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Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor
School Documentary Project Seeks to Illuminate Open Secret: Young Boys atWork in Remote Coal Mines.
By DION NISSENBAUM 13, 2012, 9:04 p.m. ET The Wall Street Journal
KABUL—A video shot by an 18-year-old Afghan in the claustrophobic passages of a coal mine casts new light on one of Afghanistan's most disturbing challenges.
Children as young as 10 toil in illegal mines, often for 12 hours a day, activists say. Afghan officials agree the problem is stubborn despite recent efforts. The boys represent a thorny obstacle to the nation's push to transform its antiquated mining industry into a modern economic engine.
AISA Officials Resign Over Corruption
TOlOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Thursday, 12 July 2012
Six high ranking officials at Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) resigned Thursday citing corruption in the organisation.
Magnetic bomb kills Afghan women's official: police
AFP via Yahoo! News - Jul 13 10:22am
An Afghan women's affairs official was killed Friday when a bomb attached to her vehicle exploded, critically wounding her husband and daughter, police said.
AP Interview: Afghan civil war unlikely, US says
July 12, 2012 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Thursday that he thinks it's unlikely that the departure of most foreign troops by 2014 will plunge the country into another civil war or prompt a precipitous economic slide.
U.S. Ambassador Hails 'Significant' Turn in Afghan Talks
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE July 12, 2012
KABUL - A peace forum in Japan attended by a high-ranking member of the Taliban represented a promising new development in efforts to reach a negotiated end to the Afghan war, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul said.
Afghan Patients Hope for Speedy Red Cross Return
VOA News July 12, 2012
Patients in southern Afghanistan are hoping Red Cross workers will soon return to a key hospital, after an explosion there prompted the aid agency to withdraw its foreign staff.
Afghans Start to Take the Money and Run
Bloomberg By Eltaf Najafizada July 12, 2012
Afghan central bank inspector Fahim Satari stands in Kabul International Airport in front of a local businessman headed for Dubai, counting by hand the stack of $100 bills police found the passenger carrying to the gate. Satari declares the cash to be under the $20,000 per passenger limit imposed to stem the flood of money leaving through the terminal.
U.S, British criticism of Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan 'wrong'
The Canadian Press By Colin Perkel July 13, 2012
TORONTO - American and British criticism of Canada's long and often bloody military efforts in Afghanistan has a ring of revisionism that ignores key facts, experts say.
Thin NATO traffic on Afghan-Pakistan border
AFP By Staff Writers July 12, 2012
Chaman, Pakistan - Trucks carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan crossed the Pakistani border on Thursday for only the second time since Islamabad agreed to lift a seven-month blockade, officials said.
Afghans Question Benefits of Latest Aid Package
As donors promise 16 billion US dollars, some Afghans say effects of previous aid have been limited.
IWPR By Hafizullah Gardesh, Mina Habib 12 Jul 12
Afghanistan - Afghans have welcomed the latest pledge of international aid to their country, saying it suggests the West will not abandon Afghanistan to its fate after most foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014.
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Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor
School Documentary Project Seeks to Illuminate Open Secret: Young Boys atWork in Remote Coal Mines.
By DION NISSENBAUM 13, 2012, 9:04 p.m. ET The Wall Street Journal
KABUL—A video shot by an 18-year-old Afghan in the claustrophobic passages of a coal mine casts new light on one of Afghanistan's most disturbing challenges.
Children as young as 10 toil in illegal mines, often for 12 hours a day, activists say. Afghan officials agree the problem is stubborn despite recent efforts. The boys represent a thorny obstacle to the nation's push to transform its antiquated mining industry into a modern economic engine.
Their plight is receiving new attention from 18-year-old Fardeen Barakzai. With the backing of the nonprofit school in Kabul where he works, Mr. Barakzai said he traveled through Taliban territory in Bamiyan province to document the conditions of child laborers at an unlicensed coal mine. His film shows young boys coated in coal dust that blotches their skin and stains their teeth.
Child labor "is a major, major problem in Afghanistan," said Hervé Berger, head of the United Nations' International Labor Organization in Afghanistan.
"Kabul children play, go to school," Mr. Barakzai said. "But there, the children are so dirty, the work is not good. I wanted to show Kabul and all of Afghanistan that this is a big problem for all children."
The specific assertions of people interviewed in Mr. Barakzai's video couldn't be independently verified. But the driver and the teacher who accompanied Mr. Barakzai on his journey confirmed details of his story, as well as the location of the unlicensed mine.
"I saw some children working there loading and unloading donkeys," said Khalilullah, the driver. "All the people working there are extremely poor and don't have any other job to feed their families except working in the mines."
