In this bulletin:

• Afghanistan seeks solution on convert amid Western uproar
• For Afghans, Allies, A Clash of Values
• Afghans probe killings after Pakistani complaint
• Officials Meet to Further Implement the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership
• Karzai Proposes Sweeping Cabinet Changes
• Profile: Abdullah Abdullah
• Reading Signals From Kabul – Stratfor
• Afghanistan starts bird flu slaughter
• Ambassador Sproule praises Canada’s role in Afghanistan
• Afghan boy who Canadian soldiers helped get cancer treatment has died
• Hasty poppy eradication in Afghanistan can sow more problems
• Captain offers prescription for Afghanistan's health care system
• Quebecer sells prefab houses to Afghanistan

Afghanistan seeks solution on convert amid Western uproar

Kabul (AFP) - Afghanistan's Supreme Court said it was trying to find a "good solution" following a flood of Western criticism over a man facing the death penalty for converting to Christianity.

US President George W. Bush has stepped into the row over convert Abdul Rahman, saying he would pressure Kabul over the "deeply troubling" matter, while the United Nations says it believes Rahman will be spared.

The case, the first of its kind here, has put the government in a dilemma, with Western countries on whom it depends for military and financial aid demanding that Afghanistan respect the right to freedom of religion.

The judge handling the case, Ansarullah Mawlavizada, said the courts were trying to find a "good solution" which could include persuading Rahman to revert to Islam.

"This is a sensitive issue -- we are trying our best to handle it quickly," he told AFP. "Since Islam is a religion of mercy, kindness and tolerance, we will try to find a good solution. We are trying our best to persuade the man to convert back to Islam."

On Wednesday Mawlavizada said that "if he doesn't revert back to Islam, he's going to receive the death penalty, according to the law".

Rahman, 41, is in jail while his trial is under way, with Sharia law, on which the Afghan constitution is partly based, ruling that conversion away from Islam must be punished by death if the accused person fails to revert. He was arrested two weeks ago after his family complained to authorities.

A Supreme Court spokesman has said that Rahman, who switched to Christianity in Germany 16 years ago and returned to Afghanistan in 2002, may be mentally unfit to stand trial and would be subjected to psychological testing.

Analysts said this would be an easy way out for Kabul, amid fears the case could cause a rift with the Western countries on which it relies to rebuild from war and suppress an insurgency led by the Islamist Taliban movement.

Bush, who initiated the US-led military operation that toppled the Taliban in 2001, said Wednesday that Washington has "got influence in Afghanistan and we are going to use it". The United States has about 16,000 troops in Afghanistan and is the main donor to the war-torn country.

The UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Tom Koenigs told German radio he was confident that Rahman would not be executed.

Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he had appealed to Kabul's ambassador in Canberra for the Afghan government to "do what it can" to prevent Rahman's execution.

Germany and Italy, which like Australia and the United States have troops in Afghanistan, have also criticized the trial.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai's office has tried to sidestep the row by saying the judiciary is independent.

Analyst and legislator Kabir Rangebar said Afghanistan's Supreme Court retained the mindset of the 1996-2001 rule of the Taliban, which enforced a harsh interpretation of Sharia that included stoning adulterers to death.

"Those who are in power in the Afghan judiciary have backward thoughts and beliefs," he said. "They do not understand real Islam, which has given the right to its followers to choose their religion freely."

This was echoed by editor Ali Mohaqiq Nasab, who spent about two months in jail last year after being arrested for publishing articles questioning tenets of Sharia, including death for conversion.

Nasab said he regretted Rahman's change of religion but sometimes it was conservative religious scholars who caused people to turn away from Islam. "They sometimes behave so that they make some people hate Islam," he said.

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commissioner Nader Nadery said the case was a complicated one for Afghanistan, where protests against European cartoons of Prophet Mohammad left 11 people dead last month.

"The country is attached to the values of Islam and conservative circles misuse this to push their agenda," said Nadery. The case was also a dilemma for the commission, he said. "We promote reforms but they have to be pushed gradually."

For Afghans, Allies, A Clash of Values - The Washington Post 03/23/2006 By Pamela Constable - Case Against Christian Convert Puts Pressure on Karzai -- and on Bush

The case of an Afghan man who could be prosecuted and even put to death for converting to Christianity has unleashed a blizzard of condemnation from the West this week and exposed a conflict in values between Afghanistan, a conservative Muslim country, and the foreign countries that have helped defend and rebuild it in the four years since the fall of the Taliban.

The case of Abdul Rahman, a longtime Christian convert who lived in Germany for years and was arrested last month in Kabul, has also highlighted the volatile debate within Afghanistan over the proper role of Islam in Afghan law and public policy as the country struggles to develop a democracy.

Diplomats from several countries said yesterday that Rahman, 41, now seems unlikely to be tried or executed. Prosecutors in Kabul said he might be mentally unfit to stand trial, a sign that the government may be seeking to avoid confronting its Western allies without giving ground on Islamic law, under which conversion to another religion is punishable by death.

But the case, the first of its kind since the radical Islamic Taliban movement was toppled in 2001 by a U.S.-led military invasion, continued to draw protests from the governments of Italy, Germany, Canada and other NATO nations, at a time when NATO forces are beginning to replace tens of thousands of U.S. troops as the principal defenders of Afghanistan against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents.

