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August 4, 2007 

Another record poppy crop in Afghanistan
By MATTHEW LEE Associated Press August 4, 2007
WASHINGTON - Afghanistan will produce another record poppy harvest this year that cements its status as the world's near-sole supplier of the heroin source, yet a furious debate over how to reverse the trend is stalling proposals to cut the crop, U.S. officials say.

As President Bush prepares for weekend talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, divisions within the U.S. administration and among NATO allies have delayed release of a $475 million counternarcotics program for Afghanistan, where intelligence officials see growing links between drugs and the Taliban, the officials said.

U.N. figures to be released in September are expected to show that Afghanistan's poppy production has risen up to 15 percent since 2006 and that the country now accounts for 95 percent of the world's crop, 3 percentage points more than last year, officials familiar with preliminary statistics told The Associated Press.

But counterdrug proposals by some

U.S. officials have met fierce resistance, including boosting the amount of forcible poppy field destruction in provinces that grow the most, officials said. The approach also would link millions of dollars in development aid to benchmarks on eradication; arrests and prosecutions of narcotraders, corrupt officials; and on alternative crop production.

Those ideas represent what proponents call an "enhanced carrot-and-stick approach" to supplement existing anti-drug efforts. They are the focus of the new $475 million program outlined in a 995-page report, the release of which has been postponed twice and may be again delayed due to disagreements, officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because parts of the report remain classified.

Counternarcotics agents at the State Department had wanted to release a 123-page summary of the strategy last month and then again last week, but were forced to hold off because of concerns it may not be feasible, the officials said.

Now, even as Bush sees Karzai on Sunday and Monday at the presidential retreat in Camp David, Md., a tentative release date of Aug. 9, timed to follow the meetings, appears in jeopardy. Some in the administration, along with NATO allies Britain and Canada, seek revisions that could delay it until at least Aug. 13, the officials said.

The program represents a 13 percent increase over the $420 million in U.S. counternarcotics aid to Afghanistan last year. It would adopt a bold new approach to "coercive eradication" and set out criteria for local officials to receive development assistance based on their cooperation, the officials said.

Although the existing aid, supplemented mainly by Britain and Canada and supported by the NATO force in Afghanistan, has achieved some results — notably an expected rise in the number of "poppy-free" provinces from six to at least 12 and possibly 16, mainly in the north — production elsewhere has soared, they said.

"Afghanistan is providing close to 95 percent of the world's heroin," the State Department's top counternarcotics official, Tom Schweich, said at a recent conference. "That makes it almost a sole-source supplier" and presents a situation "unique in world history."

Almost all the heroin from Afghanistan makes its way to Europe; most of the heroin in the U.S. comes from Latin America.

Afghanistan last year accounted for 92 percent of global opium production, compared with 70 percent in 2000 and 52 percent a decade earlier. The higher yields in Afghanistan brought world production to a record high of 7,286 tons in 2006, 43 percent more than in 2005.

A State Department inspector general's report released Friday noted that the counternarcotics assistance is dwarfed by the estimated $38 billion "street value" of Afghanistan's poppy crop, if all is converted to heroin, and said eradication goals were "not realistic."

Schweich, an advocate of the now-stalled plan, has argued for more vigorous eradication efforts, particularly in southern Helmand province, responsible for some 80 percent of Afghanistan's poppy production. It is where, he says, growers must be punished for ignoring good-faith appeals to switch to alternative, but less lucrative, crops.

"They need to be dealt with in a more severe way," he said at the conference sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "There needs to be a coercive element, that's something we're not going to back away from or shy away from."

But, in fact, many question whether this is the right approach with Afghanistan mired in poverty and in the throes of an insurgency run by the Taliban and residual al-Qaida forces.

Along with Britain, whose troops patrol Helmand, elements in the State Department, U.S. Agency for International Development, the Defense Department and White House Office of National Drug Control Policy have expressed concern, saying that more raids will drive farmers with no other income to join extremists.

There is also skepticism about the incentives in the new strategy from those who believe development assistance should not be denied to local communities because of poppy growth, officials said.

Opponents argue that the benefits of such aid, new roads and other infrastructure, schools and hospitals, will themselves be powerful tools to combat the narcotrade once constructed.

