Tweet
Afghan government names son of slain ex-leader as Peace Council head
By Hamid Shalizi | Reuters – Sat, Apr 14, 2012
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government on Saturday appointed Salahuddin Rabbani, the son of slain statesman Burhanuddin Rabbani, to replace his father and lead the country's High Peace Council charged with reaching out to Taliban insurgents.
Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani was head of the council when he was assassinated last September by an insurgent carrying a bomb hidden in a turban, a major setback to reconciliation efforts with the Afghan Taliban, and exploratory moves towards peace talks.
Salahuddin Rabbani is currently Afghanistan's ambassador to Turkey, and his appointment as Kabul's chief peace negotiator with the Taliban ends a seven-month gap at the top of the 70-member council as the Taliban intensifies a spring bombing offensive in the leadup to the summer fighting months.
"The presence of foreign troops has prolonged conflict and insecurity," he said in a statement issued by President Hamid Karzai's office, aimed at mollifying insurgents who demand the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
"We will have achievement in the peace process when the leadership is in the hands of Afghans. Without it we cannot move it forward and get the nation's confidence," he said.
His job will be made more difficult by the Taliban's refusal to deal with Karzai's Western-backed government, whose officials it calls U.S. "stooges". Last month the Taliban suspended exploratory peace negotiations with the United States.
Rabbani's appointment was "suitable for consolidating national unity and preventing foreign interference", Karzai said in the statement.
The assassination of his father last year in Kabul's upmarket Wazir Akhbar Khan neighborhood triggered a major diplomatic rift with Pakistan, with Afghan officials accusing the Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, of having a role in his killing.
An investigative delegation established by Karzai said evidence and a confession provided by a man involved in Rabbani's killing on September 20 had revealed that the bomber was Pakistani and the assassination had been plotted in Pakistan. Islamabad angrily rejected the allegation.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, was a celebrated former Afghan Mujahideen leader who fought against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s.
His Jamiat-e-Islami fighters were among the first to reach Kabul after the Soviet exodus in 1989, paving the way for him to become president until his ousting by the Taliban in 1996.
(Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
New chairman for Afghan peace council elected
KABUL, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Afghan High Peace Council on Saturday elected Salahuddin Rabbani as the new chairman to lead the 70-member peace body, said a statement issued by the Presidential Palace here.
"During a special meeting of High Peace Council members held on Saturday in the Presidential Palace, attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai ,the council approved and elected Salahuddin Rabbani as the chairman of the peace council," the statement said.
Salahuddin Rabbani is the son of former Afghan President and Chairman of Peace Council Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed at his Kabul house on September 20 last year by a man who pretended to be a messenger from Taliban.
The peace council was set up by President Karzai in October 2010 to broker peace with the Taliban insurgents and other militant groups opposing the government.
Afghan government has repeatedly said that the door is open for talks with those Taliban who severe ties with al-Qaida network, renounce violence and accept the constitution.
The Taliban militant group, has turned down peace talks unless the foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan, also vowed to continue fighting Afghan government troops and some 130,000 NATO and U.S. forces stationed in the country.
31 Killed in Nuristan Commandos Operation
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 14 April 2012
As many as 31 people have been killed in an Afghan commandos operation in eastern Nuristan province in the past three days, local officials said.
One Afghan police officer, a civilian, and 29 insurgents were killed during a military push to clear insurgents from the Kamdish district, head of the provincial media office Mohammed Zareen said.
The civilian was killed by an insurgent who was shooting at the security forces, added Zareen.
Another 35 people have been wounded - four Afghan commandos, one civilian and 30 insurgents, he said.
Kamdish district shares a border with Pakistani and has been under insurgent control for more than a year.
Last week some members of Parliament called for extra troops to be sent to Nuristan province and for more efforts to be made to bring it under Afghan security forces control.
The operation is continuing in Kamdish, with a focus on five villages including Benooz and Paeen, Zareen said.
The residents of Kamdish have urged the government to continue the operation, according to TOLOnews' local reporter.
The State of Afghanistan
New York Times By IAN LIVINGSTON and MICHAEL E. O’HANLON Op-Ed Contributors April 13, 2012
THE key trends of the war in Afghanistan can be summarized fairly simply. The hard part is figuring out what they collectively add up to. The muddled picture no doubt contributed to recent poll results showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose their country’s involvement in the conflict. Afghans themselves seem confused; according to a 2011 Asia Foundation poll, 73 percent of citizens support their national government (and even higher percentages their army and police), but only 46 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Here is what we know: Afghans are wealthier, healthier and better educated than ever before. Unquestionably, Afghan security forces are bigger and better. Despite the occasional spectacular attack, Kabul is relatively safe, accounting for less than 1 percent of violent episodes nationwide, thanks largely to the efforts of these troops. The security situation in the more dangerous south is also much improved, after two years of efforts by foreign and Afghan forces. The north and west are at least no longer deteriorating and collectively account for less than 10 percent of violence nationwide.
But the east, near where insurgents in the Haqqani network have found sanctuary across the Pakistani border, remains highly troubled. There, insurgent violence against Afghan citizens and troops, as well as foreign soldiers, actually went up about 20 percent last year. NATO and Afghan forces will increasingly concentrate their efforts in the east this year and next.
In addition, after attacks by Afghan soldiers on NATO units, trust between the forces is lower than before. Meanwhile, government corruption remains high. Some anti-corruption measures are in place, but we cannot yet find any clear evidence that they are working systematically. The Afghan elections of 2014 threaten to intensify already growing ethnic tensions between the Pashtuns and the minority Tajiks, and between Uzbeks and Hazaras, and peace talks with the Taliban are halting.
After recent weeks marred by the attacks on NATO units, as well as riots after American military personnel burned copies of the Koran and the accusation that another American slaughtered 17 Afghan civilians, Americans and Afghans are right to wonder about the future of this conflict. They do have some happy news to look to, however, like new accords transferring the responsibility for night raids and the main coalition prison to the Afghan government.
Based on current trends — some of which are depicted in the chart accompanying this article — the most likely outcome in Afghanistan is a mixed one. Come 2014, when NATO withdraws, we expect that the Afghan government will be able to hold most cities and major roads. That is because of the often underappreciated improvement in its security forces, combined with the hits taken by the insurgency in recent years, as well as the general lack of appeal the Taliban movement holds for most urban Afghans. Yet the government will probably still be unable to control many of the nation’s rural areas, particularly in the East. On top of that, corruption among officials will perhaps further erode the government’s legitimacy; the economy will suffer as the stimulus provided by foreign troops declines; and the 2014 electoral process could easily divide Afghans more than unite them.
That said, 2014 is a long way off, and the situation could easily get better — or worse — than this extrapolation of current trends suggests.
Ian Livingston is a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, where Michael E. O’Hanlon, a co-author of “Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy,” is a senior fellow.
U.S. Air Force Restarts Afghanistan Aircraft Competition
Bloomberg By Tony Capaccio and Danielle Ivory Apr 14, 2012
The U.S. Air Force will restart its stalled $1 billion competition to buy light attack aircraft for the Afghanistan military, it said today.
The military will issue a draft request for proposals April 17 and a final version April 30, the service said in an e-mailed statement. A new award is scheduled for early 2013.
The Air Force on Feb. 28 canceled a disputed $1 billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. after determining the documentation used to make the award was flawed.
Sierra Nevada and its Brazilian subcontractor, Embraer SA (EMBR3), will again compete against Hawker Beechcraft Corp. Hawker, a closely held company that is 49 percent-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), had protested the Defense Department’s December decision, which gave Sierra the order to provide the aircraft for the Afghan military.
Hawker sued the military in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, claiming it was unfairly eliminated from the competition. The decision was a blow to the Wichita, Kansas- based company, which has been struggling with slower defense spending.
Spokesmen for Hawker, Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra and Embraer didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and e-mails.
Embraer hoped to use the contract to establish a relationship with the Pentagon, Chief Executive Officer Frederico Curado told reporters on April 10 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
“This tends to give us opportunities for future transactions,” Curado said. He said the contract would give the company credibility abroad as well.
“We just have to hope that when this process is reconsidered or reopened that there are no changes to the original specs,” he said. “If there are no changes, I think the same reasons that made us win the first time will make us win the second time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; Danielle Ivory in Washington at divory@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at sstoughton@bloomberg.net
Policeman injured in suicide bombing in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 14 (Xinhua) -- At least one policeman was injured Saturday afternoon when a suicide bomb hit a police vehicle in Kandahar, a main city in southern Afghanistan, provincial police chief said.
"Based on initial investigation, a man detonated an explosive- laden tricycle vehicle near a police van in fifth police district of Kandahar city at around 4:30 p.m. local time," General Abdul Raziq told Xinhua.
The potential target of the attack was General Nasrullah Zerati, commander of police academy in southern region, a witness said.
However, police chief Raziq said that the bomber was killed on the spot, adding "General Zerati was safe and sound and no other casualties were reported in the blast so far".
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Afghan and NATO military officials said recently that impressive Taliban-led attacks would occur in the coming weeks and months as spring and summer, known as "fighting season", are drawing near.
In an unrelated incident, five Taliban militants were killed Saturday during a search operation in Afghan province of Logar.
"An Afghan and NATO-led coalition force team raided a compound in Borgg area of Mohammad Agha district in the wee hours Saturday to capture suspected Taliban fighters but upon arrival of the force a gunbattle erupted leaving five militants dead," police chief of the district Ahmad Nabi told Xinhua.
He said four civilians including a woman and a child and three U.S. soldiers with the unit were also injured in the gunfight in the province some 60 km south of capital city of Kabul.
Afghan women urge gov't to protect women's rights
KABUL, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Some 100 people including women staged a peaceful demonstration here Saturday, demanding the government protect women's rights.
