Afghanistan 's Vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud speaks during the 2005 World Summit Thursday, Sept. 15, 2005 at the United Nations. (AP Photo/Julie Jacobson)
President Karzai Receives Phone Call from President George W. Bush - Date of Release: - 15 September 2005 Presidential Palace, Kabul – H.E. Hamid Karzai, President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, received a phone call today from H.E. George W. Bush, President of the United States of America. President Bush thanked the people of Afghanistan for their assistance to the victims of Hurricane Katrina.
Speaking about the parliamentary election on Sunday President Bush said He was delighted to see the campaigning and other preparations for the elections going smoothly, and extended his best wishes to the people of Afghanistan. President Bush assured President Karzai of the United State’s continued support and commitment to the reconstruction of Afghanistan.
President Karzai thanked President Bush for the phone call and wished that the Afghan people could do more to assist the victims of hurricane Katrina. The President said, “The people of the United States have given us generous support in difficult times and we wish we could have done more to help them.” President Karzai briefed President Bush on the preparations for the parliamentary election and expressed satisfaction at the level of participations.
The President invited President Bush to visit Afghanistan and address the Afghan parliament once it convenes. The President thanked once again the people of the United States for their assistance to Afghanistan. Released by the Office of the Spokesman to the President Islamic Republic of Afghanistan
Candidates hit Afghan streets as campaigning closes before crucial elections - By STEVE GUTTERMAN
KABUL, Afghanistan - (AP) Armed police escorted trucks carrying ballots to polling stations Friday in preparation for weekend legislative elections in Afghanistan, as militant attacks kept tension high and a purported Taliban spokesman urged people to boycott the landmark vote.
Campaigning was forbidden after 6 a.m. _ 48 hours before polls open Sunday _ but some vehicles advertising candidates still drove through the streets of the capital, which were lined with election posters slapped on walls and trees.
The elections for a new parliament and 34 provincial councils are the last formal step for Afghanistan on the path to democracy laid out with international support after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban from power four years ago.
Many hope the vote will help the country claw its way out of a spiral of violence that started with the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, and sideline a rejuvenated Taliban insurgency. More than 1,200 people have been killed in the past six months.
In the latest violence, suspected Taliban militants killed three civilians in a bus bombing. Also an election candidate was fatally shot, and a roadside bombing killed an interpreter for the U.S. military and wounded two American troops.
Purported Taliban spokesman Mullah Latif Hakimi said that during the election, the Taliban would only attack areas where U.S.-led coalition forces were deployed. He advised civilians to avoid such places but said the Taliban would not attack civilians going to vote.
"Our demand to the people of Afghanistan is don't participate in this election because it is a U.S. policy. The Taliban is against all U.S. policies," he told The Associated Press by phone from an undisclosed location. Information from Hakimi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue, and his exact tie to the Taliban leadership cannot be verified independently.
On Friday, a roadside bomb hit a public bus in central Ghazni province, killing three civilians and wounding seven others, including children, local police chief Abdul Rahman Sarjang said.
Late Thursday, suspected Taliban gunmen dragged an election candidate, Abdul Hadi, from his house in southern Helmand province and shot him dead, said Mohammed Wali, a spokesman for the local governor.
In Ghazni on Thursday, a roadside bomb near a U.S. military convoy wounded two U.S. troops and killed their Afghan interpreter, U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Jerry O'Hara said. The two wounded soldiers were in stable condition, he said.
A local official, Ahmed Jan, said the blast occurred on a road leading to a polling center just before a convoy of election workers was about to pass, carrying ballot papers. He said two other roadside bombs were found and defused in the area.
Security was tight in the capital. Checkpoints sprung up on roads and police pulled aside vehicles ranging from hay carts to ribbon-decked wedding cars for checks.
Police escorted trucks that left a Kabul warehouse loaded with ballots for delivery to polling stations, and an armed officer sat in each vehicle. Afghan security forces, U.S.-led coalition troops and a separate NATO-led peacekeeping force were put on alert. In a radio address late Thursday, President Hamid Karzai urged citizens to be alert and report anything suspicious.
"We are hopeful, with the help of almighty Allah and the cooperation of the people, that the elections will be held in a free and fair environment," said Karzai, the U.S.-backed leader elected president last October.
Karzai's office said U.S. President George W. Bush called him on Thursday to express satisfaction with preparations for the elections and pledge continued U.S. support for the reconstruction of war-shattered Afghanistan.
Taliban urge Afghans not to vote, warn of violence
KABUL, Sept 16 (Reuters) - The Taliban on Friday called on Afghanistan's 12.5 million voters to boycott Sunday's landmark elections, saying they were an American plot, and warned Afghans they could be hurt in attacks on foreign troops if they vote.
The Taliban has previously said they would not target polling stations, but guerrilla spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said that if Afghans went to vote they would do so at their own risk. He said the guerrillas would target foreign "occupation" troops on election day, and these attacks could hurt ordinary Afghans.
"The Taliban shura council appeals to the Afghan people not to take part in the September 18 elections as this election farce is also an American plan," he said, referring to the guerrillas council of clerics.
“Therefore, not only should the Afghan people stay away from the elections, they should also try to sabotage them," he told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location.
"The Taliban have always tried not to hurt the common Afghan people, but they could get hurt during attacks and blasts at places where there are foreign troops.
"If the Afghan people go to the polling stations for voting, they would themselves be responsible for any damage caused to them. However, the Taliban will try to ensure that only foreign troops are targeted and that the Afghan people remain safe."
Militant violence has been the main worry in the run-up to Sunday's landmark elections for a national assembly and for councils in all 34 of the Muslim country's provinces.
More than 1,000 people have been killed this year, most of them militants, but including 49 U.S. troops. It has been the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall in 2001.
Violence has continued in insurgent troubled central and southern provinces in the days leading to the election, but there has been no dramatic spike in incidents.
About 100,000 troops, including 22,000 U.S.-led troops and 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, will provide security for voters. Polling station security will be provided by Afghan police and troops with foreign forces providing support as needed.
Afghan and U.S. officials have warned that the Taliban might try to sabotage the vote, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult path to stability, but would not be able to derail it.
The Interior Ministry said on Thursday police had foiled more than 100 insurgent plots in the past month, including plans for bombings and suicide attacks, and had arrested a number of culprits including some foreign nationals, such as Pakistanis.
The Taliban have killed several candidates ahead of the elections, but have largely stuck to their policy of attacking government officials, religious leaders, soldiers and police.
On Wednesday, gunmen shot and wounded a woman candidate as she campaigned in the eastern province of Nuristan and an Afghan interpreter for U.S. forces was killed and three U.S. soldiers have been wounded in roadside bomb attacks since then. The U.S. military said U.S. and Afghan forces killed four guerrillas in one such attack in Kandahar province on Wednesday.
US ambassador says no decision on Afghanistan troop cuts
Kabul (AFP) - The United States has not yet decided whether to reduce its military forces in Afghanistan, the US ambassador to Kabul said, following a report that numbers could be cut by up to 20 percent.
"The US has not made its final decision about troop levels in Afghanistan," Ronald Neumann told reporters in the Afghan capital. "If you're asking me if there's some serious planning process, if there's some immediacy to the idea that we're gonna reduce, the answer is no."
Neumann's comments came a day after US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld played down a New York Times report that the Pentagon is considering plans to scale back US forces in Afghanistan by as much as a fifth by spring 2006.
"You're just chasing the wrong rabbit, frankly," Rumsfeld told reporters on the sidelines of a meeting with his NATO counterparts in Berlin, which discussed plans to expand the alliance's role in Afghanistan.
Around 20,000 US troops are currently in Afghanistan hunting Osama bin Laden, the mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States.
