Afghanistan Problems/Issues

The Bonn process initiated actions to help Afghanistan in developing into a democratic country a useful member of the international community, sustain itself economically and be able to defend itself against internal and external threats. A number of milestones have been achieved i.e. establishment of an interim government, approval of the constitution by the “Loya Jirga”, presidential and parliamentary elections.

The hope and optimism shown in the beginning by the people has however been dashed. People see very little change in their daily lives especially in some areas of the country since 2001. The problem that confront Afghanistan need to be confronted and resolved in an earlier timeframe before all in lost and the country slides back into anarchy and civil war. This has the potential of destabilizing the entire region. Some of the problems are listed below.

Development / Reconstruction

This has proceeded at a very slow pace in most of the country while in some areas have received no attention at all. This should be due to the poor security environment but even then this important aspect of winning the hearts and the minds of the people has not received due attention. The people of Afghanistan need to see some benefit from the continued occupation of their country by foreign troops. The people’s patience is running thin even in areas that are peaceful, Matters need to be expedited before all is lost.

Warlordism

After the fall of Najibullah regime the Mujahideen commanders had turned their respective areas into private fiefdoms and begun to administer these areas as warlords. The people of Afghanistan suffered immensely as all human rights were violated with impunity. The positive aspect of the Taliban despite all their own shortfalls was getting the country rid of the scourge of the warlords. However with the defeat of Taliban the warlords have reappeared. They have managed to get elected to the parliament while some have managed to grab important administrative posts across the country. The Karzai government appears to be weak in dealing with this problem.

Warlordism in Afghanistan more>>

Drugs:

The post Taliban era has seen a huge rise in poppy cultivation and the related drug trade. Poppy cultivation has also been reported in the most of the county and some government officials are known to be involved in the drug trade. Afghanistan is now one of the world largest producers of opium and opiates. Western Europe mainly the UK are the areas affected by the drug smuggling. The major roots are through Central Asia and Russia on to Western Europe. The black economy is now bigger than the actual economy and this fuels a host of problem for the Afghan State. The UN has already warned of Afghanistan turning into a Narco – state. Some funds from the drug trade are obviously diverted to the insurgency as the drug baron know that their business can flourish more in uncertain conditions and keep the security forces busy in counter insurgency operations rather than against the drug baron and poppy cultivation.

According to the UN office on drugs and crime, overall opium production in Afghanistan has more than doubled in the last four years and it has been increased from 6,100 tones in 2006 to 8,200 tones in 2007. Afghanistan produced 93 percent of the world's opium last year, and about 50 percent of the drugs leaving the country flowed through Iran. Iran lies on a major transit route for smuggling illegal drugs from Afghanistan towards European markets. The proportion of the total volume of Afghan drugs transiting through Iran fell to 31 percent in 2007 from 42 percent in 2006, Iran’s police chief Ahmadi Moghadam said, adding that the volume itself was unchanged due to a major rise in Afghan production.
Iran seized just over one third of the 2,500 tones of drugs that entered the country from its eastern neighbour Afghanistan in 2007.
"Around 900 tones of drugs out of the 2,500 tones of drugs that entered the country from Afghanistan were seized in 2007,"
The head of the United Nations' anti-narcotics agency says the Taliban in Afghanistan earned more than $US100 million from the opium trade last year.

Lack of Institutions

During the last five years the Afghan state has yet to develop even a rudimentary level of functioning of state institutions destroyed during the wars from 1978 – 2001. There are competent Afghans in its diasporas to undertake the job but corruption, in competence and poor security environment prevents them from coming home. All state institution needs to be started. Competent persons need to be appointed to give the state institutions a solid foundation to start with.

Inability to Tax the Rich

The Afghan state lacks the will to generate its own income and continues to survive and prepared budgets on foreign aid and grants. It needs to tax the luxury goods that it imports which have no need for the ordinary Afghans. This will help in increasing income of the state and at the same time prevent smuggling.

Ethnic Imbalances

The administration needs to be ethnically balanced. The Pashtuns at the moment appear to be left out. This fuels resentment and provides recruitment to the insurgent groups who play on this factor.

Dubious Firms

Large amount of funds meant for development and reconstruction are siphoned off and contracts given to dubious firms who do shoddy work. Case in point is the Kabul Jalalabad road. The road has developed ruts and pot holes even before the completion of work. Similar in the fate of hospitals, schools, clinics etc built across the country (even in Kabul city) right under the nose of state and the foreign donors.

Foreign Interference

A number of regional and extra regional countries are backing various groups in Afghanistan for their own interests. This conflict of interest leads to conflicts within the country.

