In this bulletin:
- G8 urges Afghanistan, Pakistan to combat poverty in border region
- NATO chief urges action on Afghan civilian deaths
- FM: Britain Supports Terrorists in Afghanistan
- Firefight leaves militants dead in southern Afghanistan
- Afghan journalist killed for giving voice to women
- ‘Balochistan unstable due to Afghan govt’s interference’
- Afghanistan, Pakistan near refugee agreement
- Expelled from Iran - refugee misery
- Deal on Afghan treasures is questioned
- Kabul streets to be renovated: report
- Ashgabat, Kabul discuss increasing energy supplies to Afghanistan
- An Afghanistan rebuilt starts with a rebuilt private sector
- Hungary lends a helping hand in Afghanistan
- Liberals soften stand on pullout date
- Four detainees allege they were abused
- Taliban in Kandahar off balance, colonel says
- Canadian Forces accused of leaving Afghan police in lurch
- Afghan hearts & minds (Part 1)
- Analysis: Taliban seek to win hearts & minds -- Part 2
Fighting for the moral high ground
- Afghan mission unravels
- Female teachers help to rebuild Afghanistan’s education system
- Kabul’s beggar children working the streets
- VIEW: Bombing Pakistan for Bin Laden —Rafia Zakaria
- Hassan becomes first Afghan cricketer to play for MCC
G8 urges Afghanistan, Pakistan to combat poverty in border region
HEILIGENDAMM: Strong private sector growth and economic development are essential for combating terrorism, creating legitimate employment opportunities and fostering democracy, the Group of Eight (G8) leaders said on Friday.
They said in a statement that Afghanistan and Pakistan should expedite counter-terror operations on their joint border and said that both countries should also fight poverty in the region. “Afghanistan and Pakistan should work together to engage the private sector for development in the border region.”
The G8 members include the United States, Canada, Japan, Germany, France, Britain, Italy and Russia. Online
NATO chief urges action on Afghan civilian deaths
BRUSSELS: NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer urged alliance countries to take action to lower civilian casualties from fighting in Afghanistan on Friday, saying such incidents could undermine the mission.
De Hoop Scheffer called on defence ministers meeting in Brussels next week to tackle the issue, insisted any future accidents be promptly investigated and urged a greater effort to provide humanitarian aid to Afghans.
“Any loss of innocent civilian life and damage to civilian property risks eroding the support we continue to receive from the vast majority of people in Afghanistan, as well as from their government and parliament,” he told a defence conference.
“It also raises real and justified concern in our own countries ... We can, must and will do better,” he said. De Hoop Scheffer said better coordination was needed between the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, the Afghan army and the separate US-led coalition. He cited a case of casualties in southern Afghanistan last year when Western forces were unaware of the presence of nomads in a battle zone only to discover later that the Afghan army had known that they were there.
Scores of Afghans have died in air strikes by NATO and US-led coalition forces, stirring angry protests by Afghans and calls for President Hamid Karzai’s resignation. Aerial bombardments killed at least 50 villagers in the remote Shindand district in western Herat province last month. The International Committee of the Red Cross said 173 houses were rendered uninhabitable, leaving nearly 2,000 homeless.
The growing hostility toward the foreign troops battling the Taliban insurgency has prompted NATO commanders to review a strategy which uses aerial bombing to aid ground forces in battles with hardened Afghan insurgents.
De Hoop Scheffer insisted that NATO was doing everything it could to avoid casualties and that no comparison could be drawn with insurgents who put civilians in harms way by using them as human shields. Reuters
FM: Britain Supports Terrorists in Afghanistan
June 9, 2007 - TEHRAN (Fars News Agency)- Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki here on Saturday dismissed the recent allegations made by the British prime minister about Iran's relations with the Taliban, saying that such unfounded accusations serve London's policy of projection.
"Such accusations are made in line with the British government's policy of projection. Blair's government is obliged to resort to such unfounded and void accusations because it does not have any excuse to hide or justify its interventionist policies in the region and its frequent failures in Afghanistan and Iraq," Mottaki told reporters, a statement released by the Foreign Ministry's Information and Press Bureau reported.
"Secret talks between British troops and leaders of the Taliban in Musa Ghal'eh proved that suspicions about that country's support for terrorist measures in Afghanistan are so true that it has raised concern of Afghanistan's legal government," he added.
The Iranian minister further mentioned that terrorist actions in Afghanistan and Britain's current policies in the region are interrelated, and continued, "Intensifying insecurities in the region has always been on the working agenda of Blair's government."
He also said that Britain's support for bandits to conduct terrorist actions in eastern Iran and the training provided by the British troops deployed in Basra for those terrorists who conducted operations in southern Iran are among the cases disclosing Britain's cooperation with the terrorists and revealing the real intentions of that country for disturbing security and tranquility in the region.
Firefight leaves militants dead in southern Afghanistan
(AP 06.08.07) - KABUL, Afghanistan: A two-hour gun battle left several Taliban and al-Qaida militants dead in southern Afghanistan early Saturday, officials said.
Troops from the U.S.-led coalition and Afghan forces were approaching two separate compounds in Zabul province where the militants were thought to live when they came under attack with small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades from a nearby hill, a coalition statement said.
"Their entire fighting force on that hill was wiped out," Maj. Chris Belcher, a coalition spokesman, said of the attackers. Five militants were detained and a cache of weapons was destroyed. The coalition did not say how many militants were killed.
In neighboring Paktika province, Afghan police have arrested six suspected al-Qaida members over the last three days, said Ghamai Khan, spokesman for the governor.
Four Afghan civilians were killed Friday when their vehicle and an ISAF military truck collided, NATO's International Security Assistance Force said. Seven Afghan and two ISAF soldiers were injured.
ISAF said a taxi with 11 people in it drove toward the military convoy "at a high rate of speed," and when the taxi tried to slow down, the driver lost control and crashed into the front of a military truck.
Five of those injured were taken by helicopter to an ISAF medical facility. ISAF said the accident is under investigation by military and civilian authorities. Elsewhere, a roadside bomb in Laghman province killed a policeman and wounded three Friday evening, said provincial police chief Abdul Karim.
Afghan journalist killed for giving voice to women
MARCUS GEE - From Thursday's Globe and Mail
June 7, 2007 - The murder of two female journalists in Afghanistan in the space of a week has brought home the risks that newswomen face in a country where women are not expected to ask questions.
Zakia Zaki, 35, was shot seven times as she slept in her bed with her young son late Tuesday. A respected journalist and human-rights activist in the province of Parwan just north of the capital, she headed the U.S.-funded Peace Radio. She was also the principal of a local school and ran for parliament in 2005.
Her killing came just days after the slaying in Kabul of Sanga Amach, a news presenter for a private television station. Both women reportedly received threats, warning them to stop reporting.
"This is a shocking thing to see," said Abdul Hai Warshan, a long-time reporter for Voice of America, who visited Ms. Zaki's house yesterday to report on the crime. "Journalism is always dangerous in this country, especially if you are a woman. The extremists do not like women who work."
He saw Ms. Zaki's body, cleaned and dressed in fresh clothes for burial, laid out in the family bedroom as her husband and family grieved. She had six children, aged one to 15, said other journalists who knew her.
Mr. Warshan said it appears that two men came though the bedroom window, one armed with an automatic rifle and one with a pistol, and opened fire.
Abdul Hamid Mobarez, a freelance journalist who knew Ms. Zaki, said she was "very, very active" in her community. She ran the radio station and the school and took on a variety of projects, such as raising money to get textbooks for local schoolchildren.
"It is a very great loss for us, but we are carrying on with our struggle for freedom of the press in Afghanistan," said Mr. Mobarez, president of the Press Commission of South Asia. Ms. Zaki was "a great supporter of women's rights in Afghanistan," he said.
Female journalists, still a small minority in their craft, are particularly vulnerable because conservative forces see them as a visible symbol of women's emancipation.
One local journalist who came to cover a development conference in Kabul this week told foreign journalists that she had been threatened by her cab driver on the way to the hotel.
