Legacy of lessons

In quiet moments, when the camera is turned off and notebooks are put away, the people of Bamiyan will make a confession. Back in 2003, when New Zealand was announced as the country that was to take charge of the Provincial Reconstruction Team in their part of Afghanistan, yes, they’ll admit, they were a little bit disappointed.

It’s nothing personal, they’ll quickly add. It’s just that, well, they were hoping that a richer country would be coming to help.

Rhys Jones, the former New Zealand Chief of Defence, is not unfamiliar with this sentiment.

‘‘Initially, we had comments that, ‘You know, New Zealand is a poor country, what aid can they bring? They’re not going to bring us much money’,’’ Jones recalls.

Let’s be clear: this was not greed. This was desperation.

Bamiyan was on its knees. Prior to the coalition intervention of 2001, the Taliban government of Afghanistan had persecuted Bamiyan’s people, mostly ethnic Hazaras. Many were slaughtered, while thousands of people escaped death by fleeing into the mountains. Homes, villages and even its heritage sites – most famously the famous giant Buddha statues overlooking the town – were bombed, torn down or burned.

By 2003, when New Zealand soldiers arrived, things were still perilous.

But by 2013, when New Zealand left, Jones and other senior New Zealand officials were convinced the sentiments that had been there at the start had vanished.

‘‘Once our people operated there and really got inside the minds and got under the skin of the local population, because we were helping them, not only as provincial governments, but also as individuals, they really started to love us,’’ says Jones.

Four years on from New Zealand’s withdrawal, it’s time to ask if New Zealand’s time in Afghanistan contributed more than just warm fuzzies.

The genesis of New Zealand’s decade-long commitment to Bamiyan can be traced back to May 2003, when the United States sought further New Zealand involvement in Operation Enduring Freedom, the military campaign that had begun in response to the September 11 terrorist attacks.

A group of five ministers, headed by Prime Minister Helen Clark, was presented with a series of options. No 1 on the list was a 12-month commitment to lead a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Afghanistan.

The location chosen after a reconnaissance mission was Bamiyan. But 12 months, of course, became 10 years.

Richard Hall, who led one of the six-month PRT rotations, says the PRT concept was a new one. It was part of the counter-insurgency effort, trying to convince people to side with the new government rather than the remnants of the Taliban.

Right from the start, then, the PRT was more than just about reconstruction – this was not just a humanitarian mission. Even so, there was money to spend.

Since it began offering aid to Afghanistan, New Zealand has spent $95.81 million on development, most of it in Bamiyan. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade says it expects to spend another $7m over the next two years.

For about the first six years, the reconstruction effort was managed by the military commander on the ground at Kiwi Base, the New Zealand compound on the outskirts of Bamiyan town.

Richard Hall says that as commander in 2008-2009 it was his responsibility to use the budget from New Zealand and other funders, most notably US military funds for reconstruction. Local authorities would have input into the plan and Hall says part of his role was to ensure money was being spent in the right areas – education, health and roads, for example – but also that all the districts in the province were being catered for.

‘‘It was quite a complex matrix of where do you spend your money? Most of the work we subcontracted through to local Afghan construction companies, and so much of it, once we made a decision, the engineers that I had on my team would be overseeing the procurement process and then doing the quality assurance on the actual project itself.’’

In late 2008, when National swept Labour from office, Dr Wayne Mapp took over as defence minister from Phil Goff. Goff declined to be interviewed for this project.

But Mapp was happy to front, conducting a long interview about his time as political master of the the Defence Force. He is robustly defensive about some aspects, poignant and sad about the loss of lives. And of the reconstruction efforts, he is heartily proud.

‘‘Firstly, boosting the good governance of the province, training, security, establishing a presence, and ensuring the law and order extended across the province, that was an important part. You really can’t do the other part – which is health, education, welfare, agriculture – unless you’ve got stable governance.

‘‘And both have been achieved. I mean, I’ve been there and the improvements are just extraordinary, actually.’’

But it wasn’t a straightforward path from 2003 to the withdrawal a decade later. In 2009, the Government ordered a significant review, which led to a strategic change in direction.

Mapp admits that one of the lessons was getting the right people doing the right job. ‘‘One of transitions we had to make was getting NZ Aid much more heavily involved in long-term reconstruction.’’

So, leave the security and defence to the soldiers, and the civil aid to NZ Aid – the Government’s foreign aid division.

Civilian directors – former air force officer Dick Newlands and then career diplomat Richard Prendergast – were appointed to the PRT, although a Defence Force commander remained in charge of the military operations.

The change, however, did not signal a shift to a purely humanitarian approach to reconstruction. The PRT was still seen as part of the counterinsurgency effort – to persuade local populations to side with the Coalition-supported government, and not the insurgents.

In a thesis written as part of studies at Cambridge University in 2010, Prendergast set out how development was part of counterinsurgency.

‘‘Consistent with effective [counter-insurgency] strategy, New Zealand’s model has had a coherent purpose – of providing stability and development to Bamiyan…’’ Prendergast wrote in his paper: New Zealand’s Role in the Afghanistan Campaign.

A Foreign Affairs official interviewed for his thesis identified key successes as improvements at Bamiyan Hospital, especially in women’s health, and increased numbers of girls and women being educated, particularly at Bamiyan University.

Hospitals and schools sound like worthy recipients of aid money – were they the big winners?

