The Afghan Parliament, dominated by minority interests, initiates a series of bills, not all of them intended to benefit the people it represents. AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
June 17, 2007
IN October 2005, the international community was in a celebratory mood. Elections to Afghanistan’s first fully representational parliament had been completed. Sceptics and critics were silenced as doubters and cynics. Yet, since then, this opti mism has dribbled out. Violence has reached proportions higher than at anytime since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001 and there are serious issues regarding the non-delivery of development. However, while these problems are visible, less evident but more serious are the systemic flaws that are revealing themselves in the institutions of State. Nowhere is this better exemplified than in the Parliament itself.Hurried reforms
In 2005 the international community pushed through its agenda of Parliamentary elections in the face of concerned and informed criticism on the grounds that a less than perfect election was better than no election since it was time to empower the representatives of the people. In its eagerness to meet its own deadline, it accepted many compromises. It agreed to President Karzai’s desire to ban political parties from contesting (in any other country this would have been likened to autocratic governance), it agreed to a multi-seat constituency contest while marrying it to the single non-transferable vote system — a hybrid system that beggared belief. Elections also took place before a country-wide census (anyone claiming to be a voter could get a voter identity card), before the disarmament of the legal and illegal armed groups and before any efforts to rein in the more powerful war lords. The result has been a Parliament that is dominated by a minority of interests. In the absence of political parties, issued based politics and ideologies, the most powerful groups emerging from Parliament are those coming together to preserve the status quo, whether it is their own power or a conservative dogma.
Adding to the confusion is a lack of clarity about the procedures of Parliament, or even the demarcation of authority between the three pillars of State. In fact each contested decision is now becoming the battleground for this separation of powers, with the jury out on who will emerge the strongest.
The first visibly disturbing law to be passed was the “amnesty law”. The bill, piloted by former warlords, called for immunity from prosecution for all jihadis, regardless of their actions, on the grounds that they shoul d be honoured. It also called for reconciliation with currently warring groups.
What of the MPs? The Chairman of the Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission, Haji Mohammed Mohaqiq, a former commander, told this reporter that the international community should not interfere with the right of the Parliament to make laws. “There is a contradiction in the action of the international community. First they spent $360 million to organise elections and now they are criticising democracy. We have the right to make laws. Anyone criticizing us is violating our sovereignty and interfering in our internal affairs. The Parliament is the highest law making body.”
Woman MP Shukriya Barakzai challenged this right stating, “in which country does a criminal become his own judge? These people are just using their chairs to protect themselves.”Missing the wood
Eventually protests from the international community led President Karzai to include a clause that would allow individuals to pursue prosecution for individual crimes notwithstanding the reconciliation with currently warring groups. This was, at best, a dubious protection of the interests of the thousands of victims. However, rather than pursuing this flagrant breach of the human rights of victims of war crimes, the international community decided to accept each clause at its face value on a stand-alone basis, rather than examine the contradictions of the law in its totality.
The debate however opened up interesting questions about the authority of the parliament. While internationals suggested that war crimes could not fall within the ambit of amnesty, parliamentarians cited the process of reconciliation in South Africa to defend their right. So did the members have the right, however morally reprehensible their decision might have been?
This week threw up yet another conundrum. The fieriest parliamentarian in Afghanistan, the young woman MP Malalai Joya was suspended for insulting the house. In her comparison of Parliament with an animal barn, animals had come off better. Human Rights Watch rushed to her defence arguing “the article banning criticism of parliament is an unreasonable rule that violates the principle of free speech enshrined in international law and valued around the world.” While the extent of the punishment, suspension for the remainder of her entire term was indeed extreme, there are provisions for punitive action for breach of privilege in every parliament and HRW may have jumped the gun.
In recent weeks, the Parliament has also attempted to dismiss two ministers of the Hamid Karzai on ground of non performance. While Karzai accepted the removal of one minister, he has challenged the decision on the second on the grounds that the process was flawed. The international community came up with an entirely different stance saying that the right of parliament to dismiss ministers was not spelt out explicitly. While the Supreme Court will be the deciding authority the issue does highlight the differing interpretations or rules.
A similar confusion exists over a “bill” passed by the Parliament’s upper house calling for an end to military operations by international forces and talks with the Taliban. No one is quite clear whether the upper house has the authority to initiate a bill.Controversial moves
Other contentious moves have included attempts to pass through a media bill restricting many rights (the bill has now been moderated after an intense campaign by journalists and is under consideration) and several moves which have received far less publicity since they relate to women’s rights, a low priority for parliament, the international community and the Afghan government. They include attempts to lower the age of majority of girls to 13 years, make it mandatory for women MPs and officials to have a mehram or male escort from the family for visits outside the country and an attempt to abolish the Ministry of Women’s Affairs altogether.
The series of conflicts leads to an interesting conundrum. How do you strengthen a democratic institution, the Parliament, while at the same time tempering its democratic authority in the interests of upholding larger democratic values?
June 19, 2007
Afghan media pin hopes on new law
By Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
June 5, 2007
The media in Afghanistan works under lots of restrictions
In her newsroom in Afghanistan's only independent news agency, Pajhwok, Farida Nekzad sits worrying about information-gathering.
Greater curbs from government and greater threats to her reporters have made her task more difficult.
Last month she compered a function on world press freedom day when Ajmal Naqshbandi's father limped onto the stage on crutches to receive an honour on behalf of his journalist son who was killed by the Taleban.
The same function saw the mother of another journalist, Tawab Niazi, accept an honour on behalf of her son, who is in jail for talking to the Taleban.
We have some concerns, though there are some good things in the new bill
Aqa Hussain Sancharaki,Afghan National Journalists' Union
"The death of Ajmal Naqshbandi and the media law have brought Afghan journalists together," says Aqa Hussain Sancharaki, a journalist who earlier held the post of deputy minister of information.
He now heads the Afghan National Journalists' Union.
Mr Sancharaki is taking a breather from campaigning for press freedom after the lower house of parliament passed the hotly debated media bill last week.
The bill will now go to the upper house of parliament and subsequently for presidential assent before it becomes law.
In its initial form the bill caused a great deal of concern since it brought the state-owned Radio Television Afghanistan under greater government control and opened private media content to more intense scrutiny and government control.
It also listed a number of broad-ranging restrictions on media content that could be widely interpreted or open to misuse.
Intense lobbying of MPs by journalists, open debates and seminars, an informed critique of the provisions of the draft law, an awareness campaign and some political manoeuvring have helped remove some of the more restrictive clauses from the draft law.
Journalists are, however, cautious about celebrating, aware that the bill might still undergo many mutations and that several of the current provisions are still less than desirable.
Journalists have been targeted and killed in Afghanistan
"We have some concerns, though there are some good things in the new bill," says Mr Sancharaki.
His opinion is also shared by the president of the Association of Independent Afghan Journalists, Rahimullah Samander.
Mr Samander states their concerns bluntly when he says that journalists were worried that the warlords who were amongst the more conservative members would push through a law that would impact negatively on the media.
His fears were not unfounded.
The Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission, headed by former commander Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq, had argued along with the government that an unfettered media would run amok, discrediting individuals without any checks or balances.
Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram argued that the country could not afford to have a state broadcaster that was not under government control in a situation of war.
In its current form the media bill has freed the state broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan from under the control of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
Instead, the broadcaster has been brought under an independent commission which comprises professionals and civil society representatives, including journalists.
The move has been welcomed by journalists, but they are still unsure about the extent of control the government will exert.
A council for formulating media policy now has representation from journalists, although it is still heavily weighed in favour of the government, and the commission for monitoring private media is now made up of professionals.
There are, however, no clear provisions for resolving disputes or the extent of powers of each of the commissions.
The new draft bill also retains some of the wide-ranging content restriction clauses.
The list of prohibitions includes:
content that goes against the principles of Islam
materials humiliating and offensive to real or legal entities
materials inconsistent with Afghanistan's constitution
anything that is considered a crime by the penal code
publicising and promotion of religions other than Islam
broadcasting pictures of victims of violence and rape in a way to cause damage to their social dignity
topics that harm the physical, spiritual and moral well-being of people, especially children and adolescents.
Some of these prohibitions remain open to wide interpretation.
Also worrying is the stipulation that makes it mandatory for the mass media to include programmes on health, the environment, and education, as well as on the dangers of cultivating, producing and consuming illegal drugs.
Ms Ayubi says the new revised bill is better than the previous one
While public education is indeed a necessary component of media, the law does not stipulate a limit on the amount or nature of mandatory material, again leaving this open to interpretation and possible misuse.
The manager of Radio Killid, Najiba Ayubi, is cautious.
"It is not a complete or perfect law, but I can say it is better than before."
Ms Ayubi has been involved with the debate and campaign for a better law during which journalists also brought in Article 19 to explain some of the issues to parliamentarians.
This achievement of Afghan journalists has come at a crucial time.
One of the most successful stories of post-conflict reconstruction, Afghanistan's media are now facing one of their most challenging periods.
Increasing curbs on information have been accompanied by greater violence and increasing intolerance from all sides, even as a sharp cut in donor funding has forced many media organisations to close down, downsize or worry about their survival.
Afghan journalists hope that the new media law, once passed, will give them more rights, rather than making their jobs more difficult.
June 5, 2007
The media in Afghanistan works under lots of restrictions
In her newsroom in Afghanistan's only independent news agency, Pajhwok, Farida Nekzad sits worrying about information-gathering.
Greater curbs from government and greater threats to her reporters have made her task more difficult.
Last month she compered a function on world press freedom day when Ajmal Naqshbandi's father limped onto the stage on crutches to receive an honour on behalf of his journalist son who was killed by the Taleban.
The same function saw the mother of another journalist, Tawab Niazi, accept an honour on behalf of her son, who is in jail for talking to the Taleban.
We have some concerns, though there are some good things in the new bill
Aqa Hussain Sancharaki,Afghan National Journalists' Union
"The death of Ajmal Naqshbandi and the media law have brought Afghan journalists together," says Aqa Hussain Sancharaki, a journalist who earlier held the post of deputy minister of information.
He now heads the Afghan National Journalists' Union.
Mr Sancharaki is taking a breather from campaigning for press freedom after the lower house of parliament passed the hotly debated media bill last week.
The bill will now go to the upper house of parliament and subsequently for presidential assent before it becomes law.
In its initial form the bill caused a great deal of concern since it brought the state-owned Radio Television Afghanistan under greater government control and opened private media content to more intense scrutiny and government control.
It also listed a number of broad-ranging restrictions on media content that could be widely interpreted or open to misuse.
Intense lobbying of MPs by journalists, open debates and seminars, an informed critique of the provisions of the draft law, an awareness campaign and some political manoeuvring have helped remove some of the more restrictive clauses from the draft law.
Journalists are, however, cautious about celebrating, aware that the bill might still undergo many mutations and that several of the current provisions are still less than desirable.
Journalists have been targeted and killed in Afghanistan
"We have some concerns, though there are some good things in the new bill," says Mr Sancharaki.
His opinion is also shared by the president of the Association of Independent Afghan Journalists, Rahimullah Samander.
Mr Samander states their concerns bluntly when he says that journalists were worried that the warlords who were amongst the more conservative members would push through a law that would impact negatively on the media.
His fears were not unfounded.
The Religious and Cultural Affairs Commission, headed by former commander Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq, had argued along with the government that an unfettered media would run amok, discrediting individuals without any checks or balances.
Information and Culture Minister Abdul Karim Khurram argued that the country could not afford to have a state broadcaster that was not under government control in a situation of war.
In its current form the media bill has freed the state broadcaster Radio Television Afghanistan from under the control of the Ministry of Information and Culture.
Instead, the broadcaster has been brought under an independent commission which comprises professionals and civil society representatives, including journalists.
The move has been welcomed by journalists, but they are still unsure about the extent of control the government will exert.
A council for formulating media policy now has representation from journalists, although it is still heavily weighed in favour of the government, and the commission for monitoring private media is now made up of professionals.
There are, however, no clear provisions for resolving disputes or the extent of powers of each of the commissions.
The new draft bill also retains some of the wide-ranging content restriction clauses.
The list of prohibitions includes:
content that goes against the principles of Islam
materials humiliating and offensive to real or legal entities
materials inconsistent with Afghanistan's constitution
anything that is considered a crime by the penal code
publicising and promotion of religions other than Islam
broadcasting pictures of victims of violence and rape in a way to cause damage to their social dignity
topics that harm the physical, spiritual and moral well-being of people, especially children and adolescents.
Some of these prohibitions remain open to wide interpretation.
Also worrying is the stipulation that makes it mandatory for the mass media to include programmes on health, the environment, and education, as well as on the dangers of cultivating, producing and consuming illegal drugs.
Ms Ayubi says the new revised bill is better than the previous one
While public education is indeed a necessary component of media, the law does not stipulate a limit on the amount or nature of mandatory material, again leaving this open to interpretation and possible misuse.
The manager of Radio Killid, Najiba Ayubi, is cautious.
"It is not a complete or perfect law, but I can say it is better than before."
Ms Ayubi has been involved with the debate and campaign for a better law during which journalists also brought in Article 19 to explain some of the issues to parliamentarians.
This achievement of Afghan journalists has come at a crucial time.
One of the most successful stories of post-conflict reconstruction, Afghanistan's media are now facing one of their most challenging periods.
Increasing curbs on information have been accompanied by greater violence and increasing intolerance from all sides, even as a sharp cut in donor funding has forced many media organisations to close down, downsize or worry about their survival.
Afghan journalists hope that the new media law, once passed, will give them more rights, rather than making their jobs more difficult.
Afghanistan anodyne
Review June 2007
By : Aunohita Mojumdar
No Space for Further Burials by Feryal Ali GauharWomen Unlimited, 2007
Feryal Ali Gauhar’s new novel is an unmitigated tale of horror – bestial fact stacked upon bestial fact, evoking revulsion and nausea. The book’s jacket claims that the work powerfully reveals the tragedy of Afghanistan, the terrible madness of war. But No Space for Further Burials never reaches that broader bank, staying caught instead in the narrow sewer it describes.
Although the book’s publisher gives only sketchy details about the author, Gauhar is well-known enough in her multiple roles as a UN goodwill ambassador, a TV actress, and as the author of the 2002 The Scent of Wet Earth in August, which explored Tibbi Galli (Lahore’s red-light area) and the abuse of women. In No Space for Further Burials, she moves away from both Pakistan and gender issues, instead basing her novel in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Gauhar’s central figure is a US Army soldier who, having strayed from his base, is captured, and suddenly finds himself shoved into in a mental asylum along with mentally deranged, physically crippled and diseased inmates. Inside the walls of the asylum he is known as ‘Firangi’. The asylum, once funded by the government and serviced by foreign doctors, has now been abandoned to itself, with only the inmates/captives remaining behind, kept forcibly by the asylum’s caretaker and his wife. There are several mysteries here: why the caretaker continues to hold these people here; why he and his wife do not turn the inmates free, and escape themselves; where the group’s food comes from, and why they choose to slowly starve rather than leave the asylum’s horrific confines. Perhaps Gauhar feels no need to explain these issues, preferring instead to allow them to build into her endless vortex of sordidness.
In the midst of all this, there are some references to the outside world. Soldiers, who are interchangeable with looters and rebels (the distinction is not explained at any length), come regularly to plunder the asylum for whatever it might yield. There are some brief snapshots of Firangi’s earlier life in his military base, as well as occasional references to the possible futility of the American military attempt to bring democracy and liberation to a country such as Afghanistan. Gauhar tries to weave in bits of Afghan history, as well as that of the Great Depression of 1930s America. Where the book fails is in linking these issues together; in broadening the peephole show to take in the larger world; in balancing the horror with the human element that would let the reader relate to the characters or their squalid situation.
No single character in this asylum is afflicted by just one ailment. Instead, each has a string of horrors plaguing him or her. Even the one friend that Firangi makes in the asylum, Bulbul, ends up making lewd gestures at him before stealing his clothes. All the while, Firangi’s homophobic fear of contact with Bulbul hangs over the relationship like a pallid, overcast sky. At other times, limbs are broken and deformed, flesh is torn, and family tortures family; pus, mucus and blood are liberally smeared over this tale. All forms of madness also make appearances here – rape, injury, the killing of families, and people driven insane by the terrible things that have happened to them.
