Washington also used the conference to press its imperialist rivals to foot the bill for rebuilding the basic infrastructure of the country. The Bush administration has said that since Washington has been spending more than $90 million a month prosecuting the war on Afghanistan, other imperialist powers should contribute the bulk of reconstruction costs as well as provide the troops for the UN-sanctioned occupation force stationed in the Afghan capital.

This British-led force has now set up more than 30 checkpoints in the capital city, and press reports indicate people cannot travel anywhere around the city without being stopped, questioned, or searched.

The new interim Afghan government led by Hamid Karzai has given its full backing to Washington's current military occupation of Afghanistan and the imperialist force in the capital city. At the largest U.S. military installation in the country, located in Kandahar, the U.S. army has now taken over formal command from the Marine Corps for longterm use. The Pentagon is maintaining round-the-clock aerial surveillance in the country as they gather new targets to bombard.

Like the conference held in Germany that chose the interim government in Afghanistan at the end of last year, the meeting in Japan didn't grow out of any discussions or consultations with organizations, regional or local governments, or political parties in Afghanistan.

Leading up to the conference the Afghan administration's planning minister Mohammad Mohaqiq said that the country will need $45 billion in reconstruction funds over the next decade. Faced with imperialist displeasure over such a high figure, Haron Amin, Afghanistan's top diplomat in Washington, cut that estimate by half, but, noted a Washington Post, "it still far exceeded what American and other international officials say is practical."

The World Bank and the United Nations say $15 billion would be more in line with Afghanistan's needs over the next decade, but didn't make clear how such a figure was arrived at.

Karzai, pleading for aid at the conference, said his country "has had nothing but disaster, war, brutality, and deprivation against its people for so many years." Pointing to the elegant surroundings in the Tokyo hotel in which they were meeting, Karzai said, "What you see here isn't what you see in Afghanistan."  
 
Imperialist exploitation
Modern Afghanistan, with a population of 25 million people and an average life expectancy of just 46 years, is one of the poorest countries in the world, a product of the exploitation and oppression imposed upon the peoples there over the past two centuries, first by British colonial rule and then U.S. imperialist intervention.

Until the early 1970s, the country was ruled by King Muhammad Zahir Shah who was ousted in a 1973 coup under pressure of growing unrest by workers and peasants. Under his reign, peasants, who comprised 80 percent of the workforce, were forced to labor under semifeudal conditions.

The Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow also had a hand in the devastation imposed on the country through a decade-long occupation that was opposed by a majority of the population. U.S.-backed groups, having driven the Soviets out, turned on each other in battles for control of the capital and other regions. A leader of the Northern Alliance who was president of the country before being swept out by the Taliban in 1996 massacred up to 50,000 people and destroyed a large section of Kabul in 1992, for example.

At the "donors" conference, the major imperialist powers of the United States, Japan, and countries comprising the European Union cobbled together the bulk of the $1.5 billion in aid promised for the next year. U.S. secretary of state Colin Powell announced with fanfare that Washington would provide $297 million. But upon closer examination, press reports indicate only about $80 million of this is new funds not previously allocated for operations in Afghanistan.

Tokyo promised $250 million, and the European Union slightly less than $500 million for next year. In addition, Saudi Arabia pledged $220 million over three years and Iran pledged $120 million each year for the next five years.

Rather than donations to the new U.S.-backed regime in Kabul, most of the funds will be funneled to special projects of the imperialist countries, giving each a direct impact inside Afghanistan. U.S. officials have stated that the top priority for the funds they are dispensing is to establish "order and security," meaning strengthening the operations of the police and boosting Karzai in his efforts to create a nationwide army. Washington, for example, plans to dispense its aid through government agencies, such as the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Less than $100 million of direct money is being offered to the Afghan government, which is essentially bankrupt with some 235,000 government employees owed $70 million in back wages for the past six months. To address this situation Afghan president Karzai has said that he will slash the number of workers on his payroll.

According to Mark Brown, administrator of the United Nations Development Program, Karzai's government "would have no meaningful income for the next two years, during which the World Bank, the United Nations, and the Asian Development Bank will pay salaries and oversee government spending," reported the New York Times January 22.

Karzai for his part has promised to hire a "reputable international firm to audit our expenditures on a regular basis."  
 
