Many will profit when Pakistan reopens NATO supply routes: WP

US commanders in Afghanistan want to get war supplies rolling across Pakistan’s borders again. So do Pakistanis in places high and low, from officials trying to balance the nation’s budget to black marketeers who stand ready to plunder the NATO-contracted trucks and oil tankers expected to shortly resume passage into Afghanistan after nearly six months of closed border crossings.
The deal isn’t quite sealed, but Pakistan is set to announce as early as possible its decision to again allow onto its territory the convoys that supply US-backed international forces trying to wind down the decade-long war against the Taliban, the Washington Post reported Wednesday.
Pakistan’s decision, after months of political posturing and delicate negotiations, is likely to ease strains between Washington and Islamabad. For its renewed cooperation, Pakistan would reap higher tariffs and a payout of at least $1.3 billion in withheld “coalition support funds” for its contribution to the fight against Islamist militants.
Officials on both sides say the agreement will not provide Pakistan the full apology it wants for an incident in which US fighter jets and helicopters mistakenly bombed two outposts on the border with Afghanistan in November, killing 24 Pakistani soldiers.
But for traders such as Baz Muhammad Afridi, happy days will return when the blockade ends. Afridi, 46, who vends looted goods in a bazaar on the outskirts of Peshawar known informally as “the US market,” nearly abandoned his business because of dwindling stock. Afridi said he sold food, daggers, computers and engineering equipment pillaged from supply convoys. “We were getting quality goods, technological gadgets and American flags at very reasonable prices,” he said.
On the macroeconomic level, Islamabad needs help, too. The $1.3 billion has been penciled into the proposed budget, according to Finance Ministry officials.
The military, which played the key role in the NATO-provisioning negotiations with US and Afghan army commanders last weekend, declined to comment on its share of the supply business.
Tribal-area militants will profit, too: They demand protection money from the companies that haul the freight. And they launch attacks to get their slice of what’s inside the steel sea-shipping containers that begin their journey at the port of Karachi and travel hundreds of miles through perilous territory.
“Even the Taliban is the beneficiary. They get weapons and ammunition when they attack the containers,” said a black-market trader in NATO goods, who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of Taliban reprisals. “This is one of the financial sources of the militants.”
Not to be left out, police and other local authorities extract bribes to allow convoys to pass, transporters say. It’s part of doing business for companies that are hoping to put 8,000 to 10,000 tankers and trucks back on the roads to reach land-locked Afghanistan.
Even before the border closure, US military officials had stockpiled several months of material to weather possible problems with the Pakistan route. Those stockpiles have been supplemented by increased shipments through what’s known as the Northern Distribution Network, through Central Asia and Russia.
While new NDN agreements have been signed to expand the types and quantities of goods those countries allow to pass through their territories, the passage is far more expensive and lengthy. The cost and difficulty would increase exponentially as the United States and its coalition partners begin to remove equipment as the coalition withdraws combat forces from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
For people in Pakistan’s insurgency-wracked northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, the practical implications of the NATO issue matter far more than the political ones.
“The prices of weapons, arms and ammunition will come down once the NATO supply is restored. “American- and European-made pistol prices went up almost double since November 26, 2011.”