One U.S. official said the plan was a good one but might take another year or two before it can be effectively introduced.
___
On the Net:

White House Office of National Drug Control Policy: http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/

State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs: http://www.state.gov/p/inl/

Audio link to comments on new strategy by acting Assistant Secretary of State for International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Thomas Schweich at the Center for Strategic and International Studies: http://www.csis.org/component/option,com_csis_events/task,view/id,1350/

U.N. Office on Drugs and Crime: http://www.unodc.org/unodc/index.html
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Afghanistan, Tajikistan To Build Hydro Power Plant
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
DUSHANBE, August 4, 2007 -- The press service of Tajik President Emomali Rahmon says Tajikistan and Afghanistan will jointly build a 1,000-megawatt hydro-power plant on the Pyandzh river.

The announcement came after talks between Rahmon and Afghan Energy Minister Ismail Khan, who arrived in Tajikistan on Friday (August 3). The project is expected to be funded by the Asian Development Bank, the Islamic Development Bank, the World Bank, and donor nations involved in Afghanistan's reconstruction.
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Afghanistan: Top U.S. Commander Optimistic On Developments In Eastern Region
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
August 4, 2007 -- A top U.S. commander in eastern Afghanistan says the country's armed forces are increasingly able to hold their own against insurgents in one of the country’s more troubled areas.

Speaking this week in a video-link news briefing from the Bagram airfield in Afghanistan, Brigadier General Joseph Votel, deputy commander of NATO's regional eastern command, praised the Afghan National Army's growing competence.

He also praised its ability to cooperate not only with NATO forces, but also with local authorities and its Pakistani counterpart across the border.

He told the briefing that the Pakistani military’s increased military presence in Pakistan’s restless tribal areas, which followed the siege of the Red Mosque in Islamabad last month, may already be having an effect on the cross-border traffic of insurgents into Afghanistan.

"Over the last week compared to the week previous to that, border incidents -- activities along our forces [at the]border here at Regional Command East have really decreased by 50 per cent. Over time, if we look at about a month or so, there has been a slight rise, but as I mentioned, just recently over the last week we've seen a little bit of a decrease," Votel said.

"Whether that is caused by the Red Mosque incident [in Islamabad], the activities there, or the increase in Pakistani military activity in the Federally Administered Tribal Area, that could be one explanation for it."

Border Patrols

General Votel said that in a "normal week," his forces are involved in some 10-20 "incidents" along the 570-mile stretch of border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which they patrol. He said the length of the border and the extremely rugged terrain in the region mean no one really knows how many illicit incursions into Afghanistan go undetected.

General Votel said the mainly U.S. forces in the area are braced for further insurgent movements across the border as military operations on the Pakistani side of the border continue. He said his troops are in "near real-time" tactical contact with Pakistani units across the border.

"We rate their capabilities as becoming very, very good. They are definitely moving in the right direction."

Although the region is one of the most difficult, General Votel said the Afghan National Army (ANA) is doing very well.

He noted that its main shortcomings have to do with what are known as "enabling capabilities" -- the equipment and logistics needed to support a military operation -- rather than manpower or skills.

"We rate their capabilities as becoming very, very good. They are definitely moving in the right direction. We look at the Afghan company-size formations, we look at their battalions and we [see that] they are capable of conducting operations, [although] in most cases they are still dependent on ISAF forces to help them with some of their logistics, to help them with aerial movement, to help them with close air support in situations where it is needed and certainly to help them with [medical evacuation] capabilities," Votel said.

'Leadership Qualities'

General Votel also praised the ANA's "leadership qualities." He highlighted one particular recent operation in eastern Ghazni province, in which an Afghan corps commander was in overall command of a force consisting of both ANA and NATO units.

Although Afghan officers have previously led operations involving NATO units in other parts of the country, none is said to have matched the scope of that in eastern Ghazni.

General Votel said the ANA's standards are improving against the backdrop of a heightened threat presented by the insurgents. He said there exists an Al-Qaeda "influence" in Afghanistan's eastern provinces, which manifests itself in the presence of foreign fighters who lend local insurgents "confidence and expertise." Apart from the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, numerous other groups are known to be active in the region, further complicating the situation there.

General Votel also noted the increased use of heavy weaponry by insurgents, citing increased attempts to target NATO aircraft from the ground with rockets. He said some of the weapons recovered from insurgents were manufactured in Iran, but added there is no evidence about whether the weapons signify the Taliban enjoy direct support from the Iranian government.

General Votel said that surveys conducted within NATO's eastern command region show the ANA is seen by the Afghan population as "one of the most respected institutions."

He said, however, that the country's police force lags behind the ANA by comparison.

"Certainly there is work left to be done with the police structure here. We think we've got a lot of good things in place to do that. It will take some time, the Afghan National Police are probably a year or more, probably a couple of years behind where the army is right now. We've got efforts to really focus on area, and make sure we give them the capabilities they need to be successful," Votel said.

