The Limits to Justice, pt4

Col. James Pohl, the military judge presiding over the prosecution of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his four alleged accomplices in the 9/11 trial at Guantanamo Bay ruled that the U.S. Constitution may not always apply in the case, according to a defense attorney.

Monitoring the mineral miners

A detailed analysis by Global Witness of the 2008 Aynak agreement between the Government of Afghanistan and the China Metallurgical Construction Company/Jiangxi Copper Company consortium provides the first insight into what the deal means for Afghanistan's future.
According to the report, Copper Bottomed? Bolstering the Aynak Contract: Afghanistan's first major mining deal, there are positive economic, infrastructure and social commitments, as well as crucial commitments to protecting the local community and environment from potential adverse impacts from mining.
This one deal alone is projected to generate an estimated $541 million a year by 2016 and to create around 5,000 jobs. Other mineral contracts are likely to follow, including the huge Hajigak iron ore concession.
However, these are undermined by serious gaps and weaknesses. For example, even though the Afghan government has published over 200 extractive contracts in the last few months, the main Aynak contract has not been published and therefore the Afghan people cannot see the terms agreed.
Nor is there any contractual obligation to engage communities on decisions and plans that directly affect them.  High royalty rates are undermined by provisions which enable renegotiation, and priority access to other resources at the site. Key human rights and cultural protections are absent, and it is not clear how commitments to best practice will be implemented and monitored.
In response to the GW report, in December the Afghan government agreed to publish the Aynak contract and to make various other concessions.
Also worth viewing is the GW report on Afghanistan's gold mining industry, Getting to Gold, published last April.

Report into corruption at Kabul Bank

Although it was published last November, the detailed report into the collapse of Kabul Bank, published by Afghanistan's Independent Joint Anti-corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee, is still worth a read. You can find a copy here. As the report states: "Kabul Bank’s controlling shareholders, key supervisors and managers led a sophisticated operation of fraudulent lending and embezzlement predominantly through a loan-book scheme. This resulted in Kabul Bank being deprived of approximately $935 million funded mostly from customer’s deposits. The loan-book scheme provided funds through proxy borrowers without repayment; fabricated company documents and financial statements; and used information technology systems that allowed Kabul Bank to maintain one set of financial records to satisfy regulators, and another to keep track of the real distribution of bank funds. Shareholders, related individuals and companies, and politically exposed people were the ultimate beneficiaries of this arrangement. Over 92 percent of Kabul Bank’s loan-book – or approximately $861 million – was for the benefit of 19 related parties (companies and individuals). Except for the initial investment of $5 million, all shareholder acquisitions and transfers were ultimately funded by money from Kabul Bank."

Tribes demand justice over killings of 18 Bara men

Bara tribesmen bring their dead to Peshawar

In most countries the cold-blooded execution of 18 men, taken from their homes in the middle of the night by uniformed men before their lifeless bodies were dumped in a field, would have been major national – not to mention international - news.  

Not so in Pakistan. The killings, which took place on Tuesday night in Bara Tehsil, just a few miles to the south-west of Peshawar, have been reported, but have fought for space on the pages of newspapers crammed with reports about criminal charges against the country’s prime minister, mass protests in Islamabad and the continuing carnage in Balochistan.

Adopting a protest tactic used last week by Hazaras in Quetta of refusing to bury their dead, up to 5,000 Bara tribesmen took 15 of the bodies to the residence of the governor of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa in Peshawar on Wednesday, saying they would refuse to bury them until the perpetrators – widely believed locally to have been from the Frontier Constabulary – were brought to justice.

But nowhere in the Pakistan will you find any kind of context for these killings, or investigation into the events. I cannot pretend to solve such a crime, but here are a few facts that may help explain what is happening in Bara. First point to note is that there is ongoing bitter fighting between the armed forces and the Lashkar-e-Islam organisation, led by Mangal Bagh.

On Monday an LI commander was killed and three members of a local peace Lashkar were injured during a skirmish in Bara, which continued most of the day.

Later than night and on Tuesday LI militants attacked three security posts at Arjali Nadi, Machine Dandh and Amshumano Adhera areas of Bara, killing five security personnel and wounding another 16. An LI spokesman denied any of their fighters was killed.

