Defence`s Feeds

American Barrett M82 Anti-Material Rifle

There is a fairly universal consensus in Washington that Russia presents a potential geopolitical threat to the United States. The threat derives from Vladimir Putin’s desire to reshape the international order by restoring his country’s position as a great power and his willingness to modernize and wield Russia’s military forces in service of this aim. However, there is no such consensus on how to deal with this threat. Some experts argue for more robust U.S. and NATO policies aimed at deterring future Russian adventurism, including positioning significant military forces in Eastern Europe, providing lethal military equipment to Ukraine and Georgia, and starting preparations to deploy intermediate-range nuclear forces to Europe. They say that these measures, in combination with Russia’s economic travails, will strengthen the position of those in Moscow officialdom who are opposed to Russia’s military adventurism.

This argument is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of how humans react to threats.

—–

Originally published by War on the Rocks. Click here to read the rest of the article.

Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

EDA Chief Executive Jorge Domecq welcomed a delegation of the foreign affairs committee of the Parliament of Finland in the EDA premises on 28 January.

The delegation members were interested to receive information on European defence matters, current EDA priorities as well as future plans. Mr Domecq also highlighted the importance of the forthcoming EU Global Strategy as well as the European Defence Action Plan. The committee members furthermore received updates on the Agency’s cooperation with the European Commission regarding the Preparatory Action for CSDP-related research as well as on EDA's initiatives in cooperation with the Member States on Security of Supply. At the end of the Meeting the Members of the Parliament reaffirmed Finland's support to the Agency.

With recent history awash with gallantry awards and media accounts of extraordinary feats of courage in combat, it is soldiers’ brawn, not brains which monopolises modern perceptions of the British Army. However, the vital contribution of the conceptual compon

If the ability to hold credible, peaceful elections is a key litmus test of a country’s progress towards democratic consolidation, the latest evidence from Haiti is far from encouraging. The electoral cycle that began in August 2015 – following months of delays and governance by presidential decree – was meant to renew Haiti’s democratic institutions,

"​​​The Global Cybersecurity Index (GCI) measures each nation's level of commitment to the ITU's Global Cybersecurity Agenda, with the aim of highlighting potential areas for improvement and driving cybersecurity to the forefront of national plans. This report presents the 2014 results of the GCI and the Cyberwellness country profiles for Member states. It includes regional rankings, a selected set of good practices and the way forward for the next iteration."

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With Haiti President stepping down without a successor in February 2016, and with security governance and security governance being key issues at both the national and local levels, the SSR Resource Centre created this SSR Country Snapshot to highlight key recent publications published by the Centre for Security Governance.     Last Updated: February 2016 On

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The introduction of electronic ID cards – or e-tazkera – in Afghanistan remains haunted by delays, obstacles and poor planning. Although CEO Dr Abdullah approved the e-tazkera pilot phase on 3 August 2015, the process has yet to begin. Since then, President Ghani has questioned the very feasibility of this oft-delayed project, while main donors have suspended funding. In this second issue of a two-part dispatch, AAN’s Jelena Bjelica and Martine van Bijlert take a closer look at the technical stumbling blocks.

A short history of the e-tazkera project

Two ministries

The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT) started work on the project in February 2009. Six months later, it formally announced the introduction of an ‘electronic tazkera’ containing biometric information. The aim of the project is to create a modern, uniform and unique identity card for Afghan citizens that would replace the six versions of tazkera (ID documents) currently in circulation. (1) Because the paper-based tazkera system lacks proper security features, it is prone to manipulation and falsification. Moreover, there is currently no centralised system to gather and store population data.

The project is divided between two ministries, which, over time, have competed for a leading role: the Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT), which handles the e-tazkera’s software development, design and production; and the Ministry of Interior (MoI), responsible for registration and distribution. In 2011, the E-Tazkera Authority (ETA) was established as the lead agency (based on the Council of Ministers’ resolution no 37) and placed within the MoI. It is also referred to as the E-Tazkera Department.

The contract for the original project, the National Electronic ID Card (e-NID), was won in December 2010 by the private company Grand Technology Resources (GTR). GTR is a multinational, Afghan-Malaysian company, specialising in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and registered in Malaysia. (2) It was contracted to implement the project within three years, which was an optimistic timeframe. As soon as the contract was signed, the lead ministry at the time (MoCIT) informed the public that distribution would start within eight months – by September 2011.

The introduction of a standardised ID document that could also be used as a voter card or to help establish reliable voter lists, has long been seen as a prerequisite to effectively reducing election fraud. As a result, in 2013, discussions surrounding the process were superseded by a wish to accelerate both the project and distribution of the cards in the run-up to the presidential elections. On 17 September 2012, the Afghan cabinet rejected a proposal by the Independent Election Commission (IED) to launch a new voter registration process, preferring instead the countrywide distribution of the e-tazkera. The registration phase for the ID cards was scheduled to begin in Dalw 1391 (January/ February 2013), although it was clear that, even under the best of circumstances, only part of the population might be issued with an electronic ID-card before the 2014 election. (3) Other delays and controversies stalled the process (see part 1 of this dispatch, published on 25 January 2016).

