This Week in Afghanistan (6 May 05)

• Main talk in Kabul is the kidnap threat to Internationals. I wondered why it was very quiet in a restaurant Saturday night until I saw the emails this morning saying the restaurant is off limits because of an attempted kidnapping there the previous night. Apparently a criminal gang member has been arrested and the gang is looking for an international to bargain for his release. I now have to go around even Kabul in a two car convoy. One international with two large white land cursers is not exactly low profile.
• Love marriages are becoming more popular in Kabul. Bollywood movies freely available on DVDs and very popular have been blamed.
• Heavy rain again this week. Seven years drought is definitely over. Mud everywhere.
• Abduction threat warning because a member of the criminal gang that kidnapped three UN workers last year has been captured. Intelligence says they gang will kidnap an international to exchange.
• Women protest the government’s inactivity over the rape and killing of three women for NGO activity and another stoned for adultery.
• An Afghan friend told me a story of a friend of theirs who lived in the north and married an Indian girl who converted to Islam. His family approved but the community did not and they whole family had to leave under threat of death.
• It is reported that Laura Bush found Afghanistan progressing well and did not see one woman n a burka. Not sure where she went!! I know she visited a beauty shop which had been funded by USAID (US government aid arm) through IOM who I work for. This time they did it directly although it does not comply with grant criteria. But as long as Laura’s happy.
• More violence as weather becomes warmer. Criminal gangs are an increasing problem with police shootouts reported. Passers by are common victims.
• Walking home the other evening I stopped at a cross roads to see a traffic jam with a Dutch man in trousers and shirt sleeves and no uniform directing the traffic by jumping in font of vehicles shouting and pointing a machine gun strapped to this arm at the driver. No idea that he worked for and what authority if any he had to direct traffic and point guns at people. I waited to see if any Afghan would shoot him.
• An English female producer (ex Cheltenham Ladies College) told me of the security man she had been recommended. The first thing he did was to show her his guns and ask her if she wanted to try one. He works for himself and wears army uniform. He demonstrated his fold up baton to an international audience but could not open it. She suspects this dangerous joke was at most a northern pub bouncer. She managed to survive despite him.
• The Independent Human Rights Commission (IHRC) confirmed this week that private Afghan prisons exist and are often run by local commanders. Forced marriages to commanders are still going on also.
• Karzai called some NGOs corrupt. They avoid taxes by being NGOs. Also there is criticism of Afghan aid money being spent on lavish life styles for International NGO staff instead of going to the Afghan people. International NGOs say this is not based on research or facts and off the record many do not trust the government employees not to pocket as much as they can or to use it for individual political reasons.