It also put pressure on President Bush, who visited Kabul last month to show support for Afghan President Hamid Karzai. A number of U.S. Christian and conservative groups demanded this week that Bush take action, and one organization accused him yesterday of propping up an Islamic fundamentalist regime in Kabul.

"This is an extremely sensitive issue here and an extremely serious issue back home," Abdullah, Afghanistan's foreign minister, said in an interview yesterday with Washington Post editors and reporters. "Every time we have a case, it is like an alarm. These contradictions will not go away with one or two cases."

Bush, on a visit to Wheeling, W.Va., said yesterday he was "deeply troubled" to learn of Rahman's possible prosecution. "That's not the universal application of the values that I talked about" while in Kabul, he said. He stopped short of calling for the case against Rahman to be dropped but said he would work with Karzai's government "to make sure that people are protected in their capacity to worship."

Bush's comments were tougher than those made previously by administration officials. On Tuesday, a State Department spokesman urged the Afghan government to "conduct any legal proceedings in a transparent and fair manner." R. Nicholas Burns, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, said that the Afghan constitution "affords freedom of religion to all Afghans" and that the U.S. government hoped for a "satisfactory result" of the case.

The initial low-key response apparently infuriated Christian conservative groups. Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, complained in a letter to Bush and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice: "How can we congratulate ourselves for liberating Afghanistan from the rule of jihadists only to be ruled by radical Islamists who kill Christians? . . . Americans will not give their blood and treasure to prop up new Islamic fundamentalist regimes."

In another open letter to Bush, the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said it was "the obligation of our government" to take action in the case. The group warned that in Afghanistan, there is no legal guarantee of religious freedom and the judiciary is instructed to enforce Islamic principles. "The door is open for a harsh, unfair or even abusive interpretation of religious orthodoxy to be officially imposed," it said.

Bush, a Christian, often talks about God, faith and respect for all religions, especially in relation to the war on terrorism. The White House has often portrayed Karzai as an example of a Muslim leader and ally who is working to hunt down Islamic terrorists and build a democracy based on the rule of law and human rights.

But Afghanistan is also a deeply traditional and tribal society, where 99 percent of the 25 million inhabitants are Muslims and no Christians worship openly. It is a capital crime under Afghan Islamic law to convert to Christianity, and prosecutors and judges in Kabul initially said Rahman might be sentenced to death.

The country's 2004 constitution, which was heavily debated and rewritten by Afghan officials after it was crafted with help from U.N. advisers, is an ambiguous document that endorses international human rights conventions but also says that no law shall contravene the principles of Islam.

"This case goes right to the heart of the contradictions in the constitution. Is Afghanistan a democracy that respects human rights and international norms, or is it an Islamic country with an extremely conservative judiciary?" said Alex Their, a senior rule of law adviser at the U.S. Institute of Peace. "The issues being raised will have an important impact on Afghanistan's ability to become a stable democracy."

Although Rahman is the first Afghan charged with converting since the fall of the Taliban, Afghan courts have recently prosecuted or harshly criticized individuals for other alleged anti-Islamic acts, including a presidential candidate in 2004 who questioned the right of Muslim men to have multiple wives and a magazine editor last year who challenged the doctrine that conversion from Islam is a capital offense.

The Supreme Court's chief justice, an elderly cleric named Fazl Hadi Shinwari, has issued religious decrees against such individuals. Karzai, a moderate who in Afghanistan is widely viewed as having ceded the judiciary to Islamic conservatives, renominated Shinwari this week. Abdullah, who was not renamed to his post in a cabinet shuffle this week, said the Afghan judiciary was in serious need of reform.

So far, the government has not invoked the extreme punishments ordained by Islamic law, or sharia , such as cutting off thieves' hands and stoning adulterers, which were frequently carried out by the Taliban and drew international condemnation. But most Afghans view Islamic law as absolute once it is invoked. And despite their gratitude for U.S. military and economic support, many remain leery of Western values and associate Christianity with fornication and drunkenness.

Under sharia, a convert to Christianity "should be given time to think," said Abdul Aziz, a professor of Islamic law who spoke by telephone from Kabul. "What he has done may damage Islamic society, so he should change his mind." If he does not, sharia prescribes the punishment of death. "Then, even a judge cannot change it. It is like doing a coup against the government," Aziz said. Rahman's case was brought by a public security court, not a regular criminal one.

The case against Rahman is complicated by personal aspects. His conversion was denounced by his family in Kabul after he was involved in a lawsuit and child custody fight with his former wife, and he has been described as perennially jobless and mentally unbalanced. He converted in 1990 while working with a Christian aid group in Pakistan and then moved to Germany, returning only recently.

Comments made this week in Kabul by judges, prosecutors, neighbors and Rahman's relatives illustrated the strong emotional and religious feelings such a case can evoke. His father expressed shame and bewilderment at his conversion. Guards refused to let journalists visit him in a Kabul prison, and one said, "We will cut him into little pieces."

But yesterday, Rahman was briefly brought before the news media. According to a report by the BBC, he said: "I am not an infidel or a fugitive. I am a Christian. If they want to sentence me to death, I accept that."

