In this bulletin:

• Bush, NATO head pledge to reduce Afghan casualties
• Afghan parliament suspends outspoken female lawmaker after critical TV interview
• 25 killed in southern Afghanistan
• Tankers for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan attacked in Pakistan
• UN appeals for halt to attacks on food convoys in Afghanistan
• AFGHANISTAN: Higher pay rates for poppy workers in volatile south
• Legalizing production would make Afghanistan a narco-welfare state
• Kazakh President announced the Special Program for Afghanistan
• Fighting Afghan polio
• Kabul to get 100-bed hospital
• 'One step at a time, one village at a time'

Bush, NATO head pledge to reduce Afghan casualties

President George W. Bush and NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer on Monday pledged to try to reduce civilian casualties in Afghanistan but blamed the Taliban for using human shields.

Ending talks at Bush's Texas ranch, they also said they would work to ease Russia's concerns about a U.S. missile shield in Eastern Europe aimed at countering threats from rogue states.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai has protested the rising civilian death toll from U.S. and NATO operations trying to defeat a spring offensive by the Taliban.

Afghan officials say dozens of civilians have been killed in recent weeks. The growing death toll has triggered protests by Afghans demanding Karzai's resignation and the expulsion of American troops from Afghanistan.

"The Taliban likes to surround themselves with innocent civilians," Bush said. "They don't mind using human shields because they devalue human life."

Karzai has said Afghanistan could no longer accept civilian casualties, and a U.S. military commander apologized for the killing of 19 civilians by U.S. soldiers during an attack in March.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force has about 37,000 troops in Afghanistan, including about 15,000 from the United States, according to the Pentagon. Germany has called for a review of the way Western forces operate in Afghanistan.

"Every innocent civilian fatality, death, is one too many," de Hoop Scheffer said. "But in a conflict, it is, from time to time, unavoidable."

He said NATO forces still had the support of a majority of the Afghan people, and that he had discussed the issue in a telephone conversation with Karzai a few days ago.

NATO forces were in a "different moral category" from the Taliban and insurgents who behead people and commit suicide bombings, he said.

"We still have very much the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, because they do see -- they do see -- that their nation, their own nation, has no future under Taliban rule," de Hoop Scheffer said.

Bush hosted the NATO secretary-general at his ranch in Crawford, Texas, giving him a mountain bike tour of his property on Monday morning.

The leaders agreed to work to allay Russian President Vladimir Putin's concerns about U.S. plans to build a missile shield in eastern Europe.

Russia said this month it would no longer inform NATO states about movements of troops on its territory, freezing its commitments under the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty because of the dispute over the missile shield.

"I will continue to reach out to Russia," Bush said. He noted that he sent Defense Secretary Robert Gates to Russia recently to make sure they understood the missile shield was not directed at them, but rather at other countries that could "affect the peace of Europe."

Afghan parliament suspends outspoken female lawmaker after critical TV interview

The Associated Press- Published: May 21, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan: Afghanistan's lower parliamentary house voted Monday to suspend an outspoken female lawmaker, who has enraged former mujahedeen fighters now in President Hamid Karzai's U.S.-backed government.

The lawmaker, Malalai Joya, 29, said in a recent interview with private Afghan station Tolo TV that the country's parliament was like a "stable or zoo."

"This is a word that fits — a cattle house is full of animals, like a cow giving milk, a donkey carrying something, a dog that's loyal," Joya said.

The video was shown in the legislature Monday, and angry lawmakers voted to suspend her, said parliamentary spokesman Haseb Noori.

No formal vote count was held, but a clear majority of lawmakers voted to suspend her for the rest of her five-year term by raising colored cards, Noori said. Parliament's Article 70 forbids lawmakers from insulting one another, Noori said.

Joya, elected in 2005, said the vote was a "political conspiracy" and that she had been told Article 70 was written specifically for her. She did not say who told her.

"Since I've started my struggle for human rights in Afghanistan, for women's rights, these criminals, these drug smugglers, they've stood against me from the first time I raised my voice at the Loya Jirga," she said, referring to the constitution-drafting constitution held several years ago.

Lower house speaker Yunus Qanooni told lawmakers that Joya's case would be introduced to "the court," without elaborating. When lawmakers asked why, Qanooni said, "If there is any issue, the court will explain it."

It was not immediately clear if a court could overturn Joya's suspension. Joya, a women's rights campaigner from Farah province, rose to prominence in 2003 when she branded powerful Afghan warlords as criminals during the Loya Jirga.

