Dispatches from Afghanistan and Pakistan 2011 #3

by Michael Skinner

Monday, 7 March

U.S. Secretary of Defense, Robert Gates has made a surprise appearance in Afghanistan. It is unclear whether he is in Kabul or at Bagram air base outside the city. Regardless, traffic has come to a standstill as heavily armed American embassy staff convoys and Afghan police and military forces try to outmanoeuvre the anti-occupation protestors who are filling the streets. I have been stuck in the traffic so I do not hear news of Gates' visit and the protests until they are over; otherwise, I would have tried to get some photographs. I did see news photos and video from the protests Sunday during which riot police wearing the all too familiar Darth Vader battle gear and swinging their truncheons beat back crowds of anti-occupation protestors.

I was supposed to fly to Herat today where I was to be the guest of International Women's Day organisers. Unfortunately, the airline has postponed my flight twice for unexplained reasons and finally cancelled today’s flights entirely. I will be flying to Herat tomorrow instead and will not arrive in time for most of the 8 March events. However, I will be able to attend a conference of women’s group organizers that will take place on 9 March and meetings I have scheduled with some of the organizers. Unfortunately, most of today is wasted waiting for planes that never arrive. Late in the day, I receive notification that my flight tomorrow morning has also been postponed until 3PM, which means I will miss most of the Women’s Day festivities.

Thanks to the advice of Eng. Sayed Jawed, director of the Humanitarian Assistance and Facilitating Organization (HAFO), who I have been conferring with regularly for much needed advice during my stay, I visit Baghi Babur or Babur’s garden for a short respite from the frustrations of the day. Baghi Babur was both a favourite summer garden for the mughals when they travelled north to escape the heat and a mausoleum. The mausoleum is exceptionally modest in scale compared to Humayon’s tomb that I visited last week in Delhi or the Taj Mahal. One of Humayon’s sons is buried at Baghi Babur. The ancient mosque, tombs, and the high fortress wall surrounding the complex, as well as the modern residence built by the Afghan king after the last retreat of British forces in 1919 were all badly damaged during heavy fighting at this location in the civil war 1992-1996. International donors funded reconstruction, which was recently completed. Eng. Jawed’s organization HAFO supervised rebuilding the fortress walls.

As much as I am pleased to see this important historical site restored, I question the priority of such a construction project considering the dire need, which is not being met, to construct the necessary infrastructure for basic human survival. In an ideal world, states and NGOs would fund both infrastructure reconstruction and historical site preservation. However, under the neoliberal regime directing all international post-conflict peacebuilding and state-building missions, since the end of the 1980s, private enterprise is expected to step in to reconstruct infrastructure on a for-profit basis. But in reality, private enterprise will build whatever is expected to return the greatest profit with the least risk. In Kabul, it is evident the priorities for private industry are construction of luxury housing, shopping centres, and banquet halls to serve the Kabuli elite and international workers who have money to spend. As I have written elsewhere massive industrial-scale resource development, transportation, communications, and energy transmission projects are in their infancy. The profitable business of mobile phone coverage was already well established here long before my last visit in 2007. Yet little else on a human scale to serve all Afghans is being built with private investment. State money is being used to build the elaborate fortifications to protect foreign embassies and, in the case of the U.S., a huge new embassy complex.

However, little international or Afghan state money is used to reconstruct civic infrastructure. There is a joke here that the only good road in Kabul runs from the airport to the U.S. embassy. This, however, is somewhat of an exaggeration; there is another good road running from the airport to a new block of high security housing for international workers and the row of expensive wedding halls that has recently sprung up along the airport strip. A good road also runs to the heavily secured Intercontinental Hotel where foreign diplomats tend to be garrisoned. Almost every other road in Kabul presents an adventure in off-road trekking through deep muck when it snows or rains, and blinding, choking dust when it’s dry.

Fortunately, money was found to reconstruct Baghi Babur. Regardless of more urgent priorities – for instance to deliver clean drinking water to the majority of Kabulis who do not have water – the reconstruction as well as the ongoing administration and maintenance of the historical site provides a few jobs for people living in the surrounding community. Perhaps the gardens themselves will provide some hope and inspiration to Afghans for a better future, although I suspect most Kabulis cannot afford the entrance fee. I look forward to coming here again to see the gardens and water features in their full glory, which even today are beautiful during the dead of winter.

There are innumerable historical sites of great significance throughout Kabul and all of Afghanistan that continue to deteriorate. It is a crime so many of these cultural treasures continue to be damaged by war, looting, scavenging for building materials, and natural deterioration. Some, like the important historical site at Aynak that tells the story of copper mining at that site dating from the Bronze Age to the present, are now threatened by industrial development. Although the priority for Afghans is to first alleviate their human suffering, preserving their cultural heritage cannot be neglected. When Afghanistan was a popular tourist destination after WWII until the 1980s, it was more than cheap hashish that drew people here – it was the desire to experience Afghan’s open generous culture and their rich historical heritage at this crossroads of humanity that tells the stories of civilization’s development across Eurasia.

