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MILITARY FUSION CENTRE
Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises
Afghanistan Review
23 October 2012 Week 43
Economic Development Governance & Rule of Law Security & Force Protection Social & Strategic Infrastructure The Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC) is an information and knowledge management organisa-tion focused on improving civil-military interaction, facilitating information sharing and enhancing situational awareness through the CimicWeb portal and our weekly and monthly publications. CFC products are based upon and link to open-source information from a wide variety of organisations, research centres and media outlets. However, the CFC does not endorse and cannot necessarily guarantee the accuracy or objectivity of these sources.
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The Afghanistan Team
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
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CONTACT THE CFC
This document provides an overview of developments in Afghanistan from 16
–
22 October 2012, with hyper-links to source material highlighted in blue and underlined in the text. For more information on the topics below or other issues pertaining to events in Afghanistan, contact the members of the Afghanistan Team, or visit our website at www.cimicweb.org/cmo/afg.
Economic Development
Steven A. Zyck
►
steve.zyck@cimicweb.org
he Afghan Cabinet has approved a new industrial policy which will, among other
things, enable the Afghan government to provide relatively low-cost loans to Afghan businesses, wrote
Wadsam
. It will also enable Afghan officials to raise tariffs on the import of goods which are already domestically produced within Afghanistan, thus protecting nascent Afghan businesses which may find it difficult to compete with larger and lower-cost foreign competitor
s. The head of the Afghanistan Industrialists’ Association, Abdul Jabbar S
a-fi, praised the new policy. The China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) has begun operations in the Amu Darya basin in northern Afghanistan, with drilling underway in Sar-e Pul province, according to
Reu-ters
. Afghan Mining Minister Wahidullah Shahrani said: “The company will extract 1,950 ba
r-rels per day, which will crucially help Afghanistan towards self-sustainability and economic
independence.” CNPC will be
paying the Afghan government a 15% royalty on oil, a 20% cor- porate tax rate and give 50-70% of the profit from the project to the Afghan government. Start-ing in 2013, CNPC will extract 1.5 million barrels of oil per day from its current operations in northern Afghanistan. Forward progress on this project could also help Afghanistan, which currently imports USD 3.5 billion in oil each year, to inch closer to energy independence. In related news,
Wadsam
reports that a 75-day survey undertaken by a Canadian company on behalf of the Afghan government has found major gas reserves in Andkhoi district of Faryab
province. The results of the USD 7 million survey were reportedly sent to the United Arab Emirates and India. Companies from those countries and several others are reportedly interest-
ed in bidding on the rights to northern Afghanistan’s gas resources during the coming months.
Increased economic cooperation between Afghanistan and Iran continued to feature in the news this past week. Building upon the outcomes of the September 2012 Iran-Afghanistan Joint Economic Cooperation Commission meeting in Kabul, an Afghanistan-Iran joint trade committee meeting will be held in November, according to
Wadsam
. This new committee will
T
Highlighted Topics
►
Clicking the links in this list will take you to the appropriate section.
The Afghan Cabinet has approved a new industrial policy to provide low-cost loans.
CNPC has begun operation in the Amu Darya basin.
President Karzai demands removal of foreigners from election panel.
Afghan government testing out new hiring procedures for civil servants.
President Karzai says ANSF are ready to take responsibility
for the country’s security
NATO commits to continue advisory and training support of ANSF.
with the ministry’s activities results during last decade.
23 October 2012 Page 2
focus on developing trade relations between the two countries. The head of the Iran-Kabul Friendship Association, Reza Esmayeeli,
says the meeting in November will particularly focus on Afghan traders’ access to the Iranian port at Chabahar.
The Iranian govern-
ment has offered to establish specific facilities near the port to facilitate Afghans’ imports and exports. Afghan Foreign Mi
nistry
spokesman Janan Mosazai said that ensuring Afghans’ access to Chabahar is very important and will allow In
dia to trade with Af-ghanistan and Central Asia without needing to pass through Pakistan. As highlighted in the 16 October
Afghanistan Review
, Pakistan has been accused by Afghan officials of impeding Indo-Afghani commerce.