Staff writer Jim VandeHei in Wheeling, W.Va., contributed to this report.

Afghans probe killings after Pakistani complaint – Reuters 03/23/2006
By Mirwais Afghan

KANDAHAR - Afghan authorities have launched an investigation into the killing of 16 men an army officer described as Taliban but who Pakistan said were its citizens visiting Afghanistan for a holiday.

The incident could further strain relations between the key U.S. allies in the war on terrorism after a sharp deterioration in ties over Afghan accusations Taliban fighters were finding sanctuary in Pakistan.

General Abdul Raziq, an Afghan army officer in the border town of Spin Boldak, said his forces had killed 16 Taliban on Tuesday night after surrounding them in mountains, 8 km (5 miles) east of the town, near the Pakistani border.

But many residents of Spin Boldak, in Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province, and the Pakistani town of Chaman over the border, dismissed that explanation as they buried the dead on Thursday.

"We have sent a team to investigate the matter," Assadullah Khalid, the governor of Kandahar province, said. "If what residents say is true, then the culprits will be punished."

Afghanistan has seen a surge in bombings and other attacks by Taliban insurgents and their militant allies in recent months. The Taliban have vowed to launch a spring offensive against U.S.-led foreign forces and the Western-backed government.

Pakistani Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said those killed were Pakistanis visiting Afghanistan for a traditional new year holiday. He said one of those killed was wanted by Pakistani authorities but added: "They were not Taliban".

The bodies of 14 of the men were brought to the Pakistani town of Chaman where about 5,000 mourners gathered. Two bodies were buried on the Afghan side, a Pakistani official said. Jilani Khan, the brother of one of the dead, said the men were killed in a "fake encounter" that resulted from a tribal feud.

General Raziq dismissed the suggestion the 16 were civilians. He said two Taliban commanders known to have organised suicide attacks and ambushes were among those killed by his troops. "They've been crossing the border for attacks in Afghanistan. We also seized their weapons," he told Reuters.

Tribal factions have been known to label rivals Taliban or al Qaeda, in the hope they get attacked by U.S. forces. A Pakistani Foreign Ministry spokeswoman said Pakistan had asked Afghanistan about the incident and had been told authorities were investigating.

Relations between the neighbours have cooled since Afghan President Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan last month and repeated complaints that Pakistan was not doing enough against Taliban operating from its Pashtun tribal lands on the border.

Pakistan has stationed 80,000 troops on the frontier, but says Afghanistan also needs to do more to stop militants crossing the porous border.

This month, the Pakistani army launched an attack on an al Qaeda camp in the North Waziristan agency. Nearly 200 Pakistani militants have been killed in days of fighting.

The Taliban were ousted by U.S.-led forces in 2001 for refusing to give up Osama bin Laden. Many militants fled from Afghanistan to Pakistan's deeply religious Pashtun tribal areas where sympathy for the mostly Pashtun Taliban runs deep. (Additional reporting by Saeed Ali Achakzai in CHAMAN

Officials Meet to Further Implement the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership - Afghan Embassy, Wash. D.C. 03/23/2006

WASHINGTON, D.C. (Press Release) – The first ministerial level meeting for the further implementation of the US-Afghan Strategic Partnership was held on March 20-21 in Washington, following the declaration by President Karzai and President Bush of a US-Afghan Strategic Partnership in May 2005. The Afghan delegation headed by Foreign Minister Dr. Abdullah and Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad and senior US officials from the White House, Department of State, Department of Defense, Department of Commerce, Department of Treasury, Department of Justice, USAID, and the US Trade Representative discussed key provisions of the Partnership and the progress made in the areas of security, governance, and prosperity. The delegations established specific mechanisms to further enhance strategic partnership between the two countries.  

 The United States praised Afghanistan's significant achievements. Both parties reiterated that the Afghan people have made tremendous sacrifices and shown great courage in the pursuit of freedom. The United States shares Afghanistan's vision of a country that is democratic, at peace, and working to improve the lives of all Afghans and that plays an important and positive role in the affairs of the region and the world.

 The United States reaffirmed its commitment to Afghanistan's long-term security and both sides agreed to explore the establishment of a mechanism to deepen security cooperation between the two countries, including the establishment of a Defense Cooperation Forum. The US also affirmed its commitment to further building the operational capacity of the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police and providing them with quality equipment. The US supports Afghanistan's participation in a bilaterally tailored program of "Peace for Partnership" with NATO to ensure long-term strategic partnership between Afghanistan, the NATO member states, and the United States. The US reaffirmed its military commitment to counterterrorism in the south and east of Afghanistan where ISAF would be fully deployed by the end of 2006.

In the governance area, the US committed to launching the Afghan Building Capacity (ABC) program to enhance institutional capacity at both the national and provincial level, including training trainers, increasing people-to-people educational and professional exchanges, and bolstering the management skills of officials and their capacity to improve the delivery of public services.

Both sides reaffirmed their commitment to reducing the production and trafficking of narcotics in Afghanistan. The Government of Afghanistan will continue widespread operations now underway to eradicate opium poppies and prosecute drug traffickers and those involved in narcotics trade, while the US will further provide alternative livelihood assistance to Afghan farmers.

