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Afghanistan: Working with the Taliban (in the house you bought). Printer friendly page Print This
By Les Blough, Editor. JJ/CB. Axis of Logic. IRIN News
Axis of Logic. IRIN News (article)
Friday, Jan 18, 2013

Afghanistan 2001-2013. Imagine that you bought a very large house with 10 rooms, massively overpriced with a mortgage at an extremely high (and variable) rate of interest over a period of 12 years. Now imagine that when you moved into the house the owners refused to leave. As though that weren't bad enough, the owners not only refused to leave, but also forced you to live in a corner of the smallest room. When you defied them and members of your family left their little corner to explore or take control of that room and the other nine, the real owners injured or killed them. Everytime you send a few members of your family out of the room, the owners are waiting, ready to kill anyone who shows their face. So the few men who sent you there but never entered the house itself come up with a brainstorm in the comfort of their offices from afar to triple the number of your family, jam them into your little corner and to train a few of the original owners to help you fight your way out. They call their brilliant plan "a surge." But after you've trained and armed those original owners, they turn against you and kill even more of your people who venture outside. What bad luck!!

As time passes your family members are forced back in their small corner for keeps. At the end of this period of time, you have spent a total of $641.7 billion for the privilege of living there and the total you will have spent in the last 2 years is 30% of that amount or $198.2 billion so your monthly mortgage payments are escalating with the variable interest rate and rising cost of living! Meanwhile, as your money flows out the door on a daily basis at this rate, you have very little control over your life or ability to auditing expenses, no credible plans for the future and no way to measure how effectively your money has been or will be spent.

The costs cited above for the US war in Afghanistan do not include the costs of troop withdrawal, the ongoing and future costs of maintaining an occupying force there, or the enormous post-war costs for providing care for the 17,000+ US soldiers injured in the war or supporting them in retirement. Moreover, Obama's current plan for withdrawal will leave troop levels at those of former president G.W. Bush!

Of course the pain and suffering of the unknown millions of Afghans, civilian and military, who have been wounded and killed, including their families and loved ones, cannot be measured. The same is true for the 2000+ US soldiers who have been killed, those from other countries and all their families' nightmare that will never cease.

It all amounts to a massive, unprecedented and continuing! psychotic episode acted out by Washington's politicians, the Pentagon, their "think-tank" advisors, the corporate media and all those who have supported the war on the people of Afghanistan since it was first launched in 2001.

- Les Blough, Editor

Engage with the Taliban, a new report tells aid workers. Photo: Abdullah Shaheen/IRIN

Afghanistan: Working with the Taliban
IRIN News

DUBAI, 11 December 2012 (IRIN) - Soldiers from the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) may be leaving Afghanistan in the coming two years, but humanitarian needs are not going to disappear any time soon and neither will the Taliban.

The coming power shift is likely to add to a trend that is already a reality for aid workers - more frequent dealings with the Taliban.

A report published today by the Overseas Development Institute highlights the challenges for aid workers needing to engage with Taliban fighters, members of an organization classed as a terrorist group by several Western countries.

“Aid agencies’ access to negotiations with the Taliban will be critical after 2014. Establishing effective engagement policies is fundamental to reaching all Afghans in need,” said Ashley Jackson, co-author of the report.

From the Biafran war in Nigeria in the late 1960s to the challenges faced in northern Mali, Somalia and the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo, humanitarian agencies have long faced the challenge of reaching those in greatest need in areas often far from government-controlled capitals.

In Afghanistan, the least developed country in Asia, aid agencies are often reluctant to talk about these issues, but, as this new report makes clear, aid can be and is being delivered in areas where the Taliban are present.

“The greatest guarantee of security for aid workers and those they seek to help is structured engagement with the Taliban,” says the report.

Yet some aid workers fear they will fall foul of counter-terrorism laws if they negotiate with the Taliban for access to aid supplies and projects.

Beyond these concerns, many agencies do manage to carry out aid projects in such areas, and this report discusses the issues they face: attacks on personnel, restrictions on the types of projects that are possible, and the use of Afghan staff managed remotely from Kabul.

The Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) is one of the NGOs working in areas where the Taliban and other anti-government groups have increasing influence, particularly in the northwestern and southeastern regions.

“NRC relies heavily on the humanitarian principles as `tools’ for ensuring acceptance and access in all the areas that we work - including in areas of contested control, or where Taliban have a presence,” NRC’s protection and advocacy adviser in Afghanistan, Daniel Tyler, told IRIN.

He says they try to get the message across to local community leaders that they provide aid to those in need regardless of political, ideological or other objectives.

“Acceptance by communities can at times translate into acceptance by anti-government groups and, ultimately, this is what NRC relies on to deliver aid.”

The fall of the Taliban in 2001 led to several years of open and easy access for humanitarian agencies working throughout the country.

But the Taliban insurgency from 2004 onwards started to close the “humanitarian space” - international staff facing security concerns withdrew from the field to leave more responsibility in the hands of Afghan aid workers.

The ODI report’s authors say Afghan staff, often from the communities they are working in, are frequently left with little guidance from managers on how to engage with Taliban commanders, exposing them to considerable risks.

Taliban view of aid

At the top, Taliban leaders appear open to aid missions, except where such work is seen as linked to the international military operation, strongly sponsored by nations contributing troops to the anti-Taliban campaign, or seen to counter the Taliban view of Afghan traditional values.

On the ground though, aid agencies face a lack of consistent attitudes from local commanders, as well as the threat of other armed groups - splinter organizations and criminal gangs.

“This is one of the hardest things to deal with in this environment. We are not dealing with a single amorphous body. The problem you have is that there is a lot of fragmentation - some are operating quite autonomously,” International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) spokesman in Afghanistan Robin Waudo told IRIN.

ICRC holds confidential discussions with commanders on all sides to negotiate access, but still faces considerable restrictions in its movements, particularly around Kandahar and Helmand provinces in the south.

“It’s very easy to reach out to the Afghan authorities and the international force but it’s much harder to make contact with those fighting on the other side and the groups operating in the shadows - but we work hard to reach out to everyone,” he said.

Fragmentation… on both sides

The Taliban also find themselves up against a mix of humanitarian and development actors - NGOs, UN agencies, private contractors, and the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) that are closely tied to Western military operations.

Many humanitarian agencies try to convince local armed groups of their neutrality, while facing accusations from Taliban officials that they support the government, are spies, or that they undermine cultural values, particularly traditional views on women.

The model of an integrated UN mission can also pose challenges of perception. In Afghanistan, UN agencies try to deliver neutral humanitarian aid - sometimes in contact with Taliban groups - while the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan supports the government and coordinates with ISAF.

Security problems and funding sources have meant humanitarian and development aid has frequently been implemented in areas where the international force has been most active.

Aid agencies report that Taliban military commanders frequently close down aid operations in areas that see lots of Western military activity.

A joint statement issued by the humanitarian community in Afghanistan last month said humanitarian interventions were frequently associated with political or military objectives.

“Over the last decade, Afghanistan witnessed a gradual erosion of humanitarian principles owing to the politicized funding environment,” said the statement by the Humanitarian Country Team, which said humanitarian NGOs should remain independent and impartial.

Life after the international troops leave

While the withdrawal of international forces could create more space for humanitarian agencies to assert their independence, it is also likely to bring instability and create more situations where agencies will have to negotiate directly or indirectly with the Taliban.

Daniel Tyler at NRC says “work to ensure that all local power-holders and parties to the conflict accept and respect humanitarian principles to allow access to people in need needs to start now.”

The report’s authors recommend NGOs spend more time coordinating their engagement with groups like the Taliban, providing adequate support to Afghan staff when seeking to remotely manage operations, and being clear about their neutrality.

jj/cb

 

[This report does not necessarily reflect the views of the United Nations]

Souce: IRIN News (a service of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)

© Copyright 2014 by AxisofLogic.com

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