Photojournalists Face Obstacles, Dangers In Afghanistan

NEW YORK-With the Bush administration threatening military action to avenge the September 11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, photojournalists were packing their bags for Pakistan and Tajikistan the following week. All bets were on an imminent attack on neighboring Afghanistan, if that country's Taliban rulers refuse US demands to hand over the suspected mastermind of the attacks, Osama bin Laden.

The story could be a dangerous and frustrating assignment for photographers. Pakistan and Tajikistan are stable countries that are open to travelers and journalists, for the most part. Afghanistan is quite different: its economy has collapsed, the country is suffering from famine, there are no accommodations and practically no transportation or communication systems. Afghan refugees have been pouring over the south/southeast border into Pakistan over the past several years to escape deprivation and oppression.

"Pakistan is a real place. They have hotels and cars and restaurants and phones and Internet cafes. Afghanistan is like the Middle Ages," says New York photographer Nina Berman, who photographed the plight of women under Taliban rule for Newsweek in 1998. "It's so tense. You're so paranoid, because of the rule against taking pictures."

Most Afghan people are warm and welcoming, says Berman, but the Taliban, a fundamentalist Islamic sect that took control of most of the country by 1996, run a rigid, harsh government. Their legal system, ostensibly based upon the Koran, is oppressive (particularly to women), brutal, and inconsistent. Berman says she never knew what the consequences of breaking the rules might be. "Back then, the biggest concern was, How do you take pictures without getting arrested?"

Villages in the countryside were relaxed and welcoming places, Berman says. But Kandahar, the seat of Taliban religious power and now the country's effective capital, harbored zealots and fierce anti-western sentiment. Foreign aid workers rarely ventured out of their cars in that city, Berman says, and when she and another journalist decided to walk down the street, "within five minutes, we almost caused a riot."

In the past week, the Taliban has advised foreigners to get out of the country, says photographer Zalmai Ahad, who left Afghanistan 21 years ago and now lives in Geneva. The Red Cross and other aid organizations, which helped journalists with accommodations and transportation, have now left Afghanistan. And Pakistan has sealed off its border with Afghanistan.

Newsweek, for one, has been assigning photographers who were reconnoitering on the Afghan borders in Tajikistan and Pakistan a week after the terrorist attacks in the US. Asked how they planned to get into Afghanistan and move around, one photo editor said, "That's the big question right now."

Besides the political and logistical barriers, there are physical ones. Afghanistan is mountainous. Afghan winters can be bitterly cold. The country is still laden with land mines left from the Soviet invasion in the 80s and civil war in the 90s.

Ahad, for one, plans to gain access through the Northern Alliance, the coalition of anti-Taliban groups that still control parts of northern Afghanistan. He has applied to the Afghan consulate in Geneva for credentials. Once he gets those, he will fly to Moscow, then Dushanbe, the capitol of Tajikistan, which borders Afghanistan to the north. From the border-now heavily guarded-Ahad will have to rely on military transports for access to regions of Afghanistan under Northern Alliance control. He's traveling with cameras, film, and a small backpack full of warm clothes. He has no idea where he'll sleep or eat. "I'm scared, but I have to do my job," he says.

Other photographers will no doubt be at the mercy of the US military for access, presuming the US takes military action. If the Gulf War was any indication, that access will be tightly controlled. "So everyone is going to be sitting in Peshawar or Islamabad [Pakistan] trying to make news pictures. And what are you going to photograph from there?" wonders Stuart Freedman, a British photojournalist who is likely to be back in Pakistan himself pretty soon.

Freedman worries that ill-informed photographers are about to rush into the region. "You get these young photographers who think, `Oh, there's going to be a war. Let's go!' I found it in Croatia, I found it in Kosovo, I found it in Bosnia. You get these kids from Midwest newspapers who show up and say, `Hey, where's the fighting?' Hello! There are other people's lives at stake here and a geopolitical story to tell. As photojournalists, we have a responsibility not just to report the news, but to try to explain it."

Whatever the news turns out to be, it will be hard to explain from outside of Afghanistan, he says, and he doubts the Taliban will let Western journalists in. "The Taliban has no interest in the media. It's a completely different mindset. So from my point of view, as a photojournalist that would attempt to tell a story about a situation, there aren't two sides. You either go in with the Americans or sit in Pakistan and watch the missiles fly."

The result, Freedman predicts, will be distorted and decontextualized views of Islam that could fuel anti-American anger in Pakistan and elsewhere. "I think young photographers are hearing Bush saying, `Yeah, we're going to win this war,' and they're thinking, `This would be an easy job to do. This will be an easy story.' So they'll jump on a plane, get there, and get stoned to death by a fucking mob." Better to explore stories about communal tensions in India or the Occupied Territories, he says, "because all of this is connected."

Ahad has similar worries about a naïve press swarming to Afghanistan's borders. But as one who has been trying in vain to draw attention to the plight of his countrymen, he sees a silver lining: the biggest western power is finally paying attention.

--David Walker