Foreign Aid

Since 2001 Afghanistan has received 8 – 9 billion dollars in aid. At the same time 10 – 11 times more funds are spent on military operations. If military operations are scaled down and funds and efforts are diverted to reconstruction the results could be far different. Moreover NGOs and UN are spending huge sums on personal safety and comfort - funds which could be diverted to poverty alleviation. An article by Farida Nawa in the Sunday Times elaborates that one in five children dies before the age of five. 3.5 million Afghans are still living on free rations, provided by World Food Programme. Resident of Kabul still have no electricity and water five years after the ouster of the Taliban. Quacks are playing havoc with the health of ordinary Afghans because of the failure of the state and NGOs to provide basic health facilities.

Military Solution

Using the military instrument solely to deal with the insurgent problem in not a preferred option. Though it is agreed that the hard core leadership of insurgency has to be eliminated yet it needs to be understood that open ended military operations are not sustainable. A total military solution means that the certain areas have to be saturated and for that an additional 50,000 troops would be required. Considering that NATO had great problems in finding 2500 troops at the Riga summit this is not possible. Therefore the strategic approach to the conflict resolution needs a paradigm shift. Engagement and dialogue with the insurgent leadership backed up by reconstruction would be a preferred option. Small increase in troop level would only prolong the conflict and spread despondency in the Afghan population.

Weak Administration:

Corruption:

The corruption has rises to levels where even the Afghan President has acknowledged the same. There is growing criticism on the malaise in the donor countries especially the United States. Because of corruption large amounts of funds are siphoned off. Whatever is left to spend is too little and results in poor utilization or shoddy/shabby construction. The general masses are therefore disillusioned and lose faith in the government.

Mediocrity:

The inductions into government and semi government institutions lack merit. Resultantly a number of high level posts are held by average/mediocre personnel. Lack of merit results in poor governance and despondency amongst the educated aspirants who make the grade but are left out because they do not know people at the right places.

Lack of Security:

The poor security and law/order environment is detrimental to investments and other economic activities. This is especially the case in the insurgency prone areas. A vicious cycle therefore sets in. With no economic uplift the people of these areas fall prey to the insurgent groups who can recruit people and are also affected by the propaganda that the government or foreign occupying forces do not care for them and have only come to occupy their country.

Training of the Security Forces:

Afghanistan had viable security apparatus up to the time of the communist government. When the Mujahideen government took charge in late April 1992 they disbanded the Afghan Army, Air Force and Police services. After the fall of Taliban the US and its NATO allies are trying to raise an Army and Police from scratch. The force goals have not been met and also the training leaves much to desired. The force suffers from low morale, poor leadership, corruption and low pay scales. This malady needs to be corrected in an earlier timeframe. The Afghan security forces must take over duties and counter insurgency operations rather then leaving the same to the NATO troops for obvious reasons.

Right Priorities:

The uplift and reconstruction priorities need to be corrected. It is lopsided at the moment. Afghanistan needs to concentrate on road communication, health, education, skills enhancement and power generation in that order. The rest can be followed up later. With these facilities in place the economy will improve by itself. Lack of these facilities also inhibits the refugees from returning to participate in nation building activities.

.President Hamid Karzai’s re-election on 2 November 2009, following widespread fraud in the 20 August presidential and provincial polls, has delivered a critical blow to his government’s legitimacy. The deeply flawed polls have eroded public confidence in the electoral process and in the international community’s commitment to the country’s nascent democratic institutions. Concentration of power in the executive to the exclusion of the legislature and judiciary has also resulted in a fundamental breakdown in governance while strengthening the hand of the insurgency. To restore stability, vigorous constitutional reform under the aegis of a Loya Jirga must be undertaken; an impartial commission of inquiry into the flawed elections should be formed; the UN Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) should be restructured to restore credibility; and prompt steps must be taken to strengthen institutions.

The 20 August presidential and provincial elections were declared “successful” by both the Afghan government and the U.S., despite the significant Taliban violence that preceded the poll date. At least 30 people were killed on election day alone, and several provincial candidates and campaign workers were killed leading up to the elections, while intimidation resulted in several female candidates withdrawing from the contest. Allegations of systemic fraud emerged even before Karzai and his chief challenger, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, each declared victory within 24 hours of the polls’ closure. Reports of intimidation, ballot stuffing, ghost polling stations and interference by staff of the Independent Election Commission (IEC) and candidate agents surfaced countrywide, but especially where insecurity led to an absence of female electoral staff, candidate agents and election observers. Turnout was far below the eight million in the 2004 presidential elections.

Preliminary results released on 16 September 2009 indicated Karzai as the winner with 54.6 percent of the vote to 27.7 percent for Adbullah. But a protracted investigation by the independent Electoral Complaints Commission into hundreds of reports of fraud disqualified almost a quarter of the vote and pushed Karzai’s toll below 50 percent. Following intense pressure from mainly the U.S., Karzai agreed to a run-off vote against Abdullah, only for Abdullah to on 1 Nov announce that he would not stand again. Abdullah claimed a fair vote was impossible after Karzai had refused to sack the “biased” head of the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC). The IEC declared Karzai the winner by default on 2 Nov, while Abdullah almost immediately announced he would refuse to join the new administration, and the chances for a negotiated power-sharing government are slim.                                    

