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Asian nations' race for resource security
Barrister Harun ur Rashid
Nothing symbolises the hopes and aspirations for Chinese and Indian people more dramatically than their nations' quest for the space race including reaching to the moon.
On September 12, Japan launched its first lunar satellite, Kaguya, the most ambitious project since the US Apollo missions of the late 60s and 70s.
Not to be left behind, China plans to launch its Changeo One satellite on October 30 and to put an unmanned spacecraft on the moon by 2012 and a manned spacecraft by 2017.
India is also planning to launch Chandrayan One, a moon explorer, next April, to send a manned spacecraft in 2015 and a manned spaceship in 2020.
While the space race between the former Soviet Union and the US was an integral part of a Cold War arms race, the Asian space race ties in with the great motivating factor of the new millennium- resource security.
The Asian giants are competing with the US and Russia to lay claim to possible natural resources on the moon and Mars.
Resource Security
The battle for resource security was a motivating factor for a number of bilateral agreements and trade signed in the margins of the APEC (Asian Pacific Economic Cooperation) summit in Sydney on September 8-9.
Chinese President Hu Jintao and Australian Prime Minister John Howard witnessed signing of a $45 billion deal to export liquefied gas to China.
Howard and former Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe also signed a new energy agreement to expand discussions on the use of uranium and nuclear fuels.
India is not yet a member of APEC and Australia wants India to join in. Australia's Foreign Minister Alexander Downer reportedly said: "This (APEC) was an opportunity to talk about a range of different issues but certainly to focus on India and the importance of that country to us in the Asia-Pacific region and the broader geopolitics of the region."
Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Muhkerjee, who delivered a lecture at Chulalongkorn University in Thailand on September 14, stressed that India was not ganging up against China, but the rise of India is seen by countries such as Japan as a critical counter-balance to growing Chinese economic weight. He did not mention the US and Australia which also view in the same fashion.
During the visit to India in August, Shinzo Abe said "the momentum of Indo-Japanese friendship has never been so strong as now."
Addressing Indian MPs in the Central Hall of parliament, Abe said: " A strong India is in the best interest of Japan and a strong Japan is in the best interest of India." Abe called for an "arc of freedom and prosperity" bringing together both nations.
Implying in the statement is the fact that both India and Japan are democratic countries while China is not. Furthermore the US is eager to see that an alliance among Australia-Japan-India and the US is formed to contain the power of China in the region.
Commentators say that the fundamental source of tension between Japan and China is economic. According to IMF, Japan is the Asia's biggest economy and the world's second largest economy with GDP almost double that of China.
Yet China has already quadrupled its size from 1980 to 2000 and according to official plans, is set to repeat this economic miracle for the next two decades. All other things being equal, if China were to continue on this trajectory of growth, it would become the largest economy in the world by the middle of this century.
While China has been powering along with annual growth rates approaching 10 per cent, Japan managed to emerge from a decade of recession in 2002.
Regional Security
In addition to economic tension, the region is experiencing an increase in military spending that may signal a new arms race. All the countries have boosted their defence spending. Moreover, the US-India nuclear deal is uncomfortable to China and is seen by China as a direct threat to its overall security.
Furthermore last month, India, Japan, Singapore, Australia and the US engaged in a comprehensive naval exercise in the Bay of Bengal and China, Russia and Central Asian States engaged in war games.
The main issue is how to turn China's entry into strategic environment of Asia Pacific into a positive factor.
Some commentators have indicated that the present policy of the US towards China as a "strategic competitor" is wrong and instead the US should have a regional security forum with China, Japan and Korea.
Second, the rise of China and India is so significant and intimidating that some stresses are inevitable in neighbouring countries.
The neighbours look at the rise of both countries with both admiration and apprehension. Unfortunately, at the moment there is no effective regional security forum for the smaller states such as Bangladesh.
Adjustments will be easier and smoother if neighbours of China and India get a voice in a forum in addressing the impact of emerging economic political and strategic landscape at the 21st century.
