AFGHANISTAN GIVEN UP TO THE WARLORDS

As of the suburbs of Kabul, the Afghan State disappears. One finds nothing any more but lords of the war who control like absolute monarchs, take taxes don't apply the directives of the central government. Even in the capital, one does not know who controls: president Hamid Karzaï and his government? The American ambassador Zalmay Khalizad, this Afghano-American parachuted by Washington? Or the international troops which, with 6 000 men, square all the districts length into broad?

The United States confiscated the largest avenue of Kabul, where they build an immense building for the CIA. The villas in the neighbourhoods, which were sold ten thousands of dollars under the talibans, are worth, two years later, thousand times more. The Afghano-Americans returned to recover their houses in Kabul and to rent them at ransom price to the Westerners. The Afghans of Hamburg and besides encased the step to them. In the eyes of people of the interior they are sag chouyan, "washers of dog", impure animal for Islam. These Afghano-Westerners, indecently rich compared to the population, came to be added to the diaspora of those returned from Iran or Pakistan, where they could pile up a little money at the price of a hard labour. Enough cosmopolitan, they must adapt to the new conditions: masons, electricians, small contractors or small shopkeepers, some live on the hills which surround Kabul and thus escape from the prices from some avenues. These two diasporas share only their origin. If the second is integrated without too many difficulties, the first, arriving from the Occident, is rejected.

In Kabul one considers that it came to box its goods, but then it will leave or monopolize lucrative stations in order to increase its fortune on the back of the population of the interior. In the bazaar of Kabul misery bursts; people in rags live with almost nothing. Admittedly, the nongovernmental organizations - some two thousand Western ONG which are prosperous and highly respected there - give work to a part of the city. But the noble tasks return obviously to Westerners or to Afghans come from Occident, the menus work - drivers, guides, distributors of assistance, etc - with the Afghans of the interior. The urban average-lower classes fight against impoverishment, but they can easily fall into misery because of inflation. Many of their members do not manage to follow the rise in the cost of living, in a city where the surge from abroad breaks old balances and raises the prices out of arrow. These small townsmen live more and more in the frustration and the hatred of the fortunate Afghans considered as nonMoslems because of their individualism and of their refusal to share and give alms. In the conversations, these townsmen often express their objections in religious terms, making it clear that, under the talibans, at least, all were poor and that the capacity was not dominated by parachuted people of another world. In the name of Islam, the extremists groups will be able, in the future, to exploit this feeling "not to be at home", to be maintained with the bottom of the social scale, to be scorned and rejected by "foreigners" and the "inaccurate ones", to reinforce a long-lived islamist movement in the frontier areas of Pakistan. They will thus gain the urban base which they missed and will widen their influence among this recently urbanized population whose life is made of misery, of attempts to build itself a future.

Some, however, succeed while fitting in the meshs of the new system. Omar, a child, was gifted for football. Punished by the talibans, it had to give it up. At present, he tries to play in the team which will become national. His dream would be to find a place in one of the formations of the countries of the Gulf... or besides. Akbar, mason, had left, under the taliban period, to work in Iran. He returned to Kabul to exert its trade. He makes the shuttle between the two countries and is rather optimistic about his prospects for promotion, even if, he recognizes, the situation hardly encourages working and investing. Mohammed also returned from Iran. He works thanks to more or less illegal constructions which proliferate in Kabul. He brought back with him his two daughters and his two boys, who complain: the first (of which one went to the university of Teheran), of little freedom which is left to them; seconds because they are treated as "Iranians" and that one does not recognize them like authentic Afghans. Like the Afghan/Pakistanais duality, the germs of a Afghan/Iranien duality are sown, and the new company will have to be done there, with girls and boys who do not subject themselves easily to the tradition.

The scatter of the capacity and the seizure of the lords of the war on the areas induced notable changes. Omar, small shopkeeper who, under the talibans, bought in Iran and sold in Afghanistan, went bankrupt after their inversion. Firstly, he paid only one tax to insert his goods in the country. From now on, he must pay taxes in each area which he crosses: how to remain profitable? He was transformed into taxi driver, but does not hide his bitterness. In a country more or less unified under the talibans a feudal system succeeded. The underground economy has encouraged all kinds of traffics, from electronic parts to food, but especially opium. The poppy cultivation extended since the fall of the talibans: it touches areas saved before and becomes transnational, by combining the ethnic bonds with the world traffic as well as the political fasteners with the lords of the war, even of the members of the government. It is unaware of the borders and extends in Iran, Pakistan and beyond, in Europe and, much less massively, in California. But it is also at the origin of the redistribution of the economic capacity and policy in Afghanistan: lords of the war take a tax on this culture of opium, even imply themselves there, and sometimes actively, to pay their private army.

