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Get Four
|  | SEPTEMBER 12, 2003
By Manjeet Kripalani Kandahar's Frontier of Sorrow - Part 1 [Page 2 of 2] NEGLECTED PROMISES. The sorrow never ends in Afghanistan. Every Afghan has lost someone dear in the last 25 years -- fighting against the Soviets, the mujahideen, the Taliban, the Pakistanis, the warlords. And fighting against poverty. The Taliban were driven out of Kandahar almost two years ago by U.S. forces, and the U.N. and assorted international aid agencies swept in. But the fight continues because the promised rebuilding has been slow, and the world's attention was diverted to Iraq. Afghanistan became a sideshow. So now the warlords are back, vicious and rapacious. The Taliban is back, too, terrorizing the area. The Pakistanis are back to their old game of wanting to make an even poorer Afghanistan their colony, many Afghans feel. And the West's promise to reconstruct the country hasn't been kept. Of the $5.1 billion that was promised to Afghanistan after the Taliban's ouster, to be spread over five years, only about $2 billion has come through. Afghan officials tell me that hardly any of that funding -- a pittance next to the $87 billion President George Bush wants to spend in Iraq -- has found its way to the formal rebuilding of the country. Most seems not to have gone much beyond Kabul, the capital. Kandahar, certainly, shows little evidence of that cash. A COUNTRY TO BUILD. The U.S. and the U.N. will have to do better. According to the World Bank, Afghanistan needs at least $15 billion over the next five years if it is to recover and stand on its own. Masood Khalili, the Afghan ambassador to India and close friend of assassinated Afghan leader Ahmed Shah Masood, estimates the rebuilding costs at closer to $35 billion. Just 15% of the damage from decades of war has been repaired, he says. There are schools to be built, hospitals to equip, roads to be created or repaved, power lines to string, telephone service to provide. In Kandahar, some power lines have been restored by the U.S., and cell-phone service is available, but it's expensive -- 55 cents a minute -- and spotty. Some of the ministry offices in the provinces still don't have proper roofs. Driving from Kabul to Kandahar takes 18 hours -- instead of the mere 6 hours it would require if the highway was up to standard. We arrive at our destination, where the women's conference is being held. It's a large compound, with a multi-roomed, two-story building that is tucked away behind 14-foot walls and fiercely guarded by armed Afghan men. Their guns appear heavy -- I wonder how they can run with them. We're put up, dormitory-style, on the first floor. Several of us to a room, with small mattresses on the floor, on which we sit and sleep, Afghan-style. The amenities are basic. But it feels like a palace, compared to what we have seen outside. We are fed, right away, with the traditional Afghan fare of chick-peas, okra, and eggplant. It is delicious. To be continued in Part 2 on Monday, Sept. 15.
 Kripalani is BusinessWeek's Bombay bureau chief Edited by Douglas Harbrecht Get BusinessWeek directly on your desktop with our RSS feeds.  Add BusinessWeek news to your Web site with our headline feed. Click to buy an e-print or reprint of a BusinessWeek or BusinessWeek Online story or video. To subscribe online to BusinessWeek magazine, please click here. Learn more, go to the BusinessWeekOnline home page  | | |
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