Saturday, November 12, 2011
Failed Afghan road (Had to link Qarabagh to Jaghori) project shows pitfalls of U.S. efforts
In this July 2009 photograph, an Afghan construction crew works on a planned 17.5-mile road in Ghazni province, Afghanistan, funded by the U.S. government. After three years and $4 million, only two-thirds of a mile was paved, and U.S. officials terminated the contract in October 2011.
PHOTO COURTESY U.S. PROVINCIAL RECONSTRUCTION TEAM, GHAZNI/MCT
By SHASHANK BENGALI
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: November 11, 2011
GHAZNI, Afghanistan — Heading back from a remote section of Ghazni province in September, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Tristan Rizzi radioed his base in eastern Afghanistan and said he wanted to take a slight detour.
Rizzi had his Chinook helicopter fly over the site of a long-stalled, U.S.-financed road project on which the Afghan contractors had pledged repeatedly to resume work. From the air, Rizzi saw a vacant site and no sign of the contractors. Once on the ground, he dialed one of them from a cellphone and asked where they were.
The contractor said they were working on the road — to which Rizzi replied, “No, you’re not.”
Two weeks later, alleging corruption and theft, U.S. officials in Ghazni terminated the $10 million road contract, pulling the plug on a closely watched infrastructure project in this strategic province and putting themselves at odds with a powerful governor who coalition forces had hoped would be a key ally.
From 2008 to 2010, the U.S. government paid $4 million to RWA, a consortium of three Afghan contractors — only to see it pave less than two-thirds of a mile on a road that’s supposed to stretch 17.5 miles. The contractors said the area had become too violent to work in, but U.S. and Afghan provincial officials think that two of the principals absconded to New Zealand and the Netherlands, having pocketed much of the cash.
U.S. officials describe the Ghazni affair in positive terms: They saved the $6 million that remained on the contract for other projects, terminated RWA’s existing contracts and blackballed it from future work, and say they’re ready to cooperate with Afghan investigators should they decide to pursue legal action against the consortium.
But it’s also a reminder that corruption, violence and political disputes continue to plague U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Even before the failed road project, RWA was notorious in Ghazni because one of its principals, Ghulam Seddiq Rasouli, served jail time about three years ago after Taliban insurgents ambushed one of his construction teams and his security guards fired back indiscriminately, killing at least one civilian, according to Afghan intelligence officials. U.S. officials — who’ve awarded Rasouli multiple construction contracts — apparently were unaware of his legal difficulties.
As the U.S.-led military coalition plans to hand control of the nation’s security to Afghan forces in three years, American diplomats and military officials say they’re trying to clean up a contracting system in which hundreds of millions of dollars meant for reconstruction were misspent or allocated to unsavory characters, including those tied to violence against civilians or coalition forces.
Last year, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale Afghan programs and projects ballooned from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion — despite questions about their effectiveness or cost — in the headlong rush to rebuild the country and shore up its struggling government,.
“Those kinds of early-on things are largely a matter of the past, and I think I could say that truthfully,” said one U.S. official with knowledge of the Ghazni project, who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name.
“It’s 2011. We’re well involved in transition now, and it’s time for our partners — they must step up to the plate as well.”
But in Ghazni, those efforts carry political risks and threaten a fragile partnership with the influential governor, Musa Khan.
The project is a major priority for Khan, an Islamist who’s emerging as a major power broker in eastern Afghanistan. Coalition forces have sought his help fighting Taliban insurgents in his province, situated two hours’ drive south of Kabul, the country’s capital, and just west of the volatile Pakistani border region.
On Oct. 23, three weeks after the road contract was canceled, Khan met with Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, arguing for the project to be reinstated. Diplomats who were briefed on the meeting said Allen hadn’t yet made a decision.
The coalition’s relationship with Khan appears significantly strained, but the U.S. official stressed that, “aside from this particular project, we plan on working closely with the governor in the future.”
Perhaps aware of Khan’s sway, the U.S. provincial reconstruction team in Ghazni — a mix of diplomats, civilian specialists and military officers including Rizzi, the Navy commander — assembled a seven-page timeline of its dealings with the contractors to make its case for killing the contract. In it, American frustration almost leaps off the page.
The road was intended to link Qarah Bagh, an increasingly violent district south of the provincial capital, with the peaceful but isolated mountain district of Jaghori. RWA — named for Rasouli and his partners, Zia Uddin Wardak and Zia Alifi — received the first $1 million installment in October 2008, according to records, but seven months later it began complaining of security problems and financial hardship.
Contractors graded the length of the road but had paved only about two-thirds of a mile by mid-2010, when U.S. officials, having paid them another $3 million, began threatening to end the project.
