US envoy wants Karzai admin to stem corruption

WASHINGTON (PAN meeting in Chicago, the US and its allies would join in advancing a sustainable effective Afghan security force beyond transition, a senior official told lawmakers on Wednesday.

“In Chicago this weekend, our allies and partners will join us in advancing a sustainable, effective Afghan security force beyond transition,” said Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan Daniel Feldman.

Some 60 world leaders and international agencies policymakers would attend the crucial Summit, slated for May 20-21, where Afghanistan’s future security management would top the agenda. 

Feldman said key to achieving the security objective was improved Afghan civilian capacity and economic opportunity, which required not only sustained support from the international community, but also action from local authorities to improve governance, stem corruption, promote private-sector investment and protect human rights.

He said this in his testimony before the Middle East and South Asia Subcommittee of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

In July, the international community and the Afghan government will meet at the Tokyo donor conference to advance this mutual accountability and building on commitments already made in a series of international conferences — including in Istanbul and Bonn over the past year.

“While we will continue to face real challenges, we have seen some remarkable results. We have made significant progress in bolstering women services to the Afghan people, advancing nascent democracy and improving Afghan capacity,” he explained.

Congressman Gary Ackerman was highly critical of Afghan policy. “Between the fall of the Taliban and today, other than killing Osama bin Laden and nearly destroying Al-Qaeda, we have scarcely a single significant, durable, nation-building achievement to claim, despite the extraordinary efforts that we have made in Afghanistan.

“What I really hope is behind the current plan for transition to Afghanistan security responsibility in 2014 is a cold, dispassionate recognition that a country as ruined and dysfunctional as Afghanistan and that a government so thoroughly corrupt and ineffectual as (President) Hamid Karzai’s cannot be saved by our efforts,” Ackerman said.

Congressman Dana Rohrabacher also claimed the American policies in Afghanistan had not yielded any results.

“After we foisted a government on the people of Afghanistan after 9/11 that is overly centralised, totally inconsistent with their traditions and has become a captive of corrupt leaders like President Karzai, who has his own marching orders being given not by the Afghan people, but by the Pakistani government.”

vp/mud 

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