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KLMNO THE WORLD
With Carter in Pyongyang, Kim heads to China MULTIPLE
INTERESTS
North Korean leader sought visit,
is courting Beijing BY CHICO HARLAN
tokyo — North Korean leader Kim Jong Il made a sudden trip to China on Thursday — only hours after formerU.S. president Jimmy Carter arrived in Pyong- yang anticipating ameetingwith the ailing chairman. Carter’s trip is humanitarian
DAVID NAKAMURA/THE WASHINGTON POST Aman washes a Toyota Corolla at a curbside carwash in Kabul. Some dealers say 90 percent of passenger vehicles in the capital are Corollas. In Afghanistan, a car for the masses
World’s used Corollas are the vehicle of choice for a nation unfazed by 200,000 miles on the odometer Muridwas selling a 1990mod-
BY DAVID NAKAMURA IN KABUL
magnet for foreign occupying forces that never seem to leave, it is also the landwhere oldCorollas fromaround the globe come to die. According to some car dealers in Kabul, 90 percent of
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passenger vehicles on the increasingly congested roads of the capital are Corollas, somemore than 20 years old,with 200,000 miles on their odometers, still chugging along over rocky dirt roads. “Here is themuseumof old cars,” snortedAbdulQahar
Nadi, managing director of Afghan Auto Limited, the country’s only Toyota distributor authorized by the parent company in Japan to sell newmodels. Nadi has upped his sales from64 vehicles in 2006 to 401 last year, but he says it is hard to persuade Afghans to pay more when used models are ubiquitous. “It’s not good for the health. There’s big pollution,” he said.
Shipped from Japan, Germa-
ny, Canada and the United States, used Corollas pour through customs, mostly via Dubai, in the United Arab Emir- ates, andwind up in used-car lots clustered in three hilly neighbor- hoods on Kabul’s outskirts, hav- ing been banished from down- town during a rapid expansion of dealerships after the Talibanwas driven frompower in 2001. Prospective buyers can choose
froma surprisingly diverse selec- tion of Corollas, including se- dans, hatchbacks, and yellow
stationwagons once used as taxis in faraway lands. Ahmad Murid, 30, a dealer in
the northern Kabul neighbor- hood of Khairkana, said buyers generally prefer German-manu- factured Corollas, which suppos- edly get the best gas mileage. White Corollas, which show less dirt than dark-colored ones, fetch up to $1,500 more than an identicalmodel in black, he said. Drivers usually don’t care
about odometer readings, since they are likely to replace most of the parts, anyway.
fghanistan, graveyard of empires — and Toyota Corollas. If this war-torn nation of 29 million is a
el with a dingy interior and 292,213 kilometers on the dash for $4,000. How long could someone expect to drive the clunker? “Ten years,”Murid suggested. And after that? “You can sell it back tome,” he
said with a grin. Murid’s own car, a red 1993
Corolla, was parked next to his sale inventory. If the price were right, he said, he would sell it on the spot. The story of the Corolla’s rise
in Afghanistanmirrors the coun- try’smodern history, said Najeeb “Amiri” Ullah, head of a union that represents 130 dealers in Kabul. When cars were introduced to
Afghanistan 40 years ago, there were American Chevrolets, Ger- man Mercedes-Benzes and Rus- sian Volgas, along with the Japa- nese Toyotas, Ullah said. But during the Soviet occupation of the 1980s, Afghans did not want to be seen driving Western cars and mostly stuck with Volgas, Japanese cars being an accept- able alternative. Over time, Toyota quality
trumped Volga political expedi- ency, Ullah said. A cottage indus- try emerged ofmechanics versed in the art of keeping Corollas running and body shops that dismantled Japanese-manufac- tured Corollas — whose steering wheel was on the right side, which is illegal in Afghanistan— for spare parts. From 1996 to 2001, when the
Taliban was in power, it contin- ued to import Corollas and earned revenue by smuggling them into Pakistan and selling
them without having to pay cus- toms fees or taxes, Ullah said. In late 2001, the used-car in-
dustry multiplied from 75 deal- ers to more than 500 as Kabul’s population swelled and more people began driving, creating daily gridlock in the city center. There are about 500,000 regis- tered vehicles in the city, whose population is now4.5million, far higher than in the Taliban era. But there are just a handful of traffic signals, which most driv- ers ignore anyway, adhering in- stead to the rules of going as fast as possible and always assuming the right of way. The automobile industry is so
potentially lucrative that it has lured such dignitaries as Mah- moud Karzai, brother of Presi- dent Hamid Karzai, who co- founded Afghan Auto Limited. (Nadi said that Karzai has since sold his shares to co-founder HabibGulzar, owner of the coun- try’s Coca-Cola distributor.) Toy- ota also dominates Afghanistan’s sport-utility vehicle market with Land Cruisers and 4Runners, many of which have been cus- tom-made bulletproof. Only in big trucks does Mercedes break Toyota’s dominance. The final consideration for a
Corolla buyer in Afghanistan is how to set oneself apart in a sea of similar-looking cars. Some have done it by adding rear-win- dow stickers with curious Eng- lish slogans: “Dare toWear Black!” “No Time for Love.” And: “In GodWe Trust.”