AnaesthetisedSitting in Afghanistan reading this book, this reviewer notices interest in Afghanistan flagging in the international media. Only the big, sexy stories continue to capture interest: the drug wars, the Taliban and the deaths. There is the fear that reporting on Afghanistan will go the way of Iraq, reduced to stories of the dead and not the living. The incessant roll call of death in Iraq has blunted media viewers the world round – immunised us from feeling anything but the mildest shock. Death tolls of more than a hundred are relegated to sidebars in newspapers, taken off the headlines after cursory mentions in brief bulletins.
The unmitigated reporting of horror functions as an anodyne. The lack of shock evoked by the coverage of Iraq is skewed; not because no one cares about the living, but rather due to the fact that the media does not talk of them. When understanding of a country is reduced to its death count, there is no human face to the tragedy there, and it slowly ceases to matter. Similarly, the sheer horrors in Feryal Ali Gauhar’s book also act as an anodyne, to anaesthetise any sensation.
There is an element of Mantoesque madness recreated in No Space for Further Burials: the blurring of lines between the sane and the insane, between memories and reality, between dreams and facts; the loss of concepts of time and space; the nowhere land of Toba Tek Singh, from where Firangi will not be rescued. At best, however, this remains a mere attempt. The attempt to make everything absolutely horrifying, surpassed by even more unimaginable horrors that lie in wait, destroys what the book sets out to do. No Space for Further Burials may bring up plenty of bile, but it does little to stir real emotions.
By : Aunohita Mojumdar
No Space for Further Burials by Feryal Ali GauharWomen Unlimited, 2007
Feryal Ali Gauhar’s new novel is an unmitigated tale of horror – bestial fact stacked upon bestial fact, evoking revulsion and nausea. The book’s jacket claims that the work powerfully reveals the tragedy of Afghanistan, the terrible madness of war. But No Space for Further Burials never reaches that broader bank, staying caught instead in the narrow sewer it describes.
Although the book’s publisher gives only sketchy details about the author, Gauhar is well-known enough in her multiple roles as a UN goodwill ambassador, a TV actress, and as the author of the 2002 The Scent of Wet Earth in August, which explored Tibbi Galli (Lahore’s red-light area) and the abuse of women. In No Space for Further Burials, she moves away from both Pakistan and gender issues, instead basing her novel in post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Gauhar’s central figure is a US Army soldier who, having strayed from his base, is captured, and suddenly finds himself shoved into in a mental asylum along with mentally deranged, physically crippled and diseased inmates. Inside the walls of the asylum he is known as ‘Firangi’. The asylum, once funded by the government and serviced by foreign doctors, has now been abandoned to itself, with only the inmates/captives remaining behind, kept forcibly by the asylum’s caretaker and his wife. There are several mysteries here: why the caretaker continues to hold these people here; why he and his wife do not turn the inmates free, and escape themselves; where the group’s food comes from, and why they choose to slowly starve rather than leave the asylum’s horrific confines. Perhaps Gauhar feels no need to explain these issues, preferring instead to allow them to build into her endless vortex of sordidness.
In the midst of all this, there are some references to the outside world. Soldiers, who are interchangeable with looters and rebels (the distinction is not explained at any length), come regularly to plunder the asylum for whatever it might yield. There are some brief snapshots of Firangi’s earlier life in his military base, as well as occasional references to the possible futility of the American military attempt to bring democracy and liberation to a country such as Afghanistan. Gauhar tries to weave in bits of Afghan history, as well as that of the Great Depression of 1930s America. Where the book fails is in linking these issues together; in broadening the peephole show to take in the larger world; in balancing the horror with the human element that would let the reader relate to the characters or their squalid situation.
No single character in this asylum is afflicted by just one ailment. Instead, each has a string of horrors plaguing him or her. Even the one friend that Firangi makes in the asylum, Bulbul, ends up making lewd gestures at him before stealing his clothes. All the while, Firangi’s homophobic fear of contact with Bulbul hangs over the relationship like a pallid, overcast sky. At other times, limbs are broken and deformed, flesh is torn, and family tortures family; pus, mucus and blood are liberally smeared over this tale. All forms of madness also make appearances here – rape, injury, the killing of families, and people driven insane by the terrible things that have happened to them.
AnaesthetisedSitting in Afghanistan reading this book, this reviewer notices interest in Afghanistan flagging in the international media. Only the big, sexy stories continue to capture interest: the drug wars, the Taliban and the deaths. There is the fear that reporting on Afghanistan will go the way of Iraq, reduced to stories of the dead and not the living. The incessant roll call of death in Iraq has blunted media viewers the world round – immunised us from feeling anything but the mildest shock. Death tolls of more than a hundred are relegated to sidebars in newspapers, taken off the headlines after cursory mentions in brief bulletins.
The unmitigated reporting of horror functions as an anodyne. The lack of shock evoked by the coverage of Iraq is skewed; not because no one cares about the living, but rather due to the fact that the media does not talk of them. When understanding of a country is reduced to its death count, there is no human face to the tragedy there, and it slowly ceases to matter. Similarly, the sheer horrors in Feryal Ali Gauhar’s book also act as an anodyne, to anaesthetise any sensation.
There is an element of Mantoesque madness recreated in No Space for Further Burials: the blurring of lines between the sane and the insane, between memories and reality, between dreams and facts; the loss of concepts of time and space; the nowhere land of Toba Tek Singh, from where Firangi will not be rescued. At best, however, this remains a mere attempt. The attempt to make everything absolutely horrifying, surpassed by even more unimaginable horrors that lie in wait, destroys what the book sets out to do. No Space for Further Burials may bring up plenty of bile, but it does little to stir real emotions.
May 31, 2007
Muted voices
Hindu, May 27, 2007
An independent and vocal media is one of the rare success stories of Afghanistan. A new bill and dwindling sponsorship, however, threaten its functioning and survival.
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
IN a post-conflict situation where reconstruction has been riddled with shortcomings, frustrations and bad policies, Afghanistan’s media is one of the rare success stories. Emerging as a vibrant independent voice, it has brought under scrutiny the performance of the government and the international community and is questioning entrenched interests. In the absence of a consolidated opposition (political parties were banned from the electoral contest during the parliamentary elections), the media often plays the role of a democratic opposition with some success.
However, the very strength of the media now seems to be the cause of its undoing, its critical voice discomfiting those in power. Whether it is the government which fears losing its credibility, the former warlords who would prefer no examination about the sources of their power or past deeds, the Taliban who hold sway in some districts of Southern Afghanistan or the international forces, none is very eager to be scrutinised. The result is increasing threats to the independence of the media at the very moment that they are consolidating the gains of the past five years.
Ominous signs
Ajmal Naqshbandi met a brutal end at the hands of the Taliban who have also arrested several groups of journalists simply for the crime of having “entered their territory” without permission. On the other hand are journalists jailed regularly by the government or media, organisations raided as the country’s largest TV channel Tolo was, recently, for a report which “could be seen as ill-intentioned” and “can lead to various interpretations and cause unnecessary public anguish”. The international security forces strictly control access to information and have, on occasion, detained journalists or seized their materials. Now the country’s parliament is in the midst of debating a law that may further erode the rights of the Afghan media.
Specific clauses in the bill which have caused consternation amongst Afghan journalists include provisions to bring media content directly under the scrutiny of a council appointed and staffed by government officials and bringing all complaints against the media before the courts, the latter a conservative bastion in Afghanistan. There are other clauses restricting content on grounds of culture, tradition and religious sensitivities and the catch-all provision of national interest. While seemingly non-objectionable, these clauses are so wide-ranging that they are open to misuse by those wishing to censor media content for any reason.
In a situation of conflict, facts, for example, are always contentious and the media currently balances the contending versions of the truth. However, if the definition of facts is to be determined by the government, it would result in censorship of all news contrary to government claims whether it emanated from human rights groups, civil society or the Taliban.
Another setback
The new law may also reverse attempts to make the State broadcaster, Radio Television Afghanistan(RTA) into a public service broadcaster. Though taken outside the purview of the Ministry of Information, RTA will be under the control of the government, through a structure that is yet to be determined. The Minister of Information and Culture, Abdul Karim Khurram, says the government cannot afford not to control the RTA in a country at war.
In the absence of a viable opposition, the media has battled alone but vociferously to temper some of the provisions of the new law, with some success. Media conferences and articles and rigorous lobbying by Afghan journalists has alerted parliamentarians to the dangers of a government controlled media and widened the debate.
Unfortunately, the domination of the media by the West or countries from the North in general exacerbates the threat to the media. Within Afghanistan, those wishing to curb media freedoms, whether in the name of social order, national unity, security or traditional and religious values, project media independence as a “Western” or alien value, feeding on the anti-foreigner (read anti-Westerner) hostility endemic to Afghanistan. The lack of engagement of South Asia in this debate has not helped.
Financial support
South Asian media organisations could also help financially by using content generated by Afghan media. This would help substantially in supporting media independence, especially at a time when rapid withdrawal of donor funding has left many news organisations teetering on the edge of survival.
While donors rushed in with funding to set up private independent media in 2003 and 2004, seeing it as an essential component of rebuilding democracy, the financial support is drying up. Donors argue that it is time for market forces to determine the survival of media even though it is clear that the non-existent market in Afghanistan can scarcely support multiple media organisations. Those who are surviving on the market are doing so with an overwhelming portion of entertainment content, usually culled from India and elsewhere. This too may be jeopardised. The Information Minister is keen to slap a ceiling on the use of foreign content in Afghan media even though indigenous production of media content is at an early stage.
The greater threat
The financial crunch has resulted in some media outlets closing down while others are downsizing. An even greater threat lies in the fact that yet others may turn to dubious sources of funding to survive. In a conflict situation where differing sides are carrying out propaganda wars, any vulnerability in the media is likely to be seized upon.
Unlike other countries where a robust tradition of independent media helps the media to tide over difficult periods, Afghanistan’s new media may lack the resilience to survive these times. Once the media loses its independence, it may be very difficult to regain it.
An independent and vocal media is one of the rare success stories of Afghanistan. A new bill and dwindling sponsorship, however, threaten its functioning and survival.
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
IN a post-conflict situation where reconstruction has been riddled with shortcomings, frustrations and bad policies, Afghanistan’s media is one of the rare success stories. Emerging as a vibrant independent voice, it has brought under scrutiny the performance of the government and the international community and is questioning entrenched interests. In the absence of a consolidated opposition (political parties were banned from the electoral contest during the parliamentary elections), the media often plays the role of a democratic opposition with some success.
However, the very strength of the media now seems to be the cause of its undoing, its critical voice discomfiting those in power. Whether it is the government which fears losing its credibility, the former warlords who would prefer no examination about the sources of their power or past deeds, the Taliban who hold sway in some districts of Southern Afghanistan or the international forces, none is very eager to be scrutinised. The result is increasing threats to the independence of the media at the very moment that they are consolidating the gains of the past five years.
Ominous signs
Ajmal Naqshbandi met a brutal end at the hands of the Taliban who have also arrested several groups of journalists simply for the crime of having “entered their territory” without permission. On the other hand are journalists jailed regularly by the government or media, organisations raided as the country’s largest TV channel Tolo was, recently, for a report which “could be seen as ill-intentioned” and “can lead to various interpretations and cause unnecessary public anguish”. The international security forces strictly control access to information and have, on occasion, detained journalists or seized their materials. Now the country’s parliament is in the midst of debating a law that may further erode the rights of the Afghan media.
Specific clauses in the bill which have caused consternation amongst Afghan journalists include provisions to bring media content directly under the scrutiny of a council appointed and staffed by government officials and bringing all complaints against the media before the courts, the latter a conservative bastion in Afghanistan. There are other clauses restricting content on grounds of culture, tradition and religious sensitivities and the catch-all provision of national interest. While seemingly non-objectionable, these clauses are so wide-ranging that they are open to misuse by those wishing to censor media content for any reason.
In a situation of conflict, facts, for example, are always contentious and the media currently balances the contending versions of the truth. However, if the definition of facts is to be determined by the government, it would result in censorship of all news contrary to government claims whether it emanated from human rights groups, civil society or the Taliban.
Another setback
The new law may also reverse attempts to make the State broadcaster, Radio Television Afghanistan(RTA) into a public service broadcaster. Though taken outside the purview of the Ministry of Information, RTA will be under the control of the government, through a structure that is yet to be determined. The Minister of Information and Culture, Abdul Karim Khurram, says the government cannot afford not to control the RTA in a country at war.
In the absence of a viable opposition, the media has battled alone but vociferously to temper some of the provisions of the new law, with some success. Media conferences and articles and rigorous lobbying by Afghan journalists has alerted parliamentarians to the dangers of a government controlled media and widened the debate.
Unfortunately, the domination of the media by the West or countries from the North in general exacerbates the threat to the media. Within Afghanistan, those wishing to curb media freedoms, whether in the name of social order, national unity, security or traditional and religious values, project media independence as a “Western” or alien value, feeding on the anti-foreigner (read anti-Westerner) hostility endemic to Afghanistan. The lack of engagement of South Asia in this debate has not helped.
Financial support
South Asian media organisations could also help financially by using content generated by Afghan media. This would help substantially in supporting media independence, especially at a time when rapid withdrawal of donor funding has left many news organisations teetering on the edge of survival.
While donors rushed in with funding to set up private independent media in 2003 and 2004, seeing it as an essential component of rebuilding democracy, the financial support is drying up. Donors argue that it is time for market forces to determine the survival of media even though it is clear that the non-existent market in Afghanistan can scarcely support multiple media organisations. Those who are surviving on the market are doing so with an overwhelming portion of entertainment content, usually culled from India and elsewhere. This too may be jeopardised. The Information Minister is keen to slap a ceiling on the use of foreign content in Afghan media even though indigenous production of media content is at an early stage.
The greater threat
The financial crunch has resulted in some media outlets closing down while others are downsizing. An even greater threat lies in the fact that yet others may turn to dubious sources of funding to survive. In a conflict situation where differing sides are carrying out propaganda wars, any vulnerability in the media is likely to be seized upon.
Unlike other countries where a robust tradition of independent media helps the media to tide over difficult periods, Afghanistan’s new media may lack the resilience to survive these times. Once the media loses its independence, it may be very difficult to regain it.