The writer is a former Bangladesh Ambassador to the UN, Geneva.
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Stone Age rice fields discovered in China
James Owen
Stone Age paddy fields tended by the world's earliest known rice farmers have been uncovered in a swamp in China, scientists say.
The discovery shows rice growing began in the coastal wetlands of eastern China some 7,700 years ago, according to a new study.
Flood and fire control
A team led by Cheng Zong of Britain's Durham University found evidence of prehistoric rice cultivation, including flood and fire control.
The team's research, which sheds new light on humans' critical transition from hunter-gatherers to farmers, centres on the site of Kuahuqiao in Zhejiang province near present-day Hangzhou.
The research follows previous excavations at the site that revealed a Stone Age community of wooden dwellings perched on stilts over the marshy wetlands.
An 8,000-year-old dugout canoe, pottery made with wild rice as a bonding material, wood and bamboo tools, and the bones of dogs and pigs were also found.
Zong's team analyzed the sediments of the ancient swamp for signs of rice paddies.
The researchers found the land was deliberately managed for rice growing.
Fire was used to clear scrub, while flood-prevention measures helped keep brackish water from getting into the fields, the study suggests.
"The site provided us well-dated evidence for the earliest rice cultivation," Zong said.
Rising seas
Kuahuqiao supported rice farming until around 7,550 years ago, when rising sea levels suddenly deluged the area, Zong said.
"Rice doesn't like saltwater," he said, noting that sea levels were rising at the time due to climate warming.
"We think [saltwater levels] must have been managed. Otherwise you would see a gradual rise in the brackish water influence," he said.
The water may have been held back by small earth dikes known as bunds, Zong said.
The team also detected increased levels of animal and human dung on the rice fields.
"Whether the dung was deliberately used as fertilizer, or whether it was just washed naturally into the paddy fields, it's very difficult to be certain," Zong said.
Rice fragments found in the swamp belonged to wild strains, the team found.
The discovery of unusually large rice pollen grains, however, may signal the beginnings of domesticated varieties, Zong said.
The team's findings are published in the latest issue of the journal Nature.
Other recent studies have dated the first fully domesticated rice in China to about 6,000 years ago.
Dorian Fuller of University College London, author of one such study, said the "evolution of rice as a domesticated crop was a long, drawn-out process which may have taken millennia."
The inhabitants of Kuahuqiao would have been "forager-cultivators," Fuller said.
"Rice cultivation isn't the only thing they do, and it's possibly not the main thing they do," he added.
"People who were using a wide range of other resources, including acorns and water chestnuts, started to manipulate marshland environments where rice was wild," Fuller added.
Who farmed it first?
The new study provides the earliest known evidence of rice paddies, Fuller said, though other, less solid evidence points to rice farming elsewhere in China around the same period.
Wild rice grains from Stone Age sites along the middle Yangtze River have been dated to 6000 B.C., he noted.
"People were using rice earlier than this," he added.
It may be mentioned here that 4,000-year-old noodles were found in China".
He explained that rice farming likely evolved independently in different parts of Asia, such as along the Ganges River in India.
"It's very clear now from the genetics of modern rice that it has multiple origins from the wild gene pool right across southern China and northern and eastern India," Fuller said.
Gary Crawford, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto at Mississauga, said that the new study is "an important contribution to understanding agricultural origins in the rice regions of East Asia."
The study, he said, provides "a fascinating interpretation that rice cultivation was taking place in slightly brackish coastal wetlands that were regularly flooded."
The study team says the move toward rice farming by the Kuahuqiao people was likely spurred by the onset of warmer, wetter conditions ideally suited to growing the cereal plant.
The changing climate acted as a "critical environmental prompt to cultural change, permitting rice cultivation at this latitude," the team said.
