Tuesday, 16 February 2010, 13:41
S E C R E T SECTION 01 OF 05 DUSHANBE 000173
SIPDIS
STATE DEPARTMENT FOR S/RAP
EO 12958 DECL: 2/16/2020
TAGS PREL, PGOV, PHUM, EAID, ECON, EINV, TI
SUBJECT: CORRECTED COPY - TAJIKISTAN SCENESETTER FOR VISIT OF SRAP
HOLBROOKE
CLASSIFIED BY: NECIA QUAST, CDA, EXEC, DOS. REASON: 1.4 (b), (d) 1. (C) Summary: U.S. interests in Tajikistan are a stable state on Afghanistan's northern border, support for our military efforts in Afghanistan, and for Tajikistan to be a stabilizing influence and contributor to economic development in the region. Tajikistan gives unrestricted over flight rights, and quickly agreed to NDN ground transit. In the medium term, it could play a more active role in regional development, because of its huge hydropower potential, relative (to Afghanistan) stability, and religiously moderate population. But to do so Tajikistan must overcome multiple political and economic problems which stymie its own development: poverty, bad relations with Uzbekistan, intense corruption, Soviet-era economic structures and planning, an undemocratic political system, chronic food insecurity, and dependence on migrant labor in Russia.

2. (C) U.S. assistance has shown mixed results in the development sphere. Recent steps to improve the business climate have been offset by the government's campaign to force its citizens to contribute to the construction of the Roghun hydroelectric dam. The government is not willing to reform its political process. Our security cooperation shows some promise. Regardless of our efforts, there is a limit to what Tajikistan can offer: it produces very little, is poor, and its government has minimal capacity. The Tajiks have some unrealistic ideas about what we can offer them -- mainly large infrastructure projects including questionable power plants, tunnels to Pakistan, and bridges to nowhere. There is some truth to the quip that Tajikistan's real contribution to our efforts in Afghanistan is to be stable, and to allow unfettered over flight and transit to our forces - which the Tajiks have done unfailingly. We try to promote Tajik polices which will ensure continued stability. End summary.

A DIFFICULT NEIGHBORHOOD

3. (C) Some of Tajikistan's difficulties are geographic. Chronic problems with Uzbekistan, fueled by personal animosity between the presidents of each country, has stymied Tajikistan's trade, energy self-sufficiency, and economic development. Afghan instability is a malign influence: traffic in drugs undermines rule of law in Tajikistan, Tajiks fear the spread of extremist ideas from Afghanistan, and militants in Afghanistan can threaten Tajik security across the long, porous border. Russian interference looms large in the Tajik consciousness. The Russians control one major hydropower dam in Tajikistan, a source of disagreements between the two countries. The Tajiks seek alternative partners, including the United States, China, and Iran, to balance Russian influence. China is a major infrastructure donor, with over $1 billion in low-interest loans to Tajikistan to build roads and power line projects. Iran funds tunnel and hydropower projects, but displays of Persian solidarity do not mask deep suspicions between the hard-drinking, Soviet-reared, Sunni elite in Dushanbe and religiously conservative Shiites in Tehran.

4. (C) The Tajik government presses us for greater benefits in return for support on Afghanistan. The Tajiks think Uzbekistan is keeping all NDN-related business for itself; they want more traffic to transit Tajikistan, more infrastructure to support that traffic, and the United States to purchase Tajik goods for forces in Afghanistan. We currently purchase small amounts of Tajik bottled water for ISAF. They have indicated they would be happy for the U.S. establish an air base in Tajikistan. They see U.S. involvement in the region as a bulwark against Afghan instability, and as a cash cow they want a piece of.

FEAR OF INTERNAL RIVALS, MILITANTS, AND RUSSIA

5. (C) The Tajik civil war ended in 1997 with a power sharing arrangement between President Rahmon's government and the leaders of the United Tajik Opposition (UTO). Since the end of

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the war, Rahmon gradually has reneged on this deal and forced nearly all oppositionists out of government -- some are in prison, some left the country, and others died mysteriously. In May 2009 an armed group led by a former UTO figure, Mullah Abdullo Rahimov, returned to Tajikistan from Afghanistan, reportedly with several foreign fighters. Tajik security forces neutralized this group without outside assistance. They have told us U.S. training enabled their security forces to win, and they are eager for more training.

6. (C) Russian-Tajik relations have deteriorated. Tajik officials believe the Russians supported Mullah Abdullo's group, to signal Tajikistan that they need Russian protection. The two governments could not agree on the terms of Russian involvement in the Roghun Dam, and they have other differences. In October 2009 the President downgraded the formal status of the Russian language in Tajikistan. His government broached charging Russia rent for its military bases in Tajikistan. In 2009 the Russian-controlled Sangtuda-1 hydroelectric plant cut production when the government of Tajikistan's failed to pay its bills on time.

ECONOMIC DIFFICULTIES

7. (C) Tajikistan is the poorest of the former Soviet republics. It is more mountainous than Afghanistan, with earthquakes, floods, droughts, locusts and extreme weather. Parts of the country are often cut off by snow and avalanches. External links pass through obstructive Uzbekistan, unstable Afghanistan, or over the rough, remote Pamir passes to western China. Its only industrial products are aluminum and hydroelectricity. The Tajik Aluminum Company (Talco) accounts for most of Tajikistan's exports. Though it is technically state-owned, most of its revenues end up in a secretive offshore company controlled by the President, and the state budget sees little of the income. Talco consumes up to half of Tajikistan's electricity, contributing to major seasonal shortages and suffering.

8. (C) President Rahmon's response to Tajikistan's chronic energy insecurity was in late 2009 to launch a massive campaign to fund and build the Roghun Hydroelectric Plant. Roghun would be the highest dam in the world, and double Tajikistan's electricity generation capacity. The government's fundraising efforts, however, have drawn serious concern from international donors. Individuals and organizations across all walks of life have been coerced into buying shares in the project. Many people have been told they will lose their jobs unless they contribute an amount equal to many months' salary. While the government claims all share sales are voluntary, there is ample evidence that officials are forcing the population to cough up funds. Apart from the human rights question, donors are concerned that the nearly $200 million in funds raised so far will not be accounted for and spent transparently. Considering Talco's share of electricity consumption, the Roghun campaign looks like a means to ensure Talco's continued profitability.

