RELIEF CONVOY BRAVES PERIL VALLEY MAN TRIES BRINGING FOOD TO AFGHAN REFUGEES.

Byline: Jason Kandel Staff Writer

Trying to deliver 60 tons of food for refugees in Afghanistan, West Hills humanitarian Ed Artis has talked and bribed his way through the region and now faces a treacherous trip to get relief supplies across the border.

In phone and e-mail conversations with the Daily News from Dushanbe, Tajikistan, about six hours north of the Afghanistan border, Artis said he planned to travel rough mountain roads through today to get into a country battered by U.S. bombing runs against the ruling Taliban militia.

``We've been delayed. We're frustrated,'' Artis said in a telephone interview from Dushanbe, where he had been since Oct. 19. ``There's a stack of humanity across the border. We can't wait any longer. People are going to start dying.''

Artis, a former Vietnam War combat medic who has delivered medical supplies to some of the most war-ravaged parts of the world for about 30 years, has been frustrated by delays and problems while the refugee totals mount.

Artis is chairman of Knightsbridge International, a nonprofit aid organization that has been recognized by the United Nations for its work. He and his team of four others, including Abul Khalili of the Canoga Park- based Afghanistan Relief Organization, plan to travel by truck with as many supplies as they can take.

Delayed by paperwork and government regulations, Artis left a cargo container of food behind, bribed several officials to cut through red tape and spent $2,000 to get a ``journalist'' visa.

Artis is hoping the Northern Alliance will provide protection once the group crosses into Afghanistan. With the bulk of the food being left behind, the group will bring medicine, food and blankets and buy what they can at bazaars in Afghanistan. He and his team have arranged for 15 tons of wheat to be delivered at the Afghan border.

``Lives will be lost and food that could have been well on its way into the hardest-hit regions within Afghanistan are now going to be greatly delayed,'' Artis said.

Tagging along with a Tajik police convoy of 30 vehicles to the border, the team is traveling over frozen dirt roads through the Badakhshan Mountains trying to beat the snows that will close the passes.

Once at the border, Artis plans to meet up with members of the Northern Alliance - which is fighting the Taliban - to arrange passage into Afghanistan.

The team expects to find as many as 150,000 refugees near the border and up to 200,000 refugees in one encampment near Kabul, the Afghan capital. The group is hoping to reach Jebul Seraj, where organizers say the situation could be critical.

Refugees have been fleeing Kabul to Jebul Seraj in the Panjshir Valley.

``We have to get there,'' said Abdul Satar, a member of the board of directors for the Afghanistan Relief Organization in Los Angeles. Satar has been coordinating efforts with Artis' group. ``This is a place that no other relief agency has reached. The fear is that people are dying from the cold. It's below zero and there is snow.''

Khalili and Afghanistan Relief Organization members traveled to Jebul Seraj last May, taking a container full of clothes, blankets, cash and food. Interviews with refugees then indicated about 85 children had died last winter.

Exacerbating the danger of the mission is the fact that there are few bridges and roads to get the supplies to the remote refugee areas.

And the group has been hampered by governmental delays and ``the corruption within the crisis,'' Artis said.

The container of food is too heavy to get across the mountain passes, and Tajik officials have delayed the group's progress and extorted money for credentials.

``I am firmly convinced that Murphy is running this show,'' he said. ``If we had simply tried to get into Tajikistan as members of a medical relief team, even one in transit to a war zone, we would have been delayed up to 30 days.

``There is something very wrong when this is allowed to happen.''

Artis and the team have traveled to Afghanistan before in the company of armed guards and translators. This time, it's different. Heavy bombs are dropping, and the worry now is that many refugees will freeze to death in the harsh winter.

But the team is determined.

``This trip is as right as rain,'' Artis said. ``We can't help all the refugees. Our efforts may be very small in the overall scheme of things, but we'll be right on the front lines, and hopefully we can help those refugees fleeing the battle.''