Kabul’s blast walls protect a powerful few while causing misery for many - Michael E. Miller

The hulking barriers benefit mainly rich businessmen, Afghan officials and foreigners, according to local residents.
KABUL — For Abdul Fatah, distance is the enemy. Every morning, the metal scavenger drags his heavy wooden cart onto Kabul’s dusty streets in search of scrap. With callused hands, he sifts through rubble for a few cents’ worth of rebar. Then he winds his way back through more than a dozen miles of traffic jams and potholes to the junkyard, where he sells his finds before falling asleep in a flimsy tent.

“It’s a tough job,” Fatah said one recent afternoon. “And all these walls make it even tougher.”

As security in this battle-scarred capital has worsened in recent years, the blast walls have proliferated. With every suicide bombing, the concrete thickens around the homes of government officials, nonprofit organizations and embassies. Roadblocks appear overnight. Kabul’s snow-capped mountains have disappeared from view. All the while, residents grow angrier.

“I grew up in Kabul. This is my city,” said Omaid Sharifi, a local activist. “I’ve been here during Taliban, mujahideen, all the wars and everything. The city I remember wasn’t like this. This looks like a prison to me.”

Fifteen years after the Taliban fled Kabul, life here is undoubtedly freer. Music echoes from storefronts, and men and women mingle in public.

But physically, the city looks more forbidding than it did then. By some estimates, it boasts more blast walls than any city in the world, as Baghdad, the previous record holder, slowly dismantles its barriers.

No one wants to see security reduced around schools or hospitals. But some argue that Kabul’s miles of blast walls mainly benefit VIPs and that average citizens are forced to live in a city that is ugly and unsafe.

“People are hurling profanity at officials when they close avenues to traffic or totally shut down streets,” said Atiqullah Amarkhail, a retired general and security analyst. “Ordinary people get stuck on the roads when officials drive past. Some in need of being rushed to hospital have perished.”

Afghans want their officials to be safe, he added, but not at all costs. “This has had a high psychological impact on the people,” he said. “People say our leaders are only protecting themselves.” 

“It’s not only government offices, it’s business people, it’s the international community, it’s the embassies” putting up walls, Sharifi said. The U.S. Embassy recently added an enormous blast wall, and most foreign media — including The Washington Post — have similar protection.- Read More at the Washingtonpost

Kabul’s blast walls protect a powerful few while causing misery for many