General Votel did not answer a question about how long it will take for the Afghan army and police to be able to provide security in the country's east without a constant western presence. However, he did say he "grows more optimistic every day" of the possibility of such an eventuality.

General Votel said he believes that given the choice, Afghans will chose the vision of a stable and democratic Afghanistan over the "vision of the Taliban."
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Taliban and Afghans seek venue for hostage talks
By Sayed Salahuddin / August 4, 2007
GHAZNI, Afghanistan (Reuters) - The Afghan government and Taliban kidnappers on Saturday sought a venue for negotiations to try to free 21 South Korean Christian hostages held for more than two weeks, the provincial police chief said.

A South Korean delegation was in Ghazni province, southwest of Kabul, where the church volunteers were snatched, seeking direct talks with the kidnappers.

But Seoul has told the insurgents there is a limit to what it can do since it has no power to concede the main Taliban demand for the release of rebel prisoners in Afghan jails.

"Talks are going on to find an agreement on location," Ghazni police chief Ali Shah Ahmadzai told reporters.

"We are in favor of dialogue, that's what logic requires. If that doesn't work, then force may be used," he said. "If the Taliban do not accept dialogue, that means they do not want this issue to be resolved peacefully."

There has been a build-up Afghan forces in Ghazni since the hostages were hauled off a bus on the main road south from Kabul on July 20, but a rescue bid would be fraught with danger.

"Launching an operation to rescue the hostages is not up for discussion, the presence of our troops there is not for launching rescue operations," said Defence Ministry spokesman General Zahir Azimy.

The Taliban want to hold negotiations in an area they control, and vouched for the safety of the Korean delegates, a Taliban spokesman said on Friday. Otherwise, the insurgents needed U.N. security guarantees should the Koreans want negotiations to take place outside Taliban-controlled areas.

A U.N. spokesman in Kabul said the world body had yet to receive any request for assistance in holding the talks.

ACCUSATION
The governor of Ghazni accused Pakistani Taliban working with agents of neighboring Pakistan's state Inter Service Intelligence (ISI) of holding the captives.

"In the beginning it was the local Taliban, but after a few days, Pakistani Taliban and ISI officers disguised as Taliban arrived in the region and they took control," Merajuddin Pattan told Reuters.

Afghan officials often accuse the ISI of secretly supporting and harboring Taliban insurgents. Pakistan denies the charge.

The ISI backed the Taliban movement as it rose to take over most of Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, but dropped its support in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Police chief Ahmadzai said authorities had managed to send medicines to the 18 women and three men held by the Taliban in small groups at different locations in Ghazni province.

But the Taliban had rejected a request from a group of private Afghan doctors to visit the captives, Ahmadzai said.

The Taliban have said two of the women are seriously ill.

The kidnappers have killed two of their male hostages, accusing the Kabul government of failing to negotiate in good faith and ignoring their demand to release rebel prisoners.

Afghan officials have refused to free Taliban prisoners, saying that would only encourage more kidnappings.

South Korea has appealed to the United States, which has more than 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, to help free the hostages. Washington has said it would do what it could, but has ruled out making concessions to those it considers terrorists.

A German engineer and four Afghans kidnapped a day before the Koreans are still being held by the Taliban, who are demanding Germany withdraw its 3,000 troops from Afghanistan. Berlin rejected the demand. One German seized with the group was later found shot dead.
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Koreans want answers in hostage crisis
Asia Times Online / August 4, 2007
By Han Mi-young
SEOUL - South Koreans are shocked, confused and furious over the uncertain fate of 21 compatriots held hostage by the Taliban in Afghanistan, as the Korean government presses the United States and Pakistan to support its efforts to bring them back alive.

A South Korean delegation was in Afghanistan's Ghazni province on Friday in an attempt to have a face-to-face meeting with the Taliban, who kidnapped 23 Korean Christian missionaries on July 19 on the Kabul-Kanawha highway, the largest group of foreign hostages taken in Afghanistan since the 2001 US-led invasion.

Two of the hostages have been killed by the Taliban, whose key demand is for the release of some of their jailed fighters.

In Seoul on Thursday afternoon, 20 days after he left for Afghanistan to teach children there, 29-year-old Shim Sung-min returned in a coffin. His distraught father, Shim Jin-pie, 63, saw his bullet-riddled body and cried, "Sung-min has been a good and faithful son who has cheerfully helped other people in need."

Min Byung-wook, 29, a friend of Sung-min, wrote in his weblog, "You've usually smiled away even when we had a horrible military training together. You are such a fragile heart that you've seldom passed off anyone who needs your help."

