Afghanistan at crucial juncture Can western governments persuade their people that after years of war, Afghanistan must stay on financial life-support? Al Jazeera By Shashank Joshi 03 Dec 2014 On Thursday, the so-called London Conference on Afghanistan will convene. Of all the high-profile international conferences that have been held on Afghanistan over the years - in Bonn, Tokyo, and Istanbul - this comes at a crucial juncture. At the end of October, British forces lowered the flag at Camp Bastion - from where they had engaged in the most intense fighting the British army had seen since the Falklands War - and handed over the base to Afghan forces. Just over a month later, the Taliban mounted a 14-hour attack on the very same site, killing six Afghan soldiers. To the north, in the capital Kabul, insurgents have pulled off a dozen attacks in the space of the last few weeks, striking at diplomats, NGOs, and US contractors. What explains this spate of violence, and is it a portent for the future of Afghanistan? The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), a US-led group that includes NATO members and others, winds up its mission on New Years Eve. A slimmed-down force of 12,000 foreign troops - mostly American - will stay behind, and US President Barack Obama has authorised the US contingent to continue supporting Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) throughout 2015, with all of these forces scheduled to leave by the end of 2016. The US is not, therefore, leaving Afghanistan in the abrupt manner than it left Iraq in 2011. But this is a time of dramatic change. Drastic effects on casualties For one thing, the ANSF are doing much of the fighting themselves, with drastic effects on casualties: over 9,000 Afghan troops have died since 2013, four times greater than the entire American death toll since 2001. Afghan police officers are suffering especially badly, with thousands being killed every month. At the political level, a new government of national unity, led by President Ashraf Ghani and Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, has taken charge after Hamid Karzais departure. Ghani is already reported to have opened backchannel talks with the Taliban, visiting both Pakistan and Beijing to seek their help in this effort, cancelling an earlier arms request from India, and even making a highly unorthodox visit to Pakistans army headquarters, in recognition of Pakistans long-standing support for the insurgents. On the ground, the overall picture is mixed. This year, Taliban-initiated attacks are reported to have fallen by 25 percent, and ANSF mounted offensives four to five times more frequently than last year. At the same time, as political scientist Jason Lyall observed, the recently-concluded fighting season - from April to October - witnessed the appearance of large Taliban units on the battlefield for the first time, with a tenth of all Afghan districts seeing at least one major Taliban offensive. Lyall also notes reports of over 1,000 insurgents on the battlefield, numbers not seen since the Talibans original push to capture Kabul during the 1992-96 civil war. While we should take these reports with a pinch of salt - NATO commanders accuse their Afghan counterparts of exaggerating - they do point to a simple, stark fact: The insurgency is far from broken, and it will be able to pressure the Afghan state for years to come. In this context, the wave of insurgent attacks might be explained in several ways. First, these attacks might be intended to drive a wedge between the Afghan government and its foreign patrons, encouraging the latter to abandon their allies more quickly. As a Taliban spokesman put it bluntly: Our objective is to force the foreigners to flee Kabul. Before, the foreigners were visible in the provinces. Now that they have limited more of their activities to Kabul, we have also gone to Kabul to target them there. To some extent, this has worked. Many aid agencies have pulled out their staff, and restricted their movements. Tarnished credibility Second, the insurgents failed to seriously disrupt either round of this years Afghan elections, as they had vowed to do, leaving their credibility somewhat tarnished. Prominent attacks - publicised with videos - redress this issue, and project strength at the end of a fighting season. They might also be ways of strengthening the insurgencys bargaining position in advance of any peace talks that gain momentum over the next year. Third, the insurgency is not a monolith, and different parts of the Taliban might be responsible for different attacks. The Haqqani Network, a semi-autonomous group with close ties to Pakistani intelligence, has proven most effective at projecting suicide bombings into Kabul. The Haqqanis were blamed for the most deadly atrocity of the past month, the bombing of a volleyball game in which over 50 Afghans were killed. In the past, moves towards dialogue between the Afghan government and the Taliban have been met with carefully targeted attacks intended less to strengthen bargaining positions than to disrupt such talks altogether. Whatever the explanation, Afghanistan faces an extremely test period. Although the presence of US forces provides a safety net throughout next year, things look more precarious after that. International funding commitments for Afghanistan currently run to 2017, but that timeline had assumed the insurgency would lose steam by then, allowing ANSF to slim down. If that isnt possible, the annual $4-6bn bill for the security forces is simply unsustainable. This weeks London Conference is an opportunity to secure much greater contributions from regional powers, who have the most at stake if Afghanistan does fall apart once more. China is, for instance, one of the worlds largest economies, a direct neighbour of Afghanistan, and a significant investor there. But if Beijing is unwilling to