On Sunday a girl’s school was blown up in Sepah Spin Qabar in Bara tehsil, whilst three days before around 200 members of the paramilitary Khassadar force re-entered the Shalobar area of Bara after a three-year break. There were several shooting incidents on the same day. Incidents like this have been continuing for months. 

Whether you believe the latest killings were the work of the LI, its rival Ansarul Islam or paramilitary forces, it is plain for anyone to see that Khyber Agency – and Bara in particular – is in a state of open warfare. 
Update:  On Thursday 17 January police in Peshawar used aerial firing, baton charges and teargas to disperse Bara students from outside the Peshawar Press Club and arrested 18 protesters.
Rioting started when police used water canon and teargas against the families who had brought the bodies of their dead and camped with them overnight outside the Governor's house. The police action started shortly after midnight and many families were forced to abandon the coffins containing the bodies of those killed in Bara on Tuesday.
Police refused to return bodies to the families until they reached an agreement with a tribal jirga that the bodies would no longer be placed on the road. In exchange the provincial governor announced a compensation package of Rs400,000 per family and an inquiry into the affair. According to some reports, several of the slain men had been in military custody before they were found dead. The Human Rights Commission for Pakistan has welcomed the fact that a judicial inquiry has been ordered into the deaths: "Rather than using tear gas and batons to deal with the people, their demands should be heard with compassion, and the truth of the matter established in a manner that enjoys the confidence of the aggrieved. HRCP welcomes the fact that a judicial probe has been ordered into the killings and hopes that unlike similar probes in the past, the findings of this one will see the light of day.”

Pakistan wobbles as protests mount

Governor's law has been imposed in Balochistan, thousands of protesters calling for the overthrow of the government remain encamped outside the Parliament building in Islamabad and, to top it all, the chief justice has ordered the arrest of Pakistan's prime minister on corruption charges, leading to a 3.16% fall on the Karachi Stock Exchange. Is Pakistan about to fall apart? Will the military re-impose martial law? Watch this space....

Afghans connected to World Digital Library

Illuminated frontispiece from Herat c1500

When I visited Kabul in January 2002 I saw with my own eyes the terrible cultural destruction wreaked by the Taliban. The National Museum was a burnt out shell, its priceless statues from the Gandhara period lying in pieces on the floor. The National Art Museum was also wrecked; staff had only been able to save some works of art by painting over human figures or hiding them from sight. 
Saddest of all was the National Library. I remember walking between rows of glass-topped display cases where the only exhibits were photocopied title pages of books that had either been destroyed or hidden from sight.
Ever since then, Afghanistan has struggled to recover and protect its cultural heritage. One of the richest countries on earth in terms of historical artefacts had to start again, almost from scratch.
Of course, there were some surprises. The magnificent golden Oxus Treasures were hidden away under the Presidential palace where they remained safe from the Taliban iconoclasts. And curators of Afghanistan's small, but hugely significant film archive took enormous risks to hide and preserve their prized footage.
It is thus heart-warming to hear that during his visit to the United States last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai was presented with a collection of digitized treasures from the US Library of Congress relating to the culture and history of Afghanistan.
The collection, created by the Carnegie Corporation-sponsored World Digital Library, is only the first tranche of what will become a major resource for universities and museums in Afghanistan, including the National Library of Afghanistan, the American University of Afghanistan and other universities in Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamiyan, Herat, Kabul, Kandahar and Nangahar.
It includes digital copies of manuscripts, rare books, maps and photographs. Amongst the first 30 or so items that will now be available to Afghans are: one of the earliest detailed maps of the country, printed by the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge in London in 1841; The History of the Afghans, first published in 1829 and the first history of the Afghan people translated from a non-Western language (Persian) to appear in a European language; The Divan of Sultan Husayn Mirza, a folio of poems written in nasta'liq script the late 15th century; The Medical Formulary of Al-Samarqandi, which dates to the 13th century; and A Treatise on Drawing Chords in a Circle by Abu al-Rayhan al-Biruni, who lived from 973-1048AD. Many more items will eventually be added to the online collection.

