Afghanistan and the blue stone

A year ago, to leave Afghanistan, I regretted not having bought lazurite mines of Sar-e-Sang lapis global epicenter for more than six thousand years.

The plane down between the mountains bald, a deep ocher and monotonous, and lands in Kabul.

I ride in an old bus that passes before a row of UN helicopters. The airport is newly constructed, with a party of Japanese development aid.

I have the same translator last year, Obai. I can hardly reach you because I run out of mobile balance upon arrival. Very bad. Obai is studying computer science at the University.

Although it has begun to cool in Kabul, the streets are just as dry and dusty. My first day housing is a cozy guesthouse. Outside go unnoticed. The bad: only watched a guard.

I have not much time. Legislative elections are in four days and Kabul not left wanting for the sprinters.

They say that the house of Abdul Salam Zaeef, former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, is a guest house financed by the Afghan government.

Your child is a boy who barely speaks English Kandahar. Cross street: his father is away, he says, to visit. Above, from a window, a bearded offers tea. Pashtuns love to hear are the most hospitable people in the world.

Zaeef with the phone.

Close-do not know whether with or without relation-Wakil Muttawakil lives, the last foreign minister of the Taliban. The road is unpaved, it is dark.

"Do not leave the car." A guard raises his Ak47. He is recorded (my driver is called Nazir, circulated in a red Corolla). Leaves a son, he says, Muttawakil. He will receive on Friday, "with a camera, and the New."

The Afghan government faces, calculates the Defense Ministry spokesman Zahir Azimi, about 20,000 to 30,000 Taliban, "all assets", and presumably ready to muss the elections.

"All ISAF troops are on full alert, of course. Our forces have been organized throughout the country, "says the deputy commander of ISAF operations, Wayne Detwiler.

I leave the press conference, designed to appease the more suspicious. Presidential aides repeated that everything will be fine.

"I warn America. If you burn the Koran, there will be revenge. " In recent days, there have been demonstrations in various parts of Afghanistan. The domino Florida has caused more than a headache in Kabul.

Throw the warning a group of followers of Afghan Siddiqi, a mathematician who graduated from Moscow. Today it carries the Philosophical Mathematics Center.

In 1992, his model identified a promising future for Afghanistan. Soon after, war broke out.

Inside the building, a stone's throw from the Presidential Palace, the UN mission and several ministries, there is a large three-dimensional cube that serves as a calendar. A portrait of Obama made with numbers. A false symmetry Afghan heads of state.

"A set Kandahari Afghanistan. Other (Karzai) has sold to foreigners. " Next to the picture of Karzai is the face of Mullah Omar. They say he is hiding somewhere near Quetta (Pakistan), he heads a 'shura'.

"We're not allowed to talk about the election," he answers the phone questioned the Taliban spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahid.

More on lapis: in city center shops, which are a money judgment for the (few) tourists, sold smoothed and varnishes. Blue as the sea drops Afghan ocher.

Afghanistan is a country embedded in borders that separate from it. A roundabout thirsty three formidable powers: the Indian subcontinent to the south, the great west Persia. To the north, the new czars of central Asia.

Haggling for a stone almost triangular, narrow base, of a bright blue sea. Rs 1,500. Surely my stone will have been dyed in advance, it would be fair to say that the dealer and I have done business.

The lapis is mined in a gorge between mountains over 6,000 meters. An area with more wolves than men in the abandoned and frigid region of Badakhshan, northeastern end.

"If you do not want to die, prevents Kokcha Valley," wrote the British explorer Lieutenant John Wood, reaching in 1837 the mines of Sar-e-Sang on behalf of the East India Company.

Nazir for the Corolla with the Russian embassy, ​​near the Parliament. As in the spy movies, there must locate an envoy of Malalai Joya, who has been called "the bravest woman in Afghanistan."

In December 2003, addressed without compromise against the warlords, with the peculiarity that the front of her. "I would say a couple of minutes ago .." he said in the Loya Jirga. Were actually three:

"Why do not you put cried-all criminals in the same committee, and we see what they want for the country? They who put our country in the heart of national and international wars (...) should go to the national and international courts. "

Joya, who has had five attempted murders, lives in hiding and moving house every few days. Hate the burqa, as untimely, if it were not because he can hide when out on the street.

Two old men arrive in a car and stand up with us. Sniff a little, but just a gesture. Then, the two vehicles snake through streets are sand. At the gates of a house as the other, a huge guard Tajik records up to the soles of the socks and shirt collar.

"This is me in silence: they want to eliminate me," he says calmly the little jewel.

This time he resigned to stand for election. "I want to kill, but I look at the smiling death". The protection of women, a convenient lie.

With the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, Western countries had to pull the quarry only active policy in the country: the "warlords", regional and local barons who for years had slaughtered each other and in the process killed thousands of civilians.

