Sherard Cowper-Coles

Video: first video blog from the hills above Kabul

Written Transcript

Hi, I'm Sherard Cowper-Coles, British Ambassador in Kabul and this is my first blog. I'm sitting on Tibi Hill in the centre of Kabul sitting on a wrecked Russian military tank surrounded by shell cases. Both sides of the hill are mined and I want to show you something of this extraordinary city. Behind me over my left shoulder we have the old Kabul city wall running up and down the spine of that hill which was the front line between the Mujahideen in the early '90s. That hill is mined on either side and one of the most extraordinary experiences for Embassy staff here is to walk the city walls, climbing up the far side and then coming down on this side to the platform for the noon day gun over there, which the gun used to be fired every day at noon and also to mark the fast, the breaking of the fast during Ramadan. You can see down below the Kabul River and green areas leading back up to the gardens of the Emperor Babur, restored by the Aga Khan Fondation where the Emperor Babur's mausoleum is. That is the end of my first blog from Kabul, Afghanistan.

Posted at 14:15 01 October 2007 by Sherard Cowper-Coles  |  Comments[1]

IF IT'S MONDAY IT MUST BE HELMAND....

It is seven am on Monday, and I am about to leave for the airport, to take an RAF Hercules down to Helmand again, this time to visit a base which we have built for the Afghan security forces on the edge of the desert, where we train and mentor them. Although it is Monday, it feels as though the week is already more than half over, which it almost is.

 Yesterday was very busy. In the morning, I went to see Farooq Wardak, the Afghan Minister for Administrative Affairs (sic). But Wardak is no Jim Hacker, as he is at the heart of what President Karzai is trying to do, acting as his liaison with the rest of the government, and with a fractious Parliament. He is also the man who organised the very successful Peace Jirga (assembly) with Pakistan in early August. A key man in a key job, whom I don't yet know well enough.

In the evening, I was giving a dinner for the Treasurer of the UK All Party Group on Afghanistan, Lord Sandwich (lots of jokes about that), who has a long-standing connexion with NGO work here, when I was summoned at short notice to see President Karzai. As he had been away in New York, it was the first time I had seen him since I got back from my decompression break. There was plenty to talk about. He agreed to have his photograph taken for the blog. Earlier in the day, I saw the EU Special Representative here, Francesc Vendrell, who was previously UN representative here, and who has forgotten more about Afghanistan than the rest of us will ever know. His excellent Deputy, Michael Semple, speaks fluent Pashtu, and understands the grain and granularity of Afghan society better than almost any other foreigner.

Posted at 12:44 01 October 2007 by admin  | 

FRIDAY IN KABUL

TGIF.   The Afghans have a one day weekend - Fridays - but I encourage Embassy staff to take two - Friday and Saturday - , to keep out of the office at least on Fridays, and avoid all but essential  meetings on Saturdays.  But inevitably I find myself having to attend events on both days: today it was lunch with a very impressive and earnest delegation of four Norwegian deputy ministers, responsible for managing - incredibly efficiently - their country's presence in Afghanistan.  They had been up North, in the Province of Faryab, where Norway keeps troops, and runs a Provincial Reconstruction Team.  Norway gives over $80m a year to Afghanistan  - a huge sum proportionately - , putting many larger countries to shame.  Their Ministers wanted to take stock on what was going on here, and asked for a frank private account from me, and from the Canadian and Dutch Ambassadors, on how we thought things were going.

After lunch, and as the mist over Kabul had cleared, I went with my CP team up to the top of  "TV Hill" in the centre of Kabul, to record a couple of clips (to appear on Monday, I hope) giving views over the city. My cameraman was Captain Douggie Hutchison, the leader of my Royal Military Police Close Protection team. After six months here without a break, they are leaving soon. I will miss them: they become friends and companions.  We have been through a lot together, travelling to Herat in the West, and Mazar-e-Sharif and the Panshir Valley in the North, plus endless helicopter rides to different parts of Helmand.  A new team comes out next month, and will also be here for six solid months: tough, as even the fighting soldiers in the South get one break back in England during their six month tours.  Generally, though, people change over far too quickly here: this is one of the most complicated countries in the world: understanding what is really happening here takes time and effort.  After four months, I feel I am only scratching the surface.