"Women should not be journalists," he told her. "Watch out or you might get shot."
Some female journalists are victimized by their own families. When a well-known female presenter was murdered in her home two years ago, male relatives became suspects.
Reports said they had killed her for besmirching the family name by brazenly appearing on television in a country where many still believe a woman should not show her face in public. Some reports said Ms. Amach's murder may also have been a so-called honour killing.
The Afghan media flourished after the fall of the Taliban, which had allowed only one state-run propaganda broadcaster and several newspapers with religion as their main theme.
Today, there are eight television stations, 40 private radio stations and 300 newspapers and magazines. Feisty editorials and columns question the government's decisions and female presenters appear on TV.
That may have angered both Muslim extremists and government authorities, who find themselves being challenged by a freer press. Tolo TV, a well-produced, Western-style news and entertainment channel, has proved particularly irksome to authorities.
Afghanistan's Attorney-General sent police officers to the station and detained some staffers last month after it broadcast a report that displeased him. The Taliban is another threat to Afghan journalists.
Taliban insurgents executed the media interpreter Ajmal Nakshbandi last month after the government struck a deal for the release of the Italian journalist who had employed him.
‘Balochistan unstable due to Afghan govt’s interference’
QUETTA: The Balochistan Government Friday categorically held Hamid Karzai-led Afghan Government responsible for providing shelter to Baloch separatist fighters, which they believe was “clear evidence of Afghan involvement in the instability created in Balochistan”.
“There is ample evidence to substantiate our allegations that Afghanistan is creating trouble in Balochistan and extending full support to Baloch fighters,” Raziq Bugti, spokesperson for the Balochistan Government, told a news conference held in the Chief Minister Secretariat.
Bugti said that from day one, the government had not ruled out the involvement of a foreign hand in creating trouble in Balochistan. However, he said, the government’s stance became self-evident since the Governor of Afghan province of Kandahar Asadullah Khalid stated that several Baloch had taken shelter in his province after fleeing from the conflict-stricken province of Balochistan.
He said that the Balochistan Government had made a formal request to the Afghan Government for handing over the people who the government believed were involved in terrorist activities across the province. “Though we have not received any response from the Afghan Government yet, we expect a positive reply,” Bugti said.
He hoped that Afghanistan would not give shelter to Baloch sanctuaries who were wanted by the Pakistan Government in serious cases such as bomb blasts, rocket attacks and blowing up of railway tracks in Balochistan.
According to Bugti, a majority of the people who were hiding in Afghanistan had escaped from Dera Bugti and Sui areas last year when the conflict between the government and Bugti tribesmen intensified. Referring to the latest crackdown on the activists of Balochistan National Party (BNP), Bugti said that the government did believe in complete freedom of expression and political dissent. “However, certain political parties exploit the liberty granted to them by the government and use it for the purpose of creating ethnic strife and unrest in the province. The government would not tolerate such elements. We will have to take action against them in order to ensure peace and harmony in the province,” he said.
When asked about the upcoming visit of the non-functional chief justice of Pakistan (CJP) Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry to his hometown Quetta, the spokesperson said that, the CJP was not visiting Quetta on the government’s request. “Rather,” he clarified, “he would visit the provincial capital on an invitation extended to him by certain political parties. However, the provincial government would ensure foolproof security arrangements for the CJP should he decide to visit.”
He regretted that some elements were taking political mileage out of the judicial issue. “Since the Supreme Judicial Council (SJC) is already hearing the matter, there is no justification of politicising a purely judicial matter,” he remarked, adding that the use of provocative language against the Pakistan Army inside the Supreme Court’s building in Islamabad was deplorable. “The Opposition should exercise restraint and wait for the decision of the SJC. Any decision given by the council would be willingly accepted by the government because we believe in the supremacy of the judiciary.”
Afghanistan, Pakistan near refugee agreement
JAMES CALDERWOOD - Associated Press - June 8, 2007
DUBAI — Afghanistan and Pakistan are nearing agreement on the return of the more than 2 million refugees who fled to Pakistan a quarter century ago, a UN refugee agency official said Friday.
“We have now reached an agreement on the language of the text” on the voluntary repatriation, Salvatore Lombardo, UNHCR representative for Afghanistan, said after talks between the two sides. “I think in that respect it (meeting) was quite successful.”
Pakistan has been pushing to repatriate the refugees to Afghanistan over a three-year period, mainly in response to international criticism over cross-border attacks by Taliban militants who Pakistan says often hide in refugee camps.
The two sides have been meeting every three months under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. The draft text, Mr. Lombardo said, is going back to the two governments for approval before signing. Details of the plan were not immediately available.
Since the 2001 fall of the Taliban, more than 3 million Afghans have returned from Pakistan, including more than 220,000 refugees this year.
The refugees, mostly ethnic Pashtuns from Afghan border provinces, fled to Pakistan during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. More than 2.15 million refugees still remain in Pakistan.
Mr. Lombardo said the Pakistani plan envisages the refugees returning to their original homes in Afghanistan, not merely to new camps across the border.
“Those who are landless, the government will give them land,” said Abdul Qader Ahadi, Afghanistan's executive minister of refugees and repatriation. Mr. Ahadi said Kabul still faces “serious challenges, such as a lack of housing, jobs, schools, clinics, security.”
“If large numbers of Afghans return ... we cannot absorb them,” he said. “They may go back to Pakistan and create more problems.”
At a meeting in February, the two sides agreed to close four refugee camps in Pakistan by September because of security concerns over rampant lawlessness.
Sajid Hussain Chattha, a Pakistani official for border issues with Afghanistan, said there were widespread “unlawful activities” such as gunrunning in the camps but denied any al-Qaeda-related activity was there.
Expelled from Iran - refugee misery
By Alastair Leithead, BBC News, Afghanistan
The queues of refugees start to pour over the border from first thing in the morning - as they have been doing for the last month.
Ninety thousand people have so far been forcibly returned to Afghanistan from Iran since 21 April, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.
Every hour or so another bus arrives on the Iranian side, the people are unloaded, carrying the few possessions they had when they were arrested.
A policeman meets them on the Afghanistan side, and they join a long line of people waiting to pick up the few pieces of charity an aid agency has gathered for them.
They get water, biscuits and a bundle of clothes. They can also make a free phone call to relatives to let them know where they are.
Then they get a free 120km (75mile) bus trip from the border post to the city of Herat where they are left to start all over again in a country where they used to live.
In the gathered crowd waiting to tell their stories I see a young man, a tear rolling down his cheek.
"My wife and children are left there, even though I asked the authorities to let us go together," he said, a reference number scrawled on his hand in thick black ink.
"I didn't even have time to get my wages from my employer. Now that they deported me who will look after my children? If someone throws them on the street who will give them shelter? This is cruelty."
Among the lines of men was a 12-year-old boy who said he had been deported on his own.
And passions are high. An older man, emphasising his point by striking his fist into his hand, says he has lived in Iran for 28 years and now he is back in Afghanistan, he cannot even afford the bus fare to Kabul, and doubts there is any work there anyway.
"We are Muslims and they are Muslims as well, so why have they done this to us? We don't have any one to look after us."
Iran received millions of refugees during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan and the later civil war. It has been deporting refugees for some time, but never on this scale - never so many in such a short space of time.
Josep Zapater is from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, which under its remit can do little to help most of the returnees - only the vulnerable such as the old, the young and families.
While many of the single men were living in Iran illegally, almost 22,000 of those deported have been families.
"This wasn't happening last year," Mr Zapater explained. "Also there are the human rights concerns that we have seen at the border like separated families, some cases of maltreatment.
"The process definitely needs to be sorted out in a more humane manner."
An Afghan delegation visited Iran earlier this month and they returned saying the Iranian government had promised to suspend forced expulsions, but as they delivered their report hundreds more refugees continued to be deported.
And the Iranian director general of the Bureau for Aliens and Foreign Immigrant Affairs, Ahmad Hosseini, defended their decision.
"We are determined once and for all to resolve the problem of illegal immigrants in Iran and this doesn't mean only Afghans but any other nationalities who have illegal immigrants here," he said.
