Afghanistan Review Week 01 04 January 2012 Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises
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CIVIL - MILITARY FUSION CENT RE Afghanistan Review Week 01 04 January 2012 Comprehensive Information on Complex Crises This document provides a weekly overview of developments in Afghanistan from 13 December 2011—03 INSIDE THIS ISSUE January 2012, with hyper-links to source material highlighted in blue and underlined in the text. For Economic Development more information on the topics below or other issues pertaining to events in Afghanistan, contact the Governance & Rule of Law members of the Afghanistan Team, or visit our website at www.cimicweb.org. Humanitarian Affairs Infrastructure Security & Force Protection Socio-Cultural Development Economic Development Steven A. Zyck ► [email protected] akistani authorities have interrupted several hundred containers being imported into DISCLAIMER Afghanistan via Pakistan by Afghan traders over the past five weeks, says Pajhwok Afghan News. The containers are intended for the Afghan private sector, though The Civil-Military Fusion Centre P Pakistani officials have refused to let them cross into Afghanistan due to concerns that the (CFC) is an information and materials in the containers may be intended for NATO’s International Security Assistance knowledge management Force (ISAF). As the Associated Press notes, Pakistani authorities closed border crossings to organisation focused on improving civil-military interaction, facilitating NATO supplies following a NATO airstrike which killed 24 Pakistani soldiers in late information sharing and enhancing November. Traders told Pajhwok that the Pakistani restrictions have not only hindered NATO situational awareness through the supplies but have also stemmed the flow of non-NATO materials being imported by Afghan CimicWeb portal and our weekly businesspeople. For instance, approximately USD 100 million worth of perishable food, and monthly publications. particularly meat, being imported into Afghanistan has been stranded at the Afghanistan- Pakistan border for weeks. Representatives of Afghanistan’s private sector are reportedly CFC products are based upon and calling on President Hamid Karzai and the Ministry of Commerce and Industries (MoCI) to do link to open-source information more to resolve the situation. from a wide variety of organisations, research centres and media sources. The Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reported a significant change in policy regarding oil However, the CFC does not endorse exports from Pakistan to Afghanistan. The Pakistani cabinet’s Economic Coordination and cannot necessarily guarantee Committee (ECC) announced that it would remove all tax exemptions, rebates and other the accuracy or objectivity of these special conditions which had previously been applied to petroleum, oil and lubricant (POL) sources. products being exported from Pakistan to Afghanistan as well as to the Central Asian republics. This decision will be implemented by Pakistan’s Federal Board of Revenue (FBR) CFC publications are and Ministry of Commerce (MoC). Pakistani refineries have also been ordered not to send any independently produced by domestically-processed POL products to or through Afghanistan. Only POL products imported Knowledge Managers and do into Pakistan specifically for Afghanistan or Central Asia can move onward after paying the not reflect NATO or ISAF newly imposed taxes and fees. Previously, such taxes and fees had not applied due to trade policies or positions of any other agreements between Pakistan and Afghanistan. organisation. On 28 December, Reuters reported that the Afghan government has signed its first major oil The CFC is part of NATO Allied deal in decades. The deal was signed with the China National Petroleum Company (CNPC), a Command Operations. Chinese state-owned firm. Under the agreement, CNPC will drill an 87-million-barrel deposit in the Amu Darya basin in northern Afghanistan. The deposit spans Faryab and Sar-e Pul provinces and is relatively small in size, though Afghanistan’s Minister of Mines indicates that it could generate USD 7 billion for the Afghan government over the course of the coming 23 years. CNPC announced that it would have its experts and equipment arrive in northern Afghanistan within 30 days of signing the agreement. CONTACT THE CFC In related news, Afghan government revenues from the mining sector increased 257% relative For further information, contact: to a year prior, says Tolo News. Given that extraction has not yet begun at major mines, particularly the Aynak copper mine, Tolo News says that much of this increase is due to Afghanistan Team Leader progress at small and medium-sized mines. [email protected] Bloomberg, citing Iran’s Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), says