-National Geographic News
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Insurgents strike with apparent impunity
Suicide bomb brings Taleban
war to Kabul suburbs
Jean MacKenzie and Wahidullah Amani, Aziz Ahmad Shafe in Kabul
Kart-e-Parwan counts as one of the safest areas in Kabul. Largely residential, it does not boast the large foreign presence of flashier neighbourhoods. There are no embassies or big offices, just houses, shops, a cinema and a park.
In the early morning, herds of goats and sheep cross the main road, and day-labourers gather on the corner near a fruit seller's cart, waiting for someone to come and hire their muscle for a few hours. Children hurry by on their way to school, the girls in white headscarves, the boys with rucksacks slung over their backs.
IWPR's offices are in the heart of Kart-e-Parwan, nestled beside a family-planning clinic and over the road from a mosque and a bread kiosk. The latter is closed in the mornings because it is the month of Ramadan, and it will not open until closer to evening, when the fast is broken.
It is the kind of place where neighbours know each other and swap greetings in the street, and where a foreign woman can walk alone and do her fruit and vegetable shopping in peace, attended only by friendly cries of "Salaam" and "How are you?", from the locals, even the occasional "Bonjour" or Russian "Zdravstvuyte".
The kidnappings and killings that have marred other parts of the city seem very far away here.
That cheerful calm was shattered at seven in the morning on September 29, when a suicide bomber wearing the uniform of an Afghan National Army soldier climbed onto a military bus and detonated his explosives. Eyewitnesses say he was carrying a bag.
Officials say at least 30 people died, the majority of them from the Afghan military. Another 29 people were injured.
"I saw the bus stop, and three people with military uniforms got on," said a security official in Kart-e-Parwan, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "One minute later there was a big explosion, and I saw people lying on the ground on either side of the bus. When we went into the bus, we were able to get 15 injured people out. The rest were dead."
The security officer said the force of the explosion threw body parts up to the sixth floor of a nearby building which houses the famous Baharistan Cinema. "I collected body parts from up there and we put them in plastic bags," he said.
Windows in local shops and offices, including IWPR's premises, were blown out. A small piece of shrapnel penetrated into the newsroom.
A hellish scene greeted eyewitnesses once the smoke had cleared.
"The blast knocked me into a ditch," said 18-year-old Mustafa, who sells cigarettes by the roadside. "When I got up, there were hands and legs everywhere. I was very scared."
Faraidun, 21, said friends and neighbours were among those who were killed.
"I saw three brothers - they were house painters," he said. "They were all dead."
Two days after the bomb, city workers were still cleaning bits of flesh and broken teeth from trees in the area. But the real legacy of this bombing is likely to last much longer.
It is now apparent that the Taleban can strike anywhere in the capital. Residents of Kabul will be looking nervously over their shoulders as they go about their daily business, never sure when the next attack will come.
The explosion was one of the largest to date in a city that has seen a rapid rise in violence over the past few months. In June, a bomb rocked a bus full of police officers, killing 35. Just one week ago, a suicide bomber targeted a convoy of the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, killing a French soldier.
Kart-e-Parwan was isolated from such horrors, but that is no longer the case.
"This was the most secure area of Kabul," said Faraidun. "Now the Taleban can target even this kind of place. The government has to do something about it; things are getting worse every day."
But the Afghan government seems as much at a loss as everyone else. Zahir Azimi, spokesperson for the defence ministry, limited himself to the usual platitudes about enemies of Islam and the nation.
The Taleban, on the other hand, were full of certainty. Their spokesman for central Afghanistan, Zabiullah Mujahed, claimed responsibility for the bomb.
IWPR was not able to contact him, but his more media-friendly colleague, Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, who speaks for the insurgents in the violence-torn south, was ready to comment.
"This is jihad, and the enemy is going to sustain casualties," he said. "We are upset about the civilian deaths, but the attack was carried out early in the morning. There are not so many people on the streets at that hour, and the people near the bus worked for the government; they were leaving for their offices."
The official tally lists six civilians among the injured. The dead were all military personnel, as were the rest of those wounded by the blast.
