MITIGATING FACTORS IN AFGHANISTAN
turns into a feast of boiled meat with all the trimmings : bread , rice and / or potatoes , broth , and yogurt . Depending on the time of year , there may also be fruit or dried fruit , nuts , sausage , salad , pickles , slices of fat and liver served with saltwater for dipping , and candy .
“ You must eat ,” Abibullo Isaullu , head of the Jamiat ( council ) in Kona Kurgan , one of four Pamir villages where CAI has built a school , told guests at a lunchtime feast last May .
Bottles of vodka , too , appear out of nowhere , a throwback to Tajikistan ’ s 70 years under Soviet rule and in stark contrast to the tee-totalling Muslims in neighboring countries .
Yet the abundant spread laid out for guests belies reality . The Pamir region , also known as Gorno Badakhshan Autonomous Oblast ( GBAO ), is the poorest part of the poorest country in the former Soviet Union . CAI began working in this vast and sparsely populated region in 2010 .
GBAO is spectacularly beautiful , from the snow-capped mountain peaks — the highest is Ismoil Somoni Peak , once known as Stalin Peak and then Communism Peak , at 24,590 feet — to the clear-running streams and rivers to the stark beauty of the Eastern Pamir . But , as the saying goes , “ You can ’ t eat scenery .”
“ During the Soviet time we had good education and jobs and everything ,” said Boymamad Alibakhshov , chairman of Milal-Inter , a GBAO-based business development group . “ But that is the past . Now we face many problems .”
GBAO shares a border with Afghanistan to the south and east , marked by the Panj River , and the ethnic and linguistic ties between the people here and in Afghanistan ’ s northeast Badakhshan province are centuries old . And for a long time , the Tajik Pamiris were considerably better off than their Afghan neighbors .
Because the Soviet military considered Pamir a “ strategic buffer zone with Afghanistan and China ,” according to United Nations University ( UNU ), a global think tank in Japan , “ they brought in troops , and with them came the roads , telephone lines and electrification needed to support a military presence . Military and road construction camps meant opportunities for paid labor and sales of local produce . Combined with a state policy inducing settlements in the region , this led to a big jump in the population .”
But when the USSR collapsed in the early 1990s , the Pamiri “ economic structure crumbled with it ,” UNU reported . “ Within a few
MITIGATING FACTORS IN AFGHANISTAN
CORRUPTION : Afghanistan is one of the most corrupt countries in the world . “ According to most Afghans , corruption seeps into every facet of their life ,” the Associated Press reported in April . “ Errands as simple as paying bills often require bribes .”
The government is not in complete denial : The High Office of Oversight and Anti-Corruption says half of all Afghans reported paying a bribe in 2012 when requesting a public service . And even though most Afghans consider corruption one of the top challenges facing their country , more and more also see it as acceptable given civil servants ’ low wages and the practice of securing jobs via family ties and networks , Inter Press Service reported in September .
The corruption , however , extends far beyond petty bribes . For example , the United Nations ( UN ) special inspector general is looking into allegations that the Afghan Interior Ministry may have pocketed more than $ 200 million from a UN Development Program fund that pays Afghan national police and other officials , Foreign Policy magazine reported in October . Ministry officials allegedly inflated salaries and paid “ ghost employees ” who never worked .
The U . S . Pentagon also “ uncovered irregularities ” in the same program , including allegations that the ministry “ could not account for $ 17.4 million in pension withholdings and nearly $ 10 million in additional payroll deductions during 2013 ,” according to the magazine . “ But when the Defense Department auditors pressed officials … to explain the irregularities , ‘ they were warned that if they continued ’ the inquiry , ‘ their lives may be in jeopardy .’”
ETHNIC DIVIDE : Ethnic tensions remain a serious threat to future peace in Afghanistan , experts warn . Many of the battles during the 1990s were fought along ethnic lines and those divisions persist . Author and historian William Dalrymple wrote in the New Statesman : “ It need not take much to rip the country apart again an exacerbate tribal , ethnic and linguistic fissures in Afghan society : the old rivalry between the Tajiks , the Uzbeks , the Hazaras and the Durrani and Ghilzai Pashtuns ; the schism between Sunni and Shia ; the endemic factionalism within clans and tribes and the blood feuds within lineages .”
ECONOMY : Foreign aid contributes upward of 90 percent of the government ' s overall budget . Yet the persistent lack of jobs and widespread poverty has most Afghans wondering where exactly all that aid went . Just after the elections were settled in September , the government warned it did not have enough money to cover its October payroll .
OPIUM : Afghan poppy cultivation reached an all time high in 2013 , according to the Office of the Special Inspector-General for Afghanistan Reconstruction . Rising opium prices , deteriorating security , an increase in cheap labor , and affordable deep-well technology have thus far outweighed counternarcotics efforts by the international community , according to news reports .
“ Afghanistan produces more than 80 percent of the world ' s illicit opium , and profits from the illegal trade help fund the Taliban insurgency ,” Reuters News Agency reported . “ U . S . government officials blame poppy production for fueling corruption and instability , undermining good government and subverting the legal economy .”
But it ’ s not just insurgents and black-market dealers who are in on the game , Cornelius Graubner , a Central Asia policy expert wrote on eurasianet . org . “ Few seriously contest that the biggest drug traffickers in Central Asia are government officials , or at least individuals or groups closely connected with governments in the region .”
Just a few months ago , in August 2014 a Badakhshan Provincial Council candidate was arrested when police allegedly found him toting 648 pounds of opium , Khaama Press reported .
Afghanistan also has a high rate of drug usage , about 5.1 percent , or 1 in 20 people , according to a study of urban drug use in the 11 provinces by The Lancet Global Health . Opioids and cannabis were the most popular . In some cases , whole families are addicted . “ When someone does something bad , he or she wants others to do it with them ,” CAI ’ s Wakhan manager Pariwash Gouhari said . — Karin Ronnow
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