Following the inauguration of the National Unity Government (NUG) and in light of the upcoming parliamentary elections (now scheduled for 15 October 2016), discussions regarding the e-tazkera and the elections were revisited. However, they were laid to rest when, on 19 June 2015, President Ghani extended the parliament’s term, until then scheduled to end on 22 June 2015. With discussions regarding electoral reform underway and the realisation that the two processes had very different timelines, talks regarding the e-tazkera and elections were pushed into the long grass.

Partners involved

The e-tazkera project is worth over 200 million US dollars, jointly funded by the Afghan government, the European Union and the United States. From this amount, a contract worth 101 million US dollars was awarded to GTR to set up the system and to procure all necessary equipment and software. GTR had previously been awarded two other data-centric contracts by the Afghan government. (4) The remaining funds were allocated to the distribution of the cards and administrative costs.

According to a report by the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC), the Ministry of Finance (MoF) allocated five million US dollars of its own funds for 2015 through the annual national budget. As of September 2015, the Afghan government had spent approximately 64.5 million US dollars on the project. (7.5 million US dollars were spent by the MoI on salaries and 57 million US dollars by the MoCIT to establish the system.)

The exact details of GTR’s contract are not known. In a recent report on the e-tazkera project’s susceptibility to corruption (more below), the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC), which independently monitors and evaluates national and international efforts to fight corruption in Afghanistan and it reports to the public, Parliament, President, and international community, remarked that the committee could not report on the GTR contract “due to the technical aspects of it.” However, it was clear that the MEC had been unable to obtain all the information required to produce a balanced report. This included, for instance, a full list of IT equipment that the MoCIT had contracted, along with necessary specifications. The MEC recommended that the GTR contract “be examined by a professional team of IT experts from an independent third party organisation.”

In its bid for the contract, GTR included a number of technical partners. These included the company IRSI , which specialises in poly-carbonated cards with security features and their integration into the overall system (so far 15 million cards have been ordered, of which seven million have already been delivered); the Korean company HYUNDAI-IT, which specialises in system development methodologies (HSDM) for applications development, system integration and system
security; the company DongDO for the system integration and application development with HYUNDAI-IT; and a company called ENTRUST for the “public key-infrastructure.” According to GTR, the company’s tasks are “to lead the overall project, to provide system integration, client mentoring, coaching and capacity building and to ensure responsible transfer of the project to the government.”

The pilot phase: approved, announced but yet to get underway

The e-tazkera project is divided into four key activities: (a) public awareness and data collection (for an illustration on the challenges of data collection, see this article (5)); (b) citizens’ identity/data verification; (c) biometric registration in enrolment centres; and (d) printing of IDs. Work on the first two activities – data collection and verification – has started at a low level (data for 400,000 citizens in Kabul were collected and some 100,000 verified). In consultation with the International Organisation for Migration (IOM), which provides technical support to the project, the ETA has now proposed a start-to-end pilot project, in which all four key activities in the process will be tested on a small scale.

When planning the pilot project, IOM suggested three options: either to focus on a limited number of areas in Kabul; or, for the project to be implemented in Kabul and four other urban centres; finally, to implement it in Kabul and three districts in different provinces, in order to ensure that the system be tested in different geographic and social settings. In the end, the ETA opted for the first (and least complicated) option. The pilot project would, in theory, take place over 150 days: 60 days for its preparation (although the MoI initially believed 30 would suffice) and 90 days for its practical implementation. The estimated cost is three million US dollars, to be shared equally between the Afghan government and international donors.

The proposal for the pilot project was presented to the president in June 2015 and approved by CEO Abdullah and the Council of Ministers on 3 August 2015. It was initially scheduled to start on 19 August 2015, which coincided with Afghanistan’s Independence Day. However on 18 August 2015, during a meeting at the palace, the president insisted that the day’s focus should be “on commending and decorating the national defence and security forces.” According to a palace statement, it was decided that the e-tazkera pilot be launched at a later date in the presence of officials and notables (English version of the palace statement here;  the clearer Dari version can be found here ). This has not yet happened.

On 18 August 2015, the E-Tazkera Authority organised a ceremony in which dozens of sample IDs were handed out to civil society representatives in an attempt to launch the project.

Although the pilot has been announced, it remains unclear whether the project is technically ready and, more importantly, whether it has the political buy-in it needs. The President himself appears to have reservations, given several orders he has issued to assess the feasibility of the project. Moreover, he has still not formally given the go-ahead for the pilot phase of the project. Setbacks and politicking have hindered the project from the beginning (see part one of AAN’s e-tazkera series available here).

Logistics, weaknesses and concerns

Three assessments

Since last summer, at which point there was still enough pressure to propel the project forward, the President has tasked at least three commissions to advise him on the e-tazkera’s feasibility and its potential pitfalls: in June 2015 he ordered a rapid technical review of the project; in September 2015 he requested an assessment of the project’s susceptibility to corruption; and in October/November 2015 he ordered a more political review of the implications and sensitivities of the e-tazkera, as well as a look at the main technical concerns raised in earlier reports.

