Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140-159)
DR SHIRIN
AKINER, DR
GILBERT GREENALL
AND MS
NORINE MACDONALD
QC
27 MARCH 2007
Q140 Mr Jenkin: You are talking about
DFID being completely unsupportive of the military.
Ms MacDonald: From the viewpoint
of Lashkar Gah and Helmand province, yes.
Q141 Mr Jenkin: Should not the military
actually be given the resources that are currently being given
to DFID so that they can actually apply them? The Royal Engineers—the
Secretary of State told us that the Royal Engineers are actually
delivering aid projects but they are not being given the resources
to do them.
Ms MacDonald: If no one else is
going to do it they should be allowed to do it. It is not their
job, it is not what they are trained for, but functionally if
DFID refuses to do it you have to do it or else everything that
we have committed to Afghanistan is going to go down the drain.
Q142 Mr Jenkin: Exactly.
Dr Greenall: The timeframe is
a very important part of this. The realistic timeframe post- conflict,
over the years experience would tell us ten years to settle down,
another ten years for real economic life to return. That is the
sort of timescale that we should be looking at, and the idea that
in three or four years you can make huge improvements—you
can make some very strategic improvements and do very important
things that change the lives of a lot of people, but generally
across these areas you need a generation to make a difference
and our idea of time is completely out of kilter with reality.
Dr Akiner: There is an important
point here. We are talking about these projects being connected
or not connected to the military, but my point is that they are
not connected to the population either, and that is perhaps much
more serious because if the population do not see that these things
are going to benefit them, then there is no positive effects,
they are something that the foreigners do for themselves.
Mr Jenkin: I fully understand that point,
but if the military are not able to deliver those benefits they
are not going to get the support of the population and the Taliban
are going to get the support instead because they at least want
to maintain people's livelihoods in maintaining the poppy production.
Q143 Linda Gilroy: What budget do
you operate on and what are you doing with it, and if you were
put in charge of the redevelopment issues tomorrow in Helmand
province what would you do with that much bigger budget that is
different from what is not being done at the moment? Other than
the poppy crops, I do not want to get on to that yet, we will
be coming to them.
Ms MacDonald: In aid, for example,
I do not have an exact figure but I am guessing we have probably
spent a quarter million on food aid and clinics since last summer.
I agree with the previous speakers that you have to have the medium-term
and the long-term plan, but you need an immediate aid surge in
there to deal with really critical food issues.
Q144 Linda Gilroy: How would you
go about delivering that if you were advising the Government?
Ms MacDonald: I am sure people
with PhDs in development would be horrified to hear it but we
put food on a truck and went out there and line them up and handed
it out, so it is not that difficult to do and, as I said, we are
doing that on a regular basis. There are 6,500 families in Mokhtar
Camp, there are 1,000 families in what we call the city-camp in
Lashkar Gah, so in fact the actual expense is not the issue when
you look at the amount of money that is being spent on the overall
effort. If you took even 10% of what you are spending on the military
effort and put that into direct aid, food aid, to actually deal
with the problem that they have of feeding their families—over
80% of them when we ask them worry about feeding their families
and we certainly see that every day. I cannot over-emphasise the
psychological effect of that in that community, so that is a very
simple quick fix solution.
Q145 Mr Jenkin: On that very point
what you are saying is that the Armed Forces that are meant to
be protecting the population are not in a position to think, and
they are starving alongside our Armed Forces. Is that the case?
Ms MacDonald: They are starving;
I have seen dozens of starving children on the malnutrition and
baby ward in the Lashkar Gah Hospital and I have seen starving
elderly people. They are starving.
Q146 Mr Jenkin: And NATO forces are
not in a position to deliver anything to deal with that.
Ms MacDonald: No, they are not.
In March 2006 all food aid was stopped into Lashkar Gah province.
There actually is an established internal displaced persons camp
less than half an hour from the PRT. Maybe one of the things that
would be useful, if I could just formally offer this, is any of
you who happen to be in Lashkar Gah city, if you would like to
come out with us to the camps. Part of this conversation is based
on what is the reality there, so I would just like to invite you
to come out with us and see for yourselves what the situation
is in the camps, speak yourself to the locals and form your own
opinions about the situation, because part of the problem with
the policy development and the policy debate is an argument on
the facts. I am presenting you with a set of facts based on my
experience; you are getting other sets of facts so I would like
to invite you all to come with me, go to the camps, speak to the
people directly and form your own opinions.