Along with 11,000 NATO-led peacekeepers and some 100,000 Afghan police and soldiers, they are also providing security for Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years, which are being held on Sunday.
But while Washington is pushing for closer ties between NATO forces in Afghanistan and its own, it has run into reservations from European allies, notably Germany, France and Turkey, which have rejected a full merger.
Candidate killed; Taliban urge Afghan poll boycott
Kabul (Reuters) - The Taliban warned the Afghan people on Friday not to take part in elections this weekend, saying they could get hurt, after gunmen believed to be from the group killed a candidate, the seventh so far.
National assembly candidate Abdul Hadi was shot dead on Thursday night in the southern province of Helmand, provincial spokesman Mohammad Wali Alizai said. "The gunmen called at his house and when he came out they opened fire and killed him," he said, adding that the attackers were believed to be Taliban guerrillas.
The Taliban have claimed responsibility for killing several of the seven candidates for Sunday's national assembly and provincial council polls who have now been killed. Speaking to Reuters on Friday, Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi denounced the elections as a U.S.-orchestrated "farce" and warned Afghans they would vote at their own risk.
The Taliban have previously said they would not target polling stations, but Hakimi said ordinary Afghans risked being hurt in attacks on foreign "occupation" forces on election day.
"The Taliban shura council appeals to the Afghan people not to take part in the September 18 elections as this election farce is also an American plan," he said, referring to the guerrillas' council of clerics.
"Therefore, not only should the Afghan people stay away from the elections, they should also try to sabotage them," he said by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. "The Taliban have always tried not to hurt the common Afghan people, but they could get hurt during attacks and blasts at places where there are foreign troops," he said.
"If the Afghan people go to the polling stations for voting, they would themselves be responsible for any damage caused to them. However, the Taliban will try to ensure that only foreign troops are targeted and that the Afghan people remain safe."
Militant violence has been the main worry in the run-up to the landmark polls. More than 1,000 people have been killed this year, most of them militants but including 49 U.S. troops, the bloodiest period since the Taliban's fall in 2001.
Violence has continued in insurgent-troubled central and southern provinces in the days leading up to the election, but there has been no dramatic spike in incidents.
On Wednesday, gunmen shot and wounded a woman candidate as she campaigned in the eastern province of Nuristan, and an Afghan interpreter for U.S. forces was killed and three U.S. soldiers have been wounded in roadside bomb attacks since then. About 100,000 troops, including 22,000 U.S.-led forces and 10,000 NATO-led peacekeepers, will provide security for up to 12.5 million Afghans to vote.
Afghan and U.S. officials have both said that while the Taliban might try to sabotage the vote, the next big step in Afghanistan's difficult path to stability, they would be unable to derail it. Afghan police and troops will guard polling stations, with foreign forces providing support as needed.
The Interior Ministry said on Thursday that police had foiled more than 100 insurgent plots in the past month, including plans for bombings and suicide attacks, and had arrested a number of culprits including foreign nationals, such as Pakistanis.
While the Taliban have killed several candidates ahead of the elections, they have largely stuck to their policy of attacking government officials, religious leaders, soldiers and police. The U.S. military said U.S. and Afghan forces killed four guerrillas after a roadside bomb attack in Kandahar province on Wednesday.
Four militants killed, one US soldier wounded in Afghan clash
KABUL, Sept 16 (AFP) - US forces backed by warplanes and helicopter gunships killed four suspected militants after a roadside bomb wounded an American soldier in southern Afghanistan, the US military said Friday. The violence was the latest to mar the run-up to Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections in more than 30 years being held on Sunday.
A joint Afghan-US patrol was hit by the improvised bomb and then by small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades on Wednesday in Tarin Kowt, a district in the restive province of Uruzgan, a US statement said.
"The ensuing firefight left four enemy confirmed dead," the statement said, adding that US forces pursued the attackers and arrested five suspects in a nearby village.
"Coalition attack planes provided air support to the troops on the ground and Apache helicopters provided cover for the medical evacuation of the injured service member," the statement said. The wounded US soldier was evacuated to Kandahar airfield for treatment and was in a stable condition, it said.
Separately on Wednesday US forces arrested two men in neighbouring Zabul province who were carrying explosives, money, electronics, wire, wire cutters and Afghan National Police identification cards, the statement said.
They also destroyed a roadside bomb in a nearby area. Meanwhile three more militants were detained after a tip-off from a detainee near Gardez in the eastern province of Paktia for allegedly making bombs, the US military said.
Violence linked to the ousted Taliban regime has left more than 1,000 people dead this year. Most of those killed have been militants but some 50 US soldiers have also been killed by hostile fire.
Afghan poll human rights concern – BBC
Elections in Afghanistan are taking place against an underlying "climate of fear" among many voters and candidates, US-based Human Rights Watch has said. The group say that Sunday's elections have been undermined by insurgent attacks and intimidation by warlords.
They accuse the Taleban and other militias connected to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of attacking candidates, election workers and other civilians. Campaigning for the parliamentary and provincial elections ended on Thursday. The report issued by Human Rights Watch was based on over 100 interviews with candidates, election officials, human rights workers and other observers.
In addition to attacks by militias, the report said that voters and candidates were also intimidated by ongoing human rights abuses and repression by warlords and local strongmen. An environment of self-censorship seemed to exist in parts of the country, with some candidates afraid to challenge local commanders or warlords by name.
And many female candidates faced difficulties in travelling and speaking publicly, the report said. On Monday Afghan election officials disqualified 21 candidates from the elections for having links with armed groups.
But many Afghans believe there are considerably more militia commanders on the ballot than have been barred, the BBC's Andrew North in Kabul says. About 2,800 people are running for parliament and another 3,000 competing for 34 provincial assemblies.
Five held with explosive-laden cameras
KABUL, September 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Security officials claimed arresting five people, including three foreigners along with explosives hidden in their cameras.
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, press officer of the Defence Ministry said the arrest was made in the Khogiani district of the eastern Nangarhar province on Wednesday.
Declining to divulge identities of the arrested people, the official said some remote-controlled bombs had also been recovered from their possession. He said they were under investigations.
The incident came at a time when a number of foreign journalists are crossing into Afghanistan to cover the landmark parliamentary elections scheduled for September 18.
Canadian soldiers slightly wounded by roadside bomb blast in Kabul
OTTAWA (CP) - Two Canadian soldiers suffered minor wounds after a roadside bomb went off next to their armoured patrol in Afghanistan's capital city of Kabul.
Defence Department officials say the blast hit one of two Canadian Coyote vehicles that were part of an armoured reconnaissance squadron patrolling Kabul before Sunday's parliamentary elections. It was not immediately clear if any civilians were wounded or killed by the improvised explosive device that left a crater almost three metres wide.
The troops are believed to be with the Royal Canadian Dragoons and are among about 700 Canadian soldiers based at Camp Julien, including an infantry element from the 3rd Battalion, Royal Canadian Regiment. Investigators and a quick-reaction force were on the scene, where the Coyote was still able to move under its own power.
The troops, who are part of a NATO peacemaking force, will close Camp Julien after the elections and move south to the contingent's new operations base in Kandahar, which is under U.S. command.
‘I expect Pakistan to do more’ to control border: McLellan -
Deputy PM talks security in Afghanistan BY JIM FARRELL THE EDMONTON JOURNAL
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Deputy Prime Minister Anne McLellan is talking security and terrorism in Islamabad today after a flying visit to the heart of Taliban country yesterday to hear first hand from the Canadian military about the problems it faces because of Pakistan’s notoriously porous borders.
“More needs to be done and I expect the government of Pakistan to do more and I will be conveying that in the clearest and strongest terms,” said Ms. McLellan, who also serves as Canada’s minister of public safety and emergency preparedness.
