Afghanistan News February 26, 2003

February 26, 2003

Search widens but hope dims for body of Afghan minister to be found off Pakistani coast
Wed Feb 26, 3:35 AM ET By ZARAR KHAN, Associated Press Writer
KARACHI, Pakistan - Pakistan navy helicopters and rescue ships widened their search Wednesday for the body of an Afghan minister whose small plane fell into the Arabian Sea off the Pakistani coast, killing all eight people on board, officials said.

Juma Mohammed Mohammedi, Afghanistan's minister for mines and industry, four other Afghan officials, a Chinese businessman and two crew members, were all killed when the Cessna 402 went down shortly after takeoff from Karachi on Monday.

Five bodies have been found, but rescuers said it is extremely unlikely they will find the other two.

"It is a massive operation but there is very little hope the remaining three bodies will be found," Pakistan navy spokesman Roshan Khayal told The Associated Press. He said four Pakistan navy ships and several helicopters were engaged in the search.

Authorities are also concerned they may never know what caused the plane to crash, since they have managed to recover so little of the plane's wreckage.

"We have found a few small pieces of the wreckage which are not enough to determine the cause of the crash," a senior civil aviation official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The plane was not equipped with a black box.

On Tuesday, authorities said the plane was passing through a no-fly that was used as a weapons testing range for the Pakistani navy and air force. But no testing was going on Monday when the chartered plane went down, officials said.

The Afghan minister and his team was en route to Jazak, near the Iranian border in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, to visit a copper mine run by the China Metallurgical Construction Co.

Afghan Soldiers Find Giant Weapons Cache
Wed Feb 26,12:20 AM ET AP
JALALABAD, Afghanistan - Acting on an intelligence tip, Afghan government found a giant cache of weapons including mortars, missiles and anti-tank land mines in an abandoned compound in the eastern Nangarhar region, a police official said Wednesday.

No arrests were made, but police hauled away enough weapons to fill four pickup trucks with weapons, said Ajab Shah, the police chief of Nangarhar province.

Mortars, AK-41 anti-tank land mines, BM-12 Chinese-made missiles and munition rounds were found when troops searched the compound in Bander district, some 45 miles south of Jalalabad, close to the Pakistani border, according to Shah.

He suspected Taliban or al-Qaida fighters may have stored the weapons.

Bander is a rugged mountainous region, where bases of former Islamic fighters who fought Soviet troops in the 1980s, are also located.

Afghan and American troops looking for Taliban and al-Qaida remnants routinely stumble on weapons caches but arrests are rarely made.

US has abandoned Afghanistan
Wednesday February 26, 12:42 PM AFP
Democratic Senator Joseph Biden accused the administration of abandoning its long-term commitments in Afghanistan and warned the same could happen in a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq.

"I think they've already given up the ghost in Afghanistan. They've basically turned it over to the warlords," he told reporters.

President George W. Bush's budget for 2003 did not request any monies to help rebuild Afghanistan, forcing US lawmakers to step in and add some 295 million dollars in humanitarian and reconstruction funds.

Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai is expected to raise the issue when he meets here with Bush on February 27.

Biden, ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations committee, said there was a similar debate going on within the Bush administration that included suggestions of placing "some generals or colonels" probably Sunni in charge of Iraq "and walking away."

"If we do that, (Iraq) is going to fall apart fairly quickly," he warned.

Last week, US Secretary of State Colin Powell cautioned against assuming that Iraq would be "devastated" by a possible war and that once Saddam is ousted the country will be placed under US military administration before moving to a US or international civilian administration and self rule.

"Can you imagine what happens in the Arab world when you take 30 or 40 billion dollars of Iraqi oil wealth" to pay for a US-civilian administration backed by US military, Biden countered.

Afghanistan reclaims spot as world's biggest opium grower
Wednesday February 26, 1:36 PM AFP
Afghanistan reclaimed its position as the world's biggest producer of opium in 2002 after the fall of the Taliban, the UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said in a report.

The country produced some 3,400 tonnes of opium last year, according to the report that was unveiled by the UN agency at its headquarters in Vienna.

"Opium production in Afghanistan in 2002 is of the same order of magnitude as during the mid-1990s," it stated, adding that the unstable "political and social situation" has contributed to this.

The INCB said it believed that even without 2002's big opium poppy harvest Afghanistan has enough of the drug, which is in turn used to make heroin, in stock to supply the world drug market for a couple of years.

"A significant amount of opium illicitly produced in 2002 will therefore be added to the existing stockpile which, even without that amount, might have been sufficient to supply the world's illit market for two or three years," the INCB said.

Opium production has long fueled the turmoil in Afghanistan and reached its peak in 1999 and 2000, when output respectively reached 4,600 and 3,300 tonnes.

In 2001 it dropped to 185 tonnes after the Taliban banned the growing of opium poppies.

The INCB said production has surged again in spite of two new decrees issued in 2002 by President Hamid Karzai, who took power after the Taliban was overthrown, to ban opium poppy cultivation.

The board said the bans could not be properly implemented in large areas of Afghanistan because of the political upheaval in the country.

According to the UN agency, large quantities of Afghanistan's opium is smuggled to Iran, Pakistan and Russia, from were it goes on to Europe.

"The smuggling of opiates originating in Afghanistan into and through the Islamic Republic of Iran and Pakistan has returned to the levels attained prior to the ban on opium poppy cultivation introduced by the Taliban," the report said.

Central Asia, it added, continues to form "one of the primary routes for transporting illicit drugs from Afghanistan to Russia and from there to countries in eastern and western Europe."

The agency said drug legislation in Afghanistan remained "inaedequate" and called on the Kabul government to urgently develop "a comprehensive national drug policy".

To stop farmers from growing poppies, it should offer them an alternative means of earning a living.

