What a day. It started innocently enough: interviewed some interesting people learned more about the plight of the Hazara people for my story, and had a strange interview with the Human Rights Commission representative who denied that the Hazara suffered any discrimination whatsoever, despite what everyone said. With friends like that... I wonder what tribe he was from.In the afternoon we went up the mountain to visit a small community for Naheed's story on everyday life in Afghanistan. The husband had four wives and they wouldn't let Mokhtar or me into the house because their husband wasn't home.
Naheed tried to interview the kids, who were absolutely adorable. One of the girls shyly sang an Indian song. India is the Nigeria of this region... all the movies and music
people listen to comes from India.
While Naheed waited for the husband to return (he never did), I struck out on my own. It was only 400 meters from the car at the bottom of the steep mountain path to the car, so I figured I'd make my way back and wait at the car. Big mistake. As I was shooting, an older man with a Palestinian scarf accosted me and demanded to know what I was doing and gestured at me to stop shooting. He didn't speak English and my Pashtu is rusty so I politely acknowledged him, smiled, shook his hand, and kept going down the hill. Then I saw him pull out a phone and call someone. I figured he was calling the local elder--common enough to have to explain the presence of a stranger with a camera to the community--happens all the time in Africa. So I calmly made my way down to the car and waited for Naheed and Mokhtar.
A couple of minutes later, a truck sped towards me and pulled up in a cloud of dust. Three men jumped out of the car, one of them holding a gun. Now I was nervous. Clearly this wasn't the village elder, but either bandits intent on robbing me or taking me hostage, or some form of village security or secret police. They weren't wearing uniforms. The man in charge walked up to me and demanded my cameras. I tried to stall and asked for an explanation but they didn't speak English and had a gun, so I relented, while with my other hand dialed Mokhtar and told him to get his ass over here as I was either being robbed or arrested. In the meantime, another man went into my bag and grabbed my still camera and put both cameras in the car. They didn't drive off, which was a good sign, and demanded to see my passport, which was another excellent sign. Unless they wanted to simply calculate my worth as a hostage based on my nationality. I tried to take a picture of them with my cellphone but had to disguise my actions as I didn't want them seizing that too!
Mokhtar and Naheed arrived, and demanded to know what was going on. The commander said they were the secret police and had orders to break my camera because I was a spy. My passport wasn't good enough and I had no official journalist ID, though that seemed like a pretext. He demanded to see the footage, which I happily showed them... villagers walking up the trail herding sheep or leading donkeys, but that didn't seem to mollify him.I asked him if I could at least go with them to the police station to explain, but they said they were going to a top-secret facility and we weren't to know where it was. Naheed spoke to the commander in Urdu and pleaded my case, but they drove off with my cameras, promising to return them in an hour, and peeled off at top speed. After telling me in Pashtu "Do not mess with the Afghan police!"
We didn't know what to do... Mokhtar called his police contacts trying to find out if they were legit, while we tried to follow their car. What ensued was a high-speed chase through downtown Kabul. At one point they screeched to a stop and demanded we pull over. I thought they were going to arrest us for following them, but they just wanted to know how to operate my camera. That was a bad sign.... I thought they wanted to learn how to use it for their own purposes, as I had already showed them everything on it. Then they peeled off again and we lost them in the traffic. To my utter astonishment, half an hour later they called to say they were waiting for me at the hotel with my camera.
The commander--a member of the Afghan secret police--was all smiles and said he was sorry but he was just following orders. Apparently Taliban had been spotted on the mountain and there were rumours that they were either going to launch an RPG attack on the city, or load a car with explosives and run it down the mountain into the city. But obviously I wasn't Taliban, so what reason could he have for taking my gear other than to either make off with it or prove how powerful he was. He handed me back my cameras, insisting I check them to make sure they were working. He followed us into the hotel, sat down, had a Coke, told me not to be mad, gave Mokhtar his number and told him to call if he needed anything.
All's well that ends well but damn. A reminder not to go anywhere by myself, and as soon as someone makes noises and pulls out a cell phone, get the hell out of there.
