Afghans' freedom comes at a price

Northern Alliance brushes off charges of extortion, bribery

By TOD ROBBERSON / The Dallas Morning News

KABUL, Afghanistan – With no food for his 10 children, Azimullah was nearing the point of desperation when he went to his local Red Crescent Society office this week and pleaded for help from the camouflage-uniformed armed guards outside.

Like hundreds of other poor people at the gate, he watched wide-eyed for days when truckloads of wheat and clothing were delivered, but he couldn't understand why only "some people" were getting food aid while the Northern Alliance guards kept pushing Azimullah away.

Then it became clear.

"If you give them money, it is very easy to go inside and get everything you need," Azimullah, 55, said as scores of other poor Afghans shouted in agreement and outrage. "But if I had money for bribes, I wouldn't be here asking for help in the first place."

Afghans like Azimullah say they cheered when Northern Alliance troops, the U.S.-backed militia that ousted the ruling Taliban movement from power in November and December, were deployed on the streets of Kabul in late November. But now, less than two weeks since the Northern Alliance spearheaded the installation of Prime Minister Hamid Karzai's interim government, many Afghans are having second thoughts about their would-be liberators.

Bribery, extortion, and highway banditry are running rampant in Kabul and other major cities controlled by the Northern Alliance, according to Afghans, diplomats, and officials from foreign nongovernmental agencies. Northern Alliance troops are setting up roadblocks to shake down anyone who wants to pass – including international aid workers delivering emergency food and supplies to war-ravaged areas.

In Kabul, according to several Afghan witnesses who requested anonymity, Northern Alliance troops have begun house-to-house "searches" in which commanders claim to be looking for weapons caches. In several cases, they have walked away with stereos, carpets, television sets, and jewelry, telling the occupants that they will be killed if they file a complaint, the witnesses said.

Obeidullah Shahnawaz, a farmer in Niazy, on Kabul's southern outskirts, said a Northern Alliance commander sent troops to his home in mid-December because he had heard that Mr. Shahnawaz owned a $30,000 late-model Toyota Land Cruiser, one of the most prized status symbols in Afghanistan.

"A group of them came here and started beating me and threatening our women. They demanded to see my car," Mr. Shahnawaz said. When he showed the Land Cruiser to them, they locked him in his own garage, then towed the car away, he said. He found it a few days later in a warehouse occupied by Northern Alliance troops in Kabul.

When he asked to get it back, "they told me to go away," he said. "They laughed. They told me, 'Go ahead, complain to anyone you want. Go talk to Karzai if you like. Nobody is going to do anything to us.' "

'Bandits and thieves'

"It is true, there is not 100 percent security in the city," he said. "But how many car thefts and robberies and murders are there in New York City every day? There will always be bandits and thieves in any major city, and Kabul is no different."

The high level of corruption within the Northern Alliance is no secret and was one of the reasons Afghans initially greeted the Taliban with open arms when they finally seized Kabul in 1996, said Hashematullah Mosleh, an aide to former President Burhanuddin Rabbani.

Even when the Taliban ordered the eradication last year of all opium poppies being grown in areas under Taliban rule, areas under Northern Alliance control continued full-scale opium and heroin production, he said.

"This is the next dilemma. In the absence of a growing economy, a working infrastructure, rehabilitation programs and schools – in the absence of all this, there is a tremendous vacuum," he said. "The new administration is trying to stand on its feet, but when people see that this is not working, the problems of drugs and crime are going to explode."

U.S. B-52 bombers were able to carpet-bomb the country to oust the Taliban and uproot the al-Qaeda network that was behind the Sept. 11 attacks on New York and Washington. "Now, the enemy is within ourselves. How do you B-52 that?" Mr. Mosleh said.

Diplomats and relief-organization officials say Kabul is not the only area under Northern Alliance control where uniformed gunmen are shaking down residents and travelers for cash.

Outside the southern city of Kandahar, the U.N.-run World Food Program said, its convoy drivers are being stopped and asked for bribes by "some groups" who control the entrance to the city. The United Nations typically does not reveal the identities of individuals or groups responsible for such incidents, although the Northern Alliance is widely known to control the road used by the World Food Program convoy to reach Kandahar.

"They are being 'taxed' for $100 per entry into Kandahar City," said Stephanie Bunker, a U.N. spokeswoman in Kabul. She said the convoys would not enter Kandahar – and food aid would not be delivered to as many as 238,000 needy people in the region – as long as the bribes are being demanded.

"I don't think this is a very acceptable demand," she added. As of Sunday, she said, the World Food Program still had not gained unhindered access to the city.

The independent relief group CARE has experienced similar problems in and around Kabul, spokeswoman Alina Labrada said.

Two weeks ago, a CARE convoy was approaching Kabul near the Northern Alliance-controlled town of Pulisharki when militiamen halted the relief trucks at a checkpoint. "Our drivers were asked to pay a bribe in order to pass. They refused, and as they pulled away, the [militiamen] fired on them," she said.

Security payments

She said CARE has not and will not make any such payments, even if it means shutting down an aid program.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who previously was the principal spokesman of the Northern Alliance, said he was aware of such reports and acknowledged the negative image it sends to international aid groups.

"There are security problems in different parts of Afghanistan and on the highways. All of those things should be eliminated," he said.

Even Western journalists are being asked constantly by Northern Alliance guards to pay bribes merely for permission to enter government ministries or to gain access to U.S. and British troops stationed at Bagram air base, north of Kabul. Translators and drivers for journalists are being required to pay $50 under the table to a Northern Alliance commander for an unofficial "work permit" that appears to be worthless beyond one hotel where journalists are staying.

Mullah Muhammad Anwar Rejah, a religious leader in southern Kabul who once led a 300-man Northern Alliance unit, said he has been disappointed by the militia's behavior since they took over from the Taliban.

"The Northern Alliance is stealing," he said bluntly. "People who have any money at all are so worried, so afraid." After 23 years of near-constant war and terror, he said, "it's very important that the people feel relaxed and free so that they do not have to live in fear."

Mr. Mosleh predicted that Afghans would give the new government only a short time to prove itself capable of reining in the Northern Alliance and imposing law and order.

"If a better solution is not forthcoming, then I think we might start to see a growing nostalgia" for the Taliban, he added.

Outside a World Food Program distribution center in Kabul, that nostalgia already was evident last week as Northern Alliance troops pummeled civilians with their fists, whipped them with car antennas, and swatted them with the butts of their AK-47 assault rifles as destitute people waited for food rations.

"If you want to go inside [to receive aid], you have to pay a bribe," said Abdulqaeem, an elderly cart puller. "You can wait your turn in line for four or five hours. When you get to the front, they'll beat you and push you back. But if you pay them 50,000 Afghanis [about $2.50], you go in right away. Yes, the Taliban sometimes would beat us to keep people in order. But you never – never – saw anyone demanding a bribe."