After the 'liberation', a forgotten nation falls apart

By KIM SENGUPTA in London

At the Nato summit in Istanbul, the US and Britain squared up to France yet again. But this time the row was not over Iraq. They quarrelled over which troops should be sent to a country that had already been liberated - Afghanistan.

Amid the wrangling, one man cut a forlorn figure. Hamid Karzai, the Afghan leader appointed with a nod of approval from the West, cares little whether it is a Nato response force or reserve troops that fly in. He simply needs help.

"I would like you to please hurry. Come sooner than September, please." September is when elections are due.

Tony Blair may have pledged that Afghanistan would not be abandoned, but after the Taleban was ousted, Washington and London's focus shifted east to Iraq.

Meanwhile, the toll of dead and maimed is rising. The infrastructure is non-existent, opium production is rocketing, warlords control large swathes of the country, and the Taleban are back. Afghanistan is unravelling piece by piece.

The Afghan elections have been postponed already, from June, due to the endemic violence. A second cancellation may finish off what is left of the Afghan president's credibility.

According to international agencies, out of 10.5 million people eligible to vote, only 1.6 million have been registered. (President Karzai maintains at least five million names are now on the electoral list.)

What is not disputed, however, is that the Islamists, the Taleban and the forces of warlords have systematically targeted United Nations workers organising the elections, as well as international aid workers.

Dozens have been murdered and the UN has pulled out of some areas.

Three years ago, Karzai was the toast of the West. Since then he has survived coups and assassination attempts.

Some of his allies did not. Vice-President Haji Abdul Qadir was shot dead in Kabul, and the civil aviation minister, Abdul Rahman, was beaten to death at the capital's airport.

It was intended that the body charged with keeping peace, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), would spread out of Kabul to the rest of the country three years ago. But its 6500 members remain stuck in the capital.

The ISAF commander, the Canadian Major General Rick Hillier, asked for just 10 helicopters; not one has been delivered.

And it remains extremely dangerous in Kabul. After the fall of the Taleban, the streets were busy until the 10pm curfew. Now they are deserted by 8pm. Gunfire echoes at night. Just a few weeks ago, two aid workers were stoned to death only 15 minutes from the centre of the city.

The Government of Hamid Karzai was supposed to gain control of the country, and the key to this was the warlords, who ran virtually autonomous fiefdoms backed up by private armies.

But temporary concessions were followed by setbacks. The failure of international forces to enforce the writ of the government outside Kabul has allowed the warlords to re-establish themselves.

Karzai has sought $US27.5 billion ($43.66 billion) in international aid over seven years, and received just a fraction of this. The money for humanitarian programmes, so far, has been $US4.5 billion.

In the meantime, the military bill for the Pentagon is a staggering $50 billion. While the ISAF cannot get even one helicopter, the US military is involved in operations in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. Its mission is not primarily, however, security inside Afghanistan, but a hunt for Osama bin Laden.

The Karzai Government has made a determined effort to return children to school after the years of Taleban law which saw education reduced to ritual chanting from the Koran.

The UN says school attendance has doubled, with nearly two million enrolled, but poverty has meant many children are now drifting off to work to help support their families.

After the war, dozens of girls' schools reopened throughout the country. But the Islamist backlash has seen many closed down again.

Last month three young girls, aged eight to 10, were poisoned in eastern Afghanistan, apparently as a punishment for attending lessons.

The years of war and neglect have left the Afghan economy at not much above subsistence level. Fifty per cent of the Afghan gross national product comes from drugs. According to the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy, the area of poppy cultivation has grown from 1685ha in 2001 to 61,000ha last year.

Attempts have been made to restore water and power. But Taleban strikes have halted much of that. Only 9 per cent of people have access to electricity. Safe drinking water is estimated to be restricted to 6 per cent.

- INDEPENDENT