Afghan Governors Call for More International Aid for Border Regions

Afghan governors call for more international aid for border regions

Paul Ames, Associated Press, 5/7/08

Three Afghan governors appealed Wednesday for more international aid to be focused on tribal regions that straddle the border with Pakistan to win over residents in areas where Taliban support remains strong.

A more aggressive campaign increasing development in the border areas would "take them out of the grip of the bad guys, the Taliban," the governor of Afghanistan’s eastern Laghman province, Lutfallah Mashal, said at a meeting of EU officials, journalists and Afghan experts in Brussels.

He warned that radical groups in Pakistan were a conduit for funding from Arab nations to the Taliban and their al-Qaida allies.

"They can finance Taliban activities for another 10 years," Mashal said. The governors of northern Baghlan and eastern Nangarhar provinces were also present at the meeting.

The governors, who also held separate talks at NATO’s headquarters Tuesday and Wednesday, complained that reports of violence in southern Afghanistan were tainting the country’s international image and overshadowing progress being made in eastern and northern provinces.

But they said more international support was needed to help Afghan authorities fight terrorism, drugs and corruption.

Mashal and Baghlan Gov. Abdul Jabar Haqbeen complained that some of the support being given to Afghan insurgents was coming from Iran and Pakistan. He urged Afghanistan’s foreign backers to work with those countries to tackle the problem.

Nangarhar Gov. Gul Aghan Sherzai, whose province straddles a vital road link from Kabul to Pakistan, highlighted the success he and his colleagues have had in tackling opium production in their provinces.

He said Afghanistan needed more help to fight booming drug trafficking in other parts of the country and called for increased aid to help farmers switch to alternative crops.

Afghanistan supplies some 93 percent of the world’s opium used to make heroin. The export value of last year’s harvest is estimated at $4US billion (euro2.6 billion) more than a third of the country’s combined gross domestic product.

However, officials say drugs barons, warlords and Taliban leaders take most of the profits, leaving little for the poor farmers who can be persuaded to abandon poppy production if given a viable alternative.

"The money that comes from drugs is going into the pockets of al-Qaida, the terrorists and the Taliban," Mashal said. "We have two categories, the needy ones and the greedy ones."

He said farmers in his province had switched to growing rice, wheat and vegetables thanks in part to new roads built with international help, which allowed them to take their legitimate crops to market.

Mashal also urged NATO troops to rely less on airstrikes that have led to civilian casualties and called for a higher profile for Afghan forces.

"The most important thing is to enable and empower the Afghan national security forces," he said.