Poster President: Karzai gestures towards reform, while his regime's thievery thrives

President Hamid Karzai’s belated shunting of his Interior Minister to the Ministry of Refugee Affairs has been labelled “farcical” by a former senior member of the government in Kabul.

“Of course Zarar Muqbul should be investigated, not rewarded with another cabinet post,” says the source, who spoke to skyreporter on condition his name be withheld for fear of violent reprisal.

“Even though there is much less opportunity for bribes and corruption at the refugees department, Zarar should answer for his complete mismanagement of the police, and for the trouble we see in all sections of the Interior Ministry.

“By simply moving him sideways, the president has shifted the problem, not taken action to resolve it.”

Zarar was profiled some 15 months ago by skyreporter in an article published by Policy Options, the monthly publication of Canada’s Institute for Research on Public Policy (please see our July, 31, 2007 blog: “U.S. & Allies Shrink From Confronting Karzai’s Crooks” in Recent Stories on this website).

Two sources, an officer with the National Directorate of Security and a respected general at the Interior Ministry, allege that Zarar has been involved in the “mushkil tarashi” bribery scams, loathed by Afghan truckers, in which policemen stop vehicles at random and demand payments.

As well, Zarar was blamed by Zabul Governor Delbar Arman with failing to stop the siphoning off of policemen’s salaries by corrupt officials in the ministry’s central office in Kabul, and elsewhere along the chain of command.

Neither Karzai’s office nor the office of Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper would comment on the charges at the time (Canada is a leading donor to the police salaries and training program, known as LOTFA). As much as 30% of international funds earmarked for salaries have vanished into the Interior Ministry’s graft-ridden corridors of power.

As is sadly the norm within the Karzai regime, Zarar has retained high office despite widespread knowledge of his character and performance.

One former government minister, who has known Zarar for more than 20 years, tells skyreporter:  “In the early 1990’s, he and his family owned a shop in Charikar and a few gardens in Parwan province. Now, after a number of years in the Interior Ministry, he has property holdings that really deserve to be fully investigated.

“In the top levels of power today in Afghanistan, perhaps only the president’s brothers, Qayum and Mahmood, have taken possession of more land with no understandable way to pay for it.”

Karzai has faced mounting pressure from his international patrons, notably the British and Americans, to address rampant corruption within his ministries. Ironically, these foreign powers share a great deal of responsibility for the shape and nature of Karzai’s regime.

Zarar, for example, was an ineffectual deputy of the highly-regarded Ali Jalali, who quit his Interior post in 2005 when Karzai refused to rid his government of Gul Agha Sherzai, the corrupt former governor of Kandahar province. In that instance, too, Karzai simply moved Sherzai to the governor’s post in Nangahar Province - while his younger brother Wali Karzai tended Sherzai's "business interests" back in Kandahar.

The American Embassy, meantime, demurred both to Sherzai’s reincarnation in Jalalabad and Wali Karzai's increased prominence in Kandahar. American officials also welcomed Zarar’s promotion to Interior Minister - despite warnings from responsible members of government.

This latest of Karzai’s fumbling mini-shuffles will see Hanif Atmar, who has gained a reputation for “clean hands” in the Education post, take Zarar’s place at Interior. Education will become the preserve of another key Karzai ally and adviser - Farooq Wardak - who is blamed by many Afghan parliamentarians for a number of the regime’s most controversial appointments and policies.

The shuffle comes as investigations continue into the former Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet, whose role in triggering the Kabul Airport heroin scandal was revealed last year here on skyreporter (please see our Afghan Heroin series of film reports in the early pages of “Recent Stories”).

The popular and successful airport police chief victimized by Sabet, General Aminullah Amerkhel, has now had his name formally cleared of any alleged blame – hardly surprising, since the corrupt former Attorney General had failed to file any formal charges in his vendetta against Amerkhel.

Gen. Amerkhel, sadly, has not been restored to his position at the airport, where, prior to his removal by Sabet, he routinely collared up to five heroin smugglers per week.

So it goes in Hamid Karzai’s Kabul. The big Khans of the heroin trade continue to cash in, while honest Afghans can only dream of justice.