Western Pakistan is a fascinating place. It’s remote, arid, tribal, and these days a Taliban stronghold; not the friendliest of spots for westerners planning on coming home still attached to their heads. It was slightly safer when I was there in 1997, although it still had its moments (see My Project Went Boom).
As a government-sanctioned traveller carrying out mining-related business, I was allowed to go pretty much anywhere off road as long as I took 2 guards, known as Levies men, with me at all times. My job was prospecting for copper deposits hot on the heals of BHP’s massive Reko Diq discovery in the Chagai Hills (pronounced “cha ee”), although the term hills is perhaps being a bit kind.
But the Balochistan desert was still an iffy place once you got off the road, infested with drug convoys carrying opiates, coming through at night, heading from Afghanistan to the Makran Coast of Iran on the Gulf of Oman. There, the contraband was loaded onto speed boats heading to Dubai, from where it was transhipped to the end users in Europe. Groups of twenty to thirty vehicles, heavily protected by anti aircraft guns mounted on pick up trucks, drove through Pakistan as fast as possible, across the salt pans and reg desert, not stopping for anyone. Shoot first and fuck off quickly was their modus operandi. I’d noticed the ubiquitous tyre tracks all heading in the same north-south direction.
One fine day, off the road north of Dalbandin (a hellish dustbowl, loosely and amusingly described as a “city” in wikipedia) heading to the Chagai Hills, my Balochi geologist-cum-guide Naseem, politely told me we had to go and pay our respects to the local head man who was somehow connected to the drug convoys. As long as he knew we were working in the area, we’d be left alone and, hopefully, not shot by crazed smugglers packing 50mm guns. Seemed like a reasonable trade off to me, and besides, Naseem said he knew the man, so it’d be quick.
We pulled up to a square mud brick compound with a small metal door. Naseem knocked, and a small slot opened at eye level. In a pure Indiana Jones moment, a pair of intense dark eyes peered suspiciously out at us. Muttering something incomprehensible in Balochi, Naseem handed a business card through the slot which quickly closed with metallic bang. We waited.
After half an hour in the blazing sun, the door opened and a flurry of locals came out, jumped into their trucks and left in a cloud of dust. We were ushered in to a large carpeted room, with big cushions on the floor but otherwise devoid of furniture. A low round table sat in the middle of the room, heavy with local food: grilled, curried and fried goat, lamb, roti, eggs, onion and lentil daal, hard white cheese and rose water to drink. It was quite the spread and obviously meant for us. Sure enough we were beckoned over by a large man carrying a machine gun and invited to help ourselves. He was one of 3 or 4 guards stationed around the room with an impressive don’t-even-think-about-it look to them. I didn’t.
There was a knock on the door and our host, who I’ll called Rasoul, came in and warmly greeted Naseem. They obviously knew each other well. My turn next, and after the usual extended courtesies, we sat back down with Rasoul to eat lunch. Naseem filled him in on where we wanted to go, what we were doing, and that was it. We were (apparently) safe to get on with our work.
Except for the slightly worrying moment when Rasoul invited me to visit Afghanistan with him. His family owned a small copper mine and he asked –politely- if it would be of interest to our company. I could see the dollar signs switching on behind his eyes. Everyone there knew BHP’s giant Reko Diq project so western mining companies were obviously going to pay top dollar for copper wherever it was.
My lame response about not having an Afghan visa so I’d better not was met with howls of derisory laughter from Rasoul and the guards. I wouldn’t need a visa if I went with Rasoul because his brother was the governor of Helmand province where the mine was. This was rapidly becoming a bit of a squeaky bum moment, and starting to look like an invitation I couldn’t refuse. A vivid image of me, 5 years hence chained to a tree in a small Afghan village with my friend Ahmed the goat, popped into my brain prompting some testicular shrinkage and more than a few beads of sweat.
Luckily Naseem, thinking quickly, bailed me out using all the local courtesies he could muster: Oh, very sorry, we’d love to but..gosh is that the time? We really must be going- we couldn’t possibly do it because our schedule was tight and besides, what would the Levie’s men think, eh? Don’t want them getting ticked off at us now, do we? After all, they had guns and they were with me to make sure I didn’t do anything daft (like bugger off to Helmand with a war lord) and would get into pots of trouble with their commander back in Dalbandin if I got kidnapped and fed to the camel spiders.
We ate up and left, much to my relief.
A few months later I was supping a pint in Budapest, chatting to a well-connected friend who worked for a western Embassy. I told him the story and showed him Rasoul’s business card (yes, international smugglers carry business cards, who knew?) His eyes opened wide with recognition and he let out a soft whistle. Rasoul was one of the leading smugglers of opiates into Europe. Ruthless, rich, powerful, nigh on untouchable and well connected. And I’d turned him down. Which in my mind makes me a bad ass.
Still thankful I didn’t know at the time!
yeah well, I didn’t know till I met the guy!