9. (C) Tajikistan's economy suffers from the global recession through major drops in exports, imports, and remittances from a million Tajiks working in Russia. The money they sent home was equal to over 50% of GDP in 2008, and literally keeps rural communities alive. Remittances dropped 34% in 2009. The greatest obstacle to improving the economy is resistance to reform. From the President down to the policeman on the street, government is characterized by cronyism and corruption. Rahmon and his family control the country's major businesses, including the largest bank, and they play hardball to protect their business interests, no matter the cost to the economy writ large. As one foreign ambassador summed up, President Rahmon prefers to control 90% of a ten-dollar pie rather than 30% of a hundred-dollar pie.

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ELECTIONS ARE COMING, BUT DEMOCRACY ISN'T

10. (C) The government has limited opposition party operations and rejected electoral law reforms for the February 28, 2010 parliamentary elections. The Embassy does not expect the elections to be free and fair. There has been almost no coverage of opposition political parties by state media, and most of the population is unaware of the purpose of the elections. Parliamentary opposition is weak -- only 15 of the 62 members are not in the ruling party, and some of these are independent in name only. The most prominent opposition party, the Islamic Renewal Party of Tajikistan (IRPT), has two seats in the outgoing parliament. IRPT leadership has supported the government on most issues and downplays the importance of Islam in the party's platform. Parliament acts as a rubber stamp.

11. (SBU) In 2009 Parliament passed a restrictive new law on religion, curbing the activities of religious groups, Islamic or otherwise. Our advice that this could radicalize many believers has fallen on deaf ears. Last year, the government arrested dozens of individuals, accusing them of membership in the banned "Salafiya" movement, but it has no evidence that there is an organized Salafiya movement. It also arrested 92 members of the Muslim fundamentalist missionary group, Jamaati Tabligh. Most mainstream Muslim religious leaders view the Tabligh members as harmless missionaries and have called for their release.

12. (SBU) Independent media is reeling after government officials recently filed lawsuits against five newspapers for reporting on public government reports and statements in open court which were critical of judges and government ministries. The newspapers will be forced to close if the lawsuits succeed. We and European partners have protested the lawsuits.

DIFFICULT RELATIONS WITH DONORS

13. (SBU) In 2007 Tajikistan's National Bank admitted it had hidden a billion dollars in loans and guarantees to politically-connected cotton investors (of which $600 million was never repaid), violating its IMF program. The IMF demanded early repayment of some debt, an audit of the National Bank, and other reforms before renewing assistance. In May 2009 the IMF voted to lend a further $116 million to Tajikistan to help it through the next three years; the U.S. was the only IMF member to vote against this, which infuriated the Tajik government. The IMF has so far disbursed $40 million. A team from Washington was recently in Dushanbe to assess government progress, establish new benchmarks for the next tranche of funds, and assess the impact of Roghun fundraising. The team's assessment should be available soon. Donors are concerned that the campaign to finance Roghun is exacerbating severe poverty, and violates the terms of the IMF's assistance. It raises questions about the government's frequent appeals to donors for financial aid and its willingness to enact economic reforms as a condition of that aid. Donors have expressed their concerns formally to the government and await a response. Donors are pushing regional energy market integration and the construction of power lines that will allow Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan to sell surplus summer electricity output to Afghanistan and Pakistan. A 220 kW line from Tajikistan to Afghanistan is under construction with Asian Development Bank financing, and will be finished in late 2010. The larger CASA-1000 power line project to link to Afghanistan and Pakistan has been delayed by financing problems.

U.S. ASSISTANCE

14. (U) U.S. assistance to Tajikistan will grow significantly to $45.3 million in FY 2010, from $27.8 million in FY 2009. The

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new money will go to agriculture, trade, and private sector initiatives to compensate for the loss of the much-needed food security programs. Until FY 2008 Tajikistan had a multi-year food aid program that had significant results reducing food insecurity in some of Tajikistan's most at-risk regions, followed by similar single-year programs in FY 2009 and 2010. A new Food Security Initiative is in development, but it remains unclear whether Tajikistan will receive any of those funds. New programs also will address chronic energy shortages by building a regional energy market and helping the Central Asian states address water and power issues. Tajikistan was awarded $9.9 million in FY 2008 1207 funds to address stability issues. The major threats to stability arise from the Tajikistan's poverty -- the World Bank estimates over 60% of the population lives below the poverty line -- and the government's demonstrated inability to respond to emergencies. The 1207 project works in 50 isolated communities in the Rasht and Fergana valleys, and along the Afghan frontier. Health and education deficiencies are so acute they imperil our progress in other areas. Our programs work to improve health policies, systems and services, teacher training, education finance, national curriculum, student assessment, and school governance.

SECURITY COOPERATION

15. (C) Security Cooperation remains a strong point in our relationship with Tajikistan. The Ministry of Defense volunteered last year for the first time to host CENTCOM's Exercise Regional Cooperation, including Afghanistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Kazakhstan, which concluded August 10. CENTCOM and the Tajik Armed Forces held Consultative Staff Talks in May and established the FY 2010 Security Cooperation Plan, which reflects Tajikistan's increased interest in demining and participation in the Global Peace Operations Initiative (GPOI). The U.S. Army Humanitarian Demining Research and Development Office will provide Tajikistan a mechanical demining machine for field evaluation in FY 2010 with a planned FMF purchase in FY 2011. Tajikistan reconfirmed its commitment to deploy a company-sized peacekeeping unit in 2011. Training begins this month with a National Policy White Paper Workshop that will help shape development in the Ministry of Defense and their Mobile Forces. A General Staff level workshop and actual unit training will take place next year.

