Afghan horse traders still plying ancient trade

[Guest guest]

Afghan horse traders still plying ancient trade

Agencies/Khyber Agency, (Pakistan)

  

In a country without an infrastructure and without a hint of a

modern economy, Afghan horse trader Sayed Habibullah relies

on generation-old instincts to carve out a living.

The native of northern Afghanistan raises and buys horses near

the ancient city of Mazar-i-Sharif, not far from the Uzbekistan

border, and then several times a year travels hundreds of

hazardous miles by foot and horseback to sell them across the

border in Pakistan.

Jitters over possible US attacks on the country for its harbouring

of Osama bin Laden, suspected mastermind of the suicide

plane strikes on New York and Washington, are less of a worry

than hassles from the ruling Taliban and roaming robbers.

"We stay away from the cities so we do not know what is going

on in them," said Habibullah as he rested in the Khyber Agency,

a tribal area on the edge of Peshawar, where he was getting set

to sell his horses he and two others, including his 17-year-old

son, had brought 30 horses on a 25-day journey that was mostly

done on horseback, but also occasionally on foot.

Habibullah's ankles were swollen and his face sunburnt from

the trek.

"It is always hard. This time my son was sick and we do not

know what is wrong with him. I will try to take him to a hospital,"

he said.

Horses are still a way of life in Afghanistan and in the border

areas of Pakistan where they are used to pull work carts and to

transport people.

But few people have the money to buy large numbers of horses

in Afghanistan and it is more profitable to follow traditional

trading routes to Pakistan to sell them.

"We crossed through many areas and were stopped many times

by the Taliban, but we are traders and they let us go. But we did

not tell them we were going to come to Pakistan," said

Habibullah.

"This is how we survive. It is the only thing we know. We have

had to cross over war lines many times in the past," he said.

Afghanistan has been racked by war for more than 20 years.

Afghans are renowned horsemen and the national game is

Buzkashi, a reckless variation of polo in which fearless riders

fight for possession of a beheaded sheep.

The game, which is both a test of the rider's skill and his horse's

endurance, is believed to have started in northern Afghanistan

and was transplanted by Afghan refugees to Pakistan's North

West Frontier Province.

Although Habibullah said the threatened attacks on the Taliban

for not handing over bin Laden had no bearing on his life, he

was forced to sneak across the border because Pakistan has

closed its official crossing points with Afghanistan during the

crisis, fearing an influx of refugees.

But his trip along an ancient trade route mirrors the modern

problems of Afghanistan.

It started in Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, the scene of bitter fighting

in the past between the Taliban and the opposition Northern

Alliance, and the site of the massacre of thousands of ethnic

hazaras when the Taliban recaptured the town in August 1998.

His journey trip skirted Kabul, severely damaged by rockets

years of internecine Mujahideen fighting before the Taliban took

over in 1996, and wound down past Jalalabad and over the

border through the legendary Khyber Pass.

"The journey is very dangerous. There are many thieves, and in

some places the local people do not like us. We try to stop every

night in a safe place," said Habibullah.

He was hoping that his horses, which ranged from some that

looked as if they had suffered on the journey to others still in

strong shape, would bring a profit over up to 5,000 Rupees for

the better horses.

Traders such as Habibullah also smuggle camels into Pakistan,

where they are used not only for work but to take part in camel

dancing at popular festivals in Cholistan in southeastern Punjab

province.

It is also still common to see horse and camel caravans -- some

more than 60 or 70 animals long -- carrying goods from the

Pakistan border to the capital Kabul.