The Afghan Mellat's Position on Current Issues

 

 

 

 

 

Afghanistan announces 4.75 bln dollar budget, funded mainly by donors

Published: 4/3/2005
KABUL - Afghanistan's finance minister announced Sunday a 4.75 billion dollar budget for 2005 to be funded mostly by international donors.

Some 93 percent of total budget will come from international assistance, of which more than three-quarters will go to development projects to be directly managed by donors, Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady said.

The Afghan government is only committing 333 million dollars to the budget, he said.

"With government budget, we can only pay wages and finance existing programs, because most of international aid is managed by the international community itself, and we cannot control it," said Adib Farhadi, director for development services with the Ministry of Reconstruction

The budget was announced a day before the opening of a development forum in the capital Kabul to discuss the distribution of international assistance for the country, devastated by decades of war and now battling a Islamic insurgency carried out in part by members of the ousted Taliban regime.

The forum comes as the Afghan government presses for more control over its own budget.

"With this forum, we have the opportunity to tell the world that although there are still important humanitarian needs, we, Afghans, would like to participate more in the reconstruction of our country," Farhadi said.

"We've come a tremendous way over the last three years. We built the basic capacity for accountability and transparency. Due to this, we'd like more money to go through government channels, and be able to finance national development projects," he said.

 

04/03/2005 18:34 GMT

 

 

 

Afghanistan wants aid, not loans, for development 19 Apr 2005 18:46:56 GMT
 

Source: Reuters

WASHINGTON, April 19 (Reuters) - Afghanistan would quickly run into debt trouble if it had to borrow money to rebuild its infrastructure and needs more international grants, Kabul's finance minister said on Tuesday.

Minister Anwar Ul-Haq Ahady also said Afghanistan wants more of the nearly $13 billion in foreign aid that was pledged to the war-torn country directed to state coffers so that the government can take on tasks now done by U.N. and nongovernmental organizations.

"Our debt sustainability level is very low. We cannot really borrow a large amount to rebuild our infrastructure," Ahady said. He did not give detailed debt figures.

Ahady said Kabul had made headway recovering from 25 years of war but that more needed to be done.

"If we want rescue Afghanistan from a situation of being a failed state, we will have to pay attention to infrastructure to enable the private sector to invest and to employ people," he said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.

"Transport and power are the two most important priorities for investment and we would like these to be done by international grants and assistance," he said.

As much as 70 percent of the $4.5 billion the world pledged in 2002 after U.S.-backed forces ousted the Taliban militia was spent to meet humanitarian needs such as helping refugees return and resettle, he said.

Donors pledged another $8.4 billion for three years in Berlin in 2004, against Kabul's request for $27 billion over eight years. Much of this amount was being spent on security, Ahady said, leaving little for roads, housing and urban development.

Ahady reiterated Kabul's call for a bigger share of funds provided to the country, of which he said two thirds went to NGOs and U.N. agencies that were doing work in health and education that Afghans could do more cheaply.

"The government of Afghanistan should be accountable and most of the resources should be channeled through the government budget," he said, noting that Kabul has recently launched a crackdown on corrupt officials.

"There will be greater coherence, greater effectiveness and even with the existing amount of resources, I think we will get a lot more value for money," Ahady said.

 

NGOs form 'parallel' government in Afghanistan: minister

Tue Apr 19,11:38 PM ET
 

WASHINGTON (AFP) -

Afghanistan's finance minister, Anwar-ul-Haq Ahady said that NGOs were running a 'parallel' unaccountable government in his country as it seeks to rebuild its economy.
 

Ahady said aid to Afghanistan needed to be funnelled to the government directly instead of through aid agencies which have "become a parallel government."

"The function of the government has been taken over by others," he said in a speech at the Center for Strategic and International Studies here on Tuesday.

Ahady questioned why most health services and education were administered by non government organizations instead of the education or public health ministries.

"The government is accountable to the people. NGOs are not accountable to the people," he said. Ahady noted that non-governmental agencies do not pay taxes or levies on the materials they import and do not risk their own money like private investors.

"We welcome them, but they should get their money from somewhere else," rather than from the pool of international aid, he said.

Ahady said his country would need considerable amounts of continued international aid as it rebuilds.

"Afghanistan was a failed state. The objective was to rescue that failed state," Ahady said of the complete political and economic reconstruction Afghanistan undertook after the fall of the fundamentalist Taliban regime in 2001. "Our own resources are absolutely inadequate."

Ahady said Afghanistan is in the middle of a "comprehensive social revolution," in which both values and institutions change dramatically.

The minister said the transition to a liberal economy was encouraging private investment and that the security situation was improving with warlordism "almost finished."

But, he said, Afghanistan could not sustain the changes without support from donor countries in the form of grants, not loans.

"We need, if not billions, than at least hundreds of millions of dollars for roads," he said. "We cannot really borrow a large amount to rebuild our infrastructure. If we borrowed, we would very soon end up in a fiscal crisis."

 

 

  Afghan Social Democratic Party

 The resolution of the

Afghan social democratic party (Afghan Mellat)

Regarding Pakistan’s recent Attacks on Afghanistan’s territory 

In the past few days, Pakistan’s armed forces have conducted serious military operations in the autonomous tribal areas as well as in some areas in Afghanistan’s Ningarhar and Kunar provinces.

The people of Afghanistan cannot remain indifferent to these military operations.

That is why we have gathered today in Kabul and resolve:

·        We condemn Pakistanis military operations in the eastern provinces of Afghanistan.

·        The people of Afghanistan destine friendly relations with our neighbors; however, they will defend every piece of this land against foreign aggression.

