Afghanistan, the Perennial Failure
"If the international community stops (funding) Afghanistan it will not be a big change for poor people because poor people never used this money.The United Nations has given warning just recently of the numbers suffering severe malnutrition in Kandahar, Farah, Kunar, Paktika and Helmand provinces in Afghanistan. These areas represent locations where the Taliban remains very active, and warfare is ongoing. Physicians in the capital Kabul, have also said they are seeing more cases of malnutrition among people within the general population.
"But it will be a disaster for a minority in power, the ministers, the warlords."
Ramazan Bashardost, anti-corruption crusader, member of Afghan parliament
Food is being distributed by the United Nations. And just close by the area where that food distribution is taking place is an area of multi-million-dollar homes. They look crassly conspicuous in their obvious splendour, contrasting sharply with the bunker-like look of the barricades erected around them for security purposes. This is where the Afghan elite live; businessmen, power brokers, warlords, government officials.
A few are the homes of Afghan cabinet ministers. They earn about $1,000 monthly. Hardly sufficient to pay for such splendid mansions. But then, there are other perquisites of their job, principally among them the sacking of humanitarian funds given the country by international treasuries which have pledged to do their part to help the country overcome its traditional state of penury.
Hundreds of millions in aid funding meant to improve the lives of the Afghan people has poured into the pockets of those with connections. Afghan leaders, including the Karzai clan have done very well, alongside the financial fortunes of the war lords. But then there are other sources as well, primarily the poppy trade, of which everyone demands their due share, from government ministers to the Taliban.
This is a corrupt society at every level of social and administrative culture.
And it's not only Afghans who have thrived on the avails of Western guilt and responsibility for the welfare of Afghans. The thriving industry of the humanitarian aid groups in their countless numbers have done very well for themselves. Foreign advisers and consultants have also cashed in on the bonanza, earning an average of a quarter-million dollars annually for their priceless services that do, after all, have a price.
Both the Americans and the Soviets during the Cold War provided assistance to Afghanistan, hoping to convince it to loyalty to their sphere of influence. The U.S. built dams and irrigation systems, they sent educators, engineers and medical doctors to train, aid and influence the country. The Soviets did even more, pouring $2-billion in development and military aid into the country, before they finally invaded it.
The Soviets trained and equipped the country's army and air force with modern armaments, building power stations, irrigation systems, factories, apartment buildings, bridges and tunnels. They were big on education, providing over 70,000 Afghans with advanced training in engineering, opening technical institutes in Kabul, providing free tuition to students from deprived backgrounds. The Russians provided advisers on banking, transportation, foreign affairs and agriculture.
They promoted the rights of women, bringing them into the civil service and military, and tried to persuade a girls' school students in the north to shed their veils. A huge complex of state-operated agricultural communities was constructed outside Jalalabad, employing six thousand Afghans full-time. Those farms were destroyed by the Afghan rebels trained by Pakistan and the U.S.; the emerging Taliban.
Once the Soviet military left Afghanistan and civil war set in with the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban forces, the civil infrastructure built with high hopes by the Russians was destroyed. What they didn't manage to destroy, the Taliban finished when they came to power. The Soviet development aid to Afghanistan during the pre-Taliban period helped train Afghan engineers and doctors.
Now, even with the huge financial support from nations of the West, unemployment in the country remains rampant with over 35% of the workforce without jobs; some estimates put that number at 50%. "In the cities, there is a huge disparity. You see a lot of very, very poor people and a lot of extremely rich people riding around in cars or living in properties that cost millions to build", observed Ziggy Garewal who works for the French charity ACTED.
This is an agrarian society. But though NATO countries promoted agricultural diversification such as growing pomegranates, local farmers understood that it was more effective for them to grow poppy fields, requiring far less irrigation than conventional crops, and giving them far more in return for their trouble; earning ten times more for planting illegal drug-trade poppies.
Afghanistan has an estimated $1-trillion to $3-trillion in mineral resources waiting to be extracted. There have been a few contracts signed with Canadian and Chinese mining companies, but they have yet to produce significant royalties, and the concern looms large that whatever will result stands the real potential to be drained off by officials for their own bank accounts. The country has a paltry tax base.
The medical clinics opened with funding from international support and the hundreds of schools opened by foreign aid groups and with the help of NATO forces have begun to wane in serviceability as the international community withdraws and the government of Afghanistan which has never been able to even partially serve the needs of the population outside the capital, has been unable to adequately fund those operations let alone pay the salaries of doctors and teachers.
What was formerly seen optimistically as success in Afghanistan, in succeeding in combating the Taliban, in denying al-Qaeda safe haven there, in helping the country build a workable civil infrastructure and train its leaders and its military is simply a repeat of what has been done before. It collapsed earlier because the government of the country is corrupt and disinterested in the welfare of the country, and it seems destined to repeat that story all over again.
Labels: Afghanistan, Agriculture, Conflict, Drugs, Education, Health, Societal Failures, Taliban
posted by Pieface @ Monday, February 17, 2014
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