The Forgotten Mission

We left Kabul early one morning in early April 1977. Al Heron and I were sitting in the back of a Russian UAZ jeep which belonged to the Afghan Ministry of Water and Power (DABM).  We were heading north via the Salang Pass to the Province of Kunduz on the border of the Tajik Soviet Socialist Republic (now Tajikistan).  Once we got beyond Charikar, there was snow everywhere.

Entrance to Salang Tunnel. Photo courtesy Al Heron

The Salang Pass north of Kabul wound through the magnificent Hindu Kush mountains. The Salang Highway ran through the 1. 5 mile long Salang Tunnel (above) that had been built with Soviet assistance back in 1964.  In those days, it was one of the highest tunnels anywhere in the world, almost 10, 000 feet above sea level, and the only major road that gave all-year access to Afghanistan's northern provinces.

Al Heron and I were part of a team from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) in Manila.  We had come to Afghanistan to appraise the Khanabad Hydropower Project which the ADB would finance.  The hydropower station was to be built on the Khanabad River in the Province of Kunduz.  Al was the Mission Leader and I was a lowly Counsel in my second year at the ADB.  We were heading to the town of Kunduz to meet with some local DABM officials on issues relating to the Project.

Kunduz Valley. Photo courtesy: Wikipedia

The town of Kunduz was about 150 miles from Kabul. The journey was not too comfortable in the back of a Russian jeep that didn't seem to have all that many springs.  After passing through the Salang Tunnel we slowly descended into the Kunduz Valley.  (This is not a photo from our journey but you can get an idea of the country we entered).  We arrived in Kunduz late in the evening and were deposited in a strange and forgettable government "lodging" for the night.   

We met with DABM officials early the next morning and completed our business in a couple of hours.  Apart from cups of tea and small cakes, we had not really eaten anything substantial since we left Kabul the day before.  

 The bakery in Kunduz: Photo courtesy Al Heron 

 

We had a very friendly Afghan driver named Walid who insisted that we have something to eat before we headed back to Kabul.  Walid didn't speak much English and our Pashto was somewhere between imperfect and non-existent.  However, a lot of sign language sufficed for our basic requirements. He found us a small bakery and we sat outside on tables covered with carpets, eating big chunks of bread and drinking pungent black coffee. 

Now, you might well be asking yourself why I am telling you this not particularly riveting story about our time in Afghanistan some 40 years ago.  Well, there is a back story, or a story within a story here, so please be patient.

Last weekend, out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Al Heron's daughter, Carol Gering.  I had not seen her for nineteen years when we attended her wedding to hubby Kip, here in Virginia.  She wrote that her Dad had told her that I had a great story about our time in Afghanistan many moons ago but that he had absolutely no memory of it!  Could we please ZOOM sometime with her and Kip in Palo Alto and with her Dad (Al) and Mum (Cayo), who live near us in Virginia? The ZOOM session was arranged for 2PM the next day.

So, here is the story that I told last Sunday to Carol, Kip, Al (in denial) and Cayo during our delightful ZOOM session.

Salang Tunnel. Photo courtesy: Wikipedia

On the way back to Kabul from Kunduz later that day, we passed through the Salang Tunnel again and we stopped to take a look at the scenery.  It was a late sunny afternoon and the snowscape, the Hindu Kush mountains and the blue sky were all just spectacular.  I remember I took a photo of Al against the mountains looking at me with a big grin; and then Walid took a photo of the both of us.  I don't have those photos and Al has absolutely no memory of any of this BUT we do have a photo of Walid, our driver (below).

As we were getting back into the jeep, Walid showed us some sort of package that he had wrapped up in a cloth bag.  He kept pointing down the road and saying something like "Ama  or "Ana" and "stop stop."  With a bit more sign language of him pretending to eat and pointing to the cloth package we dimly gathered that we were going to be stopping somewhere to drop off the package for somebody. Mother or grandmother, maybe?  No translation needed.

Walid our Afghan driver. Photo courtesy Al Heron

Some time later, we turn off the Salang Highway and drive down a well-paved road for about half a mile.  We stop at some impressive looking gates which have two armed Afghan guards either side of them on the outside and two more on the inside.  It looks like some big construction camp because there were a lot of trucks and heavy equipment in the distance and workers wandering around.  But there were also many soldiers in uniform and I was wondering whether it could be some sort of military base. There are a lot of low buildings, maybe offices, and what look like barracks in the distance.  This was definitely a big enterprise, whatever it was.

