Waving anti-government banners and shouting “death to America,” hundreds of men marched through central Kabul on Tuesday in an angry protest against the U.S.-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which they said has failed to deliver on its promises.
About 300 men surged through the streets in the most vocal demonstration yet of the frustration and hopelessness that many Afghans still feel, 18 months after the Karzai government came to power.
“Death to George W. Bush! He is occupying this country but not giving salaries to the people!” yelled Abdul Jan, a father of five who said he was an employee of the now-defunct Afghan air force and had not been paid in three months. “The government should listen to us. We are not slaves. The only thing we have gotten is a bag of wheat. I have no income at all.”
The U.S. war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda and the consensus-driven policies of the Karzai government have done little to improve the lives of men like Abdul Jan, who are still as poor and desperate as they were under the previous regime.
Impatience at pace of relief
There is impatience at the pace of improvements and economic development. After decades of war and poverty, many Afghans crave immediate relief, and for a few hours Tuesday, their anger and bitterness seemed to overflow.
“What some Afghan officials are concerned about is that the grace period that the Afghan transitional administration had has run out,” a Western diplomat said. “The fear is now that because of the presence of warlords in the country, continued poverty, the slowness of aid, that some people are shifting from suspension of judgment to the judgment that things are not going well.”
As the Karzai government has tried to downsize, cutting jobs created over decades of inefficient leadership, many have been left without work, and they have little hope of finding any in a private sector that barely exists. Thousands of Afghans rushed back from refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran after the war only to find that housing prices had shot up, jobs were scarce and much of the country had been destroyed.
Public anger at America would not be surprising in a distant province where the central government has no power or presence. But in the capital–where 5,000 international peacekeepers help maintain security, money has started flowing into big-ticket projects, the government is highly visible and U.S. troops are rarely seen on the streets–it is an indication of how dissatisfied many Afghans remain despite the changes.
The protester’s complaints were varied and numerous. One man said he had worked in the Afghan Trade Ministry for 20 years but had recently been let go without a pension, severance or any resources to find a new job. Abdul Mohammad, a former soldier who lost part of his right arm in a land mine explosion, said that the government’s compensation payment for wounded veterans was only about $2 and that sometimes even that small amount was not forthcoming.
Mohammad said he was angry at America because “they are breaking their promises. They promised to build our country and make factories but they have not kept their promises. They put one leg in Afghanistan and one in Iraq, and they keep both peoples hungry. The only things we got from America were bombs . . . nothing else.”
Surrounded by police, the demonstrators moved briskly toward the presidential palace, where the march concluded.
Protest leader cites reasons
They stopped every few blocks to listen to slogans chanted by the protest’s organizer, Sadiq Afghan, an eccentric mathematician-philosopher.
Afghan, who has a social activist past and has led demonstrations against previous governments, said he organized the march because of the great disparity between the salaries of ministers and those of government workers and because of the U.S. failure to make life substantially better for Afghans.
“Tell me what the Americans have done so far,” Afghan said. “They’re claiming they have done reconstruction; where is the reconstruction? What help have they given us? They claim to have spent billions of dollars, but still workers don’t get paid.”
The Taliban period was “better in some ways because even if people were beaten by cables, there was no theft and there was security at least,” Afghan said. “Now, even with cruise missiles and B-52s, they cannot keep security.”
Deputy Interior Minister Hilaluddin Hilal said Sadiq Afghan recently was fired from a government post and was trying to salvage his reputation. He acknowledged that government employees had not been paid for two months, but said he was not concerned by the demonstration.
“Fortunately our people are very tolerant,” Hilal said. “This demonstration does not imply any failure on the part of the government.”