Truth and fiction in Maidan Wardak

It's been a while since my last posting, so a belated happy new year to all. I start this year's postings with a mystery. The generally reputable, English-language, Khaama Press in Kabul - which calls itself the biggest online news organisation in Afghanistan - reported yesterday on the killing of a female social activist by the Taliban.
The report poses more questions than it answers. Quoting General Abdul Wali, the provincial security chief for Maidan Wardak Province, it says the Taliban "assassinated a female social activist and hanged her dead body on a tree in Chak district". The exact time of the incident is vague, but was reported as "about four days ago".
The article goes on to say that the unnamed woman's body had been found in Khwaja Omeri village in Chak district, where she has been working for an (unnamed) NGO. She had been "reportedly providing chickens, tailor machines and carpet waving equipments for the local residents in a bid to create employment opportunities" before she was murdered by Mullah Rohani, a local Taliban leader. According to (unnamed) villagers, she was also tortured before being shot dead and hung in a tree.
Another (unnamed) resident of the village contradicted this statement, saying the woman, who came from central Bamyan Province - and was therefore, presumably, a Shia Hazara woman - was working in a clinic when she was killed.
So we have an unnamed woman working for an unnamed NGO killed at an unspecified time for unspecified reasons. Either this is a fabrication, not unlike the alleged Taliban massacre of a group of 17 men and boys in Roshanabad in Helmand in August (see my report on that here), or it is an example of the sloppiest kind of journalism. Anyone know anything more?

More evidence of Petraeus' flawed judgment

More evidence of General David H Petraeus' flawed judgment is evident today in an excellent article by Rajiv Chandrasekaran in the Washington Post.
The article catalogues Petraeus' inappropriate relationship with Kimberly and Frederick Kagan of the right-wing, defence-contractor supported, Institute for the Study of War and the American Enterprise Institute respectively.
The husband-and-wife team appear to have been taken on as unpaid advisers to the General during his time in Afghanistan, promoting a series of hawkish policies that chimed nicely with their corporate sponsors' (DynCorp International, CACI International and General Dynamics) agendas. Shocking that America's most senior general in Afghanistan should have allowed himself to become associated with two such arms industry pimps.

Tattooed militant amongst Peshawar base attackers

Heavily tattooed body of Peshawar airport attacker

Tattoo was an unfinished version of this design by Boris Vallejo

Photos published in Pakistan show that one of the 10 militants who carried out the attack on Peshawar airport at the weekend was heavily tattooed with demonic images. Although the attack was quickly claimed by the Tehreek-e-Taliban, Pakistani officials had already suggested that up to five of the attackers were Uzbek and that one at least had come from Daghestan in the Caucasus.
The tattoos have been the subject of much debate in Pakistan (see this strand, for example), with various religious authorities stating very clearly that they are un-Islamic. The Express Tribune quoted Professor Khursheed Ahmed saying “You cannot perform religious duties if you have tattoos on your body”. He therefore drew the conclusion that the attackers could not be muslims! 
The same conclusion was drawn by Allama Tahir Ashrafi, head of Pakistan Ulema Council. “It was astonishing to see the body with a horrible face tattooed on his body. Islam does not allow drawing tattoos. This cannot be the body of a Muslim.”
The attack on Peshawar airport began on Saturday night. The target was the military side of the base, where fighter planes and helicopters are housed.
Five of the attackers were killed during the attack on Saturday, along with three civilians and two policemen. Five more militants were killed on Sunday afternoon when they were spotted in the nearby village of Pawakai. Two of them exploded their suicide vests. The airport reopened after 18 hours.
This was the third attack on a Pakistan military base in the last few months, a phenomenon mirrored in neighbouring Afghanistan where 10-12-man teams have also attacked two large coalition bases in recent months. Highly disciplined teams of well-trained fighters have been central to all these attacks, suggesting that trainers with military backgrounds and contacts are involved in preparing and planning them. Uzbek fighters are seen as some of the best trained fighters and continue to cause problems in the tribal areas. Yesterday 17 Uzbek men without papers were arrested by Frontier Corps personnel travelling on a bus in Chaghi, Balochistan.
Update: On Tuesday Provincial Information Minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, informed the provincial assembly that two of the attackers killed on Saturday at the airport were Chechens and three were Pakistanis. The five men killed in Pawakai on Sunday were from Pakistan, Chechnya, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Dagestan. 