Almost a year passed as RWA promised to restart work, then offered to begin paving from the safer western end of the road, then said it had run out of money, then divulged that Alifi had traveled to the Netherlands with cash from the company account.
McClatchy’s repeated attempts to contact representatives of the consortium were unsuccessful.
Last spring, after Rizzi’s team arrived in Ghazni, the project appeared to become a target for insurgents, as workers over three months removed more than 100 roadside bombs that had been planted along the first two miles outside Qarah Bagh. In July, gunmen reportedly ambushed the crew, wounding four workers.
After several meetings with U.S. officials, RWA said in September that it had raised enough money to pave two more miles. Little work was done, however, and after insurgents attacked an Afghan National Police installation in Qarah Bagh later that month, workers never returned to the site.
U.S. officials don’t dispute that violence has worsened in Ghazni; coalition fatalities this year reached their highest level of the decade-long conflict, due largely to a surge in roadside bombs. But they argue that security costs were built into the contract.
“There are many other road projects and different contracts that are just getting paved right along” in Ghazni, the U.S. official said.
Members of the Ghazni provincial council, an elected advisory board, were blunter in their criticism of the governor and the U.S.
“If he wanted the road to be built, it would have been built,” said Hamida Gulistani, a council member from Qarah Bagh. “But this is what happens when the U.S. and NATO deal directly with the governor. They never came to the provincial council or discussed this with us. Local people were ready to help provide security.”
A second U.S. official with knowledge of the project said the coalition couldn’t choose which Afghan leaders it dealt with.
“Sometimes, when you see something that should have worked and it didn’t, it’s not about what the Americans did,” the official said. “It’s about how Afghans are trying to work out their own self-governance, and we all know there’s a long way to go.”
For Gulistani, however, the issue isn’t academic. She said the road could help connect people in five districts, improve commerce and allow Afghan security forces to extend their reach west from Qarah Bagh.
“If they cancel this project,” she said, “it only hurts the people.”
McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Habib Zohori contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
STARS and STRIPES
By SHASHANK BENGALI
McClatchy Newspapers
Published: November 11, 2011
GHAZNI, Afghanistan — Heading back from a remote section of Ghazni province in September, U.S. Navy Cmdr. Tristan Rizzi radioed his base in eastern Afghanistan and said he wanted to take a slight detour.
Rizzi had his Chinook helicopter fly over the site of a long-stalled, U.S.-financed road project on which the Afghan contractors had pledged repeatedly to resume work. From the air, Rizzi saw a vacant site and no sign of the contractors. Once on the ground, he dialed one of them from a cellphone and asked where they were.
The contractor said they were working on the road — to which Rizzi replied, “No, you’re not.”
Two weeks later, alleging corruption and theft, U.S. officials in Ghazni terminated the $10 million road contract, pulling the plug on a closely watched infrastructure project in this strategic province and putting themselves at odds with a powerful governor who coalition forces had hoped would be a key ally.
From 2008 to 2010, the U.S. government paid $4 million to RWA, a consortium of three Afghan contractors — only to see it pave less than two-thirds of a mile on a road that’s supposed to stretch 17.5 miles. The contractors said the area had become too violent to work in, but U.S. and Afghan provincial officials think that two of the principals absconded to New Zealand and the Netherlands, having pocketed much of the cash.
U.S. officials describe the Ghazni affair in positive terms: They saved the $6 million that remained on the contract for other projects, terminated RWA’s existing contracts and blackballed it from future work, and say they’re ready to cooperate with Afghan investigators should they decide to pursue legal action against the consortium.
But it’s also a reminder that corruption, violence and political disputes continue to plague U.S. reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan.
Even before the failed road project, RWA was notorious in Ghazni because one of its principals, Ghulam Seddiq Rasouli, served jail time about three years ago after Taliban insurgents ambushed one of his construction teams and his security guards fired back indiscriminately, killing at least one civilian, according to Afghan intelligence officials. U.S. officials — who’ve awarded Rasouli multiple construction contracts — apparently were unaware of his legal difficulties.
As the U.S.-led military coalition plans to hand control of the nation’s security to Afghan forces in three years, American diplomats and military officials say they’re trying to clean up a contracting system in which hundreds of millions of dollars meant for reconstruction were misspent or allocated to unsavory characters, including those tied to violence against civilians or coalition forces.
Last year, a McClatchy Newspapers investigation found that U.S. government funding for at least 15 large-scale Afghan programs and projects ballooned from just over $1 billion to nearly $3 billion — despite questions about their effectiveness or cost — in the headlong rush to rebuild the country and shore up its struggling government,.
“Those kinds of early-on things are largely a matter of the past, and I think I could say that truthfully,” said one U.S. official with knowledge of the Ghazni project, who wasn’t authorized to be quoted by name.