The Mujahideen, the Northern Alliance. Likewise Allah's pious who fought the Communists who fought the Taliban. Like its rivals, people almost medieval outputs. Now the Afghan democracy breathes through the pores of the vanes.

"People are tired of the international troops, and that the burning of the Koran may be the straw that breaks the camel. Protesters repeat it: if all run toward the base, die a few hundred, but in the end ... "says Farhad Peikar Afghan journalist, the German agency DPA, while sharing a" chicken shawarma "in a Lebanese bistro.

Farhad's people is about 70 kilometers from Kabul. There, at a rally a few days ago, a 12 year old boy ordered him to stop the music to make an announcement. In front of the mayor and police chief, said: "The Taliban say they will votéis in this election. You are warned. "

Nobody recalls Farhad, reacted. Neither the police. "How will you deal with that tomorrow some guys maybe are their superiors, who give the orders? People already preparing for the day after. Everyone is taking positions. "

The day after the day after the withdrawal. Obama announced last December reinforcements (in Afghanistan is now 150,000 foreign troops, two thirds of Americans), but also revealed that his troops begin to withdraw in July 2011.

Obama is supposed to work under tremendous pressure. His generals and their valets nuanced then those words or became a minor lapse. But many Afghans, including Taliban, have taken note. The moral evil have taken.

A former U.S. diplomat Robert Blackwill, advocates and the U.S. should leave the south and east and concentrate on areas less likely to defend the idea Taliban, or areas Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara.

Afghanistan from de facto to prevent the Pashtuns.

The latter are the majority ethnic group, but their geographical distribution is more or less clear: in an arc that runs through the west, south and east, with some exceptional bags in northern regions. Of them is nurtured the Taliban movement.

His plan horrifies the Afghan president, a Pashtun, Hamid Karzai. Seen as weak and corrupt. It is said that once, on a flight Herat-Kabul, ordered the pilot to head the presidential plane to Kandahar, and that these, despite their rage, they refused.

However, Karzai is strong, because he knows that in Afghanistan there is no other that can serve as a partner of the West and also as Pashtun dike.

In 2009, elections rigged with hundreds of thousands of votes in his favor. He got caught. There were months of international pressure. Some changes in the leadership of key institutions. Purpose of amendment. That is: Is the U.S. playing a single card?

(I say that in these elections Complaints Commission, responsible for detecting fraud, annulled only the most flagrant cases, and in fact the result then was a tie between Karzai and his arch rival, the Tajik Abdullah Abdullah).

They say men have become Karzai to mobilize, and this time will be easier. Almost all candidates for the House are independent. No one but his close followers, knows what they stand for.

Karzai is easier to finance their campaigns sottoterra related: officials of the provinces depend on it.

Analysts say these elections will be a small amount of fraud in favor of candidates who dominate the levers of state or have the financial power.

It feels the same way the Electoral Commission: its president, Fazal Manawi, insists that seek to ensure security, which have introduced measures against fraud. That elections are all clean and fair as it allows a country to the Afghan situation. Je.

More than a woman's name, Malalai resembles that of an entire tribe. It's what he sings Shafiq Mureed, a promising singer from Laghman sacrificed to hear the cry of Malalai. Joya does not refer to, of course, but Malalai of Maiwand, the great heroine of the second Anglo-Afghan war, 130 years ago.

The retreating Afghans. Malalai, a village of Khig in Kandahar arrampló the flag and sang a "Landay," a poem which children study today, who can, in schools: "If you die in Maiwand, may Allah let you live to enjoy your cowardice. "

Afghan militias, much higher than the British in number but not technical, they reacted and eventually overwhelm the British in one of the few victories during the nineteenth century an Asian army over a European. The battle, however, swept away to Malalai.

Today, the British are back in Helmand as part of an international coalition. It is hard not to find parallels between this struggle and this one.

Breakfast with a kid who does not resist to talk with foreigners. Represents the new Kabul: young, well dressed, confident speech. I sense that in relation to any outside company. Anyway, a story in the misery of the Afghan peoples.

"I worked four years with the Americans. In Bagram. They will stay here forever. They will not go. The soldiers wonder what they do here, so far. But yes, they know internally. Afghanistan is a strategic country. Rico. "

Conspiranoia spurred this ad for months the Afghan government, on the discovery of deposits of precious metals and minerals, including lithium, worth over a billion dollars. (Any extraction is at present far: lacking security, infrastructure).

Then there is the Afghan position: crossroads, place of China, the Indian subcontinent, Central Asia, Iran! Enough reason to be here? "Strategy is strategy. They will stay here forever, "he repeated. "In twenty years, answer as they are now friendly and get out-turn and talk."

Emal Haidary says, our man in Kabul: "There's this poet, Habibullah Rafi. He will have many things on landays ".

In Kabul hardly anyone wears glasses, is that not many read. The election posters themselves are filled with endless letters, faces of mullahs and also youngsters who admire the West but wary.

