Until July 1973 Afghanistan was a constitutional monarchy and a democratic country, a place of travel and holiday for young hippies that in the Sixties and Seventies made trips towards Kathmandu. Then in 1973 during summer the pro-Soviet Sardar Mohammed Daoud leads a coup: he throws the king out, and proclaims the new Republic. Daoud and all his family will be slaughtered later in 1978, when the Popular Democratic Party headed by Hafizullah Amin rises to power after a coup d’état. On December 1979 Soviet Union decides military intervention against Amin’s government - that in the meanwhile has taken a closer position to USA – establishing a puppet government guided by more aligned leaders like Babrak Karmal before and Mohammad Najibullah after.
Mujahideens, who were financed and armed by USA, and caused the loss of nearly 15,000 Russian soldiers, fought the Soviet occupation. On April 14th 1988 Soviet Union was compelled to sign an international agreement to leave the country. The withdrawal of the troops started in the summer of that year and it lasted till February 1989. The pro-Soviet government fall in 1992 under Mujahideen’s attacks and after the coup the war’s lords split the country. The most famous among them was Ahmed Shah Massoud, named the Panshir Lion. At the beginning of 1994 in the South the Taliban (i.e. students of Koran) movement was born, and guided by Mullah Omar, they took Kabul and the political power on September 1996. Massoud opposed their power and was assassinated in a suicidal attack in September 9th 2001. The Talibans were suspected for the murder. On October 7th as a reaction to the Twin Towers attack, Anglo-American troops attack Afghanistan and on November 12th Talibans are pushed out of Kabul. Hamid Karzai is the new officially recognized democratic President.
Currently, despite the weight of history and the yearly deterioration in security, American forces remain convinced that the war is "winnable". Unlike the anti-Soviet Mujahideen, they argue, the Taliban, al-Qaeda and their allies do not have the support of a superpower. America has broad international backing for its actions, and still enjoys a good measure of support among ordinary Afghans. A significant review of America's policy in Afghanistan, and across the border in Pakistan, is under way. In the short term, NATO hopes that with more Afghan units and extra American troops, perhaps helped by the possible short-term deployment of more European forces, it will be able to secure enough of the populated areas. The American reinforcements will be used to improve security in provinces surrounding Kabul, protect the ring road that connects Afghanistan's cities and, above all, to reinforce NATO's faltering effort in the south of the country.
Cold war, religion war, terrorism war… Afghanistan’s recent history looks sadly linked to war. The one with Russians was the last that can be defined ‘colonialist’ war. The current one looks as the first step of a world conflict, which will not just see super-powers against each other, but religious, social and political fundamentalism on one side and democratic uncertainties on the other side. In 30 years of war the Afghan conflict has caused one and a half million of deaths and nearly four millions of refugees. An increasing number of victims is caused by never ending fights, by widespread weapons diffusion among population and by anti-personnel mines hidden in the territory as an uncontrolled danger.
The United Nations recorded the deaths of 2,118 civilians in the conflict last year, 39% higher than in 2007 and the highest yearly toll since the fall of the Taliban. Of these, 55% were attributed to the Taliban and other "anti-government elements", and 39% to Western and Afghan forces.
In addition to the war’s wounded and victims, other victims are caused by socio-political issues: according to unofficial sources everyday in Kabul and neighborhoods at least five children are killed by car accidents; malnutrition, scarcity of safe water and widespread tuberculosis and malaria epidemics do not find any answer in a public health service which is collapsing. 70% of Afghan population is illiterate and 11 millions are not able neither to read nor write: nowadays Afghanistan is a country of survivors, where people are sad prisoners of their past and have neither future perspective nor hopes.
This reportage was shot in collaboration with Emergency.

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