Afghanistan: Trouble on the farm
Asia Times
By Aunohita Mojumdar KABUL -
Former Afghan warlords and commanders are becoming increasingly adept at fighting their battles in Parliament, with the latest example of their muscle-flexing coming on Monday when firebrand female parliamentarian Malalai Joya was suspended from the Lower House. Joya had compared her fellow, overwhelmingly male, colleagues to farmyard animals. The incident underlines a growing conflict of interests among Parliament, the government and the international community. The contradiction first came to light during the infamous "amnesty
vote" in February when members tried to give themselves immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during the past 25 years of war. Former communists, mujahideen and Taliban united on this issue. The international community expressed concern over this apparent subversion of the process of transitional justice, resulting in a fierce war of words. The standoff was resolved after President Hamid Karzai signed off on a law that seemed to include a clause to satisfy every need. One clause, Article 3, grants immunity from prosecution, while another clause gives individuals the right to pursue justice over individual crimes. At best the law can be termed ambiguous, a factor that is likely to favor the status quo rather than any pursuit of prosecution of war crimes. However, the United Nations' top representative in the country, Tom Koenigs, claims the law has strengthened the rights of the individual, adding that he has been assured by Karzai that the law does not preempt the state's right to prosecute. Since then, the issue of the extent of Parliament's power and its possible misuse has only grown more acute. Having installed a Parliament in a tearing hurry in 2005, both the government and the international community are now faced with considerable challenges as Parliament comes up with laws and decisions that would be considered incongruous in a liberal democratic framework. Both the US-backed government in Kabul and the international community pushed for the formation of Parliament in 2005 even though few of the conditions that had led to the postponement of elections in 2004 had changed. Elections took place in an environment vitiated by the failure of the disarmament process. The multi-seat single non-transferable vote system used in the elections beggared belief, as did the ban on political parties from contesting in the elections. The situation was compounded by an evidently faulty vetting process. The composition of Parliament therefore falls short of what its backers would have liked. The House of Representatives (Wolesi Jirga - Lower House) is dominated by a minority comprising former commanders and warlords and those who have other sources of wealth and power. This group is taking advantage to push its agenda, helped by a power vacuum in the country created by Karzai's lack of writ beyond the capital, the absence of political parties, and the lack of established parliamentary procedures. This month, the Meshrano Jirga, or Upper House, passed a bill calling for talks with indigenous Taliban, a cessation of operations by international troops, a date for their withdrawal, and the request that these troops operate only when necessary and with the approval of the government. But whether the Upper House can initiate a bill is still to be clarified. If it can, it could render anti-insurgency operations untenable, requiring a complete rewiring of the military strategy of the foreign forces as well as the chain of command. The international community, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US-led coalition forces, are counting on Karzai to bail them out. The president's assent is required on all laws passed by Parliament, though his power of veto is limited. If Parliament disagrees with him, it can overrule the president with a two-thirds majority, something that obviously tempers the president's willingness or ability to counter some of the illiberal moves. There was considerable international dismay this month over the "dismissal" of two ministers - the minister of refugees and the minister of foreign affairs, apparently on the grounds of their failure to deal with the problem of returnees and refugees being pushed out by Iran and Pakistan. While Karzai challenged the procedure of a no-confidence vote against Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, (while accepting the no-confidence move against Minister of Refugees Mohammed Akbar), the UN questioned Parliament's authority to dismiss the ministers altogether. It said the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's view "is that the constitution provides for votes of censure of confidence in ministers, but does not expressly give Parliament the right to dismiss ministers". A senior parliamentary official, however, reacted to this statement with anger, saying such observations on the part of the UN amounted to "interference in the country's internal affairs". The official cited Article 92 of the constitution, which allows a vote of no confidence to be passed against any minister by a simple majority of the House. "No confidence means removal of the minister," he insisted. In this case the UN did attempt to interpret the constitution, despite saying that this was the prerogative of the Supreme Court, to which Karzai has referred the issue. A number of countries take particular interest in Afghanistan because they are helping pay for its reconstruction, whether it is physical infrastructure or the institutions of state, such as law and justice and their delivery mechanisms. There is, though, a fine line between aid and interference. Countries are also selective about when they pitch in. They are assertive on issues relating to the rule of law and almost the sole decision-makers in terms of military operations. However, they are quite happy to pipe down on issues relating to gender on the grounds that they do not want to interfere with the cultural traditions of the country. Long before the amnesty bill, parliamentarians attempted to pass laws that would lower the age of consent of girls to 13 years and make it mandatory for all female parliamentarians to be "escorted" by mehrams (male family members) while traveling both within and outside Afghanistan. There was also a concerted bid to abolish the Ministry of Women's Affairs, on the grounds that it had not achieved anything concrete, notwithstanding that it had been deliberately kept weak by making it a policymaking body without any implementing powers. No one is convinced that these moves have seen their last. Harsh words Malalai Joya, 29, who is from Farah province, angered her colleagues when she spoke in a television interview of the "farmyard" nature of Parliament. She added that at least cows were useful as they provided milk. Joya has been a consistent critic of warlords and those accused of war crimes being allowed in Parliament. In 2004, when she challenged their presence in the council established to write a constitution, she received death threats - she now has around-the-clock security. Her outspoken speeches have made her a target for verbal abuse, even while her courage and work for the destitute and women in general have made her extremely popular in her own constituency. She was returned to Parliament with one of the highest numbers of votes, competing against men on her own right rather than entering Parliament as a beneficiary of the reserved seats for women. Joya's outspokenness brought her into Parliament, the same trait that now seems to have had her removed from the House. In the broader picture, if Parliament continues to assert its supremacy at the behest of the "warlord clique", the country could face a political "insurgency" to go with the military one led by the Taliban.
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. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
By Aunohita Mojumdar KABUL -
Former Afghan warlords and commanders are becoming increasingly adept at fighting their battles in Parliament, with the latest example of their muscle-flexing coming on Monday when firebrand female parliamentarian Malalai Joya was suspended from the Lower House. Joya had compared her fellow, overwhelmingly male, colleagues to farmyard animals. The incident underlines a growing conflict of interests among Parliament, the government and the international community. The contradiction first came to light during the infamous "amnesty
vote" in February when members tried to give themselves immunity from prosecution for any crimes committed during the past 25 years of war. Former communists, mujahideen and Taliban united on this issue. The international community expressed concern over this apparent subversion of the process of transitional justice, resulting in a fierce war of words. The standoff was resolved after President Hamid Karzai signed off on a law that seemed to include a clause to satisfy every need. One clause, Article 3, grants immunity from prosecution, while another clause gives individuals the right to pursue justice over individual crimes. At best the law can be termed ambiguous, a factor that is likely to favor the status quo rather than any pursuit of prosecution of war crimes. However, the United Nations' top representative in the country, Tom Koenigs, claims the law has strengthened the rights of the individual, adding that he has been assured by Karzai that the law does not preempt the state's right to prosecute. Since then, the issue of the extent of Parliament's power and its possible misuse has only grown more acute. Having installed a Parliament in a tearing hurry in 2005, both the government and the international community are now faced with considerable challenges as Parliament comes up with laws and decisions that would be considered incongruous in a liberal democratic framework. Both the US-backed government in Kabul and the international community pushed for the formation of Parliament in 2005 even though few of the conditions that had led to the postponement of elections in 2004 had changed. Elections took place in an environment vitiated by the failure of the disarmament process. The multi-seat single non-transferable vote system used in the elections beggared belief, as did the ban on political parties from contesting in the elections. The situation was compounded by an evidently faulty vetting process. The composition of Parliament therefore falls short of what its backers would have liked. The House of Representatives (Wolesi Jirga - Lower House) is dominated by a minority comprising former commanders and warlords and those who have other sources of wealth and power. This group is taking advantage to push its agenda, helped by a power vacuum in the country created by Karzai's lack of writ beyond the capital, the absence of political parties, and the lack of established parliamentary procedures. This month, the Meshrano Jirga, or Upper House, passed a bill calling for talks with indigenous Taliban, a cessation of operations by international troops, a date for their withdrawal, and the request that these troops operate only when necessary and with the approval of the government. But whether the Upper House can initiate a bill is still to be clarified. If it can, it could render anti-insurgency operations untenable, requiring a complete rewiring of the military strategy of the foreign forces as well as the chain of command. The international community, especially the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and the US-led coalition forces, are counting on Karzai to bail them out. The president's assent is required on all laws passed by Parliament, though his power of veto is limited. If Parliament disagrees with him, it can overrule the president with a two-thirds majority, something that obviously tempers the president's willingness or ability to counter some of the illiberal moves. There was considerable international dismay this month over the "dismissal" of two ministers - the minister of refugees and the minister of foreign affairs, apparently on the grounds of their failure to deal with the problem of returnees and refugees being pushed out by Iran and Pakistan. While Karzai challenged the procedure of a no-confidence vote against Foreign Minister Rangin Dadfar Spanta, (while accepting the no-confidence move against Minister of Refugees Mohammed Akbar), the UN questioned Parliament's authority to dismiss the ministers altogether. It said the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan's view "is that the constitution provides for votes of censure of confidence in ministers, but does not expressly give Parliament the right to dismiss ministers". A senior parliamentary official, however, reacted to this statement with anger, saying such observations on the part of the UN amounted to "interference in the country's internal affairs". The official cited Article 92 of the constitution, which allows a vote of no confidence to be passed against any minister by a simple majority of the House. "No confidence means removal of the minister," he insisted. In this case the UN did attempt to interpret the constitution, despite saying that this was the prerogative of the Supreme Court, to which Karzai has referred the issue. A number of countries take particular interest in Afghanistan because they are helping pay for its reconstruction, whether it is physical infrastructure or the institutions of state, such as law and justice and their delivery mechanisms. There is, though, a fine line between aid and interference. Countries are also selective about when they pitch in. They are assertive on issues relating to the rule of law and almost the sole decision-makers in terms of military operations. However, they are quite happy to pipe down on issues relating to gender on the grounds that they do not want to interfere with the cultural traditions of the country. Long before the amnesty bill, parliamentarians attempted to pass laws that would lower the age of consent of girls to 13 years and make it mandatory for all female parliamentarians to be "escorted" by mehrams (male family members) while traveling both within and outside Afghanistan. There was also a concerted bid to abolish the Ministry of Women's Affairs, on the grounds that it had not achieved anything concrete, notwithstanding that it had been deliberately kept weak by making it a policymaking body without any implementing powers. No one is convinced that these moves have seen their last. Harsh words Malalai Joya, 29, who is from Farah province, angered her colleagues when she spoke in a television interview of the "farmyard" nature of Parliament. She added that at least cows were useful as they provided milk. Joya has been a consistent critic of warlords and those accused of war crimes being allowed in Parliament. In 2004, when she challenged their presence in the council established to write a constitution, she received death threats - she now has around-the-clock security. Her outspoken speeches have made her a target for verbal abuse, even while her courage and work for the destitute and women in general have made her extremely popular in her own constituency. She was returned to Parliament with one of the highest numbers of votes, competing against men on her own right rather than entering Parliament as a beneficiary of the reserved seats for women. Joya's outspokenness brought her into Parliament, the same trait that now seems to have had her removed from the House. In the broader picture, if Parliament continues to assert its supremacy at the behest of the "warlord clique", the country could face a political "insurgency" to go with the military one led by the Taliban.
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. (Copyright 2007 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)
April 25, 2007
Media at risk under new Afghan law
April 24 Al Jazeera
By
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan's parliament is on the brink of passing a new media law that may considerably reduce the independence of the country's media.
The controversial amendments to the law, proposed by the religious and cultural affairs commission of the parliament, chaired by former regional commander Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq and supported by the government, will bring both private and state media under greater government control.
Proposed changes include an oversight committee that will scrutinise the functioning of the media including its content.
An earlier proposal to institute an independent commission to carry out this monitoring function has been scrapped in favour of a single body that will have officials from government ministries and departments but not media representatives.
Complaints relating to media content will be referred directly to the supreme court which, in Afghanistan, remains a conservative bastion.
Control of content will be guided through clauses which include prohibitions that prevent publicity of any other religion than Islam, prohibit the media from producing any content that is unislamic or jeopardises the stability of the nation or any false information which might disrupt public opinion.
While some of these clauses are seemingly innocuous, they are so wide-ranging as to allow them to be misused against media organisations not toeing the line.
Fact and falsehood
Interpretations of facts and falsehood, for example, are always contentious in a conflict zone.
The government's determination of what are facts will result in one-sided reportage. Already there have been several attempts to impose guidelines for reporting on the media with a wide-ranging list of subjects which should not be reported.
The recently passed amnesty bill, immunising all jihadis from prosecution also sought to introduce a clause which would force the media to honour the jihadis in any reportage. Both moves were dropped under pressure but may be reintroduced through this bill.
The growing tensions between the media and the government are evident in recent events. The government's decision to trade Taliban prisoners for an Italian reporter leaving an Afghan reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi to be murdered has angered and shocked Afghan journalists.
Tolo television
More recently the country's most popular channel Tolo TV has been locked in a standoff with the attorney general of Afghanistan after police raided the channel following allegations of "misquoting" by Tolo.
Tolo TV, owned by three Afghan-Australian brothers, hit back accusing the attorney general of having carried out an illegal action and calling for his removal from office.
"The potential crimes [of the attorney general] are of the utmost seriousness and directly affect [the] issue of rule of law and sustainability of democracy in Afghanistan, especially given that they may be perpetrated by a person holding the highest operational legal position in Afghanistan," Tolo said.
The information ministry's commission to look into the matter has asked Tolo to apologise saying the channel had "presented the attorney general's statements in a way that can lead to various interpretations and cause unnecessary public anguish. The way this news was broadcast, could be seen as ill-intentioned."
However, Zaid Mohseni, a director of Tolo, states that the commission's finding does not show how and where Tolo had reported inaccurately.
"We are not convinced there is a reason to apologise and we are looking into the matter," Mohseni told Al Jazeera.
The order is indeed ambiguous in that it refers to possible interpretations and mala fides, rather than any substantive breach of facts.
The row illustrates an increasing pattern of confrontation between Afghanistan's independent media and those in power.
As the fledgling post-conflict state comes into being, with old roles being challenged and the balance of power changing, there are few areas where the contradictions have emerged as sharply as in the area of media.
Tolo itself is no stranger to controversy, having pushed the boundaries of media content in Afghanistan with programming content that is often considered to be too forward by Afghan standards.
However, Tolo also acts as a shock absorber for most of the media outlets that also fall far short of the restrictions that conservative sections would like to impose on them.
The new media law will also reverse moves to make the state broadcaster a public service broadcaster, by bringing it under government control.
Abdul Karim Khurram, the information minister, said the government cannot afford not to have control over the state broadcaster since the county was at war.
Khurram also said he would like to ensure a ceiling on the use of foreign content in Afghan media. Channels such as Tolo are highly dependent on foreign content.
Afghanistan currently does not have the capacity to produce adequate programming to meet an increasing demand that has seen the establishment of seven different private channels in the past three years. Khurram's ministry recently banned Tolo TV from rebroadcasting Al Jazeera content.
Mohaqeq, chairman of the religious affairs commission, told this reporter that they would not want the government to use the RTA for propaganda but that the media needed to be brought under specific rules to prevent them from misusing their power to humiliate people.
The argument, which is also one forwarded by the government, has emerged as a uniting platform for those seeking to impose more curbs on media.
Resurgent conservatism as well as consolidation of power by former local commanders, an increasingly authoritative government and other power-brokers has seen increasing attacks on an independent Afghan media that had emerged as one of the strongest components of Afghanistan's attempts to form a democratic pluralistic state.
Source: Al Jazeera
April 24 Al Jazeera
By
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan's parliament is on the brink of passing a new media law that may considerably reduce the independence of the country's media.
The controversial amendments to the law, proposed by the religious and cultural affairs commission of the parliament, chaired by former regional commander Haji Mohammed Mohaqeq and supported by the government, will bring both private and state media under greater government control.
Proposed changes include an oversight committee that will scrutinise the functioning of the media including its content.
An earlier proposal to institute an independent commission to carry out this monitoring function has been scrapped in favour of a single body that will have officials from government ministries and departments but not media representatives.
Complaints relating to media content will be referred directly to the supreme court which, in Afghanistan, remains a conservative bastion.
Control of content will be guided through clauses which include prohibitions that prevent publicity of any other religion than Islam, prohibit the media from producing any content that is unislamic or jeopardises the stability of the nation or any false information which might disrupt public opinion.
While some of these clauses are seemingly innocuous, they are so wide-ranging as to allow them to be misused against media organisations not toeing the line.
Fact and falsehood
Interpretations of facts and falsehood, for example, are always contentious in a conflict zone.
The government's determination of what are facts will result in one-sided reportage. Already there have been several attempts to impose guidelines for reporting on the media with a wide-ranging list of subjects which should not be reported.
The recently passed amnesty bill, immunising all jihadis from prosecution also sought to introduce a clause which would force the media to honour the jihadis in any reportage. Both moves were dropped under pressure but may be reintroduced through this bill.
The growing tensions between the media and the government are evident in recent events. The government's decision to trade Taliban prisoners for an Italian reporter leaving an Afghan reporter Ajmal Naqshbandi to be murdered has angered and shocked Afghan journalists.
Tolo television
More recently the country's most popular channel Tolo TV has been locked in a standoff with the attorney general of Afghanistan after police raided the channel following allegations of "misquoting" by Tolo.
Tolo TV, owned by three Afghan-Australian brothers, hit back accusing the attorney general of having carried out an illegal action and calling for his removal from office.
"The potential crimes [of the attorney general] are of the utmost seriousness and directly affect [the] issue of rule of law and sustainability of democracy in Afghanistan, especially given that they may be perpetrated by a person holding the highest operational legal position in Afghanistan," Tolo said.