Organized by a non-governmental organization called "Young Women for Change,"the protesters demanded the government improve the enforcement of the law for "Elimination of Violence against Women," or EVAW law for short.
They criticized the government for failing to apply the three- year-old landmark law to most cases of violence against women.
"Laws on the paper do not have any value if they are not implemented," said a statement read out by a woman during the event.
"The government of Afghanistan needs to step up and take necessary measures to raise the awareness of law implementers and judicial system that fight these crimes about the EVAW law," she added.
The 2009 EVAW law criminalizes child marriage, forced marriage, selling and buying women for the purpose or under the pretext of marriage, baad (giving away a woman or girl to settle a dispute), forced self- immolation and 17 other acts of violence against women, including rape and beating. It also specifies punishment for perpetrators.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission registered over 2,700 incidents of violence against women last year and majority of the cases could be defined as crimes under the EVAW law, said the statement.
Karzai poll plan 'a Putin strategy'
The Australian By Amanda Hodge, South Asia Correspondent April 14, 2012
AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has flagged the possibility of an early presidential election in what critics fear is an attempt to manipulate polls to establish a dynastic succession.
Mr Karzai told a press conference in Kabul he was considering vacating the presidential palace a year earlier than May 2014, when his second five-year term is due to expire.
"I have been talking about this for a few months now," Mr Karzai said late on Thursday night.
"With all the changes that are taking place - with the complete return of international forces to their homes from Afghanistan and the holding of the presidential election at the same time - whether that will be an agenda that we can handle at the same time ... is a question that I've had and I've frequently raised it in my inner circle."
Western diplomats are understood to favour an early poll and are pressuring Mr Karzai to call an election well ahead of the final December 2014 NATO withdrawal so foreign troops can help with election security.
The 2009 presidential poll in which Mr Karzai was re-elected despite proven allegations of massive ballot-box rigging was a severe embarrassment to the international coalition, which sank hundreds of millions of dollars into ensuring free and fair elections.
Mr Karzai's announcement of a possible early poll has sparked renewed concerns the besieged President does not intend to step down from office, as he insists he will, and as the Afghan constitution requires him to do.
Many opposition politicians and some political analysts suspect Mr Karzai of orchestrating a Vladimir Putin-style power-swap in which he installs a pliable candidate into the presidency so that he may return to the palace in five years' time.
Those fears will be only heightened by an admission by the President's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, this week that preparations had begun to try to keep the presidential palace in the family, by fielding the oldest surviving Karzai brother, Abdul Qayum, as a succession candidate.
"We are in the process of doing some work in that regard," Mahmoud told The Times, adding Mr Karzai's success in uniting Afghans and maintaining rule of law had given a "positive image to our family".
"There are a lot of people who would like to see another Karzai government."
Mahmoud ruled himself out of presidential contention.
But he said Abdul Qayum, a businessman who divides his time between his US restaurant and Afghanistan, where he acts as a presidential adviser, was "very clever, very intelligent, extremely cautious".
Betrayal, and Death, in the Barracks
Signs of Plot Litter Afghan Post Where Officer Killed 9 Comrades and Wounded Prized Force
Wall Street Journal By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS April 13, 2012
YAHYA KHEL, Afghanistan - Every battlefield is a killing ground. But the room where nine Afghan policemen died late last month is something different: a crime scene.
There is the tea kettle where the suspect, an alleged Taliban infiltrator named Asadullah, may have mixed a poison concoction that knocked out his Afghan Local Police comrades. Spent rifle shells litter the floor. And then there are the bloodstained sleeping mats where police say Mr. Asadullah methodically executed fellow officers who had slipped into unconsciousness.
Now Mr. Asadullah, who was accepted into the force despite old links to the Taliban, is on the run. And the massacre he allegedly perpetrated on the night of March 29 has helped put the spotlight on the Afghan Local Police.
The U.S. is counting on these village-defense forces—made up of young men from neighborhoods in remote areas and trained by U.S. special-operations troops—to form a homemade bulwark against the Taliban as the American troop drawdown proceeds. The Afghan army and national police would do the heavy fighting, the theory goes, but local men have greater knowledge of their villages and a greater incentive to defend them. There are already some 13,000 local police in position, with 17,000 more planned.
The Taliban and other insurgents are trying to disrupt those plans by attacking the lightly armed local police from without and within. In three attacks since April 5, insurgents have killed at least 12 more local policemen around Afghanistan.
Yahya Khel has been a particular trouble spot for the soldiers of A Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment since they arrived last summer.
The village, in Paktika province, was a thoroughfare for insurgents leaving sanctuaries in Pakistan and heading toward Afghanistan's main highway and Kabul. Armed insurgents walked openly down the market streets, where shops flew white Taliban banners. The dirt road through town was a favorite hiding place for booby-trap bombs, which killed four Americans this past fall.
After months of persistent patrolling by Americans and Afghans, the village isn't completely safe, but the change is night and day. Markets are bustling and shops fly Afghan flags.
The Americans credit some improvement to the Afghan Local Police, who in the past month have installed rudimentary, sandbagged checkpoints along the main road.
The checkpoint where the killings took place, a patrol base for a 30-man police detachment, is in an abandoned compound, once grand by village standards and now in disarray.
The sitting room the men chose as their barracks has exposed beams, pillars of dark, carved wood, and white plaster-relief walls with decorative swirls and scallop-topped nooks. Light from a single window penetrates the darkness.
Mr. Asadullah, a local man in his early 20s, talked his way onto the force, according to other policemen. Several years ago the Taliban killed his father, a critic of the insurgency.
Mr. Asadullah was complicit in the crime, said Dawlat Khan Zadran, the provincial police chief. "We believe he's had links with the Taliban for a pretty long time," Mr. Zadran said. Mr. Asadullah, he said, was "brainwashed."
Mr. Asadullah spent time in Waziristan, a militant stronghold across the border in Pakistan, police and village elders say. When he showed up back in Yahya Khel, he announced that he wanted to join the local police. He explained that he had gone to Pakistan not to join the Taliban, but to identify his father's killers, said Abdullah Ghaffar, commander of the local police checkpoint. "We thought he wanted to take revenge," Mr. Ghaffar said.
Despite its inconsistencies—in particular, why was Mr. Asadullah's revenge explanation accepted if police believed he had been complicit in his father's killing?—his story convinced the Yahya Khel elders, who have to vouch for local-police candidates.
The elders sometimes struggle to balance caution with a desire to welcome back those who have strayed. "We've learned our lesson," Ghulam Udeen, one of the village elders, told U.S. Army 1st Lt. John Tilley, whose platoon patrols Yahya Khel. Next time, he said, the elders would be more wary of those claiming to have left the insurgency.
On the evening of Thursday, March 29, Mr. Asadullah was one of 10 men posted to the police compound. At 8 p.m., Mr. Asadullah climbed to one of the towers and, using a flashlight, gave the all-well signal to fellow officers stationed a few blocks away.
In the kitchen, with its adobe-style fireplace and round cooking hole, Mr. Asadullah prepared tea and food for the other nine men, spiking the meal with poison or drugs, police said. The men apparently retired to the barracks room and lost consciousness on mats patterned like Oriental rugs.
Then Mr. Asadullah shot each of the men in the head or chest or both, police said. There was no sign that the men fought back, police said.
Mr. Asadullah stole a police pickup truck and disappeared, police said. At 4 a.m. on Friday, other local police discovered the bodies. The officers noticed that Mr. Asadullah was the only one missing.
The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that day that police had killed Mr. Asadullah in a raid, but later retracted that claim. Police detained Mr. Asadullah's teenage brothers as possible accomplices.
A visit a week later showed signs of an ordinary night turned horror movie.
Boots were paired off on shelves in ready-for-bed fashion. Blankets scattered the room, some in somber military hues, others decorated with pink or white flowers. A can of vegetable oil, bearing the logo of the U.S. Agency for International Development, sat on a ledge. Dirty tea glasses were stacked next to the flame-blackened kettle. A serving spoon still emerged from the stew pot in the kitchen. In a metal serving bowl, gray mold formed fuzzy islands on dinner's remains.
"We're sure that's where he put the poison," said Mr. Ghaffar, the checkpoint commander, holding up the kettle and pot.
The shelves displayed the detritus of simple lives: A tube of toothpaste, a dirty plastic soap dish, a crushed box of matches, and a Colgate toothbrush so blackened it might have been used to clean boots, or perhaps a rifle.
But blood spatters marked a pair of tan fatigue pants laid out on the floor, which itself was smeared with red. A maroon-brown halo stained a yellow pillow; the blood appears to have soaked through and pooled against the wall.
Outside the compound, a local policeman nailed purple, green and red scarves to crossed wooden poles.
Later the officers would pound them into the ground next to the fallen men's graves.
"Don't ever forget what took place in this room," Lt. Tilley told local policemen.
Villagers have already burned down Mr. Asadullah's house, police said. —Habib Khan Totakhil in Kabul contributed to this article.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
Public left in dark over Afghanistan proposal
The Age By Dylan Welch April 14, 2012
AUSTRALIA is five weeks away from signing a crucial strategic agreement with Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and outline Australia's postwar role there, but the government has yet to inform the public of its existence.
The previously unrevealed pact, disclosed by the office of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, this week, is a strategic agreement that will mean Canberra provides hundreds of millions of dollars in aid in the post-2014 decade.
The international community has set the end of 2014 as the deadline for all international combat operations in Afghanistan. After that time security will be the sole responsibility of the Afghan Army and the Afghan National Police.
Yesterday, the office of the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, who visited Afghanistan this week and met Mr Karzai, said the document did not relate to his portfolio, and referred the Herald to the Foreign Affairs Minister.
