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March 3, 2006
This Week in Afghanistan Watch:
“If local commanders see Dostum hand in weapons he sets a politically important example and it will be easier for us to persuade other people to follow in his footsteps.”
—Major Oz Lane, a British officer with the Mazar-i-Sharif PRT
“The challenge is not that the enemy is strong, but after 25 years of warfare, that the institutions of the state are weak.”
—Coalition commander Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry
“We take them very seriously. They come in the night to our village. We are not armed, and they ask for food and a place to stay. We cannot say anything. Then the government comes in the morning and says you gave a place to the Taliban. But what should we do?”
—Jamal Khan, a farmer from Helmand Province, on the Taliban
“The government has made important strides toward creating an enabling investment climate, but much more remains to be done. Private-sector activity is still carried out in an environment dominated by informal practices. These arrangements may be useful for many investors in the short run but will have negative effects for longer-term investment growth.”
—Jean Mazurelle, World Bank Country Manager for Afghanistan
Another Pitstop in Kabul
March 2, 2006
By Carl Robichaud
President Bush’s first visit to Afghanistan came four years after September 11 and lasted less than five hours. The details are telling. That the president chose not to spend the night in Kabul or announce his visit—a prudent move considering reports that Taliban insurgents have portable surface-to-air missiles—tells as much about Afghanistan’s security situation as do Pentagon metrics of troops trained or insurgents killed. More... |
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| Dedication of the new U.S. Embassy. Source: White House |
Afghanistan y the numbers:
- Portion of Afghan economic activity that is conducted informally: 80-90 percent
- Investment as a portion of Afghanistan’s GDP: 22 percent
- Percent of registered investment that is in construction and related materials: 50 percent
Source: World Bank
- Estimated schools shut down in the South due to threats by militants: 200
Source: NYT
- Estimated armed groups at commencement of
Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups Program: 1,200 to 1,800
- Number of men in each: 100 to 300.
- Weapons turned in to DIAG since June: 17,700
Source: Financial Times
- Prisoners involved in the Pul-e-Charkhi riot: 1,300
Source: BBC
On the Pul-e-Charkhi prison riot
The riots at Pul-e-Charkhi marked the third serious incident at the prison in just over a year. The prison, which Afghans associate with detentions and torture during the communist era, today holds common criminals as well as ‘second tier’ Taliban and al Qaeda detainees. (Approximately 500 suspects of particular interest to the U.S. are detained without charges at Bagram, in conditions similar to Guantanamo. See NYT: A Growing Afghan Prison Rivals Bleak Guantánamo )
The riots highlight the inadequacy of prison conditions in Afghanistan . In 2004, a USIP Report Establishing the Rule of Law in Afghanistan by Laurel Miller and Robert Perito argued that “lack of overhaul of the corrections system has a direct negative impact on the functioning of the entire criminal justice system”:
Typical for a post-conflict reconstruction situation, the corrections system in Afghanistan is the neglected step-child of justice sector reform. Though corrections nominally falls within Italy 's lead, it has paid limited attention to this area and other donors have paid none. Afghan authorities also have applied few resources to address the huge needs of the prison system…
Prisons outside Kabul are perhaps even worse than Pul-e-Charkhi, functioning essentially as ‘private prison’:
Though information on the situation outside of Kabul is inconsistent, it appears that all or most actually functioning prisons and detention facilities (with an unknown number of detainees) are effectively controlled by commanders or other regional power-holders, rather than the central government. Prison conditions generally in Afghanistan have been harshly criticized by those who have examined them, but other than the work described above, no concrete measures are underway to address the situation.
At the time of the USIP report, the only prison initiative in the nation was a $2 million program through the UN Office of Drugs and Crime. Donors are consistently resistant to funding prisons because no one to be implicated in abuses when a prison project they sponsor turns sour. But it’s clear from Pul-e-Charkhi that the current policies of benign neglect are not working.
Authorities: Pul-e-Charkhi prison riot 'is over'
March 1 (BBC)—Afghan police have regained "full control" of Kabul's jail after four days of bloody rioting, officials say...The riot began on Saturday with inmates taking over parts of the prison. At least five deaths have been reported...At least 300 of the rioters are accused of being Taleban and al-Qaeda militants, whom officials have accused of starting the unrest.
Mr Hashimzai said one body was found as some 1,300 prisoners involved in the rioting were moved under police escort to a new prison block. Four inmates died earlier this week and a number of injured prisoners have been taken to hospital.
Radio Free Afghanistan: Who Instigated the Prison Riot And Why?
