afghanistancombat gear turned up in their communities, especially when they were
accompanied by local officials and their heavily armed bodyguard. In such
a situation informed consent, let alone dissent, was more or less impossible
while communities that did accept prt assistance risked reprisals from
insurgents. The prt assistance programme was also fundamentally at odds
with the internationally agreed principles of political neutrality and not
bearing arms that operate in the humanitarian sector. The neutrality of the
multi-billion dollar reconstruction and aid effort that commenced after
the fall of the Taliban was further compromised by the presence of foreign
for-profit contractors, who employed paramilitary security firms to protect
their heavily fortified compounds and escort their personnel off base.
By and large, foreign military commanders failed to understand why
humanitarian agencies were so hot under the collar about what they
regarded as perfectly reasonable initiatives and resented being challenged,
especially by civilians, or ignored by the ngo community who, for their
own safety, distanced themselves from isaf and the prts. In 2009 Anders
Fogh Rasmussen, Secretary General of nato, publicly called for a ‘cultural
revolution’ in the humanitarian effort, urging ngos and other agencies
to work closely with nato and the prts, and cited as an example of this
co operation nato’s protection of World Food Programme (wfp) food
convoys in Afghanistan. The wfp swiftly denied that they used nato mili-
tary escorts and Rasmussen’s appeal was rejected by all major aid agencies.
The damage, however, had been done. Two days after this speech the
Taliban published a statement on its website denouncing the un and ngos
as an arm of the infidel ‘occupation’ and ‘justifying’ targeting unarmed aid
workers as well as foreign military. 28
Prior to the intervention of 2001, Afghans widely respected the
neutrality of humanitarian workers and the fact that they did not bear
arms. Even during the troubles of the 1990s aid personnel could generally
rely on safe passage through checkpoints, even though on occasion aid
convoys were looted and offices and homes pillaged. During the era of
President Rabbani and the Taliban only a handful of local and foreign aid
workers were killed or injured. This all changed after November 2001 as
the Taliban increasingly targeted ngo and un offices and personnel, as well
as hotels, hostels and restaurants frequented by foreigners. The insurgents
also kidnapped, assassinated and executed dozens of foreign and Afghan
humanitarian workers. Between 2001 and 2013, 325 Afghan and expatriate
humanitarian workers died as a direct result of Taliban action; a further
253 were wounded and 317 kidnapped. In 2014 two Finnish iam female
staff were gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Herat, and in 2017 a