"The board believes that the eradication of illicit opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan can be achieved only when the relevant laws are fully respected and strictly implemented while sustainable alternative livelihoods are provided for farmers."

The INCB said it wanted to warn Afghanistan's central Asian neighbours Pakistan, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan and Tajdikistan to watch out that poppy cultivation did not resume on their soil if it were stopped in Afghanistan.

"In Pakistan, the government was able to eradicate illicit opium poppy on 70 percent of the total area under which such cultivation had resumed in 2001," it said.

The INCB report confirms similar findings by the UN Office on Drugs and Crime who said Afghanistan had produced 3,422 tonnes of opium last year on some 74,000 hectares (182,780 acres) of soil.

That agency calculated that a single hectare of opium poppies earned Afghan farmers about 16,100 dollars (15,450 euros) and that the entire harvest was worth some 1.2 billion dollars.

UN report finds poor countries that produce drugs do not reap the profit
Wednesday February 26, 12:52 PM AFP
It is a myth that poor countries are enriched by drug production as more than 96 percent of the profits from illegal substances are earned in the countries where they are sold, the UN International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said.

"Contrary to the widespread perception that income generated from the illicit drug industry automatically fosters economic development... countries in which illicit drugs have been produced have suffered a decline in economic growth," the body said in its 2002 report released in Vienna.

"Estimates suggest that only one percent of the money that is ultimately spent worldwide by drug abusers on maintaining their drug habits is earned as farm income in developing countries," the report said.

"The remaining 99 percent of the global illicit drug income is earned by drug trafficking groups," operating mainly in the United States and Europe, the world's two biggest markets for illicit drugs.

"Thus the overwhelming share of the profits of global illicit drug income are made in the countries where the end products are sold and abused," the UN body concluded.

It said that in 2000 opium farmers in Afghanistan and coca producers in Colombia, whose harvests sustain much of the world's heroine and cocaine abuse, earned an estimated 1.2 billion dollars (1.5 million euros).

This amount equals two percent of the total international aid to developing countries in 2000 and suggests that a slight increase in aid "could offset shortfalls for farmers who switch to licit crops."

In the same year, heroine and cocaine sales in the United States and Europe totalled an estimated 60 billion dollars, it added.

On the whole, the INCB report said, only 3.8 percent of the money earned along the drug trafficking chain, ended up in the pockets of people living in poor, drug-producing countries.

It said that in Afghanistan, the world's biggest opium producer, the drug trade fueled instability because the profits were used to finance the country's civil conflict.

"Massive increases in opium production in the early 1990s only helped to fuel civil wars and accelerated the destabilisation of the country.

"The illicit drug trade clearly failed to have any positive impact on the country's overall social and economic development," it said.

INCB president Philip Emafo remarks in the foreword to the report that "the same is true for other countries."

"The Board has found no indications that the expansion of illicit crop cultivation leads to the improvement of any broader development indicator at the national level."

The INCB said instead the drug trade inevitably led to an increase in violent crime, scared off foreign investors and ultimately prevented long-term economic growth.

On top of that, the drug economy undermined political stabilty as it "weakens the political system through corruption."

Its profits were frequently used to fund election campaigns, insurrection, terrorism and organised crime, the report stated.

It cited Columbia and its cocaine wars as an example of how severely drugs can destabilise a society.

In the 1970s, before the country become a big player in the drug industry, 17 out of 100,000 people in the population died violently but after the Medelin cartel went to war against the state in 1988 the country's murder rate shot up to 63 per 100,000 people.

In 1992, when the conflict was at its height, 80 Colombians out of every 100,000 were murdered.

The INCB said it found that Afghanistan has since the fall of the Taliban again become the world's biggest producer of opium, harvesting 3,400 tonnes of the drug in 2002.

The agency called for tougher drug laws in that country and critised those states that were softening legislation.

These included, The Netherlands and Canada, where lawmakers have decided to allow the medicinal use of cannibis, as well as Switzerland, which is planning to decriminalise the use of cannibis as well as buying, growing or being in possession of the drug for personal use.

Spotlight on Iraq emboldens Afghan guerrillas
Attacks against U.S., allies
Juliette Terzieff, San Francisco Chronicle Foreign Service Monday, February 24, 2003
Islamabad, Pakistan Hunting down Taliban and al Qaeda members in Afghanistan was never an easy prospect, but concerns are growing that groups on the Pakistan-Afghan border that are opposed to the U.S. presence are getting bolder as the world's attention shifts to Iraq.

More than 400 American and U.S.-allied Afghan troops backed by B-1 bombers and helicopter gunships are now fighting the largest group of guerrilla fighters to surface in almost a year.

"Clearly, there are people who have bad intentions, and they don't like the way things are going here or in the war on terrorism," says Maj. Steven Clutter, a spokesman for U.S. forces at Bagram Air Base, outside the Afghan capital of Kabul.

Since December, there has been an attack against coalition forces, international aid groups or the Karzai government somewhere in Afghanistan every day. Mines and rockets have exploded near Bagram, Khost and Spin Boldak. In the capital, young men have thrown grenades at vehicles carrying soldiers of the 4,800-member International Security Assistance Force, which is trying to keep the peace in Kabul.

Communiques from guerrilla leaders, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and former Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, all promise the same thing more to come.

According to a statement obtained Sunday by the Associated Press, Hekmatyar said he is proud the United States has branded him a terrorist and echoed Osama bin Laden's call for suicide attacks against Americans.

"I ask the Muslims of the world to wage a guerrilla war by using suicide attacks," the statement said. "Now is not the time for large-scale group assaults, but rather for individual attacks."

Afghan and U.S. officials worry that the attacks by rebels armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles are not merely a result of the continued instability in Afghanistan but are also evidence of the complicity of power brokers in America's No. 1 regional ally in the war on terrorism: Pakistan.

SOURCE OF ATTACKS
U.S. officers based in Bagram believe that up to 90 percent of recent attacks are the result of groups based on the Pakistan side of the border.