16. (C) The Nizhny Pyanj Bridge and Point of Entry facilities have improved the links between Tajikistan and Afghanistan significantly. Though the bridge is not being used to its fullest capacity, traffic is much heavier than the old ferry system, and continues to grow. Counts vary between 40 and 200 containers and transport trucks per day. CENTCOM 2010funding at this facility will improve lighting, fences, and cameras, and parking areas. Tajikistan is eager to see us make greater use of our agreement on transit of non-lethal goods to Afghanistan through the Northern Distribution Network (NDN), and hopes for economic benefits to Tajikistan from this agreement. So far we have low rate truck traffic from Manas through Tajikistan to Bagram. Defense Logistics Agency is arranging to buy bottled water from a Tajik producer for forces in Afghanistan. The Tajiks are looking for any way to circumvent Uzbekistan's stranglehold on their trade.

US SOF ENGAGEMENT

17. (S) The U.S. Embassy plans to continue to build the capacity and capability of select Tajikistan security forces, in support of CENTCOM Joint Interagency Coordination Group for Counter Narcotics (JIACG-CN), and U.S. government strategic themes, goals and objectives for Tajikistan. Once SOCCENT forces have done an assessment and started organizing these groups into special units, the main goal is to sustain an increase in capabilities by U.S. Special Forces Joint Combined Exercise and Training (JCET) and Counter-narcotic training (CNT) missions.

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NARCOTICS

18. (C) Tajikistan is a major transit route for Afghan heroin going to Russia and Europe. According to UN Office of Drugs and Crime (UNODC) estimates, 40 tons of Afghan opiates enter Russia each year via Tajikistan. Less than 5% is seized before reaching Russia. Capabilities of Tajik law enforcement agencies are severely limited. Corruption is a major problem. Law enforcement agencies are reluctant to target well-connected traffickers, but are effective against low- and mid-level traffickers. The Drug Control Agency (DCA) is a ten-year-old, 400-officer agency developed through a UNODC project. Many countries are donors, but an INL-funded salary supplement program provides the primary funding. DCA's liaison officers in Taloquan in northern Afghanistan were key to seizures totaling over 100 kilos of heroin in the last four months. U.S Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) agents work with DCA to deepen operations.

19. (SBU) Until 2005, the Russians guarded the Tajik/Afghan border; after the Russians departed, the outposts were broken down lean-tos, unfit for human habitation. The Tajik Border Guard force is staffed largely by conscripts who are poorly trained, poorly paid, underequipped and often under-fed. INL rebuilt border posts, giving the Border Guards suitable and safe places to live, creating conditions for successful border patrol operations. Each new outpost costs about $500,000 and houses more than 100 guards. The outposts use low-maintenance energy-efficient prefab construction and alternative energy, including solar, wind and micro-hydro power. We are planning a pilot project of joint Tajik/Afghan border guard training in Khorog. If successful, it will be part of the regular training of guards assigned to the Afghan/Tajik border. We are exploring offering a popular Emergency First Responder course to a joint class of Tajik and Afghan border guards. INL has rebuilt the Tajik Border Guard academy. A U.S. Border Patrol team plans to visit to discuss and demonstrate patrolling techniques at the Academy and in the field; this might lead to an exchange of instructors.

20. (C) CENTCOM's Counter Narcotics program is making strong contributions to Tajikistan's security. This year, $16.9 million in funding, recently approved in the Supplemental Bill, will support construction of an interagency National Training Center, infrastructure at the Nizhny Pyanj Point of Entry, and communications equipment. The Training Center will be a multi-use facility for all ministries and serve as a venue for SOCCENT's bi-annual Counter Narco-Terrorism training. A recent end-use monitoring visit demonstrated the Tajiks are using previously provided communications equipment and maintaining the equipment. This year, we will begin establishing an interagency communications architecture at Nizhny Pyanj and the adjoining district. This will allow five government agencies to communicate using a compatible system. QUAST

Along with troops, the UK is pouring aid into Afghanistan. But is it working? Jonathan Steele gets a first hand view of life inside Helmand province

Imagine a two-mile journey from Britain's military HQ in Helmand to the shooting range where Afghan police train under UK supervision. Lashkar Gah, Helmand's provincial capital, has hosted British troops for more than four years, so you might think the trip would be an easy commute.

Think again. Wedged into flak jackets with helmets at the ready, Guardian photographer Sean Smith and I sit in the front vehicle of a three-car convoy of armour-plated land cruisers with darkened windows driven by weapon-carrying security guards. The armoured glass in the front passenger's window sports an ominous perforated crack like a star burst. "I see you've taken at least one bullet," I comment after one of the guards finishes briefing us on how to operate the two-way radio in case he and his colleague are incapacitated.

"Actually, it was just a stone," he replies. "Small boys throw them. They take time to aim, so it's better to be in the lead vehicle. You usually get past before they're ready." As we set off on our 10-minute trip he picks up his handset to launch into a running commentary of potential threats for the benefit of the cars behind. "Static tuctuc [three-wheeler] on right. White Toyota, no licence plate, approaching from side road. Multiple pax [passengers]. Tuctuc on left, has eyes on us. No pax . . ."

It's our first morning in Lashkar Gah and I wasn't expecting this. Yes, the 18-minute helicopter ride from the huge transit airfield at Camp Bastion in northern Helmand had ended with swerves and tilts at little more than 15m (50ft) above Afghan family compounds before we reached Lashkar Gah. But I had thought the town itself might be safe.

We reach the shooting range. In light blue, knee-length coats and trousers, the women police look very smart, but what is most striking is the head gear – scarves covering the chin as well as the hair, and wraparound reflective sunglasses, giving them a totally anonymous, ninja-like appearance.

Piles of folded-up burqas lie on the bench beside them where we enjoy soft drinks before they take up the new pistols two British police trainers have brought. "Lashkar Gah has 16 policewomen but only three are willing to wear their uniforms to work," Roshan Zakia, the senior officer, explains. The Taliban sometimes attack people seen as collaborating with the government of Hamid Karzai and foreign forces.