“It’s 2011. We’re well involved in transition now, and it’s time for our partners — they must step up to the plate as well.”
But in Ghazni, those efforts carry political risks and threaten a fragile partnership with the influential governor, Musa Khan.
The project is a major priority for Khan, an Islamist who’s emerging as a major power broker in eastern Afghanistan. Coalition forces have sought his help fighting Taliban insurgents in his province, situated two hours’ drive south of Kabul, the country’s capital, and just west of the volatile Pakistani border region.
On Oct. 23, three weeks after the road contract was canceled, Khan met with Marine Gen. John Allen, the commander of the U.S.-led International Security Assistance Force, arguing for the project to be reinstated. Diplomats who were briefed on the meeting said Allen hadn’t yet made a decision.
The coalition’s relationship with Khan appears significantly strained, but the U.S. official stressed that, “aside from this particular project, we plan on working closely with the governor in the future.”
Perhaps aware of Khan’s sway, the U.S. provincial reconstruction team in Ghazni — a mix of diplomats, civilian specialists and military officers including Rizzi, the Navy commander — assembled a seven-page timeline of its dealings with the contractors to make its case for killing the contract. In it, American frustration almost leaps off the page.
The road was intended to link Qarah Bagh, an increasingly violent district south of the provincial capital, with the peaceful but isolated mountain district of Jaghori. RWA — named for Rasouli and his partners, Zia Uddin Wardak and Zia Alifi — received the first $1 million installment in October 2008, according to records, but seven months later it began complaining of security problems and financial hardship.
Contractors graded the length of the road but had paved only about two-thirds of a mile by mid-2010, when U.S. officials, having paid them another $3 million, began threatening to end the project.
Almost a year passed as RWA promised to restart work, then offered to begin paving from the safer western end of the road, then said it had run out of money, then divulged that Alifi had traveled to the Netherlands with cash from the company account.
McClatchy’s repeated attempts to contact representatives of the consortium were unsuccessful.
Last spring, after Rizzi’s team arrived in Ghazni, the project appeared to become a target for insurgents, as workers over three months removed more than 100 roadside bombs that had been planted along the first two miles outside Qarah Bagh. In July, gunmen reportedly ambushed the crew, wounding four workers.
After several meetings with U.S. officials, RWA said in September that it had raised enough money to pave two more miles. Little work was done, however, and after insurgents attacked an Afghan National Police installation in Qarah Bagh later that month, workers never returned to the site.
U.S. officials don’t dispute that violence has worsened in Ghazni; coalition fatalities this year reached their highest level of the decade-long conflict, due largely to a surge in roadside bombs. But they argue that security costs were built into the contract.
“There are many other road projects and different contracts that are just getting paved right along” in Ghazni, the U.S. official said.
Members of the Ghazni provincial council, an elected advisory board, were blunter in their criticism of the governor and the U.S.
“If he wanted the road to be built, it would have been built,” said Hamida Gulistani, a council member from Qarah Bagh. “But this is what happens when the U.S. and NATO deal directly with the governor. They never came to the provincial council or discussed this with us. Local people were ready to help provide security.”
A second U.S. official with knowledge of the project said the coalition couldn’t choose which Afghan leaders it dealt with.
“Sometimes, when you see something that should have worked and it didn’t, it’s not about what the Americans did,” the official said. “It’s about how Afghans are trying to work out their own self-governance, and we all know there’s a long way to go.”
For Gulistani, however, the issue isn’t academic. She said the road could help connect people in five districts, improve commerce and allow Afghan security forces to extend their reach west from Qarah Bagh.
“If they cancel this project,” she said, “it only hurts the people.”
McClatchy Newspapers special correspondent Habib Zohori contributed to this report from Kabul, Afghanistan.
