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(rshsdepot) Fw: Railways or forward to the 19th century in Afghanistan
- Subject: (rshsdepot) Fw: Railways or forward to the 19th century in Afghanistan
- From: "Paul S. Luchter" <luckyshow_@_mindspring.com>
- Date: Wed, 20 Mar 2002 23:14:41 -0500
- -----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