Residents Happy of Taliban Return

[mahdisoldier19]

Fundamentalist rule has returned to Musa Qala – and some residents have never been happier.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 249, 4-Apr-07)

The reports are grim. Three men were hanged on April 1 in Helmand, executed as spies by the Taleban regime. The body of one hung for hours in Musa Qala, where the fundamentalists chased out village elders and ran up their flag in early February.

While the news sent shudders through the capital, Lashkar Gah, residents of Musa Qala were undaunted.

“I don’t care about those three men,” said shopkeeper Zia ul Haq. “They deserved to die. I am happy. We have no problems here, except the possibility of bombardment.”

Musa Qala formally fell to the Taleban in February, barely four months after a controversial agreement under which village elders promised to keep the fundamentalists out in return for a British withdrawal.

The deal brought peace to the town, which had seen months of heavy fighting, but it sent thousands of people fleeing to more secure areas, fearing that NATO bombs would soon come to unseat the Taleban.

Two months later, the Taleban are still in charge.

“I do not want to take Musa Qala by force,” said President Hamed Karzai, speaking to residents of Lashkar Gah on March 29. “I want to solve problems by negotiations with all sides.”

But just one day earlier, provincial officials were telling a different story.
“We will recapture Musa Qala,” Helmand military chief Abdul Wahid Faizi told IWPR. “We will move the Taleban out of the town. We are working on plans now, and I am sure we will do that soon.”

While the government tries to decide on its course, local residents have had to continue with their lives.

Many say they are happier now than they have been for years – and more than willing to trade a certain amount of freedom for some peace and security.

“In my life I have only had two happy periods in which I felt safe,” said Zia ul Haq. “The first time was at the beginning of the Karzai administration and the second is now, when the Taleban is controlling the district.

Security is very good: there are no thieves, no kidnappers, everyone lives in safety and is able to get on with their lives. We are all happy.”

His assessment is in sharp contrast to official pronouncements.

“We have 900 families registered as refugees from Musa Qala,” said Abdulstar Muzahari, head of the department of refugees. “None of them have gone back. The only people who returned were drug traffickers and those who are linked to the Taleban. Most people hate the Taleban, they are not good to people.”

Certainly Sayed Ahmad Akaa, father of three, agrees. He has moved his family to the capital, and says that the shift is permanent.

“You could not pay me to go back to Musa Qala,” he told IWPR. “My children cannot go to school there, I cannot live. I sold all my land and am buying a shop in Lashkar Gah. I will never go back.”

Abdul Mane, another refugee, is just as adamant.

“I cannot return, because the Taleban say that I am a spy,” he said. “They have threatened me with death. I have not seen my parents in three months.”

Bu those who remain say life has never been better.

“When the government was controlling Musa Qala, you could not leave the house with 1000 rupees in your pocket (about 25 US dollars),” said Abdul Hadi. “There were thieves everywhere. But now things are quite different. Everyone is happy and feels free, you can carry gold and no one will steal it from you.”

Security concerns among Helmandis are wider than the threat from insurgents. Official corruption and police inaction made the cities unsafe, with those in uniform being seen as just as likely to perpetrate a crime as to prevent one. And residents feared government and foreign troops as much as they feared the Taleban.

“If the government cannot control the situation, we have to let the Taleban rule,” said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be named. “We were sleeping in the desert, because there were bombs and fires in our district every night between one and three a.m. When the government launches an operation, they give no warning.

“People were dying – we buried five or six bodies every day, most of them civilians. The graveyards were full. A bomb fell on one house and five members of the family were killed. The Taleban notify us when they intend to operate.”

“We hate the local authorities, because they destroyed our family,” said another local resident. “On March 22, the Taleban came to us and said ‘we are fighting tonight, protect yourselves’. So we packed up the car and went to the desert. The fighting began at seven p.m. As we were driving, the Taleban shot at our car and my wife and uncle were killed.

“We sat all night in the desert, and when we came home we found the doors to our house broken and all our belongings stolen by the local authorities. What are we supposed to do? We cannot sue the government or the Taleban, and both sides just come and beat us on our heads.”

