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This culinary sideline, which supplements the US forces’ spartan rations, helps the Afghans save enough cash to bribe their commander to give them time off to see their families, the men say. Some never return.
Speaking in secret afterwards, the Afghan troops told AFP that because they are ethnic minorities in the country’s Pashtun-heavy army, bribery is the only way they can make sure their Pashtun commander gives them a break.
“The commander tells us, ‘search your pockets’. If somebody gives him money, he can take vacation. I don’t have any money so I can’t go,” said one soldier, a 20-year-old ethnic Hazara man.
“As a non-Pashtun, I’m cheap. I’m not as valuable to them (the army) as a Pashtun soldier,” added a Tajik, who like others requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
The situation is sapping morale among young recruits at a small base in the Musa Qala district of volatile Helmand province, a highly dangerous area and one of Afghanistan’s main Taliban flashpoints.
This is just one of the issues dogging Afghanistan’s 150,000-member national army, whose strength is key to the plan for international troops gradually to withdraw and hand responsibility for security to Afghan forces by 2014.
A report from respected NGO International Crisis Group in May said today’s Afghan army was “incapable of fighting the insurgency on its own”, highlighting ethnic factionalism, illiteracy, drug addiction and desertion.
Its research found that Pashtuns and Tajiks – thought to make up 42 and 27 percent of all Afghans respectively – dominate the officer ranks, while Hazaras, Uzbeks and other groups remain under-represented at that level..........
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/03/ethni...diers-say.html
The above news article is from the most influential Paki english newspaper.
This culinary sideline, which supplements the US forces’ spartan rations, helps the Afghans save enough cash to bribe their commander to give them time off to see their families, the men say. Some never return.
Speaking in secret afterwards, the Afghan troops told AFP that because they are ethnic minorities in the country’s Pashtun-heavy army, bribery is the only way they can make sure their Pashtun commander gives them a break.
“The commander tells us, ‘search your pockets’. If somebody gives him money, he can take vacation. I don’t have any money so I can’t go,” said one soldier, a 20-year-old ethnic Hazara man.
“As a non-Pashtun, I’m cheap. I’m not as valuable to them (the army) as a Pashtun soldier,” added a Tajik, who like others requested anonymity for fear of retribution.
The situation is sapping morale among young recruits at a small base in the Musa Qala district of volatile Helmand province, a highly dangerous area and one of Afghanistan’s main Taliban flashpoints.
This is just one of the issues dogging Afghanistan’s 150,000-member national army, whose strength is key to the plan for international troops gradually to withdraw and hand responsibility for security to Afghan forces by 2014.
A report from respected NGO International Crisis Group in May said today’s Afghan army was “incapable of fighting the insurgency on its own”, highlighting ethnic factionalism, illiteracy, drug addiction and desertion.
Its research found that Pashtuns and Tajiks – thought to make up 42 and 27 percent of all Afghans respectively – dominate the officer ranks, while Hazaras, Uzbeks and other groups remain under-represented at that level..........
http://www.dawn.com/2011/01/03/ethni...diers-say.html
The above news article is from the most influential Paki english newspaper.
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