"The money we were supposed to spend on reconstruction for our own country has been spent on refugees. Today when we count the cost, it is $7bn a year, or $6 per Afghan every day."
In Herat the arrival of tens of thousands of unemployed men is starting to have a real impact on the city and the whole region. Each morning they queue up for daily work, but there is little around. "I had my passport but they just tore it up" one man said. "What kind of law is that?"
Iran is doing a great deal to help development in Afghanistan, particularly in Herat, but there are complaints so many desperate people arriving in a short time maybe undoing efforts to stabilise and assist the people.
Deal on Afghan treasures is questioned
By Robin Pogrebin - Thursday, June 7, 2007
The National Geographic Society has struck a $1 million deal with the Afghan government to bring a rare cache of gold artifacts to the United States in a traveling exhibition. But some cultural experts who have followed the negotiations are questioning whether Afghanistan is being properly compensated.
Plans call for the ancient Afghan pieces - part of the storied 2,000-year-old Bactrian hoard - to be displayed at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, the National Gallery of Art in Washington, the Asian Art Museum in San Francisco and the Museum of Fine Arts in Houston, although contracts have not yet been signed by those institutions.
The National Geographic Society and the Afghan government signed a protocol accord over the weekend in Kabul, outlining an exhibition schedule that would begin in May 2008 at the National Gallery. The document calls for Afghanistan to receive $1 million as well as 40 percent of "total revenue," which is defined as exhibition revenue, minus expenses.
Lynne Munson, the former deputy chairwoman of the National Endowment for the Humanities, which helped finance the cataloguing of the Afghan treasures, said the arrangement would leave Afghanistan with "40 percent of absolutely nothing," because expenses would be significant.
"This is a travesty," she said in a telephone interview from Washington. "The Bactrian hoard is simply the most valuable possession of the poorest people on earth. To ask them to lend it and give so little in return is unconscionable."
She said she had ceased working for the endowment in 2005 because of internal conflicts within the agency over arrangements for the show.
The protocol accord signed over the weekend says that the exhibition revenue going to the Afghans will be derived from the fees paid by the museums as hosts of the show and from corporate sponsorships. It does not guarantee them proceeds from ticket, catalogue or merchandise sales.
Reached by telephone in Washington, Terry Garcia, the executive vice president of the National Geographic Society's mission programs, said that the financial terms "were dictated by the Afghans."
He said that no decision had been made on proceeds from the merchandising or the catalogue sales. He added, "Those categories of revenue are in fact included in what the Afghans would receive."
Ana Rosa Rodriguez, executive director of the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan's Cultural Heritage, said in a telephone interview from Kabul that she felt the society had taken advantage of a country that has endured nearly three decades of violent upheaval.
"I think it is my duty to express my concerns about this deal," Rodriguez said, complaining of "the unacceptable manner" in which "a prestigious American society has dealt with a postconflict country with a devastated cultural heritage."
The collection includes more than 20,000 pieces of gold jewelry, funeral ornaments and personal items from the Silk Road culture of Bactria, an ancient nation that covered parts of what is now Afghanistan. The hoard was discovered in 1978 by a Russian-Greek archaeologist, Viktor Sarianidi, at a grave site in Tillia-Tepe, in northern Afghanistan. The works blend Greek, Bactrian and nomadic traditions, reflecting Afghanistan's historical position at the crossroads of ancient civilizations.
The treasures were unearthed from a bank vault beneath a former royal palace in Kabul in 2004. They were among the few examples of Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage to survive decades of war. The collection had been kept hidden by curators and employees of the Kabul Museum at tremendous personal risk under the fractious mujahedeen and then the Taliban, who ruled from 1996 to 2001.
Munson said that if the show proved to be a blockbuster, an impoverished Afghanistan should reap more of the benefit.
When an exhibition of 130 objects from Tutankhamen's tomb began touring in 2004, the Egyptian government set out to clear $10 million in every city visited and to take more than 50 percent of the gross revenue.
Thomas Hoving, who pioneered the museum blockbuster concept as director of the Metropolitan Museum from 1967 to 1977, said Afghanistan should have held out for more. "They don't get enough money," he said.
"The Egyptians are getting all admissions, 80 percent of the sales in the shop, and they should have patterned it after that," Hoving said. "Or a flat fee of a million a venue. The entity that ought to get most of the bucks should be Afghanistan."
About 100 of the Bactrian gold objects were recently on display at the Musée Guimet in Paris, along with 131 objects from three other Afghan archaeological collections, and are now in Turin, Italy. The terms of that exhibition were unclear.
Munson said that in 2005 in Kabul, Omara Khan Massoudi, who leads Afghanistan's Museums Ministry and is now the director of the Kabul Museum, expressed concern about how the National Geographic Society had handled the inventory of the hoard.
"Mr. Omara Khan Massoudi told me repeatedly and in no uncertain terms that he thought National Geographic had disrespected the Afghans and their objects during the inventory," she said. "Massoudi said the Afghans had no more need for National Geographic. So that they're being awarded the exhibition means something has gone awry."
Asked about his position by telephone, Massoudi said, "It's out of my hands," but declined to elaborate.
Munson suggested that there should have been an open competition among museums for the show to assure maximal revenue to aid in Afghanistan's cultural reconstruction, and that the National Endowment for the Humanities should have exerted greater oversight.
"Instead it seems we've ended up with a National Geographic monopoly and a very poor deal for the Afghans," she said.
Kabul streets to be renovated: report
KABUL: Streets in the Afghan capital Kabul would be rehabilitated with the financial support of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Turkey, a local newspaper quoted an official as saying the other day.
The UAE would contribute 30 million U.S. dollars to rebuilding the streets in Kabul, while Turkey and the World Bank will also help the rehabilitation project, a senior official from the Kabul municipality Abdul Wasi Rahim told Daily Afghanistan.
Due to decades of war, streets in this city have been critically damaged, with holes lying here and there, said the official.
Many major roads connecting cities across this country have been built with the donation of the international community over the past five years since the collapse of the Taliban regime late 2001, but streets in Kabul are still remaining unrepaired.
The official said the rehabilitation project had begun in some areas of Kabul, but he did not say when it would be wrapped up.Due to poor road conditions and the rocketing number of vehicles, Kabul has suffered from traffic jam in recent years.
Ashgabat, Kabul discuss increasing energy supplies to Afghanistan
ASHGABAT. June 9 (Interfax) - An Afghan delegation led by Energy and Water Resources Minister Mohammed Ismail Khan, currently on a visit in Turkmenistan, has held talks at the Turkmenistan Cabinet of Ministers and the Energy and Industry Ministry, Turkmen television reported on the evening news. The meetings focused in particular on intensifying energy cooperation, primarily, increasing energy supplies from Turkmenistan to Afghanistan and building new transmission lines. The parties discussed, in particular, issues concerning the construction of a new 500 kV transmission line, through which Turkmen energy from the Mari hydroelectric power station will be delivered to neighboring Afghanistan. In late 2006 Turkmenistan extended energy supply contracts for Afghanistan until the end of 2007 at a preferential price of $0.02 per kilowatt-hour. The talks will continue on Saturday.
An Afghanistan rebuilt starts with a rebuilt private sector
MARCUS GEE - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail - June 6, 2007
How do you start a business in a country of suicide bombings, blackouts, bribes, drug trading and rampant illiteracy?
Everyone agrees that if Afghanistan is ever to get back on its feet, it must create a working economy with a vibrant private sector. More than five years after the fall of the Taliban, it hasn't even come close.
With a per capita GDP of just $315 (U.S.) a year, Afghanistan has few roads, few trained workers and only a handful of barely functional banks. The biggest legal exporter is a carpet maker that earns just $40-million a year.
The only really thriving business is opium, which accounts for one-third of economic activity. Much of the rest comes from international aid, and aid alone won't do the trick. No country has ever graduated from poverty on handouts.
To get out of the hole they are in, Afghans have to start growing things, making things, selling things, buying things.