In addition to the violence, Helmand’s most important revenue source, opium poppy, is under threat from foreign-backed eradication campaigns.
According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Afghanistan now produces over 90 per cent of the world’s heroin. And the undisputed champion of Afghan production is Helmand, where this season, according to provincial officials, more than 70 per cent of the land has been planted with poppy. Last year’s harvest made up more than 40 per cent of the Afghan total.

This means that an overwhelming majority of Helmand’s farmers have invested their economic survival in the fields of bright red flowers that dot the landscape.

The government launched a widely publicised eradication effort in February, but, once again, it has bogged down in corruption, and the results have fallen far short of expectation. The one undeniable effect seems to have been to drive farmers right into the arms of the Taleban.

“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’. The government cannot come here now, because there is another power here. It is the government of the Taleban.”

“I am growing poppy, and now I am happy,” agreed Muhammad Meer. “I do not have to worry about the government coming to destroy my crop. The Taleban is not saying anything against poppy, and they have not asked us for help. We are very happy now.”

The Taleban seem to have learned something from the past. At least for the present, they are refraining from the more excessive aspects of their former brutal rule.

“The Taleban this time do not punish people for their short beards or long hair,” said Abdul Mane. “They do not bother people for listening to music or watching television. We are very happy about the present situation in our district.”

Hamidullah agrees. “We have a new kind of life now,” he said. “Nobody asks us ‘why did you shave your beard?’ or ‘why are you watching a movie?’ This is the Taleban, but it’s a new kind of Taleban. We love our life. Come to Musa Qala. If you are here for a few days, I am sure you will never want to leave.”

IWPR is running a journalism training programme in Helmand province. This story is a compilation of trainee reports.

[Muezzin]

Please provide a link if there is one.

[Trumble]

“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’.

That rather says it all about the Taliban, really. So much for Islam. I'm surprised they don't have the villagers distilling moonshine during breaks from poppy cultivation... that might be another nice little earner. I'm really looking forward to somebody producing the hadith 'interpretation' describing how good muslims everywhere should do everything possible to encourage the opium trade. Any volunteers?

[Keltoi]

I truly hope there will be some responses on Trumble's post. That is a very important element to this discussion since many on this forum hold the Taliban up as the poster children of Islamic virtue.

[mahdisoldier19]

That rather says it all about the Taliban, really. So much for Islam. I'm surprised they don't have the villagers distilling moonshine during breaks from poppy cultivation... that might be another nice little earner. I'm really looking forward to somebody producing the hadith 'interpretation' describing how good muslims everywhere should do everything possible to encourage the opium trade. Any volunteers?

I volunteer,

This is why i had posted this article, to show the people, how the afghans can be so intrigued by money, so they try to deprive the name of the Taliban.

First of all, when the Taliban were in power, poppy cultivation completely stopped.

Second, the Taliban are not in full power in Afghanistan, when they will return, things will change.

Third, If poppy is not grown within the farmers income, then the people will starve. The poppy is there only income, neither does the Taliban profit from it. It is Hamid Karzais brother, Ahmed Karzai who profits.

Fourth, Right now Poppy is not the Major problem in Afghanistan, it is the Invasion. Therefore, the Talibs cannot concentrate on Foreign invasion and poppy at the same time. If a country is at war, the main purpose is to force the foreign invaders to leave, rather than to worry about how the people are making money in certain areas of the country.

Fifth, The taliban never said they encourage opium growth, thats your false accusation, since the Taliban destroyed poppy growth in 2000. But poppy growth was revived during the karzai administration. Another reason why the taliban let the poppy growth grow is to show the world the inconsistency of the Karzai government to disband the poppy growing seeds. The taliban simply stand on the sidelines and see what the karzai government has to do about it, while the karzai administration continuously does nothing.

Sixth, the accusations against the Taliban such as in the article of the taliban killing the man and his wife were proven false in a later article, when infact it was Foreign troops who had shot at that mans family, in which he later joined the Taliban. Some reports by trainees are not correct or incorrect, the translation errors. I have personally translated for the US in Afghanistan under the company Titan. There are numerous translation errors.

