by Guest Blogger Donald Bowser [email protected]
In Afghanistan the international community has finally come around to understanding the need to fight corruption. Until recently corruption in the country was seen as either being “too engrained” in Afghan society or ”too sensitive” an issue to push for reform. However, the situation is dire and too little and too late has been done to reform key areas such as the security sector to make an impact on the counter-insurgency.
Corruption and the Security of Afghanistan
One of the core functions of any state is to maintain a monopoly on the legitimate use of force and have the ability to provide security for its citizens. Security forces that are corrupted will not work in the interests of the state when performing their duties but will use the power of their position for their own personal interests. Those security forces that are susceptible to bribery and malfeasance can be used to facilitate terrorist attacks and the illicit movement of goods and people. There is a strong (and growing) evidence base that indicates the nexus between increased levels of corruption perceived by Afghans and the eroding security situation in the country. Surveys over the last few years demonstrate that 60% of all Afghans see corruption as undermining the legitimacy of the Afghan state and 82% see corruption as impeding on economic development. This is supported by earlier diagnostics that showed the majority of Afghan citizens (77%) see corruption as a major national problem.
Security forces that are susceptible to bribery and malfeasance can be used to facilitate terrorist attacks and the illicit movement of goods and people. Certainly the sums offered to corrupt security officials are significant enough to tempt even officers with a high degree of integrity. The case is certainly clear that corrupt security forces cannot provide effective security for the state or its citizens, de-legitimizing the state.
Corruption in the Afghanistan National Police
Law enforcement agencies in Afghanistan are widely believed to be almost fundamentally corrupt, with stories abounding of police protection for armed robbers, killers and drug traffickers. The open and enthusiastic approach taken by police to the eliciting of bribes from those involved in activities such as gambling and prostitution as well as from those trying to maintain legitimate businesses constantly degrades the image of the struggling Afghanistan National Police (ANP) in the eyes of both the Afghani people and the international community. The police use checkpoints to shake down civilians and other criminal behaviour, undermining the legitimacy of the state. The failure of the international community and the Afghan Government to address effective policing and rooting out corruption in the force is feeding the insurgency.
Organised Crime, Narcotics and the State
There is a very real and impending danger that the Afghan state-building process and economic development will be almost entirely subverted by expansion and consolidation of the illicit narcotics trade. This year’s bumper crop of opium is estimated by the UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to have been approximately 165,000 hectares, an increase in opium production of 49% from last year, providing over 90% of the world’s opium. The freedom to cultivate opium poppies in such quantities, and then to process and distribute the opium itself comes in no small part from the ease with which large, well organized and well funded narcotics producers increasingly subvert law enforcement and border control agencies.
One of the key dangers with growing corruption within the security sector is that it will reach the point in which the ‘organs’ of the state are acting as state-paid and -sponsored organized criminals. In Afghanistan there is substantive evidence of the nexus between law enforcement bodies/military and organised crime. The increase in volume of opium production gives those involved in the drug trade the means to bribe any security or border forces. The monetary rewards of being involved in narcotics trafficking would prove tempting for even more sophisticated armies, but in Afghanistan the state is far from breaking the backs of even the minor warlords. These figures become increasingly organized as narcotics producers and traffickers, become increasingly wealthy and generate a greater ability to control those law enforcement bodies that would otherwise threaten them by offering lucrative bribes. In this way the narcotics trade is rapidly becoming a key aspect of one of the greatest threats to Afghanistan’s state development as it provides the bulk of the funding for increasingly powerful drug/warlords that compete with the fledgling state for political and territorial control.
While some attention has been paid to who is a player in the narcotics trade in the Karzai government, little attention has been paid to the movement of heroin processing facilities from the south (home of the insurgents) to the far north (home of our allies). One of the linchpins to the political economy of the conflict in Afghanistan is the heroin trade and little has been done to counteract the growth of the production and cross border trade in the north.
The Shadow State in Afghanistan
The effect of current conflict, poverty, corruption and the weakened state in Afghanistan culminates in the emergence of a ‘shadow state’. The concept of the ‘shadow state’ refers to a system imposed by public officials and external (non-state) actors acting in private interests and capable of gathering rents and delivering goods and services. Ordinarily this would be the responsibility of the state to provide, were it not incapable of doing so due to its own weakness and public malfeasance. The shadow state consists of interwoven networks that dictate public policy; engage in economic activities (especially plundering the country’s assets and resources) through formal state structures; and wield violence for coercion and enforcement.
A core element of the insurgency in Afghanistan is the Taliban’s ability to act as a shadow state in the areas that they administer (currently estimated at 80% of the territory). The shadow state includes shadow governors alongside tax collectors and justice administrators. Given the fragility of the Afghan government it is a particular danger. And due to the weaknesses of its neighbours there is a real potential for the spread of the Taliban shadow state outside Afghanistan’s borders.
Sadly, little has been done to plan or implement such steps as need to be taken to mitigate the ‘shadow state’ in Afghanistan.
Corruption and the Current Conflict
The perceived level of corruption in the country and the weak state presence in many areas have allowed the insurgency to gain strength. The Taliban are making strong territorial and political gains on their previous positions by using the issue of Afghan government corruption as a recruiting tool.
The first reason is that corrupt officials and law enforcement officers can be easily bribed to allow the freedom of movement for people, weapons and equipment needed by the Taliban for their increasingly larger scale and better organized offences against NATO, ISAF and the Afghan National Army. Corrupt government officials are also far less likely to be possessed of the motivation to actively combat or pursue groups such as the Taliban, or their sympathizers and support networks, thus facilitating the activities of these groups.
The second avenue for use of corruption is a de-legitimization of the current Government. The perceived levels of corruption in the Karzai government and especially law enforcement and the security services subverts the legitimacy of the state, which cannot provide or even function at all in some areas of the country. The Taliban, with its strong platform of Islamic rule and anti-corruption, is winning back many followers, as it is offering an ordered alternative to the corrupt chaos that reigns in many parts of Afghanistan. This is not to say that the Taliban is the popular choice for the bulk of the population, but that in some areas people are turning to the Taliban as perhaps the lesser of two evils. This loss of what little support the Karzai government had begun to generate is in large part due to the corruption, against which only minor efforts at eradication have been made.
What can be done?
Despite the dire rising of levels of corruption in the security sector, there is some room for optimism. There is a growing consensus among policy makers in Afghanistan that corruption within the military, border and police forces are major factors in the destabilization of country. Currently there needs to be a strong response from the international community to tackle corruption in the country and to ensure that reform efforts are undertaken within the security forces to increase accountability. Within all current and future training and assistance efforts there should be a comprehensive program of anti-corruption and accountability integrated into the curriculum.
The Government must engage genuinely on combating corruption and use all the accountability mechanisms it currently has available. There will need to be a number of convictions of highly visible corrupt officials in order to gain public confidence in these efforts. By not having an effective and visible campaign against corruption the Government has been assisting the insurgency. Additionally, there needs to be stronger means to detect and control corruption from within the forces themselves. This can be accomplished through the development of internal affairs or internal control units that are able to monitor, detect and sanction corrupt elements. This is in-line with past practices and indeed is being successfully (if inhumanly) used by the Taliban to show that they are willing to tackle corruption within their own forces.
Finally, there needs to be genuine efforts made to improve governance by local authorities in all districts across Afghanistan. By building efficient delivery of basic services and fielding security forces that operate in the interests of the population rather than their private capacity, the Afghan government can demonstrate its capacity to govern and win back areas that are coming under shadow control of the anti-government elements.
