لراوبر ویب پاڼه لراوبر يو افغان – تازه خبرونه
War reparations, Collaboration, Odious Debt and Natural Resource Extortion
The great enemy of truth is very often not the lie deliberate, contrived and dishonest but the myth persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic…JFK
There are times when important issues before a country can be illuminated and brought into focus by a look back into history. Such is the case with Afghanistan that has, once again, been highlighted by the major news organizations and government spokespersons as awash in rich rare-earth minerals used in the manufacture of dual-use high-tech instruments of a commercial and military nature, as well as precious metals and gemstones used in the fabrication of cosmetic jewelry. Though currently generating investment-frenzy amongst the speculators of the world, particularly in the U.S. and Russia, investment prospectus from several globally-positioned firms on Wall Street taking notice of and offering investment (stocks) opportunity in Afghanistan’s mineral wealth is nothing new. (See: Afghan Mineral Deposits, moneymorning.com/Afghanistan_
There are important questions and concerns over debt-servicing, restructuring and war reparations that will profoundly impact the nature of a just developmental environment for the Afghan people with resultant economic robustness or viability that must be addressed prior to mortgaging Afghanistan’s development and mineral development future to the whims and manipulations of Wall Street, as well as the ever-present, haunting ghosts of aggressive, extractive states from the Cold War era:
From the Archives:
The ‘Devil lurks in the details’: It seems as if the ghosts of Brezhnev’s Russia, have returned to haunt Afghanistan. On Monday, August 6, 2007, Afghanistan’s Finance Minister, Anwar ul-Haq Ahady signed an economic agreement with his Russian counterpart Alexi Kudrin in Moscow. Though hailed as “debt relief”…’as always the Devil lies in the details.’
At the core of the agreement is Russia’s demand for re-payment of (Soviet-Era) loans in the amount of $11.1 billion dollars, a sum of which, (70%) is enumerated as military hardware consigned to Soviet and DRA military units from 1979 to 1989, and the evisceration or abandonment by Afghanistan of claims for war reparations from the USSR. An additional line item amount of $250 million is said to represent military aid provided the Northern Alliance dating from 2001 to 2005.
Background: The initial approach to understanding the spurious nature of this agreement requires historical context predating the Soviet invasion and occupation of Afghanistan. As early as 1927, Moscow indicated its interest in developing Afghanistan’s mineral resources. But Kabul was suspicious of Russian geological surveys that appeared to control resource exploration and classification through omission and obfuscation. Utilizing debt leverage, Russia forced Afghanistan to disallow queries and offers from other countries to locate, catalogue and develop its rich mineral base. In 1977, a 419-page survey was published under United Nations auspices. The work was identified as the work of Soviet and Afghan geologists, condensed and translated into English by a Russian linguist and edited by a Canadian.
From declassified documents now available from the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars, we have discovered that throughout this period, Soviet geologists were systematically deluding the Afghan Government as to the quantity and quality of its own resources. Results of geological investigations conducted by Soviet advisers were not communicated to the Afghan Government, in fact, two reports were filed, a pessimistic one for Afghan consumption and another, more accurate (secret) one for use only in the USSR. As geological exploration proceeded, progressive Soviet control of Afghan resources was achieved by political maneuver in the form of Soviet demands concerning maturing Afghan debt for economic and military assistance. Unambiguous threats forced successive Afghan Governments to assign mineral rights to the USSR over a plethora of multi-national parties and subsequent higher bids. Suffice it to say, this should serve as to the spurious nature and proceed with caution warnings surrounding ‘debt relief’ loans for repayment of odious debt resulting from military aggression from international (IMF and World Bank) monetary institutions wrapped in sugary euphemisms.
Soviet Exploitation: The 419-page Soviet mineral resource inventory of Afghanistan released following the 1978 coup summarizes 1,432 specific mineral resources precisely located, described and classified. To this day, precise characteristics (quality and yield) of major resources in Afghanistan are shrouded in mystery. Detailed reports are held as state secrets by Moscow and sympathetic elements within the power elite of the Karzai Government. The 1978 coup and the Soviet invasion resulted in accelerated resource development in Afghanistan. The Taraki-Amin regime indicated its desire to exploit Afghan natural resources with immediate implementation of a number of questionable contracts negotiated with the USSR by the previous Daoud regime. The result was a country with newly recognized resource potential and resultant economy totally penetrated and controlled by the USSR.