By Afghan government estimates, as many as a third of the nation's children—more than 4 million—take part in some sort of work, from picking fruit to mining coal. U.N. officials estimate about 18% of Afghan children work—1.4 million between the ages of 6 and 15.
No one knows how many boys work in the mines. While the government has enacted laws to curb child labor, the rules have so far done little to curtail the problem. "Because there are no resources, we are not able to enforce the laws," said Khair Mohammad Niru, director general of labor regulations at the Ministry of Labor, Social Affairs, Martyrs and Disabled.
A 2010 report by the Bamiyan provincial Human Rights Commission, an independent group, showed that 212 children between ages 12 and 18 were working in two unlicensed mines, including the one in the video, said Abdul Ahad Farzaam, the commission's director. "Our investigation indicates those children were working there even during the night," he said. "The environment isn't suitable for children at all."
Ahmad Javeed Ahwar, youth program coordinator in Afghanistan for the Friedrich Ebert Foundation, a German-based foundation that earlier this year released a study about child labor in Afghanistan, said that child exploitation "is not a matter of Bamiyan or Kabul, it's a matter of all Afghanistan."
The future of Bamiyan's mines is important for Afghanistan. The government awarded a Chinese consortium—the same group that won the rights to operate a $3.5 billion copper mine near Kabul—the license to mine coal there, and the area will soon be turned over to it.
China Metallurgical Group, the Chinese state-run company slated to take control of the coal deposits, said it had no idea children were used to mine coal in the area. It said it will follow Afghan law to ensure children don't work in its mines.
Afghan officials also say they are aware of the country's unlicensed mines, but added that the government had cracked down on sites. Abdul Rehman Shahid, a member of parliament from Bamiyan Province, couldn't confirm whether children worked in those mines, but added that the government recently enforced a ban on transporting coal there.
Afghan mining minister Wahidullah Shahrani said in an interview that he couldn't be sure if the mine filmed by Mr. Barakzai is still operating. "It's very disturbing," he said. "These are the sad realities."
For Mr. Barakzai, the stories of child miners hit home. The oldest son of a disabled father, Mr. Barakzai was sent into the streets of Kabul at age five to make money for his family.
When he was eight, Mr. Barakzai became one of the first students of the Afghanistan Educational Children's Circus/Mobile Mini Circus for Afghanistan, a Danish-run school that seeks to use theater and circus arts to teach children.. He now helps run the school's video projects.
"Children are the best to tell the problems of Afghanistan," said Berit Muhlhausen, co-director of the school, which is funded in part by the Danish government.
Last month, the school's directors agreed to work on a child-labor radio project with the International Labor Organization. The directors asked Mr. Barakzai if he would look into child labor in the coal mines.
Mr. Barakzai says he was determined to do more than routine interviews in the safety of the capital. He persuaded two teachers from the school to take him on the four-hour trek. from the capital to the mines.
"I told him the district is very remote and insecure, but he insisted," said Asadullah, one of the teachers. "There are Taliban on the way."
Mr. Barakzai was shocked by what he saw: Scores of boys in tattered clothes popped in and out of mine entrances. None appeared to have safety protection. Mr. Barakzai and a young teacher named Ahmad followed a ten-year-old miner deep into the mine to film the video.
—Habib Khan Totakhil, Nathan Hodge in Kabul and Kersten Zhang in Beijing contributed to this article.
Write to Dion Nissenbaum at dion.nissenbaum@wsj.com
A version of this article appeared July 13, 2012, on page A10 in the U.S. edition of The Wall Street Journal, with the headline: Teenager Films Afghan Child Labor.
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AISA Officials Resign Over Corruption
TOlOnews.com By Mahboba Pardis Thursday, 12 July 2012
Six high ranking officials at Afghanistan Investment Support Agency (AISA) resigned Thursday citing corruption in the organisation.
The officials claimed that since the appointment of the new general director corruption has increased and previously dismissed personnel were appointed.
Officials who resigned are:
Rohullah Ahmadzai, Investment Promotion Director
• Baryalai Malyar, Industrial Parks Promotion Director
• Mohammad Omar Joya, Research and Policymaking Director
• Ghulam Rabbani Mansori, Licensing Director
• Sulaiman Akbari, Investment Support Deputy Director
• Mir Taufiq Ansari, Research and Policymaking Deputy Director
• Abdul Ghafar Rasin, Industries Advisor
"Massive corruption occurred within the last two months in AISA. There were commitments to increase investments during this period, but nothing has been done to development the activities of this organisation since then," Rasin said in a press conference in Kabul.
Meanwhile, Head of AISA, Wafiullah Eftekhar, rejected the allegations saying he will refer to the justice organs if they fail to prove their claims.
