BBC News July 1
By Aunohita Mojumdar
BBC News, Kabul
It sounds like an old joke - a farmer, a cook, a mason and a schoolteacher go climbing together.
But this unlikely foursome from the Wakhi community in north-eastern Afghanistan hopes to make mountaineering history.
On Thursday, they aim to become the first ever Afghans to scale the country's highest mountain peak, Mount Noshaq, in a remote corner of Badakshan province.
At 7,492m (25,000 ft), Noshaq is the second-highest peak of the famous Hindu Kush range - only just topped by the tallest summit, Tirich Mir.
Mt Noshaq is located at the beginning of the Wakhan corridor, the tiny strip of land jutting out of Afghanistan, like a finger pointing towards China, a corridor that separated British Imperial India from Tsarist Russia.
From mujahideen to mountaineering
In the 1960s and 1970s the mountain peaks along the Wakhan were an international draw.
“ I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes - I just started climbing ”
Afiyat Khan Afghan mountaineer
Three decades of war, however, ended that.
International teams abandoned the area as many Afghans struggled for survival.
Among them was Afiyat Khan.
Losing his father at a young age, he dropped out of school and signed up with the mujahideen, joining Northern Alliance commanders in the only area of the country to keep the Taliban at bay.
He emerged from the war to become a skilled master mason.
But stories of his father, who worked with visiting tourists, stayed with him.
"I just had the idea that someday I wanted to climb the mountains," he recalled.
The opportunity came in 2002 when an accomplished Italian climber, Carlo Alberto Pinelli, came to revive mountaineering in Afghanistan, and train local Afghan youths.
Mr Khan joined immediately.
"At that time I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes. I just started climbing."
Since then he has been to the Alps on several professional training courses - the latest in April and May.
Mt Noshaq was first ascended in 1960 by a Japanese team and most recently tackled, by a European-led expedition, in 2003.
But the peak has never been conquered by Afghans before.
Making the July expedition possible is a young group of Frenchmen who have been living and working in Afghanistan for the past several years: Louis Meunier, Jerome Veyret and Nicolas Fasquelleis.
'Symbol of hope'
"This is a symbolic expedition," said Mr Meunier who was in Kabul last week to finish buying supplies and equipment.
"The idea is to plant an Afghan flag at the top, as a symbol of hope and achievement in Afghanistan."
“ There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain ”
Afghan proverb
The expedition is being launched under the aegis of the Rome-based organisation, Mountain Wilderness and the French national Alpine skiing school among others, but has been organised by the three Frenchmen.
The team comprises the four Afghan climbers and two experienced international guides as well as Mr Munier and Mr Veyret.
It aims to "send a message of peace and hope and to foster national pride and unity".
"This will be a strong positive message illustrating the determination of Afghans to overcome difficulties and bring peace and success to a country torn apart by 30 years of war," the expedition's mission statement says.
There is also a more concrete aim. They hope to pave the way for more high-altitude adventures and sustainable tourism in the area.
Despite the violence in other parts of the country, the Wakhan region has remained safe.
Tourism here has been growing steadily, with visitors lured by the area's spectacular beauty and its gentle inhabitants.
The area is surrounded by the Pamir, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and each valley is distinct.
'Luck and pluck'
Add to that the pristine peaks and beautiful rivers, and there is every reason for it to prove catnip to tourists and climbers in search of pastures new.
Increased tourism would give a welcome cash injection.
The inhabitants of the Wakhan corridor live off subsistence agriculture and herding, with the semi-arid zone yielding few crops.
No-one knows this better than the four Wakhis about to attempt the Noshaq.
Mr Khan himself has worked as a porter on previous expeditions.
Now their own mission will bring short-term employment to the 80 porters who will accompany them to base camp.
Training in the Alps, none of the four has climbed heights beyond 6,000m (20,000 ft).
Much of the success of the attempt will depend on good weather, luck and sheer pluck.
Despite a short warm season, the weather in the area is considered ideal for climbing, as is the short distance from the road to base camp.
Adopted as the motto of the expedition is an Afghan proverb that seems to echo not just the determination of the mission, but even the lives of the climbers.
It simply says: "There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain."
September 06, 2009
Fighting season
Himal July 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
As everyone braces for a bloody summer, the new US administration has shaken up its top military command in Afghanistan. But is the continued focus on the military intervention still too predominant?
The commemoration of World Refugee Day, on 20 June, was marked in Afghanistan by an announcement by the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, that the movement of people across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had changed in character for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, when Russia imposed a government in 1978. Instead of the ‘classical’ movement of Afghan refugees crossing into Pakistan, a recent study by the agency suggested, this movement was now becoming increasingly ‘normalised’, with most of the crossborder movement that of economic migrants rather than those fleeing war. Yet while the agency’s country office touted this as a positive trend, behind the numbers is another story.
An understanding of the complexity of the situation seems to be tacit within UNHCR, as well. As the agency’s Afghanistan director, Ewen Macleod, pointed out, “People are moving increasingly for social and economic purposes to and from Afghanistan. But this does not mean that the factors that can give rise to refugee flight or internal displacement have been fully overcome.” The findings of the study, which mapped the border crossings at Torkham and Spin Boldak, could largely be a result of the fact that Pakistan is not only unwilling to continue to host Afghan refugees, but is also pressuring the remaining refugees to leave the country. With camps forcibly shut down, harassment from the authorities and the deteriorating economic and security situation within Pakistan, Afghans have little option but to head back to their own country.
Those who were forced to flee within Afghanistan are now forced to take shelter in another part of the country, thus becoming what the jargon would describe as ‘internally displaced persons’. According to UNHCR, precise figures about the number of such IDPs within Afghanistan are hard to come by, as access to insecure areas is limited and many ‘displacements’ last for only a short period. However, the estimates of those displaced internally during the last three decades of conflict by violence, drought and poverty, and those recently displaced by fighting in the southern provinces, is conservatively estimated to be 235,000.
Such numbers have, unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the very top levels of the international community. The situation has been so acute that it prompted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, to warn in mid-June that the refugee situations around the world “do not include the millions more uprooted people who are displaced within their own countries and who far outnumber the world’s refugees. Many of them have also been unable to return home, sometimes for decades.” Guterres continued: “Although international law distinguishes between refugees and the internally displaced, such distinctions are absurd to those who have been forced from their homes and who have lost everything. Uprooted people are equally deserving of help whether they have crossed an international border or not.”
US military dominance
Many within Afghanistan humanitarian agencies expect that the increased fighting following the influx of some 20,000 additional US troops in recent months will result in greater displacement. In a joint report issued in early April, a number of reputed international humanitarian agencies warned that social protection and access to basic services were being adversely affected by the widening conflict, “with significant levels of displacement and severe disruption of health and education services”. The report, released by agencies such as Oxfam, Care International, ActionAid and DACAAR, continued: “Planned increases in troops and military operations during 2009 are likely to lead to higher levels of displacement, further restrictions on social services and greater impediments for aid agencies to reach civilians in need of protection and assistance.” Yet, such considerations were not being adequately factored into international security strategies, the agencies warned.
There is one thing that the various aid agencies and military actors agree upon, however. There is common expectation of increased violence and of still-bloodier fighting over the summer of 2009. Still, there is almost no agreement on the assumed impact of this fighting, nor how to deal with it. While the military forces expect that civilian aid will be used in support of military operations, both to mitigate the losses incurred during fighting and development work in the areas ‘cleared’ by the military, civilian aid agencies, especially humanitarian organisations, would like to distance themselves further from the military as the fighting intensifies.
Much of the unfolding scenario will depend on the US and the strategy adopted by the Barack Obama administration, the impact of which is yet to be felt. In recent weeks, the only significant change has been on the military front, with an abrupt replacement of the US commander in Afghanistan. On 11 May, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates fired General David McKiernan unceremoniously, appointing Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal in his place. While the need for fresh thinking was officially touted as the reason for the change, (Gen McKiernan is considered an expert in ‘conventional’ warfare, and thus was seen as unfit for the types of battles being waged in Afghanistan), many see this as indicating a shift in US military strategy. Until his new charge, Gen McChrystal was commanding the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command. He is credited both with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
While this would appear to dovetail into the professed aims of the US to go after al-Qaeda and high-value Taliban targets, Gen McChrystal has been at pains to signal a change in operating tactics with greater emphasis on civilian safety. Soon after taking command in mid-June, he began by emphasising the need to avoid civilian casualties, saying protection of civilians – rather than body counts – would be his yardstick of success. While some have welcomed this as a departure from the recent trend of military operations and the use of air power that were resulting in an increasing number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and frontier areas in Pakistan), there is a fair degree of scepticism about the oft-repeated rhetoric, which many criticise as not addressing the situation on the ground.
The changeover has allowed the new command to be at least partially critical of last month’s US air strikes in the western province of Farah. Afghan government authorities have claimed this to be the highest civilian death toll ever by international air strikes – forcing the payment of compensation to over 140 families. While the US military command has suggested that civilian casualties were much lower, it has admitted that ‘standard operating procedures’ may have been violated.
Less visible has been the restructuring of the command structure of the international troops operating in Afghanistan, backed by a NATO meeting in Brussels on 11-12 June. Under it, Gen McChrystal will focus on strategy while an intermediate headquarters responsible to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander will be established to take care of the day-to-day operations. This plan reportedly draws heavily on the US experience in Iraq. Along with the increase in American troops, expected to double to 68,000 by the end of the year, this new structure will represent a greater US domination over the military strategy in Afghanistan. Currently non-US troops constitute over half of the roughly 61,000 troops on the ground.
Quiet on the political front
Over the past few weeks, levels of violence have refused to dip in Afghanistan, and Gen McChrystal has termed the next 18 months as a decisive period. That upcoming year and a half will also be politically decisive for Afghanistan in more ways than one, as presidential and provincial-council elections, scheduled for August, will be followed by parliamentary elections next year. But the initial flurry of excitement over candidates has now subsided somewhat into a resignation that suggests that the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has stitched up the elections through a series of shrewd deals – not just with his supporters, but also with potential spoilers. While President Karzai’s unpopularity has been on the increase over the past two years, many Afghans seem resigned to what appears to be an inevitable outcome. Until the announcement of Mohammed Fahim as his running mate, President Karzai and Fahim, a former defence minister and vice-president, were thought to be at odds.
While the possibility of former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad (appointed by George W Bush), emerging as a presidential candidate has receded, his larger-than-life apparition still looms, with rumours of an appointment of a super chief executive to ‘assist’ the president. The Karzai administration has been careful neither to accept nor deny the possibility, while emphasising that any appointment would be within the bounds of the Afghan Constitution. But the possibility of a Bush administration official emerging as a key official within the Afghan administration is not the only unique feature of the upcoming Afghan elections. According to the Election Complaints Commission, “Fifty-five candidates didn’t meet Article 15.3 of the Electoral Law for having links to or commanding unofficial military forces; plus one candidate had both criminal conviction as well as [being] found not comply[ing] under Article 15.3. And, one candidate was found to have [a] second nationality.”
The end of the candidate-vetting procedure saw over 40 contenders for the post of president. But only two of them – former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah – are popularly accepted as serious challengers. Abdullah, a former Northern Alliance leader, received a fresh shot in the arm on 20 June, when the governor of the northern province of Balkh, Atta Mohammed, extended his support. Atta, as he is commonly known, was also a former Northern Alliance leader, and is considered to be an efficient if somewhat autocratic governor.
While a fragmented opposition puts President Karzai far ahead two months before the polls, it is not yet clear whether he will be able to secure 51 percent of the votes in the first round of polling, particularly if multiple opposition candidates split the vote share. If he gets less than that number, Afghanistan’s electoral law would require a second round of polling. It is then that the contest could see a polarisation between two candidates – a potent chance for the opposition, or a simple anti-Karzai vote, to unite behind a single candidate.
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
As everyone braces for a bloody summer, the new US administration has shaken up its top military command in Afghanistan. But is the continued focus on the military intervention still too predominant?
The commemoration of World Refugee Day, on 20 June, was marked in Afghanistan by an announcement by the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, that the movement of people across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had changed in character for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, when Russia imposed a government in 1978. Instead of the ‘classical’ movement of Afghan refugees crossing into Pakistan, a recent study by the agency suggested, this movement was now becoming increasingly ‘normalised’, with most of the crossborder movement that of economic migrants rather than those fleeing war. Yet while the agency’s country office touted this as a positive trend, behind the numbers is another story.
An understanding of the complexity of the situation seems to be tacit within UNHCR, as well. As the agency’s Afghanistan director, Ewen Macleod, pointed out, “People are moving increasingly for social and economic purposes to and from Afghanistan. But this does not mean that the factors that can give rise to refugee flight or internal displacement have been fully overcome.” The findings of the study, which mapped the border crossings at Torkham and Spin Boldak, could largely be a result of the fact that Pakistan is not only unwilling to continue to host Afghan refugees, but is also pressuring the remaining refugees to leave the country. With camps forcibly shut down, harassment from the authorities and the deteriorating economic and security situation within Pakistan, Afghans have little option but to head back to their own country.
Those who were forced to flee within Afghanistan are now forced to take shelter in another part of the country, thus becoming what the jargon would describe as ‘internally displaced persons’. According to UNHCR, precise figures about the number of such IDPs within Afghanistan are hard to come by, as access to insecure areas is limited and many ‘displacements’ last for only a short period. However, the estimates of those displaced internally during the last three decades of conflict by violence, drought and poverty, and those recently displaced by fighting in the southern provinces, is conservatively estimated to be 235,000.
Such numbers have, unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the very top levels of the international community. The situation has been so acute that it prompted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, to warn in mid-June that the refugee situations around the world “do not include the millions more uprooted people who are displaced within their own countries and who far outnumber the world’s refugees. Many of them have also been unable to return home, sometimes for decades.” Guterres continued: “Although international law distinguishes between refugees and the internally displaced, such distinctions are absurd to those who have been forced from their homes and who have lost everything. Uprooted people are equally deserving of help whether they have crossed an international border or not.”
US military dominance
Many within Afghanistan humanitarian agencies expect that the increased fighting following the influx of some 20,000 additional US troops in recent months will result in greater displacement. In a joint report issued in early April, a number of reputed international humanitarian agencies warned that social protection and access to basic services were being adversely affected by the widening conflict, “with significant levels of displacement and severe disruption of health and education services”. The report, released by agencies such as Oxfam, Care International, ActionAid and DACAAR, continued: “Planned increases in troops and military operations during 2009 are likely to lead to higher levels of displacement, further restrictions on social services and greater impediments for aid agencies to reach civilians in need of protection and assistance.” Yet, such considerations were not being adequately factored into international security strategies, the agencies warned.
There is one thing that the various aid agencies and military actors agree upon, however. There is common expectation of increased violence and of still-bloodier fighting over the summer of 2009. Still, there is almost no agreement on the assumed impact of this fighting, nor how to deal with it. While the military forces expect that civilian aid will be used in support of military operations, both to mitigate the losses incurred during fighting and development work in the areas ‘cleared’ by the military, civilian aid agencies, especially humanitarian organisations, would like to distance themselves further from the military as the fighting intensifies.
Much of the unfolding scenario will depend on the US and the strategy adopted by the Barack Obama administration, the impact of which is yet to be felt. In recent weeks, the only significant change has been on the military front, with an abrupt replacement of the US commander in Afghanistan. On 11 May, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates fired General David McKiernan unceremoniously, appointing Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal in his place. While the need for fresh thinking was officially touted as the reason for the change, (Gen McKiernan is considered an expert in ‘conventional’ warfare, and thus was seen as unfit for the types of battles being waged in Afghanistan), many see this as indicating a shift in US military strategy. Until his new charge, Gen McChrystal was commanding the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command. He is credited both with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
While this would appear to dovetail into the professed aims of the US to go after al-Qaeda and high-value Taliban targets, Gen McChrystal has been at pains to signal a change in operating tactics with greater emphasis on civilian safety. Soon after taking command in mid-June, he began by emphasising the need to avoid civilian casualties, saying protection of civilians – rather than body counts – would be his yardstick of success. While some have welcomed this as a departure from the recent trend of military operations and the use of air power that were resulting in an increasing number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and frontier areas in Pakistan), there is a fair degree of scepticism about the oft-repeated rhetoric, which many criticise as not addressing the situation on the ground.