Shim Sung-min was the second hostage killed after the slain group leader, pastor Bae Hyung-kyu. Bae's body, punctured by eight bullet holes, was returned home, although his family had requested that it be kept at a US base in Afghanistan until all the members of his group were released and they could accompany the pastor's body back to Seoul.

"My daughter asked me why Dad is not coming back home. I told her, 'Your dad left on his birthday,'" said Bae's forlorn wife. His abductors killed him on his birthday. The pastor had written a note some months ago saying that in case of his death, his body should be donated to medicine.

On Thursday, the South Korean government confirmed that it wanted direct negotiations with the Taliban. "We keep all of the possible contacts with Taliban open in search of feasible solutions," said Cheon Ho-sun, a spokesman for the presidential Blue House.

Relatives of the remaining hostages wait anxiously for news about the fate of their loved ones. There was great relief on Thursday when reports that the use of military force against the Taliban was being considered proved false.

Meanwhile, health concerns, particularly for the 18 female prisoners, are growing. The Taliban have released audio and videotapes of the hostages. In one, an unidentified woman is heard saying, "We need to get out of this soon, most of us are very sick."

Kim Take-young confirmed that his daughter Han Jig-young was in fragile health when she left for Afghanistan. "I tried to stop her but she insisted, saying it would be okay. She was missing the Afghan kids she had taught last year," the father said.

The hostage crisis has shaken South Korea. Most of the hostages are either nurses or English-language teachers who had volunteered to spend their summer vacation in Afghanistan taking care of patients or teaching English and computer skills to children.

Public anger has been directed against the Saemmul Church that sent the volunteers to the conflict-ravaged country. A barrage of protesting e-mails paralyzed its official website, forcing it to shut down. One-third of South Korea's 48 million people are Christians.

Park Eon-jo, senior pastor of the church, has tendered an apology: "It is pain beyond any word ... I deeply apologize to all of the people and in particular to the families. These 23 people went to Afghanistan because they loved Afghan people. They saved money and gave up taking summer vacation for Afghan people."

South Koreans are divided over whether or not it is right for their compatriots to volunteer in Afghanistan. Cha In-pie, a popular actor, wrote in his blog, "You are a coward if you feel ashamed of their pain ... Yes, it could have been a wrong decision to put their lives at risk. However, how could we criticize their choice to do good even in a country where no one else would even bother to be there?"

Public anger has also turned into frustration, as the Seoul government has hit a wall in its diplomatic efforts to secure the release of the hostages. Since the Taliban will only accept the release of their colleagues held by the US-backed regime in Kabul, Seoul finds it has to rely on Washington or the Afghan government in the crisis - unless Pakistan can help.

Special presidential envoy Baek Jong-chun, now in Kabul, was due to stop briefly in Islamabad on his way home on Friday, after failing to make any headway despite a meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai. "Pakistan may hold a key. It may be the only country the Taliban listen to," said Kim Jin-tae of the Korea Research Institute on Terrorism.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opposition leader in the Pakistan National Assembly, has appealed to the Taliban to release the hostages on humanitarian grounds. He offered his help on Tuesday during a meeting with South Korea's ambassador to Pakistan, Kim Jooseok.

Still, most Koreans think only the US can save the hostages from certain death.

Jeong Dong-young, who heads a minority opposition party in South Korea, said, "The US is the only party that holds a key to the release of the hostages."

Another opposition leader, Kwon Young-gil, said, "Nothing should be more important than the life of South Koreans. It is more important than the principle of the US not talking to terrorist groups."

Eight senior members of South Korea's National Assembly left on Thursday for Washington to urge US officials to take active steps in the crisis.

"We cannot do without help from the international community," the non-governmental group Solidarity for Participatory Democracy said in a statement.
(Inter Press Service)
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Still waiting to leave Kabul
Where's A Crooked Cop When You Need Him?
Don Martin National Post Saturday, August 04, 2007 KABUL, Afghanistan
When confronted by administrative inertia in Afghanistan, the correct response is to unleash bribes.

With my Ariana jet sitting on the tarmac, luggage checked and seat assigned, all that kept me from the swim-up bar in a Dubai hotel was a passport stamp and a 90-minute flight aboard one of the world's most dangerous airlines, where passengers actually applaud a safe landing.

But in a cruel climax to a seven-week jinx of an assignment here -- for a columnist nicknamed Disaster Don by his embedded media colleagues -- the passport guy spotted two irregularities on my visa.
One, it had expired. I had paid the Afghanistan embassy in Ottawa

for a multiple-entry visa, but they only issued a shorter single-trip visa. Happens all the time, I was told, and veteran Afghanistan travellers say a $20 bill slipped into the correct hands will take care of that in a hurry.

