‘Now All of Life Is War . . . We Cannot Go Anywhere’ : Combat Threatens Afghan Nomads’ Ancient Ways

Faiz Gul stared up at the sky, his black eyes following the Soviet transport plane as it spewed flares that fell onto the shabby tents around him. Gul rubbed his dusty black beard, shook his head and spoke with sadness about the fate of one of the world’s most ancient and endangered peoples.

“From generation to generation,” he said, “we were told, ‘This is your place, your land. No one can take it from you.’ But there have been many losses for my people since the beginning of this war. Now, all of life is war. And we cannot go anywhere anymore.”

Gul is a khan , or tribal chief, of the Kochis, an ancient and nomadic clan of Afghans who have been a constant image on the country’s horizon, an important thread in its social and economic fabric.

The Kochis, shepherds whose pasturelands have become battlegrounds, are being killed off by the thousands, blown up by mines, rocketed, shelled and bombed. The routes of their wandering, which date back centuries, have been radically altered by the war.

Gul’s clan has been severely diminished. Hundreds of its families have been killed, with others scattered to refugee camps. Today they number scarcely a third of what they were a decade ago.

For at least seven generations before him, Faiz Gul’s forbears led the people of his clan, together with their sheep and camels, through the rugged mountains. Now they sit in tents near the end of the runway at Kabul’s international airport, watching their grazing land shrink as the cemetery expands, and they worry about their future.

‘A Holistic Change’

Anthropologist Jalat Khan Hekmaty, a Columbia University graduate and authority on the Kochis at the Afghan government’s Academy of Sciences, told a visitor:

“The problem facing the Kochis is the same problem facing the whole of our society because of this war. Our whole society is changing, and it is not just a partial change. It is a holistic change. And we cannot go back to the old ways.”

Indeed, 10 years of war have brought radical change to Afghanistan. More than a million people have been killed and thousands of villages flattened. And the Pushtun wali , the ancient Pushtun-language code of conduct that governs virtually every aspect of Afghan life, has been changed along with everything else.

According to Hekmaty, the Kochi nomads have practiced “the purest form of Pushtun wali ,” and thus they provide the most dramatic illustration of the social changes wrought by the war.

The Kochis, she said, “have been very hard struck by this bloody, senseless war.” And she added:

“A United Nations survey published in 1968 stated that there were 2.5 million Kochis in Afghanistan. Now it is very difficult to say. No one knows how many have been killed. No one knows how many have given up the life and settled somewhere. In these 10 years of war, we have not been able to reach the Kochis very well.”

Torn From Land

Nor have the Kochis been able to reach very well the thing they hold most sacred--the land, which they would never dream of owning yet cannot live without.

“There have been many wars on this land,” Gul said, referring to wars of long ago, “but those were wars between nations. Now it is a war between houses, between brothers. And that affects the land. It has changed the land.”

Gul and his clan--the Arab clan, it is called--have lived those changes at first hand, and their ragged tent city, set up two weeks ago when the clan arrived from Jalalabad on their traditional summer migration, is crowded with images of the war’s impact.

In the past, their tents were pitched in the Shakardarah Valley, a vast flatland north of Kabul that could accommodate the entire clan. But now there is fighting every day in the Shakardarah Valley, and the clan is forced to split up into small groups. Some are in Kabul, and this is said to be the first time any Kochis have ever stayed in a city.

And there are the mines, which continue to kill shepherds as well as sheep. Gul’s 20-year-old son, Aqa, lost his left leg to a mine.

Hekmaty said the mines are “one of my worst fears.” The nomads, she said, “will find it extremely difficult if not impossible to go back to their grazing lands with all these mines.”

As Aqa Gul can testify, the nomads have been using their principal asset--their sheep--to clear the mine fields.

And there are the artillery shells and rockets and bombs, all of which have taken a heavy toll among the Kochis.

“We are out in the open,” Faiz Gul said, “and we are in the middle of this war.”

On occasion, as on the clan’s recent migration from Jalalabad to Kabul, the Kochis find a way around the war by means of the Pushtun wali , which among other things requires that all men obey the command of a khan . As Gul’s clan left Jalalabad, they were stopped by bombing. “I asked the government commander to stop the bombing so we could cross,” Gul said. “He radioed the pilots, and the bombing stopped.”

An uncle of Faiz Gul, a white-bearded octogenarian named Mohammed Sarwar, said the older clansmen are terrified of the modern weapons of war. He remembers wars that were fought with swords and pistols, and he said that “when we hear the voices of these rockets, our blood dries up and we become weak.”

“We are very anxious about our future now,” he said, “very afraid of what will happen. Only God knows.”

Many people fear that because of the odds against them, the Kochis may simply give up and settle down.

Kochis Adapting

“I certainly would share in this fear of the Kochis finally just giving up,” said Hekmaty. “But, as you can see, the Kochis have been adapting themselves, and I think there will be enough Kochis even after the end of these troubles. This is, after all, the only way they know how to live.”

Faiz Gul echoed the scientist’s conclusion. “We are illiterate people,” he said. “We cannot do any other job. We got this job through our inheritence, from generation to generation. And it is a good life. We are not tied down to any place forever.”

There are many examples of the Kochis’ resilience. When the war began, the pro-Soviet Afghan government tried to draft the Kochis into military service, and some were taken to military barracks, but they escaped. There were negotiations, and President Najibullah exempted them from the draft.

Now and again a foreigner will ask the Kochis why they do not take refugee from the war in the cities, or in the refugee camps, and they will reply, as Faiz Gul did: “What would happen to the sheep?”

As for the future of his people, Gul is pragmatic.

“If the war finishes and peace comes to our country,” he said, “our numbers will increase.”

He waved a hand toward the undernourished children playing around the tents, and added:

“After all, we have always been Kochi. We are still Kochi. We will always be Kochi. But if the war continues, yes, all of us will be killed eventually.”