The two delegations agreed on continuing efforts to improve trade and infrastructure links between Afghanistan and its neighbors as a crucial step in stimulating economic growth in the region both to support Afghanistan's initiative to restore the country's historic role as a land bridge connecting Central and South Asia and to foster cooperation between Afghanistan and its neighbors and deter meddling in Afghanistan's internal affairs.

To assist with Afghanistan's economic growth and create more jobs in the country, the US Administration will work with Congress for the establishment of Reconstruction Opportunity Zones in Afghanistan. This program will grant duty-free treatment to selected goods produced jointly in designated areas of Afghanistan. The US supports Afghanistan's participation in the Central Asian Trade and Investment Framework Agreement in order to facilitate Afghanistan's integration into regional and world economies and appropriate international organizations.

Moreover, to encourage the reconstruction of Afghanistan and investments in the people of Afghanistan and encourage other nations to do so, both delegations endorsed the next steps for the Businesses Building Bridges (BBB) initiative for strengthening the private sector in Afghanistan. This project will enlist top US business leaders who will provide strategic guidance on how to activate private sector development, as well as build partnership and mentoring links with Afghan entrepreneurs.

The next US-Afghan Strategic Partnership meeting will be held in Kabul later this year.

Karzai Proposes Sweeping Cabinet Changes - By AMIR SHAH Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan — The man who has been Afghanistan's foreign minister since the fall of the hardline Taliban regime four years ago will be replaced in a Cabinet reshuffle proposed by President Hamid Karzai, officials said Wednesday.

The changes are subject to approval by parliament and will be presented to the body this week, said Khaleeq Ahmed, Karzai's spokesman. The Cabinet is to be trimmed from 27 members to 26. Fourteen ministers have kept their jobs, four changed portfolios while eight are new faces, according to a list from Karzai's office.

Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah, who has had close ties with Washington, will be replaced by Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, a presidential adviser on foreign affairs. The move had been long anticipated because of an apparent falling out between Abdullah and Karzai over how the ministry was directing foreign affairs.

A senior Afghan official said the change was intended to make the Foreign Ministry more pro-active in promoting the country's interests and in hopes of improving relations with other nations. He spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Afghanistan's relations with Pakistan have deteriorated recently because of a dispute over the movement of militants across their porous border. Ties with another neighbor, Iran, also have been strained. Karzai canceled a trip to Iran in January, allegedly because of pressure from the United States.

Foreign observers believe Karzai initially wanted to make the new Cabinet significantly smaller and therefore more manageable, but did not do so to appease his political allies. The reshuffle is the first since elections last September saw the creation of a new parliament after a quarter century of war.

The incoming interior minister, Zarar Ahmad Moqbil, has been acting interior minister since September. The incumbent minister for women's affairs, Masooda Jalal, will be replaced by Surya Rahim Subhrang, a women's rights activist.

Among key ministers who will keep their jobs are Counternarcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi, Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak and Economy Minister Amin Farhang.

Outgoing Foreign Minister Abdullah reportedly was offered another Cabinet post, but refused it.

Abdullah was a prominent figure in the Northern Alliance, which helped a U.S.-led coalition topple the Taliban regime after the Sept. 11 attacks on America. He became Karzai's foreign minister in late 2001.

He earlier served as adviser to Ahmed Shah Masood, the Northern Alliance commander who fought Soviet forces and the Taliban and was assassinated just ahead of the Sept. 11 attacks.

Profile: Abdullah Abdullah – BBC 3.22.06

The removal of Abdullah Abdullah from the cabinet marks the exit of the last major Northern Alliance leader from the Hamid Karzai government.

The president had earlier removed Mohammed Fahim and Yunus Qanuni from his cabinet in a reshuffle in 2004. A Tajik-Pashtun and doctor by profession, Abdullah became involved in refugee work in Pakistan and later gravitated towards Tajik resistance hero Ahmed Shah Masood, becoming a senior adviser and close associate in the 1980s.

Serving as foreign minister in the short-lived government headed by the Northern Alliance, Dr Abdullah continued as "foreign minister in exile" throughout the years of rule of the Taleban, who most countries refused to recognise.

There is some confusion over whether his name should have two elements or one, the latter being the style for many Afghan names. Some reports suggest the second "Abdullah" emerged as a result of a misunderstanding at a news conference.

While the embattled Northern Alliance troops struggled to maintain their base north of Kabul, Dr Abdullah also spent a considerable amount of time abroad lobbying foreign governments for political and material help.

Fluent in both English and French, he served as spokesman for Gen Masood abroad, emerging as the best known face of Afghanistan. Dr Abdullah, now 45, continued in that role under the Hamid Karzai government following the fall of the Taleban.

In the aftermath of the assassination of Gen Masood, Dr Abdullah became one of the three pivotal Northern Alliance figures along with Gen Fahim and Mr Qanuni. The government formed after the ousting of the Taliban in 2001 was dominated by the Northern Alliance - something that President Karzai has sought to change.

Karzai supporters see this trend as redressing an imbalance, but critics say he has unfairly marginalised the alliance, which fought the Taleban until the bitter end.

Dr Abdullah lacks his own power base within the Northern Alliance, which might explain why he lasted so long in the Karzai government - but could also be the reason for his eventual replacement as foreign minister.

