Afgahnistan: Building a Nation

RAY SUAREZ:

It's been more than ten months since American troops arrived to oust al-Qaida forces from Afghanistan, and they are still grappling with scattered pockets of resistance. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week he expects the troops will be needed to help stabilize the country for years.

At a briefing today, Rumsfeld said the military campaign was largely successful. He and General Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, also spoke of how the American forces helped transform parts of Afghanistan.

DONALD RUMSFELD:

What a difference a year makes. The Afghan youngsters are back in school. They're learning to play baseball instead of cowering in fear and hiding from the Taliban's religious beliefs.

In all, the taxpayers of the United States have provided some $500 million since October, 2001, for relief and reconstruction activities in Afghanistan, and more is on the way. Another $1.45 billion has been authorized for this purpose over the next four years.

RAY SUAREZ:

But Afghanistan is still a dangerous place. Yesterday, a rocket fired by unidentified attackers landed near an American Special Forces base in eastern Afghanistan. No one was injured. And on Sunday, two U.S. Special Forces soldiers were shot and wounded while on an intelligence mission in southern Afghanistan.

Earlier this month, an American soldier died of wounds suffered during a four and a half hour battle in eastern Afghanistan. Four other soldiers were wounded. He was the eighth American soldier killed by enemy fire since the war began.

Pentagon officials say 41 U.S. soldiers have died so far, most in accidents and crashes. The government of interim President Hamid Karzai is also trying to cope with internal divisions — among them: Reports of a power struggle with defense minister marshal Muhammid Fahim, the most powerful of the country's Tajik tribal leaders.

After the assassinations of a vice president and a tourism minister earlier this year, Karzai asked the U.S. for a team of American soldiers to help protect him. He recently was asked about the country's stability.

CORRESPONDENT:

What kind of shape would you and your government, be in if the Americans were to pull out of here in, say, a month?

PRESIDENT HAMID KARZAI:

If the America left next month, Afghanistan would be in a shambles.

RAY SUAREZ:

Yesterday, there were new reports about the deaths of hundreds of Taliban and al-Qaida soldiers last November. Newsweek magazine reported that hundreds of prisoners were loaded into shipping containers like these and deliberately left to die. Newsweek also reported the soldiers were captured by troops loyal to General Abdul Rashid Dostum, an Afghan warlord who was working closely with American Special Forces. The U.S. State Department urged the Karzai government to investigate the charges.

RAY SUAREZ:

For more on the situation in Afghanistan, we get two perspectives. Ahmed Rashid covers Central and South Asia for the Wall Street Journal, the Far Eastern Economic Review, and the Daily Telegraph of London. He is also the author of "Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia."

Charles Santos was a U.N. civil servant focusing on Afghanistan during the late 1980s and 1990s. He is now a director of the Foundation for Central Asian Development, which focuses on providing humanitarian assistance to northern Afghanistan. Well, Charles Santos, the reports on the killing of enemy prisoners asks whether they should be considered war crimes. Do they clear that bar for you?

CHARLES SANTOS:

Well, looking over that report one of the interesting things is I believe that the numbers that they reported were grossly, grossly exaggerated. The U.N. and Physicians for Human Rights have never confirmed those numbers of 950 reported.

Basically there was an investigation that occurred almost right after the fall of Mazar and about 15, I believe 15 people were taken out of these graves, and they discovered they had died from suffocation they believe in these containers.

But the interesting thing is the Afghans in the North have provided open access to all the human rights investigators, to U.N. officials and all kinds of journalists who have wanted to go in and investigate that.

I spoke with many of the doctors who were at the prison where these containers were bringing them, and what they say is about 150 people died in transit, about maybe 60 of suffocation and the rest of wounds that they got when they were fighting in Kunduz.

So I mean, I don't think that there's any kind of cover up or anything like that. It just seems to me that the numbers that are being reported like so many things in Afghanistan get quite exaggerated.

RAY SUAREZ:

Ahmed Rashid, did you find the report plausible and do you think we should be prepared for stories of score settling and tough tactics on the battlefield between enemies that really do hate each other?

AHMED RASHID:

Well, you know, certainly after this incident happened I remember very well that both Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, they issued very, very strong reports talking about widespread, large scale killings of people through suffocation and in these containers.

The U.N. itself — U.N. agencies who came into the area much after the incident also looked into this and also privately reported widespread death. So I think a lot of people did die, but we don't know how know how many exactly.

But large numbers did die and then of course, after this accident there was the mass migration of Pashtuns from northern Afghanistan because they were being harassed by Uzbeks, Hazaras, Tajiks – it was an inter factional thing. Some of 50,000 of these Pashtuns are now camped in southern Afghanistan. They don't want to go back home in the North. So you know, I mean, there has been a great deal of trouble in the North.

RAY SUAREZ:

In recent months, in mid 2002, can we say that Afghanistan is day to day in different parts of the country a safer place to be, a more pacified place?

AHMED RASHID:

Yes, think I so. After the Loya jirga in June when President Karzai was elected, I think there has been widespread recognize by the warlords, by bandit groups, by people who are armed and dangerous, if you like, that there is now a huge consensus amongst the Afghan population for peace. The loya jirga was a reflection of that.