The changeover has allowed the new command to be at least partially critical of last month’s US air strikes in the western province of Farah. Afghan government authorities have claimed this to be the highest civilian death toll ever by international air strikes – forcing the payment of compensation to over 140 families. While the US military command has suggested that civilian casualties were much lower, it has admitted that ‘standard operating procedures’ may have been violated.
Less visible has been the restructuring of the command structure of the international troops operating in Afghanistan, backed by a NATO meeting in Brussels on 11-12 June. Under it, Gen McChrystal will focus on strategy while an intermediate headquarters responsible to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander will be established to take care of the day-to-day operations. This plan reportedly draws heavily on the US experience in Iraq. Along with the increase in American troops, expected to double to 68,000 by the end of the year, this new structure will represent a greater US domination over the military strategy in Afghanistan. Currently non-US troops constitute over half of the roughly 61,000 troops on the ground.
Quiet on the political front
Over the past few weeks, levels of violence have refused to dip in Afghanistan, and Gen McChrystal has termed the next 18 months as a decisive period. That upcoming year and a half will also be politically decisive for Afghanistan in more ways than one, as presidential and provincial-council elections, scheduled for August, will be followed by parliamentary elections next year. But the initial flurry of excitement over candidates has now subsided somewhat into a resignation that suggests that the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has stitched up the elections through a series of shrewd deals – not just with his supporters, but also with potential spoilers. While President Karzai’s unpopularity has been on the increase over the past two years, many Afghans seem resigned to what appears to be an inevitable outcome. Until the announcement of Mohammed Fahim as his running mate, President Karzai and Fahim, a former defence minister and vice-president, were thought to be at odds.
While the possibility of former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad (appointed by George W Bush), emerging as a presidential candidate has receded, his larger-than-life apparition still looms, with rumours of an appointment of a super chief executive to ‘assist’ the president. The Karzai administration has been careful neither to accept nor deny the possibility, while emphasising that any appointment would be within the bounds of the Afghan Constitution. But the possibility of a Bush administration official emerging as a key official within the Afghan administration is not the only unique feature of the upcoming Afghan elections. According to the Election Complaints Commission, “Fifty-five candidates didn’t meet Article 15.3 of the Electoral Law for having links to or commanding unofficial military forces; plus one candidate had both criminal conviction as well as [being] found not comply[ing] under Article 15.3. And, one candidate was found to have [a] second nationality.”
The end of the candidate-vetting procedure saw over 40 contenders for the post of president. But only two of them – former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah – are popularly accepted as serious challengers. Abdullah, a former Northern Alliance leader, received a fresh shot in the arm on 20 June, when the governor of the northern province of Balkh, Atta Mohammed, extended his support. Atta, as he is commonly known, was also a former Northern Alliance leader, and is considered to be an efficient if somewhat autocratic governor.
While a fragmented opposition puts President Karzai far ahead two months before the polls, it is not yet clear whether he will be able to secure 51 percent of the votes in the first round of polling, particularly if multiple opposition candidates split the vote share. If he gets less than that number, Afghanistan’s electoral law would require a second round of polling. It is then that the contest could see a polarisation between two candidates – a potent chance for the opposition, or a simple anti-Karzai vote, to unite behind a single candidate.
AFGHANISTAN: KABUL COURT RULING COULD FREE AFGHAN TERRORISM SUSPECTS HELD AT
EURASIA INSIGHT
GUANTANAMO
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/23/09
A short message on the back of Maj. Eric Montalvo’s business card reads: "My lawyer has told me not to talk to anyone about my case, not to answer any questions and not to reply to any accusations." The message is intended for those who try to approach his clients. Montalvo has one of the most difficult jobs anywhere. As a soldier and prosecutor for the US military, he is tasked with defending those suspected by the US government of committing acts of terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world. Some of his clients have not even been charged.
Now, Montalvo is fighting in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court to represent an Afghan national in a legal case that could have far-reaching implications for the US government’s attempts to relocate Guantanamo Bay prisoners to third countries, or detain them indefinitely in the United States.
At the heart of his petition is the case of Mohammed Jawad, a minor when he was arrested in December 2002 for his alleged involvement in a hand grenade attack on a US military vehicle. Jawad was reportedly 12 at the time he was sent to Guantanamo. While Jawad’s exact age is difficult to determine because of an absence of official records, military prosecutors have accepted that he was a juvenile at the beginning of his incarceration.
Montalvo’s petition argues that Jawad was not involved in the attack and that his confession was obtained under torture and duress, perpetrated both by Afghan police officers who initially arrested him and by interrogators at US detention facilities at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held.
In a boon to the defense, Montalvo’s plea to suppress Jawad’s statements under interrogation has been accepted by a US military judge in the Guantanamo Military Commission. Moreover, in September 2008, Lt. Col. Darryl Vandeveld, the lead prosecutor in the case against Jawad, left the commission because, he said, he could not ethically continue to prosecute the case. "I personally do not believe there is any lawful basis for continuing to detain Mr. Jawad," Vandeveld wrote in his resignation letter. "There is no reliable evidence of any voluntary involvement with any terrorist group."
Vandeveld added that he did not believe Jawad to be a threat. Describing himself as a "former prosecutor and now repentant persecutor," Vandeveld wrote that "six years is long enough for a boy of 16 to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand."
The petition argues that Jawad was not extended any of the privileges and rights of a juvenile during the years of his incarceration, and that he endured torture in various forms, including blindfolding and hooding, ’shock techniques,’ stress positions, physical and linguistic isolation, being pushed down stairs and chained to a wall, beating, threats of death and physical violence, and was subjected to the ’frequent flyer’ program (in Jawad’s case this involved forcibly moving him from cell to cell 112 times in a period of 14 days to cause sleep deprivation). Jawad, according to official prison logs cited in the petition, tried to commit suicide by repeatedly banging his head against the cell walls.
It is however not the torture, or even the innocence of Jawad, as has been well documented in a large number of other Guantanamo cases, and not even his status as a juvenile, that has immediate repercussions for America’s new administration. Montalvo and his colleague, Capt. Christopher L. Kannady, challenge Jawad’s detention and his continuing incarceration on the grounds that in the absence of an extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan, the arrest and detention of Jawad was illegal and must be overturned.
"Clear violations of foreign sovereignty in the extradition process deprive US criminal courts of jurisdiction over foreign nationals," the petition states. "There has and is currently no formal extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan. In fact, the Afghan Constitution of 1964 expressly prohibits the extradition of Afghan citizens to a foreign state." The 1964 constitution was in effect at the time Jawad was transferred by Afghan authorities to the United States on December 17, 2002, and on February 6, 2003, when Mr. Jawad was forcibly removed from Afghanistan.
Not only did the 1964 Constitution prevent extradition, but also there is no evidence the United States even bothered to ask the Afghan government for permission, the petition argues. While the new constitution, adopted in January 2004, does make provisions for the Afghan government to enter into extradition treaties with other states, to date no such pact exists between Afghanistan and the United States. Currently, the extradition bill has been referred to an Afghan parliamentary committee. In its present version, the draft requires the requesting state to submit evidence including witness testimony in support of the extradition request.
In May, Montalvo and Kannady filed the petition challenging Jawad’s ongoing Guantanamo incarceration in the Afghan Supreme Court. It calls on the Afghan government "to pursue by all means necessary the immediate release and repatriation of Jawad." During their visit to file the petition, Montalvo and Kannady said that not only had the US government made it difficult to obtain the information they needed, but that the US Marine Corps had so far refused to respond to their request to practice law before the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association have supported the two US military lawyers.
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court has directed the office of the Attorney General to look into the case. "Under international law and the Afghan Constitution, Jawad should be released," Montalvo told EurasiaNet. "Afghanistan has shown hope and promise that they will follow the law."
If Afghanistan’s Supreme Court does indeed accept the petition on grounds that the extradition was invalid, it will lay the groundwork for not just Jawad, but for all Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo to be returned to Afghanistan -- even those whom the Obama Administration believes should continue to be held in custody.
GUANTANAMO
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/23/09
A short message on the back of Maj. Eric Montalvo’s business card reads: "My lawyer has told me not to talk to anyone about my case, not to answer any questions and not to reply to any accusations." The message is intended for those who try to approach his clients. Montalvo has one of the most difficult jobs anywhere. As a soldier and prosecutor for the US military, he is tasked with defending those suspected by the US government of committing acts of terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world. Some of his clients have not even been charged.
Now, Montalvo is fighting in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court to represent an Afghan national in a legal case that could have far-reaching implications for the US government’s attempts to relocate Guantanamo Bay prisoners to third countries, or detain them indefinitely in the United States.
At the heart of his petition is the case of Mohammed Jawad, a minor when he was arrested in December 2002 for his alleged involvement in a hand grenade attack on a US military vehicle. Jawad was reportedly 12 at the time he was sent to Guantanamo. While Jawad’s exact age is difficult to determine because of an absence of official records, military prosecutors have accepted that he was a juvenile at the beginning of his incarceration.
Montalvo’s petition argues that Jawad was not involved in the attack and that his confession was obtained under torture and duress, perpetrated both by Afghan police officers who initially arrested him and by interrogators at US detention facilities at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held.
In a boon to the defense, Montalvo’s plea to suppress Jawad’s statements under interrogation has been accepted by a US military judge in the Guantanamo Military Commission. Moreover, in September 2008, Lt. Col. Darryl Vandeveld, the lead prosecutor in the case against Jawad, left the commission because, he said, he could not ethically continue to prosecute the case. "I personally do not believe there is any lawful basis for continuing to detain Mr. Jawad," Vandeveld wrote in his resignation letter. "There is no reliable evidence of any voluntary involvement with any terrorist group."
Vandeveld added that he did not believe Jawad to be a threat. Describing himself as a "former prosecutor and now repentant persecutor," Vandeveld wrote that "six years is long enough for a boy of 16 to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand."
The petition argues that Jawad was not extended any of the privileges and rights of a juvenile during the years of his incarceration, and that he endured torture in various forms, including blindfolding and hooding, ’shock techniques,’ stress positions, physical and linguistic isolation, being pushed down stairs and chained to a wall, beating, threats of death and physical violence, and was subjected to the ’frequent flyer’ program (in Jawad’s case this involved forcibly moving him from cell to cell 112 times in a period of 14 days to cause sleep deprivation). Jawad, according to official prison logs cited in the petition, tried to commit suicide by repeatedly banging his head against the cell walls.
It is however not the torture, or even the innocence of Jawad, as has been well documented in a large number of other Guantanamo cases, and not even his status as a juvenile, that has immediate repercussions for America’s new administration. Montalvo and his colleague, Capt. Christopher L. Kannady, challenge Jawad’s detention and his continuing incarceration on the grounds that in the absence of an extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan, the arrest and detention of Jawad was illegal and must be overturned.
"Clear violations of foreign sovereignty in the extradition process deprive US criminal courts of jurisdiction over foreign nationals," the petition states. "There has and is currently no formal extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan. In fact, the Afghan Constitution of 1964 expressly prohibits the extradition of Afghan citizens to a foreign state." The 1964 constitution was in effect at the time Jawad was transferred by Afghan authorities to the United States on December 17, 2002, and on February 6, 2003, when Mr. Jawad was forcibly removed from Afghanistan.
Not only did the 1964 Constitution prevent extradition, but also there is no evidence the United States even bothered to ask the Afghan government for permission, the petition argues. While the new constitution, adopted in January 2004, does make provisions for the Afghan government to enter into extradition treaties with other states, to date no such pact exists between Afghanistan and the United States. Currently, the extradition bill has been referred to an Afghan parliamentary committee. In its present version, the draft requires the requesting state to submit evidence including witness testimony in support of the extradition request.
In May, Montalvo and Kannady filed the petition challenging Jawad’s ongoing Guantanamo incarceration in the Afghan Supreme Court. It calls on the Afghan government "to pursue by all means necessary the immediate release and repatriation of Jawad." During their visit to file the petition, Montalvo and Kannady said that not only had the US government made it difficult to obtain the information they needed, but that the US Marine Corps had so far refused to respond to their request to practice law before the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association have supported the two US military lawyers.
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court has directed the office of the Attorney General to look into the case. "Under international law and the Afghan Constitution, Jawad should be released," Montalvo told EurasiaNet. "Afghanistan has shown hope and promise that they will follow the law."
If Afghanistan’s Supreme Court does indeed accept the petition on grounds that the extradition was invalid, it will lay the groundwork for not just Jawad, but for all Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo to be returned to Afghanistan -- even those whom the Obama Administration believes should continue to be held in custody.
AFGHANISTAN: AFGHANS TRACKING TEHRAN POWER STRUGGLE
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/24/09
During Afghanistan’s nearly 30 years of civil strife, over 2 million Afghans found refuge in neighboring Iran. Most Afghan refugees have returned in recent years, and now, with Iran gripped by political turmoil, some in Kabul and elsewhere are waiting and watching anxiously to see what happens in their former country of residence. The outcome, the Afghans say, will exert considerable influence over Afghanistan’s own development.
Fauzia is among the Afghans who have strong connections to Iran. She was born and lived in Iran until she was 18, returning to Afghanistan with her parents shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Since then, she followed developments in Iran as closely as possible. As a young woman who yearns for expanded civil rights, Fauzia expressed a clear preference to see Iran’s aggrieved presidential challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, emerge as the winner of the power struggle playing out in Tehran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"Whatever happens there will affect Afghanistan," said Fauzia, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. If Mousavi were to become president in Iran, she believes, it would lead to expanded opportunities in Kabul, especially for women. "Mousavi can have a good relationship with Western countries and that would be good for Afghanistan," Fauzia explained.
Fauzia feels that while social pressures on women are possibly greater in Afghanistan, she believes she enjoys more personal freedom in Kabul than she did in Iran. "Here [in Afghanistan], I can work, study, do what I want and there is no one to point a finger and tell me what I can do or not do."
There are a significant number of former Afghan refugees who share Fauzia’s views. But among Afghanistan’s overall population, events in Iran are not so preoccupying. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Afghans have mixed views and varying levels of interest in the ongoing situation there. Even those who claim to be carefully monitoring the news don’t seem to be glued to their radios and televisions. While events in Iran are recognized as being intrinsically important to Afghanistan, it is Pakistan that has for decades consistently foisted a more immediate visible impact on Afghanistan, many Afghans tell EurasiaNet.
In the aftermath of the controversial Iranian presidential vote on June 12, what has been perhaps most interesting for Afghans has been the Western reaction, especially comments coming out of Washington. While most viewed the departure of former US President George W. Bush as a positive development, they still reserved judgment on whether Obama’s administration would be able to improve America’s image in the Muslim world. In that context, Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo, followed by his restrained and carefully calibrated response to the Iranian turmoil, is being viewed as evidence of some real progress in relations between the West and the Muslim world.
Najib Manalai, a political analyst who until recently was a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Culture, echoes Fauzia’s views. "What happens in Iran affects Afghan politics. Mousavi would try to create an understanding between the United States and Iran. He is less of an extremist [than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]. Iran would continue to play a role and fund different groups here, but their intervention would be less violent than now," he told EurasiaNet. While acknowledging that the Iranian government may not have a direct hand in supplying weapons, Manalai believes Tehran is tacitly encouraging weapons shipments into Afghanistan.
