Haji Muhammad Mohaqiq, a Hazara MP, is on hunger strike. By all accounts, eight days into it, he is weakening.
Mohaqiq is protesting the recent violent incursion of Kuchi nomads into Hazara areas in the Behsud district of Wardak province. Reportedly, upwards of four Hazara were killed during the incursion. This is an old conflict—the Economist wrote of it last year, but it has roots going back at least into the Taliban’s rule. Many Hazara claim the Kuchi are “Taliban,” or at least Taliban-loving, because during the 90s they worked with the Taliban, who granted them access to Hazara (and Tajik) land. Naturally the Hazara are angry over this imbalance.
Here’s the rub. As a predominantly Pashtun force, the Taliban were rather notorious for their appalling treatment of all other minorities within Afghanistan, including (or perhaps especially) the Hazara. In fact, the imposed famine on the Hazarajat was particularly brutal and generally unreported in the media in the West.
Wardak is about half Pashtun, with most of the rest (somewhere around 40%, according to unreliable official statistics) Hazara. This is an area where corruption is so bad many Pashtun villagers eagerly open their arms to Taliban entreaties, whose promises to end corruption and establish justice seem to meet eager ears in many areas, and whose courts have willing participants.
This places the Hazara in a bit of a quandry. While the Taliban claim not to recognize ethnicity, they clearly hate the Hazara as Shiite apostates. Meanwhile, the Kuchi, who are Sunni, might be able to get some Taliban support in their quest to find grazing land. But both groups—Hazara and Kuchi—can quite correctly claim to have been marginalized for centuries, and claim to have been ignored in Afghanistan’s post-Taliban politics. This last complaint is a bit of a stretch: the 3 million Kuchi have a guaranteed 10 seats in Parliament, a courtesy not given the Uzbeks or Balochi. The Hazara have one of the country’s two co-vice presidencies in the man of Karim Khalili. (Neither of these facts guarantee any sort of co-equal voice in the government.)
Khalili claimed in a recent press conference that President Karzai ordered an evacuation of the Kuchi from Behsud district. Meanwhile, Hazara representatives claim several thousand have fled the violence.
The danger is that the Kuchi will reach out to the Taliban for support. While there is scant evidence this has actually happened, given the general negligence of Hazara areas—they tend to be quiet, so the troops with all those CERP funds rarely give them focus—the only way for the Hazara to draw attention to their conflict to cry “Taliban,” and maybe let slip the dogs of war. There is the possibility of armed conflict between the two groups beyond the limited skirmishes so far.
But Mohaqiq’s hunger strike is peaceful. And so far the Hazara community seems to be holding its breath to see what kind of reaction they can get from Kabul and NATO (there is a protest scheduled in Kabul for Tuesday, July 22). They shouldn’t hold it too long: the Turks, who run the Wardak PRT, pretty much never leave their compound. Similarly, a 2007 commission Hamid Karzai set up to discover a solution to the Hazara-Kuchi conflict has yet to reveal anything about its proceedings.
The unfortunate angle to this conflict is that not only is it in a generally ignored area just to the west of Kabul, it also has nothing to do with the Coalition/Taliban conflict raging further south and east. It seems, in brief, a fairly standard nomad/settler conflict, with the consequent disputes over land used both for agriculture and grazing. These types of conflicts become especially acute during times of drought or shortage, and the current squeeze over food prices, and a looming drought in the south, have probably exacerbated the conflict.
Despite the constant cries of Taliban, however, very few seem to take the Hazara complaint seriously. And here is where it could backfire: just like crying wolf, it might fall on deaf ears next time there is a real, and serious, Taliban incursion in Wardak beyond setting up a few shadow institutions. Similarly, if the Hazara succeed in painting the Kuchi as Taliban sympathizers, this might push them into seeking support from the Taliabn to gain advantage in their struggle.
In other words, Wardak right now is a tinderbox… one that is still almost entirely ignored by the West. They would do well to pay attention to the trouble brewing at Kabuls’ gates.
See Also: “The Long Walk of the Kuchi,” Walrus Magazine, July/August 2006 [link]
UPDATE: The Hazaristan Times files three reports on the protests today:
1. Karzai declares victory by ordering the Kuchi to evacuate Behsud and return the Hazara homes and lands they occupied. We’ll see if that sticks, or if it achieves any lasting change.
