War and Peace Economies of Afghanistan's Strongmen

Abstract

Afghanistan's war economy started taking its current shape after 1992, when the main politico-military actors had to find alternative sources of revenue, having been dropped by their international sponsors. The same actors integrated into the ‘peace economy’ following the official end to the war in 2001, in a process which resembles the formation of ‘mafia’ networks, in which the narcotics trade appears to play an important role. If the central government turns out to be too corrupt and uncommitted to address the issue, the international community might one day have to directly engage these actors in order to facilitate their evolution from ‘robber barons’ to legitimate magnates.

Notes

1. For a definition of a ‘warlord’ see Antonio Giustozzi, The Debate on Warlordism, London: Crisis States Research Centre, LSE, 2005, where I stress the importance of military legitimacy in order to understand warlordism. In short ‘strongmen’ is a more generic term which includes not just warlords but also a variety of armed political actors who lack the military capabilities of the warlords proper. For the purpose of this article, it is not essential to distinguish between warlords and other types of strongmen, and the latter term will be used throughout.

2. Among the most detailed accounts to date are Alain Labrousse, Afghanistan: Opium de guerre, opium de paix, Paris: Fayard, 2005 and Stéphane Allix, Afghanistan, aux sources de la drogue, Paris: Ramsay, 2003. See also Jonathan Goodhand, ‘From Holy War to Opium War? A case study of the opium economy in North Eastern Afghanistan’, Central Asian Survey, Vol.19, No.2, 2000, pp.265–80.

3. On this see also Chris Cramer and Jonathan Goodhand, ‘Try Again, Fail Again, Fail Better? War, the State and the “Post-Conflict” Challenge in Afghanistan’, Development and Change, Vol.33, No.5, 2002, pp.885–909.

4. Barnett R. Rubin, ‘The Political Economy of War and Peace in Afghanistan’, paper presented at the meeting of the Afghanistan Support Group, Stockholm, 21 June 1999, accessed at www.institute-for-afghan-studies.org/ECONOMY/political_economy_of_war_peace.htm.

5. See in this regard Mats Berdal and David M. Malone (eds), Greed and Grievances. Economic Agendas in Civil Wars, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2000; Karen Ballentine and Jack Sherman (eds), The Political Economy of Armed Conflict, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2003.

6. Jonathan Goodhand, ‘Afghanistan in Central Asia’, in Michael Pugh and Neil Cooper with Jonathan Goodhand, War Economies in a Regional Context: Challenges of Transformation, Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2004.

7. Interview with UN official, Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005.

8. Interview with a World Bank official in Kabul, February 2005.

9. Interviews with UN officials and Afghan administrative official, Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005.

10. On the economic interests of the Fahim clan, see S. Frederick Starr, ‘Karzai's Fiscal Foes and How to Beat Them’, in Mark Sedra (ed.), Confronting Afghanistan's Security Dilemma, Bonn: BICC, 2003, pp.45–8.

11. Interview with UN official, Jalalabad, May 2005.

12. Interviews with UN officials and administrative officials, Kandahar, Mar. 2005.

13. Interviews with Afghan businessmen and intellectuals, Herat, Nov. 2004.

14. Interview with UN official, Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005. This official was acquainted with an employee of Kam Air.

15. This is the case, for example, of Mohaqqeq in Mazar-i Sharif in 2005, according to one informer who used to work for one of his associates and who was interviewed by the author in May 2005.

16. Interviews (see n.12 above).

17. Interview with UN official, Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005.

18. Interviews with Afghan businessmen, Kabul/Mazar-i Sharif/Herat, May 2005.

19. Interview with Professor Yusufi, member of the Professional Council of Herat, May 2005.

20. Interview with former official of the National Bank, Herat, May 2005.

21. AACC, ‘Doing Business in Afghanistan: Report on Meetings with Afghan Entrepreneurs in Kabul and Kandahar’, Afghanistan, Dec. 2002, p.12, accessed at www.cipe.org/regional/nis/aacc.pdf.

22. Interview with Afghan businessman, Herat, May 2005.

23. Interview with businessman in Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005. This of course implied the tolerance of the Turkish government. In northern Afghanistan, Junbesh appeared to be considered by the Turkish consulate as its natural interlocutor.

24. Personal communication with Simonetta Rossi, who interviewed many small traders during her research in Afghanistan in spring 2005.

25. See, e.g., on northern Afghanistan Kate Clark, ‘In the Shadow of the Gun’, BBC News, 30 June 2005, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4118820.stm.

26. Interview with former UN official, London, January 2006, with regard to Helmand province.

27. Interviews with farmers and local notables from Baghlan province, Kunduz, Jan.–April 2004.

28. According to the author's personal communication with UN official in Kunduz, October 2003, one such incident occurred in autumn 2003 to a commander of Takhar, Mutalleb Beg, whose vehicle was seized in Salang. Mutalleb was not in the vehicle at the time of seizure. Another example, concerning a general of the Ministry of Defence from eastern Afghanistan who was arrested with a truckload of heroin, is mentioned in Barnett R. Rubin, Road to Ruin: Afghanistan's Booming Opium Industry, Center for American Progress/Center for International Cooperation, 2004, p.10, accessed at www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/afghan/2004/1007roadtoruin.pdf.

