President Bush has appealed to the presidents of Pakistan and Afghanistan to put aside their differences and fight terrorism. Pervez Musharraf and Hamid Karzai disagree on how to fight the Taliban in their border region. In Afghanistan there's concern that too much attention is being paid to the military campaign and not enough to rebuilding the country. The World's Aaron Schachter reports from the southern region of Kandahar.
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Shura between Provincial Reconstruction Team and village elders
Canadian Captain Howard Chafe greets a group of village elders at the Zhari district office. The "office" is little more a meeting room on a small Canadian military base. Armored vehicles idle constantly. Captain Chafe has called a shura, or meeting, to discuss restoring homes and other property destroyed in the recent anti-Taliban military offensive called Operation Medusa.
Chafe: "We would like to take some of your very valuable time today to discuss the rebuilding in your communities so we have an idea of what you believe are the most important ways for us to move forward."
Chafe is a member of the Canadian Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), and serves as a liaison between the military and Afghan civilians. It's his job now to dole out cash as part of an effort to win hearts and minds.
Chafe: "So first, perhaps, what do you know right now of things in the villages that needs to be rebuilt?" (Locals reply)
PRT and village elders inspect grape drying huts
Chafe hears that most houses in the region have been damaged; irrigation systems, grape vines and grape drying houses have been destroyed. The village elders welcome the Canadian help, but they're worried the money could be squandered. Over the past five years tens of millions of dollars have gone missing – the cash most likely found its way into the pockets of local officials. And the village elders are angry.
Village Elder: "The right should be given to the people who need it. Absolutely. There is lots of corruption going on during the distribution and they are all complaining."
Chafe: "You have to understand that Afghanistan is a country which for the last thirty years there's been insufficient quantities of anything for everyone. So when one person gets something they want to horde it, it's a natural human survival instinct."
To avoid the corruption, the group decides to get religious leaders involved, and for representatives from the provincial reconstruction teams to see the damage for themselves.
Tour: "We're giving the example of the garden. This area of the garden's totally destroyed."
To steer clear of landmines during Operation Medusa, Canadian armored vehicles drove through this man's grape field, destroying about 700 vines. Captain Chafe, and a dozen village elders, are surrounded by a Canadian security detail and Afghan National Police officers as they hear more details about the damaged field.
Tour: "It can't be watered. The irrigation system is destroyed."
Chafe: "Do you know how to fix this? We have to dig it all and put a new wall, which helps."
Chafe: "How much will it be? 175,000 Afghani. That'll be $4,000."
Schachter: "That seems like an awful lot, no?"
Chafe: "It does, but to be honest, if it gets us moving, that's good. I want to see more before we move on, but we'll probably go ahead with this project as well.
Let's go to another field. Yes, let's do that."
Capt.Howard Chafe inspecting grape huts
The group moves along to a building used to dry grapes, called a Kishkana. It's about a hundred feet long by fifteen feet wide, and has slits in its thick mud walls to allow air in, giving it the look of a medieval castle. Like a castle, it provides perfect cover for insurgents. There's a gaping hole in the side of this building, likely from a Canadian missile strike.
As the group argues over the cost of re-building it, there's a reminder of how difficult reconstruction here can be.
Sound of explosion
A roadside bomb explodes a few hundred yards away. The group scrambles back to their vehicles. The village elders drive away, while the military convoy waits for a crew to sweep the road for more bombs.
Critics of the coalition say the rebuilding effort will keep on getting disrupted unless NATO changes its tactics. They complain that after five years of international involvement, there still isn't electricity most of the time, and no running water in many places; corrupt Afghan officials and warlords continue to run people's lives; prices for basic goods continue to rise. And with so much money spent on the war effort, the international community still fails to pay members of the Afghan police or army – the ANA – a living wage. Basir Ahmed is a translator for the Provincial Reconstruction Team, and a member of a lobby group called the Afghan National Reformatory Committee.
Ahmed: "Now NATO is thinking to bring lots more soldiers. We are totally against it. Instead of bringing lots more NATO forces, the money that you want to spend on them, spend that money our ANA. Support them well with armored vehicles – they should have enough vehicles with them, they should have enough food with them – give them good salary, it can work."
Western officials are sympathetic to these concerns. Dave Fudge is from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and a Senior Police Advisor, training new Afghan recruits.
Fudge: "Part of policing is creating a police service as an honorably profession, and that's a challenge here. If I could, I would probably compare this experience to previous experiences I've had in Bosnia and Kosovo. We started in Bosnia in 1982, and we presently have three officers still there today. So it takes time."
Another major problem here is the proliferation of drugs. Fields of 8-foot-high marijuana plants grow along the side of the road. Opium production is up nearly 60 percent over last year. A small handful of people, including members of the Taliban, are getting very rich while most of the population continues to struggle just to provide for their daily needs.
For The World, I'm Aaron Schachter in Kandahar Province, Afghanistan.
