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Page last edited on 12 March, 2003
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"The Taliban Are Well Liked"
A Japanese
doctor's up-close observations contradict overseas reports
By
MUTSUKO MURAKAMI
AsiaWeek, Thursday, October 18, 2001
Japanese doctor
Tetsu Nakamura works with leprosy patients and refugees in Afghanistan and
Pakistan. It's a job that keeps him in touch with the raw reality of life
in that troubled country. And he says that from what he has seen, the
Taliban are being wrongly portrayed internationally. "There's
something wrong with the media reports," he says. "This talk of
the Taliban being vicious and disliked doesn't fit with reality."
Nakamura says the fundamentalists have wide support from the population,
particularly in rural areas. "Otherwise, how can they rule 95% of the
country with only 15,000 soldiers?"
Villagers around Nakamura's Peshawar base hospital and
10 clinics in both northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan were
pleased to see peace established under Taliban rule, he says. The Pushtun
people, who make up two-thirds of the Afghan population, can accept strict
Muslim codes because they have lived by them all their lives, he says.
Women are not deprived of education or jobs, as far as he can see. In
fact, half the local doctors at his clinics are women.
So why are the people of the capital, Kabul, reportedly
hoping to see the Taliban overthrown? "The Taliban may act
differently there," he told me when we met recently in Tokyo.
"They're obliged to fix the corrupt urban life. The people most vocal
in criticizing the Taliban are upper-class Afghans who have been deprived
of their privileges." Nakamura's words reminded me of news footage I
have seen several times since the attacks on New York and Washington. Shot
by French journalists in Afghanistan, it showed Afghan women speaking
critically of the Taliban. Significantly, they are dressed in shiny
silk-like costumes, with large rings on their fingers.
Nakamura, 55, says the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance
are not the freedom fighters some journalists describe them as. Villagers
are frightened of them because they are more violent and cruel than the
Taliban, he says. They execute innocent people in horrific ways, though
not in public as the Taliban do as a warning to others.
Nakamura works for Peshawar – kai Medical Services, a
Japanese aid agency based in Fukuoka City that has been operating in the
Peshawar district for 17 years. He first visited the area as an alpinist
when he was still a medical school student in Fukuoka. Shocked by the lack
of medical care in the area, particularly for leprosy patients, he
volunteered to work at a local hospital in l984. He says: "I spent
most of my time not in straight medical work but in trying to understand
my patients, their lifestyles and values -- what makes them weep or what
matters most for them. "Luckily, I can eat anything and sleep
anywhere," he grins.
Nakamura has seen foreigners visiting Afghanistan and
returning home to criticize the Muslim culture -- from a Western
perspective. These people may be "heroes or heroines in London or New
York," he says, "but they contribute nothing to the welfare of
Afghans." As for suggestions the Taliban have cut the country off
from the world, Nakamura says the Afghans are perhaps better informed than
the Japanese, as they listen daily to BBC radio in their own language.
The doctor's greatest concern is the fate of millions of
starving refugees in and around Afghanistan. Over one million of them are
suffering from hunger, he says, while up to 40% are bordering on
starvation. He thinks 10% could die during the winter. Nakamura and his
staff stopped focusing exclusively on leprosy in the l980s as they had so
many refugees to deal with, many suffering from malaria, diarrhea,
infections and fever. Severe draught in recent years created hundreds of
thousands of refugees. And now the American bombing and the fear of an
invasion has brought more. His aid agency helps to dig wells not only to
provide water but also for irrigation for farms, so that the refugees can
return to their villages.
Back home in Japan temporarily and thinking of his base
area in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Nakamura says: "It's all like a
mirage far off in the desert." He fondly recalls the red-brown soil
of Afghanistan fields, the villagers sharing their joy about water from
newly dug wells, and the friendly faces of Taliban soldiers helping
villagers. "I have one simple question," he says. "What are
the big powers trying to defend by attacking this ailing, tiny
country?" It's a good question.
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