One of the guards comes up to Walid's window.  Walid gives him some I.D. and then holds up his cloth bag and excitedly starts speaking to the guard.  The guard is nodding but then shakes his head.  Walid goes through his whole rigmarole again, getting quite excited and insistent.  The guard finally signals the other guard to open the gate.  We drive through the gates only to be stopped by the guards on the inside.  This time they tell Walid to get out of the jeep.  One of them examines the cloth bag which he makes him untie.  The other guard sticks his nose in the jeep and gives it a cursory look inside.  He doesn't see me and Al sitting in the back and we just keep quiet.  None of our business!

Now this needs a little aside.  Our jeep has two seats in front and a raised bench seat at the back.  The rear seat is set well back and you actually look out over the head of the driver--just like the old Alvis cars in England.  I don't know how the guy could miss us but he did.  That would prove to be problematic later!

Walid gets back in, smiling and nodding and waving and thanking the guard.  We drive through the camp. He has obviously been here before and we head off towards a small building where, we assume, his mother/grandmother must work.  We stop. Walid gets out and signals with his hand that he will be five minutes.  Great.

After a little while, I get out to have a look around.  Al gets out as well.  We don't go very far and are just hanging around the building where Walid had gone. Next thing we know, two soldiers with guns march up to us.  They look just as astonished as we do.  What? But these guys are not Afghans. They are RUSSIANS!

One of them holds out his hand.  He obviously wants some identification.  Al is right next to me.  "Al, do you have your ADB card with you?"  Luckily, we each have our ADB card with us. This card, actually a four page folded document with an impressive-looking ADB seal on it, has your photo, nationality, position, and some blurb about the ADB being a UN-affiliated organization.  It didn't give you diplomatic immunity or anything but we always used it as such if we were ever in a scrape.  And we did have "scrapes" in those days!

These guys don't look at all impressed and promptly signal that we are going with them.  Oh no!  Where on earth was Walid--he could explain everything.  We are marched off to another small building some  distance away but when you enter you can tell this is an "important" building.  We are taken down a long corridor to the outside of an office and told to wait.  One guard went inside the office. The other is standing to attention and "guarding" us.  There is a lot of talking inside the office.  Russian talk. Then the guard comes out and signals us to come in.  He goes off somewhere but the other guard remains at the door with his gun.  Does he really think we are going to make a break for it?

Seated at a rather official looking desk is a rather official looking military guy (or, at least, I think he is military) in a rather official looking uniform with red epaulets.  He is maybe in his thirties, very assured, not at all threatening but definitely alert and curious.  He has been given our ADB cards and is looking at them.  He doesn't stand up and doesn't offer us a chair.  He finally says in perfect English: "How did you enter?"  Just that. I explain about our driver visiting someone, his mother/grandmother maybe, the food parcel, that we are with the ADB, based in Manila, etc., etc.  He listens to all of this and then says: "But how did you enter?"  This seems to be his main concern.  I don't think he cares who or what we are but just how we had got in.  After a lot of back and forth, he seems satisfied, and tells us to sit down. The guard at the door is also sent off somewhere. Things relax a bit.

Just for fun!  Courtesy Shutterstock

Then he wants to know what we are doing in Afghanistan. That's when Al outlines our Khanabad Hydropower Project, that we are working with DABM and that we have just been up to Kunduz.  It is mainly Al and the officer (or whatever he was) doing all the talking.  I am now just sitting there.  I remember the officer asking Al where he lives in America, then they are getting into megawatts, generators, and technical stuff related to our Khanabad project.  What?  Then the officer indicates that this place is also a hydropower plant and that they are also providing assistance to the Afghan government.   I am thinking but don't ask the obvious question...umm...why do you need all these Russian soldiers and guns for a hydropower project?

Our "interview" is interrupted by poor Walid being escorted (dragged) in by our two not so friendly Russian guards.  Walid is looking terrified and staring wildly at us.  The officer just switches to Pashto without batting an eyelid and starts asking him a lot of questions in quick succession.  This goes on for several minutes.  Al and I just sit there.  I am hoping that Walid is telling the officer the same story that I have told him. Then the officer gives a big smile to one and all.  "There has been a misunderstanding.  Your driver was bringing some food to his mother who works here."  Hang on, I thought, I had told him all about that twenty minutes ago. We know that already!