Reading Signals From Kabul – Stratfor 03/23/2006

Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah is to be replaced by Rangeen Dadfar Spanta, a presidential adviser on foreign affairs, as part of a proposed Cabinet reshuffle, President Hamid Karzai's office announced on Wednesday. Abdullah reportedly was offered another Cabinet post but refused it.

The new Cabinet will be presented to Parliament later this week for approval. According to a list furnished by Karzai's office, 14 ministers have retained their portfolios, four changed portfolios, and eight ministers are new. A senior Afghan official was cited in an Associated Press report as saying that the foreign ministry change was being made in hopes of making the Cabinet more proactive about promoting Afghanistan's interests and improving relations with other nations.

The move illustrates that Karzai gradually has grown secure enough in his power to take risky, assertive moves -- such as removing powerful individuals from various positions of authority.

Abdullah is the last of the Panjshiri Tajik troika, which was close to Northern Alliance leader Ahmed Shah Masoud, to leave the Karzai government. The other two members were Mohammed Fahim, whom Karzai removed from the defense ministry in December 2004, and Younus Qanouni, who served briefly as interior and education minister in the two interim administrations following the fall of the Taliban (and then became leader of the lower house of Parliament).

In other words, the main figures who were instrumental in the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime are no longer calling the shots in Kabul. The removals serve several purposes: First, they allow Karzai to sideline potential competitors and further consolidate his power base. Second, they give Karzai better control over the direction of Kabul's foreign policy -- and they also give him an opportunity to improve his standing among Afghanistan's Pashtun majority.

These goals are intertwined, in the sense that they are linked to the Taliban and the country's need for Pakistan's assistance in dealing with its jihadist insurgency. Karzai is facing an insurgency that was rejuvenated with al Qaeda's assistance during the past year. And despite having the aid of U.S. and NATO forces -- and having attempted to co-opt moderate elements within the jihadist movement, Karzai realizes that if he is truly to contain the Taliban, he is going to need Islamabad on his side.

Though Islamabad is not providing active support to the Taliban, it is not engaged in a serious campaign against it either -- recognizing that the Pashtun jihadists are the only lever it has in ensuring that Afghanistan does not threaten Pakistan's own geopolitical interests. To state it more succinctly, the Musharraf government is worried about anti-Pakistan elements within the Afghan government that are known to have close ties to India.

Abdullah is one of the officials that Islamabad worries about. He recently claimed that Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Mullah Omar were all hiding in Pakistan, and he called for Islamabad to get tough on Taliban and al Qaeda jihadists. Such comments create problems not only between Kabul and Islamabad, but also in U.S.-Pakistani relations -- which then have a boomerang effect on domestic politics for Musharraf.

Kabul's demands help to explain the recent war of words between Pakistan and Afghanistan, which started around the time U.S. President George W. Bush visited the region. First, Kabul claimed that Islamabad was not acting on intelligence it provided about Taliban and al Qaeda jihadists who were operating from Pakistani soil. Then, Musharraf accused Karzai of being oblivious to an anti-Pakistan "conspiracy" being fomented by government factions in Kabul. And as if this was not bad enough, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, the newly elected head of Afghanistan's Senate and chairman of the National Reconciliation Commission, accused Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence of responsibility for a March 12 suicide bombing attack in which he was nearly killed. e-

Unlike others in the Afghan government, Karzai has refrained from taking an anti-Pakistan stance because of his unique position. He not only is president of the country, but also wants to become the uncontested leader of its Pashtun majority. This goal, however, cannot be reached so long as the Taliban continues to pose a threat to Kabul. Thus, he needs Musharraf to deny the jihadists the ability to operate from Pakistani soil. But Musharraf, despite facing his own problems with Pashtun jihadists in the tribal belt, has refrained from doing so, without some guarantees from Kabul that Afghanistan will not become a base for anti-Pakistan activities.

By removing a foreign minister in efforts to "improve international relations," it seems that Karzai is sending a signal to Musharraf: Kabul has done its part, and now it is time for Pakistan to reciprocate. The million-dollar question, of course, is whether Musharraf can deliver.

Afghanistan starts bird flu slaughter - Wed Mar 22

Afghanistan began slaughtering thousands of chickens after tests confirmed the outbreak of deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu in three provinces. The drive by dozens of experts was launched in Dasht-i-Barchi, a village southwest of Kabul.

"We began culling birds in Dasht-i-Barchi district this morning," Azizullah Usmani, head of the agriculture ministry's veterinary department, told AFP. The government has agreed to compensate for the chickens being slaughtered, he said.

Samples from Laghman, Nangarhar and Kabul provinces have all tested positive for H5N1. The broad H5-type virus was also found in Wardak and Kunar provinces and the outbreaks there are suspected as being the deadly strain.

Usmani said the slaughter campaign was yet to begin in Nangarhar, Laghman and Wardak because of a lack of safety equipment including masks and special clothes.

About 85 percent of the Afghan population live in close contact with poultry, officials have said, with most rural families having several chickens in the backyard. However, no human cases have been reported yet in Afghanistan.

Ambassador Sproule praises Canada’s role in Afghanistan -

As a result of Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s increased commitment to Afghanistan, Canada’s role has been changing in the war-torn country. Yesterday, Canadian Ambassador to Afghanistan David Sproule was on campus to discuss how efforts will proceed.

