Message-ID: <26291608.1075861846816.JavaMail.evans@thyme> Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2001 08:57:01 -0800 (PST) From: larry.may@enron.com To: andy.zipper@enron.com Subject: FW: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ANSI_X3.4-1968 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-From: May, Larry X-To: Zipper, Andy X-cc: X-bcc: X-Folder: \LMAY2 (Non-Privileged)\May, Larry\Sent Items X-Origin: May-L X-FileName: LMAY2 (Non-Privileged).pst -----Original Message----- From: =09Taylor, Craig =20 Sent:=09Thursday, November 01, 2001 10:53 AM To:=09May, Larry Subject:=09 =09=09 =09 THURSDAY NOVEMBER 01 2001=09 =09 'I dream only of having my hand again'=09 =09 FROM ANTHONY LOYD IN GOLBAHAR =09 =09 KARIMULLAH is an Afghan who does not want to relate his war story. In a lan= d where everyone is quick to tell their tale, his silence makes him unique.= He stood alone in the narrow midday shadows of the hospital courtyard whe= n I saw him yesterday, a mix of glittering fury and blank despair. He had h= obbled into the Red Crosss orthopaedic centre in Golbahar on Saturday. Eve= n among the other amputees, his injuries stood out. Mines can take off both= legs and both arms, or the limbs of one side, or, more often, just a singl= e leg or foot. Karimullah's injuries, however, had a different cause. When,= reluctantly, he had finished accounting for the loss of his left foot and = right hand there was nothing to do but leave the man to his blade-eyed star= e. The son of Tajik parents, now 26 years old, he fled Kabul when the Tale= ban arrived in 1996. Moving north to a village in Northern Alliance territo= ry with his wife and two children, he found work in a vineyard. But he lost= his job and home to a Taleban advance in 1998. He joined the Mujahidin. A= shell hit his post on the Samali Plain in 1999. It killed four of his comr= ades. Karimullah escaped to a Pashtun village whose inhabitants handed him = over to the Taleban. Tried by a "military tribunal" in Kabul, after torture= he was sent to the city's Pulecharkhi jail for having served with the Alli= ance. "I had been there 12 weeks when three Talebs came into my cell," he = said. "They called my name out and said I was to be released." Baffled but = relieved, Karimullah was led to a Datsun pick-up. "They began driving me t= o the Ghazi stadium," Karimullah said. "I was silent at the beginning, but = as we neared it I asked, 'What is this? What of my release?' They told me, = 'Wait you will be released'." The Datsun drove into the centre of the stad= ium. Karimullah recalls thousands of faces staring at him in silence from t= he stands, and between 10 and 14 mullahs on chairs in a line in the middle = of the field. He was pulled from the truck and told to lie spreadeagled on = the grass. "The mullahs didn't even ask my name or speak to the crowd. Sev= en doctors approached me. They wore grey uniforms, surgical masks and glove= s. I could see one was crying. They injected me. After five minutes my body= was numb though I was still conscious. Then they put clamps on my hand and= foot and began to cut them off with special saws. There was no pain but I = could see what they were doing." I asked him if he stared at the sky. He t= old me he was transfixed by the sight of his foot being removed. "There wa= s a sigh and murmur from the crowd when they finished. It had taken about f= ive minutes. Taleban guards threw me into the back of the pick-up. One was = crying too. Nothing was said. Even now I am unaware why I was chosen for am= putation". He was taken to Kabul's Wazir Akbar Khan hospital. After a week= eight of his former prison guards visited him. They brought him apples and= 600,000 afghanis (?10). "They apologised. They told me they had not known= what would happen. I threw the money and apples back at them. I screamed t= hat they had told me I would be released and instead had taken my foot and = hand for nothing. They left." On the tenth day he was discharged. A taxi t= ook him to his parents' home. They had no idea what had happened to him. K= arimullah's eight-year-old sister, Razia, answered the taxi-driver's knock = on the door. She burst into tears when she saw her brother sprawled in the = back of the cab. Worse was to follow. "My mother had been ill for some time= so was very weak. When she saw me, she collapsed. She regained consciousne= ss for a few hours, but then had a heart attack and died. "I thought the w= orst day of my life had been in the stadium. Coming home was worse. Her nam= e was Masherin. She was 42." He became a beggar, his mutilation carrying w= ith it the stigma and shame of the punishment normally meted out to a thief= . Then, a few weeks ago, a cousin, a Mujahidin commander, got a message th= rough the lines offering him help. Borrowing a spare prosthetic leg from a = mine victim in Kabul, Karimullah limped northwards for days, crossing the f= ront with other refugees.The Red Cross is preparing a prosthetic leg for hi= m, but some scars cannot be repaired. "I am finished. I have no future," K= arimullah said. "I have had everything taken from me by the Taleban. Before= they came to Kabul I was a student in the tenth grade, an educated man wit= h some chances before me. "Someone told me a rich Pashtun had committed a = crime and paid the corrupt mullahs to use a prisoner of war for public ampu= tation instead of himself. I don't know if it's true. But I hate them. "I = dream only of having my hand again so I could carry a gun and go to the fro= nt line and kill and kill. I'd kill them all, every Taleb and every mullah.= "=09 =09 =09 Copyright 2001 Times Newspapers Ltd . This service = is provided on Times Newspapers' standard terms and conditions . To inquire about a licence to reproduce material from The Tim= es, visit the Syndication website . = =09