This sort of ends the interview.  The officer now looks quite relaxed. Al also looks relaxed, like he is enjoying his chat, and asks if it is possible for us to look around their hydropower project.  I try to give Al a look--like that may not be a good idea.  I just want to get the hell out of there.  Nobody has said anything but these are obviously Russians, not Afghans. What are Russian soldiers doing in Afghanistan? We're in the middle of Dr. Zhivago or something. There is only the slightest hesitation and then Alec Guinness, I mean the officer, says with a charming smile, that this will not be possible right now.  End of interview.  No Lubyanka today. We are politely shown out.  Best of friends. Phew!

The two guards who had brought Walid in now take us back to our jeep and we are seen off the premises.  We did not get back to our hotel until late in the evening but, of course, Al and I discussed our "experience" on the way home and found the whole thing quite strange but rather amusing. What on earth was that camp? Certainly not a hydropower plant.  And what were all those Russian soldiers, trucks and heavy equipment doing there? A mystery.

Kabul. Photo Courtesy Al Heron

I mentioned our "experience" to my legal counterpart at DABM who had been helping me research some land ownership issues around the Project site.  He was quite discreet but said that he knew about that camp, that it was a Russian camp (not easy to miss that, I thought) and that among other things they had been helping with the upgrading and widening of different sections of the Salang Highway and upgrading the Salang Tunnel.  He didn't say anything about it being a hydropower station when I mentioned that we had been told that.  Nor did he mention anything about the many Russian soldiers there. The mystery remained a mystery.

That's the story.  Not exactly a story but a "happening" at least.  Maybe it is my fevered imagination but I have always thought that the officer who interviewed us was KGB because he was so fluent in English, Pashto and certainly didn't look like he was a plain military type or someone overseeing a hydropower operation.  But the fact that the Russians had been helping with "upgrading" the Salang Highway and Tunnel always stuck in my mind.

Photo Courtesy of The Atlantic 

That fact came to the forefront of my mind two years later when the Soviets rolled down the Salang Highway towards Kabul on December 24, 1979 with hundreds of tanks and the 40th Army in tow. I now obsessively believe that the camp we drove into with Walid was some forward Russian military base; and that road repair and widening was exactly what they were up to--preparing the Soviet invasion route!

I know it sounds preposterous but why not?  I am also sure that at first the officer who interviewed us had been very worried that an American and a Brit had somehow penetrated the camp and two sets of guards. Western spies--CIA and MI6?  Was that why his relief was so obvious after Walid was dragged in and the "misunderstanding" was cleared up?  We will never know.

And after telling that whole story on ZOOM, I asked Al if he remembered anything.  "Not a thing," he said.  Well, that's my story and I am sticking to it!

Two additional things need to be mentioned.

1. After our ZOOM session, Carol sent me some photos that her Dad had taken while in Afghanistan.  Of course, they did not include photos of the Russian camp or  our "KGB" officer etc., but it did prove that Al had been to some of the places in my story and that I might not be completely delusional.  Anyway, I have included and attributed some of the relevant photos that Carol sent me.  

2. I recently googled "ADB Khanabad Hydropower Project."  I saw that our Project had been approved by the ADB Board on October 27, 1977.  Sadly, the Project had not prospered and only an 18 mile diversion canal had been built.  The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan late in 1979 had probably made the project impossible to complete.  Sad.

However, I also found a recent ADB Consultants report that indicated that a Khanabad II Hydropower Project is to be built at exactly the same spot as our old Project.  This is what is said in para. 57:

"57. The project entails the construction of a new, grid-connected 10.4 MW plant on the Khanabad River at Qerghez sub-village in Kunduz Province. This site has previously been studied and construction actually started during the late 1970’s with the erection of a number of civil structures, principally an 18 km main canal meant to divert water from the Khanabad River up to the powerhouse location. However, flows were never diverted into the canal, as other structures for power generation were not completed and the project was abandoned."

So, all the work that our Appraisal Mission did in Afghanistan back in 1977 might not have been  totally wasted!  Al, do you think we should go back to check out Khanabad II?