We were sitting in her office overlooking the rust-colored foothills of the Hindu Kush, Zakia Zaki speaking Persian slow enough for me to follow. A man brought in mugs of black tea and joined us. Zaki was the manager of the radio station I was visiting in Jabul Saraj, at the mouth to the mythic Panjshir valley, then half a day's drive north of Kabul. The gentleman was her deputy.

It was a first: I had never seen a man serve a woman tea in Afghanistan.

But I knew at the time that Zaki was a special woman. She encouraged those around her to dream of an Afghanistan at peace. Before most NGOs had arrived in the country, indeed before the Taliban had even fallen in Kabul, Zaki had helped set up Radio Sada-e Sulh -- "Radio Voice of Peace." The station covered women's issues, human rights, education and local politics. It broadcast deliberately into Taliban-controlled areas.

Now, sitting comfortably in her office after a drive that had taken over an hour on new roads, past Turkish construction crews, Japanese aid organizations, and a titanic U.S. airbase, Zaki and I discussed her station and training needs, as well as her other local activities. She had participated in the tribal councils that laid the foundation for the first post-Taliban government. She was also headmistress of a local girl's school; she wanted to ensure that women with her optimistic and striving outlook were not rare in the next generation of Afghans, living hopefully under peace for the first time in a generation. She worked tirelessly and served as a rare force for inspiration in the crumbling country.

Zaki was gunned down June 5, shot seven times while she slept in her bed with her baby. Her six children were in the house at the time of the murder.

Her death is not surprising. One week before, a female television journalist was murdered, mirroring the murder two years ago of another popular female television presenter in Kabul and conforming to a pattern of deaths that is far too common these days. Elsewhere, radio stations -- the most popular and effective method of mass media in energy-starved, illiterate Afghanistan -- face daily threats and intimidation from both insurgents and government or police representatives. As an Afghan woman fighting gender discrimination, Zaki's job was doubly hard. She had received death threats for speaking her mind about the dangers of living under a blood-soaked government. She continued to persist.

This was not the work of the Taliban, that vague entity which receives far too much credit and blame in the internecine Afghan conflict.

We hear a lot about Taliban bombs targeting civilians and a drug economy threatening to undermine the Western-backed government in Kabul. Thousands have been killed in fighting that seems to get worse every year. But quietly, the political forces in Afghanistan that are in charge of bringing peace to the country are eroding expressions of democracy in favor of a return to the rule of the gun.

Zaki had frequently criticized commanders in her area. If the United States wants success in Afghanistan, it must push and caudle the leaders of that country so that they will respect the rule of law and the importance of free speech.

No one knows who was behind the murder. We will probably never know. The powerful in Afghanistan have a way of hiding their crimes. The warlords who masquerade in Afghanistan's new parliament are the same individuals who rule the country with force and impunity, and have the blood of civil war on their hands. They are part of the weak central government, but have increasing power in their own regions -- a feudalism that echoes the chaotic 1990s.

Zaki, who was 35, had described "Voice of Peace" as a place for local people, "the only place where they dare express themselves freely." She dared to show a new way. Let us hope her death speaks as loudly as her actions.

David Trilling is a freelance journalist. He worked with local media in Afghanistan from 2003 to 2005. He worked as Internews Afghanistan Project Manager.