An Afghan Reconstruction Horror Story, Part 3

Atash told me that throughout his tenure at Ariana, he’d been tipped off by sympathetic parties as to how unpopular he was within the government. In 2006, a one-inch-thick report was brought to him by a man with ties to the Afghan secret police, containing biographical information and details of Atash’s alleged activities since returning to Afghanistan that had been blacked outÑa sign that this material hadn’t just been gathering passively, but that it’d been reviewed and vetted. Among the baseless charges leveled against him were “misappropriating funds” and “womanizing.” Atash at one point even went to the home of a friend of a friend, where he spoke with the former Communist era security official, someone who had impressive contacts in Kabul and knew the price for allowing a secret police dossier like this to grow much thicker. He suggested Atash rebut the charges using the same covert means; i.e., starting smear campaigns against his accusers and exploiting the very conduits of state power against which he’d declared himself an enemy. Ariana, in fact, had its own security apparatus, which might have made a powerful counterweight. But Atash demurred, saying this particular recourse was “medicine you cannot take.”

The gravamen of Atash’s politically motivated rap sheet, which fully came to light in April 2007, was that he had received $30 million in illicit payoffs from BoeingÑan amount that was roughly 10% of the total deal price. After Qasimi had stepped down as transport minister, his replacement, Ahmad Jawed, told the Financial Times in 2007 that Atash had “profited” from the transaction, an accusation that had the disastrous concomitant of implicating executives of one the largest and most respected aircraft manufacturers in the world. Apart from offering to have his personal finances audited, and otherwise agreeing preemptively to any and all requests in the pending corruption investigation, Atash obtained a letter of exoneration in late August 2006 from Lee D. Monson, the same Boeing Vice President who had written the earlier letter, stating that Boeing “must comply with the U.S. Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and as such we do not pay any agent fees or commissions to Afghanistan.” This was one way to ensure that Boeing would never again do business with Ariana, or with any Afghan entity, an outcome Atash believes his rivals intended when they began their smear campaign against him. “If Ariana failed, the other national airlinesÑand the ministers attached to themÑwould succeed.”

Attorney General Sabet was at the center of the effort to ensure that, at the very least, Atash failed. Misusing the state’s judicial powers for political gain or oppression were not new in Afghanistan or other states riddled with corruption. In the course of 15 months, beginning in May 2006, Sabet instituted five separate travel bans on Ariana’s president, who naturally spent much of his time abroad, as well as leveled a slew of petty charges against him, including “embezzlement” relating to the price of a single plane ticket for which an Ariana passenger had refused payment. Sabet also repeatedly broke the law by speaking about details of Atash’s indictments to the Afghan media, thus compromising any pretense of a fair trial.

The firing of Timor Shah Stanekzai was now being avenged. Zabiullah Esmati led the investigation, but did not come up with any evidence of wrongdoing. However, he was also a personal friend of Stanekzai and seemed committed to continue. In the summer of 2006, Esmati approached Atash with a tidy quid pro quo: rehire Stanekzai and all pending charges against him would be “torn up.” Once again, Atash refused a bribe from a high-placed figure, but this only infuriated Esmati, who then took to Afghan television to peddle false embezzlement accusations against him.

In addition to his mounting legal headaches, Atash faced an attempted coup from within his own company. But the irony was: he no longer wanted to be president. By late 2006, Atash had begun drafting his resignation letter, figuring that the mounting legal scandals he was facing would preoccupy him and make his continuance as the head of Ariana all but impossible. In August 2006, he traveled to Washington, D.C. to finalize an investment proposal between Ariana and a host of U.S., Canadian and European investors that would total anywhere between $300 and $700 million. He attended a signing ceremony at the Embassy of Afghanistan, alongside Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad, of a Memorandum of Understanding that signaled the initial stages of what would be the largest private finance investment in Afghanistan’s history. Seeing an opportunity to undercut an absentee rival, Abdul Ahad Mansuri, then Ariana’s Vice President, set up a meeting with Karzai and the Economic Committee of the Cabinet while Atash was stateside. He accused his superior of “mismanaging” the airline and stealing company funds. Mansuri went public with his charges and openly campaigned among Ariana’s employees to become Atash’s replacement in an election that was supported by the airline’s board of directors, including then Minister of Transport Ehsan Jawed, Minister of Commerce Amin Farhang, and Minister of Finance Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi. (This election would have violated company bylaws since the sitting president is also a board member, and Atash was never informed directly about the election.)

Having nonetheless caught wind of what was transpiring back home, Atash, still in the U.S., had his attorney daughter Mariam A. Nawabi, contact Karzai’s Chief of Staff Jawed Ludin, who assured her that Karzai wanted to meet personally with Atash upon his return to Afghanistan. Atash wanted to offer his resignation to Karzai in person and a meeting with President Karzai was confirmed. Upon reaching Kabul, he found that no meeting had been scheduled and that he was subsequently banned from leaving the country. He sat before the Anti-Corruption Commission, still headed by his foe Zabiullah Esmati, and was questioned for five hours. Many Commission members found that there was no evidence substantiating corruption charges against him. Nevertheless, a few days later, Atash formally resigned his post before the board of directors, who then voted for Mansuri to be the next president of Ariana.