2. Mohaqiq has ended his hunger strike after talks with UNAMA. By all accounts Behsud is slowly emptying of Kuchis, though it appears the government ignored the five “charter demands” the protesters called for, which included the resignation of Karzai and restitution for the displaced.
3. A beautiful picture gallery of the protest. The HT claims 300,000 took to the streets; while the number certainly was large, it is unclear if it was that high. Still, the fact that a large number of Hazara-led protesters could take to the streets without much harassment is a welcome sight that maybe there is a civil society growing up there after all.
{ 10 comments }
There is a sense of naivety in your writing, that I think comes about when you try to be too P.C. (politically correct). The fighting there is in the name of the Kuchi tribes, but the clashes in Behsud for example involved no Kuchi women or children. If they were truly there for their grazing rights, how come their women and children did not accompany them? How did they put the Jalrez-Bamiyan road under siege for a week accosting anybody that travels the road, including government officials? Furthermore, I have yet to understand how a few thousand people can roam around Afghanistan with RPGs and PKM antiaircraft machine guns, even explosives? How can nomads justify the need for such weapons if they are just peaceful people minding their own business? What is the point of the Afghan police, the Afghan army, ISAF, and other security organs, and the DDR program, which is supposed to demobilize and disarm all factions in Afghanistan?
In fact a few things you are overlooking.
1. Jul 7 2008, at the same time of the clashes between Hazaras and Kuchis, Mullah Nasim (the Taleban commander that kidnapped 2 Germans and 5 Afghans last year, including killing one of them) was killed on an ISAF raid on a Kuchi tent in an encampment in Wardak province.
2. The government through the Ministry of Defense has been arming Kuchis since April 2007 by special order of the Office of the President which circumvented Minister Rahim Wardak’s office.
3. Every single “administration” in Afghanistan, including up to today’s Karzai, has in some way or another favored Kuchis. You cannot argue that they were sidelined, or are sidelined, and on the contrary are thriving in the state of a weak central government dominated by a group of ethnocentric nationalists. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai was the former finance minister, the current head of Kabul University (where students can get kicked out for not using the Pashtun word for “university”). There are also currently 2 Kuchi ministers, and more than 10 MPs in parliament. Given that you quoted 3 million for their population, the government went out of its way to accommodate the Kuchis, and even with inflated numbers, they managed to obtain 200,000 votes. The province of Ghazni for example, obtained 400,000 votes and they have the same voting authority in the Wolesi Jirga that the Kuchis do (11 MPs vs. 10 MPs).
4. Many of the suicide bombers for Taleban have been Kuchis, including the twin bombing on Oct 06 in Khost and Gardez.
5. Many serve as smugglers of drugs from Helmand where they purchase locally processed heroine and move them to Pakistan for shipping to Dubai and then Europe.
6. Karzai and a Kuchi lobbying group headed by Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai, the brother of the former finance minister, have successfully blocked the implementation of a national census program. I wonder what it is they are afraid of….
Ahmad,
I’ll cop to being ignorant about all the rumors circulating around about Kuchis. But I could not, after nearly an hour of searching, find anything to back up the claims you made here. Do you have any sources that speak to this?
Some of the claims I am not inclined to believe without concrete evidence, such as claiming most suicide bombers have been Kuchi, or that it’s a Kuchi conspiracy to delay the census given the actual and legitimate security fears right now. It would not, however, surprise me to learn Kuchis are a major force for opium smuggling—smuggling is an ancient source of income for them.
Anyway, please send me any sources you have for this. I’d rather not jump into hearsay in a brewing ethnic conflict, so if these kinds of charges are going to stand, I’d like some proof.
Well, there is a bit of Gerrymandering when it comes to Kuchi populations: they are often counted as separate voting constituency but often times also included in demographics as domiciles. This of course may not strictly serve their interest but it is what it is.
Kuchis aren’t all nomad herders. In fact, their primary source of wealth wasn’t/isn’t necessarily their herds of livestock, but has traditionally been trading (which they effectively monopolized especially in more inaccessible areas of Afghanistan). With the changing climes of 60s and 70s and the opening up of roads, some Kuchis switched from camels to trucks and amassed great wealth in the process. As such, I think it is safe to assume that they have traditionally been well-represented in the “trucking mafia” (this is a whole ecosystem of smugglers, truckers, and by implication drug barons).
