Afghanistan: people’s war
A father prepared to sell his son, widespread kidnappings, corruption and lawlessness. In an RTS award-winning film, Channel 4 News captured the startling personal tales of ordinary Afghan people.
Warning: the accompanying film contains scenes you may find distressing.
Away from the battlefield, in December 2008 Channel 4 News captured the stark realities of daily life in Afghanistan where redevelopment cash did not appear to be reaching hungry and desperate families.
Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson found a new economy; of children for sale and routine kidnappings.
The team began their journey by following a woman known as Sadiqa and her agent, Nargis, on a “shopping” expedition to the Shalay refugee camp in northern Afghanistan.
They found a father, Nek Mohammad, who was willing to sell his eight-year-old son for $1500 USD in order to buy food for his other children. He had already done the same with another boy and tearfully begged to know how he was doing in his new life in Kabul. “He’s fine,” Sadiqa and the agent told him as they completed the purchase of Kasam.
At this point the translator asked, “surely this is wrong?”
Away from the battlefield, in December 2008 Channel 4 News captured the stark realities of daily life in Afghanistan where redevelopment cash did not appear to be reaching hungry and desperate families.
Chief Correspondent Alex Thomson found a new economy; of children for sale and routine kidnappings.
The team began their journey by following a woman known as Sadiqa and her agent, Nargis, on a “shopping” expedition to the Shalay refugee camp in northern Afghanistan.
They found a father, Nek Mohammad, who was willing to sell his eight-year-old son for $1500 USD in order to buy food for his other children. He had already done the same with another boy and tearfully begged to know how he was doing in his new life in Kabul. “He’s fine,” Sadiqa and the agent told him as they completed the purchase of Kasam.
At this point the translator asked, “surely this is wrong?”
Sadiqa replied: “Yes, you are right, it’s cruel – but I have two aims here. First, to give this boy a bright future and good education and second, to save their other children.
“The winter is coming and I have given them money so they don’t die of hunger.”
But Mr Mohammad told Channel 4 News: “I sold a piece of my heart to stop my four other children dying of hunger. “I don’t have an elder son, I am also sick, my kidney is failing and my body is in pain.
The agent, Nargis, said “we can’t stand this either”.
Civilian cost of war
The war in Afghanistan began in response to the 11 September terrorist attacks on the US in 2001 - with the US-led air assault Operation Enduring Freedom.
Nine years later coalition forces are still engaged in daily fights with the Taliban.
Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) have become the deadliest weapon in a constantly shifting battleground, threatening civilians as well as troops.
To date, estimated figures indicate that around 12,000 civilians have died as a direct result of the war. Indirect deaths could be much higher, around 30,000.
As many as 3.7m Afghan refugees now live abroad - mostly in neighbouring countries such as Pakistan and Iran.
Despite the massive intervention and billions of pounds in foreign aid, Alex Thomson’s team found families living in basic mud structures – often using the same space for both kitchen and toilet.
A local farmer told Channel 4 News that it was very difficult to scratch together a living in the drought-stricken fields.
He said: “people are going to Iran or Pakistan, or joining the Taliban because they are poor and don’t have a future.”
Financial cost of war
Latest government figures show £11bn has been spent on the Afghan war by the UK to date.
The bill includes the cost of military operations as well as £1.2m on humanitarian aid and reconstruction.
According to the Pentagon the US cost of the war in Afghanistan to date stands at $190bn.
‘Talibanistan’
A few miles away Mullah Mesher, a Taliban commander, was discovered holding his version of an MP’s surgery.
He said: “I’m serving my people in the name of God – because the government is not helping, people are turning their backs on them.
“Everyone is coming to us – it’s an honour to serve our people.”
One man in the queue, a blind farmer, had come to get help in a dispute over some land. Many like him said they trusted the Taliban to sort out their problems more than the government.
The film was picked out at the RTS journalism awards in 2010, recognising independent filmmaker Mehran Bozorgnia and Channel 4 News.
The judges commended the "extraordinary account" of life for ordinary Afghans seven years after Nato entered the country.
Iranian-born Bozorgnia has over 25 years' experience of covering wars and conflict zones as a freelance cameraman and documentary-maker.
Meet the kidnappers
Alex Thomson’s team then moved south to Kabul, where they learned that kidnappings were “big business”.
After weeks of delicate negotiation Channel 4 News gained rare access to a team of kidnappers.
We are only going to kidnap the people who have taken foreign money from all over the world, but have kept it for themselves.” Mateen Khan
One of them, Mateen Khan, told Alex Thomson: “You are now in the heart of an ongoing kidnap in a suburb of Kabul.