"I reject all the allegations and call them baseless, I will refer to the justice organs if they fail to prove the allegations," Eftekhar told TOLOnews.
AISA provides investors with assistance and up-to-date information on Afghanistan's investment opportunities. AISA has several programmes specifically designed to aid incoming foreign businesses.
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Magnetic bomb kills Afghan women's official: police
AFP via Yahoo! News - Jul 13 10:22am
An Afghan women's affairs official was killed Friday when a bomb attached to her vehicle exploded, critically wounding her husband and daughter, police said.
"Laghman provincial women's affairs director Hanifa Safi was assassinated as a result of the explosion of a magnetic bomb attached to her vehicle," provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang told AFP.
"Her daughter and husband along with four passersby were wounded."
Safi and Laghman provincial government spokesman Sarhadi Zwak blamed Taliban insurgents for the attack.
The killing came just days after a shocking video surfaced of the execution of a woman, allegedly by Taliban Islamists, after she was accused of adultery in Parwan just north of Kabul.
The Taliban, who were notorious for their suppression of women's rights during their rule from 1996 to 2001, are waging an insurgency to overthrow the Western-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Their favoured weapons -- indiscriminate roadside bombs -- are responsible for a majority of the deaths of both security forces and civilians, but the use of a magnetic bomb indicates that Safi was a specific target.
The most recent high-profile assassination was of a senior government peace negotiator, Arsala Rahmani, who was shot dead in his vehicle in Kabul in May.
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AP Interview: Afghan civil war unlikely, US says
July 12, 2012 Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan – The outgoing U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan said Thursday that he thinks it's unlikely that the departure of most foreign troops by 2014 will plunge the country into another civil war or prompt a precipitous economic slide.
"I tend to consider those unlikely scenarios," said Ryan Crocker, a soft-spoken, gray-haired diplomat who became the civilian face of America's wars in both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Crocker said the international community has pledged to support Afghanistan post-2014 and that minority ethnic political leaders seem more interested in positioning themselves in the future government than getting ready for civil war.
He cautioned that it's hard to gauge the validity of reports that ethnic factions are rearming in preparation for civil war — and that perhaps they never ever disarmed.
"Politics is breaking out all over," he said. "You don't see many signs of the people saying 'Well, it's time to start digging the trenches again.'"
Crocker is retiring from the U.S. foreign service after a storied tenure in some of the world's most dangerous hotspots. The U.S. State Department said health reasons have forced the 62-year-old envoy to leave Kabul a year earlier than expected.
Crocker came out of retirement in 2011 to take the helm of the embassy at President Barack Obama's personal request. He granted The Associated Press the first of several exit interviews he is scheduled to give to news organizations before leaving later this month.
Crocker also said that al-Qaida in Afghanistan had been "badly weakened." He said he believes Afghan President Hamid Karzai is more than ready to step down when his two-term presidency ends in 2014, and is looking for a successor who won't be his enemy.
Crocker also said that there are top-level members of the Taliban who are willing to negotiate peace, but that the U.S. has had no talks with Taliban figures since last fall.
He said that as the spigot of international military and civilian assistance slows, the nation's economy will be affected, but that Afghans do not need to brace for economic disaster because the country will have solid security and economic assistance well beyond 2014.
"They will take a dip, but the latest I heard in terms of estimates is that the gross domestic product growth may go from a current roughly 11 percent to something like 5 percent, which still isn't bad for a country like this," Crocker said in the interview at his living quarters in the U.S. Embassy in Kabul.
Crocker said it's impossible to forecast the future in a volatile country like Afghanistan where a "long-range prediction is now a week from Tuesday." But he said he doesn't think the nation is headed for civil war like the one that followed the Soviet exit in 1989.
However, the ambassador said that there are a lot of militias in northern Afghanistan where minority factions are rooted. Some disguise themselves as members of the Afghan Local Police — even wearing the uniform of the village-level fighting forces overseen by the Ministry of Interior.
"I think their primary interest has been criminal activity, other than preparing for the next civil war, which I really don't see coming," he said.
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U.S. Ambassador Hails 'Significant' Turn in Afghan Talks
Wall Street Journal By NATHAN HODGE July 12, 2012
KABUL - A peace forum in Japan attended by a high-ranking member of the Taliban represented a promising new development in efforts to reach a negotiated end to the Afghan war, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul said.
Ambassador Ryan Crocker told The Wall Street Journal he viewed last month's appearance of Qari Din Mohammad Hanafi, minister of planning under the Taliban regime and a current high-ranking Taliban official, at the same table with Mohammed Masoom Stanekzai, senior adviser to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, as a "pretty amazing" event that showed potential to be a negotiating track of its own.