Of course, not everyone is an enthusiastic observer. Waheed, a Kabul resident who lived for several years in Iran, greets radio broadcasts of violent demonstrations in Tehran with apathy. Voicing little concern for Iranian politics, he says he is more concerned with the here and now, such as the slow pace of development, rising prices and the lack of jobs in Afghanistan.
His lack of interest resonates with Ahmed Khalid, a Kabul University student. Self-described as politically aware, Khalid feels Afghans suffered a great deal of humiliation as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. "Afghans were treated badly. We don’t care what happens there." Yet, further questioning elicits the view that a stable Iran is important to Afghanistan.
Like others following the Iranian situation, Khalid paid close attention to the Western response. He made a careful distinction between the ’West’ in general and the United States in particular. "In general, Obama has shown a soft policy towards Muslim countries. Look at his speech in Egypt. This is more normal than under Bush. It is very good."
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/24/09
During Afghanistan’s nearly 30 years of civil strife, over 2 million Afghans found refuge in neighboring Iran. Most Afghan refugees have returned in recent years, and now, with Iran gripped by political turmoil, some in Kabul and elsewhere are waiting and watching anxiously to see what happens in their former country of residence. The outcome, the Afghans say, will exert considerable influence over Afghanistan’s own development.
Fauzia is among the Afghans who have strong connections to Iran. She was born and lived in Iran until she was 18, returning to Afghanistan with her parents shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Since then, she followed developments in Iran as closely as possible. As a young woman who yearns for expanded civil rights, Fauzia expressed a clear preference to see Iran’s aggrieved presidential challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, emerge as the winner of the power struggle playing out in Tehran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"Whatever happens there will affect Afghanistan," said Fauzia, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. If Mousavi were to become president in Iran, she believes, it would lead to expanded opportunities in Kabul, especially for women. "Mousavi can have a good relationship with Western countries and that would be good for Afghanistan," Fauzia explained.
Fauzia feels that while social pressures on women are possibly greater in Afghanistan, she believes she enjoys more personal freedom in Kabul than she did in Iran. "Here [in Afghanistan], I can work, study, do what I want and there is no one to point a finger and tell me what I can do or not do."
There are a significant number of former Afghan refugees who share Fauzia’s views. But among Afghanistan’s overall population, events in Iran are not so preoccupying. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Afghans have mixed views and varying levels of interest in the ongoing situation there. Even those who claim to be carefully monitoring the news don’t seem to be glued to their radios and televisions. While events in Iran are recognized as being intrinsically important to Afghanistan, it is Pakistan that has for decades consistently foisted a more immediate visible impact on Afghanistan, many Afghans tell EurasiaNet.
In the aftermath of the controversial Iranian presidential vote on June 12, what has been perhaps most interesting for Afghans has been the Western reaction, especially comments coming out of Washington. While most viewed the departure of former US President George W. Bush as a positive development, they still reserved judgment on whether Obama’s administration would be able to improve America’s image in the Muslim world. In that context, Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo, followed by his restrained and carefully calibrated response to the Iranian turmoil, is being viewed as evidence of some real progress in relations between the West and the Muslim world.
Najib Manalai, a political analyst who until recently was a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Culture, echoes Fauzia’s views. "What happens in Iran affects Afghan politics. Mousavi would try to create an understanding between the United States and Iran. He is less of an extremist [than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]. Iran would continue to play a role and fund different groups here, but their intervention would be less violent than now," he told EurasiaNet. While acknowledging that the Iranian government may not have a direct hand in supplying weapons, Manalai believes Tehran is tacitly encouraging weapons shipments into Afghanistan.
Of course, not everyone is an enthusiastic observer. Waheed, a Kabul resident who lived for several years in Iran, greets radio broadcasts of violent demonstrations in Tehran with apathy. Voicing little concern for Iranian politics, he says he is more concerned with the here and now, such as the slow pace of development, rising prices and the lack of jobs in Afghanistan.
His lack of interest resonates with Ahmed Khalid, a Kabul University student. Self-described as politically aware, Khalid feels Afghans suffered a great deal of humiliation as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. "Afghans were treated badly. We don’t care what happens there." Yet, further questioning elicits the view that a stable Iran is important to Afghanistan.
Like others following the Iranian situation, Khalid paid close attention to the Western response. He made a careful distinction between the ’West’ in general and the United States in particular. "In general, Obama has shown a soft policy towards Muslim countries. Look at his speech in Egypt. This is more normal than under Bush. It is very good."
AFGHANISTAN: CIVIL CASUALTIES REMAINS A DIVISIVE ISSUE FOR KABUL AND WASHINGTON
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 5/28/09
Despite US efforts to minimize accidents, the issue of civilian deaths remains a source of tension between American forces and the Afghan government, and it appears to be eroding popular support for coalition forces fighting Islamic militants. Afghan officials contend that US commanders need to shift their combat priorities to ensure civilian safety. US military representatives counter that it is the Taliban that does not value life, adding that the insurgents are using civilians as "human sacrifice."
The controversy of civilian casualties boiled over yet again following an early May incident in the Bala Baluk district, a Taliban stronghold in southwestern Afghanistan. Preliminary findings released by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on May 26 show US air strikes in and around Bala Baluk may have caused the single largest civilian toll caused by NATO air power since 2001.
While the Commission has not confirmed its estimate of 97 civilians killed, AIHRC officials stated categorically that at least 52 females, including 31 girls, had been killed in Bala Baluk. The number is expected to rise as investigators verify how many of the remaining deaths are of non-combatants -- including male children -- commission spokesman Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The findings dispute the accounts released by both the US forces on May 21 and the Afghan government. While US forces have said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed, the Afghan government paid compensation for 140 deaths on May 12.
Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told EurasiaNet that "there are some disagreements on the number of people, but that is not important. The important thing is that defenseless people, women and children, amongst others, were killed. This could have been avoided. We are working closely with our partners in the international community, including the US forces, so that we should find ways to bring to an absolute minimum the civilian casualties. So far we have not succeeded."
Disputing the AIHRC and government numbers, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told EurasiaNet on May 26, that the Pentagon would be issuing its own report "soon." While admitting that the military's initial figures may be revised upward, Julian claimed that the physical evidence on the ground showed that AIHRC and government numbers were "exaggerated." "They don't have the evidence we have from the footage of the site and the intelligence we have that reveals the Taliban telling its people to gather and regroup in the compounds," he said.
The dispute over the numbers suggests that despite several tactical directives issued by the former American commander, Gen. David McKiernan, to minimize civilian casualties, the implementation of the directives will be largely left to commanders on the ground. This would seem to leave lots of leeway in how heavy weapons are employed in the Afghan conflict.
While human rights groups and NGOs have called for making the safety of Afghan civilians central to all operations, US President Barack Obama's administration is advancing a strategy that clearly states the "core goal of the United States must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." In pursuit of this goal, US commanders' interpretation of acceptable levels of collateral damage appears to differ significantly from that of human rights organizations.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which carried out a rigorous documentation of the rules of engagement last September, pointed out that defensive operating procedures followed by US forces were substantively different from those used by other coalition partners. US forces seemed to have a much lower threshold on the need for air strikes. According to the United Nations, 68 percent of civilian casualties caused by pro-government forces in 2008 resulted from air strikes. Pro-government forces caused 39 percent of the 2,118 civilian casualties documented that year.
While disputing the AIHRC's findings on the use of disproportionate force in Bala Baluk, Julian alleged that the Taliban was deliberately using tactics that produced higher civilian deaths. "Civilians were used not just as human shields, but as human sacrifice," he said.
HRW has called for specific changes in operational tactics including avoiding air strikes on populated areas, urging use of precision guided low-collateral-damage munitions rather than howitzers and heavy artillery, and calling on the military to develop better intelligence on the ground.
Afghans, international monitors and international forces have all cited a lack of intelligence as a cause of civilian casualties. Feuding Afghan groups have been known to call in air strikes against rivals. Several times, the AIHRC says, international forces have acted on such information without cross verification.
"Afghans manipulate the international forces to get at their enemies," said analyst Haroun Mir, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). Mir called for better intelligence gathering, but conceded there is no way of fighting the war with the given troop numbers without using air strikes.
President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to air strikes following the Bala Baluk incident, an appeal rejected by US officials. Karzai spokesman Hamidzada said the president had ordered a commission that included ministers and experts to come up with a draft strategy that could become the basis for the new Status of Forces Agreement, currently in the process of revision.
The Afghan government's investigations into Bala Baluk -- which the AIHRC, citing concerns about accuracy, described as "hasty" -- appears to have been prompted by a desire to contain the political damage to Karzai's reelection campaign.
Aunohita Mojumdar: 5/28/09
Despite US efforts to minimize accidents, the issue of civilian deaths remains a source of tension between American forces and the Afghan government, and it appears to be eroding popular support for coalition forces fighting Islamic militants. Afghan officials contend that US commanders need to shift their combat priorities to ensure civilian safety. US military representatives counter that it is the Taliban that does not value life, adding that the insurgents are using civilians as "human sacrifice."
The controversy of civilian casualties boiled over yet again following an early May incident in the Bala Baluk district, a Taliban stronghold in southwestern Afghanistan. Preliminary findings released by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on May 26 show US air strikes in and around Bala Baluk may have caused the single largest civilian toll caused by NATO air power since 2001.
While the Commission has not confirmed its estimate of 97 civilians killed, AIHRC officials stated categorically that at least 52 females, including 31 girls, had been killed in Bala Baluk. The number is expected to rise as investigators verify how many of the remaining deaths are of non-combatants -- including male children -- commission spokesman Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The findings dispute the accounts released by both the US forces on May 21 and the Afghan government. While US forces have said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed, the Afghan government paid compensation for 140 deaths on May 12.
Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told EurasiaNet that "there are some disagreements on the number of people, but that is not important. The important thing is that defenseless people, women and children, amongst others, were killed. This could have been avoided. We are working closely with our partners in the international community, including the US forces, so that we should find ways to bring to an absolute minimum the civilian casualties. So far we have not succeeded."
Disputing the AIHRC and government numbers, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told EurasiaNet on May 26, that the Pentagon would be issuing its own report "soon." While admitting that the military's initial figures may be revised upward, Julian claimed that the physical evidence on the ground showed that AIHRC and government numbers were "exaggerated." "They don't have the evidence we have from the footage of the site and the intelligence we have that reveals the Taliban telling its people to gather and regroup in the compounds," he said.
The dispute over the numbers suggests that despite several tactical directives issued by the former American commander, Gen. David McKiernan, to minimize civilian casualties, the implementation of the directives will be largely left to commanders on the ground. This would seem to leave lots of leeway in how heavy weapons are employed in the Afghan conflict.
While human rights groups and NGOs have called for making the safety of Afghan civilians central to all operations, US President Barack Obama's administration is advancing a strategy that clearly states the "core goal of the United States must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." In pursuit of this goal, US commanders' interpretation of acceptable levels of collateral damage appears to differ significantly from that of human rights organizations.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which carried out a rigorous documentation of the rules of engagement last September, pointed out that defensive operating procedures followed by US forces were substantively different from those used by other coalition partners. US forces seemed to have a much lower threshold on the need for air strikes. According to the United Nations, 68 percent of civilian casualties caused by pro-government forces in 2008 resulted from air strikes. Pro-government forces caused 39 percent of the 2,118 civilian casualties documented that year.
While disputing the AIHRC's findings on the use of disproportionate force in Bala Baluk, Julian alleged that the Taliban was deliberately using tactics that produced higher civilian deaths. "Civilians were used not just as human shields, but as human sacrifice," he said.
HRW has called for specific changes in operational tactics including avoiding air strikes on populated areas, urging use of precision guided low-collateral-damage munitions rather than howitzers and heavy artillery, and calling on the military to develop better intelligence on the ground.
Afghans, international monitors and international forces have all cited a lack of intelligence as a cause of civilian casualties. Feuding Afghan groups have been known to call in air strikes against rivals. Several times, the AIHRC says, international forces have acted on such information without cross verification.
"Afghans manipulate the international forces to get at their enemies," said analyst Haroun Mir, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). Mir called for better intelligence gathering, but conceded there is no way of fighting the war with the given troop numbers without using air strikes.
President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to air strikes following the Bala Baluk incident, an appeal rejected by US officials. Karzai spokesman Hamidzada said the president had ordered a commission that included ministers and experts to come up with a draft strategy that could become the basis for the new Status of Forces Agreement, currently in the process of revision.
The Afghan government's investigations into Bala Baluk -- which the AIHRC, citing concerns about accuracy, described as "hasty" -- appears to have been prompted by a desire to contain the political damage to Karzai's reelection campaign.
AFGHANISTAN: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION INITIATIVE A SIGN OF HOPE FOR RECONSTRUCTION
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 5/04/09
When Mustafa Zahir was growing up, he recalls meeting people who had traveled thousands of kilometers out of a desire to breathe Kabul’s invigorating air. Back then, Afghanistan was a tourist destination that enjoyed renown for its crystalline lakes, spectacular mountains, flowering gardens and fruit-laden orchards. Both affluent families and backpacking hippies visited. "Now," says Zahir, the grandson of Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, "if you breathe in the Kabul air, your lungs fill with poison."
Zahir has channeled his frustration into hope. On April 22, in his capacity as the head of the country’s National Environment Protection Agency, he proclaimed Afghanistan’s first national park in an area encompassing the spectacular Band-i Amir lakes in the country’s central highlands.
Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict, urgent humanitarian needs and chronic poverty make it difficult to focus attention on long-term requirements like environmental protection. However, efforts over the past several years appear to be finally paying off, laying the foundation for a broad-based conservation effort to preserve and regenerate a quickly disappearing national resource. Unlike many other countries that have tried and failed to enact a conservation program by relying on a top-down approach, Afghan officials have embraced a bottom-up strategy, in which local residents have a stake in the success of environmental protection endeavors.
Band-i Amir is arguably not the most logical spot for the inaugural biodiversity conservation project, given the fact that much of the area’s wildlife has suffered from acute depletion during the past three decades of tumult, points out Peter Smallwood, Afghanistan Country Director for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). What led to the choice of the site as Afghanistan’s first national park was its popularity, he says.
Belinda Bowling, program manager with the United Nations Environmental Program, who was central in helping push through environmental legislation, agrees. "There are few places in the world that have this visual natural beauty. It is a unique geologically aesthetic site. In terms of its biodiversity, it is not particularly important, but it is by far the most visited site in Afghanistan," she told EurasiaNet.
Legend holds that the succession of pristine blue and green lakes and giant travertine dams of the area were created by Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. That folklore, combined with the location’s stunning natural beauty and relative safety make Band-i Amir attractive to visitors both local and international. Despite the ongoing violence in other parts of the country, the Band-i Amir area is relatively secure, and already possesses some tourism infrastructure. This makes it possible to visibly demonstrate the linkage between preservation and income generation.
The people of the Ajar valley - a thickly forested area north of Band-i Amir and the former hunting ground of the king - who were openly hostile to the idea of a protected area at first, have now asked for help after seeing the benefits accruing to the people of Band-i Amir, says Smallwood. Ajar may become the country’s second national park.
Mohammad Ayub Alavi, who works with the WCS as a conservation specialist, exemplifies the community-based approach. With a masters degree in geology, Alavi is among the small and privileged group of Afghans who learned English while studying abroad. He possesses the skills to find far more lucrative employment in Kabul, or even abroad, but he chose to remain in Band-i Amir in large measure because his work produces an abundance of satisfaction. "I hope making this a national park will mean there will be job opportunities for others as well," he said.
During the past decades of strife and deprivation, economic factors have fueled the depletion of Afghanistan’s natural resources. The giant old walnut trees of the richly forested Nuristan area date back two or three centuries. "Those trees end up being sent to Pakistan and being trimmed into beautiful furniture and sent to the Gulf states," says Smallwood.
In the Wakhan corridor, an area rich in biodiversity in northeastern Afghanistan, the subsistence-level pastoral economy has led to over-grazing. There, a dead Marco Polo sheep, an endangered species, is worth more than a live one, laments Smallwood. "It is free meat that if it had lived would have eaten the grass that could be fed to livestock," he points out. The challenge is to make that sheep valuable while alive, by linking its presence to the idea of attracting tourists to the area.
In Band-i Amir, relocating the small shops polluting the lakeside was not easy. Here the sheer force of will of Bamiyan’s leader, Afghanistan’s only female governor, Habiba Sarobi, prevailed. To provide an incentive, those who shifted quickly were provided with bricks and roof beams. Small gestures can often make the difference between community acceptance and hostility. "We need a community based approach," says Alavi. "The major hope for us is the ecotourism project. Without it, this project will fail."
The country has a long way to go before it has a fully fledge environmental protection framework; even the declaration of the first national park still requires parliamentary approval. But its initial efforts have already been noticed in an important way. For the first time since the years of conflict began, says Smallwood, flamingoes have been returning to Afghanistan. Even Siberian cranes, an endangered species worldwide, have been sighted. For Afghanistan, still facing political and economic uncertainty, the reappearance of such species serves as a powerful expression of faith in the country’s future.
Aunohita Mojumdar 5/04/09
When Mustafa Zahir was growing up, he recalls meeting people who had traveled thousands of kilometers out of a desire to breathe Kabul’s invigorating air. Back then, Afghanistan was a tourist destination that enjoyed renown for its crystalline lakes, spectacular mountains, flowering gardens and fruit-laden orchards. Both affluent families and backpacking hippies visited. "Now," says Zahir, the grandson of Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, "if you breathe in the Kabul air, your lungs fill with poison."
Zahir has channeled his frustration into hope. On April 22, in his capacity as the head of the country’s National Environment Protection Agency, he proclaimed Afghanistan’s first national park in an area encompassing the spectacular Band-i Amir lakes in the country’s central highlands.
Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict, urgent humanitarian needs and chronic poverty make it difficult to focus attention on long-term requirements like environmental protection. However, efforts over the past several years appear to be finally paying off, laying the foundation for a broad-based conservation effort to preserve and regenerate a quickly disappearing national resource. Unlike many other countries that have tried and failed to enact a conservation program by relying on a top-down approach, Afghan officials have embraced a bottom-up strategy, in which local residents have a stake in the success of environmental protection endeavors.
Band-i Amir is arguably not the most logical spot for the inaugural biodiversity conservation project, given the fact that much of the area’s wildlife has suffered from acute depletion during the past three decades of tumult, points out Peter Smallwood, Afghanistan Country Director for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). What led to the choice of the site as Afghanistan’s first national park was its popularity, he says.
Belinda Bowling, program manager with the United Nations Environmental Program, who was central in helping push through environmental legislation, agrees. "There are few places in the world that have this visual natural beauty. It is a unique geologically aesthetic site. In terms of its biodiversity, it is not particularly important, but it is by far the most visited site in Afghanistan," she told EurasiaNet.
Legend holds that the succession of pristine blue and green lakes and giant travertine dams of the area were created by Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. That folklore, combined with the location’s stunning natural beauty and relative safety make Band-i Amir attractive to visitors both local and international. Despite the ongoing violence in other parts of the country, the Band-i Amir area is relatively secure, and already possesses some tourism infrastructure. This makes it possible to visibly demonstrate the linkage between preservation and income generation.
The people of the Ajar valley - a thickly forested area north of Band-i Amir and the former hunting ground of the king - who were openly hostile to the idea of a protected area at first, have now asked for help after seeing the benefits accruing to the people of Band-i Amir, says Smallwood. Ajar may become the country’s second national park.
Mohammad Ayub Alavi, who works with the WCS as a conservation specialist, exemplifies the community-based approach. With a masters degree in geology, Alavi is among the small and privileged group of Afghans who learned English while studying abroad. He possesses the skills to find far more lucrative employment in Kabul, or even abroad, but he chose to remain in Band-i Amir in large measure because his work produces an abundance of satisfaction. "I hope making this a national park will mean there will be job opportunities for others as well," he said.
During the past decades of strife and deprivation, economic factors have fueled the depletion of Afghanistan’s natural resources. The giant old walnut trees of the richly forested Nuristan area date back two or three centuries. "Those trees end up being sent to Pakistan and being trimmed into beautiful furniture and sent to the Gulf states," says Smallwood.
In the Wakhan corridor, an area rich in biodiversity in northeastern Afghanistan, the subsistence-level pastoral economy has led to over-grazing. There, a dead Marco Polo sheep, an endangered species, is worth more than a live one, laments Smallwood. "It is free meat that if it had lived would have eaten the grass that could be fed to livestock," he points out. The challenge is to make that sheep valuable while alive, by linking its presence to the idea of attracting tourists to the area.
In Band-i Amir, relocating the small shops polluting the lakeside was not easy. Here the sheer force of will of Bamiyan’s leader, Afghanistan’s only female governor, Habiba Sarobi, prevailed. To provide an incentive, those who shifted quickly were provided with bricks and roof beams. Small gestures can often make the difference between community acceptance and hostility. "We need a community based approach," says Alavi. "The major hope for us is the ecotourism project. Without it, this project will fail."
The country has a long way to go before it has a fully fledge environmental protection framework; even the declaration of the first national park still requires parliamentary approval. But its initial efforts have already been noticed in an important way. For the first time since the years of conflict began, says Smallwood, flamingoes have been returning to Afghanistan. Even Siberian cranes, an endangered species worldwide, have been sighted. For Afghanistan, still facing political and economic uncertainty, the reappearance of such species serves as a powerful expression of faith in the country’s future.
A Thousand Terrible Twilights
Hard News May 2009
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege
Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
In capital Kabul, every week sees new cement bollards in front of buildings, fresh barbed wire concertinas strung across roads, new check points and road blocks. Each successive bomb blast in front of an important building, that is, buildings housing important people, sees yet another road being blocked to the Afghan public. The international community and elite Afghans barricade themselves behind more sandbags as ordinary Afghans get squeezed more and more into the remaining open areas of the capital.
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege. This fact made it all the more curious when the Director General of Afghanistan's National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, claimed this week. "We are victorious." Making a speech at a security seminar, he asked: "What more victory do you want?"
Saleh explained his contention: the world had finally come around to accepting the Afghan government's claim that the source of insecurity lay beyond Afghanistan's borders. Finally, he said, the battle had been taken to the place where those centres existed.Saleh was referring to the recent formulation of an 'Af-Pak' policy by the Barack Obama administration and its attention on Pakistan as a source of terror.
It is an approach that has gone down well with the governments of both Afghanistan as well as India, both of whom view it as a triumph of their diplomatic efforts. Officials of both countries are, however, less clear on how the Obama administration intends to act upon this understanding and how this will play into their strategies.
Within Afghanistan the mood is a somber one - of waiting. Opinion across the spectrum is agreed only on one thing: that the fresh influx of US troops will mean intensified fighting as the winter snows melt allowing for easier access across the rugged terrain.
For Afghan citizens the war against terror being waged in their territory in their name is not the only source of violence. While there is intense fighting between pro and anti-government elements in many of the southern and south eastern provinces, violence against citizens comes from multiple sources.
In Balkh province, governor Mohammad Atta, a former northern alliance commander, overlooks a province that has eradicated poppy and has been free of insurgency. However, he knows he sits on a powder keg. Balkh was hit by a severe drought last year and its dry brown fields point to the failure of crop. Economic deprivation could upset the fragile balance pushing people to re-enter poppy cultivation and destabilise the modicum of law and order that has been achieved.
In capital Kabul, its elite live in fear of kidnappings. While kidnappings in the city are usually followed by reports of the approaching spectre of the Taliban, the reality is that they are carried out by criminal networks looking for ransom - a get rich quick scheme that is made lucrative by the absence of an effective law and order machinery. Part of the problem of policing Afghanistan has been the use of police in counter insurgency duties for which they are ill-equipped. Between 2007 and 2009, 568 Afghan National Army soliders were killed compared to 1,504 policemen in the same period.
In the central province of Bamiyan, one of the most peaceful areas of the country, a hotelier explains why they never advertise widely. "It is better to get to know by word of mouth. Going to public could invite the wrong kind of attention." There are many armed militia or even gunmen who have no compunction shaking down businessmen and rich Afghans knowing that in all likelihood they will escape the criminal justice system.
In the Shind and district of the western province of Herat, an estimated 90 civilians were killed in bombing by international military forces. The international forces initially claimed they had bombed a Taliban camp but later conceded they had been misled by misinformation. Warring groups or tribes see the use of US air power as an easy and cost effective way to settle feuds.
The combination of poor intelligence on the ground, and heavy reliance on air strikes, has caused an escalation in civilian casualties. In the year 2008, the use of aerial munitions went up by 40 per cent. In the same period the number of civilian deaths from air strikes shot up by 72 per cent. Almost 60 per cent of the deaths were attributable to the approximately 10-20,000 (numbers are constantly changing) US- Operation Enduring Freedom (number of American forces stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the US Operation Enduring Freedom); rather than the 50-62,000 by International Security Assistance Force (number of forces stationed in Afghanistan under NATO command and control).
In the southern provinces where heavy fighting and civilian casualties are frequent, villagers in many areas no longer care who is in charge, just wanting peace at any cost. While outside Afghanistan the battle is seen as one between Al Qaeda and Taliban and the government and international forces, the character of the anti government armed battle is more complex. While there is a core of the Taliban regime which remains under the command and control of Mullah Omar, the homogeneous picture of the 'enemy' is more of a convenient construct of the war against terror.
The anti-government fighters comprise a mix of ideologically motivated Taliban, the Taliban merely fighting for a share of the pie, small time commanders who have been divested of their 'territory', criminals and drug traders. Their links with each other and with the Al Qaeda are fluid and changing, making this nexus much more dangerous than it would have been had it been a clear-cut homogeneous group with a clear command and control structure.
Parallel movements such as that led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are also active and coordinate with the Taliban on a needs-based basis. Each of these groups has been able to hold small areas for short bursts of time but do not have staying power. Rather, their real impact lies in their ability to disrupt governance, instill fear and erode public trust in the mechanisms of governance both in terms of security forces and administration.
Popular perception outside Afghanistan puts the Taliban at the doorstep of Kabul. Indeed, the Taliban has been able to carry out some audacious strikes inside the capital with increasing degrees of coordination. However, their support base within the capital remains extremely limited, restricting their ability to plan and coordinate operations.
While it is more convenient to countries like the US to project the perception of an 'evil' movement that can be annihilated, neither the numbers nor the ideology can be eliminated quite so easily. While the body count has been replaced with growing numbers, the intolerant ideology is not limited to those who call themselves the Taliban. Within Afghanistan's 'legitimate' polity, there are politicians, commanders and power brokers who are much more comfortable with the social and cultural practices of the Taliban than they are with the more modern political paradigm Afghanistan is currently under.
For Afghanistan's single biggest minority, its women, the greatest threat comes from the growing power of cultural conservatives and the rising intolerance. Though its Constitution promises equality, and initial steps with the urging of the international community reserved more than 20 per cent of seats in Afghanistan's Parliament for women, women in public space face increasing threats, and Constitutional guarantees appear to be only as good as its implementers want it to be.
The recent controversy over the Shia personal family law, portions of which are discriminatory towards women, brought this into sharp focus. While this particular law received considerable international focus, in part because of the sensationalised reporting on complex issues of conjugal rights, there has been far less attention on the increasing intolerance for women's participation in public space and the general growth of violence against women.
While several women have been killed by Taliban in the southern provinces such as the killings of Malalai Kakar, a senior and well- known policewoman, and recently Sitara Achakzai, a woman activist (both were killed in Kandahar), there have been several murders in non-Taliban areas as well, such as that of Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabbal Seraj in Parwan province close to Kabul. In Kabul city, the head of a woman's organisation says the staff, mainly women, have become more nervous about their role as advocate of women's rights, preferring to stay low key.
The increasing violence against women is taking place in a milieu where aspects of human rights, media freedoms and democratic principles are increasingly being attacked from powerful sections of Afghanistan's polity as being 'alien' to Afghanistan. Many women fear that it is their rights which may be the first to be sacrificed. They point out that in the 'negotiations' with the Taliban, half of Afghanistan's population remains unrepresented. Women's groups feel that their rights may be the easiest compromise their leaders and the international community may be willing to make, pushing them into a renewed cycle of violence and oppressions.
MAY 2009
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege
Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
In capital Kabul, every week sees new cement bollards in front of buildings, fresh barbed wire concertinas strung across roads, new check points and road blocks. Each successive bomb blast in front of an important building, that is, buildings housing important people, sees yet another road being blocked to the Afghan public. The international community and elite Afghans barricade themselves behind more sandbags as ordinary Afghans get squeezed more and more into the remaining open areas of the capital.
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege. This fact made it all the more curious when the Director General of Afghanistan's National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, claimed this week. "We are victorious." Making a speech at a security seminar, he asked: "What more victory do you want?"
Saleh explained his contention: the world had finally come around to accepting the Afghan government's claim that the source of insecurity lay beyond Afghanistan's borders. Finally, he said, the battle had been taken to the place where those centres existed.Saleh was referring to the recent formulation of an 'Af-Pak' policy by the Barack Obama administration and its attention on Pakistan as a source of terror.
It is an approach that has gone down well with the governments of both Afghanistan as well as India, both of whom view it as a triumph of their diplomatic efforts. Officials of both countries are, however, less clear on how the Obama administration intends to act upon this understanding and how this will play into their strategies.
Within Afghanistan the mood is a somber one - of waiting. Opinion across the spectrum is agreed only on one thing: that the fresh influx of US troops will mean intensified fighting as the winter snows melt allowing for easier access across the rugged terrain.
For Afghan citizens the war against terror being waged in their territory in their name is not the only source of violence. While there is intense fighting between pro and anti-government elements in many of the southern and south eastern provinces, violence against citizens comes from multiple sources.
In Balkh province, governor Mohammad Atta, a former northern alliance commander, overlooks a province that has eradicated poppy and has been free of insurgency. However, he knows he sits on a powder keg. Balkh was hit by a severe drought last year and its dry brown fields point to the failure of crop. Economic deprivation could upset the fragile balance pushing people to re-enter poppy cultivation and destabilise the modicum of law and order that has been achieved.
In capital Kabul, its elite live in fear of kidnappings. While kidnappings in the city are usually followed by reports of the approaching spectre of the Taliban, the reality is that they are carried out by criminal networks looking for ransom - a get rich quick scheme that is made lucrative by the absence of an effective law and order machinery. Part of the problem of policing Afghanistan has been the use of police in counter insurgency duties for which they are ill-equipped. Between 2007 and 2009, 568 Afghan National Army soliders were killed compared to 1,504 policemen in the same period.
In the central province of Bamiyan, one of the most peaceful areas of the country, a hotelier explains why they never advertise widely. "It is better to get to know by word of mouth. Going to public could invite the wrong kind of attention." There are many armed militia or even gunmen who have no compunction shaking down businessmen and rich Afghans knowing that in all likelihood they will escape the criminal justice system.
In the Shind and district of the western province of Herat, an estimated 90 civilians were killed in bombing by international military forces. The international forces initially claimed they had bombed a Taliban camp but later conceded they had been misled by misinformation. Warring groups or tribes see the use of US air power as an easy and cost effective way to settle feuds.
