# Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan



## GAP (25 Nov 2007)

Corruption, bribes and trafficking: a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan
November 24, 2007
Article Link

The general made an elementary mistake. Told by his superiors that his new posting as chief of police in a drug-rich northern province would cost him “one hundred and fifty thousand”, he assumed the bribe to be in Afghan currency. 

He paid the money to a go-between at a rendezvous in Kabul’s Najib Zarab carpet market. For two days he was lorded in the office of General Azzam, then Chief of Staff to the Interior Minister, helping himself to chocolate and biscuits. “I must have eaten a pound of the stuff,” he recalled. 

But on the third day he received a different welcome. “Get this mother****** out of my office,” Azzam screamed, said the general. Hustled outside, he quickly discovered his error. He should have paid $150,000 (£73,000) rather than a paltry 150,000 Afghanis for the bung. 

Now living in disgruntled internal exile in northern Afghanistan, his verdict on his former employers is succinct. 

“Everyone in the Ministry of Interior is corrupt,” he told The Times. “They wouldn’t sleep with their wives without wanting a backhander first.” 

He never, though, expressed surprise. Governmental corruption in Afghanistan has become endemic and bribes to secure police and administrative positions along provincial drug routes is an established procedure. 
More on link


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## Genetk44 (25 Nov 2007)

Bah! nothing new in this.....situation was the same even before the Russians invaded.


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## 1feral1 (25 Nov 2007)

Corruption in these parts is as old as the hills.

It was the same in Iraq.


Cheers,

Wes


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## Nemo888 (26 Nov 2007)

Corruption is not "a cancer that is engulfing Afghanistan". It is the system. Out interference has only made it slightly worse than usual. If you think we can change that I admire your zealous idealism, but I think it unrealistic and naive.


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## 1feral1 (26 Nov 2007)

What do you mean 'the system'?

Corruption there is older than our own society.

Are you blaming this on us?

Emphisise please.


Wes


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## Nemo888 (26 Nov 2007)

What we call corruption is an integral part of their social exchanges and system of governance. The cost of doing business, a primitive form of taxation in many respects. I read an Afghani explaining it as before they only had to bribe the head man but now they have to bribe everyone in the chain. Our intervention has caused condiderable inflation in the cost of finalizing deals with public officials and their underlings, at least in the short term.

The general public complains, but they are  powerless to change it. Like how we feel when the oil companies gouge us at the pumps with the excuse of political instability and an insecure future.


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## Genetk44 (26 Nov 2007)

Its been like that for hundreds of years not only in Afghanistan but all through the region......if you wanted a telephone line installed quickly and not have to wait 4 years you paid baksheesh for it....if you wanted your mail to be sent you paid the postal-clerk at the post-office baksheesh to cancel the stamp in front of you...otherwise they'd remove the stamp, resell it to somebody else and your letter just disappeared into the trash-can....etc., etc., etc., ...we may not like it, or agree with it but its the way it was and is.


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## geo (26 Nov 2007)

Corruption & Bribes is nothing new... consider Karl Heinz Schreiber and his wondrous dog & pony show.
- holding out on an "encore" appearance in Germany, this fella appears to have seen it all and done it all... and is now prepared to tell it all - on the condition of being allowed to stay in Canada for a while longer.

Considering the fun and games we have just finished going thru (Sponsorship inquiry), is there a reason we should hold the Afghans to a higher standard?


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