But somehow the visa had a stamp showing I had departed the country a month earlier, even though on that particular date I was sitting in a forward operating base sweating under a scorching sun with Canadian soldiers and drooling at the thought of an iced cappuccino.

Standing in passport control, a very suspicious officer wanted to know how I'd snuck back into his country without getting stamped, an ironic accusation given this is among the last countries on Earth I'd want to revisit.

Having no explanation for this mystery stamp was, I figured, a $50 problem.

No, said the senior police officer identified by a friendly (and bribed) baggage handler as the best problem-fixer in the airport, it was a $150 problem.

After being guided to a corner away from passenger eyes, his palm was discreetly extended for the cash.

It seemed a tad pricey given these guys earn $70 a month and the cost of a visa in Ottawa was only a hundred dollars, but the plane was boarding with my luggage in the hold, adding considerable urgency to my predicament. So I paid the expedited "exit fee", got back into line and observed with confidence the cop giving the passport officer a beaming thumbs-up.

But something happened during those final steps to palm-greased freedom that, one supposes, could be good news or bad news to a government internationally reviled as dishonest. The good news is that there's one honest passport control officer in Afghanistan.

The bad news is that I discovered him at the precise moment I badly needed the common corrupted variety.

And what could be worse? Well, the cop had mysteriously vanished with my failed bribe in his pocket.

So here I sit, down $150 and stranded for a fifth unplanned day in a Kabul guest house with nasty explosions going off in the not-far-enough distance as I write this, waiting to be rescued by Canadian ambassador Arif Lalani.

Now Lalani is a uniquely charismatic and effective diplomat -- and I would say this only slightly less emphatically if he wasn't my only hope of escape -- but even his office says it could take a week to get a visa in the Afghanistan capital that can be issued in Ottawa within 24 hours.

At the risk of belabouring the point, this is but the grande finale to an alarming sequence of events that began the day I arrived, when 35 police and civilians were killed by a suicide bomber a few blocks from where I was standing.

After covering the suicide bombing in Kabul, I arrived at the Kandahar base just five minutes before a news conference to announce three Canadian soldier casualties.

Then a four-day outing with a reconstruction team was forced to withdraw from good-deed-doing by the unexpected reemergence of Taliban in the district. An offhanded remark about how glad I was that we'd gone two weeks without Canadian casualties was barely out of my mouth before military officers arrived at the media tent to announce six more soldier deaths.

Then came a three-day military operation that hit four improved explosive devices en route to a 12-day wait for supplies in a particularly barren stretch of Taliban-infested desert.

After hearing my litany of woes as a convoy prepared to leave the base under his command, Lt.-Col. Bob Chamberlain made the obvious observation. "I don't want you anywhere near me."

With that, he placed me in the last armoured car of the convoy while he took a position up front.

Don't misconstrue all this poor-me stuff as the whining bleat of a journalist stranded in a dangerous amenity-free backwater. It's been an interesting adventure. And the guest house where I'm stranded has a nice garden and serves cold beer on demand.

It's just a triple warning to anyone preparing to visit this sad country.

Keep your visa current and devoid of exit stamps before you actually depart Afghanistan. Understand that bribes only work 99.5% of the time.

And if I'm still stranded here when you arrive, keep your distance just in case non-stop disaster afflictions are contagious.
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Indian kidnapped in Afghanistan
NDTV.com Friday, August 3, 2007 (Afghanistan)
The Taliban claimed they have kidnapped an Indian engineer in Baghlan province of northern Afghanistan.

According to China's Xinhua news agency, a local Taliban commander, Bahlol, said Taliban guerrillas on Thursday kidnapped the Indian engineer, who was working for a power project at Puli Khumri, the capital of Baghlan.

Bahlol added that the engineer have been brought to the central Ghazni province where 23 South Koreans were taken on July 19.

The Baghlan police chief and other officials in Ghazni said they have no information about the reported abduction.

Officials in the Indian embassy in Kabul said that the Taliban has kidnapped no Indian.

Officials also said that all the Indians working in Afghanistan were safe and that a headcount showed no one was missing.
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Explosions kill five in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Aug. 4 (UPI) -- Separate explosions killed three police officers and two civilians in Afghanistan, it was reported Saturday.
Two civilians died in the province of Kandahar when a suicide bomber prematurely detonated explosives strapped to his body, the Kuwait News Agency, KUNA, reported. The attack was believed intended for a NATO convey passing through the area.

