Hope and fear loom over Afghan valley as NATO plans withdrawal

IN a spectacular valley swept by centuries of Silk Road history, the hopes and fears of Afghanistan’s only female governor capture the mood across the country as Western troops prepare to withdraw.
Habiba Sarabi’s hope springs from the transformation of Bamyan province from a place of massacres and oppression of women under Taleban to one where most people live in peace and young girls flock to school.
It is fueled by a belief that the historical, cultural and physical beauty of the central province could become a magnet for international tourists whose dollars would help support those gains. The fear comes from the fact US-led NATO forces that have fought Taleban insurgents for the past 11 years will leave the country by the end of 2014 and all gains could be lost.
“If NATO totally makes the decision to withdraw I am sure a civil war will start,” she said in an interview in her modest office in Bamyan town, where donkeys vie for space on the roads with cars and few weapons are in sight.
Aged 56, she remembers the bloody strife that engulfed Afghanistan in the 1990s following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, when the West lost interest after backing the Afghan uprising against the Russians. “If they repeat this mistake again it will be a disaster.” Bamyan is home to the Hazara peopleand any chance of a return to power by the hard-line Taleban — or even a share in power — is frightening, says Sarabi.
“The Bamyan people suffered a lot during the Taleban. People can remember several massacres in Bamyan and still we have mass graves here.” If Afghanistan is spared the disaster Sarabi fears, it is not inconceivable that her dream of turning the area between the magnificent Hindu Kush and Koh-e-Baba mountain ranges into an international eco-tourist destination could be realized.
If not for 30 years of war since the Soviet invasion of 1979, it would likely have already drawn travelers seeking new places to ski in winter and fly-fish for wild trout in summer, while rubbing shoulders with the ghosts of Ghengis Khan and Marco Polo.
Bamyan’s physical attractions include the sapphire-blue Band-e-Amir lakes, which rise magically within a jagged, barren mountainscape without a river in sight — now center of the nation’s first national park.
They lie about 75 kilometers from Bamyan town off a smooth new South Korean-funded highway which winds through canyons and crags of bleached ochres and past a plateau where a new airport is planned. One of the few foreign visitors last week was retired Swiss businesswoman Ruth Mordasini, realizing a lifelong dream of returning to a landscape and culture she first saw as a 21-year-old traveling through Afghanistan in 1969. “Bamyan is so beautiful,” she said. “But when I told my son and daughter I was going to Afghanistan they thought I was crazy. It is sad that nobody knows what the future will be.” Beyond the natural beauty lie centuries of turbulent history at a cultural crossroads of the old Silk Road trading route between Asia and Europe.