Nyomtatható változat

Introduction

Hungary took over the Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) in Baghlan Province from the Netherlands in 2006. The Dutch PRT was established in 2004, with a two-year mandate to carry out development activities and to strengthen the authority of the Afghan Government.
     The Hungarian PRT was established by a governmental decree of June 2006. To coordinate the implementation of the Hungarian activities, the government "set up a Government Coordination Committee (GCC) at ministerial level. The Minister of Foreign Affairs and the Minister of Defence are co-chairs of the Committee." The GCC holds four meetings a year, together with representatives of all the relevant ministries. Surprisingly, none of the Hungarian NGOs, active in Afghanistan, has ever been invited to these forums to present their activities and views about the performance of the PRT.
Regarding the military division of the Provincial Reconstruction Team, the Government Coordination Committee has no competence in developing a military strategy or to define military tasks.


Deteriorating Security in Baghlan Province
 

Baghlan Province lies on the Northern slopes of the Hindu Kush Mountains with a population of around 800,000. The province has a mixed population of Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Tajik is the largest ethnic group, representing over 50% of the population. The Pasthuns make up roughly 20% of the population of Baghlan as a whole but they live in majority in the districts of Baghlan Jadid, Dahan-e Ghori and Burqa. In the 1980s this area was under the influence of the Hizb-e Islami (Gulbuddin); however, it was taken over by the Taliban in 1997. At that time, the city of Baghlan Jadid was the capital of the province.
     After 2001 the Taliban was defeated, and the Pasthun minority was punished for supporting the fundamentalist movement. Commanders of the Jamiat-i Islami took over the governance of the province with the help of their masters in Kabul. The Tajik-dominated city of Pol-e Khumri became the capital. Most of the government positions (police chief, NDS chief, governor) on district level were given to Tajiks. The disgruntled Pasthun population has been trying to reverse these trends and to get back their previous positions in the province.

 Administrative Map of Baghlan Province

When the Hungarian Army was deployed to Baghlan in 2006, the province was still stable. There was no permanent Taliban presence and only a handful of warlords meant security risk in the Andarab Valley. The drug production was minimal and even declining since 2006; as a result, UN Office on Drugs and Crime declared Baghlan a poppy-free province in 2009.
Since the Taliban announced their intention to spread the insurgency in Northern Afghanistan, Baghlan and its Pasthun minority have become one of their main target considering propaganda and anti-governmental activities.
     The number of the latter activities has been increasing since 2007. Illegal check-points are set up regularly, Taliban and Hizb-e Islami groups have attacked local police forces and units of the PRT several times. A suicide bomber detonated himself in Baghlan Jadid in November 2008, killing six MPs and another 70-80 bystanders. In 2009 another suicide bomber-disguised as a police officer-was able to infiltrate the provincial police headquarter at the exact time of the visit of a high-ranking ISAF delegation. Hungary lost two explosive ordinance device officers in the same year, when they tried to defuse two IEDs.
     Facing the growing insurgency, Hungary has limited means to counter the presence of the anti-governmental forces. Since the 240-strong PRT (according to the latest data, 360 Hungarian soldiers are deployed to Afghanistan) was not mandated to take part in offensive military actions, it tried to improve the performance of the Afghan National Police through training and transferring military hardware. A joint Hungarian-American initiative was put in motion in 2008, when the Hungarian Minister of Defence, Mr. Imre Szekeres and the U.S. Ambassador to Hungary, April Foley visited Baghlan. Less than a year later, a new Afghan National Army (ANA) base was established in the province by the help of funds from the United States. In January 2009 an ANA kandak (battalion) and a Hungarian-U.S. Operational Mentor and Liaison Team (OMLT) were deployed there.
     These steps have not held back the Taliban to increase its presence. According to news reports, the insurgents took over Baghlan Jadid, Dahan-e Ghori, and Burqa districts; the fact was confirmed to the author by military sources, too. The Afghan Government has only a nominal presence in these districts; police posts are regularly attacked, opposition forces are setting up checkpoints in daylight and they are taxing the local population as well.
     The insurgencies in Kunduz and Baghlan provinces are intertwined. The units in Kunduz use Baghlan Jadid as a resting place where they can withdraw after clashes with the more active German PRT and the Afghan Security Forces. This picture may be changed by the arriving of the fresh American forces in the region. According to the German weekly, Der Spiegel, 2500 U.S. soldiers of the 10^th Mountain Division will be deployed in Kunduz, and a company-sized unit of the same division will be stationed together with the Afghan kandak and the OMLT in Baghlan Province.


Hungarian Development Activities in Afghanistan
 
The main foci of Hungary's international development cooperation are the Western Balkans region and the former Soviet countries of Eastern Europe. As a responsible member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, the country had to broaden its development activities after 2001 by including Afghanistan.
     Hungary pledged one million USD at the Tokyo donor conference in 2002 and it took five years to disburse all the money. Between 2004 and 2006, Hungarian police officers were seconding the German Police Project Team (GPPT) in Kabul, the Hungarian Interchurch Aid NGO built schools in Balkh and Samangan provinces, and the Afghanistan Law and Order Trust Fund (LOTFA) received 200,000 USD from Hungary in 2004.
     Along with the establishment of the Hungarian PRT, the government allocated for development projects 500 million HUF (2 million EUR) per year. This sum was rather modest, compared to the development budget of the previous Dutch PRT. (The Netherlands allocated 5+1.6 million EUR on development projects during the two year period in Baghlan alone.) To solve this problem, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has been trying to find foreign partners to supplement its own resources. Greece offered 800,000 EUR for non-military-related projects in Baghlan. With the support of the Hungarian government, the Hungarian Interchurch Aid applied to Japan's Grass-Roots Human Security Project (GAGP) successfully and received 975,000 USD in three installments. The European Commission-through the Support to Provincial Governance-supported Hungarian projects with another 800,000 EUR. According to the table below, more than a quarter of the budget, earmarked for Hungarian development activities, came from outside of the state budget.