But how? That was the question at a conference held over the past two days in a Kabul hotel. The conference was organized by the Aga Khan Development Network along with the World Bank and other supporters, including The Globe and Mail, a charitable backer of the Aga Khan's development work. It brought together bankers, businessmen, academics and government ministers to discuss how to create an "enabling environment" for the private sector.
Every Afghan official who appeared, from President Hamid Karzai down, agreed emphatically that helping get business going was a key to the country's future. Mr. Karzai, as dignified and as eloquent as always, reminded the crowd that Afghans are historically an enterprising people. That spirit was embodied by the Kabuliwallah, the "man from Kabul" who was a fictional seller of dried nuts and fruits in a short story by the renowned Indian author Rabindranath Tagore. Today's Kabuliwallahs, Mr. Karzai said, are the country's hope. Only ambitious, clever business people can build an economy that creates jobs and prosperity.
But in the conference rooms and seminars, those same business people complained about government obstruction. Far from "enabling" them, officials were making their lives hell with demands for payoffs and paperwork. One cellphone operator said he needed to get signatures from 20 government offices before going into business - "and every signature was an opportunity for extortion."
Businesses face hassles at the border, where their goods are often held up by inspectors or delayed by inadequate bridges and other crossings. They face hassles over electrical power. It comes on only a few hours a day so they have to make their own with costly diesel generators.
Above all, they have hassles over security. At one water bottler, 36 of 185 employees are security men. "I have three big problems," a local banker says. "Number one is security, number two is security, number three is security."
No wonder that when the World Bank measured ease of doing business in 175 countries, Afghanistan came 162nd.
The one modern local factory, a Coca-Cola bottler run by a family of Afghans who are based in Dubai, isn't making money and isn't sure when it will. The best local hotel, the swanky Serena, part of a chain run by the Aga Khan, is half empty most of the time.
Afghanistan imports almost everything - chicken from Brazil, jam, tomato paste and mud bricks from Pakistan. The Kabuliwallah's business, fruits and nuts, has dried up. Afghanistan used to have 60 per cent of the world market in dried raisins, pistachios, apricots, walnuts and almonds. Now it has 2 per cent.
Still, there is money to be made for those who want to chance it. A local cellphone operator is booming. Vancouver's Hunter Dickinson Inc. is bidding for the right to exploit the rich Aynak copper deposit.
"There are such great opportunities because it's so underdeveloped - precious stones, agriculture, mining, it's all wide open," one diplomat said. "But you need gumption. Those without gumption need not apply."
With better governance and better security, and a few more years just to pull itself back together, Afghanistan could still build the economic engine it needs to pull itself out of poverty. But does it have that long? A sense of urgency hung over this week's meeting in Kabul. Everyone knows that unless the country acts boldly and soon to give business a chance, it might be too late.
Hungary lends a helping hand in Afghanistan
Radio Prague - By Agi Varga - June 8, 2007
Hungary is getting involved in the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan. It commands the provincial reconstruction team in the northern province of Baghlan and gives aid to the civilian population there. The Foreign Ministry in Budapest has also linked up with Hungarian Inter Church Aid for some new programs in Afghanistan.
Agi Varga of Radio Budapest spoke to Dénes Tomaj who's responsible for international development cooperation at the foreign ministry.
Liberals soften stand on pullout date
ALAN FREEMAN - From Wednesday's Globe and Mail, June 6, 2007
OTTAWA — Liberal Leader Stéphane Dion yesterday opened the door to keeping Canadian troops in Afghanistan after February, 2009, but insisted they would have to be withdrawn from their current combat mission in the volatile southern region.
Speaking to reporters, Mr. Dion said he wants the combat mission of Canada's 2,500 soldiers based in Kandahar to end, but said Canada could still retain troops to assist the NATO mission.
"We could have a role different from the combat mission in Kandahar that the Prime Minister would like to make interminable," Mr. Dion said in French.
Asked whether the Liberals would be willing to switch places with troops in another, presumably safer, part of Afghanistan, Mr. Dion hinted that he might back that sort of deployment.
"Should Canada remain in other regions on a military basis? Should it reorient its effort otherwise? We would be ready to discuss this with our partners."
The Liberals have been adamant in saying that Canada should advise NATO that it will be ending its military commitment in Afghanistan in early 2009 and pulling out its troops. But in recent weeks, the Liberals have been expressing a more nuanced view, saying that they would be willing to support a scaled-back military presence, provided Canadian troops were redeployed to less dangerous parts of the country.
They have begun to talk about "rotation" among the NATO troops, implying that they would not be opposed to the Canadian troops switching places with soldiers from another coalition partner.
Defence critic Denis Coderre said that while Canadian troops should be out of Kandahar, they should still help back provincial reconstruction teams and could train Afghan troops and police. "They could do other things in Afghanistan," he said in an interview.
But he insisted that the Canadians should be removed from the line of fire. "The troops have done their job in the south," Mr. Coderre said. "We're done in terms of combat." Canadian forces represent less than 10 per cent of the 37,000 NATO troops in the country, but, along with the Dutch, British and Americans, among others, have been fighting in some of the most dangerous areas.
Four detainees allege they were abused
ALAN FREEMAN - From Thursday's Globe and Mail, June 6, 2007
OTTAWA — Four Afghan detainees have complained to Canadian authorities since February that they allegedly suffered abuse after Canadian troops handed them over to Afghan authorities, according to Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay.
“They are serious allegations and they were received directly by Canadian officials during visits we had sought,” Mr. MacKay told reporters. The detainees are not accusing Canadian soldiers of wrongdoing, but are saying the mistreatment took place after they were handed over to Afghan officials.
Mr. MacKay said Afghan authorities are investigating the allegations under the new agreement signed by Canada on the treatment of detainees transferred to Afghan jails. The allegations come from detainees in Kabul and Kandahar.
Speaking after a meeting of the House of Commons Committee on National Defence, which heard from five government ministers on the Afghan mission, Mr. MacKay said that under the new agreement, Canadian officials have made five separate visits to Afghan jails and received full co-operation from the authorities.
“We have notified the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Red Cross to do their necessary checks and follow-ups and this process is now well under way,” he said.
Public Security Minister Stockwell Day said the four prisoners making the allegations showed no visible signs of abuse and cautioned that the Taliban and al-Qaeda have been coached to allege mistreatment when they are asked.
Last month, the Canadian government reached a new agreement with Afghanistan allowing for unfettered access to detainees transferred by Canadian troops after allegations of abuse by 30 detainees were reported by The Globe and Mail. There are also separate Canadian investigations under way into three earlier cases of possible abuse of prisoners by Canadian soldiers.
Mr. MacKay said that nobody has yet produced any evidence to indicate that any Canadian soldier, diplomat or aid official has been complicit in anything remotely linked to torture.
Opposition MPs pressed National Defence Minister Gordon O'Connor for details on how many Taliban prisoners had been taken by Canadian troops and what had happened to them. Mr. O'Connor said he could not disclose the information because he said it would be “detrimental to operational security.”
Liberal MP Ujjal Dosanjh said he didn't understand why the U.S. Pentagon had managed to publish a complete list of its prisoners at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba while Canada was unable to do the same in Afghanistan. Mr. O'Connor responded that neither the Americans nor other NATO forces in Afghanistan are publishing lists of prisoners either.
Taliban in Kandahar off balance, colonel says
Previous intensive gun battles, coupled with relentless Canadian patrols, cited for leaving fighters disorganized and dispersed
MURRAY CAMPBELL - From Thursday's Globe and Mail
June 7, 2007 - KANDAHAR, AFGHANISTAN — Canadian forces have dramatically reduced the ability of the Taliban to mount a massive offensive, the deputy commander of the Canadian mission in Afghanistan says.
Insurgents can still inflict damage, Colonel Mike Cessford said yesterday, but they have lost a home base from which to launch large-scale attacks.
They are also finding it difficult to move through the countryside because of regular Canadian patrols, he added.
