ChicTrib

Rebels capitalize on flush reporters

Here, foreign journalists are discovering that every conceivable commodity comes at a hefty price, the Tribune's Paul Salopek writes. Tribune foreign correspondent Paul Salopek is on assignment in Afg Published November 6, 2001

KHWAJA BAHAUDDIN, Afghanistan -- Who says the West isn't doing enough to help Afghanistan's beleaguered anti-Taliban rebels?

Sure, Washington and London have yet to give the Northern Alliance as much as a single crate of ammo, a pair of boots or spare parts for their antique Soviet-era tanks. But another indirect source of foreign aid has proven to be a huge bonanza: cash-flush journalists.

Straggling dazed and mud-spattered into the bleakest corner of this incredibly harsh country--the opposition holds enclaves of utterly barren mountain ranges and parched valleys that nobody else really wants--a stampede of international reporters is changing the comatose economy of northern Afghanistan like nothing in its history.

Take this million-dollar mud-hole, for instance. Khwaja Bahauddin once was a miserable collection of mud-brick huts where alliance commanders plotted where to fire two or three artillery shells a day at nearby Taliban positions.

Khwaja Bahauddin is still a squalid outpost at the edge of oblivion, but now the cost of living here has rocketed to levels rivaling major cities in Europe or the United States, thanks to journalists' expense accounts.

Eager to cover the U.S.-led war on terrorism from a dateline inside Afghanistan, the hundreds of homesick hacks arriving from neighboring Tajikistan can find cans of Russian-manufactured Pepsi in the rustic bazaar--for $1 a can. Gasoline, another commodity the impoverished locals never had seen before, costs as much as $7 a gallon. Even media necessities such as power strips and floppy disks can be had for about 300 to 500 percent of their original price, sold alongside piles of rice.

Meanwhile, keeping all those laptops humming requires power: Afghan smugglers are trucking portable Yamaha generators across the Tajik border for a cool $1,000 apiece.

All these baubles pale, however, in comparison to what brings in the real money: The Northern Alliance's monopoly on services rendered to journalists.

Quick to spot a gold mine when they see it--and why not? It's their war--the warlords who are America's allies in the struggle to topple the Taliban charge for every conceivable service.

Reporters wishing to cross a river on horseback to reach the front pay $20 per mount, like some wartime dude ranch. The opposition government also takes a cut on every hovel rented to foreign correspondents. (The BBC has acquired an entire compound rather like a mud fort.) And Jeeps and translators, also controlled by the rebels, come at $100 each per day.

According to alliance officials, some 200 correspondents now call the fetid alleys of Khwaja Bahauddin home. Simple arithmetic shows that, at a minimum, about $40,000 a day is gushing through the village. That's $1.2 million a month. With that kind of cash flow, the Pentagon need hardly bother with covert aid.

On the Tajik side of the border, customs agents are required to ask people leaving for Afghanistan what sort of bankroll they are carrying. Anything less than $3,000 sparks derisive laughter.

"That will last you 48 hours," one incredulous officer told a Turkish journalist crossing into Afghanistan, one of the poorest countries on Earth.

The Russian press corps is complaining bitterly, meanwhile, that the affluent Americans have grossly distorted local markets, forcing their Moscow colleagues to retreat from Afghanistan--a second time.

They're not alone. The Northern Alliance may not be very good at forcing the Taliban to pull back, but there are plenty of forlorn reporters withdrawing across the Tajik border with their pockets pulled out. They are lucky to have escaped with their shoes.

-- Anonymous, November 06, 2001