Sproule, who joined Foreign Affairs Canada in 1981 and was appointed ambassador in 2005, said that, despite the recent rise in conflict, the situation in Afghanistan isn’t necessarily getting worse.

“I think the reason we’re having an upsurge in the attacks is that our forces are going to areas that they’ve never gone in before, some of which have the Taliban,” he said, adding that insurgent forces are testing the strength and determination of defending forces. “I think it’s predictable.”

Sproule, a native of Edmonton who studied both political science and law at the U of A, was involved in the Afghanistan Compact, an international conference held in January 2006, affirming a shared commitment to peace and stability in Afghanistan. The Compact identified three main goals that would contribute to the betterment of Afghan life: security, government and economic and social development.

“The obligations that Afghanistan has taken on, insofar as international human rights instruments are concerned, reflect what should be considered universal values now: freedom of religion, the right to association, freedom of speech—those aren’t culturally specific anymore, if they ever were,” he said.

And while Afghanistan has signed many international human rights agreements, including ratifying a commitment to the International Criminal Court, without economic development, Sproule is skeptical that the country can achieve its goals.

“If we don’t provide security, Afghanistan cannot go forward economically,” Sproule said, adding that the two are “mutually enforcing.”

Further challenges exist in relation to narcotics, which account for 60 per cent of the Afghan economy, according to Sproule. He went on to say that Canada can play a role in helping Afghans develop alternative livelihoods, instead of relying on poppy growers.

Other reform initiatives include an effort to train police forces, and reform a justice system that is fraught with problems.

“The justice system is very rudimentary; there’s not an extensive body of law,” he said, explaining that, despite the desire to adhere to international human rights, there’s a lack of framework in the Afghan legal system. “They don’t have the implementing legislation.”

Canadian troops and other members of the international community have made long-term commitments to the area, but Sproule emphasized that Afghans are quite involved in the rebuilding process too, and that both factions are working together so Afghanistan reach independence.

“It’s important that the Afghans that observe this say, ‘It’s our soldiers that are involved in providing security for us. It’s not only foreign soldiers who are there and helping provide our security.’ That’s also important from an optics point of view,” Sproule said.

And while one audience member alluded to an “underlying colonial flavour” to the involvement of Western governments in Afghanistan, saying they have a notorious history for cultural oppression to serve their own interests, Sproule said that the Afghans are playing an important role in the democratization of their nation.

“The constitution that was adopted in Afghanistan wasn’t a Western document: this was what Afghans decided to adopt as their constitution, and it was a made-in-Afghanistan document,” he said. “They’re very proud of their constitution.”

He went on to say that democracy is of growing importance in Afghanistan, which is especially evident in the recent presidential elections. “The way to succeed in Afghanistan isn’t the way they were able to in the past—by might is right—but by democratic means,” he said.

Afghan boy who Canadian soldiers helped get cancer treatment has died

Murray Brewster - Canadian Press Thursday, March 23, 2006

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- In a country hardened by decades of war, hostile to outsiders and often indifferent to life, a tiny tragedy unfolded for Canadian soldiers Thursday as a six-year-old boy lost his battle with cancer.

But from heartache, the seeds of a new understanding between Canadians and Afghanis appeared to be sown, at least in one small patch of this country.

Neimatullah, a child from one of the most impoverished areas of this desert city, died at the Canadian provincial reconstruction team (PRT) base.

As he was immediately laid to rest in his village just north of here, the child's grandfather, a veteran of the mujahedeen war against the Soviets, and the local imman said actions taken by Canadians to ease the boy's suffering reshaped their view of the faraway western country.

"We were considered infidels," said Cpl. Brian Sanders, who was told of grandfather Taj Mohammed's comments following the funeral.

"The people there hated us. I mean, they really hated us, but he said Canadians are no longer considered infidels in that village and he'll remember what happened as long as he lives."

It was Sanders' appeal to his church, the North Edmonton Christian Fellowship, which raised $18,000 for the boy's cancer treatment in Pakistan. Leftover money from the fund was used to bury Neimatullah on Thursday, the military said in a statement.

He was first brought to the Canadian satellite base last month with a massive cancerous growth on his face that had spread down his neck. At the time, doctors gave the boy little chance of survival.

Even though the inevitable did occur, Sanders said it was one of the most moving experiences of his life knowing that he helped ease the boy's misery. "He was not in pain. He was happy when he died," he said.

Just days ago, Neimatullah was discharged from Skaukat Khanum Hospital in Pakistan after undergoing an initial round of chemotherapy treatment. Appearing weak from the therapy, but with his tumour smaller, the child visited the Canadian base on Tuesday and Wednesday.

"He looked like a little boy again," said Sanders. "It was amazing. He even smiled at me." His immune system was weakened by the therapy, which brought on a fever. Doctors at the base prescribed antibiotics following the visit.

But Thursday morning, his grandfather and uncle rushed him back to the Canadians when they discovered the boy had stopped breathing. The station's medical team tried to revive him but ultimately failed.

With a father addicted to opium and a mother who deserted the family because of domestic abuse, Neimatullah became the focus of prayers and fundraising almost from the moment his plight was revealed to outside the world.

