French FM Visits Afghan Village        11/20 05:33

   GANDAH KASARAY, Afghanistan (AP) -- France's foreign minister walked into a 
remote Afghan village on Friday to talk with small farmers and local tribal 
leaders about how to bypass corrupt officials and bring aid directly to those 
who need it.

   Bernard Kouchner, in Afghanistan to attend President Hamid Karzai's 
inauguration to a second term Thursday, spent the night at Tora, a NATO forward 
operating base held by the French Foreign Legion in the Surobi region about 40 
miles (65 kilometers) east of the capital in the foothills of the Hindu Kush 
mountains --- where hundreds of insurgents operate.

   Under heavy escort but without a helmet or body armor, Kouchner met in the 
early morning with a tribal elder, Haji Dad, who claimed to be more than 100 
years old, and shared herb tea at his mud brick home with local leaders from 
the Tizin valley.

   All complained about bitter poverty, saying foreign aid is usually lost in 
Kabul before it reaches small hamlets like Gandah Kasaray, where there is no 
electricity, road or running water.

   "If you've got a project to help us, give us the money directly because 
otherwise it will be stolen," said Malek Rostam, as he and other tribal leaders 
sat down for a "shura," or traditional meeting, with the minister and Brig. 
Gen. Marcel Druart, the head of the 3,000-plus strong French contingent in 
Afghanistan.

   Karzai's NATO allies say they will closely monitor whether the Afghan 
president will follow through on pledges to improve his administration's record 
on delivering government services to the people. U.S. Secretary of State 
Hillary Rodham Clinton and others say they plan to increase direct contacts 
with provincial leaders closer to local needs.

   "We've got to work directly with these guys, I've done enough NGO work to 
tell you so," Kouchner told the French aid officials at the shura meeting. A 
founder of the charity group Doctors Without Borders, Kouchner spent several 
years in Afghanistan helping mujahedeen guerrillas battling a Russian invasion 
during the 1980s.

   Maj. Ronan Cottin, the head of the U.S.-led civil-military aid program for 
the French-controlled areas, said his services were working to beef up local 
village syndicates so they can receive aid directly.

   Some 1 million euros ($1.5 million) are available for Tizin valley's 5,000 
villagers this year, Cottin said, including a few tractors, grain, beehives and 
fertilizer. That's a mere fragment of the billions of dollars provided for 
Afghanistan since the U.S.-led invasion in 2001. But Kouchner said only 10 
percent of international funds were believed to have actually reached the 
population so far.

   He and other officials say it is crucial to give more to relatively calm 
valleys like Tizin, where residents have largely expelled the Taliban on their 
own, so that other areas see the benefits of switching over to the government 
and coalition side.


(KA)