In other regional economic news, Afghanistan’s Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MoCI) announced that the Afghan and Pak
i-stani governments had established a new agreement aimed at expanding transit trade opportunities, reports
Wadsam
. Under the new agreement, Afghan businesses would be able to export goods to India via the Pakistani seaport at Gwadar. Commerce Minister Anwar ul-
Haq Ahadi stated: “With this new agreement, almost 70% of the traders’ issues would be resolved. The rest of the problems would be addressed in the next two months, as we are still discussing the transit issue with the relevant parties.” This agreement
was reached at the recent Afghanistan Pakistan Transit Trade Coordination Authority (APTTCA) meeting in Islamabad. However, Afghan traders told
Wadsam
they have doubts as to whether the new agreement will be fully implemented. In agricultural news, elders in Helmand province say an increasing number of farmers will begin growing opium poppies if a profita-
ble market is not found for their cotton crop, according to
Pajhwok Afghan News
. Elders in Nad-e Ali, Marjah, Garshak, Nawa and Garmsir districts of Helmand also told
Wadsam
could benefit both security and the economy. “Co
t-ton would not only be an alternative to poppy cultivation, but also a better source of income for people and security would also im-
prove,” stated Haji Barekzai, the chief of the Nad
-e Ali district council. Cotton had once been grown across 26,000 hectares of south-ern and south-western Afghanistan but had largely been supplanted in recent years by opium poppies. It still remains common in some areas. For instance, Haji Shireen Jan, who heads a cotton factory in Helmand, announced that the cotton yield in Lashkar Gah district would reach 2,500 tonnes by the end of this year. Yet
Pajhwok
reports that increased yields may be undermined by a lack of pro-cessing facilities and low global market prices for cotton. A number of other economic development stories, which are summarised below, emerged this past week.
During a visit to Balkh province, Alex Thier, the chief for Afghanistan and Pakistan at the United States Agency for International
Development (USAID), said that USAID currently provides USD 2 billion annually for Afghanistan and intends to continue do-
ing so in the coming years, according to
Wadsam
.
Afghan consul general to Iran, Zahedan Mohammad Zaher Norestani, called for the easing of travel procedures for Afghan busi-
nessmen in Iran. Norestani said that the easing of visa restrictions would help to foster economic cooperation between the two countries.
Agriculture Minister Asif Rahimi is working to build the skills of those involved in horticulture and animal husbandry, reports
Wadsam
. Afghans have been receiving training in Purdue University in the United States under the Advancing Afghan Agricul-ture Alliance (A-4) Program, which is financed by USAID.
Food prices in Kabul increased marginally during the course of the past week, according to
Pajhwok
. The value of one US dollar against the afghani rose to AFN 52.97 from AFN 52.30 last week. This constitutes a 1.3% decline in the value of the Afghan cur-rency over the course of a single week.
Governance Rule of Law
Stefanie Nijssen
►
fghan President Hamid Karzai has suggested that foreign members
be removed from the country’s election watchdog, the
Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC), in a step that could be aimed at strengthening his hold on power, according to
Reu-ters
. On 24 September, the lower house of Parliament, the
Wolesi Jirga
, approved a draft law on the ECC
’s
composition, du-ties and powers. Under the draft, which is now with the
Meshrano Jirga
(upper house) for approval, the number of panel members will be increased though two seats remain
reserved for foreigners. President Karzai said that “Foreign observers can still come to mo
n-itor the transparency or non-transparency of the election, but their interference in the election process is against Afghanist
an’s sove
r-
eignty.” Meanwhile,
Tolo News
and
Pajhwok Afghan News
report that the reaction of Afghan lawmakers has been mixed with some
believing that a foreign presence will help deter electoral fraud and others believing it would increase it. Meanwhile, the Independent
Electoral Commission announced its impartiality and said it would implement any decision taken by the authorised bodies. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the leader of the insurgent faction Hizb-e Islami, has reportedly sent sixty political figures a proposal in which
he recommends presidential, parliamentary and provincial council elections to take place simultaneously in the first half of 2014 to avoid a possible civil war, states
Pajhwok
,
which also obtained a copy of the proposal. Rejecting the current electoral strategy as flawed with unfairly high election fees, Hekmatyar proposed the need for free, fair, transparent elections. Hekmatyar also said that the large numbers of political parties are damaging national unity. In related news, 16 civil society organisations and 34 political parties have joined together to draft a set of recommendations to the Afghan government, stating that it should issue new vote polling cards to promote greater transparency in upcoming elections, reports
A
23 October 2012 Page 3
Ariana News
. The advisory draft urges that issues such as women’s participation i
n elections, international community oversight, gov-ernment security and logistics preparedness, and provision for implementation of timely elections be properly handled. The Afghan government is testing out new hiring procedures for civil-service positions, writes
Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
, which include posing a variety of questions to hundreds of job candidates on topics such as strategy, planning and other managerial issues. The effort is
part of the Afghan government’s fight against corruption and hopes to change the entrenched culture of nepotism within the government recruitment process. The organisation tasked with overseeing these new procedures, Afghanistan’s Indepe
ndent Administrative Reform and Civil Service Commission (IACSC), has adopted an evaluation process under which test takers names are kept anonymous. Outside advisers from various government and private entities are brought in to monitor every stage. Since the new system was launched last month, the IACSC says it has received nearly 2,000 applications from candidates looking to become deputy provincial governors, district governors, or administrative personnel in various central or provincial departments.
