When the king of Afghanistan decided it was finally time, a bit over a century ago, to bring this forbidding mountainous eastern region to Islam by force, his soldiers faced a huge problem: there were no roads at all.
The Afghan military’s only way to get into the province — now known as Nuristan, but back then called Kafiristan, the land of the infidels — was to hack a 12-foot track for pack animals and gun carriages into the most remote and rugged area of a country famed for them. The soldiers finally succeeded, looting and burning temples as they installed government-picked mullahs, but only after a dauntingly high casualty rate that has haunted government enterprises here ever since.
This month, a rare chance for a journalist to visit this remote area showed that some things have not changed. The people of Nuristan, some of the most deprived in Afghanistan, are still at the mercy of their geography. The provincial capital, Parun, has a government presence, but it is disconnected from six of its seven districts, and one of them, Barg-e Matal, has remained under Taliban siege for years now.
The difficult terrain has brought the province little development over the past 14 years, despite hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign aid flowing into the rest of the country. The closest thing to a decent health care facility the province has is a 50-bed hospital, now under construction.
There are a few roads at least, but according to the governor, none are paved — despite the supposed expenditure of $106 million on U.S. military road projects in the province from 2004 to 2007 alone.
The conditions are so rugged that it recently became the talk of Kushteki, a hamlet just outside the provincial capital, when a regular Toyota Corolla successfully braved the treacherous road winding through pine-covered mountains and cutting through streams that are half-frozen this time of year. Usually, only vehicles with four-wheel drive even try, and locals often have to hitch rides with the police in their trucks if they want to get around.
In Kushteki, the homes are uniformly simple, with walls of stone and columns of wood covered in soot. The one new fancy house, with a slanted metal roof and maroon interiors, stands out in contrast: It belongs to a highway police commander.
Governance, which remains minimal, has repeatedly disappointed with corruption and waste.
“There is no doubt Nuristan has been let down,” said the province’s governor, Hafiz Abdul Qayoum. “Barg-e Matal district has been under siege for 10 years now, and the quality of life there has dropped by probably 50 years. Almost all the districts are not even connected to the provincial capital, yet the people still stand with this government.”
The U.S. military tried its hand at development in Nuristan by setting up in 2006 what it called a Provincial Reconstruction Team, or PRT. The logic behind the teams was that military units, carrying cash, would try to spread the reach of the Afghan government.
Nevertheless, a few months into their mission, the Americans tried the ambitious idea of creating a base near Parun because of its symbolic importance. But the locals resisted, thinking it would just be “a bullet magnet.”One day, as a U.S. team was inspecting the site, according to Hajji Shergul, a local elder and former governor, a group of six or seven older men arrived. They put their shawls on the ground and prayed first. Then, rolling up their sleeves, they started advancing at the Americans with hatchets and clubs.
“What is going on?” the Americans asked, according to Shergul. “We told you not to build a base here. Now that you are grabbing our land, we have to fight you.” The Americans backed off.
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