"The Afghans thought it was significant," the departing ambassador said in the interview, which comes ahead of his expected exit from Kabul later this month. "You had a senior member of the Taliban present—not reconciled—prepared to sit down with a senior member of the Afghan government."
Messrs. Hanafi and Stanekzai took part in a June 27 conference on peace and reconciliation issues at Doshisha University in Kyoto. Ghairat Baheer of Hezb-e-Islami, the Islamist party founded by anti-U.S. warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, was also there.
The Taliban have long denied direct negotiations with the Afghan government and said no such talks occurred during the Kyoto conference. Still, the gathering has taken on particular significance, especially after preliminary discussions between U.S. negotiators and the Taliban fell apart earlier this year.
Asked whether he thought the meeting represented a step for Afghan-to-Afghan reconciliation, Mr. Crocker said: "There's definitely smoke—and some fire."
Mr. Crocker speculated that the Kyoto meeting may have had some tacit support from Pakistan, where much of the top Taliban leadership is based. He said Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, the country's powerful spy agency, was likely keeping tabs on insurgents and their travels. "They had to get out of Pakistan to get there," Mr. Crocker said. "My guess is that the ISI said, 'OK.'"
Zabihullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, disputed that claim, saying Mr. Hanafi went to a "Gulf country" from Afghanistan, then onward to Japan. "We have denied such remarks before, and we deny them now again," Mr. Mujahid said. "We are an independent nation. We don't need to get permission from someone."
Possible movement on reconciliation comes weeks after the U.S. and Afghan governments concluded a long-term Security Partnership Agreement that will commit the U.S. to a decade of economic and military aid, and leaves the door open to a residual U.S. military presence after the withdrawal of the bulk of foreign forces in 2014.
Mr. Crocker said talks about the size of the post-2014 U.S. military presence could begin in earnest in the fall. The signing of the agreement, he added, may help persuade Taliban leadership to "come to an accommodation" with the government of Afghanistan, rather than waiting out the coalition withdrawal.
"I think they read the small fine print there that this goes to 2024," he said.
Speaking at a news conference in Kabul on Thursday, President Hamid Karzai reiterated a long-standing call to Taliban insurgents—whom he routinely refers to as "brothers"— to lay down their arms and join the political process.
Mr. Karzai even invited Mullah Mohammad Omar, the one-eyed spiritual leader of the Taliban, to join the process.
"Mullah Mohammad Omar Akhund can come to any part of Afghanistan he wants to," Mr. Karzai said. "He can open a political office for himself, but he should drop his weapon. He along with his friends can come and create his political party, take part in politics, become a candidate himself for the elections."
Added Mr. Karzai: "If people vote for him, good for him, he can take leadership in his hand." —Habib Khan Totakhil contributed to this article.
Write to Nathan Hodge at nathan.hodge@wsj.com
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Afghan Patients Hope for Speedy Red Cross Return
VOA News July 12, 2012
Patients in southern Afghanistan are hoping Red Cross workers will soon return to a key hospital, after an explosion there prompted the aid agency to withdraw its foreign staff.
On June 21, Afghan and Red Cross officials say a small bomb attached to a motorcycle exploded on the grounds of the Mirwais Hospital in Kandahar city, the main health facility for the war wounded in the region. Authorities say no one was injured because the device failed to properly detonate. No one claimed responsibility for the explosion.
The International Committee of the Red Cross pulled 20 of its foreign staff from the hospital following the incident, and is now assessing whether it is safe for the foreign administrative and medical staff members to return.
Patients have been quick to feel the effects of the Red Cross departure. One man told VOA's Afghan Service, "we want them to come back and start work. We desperately need them to work. There are a lot of patients here. The doctors were really excellent and they were approaching each and every patient with care."
ICRC spokesman Philippe Marc Stoll tells VOA the aid agency has been at Mirwais Hospital for 16 years and continues to operate there, with the remaining staff providing training and much-needed medical supplies to treat those wounded in the war. He stresses that the work of the Red Cross relies on trust and establishing a good relationship with the local population.
Stoll said, "we don't have armed escorts, guards or flak jackets so our acceptance is key for our work. If people don't trust us, the level of our operations will be reduced."
Foreign aid workers have been the target of kidnappings and attacks in Afghanistan. Just last month, NATO said its forces rescued two Western doctors who were abducted in May while traveling by horseback to treat villagers suffering from malnutrition. The doctors - along with two Afghan staff members - were working for the Switzerland-based humanitarian group, Medair, when they were kidnapped in Badakhshan province
Red Cross spokesman Stoll says aid groups must assess the situation and find the right balance between operations and security. "We can definitely rely on people on the ground who do tremendous work and we will have to assess this balance on a regular basis to be sure that life-saving operations are still maintained while the security is also there. We try to find this right balance and we are working hard in the time-being to reestablish this balance."
