Dai Havard

Labour Party | Merthyr Tydfil & Rhymney

Afghanistan’s Helmand Province

Rousted from my bed in the early hours by a rocket attack at Kandaha air base brings home directly the daily threat for our troops as they try to help the newly elected Afghan government bring security across the country and deny the drug dealers who punish the people and cause so much harm in our own communities at home.

The day I visited the British Battle Group at Camp Bastion in Helmand Province in Afghanistan, we had the report of another British soldier killed in a fire-fight with Taleban and others trying to control the area and the profitable drug trade. Camp Bastion is in an area of Helmand away from centres of population and a bit like the face of the moon. Very hot, very dusty and very unforgiving. Next to the British camp the US are funding the building of a new Afghan Army barracks for the region. I have reported from previous visits on the vital and excellent work our troops are doing in building the new Afghan Army. The British ‘mentors’ work and live and indeed fight with the Afghan troops. Together with their colleagues working in the new Afghan Army Officer Academy in Kabul, which I also visited, they are central to the building of proper government, security and development for Afghanistan. Together with a programme to reform to sort out the corrupt elements of the Afghan Police, they are as one of them put it to me, “training our exit strategy”. He is not wrong!

The differences between this trip to Afghanistan and the one I made with the Army last November were the new emphasis on building the Army and the Police, but also a vital change in policy from our own government with regard to infrastructure development. Hilary Benn our International Development Minister has directed his department to work more closely with our Military and the Foreign Office, giving help with Quick Improvement Projects for the more immediate benefit of the ordinary people. This is long overdue and something I have been pressing for some time.

The other major change was to meet some of the newly elected members of the Parliament in Kabul. One of the women members - 25% of the parliament is reserved for women - asked me a crucial question when I explained that the drugs were ending up damaging our young people. She asked me what we were doing to cut the demand at our end of the chain of corrupt supply. She is right we have to tackle the problem at both ends, both where it is grown and where it is used. On visits like this the connections are obvious as are the need to help each other against the Taleban, terrorists and criminals. One of the Helmand politicians and I ‘fell out’ over the effects of our entry to Helmand Province but unfortunately he left before I could pursue the issue fully. Then again the tradition of debate and negotiation is new against naked power politics which he is used to being able to pursue. There is no substitute for meeting face to face with these new elected MP’s and Senators and we are resolved to try and do more of that.

We visited Pakistan and met members of their military, narcotics forces and politicians including the President. The issues on the borders between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran with India close by are hugely complex but it was important to discuss the co-operation against the terrorists and ‘bandits’ of various sorts who are tainting all these countries with drugs and oppression of the people. As with the newly elected Afghan politicians and military, direct discussion is vital to both sides as there is no single solution and certainly no military only solution.

We visited Kabul but unfortunately given the security situation - suicide bomb incident near our convoy - I was not able to visit the school I visited in November. I did have a good chat with the Afghan Defence Minister whom I had met previously in London and whilst at the Afghan Officer Training Academy I not only visited the kitchens and the recruits but met a Ghurkha soldier I had spent time with in the jungle in Brunei - small world! It is soldiers such as this with their great experience and skill who make a difference to building the new Afghan Army. I also met a young lady from Treharris called Warren (nee Smith) to whom I must apologise for not having a picture and forgetting her rank. Let down by the official Army photographer! Her family from Penn street will know who I mean. Like many others from several nations she and her colleagues in the NATO Headquarters know they are working to make a difference for both the brutalised people of Afghanistan and for our own communities.

The voices from some at home that we heard whilst on the ground in Helmand, Kandaha and Kabul, saying that there is no clear plan for our troops in Helmand, were immediately echoed by the Taleban and the Tribal Leaders and criminals on the ground. They do not want any control over their ability to run their drug trade and subjugate the people and have a very sophisticated information system to distort the facts. It was exactly these sorts of remarks that were fed back to me by the man who did not stop to discuss them further in Kabul. It is easy to pronounce from afar but those who do so without thought of the affects of their words are not thanked by those doing the job.

All of the Afghans talked of education, water, roads and bridges but most of all security. Even those opposed to us helping the Afghan government talked of these but only as a way doing down any efforts being made to help the elected President and government. Just like our own communities as they struggled through the Merthyr Rising, Chartism and the reforms of our own democracy. Most Afghans know that education is a liberator. Those who do not want their country to have an elected government know this too and are bent on keeping the people illiterate and ignorant in order to control them. That is the only thing they offer with a form of security that comes from arbitrary punishment meted out by the biggest ‘bandit’ and local robber Barron. The Afghan people in the most part are waiting to see who emerges as the most powerful, the Afghan government and the International community or the loose associations of Tribal Leaders, Taleban, terrorists and criminals.

I found no lack of clarity in Afghanistan about what our troops and our Dutch, Canadian and indeed US allies are trying to achieve. Every ordinary soldier, airman and sailor I met was very clear. The British had asked for more resources and knew they were getting them and whilst they had their own concerns they all agreed there was no better plan than the current plan and that to not help would be dangerous and disastrous for the Afghans and our peace and security as incidents like the London bombing show.

As with every visit I make to our military in areas of conflict, peacekeeping and nation building, I am always impressed by their commitment, professionalism and understanding. They exercise good judgement every day in the difficult and dangerous places we put them and as elected members we owe them the duty to see that we fully understand what we ask of them. I thank them all and look forward to seeing the fruits of their work for the Afghan people and our own health and security at home.