In Iran, the use of the ethnic, linguistic and religious bonds, allows the passage of drug: Iranian Baloutchistan is populated of sunnites which make pass heroin to the beard of the pasdarans, the Iranian guards of the revolution. The drug money cements the bonds which, in return, in a mondialized underground economy, facilitate the transfer of the white powder in Iran, in spite of the boundless ingenuity deployed by the army of this country to stop the flow of drug. The traffic towards Pakistan passes by the frontier area of Waziristan, where the talibans, the members of Al-Qaida and the islamist ideology have the wind in poop. There too, it is facilitated by the ethnos groups which, on both sides, make the border porous. The opium produced in various parts of the country is sold easily. The Americans are concerned little. On these traffics, the lords of the war present in the government take in the passing of the taxes which enrich them and allow the maintenance with customers and a militia, of which the nargue number the scanty army like the small national police force.

The government can assume only 12 % of its budget to him, the remainder coming from the Western contributions. In short, all occurs like if a vast network of ethnic, religious and economic alliances enclosed Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. Acting of Afghanistan and Pakistan, this play proceeds in countries placed in the formal orbit of the United States, which exerts a limited control and must adapt to the ground, i.e. to negotiate with gangster chiefs. In Pakistan, a great part of the population is antiamerican and favorable to Mr. Usama Bin Laden. In Iran, Baloutches sunnites support Al-Qaida in opposition to theocracy Iranian Shiite. In Afghanistan, a great part of Pachtounes preserve a diffuse sympathy to the talibans. The Afghan government tries to create a "national" feeling by being equipped with posthumous heroes, of which the commander Ahmed Chah Massoud, emblematic "lion of Panchir". But Massoud is actually liked by only one part of the Inhabitants of Tajik and people of its area (Panchir). The others often hate him, reproaching him for having acted himself as a lord of the war during the catch of Kabul by seven rival factions, in 1992-1994, before the victory of the talibans.

In Afghanistan there is a mondialized economy which has as names dopes, ONG, money of the allies, international assistance under the American aegis and finally gifts made to the government by the rich countries. The State does not exist and, probably, will not exist very soon. It is an unstable and heteroclite coalition of lords of the war and politico-monks leaders who surround the president, driven by the lure of gain, by the ambition or because they feel constrained to play the game wanted by the Americans. To last, the capacity tries to put an end to the reign lords of the war by integrating them in a court, as Louis XIV did it with the aristocracy. But, with France of Ancien Régime, there is a difference in size: without the Western will, this government would not exist. And let's not forget the ethnicity, which is combined according to several modes: initially religious (sunnites versus Shiites), then linguistics (Persan versus pachtounes), finally ethnic - Hazaras (Shiites), Inhabitants of Tajik (sunnites), Pachtounes (sunnite)... The president makes an effort to "pachtounise" the government, because it is pachtoune and that the ousting of the talibans, them also pachtounes, gave too much weight to the Inhabitants of Tajik. Nothing there, however, which is likely to reinforce the State and its autonomy.

The president tests, without much success, to play the mediator in the multiple conflicts which put at the catches the chiefs of the war: in Mazar-e-Charif, between the lord of the war Mohammed Atta and the chief of the police force, the General Akram Khakrezwaï; in Herat, between Mr. Ismaïl Khan and Amanoullah Khan, etc. The president has tiny room to multiply the nominations and the against-nominations to weaken local potentates, leading to the reinforcement of what one calls here the "warlordism". Actually, the State, with the assistance of Washington, seeks to enter this power play, especially to weaken the talibans and Al-Qaida, much more than to build institutions worthy of this name. It seeks, in addition, to attract to itself the benevolence of islamist known as "moderated", in particular a part of the group of Mr. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, one of the historical leaders of the moudjahidins in the anti-Soviet fight, a step in the integration of fundamentalist in its project. In short, "pacification" is less the work of the central State than of a redistribution of the ethnic chart by a government allocating privileges. The chiefs of war collaborated in turn with the Russians, the talibans, the various regional capacities or their opponents; all have blood on the hands. Meanwhile, they are the chaos of universalization, the poppy cultivation and the interethnic bonds revisited which generate money and capacity - the economy of drug would represent more than 2 billion dollars per annum.

The new regional disorders in Afghanistan, in Iraq, in Pakistan as well as the consequences of the regional policies in Iran (where the capacity Shiite is not tender with respect to the sunnites of the border) and in Pakistan (where the military capacity must compose with the tribes under penalty of general revolt) make this area explosive. How to wage an effective war against radical islamist groups for which such an amount of injustice and inconsistency creates a fertile ground?

John Taylor is a journalist who has written more articles on this issue and published them at Best Free Library Worldwide .

About the Author:
Marcus Laval is a senior IT analyst with an experience of more than 20 years, who has written more articles on how to protect against the on-line brokers hackers.