Ms. McLellan will meet today and tomorrow with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and several other officials to discuss the flow of Taliban recruits from the border areas of Pakistan into Afghanistan and Kabul’s ongoing complaint that those border areas serve as sanctuaries for terrorists and may even be a refuge for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.
Security is the No. 1 issue in Sunday’s Afghan parliamentary election. Voters continually point out their country’s ongoing insurgency is largely the work of people who have infiltrated their country from Pakistan, which that country is doing little to stop.
Canadian troops from the provincial reconstruction team will patrol the city’s streets, but Afghan police and military will handle security at polling stations, although Canadians will lend a helping hand if an emergency arises, base commander Col. Steve Bowes told Ms. McLellan.
While doing their part, Canadian forces try to put an Afghan face on security and aid operations, Col. Bowes explained. That’s why many Afghans come to the compound to deal with each other as well as with military and aid officials.
“About 80 Afghans a day come through our gates,” Col. Bowes said. “That’s because it is seen as neutral ground and, therefore, a good meeting place for different tribes.”
Ms. McLellan flew into the Pakistani capital of Islamabad on a commercial flight yesterday, then travelled southwest to Kandahar Airport on a Canadian Armed Forces Hercules transport. That airport is home to a massive American-run multinational military base. At that airport, she boarded an American Black Hawk helicopter and flew 20 kilometres north to the Canadian provincial reconstruction team compound, escorted by American Apache attack helicopters.
Ms. McLellan never ventured off military territory during her brief visit to the Kandahar area. The closest she came to seeing the country was the view from her helicopter window and a half hour spent on the reinforced ramparts of the team compound. Off to the northwest, she could see the mountainside where the Taliban once had a fortress.
“People ask me why we are here,” Col. Bowes said, pointing a finger in the direction of the site. “That’s it precisely.” As she flies almost halfway around the world, Ms. McLellan is making a series of stops that are related to security and the war on international terrorism.
On Monday and Tuesday, she met in London with Britain’s deputy prime minister, home secretary, transport minister, the minister for foreign affairs and the head of MI5, the famed British security agency. Among other things, she discussed upgrades to airline security.
Today it’s on to Pakistan. “Pakistan has a very important role to play and we encourage them to do more,” Ms. McLellan said.
PRT donates $43,000 for Kandahar-Arghistan road
KANDAHAR CITY, September 15 (Pajhwok Afghan News): A Canadian-led Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) has donated $43,000 to the provincial Public Works Department for the reconstruction of the 78 kilometers Kandahar-Arghistan road.
Abdul Ghafoor, head of the Public Works Department, told Pajhwok Afghan News on Wednesday the Afghan engineers had started work on the road, adding it had 78 kilometer length, 40 kilometer thickness and eight kilometer width.
Ghafoor said the funds were insufficient and efforts were underway to get more money from the departments concerned to complete the project. Daily fuel expenses were 30,000 afghanis and more funds were needed for timely completion of the road, the director concluded.
Afghan opposition leader eyes speaker's post - Gulf News 09/15/2005
Afghan opposition leader Younus Qanooni staked his claim to be speaker of the new parliament setting the stage for a confrontation with the ageing former president Burhannuddin Rabbani.
"I hope to play the role of speaker. I think the post where I would be chairman of parliament would be acceptable to me and my supporters," Qanooni, a former education minister, said in a hard-hitting interview with Gulf News, ahead of Sunday's parliamentary polls. The elder statesman, Rabbani, has already said he wants to be speaker.
"Afghanistan has rejected extremists like Prof Rabbani and Prof Sayyaf. The present time is for moderates, for a new generation of intellectuals, a group that I am proud to be a part of," he said.
Afghan president's brother calls for cooperative parliament
KABUL, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) -- An influential candidate and elder brother of President Hamid Karzai warned Friday that obstructionist opposition and rubber stamp parliament would damage the government and undermine stability in Afghanistan.
"I think an obstructionist opposition and a rubber stamp parliament both would damage the establishment as a rubber stamp parliament would approve whatever the government says while obstructionist opposition would take in mind its interest," the 57- year-old Qayum Karzai told Xinhua.
Qayum, who is running independently from his home province Kandahar, the former stronghold of Taliban, was of the view that obstructionist opposition and rubber stamp parliament are equally dangerous for the post-war Afghanistan.
"So, we are trying to have a parliament within the constitution to really engage the government, to give government a direction, to insist on creating employment and insist on helping to create work for the people and good governance," he said.
Calling for unity, the elder Karzai urged Afghans to give up merely criticizing and instead to serve the war-torn nation cohesively. "I think we the Afghans should try to move away from the politics of blaming. This was in the past and did not service good. I think we should engage in dialogue. Empty criticism does not serve the country," he stressed.
"So, what we like to do is to have a parliament that is cooperative," Qayum Karzai noted. In response to the notion of enjoying the president's support in the electoral process, the elder Karzai said that he belongs to a politician family and almost all of his family members have been involved in politics over the past 30 years.
"I hope the people will measure me not because I am the president's brother but because I have something to offer and I believe that is the case," he said.
About his relations with the president, he said that in public "he (Hamid Karzai) is president but in private we are brothers, we maintain very good dialogue, we listen, we talk."
However, to some extent he was critical of administration's performance, and said, "I can agree with that there is corruption with the government. And I think reconstruction process is good but I believe more is needed."
Commenting on security situation, Qayum Karzai, who returned home from the United States after the fall of Taliban regime in late 2001, expressed dissatisfaction by saying, "Unfortunately the security as we have now is not very professional."
"I think we made a major mistake in the stability process that in the Bonn agreement it was stipulated that Kabul should be disarmed but now Kabul is not disarmed," he said.
Nonetheless, he was appreciative of government's efforts in reforming security establishment and said, "The Ministry of Interior and the government is professionalizing the rank of the police in the security forces and giving them training that will hopefully make the security of Afghanistan more professional than they are right now."
Commenting about keeping American bodyguards by President Karzai, he maintained that, "Security is not only a problem for the president but is a problem for everybody and I believe that it is prudent. We cannot afford a mistake."
However, he pointed out that security forces of Afghanistan are slowly growing.
Over 12.4 million Afghans are going to elect their representatives into the first-ever parliament in over three decades amid Taliban's threat and tight security on Sunday.
Afghan parliament will have big visions, few rules of the road - By Scott Baldauf, Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
Nobody ever accused Mullah Mohammad Khaksar, a former Taliban deputy minister, of being an Afghan Thomas Jefferson.
But his goals for Afghanistan sound remarkably like those of a founding father, and like those of the majority of the other 5,700 candidates running on Sunday in the country's parliamentary election. Mr. Khaksar wants a strong central government, improved security, faster reconstruction, and a serious effort to control drug trafficking and government corruption.
With such broad consensus, Afghanistan should be well on its way toward creating a sound, workable Afghan parliament that serves as a watchdog to the government. But even Khaksar is not so sure it's going to work that way. He fears that many parliamentarians who come to Kabul will be inexperienced, or be just as corrupt as the government they are supposed to be watching over.
"I am very disappointed about the future of this parliament," says Khaksar, a candidate from his native city of Kandahar. "Look, we are building this parliament. But if, instead of using a strong cornerstone, you build with unbaked bricks, will you be able to build a strong building?"
The problem, many candidates and foreign observers say, is the way in which Afghanistan's parliament was created in the country's new constitution. Voters choose candidates as individuals, not as members of a party. This creates an environment where personalities are more important than ideas, coalitions struggle to stick to common agendas, and individual MPs are more easily manipulated by the palace.
