Afghanistan faces a return to its darkest days, as dangerous as those under the Taliban regime that supported the September 11 attacks, if the international community fails to live up to its commitments to rebuild the shattered nation, according to the country's president, Hamid Karzai.
"I think we all learned well the lesson of what happened the last time the world forgot about Afghanistan," Karzai said in an exclusive interview with Emerging Markets.
The Afghan president, who was elected in October, renewed his appeal for international aid "to help transform a failed state into a contributing member of the international community." Since the US-led invasion, Afghanistan has relied on foreign aid for survival. In March 2004, the US, Japan, Germany, the UK and other countries pledged $8.2 billion over three years to the country. Karzai had asked for $27.5 billion over seven years.
"We are asking the international community to make multi-year commitments, to better help our government develop plans for the future, and enable Afghanistan to stand on its own feet." However, he stressed that what is needed is long-term foreign investment, not crisis help. "We no longer need emergency assistance, but rather a long term, sustained commitment to Afghanistan," he said.
Foreign investment is critical to turning around an economy crippled by decades of conflict, and undermined by its reliance on opium farming. So far, about 1,500 international firms have aired plans to invest a combined $800 million in the country, which, for Karzai, represents a "sense of excitement about the opportunity that exists" in Afghanistan.
Yet the drug trade still remains the primary obstacle to building a healthy economy. Production of the drug, the raw material for heroin, has rocketed since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, triggering warnings that the former al-Qaeda haven is fast turning into a "narco-state" despite the presence of more than 25,000 foreign troops.
Last year, cultivation reached a record 323,700 acres and yielded nearly 90% of the world's supply. According to the UN Office on Drugs and Crime, Afghanistan is the home to the world's biggest illegal narcotics industry.
Failure to create a healthy economy could force a return to brutal feuding over the country's most profitable industry. Karzai, however, believes that "dependence" is the wrong word to describe the importance of the drug industry to the economy. "I think it is important to clarify that Afghanistan is not dependent on opium – but that many poor farmers depend on the income they generate from growing poppies," he says. He pointed out that the country has made significant progress in curbing poppy cultivation, which is down by about one-third from last year's record high.
"I am confident that this stain on Afghanistan will be removed, provided that we can provide sustainable alternatives to the people of Afghanistan," he said, adding that drug production is against the most fundamental beliefs of much of the population. "Growing poppies flies in the face of our religion and culture, and this is why I am convinced that, given an alternative, farmers will stop producing opium – as many of them have already demonstrated."