However, a statement released from Mr Karzai's office on Wednesday after a meeting with Mr Smith appeared to contradict that view. It said: ''[The] Australian Defence Minister said Australia is interested in forging a strategic partnership with Afghanistan.''
The release went on to discuss a draft of the agreement, recently handed to the Afghan Foreign Ministry, and said it would be signed by both countries during a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20 and 21. ''Minister Smith hoped that the draft be finalised as soon as possible by the governments of the two countries,'' the statement said.
Another statement on Wednesday, from Afghanistan's Australian embassy, also referred to the plan, saying it covered long-term co-operation involving ''security, development, trade and investment, cultural and people-to-people links and migration and humanitarian affairs''.
A spokesman for Mr Smith said his visit to Kabul had nothing to do with the agreement, which was a matter for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and Bob Carr, the Foreign Affairs Minister.
The agreement was mentioned ''in passing'' during a conversation with Mr Karzai, the spokesman said, but ''did not concern either the content or detail''.
Despite that, it does not appear the Prime Minister, Mr Smith or Senator Carr have told the Australian public about the agreement.
Yesterday Mr Smith's office pointed to a speech by Ms Gillard to Parliament on November 21 as referring to the agreement. More than 20 minutes into a half-hour speech, Ms Gillard mentioned talks with Mr Karzai about a ''long-term framework agreement for the future of the Australia-Afghanistan partnership''.
''This kind of co-operative country-to-country approach is an important framework for our long-term plans,'' she said. ''We seek an enduring relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014 as Afghanistan takes on responsibility for its own security and governance.''
That appears to be the only time she or anyone else in her government has discussed a bilateral plan with Afghanistan. No detail has been provided - then or since.
There has been an intense debate within the international community about what support will be provided to Mr Karzai's Afghan postwar state. The US has said at least $4.1 billion a year will be needed to support the Afghan military and police alone, but after years of huge spending on Afghanistan, some European countries are keen to scale back support.
The Australian agreement will complement a similar agreement between the US and Afghanistan.
Dialing down corruption in Afghanistan
Foreign Policy By Anjana Ravi and Eric Tyler Friday, April 13, 2012
Last week, Afghan president Hamid Karzai surprised U.S. and coalition officials by announcing the creation of a special tribunal and prosecutor to seek redress for the almost two year old Kabul Bank scandal. And earlier this month, the Afghan House of Representatives rejected the proposed federal budget in part because of the allocation of U.S. $80 million to Kabul Bank. Already, the Central Bank has poured $450 million into the beleaguered bank after it lost almost a billion dollars in the 2010 financial scandal. This money has been traced to interest-free loans given to Mahmoud Karzai, brother of President Karzai, to buy shares in the bank itself, and also to former CEO Khalil Frozi, who used bank funds to finance the President's 2009 election campaign.
Though Afghan authorities arrested Frozi and Kabul Bank founder Sherkhan Farnood approximately nine months after the crisis, it was recently reported that neither can be found in their jail cells, and both are collecting rent from tenants occupying Dubai villas bought with illegally obtained loans. A year after the debacle, only 10% of the missing money had been recovered.
Kabul Bank is more than a symbol of the pervasive corruption plaguing Afghanistan's government, it is the largest private financial institution in the country and an integral piece of infrastructure that has direct consequences for the country's security and financial stability. If Afghanistan is to have any chance at a legitimate economy and stable future, it will need an efficient and trustworthy financial system.
In particular, Kabul Bank is a conduit for government payments to Afghan soldiers, police, and teachers. The United States aims to reduce American troop presence by 2013 and shift security duties to the Afghan military and police force. Absolutely vital to a "successful" drawdown is the establishment of a reliable and transparent payment system. The rampant corruption plaguing Kabul Bank shows that traditional banking systems may not be suitable for the Afghan economy at all. However, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is working with Afghan companies to provide an alternate solution - mobile money.
In the past year, mobile phone-based money transfers have taken off in Afghanistan. Three out of the four largest mobile network operators now offer mobile money services, two of which were launched in the last six months. Roshan, the telecommunication company that deployed the country's first mobile money product in 2008, M-Paisa ("paisa" meaning money in Dari), has grown to 1.2 million registered customers that can receive salaries, pay bills, and make domestic financial transactions over their mobile phones. Last month, the company announced a partnership with Western Union to allow these customers to receive transfers from around the world directly to their mobile phones.
USAID has made mobile money central to Afghanistan's financial development. According to USAID, while less than five percent of Afghans have access to a bank account, more than 60 percent of the population has access to a mobile phone. To accelerate the pace of its development, USAID has allocated more than $2 million to mobile network operators as part of its Mobile Money Innovation Grant Fund, and spearheaded the forming of the Afghan Mobile Money Operators Association. Currently, there are five USAID mobile phone payment projects underway, which range from the payments of teacher stipends to police force salaries, and 14 more mobile transfer projects in planning, according to a USAID official who spoke off-the-record. With the scaling of mobile money, an estimated $60 million annually could be retrieved that had been lost to corruption and fees.
Although promising, mobile money is not entirely immune to the harsh realities on the ground. In 2009, the Afghan government worked with Roshan to pilot a mobile phone-based salary payment system to 54 officers of the Afghan National Police Force who had previously received cash from their superiors. When the policemen took their SIM cards to the local M-Paisa offices to directly collect their entire salaries, they thought they had received a 36 percent raise, while what they were really seeing was a full salary untouched by crooked officials, according to a U.S. Air Force Colonel overseeing the project.
However, a confidential State Department cable released by Wikileaks revealed that a corrupt Afghan commander, frustrated that he was no longer able to skim off the top, fraudulently registered phones and collected his officers' salaries. In a separate incident, the same commander ordered subordinates to handover their SIM cards and attempted to retrieve the salaries himself. Though the local M-Paisa employee refused to hand over the salaries to the commander, he was forced to go into hiding for fear of retribution. Despite direct reports to the Ministry of Interior and pressure from the U.S. Government, no one has been prosecuted.
The ability to efficiently pay Afghanistan's security apparatus is critical to any post-war strategy, especially in the face of a U.S. drawdown and the ousting of private security firms. It is especially important for USAID efforts because $899 million worth of development programs they administer are in jeopardy without a functioning security force, according to a recent letter from Steven Trent, the acting Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Though USAID says this claim is exaggerated, it still highlights the significance of dealing with the systemic corruption within Afghanistan's financial system and in particular Kabul Bank, given its central role in government payments to soldiers.
Despite the importance of anti-corruption measures to security efforts, a clear disconnect between Afghan and U.S. officials gives reason to believe that Karzai's recent announcement to prosecute those involved in the Kabul Bank crisis will not amount to much. As Afghans rushed to withdraw $800 million in deposits in the two weeks following the scandal's breaking, Mahmoud Karzai insisted the bank was stable and not in danger of collapse while simultaneously asking the U.S. Treasury for monetary help in averting a crisis. When the U.S. refused a direct injection of capital, President Karzai publicly blamed the collapse on a lack of foreign technical support rather than the illegal activities of the bank's leadership. A few months later, he banned U.S. government advisers from working with the country's central bank, as they attempted to assist Afghan officials in regulating the financial system and tracking foreign aid, both of which were conditions for releasing $1.8 billion of donor funds.
While the ideal situation for USAID is an end to corruption's hold on financial infrastructure, the reality is that they are working within a delicate political climate. According to a NYT/CBS News poll released this month, almost 70% of American respondents want an end to U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. With this dramatic fall in American public opinion and election year politics putting the focus on a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops and transition to Afghan forces, the Obama administration is loath to engage in a battle with the Karzai government over corruption that is almost guaranteed to fail. Yet there are still ways for USAID to recognize the restraints of corruption and push forward; one of the promising solutions involves integrating mobile money to build a stronger financial system and more transparent post-transition payment system.
After all, the reality is also this: the results of development projects will have significant bearing on America's legacy in a country where it has spent over 10 years, half a trillion dollars, and countless lives. USAID's success, and ultimately that of the entire U.S. mission in Afghanistan, will depend on our ability to acknowledge that "success" is not an all or nothing proposition. Corruption exists but that doesn't mean that the development community cannot adapt to work within its confinements.
Anjana Ravi is a Research Associate with the New America Foundation's Global Assets Project, where Eric Tyler is a Program Associate.
A Precarious Crossroads for Afghan Women
New York Times By MICHELLE BACHELET Op-Ed Contributor April 13, 2012
The once remarkable gains in protecting and promoting equality between women and men in Afghanistan are now facing their most serious challenges.
Two questions must be asked: Are the emerging challenges to women’s rights an indication of an overall backslide in security and stability in Afghanistan? Is this evidence of women’s rights being negotiated away as part of the peace and reconciliation process?
The struggle of Afghan women is not one that can be separated from the overall struggle of the Afghan nation to achieve peace and stability. The situation of women and girls — their progress, their opportunities and their access to real justice — must be one of the primary indicators to measure the direction and success of the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
A decade ago, as the global debate on Afghanistan’s future raged, it was the plight of Afghan women that captured the world’s attention. The persecution of women and girls was stark: from restricted mobility and highly limited access to education; to needing male guardians to go out in public; to the rampant policing and persecution of “moral crimes” committed by women; to the exchanging of women and girls between families to settle disputes.
Afghan women have fought for over 10 years to ensure that their sisters, daughters and families never again face such a future. Yet in 2012, as the world redefines its role in Afghanistan, policy makers and peace negotiators need to look to the situation of women and girls as a barometer of how inclusive, democratic, secure and stable Afghanistan is today.
