Paper Victims and Fraud

Not all people exist officially and not all people that exist officially can feel pain; neither can a dead man suffer much from a broken leg. This seems a very quaint or arbitrary piece of wisdom until you actually hear yourself saying: "according to my files you already died a year ago in a shoot-out, so I'm having trouble assessing how much discomfort you actually have from your leg being broken by the bomb-blast...I mean, you're dead so you weren't really using it anymore, were you?"

Now, it's not as sarcastic as it looks. The man in question and I had already established that he really had been injured in a recent incident and that his identity had been 'stolen' a year before by a Shura council-member to pocket an assistance-package (intended for victims of the war) by claiming him as his killed cousin; my remark was a light-hearted comment in a discussion about the Afghan war version of identity-theft.

a collection of REAL stamps

No internet-payments, credit card fraud or ATM-skimming needed: a photo-camera, copier and access to government-stamps will do. Afghan identity-papers (Tazkera) are as easy to make at home as a home-made thanksgiving card. As proofs of actual registration are not commonly checked, an afternoon of arts & crafts can create a village of people that allegedly officially exist. The hardest part is getting people to pose for a photograph, but anyone in a position of power or with promises of reward has no problem collecting those from total strangers or friends that will also be willing to present themselves in person with a fabricated story about a killed relative.

All of this is possible because we have no access to trustworthy sources who can verify someone's identity except for local-level officials, who are actually not necessarily that trustworthy at all, and no one in their right mind will say that the local official or his village elders are lying to assist an international organisation: we're gone tomorrow, he's here for the rest of his life. So when an incident (bombing, shoot-out, IED-explosion) happens in your area and you know there's an organisation who will offer support to its victims, why not inflate the number of victims and do your neighbors a pleasure. Especially if a Shura-member or district-leader that is in on the scam gives you a pile of official stationary and blesses your fake incident claims-document with a signature and stamp, you're all set to ‘officially’ become a victim. It's wrong, but not terribly strange. 

Unfortunately for them we've got our ways of snooping around and verifying people's stories, and our own database that rings an alarm-bell when the same names or ID numbers pop-up: of a man who supposedly died a year ago, but now has a broken leg, for example.

Recently we found (or indeed couldn't find) 27 people who supposedly suffered loss in a bombardment: the people were made-up of fake IDs, photos from random people and (real) signatures by district-level officials. We had to find these in a sea of literally hundreds of people who were genuinely affected, which is exactly what makes it so easy for people to fraudulently claim assistance: if there is a big incident and it's difficult to assess who was really affected, a lot of organisations will just take the loss. And if your fraud gets discovered there are no repercussions: we will still help those that were really affected and thus far no one that I know of has ever lost his government-job or council position because of this type of corruption.

There are doctors who will make-up prescriptions or sign a piece of hospital-stationary stating that someone underwent surgery; people showing you a fully healed amputation-stump and claiming they lost that arm a month ago; photos taken at the local car wrecking yard that supposedly show a car blown-up in yesterday's IED-explosion, etc, etc. Luckily though, there's also that moment when a member of staff silently puts a little dot next to someone's case, because he knows it's a lie or the bizarre moment when a man who 'lost' his ability to walk, walked onto our compound...confused about the injury story his father had made-up for him.

9/11 2011: View From The Afghan Field

Abdul Wali was four years old when he was hit by a bullet last week. The bullet came from a Talib who attacked a military patrol in bright daylight in a civilian area, the boy died. So what I did today on 9/11 2011, 10 years after the attacks on the Twin Towers, was putting my signature under the delivery of assistance to the boy’s father. Last Thursday I had already signed the incident investigation, thus 'officially' adding another civilian casualty to a maddeningly long list.

kites tangled, but flying. kandahar

In the past days a number of people have asked me whether 10 years ago I expected to be in Afghanistan today. The answer is a very obvious ‘no’: on 9/11 2001 I was at my student association spreading hay over the floor (…), thinking that a tiny sports-plane had hit the WTC in Amsterdam with no serious consequences. That the consequences of what really happened were grave enough to now have me living in an international compound in the former Taliban capital (Kandahar), investigating and assisting families of civilian casualties of fighting between International Military Forces and the Taliban did not exactly cross my mind. But, as I’m here…