Tuesday, 8 March

I'm up early to pack my bags for a second day hoping to catch a flight to Herat. Before heading to the airport, I travel a short distance outside Kabul to see one of the larger ad hoc camps established by internally displaced Afghans who are war refugees within their own country. In the official literature, these places are euphemistically referred to as “informal settlements.” The people stuck in these camps, which range in size from a few hundred people to thousands, are farmers and workers. They do not possess the resources to do more than flee the battle zones and squat on vacant land where they build makeshift homes from whatever found materials are available.

The conditions in this settlement are appalling. The homes are tiny structures built of mud and whatever bits of plastic, canvas, tin sheeting, or wood that can be found nearby. More than six thousand people reside here, but there are only five hand-operated water pumps producing water of dubious quality and no means of sewage and garbage removal. The unsanitary conditions are obvious by the stench of the place. A survey of this and several other camps shows high rates of disease and mortality.

There is little work available for the internal refugees, so most rely on inadequate handouts from relief agencies. Some men travel into the city to work in menial day-labourer jobs when such jobs are sporadically available.

The war refugees are at the bottom of the heap of Afghan workers. Dr. Rebecca Wright of the Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC) writes in the first line of her 2010 report on Afghan labour: “the majority of workers in Afghanistan earn a livelihood in conditions that violate the most basic standards of dignity, safety, and health.” Occupying the bottom rung of this labour market is indeed a terrible position for these people displaced by the warfare we are waging.

While men try to find work under these oppressive conditions, women and children beg in the streets. A survey conducted in 2010 in several of the settlements shows that some women must work as sex workers to support their families. The same study notes that in all these settlements of war refugees scattered about Kabul, few children go to school. They are more productively employed as street beggars to supplement inadequate handouts from aid agencies.

Whether by accident or intent, the war is creating a new urban workforce. Workers in Afghanistan’s informal sector, which constitutes 80-90 per cent of the country’s economic activity according to government statistics, have no protection under the labour code instituted in 2006. The reserve army of labour pouring into the cities, as people are forced to abandon their homes and traditional livelihoods in the rural areas, further compounds the misery of Afghan workers. Marx identified this process in Britain during the enclosure movement as primitive accumulation and proletarianization. Whatever theorists want to call it today, this process of clearing people off the land and driving them into urban centres where they swell the ranks of the working class putting downward pressures on wages and working conditions, is occurring in Afghanistan.

During my previous visit and again during this visit, witnesses have told me the American, Canadian, and British forces routinely destroy, homes, farms, and businesses and even drop explosive devices into water wells. Under such conditions it is impossible for people to rebuild their homes and livelihoods in the rural areas. While Western leaders claim Taliban and other insurgents either terrorise Afghans into supporting the insurgencies or purchase the services of fighters, Western militaries are pushing people off the land into the cities or across Afghanistan’s borders into neighbouring states.

The Canadian government has not accepted responsibility for resettlement of the uncounted numbers of internally and externally displaced war refugees. A few NGOs do their best to mitigate the worst conditions suffered by these people, but these efforts are far from adequate to deal with the enormous scale of the problem.

I have only enough time to take a few photographs at the settlement, plus I do not have an interpreter with me, so I cannot explain why I am here or listen to the stories of these war refugees. I would like to return during my next visit to spend time with some of these people to ask them how Canada’s war in Afghanistan has directly affected them.

I wait at the airport for an hour for the airline desk to open. Fortunately my driver who was generously supplied by HAFO has waited with me. He finally phones the airline to learn my flight has yet again been cancelled. The next available flight is tomorrow morning. I could take the flight and attend my planned meeting with the women’s organizers in Herat, but I am concerned that if I then get stuck in Herat I would miss my flight to Islamabad the next day. I decide to cash in my ticket and reluctantly give up on the Herat leg of my journey.

I recall similar problems with domestic airlines during my last visit to Afghanistan. The difference then was that it was relatively safe for Afghans to travel overland to most urban centres; from Kabul northward, travel was considered quite safe even for foreigners. Today, it is a high risk for anyone to travel overland almost anywhere in the country, because insurgent armies are now established in every region. Consequently, the domestic airlines cannot keep up with consumer demand.

Although I am disappointed I cannot attend my meetings in Herat, there are a number of people here in Kabul who I did want to meet with before leaving, so the flight cancellation is not the worst thing that could have happened. I make arrangements to meet tomorrow with HAFO and Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU) leaders to discuss bringing a group of Western academics to Afghanistan for meetings this summer. I also plan a lunch meeting for tomorrow with one of the other authors who presented a paper at the conference in New Delhi.