The technical review in June 2015 was conducted by a three-member committee and resulted in a long report that flagged various concerns relating to issues including data processing and data security. According to an abridged copy (seen by AAN), concerns included the securing of data transmission and data storage, the possibility of data loss, issues of connectivity (and the possibility that this might exceed the budget) and the lack of a robust testing of the system. However, the scope of the conclusions was limited to technical aspects of the project, as the review focused on what needed to be done before embarking on the pilot.

Secondly, the president instructed the country’s two anti-corruption bodies – the Independent Joint Anti-Corruption Monitoring and Evaluation Committee (MEC)  and the High Office of Oversight and Corruption (HOO)  – to jointly conduct a Vulnerability to Corruption Assessment (VCA). A public summary of the findings, released on 21 October 2015, flagged two key concerns: the nepotism, discrimination, political interference and ethnic conflicts within the ETA; and financial corruption in staff recruitment and procurement. The MEC report concluded with two recommendations: reform of the administrative structure and human resources procedures of the ETA through the introduction of a transparent, competitive and merit-based hiring process; and an independent audit of the GTR contract. (6)

On 10 January 2015, ToloNews released details of the confidential version of the VCA report that they had had access to, stating that:

The report reveals that scores of high school graduates and unprofessional individuals have been appointed in the department without considering their abilities and skills for the posts. “Nearly 27 employees of the e-NIC [department] have been appointed by direct order of former interior minister [Muhammad Umar Daudzai] and his deputies – without going through the employment process. In addition, the leadership of the e-NIC department has been appointed based on the order of the Interior Ministry and the Chief Executive Office,” the report reveals. Only 320 out of 1,046 employees in the e-NIC department have been appointed through free competition, but the remaining officials have been appointed based on direct orders by a number of MPs and former leaders of the Interior Ministry, the report says. The leaked documents also reveal that 519 employees of the e-NIC department were first appointed directly by the MoI and then they were provided the grounds for a competition process and finally they were hired as permanent staffers in the organization. However, e-NIC officials have said they have done this because of the pressure on them.

The third review, which began in October/November 2015, looked into concerns that had been raised in both the technical review and the VCA, to see whether they had been addressed and to advise on the political sensitivities surrounding the e-tazkera (see part one of AAN’s e-tazkera series available here). The commission was headed by Abdul Salam Rahimi, former head of the Office of Administrative Affairs, currently head of Public Policy Formulation in President Ghani’s office. The findings of the commission are not known to AAN. The commission has apparently advised the president that its main concerns had been addressed, however the president appears to remain sceptical.

The slow dissolution of the ETA

E-tazkera staff lose jobs

The EU provided funding for 300 of the MoI employees in the E-Tazkera Authority (ETA), which came to an end in June 2015 (although some 100 e-tazkera employees remained on the payroll until 15 August.) The EU’s commitment of funding until the end of 2015 was based on the condition that it would not cover operational costs. When EU funds ran out, the Ministry of Finance took over the payment of the 300 e-tazkera staff salaries, in addition to the other salaries it was already covering. This came to an end on 20 December 2015 (30 Qows) when contracts ended and were not extended. The e-tazkera project had employed over 1000 staff in the MoI over three years. (7)

Many e-tazkera staff continued to show up for work, hoping to retain their jobs. Some argued they had continued to work despite the fact that the project had long since come to a halt. Zmaray Baher, head of the registration (also termed enrolment) department at the ETA, published an article on the Hasht-e Sobh website on 28 October 2015, in which he described how staff continued to gather bio-data and confirm existing identity documents for the e-tazkera and to digitalise the records of the population registry department (a project separate from the e-tazkera). (8) “Since a few months we have not received a salary,” he lamented. “We face shortages of stationary and other supplies; we face a shortages of forms, which are at the heart of our job; and most important of all, each day the interest of the citizens for this process is waning.”

Once a start date for the pilot project is announced and work resumes, the IOM will be tasked to screen all ETA employees and ensure that future recruitment be transparent (recruitment had initially been one of IOM’s responsibilities, however by the time the organisation got involved, they found all staff had already been hired). The screening will take place during the pilot’s two month-long preparatory phase. This is particularly important, given the findings of the MEC’s susceptibility to corruption report:

Among the problems MEC identified were a lack of written procedures for recruitment; a tendency to ignore the Civil Service Law in the recruitment process; a lack of oversight; and the interference in the process by powerful individuals from the government, parliament, and elsewhere—all of which have created corruption vulnerabilities and facilitated the improper hiring of approximately 70% of the authority’s staff.

E-tazkera staff push for resumption of project

In the meantime, the ETA and in particular its head, Homayun Mohtat, had attempted to continue the project. In September 2015, the Minister of Interior, Nur-ul-Haq Ulumi, sent a letter to President Ghani, saying that if the e-tazkera process, which had ground to a halt in August 2015, was not restarted, over 1000 people would be left without a job.

On 15 December 2015, a local media outlet leaked another letter from the Minister of Interior that was sent to the President on 28 November 2015. It stated that the ETA had lost funding and the MoI faced difficulties paying ETA staff salaries: “Luckily with the exceptional help from the Ministry of Finance and reduction in salaries the ETA managed to find the resources to keep the staff and provide them with salaries until the end of 1394 [21 March 2016]. Unfortunately practical work on e-tazkera has not started and the MoI would not be able to extend the contracts of their staff after the end of December 2015.” This appeared to be another attempt to force the issue on to the agenda.