The aperturistas have been stranded too many times. So many, glosaría a rhetorician, and invaded Afghanistan. Warring since the time of Alexander the Great.

As planned, I move to Heetal, a fortress rose in the most protected from Kabul. It has several security cordons. It is promoted by announcing his "bunker with water and food," his "armored car rental", "s or armed security around the building 24 × 7".

Among the guests there seguratas shaved brawny, some Yankees brave photojournalists with those pants that look like mailboxes. A handful of oenegeros so that one pint of afganólogos flees.

What if I lived in Afghanistan? Classified Kabul: "House of 19 beds, Wazir Akbar Khan, $ 14,999 a month." "Home of 24 beds and 28 bathrooms, Shar-e-Now, $ 24,999 a month." There are houses, but mother ships. Grazing international organizations.

As if that was not obvious enough: the war is making a handful of wealthy Afghans.

There is a press conference in the information department of the Government. On the way down the Shah M. Books, the cave of the bookseller of Kabul. It has a great background, but the prices are neither in Manhattan. No landays book for less than 15 bucks. Neither knows of Habibullah Rafi.

Have suspended the press conference was to give the presidential spokesman. Instead, Karzai spoke to a select group of media. Anyway I'm to the point of the call, to claim my status select media. See if school ...

In the absence of Rafi and poems of the Bookseller of Kabul, I take the only book I brought to Kabul, "Romanticism, odyssey of the German spirit," the historian Rüdiger Safranski.

It begins: "Two and a half centuries after Columbus and a century before Nietzsche's motto, an adventurer of the spirit [Herder] germinated the need to go to sea and break into the terrible reality that exists."

The most decadent of Kabul, apart from some hiding in the mountains, must be the English cemetery. For 30 years, the pay of the British Embassy, ​​took care Rahimullah, this spring died a natural death, depending on where a rare privilege.

I'll see him one day: there are graves of soldiers killed during the Anglo-Afghan wars, also was thrown from when Kabul was stop on the route of the movement "hippy" or victims of the current war. Here buried Gayle Williams, an aid worker shot dead in 2008.

"Herder Goethe saw the adventurer who had returned from sea and brought fresh wind of the trip, a breeze that stimulated the imagination." Sturm und drang. Tempest and momentum.

When sent to Afghanistan, Mullah Omar asked why Rahimullah graves cared infidels, and this he replied that, with age, even a blind man would have more chances of finding a job. Omar, who was (is) one-eyed, did not take it amiss.

Kabul, otherwise it is a city that is deployed in the mountains. Adobe houses falling like a waterfall, in cubic replications, a network ocher also opens endless neighborhoods and make the center a hypnotic feeling as out of time.

One explorer John Wood of the mines of Sar-e-Pang called the Pamir mountains of the "roof of the world." I put my lazurite, from a lost canyon, next to the computer.

It opens the door Muttawakil son. The guards at the door with a portrait of Ahmad Shah Mehsud, the Lion of Panjshir, the great enemy of the Taliban, killed in suicide attack just two days before the 11-S. Mehsud is perhaps the warlord who knew best how to manage your image.

-In Spain there are many Muslims, right? Muttawakil-opens fire.

- Was Muslim for centuries, and has left many landmarks.

Muttawakil was the last foreign minister Taliban before the fall. Mullah Omar chose to leave; him stay. He spent three years in prison. Its name came from the list of supporting terrorism by the UN in January. A nod to the insurgents lay down their arms?

He invited me to tea. He is from Maiwand, like the great Malalai. How about a Taliban warrior woman? "We have no problem with Malalai. We want as many women are Malala i ". It comes to my head Malalai Joya.

I leave the house Muttawakil, a nice man and of ways-not ideas-moderate. "The yellow dog is brother of the wolf," says a proverb of the hospital Pashtuns.

Is it anything to foreigners to leave? Setting the phone Zaeef.

"If you were Taliban, what would you do to fight the powerful foreign army? You need the support of everyone, of all those who pitch in. With Al Qaeda, it is a covenant in the war. The goal is not the same, the enemy does, "says the former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan.

No other place overlooking the city of Kabul and the television tower on the ridge of a hill imposing. I need video resources for election day and there will be more panoramic. Buy kebabs and chop up the road with the Corolla. Nazir is a phenomenon.

Upon arrival we were a cop, so we give up flying so high and we moved into a berm, a few tens of meters below the tower. Time is something unpleasant and Kabul takes a dye almost unreal master houses, its decline as a ladder. Almost play a few comets.

Some boys go up the hill laden with bags. They stop to look abroad. "One day we get closer to the tower and the police shot at us." You do not know whether to believe these allegations sporadic. Not that surprised, in a country so molded to war.

It starts to drizzle, a rarity in the September semi-arid city. Drops down loaded powder. It was almost magical food, career, levitating to Kabul.

