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(rshsdepot) Fw: Railways or forward to the 19th century in Afghanistan



- -----Original Message-----
From: PinardR_@_rferl.org <PinardR@rferl.org>
To: Paul S. Luchter <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>
Date: Wednesday, March 20, 2002 9:05 AM
Subject: Railways or forward to the 19th century in Afghanistan



From our Pashtu program of 24 Feb:

ITEM 6
[Arif  Osmanzoi]:  At  the start of the month of Salwagha [roughly
equivalent to
February] at the Tokyo conference for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, a
large
meeting of the donor countries was organized. Besides other financial
proposals,
Afghan  officials also presented a very old proposal, that of building a
railway
line  in Afghanistan. The building of a railway line in Afghanistan was
included
in  President  Dawood  Khan's seven-year plan of 1976. My colleague, Bari
Hakim,
will present a report about this proposed plan to you:

[Bari Hakim]: At the Tokyo conference that was held at the start of the
month of
Salwagha  for  the  reconstruction  of Afghanistan, Afghan leaders besides
other
urgent  and  immediate  programs,  proposed  the plan of building a railway
line
inside their mountainous country. This project was planned but never
implemented
for  more  than two centuries. The history of this plan goes back to the
time of
"the  Great  Game"  in  the  19th  century,  when the Russian and
British-Indian
empires had extended their railway lines to the borders of Afghanistan.
However,
the rulers of Kabul at that time did not permit these vital transportation
links
to be extended inside Afghanistan. Then, many decades of war pushed this
country
further away from this dream.

The  new  Afghanistan nation wants to have a close relationship with the
outside
world so it can benefit from international aid and support. As the Deputy of
the
new  interim  Planning  minister of Afghanistan, Mr. Abdul Salam, explaining
the
railway  plan  told  the  Reuters  news  agency: ?Nowadays, the world is
getting
closer,  and  we want to be part of it.? The Afghan Railway plan was
sketched in
the  middle  of the 1970?s, but after the communist coup of 1980 was shelved
and
then  left  forgotten.  According  to this plan, landlocked Afghanistan
would be
connected  to  two important ports, in the Persian Gulf with the Iranian
port of
Bandar-e-Abbas, and in the Arabian Sea with the Pakistani port of Karachi.
It is
planned  that  this railway line would extend from the Iranian border
through to
the  western  Afghan  city  of  Herat and would cross the southern flat
lands to
Kandahar. The line would then go through the mountainous areas of the north,
and
then  across  to the copper mines of Lowgar Province and to Kabul. A narrow
line
would then be extended to the iron mines under the hills that are located in
the
mountainous areas of Bamyan.

Another rail line would extend from Kandahar to the town of Chaman, close to
the
border  of Pakistan, where it would connect to the British-built rail line.
Even
though  the  Afghan  Railway plan was on the agenda of the Tokyo conference,
the
reality is that behind this plan, a long period of dispute between the
forces of
development  and  the forces of conservation in Afghanistan, is concealed.
These
disputes  have  become a big hurdle in the way of economic development.
Economic
development  and  modernization  has  become  an  important goal in
Afghanistan,
because  the  reluctance to move forward has kept Afghanistan in the
darkness of
anarchy  and  paved the way for the rise of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda to
power in
Afghanistan.  The  new leaders of Afghanistan and their supporters are
trying to
prevent the repetition of the mistakes of the past.

[Arif Osmanzoi]: This was our colleague's report about the possibility of
building railway lines in Afghanistan.


=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org

------------------------------

End of RSHSDepot Digest V1 #321
*******************************

=================================
The Railroad Station Historical Society maintains a database of existing
railroad structures at: http://www.rrshs.org