Warlords among obstacles in effort to rebuild Kandahar

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THE CANADIAN PRESS

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KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Few engineers have to worry about being assassinated on the job site. But that's only one of the obstacles Kandahar's municipal engineer has to face.

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AP

Afghan demonstrators hold pictures of young men killed by the Taliban, during a protest yesterday in Materlam, Afghanistan. The unprecedented protest was one of the largest anti-Taliban gatherings since the fall of the hard-line Islamist regime following the U.S. invasion in late 2001.

Just 21 years old, in his first job out of university, this young man is more than willing to take on warlords, Afghan bureaucracy and a constant influx of squatters to rebuild the roads and infrastructure of his shattered home town.

"At first, I wasn't ready for the job," says Mohammed, whose real name can't be used because of security concerns. "When I looked at the situation, there was so much corruption in each department."

"But I thought, 'I can make some differences.'"

Mohammed is responsible for designing all of Kandahar's new roads, ditches, culverts and municipal buildings, putting him at the centre of the international community's efforts to restore the provincial capital.

Nobody should underestimate his challenge. Years of war and poverty have left once-gracious Kandahar, with about 250,000 people, a tattered and dusty ruin.

There is no water or sewage system. People get water from wells and flush refuse into open canals.

Municipal power supplies flicker on for only about five or six hours a week. Most rely on private generators for electricity.

And the roads: few outside the town centre paved, wander every which way around the new compounds built up almost at random by the constant influx of Afghans fleeing the countryside.

After years of foreign presence in their city, Kandaharis are growing impatient. So is Mohammed -- especially about the power.

"Why is it taking so long?" he asks. "Eight years, there has not been anything done. I don't know what is the problem."

He has his suspicions. Kandahar is still home to powerful warlords, and he says the national government is reluctant to increase their influence by improving the neighbourhoods they control.

"In Kandahar city there are cultural problems -- warlords," Mohammed says. "In those communities where there are not those problems, things are solved quickly.

"It is really frustrating."

Warlords are constant thorns in his side. Often, they demand an inordinate amount of community development dollars for their area and Mohammed often has no choice but to comply.

"Sometimes, the warlords get their way," he shrugs.

Other neighbourhoods simply spring up. More than 60 per cent of Kandahar's area is comprised of what Mohammed calls "impermanent settlements" -- squatters that just take over municipal lands and build mud-walled homes over what were supposed to be roads, schools and mosques.

He says it's impossible to brings roads, drainage ditches or any other services into these random assemblages, leaving them stuck in medieval tangles of lanes and alleys.

Slowly, however, the city is being straightened out.

Money from non-government organizations is now being co-ordinated through Kandahar's municipal plan. Roads are being built, and paved -- although Afghan construction methods are slow, relying mostly on picks and shovels.