Additionally, in November 2015, ETA’s head, Mohtat, sent a nine-page document to the President (to which AAN had access), addressing e-tazkera challenges and offering recommendations. He suggested a new management structure, addressed issues concerning staff recruitment raised by the MEC report and in general appealed to the President not to scrap the project. On 20 December 2015, Mohtat also told the press that a new draft plan to improve the identification of individuals through biometric data had been sent for government approval.

On 26 December 2015, ETA employees in a public protest called on the government to start the distribution process. They blamed political disagreements within the NUG leadership for the delays, including the inclusion (or lack thereof) of ethnicity and nationality on the ID cards, and said that getting rid of the employees was a waste of money already spent. Another demonstration was held on 6 January 2016 (see here).

On 28 December 2015, Mohtat wrote on his Facebook page that CEO Abdullah, in coordination with President Ghani, had approved the MoI’s proposal to begin with the biometric data collection, the third key activity of the e-tazkera project (this Facebook page is no longer available.) There, Mohtat explained that in phase three, the families covered under phase one and two would be invited to enrolment centres to record their biometric data (iris scans, fingerprints, digital photographs and signatures) and enter their information into the system. “When the legal and political issues are solved, the data printed on the front of e-tazkera will be finalised and we will print the e-tazkeras.” He also wrote that, “due to the ambiguous circumstances around the start of the project and the lack of sufficient funds, we closed four of our nine field offices and plan to close our remaining offices.” He pointed out that each of the field offices had up to 150 staff, that the equipment had been moved to warehouses, and that the citizen information forms had been shifted to archives. “When the political and legal issues are solved and the contents of the e-tazkera is finalised, we will be able to start issuance without waiting on the other phases. Then attracting international funds will not be a big issue,” he wrote in his closing line.

By this time the ETA leadership’s frustration was palpable. On 28 December 2015, Mohtat told AAN:

This is a dead-end… The e-tazkera is the second of the six commitments of the National Unity Government. It is the mother of all other reforms in the country. Now it seems to be the victim of the government’s mismanagement at the top.

Technical problems, possible glitches

Political issues, delays and public clamouring aside, the project has been plagued by a variety of technical problems and pitfalls.

A current concern is the system’s lack of rigorous testing. Although GTR claims that the system has been tested and is fully operational (GTR tested the system in August 2015 after the Council of Ministers had decided to launch the issuance of the e-tazkera), AAN has been told that this test was done in optimal conditions but only for small volumes. Moreover, the bandwidth was provided by GTR and not by state-owned Afghan Telecom (which does not yet have a contract with the MoI for internet connectivity). It is therefore unclear how the system would perform in actual conditions, or indeed how it would hold up when all enrolment centres begin feeding data simultaneously. The IOM has been pushing for an end-to-end test since the beginning of 2015, but until now GTR has not consented to this. (9) There were some initial glitches in the design of the registration system – for instance, it was not possible to register women as household heads – an issue that may or may not have been sufficiently addressed.

There are also concerns that some of the devices procured by GTR are now out of date. According to the June 2015 technical review of the project, “since the project took considerably longer than anticipated, some of the products that were initially considered were discontinued by the manufacturers, and replaced with newer models. However, there are still some devices, which are announced end-of-life by the manufacturer and will stop providing support, for some devices, as early as May 2016.” The report concludes that “there is no immediate need to replace any devices in the data centre for the pilot,” but it does not mention what might be needed after the pilot is concluded.

ETA’s head Mohtat also informed AAN that some of the equipment had been gathering dust in a basement at the MoI for three years and that the warranty for these machines may soon expire. He said the four printing machines that have been placed in the MoI are supposed to have an overall printing capacity of 32,000 ID cards per 24 hours. This has, however, never been tested.

Finally, GTR was supposed to train e-tazkera employees in software and hardware handling. However, AAN was told that 75 per cent of contracted hours of training have already been used. Suggestions that GTR train a number of master trainers in order to ensure a smooth and continuous transfer of skills have never been acted upon. It seems the impetus for this was lost somewhere between the MoI, the MoICT and GTR. This means that the continuation of the e-tazkera program is currently unlikely to survive the end of GTR’s contract.

Aside from the political challenges analysed in part 1 of this dispatch, the e-tazkera project thus also straddles a large number of technical ones. Although donor interest in a modern and secure national identity card in Afghanistan remains (and is likely to grow) in the face of increasing refugee movements to Europe, it has waned in the face of the many problems surrounding the project. It would be a major feat to revive the technical process, calm the political controversies and rekindle donor interest. While not impossible, the challenges are considerable.

 

 

(1) The different tazkeras in circulation were issued under different regimes. Before the Karzai regime, both 
the Daud Khan (1973-78) and PDPA governments (1978-92) issued versions of the tazkera that are still widely circulated today. Although less common, tazkeras issued during the Taliban regime (1996-2001; two versions), the mujahedin era (1992-96) and under the monarchy (pre-1973) are also still in circulation and are generally considered valid forms of identification, as long they contain photographs and are still readable. A majority of the people (77%), however, appear to hold tazkeras of a post-2001 vintage. These tazkeras have the form of a one-page document in an A4 format, while most pre-Karzai tazkeras took the form of a 16-page booklet. (Source: An Exploratory Study of Afghan Tazkera Ownership, The Liaison Office (TLO), June 2013.)