The information ministry's commission to look into the matter has asked Tolo to apologise saying the channel had "presented the attorney general's statements in a way that can lead to various interpretations and cause unnecessary public anguish. The way this news was broadcast, could be seen as ill-intentioned."
However, Zaid Mohseni, a director of Tolo, states that the commission's finding does not show how and where Tolo had reported inaccurately.
"We are not convinced there is a reason to apologise and we are looking into the matter," Mohseni told Al Jazeera.
The order is indeed ambiguous in that it refers to possible interpretations and mala fides, rather than any substantive breach of facts.
The row illustrates an increasing pattern of confrontation between Afghanistan's independent media and those in power.
As the fledgling post-conflict state comes into being, with old roles being challenged and the balance of power changing, there are few areas where the contradictions have emerged as sharply as in the area of media.
Tolo itself is no stranger to controversy, having pushed the boundaries of media content in Afghanistan with programming content that is often considered to be too forward by Afghan standards.
However, Tolo also acts as a shock absorber for most of the media outlets that also fall far short of the restrictions that conservative sections would like to impose on them.
The new media law will also reverse moves to make the state broadcaster a public service broadcaster, by bringing it under government control.
Abdul Karim Khurram, the information minister, said the government cannot afford not to have control over the state broadcaster since the county was at war.
Khurram also said he would like to ensure a ceiling on the use of foreign content in Afghan media. Channels such as Tolo are highly dependent on foreign content.
Afghanistan currently does not have the capacity to produce adequate programming to meet an increasing demand that has seen the establishment of seven different private channels in the past three years. Khurram's ministry recently banned Tolo TV from rebroadcasting Al Jazeera content.
Mohaqeq, chairman of the religious affairs commission, told this reporter that they would not want the government to use the RTA for propaganda but that the media needed to be brought under specific rules to prevent them from misusing their power to humiliate people.
The argument, which is also one forwarded by the government, has emerged as a uniting platform for those seeking to impose more curbs on media.
Resurgent conservatism as well as consolidation of power by former local commanders, an increasingly authoritative government and other power-brokers has seen increasing attacks on an independent Afghan media that had emerged as one of the strongest components of Afghanistan's attempts to form a democratic pluralistic state.
Source: Al Jazeera
Afghan schools' money problems
Afghan schools' money problems
BBC NEWS
By Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
The return of five million Afghan children to school is one of the major success stories of post-conflict reconstruction in the country.
The figure is cited by the government and the donor community as one of the landmark achievements in a difficult process of rebuilding.
One person for whom the figure remains a source of concern, however, is Afghanistan's Education Minister Hanif Atmar.
"It is the greatest achievement in the history of this country" he says. "However, at best it represents 50-55% of our school-age children."
Ahead of Afghanistan's national budget, Mr Atmar expressed concern that, despite the major challenges ahead, funding for education funding will fall far short of what is needed.
"We will get 24% of what we asked for in the development budget," he predicted.
Planning problems
Most of the donor funding continues to be routed outside the government.
Donors often cite a lack of capacity in government departments to spend the money. They also argue that a lot of money given to the government gets siphoned off by corrupt officials.
The lack of funding through the government creates problems in forward planning.
"The ministry has no clear idea of how much money it is going to get from the external budget at the time of making annual plans because donor funding cycles are often different to the Afghan financial year," says a senior adviser to Mr Atmar.
"Multi-year funding would solve a part of this problem, but right now this is not happening.
"Although we now have a five-year strategy, it is difficult to plan implementation of programmes if we don't know there will be money to support it," the adviser says.
Mr Atmar argues that money spent on education by organisations other than the education ministry is largely wasted, with much of it being eaten away by overheads.
This is a contention supported by many donors.
The UK's Department For International Development (Dfid) estimates that the money given to the government and spent directly by it is eight times more productive than when spent by outside agencies.
Dfid itself routes more than 70% of its aid through the government.
Afghanistan's largest donor, USAid, spends only 7% of its annual budget through the government.
Spending money outside the government "undermines the state rebuilding project", says Mr Atmar, and "the state loses legitimacy".
"We have been invested with the responsibility to develop a sound strategy by the people of this country but we do not have the resources to implement it," he says.
'Decent space'
The strategy spelt out by Mr Atmar has many challenges.
According to the minister, only 40% of school children have "a decent space" to study.
The remaining 60% are in tents or dilapidated structures.
That has a particularly strong impact on the enrolment of girls as parents often want them to study in a more protective and sheltered area.
The problem enrolling of girls is further compounded by the lack of women teachers.
According to the international aid agency Oxfam, only about one quarter of the teachers in Afghanistan are women.
In many conservative parts of the country parents will not send their girls to school unless there are women teachers.
While at primary level there is one girl student for every two boys, this ratio drops to one girl for every five to six boys at secondary level.
Of the 143,000 school teachers on the government's payroll, 80% are not qualified, says Mr Atmar.
In the next five years, he hopes to increase the number of women teachers to 50% of the workforce.
He also wants to make sure that least 70% of the teachers pass competency tests by going through teacher training centres that he hopes to establish in the provinces.
The education ministry is also currently in the process of writing and printing text books for the secondary level curriculum, all of which costs money.
"We are trying to persuade donors to support the national budget or at least programmes under the national education strategy and not implement their own programmes," says the minister's adviser.
"In a 'post-conflict' situation such as in Afghanistan, it is important that the state takes on the responsibility to provide access to basic rights such as education as part of the state-building exercise, unlike under 'normal' development situations where the private sector can play a major role," he says.
"Some donors are now routing more of their money through the national budget which is encouraging, but it is still a fraction and not sufficient considering the needs."
Story from BBC NEWS
BBC NEWS
By Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
The return of five million Afghan children to school is one of the major success stories of post-conflict reconstruction in the country.
The figure is cited by the government and the donor community as one of the landmark achievements in a difficult process of rebuilding.
One person for whom the figure remains a source of concern, however, is Afghanistan's Education Minister Hanif Atmar.
"It is the greatest achievement in the history of this country" he says. "However, at best it represents 50-55% of our school-age children."
Ahead of Afghanistan's national budget, Mr Atmar expressed concern that, despite the major challenges ahead, funding for education funding will fall far short of what is needed.
"We will get 24% of what we asked for in the development budget," he predicted.
Planning problems
Most of the donor funding continues to be routed outside the government.
Donors often cite a lack of capacity in government departments to spend the money. They also argue that a lot of money given to the government gets siphoned off by corrupt officials.
The lack of funding through the government creates problems in forward planning.
"The ministry has no clear idea of how much money it is going to get from the external budget at the time of making annual plans because donor funding cycles are often different to the Afghan financial year," says a senior adviser to Mr Atmar.
"Multi-year funding would solve a part of this problem, but right now this is not happening.
"Although we now have a five-year strategy, it is difficult to plan implementation of programmes if we don't know there will be money to support it," the adviser says.
Mr Atmar argues that money spent on education by organisations other than the education ministry is largely wasted, with much of it being eaten away by overheads.
This is a contention supported by many donors.
The UK's Department For International Development (Dfid) estimates that the money given to the government and spent directly by it is eight times more productive than when spent by outside agencies.
Dfid itself routes more than 70% of its aid through the government.
Afghanistan's largest donor, USAid, spends only 7% of its annual budget through the government.
Spending money outside the government "undermines the state rebuilding project", says Mr Atmar, and "the state loses legitimacy".
"We have been invested with the responsibility to develop a sound strategy by the people of this country but we do not have the resources to implement it," he says.
'Decent space'
The strategy spelt out by Mr Atmar has many challenges.
According to the minister, only 40% of school children have "a decent space" to study.
The remaining 60% are in tents or dilapidated structures.
That has a particularly strong impact on the enrolment of girls as parents often want them to study in a more protective and sheltered area.
The problem enrolling of girls is further compounded by the lack of women teachers.
According to the international aid agency Oxfam, only about one quarter of the teachers in Afghanistan are women.
In many conservative parts of the country parents will not send their girls to school unless there are women teachers.
While at primary level there is one girl student for every two boys, this ratio drops to one girl for every five to six boys at secondary level.
Of the 143,000 school teachers on the government's payroll, 80% are not qualified, says Mr Atmar.
In the next five years, he hopes to increase the number of women teachers to 50% of the workforce.
He also wants to make sure that least 70% of the teachers pass competency tests by going through teacher training centres that he hopes to establish in the provinces.
The education ministry is also currently in the process of writing and printing text books for the secondary level curriculum, all of which costs money.
"We are trying to persuade donors to support the national budget or at least programmes under the national education strategy and not implement their own programmes," says the minister's adviser.
"In a 'post-conflict' situation such as in Afghanistan, it is important that the state takes on the responsibility to provide access to basic rights such as education as part of the state-building exercise, unlike under 'normal' development situations where the private sector can play a major role," he says.
"Some donors are now routing more of their money through the national budget which is encouraging, but it is still a fraction and not sufficient considering the needs."
Story from BBC NEWS
Afghanistan aid 'must be spread'
Afghanistan aid 'must be spread'
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul,By in Kabul, FT.com sitePublished: Mar 19, 2007
Rory Stewart struggled with insurgents as a deputy governor in the coalition administration in Iraq and briefly worked with United Nations advisers in post-war Afghanistan. These days, the former British diplomat copes with resurgent Taliban forces as head of non-governmental organisation promoting the preservation and renovation of medieval buildings in Afghanistan.
Donor governments, he says, are making a mistake in concentrating aid on projects in southern Afghan provinces where the insurgency is strongest, rather than spreading funds across the impoverished country.
"You cannot deliver development to a population that does not want to work with you – and in some areas in the south we have lost the goodwill of the population," he says. "This cannot be regained through economic development. People cannot just be bought. The Russians invested a great deal in infrastructure, but it did not help them defeat the insurgency. Our best option is to focus on areas where we are welcome."
The focus on aid for southern provinces comes as the US and UK put more stress on economic development and reconstruction as important elements of counter-insurgency strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military tactics alone have proved insufficient in eliminating armed resistance.
The UK Department for International Development has allocated a fifth of its budget for the next three years to the southern province of Helmand. The US Agency for International Development has concentrated more than half its budget on Helmand and three other southern provinces, according to Leon Waskin, mission director. Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
"The conflict that we see in the south is not going to be solved by military means alone," says Mr Waskin, arguing that increasing economic well-being will sap support for the insurgency.
But even with higher budgets, development agencies find it hard to implement projects in the south. "Throwing money doesn't help when it is not possible to travel to monitor project implementation," says the head of one NGO. Development groups have been forced to rely on unsupervised local workers.
The projects are easy targets for insurgents. Hundreds of Taliban fighters last month attacked the Kajaki dam in Helmand. The reconstruction of the dam, whose hydroelectric units are the main power source for the city of Kandahar, is one of the largest projects in the province, backed by USAID and DFID, but work has been halted by the fighting.
Projects in the south are less cost effective. "The costs of doing the same things are quite high," says a senior official at one agency.
Yet Hazarajat, a central highland region and the most secure area of the country, has seen little infrastructure development
The region, once home to the giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan demolished by the former Taliban government, remains focused on farming and animal husbandry. The Hazaras, who are believed to be of Turko-Mongolian origin, form a majority of the population of the region and are mainly Shia Muslims – which has in the past contributed towards their political and economic marginalisation.
Habiba Sarobi, governor of Bamiyan province and the only woman in such a position in the country, is disappointed. "[A] road is fundamental to Bamiyan," says Ms Sarobi. "Without it, even tourism cannot develop."
In the absence of paved roads, local farmers have difficulty marketing their produce and tourists keen to see the ruins at Bamiyan come by private plane or hire a jeep for an 11-hour drive from Kabul. A road could cut the trip by two-thirds.
A survey by the Asia Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of Hazarajat had not heard of foreign aid and cited poverty and unemployment as their biggest concerns.
The same survey showed that among the people of Afghanistan, Hazarajat residents had the highest faith in state institutions, such as the police, turned out in the largest numbers to vote and displayed some of the most liberal attitudes towards the rights of women.
Ms Sarobi and her constituents see the focus on the south almost as penalising them in favour of rebellious countrymen. "Some people might think it is a reward for bad behaviour."
Afghanistan aid 'must be spread'
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul,By in Kabul, FT.com sitePublished: Mar 19, 2007
Rory Stewart struggled with insurgents as a deputy governor in the coalition administration in Iraq and briefly worked with United Nations advisers in post-war Afghanistan. These days, the former British diplomat copes with resurgent Taliban forces as head of non-governmental organisation promoting the preservation and renovation of medieval buildings in Afghanistan.
Donor governments, he says, are making a mistake in concentrating aid on projects in southern Afghan provinces where the insurgency is strongest, rather than spreading funds across the impoverished country.
"You cannot deliver development to a population that does not want to work with you – and in some areas in the south we have lost the goodwill of the population," he says. "This cannot be regained through economic development. People cannot just be bought. The Russians invested a great deal in infrastructure, but it did not help them defeat the insurgency. Our best option is to focus on areas where we are welcome."
The focus on aid for southern provinces comes as the US and UK put more stress on economic development and reconstruction as important elements of counter-insurgency strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military tactics alone have proved insufficient in eliminating armed resistance.
The UK Department for International Development has allocated a fifth of its budget for the next three years to the southern province of Helmand. The US Agency for International Development has concentrated more than half its budget on Helmand and three other southern provinces, according to Leon Waskin, mission director. Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
"The conflict that we see in the south is not going to be solved by military means alone," says Mr Waskin, arguing that increasing economic well-being will sap support for the insurgency.
But even with higher budgets, development agencies find it hard to implement projects in the south. "Throwing money doesn't help when it is not possible to travel to monitor project implementation," says the head of one NGO. Development groups have been forced to rely on unsupervised local workers.
The projects are easy targets for insurgents. Hundreds of Taliban fighters last month attacked the Kajaki dam in Helmand. The reconstruction of the dam, whose hydroelectric units are the main power source for the city of Kandahar, is one of the largest projects in the province, backed by USAID and DFID, but work has been halted by the fighting.
Projects in the south are less cost effective. "The costs of doing the same things are quite high," says a senior official at one agency.
Yet Hazarajat, a central highland region and the most secure area of the country, has seen little infrastructure development
The region, once home to the giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan demolished by the former Taliban government, remains focused on farming and animal husbandry. The Hazaras, who are believed to be of Turko-Mongolian origin, form a majority of the population of the region and are mainly Shia Muslims – which has in the past contributed towards their political and economic marginalisation.
Habiba Sarobi, governor of Bamiyan province and the only woman in such a position in the country, is disappointed. "[A] road is fundamental to Bamiyan," says Ms Sarobi. "Without it, even tourism cannot develop."
In the absence of paved roads, local farmers have difficulty marketing their produce and tourists keen to see the ruins at Bamiyan come by private plane or hire a jeep for an 11-hour drive from Kabul. A road could cut the trip by two-thirds.
A survey by the Asia Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of Hazarajat had not heard of foreign aid and cited poverty and unemployment as their biggest concerns.
The same survey showed that among the people of Afghanistan, Hazarajat residents had the highest faith in state institutions, such as the police, turned out in the largest numbers to vote and displayed some of the most liberal attitudes towards the rights of women.
Ms Sarobi and her constituents see the focus on the south almost as penalising them in favour of rebellious countrymen. "Some people might think it is a reward for bad behaviour."
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul,By in Kabul, FT.com sitePublished: Mar 19, 2007
Rory Stewart struggled with insurgents as a deputy governor in the coalition administration in Iraq and briefly worked with United Nations advisers in post-war Afghanistan. These days, the former British diplomat copes with resurgent Taliban forces as head of non-governmental organisation promoting the preservation and renovation of medieval buildings in Afghanistan.
Donor governments, he says, are making a mistake in concentrating aid on projects in southern Afghan provinces where the insurgency is strongest, rather than spreading funds across the impoverished country.
"You cannot deliver development to a population that does not want to work with you – and in some areas in the south we have lost the goodwill of the population," he says. "This cannot be regained through economic development. People cannot just be bought. The Russians invested a great deal in infrastructure, but it did not help them defeat the insurgency. Our best option is to focus on areas where we are welcome."