that trade between Iran The Afghanistan Team and Afghanistan reached USD 2 billion in 2011. This figure was first announced by the Iranian [email protected] Minister of Industries, Mines and Commerce, Mehdi Ghazanfari. The IRNA article indicates that Iranian exports to Afghanistan had increased by 30% over the course of the preceding year. This amount may increase further following an agreement signed between Iran and Afghanistan in late December, says Tolo News. Under the agreement, Afghanistan will import one million tonnes of fuel annually from Iran. With regard to counter-narcotics and alternative livelihood efforts, The New York Times reports that initial progress in the Helmand River Valley is rapidly deteriorating. Despite significant international and Afghan government efforts to eradicate poppies and promote licit crops such as wheat, fruits and vegetables within the valley, Afghan farmers interested in growing opium poppies have reportedly re-located to marginal, desert-like lands. These farmers have transformed the land in these areas to sustain poppies, thus undercutting counter-narcotics gains in recent years. Farmers reportedly prefer cultivating poppies, which affords them protection from the Taliban and is a far more stable crop; while prices fluctuate, there is no difficulty – as with wheat, cotton or vegetables – in processing or selling the crop. Afghan farmers predict that poppy production will increase further in the coming years, having already risen between 2010 and 2011. Afghanistan’s Central Bank governor, Noorullah Delawari, told the Associated Press that the Afghan government would be able to recover 80% of the USD 825 million it spent in bailing out Kabul Bank. While only USD 80 million has been recovered thus far, Delawari expects another 20% of the outstanding loans to be repaid relatively soon; another 60% is anticipated to be recovered over the coming five years. Kabul Bank nearly collapsed after its owners, executives and large borrowers operated what the International Monetary Fund (IMF) labelled a “Ponzi scheme”. As part of its efforts to recover the funds, the Central Bank is sending a delegation to Dubai, where those complicit in the Kabul Bank crisis kept assets and invested in risky real estate projects. DECEMBER 2011 BONN CONFERENCE PAGE ON CIMICWEB The Civil-Military Fusion Centre (CFC) developed a unique web page focused upon the Second International Bonn Conference on Afghanistan at its CimicWeb portal. While the conference is now complete, this page continues to feature open-source information from relevant organisations and think tanks alongside a chronological listing of documents from past events such as the July 2010 Kabul Conference on Afghanistan. It also includes documents which emerged during the course of the Second Bonn Conference itself. For further information on this page, contact the CFC at [email protected]. Governance & Rule of Law Steven A. Zyck ► [email protected] n 03 January, Tolo News reported that the Taliban had agreed to establish a political office in Qatar in order to engage in negotiations with the international community. A Taliban statement quoted by Tolo News said that “we agree to have an O office to negotiate with international community. So, we have reached preliminary agreements with Qatar and other countries.” This move by the Taliban follows what The Guardian describes as months of secret negotiations and confidence-building measures. The Afghan government had preferred that the Taliban establish its political office in either Turkey or Saudi Arabia, says The Guardian, though President Hamid Karzai indicated in late December that his government would not object to a Taliban office in Qatar. Western diplomats cited by The Guardian indicated that having a Taliban office in Qatar would make it more difficult for Pakistan to influence the course of negotiations between the Taliban, the Afghan government and the international community. Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid did not specify when the political office would be established, says The New York Times. He did, however, link the SUBMIT A REQUEST establishment of the political office with a request that the United States release FOR INFORMATION (RFI) Taliban prisoners detained in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Afghan government is currently in the process of identifying nine CimicWeb account holders can submit candidates to serve five-year terms with the Afghanistan Independent Human RFIs to the CFC. These may concern the Rights Commission (AIHRC), reports Tolo News. The terms of nine outgoing sectors addressed in this newsletter or commissioners expired on 16 December. Another two AIHRC commissioners, other topics relevant to Afghanistan or Nader Naderi and Fahim Hakim, had been dismissed by President Karzai in our other focus areas. To submit