Qari Yusuf added that with the onset of the holy month of Ramadan, the Taleban had begun a new operation codenamed Nasrat or "Victory".
"We hope to intensify this operation in the course of the month," he added.
Kabul residents were unmoved by the Taleban bluster. Instead, they were angry and bitter about the attack and its timing.
"Those who kill during Ramadan are not Muslims," said Mohammad Saboor, 45. "People are getting ready for Eid, and now all these families will be mourning instead of celebrating."
Eid al-Fitr is the holiday of feasting and family gatherings that marks the end of the Ramadan fast,
"Whoever the attacker was, he will go to hell," said Sayed Rahim, 38. "God never gave anyone permission to kill."
As this report was published, reports came in of a new suicide bombing on October 2, this time targeting a police bus.
Jean MacKenzie is IWPR's Programme Director in Afghanistan. Wahid Amani is lead trainer and reporter. Aziz Ahmad Tassal, an IWPR staff reporter in Helmand, also contributed to this report.
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UNHCHR's presence in Sri Lanka
may improve situation
Jehan Perera in Colombo
The visit to Sri Lanka of the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNHCHR), Louise Arbour provides the best chance for the discipline of human rights to be imposed on the conflicting parties in Sri Lanka. The country's deteriorating image abroad has potentially catastrophic consequences, not only for the well being of the people, but even for national security. Several donor countries are distancing themselves from Sri Lanka, and even contemplating downgrading their diplomatic presence in the country.
Although the government claims that the reduction in economic aid from these countries is due to Sri Lanka becoming a middle-income country, it is also due to the frustration that they feel in seeing their aid going down the drain of seemingly unending war. On the other hand, Foreign Minister Rohitha Bogollagama has been forthright in warning that a recent Congressional amendment to the US State Department's Appropriation Bill for 2008, could introduce restrictions on military aid to Sri Lanka due to alleged human rights violations.
For over a year human rights organisations, both international and national, have sought to highlight the serious violations of human rights and the climate of impunity when it comes to identifying and punishing the perpetrators, whether they be agents of the government or militants. They have called for international involvement in the protection and monitoring of the situation as it pertains to human rights. In turn the government has mobilized itself to deny such abuses and to make offers of national remedies.
Tragically, however, for the people of Sri Lanka the ground realities are quite the opposite of what the government tries to make out in international forums, as more and more citizens disappear or fall victim to the death squads. The government considers the present drop in the numbers of new persons being abducted or assassinated as a sign that there is no human rights crisis in the country. But the fact that these evil deeds continue at all, and that the perpetrators continue to be at large, is an indictment on the government.
Dr Rajan Hoole of the highly respected University Teachers for Human Rights who recently received the Martin Ennals Human Rights Award, spoke in his acceptance speech of the terrible conditions that prevail in the north and east of Sri Lanka. He pointed to "the right for people in parts of the North-East under government control to return to their homes and live without fear of being picked out by state affiliated killer squads. These squads are part of government policy. Law enforcement is completely disingenuous. Police investigation is directed more towards the disappearance or intimidation of witnesses rather than the prosecution of killers."
Ineffective remedies
The national remedies that the government has offered are only in name and cannot be considered to be effective. The Presidential Commission of Inquiry into Serious Human Rights Violations, of which much was expected, has so far not even completed investigating even one of the 16 cases it was mandated to investigate, although it is nearing the end of its term. The Independent International Eminent Group of Persons who were attached to that Commission to play the role of observers has repeatedly protested against the weaknesses inherent in the functioning of the Commission but to no avail.
The failure of the International Eminent Group of observers to make a positive impact on the human rights situation in the country has strengthened the case for an international field presence of human rights monitors with an expanded mandate. If Ms Arbour's visit to Sri Lanka convinces her that the ground situation is indeed as bad as human rights organizations have been saying, the impetus for the implementation of an international human rights protection mechanism with a field presence in Sri Lanka will be further strengthened.