"This parliament will not be functional for several years," says Barnett Rubin, an expert on Afghan politics at New York University who helped organize the Bonn Conference in December 2001 that set up the post-Taliban government. Rubin says that President Hamid Karzai's habit of ruling through patronage - rewarding those who support him with better positions or development funds - has now set a precedent for many elected parliamentarians to turn to him as a kind of feudal lord with deep pockets.
"Once elected, what is their main goal? To get reelected," says Mr. Rubin. "The goal is to get benefits to a small number of people, with no notion for the benefit of society." He pauses. "I don't know how they are going to pass legislation."
Yet, already there are signs that some candidates are forming three main coalitions. One, led by Northern Alliance politician Younus Qanooni, will act as a sort of permanent opposition to President Karzai, and will attempt to change the system of government to give parliament more power, including a prime minister. A second faction will be a cross section of independents from around Afghanistan, who side with Karzai on most issues. A third faction of liberal and leftist parties will swing back and forth between the opposition and Karzai, supporting the president on common issues, but voting against him on others.
With many voters expressing frustration at the slow pace of reconstruction, and visible signs of corruption in their government, even Karzai's friends may find it necessary to slap the hand that feeds them from time to time.
Mohammad Iqbal, a young independent candidate from Jalalabad in the eastern province of Nangrahar, says he supports Karzai, and particularly the way he mediates local problems through local tribal elders. But if Karzai fails to clean up corruption in government, fails to rebuild the country, or strays too far from Afghanistan's Islamic traditions, Mr. Iqbal says he will vote against him.
"Friendship is friendship, but if Mr. Karzai is anti-Afghanistan, then even if His Excellency Mr. Bush asks me, I will say no," says Iqbal, with a wry smile. His supporters break out in laughter.
Experts say it will take time for Afghan parliamentarians to figure out the new process, when most of the elected officials have no experience in how to legislate and none will have researchers to help them sort out good bills from bad bills.
"With a limited role for political parties, things will be fluid, with lots of deal- making," says Paul Fishstein, director for the Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit, a think tank in Kabul. Many Afghans are optimistic that things will get sorted out in traditional Afghan ways, but Mr. Fishstein says that parliamentarians are in for a rude awakening when they confront the hard work of legislation.
"A lot of people love to talk about improving security, electricity, water systems, but that's not necessarily what parliament is intended to do," says Fishstein. "They'll be passing budgets, they'll be representing the material interests of their constituencies, and that takes a certain level of skill." He smiles. "It's going to be an interesting parliament."
Election Gives Group That Battled Taliban Chance at a Comeback - The Washington Post 09/15/2005 By N.C. Aizenman
BAZARAK - The green-domed mausoleum housing the tomb of Afghanistan's legendary guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Massoud sits atop a windblown cliff with a breathtaking view of the lush Panjshir Valley. This was Massoud's northern redoubt over two decades of fighting against a succession of enemies, beginning with invading troops from the Soviet Union and ending with the extremist Taliban militia.
But the vista seemed lost on the hundreds of grim-faced men who trudged up the peak on a recent morning to pay their respects on the fourth anniversary of Massoud's assassination by two al Qaeda suicide bombers posing as journalists -- a strike that came just two days before the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.
"If Massoud were still alive, we would not be living like this," proclaimed an enormous black banner carried by the crowd, as a handful of parliamentary candidates looked on solemnly.
"We feel so sad and alone," said Nader Khan, 22, wiping away tears. Khan is a former mujaheddin, or holy warrior, in Massoud's militia who is now unemployed. "Massoud loved the mujaheddin. Today, nobody cares for us."
As leading members of a coalition of northern ethnic militias that joined forces with the United States to topple the Taliban rulers after the Sept. 11 attacks, Massoud's Panjshiri successors were a dominant force in Afghanistan's first post-Taliban government. But over the last year and a half, the ethnic Tajiks of the Panjshir Valley have watched with dismay as President Hamid Karzai, a member of Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group, has replaced some of their most prominent leaders with Pashtuns and welcomed former Taliban officials back into the country as part of a reconciliation program.
Now, many Panjshiris see Afghanistan's parliamentary elections, to be held Sunday, as their chance at a comeback.As in the rest of Afghanistan, campaign posters with pictures of the contenders have been affixed to every conceivable surface of the Panjshir Valley -- shop doors, tree branches, even the rusting Soviet tanks that still litter the area. But here, where Massoud's image has become synonymous with the past Tajik glory, many of the advertisements also feature portraits of "the Lion of the Panjshir," as Massoud is widely known. His pictures are as large as, if not larger, than those of the candidates themselves. One candidate, Saleh Registani, is handing out an entire brochure of moody photographs of himself with Massoud during the years of the Soviet war.
Speaking in the tidy, modest living room of his house about a mile from Massoud's tomb, Registani, 42, complained that "right now the role of non-Pashtuns is too weak. We want the government to be a broad-based government for all Afghans." Most of the policies he proposes involve amending the constitution to transfer authority from the presidency to the provinces, a move that would considerably enhance the power of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities.
Registani may get his way. Yonus Qanooni, a polished former deputy to Massoud and the runner-up in presidential elections last October, is leading a coalition of 14 parties fielding approximately 500 candidates from provinces across the country for Sunday's vote -- the first legislative elections in Afghanistan since the 1960s. Many candidates who are not officially part of the bloc say they also support Qanooni.
Their bid presents a double-edged challenge for Karzai, who has enjoyed relative freedom to maneuver since he won the presidency with 55 percent of the vote: If Qanooni and his allies win a majority of seats, the president will likely face a highly combative parliament. If Qanooni's bloc fails to make a strong showing, Karzai may have to contend with the wrath of a sizable swath of voters convinced that the election was stolen.
Although international observers signed off on the results of last year's presidential election, Qanooni and many of his supporters still maintain that he was the true victor. "I only accepted the results for the sake of national stability," Qanooni said in a recent interview.
Foreign election officials have privately expressed concern that Qanooni's recent complaints about the vote-counting procedures planned for the legislative elections are an attempt to lay the groundwork for claiming fraud again if he is unhappy with the results.
Interviews with registered voters from several villages in Panjshir suggest that Qanooni would find a receptive audience for his concerns. "This is their last chance," Del Agha, 30, a wiry, sandy-haired veteran of Massoud's militia, warned darkly. "If they steal our votes again, it will be time for us mujaheddin to do something."
He spoke from his guard hut at a munitions depot next to a rushing river at the foot of a narrow valley. Around him were stacks upon stacks of forest green ammunition boxes, alongside several dozen shipping containers packed with small arms.
The arms and ammunition should have been sent to the capital, Kabul, months ago under a U.N.-run program to demobilize armed groups in Afghanistan. However, while the militia's leaders have handed over about 150 heavy weapon pieces to the government -- including tanks and Scud missiles -- they have so far proved reluctant to relinquish their ammunition stocks, according to U.N. officials.
Agha said he understood his superiors' reluctance to comply. A fighter since the age of 17, Agha said he remained haunted by memories of war: the back-breaking weight of the rockets he used to carry across freezing mountain passes, the eyes of a wounded enemy fighter his comrades urged him to shoot at point-blank range, the terror he felt as his truck plummeted down a steep ravine one night, and the pain of multiple surgeries in India to repair his spine.
The thought of handing control of the weapons amassed during those years to the central government fills him with bitterness. "Most of those officials were off having fun in European capitals while my brothers were dying," he said.
The Panjshiris' resentment is compounded by their impression that they have received less foreign aid than southern and eastern provinces that were former strongholds of the Taliban. Western observers acknowledge that there is some truth to these complaints. For instance, while the United States spent $190 million to build a road connecting Kabul to the southern city of Kandahar in 2004, work on a $26 million U.S.-funded project to pave the narrow main road through the Panjshir Valley did not start until last month. Officials said the delay was caused by a plan, since scrapped, to use the project to train Afghan officials and companies in road-building.