Throughout these internal corporate machinations, a number of Ariana employees had been badmouthing Atash to members of Karzai’s cabinet. Three of those employees told the administration that Atash had pocketed the $6 million from the Boeing deal, a baseless allegation since those funds had never been paid by Ariana. A Boeing executive, Nadim Fatallah, even traveled to Kabul, testified before the Anti-Corruption Commission and personally proffered the documents showing that that money had been waived at Atash’s request. None of this was sufficient to stop the efforts to blacken Atash’s reputation and have him arrested. The three government ministers, serving on the Board of Ariana went to Karzai to petition him to jail Atash even as the investigation was still underway and he had been bound for a month in Afghanistan at the say-so of Sabet, who threatened (illegally) to keep him there indefinitely. (Sabet also dispatched letters and subpoenas to Atash’s vacated office at Ariana, where he would not be able to receive them, his purpose being, as Atash believes, to try him in absentia and thus drum up support for the prosecution, a rather bold maneuver given that the attorney general was the one who had stripped Atash of his right to travel and most certainly knew he was still in Afghanistan.) Atash had been in the country for months during the fruitless legal proceedings, and says he cooperated fully despite the obvious lack of due process.

Then he began receiving anonymous death threats, and was even subject to a direct attempt at blackmail by an Afghan judge. In September 2006, Judge Ansarullah Mawlawizadah, who had direct jurisdiction over the case, said he would imprison Atash for 12 years, hoping to benefit from the threat by intimidating the defendant to make a payoff. At the request of Atash, the case was appealed to the Afghan Supreme Court, presided over by the well-respected Chief Justice Abdul Salam Azimi. The Court threw out the case for lack of evidence and summarily fired Judge Mawlawizadah, and sent its conclusions clearing Atash of all charges of wrong-doing to Sabet’s office, which nonetheless continued its campaign against him.

Realizing he’d been targeted by a relentless propaganda machine, Atash decided to leave Afghanistan. The details of his departure he wishes to keep private for fear of reprisal against those who assisted him. Despite being exonerated by the country’s highest court, the Karzai government placed his name on an extradition list, which the United States has so far failed to recognize.

Since returning to Washington, Atash has devoted himself to his private enterprises and lobbying for reform of the political establishment in Kabul; a theme that has not found much favor in a climate where a reassessment of the US/NATO military strategy is thought to be the only solution for rescuing the project of reconstruction. But with upcoming elections in Afghanistan, Atash says it’s crucial that the incoming Obama administration gel to the fact that without a kind of soft regime change aimed at rooting out compromised state officials who have double or triple interests, the international community may yet find itself faced with another failed state on its hands. Last September, Atash drafted a white paper entitled, “Afghanistan: Strategy and Approach” which he’s circulated among his contacts in Washington. Although his suggestions are presented in broad strokes, they reflect the current disconnect between Western observers who fret only about the “re-Talibanization” of Afghanistan, but not about the non-Taliban degeneracy to which the country has succumbedÑusually with the complicity of ostensible Western allies. Among Atash’s diagnosis of the myriad failures of U.S./NATO policy has been the “[e]mpowering [of] a weak leader who could not take a strong stance on major issues which needed immediate action,” a characterization of Hamid Karzai that has been increasingly written about in major media publications.

Part of the problem Atash and others like him have encountered is an understandable reluctance among many Afghan officials and returning expats in the post-Taliban state to speak out and take action against the systemic corruption in their country. Many find it easier just to look the other way. In researching this article, I was refused on-the-record statements by a host of individuals, all fearful of what might happen to their friends and family back home if they spoke their minds. Some even went so far as to speculate that Atash was endangering himself all over again by seeking to publicize his story. Without any evidence but bent on teaching others a lesson who want to bring transparency to governance in Afghanistan, a propaganda campaign was started again, but this time online. Both Atash and his daughter Mariam have showed me emails they’ve received from fake addresses that feature false statements, threats, news clippings and websites recycling the nastiest innuendo about Atash.

When asked if he felt he wouldn’t be better off quitting the Afghan political debate entirely, given what he and his family have already been through, Atash replied by quoting an old Persian proverb which runs: “If you see a blind man walking into a well and you remain silent, it’s a grave sin.” For 18 months of his time and efforts, he did not receive a dime of compensation from the government he served faithfully. Atash believes the personal struggle he endured to bring reform and transparency to governance was worth the sacrifice as it is important in building democracy. As for Karzai, who has extended family in the U.S. with whom Atash is on congenial social terms, he says: “I wish him well, and I wish he did the right thing. I pray to God he does that now.”