"We have engaged Pakistan to normalize relations based on respect for each other's mutual interests, noninterference and cooperation," says Omar Samad, an Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman. "We have seen progress in most fields, but the lingering problem of terrorist activities along our border and the regrouping of small hard-line extremists and Taliban are cause for concern."

Coalition spokesmen claim that since the latest battle erupted on Jan. 27 in southeastern Afghanistan, 18 rebels have been killed out of an estimated 80 believed to have been supplied with arms from Pakistan.

B-1s and B-52s have dropped 2,000-pound bombs on the area, but allied forces have had trouble tracking down the rebels, who are fighting a classic guerrilla-style hit-and-run campaign. Meanwhile, reports of civilian casualties have outraged Afghans. Coalition spokesmen claim there was only one civilian death, but the local press has reported 17.

"These attacks are serious," admitted Clutter, "but they appear to be the acts of a desperate foe."

Most analysts agree that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf remains committed, at least in principle, to the alliance he made with the Bush administration after Sept. 11, 2001. But the rebels' staging area hundreds of miles of border that are home to the Pashtun tribes that helped spawn the Taliban enjoy a great amount of autonomy from Musharraf's government. Pakistan also has a history of Afghan adventures led by the powerful Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency in conjunction with various Afghan and Pashtun warlords. Together, those factors make it difficult for the central government to control the combustible situation along its border.

DAILY ROCKET ATTACKS
While Pakistan has 70,000 troops fanned out along the 1,520-mile border, hundreds of fighters are mobilizing in Waziristan, a part of the border tribal belt where joint U.S.-Pakistani operations have met stiff resistance from locals during the past year. From there, guerrillas are crossing the border with high-tech communications equipment and weapons to launch daily rocket attacks on U.S. Special Forces camps and U.S.-Afghan border posts.

These raids have raised concern in Washington, where Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Joseph Biden, D-Del., claimed evidence last week that "the ISI is once again either turning a blind eye to or cooperating with" the rebels.

"There is always a case for doing more, but this is not just a matter of putting more troops on the border," argues Najum Mustaq, an Islamabad-based analyst for the International Crisis Group, a Belgian think tank. "The Taliban is a process, not an organization. It's a lifelong conditioning of a generation that continues today."

That conditioning, which glorifies martyrdom through war and violent opposition to infidel oppressors, is carried out openly in madrassas religious schools owned by local Pakistani leaders allied with various Afghan factions, as well as in a range of militant magazines and newspapers, posters and pamphlets urging people to take up arms against the United States, and even in a semi-underground radio station broadcasting to both sides of the border.

It was in this largely autonomous Pashtun-dominated tribal belt that the ISI and the CIA trained tens of thousands of mujahedeen, or holy warriors, to fight the Soviet occupation in the 1980s.

These same tribal areas gave birth to the Taliban young men from both sides of the border schooled in conservative Islam and outraged by the carnage wrought by warring Afghan factions after the Soviet withdrawal.

Sympathy for the Taliban remains strong within Pakistan's army, the ISI and the religious parties that now control the provincial legislatures in both Baluchistan and the Northwest Frontier province along the Afghan border.

Musharraf, a commando trained in the arts of strategy and survival, isn't likely to take them all head on.

RUSSIAN PLEDGE
Pakistani officials are quietly apprehensive of the growing influence in Afghanistan of Pakistan's traditional foes, Russia and India, both of which are backing non-Pashtun groups. Despite whispers of discouragement from Washington, Russia has promised $100 million in weapons to Defense Minister Mohammad Fahim, an ethnic Tajik, to bolster his private army. India has also lent its support to Fahim and other Tajik power brokers.

While interference by neighboring states in the internal affairs of Afghanistan is nothing new, Afghan officials worry that Pakistan is falling back into sponsoring extremists in an effort to retain influence in Afghanistan's Pashtun-dominated south and east.

"Extremism a la Taliban is a threat to everyone in this region, including Pakistan," says Samad of the Afghan Foreign Ministry. "Pakistan has played a constructive role in the fight against terrorism, but much more needs to be done to curb extremist militancy, which undermines restoring peace and stability in Afghanistan and in the region as a whole."

Afghan Factions Clash Near U.S. Headquarters
Tue Feb 25, 7:38 AM ET By Scott McDonald
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Factional fighting broke out near the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan (news - web sites) on Tuesday while President Hamid Karzai was abroad seeking backing for his plan to strip rival militias of their arms.

Two security posts northwest of Bagram Air Base reported seeing and hearing approximately 14 mortar rounds being fired away from the base at about 4.50 a.m. (2320 GMT), U.S. military spokesman Roger King said.

King told a news briefing the fighting apparently involved different Afghan factions, but did not identify them.

"There are some militia commanders on the north side of the base who don't necessarily get along with each other and every once in a while they launch a few rounds at each other," King said. He said he had no further details.

The fighting north of Kabul followed a serious clash between Uzbek warlord General Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish militia and fighters of Ustad Atta Mohammad's Jamiat-e-Islami faction in Faryab province which erupted Saturday and continued until Monday, according to one of Atta's generals.

Atta's deputy, General Abdul Saboor, said six people were killed in the clashes, but the factions had since agreed a cease-fire to halt the fighting.

Both of the rival commanders are members of Karzai's transitional administration and intermittent fighting between their forces over the past year has raised concern about the stability of the government.

"FIGHTING STOPPED"
The clashes came after Hashim Habibi, a Dostum commander in the area of the fighting, tried to disarm Atta's main commander there, Nabi Sherzad.

Saboor said those killed in exchanges of tank and shell fire included Sherzad's wife, daughter, cousin and two of his fighters.

"It is quiet now. With the arrival of the delegation sent from Faryab, the fighting stopped yesterday afternoon," Saboor told Reuters by telephone from northern Afghanistan.

