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THURSDAY NOVEMBER 01 2001=09
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'I dream only of having my hand again'=09
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FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN GOLBAHAR =09
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KARIMULLAH is an Afghan who does not want to relate his war story. In a lan=
d where everyone is quick to tell their tale, his silence makes him unique.=
He stood alone in the narrow midday shadows of the hospital courtyard whe=
n I saw him yesterday, a mix of glittering fury and blank despair. He had h=
obbled into the Red Crosss orthopaedic centre in Golbahar on Saturday. Eve=
n among the other amputees, his injuries stood out. Mines can take off both=
legs and both arms, or the limbs of one side, or, more often, just a singl=
e leg or foot. Karimullah's injuries, however, had a different cause. When,=
reluctantly, he had finished accounting for the loss of his left foot and =
right hand there was nothing to do but leave the man to his blade-eyed star=
e. The son of Tajik parents, now 26 years old, he fled Kabul when the Tale=
ban arrived in 1996. Moving north to a village in Northern Alliance territo=
ry with his wife and two children, he found work in a vineyard. But he lost=
his job and home to a Taleban advance in 1998. He joined the Mujahidin. A=
shell hit his post on the Samali Plain in 1999. It killed four of his comr=
ades. Karimullah escaped to a Pashtun village whose inhabitants handed him =
over to the Taleban. Tried by a "military tribunal" in Kabul, after torture=
he was sent to the city's Pulecharkhi jail for having served with the Alli=
ance. "I had been there 12 weeks when three Talebs came into my cell," he =
said. "They called my name out and said I was to be released." Baffled but =
relieved, Karimullah was led to a Datsun pick-up. "They began driving me t=
o the Ghazi stadium," Karimullah said. "I was silent at the beginning, but =
as we neared it I asked, 'What is this? What of my release?' They told me, =
'Wait you will be released'." The Datsun drove into the centre of the stad=
ium. Karimullah recalls thousands of faces staring at him in silence from t=
he stands, and between 10 and 14 mullahs on chairs in a line in the middle =
of the field. He was pulled from the truck and told to lie spreadeagled on =
the grass. "The mullahs didn't even ask my name or speak to the crowd. Sev=
en doctors approached me. They wore grey uniforms, surgical masks and glove=
s. I could see one was crying. They injected me. After five minutes my body=
was numb though I was still conscious. Then they put clamps on my hand and=
foot and began to cut them off with special saws. There was no pain but I =
could see what they were doing." I asked him if he stared at the sky. He t=
old me he was transfixed by the sight of his foot being removed. "There wa=
s a sigh and murmur from the crowd when they finished. It had taken about f=
ive minutes. Taleban guards threw me into the back of the pick-up. One was =
crying too. Nothing was said. Even now I am unaware why I was chosen for am=
putation". He was taken to Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan hospital. After a week=
eight of his former prison guards visited him. They brought him apples and=
600,000 afghanis (?10). "They apologised. They told me they had not known=
what would happen. I threw the money and apples back at them. I screamed t=
hat they had told me I would be released and instead had taken my foot and =
hand for nothing. They left." On the tenth day he was discharged. A taxi t=
ook him to his parents' home. They had no idea what had happened to him. K=
arimullah's eight-year-old sister, Razia, answered the taxi-driver's knock =
on the door. She burst into tears when she saw her brother sprawled in the =
back of the cab. Worse was to follow. "My mother had been ill for some time=
so was very weak. When she saw me, she collapsed. She regained consciousne=
ss for a few hours, but then had a heart attack and died. "I thought the w=
orst day of my life had been in the stadium. Coming home was worse. Her nam=
e was Masherin. She was 42." He became a beggar, his mutilation carrying w=
ith it the stigma and shame of the punishment normally meted out to a thief=
. Then, a few weeks ago, a cousin, a Mujahidin commander, got a message th=
rough the lines offering him help. Borrowing a spare prosthetic leg from a =
mine victim in Kabul, Karimullah limped northwards for days, crossing the f=
ront with other refugees.The Red Cross is preparing a prosthetic leg for hi=
m, but some scars cannot be repaired. "I am finished. I have no future," K=
arimullah said. "I have had everything taken from me by the Taleban. Before=
they came to Kabul I was a student in the tenth grade, an educated man wit=
h some chances before me. "Someone told me a rich Pashtun had committed a =
crime and paid the corrupt mullahs to use a prisoner of war for public ampu=
tation instead of himself. I don't know if it's true. But I hate them. "I =
dream only of having my hand again so I could carry a gun and go to the fro=
nt line and kill and kill. I'd kill them all, every Taleb and every mullah.=
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