By JOE FRIESEN
Friday, March 23, 2007
The Kajaki dam sits near the head of the Great Helmand River, surrounded by picturesque mountains and the most fertile land in Afghanistan. It's one of the country's only strategic infrastructure sites and the centerpiece of Operation Achilles, the large-scale NATO offensive launched two weeks ago.
For several weeks, British Royal Marine commandos have waged a fierce campaign for control of the area around the dam. They aim to create a safe zone that would allow engineers breathing space to begin work on the dam's refurbishment. But the battle for Kajaki has been slow and difficult.
Four British soldiers have died since the fighting began at the beginning of March, NATO still has not achieved its goal and work on the dam has stalled.
The alliance says British forces have won the high ground in the area, giving them a significant strategic advantage. They have been clearing Taliban positions, blowing up arms caches and slowly gaining ground. Coalition forces have also encircled most of northern Helmand, with Canadians from the Royal Canadian Regiment on the eastern edge of that movement.
But the Sangin valley south of the dam remains a hotbed of Taliban activity. Until it is secured, construction on a road leading from the highway to the dam cannot begin, and without a safe road it's impossible to supply the operation.
The dam, which was built in 1953, currently generates 20 megawatts of power and provides electricity to about 380,000 people. But that power is sporadic.
Once it is fully operational, the dam could provide electricity to 2 million Afghans, double the amount of arable land in the south and, the Western powers hope, spur economic development. It's the symbol the coalition holds up as crucial to its hearts-and-minds campaign in the restive provinces of Helmand and Kandahar. In shuras, or councils of elders, throughout those districts, soldiers tell village elders eager to see the benefits of foreign occupation that Kajaki will soon bear fruit.
There will be thousands of jobs for local Afghans building the roads and other infrastructure to support the project, they say. It will also provide improved irrigation for agriculture.
If the land is more productive, said Tariq Ismati, regional manager for the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development in southern Afghanistan, farmers might be less likely to grow opium poppies, which thrive even in dry conditions. Others are less optimistic. But providing alternative livelihoods to farmers, and keeping those laborers who might be inclined to join the Taliban from doing so, are key planks of NATO's plan.
"Long ago, the famous businessmen of Afghanistan were from Kandahar," Ismati said. "We still have that potential, but lack of security, lack of education, lack of resources hurt development."
In Kandahar, the electricity comes and goes every few hours. Those who can afford it rely on generators, but it's not an attractive situation for entrepreneurs inclined to take their investment elsewhere.
"Having stable power will be a key to development in the southern provinces," Ismati said. "It is the highest-priority project for the southern district."
It would be easy for insurgents to cut the electricity supply entirely by destroying power lines and transformers. NATO believes the Taliban are too shrewd to do anything that might alienate the local population. Besides, the insurgents are profiting from a protection racket that charges residents for not turning off the power.
But taking advantage of increased output from a refurbished dam will require doubling the capacity of the transmission lines. And the difficulty NATO has encountered in securing the exclusion zone pales in comparison with the task of protecting power lines.
NATO now describes its mission in Afghanistan as counterinsurgency and readily admits that success in such campaigns is rare. Alliance officials cite the British defeat of communist insurgents in Malaya in the 1950s, and the peace process in Northern Ireland.
Dave Marsh, a NATO spokesman, said insurgencies are defeated in one of two ways: they are integrated into the political process or they are made irrelevant.
Either option suggests a long, difficult war ahead.
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