Friday evening was an evening of two halves: first, I gave a dinner for the Director General of Britain's Serious Organised Crime Agency - SOCA - , who have a big presence out here, fighting in the front line against drug trafficking and money laundering and fraud, as it affects the UK.   Bill Hughes is spending a week here, really getting to know what his teams are trying to do here.  His visit overlapped with one by a NATO delegation, led by the Supreme Allied Commander Europe, (US) General John Craddock, accompanied by among other the British and American Ambassadors to NATO, Stewart Eldon and Toria Nuland. I had breakfast with them, and then met separately the Administrator of the US Drug Enforcement Administration, Karen Tandy.  After some differences of view, mainly over tactics, such as aerial spraying, the US and the UK are on the same page in the fight against narcotics here: we have really got to make an impact over the next few months, if this year's appalling numbers on poppy cultivation and heroin production aren't to be repeated in 2008.  Not easy.  But we are working together with the Afghan Government in ways that haven't happened before. 

The other half of Friday evening was completely different.  The coolest man in the Embassy, and perhaps Kabul, Richard Rose, who is the spokesman for the Department for International Development (DFID), who have a huge operation here, asked me round for a bout of boxing on his new Nintendo Wii.  Needless to say, he knocked me out - electronically of course - in the second round.  But the Wii was seriously wicked, with lots of jumping around with the remote in front of a huge projected image of the game.

Posted at 14:59 29 September 2007 by Sherard Cowper-Coles  |  Comments[2]

Back from decompression

I have been in Kabul just over four months now, and got back here on Saturday from my second breather break in the UK. We work roughly six weeks on, and two weeks off. It is all pretty intense, both the time here, and then the intervals back in London on what the Foreign Office calls officially decompression! The breaks are spent frantically catching up with family, and friends, and films (I had time only for “Atonement” this last time), and then being called into Whitehall for meetings.

“DECOMPRESSION”
Both my last breaks have involved plenty of meetings with our new Ministers. All three Cabinet Ministers mainly responsible for policy towards Afghanistan (David Miliband, Des Browne, and Douglas Alexander) have been out in the past few weeks. Now they are making officials think through policy, till our brains hurt: an unusual experience, but very good for us, and, I hope, for Britain and for Afghanistan. Lots of cool talk about mind maps and decision trees. But I also found myself sorting out our house in Clapham, as our stuff is still not completely unpacked since we got back from Saudi Arabia in March. I also gave two of the the winners of the raffle at inaugural Kabul Embassy Charity Ball in August their prize: a personal tour of the Foreign Office building, followed by dinner: they seemed to appreciate the history, especially seeing the Foreign Secretary’s office, and the stuffed anaconda in the old, but now very high-tech, Colonial Office library.

SOLDIERS
One of the things I like about this job is that there is plenty to do with the military, and it’s for real. None of theoretical discussions about wiring diagrams for NATO command structures that I used to debate doing pol-mil work in Paris, or on the NATO desk at the Foreign Office as the Warsaw Pact disintegrated. This a real campaign, with real soldiers, and a real alliance of Afghans, Americans, Brits, and lots of other Allies too: all very serious. It brings out the sad tank-spotter in me, but also all those history lessons about integrating civil and military effort.

DOWN SOUTH
So on the first day back I flew down to Helmand to see the Kajaki dam project, at the northern end of the Helmand river valley. The Americans originally built the dam and installed the turbines in the mid-70s, providing the irrigation which makes the valley so fertile, for so many crops, including poppy. Now USAID plans to put in a third turbine, to provide power for the whole of southern Afghanistan, much of which is still without electricity. But first the Taleban have to be pushed back, and the road secured, so that the parts can be brought up. I wanted to see it for myself.

To get there you have to fly to Camp Bastion, the main British base in Helmand, by RAF Hercules. Generally the crew invite me to sit in the cockpit, which enables me to read, but also to see spectacular views over the plains and mountains of Afghanistan. But autumn is well under way here, and this time it was misty, making the landing – when I am allowed to stand behind the pilot - a bit trickier than usual. Then it was straight into a Chinook, flying low over the desert, first to a base where we dropped off a pallet of diesel in jerry cans, and then to the landing pad at Kajaki, between high cliffs in the river valley below the dam.

We were met by the Royal Anglians – the Vikings as they call themselves – who gave us a ride on their Long Range Desert Group-style Land Rovers, up to their base for a briefing. They have pushed the security perimeter out enough for serious work to get under way, to the delight of the Afghan engineers whose life is the power station. I met the Afghan district administrator - uluswal, in Pashto – beside the ancient wooden bridge across the Helmand. He was full of gratitude for what our troops were doing. Even though he was fasting for Ramadan, he wanted to offer me tea in his house, but I really couldn’t accept. Yet, despite the progress, and the high hopes, everyone there knows there is a long way to go...

Posted at 17:07 26 September 2007 by Sherard Cowper-Coles  |  Comments[4]