Zakia is one of those who does not hide her job. Three men came to her door recently and beat her up until neighbours saved her. It was not the only case of intimidation we were to hear during our 10-day stay in Helmand.

But it is not easy to report my impressions of Helmand's challenges. I was invited by our own Department for International Development (DFID), but everything I write has to be submitted to the Ministry of Defence and cleared for publication. Britain is trying to bring good governance to the people of Afghanistan, among which I thought was respect for press freedom. But no journalist can travel with the British in Helmand if he or she has not given signed agreement to an annex to the MoD "Green Book" which sets out the procedures for coverage, including the requirement for pre-publication approval of all text, audio, and pictures. A soldier even sits in on my interviews. No wonder American journalists decline to report on the British in Helmand. Their own government makes no such demands of the embedded press. Astonishingly, I learn the Newspaper Publishers Association, the National Union of Journalists, the Society of Editors and the BBC were consulted in producing the Green Book.

A policy that aims to bring services to ordinary people within weeks of the military's advances

Huge insecurity, the persistence of the Taliban and British defensiveness about the story they want the media to tell accompany us throughout our time in Helmand.

The last was strange, given that both the British and Americans can point to progress. Their counter-insurgency strategy of "shape, clear, hold, build, and transfer" aims to bring services to ordinary people within weeks, if not days of the military's advances. Before troops go into an area, the plan is to have a "district delivery package" geared up and ready to follow. Install a district governor and key officials, set up a community council, offer cash-for-work programmes, open health clinics and schools, appoint officials to handle local disputes and get police, judges and prosecutors in place to deal with crime.

Eleven of Helmand's 14 districts now have a governor and some officials, compared with only five two years ago. Schools have reopened with almost 80,000 children enrolled today, virtually double the number of 2007. Police are being trained at the rate of 150 new recruits every month.

British and US forces are trying to pave the way for economic development by removing IEDs, patrolling the main roads and making it possible for bazaars to reopen and commerce to revive. DFID is funding a programme to give farmers wheat seed to replace poppy production. Loans are going to small businesses.

The schemes are supervised by the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Lashkar Gah, a mixed civilian and military enterprise. The US now has more troops in Helmand than Britain, but the PRT is still a UK-run affair of some 150 people, with the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the MoD, and DFID all represented. The number includes a growing presence of US civilians, plus some from Denmark.

They live inside a heavily fortified compound of watchtowers, tents and air-conditioned trailers that also houses Task Force Helmand, the UK military headquarters. Overland travel for civilians is confined to armed convoys of the kind that took us to the police shooting range. Travel to any of Helmand's district centres is by helicopter only.

Claims that UK and US forces – and through them the Afghan government – now control most of Helmand are exaggerated. Until you visit the area, it is hard to envisage that their presence is actually confined to a few towns in this rural province. They sit in a series of security bubbles labelled "main bases", "forward operating bases" and "patrol bases", each of diminishing size, with the patrol bases home to anything from a dozen to 100 troops. The latest tactic is to set up "line of sight" checkpoints, mainly manned by Afghan police, on the roads between towns so that travellers are always watched. Local government offices are also located in guarded compounds where, for safety reasons, officials often live as well as work.

PRT officials and military spokesmen use various phrases to define success. The government has "extended its reach", or "can now exert influence" or "has a presence" in this or that new district. Every press release makes the same point. The unspoken assumptions are that they are playing a zero-sum game and territory won from the Taliban is territory denied to them. But this is asymmetric warfare and those Taliban – the majority – who are local farmers usually disperse before major operations begin. They pursue the struggle by other means: IEDs and rifle fire from ambush positions; intimidating government officials with assassinations; and "night letters" warning them of the risk of working with foreigners, just as the mujahideen did when Soviet troops were in Helmand 30 years ago.

The latest resistance pinprick seems to be the stoning of Afghan government and foreign vehicles. One day I sat in on an hour-long "Pashtu for Beginners" class for British troops. Offering language tips is an intelligent move and attendance was impressive. On a blisteringly hot afternoon almost 15 young men turned up, perhaps aided by the fact that their instructor, a fellow soldier in combat fatigues, was a pretty blonde. After we had rehearsed several standard phrases – How are you?, I'm not an enemy, I'm a British soldier – one squaddie asked: "What's the Pashtu for 'Stop throwing stones at us'?"

We had a more graphic illustration of the point on a visit to a girls' high school in Lashkar Gah. The school also teaches boys up to the age of 12. Dozens were racing round as our armoured convoy parked under the playground's only trees beyond a sign saying that USAID had helped to rebuild the school. Twenty minutes into my interview with the deputy head, a security guard came in and warned us that we might have to leave soon. Boys were starting to stone the land cruisers. He rushed back five minutes later and ordered us to don our helmets and run to the cars, which the guards had managed to move closer to the building. We beat a hasty retreat while the kids carried on stoning as the convoy moved off.

The stoning may have been spontaneous, but a source told us the widespread scale of it was new and appeared to be a tactic organised by the Taliban. On the local radio stations that they have set up, the British and Americans put out messages urging Afghans not to let their children help the Taliban.

Most Helmandis live in the province's fertile central area along the Helmand river and the adjacent irrigation canals. Expatriates call it the "green zone" because of the stark contrast with the khaki desert. But the name is also a reminder of Baghdad's Green Zone, where many of them did earlier service. The hallmarks of foreigners' lives in both places are insecurity and isolation from ordinary people.

Talking to Helmandis in the green zone's villages is as impossible for embedded journalists as it is for PRT officials and UK troops. But we asked to meet Afghan NGOs, though we knew conversation would be limited while a soldier sat beside us. The request ran into problems. "They won't come to the PRT and they don't want to have vehicles from the PRT coming to their offices," we were told.

The PRT's Afghan interpreters live in the compound and even they are afraid to go into Lashkar Gah when off duty in case of reprisals. They come mainly from Kabul, and on the job some wear baseball caps and scarves round their faces to avoid identification.

