Hamid Karzai's former chief of staff demands a retraction from the NDP following the party's claim that the Canadian military penned a speech given by the Afghan president

Kate Lunau | Sep 27, 2007 MACLEANS Magaznie

Denouncing recent allegations by the NDP as "baseless" and "deeply offensive," the Afghan president's former chief of staff is to send a letter to party leadership calling for a retraction, according to Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada Omar Samad.

The letter, which Samad told Macleans.ca will be sent "within the next day or two," follows accusations from the NDP that the Canadian military penned a speech given by Afghan President Hamid Karzai in Canadian Parliament on Sept. 22, 2006. In the speech, Karzai praised the Canadian military effort in Afghanistan, and denounced NDP leader Jack Layton for his opposition to the mission.

Jawad Ludin, who was Karzai's chief of staff at the time the speech was given and is now the ambassador to Norway, wrote the letter to the NDP. The letter will not be publicly available, Samad said. He noted that Ludin "was responsible for putting [the speech] together with the help of Afghan diplomats and senior advisors." While preparing the speech, Ludin requested statistics on the Canadian military presence and development aid to Afghanistan, Samad said.

In an interview with Macleans.ca, Samad reiterated his outrage at the NDP's allegations. "My initial reaction was to laugh about this, and then to feel somewhat insulted," Samad said. "I hope the NDP realizes they have jumped to a conclusion that is not accurate, and there may also have been some inaccuracy in the report they saw."

Karzai reviewed the speech in question several times before delivering it before Parliament, and at times spoke spontaneously without referring to his notes, Samad said.

"There is a lot of bilateral discussion that goes on prior to an important visit, or a speech or communiqué," Samad emphasized. "To say that some raw data or statistics being given constitutes writing a speech is far-fetched."

Ottawa – Omar Samad, Afghanistan’s Ambassador to Canada issued the following statement this afternoon:

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s speech delivered last year in the Parliament of Canada was an Afghan speech highlighting achievements and challenges, expressing the thoughts and wishes of the Afghan people as well as the views of the country’s elected leader.

The draft were conceived and written by key officials within the President’s office in conjunction with Afghan diplomats, and was accompanied with personal input from and direct supervision by the President.

Afghanistan’s 88 th Independence Day anniversary was officially celebrated by the Embassy for the first time in Canada on Thursday.

The Embassy hosted a reception at the Cartier Drill Hall, where more than 250 guests heard the Afghan Ambassador thank Canada and specific grassroots and non-governmental organizations for their contributions and help for the Afghan people.

Canada’s Associate Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs and interdepartmental coordinator for Afghanistan, Mr. David Mulroney, Spoke on behalf of the Government, reiterating Canada’s continued support for Afghanistan.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai spoke candidly at the Third National Conference on Counter Narcotics in Kabul on Wednesday. Reiterating Afghanistan's commitment to fight the narcotics problem, and asking the Afghan people to do their share, he asked international stakeholders, the international community and countries of the region to do more to help stem opium production and crack down on the drug trade.

Following the latest report released by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime that shows a new high in opium production in Afghanistan for 2007, the President also asked the international community to expand its co-operation with the Afghan government. He said the fact that worldwide trade of opium is in the hands of the international criminal organizations necessitates joint international co-operation to combat it.

The President pointed to several accomplishments, including the increase in the number of poppy-free provinces from six to 13 over the past year, and further reduction in several others where security and government presence is strongest.

Alluding to the growth of opium production in several southern and eastern provinces, especially Helmand, President Karzai blamed the international community for failing to do enough joint planning with the Afghan side.

Although the lead country -- in this case the United Kingdom -- has worked hard to help Afghans, he urged donors to do more to co-ordinate security-related and anti-drug activities at the national and provincial levels with Afghan authorities.

As demonstrated by the survey, there is a direct link between the expansion of government authority, security and decrease in poppy cultivation. The production levels have gone up in provinces where criminality and Taliban activity present the greatest threats. This means that counter-narcotics and counter-insurgency strategies need to be further linked.

Moreover, insecurity has limited the ability of the central government and donors to provide economic development, alternative livelihood programs, new jobs, civil society activities, investment and even education services.

While Afghanistan should be helped to continue to fight a culture of impunity that exists in certain parts of its society, different forms of practical incentives -- development, building infrastructure, providing alternative

crops, financial remuneration and job creation initiatives -- have encouraged farmers not to revert to poppy planting. Yet there is still more that can be done. Various approaches to poppy eradication need to be addressed and resolved amongst international proponents first, before they are debated and approved by the Afghan government and parliament.

Calls from certain quarters to legalize Afghanistan's opium poppy crop, given Afghanistan's real challenges with governance, rule of law, institution building and national security, remain a dangerous idea.

The proposal, which calls for a licensing platform allowing farmers to grow opium for medicinal use, will remain unfeasible for as long as violence disrupts normalcy and prevents a viable government presence in all regions affected by the insurgency. Illegal armed activity, farmer harassment and a black market-driven local economy will surely drive the license market out of business.

Conducting polls in countries like Canada about the Afghan poppy legalization scheme (as done by the Senlis Council recently) raises questions about the motivations, the relevance to the target audience and the politics behind the demand for legalization. It is the Afghans who will decide whether a certain plan is best suited to help them resolve this all-encompassing poppy-related problem, not political parties or interest groups overseas.

The present solution to Afghanistan's troubles lies in keeping the population on the government's side through the accelerated buildup and reform of administrative, judicial and security structures while supporting intensive development and alternative livelihoods until full security in all of Afghanistan is reached.

And we can all be certain that it will take several years of collective effort, co-ordination and the will to address all dimensions of this problem, much of it rooted in poverty and a troubled history of warfare, before it is overcome.

-Omar Samad is Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada

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