I have an email from the Government: "Go to school tomorrow Amani Saturday at seven o'clock. The president will vote there and you will enter. "

The Amani school in Kabul is an island located in the Government security. That's where the elite vote Kabuli, including leading politicians. After all, and for once, I'm half selected. There will be up early.

To get there, leave left the Philosophical Institute of Mathematics and pass a security check first that it is fierce. "Spanish Embassy?" Repeats an officer while studying the list of accredited media.

Once past the obstacle, you walk between concrete blocks, while off-road vehicle loaded with the black coats are the presidential guard. You spend the UN mission in Kabul, then comes the Amani. If you followed a while in the deserted sidewalk, llegarías for president.

I registered in the street with trained German Shepherds. Then the cameras were trampled to achieve the best angle of Karzai. Amani in the gym, paid for with German money, everything is perfectly orchestrated: a place of pristine cleanliness, materials complete first.

First comes the head of UNAMA in Kabul (will come on foot?), Staffan de Mistura, one of those diplomats Boomers: "To say that safety is guaranteed is too big," he rip. Bueno.

Karzai arrives wrapped in his chapan, green and blue that layer of Mazar-i-Sharif. He likes to show this type of symbols to emphasize the unity of the Afghan peoples (his advisors then reveal who voted for a candidate Hindu symbol it off).

But he is a Pashtun tribe of the Popalzai, as the unifier of Afghanistan, Ahmad Shah Durrani, which will delight fans of the philosopher and mathematician Siddiqi psychedelic symmetries Afghan history.

The first set Kandahari Afghanistan. The latter sold it to foreigners.

CIA Holds:

- Afghan Ethnic composition: Pashtun 42%, 27% Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks, 9% each.

- Afghan Religions: Sunni 80%, Shia 19%

- Languages: Afghan Persian (Dari) 50% Pashtun 35% (the rest, mostly, are languages ​​of Central Asia such as Turkmenistan).

That is, there are Pashtuns who speak Dari. Other Shiites in addition to the despised Hazaras. Sunni Iranian farsi speakers. Uzbek away from home. Afghanistan was always a carousel.

Karzai repeated something pompous liturgy and held voting last year, before a huge sign that he clings to a child. The catacombs of propaganda. Just answer a question and goes on wings, wrapped in their commands.

Few Afghan leaders have died in bed, and Karzai is a permanent tension guess. In a recent book, "Obama's Wars" (Bob Woodward), is said of him who is addicted to drugs, paranoid and depressed. A weirdo, according to a U.S. envoy.

The atmosphere is relaxed immediately. Other leaders arrive. First, the Second Vice President Karim Khalili, Hazara ("hope it is not fraud," trust). Then the other, Mohammed Fahim, who suffered a heart attack two weeks ago. As still reeling, somebody helps you vote.

The Afghan ethnic gap is still in force: Khalili's bodyguards are Hazaras. The Fahim, Tajik pakol adhered to the front and Ak-47 snarling at the thought of a photograph.

With them and the Taliban bullet that fell at dawn near the U.S. Embassy can one assume that the 2010 parliamentary elections have begun in Afghanistan.

The attack at dawn did not feel it I do atribuló, hours before a 6.3 magnitude earthquake and its epicenter in the Hindu Kush mountains that shook the walls of the Heetal and made me jump out of bed. A plane flying low? Have you reached the Fedayeen?

The morning is much quieter Kabuli: all shops are closed. Police are deployed to control the vehicles in the "ring of steel", the pretentious milestones of your safety plan. I'm taking pictures as they approach slowly two white Corollas.

Every time I think of the fedayeen comes to head the photographic image of the Taliban that killed Benazir Bhutto in Pakistan: dark glasses, short hair and Western clothes. The visualized in white Corollas. Admittedly, at times in Kabul gets to a certain uneasiness.

Corollas away and comes a policeman. What do I do recording. My card does not convince you, I registered. Go time for a scuffle. Afghan media have begun to report cases of fraud across Afghanistan, but it will be days before a movie have conclusive.

The Taliban have passed a list of 150 polling stations attacked. Before the day, the Commission decided not to open another 1,000 because he could not guarantee safety. And the Government recognizes that it has a presence in nine districts.

In some schools there have been queues, men on one side, women on the other. But the day ends and the feeling is that people have voted recently. "I do not want to be a journalist," says Obai. "He works hard and without peace." Then goes to a corner to pray and falls asleep.

The staff of Afghan security will speak at 20.00 am in the headquarters of the Electoral Commission. There I find Ibrahimi, a sympathetic journalist Wakht to be pulled after the great slaughter Afghan men. Usually sprout well.

Ibrahimi not know the whereabouts of Habibullah Rafi, but I passed a number of his professor at the University of Kabul, "a poet, a scholar," he says with reverence. If I had time ...

