Munda 6 1988- They were fingerprinting her in an administrative hut in Camp Munda 6, a Pakistani show camp. She had committed no crime. They were merely doing it to "keep track" of the refugees. They put her inked fingers to a piece of already yellowed and soggy paper. The paper stack defied nesting in neat orderly piles that 19th century bureaucrats dream of. Sheets buckled and swelled against each other and the file folders that were meant to keep them. They would never be used or retrieved. It was just another form of subtle bureaucratic terrorism designed at making sure that Afghan refugees never felt too comfortable in what Pakistan regarded as its territory.

It was far too easy to take pictures like this in Pakistan.

copyright 2005©David Dienstag
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