Many commanders who fought occupying Soviet troops in the 1980s still control provincial fiefdoms, and have been accused of human rights abuses and corruption.

After ousting the Soviets, the militias turned on each other in a brutal civil war that destroyed most of the capital, Kabul.

Some faction leaders, like former President Burhanuddin Rabbani and Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a deeply conservative Islamist, have been elected as lawmakers. Others, like northern strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum, were appointed to the government by Karzai.

Sayed Alami Balkhi, a lawmaker from the northern province of Balkh, said the speaker of the upper house had sent the lower house a letter Sunday, saying Joya had humiliated and attacked both houses.

"If the lower house does not take a decision about her, we will take a decision," Balkhi quoted the letter as saying.

Joya's outspoken ways have earned her many enemies in Afghanistan. In February, during a rally to support a proposed amnesty for Afghans suspected of war crimes, thousands of former fighters shouted "Death to Malalai Joya!"

Last May, Joya called some lawmakers "warlords" in a parliamentary speech, prompting some lawmakers to throw water bottles at her. A minor scuffle broke out between her supporters and detractors, and Joya later said some legislators had threatened to rape her as payback.

Joya said Monday that if she could not remain in the parliament, she would fight against "criminals" independently.

She said if anything were to happen to her — a reference to a possible assassination attempt — that "everyone would know" that people she has criticized would be responsible.

"I'm not alone," she told reporters. "The international community is with me and all the Afghan people are with me."

via the International Herald Tribune

25 killed in southern Afghanistan

By RAHIM FAIEZ Associated Press / May 21, 2007

KABUL, Afghanistan - Suspected insurgents ambushed a U.S.-led coalition and Afghan patrol in the volatile south, sparking a battle and airstrikes that killed 25 suspected insurgents, officials said Monday.

The coalition said the joint forces were attacked while on a patrol in the Sangin district of Helmand province on Sunday. An estimated 50 Taliban reinforcement fighters came by foot and boat along the Helmand River from surrounding areas, the coalition said in a statement.

Coalition airstrikes bombed seven compounds, resulting in three secondary explosions from suspected weapons caches, it said. It said there were "several" confirmed militant deaths during the 14-hour battle and no reports of civilian injuries.

The Afghan Defense Ministry said the clash and airstrikes in Sangin killed 25 suspected Taliban, including a group leader identified as Mullah Younus.

NATO is pushing ahead with Operation Achilles, its largest ever operation involving some 4,500 NATO troops and 1,000 Afghan soldiers. Achilles is centered in northern Helmand province, the country's opium heartland and a Taliban stronghold.

In eastern Nangarhar province, a roadside bomb hit a police vehicle in the district of Dara-I-Nur, killing two policemen and wounding seven others, said police chief Gen. Abdul Ghafar Pacha.

Meanwhile, a British soldier died Sunday of wounds from an accident at a British military base in Sangin, the British Ministry of Defense said.

On Sunday, a suicide bomber walked into a crowded market in the eastern city of Gardez and blew himself up, killing 14 people and wounding 31, officials and witnesses said.

The attack damaged around 30 shops, shattering windows and destroying the stores closest to the explosion.

Witnesses said a convoy of foreign troops appeared to be the target of the Gardez bomber, but that it already had passed when the bomber struck.

Maj. William Mitchell, a spokesman for NATO's International Security Assistance Force, said there were initial reports of injuries to ISAF soldiers, though he didn't have further details.

Six people died at the scene of the blast, police said. Another eight later died in hospital, said Ghulam Hazrat Majedi, the doctor in charge of the Gardez hospital. He said two of the 31 wounded were in critical condition.

Nasar Ahmad, a 30-year-old shopkeeper whose three cousins were seriously hurt in the blast, said he saw a U.S. convoy driving through the city just before the explosion.

Shah Mohammad, 19, said all those killed or wounded by the blast were Afghan civilians.

Violence in Afghanistan has increased sharply in the last several weeks. More than 1,600 people, have been killed in insurgency-related violence this year, according to an Associated Press count based on U.S., NATO and Afghan officials. The dead have mostly been militants, but about 300 civilians also have died in the violence.

Tankers for U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan attacked in Pakistan

Xinhua / May 21, 2007 At least 10 tankers, carrying oil for the U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan, were destroyed early Monday morning when two missiles hit them at a Pakistani border area, witnesses said.