“We are not dealing with poor people. We are only going to kidnap the people who have taken foreign money from all over the world, but have kept it for themselves. We will kidnap their children.”
Khan then showed the Channel 4 News team a teenager held hostage in an outbuilding. He explained that the boy would be sold to the Taliban or have his eyes “taken out”.
A high-profile former hostage, Homayoun Aseffe, a cousin of the former king of Afghanistan, spoke about his ordeal – he was kidnapped and held down a well for 10 days.
He said: “One of the kidnappers told me they wanted money. I told him I am not a businessman, I’m not working for the government, I don’t have property.
“His answer was very brutal, he said: ‘when we cut off your finger and send it to your family, we’ll find your property and your money’.”
Battle for hearts and minds: has it failed?
In April 2010, Alex Thomson and Mehran Borzognia returned to Afghanistan and found Afghan civilians still unable to get on with their lives and some fleeing the conflict.
They travelled from Kabul to Helmand province, moving independently and at great risk around the regional capital Lashkar Gah.
A man tells the team: “We’re fed up of the fighting and the loss of so many of our men. The women who’ve come – they’re widows, their husbands were killed their houses hit by rockets.”
Click here: Inside an Afghan hospital
The governor of Helmand, Gulab Mangal, promised the situation was getting better, saying:”Day by day and month by month security is being improved. Peace is spreading to a wider area. In the past year we’ve cleared the insurgents from there districts”.
But the Channel 4 News team found the Taliban showed no signs of backing down.
A local Taliban commander said: “This fight didn’t just start recently you know, it’s been going on since the Americans invaded Afghanistan and we promised our God that we would protect our land from the infidels.
“We don’t fight for money, we fight for God. We have taken up arms to protect our country and because the Americans have occupied our lands and our poor people.
“Our message to the international community is to get out of our country. We won’t stop fighting them until they go.”
Whatever the truth of the matter, it is clear that security in Helmand is extremely poor. Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) litter the roadways threatening both Afghan and British life.
Although soldiers from both the Afghan National Army and British forces work around the clock to locate and clear the IEDs, enough remain to make road travel extremely dangerous.
And with people too scared to travel along the roads, economic trade comes to a halt as was evident when the team visited an empty market bazaar.
Local traders complained that people were too scared to travel to the market saying: “The point is in the bazaar people have no money. Our market relies on the villagers, but there is no security in the villages. People are really scared and say they are bombs are on the roads.
“It would be better for our country if our own people could build it and provide security along the roads. We don’t need foreigners to come here.”
Alex Thomson on the 'people's war'
TV news is forever (rightly) castigated for showing too much of the Nato perspective on the war and too little of the Afghans' view (rightly).
Because I have two young children and a desire to be not-kidnapped, I don't venture into Helmand villages without either ANA or Nato. Even if I wasn't a complete wuss, ITN wouldn't allow me to do so anyhow, such are the risks.
Luckily my good Afghan friends can do so with more subtlety and far greater success - though it still takes balls of steel and it would be better not to name them. The results of their courage and resourcefulness have brought the Afghans' experience of war vividly to Channel 4 News and this week's film is no exception.
Beyond the Nato fortresses they were able to witness firsthand the futility of Afghan anti-narcotics cops, their tractor teams raking up the odd poppy field here and there in Helmand's vast opium fields.
The first destroyed field turned out to belong to the mayor of the village. Half his family were then arrested along with a hefty stash: 5,000 rounds of ammo; AK47s; police uniforms; sundry grenades and explosives. At first the young men said they were police too. Eventually they claimed they just had "a lot of enemies around here."
Just like the British forces on patrol here, nobody really had a clue who they'd really arrested, or why. The shiny new governor of Helmand was on hand, purring approvingly and talking about how poppy is diminishing, security spreading. It's not how it looks and feels on the ground.
Our team made contact with, and met and interviewed a group of armed insurgents not 20 minutes drive from Helmand's capital Lashkar Gah. They said pretty much what they always do say: plenty of ammo and recruits... strong local support... lots of cash from some countries around the world.
What matters, of course, is not what they say but what they do. And for the best part of a decade now they have held down the greatest arsenal the world's seen, with a few Kalashnikovs, RPGs and a lot of roadside bombs. Which means two things. Nato is learning the same lesson the Soviets were given here.
And the Afghan people are left to hedge their bets. Would you support Nato when their real commander in chief in the White House says he wants out of Afghanistan? When it is too dangerous to travel to the bazaar because of roadside bombs? When Nato can scarcely leave their bases without coming under fire? When the Mujaheddin or Taliban or insurgents (choose your terms) are everywhere and control the place by night and they know where you live?
Well - would you support the foreign occupation?