Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

Download MP3
Most foreign aid workers in Afghanistan are forced to limit their contact with Afghans and operate inside a cumbersome security bubble. Anchor Marco Werman speaks with Toronto Star correspondent Mitch Potter about the way one group of Canadian aid workers in Afghanistan avoids having to operate inside that security bubble.

Read the Transcript
This text below is a phonetic transcript of a radio story broadcast by PRI’s THE WORLD. It has been created on deadline by a contractor for PRI. The transcript is included here to facilitate internet searches for audio content. Please report any transcribing errors to theworld@pri.org. This transcript may not be in its final form, and it may be updated. Please be aware that the authoritative record of material distributed by PRI’s THE WORLD is the program audio.

MARCO WERMAN: Much of the money that is spent on aid projects in Afghanistan ends up paying for security. And that sometimes means the money is used to pay off militants or even officials. It’s a necessary cost of doing business, but it’s also illegal. Former British Army officer Bill Shaw knows that all too well. He was paid to provide security for contractors in Afghanistan. In March, Shaw was jailed for two years on bribery charges. He had bribed officials in order to get back two impounded vehicles. Before he was jailed, Shaw says he felt constantly under threat. He told the BBC he still feels that way inside the prison’s walls.

BILL SHAW:  In maximum security with al-Qaeda, Taliban, they’d already made a number of gestures and threats and I was kept separate from them. Put into solitary in a room of my own with a guard sat at the door all the time. For my own protection, because there’d been these threats against my life.

WERMAN:  Many Western companies and non-profits operating in Afghanistan surround themselves with a security bubble. Toronto Star correspondent Mitch Potter has seen that first-hand on his reporting trips to Afghanistan. But he’s also just written an article on a different way of handling the security situation there. Mitch Potter joins us now from Washington. Mitch, you witnessed what we’ll call, or what you called in your article, Team Canada, a king of grouping of non-governmental organizations working in Kandahar. Tell us first of all how most NGOs operate in Kandahar.

MITCH POTTER: Well, the vast majority of NGOs now, have at least their western staff have actually retreated from Kandahar. You may recall in the middle of April there was a devastating suicide attack on a string of Western NGO compounds in the city.

WERMAN: But Team Canada stayed. Describe their approach to security.

POTTER: It’s a little difficult to go into great detail because they’re at such high risk, but what we’re talking about is a group of, in Kandahar City, about 20 westerners and they secure themselves. They travel as Afghans, they dye their hair dark, they wear Salwar Kameez and prayer cap. They are armed, but the arm – the guns are very concealed so they drive around in soft-skin vehicles implementing a program that is, at present it is, about 60 million dollars of aid work to create jobs for cash very quickly to try and intervene and put in practice an alternative to working for the Taliban if you will.

WERMAN: So I guess the first question, even before is it succeeding, their work as NGOs, is that succeeding, are they protected, these workers?

POTTER: They operate invisibly. It’s just another walled compound and it’s not until you’re inside that you realize this place is full of westerners. This is a major operation underway. So, they try and strip away any indication that there’s something visible that shows there is western activity happening here. They do so at enormous risk, but it’s a calculated risk that they can be more effective, and more of the actual money can go into the program itself rather than paying these enormous prices to have this bubble of security around them.

WERMAN: And did you see that money going to its destination and things improving for people around Kandahar?

POTTER: I did. I did. I saw thousands of people working at seven different work sites over the week that I was there. We went out every single day again in soft-skin vehicles dressed as Afghans.

WERMAN:  Right. That means that you’re not bullet proof.

POTTER: Right. There’s no armor. There’s no – we’re driving around in beat up Toyotas like the rest of the Afghans, so you’re not really drawing attention to yourselves in any visceral way as you move around the streets. One example in Kandahar, there’s 2,200 fighting-age men who are making $6 a day building sidewalks.

WERMAN: Mitch, what you did for the Toronto Star, following around this virtually unprotected NGO around the villages of Kandahar would not be allowed in fact by a lot of security companies that were hired for the safety of many journalists covering the war in Afghanistan. Would you have felt more secure going out in armored vehicles with guns and cannons evident?

POTTER: I don’t really think I would. I mean quite frankly we had one of our colleagues killed on the very last night of 2009 in a massive roadside bomb strike on a military vehicle. The blast was something in the range of 2,000 pounds of explosives and that – the military vehicle rose in the air probably 30 to 40 feet before it came down killing most of the occupants inside. I actually prefer to be invisible and spent a lot of time in Iraq when it – when Baghdad was at it’s hairiest. Driving around in the worst looking car on the road just attracts no attention. I actually felt safer in that context.

WERMAN: Mitch Potter in Washington. The Bureau Chief there for the Toronto Star. Very good to speak with you. Thank you.

POTTER: Thank you, very much, Marco.

Copyright ©2009 PRI’s THE WORLD. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to PRI’s THE WORLD. This transcript may not be reproduced, in whole or in part, without prior written permission. For further information, please email The World’s Permissions Coordinator at theworld@pri.org.