Interview with governor of Paktika province

Ongoing insecurity in southern and eastern Afghanistan has meant that much-needed aid and development work has been severely curtailed in the region. Mohammad Ali Jalali is the governor of the isolated and unstable southeastern province of Paktika. The mainly-Pashtun province borders Pakistan, and has seen ongoing attacks by renegade Taliban and their sympathisers on Coalition forces, Afghan police and army, as well as on aid workers. In an interview with IRIN he said that hardly any reconstruction and development work had taken place in his vulnerable province either by the Afghan government or international aid agencies. Despite the attacks, Jalali said that his province was much safer than many other provinces, where humanitarian and development activities were taking place despite threats against aid workers. Jalali warned that unless more aid was directed towards Paktika, there would be crisis, with the population of 2 million having to survive without schools, hospitals or other essential services. QUESTION: The world doesn't hear much about provinces like Paktika. What is the reality here right now? ANSWER: With regret, I should say that Paktika is one of the most vulnerable and most neglected provinces of Afghanistan. I am sure this is the only province where there is not even proper basic health assistance. We have dozens of empty or inefficient clinics with no doctors or even mid-level health workers. There is neither UN nor any international organisation present here in the province. Lack of drinking water, doctors and lack of teachers at schools are the major challenges for the over 2 million people of the province. If the situation continues like this, people will face a severe human tragedy. However, it has already started with tens of people dying for simple problems which are curable if there is an up and running hospital with doctors and enough health workers. As far as reconstruction and development is concerned, comparing the last two decades that the province was a centre of jihad and almost inaccessible for the then regime, it is a bit better now with some small bridges constructed. But as a whole, there is no major reconstruction or construction work like building a school, a clinic or water sanitation project. I know such critical capital schemes exist in other provinces. In the field of agriculture, we just recently had destructive winds that further destroyed the already drought-affected agricultural fields. Q: Paktika has been labelled an insecure area with a series of attacks recently blamed on the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. Along with this have come threats against aid workers. This is one reason why aid agencies are thin on the ground. Do you accept there needs to be better security before reconstruction can really get under way here? A: No, I don't accept. This is completely wrong, and this is an unfair judgment, which the media or the aid organisations have adopted from a distance. I can assure you that over the past two years there have not been any attacks against the very limited number of local and international aid workers currently in the province. Paktika is a tribal province with a strong community decision-making system. The people are in dire need of aid organisations, and they guarantee no aid worker will be threatened or hurt. I think the reason is not security that the province has been neglected. The reason is the people are highly illiterate and the Paktikawals [inhabitants of Paktika] do not have a representative in the government to push for assistance nor does any Paktikawal work in any aid agency to attract aid communities' attention here. We witnessed tens of direct armed attacks, with some aid workers killed in Ghazni, Kandahar, Nangarhar, Mazar, Faryab and other provinces, with continuous threats against NGOs, but we still see the UN is there [in those provinces], international organisations are there, government projects are there. The other reason, I think, is that the province is too undeveloped, with no hotels, paved roads and other essentials, meaning aid workers probably don't want to come here. Paktika also hosts hundreds of US-led coalition troops in Orgun border district fighting against the Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements, but the province as a whole has not benefited from any major civil-military aid programmes like in other provinces like Gardez, Bamiyan and Khowst. Q: How long do you think these security problems will persist? A: Like any other border province, we live with the problem of cross-border Taliban and Al-Qaeda elements in five districts along our 600 km border with Pakistan. But they [Taliban] cannot stay or remain in one area. The community is not supporting them, they cross over, launch an attack or try to recruit and then slip back beyond the border. As far as the problem of warlords and armed factions is concerned, we do have a few such groups, but they are not creating any problem, nor do they interfere in provincial government affairs. But security has to improve, we are aware of this. Our main concern now is our poor and ill-equipped police officers. We have 1,500 police in whole province. Most of them do not have even proper weapons. The Taliban disarmed all the people here, so there is a severe lack of arms and equipment for police in the outlying districts and the centre of the province. But long-term security will only improve when investment is made in Paktika. The government should know that politically and geographically, as a border province, Paktika is very important, and there should be many signs of government and the aid community installing services like a reconstructed school, a running clinic and hospital or some thing like this. The people in the jirgas [councils] have warned that if they continue to suffer in the face of what is becoming a human tragedy, their anger will reach the gates of Kabul. The government should give privileges to tribal elders and make them happy by any means if Kabul, as well as the West, want a long-term solution. Q: Kabul argues this is a two-way process. Central government wants to see some border revenue being generated by provinces like Paktika. This has begun happening in other parts of the country following last's month's decree, is it happening here? A: Well, yes. This year we have been reporting quarterly to central government any revenue we made from our customs. In the last four months we made around US $43,750 and have reported it to the capital.