Q147 Mr Havard: Let us just unpack
this a bit because you are very, very critical in your memo about
DFID in particular. You have said their "lack of effectiveness
in delivering essential food aid [which is the point you have
just been making] and effective development has exacerbated the
humanitarian crisis and fuelled disillusion- ment."[2]
This is the point about British soldiers being let down that my
colleague Adam Holloway was talking about, and in some sense there
seems to be an almost deliberate set of actions here, deliberately
going about and creating that sort of tone. I do not think that
is quite what we are trying to say, but we need to be very clear
that what we have been told by our military is that this disconnect
between DFID and the military is partly because of the overall
commitment they have got about drugs eradication, but they have
involved the NGOs and they have involved DFID in the military
planning and their activities as part of the ISAF operation, so
there should be no surprises between the military and DFID about
aims and objectives and what they are doing on the ground but,
you are right, there does seem to be almost like an X-file
here, there is some sort of conspiracy of silence about this humanitarian
crisis and people starving in the streets of Lashkar Gah. I have
not heard this before so I am not quite sure what I am being told
now. On the one hand we have our development people embedded in
with our military in terms of the planning and you are now telling
me that not only are they failing but the circumstances on the
ground are not as reported. That is what I have taken from what
you have said and I have to square that with what I am being told
by other people.
Ms MacDonald: The one comment
I would have on that—that is an accurate conclusion—I
do not think there is any lack of good intentions. I believe that
within the current structure of DFID the staff and the governance
of DFID are operating as best they can, and the people I meet—
Q148 Mr Havard: But there is a difference
in policy. Maybe you are not trying to be emotive here and I accept
that, that is fine, let us set that aside for a minute. What you
are saying is their response should be direct humanitarian aid:
trucks full of food, dropping it in the streets, feeding people.
Ms MacDonald: Yes.
Q149 Mr Havard: That is completely
different to the strategy that has been adopted which would create
a dependency problem that we have seen elsewhere, so you are asking
the British military and DFID to change the political direction
in terms of its strategy of helping the Afghan police.
Ms MacDonald: Yes, it is absolutely
necessary and it has to be done immediately.
Q150 Chairman: Shirin Akiner, you
look as though you want to say something else.
Dr Akiner: Actually on the drug
eradication, but I think we are coming to that later.
Chairman: We will come to that later.
Kevan Jones.
Q151 Mr Jones: Can I pick up on one
point. It is important to recognise that we are talking about
one part of Afghanistan here and I actually accept the issue about
some of the large projects like the US highway to nowhere and
things like that. I am sorry, I do not accept that there is a
disconnect occasionally, although there might be in certain parts,
but I have actually been to schools in Kabul where the public
are buying into this, they are actually very grateful for these
clinics and other things, but I have to say we have been delivering
a lot of things by quick impact projects by the British military
on the ground and I think there is an issue—I have said
this certainly in Iraq as well—where there is a new doctrine
that has to be put in place and it is actually about the military
delivering a development project rather than actually waiting
for, I have to say, many hopeless NGOs to come in afterwards.
Would you agree with me that it is not all doom and gloom everywhere
in Afghanistan because there are certain projects which certainly
are welcomed by the local people and have been supported by local
people?
Dr Akiner: There are some projects
that are good and certainly there are several projects that are
good in intention. The sustainability is the issue here and that
is very much in doubt. Secondly, you have been to show places,
you are not picking and choosing where you will go at random.
Rather for you, by the very nature of your sorts of visits, you
will be shown success stories. I hear from people on the ground
that some of the schools they build are empty shells, nothing
happens there. If you think of providing education in an environment
such as that, it is not just building a school you have to make
provisions for, but bussing the children in—very often they
will come from quite far away—and that has to go on on a
regular basis. There has to be provision of not just textbooks
but also all the writing materials, paper and so on and so forth.
There has to be teacher training, there has to be monitoring,
there has to be a long term strategy there. None of that is happening.
Chairman: We have got to move on, I am
afraid, because we are running considerably behind now.