Dostum is an ethnic minority Uzbek while Atta is from the Tajik minority.

Saboor said Dostum had sent extra forces from neighboring Sari Pul and Jozjan provinces and that could be a stumbling block to a long-term cease-fire. He said the issue would be raised with Dostum once he returned from a trip abroad.

No Dostum official was available for comment.
The fighting in Faryab flared as Karzai was attending an aid conference in Tokyo at the weekend where he was promised about $51 million from Japan, United States, Britain and Canada to help disarm his country's rival militias.

The project, under which some fighters will be absorbed into the Afghan army and others go into civilians' jobs, is expected eventually to cost about $140 million.

Tuesday Karzai was in Kuala Lumpur where he was expected to make a fresh appeal for support at the 116-nation Non-Aligned Movement summit.

Karzai is keen to complete the disarming of militia groups before elections to be held in June 2004, but faces an uphill task given the strength of the various forces and the still tiny national army.

Afghans Say 12 Taliban Held for Plotting Attacks
Tue Feb 25, 9:08 AM ET
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan authorities said Tuesday they had arrested 12 members of the former Taliban regime suspected of plotting terror attacks.

Police said they had seized arms and explosives when making the arrests in the southern towns of towns of Kandahar and Spin Boldak.

Seven suspects were arrested at a house in Kandahar on Sunday with a stock of arms and land mines, Muhammad Anwar, a senior police officer in the city, told Reuters.

Another five were arrested Monday evening at a hotel in the town of Spin Boldak near the Pakistani border, local security chief Abdullah said.

News of the arrests came after a blast in Kandahar on Monday night in front of the city center house of the provincial director of education, Muhammad Dawood Barak.

Police said the explosion, which appeared to have been caused by a land mine, damaged a car but caused no casualties. They said it was likely to have been carried out by remnants of the Taliban or fighters of renegade warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

Late last month, an explosion on a road about 20 km (12 miles) from Kandahar killed up to nine people in a minibus.

Officials said that blast was caused by an anti-tank mine rigged to a mortar bomb and they again suspected it was the work of Hekmatyar and members of the former Taliban regime.

In another incident, authorities in Kandahar's neighboring province Zabul shot and wounded a district police chief on Sunday, the provincial administration said.

Mullah Mohammad Omar, deputy governor of Zabul province said Wazir Mohammad, police chief of Atghar district, was wounded in the leg when militants opened fire after offering to surrender.

He said the attackers, who were on motorcycles, fled across the border into Pakistan after the shooting.

Zabul used to be a key base of support for the radical Taliban, which was overthrown by a U.S.-led coalition and local opposition groups late in 2001.

Two explosions have rocked Zabul's dusty capital Qalat in the past two weeks and leaflets have appeared calling for resistance to President Hamid Karzai's government and foreign troops.

Afghan officials say Taliban remnants are trying to regroup in southern and eastern Afghanistan, and there have been regular small-scale attacks on government targets and positions of the U.S.-led military coalition in recent months.

Government officials believe Taliban remnants are being helped by fighters loyal to Hekmatyar, a commander of the mujahideen militia that battled Soviet rule in the 1980s, who has declared holy war against foreign forces in Afghanistan.

Fighters thought loyal to the Taliban and Hekmatyar have come under attack from a U.S.-led forces in Kandahar province and neighboring Helmand in recent weeks.

Firefight in Afghan Capital Kills 2
Tue Feb 25, 3:03 PM ET AP
KABUL, Afghanistan - A British bodyguard killed two Afghan men in a shootout at the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul late Tuesday, police said.

The bodyguard, whose identity was not released, was injured in the clash and hospitalized, but his wounds were not believed to be life-threatening.

Police Chief Bashir Salangi said the bodyguard worked for a British security firm and was protecting an American man and his Afghan wife. The couple was not identified.

The shootout occurred at the Intercontinental Hotel, which has mostly foreign guests.

Police, who cordoned off the area, declined to speculate on a motive.

Warlords dominate most territory outside Kabul, which is patrolled by a 4,800-strong peacekeeping force, but even the Afghan capital regularly experiences violence, robberies and attacks.

Afghanistan: Focus on Coalition reconstruction teams
KABUL, 25 February (IRIN) - There's a strong smell of fresh paint as you walk through the corridors of the Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital in the capital, Kabul, these days. Two months ago, the strongest smell was the leaking toilets on the second floor of Afghanistan's main women's hospital.

Col Rene Dolder of the United States Coalition's civil affairs team, which is overseeing the refurbishment of the hospital, says the stench used to hit them as soon as they walked in. "You wouldn't have brought anyone in to get their fingernails clipped," he told IRIN in Kabul.

The US $250,000 upgrade is just one of many humanitarian projects US Coalition forces have been involved in since its troops drove the Taliban out of Afghanistan in late 2001. And that help is set to expand with the planned deployment of 12 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) throughout Afghanistan over the next year. The first PRT office was opened with a staff of about 50 in Gardez, in eastern Afghanistan last month.

But the move continues to draw criticism from aid agencies, which say the military has no real experience in such projects, will endanger the lives of NGO workers and is more interested in a quick public relations exercise to win over the Afghan people. Other critics argue NGOs and locals are a much cheaper solution to reconstruction than bringing in the military.

Rafael Robillard, the executive coordinator of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghanistan Relief (ACBAR), told IRIN in Kabul that undertaking aid work traditionally carried out by NGOs risked the Coalition losing focus on its main task, which was to provide security. "I can understand why the military forces are involved in these things. The main reason is to conquer the hearts and minds of the people. Mainly to stop being shot at, so they are seen as the good guys. For an army it's better to do this than kick in doors and insult people," he said.

ACBAR, which is an umbrella group for more than 70 NGOs in Afghanistan, is concerned that the PRTs are going to work while the Coalition is still at war in the country. "On one hand we hit you. On the other we heal you," Robillard suggested.