STARS and STRIPES
برای اتحاد و انسجام مردم ھزارہ ھای کوئیٹہ یک جلسہ برگزار شدد
بروز جمعہ، تاریخ 11 نومبر، 2011، بعد از ظہر
دا امام بارگاہ ولی عصر (ع) ، ھزارہ ٹاون کوئٹہ ۔
برای سیکیورٹی (چوکیداری) سسٹم ھزارہ، و برای اتحاد و انسجام مردم ھزارہ ھای کوئیٹہ یک جلسہ برگزار شدد، کی کہ دا ازو جناب محترم سردار سعادت علی ھزارہ، میجر نادر علی، اشرف زیدی صدر شیعہ کانفرنس، صدر انجمن تاجران ھزارہ نظری صاحب، و دیگہ تمام بزرگان و سرچاندہ ھا، و نوجوانا شرکت کد د،
خلاصہ جلسہ:
دا ازو جلسہ گفتہ شدد کہ تمام سر چندہ ھای ھزارہ ھای کوئیٹہ دہ جناب سردار سعادت علی صاحب مکمل اعتماد کدہ، و از ھر چندہ نماییندے شی دہ ازی سیکیورٹی سسٹم شامل شدہ۔ و حالا تمام قوم متحد استہ۔
اول دا جلسہ نماییندہ ھای بروری دا بارے حالات ، مشکلات و مسائل بروری تورہ گفتہ، کہ
بروری مردم شی از لحاظ تعلیم، شرح خواندگی، معیار زندگی، سرکاری ملازمت و از لحاظ جیو پولیٹیکل از مری آباد و علمدار روڈ زیاد فرق درہ، مردم بروری دچار بسیار زیاد مسائل استہ و نسبتا از مری آباد کدہ اوتر شخصیات کم درہ کی مسائل مردم را دا متعلقہ حکام برسنہ، دہ پورہ آبادی بروری صرف یک سرکاری ھای سکول، یک ڈسپنسری استہ، باید سردارصاحب و دگہ بزرگان قوم برای بروری زیاد توجہ بیدہ۔
صدر انجمن تاجران جناب نظری صاحب گفتہ کہ ھر پروڈکٹ (ڈیجیٹل کیمرہ، موبائل فون۔ ۔ ۔ ) کی ھر کمپنی جور مونہ ، کد شی کتابچہ طریقے استعمال شی ام نوشتہ کدہ میلہ، باید کہ امو پروڈکٹ ھر رقم کی کمپنی گفتہ امو تر استعمال شونہ،
وختی کہ خدا انسان را جور کدہ ، برای شی کتاب (قرآن) ام نازل کدہ ، کہ مطابق شی باید زندگی کنہ، و تمام چیز اتحاد ، اتفاق، براداری و صمیمیت، و تمام مسائل تمام انسانھا و قوم ازمو دہ منےقران موجود استہ، مسلہ ای استہ کہ مو از قرآن دور شودے، و حالی باید بلے قران عمل کنی تا کہ یک مضبوط و سربلند قوم جور شونی۔
جناب سردار سعادت علی صاحب واقعے علمدار روڈ را وضاحت شی بیان کدہ گفت: کہ ھاشم نامی یک شرپسند، منشیات فروش کہ بچے ازو را 3 ماہ پیش پولیس زدہ بودہ می خاستہ کی منے آزرہ و پشتون فساد بر پا کنہ، کد 40 نفر دہ علمدار ورڈ امدہ فائرنگ کدہ، و دہ جواب شی جوانای ھزارہ فائرنگ کدہ کی 1 ازو شرپسندھا کشتہ و چند دیگے شی زخمی شدہ،
برای حل ازی فتنہ بزرگان پشتون کد سردار صاحب مزاکرات کدہ ، و از خاطر کہ اونا قصور وار بودہ، از سردار صاحب معافی خاستہ، و مسلہ حل شدہ۔
سردار صاحب گفت کہ ای بسیار زیاد قا بل افسوس استہ کہ یک سیاسی پارٹی خود ھزارہ(ایچ ڈی پی) دا ازی بابت دہ خلاف قوم ھزارہ و دہ حمایت شر پسند، منشیات فروش دہ اخبار جنگ بیان دہ دہ، ای کار ازی سیاسی پارٹی مثل بلے پای قوم کد تیشہ زدو استہ،
سردار صاحب ای سیاسی گروپ رہ دعوت دہ دہ کہ بایہ کد خود سردار روی دروہ ششتہ گب دیہ، دیگہ ایتر افسوسناک بیان دہ دہ ، حوصلے قوم رہ پست نکنہ، و منے قوم منافقت کدہ تفرہ ننداختہ۔
سردار صاحب گفتہ کہ برای معاشی بہتری خانودہ و بازماندگان شہدا باید زود اقدامات شونہ۔
جناب میجر نادر علی صاحب دہ بارے فائدے ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانان ھزارہ تورہ گفت:
گفت کہ اول فائدے ای استہ کہ بعضی فاسد عناصر(جنسی بے راہ رو) کہ برای کارغلط بازار و دیگہ جاے مورافت، و بعضی فاسد عناصر(جنسی بے راہ رو) کہ از دیگہ جاے دہ علمدار روڈ و مری آباد میمادہ، از خاطر ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانای ھزارہ تا کافی حد رہ روک تھام شدہ و جلو شی گرفتہ شدہ، و عزت و ناموس آزرہ حفاظت شی شدہ۔
و میجر صاحب گفتہ کہ ھر کس کہ دا خلاف ازی سیکیورٹی سسٹم آزرہ استہ، اونا کارو بار شی بڑوہ گری، منشیات فروشی استہ، کہ از خاطر ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانا ای غلط کاروبار شی متاثر شدہ و ازو خاطر دہ خلاف ازی سیکیورٹی نظام استہ و د اخبار وغیرہ بیان میدہ،
خدا قوم رہ اتحاد شی زیاد کنہ،
سردار سعادت صاحب رہ صحت بیدہ
وتمام افراد کی وقعا برای سربلندی قوم کار مونہ
کامیاب کنہ۔
والسلام۔
Jalwa E Sahar
دا امام بارگاہ ولی عصر (ع) ، ھزارہ ٹاون کوئٹہ ۔