Also, because former fighters in the Panjshir were slow to disarm, they did not receive the financial compensation and job training called for in the program as quickly as counterparts in other provinces. But analysts also say that the Panjshiris' sense of grievance is overstated.
Last month, for example, the U.S. military agreed to contribute an additional $4 million to the Panjshir road project. And this year, the government declared the valley a province, granting it separate representation in the new parliament even though its population and land area are far smaller than those of many existing provinces.
Also, while Karzai has sidelined top Panjshiri leaders such as the former defense minister and vice president, Mohammed Fahim, and the former head of national intelligence, Muhammad Arif Sarwari, many other Panjshiris remain in prominent positions -- including Foreign Minister Abdullah, army chief Bismillah Khan and the new head of intelligence, Amralluah Saleh.
"In fact, I think you'll find that the top positions are way oversubscribed by Panjshiris given their percentage in the population," said a foreign diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Still, the diplomat said, whatever the outcome of the elections, the government will have a strong interest in placating Panjshir's residents for some time to come. "In a place where there are tens of thousands of tons of weapons, it's not a good idea to have people alienated from the government," he said.
Return of a Power From the Past
The return of controversial general Shahnawaz Tanai on the eve of elections stirs memories and raises questions over links to Pakistan. By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 187, 14-Sep-05)
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Coup plotter, eminence grise of Pakistani military intelligence, political kingmaker or scheming opportunist? The rumours have swirled around Shahnawaz Tanai since his return to Afghanistan ahead of its elections.
The 55-year-old former general is not even standing as a candidate in the September 18 poll. But with a background in the murkier corridors of power, Tanai is widely seen as still having an influential role despite having spent 15 years in exile.
Tanai, who admits mounting a failed 1990 coup against the then communist regime, and is widely believed to have been among the plotters who engineered the successful one which brought the communists to power 12 years earlier, told IWPR he had returned "at this momentous time" because he wanted to create a united party.
"I have come to consult with the candidates during campaigning for the elections. I want to have close discussions with those parties which are bound together by the same opinion, so that we get together in a united party," he said.
After the 1978 coup in which president Mohammad Daoud Khan was ousted and killed, Tanai was appointed head of military intelligence. He survived through the years of coups and bloodshed that followed, being appointed Kabul garrison commander, then army chief of staff and in 1988, defence minister.
In was from this position that he mounted his failed coup in 1990 and had to flee to Pakistan where, in exile, he set up his Afghanistan Peace Movement, Da Afghanistan Da Solay Ghorzang Gond.
Now registered as a party in Afghanistan, Tanai's movement has agreed with the National Party, Milli Gond, and the National Unity Party, Milli Yavali, to form a coalition which, he claims, has some 200 candidates standing for parliament and the councils.
Appropriately, as a defence minister from the communist era, Tanai welcomes visitors at an apartment in Kabul's Macrorayon district, a development of Moscow-style housing blocks built for government officials during the Soviet occupation.
The flat belongs to relatives, as Tanai's own home was also in Macrorayon but has changed hands several times since he fled by helicopter to neighbouring Pakistan after his coup failed against President Najibullah fifteen years ago. He has yet to decide what to do about his home.
Of medium height, urbane and elegantly turned out in traditional Afghan clothes, the moustachioed Tanai's political acumen is evident. He speaks smoothly, acknowledges he has many enemies but points out he has many supporters too.
Born in 1950 in the village of Dargai in the southern province of Khost, Tanai followed a classic military career, attending military academy and then university, specialising in infantry tactics, and later travelling to the Soviet Union to study leadership. He married in 1978 and has a daughter and two sons – the family is still in Pakistan.
Tanai rationalises his bid to seize power and denies it was inspired by Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, ISI.
"Pakistan had no role in the coup d'etat that I launched against the president. It knew nothing about it, and nor did the mujahedin parties," he told IWPR, referring to rumours that the radical Hezb-e-Islami group conspired with dissidents in the Najibullah administration.
He says he did not fall out with Najibullah's views, but rather with his policy on the military. "Najibullah was transferring all the privileges of his army to the tribal militias and in particular to his special guard. I was against this because the Afghan army was losing efficiency," he said.
Political analyst Abdul Karim Khurram said Tanai tried to oust Najibullah both because he disagreed with his views and out of pure ambition. "Tanai… wanted to take the lead in affairs himself, but failed," he said.
Another analyst Mohammad Qaseem Akhgar suggests that Tanai may also have had a hand in Najibullah's murder by the Taleban after they captured Kabul in September 1996. The former leader was seized from the United Nations compound where he had lived since the mujahedin toppled his regime in 1992, and hanged from a lamppost in Kabul city centre.
"After the coup, he went gone to Pakistan with the help of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hezb-e-Islami, and [subsequently] joined the Taleban. It seems that Tanai was one of the people who had a hand in the killing of Najibullah," said Akhgar.
Rejecting this charge, Tanai says bluntly, "This matter had nothing to do with me." Akhgar questions Tanai's motives in returning just ahead of the elections, "ISI has a close link with Tanai and the Taleban. Considering Pakistan's interference in Afghanistan, it is possible he may have come back to the country to pave the way for more meddling by Pakistan."
Tanai dismisses charges that he is an agent for Pakistan, which is seen in Kabul as failing to crack down on extremists supporting the current Taleban insurgency.
One reason he offers as to why some people think this way is that "after the coup attempt and then my escape to Pakistan, lots of people thought that I had a link with Pakistan's ISI, and in consequence many people think my return is at the orders of Pakistan".
Other political leaders have their own views about Tanai but say they want to try to look beyond the past. Asked for his opinion of the ex-general Mohammad Yunus Qanuni, a parliamentary candidate and leader of the New Afghanistan party, Hezb-e-Afghanistan-e-Naween, he would only say, "I don’t talk about the personality of a person… we might [be able to] create a situation in which all Afghans live together."
An open critic of Pakistani interference in Afghan affairs is Haji Mohammad Muhaqeq, who heads the former mujahedin faction Hezb-e Wahdat-e Islami Mardum Afghanistan.
"Pakistan has its own people in the [Afghan] cabinet, in the administration. It has been greatly involved in wars, and in the fighting which is still going on. And the Taleban who have joined the [present] government have been sent by Pakistan," said Muhaqeq. "If we take all this into account, then Tanai too has been sent by Pakistan."
But he added, "I know Tanai as an Afghan national. I want Afghanistan to forget its past and open a new chapter." Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.
The Taliban's rocket man adopts a gentler image to woo voters - The Guardian - 09/15/2004 By Declan Walsh in Qalat
Persuasion once held a very different meaning for Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi. As a leading Taliban commander - so senior he once dined with Osama bin Laden - Rocketi was famed for his ability to annihilate enemies with a carefully aimed missile. Hence his name.
"I was famous for firing the rocket-propelled grenade," he said at his home in Zabul, a violent southern province. "It still gives me a pain in my ears."
But as a candidate in next Sunday's Afghan parliamentary election Rocketi has been forced to adopt less brutal tactics - and ideas - to win the argument. For weeks the retired warlord has wooed key voters with free lunches and flowery speeches. He promises economic reform, ethnic harmony, and a return of the Taliban.
A peaceful return, he adds hastily. "I will try to bring them back into government through a genuine peace process," he said, raising his voice to a shout as an American helicopter clattered overhead. "That is better than just fighting, fighting, fighting."
A year after their first presidential election, millions of Afghans are returning to the polls this weekend for another faltering step towards a new nation. Voters will choose from about 5,800 candidates to fill both the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, and 34 provincial councils.