While appreciating that the presence of the teams may increase "ambient security" in some regions, ACBAR would have preferred this to be done by the International Security Assistance Force, which was mandated by the United Nations.

His strong concerns about the Coalition plan included the fact that the military may not provide its aid on an impartial basis, a principle that remains a cornerstone of NGO work. "Basically, NGOs are here to save lives, and this is an army in action that is pursuing the bad guys and at war with a sector of the Afghan population."

In addition, there was a real concern that PRT activities, probably supported by armed troops, would blur the lines between who was a "gentle aid worker and who was a combatant collecting intelligence".

ACBAR favours the Coalition concentrating on training the Afghan army, constraining warlords, disarming militias, and if it had to build something, then it should be government offices or things like prisons. "Leave the NGOs to build kindergartens. Some things are better left to professionals," Robillard asserted.

In addition to regional centres in Gardez and Herat, officials will open offices in Bamyan, Kunduz, Mazar-e Sharif, Jalalabad and Kandahar. All the centres are expected to be open by the summer. The staff could total about 500. Some might be led and partially staffed by coalition partners such as Britain.

Col Lindsay Gudridge, the director of the Civil Military Coordination Centre in Kabul, told IRIN that US troops had a moral obligation to provide humanitarian help in areas affected by conflict, and it was something it had done since World War II.

"We are on a mission to provide a sustainable peace and help the government of Afghanistan," Gudridge said. What the Coalition wanted was greater cooperation with NGOS in such areas as information sharing. He understood the NGOs' need to remain neutral and did not want to step on anyone's toes. "Because with all the things that there are to do in Afghanistan it would be a terrible shame to waste any of the money and talents that are here."

The Coalition was seeking to double its civil affairs budget in Afghanistan to US $12 million of Defence Department money this year. However, this would not mean an increase in the 350 civil affairs team members, nor would soldiers currently hunting Al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants be pulled away to build schools.

While recognising the need for NGOs to often work at arms' length from the military, Gudridge said that as conflict subsided in Afghanistan he hoped it would be possible to have the same relationship as NGOs had with peacekeepers in other areas of the world.

He used an example of an area needing a school, saying the military could build a bridge to give access to a community, thereby allowing an NGO to go and build that school. The presence of the military would allow NGOs to move into areas that had until now been difficult to operate in because of insecurity.

But NGOs remain unconvinced by the military's talk of cooperation, and still have serious concerns about the safety of both their workers and the communities where the PRTs are to be put in. Anita Anastacio, the Mercy Corps' representative in central Afghanistan, said there were cases in Somalia where whole communities had been wiped out after accepting US military aid.

"Communities say today: 'Who cares who does the job and who gives us the money?' But what happens tomorrow if the government changes or the Taliban come back? What happens to those communities?" she asked.

Paul O'Brien, a spokesman for international NGO CARE, told IRIN in Kabul that the military's skills were in providing security, so it should concentrate on providing a safe environment where the government and NGOs could carry out reconstruction work. "What we don't want [is] this to become is a massive political exercise," he said.

Meanwhile, the UN is acting as mediator between the two groups. Manoel de Almeida e Silva, the spokesman for the Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General, said that for the good of the Afghan people, cooperation was needed between all groups. "I think that any initiatives aimed at improving conditions here are, of course, welcome," he told IRIN in Kabul. However he understood the concerns of NGOs, and suggested that the military perform tasks NGOs were unable to undertake.

But behind the scenes, some UN officials share the fears of the NGOs. They feel unable to put their hands or heads up, however, because many rely on US funding for their work, and to criticise the Coalition would be seen as an attack on the Afghan government, which publicly backs the American initiative.

Most Afghans are happy to see signs of reconstruction, regardless of who is involved. At Rabia Balkhi Women's Hospital, nobody is joining in the battle between the "bunny huggers" and the "Provincial Rambo Teams" as the two sides have been dubbed by some. Dolder said the project had given jobs to lots of people and put food on the tables of many Afghans. "We're not here to take jobs away from NGOs. We're here to make their job a little easier."

The hospital's director, Dr Nasrim Oryakhil, told IRIN that in the nine months she had been in charge, she had been trying to get help to upgrade the hospital. She did not care who provided the money or who oversaw the construction, so long as facilities were created that helped the women of Afghanistan.

"After this all our problems will be solved," she said, adding that the Coalition team had been excellent and everything it had promised was being done to a very high standard. "We very much appreciate all the help we have been given."

Lunchtime Reflects Afghanstan Coalition
Wednesday, February 26, 2003 3:36 AM EST
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (AP) All the soldiers here wear desert camouflage. They all carry guns. Everyone's hair is shorn close to their scalps.

Walking around the sprawling Bagram Air Base, it's not always easy to pick out the international members of the 21-country coalition fighting terrorism in Afghanistan.

At lunchtime, it's a different story.

While almost everyone breaks out similar-looking military MREs plastic-wrapped, precooked Meals Ready-to-Eat the contents of each reveal the cultural differences that aren't always visible from a distance.

The Danes rip open cans of veal and vegetable stew. The Italians nosh on mortadella, asiago cheese and powerful espresso. South Koreans tuck into their own plastic-wrapped mixture of rice, dried meat and kimchi pickled cabbage.

``We are looking out for our identity,'' said Col. Kim Kuk-hwan, the head of the 50-strong South Korean contingent in Afghanistan that is composed of physicians and engineers. ``Otherwise we are the same, no?''

There are some 8,000 troops U.S. troops in Afghanistan, and about 1,000 foreign troops. Though hot breakfasts and dinner are served to everyone on the base, the soldiers must fend for themselves at lunch. That usually means cutting open a box of MREs or snacking on food sent from home.