Meanwhile, Kandahar's provincial health director, Abdul Qayyum Pakhla, says life-saving work at Mirwais Hospital continues even without ICRC's foreign staff, but that the facility is eagerly awaiting their return. He tells VOA's Afghan Service, "they were experienced doctors and nurses. They were educated from Europe and were really helpful in many ways."
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Afghans Start to Take the Money and Run
Bloomberg By Eltaf Najafizada July 12, 2012
Afghan central bank inspector Fahim Satari stands in Kabul International Airport in front of a local businessman headed for Dubai, counting by hand the stack of $100 bills police found the passenger carrying to the gate. Satari declares the cash to be under the $20,000 per passenger limit imposed to stem the flood of money leaving through the terminal. In the year to March, $4.6 billion fled via the airport, a sum equal to almost one-quarter of the country’s gross domestic product. The year before, $2.3 billion in cash left via the airport.
The lost billions are undercutting U.S. efforts to stabilize the country as it prepares to withdraw its troops by 2014. “The money leaving the country shows that Afghans fear the war will escalate after NATO troops leave,” says Saifuddin Saihoon, an economics professor at Kabul University.
Omar Zakhilwal, President Hamid Karzai’s finance minister, said on June 28 at an investment summit for Afghanistan held in New Delhi that the airport curbs were meant to force people to use easy-to-monitor banks when moving money abroad. Yet only 7 percent of Afghans have bank accounts. And they have another option. Inside a scruffy three-story building guarded by police in central Kabul, the hawaladars of Sarai Shahzada market, an eight-decade-old institution based on trust and a deeply ingrained emphasis on honor, are busy at work.
When approached to transfer funds overseas, a hawaladar typically accepts the cash, then calls a counterpart in Dubai, Pakistan, or Iran, where an equal amount is handed in person to the intended recipient. Transfers can be completed in minutes. Debts between brokers are settled later.
“Since the airport restrictions came in, more people are demanding our services,” says Najeeb Ullah Akhtary, the president of the currency-exchange union, which counts the hawaladars as members. In February and March, the hawala business was up 10 percent, with one transfer of $700,000. The hawala networks flourish in Afghanistan, where the reputation of formal banks was savaged by the 2010 Kabul Bank scandal: The lender’s politically connected owners lost more than $900 million of depositors’ money through insider loans. “People don’t trust banks very much, and the banks can’t send money as quickly as we do,” Akhtary says.
Inspector Satari’s decision to monitor cash-toting travelers at Afghanistan’s biggest international terminal was triggered by a spike in capital flight in the latest fiscal year. Just $800 million in capital arrived at the airport, vs. the $4.6 billion that passengers carried out, says Mustafa Maqsudi, chief of the bank’s financial intelligence unit.
The capital flight stems from the increasing insecurity across Afghanistan. A June 22 raid by the Taliban on a luxury hotel near Kabul killed 18 people. More than 3,000 civilians died in attacks in 2011, and a further 579 were killed through April, according to a May 31 Congressional Research Service report. The U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan reported on June 26 that Taliban strikes rose 21 percent in May from the same month a year earlier.
Reflecting the uncertainty that awaits Afghanistan, prices of Kabul’s best properties have declined by 25 to 30 percent. A year ago, “a luxury residential building could have been sold for $1 million in Wazir Akbar Khan,” a Kabul neighborhood of villas rented by many foreign companies, aid groups, and embassies, says property dealer Naser Behzad. “But now we can’t sell them for $800,000.”
In Dubai, long a refuge for wealthy Afghans fleeing the war, the prices of villa developments are rising, helping the desert sheikhdom emerge from a three-year property slump. “Virtually all of the money that is being invested in the United Arab Emirates property market from Afghanistan is going into 100-percent-cash transactions,” says Jean-Luc Desbois, founder of the Home Matters mortgage consultancy in Dubai. “There are still significant numbers of Afghan property purchases going on.” From January through May, Home Matters alone fielded 14 inquiries from Afghan buyers.
Clients are mostly affluent and are buying multiple properties costing between 3 million dirhams ($817,000) and 6 million dirhams in locations such as Palm Jumeirah, a man-made archipelago shaped like a palm tree. “Many Afghans with significant assets are concerned about what will happen once they fully govern themselves,” says Desbois.