The visit to Sri Lanka of Ms Arbour is also important from the viewpoint of the UN, whose purpose is to expand its mission throughout the world. The UN was established in the immediate aftermath of the Second World War, in which the human rights horrors were of unprecedented proportions and more people died of war than at any other period of known human history. There was recognition that the violation of the rights of people was a certain recipe for violence to perpetuate and feed itself.
Accordingly one of the first acts of the UN was to convene the leaders of the world, both political and moral, and unanimously pass the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which remains the most powerful beacon of human aspiration to be consensually accepted by all peoples in the world. More than any other global institution, the UN has the mandate to ensure that respect for human rights prevails throughout the world. As a country that has been torn apart by violent internal conflict for over three decades, Sri Lanka will inevitably be a country of concern to the UN.
Unfortunately, the present Sri Lankan government's willingness to incorporate human rights principles in its governance appears to be limited. This clearly comes out in the government's proposed law to give effect to the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which is the basic international legal instrument that is based on the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. One of the country's respected policy think tanks, the Centre for Policy Alternatives has pointed out that the draft law is extremely limited. It does not include basic rights provided in the International Covenant, including the right to life, freedom from negative discrimination, rights of minorities and the right to privacy, among many others.
The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights is one of the UN's innovations in the pursuit of its mandate to protect human rights worldwide. It may need to seriously consider expanding its mandate into Sri Lanka in view of the cavalier attitude towards human rights that presently prevails. A recent intervention in the defense of human rights that the UN has engaged in is in Nepal, which is a fraternal South Asian country, with close cultural and religious links to Sri Lanka. Every year thousands of Sri Lankans make the pilgrimage to Nepal where the ancient cities of Lumbini and Kapilavastu that the Buddha trod exist.
But soon it may be the case that Sri Lankans will also make the journey to Nepal to learn about setting up a monitoring system to ensure that the human rights of its citizens are protected in a time of violent conflict. A group of ten senior Sri Lankan media personnel who are presently visiting Nepal under the auspices of the National Peace Council of Sri Lanka to study the peace process in that country, and identify applicable lessons and best practices, were repeatedly informed that the strong UN presence in Nepal was one of the key pillars of its peace process.
Nepal example
In April 2005, the Government of Nepal formally invited the UN to come to Nepal and establish a Human Rights monitoring presence. The Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights was established the following month with the aim of protecting human rights in the context of the armed conflict and the threats to democratic rights. At that time Nepal was suffering from one of the highest rates of disappearances due to the armed conflict between the government forces and Maoist rebels. Nearly 8,000 such cases had been registered by the country's Human Rights Commission.
Most analysts we met during our week long stay in Nepal believed that the government and Maoists would continue with the peace process. But no process is irreversible, and what Nepal has it can lose and what Sri Lanka has lost it can regain. What matters most in conflict resolution is strategic decision making and political will. If the leaders of Sri Lanka have the genuine commitment to protect and promote the human rights of the country's citizens, and to restart the peace process, the visit of UN High Commissioner, Louise Arbour, can be a great opportunity for a new beginning rather than be perceived as a threat to be contained.
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ISLAMABAD DIARY
Jonaid Iqbal
General Musharraf was overwhelmingly elected as President on October 6, but he is in no hurry now to take oath of office. He says he can afford to wait until the Supreme Court reaches the verdict on his eligibility.
But all that might be for public. Musharraf's only contestant, former Supreme Court Judge Wajeehuddin Ahmad, got a total of only eight votes from all the six election booths (NA/Senate, Provincial Assemblies of Balochistan, the NWFP, the Punjab and Sindh).
Citizens spent a nerve-wracking two days before the election date in trying to decide whether the deal between the President and Benazir Bhutto would be clinched.
It was. On Election Day, Saturday, Benazir Bhutto's PPP walked out of the Assembly protesting that the party is against an army General to stand for election as public representative and hence he and his 55 colleagues in the party would not vote.