Funds to boost police and army
Despite urging by Washington and the new president, little progress has been made in putting together a national army. With the Taliban gone, those who formerly held positions of power are back, seeking to once again rule large sections of the country as their private fiefdoms. None of these regional commanders have taken steps to merge their forces with the Northern Alliance militia now under the command of the interim Afghan government in Kabul.

"Warlords whose armies acted as proxy U.S. ground forces in the anti-Taliban campaign are now refusing to disarm or accept the writ of the country's fledgling interim government. They are even defying the Americans," stated a January 16 Wall Street Journal article.

The various organizations are keeping ties with governments that have backed them in the past. Ankara and Moscow, for example, are supporting Gen. Rashid Dostum, who runs the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif and surrounding areas.

The Iranian government, against which Washington is now stepping up its threats, has resumed military and economic ties with Ismail Khan and other commanders who control three western provinces. Among Washington's complaints is that Tehran is "preparing to set up a radio and TV station for Gen. Khan without permission from the central government," noted the Journal.  
 
Oil wealth in Central Asia
Washington has been making substantial progress in establishing military bases from Central Asia down to the Indian Ocean. With a substantial operation based in Kandahar, Afghanistan, four bases in Pakistan, as well as in Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, the U.S. capitalist rulers are placing themselves in a stronger position to exercise their military might against toilers in the region.

This also gives them the ability to control the substantial oil and gas reserves available in the area, lessening the dependence of U.S. imperialism on the Mideast to meet its energy needs and strengthening its competitive position over this vital natural resource in relation to its imperialist rivals.

According to testimony before Congress in March 1999 by the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan together have 15 billion barrels of proven oil reserves. The same countries also have proven gas deposits totaling not less than 9 trillion cubic meters.

One of the projects that had been under consideration at that time was to build an oil pipeline across Afghanistan to a terminal to be located on the coast of Pakistan. In 1998 the California-based Unocal Corporation had mapped out plans to construct such a pipeline. Testifying before a House of Representatives International Relations subcommittee in February of that year, John Maresca, a Unocal vice president, emphasized, "From the outset, we have made it clear that construction of the pipeline we have proposed across Afghanistan could not begin until a recognized government is in place that has the confidence of governments, lenders, and our company."

Afghanistan itself "has significant oil and gas deposits," noted an article from the Hong Kong-based Asia Times. In the 1980s Soviet Union officials estimated Afghanistan's proven and probable natural gas reserves at around 5 trillion cubic feet and oil reserves at 95 million barrels. The massive Logar copper mine, just south of Kabul, has in reserve 11 billion tonnes. There are also gold mines in the southern cities of Kandahar and Zabul.  
 
Next focus on Yemen, Somalia
"War May Next Focus on Yemen, Somalia," headlined an article in the January 21 Wall Street Journal. Among the moves under consideration, the article reports, "is the redeployment of unmanned Predator drones now flying over Afghanistan to permit regular surveillance above Yemen, on the southwest corner of the Arabian peninsula, and Somalia, which sits across the Gulf of Aden on the Horn of Africa."

Officials are also discussing "how large a deployment of Central Intelligence Agency paramilitary teams and special forces commandos would be required in Yemen and Somalia and whether that would necessitate reducing the U.S. presence in Afghanistan," the Journal added.

Washington has also begun rebuilding its ties to the military in Indonesia. Cooperation had been halted in 1999 in light of public outrage over Indonesian military atrocities in East Timor. "A loophole in a recent defense appropriations bill, allegedly inserted at the Pentagon's behest," stated the Journal, will allow U.S. military personnel to resume training Indonesian military officers.

Meanwhile, rumors have been circulating in the capitalist media that Saudi Arabia's rulers are considering asking Washington to pull its military forces out of that country. The 4,500 U.S. troops stationed at the Prince Sultan air base, south of Saudi's capital Riyadh, played a key logistical role in the bombing of Afghanistan. U.S. planes based there also regularly carry out bombing missions inside the Iraqi border.

Two top U.S. State Department officials recently paid a visit to Saudi Arabia. Department spokespeople insist that Saudi officials neither formally or informally have asked the U.S. forces to leave. "There has been no discussion of such an issue," insisted Powell. However, some military planners are looking into some other options. "We need a base in that region, but it seems to me we should find a place that is more hospitable," stated Carl Levin, chair of the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee.  
 
 
Front page (for this issue) | Home | Text-version home