1.             Markhors and Poppies

Baluchistan, Pakistan

My advice to anyone trying to smuggle anything in to the sub-continent is to travel when India and Pakistan are playing cricket with each other.

‘Are those your bags sir?’ comes the interrogation at Customs with a hint of annoyance. What few questions he asks, if any, are directed out of the corner of his mouth as he watches every excruciatingly slow development in test cricket. Now that they have the faster paced games, there is even more chance to slip in whilst the slips are performing. Mind you, maybe the scandals over match fixing might offend their sensibilities these days, but I doubt it.

Thanks to the cricket, I was through Lahore airport in no time and picked up by an unwilling cabbie who was also watching the game. He expressed his annoyance by a lightning fast trip to my hotel for my stay in the ‘Venice of the East.’  The Venice of the East? Lahore claims this because of all the canals. Other Asian cities lay claim to European similarities. Bandung and Hanoi are described as the Paris of the East. In Bandung’s case I asked why. 

‘Because of the al fresco dining!’

Lahore is indeed arguably Pakistan’s most delightful. On the first occasion I visited I was en route to the west to another amazing city: Quetta. It was the start of a journey from that wild-west town down to Karachi through Baluchistan.

Baluchistan is Pakistan’s largest province, its poorest, its most restive and least inhabited. It is little more than a rocky desert. A few dilapidated villages subsist near where water was once plentiful till the British created the world’s largest irrigation system to service the cotton growing industry in the Punjab, thereby condemning all who lived downstream, including Karachi, to a waterless future.

We traveled south from Quetta, through towns such as Khoram and Nuskki populated with glowering locals, en route to our eventual destination of Karachi. Oil and mining companies coveted Baluchistan’s reserves of minerals copper, natural gas and possibly oil.

I was ‘looking for water.’ In days before the British built the world’s largest irrigation canal system for their cotton, massive rivers flowed from the north through the then fertile valleys of Baluchistan. Now, it goes for months or even years without rain and most rivers have stopped flowing. Ground water there is, but as time goes by, the water table drops further and further. One hopes that the tragic floods that so often devastate this country might bring some relief as a balance to the massive tragedy that has befallen millions in this dry country.

That is of no importance to the local chiefs and warlords who build massive white palaces surrounded by lush greenery and high brick walls: to keep out the peasants who live in squalor and extreme poverty under their warlord’s beneficence.

‘Behave and you stay alive!’

Straitened circumstances? In one village, about two hundred kilometres south west of Quetta, I saw a donkey drop dead in the dusty lane that straggled through the tiny settlement.

‘Why?’ I asked.

‘Probably thirsty,’ replied my minder assigned to protect me from the dangers of the place. Dangers? The area was a major heroin route from adjoining Afghanistan. Wedged against Iran and Afghanistan, Baluchistan lies in a strategic area. We were told that Osama bin Laden lived in them thar hills.

My military minders assured me that the Taliban’s strategies in Afghanistan were being directed from Baluchistan. From what little I could see and hear, the Taliban operated freely. The un-patrolled western border of Baluchistan touched Kandahar, Zabul and Helmand, where British troops were stationed. The Taliban supporters in Baluchistan provided their Afghan colleagues with men, weapons and bomb parts.

Officially, Pakistan ended its support for the Taliban in 2001. However, as we traveled through the area looking for ‘water’, even accompanied by the Pakistan military, we could not enter an area without the blessing of the local warlord. The Pakistan military was both obsequious and blind. At least it turned a blind eye. Apparently, there were both ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban. Pakistan fights the ‘baddies’ and allies itself with the ‘goodies.’ It made sense.

One evening I was invited to dine with the local warlord in Khuzdar. He sent a message saying that they would prepare the local delicacy in my honor: roast lamb. We arrived at seven and were frisked as we were shown into the cool archways of his magnificent mansion. We waited. We waited some more.

At eleven the warlord strode in. The lamb was served shortly after. It took hours to eat it. I think it had died of natural causes!