Seventh, this article is to show how the attitudes of the people can be conflicting with media reports of the Taliban. Some say good, some say bad. Time will tell what the people desire. If people say the taliban were evil, then how did they disarm 95 percent of the population and control 95 percent of Afghanistan?


And finally i repeat i do not Support the taliban, i just believe they were the best thing for Afghanistan at the time.

[InToTheRain]

That rather says it all about the Taliban, really. So much for Islam. I'm surprised they don't have the villagers distilling moonshine during breaks from poppy cultivation... that might be another nice little earner. I'm really looking forward to somebody producing the hadith 'interpretation' describing how good muslims everywhere should do everything possible to encourage the opium trade. Any volunteers?

There is nothing wrong with growing Poppy!


http://www.family-health-information...nes/poppy.html

"Summary: The opium poppy continues to represent one of the most commercially important plants worldwide. Its use in medicine dates to antiquity as does its harmful addictive effects. Although an important commercial source of morphine, P. somniferum may be supplanted by P. bracteatum, a related plant high in thebaine, a compound which can be readily converted commercially to codeine, but only with extreme difficulty to morphine and heroin."

[guyabano]

There is nothing wrong with growing Poppy!


http://www.family-health-information...nes/poppy.html

"Summary: The opium poppy continues to represent one of the most commercially important plants worldwide. Its use in medicine dates to antiquity as does its harmful addictive effects. Although an important commercial source of morphine, P. somniferum may be supplanted by P. bracteatum, a related plant high in thebaine, a compound which can be readily converted commercially to codeine, but only with extreme difficulty to morphine and heroin."

Sure, agree. But that's certainly not, what the Taliban have in Mind !

[don532]

The reports are grim. Three men were hanged on April 1 in Helmand, executed as spies by the Taleban regime. The body of one hung for hours in Musa Qala, where the fundamentalists chased out village elders and ran up their flag in early February.

Hmm. I wonder what would be said if the US executed three men as spies and hung their bodies up for hours, then chased out the village elders.

[MTAFFI]

There is nothing wrong with growing Poppy!


http://www.family-health-information...nes/poppy.html

"Summary: The opium poppy continues to represent one of the most commercially important plants worldwide. Its use in medicine dates to antiquity as does its harmful addictive effects. Although an important commercial source of morphine, P. somniferum may be supplanted by P. bracteatum, a related plant high in thebaine, a compound which can be readily converted commercially to codeine, but only with extreme difficulty to morphine and heroin."

They arent exporting it to be made into the drugs you describe otherwise it wouldnt be an issue, they export it illegally for heroin production

[MTAFFI]

I volunteer,

This is why i had posted this article, to show the people, how the afghans can be so intrigued by money, so they try to deprive the name of the Taliban.

First of all, when the Taliban were in power, poppy cultivation completely stopped.

Second, the Taliban are not in full power in Afghanistan, when they will return, things will change.

Third, If poppy is not grown within the farmers income, then the people will starve. The poppy is there only income, neither does the Taliban profit from it. It is Hamid Karzais brother, Ahmed Karzai who profits.

Fourth, Right now Poppy is not the Major problem in Afghanistan, it is the Invasion. Therefore, the Talibs cannot concentrate on Foreign invasion and poppy at the same time. If a country is at war, the main purpose is to force the foreign invaders to leave, rather than to worry about how the people are making money in certain areas of the country.

Fifth, The taliban never said they encourage opium growth, thats your false accusation, since the Taliban destroyed poppy growth in 2000. But poppy growth was revived during the karzai administration. Another reason why the taliban let the poppy growth grow is to show the world the inconsistency of the Karzai government to disband the poppy growing seeds. The taliban simply stand on the sidelines and see what the karzai government has to do about it, while the karzai administration continuously does nothing.

Sixth, the accusations against the Taliban such as in the article of the taliban killing the man and his wife were proven false in a later article, when infact it was Foreign troops who had shot at that mans family, in which he later joined the Taliban. Some reports by trainees are not correct or incorrect, the translation errors. I have personally translated for the US in Afghanistan under the company Titan. There are numerous translation errors.

