By Jolyon Leslie

Kabul in the winter of 1989 was a city in monochrome, where grim public buildings seemed to have taken on the hue of the mud-plastered homes that stretched across a wide plain, ringed by snow-capped peaks. Broad tree-lined avenues and crumbling neo-classical villas in the centre spoke of a grander, more stable past.

As one of a handful of aid workers assigned to the city after the departure of the Soviet troops, I vividly recall my first night there. Kabul was virtually under siege and subjected to barrages of rockets fired by the mujahideen from beyond a cordon of 'security belts'. Woken by the sound of a tank rumbling along the street, I instinctively reached for my shoes. Soon, however, all was silent again and I drifted back to sleep.

Millions of refugees had fled over the border into Pakistan where aid agencies provided relief. Of those who remained, many rural families were drawn to the relative safety of Kabul, where they had access to basic services and subsidized food. But life was not easy after the withdrawal of Soviet troops, and the talk in the bazaar was of how long Najibullah, the president the Soviets left in charge, might survive. Cargo planes spiralled down to the airport day and night, carrying arms and supplies to a city living on borrowed time. By dusk, only the military conscripts manning security check posts -- at which a few cigarettes would buy the night's password -- remained on the streets.

Since then, I have become more attuned to the sounds and signs of Kabul, having witnessed at close hand an attempted coup in 1991, street fighting between the different factions of the mujahideen after 1993, the strictures of Taliban rule from 1996 until their removal in late 2001 and the transformation of a city which is the hub of international engagement in Afghanistan.

One of the more reliable barometers of popular sentiment during these times has been the conversation in my local barber's. In the early days, perhaps inhibited by the presence of a foreigner so soon after the Soviet departure, conversations often stopped as I entered the shop. As my visits became routine and my grasp of the language improved, I overheard many a worried discussion about the future. These fears were realised in 1992, when the collapse of the Soviet Union interrupted the airlift of supplies on which the Najibullah government depended. Talk at that time tended to revolve around the shifting front lines, patterns of displacement and the latest casualties.

The place remained shuttered during the Taliban era but, in early 2002, the barber's was spruced up and resumed business. During the next couple of years, the mood among customers was more upbeat and there were many more jokes, especially during the 2004 presidential elections. In time, this gave way to expressions of indignation at rampant corruption and poor services. The rigging of the second elections in 2009 prompted a lively debate about the nature of leadership -- with a good deal of nostalgia for the 'good old days' of Najibullah.

As insurgent attacks in Kabul become more frequent, the mood these days seems more apprehensive, with customers speculating on the ability of their army and police to ensure security once the withdrawal of foreign forces gathers pace.

Beyond the confines of the barber's shop, Kabul over the past decade has been the nucleus of an ambitious international attempt at state-building which has brought significant political, social and economic changes. These are reflected in the fabric of the city, at once fragile and volatile, where tensions seem to be rising as international interest in Afghanistan is on the wane.

Since the late 18th century, when Kabul became the capital, it has been the centre of political activity, aside from the five-year interlude when the Taliban leadership was based in Kandahar. The remit of Afghan rulers rarely extends far across their dominions, however. Stability is maintained by co-opting rural leaders or playing them off against each other. When such a balancing act proves impossible Kabul finds itself challenged. The reform-minded monarch Amanullah was deposed in 1929 after a rebellion that began among rural communities spread to the city. In the late 1970s, ill conceived reforms were the trigger for armed resistance, but this time it was largely kept out of the capital, then a fortified enclave controlled by Soviet troops. Not all urban residents were loyal to the regime, but it was rural communities that bore the brunt of the conflict, caught between the Soviets and the mujahideen.

When in 1992 one of Najibullah's militia allies switched sides, the mujahideen entered Kabul and began fighting for control, causing widespread damage and the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The new rulers made little attempt to govern and, with limited international interest in trying to resolve what was now a civil war or engage with the Taliban administration that followed, the civilians who remained in the city felt utterly forgotten.