(2) According to its website, the Grand Technology Resources (GTR) has been registered in Kuala Lumpur since 2006. Mirwais Alizai, the young Afghan businessman who heads GTR, was born in 1979, either in Kabul, Kandahar or Helmand (there are several versions of his biography on the GTR website; the Kabul-born version here , the Kandahar-born version screen shot, and for Helmand-born version see this website). Apart from GTR, Alizai has also established the crude and refined oil company Globix that works in various countries, mainly across Asia and the Middle East, and he has “been investing in the fields of aviation” since 2005. Mirwais Alizai also “supports and contributes to the culture and arts programs and events around the world.”

(3) The Ministry of Interior (MoI), at this point the ministry with the lead on the project, clearly stated that the distribution of electronic ID-cards was “too tough a task to be fully completed ahead of the elections.” The MoI estimated that, realistically, 70 per cent of the distribution could be completed within the next three years, and that for the remaining 30 per cent of the population, mainly living in insecure or remote areas, it could take another three to six years. This was a little over a year before the elections. For more details see this AAN dispatch from January 2013.

(4) GTR’s earlier contracts with the Afghan government were for the establishment of the Afghanistan National Data Centre (ANDC) with the same ministry and for the establishment of the AFMIS (Afghanistan Financial Management Information System) Data Centre for the treasury department of the Ministry of Finance.

(5) This New York Times report from December 2014 erroneously uses the word “census,” while in fact the data collection described in the story is part of the e-tazkera process (national identity cards distribution and census are often used interchangeably, even though they are two separate processes).

The phenomenon of choosing one’s family name, and the confusion it can bring, as described by the New York Times, is not new in Afghanistan. As described by Louis Dupree in the late 1960s (Afghanistan, Princeton University Press: 1980, 2nd edition):

Aside from some literates (mainly Western trained), few Afghans have family names, but call themselves “son of so and so.” Family names, however, relate to the necessity to identify oneself beyond the extended family group for some – but not all – bureaucratic purposes… Family names become necessary, however, to those Afghans who leave the country for overseas educations. Others, particularly writers and scholars, choose to elect personal identifications. Some adapt geographic names: Panjsheri, Ghaznavi or Kohzad (“of the mountains”); some open a book with eyes shut point to a word; still others adopt an adjective which relates to their occupations or interests, e.g., Tarzi (“stylist.”)

(6) The MEC also hinted to AAN that it had suspicions with regard to GTR’s procurement methods, as the MoI never provided MEC with technical specifications for the equipment (serial numbers, part numbers), claiming that “everything had been installed and could not be disassembled again.”

In addition, the MEC report raised concerns that the procedure for obtaining an e-tazkera – after certification by two Afghans and approval of the NDS – made the process vulnerable to corruption and abuse.

(7) According to this article, the organisational structure of the ETA is composed of a general directorate and five sub-departments (human resources, technical, financial, operational, and registration). Out of the 1046 personnel, 194 worked for the general directorate and 852 for the various sub-departments.

(8) According to Baher, e-tazkera mobile teams had visited homes and offices and had already finalised and collected the identity forms of 400,000 citizens in Kabul. He said his teams had started approaching students and staff at Kabul universities and encouraged them to cooperate with the process, despite the uncertainty over its timing and fate. He also wrote that, to date, more than 100,000 Afghans’ identities had been confirmed and that the personal information of half a million (500,000) citizens had been digitalised.

(9) The ETA mobile teams collect personal data from citizens in provinces, after which ID cards will be printed in the capital and sent back to the provinces. Enrolment centres collect the data in urban areas.

American Mk.19 Automatic Grenade Launcher

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Greetings! In this week’s CCLKOW I intend to shake things up again, turning a common practice on its head. No one who has ever spent time around company and field grade officers does not know that general officers are among their fondest targets for criticism. And yet these same people are those who eventually become the general officers. There is, obviously, a disconnect. So, read the piece, ponder the questions, and join the discussion on Twitter at #CCLKOW.

 

A common, if incorrect, refrain regarding the British First World War military experience is that the army was ‘lions led by donkeys.’ A criticism of the senior ranks who prosecuted the war, this seeming truism has largely been dispelled. But while this description no longer stands up to deeper more nuanced scrutiny, the practice of criticising general officers is like a blood-sport right of passage across armed forces.

What I find very interesting about this phenomenon is that it is enduring. Each generation of officers thinks those at the very top are often the picture of incompetence. And every single one of those generations ultimately steps into those shoes to lead the next generation of malcontents.

I understand that inter-generational disdain is common. Whether disparaging the youth in our trail or those who lead us, it is very easy to believe there is something entirely lacking about those outside our own peer groups. However, even controlling for this more general influence, there remains a marked difference in the phenomenon in the armed forces.

So, what is happening?