The private NNI news agency quoted the witnesses as saying that the tankers caught fire at the Pakistani border town of Torkhum, in North West Frontier Province.

No one was hurt in the attack at 4 a.m. local time.

Witnesses said that the missiles were fired at tankers, standing at a parking lot near the border.

Three missiles were also defused. A team of bomb disposal squad was called from the provincial capital of Peshawar to defuse the missiles.

No group claimed responsibility for the attack but Taliban in the past had claimed carrying out similar attacks.

Locals said that the missiles were fired from a small mountain.

Officials said that the missiles were fired through remote control.

The attack could not affect the cross-border traffic and it remained unaffected.

It is the second attack on oil tankers, carrying oil for American-led forces, in three weeks.

Eight oil tankers were destroyed when missiles hit them in Landi Kotal area of Pakistan's Kheyber tribal region.

Torakhum is one of the official border points between Pakistan and Afghanistan and is also the major trade route.

Dozens of containers and tankers, carrying goods and oil for U. S.-led forces in Afghanistan cross the border point daily.

Taliban have repeatedly warned Pakistan drivers not to carry goods and oil for the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to avoid their attacks.

UN appeals for halt to attacks on food convoys in Afghanistan

21 May 2007 – The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) today appealed for an end to the increasing attacks on food convoys in the southern part of the strife-torn country.

ôThe UN has been working in Afghanistan for half a century to help people in need, and these food supplies are destined for some of the country╝s most vulnerable people in some of the most vulnerable communities,╜ UNAMA spokesperson Adrian Edwards said in Kabul.

Over the past 11 months there have been 16 incidents in which convoys of the UN World Food Programme (WFP) have been attacked, and food and vehicles damaged or stolen, with seven of the attacks occurring since the start of April.

We call upon those responsible to immediately halt these acts, which are robbing Afghanistan of badly needed aid,╜ Mr. Edwards said.

At his press conference today, Mr. Edwards also reported on the situation of Afghan migrants who have been deported from Iran, following an assessment mission conducted by UNAMA with other agencies to the transit centre in Farah province, where the returnees are being assisted before returning to their places of origin around the country.

According to the latest figures, over 1,000 families have registered with the Farah authorities, while over 70,000 returnees have come through the transit centres in Herat, though the number of new returnees had fallen off in both locations.

Mr. Edwards said that WFP has provided one month╝s food rations for over 250 families in and around Farah and a food convoy is on its way this week to the on of the Herat centres.

The UN continues to watch the situation, he said, and will decide later this week whether more food supplies are needed.

AFGHANISTAN: Higher pay rates for poppy workers in volatile south

LASGHKARGAH, 21 May 2007 (IRIN) - Standing in the middle of a large field, Khair Mohammad, 27, uses a sharp razor to lance chest-high poppy plants in the outskirts of Lashkargah, the provincial capital of the southern Afghan province of Helmand.

Lancing should take place in the afternoons in order to sun-block the seeping opiate from drying up quickly. Early the following morning workers hang plastic bags from their necks and collect raw opiate either with the same razor or their fingers.

Mohammad earns about US$15 a day for 12 hours onerous work under a scorching sun. "This is a lot of money," the young poppy harvester said, "I will work hard for one month and my family will be better off for months".

Mohammad said he came to work in volatile Helmand from his native Ghazni province in eastern Afghanistan, because he could not find a job there. "Thousands of men have come from Ghazni and other provinces to work in Helmand and neighbouring areas where poppy is cultivated on a large scale," another harvester, Rozi Gul, told IRIN in Lashkargah.

In 2006, over 2 million people worked in poppy fields throughout Afghanistan, according to the UN. Provincial officials in Helmand province say thousands of workers also come from neighbouring Pakistan to work in the poppy fields.

"Like it or not Afghanistan's poppy fields have regional and global economic implications," said a government official who declined to be identified.

In Helmand and its neighbouring provinces farmers have cultivated more poppy than ever before, but growing insecurity has affected the poppy job market in the region.

"People [labourers] fear to come to Helmand because of the conflict. That is why we are paying higher rates than last year," said Khair Mohammad, a poppy farmer in Helmand.

"In Nangarhar and other relatively calm provinces a poppy labourer is paid about 400 Afghanis [$8 per day] while in Helmand it is double [that figure]," said Shirish Ravan, an official with the United Nations Office for Drugs and Crimes (UNODC) in Afghanistan.

