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CNN Live At Daybreak

Disarming Underway in Afghanistan; Rural Afghan Villages Have Stood the Test of Time

Aired December 20, 2001 - 06:31   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.
CATHERINE CALLAWAY, CNN ANCHOR: After two days of conflict, how do you disarm Afghanistan? Well CNN's John Vause reports the peacekeepers and Afghanistan's new interim government are facing a daunting task.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): For Afghan men carrying an AK-47 is as normal as a briefcase for a western businessman. On the streets of Jalalabad, for example, one gun just isn't enough. The greater the firepower, the better.

"It's in my heart and desire that I should have a big gun with me," says this man. "Like a cruise missile," he adds, as he carries a rocket propelled grenade.

Here the weapon of choice, a Russian-made Kalashnikov, costs less than $200 U.S. But on the roads in and out of the capital Kabul, the government is trying to reduce the number of weapons, stopping and searching cars - still soldiers and others with proper documents are allowed to keep their guns.

Shafi Ahahmari (ph) works one of the checkpoints. He told me since Kabul fell, his team has seized thousands of guns. Only a fraction, though, the millions of high-powered firearms estimated to be scattered across Afghanistan. Still the local commander is proud of the work here, asking me to review his men, whom he says are making Kabul safe.

(on camera): Hello. Hello.

(voice-over): "It's 100 percent good to have Kabul secure," he says. "We're checking the cars and we will not let anything happen in Kabul."

And in many ways, the capital is safer than the other major cities. Here there are no warlords dividing up city blocks. According to Mohammed Nastein (ph), a traffic cop for more years than he can remember, security in the capital is good. Everything, he says, is fine.

"In the past," he says, "there are a lot of gun accidents because people wouldn't obey the laws." "Now," he says, "there are no accidents." But he says he'll only feel safe when all the guns are handed in. And in many ways that is one of the biggest problems facing the new interim government - how to make the people feel safe enough to hand over their weapons and then what to do with thousands of young men who have learned little more than how to pull a trigger.

John Vause, CNN, Kabul.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

CALLAWAY: Switching leaders in Kabul hasn't really touched some remote Afghan villages, not now, not even decades ago. CNN Senior International Correspondent Walter Rodgers visited one village in the Tora Bora region where change is slow.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

WALTER RODGERS, CNN SENIOR INTERNATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: This is Afghanistan, as Alexander the Great or Marco Polo may have seen it. Little has changed here in over two millennia, and it was among these people Osama bin Laden based his al Qaeda fighters. War has been a kind of commerce here. Twenty years ago it was the Soviets, then bin Laden's Taliban followed by U.S. bombs that decimated the Taliban.

This clan chief complained that the Taliban destroyed everything, although a younger generation here disputes this. Afghanistan is both breathtakingly beautiful and brutally cruel. Spilling blood, part of the rhythm of life. When vultures soar here, Afghans say the birds smell bin Laden's dead al Qaeda fighters killed by U.S. bombs. Before that, it was the Russians killed by the Mujahideen in the 1980's.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I would like to come and sit and talk with you, but we never went near the Russians. We hated them. They would shoot us.

RODGERS: Villagers still hate the Soviets, claiming they even shot Afghan babies in their cribs. In return, this boy's father or grandfather may have played polo on ponies with the heads of captured Russian soldiers they decapitated.

(on camera): While intentioned diplomats and policymakers talk of modernization and nation building in Afghanistan, out in these villages, however, those lofty intentions may have to squeeze through some ancient doorways and leapfrog centuries to achieve those goals.

(voice-over): Many Afghans still live without electricity in a world lit only by fire. Some children go shoeless all winter. Just as in medieval Europe livestock is often killed off before winter -- not enough fodder to feed the animals until spring. Drinking water is lapped from polluted drainage ditches. Afghans still live in mud castles, fortresses in a faction-riddled society. Young girls are married by 14, bought and paid for by the groom's family -- $500 and up.

RODGERS: Isatoola (ph) does not know if he is 16 or 17. Dates are not important here, but he has an eight-month old son. The baby wears bright blue beads to ward off the evil eye. These are Muslims, fatalism is key to their faith, accepting what Allah has mandated for them.

RODGERS: Allah has been generous with Jon Mohammed (ph). He has three wives. His friends say the youngest is his favorite. Except for gathering firewood or crops, most Afghan women do not venture forth. Their world is the mud fortress - the world beyond is threatening.

RODGERS: So alien is our TV camera, this woman fears we have come to kidnap her son.

RODGERS: Still as this war winds down, the sounds of a child's laughter is again heard in Afghan villages and hope again soars here that this generation may yet enjoy its childhood.

Walter Rodgers, CNN, Bombockle (ph), Afghanistan.

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