The Rebuilding of Afghanistan
Larry Luxner
The Washington Diplomat
03/01/2004
Afghanistan, one of the world’s poorest
countries, is seeking $28 billion over the next seven years
to rebuild its war-ravaged infrastructure and get back on the
road to democracy.
That may seem like an enormous amount of money,
given the fact that Afghanistan’s embassy in Washington—its
most important overseas mission in the world—gets by on
a budget of only $30,000 a month.
But then again, says Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb
Jawad, "that’s not really so much when we consider
that the United States is spending $9 billion to fight terrorism
in Afghanistan. We would like this kind of expenditure to stop
and this money invested in rebuilding Afghanistan, so we can
have a democratic and prosperous society."
Jawad, 47, is the same age as his boss, President
Hamid Karzai. Before his appointment as ambassador only three
months ago, he served as Karzai’s chief of staff, spokesman
and press secretary. He was also director of the Office of International
Relations at the presidential palace in Kabul.
Afghanistan’s new envoy in Washington is
fluent in English, German, French, Farsi and Pashto. In 1980,
while studying law and political science at Kabul University,
the Soviets invaded his country, and Jawad went into exile in
Germany. Six years later, he relocated to New York to work for
a Wall Street investment firm and in 1989, moved to San Francisco
and earned an executive master’s of business administration
degree from Golden Gate University.
"Before coming to this position, as President
Karzai’s chief of staff, I was well aware of the limitations
of building good governance," Jawad says. "The major
problem we face in Afghanistan is a lack of skilled human capital.
My staff here is extremely small—only 14 people—and
we work very hard. We really don’t have the people we
need to cope with the many challenges we’re facing. In
addition, we have very limited financial resources to pay adequate
salaries in order to attract qualified Afghans."
Struggle and controversy have long plagued the
Afghan Embassy, located at 2341 Wyoming Ave., NW. In 1943, Abdul
Hossain Aziz Mohammadzai formally established relations with
the United States; that same year, the new ambassador purchased
the mansion for $50,000 from the outgoing chief justice of the
U.S. Supreme Court.
Thirty-four years later, a representative of the
Taliban regime, which by then was ruling Afghanistan, took control
of the embassy. Following protests by Afghan-Americans and other
groups over this "illegal occupation," the State Department
closed the embassy.
In January 2002, after the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan
to overthrow the Taliban and root out al Qaeda leader Osama
bin Laden, the United States helped to set up an interim administration,
with which it established diplomatic ties. The Afghan Embassy
quickly set up shop in a rented office at 20th and L streets,
with 32-year-old Haron Amin as the chargé d’affaires.
Within a few months, however, the Afghan flag
was again raised over the old chancery in Washington, in the
presence of Karzai and top U.S. officials who were still busy
coordinating the search for bin Laden and destroying the last
of the Taliban strongholds.
"After the war started, the international
community realized that terrorism was a threat that required
an international response. The network established by al Qaeda
is much larger than one individual," Jawad says, pointing
out that "the capture of Saddam Hussein didn’t significantly
change the situation in Iraq."
At present, 9,000 U.S. troops are on the ground
in Afghanistan. Just more than 100 of them have been killed
in the entire operation.
"Right now, the terrorists are going after
soft targets like U.N. workers, in order to discourage foreign
investment," says the ambassador, "though we are building
our own Afghan national army to fight alongside the coalition
forces."
In spite of the financial and staffing difficulties,
Jawad says the sparsely furnished Afghan Embassy is now fully
functional. It also oversees a consulate in New York and is
in the process of opening another one in Los Angeles, home to
some of the 240,000 Afghans living in the United States. The
largest communities are in San Francisco, Washington and New
York.
Jawad, who is also accredited to Argentina, Brazil,
Mexico and eight other countries, says his embassy also conducts
much of its business through its unusually sophisticated Web
site at www.embassyofafghanistan.org.
"We know that resources are limited, but
it’s a fact that the legacy of Operation Enduring Freedom
depends on what comes out of Afghanistan," Jawad says.
"Like the new constitution we adopted a month ago, Afghanistan
is emerging as a model that will affect the aspirations and
hopes of peoples throughout the world."
He adds, "The new constitution of Afghanistan
is proof that it’s possible to reach an equilibrium between
traditional Islamic values and the building of a democratic
and prosperous society based on tolerance."
Those are lofty words for a country wracked by
bitter ethnic divisions. Although 99 percent of Afghanistan’s
27 million inhabitants are Muslim, the country is a mosaic of
Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara and other cultures. Sometimes,
these minorities don’t get along, and violence is the
result.
"One of our biggest dilemmas," says
Jawad, "is how to emphasize our rich Islamic heritage while
adhering to the international norms of human rights" that
were ignored during the Taliban Islamic dictatorship.
In the beginning of March, international donors
will gather in Bonn, Germany, to "reaffirm their commitment
to Afghanistan" and provide additional funding for the
country’s reconstruction. "Most of the $4.5 billion
pledged to us in Tokyo two years ago has been delivered and
spent," Jawad says, noting that the additional $28 billion
now being sought will focus on three areas: education, infrastructure
and trade.
And in the area of education, the most important
project involves providing schooling for girls and young women.
"Today, 4 million children are going back to school, 40
percent of them girls," Jawad says. "The best way
to ensure in the long run that women’s rights are respected
is to provide women with adequate education and empower them
economically."