However, that could be a public show because the night before Chairperson had read, revised, signed and sealed the National Reconstruction Ordinance (NRO) that provides indemnity for various holders of public office since 1988 but stops at Oct 12, 1999 (the day Musharraf took over the administration of Pakistan). It benefits Benazir Bhutto but leaves out Nawaz Sharif.
Rewarding thieves
Today we came across a report published in the newspapers that Pakistan's National Accountability Bureau has informed the Sindh High Court of government decision to withdraw all cases against Benazir Bhutto and her husband, Asif Zaradari.
After the NRO was promulgated by Musharraf on October 5, general people's opinion in the country has been overwhelmingly against it. In their mind the people place it as a legal measure designed to reward former thieves and plunderers of public money.
Both, the ruling party as well as the PPP have become aware of the public distaste. The president of PML-Q Chaudhury Shujaat Hussain has called the NRO as a ploy he employed to snare Benazir and the PPP, and the Ordinance has also been challenged in a number of courts, including the Supreme Court. The News, a prominent newspaper, summed up the public mood by printing the following headline on a report about the NRO: Zia hanged ZAB (meaning Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto), Musharraf the PPP. We now hear that the ruling party has decided not to table the Ordinance in the Parliament.
In due time, say, after 10 days, the Supreme Court will rule on Wajeeduddin's case and also pronounce on the eligibility of General Musharraf's. However, that is the least of the worries for Pakistan right now.
More than 200 people have been killed in Waziristan area during the last three days, including security personnel and civilians - collateral damage, as they are called after the famous Rumsfeld description of the poor people killed during US bombing in Iraq.
This time jets were used to bomb local people of the area, dubbed as miscreants. A politician participating in a talk show summed up the incident in these words: Never in his life had he seen bombs hurled during political opposition. The usual thing was lathi-charge and tear shells being fired, but all barriers and old tradition have been left behind in this new war on terror Pakistan is fighting as a proxy of the US.
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EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT IN AFGHANISTAN
"They say, sixty Talebans killed, but there was no Taleban among the dead"
A reporter visits the area where he was born to find civilians traumatised by recent air attacks and angry with the government in Kabul. Hyderabad is only 80 kilometers north of Helmand's capital, Lashkar Gah, but it takes you four days to get there.
Those 80 kilometres are neatly divided between followers of President Hamed Karzai and supporters of Mullah Omar. In other words, the first 40 kilometers are controlled by the government, and the last 40 belong to the Taleban.
I was born in Kajaki, a district just to the northeast of Hyderabad, so I should have felt at home there.
But no man entering a country illegally could have been more afraid than I was when I approached the Taleban "border".
I had tried to plan ahead, and had made contact with local Taleban commanders. I followed their instructions, but I was still nervous and had no idea how I would be treated.
I also hedged my bets - after setting out for Hyderabad, I called the Helmand police chief and told him of my travel plans.
He was very angry, and began shouting at me.
"What can I do for you now? You didn't call me until after you went into the area. All I can do now is pray that God will bring you back alive."
That did not make me feel much better.
Shortly after we arrived in Hyderabad, our car was surrounded by a group of Taleban. They pointed their guns at us and shouted, "Give us as much money as you can."
I turned out my pockets - you see, I have a real love for life. After taking some money, they turned their guns away and let us go.
When we got to our destination, Hyderabad bazaar, we were again surrounded by armed Taleban. I gave them my press card, thinking that since it was written in English, they would not understand. But it seems that the Taleban are also linguists, and they understood very well.
Afterwards, I relaxed a little, and began talking to local people.
They were not happy to see us. Among them were people whose family members had been killed in a recent air strike, and the way they were looking at us, you would think that it was we who killed them.
"What are you doing here?" said one of them. "First you kill us, then you come to take our pictures."
I tried to tell him that no, I was here to listen to them; to make sure that their voices were heard.
Finally, some residents agreed to talk to me.
One man, Mohammad Gul told me how five members of his family had been killed in the bombing.
