has happened there in years, or because no recent intelligence has shown that you are in direct danger. As I was told by PIN before leaving for Afghanistan, you could walk around for five days and probably nothing would happen, but the sixth day something well might. Meanwhile Czech humanitarian workers have been walking around Afghanistan since 2001, and so far so good, thanks at least in part to Abdul Rahim, who handles security, among other things, in the PIN office in Mazar-i-Sharif.

“Actually we have not faced any direct problem in People in Need so far, I mean, since I have been working here. There have only been general problems, like attacks against the police. A few days ago there was a rocket attack on a police post in the Kishinde area, so there is a small area that we cannot cross. Or rather, we can, but we think there may be a problem there, and so for our safety and security we have restricted travel to that area until the situation is clear. So we will have a meeting with the community – with the elders – then we can open the road and use it. But our operation has not stopped and is working as usual. Instead of using that road we are using a different one to access the area of operations.”

Kishinde, photo: author

This spirit of optimism is prevalent when you speak to PIN’s employees about security, and I believe it is genuine, but that comes from a specific sort of “that-kind-of-thing-happens” bravery that the denizens of war zones are instilled with. There is no reason to expect that they will be attacked or kidnapped, and that is the primary reality. That it does in fact happen is entirely secondary. Project areas have gone literally to hell, like the province of Baghlan, where People in Need has operated for many years. They know the people; they constructed a school of agriculture there, trained the teachers, and constructed the water system for the provincial capital. But the generally souring security situation in Afghanistan of the last six years or so is taking Baghlan with it. Veteran PIN employee Amirzada Ahamadzai:

“In the province of Baghlan, where we have a central provincial office and three field offices, the security situation has worsened so much that there is open warfare, daily. Just today I got a message that an operation is underway there because opposition fighters came and attacked the provincial police force. The same is in the north, in areas like Kishinde and Zare – the roads there were absolutely safe, now there are focal points of real unrest there, and we have to adapt accordingly.”

Zare, photo: author

People in Need has had areas, like Paktia, where it has been forced to abandon all hope and leave for safety’s sake. It was only in Kishinde that I saw a glimpse of the Afghanistan I’d expected to see, the one with danger around every corner, in the warnings of some policemen and onlookers who stopped us from going down a street in the town of Zare.

It is just as likely as not that they were joking about our walking into some Taliban ambush; Afghan humour is often as black as the country’s terrible realities. But we never did see what was down the road. The day after this conversation, five UN workers were apparently carjacked in Baghlan. There was no trace of them found, no one claimed responsibility, and no one asked a ransom, all in the province where four German soldiers had lost their lives the day before.

This attack, like most attacks, was blamed immediately on the Taliban, who have a patent on pandemonium in the Western media. But there are many other groups involved in the nationwide upheaval, to say nothing of groups of criminals and local armed conflicts between families or communities over resources or something else. Amirzada Ahamadzai has been with the Czech mission for longer than anyone else, and has watched the violent evolution of this situation from an initial state of peace and welcoming in 2004.

Photo: author

“Afghanistan wasn’t such a dangerous country when we first came here; it has gotten much worse in that regard. Even as foreigners we could openly be among the people in the high mountains, like in Paktia, the locals greeted us with dances and drums, making speeches, so we weren’t afraid. But nowadays in those same areas, not only am I afraid but my employees, who are locals, are afraid to work there. People in Need’s mission here in Afghanistan has had to make detailed security rules that we have to adhere to. In the beginning, we didn’t have to deal with anything like that.”

You will not hear the details of those rules here for obvious reasons, but suffice to say that there are a lot of them, and getting the rundown is a powerful reality check.

‘Where did a good thing go so bad’ is the question of the decade, not just in terms of Afghanistan overall, but in the regions where People in Need has been making close connections for the entire time. If anyone in the world has a worthwhile opinion it is Amirzada Ahamadzai, and I would summarise it as a widespread air of exasperation on the verge of desperation.

“I think there are different reasons, everyone could answer differently. This fighting has been going on for a long time, the mood of the international community working here has changed; they are getting worn out. People are tired of the government and its corruption. They’ve been waiting nine years for something to change but it doesn’t. The Taliban’s activities have increased. Lots of young men have nothing to do, no work, and will work for the Taliban for a pittance. Afghans expected better relations with Obama, and the closure of Guantanamo prison, which didn’t happen – to the contrary there are more troops and more of a will to resolve matters by force. And the history of Afghanistan shows that unfortunately the use of force doesn’t do any good.”

Mazar-i-Sharif, photo: author

All of that being said, you do feel safe in the North of Afghanistan. The markets are full of people in Mazar-i-Sharif, their merchants and passers-by of a dozen ethnicities are relaxed and friendly, full of humour and good will. The media is roundly attacked here for a love of enmity where there is amity too in abundance. There is a sense of security in Mazar-i-Sharif that is better than in many an American city, the obvious difference being that one never knows where they are on the whirlpool sinking into open war.