By Ullrich Fichtner in Wardak province, Afghanistan
These are the cold weeks at the beginning of the year. Wardak province is under a blanket of snow, and its capital Maidan Shahr is receiving a lot of visitors. Ministers and other government officials are there frequently. In good weather, the town is only a 40 or 45 minute drive from Kabul on Highway One.
Today's visitor is the education minister, Ghulam Farooq Wardak, a broad, effervescent man with the same name as his native province. The biggest assembly hall in the town is reserved, in a flat, functional building 500 meters from the governor's offices. The convoys arrive in the morning, and the area is soon bristling with guns.
Members of parliament from all of Warzak's districts are assembled in the hall. Many have 12-hour trips behind them, on icy roads and across mountain passes. Despite the snowfall, everyone arrives on time, including village elders, members of parliament, imams and teachers. By the time everyone is seated, there are 500 men and eight women in the audience. To Western eyes, it looks like a scene out of an exotic novel, a dancing sea of Afghan headgear, magnificent turbans and the soft, round-topped Afghan beret known as the pakul, topping the ancient faces of mountain people with imposing beards, faces that never reveal what is going through their heads.
The topic is a serious one. Minister Wardak says that things must change. He says that the Taliban have tried to infiltrate the new education system, intimidating teachers and placing their own people in schools. "I would like to take the politics out of education," says Wardak. He is a good speaker and has the audience's full attention. "Afghanistan's schools are not there to malign Afghanistan."
An army of security waits outside the door, including soldiers, policemen and Turkish special units. Ahmed I. is also standing in front of the door, smoking a cigarette.
Ahmed I. -- his real name cannot be given for safety reasons -- is a mayor. He gave up a position with an American security firm, where he was earning $3,000 (€2,205) a month, because he felt a sense of duty to do something for his country.
But when he took office, his friends derisively congratulated him on having finally made it into the big leagues. He soon realized what they were talking about. Whenever Ahmed I. registers the sale of a piece of land or issues a building permit, he almost automatically receives threatening letters from people who assume that he is corrupt and who want a share of the spoils. "There is an unbelievable cycle of bribery underway, in all sectors and at all levels."
In fact, there have already been credible reports that $20,000 (€14,700) is the price of bribing one's way into the job of a district police chief, and that seats in the national parliament, governorships and judgeships are all available for purchase. SPIEGEL has also learned that majorities can even be bought in the parliament in Kabul. The going rate for a majority on an important vote is about $1 million (€735,000).
The sums are smaller in Wardak, where the spoils consist of modest development aid. Mayor I. says that he himself does not line his own pockets. Perhaps this is even true. The way he speaks openly about corruption makes him seem credible, and he cautions against treating the Taliban issue as one of only war or peace. "The Taliban are everywhere," he says, "and they are not just fighters. They are in my administration, they are in charge of villages, and they are in our midst."
Minister Wardak soon moves on to his next point. "I want to know what the mullahs want, what the Taliban wants," he asks his audience, "and I am willing to make many concessions. As far as I'm concerned, they can be teachers in our schools, as long as they respect the lesson plans. And schooling can also take place in mosques, if you ask me. But why are they burning down the schools? What good does it do them? What good does it do any of us?" Wardak receives applause at the end of his speech, the only speaker to get such a reception during the whole morning. The caps and berets move up and down approvingly. The minister has given a good speech.
He keeps it up during the ensuing meal at the governor's palace, where the guests are served bowls of salad, knuckles of lamb, Pepsi-Cola and the soft drink Mirinda. Wardak sits next to Governor Fidai, both wearing their coats, at the head of a table surrounded by 50 or 60 invited guests.
The minister knows his figures and rattles them off like a machine. He says: "In 2001, we had less than a million children in the schools. Today there are 6.35 million. In 2001, we had 3,400 schools. Today there are 11,600. In 2001, we had 20,000 teachers. Today we have 167,000. You want to talk about progress?" says Wardak, reaching for a piece of knuckle of lamb. "I mean, is that not progress?"