Actually, according to an MFAT review in 2013, education had only received 15 per cent of development money. Health was even less – 5 per cent.

So where did the rest of the money go? Thirty-seven per cent went to sustainable economic development, 22 per cent to humanitarian assistance and reconstruction and 21 per cent to governance and justice.

They’re all areas the locals appreciate.

Bamiyan provincial governor Mohammad Tahir Zahir says locals are grateful for the work of the PRT.

‘‘Though it is four years since they have left Afghanistan, still people have good memories of your soldiers and also we would be very happy if, according to Nato policy, they were able to continue the mission here in Bamiyan,’’ he says.

A former district governor in the neighbouring Baglan province, Hajji Sangin Mohammad, says he was astounded when he found out what the New Zealand PRT was contributing compared to the Hungarian PRT in his area.

‘‘I saw schools and I ask, ‘Who built this school?’ They said NZ PRT. There was a co-ordination centre. I said, ‘Who built this compound?’ They said NZ PRT. ‘A school for girls?’ NZ PRT. ‘This building?’ They said to me NZ PRT. I was feeling I am dreaming.

‘‘Where NZ PRT built schools, Hungary PRT didn’t even build us a tent. All Hungary PRT did for us was only give 90 shoes for children and 90 jackets for children.’’

Former Bamiyan governor Dr Habiba Sarabi, who served for eight years during New Zealand’s time in Afghanistan, is grateful for the relationship she developed with the PRT commanders and the work they did.

She cites as the most successful project the effort to install solar power in and around Bamiyan town.

It was one of two major projects New Zealand concentrated on before it left, accounting for more than $20m of expenditure. Many locals are enjoying power for the first time – shop owners can finally run fridges and lights – although the price remains prohibitive for many households and businesses.

‘‘It is understandable that the price for the solar energy is expensive,’’ says Sarabi. ‘‘But, it is the duty of the local government and the [central] government to offer funds on how to manage that.’’

The other project New Zealand targeted before its departure was an agricultural assistance programme, at a cost of almost $10m.

Alpha Kennedy commanded a patrol in the troubled north-east of Bamiyan in 2009 and has since gone back to Afghanistan as a civilian to oversee development projects. He notes that the ‘‘legacy’’ projects started a long time after the PRT had commenced.

As well as being slow, things didn’t always go to plan. Stuff Circuit has seen documents showing the failure of a string of low-cost projects for culverts, bridges and flood protection schemes. Materials were either diverted to other uses or the project was never carried out at all. Sure, the projects themselves were not huge sums of money – but it was money down the (non-existent or broken) drain. And locals were left wanting. The same concern – but on a larger, and ongoing scale – centres around a vital road.

In 2010, the Defence Force issued a press release trumpeting the construction of a road that would link Bamiyan to the capital, Kabul. The existing roads were notoriously bumpy and broken and journeys took a bone-jarring day.

But locals say the project was doomed before it began. The contractor, an Afghan company, failed to ensure the base of the road was sound, says a former councillor for the area, Razia Iqbalzada.

‘‘When they planned to put the asphalt on the road, I asked them not to because the base is not so good,’’ she says. ‘‘I tried to be a sacrifice for this. I went in front of the loader to not put down the asphalt.’’

But her protests and those of others weren’t listened to and construction went ahead. While overall the journey to Kabul is vastly improved, with a journey time of three hours (depending on security), this particular stretch is potholed and broken and the bane of local truck drivers as they cart Bamiyan produce to Kabul.

‘‘There were other NGOS, other international development agencies there, and we tried to ensure that what we were doing was complementing, or at least not duplicating what they were doing.’’ Richard Hall

‘‘Firstly, boosting the good governance of the province, training, security ... that was an important part. You really can’t do the other part – which is health, education, welfare, agriculture – unless you’ve got stable governance.’’ Dr Wayne Mapp

‘‘Where NZ PRT built schools, Hungary PRT didn’t even build us a tent. All Hungary PRT did for us was only give 90 shoes for children and 90 jackets for children.’’ Former district governor of Baglan province, Hajji Sangin Mohammad

Overall, though, did New Zealand make a difference to Bamiyan? Richard Hall, who was a PRT commander in 2008/2009, says on reflection there was a lot of juggling of competing priorities.

‘‘In terms of the development aid, I think in hindsight, if we look back, we probably spent too much focus on building infrastructure rather than building capacity and capability,’’ he says.

Rather than building schools, would they have been better providing training for teachers?

‘‘If you build a school but if you’ve actually got teachers that are not very good or not taught or not trained, you have a school that’s actually hardly functioning. Whereas if you train a teacher and you put them into a shed and they’re a brilliant teacher, you may get a different result.’’

Overall, though, he remains positive, pointing out that the life expectancy of Afghans has risen from 40 to 60 since 2001.

‘‘That’s partly because there’s less violence, partly due to infant mortality rates going down, partly due to more access to health facilities, a better standard of living, more food.

‘‘That is a ginormous change in a very short period of time.’’

But for New Zealand, was it worth it? Could all those things have been achieved without military intervention?

Alpha Kennedy, the soldier turned development project leader, wonders about that too.

‘‘The military is a versatile tool because it can operate everywhere,’’ he says. ‘‘But it may not necessarily be the best to do development or to do rule of law.’’

Having the Defence Force in Afghanistan for those 10 years cost $300m – $300m to achieve $95m of reconstruction. But the maths is not as simple as it looks. What cost the 10 lives lost in the process?