March 2 (Radio Free Afghanistan)—Broader questions -- such as who instigated the riots and why -- have not been independently corroborated. But what the standoff will do is to return attention to the government's reconciliation program aimed at ending the neo-Taliban insurgency and the impact on future dealings with captured militants.
While (chief negotiator, Sebghatullah) Mojaddedi did not go into details about who spearheaded the riots at Pol-e Charkhi, his presence as the head of the government's negotiating team could be viewed as a clue that the prisoners' leaders were in some way linked with the neo-Taliban. Mojaddedi, who is the speaker of the Council of Elders, the upper house of the National Assembly, also serves as the chairman of the Commission for National Reconciliation, which is trying to end the neo-Taliban insurgency by inviting militants to make peace with the government. (Mojaddedi was not the only name to be put forward by the prisoners; some wanted a pro-Karzai deputy and others the speaker of the People's Council of the National Assembly, Mohammad Yunos Qanuni, to act as negotiators.)…
Among the prisoners' complaints were poor living conditions. In a report published in 2005, a UN-appointed independent expert mandated to review the human rights situation in Afghanistan, M. Cherif Bassiouni, described the conditions at Pol-e Charkhi prison as "sub-standard." Bassiouni complained that prisoners are "inappropriately shackled" in overcrowded cells, and also about "inadequate sanitation, open electrical wiring, and broken and missing windows during freezing temperatures. "Following the riots, though, the prisoners have now had to be moved to a wing of the prison where conditions are worse, says the ICRC's Olivier Moeckli. "The ICRC had worked and assisted the authorities in repairing the wings where the prisoners were held," he said. "Now…they are in a wing where quite heavy work needs to be done." Some of the grievances were "reasonable," Mojaddedi said. Controversially, he included in that list complaints "against prosecutors, judges, and the prison officials and about being jailed for no reason." By legitimizing some of the grievances of the prisoners against prosecutors and judges and effectively stating that some of the prisoners have been incarcerated for no reason, the Commission for National Reconciliation opens the door for suspected anti-government militants to claim clemency through the reconciliation program even after they are captured in action. The danger is that this could prolong the insurgency.
Pakistan strikes suspected al Qaeda Camp; car bomb kills U.S. diplomat
MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan, March 2 (AP)—Pakistani soldiers and helicopter gunships attacked a suspected al-Qaida camp Wednesday near the Afghan border, killing more than 45 militants and angering residents who called for a holy war days before a visit by President Bush. On Thursday, meanwhile, a car bombing near the U.S. Consulate in Pakistan 's largest city, Karachi, killed at least four people, including a U.S. diplomat, officials said.
As news of the attack on the militants spread in the rugged northwestern region, tribesmen who sympathize with the militants came out of their homes and began firing in the air. A mosque loudspeaker urged people to ''wage jihad against the army.'' The offensive was in North Waziristan, a region controlled by fiercely independent, well-armed tribes believed to be sheltering al-Qaida fugitives and Taliban remnants. The militants often cross the porous Afghan-Pakistan border.
Three helicopter gunships attacked the militants' mountain hide-out near Saidgi, a village nine miles west of Miran Shah, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said. The assault ''knocked out a den of foreign militants'' and killed more than 45 of them, an army statement said. The slain men -- most from Central Asian and Arab countries -- included an al-Qaida-linked Chechen commander, identified only by his code name, Imam, who died when a helicopter fired on a vehicle in which he was fleeing, an army official said…
The attacks came just days before a visit by Bush to Pakistan during which the fight against al-Qaida and loyalists of Afghanistan 's former Taliban regime will be on the agenda. Pakistan , a key U.S. ally in the war against terrorism, has been under pressure from the U.S. and Afghanistan to be more aggressive in flushing out militants and sealing off the border.
Taliban rebels still menacing Afghan South
LOY KAREZ, March 2 (NYT) by Carlotta Gall—Four years after the Taliban were ousted from power by the American military, their presence is bigger and more menacing than ever, say police and government officials, village elders, farmers and aid workers across southern Afghanistan.
American and Afghan officials have said for months that the Taliban are no longer capable of fighting large battles, and in their weakness have changed tactics to roadside bombings or attacking soft targets, like harassing villagers, killing teachers and burning schools. Yet despite its evident military supremacy, the American-led alliance has not been able to root out the insurgency. And the Taliban's tactics have succeeded in sowing fear, nearly all here agree.
The militants have closed down some 200 schools through threats and burnings across the south of Afghanistan , and killed dozens of government officials, tribal elders and civilians over the last year. Commerce has sharply declined in Kandahar , largely because of the rash of suicide bombings in the last few months.In the villages, people are asking foreigners and nongovernmental organizations not to come around anymore, not because they do not need the aid, but for fear of reprisals from the Taliban, aid workers and villagers said.