Too Little
Adrian Edwards, the spokesman for UN special envoy Kai Eide, can also rattle off evidence of progress. Nevertheless, in a conversation leading up to an interview with his boss, Edwards admits that "there's not much peace to be found." Calls for a new debate over the logistics and strategy for Afghanistan are absurd, says Edwards. "We know all about the strategy," he says. "Everything is on the table and we've discussed it a hundred times. We don't need new debates, we need action."
Edwards is a pale, levelheaded media professional who can be counted on to answer every email. In responding to criticism of the UN mission, he says: "Our biggest mistake was to believe that we can get far with just a small effort. But that's what the member states wanted. And as a result, we haven't done too much over the years, but far too little."
According to Edwards, the UN's budget for the operation in East Timor was eight times as big as its Afghanistan budget. "In Darfur," he says, "they have 112 people working in the media department alone. Here in Afghanistan I have three colleagues." One of those three knocks on the door and walks in. He says: "Save your work, Adrian. The power will go out in 45 minutes."
The dance of the expats and the powerful begins when night falls in Kabul. They drive up in their large SUVs, jostling in front of the Bella Italia, the Gandamack Lodge and the Boccaccio, where Russian waitresses serve large T-bone steaks from Nebraska with heavy Sicilian red wine.
Everyone knows everyone else here, and newcomers are quickly integrated into the cliques that pull strings and control rumors in the Afghan capital. The members of ministers' staffs converse with UN employees, intelligence agents accompany ambassadors, and members of the Afghan parliament known throughout the country as the most devout Muslims, drink grappa and order cigars. Anyone lucky enough to score a spot at the table next to Aly Mawji, the Afghanistan head of the Aga Khan Foundation for Development, can expect to learn a lot about the situation in the country over dessert.
Mawji is an Ismaili Muslim from England with manners as impeccable as his suits. As head of the largest aid organization operating in Afghanistan, he supervises a staff of 3,500 employees. The Aga Khan Foundation has invested $750 million (€551 million) in the country since 2001, more than any other aid organization. It created the successful Roshan telecommunications company and operates a bank for microloans. The Aga Khan is renovating entire downtown areas, and he built Kabul's five-star Serena Hotel.
But the Aga Khan's local representative, Aly Mawji, is worried. He considers the Taliban to be the most successful grassroots organization in the country, a group that has contacts everywhere, voluntary and otherwise, and wields power over daily life. The government, says Mawji, is nothing compared with the Taliban, holed up as it is in the capital, invisible to people outside Kabul and, as a result, virtually incapacitated.
'An Isolated Case'
These are the cold weeks at the beginning of the year. A decisive year is beginning for Afghanistan, perhaps even its final showdown. "Have you heard the news?" asks Governor Fidai, traveling through his province again in an armor-clad SUV. US soldiers have just this morning apprehended a would-be suicide bomber in Wardak. "An isolated case," says Fidai. He makes a phone call.
Dawn is still breaking over Wardak, in Maidan Shahr, bisected by Highway One. At this early hour, long-distance buses with luggage piled high on top, with old German lettering on their sides, are heading toward Kabul. A highway police force once existed, a special force assigned to handle nothing but the highway, but it was disbanded when police officers began demanding bribes from drivers at checkpoints.
Fidai still has his day's work ahead of him. It is so cold in his office that you can see your breath. His cabinet chief, his eyes rimmed with kohl, brings in signature folders. Fidai signs his name to 20 or 30 documents, orders to increase wages for road crews, who will now get an additional 50 afghani a month -- only a dollar, but a decent amount of money in Wardak.
When the steaming green tea arrives -- there is always tea in Afghanistan -- Fidai repeats something he has already said several times. "In three villages here, the people rose up against the Taliban and drove them out." But there are 2,235 villages in his province. And Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan
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