The focus on aid for southern provinces comes as the US and UK put more stress on economic development and reconstruction as important elements of counter-insurgency strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military tactics alone have proved insufficient in eliminating armed resistance.
The UK Department for International Development has allocated a fifth of its budget for the next three years to the southern province of Helmand. The US Agency for International Development has concentrated more than half its budget on Helmand and three other southern provinces, according to Leon Waskin, mission director. Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
"The conflict that we see in the south is not going to be solved by military means alone," says Mr Waskin, arguing that increasing economic well-being will sap support for the insurgency.
But even with higher budgets, development agencies find it hard to implement projects in the south. "Throwing money doesn't help when it is not possible to travel to monitor project implementation," says the head of one NGO. Development groups have been forced to rely on unsupervised local workers.
The projects are easy targets for insurgents. Hundreds of Taliban fighters last month attacked the Kajaki dam in Helmand. The reconstruction of the dam, whose hydroelectric units are the main power source for the city of Kandahar, is one of the largest projects in the province, backed by USAID and DFID, but work has been halted by the fighting.
Projects in the south are less cost effective. "The costs of doing the same things are quite high," says a senior official at one agency.
Yet Hazarajat, a central highland region and the most secure area of the country, has seen little infrastructure development
The region, once home to the giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan demolished by the former Taliban government, remains focused on farming and animal husbandry. The Hazaras, who are believed to be of Turko-Mongolian origin, form a majority of the population of the region and are mainly Shia Muslims – which has in the past contributed towards their political and economic marginalisation.
Habiba Sarobi, governor of Bamiyan province and the only woman in such a position in the country, is disappointed. "[A] road is fundamental to Bamiyan," says Ms Sarobi. "Without it, even tourism cannot develop."
In the absence of paved roads, local farmers have difficulty marketing their produce and tourists keen to see the ruins at Bamiyan come by private plane or hire a jeep for an 11-hour drive from Kabul. A road could cut the trip by two-thirds.
A survey by the Asia Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of Hazarajat had not heard of foreign aid and cited poverty and unemployment as their biggest concerns.
The same survey showed that among the people of Afghanistan, Hazarajat residents had the highest faith in state institutions, such as the police, turned out in the largest numbers to vote and displayed some of the most liberal attitudes towards the rights of women.
Ms Sarobi and her constituents see the focus on the south almost as penalising them in favour of rebellious countrymen. "Some people might think it is a reward for bad behaviour."
Afghanistan aid 'must be spread'
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul,By in Kabul, FT.com sitePublished: Mar 19, 2007
Rory Stewart struggled with insurgents as a deputy governor in the coalition administration in Iraq and briefly worked with United Nations advisers in post-war Afghanistan. These days, the former British diplomat copes with resurgent Taliban forces as head of non-governmental organisation promoting the preservation and renovation of medieval buildings in Afghanistan.
Donor governments, he says, are making a mistake in concentrating aid on projects in southern Afghan provinces where the insurgency is strongest, rather than spreading funds across the impoverished country.
"You cannot deliver development to a population that does not want to work with you – and in some areas in the south we have lost the goodwill of the population," he says. "This cannot be regained through economic development. People cannot just be bought. The Russians invested a great deal in infrastructure, but it did not help them defeat the insurgency. Our best option is to focus on areas where we are welcome."
The focus on aid for southern provinces comes as the US and UK put more stress on economic development and reconstruction as important elements of counter-insurgency strategy in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Military tactics alone have proved insufficient in eliminating armed resistance.
The UK Department for International Development has allocated a fifth of its budget for the next three years to the southern province of Helmand. The US Agency for International Development has concentrated more than half its budget on Helmand and three other southern provinces, according to Leon Waskin, mission director. Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
"The conflict that we see in the south is not going to be solved by military means alone," says Mr Waskin, arguing that increasing economic well-being will sap support for the insurgency.
But even with higher budgets, development agencies find it hard to implement projects in the south. "Throwing money doesn't help when it is not possible to travel to monitor project implementation," says the head of one NGO. Development groups have been forced to rely on unsupervised local workers.
The projects are easy targets for insurgents. Hundreds of Taliban fighters last month attacked the Kajaki dam in Helmand. The reconstruction of the dam, whose hydroelectric units are the main power source for the city of Kandahar, is one of the largest projects in the province, backed by USAID and DFID, but work has been halted by the fighting.
Projects in the south are less cost effective. "The costs of doing the same things are quite high," says a senior official at one agency.
Yet Hazarajat, a central highland region and the most secure area of the country, has seen little infrastructure development
The region, once home to the giant statues of Buddha at Bamiyan demolished by the former Taliban government, remains focused on farming and animal husbandry. The Hazaras, who are believed to be of Turko-Mongolian origin, form a majority of the population of the region and are mainly Shia Muslims – which has in the past contributed towards their political and economic marginalisation.
Habiba Sarobi, governor of Bamiyan province and the only woman in such a position in the country, is disappointed. "[A] road is fundamental to Bamiyan," says Ms Sarobi. "Without it, even tourism cannot develop."
In the absence of paved roads, local farmers have difficulty marketing their produce and tourists keen to see the ruins at Bamiyan come by private plane or hire a jeep for an 11-hour drive from Kabul. A road could cut the trip by two-thirds.
A survey by the Asia Foundation found that nearly two-thirds of Hazarajat had not heard of foreign aid and cited poverty and unemployment as their biggest concerns.
The same survey showed that among the people of Afghanistan, Hazarajat residents had the highest faith in state institutions, such as the police, turned out in the largest numbers to vote and displayed some of the most liberal attitudes towards the rights of women.
Ms Sarobi and her constituents see the focus on the south almost as penalising them in favour of rebellious countrymen. "Some people might think it is a reward for bad behaviour."
AFGHANISTAN: Gov't bid to boost police in south
AFGHANISTAN: Gov't bid to boost police in south
KANDAHAR , 4 March 2007 (IRIN) - Abdul Bari has just quit his job. Recruited into the auxiliary police in Kandahar, part of a temporary supplementary force to meet Afghanistan’s shortfall of security forces in the south, the 23-year-old said the job was simply too difficult and dangerous. Despite the resurgence of pro-Taliban forces in the area, there has been little commensurate increase in security forces. Funding and support for the Afghan national police and the army are being stepped up only now, while an increase in the deployment of international forces has been incremental. The Afghan national army has experienced high rates of desertion and it has only half the force of 70,000 it was expected to reach by 2010. As a result, police in the volatile south have no choice but to take on anti-insurgency duties, which prompted the government to set up an auxiliary force. According to Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary, the auxiliary police will comprise an additional force of 20,000 for two years for the six southern provinces of Uruzgan, Kandahar, Helmand, Farah, Zabul and Ghazni.
Weak vetting and questions over command structures raise concerns that the new force will be little more than militias. “We needed a temporary increase because we did not have enough police in the remote districts of the south,” Bashary said. However, critics say the force could create yet another source of long-term instability in the country as re-arming of local communities has proved counter-productive in the past. The auxiliary police are drawn from the community and deployed in their own towns and villages, as living with their families in their own areas is supposed to prevent them from deserting. In Helmand, more than 700 of the 1,050 mandated auxiliary police have been trained and deployed, while in Kandahar the original force of 1,300-plus is likely to be increased to 2,000. There are questions, however, over the integrity of the training these men receive as it is a fraction of what regular police are given, allowing for quicker deployment, but sceptics remain concerned over its quality. The International Crisis Group (ICG) says that after just 10 days of training the auxiliary police were given the same weapons and salary as the regular police. “Weak vetting and questions over command structures raise concerns that the new force will be little more than militias,” the ICG said.
Bashary says the auxiliary police are only mandated to carry out law-enforcement duties and not combat, although they must defend themselves if attacked. But for most policemen serving in the south, carrying out their duties involves confronting and usually engaging anti-government elements. For this reason Bari did not believe community policing was an advantage. “I quit because I was commissioned to serve in my own area where everyone in the community knew I was a policeman. I am a resident of Panjwayi district - control of which changes hands between the government and insurgents - so it is difficult and dangerous for me to serve in such an area,” he said. Moreover, for a salary of just US$70 a month, Abdul’s family thought the risks were not worth it. am/ds/at/ar/mw
KANDAHAR , 4 March 2007 (IRIN) - Abdul Bari has just quit his job. Recruited into the auxiliary police in Kandahar, part of a temporary supplementary force to meet Afghanistan’s shortfall of security forces in the south, the 23-year-old said the job was simply too difficult and dangerous. Despite the resurgence of pro-Taliban forces in the area, there has been little commensurate increase in security forces. Funding and support for the Afghan national police and the army are being stepped up only now, while an increase in the deployment of international forces has been incremental. The Afghan national army has experienced high rates of desertion and it has only half the force of 70,000 it was expected to reach by 2010. As a result, police in the volatile south have no choice but to take on anti-insurgency duties, which prompted the government to set up an auxiliary force. According to Interior Ministry spokesman Zemarai Bashary, the auxiliary police will comprise an additional force of 20,000 for two years for the six southern provinces of Uruzgan, Kandahar, Helmand, Farah, Zabul and Ghazni.
Weak vetting and questions over command structures raise concerns that the new force will be little more than militias. “We needed a temporary increase because we did not have enough police in the remote districts of the south,” Bashary said. However, critics say the force could create yet another source of long-term instability in the country as re-arming of local communities has proved counter-productive in the past. The auxiliary police are drawn from the community and deployed in their own towns and villages, as living with their families in their own areas is supposed to prevent them from deserting. In Helmand, more than 700 of the 1,050 mandated auxiliary police have been trained and deployed, while in Kandahar the original force of 1,300-plus is likely to be increased to 2,000. There are questions, however, over the integrity of the training these men receive as it is a fraction of what regular police are given, allowing for quicker deployment, but sceptics remain concerned over its quality. The International Crisis Group (ICG) says that after just 10 days of training the auxiliary police were given the same weapons and salary as the regular police. “Weak vetting and questions over command structures raise concerns that the new force will be little more than militias,” the ICG said.
Bashary says the auxiliary police are only mandated to carry out law-enforcement duties and not combat, although they must defend themselves if attacked. But for most policemen serving in the south, carrying out their duties involves confronting and usually engaging anti-government elements. For this reason Bari did not believe community policing was an advantage. “I quit because I was commissioned to serve in my own area where everyone in the community knew I was a policeman. I am a resident of Panjwayi district - control of which changes hands between the government and insurgents - so it is difficult and dangerous for me to serve in such an area,” he said. Moreover, for a salary of just US$70 a month, Abdul’s family thought the risks were not worth it. am/ds/at/ar/mw
March 06, 2007
Badland Roses
AFGHANISTAN: INDIAN WOMEN
Badland Roses
Four Indian women brave Kabul's perils to help in reconstruction
Aunohita Mojumdar
e-mail one page format feedback: send
Vrinda Dar wanted a "regular" job after a career spent mostly freelancing. "Time to do something settled," she thought. So she accepted an offer from an international NGO to work in Kabul. Not many people would consider a posting in war-torn Afghanistan, separated from one's family, a settling experience. But then Vrinda is not usual. She is among a small group of remarkable Indian women contributing in different ways to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Their experiences are far from ordinary—as foreigners they face huge security restrictions, as women they combat social conservatism—but as Indians, they benefit from a special regard on the part of Afghans.Working in Afghanistan is not a job for the faint-hearted. While south Afghanistan is in the throes of a conventional military battle, Kabul frequently experiences rocket attacks and suicide bombings in public places. International workers have been kidnapped in broad daylight. In May last year, anti-foreigner riots raged through the city. Several offices and guesthouses where foreigners work or live were set on fire and vandalised. The inhabitants had to escape by jumping over walls. Pushpa Pathak, caught in her office in the Kabul municipality where she works as a senior advisor, was one of them. Pushpa recalls this as one of two times when she has felt scared in Afghanistan. The other occasion was when a massive bomb explosion nearly blew away the glass windows of her guesthouse in 2004.Pushpa, Vrinda and the other Indian women live under an enormously restrictive security regime, in high-walled houses with bunkers, guards and protective plastic on the windows. Also required are a minimum of three residents per establishment, including at least one male. These rules, plus high rents, force them and other foreigners to live in a guesthouse, or share a house with other international workers. Their social activities are severely limited because of curfews and rules that prohibit them from walking anywhere, let alone go shopping or using public transport. Travel within the city has to be under escort, usually with door-to-door drops by office vehicles and only to a limited number of restricted 'security cleared' places. Vrinda, for instance, is not allowed to visit Afghan colleagues. For security reasons, the aid agency she works for can't be named in this article.Anita Nirody (Centre) at a meeting during Pranab Mukherjee’s recent Kabul visit
From time to time, 'lockdowns' are declared that prohibit foreigners from leaving home, or only allow essential travel. Anita Nirody, who is the country director of UNDP in its largest office globally, cancelled her first appointment with Outlook because of a lockdown following a new security alert. Any house she visits has to be security-cleared, in advance. Pushpa says she misses the freedom to go out for a play or a movie or a walk. "I sometimes feel like I am in a cage," frets Vrinda.What makes matters worse are the restrictions on women. While expatriate women generally have more freedom than locals, South Asian women are somewhat differently placed because, as Vrinda points out, Afghan society views them differently. "There is more desire to see reaffirmation of moral standards from South Asian woman," she says.Interestingly, Vrinda finds it far more liberating to be in the villages of Afghanistan than the cities. "Rural people are far more flexible," she says, describing the way she has been able to bond with families there. In Kabul, on the other hand, she finds the intense scrutiny of unescorted women in public spaces very irksome.
Pushpa, who earlier chose not to wear the customary hijab in public, has now started doing so because she otherwise "attracts too much attention".Yet, in her own way, Pushpa has breached many a frontier, as have other Indian women working here. Entrusted with the task of preparing policy and project proposals to raise funding and develop Kabul's land use framework, Pushpa was excited by the professional challenge Afghanistan presented.Pushpa Pathak with her Kabul Municipality colleagues
When she joined the municipality two years ago, it had no women in senior positions, and it took her a while to get respect and cooperation. But she was not surprised or daunted. "I had experienced this before in small towns in India," she recalls. In Afghanistan, there was actually an advantage—her Indian identity helped to gain acceptance, because Afghans like Indians.Other Indian women working in Afghanistan have also experienced this. Shanthini Dawson, a special advisor in the Afghan government for five years, who works in the ministry of education, says Afghans are always too proud to accept help but "find it much easier to accept technical assistance when it comes from the region". "In fact, the downside is more with my Western colleagues who often have patronising questions," she says, adding, "I don't see myself as a foreigner anymore."Cultural affinities between Indians and Afghanistan run deep. They stem from a shared history, cultural similarities, and a sense of common identity that comes from being a developing country with common traditions, problems and challenges. Last but not the least, Afghans and Indians are united in a negative perception of Pakistan. "Hindi not a foreigner" is a common refrain. "When you say you are from Hindustan, doors open by themselves," says Vrinda. It is an advantage Nirody appreciates as well, even though she is now a US citizen and her work with the UN emphasises her international status. Nirody, who grew up in India, says with Indians, Afghans "are willing to take that extra step and there is a sense of familiarity". Nirody applied for work in Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose. "It was too exciting to resist," she says. Though all the Indian women Outlook spoke to in Kabul were well aware of the professional and personal challenges, it was a tough decision, with families having to be left behind. Afghanistan is a non-family station for the UN. Pushpa had to counter resistance from her family in UP. Vrinda's Italian husband looks after their children while she's in Afghanistan. But they all feel it has been worth it, mostly for the chance to see their work take shape and change things. "It was the opportunity of a lifetime to come here," says Vrinda. For her, and the others, there are no regrets.