"The Taliban are much weaker. If you look at the violent events that occur, are in many cases mines or IEC, launch missiles, innocent deaths. Kill or threaten ordinary people does not show strength, but weakness, "says the head of the Afghan secret service, Rahmatullah Nadil.

Moralizing responses are a bad enemy of truth.

I leave the building with the defense minister, the former mujahedeen and then Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak. He does not like the press, but you feel like talking.

"Gradually we take responsibility for security in our country. That is our historic responsibility. This is the first time in our history that boys and girls come from foreign soil to defend ourselves. "

"Throughout history, has always been our pride in having defeated all invaders of all the superpowers. And we want to restore this honor again. "

The rhetoric of the device indicates that the Afghan Taliban are paid by Pakistan. The rhetoric Taliban says it is an invasion like Malalai and others.

It's one o'clock and my head burns. I remember a few days so hard.

But the elections have passed and there was no catastrophe: Afghanistan is still here.

Obai reading me by phone a couple of questions in Pashto to the spokesmen of the Taliban. I have little confidence in that answer. ISAF does: "The Taliban are killing more than ever because we are fighting in more places than ever." Something here smacks of tautology.

Between January and June died, according to the UN, 1,271 civilians in the Afghan war. June, with 102 soldiers killed, was the bloodiest month for ISAF troops from entering the country in 2001. In the past three years the Taliban have expanded much of the country, including northern areas before relaxing.

I read in a magazine that decades of war have endangered the snow leopard, exposed to poaching and hunted for their fur. He also talks a photographer who claims to worship the pomegranate juice, apparently the number one commandment "afganidad".

"Anor", ask a shopkeeper. Pomegranate juice. Let's see how it goes.

- Obai, do you know the Faculty of Arts?

- Yes

- I want you and ask if they know anything of Habibullah Rafi.

Afghan culture retains a strong oral legacy. The "moshairas" or poetry readings still meet thousands of people who delight in the "ghazals" and "landays" of their poets. In Jalalabad there every year a "moshaira" especially famous, dedicated to oranges.

"I bring a flower to me. Take it or let me go, "women still sung in the villages, is one in a safe from prying eyes.

Kabul - Jalalabad - Peshawar. A route like pearls on a necklace. Afghanistan still does not recognize the Durand Line, a 2,600 km border drawn by the British in 1893, which halved the Pashtun people. Today separates Afghanistan from Pakistan.

The Electoral Commission has called a press conference at its headquarters in Jalalabad road. There are several Spanish journalists. The Commission has begun to receive envelopes with votes and with complaints. The standard envelopes are white, those of the complaints, brown.

Some 50 people during elections. It seems that everything went well.

As I registered, I ask the guards if they like Shafiq Mureed. The Afghan people are in love with music.

With the call to prayer and the cry of bilal Malalai, oh, I sacrifice myself for my country and my love, my beautiful Afghanistan. I do a little survey: all seguratas the door with the Electoral Commission declared fans the radio format.

The Taliban banned music instruments. Instead, enhanced the "Trana" vocal music sung by boys. As Sajad Abdul Hakim. He sang:

"Take your sword and your gun, now is the time of martyrdom / jihad is necessary for all / come on, march to the trenches, it's time for courage and honor."

After a week negotiating a meeting with the President of parliament, Yunus Qanuni, the choice falls and with it complicates my topic today, an overview of the warlords.

And, Habibullah Rafi was not in his office.

"The war was the case, you you ended up getting used. Walking down your street. Took cover in your yard. They bet on your roof. All we have lived here, "says a student at the University, Farooq. "So we are tough guys," he laughs.

After the Soviet withdrawal, the various Afghan factions were locked dead and pumps for years in the mud of Kabul. Many welcomed the Taliban in 1996 as a way to restore order.

Then they had to let the double b of talibabas, burqas and beards, and disenchanted.

The U.S. invasion in 2001 was as plate tectonics: the majority of warlords aligned with international troops, a few, like Hekmatyar, took to the hills.

The first became respectable men. They reached the Government, Parliament. In 2007, approved an amnesty under which spared the outrages were committed before the fall of the Taliban and the invasion of the country by Western troops.

The poet Abdul Hamid protested Samay then: Come out to the streets! / Because that girl / on the roof of your tent, bathed in blood / was who was playing with your daughter.

"I think you can still get on the black market videos (....) literally killing people," says Emal Haidary.

The Afghan parliament has 249 seats (68 reserved for women). Have made ​​their way leaders like Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, Rabbani Burhunudín, Mullah Ezat, Sayed Ansari, Hazrat Ali, Mohammed Mohaqiq.

He even speculates about whether Hazrat Ali helped Osama bin Laden to escape Tora Bora caves. Obai and I managed to contact Mohaqiq:

The equivalent of "Yes?" Phone is in Afghanistan: "Is it?".

"This is the land of jihad and jihadis are the people who rescued the country from Soviet occupation. They are entitled to stand for election and their existence is good for the people, "said Mohaqiq. He speaks in third person.