Acknowledging that predictions are "dangerous," Col. Cessford gave his assessment of the current military situation in Afghanistan in a wide-ranging 55-minute briefing with Canadian reporters at Kandahar Air Field. It marked one of the few times since the current rotation of troops arrived in February that a senior officer has publicly put into context the skirmishes in which Canadian soldiers routinely participate.
The military situation has changed dramatically since last summer, he said, when the Taliban and Canadian soldiers fought large-scale battles in a 20-square-kilometre section of the districts of Panjwai and Zhari west of Kandahar.
The current rotation of combat soldiers trained for a repeat of those confrontations, but were surprised to find instead that they are fighting an enemy that dispersed across the province of Kandahar.
Skirmishes remain routine in Panjwai and Zhari, he said, and other military officials confirm Canadians were involved in a fierce gun battle in the region at the beginning of the week. But Canadians are also increasingly involved farther afield in the districts of Maywand, Arghandab, Shah Vali Kowt and Spin Boldak.
"This mission is evolving dynamically and dramatically," he said. "It changes on a dime."
He estimated that there are fewer than 1,000 Taliban fighters in the province of Kandahar and that many of those are not "hard-core fanatics" but unemployed young men looking either for excitement or a pay packet. (At least that many are fighting in the adjacent province of Helmand, mainly against British troops.) Canadian troops are not spread too thinly, he said, because they have been able to rely on the improved Afghan National Army.
"We are maintaining pressure," Col. Cessford said. "Does that mean the place has been cleaned of Taliban? Absolutely not. But it does mean that their ability to group, their ability to plan, their ability to develop capability to inflict significant harm on us is significantly reduced. They are focused on survival as opposed to offensive operations."
The deputy commander said that ordinary Afghans have begun to feel more secure as the insurgency is dealt with. It is a statement that is difficult to verify - although the mission has just finished conducting an opinion poll, the results of which will be available in about three weeks. But an estimated 30,000 residents of Panjwai have moved back to the district in recent weeks after being displaced by last autumn's fierce fighting.
The situation remains somewhat tense in the city of Kandahar, which was hit by a series of suicide bombings three weeks ago. Canadian officials believe that Afghan government officials remain targets because Taliban leaders are angry that they have not been able to recover the body of one of their leaders who was killed last month.
"I am hopeful that we have seized the initiative as such that we can keep the Taliban off balance," he said, adding it is "virtually impossible" to protect against suicide attacks, assassinations or roadside bombs.
"I expect that we will continue to pay a price in blood and treasure in the months to come."
Canadian Forces accused of leaving Afghan police in lurch
Tom Blackwell, National Post, Friday, June 08, 2007
ZHARI DISTRICT CENTRE, Afghanistan -- On the dusty front lines of Canada's latest battle with the Taliban, Abdul Hakim is smarting, and not just from the suicide bomber who blew up inches away from him.
The commander of a beleaguered Afghan National Police detachment in Kandahar province's Zhari district is becoming increasingly frustrated with the Canadian Forces in the area. The foreign soldiers, he charges, have repeatedly ignored police calls for help in fighting the insurgents and overlooked tips on where to find and destroy Taliban nests.
In fact, Mr. Hakim contends, a lack of co-operation between the police, the Afghan National Army and Canadian troops has helped insurgent strength in the district grow to 300 or 400 fighters from 100 six months ago .
"This is the problem: We don't have a connection with the Canadians. Never, ever," he said in an interview on the floor of his mud-walled headquarters. "We give information to the Canadians and they are not acting upon it. That is why the enemy is getting stronger and stronger."
Mr. Hakim is no general in the anti-insurgent war. He heads two checkpoints in the district, with about 30 officers under him. They're a ragtag bunch who, for the most part, lack uniforms, let alone body armour. Nevertheless, he offered a frank, unofficial assessment of the battle from his desert-level perspective.
He does not suggest the Canadians are afraid to engage the insurgents. In fact, they have had numerous firefights with the Taliban over the past several weeks, and a Canadian corporal was killed recently in a major operation.
Rather, the police and NATO seem to be waging their own, independent wars, the commander said. The Canadian offensives against the Taliban, like Operation Hoover a few weeks ago, are largely "useless," because the militants hear in advance of the large-scale missions that often involve tanks. They hide to avoid confrontation and sometimes lay down improvised explosive devices to sabotage the Canadian advance, the officer observed.
"Unity is a must among the police, the Canadians and the ANA," Mr. Hakim said, languidly brushing aside flies. "Without the co-operation of these three groups, there will be no security."
A Canadian Forces spokesman declined to comment on the officer's assertions, calling him a minor figure with a limited perspective on the strategic situation.
In the past, at least, trust has been an issue between the Canadian army and the Afghan police. Tribal prejudices and corruption among some of the underpaid officers -- like the chief in neighbouring Panjwai district who sold uniforms on the black market, and the officer arrested for theft during a village search -- have made the Canadians skeptical of the local advice.
Meanwhile, Canadian troops have begun using decoy tactics in Zhari to try to deflect the Taliban's attention and make their operations more of a surprise.
Regardless, one thing is clear. The under-equipped, out-gunned Afghan National Police are bearing the brunt of the fighting in Zhari.
"The police are in really bad, bad conditions down there," said Col. Mohammed Hussain, the national force's liaison officer at the Canadian-run provincial reconstruction team. "They are fighting 24 hours, every hour, every minute, every second of the day."
Mr. Hakim had pulled himself out of his sickbed for an interview at his headquarters and bunkhouse, which lacks running water and electricity. His face was covered in blackened sores from the bombing a week earlier.
"We have so many difficulties," the policeman said listlessly. "It's terrible for us."
He warned a visiting journalist to drive as fast as possible on the way out of the official Zhari district centre because the insurgents sometimes lie in wait on the other side of the highway, ready to take potshots at departing vehicles.
His men offered up another unsettling symbol of Zhari's dangers, too, plunking a landmine, 30 centimetres across, into the middle of the dirt floor. Mr. Hakim said it had been rigged with an antenna and battery for remote control. He had defused it, though he admitted to having no training in de-mining.
Experts say that policemen like Mr. Hakim are taking a beating everywhere in southern Afghanistan. With just 10 days of training and equipped with a minimum of firepower, they are used as a military force, a sort of "canary in the coal mine" or tripwire to flush out the Taliban, said Supt. Dave Fudge, the RCMP officer who runs a police training program for the provincial reconstruction team.
So, for every Afghan army soldier killed, 27 police officers lose their lives to insurgent attacks.
Qari Yousuf Ahmadi, a purported Taliban spokesman, said in a telephone interview that insurgents can see the Canadian operations coming and avoid a direct conflict.
"We are moving and launching a hit-and-run war against them," he said. He also confirmed that the militants have focused on destroying police checkpoints in Zhari.
"Then we are able to go around and plant mines and attack the Canadian or foreign troops," he said. "It's harder to bring the Canadians down."
Mr. Hakim's comments supported this account. He said his checkpoints are attacked almost daily and he actively avoids firefights with the Taliban -- even though he could be in the middle of one just by driving 15 minutes from his headquarters. "We are not strong enough. Our people are just trying to avoid their attacks."
When the police do come under fire, help can be hard to find. He described several examples, none of which could be independently verified.
In one recent case, Mr. Hakim said, insurgents surrounded his deputy and several men, killing two officers and destroying two police vehicles. When they requested support, the Canadian military called in an aircraft that dropped a flare over the scene, Mr. Hakim said.
A month ago in Malangan village, he said, a Canadian officer with whom they were on patrol encouraged the police to attack a Taliban position. They fought a three-hour battle, but the foreign troops never came to their aid, he charged.
In a couple of other recent incidents, Mr. Hakim said he advised the Canadians about the location of Taliban and suggested an attack, which never occurred.
Mr. Hakim recommends that Canadian troops station themselves for long periods at checkpoints like his, where they will be sure to engage with the Taliban. The Canadian commanders should also be in close contact with police, who have the best intelligence about the insurgents' whereabouts, he added.
In the meantime, the guerrilla war continues with harrowing attacks such as the suicide bomber who nearly cost Mr. Hakim his life a little over a week ago.
Mr. Hakim described how a man approached his vehicle in a Zhari town.