The U.S. has prodded Afghanistan to better control cash flows that may be linked to corruption as well as the drug trade, which accounts for 15 percent of the economy, according to a United Nations survey. Hawaladars in Kandahar city, the birthplace of the Taliban, and in opium-producing Helmand province may handle $1 billion in drug money a year, according to a U.S. Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs report.
Over the past three years, the central bank has built its first-ever hawala registry, requiring the brokers to submit monthly reports. Maqsudi, the bank intelligence official, says the greater transparency has reduced the laundering of opium money. Akhtary, the currency union chief for the hawaladars, says he’s concerned that the money he helps move out of Afghanistan might undermine the economy. “But transferring cash abroad is a better option than losing it after 2014.”
The bottom line: As the pullout date for U.S. troops approaches, wealthy Afghans are developing an exit strategy that involves moving their cash abroad.
With Stefania Bianchi Najafizada is a reporter for Bloomberg News in Kabul.
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U.S, British criticism of Canada's military efforts in Afghanistan 'wrong'
The Canadian Press By Colin Perkel July 13, 2012
TORONTO - American and British criticism of Canada's long and often bloody military efforts in Afghanistan has a ring of revisionism that ignores key facts, experts say.
In particular, they say, the notion that blithely optimistic Canadians were reluctant to ask for outside help as they struggled alone in Kandahar province, which had been abandoned by the Americans in favour of Iraq, is ludicrous.
"The war (in Afghanistan) isn't exactly going well, so people look around and try to fix blame wherever they can," said Canadian military historian, Jack Granatstein.
"The Americans and Brits are good at this historically."
In his recent book "Little America: The War within the War for Afghanistan," Washington Post author Rajiv Chandrasekaran criticizes Canada for only having about 800 on-the-ground combat troops to cover the province.
He cites one U.S. adviser as saying Canadian soldiers were "focused on reconstruction activities, not providing security."
The author also writes the U.S. didn't push Ottawa to send more troops into Kandahar city because it didn't want to "dictate" to the Canadians or embarrass them, and that Canada was "reluctant" to ask for help.
"That's wrong," Granatstein said. "We tried repeatedly to get assistance. Basically, no help came."
In fact, a secret communique from then-U.S. ambassador in Kabul Ronald Neumann to Washington brass in September 2006 — amid Canada's bloody battle known as Operation Medusa — notes Canadian Brig.-Gen. David Fraser appealed for more troops.
The Wikileaks-published cable cites Fraser as telling a delegation of the North Atlantic Council about the troop juggling that was already going on.
"If I were king for a day, I'd request several battle groups," Fraser said. "We can balance forces, but not forever."
Promised French help never materialized, and although the U.S. did send in some troops, it would take several years — when President Barack Obama finally turned his attention to Afghanistan — that an American "surge" began to offer relief to the Canadians.
A senior Canadian commander, who asked not to be identified, said Canada had been looking for partners, and the eventual flood of American troops into the province underscored the crying need for added strength.
"The U.S. shift from Iraq to Afghanistan put sufficient forces into play to begin to do a better job of counter-insurgency," the commander said.
"No amount of criticism or 'woulda, shoulda, couldas' even comes close to the game-changing nature of the surge."
In another book on the war, author Sandy Gall cites British Gen. David Richards — who commanded allied forces in southern Afghanistan in 2006-2007 — as suggesting under-resourced Canadians were never up to the Kandahar job in the first place.
According to the book, British forces only ended up in neighbouring Helmand because Ottawa wanted the "prestigious" role of taking on Kandahar province.
David Bercuson, who with Granatstein authored a paper on the lessons of the war, said in an interview the British were "wildly under-strength" in Helmand, and their tactics were "little short of stupid."
Canadian forces struggling to keep a tenuous grip on Kandahar — key Taliban territory — were forced to rescue British troops in Helmand on several occasions.
Granatstein and Bercuson — senior research fellows with the Canadian Defence and Foreign Affairs Institute — conceded Canada made mistakes.
For one thing, they argue, Canadians were poorly prepared for their first shooting war in 50 years because they simply didn't know what they were getting into in Kandahar.
The strength and determination of the insurgency caught the Canadian military leadership by surprise. Nevertheless, the troops managed — if barely — to stop the insurgency from overrunning the province.
"The Canadians fought well, didn't have enough troops (but) did a good job nonetheless holding Kandahar province, which was a critical area for the Taliban," Granatstein said. "We stopped it from falling."
In his memoir, Britain's former Afghan ambassador Sherard Cowper-Coles notes Canada's unrelenting and seemingly misguided optimism — particularly on display by Chris Alexander, his Canadian counterpart and now a Conservative MP.
