Allai survivors determined to brave winter in mountains

With his radio transistor pressed close to his right ear, Sultan Ahmed, 42, sits outside a tiny tea shop in Bana, the main town of the Allai tehsil (administrative unit) in Battagram district, 150 km north of the capital, Islamabad. The radio, which he dug out from the rubble of his house high in the mountains of Allai a week after the 8 October quake, transmits a news broadcast in Urdu from Radio Pakistan. The newscast, punctuated by sharp bursts of deafening static, starts with a report on the appeal made by United Nations Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, to quake survivors in Pakistan's mountains to move down to tented villages ahead of the worst winter weather. Sultan, who has walked three hours down from his village to collect food items from relief centres in Bana, and intends to walk back before evening, is unmoved by the appeal. Shaking his head to disagree with the UN chief, he said: "What do these people know of our lives? Of course we cannot leave." Sultan has every intention of braving the winter in the mountains, even in temperatures that routinely fall to minus 10 degrees centigrade or less. His wife, Aziza, and three adult sons are, he reports, in agreement with him. "None of us wants to leave. We have survived before, and we will survive now," he said, his dark eyes shining with conviction. The Allai villagers, inhabiting the harsh mountain valley adjacent to Battagram, are regarded as some of the toughest people in the country and also people who do not readily follow the advice of those they perceive as outsiders. While the Pakistani military and almost all relief agencies believe thousands of survivors of the quake that killed at least 80,000 will die in the remote mountains if they do not come down to tent villages where they can be provided with food and shelter, many are determined they will not leave their homes and ancestral lands. The reasons for this are complex. In the first place, villagers such as Sultan are reluctant to abandon the corn crop which they harvested and stored weeks before the quake. Secondly, in this most traditional of regions, for cultural reasons the men are unwilling to bring their wives down to settlements where they will be forced “to live in close proximity with unrelated men”. Lastly, they believe the military is attempting to move them permanently, to a settlement located beside the River Indus, near Bana, with a view to building a dam nearby that would flood the village. "I hear the news regularly. The army wants to build the Allai-Khawar dam in the mountains. We don’t want the dam because it would flood the villages. Now they have seen their opportunity, and wish to clear the mountains so they can move ahead with their plans," said Sultan. Others from the Allai area, including Nazim Hassan, from the Sosal Gali district, agree with his assessment. "The military also wants to break the influence of local, traditional leaders in the area, and thus gain total dominance over decision-making," he said. In Allai, influential families - given the status of royalty under local tradition - hold immense sway. The fact that Allai villagers remain angry with the military for failing to airlift aid into the district until four days after the quake, has added to the complications, with local people in no mood to cooperate. "No one came to help us. I single-handedly dug out my nephew and a cousin from layers and layers of rubble. My cousin was alive when I dragged him out, but died a day later, as they were no hospitals in the area," said Nazim Hussain. Although the still badly damaged Thakot-Bana road was opened only three weeks ago, and is still repeatedly blocked by landslides, villagers said that the military could have used helicopters and come to assist them. Villagers believe dozens, possibly hundreds, of lives could have been saved had the army moved in sooner. In an area known for blood feuds that have decimated families, where a failure to take revenge is seen as cowardice and where almost every man owns a gun – forgiveness is not likely to come swiftly. While the military maintains continued seismic activity in the mountains make the area unsafe, villagers insist the military is exaggerating the problem to force people down. They also claim reports of volcanic activity in the area were “concocted” by the army, as part of its plan to force local people off their land. The issue of displacement caused by dams has already caused immense friction between local populations and authorities in various parts of the country, and the proposed Allai-Khawar dam has been planned for years. "If they leave their lands, they will lose them. The property will be seized by others or taken over by the authorities, and there are no papers to determine ownership in these parts. The land is handed down over centuries from father to son, and can be retained only by remaining on it," said Azmat Wazir, a doctor in Abbotabad whose family has roots in the Allai area. He also explained villagers were "deeply, emotionally attached" to their painstakingly terraced land in the hills, while, if they moved down now, they would be forced to sell livestock, their most valuable asset, at low prices. While this dilemma continues, aid efforts in Pakistan's quake-affected areas are now focused on the 300,000 or so villagers still located high up in the mountains, mainly in the Allai and Neelum valley areas of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. With the first heavy snows expected within two weeks, the delivery of tents and food to remote areas has been speeded up. Sultan's family received a tent 10 days ago and stubbornly believe it will keep them alive on their own land throughout the bitter winter.