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Afghan power brokers
Call him a fighter, but not a warlord
SHEBERGHAN, AFGHANISTAN - When Abdul Rashid Dostum was a little boy, a flood swept through his village. Fearless, the future warlord rushed out to play in the rising waters. He was later found unconscious far from home. His exasperated mother began to tether him to her leg – or to a bedpost – to keep him out of trouble.
Later, as a schoolboy, he often fought with other kids, and regularly came home with his shirt in shreds. So his mother sewed him a thick, wiry mesh vest, a type of light armor traditionally worn by Uzbek warriors.
"It was good. It never tore. But the neck was too tight, and I almost choked," says Dostum, whose steely browed, stoic countenance cracks into the tiniest grin at a memory he says he's never shared. "I came back to my mother and said it wasn't suitable for fighting," he laughs. So she simply sewed him another.
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But the last thing Dostum, now General Dostum, wants to be called is a warlord – "because I am not," he says. "I will never feel hurt if I am called a fighter. But if I am called a warlord, it hurts me. I have not just fought for the sake of fighting. I have always fought for my country's freedom."
Dostum and Afghanistan's many other warlords – the kinds of men who have ruled this country for centuries on the basis of tribal, ethnic, and geographical ties – have had many opportunities to fight in recent decades. But a love of freedom has not always been the guiding light of their struggle. A 10-year fight against the Soviet occupation, which ended in 1989 afforded many of these men the opportunity to obtain personal armies, political power bases, weapons, allies, and reputations. But in the post-Soviet years, shorn of a common enemy, the warlords of Afghanistan tore the nation apart – and fought a brutal civil war that opened the door for the Taliban, who were initially welcomed as a stabilizing influence for an increasingly fragmented nation.
The Taliban are gone now. And with the world's eyes on Afghanistan, many warlords have found it difficult to control their fiefdoms when a central government is supposed to lead the way to peace.
Dostum says that he has the transition from war chieftain to peace-loving political power broker figured out. Now, he argues, his fight is not for territory, but for Afghanistan's reconstruction.
Some might question whether a man who has spent nearly a quarter century of leading troops into battle, still holds sway over 7,000 troops, and recently told them "after God, I am your boss," is really changing his stripes, or simply adapting to the necessities of the day.
An Uzbek who initially entered the Afghan fight against the Soviet Union in the late 1970s on the side of the communists, he along with his Jowzjan troops – named for his province and known as some of the most ferocious soldiers in Afghanistan – fought both with the Soviets and later in the six-year civil war against the various factions of mujahideen – or holy warriors – who had helped evict the Soviets. As the 1989 to 1995 civil war ground on, Dostum enjoyed an increasingly ferocious reputation. According to Ahmed Rashid's book, "Taliban," he once had one of his own soldiers – accused of stealing – tied to the treads of a tank and rolled to his death. In one Taliban attempt to take Mazar-e Sharif in 1997 – and again when they were retreating last fall – soldiers who might have surrendered or been captured seem to have wound up in mass graves. Only last month, prisoners being held in a jail here were found near starvation.
Then, as now, it would be hard to find anyone who took a lead role in this country's long war with clean hands. Dostum also enjoyed lots of foreign support from neighbors who saw him as a vanguard against the fundamentalist Taliban. And by allying himself with the Northern Alliance, a collection of mostly Tajik-led fighters in northern Afghanistan, Dostum made a shrewd choice; backed by the US, the Northern Alliance eventually overthrew the Taliban last fall. Because of their international connections, control of Kabul, and reputation as the most effectively positioned to take the lead in a post-Taliban government, its members remain the country's most potent military and political force. With their reluctant nod of approval, Dostum reasserted his control over much of northern Afghanistan, formalized by Afghan interim leader Hamid Karzai's decision to appoint him as deputy defense minister and his "special envoy" to the north.
Dostum has emerged to promote himself as what might be called the moderate man's warlord, who will help bring peace and prosperity to all of Afghanistan.
"Civilians respect him because he was their only savior from Al Qaeda and the Taliban. He's very moderate, and he says that women should play a role," says Hasima Mukhalis, a female engineer. "Maybe he once was a little bit cruel, but that is because the situation demanded it."
Dostum is the son of poor peasants who was once embarrassed to go to work in his beat-up shoes. "Now, he can buy shoes for my whole village," says Mohammed Said, a supervisor at a gas factory where he once worked with Dostum. "At that time, no one believed he would rise to something better in life. He was not well-educated, and his parents were poor."
Over more than two decades of war in Afghanistan, Dostum changed alliances many times, showing an almost uncanny ability to sense which way the wind blew and to change course when it seemed necessary.
These days, the warm winds that blow gently through the rose garden where Dostum sits, in the gated and heavily guarded palace he built in his hometown, seem to prevail in his favor.
Diplomats from the embassies of various neighboring countries wait patiently in his sunny courtyard, among a few of his favorite things: tropical trees, squawking peacocks, and a swimming pool – turned into a chortling frog pond under the Taliban's reign.
"He is a good diplomat," says Anil Cicek, the consul-general of Turkey. "People who have a military origin often don't have good social skills, but he's not like that."
In the nearly six months since he was made minister, Dostum has rarely been in Kabul, except to meet with Karzai and to develop warm relations with the former king, who returned to Afghanistan from exile to oversee this month's
loya jirga. Together, they are considered by some observers to be the three most powerful men in Afghanistan, and the most likely to counter the supremacy of the Northern Alliance.
With his calls for democracy and an end to violence, he has had perhaps more success than any of Afghanistan's men of military might. A relative state of security reigns here, sometimes because Dostum runs his own show, to the point of printing his own currency. He has two wives – one Uzbek and one Tajik.
In late May, Dostum was named a
loya jirga delegate, and during the delegate election process, popular support for him was effusive. Young boys carried a poster of Dostum declaring that it is "time to put down the gun and pick up the pen." Women inside the election grounds wore plain headscarves – not all-encompassing burqas – and said that they have Dostum to thank.
"I would like to ask you for your support for General Dostum," a master of ceremonies bellowed over a microphone to a crowd of thousands. "So who here is with him?" All raised their hands and cheered. There was no vote on paper, not even a perfunctory request for a show of hands for anyone "opposed." Dostum's seat on the coming
loya jirga, his aides explained, has been secured among the 20 seats reserved for "important Afghan personalities."
Voters here say they think – and hope – that his youthful passion for a good fight has mellowed. "In the '90s, when Dostum had some enmity with one of his challengers, he didn't just get him. He used to kill every member of his family," says Ghulan Sadiq, an elderly man who wears a green and purple striped tribal robe. "Now, the great warrior has changed very much. Just as his hair became white, his heart became white. Before, it was black."
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