It is a troubled blossoming. Although President Hamid Karzai's US-backed government hails the vote as a democratic milestone, analysts warn of critical flaws: political parties are forbidden, the parliament will be chaotic, and some of Afghanistan's most unsavoury warlords have been allowed to compete.
The presence of "good" Taliban candidates on the ticket is among the most controversial aspects. Half a dozen senior officials have been allowed to contest the poll, including Wakil Ahmad Mutawakil, the former foreign minister who spent three years in US custody, and Muhammad Khaksar, a former deputy interior minister.
But the candidacy that churns most stomachs is that of Al-Haj Maulvi Qalamuddin, a stern-faced cleric once considered Afghanistan's most feared man. As head of the notorious Department for the Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice, Qalamuddin promulgated many of the Taliban's harshest decrees.
On his orders religious police roamed the streets, thrashing beardless men and women who refused to wear the burka. Girls' schools were closed, television and kite-flying were banned and adulterous couples were buried up to the waist and stoned to death. As Afghanistan regressed into the middle ages, Qalamuddin sat in his Kabul office obsessing over the height of women's heels. "Some women want to show their feet and ankles," he told a reporter in 1997. "They are immoral women. They want to give a hint to the opposite sex."
But the new Qalamuddin, released from jail a year ago, claims to be a leopard with radically changed spots. As a candidate in the four-seat province of Logar, 90 minutes south of Kabul, he is infused with a new-found humility. The Taliban's excesses were "misunderstood", he said over a breakfast of yoghurt, biscuits and sweet tea as he prepared for another day's campaigning.
"We were never against girls' education, we just didn't have the budget to pay for it. And I have nothing against television, as long as it is shows proper Islamic programmes," he said.
A tall man with a tightly-wound turban and a piercing stare, Qalamuddin met the Guardian in the upstairs study of his Logar home, surrounded by shelves groaning with gold-embossed Qur'anic texts. Freshly printed election posters sat in a corner. "My message to voters is that we have had 24 years of jihad. Now it is time for peace," he said.
His ideas appear to be a bag of contradictions. He renounces the Taliban but favours a return of its one-eyed fugitive leader, Mullah Omar. He praises Mr Karzai's reforms but refuses to buy a TV.
And although still subject to EU and UN sanctions, he has a curiously warm attitude to the foreign powers he once blasted as infidels. "You know, if the American army left Afghanistan this morning, there would be war by the afternoon. They are the reason we have peace," he said.
Other Taliban candidates are also glossing over their antediluvian images. Last week Mutawakil published a book denouncing Osama bin Laden as a miser who never helped poor Afghans and criticising the 2001 demolition of the historic Bamiyan Buddha statues.
In Zabul, one of the bloodiest flashpoints between Taliban and coalition forces, Rocketi's election literature ignores his Taliban past and has omitted the honorific "Al Haj" from his title. He claims he was never keen on their radical strictures anyway. "See my driver over there?" he said, gesturing to a man eating nuts. "I can't remember how many times he was arrested by other Talibs for playing music in our car."
Like other ex-Talibs, Rocketi has received death threats from former colleagues. "They say if they catch me they will kill me," he said. As a result he carries a small German pistol.
Karzai is gambling that the participation of Taliban heavyweights will blunt the insurgency, which spiked alarmingly this summer. More than 1,100 people have died, mostly in pulverising US air strikes. But Taliban roadside attacks on coalition forces have become increasingly deadly, a development Afghan officials blame on al-Qaida assistance.
Yesterday morning suspected Taliban killed seven men carrying voting cards in Urzugan, the southern home province of Mullah Omar. The provincial governor said rebels launched similar attacks against "innocent Muslims" before last year's poll.
Simultaneously, however, there are hopes the rebellion may be waning. About 350 mostly middle ranking Talibs have defected to the government via reconciliation initiatives; Mr Karzai hopes the example of candidates like Mutawakil will bring in more from the cold. "I am happy we have an Afghanistan where anyone can be a candidate," he told elders in Herat on Tuesday.
Critics say this approach is dangerously mistaken. The Taliban must first account for past atrocities, said Ahmad Nader Nadery of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
"There is no such thing as a moderate Talib. People like Qalamuddin were violating human rights every day," he said. "Ignoring such abuses encourage impunity, which creates a very fragile, short-term peace."
The divisions reach into the heart of Mr Karzai's cabinet. "Many ministers do not agree with this decision," said a senior official in Mr Karzai's office, who requested anonymity. "They say the socalled moderates want to bring back fundamentalism."
Some believe Mr Karzai is currying Taliban support to build a political base among fellow Pashtuns. But a more likely explanation is that he is under US pressure to end the insurgency. This week Pentagon planners are debating a 20% cut in troops from next spring.
The furore is part of a wider controversy about the failures of Mr Karzai's presidency. Although more than 200 former warlords applied to contest Sunday's election only 32 were disqualified.
But despite the many problems with Sunday's poll, at a local level it has reinvigorated debate about Afghanistan's past and future. In the bazaar at Qalat opinions were sharply divided about the candidacy of Rocketi. "If someone has fired even one bullet, how can we vote for him? Those men have destroyed our country," said Rahmat Ullah during a heated teashop debate. But Muhammad Zaman, a vegetable seller with black kohl under his eyes, praised the Taliban. "They are good men. We want them back in power again," he said.
Outside town Rocketi was holstering his pistol before heading off to another meeting. "The past is the past, a book that has already been written," he said. "Now it is time to write a new one."
Backstory - Led by the enigmatic cleric Mullah Omar and nurtured by Pakistani intelligence, the Taliban seized power in Afghanistan in 1996. Its initial popularity in restoring security to a nation racked by civil war was soon overshadowed by its repressive edicts inspired by a fundamentalist reading of the Qur'an.
The west paid little attention to the Taliban until 1998 when Osama bin Laden, who the organisation was sheltering, directed the bombing of two US embassies in Africa. Mullah Omar refused numerous appeals to surrender Bin Laden and in late 2001 the Taliban regime was rapidly toppled by a coalition of American bombers and Afghan militia fighters.
The Taliban rump fled into the southern mountains and across the border to Pakistan where it regrouped to launch an insurgency that continues today. American claims that the rebellion was on its last legs last winter proved premature. The Taliban killed 16 soldiers aboard a US helicopter in July, regularly bombs military convoys and has rendered swaths of the south ungovernable. The US has responded with massive aerial bombardments, killing hundreds. Mullah Omar's whereabouts remain unknown.
Afghan Hindus & Sikhs disillusioned with electoral process
KABUL, September 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): For Hindus and Sikhs minorities together, a solitary Wolesi Jirga (lower house of parliament) seat has been reserved in Sunday's elections, for which an active woman is in the run.
Dwelling in this capital city, a number of Hindus and Sikhs complain they avoided standing in the polls because the government gave the minorities a raw deal - treatment that tended to lower them in status and public esteem.
Robinder Singh, gazing at candidate posters plastered on a wall from his shop in the bustling Kabul Market, asked: "Knowing full well the government has done nothing for our wellbeing over the last three years, why should we jump into the electoral race?"
Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, a skeptical Singh believed nobody would heed the voice of their representatives even if they were catapulted to the Wolesi Jirga and provincial councils.
According to information provided by Anarkali, a Hindu-Sikh contender for the first post-Taliban ballot, some 3,500 members of the minority communities are currently living in Kabul, Ghazni, Nangarhar, Khost and Balkh provinces.
She explained the number of Hindus and Sikhs in the Central Asian country had been depleted by their mass exodus, triggered by decades of strife. The suave, urbane woman recalled about a hundred thousand Sikhs and Hindus in Afghanistan would often slam the Dr. Najibullah government for giving them short shrift.