Jawad’s wife of 18 years, Shamim, is involved
in that struggle. A former financial consultant, her main interest
is "women’s economic empowerment" in the post-Taliban
era (and raising the couple’s 14-year-old son, Iman).
As such, she’s active in various foundations and nongovernmental
organizations, "basically trying to keep the issue alive."
Afghan women, says Jawad, are determined to overcome
their inequalities. At present, Afghanistan’s overall
literacy rate is under 10 percent, according to the ambassador,
and for women, it’s even less than that.
"Last September, before I came to Washington,
terrorists burned a girls’ school one night in Logar province,
about 40 kilometers south of Kabul," Jawad recalls. "The
next day, every girl at that school showed up, sitting on the
ashes and insisting on continuing their classes."
The second priority for Afghanistan is building
infrastructure, namely roads, power plants and schools. A 480-kilometer
road from Kabul to Kandahar has just been completed at a cost
of $300 million. The government is also rebuilding the "ring
road" from Kabul to Mazar Sharif, Herat and back to Kandahar.
It also hopes to construct new schools. Currently, only 29 percent
of schools in Afghanistan have roofs, and most classes are conducted
in tents.
"We would like to see Afghanistan reintegrated
into the regional economy. We think promoting trade will help
bring peace to the region," Jawad says. "Our emphasis
is on promoting the private sector and providing an environment
conducive for the growth of that sector."
Toward that end, he says, Afghanistan is attempting
to privatize its state-owned airline and encourage investment
from Afghan expatriates living in the United States.
For example, a Hyatt hotel will soon rise in Kabul,
thanks to a $30 million infusion of cash from a wealthy Afghan
living in New York. A number of housing projects under way in
Kandahar and Kabul are being financed by Afghans in Northern
Virginia. And an Afghan-American artist in New York known as
Haidarzad is trying to raise money to rebuild the 2,000-year-old
Buddha statues in Bamiyan, 90 miles west of Kabul. The massive
Buddhas, carved into a sandstone cliff, measured 165 feet high
and were the world’s tallest standing Buddhas before they
were destroyed by the Taliban in March 2001.
All of this is helping to fuel a 30 percent annual
growth in a country with a per-capita annual income of only
$250. Admittedly, Afghanistan is starting out from a very low
base, but that kind of growth is still phenomenal in this landlocked,
mountainous country where most people still don’t have
running water or electricity.
"If you look at what we’ve achieved
in the past two years, it’s a very good sign that Afghanistan
is on the track to recovery," Jawad says, adding that 2.4
million Afghan refugees have since returned from Iran, Pakistan
and elsewhere to rebuild their lives and communities.
"Things are changing so drastically, it’s
frightening. Monthly rent in a nice area of Kabul is more expensive
than Washington, up to $5,000 a month for a house," he
says.
The downside of growth and prosperity is corruption.
"We are facing a serious challenge," the ambassador
concedes. "Some of the corruption taking place in Afghanistan
is due to factionalism. We also see drugs and the narcotics
trade going hand in hand with corruption. That makes our job
even much harder."
Much of Jawad’s job, in fact, consists of
lobbying on Capitol Hill, meeting with members of Congress and
giving speeches on Afghanistan’s current situation. He
gets help from lobbing firm Piper Rudnick, which does pro bono
work for the embassy.
"It’s an extremely busy schedule, though
the Bush administration has been extremely cooperative,"
he says. "I have easy access to the administration. There’s
also strong bipartisan support for Afghanistan in Congress.
On our way to recovery, we have had great friends on both ends
of Pennsylvania Avenue."
Of particular help, Jawad says, have been the
efforts of Sen. Joseph Biden (D-Del.) and Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.).
Two California Democrats, Sen. Barbara Boxer and Sen. Dianne
Feinstein, have also been outspoken in their support for the
rights of Afghan women.
"We are working on building more capacity,"
Jawad says. "We really don’t have a group that specializes
in lobbying activities. Even among our staff, only one person
deals with Congress, though we have just hired a young Afghan
to oversee the embassy’s PR outfit."
Jawad says his goal now is to "prevent Afghanistan
from becoming a failed state, where narcotics and terrorism"
will again flourish.
"The main reason for the war was the infusion
of money and extremism into Afghanistan initially in the ’70s,
when we were fighting the Soviets. Long before Sept. 11, the
Taliban terrorists were brutalizing the Afghan people,"
he explains. "Now for the first time, the Afghan people
are getting a chance to rebuild their national institutions.
That’s why we’re asking for sustained engagement,
so we can stand on our own feet and prevent the Afghan economy
from becoming criminalized through narco-trafficking."
Jawad notes that around 80 of the 650 detainees
now being held at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantánamo,
Cuba, are Afghan nationals. Some of them, however, are teenagers
who may or may not be members of al Qaeda. More likely, they
may have been innocent bystanders caught in the wrong place
at the wrong time.
"Afghans are reportedly the fourth-largest
group of terrorists being held in Guantánamo," says
Jawad. "That by itself shows that Afghans were victimized
by terrorists. They did not actually play a significant role
in the leadership of al Qaeda, but these Afghans committed many
crimes. We would like to see justice delivered to all of them.
The international community should come up with some sort of
system to try these people."
What about the world’s top fugitive, Osama
bin Laden?
"He’s a criminal who has committed
crimes against humanity," says the ambassador. "At
this point, we don’t have the national institutions necessary
to bring a criminal such as Osama bin Laden to justice, but
we would like to see justice done to him too."
Larry Luxner is a contributing writer for
The Washington Diplomat.