Should a democracy forgiving past crimes of those who embrace it?

The Mujahid Taliban responds by saying he does not understand the questions I asked him on grass.

It's Monday.

ISAF has my badge waiting for days. The delivered outside his base near the airport. I must leave today for Afghanistan will be a good idea to pick the way. Voro.

Last year, the ISAF's made me wait 20 minutes in the door. On the civilian side, the outer concrete walls of their headquarters in Kabul. Twenty long minutes with the image of guys in dark glasses and short hair.

This time they were much faster. The cards are ready at the entrance.

- You are patrolling on the street less than last year, right? I ask the soldier in charge of the cards, Lt. Gabriel.

On the street I've only seen a couple of Turkish convoys. A clever move, leaving the Turks in charge. This, come to say those of ISAF, not a war between Christians and Islam. (Then comes a threatening to burn the Koran, all the fret).

'I have no idea. Perhaps it is that now we have become more subtle, says Gabriel while handing me my badge later.

What satisfaction when you find ways.

I leave the red Corolla and I say Nazir. You are very great. Next year, I say, yes that I will talk to Habibullah Rafi. Laughs.

I recorded the keepers of the airport. My suitcase slides slowly through the scanner. The for the police. "What is this?" He says. "A stone?".

Shit.

The blue stone.

- Where are the papers?

- I have no papers. Afghanistan is only a memory. Did they lack papers?

- You are not allowed to travel with her.

Yet I insist. The guard asks me who I am, what I have done in Afghanistan, where I'm going. I say that I'm Spanish ("ah, isbaniya"), I travel to India. I show my cards to prove I'm not lying. Move your hand.

- Dale.

And what satisfaction when you find ways.

Afghanistan, the dusty crossroads

In Afghanistan there is no strategy, only tactics. The phrase is from a security official who asked not be named, but if, say, anonymous, is ruling the turbulent flight or Pacific (as we take the pessimistic or optimistic) Afghan electoral process, with winners still to be defined but course and encased in fraud allegations, complaints handling and widespread distrust about the future of a war that began eight years ago and not only is unlikely to end but it gets worse.

Soon as you close the polls, on August 20, between Western journalists and the international community, perhaps with the Iranian example in the subconscious, began to gain weight the idea that the presidential election had been a giant pantomime orchestrated by the Afghan government to perpetuate itself in power, with the tacit acquiescence of the Western powers and the submissive silence of supranational organizations. A few days later jumped the hare: the main opponent, Abdullah Abdullah, former foreign minister and spokesman of the warlord Ahmed Shah Massoud, denounced the "massive fraud", the "Farce" count, justified by the more than 2,000 complaints of irregularities in the process.

There is still nothing definite about it (the Complaints Commission is still assessing the irregularities), but it is unusual that the elections would be blameless: in a country with whole districts dominated by the Taliban, daily combat operations and parts of low increasingly nourished without established democratic culture rooted among political parties and citizens, on the other hand, mostly illiterate. There is no reliable census and the complicated relief made ​​the Election Commission had to use several thousand donkeys to carry the ballot to certain isolated areas. In this election, many people have seemed to require nothing short of a miracle.

La comunidad internacional se ha gastado cientos de millones de dólares para que Afganistán pudiera celebrar sus elecciones presidenciales; pero con ello y con la masiva abstención quedó refrendada la idea de que en el país hay una democracia sostenida por el extranjero y no compartida por la población, todavía dependiente de los viejos códigos tribales que impiden a la mujer salir de casa y, por ejemplo, registrarse como votante. En muchos pueblos, son los maridos quienes registran a sus mujeres , con el riesgo –denunciado por distintos organismos independientes- de que se emitan tarjetas de votante sobre la base de personas inexistentes, vendidas luego al mejor postor, como hizo público la BBC en una investigación.

Y en esos muchos pueblos, digo, son todavía los viejos líderes tribales quienes deciden el voto de comunidades enteras. Una regla alterada en el sur y el este del país, donde ha sido más palpable la intimidación de los talibanes , que llamaron al boicot de los comicios (“pura propaganda americana”) y amenazaron con represalias a los votantes (cumplidas al menos en tres casos documentados: a dos personas les cortaron los dedos, manchados de tinta en el proceso de votación; ya un campesino le mutilaron la nariz cuando marchaba a las urnas). Se registraron 135 ataques, según el dato oficial.

Con todos estos elementos, resulta sorprendente que pese a lo alienígena de la democracia en el viejo sistema tribal afgano, la denunciada sombra del fraude alentado por los barones regionales y las amenazas y atentados de unos insurgentes cada vez más poderosos, haya habido varios millones de afganos decididos a ir a votar limpiamente y con la confianza de que su voto servirá para algo. En el capítulo de lo positivo, y sabiendo que la abstención ha sido masiva, lo mejor que se puede decir es que la democracia tiene algunos adeptos brotes verdes en Afganistán.