Some, like the local Afghan border police commander, Col. Abdul Razziq, 30, say the situation is reaching a pivotal point, at least in his area. "People are fed up now with the Taliban," he said. "They don't let organizations come and builds roads, dig bore wells and build schools. People are fed up with them. I think now people have to fight them. How long can they tolerate this?"…
While villagers may not support the government, most are sitting on the fence, and only a few are actively helping the Taliban, police officials say. Villagers say they are caught in the middle, and receive little government support.
Afghan warlord backs plan to disarm militias
Feb 27 (Financial Times) By Rachel Morarjee—Northern Afghanistan's most feared warlord threw his weight behind a UN-backed drive to disarm the country's illegal militias as bomb attacks worsened across the country.
General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the armed forces chief of staff, last week collected 400 weapons and two tons of ammunition from 100 commanders loyal to his ethnic Uzbek Junbesh militia. Speaking amid the plastic palm trees at his private guesthouse in the province of Jawzjan , Gen Dostum called the weapons haul "a great success" for the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) programme and said it would boost stability in the region. Afghanistan has committed to disarm all the illegal militias, which hold sway over most of the provinces and provide protection for the country's drugs trade, by 2007…
Major Oz Lane, a British officer with the Provincial Reconstruction Team in the main northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif, said although some of the weapons were rusted and barely functioning the ceremony was "hugely symbolic"…Western officials said the move was linked to Gen Dostum's ambitions to take the top Ministry of Defence job and carve out a more significant role in government, as well as a bid to attract more aid to the potentially oil-rich province.
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World Bank: Afghan investment climate improving
KABUL, February 27 (IRIN)—A World Bank report released on Saturday said that the investment climate in Afghanistan was improving, but identified key constraints to capital inflows. The report called on the government to do more to promote private-sector development.
Based on a survey of 338 companies in five Afghan cities, the report said the most serious constraints for private-sector developments were reliable mains electricity, access to land and finance and the scourge of corruption. According to the study, the key challenge is to broaden participation in the market by removing barriers to new investors and creating conditions that will encourage those already active in the economy to invest more.
The report emphasizes the need to improve government's capacity to formulate and implement private-sector development policies and programs. "Enterprises need a variety of business services to help them enter, operate, grow and manage risks," said Samuel Munzele Maimbo, World Bank Senior Financial Sector Specialist and co-author of the report.
"These services are best provided by the private sector but the government needs to put in place a policy and regulatory framework to facilitate private entry."
The report notes that the Afghan government has taken a number of steps to improve the business environment and attract investment. It has established the Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) designed specifically to promote and facilitate investment. There has also been significant progress in developing the financial sector, as well as reform in labor regulation and the nation's tax regime…
Some 80-90 percent of economic activity in Afghanistan is informal and potential investors who do not have established contacts with influential figures find these informal arrangements daunting and are often discouraged from investing, the report argues.
Afghanistan has witnessed a sharp increase in private-sector investment since the demise of the Taliban in late 2001, but it is well below its potential, the report says. For example, AISA has registered nearly US $1.3 billion in new investment (excluding telecom firms) over the past two years, but only a fraction of these commitments have actually been disbursed.
While investment accounts for nearly 22 percent of Gross Domestic Product (GDP), the bulk of it is public money financed through international aid. Nearly 50 percent of the new investment approved by AISA has been in construction and construction materials.
Afghan border security conference opens in Qatar
February 27 (AFP)—A two-day conference on border security in Afghanistan opened Monday in Doha focused on efforts to increase cooperation with the country's seven neighbors…
Featured Reports
The Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) released several reports this month:
Briefing papers:
Case Studies:
- "The urban poor and vulnerable are widely excluded from access to basic services all over Mazar, and supplying clean drinking water to urban residents is a key priority.
- Poverty in the city is influenced by an extremely restricted urban labor market, and employment irregularity and competition are particularly acute in the winter months, when many rely on credit to get them through the season.
- Casual wage labor and self-employment are the main income sources for the urban poor in Mazar.
- Mazar has a unique community council structure, which should be utilized more to broaden the scope of community participation in the city."
* © 2003 Open Society Institute. Reprinted with the permission of the
Open Society Institute, 400 West 59th Street, New York, NY 10019 USA,
wwwEurasiaNet.org. or www.soros.org.
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Afghanistan Watch is prepared by Carl Robichaud, a program officer at The Century Foundation.
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