[ News
| Homes
| Life
| Entertainment
| History
| Science
| Community
| Shop ]
| Sport
| Culture
| Cars
| Money
| Broadband
| Learning
| Health
| Dating
| Games ]
[ Text Only: Homepage ]
[ Graphical: Channel4 Homepage ]
- Unholy War
– Afghanistan 2, Sunday 11 November at 9pm
- Repeated Tuesday 13 November at 2:40am
Six months after going undercover in Afghanistan to make the acclaimed Dispatches film Beneath the Veil, reporter Saira Shah returns to her father's homeland to investigate how the US bombing is affecting ordinary Afghans.
On her last visit, Saira travelled secretly into the countryside, where she saw evidence of atrocities, torture and the slaughter of civilians, as well as a heartbreaking encounter with three young girls, victims of Taliban brutality.
In Unholy War – Afghanistan 2, Saira and the film's director, James Miller, return to see how the changed international situation has affected the country. Their aim is to portray the day-to-day suffering that must end before Afghanistan creates a peaceful future for itself.
The journey
With the borders closed, Saira and her colleagues set off on a dangerous journey, travelling at night over the highest mountains in the world – the 17,000ft high Hindu Kush – to reach Afghanistan. Wearing local clothes rather than climbing gear, frostbite is more of a threat than war. Their guides get lost in the hostile terrain and the crew end up in a river. Soaked through, their clothes freeze to them when they emerge from the water.
Once they reach Afghanistan, their aim is to go into the villages to find out what is happening to the ordinary people caught up in the first new war of the 21st century. They also plan to find the three small girls they filmed in Beneath the Veil, whose suffering and vulnerability seemed to symbolise the plight of the Taliban's victims.
The film contrasts these ordinary people with the soldiers, infatuated with the hardware of war, hardened by years of living in the mountains, first fighting the Soviets backed by the American CIA, now fighting the Americans and their Afghan supporters, the Northern Alliance.
The state of the nation
'The privations suffered by the people of Afghanistan are going to become even worse,' says the film's director, James Miller. 'They didn't have great lives before 11 September, though. Afghanistan has been at war – first against the Soviets, then between conflicting Afghan elements – for more than 20 years. So the US involvement has not changed their situation dramatically.'
Large numbers of people have been displaced from their homes. Some have moved into the territory controlled by the Northern Alliance, others have crossed into Pakistan – though not many because now the borders are sealed. More dangerous than the Taliban are the harsh winter conditions coming after three years of drought.
The aid supplies that existed before the US bombing started have been disrupted. Most of the international aid agencies have pulled out – though a few have now returned, such as Médecins Sans Frontières and Shelter Now International, one of whose aid workers, John Weaver, appears in the film. Many people are trapped in frontline areas.
'The ordinary people in some places believe that the US offensive will enable them to return to their homes,' says James Miller. 'Perhaps they will go back but it won't be for a long time yet.'
Three little girls
Saira and the crew do find the three young girls again. They talk to them about the possibility of getting an education and find a school for them to go to. The film team offer the school financial assistance to ensure its survival through the coming winter so it can be a source of new hope for the girls. But things work out differently. When they go back to the girls' village, their father says they cannot leave. Even though most of the other villagers have moved away because of the drought and the war, he says that abandonning his house will leave him with nothing, and he cannot put himself and his children in that position.
And so Saira and her colleagues have no choice but to leave them there.
No easy answers
'We couldn't help the whole of Afghanistan,' says Saira Shah, 'but we wanted to help those little girls. We had money and goodwill, so we could get them into a school. But we discovered that that was not enough. Afghanistan is a very, very complex place and the Americans may find, as we did, that there is no quick fix.
'First we have to end the war; then we have to rebuild the country. That will take years. Long after the media has lost interest in Afghanistan, that's when it may start to stabilise – but I have no idea if Britain and the US will go on caring about Afghanistan that long.'
Graphic
version
Includes layout and images.