Are the personnel systems, which drive the selection of officers to command billets and, correspondingly, higher rank, to blame? Do these systems drive out the best and the brightest and leave behind a middling, muddling sort?

Is there a fundamental disconnect between what a field or company grade officer understands about general officership in the armed forces and reality? Do these officers simply not understand the demands upon executive leadership, that the relative stability of tactical practice has given way to the far less firm domains of strategy and politics?

What could a general officer tell you about the role to clarify that what looks like a donkey is not?

 

 

 

 

 

There is a fairly broad consensus among Afghans and donors alike that the introduction of an electronic ID card – or e-tazkera – would be a good thing; it would provide accurate population data, standardised ID documents and the possibility of, in the case of elections, drawing up reliable voter lists. The project, however, has been stymied by political controversies and fundamental technical questions. In this first part of a two-part dispatch, AAN’s Martine van Bijlert and Jelena Bjelica take a look at the most pressing controversies that threaten to indefinitely paralyse the project.

Discussions over the introduction of a standardised and computerised ID card in Afghanistan have been around for years, but the project was only started in earnest in February 2009. In December 2010, a contract was signed with a private company, Grand Technology Resources. The Ministry of Communications and Information Technology (MoCIT), the lead ministry at the time, told reporters that distribution of the cards would start by September 2011, even though the Afghan cabinet had not yet decided on their design. The project was, however, plagued by delays due to capacity constraints and concerns over data security. (1) Only in late 2012, as planning for the 2014 elections commenced, did the project regain a sense of urgency.

The introduction of a standardised ID document that can also function as a voter card or at least help establish reliable voter lists, has long been seen as a prerequisite to reducing the fraud that had plagued Afghanistan’s elections. As a result, in the course of 2013, discussions on the e-tazkera were ‘hijacked’ by the wish to suddenly accelerate the project and rush the distribution of the cards in the run-up to the presidential elections – even though the system had barely been tested and clearly a complete rollout in such a short time would be impossible. (2)

Trying to rush the e-tazkera in the face of an election

The government thus announced that the registration of population data was scheduled to begin in early 2013. A decree by President Hamed Karzai, dated 23 January 2013 (PD 6677), instructed relevant ministries to expedite the process and start distribution of the cards by 21 March 2013. By then, the Ministry of Interior (MoI) had already embarked on a staff-recruitment drive while the MoCIT was ordered to start shipping the necessary equipment to the provinces, particularly to locations that had no or only limited access to the internet. The pretence was kept up for quite a while. On 24 February 2013, then Deputy Minister of Interior Muhammad Mirza Yarmand told a press conference that up to 14 million Afghans would receive an e-tazkera within a year. The Cooperation Council of Political Parties and Coalitions, an informal political pressure group for electoral reform  similarly argued that with 600 registration centres, it should be possible to register at least 1.5 million people per month, if each centre registered at least 100 people per day. This wish to rush the e-tazkera distribution signalled a shared recognition of the need to tackle electoral fraud. But it was also unrealistic, as it did not allow time for preparation, testing and the correction of glitches or take into account that several fundamental issues had not yet been settled (including the design of the card and what data was to be included).

The practicalities of the distribution, however, were soon eclipsed by the politics of which data to register and what to display on the card, as the parliament started discussions on the Population Registration Act.

Tripped up by politics: The fight over which personal data to include

In March 2013, when the distribution of the cards should have already started, the draft Population Registration Act, on which the whole project would be based, was sent to the parliament. The Wolesi Jirga debated the draft in early summer and on 19 June 2013 reached an agreement on all points except one: article 6 that stipulates what should be written on the card. The government had suggested that personal data should be limited to: name, father’s name, grandfather’s name, place and date of birth, and residence (current and permanent). A heated debate ensued, splitting the session into those arguing for the inclusion of ethnicity and those demanding the use of the general term “Afghan” for nationality. Several MPs argued that without these additions – ethnicity and/or nationality – article 6 would be unconstitutional and suggested that the text be sent to the Independent Commission for the Supervision of the Implementation of the Constitution (ICSIC) for an opinion, before embarking on further discussion.

On 15 July 2013, the issue was revisited in parliament (without ICSIC opinion). The debate over whether or not to include ethnicity in article 6 (and thus on the card) quickly descended into a scuffle. When the chair suggested a vote on a version of the draft law that included nationality, but not ethnicity, a large group of MPs staged a walkout in protest. In the midst of the upheaval, the chair quickly put the law to the vote, after which it was passed. Several MPs protested, calling the decision “unconstitutional,” arguing that it would erase the identity of (minority) ethnic groups in the country if they were not allowed to register by ethnicity as well. Balkh Governor Nur Mohammad Atta, one of the vocal proponents in favour of including ethnicity, warned that if this were not mentioned on the new ID cards, he would not want to collect his. Since then, many have followed his example, warning that if the ID card does not include what they deem essential – whether ethnicity, nationality or religion – they will not want to have one.

The vote was not only controversial for political reasons, but also appeared to have been procedurally shaky, as the MPs who walked out claimed they had broken the quorum. The chair initially argued that as they had not yet left the hall when the vote happened, they could still be counted as present. In the next session, however, he backtracked and said that a commission would need to check whether there had indeed been a quorum.