Badland Roses
Four Indian women brave Kabul's perils to help in reconstruction
Aunohita Mojumdar
e-mail one page format feedback: send
Vrinda Dar wanted a "regular" job after a career spent mostly freelancing. "Time to do something settled," she thought. So she accepted an offer from an international NGO to work in Kabul. Not many people would consider a posting in war-torn Afghanistan, separated from one's family, a settling experience. But then Vrinda is not usual. She is among a small group of remarkable Indian women contributing in different ways to the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Their experiences are far from ordinary—as foreigners they face huge security restrictions, as women they combat social conservatism—but as Indians, they benefit from a special regard on the part of Afghans.Working in Afghanistan is not a job for the faint-hearted. While south Afghanistan is in the throes of a conventional military battle, Kabul frequently experiences rocket attacks and suicide bombings in public places. International workers have been kidnapped in broad daylight. In May last year, anti-foreigner riots raged through the city. Several offices and guesthouses where foreigners work or live were set on fire and vandalised. The inhabitants had to escape by jumping over walls. Pushpa Pathak, caught in her office in the Kabul municipality where she works as a senior advisor, was one of them. Pushpa recalls this as one of two times when she has felt scared in Afghanistan. The other occasion was when a massive bomb explosion nearly blew away the glass windows of her guesthouse in 2004.Pushpa, Vrinda and the other Indian women live under an enormously restrictive security regime, in high-walled houses with bunkers, guards and protective plastic on the windows. Also required are a minimum of three residents per establishment, including at least one male. These rules, plus high rents, force them and other foreigners to live in a guesthouse, or share a house with other international workers. Their social activities are severely limited because of curfews and rules that prohibit them from walking anywhere, let alone go shopping or using public transport. Travel within the city has to be under escort, usually with door-to-door drops by office vehicles and only to a limited number of restricted 'security cleared' places. Vrinda, for instance, is not allowed to visit Afghan colleagues. For security reasons, the aid agency she works for can't be named in this article.Anita Nirody (Centre) at a meeting during Pranab Mukherjee’s recent Kabul visit
From time to time, 'lockdowns' are declared that prohibit foreigners from leaving home, or only allow essential travel. Anita Nirody, who is the country director of UNDP in its largest office globally, cancelled her first appointment with Outlook because of a lockdown following a new security alert. Any house she visits has to be security-cleared, in advance. Pushpa says she misses the freedom to go out for a play or a movie or a walk. "I sometimes feel like I am in a cage," frets Vrinda.What makes matters worse are the restrictions on women. While expatriate women generally have more freedom than locals, South Asian women are somewhat differently placed because, as Vrinda points out, Afghan society views them differently. "There is more desire to see reaffirmation of moral standards from South Asian woman," she says.Interestingly, Vrinda finds it far more liberating to be in the villages of Afghanistan than the cities. "Rural people are far more flexible," she says, describing the way she has been able to bond with families there. In Kabul, on the other hand, she finds the intense scrutiny of unescorted women in public spaces very irksome.
Pushpa, who earlier chose not to wear the customary hijab in public, has now started doing so because she otherwise "attracts too much attention".Yet, in her own way, Pushpa has breached many a frontier, as have other Indian women working here. Entrusted with the task of preparing policy and project proposals to raise funding and develop Kabul's land use framework, Pushpa was excited by the professional challenge Afghanistan presented.Pushpa Pathak with her Kabul Municipality colleagues
When she joined the municipality two years ago, it had no women in senior positions, and it took her a while to get respect and cooperation. But she was not surprised or daunted. "I had experienced this before in small towns in India," she recalls. In Afghanistan, there was actually an advantage—her Indian identity helped to gain acceptance, because Afghans like Indians.Other Indian women working in Afghanistan have also experienced this. Shanthini Dawson, a special advisor in the Afghan government for five years, who works in the ministry of education, says Afghans are always too proud to accept help but "find it much easier to accept technical assistance when it comes from the region". "In fact, the downside is more with my Western colleagues who often have patronising questions," she says, adding, "I don't see myself as a foreigner anymore."Cultural affinities between Indians and Afghanistan run deep. They stem from a shared history, cultural similarities, and a sense of common identity that comes from being a developing country with common traditions, problems and challenges. Last but not the least, Afghans and Indians are united in a negative perception of Pakistan. "Hindi not a foreigner" is a common refrain. "When you say you are from Hindustan, doors open by themselves," says Vrinda. It is an advantage Nirody appreciates as well, even though she is now a US citizen and her work with the UN emphasises her international status. Nirody, who grew up in India, says with Indians, Afghans "are willing to take that extra step and there is a sense of familiarity". Nirody applied for work in Afghanistan as soon as the opportunity arose. "It was too exciting to resist," she says. Though all the Indian women Outlook spoke to in Kabul were well aware of the professional and personal challenges, it was a tough decision, with families having to be left behind. Afghanistan is a non-family station for the UN. Pushpa had to counter resistance from her family in UP. Vrinda's Italian husband looks after their children while she's in Afghanistan. But they all feel it has been worth it, mostly for the chance to see their work take shape and change things. "It was the opportunity of a lifetime to come here," says Vrinda. For her, and the others, there are no regrets.
Doubts grow over Afghan war crimes amnesty
Doubts grow over Afghan war crimes amnesty
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Published: February 12 2007 19:50 Last updated: February 12 2007 19:50
Haji Safar still remembers vividly the day in 1993 that his 19-year-old son was gunned down in fighting between rival mujahideen groups in the area of western Kabul where he lives and works. He also remembers who was responsible for the fighting.
Abdul al-Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-e-Islami faction “was located in that area,” Mr Safar says, as he points down a road in his neighbourhood. “[Former Afghan President Burhanuddin] Rabbani and Rabbani’s Shura-e Nazar [were] rocketing from that mountain.”
In a newly democratic Afghanistan both factions are now members of parliament. They were also part of a group which on January 31 successfully pushed legislation granting immunity from prosecution to “all people involved in the conflict of the past two-and-a-half decades” through the lower house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga.
The proposed amnesty would also be offered to any anti-government forces now fighting Nato and Afghan troops, as long as they joined a process of reconciliation.
To the normally soft-spoken Haji Safar, the two MPs and others responsible for Afghanistan’s lost decades of violence deserve not amnesty, but death. “I would not just like to see them die. I want them to be hanged more than 10 times,” he says.
The memories of the past 30 years remain fresh for many Afghans, and critics say if the amnesty becomes law it is unlikely that millions of Afghans will ever get a sense of closure. Rough-and-ready retribution may instead become the way to settle decades-old scores.
“The voices of the victims must be heard – and they have spoken out clearly for the culture of impunity in Afghanistan to end,” Louise Arbour, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, said soon after the amnesty resolution was passed by the Wolesi Jirga.
“Experience has shown time and again that effective and durable national reconciliation must be based on respect for international human rights standards and the rule of law, and must not come at their expense.”
Western officials say the resolution’s passing appears to have been a pre-emptive move aimed at averting growing pressure from both inside and outside Afghanistan for the prosecution of war crimes.
A plan endorsed in December by President Hamid Karzai would have seen any war crimes or gross human rights violations prosecuted, and a recent Human Rights Watch report identified a number of Jihadi leaders implicated in past war crimes who were occupying key positions in the government and legislature.
Shukria Barakzai, one of a small minority of MPs who opposed the resolution, calls its passage “a sign of growing extremism and a big threat for democracy, for human rights and for the future of this country”.
The issue has also highlighted the problems underlying the efforts to rush a parliament into being following the US-led 2001 ousting of the Taliban.
The result, critics say, has been a body dominated by a minority of warlords who wield power far disproportionate to their standing with the electorate.
Human rights activists initially dismissed the charter which passed the parliament as a non-binding resolution with no legal standing. Now they say it appears to be a draft law which will be presented to the upper house.
A group of MPs opposed to an amnesty is trying to challenge the resolution’s constitutionality. President Karzai, who would have to sign the legislation into law, has declined to take a position and asked for legal advice, although any presidential veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
The position before international law is also unclear. UN officials insist the UN cannot be party to a blanket amnesty and that it would violate Afghanistan’s obligations to international law. However, supporters in the Afghan parliament cite examples such as South Africa as models for granting an amnesty.
“The principle of amnesty in itself is not a bad one,” points out one western observer. “What is problematic is the process which has led to it.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Published: February 12 2007 19:50 Last updated: February 12 2007 19:50
Haji Safar still remembers vividly the day in 1993 that his 19-year-old son was gunned down in fighting between rival mujahideen groups in the area of western Kabul where he lives and works. He also remembers who was responsible for the fighting.
Abdul al-Rasul Sayyaf and his Ittihad-e-Islami faction “was located in that area,” Mr Safar says, as he points down a road in his neighbourhood. “[Former Afghan President Burhanuddin] Rabbani and Rabbani’s Shura-e Nazar [were] rocketing from that mountain.”
In a newly democratic Afghanistan both factions are now members of parliament. They were also part of a group which on January 31 successfully pushed legislation granting immunity from prosecution to “all people involved in the conflict of the past two-and-a-half decades” through the lower house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga.
The proposed amnesty would also be offered to any anti-government forces now fighting Nato and Afghan troops, as long as they joined a process of reconciliation.
To the normally soft-spoken Haji Safar, the two MPs and others responsible for Afghanistan’s lost decades of violence deserve not amnesty, but death. “I would not just like to see them die. I want them to be hanged more than 10 times,” he says.
The memories of the past 30 years remain fresh for many Afghans, and critics say if the amnesty becomes law it is unlikely that millions of Afghans will ever get a sense of closure. Rough-and-ready retribution may instead become the way to settle decades-old scores.
“The voices of the victims must be heard – and they have spoken out clearly for the culture of impunity in Afghanistan to end,” Louise Arbour, UN Commissioner for Human Rights, said soon after the amnesty resolution was passed by the Wolesi Jirga.
“Experience has shown time and again that effective and durable national reconciliation must be based on respect for international human rights standards and the rule of law, and must not come at their expense.”
Western officials say the resolution’s passing appears to have been a pre-emptive move aimed at averting growing pressure from both inside and outside Afghanistan for the prosecution of war crimes.
A plan endorsed in December by President Hamid Karzai would have seen any war crimes or gross human rights violations prosecuted, and a recent Human Rights Watch report identified a number of Jihadi leaders implicated in past war crimes who were occupying key positions in the government and legislature.
Shukria Barakzai, one of a small minority of MPs who opposed the resolution, calls its passage “a sign of growing extremism and a big threat for democracy, for human rights and for the future of this country”.
The issue has also highlighted the problems underlying the efforts to rush a parliament into being following the US-led 2001 ousting of the Taliban.
The result, critics say, has been a body dominated by a minority of warlords who wield power far disproportionate to their standing with the electorate.
Human rights activists initially dismissed the charter which passed the parliament as a non-binding resolution with no legal standing. Now they say it appears to be a draft law which will be presented to the upper house.
A group of MPs opposed to an amnesty is trying to challenge the resolution’s constitutionality. President Karzai, who would have to sign the legislation into law, has declined to take a position and asked for legal advice, although any presidential veto could be overridden by a two-thirds majority in the lower house.
The position before international law is also unclear. UN officials insist the UN cannot be party to a blanket amnesty and that it would violate Afghanistan’s obligations to international law. However, supporters in the Afghan parliament cite examples such as South Africa as models for granting an amnesty.
“The principle of amnesty in itself is not a bad one,” points out one western observer. “What is problematic is the process which has led to it.”
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2007
December 16, 2006
Afghan Female MPs Call It a Rough First Year
December 17, 2006
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)--Sahira Sharif sits with Zabah, the youngest of her four children on her lap. He is 3 and a half years old, but looks much younger. The child suffers from Down's syndrome, says Sharif, with no trace of self-consciousness.
It is a matter of fact--along with cooking, shopping, teaching her children, taking them to and from school--in addition to her work as one of Afghanistan's first female parliamentarians.
During the session, debates can begin as early as 8:30 or 9 a.m. and go on all day, sometimes late into the evening five days a week. But there are no concessions to her traditional women's duties, no extra help. Sharif is virtually a single parent since her husband lives in Khost where he has a government job.
This week the newly constituted Afghan parliament marks its first anniversary on Dec. 19 and Sharif completes the first year of her five-year term.
In what is left of her tenure, she hopes to introduce legislation to ban forced marriages, which the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimates as 38 percent of all marriages in the country.
Another female member of the Afghan Parliament, Fawzia Kofi, the second deputy chair of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house, hopes a law will be adopted to empower police to investigate suicides and domestic violence without having to refer to a complaint by the victim or the victim's family. Kofi says the family may be complicit in the violence and the victim reluctant to make a complaint.
In the past year 197 cases of suicide were attempted in Herat province, of which 69 were successful, the country's human rights commission reports. Many have been linked to domestic abuse. In Kandahar, 200 women tried to escape from abusive homes.
But whatever their legislative hopes and ambitions, female parliamentarians such as Sharif and Kofi say their first year in office leaves them prepared for more rough times ahead.
Security Problems Take Toll
The country's national security is deteriorating.
A week ago, Afghan police arrested six Taliban insurgents suspected of killing two female teachers along with three other relatives, according to press reports quoting Afghan and NATO officials. The killings come on top of attacks on aid workers, government officials and intensifying clashes between international forces and the Taliban.
Amid these dangers, female parliamentarians have made fewer trips out of the capital city of Kabul back home to their constituencies.
Sharif--who until two months ago traveled without a burka to her province of Khost--has started wearing one recently and avoids staying too long in any one area. Anyone associated with the government is at risk, she says. Not only the Taliban but commanders and political factions that have lost power are potentially dangerous.
Sharifa Zurmati Wardak, represents Paktia, a conservative Pashtun constituency in the southeastern part of the country bordering Pakistan where many women never step out of their homes for any reason whatsoever. She does not travel without a male escort.
Afghanistan's new constitution, adopted in 2004, requires that two women be elected from each of its 34 provinces. With a current strength of 248 this puts the representation of women at just over 25 percent, ahead of many legislative bodies. Internationally, 30 percent is considered the minimum for any group to leverage its representation.
Last year 19 of the 68 female parliamentarians won enough votes to have been elected even without any special mandate.
Year of Anti-Woman Debates
While providing one of the widest spaces in the country for women's participation in public life, the Parliament in the past year has debated a number of anti-women measures.
Members have discussed whether female parliamentarians should be required to have a "mehram," or male escort, when traveling outside the country.
Despite constitutional provisions for gender equality and laws that stipulate 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage, the upper house of Parliament wants it lowered to 15. Fearing the effect on young women in forced marriages, a number of female members have been battling the push, which would require passage in the lower house to become law.
Women have been unable to close ranks against a move to abolish the Ministry of Women's Affairs, which was formed in 2001 as an advisory group to help rebuild women's rights lost under the Taliban. So far the ministry has survived, although women themselves were split over the issue, with some women siding with their own male-led factions and debate over eliminating the ministry may reopen.
"Women stand against other women," says Sharif.
Efforts to Erode Representation
Women's 25-percent representation is itself insecure.
Abdul Salaam Rocketi--his last name was acquired due to his prowess with rocket launchers--is a former Taliban commander. Now representing Zabul in Parliament, he calls the reservation of seats for women "undemocratic."
Efforts to build a women's caucus are going slowly.
UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, has set up a resource center stocked with documents and books and research materials pertaining to Afghanistan and political issues. The center has phone lines and Internet access to aid interaction and information gathering.
The National Democratic Institute, a U.S. civil-society nonprofit, has been organizing workshops to help bring women together to discuss their common concerns and a recent meeting focused on violence against women. But the female parliamentarians are far too politically divided to realistically discuss the creation of a formal caucus.
Despite the numerous hurdles and disappointments of the past year, Wardak says the presence of women in the Parliament has nonetheless encouraged debate on issues that might otherwise have been ignored. Female parliamentarians, for instance, visited a women's prison and were upset by some of the conditions they discovered. Wardak and Sharif said that as a result of their interventions female inmates are now allowed to have visits from their children and pregnant women are getting better medical attention.
"We are there," Wardak says. "Our voices exist."
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and she has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict development in Punjab extensively.
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
KABUL, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)--Sahira Sharif sits with Zabah, the youngest of her four children on her lap. He is 3 and a half years old, but looks much younger. The child suffers from Down's syndrome, says Sharif, with no trace of self-consciousness.
It is a matter of fact--along with cooking, shopping, teaching her children, taking them to and from school--in addition to her work as one of Afghanistan's first female parliamentarians.