برای سیکیورٹی (چوکیداری) سسٹم ھزارہ، و برای اتحاد و انسجام مردم ھزارہ ھای کوئیٹہ یک جلسہ برگزار شدد، کی کہ دا ازو جناب محترم سردار سعادت علی ھزارہ، میجر نادر علی، اشرف زیدی صدر شیعہ کانفرنس، صدر انجمن تاجران ھزارہ نظری صاحب، و دیگہ تمام بزرگان و سرچاندہ ھا، و نوجوانا شرکت کد د،
خلاصہ جلسہ:
دا ازو جلسہ گفتہ شدد کہ تمام سر چندہ ھای ھزارہ ھای کوئیٹہ دہ جناب سردار سعادت علی صاحب مکمل اعتماد کدہ، و از ھر چندہ نماییندے شی دہ ازی سیکیورٹی سسٹم شامل شدہ۔ و حالا تمام قوم متحد استہ۔
اول دا جلسہ نماییندہ ھای بروری دا بارے حالات ، مشکلات و مسائل بروری تورہ گفتہ، کہ
بروری مردم شی از لحاظ تعلیم، شرح خواندگی، معیار زندگی، سرکاری ملازمت و از لحاظ جیو پولیٹیکل از مری آباد و علمدار روڈ زیاد فرق درہ، مردم بروری دچار بسیار زیاد مسائل استہ و نسبتا از مری آباد کدہ اوتر شخصیات کم درہ کی مسائل مردم را دا متعلقہ حکام برسنہ، دہ پورہ آبادی بروری صرف یک سرکاری ھای سکول، یک ڈسپنسری استہ، باید سردارصاحب و دگہ بزرگان قوم برای بروری زیاد توجہ بیدہ۔
صدر انجمن تاجران جناب نظری صاحب گفتہ کہ ھر پروڈکٹ (ڈیجیٹل کیمرہ، موبائل فون۔ ۔ ۔ ) کی ھر کمپنی جور مونہ ، کد شی کتابچہ طریقے استعمال شی ام نوشتہ کدہ میلہ، باید کہ امو پروڈکٹ ھر رقم کی کمپنی گفتہ امو تر استعمال شونہ،
وختی کہ خدا انسان را جور کدہ ، برای شی کتاب (قرآن) ام نازل کدہ ، کہ مطابق شی باید زندگی کنہ، و تمام چیز اتحاد ، اتفاق، براداری و صمیمیت، و تمام مسائل تمام انسانھا و قوم ازمو دہ منےقران موجود استہ، مسلہ ای استہ کہ مو از قرآن دور شودے، و حالی باید بلے قران عمل کنی تا کہ یک مضبوط و سربلند قوم جور شونی۔
جناب سردار سعادت علی صاحب واقعے علمدار روڈ را وضاحت شی بیان کدہ گفت: کہ ھاشم نامی یک شرپسند، منشیات فروش کہ بچے ازو را 3 ماہ پیش پولیس زدہ بودہ می خاستہ کی منے آزرہ و پشتون فساد بر پا کنہ، کد 40 نفر دہ علمدار ورڈ امدہ فائرنگ کدہ، و دہ جواب شی جوانای ھزارہ فائرنگ کدہ کی 1 ازو شرپسندھا کشتہ و چند دیگے شی زخمی شدہ،
برای حل ازی فتنہ بزرگان پشتون کد سردار صاحب مزاکرات کدہ ، و از خاطر کہ اونا قصور وار بودہ، از سردار صاحب معافی خاستہ، و مسلہ حل شدہ۔
سردار صاحب گفت کہ ای بسیار زیاد قا بل افسوس استہ کہ یک سیاسی پارٹی خود ھزارہ(ایچ ڈی پی) دا ازی بابت دہ خلاف قوم ھزارہ و دہ حمایت شر پسند، منشیات فروش دہ اخبار جنگ بیان دہ دہ، ای کار ازی سیاسی پارٹی مثل بلے پای قوم کد تیشہ زدو استہ،
سردار صاحب ای سیاسی گروپ رہ دعوت دہ دہ کہ بایہ کد خود سردار روی دروہ ششتہ گب دیہ، دیگہ ایتر افسوسناک بیان دہ دہ ، حوصلے قوم رہ پست نکنہ، و منے قوم منافقت کدہ تفرہ ننداختہ۔
سردار صاحب گفتہ کہ برای معاشی بہتری خانودہ و بازماندگان شہدا باید زود اقدامات شونہ۔
جناب میجر نادر علی صاحب دہ بارے فائدے ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانان ھزارہ تورہ گفت:
گفت کہ اول فائدے ای استہ کہ بعضی فاسد عناصر(جنسی بے راہ رو) کہ برای کارغلط بازار و دیگہ جاے مورافت، و بعضی فاسد عناصر(جنسی بے راہ رو) کہ از دیگہ جاے دہ علمدار روڈ و مری آباد میمادہ، از خاطر ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانای ھزارہ تا کافی حد رہ روک تھام شدہ و جلو شی گرفتہ شدہ، و عزت و ناموس آزرہ حفاظت شی شدہ۔
و میجر صاحب گفتہ کہ ھر کس کہ دا خلاف ازی سیکیورٹی سسٹم آزرہ استہ، اونا کارو بار شی بڑوہ گری، منشیات فروشی استہ، کہ از خاطر ازی چوکیداری سسٹم جوانا ای غلط کاروبار شی متاثر شدہ و ازو خاطر دہ خلاف ازی سیکیورٹی نظام استہ و د اخبار وغیرہ بیان میدہ،
خدا قوم رہ اتحاد شی زیاد کنہ،
سردار سعادت صاحب رہ صحت بیدہ
وتمام افراد کی وقعا برای سربلندی قوم کار مونہ
کامیاب کنہ۔
والسلام۔
Jalwa E Sahar
Friday, November 11, 2011
Afghanistan moves quickly to sell mineral rights
By Agence France Presse
2011-11-11
KABUL – While an end to the fighting in Afghanistan seems some time off, competition is already under way for control of the country's mineral riches, valued at more than US $1 trillion (48 trillion AFA), Agence France Presse (AFP) reported November 10.
