- Afghanistan's interim President, Hamid Karzai, will issue
an extraordinary call this week for an extra $15 billion cash from the
West for the reconstruction of his war-shattered country.
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- Karzai will warn that the $5bn so far committed is hopelessly
inadequate to meet the pledges given by Tony Blair and George Bush to rebuild
Afghanistan after the 2001 invasion.
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- His wake-up call comes as his government plunges into
financial crisis, with the capital Kabul facing its first popular street
demonstrations since the fall of the Taliban 18 months ago.
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- The rising discontent follows the failure of central
government to pay police and civil servant salaries. Last week Karzai threatened
to resign unless regional warlords paid more revenue into central government
coffers.
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- In a Channel 4 documentary on postwar Afghanistan next
weekend Karzai acknowledges his gratitude for Western aid but declares
that 'we need more than has been promised.' He says that the country needs
'$15-20bn to reach the stage we were in 1979'.
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- He goes on to accuse international donors of undermining
his authority by handing the cash to outside agencies rather than central
government. This policy, says Karzai, 'weakens the presence of the central
government in the provinces of Afghanistan.'
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- In a further indication of the gravity of the country's
plight, Lakhdar Brahimi, the United Nations Special Representative to Afghanistan,
charged Western nations with sabotaging Karzai's attempts to bring security.
He disclosed that he had made repeated attempts to widen the international
security force in Afghanistan beyond Kabul but that the attempts had been
rebuffed.
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- He said that he asked 'repeatedly' for the security force
to be extended into Afghanistan's lawless country areas, but that the 'international
community tells us that they can't afford to respond to our request for
the moment'. He added: 'If we had this kind of support the Afghans would
have been able to look after themselves after one years or two years.'
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- Brahimi spoke out as the country was plunged into its
worst security crisis since the end of the war. Aid organisations have
pulled out of large parts of southern Afghanistan after a series of attacks
on international and Afghan humanitarian workers.
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- A recent study by the Aid agency Care illustrates the
scale of the West's neglect. It showed that in Kosovo, Bosnia and Croatia,
the international community provided one peacekeeper for approximately
60 people. In Afghanistan the ratio is one to every 5,380 people.
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- Figures for sums donated, when considered on a per head
basis, tell an equally eloquent story. Bosnians received $326 per head
during the aftermath of war. The comparable figure in Afghanistan over
the next few years is $42 per head.
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- http://www.observer.co.uk/international/story/0,6903,963109,00.html
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