Important gains have been made, namely a Constitution that enshrines equality between women and men, a Parliament in which women hold 28 percent of the seats, the implementation of the country’s first law on ending violence against women, and the establishment of shelters and services for women and girls recovering from violence. In addition, girls are back in school — constituting 2.4 million of the more than 7 million children in primary and secondary education. Further, the Women’s Affairs Ministry and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission have been strengthened.
That Afghanistan has taken so many steps in so short a time is highly notable — and a sign of hope for a stable, just and democratic country. But as the peace and reconciliation process evolves, as the International Security Assistance Force draws down, and as more and more parties are encouraged to come to the negotiating table, Afghan women are seeing that the pace of change as regards women’s issues has not only slowed down but in some ways has gone into reverse.
Early-warning indicators are there, but not yet being heard. Violence against women and girls — in the form of physical and emotional abuse, and forced marriages — remains at almost pandemic levels. Impunity of the perpetrators of violence is almost absolute. Women who run away from forced marriages continue to be jailed. Women are often pressured to withdraw complaints and opt for mediation by elders even in cases of serious crimes of violence, leaving them without any protection or justice. Religious leaders recently released a statement justifying certain types of domestic violence, proposing limitations on women’s education and employment opportunities, and calling for the wearing of the hijab.
The single most important recourse we have to mitigate these risks is to ensure that women are engaged, that their voices heard and their perspectives taken into account in the peace and reconciliation process. Women struggled to be heard at the international conference on Afghanistan in December in Bonn, and they try to be heard in the discussions of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council. They will strive to make their mark at the NATO summit meeting on security next month in Chicago as well as at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan in July.
Afghan women are now better positioned to articulate their rights. They have important roles on the High Peace Council and in Parliament. They see firsthand the need to monitor the peace and reconciliation process and recognize the importance of engaging with the families of insurgents. They also know that the international community must not forget its commitment to Afghan women and girls beyond 2014.
The government of Afghanistan and the international community must listen to Afghan women — and not allow their gains to be given up in any peace process. Given the strength and importance of religious leaders throughout Afghanistan, it is crucial that their support is solicited to ensure that the women’s rights enshrined in the Constitution are not lost.
Policy makers in Afghanistan and in capitals around the world must see that the worsening situation for women has come with a worsening political and security environment. Women have suffered immeasurably during the last 35 years of war — and it is unacceptable that they should now pay the highest price for any peace deal. Women cannot accept peace at any price, nor should the international community.
We must stop relegating women’s issues to a side agenda at international forums on Afghanistan. The summit meetings in Chicago and Tokyo need to make space for women. If Afghan women continue to be ignored within the major political decision-making processes affecting their country, the vision of a more secure, prosperous and stable Afghanistan cannot be realized.
Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile from 2006 to 2010, is executive director of U.N. Women, which advocates gender equality and empowerment of women.
Duplicating Afghanistan From the Ground Up
By MALIA WOLLAN The New York Times April 14, 2012
FRESNO, Calif. — When Sgt. First Class Darrell Rowe’s Army bosses told him they were sending him for a week of beekeeping and tree pruning here in California’s fertile Central Valley, he was irked.
“My first reaction was, what the hell would I be doing with agriculture?” said Sergeant Rowe, 32. “What does a combat man have to do with crops?”
After all, Sergeant Rowe has already served two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. This week he is scheduled to leave Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., for a nine-month stint in Afghanistan.
But it is one thing to have seen the land, and another to know how to work it.
Familiarizing soon-to-be deployed service members like Sergeant Rowe with basic information about Afghanistan’s crops and farming traditions is precisely the point of a new one-week training program developed by the federal Agriculture Department.
This is boot camp where soldiers are more likely to learn about manure than about M-4 rifles with grenade launchers.
Military officials send recruits from across the country to Central California because it shares many agroclimatic characteristics with Afghanistan — fertile valleys, semi-arid plains and mountains — and can serve as a kind of geographical laboratory.
“We can replicate on our demonstration farm exactly the types of conditions these troops will find on the ground,” said Bill Erysian, director of Agricultural Development for Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training, or Adapt, a program based at California State University, Fresno.
And, with the exception of Afghanistan’s opium poppy production, the two locales grow nearly all the same crops. “The first time my plane landed here it felt familiar,” said Navid Sediqi, an agronomist from Afghanistan and one of the course instructors. “I saw pistachios, almonds, wheat, pomegranates, grapes. These are the same things we grow back home.”
Since 2002, the United States has spent more than $1 billion on Afghanistan’s agricultural sector, in part to create markets and options for farmers other than growing opium poppies. Financed by a $2.9 million grant from the Agriculture Department, the Adapt training codifies what had been ad-hoc efforts by various branches of the American military to train recruits in agriculture. Some of that earlier training occurred in locations bearing less likeness to Afghanistan, like Wisconsin.
The grant is one of several the Agriculture Department has made to land-grant colleges in the Central Valley in recent years, tapping into the region’s farming expertise. The department gave more than $16 million to a consortium of universities led by the University of California, Davis, to help build up Afghanistan’s agricultural extension system and create an online repository and smartphone application called e-Afghan Ag. The site and app provide information for civilians and combat troops trying to find solutions to agricultural problems they encounter in Afghanistan.
In late March, about 25 recruits from across the military — including members of the National Guard, Army Reserve and Army Civil Affairs — spent a week here learning the basics of subsistence agriculture, like how to keep vegetables from spoiling without refrigeration and how to transplant grape cuttings.
An afternoon demonstration on how Afghan farmers dig irrigation ditches with shovels left Sergeant Rowe in a reflective mood.
“If we see a guy out at night digging with shovels, that is a threat to us, he might not be alive in the morning,” he said, explaining that insurgents also use shovels to bury improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, along paths and roads.
For many of the trainees who had previously been deployed to Afghanistan, a lesson on pruning pomegranate trees brought memories not of ruby-colored clusters of fruit but of overgrown orchards with communication antennas strung high on bushy branches by insurgents.
“Pomegranates,” one groaned.
“We’re not going to make anyone a farmer in five days,” said Ryan Brewster, the Agriculture Department’s Afghanistan desk officer. “But what we can do is teach them about agriculture, and why it’s important to the average Afghan.”
As much as 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population relies on subsistence agriculture. Until the early 1970s, the country’s farmers produced grain, fruits and nuts for domestic consumption and export. But in the more than 30 years of conflict since the Soviet invasion in 1979, much of that agricultural know-how and basic infrastructure has been lost or destroyed.
Much of the financing for agricultural projects began streaming into the country after 2009, when Richard C. Holbrooke, then the American special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, announced a shift away from poppy eradication efforts. Those efforts, he would later say, had “pushed poor farmers into the Taliban’s hands.” Instead, the United States would emphasize building roads and fostering market-based alternatives to opium poppies, like exporting raisins and pomegranate juice.
About 50 Agriculture Department extension agents are currently in Afghanistan, but some experts feel the emphasis on agricultural development and farming literacy came too little, too late.
“Until 2008, we were not funding the war in Afghanistan,” said Anthony H. Cordesman a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised the American military on its Afghan strategy. “It takes 12 to 18 months for the money to flow into the country. We basically did not have the surplus ability or assets to handle agriculture.”
Many of the trainees here learning to subdue honeybees with smoke and to seed a field with wheat berries had modest but sincere hopes for the week.
“This training gives us the knowledge to at least not mess things up,” said Capt. Christopher Kennedy, of an Army Civil Affairs battalion out of Webster, N.Y., “when what we’re trying to do is help.”
U.S. Air Force Restarts Afghanistan Aircraft Competition
Bloomberg By Tony Capaccio and Danielle Ivory Apr 14, 2012
The U.S. Air Force will restart its stalled $1 billion competition to buy light attack aircraft for the Afghanistan military, it said today.
The military will issue a draft request for proposals April 17 and a final version April 30, the service said in an e-mailed statement. A new award is scheduled for early 2013.
The Air Force on Feb. 28 canceled a disputed $1 billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. after determining the documentation used to make the award was flawed.
Sierra Nevada and its Brazilian subcontractor, Embraer SA (EMBR3), will again compete against Hawker Beechcraft Corp. Hawker, a closely held company that is 49 percent-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), had protested the Defense Department’s December decision, which gave Sierra the order to provide the aircraft for the Afghan military.
Hawker sued the military in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, claiming it was unfairly eliminated from the competition. The decision was a blow to the Wichita, Kansas- based company, which has been struggling with slower defense spending.
Spokesmen for Hawker, Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra and Embraer didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and e-mails.
Embraer hoped to use the contract to establish a relationship with the Pentagon, Chief Executive Officer Frederico Curado told reporters on April 10 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
“This tends to give us opportunities for future transactions,” Curado said. He said the contract would give the company credibility abroad as well.
“We just have to hope that when this process is reconsidered or reopened that there are no changes to the original specs,” he said. “If there are no changes, I think the same reasons that made us win the first time will make us win the second time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; Danielle Ivory in Washington at divory@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at sstoughton@bloomberg.net
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By Hamid Shalizi | Reuters – Sat, Apr 14, 2012
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan's government on Saturday appointed Salahuddin Rabbani, the son of slain statesman Burhanuddin Rabbani, to replace his father and lead the country's High Peace Council charged with reaching out to Taliban insurgents.
Former President Burhanuddin Rabbani was head of the council when he was assassinated last September by an insurgent carrying a bomb hidden in a turban, a major setback to reconciliation efforts with the Afghan Taliban, and exploratory moves towards peace talks.
Salahuddin Rabbani is currently Afghanistan's ambassador to Turkey, and his appointment as Kabul's chief peace negotiator with the Taliban ends a seven-month gap at the top of the 70-member council as the Taliban intensifies a spring bombing offensive in the leadup to the summer fighting months.
