AFGHANISTAN

From The Times Online

US Embassy in Kabul bans alcohol after allegations of drunkenness

By JAMES HIDER in Kabul | Friday, September 04, 2009

Employees of ArmorGroup at the US Embassy in Kabul.

The US Embassy in Kabul has banned alcohol from the camp where supervisors are alleged to have indulged in drunken hazings, nude drinking bouts and abuse of subordinates.

The move was a belated attempt at damage limitation after video footage and photographs emerged to back up allegations by security guards who said that the unruly and abusive behavior at Camp Sullivan was putting security at risk at the embassy, which has been attacked in the past by rockets and suicide bombers.

The footage and photographs have also tarnished the image of the US in Afghanistan, an Islamic republic that is observing Ramadan.

The decision to ban alcohol was made at a meeting yesterday by the US Ambassador, who is a former army general, and other senior embassy staff, after the State Department said that it was sending inspectors to Kabul to look into the allegations that the 450 guards, employed by ArmorGroup North America, had been behaving badly and performing poorly.

Video footage showed what looked more like a drunken stag night in Estonia than professional security guards who are responsible for hundreds of lives in one of the most hostile countries in the world. Other photographs show Afghan personnel being goaded into drinking alcohol, something that could put their security at risk in this Muslim country.

The e-mail described supervisors “peeing on people, eating potato chips [crisps] out of [buttock] cracks, broken doors after drunken brawls, threats and intimidation from those leaders participating in this activity”.

The conditions were alleged to have created a “climate of fear and coercion,” with anyone refusing to join in being mocked, humiliated or even fired.

Although the country is officially called the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the Islamist Taleban are waging an insurgency in the south and east, alcohol is available in Kabul, a relatively calm city where expatriate parties are common and Western aid workers, diplomats and journalists wine and dine in garden restaurants, behind high walls and with security protection. Alcohol is shipped in by bonded container through Pakistan and is priced steeply.

The breach of discipline was exposed in an e-mail sent anonymously by a guard in Kabul, who described the situation as akin to the novel Lord of the Flies and called those in charge of the security outfit “a group of sexual predators”. The e-mail added that there were “deviants running rampant over there. We are not Boy Scouts but there should be some expectation of professionalism.”

The accusations have come at a damaging time in a country where many are suspicious of the Americans, whose planned troop surge to combat the Taleban is seen as an occupation.

The US and its international partners in Afghanistan are also struggling to come up with a solution to allegations of fraud in the election that secured a second term for President Karzai.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/Afghanistan/article6820942.ece