Dai Havard

Labour Party | Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney

Merthyr to Kabul and Back

I recently visited Afghanistan with the Army - as part of the attachment I am doing with the Armed Forces Parliamentary Scheme again this year. After a long flight on a C130 Hercules, sleeping on the cargo! I arrived in Kabul to be met by the CO of the ‘Green Howards’ - who were just completing their six month tour - and a new constituent from Merthyr!

During my five days in Afghanistan I went on Patrol with the Military Observation Team (MOT) and the Quick Re-action Force (QRF) in the North - Balkh Province - and visited the Afghan National Army (ANA) training centre in Kabul, as well as getting to join a British Army Patrol in ‘down town’ Kabul.

I saw some of the positive work the British are doing there in helping provide security and development, and also talked to many Afghan people and traders. Not all those there helping are in the Armed services and I met another constituent – Richard Chambers – who is working for the EU, studying the up coming Presidential election. I had joked with the British Army CO when I arrived that I would probably meet a constituent in Kabul. In fact I met two!

There are still attacks in Kabul and five RPGs were fired in the British patrol area on one night the week I was there. I also saw the ‘warlord’ or ‘gangster’/Taliban elements driving through towns in the North with their Kalashnikovs and machine guns, apparently celebrating a wedding!

In Kabul our troops are helping provide background security and to train the NCO’s of the newly forming Afghan Army, so that they can have the control and capacity to help set up and protect their own legitimate democracy. British troop are also part of the International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) in the North of the country. This is currently commanded by a French General. I met with him and discussed his plans to help extend the Re-construction Teams that the British have been good at setting up, discussing also how ISAF are to help provide for a secure and peaceful Presidential Election set for the 9th October, as well as helping attack the drug trade.

In many ways - with its lack of democracy, ‘warlords’ and others in charge of local economies, corruption and patronage, open sewers, no open justice system or good independent policing, the desire for education to ‘liberate’ future generations (six empty tents being the school for 500 children!) - Afghanistan rings ‘historical bells’ for us in our Valleys. Many of these elements were true of us before the Chartist and Labour movements in the 1830’s and we see directly the affects of this heady mixture of, no democracy, international terrorism and drug trafficking, paid for in peoples lives, here as well as there.

It is clear when visiting Afghanistan that it will fall back into a ‘Narcotics-state’ or a permissive environment for ‘warlords’, terrorists, drug and people traffickers, unless the international community step up their help and work much more collaboratively. The Bush Administration needs to allow US Forces and Aid agencies to be much more part of that effort, not arrogantly separated in their own so called war. However, this month the French General running the UN and ‘Eurocorps’ (ISAF) organisation in the North, will be given US troops to command! A small number admittedly but the ‘Bush Whitehouse’ has resisted co-operating in this way elsewhere. The US are fighting hard in the South of the country against Taliban and Al Quieda influences, under their own banner of Operation Enduring Freedom but maybe they are slowly recognising that to build a stable and peaceful Afghanistan for the future, greater International co-operation and less ‘unilateralism’ might just be what is needed. The appalling situation they are in Iraq is no doubt also an influence! This was, ‘obvious’ to me before the Bush Administration’s headlong plunge into Iraq, which I did not sanction, but unfortunately it seems in the world of international diplomacy and driven ‘vested interests’ and the ‘obvious’ can take a long time!

Visiting this spectacular country and its spirited people you are immediately conscious of the strategic position it occupies for the whole region. It is as though it is that part of the jigsaw which holds all the others together - Iran, Pakistan, the so-called ‘Stans’ of ‘old’ Southern Russia and even China! The conflict and emphasis that should be placed here is however less than it should be – particularly the building of a Justice system and a good Police force. Many British troops and others who are helping there, expressed frustration that these efforts and needs are ‘out of the headlines’ and the ‘tipping point’ which Afghanistan’s future is approaching is being ignored, especially during the time of a US Presidential Election.

I came away with a positive feeling from the ordinary people of Afghanistan. They want to change and often do not know the affects elsewhere of the drug trade many of them are ‘blackmailed’ into supporting. But I came away also sharing the frustration that there is not enough International ‘joined up’ effort being placed there - or that there is a proper understanding that the Presidential Election in this state is almost as important as the Presidential Election in the US, and that the longer term health and security of our communities are bound together!

I had many discussions about what can be done to curtail and try to stop the out pouring of the heroine we see causing casualties on our streets. On my return I saw that the drug dealers caught in the recent drug dealer operation ‘Ghana’ in Merthyr were being sentenced. That effort by our local police and recent similar cases in Rhymney are examples of how the scourge of drugs has to be tackled simultaneously at all points. There are casualties in Afghanistan and Merthyr and Rhymney in that war. There are many brave men and women, in our Police service at home and our Armed Services abroad who are trying to help. They should be recognised for it. It was a fascinating privilege to join some of them and their civilian co-workers to better understand.

Not just for moral and humanitarian grounds should we support the positive people of Afghanistan but for reasons of ‘vested interest’ - from the drugs on our streets to the ‘permissive’ environment that allows free reign for terrorists and the future stability of the world - Afghanistan is a place we can not ignore or abandon.