Sources Allocated for Development Activities within the Hungarian PRT in 2007-2009

Source: The author's calculation on the amounts provided by Ministry of Foreign Affairs;
PRT Atlasz. Budapest: Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Hungary, 2009. p. 3.
 
The Government Coordination Committee (mentioned above) was established to coordinate the activities, and the Directorate of International Development Cooperation (DIDC) within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs was responsible to design a development strategy for Baghlan Province. This strategy was formulated according to the relevant Hungarian and Afghan priorities (Afghanistan National Development Strategy, Baghlan Provincial Development Plan) and was approved by the Government Coordination Committee.
     According to an official document, published by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the main goals of the Hungarian PRT, concerning the development, are:
     - reducing poverty and unemployment,
     - achieving economic growth,
     - strengthening democracy and good governance,
     - promoting human rights and granting a stronger position for women in the society.
 
The Hungarian focus lies on pre-defined sectors, such as agriculture, education, health; a large part of the cooperation consists of technical assistance as well as technology transfer.
     The Hungarian development assistance is implemented by the competent ministries and non-governmental organizations. The Ministry of Interior deployed three (later two) police officers to implement training programs and infrastructure building. The Ministry of Education offered full university scholarships in Hungary for fourteen students. The Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development supported farmers with cleaning irrigation systems, veterinary programs, and building flood control infrastructure. The Ministry of Defence was given 15 percent of the annual PRT development budget and is focusing on infrastructure projects in the field of education and health. A small amount of money has been also allocated for the Civilian  Representative of the PRT, from which he can support gender-related projects.
     Two Hungarian non-profit NGOs, the Hungarian Interchurch Aid and the Hungarian Baptist Aid, are implementing projects related to workplace creation (brick factory, carpet weaving and carpentry classes), public sector reform, health (midwife education training), and education. These two organizations were the main recipients of international (EC, Japan, and Greece) donor involvement.
     The Hungarian Institute of International Affairs organized a conference in October 2009 about the Hungarian involvement in Afghanistan. Government officials from the relevant ministries, representatives of NGOs, and Afghanistan experts participated in the events and presented their views about the Hungarian mission. The main results of the conference can be summarized as follows:
     The global financial crisis hit Hungary hard. The government had to implement an austerity program which had an adverse effect on Hungarian development activities in Afghanistan. The PRT budget was cut back from 500 million to 459 million HUF. Moreover, due to the weak Hungarian economy, the national currency lost its value. In 2006 the 500 million HUF was worth 2 million EUR, but in 2009 this cut budget of 459 million HUF was equal to 1.63 million EUR. (The exchange rate was in 2006: 1 EUR = 250 HUF; in 2009: 1 EUR ≈ 280 HUF.)
     Supposing there is a correlation between security and development, the Hungarian PRT's budget for development was reduced at the worst moment, when the armed opposition groups in Baghlan Province were stronger than ever since 2001. The local Hizb-e Islami and Taliban forces have become more active and are regularly attacking ISAF troops and the representatives of the Afghan government (security forces, governors etc.) The PRT's development program should focus on the districts (both in qualitative and quantitative terms) that are contested by anti-government forces.
     There is a huge discrepancy between military and development budgets. The Ministry of Defence spent nine billion HUF (32.4 million EUR) in 2009 to maintain its presence, while the development budget is only 459 million HUF (1.65 million EUR). Following President Barack Obama's announcement of December 2009 about the raising of U.S. troops by 34,000, the Hungarian government offered 200 more soldiers for the ISAF mission; whereas, for development activities no extra money was allocated.
     The development activities are too fragmented, the budget is distributed among six ministries, three NGOs and the Civilian Representative of the PRT. Compared to other PRTs, the Hungarian Provincial Reconstruction Team distributes its limited sources in too many sectors.
 
Summary
 
Hungary took over the Provincial Reconstruction Team in Baghlan Province in 2006, and started its development activities in 2007, with a yearly budget of 500 million HUF (2 million EUR). Compared to Southern and Eastern Afghanistan, the northern part of the country (including Baghlan) is more stable. Nevertheless, in the last three years the security situation has been deteriorating. Hungary is committed to the aims of the international community, and has been trying to improve the lives of the Afghan people in Baghlan with its limited economic and military means.
     The Hungarian development programs are focusing on education, health, agriculture, security sector, and the public policy reform. These projects are implemented by various Hungarian competent ministries and NGOs. Throughout the years, the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs-as the coordinator of the development assistance-augmented the decreasing Hungarian development funds successfully, by involving foreign donors. With the support of these funds, the Hungarian PRT was able to contribute to raising the standard of living of the local population and to maintain the legitimacy of the Afghan Government.
 
15 February, 2010