During the session, debates can begin as early as 8:30 or 9 a.m. and go on all day, sometimes late into the evening five days a week. But there are no concessions to her traditional women's duties, no extra help. Sharif is virtually a single parent since her husband lives in Khost where he has a government job.
This week the newly constituted Afghan parliament marks its first anniversary on Dec. 19 and Sharif completes the first year of her five-year term.
In what is left of her tenure, she hopes to introduce legislation to ban forced marriages, which the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission estimates as 38 percent of all marriages in the country.
Another female member of the Afghan Parliament, Fawzia Kofi, the second deputy chair of the Wolesi Jirga, the lower house, hopes a law will be adopted to empower police to investigate suicides and domestic violence without having to refer to a complaint by the victim or the victim's family. Kofi says the family may be complicit in the violence and the victim reluctant to make a complaint.
In the past year 197 cases of suicide were attempted in Herat province, of which 69 were successful, the country's human rights commission reports. Many have been linked to domestic abuse. In Kandahar, 200 women tried to escape from abusive homes.
But whatever their legislative hopes and ambitions, female parliamentarians such as Sharif and Kofi say their first year in office leaves them prepared for more rough times ahead.
Security Problems Take Toll
The country's national security is deteriorating.
A week ago, Afghan police arrested six Taliban insurgents suspected of killing two female teachers along with three other relatives, according to press reports quoting Afghan and NATO officials. The killings come on top of attacks on aid workers, government officials and intensifying clashes between international forces and the Taliban.
Amid these dangers, female parliamentarians have made fewer trips out of the capital city of Kabul back home to their constituencies.
Sharif--who until two months ago traveled without a burka to her province of Khost--has started wearing one recently and avoids staying too long in any one area. Anyone associated with the government is at risk, she says. Not only the Taliban but commanders and political factions that have lost power are potentially dangerous.
Sharifa Zurmati Wardak, represents Paktia, a conservative Pashtun constituency in the southeastern part of the country bordering Pakistan where many women never step out of their homes for any reason whatsoever. She does not travel without a male escort.
Afghanistan's new constitution, adopted in 2004, requires that two women be elected from each of its 34 provinces. With a current strength of 248 this puts the representation of women at just over 25 percent, ahead of many legislative bodies. Internationally, 30 percent is considered the minimum for any group to leverage its representation.
Last year 19 of the 68 female parliamentarians won enough votes to have been elected even without any special mandate.
Year of Anti-Woman Debates
While providing one of the widest spaces in the country for women's participation in public life, the Parliament in the past year has debated a number of anti-women measures.
Members have discussed whether female parliamentarians should be required to have a "mehram," or male escort, when traveling outside the country.
Despite constitutional provisions for gender equality and laws that stipulate 18 as the minimum legal age for marriage, the upper house of Parliament wants it lowered to 15. Fearing the effect on young women in forced marriages, a number of female members have been battling the push, which would require passage in the lower house to become law.
Women have been unable to close ranks against a move to abolish the Ministry of Women's Affairs, which was formed in 2001 as an advisory group to help rebuild women's rights lost under the Taliban. So far the ministry has survived, although women themselves were split over the issue, with some women siding with their own male-led factions and debate over eliminating the ministry may reopen.
"Women stand against other women," says Sharif.
Efforts to Erode Representation
Women's 25-percent representation is itself insecure.
Abdul Salaam Rocketi--his last name was acquired due to his prowess with rocket launchers--is a former Taliban commander. Now representing Zabul in Parliament, he calls the reservation of seats for women "undemocratic."
Efforts to build a women's caucus are going slowly.
UNIFEM, the United Nations Development Fund for Women, has set up a resource center stocked with documents and books and research materials pertaining to Afghanistan and political issues. The center has phone lines and Internet access to aid interaction and information gathering.
The National Democratic Institute, a U.S. civil-society nonprofit, has been organizing workshops to help bring women together to discuss their common concerns and a recent meeting focused on violence against women. But the female parliamentarians are far too politically divided to realistically discuss the creation of a formal caucus.
Despite the numerous hurdles and disappointments of the past year, Wardak says the presence of women in the Parliament has nonetheless encouraged debate on issues that might otherwise have been ignored. Female parliamentarians, for instance, visited a women's prison and were upset by some of the conditions they discovered. Wardak and Sharif said that as a result of their interventions female inmates are now allowed to have visits from their children and pregnant women are getting better medical attention.
"We are there," Wardak says. "Our voices exist."
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and she has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict development in Punjab extensively.
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
December 10, 2006
Focus: Nato's Afghan policy
Al Jazeera
December 7
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Nato forces faced a fierce engagement in the Musakala district of the Southern province of Helmand this weekend, resulting, according to Nato officials, in the death of 70-80 Taliban fighters.
While Nato troops have fought several pitched battles in the Southern provinces since they took control of the South of Afghanistan, this weekend's engagement was distinguished by one new factor. Musakala is the area where in October this year Nato troops and local elders brokered a truce for "cessation of hostilities" with the insurgent forces.
The apparent peace that the deal brought to the area in the weeks since has been promoted as a measure of its success by both UN and Nato officials.
The return of fighting near Musakala is a blow for the Nato deal with local tribes
However the deal was also suggestive of a withdrawal by the Afghan government, with the possibility of leaving the area a safe sanctuary for use by Taliban fighters, a scenario that may have just turned into a reality this weekend.
Musakala reflects of the attempts by the architects of Afghanistan’s reconstruction to restore some semblance of control to a peace that increasingly looks like it is slipping away.
"Cessation of hostilities"
Background
Al Jazeera first reported the Nato deal with tibal leaders in Musa Kala
Nato's agreement in Musakala and president Hamid Karzai's declaration via a loya jirga (meeting of tribal elders) could indicate that decision makers are now moving toward quicker fixes rather than long term solutions.
In doing so both the government and the international forces may be securing some transitory peace in return for ceding their authority.
According to Nato officials the agreement there is not a ceasefire but a "cessation of hostilities". The absence of fighting in the area since then was being exhibited as a major triumph.
Justifying the agreement General James L Jones, Nato's outgoing Supreme Allied Commander said, "anything that can be done to reduce violence and to control the outbreak of violence and make people more safe and secure is our goal".
Yet Jones stopped short of revealing that the agreement actually represented a retreat of the international forces.
According to a Nato official who did not want to be named, the reason for the Musakala agreement was the realisation that the forces had been stretched too thinly and were suffering severe losses as a result.
However Nato officials have also openly supported the idea of coming to similar arrangements elsewhere.
No policy support
Nato's civilian spokesman Mark Laity has said that "in principle, ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] is open to similar kinds of arrangements elsewhere" while pointing out that no two situations are the same.
However in terms of the implication of the agreement on national security there is no defence policy that mandates it, no UN Security Council resolution that calls for it and no policy document nor approach that supports it.
General Jones himself pointed to the ad hoc nature of the policy by saying such agreements are to be "reported up the chain of command so that we can have visibility on exactly what the nature of those discussions are”, adding such moves had to be "carefully coordinated and worked within the overall context of our campaign objectives".
In recent weeks senior UN and Nato officials have suggested that the success of the agreement has been evident from the lack of conflict.
However the peace in the area came to an abrupt end in this weekend's fighting.
Major Luke Knittig, a spokeman for Nato, said that the fighting did not represent a breach of the original agreement which had been limited solely to the area of the Musakala town.
"The elders, as I understand it, have extraordinary influence, but that influence doesn't spread across the whole district, just mostly in the town," he said.
Development
Asked whether the agreement had allowed the Taliban to use the area as a safe sanctuary, Knittig said there was "nothing to indicate that the large group of insurgents that Nato had engaged have used the town as a support base".
Nato officials say that the cessation of hostilities has helped create the space for development and Knittig argued that the development activities were proceeding in Musa Kalan despite the battle.
Jones has defended the
agreement in Musa Kalan
Both UN officials as well as Nato have referred repeatedly to the consultation with the tribal and community leaders in arriving at this agreement, and a senior UN official described the decision as one of "empowering the tribal leadership."
However, although community involvement is important and clearly lacking in many areas of development, village and provincial leaders usually do not determine military strategies.
Also such community consultations seem lacking in another recent political decision, the cross border loya jirga or 'peace jirga' as it is being termed.
Scepticism
The decision, taken during the visit of President Hamad Karzai to the US, was done so without the backing of or consultation with Afghan institutions and groups.
Media reports have suggested that several cabinet ministers have also expressed scepticism about the jirga privately, given how it will work practically is yet unclear.
It is also arguable whether any such peace deals will be able to yield results if they do not have the backing of major political forces in Afghanistan.
The last five years has seen a concentration of political and administrative power in the presidency, with the marginalisation and exclusion of major political groups who may lay claim to power.
The same formula is in operation now, in the exclusive appeal to Pashtuns on either side of the border. President Karzai himself has spoken of the "traditional Pashtun leadership of Pakistan "being undermined systematically and violently".
The danger now is that the constant appeal to Pashtun leadership, could have the effect of increasing separatist instincts and reinforcing their existence outside the structures of state and the rule of law creating a scenario that the leadership of Pakistan and Afghanistan are not likely to be ready to deal with at present.
Source: Al Jazeera
Al Jazeera
December 7
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Nato forces faced a fierce engagement in the Musakala district of the Southern province of Helmand this weekend, resulting, according to Nato officials, in the death of 70-80 Taliban fighters.
While Nato troops have fought several pitched battles in the Southern provinces since they took control of the South of Afghanistan, this weekend's engagement was distinguished by one new factor. Musakala is the area where in October this year Nato troops and local elders brokered a truce for "cessation of hostilities" with the insurgent forces.
The apparent peace that the deal brought to the area in the weeks since has been promoted as a measure of its success by both UN and Nato officials.
The return of fighting near Musakala is a blow for the Nato deal with local tribes
However the deal was also suggestive of a withdrawal by the Afghan government, with the possibility of leaving the area a safe sanctuary for use by Taliban fighters, a scenario that may have just turned into a reality this weekend.
Musakala reflects of the attempts by the architects of Afghanistan’s reconstruction to restore some semblance of control to a peace that increasingly looks like it is slipping away.
"Cessation of hostilities"
Background
Al Jazeera first reported the Nato deal with tibal leaders in Musa Kala
Nato's agreement in Musakala and president Hamid Karzai's declaration via a loya jirga (meeting of tribal elders) could indicate that decision makers are now moving toward quicker fixes rather than long term solutions.
In doing so both the government and the international forces may be securing some transitory peace in return for ceding their authority.
According to Nato officials the agreement there is not a ceasefire but a "cessation of hostilities". The absence of fighting in the area since then was being exhibited as a major triumph.
Justifying the agreement General James L Jones, Nato's outgoing Supreme Allied Commander said, "anything that can be done to reduce violence and to control the outbreak of violence and make people more safe and secure is our goal".
Yet Jones stopped short of revealing that the agreement actually represented a retreat of the international forces.
According to a Nato official who did not want to be named, the reason for the Musakala agreement was the realisation that the forces had been stretched too thinly and were suffering severe losses as a result.
However Nato officials have also openly supported the idea of coming to similar arrangements elsewhere.
No policy support
Nato's civilian spokesman Mark Laity has said that "in principle, ISAF [International Security Assistance Force] is open to similar kinds of arrangements elsewhere" while pointing out that no two situations are the same.
However in terms of the implication of the agreement on national security there is no defence policy that mandates it, no UN Security Council resolution that calls for it and no policy document nor approach that supports it.
General Jones himself pointed to the ad hoc nature of the policy by saying such agreements are to be "reported up the chain of command so that we can have visibility on exactly what the nature of those discussions are”, adding such moves had to be "carefully coordinated and worked within the overall context of our campaign objectives".
In recent weeks senior UN and Nato officials have suggested that the success of the agreement has been evident from the lack of conflict.
However the peace in the area came to an abrupt end in this weekend's fighting.
Major Luke Knittig, a spokeman for Nato, said that the fighting did not represent a breach of the original agreement which had been limited solely to the area of the Musakala town.
"The elders, as I understand it, have extraordinary influence, but that influence doesn't spread across the whole district, just mostly in the town," he said.
Development
Asked whether the agreement had allowed the Taliban to use the area as a safe sanctuary, Knittig said there was "nothing to indicate that the large group of insurgents that Nato had engaged have used the town as a support base".
Nato officials say that the cessation of hostilities has helped create the space for development and Knittig argued that the development activities were proceeding in Musa Kalan despite the battle.
Jones has defended the
agreement in Musa Kalan
Both UN officials as well as Nato have referred repeatedly to the consultation with the tribal and community leaders in arriving at this agreement, and a senior UN official described the decision as one of "empowering the tribal leadership."
However, although community involvement is important and clearly lacking in many areas of development, village and provincial leaders usually do not determine military strategies.
Also such community consultations seem lacking in another recent political decision, the cross border loya jirga or 'peace jirga' as it is being termed.
Scepticism
The decision, taken during the visit of President Hamad Karzai to the US, was done so without the backing of or consultation with Afghan institutions and groups.
Media reports have suggested that several cabinet ministers have also expressed scepticism about the jirga privately, given how it will work practically is yet unclear.
It is also arguable whether any such peace deals will be able to yield results if they do not have the backing of major political forces in Afghanistan.
The last five years has seen a concentration of political and administrative power in the presidency, with the marginalisation and exclusion of major political groups who may lay claim to power.
The same formula is in operation now, in the exclusive appeal to Pashtuns on either side of the border. President Karzai himself has spoken of the "traditional Pashtun leadership of Pakistan "being undermined systematically and violently".
The danger now is that the constant appeal to Pashtun leadership, could have the effect of increasing separatist instincts and reinforcing their existence outside the structures of state and the rule of law creating a scenario that the leadership of Pakistan and Afghanistan are not likely to be ready to deal with at present.
Source: Al Jazeera
November 02, 2006
Project Afghanistan and the thinking enemy
Himal
November 2006
Analysis
Project Afghanistan and the thinking enemy
Five years of backward progress on securing the country now has NATO forces taking over security in Afghanistan. With few of the lessons of the past having sunk in, it appears unlikely that the country will breathe easier in the coming year.
by | AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Security in Afghanistan has hit the lowest point since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. This year has seen pitched battles between the anti-government insurgents and the newly deployed NATO forces. As the country approaches the first anniversary of its first democratically elected Parliament based on full adult franchise, it seems as if the hopes of the international community and the Afghan citizens could be belied.
Suicide bombings are now a regular feature in the country, with nearly 80 thus far this year alone. Kabul increasingly resembles a city under siege, with more bunkers, roadblocks and barbed-wire fences than at any time since 2001. Both the development arm of the international community and the military forces are now agreed that Afghanistan has entered a ‘critical’ year.
This is a far cry from the end of 2001, when the US-led Coalition Forces claimed they were mopping up the remnants of the Taliban, and the US Defence Secretary said there were not enough good targets for the US to bomb. The turnaround in the security situation seems to have taken most of the international community by surprise, and the determination and desperation of the Taliban are often being cited equally as ‘new’ factors in the equation. During her visit to Afghanistan this year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly exclaimed that the international forces were facing a ‘thinking enemy’, and needed to change strategy – as if that had been an unexpected factor, and the entire military strategy of the last five years had simply been based on the assumption that the enemy could not or would not ‘think’.
Yet even with the changes in strategy now being employed to combat the Taliban, there is little evidence that the international community and its military strategists have really learned from the experience of the last five years. The slow but steady deterioration of the security situation has not been in spite of the military strategies implemented, but largely because of them – strategies that have been short-sighted, and focused on piecemeal solutions. This is an approach that continues to inform military operations even now, with compartmentalised policies, exhibiting little understanding of the interlinkages of reasons causing the instability.
Hunting down, moving on
In September, newspapers, radios and TV stations could not get enough of Afghanistan. The fifth anniversary of the attacks of 11 September 2001 was an occasion on which to review ‘Project Afghanistan’, chalking up the pluses and minuses. While the significance of that date cannot and should not be forgotten, it is unfortunate that Afghanistan and its future continue to be viewed through that lens. The rationale for revisiting Afghanistan on the occasion of 9/11 is not just some quirk of chronology or news cycle. It continues to be the most important date for viewing Afghanistan because Afghanistan itself has never really been central to what has taken place in the country since then. Rather, it has been a staging ground for the agendas of other countries, ranging from the benign to the self-absorbed interests of major powers.