In the past 15 months I have put my signature under incident investigations representing close to 1,000 dead, injured or otherwise affected (bombarded houses) Afghan civilians. That same signature has also been put under assistance packages for about 700 families. At the moment less and less of those killed or injured are a result of the international military forces which is a positive development in itself. It may show an increasing understanding of how not to lose a war (no one wins a war). For me, in the last months the number of civilian casualties by international military went up somewhat due to cases where civilians came close to convoys or ignored stop-signs: troops were nervous about the immense destruction caused by Taliban’s suicide bombers during this “fighting season”, and it showed (a bit).

The numbers that are up, skyrocketing almost, are Afghan civilians that have been killed or maimed by Taliban or other AGE (Anti Government Entities). The Taliban is clobbering the Afghan population like a piñata at Osama Bin Laden’s welcome-party in hell. The big difference, and worry, at the moment being that the stick to beat with isn’t solely provided by the Taliban’s senior clergy in Quetta anymore, but by undisciplined and irregular gangs of younger fanatics that are not interested in politics or negotiation. Any optimistic reports on talks about peace-negotiotations or preliminary talks-to-discuss-to-talk-about-talks should be appreciated with the mental picture of Madrassa students willing to blow themselves up for eternal life, in the back of your mind. The ages and the mentality of the suicide-bombers that are currently caught before they can act don’t lie.

I am optimistic about the future though: the insanity currently displayed by the Taliban, combined with some very cautious advances in education and economy in parts of the country are enraging and empowering those Afghans that have thus far remained the real fabric of society: caring and loving parents that will indeed speak up if their sons’ and daughters’ glimmers of hope are trampled upon again, whether by the country’s politicians or the Taliban.

9/11 and its aftermath in the form of the Afghan war are as unwelcome as any other form of human suffering and the world has not become a more beautiful place because of it, but there are too many truly beautiful Afghan minds and people that yearn to wander and roam for us to now just say “we tried, but failed”. It's not about us: let’s allow them to try, and decide not to fail them.

Afghanistan: In Loving Care

A tricycle-motor is coming down a desert-road in the province of Uruzgan. A man in his thirties is driving and in the load-bed a 28-month-old seriously ill boy is wrapped in blankets. The man is the boy’s uncle and bringing him to hospital. The uncle halts for a quick roadside talk with people that an overhead drone (unmanned aerial vehicle) identifies as Taliban. 15 minutes back on the road the tricycle gets a direct hit from special forces, the uncle dies on the spot. the boy sustains lethal injuries and dies some days later.

The drone crew and the special forces never detected the bundled-up boy on their video-images. A terrible incident, but it hides a further story.

Upon investigation (to establish whether we could assist the boy’s family) we found that the boy’s parents hadn’t been able to bring the boy to hospital themselves as both the father and mother are mentally disabled. The couple and their children live with their extended family who look after them in an isolated village known to be a Taliban hotbed. The killed uncle had indeed been a Talib, other family-members actively assist and host Taliban fighters in their houses.

The exact extent of the parents’ disability is unknown; there are no psychiatrists or psychologists in Uruzgan who can properly examine them or offer any hope of treatment and professional care. Neither is there any way to provide children whose families engage with the Taliban with a safe alternative. Otherwise healthy adults can choose to support the Taliban, whether that is a completely free choice or a forced decision depends on background, culture, religious convictions, economics and geography. Who definitely don’t have a choice though are the mentally disabled couple: they do not live with the Taliban out of any choice and their 28-month-old son was not being transported by an active Talib by free choice, however loving their family and the visiting Talibs may be.

The couple have other sons as well, but one or two of these boys will likely end up on the other side of the border with Pakistan in a Taliban madrassa. As one of my staff explains: the family feels an ‘urgency’ to have at least one of the boys ‘serve the faith’ for his blessed parents. ’Blessed’ being an interesting choice of word as the family went on complaining about the huge burden upon them…With hundreds of very young children populating the Taliban madrassas of North Pakistan where they are promised flowers raining down from heaven and eternal life after detonating themselves as suicide-bombers, it is a very sad promise this boy’s future holds.