Since the removal of the Taliban in late 2001, however, Kabul has been the stage on which the political transition has played out. Having been paid handsomely by the US to join the military assault on the Taliban, certain mujahideen leaders quickly laid claim to the capital. This gave them a strong negotiating position in December 2001, when the Bonn conference set out a sequence of political steps for post-Taliban Afghanistan. As soon as the ink was dry on the UN-brokered agreement, those who were present -- and others who were not -- began to vie for power, resources and territory.

Kabul became the conduit for international assistance. Aid agencies proliferated in what became a flash flood of assistance. Kabulis initially seemed reassured by patrols of foreign troops on their streets, not least because of their concern at the hold that a familiar cast of warlords seemed to be regaining over the city.

Few of the newly arrived diplomats, aid workers or troops seemed aware of the dubious past of some of the Afghan powerbrokers with whom they now dealt. Whether assimilated into the government or re-imaged as businessmen, former mujahideen leaders were emboldened by the fact that their new international partners did not hold them to account for past deeds. They lost little time in consolidating their power -- and making money.

As the value of urban property skyrocketed, Kabul provided rich pickings. Hundreds of thousands of refugees returned to the city, where growing numbers of diplomats, advisers and aid workers sought office space and housing. Cashing in on this demand, former mujahideen leaders seized properties, for which they fabricated deeds of ownership. One of the most brazen examples of this predation took place in late 2003 when most of the cabinet, along with senior civil servants and military officers, accepted 'gifts' of valuable stateowned land in central Kabul distributed by a minister. When questioned about the legality of this, a cabinet colleague justified the theft on the grounds that the beneficiaries -- some of whom promptly sold their plots at a huge profit -- had 'defended our country and freedom.'

Over the past decade, the Kabul landscape has been transformed by high-rise offices, shopping plazas, gated apartment complexes and extravagant wedding halls. Visiting journalists seize on this construction boom as a sign of urban prosperity.

While the ubiquitous mirror glass and gilt cladding may provide a relief for some from the monotony of mud plaster, Kabulis can be forgiven for wondering where the resources come from for all this bling. Even in the old city, where I worked until recently with a team of Afghans to try to safeguard the historic fabric, concrete villas are fast replacing timber-frame homes.

The collapse in 2010 of Kabul Bank, from which nearly $1 billion had been 'borrowed' by government officials to finance private commercial developments in the capital and acquire property in Dubai, exposed just how shallow the foundations of this construction boom are. It also revealed the close links between politicians and developers; a large new shopping and apartment complex, financed in part by Kabul Bank, was, despite the fact that it contravenes planning regulations, 'approved' by senior politicians who now claim disingenuously that their signatures were forged.

The Kabul property bubble is bound to burst, but few dare to think of the consequences. Perhaps the proceeds of the narcotics industry, some of which is laundered into urban property, may cushion the crash.

The rash of new development presents a more direct threat to residents of Kabul. Several attacks have been launched from high-rise buildings that overlook government and diplomatic premises. A day after the city centre had been paralysed for hours by sniping and rocket-propelled grenades launched by insurgents holed up in a partially-built apartment block, a taxi driver remarked to me how this brought back memories of the mujahideen rocket attacks of the 1990s adding, 'the same warlords have brought their battle back to our streets'.

Whether his fear is well founded or not, many residents of Kabul once again feel under siege. They contend with a government widely perceived to be corrupt and predatory, and with leaders who tap into the massive inflow of aid as a source of patronage and political power. Nearly $5 billion -- more than Afghanistan's annual government budget -- is said to have been spirited out of the country in cash through Kabul airport last year alone. Most ends up in Dubai, where the Afghan elite has acquired expensive properties and now spends much of its time.

The source of most of this wealth is the war, which accounts for nearly $8 out of every $10 spent in Afghanistan. Particularly lucrative for politicians have been private security firms, on which diplomats and aid agencies depend for 'protection', as do the foreign military for their supply convoys. A 2010 US government report described these firms as 'a vast protection racket run by a shadowy network of warlords, strongmen, commanders and corrupt Afghan officials'.

Aid budgets have also been contested. In the early years of the transition allocation of international assistance was decided by donors, who disbursed funds through NGOs and contractors. Over time, however, Afghan politicians and civil servants have argued for a larger proportion of aid to be routed through government, on the grounds that it will help strengthen state institutions and ensure visibility.