By most accounts on the ground, there are heavy weapons in play. So, I am inclined to believe Ahmad’s point that this may not simply be a case of a shepherd walking around with an RPG to keep the foxes at bay. Thankfully, this is limited only to Behsood and not other areas, which may point to other issues at hand.
By the way, what exactly constitutes a Kochi? Since the term literally means “nomad” (having no permanent abode or –me thinks– legally that would be not owning an immovable piece of property). So by strict definition if an individual owns a house, he or she can not be considered a “kuchi.” But as I said, most of them are no longer strictly speaking “nomads.” The Ahmadzai brothers for instance do not tend to sheep. A bit of a headache, no?
Savage, you raise two really good points: the Kuchi are probably involved with the smugglers groups… which would mean they are NOT Taliban, since the two groups are distinct; and not all Kuchi are Pashtun.
From the little scholarship I’ve read of them, the Kuchi are only mostly Pashtun, but pretty much anyone who considers himself a Kuchi and adopts their way of life can be called one. But there are also much smaller nomadic groups, especially in the Khost/Paktika area, with far less contentious histories.
There is also, however, a great deal of mystique and fairytale attached to stories about the Kuchi. Which is why I’d like some more concrete sources about what’s going on—which is why I’m kind of frustrated at the lack of coverage.
Here are two links from Pajhwak news agency in Afghanistan:
Twin bombings on Oct 6
http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=25566
Mullah Nizam in Kuchi tents on Jul 5 (not Mullah Nasim, sorry):
http://www.pajhwak.com/viewstory.asp?lng=eng&id=57963
The original source I read it from (jul 7th): http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=world_news&month=july2008&file=world_news2008070713732.xml
I wrote the post in the wee morning, apologies. I said many of the bombers have been Kuchis, not most. There was an attempted assassination of General Dostum in Jawzjan, also a Kuchi in that case. Many of their leaders, n>10, have also been arrested in 2001-2002. It was the lobbying ability of the Ahmadzais, Karzais, and Afghan Mellat national party that secured their freedom.
As for the other ‘rumors,’ Hashmat Ghani Ahmadzai was on Shamshad TV with his organization Kuchi Foundation or something like that expressing the complete rejection for national census because its un-necessary, and the “we are all brothers” shpeal.
Karzai stopped the national census. He also has issued an edict allowing Kuchis to arm themselves. I can personally attest that they do have those wewapons and I don’t believe they had any trouble at all moving their weapons with them. I’m not sure how a nomadic convoy can hide their weapons, considering they followed the side of the main Kandahar-Kabul highway 1 from Spin Boldak, that is patrolled by ISAF and Afghan government forces, and veered into Behsud from there. Unless of course they are illegally armed and cooperate with the Taleban.
Karzai has also prevented his Vice President Karim Khalili from disarming Kuchis. He resigned as chairman of DIAG Disbandenment of Illegal Armed Groups on 12 July (Hasht e Sobh, but here is a BBC Monitoring Service translation http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2390600&title=Afghan_Vice-President.html)
Ahmad,
The first Pajhwok story only identifies one of the bombers as Kuchi. Why not identify the other? Is “ethnicity” only important when the aggressor is a Kuchi? This isn’t to cast aspersion on either you or the reporter Abdul Majid Arif, but there’s nothing there to indicate it was a “twin” bombing attack by two Kuchis.
In the second post, there is nothing to indicate it was Taliban sympathies that prodded the two Kuchi herdsmen to offer Mullah Nizamuddin shelter. There are other impetuses beyond loving extremist Shari’a for nomads to do such a thing… such as not wishing to be identified denying a violent and dangerous man shelter. Do we know if there was an element of coercion here?
That last news story is unclear—it appears Muzafaruddin is the only one identifying the strike target as a Kuchi tent. If it was a U.S. air strike, wouldn’t they know what they were targeting? If not, then why would Muzafaruddin?
Again, I’m not saying this didn’t happen—again, it is entirely possible two Kuchis were actually helping a Taliban commander. While I am not in any way suggesting the Hazara don’t have an extremely disadvantaged position in Afghan society—I think my writing proves I’m quite aware of the problem—I just can’t shake the feeling there is a deeper story here. As the Hasht-i Sobh article states:
To me, that says it isn’t as simple as the government trying to use the Kuchi as proxies to kill and drive off the Hazara. Karzai, as the head of a government trying desperately to function, has just as much of an interest in settling and taxing the Kuchis as the Hazara do in settling them so they’ll be left alone. I haven’t seen any evidence the government has actively collaborated with the Kuchi in either arming them or driving them to take over regions — it appears Khalili’s apparent resignation is as much about political triangulation as protest over the Kuchis (which don’t get a mention in the story).