"The troops must have been able to see us. It's in the desert, and there isn't a single tree. We entered a house and tried to hide, but the jets came and began bombing us," he said. "How is it that the foreigners say they can aim at one specific person, but here they can't tell whether they are killing a woman or a child?"
Like many in the area, Mohammad Gul was angry and bitter at the international forces deployed in Helmand province.
"The foreign troops don't kill the Taleban, they only kill us," he said. "They don't build roads or do anything useful. They just ruin us. Some people here have lost their entire families. They say they will go off and become suicide bombers. They are tired of living ."
Mohammad Gul was not comforted by the prospect of receiving compensation for his loss - the idea made him furious.
"The government gives us 100,000 Afghani [2,000 US dollars] for each person killed in the bombings," he said. "I want to say to the president, 'What am I supposed to do with this money?' My family is dead, buried in the ground. I will give the government two million afghani [40,000 dollars] if it gives me the head of one of its officials. For Karzai's head, I would pay 100 million afghani."
He challenged the Afghan president, "Karzai can invite all of us to go to see him and he can butcher us with a knife, rather than kill us with bombs."
"We sent tribal elders to the foreign troops, asking for permission to bury our dead," he said. "They told us to wait until after they'd gone. I myself buried 14 people in one grave. I couldn't do it the proper way - we were all on the run, trying to find a place of safety."
After Mohammad Gul had finished, I took a walk around the area - after first obtaining permission from the Taleban. It looked to like a place that had been abandoned hundreds of years ago; the houses were all destroyed.
I did see one house that looked intact. It was not until I got closer that I saw the hole in the wall. When I stepped inside, I saw that everything had been destroyed. There were clothes, dishes and children's books all mixed up in the rubble.
The owner, Fatih Mohammad, told me how four members of his family were killed in an air strike.
"We were having dinner when the jets came," he said. "I stood next to a wall, and God kept me alive. But when I saw my children and wife dead, I was sorry I hadn't been killed, too. I asked God, "If You did not want me to die, why did You make me see this?"
Fatih Mohammad asked, "Who will help me bury my dead?"
Many people in the area seemed lost, and were shaking as if their dead were still lying in front of them.
I saw a tractor sitting just one kilometer outside the village, pitted with holes and with blood mixed with fuel staining the ground around it.
Villagers say the tractor was hit while it was taking 35 civilians away from the bombing.
"There were old men, women and children who wanted to seek refuge with the foreign troops," said local resident Habibullah. "The men were trying to collect the dead from houses that had been bombed, but someone called to us, 'Rahmatullah's children are on fire in the tractor'. I rushed over there, and saw that everyone was burning. We could do nothing except pour water on them.
"When the flames were extinguished, we saw that they were all dead. Some were headless, others had lost arms or legs. I saw one child, the bones of his hand were still burning. That was the most shocking thing for me. There were children aged from three months old to ten years old."
"We collected the dead, their flesh and body parts, and wrapped it all in patus," said Habibullah, referring to the long scarves worn by Pashtuns. "We buried them all in one grave, because we could not identify individuals."
He paused, his face creased with sorrow and rage.
"This is the work of Hamed Karzai,"he said. "If he cannot put an end to the killing, he must resign. These jets do not recognise women and children. When there is a bombing like the one here, the foreign troops announce that 60 Taleban have been killed. But I want to tell them that there was not even one Taleb among the dead."
Locals said the tractor was hit as a deliberate reprisal for a Taleban attack which destroyed foreign armoured vehicles some two kilometers away.
The Taleban took me to the scene of a battle with foreign troops. There were some armoured vehicles, which they said they blew up with improvised explosive devices.
They also showed me about 15 fuel tankers that had been used to supply the international forces. The Taleban say they siphoned off the fuel and sold it before torching the tanker trucks.
I could not visit many other places, as the whole area was mined. So I took my leave of the Taleban and left for home. I did not feel safe until I reached the government-controlled stretch of road.
When I finally reached home, I felt that I had been given a new lease of life.
Institute of War and Peace Reporting
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