"The presence of foreign troops has prolonged conflict and insecurity," he said in a statement issued by President Hamid Karzai's office, aimed at mollifying insurgents who demand the withdrawal of all foreign forces from the country.
"We will have achievement in the peace process when the leadership is in the hands of Afghans. Without it we cannot move it forward and get the nation's confidence," he said.
His job will be made more difficult by the Taliban's refusal to deal with Karzai's Western-backed government, whose officials it calls U.S. "stooges". Last month the Taliban suspended exploratory peace negotiations with the United States.
Rabbani's appointment was "suitable for consolidating national unity and preventing foreign interference", Karzai said in the statement.
The assassination of his father last year in Kabul's upmarket Wazir Akhbar Khan neighborhood triggered a major diplomatic rift with Pakistan, with Afghan officials accusing the Pakistan's powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, or ISI, of having a role in his killing.
An investigative delegation established by Karzai said evidence and a confession provided by a man involved in Rabbani's killing on September 20 had revealed that the bomber was Pakistani and the assassination had been plotted in Pakistan. Islamabad angrily rejected the allegation.
Burhanuddin Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, was a celebrated former Afghan Mujahideen leader who fought against the Soviet occupation of the country during the 1980s.
His Jamiat-e-Islami fighters were among the first to reach Kabul after the Soviet exodus in 1989, paving the way for him to become president until his ousting by the Taliban in 1996.
(Writing by Rob Taylor, Editing by Daniel Magnowski)
New chairman for Afghan peace council elected
KABUL, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Afghan High Peace Council on Saturday elected Salahuddin Rabbani as the new chairman to lead the 70-member peace body, said a statement issued by the Presidential Palace here.
"During a special meeting of High Peace Council members held on Saturday in the Presidential Palace, attended by Afghan President Hamid Karzai ,the council approved and elected Salahuddin Rabbani as the chairman of the peace council," the statement said.
Salahuddin Rabbani is the son of former Afghan President and Chairman of Peace Council Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Burhanuddin Rabbani was killed at his Kabul house on September 20 last year by a man who pretended to be a messenger from Taliban.
The peace council was set up by President Karzai in October 2010 to broker peace with the Taliban insurgents and other militant groups opposing the government.
Afghan government has repeatedly said that the door is open for talks with those Taliban who severe ties with al-Qaida network, renounce violence and accept the constitution.
The Taliban militant group, has turned down peace talks unless the foreign troops withdraw from Afghanistan, also vowed to continue fighting Afghan government troops and some 130,000 NATO and U.S. forces stationed in the country.
31 Killed in Nuristan Commandos Operation
TOLOnews.com Saturday, 14 April 2012
As many as 31 people have been killed in an Afghan commandos operation in eastern Nuristan province in the past three days, local officials said.
One Afghan police officer, a civilian, and 29 insurgents were killed during a military push to clear insurgents from the Kamdish district, head of the provincial media office Mohammed Zareen said.
The civilian was killed by an insurgent who was shooting at the security forces, added Zareen.
Another 35 people have been wounded - four Afghan commandos, one civilian and 30 insurgents, he said.
Kamdish district shares a border with Pakistani and has been under insurgent control for more than a year.
Last week some members of Parliament called for extra troops to be sent to Nuristan province and for more efforts to be made to bring it under Afghan security forces control.
The operation is continuing in Kamdish, with a focus on five villages including Benooz and Paeen, Zareen said.
The residents of Kamdish have urged the government to continue the operation, according to TOLOnews' local reporter.
The State of Afghanistan
New York Times By IAN LIVINGSTON and MICHAEL E. O’HANLON Op-Ed Contributors April 13, 2012
THE key trends of the war in Afghanistan can be summarized fairly simply. The hard part is figuring out what they collectively add up to. The muddled picture no doubt contributed to recent poll results showing that two-thirds of Americans oppose their country’s involvement in the conflict. Afghans themselves seem confused; according to a 2011 Asia Foundation poll, 73 percent of citizens support their national government (and even higher percentages their army and police), but only 46 percent believe the country is headed in the right direction.
Here is what we know: Afghans are wealthier, healthier and better educated than ever before. Unquestionably, Afghan security forces are bigger and better. Despite the occasional spectacular attack, Kabul is relatively safe, accounting for less than 1 percent of violent episodes nationwide, thanks largely to the efforts of these troops. The security situation in the more dangerous south is also much improved, after two years of efforts by foreign and Afghan forces. The north and west are at least no longer deteriorating and collectively account for less than 10 percent of violence nationwide.
But the east, near where insurgents in the Haqqani network have found sanctuary across the Pakistani border, remains highly troubled. There, insurgent violence against Afghan citizens and troops, as well as foreign soldiers, actually went up about 20 percent last year. NATO and Afghan forces will increasingly concentrate their efforts in the east this year and next.
In addition, after attacks by Afghan soldiers on NATO units, trust between the forces is lower than before. Meanwhile, government corruption remains high. Some anti-corruption measures are in place, but we cannot yet find any clear evidence that they are working systematically. The Afghan elections of 2014 threaten to intensify already growing ethnic tensions between the Pashtuns and the minority Tajiks, and between Uzbeks and Hazaras, and peace talks with the Taliban are halting.
After recent weeks marred by the attacks on NATO units, as well as riots after American military personnel burned copies of the Koran and the accusation that another American slaughtered 17 Afghan civilians, Americans and Afghans are right to wonder about the future of this conflict. They do have some happy news to look to, however, like new accords transferring the responsibility for night raids and the main coalition prison to the Afghan government.
Based on current trends — some of which are depicted in the chart accompanying this article — the most likely outcome in Afghanistan is a mixed one. Come 2014, when NATO withdraws, we expect that the Afghan government will be able to hold most cities and major roads. That is because of the often underappreciated improvement in its security forces, combined with the hits taken by the insurgency in recent years, as well as the general lack of appeal the Taliban movement holds for most urban Afghans. Yet the government will probably still be unable to control many of the nation’s rural areas, particularly in the East. On top of that, corruption among officials will perhaps further erode the government’s legitimacy; the economy will suffer as the stimulus provided by foreign troops declines; and the 2014 electoral process could easily divide Afghans more than unite them.
That said, 2014 is a long way off, and the situation could easily get better — or worse — than this extrapolation of current trends suggests.
Ian Livingston is a senior researcher at the Brookings Institution, where Michael E. O’Hanlon, a co-author of “Bending History: Barack Obama’s Foreign Policy,” is a senior fellow.
U.S. Air Force Restarts Afghanistan Aircraft Competition
Bloomberg By Tony Capaccio and Danielle Ivory Apr 14, 2012
The U.S. Air Force will restart its stalled $1 billion competition to buy light attack aircraft for the Afghanistan military, it said today.
The military will issue a draft request for proposals April 17 and a final version April 30, the service said in an e-mailed statement. A new award is scheduled for early 2013.
The Air Force on Feb. 28 canceled a disputed $1 billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. after determining the documentation used to make the award was flawed.
Sierra Nevada and its Brazilian subcontractor, Embraer SA (EMBR3), will again compete against Hawker Beechcraft Corp. Hawker, a closely held company that is 49 percent-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), had protested the Defense Department’s December decision, which gave Sierra the order to provide the aircraft for the Afghan military.
Hawker sued the military in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, claiming it was unfairly eliminated from the competition. The decision was a blow to the Wichita, Kansas- based company, which has been struggling with slower defense spending.
Spokesmen for Hawker, Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra and Embraer didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and e-mails.
Embraer hoped to use the contract to establish a relationship with the Pentagon, Chief Executive Officer Frederico Curado told reporters on April 10 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
“This tends to give us opportunities for future transactions,” Curado said. He said the contract would give the company credibility abroad as well.
“We just have to hope that when this process is reconsidered or reopened that there are no changes to the original specs,” he said. “If there are no changes, I think the same reasons that made us win the first time will make us win the second time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; Danielle Ivory in Washington at divory@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at sstoughton@bloomberg.net
Policeman injured in suicide bombing in S. Afghanistan
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 14 (Xinhua) -- At least one policeman was injured Saturday afternoon when a suicide bomb hit a police vehicle in Kandahar, a main city in southern Afghanistan, provincial police chief said.
"Based on initial investigation, a man detonated an explosive- laden tricycle vehicle near a police van in fifth police district of Kandahar city at around 4:30 p.m. local time," General Abdul Raziq told Xinhua.
The potential target of the attack was General Nasrullah Zerati, commander of police academy in southern region, a witness said.
However, police chief Raziq said that the bomber was killed on the spot, adding "General Zerati was safe and sound and no other casualties were reported in the blast so far".
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Afghan and NATO military officials said recently that impressive Taliban-led attacks would occur in the coming weeks and months as spring and summer, known as "fighting season", are drawing near.
In an unrelated incident, five Taliban militants were killed Saturday during a search operation in Afghan province of Logar.
"An Afghan and NATO-led coalition force team raided a compound in Borgg area of Mohammad Agha district in the wee hours Saturday to capture suspected Taliban fighters but upon arrival of the force a gunbattle erupted leaving five militants dead," police chief of the district Ahmad Nabi told Xinhua.
He said four civilians including a woman and a child and three U.S. soldiers with the unit were also injured in the gunfight in the province some 60 km south of capital city of Kabul.
Afghan women urge gov't to protect women's rights
KABUL, April 14 (Xinhua) -- Some 100 people including women staged a peaceful demonstration here Saturday, demanding the government protect women's rights.
Organized by a non-governmental organization called "Young Women for Change,"the protesters demanded the government improve the enforcement of the law for "Elimination of Violence against Women," or EVAW law for short.