A survey found that the government's justice system was trusted by just 7% of Afghans

To fill the knowledge gap, DFID has been smart enough to commission opinion surveys with Afghan interviewers. One done in Helmand last spring reported on the province's mix of justice systems. When disputes arise, the first port of call is the committee of village elders and mullahs. If they fail to solve them, cases go to district governors or Taliban commanders.

The survey found that many people are satisfied with the security and justice the Taliban provide. More than half the male respondents called them "completely trustworthy and fair". They did not demand bribes, though they took money in other ways, through taxes on farm crops, road tolls and zakat (donations for the poor). Women were far less positive, with only a quarter saying they trusted the Taliban.

The government justice system was heavily criticised for bribery and favouritism and was trusted by only 7% of men and women. "Most ordinary people associate the government with practices and behaviours they dislike: the inability to provide security, dependence on foreign military, eradication of a basic livelihood crop (poppy), and as having a history of partisanship (the perceived preferential treatment of northerners)", the survey reported.

To counter people's adverse perceptions of the government the rule of law team in the PRT is working with Afghan officials to build up a reformed justice system. It is part of what is called the Helmand Institutions Building Programme. They took us to Nad Ali, a district centre they consider a showcase and model for other centres to follow as they capture them from the Taliban. Here, too, insecurity was massive. Although Nad Ali is only 15km (9 miles) from Lashkar Gah, travel was by helicopter. Kicking up clouds of dust, we landed in a medieval compound of ancient mud-brick walls, now known as FOB Shawqat. Until the British arrived it was the town's livestock market, transformed now into a rectangular fortress of three tiers of Hesco barriers (wired sacks full of loose stones and other ballast), freight containers, tents, and camouflaged watchtowers.

Two weeks before our visit, the Taliban launched a two-hour attack on one of the watchtowers. Troops are warned that the risks of direct fire and suicide attacks on Shawqat are "substantial". Under heavy guard we were allowed to walk 45m from the base to a new bazaar built by the British for a ribbon-cutting ceremony by Habibullah, the district governor. But when we went to his office later, 180m away, it was in armoured vehicles. They also insisted this was necessary when they took us on a trip to the old bazaar, where we were allowed to dismount and walk around for stilted interviews with shopkeepers.

In the governor's offices, we met three newly appointed officials – a judge, prosecutor and investigator. The latter two told us they had started making trips to villages to explain their work but had only held two trials since August. They face a long road ahead.

The longest road of all is the effort to improve life for Helmand's women. After toppling the Taliban, George Bush and Tony Blair encouraged their wives to proclaim the arrival of a new dawn for Afghan women; liberation from the burqa and the chance for education again. The number of girls in school has become one of the regularly repeated measures of change.

Progress is substantial but what happens when girls leave school? Where are the jobs, and what are British and US aid programmes doing to encourage female employment? Are they taking steps to deal with some of the grim justice issues that women raised in the DFID-sponsored survey? Women complained of domestic violence, multiple marriages, honour killing and the archaic practice known as bad, under which young girls are given to other families in exchange for unpaid debts or as compensation if someone from the other family has been killed.

PRT officials arranged for us to see a group of women in Lashkar Gah. We meet in the Department of Women's Affairs, the only neutral venue they consider safe. About a dozen turn up. Their overriding concern is jobs: in conservative Pashtun society, many husbands refuse to let their wives go out of the house or family compound and if they do permit them, there are few jobs for women apart from teaching.

At the girls' high school, Rahela Safi, the deputy headteacher, said almost 10,000 girls were enrolled. They study for only two or three hours a day because teachers have to do three shifts. Some girls are in their early 20s, having missed out during the Taliban period. But though they study subjects from maths to biology and computer sciences, most end up – if they find a job at all – teaching the next generation of girls.

The provincial education department in Lashkar Gah has 70 employees. All are men. Money is being allocated to set up a women's education unit, which will be staffed by women, though again it will only be women working with and for women. The PRT itself employs no women interpreters. When I raised this, a (female) British civilian adviser suggested the question was culturally insensitive since it assumed there were women available who had language skills and permission from their families to work alongside men. To which one reply might be that the PRT could get the facts by advertising on the radio in Kabul or Lashkar Gah and seeing what response they receive.

The provincial council in Lashkar Gah has three women, but only one of Helmand's district community councils, selected by local elders under UK and US supervision and financed by the US and the UK, has women representatives.

Washington and London seem happy to try to alter Afghan culture when it comes to the economy, but when that culture undermines women's rights, there is less energy. "Is it our goal to change Afghan society or deliver basic services and security and make it able to have a representative government?" asks Arthur Snell, a Foreign Office man who serves as the PRT's deputy head. "It would play into the Taliban's hands if they could say the foreigners are here to undermine Afghan traditional society. You have to strike a careful balance."

An aid programme that will take years to deliver comprehensive results

So can the UK's Helmand aid and development programme make a difference in counter-insurgency terms, by giving the Afghan government legitimacy and weakening the Taliban?

First of all, it must be said it has come very late. "The key moment was the summer of 2008 with the decision to develop the districts outside Lashkar Gah," says Nick Abbott, head of DFID's Afghanistan team. But why wasn't this done in the spring of 2002 as soon as the Taliban were toppled? Remember Blair's boast that Britain would not walk away from Afghanistan? In the wake of Bush's rush to topple Saddam Hussein, he promptly did. This allowed the Taliban to recover and re-emerge, using the argument that the latest foreign occupiers had brought no benefit to ordinary people in the Pashtun heartlands.

Second, the aid programme will take years to deliver comprehensive results. Schools and health clinics can be built relatively quickly but giving people justice, honest police and officials who observe the rule of law – the issues on which the Taliban are seen as strong – will need much more time.

Third, it raises the question of the high cost of delivering aid in a war zone, given the huge danger facing foreigners who provide and try to monitor it. The same money would go much further if spent in needy developing countries that are at peace. Aid could return to Afghanistan once Afghans have settled their conflicts. Yet DFID is going in the opposite direction by planning to increase its spending in Helmand and the rest of Afghanistan next year.

