The International Herald Tribune

October, 7, 1997

WELCOME TO NEW-STYLE AFGHANISTAN - AND DON'T COME BACK

By William SHAWCROSS

LONDON-Emma Bonino, the European Union's forceful commissioner for humanitarian affairs, visited Afghanistan last week to examine some of the projects financed by the EU - which has given the country $200 million the last two years - and judge for herself the excesses of the Taleban government.

With her on the tour was a small group of reporters including Christiane Amanpour, CNN's celebrated foreign correspondent, who has instant access to the airwaves of the world. (I was also among the reporters on the trip.)

How did the Taleban treat these honored guests? By arresting them, threatening them with Kalashnikovs and beating up members of their entourage. It was a brief taste of the terror that the Taleban have employed in the past year to pacify Kabul.

They have issued a string of extraordinary edicts. Television and music are outlawed; all men must now wear untrimmed beards; women are no longer allowed to work and can venture out of their homes only accompanied and if covered from top to toe in a burkha, a heavy, tentlike garment that has only a grill for their eyes; girls can no longer go to school. Such edicts are often brutally enforced by bearded Taleban thugs.

One of the most outrageous new edicts is that Kabul's main hospitals can no longer take women patients. Sick women are to be treated in only one hospital and only by women.

Female, patients have been moved into a clinic where water electricity and surgical facilities are either inadequate of nonexistent. Mrs. Bonino, who arrived in Afghanistan on Sept. 28, decided to visit this facility.

In a concession to Taleban demands, Mrs. Bonino, as she did throughout the trip, was wearing a large, dark-blue headscarf emblazoned with the European Union logo. But as women patients entered the clinic, they threw off their burkhas with relief, revealing well-made-up faces and delightful smiles when they saw us. The director seemed to panic when she saw the camera crews.

Mrs. Bonino ordered the filming stopped. Too late - the director dialed the police. Mrs. Bonino immediately said we would leave of our own accord. But the gate had already been shut to stop us.

Real trouble began when a red Toyota pickup filled with armed Taleban roared into the yard. It was not pleasant as they rampaged around, aiming their guns at us or using them as clubs. The CNN cameraman, Mark Phillips, was hit about the head until he surrendered his camera - which he had left running.

The energetic, outspoken and apparently fearless Mrs. Bonino was threatened with a Kalashnikov when she refused to hand over her bag. A European aid worker who had nothing to do with the filming was beaten in the back with a Kalashnikov.

We were then forced to drive in convoy to the No.1 district police station. There in a court yard littered with old steads, broken chairs and sofas we sat under the shade of a tree and waited for the next three hours as Taleban came and went and talked and sat and telephoned under another tree about 10 meters away.

They occasionally demanded to speak to one of our Afghan interpreters. We could hear a few words drifting over.

One of the more disagreeable leitmotivs was one of Taleban men muttering loudly that CNN's Ms. Amanpour was an Iranian spy. They would draw their fingers ominously across theirs throats as they looked at her.

Finally, help arrived. The deputy health minister, Mullah Rabbani, apologized profusely to Mrs. Bonino for the "mis-understanding." He tried to put the blame on the aid workers, but she insisted that she took full responsibility. She also said she would not leave unless everyone - television crews and aid workers - left with her.

It was now becoming more absurd than frightening. Mr. Rabbani had to negotiate with the Taleban men for our release. It took another 90 minutes.

He said we must sign a letter of apology. Mrs. Bonino refused, but did allow one of her staff to negotiate the text of a neutral letter in which the staffer expressed his regrets over the events of the morning.

The mood began to lighten.

The Taleban who had arrested us now realized that they had made a faux pas. Cans of Pepsi were distributed. The man who had rifle-butted the aid worker unctuously asked for forgiveness.

About three and a half-hours after our arrest, we were released. Mrs. Bonino went to Foreign Ministry to receive

more apologies; she warned the government against any reprisals against the aid groups.

The rest of us drove to the UN compound. Within minutes, MS. Amanpour was using CNN's portable satellite link to tell the world what had happened.

Shortly afterward, CNN was broadcasting film of our capture, with Taleban staring into camera as they cuffed the cameraman.

Mrs. Bonino herself told CNN, "This is an example of how people live here, in a situation of random terror." She

said she was to make the world try to something about the continuing disaster of Afghanistan. That is necessary, but not easy.

The writer is preparing a book about the United Nations and failed states. This comment has been adopted by the International Herald Tribune from Newsweek.