Russian hydrocarbon exploration and discovery of natural gas near Shibarghan in 1963 resulted in the construction of a 60 mile long pipeline carrying large volumes of Afghan natural gas into Soviet Central Asia. In 1979, additional fields were discovered by Soviet geologists:
The revenues from the sale of gas were not, however, to be returned to the Afghan Government: they were to be applied as repayment for Soviet loans and the interest on those loans; including those funds spent by the Soviets for Soviet assisted projects. In 1980, the Soviets credited its imports of Afghan natural gas against the cost of maintaining their ‘limited military contingent’ in Afghanistan.
In other words, since 1980 the Afghans have been forced to pay with their natural resources for the brutal invasion and occupation of their country and the destruction of their people, which under the post-World War II Nuremberg Standard constitutes the highest criminal offense within a multitude of codified violations…’War of Aggression.’ With history as our guide, we must repudiate and condemn the spurious nature and strategy of ceding resource control to foreign entities as a vehicle for political power, as had Burhannudin Rabbani when in 1992 he trekked to Moscow signing away Afghanistan’s right to sue for war reparations in exchange for economic and military support of Jamiat’s war against the Taliban, or for individual enrichment and or vacation villas in Dubai; for with foreign control, lurks danger, as The Devil is in the Details and is but one of a number of haunting questions that can today impede and or devastate a just economic recovery for the Afghan people. (*See: Facsimile of a self-serving and groveling letter from Burhanuddin Rabbani to Russia’s President Putin in after-text notes- section)
Reports from 1979 indicate that from 70 billion cubic feet to as much as 105 billion cubic feet were paid to the USSR annually to pay for the military occupation. Payments to Afghanistan were then credited against the cost of occupation. Payments to Afghanistan were then credited against the cost of occupation at but a tiny fraction of the world market price. For accounting purposes metering was done from the Soviet side of the border forcing Afghanistan to accept Moscow’s word as to the amount being transported. As an additional benefit, Moscow was selling Afghan gas purchased at $2.35/tcf to Europe at $5.10/tcf, per thousand cubic feet. Profits derived from Afghan gas production allowed Moscow to reduce its gas expenditures by $600 million dollars per year. In December 1986, a senior Soviet official, visiting New Delhi as a member of the official delegation accompanying Chairman Mikhail Gorbachev, told an interviewer that the war in Afghanistan is not costing Moscow one cent because of the natural gas and other products the Soviet Union is getting from Afghanistan: (See: ‘Rich spoils of Russia’s war’, “The Sunday Telegraph,” 9 June 1985, by John F. Schroeder Jr.
Moscow’s accounting practices: The Soviet debt as acknowledged by Afghanistan’s Finance minister and international lending institutions provides little or no accounting or contractual data recognizing either or credits or compensatory provisions for the period. In addition, Soviet-era debt as claimed by Moscow for military expenditures, provisional support and maintenance for the occupying (40th Army) and Moscow’s client (DRA) regime unambiguously qualifies under (1927) international standard as ‘odious debt.’ Odious debt is recognized and defined as “not for the needs or in the interest of the state, but to strengthen the despotic regime to repress the population that fights against it.”
International Financing: There can be no moral argument against the fact that Soviet loans and credits imperiled Afghanistan’s economic integrity. The leading international monetary institutions of today (World Bank and IMF) and dominated by the United States, also harbor their own dark and sordid past, leaving in their wake impoverished and destitute nations around the globe, victims to such lofty euphemisms as ‘debt servicing’ and or “relief.” As in the Soviet case, contemporary lending institutions led by the US secure their return on investment (ROI) with conditions and contingencies. Any payments in arrearage are quickly followed with a demand for establishing permanent military bases on debtor soil, on resource exploitation, and with reconstruction contracts sequestered for US corporations. Latin American countries in default have been pressured to vote with and for the interests of the US in UN deliberations despite their sovereign interests.
On 30 January 2006, Sergei Starchuk, Russian Deputy Finance Minister said ‘Russia is ready to cancel Afghanistan’s Soviet-era debt estimated at between $10 and 11 billion dollars contingent upon the following criteria: That the measure be accompanied by recognition of the debt on the part of Afghanistan and that any agreement on debt cancellation should be free from Afghan claims for reparations and or compensation for the presence of Soviet troops on Afghan soil.’