Fourth, aid as counter-insurgency endangers the work – and lives – of independent NGOs by linking them with foreign forces in people's minds, a point frequently made by groups such as Oxfam as well as Afghan NGOs. While foreign governments' aid goes up, charitable aid diminishes.

Fifth, does aid really enhance the legitimacy of Afghan government representatives in Helmand? Under US counter-insurgency doctrine (Coin), which Britain endorses, "government-in-a-box" is supposed to drop in as soon as troops flood into an area and force the Taliban underground. The difficulty is that the US and UK do not choose the officials who arrive to fly the government flag, since the Karzai regime is supposed to be sovereign.

Much of the British and US effort in Helmand this year has gone on preventing a former provincial governor, Sher Mohammad Akhunzada, and a former police chief, Abdul Rahman Jan, from continuing to exert influence locally. On suspicion of corruption, the British persuaded Karzai to remove them four years ago, so they were furious when a delegation of Kabul ministers brought both men to a meeting of local elders in Nad Ali in February. Diplomats say Akhunzada, now a senator in Kabul, "still enjoys direct access to Karzai".

Less senior officials are also a concern. Officials who served in the PRT earlier this year say they believe several members of current Helmand governor Gulabuddin Mangal's team diverted British funds from a programme to get farmers to plant crops other than poppies. They bought low-quality wheat seeds and fertiliser in place of what they were supposed to give farmers, and pocketed the difference. The lists of beneficiaries were also said to have been rigged in favour of friends of Mangal's staff. When the British complained, the governor mobilised the National Directorate of Security and several staff were arrested.

Sixth, does aid undermine the Taliban? Most Taliban commanders seem to recognise that people want schools and health clinics and it is counterproductive to destroy them. In some places, they have even tried to get credit by saying their presence forces the foreigners to pay to build them. "There is huge pressure in newly cleared areas to open schools and we only do it with buy-in from the local population. The Taliban haven't been active in attacking schools. There have been no attacks on girls' schools in Lashkar Gah since 2005. There was one in Gereshk in April this year," says Brett Rapley, the PRT's education adviser.

Health clinics have also largely been spared. "Before I came here," says Dr Jonathan Cox, the PRT medical adviser who is a colonel in the regular army, "I thought the Taliban would be burning clinics down. That's not the case. They seem not to burn them down or blow them up. They don't even do it to clinics we've built."

"Women teachers who live in Taliban-influenced areas outside the security bubble and come in to work are sometimes intimidated," says Rapley. Medical staff appear to be better off. "There is surprisingly little intimidation of health and clinic workers in lonely places. If it's a local [as opposed to an out-of-area or foreign] insurgent, he must know his family must be using that clinic and when the war is over he will need one himself," says Cox.

Coin's key test is whether Taliban members are giving up. General David Petraeus, the US commander of foreign troops in Afghanistan, has stepped up the use of drones and special forces to assassinate Taliban commanders, claiming substantial success. But critics say the supply of new Taliban is inexhaustible and new commanders may be more ruthless than those they replace.

If one aim is to frighten the Taliban into dropping their guns, the carrot is the "re-integration" programme, rolled out this year, which offers Taliban benefits for a return to civilian life. PRT officials in Helmand decline to give figures on how many have come forward but suggest it is only "dozens". There can be a problem if former Taliban get jobs or vocational training while there are no rewards for other Afghans in Helmand or more peaceful provinces.

Amnesty is also a difficult issue. Should a Taliban member who has killed Afghans or foreign troops escape retribution? If not, what of the anomaly that the Afghan government and parliament are full of men with blood on their hands from earlier phases in the country's three decades of war? And why would Taliban commanders give up if they know they're going straight to jail?

In Lashkar Gah, they showed us the DFID-funded new Afghan prison. Until September last year the old building was in chaos, controlled by its own inmates. The new one has carpeted cells where inmates sleep on two-tiered bunks or the floor. The Afghan governor, a jovial figure in vest and tracksuit, put his arms round inmates in avuncular style. One wing housed former Taliban, I was told. They let me select four to interview on why they had switched sides, but all denied any link with the movement.

A survey commissioned by DFID last year examined why Afghans join the Taliban and the other insurgent group, Hezb-i Islami, and how much local people support them. They interviewed 192 people in Kandahar, Wardak and around Kabul (but for security reasons not in Helmand). Only 10 supported the government. The rest saw it as corrupt and partisan. Most supported the Taliban, at least what they called the "good Taliban", defined as those who showed religious piety, attacked foreign forces but not Afghans and delivered justice quickly and fairly. They did not like "Pakistani Taliban" and Taliban linked to narcotics. But support for the "good Taliban" was expressed with no enthusiasm and mainly, it seemed, because of a lack of alternatives.

Few respondents said they understood why foreign forces were in Afghanistan. The majority wanted a lifting of UN sanctions on senior Taliban so the government could get them back into Afghan political life and negotiate a withdrawal of foreign forces. Older respondents said this should be gradual to avoid another collapse into civil war as happened when Soviet forces left.

The latest DFID-funded survey in April and May this year interviewed 450 people in various districts of Helmand as well as Kandahar, Kunduz and Nangarhar. They included pro-government people, others who were sympathetic to, or members of, armed groups, and fence-sitters. They were asked if they supported re-integration, whether it was feasible and how it linked to "reconciliation" (negotiations with Taliban leaders). Only two opposed it. The vast majority said re-integration at the local level would only work if combined with reconciliation at the top. The process would be long, they thought, but should start soon. Many repeated the earlier survey's point that foreign forces should not leave completely until there was agreement with the Taliban so as to avoid a relapse into civil war.

Full marks to DFID for commissioning these surveys, though officials may be disappointed that respondents had little to say for development aid. "There is no evidence from this study . . . that providing basic services in insurgency areas wins hearts and minds particularly if they are protected by foreign forces," last year's survey concluded. It is a powerful point, and nothing they showed me in Helmand disproved it.

