=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D> AFGHANISTAN -- CORRUPT IN THE IMAGE OF THE
BU$H/CHEN=
EY CRIME
FAMILY! <=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D=3D Pervasive corruption fuels deep anger in
Afghanistan. Many long for harsh but clean rule of Taliban.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-afghan-corrupt_barkernov=
25,0,891584.story
chicagotribune.com
Pervasive corruption fuels deep anger in Afghanistan
Many long for harsh but clean rule of Taliban
By Kim Barker
Tribune correspondent
November 25, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan =97 Ramzan Bashardost drives a beat-up black 1991
Suzuki with a cracked wind****eld and often sleeps in a tent=97habits
hardly befitting a respected member of parliament.
His relatives think he is crazy. But Bashardost, 46, now running for
president, said he is making a point against persistent corruption in
the Afghan government. He said he has turned down free land and fancy
vehicles offered to officials. He even rejected a free couch.
"In the Afghan administration now, money is the law," said Bashardost,
the former planning minister. "When you have money here, you can do
anything. Afghanistan is the only country in the world where
corruption is legal."
Not exactly legal, but definitely rampant. Increasingly, corruption is
driving a wedge between the government and the Afghan people, who are
growing more and more resentful of their leaders, experts say. And
that poses an enormous challenge for President Hamid Karzai and the
U.S.- and NATO-led forces intensifying their efforts to defeat a
Taliban-led insurgency.
Corruption is turning more people toward the fundamentalist Taliban,
which is seen as clean in comparison.
The Taliban may be remembered for its harsh rule, but it also is
remembered for enforcing that harsh rule. No one took bribes. Most of
the country was secure. Taming corruption is seen as crucial to the
nation's future, but despite Karzai's pledge to fight it, little has
changed in recent years.
Graft extends from low-level police officers, who make $100 a month
and take bribes to be able to afford food and rent, to the highest
level of government officials, experts say. Top officials, from the
defense minister to Karzai's brothers to the former attorney general,
have been accused of corruption.
But no one has faced serious criminal charges, and the country's anti-
corruption bureau was shut down four months ago. A new anti-corruption
commission, the High Office of Oversight & Anti-Corruption, includes
representatives from several law-enforcement bodies and supposedly has
more power. On Sunday, Karzai's office announced he would chair a
regular monthly meeting of the commission.
Bribes here are called ****rini, which means "sweets" in the Afghan
language of Dari. Most interactions with the government require
****rini =97 getting a new driver's license quickly costs $100 to $160,
Afghans say. Even to pay a water or electricity bill, a customer has
to hand over a bribe.
"Everything comes with a bribe," said Javed, 25, a truck driver who,
like many Afghans, has no last name. "Otherwise, nothing in Kabul
works."
Prisoners say they don't have defense lawyers=97they have brokers, who
help negotiate bribes. Izzatullah Wasifi, the former head of the anti-
corruption and bribery bureau who also once was the governor of Farah
province, said the former police chief there told him that he paid
$100,000 for the post, which was considered lucrative because of all
the bribes pouring in.
"In the beginning with the Taliban, if somebody dropped $1 million on
the street, nobody would grab it," Wasifi said. "That's why people
miss the Taliban."
In a survey released last month, the Asia Foundation said Afghans are
increasingly pessimistic about their country, and corruption was cited
as one of the top challenges. The head of the UN here said in August
that corruption was endemic.
A 2007 survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan said the average Afghan
household pays an estimated $100 in petty bribes every year=97even
though 70 percent of the families in Afghanistan live on less than $1
a day.
And that does not include the aid money siphoned off, or the lucrative
international contracts handed out to friends and relatives by
government officials.
"There's not a political decision to fight corruption," Bashardost
said. "That's the problem. And why not? The officials' friends, their
families, are involved in corruption. A politician here will sell his
own mother for $1,000."
Bashardost, who has little chance of becoming president because he
does not have powerful backers, holds court daily in a tent across
from parliament. A high school student complained recently that even
his teachers asked for bribes.
"If I don't give them money, they fail me," said Abdul Naser, 17.
In Afghanistan, no one seems to be clean. Wasifi, a childhood friend
of Karzai's who has a good reputation for fighting corruption, is
controversial for spending almost four years in a U.S. prison in the
late 1980s on drug-trafficking charges, which he refers to as "my
stupidity, wrong crowd."
Wasifi said the anti-corruption bureau once had 380 employees, but
that number was reduced to 141 and the provincial offices were closed.
Still, he said he had sent 174 major cases of corruption to the
attorney general's office. None of the cases went far.
One man, Azizullah Rozi, in charge of the petroleum and gas department
under the Commerce Ministry, was sent to jail for three months. But
now he is back at work.
"I was not accused of being corrupt, I was accused of misusing money,"
said Rozi, adding that prosecutors were now monitoring his office. "I
told them if they find any proof I am corrupt or my department is
corrupt, I will shoot myself or hang myself."
And that maybe is the point=97here, in the seven years since the Taliban
regime was driven out, no one thinks they are doing anything wrong.
Instead, everyone points fingers at one another.
"Government officials say: 'OK. This government could collapse soon,'
" said prisoner Abdul Rahman, 58, who said he was sentenced to 12
years after he refused to pay a $16,000 bribe to a judge. " 'Let's
make as much money as we can while we can. Let's stuff our pockets.' "
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