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Pastimes : Desire And Grief -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HG who wrote (340)	10/28/2001 1:51:58 PM
From: HG	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1595

My heart went out to the supporters of Haq, not that i knew anything about him..... Ahhh....I guess alliances and friendships mean different things to different people. In the East, it encompasses much more than the momentary emotion.....and they're often formed out of genuine respect of each other rather than simple convenience.... They don't want to use you and abandon you. They mean no harm. But when they say "You are our friend", they are talking about the present. They're not committing the future. Its not like the bonds of marriages and friendships and other relationships of the East. Its just a cultural thing.....cultural differences.....which breed the misunderstandings...its just a communication error. They mean no harm. Thats just how they are....thats how it is. We hate America, they want to use us and then abandon us Ellen Knickmeyer (AP) (Peshawar, October 28) Afghan Taliban leaders threw the hanged corpse of an Afghan opposition leader into a hasty grave in Taliban territory on Sunday, leaving Afghanistan's opposition in exile to mourn - and vow revenge - without him. "We lost our brother, but our war will persevere," Hajji din Mohammed, brother of the executed Abdul Haq, told Afghan opposition leaders and other turbaned mourners in a simple prayer service without the body. "This does not make us afraid," Din Mohammed declared of Haq's brutal end. "We renew our promise to fight for Afghanistan and the people of Afghanistan." Wizened, war-maimed Afghan guerrilla veterans gathered outside the gates of the family home in Peshawar, in northern Pakistan across the border from Afghanistan. Leaning on artificial legs and canes, they mopped tears off their faces and bitterly accused the United States of betrayal in the death of their former commander. Taliban forces hanged Haq on Friday within hours of capturing him, ending what was widely seen here as a maverick mission by the former Afghan guerrilla leader into the heart of Taliban-held central Afghanistan. He was trying to rally Afghan tribal leaders and others to a new government to be organized under the chairmanship of the deposed king, Mohammad Zaher Shah. Taliban officials inititally told the family they would hand over the body on Sunday for burial in Pakistan, relatives here said. When brothers went to retrieve the body, however, they were told the Taliban themselves had buried it on Sunday in Haq's eastern home village of Surkhrud, Haq aide Abdul Rahim Zalmi said. Family members would try to persuade Taliban officials to exhume the body for burial in Pakistan, Zalmi said. In the meantime, plans for a large, community service were cancelled, and leaders of the Afghan opposition community trickled into the walled, shut family compound instead to pay their respects. Unlike most northern-based opposition figures, who are members of Afghanistan's ethnic Uzbek and Tajik minorities, Haq was a Pashtun, like most Taliban. The Pashtuns are the predominate ethnic group in Afghanistan. Haq also commanded wide respect as a war hero, even among many former comrades in the Taliban. Haq had been a leading commander in the Afghan fight against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s, losing a foot to a Soviet mine. US officials say Haq's mission had no direct support or endorsement from them, although they acknowledge calling in airstrikes Friday to try - too late - to save him when he was trapped by Taliban fighters. The United States had been hoping for an Afghan opposition figure to emerge as a strong rallying point for Afghan anti-Taliban sentiment. The Taliban have yet to see any major defections during the three-week-old US-led military campaign, however. Dad Mohammed, who fought alongside Haq in the war against the Soviets until he himself lost a leg to a Soviet mine, said Haq had told him in their last meeting weeks ago to be ready - his commander might be calling on him again, for a new mission in Afghanistan. Instead, the weeping veteran - in a dirty smock, on an equally stained artificial leg - was left vowing Sunday to go into Afghanistan alone, to avenge Haq's death. He blamed the Taliban - but the United States' last-minute, too-little-help as well. "We all hate America, all of us," he said. "They always want to use us and our people, and then they abandon us." hindustantimes.com