My driver takes me from the airport to join Eng. Jawed for lunch with the director of the Agency coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR). ACBAR, according to its mission and history statement, “was created in 1988 to address aid agency and donor demand for a coordinated approach to humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan and for Afghan refugees in Pakistan”. With more than 105 member organizations, ACBAR is “the main platform between NGOs, the Afghan government, UN and bilateral donors”.

I discuss with the ACBAR director the issue of NGO relations with armed forces. This is an issue of concern for all humanitarian organizations active in conflict zones, but this issue has come to the fore in Afghanistan with credible allegations that the Western militaries are not adhering to the principles of humanitarian relief. It is important that humanitarian organizations remain neutral in order to perform their delivery of humanitarian relief services as well as to safeguard the security of their staff and the people they serve. However, Western forces including the Canadian Forces are using aid as a counterinsurgency weapon. Moreover, there are credible allegations that covert Special Forces personnel have posed as humanitarian aid workers to gain access to sensitive areas, collect intelligence, and perform combat missions. All these actions threaten the viability of humanitarian relief efforts and endanger the lives of humanitarian aid workers and the people they serve.

ACBAR’s director reminds me that based upon a large body of international law and conventions (Canada is a signatory to all of these), there are four core humanitarian principles to which humanitarian organizations must adhere and four other related principles to which all states and all armed forces including opposition groups must adhere. According to ACBAR’s documentation, these principles are:

The four core humanitarian principles:

1. Humanity: Human suffering must be addressed wherever it is found, with particular attention to the most vulnerable in the population, such as children, women and the elderly. The dignity and rights of all victims must be respected and protected.
2. Impartiality: Assistance is provided in an equitable and impartial manner without political conditions; it must be provided without discrimination as to ethnic origin, gender, nationality, political opinions, social status, race or religion and solely on the basis of needs.
3. Independence: Humanitarian actors must retain their operational independence, including the freedom of movement, recruitment of national and international staff, non-integration into military planning and action, and access to communications.
4. Neutrality: All human assistance must be provided without engaging in hostilities or taking sides in controversies of a political, religious or ideological nature.

The four core principles for states and armed forces including opposition groups:

1. Respect the operational independence of humanitarian action: Humanitarian actors must retain their operational independence.
2. Respect the distinction between combatant and non-combatant: The independence and civilian nature of humanitarian assistance should be clear at all times – so as not to compromise perception of neutrality and impartiality and endanger humanitarians and intended beneficiaries and humanitarian actors should ensure that their outward appearance could not be perceived as military.
3. Observe international law and human rights: Military actors will comply with their obligations under international law, human rights and UN Security Council Resolutions to which they are subject.
4. Respect the neutrality and independence of humanitarian actors: Military actors should seek to avoid operations, activities or any conduct which could compromise the independence or safety of humanitarian actors. To the greatest extent possible military operations should be conducted with a view to respecting the humanitarian operating environment. Maintaining a clear distinction between the role and function of humanitarian actors from that of the military is a determining factor in creating an operational environment in which humanitarian organizations can discharge their responsibilities both effectively and safely. Sustained humanitarian access to the affected population may be ensured when it is independent of military and political action.

There is significant documentary evidence such as the U.S. Army counterinsurgency manual used by both American and Canadian forces in Afghanistan as well as evidence of how American and Canadian military personnel have conducted operations in the field to demonstrate neither the American nor Canadian governments are adhering to these core principles. Canadian General Jonathan Vance recently visited my research institute, the York Centre for International and Security Studies (YCISS). When I questioned him why Canadian Forces were no longer adhering to these core principles he answered that humanitarian organizations “need to learn to play by a new set of rules”. He and many others in powerful positions argue that since the insurgent militaries do not follow the humanitarian code of conduct it is impossible for Western forces to do so. This argument is unacceptable. The political leaders of the OEF and ISAF forces claim we are fighting a war to, among other objectives, uphold the rule of law. How can we claim to fight to uphold the rule of law when we are so easily prepared to break it?

See Oxfam's statement from 2010 regarding the use of aid as a weapon.

Wednesday, 9 March

I have lunch today with Tonita Murray who represents the Canadian Governance Support Office in Kabul in the position of Senior Advisor to the Afghan Minister of Interior – the minister in charge of the Afghan National Police (ANP). Tonita was previously the Director General of the Canadian Police College. I met her at the conference in New Delhi where we both presented papers. I found her to be refreshingly candid and uncompromisingly critical considering her highly placed position.