Concepts of freedom and choice when it comes to the Taliban or other Islamist groups are a laden topic and it is impossible to know how the parents may have chosen if healthy. It is heart-rending though to realise how trapped those weakest in this fight for survival so often really are.

A burning sensation

One of the staff at my Kandahar office has an 11-year-old daughter who loves going to school. School is where her friends are, where she writes her stories and where she tries to understand why the teacher says her handwriting needs to improve (she vehemently disagrees). School is also in the centre of town, where the recent week of violent protest made it impossible for her to go there.

The actions of a marginal Florida pastor apparently enraged so many so much, that UN staff had to be killed and many more Afghan civilians ended up dead or wounded. One of the protesters said that he ‘had to defend Islam and their dignity’.

I may be wrong, but what I saw did not look like defending anything, nor did it look dignified. It looked like random violence, attacking people, setting cars on fire and destroying livelihoods. In the process more Qurans were burnt in the torched shops than any unhinged pastor ever did. The protesters apparently did retain the moral high-ground though, as it would be impossible for them to maim, molest or murder for anything than the highest Good, or so we were told by President Karzai.

With most other Muslims occupied with protests in the Middle East that were actually dignified and constructive, Karzai must have been relieved that clerics chose to focus on the Quran-burning and consequently the people of Afghanistan were still not gathering in front of his presidential palace or the provincial Council in Kandahar to address the eye-watering corruption and endless impunity that is orchestrated from there on a daily basis. So he ‘understood’ that they had to set the streets ablaze and tied his own hands by sitting on them.

An 11-year-old girl that wants to go to school has enough to be frightened of on the streets of Kandahar without self-serving hotheads, be they president or protester, making it worse. If you are not planning anything positive with your protest, then leave your banner and lighter at home and instead demonstrate dignity by allowing a little girl to go to school. Now that will prove a certain pastor wrong.

Blood on your hands

Would you drink tea with a man who is responsible for the death of more than 100 civilians? Do you consider the man whose militia controls and tyrannizes tens of villages as a partner for peace? Is the family that has earned millions of dollars over the backs of their fellow countrymen by exploiting their suffering a table partner?


Preferably not, but the answer to these questions is always ‘yes’. When I was working in the west of Afghanistan I could still largely ignore the ‘black side’, but now in Kandahar, Uruzgan, Zabul and Daykundi it is quite impossible to implement the program without a friendly smile for people who, under any other circumstance, should face trail in The Hague.

The small examples are the local strongmen who can provide my staff save passage though certain areas, or not. They and their men have been fighting for the last 30 years for every conceivable side and have not always behaved like perfect gentlemen, which I use as an understatement for having gallons of blood on their hands. You know that the guy sitting opposite from you is from a family that until very recently slowly strangled their opponents with glass-covered kite-line, today, however, he makes it possible for our staff to do incident investigations in a village where no one has been for the past two years.

One of the most interesting men to ‘cooperate’ with is the strongman of Uruzgan, Matiullah Khan: warlord and Pontius Pilate in one. The Dutch army had some rather interesting encounters with him during their Uruzgan tenure for ISAF and most of the international projects in the province would not have been implemented if it weren’t for his blessing. Without any official deal or handshake he allows us to use his secure convoys for free and protects our staff and office. Recently, the head of the Uruzgan provincial council stole assistance we had provided to some of our beneficiaries and ‘arrested’ our local coordinator. If that is the way the head of a governmental council behaves, who can you go to…but a certain local power-holder.

All of these men, whether they are now in official positions or running the show with support from their private militias, say that they only steal from you to redistribute it more fairly; they only skim off salaries to help the poor, and; they only behead someone because he stands in the way of an Afghan paradise being established. If this is your choice for partner, who do you tango with? The most important consideration isn’t really whether someone is a war criminal, but whether you further legitimize him by cooperating with him and if that is actually a bad thing for Afghanistan and its people.

I choose to ‘use’ a man with more blood on his hands than I ever held for possible, whilst the other option doesn’t carry any less responsibility for human suffering. You’ll have to choose…or just do nothing at all.