According to Ministry of Mines documents seen by AFP, Afghanistan is planning to sell extraction rights for up to five mines every year until the last international coalition troops depart in 2014.
With the war's Western backers pushing economic solutions to end the decade-long conflict, the tussle for future influence in Afghanistan is becoming a regional contest, experts say.
China, flush with foreign exchange reserves and undeterred by the hazards of frontier capitalism, bought the first tendered oil and copper concessions, leading the list of Afghanistan's neighbours bidding for the mines so far.
The huge Aynak mine south of Kabul, to which China won extraction rights in 2007, could yield over11m tonnes of copper, according to Soviet-era data.
A decision on awarding the biggest consignment yet – the two-billion-tonne Hajigak iron ore mine in central Bamiyan Province – is due in the coming days.
"Everyone's rushing," said Deputy Minister of Mines Nasir Durrani, estimating the Hajigak deal could be worth up to $6 billion (287 trillion AFA) to the government.
Future deals on offer include several oil blocks, more copper and iron mines, and deposits of gold and lapis luzuli.
The combined payout from the Aynak and Hajigak mines could earn the hard-up Afghan treasury US $500m (24 trillion AFA) per year, one mining analyst predicted.
Central Asia Online
2011-11-11
KABUL – While an end to the fighting in Afghanistan seems some time off, competition is already under way for control of the country's mineral riches, valued at more than US $1 trillion (48 trillion AFA), Agence France Presse (AFP) reported November 10.
According to Ministry of Mines documents seen by AFP, Afghanistan is planning to sell extraction rights for up to five mines every year until the last international coalition troops depart in 2014.
With the war's Western backers pushing economic solutions to end the decade-long conflict, the tussle for future influence in Afghanistan is becoming a regional contest, experts say.
China, flush with foreign exchange reserves and undeterred by the hazards of frontier capitalism, bought the first tendered oil and copper concessions, leading the list of Afghanistan's neighbours bidding for the mines so far.
The huge Aynak mine south of Kabul, to which China won extraction rights in 2007, could yield over11m tonnes of copper, according to Soviet-era data.
A decision on awarding the biggest consignment yet – the two-billion-tonne Hajigak iron ore mine in central Bamiyan Province – is due in the coming days.
"Everyone's rushing," said Deputy Minister of Mines Nasir Durrani, estimating the Hajigak deal could be worth up to $6 billion (287 trillion AFA) to the government.
Future deals on offer include several oil blocks, more copper and iron mines, and deposits of gold and lapis luzuli.
The combined payout from the Aynak and Hajigak mines could earn the hard-up Afghan treasury US $500m (24 trillion AFA) per year, one mining analyst predicted.
Central Asia Online
Seeing Afghan history through Afghan eyes
By Rebecca Kendall
Director of Communications
Nile Green clearly remembers the moment he first became interested in world events. He was about seven years old and he and his schoolmates had been called into an assembly. There, they were told of the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“I remember thinking ‘Soviet, what’s that?’”
