Kabul--The government is caught in a catch-22, unable to clamp down hard on money laundering activities to prevent the elite from shifting their wealth overseas, Omar said.
That exodus of money is happening anyway at an alarming pace, experts say, with the wealthy parking their cash overseas in Dubai, Turkey, Pakistan and India.
"Sherpur's poppy palaces symbolise not just impunity, corruption and abuse of power but also the great stratification of Afghan society over the past decade," said Vanda Felbab-Brown, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and an expert on illicit economies in conflict zones.
A small section of Kabul's elite -- dubbed the "9/11 millionaires" -- harvested enormous wealth in the years after the 2001 invasion from the billions of dollars of foreign aid, mostly as private contractors with military bases and international NGOs.
International donors have expressed outrage that so much of that money has disappeared into private pockets while Afghanistan remains wracked by poverty and violence.
Felbab-Brown said that while the elite have broadly insulated themselves from the wrenching war, a large majority of Afghans in the Taliban-infested countryside suffer daily bloodshed.
"The poppy palaces symbolise the unequal benefits of the past decade and the unequal distribution of the cost of war," she said.
AFP