With the elections having raised serious doubts about the legitimacy of his presidency, Karzai now faces a critical test of his willingness to end corruption and cronyism. There is little evidence he will pass this test, as it will be very difficult for Karzai to accommodate the demands of his allies, an amalgam of religious conservatives, tribal strongmen, factional leaders, regional power brokers, powerful businessmen and local chieftains. The international community must press harder for anti-corruption measures. Intense pressure on Karzai caused the President to promise a focus on curbing corruption in his inauguration speech on 19 November, while the government days earlier had announced the creation of a new high-level anti-graft body. The international community is, however, also perceived by Afghans as an active participant in the flawed electoral process. Although the elections were ostensibly under sole Afghan stewardship, UNAMA was heavily involved in planning, preparations and logistics.

It would be difficult to overestimate the impact of deteriorating security on the polls. Violence has steadily risen in Afghanistan during 2009, and the weeks before and after the poll date saw the worst levels of violence since the invasion in 2001. At least four candidates for the provincial elections were killed, and many more attempts were made. The Taliban announced towards the end of July that they would attempt to “disrupt the elections”, and subsequently launched a wave of attacks across the country, but particularly in the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand. Security incidents have continued at a high level after the polling date. July saw at least 71 ISAF troops killed, the highest monthly toll since 2001, and UN figures show that 1,013 civilians were killed between January and June 2009, up from 818 in the same period in 2008. While Taliban influence has grown significantly within the last two years, much of the insecurity stemmed from Kabul’s failure to deploy sufficient numbers of competent police and soldiers. The elections were preceded by a large increase in foreign troops, with the U.S. committing 21,000 extra military personell before the elections, and NATO contributing a further 5,000, all mostly deployed in the south and east. On 1 December, U.S. President Obama announced a new strategy for Afghanistan, which included the deployment of a further 30,000 U.S. troops and a tentative exit plan for July 2011.

The electoral fraud was a direct consequence of failure to build the capacity of governmental institutions. After the successful 2004 elections, the international community (UNAMA in aprticular) and the Afghan government failed to build up the Independent Electoral Commission, strengthen the legal framework (including replacing the inappropriate Single Non-Transferable Vote System), and produce a sustainable voter registry. Failure in wider institutional strengthening, such as disarmament programs and judicial and police reforms, has also increased popular disillusionment. The lessons learned must be used to ensure a much strengthened process for the planned 2010 National Assembly and district elections.

The political system itself is also in need of serious reform. It is now highly centralised and largely based on patronage, bringing personalities rather than policies to the fore. President Karzai wields enormous powers as head of state and has encouraged an ever-growing culture of impunity. The role of political parties has become increasingly marginalised. There now needs to be a focus on how the political system can be made more functional and representative. Broad agreement is needed on a balance of power among the branches of the state, among which the relationship is now very poor, as well as on identifying which body is the ultimate constitutional arbiter, and on ensuring a more appropriate role for political parties.

What should be done

In the 25 November 2009 briefing Afghanistan: Elections and the Crisis of Governance, Crisis Group made the following recommendations for measures to urgently be put in place:

• Restrictions on the size of the cabinet, and thorough vetting of cabinet and provincial governor appointees, barring nominees with demonstrated links to armed groups or criminal activities from joining the government;

• The formation of an impartial commission of inquiry composed of respected Afghan and international experts to conduct a thorough public review of the 20 August 2009 elections; the National Assembly’s use of its full sanctioning powers against those suspected of abusing their offices to influence the polls; and vigorous criminal prosecution by the attorney general and courts of those involved in flagrant violations of the law, whether candidates, IEC staff or government officials;

• Consultations among relevant Afghan and international actors to achieve consensus on immediate steps to strengthen the machinery for the 2010 elections, including the timely delineation of district boundaries for district council elections; enhanced penalties for misuse of state resources during the campaign; clarification of the shape and scope of the IEC and ECC to build sustainable mechanisms to enforce electoral standards and arbitrate disputes; and reconstitution of the IEC Secretariat and IEC Board with the involvement of parliament and other stakeholders in the appointment process;

• Convocation of a loya jirga with the express purpose of undertaking constitutional reform, including consultations on the role of the Supreme Court; separation of powers by enhancing the independence of the judiciary and legislature; and the strengthening of provincial and district level governance through a meaningful devolution of authority and resources; and

• Resignation of UNAMA chief and SRSG Eide, since he has lost the confidence of many on his staff and the necessary trust of many parts of the Afghan polity, accompanied by a thorough re-evaluation of UN ELECT’s advisory role with the view to ensuring more robust support for Afghanistan’s electoral institutions and processes.

Click here for more>>