In my previous post, I described how I found myself serving as a governance advisor to the Chairman of the Provincial Council of Ghazni Province in Afghanistan, instead of as the small business development and financing advisor for which I was contracted.
I first met the Chairman in advance of one of the Council’s monthly meetings (to which we civilian advisors had an open invitation). Immediately the Chairman saw me, with my gray beard and receding hairline, he knew I had to be an educated and erudite man with whom he could work and from whom he could gain wisdom and sage advice (OK, those are my words, not his)! But, age is highly respected in the Afghan culture and we did hit it off extremely well from the very start. Soon, we were discussing development plans for the province, how he might better manage the Council, what he should expect from its members, and how to approach sources of financing (mainly donor organizations active in Afghanistan) for the many projects he and the Council had planned and for which they needed funding.
Lunch on base and planning for the Council Meeting
On occasion we invited him to our Polish-led military base to have lunch and meet with us on the many plans he had for the province. He was a very, very brave, dedicated man who genuinely wanted to help “re-build” his country. Coming to the Polish base (which was constantly monitored by the Taliban) put a big, red “X” on his back as being a traitor and collaborator with the infidels—that would be us. (For security reasons, there were a very limited number of times per week we civilians were even permitted off-base, and only for a few hours at a time. He always readily accepted our invitations to “come to us”. Candidly, as I sit here writing about and reflecting on this, I don’t think we fully appreciated just how much he was endangering his own life by coming to the base.
I will never, ever forget one Tuesday when he came to have lunch with us; we discussed his many plans and projects and mapped out the way forward (all through translators of course). We planned the agenda for the next Council meeting scheduled for the following week. Everyone was very enthused and looking forward to a lively and animated meeting.
Devastation
On Thursday (two days later), our exuberance vanished in a heartbeat. We learned that as he was returning home from his work at the Council offices in Ghazni, he had been assassinated—by the Taliban. We were devastated.
Shortly thereafter, I was asked to extend my contract for a second year…I agreed.
Chairman--sitting on the right-hand side of the person at the head of the table