10/13, "Afghans pay off Taliban with 'American Money,'" Reuters, by H. Shalizi
- This should not be news.
"The Taliban have declared war on a $114 million road being built with US funds. Paul McGeough and SBS Dateline cameraman David Brill travelled to Afghanistan's south-east, where insurgents get their cut of the money through a protection racket.
EVERYONE, even the Taliban, gets a slice of the action when it comes to building roads in Afghanistan. High in the Hindu Kush, where bursts of lavender enliven a fading alpine carpet of summer's grasses, winks, nods and timely backhanders make the insurgents a key, albeit unofficial, party when big money is divided.
It is effectively the Taliban who decide which local contractors will work on a project - either by setting a level of protection money that the contractor can afford to pay, or by using bullets and bombs to halt their participation entirely.
- The Taliban also keep an eye on local individuals who get work on the project - especially those doing the all-important security jobs.
- Overseeing the K-G Road is US engineer Steve Yahn, a 53-year-old Massachusetts father who has been building roads in Afghanistan since 2002 so that he can afford to send his children to college.
He is acutely aware of the challenge ahead. ''On the earlier projects, including the Kabul-Kandahar Road, we had 136 workers killed and 158 wounded," he says. "But that was on open, flat land in the south. This one is much harder in terms of security and engineering."
Since groundwork began on the K-G Road in May last year, Mr Yahn has lost 16 workers - 13 dead and three missing - and 19 have been wounded. The project has about 1000 workers: two security men for each construction worker. Most are Afghans hired by local sub-contractors.
- But the South-African-run security operation includes Romanians and Gurkhas.
Deals in which the Taliban top up their coffers by demanding as much as 30 per cent of the value of a contract as protection money are rife. As project manager for the US contractor Louis Berger Group, Mr Yahn is aware of the Taliban pressure on his local contractors - their staff get kidnapped and their vehicles burnt, they are harassed and threatened, and many of their workers fear for their lives....
The Taliban rules insist on maximum local employment and, among other things, that all road-construction vehicles fly the white flag of the Taliban.
- It is easy to be shocked by all this. But Mr Yahn says he has seen it all before - in another place, at another time.
"You do construction work in New York City and you'll find the same thing, just different labels - there, the factions are politicians, the Mafia and labour unions. In New York, Boston, on the Baltimore docks, there's a lot of this stuff at work," he says.
"They're not all bad," he says of the Taliban, drawing a parallel with the conservatism of some American Mormons. "They have their beliefs and
- maybe they don't want to send their children to school, but if they're not disrupting my project, they are moderate Talibs."...
US Army Colonel Robert Campbell says: ''Infiltration from Pakistan is a mafia-like operation - apart from fighters coming over, smugglers bring in weapons and cash that finds its way to Kabul and elsewhere.''
- The business structure on the K-G project is of a kind seen around Afghanistan, much to the fury of some aid groups. Louis Berger Group is the principal contractor but has sub-contracted an Indian firm to build the road.
A US Government official, who asked not to be named, says that despite being a controversial choice, the Indian company was selected because it was one of only two companies prepared to do the job. Asked about the wisdom of the choice, given virulent anti-Indian sentiment among the local, pro-Pakistan Pashtun population, he says: ''The locals have some reservations about the Indians, but the company is doing its best to employ locals and to mitigate animosity.''
But at the same time, he says, the road is already over budget, mainly because of security. ''Insecurity has increased exponentially since the inception of the project,'' he says."...
posted on this blog 10/2/09
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