We both share the same concern that ANP personnel are trained primarily to handle weapons including rocket propelled grenades and automatic rifles. There is next to no training in civil law, human rights, gender issues, or the basics of how to properly enforce law as a civil police officer. Instead, the force is primarily trained as a paramilitary unit rather than a civil police force. Tonita notes there is an acute shortage of civil police trainers available to come to Afghanistan. Consequently, most trainers are ex-military personnel with no civil policing experience who are hired by the various military and security contracting companies contracted to design and conduct police training exercises.


Afghan National Police officer stands guard at boundary of Ring of Steel.


Having witnessed, on numerous occasions, the brutal repression of non-violent protestors by various Canadian police forces during protests in Toronto, Windsor, and Quebec City, I argue that Canadian police forces on these occasions also acted like paramilitary organizations rather than as civil police. I’m not convinced that these police would provide the best training for Afghan police recruits, unless the intended lesson is how to repress Afghans.

I appreciate Tonita’s genuine commitment to improving life for Afghans demonstrated by her perseverance remaining in Kabul for seven years to try to make some positive changes. Tonita is most certainly among many of the honourable and well intentioned Canadians I have met who have served with various government agencies, civil police forces, and Canadian Forces. I don’t question their personal integrity or their desire to efficiently implement good intentions.

However, as the old saying goes: “The road to hell is paved with good intentions”. I question whether our political and military leaders intend to liberate Afghan women or liberate capital. My criticism is of the overarching socioeconomic system and the political and military leaders who keep it alive for the sake of satisfying the greed of a few at the expense of many in the world.

The current battlefront in Afghanistan and Pakistan, which is part of a larger Global War on Terror renamed Overseas Contingency Operations, are symptoms of a socioeconomic system driven by greed for material wealth and the lust for power. While I disagree with the Islamic insurgents’ philosophy on every point, I can empathise with their resistance on the one basis alone that capitalist imperialism is rotten at its core. Unfortunately, as my research partner Hamayon often said after our trip to Afghanistan in 2007, the Western media as well as Western activists have given the Islamists the monopoly of anti-imperialism. The progressive left (whatever that means) allied with progressive Islamists must challenge both imperialism and the regressive Islamists’ current monopoly of anti-imperialism.

After lunch, I have an hour to kill before a meeting at the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit (AREU), which is just around the corner from where I had lunch. I browse the jewellery, carpet, and antique shops along Chicken Street that feature the artistry of Afghan crafts-workers. The shops along this street are remnants of the days prior to the 1980s when Afghanistan was a popular tourist destination for North Americans and Europeans. Today, the security sector to protect Afghan and international government workers surrounds the area within which Chicken Street is located, but few internationals even venture this far anymore. Venders are desperate to make a sale. The jewellery shops feature the gemstones such as lapis lazuli and malachite, which have been mined in Afghanistan and exported to world markets for millennia. The antique shops contain fascinating relics from Afghanistan’s colonial and Mughal history. The carpets stacked to the ceilings in the shops are beautiful, but sit here unsold and collecting dust. Despite the low prices of these finely crafted Afghan carpets, Afghan weavers cannot compete with the cheap factory-made Chinese imports flooding the Afghan and global markets.

At the AREU office I first meet with the coordinator of information resources Royce Wiles who I find to be as friendly, helpful and informative as the first time we met here in 2007. Royce is another of the rare breed of Western expats who has made a long term commitment to working for Afghans by residing in Afghanistan. The AREU library he oversees is unique in the country as the most comprehensive source preserving any documentation regarding Afghanistan. It is good to see Royce’s collection has overflowed its originally allotted space and is beginning to fill every other nook and cranny in the AREU offices.

After a pleasant chat with Royce I meet again with Eng. Sayed Jawed of HAFO who also happens to be an AREU board member. Sayed introduces me to the director of the board, Mir Ahmad Joyenda who also served in the past as the head of the International Relations Commission of the Afghanistan Parliament. Both men commit to do everything they can to organise the meeting with Western academics I have proposed to take place in Afghanistan this summer. Sayed agrees to produce a budget detailing all the costs within Afghanistan ASAP, so that I can begin recruiting participants and raising funds to make this event happen.

Considering how fruitful this meeting has been, I am no longer as disappointed I had to cancel my meetings in Herat. The plan to bring a small group of 10-12 Western academics and activists to Afghanistan to hear directly from Afghans about the conditions caused by the war and to hear Afghans’ own proposals to improve the situation is proceeding. Most Canadian academic delegations have been “embedded” with Canadian Forces; consequently, most Canadian academics have had little to no engagement with Afghans. Some delegations have not even been permitted to leave the Canadian base during visits. The dialogue with Afghans we are planning promises to be radically different by giving Western academics and activists an opportunity to hear directly from the people affected by the war.