EPISODE 301
Airdate: October 30, 2003
Overview
TV and Web Credits
Press
>>Transcript
OVERVIEW
Afghanistan, A HOUSE FOR HAJI BABA
Life after war in a former Taliban stronghold
After covering the U.S. war in Afghanistan, NPR reporter
Sarah Chayes decided to give up her job as a journalist and
remain in Afghanistan to help rebuild the country. "I feel like
my destiny is tied up with the destiny of this place," says
Chayes, who traded her tape recorder for a pickax and shovel
to help reconstruct a village outside Kandahar. FRONTLINE/World's
Brian Knappenberger chronicles Chayes's bumpy transformation
from objective journalist to impassioned aid worker battling
bureaucratic red tape, corruption and dangerous warlords. read
more
Moscow, RICH IN RUSSIA
The brave new world of young capitalists and tycoons
FRONTLINE/World's Sabrina Tavernise, a New York
Times reporter who covered Russia for six years, meets the
young capitalists who are remaking Moscow and examines the rise
of Russia's oligarchs -- the men who became wealthy during the
wild privatization period after the fall of communism. She interviews
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the richest man in Russia and principal
owner of Yukos, Russia's largest oil company, who was recently
arrested by Russian authorities. Tavernise also meets Boris
Berezovsky, a billionaire who fled to London, where he has just
been granted political asylum. read
more
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TV AND WEB CREDITS
A HOUSE FOR HAJI BABA
Producer / Reporter / Videographer: BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER; FRONTLINE
Story Editor: KEN DORNSTEIN; Sound / Additional Camera: ANTON
GOLD; Editors: GREG MACDONALD; MICHAEL SIMOLLARI; Music: JIM
DOOLEY; Translation: SAMIR ASEEL; NAIM MAJROOH; Production Assistant:
KATE ROMERO; Consultant: EVE LYMAN; Additional Materials: ABC
NEWS VIDEOSOURCE; AP / WIDE WORLD PHOTOS: BBC WORLDWIDE; Co-Producers:
MARC HALPERIN; MARLA LEWIN HALPERIN; Executive Producer: LARRY
HART
RICH IN RUSSIA
Reporter: SABRINA TAVERNISE; Producer: MARIAN MARZYNSKI; Videographer
/ Editor: JASON LONGO; Additional Materials: TYCOON COURTESY
OF NEW YORKER FILMS; Produced in association with The New
York Times
FOR FRONTLINE/WORLD 301
Coordinating Producer for KQED: RACHEL RANEY; Associate Producer:
SHERAZ SADIQ; Business Manager: SUZANNE ROMAINE; Web Producer:
ANGELA MORGENSTERN; Web Editor: SARA MILES; Web Site Design:
SUSAN HARRIS, FLUENT STUDIOS; Web Reporting: KELLY WHALEN; Promotion:
ERIN MARTIN KANE; CHRIS KELLY; Community Engagement: BRENT QUAN
HALL; ELLEN SCHNEIDER, ACTIVE VOICE; Interns: JUVERIA ALEEM;
WANG FENG; SHILPI GUPTA; Legal: ERIC BRASS; DAVID MOYCE; Satellite
Photos: SPACE IMAGING; Theme Music: SUPREME BEINGS OF LEISURE;
Online Editor: MICHAEL H. AMUNDSON; Sound Mix: JIM SULLIVAN;
Post Production Supervisor: CHRIS FOURNELLE; Post Production
Assistant: CHETIN CHABUK; Series Design: JOHN MACGIBBON; FRONTLINE
Coordinating Producer: ROBIN PARMELEE; FRONTLINE Production
Manager: TIM MANGINI; FRONTLINE Series Manager: JIM BRACCIALE;
KQED VP, TV Station Manager: DEANNE HAMILTON; Executive in charge
for KQED: SUE ELLEN MCCANN; Executive in charge for WGBH/FRONTLINE:
SHARON TILLER; Series Editor: STEPHEN TALBOT; Executive Producer:
DAVID FANNING
WEB SITE 301 (Afghanistan,Mosow)
Web Producer: ANGELA MORGENSTERN; Web Site Design: SUSAN HARRIS,
FLUENT STUDIOS;
Web Editor: SARA MILES; Series Editor: STEPHEN TALBOT; Associate
Producer: SHERAZ SADIQ; Web Reporting: WANG FENG, BRIAN KNAPPENBERGER,
LYSSA MUDD, KELLY WHALEN; Interactive Interns: JUVERIA ALEEM,
WANG FENG; Web Promotion: JESSICA SMITH; Special Thanks: AMANDA
HIRSCH, DAVID JOHNS, SAM BAILEY, WEN STEPHENSON, SUZANNE ROMAINE,
ERIC BRASS, DAVID MOYCE, EMILY COVEN, TIM OLSON, JOHN BRIGGS
& YAHOO! NEWS
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PRESS REACTION
Sarah Chayes...quit National Public Radio -- where she'd been
a Paris-based foreign correspondent -- and became a humanitarian
worker in southern Afghanistan.
A wise career move? Maybe not. But Chayes, who has two degrees
from Harvard, seems to enjoy her new challenge, as evident by
Thursday night's Frontline/World segment, "A House for
Haji Baba." Haji Baba is an 85-year- old man in Kandahar (the
Taliban's former stronghold) who benefits from Chayes' benevolence.
He's everything Chayes is not: poor, elderly and a hostage to
circumstances that have reduced his living environment to dust
and rubble.
If Chayes and Haji Baba have anything in common it's their
outspokenness and determination. Defying tradition, Chayes dresses
like an Afghan man in Kandahar (complete with a loose-fitting
turban called a lungee), drives her own all-terrain vehicle
and directs the rebuilding effort of Haji Baba's house.
Because she is tall and could conceivably be Afghan (some
in Afghanistan have similar brown hair and piercing eyes, though
her white skin stands out), Chayes is deluged with stares and
quizzical looks. "All the time people wonder if I'm a man or
a woman," she tells Frontline/World reporter Brian Knappenberger.
"I'll hear kids say, 'That's a woman.' I'll turn around and
say, 'Yeah, yeah -- that's a woman.' " If the Taliban were still
in power they'd want to eliminate Chayes, but this is the new
Afghanistan, where many Westerners (including U.S. troops) operate
in a country that remains one of the poorest -- and most chaotic
and corrupt -- on earth. In her capacity as Kandahar director
of the nonprofit organization Afghans for Civil Society, Chayes
has to maneuver through the surrealistic bureaucracy that threatens
to undermine Haji Baba's rebuilding project. Warlords and former
warlords still have an overwhelming amount of power in post-Taliban
Afghanistan, as Chayes discovers when the quarry that's supposed
to provide her stones suddenly backs out. It turns out the governor
of Kandahar, a former warlord named Gul Agha Shirzai, illegally
seized the quarry and wants all the stones for his own profiteering.
The footage of Chayes trying to meet with Shirzai, then succeeding,
is amazing. As she walks toward his office, a drug trafficker
-- reportedly the most notorious opium dealer in Kandahar --
walks out. Once inside, Chayes insists on getting stones, which
are promised by Shirzai and his deputy. Will those promises
be kept? Will Haji Baba get his house? Will Chayes hold up under
stress that might fell other humanitarian workers?
Frontline/World found a great story in Chayes and Haji
Baba. This 30-minute segment -- part of a hourlong show that
also features a segment on capitalists and tycoons in Russia
-- has tension, riveting "characters" and themes that are important
to understand given the continuous talk from Washington about
rebuilding and democratizing Iraq and Afghanistan.
--San Francisco Chronicle
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