The Bribe To Exit Pakistan: 15 cents

Afghanistan, Pakistan agreed last week to joint patrols of their border, but official crossings remain lax.
August 30, 2006
CHAMAN, PAKISTAN

For a little more than the price of tea, Abdul Razzak, a trader, says he crosses illegally from Pakistan into Afghanistan every day.
Mr. Razzak, who stood recently near the border, preparing to cross, has no passport or identification documents of any kind. But that doesn’t matter: For only 10 rupees (about 15 cents), he bribes the border security forces to let him through. Sometimes he pays 20.
“I bargain for the price. All of these people,” he says, indicating the throngs of pedestrians moving toward the border check post, “when crossing the border, don’t have documents. They’re all paying the Frontier Constabulary the border security forces.”
Chaman, the main border crossing into Kandahar 60 miles away, is supposed to be a model of border security, symbolizing Pakistan’s commitment to containing the Taliban surge.
Instead, security measures are breached for mere pennies, bolstering the accusation that Taliban fighters based in Pakistan are infiltrating the volatile Afghan provinces of Kandahar and Helmand.
That accusation was most recently leveled by Gen. John Abizaid, commander of the US Central Command. He told reporters at Bagram air base that militants are using Pakistan as a base from which to infiltrate into Afghanistan. He was quick to add, however, that he did not believe the Pakistani government is conspiring with them.

“I think that Pakistan has done an awful lot in going after Al Qaeda and it’s important that they don’t let the Taliban groups be organized on the Pakistani side of the border,” he told reporters.

For 12 hours a day every day, 35,000 people pour through the Friend Gate at Chaman. Families and burqa-clad women stream from Pakistan to Afghanistan, gingerly bridging the divide in seconds. Border guards do a quick pat down, and random searches of bags, but mostly the stream continues uninterrupted, pacing through metal detectors that do not beep or produce any sounds.
Abdul Haleem, who was preparing to cross last week, says migrants can bypass even the occasional searches of pedestrians by paying 100 rupees (about $1.50) to hop on the back of amotorcycle . With young men perched on top, motorcycles roar through the checkpoint, seeming to stop for no one. As many as 4,000 motorcycles pass through Chaman every day, according to police sources. Mr. Haleem says many of them are illegally transporting people over the border.
Karem Mumtaz Ahmed, head of the Madina Mosque in Chaman, spoke recently of 12 men and their lethal commitment to jihad. Mr. Ahmed met them the night before their passage into Afghanistan, and said they had shaved their beards before crossing through Chaman.

“Yes, it’s true, people are going to southern Afghanistan from Pakistan,” he says. “The government of Pakistan is not sending its people from here. People are going by themselves…. It is the responsibility of Muslims to fight.”