ADB to Afghanistan's rescue

[Yoshie Furuhashi]

>washingtonpost.com
>
>Projects to Rebuild Afghan Roads Going Nowhere, Despite Promises
>
>By Susan B. Glasser
>Washington Post Foreign Service
>Wednesday, August 7, 2002; Page A01
>
>KABUL, Afghanistan -- For months, the Asian Development Bank had 
>promised that it would take on one of the biggest headaches in 
>postwar Afghanistan: the cratered, agonizingly slow highway 
>connecting Kabul with Kandahar. The project to rehabilitate the 
>major artery between the country's two largest cities was estimated 
>to cost $150 million, the largest single investment in Afghanistan's 
>infrastructure since the collapse of Taliban rule last November.
>
>Instead, the deal fell apart.
>
>In meetings last month, the bank demanded that the Afghan government 
>accept loans to finance the project. Frustrated with international 
>donors that have promised to help rebuild the country, only to 
>impose conditions the fledgling government cannot meet, the Afghans 
>said no. "They're pulling out," said a top aide to President Hamid 
>Karzai. "Their excuse is that we won't accept loans, but in reality 
>it is too big a project for them."
>
>The Kabul-Kandahar project is not the only road work stalled by the 
>combination of balky donors, the slow pace of bureaucracy and the 
>daunting logistics of accomplishing anything in a barely functioning 
>country. In fact, not a single major road project has been started 
>since the fall of the Taliban.
>
><http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52452-2002Aug6?language=printer>http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A52452-2002Aug6?language=printer

What's up with today's imperialists?  Can't even lay a single road?
-- 
Yoshie

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