In the province of Kunar, three police officers died and five more were injured Friday when their vehicle struck a roadside bomb planted by Taliban militants, KUNA reported.
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Afghanistan's Health Outreach Grows
August 3, 2007 Press Release: US Information Service By Lea Terhune / USINFO Staff Writer
Afghanistan's health outreach grows - rural areas, more women, children given access to care

Life expectancy is short in Afghanistan, on average about 47 years. Maternal mortality rates are one in 50 births and one of every five children dies before the age of 5, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

Changing this bleak picture is "one of the most exciting stories" Gary Cook has seen in 33 years with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), he told USINFO. Cook, a senior health adviser who has helped implement USAID-funded Afghan health programs since 2002, says progress is being made in Afghanistan's health sector "against all odds."

"It's a story of people working together for something everybody in the country agrees is needed," he says. USAID works with Afghanistan's Ministry of Health, which sets standards and oversees programs, and which Cook credits with strong leadership after the Taliban government fell in 2001. Major donors such as USAID, the European Union and the World Bank work closely with the Afghan government and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs).

Building a clinic involves not only the Afghan government and NGOs, but also the surrounding local community. Often clinics are built in remote areas. Electricity and a safe water supply must be installed to maintain cleanliness and refrigeration for vital vaccines. Staff must be trained.

Cook says the "real story" is about the courage of the Afghans who work for NGOs contracted by USAID to provide health care. He says doctors and health workers, many of whom are trained in USAID-funded programs, "probably know the risks better than anybody, but they still do it. They show up for work, and they're taking care of people."

Security is an issue. Afghanistan is one of the few countries for which USAID generates weekly security reports, according to Cook, and the safety of workers and patients is vital.

Afghanistan's Ministry of the Interior has announced stricter protection measures for aid workers in the wake of increasing attacks on Afghan and foreign aid workers, a number of whom have been killed in recent months. But some NGO officials worry that obvious government security will draw unwanted attention and attract more attacks.

Hashim Mayar, deputy coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella organization for nearly 100 Afghan and international NGOs, told Reuters, "Because NGOs have increasingly taken part in development activities, human rights and democratization activities -- all repugnant to Taliban and al-Qaida doctrine -- they have been perceived by insurgents as collaborators with the government of Hamid Karzai and his Western supporters."

But building the Afghan government's strength through desperately needed health, education and infrastructure projects is the means to give Afghans the better lives they deserve, Cook says, after decades of being "oppressed and put down by war, drugs, every possible thing."

"We want to get everyone within two hours of basic health services," he says, adding that from less than 10 percent, "now it's reported almost 65 percent are within two hours" of access. But two hours is a long time for a pregnant woman about to deliver. Cook wants improvement to maintain current service levels and "close the gap ... get everybody covered."

To do this, he says, continued investment in a network of small, strategic clinics that provide basic services is needed. Just $50,000 refurbished a Zabul province health clinic in 2006, bringing aid to a poverty-stricken rural region.

Training women health practitioners is a priority -- and "the major challenge," Cook says, "because the women have not been trained to read and write ... and you need some literacy to be a health worker." That said, 2,300 midwives have been trained in an 18-month program. About "70 percent of health facilities have at least one woman health professional," he says.

"It really opens up the door," Cook says. Without women medical workers, women and many children would not enter the clinic -- in Afghan tribal society often a male doctor is not permitted to treat a woman unrelated to him.

When women stop dying in childbirth and healthy children live to grow up, Cook says, "you have some investment in the future. You want to be peaceful, be a good neighbor."

USAID-funded programs target tuberculosis, malaria and polio. They assist the many people disabled by land mines and warfare. More than 670 health clinics have been built and about 8,350 health workers trained as of summer 2007.

This has meant a decrease in child mortality that Afghan Health Minister Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatimi called "an important sign for the donor community that their investments ... are helping to save lives." But, he said, there is still much work to be done.

ENDS

(USINFO is produced by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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Smugglers Profit From Landlocked Afghanistan
By Ashfaq Yusufzai / IPS-Inter Press Service
PESHAWAR, Aug 4 (IPS) - Taking advantage of the United Nations-facilitated Afghan Transit Trade Agreement (ATTA), a massive contraband trade has grown around goods imported into Afghanistan and smuggled back into the markets of this frontier town in Pakistan.

Mohammad Fida, owner of a huge shopping complex in Peshawar’s famous Kharkhano Market is candid. "Smuggling is not considered an unlawful activity here. Thousands of shops in Pakistan sells goods brought clandestinely from Afghanistan," he says disarmingly.