A week later, the parliament went into its summer recess. The issues were apparently laid to rest, and the draft law was forwarded to the Meshrano Jirga. On 10 November 2013, the Meshrano Jirga managed to ratify the first five articles, but as soon as article 6 was discussed, the meeting descended into a “furious debate.”  On top of the usual sensitivities over what should be included, the text of article 6 was discovered to have been changed before the draft law was sent to the Meshrano Jirga for a vote, with nationality omitted from the new version. (3)

The Meshrano Jirga committees that had studied the law suggested the reinsertion of the word “Afghan,” while others again insisted on the inclusion of ethnicity as well. The discussion ended in another walkout. On 26 November 2013, the issue was revisited once more. The session was heated, but the speaker managed to prevent a brawl. When the matter was finally put to the vote, a majority opted to keep the ‘original’ (government) version of article 6 – with no mention of either nationality or ethnicity. (4) The decision led to angry outbursts, and subsequent sessions of both the Wolesi Jirga and Meshrano Jirga erupted into fierce shouting matches.

The issue was further polarised when on 27 November 2013, the day after the Meshrano Jirga vote, General Abdul Wahid Taqat, a PDPA-era intelligence official and now political commentator, during a TV talk show (5) insisted that “Pashtun” and “Afghan” were synonymous and Afghanistan was the land of the Pashtuns. (6)

Taqat’s statements caused an uproar in both regular and social media. First, there were demonstrations against both the former general and the TV station,  but when the former general was arrested on 12 December 2013, his supporters took to the street and clashed with the police (see here).

The episode was finally defused after Taqat issued a televised apology. At the same time, the Meshrano Jirga was already backtracking and denying that it had removed the word “Afghan” from the card.

It should come as no surprise that, in the midst of all this upheaval in late 2013, President Karzai chose not to sign the law. (It may also have been difficult to determine which version to pick.) Strictly speaking, according to the Constitution, Karzai actually did not need to sign the law for it to be enacted (as argued by MP Shukria Barakzai here), but clearly nobody wanted to touch this. With the elections only four months away, the thorny issue of the e-tazkera and what to include on the card was no longer a priority. That changed, however, once the National Unity Government (NUG) took office.

The National Unity Government revisits the issue

The agreement that established the NUG  lists five commitments linked to the convening of a Loya Jirga (that is to decide on the CEO position within two years of the establishment of the NUG). One of these is “the distribution of electronic/computerised identity cards to all the citizens of the country as quickly as possible.”

On 9 November 2014, President Ghani signed the Population Registration Act that was passed by the parliament in 2013, thus ratifying the version that mentioned neither ethnicity nor the word Afghan. (An unofficial translation of the law can be found here, although it appears to be either incomplete or an older version, as under article 6 the reference to religion is missing.) On 3 December 2014, MoI officials announced the start of the e-tazkera distribution.

Unsurprisingly, the signing of the law and the announcement of the restart of the process sparked renewed protests. The president sought to defuse the issue by meeting protesters and civil society activists. According to the presidential spokesperson, he referred the controversial article to the Supreme Court for an opinion. (7) Civil society activists claimed this meant that the process had been halted while the e-tazkera department under the MoI (E-Tazkera Authority or ETA) insisted that the distribution was going ahead and would start within days.

In late December 2014, the Wolesi Jirga readied itself to discuss and amend the law again,  but the MPs were so divided that the initiative fizzled out, with delegates accusing each other of illegally sabotaging the issue.  In particular, the committee responsible for preparing the new draft was accused of stalling.

Technical preparations and political controversies clash again

In the meantime, technical preparations to start the process continued. In June 2015, the ETA presented the president with its plan for a pilot project that aimed to test all systems and hand out e-cards to the approximately 400,000 citizens that had already been registered in Kabul city. The president ordered the ETA to expedite the distribution of the cards,  but at the same time he also embarked on a series of technical and corruption-related reviews (see part 2 of this dispatch), suggesting misgivings on his side over the technical solidity of the project. At this point, the donors, tired of the delays, suspended their funding.  

The government continued to give conflicting signals on whether the issuance of the ID cards would start, and the controversy over what should be included in the cards resurfaced again in August 2015. The CEO’s office set 19 August 2015 as the date to launch the pilot project; the president then delayed it.  The political class remained divided, with some pushing for a speedy start of the distribution, while others continued to demand amendments to the law.  Some groups said they called off their protests after the president, according to them, assured them that the law would be amended, while others continued to demonstrate.

After about a month of protests, (8) the political urgency of the issue seemed to cool and the demonstrations fizzled. In the meantime, the ETA continued efforts to revive the project – also attempting to secure renewed funding and rehire the staff it had been forced to let go – but has so far received little backing from the country’s political leadership. (9) Even if the president and the CEO decide that the main technical concerns of the project have been addressed and that it is now time to at least embark on the pilot project, political sensitivities have been far from resolved and would probably upend any such effort.

Where do we go from here?