Production rising

Afghanistan produces more than 90 percent of the world's heroin, according to the UNODC, and Helmand alone produces over 35 percent of the country's opium.

According to UNODC statistics, in 2006 Afghanistan produced a record 6,100 tonnes of opium and grew poppies on 165,000 hectares of land - an area roughly the same size as two-thirds of Luxemburg.

The UN's drug agency estimates the country will produce more opium in 2007 than it did last year.

Of the $3.1 billion that Afghanistan's opium industry produced last year, only 24 percent reached Afghans including local farmers, labourers and traders, the Afghan government said. The bulk of the country's illicit capital goes to regional and global smuggling networks that have multifaceted relations with organised crime and "terrorist" groups, analysts say.

Health risks

Back on the poppy fields, lancing-and-robbing is an arduous task, which requires a poppy field labourer to work half-bowed for hours. Many labourers complain about lumbago and pain in the legs.

Moreover, extensive exposure to raw opium pushes many labourers towards drug addiction, Afghanistan's Ministry of Counter Narcotics (MCN) has found.

Some labourers use their fingers, instead of a flat razor, to collect raw opiates. It is common for harvesters to lick their fingers, a spokesman for MCN said.

Labourers also inhale a strong opiate odour during working hours which exacerbates their vulnerability to drug addiction. "I always feel dizzy while I work in the field," a labourer admitted. Another worker said he started using opium regularly after he first worked on poppy fields for over a month in 2006.

It is unclear whether all poppy labourers realise the risks they are taking in their job, but Ravan from UNODC says: "If they had alternative opportunities, I don't think they would do this intensive and risky job."

Opposing view: Current strategy is sound

Legalizing production would make Afghanistan a narco-welfare state.

Opinion

USA Today / May 21, 2007 By Thomas A. Schweich and R. Gainer Lamar

The proposed legalization of the Afghan opium crop does not withstand even modest analytical scrutiny:

* The price of opium on the legal market is $16-$49 per kilo vs. roughly $138 per kilo on the illegal market. Afghan farmers would have no incentive to switch to the legal market — which pays a third as much as the illegal market.

To address this fact, legalization advocates propose a system of massive subsidies to make up the price difference. Currently, less than 15% of the Afghan population is involved in the opium trade, but with a guaranteed high price, the whole country would grow poppy. Considering that the crop is already worth $755 million to those few Afghans who grow poppy, a dramatically increased supply would raise the cost of a buyout to many billions of dollars per year, with no end in sight. Afghanistan would become a narco-welfare state with American taxpayers picking up the bill.

* Not only is the legalization idea prohibitively expensive, but it would create an economy dependent on one commodity. This approach contradicts all our experience with effective development, which thrives on economic diversification and a free market.

* Almost insurmountable hurdles to legalization remain. In India, one of the oldest legal opium producers in the world, 20%-30% of its closely-monitored crop is diverted to the illegal market each year. How could Afghanistan, a much less developed country with a much bigger crop, prevent major diversion into the illegal opium market?

* Advocates of legalization also argue that more opium is needed to address an alleged world shortage of painkillers. According to international experts, including the United Nations, there is no shortage of raw material for painkillers. In fact, there is an oversupply.

* Efforts to change the system for legal opium, which is governed by U.N. agreements, has already met strong opposition from existing supplier countries.

The current strategy — education, demand reduction, alternative development, eradication, interdiction and prosecution — has reduced or eliminated poppy in Pakistan, Laos, Thailand and other nations. It requires time and political will. Let's not divert the world's attention from sound policy toward pie-in-the-sky solutions with no chance of success.

Thomas A. Schweich is the U.S. coordinator for Afghan counternarcotics and justice reform. R. Gainer Lamar is his adviser.

Kazakh President announced the Special Program for Afghanistan

MoFa: Posted On: May 21, 2007

H.E Nursultan Nazarbayev, the president of Republic of Kazakhstan in his opening speech of the Ministerial Meeting of the 63rd session of the UNESCAP in Almaty, said “A special Program for Afghanistan is being developed in Kazakhstan, which includes strengthening humanitarian and economic cooperation, investing into the Afghan economy and skill development”.

Kazakhstan will finance the construction of a hospital and school in Bamyan and Samangan provinces. Kazakhstan is also interested in investing in transport and exploitation of the natural resources in Afghanistan.