The combination of poor intelligence on the ground, and heavy reliance on air strikes, has caused an escalation in civilian casualties. In the year 2008, the use of aerial munitions went up by 40 per cent. In the same period the number of civilian deaths from air strikes shot up by 72 per cent. Almost 60 per cent of the deaths were attributable to the approximately 10-20,000 (numbers are constantly changing) US- Operation Enduring Freedom (number of American forces stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the US Operation Enduring Freedom); rather than the 50-62,000 by International Security Assistance Force (number of forces stationed in Afghanistan under NATO command and control).
In the southern provinces where heavy fighting and civilian casualties are frequent, villagers in many areas no longer care who is in charge, just wanting peace at any cost. While outside Afghanistan the battle is seen as one between Al Qaeda and Taliban and the government and international forces, the character of the anti government armed battle is more complex. While there is a core of the Taliban regime which remains under the command and control of Mullah Omar, the homogeneous picture of the 'enemy' is more of a convenient construct of the war against terror.
The anti-government fighters comprise a mix of ideologically motivated Taliban, the Taliban merely fighting for a share of the pie, small time commanders who have been divested of their 'territory', criminals and drug traders. Their links with each other and with the Al Qaeda are fluid and changing, making this nexus much more dangerous than it would have been had it been a clear-cut homogeneous group with a clear command and control structure.
Parallel movements such as that led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are also active and coordinate with the Taliban on a needs-based basis. Each of these groups has been able to hold small areas for short bursts of time but do not have staying power. Rather, their real impact lies in their ability to disrupt governance, instill fear and erode public trust in the mechanisms of governance both in terms of security forces and administration.
Popular perception outside Afghanistan puts the Taliban at the doorstep of Kabul. Indeed, the Taliban has been able to carry out some audacious strikes inside the capital with increasing degrees of coordination. However, their support base within the capital remains extremely limited, restricting their ability to plan and coordinate operations.
While it is more convenient to countries like the US to project the perception of an 'evil' movement that can be annihilated, neither the numbers nor the ideology can be eliminated quite so easily. While the body count has been replaced with growing numbers, the intolerant ideology is not limited to those who call themselves the Taliban. Within Afghanistan's 'legitimate' polity, there are politicians, commanders and power brokers who are much more comfortable with the social and cultural practices of the Taliban than they are with the more modern political paradigm Afghanistan is currently under.
For Afghanistan's single biggest minority, its women, the greatest threat comes from the growing power of cultural conservatives and the rising intolerance. Though its Constitution promises equality, and initial steps with the urging of the international community reserved more than 20 per cent of seats in Afghanistan's Parliament for women, women in public space face increasing threats, and Constitutional guarantees appear to be only as good as its implementers want it to be.
The recent controversy over the Shia personal family law, portions of which are discriminatory towards women, brought this into sharp focus. While this particular law received considerable international focus, in part because of the sensationalised reporting on complex issues of conjugal rights, there has been far less attention on the increasing intolerance for women's participation in public space and the general growth of violence against women.
While several women have been killed by Taliban in the southern provinces such as the killings of Malalai Kakar, a senior and well- known policewoman, and recently Sitara Achakzai, a woman activist (both were killed in Kandahar), there have been several murders in non-Taliban areas as well, such as that of Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabbal Seraj in Parwan province close to Kabul. In Kabul city, the head of a woman's organisation says the staff, mainly women, have become more nervous about their role as advocate of women's rights, preferring to stay low key.
The increasing violence against women is taking place in a milieu where aspects of human rights, media freedoms and democratic principles are increasingly being attacked from powerful sections of Afghanistan's polity as being 'alien' to Afghanistan. Many women fear that it is their rights which may be the first to be sacrificed. They point out that in the 'negotiations' with the Taliban, half of Afghanistan's population remains unrepresented. Women's groups feel that their rights may be the easiest compromise their leaders and the international community may be willing to make, pushing them into a renewed cycle of violence and oppressions.
MAY 2009
AFGHANISTAN: EXCLUSIONARY HUMANITARIAN AID PRACTICES HITTING HEARTS AND MINDS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/30/09
The governor of Balkh, a northern Afghan province bordering Uzbekistan, is a smooth-talking, dapper former mujaheddin commander, Atta Mohammad. During a recent interview, he repeatedly expressed frustration with the international approach to Afghanistan. His chief complaint: Despite totally eradicating poppy cultivation in 2007, his province is being ignored by the international aid community.
Atta expressed pride in achieving a measure of security and stability in Balkh. Crime is low and anti-government insurgents are not posing a particular problem. But endemic poverty and a critical humanitarian situation, he said, are threatening to reverse these fragile gains. Under current conditions aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the population’s needs. The reason, many say: donors predominantly fund political and military objectives.
Balkh’s plight seems to be connected in large part to this competition for resources. Dependent on rain-fed agriculture, the province was devastated by severe drought in 2008, crippling a region without substantial access to ground water. Yet despite the security and the need, Balkh’s overwhelming needs have largely gone unaddressed.
If the issue was one of scarce funds thinly spread between competing emergencies, the Balkh governor would perhaps not be complaining. The reason for his resentment, though, is that there seems to be plenty of money available -- so much that some donors have been "throwing it at NGOs" says one aid worker. Money is available for the asking, if aid agencies and NGOs are willing to work for projects when and where the donors dictate.
"We have no problems getting funds for conflict areas," says Dave Hampson of Save the Children, "but it is a struggle to continue excellent work in the non-conflict areas. The interest of donors is quite often in the areas where they have troops. It is understandable for them as a country, but it is not a division of resources based on humanitarian aid needs."
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy and Research of Action Aid Afghanistan, concurs. "Aid is tied to locations where [a donor’s] troops are based. Some countries preference them through PRTs," he says, referring to the controversial civil-military provincial reconstruction teams. ECHO, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office, is the only donor giving independent funding to NGOs now, he says.
Humanitarian aid, intended for basic survival and emergencies, is under pressure. On a visit to Afghanistan in early April, Esko Kentrschynskyj, the Head of Unit for Asia and Latin America of ECHO, emphasized that despite the huge commitment for development and reconstruction in Afghanistan, humanitarian aid had been very limited. "One should not lose sight of significant humanitarian needs that remain in this country," he told journalists in Kabul.
ECHO’s acting country director, Luc Verna, says the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan "are so huge that it will take years and years to cover them all." While he and other aid workers caution that reliable and comprehensive estimates are hard to measure as large swathes of Afghanistan are out of bounds even for assessment, he affirms that anecdotal evidence from the field suggests malnutrition is again on the rise. "The trends are not very good," he says.
The Humanitarian Action Plan appeal launched by the United Nations in February points out that "extreme poverty and lack of development have also left the population more susceptible during times of crisis and emergency, limiting their coping strategies and draining contingency reserves."
"People are resorting to negative coping mechanisms," such as selling off their livestock, says another aid worker who asked to remain anonymous. "The lack of humanitarian funding is a huge issue. All the funding we get is development funding. The humanitarian funding that is offered is linked to political objectives."
This linkage can vary vastly. "We are constantly being pushed to take up projects in areas where the major donors have their troops. They are throwing money at those projects even though the complete push on the south has not prevented the insecurity from spreading," says the aid worker. Other linkages include contractual obligations on the NGOs to build strong ties with military PRTs, or, in the most blatant cases, stipulations that the NGO beneficiary may be asked to do "post battlefield clean-up." "We are forced to reject many projects because of the stipulations," she says.
"After 2001, there was significant involvement of the international community in humanitarian aid that was replaced step-by-step by a trend towards the development of political assets or infrastructure," says Verna of ECHO. He feels that this was probably because of the initial security improvements, but the practice is continuing, despite a drastic change in the situation.
"Independent and flexible humanitarian funding has not been a priority of the donor community in Afghanistan," says Ingrid Macdonald, the Regional Protection and Advocacy Adviser of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The tendency has been to fund large scale and high-value development and reconstruction projects. Often these projects are implemented through large for-profit private companies, linked to military and political priorities, and targeting geographic areas where the donors have a military presence or political interest. The humanitarian needs of the Afghan people are not being met, despite significant donor funding to Afghanistan," she says.
In an interview with EurasiaNet in August last year, then-UNODC country chief, Christina Oguz, warned that provinces like Balkh, which had suffered severely from drought, might slip back into poppy cultivation unless steps were taken to redress the unfolding humanitarian crises. If the province does slip from its current position as a secure and stable province, Governor Atta’s angry message may become prophetic.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/30/09
The governor of Balkh, a northern Afghan province bordering Uzbekistan, is a smooth-talking, dapper former mujaheddin commander, Atta Mohammad. During a recent interview, he repeatedly expressed frustration with the international approach to Afghanistan. His chief complaint: Despite totally eradicating poppy cultivation in 2007, his province is being ignored by the international aid community.
Atta expressed pride in achieving a measure of security and stability in Balkh. Crime is low and anti-government insurgents are not posing a particular problem. But endemic poverty and a critical humanitarian situation, he said, are threatening to reverse these fragile gains. Under current conditions aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the population’s needs. The reason, many say: donors predominantly fund political and military objectives.
Balkh’s plight seems to be connected in large part to this competition for resources. Dependent on rain-fed agriculture, the province was devastated by severe drought in 2008, crippling a region without substantial access to ground water. Yet despite the security and the need, Balkh’s overwhelming needs have largely gone unaddressed.
If the issue was one of scarce funds thinly spread between competing emergencies, the Balkh governor would perhaps not be complaining. The reason for his resentment, though, is that there seems to be plenty of money available -- so much that some donors have been "throwing it at NGOs" says one aid worker. Money is available for the asking, if aid agencies and NGOs are willing to work for projects when and where the donors dictate.
"We have no problems getting funds for conflict areas," says Dave Hampson of Save the Children, "but it is a struggle to continue excellent work in the non-conflict areas. The interest of donors is quite often in the areas where they have troops. It is understandable for them as a country, but it is not a division of resources based on humanitarian aid needs."
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy and Research of Action Aid Afghanistan, concurs. "Aid is tied to locations where [a donor’s] troops are based. Some countries preference them through PRTs," he says, referring to the controversial civil-military provincial reconstruction teams. ECHO, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office, is the only donor giving independent funding to NGOs now, he says.
Humanitarian aid, intended for basic survival and emergencies, is under pressure. On a visit to Afghanistan in early April, Esko Kentrschynskyj, the Head of Unit for Asia and Latin America of ECHO, emphasized that despite the huge commitment for development and reconstruction in Afghanistan, humanitarian aid had been very limited. "One should not lose sight of significant humanitarian needs that remain in this country," he told journalists in Kabul.
ECHO’s acting country director, Luc Verna, says the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan "are so huge that it will take years and years to cover them all." While he and other aid workers caution that reliable and comprehensive estimates are hard to measure as large swathes of Afghanistan are out of bounds even for assessment, he affirms that anecdotal evidence from the field suggests malnutrition is again on the rise. "The trends are not very good," he says.
The Humanitarian Action Plan appeal launched by the United Nations in February points out that "extreme poverty and lack of development have also left the population more susceptible during times of crisis and emergency, limiting their coping strategies and draining contingency reserves."
"People are resorting to negative coping mechanisms," such as selling off their livestock, says another aid worker who asked to remain anonymous. "The lack of humanitarian funding is a huge issue. All the funding we get is development funding. The humanitarian funding that is offered is linked to political objectives."
This linkage can vary vastly. "We are constantly being pushed to take up projects in areas where the major donors have their troops. They are throwing money at those projects even though the complete push on the south has not prevented the insecurity from spreading," says the aid worker. Other linkages include contractual obligations on the NGOs to build strong ties with military PRTs, or, in the most blatant cases, stipulations that the NGO beneficiary may be asked to do "post battlefield clean-up." "We are forced to reject many projects because of the stipulations," she says.
"After 2001, there was significant involvement of the international community in humanitarian aid that was replaced step-by-step by a trend towards the development of political assets or infrastructure," says Verna of ECHO. He feels that this was probably because of the initial security improvements, but the practice is continuing, despite a drastic change in the situation.
"Independent and flexible humanitarian funding has not been a priority of the donor community in Afghanistan," says Ingrid Macdonald, the Regional Protection and Advocacy Adviser of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The tendency has been to fund large scale and high-value development and reconstruction projects. Often these projects are implemented through large for-profit private companies, linked to military and political priorities, and targeting geographic areas where the donors have a military presence or political interest. The humanitarian needs of the Afghan people are not being met, despite significant donor funding to Afghanistan," she says.
In an interview with EurasiaNet in August last year, then-UNODC country chief, Christina Oguz, warned that provinces like Balkh, which had suffered severely from drought, might slip back into poppy cultivation unless steps were taken to redress the unfolding humanitarian crises. If the province does slip from its current position as a secure and stable province, Governor Atta’s angry message may become prophetic.
Old military hardware in a new bottle
Asia Times
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy, goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power - diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides". Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details, the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care, Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since 2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May 2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs. Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money. "We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38 billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment, $3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In 2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72% over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan, speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for "Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged. Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys' that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy, goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power - diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides". Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details, the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care, Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since 2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May 2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs. Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money. "We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38 billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment, $3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In 2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72% over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan, speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for "Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged. Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys' that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
AFGHANISTAN: PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS REVEAL COMPLEXITIES IN THE AFGHAN POLITICAL
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/21/09
One of the chief weaknesses of President Hamid Karzai’s administration in Afghanistan is that its authority does not extend across the entire country. It is ironic, then, that one of Karzai’s main challengers in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election asserts that the incumbent has too much power concentrated in his hands.
Speaking at an April 20 security conference, Abdullah Abdullah -- a former Afghan foreign minister and himself a presidential hopeful in the August election -- complained that Afghanistan’s current security woes can be attributed in part to the marginalization of forces that played an instrumental role in resisting both Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.
"Those who played a role in bringing security" in earlier years should have a say in the present security debates, Abdullah asserted. Instead, Karzai in recent years has managed to consolidate authority in his hands, and has succeeded in pushing out those individuals and forces that could provide checks on his authority. The current governmental decision-making process is so centralized that "even the smallest decisions have to go to the president’s office," Abdullah said.
Abdullah should know. He was part of the team that took over in Kabul after a US-led blitz toppled the Taliban. His influence stemmed from the fact that he was a leader of the Northern Alliance, which provided most of the armed resistance to the Taliban only to see its influence wane dramatically in recent years.
The need to strike a new balance in Afghanistan’s still nascent democratic system seems to be one of the emerging themes of the presidential campaign. But as Abdullah and others are finding, fixing perceived flaws in the system will not be easy. As Karzai critics now see it, the United States and European Union miscalculated during the 2001 Bonn Conference, which created the country’s existing political framework and launched the process of drafting a new constitution.
Back then, the United States reportedly pushed strongly for the creation of a powerful presidency -- apparently believing that a strong chief executive would offer the best way to promote stability in the strife-torn country. Over time, however, Karzai’s administration has proven ineffectual in combating corruption, and the consensus among democratization advocates has shifted -- to the point where some policy-makers in the West reportedly now wish that stronger checks and balances on presidential authority had been built into the Afghan system.
In March, the British daily The Guardian reported that US officials were keen to create the post of prime minister in the Afghan government structure as a way of counter-balancing Karzai’s influence. But in an interview with EurasiaNet, a US government spokesman denied that Washington had any such plans.
In any event, introducing the post of prime minister at this point would be a difficult task. Afghanistan’s Constitution currently does not provide for that post and thus would require amending. While amendments can be introduced by a majority in parliament, the commission that approves amendments, and the Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, which ratifies constitutional changes, both require presidential assent, as does the final endorsement of the amendments. Any sitting president, not just Karzai, would seem unlikely to support a measure that would considerably dilute his (or potentially her) presidential authority.
In addition, any perception that the United States supports the creation of the prime ministerial post would, at this stage, seem a sure way of squashing all hopes of it ever becoming reality. Most Afghans are convinced that Washington wants to influence the election’s outcome, despite Washington’s insistence that it is neither supporting nor opposing any candidate. Within Afghanistan, anti-foreigner sentiment, especially anti-American sentiment, may well turn out to be a major factor in the presidential election.
