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Afghans grateful, but anger is building

It's hard at times not to blame foreigners for continuing poverty, unemployment and rising rent, some in the torn country say.

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published May 31, 2006

KABUL, Afghanistan - Western aid workers drive past Afghan beggars cradling naked, dirty children. U.S. military vehicles race through trash-strewn streets with their guns pointed into traffic.

To many Afghans, foreigners are a privileged elite, earning hefty salaries and given to drinking alcohol while this shattered Islamic nation remains mired in violence and poverty.

That divide helped stoke Monday's deadly anti-Western riots, the latest of several bouts of unrest that have wracked Afghanistan in the past year. The worst riots seen in Kabul for years began after a U.S. military truck whose brakes failed careered down a hill and plowed into cars, killing at least one Afghan.

Afghans generally are grateful to the U.S.-led military alliance for ousting the Taliban in 2001 and welcome help from international charities. But many residents also long to lift themselves out of poverty and take control of their destinies, more than four years after the downfall of the Taliban's strict Islamic rule.

"We don't want these foreigners, they should go home. They're damaging our society, the economy is terrible and we're so poor. And they're looting Afghanistan. Why aren't they building factories?" asked Faisal Agha, 45, a policeman who was injured in the riots that left at least 11 dead. "Now there's prostitution, alcohol. There's more vice."

Between 3,000 and 4,000 foreign civilians are believed to be working in Afghanistan alongside 23,000 American troops and 9,000 members of a NATO-led multinational force, mostly from Western countries.

"We have two kinds of foreigners here. Those that indulge in prostitution and alcohol, and we reject them," said Mohammed Anwar, 45. "But the others have come to help us in reconstruction and we welcome them."

Unemployment for Afghans is about 40 percent. Rents in some areas have risen by 1,000 percent since the Taliban's ouster as international organizations have moved in.

Still, signs are that the irritation with foreigners has not hardened into xenophobia.

"We want the good foreigners to stay, to help us. Not these people who kill us, they must go," said Ahmed Mirwais Kabuli, 17, who wore a shirt emblazoned with the Union Jack. One of his dreams?

"I'd love to visit London," he said.

[Last modified May 31, 2006, 06:44:54]