CHAMAN, Pakistan — Sleeping in a freezing cab, running out of money and worried about militant attacks, Ghulab is one of thousands of truck drivers stranded as a result of Pakistan’s blockade of the Afghan border to NATO and U.S. war supplies.
But the drivers and the businessmen who run what has been a lucrative trade for most of the past decade say they support the decision to shut the frontier in retaliation for coalition airstrikes almost two weeks ago that killed 24 Pakistani troops in two remote border outposts.
“We risk our lives and take these supplies to Afghanistan for NATO, and in return they are killing our soldiers,” said Jan, whose fuel truck is parked in a terminal in the dusty, dangerous border town of Chaman, in southwestern Baluchistan. “This is unacceptable, and we unanimously support the government over closing the border.”
Given the current anti-U.S. sentiment in Pakistan, drivers might not want to call publicly for the border to reopen. There is broad anger throughout the country over the attack, and the U.S. faces a challenge in repairing a relationship critical to its hopes of ending the Afghan war.
“I hope Allah grants my prayer that this NATO supply ends permanently,” said Ghaza Gul, a 45-year-old driver who has been in the trucking profession since he was 10, when he washed the vehicles and made tea.
“I would rather die of hunger than carry these shipments,” he said, sitting on a dirty mat with other drivers at a terminal in Karachi, the port city where the supplies are unloaded.
Despite such declarations, the drivers have remained with their vehicles. That suggests the trucking companies think the stoppage will be temporary. The trucks are parked at terminals close to the border, some in large towns in the area.
Pakistan closed its two Afghan crossings in Chaman and Torkham, in the northwest Khyber tribal area, almost immediately after NATO aircraft attacked two army posts along the border Nov. 26. The supply lines account for 40 percent of the fuel, clothes, vehicles and other “non-lethal” supplies for the Afghan war.
President Barack Obama and other American officials have expressed their condolences for the deaths and promised a full investigation into what they have said was an accident. But this has done little to assuage anger in Pakistan, where the military has continued to describe the attack as a deliberate act of aggression.
Many analysts think Pakistan and the U.S. want to avoid a total rupture of their difficult relationship because of its mutual strategic importance. Pakistan needs American aid and cannot afford diplomatic isolation; Washington wants Islamabad’s help with Afghanistan.
For that reason, most people think the trucks will start rolling again within a few weeks.
“It won’t be much longer,” said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. “They can’t sustain it indefinitely. It would alienate the whole world.”
NATO officials have said the coalition has built a stockpile of military and other supplies that could keep operations in Afghanistan running at their current level for several months even if the route through Pakistan remains closed.