"He looked at me and I looked at him, so I thought maybe I had met him before," he recalled. "There was a bump so I slowed down my car and he approached. When we were passing by him, he just grabbed the door of the car. I looked at him and he blew himself up." The bomber failed in his intended task, but left four policemen injured and a civilian dead.
Afghan hearts & minds (Part 1)
United Press International - 06/08/2007, By Shaun Waterman
WASHINGTON, DC - Taliban insurgents have deliberately sought to avoid the kind of mass casualty suicide attacks that have been the hallmark of their counterparts in Iraq, according to new research for the U.S. government.
And analysts say the movement, based in a secure hideout in neighboring Pakistan, is challenging U.S.-led forces for the moral high ground in the Afghan conflict by calling for an international commission to investigate civilian casualties there.
New research carried out for think tanks advising the U.S. government shows that, though Taliban leaders have made increasing use of suicide bombings since importing the tactic from Iraq, they appear to have deliberately avoided the kind of mass casualty attacks that have become the bloody hallmark of the campaign waged by their counterparts and allies there.
'The Taliban understand that (civilian casualties are) a key issue for them,' said Brian Gwyn Williams, an assistant professor of Islamic history at the University of Massachusetts-Dartmouth and author of the research. 'They have gone out of their way to avoid killing civilian bystanders. ... They are waging a hearts-and-minds campaign just like the West is.'
Williams' research seems borne out by the observations of one senior U.S. official about the security arrangements at Afghan government buildings in the capital.
'When I'd drive around Kabul, I kept thinking these ministries wouldn't be standing in another country in which we're engaged,' former U.S. Ambassador to Afghanistan Ronald Neumann said last week -- pointedly identifying Iraq without naming it.
'They're too close to the street, there's no setback, there's too much glass.'
From a study of more than 130 Afghan suicide bombings in 2006 and 50 so far this year, Williams says only six or seven attacks had killed significant numbers of civilians -- and even in those cases the casualties often appeared to be what the military term 'collateral damage' rather than the product of deliberate attacks on civilian 'soft targets.'
He said a key turning point was an attack in the Afghan border town of Spin Boldak in January 2006, when a suicide bomber blew himself up at a sporting event -- a classic 'soft target' -- killing more than 20 people.
Hundreds of Afghan Pashtuns marched through the town, chanting, 'Death to Pakistan, death to al-Qaida and death to the Taliban,' reported the British Broadcasting Corp.
Williams said the Taliban had a much better 'sense of the pulse of Pashtun tribal leaders than the Karzai government' did, and consequently understood the importance of the issue sooner.
'They were very aware of the fact that doing that (kind of mass casualty attack) again could lose them a lot of support. ... They disowned the bombing.'
The way that the issue of civilian casualties -- an inevitable byproduct of the key weapon of choice for both sides in the Afghan conflict -- is perceived by Afghans is a key factor in the hearts-and-minds war that each side is waging there, says Williams.
'Whoever wins that battle -- to keep those numbers (of civilian casualties) down ... and win the battle of perception (on that issue), whoever wins that battle, wins Afghanistan,' he told UPI.
The Taliban`s key weapon is the suicide bomber, and the movement appeared focused on using it against so-called hard targets, like U.S., NATO or Afghan military.
The result was that a very high proportion of attacks killed only the attacker -- leading Williams to subtitle a portion of his research, 'Suicide bombing, or just suicide?'
But the tactic was 'a dangerous game' for the Taliban, he added, 'they are trying to use an imprecise tool to do a precision job. ...
'If you attack (military) convoys in populated areas, you are going to get civilian casualties.'
The director of the U.N. Assistance Mission to Afghanistan said at the end of May that as many as 380 civilians had been killed in the conflict so far this year by both sides, but did not provide a breakdown.
NATO officials told reporters in Kabul earlier last month that 85 people, including 40 civilians, had died in the first 23 days of May from improvised explosive devices, including suicide and roadside bombs.
UNAMA Director Richard Bennett called in a statement for the Taliban to 'stop the wanton disregard they have shown for innocent life' by ending 'suicide bomb attacks, use of (roadside bombs), abductions, beheadings and the deliberate use of civilian locations to plan and launch attacks.'
The Taliban has also very publicly advocated and carried out the murder of 'spies' or 'collaborators' -- a category that, according to Amnesty International, includes anyone who stands for election, clerics who dispute Taliban religious declarations, government administrators, teachers, health workers and any civilians working for aid agencies or foreign military forces. Scores have been killed by the Taliban in this fashion in the past two years, the group says.
Some observers were rather skeptical then, when, a day after Bennett's comments, Taliban leader Mullah Omar called for an independent commission to investigate and identify those responsible for civilian casualties in the conflict.
In a statement posted on the group's Web site and reported by local media, the fugitive Taliban leader said the commission should be made up of representatives of the International Committee of Red Cross, independent journalists, Afghan scholars and elders, and that NATO and the Taliban should jointly ensure its security.
(First of three parts. Part 2: The struggle for the moral high ground.)
Analysis: Taliban seek to win hearts & minds -- Part 2
Fighting for the moral high ground
By Shaun Waterman - UPI Homeland and National Security Editor
WASHINGTON -- Taliban insurgents are challenging U.S.-led forces for the moral high ground in Afghanistan by avoiding mass casualty attacks and calling for an international commission to investigate civilian deaths in the conflict.
Analysts and experts say the battle for this vital hearts-and-minds territory is the key to winning the war in Afghanistan, and U.S. and NATO forces are handicapped in it.
They are held to higher standards by the local population, and have had problems with their system of payments to assist non-combatant victims of the fighting.
But more than anything else, says Brian Glyn Williams, a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth, allied forces are hampered in dealing with civilian casualties by their reliance on air power.
"Any time you call in close air support in a populated area," he said, using the military term for the use of air power to win firefights on the ground, "you are going to have the probability, eventually the certainty, of bystanders being killed."
Williams, who recently completed a research project on the Afghan insurgency for a think tank advising the U.S. government, told United Press International that with insufficient numbers of troops of the ground, U.S. and NATO forces active in the Pashtun heartlands of the south and east would have to call in close air support "several times a week" to overwhelm insurgents.
But he said the use of such tactics was "a dangerous game."
The inevitable collateral damage meant that "increasing reliance on air power is the main complaint from Pashtuns" who had been displaced by the fighting, and one of the major factors fueling anger at foreign military forces, and thus potentially generating support for the insurgency.
"It's right up there with nepotism and corruption" in turning Pashtuns into what Williams called "POA's -- pissed-off Afghans" -- the key constituency whose hearts and minds could ensure victory for either side in the insurgency.
Williams said the U.S. and NATO dilemma mirrored that of the Taliban themselves, who also were relying on a key weapon that almost inevitably killed bystanders: the suicide bomb.
Williams said that when, during field work in Afghanistan earlier this year, he arrived in the town of Gardez hours after a suicide bombing there, "The sense of outrage was palpable."
"The people there were simmering with fury ... one guy spat at the ground as he was talking about it."
Williams says his research shows that the Taliban have deliberately avoided the kind of mass casualty suicide bombings that have become the savage hallmark of the conflict in Iraq because they understand that such attacks could cost them popular support.
But while the Taliban and U.S. forces face similar challenges in limiting the numbers of casualties, other analysts say that the battle over perceptions of the issue is an unequal one -- and the West is at a disadvantage.
U.S. and NATO forces "are quite rightly being held to a higher standard" on the question, analyst Peter Bergen of Georgetown University and the New America Foundation told UPI.
As an example, he contrasted the reaction when a U.S. military vehicle killed six people in a road traffic accident in May 2006 -- sparking widespread rioting and anti-Western violence -- with the absence of reaction to the killing of nearly two dozen civilians by a suicide bomb attack aimed at Bagram airbase during a visit this year by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney.
"There tends to be a lot less outrage from Afghans when the Taliban kill civilians," he said. As a result, U.S. and NATO forces had a steeper hill to climb in terms of how Afghans perceive the civilian casualties issue.