·        We demand the withdrawal of Pakistanis forces to their former positions and we ask other foreign powers not to make deals detrimental to the territorial integrity of Afghanistan.

·        We oppose terrorism and we volunteer our participation in the fight against terrorism, but we will never tolerate foreign attacks on our land in the name of fight against terrorism.

·        We warn all powers not to exploit the crisis in Afghanistan and to engage in activities that will dismember Afghanistan.

·        In our views the government of Afghanistan is responsible for the defense of every piece of this land.

·        We ask the people of Afghanistan to demonstrate national unity and to resolutely defend our homeland.

 

July 8, 2003

 

 

By Dr. M. Amin Wakman

Getting Afghanistan Right

Few tragedies compare with the fate of Afghanistan since the overthrow of King Zahir Shah by Mohammed Daud in 1973 almost three decades ago. Under the monarchy Afghanistan was able to maintain stability along with a tribal society with multiple ethnicities loosely governed by a "Persianized" elite based in Kabul. The end of the monarchy was a result of divisions within the elite. In further elite struggles which now involved the armed forces, Daud himself was overthrown and killed in short succession by a Soviet backed government, which failed to inspire the broad loyalty that previous governments had commanded across the country. From this situation to the Soviet invasion of 1979 was a remarkably quick process. The Soviet invasion and subsequent withdrawal produced constant warfare, mass exile of the Afghan population.

During the first of these last decades, the United States stood with the people of Afghanistan, who wanted above all for the Soviet Army to leave their country. During the second, the U.S. sealed its victory in the Cold War, lost interest in Afghanistan and abandoned its people to chaos and the tender mercies of neighboring states - especially Pakistan. The solicitude of such neighbors has produced the Taleban - a harsh medieval regime with no basis in Afghan tradition or Afghan Islam, which has deprived Afghanistan of any hope for its future, even as it has nurtured threats to the world beyond its borders. In retrospect, the destruction the twin Buddhas of Bamyan, a priceless part of Afghanistan's cultural heritage, was a precursor to the destruction of the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center.

The United States role in the future of Afghanistan politics is crucial to ensure against terrorism within its own borders and at the same providing relief to the millions of innocent Afghans caught in the crossfire of warring factions. In its own interest the US should simultaneously work to bring Osama Bin Laden and his cohorts to justice and work to install a progressive government. The US should work with King Zaher Shah to replace the Taleban and start a process of national peacemaking with the help of "loya jirga" (traditional Afghan national council), which he has promised to initiate. In other words King Zaher Shah should take the opportunity to not set the clock back to 1000 A.D., as the Taleban would have it, but to bring Afghanistan back to where it was and where it had the potential to go in 1973. The Northern Alliance, who ruled Afghanistan for four years, proved they are not capable of governing the nation. If the majority Pashtuns do not have the leadership role, their rule would be that of the ethnic minorities alone and would not be in the interest of true political stability. With the Taleban and Northern Alliance both proving ineffective at bringing about peace and stability in Afghanistan, it has come time for King Zaher Shah to pacify and unite the country, which will look inwards to reconstruction and cease to be a threat. This is the best solution for Afghanistan as well as ending world terrorism originating in Afghanistan.

Despite what one hears from Pakistan and other self-appointed guardians of the Muslim world, the great majority of Afghans would welcome real change, especially if this change should come under the auspices of the United Nations. Afghans are tired of repressive regimes and decades of war that have torn apart the people and their nation.

In his address to Congress, President Bush outlined a vision which logically leads to this outcome. He has even called on the Afghan people to replace the Taleban. Since then the Administration has seemed to step back from such an objective, perhaps partly at the behest of Pakistan, which has falsely been warning of a catastrophe if the Taleban were to be replaced. I believe this would be a grave mistake. If the Taleban continue, as with Saddam Hussain's Iraq, the US will be forced to quarantine them which will not only become yet another continuing engagement and source of tension in the Islamic world but will also inflict continued suffering on the innocent people of Afghanistan. In retrospect in 1992 it would have been better for the US to have kept the threat of military action alive for another week to force Saddam Hussain's downfall instead of ending up with a military commitment for the next decade, that is also ethically problematic in extracting a heavy toll from ordinary Iraqis caught between their regime and the US. Today the practical and ethical course of action is to oust the Taleban and enable a moderate Afghanistan to return to the family of nations.

Dr. M. Amin Wakman served in the Afghan Government under King Zaher Shah and President Daud. He is the author of two books on Afghanistan and is the former Chairman, and current honorary Chairman (in exile) of the Afghan Social Democrats.

 

 

 

Russian Threats Against Afghanistan

The Executive Committee of the Afghan Social Democratic Party (Afghan Mellat) met on June 1, 2000 to discuss the recent threatening remarks of the high level Russian governmental officials against Afghanistan. Subsequently, the Afghan Social Democratic Party (ASDP) issued the following statement:

The ASDP (Afghan Mellat) condemns the recent threatening remarks by the high level Russian governmental officials against Afghanistan. The ASDP believes that no one has the right to attack Afghanistan from the air or ground. The ASDP believes that any air or ground attack on Afghanistan will be a clear violation of international norms. God forbid, if our beloved country is attacked by any power, we urge all the Afghans to put aside their differences and to unite in defense of the homeland. The ASDP believes that the current 20-year-old tragedy in Afghanistan is the direct consequence of the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. The Russian Federation should be correcting its past mistakes in dealing with Afghanistan instead of committing new ones. The ASDP assures the Russian Federation that if it ever makes the mistake of attacking Afghanistan again, it will once again find the Afghans united in their determination to defeat the aggressor.

 

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