They criticized the government for failing to apply the three- year-old landmark law to most cases of violence against women.
"Laws on the paper do not have any value if they are not implemented," said a statement read out by a woman during the event.
"The government of Afghanistan needs to step up and take necessary measures to raise the awareness of law implementers and judicial system that fight these crimes about the EVAW law," she added.
The 2009 EVAW law criminalizes child marriage, forced marriage, selling and buying women for the purpose or under the pretext of marriage, baad (giving away a woman or girl to settle a dispute), forced self- immolation and 17 other acts of violence against women, including rape and beating. It also specifies punishment for perpetrators.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission registered over 2,700 incidents of violence against women last year and majority of the cases could be defined as crimes under the EVAW law, said the statement.
Karzai poll plan 'a Putin strategy'
The Australian By Amanda Hodge, South Asia Correspondent April 14, 2012
AFGHAN President Hamid Karzai has flagged the possibility of an early presidential election in what critics fear is an attempt to manipulate polls to establish a dynastic succession.
Mr Karzai told a press conference in Kabul he was considering vacating the presidential palace a year earlier than May 2014, when his second five-year term is due to expire.
"I have been talking about this for a few months now," Mr Karzai said late on Thursday night.
"With all the changes that are taking place - with the complete return of international forces to their homes from Afghanistan and the holding of the presidential election at the same time - whether that will be an agenda that we can handle at the same time ... is a question that I've had and I've frequently raised it in my inner circle."
Western diplomats are understood to favour an early poll and are pressuring Mr Karzai to call an election well ahead of the final December 2014 NATO withdrawal so foreign troops can help with election security.
The 2009 presidential poll in which Mr Karzai was re-elected despite proven allegations of massive ballot-box rigging was a severe embarrassment to the international coalition, which sank hundreds of millions of dollars into ensuring free and fair elections.
Mr Karzai's announcement of a possible early poll has sparked renewed concerns the besieged President does not intend to step down from office, as he insists he will, and as the Afghan constitution requires him to do.
Many opposition politicians and some political analysts suspect Mr Karzai of orchestrating a Vladimir Putin-style power-swap in which he installs a pliable candidate into the presidency so that he may return to the palace in five years' time.
Those fears will be only heightened by an admission by the President's brother, Mahmoud Karzai, this week that preparations had begun to try to keep the presidential palace in the family, by fielding the oldest surviving Karzai brother, Abdul Qayum, as a succession candidate.
"We are in the process of doing some work in that regard," Mahmoud told The Times, adding Mr Karzai's success in uniting Afghans and maintaining rule of law had given a "positive image to our family".
"There are a lot of people who would like to see another Karzai government."
Mahmoud ruled himself out of presidential contention.
But he said Abdul Qayum, a businessman who divides his time between his US restaurant and Afghanistan, where he acts as a presidential adviser, was "very clever, very intelligent, extremely cautious".
Betrayal, and Death, in the Barracks
Signs of Plot Litter Afghan Post Where Officer Killed 9 Comrades and Wounded Prized Force
Wall Street Journal By MICHAEL M. PHILLIPS April 13, 2012
YAHYA KHEL, Afghanistan - Every battlefield is a killing ground. But the room where nine Afghan policemen died late last month is something different: a crime scene.
There is the tea kettle where the suspect, an alleged Taliban infiltrator named Asadullah, may have mixed a poison concoction that knocked out his Afghan Local Police comrades. Spent rifle shells litter the floor. And then there are the bloodstained sleeping mats where police say Mr. Asadullah methodically executed fellow officers who had slipped into unconsciousness.
Now Mr. Asadullah, who was accepted into the force despite old links to the Taliban, is on the run. And the massacre he allegedly perpetrated on the night of March 29 has helped put the spotlight on the Afghan Local Police.
The U.S. is counting on these village-defense forces—made up of young men from neighborhoods in remote areas and trained by U.S. special-operations troops—to form a homemade bulwark against the Taliban as the American troop drawdown proceeds. The Afghan army and national police would do the heavy fighting, the theory goes, but local men have greater knowledge of their villages and a greater incentive to defend them. There are already some 13,000 local police in position, with 17,000 more planned.
The Taliban and other insurgents are trying to disrupt those plans by attacking the lightly armed local police from without and within. In three attacks since April 5, insurgents have killed at least 12 more local policemen around Afghanistan.
Yahya Khel has been a particular trouble spot for the soldiers of A Company, 1st Battalion, 2nd Infantry Regiment since they arrived last summer.
The village, in Paktika province, was a thoroughfare for insurgents leaving sanctuaries in Pakistan and heading toward Afghanistan's main highway and Kabul. Armed insurgents walked openly down the market streets, where shops flew white Taliban banners. The dirt road through town was a favorite hiding place for booby-trap bombs, which killed four Americans this past fall.
After months of persistent patrolling by Americans and Afghans, the village isn't completely safe, but the change is night and day. Markets are bustling and shops fly Afghan flags.
The Americans credit some improvement to the Afghan Local Police, who in the past month have installed rudimentary, sandbagged checkpoints along the main road.
The checkpoint where the killings took place, a patrol base for a 30-man police detachment, is in an abandoned compound, once grand by village standards and now in disarray.
The sitting room the men chose as their barracks has exposed beams, pillars of dark, carved wood, and white plaster-relief walls with decorative swirls and scallop-topped nooks. Light from a single window penetrates the darkness.
Mr. Asadullah, a local man in his early 20s, talked his way onto the force, according to other policemen. Several years ago the Taliban killed his father, a critic of the insurgency.
Mr. Asadullah was complicit in the crime, said Dawlat Khan Zadran, the provincial police chief. "We believe he's had links with the Taliban for a pretty long time," Mr. Zadran said. Mr. Asadullah, he said, was "brainwashed."
Mr. Asadullah spent time in Waziristan, a militant stronghold across the border in Pakistan, police and village elders say. When he showed up back in Yahya Khel, he announced that he wanted to join the local police. He explained that he had gone to Pakistan not to join the Taliban, but to identify his father's killers, said Abdullah Ghaffar, commander of the local police checkpoint. "We thought he wanted to take revenge," Mr. Ghaffar said.
Despite its inconsistencies—in particular, why was Mr. Asadullah's revenge explanation accepted if police believed he had been complicit in his father's killing?—his story convinced the Yahya Khel elders, who have to vouch for local-police candidates.
The elders sometimes struggle to balance caution with a desire to welcome back those who have strayed. "We've learned our lesson," Ghulam Udeen, one of the village elders, told U.S. Army 1st Lt. John Tilley, whose platoon patrols Yahya Khel. Next time, he said, the elders would be more wary of those claiming to have left the insurgency.
On the evening of Thursday, March 29, Mr. Asadullah was one of 10 men posted to the police compound. At 8 p.m., Mr. Asadullah climbed to one of the towers and, using a flashlight, gave the all-well signal to fellow officers stationed a few blocks away.
In the kitchen, with its adobe-style fireplace and round cooking hole, Mr. Asadullah prepared tea and food for the other nine men, spiking the meal with poison or drugs, police said. The men apparently retired to the barracks room and lost consciousness on mats patterned like Oriental rugs.
Then Mr. Asadullah shot each of the men in the head or chest or both, police said. There was no sign that the men fought back, police said.
Mr. Asadullah stole a police pickup truck and disappeared, police said. At 4 a.m. on Friday, other local police discovered the bodies. The officers noticed that Mr. Asadullah was the only one missing.
The Afghan Interior Ministry announced that day that police had killed Mr. Asadullah in a raid, but later retracted that claim. Police detained Mr. Asadullah's teenage brothers as possible accomplices.
A visit a week later showed signs of an ordinary night turned horror movie.
Boots were paired off on shelves in ready-for-bed fashion. Blankets scattered the room, some in somber military hues, others decorated with pink or white flowers. A can of vegetable oil, bearing the logo of the U.S. Agency for International Development, sat on a ledge. Dirty tea glasses were stacked next to the flame-blackened kettle. A serving spoon still emerged from the stew pot in the kitchen. In a metal serving bowl, gray mold formed fuzzy islands on dinner's remains.
"We're sure that's where he put the poison," said Mr. Ghaffar, the checkpoint commander, holding up the kettle and pot.
The shelves displayed the detritus of simple lives: A tube of toothpaste, a dirty plastic soap dish, a crushed box of matches, and a Colgate toothbrush so blackened it might have been used to clean boots, or perhaps a rifle.
But blood spatters marked a pair of tan fatigue pants laid out on the floor, which itself was smeared with red. A maroon-brown halo stained a yellow pillow; the blood appears to have soaked through and pooled against the wall.
Outside the compound, a local policeman nailed purple, green and red scarves to crossed wooden poles.
Later the officers would pound them into the ground next to the fallen men's graves.
"Don't ever forget what took place in this room," Lt. Tilley told local policemen.
Villagers have already burned down Mr. Asadullah's house, police said. —Habib Khan Totakhil in Kabul contributed to this article.
Write to Michael M. Phillips at michael.phillips@wsj.com
Public left in dark over Afghanistan proposal
The Age By Dylan Welch April 14, 2012
AUSTRALIA is five weeks away from signing a crucial strategic agreement with Afghanistan that could cost hundreds of millions of dollars and outline Australia's postwar role there, but the government has yet to inform the public of its existence.
The previously unrevealed pact, disclosed by the office of the Afghan President, Hamid Karzai, this week, is a strategic agreement that will mean Canberra provides hundreds of millions of dollars in aid in the post-2014 decade.
The international community has set the end of 2014 as the deadline for all international combat operations in Afghanistan. After that time security will be the sole responsibility of the Afghan Army and the Afghan National Police.
