Afghan Government Fails To Check Corruption, Restore Peace

It is amazing that after their eight years in Afghanistan, the international community does not realize whether Hamid Karzai and his government, in fact, have the capacity to check corruption in the country or not. In fact, they fail to understand whether Karzai and his government can check corruption in a situation that corruption is started, strengthened and supported by this government itself.

Now, conditions President Barack Obama has put forward to President Karzai, which are to ensure good governance, eliminate corruption, check narcotics trafficking, restore peace, and bring the criminals to trial, seem to be a plot to deceive people. All, particularly the United States, knows that all people in the Karzai government, right from Karzai himself to a district chief, are supporting corruption rather than controlling and checking the same.

They know that introduction of reforms is out of the power of this government in many ways:
1. Corruption in Government
Corruption in the Afghan Government is no more limited to persons. It is now among the families. The brothers, sons, daughters, wives, and even near relatives of all those having power through slots in the government are involved in corruption. Therefore, it is now impossible to check corruption on personal level. Now, even checking corruption on the level of families seems to be something impossible.

2. Fair Cabinet
The formation of a fair cabinet is impossible because before the presidential election, the portfolios in the Afghan Government had been distributed among thieves, robbers, murderers and war lords who are having strong links in the government, and who act like levers around whom the entire government is revolving. Karzai is not having his ministers and his own nominated governor because the portfolios were distributed among groups with the force of guns. Karzai, therefore, cannot reshuffle the whole cabinet to reorganize it as a good cabinet. Even if he forms a new cabinet in a way that half of it is formed on the basis of his pledges during elections and the remaining half of it comprises new and technocratic people, even then, honest people would not prefer to work in such a cabinet having people of different and opposite mentalities. And even if the honest people work in such a cabinet, they will do it with a great difficulty. It is so because the Afghan Government has now been converted to a field of Buz Kashi (an Afghan game, in which horse-riders drag dead goat) by those forces, who were organized by the intelligence agencies of other countries. And good people are routed in this field of the game. No one who is having an ideology, who loves his country and people and who is having honesty and belief, will ever want to be a part of such a government.

3. Checking Narcotics Trafficking
Checking of narcotics trafficking has actually got out of the government's control. Family members and friends of the top tier of the authorities in the government are involved in narcotics trafficking. And no one can check them because the control of the current government is in the hands of a strong narcotics mafia. Hence, it is impossible to bring an end to narcotics trafficking in the country. It is a mere excuse to say that the Taliban are generating finances from narcotics trafficking. Narcotics are transported via long routes in Afghanistan. The narcotics traffickers cross the areas where the Taliban have no control. The Taliban may take benefits from narcotics in the areas under their control. But at the moment, all the highways and big cities are under the control of the government. Then, who are carrying narcotics to the Taliban and who are purchasing drugs from them? If the international community is not blind, it should "kindly" see banglows in Sherpur Forte. Most of these houses belong to the top officials in the present government. Can a minister, an adviser or a governor get such a huge amount through fair means? This very fact is a proof that the center of narcotics trafficking is inside the present government itself and not outside the same. All groups of narcotics traffickers that were out of the government or that were having a weaker lobby in the Afghan Government are in the prisons. Go and see how many officials of the government or the persons they have hired for the transportation of narcotics are in prisons for the crime of narcotics trafficking?

4. Restoring Security
Restoration and maintenance of security in the country will be a dream until the government is completely reshuffled, because it is the government itself that is responsible for deteriorating law and order situation. Security situation in the country is not in a position now, in which a corrupt government is having the power to disarm a force like the Taliban, who carry out their activities even in the heart of Kabul and who are having the control of many areas in the country. Worsening of the security situation is related to the Taliban. A larger part of it is related to the government itself. It is the government that has made the people upset, that has made corruption to rule the country and has empowered the robbers to rule. The government has created disunity among the people; it has imposed hunger and unemployment on people; it has deceived the country through false pledges, an example of which was seen during the presidential elections.

5. Problems With Karzai

The international community is having some problems with Karzai. Whether they tell lies or truth, but they have put people in troubles. The international community is having problems, first with Karzai and his family, that is, his brothers. Moreover, it is having troubles with his governmental corruption. Then, it is having troubles with corruption in government, narcotics trafficking and last, with insecurity. Solution to these problems and control of the persons involved in these is out of the control of the Karzai government. So, if Obama has not gained enough experience and if he has not come to know about the weakness of Karzai and his weak and corrupt group, it will be an extreme inexperience on the part of President Obama to give another test to Karzai for the next six months. And everyone knows that Karzai will never succeed in this test, because he could not succeed in this regard when there was complete peace in the country. Now, correcting the situation is like a dream, because on one hand, security situation is worsening with the passage of every single day, on the other, corruption has been increasing.

6. National Reconciliation
In the history of Afghanistan, direct reconciliation by coming face to face meeting of adverse groups for the first time has never taken place, particularly when the groups have been at enmity for such a long time and have killed thousands of people from each other. It has always been the responsibility of a third party to reconcile them, to take decisions for them and to guarantee peace and reconciliation between them. That is why the reconciliation under the leadership of the present government has no chances of success at all. And the country is also not playing any part in this process, because Karzai is not having a suitable plan. Moreover, now the Taliban also call themselves strong and they do not accept reconciliation easily.
7. Trial of the Criminals
This is also impossible because the campaigners of Karzai were all those who were criminals and whose hands were stained with the blood of the Afghans and who got, and are still getting, financial support from Karzai. Without these criminals, Karzai is not having any role or if he is having a role without them, it is very minor. Otherwise, he would not have committed such a vast rigging in his election.

Karzai mainly depended on those criminals in his election. So, in this case, if he is bringing the criminals to justice, he should first bring his supporters to justice. And this is something out of Karzai's power to do.

This lazy and hypocritical politics has some results:
1. The United States wants to have a weak and corrupt government in Afghanistan that is also involved in drug trafficking. Perhaps the United States wants such a government in Afghanistan, and is supporting and retaining it to prepare a way for sending more troops to Afghanistan and to make an excuse for its forces to stay there and shorten the time for its long-term strategy in the region. This action on their part will arouse the feelings of the neighbors of Afghanistan and will provide them with an excuse to carry out terrorist activities in the country through their paid people.

2. It is also possible that the current war has become a burden on the United States and its allies, and they are in search of finding an excuse to quit Afghanistan. But withdrawal from Afghanistan on the basis of such an excuse will be considered as a defeat on the part of the United States, as it was considered a defeat on the part of the Soviet Union in past. This withdrawal will also bring another problem to the surface, which will have a negative impact not only on Afghanistan but on the whole world.

For the solution of this problem, both the Afghans and the international community should find a way that no more are the Afghans or the international community troubled for the sack of a small and corrupt group. Obama's six-month plan is not beneficial for the Afghans and international community. In addition to a time wasting and deceiving process, this problem needs a decisive action, which is to introduce the third mechanism.