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| Hamid Karzai |
Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s decision to deny international development organizations the right to protect their workers could jeopardize the U.S. counterinsurgency strategy and the political and economic stability of Afghanistan.
Why? The firms, many of which hire Afghans to fill more than 90 percent of their positions, are prohibited under the terms of their contracts, insurance policies and other agreements from operating in the combat zone without this protection. Further, development firms simply won’t risk the lives of their employees by sending them outside U.S. compounds without personal security. In short, the decision will throw thousands of Afghans out of work.
In addition to putting those Afghans directly working for U.S. companies out of work, the move ends the road, electrical grid, school and other infrastructure projects that promise to improve the lives of the average Afghan citizen. The move would also affect the agricultural industry and efforts to convert opium crops that fuel the global drug trade into food crops, such as pomegranates, which can be consumed locally or exported to neighboring nations.
Dozens of PSC member companies are involved in development work in Afghanistan. On Oct. 21, PSC President and CEO Stan Soloway issued the following statement about Karzai’s decision:
"PSC hoped that U.S. government negotiations with the Karzai government over security for reconstruction and development firms would have resulted in the continuation of protection for those working hard to ensure economic security and prosperity, and therefore peace, in Afghanistan. But without physical security, there is no development or reconstruction; and without development and reconstruction, there is no progress toward the stated, shared goals of the U.S. and Afghanistan. As such, the Afghan government’s decision to prohibit the use of any private security firms—be they Afghan, U.S., or other—to protect development and reconstruction efforts and personnel will have a devastating impact on critical projects and programs that are designed to build vital capacity and capability to benefit the people of Afghanistan. As recent hearings and reports have made clear, the vast majority of private security firms are performing at high levels of professionalism and quality; and the bulk of their employees are Afghan nationals with both the cultural sensitivities and local knowledge needed to ensure that necessary level of performance. The decision to prohibit these firms from operating in the country could necessarily result in development firms and non-governmental organizations demobilizing and exiting the nation—a result that serves no one’s interests."
