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Afghanistan: Elderly Workers try to Revive Kabul Factory
By Stephen Thorne, Cnews
April 11, 2004
KABUL (CP) - Everything old is new again at the Jangalak Factory in Afghanistan's capital city - especially the workers.
Abandoned to ruin after more than a generation of war, the once-proud producer of more than 2,000 machine and wood products is slowly grinding back to life.
The 150-hectare site used to bustle up to 24 hours a day with the efforts of more than 1,800 workers in 12 machine, carpentry and support shops. Now about 200 long-time workers are doing their best to revive the place.
Most are 50-plus, some over 60 - ancient, by Afghan standards - and many put 30 or 40 years in before the civil war that gave rise to the Taliban smashed buildings, destroyed equipment and shattered lives.
They may not have the spring in their steps they once did, but the old men of Jangalak move among the ruins and conduct their business with the confidence of wisdom and the ease of experience.
These days, Jangalak has a fleet of shot-up vehicles on blocks; a flock of Soviet-era jets in a mangled pile and its head office in a barren, windowless building whose concrete walls are pocked with bullet holes.
The eyes of Khali-Ullah Popal, the factory's 53-year-old union boss, reflect the hurt he says he feels every morning he returns to the site that he considers more than a second home.
"For five years, no one would come to this factory," he says. "There were daily rocket attacks. There was robbery, stealing and looting."
Most of Jangalak's machinery was taken away to Pakistan, never to be seen again. Even the manhole covers are gone from its littered streets.
Today, the echoes of a few recovered pieces whine and grind through the roofless buildings.
That's when there's electricity. When there isn't - usually several days a week - the deafening silence is broken only by the distant bang of a hammer or the creak of dangling sheets of twisted metal turning in the breeze.
"If it wasn't dear to my heart, I wouldn't come here to work," says Popal, a machinist and father of seven who has worked at Jangalak for 35 years. "We haven't been paid in three months, but we still come.
"We are hungry but we are still working here. The workers do so out of loyalty and pure hearts."
Popal knows the place like the back of his hand. He said it hurts to remember how it was - a progressive employer with cafeterias, medical clinics and a kindergarten.
His father and mother were killed by war but Popal, a typically passionate Afghan, says he did not cry so much for them as he did for Jangalak.
Everywhere he looks, he says there are reminders of how it used to be. He remembers the noise like his own mother's voice, and the crowds of workers that were like his siblings.
"I cry for this place every day," he says. "This is where I worked and lived. I spent all my life here. I am sad about the future, not only for this place but for this country. Yet I am optimistic."
Canadians in Afghanistan predict more hard times ahead for the country, but they are impressed by Afghans' fortitude and initiative.
Canadian soldiers are used to peacekeeping missions where the populace is content to sit back and let others do the work for them. Not in Afghanistan.
Col. Alain Tremblay, the head of the Canadian NATO contingent in Kabul, suggests Afghans do have reason to be sad and optimistic at the same time.
"There are still a lot of challenges to face," Tremblay said Sunday. But, more than any other place he's been, Tremblay said Afghans are "extremely keen to turn the page and move forward."
"I've never seen such a cultural approach and such a will."
The challenges are huge - Afghanistan's entire infrastructure has been destroyed and 25 years of war has left many Afghans bitter and disillusioned.
Tremblay says they need continuing help and patience from the international community. There are many small family enterprises popping up all over Kabul, he noted, but that's not enough to sustain a national economy.
"Until we are able to build the first layers of an industrial basis, they're not going to be able to be autonomous."
Jangalak was once such a place - a foundation of enterprise. But, for now, it survives by the grace of its predominantly aged workforce, pushing on with the relentlessness of their measured steps and determined gaze.
They have recovered about 100 different machines. They built their own blast furnace. And there is no shortage of scrap metal and aluminum, for the detritus of war is everywhere in Afghanistan.
As border patrols and controls are becoming more effective, more of that potentially valuable resource is being intercepted and rerouted to Jangalak before it disappears by the truckload into Pakistan.
The work is piling up - literally. Stacks of old cars, buses, armoured vehicles and aircraft crowd the complex. A dozen or more massive engines from old Soviet tanks arrived the other day.
But while the work accumulates, the orders do not.
The government is trying to negotiate Jangalak's sale. The workers are hoping that will mean a new day for their beloved factory.
"They used to give us food cards for cooking oil, wheat and rice," recalls Najuf Ali, a machinist wizened way beyond his 56 years. "We had health insurance. And we were very busy. I was happy working here.
"There are many good memories in this place; I would hate to see it disappear."
Mohammad Akbhar started making dyes for steel counterweights at Jangalak when he was 17; he's been there 38 years.
"We believe in God and we hope we will see some positive results from the government's efforts," says Akbhar.
He now operates the blast furance and still makes dyes by inserting wooden casts of the different counterweights in two heavy metal frames, then packing sand around them until it is hard.
The casts are then removed, channels are cut and the dyes are ready to receive the moulten material.
The youngest labourer on the premises is 14-year-old Ahmed Husaini, who works for his father Mohammad cutting and polishing marble in another part of the plant.
The Husainis returned from Iran eight months ago and rented space at Jangalak. Mohammad, who learned the trade from his father, said they had to cut away concrete hanging by reinforcement bar before they could start work.
They invested $350,000 US in the enterprise and have yet to see a profit.
The government promised them land and hasn't delivered. Police are taking money from his suppliers in Jalalabad and Medan-e-Warbuk, Mohammad said.
Khali-Ullah Popal shakes his head, his sad eyes welling with tears.
"I hope that this country will stand on its own two feet and be a good, shining country that is free and equitable," he says.
And, if it does, will Jangalak ever return to its former glory?
"If there is peace and stability, in 15 years I think it could happen."
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