This region of Afghanistan has few functioning hospitals and no specialized cancer facilities or palliative care. "It brings into sharp focus how our destiny is often an accident of geography," said Capt. Adrian Norbash, the doctor who treated the boy.

"If the child had been in Canada, the outcome might have been different. Maybe it would have been caught sooner, or he would have had access to better facilities."

Hasty poppy eradication in Afghanistan can sow more problems - By Vanda Felbab-Brown Thu Mar 23

The deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan reveals the high price of the slow pace of reconstruction there: Winning Afghan hearts and minds isn't as quick or easy as growing poppies.

Later this month, when British troops take over counterinsurgency operations in the south of Afghanistan, they will face a dangerous mixture of growing insurgency, a population increasingly frustrated by a lack of economic progress, and another bumper crop of opium.

Increasingly, the Taliban insurgents have joined forces with some of the Pashtun drug traffickers in the south, protecting drug convoys for payoffs and carrying out joint operations. Meanwhile, interdiction efforts have only consolidated the drug industry, strengthening the hold of local warlords - now police chiefs and government officials - on the drug trade while crowding out small traders.

The popular discontent in Afghanistan with the failure of Kabul to deliver security, social services, and basic livelihood is steadily growing. Although much has been achieved, expectations of improved living conditions have been growing at a much more rapid pace. Increasingly, the discontent is directed against President Hamid Karzai himself. The popularity he enjoyed after the presidential elections in 2004 is slipping. By the fall of 2005, unemployment and lack of basic necessities had paralyzed Kabul with protests.

Especially in the fight against the narcotics economy there has been no significant progress. What has been hailed as success - the reduction of the area under poppy cultivation in 2005 - has failed to provide viable alternatives for poppy growers.

In 2004, Nangarhar in eastern Afghanistan was estimated to produce approximately one-fifth of Afghanistan's opium. In 2005, its opium cultivation had decreased by as much as 96 percent. While considered an eradication success story, significant economic hardship and major social discontent followed. For many peasants, it meant a 90 percent reduction in their total cash income, by as much as $3,400. The Cash-for-Work programs designed to provide alternative livelihoods, such as digging wells, offered compensation significantly below income losses. The programs also failed to reach the poorest and most vulnerable. The impoverished peasants have been forced to curb basic food intake and sell long-term productive assets, such as livestock and land. Many have been left feeling betrayed that the promises to help make a new life were unmet, and many are going back to planting poppies this season. The situation in Helmand to the south is analogous.

The most pernicious side effect of the efforts in Nangarhar and Helmand is the inability of peasants to repay their accumulated opium debt. Creditors who lend money to peasants to make it through the winter months and buy seeds for the following season - the only microcredit system available - double or triple the peasants' debts if they are not repaid in the same year. The peasants then have to grow even more poppy than they would have otherwise. If peasants take too long to repay, they face the possibility of being killed by the traffickers and having their houses seized. They are left with two options: Give away their daughters (girls as young as 3) as brides to the creditors or abscond to Pakistan.

It is this migration to Pakistan that especially threatens the counterinsurgency and state-building efforts in Afghanistan. First, migration forced by eradication further alienates the populace from the Kabul government and the international community sponsoring eradication. Second, the refugees easily become fodder for the insurgency. It was Afghan refugees indoctrinated in the radical madrassahs of the Deobandi movement in Pakistan who comprised the bulk of the Taliban's fighters in the 1990s. The shelter most easily available to Afghans driven out by eradication is once again the madrassahs. They try to indoctrinate the current refugees to reject the Karzai government and the very concept of democracy and instead join the Taliban insurgency in a jihad against Karzai and the United States. All too easily, the Taliban insurgents who use Pakistan as a haven can remind them of the good times when the Taliban sponsored poppy cultivation during the 1990s.

The success in curbing drug production in Afghanistan has thus come at the price of undermining state-building and empowering the insurgency. After being the lead nation on counternarcotics, Britain is now also taking over counterinsurgency operations. Succumbing to the desire and international pressure to achieve speedy progress on drugs will ultimately undermine both efforts.

• Vanda Felbab-Brown is a research fellow with the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Captain offers prescription for Afghanistan's health care system
Doctor says better education will lead to long-term cure, raise care level -
By Anita Powell, Stars and Stripes- Mideast edition, Thursday, March 23, 2006

JALALABAD, Afghanistan — When Capt. Brian Weber came to eastern Afghanistan to run an Army medical clinic, he took on a challenging patient: The ailing, aging health care system.

Weber, a physician’s assistant and Texas Army National Guardsman who runs the Jalalabad Provincial Reconstruction Team clinic, has spearheaded several small-scale initiatives in Nangarhar province aimed at improving medical services for Afghans. Medicines alone aren’t the cure, he said.

Instead, Weber sticks to a more basic prescription: good sanitation, better medical education and practices, and plain old bricks and mortar. Projects range from $50,000 worth of toilets to new equipment for a neonatal intensive care unit.

Years of running his own clinic in tiny Commerce, Texas, have prepared him well for the experience, he said. “I come from a rural community, so I’m used to infrastructure problems,” he said. “The same type of problems we face in rural America, they have here.”

The struggle, he said, is often to convince Afghan health care providers that their two most-requested items — medicines and new equipment — will only provide a quick fix for their ailments.