Pero esto no obsta para comprender que unas elecciones celebradas con el despliegue de unos 300.000 miembros de las fuerzas de seguridad –de ellos, unos 100.000 soldados extranjeros- son el mejor recordatorio de que Afganistán no solo es un país en guerra, sino que además la situación está más tiempo descontrolada que bajo control: julio fue el mes que marcó el récord de bajas en combate de las tropas internacionales desde la invasión del país, en el año 2001, hasta que esa marca fue superada en agosto. Atentados, explosiones, incursiones rebeldes de baja o media intensidad: un desgaste casi imperceptible pero permanente. Una bomba de relojería.

Los soldados de las tropas internacionales están bien equipados –mucho mejor que sus colegas afganos- y se mueven en unos estrictos protocolos de seguridad que buscan proteger su integridad y minimizar las bajas. Comprensible, pero a la vez con el contratiempo que esto supone -por la inaccesibilidad- para ganarse la simpatía de la población afgana. Y además juegan en desventaja, porque los talibanes no son un cuerpo externo a Afganistán; aparte de su cúpula dirigente, muchos de ellos son pastunes de áreas rurales que no tienen más manera de ganarse la vida que echarse al monte, con un sueldo mejor que el que les pagaría el Ejército (Palabras de alguien de fiar: “ ¿A quién le interesa que occidente se empantane en Afganistán? Coge un mapa y mira los países limítrofes. Uno a uno” ).

Así que son afganos de pura cepa nacidos en el seno de familias igualmente afganas con un código moral tradicional y una lectura ultraconservadora del Islam, pero valores propios y compartidos. Propondrán un orden social anclado en el pasado y unos puntos de vista escalofriantes bajo cualquier estándar internacional, pero a la vez dicen garantizar la seguridad de la población de la que forman parte en la lengua que maneja esa misma población. En esto, tienen un plus esencial sobre las tropas extranjeras, que son un elemento externo y accidental tanto entre las polvorientas colinas de Kabul como no digamos ya en el medio rural.

"The Taliban do not attack normal people, why should we be afraid?" Pashtun boy had come from Nangarhar, in eastern country, at a rally of the very Democratic Ashraf Ghani, before the election. It is an argument that the practice proves fallacious rebel, but what matters is that it keeps her draft in a significant proportion of the population, so tired of war and eager to return to a security situation that eludes them.

Notice: the headquarters of the ISAF (International Security Assistance) in Kabul is a wall of cement, heavy doors guarded by soldiers with glasses Macedonian clubbing neither are handled in English (let alone in Dari) and only indicated by gestures that should not be closer than necessary. Y, no lejos, para llegar al Palacio presidencial de Hamid Karzai hay que pasar estrictos controles de seguridad y caminar a pie por una extensa avenida arbolada. Tan verde y tan vacía que uno se pregunta si de verdad está en Kabul o ha salido andando del país, sin darse cuenta.

“ Es curioso –decía el traductor a nuestro paso por los jardines del presidente Karzai-. Con los talibanes, este espacio estaba abierto para la gente. Todos podían pasear y acercarse por aquí. Y ahora, lo han convertido en una especie de fortaleza ”. Así es Kabul: una ciudad vitalista, pero con un barrio entero arrancado a su población y monumentales atascos (los coches se concentran en las pocas vías alternativas, a veces sin asfaltar y cruzadas por rebaños de cabras). Los estudiantes del céntrico instituto Amani –donde votó Karzai y cerca de palacio-, tienen que pasar controles y registros diarios para ir a clase. Si alguno intenta fumarse una clase y salir del centro, la Policía afgana lo envía al calabozo.

Karzai –tan pastún como los talibanes y por eso mismo, su principal dique de contención- se hizo esperar dos horas en la sala de prensa y habló cinco minutos, los suficientes como para dar una visión bien humorada de las elecciones y mostrarse seguro de su triunfo (necesita más del 50 por ciento para proclamarse vencedor en la primera vuelta); pero no dio pistas de lo que hará si gana: si negociará con los insurgentes moderados, como prometió, si ejecutará sus pactos con los señores de la guerra (a los que ha atraído para ganar votos), si mantendrá firmeza respecto a las tropas internacionales pese a sus desencuentros con los EEUU.

“ No hay estrategias, sólo tácticas ”. Y en estas, el jefe de las tropas internacionales en el país, Stanley McChrystal, pide un viraje en el rumbo de una guerra que, de seguir así, “se perderá”. Se trata, ha escrito el general, de dar prioridad a la seguridad de la población afgana frente a los talibanes y de fomentar la presencia del Ejército afgano en las operaciones contra los insurgentes. Pero se trata, en realidad, de continuar con el estado de guerra sin tener en cuenta que, para un sector de los afganos, los talibanes siguen siendo libertadores levantados contra el invasor . Y sin tener en cuenta que el principal enemigo del progreso sigue siendo la falta de oportunidades entre los jóvenes afganos (el 65 por ciento de la población tiene menos de 28 años).