By the time he was a high school senior, he had been enjoying the freedom of travelling alone from his home in England to spend a summer back-packing through Turkey.
“It was wanderlust to an extent, and I suppose it was about as far as the Eurorail would take me.”
His impulse to travel later led him to visit Yemen, Syria and Egypt and have longer-term stays in Iran, India, Pakistan and eventually Afghanistan. In many ways, his imagination has never left Afghanistan.
Green joined UCLA’s Department of History as a professor in 2007. His particular research interests include the early modern and modern history of India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran; the Indian Ocean; Persian and Urdu travel writing; and Islam and globalization.
These interests made him an ideal fit to lead the UCLA Program on Central Asia, which is part of the UCLA Asia Institute and one of the many multidisciplinary programs, centers and institutes focused on world regions and global issues that comprise the UCLA International Institute.
“The way we’ve conceived of working on Central Asia is to make this an area of connection and conversation: a place where historians and scholars who are interested in China, Russia, India, Pakistan or the Middle East will join up; an intellectual crossroads, of sorts.”
He says the UCLA Program on Central Asia makes a conscious effort to distance itself from the traditional approach of looking at Central Asia, one in which the region is only viewed in relation to Soviet studies. “We offer a more robust examination of the entirety of Central Asia’s broader history, one that is also linked to Middle Eastern, Chinese and Indian history, and that looks at Central Asia’s cultural and social history, as well as its anthropology. That’s what distinguishes us.”
Much of Green’s own current work is centered on Afghan studies, and he is currently teaching a seminar on modern Afghan history. He recently participated in a UCLA conference on Afghan literature and co-edited Afghanistan in Ink, the first scholarly survey of modern Afghan literature, tracing patterns of thought and identity, and their destabilization in contemporary times.
In less than a week, he will host an international conference that will bring together scholars from Afghanistan, UCLA, New York University, the University of Arizona and Humboldt University in Berlin, Germany, to discuss “Great Games? Afghan History through Afghan Eyes.” The conference, which will be held Nov. 17 and 18 at the Young Research Library, will also feature a pre-recorded video presentation by independent Afghan scholar Ashraf Ghani, a prominent Afghani politician, former chancellor of the University of Kabul and former finance minister of Afghanistan. An Afghan exhibit curated by Green will be on display at the Young Research Library until the end of the quarter.
The conference, funded by the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies, honors the 80th anniversary of the death of Fayz Muhammad Katib, the first major Hazara writer and historian. Born in the early 1860s, Katib was a bureaucrat under the modernizing government of the 1920s who witnessed many of the social and political changes in the country, which shaped the region’s politics to the present day.
“The Hazaras have been empowered by the war,” says Green. “They were the downtrodden and often the servant class in Afghanistan. Ironically, the war of the last 30 years and the rise of Maoist politics among them in the 1960 and 70s have caused a deliberate sense of uplift among Hazaras. Hazara intellectuals are creating their own universities, including one in Kabul named after Fayz Muhammad Katib.”
The conference also marks the 10th anniversary of the U.S. led invasion of Afghanistan.
The two events are closely tied, says Green, because Katib wrote a rare eye-witness account of the 1929 government coup that toppled Afghanistan’s first modernizing government. The current uncertainty facing Afghanistan as troops begin to pull out of the country has led to a renewed interest in Katib’s work and vision.
Of particular interest to Green are the ways in which Afghans perceive their national history. He has spent a great deal of time speaking with Afghans and learning about the range of viewpoints that exist.
“My work as an historian has always come out of being on the ground with people and trying to register, in a sense, their perceptions of their histories, says Green, who earned the John F. Richards Fellowship from the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies to conduct research in Kabul this summer. “Afghans are very deeply concerned with their own history as a way of understanding the future of their country.”
The two key approaches to thinking about their collective history circle around two schools of thought. One interprets history as being something that Afghans have had an active role in. The other views history as something that has been thrust upon the nation by a series of foreign imperial aggressors, namely the British, followed by the Soviets and now the Americans.
“It’s these perceptions of the past that are the makers of their history. There are communist readings of Afghan history, there are Islamist readings, there are ethicized readings of that history. Those approaches to the past show the ways in which Afghans have very different agendas when it comes to shaping the future of their own society.”
UCLA
‘Boy Mir’ shows determination
BY JIM SLOTEK ,QMI AGENCY
FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011 02:00 AM EST
With or without the Taliban (but particularly with), the life of the ethnically Asian Hazara people of Northern Afghanistan has been a brutal, grinding struggle.
They were the people just outside the camera frame as the world sat transfixed by the demolition of the "idolatrous" giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. They live in caves, their poverty augmented by episodes of brutality visited upon them by the regime.
