Armies of Liberation

This is very close to the model needed for Yemen. Sec State Clinton called for a major crimes tribunal in Afghanistan, and an official described Afghanistan as a “criminal mafia state”™. They should take a closer look at Yemen! Its the same paradigm.

The problem with this concept, a well trained and driven corruption task force, in Yemen is that foreign intervention even in the form of training will create more tension, and none of the actors will agree, but the basic principle is correct. There needs to be a drastic intervention to clean the upper echelon of the Yemeni government of their corrupt practices and networks, a caretaker government perhaps.

Not a foreign intervention, no I’m not calling for any sort of invasion, but an authentic effort at accountability would significantly reduce tensions nation wide. Not dialog, not war, not symposiums, not arrests, not bombing, and not military aid. And please don’t talk to me about SNACC or COCA, they are way too weak. At the same time, per some insightful discussion, the issue of amnesty is critical if any restructuring is to occur, for obvious reasons. I’m glad at least the US is recognizing the heart of the issue, a criminal mafia state™ and the resulting loss of legitimacy and efficiency, even if it is in a different country.

Guardian: Nato taskforce to form ‘Afghan FBI’ and root out high-level corruption

Clinton calls for ‘major crimes tribunal’ as west loses patience with Karzai government

Western soldiers are to begin investigating high-profile Afghans suspected of involvement in what one American official describes as a “criminal mafia state” in a sign of the growing international exasperation with Hamid Karzai’s failure to crack down on corruption.

A taskforce being established by Nato in Kabul will consist of a small team of anti-corruption officers, as well as a criminal investigator and prosecutor who hope senior generals will be able to stop cases being derailed by opposition from the Afghan government.

Details of the body emerged as the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Washington had called on Karzai to create a “major crimes tribunal” and an anti-corruption commission.

“Now that the election is finally over, we’re looking to see tangible evidence that the government, led by the president but going all the way down to the local level, will be more responsive to the needs of the people,” Clinton said today.

Her comments reflect growing impatience among Karzai’s western backers at his apparent unwillingness to tackle corruption. Earlier this month, Gordon Brown warned the Afghan president that he would lose international support if he failed to improve its performance.

Law enforcement officials in Kabul hope the anti-corruption body will replicate the structure of the British-backed counter-narcotics taskforce, which was set up to investigate, hold and convict high-value drug traffickers in a secure facility where judges can be kept safe from retributions.

An official involved in the scheme said there will also be a separate body responsible for drawing up a “target list for judicial action and a watch list of people we’re suspicious of”.

Information gathered by Nato will then be handed over to the major crimes taskforce, a wing of Afghanistan’s intelligence service but trained by the FBI and Britain’s Serious Organised Crime Agency (Soca).

The need for such a body, dubbed the “Afghan FBI”, has been highlighted by the breakthrough arrest in October of a top police officer in the southern province of Kandahar after an investigation into thousands of “ghost salaries” of non-existent policemen under his command.

The arrest of the officer, who cannot be named until the conclusion of his trial, was greeted with alarm by the interior minister, Hanif Atmar, who has so far refused to claim credit for the unprecedented arrest of such a senior official.

“It was a fascinating example where the interests of a criminal syndicate clearly weighed more important in the minister’s mind than the demands of the international community to clean up corruption,” said a US official involved in the anti-corruption push.

The US ambassador in Kabul, Karl Eikenberry, is so sceptical about Karzai’s commitment to tackling corruption and crime and reforming his government that he has advised Barack Obama not to send any additional troops.

One US official said Karzai’s government is “structured like a criminal syndicate”, extracting money from the people in the form of bribes, stolen customs revenues and imprisoning people for ransom.

“Afghans see us [the International Security Assistance Force] as being the enforcement mechanism for the mafia. That’s why people get driven towards the Taliban – it’s the only way to express your outrage at this stuff,” the official said.

Last week Karzai horrified observers when he attempted to justify his decision in July to pardon convicted drug dealers, one of whom was related to a member of his re-election campaign team.

In an interview on US television, Karzai argued that he had to release the man as he was under pressure from western governments to release Sayed Pervez Kambaksh, a journalism student accused in 2007 of insulting Islam.

But whereas the drug traffickers were convicted with the help of western law enforcement agencies and judges mentored by British lawyers, the Kambaksh case was criticised from the start for flouting legal procedures. Even a close colleague of Karzai said the president was “struggling to justify the unjustifiable”.

Previous attempts by Afghan authorities to deal with corruption have been disappointing, including the high office of oversight, an entity set up largely for the purpose of demonstrating to international donors that something was being done about corruption. Western legal officials criticise it for being toothless and not independent of the president, who appointed its senior staff.

Ershad Ahmadi, the deputy head of the organisation and one of the president’s close advisers, says a good relationship with the presidential palace is vital to ensure “people take us seriously”.

But Ahmadi said that despite constant reminders, no one in the presidential palace, except for Karzai himself, have yet completed the asset registration forms which are constitutionally mandated for all senior ministers and officials.

He argued that the system of government needs to be reformed to make it less open to abuse. He also said 100 top government officials should be removed from their posts, to “short-cut the process of building confidence in the government”.

The international community has also been putting resources into an anti-corruption unit, within the attorney general’s office, an effort western officials say is paying dividends and should lead to high-profile arrests in the coming weeks, although some cases are currently blocked by a legal provision preventing the arrest of serving provincial governors.

But Gerard Russell, a former senior diplomat at the both the British and UN missions in Kabul, believes only foreign prosecutors immune from intimidation by Afghan criminals need to be drafted in to help to clean up the government.

“Getting Al Capone took a federal grand jury – if you can have outsiders doing the work of denouncing corrupt officials, they can do it more safely and fearlessly,” he said.