CRUDE JUSTICE IN NORTHERN AFGHANISTAN

KHOJA BAHAUDDIN, Afghanistan - Soldiers caught Hakeem, a 29-year-old
Afghan, early Wednesday as he sneaked through the woods near the Panj
River, trying to smuggle 55 pounds of heroin into Tajikistan.

By early afternoon the prisoner was in the center of the marketplace
here with four bags of heroin attached to a yellow rope slung around
his neck and the rest of the drugs in a large white bag at his feet.

A man with a megaphone, Abdul Mumin, was announcing Hakeem's crime and
calling people to come over and look at the prisoner.

Soon a crowd of hundreds of men and children gathered at the center of
the dirt street while Mumin used his megaphone to warn the growing
crowd that drug smuggling doesn't pay.

"Anyone who transfers drugs to this area will be punished," Mumin
announced, as Hakeem stared blankly into the crowd, the bags of heroin
hanging from his neck.

Moments later Mumin led Hakeem through the noisy marketplace with
hundreds of men and children, some on horseback and donkeys, following
behind, kicking up a cloud of dust.

"This man will walk through the market," Mumin shouted through his
megaphone as the crowd ran behind.

Forget lawyers, judges and juries. This is how justice works in the
part of Afghanistan held by the Northern Alliance, the rebel group
fighting the Taliban. Hakeem's fate will be decided by the governor of
this village, which is the Northern Alliance's military headquarters.
In areas controlled by resistance forces, law is for the most part in
the hands of local military commanders and whatever civil
administration they have set up.

By afternoon when a reporter visited Hakeem in the mud-walled jail
here, his wife and three children still had not been informed that he
was in custody.

And he was unsure of how long he would stay in prison.

The jail commander, who returned on a motorcycle to the prison
Wednesday afternoon in a cloud of dust, was also uncertain how long
Hakeem would stay in jail.

"The punishment is up to the governor," said Emam Qool, the jailer,
who explained that the governor would investigate and impose a punishment.

By way of illustrating the scale of penalties, Qool said there are
murderers who serve four or five years in jail, while drug smuggling
might bring one or two years.

Many of the 150 inmates in prison here are Taliban prisoners of war
caught during the past several years of fighting with the Northern
Alliance. Occasionally, the two sides trade their prisoners.

Inmates live five to six men to a cell in a small building built of
mud.

There are carpets on the floor but no furniture. There were a couple
oil lanterns in the cell area and an inmate emptied a bucket of water
into the passageway after washing in it.

A young man with a bayonet-tipped Kalishnikov assault rifle patrolled
the roof of one of the mud buildings. Young guards carrying homemade
rubber whips, similiar to those used on donkeys, walked through the
compound. A horse chewed hay in the courtyard under a small lean-to
with a straw roof.

Last year Afghanistan was the world's leading producer of heroin, with
much of it going to the outside world through Tajikistan, a neighbor
to its north.

The Taliban last year ordered an end to poppy cultivation, labeling it
"un-Islamic."

Before that order, Afghanistan had been the world's largest producer
of opium poppies. The U.S. State Department has estimated that $100
million to $200 million in drug money is made in Tajikistan by
assisting the drug trade.

The primitive legal system here shows how difficult it would be to
combat drug trafficking in this region, where there is no law
enforcement to speak of and the area is awash in weapons.

Hakeem said his drugs came from a contact in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, a
Taliban stronghold. He said the drugs cost $800 for 2.2 pounds and
that he would earn between $100 and $200 for transferring the drugs to
a contact in Tajikistan.

"I work for someone from Jalalabad," he said in an interview in the
prison courtyard. "I do it sometimes when I don't have any money."
Hakeem said he was arrested crossing through some woods as he neared
the river in the village of Yang Qale, his hometown.

"The Tajiks go to the river and we cross the river by boat," Hakeem
said.

The Northern Alliance itself has been accused of making money from
drug smuggling and it's possible that some people are arrested because
they didn't pay off the right people or because they cut in on some
commander's business.

But the local administration was putting on a show in the market place
on Wednesday.

Mumin, a 45-year-old who had a graying beard and was missing some
front teeth, shouted his anti-crime message as he led the prisoner
through the market.

The crowd became so thick that a handful of young men with rifles
swung long sticks to push the crowd back. Mumin said the prisoner had
frequently smuggled drugs but eluded authorities until Wednesday.

"What is your name?" Mumin yelled to Hakeem.

"Drug dealer," Hakeem replied without expression. The crowd was mostly
silent and impassive.

Mumin is the town crier, paid by merchants, usually in the form of
food, to yell messages everyday in the marketplace. In addition to
occasionally leading a criminal through the market, he yells out
prices of produce and also news items.

After Hakeem was bundled into a car, Mumin used his aging yellow
megaphone to announce that a 12-year-old boy dressed in black trousers
was missing. If anyone had information about him they should tell the
authorities. It was all part of the town crier's day.