“The problem with equipment is they don’t know how to use it,” Weber said. The long-term cure, he said, is “better education. That would raise the level of care quite a bit.”

Much of his efforts involve talking to local doctors and overseeing basic infrastructure products — many of them related to sewage and sanitation — at local hospitals. Better sanitation, he said, will greatly assist in alleviating the nation’s top three pediatric maladies: diarrhea, pneumonia and malaria.

At Nangarhar University Teaching Hospital in Jalalabad, where the air is filled with an indefinable, indescribable sour smell caused by desperation, crowding and not enough of anything, “there was raw sewage on the operating room floors,” Weber said.

It’s not just the facilities — several of which were built by aid groups and donor nations in the 1950s and 1960s and appear not to have been touched since — that are antiquated. Education, Weber said, is also a little behind the times.

“On (the medical school library’s) current periodical rack — the current one — is a 1972 edition of the New England Journal of Medicine,” he said, shaking his head.

He’s tried to bring educational materials and foster partnerships with American medical schools. Local officials say that the reconstruction team’s efforts have made a great difference in patient care.

“This is good,” said Nangarhar University Teaching Hospital director Dr. Nasir Kammawal. Regarding the hospital’s top priorities he said, “The most important thing is medicines. And the second, an incinerator.”

“There are a lot of things here we don’t have,” said Dr. Obaidi Rahman, a pediatrician at Jalalabad’s main hospital, who asked for concentrated oxygen and nebulizers.

Despite the request, Rahman, who graduated from the province’s medical school two years ago, agreed that the American-led reconstruction of the health care system is moving at a satisfactory pace. “It’s happening in the right order,” he said, through a translator.

Other officials agreed. “When I first came here,” said Dr. Amanullah Hamidzai, chancellor of Nangarhar University, indicating the neonatal intensive care ward, “there was water all up and down this hallway. If Capt. Weber was not here, probably we would not have half of what we have in this hospital.”

Hamidzai, an American citizen who recently returned to the university where he taught during the 1960s and 70s as a young doctor, said the Afghan health care system during that time was “completely like Europe. It was very good.”

When asked how long it would take to restore the nation’s healthcare system to modern standards, he paused and contemplated.

“Maybe ... forever,” he said with a wistful smile. “No, maybe four years. Four to five years.”

Quebecer sells prefab houses to Afghanistan

OTTAWA: Ottawa isn’t doing enough to help Canadian businesses tap into the massive market of rebuilding Afghanistan, according to a Quebec entrepreneur who could soon be shipping pre-fabricated homes to the war-torn country from his Eastern Townships plant.

"It’s deplorable (Canadian private enterprise) is nowhere in that country," Ivon Le Duc, president of Demtec Inc., said yesterday. "If the Canadian government is supporting rebuilding with funding, it should ensure some Canadian companies benefit and encourage them."

Le Duc finds the situation unacceptable. International Co-operation Minister Josee Verner and Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay announced March 9 the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) will contribute an additional $22 million to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF), bringing Canada’s total contribution to date to $109.5 million.

CIDA spokesperson Michele Monette said the ARTF director wasn’t available yesterday to explain how the money is being used.

Le Duc decided to go on his own. He signed an agreement in principle last month with the owner of Wahid Construction in the Afghan capital of Kabul, where they plan to build a $5-million plant to make modular homes.

"It’s a huge market with an enormous amount to do as far as infrastructure, including housing, clinics, schools and electric power stations," the CEO said. "We are bringing them our expertise."

But it’s not the new market the Princeville firm had in its sights - ending up in south Asia rather than South America.

After buying the 20-year-old company last August, Le Duc contacted a CIDA consultant to discuss expanding into South America.

"He suggested instead going to a country where nobody else is and mentioned Afghanistan," Le Duc recalled. "When he said there was nobody else there, he wasn’t kidding. ... There was no one there."

Aside from the military, Le Duc said the only other Canadian presence he saw in Kabul was a small SNC-Lavalin office.

SNC spokesperson Gillian MacCormack confirmed the Montreal engineering firm has an office in Afghanistan, one of 30 countries around the world where SNC is present, "but we’re not involved in any (rebuilding) projects there that I’m aware of."

Le Duc, a former Montreal councillor and executive committee member responsible for housing, said he is still awaiting an answer from ARTF about a funding request for a feasibility study of the Kabul factory project.

His visa for the business trip was only the 262nd. issued to a Canadian since January 2005. While he acknowledged Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Afghanistan this month was good, Le Duc said Harper should also be doing more to stimulate investment in reconstruction.

In a February visit to Afghanistan, Le Duc saw other countries like the U.S., Japan and Germany taking advantage of the situation. Le Duc said Demtec’s prefabricated wooden homes are ideal for Afghanistan because they are designed to resist earthquakes, strong winds, extreme temperatures and water infiltration.

Annual revenue of about $10 million expected to double. Demtec Inc., which employs 104 in the high season, is a leader in combining modular and panelized technologies for factory-built homes.

Modular construction saves on labour and assembly at job sites because most work in done in the plant. Panelized technology allows for construction of a series of wall, partition and floor panels that can be easily shipped by truck or container. Half of the existing production is exported to more than a dozen countries, with plans to eventually increase exports by 30 per cent.

[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.]