In the other development, the delegation of Afghanistan led by H.E Dr. Shams, minister of economy had bilateral talks with the Kazakh Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Trade and Industries and the Chairman of Investment Fund of Kazakhstan. Issues related to trade, energy, transport and capacity building were discussed at the meetings.

H.E Dr. Shams also met the Finance minister of Bangladesh at the sideline of the UNESCAP ministerial meeting. Strengthening economic ties between two countries and training of Afghan officials and learning from the experiences of Bangladesh were the main topic of the discussion.

Fighting Afghan polio

Edmonton Sun (Canada) / / May 21, 2007 By CP

KANDAHAR, Afghanistan -- Health officials launched a different sort of Afghan offensive yesterday as a brigade of volunteer soldiers armed with clipboards, chalk and tiny bottles of vaccine fanned out across the city, hunting an invisible enemy that preys on the poor and the young.

The World Health Organization, UNICEF and the Canadian International Development Agency are among the partners in an ongoing effort to push polio out of Afghanistan, one of only four countries in the world where conflict and poverty have conspired to allow its resurgence.

Two recently confirmed cases in the southern part of the country prompted yesterday's start of a special round of vaccinations.

Volunteers braved the perils of Kandahar city by going door-to-door and administering two drops of oral vaccine to every child under the age of five, said Arshad Quddus of the WHO's Kabul office.

"The objective is to interrupt the transmission of this virus, which is only now confined to the two provinces in this country," Quddus said in an interview at Kandahar city's dilapidated Mirwais Hospital.

"If we can interrupt the transmission in these remaining two provinces, there is a very bright chance for Afghanistan to become polio-free."

Over a rickety table at the hospital's main entrance, a steady stream of parents surrendered wailing children to a friendly, wizened old man, who gently squeezed open the mouths of the less co-operative youngsters, dispensing his vaccine with a toothy grin.

He then used a black felt-tip pen to crudely mark a tiny fingernail to identify a vaccinated child.

Beyond the relative safety of the hospital gate, burka-clad volunteers banged on rusty tin doors and asked family members to round up youngsters, using chalk to make Pashto markings on the wall to indicate an immunized household.

Others in the entourage cast edgy glances up and down the dusty, mud-walled alley, well aware that Kandahar remains in the grips of a security alert in the wake of last week's deadly Taliban bombings, which targeted police and government officials.

"It's very challenging work, particularly considering the security situation," Quddus said. "One of the biggest challenges is inaccessibility in some of the seriously security-compromised areas."

Polio is a highly contagious, incurable viral infection of the nervous system, which can cause crippling paralysis or even death within hours of infection.

At its peak, polio paralyzed and killed up to half a million people every year, before Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine in 1954.

Afghanistan is home to an estimated 7.3 million children aged five and under. The current campaign aims to vaccinate 1.2 million of them in the provinces of Kandahar and neighbouring Helmand, including 350,000 children in Kandahar city alone.

Many of those in the city are orphans or living on the street, which poses its own challenges, Quddus added.

"We try to make sure to catch all these children, who are probably at a high risk of being missed," he said. "We have teams at the bus station, we have teams in the markets and in the streets, to vaccinate those children, and we have special teams for the nomads."

Indeed, even a country as racked by war as Afghanistan seems at times overrun with children. They chase barefoot after coalition convoys or tug on sleeves at the weekly bazaar, trying to lure off-duty soldiers to their trinket-laden tables.

In the villages, they lurk warily behind the billowy folds of an elder's shalwar pants, emerging only to accept an offer of candy or a toy. They're the lucky ones.

"A great many of them are just in the streets, and they scrounge, or they starve," said John Manley, a former deputy prime minister in Jean Chretien's Liberal government and now a member of CARE Canada's board of directors.

"It's just another of the countless problems this country faces ... It's a problem that doesn't have a lot of people working on it, as far as I can tell."

CARE CANADA

Manley spent much of last week in Kabul, grounded by sandstorms that thwarted plans to look for potential projects for CARE Canada to support in and around Kandahar, a part of the country where it has relatively little activity.

During his visit, he consulted a focus group comprised of local women about what they considered the most pressing aid priorities.

"One of the top items was classes in literacy," Manley said. While only two or three out of the group of 25 had literacy skills, all of them had children in school, "including all of the girls," Manley added.

"This is pretty good progress, considering where we were five years ago, when no girls were in school."