29. The author was a UN official in Mazar-i Sharif (Balkh province) at the time.

30. Personal communications with UN official, Faizabad, October 2003 and March 2004.

31. Interviews in Kabul, September 2004.

32. See, inter alia, Rubin (see n.28 above), p.10.

33. See UNODC, Afghanistan: opium survey 2004, Nov. 2004, p.66.

34. As reported by eyewitnesses interviewed by the author in Mazar-i Sharif, May 2005.

35. See n.31 above.

36. As acknowledged by Karzai himself and former Minister of the Interior Jalali. See ‘Corruption hampering investment: Karzai’, Daily Times [Pakistan], 16 June 2003; Toby Harnden, ‘Drug Trade Reaches to Afghan Cabinet’ Daily Telegraph [London], 5 February 2006. See also Hafizollah Gardish, ‘Corruption rampant at every level’, Institute of War and Peace Reporting, Afghanistan Recovery Report, no.20, 2004; Scott Baldauf and Faye Bowers, ‘Afghanistan riddled with drug ties’, Christian Science Monitor, 13 May 2005; Ali A. Jalali, ‘The future of Afghanistan’, Parameters, Spring 2006, p.12.

37. Jonathan Goodhand, ‘Frontiers and Wars: the Opium Economy in Afghanistan’, Journal of Agrarian Change, Vol.4, Nos.1/2, Jan./April 2004, pp.191–216.

38. Interview with US officers involved in the reform of Islam Qala customs, Herat, May 2005. The linkages between the legal and the illegal economy appear to be expanding even beyond what is described in Christopher Ward and William Byrd, Afghanistan's Opium Drug Economy, World Bank, 2004, pp.27–31.

39. Personal observation travelling through Afghanistan. See also Country Information & Policy Unit, Immigration and Nationality Directorate, Afghanistan Country Report, London: Home Office, Oct. 2003, para.6.61; Swedish Migration Board (Migrationsverket), Report on fact-finding mission to Afghanistan, 22–30 Nov. 2002, published April 2003, p.17, cited in Country Information & Policy Unit, Immigration and Nationality Directorate, Afghanistan Country Report, London: Home Office, April 2004, para.6.110.

40. On the situation in 2002 see Tod Robberson, ‘Afghans’ freedom comes at a price', The Dallas Morning News, 3 Jan. 2002; United States Institute of Peace, Establishing the Rule of Law in Afghanistan, Special Report No.117, March 2004, www.usip.org/pubs/specialreports/sr117.html; John Pomfret, ‘Anxiety on the Border. “Mafia” Traders Fear Life After Taliban’, Washington Post, 28 Nov. 2001, www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A24873-2001Nov27?language = printer.

41. Interview with former official of the Ministry of Transportation, Herat, May 2005.

42. Interviews with farmers and local notables, Kunduz/Teluqan/Mazar-i Sharif/Maimana, Oct. 2003–Sept. 2004.

43. Interviews with businessmen in Herat, May 2005. The transfer of customs revenue from Herat to Kabul started before the removal of Ismail Khan from the position of governor and did not show significant increases in the first six months after his replacement. See Anthony Loyd, ‘Afghan warlord closes in on prize city’, The Times [London], 25 Aug. 2004.

44. Timothy Raeymaekers, Collapse Or Order? Questioning State Collapse in Africa, Working Paper 1, Ghent, Conflict Research Group, May 2005.

45. Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, Ministry of Counter-Narcotics, National Drug Control Strategy: An Updated 5-year Strategy for Tackling the Illicit Drug Problem, Kabul, Jan. 2006, accessed at www.fco.gov.uk/Files/kfile/NDCS%20-%20Final%20PDF%20version.pdf.

46. Ibid., p.26.

47. Ibid.

48. Ibid., pp.27–8.

49. Written statement by Lord Triesman, Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, FCO, London, 14 Feb. 2006, www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200405/ldhansrd/pdvn/lds06/text/60214-18.htm. At the London Conference, Jan.–Feb. 2006, contributions to the Counter-Narcotics Trust Fund for US$57 million were announced by several donor countries to implement the campaign.

50. Interviews in Kabul, Jan.–Feb. 2006.

51. For a discussion of the issue, see D. Mansfield and A. Pain, Alternative Livelihoods: Substance or Slogan?, Kabul, AREU, October 2005.

52. For example, he pardoned six officials of the Ministry of Hajj convicted of corruption. See Marc W. Herold, ‘Pseudo-development in Karzai's Afghanistan. Afghanistan as an empty space, part two’, accessed at www.cursor.org/stories/emptyspace2.html.

53. Personal communications with researcher on narcotics issues and with UN official, Kabul, May 2005.

54. William Reno, ‘Warlords and Debureaucratising African States’, Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association, 1995, cited by Mark Duffield, Global Governance and the New Wars: The Merging of Development and Security, London: Zed Books, 2001, p.175.