U.S. MREs remain the butt of jokes detractors call them Meals Rejected by Everyone yet today's 24 menus are a far cry from the rations of years ago. In a nod to international cuisine, they now offer beef enchiladas, chicken in Thai sauce, jambalaya and pasta Alfredo.

Such strides haven't stopped other nations from coming up with their own versions, including Spain, Britain, Turkey, Greece and France. The Italians at Bagram have built a kitchen that serves three al dente meals a day.

Lt. Col. Carsten Simmelsgaard of the Danish Air Force displays his nation's MREs with pride: cans of stew, packages of chocolate, spaghetti, mashed potatoes, butter, cheese and a toothbrush. The only downside is Danish MREs don't include a heating bag like American ones.

International MREs resemble the U.S. packages, which are designed for a full day's nutrition and must survive being dropped from a helicopter, drastic climate changes and long shelf time. Each has a shelf life of three years, according to Janice Rosado of the U.S. Army Soldier Systems Command in Natick, Massachusetts.

French MREs have tomato soup, fish pate, cheese, lamb stew with vegetables and ratatouille. The South Koreans have sachets of boiled rice, dried sardines or anchovies, tofu, bluefish, vacuum-sealed spiced beef and different types of kimchi.

``Actually, the most different thing about being here is the meals,'' Kim said. ``American meals and Korean meals are very different. Usually, Asian food, especially Korean food, is very spicy and hot and sour. American meals are sweet and greasy.''

The staples of life at Bagram already have foreign touches. There is milk from Denmark, gasoline from Pakistan, barbed wire from Germany, bottled water from the United Arab Emirates and orange juice compiled from sources in Brazil, Mexico and Florida.

But the international flavor doesn't mean there's a lot of MRE sharing at Bagram: In Afghanistan, the non-U.S. members of the coalition guard their packages ferociously.

Norway's contingent made up of two air force officers are particularly protective of their MREs, which include beef stew, pasta, chili, codfish in tomato sauce and chicken curry. They've already run out of cod in sour cream.

``It's important to keep your culture close,'' explains Lt. Col. Olaf W. Ericksen, of the Royal Norwegian Air Force. ``It helps to have something that's a little bit of home especially the fish.

``I know quite a few Americans who would like to get their hands on these,'' he said.

Afghan returnees: Home is where the "hard" is
Source: Refugees International 26 Feb 2003
Michelle Brown and Ada Williams recently returned from Afghanistan and Pakistan.
"We don't want to go back to Afghanistan. There are no jobs and there is no security. My life is good here in Pakistan." Despite the availability of UNHCR assistance to repatriate to Afghanistan, Mohammed, a refugee teacher living at Shamshatoo refugee camp near Peshawar, explained to Refugees International that he had no intention of leaving Pakistan. Mohammed's feelings about returning to Afghanistan are echoed by most of the estimated three million Afghan refugees remaining in Pakistan. In a recent UNHCR survey of 8,000 refugee families, 84 percent indicated that they were unwilling to return. They cited lack of security, shelter, and employment as the reasons why they did not want to return.

UNHCR is finalizing a Tri-Partite agreement with Pakistan and Afghanistan in which repatriation would take place over a three-year period. UNHCR plans to repatriate 600,000 refugees from Pakistan in 2003. Many aid workers believe this plan is unrealistic, and most refugees would prefer to stay where they are. One aid worker explained, "These are not people who have been living here for just a year, still dreaming of their homeland. They know the realities in Afghanistan, and Pakistan is their homeland now."

Their reluctance is understandable given the miserable conditions in which many of the 1.8 million people who did return to Afghanistan now find themselves. The promises of reconstruction assistance have largely not materialized and the money that has arrived in the country has missed significant numbers of returnees. As a result, many returnees find themselves materially worse off than they were as refugees in Pakistan. As refugees, most had access to basic services such as health, water, and education. This is not the case in Afghanistan. As a returnee in Kabul explained to RI, "The government promised us that if we came home we would have homes and get a job. They lied to us. We are not happy with the government. We have nothing here. Our lives were better in Pakistan."

In Afghanistan, one of the least-developed countries in the world, almost everyone needs assistance, and the influx of returnees has overwhelmed an already strained aid system. Every agency that RI interviewed explained that reintegration and reconstruction programs in Afghanistan were woefully inadequate. Given the possibility of war in Iraq, agencies fear they will have to scale down their already insufficient operations. UNHCR has already cut back on its reintegration assistance several times over the past year. At the beginning of the repatriation program, returnees received 150 kilos of wheat, two pieces of plastic sheeting, a blanket, hygienic cloth, soap, detergent, a bucket and a jerry can. Now the assistance has been scaled back to 50 kilos of wheat, two pieces of plastic sheeting, and either soap or hygienic cloth.

Vulnerable groups, in particular, are falling through the cracks. Many widows who are unable to work or support themselves alone, find themselves in extremely difficult conditions, yet they have not been targeted for assistance. Shelter programs have been a priority for donors and NGOs and thousands of families with land have benefited. But the truly vulnerable, the landless, are often forced to squat in destroyed buildings in urban areas or live in tents.

Lack of employment opportunities in rural areas is one of the most urgent problems facing rural returnees and has fostered the rural-to-urban migration that is overwhelming the cities. Longer-term development agencies have been slow to start programs that would enable people to begin to earn a living. There are a variety of labor-intensive public works programs in both rural and urban areas, but these are stopgap measures because people are only able to work for two weeks. Many people express frustration that the UN Development Program (UNDP) has been too slow in starting its reconstruction programs and deploying staff to the field. A UN official explained, "UNDP, the logical agency to play a leading role in reconstruction, has yet to find its role in this country. There is so much they could do to easily make themselves useful, but they're not doing it." Recently, UNDP has started to play a more proactive role by beginning the oft-postponed National Area Based Programs initiative, which includes a variety of public works projects. UNDP-funded public works projects are now visible in some urban areas.