The Russian cancellation has since take the form of an 80% discount on the original claim of 10-11 billion dollars. In 2004, Dr. Asraf Ghani, then Governor of the Bank for the Islamic State of Afghanistan, said ‘Afghanistan had been injured in the amount of $240 billion dollars in destroyed infrastructure and lost opportunity as a result of the Soviet invasion and occupation.’ By signing the “debt relief” agreement in Moscow, August 6th, Dr. Ahadi has, in effect, agreed to accept an offer of an 80% discount on debt that can only be construed as fraudulent and extortive. In addition, his signature surrenders Afghanistan’s right under international treaties, law and convention to pursue a legal and just course of action for reparations amounting to 200 plus billions of dollars in compensation due Afghanistan as victim of Soviet aggression and scorched-earth policy in Afghanistan.
Conclusion: Recent secret meetings between the finance minister and certain Afghans with known back-channel contacts with the Soviets dating to the occupational period with Russian officials in Europe, Moscow and the United States, raise disturbing questions and concerns over the itinerant minister’s motivations. Notwithstanding former Finance Minister Ahadi’s supporters, spurious contentions that the Russian claim and actions are residual debt dating from the Zahir Shah and Daoud era and therefore owed to Russia, it is now incumbent upon the National Assembly to dismiss this endeavor as parochial in nature and a model of Voodoo economics and therefore refuse to ratify this agreement
There can be no lawful or moral argument that ‘odious debt’ qualifies as hostage or as a pre-condition for a war reparations settlement due Afghanistan, or for that matter the dismissing of alleged Soviet-era debt. To fail to rescind this obvious extortive and ‘odious’ agreement is fiscal suicide, to consign and mortgage Afghanistan’s sovereignty and economic future to the mercy of unscrupulous lenders, investment speculators, the exploiters of natural resources, and for members of the elitist G-Club. The disposition of Afghanistan’s mineral resources is for the Afghan people to decide and through their elected representatives to enact just approaches and a development strategy for the benefit of the country as a whole.
Bruce G. Richardson
Notes:
On 12 March, The Telegram reported that a number of Afghan parliamentarians demanded the settlement of war reparations from Russia without benefit of conditional sanction/s resulting from DRA or other agreements/contracts seen as legally and fiscally unenforceable for a nation under military occupation.
Russia now claims that as successor state to the former USSR they are not inheritors of debt generated by the USSR and therefore bear no responsibility for payment of war reparations to Afghanistan. This strategy has become their sine quo non during the contentious debate in Afghanistan’s Parliament. However, the Russian Federation continues to claim that Afghanistan is indebted to them in the amount of 11.1 billion dollars for military assistance and aid granted Communist regimes loyal to Moscow prior to their demise as the USSR. According to a number of highly accredited international jurists, were the Russian Federation’s position to successfully assess Afghanistan for these pre-Federation contracts and assistance while incorporated as another DBA/entity (USSR), then they cannot escape or immunize themselves from Afghanistan’s rightful claim for war reparations (amounting to $240 billion) operating now or doing business as (DBA) the Russian Federation. International jurists contend that the question of Afghanistan’s maturing Soviet-era debt is a non-entity and a moot point as the debt unquestionably constitutes ‘odious debt’ under existing law.
**Portions of the text previously published in Afghanistan a Search for Truth, Bruce G. Richardson, pp. 158-162, 450-452, (2009)
Facsimile Translation*
*Letter from Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani to Russian President-elect Vladimir Putin, dated 25 December 1999.
Honorable Mr. President:
On behalf of the Afghan people the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and my-self wish to take this opportunity to congratulate you on the New Year 2000. Congratulations to you and to the friendly Russian Government and the Russian people.
Mr. President, using this time I want to assure you of the firm commitment, cooperation, and stand of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan in regards to the important issues facing our two countries. The government and the people believe that a united, strong and democratic Russia is the main ingredient for peace and stability as well as unity and justice in the region and the world. The new Russia under your leadership has taken positive steps in that direction.
The result of the last parliamentary election has proven your enormous success. So therefore please accept my congratulations honorable and respected Mr. President. And I can assure you that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan with all its effort will stand with you against the common enemies of our two great countries, terrorism, smuggling and injustice.
The strong resistance of the people of Afghanistan against broad occupation and anarchy is not only in defense of its rights but is also a struggle against instability and in defense of our right to freedom, national sovereignty and self-determination, which itself will assure peace in the region and the world. From this point the people of Afghanistan hope for support of the friendly government of Russia as well as those of other nations of the international community.
Afghanistan and Russian friendship has historical and strategic value. Because of this, we need more cooperation and hope for strong ties and relations now as well as in the future.
With respect,
Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani
President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Note* Translation: By Afghan Journalist Sayed Noorulhaq Husseini