Yesterday, the office of the Defence Minister, Stephen Smith, who visited Afghanistan this week and met Mr Karzai, said the document did not relate to his portfolio, and referred the Herald to the Foreign Affairs Minister.
However, a statement released from Mr Karzai's office on Wednesday after a meeting with Mr Smith appeared to contradict that view. It said: ''[The] Australian Defence Minister said Australia is interested in forging a strategic partnership with Afghanistan.''
The release went on to discuss a draft of the agreement, recently handed to the Afghan Foreign Ministry, and said it would be signed by both countries during a NATO summit in Chicago on May 20 and 21. ''Minister Smith hoped that the draft be finalised as soon as possible by the governments of the two countries,'' the statement said.
Another statement on Wednesday, from Afghanistan's Australian embassy, also referred to the plan, saying it covered long-term co-operation involving ''security, development, trade and investment, cultural and people-to-people links and migration and humanitarian affairs''.
A spokesman for Mr Smith said his visit to Kabul had nothing to do with the agreement, which was a matter for the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and Bob Carr, the Foreign Affairs Minister.
The agreement was mentioned ''in passing'' during a conversation with Mr Karzai, the spokesman said, but ''did not concern either the content or detail''.
Despite that, it does not appear the Prime Minister, Mr Smith or Senator Carr have told the Australian public about the agreement.
Yesterday Mr Smith's office pointed to a speech by Ms Gillard to Parliament on November 21 as referring to the agreement. More than 20 minutes into a half-hour speech, Ms Gillard mentioned talks with Mr Karzai about a ''long-term framework agreement for the future of the Australia-Afghanistan partnership''.
''This kind of co-operative country-to-country approach is an important framework for our long-term plans,'' she said. ''We seek an enduring relationship with Afghanistan beyond 2014 as Afghanistan takes on responsibility for its own security and governance.''
That appears to be the only time she or anyone else in her government has discussed a bilateral plan with Afghanistan. No detail has been provided - then or since.
There has been an intense debate within the international community about what support will be provided to Mr Karzai's Afghan postwar state. The US has said at least $4.1 billion a year will be needed to support the Afghan military and police alone, but after years of huge spending on Afghanistan, some European countries are keen to scale back support.
The Australian agreement will complement a similar agreement between the US and Afghanistan.
Dialing down corruption in Afghanistan
Foreign Policy By Anjana Ravi and Eric Tyler Friday, April 13, 2012
Last week, Afghan president Hamid Karzai surprised U.S. and coalition officials by announcing the creation of a special tribunal and prosecutor to seek redress for the almost two year old Kabul Bank scandal. And earlier this month, the Afghan House of Representatives rejected the proposed federal budget in part because of the allocation of U.S. $80 million to Kabul Bank. Already, the Central Bank has poured $450 million into the beleaguered bank after it lost almost a billion dollars in the 2010 financial scandal. This money has been traced to interest-free loans given to Mahmoud Karzai, brother of President Karzai, to buy shares in the bank itself, and also to former CEO Khalil Frozi, who used bank funds to finance the President's 2009 election campaign.
Though Afghan authorities arrested Frozi and Kabul Bank founder Sherkhan Farnood approximately nine months after the crisis, it was recently reported that neither can be found in their jail cells, and both are collecting rent from tenants occupying Dubai villas bought with illegally obtained loans. A year after the debacle, only 10% of the missing money had been recovered.
Kabul Bank is more than a symbol of the pervasive corruption plaguing Afghanistan's government, it is the largest private financial institution in the country and an integral piece of infrastructure that has direct consequences for the country's security and financial stability. If Afghanistan is to have any chance at a legitimate economy and stable future, it will need an efficient and trustworthy financial system.
In particular, Kabul Bank is a conduit for government payments to Afghan soldiers, police, and teachers. The United States aims to reduce American troop presence by 2013 and shift security duties to the Afghan military and police force. Absolutely vital to a "successful" drawdown is the establishment of a reliable and transparent payment system. The rampant corruption plaguing Kabul Bank shows that traditional banking systems may not be suitable for the Afghan economy at all. However, the United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is working with Afghan companies to provide an alternate solution - mobile money.
In the past year, mobile phone-based money transfers have taken off in Afghanistan. Three out of the four largest mobile network operators now offer mobile money services, two of which were launched in the last six months. Roshan, the telecommunication company that deployed the country's first mobile money product in 2008, M-Paisa ("paisa" meaning money in Dari), has grown to 1.2 million registered customers that can receive salaries, pay bills, and make domestic financial transactions over their mobile phones. Last month, the company announced a partnership with Western Union to allow these customers to receive transfers from around the world directly to their mobile phones.
USAID has made mobile money central to Afghanistan's financial development. According to USAID, while less than five percent of Afghans have access to a bank account, more than 60 percent of the population has access to a mobile phone. To accelerate the pace of its development, USAID has allocated more than $2 million to mobile network operators as part of its Mobile Money Innovation Grant Fund, and spearheaded the forming of the Afghan Mobile Money Operators Association. Currently, there are five USAID mobile phone payment projects underway, which range from the payments of teacher stipends to police force salaries, and 14 more mobile transfer projects in planning, according to a USAID official who spoke off-the-record. With the scaling of mobile money, an estimated $60 million annually could be retrieved that had been lost to corruption and fees.
Although promising, mobile money is not entirely immune to the harsh realities on the ground. In 2009, the Afghan government worked with Roshan to pilot a mobile phone-based salary payment system to 54 officers of the Afghan National Police Force who had previously received cash from their superiors. When the policemen took their SIM cards to the local M-Paisa offices to directly collect their entire salaries, they thought they had received a 36 percent raise, while what they were really seeing was a full salary untouched by crooked officials, according to a U.S. Air Force Colonel overseeing the project.
However, a confidential State Department cable released by Wikileaks revealed that a corrupt Afghan commander, frustrated that he was no longer able to skim off the top, fraudulently registered phones and collected his officers' salaries. In a separate incident, the same commander ordered subordinates to handover their SIM cards and attempted to retrieve the salaries himself. Though the local M-Paisa employee refused to hand over the salaries to the commander, he was forced to go into hiding for fear of retribution. Despite direct reports to the Ministry of Interior and pressure from the U.S. Government, no one has been prosecuted.
The ability to efficiently pay Afghanistan's security apparatus is critical to any post-war strategy, especially in the face of a U.S. drawdown and the ousting of private security firms. It is especially important for USAID efforts because $899 million worth of development programs they administer are in jeopardy without a functioning security force, according to a recent letter from Steven Trent, the acting Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction. Though USAID says this claim is exaggerated, it still highlights the significance of dealing with the systemic corruption within Afghanistan's financial system and in particular Kabul Bank, given its central role in government payments to soldiers.
Despite the importance of anti-corruption measures to security efforts, a clear disconnect between Afghan and U.S. officials gives reason to believe that Karzai's recent announcement to prosecute those involved in the Kabul Bank crisis will not amount to much. As Afghans rushed to withdraw $800 million in deposits in the two weeks following the scandal's breaking, Mahmoud Karzai insisted the bank was stable and not in danger of collapse while simultaneously asking the U.S. Treasury for monetary help in averting a crisis. When the U.S. refused a direct injection of capital, President Karzai publicly blamed the collapse on a lack of foreign technical support rather than the illegal activities of the bank's leadership. A few months later, he banned U.S. government advisers from working with the country's central bank, as they attempted to assist Afghan officials in regulating the financial system and tracking foreign aid, both of which were conditions for releasing $1.8 billion of donor funds.
While the ideal situation for USAID is an end to corruption's hold on financial infrastructure, the reality is that they are working within a delicate political climate. According to a NYT/CBS News poll released this month, almost 70% of American respondents want an end to U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan. With this dramatic fall in American public opinion and election year politics putting the focus on a swift withdrawal of U.S. troops and transition to Afghan forces, the Obama administration is loath to engage in a battle with the Karzai government over corruption that is almost guaranteed to fail. Yet there are still ways for USAID to recognize the restraints of corruption and push forward; one of the promising solutions involves integrating mobile money to build a stronger financial system and more transparent post-transition payment system.
After all, the reality is also this: the results of development projects will have significant bearing on America's legacy in a country where it has spent over 10 years, half a trillion dollars, and countless lives. USAID's success, and ultimately that of the entire U.S. mission in Afghanistan, will depend on our ability to acknowledge that "success" is not an all or nothing proposition. Corruption exists but that doesn't mean that the development community cannot adapt to work within its confinements.
Anjana Ravi is a Research Associate with the New America Foundation's Global Assets Project, where Eric Tyler is a Program Associate.
A Precarious Crossroads for Afghan Women
New York Times By MICHELLE BACHELET Op-Ed Contributor April 13, 2012
The once remarkable gains in protecting and promoting equality between women and men in Afghanistan are now facing their most serious challenges.
Two questions must be asked: Are the emerging challenges to women’s rights an indication of an overall backslide in security and stability in Afghanistan? Is this evidence of women’s rights being negotiated away as part of the peace and reconciliation process?
The struggle of Afghan women is not one that can be separated from the overall struggle of the Afghan nation to achieve peace and stability. The situation of women and girls — their progress, their opportunities and their access to real justice — must be one of the primary indicators to measure the direction and success of the reconciliation process in Afghanistan.
A decade ago, as the global debate on Afghanistan’s future raged, it was the plight of Afghan women that captured the world’s attention. The persecution of women and girls was stark: from restricted mobility and highly limited access to education; to needing male guardians to go out in public; to the rampant policing and persecution of “moral crimes” committed by women; to the exchanging of women and girls between families to settle disputes.