Orphans were also high on the group's list, he said. "That was one of the other concerns - what about the children with no parents?"

Just down the road from the rusty MiG fighter that guards the gate to Kandahar Airfield, a 30-year-old man named Hekmatullah - like many Afghans, he uses only one name - operates the Shaheed A. Ahad Karzai Orphanage, which runs largely on determination and coalition generosity.

In the last five years, the facility, which operates as an elementary school during the day and an orphanage by night, has swelled to about 360 day students and 40 dirt-poor children who are permanent residents. There are 32 staff members, including 12 teachers.

Three years ago, the U.S. provincial reconstruction team began rebuilding the facility with the help of the Afghan National Army.

Last year, Canada's PRT provided chairs, tables, freezers and school supplies, and recently delivered a shipment of blankets and shoes, said Canadian Forces spokesman Lieut. (Navy) Desmond James.

"In orphanage, they can make their future, they can get a good education, and they could be saved from drugs and other bad activities," said Haji Ghani, a local Kandahar resident who supports Hekmatullah's work.

"The orphanage should be supported by the Afghan government and Canadians as well. It is a very important place and it needs very much attention from Canadians."

For Manley, it's one more reason why Canada shouldn't be in a hurry to pull its troops out of Afghanistan. CIDA has already invested more than $1 billion here, including $5 million for the polio campaign, and the investment demands continued nurturing, he said.

Manley said he's been frustrated with the character of the political discourse surrounding Canada's mission in Afghanistan, and called on all sides to abandon the partisan bickering and give the issue the careful consideration it deserves.

"It's not something for passionate debate, but something to be carefully reasoned out and discussed with our allies in terms of what we should do," he said.

"We spend a lot of time trying to determine Canada's place in the world. When we find one, we shouldn't be too quick to abandon it."

Kabul to get 100-bed hospital

Zarghona Salehi/Sher Ahmad Haidar 

KABUL, May 19 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Health Minister Muhammad Amin Fatimi on Saturday said the United States and Saudi Arabia had assured of their assistance in bringing improvement in the health sector.

Speaking at a news conference here, the minister said a 100-bed hospital would be established in the capital city with financial assistance from the United Arab Emirates (UAE).

Fatimi, who attended the 60th summit of the World Health Organisation (WHO) in Geneva, said his counterparts from UAE, Saudi Arabia and the United States had promised of their support in health sector.

He said health minister of the United Arab Emirates would soon visit Afghanistan to perform the groundbreaking ceremony of the hospital north of the Kabul International Airport.

The United States would train Afghan doctors, provide equipment for laboratories and help health ministry in discouraging sale of expired medicines and food items.

The two-week WHO summit is still in progress in Geneva. However, the minister said he had to return to the country before scheduled time due to the issue of refugees' eviction from Iran.

Started on May 14, the summit is being attended by health ministers and officials from 190 countries. Key issues before the members are polio eradication, and measures against diseases like tuberculosis and malaria.

Fatimi said child mortality rate had considerable dropped over the previous four years. The rate, which was 257/1,000 in 2003, had now been plummeted to 210.

The minister said the country needed at least 500 more health centres and clinics to cater to the needs of the population across the country.

Meanwhile, work was launched on construction of the Hakim Sanayee Shrine Park in Ghazni province on Saturday. The park will be built at the cost of 12.5 million afghanis.

Being constructed on 5.5 acres of land, the park will have all the modern facilities like gardens, electricity, fast food stalls and fixed seats.

Mayor of the city Hakim Ghazniwal, told Pajhwok funds for the construction work was provided by the municipality. He said the project would be completed in three months.

'One step at a time, one village at a time'

Slowly – and not without danger – Canadians are helping ordinary Afghans rebuild their lives

MURRAY CAMPBELL May 21, 2007 at 1:00 AM EDT

CAMP NATHAN SMITH, AFGHANISTAN — Sometimes, when the Taliban aren't breathing down their necks, the guys like to tease Captain Bob Wheeler by calling him the Duke of Dand for all the largesse he gets to hand out in the district around Kandahar.

In truth, there isn't that much money – a couple of thousand dollars here and there – and his superiors aren't fond of the image of a soldier as seigneur. But, noble or not, Capt. Wheeler is an enormously influential guy in the Dand district of Kandahar province.

As the point man for Canada's civil-military reconstruction effort, it's his job to see that money for projects is spent wisely on the things that Afghans need. More important, he needs to ensure that the credit goes not to Canadians but to the people struggling to build a civil society in this war-torn country.