Seventh, this article is to show how the attitudes of the people can be conflicting with media reports of the Taliban. Some say good, some say bad. Time will tell what the people desire. If people say the taliban were evil, then how did they disarm 95 percent of the population and control 95 percent of Afghanistan?


And finally i repeat i do not Support the taliban, i just believe they were the best thing for Afghanistan at the time.

your response about the Taliban not encouraging poppy cultivation is completely false, they even taxed the farmers for it! They used the money to buy weapons and ammunition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_P...in_Afghanistan
http://www.unodc.org/afg/en/reports_surveys.html

[mahdisoldier19]

your response about the Taliban not encouraging poppy cultivation is completely false, they even taxed the farmers for it! They used the money to buy weapons and ammunition.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opium_P...in_Afghanistan
http://www.unodc.org/afg/en/reports_surveys.html

Actually the weapons that the current taliban have have been booty from the countless thousands of weapons the US had given to the Karzai soldiers. Also the billions given in weaponry during the soviet invasion has still left a mass amount of weapons. Also, the weapons are being shipped from pakistan and different parties including Saudi Arabia.

I can write anything on wikipedia, and the reports by unodc.org can you relink?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanista...381860,00.html

This source shows that ahmed wali karzai, Hamid karzais brother is a very famous drug dealer in Afghanistan. They profit, not the taliban

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmed_Wali_Karzai

Thats another source, Prove that false!

[Al_Imaan]

“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’. The government cannot come here now, because there is another power here. It is the government of the Taleban.”

“I am growing poppy, and now I am happy,” agreed Muhammad Meer. “I do not have to worry about the government coming to destroy my crop. The Taleban is not saying anything against poppy, and they have not asked us for help. We are very happy now.”

The Taleban seem to have learned something from the past. At least for the present, they are refraining from the more excessive aspects of their former brutal rule.

“The Taleban this time do not punish people for their short beards or long hair,” said Abdul Mane. “They do not bother people for listening to music or watching television. We are very happy about the present situation in our district.”

Hamidullah agrees. “We have a new kind of life now,” he said. “Nobody asks us ‘why did you shave your beard?’ or ‘why are you watching a movie?’ This is the Taleban, but it’s a new kind of Taleban. We love our life. Come to Musa Qala. If you are here for a few days, I am sure you will never want to leave.”

what happened to the times when the Taliban were "supposedly" banning poppy.......they're just acting like Mr. Goody-2-Shoes...so they get the Afghans on their side...then they can capture Afghanistan again w/out the Afghans rebelling...but after they re-capture....they're gonna start torturing the poor ppl again...there's no doubt about that....

Second, the Taliban are not in full power in Afghanistan, when they will return, things will change.

and I pray that the day would never come...

[wilberhum]

al_imaan_786
You don't think the Taliban is the greatest group in the world?
Please explain.

[snakelegs]

Fundamentalist rule has returned to Musa Qala – and some residents have never been happier.

Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By IWPR trainees in Helmand (ARR No. 249, 4-Apr-07)

The reports are grim. Three men were hanged on April 1 in Helmand, executed as spies by the Taleban regime. The body of one hung for hours in Musa Qala, where the fundamentalists chased out village elders and ran up their flag in early February.

While the news sent shudders through the capital, Lashkar Gah, residents of Musa Qala were undaunted.

“I don’t care about those three men,” said shopkeeper Zia ul Haq. “They deserved to die. I am happy. We have no problems here, except the possibility of bombardment.”

Musa Qala formally fell to the Taleban in February, barely four months after a controversial agreement under which village elders promised to keep the fundamentalists out in return for a British withdrawal.

The deal brought peace to the town, which had seen months of heavy fighting, but it sent thousands of people fleeing to more secure areas, fearing that NATO bombs would soon come to unseat the Taleban.

Two months later, the Taleban are still in charge.

“I do not want to take Musa Qala by force,” said President Hamed Karzai, speaking to residents of Lashkar Gah on March 29. “I want to solve problems by negotiations with all sides.”

But just one day earlier, provincial officials were telling a different story.
“We will recapture Musa Qala,” Helmand military chief Abdul Wahid Faizi told IWPR. “We will move the Taleban out of the town. We are working on plans now, and I am sure we will do that soon.”

