PRT/Jalalabad: Afghanistan Returnees Create

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 03 KABUL 004368

SIPDIS

SIPDIS

STATE FOR SCA/FO (DAS GASTRIGHT),SCA/A, S/CRS,
SCA/PB, S/CT, EUR/RPM, PRM/ANE
STATE PASS TO USAID FOR AID/ANE, AID/CDHA/DG
NSC FOR AHARRIMAN
OSD FOR BREZINSKI
CENTCOM FOR CG CFC-A, CG CJTF-76, POLAD
REL NATO/AUST/NZ/ISAF

E.O. 12958 N/A
TAGS: PREL PGOV PREF AF
SUBJECT: PRT/Jalalabad: Afghanistan Returnees Create
Success

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1. (U) Summary: The Tangi returnee settlement is an
excellent example of what can happen in a barren
desert when an organized group of people decides to
build a home for themselves. With only minimal
assistance from international and local donors and
their own government, a group of former Afghan
refugees forced out of Pakistan in 2005 found a
location, built homes, got their children into tent
schools with community members as teachers, and are
on the verge of gaining recognition for their self-
built village as a part of Jalalabad City and
Nangarhar Province. The achievements of this
community serve as a model of what can be done in
Afghanistan with good leadership, tenacity,
optimism, and hard work. The part played by the
Jalalabad Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT)
provides an example of how PRTs can make a
difference, even in the absence of major funding.
End Summary.

A Camp in the Desert
--------------


2. (U) Tangi returnee settlement is like a lot of
other settlements throughout Nangarhar Province, and
probably throughout Afghanistan. It is located a
few kilometers northeast of Jalalabad City in a
rocky, barren valley between two rows of hills, with
no visible water or vegetation. A group of over
2000 Afghan refugees, originally from Kunar
Province, moved to this location after they were
forced to leave a refugee camp in Pakistan in the
late summer of 2005. Tangi was not an officially
recognized returnee area, but the group was
permitted to settle temporarily in this spot because
no one else was there or seemed to want the land.


3. (U) Shortly after their arrival in country in
April 2006, the Civil Affairs Team from the
Jalalabad PRT visited Tangi. They found small tents
and one-room shelters that had been put up with the
assistance of UNHCR to allow the returnees to get
through their first winter. Although unsuccessful
in an attempt to dig their own well, the settlement
benefited from several wells with hand pumps that
were put in with international and Afghan NGO
assistance.

The Desert Transformed
--------------


4. (U) When spring came, the returnees got to work
in earnest, and the visitors in April saw the early
stages of layout and building of standard Afghan
walled compounds. The village had received iron
beams and wooden door and window frames from UNHCR.
Using those resources and, mud hauled by tractor
from the Kunar River seven kilometers away, the
residents were building extensions to the one-room
shelters and additional buildings to be used as
homes. The team was impressed with the energy and
positive attitude of the elders and inhabitants of
the settlement, and decided to return with
humanitarian supplies.


5. (U) The Civil Affairs Team returned to the site
in June with a load of humanitarian materials that
included school supplies for teachers and students,

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hygiene and health supplies, wash basins and tool
kits. During this visit, team members who had
visited in April were amazed at the transformation.
While UNHCR tents were still visible, most now were
inside fully or partially completed walled
compounds, while many more mud brick and kiln brick
buildings were completed or under construction. A
small white-painted mosque, complete with separate
washroom, had been built with funding by an unnamed
donor, and the area was beginning to look like an
organized Afghan village.


6. (U) The settlement leaders expressed appreciation
for U.S. efforts. These included USAID-funded
repairs to the road through the village that
connects it to Jalalabad, a project which also
provided jobs for many residents. They were also
grateful for the humanitarian and school supplies,
but asked for assistance in building a school for
the children and a clinic for health care. The PRT
explained that it could only undertake building
projects if the land had been formally allocated to
the returnees. One leader noted that they had not
been given or even promised the land, but it
belonged to the Government of Afghanistan, and they
were Afghans who were making significant
improvements, so he was confident they would be
allowed to stay.

Procedural and Political Obstacles...
--------------


7. (U) Despite the settlement leadership's
confidence, neither the U.S. nor other international
donors or agencies were in a position to proceed
with fixed structures or substantial assistance
until the land issues were resolved, or there was at
least a firm statement of intent by Afghan
authorities to allocate the land. Given the obvious
self-reliance and hard work of this group of
refugees, the PRT decided to try to help resolve the
land issues. After talking with several Afghan
officials and making little progress, the PRT
invited and transported Governor Sherzai to the
site. Impressed by what the returnees had
accomplished, the Governor assured both them and the
PRT that the land would be theirs.


8. (U) Unfortunately, the Governor does not have the
authority to carry out such actions without support
from others. Jalalabad Mayor Stanikzai and Deputy
Governor Ishaqzai expressed reservations, noting
that the area might already be designated for
another purpose. On August 6, the PRT transported
the Deputy Governor and the Mayor -- both well-known
contacts -- out to the site. Lacking either a
school building or government-provided teachers, the
group had managed to acquire several large tents
from UNICEF through the Ministry of Education,
identified their own teachers, and using school
supplies provided by the PRT, a Swedish NGO, and
others, the almost 450 young children in the
community had started back to school -- earlier than
their compatriots in other Afghan schools to make up
for lost time. The Deputy Governor, who happens to
be a teacher, reveled in interactions with the
children. The Mayor noted that his municipal
engineer was doing preliminary work in the next

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village toward Jalalabad and he would be pleased to
send his experts to Tangi to help them with their
planning.


9. (U) On the land issue, the two officials remained
hesitant, primarily because there are two other
officially sanctioned returnee locations near
Jalalabad (Sheikh Misri and Gamberi) where
Nangarharis either are or will be living. The
officials were concerned that if they moved too
quickly on the unofficial Tangi settlement, they
would face complaints that they were helping
"outsiders" -- people from Kunar -- before helping
their own.

...Possibly Overcome
--------------


10. (U) The UNHCR Representative, whom we had also
invited to join us, informed the group that a
substantial amount of international donor money
available to the Ministry of Refugees and
Repatriation for projects, including township
planning, remained almost untapped. He promised that
if the Nangarhar authorities applied for some of
this money for all three settlements at the same
time, he would work to get the applications approved
and funded. This would avoid the perception of
putting one group ahead of the others. He also
offered a plan by which donors could provide
assistance while the land allocation issues were
being resolved. Nangarhar authorities could work
with Sheikh Misri and Gamberi first, as they were
currently doing, and take action on Tangi after the
others were well underway. For now, they had only
to provide written notification of the intention to
allocate the land to the Tangi community, and that
would be enough for donors to proceed.

Comment
--------------


11. (U) After the successful August 6 excursion, the
PRT and UNHCR are confident that the formal
allocation of land, or at least the notification of
intent, will move forward fairly quickly. (The PRT
Commander followed up with provincial officials on
Sept. 25 and he remains optimistic approval for the
land allocation will come soon.) The Tangi returnee
settlement is an example of what motivated and hard-
working Afghans can do in their own country, and it
is also an example of how a PRT can make a
difference -- even when project money is tight or
non-existent.