If all goes well, Canadian officials meet with village locals to help them identify their needs and tell them there will be aid if they organize the work themselves. Then, when the project is finished, Capt. Wheeler comes to inspect and arranges to pay the bills.

On Saturday, for example, he travelled 15 kilometres in an armed convoy from Kandahar to the dusty village of Ghanzi to close the books on eight new wells that had been dug at a cost to Canadian taxpayers of maybe $2,500.

A village leader, Mohammad Sawer, took him to most of the pumps, proudly showing the water that flowed from them. He couldn't stop smiling. Later, in another village filled with wrecked tanks from the Soviet era, Capt. Wheeler inspected the $4,000 in renovations that were being done on a mosque while a large group of residents, clearly pleased at the new carpet and fresh paint, followed in his footsteps.

“One step at a time,” the 46-year-old Newfoundlander said of his morning's work. “One village at a time.”

For much of the past five years, Canada's mission in Afghanistan has been dominated by the urgent need to quell the Taliban insurgency. This has meant that the other two policy pillars – to help in reconstruction and to boost the prospects of democratic governance – have had less attention.

This started to change in February, 2006, when Canadians took over from U.S. forces a former Soviet fruit-canning operation on the northern edge of Kandahar, named it after one of the soldiers killed in the 2002 friendly fire bombing, and established a provincial reconstruction team (PRT).

But it was only after the end of Operation Medusa, the fierce offensive last autumn in Panjwai and Zhari districts, that the wheels started moving. From an almost standing start this winter, the influence of the PRT, which combines the military, civilian police, Correctional Services Canada, CIDA and the Department of Foreign Affairs, has spread in Kandahar province.

Nearly 400 projects have been planned or completed since February, more than in all of 2006. They aren't necessarily big time; the vast majority cost just a few hundred dollars. (CIDA's $5-million contribution to a polio vaccination program is an exception.) And they certainly aren't splashy.

The Americans are famous for coming in, dropping big bucks, flying the flag and leaving behind the result. The Canadians operate more for the long term as in the parable about teaching a man to fish rather than giving him a fish for that night's dinner. The PRT philosophy is that projects will only endure if the Afghans themselves play the major role in them.

It's a tweaking of the “hearts and minds” campaign that most Canadians think is being waged, says camp commander Lieutenant-Colonel Bob Chamberlain. He says Afghans want the hope — for a better life and some say in the decisions that affect them — that political stability will bring them.

“Their hearts are already in it,” he said. “Their minds are getting around the challenges of how to have improved stability while there is still clearly an ongoing insurgency to defeat.”

Indeed, the Taliban are never far from anyone's mind. It's like Fort Apache the Bronx, the movie where cops operate in hostile territory. Whenever Capt. Wheeler or anyone else leaves, it is in a convoy of armoured troop carriers, chiefly the eight-passenger RG-31, a South African vehicle that looks like a Hummer on steroids and has a remote-operated gun on the roof.

Everyone on board wears a helmet and flak jacket and (a journalist and a translator excepted) carries a loaded standard-issue C-7 rifle. It may not be the friendliest way to present a hearts-and-minds approach but it's unavoidable. “Everything is done within that security bubble,” said Lt.-Col. Chamberlain. He won't talk about attacks on PRT convoys other than to say “we've had a few threats.”

Part of the response is to train the Afghans to shoulder some of the burden. To that end, RCMP officers on Saturday were teaching nine eager recruits to the Afghan National Police how to handcuff a suspect. But a tour yesterday of police checkpoints in the hills around Kandahar showed that it is two steps forward, one step back.

RCMP Sergeant Dave Muirhead was hit with complaints that promised weapons had not yet been delivered and that there were shortages of everything from uniforms and boots to fuel for generators. At one temporary checkpoint, the officers had left because they had heard a Taliban attack was imminent and they didn't have the weapons or ammunition to deal with it.

But Sgt. Muirhead was also embraced by Noor Mohammad, the deputy commander of a checkpoint off what the Canadian soldiers call Miller Lite road. Mr. Mohammad, an imposing man whose white teeth shine out from a jet-black beard, invited the Canadians into his spare command post for a cup of tea as he presented his wish list.

He knew that the Canadians couldn't give him everything he wants but he held no hard feelings.

“We appreciate your help because you are thousands of miles away from your families,” he said.

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