Foreign Correspondence

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Donors Press Karzai on Corruption
By HELENE COOPER and ALAN COWELL
Published: June 13, 2008

PARIS — International donors opened a major conference here Thursday to debate help for Afghanistan despite
broad skepticism about the Kabul government’s ability to rein in corruption, curb the drug trade and combat instability.

President Hamid Karzai is seeking $50 billion over five years to help Afghanistan rebuild after decades of conflict. But potential donors want his government to intensify efforts to fight corruption.

The United States renewed a commitment to provide $10.2 billion, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said as she flew to Paris for the meeting. President Nicolas Sarkozy promised to increase French aid, but did not offer specific figures when he addressed the conference opening.

“France shall retain its commitment to Afghanistan so long as it is necessary to win,” Mr. Sarkozy said. “We cannot give in to torturers.”

Mr. Sarkozy defended the international effort in Afghanistan, saying, “The trend now is to criticize what the international community has achieved in Afghanistan. But what matters is progress achieved.”

For his part, Mr. Karzai appealed for more aid and tried to address some of the complaints from members of the international community that he has not done enough to crack down on corruption and narcotics.

“Afghanistan security is deeply tied to narcotics,” he acknowledged, calling Afghan’s opium poppy trade a “major contributor to corruption.”

But he said the international community shouldn’t forget “that for our destitute farmers, opium is about survival.”

He also took aim at the international community, blaming foreigners for drug trafficking. “While opium is produced by Afghan farmers, its trafficking is an international phenomenon,” he said.

“Afghanistan needs large amounts of aid, but precisely how aid is spent is just as important,” Mr. Karzai told the opening session.

The gathering is being attended by 67 countries and 15 international organizations. Most contributions are far more modest than the American pledge. The British foreign secretary, David Miliband, said his country would provide roughly $1.2 billion between now and 2013. The World Bank will offer $1.1 billion and Japan will increase its aid by $550 million, Reuters reported. The conference is expected to secure pledges of around $15 billion — far less than the amount Mr. Karzai has sought.

Afghanistan relies on foreign aid for some 90 percent of its budget and some 60,000 NATO troops — 34,000 of them American — are deployed against the Taliban, now resurgent after being ousted as the country’s government more than six years ago.

President Bush, on a tour of Europe, has been urging European leaders to commit combat forces in greater numbers in Afghanistan in order, he said, to safeguard the changes that came with the defeat of the rigidly Islamic Taliban regime, such as access to education for girls.

Ban Ki-moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, told the conference donors should both increase aid to Afghanistan and demand better standards of its leaders. “Every act of corruption is a deliberate act by someone in a position of authority,” he said.

Laura Bush, the American first lady, who has just visited Afghanistan, told the conference that the country had “reached a decisive moment for its future. We must not turn our back on this opportunity.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/13/world/europe/13afghan.html?_r=1&ref=world&oref=slogin