Trench carves a new rift
The massive, 485-kilometre trench being built by Pakistan is adding to simmering tensions with Afghanistan.
In the dusty badlands along its disputed border with Afghanistan, Pakistan is carving out a massive trench to keep out separatists, smugglers and militants in an attempt to bring order to a lawless, tribal region.
But like the Berlin Wall or Israel’s West Bank barrier, the planned 485-kilometre trench is giving physical form to a border that locals have long seen as artificial, dividing families and crippling trade. And it is adding to simmering tensions between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which have long accused each other of turning a blind eye to insurgents.
The trench runs along part of the 2,640-kilometre Durand Line, named for British diplomat Mortimer Durand, who drew the now internationally recognized border in an agreement with Afghan ruler Abdur Rahman Khan in 1893. But the modern Afghan government has never accepted the border, and neither have the mainly tribal communities that straddle it. They are accustomed to moving back and forth freely and in some cases own land on both sides.
The trench is being built in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province, where Baluch rebels have been battling Islamabad for decades. It’s an eyesore of construction — a massive furrow three metres wide and 2.4 metres deep that already snakes 180 kilometres across the desert landscape.
Pakistan’s Frontier Corps said in a recent statement that the trench would “not only help in effectively controlling the movement of drug and arms and ammunition smugglers, but also will help in stopping the intrusion of terrorists and illegal immigrants.” Pakistan fears that arms could make their way to any number of insurgent groups, including the Taliban.
But Kabul sees the trench as the latest move in a new incarnation of the colonial-era Great Game, in which Pakistan hopes to destabilize its neighbour to extend its regional influence. It already considers Pakistan the source of the Taliban insurgency.
“The people here have never accepted the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the first place,” said Gen. Abdul Raziq, the police chief of Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, which borders Baluchistan.
“This trench is simply to draw a border with Afghanistan and claim our land as their own.” Along the border, local residents are angry. “My land is my only asset from my forefathers — now some of it is on the other side and I’m powerless to do anything about it,” said tribal elder Muhammad Ghaffar who, like many people living along the trench, took the freedom of movement across the Durand Line for granted.
Raziq said that when work began, some local people got out their guns. “But then we got orders from Kabul not to engage with Pakistani forces, so we backed off,” he said.
For polio worker Abdullah Jaanan, the implications of the barrier are potentially devastating, as Pakistan is experiencing a resurgence of the disease and his area of responsibility traverses the trench. Jaanan said that eradication of the disease, which remains endemic only in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Nigeria, is taken seriously by Afghans.
“But how can I go and visit those homes on the other side of trench?” he said.