Afghan women have fought for over 10 years to ensure that their sisters, daughters and families never again face such a future. Yet in 2012, as the world redefines its role in Afghanistan, policy makers and peace negotiators need to look to the situation of women and girls as a barometer of how inclusive, democratic, secure and stable Afghanistan is today.
Important gains have been made, namely a Constitution that enshrines equality between women and men, a Parliament in which women hold 28 percent of the seats, the implementation of the country’s first law on ending violence against women, and the establishment of shelters and services for women and girls recovering from violence. In addition, girls are back in school — constituting 2.4 million of the more than 7 million children in primary and secondary education. Further, the Women’s Affairs Ministry and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission have been strengthened.
That Afghanistan has taken so many steps in so short a time is highly notable — and a sign of hope for a stable, just and democratic country. But as the peace and reconciliation process evolves, as the International Security Assistance Force draws down, and as more and more parties are encouraged to come to the negotiating table, Afghan women are seeing that the pace of change as regards women’s issues has not only slowed down but in some ways has gone into reverse.
Early-warning indicators are there, but not yet being heard. Violence against women and girls — in the form of physical and emotional abuse, and forced marriages — remains at almost pandemic levels. Impunity of the perpetrators of violence is almost absolute. Women who run away from forced marriages continue to be jailed. Women are often pressured to withdraw complaints and opt for mediation by elders even in cases of serious crimes of violence, leaving them without any protection or justice. Religious leaders recently released a statement justifying certain types of domestic violence, proposing limitations on women’s education and employment opportunities, and calling for the wearing of the hijab.
The single most important recourse we have to mitigate these risks is to ensure that women are engaged, that their voices heard and their perspectives taken into account in the peace and reconciliation process. Women struggled to be heard at the international conference on Afghanistan in December in Bonn, and they try to be heard in the discussions of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council. They will strive to make their mark at the NATO summit meeting on security next month in Chicago as well as at the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan in July.
Afghan women are now better positioned to articulate their rights. They have important roles on the High Peace Council and in Parliament. They see firsthand the need to monitor the peace and reconciliation process and recognize the importance of engaging with the families of insurgents. They also know that the international community must not forget its commitment to Afghan women and girls beyond 2014.
The government of Afghanistan and the international community must listen to Afghan women — and not allow their gains to be given up in any peace process. Given the strength and importance of religious leaders throughout Afghanistan, it is crucial that their support is solicited to ensure that the women’s rights enshrined in the Constitution are not lost.
Policy makers in Afghanistan and in capitals around the world must see that the worsening situation for women has come with a worsening political and security environment. Women have suffered immeasurably during the last 35 years of war — and it is unacceptable that they should now pay the highest price for any peace deal. Women cannot accept peace at any price, nor should the international community.
We must stop relegating women’s issues to a side agenda at international forums on Afghanistan. The summit meetings in Chicago and Tokyo need to make space for women. If Afghan women continue to be ignored within the major political decision-making processes affecting their country, the vision of a more secure, prosperous and stable Afghanistan cannot be realized.
Michelle Bachelet, president of Chile from 2006 to 2010, is executive director of U.N. Women, which advocates gender equality and empowerment of women.
Duplicating Afghanistan From the Ground Up
By MALIA WOLLAN The New York Times April 14, 2012
FRESNO, Calif. — When Sgt. First Class Darrell Rowe’s Army bosses told him they were sending him for a week of beekeeping and tree pruning here in California’s fertile Central Valley, he was irked.
“My first reaction was, what the hell would I be doing with agriculture?” said Sergeant Rowe, 32. “What does a combat man have to do with crops?”
After all, Sergeant Rowe has already served two tours of duty in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. This week he is scheduled to leave Joint Base Lewis-McChord, near Tacoma, Wash., for a nine-month stint in Afghanistan.
But it is one thing to have seen the land, and another to know how to work it.
Familiarizing soon-to-be deployed service members like Sergeant Rowe with basic information about Afghanistan’s crops and farming traditions is precisely the point of a new one-week training program developed by the federal Agriculture Department.
This is boot camp where soldiers are more likely to learn about manure than about M-4 rifles with grenade launchers.
Military officials send recruits from across the country to Central California because it shares many agroclimatic characteristics with Afghanistan — fertile valleys, semi-arid plains and mountains — and can serve as a kind of geographical laboratory.
“We can replicate on our demonstration farm exactly the types of conditions these troops will find on the ground,” said Bill Erysian, director of Agricultural Development for Afghanistan Pre-Deployment Training, or Adapt, a program based at California State University, Fresno.
And, with the exception of Afghanistan’s opium poppy production, the two locales grow nearly all the same crops. “The first time my plane landed here it felt familiar,” said Navid Sediqi, an agronomist from Afghanistan and one of the course instructors. “I saw pistachios, almonds, wheat, pomegranates, grapes. These are the same things we grow back home.”
Since 2002, the United States has spent more than $1 billion on Afghanistan’s agricultural sector, in part to create markets and options for farmers other than growing opium poppies. Financed by a $2.9 million grant from the Agriculture Department, the Adapt training codifies what had been ad-hoc efforts by various branches of the American military to train recruits in agriculture. Some of that earlier training occurred in locations bearing less likeness to Afghanistan, like Wisconsin.
The grant is one of several the Agriculture Department has made to land-grant colleges in the Central Valley in recent years, tapping into the region’s farming expertise. The department gave more than $16 million to a consortium of universities led by the University of California, Davis, to help build up Afghanistan’s agricultural extension system and create an online repository and smartphone application called e-Afghan Ag. The site and app provide information for civilians and combat troops trying to find solutions to agricultural problems they encounter in Afghanistan.
In late March, about 25 recruits from across the military — including members of the National Guard, Army Reserve and Army Civil Affairs — spent a week here learning the basics of subsistence agriculture, like how to keep vegetables from spoiling without refrigeration and how to transplant grape cuttings.
An afternoon demonstration on how Afghan farmers dig irrigation ditches with shovels left Sergeant Rowe in a reflective mood.
“If we see a guy out at night digging with shovels, that is a threat to us, he might not be alive in the morning,” he said, explaining that insurgents also use shovels to bury improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, along paths and roads.
For many of the trainees who had previously been deployed to Afghanistan, a lesson on pruning pomegranate trees brought memories not of ruby-colored clusters of fruit but of overgrown orchards with communication antennas strung high on bushy branches by insurgents.
“Pomegranates,” one groaned.
“We’re not going to make anyone a farmer in five days,” said Ryan Brewster, the Agriculture Department’s Afghanistan desk officer. “But what we can do is teach them about agriculture, and why it’s important to the average Afghan.”
As much as 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population relies on subsistence agriculture. Until the early 1970s, the country’s farmers produced grain, fruits and nuts for domestic consumption and export. But in the more than 30 years of conflict since the Soviet invasion in 1979, much of that agricultural know-how and basic infrastructure has been lost or destroyed.
Much of the financing for agricultural projects began streaming into the country after 2009, when Richard C. Holbrooke, then the American special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, announced a shift away from poppy eradication efforts. Those efforts, he would later say, had “pushed poor farmers into the Taliban’s hands.” Instead, the United States would emphasize building roads and fostering market-based alternatives to opium poppies, like exporting raisins and pomegranate juice.
About 50 Agriculture Department extension agents are currently in Afghanistan, but some experts feel the emphasis on agricultural development and farming literacy came too little, too late.
“Until 2008, we were not funding the war in Afghanistan,” said Anthony H. Cordesman a defense expert at the Center for Strategic and International Studies who has advised the American military on its Afghan strategy. “It takes 12 to 18 months for the money to flow into the country. We basically did not have the surplus ability or assets to handle agriculture.”
Many of the trainees here learning to subdue honeybees with smoke and to seed a field with wheat berries had modest but sincere hopes for the week.
“This training gives us the knowledge to at least not mess things up,” said Capt. Christopher Kennedy, of an Army Civil Affairs battalion out of Webster, N.Y., “when what we’re trying to do is help.”
U.S. Air Force Restarts Afghanistan Aircraft Competition
Bloomberg By Tony Capaccio and Danielle Ivory Apr 14, 2012
The U.S. Air Force will restart its stalled $1 billion competition to buy light attack aircraft for the Afghanistan military, it said today.
The military will issue a draft request for proposals April 17 and a final version April 30, the service said in an e-mailed statement. A new award is scheduled for early 2013.
The Air Force on Feb. 28 canceled a disputed $1 billion contract to Sierra Nevada Corp. after determining the documentation used to make the award was flawed.
Sierra Nevada and its Brazilian subcontractor, Embraer SA (EMBR3), will again compete against Hawker Beechcraft Corp. Hawker, a closely held company that is 49 percent-owned by Goldman Sachs Group Inc. (GS), had protested the Defense Department’s December decision, which gave Sierra the order to provide the aircraft for the Afghan military.
Hawker sued the military in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims in Washington, claiming it was unfairly eliminated from the competition. The decision was a blow to the Wichita, Kansas- based company, which has been struggling with slower defense spending.
Spokesmen for Hawker, Sparks, Nevada-based Sierra and Embraer didn’t immediately respond to phone calls and e-mails.
Embraer hoped to use the contract to establish a relationship with the Pentagon, Chief Executive Officer Frederico Curado told reporters on April 10 at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Washington.
“This tends to give us opportunities for future transactions,” Curado said. He said the contract would give the company credibility abroad as well.
“We just have to hope that when this process is reconsidered or reopened that there are no changes to the original specs,” he said. “If there are no changes, I think the same reasons that made us win the first time will make us win the second time.”
To contact the reporters on this story: Tony Capaccio in Washington at acapaccio@bloomberg.net; Danielle Ivory in Washington at divory@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Stephanie Stoughton at sstoughton@bloomberg.net
www.afghanistannewscenter.com