"They didn't file nomination papers for the elections, because no one is willing to grant them their due rights. As a result of the continued indifference shown to them, they are least interested in Afghanistan's political and governmental affairs."
Anarkali, who represented the two minorities at the constitutional and emergency Loya Jirgas, urged candidates to treat voters equally, regardless of religious, ethnic and linguistic considerations.
A resident of the Karta-e-Parwan neighbourhood, Narender Singh echoed the views of the urbane Hindu woman and Robinder Singh. They were not treated like Afghans, he grumbled, arguing the discrimination had left them disillusioned with the whole thing.
But Mohammad Ishaq Nasiri, a high-ranking official at the Ministry of Border and Tribal Affairs, is dismissive of the criticism from the minorities. "We have the same respect for Hindus and Sikhs as we show to other Afghans."
He claimed, like the rest of the communities, they were invited to Afghanistan's cultural and national festivals to promote national cohesion. "They can't blame us for their failure to contest the vote," remarked Nasiri, who reasoned the government would have ungrudgingly reached out to them if they had entered the race.
Nasiri pointed out the government had returned Hindus and Sikhs the lands and property wrested from them by gunmen during the civil war. Under the Afghan constitution and the electoral law, people of all faiths could contest the legislative elections - the first in 30 years.
Highlighting Afghan problems ahead of Berlin conference - EU Reporter
09/14/2005
MEPs have suggested that the best way to solve the dangers posed by Afghanistan is to buy up the entire opium production from its farmers and destroy it. An estimated 90% of the heroin on Europe's streets and 75% of world production comes from the country the US and its allies freed from the Taliban over two years ago. The Irish Presidency is placing particular emphasis on the Asian country and for the first time this week's Troika to that country will be led by a Foreign Minister.
The UN has warned that the situation is increasingly dangerous despite the EU and the US in particular pouring money into the country. Elections due to be held this summer are in danger of being delayed because not enough people are being registered because of violence. At the same time poppy production is back to what it was before the Taliban took over and the country had bumper crops in 2002 and 2003. The security situation is worsening with foreigners and others involved in infrastructure, registering voters and security being beaten back to the capital Kabul, the only place under government control. The Troika, led by Irish Foreign Minister Brian Cowen accompanied by his Dutch counterpart Bernard Bot and External Relations Commissioner Chris Patten comes just weeks before the Berlin International Conference. This will review the political and financial challenges facing the country to which the EU has pledged Ä1 b over five years.
The European Parliament in adopting a report by Andre Brie last week agreed with the Commission's conclusion that the lack of security and the slow pace of reconstruction have trapped Afghanistan in a vicious circle. However the suggestion by British Conservative MEP Charles Tannock that international funds be used to buy up the entire poppy production has so far not been adopted.
Sources in the Commission say the problem is getting agreement on the best way to tackle all the problems security, drugs, terrorism and warlords, since they are all part of the same coin. Britain has taken over international coordination of anti narcotics activities while Germany is involved in Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) at a cost of Ä500 m. These are basically military units often with civil engineers and one of whose tasks is to undertake small reconstruction projects like schools and irrigation.
"We want to have these PRTs to buy hearts and mind", said a Commission source. At the same time work on building up a native police and military force is going ahead. This is essential to stamp out the heroin trade, but another vital element is to ensure farmers can grow alternative crops.
The EU is this year contributing Ä100 million to help farmers change over. But the most difficult part of reducing poppy production is to do it without unleashing the war lords. At the same time work on establishing a democratic government is going ahead and elections are scheduled to take place this summer. However the lack of security is threatening this on a number of fronts, not least in the registering of voters.
At least 10 million people need to be registered to ensure that any election is representative but so far despite huge efforts just 600,000 have been signed up, mostly from two or three regions. Only 30% of these are women. The Berlin conference at the end of March which it is hoped will be chaired by the Afghans, will be asking countries to pledge further funds.
The US and Japan are expected to do so and pressure will be put on the Arab and Gulf states make good on the pledges they made but mostly failed to deliver on in 2001. Ann Cahill is Europe Correspondent for the Irish Examiner. by Ann Cahill, Irish Examiner
No law followed at Guantanamo Bay prison: Zaeef
KABUL, September 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Former Taliban ambassador to Islamabad Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef has alleged no law is followed at the US naval detention centre at Guantanamo Bay, where has spent four years in captivity.
Palpably bitter over his arrest and subsequent handover to the US by Pakistan, the former diplomat told Pajhwok Afghan News of frequent and prolonged hunger strikes by inmates at the notorious prison and his travails in detention.
Before taking up his ambassadorial assignment in Islamabad, Mullah Zaeef had held senior positions in the ministries of defence and mines and industries and transport during the Taliban regime, ousted from power in 2001 by the US and the Northern Alliance .
He recalled after Pakistan derecognized the Taliban regime in 2001, he wrote an official letter to the foreign ministry in Islamabad regarding his stay in the host country. The ministry responded he could live there. With his diplomatic visa still valid, he says he was detained and yielded up to Americans.
"One night unidentified men - introducing themselves as Pakistani intelligence operatives - came to my house and told me US officials wanted to interrogate me. They took me to Peshawar, where they handed me over to Americans - blindfolded and hands tied behind my back - at the airport," Zaeef claimed.
About the recent hunger strike of almost all the Guantanamo Bay inmates, the diplomat revealed the protest started on August 7 and continued till his release. The protested pressed for two things.
"One, they wanted to be treated under the Geneva Convention - especially stressing implementation of the articles which say as long as detainees are innocent till convicted," he explained.
"Two, they demanded an improvement in the situation at the Fifth Camp, where detainees were kept locked in closed cells for 17 months at a stretch. All inmates are suffering from psychological disorders," Zaeef added. He described the Fifth Camp's cells as suffocating, with no proper ventilation. The prisoners were denied access to books, pens and notebooks, Zaeef said, adding the oppression enraged the inmates.
"Another article of the Geneva Convention says nobody should be held for more than a month in detention without charges. This period is allowed only for investigations. But the Fifth Camp's prisoners were kept for 17 months in hard conditions and that sparked the hunger strike."
Asked if detainees were tortured during questioning, Zaeef replied the attitude of the jailers was harsh at the beginning but improved gradually. However, he said he himself was never beaten up or tortured.
Regarding the interrogation process and the procedure for the release or trial of detainees, Zaeef said the Bush administration had set up two bodies for the purpose, but both operated illegally while seeking to work according to US military strategy.
"The US set up the Enemy Combatant Status Tribunal Review, which allows the detainees' description as enemy combatants and their indefinite detention without charge-framing. This body acquitted 10 prisoners.
"Later, they established the Administration Review Board to interrogate the detainees and decide on the release of those not threatening American interests. This commission has so far produced no practical result."
Answering another query, the 37-year-old said: "There was no law, US or international, but few inmates were freed by the board." Zaeef attributed his release to efforts from "some friends."
Afghan village mirrors national plight – BBC
The BBC's Soutik Biswas spent Tuesday in an Afghan village, linking ordinary people there with BBC News website readers from all around the world who sent their questions on daily, rural life. Here he reflects on the day.
In seven hours sitting under a burning sun with only a slight wind blowing from the Hindu Kush mountains, replying to questions from strangers all over the world, Rahmat Gul - devout Muslim, father of seven children, teacher and vineyard owner - had not lost his cheeky sense of humour.
When a reader from Turkey e-mailed in asking what single thing he would wish for if he had a magic wand, Mr Gul quipped: "I would like to marry an English woman. I am ready for a new wife."
Mr Gul was one of six residents of Asad Khyl, an arid, brown village of high-walled mud homes, cracked culverts, dry streams and shrubby vineyards in the rolling Shomali plains north of Kabul, whom I had chosen to take part in our live One Day in Afghanistan project.