Few would deny the right of Afghans to have a say in the allocation of funds but, even after a decade of investments, most ministries remain unable to handle the resources they currently receive: less than 40 per cent of the 2010/11 development budget was actually spent.

A recent World Bank report estimated that more than $6 billion a year is now received in civilian assistance. The gaggles of schoolchildren walking through the streets to classes serve as a reminder of how Afghans continue to benefit from this huge investment. Most acknowledge that progress has been made, and are grateful for international support, but are dismayed at how much aid falls prey to a 'mafia' of politicians and businessmen who capture lucrative contracts. They work through informal networks based on ethnic, tribal, geographic, religious or political affiliations, and which often determine how government institutions operate. As they endlessly urge reform, donors seem to have little leverage with the government, whose corrupt officials continue to prey on the public. Those who pledged an additional $16 billion for Afghanistan at a donors' confrence in Tokyo in July should know that to spend yet more on this predatory bureaucracy might in fact undermine public confidence.

The 'securitized' zone that now straddles central Kabul hardly engenders a sense of confidence among the public. Surrounded by blast-walls and menacing razor wire, this is where the ruling elite and diplomats work and live in isolation, observing the city without from fortified watch-towers or through closed-circuit cameras. Fear prevails. Even the bus of a secondary school that lies within this zone has to stop at a barrier where, under the watchful gaze of armed guards, the pupils disembark and walk the gauntlet between high concrete walls to their classes.

The ruined citadel above the old city of Kabul attests to the fact that Afghan rulers have always had to defend themselves, but never before -- even under the Soviet occupation -- have citizens been kept at bay to this extent. And the zone of exclusion continues to spread, with members of the public now denied access to the popular Park-e Zarnegar, as they have been deemed a threat to the guests of a nearby five-star hotel.

Outside this zone lies a series of checkposts that make up concentric 'rings of steel', intended to deter attacks on government or international interests in the city centre. Beyond this sprawls the real Kabul, now encircling Bagh-e Babur, a 16th century garden which is one of the few public green spaces in a city whose population has trebled since 2002. Kabul's present form bears little relation to the 1980s master plan, which is now in the process of revision.

Even with a new masterplan, the authorities are unlikely to be able to control urban growth. Nearly two-thirds of Kabul's inhabitants live in informal settlements, established over the past three decades by migrants who built on government land close to possible employment. Successive mayors have pledged to reclaim this land, ignoring the fact that the settlements provide a vital role in reducing demand for official plots elsewhere which, although subsidised and intended for low-income families, provide a useful source of patronage for city officials. The bulk of urban growth in recent years, however, has been around the periphery, where pasture or market gardens are rapidly giving way to a vast sprawl of unplanned housing. Most of this urban hinterland remains without basic services.

With the focus of international attention on the war in restive rural areas, Kabul tends to be in the news only when insurgent attacks occur. Yet just as shocking as this violence is the condition of the 35,000 displaced people, many of who fled the conflict in Helmand and now live in improvised shelters with little or no access to services. Neither government officials -- who insist that displaced families are 'economic migrants' -- nor NATO seem willing to take responsibility for the consequences of their military campaign. As a researcher for Amnesty Afghanistan said, 'they want to pretend that these people are going to go away'.

Even if the displaced families are eventually able to return to their villages in Helmand, the millions who have settled in and around Kabul are not going to go away. These migrants tend to cluster in groups from the same region or ethnic group, which provides a degree of mutual security. To survive in the no-man's land between the 'hard shell' of the centre and the rural badlands, where they experience violence at the hands of the police, army or criminal gangs, they have become highly organised. As NATO troops withdraw, unless these marginalised communities on the urban fringe are somehow reconciled with the centre, they may in fact pose as serious a security challenge as the rural insurgency.

Sitting in traffic recently, my attention was drawn to a cargo plane circling down to the airport, carrying supplies for a city that again seems to be living on borrowed time. Beside the road was a billboard for a mobile phone network, bearing a softfocus image of a young Afghan with the slogan 'the future is yours'. As the car inched forward, I wished that I could share that optimism.

 

Jolyon Leslie is writing 'Kabul: Images of a City', to be published by Hurst in 2013

 

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