And what is missing in the equation now of course, is this delay in international funding for reconstruction. And in fact, the real, the sad part is that I think the government is Kabul is being told that very little money for reconstruction is going to be coming until perhaps April or May of next year, which really leaves the Afghan government out on a limb.

RAY SUAREZ:

Charles Santos, you heard from Ahmed Rashid the idea that this it is a safer place but that the reconstruction funding isn't coming. Are those things that move on parallel tracks? Does it become a safer place when more aid is available?

CHARLES SANTOS:

Absolutely the issue of aid is crucial and it is not flowing. And it is definitely not flowing to the regions. It has been flowing a bit to Kabul. But I disagree with Ahmed about the place being safer everywhere. There is definitely improvement in conditions, particularly in the non-Pashtun areas.

What Ahmed, I think, neglects to mention when he talks about the mass migration of Pashtuns was the incredibly brutal campaign that the Pashtun Taliban inflicted on the northern peoples, the Uzbeks, the Hazaras, the Tajiks.

Thousands and thousands were moved to Kandahar, locked in prisons and disappeared. Families are still looking for them. And that's been something that really hasn't been mentioned.

The other thing is there's a lot of mistrust, a lot of ethnic divisions and part of that comes from the fact that I think people really haven't recognized also that the non-Pashtun groups, the Uzbeks, the Hazaras, and the Tajiks also lost lots and lots of people. It seems to be much more of a focus on what is happening to the Pashtuns.

And I think many of the non-Pashtun people find that focus very, very unfair given the fact that the Pashtuns have historically dominated this country and abused that position.

RAY SUAREZ:

How do you respond to that?

AHMED RASHID:

Well, certainly the northern groups were massacred in large numbers by the Taliban. There's no doubt by the. A lot of what you said earlier about revenge killings and all does come into play. This is a war that has gone on for 23 years and there are scores to settle.

But I still think there is a growing consensus and there is even an acceptance now by many of most important warlords who perhaps wanted to try to remain as independent as possible that they will have to play ball with the central government, that there will have to be some kind of central government who has authority over the whole country.

This will take time; it's going to take money, it's going to take effort and commitment by the international community. I don't think the Afghans can do this on their own. I think they need help. That is the whole basis of the Bonn agreement, that they need support.

And I think what has been lacking — two things have been lacking — reconstruction money and the expansion of international security forces to other cities. I think if these two things were to speed up or to happen soon, I think you would have to a much better security session.

RAY SUAREZ:

Charles Santos, does Hamid Karzai have to worry about just how much foreign muscle it takes to protect him and extend his government's reach into the countryside?

CHARLES SANTOS:

I think we're looking at this in the wrong way. If we focus all about Hamid Karzai, then I think that that's a mistake. The truth is Afghanistan is much bigger than Hamid Karzai, and in fact, Hamid Karzai really doesn't have any real base of support. We sort of plucked him out of Maryland and sort of landed him in Kabul.

I mean the truth is that power exists in the regions. Power exists not in warlords' hands because they are mean and nasty; it is also because they are filling a need and that is the need of their people. Their different ethnic groups and communities believe that they protect them, that they provide security for them and that's really what is at stake and what is really going on.

The security situation in Kabul is dangerously precarious because we have turned Kabul into a prize, a prize that all the different groups feel they have to compete for or they will not survive. They'll not have the kind of security they need. This has been one of the sort of core – I think core problems in trying to arrange the kind of balance people have talked about at the center.

The reality is you need something much more decentralized at this present stage. And I think even Ahmed would agree to that. I mean, he mentioned that in his book near the end, that he saw it as a country of many different pieces and many parts and what you have got to do is find a way of rebuilding goodwill and trust between those different groups and regions and ethic communities.

RAY SUAREZ:

Given what Charles Santos just said, how important is it to build a national government in a capital for a place like Afghanistan?

AHMED RASHID:

Well, I think it's very important to build the mechanisms and the institution of a national government in the capital but it's equally important to be able to spread the authority of that government outside the capital.

In a place like Afghanistan that short is not going to come through political messaging; it's going to come through actual concrete action on the ground, which at the moment largely means reconstruction and getting money out of Kabul into the provinces, into the region.

For example, Hamid Karzai and all — many of the warlords have been complaining that not a single kilometer of road has been built in the last night months, despite all the pledges. Road building is something that is critical because it would link the country together, trade, commerce, coming and going, ethnic groups mixing, tribes mixing with each other, you know, reestablishing relations with each other.

You know, road building is not just an economic activity; it would have huge political, positive political implications. You need to get some of these projects off the ground as quickly as possible.

RAY SUAREZ:

Quickly Charles —

CHARLES SANTOS:

I agree with Ahmed on the road building and I also agree with him on the reconstruction. But the crucial thing here is — use this reconstruction aid as a way of building trust and goodwill between the different communities. That's the issue. It isn't about Karzai, and it isn't about warlords. It is about building trust and goodwill among communities that have been at war for 23 years.

RAY SUAREZ:

Charles Santos, Ahmed Rashid, thank you both.