nakamurad@washpost.com
Special correspondent Quadratullah Andar contributed to this report.
DIGEST CHILE
NASA offers advice on trapped miners Chile is consulting the U.S.
space agency, as well as its own navy, for advice on maintaining the health of 33 miners facing a three-month wait before being rescuedfroma collapsedgoldand copper mine. Psychiatrists and nutritionists
fromNASA discussed in a confer- ence call ways to help the miners cope with the physical and men- tal challenges of being trapped underground for such a long peri- od, Chilean Health Minister Jai- me Manalich said Thursday. A delegation may visit the site, he said. The miners were discovered
Aug. 22 after being trapped 2,300 feet underground for 17 days. A three-month rescue is “unheard of” in the industry, said Rob Mc- Gee of theU.S.Mine RescueAsso- ciation. The miners’ only contact with
the outside world is through six- centimeter-wide drill holes through which they receive food, water and medicine. “It’s ex- tremely fragile,” Manalich said. “It’s truly an umbilical cord.” —Bloomberg News
IRAN
Opposition leaders taboo topic for media Iranian media have been pro-
hibited from mentioning opposi- tion leaders, including former president Mohammad Khatami, under a purported media direc- tive that appeared this week on pro-reformWeb sites. The document, whose authen-
ticity has not been independently verified, requires Iranian news- papersandnewsagencies to shun coverage of Khatami and former presidential candidates Mir Hos- seinMoussaviandMehdi Karrou- bi, who allege extensive vote fraud in the reelection last year of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. If the reports are true, they
markanother step by Iran toward complete control of the media. It closed nearly all reformist publi- cations and putting curbs on the Internet after the disputed elec- tion.
—Associated Press
Indian police told to change tac- tics inKashmir: Security forces in Kashmir need to find non-lethal means of controlling violent mobs to prevent more deaths in the unrest roiling the Indian-
ruled region, Indian PrimeMinis- terManmohan Singh said in rare remarksdirectlyquestioninggov- ernment tactics. Violence related to near-daily protests against In- dian control of Kashmir has led to the deaths of at least 64 people in the past twomonths, mostly civil- ians.
Leadership fight may hurt Ja- pan’s stimulus effort: Japanese PrimeMinisterNaoto Kan faces a fight to lead the ruling party from his most powerful rival, hamper- ing the two-month-old adminis- tration’s efforts to combat defla- tion and a surging currency. Ichi- ro Ozawa, whose campaign fund- ing scandals cost him the top two posts in the ruling Democratic Party of Japan, said he will run against Kan on Sept. 14. Former prime minister Yukio Hatoyama, whoresigned in Junetomakeway for Kan, said he will back Ozawa.
6 Sunni fighters die in ambush in Iraq: Insurgents killed six mem- bers of the government-allied Sunnimilitiaknownas theSahwa or Awakening Councils in an am- bush in Diyala province, north- east of Baghdad, offering no re- spite to a nation still reeling after countrywide attacks on security forcesWednesday that leftat least
ALVARO BARRIENTOS/ASSOCIATED PRESS
Brothers in arms carry the coffins of two Spanish Civil Guards killed in Afghanistan, during the funeral in central headquarters of Civil Guard in Logrono, northern Spain, on Thursday. They were killed by an Afghan manWednesday at aNATObase during a training class for local police recruits.
56 dead.
France continues Roma expul- sions: France repatriated 300 moreRomaGypsies asanopinion
poll showed President Nicolas Sarkozy’s crackdown on crime and immigration enjoyed solid public support despite criticism from the church and rights
groups. Flights departing from Paris and Lyon brought the num- ber ofRomaexpelled fromFrance this year to more than 8,000. —From news services
in nature: a solo mission to rescue a U.S. citizen detained in Pyongyang. According to one State Department official, Kim had requested that he come. The fact that theNorthKorean
leader made a rare foreign trip that overlapped with Carter’s visit suggests the impoverished country is struggling with more pressing interests, analysts said. Kim must build support for an imminent power transfer to his son, and he needs China’s help. Less than two weeks from
now, Pyongyang plans to host a delegates’ meeting that many North Korea-watchers say will herald the rise of Kim’s youngest son, Kim Jong Eun. The planned celebration comes as North Ko- rea, cut off from most interna- tional aid and battered by floods, is dealing with food shortages and worsening economic condi- tions. Those circumstances “make it
impossible to create a festival mood for the succession,” said Cheong Seong Chang, a North Korea expert at Seoul’s Sejong Institute. According to Cheong, Kim’s trip to China — his second since May — amounts to a plea for Chinese aid. China’s answer might determine whether North Korea can hold its September meeting, Cheong said. Neither North Korea nor Chi-
na confirmed Kim’s trip. But an official in South Korea’s presi- dential office said Kim left Man- po, North Korea, aboutmidnight Wednesday. South Korean offi- cials are uncertain whether Kim Jong Eun is accompanying his father, though several media re- ports said he was. “If Kim Jong Eun went with
him, that would be a sign that they’re accelerating the transi- tion and they’re a little nervous,” said a U.S. official in Seoul, who spoke on the condition of ano- nymity. “Because I think it’smore logical that you’d roll him out domestically, then take himover- seas.” The North Korean train pro-
cession stopped Thursday in the northeastern Chinese city of Ji- lin, where Kim Il Sung — North Korea’s founder and Kim Jong Il’s father — once attended school..
When Carter arrived in Pyong-
yang on Wednesday, North Ko- rea’s party news agency released photos fromthe airport, where a girl gave the former president flowers. Carter then shared a “conversation in a warm atmo- sphere” with Kim Yong Nam, a Political Bureau leader. North Korea gave no indication, howev- er, that Carter met with Kim Jong Il. Carter had planned a brief trip
to secure the release of 31-year- old Aijalon Gomes of Boston, who was sentenced to eight years’ hard labor after illegally crossing the border in January. On Thursday, there was no
sign that Carter had secured Gomes’s release, and the former president appeared to have ex- tended his trip by at least a day, South Koreanmedia reported. Carter has a track record in
North Korea that, according to one U.S.-based North Korea ex- pert, left Obama administration officials feeling at least a little nervous about his trip. In 1994, the former president
parlayed a similar private trip to Pyongyang into a show of free- lance diplomacy—meeting with KimIl Sung to clear theway for a freeze in Pyongyang’s nuclear program. Although they liked the outcome, U.S. policymakers expressed unease about the pro- cess,which had turned theminto bystanders. The chance that the current
rescue mission could turn into something more seemed vastly diminished by Kim’s departure for China. U.S. relations with North Ko-
rea, always tense, have grown more strained in the past 18 months in the face of the North’s bellicose behavior, including a nuclear test in 2009 and the torpedoing of South Korea’s Cheonan warship in March. The Obama administration has ad- hered to a two-track diplomatic approach, applying pressure with sanctions —more stringent measures are due to be an- nounced within weeks — while keeping the door open for negoti- ations if North Korea accepts nuclear disarmament. In a speech this year in Seoul,
Carter was critical of the two- track approach, urgingWashing- ton and Seoul to take the initia- tive to hold “unrestrained direct talks.” Daniel Pinkston, a Seoul-
based researcher for the Interna- tional Crisis Group, said the North’s domestic issues made it unrealistic to expect any diplo- matic breakthrough now. “As far as the wiggle room for
Carter to cut some deal, there was no space,” Pinkston said. “North Korea is focused on inter- nal issues with succession, eco- nomic deprivation and all these other problems.”
harlanc@washpost.com
Staff writer William Wan and special correspondents Yoonjung Seo and Zhang Jie contributed to this report.
FRIDAY, AUGUST 27, 2010
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