Taliban leader Mullah Omar last week made a direct attempt to capitalize on the issue when he called in a Web statement for an independent commission to investigate civilian deaths.
Williams, Bergen and other observers, while noting the strategic significance of the issue, dismissed the posturing.
In a statement, the Campaign for Innocent Victims in Conflict, an advocacy group for civilian casualties founded by slain U.S. aid-worker Marla Ruzicka, labeled Omar's comments "hypocritical."
"The Taliban should practice what they preach," said CIVIC Executive Director Sarah Holewinski, adding that if the group "truly cares about Afghans, it should immediately stop using them as human shields and their homes as hideouts."
But CIVIC and other groups also say that the perception issue is complicated by problems in the system U.S. forces have established to make payments to civilian casualties.In part three next week: Problems in the U.S. system of payments to non-combatant casualties.
Afghan mission unravels
St Petersburg TIMES EDITORIAL, Published June 9, 2007
Iraq continues to consume the oxygen in Washington, but a new congressional report should shift public attention back to the first front in the war on terror.
The Government Accountability Office, the investigative arm of Congress, reported in alarming detail last month on the extent to which the security and domestic situations have deteriorated in Afghanistan, where NATO and a U.S.-led coalition are fighting Taliban and al-Qaida terrorists.
The United States attacked Afghanistan a year and a half before invading Iraq as punishment for the Taliban government harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and has spent $15-billion, not including the cost of military operations, to stabilize and rebuild the country. While the GAO acknowledged areas of progress, such as in diversifying the economy and training an Afghan army, it found that after five years of international efforts, the security situation "has not improved and, moreover, has deteriorated significantly in the last year." The rebuilding is hampered by a resurgence of the Taliban, the limited capability of Afghan security forces, an inept government, corruption and the labor force's reliance on growing opium, with some of the profits going to fund terrorist activity.
The picture is bleak across the board. While Washington provided $6-billion through last year to train and equip the Afghan security services, no army combat units or police units are fully capable of operating by themselves. Even with coalition support, only one of 72 police units can lead an operation. Trainees have sold their equipment before reporting for duty, hoarding is a problem, and of those absent from their posts, 60 percent are AWOL.
Broader dysfunctions within society only compound the security problem. The report notes: "Afghanistan still has no formal national judicial system for the police to rely upon, opium poppy cultivation is at record levels and the Afghan police often find themselves facing better- armed drug traffickers and militias." The population of 32-million is largely illiterate, and nearly half is younger than 15. The penal system is "nonfunctioning" and reforms are "undermined by systemic corruption." No wonder officials predict the foreign mission "will take at least a decade."
The United States and its allies will need to spend billions more on security, economic development and democratic reforms to prevent Afghanistan from reverting to the terrorist haven and narco-state it was under Taliban rule. Even if American troops were withdrawn from Iraq tomorrow, we would still have a major war on our hands in Afghanistan.
Female teachers help to rebuild Afghanistan’s education system
By Mohammad Rafi - Source: United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF)
KABUL, Afghanistan, 8 June 2007 – During the Taliban era in Afghanistan, many female teachers were barred from working and many girls were not allowed to go to school.
The fall of Taliban in late 2001 was a historic turning point that brought many changes – including UNICEF-supported education initiatives in communities across the country. And with the success of those initiatives has come a growing need for teachers.
“When I started my teaching job, I knew nothing about the profession,” says Toorpaikai Roshangar, a second-grade teacher at Lamia-i-Shaheed girls’ school in Kabul. Over the past five years, Ms. Roshangar has taken part in five training sessions supported by UNICEF and the Ministry of Education. The sessions have focused on textbook orientation, child development, classroom management skills and child-centered teaching.
“I only had a 12th-grade education with no teaching skills,” says Ms. Roshangar. “It was these trainings that provided me with necessary skills and knowledge of teaching methods. Now I enter the classroom with confidence.”
In 2002, with the opening of new schools and a back-to-school campaign, many children – especially girls – were able to attend classes for the first time in several years. The increase in school enrolment demonstrated a demand for education that was unprecedented in Afghanistan’s history.
The education programme started with the objective of getting an estimated 1.5 million children into their classrooms in 2002. By the end of the year that number had swollen to 3 million children, 30 per cent of them girls.
This year, more than 4.5 million Afghan children are attending classes, further straining education resources.
Five years ago, only an estimated 15 per cent of teachers in Afghanistan’s schools had graduated from teachers’ training colleges. Initially, UNICEF supported the Ministry of Education in providing training for 50,000 primary school teachers with a 10-day refresher course on language arts, pedagogy and landmine awareness.
Since then, UNICEF has provided support for teacher training that covers both formal and community-based schools around the country.
UNICEF and its partners are also supporting the Government of Afghanistan in developing a comprehensive teacher-training system in primary education, including strategies for enlarging the pool of female teachers. It has been proven that more female teachers increase the enrolment and attendance of girls in school.
"The drive to improve the quality of teachers is also a step in ensuring that girls continue to return to the classroom, and to reduce the risk of drop-out amongst pupils already enrolled," says UNICEF Representative in Afghanistan Catherine Mbengue.
To meet the need for more qualified teachers, the Ministry of Education and UNICEF envisage establishing teachers’ training colleges in each of the country’s 34 provinces. The colleges are part of a major investment in teaching standards, along with development of a new curriculum, teacher accreditation and textbooks for primary school students.
UNICEF has provided support in the form of construction, library furniture, stationery and computer equipment for nine new teachers’ training colleges.
In 2007, UNICEF aims to train 30,000 teachers in child-centered and gender-sensitive new curriculum and textbooks. Also planned is a literacy course for some 62,500 women and the training of over 180,000 newly recruited female teachers.
With this focus on training female teachers in Afghanistan and getting girls in school, UNICEF is spearheading the educational future of a whole generation.
Kabul’s beggar children working the streets
By Sardar Ahmad (PNE) - The children work alongside adult beggars, who include men who lost limbs in the war and women hidden beneath filthy burqas and holding still infants to soften passing hearts
SHAKIR sits at the side of the road, his head buried in his hands, 10 broken eggs melding with the dust at his feet.
“I was selling eggs. I fell over. My eggs smashed,” the five-year-old whimpers quietly. “I’ve lost 50 afghanis (one dollar), my mother will kill me.”
It is a routine the child has been playing out all over Kabul for months and now some residents are wise to it. “He does this everyday,” smiles a resident, handing the boy a chocolate bar as he walks past.
Each day Shakir invests the equivalent of a dollar to buy eggs that he drops on a dirty footpath. He then sits miserably in front of them and tells his story in the hope of attracting donations.
His brother, who looks about two years older, is never far away, ready to take the collection, fend off suspicious enquirers and chase away other street children also looking for some pickings.
Shakir’s trick reflects the competitive world of child beggars in Kabul, a city clogged by a population of around four million people that exploded after the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime led exiles home and jobseekers to the capital.
According to surveys by the UN children’s organisation, UNICEF, there are 50,000 to 60,000 street children in Kabul, said the UN Afghanistan spokesman Aleem Siddique.
Aschiana, a non-governmental organisation that supports and educates children working on the streets, puts the number higher and says it has almost doubled in the past two years.
“In 2005 there were 37,000 children working on the streets,” said programme manager Nazar Mohammad. “But now, according to new surveys, there’s nearly 70,000 of them working,” he says.
Most of them have lost one or both of their parents, often in the war that has long plagued this country, and are their families’ only breadwinner, according to Afghanistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC).
“A study carried out by AIHRC found a majority of 18,000 street children interviewed indicated that they have lost one or both of their parents,” commissioner Nader Nadery says. The children work alongside Kabul’s adult beggars, who include men who lost limbs in the war and women hidden beneath filthy burqas and holding still infants to soften passing hearts.
Some of the children rap on the windows of cars stopped at traffic jams, demanding the occupants buy chewing gum, Dari-English dictionaries, maps in Russian or old copies of US military magazines.