Officially, Pakistan has a bilateral trade of two billion US dollars with Afghanistan. But the volume of clandestine business between the two countries is estimated to be more than ten billion dollars every year.

The Kharkhano market established in 1985 has 4,500 shops, owned by both Pakistani and Afghan traders. Afghanistan has been riven with conflict for close to three decades. Millions of Afghan refugees have made Peshawar their home.

The shops do booming business. Everything from electronic goods to air conditioners, clothes, cosmetics, automobile spares, even tyres, are from outside Pakistan. Here prices are cheaper than anywhere else, attracting shoppers from all over the country.

The ATTA enables landlocked Afghanistan to import goods through ports in Pakistan without paying customs duty. It was signed in 1965 under a U.N. agreement to protect the interests of landlocked nations.
Ever since, smugglers have prospered on the booming trade in clandestine goods, transported back into Pakistan on the back of donkeys, even camels, through hard mountainous routes.

"Pakistan is losing more than two billion dollars in revenue every year due to the smuggling. Afghanistan has a small market, but the volume of goods imported far outweighs local demand there," explains Mohammad Ali Khan, a business reporter with Pakistan’s oldest newspaper, Dawn.

During the Taliban regime, Pakistan cracked down on the illegal trade by issuing a list of 24 items that could not be imported from Afghanistan under the ATTA. The items included television sets and cosmetics, both banned by the Taliban militia.

"Yet imported items were arriving here in such huge quantities that Pakistani authorities found it hard to cope with the situation," said Ibrahim Shinwari, an official in the traders’ association in Karkhano Market. Items like wheat, flour, ghee, oil, timber and cement were smuggled in from Afghanistan, he told IPS.

Both Pakistani and Afghanistan’s authorities profited from the huge bribes paid out to ensure the illegal trade continued without interruption.

The goods flooding Pakistan are not only imports into Afghanistan under the ATTA, but smuggled items from China, Iran and the Central Asian states.

"As there are no manufacturing units in Afghanistan, it is dependent on its neighbours," explains Shinwari.

The Ministry of Commerce in Islamabad has calculated the official volume of trade between Pakistan and Afghanistan at 71 percent. Traders here, including Shinwari, rubbish the claim as highly inflated.

He points out that Pakistan’s official trade policy for 2007-08 has little to offer to help increase exports to Afghanistan. He predicts that it will be difficult to achieve the ambitious trade target of 19.2 billion dollars, including 2 billion dollars with Afghanistan.

Pakistan has emerged as a major trading partner of Afghanistan during the post-war reconstruction phase because of its geographical, ethnic and cultural advantages.

Until the Taliban were ousted from Kabul by U.S.-led troops in end-2001, more than 3.5 million Afghans lived in rural and urban Pakistan for three decades making them familiar with Pakistani consumer goods.

The bilateral trade climbed up from 492 million dollars in 2003-04 to 1.63 billion dollars in the previous financial year, mainly because of exports.

But due to many problems, exports have witnessed a decline of almost 400 million dollars in 2006-07 from the previous year. Pakistani manufacturers have been losing out to mainly Iranian and Indian competitors.

Liaqat Ahmad Khan, president of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), in Peshawar, says the government claims that Pakistan is located at the doorstep of Central Asia, but in reality it has never focused on the benefits of geographical proximity to these emerging markets.

The Federal Board of Revenue on Dec. 30, 2004, notified the opening of customs stations at nine different routes to facilitate trade. But that has not been formalised because of lack of facilities, poor road infrastructure and above all security concerns in the tribal belt. However, the informal trade conducted by smugglers is brisk.

In his trade policy speech, Commerce Minister Humayun Akhtar attributed the decrease of almost 400 million dollars in exports to Afghanistan to reduced demands of petroleum, leather and rice, as flow of other consumer goods is normal.

Numan Wazir, president of the Industrialists Association Peshawar, says trade and industry in the NWFP is mostly focused on the consumer markets in Afghanistan, but the government’s inability to give incentives is cramping business.
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Pakistan, Afghanistan to Hold Landmark Assembly
By Benjamin Sand Voice of America Islamabad, Pakistan / 03 August 2007
Pakistani and Afghan leaders will meet August 9-12 to discuss cross-border security issues in a landmark assembly or grand jirga. The four-day talks come as extremists continue to inflict heavy casualties in both countries. From Islamabad VOA, correspondent Benjamin Sand reports.

The talks were organized last year during a rare meeting between the Afghan and Pakistani presidents in Washington.

Relations between the South Asian neighbors are at a low. Both sides blame the other for a surge in violence that has affected the entire region.