The World Bank, one of the lead agencies on community development, is also accused of moving too slowly. It is scheduled in the next few months to begin the National Solidarity Program (NSP) one of the only programs that focuses on community mobilization and development. The NSP is touted to be an innovative program in which communities identify, design, and assist in implementing projects of up to $20,000. NGOs and UN agencies have raised questions about the feasibility of implementing a program such as this in a country with no banking system in an environment that is politically volatile. This project was scheduled to begin in November 2002, but the start date continues to be postponed. Furthermore, it will take years before the NSP will reach all the communities in need. However, RI believes that since the program is new and has the potential to relieve part of the returnee problems, it should be implemented and given the chance to succeed.

Insecurity and lack of rule of law have made it difficult for some returnees to reintegrate. Although donors have stated that security and human rights are a priority, there has been little concrete support for the relevant government bodies: the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior, and the Human Rights Commission. In most rural areas and in some urban areas, local commanders function as autonomous rulers harassing people and sometimes committing human rights abuses against them. According to a UN official, commanders will often demand a certain percentage of a farmer's harvest as a "tax" in order to feed his soldiers, thus undermining the economic base of many rural people and their incentives to produce a surplus. Also, some families have to pay a "fee" to local commanders so they will not conscript their adolescent sons into their militias. In Kabul, for example, there are cases of soldiers and police extorting money from Pashtun businessmen. These abuses routinely occur throughout most of Afghanistan, yet the relevant agencies do not have the necessary independence, capacity or funding to investigate allegations and prosecute offenders.

Despite the return of 1.8 million Afghans last year, many Afghans remain in Pakistan: 1.4 million refugees live in UNHCR-assisted refugee camps and a minimum of 1.6 million live in urban areas without UNHCR assistance. Only 18 percent of last year's returnees received UNHCR assistance, so UNHCR's caseload remains almost the same. UNHCR-Pakistan has suffered from major budget cuts this year. In just a year, their budget has been cut from $32 million to $21 million, a 48 percent reduction. Furthermore, as a result of global UNHCR shortfalls, the Pakistan office has been required to reduce its approved budget by an additional 20 percent. This reduction will remain in effect until the global budget is met an unlikely scenario.

In response to these budget cuts, UNHCR has called on its NGO partners to seek direct funding from donors. While it has not yet cut any programs, it has instituted a four- to six-month "bridging period" to allow NGOs a chance to scale down their current programs. UNHCR itself is providing funding for life-sustaining activities only: food for 74,000 new arrivals, water, and health care. Community services such as education, vocational training, and some reproductive health programs will be the first to go. According to UNHCR, if they are forced to close 25 Basic Health Units, 24 percent of which include Maternal and Child Health Centers, maternal and child mortality rates, already at high levels, will increase. Furthermore, community mobilization programs and community services for women such as reproductive health education, vocational training, income generation programs, and literacy programs will be cut, leading to a further marginalization of refugee women. UNHCR is concerned that funding shortfalls will make it unable to fulfill its policy priority of protecting and assisting refugee women. More generally, UNHCR and NGOs worry that these budget cuts will "push" refugees out of Pakistan and undermine the stability of Afghanistan, a country that is unable to meet even the most basic needs of its current population.

Refugees International therefore recommends that:

Donors work with the Afghan government and the UN to provide necessary funding to assist in the reconstruction of Afghanistan in order to provide an adequate level of support for returnees.

The World Bank immediately begin to implement the National Solidarity Program in communities that are not yet receiving any assistance.

Donors provide increased direct funding to NGOs providing community services for Afghan refugees in Pakistan.

Donors provide capacity building and funding to the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Interior and the Human Rights Commission in order to strengthen the rule of law and improve security throughout Afghanistan.

Plight of Refugee Children in Afghanistan Focus of Discussion at New York Law School
Tuesday, February 25, 2003 5:57 PM EST
NEW YORK, Feb 25, 2003 (BUSINESS WIRE) "At the Border: The Forgotten Voices of Afghanistan," a documentary film on the plight of refugee children in Afghanistan, will be screened on Thursday, February 27 at 12:30 p.m. in Room B100 of New York Law School, 57 Worth Street, New York.

Media coverage for this event is invited. The screening is presented by the New York Law School Chapter of Amnesty International, The Nour Foundation, and the Office of Career Services.

Following the 21-minute documentary, directed by Patty Elahi, New York Law School Professor Ruti Teitel will moderate a panel of human rights experts on the current human rights crisis facing children worldwide. The panel includes:

Meg Gardiner, Director of NGOs, UNICEF USA Zama Coursen-Neff, Esq.,
Counsel, Children's Rights Division, Human Rights Watch Elizabeth Mason, Esq., member, Amnesty International USA Child Rights Advisory Board Allison Anderson Pillsbury, Women's Commission for Refugee Women and Children ABOUT NEW YORK LAW SCHOOL

New York Law School, www.nyls.edu, is one of the oldest independent law schools in the United States. Located near the centers of law, government, and finance in Manhattan's TriBeCa district, New York Law School enrolls 1,400 students in its day and evening divisions.

Young Girls Sold as Brides By Desperate Afghan Poor
Years of War, Drought Force Some to Give Up Daughters
By Marc Kaufman Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, February 23, 2003; Page A27
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan The young sisters are perky and eager to play. Zarlaska is 10 and listens intently to all that her parents are saying. Nabas Gul, 9, is more shy and hides behind her head scarf.

The two live with, and often care for, five younger siblings in a large room in an otherwise ruined building, along what was once the front line of a forgotten Afghan battle. The room is dark and bare for such a large family, but there are some quilts, a cradle and a fire that make it feel a little like home.

But it won't be the girls' home for long. When the two were just toddlers, their father needed money to pay off his debts and, seeing no other source of funds, he sold his daughters to wealthy opium poppy growers who wanted brides for their sons. Zarlaska and Nabas Gul can stay with their family until their husbands-to-be come to claim them usually around the time they reach puberty but their parents would have no right to object if the buyers wanted to take them now.