Granatstein called the optimism — also displayed by successive Canadian commanders — as a "transparent PR move" given the increasing antipathy in Canada toward the Afghan war effort.
Alexander did not respond to a request for comment.
In reality, it is still early days in gaining the solid perspective only time — and the release of mounds of documents that remain under wraps along with information from still reticent key players — can bring.
In the interim, Bercuson said, Canada risks having its mission defined by others.
"There's a danger that will happen," Bercuson said. "Until we start getting stuff out of our own, we won't be able to define our mission there."
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Thin NATO traffic on Afghan-Pakistan border
AFP By Staff Writers July 12, 2012
Chaman, Pakistan - Trucks carrying supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan crossed the Pakistani border on Thursday for only the second time since Islamabad agreed to lift a seven-month blockade, officials said.
Pakistan closed overland routes for NATO convoys going to its war-torn neighbour after botched US air strikes killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in November, plunging ties between the "war on terror" allies to a new low.
Islamabad agreed to reopen the routes after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on July 3 apologised for the deaths, but very few vehicles have crossed the border.
Thousands of truck owners are awaiting compensation before going back to work, and drivers say the trips into Afghanistan are too dangerous and too poorly paid.
The Pakistani Taliban have threatened to attack NATO supply trucks and kill drivers if they resume trips to Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the umbrella militant organisation threatened a further wave of attacks, and claimed responsibility for shooting nine police prison officers being trained in the eastern city of Lahore.
Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf ordered authorities to allow the more than 1,500 vehicles stuck in Pakistan to cross into Afghanistan following talks with US ambassador Cameron Munter, his spokesman Akram Shaheedi told AFP.
But on Thursday customs officials told AFP that only another four NATO trucks carrying food supplies had gone into Afghanistan at the Chaman border post in Pakistan's remote southwest.
In the northwestern tribal district of Khyber, officials said seven to 10 trucks loaded with NATO supplies were due to cross the Torkham post for the first time since Pakistan agreed to resume supplies.
Later in the day Mohammad Fayyaz, an administrative official at Torkham, told AFP that four trucks loaded with food had crossed the frontier into Afghanistan.
But in Karachi, where NATO containers begin their long journey to Pakistan's two Afghan border crossings from the Arabian Sea port, many are waiting for compensation from subcontractors for being out of work for seven months.
"We are too wary, too anxious and too cautious about the situation. It was dangerous to go overland before the government ban, but now the dangers have increased," Akram Khan Durrani, president of the All Pakistan Oil Tankers Owners Association, told AFP.
"No one from the authorities have contacted us properly and assured us of foolproof security," he said.
Rana Mohammad Aslam, vice president of the All Pakistan Goods Carrier Association, said NATO subcontractors were supposed to pay $6,000 compensation per vehicle to truck owners.
"Except for some trucks which were stuck elsewhere and have settled their payment issues with the contractors, none have started moving," he told AFP from Karachi.
"Subcontractors have started installing satellite trackers on trucks as a means of security, but still there is no nod from the government, which has to arrange foolproof security for the operation."
Officials in customs and at the ports and shipping ministry, who wished not to be named, said it would still "take a few days" to finalise compensation and were unable to give a specific date for trucks to leave Karachi.
The interior ministry in southern Sindh province, of which Karachi is capital, said it was finalising a security plan, but declined to go into details.
Tensions have been high among right-wing and extremist organisations since Pakistan last week decided to reopen its Afghan border to NATO supply convoys, ending a seven-month blockade following negotiations with US officials.
The Defence Council of Pakistan, a coalition of right-wing and hardline Islamist groups opposed to the country's alliance with Washington, has led protests against the resumption of supplies for NATO troops fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan.
"You see how many people are opposing it? Earlier, we only feared the Taliban, but now we're afraid of many people and groups," said truck owner Mohammad Asghar.
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Afghans Question Benefits of Latest Aid Package
As donors promise 16 billion US dollars, some Afghans say effects of previous aid have been limited.
IWPR By Hafizullah Gardesh, Mina Habib 12 Jul 12
Afghanistan - Afghans have welcomed the latest pledge of international aid to their country, saying it suggests the West will not abandon Afghanistan to its fate after most foreign troops withdraw by the end of 2014.
But some questioned their government’s ability to ensure the money is spent effectively, claiming that billions of dollars of aid received over the last decade have brought only limited improvements to the lives of ordinary people.
At the Tokyo Conference on Afghanistan on July 8, donors pledged 16 billion US dollars in civilian aid to cover the next four years, beyond the 2014 withdrawal of NATO-led troops. Donors said they would channel at least 50 per cent of the money through the government’s national budget.
