Barnett Rubin: Donors & Warlords

Michael Pollak mpollak at panix.com
Wed Jan 16 01:44:23 PST 2002


New York Times January 15, 2002

Putting an End to Warlord Government

By BARNETT R. RUBIN

I n defeating the Taliban, American policymakers have had to make hard

choices in the struggle to reconcile sometimes conflicting military

and political goals. Next week, when they meet in Tokyo, the United

States and other donor nations will face equally hard choices in

deciding how to help rebuild Afghanistan.

The difficulties of timing assaults on Taliban and Qaeda forces and

the unpredictable rhythms of military operations in the early months

of the war led the United States to arm anti-Taliban warlords well

before Afghans reached agreement on a successor regime. The

elimination of the Taliban regime made possible the establishment of a

new administration, but at the price of empowering some corrupt and

brutal figures.

The Bonn accords contain mechanisms for making the Afghan government

more representative. They call for a loya jirga to choose a new

government in six months, provide for the integration of armed groups

into national security forces and arrange for an international

stabilization-assistance force. They also aim to co-opt regional

warlords by giving them official roles. For example, Gen. Abdul Rashid

Dostum, whose forces helped secure the victory at Mazar-i-Sharif, is

now deputy defense minister.

The purpose of the accords is to establish a stable government, which

means ending direct supplies of money and arms to warlords. Yet the

United States has been supporting various anti-Taliban commanders who

are helping in the search for Mullah Muhammad Omar and Osama bin

Laden. In the battle for Kandahar the United States came close to

undermining Hamid Karzai, now head of the interim Kabul

administration, by arming his local rivals. The immediate operational

requirements of the battle against Al Qaeda and the Taliban have thus

worked against the goal of consolidating the interim administration's

authority.

The Afghan administration will not be able to establish that authority

unless financial and military aid to warlords ceases in favor of an

effort to build national security forces. The international

stabilization force may well need to extend its presence beyond Kabul

to provide security during the transition from warlord control.

In addition to controlling warlords, the new Afghan government will

also have to deal with the new problem of how to distribute and

coordinate billions of dollars of international aid. If international

agencies and donor countries controlling the aid are more interested

in taking credit and defending turf than in strengthening Afghan

institutions, they could exacerbate fragmentation and cynicism in

Afghan society. Armies of expatriates consultants, United Nations

bureaucrats, aid workers of every kind can drive up local prices. Such

projects tend to skim local talent, offering engineers and teachers

steady work as drivers or translators and keeping them from building

and teaching. Worst of all, competition among agencies and donors can

undermine reconstruction politically. As happened with humanitarian

aid in Somalia, reconstruction aid in Afghanistan could become simply

a new political currency to be fought over by warlords, who will play

one aid agency against another and all of them against the central

government.

The early signs on this front are not promising. At a meeting in

Brussels last month, the major donor countries brushed aside a

statement from Afghanistan's interim finance minister that the Afghans

would prefer a single reconstruction fund to coordinate planning. The

donors were cool to this request partly because of legitimate concerns

over how to manage a single fund, but also because they want to fly

the flag over their own projects. In Tokyo, donors must consult with

the Afghan authorities on how to design a coherent plan for

distributing aid, which will soon be as important to achieving

political stability in Afghanistan as controlling the warlords in the

post-Taliban government.

Barnett R. Rubin, author of "The Fragmentation of Afghanistan," is

director of studies at New York University's Center on International

Cooperation.

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