"I am a poor man, and this is how I can feed my large family," said their father, Sharafudin, himself a small-time poppy farmer who moved his family to Kandahar several years ago to escape other debt collectors. He said he knew it was wrong to sell the girls that some mullahs in his village had advised against it but that he didn't regret it.

"What else could I do?" he asked with a shrug. Then he added, "Many others are doing the same thing."

By all accounts, he is correct. There are no statistics collected to measure it, but Afghans involved with women's issues say the selling of young girls is on the rise. After a quarter-century of war, civil chaos and most recently drought, many families have been strained to the breaking point, and the outright selling of daughters for cash is one harsh and heart-rending result.

The practice has a cultural basis here in southern Afghanistan, where prospective husbands have long paid a "bride price" for their wives a kind of dowry that is traditionally set by the status of the bride's family and the resources of the groom's. But what was a custom has evolved into a market in which men can buy young girls from poor families. And with the country's legal system a shambles, there is nothing to stop them.

"Unfortunately, we have families now where the girls are sold as young children and the parents don't seem to think of the welfare of the girls at all," said Safia Amajar, director of the Kandahar Women's Association and a longtime educator in the city. "After so many years of war, people are poor and society is broken.

"Selling the children as brides is against Islam, and I tell people that. But there are so many other problems we face and that one is very complicated for people right now, so nothing happens to stop it."

Marrying a child and being directly paid for the sale are prohibited in Afghanistan under both the civil code and Islamic law. Marzia Basel, a former Afghan judge and founder of the Afghan Women Judges Association in Kabul, pointed out that "there are laws, and then there is custom and there is great poverty."

"The legal system has disappeared almost entirely here, and nobody would ever be charged for selling a daughter or marrying one so young," she said. "Until we have a strong government and people here have certain rights, these are the kind of things that will happen."

More than a year after a U.S.-led military campaign drove the Taliban Islamic movement from power, ties between the U.S. and Afghan governments are deep, and the welfare and reconstruction of this country is an increasingly important concern in Washington. Inevitably, unimagined issues such as daughter-selling will become points of friction.

The United States and other donor countries are especially eager to improve conditions for girls and women in post-Taliban Afghanistan, and Zarlaska and Nabas Gul are beneficiaries of that interest. The two are going to school for the first time in their lives, and as long as they continue to attend, their family gets a free can of highly prized American vegetable oil every month through the U.N. World Food Program (WFP).

But when their husbands-to-be claim them, the girls will go back to the countryside, where there are no schools for girls, and often none for boys either.

The selling of daughters reveals not only the depth of poverty in some parts of Afghanistan, but also the long-standing divide between rural and urban life. Cities such as Kabul, Kandahar and Jalalabad show signs of change on many fronts, undergoing building booms and opening their schools to eager girls. But in the countryside, ancient customs still prevail and can be stretched to cover the sale of young girls, which Afghans and foreigners alike say is something new and alarming. Isabella Castrogiovanni, child protection officer for UNICEF in Kabul, said her office has gotten many calls from relief workers around the country who are very concerned about the practice.

A report written last year for the WFP by Catherine Dunnion of the relief group GOAL Ireland, for instance, reported widespread selling of daughters in the far northern province of Jawzjan. She found villages where numerous girls aged 8 to 12 were sold, usually for the equivalent of $300 to $800.

"Everyone I talked to insisted that this activity has only been happening over the past four years of the drought," Dunnion wrote, adding that in villages that received WFP food, the number of girls sold declined.

"According to what these people said, in this culture of Islam it is permitted for girls to enter into marriage normally after their first menstruation but never before as young as 8 years. I even asked the district governor if he knew anything about this activity and it appears to be no secret what is going on. The word goes out when a man is in the district looking for vulnerable families to do business with."

But the practice doesn't occur only in the countryside. According to Padwasha, a longtime relief worker in Kandahar who is now with the Afghan-German Help Coordination Office, some wealthy men in the city are buying young girls to be their brides. She said she personally knew of a 60-year-old man who purchased an 8-year-old girl, who would be his servant until she was old enough to become his third wife.

Padwasha also said that several years ago, when she was working in a health clinic, she treated a girl of about 12 who had been taken as a wife by an important Taliban minister. The girl, Padwasha said, was pregnant.

In the case of Zarlaska and Nabas Gul, the transaction involved a meeting between their father and some of his male relatives and the men of the family of the grooms-to-be. Sharafudin said that mullahs were invited to the event, which took place in the poppy-growing area of Sangin in Helmand province and which involved some bargaining.

Because the girls were so young and wouldn't be received for some years, the price would be quite low. Sharafudin said he was paid the equivalent of about $400. If he had been able to wait longer, he said, he would have gotten more money. One husband would be about the same age as his bride, the other about 10 years older.

Although he barely knows them, Sharafudin insists that the families that will take in his daughters are good people, and he is comforted by the fact that they are distantly related to him and are in his Sakzai tribe.

He said they live in the area of Ghurak, which is in a distant, mountainous region in Kandahar province where poppy growing is widespread and government control is sporadic at best especially now that former Taliban forces are believed to be active in the region. In such a place, the selling of young girls is not something that could be stopped even if there were a will to do so.

Sharafudin seemed sincere when he said that he had no remorse. His wife, who sat far behind her husband and kept quiet, replied to a question about her feelings by saying that the girls' fate was in their father's hands and that selling them was his decision to make. In an earlier conversation, when Sharafudin was not present, she had spoken freely and agreed that the sale of her daughters was inevitable because the family was so poor.

Away from their parents, Zarlaska and Nabas Gul were asked what they thought about their marriage arrangements. They listened stone-faced, glanced around for help, started to giggle and ran away.