• Wife warns of safety risk after bribery conviction
• Family horrified at flawed trial that led to sentencing

A former British army officer sentenced to two years for bribing Afghan officials is adjusting to a dangerous new life alongside insurgent commanders inside the maximum security wing of Afghanistan's most notorious prison.

Bill Shaw, a manager at G4S, the private security company that guards the British embassy in Kabul, was moved to the infamous Pul-e-Charkhi prison on Tuesday where he was greeted by his fellow inmates, including a senior al-Qaida fighter who embraced and kissed the 52-year-old grandfather.

Shaw's wife, Liz, who travelled to Afghanistan this week with her daughter to visit him, said the fact that the 10 other inmates of the maximum security wing knew all about him before he arrived was "a bit nerve-wracking".

"He served in the army for 28 years. He served in Iraq, he was there when they went in from Kuwait. I just feel that he is a bit of target," she said.

The British embassy and the prison's governor are also worried about his safety. The governor said Shaw's request to work in the prison garden could only be granted when other inmates were locked inside.

Nonetheless, Lisa Luckyn-Malone, Shaw's daughter, said that after two months of confinement in a British-funded facility built to house Afghanistan's drug lords, coming to Pul-e-Charkhi is "like Christmas".

"It's very difficult because what do you deny a man? Do you deny him the socialising aspect or his safety?" she said.

During his time confined in the UK-backed Counter Narcotics Justice Centre (CNJC), he received no visits from consular staff at the embassy and relied on colleagues from G4S, which has major operations in Afghanistan, to bring him letters from his family. However, his son-in-law, a soldier serving with the British army, did manage to visit the facility.

Shaw was still in the CNJC when his wife and daughter first visited him on Monday and were denied any physical contact during a conversation conducted through a glass barrier. But sympathetic guards did let the women kiss him through the holes of a wire fence.

It was "very humiliating and distressing, but it allowed us that little bit of contact," said Luckyn-Malone.

It was a different story the following day when he was moved to Pul-e-Charkhi, where the governor allowed Shaw to be unshackled and meet his wife and daughter in his office.

Two of the 10 inmates in the maximum security wing are also foreigners – one British man who has served two and a half years of a fraud sentence and a South African who was convicted of attempting to smuggle heroin out of Kabul airport in a tub of bodybuilding protein powder.

Shaw was sentenced in April to two years in prison and fined $25,000 (£17,000) by a special anti-corruption court funded by UK government money. No witnesses were produced and the prosecution was given an extra month to find evidence after failing to prove its case.

"There was never a presumption of innocence," his daughter said. His wife said that when her husband walked into court and saw the judge he "just knew" he would not be returning to the UK.

They hope an appeal will be successful. In the meantime Shaw will rely on visits from colleagues from G4S, who are distraught by the fate of a popular colleague who has worked in Afghanistan for two years. "Apparently the Gurkhas cried for three days when he was arrested, the cleaning ladies and everybody," said Shaw's wife. "I've never seen so many grown men cry."

What led to arrest?

Bill Shaw's ordeal began in a hail of bullets last October when Afghan security services confiscated two bulletproof cars owned by his employer, the private security firm G4S. The armoured cars had not been fully registered, a common problem for security companies as the interior ministry often makes it impossible to acquire full registration.

Shaw let them take the cars after the Afghans sprayed bullets around the feet of G4S staff. The firm was told the cars would only be released if it paid $10,000 per car – a figure that later mysteriously rose to $12,500. G4S reluctantly paid up, but then complained to the authorities after another car was impounded months later.

The Afghan inquiry, which Shaw cooperated with, ultimately led to him being arrested for allegedly bribing an Afghan official, although his lawyer argues that the prosecution never proved that the man who received the money was a government employee.

"I personally think that he dared to question what was happening," said his wife, Liz. "If he had just conformed and done what everybody else does it would probably never have been noticed."

It is widely suspected in Kabul that the Afghan government pushed for his prosecution in response to heavy pressure from the US and UK for a crackdown on official corruption.

Afghan Counter-Narcotic Police arrested three drug traffickers and confiscated over a dozen kilo grams of narcotics in the country's western Herat province on Wednesday, Interior Ministry said in a statement issued here on Thursday, Xinhua reported.

The return of a tarnished presidential ally to run Afghanistan's counter-narcotics programmes, raises questions about how much Karzai has changed his ways, if at all

For the past three days, I've been travelling with David Miliband in Afghanistan, as the foreign secretary has sought to prepare the way for the London Conference on January 28.

The Miliband trip started in Helmand province, where there was an unusual supply of upbeat news. Poppy cultivation is down by a third, and 40,000 of Helmand's farmers have taken up the provincial government's offer of subsidised wheat seed instead.

Meanwhile, many of Helmand's district centres that were no-go areas until very recently are now relatively quiet. Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital, has not suffered a serious attack in months and the streets are full of bustle and commerce.

The province-wide improvement has a lot to do with the arrival of large numbers of US marines. The total is expected to reach 20,000 by spring, compared to the 9,500-strong British garrison. The Americans are much better equipped than their British counterparts (the 'Lash' base used to be fairly quiet at night. It now positively vibrates from the constant to and fro of US helicopters on night operations). Marine officers also have much more walking-around money to give out, to create instant employment in the villages.

The big question is whether Helmand's unaccustomed good news will last beyond the US surge, when the marines go home taking their money with them. A lot depends on whether the Afghan government will be able to fill the gap, and on this score the Kabul leg of Miliband's trip was mixed at best.

While the foreign secretary was in town, Pakistan's parliament rejected ten out on Hamid Karzai's 17 ministerial nominees on Saturday, further delaying the formation of a complete government. Miliband, however, was able to point out that the most important portfolios - interior, defence, foreign and finance, had been confirmed in the hands of "high quality" officials, and that the parliamentary vote was proof of a vigorous democracy.

More troubling was one of the handful of nominees parliament did confirm. Zarar Ahmed Moqbel once ran the interior ministry until about a year ago when Karzai was forced to sack him amid international uproar over his department's culture of corruption and incompetence. He will now lead the Afghan counter-narcotics effort, giving a new opiate twist to the old saying about foxes and henhouses.

