36 Asia TheEconomistJuly10th 2021
times. Many are remote and have little gov
ernment presence or strategic importance.
But the cascade of victories has given the
Taliban momentum. Diplomats worry it
will continue.
The Taliban have also made a slick pro
paganda push emphasising their seeming
ly relentless advance and showing that
those who surrender are being treated
well. Many Afghans are fed up with a cor
rupt and remote government that provides
little benefit to citizens. They may not like
the Taliban’s strictures, but they are not too
keen on the current setup either.
The feared push into MazariSharif has
so far not materialised. The army quickly
released its own socialmedia pictures to
show it had full control of the western gate.
The city has begun to calm itself, but the
government’s writ extends only a few
miles outside it. Thousands of people from
the countryside have poured into the city
seeking refuge from the Taliban.
Murtaza Sultani, a 22yearold driver
from a nearby district, says his village fell
in midJune without a shot being fired. He
left because the Taliban were seeking vol
unteers to join them. “Even if they don’t
kill us, they restrict people and it’s no way
to live,” he says. With no work, he passes
the time in the courtyard of MazariSha
rif’s majestic blue mosque: “I don’t have
money to leave and the borders are closed.”
Leaving is a preoccupation for many. At
the passport office in Kabul, thousands of
Afghans are waiting in queues, sometimes
for days, to acquire travel documents, ei
ther for immediate use or just in case. Ma
ny Afghans know from bitter experience
what it means to be a refugee; they are not
taking the choice lightly. Yet the sight of
the nearunchecked Taliban advance is
helping them make the decision.
“I want to go to Tehran,” says Jamalud
din Behboudi, a 34yearold house painter
squatting outside the passport office with
his children. Iran, along with Pakistan,
Turkey and Central Asia, is a popular
choice for escape. But the pandemic has
made travel difficult for everyone. In Ma
zariSharif itself, the deteriorating securi
ty situation has caused many countries, in
cluding Iran, to close their consulates.
As the outlook for the army and for ci
vilians looks increasingly desperate, so do
the measures proposed by the govern
ment. Ashraf Ghani, the president, is try
ing to mobilise militias to shore up the
flimsy army. He has turned for help to fig
ures such as Atta Mohammad Noor, who
rose to power as an antiSoviet and antiTa
liban commander and is now a potentate
and businessman in Balkh province. “No
matter what, we will defend our cities and
the dignity of our people,” says Mr Noor in
his gilded reception hall in MazariSharif.
Such a mobilisation would be a tempor
ary measure to give the army breathingTAJIKISTANIRAN PA K I STA NAFGHANISTANUZBEKISTANTURKMENISTANBagram
air base
KabulBalkh
LaghmanMazar-i-
SharifQala-e-Naw250 kmAreas of control, July 7th 202
Number of districts GovernmentSource:FoundationforDefenceofDemocraciesTaliban 17 Contested 127 74space and allowittoregroup,hesays.The
new forces would coordinatewithgov
ernment troops.Buttheprospectofun
leashing warlords’privatearmiesfillsma
ny Afghans withdread,remindingthemof
the anarchy of the1990s.Such militias,
raised along ethniclines,tendedtoturnon
each other and thegeneralpopulation.
Matiullah Tarakhel,a soldierfromthe
eastern provinceofLaghman,thinksthe
creation of militiasisapowergrab.“We
have had experienceofthis,”hesaysashe
queues for a passportforhissickfather.
“People have enemies.Maybethesemilitia
men will want tokilltheiropponents,but
they will say it wastheTaliban.”
With AmericagoneandAfghanforces
melting away, theTalibanfancytheirpros
pects. They showlittlesignofengagingin
serious negotiationswithMrGhani’sad
ministration. Yet theycontrol nomajor
towns or cities.Sewingupthecountryside
puts pressure ontheurbancentres,butthe
Taliban may beinnohurrytoforcetheis
sue.They generallylackheavyweapons.
They may alsolackthenumberstotakea
city against sustainedresistance.OnJuly
7th they failed tocapture QalaeNaw,a
small town. Besides, controlling a city
would bring freshheadaches.Theyarenot
good at providinggovernmentservices.
Seizing Kabulbyforceis“notTaliban
policy”, Suhail Shaheen,a spokesman,told
the bbcon July5th.Theirbestcoursemay
be to tighten thescrewsandwaitforthe
government tobuckle.Americanpredic
tions of its fatearegettinggloomier.Intel
ligence agenciesthinkMrGhani’sgovern
ment could collapsewithinsixmonths,ac
cording to the WallStreetJournal.
Amir Mohammadi,theteenagerinMa
zariSharif, saysmanyofhiscontempo
raries fear the futureisbleak.“Itlookslike
it’s going to getworse,”hesays.“It’sbetter
to leave.” That ismuchthesamesentiment
as in Washington.nHumanrightsinIndiaFather, who art in
prison
S
low justicemay be no justice, but a
slowly unfolding tragedy remains no
less a tragedy. When police charged Father
Stan Swamy with terrorism and threw him
in jail last October, friends of the Jesuit
priest and humanrights activist feared for
his health. They were right to worry. Prison
wardens denied Father Stan, as he was
known, in his 80s and shaking from Par
kinson’s disease, the use of a straw and sip
pycup from which to drink water until the
press raised a fuss.
Judges turned down repeated pleas for
bail, even as his health declined and India
entered a second, ferocious wave of co
vid19 in the spring. They insisted that
since he was charged under special terro
rism laws, this frail old man with no crimi
nal record, who had devoted his life to
helping remote tribal peoples, must some
how represent a danger to the republic. In
May Father Stan, now unable to feed him
self or walk, was finally allowed to visit a
private hospital. Doctors promptly diag
nosed covid19. Soon he was on a ventila
tor. On July 5th, as yet another judge was
set to hear yet another bail plea, he died.
The death of an “undertrial”, as India
calls people who are yet to be found guilty
of anything but languish in jail nonethe
less, is not normally news. After all, they
make up more than twothirds of the coun
try’s prison population. Even the death of
detainees accused, like Father Stan, under
the draconian Unlawful Activities Preven
tion Act (uapa), seldom raises eyebrows. In
January Kanchan Nanaware, a 38yearold
tribal activist, died during her sixth year
awaiting trial as a “terrorist”.
Because uapagrants police sweeping
powers to designate suspects as dangers to
the state, and specifically limits opportu
nities for bail, lengthy periods of pretrial
imprisonment are not unusual. In a typical
case last month, two Kashmiri “terrorists”,
who together lost 18 years of their lives
awaiting trial in prison, were acquitted for
lack of evidence. In fact, of the 7,840 uapa
cases raised from 2015 to 2019—the last
year for which numbers are available—just
2% resulted in a conviction. In ninetenths
of cases police did not even bother to frame
charges. Despite the apparent failure of the
law, the temptation to use it to lock up
troublemakers seems irresistible: over the
same period the annual number of uapa
arrests rose by 72%.
In the case of Father Stan, it is not justAn 84-year-old activist perishes
awaiting trial