offer more than a meagre $327m - nearly half the amount Iran pledged in 2012, and far less than Japan or the EU - then how are western governments, with their attention directed to threats from Russia and ISIL, supposed to persuade their own public that, after a decade of war, Afghanistan must stay on financial life-support? Back to Top Back to Top Afghanistan: Can pomegranates power the economy? BBC News By Daud Qarizadah & Harun Najafizade 3 December 2014 As delegates gather in London for a conference on Afghanistan, the prospects for reducing the reliance on foreign aid are increasingly focused on two sectors of the economy: agriculture and hydrocarbons. Harvest time is coming to an end in the fruit orchards of Kandahar, a province now more associated with the Taliban than its famous pomegranates. Amid shouts of Ya Allah! Ya Allah! fruit pickers are urging care as they pass the valuable crop from the tree tops to catchers on the ground. The weather is still mild and ideal to let the fruit sweeten. Packed in boxes or jute sacks, the fruit make its way to markets and warehouses, some goes to Pakistan and the Middle East. But for Afghanistan to profit from one of its key crops, it needs to reach more profitable markets in Europe and beyond. Learning curve In a factory in southern England, cartons of pomegranate juice are rolling off the production line. The Pomegreat juice company buys quality pomegranate concentrate from all over the world and now has its sights set on Afghanistan. Pomegranates from Afghanistan are amongst the best in the world, says its boss Adam Pritchard. But the logistical challenges are also amongst some of the most difficult. At this weeks London Conference on Afghanistan, Mr Pritchard has signed a multimillion pound supply agreement with the Kabul-based Omaid Bahar Fruit Processing Company to buy 1,000 tonnes of pomegranate concentrate. It could prove a blueprint for Afghan agriculture in the years to come if all goes to plan. Plenty of Challenges In an office in central Kabul, Najlla Habibiyar, head of Afghanistans Export Promotion Agency, is realistic about the extent of the challenge facing Mr Pritchard and his Afghan partners. She is only too aware of how tough it is for Afghan farmers to make a living from pomegranates, in contrast to the illegal mainstay - opium. Pomegranates need work, time and a good market, she says. But with poppies, farmers know theyll get paid, even if their crops get eradicated. Its less hassle. Opium production was up 17% this year - as poor security further dented efforts to stamp out poppy growing. Pomegranate production is also on the rise. But while poppy farmers can expect the buyers to come to them, pomegranate growers face big obstacles getting their fruit to market. The main challenges are to have proper facilities for cold storage, processing and packaging, says Najlla Habibyar. And unfortunately we dont have an internationall y recognised body to do the final quality checks and certify the product. When Pomegreat first looked at buying juice concentrate from Kabul, these complications meant the final product was just too expensive. But Adam Pritchard hopes things will be different now. Were trying to work with the manufacturing facility to help them develop a process which allows their product to become more commercially viable and to compete in the world market, he says. Oiling the economy In northern Afghanistan, foreign investors are also working with local companies to kickstart the economy. In this case, the end product is oil. In the basin of the Amu Darya, one of the regions great rivers, the Kashkari oil field is one of three being developed by Chinas National Petroleum Company in partnership with Afghanistans Watan Group. The 25-year profit-sharing deal was signed in 2011. Three years on, there are brand-new looking installations on show, but progress is slow. There are thought to be around 80 million barrels of oil in these fields. It is not much in global terms, but it would be enough to fuel the local economy if the oil could be exploited and processed more quickly. Daily production so far is just a fifth of what was expected, according to the mines ministry. There is no processing capacity on site and the crude oil has to be transported to the nearest refinery in Hairatan, a dangerous four-hour drive. Lal, one of the lorry drivers who does the trip regularly, says he and his colleagues have no choice. We are paid just $200 to take this route, he says. When we are attacked, its for $200. If we get wounded, we get just $50 compensation. Lal is one of a few hundred people benefiting from the employment opportunities oil exploration has brought. The Chinese-Afghan consortium is also training local engineers and technicians as part of the production agreement. But apart from that the local economy has yet to feel real benefits in terms of cheaper petrol and energy supplies. Even so, Rafiq Siddiqui from the Mines and Petroleum Ministry says oil, gas and Afghanistans other commodities are the way ahead. With the plans the national unity government has, and with good management, we believe that the way to economic stability is through natural resources. And thats not far away, he says. Experts agree that mining could be the game-changer for the Afghan economy in the long run. In the meantime agriculture, the sector that employs most Afghans, will have to plug the gap. Adam Pritchard thinks top-quality produce like pomegranates can help to fulfil that need. If Afghanistan is to stand on its own two feet, it cant rely on subsidies and charity, he says. The English apple is synonymous with England. We process it and make juice out of it. Theres no difference with pomegranates in Afghanistan, and I have no doubt that in time it will be a decent industry for the country.
Posted on: Mon, 08 Dec 2014 10:49:04 +0000
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