Esto último es algo que tiene claro el candidato Ramazán Bashardost –tercero en el recuento de voto-, un ex ministro de Planificación que ha hecho campaña desde una tienda de lona emplazada frente al parlamento afgano, sin ningún tipo de protección de seguridad y sin temor de sufrir ataques ( ¿quién va a querer matarme a mí?, se pregunta). Bashardost combina una fiera lucha contra la corrupción con ideas algo peregrinas respecto al final de la guerra (propone comandos contra objetivos en Pakistán si ese país se inmiscuye en los asuntos afganos), pero la propuesta que importa aquí es su llamada de atención sobre el subdesarrollo del país.

Bashardost acusa a las ONG occidentales de embolsarse dinero destinado a obras públicas, pone nombre a las ovejas negras de las organizaciones estatales de ayuda, rastrea el desvío de fondos en un país que languidece a la cola de los índices mundiales de corrupción. Quiere, dice, el desarrollo para que las pagas militares o insurgentes dejen de ser una opción atractiva –o la única opción- de los jóvenes en un país “ acostumbrado a guerrear desde el Paleozoico ” (en palabras de una fuente diplomática) y con un deporte nacional, el buzkashí, que es una pequeña batalla en miniatura. Bashardost no tiene posibilidades de victoria, pero ha atraído a un número de votantes suficiente (ronda el 10 por ciento) como para ser tenido en cuenta. “Los votos de Bashardost – bromeaba un colega periodista el primer día de escrutinio- serán los únicos reales en estas elecciones. Lo demás, puro fraude”.

La tienda de Bashardost es tan pequeña como cualquiera de los dos cañones que adornan la entrada del surrealista palacio de Karzai. En un lugar como Afganistán, donde la vida vale menos que un melón, bastaría con que uno de esos integristas suicidas corriera unos metros desde la carretera para llevarse de un soplo explosivo a Bashardost ya su tienda. Pero, paradójicamente, estar allí mete menos miedo que pasar veinte minutos a las puertas de la ISAF, con los soldados macedonios impidiendo el paso y -es un suponer- en la mirilla de los insurgentes. Y de lo que ocurre en Afganistán con los palacios da buen testimonio el edificio de Darul Amán, la mole inmensa del shá. Hoy yace ruinoso a las afueras de Kabul –bien es verdad que todavía majestuoso- y vigilado por un grupo de aburridos soldados que matan las horas tumbados a pierna suelta en camastros a la sombra, parapetados tras interminables alambradas.

Desde los huecos para los ventanales de Darul Amán, vieja morada del rey, se divisa Kabul, a lo lejos. Una ciudad entre montañas tomada por el polvoriento calor del verano y por miles de soldados venidos de muy lejos mientras el mundo se interroga para qué sirve todo esto.

Afganistán es un país partido en tribus y etnias de difícil convivencia –pastunes, tayikos, hazaras, uzbecos-, con dos generaciones enteras que han crecido con la guerra como hábitat natural. Una encrucijada de rutas con vecinos de ambiciones opuestas que la han convertido en tablero de sus intereses propios (país sin mar, hay tres vías de suministro terrestre, pero los occidentales no controlan ninguna), como lleva pasando desde Alejandro Magno. Los mimbres del estado son débiles ya Karzai lo llaman viciosamente el “alcalde de Kabul”, porque su control sobre el país no llega ni a los pilotos del avión presidencial (historia que contaré otro día).

Hablando de aviones: regresaba desde Kabul vía Kandahar, un vuelo de la compañía Ariana que domina a baja altura las montañas de Ghazni y Zabul antes de llegar al pedregoso aeropuerto del bastión talibán. Un azaroso compañero de viaje me iba señalando los accidentes de las sierras, aquí un pueblo, allí un valle, dominado todo por las ocres montañas afganas. “ ¿Eres tayiko o pastún? ”, le pregunté. “ Soy afgano ”, me respondió con retintín. Y ya más serio, fue detallando los peligros del camino allá abajo: talibanes, salteadores, mujeres atrapadas, pobreza por todas partes. “ La mayoría de los jóvenes en este país no tienen de qué vivir ni saben qué hacer ”, decía, “ la demanda de desarrollo es urgente y vital ”.

O sea, me despedí de Afganistán, más estrategia y menos tácticas.

Lucky for Caceres 2016

Se trata del palacio de Darul Aman, a unos 10 kilómetros del centro de Kabul. Fue construido por el gran rey afgano Amanulá en la década de 1920, pero, tras varios incendios y décadas de guerra a tumba abierta, su interior está completamente destruido. Sus únicos habitantes son un pájaro majestuoso, una camada de cachorros recién nacidos y unos cuantos soldados que holgazanean en camastros a la sombra.