We had lugged a laptop, a satellite dish, a generator, a table, a few chairs, garden umbrellas and miles of cables from Kabul to Asad Khyl to hook up live with the world so that our readers could have a live pow-wow with Afghan villagers.
Mr Gul's infectious humour, along with a sumptuous lunch feast, helped keep us going. "Soutik brother, listen to me," he said once midway through the programme with a mischievous smile. "Why is it so that I am only receiving questions from women around the world?"
The Sunni Muslim Pashtuns, who make up some 42% of Afghanistan's population, are conservative and fiercely protective of their traditions and ethos. So when I drove over a rocky road to Asad Khyl last week to try set up the programme with the villagers, I expected cynical responses and resistance. Instead, I discovered a Pashtun village with a varied, interesting mix of resilient, outspoken and vibrant people, most with a great sense of humour.
There was the wise elder, practitioner of Islamic law, judge and a vineyard owner Haji Abdullah Saleh, a proponent of conservative Islam but also a strong believer that the nation will unite and prosper only when all of Afghanistan's men and women are educated. "Poverty can be no excuse for not getting educated. If you have a will and you are talented, you can make it anywhere in the world," he said.
Mr Saleh spoke freely on Islam, terrorism, development, tradition, the economy, and warlordism in his country. Only when a reader asked whether Osama bin Laden had given his country a bad name did Mr Saleh break into a big smile to ask: "Do you want me killed?"
There was the bright 18-year-old boy, Shukrullah, who dreams day and night of becoming an engineer to build roads. There was the shy 14-year-old Shaista who told me that if she did not become a doctor, life might not be worth living.
And in one small mud home, I found Lal Bibi, who looked infinitely older than her 45 years. Her gnarled hands trembled as she spoke from behind a veil. Her husband went to war 12 years ago and vanished. They had been married for five years.
She said she would like to sew or wash clothes for a living, but nobody in the village could afford that. So she stayed home looking after her ageing mother. "I don't think I am an unfortunate woman," she told me. "We believe in destiny. This was written in my destiny."
Most of the 300 families who live in this bleak dun-coloured village are still depending on destiny to rebuild their lives, four years after the departure of the marauding Taleban and the end of the war.
Asad Khyl was a victim of the Taleban's infamous "scorched earth" policy and part of the fiercely fought battles between the advancing Taleban and the Northern Alliance in the late 1990s.
The entire village fled northwards to Panjshir valley or to the fetid Kabul slums when the Taleban razed their homes, mined their irrigation systems and uprooted their vineyards and fruit orchards.
Shukrullah and Shaista go to rundown schools where there aren't enough tables, chairs, books or teachers. Lal Bibi wants to work for a living, but there isn't any. Gul Khan is lucky if he finds work 10 days a month after standing in the local bazaar.
In a way, Asad Khyl is a mirror to the flawed and skewed development of Afghanistan after the war. With enough water, electricity, better schools and clinics, this could have been built into a model village. Wild vines, mulberries, and willow grow here; the breathtaking landscape would have been a tourist lure.
But there simply isn't enough water - the irrigation canals have not been repaired, the canals remain dry. Then there is no electricity - very few villagers can afford to rent a line from a creaky generator which fires up once a day.
A lack of infrastructure and teachers means the local school must work in multiple shifts to accommodate the growing number of students. There seem to be no rewards for such villages in Afghanistan.
"We never grew poppies, we never courted the Taleban, we lived by the law and our minds and lives were burnt by the war. Still, the international community just keeps giving money to poppy growers and criminals to win them over.
"What is the incentive for villages like us?" asks Haji Abdullah Saleh, as a hazy, brown dusk sets on the village. What, indeed?
India to help establish vocational training centre in Kabul
KABUL, September 14 (Pajhwok Afghan News): India will help the Afghan government in establishing a vocational training centre for illiterate people.
The pledge was made during a meeting between Indian ambassador to Kabul Rakesh Sood and Minister for Public Works Syed Ikramuddin Masoomi on Wednesday.
Director of publication department of the ministry Syed Ali Shah Murtazavi told Pajhwok Afghan News the Indian ambassador assured his country's cooperation in setting up a vocational centre for illiterate Afghans here.
The proposed centre would impart training in carpentry, tailoring and welding to illiterate people, said the official, adding the estimated cost of construction of the centre was yet to be ascertained.
Murtazavi said one such training centre established with a $10 million donation from South Korea had started functioning here a month back. Mohammad Ghaus Bashiri, deputy minister for Public Works, said at present, more than 8,000 male and female were getting training in different trades in about 100 training centres across the country.
World Leaders Demand Greater U.N. Role
New York - AP - World leaders nearing the end of a three-day summit urged the United Nations to play a bigger role on the world stage — in everything from the fight against terrorism to protecting immigrant rights to easing the crunch caused by high oil prices.
After the last speeches on Friday, the 191 U.N. member states will adopt a document that takes a step toward revamping the United Nations to meet the challenges of the 21st century and adds new impetus to the fight against poverty. But bitter disagreements meant most substantive measures had to be left out.
While those disagreements were playing out in the General Assembly chamber, attention was largely focused elsewhere: Iran's president said his country was willing to provide nuclear technology to other Muslim states. Arab-Israeli relations took another positive step. And a U.N. treaty to fight global corruption got its 30th ratification, triggering its entry into force in 90 days.
"This dream has become a reality," said Antonio Maria Costa, executive director of the U.N. Office of Drugs and Crime.
Between news conferences by Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin and various nongovernmental organizations, Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez scolded evangelist Pat Robertson for calling for his assassination and criticized the U.S. government for the Iraq war, which he called illegal.
Chavez suggested moving the United Nations headquarters to Jerusalem because President Bush attacked Saddam Hussein's government without U.N. authorization.
"The proposal has the merit of providing a response to the conflict experienced by Palestine, but it may be difficult to bring about," Chavez said in a speech that earned him the heartiest applause of the 80 leaders to speak so far.
If Chavez' fiery speech showed a disdain for the United States, it also showed his fondness for the United Nations, something many other leaders readily shared.
The president of the Philippines, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, went further than most when she suggested the United Nations take the lead in easing the effects of high oil prices. She said it should study oil rationing and conservation, as well as consider initiatives to fuel engines with coconut oil and convert cane sugar to ethanol.
China's President Hu Jintao and Russia's President Vladimir Putin made clear they want the United Nations to help coordinate the fight against terrorism.
"The United Nations, as the core of the collective security mechanism, plays an irreplaceable role in international cooperation to ensure global security," Hu said. "Such a role can only be strengthened and must not in any way be weakened."
Those demands highlighted that, while Washington and others want serious reform before the U.N. tackles new challenges, the United Nations' image is still strong in much of the world.
Yet while many leaders extolled the world body, they also dwelt on their diplomats' failure to achieve eight goals to alleviate poverty and illness worldwide.
Leaders stressed repeatedly that more needs to be done toward progress on the Millennium Development Goals, though major differences remained on what to do, and who should pay.
Calls for U.N. Security Council reform also were a constant refrain. The demands came from both counties that want permanent seats on the council — including Brazil and Japan — as well as those that have no aspirations for full-time representation.
"The Islamic Republic of Afghanistan would like to emphasize the long-due needed reform of the Council, both in terms of its composition and working methods," Afghan Vice President Ahmad-Zia Massoud said.
And while several leaders made oblique references to the United States by saying no nation should act alone and outside the United Nations, the tone was far more sympathetic than after the Iraq war.
Speaker after speaker in the General Assembly expressed sympathy for the victims of Hurricane Katrina and offered the United States help recovering from the disaster.
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