KALASHNIKOVS AND POPPIES

Afghan Soldiers Are Coming Home, But Some Yearn To Fight Once Again

A tenuous peace has settled over Afghanistan following the defeat of the
Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

The nation's fighting men, who also battled invaders from the Soviet Union
from 1979 until 1989, have been left with the daunting task of adjusting to
civilian life. With little else to do, many are turning to the lucrative
business of growing poppies for the opium trade. Toronto journalist Adnan
R. Khan travelled with three mujahedeen soldiers returning home after 10
years of fighting with the Northern Alliance. Khan also followed them into
the poppy fields, and wonders if these men will ever be able to put down
their weapons.

His report:

SABIR KHAN can take a Kalashnikov apart and put it back together in under a
minute. Not so amazing a feat, perhaps, but he does it with his eyes
closed. It was an important skill during the Soviet occupation of
Afghanistan, the 41-year-old soldier explains as he lays the reassembled
weapon gently down like a rare Stradivarius. Daylight was a dangerous time
then for the mujahedeen, and they spent days sleeping in dark, dank caves,
waiting for the cloak of night before venturing out. It's a nocturnal habit
that Sabir is unable to break. "I'm used to staying up all night," he says.
"Besides, there's nothing to do in the day anyway."

For the thousands of Afghan fighters who have been waging one battle or
another for years, the time to put down their weapons is coming.

What to do next? It is a question that perplexes Sabir, as he arrives at
nightfall in Jegdalek, 40 km southeast of Kabul in the foothills of the
Hindu Kush. This is his home village, which he has not seen in 10 years.

Life does not appear to have changed here in centuries.

Meagre oil lamps provide light; there is no electricity, running water --
or even roads, for that matter.

That made the journey to the village a difficult one for Sabir and two
other returning local mujahedeen, his cousin Ismail, 35, and Ashoor, 31.
From Sorubi, where they had been based with the Northern Alliance since
the fall of the Taliban, we drove through a dry riverbed strewn with
boulders for most of the four-hour trip, pushing our four-wheel-drive
Toyota pickup to its limit.

I was half expecting a welcoming party when we arrived in Jegdalek, but
Ismail had warned me not to expect much. "Some men are leaving after only a
few days back," he told me between violent bounces in the back of the
truck. He was right: our nighttime arrival garnered little attention.

Virtually all of the men left Jegdalek to fight the Soviets in 1979,
attacking convoys from the rugged hills for a decade.

Then came the war with the Taliban. After all the violence, it is hard to
believe that the three fighters will ever become farmers.

They still wear army fatigues and keep their weapons locked and loaded at
all times.

In the absence of an enemy, they shoot at birds, and remain members of a
small battalion of men from Sorubi. Unlike their Western counterparts,
former Afghan soldiers don't have the luxury of reintegration programs to
help them move into civilian life -- a problem that could haunt
Afghanistan's leaders for decades to come.

Ashoor wakes me up at sunrise.

He's been the most eager to see his home and proudly leads me to a
viewpoint overlooking the entire valley. "All the land surrounding the hill
belongs to my family," he says, pointing to terraced fields of wheat just
below us. "You missed the fruit season, but if you'd been here you would
have been shocked by the amounts of plums and apricots." Ashoor has seen
the least amount of fighting of the three returnees, and it shows in the
youthful vigour with which he talks about his home. There is an absence of
disillusionment, a readiness for new challenges that the other two lack.
But even Ashoor doesn't go anywhere without a Kalashnikov slung over his
shoulder.

That morning, the welcoming committee finally arrives -- a few former
soldiers who have recently returned home with their families after fleeing
the invading Taliban army. A young boy serves rounds of green tea and the
conversation begins.

Sabir, it turns out, is a living legend in this remote part of Afghanistan.
When he speaks, everyone listens, stopping whatever they're doing, settling
their weapons gingerly on the ground and surrounding the chiselled veteran.

The stories Sabir weaves, of shooting down Soviet fighters, of firefights
at the break of dawn, are awe-inspiring for the younger men. They listen to
the feats of courage with an unsettling hunger in their wide eyes. But
members of an older generation have a distant gaze of reminiscence, nodding
their heads appreciatively and remembering a time when there was a purpose
in their lives.

Now they must deal with this new thing called peace, and many are turning
to growing poppies to survive.

Picking up his Kalashnikov, Sabir turns to me and says, "Today we will show
you the poppy fields." After a brief breakfast of flatbread doused in milk,
we walk into the wheat fields, toward a dogleg in the valley that
eventually opens into a wide expanse of brilliant red and white flowers.

The poppies are in full bloom, cutting between the green wheat like a
psychedelic river.

Despite U.S. and Afghan efforts to eradicate poppy cultivation in
Afghanistan, sometimes by bulldozing the crops or paying farmers to destroy
their flowers, these fields are thriving.

Sabir points to a small patch of land where opium is in the process of
being collected. A few young boys gather the brown ooze from the flower
head and add it to a growing collection in a bucket.

The excretion is later dried. Sabir and Ismail gather up a small amount of
the sticky substance for their personal use. Later, we make our way up into
the hills, where various cave complexes and trench systems attest to the
more violent, recent past. Sabir shrugs his shoulder to redistribute the
weight of his weapon and then falls into a more philosophical mode, perhaps
due to the opiates he has licked off his thumb. "Most of us are tired of
fighting," he says. "We've seen enough bloodshed to last a thousand
lifetimes." But then, motioning with his arm at the verdant landscape that
lies around us, reminiscent of a Monet painting, he asks, "What am I
supposed to do here?"

In the distance, children leave the newly opened school, a converted barn
housing some 30 students, and head off toward their homes.

The scene is one of promise, but it's difficult not to be skeptical about
the near future.

My doubts are confirmed the next day when I leave Jegdalek. Only Ashoor
stays behind. The culture of violence is too strong for Sabir and Ismail;
longing for their fighting days, they head back to their battalion in
Sorubi. Afghanistan remains volatile, and they may not have too long to
wait before another battle.