The warlord, a young, rather plump individual decorated with expensive watches, was full of effusive plans to bring development to his valley through tourism. Granted, deserts can be beautiful, but I asked him what would the attractions be?

‘Hunting for markhor in the Chiltan ranges,’ he said.

I looked blank.

‘Markhor?’

‘Goats,’ he said.

‘Aren’t they protected?’ I asked.

‘Not here,’ he said.

I looked at the carcass on the table. ‘And this is lamb?’ I asked.

‘Goat,’ he replied. ‘Delicious, isn’t it!’

Should I inform the WWF?

I decided against it. The vision of irate WWF-ers riding into town to have it out with his Excellency the warlord over a few hunted markhor could have meant that the overweight despot might have considered alternative prey: the WWF-ers might have faced extinction as well.

I moved on.

After my Baluchistan adventures I was sent to Kohistan on the North-west Frontier. What kind of livelihood would you expect most people to undertake in the remote mountains of Kohistan Pakistan? They grew flowers of course. Poppies. What else was so profitable?

The local people had fought with the government for years over the right to grow the pretty buds. They got down to fighting with guns. Such wars continue. Of course, as happens in other countries such as in the golden triangle in northern Thailand, the government made sure that their war on drugs was widely publicised.

I have observed three such operations: in Pakistan, Thailand and Myanmar. I went as an ‘observer.’ Usually, tame journalists were also invited. We looked. We went ‘wow’ and then we went home and effusively commended the governments for their efforts.

After we returned to our comfortable bases, the real conciliation would take place. Government officials and the local florists would shake hands and arrange for the pay offs and so on needed to ensure continuing operations. Then all would revert to normal till more publicity was needed. What sickened me was that foreign governments were also part of the clandestine arrangements, even, dare it be said, the CIA.

Nonetheless, back on the ranch, so to speak, life and death continued uninterrupted. At an age when children in the cities were learning to hold their milk bottles, the children of the Kohistan poppy growers were taught to handle guns.

A few years before I was sent on this useless mission, the Pakistan government brokered a deal in which the tribesmen, under the leadership of their elders, agreed to stop growing poppies. The government promised development if they laid down their poppies. The locals agreed, led, as was always the case, by their elders. 

After waiting for five years, they saw no development. So what happened? At the time I was there looking at the success of ‘possible alternative employment opportunities’ for ex poppy growers.

I got there too late. Most had returned to cultivating poppies. Poppies were popping up everywhere. They were popular amongst the population.

I laugh now. My contract specified ‘possible’ alternatives. I did not realise that there was a typo in the contract. They had left off the first syllable: ‘im.’ The United Nations Drug Control Program had allocated generous funds for the development of ‘possible’ alternatives. Where had the money gone? It did not go into medical care or water supply. People either walked to clinics in far-away towns, or rode for miles on mules to fetch water. There did not seem to be much development.

To give them credit, the Kohistan tribesmen had given the alternatives a go. Some switched over to growing wheat, vegetables and fruit. The result? Financial ruin. Desperation. Hunger. Income dropped from hundreds of thousands of rupees a year to twenty or thirty thousand, if they were lucky!

I attended one meeting where the ubiquitous and essential carbuncle of development, the military representatives, made a show of threatening harsh retaliation if they did not continue to ‘toe the line’ and grow potatoes rather than poppies. The response? A half stifled yawn of non-concern. Mind you, they did say that if the government offered them money at levels to which they had become accustomed from their poppy trade, they would retire gracefully.

The ‘government’ did not respond. In fact, their response mirrored the villager’s earlier stifled yawn. Anyway it was all done for public consumption. The local government loves poppies as well. Not that they kept many in vases in their offices.

Officially, the Pakistani authorities denied that poppy was being cultivated in the area. That is not what I saw, though of course, things might have changed in the past few years.

And pigs might also be flying.

But in Pakistan? I doubt it.