Information on UK drone usage in Afghanistan

Some interesting facts and figures on UK drone use emerge in a Parliamentary report, published by the House of Commons library. Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (drones): an introduction notes that the UK currently operates four major types of UAVs in Afghanistan, three of which are operated by the Army (Hermes 450, Class 1 Desert Hawk and the T-Hawk) and one (the MQ-9 Reaper) used by the RAF.
The five RAF Reapers are the only armed drones used in Afghanistan, but there are also nine Hermes 450 drones that provide tactical level imagery to unit and formation commanders on the ground and which require an airstrip to launch.
There are also 239 Desert Hawk 3s, which are hand-launched drones, designed to provide ground forces with a live tactical video feed and which are primarily used by bomb defusing teams to examine suspicious structures or vehicles.
There are also apparently 64 Black Hornet nano-drones, that weight only 16g, although no information is provided on their operational use.
Currently there are 31 RAF personnel qualified to pilot the Reaper aircraft, with plans to train a further 16 pilots. "Reaper pilots are all RAF and Royal Navy pilots who are qualified in operating other military aircraft. The majority have served on at least one operational tour on a traditional manned platform. 32 RAF personnel are qualified to pilot the Reaper. Operators of the Army’s unmanned UAVs are not required to be qualified pilots because of the greater level of autonomy of their UAVs."
Altogether 290 personnel are involved in delivering Desert Hawk, Hermes 450 and Reaper. This includes command, aircrew, technicians, intelligence and support staff. The total financial approval for delivering and supporting the UK Reaper system from 2007 until the end of combat operations in Afghanistan in 2015, is £506 million.
Since entering service in 2007, only one Reaper has been lost, due to mechanical failure. Eleven of the Hermes 450 drones have crashed in the same period. The UK’s fleet of UAVs have carried out over 100,000 hours of flying in Afghanistan and fired 349 precision-guided weapons (297 Hellfire precision guided missiles and 52 laser guided bombs). The report says Afghan civilians have only been killed on one occasion by drones in March 2011, when two insurgents and four civilians were killed and two civilians injured. A report into the incident has not been published.

Cruelty and Tax Evasion in Pakistan

Two more very useful reports:
Amnesty International has published “The Hands Of Cruelty”: Abuses by Armed Forces and Taliban in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas which sets out in graphic detail the barbaric techniques used by both the Pakistan Army and also by the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan in the tribal areas.
Second, The Centre for Peace and Development Initiatives and the Center for Investigative Reporting in Pakistan, both based in Islamabad, have jointly published Representation without Taxation! An analysis of MPs' income tax returns for 2011 which shows that 61 per cent of all lawmakers in the Pakistan Parliament and regional assemblies paid no income tax in the year they contested elections. Even former prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani and his 25-member Cabinet paid no tax in their respective elections years. All this in a country which has one of the lowest tax to GDP ratios (about 9 per cent) in the developing world. Even Sierra Leone has a higher ratio.

Long way to go for women's rights in Afghanistan

Here is a link to the UNAMA report Still a Long Way to Go:Implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women in Afghanistan, published yesterday. The report "examines implementation of the Law on Elimination of Violence against Women (EVAW law) by judicial and law enforcement officials for the period October 2011 to September 2012 and identifies the many challenges Afghan women still face in accessing justice. 
The analysis is based on information gathered from 22 of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces and highlights the reporting, registration and judicial process followed under the EVAW law and the Penal Code by the Afghan National Police (ANP), prosecutor’s offices and primary courts in a representative sample of violence against women incidents."
The report notes that the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission recorded 4,010 cases of violence against women from 21 March to 21 October 2012 throughout Afghanistan compared to 2,299 cases it recorded for the entire solar year in 2011 (from 21 March 2010 to 21 March 2011). 
However, it says that increased reporting may be the result of increased public awareness and sensitization to violence against women and to women’s rights generally through efforts of civil society organizations, the Government and international actors. But overall reporting of incidents of violence against women to police and registration of such incidents by the police remained low.