Meanwhile, it appears Karzai has ordered an evacuation of the Kuchi from Behsud, and Mohaqiq has called off his hunger strike and the protests. Is this the behavior of a government out to arm and support the Kuchis to drive out the Hazara? It doesn’t seem that way, though frankly I’m surprised they did anything.
Still Joshua, your analysis is a little naive. I was in Behsud last year, and this year, and I know exactly who both sides are as well as the politics “behind the story.” In your attempts to figure it out, I think you missed the biggest point which was: Kuchis have no business being armed the way they are. It was laid out in the Bonn agreement that all factions should be disarmed for the good of the country. The people in the villages in 2nd Behsud aren’t driven from the area and willingly have their houses burned down because of rock-yielding nomads that make a claim on their land. They move around the country in convoys with heavy weaponry and nobody, including international forces, have stopped them. This is because of their political influence on Karzai. Even now, Karzai has asked them to leave temporarily but did not send the army to confront the Kuchis nor did he say that they are legally not entitled to other people’s land. He is trying to avoid conflict with them, and ask them for a temporary solution to leave, just like he did last year. Except this time, the Hazaras peacefully protested in April in advance of the Kuchis coming. But Karzai did not respond, and instead allowed armed Kuchis to raid Behsud since June. There is 1 month left of summer before the weather begins to cool down in the central mountains, and the Kuchis will likely take 1 to 2 weeks to leave the area. In the mean time, 4 villages and their fields are completely destroyed, and over 20 people killed and injured, and several missing.
As for the Oct 06, again if you are not in the know then I guess it will be hard. There are claims made on their website, including the last video (I am not talking about Pajhwak’s site). But still, you asked for a reference, I gave you one yet you are still skeptic. That is OK.
As for the other link, here is one by the name of Naim Kuchi, the head of one of the largest clans of Kuchis (Ahmadzai brothers are relatively speaking not as important) who was responsible for Behsud’s atrocities last year. http://newsgroups.derkeiler.com/Archive/Soc/soc.culture.afghanistan/2006-08/msg00009.html
“Kuchis played a key role in Afghanistan’s post-Taliban political
revival, throwing their support behind Mr. Karzai in the 2005
presidential elections.
Naim Kuchi, the most influential figure among the nomads, was
detained by U.S. forces in early 2003 for being a Taliban commander,
then freed in late 2004. Mr. Karzai feted him on his return, a gesture
many Afghans think was aimed at courting Kuchi support at the ballot
box.”
He was the main commander for the Taleban in the central highlands during 1996-2001. Anyway, I just wanted to give my two cents. This will likely be my last posting here, have a great day.
Ahmad,
The reason I keep begging for sources is because I will freely admit I can be naïve about this. I need more data, since this is rarely explored in the western media, and almost never in American media. You’re absolutely right — if you’re not on the ground, you can’t just magically know these things.
I can say, however, that if armed Kuchi groups are not attacking Coalition troops, then they will not be stopped. The troops are too busy trying to keep actual Taliban out of contention, and they are slowly losing.
That article you linked is interesting. It highlights just how vulnerable as a group the Kuchi are — if you had to travel through regions controlled, alternatively, by Taliban, warlords, and drug kings, would you not want to be armed to the teeth as well? Nomads the world over have become heavily armed as their migration patterns have become restricted. It isn’t a unique thing to the Kuchis.
Also it is worth nothing that both Kuchis and Hazara aren’t perfect here. While Naim Kuchi was accused of being a Taliban commander, for some reason the U.S. felt it appropriate to release him after barely a year in custody—provably innocent Uighurs, also picked up in Afghanistan, have remained in detention longer. Why, do you think, the U.S. felt him non-threatening enough to release back to Kabul?
What I am trying to highlight here is that, while the Kuchis are undoubtedly the aggressors here and owe any Hazara recompense that they victimized, the situation does not seem as nearly cut and dried as it might if you’re only talking with Hazara. I don’t deny that Hazara have been stomped on by everyone from the Pashtun to the Uzbeks. But that doesn’t mean that the Wadrak conflict is because of the Taliban.
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