The question of checks and balances is just one of the complexities of the Afghan system that is exerting influence on the presidential campaign. One other major issue is the matter of individual influence in politics, and the lack of well-organized political parties.
Afghanistan’s electoral law poses obstacles to the involvement of political parties in the presidential campaign. As a result, the campaign’s outcome hinges on not necessarily the articulation of policy programs, but on back-room deals made by power brokers -- a process that appears to be currently underway.
For example, to blunt Abdullah’s criticism, Karzai loyalists announced on April 21 that another leader of the Northern Alliance, Mohammad Fahim, was formally endorsing the incumbent for reelection. The announcement thus exposed a split in the National Front, the main political opposition group in the country.
Yet another intricacy of this presidential election revolves around citizenship. Some of those who aspire to the Afghan presidency now find themselves in a position of first having to reaffirm their Afghan citizenship. One such presidential hopeful is Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist who also served as Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002-2004. Ghani is currently in the United States, where he is in the midst of revoking his US citizenship. According to his office here in Kabul, Ghani intends to return to Afghanistan on an Afghan passport.
The citizenship hurdle confronted by Ghani and others is connected with Afghanistan’s legacy of three-plus decades of foreign occupation and civil strife. Over that time, more than 8 million Afghans became refugees, with most finding safe havens in Pakistan and Iran. A privileged few, including Ghani, migrated to the West, where they acquired US and European citizenship.
Ghani’s citizenship did not prevent him from serving as finance minister, but the constitution expressly forbids the chief executive from being a citizen of any other country. Ministers are appointed, not elected, and the prerogative of vetting the qualifications of a ministerial nominee rests with the Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament. In presidential contests, the Independent Election Commission has the responsibility of ensuring that candidates meet all constitutional requirements.
The commission’s deputy chief, Zekria Barakzai, told EurasiaNet that the IEC will strictly interpret the constitution on the citizenship issue. "They [candidates] have to provide proof of revoking their citizenship (of another country), and the proof must state that they have already annulled the citizenship," Barakzai said. The requirement will affect not only Ghani, but several other contenders including the former interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, who was born in Afghanistan in 1940, but subsequently acquired American citizenship.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/21/09
One of the chief weaknesses of President Hamid Karzai’s administration in Afghanistan is that its authority does not extend across the entire country. It is ironic, then, that one of Karzai’s main challengers in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election asserts that the incumbent has too much power concentrated in his hands.
Speaking at an April 20 security conference, Abdullah Abdullah -- a former Afghan foreign minister and himself a presidential hopeful in the August election -- complained that Afghanistan’s current security woes can be attributed in part to the marginalization of forces that played an instrumental role in resisting both Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.
"Those who played a role in bringing security" in earlier years should have a say in the present security debates, Abdullah asserted. Instead, Karzai in recent years has managed to consolidate authority in his hands, and has succeeded in pushing out those individuals and forces that could provide checks on his authority. The current governmental decision-making process is so centralized that "even the smallest decisions have to go to the president’s office," Abdullah said.
Abdullah should know. He was part of the team that took over in Kabul after a US-led blitz toppled the Taliban. His influence stemmed from the fact that he was a leader of the Northern Alliance, which provided most of the armed resistance to the Taliban only to see its influence wane dramatically in recent years.
The need to strike a new balance in Afghanistan’s still nascent democratic system seems to be one of the emerging themes of the presidential campaign. But as Abdullah and others are finding, fixing perceived flaws in the system will not be easy. As Karzai critics now see it, the United States and European Union miscalculated during the 2001 Bonn Conference, which created the country’s existing political framework and launched the process of drafting a new constitution.
Back then, the United States reportedly pushed strongly for the creation of a powerful presidency -- apparently believing that a strong chief executive would offer the best way to promote stability in the strife-torn country. Over time, however, Karzai’s administration has proven ineffectual in combating corruption, and the consensus among democratization advocates has shifted -- to the point where some policy-makers in the West reportedly now wish that stronger checks and balances on presidential authority had been built into the Afghan system.
In March, the British daily The Guardian reported that US officials were keen to create the post of prime minister in the Afghan government structure as a way of counter-balancing Karzai’s influence. But in an interview with EurasiaNet, a US government spokesman denied that Washington had any such plans.
In any event, introducing the post of prime minister at this point would be a difficult task. Afghanistan’s Constitution currently does not provide for that post and thus would require amending. While amendments can be introduced by a majority in parliament, the commission that approves amendments, and the Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, which ratifies constitutional changes, both require presidential assent, as does the final endorsement of the amendments. Any sitting president, not just Karzai, would seem unlikely to support a measure that would considerably dilute his (or potentially her) presidential authority.
In addition, any perception that the United States supports the creation of the prime ministerial post would, at this stage, seem a sure way of squashing all hopes of it ever becoming reality. Most Afghans are convinced that Washington wants to influence the election’s outcome, despite Washington’s insistence that it is neither supporting nor opposing any candidate. Within Afghanistan, anti-foreigner sentiment, especially anti-American sentiment, may well turn out to be a major factor in the presidential election.
The question of checks and balances is just one of the complexities of the Afghan system that is exerting influence on the presidential campaign. One other major issue is the matter of individual influence in politics, and the lack of well-organized political parties.
Afghanistan’s electoral law poses obstacles to the involvement of political parties in the presidential campaign. As a result, the campaign’s outcome hinges on not necessarily the articulation of policy programs, but on back-room deals made by power brokers -- a process that appears to be currently underway.
For example, to blunt Abdullah’s criticism, Karzai loyalists announced on April 21 that another leader of the Northern Alliance, Mohammad Fahim, was formally endorsing the incumbent for reelection. The announcement thus exposed a split in the National Front, the main political opposition group in the country.
Yet another intricacy of this presidential election revolves around citizenship. Some of those who aspire to the Afghan presidency now find themselves in a position of first having to reaffirm their Afghan citizenship. One such presidential hopeful is Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist who also served as Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002-2004. Ghani is currently in the United States, where he is in the midst of revoking his US citizenship. According to his office here in Kabul, Ghani intends to return to Afghanistan on an Afghan passport.
The citizenship hurdle confronted by Ghani and others is connected with Afghanistan’s legacy of three-plus decades of foreign occupation and civil strife. Over that time, more than 8 million Afghans became refugees, with most finding safe havens in Pakistan and Iran. A privileged few, including Ghani, migrated to the West, where they acquired US and European citizenship.
Ghani’s citizenship did not prevent him from serving as finance minister, but the constitution expressly forbids the chief executive from being a citizen of any other country. Ministers are appointed, not elected, and the prerogative of vetting the qualifications of a ministerial nominee rests with the Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament. In presidential contests, the Independent Election Commission has the responsibility of ensuring that candidates meet all constitutional requirements.
The commission’s deputy chief, Zekria Barakzai, told EurasiaNet that the IEC will strictly interpret the constitution on the citizenship issue. "They [candidates] have to provide proof of revoking their citizenship (of another country), and the proof must state that they have already annulled the citizenship," Barakzai said. The requirement will affect not only Ghani, but several other contenders including the former interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, who was born in Afghanistan in 1940, but subsequently acquired American citizenship.
AFGHANISTAN’S FIRST FEMALE GOVERNOR STRIVES TO CHANGE ATTITUDES AND HABITS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/16/09
Habiba Sarobi is levying punitive fines -- fines for arriving late and fines for failing to silence cell phones during meetings. The penalties are a major part the governor of Bamiyan’s strategy to overhaul the work ethic of her province, a place made famous by the Taliban’s destruction of giant Buddhas in 2001.
Though it is still early in her reform effort, some provincial officials quietly express surprise at the progress already made. At one recent public function, for example, several functionaries showed up early, a fact practically unheard of elsewhere in Afghanistan. Already Sarobi is Afghanistan’s first and only female governor. If her experiment in punctuality succeeds, she would also become the first governor to instill in bureaucrats a healthy respect for time and discipline anywhere in the country. "One man paid the fine this morning," she declares with a mischievous smile.
In a country still ravaged by conflict, and where corruption and nepotism are rampant, late arrivals at meetings may seem like an outlandish issue -- one too trivial to bother with amid pressing economic and social concerns. But for Bamiyan, discipline may be the critical component in promoting economic growth. The province is fortunate to be one of the most stable in Afghanistan. But stability is both a blessing and a curse: with international attention focused on the more insecure provinces in the south and east, Bamiyan has been largely left to its own devices during the reconstruction process.
For Sarobi and other officials in the province, there is not a lot to work with other than their own ingenuity. Bamiyan’s history -- going back to before the Soviet invasion -- is one of economic deprivation. As a province dominated by the Hazara community, who are racially distinct and face social segregation and discrimination throughout the country, Bamiyan has experienced years of neglect from successive rulers. While a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now working there, the absence of essential infrastructure makes it difficult for Bamiyan to capitalize on the benefits of their work.
According to Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy, Afghanistan has rehabilitated 12,200 kilometers of roads since 2001. Only in the last year has the rehabilitation reached Bamiyan. So far the province has just one mile of asphalt, hardly enough to encourage investment in industries or tourism.
As Bamiyan does not tie into existing infrastructure networks, NGO aid does not yield the same benefits that it would in other provinces. The province enjoys renown for its fertile fields and agriculture, but farmers have difficulty in getting their produce to market because of the lack of roads. It has the potential for tourism, but no commercial flights land in the vicinity.
Sarobi has ideas for promoting growth. The tourism potential is ripe. But despite the province’s spectacular beauty, fascinating history and linkage with contemporary events, tourism in Bamiyan could only provide small revenues. Agriculture and mining (the region has abundant iron and coal deposits) would seem to be the best engines for growth.
These days, Sarobi can usually be found multitasking: asking NGOs to invest in small scale units to help with milk and wool production; drawing up plans to extract iron in the Hajigak mines; flying off to New Zealand where she succeeded in persuading Wellington to provide a $1 million grant towards tourism development at a time when most of the international community has grave doubts about Afghanistan’s security; or lobbying the central government to relocate the tiny airport so Bamiyan can retain its status as a world heritage site, an accolade bestowed on the remote valley in 2003 for its beauty and archeological treasures.
Sarobi is hands on, whether it is organizing a meeting at the spectacular lakes of Band-i Amir where she has had lakeside buildings removed to preserve the pristine beauty of the lake, or clambering up the steep scaffolding in front of one of the Buddhas on hearing an ancient relic had been discovered hidden in a small alcove.
"We hope we can have a regional museum here to keep the archeological finds," says Sarobi. It is a proposal that is endorsed by the director of National Museums in Kabul, Omara Khan Masoudi.
On the debate about the future of the Buddhas, she dismisses outlandish proposals to reconstruct them and says simply, "I would like them to be reconstructed using anastylosis" (a process where no new material is used, but the fragments are reattached to the existing structure wherever possible).
Sarobi’s greatest contribution to the province’s regeneration is perhaps the one that defies quantification -- serving as a role model for Afghan girls and women who desire to participate in civil society development. It is a space Sarobi herself has carved out after a long struggle, which began with discrimination within her own family.
After much persuasion, she speaks of childhood matter-of-factly, but with an underlying sadness. "The first stage of my life was very tough. My father, like all other men in Afghanistan, had an attitude of discrimination. He preferred my brothers to me. This affected me a lot. It affected me enough to [work hard and] show my family that I am here and I can do something. I would work hard and always come first in class to show I could do better than my brothers," she says.
It was not her father, however, who was convinced by this determination, but her uncles who encouraged Sarobi to continue studying: "This changed my personality at that time. In university I became involved with some student unions during the [era of Soviet occupation in the 1980s]. I was a very emotional person. But in middle age, I said it is not good for a woman to be emotional but better to be strong. I witnessed many crimes during the mujahedeen time and I decided to stop crying."
Sarobi helps both her sister and daughter overcome the prevalent disadvantages facing females in Afghan society. "I witness many bad attitudes towards women even among educated families," she says. In her own family she has found support from her husband whose own liberal views influence their children, two sons and a daughter. But Sarobi feels Afghan society has a long way to go.
"I hope that it will change," she said.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/16/09
Habiba Sarobi is levying punitive fines -- fines for arriving late and fines for failing to silence cell phones during meetings. The penalties are a major part the governor of Bamiyan’s strategy to overhaul the work ethic of her province, a place made famous by the Taliban’s destruction of giant Buddhas in 2001.
Though it is still early in her reform effort, some provincial officials quietly express surprise at the progress already made. At one recent public function, for example, several functionaries showed up early, a fact practically unheard of elsewhere in Afghanistan. Already Sarobi is Afghanistan’s first and only female governor. If her experiment in punctuality succeeds, she would also become the first governor to instill in bureaucrats a healthy respect for time and discipline anywhere in the country. "One man paid the fine this morning," she declares with a mischievous smile.
In a country still ravaged by conflict, and where corruption and nepotism are rampant, late arrivals at meetings may seem like an outlandish issue -- one too trivial to bother with amid pressing economic and social concerns. But for Bamiyan, discipline may be the critical component in promoting economic growth. The province is fortunate to be one of the most stable in Afghanistan. But stability is both a blessing and a curse: with international attention focused on the more insecure provinces in the south and east, Bamiyan has been largely left to its own devices during the reconstruction process.
For Sarobi and other officials in the province, there is not a lot to work with other than their own ingenuity. Bamiyan’s history -- going back to before the Soviet invasion -- is one of economic deprivation. As a province dominated by the Hazara community, who are racially distinct and face social segregation and discrimination throughout the country, Bamiyan has experienced years of neglect from successive rulers. While a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now working there, the absence of essential infrastructure makes it difficult for Bamiyan to capitalize on the benefits of their work.
According to Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy, Afghanistan has rehabilitated 12,200 kilometers of roads since 2001. Only in the last year has the rehabilitation reached Bamiyan. So far the province has just one mile of asphalt, hardly enough to encourage investment in industries or tourism.
As Bamiyan does not tie into existing infrastructure networks, NGO aid does not yield the same benefits that it would in other provinces. The province enjoys renown for its fertile fields and agriculture, but farmers have difficulty in getting their produce to market because of the lack of roads. It has the potential for tourism, but no commercial flights land in the vicinity.
Sarobi has ideas for promoting growth. The tourism potential is ripe. But despite the province’s spectacular beauty, fascinating history and linkage with contemporary events, tourism in Bamiyan could only provide small revenues. Agriculture and mining (the region has abundant iron and coal deposits) would seem to be the best engines for growth.
These days, Sarobi can usually be found multitasking: asking NGOs to invest in small scale units to help with milk and wool production; drawing up plans to extract iron in the Hajigak mines; flying off to New Zealand where she succeeded in persuading Wellington to provide a $1 million grant towards tourism development at a time when most of the international community has grave doubts about Afghanistan’s security; or lobbying the central government to relocate the tiny airport so Bamiyan can retain its status as a world heritage site, an accolade bestowed on the remote valley in 2003 for its beauty and archeological treasures.
Sarobi is hands on, whether it is organizing a meeting at the spectacular lakes of Band-i Amir where she has had lakeside buildings removed to preserve the pristine beauty of the lake, or clambering up the steep scaffolding in front of one of the Buddhas on hearing an ancient relic had been discovered hidden in a small alcove.
"We hope we can have a regional museum here to keep the archeological finds," says Sarobi. It is a proposal that is endorsed by the director of National Museums in Kabul, Omara Khan Masoudi.
On the debate about the future of the Buddhas, she dismisses outlandish proposals to reconstruct them and says simply, "I would like them to be reconstructed using anastylosis" (a process where no new material is used, but the fragments are reattached to the existing structure wherever possible).
