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Under Siege in Afghanistan, Aid Groups Say
Their Effort Is Being Criticized UnfairlyBy Carlotta Gall and Amy Waldman
New York Times
December 19, 2004During the Soviet occupation, the civil war that followed, the rule of the Taliban and its aftermath, aid groups like CARE and the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan filled the gaps where a state had once been, providing education, health care, and employment to Afghans at home and in exile. Today, as Afghanistan struggles to rebuild, the groups continue to support schools and clinics, provide clean drinking water, and more, often carrying out projects for a government without the capacity to do so itself. But many of the groups say they feel besieged as perhaps never before.
They cannot reach parts of the country because of security threats. They are being blamed by many Afghans for the slow pace of reconstruction. They are accused of squandering funds on expensive cars and homes, and high salaries. They are being confused with soldiers and private security contractors who carry weapons but wear civilian clothes. And they are being held accountable for the actions, or lack thereof, of numerous fly-by-night aid organizations seeking to cash in on Afghanistan's rebuilding.
There are now 335 international nongovernment organizations and 2,300 Afghan groups registered with the Ministry of Planning, whose departing head, Ramazan Bachardoust, has led a personal crusade against the nongovernment organizations, as they are known here. Last weekend, he announced that 1,935 of those organizations would be dissolved for failing to work according to the law, causing alarm among international and Afghan employees, and embarrassing President Hamid Karzai, whose press spokesman played down the announcement as the minister's personal proposal. Mr. Bachardoust resigned Monday over the affair.
His announcement was the latest in a series of verbal attacks he has made against the aid groups in the eight months he has been minister. In one meeting with the groups he even suggested that they were as bad for the country as Al Qaeda. "The majority of Afghan people hate the nongovernment organizations - they think they are all rubbish," he said in an interview in September. Soon afterward, a mob attacked the offices of two aid groups in the northern city of Faizabad because of suspicions of sexual assault of female workers, whose employment by aid groups is already a delicate issue for many Afghans. Mr. Bachardoust told Agence France-Presse that such attacks on aid organizations in Afghanistan are "inevitable" because they are wasting money that should be spent for Afghans.
The aid groups say such talk is not only unfair, but may be encouraging attacks on them. At least 26 aid workers have been killed this year. A French group, Doctors Without Borders, withdrew from the country in July after 24 years here mainly because it said the government had done too little to bring to justice the killers of five of its workers. Aid workers said the failure to arrest or even release the names of the killers, whose identities were widely known, sent a message that such attacks could be mounted with impunity.
In September, after the government dismissed Ismail Khan, the powerful governor of the western province of Herat, a move supported by the United Nations, a mob looted and burned 15 offices of United Nations and other agencies in the city of Herat. After the presidential elections Oct. 9, which were sponsored by the United Nations, three foreign election workers were kidnapped and held for three weeks by a Taliban splinter group.
Aid groups say Mr. Karzai has sent mixed messages, pledging support for "good" aid groups - and condemning the recent violence against them - but also allowing Mr. Bachardoust free rein. Some aid groups privately wonder whether the government sees in them a convenient diversion from its own reconstruction failures.
The debate over the aid groups sits on the fault line of larger questions: Why has reconstruction lagged? Who has the right to undertake it? What is the best way to increase the capacity of the government while also meeting the needs of the Afghan people?
It also plays into Afghans' long-held suspicion of foreigners and their intentions. In Kabul, many Afghans see a mismatch between the numbers of foreigners and the resources available to them, and the results. The capital is packed with foreign workers employed by aid groups as well as the United Nations and private contractors. But this summer the city often had electricity only eight hours a day. It continues to suffer from a lack of hospital beds, sewage facilities, clean water and housing. Afghans see foreign workers driving sport utility vehicles, paying rents of as much as $13,000 a month, and crowding restaurants and bars, and conclude that aid workers' living standards have come at the expense of their own.
Javed, a 22-year-old student in the Microrayon section of Kabul, gestured at a gash in the street that was filled with trash and sewage. The work of nongovernment organizations is to come and repair this, but "we don't see them," he said. "Why are they here?" he asked. "Why don't they do this kind of work? They just rent nice houses and drive nice cars."
Barbara Stapleton, the advocacy and policy coordinator for the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief, an umbrella organization for 95 well-established aid groups, said the salaries paid by most aid groups were well below those of United Nations employees or private contractors. But most Afghans have no way to tell the difference.
Mr. Bachardoust has tapped into this confusion and frustration. Governments give money for the Afghan people, he said, "and nongovernment organizations use this money for their life." He accused them of spending about 70 percent of their money for administration and said he knew of one aid group director who had imported four cars at a cost of $40,000 each. "The Afghan people are angry," he said. "We do not have enough to eat, and they import - without tax - cars for a luxurious life."
Leading aid groups strongly deny Mr. Bachardoust's accusation, challenging him to prove any corruption on their part. Most groups say they spend no more than 15 percent of their budgets on administration. Roz Muhammad Dalili, the executive director of the Sanayee Development Foundation, said his group's most expensive car cost $10,000, and its highest salary is $1,000 a month, with the average around $300. Paul Barker, the country director for CARE, said that his group, which employs eight international staff and 800 Afghans, has not bought a new Land Cruiser since 1989 and relies mostly on rented or secondhand cars. He travels around Kabul by bicycle.
Many aid groups also say that circumstances dictate much of their spending. "Afghanistan is a rough and insecure place to work," Mr. Barker said, "and that requires agencies to invest more heavily in security measures than they would prefer." Others point out that despite Mr. Bachardoust's criticisms, other government ministries are using aid groups to carry out major programs. If the NGO's are bad, why were they selected to carry out major reconstruction programs? Mr. Dalili asked. Five of Mr. Dalili's workers were killed in a still-unsolved attack in February.
But many aid groups say they agree with some of Mr. Bachardoust's points. "Most of us would agree with between 70 and 80 percent of what he says," said Dave Mather, the managing director for Afghanaid, a British group whose activities here date to 1983. "A lot of agencies are only here for the money."
The groups say the solution is to pass legislation that could help separate the good and bad aid groups and increase accountability. But Mr. Mather said many groups agreed with Mr. Bachardoust's contention that more resources needed to go to the government so it could develop the capacity to carry out reconstruction work itself. Aid workers also say having civilian contractors, some of them armed, working for the American-led coalition on construction work, confuses civilians.
The government clearly intends to continue its firm line on nongovernmental organizations even after Mr. Bachardoust's departure. Work on an evaluation of nongovernmental organizations and legislation to regulate them would continue, said a presidential spokesman, Jawed Ludin. "This is something that the people of Afghanistan are concerned about, and this is something that will be pursued very seriously," he said.
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