The head of the Afg
han Senate’s complaints committee
, Ubaidullah Barekzai, told
Radio Free Afghanistan
on 18 October that the
country’s second vice
-president, Muhammad Karim Khalili, has allegedly bailed out a warlord accused of murder, kidnapping and
bribery, among other crimes. Barekzai said Abdul Hakim Shujai is an influential warlord in his native Uruzgan province and that he
has been accused of involvement in the killings of at least 120 people. Uruzgan residents have reportedly complained to the Senate committee that an illegal armed group run by Shujai recently kidnapped twenty local villagers, killing seventeen.
Afghanistan’s Attorney General Mohammad Ish
aq Aloko told
Tolo News
that violence against women is much greater than what is
reported or known by the country’s judicial bodies. Many incidents allegedly go unreported because most women in the remote a
reas of the country do not have access to or are not aware
of the judicial bodies. “You see that women in the provinc
don’t know at all where the judiciary organisations are and what they do,” he said in an interview.
The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) notes that over the past six months there have been 600 reported cases of honour killings in Afghanistan and plans to launch a six-month investigation into rapes and honour killings, states
Ariana News
. AIHRC deputy Fahim Hakim urged that there must be a concerted effort to struggle against the terrible abuses against women, including the enforcement of the law that prohibits such practices and the punishment of the perpetrators of these crimes. The AIHRC officials demanded more of the governmental institutions, and asked for increased cooperation between civil society activists, media outlets and justice department members in coordinating their efforts to help reduce abuses of women.
This comes as
The Telegraph
reports that a twenty-year-old girl, named Mah Gul, was beheaded after her mother-in-law attempted to
make her sleep with a man in her house in Herat province last week, provincial police chief
Abdul Ghafar Sayedzada said. “We have
arrested her mother-in-law, father-in-
law, her husband and the man who killed her,” he said. The police chief added that Gul was ma
r-ried to her husband four months ago and her mother-in-law had tried to force her into prostitution several times in the past. The sus-
pect, Najibullah, was “paraded by police at a press conference”.
Pakistani newspaper
The Express Tribune
states that government officials from Pakistan and the US have finalised the details of a new bilateral commission to lure Afghan Taliban to the negotiating table. Details of the proposed commission were not immediately avail-able. This comes as a number of Senators in the
Meshrano Jirga
, the upper house of Parliament, criticised the peace talk process with the Taliban and demanded that the talks should be discontinued, according to
Ariana News
. Some lawmakers reportedly believe there is a relationship between the peace talks and the current insecurity.
Pakistani authorities have allegedly stated they would like Afghanistan to hand over Mullah Fazlullah, believing he was involved
in planning the attack on Malala Yousafzai, the fourteen-year-
old activist for women’s right to education, sources told
Khaama Press
. Mullah Fazlullah along with his men are reportedly hiding in Kunar province of Afghanistan.
Tolo News
reports that residents of the Sorobi district 25 km east of Kabul have taken up arms against Taliban insurgents, joining
the growing tide of local uprisings which began in other provinces in late June. Residents said they are tired of conflict and the
Taliban’s violent ways
, which included the burning of schools and clinics, and have called on the government to rebuild those fa-cilities.
According to local authorities, Afghan security forces arrested the Taliban provincial governor of Kunduz province, Mullah Ab-
dul Rahman, writes
Khaama Press
. Police officials said Rahman was detained along with two security guards by Afghan security forces during a military operation in Ghani Kali village.
France’s Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius has said that the withdrawal of French combat troops from Afghanistan may happen “a
bit more quickly
than anticipated” and could be completed before the end of December, writes the
Australian Associated Press
. Some troops may remain to repatriate equipment and participate in the training of the Afghan army.
Security Force Protection
uring a joint press conference in Kabul with visiting NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen, Afghan President Hamid Karzai stated that Afghanistan National Security Forces (ANSF) are ready to take full responsibility for the
security if the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) chose early withdrawal, informs
Khaama Press
. Rasmussen,
D
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