Sarobi’s greatest contribution to the province’s regeneration is perhaps the one that defies quantification -- serving as a role model for Afghan girls and women who desire to participate in civil society development. It is a space Sarobi herself has carved out after a long struggle, which began with discrimination within her own family.
After much persuasion, she speaks of childhood matter-of-factly, but with an underlying sadness. "The first stage of my life was very tough. My father, like all other men in Afghanistan, had an attitude of discrimination. He preferred my brothers to me. This affected me a lot. It affected me enough to [work hard and] show my family that I am here and I can do something. I would work hard and always come first in class to show I could do better than my brothers," she says.
It was not her father, however, who was convinced by this determination, but her uncles who encouraged Sarobi to continue studying: "This changed my personality at that time. In university I became involved with some student unions during the [era of Soviet occupation in the 1980s]. I was a very emotional person. But in middle age, I said it is not good for a woman to be emotional but better to be strong. I witnessed many crimes during the mujahedeen time and I decided to stop crying."
Sarobi helps both her sister and daughter overcome the prevalent disadvantages facing females in Afghan society. "I witness many bad attitudes towards women even among educated families," she says. In her own family she has found support from her husband whose own liberal views influence their children, two sons and a daughter. But Sarobi feels Afghan society has a long way to go.
"I hope that it will change," she said.
AFGHANISTAN: IS THE OBLIGATORY SEX LAW POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TO BOLSTER KARZAI'S POLL HOPES?
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 4/10/09
Following an international outcry, officials in Afghanistan have backtracked on legislation that would have drastically curtailed women's rights. While some international observers characterized the draft bill as an aberration in Afghanistan's democratization process, critics insist Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration is willing to endorse discrimination in order to bolster its standing in conservative constituencies.
The Shi'a Personal Status bill would codify unequal marriage rights and duties for men and women within the Shi'a minority. Foreign critics have complained that the legislation would enable a husband to compel his wife to have sex with impunity, in effect engaging in action that in several Western states meets a legal standard of rape. The law would also lower the marriage age below the minimum enshrined in the civil law, currently 16 for girls and 18 for boys, allowing for the marriage of minors.
Women's rights activists say they have been agitating against the discriminatory provisions of the law since it was first drafted in 2007. They see a negative trend and fear that the bill is the beginning of a process that will see women's rights bartered in lieu of political deals and compromises, both during the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and in the larger process of reconciliation with the Taliban.
Female MP Shinkai Karokhail, who has been at the forefront of raising this issue within parliament, says the discriminatory provisions were by no means an aberration or oversight. "We have pointed these out in detail over the past two years. As recently as March, just before the bill got presidential assent, we had questioned why the bill contained these discriminatory provisions," she told EurasiaNet.
The bill has been passed by both houses of parliament and signed by President Karzai, thus completing three of the four stages for adoption of the law. However, it has still not been published, the last step before it becomes legally binding. Karokhail says the bill was passed in haste. "Different departments of the legislative process rushed through the bill. This was entirely for political reasons. Only four or five powerful people within parliament supported it, but not the majority," she asserted.
The perception that political machinations or a political deal were behind the bill is widespread amongst women's rights activists. "It has nothing to do with religion," asserts Wajma Frogh, the Country Director of Global Rights in Afghanistan. "It is political. Women's issues are being compromised for political gain."
Activists, however, are also aware that they have to tread cautiously so as not to be seen as discriminatory toward a religious minority group in Afghanistan. Karokhail emphasizes that the changes they are demanding in the Shi'a bill are similar to the safeguards they are seeking under the Sunni version of the law, which is still in the drafting process. Indeed, the fear is that if the discriminatory provisions of the Shi'a law are not overturned, it could set a precedent that would impact the majority Sunni community as well.
The swift reactions of international leaders -- including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer -- led Karzai to order a review. If anything in the legislation is found to contravene the country's constitution or Sharia law, the president said, "measures will be taken."
"We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community," Karzai told a press conference in Kabul. "Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law, or a misinterpretation of it."
The somewhat haphazard international reaction to the bill has, in part, allowed the government to shield itself. To date, there is no authoritative translation, preventing many organizations and international bodies from taking a firm, clear and public stand on this issue. In a statement issued early this month, UNIFEM Afghanistan made clear its concerns about the initial draft, noting that, "the question was raised as to whether the draft law was consistent with Afghanistan's own legal framework which includes the Afghan Constitution."
In the absence of a definitive version of the legislation, Karzai has some wiggle room to speak of "inappropriate" concerns based on incorrect interpretations. Some say his characterization that opposition to the bill emanated from the international community is misleading, since the most fierce and consistent opposition has come from Afghan women and Afghan groups. Local activists claim that the president's office and the Ministry of Justice have long been aware of the specific objections, as well as suggested amendments.
Bolstered by the international reaction, Afghan activists are still worried that the "review" will become an excuse for not taking action, and that the international community's interest in the issue will dwindle. "In the beginning we were a priority, and efforts were made to have the active participation of women in public life. Now we are no longer on the agenda of the government and international community," said Karokhail. "We are not being consulted on any major decisions. We are not being consulted on talks with the Taliban. There is a fear in our heart that the politicians will compromise our rights."
Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of Human Rights Watch, is worried that, as diplomats and government officials speak more openly about reconciliation with the Taliban, the bill portends a decrease in attention to women's rights. "In passing this law, Parliament and the president have behaved as though women's rights are expendable," she told EurasiaNet. "All of this makes the prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban deeply worrying if women's rights can be so easily abandoned and those who want to speak up for women can be so easily silenced. One has to hope that those international politicians who expressed outrage at the Shi'a family law will show the same commitment to women's rights when deals are being made with the Taliban."
Aunohita Mojumdar: 4/10/09
Following an international outcry, officials in Afghanistan have backtracked on legislation that would have drastically curtailed women's rights. While some international observers characterized the draft bill as an aberration in Afghanistan's democratization process, critics insist Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration is willing to endorse discrimination in order to bolster its standing in conservative constituencies.
The Shi'a Personal Status bill would codify unequal marriage rights and duties for men and women within the Shi'a minority. Foreign critics have complained that the legislation would enable a husband to compel his wife to have sex with impunity, in effect engaging in action that in several Western states meets a legal standard of rape. The law would also lower the marriage age below the minimum enshrined in the civil law, currently 16 for girls and 18 for boys, allowing for the marriage of minors.
Women's rights activists say they have been agitating against the discriminatory provisions of the law since it was first drafted in 2007. They see a negative trend and fear that the bill is the beginning of a process that will see women's rights bartered in lieu of political deals and compromises, both during the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and in the larger process of reconciliation with the Taliban.
Female MP Shinkai Karokhail, who has been at the forefront of raising this issue within parliament, says the discriminatory provisions were by no means an aberration or oversight. "We have pointed these out in detail over the past two years. As recently as March, just before the bill got presidential assent, we had questioned why the bill contained these discriminatory provisions," she told EurasiaNet.
The bill has been passed by both houses of parliament and signed by President Karzai, thus completing three of the four stages for adoption of the law. However, it has still not been published, the last step before it becomes legally binding. Karokhail says the bill was passed in haste. "Different departments of the legislative process rushed through the bill. This was entirely for political reasons. Only four or five powerful people within parliament supported it, but not the majority," she asserted.
The perception that political machinations or a political deal were behind the bill is widespread amongst women's rights activists. "It has nothing to do with religion," asserts Wajma Frogh, the Country Director of Global Rights in Afghanistan. "It is political. Women's issues are being compromised for political gain."
Activists, however, are also aware that they have to tread cautiously so as not to be seen as discriminatory toward a religious minority group in Afghanistan. Karokhail emphasizes that the changes they are demanding in the Shi'a bill are similar to the safeguards they are seeking under the Sunni version of the law, which is still in the drafting process. Indeed, the fear is that if the discriminatory provisions of the Shi'a law are not overturned, it could set a precedent that would impact the majority Sunni community as well.
The swift reactions of international leaders -- including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer -- led Karzai to order a review. If anything in the legislation is found to contravene the country's constitution or Sharia law, the president said, "measures will be taken."
"We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community," Karzai told a press conference in Kabul. "Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law, or a misinterpretation of it."
The somewhat haphazard international reaction to the bill has, in part, allowed the government to shield itself. To date, there is no authoritative translation, preventing many organizations and international bodies from taking a firm, clear and public stand on this issue. In a statement issued early this month, UNIFEM Afghanistan made clear its concerns about the initial draft, noting that, "the question was raised as to whether the draft law was consistent with Afghanistan's own legal framework which includes the Afghan Constitution."
In the absence of a definitive version of the legislation, Karzai has some wiggle room to speak of "inappropriate" concerns based on incorrect interpretations. Some say his characterization that opposition to the bill emanated from the international community is misleading, since the most fierce and consistent opposition has come from Afghan women and Afghan groups. Local activists claim that the president's office and the Ministry of Justice have long been aware of the specific objections, as well as suggested amendments.
Bolstered by the international reaction, Afghan activists are still worried that the "review" will become an excuse for not taking action, and that the international community's interest in the issue will dwindle. "In the beginning we were a priority, and efforts were made to have the active participation of women in public life. Now we are no longer on the agenda of the government and international community," said Karokhail. "We are not being consulted on any major decisions. We are not being consulted on talks with the Taliban. There is a fear in our heart that the politicians will compromise our rights."
Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of Human Rights Watch, is worried that, as diplomats and government officials speak more openly about reconciliation with the Taliban, the bill portends a decrease in attention to women's rights. "In passing this law, Parliament and the president have behaved as though women's rights are expendable," she told EurasiaNet. "All of this makes the prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban deeply worrying if women's rights can be so easily abandoned and those who want to speak up for women can be so easily silenced. One has to hope that those international politicians who expressed outrage at the Shi'a family law will show the same commitment to women's rights when deals are being made with the Taliban."
Afghanistan unravelling
April 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
In early March, Kabul was abuzz with talk about the next presidential elections. When would they be held, and under what circumstances? Who would be able to vote? Would the Election Commission be prepared? Were any of the opposition candidates ready? Could the security forces ensure security? And how many times would the Constitution be violated in the course of whatever decision was ultimately taken?
Under Afghanistan’s Constitution, the elections should have been held by 21 April, at least a month before the constitutionally mandated date for the end of the presidential term. But following discussions, it was last year ‘agreed’ – between the parliamentarians, the country’s independent Election Commission and the presidency – to hold the elections in August 2009. This was a time period the commission said would be required if it were to attempt to implement the ballot throughout the country, large parts of which are snowbound till late spring. Now, this agreement appeared to have unravelled, with the opposition demanding that either the elections be held in accordance with the Constitution, in April itself, or that President Hamid Karzai step down for the period between the end of the presidency and the elections. With this move, the opposition – which includes the United National Front, a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-Communist leaders and various social and ethnic groups – was hoping that it would be able to deprive President Karzai of the advantages of incumbency in the run-up.
Afghanistan, still a nascent political democracy, does not have public electoral campaigning in the style of most democracies. Instead, security concerns, resource constraints, geography and the very culture, which is as yet unused to a full representative government based on the principles of parliamentary democracy, conspire to limit the candidates’ access to voters. In this situation, the advantage goes to whoever controls the Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA), which still remains under state control despite numerous efforts to free up the airwaves. Any incumbent president would also benefit from the highly centralised system of authority and financial power in the current form of government, where provincial governors are appointed by the president rather than by the elected provincial councils.
President Karzai initially fought the move to shunt him out. Unwilling to step down, he first argued that he be should allowed to stay till the completion of his five-year term, since the presidential elections were last held late in 2004. When the opposition parties did not budge, he hoisted them on their own petard, ordering the Election Commission to follow the Constitution to the letter – an order that was interpreted as the president’s call for early elections in April. Not only would this have ensured that he remained in his position during the conduct of the elections because it was within the Constitutional timeframe, but it also put the opposition in quite a spot, since no one was even half ready to challenge the incumbent.
As the opposition reverted its position to supporting August elections, the international community also backed that date, terming it impossible to organise the logistics before that. Finally, the Election Commission formally stated that it would be impossible to hold free and fair elections anytime before August. While President Karzai agreed to this decision, the question of whether he could be forced to step down remains unresolved, as does the issue of constitutional impropriety of having elections well beyond the constitutionally mandated date. Worryingly, both of these matters appear to be able to be resolved only through the imposition of a state of emergency, though that is being seen as an unlikely step now.
Alienation
SABIR NAZAR, “Tree of knowledge”
It is the political manoeuvres and legal technicalities that have preoccupied those in the seat and circle of power in Kabul. But talk of the elections has also engendered some hope, in that people think a change by itself may be positive in a country that has endured a downward slide for some time. This optimism is tempered with a realisation of the limitations of the voter, however, and there is as much discussion on which candidate the Americans will back as there is regarding the candidates that are entering the fray.
An analysis of the hopes and fears about Afghanistan leaves one sober. The Asia Foundation’s annual survey (which offers the largest sample size of any survey in Afghanistan) on public opinion on a range of issues found that 36 percent of the Afghan population feels that they were more prosperous under the Taliban than they are now; only 39 percent feel they are better off today than back then. The survey further reported that of the 16 percent of the population that reported having experienced violence, only eight percent said they had faced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants; in a worrying trend, as much as six percent also said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces.
There has been a 40 percent increase in civilian casualties over the last year of intensifying conflict. UN data states that of the 2118 civilian casualties in 2008, 55 percent were attributed to anti-government elements, and 39 percent to pro-government forces. (The rest could not be attributed.) For the high number of dead from pro-government forces, there is growing public alienation from both the Kabul government and the international community. Though casualties caused by insurgents are higher, Afghans explain their anger by stating that they hold the international community to higher standards. This is because, they point out, the international community and the Karzai government has sought public support on grounds of a higher moral authority, and the promise to uphold rule of law. Increasing civilian casualties, stagnation in the delivery of development and the escalating number of barriers in the form of physical obstacles, denial of access and increasingly complex procedures designed to minimise contact with the public used by the government (including the international community working in support of it) have caused growing public anger, and led to a lower threshold of tolerance.
After seven years of development expenditure amounting to some USD 20 billion, economic progress in Afghanistan has been paltry, erratic and unbalanced. While a small section of the population has been able to benefit from the aid, the majority continue to survive on agriculture – ironically, and interestingly, the most neglected sector by the major international donors. USAID, the American aid arm, for example, has spent less than five percent of its Afghanistan budget on agriculture since 2002. It is not hard to understand why: between 2005 and 2008, an additional five percent of the country’s population was pushed below the minimum nutritional levels, while average household expenditure on food rose from 56 percent to 85 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food scarcity has been exacerbated by rising worldwide prices and a severe drought, a factor that development agencies warn could affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest.
Civilian casualties in the international military operations have acted like lightening rods on the Afghan polity, drawing criticism from the Parliament, President Karzai and the public. This has prodded the UN to join hands in demanding changes in the operational strategies of the international forces. The UN’s seniormost official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has called for a change in the agreements that mandate the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil, especially with respect to house-to-house searches, arbitrary detention and the use of air power in operations. All three are elements that the Taliban has exploited to energise public opinion against the Karzai government.
In Kabul, the alienation is visible in the form of growing checkpoints and physical barriers that protect the international community and the small section of elite Afghans in power. Everyday, more road blocks are put up, barbed wire is strung, and guns are trained on the local population. Debate over the security situation is frenetic. The old mantra that a military solution alone is the answer, which made its appearance soon after the resurgence of insurgency in 2005-06, was revived in 2008, albeit with a new twist: the push for negotiations with the Taliban. While a reconciliation process with those Taliban militants willing to give up arms and join the government has been in place for some time, without yielding substantial results, the emphasis now seems to be on high-level talks. However, there are differing perceptions of who could or should be brought to the table, and at what stage that should happen. The dominant thinking at this point – that of the US with new President Barack Obama at the helm – is to increase the military pressure on the insurgents and the Taliban, while at the same time carrying on negotiations. But the efficacy of this carrot-and-stick approach is yet to be demonstrated.
