Ethnic Conflict in Afghanistan

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In the past ten years the Afghan Government has been dealing with a number of issues that have caused problems for the country, problems such as illegal drug trade, terrorism and violence. But nowadays they are fighting a problem that has long existed between people, and quite recently has taken a whole new aspect to it. Ethnic conflict is the destructive factor that has caused problems between people for generations, often leading to fights, outbreak of violence and grudge between different ethnicities.

Business and import was one of the factors free of ethnic and racial conflict until fuel trade became increasingly profitable and important. In the past most of the fuel was imported from Iran but eventually with a trade embargo placed on Iran, fuel trade shifted from Iran, to Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan, the two major suppliers of fuel to Afghanistan. After the import from those two countries started the price of fuel was expected to stabilize because more fuel was imported than before, and the problem of fuel shortage was solved in many places; but unlike people's expectations the price further increased. With the sudden increase in prices, assumptions that ethnic favoritism is involved in this issue also increased, and many people started to blame Uzbeks and Turks for taking advantage of their ethnicity and setting prices without government consent.

While some people blame ethnic favoritism for causing such a problem, some others believe the change in fuel prices has nothing to do with ethnicity. They believe that monopoly is the main cause of the problem because a few key players currently control a majority of the market in Afghanistan. Even though people consider monopoly and ethnicity as the two main factors, a lack of pr...

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