Afghanistan's six-year Taleban insurgency is bloodier than ever. More than 6,000 people have been killed in the past 18 months.

Afghan officials say most of the militants are based in hidden camps inside Pakistan.

But Pakistani officials insist it is a two way street. They say Afghanistan's insecurity is destabilizing both sides of the border.

In July, pro-Taleban militants battled government forces in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad. More than 100 people died in the eight-day stand-off.

Pakistani authorities say the upcoming jirga should produce a unified response to the violence. "We are both victims of terrorism," said Pakistan Army Brigadier Javed Iqbal Cheema. "And I think the stability of Afghanistan is of upmost importance to the stability of Pakistan. Because no other country gets affected by the stability of Afghanistan then Pakistan. If Afghanistan sneezes, Pakistan gets a cold."

U.S. officials strongly back the talks. Both countries are critical allies in the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

But security experts in Afghanistan and Pakistan say the jirga will likely not produce major breakthroughs. Retired Pakistani General Talat Masood is among those who expect modest progress. "In a best-case scenario we could think that they are showing a renewed commitment," he said. "They are showing the urgency and the great threat that this region is facing."

More than 700 people are expected to attend the jirga in the Afghan capital, Kabul. Participants will include political leaders from both countries as well as tribal elders and prominent religious figures.

In the coming months, a similar jirga is to be held in Pakistan.
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Why Pakistanis are easy targets for US candidates
Pramit Pal Chaudhuri, Hindustan Times New York City/Washington, August 04, 2007
When Barack Obama declared on Wednesday that he was prepared to unilaterally send US troops into Pakistan to get terrorists, his audience was less Pervez Musharraf than the US public. Obama, in an increasingly bitter struggle with Senator Hillary Clinton for the Democratic Party presidential nomination, saw his poll ratings slip after a recent debate in which he sounded diplomatically naïve.

In his speech, Obama argued he would withdraw US soldiers from Iraq, but increase their number in Afghanistan. He said Musharraf hadn’t done enough in the fight against Al Qaeda. A poll by American Research Group showed Clinton had picked up a 21-point lead over Obama. In June, the lead was only 14 percentage points. Obama was especially hurt by a debate on YouTube, where he said he would be prepared to “unconditionally” meet leaders like Iran’s Mahmoud Ahmedinejad and North Korea’s Kim Jong-Il. Clinton has spent the past fortnight citing this as evidence of Obama’s “inexperience”.

Taking a hardline on Pakistan is useful for three reasons for Obama.

First, it allows the senator to show himself to be a hard-nosed on security while allowing him to seem different from mainstream thinking.

Irrespective of ideological persuasion, almost no member of the US public would see much merit in a US president who would let another government have veto over an attack on Osama bin Laden’s hideout. “Obama’s position is actually the same as President George W Bush,” points out Ashley Tellis, senior associate of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. “US homeland security advisor, Frances Townsend, said exactly this.”

However, publicly the Bush administration has had to say it would not violate Pakistani “sovereignty”.

Second, Pakistan is an easy target given growing concerns in Washington about Musharraf’s anti-terrorism credentials following the revival of Al- Qaeda in Pakistan’s tribal areas. “You are likely to see many more statements across the political spectrum focusing on the situation in this remote part of northwest Pakistan,” says Lisa Curtis, South Asia expert at the Heritage Foundation.

“Since it is now clear Musharraf’s peace deals with the tribal leaders in these areas have failed, Washington is watching carefully to see how Musharraf will address these problems.” Tellis agrees: “There is real concern about Pakistan’s performance on terrorism on both sides of the aisle.”

Third, the speech still allows Obama to retain the main political scourge with which he has flayed Clinton — her vote in favour of the US invasion of Iraq. Obama has carefully distinguished between “the wrong war” in Iraq and “the right war” in Afghanistan. “If the Democrats insist on the US troop withdrawal from Iraq,” says Frederic Grare, a Washington-based expert on Pakistan, “they have to demonstrate they are as patriotic as any Republican. So Afghanistan, and now Pakistan, are the two places where a consensus is developing.”

Other Democratic candidates were critical of Obama. While most agreed Musharraf needed to be arm-twisted, they were less certain that a public declaration of intentions was helpful. Senator Joe Biden of Delaware, the Democratic candidate with the most foreign relations experience, said, “They way to deal with it is not to announce it, but to do it.” The wider expectation among analysts is that Obama’s speech would mark the beginning of a Democratic foreign policy debate that would go beyond calls for a troop withdrawal from Iraq.
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