Q152 Mr Jenkin: Very briefly, Dr
Greenall, you have worked extensively at the interface between
DFID and the Ministry of Defence and we are told that it is all
joined-up government. Can you give us an honest assessment of
what the conversation is between the MoD and DFID, both here at
Westminster and also on the ground?
Dr Greenall: There are two points
really and one is on quick impact projects. There used to be,
going back prior to 1997, very user-friendly for the Ministry
of Defence, one-page applications, they were £20,000, there
were delegated powers to an adviser with the military commander,
but that has now all been honed down. There were 14 pages the
last time I looked at one and the restriction was down to £5,000
so it is a much more complicated procedure. It used to go through
military imprest accounts and was a very, very easy process. That
is one point and the other is actually having people on the ground.
Over the last few years there has been much more reluctance because
of duties of care and that sort of thing to actually have civilians
on the ground in conflict areas. We could take a view on that,
but my own personal view is that to actually get this to work
you need to have senior people on the ground, right up in Helmand
province, and in volume.
Q153 Mr Jenkin: And if they are not
NGOs they have to be soldiers.
Dr Greenall: If civilians are
not allowed to go there for whatever reason on government business
then it has to be done by soldiers.
Q154 Linda Gilroy: On the poppy crop,
last week the Secretary of State told the Committee that the UK
Government supported President Karzai's decision not to adopt
ground-spraying tactics. Norine, in your evidence you say that
there is a correlation between poppy eradication and the rise
in insurgency and you also report that "optimising the authority
of military forces to engage in forceful counter-narcotics activities
[and you then quote the commander of NATO forces] to `push it
to the edge' jeopardises both the safety of the troops and the
stabilisation mission." Where and when have poppy eradication
schemes been targeted in Helmand province particularly?
Ms MacDonald: They started a month
ago, they are underway as we speak and there is violence associated
with almost every eradication attempt on a regular basis. They
are led by an American private military company called Dynacorp
with the Afghan National Army. I saw the eradication teams coming
along the road; the first night they arrived in Lashkar Gah there
was a stand-off attack on their compound. It is a regular occurrence.
We are all committed to the end of heroin trafficking from Afghanistan;
however, as was stated, there is no viable alternative livelihood
and the UN policy states that there should be no forced poppy
crop eradication unless there is an alternative livelihood. I
have visited villages the day after there has been eradication
and because they equate the Dynacorp men with the foreign military,
when I say "Who was here?" they say "The foreigners
were here." "Which foreigners?" They do not know
the difference so, sadly, if the British military goes into a
district after an eradication they are on the receiving end of
the anger and the violence of the local community. So it is fundamentally
impossible for counter-insurgency tactics to be undertaking eradication
because of the response it engenders in the community while at
the same time trying to win the hearts and minds campaign. That
is an unfortunate reality.
Q155 Linda Gilroy: Some commentators
have said that those eradication incidents that you have described
are actually the Taliban being clever about that. Do you have
sufficient evidence to know whether that could be true or not?
Ms MacDonald: Yes, that has been
reported and they are very clever in the hearts and minds strategies.
Also, unfortunately, the poppy crop eradication is happening with
the poorest farmers who are unable to pay the bribes, so that
is another way for them to go in there and provide the support
to show that they are the ones that are caring and concerned about
the livelihoods of the locals. Their propaganda machine is very
sophisticated, they are from there, they speak the language, they
know how to build support there and it is something that we do
not have the same background and instant history in, and that
is why I believe that they are prevailing in the hearts and minds
campaign.
Q156 Linda Gilroy: We take it from
that you are not opposed to eradication of poppy if there could
be an alternative livelihood programme.
Ms MacDonald: Absolutely.
Q157 Linda Gilroy: Have you seen
in your time there any alternative livelihood programmes apart
from the illicit poppy crop that you recommend? Have you seen
any other successful alternative livelihood programmes at all?
Ms MacDonald: They are not successful
yet and they cannot be because you need an irrigation system,
and the beginnings of an irrigation programme has been funded
by USAID, but that will take three to five years. That is a very
good CADG that is running that—I have forgotten, the acronym
...
Dr Greenall: Central Asia Development
Group.