While the government tries to decide on its course, local residents have had to continue with their lives.

Many say they are happier now than they have been for years – and more than willing to trade a certain amount of freedom for some peace and security.

“In my life I have only had two happy periods in which I felt safe,” said Zia ul Haq. “The first time was at the beginning of the Karzai administration and the second is now, when the Taleban is controlling the district.

Security is very good: there are no thieves, no kidnappers, everyone lives in safety and is able to get on with their lives. We are all happy.”

His assessment is in sharp contrast to official pronouncements.

“We have 900 families registered as refugees from Musa Qala,” said Abdulstar Muzahari, head of the department of refugees. “None of them have gone back. The only people who returned were drug traffickers and those who are linked to the Taleban. Most people hate the Taleban, they are not good to people.”

Certainly Sayed Ahmad Akaa, father of three, agrees. He has moved his family to the capital, and says that the shift is permanent.

“You could not pay me to go back to Musa Qala,” he told IWPR. “My children cannot go to school there, I cannot live. I sold all my land and am buying a shop in Lashkar Gah. I will never go back.”

Abdul Mane, another refugee, is just as adamant.

“I cannot return, because the Taleban say that I am a spy,” he said. “They have threatened me with death. I have not seen my parents in three months.”

Bu those who remain say life has never been better.

“When the government was controlling Musa Qala, you could not leave the house with 1000 rupees in your pocket (about 25 US dollars),” said Abdul Hadi. “There were thieves everywhere. But now things are quite different. Everyone is happy and feels free, you can carry gold and no one will steal it from you.”

Security concerns among Helmandis are wider than the threat from insurgents. Official corruption and police inaction made the cities unsafe, with those in uniform being seen as just as likely to perpetrate a crime as to prevent one. And residents feared government and foreign troops as much as they feared the Taleban.

“If the government cannot control the situation, we have to let the Taleban rule,” said one shopkeeper, who did not want to be named. “We were sleeping in the desert, because there were bombs and fires in our district every night between one and three a.m. When the government launches an operation, they give no warning.

“People were dying – we buried five or six bodies every day, most of them civilians. The graveyards were full. A bomb fell on one house and five members of the family were killed. The Taleban notify us when they intend to operate.”

“We hate the local authorities, because they destroyed our family,” said another local resident. “On March 22, the Taleban came to us and said ‘we are fighting tonight, protect yourselves’. So we packed up the car and went to the desert. The fighting began at seven p.m. As we were driving, the Taleban shot at our car and my wife and uncle were killed.

“We sat all night in the desert, and when we came home we found the doors to our house broken and all our belongings stolen by the local authorities. What are we supposed to do? We cannot sue the government or the Taleban, and both sides just come and beat us on our heads.”

In addition to the violence, Helmand’s most important revenue source, opium poppy, is under threat from foreign-backed eradication campaigns.
According to a 2006 report by the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime, UNODC, Afghanistan now produces over 90 per cent of the world’s heroin. And the undisputed champion of Afghan production is Helmand, where this season, according to provincial officials, more than 70 per cent of the land has been planted with poppy. Last year’s harvest made up more than 40 per cent of the Afghan total.

This means that an overwhelming majority of Helmand’s farmers have invested their economic survival in the fields of bright red flowers that dot the landscape.

The government launched a widely publicised eradication effort in February, but, once again, it has bogged down in corruption, and the results have fallen far short of expectation. The one undeniable effect seems to have been to drive farmers right into the arms of the Taleban.

“We are growing more poppy this year than ever before,” said Hamidullah, a farmer in Musa Qala. “The Taleban tell us ‘as long as we are here, no one can destroy your poppy’. The government cannot come here now, because there is another power here. It is the government of the Taleban.”

“I am growing poppy, and now I am happy,” agreed Muhammad Meer. “I do not have to worry about the government coming to destroy my crop. The Taleban is not saying anything against poppy, and they have not asked us for help. We are very happy now.”

The Taleban seem to have learned something from the past. At least for the present, they are refraining from the more excessive aspects of their former brutal rule.

