FOCUS: Prioritizing war over poverty angers Afghans, report says

KABUL, Sept. 11 Kyodo

Five years after the terrorist attack on the United States that triggered the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, prioritizing war over fighting poverty and corruption has dismayed Afghans and has caused increasing support for the Taliban, who many believe have better responded to the needs of the local population, analysts believe.

''It is no use to spend all the money on the war on terror, you cannot solve the problems here by killing,'' says Naqibullah Furmoli, an Afghan writer and political analyst.

''People are angry, people are jobless, people need at least their basic needs fulfilled,'' he continued, adding the Afghan government and the international community have failed to win the hearts of the people.

''Dealing with persistent instability is more than a matter of fighting the Taliban and getting guns off the streets and getting trained police on them. It depends on understating the connections between instability and issues such as poor governance, narcotics, crime and commanders,'' the analyst added.

According to a recent evaluation report marking the five year anniversary of the attacks on the United States released by the Senlis Council, a western think tank organization, $82.5 billion has been spent on military operations in Afghanistan since 2002 but only

$7.3 billion on development.

Military expenditure outpaces development and reconstruction spending by 900 percent -- the wrong priority, the report states.

The Taliban's frontline now cuts halfway through the country, encompassing all the southern provinces.

Senlis reports that five years after the 2001 invasion, a humanitarian crisis of starvation and poverty has gripped the south country and that ''failed'' U.S.- and British-led counter-narcotics and military policies are responsible.

The subsequent rising levels of extreme poverty have created increasing support for the Taliban, the group added.

''When (the invasion) first came here, we were so glad to see you. Now we have lived with you in our country for five years and we see you tell a lot of lies and make a lot of false promises,'' said a former Mujaheedin commander from Kandahar quoted in the report.

''Huge amounts of money have been spent on large and costly military operations, but after five years southern Afghanistan is once more a battlefield for the control of the country,'' Emmanuel Reinert, executive director of the Senlis Council, said.

''At the same time, Afghans are starving. The U.S. has lost control in Afghanistan and has in many ways undercut the new democracy in Afghanistan. I think we can call that a failure, and one with dire consequences which should concern us all. The U.S. policies in Afghanistan have re-created the safe-haven for terrorism that the 2001 invasion aimed to destroy.''

Relieving poverty, which should have been the main priority, has not received the attention it needed. Consequently, the international community has ''lost the battle for the hearts and mind'' of the Afghan people, the report says.

An Afghan commander in Kandahar Province is quoted as saying: ''The foreigners came here and said they would help the poor people and improve the economic situation, and they only spend money on their military operations. The poor people are poorer now than when the Taliban were the government. We don't trust them anymore. We would be fools to continue to believe their lies.''

''We have a saying about (the foreign forces) now: your blood is blood, our blood is just water to you,'' the report notes the former Mujaheedin commander from Kandahar as saying.

The large numbers of civilian casualties and deaths have also fuelled resentment and mistrust of the international military presence.

A focus on poverty relief and development could have created a solid foundation on which to rebuild Afghanistan, the report says, adding, ''Instead, the focus on 'securing' Afghanistan with aggressive military tactics has led the Afghan population to mistrust the reasons for the large international military presence in their country.''

''Emergency poverty relief must now be the top priority,'' Reinert warns. ''Only then can we talk of nation-building and reconstruction. A complete overhaul of the failed counter-narcotics strategies is urgently needed. We must try and win back the hearts and minds of the Afghan people. The Taliban are advancing north every day.''

Research for the report was carried out throughout Afghanistan in the spring and summer of 2006 by Senlis Afghanistan teams of Afghan and international researchers.

''The people's frustration comes from the government's failure in balancing the five pillars of security, governance and participation, justice and accountability, economic opportunity and social well-being, which provide a lens through which the people judge reconstruction progress,'' writer Furmoli concluded.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Kyodo News International, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning