Karzai calls for regional non-interference, cooperation pact

WASHINGTON, May 24 (AFP) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai called Tuesday for an agreement to reinforce non-interference and cooperation among his neighbours in a bid to boost trade and economic growth in the troubled region.

Fresh from signing a pact for long-term US military presence in Afghanistan, Karzai said although his country and several of its neighbours had pledged not to meddle in each other's affairs, a formal pact to stress non-interference and cooperation would be beneficial in a region threatened by terrorism, drugs and nuclear weapons.

"We already have a collegial declaration ... some sort of understanding that neighbours will not interfere negatively with each other," said Karzai, who is on his first visit to Washington since winning his country's landmark presidential elections last October.

"Afghanistan is now thinking of evolving regional cooperation between the countries in that part of the world in terms of linking infrastructure, linking trade and also developing mechanisms that will foster that cooperative environment," Karzai told a Washington forum organized by the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies.

"I believe formalized structural cooperation will take us a long way forward towards a secure environment," he added.

Karzai said Afghanistan was "right in the middle" of a region that comprised, among others, nuclear rivals Pakistan and India, big powers China and Russia, Iran and many troubled Central Asian states.
He did not elaborate on the prospective signatories of such a regional agreement but said his foreign minister was "working on it."

More than three years ago, China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan forged a deal with Afghanistan guaranteeing its freedom from interference in a gesture aimed at ending decades of disastrous cross-border meddling in the war-ravaged nation.

Inter-Afghan conflict in the early 1990s after the departure of then Soviet Union troops created a power vacuum in the country quickly filled by the fundamentalist Taliban, which fuelled the Al-Qaeda terror network.

The Taliban won support from Pakistan, which was one of the few countries to recognise its authority until Islamabad threw its weight behind the US-led coalition operation to oust the regime after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Pakistan's porous border with Afghanistan is believed to be the hiding place of numerous al-Qaeda and Taliban die-hards who continue to engage coalition forces.

Since helping to bring down the Taliban, Washington has remained Karzai's biggest supporter, both in terms of reconstruction aid and its military presence, with 18,000 troops on the ground fighting remnants of the Taliban and their allies.

Karzai signed a "strategic partnership" pact on Monday with President George W. Bush enabling long-term US military presence in Afghanistan.

The Afghan leader appealed to Pakistan and other regional powers to move away from "regional politics and concentrate more on trade and business," citing the European integration model as an example of regional unity.

He also warned the international community that Afghanistan could again be ravaged by conflict if donor nations stopped providing assistance after the country's September parliamentary elections.
The elections would mark the end of the so-called Bonn Process, a UN-backed plan to help rebuild the poor Muslim state after the overthrow of the militant Taliban.

Iran: Long-term US presence in Afghanistan detrimental IRNA, Iran 05/25/2005 By [Printer Friendly Version]

Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid-Reza Asefi said here Wednesday that the long-term presence of the US in Afghanistan and establishment of military bases in the country would cause instability and be a threat to regional security.

Asefi said, "Undoubtedly, the issues would inflict heavy military costs on the people in Afghanistan and regional states, ruining the international community's reconstruction project in the country." He said protests by Afghan people and different personalities in different parts of Afghanistan against Americans' behavior in Guantanamo Bay and Afghan prisons prove the displeasure of people and public opinion in the country against US presence.

Asefi said the pile up by the Americans of weapons of mass destruction in clandestine bases in Afghanistan rings out warning for the future of the region and international cooperation as well as removing the process for establishing stability, calm and development in the country. He stressed the need for the US to reconsider its wrong policies in Afghanistan.

Taliban leader says Karzai sold Afghanistan to the United States: reports

ISLAMABAD, May 25 (AFP) - Reclusive Taliban leader Mullah Omar Wednesday accused Afghan President Hamid Karzai of selling his country out to the United States, according to press reports.
"The pact in Washington between (US President George W.) Bush and Karzai is in fact a deed to sell the motherland of Afghanistan until an indefinite period," Omar said in a statement given by a senior Taliban member to the Pakistan-based private Afghan Islamic Press.

"The valiant people of Afghanistan will never accept it. This is not the Taliban's, but the voice of conscience of independent Afghan people," Omar was quoted as saying. The statement's authenticity could not be immediately verified.

During a visit to Washington, Karzai signed a "strategic partnership" Monday with Bush allowing for long-term US involvement in Afghanistan's security as well as reconstruction.

Among the key points of the agreement is a provision giving US military forces operating in Afghanistan continued access to the Bagram Air Base, as well as other military facilities as "may be mutually determined".

Omar maintained that the agreement gives US forces free rein during operations in Afghanistan. "It means that American troops can enter the homes of people, can arrest anyone and can kill anyone and can insult Afghans," Omar said, according to AIP.

Omar also branded as traitors former Taliban who surrendered to the Afghan government under an amnesty offered by Karzai. "We will never forgive those who are fond of ruling and who worked in Taliban government and are now bowing before the US for a role in government or they are befriending Americans," Omar said.

"Our resistance would strengthen shortly because our motherland has been sold openly ... we will continue our struggle for the independence of our motherland and revival of religion," he said.

Since helping to bring down the Taliban in 2001, Washington has remained Karzai's biggest supporter, both in terms of reconstruction aid and its military presence, with 18,000 troops on the ground fighting remnants of the ousted regime and their allies.

Karzai has been a key advocate for a permanent security relationship with the United States but had stopped short of calling for full-time American bases, a sensitive topic in the war-shattered country.
Omar is wanted by the United States and has a 10-million-dollar bounty on his head for his role in sheltering Al-Qaeda leaders in the run-up to the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Karzai Dismisses Taliban Threat, Minimizes Differences With U.S. - The Washington Post 05/25/2005 By Pamela Constable

Afghan President Hamid Karzai asserted Tuesday that his government faced no serious threat from either revived Taliban forces or drug traffickers, and he toned down recent angry comments about the reported abuse of Afghan detainees at U.S. military facilities, instead describing such actions as "displeasing."

Karzai gave no sign of being disappointed with the Bush administration's rejection Monday of his demands for greater control over U.S. military forces and prisoners. Instead, in a discussion with Washington Post editors and reporters, he referred repeatedly to the importance of U.S. economic aid and protection to the ailing postwar nation.

"We are happy with what the United States is doing in Afghanistan," he said, appearing relaxed and confident. He noted that total U.S. aid to the country has amounted to nearly $5 billion and proffered a copy of the "strategic partnership" declaration he signed with President Bush on Monday. "How do you expect me to criticize?"

The Afghan leader, on his first visit to Washington since he was elected in October, played down concern over reports that guards at the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, defiled copies of the Koran. He also repeated an earlier assertion that other factors were behind the destructive riots that erupted in Afghanistan last week, resulting in at least 15 deaths there, after the now-retracted Koran report appeared in Newsweek on May 9.

Karzai said the allegations of prison abuse, at Guantanamo and at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, were "displeasing to anybody, Muslims and non-Muslims." But he stressed that "we don't hold the American people responsible. It is individuals . . . it is not the fault of the nation." He noted that U.S. military authorities were investigating the alleged abuses and said, "While we are angry, we understand."

In a report last week, the New York Times provided extensive details from internal U.S. Army investigations into the abusive treatment that led to the deaths of two Afghan prisoners in U.S. military custody in 2002.

Karzai defended his government's efforts to curb the farming of opium poppies, after U.S. officials criticized him recently for failing to show strong leadership on the issue. He noted that poppy production had fallen by 30 percent after he asked farmers to stop its cultivation late last year. However, he added that if the farmers do not receive foreign financial help to switch to other crops, "I will lose credibility" and the growers will return to poppies.

Karzai's cautious references to several issues that have infuriated many Afghans -- and that have previously elicited sharper comments from him -- reflected what analysts have described as a fundamental dilemma of his presidency.

As the elected leader of a conservative Muslim country, he must respond to the sensitivities of his constituents over perceived attacks on their religion and rights. But as the head of a government that depends heavily on Western aid and protection, he must defer to U.S. wishes on most issues relating to the war on terrorism.

When seeking to explain Afghan resentment of U.S. military raids -- a factor in the recent violent protests -- Karzai stressed Tuesday that people had "opened their arms and welcomed" foreign troops who came to drive out the Taliban rulers in late 2001. But now, after several years of increasing stability, he said, they "no longer understand when soldiers go into their houses at night" and frighten their families.

Karzai minimized the current danger from Taliban fighters, regional warlords and drug trafficking, calling each "no worry" or "not a threat," despite a recent rash of violence that included attacks on anti-drug workers and the kidnapping of an Italian aid worker in Kabul.

On the other hand, the Afghan president made clear that he was deeply worried about losing the international support crucial to rebuilding the nation, and that he was eager to cement a long-term military partnership with Washington -- even if that required glossing over volatile, temporary disputes.

"I am warning the world," he said, against assuming everything is "rosy" in Afghanistan simply because parliamentary elections are on track and U.N. political oversight, which has guided the country since late 2001, will end later this year. "It is not rosy at all. It will take many, many years before we can stand on our own feet, in every walk of life."

The strategic partnership agreement Karzai and Bush signed on Monday calls for Washington to train and sustain Afghanistan's fledgling security forces, support counternarcotics programs and continue to rebuild the country's economy and political democracy.

The document says U.S. military forces will "continue to have the freedom of action" needed to carry out operations "based on consultations" with Afghan officials, and that the United States will "consult with respect to taking appropriate measures" if Afghanistan perceives that its "territorial integrity" or independence is threatened.

Afghanistan President to Tour Rural Neb. By JOE RUFF, AP May 25

OMAHA, Neb. - Fresh off visits to the White House and Boston University, Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai's last stop on his current U.S. tour is a place most heads of state don't reach: rural America.

In addition to addressing troops at Offutt Air Force Base and receiving an honorary degree from the University of Nebraska, Karzai was to visit a feedlot and farm on Wednesday.

Karzai's visit to the town of West Point is intended to give the Afghan president's group an opportunity to see how a city of 3,660 supports a sausage company and meatpacking plant, small businesses and farmers growing corn and raising cattle.

"You can go see a lab, drive around a city, but this might give them a real chance at seeing how a successful rural American city thrives," said Thomas Gouttierre, director of the university's Center for Afghanistan Studies.

Karzai also planned to visit the farm and feedyard of Harry Knobbe. "In this country we have the right to own the land, to make a profit," Knobbe said, adding he and others hope to show Karzai and other Afghan officials that self-motivation is the key to good production.

Karzai faces economic and military challenges in Afghanistan, including the country's status as a major source of opium poppies, the raw material for heroin.

With President Bush at his side Monday, Karzai said he is hopeful that poppy production will be down 20 percent to 30 percent this year. The two men also signed a strategic partnership agreement that ensures long-term U.S. support for Afghanistan in economic, security and other sectors.

Afghanistan historically did not produce opium, Gouttierre said. It used to be a net exporter of fruits and nuts, particularly grapes, raisins, pomegranates, apples, pistachios, walnuts and almonds, he said. There also is good potential in Afghanistan for beef, lamb and chicken production, Gouttierre said.

Afghan politics behind apparent U.S. rift -analysts – reuters 05/25/05

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's tough talk on U.S. ties was aimed at soothing local anger over reports of U.S. military abuse and desecration, and does not signal tension between the allies, analysts said on Wednesday.

Karzai, who has risen to power with U.S. support since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001, sees close U.S. ties, as outlined in a new strategic partnership, as crucial, but he also has political rivals and the Afghan public to contend with.

"It is a very good relationship. They are very happy with each other," Kabul University professor and political analyst Wadir Safi said of Afghan-U.S. ties. "The problem is public opinion and the people inside Afghanistan: how to appease them, how to calm them," he said.

The United States commands a foreign force in Afghanistan of about 18,300, most of them American, fighting Taliban insurgents and hunting militant leaders, including Osama bin Laden.
But U.S. forces are facing growing resentment, partly because of what many Afghans see as heavy handed and insensitive searches for militants. Anger with the United States was exacerbated this month over a magazine report U.S. military interrogators had desecrated the Koran. Sixteen people were killed in anti-American riots that quickly took on an anti-Karzai tone.

Many Afghans say the retraction of the report by Newsweek magazine over a sourcing problem did not mean the desecration did not happen. Then on Friday, the New York Times published details of a U.S. army report on abuse of detainees at Bagram Air Base near Kabul in 2002.

Though the reports of abuse, including the death of two men, were not new, Karzai responded forcefully, calling for more control of U.S. operations and the return of Afghan detainees from U.S. custody.

Both demands were deflected when Karzai met President Bush at the White House but Karzai, who also rejected U.S. questioning of his anti-drug efforts, had been seen to be standing up to the United States. At the same time he was cementing his vision of long-term U.S. ties with the strategic partnership agreement he signed with Bush.

"He is doing it to show his domestic audience that he's his own man," said a Western diplomat in Kabul. "He's a real politician and he has to play to domestic sentiment. There are tensions between domestic realities and foreign policy imperatives."

Karzai insists Afghanistan needs U.S. help to defend itself from meddling neighbors. The United States says it wants to prevent Afghanistan becoming a "breeding ground for terrorists." The country also has strategic significance given its border with Iran and its proximity to Central Asian energy sources and to China.

Most Afghans are happy to see U.S. troops providing security until their own army can, but suspicion Karzai was going to grant U.S. forces permanent bases sparked debate, and opposition, in a country with a long history of resisting foreign intervention.

The partnership agreement says U.S. forces will have access to Bagram and other facilities "as may be mutually determined." "Karzai understands the importance of that strategic support given the suspicion in Pakistan and Iran about the direction in which Afghanistan is moving," the diplomat said.
Safi too, said U.S. support for Afghanistan was essential to deal with meddling and drug lords. But the ordinary people, who welcomed U.S. forces after the Taliban, were disillusioned by continued gun-rule by strongmen and little economic benefit, he said.

"Afghanistan wants protection ... It must be guaranteed, America must not leave," Safi said. "But the people don't want the illiterate gunmen to rule anymore ... Their lives are not better.

"Up to now they were helping the commanders," Safi said of a U.S. policy of working with regional strongmen in the war against the militants. "Leave them. Help the people to gain their support."

Bush And Karzai Sign 'Strategic Partnership' Without U.S. Commitment On Kabul's Key Concerns Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Washington, 24 May 2005 (RFE/RL) -- Afghan President Hamid Karzai and U.S. President George W. Bush have signed a document on a "strategic partnership" between their countries. Pentagon officials say the agreement shows Afghanistan's willingness to allow U.S. forces to continue using installations like the Bagram Air Field north of Kabul as a key logistical center. But the joint declaration leaves two sensitive issues unspecified -- the status of U.S. forces in Afghanistan and the limits on their actions.
Karzai made several demands during his private meeting with U.S. President George W. Bush on Monday. They included Karzai's desire for more control over U.S. forces in his country and for the return of Afghan detainees from U.S. custody. Karzai also raised concerns about abuse of Afghans in U.S. military custody. But Bush made no commitment on Afghan control over U.S. military operations or when Washington might be willing to give the Afghan government control over prisoners.

The Afghan president fell short in his goal of persuading Washington to turn over Afghan prisoners to his government. Bush also made no commitment on Karzai's request to give Kabul more control over U.S. military operations in Afghanistan.

The document on a "strategic partnership" signed by both Karzai and Bush on Monday restates the existing procedures on operations by forces in the U.S.-led antiterrorism coalition. It says U.S. and coalition forces will continue to have the freedom of action needed to conduct "appropriate military operations based on consultations and pre-agreed procedures."

Bush was emphatic that U.S. forces would take orders only from their American commanders. At a brief White House news conference with Karzai, Bush said that "In terms of more [Afghan government] say over our military, our relationship is one of cooperate and consult. Of course, our troops will respond to U.S. commanders. But our U.S. commanders and our diplomatic mission there is in a [consultative] relationship with the [Afghan] government."

Karzai had said on Saturday that he wants Bush to make sure U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan consult with his government before raiding Afghan homes and villages in the search for Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters. Karzai made no comment about the issue at a joint press conference with Bush after their talks on Monday.

Bush was less emphatic on Karzai's demand that Washington turn over Afghan prisoners captured since U.S. forces invaded Afghanistan in late 2001. About 500 Afghans are being held at the U.S. military's detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Hundreds more are thought to be at 20 detention centers around Afghanistan -- including a controversial facility at the Bagram Air Field north of Kabul.

Karzai says it was right for the United States to hold those detainees initially. But now, he says, it is time for Afghanistan to deal with them. But at Monday's news conference, Bush said the repatriation of detainees at Guantanamo may take time.

"Our policy (regarding Guantanamo) is -- one --where we want the people to be sent home, but -- two -- we've got to make sure the [prison] facilities are there [in Afghanistan], facilities where these people can be housed and fed and guarded,” Bush says.

The two presidents also were asked about the abuse of Afghan prisoners in U.S. military custody -- including the deaths of two Afghan men at Bagram that the Pentagon is investigating as a homicide. At Monday's news conference, Karzai said Kabul does not think those deaths were the result of any U.S. government policy.

"The prisoner-abuse thing is not at all a thing that we attribute to anybody else but those individuals [who allegedly carried it out.], "Karzai says. "The Afghan people are grateful, very, very much to the American people and recognize that individual acts do not reflect either on governments or on societies."

Karzai also said he thinks a series of bloody demonstrations in Afghanistan recently were not prompted by a "Newsweek" magazine article -- since retracted -- that had suggested that U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo had desecrated the Koran. Instead, Karzai said he thinks the protests were organized by people who opposed to a long-term strategic partnership between Afghanistan and the United States.

Senior U.S. officials -- including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld -- have denounced the article and said that it was the reason for the deadly demonstrations.

Rumsfeld's conclusion is supported by Radek Sikorski, a former deputy foreign minister and deputy defense minister of Poland.

Sikorski now studies Afghanistan at the American Enterprise Institute, a private policy center in Washington. He points out that the U.S. military often is careful in the way it trains its personnel working in foreign countries to ensure that they don't offend local sensibilities.

But Sikorski says that is not enough. He notes that people in Afghanistan and other Muslim countries often take offense to comments about Islam made by some Christian preachers in the United States. And he says he thinks the recent demonstrations were genuinely prompted by the "Newsweek" article.
Sikorski also says U.S. forces should heed Karzai's concerns when they want to raid Afghan homes and villages

"When I was in Kabul last year, people told me that when Russians, during their occupation [of Afghanistan] during the 1980s, searched Afghan houses, they would send women to search the female quarters of a house -- the officers' wives, for example -- whereas American soldiers would just barge in and search the female quarters of houses, which Afghans find very offensive. Now, surely, if the Russians could do it, so could we (the United States)," Sikorski says.

Sikorski says Afghanistan may need U.S. help and be grateful for defeating the Taliban. But he concludes that relations between Kabul and the United States will remain strained until U.S. soldiers learn to act in accordance with Afghan culture. (By RFE/RL correspondent Andrew F. Tully/RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz contributed to this report)

Italian Authorities Unhappy Over Handling Of Kidnapping - Daily Afghan Report / May 24, 2005 - Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

The Turin daily "La Stampa" reported on 23 May that Italian intelligence sources are irritated by the handling of a kidnapping case of Italian Clementina Cantoni in Kabul. Discussing the abduction on 16 May (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 18 and 19 May 2005), an unidentified Italian intelligence source said: "Let us hope that the assembly-based and media-based handling of the kidnapping is over and done with as soon as possible." The source accused Kabul's security authorities of running a circus and showing "confusion, internal differences, [and] scant professionalism." The pattern developing in Cantoni's case, with the changing demands, shifting deadlines, and the abductors allowing their captive to speak to the authorities, is reminiscent of the case involving the abduction of three UN election workers in October 2004. That kidnapping ended peacefully amid confusion about whether a ransom was paid or any prisoners were released in exchange for the hostages' release (see "RFE/RL Afghanistan Report," 8 and 18 November and 3 December 2004). AT

Kidnapper Says Hostage Will Be Released Soon - Daily Afghan Report / May 24, 2005 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty

Timor Shah, the self-proclaimed kidnapper of Cantoni who has been talking to the media and security forces using his hostage's cell phone, said on 23 May that "negotiations are going ahead" and that he will release her, the Milan daily "Il Giornale," reported. AT

Italy criticises Afghan handling of hostage negotiations

ROME, May 25 (AFP) - The Italian government has severely criticised Afghanistan's handling of negotiations for the release of Italian aid worker, Clementina Cantoni, kidnapped nine days ago, the Italian press reported Wednesday.

Rome has criticised the conflicts of interest and competition between various ministries of the Afghan government in the management of the case, Italian newspapers quoted secret service sources as saying.

This rivalry has delayed what was expected to be the imminent release of Cantoni, according to a secretary of state in the prime minister's office, Gianni Letta, and the head of the secret service, Niccolo Pollari, interviewed Tuesday behind closed doors by a parliamentary commission.
The danger now was to avoid Cantoni being passed to another group, said the daily newspaper La Repubblica. In Kabul, the Afghan government expressed optimism over Cantoni's fate and said talks were ongoing.

"We are working tirelessly to ensure the safe release of Clementina. The dialogue with the kidnappers is ongoing," interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said in a statement.

Cantoni, 32, was dragged from her car in downtown Kabul by gunmen on Monday last week in an abduction that Afghan officials have blamed on criminals rather than Islamic militants.

She had been in Afghanistan for three years and ran a programme for aid group CARE International to provide food and employment for Afghan widows, who often struggle to find work and feed their children.

A group of widows who have been helped by CARE, dressed in all-enveloping blue burqas, gathered Tuesday in Kabul to hold a demonstration appealing for the Italian woman's release.

One of the widows gave a radio interview describing how Cantoni stopped her from selling one of her children in order to raise money to feed the rest of the family.

"She began supporting me and my family. My brothers and brother-in-law died. There was no one to support us. I was going to sell one of my children so I could feed the others," the widow, known only as Nadia, said.

Nadia said Cantoni's programme provided food and schooling for her family adding: "Since she was kidnapped, my children are crying every day, and saying If she's not released, how will we get our food?' This situation is going on with 10,000 families. Ten thousands families are crying."

Afghans left out of their own rebuilding - The Christian Science Monitor
05/25/2005 By Ben Arnoldy

SAROWBI – Along a construction detour for the new highway between Kabul and Jalalabad, four unemployed Afghans stare out as trucks struggle up a dusty hill. The men are angry that the two Chinese firms in charge of the paving project haven't employed them or many of their compatriots.
"The Chinese are not hiring, and there are other organizations building schools, and they do not hire us, either," says one, Gula Jan.

After years of depending on the international community for help, Afghans are frustrated that they are not more involved in the rebuilding of their own country.

Yet road projects like this one underline a critical dilemma: Most Afghans still lack the skills needed to take over this work, even as the government begins modest efforts to try to train engineers. The short-term need to provide tangible improvements like a newly paved road often trumps the long-term work of training workers within Afghan ministries and the private sector.

"Do you do something very quickly in the absence of capacity so that you get some demonstrable results, or do you take the slow road and face a real danger of a reversion to conflict?" asks Ameerah Haq with the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, arguing that development work cannot be kept on hold for training. "People in rural areas will say, 'My life is no better. Nothing has happened for me.' "

Land Cruisers in Kabul

Yet the reliance on foreign skilled labor has not gone unnoticed by ordinary Afghans, many of whom resent the economic disparities in Kabul. The streets of the capital are packed with Land Cruisers taking foreigners to modern offices with high-speed Internet hookups. Foreigners risking their lives to come here also require higher salaries and more security, all of which drives up costs for redevelopment work.

In a dilapidated Soviet-era building, W.M. Rasooli, deputy minister for public works, says that most foreign road builders charge $250,000 to $500,000 per mile, but his ministry could build roads for less than half that price. Currently, only 23 percent of Afghanistan's budget for development actually goes through the government treasury; the remainder flows entirely outside.

"We have 60 to 70 percent capability to do this work ourselves. The remaining 30 percent is language and computer skills, because all the documentation must be done electronically in English," says Mr. Rasooli.

He argues that contracts should go directly to his office, which would allow the 60 engineers in his department to learn new standards, as well as provide higher salaries needed to woo better Afghan engineers away from other work. As it is, he says, "Engineers come and tell me that it is better to go work in the bazaar."

A new reform law aims in part to rectify this by preventing nonprofit nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) from bidding for construction contracts in Afghanistan.

"If NGOs don't participate in construction work, some [skilled Afghans] may go back to government. Some may go to the private sector, which is something we want to develop as well," says Umer Daudzai, chief of staff for Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who was in Washington discussing reconstruction with President Bush Monday.

The Kabul-Jalalabad road, like most big road projects here, went through a competitive-bidding process and was awarded to private international firms.

But one of the subcontractors was an Afghan NGO that was found to be a for-profit enterprise - another problem that the new reform law hopes to eliminate. More than 2,000 local NGOs operate here, most of them for-profit enterprises set up under earlier weak governments. Under the new NGO reform legislation, all NGOs will have to reregister, and many of these "fake" NGOs are expected to be weeded out.

Several officials, however, in donor agencies suggested that neither Afghan construction companies nor the ministry of public works would become competitive bidders on international contracts anytime soon because they are still incapable of carrying out such projects.

The European Commission (EC), a major donor for the new highway, did not make hiring and training of Afghans a priority for this project, though it does have others aimed at building capacity.

"The decision was made that this important road to Pakistan should be done quickly," says Harold Paul, press officer for the EC in Kabul. The road connects the Afghan capital to Towr Kham, in Pakistan, via the Khyber Pass, a crucial trading route traveled by 5,000 to 6,000 trucks a day. "The ministry at the moment doesn't have the capacity to do it properly and do it now," he says.

The Chinese contractor didn't have much success finding employable Afghan engineers. The lack of skilled local engineers for the top jobs on the Kabul-Jalalabad highway boxed out Afghans from some of the less-skilled jobs as well.

"I recommended hiring local staff. And [site managers] employed some of them after a test. But later on, the Chinese technicians and engineers complained about the language barrier and the level of skills," says Mu Naisheng, an assistant manager for SinoHydro, one of the two Chinese firms.

New courses for engineers - Given the high stakes in road building, the donor community has opted instead to pursue construction projects and capacity building in parallel. Rasooli says the Ministry of Public Works has received money from the EC, the World Bank, and the Asian Development Bank for such efforts. Programs include a new series of courses for the engineers at the ministry, as well as money to hire international engineers to team up with Afghans on projects.

"I hope that after two years our engineers will be ready to design roads ourselves, and everything will be done by our engineers," says Rasooli.

That vision isn't universal, even within the Afghan government, however. Several members of Mr. Karzai's Cabinet say that ministries should stick to quality control and monitoring, leaving implementation to the fledgling private sector.

British ambassador to Pakistan says hunt for bin Laden still on -AFP

The hunt for fugitive Al-Qaeda terror network chief Osama bin Laden has not gone cold, Britain's high commissioner to Pakistan said. "It (the search for bin Laden) has not gone into cold storage," Mark Lyall Grant told reporters on Wednesday during a visit to the northwestern city of Peshawar, which is near the Afghanistan border.

US and Pakistani officials believe bin Laden may be sheltering somewhere along the mountainous and poorly defined frontier between Pakistan and Afghanistan. He has evaded a massive manhunt launched in late 2001 when he was the guest of Afghanistan's ousted hardline Islamic Taliban regime.
Al-Qaeda, which claimed the September 11 attacks in the United States in 2001, has been branded by the British Home Office as the most significant terrorist threat to Britain and British interests overseas.
Grant also said there were links between extremists in Pakistan and those living in his country but did not elaborate. "We do work very closely with Pakistan (on issues) that relate to the UK," he added. Britain, like Pakistan, is a key ally of the United States in its so-called war against terrorism.

Artifacts Pilfered from Afghanistan Returned to Karzai - USinfo 05/24/2005

Washington - Afghan President Hamid Karzai reclaimed a small part of his nation's cultural heritage -- and drew promises of U.S. help toward achieving a richer future -- in a visit to Washington's premier museum of Asian art.

Karzai's May 23 visit to the Freer Gallery, on the capital's museum-lined Mall, fell on the second day in Washington of his second official visit to the United States.

The highlight of his appearance in the museum's auditorium before leaders in the arts, politics and diplomacy came as U.S. officials turned over to the Afghan president a pair of ancient coins – just two of the 30,000 that had been looted from the Afghan national museum when civil war broke out after the departure of Soviet troops in 1989.

Investigators for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency tracked down the two stolen coins in the United States a few months ago, after they had surfaced earlier in Pakistan.

The Indo-Greek coins, dating to between 171 and 160 B.C. -- soon after the time of Alexander the Great – had originally been discovered by a 1971 French-led archeological expedition near the Oxus River in northeastern Afghanistan.

Handing the coins over to Karzai after a brief signing ceremony, Michael Garcia, Homeland Security's assistant secretary for immigration and customs enforcement, said the effort to help Afghans to recover their rich cultural heritage reflected "that great spirit of respect and cooperation that exists between our two countries."

The two nations "will continue to work together toward the restoration of Afghanistan's treasured past," he pledged. Karzai struck an initial light note in his response. Beaming as he held one of the small coins aloft between thumb and index finger for the benefit of photographers, he instructed, "Zoom the lens!"

"What a great day!" Karzai said. The president said he had not initially known that 30,000 coins were missing, but added, "now there are two coins less lost." Karzai said that, in some respects, Afghanistan is "a nation too attached to history."

"Sometimes we suffer because of that close attachment to history because we forget the future," he said. But he called on his audience to visit his country and share in the cultural heritage. "There is a memory in Afghanistan, and that memory is living," he said.

"We like to connect that memory of the past to a better future for our country, a future of peace and prosperity, so that centuries (from now)…the today of Afghanistan is again remembered as a great past," he concluded.

Bruce Cole, chairman of the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), which sponsored the event, said he saw it as "the start of a longstanding effort that will promote a scholarly and cultural partnership between (Afghanistan's)…storied past and ours."

He said the NEH is involved in multiple projects aimed at preserving and documenting the art and artifacts of Afghanistan, including grants it has awarded to catalog the Begram ivories and the collections in the Kabul Museum.

Cole said the NEH plans to announce an initiative this summer under which scholars, museums, filmmakers and archivists will be encouraged to "rediscover Afghanistan's history and culture." He said he looked forward to "the coming renaissance of a great civilization."

Former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad put the cooperation in an even broader context. Citing a declaration of strategic partnership signed by Presidents Karzai and Bush May 23, Khalilzad said the partnership "should help Afghanistan get ready for a future of security, prosperity and democracy."

"The United States will assist Afghanistan in political, economic and security terms until Afghanistan stands on its own feet and takes its rightful place in the region and the world," he said.

Employing the symbolism of the return of the coins, Khalilzad told Karzai, "The United States is proud to be your partner to help Afghanistan prepare for the future but also to help restore the glorious past." (The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.

Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

President Karzai needs more than a handshake from Washington - Human Rights Watch 05/24/2005
New York - Afghanistan's security situation has deteriorated significantly in recent weeks, with a spate of political killings, violent protests, and attacks on humanitarian workers, Human Rights Watch said today. The instability comes as President Hamid Karzai visits the United States this week.

The recent violence includes the assassination of a parliamentary candidate in Ghazni two weeks ago, the murder of three female aid workers, the kidnapping of an aid worker in Kabul, and clashes between armed factions in the northern province of Maimana.

"May was a terrible month for Afghanistan," said John Sifton, Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. "President Karzai needs more than a handshake from Washington. He needs concrete assistance from the United States and its allies to improve security."

Over three years have passed since NATO member states undertook to provide international security forces in Afghanistan and expand the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), yet to date NATO forces have only deployed to a handful of regional centers outside of Kabul.

Human Rights Watch called on the United States to lead efforts to accelerate the deployment of additional international security forces to remote provinces, and increase the number of international human rights monitors and election monitors for parliamentary elections scheduled to take place in September.

"Current troop levels are a fraction of what has been deployed in other post-conflict settings," said Sifton. "And there are simply not enough human rights monitors and election observers."
Examples of violence in May include:

* May 18-19, 2005: Eleven Afghan employees of a Washington- based agricultural company were shot and killed in Zabul province in two separate incidents.

* May 18, 2005: An Afghan television presenter, Shaima Rezayee, 24, was shot in the head at her Kabul home. In March, Rezayee was fired from her position at a Kabul independent television station, Tolo TV, after several clerics in Kabul said her show was "anti-Islamic," and should be taken off the air.

* May 16, 2005: Armed men kidnapped CARE International worker Clementina Cantoni, a 32-year-old Italian woman, from a car in Kabul.

* May 15-16, 2005: Five people were reported wounded, and one killed, when violence erupted between supporters of rival warlords in a district in Faryab province, in the north of Afghanistan.
* May 11, 2005: Akhtar Mohammad Tolwak, a parliamentary candidate and former delegate to Afghanistan's two loya jirgas, was killed while driving near Diyak District in the east of Ghazni province, along with his driver.

* May 9-13, 2005: Sixteen protesters were killed by police and army troops during violent demonstrations against a Newsweek report of U.S. interrogators desecrating a copy of the Koran during interrogations at Guantanamo Bay. Riots occurred in several Afghan cities, including Jalalabad, Ghazni, Kabul, and Maimana, during which some protesters set fire and loot government and U.N. buildings.

* May 7, 2005: A suicide bomber set off a bomb in a Kabul internet café, killing two Afghan civilians and a Burmese engineer working for the United Nations.

* May 5, 2005 – Armed men attempted to kidnap three foreign World Bank employees in Kabul.
* May 2-6, 2005: Fighting between the Taliban and the U.S.- backed Afghan military killed ten Afghan army troops and scores of militants, according to the U.S. military.

* April 30 – May 1: During a protest in Herat by several hundred supporters of former Herat governor Ismail Khan, police shoot several civilians, killing an old man, a 36-year old woman and her 11-year-old daughter.

Drive to overhaul Afghan civil service gains pace - Financial Times

05/24/2005 By Victoria Burnett
Hamid Gul Afridi barks a message into his crackling two-way radio and strains for a response. Each day he relays dozens of memos from the ministry of mines and industries in Kabul to provincial offices.
"If the minister has a message to send to our state-owned companies or the provinces, he writes it down and I read it to them," says Mr Afridi, whose desk comprises three radios, a pile of scrap paper and a plastic flower arrangement. In the absence of telephone or internet links, the ministry relies on its radio team to communicate with subsidiaries. Mr Afridi, who has worked for the government for 38 years and earns about $100 (€76, £55) a month, has never used a computer.

As Mir Mohammad Sediq, Afghanistan's minister of mines and industries, sets about reforming his organisation, offices such as Mr Afridi's exemplify the Soviet-style dinosaur that he must refashion. It is a challenge faced across the Afghan government as a three-year-old promise to overhaul the civil service gains momentum.

Soviet rule bloated the civil service, while the flight of middle class Afghans during two decades of war left the country bereft of professionals. Government offices became corrupt, factional enclaves.

Development experts say the challenge in Afghanistan is not the size of the civil service, which at about 350,000 is small by regional standards. It is reforming a workforce whose skills are obsolete and attracting talent in a market where expertise is scarce and expensive.

Civil servants earn an average of $50-$60 a month, plus a bonus of 60 cents if they hold a master's degree. Drivers and cooks with international aid agencies can earn $300 per month an attractive proposition in Kabul, where monthly rent for a one-bedroom flat with running water is $150-$200.

A system designed to create pockets of efficiency across the administration, known as Priority Restructuring and Reform (PRR), allows ministries to raise the salaries of workers who meet certain standards to between $100 and $300.

The ministry writes job descriptions for a given department, then screens applicants according to their skills and education. Existing employees who do not make the cut are kept on the old pay scale for up to two years, during which time the government hopes to retrain them. PRR will be succeeded by a universal review ofthe civil service payscale.

Some ministries, such as finance and rural development, began implementing PRR more than a year ago. At the rural development ministry, about 40 per cent of posts have been filled through the scheme.

The reforms boost foreign donors' confidence in the ministries' ability to spend aid efficiently, say diplomats and development experts. But the system, which reduces ministers' discretion over appointees, has met some resistance. "At the beginning, ministers refused to speak to us. The ministries were packed with people from their own families," says Ahmed Moshahed, head of the civil service commission.

Since a cabinet reshuffle in January, enthusiasm for the programme has grown, says Mr Moshahed. But as reforms gain pace the government faces a fast-rising wage bill. At a recent donor conference, the government warned against overly rapid wage reform and called on donors for budget support.
At the ministry of mines and industries, Mr Sediq, like many of his counterparts, faces the awkward task of weeding out thousands of underqualified workers whose alternatives are few.

"The government says 'We don't need all these people'. But how do you get rid of them?" he says. When he took up his post three months ago, Mr Sediq inherited a ministry with few computers and no internet connections which runs 23 decrepit state-owned entities employing about 12,000 people.
He has painted the building, acquired 40 government computers and begun writing job descriptions for every position in the ministry. He aspires to create an efficient, well equipped organisation that regulates, rather than controls, energy and mineral enterprises.

Asked if he and his colleagues worry that one day young people with modern skills might replace him, Mr Afridi looks unsure.

"The day will come when young people who know computers come and take over from us and we will gladly step aside," he says. "All in good time." He glances nervously at his watch. It is 3.50pm and the government bus is waiting to take him home. With an apology, he grabs his umbrella and heads for the door.

A sea change in Afghanistan's politics For the first time, a woman is head of a province - Declan Walsh, Chronicle Foreign Service, May 24, 2005

Bamiyan, Afghanistan -- High in the snow-capped Hindu Kush, visitors stream to see the new governor. A huddle of turbaned men carrying plastic sunflowers in a gold vase nod respectfully. The British ambassador flies in from Kabul. By morning's end, the office is filled with 25 bouquets of fake flowers, and a calf is tethered outside.

Nothing unusual, then, in a culture that prizes deference to authority, except for one thing: The new boss is a woman. Habiba Sarobi is Afghanistan's first female governor, a major advance in a society where only four years ago, under the Taliban, women were denied everything from school lessons to lipstick.

The job is not for the faint-hearted. Afghan governors are stereotypically gruff, bearded men with a penchant for fighting, sweet tea and political deals worked out in smoke-filled rooms. Sarobi, 48, is a mild- mannered married woman who comes to work with a briefcase and her secretary.

The former minister for Women's Affairs said she turned down an ambassadorial post to demand the job as governor of Bamiyan province from President Hamid Karzai. "He was surprised," she said. "His first question was, 'Do you think the people will accept you?' I said 'Definitely, yes.' "

After an uncertain start, she seems to have been right. Before she even arrived, 300 local men -- bused in by the disgruntled outgoing governor, according to coalition officials -- staged a noisy protest in the town center. Since then, support for her has swelled rapidly.

A crowd of 1,000 men gave her a standing ovation at a game of buzkashi, Afghanistan's perilous national sport, in which men on horseback do battle over a calf carcass. In the next few days, delegations of well-wishers flooded in from around the province, including 50 villagers from Shaidan, a five-hour walk away.

"Women have a long history as leaders in Islam," declared their spokesman, Niamatullah Siddiqi. "We are proud to have you over our community." Still, nobody is expecting an overnight revolution in the nation's treatment of women. Afghan women now can vote, work and go to school, and a quarter of all seats to be filled in next September's parliamentary vote are reserved for women.

But despite billions of dollars in aid, women still have a long way to go. In remote Badakhshan province, one mother in 15 dies in childbirth -- the highest maternal mortality rate in the world. Forced marriage and domestic violence are rife throughout the nation, and on occasion, women are still stoned to death for adultery.

Sarobi is more no-nonsense manager than fiery feminist. During her two- year stint as minister of women's affairs, she did little to shift attitudes, according to several aid workers and diplomats, concentrating more on disbursing aid than making policy. She said she was stymied by conservative Cabinet colleagues, who even blocked a decree condemning forced marriage. "I tried my best, but it was not enough for the women of Afghanistan," she admitted. "They said it was our culture and tradition."

In her new job, her popularity stems partly from a solid political pedigree -- her uncle is a former vice president -- and partly from the relative liberalism of her fellow Hazara, one of Afghanistan's more tolerant tribes.

After the Taliban seized power in the mid-1990s, she fled to Pakistan so her daughter could continue school. She detested the obligatory burqa but found the ankle-length cloak a useful disguise when, years later, she slipped back across the border to establish a network of 35 underground girls' schools, each with 25 to 35 students, which she managed from Pakistan. The schools managed to avoid arousing the suspicion of the authorities, she says, because the girls were instructed to arrive at the schools at irregular intervals and from different directions.

Sarobi doesn't have to look far for reminders of the Taliban's brief rule. Afghanistan's most spectacular memorial to their rigid beliefs is etched into a sandstone cliff across the valley from her office: two empty chambers where giant Buddha statues stood until the fundamentalists used rockets, bombs and TNT to blast them to smithereens in 2001.

Bamiyan lies in a sweeping valley along the ancient Silk Road, so harnessing its vast tourist potential is one of Sarobi's main reconstruction projects. But the challenge is as formidable as the surrounding peaks. Some of the main tourist sites -- particularly the forbidden City of Screams, an ancient citadel sacked by Genghis Khan -- are littered with mines.

There is no electricity service in the provincial capital of Bamiyan -- even the governor's house runs off a diesel generator -- and the 150-mile drive from Kabul takes eight hours on a good day. On her first day in work, Sarobi found a spartan office without even a sheaf of paper. Education levels are low, and poverty is endemic. By the feet of the fallen Buddhas, the town's poor live in a network of caves that dot the cliff face.

She also had to worry about the hostility of her predecessor, Muhammad Rahim Aliyaar, the scion of a warlord family widely suspected of tolerating drug smuggling along the old Silk Road that winds through the town.

Sarobi recently toured Europe to rally sympathetic ears and deep pockets to her cause. But she will benefit from the considerable political capital invested in her by Karzai. And the local security chief is behind her, according to coalition officials. Even former governor Aliyaar has lent his support, at least for now.

"It's too early to judge whether a woman can succeed. That will take six months or a year," he said. "But I believe that most people are behind her. And so am I."

[Disclaimer: The content of this news bulletin does not necessarily reflect the view or policy of the Afghan Government, unless specifically stated as such. The collection of articles and commentaries from Afghan and international news sources is provided for informational purposes, and accuracy of the news is the responsibility of the original source.]