Thievery unchecked as equipment lies unused

Everyone is aware that huge amounts of dollars are leaving Afghanistan every year, usually in the luggage of corrupt politicians and officials on their way to the Gulf. According to one estimate, an estimated $4.5 billion was taken out of the country in 2011 alone.
Once the problem was recognised, a working party at the US Embassy in Kabul came up with a 'bulk cash flow action plan' to monitor the money passing through Kabul's airport. Its 33 proposals including training and investigative efforts, installation of cash-counting machinery and various other moves.
In August this year the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) decided to review these measures, conducting a site visit to the airport and interviewing officials in Kabul. The results are not very encouraging, as set out in Anti-Corruption Measures: Persistent Problems Exist in Monitoring Bulk Cash flows at Kabul International Airport, published by SIGAR yesterday.

Unused currency counting machines at Kabul Airport

They found, for example that the two bulk currency counters, designed to record serial numbers, create databases and process up to 900 bills per minute - and then to transmit this data via the internet to the Financial Transactions and Records Analysis Center of Afghanistan (FinTRACA) at the Central Bank - were not being used for their intended purpose. VIPs were being allowed to bypass these controls, the machines were located in an inaccessible cupboard and staff did not feel comfortable using them. "Although DHS officials told us that Afghan customs officials have been provided on-the-job training on the use of the bulk currency counters, we did not observe any use of the machines. However, we were able to check that each machine was plugged into an electrical outlet and appeared to be in working order."
Neither machine was connected to the internet or a computer server and a new Very Very Important Persons (VVIP) lounge was being built at the airport where there was no main customs screening or use of a bulk currency counter. Officials told the SIGAR inspectors that they feared the repercussions of making the system work. "As of October 2012, according to DHS officials, efforts to connect the bulk currency counters to the internet or a computer server were “at a standstill.”
So just to recap, corrupt Afghan officials and politicians are stealing billions of dollars every year and exporting their ill-gotten gains through the main airport in Kabul, without let or hindrance. Systems set up specifically to deal with the problem lie unused and unconnected in some cupboard in an inaccessible part of the airport. Welcome to Afghanistan.

Two useful CRS reports on Afghanistan

 

Two useful CRS reports on Afghanistan.
1) In Brief: Next steps in the War in Afghanistan? Issues for Congress. "This short report considers issues that may be of interest to Congress as it considers the strength and duration of further U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, to 2014 and beyond."
2) Afghanistan Casualties: Military Forces and Civilians. 

Report to Congress sees progress in Afghanistan

Between 1 April and 30 September this year Taliban attacks against Coalition and Afghan forces were up only one percent compared to the same period last year. Such attacks increasingly take place outside populated areas and the security of many of Afghanistan's largest cities is has improved substantially, according to the latest Report on Progress Towards Security and Stability in Afghanistan, written by the US Department of Defense, for members of Congress.
However, the report notes the increase in 'insider attacks' and states that "The insurgency’s safe havens in Pakistan, the limited institutional capacity of the Afghan government, and endemic corruption remain the greatest risks to long-term stability and sustainable security in Afghanistan." 

The report notes that between 1st March and 30th September the US decreased its military forces in Afghanistan by 25 percent, while other Coalition forces increased by one percent. There are now around 68,000 US forces in Afghanistan.
Overall, says the report, the surge accomplished what it set out to do: "The comparison in violence between 2012 to date and 2010 (the first year with surge-level forces present for the same nine month period) is stark: EIAs have declined by 12 percent, IED explosions have declined by nine percent, ISAF-caused civilian casualties have declined by 28 percent (insurgent-caused civilian casualties increased by 11 percent), Direct Fire (DF) attacks have declined by nine percent, and indirect fire attacks are down by 24 percent. The ANSF has grown by 88,464 personnel, and has dramatically increased its capabilities. The areas of the country influenced by the insurgents and the ability of the insurgency to attack the population have been significantly diminished."
Lots more facts and figures in this 172-page report, which only barely hides the fact that Coalition forces are no nearer defeating the Taliban than they were two years ago.