Documentarian Phil Grabsky gets points for determination for completing The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan (opening Friday at the Projection Booth on Gerrard), a year-by-year, child-to-man account of the life of a mischievous kid who stuck his grinning face into one such camera shot.
Drawn to Bamiyan by the crime against culture, he was intrigued by the boy and his life, and started filming. Somehow compelled to carry the project on for a decade, Grabsky has created a human picture of that benighted country, and the experience of abject poverty in general.
The first revelation is how Mir came to have a "half-brother" named Khushdel who is at least 20 years older. Seems Mir's dad, a twice-widowed, disabled coalmine worker named Abdul, arranged a "swap" to address their destitution.
He'd traded his daughter to Khushdel for Khushdel's mother (who would give birth to Mir), two marriages which produced a new breadwinner for the family (or would have if there were jobs).
An argumentative bunch, Mir's extended family scrambles to survive -- making food with grass and organ meat discarded by a local butcher.
About the only thing that goes right in the life of Mir is that the Taliban disappears (preoccupied with maintaining a stronghold in the South).
Consequently, the only contact they have with NATO soldiers is when they show up for oddly thought-out humanitarian missions. One day an ocean of latrines appears, but no housing. Weeks later, 100 homes will be built for the hundreds of homeless families. Later, we see them distributing gifts of, um, notepads.
When expected NATO foodstuffs don't arrive, and the family loses out on the house lottery, they head North to the village they'd abandoned as the Taliban were flushed out, and move into their now-bombed-out home, trying their best to fix holes with tape, boxes and packaging.
What's fascinating about the 10-year experience (punctuated with news reports of the deteriorating Afghan situation), is how everyone knows the NATO-provided school could be Mir's ticket out of poverty, but poverty seems to be like gravity. There are no happy endings here.
The stark mountainous beauty that framed the Buddhas remains a terrific backdrop for Grabsky's doc, their sheer crushing mass serving as a metaphor for a life of inevitabilities (like a Third World version of Michael Apted's Seven-Up docs).
It's also interesting to see the Americans fall from saviour status for want of amenities that would have cost a tiny fraction of what it cost to pound the countryside with drones.
jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca
Toronto SUN
FIRST POSTED: FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 11, 2011 02:00 AM EST
They were the people just outside the camera frame as the world sat transfixed by the demolition of the "idolatrous" giant Buddhas of Bamiyan. They live in caves, their poverty augmented by episodes of brutality visited upon them by the regime.
Documentarian Phil Grabsky gets points for determination for completing The Boy Mir: Ten Years in Afghanistan (opening Friday at the Projection Booth on Gerrard), a year-by-year, child-to-man account of the life of a mischievous kid who stuck his grinning face into one such camera shot.
Drawn to Bamiyan by the crime against culture, he was intrigued by the boy and his life, and started filming. Somehow compelled to carry the project on for a decade, Grabsky has created a human picture of that benighted country, and the experience of abject poverty in general.
The first revelation is how Mir came to have a "half-brother" named Khushdel who is at least 20 years older. Seems Mir's dad, a twice-widowed, disabled coalmine worker named Abdul, arranged a "swap" to address their destitution.
He'd traded his daughter to Khushdel for Khushdel's mother (who would give birth to Mir), two marriages which produced a new breadwinner for the family (or would have if there were jobs).
An argumentative bunch, Mir's extended family scrambles to survive -- making food with grass and organ meat discarded by a local butcher.
About the only thing that goes right in the life of Mir is that the Taliban disappears (preoccupied with maintaining a stronghold in the South).
Consequently, the only contact they have with NATO soldiers is when they show up for oddly thought-out humanitarian missions. One day an ocean of latrines appears, but no housing. Weeks later, 100 homes will be built for the hundreds of homeless families. Later, we see them distributing gifts of, um, notepads.
When expected NATO foodstuffs don't arrive, and the family loses out on the house lottery, they head North to the village they'd abandoned as the Taliban were flushed out, and move into their now-bombed-out home, trying their best to fix holes with tape, boxes and packaging.
What's fascinating about the 10-year experience (punctuated with news reports of the deteriorating Afghan situation), is how everyone knows the NATO-provided school could be Mir's ticket out of poverty, but poverty seems to be like gravity. There are no happy endings here.
The stark mountainous beauty that framed the Buddhas remains a terrific backdrop for Grabsky's doc, their sheer crushing mass serving as a metaphor for a life of inevitabilities (like a Third World version of Michael Apted's Seven-Up docs).
It's also interesting to see the Americans fall from saviour status for want of amenities that would have cost a tiny fraction of what it cost to pound the countryside with drones.
jim.slotek@sunmedia.ca
Toronto SUN
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