An act of courage

Opinion: October 18, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

In April, I traveled around eastern Afghanistan with an extraordinary British aid worker, Linda Norgrove. I have a photo of her dressed in a long, black skirt and loose tunic, her hair under an enveloping shawl, as she stood beside several Afghan elders. I recall the respect those grizzled men showed her as she discussed their new crops, which had replaced opium poppy fields.

But hard-line militants, who couldn’t care less about Afghan farmers, kidnapped Norgrove two weeks ago as she drove to the site of an irrigation project in Kunar province. She was killed during an attempted rescue by U.S. special forces last week. She was 36 years old.

Ongoing investigation

There’s an ongoing investigation into whether Linda was accidentally killed by her American rescuers, and the debate over whether she could have been freed through negotiations rather than military action. I may have more to say about this later, but that’s not what I want to write about now.

I think it’s more important that people know about Linda’s commitment and courage, and why the project she directed produced results while so many Western aid projects fail.

I traveled to Jalalabad to visit Linda’s program, which was run by the U.S.-based contractor DAI and funded by the U.S. Agency for International Development, because I’d heard it was totally focused on Afghans. At the time, Linda was deputy director, preparing to take the reins of the $150 million program to improve Afghan agriculture.

There were only two expatriates on the project (and only one after Linda took over) directing 200 Afghan staff, including engineers, architects, and agronomists. Linda lived in a rented Afghan villa, a two-story home with a walled garden, as is common in Afghan cities. Dressed like an ordinary Afghan woman, she traveled in a car without extensive security or a military escort.

Yes, this was risky. But living outside protected compounds and military bases allowed Linda to establish relationships with village elders, who in turn protected the projects.

The bridge

I saw the results of these relationships. As we stood by the Shamshapoor bridge outside Jalalabad, Afghan elders explained that a previous bridge had been washed away because a foreign contractor didn’t know the river could rise five feet in a few hours.

This time, the bridge was designed by DAI’s Afghan engineers after consultation with local villagers. It stood firm, enabling 40,000 people in more than 20 villages to get their produce to market and their children to school. The bridge also helped farmers who had switched from growing poppy plants to other crops.

No doubt, some will conclude that her death proves all foreign aid workers in Afghanistan should retreat behind security barriers and sharply restrict their movements. I’m sure she would have rejected that conclusion.

Those who have the courage she did should be allowed to keep working closely with locals. Linda knew the risks but felt they were worth taking to help the Afghan people.

“She lived a short life and a full life,” her father, John Norgrove, said. Amen.

Trudy Rubin is a columnist and editorial-board member for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.