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| Afghanistan |
| Five dead in Afghan tribal violence |
| 2002-09-21 |
| As if Afghanistan didn't have enough problems... Five people, including two women, have been killed in clashes between two rival tribes over land in eastern Afghanistan. In a report on Thursday, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press (AIP) said the Balkhel and Sabari tribes, which have been fighting over land near the city of Khost, used artillery to pound each other's positions on Wednesday. It quoted local people as saying five people were killed in the shelling and hundreds of families had fled since the fighting broke out. AIP said 23 people have been killed and 50 wounded from both sides in the past two weeks and several attempts by the provincial government to end the fighting had failed. Things like this happen periodically in Pashtun areas. Every time I read about something like this, I'm reminded of Tunku Varadarajan's ABCs of Afghanistan, from last December: P is for Pashtuns, the ethnic group that predominates in the Taliban, and that comprises a plurality of the Afghan population. Pashtuns are some of the most hidebound, unscientific people on earth, their values unchanged for centuries--though the enforcement of those values is today conducted by Kalashnikov, not scimitar. They have unbending codes of honor, which involve, mostly, the oppression of women. They have a profoundly inflated sense of self-worth, which is why it is, for many of them, inconceivable that they be governed by an alliance of such "inferiors" as Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Perhaps a partition of Afghanistan, one that gives the Pashtuns a homeland of their own in the south (with the possibility, at some stage in the future, of incorporating Pashtun lands in present-day Pakistan) would be the best way out of a cycle of interminable civil war.At least for the rest of the country, anyway. They'd continue shooting, raping, and looting each other, since those are "honorable" things to do... |
| Posted by:Fred Pruitt |