Ms MacDonald: That is a fantastic
programme and it should be supported, it is absolutely necessary.
When we talk about poppy licences for medicine we are not saying
it should happen, we are saying it should be tested because there
are a lot of outstanding questions, so I want to be very clear
about that. It is successful in Turkey and in India, it should
be looked at in Afghanistan because it will send a positive message,
it will support the Karzai government and it should be tested.
We are not taking the position that it should be implemented.
Linda Gilroy: You must understand the
concerns that people have; this is such a fragile society with
so little in the way of security that if you look at that proposal,
warts and all and not just as the ideal, it could actually just
feed into making Afghanistan a narco-economy and it would be very
difficult without security—
Mr Jenkin: That is what it is.
Q158 Linda Gilroy: I said feed into
making it a narco-economy, I accept that it already is there,
but it would not solve the problem it would just continue the
problem. What part of your proposal actually tackles that and
gets it in the right direction of travel?
Ms MacDonald: These are legitimate
concerns, which is why I said we are not taking the position that
it should be implemented, we are saying it should be tested—and
I have another handout. What we would like to try—and I
want to be very specific—is we would like to run pilot projects
in the next planting season these test projects in Helmand province.
We are prepared to do that with a proper set of monitors etc.
What we have found in a lot of the research we have done—and
I believe a lot of you have already seen our feasibility study,
and if you have not seen it we will happily give you copies of
that—and the follow-up is there are two things that Afghanistan
has: one is an opium crop and the second is very strong local
control at the village level. When you go into the villages it
is not chaos, it is a very controlled environment and what we
would like to try and test is what we call a "village-based
model" so that the licence would actually be given to the
local community and if anybody breaches the licence it means that
the local community loses their licence. It would be predicated
on them delivering—you can figure out exactly how much they
should deliver for each village and they have to deliver an accurate
amount or they lose their licence. It would be used to produce
codeine tablets so you are not transporting around the province
the raw opium. There is a series of devices that we would like
to test to see whether we can answer what we think are legitimate
concerns. The thing about trying is that you would be sending
a positive message to local people that we are with them trying
to find solutions. Any village that gets a licence would also
have to be committed to diversifying; we do not think there should
be a mono crop. There is a series of conditions that you could
put in place. All of this would actually give them one reason
to support the Karzai government and we think it is very important
to give them reasons at this moment to support the Karzai government
and the presence of the international community but, as I said,
we are not saying it should happen, we are saying it should be
tested and see what the results are and whether those legitimate
concerns that you have expressed can be dealt with in some innovative
models.
Q159 Linda Gilroy: Has that in fact
been attempted in any other part of Afghanistan, the use of the
local Jirgas?
Ms MacDonald: No, it has not.
We would start to do it in Helmand and in Kandahar and Nangarhar.
As I said, we want to try and find the proper vehicle to do that
that would give the proper political assurances and make sure
that all the relevant agencies were involved in the process and
monitoring.
Dr Akiner: Everyone speaks as
though in Afghanistan there has always been illegal cultivation
of the poppy crop; in fact, until the mid 1980s if we look to
the Afghan experience they grew poppies for opium under strict
UN control and the system worked, for the reasons that you have
pointed out: that there was local control as well as central government
control. The system broke down in the second half of the 1980s
as the Mujahideen began to embark on an operation, arms for opium—rather
similar and possibly with the same people involved as arms for
drugs in Nicaragua. The genie is out of the bottle now and all
the solutions that are being suggested are certainly worth testing,
but if you are looking at the bigger picture what will happen
for sure is that the poppy plantations in Afghanistan are eradicated
they will simply move across the border to Tajikistan, to Pakistan,
to Xinjiang so the problem as such will not go away. You might
be able to solve it in Afghanistan using all sorts of levers and
pressure points, but the problem is much bigger. What we are also
seeing now throughout the region is the growth of local addiction
and a rise in the popularity of synthetic drugs. This is where
the surrounding states—Iran, Russia and China—are
particularly concerned because it directly affects them. In any
strategy for controlling and hopefully eradicating, as far as
that is conceivable, illegal cultivation of poppies, they need
to be involved because they are the ones who are also suffering
directly. We often talk as though it is simply a problem for us,
but it is not.
2 See Ev 89 Back
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