HYPOCRISY REIGNED SUPREME UNDER TALIBAN RULE

Afghans Say Double Standard Was Evident In Virtually All Aspects Of Life

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - They had music at their weddings, but others
were arrested for doing so. They banned opium production on grounds it
was against Islam, but reportedly did so to raise its market price by
reducing the supply.

They cut off the hands of thieves, but looted United Nations offices
and stole thousands of dollars in equipment and supplies as they fled.

Since the fall of the hard-line Taliban regime, stories of their
hypocrisy have come to light in this city that was their stronghold.

The Taliban launched their movement here in 1994 in predominantly
Pashtun Kandahar, the most conservative of Afghanistan's major cities.

Gul Mohammad, a doctor who works at a pharmacy in one of the city's
busiest shopping areas, said the double standards were practiced even
by the Taliban's spiritual leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar. When asked if
Omar was a good Muslim, he laughed.

"He was not a good person. He destroyed our country," he said. "For
us, he said Islam is this way. But to the Taliban he said: 'If you
want something, do it.'??lt;p) Mohammad Daud, a drug salesman at
Mohammad's pharmacy, said Omar would buy opium from farmers for $1,000
a kilo (2.2 pounds) and then announce on the radio that opium
production was banned, in order to raise prices.

"Then he'd send smugglers to sell the opium for $4,000 a kilo," he
said. Omar's accumulation of personal wealth was another example of
hypocrisy, Daud said.

"Mullah Omar said we shouldn't take the government's money. But he had
12 Land Cruisers, a pick-up truck, a big house," Daud said,
questioning how the religious leader, who has been reported to have
lived a simple life, could have had enough money to pay for all this
on his own.

Huma Amerzai, a nurse at Kandahar's Mirwaiz Hospital, said the Taliban
only cared about themselves, not their country.

"The Taliban said they supported Islam, but they didn't care about our
lives. It was difficult for us. They weren't listening to us. They
were listening to Arabs," she said. The term "Arabs" refers to
non-Afghan supporters of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

At Mullah Omar's former compound in Kandahar, 23-year-old Sher Shah,
Omar's neighbor, reflected on life under the Taliban. As Shah listened
to music on his radio from the Kandahar radio station that recently
started broadcasting music again, he said he was glad to be able to
hear it openly instead of hiding in his car to listen to a tape or
being forced to clandestinely listen to tapes inside his home.

Shah said he sometimes saw the one-eyed cleric going in and out of his
compound. He never met Omar, but said he knew about his reputation.

A shopkeeper named Ahmad closed his luxury goods store for about four
years while the Taliban were in power. He said the Taliban lost
support because they betrayed the people's trust.

For Chini Ghola, the hypocrisy became evident when she was asked to
sing at a Taliban wedding. Non-Taliban Afghans were arrested if they
had music at their weddings, but nothing happened to her that day.

"I cannot understand why. I was thinking, 'They will come take us
now,' but they didn't," she said.

Offices at the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)
in Kandahar were looted by Taliban troops as they relinquished power
under intense U.S. bombing early this month.

They stole computers, copy machines, printers, walkie talkies,
cameras, televisions, VCRs (though the Taliban banned television
watching), carpets, blankets, pillows, tents, curtains and other
items. Doors on the safes are wide open, the safes empty.