Others cling to vehicles to wipe their windows with filthy rags; pretty little girls just smile and ask for tips. Mohammad Aman trades on Afghan superstition by waving about a black and acrid smoke made by from burning “espand,” the seeds of a wild plant. The smoke is believed to drive away evil spirits.
“My father died fighting the Taliban,” says the grubby boy, aged 11. “We’re six people at home,” he adds, showing the number on coal-blackened fingers.
“Me and my brother have to work,” says the child, dressed in rags and working on a busy road outside the upmarket shopping area of Shar-i-Nau. The boys make about four dollars a day - enough to buy food, he says.Mohammad, from Aschiana, says the issue of street children has been neglected amid the many problems facing the destitute country.
“The government has not done much,” he tells AFP at one of the group’s six centres where art classes reflect the war in which most Afghan children were raised, one painting showing a bombed-out and roofless classroom.One of the government’s successes, however, is that it has increased by five-fold the number of school enrollments since the Taliban fell nearly six years ago, according to British-based charity Oxfam.
About six million children are in school, still only half of all school-age children in the country, the education ministry says. The UN’s Siddique says tackling the growing number of street children in Kabul needs more than just “aid money”.
Nearly 13 billion dollars has been spent since 2001, including on security with a Taliban insurgency unabating. “We need to support parents who are currently not sending their children to school for financial or cultural reasons,” he says. Afghanistan has one of the lowest literacy rates in the world, with about half of men and 20 percent of women able to read and write. Some poorer families want their children to work instead of go to school.
“This is not an issue solely related to money - there is a need for cultural change where parents value the importance of education for all children - both girls and boys,” Siddique says. In the meantime, little Shakir will continue with his broken eggs.“I just fell over and my eggs smashed,” he insists quietly. afp
VIEW: Bombing Pakistan for Bin Laden —Rafia Zakaria
The chilling tableau that the Democratic presidential candidates presented in raising their hands was one that illustrated this very message: we would do it again, in another country, if we thought we could win
On June 3, 2007 the eight Democratic candidates for the 2007 US Presidential race took the stage at a small college in New Hampshire. Revved up for debate, the six Senators, one Congressman and one Governor stood before their podiums ready for a war of words, dominance in which would mean greater coverage in the US media and a successful presidential bid.
Predictably, the third place candidate in the polls Senator John Edwards took on a combative stance confronting the two front-runners Barack Obama and Hilary Clinton on what he described as a lack of leadership in the Democratic Party over the Iraq issue. In the ensuing melee, nearly all the Democratic candidates sparred on the best way to extricate American troops from the increasingly troubling mess in Iraq.
For a Pakistani watching the debate, one question posed to the candidates, loomed above all others. A professor of history seated in the audience asked how the candidates reconciled American security interests in Pakistan to the fact that Pakistan is not a democratic country. The particular question, representing perhaps the biggest hole in the current Bush Administration’s democracy promotion agenda would have seemed a great opportunity for the Democratic candidates to distinguish themselves ideologically from the ruling Bush Administration. However, the responses did far from that.
Senator Hilary Clinton, the initial candidate who fielded the question made it painfully clear exactly how aware she was of the situation in Pakistan, saying “it is clear that he [General Musharraf] has not moved towards democracy but has solidified his rule and become quite anti-democratic with his removal of the chief justice and many of the other moves that he’s taken.” Having said this, however, she ended with the same self-serving pronouncement that characterises the Bush Administration’s stance: “At the same time, we depend upon him to try to control the tribal areas, out of which come the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters who cross the border into Afghanistan.”
To add to the disappointment of those watching, the remaining candidates completely ducked the question.
Perhaps equally frustrated by the candidates’ lack of engagement with the question, the news anchor reformulated it in a more incendiary way. Addressing all the candidates he inquired “if you agree that the US had intelligence that could take out Osama bin Laden and kill him, even though some innocent civilians would die in the process, would you, as president, authorise such an operation? The same candidates, who had been so hesitant to respond to how Pakistan fits into America’s scheme of promoting democracy, now raised their hands!
This glaring discrepancy, in which the same group of candidates vehemently denounced the Iraq war at the beginning of the debate and then minutes later raised their hands in favour of striking Pakistan illustrates the naivety of anyone who believes that US military expansionism is likely to come to an end with the culmination of the Bush Administration. Democratic candidates trying to defeat their Republican counterparts may pretend that a Democratic Administration is likely to abandon the military expansionism promoted by the Bush Administration and concentrate more on diplomatic solutions and the like, these distinctions may not be much more than rhetoric. While the anti-war American Left, increasingly giddy at the thought of a troop withdrawal from Iraq may like to believe that their candidates will be harbingers of an era of peace where military incursions are a thing of the past, the positions of the Democratic candidates provide little if any credence to such a belief.
From the Pakistani perspective, the ease with which nearly all the Democratic candidates raised their hands, and the general abstraction with which the question of “innocent civilians” that may die in such an attack was considered, illustrated the undiminished arrogance of a super-power that sees maintaining dominance as its pre-eminent goal. Foreign policy realists would defend this stance arguing that each nation, regardless of moral concerns must make such calculations; that when faced with decisions involving national security, lofty ideals must be discarded for realistic considerations of survival; power and dominance must inevitably govern what states do in situations where their national interests are at stake.
All this may be well and true, and indeed provides powerful war-mongering nations with convenient arguments for why the weak must be vanquished without remorse. But the reprehensible aspect of the Democratic candidate’s readiness to bomb Pakistan for Bin Laden comes not from whether such an act could be justified (for they would surely come up with a way) but rather whether it should be? In the wake of a 70,000 body count in Iraq, is it really so ludicrous to suggest that perhaps considerations other than power and dominance be used to evaluate whether other countries should be bombed to achieve military objectives?
The disparity between the Democratic candidate’s denunciation of the Iraq war at the outset of the debate and their alacrity in jumping to bomb Pakistan for Bin Laden merely minutes later suggest an unwillingness to look at this very question. Is the war in Iraq wrong because it represents the pre-emptive invasion of a sovereign nation or simply because it is a losing battle where American is unlikely to obtain a glorious victory?
While all the Democratic candidates put in considerable effort in detailing exactly how the Bush Administration has botched the war in Iraq, their response to the Pakistan question indicates that their ire is based on the fact that America is losing the war rather than an ideological difference on errors of pre-emptive wars in general.
This inability to apply the lesson of Iraq, to other cases suggests the reality that even under a Democratic president, there may be future Iraqs. The chilling tableau that the Democratic presidential candidates presented in raising their hands was one that illustrated this very message: we would do it again, in another country, if we thought we could win.
Rafia Zakaria is an attorney living in the United States where she teaches courses on Constitutional Law and Political Philosophy. She can be contacted at rafia.zakaria@gmail.com
Hassan becomes first Afghan cricketer to play for MCC
London, UNI: Hamid Hassan has become the first cricketer from Afghanistan to play for Marylebone Cricket Club in what is considered to be another step forward for the strife-torn country to qualify for the 2011 World Cup in the Indian sub-continent.
''I am hugely proud and very excited. It is absolutely a dream come true,'' Hassan told BBC Sport. Excited at the prospect of playing against Europe XI alongside former New Zealand all-rounder Chris Cairns and ex-England batsman John Stephenson, he said, ''To walk out at such a prestigious ground alongside such fantastic cricketers is an honour.''
The 20-year-old has been described by former England captain Mike Gatting as ''huge potential''. ''I want to show that, regardless of your origins or obstacles that may face you, you can be a success if you put your mind to it,'' Hassan added.
''I know where I was 12 months ago and I know how lucky I have been to have had advice and guidance from so many brilliant people, he said, adding, ''Now I want to show what I can do. I hope to develop my game, maybe with a second XI county side in the future, and repay the faith shown in me by some brilliant people.''
When asked if his country has the chance to qualify for the 2011 World Cup, an excited Hassan replied, ''That would be amazing, and Afghan cricket is really on the up. There is a lot of hard work going on behind the scenes and the aim is to put ourselves up there alongside Associate teams like Ireland and Bermuda.''
''That is the dream and that is what we're working towards.''
[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.] |
