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CNN Live Saturday

Kabul University Reopens

Aired January 12, 2002 - 20:56   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: What was once on the front lines of Afghanistan, civil war is now on the front lines of a resurgence of education in the country. Here's CNN's Michael Holmes on the reopening of Kabul University.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MICHAEL HOLMES, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): After 23 years of invasion, civil war and Taliban rule, the campus of Kabul University is slowly coming back to life. But peaceful scenes can be deceiving.

(on camera): Less than 10 years ago, this campus was quite literally the front line in the country's civil war, fighting all around here. It took two years to just get rid of the mines in this place.

ABDUL SALAM AZIMI, AFGHAN EDUCATION MINISTER: Everywhere I go and I see the face of the war, that's very depressing.

HOLMES (voice-over): Dr. Abdul Salam Azimi was a student here many years ago. A student, too, in the United States: The University of Arizona. Today, he's his country's new education minister, touring a library without electricity and stripped of its books and history.

There were 35,000 books here before the Taliban. Today, just a few hundred; some with shrapnel damage. Obsolete text books and no shortage of irony, Milton's "Paradise Lost" is here; "Don Quixote", too. Although Dr. Azimi isn't tilting at windmills, he's determined to see the rebirth of this place.

(on camera): You know what I see in you? I see huge optimism.

AZIMI: Oh, yes. I have to be optimistic. And I am optimistic and I'm hoping that things are going to change.

HOLMES (voice-over): The doctor puts enormous faith in the promises of the West. To not forget Afghanistan again; to help rebuild places like this. Trusting in those governments to come good on those words. He also needs text books, advice from his old colleagues overseas. He needs computers; he needs help.

AZIMI: What really depresses me most is that I'm alone. I don't have a good team. HOLMES (on camera): You don't have a team.

AZIMI: I don't have a team.

HOLMES (voice-over): The minister for education, in fact, doesn't even have a telephone. And yet this month and next he plans to distribute 30,000 entrance exam papers around the country, and promises to have Kabul University open to perhaps 20,000 students by March.

Today, the teachers are slowly returning. Especially women, like Assistant Professor of Pharmaceutical Science, Gulalau Babak, ordered home by the Taliban; proudly back at her post today. Despite ruined laboratories, ancient bottles of chemicals and drugs the staff can't bear to throw away, because it's all they have. Still, again, optimism.

GULALAU BABAK, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR: I was so happy because I come back here and I want to teach the students.

HOMES: And, as words spread, the students returns, too. This lecturer tells of watching a teenage girl sign up for class today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: For me, it's really amazing. They come with hope and -- yes, happiness.

AZIMI: We would like to have, really, a resurrection, with the spring coming. And I would like to see Kabul University change into a very prestigious university in Afghanistan, and possibly in the region.

HOLMES: Michael Holmes, at Kabul University, Afghanistan.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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