The government now finds itself in a difficult bind. Whatever it chooses to do will likely re-spark sentiments that, to a large extent, seem to have been intentionally polarised. If the government includes “Afghan” but not ethnicity, it will run afoul of those who insist on including ethnicity as well. If it goes ahead, based on the existing law (and the seven million cards they have already ordered and received) – with cards that include religion, but not nationality or ethnicity – it threatens to alienate all groups that have cared enough about the issue to protest.

Although nationality and ethnicity are emotive issues, the protests also seem to have served as a warning to the government as a sample of the kind of trouble that political opponents are capable of stirring up. So far, this government has lacked the savvy to negotiate the buy-in of opposing views in the matter and has mainly sought to defer and stall. It would be a major feat if the government could calm the political controversies and focus on reviving the technical process and rekindling donor interests. It is not impossible, but the challenges are enormous.

 

(1) According to this article, the first phase of the e-tazkera project –setting up the National Data Centre – was delayed due to capacity constraints and was rescheduled to start in mid-2011. Concerns over who would have access to the biometric registration data caused another delay of at least nine months in 2011, as the government put in place protocols to maintain sole ownership of the data. There was also apprehension over the use of the e-tazkera during elections, given the limited availability of electricity in many polling centres.

(2) The Ministry of Interior, by then the lead ministry in the process, clearly stated that the distribution of electronic ID-cards was “too tough a task to be fully completed ahead of the elections.” The MoI estimated that, realistically, 70 per cent of the distribution could be completed within the next three years, and that for the remaining 30 per cent of the population living mainly in insecure and far-flung areas, it could take another three to six years. This was a little over a year before the elections. For more details, see this AAN dispatch from January 2013.

(3) When the issue was later discussed in the Wolesi Jirga, on 30 November 2013, Deputy Speaker Saleh Muhammad Seljuqi blamed the Internal Security Committee, which he said had sent him a “corrected” version of the law claiming spelling errors. Some MPs accused Mirdad Khan Nejrabi,  the chair of the commission, of having omitted the word “Afghan” on the instruction of Balkh Governor Nur Muhammad Atta (see this video), while other MPs came to Atta and Nejrabi’s defense.

(4) During earlier discussions in the Wolesi Jirga, talk had been of a compromise in which ethnicity would be registered in a database but not displayed on the card, but when the law was passed, ethnicity had been dropped – both on the card and in the database. According to this article, the Wolesi Jirga had also decided to include religion and takhalus (in the Afghan media sometimes translated as “pen name,” but in essence it involves the introduction of fixed last names). After the Meshrano Jirga reverted to the ‘original’ version of article 6, as drawn up by the government, a joint commission was established to solve the differences between the two houses. This could explain the addition of religion to the version of the law that was finally signed and gazetted.

A suggestion, as argued here, to also include mothers’ names on the e-tazkera, so far does not seem to have gained any traction.

(5) The talk show in which Taqat made his comments was aired by Zhwandun TV, a station owned by Muhammad Ismail Yun, a Pashtun ethno-nationalist and a vocal proponent of the inclusion of “Afghan” on the card. Yun has been a vocal supporter of both Karzai and Ghani during their election campaigns.

(6) The synonymous use of “Afghan” and “Pashtun” was indeed common in the past, both in Afghanistan and in the literature about the country, until around World War II. Governments, for instance, used it between the 1930s and the 1950s to promote (the much less officially used) Pashto. In the decades after, “Afghan” increasingly became recognised as a label of citizenship and nationality. Some Pashtun ethno-nationalists, however, continue to use “Afghan” to mean “Pashtun.” It is also used in colloquial language among some ethnic minorities (for example, rural Hazaras often refer to Pashtuns as “Awghan” or “Awghu.”)

For this reason, some non-Pashtuns have insisted that ethnicity be specified on the card as well. (Another reason to include ethnicity is that such a registration would quantify the relative strength of various groups and could show that so-called ‘minority’ groups are larger than assumed.) Others argue that the display of the logo of the Islamic Afghan Republic at the top of the card should be enough to show the nationality of the cardholder.

(7) It is unclear whether the government is actually still waiting for this opinion, or whether this was simply a way to stall or defer responsibility. A Supreme Court opinion, however, is unlikely to lay the issue to rest, as Afghanistan has two separate organs that are mandated to interpret the Constitution – the Supreme Court and the Independent Commission for the Supervision of the Implementation of the Constitution (ICSIC) – and their authority vis-à-vis each other has not been spelled out. In June 2013, several MPs, arguing in favour of the inclusion of ethnicity, sought to consult the ICSIC – not the Supreme Court (which is traditionally considered closer to the executive) – on article 6.

(8) Demonstrations occurred in, among other places, Kabul, Paktia, Herat, Nangarhar, Balkh and Kunar.  See also video footage for Kabul, Balkh, and Nangarhar.

(9) In a nine-page document offering recommendations to the president, the head of the ETA, Humayun Mohtat, reiterated the MoI’s suggestion that “Afghan” be included on the card and ethnicity be registered in a database only – based on international standards and experience, as he said. He called on the president to take leadership and to put the ball back into the parliament’s court by sending them a cabinet-approved suggestion to amend the law.

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Thomas Ballin is a security consultant, working in the penetration testing industry. He specialises in web application and network infrastructure security assessments, bu

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