In return for the money, Afghanistan promised to strengthen democracy, governance and the rule of law, to improve financial management, and to promote sustainable development.
The international community said it would monitor progress in these areas, and both sides agreed that when it came to aid effectiveness, continuing with “business as usual” was not an option.
Afghanistan has received almost 60 billion dollars in development aid over the past decade, according to The Financial Times, but critics claim that war and rampant corruption have prevented the full benefits from reaching the Afghan public.
In a pre-conference speech on June 21, President Hamid Karzai acknowledged that corruption had reached an “extreme level”, and urged domestic officials and the international community to help him tackle the problem. (See Karzai’s Anti-Graft Call Gets Luke Warm Response.)
The new funds will be released gradually, with up to 20 per cent of disbursements made contingent on Afghanistan meeting governance benchmarks, under a mechanism called the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework.
Among its commitments to better financial management, Afghanistan agreed to continue holding people accountable for the Kabul Bank scandal, and keep recovering the bank’s missing assets. The Kabul Bank was seized by regulators in August 2010 after shareholders allegedly dipped into its funds to award loans to themselves, friends, relatives and business associates, according to a New York Times report.
Afghan foreign minister Zalmai Rasul thanked donors following the conference, and said their concerns were understandable.
“This conference is not the end but the beginning of our work,” he told reporters. “We are committed to managing the aid properly. To this end, we will create a mechanism called the Mutual Accountability Framework to monitor the aid.”
United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told the conference that under Karzai and his government, real progress had been made towards security and broad-based development. He warned, though, that these gains remained fragile and could be reversed.
“Failure to invest in governance, justice, human rights, employment and social development could negate the investments and sacrifices that have been made over the past ten years.” Ban said.
While he noted that Afghanistan’s institutions were still developing, Ban acknowledged there were “serious concerns” about the government’s accountability.
“We are all aware of serious concerns regarding Afghan delivery and accountability on governance commitments. These must be addressed in the interests of the Afghan people and also to maintain donor confidence,” he said.
Hamidullah Faruqi, an economic analyst in Afghanistan, welcomed the donors’ renewed commitment, saying it demonstrated that the international community did not meant to abandon the country to a repeat of the fate it suffered in the 1990s.
In the aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal of 1989, Afghanistan plunged into violent chaos during the early 1990s, before the Taleban took power in 1996.
“Despite all the inefficiencies of the Afghan government over the last ten years, the world has shown that it is still interested in Afghanistan and will not abandon it,” Faruqi said. “This is a source of gratification for us.”
Karzai now needs to try to establish a law-abiding government free from corruption, Faruqi said, adding that deep reforms were needed to achieve this.
“[Karzai] should take a serious decision about the mafia networks that have surrounded him,” Faruqi said. “He must not allow the national interest to be sacrificed for the personal benefits of a few individuals.”
Ultimately, though, Faruqi fears there is little chance of Karzai embarking on serious reforms at this stage. The government has shown little desire to change over the last decade, and while Karzai has repeatedly delivered heartfelt public speeches, he has not delivered much in the way of real improvement.
Speaking in Tokyo on July 9, Karzai said international donor nations and agencies needed to review their assistance, according to the Financial Times.
“Two hands must clap, one hand alone will not deliver,” the newspaper quoted him as saying.
He also said that individuals with links to the Afghan government should not be immune from anti-corruption action.
Political analyst Wahid Mozhda said many Afghans would feel sceptical about the donor conference because they had seen few improvements to their lives over the last decade.
“People are not counting on the Tokyo conference, and don’t place much value in it at all,” he said. Despite the funding pledges, many still feared a return to the early Nineties.
Ahmad Sayidi, also a political analyst, agreed that pledges to improve governance should be taken with a pinch of salt, noting that little had come of Karzai’s speeches to previous international conferences in which he promised to fight corruption, strengthen the rule of law, improve women’s rights and improve freedom of speech.
“The caravan will not reach its destination with this leadership,” he said. “The preconditions [set by donors] will definitely not be fulfilled by Karzai.”
Kabul residents differed in their views on the conference.
Taxi driver Shah Mohammad predicted that the aid money would primarily benefit the ruling elite.
“What has the aid that’s been given over the past ten years done for us?” he asked. “My quality of life is deteriorating on a daily basis.”
Farida, a university student, said that ideally she would prefer the money to be provided once a different government was in place, but added that international support was still welcome.
“The Tokyo conference had one benefit for the Afghans – neighbouring countries will realise that Afghanistan is no longer alone,” she said.
Hafizullah Gardesh is IWPR’s Afghanistan editor. Mina Habib is an IWPR-trained contributor in Kabul.
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