When Moqbel was nominated, a British former law and order official described the interior ministry under his control as "a byword for corruption and incompetence".

This is particularly awkward for Britain. It is the 'lead' Nato nation on counter-narcotics, and Gordon Brown has pledged to turn off the tap on funding to Afghan institutions that fail to get a grip on graft. Asked whether that meant there would be no more British money for the counter-narcotics ministry, Miliband provided a carefully hedged answer.

We will look at every ministry and make sure that any support or engagement or funding we provide is going to be used for the uses intended, and that is for the benefit of the people of Afghanistan... Obviously counter-narcotics is important and we will liaise very closely with our allies, but British people should be assured their money isn't going to any uses it was not intended for.

In practice, Britain and other donors can work around Moqbel's new ministry which has become less central to the overall counter-narcotics effort. More money now goes through the agriculture ministry on crop substitution programmes. But it is hardly the image Karzai's international backers want him to portray at the London Conference, where the whole international venture in Afghanistan will once again be weighed against the lives and resources being spent there.

KABUL, Afghanistan – The Afghan parliament delivered another rebuke to President Hamid Karzai on Saturday when it rejected 10 of the 17 ministers he proposed on his second try at forming a government – the latest sign that his fraud-tainted election victory has weakened his leadership.

Karzai secured parliamentary approval for his longtime national security aide, Zalmay Roussel, as foreign minister and nominees for justice and counternarcotics. But he went down to defeat in a host of areas that affect the daily lives of Afghans – from health to telecommunications.

For a country in a U.S.-backed war of survival against a fast-spreading Taliban Islamist insurgency, the vote will slow the establishment of an effective government, but it also signaled the first democratic stirrings in a body that previously had achieved little of note.

Members of parliament said they voted down candidates who were closely affiliated with former warlords or were unknown in the capital. But some of those defeated had been viewed with high esteem by leading figures.

Sima Samar, director of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, said of the defeat of two female candidates, "I'm really distressed that two good ones lost." She said Karzai didn't sufficiently support Soraya Dalil for health minister, or Palwasha Hassan for minister of women's affairs.

Samar was critical of Karzai's successful Justice Ministry pick, Habibullah Ghalib, and European officials – particularly the British – are very concerned that Zarar Ahmad Moqbel is now minister of counternarcotics. But that pick apparently was an IOU by Karzai to Moqbel, who campaigned for him in provinces north of Kabul.

Possibly to spite the British, legislators gave Moqbel 162 votes out of 223, the highest number for any candidate.

The voting by secret ballot took about five hours to complete, and the laborious hand count was broadcast live on radio and television. Kabul was gripped by the spectacle. Tradesmen in the main bazaar listened in their stalls or stores, and many weren't happy with the outcome.

"The parliament is acting independently. But the game will continue," said watchmaker Mohammad Sharif Niazi. "Whatever parliament does, Karzai is our leader. We don't have an alternative."

The vote came two weeks to the day after parliament dealt its first rebuke to Karzai, approving only seven of 24 Cabinet positions. It raised doubts of whether he'll be able to present a full government when he travels to London Jan. 28 for a major international conference on the future of Afghanistan.

Zarar Ahmed Moqbel, accused of corruption and incompetence at interior ministry, offered anti-drugs role

Hamid Karzai has offered the main responsibility for fighting Afghanistan's narcotics industry to a sacked former interior minister who was widely accused of corruption and incompetence during his time in government.

In a move which is likely to infuriate the British, who lobbied hard for his dismissal from his former job running the country's police, Zarar Ahmed Moqbel has been named as one of 16 candidates for posts in Karzai's next cabinet.

Members of Afghanistan's lower house of parliament are due to interview Moqbel and the other nominees this week before voting on whether they should be given seats at the cabinet table, as Karzai rushes to form a government before he attends a conference in London on 28 January.

Karzai's plans to appoint his cabinet earlier this month were unexpectedly derailed when parliament rejected 17 out of the 24 people he had nominated.

Among the main Nato allies in Afghanistan, the UK is the "lead nation" with special responsibility for helping the country tackle the multibillion-dollar opium industry that fuels much of the corruption plaguing the government.

Although the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development have gradually scaled back the amount of direct support, £2m a year is still spent on foreign consultants who work in the interior ministry to train staff.

A British former law and order official who worked in Afghanistan during Moqbel's time at the interior ministry said his nomination as the country's top anti-drugs official was "an absolute travesty".

"Under his rule the [ministry] became a byword for corruption and incompetence, and the idea that Karzai now thinks it's appropriate that he would take the lead at the ministry of counter-narcotics is just ridiculous," the former official said.

International pressure to sack Moqbel grew at the end of 2008 when it was belatedly realised that rampant corruption in the police was helping to drive Afghans into the hands of the Taliban.

During his tenure the ministry became infamous for selling senior police positions. Provincial police chiefs would then make a return on their investments by extorting bribes from civilians and protecting narcotics and kidnap gangs.

Despite pressure from the US and the UK it took months for Karzai to dismiss Moqbel, who is supported by a powerful network in Parwan province. He was eventually forced out in favour of technocrat Hanif Atmar.

Yesterday Moqbel spent the day at his home in Kabul talking to key advisers and experts on counter-narcotics in preparation for his confirmation hearing, which is likely to take place on Wednesday.

He denied the corruption allegations against him and defended his record in the interior ministry, saying he was responsible for persuading the US to start seriously investing in the country's police force after years of neglect.

"Fighting against drugs is not the problem of one or two days, it is a serious problem for the world and Afghanistan," he said. "But I believe that with strategy, planning and help from the international community we can do it."

Karzai's new list does have some welcome candidates, said Thomas Ruttig of the Afghanistan Analysts Network, including the inclusion of three female candidates.

"But this is the usual salami slice tactics Karzai likes to use," Ruttig added. "On the one hand he gives some positive developments like the three women and some of the others, but at the same time there are other nominees that pose serious concerns for the international community and most Afghans."