“The Taleban this time do not punish people for their short beards or long hair,” said Abdul Mane. “They do not bother people for listening to music or watching television. We are very happy about the present situation in our district.”

Hamidullah agrees. “We have a new kind of life now,” he said. “Nobody asks us ‘why did you shave your beard?’ or ‘why are you watching a movie?’ This is the Taleban, but it’s a new kind of Taleban. We love our life. Come to Musa Qala. If you are here for a few days, I am sure you will never want to leave.”

IWPR is running a journalism training programme in Helmand province. This story is a compilation of trainee reports.

it sounds to me like letting the poppy growing continue without threat as well as the "new, gentler" taliban is just to win the people over. from what i understand, to the east of the durand line they are indeed behaving like the "good ole taliban".
however, if they have indeed brought security to a certain area, i'm sure the residents are thankful because without security nothing else matters. (which is why they were welcomed by many the first time around too).

[mahdisoldier19]

it sounds to me like letting the poppy growing continue without threat as well as the "new, gentler" taliban is just to win the people over. from what i understand, to the east of the durand line they are indeed behaving like the "good ole taliban".
however, if they have indeed brought security to a certain area, i'm sure the residents are thankful because without security nothing else matters. (which is why they were welcomed by many the first time around too).

Again someone finally understands! the second time, your on a role snake!

[Ninth_Scribe]

I truly hope there will be some responses on Trumble's post. That is a very important element to this discussion since many on this forum hold the Taliban up as the poster children of Islamic virtue.

I believe the Taliban are, as the saying goes, giving the people enough rope to hang themselves. Those who enjoy western culture are paying the price for it, and they've been shocked because they didn't even realize there would be a price to be paid. Western groups have helped the Taliban with their point by reporting on 'progress' in Afghanistan. A recent article concerning the Aids epidemic wound up enhancing the image of the Taliban who are viewed in this story as protecting the people from the illness.

Long cloistered by two decades of war and then the strict Islamic rule of the Taliban, Afghanistan was for many years shielded from the worst ravages of the AIDS pandemic. Not anymore.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/18/news/afghan.php

While I'm sure the reporters didn't intend for their article to have this effect - ooops

Ninth Scribe

[Muezzin]

I believe the Taliban are, as the saying goes, giving the people enough rope to hang themselves. Those who enjoy western culture are paying the price for it, and they've been shocked because they didn't even realize there would be a price to be paid. Western groups have helped the Taliban with their point by reporting on 'progress' in Afghanistan. A recent article concerning the Aids epidemic wound up enhancing the image of the Taliban who are viewed in this story as protecting the people from the illness.

Long cloistered by two decades of war and then the strict Islamic rule of the Taliban, Afghanistan was for many years shielded from the worst ravages of the AIDS pandemic. Not anymore.

Source: http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/03/18/news/afghan.php

While I'm sure the reporters didn't intend for their article to have this effect - ooops

Ninth Scribe

I'm just waiting for someone with the audacity to say that AIDS is the price of freedom or some such nonsense.

[Ninth_Scribe]

I'm just waiting for someone with the audacity to say that AIDS is the price of freedom or some such nonsense.

The article was not written in that context. It was merely reporting an AIDS break-out in the area. There are some relations to the 'western' cultures, but these are no different in nature to what was recorded in U.S. history... if you studied the effect the white man had on the native indians. Specifically the diseases that were spread to the natives by the white man.

Ninth Scribe

[Keltoi]

What stops AIDS is education. Like the rest of the third world, Afghanistan will have to educate its people on the causes and prevention of AIDS.

[Ninth_Scribe]

What stops AIDS is education. Like the rest of the third world, Afghanistan will have to educate its people on the causes and prevention of AIDS.

That would be a good start. Another would be to infuse a little discretion where sex is concerned... at least in public areas. I mean, people are just getting down right 'loose' as of late, wardrobe malfunctions and all these promiscuous women doing Pepsi commercials. Today I drove my daughter to work, and... I knew no one would believe me, so I snapped the shot for proof. Apparently, it's all the latest rage, but I ask you, how would you explain this one to your kids!?



I mean, hormones folks... at half past nine, it's more than flesh and blood can stand!

Ninth Scribe