The change in US administration following the last elections there was eagerly awaited in Afghanistan, though Afghans emphasise that the real change will lie in the detail. While the broad contours of President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan are yet to be spelled out, there are indications of a deepening of the militarised approach in the Afghanistan policy. The new US National Security Adviser, Marine General James Jones, is a former military commander, breaking the earlier precedent of having civilian advisors. The new US ambassador to Afghanistan is also a former military man, General Karl Eikenberry, who served as the commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, and is currently deputy chairman of the NATO military committee in Brussels.
As an initial step, President Obama has sanctioned the sending of an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, whereas military commanders in the field had sought 30,000. The delay in the training of the Afghan National Army has also given impetus to a proposal to train and arm the tribal militia as a means of meeting the shortfall. This proposal now finds the backing of the American generals. Initial statements emanating from Washington, DC have suggested lowered political ambitions and shorter goalposts, with some officials stating that the US must concentrate on its early goals of tackling al-Qaeda and the Taliban, rather than the wider aims of nation-building and stabilisation.
Love thy neighbour
The other defining aspect to emerge from the first months of President Obama’s administration is the concept of ‘Af-Pak’, or viewing the two countries and the violence emanating from and within them as a combined problem. The appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy for ‘Af-Pak’ saw several other countries, including Britain, France and Germany, swiftly following suit by appointing similar envoys in addition to their ambassadors.
Pressure on Pakistan is likely to continue under the Obama administration. However, the fragility of Pakistan’s polity makes it unclear where and how the pressure can be applied. The policy of crossborder strikes carried out by US Special Forces into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, a signature of the Bush years, was supported by candidate Obama. It is not clear whether these strikes will now continue, and it is not clear whether the Americans are sensitive to the enormous negative baggage they collect as a result of the attacks by aircrafts and drones. But it is a fact that there is greater operational coherence in the American operations now, with the Special Forces, which was not answerable to the US commander in Afghanistan, also being brought under the command of the US top military commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.
The deepening crisis within Afghanistan has led to an escalation of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in Kabul, with repeated demands being made for international action on training camps and militant bases across the border, within Pakistan. President Karzai has asked the international forces to move out of the villages of Afghanistan’s hinterland and spread out instead along the border, in order to reach targets across the frontier. This demand for action against Pakistan cuts across the political spectrum, and is likely to increase in intensity as the country moves closer to the elections.
This rhetoric, of course, has been bolstered by similar sentiments within India, heightened in its warmongering frenzy after the Bombay blasts. New Delhi’s role vis-à-vis Afghanistan is likely to be enhanced in the near future, though it is far too early to predict the exact contours of this engagement. India has four consulates apart from its embassy in Kabul, a fact that Islamabad has always cited as evidence of New Delhi’s anti-Pakistan intentions in Afghanistan. For its part, South Block claims, somewhat incongruously, that the relationship with Kabul is bilateral, and has no correlation with its relationship with Pakistan. Afghanistan is the largest beneficiary of Indian foreign aid anywhere, with a USD 1.2 billion package covering infrastructure, capacity-building and community-based projects.
Yet India’s role in helping shape the future of Afghanistan has been limited. Either as a reaction to the criticism levelled by Pakistan or due to its own insecurity about competing with the Western-led project, India has largely stayed away from the decision-making table with regards to Afghanistan, which sees the participation of most major countries of the West as well as the Afghan government. Over the past seven and a half years, the Indian government has preferred to limit its activities to the bilateral arena or to follow the US lead in most issues relating to Afghanistan. With the possibility of a thaw in relations between Iran and the US, and a more assertive Russia increasingly active in the Central Asian republics, it will be interesting to watch whether India makes use of its earlier close ties with these countries, or restricts its role to support of the US. The only possible hiccup on the horizon of the evolving India-US relationship on the Afghanistan front is Washington’s desire to link Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations to the situation in Afghanistan – something New Delhi is adamantly set against.
The situation on the ground is shifting, with national chauvinism on the ascendancy along with an increase in conservatism. Political leaders who have relied on social and political conservative ideology to consolidate their hold have once again begun asserting themselves, and are now finding greater support from the Karzai government. As the country moves towards elections, this platform is likely to be used with increasing frequency. One finds the values of democracy, political, civil and human rights being questioned with increasing frequency, described as imported, Western concepts alien to Afghan life and culture.
This questioning has not come only from interest groups within Afghanistan. It is also emanating from Western donor countries – now eager to wrap up the Afghanistan project, which appears in danger of unravelling. Recent decisions, statements as well as the support provided to ‘leaders’ who have woeful track records in the area of democracy and human rights have shown that some in the Western compact might be willing to accept an Afghan state that is less than democratic, as long as it is somewhat stable and friendly to the Western capitals. Democracy and civil rights look likely to take a back seat as long as the country is able to control the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their ability to hit at the West.
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
In early March, Kabul was abuzz with talk about the next presidential elections. When would they be held, and under what circumstances? Who would be able to vote? Would the Election Commission be prepared? Were any of the opposition candidates ready? Could the security forces ensure security? And how many times would the Constitution be violated in the course of whatever decision was ultimately taken?
Under Afghanistan’s Constitution, the elections should have been held by 21 April, at least a month before the constitutionally mandated date for the end of the presidential term. But following discussions, it was last year ‘agreed’ – between the parliamentarians, the country’s independent Election Commission and the presidency – to hold the elections in August 2009. This was a time period the commission said would be required if it were to attempt to implement the ballot throughout the country, large parts of which are snowbound till late spring. Now, this agreement appeared to have unravelled, with the opposition demanding that either the elections be held in accordance with the Constitution, in April itself, or that President Hamid Karzai step down for the period between the end of the presidency and the elections. With this move, the opposition – which includes the United National Front, a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-Communist leaders and various social and ethnic groups – was hoping that it would be able to deprive President Karzai of the advantages of incumbency in the run-up.
Afghanistan, still a nascent political democracy, does not have public electoral campaigning in the style of most democracies. Instead, security concerns, resource constraints, geography and the very culture, which is as yet unused to a full representative government based on the principles of parliamentary democracy, conspire to limit the candidates’ access to voters. In this situation, the advantage goes to whoever controls the Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA), which still remains under state control despite numerous efforts to free up the airwaves. Any incumbent president would also benefit from the highly centralised system of authority and financial power in the current form of government, where provincial governors are appointed by the president rather than by the elected provincial councils.
President Karzai initially fought the move to shunt him out. Unwilling to step down, he first argued that he be should allowed to stay till the completion of his five-year term, since the presidential elections were last held late in 2004. When the opposition parties did not budge, he hoisted them on their own petard, ordering the Election Commission to follow the Constitution to the letter – an order that was interpreted as the president’s call for early elections in April. Not only would this have ensured that he remained in his position during the conduct of the elections because it was within the Constitutional timeframe, but it also put the opposition in quite a spot, since no one was even half ready to challenge the incumbent.
As the opposition reverted its position to supporting August elections, the international community also backed that date, terming it impossible to organise the logistics before that. Finally, the Election Commission formally stated that it would be impossible to hold free and fair elections anytime before August. While President Karzai agreed to this decision, the question of whether he could be forced to step down remains unresolved, as does the issue of constitutional impropriety of having elections well beyond the constitutionally mandated date. Worryingly, both of these matters appear to be able to be resolved only through the imposition of a state of emergency, though that is being seen as an unlikely step now.
Alienation
SABIR NAZAR, “Tree of knowledge”
It is the political manoeuvres and legal technicalities that have preoccupied those in the seat and circle of power in Kabul. But talk of the elections has also engendered some hope, in that people think a change by itself may be positive in a country that has endured a downward slide for some time. This optimism is tempered with a realisation of the limitations of the voter, however, and there is as much discussion on which candidate the Americans will back as there is regarding the candidates that are entering the fray.
An analysis of the hopes and fears about Afghanistan leaves one sober. The Asia Foundation’s annual survey (which offers the largest sample size of any survey in Afghanistan) on public opinion on a range of issues found that 36 percent of the Afghan population feels that they were more prosperous under the Taliban than they are now; only 39 percent feel they are better off today than back then. The survey further reported that of the 16 percent of the population that reported having experienced violence, only eight percent said they had faced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants; in a worrying trend, as much as six percent also said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces.
There has been a 40 percent increase in civilian casualties over the last year of intensifying conflict. UN data states that of the 2118 civilian casualties in 2008, 55 percent were attributed to anti-government elements, and 39 percent to pro-government forces. (The rest could not be attributed.) For the high number of dead from pro-government forces, there is growing public alienation from both the Kabul government and the international community. Though casualties caused by insurgents are higher, Afghans explain their anger by stating that they hold the international community to higher standards. This is because, they point out, the international community and the Karzai government has sought public support on grounds of a higher moral authority, and the promise to uphold rule of law. Increasing civilian casualties, stagnation in the delivery of development and the escalating number of barriers in the form of physical obstacles, denial of access and increasingly complex procedures designed to minimise contact with the public used by the government (including the international community working in support of it) have caused growing public anger, and led to a lower threshold of tolerance.
After seven years of development expenditure amounting to some USD 20 billion, economic progress in Afghanistan has been paltry, erratic and unbalanced. While a small section of the population has been able to benefit from the aid, the majority continue to survive on agriculture – ironically, and interestingly, the most neglected sector by the major international donors. USAID, the American aid arm, for example, has spent less than five percent of its Afghanistan budget on agriculture since 2002. It is not hard to understand why: between 2005 and 2008, an additional five percent of the country’s population was pushed below the minimum nutritional levels, while average household expenditure on food rose from 56 percent to 85 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food scarcity has been exacerbated by rising worldwide prices and a severe drought, a factor that development agencies warn could affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest.
Civilian casualties in the international military operations have acted like lightening rods on the Afghan polity, drawing criticism from the Parliament, President Karzai and the public. This has prodded the UN to join hands in demanding changes in the operational strategies of the international forces. The UN’s seniormost official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has called for a change in the agreements that mandate the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil, especially with respect to house-to-house searches, arbitrary detention and the use of air power in operations. All three are elements that the Taliban has exploited to energise public opinion against the Karzai government.
In Kabul, the alienation is visible in the form of growing checkpoints and physical barriers that protect the international community and the small section of elite Afghans in power. Everyday, more road blocks are put up, barbed wire is strung, and guns are trained on the local population. Debate over the security situation is frenetic. The old mantra that a military solution alone is the answer, which made its appearance soon after the resurgence of insurgency in 2005-06, was revived in 2008, albeit with a new twist: the push for negotiations with the Taliban. While a reconciliation process with those Taliban militants willing to give up arms and join the government has been in place for some time, without yielding substantial results, the emphasis now seems to be on high-level talks. However, there are differing perceptions of who could or should be brought to the table, and at what stage that should happen. The dominant thinking at this point – that of the US with new President Barack Obama at the helm – is to increase the military pressure on the insurgents and the Taliban, while at the same time carrying on negotiations. But the efficacy of this carrot-and-stick approach is yet to be demonstrated.
The change in US administration following the last elections there was eagerly awaited in Afghanistan, though Afghans emphasise that the real change will lie in the detail. While the broad contours of President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan are yet to be spelled out, there are indications of a deepening of the militarised approach in the Afghanistan policy. The new US National Security Adviser, Marine General James Jones, is a former military commander, breaking the earlier precedent of having civilian advisors. The new US ambassador to Afghanistan is also a former military man, General Karl Eikenberry, who served as the commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, and is currently deputy chairman of the NATO military committee in Brussels.
As an initial step, President Obama has sanctioned the sending of an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, whereas military commanders in the field had sought 30,000. The delay in the training of the Afghan National Army has also given impetus to a proposal to train and arm the tribal militia as a means of meeting the shortfall. This proposal now finds the backing of the American generals. Initial statements emanating from Washington, DC have suggested lowered political ambitions and shorter goalposts, with some officials stating that the US must concentrate on its early goals of tackling al-Qaeda and the Taliban, rather than the wider aims of nation-building and stabilisation.
Love thy neighbour
The other defining aspect to emerge from the first months of President Obama’s administration is the concept of ‘Af-Pak’, or viewing the two countries and the violence emanating from and within them as a combined problem. The appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy for ‘Af-Pak’ saw several other countries, including Britain, France and Germany, swiftly following suit by appointing similar envoys in addition to their ambassadors.
Pressure on Pakistan is likely to continue under the Obama administration. However, the fragility of Pakistan’s polity makes it unclear where and how the pressure can be applied. The policy of crossborder strikes carried out by US Special Forces into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, a signature of the Bush years, was supported by candidate Obama. It is not clear whether these strikes will now continue, and it is not clear whether the Americans are sensitive to the enormous negative baggage they collect as a result of the attacks by aircrafts and drones. But it is a fact that there is greater operational coherence in the American operations now, with the Special Forces, which was not answerable to the US commander in Afghanistan, also being brought under the command of the US top military commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.
The deepening crisis within Afghanistan has led to an escalation of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in Kabul, with repeated demands being made for international action on training camps and militant bases across the border, within Pakistan. President Karzai has asked the international forces to move out of the villages of Afghanistan’s hinterland and spread out instead along the border, in order to reach targets across the frontier. This demand for action against Pakistan cuts across the political spectrum, and is likely to increase in intensity as the country moves closer to the elections.
This rhetoric, of course, has been bolstered by similar sentiments within India, heightened in its warmongering frenzy after the Bombay blasts. New Delhi’s role vis-à-vis Afghanistan is likely to be enhanced in the near future, though it is far too early to predict the exact contours of this engagement. India has four consulates apart from its embassy in Kabul, a fact that Islamabad has always cited as evidence of New Delhi’s anti-Pakistan intentions in Afghanistan. For its part, South Block claims, somewhat incongruously, that the relationship with Kabul is bilateral, and has no correlation with its relationship with Pakistan. Afghanistan is the largest beneficiary of Indian foreign aid anywhere, with a USD 1.2 billion package covering infrastructure, capacity-building and community-based projects.
Yet India’s role in helping shape the future of Afghanistan has been limited. Either as a reaction to the criticism levelled by Pakistan or due to its own insecurity about competing with the Western-led project, India has largely stayed away from the decision-making table with regards to Afghanistan, which sees the participation of most major countries of the West as well as the Afghan government. Over the past seven and a half years, the Indian government has preferred to limit its activities to the bilateral arena or to follow the US lead in most issues relating to Afghanistan. With the possibility of a thaw in relations between Iran and the US, and a more assertive Russia increasingly active in the Central Asian republics, it will be interesting to watch whether India makes use of its earlier close ties with these countries, or restricts its role to support of the US. The only possible hiccup on the horizon of the evolving India-US relationship on the Afghanistan front is Washington’s desire to link Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations to the situation in Afghanistan – something New Delhi is adamantly set against.
The situation on the ground is shifting, with national chauvinism on the ascendancy along with an increase in conservatism. Political leaders who have relied on social and political conservative ideology to consolidate their hold have once again begun asserting themselves, and are now finding greater support from the Karzai government. As the country moves towards elections, this platform is likely to be used with increasing frequency. One finds the values of democracy, political, civil and human rights being questioned with increasing frequency, described as imported, Western concepts alien to Afghan life and culture.
This questioning has not come only from interest groups within Afghanistan. It is also emanating from Western donor countries – now eager to wrap up the Afghanistan project, which appears in danger of unravelling. Recent decisions, statements as well as the support provided to ‘leaders’ who have woeful track records in the area of democracy and human rights have shown that some in the Western compact might be willing to accept an Afghan state that is less than democratic, as long as it is somewhat stable and friendly to the Western capitals. Democracy and civil rights look likely to take a back seat as long as the country is able to control the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their ability to hit at the West.
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