When the US-led coalition led the attack on Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, there was little attempt to gloss over the fact that it was to be a war of retribution. In pursuit of that end, more than one compromise has been made over the past five years – shortcuts and half measures that have led to the inevitable consequences of an unstable and unsustainable path of post-conflict reconstruction.
In the immediate aftermath of the US-led bombing there was no attempt to either reach a peace agreement or accommodate different political interests in the new democratic framework. The more patient process of arriving at a wider political consensus, which could have helped stabilise the country, was considered to be unadvisable as it might have led to a broader political leadership that would be more ‘messy’ to manage. Far better, the logic seemed to go, to install a government with a compliant leadership, one that would predictably follow the agenda of the power players of the international community.
Though the late 2001 Bonn Agreement was presented as the roadmap for the process of reconstruction and stabilisation, the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ultimately stayed confined to Kabul. It was only in September of this year that NATO expansion was completed to cover the rest of the country. Whatever the reasons for the apparent inability of NATO to expand its operations during the long hiatus, it certainly left the US-led Coalition Forces free to carry out their missions in the ‘war against terror’. The approach to dealing with the issue of security and stabilisation of Afghanistan was ultimately compartmentalised, with the US forces targeting only the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Rather than a holistic approach that would include removing the warlords and commanders, and installing legitimate state security forces, these same potentates and illegitimate armed groups were used to carry out operations against the targets. The US forces took the help of anyone they felt had some muscle power in an area – often warlords with track records in human-rights abuses that left little to distinguish them from the demonised Taliban. The idea seemed to be to get the targets in the US radarscope first, and deal with other issues later. Never mind that these same warlords terrorised the population, and had been responsible for much of the violence, murders and rapes in their areas over the last two decades.
The methods used to carry out operations in populated areas were also rough and ready. By entering homes and carrying out searches in the very conservative areas of the south, the international forces alienated most of the populace. Having seen through operations in an area, troops would move on, making no effort to secure the areas where they had combed. This approach of hunting down and moving on left the local population angry, alienated and with no means to defend itself against the return of anti-government insurgents. It also left the local commanders in a strengthened position, their use of force having been legitimised by their close cohabitation with the international forces.
With reports of alienation, the military forces then hit upon the idea of mixing up civilian and military duties. Though the intention may have been a good one – to win the hearts and minds of the people – the approach was as thoughtless and short-term as any other. The PRTs (provincial reconstruction teams) were supposed to be the civilian face of the military carrying out development projects. Rather than securing an area and making it possible for development agencies to carry out their tasks, the military itself spent vast amounts of money on construction of infrastructure. This led to a blurring of lines between the soldier and the civilian, making it easier for the anti-government forces to turn all internationals or those working for international agencies into legitimate targets.
Dysfunctional cooperation
Any process of working with the moderate Taliban was haphazard and sporadic. There were victorious announcements of Taliban leaders joining the government from time to time, but no clarity on the criterion for engagement, let alone defining parameters of a cohesive peace process.
The efforts on regional cooperation were equally dismal. The US initiated a process of border cooperation, a trilateral initiative involving the US and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Despite claims of working closely with the Islamabad government, an ally in the ‘war on terror’, there was little to indicate that the US government was seriously analysing the causes of terrorism from across the border. Rather than look at the reasons behind the rise of armed groups, including the denial of democracy, most of the international community chose to support, either vocally or silently, the military autocrat in Pervez Musharraf in the hope that one man would deliver the goods.
The result of five years of diplomatic efforts was evident during the visit of President Musharraf to Afghanistan in September. The Pakistani government signed an agreement with the tribal elders of North Waziristan on the issue of crossborder terrorism a day before President Musharraf’s visit. But the Afghan government was not consulted on an agreement that would have a direct bearing on its security, and the Pakistani president did not even exhibit the courtesy of informing Hamid Karzai prior to his arrival in Kabul.
Despite the rhetorical support for democracy, the international preference for authoritarian methods as far as Afghanistan is concerned has been evident again and again. If a military dictator was the preferred mode in Pakistan, in Afghanistan no effort was spared to ensure that the presidency of Hamid Karzai would be strengthened at the cost of other state institutions. Political parties were not allowed to contest in the parliamentary elections, hardly surprising since President Karzai himself has no domestic political base or party (See Himal Sept-Oct 2006, “Afghans go for Parliament”). The result, of course, has been a Parliament that has great problems of authority.
Democratic processes have not been allowed to take root, and powers have been concentrated in the hands of one man. In recent weeks President Karzai himself has been criticised for failing to deliver on a number of fronts, as if the fault lay with him personally rather than the lack of strong institutions.
Even as the security situation deteriorates, enough is not being done to reassign responsibility acceding to experience. The US-led Coalition Forces are still carrying out their combat operations as part of the ‘war on terror’, and are charged with carrying out anti-terrorist operations. The NATO-led ISAF forces, meanwhile, declare that they are mandated to support the Afghan government, which is facing insurgency. While ‘terrorism’ is linked to an international dynamic aimed at destabilising large parts of the world, ‘insurgency’ includes those whose aim is to specifically destabilise the Kabul government. As for the issue of the narcotics trade, this is left to the responsibility of the Afghan national army and the police.
The compartmentalised approach continues despite the apparent understanding of the interlinkages between the three crucial arenas – terrorism, the ongoing insurgency, and the drug trade. Though there is recognition that the anti-government insurgency is also fuelled by terrorism, and vice-versa, there is a feeling that the ‘global’ war can be fought by the Coalition Forces, and the national war by NATO. Though drug money fuels both terrorism and the insurgency, and drug barons have a direct stake in destabilising the state, neither NATO nor the Coalition Forces are willing to undertake direct operations on this front.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, there seems to be little to suggest that there will be any real change in the current approaches of the international actors. If the situation does unravel completely there will always be a scapegoat person or issue found to take the blame for the international failure – be it Hamid Karzai, Pakistan, the lack of good governance or inadequate aid. If all else fails, the anti-government forces can always be blamed for behaving in ways in which they were not supposed to have done – for thinking and evolving their strategies in ways with which the international forces are apparently unable to deal. The ultimate excuse, as already hinted at by Condoleezza Rice, is that the insurgents ‘think’.
November 2006
Analysis
Project Afghanistan and the thinking enemy
Five years of backward progress on securing the country now has NATO forces taking over security in Afghanistan. With few of the lessons of the past having sunk in, it appears unlikely that the country will breathe easier in the coming year.
by | AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Security in Afghanistan has hit the lowest point since the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. This year has seen pitched battles between the anti-government insurgents and the newly deployed NATO forces. As the country approaches the first anniversary of its first democratically elected Parliament based on full adult franchise, it seems as if the hopes of the international community and the Afghan citizens could be belied.
Suicide bombings are now a regular feature in the country, with nearly 80 thus far this year alone. Kabul increasingly resembles a city under siege, with more bunkers, roadblocks and barbed-wire fences than at any time since 2001. Both the development arm of the international community and the military forces are now agreed that Afghanistan has entered a ‘critical’ year.
This is a far cry from the end of 2001, when the US-led Coalition Forces claimed they were mopping up the remnants of the Taliban, and the US Defence Secretary said there were not enough good targets for the US to bomb. The turnaround in the security situation seems to have taken most of the international community by surprise, and the determination and desperation of the Taliban are often being cited equally as ‘new’ factors in the equation. During her visit to Afghanistan this year, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice repeatedly exclaimed that the international forces were facing a ‘thinking enemy’, and needed to change strategy – as if that had been an unexpected factor, and the entire military strategy of the last five years had simply been based on the assumption that the enemy could not or would not ‘think’.
Yet even with the changes in strategy now being employed to combat the Taliban, there is little evidence that the international community and its military strategists have really learned from the experience of the last five years. The slow but steady deterioration of the security situation has not been in spite of the military strategies implemented, but largely because of them – strategies that have been short-sighted, and focused on piecemeal solutions. This is an approach that continues to inform military operations even now, with compartmentalised policies, exhibiting little understanding of the interlinkages of reasons causing the instability.
Hunting down, moving on
In September, newspapers, radios and TV stations could not get enough of Afghanistan. The fifth anniversary of the attacks of 11 September 2001 was an occasion on which to review ‘Project Afghanistan’, chalking up the pluses and minuses. While the significance of that date cannot and should not be forgotten, it is unfortunate that Afghanistan and its future continue to be viewed through that lens. The rationale for revisiting Afghanistan on the occasion of 9/11 is not just some quirk of chronology or news cycle. It continues to be the most important date for viewing Afghanistan because Afghanistan itself has never really been central to what has taken place in the country since then. Rather, it has been a staging ground for the agendas of other countries, ranging from the benign to the self-absorbed interests of major powers.
When the US-led coalition led the attack on Afghanistan on 7 October 2001, there was little attempt to gloss over the fact that it was to be a war of retribution. In pursuit of that end, more than one compromise has been made over the past five years – shortcuts and half measures that have led to the inevitable consequences of an unstable and unsustainable path of post-conflict reconstruction.
In the immediate aftermath of the US-led bombing there was no attempt to either reach a peace agreement or accommodate different political interests in the new democratic framework. The more patient process of arriving at a wider political consensus, which could have helped stabilise the country, was considered to be unadvisable as it might have led to a broader political leadership that would be more ‘messy’ to manage. Far better, the logic seemed to go, to install a government with a compliant leadership, one that would predictably follow the agenda of the power players of the international community.
Though the late 2001 Bonn Agreement was presented as the roadmap for the process of reconstruction and stabilisation, the UN-mandated International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) ultimately stayed confined to Kabul. It was only in September of this year that NATO expansion was completed to cover the rest of the country. Whatever the reasons for the apparent inability of NATO to expand its operations during the long hiatus, it certainly left the US-led Coalition Forces free to carry out their missions in the ‘war against terror’. The approach to dealing with the issue of security and stabilisation of Afghanistan was ultimately compartmentalised, with the US forces targeting only the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
Rather than a holistic approach that would include removing the warlords and commanders, and installing legitimate state security forces, these same potentates and illegitimate armed groups were used to carry out operations against the targets. The US forces took the help of anyone they felt had some muscle power in an area – often warlords with track records in human-rights abuses that left little to distinguish them from the demonised Taliban. The idea seemed to be to get the targets in the US radarscope first, and deal with other issues later. Never mind that these same warlords terrorised the population, and had been responsible for much of the violence, murders and rapes in their areas over the last two decades.
The methods used to carry out operations in populated areas were also rough and ready. By entering homes and carrying out searches in the very conservative areas of the south, the international forces alienated most of the populace. Having seen through operations in an area, troops would move on, making no effort to secure the areas where they had combed. This approach of hunting down and moving on left the local population angry, alienated and with no means to defend itself against the return of anti-government insurgents. It also left the local commanders in a strengthened position, their use of force having been legitimised by their close cohabitation with the international forces.
With reports of alienation, the military forces then hit upon the idea of mixing up civilian and military duties. Though the intention may have been a good one – to win the hearts and minds of the people – the approach was as thoughtless and short-term as any other. The PRTs (provincial reconstruction teams) were supposed to be the civilian face of the military carrying out development projects. Rather than securing an area and making it possible for development agencies to carry out their tasks, the military itself spent vast amounts of money on construction of infrastructure. This led to a blurring of lines between the soldier and the civilian, making it easier for the anti-government forces to turn all internationals or those working for international agencies into legitimate targets.
Dysfunctional cooperation
Any process of working with the moderate Taliban was haphazard and sporadic. There were victorious announcements of Taliban leaders joining the government from time to time, but no clarity on the criterion for engagement, let alone defining parameters of a cohesive peace process.
The efforts on regional cooperation were equally dismal. The US initiated a process of border cooperation, a trilateral initiative involving the US and the governments of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Despite claims of working closely with the Islamabad government, an ally in the ‘war on terror’, there was little to indicate that the US government was seriously analysing the causes of terrorism from across the border. Rather than look at the reasons behind the rise of armed groups, including the denial of democracy, most of the international community chose to support, either vocally or silently, the military autocrat in Pervez Musharraf in the hope that one man would deliver the goods.
The result of five years of diplomatic efforts was evident during the visit of President Musharraf to Afghanistan in September. The Pakistani government signed an agreement with the tribal elders of North Waziristan on the issue of crossborder terrorism a day before President Musharraf’s visit. But the Afghan government was not consulted on an agreement that would have a direct bearing on its security, and the Pakistani president did not even exhibit the courtesy of informing Hamid Karzai prior to his arrival in Kabul.
Despite the rhetorical support for democracy, the international preference for authoritarian methods as far as Afghanistan is concerned has been evident again and again. If a military dictator was the preferred mode in Pakistan, in Afghanistan no effort was spared to ensure that the presidency of Hamid Karzai would be strengthened at the cost of other state institutions. Political parties were not allowed to contest in the parliamentary elections, hardly surprising since President Karzai himself has no domestic political base or party (See Himal Sept-Oct 2006, “Afghans go for Parliament”). The result, of course, has been a Parliament that has great problems of authority.
Democratic processes have not been allowed to take root, and powers have been concentrated in the hands of one man. In recent weeks President Karzai himself has been criticised for failing to deliver on a number of fronts, as if the fault lay with him personally rather than the lack of strong institutions.
Even as the security situation deteriorates, enough is not being done to reassign responsibility acceding to experience. The US-led Coalition Forces are still carrying out their combat operations as part of the ‘war on terror’, and are charged with carrying out anti-terrorist operations. The NATO-led ISAF forces, meanwhile, declare that they are mandated to support the Afghan government, which is facing insurgency. While ‘terrorism’ is linked to an international dynamic aimed at destabilising large parts of the world, ‘insurgency’ includes those whose aim is to specifically destabilise the Kabul government. As for the issue of the narcotics trade, this is left to the responsibility of the Afghan national army and the police.
The compartmentalised approach continues despite the apparent understanding of the interlinkages between the three crucial arenas – terrorism, the ongoing insurgency, and the drug trade. Though there is recognition that the anti-government insurgency is also fuelled by terrorism, and vice-versa, there is a feeling that the ‘global’ war can be fought by the Coalition Forces, and the national war by NATO. Though drug money fuels both terrorism and the insurgency, and drug barons have a direct stake in destabilising the state, neither NATO nor the Coalition Forces are willing to undertake direct operations on this front.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, there seems to be little to suggest that there will be any real change in the current approaches of the international actors. If the situation does unravel completely there will always be a scapegoat person or issue found to take the blame for the international failure – be it Hamid Karzai, Pakistan, the lack of good governance or inadequate aid. If all else fails, the anti-government forces can always be blamed for behaving in ways in which they were not supposed to have done – for thinking and evolving their strategies in ways with which the international forces are apparently unable to deal. The ultimate excuse, as already hinted at by Condoleezza Rice, is that the insurgents ‘think’.
October 09, 2006
Afghan Governor Says Her Future Rides on Asphalt
Women's Enews
October 9, 2006
Afghan Governor Says Her Future Rides on Asphalt
Run Date: 10/08/06
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
Habiba Sarobi was appointed Afghanistan's first female provincial governor last year amid media fanfare about women's rights. Now she says nothing matters for her province or her political career except getting some paved roads.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Two years ago, even the most ambitious girls going to school in Afghanistan's central province of Bamiyan dreamed only of becoming schoolteachers, the favored job for educated young women in Afghanistan.
Then came Habiba Sarobi, Afghanistan's first and so far only female governor, appointed by President Hamid Karzai in March 2005. She presides in a relatively peaceful, poppy-free region where women have significantly more freedom than in neighboring regions.
Still, a concern over the safety of women working in Afghanistan was underscored by the assassination two weeks ago of Safia Ama Jan, a provincial director for Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs. Ama Jan was murdered by two gunmen on a motorcycle outside her house in Kandahar while she was going to her office.
Before naming her as a governor, Karzai had selected Sarobi in 2001 to be minister for women's affairs, a job she held for two and a half years. She spent five years of Taliban control over Kabul in Peshawar, Pakistan, running workshops for women and funding an underground school in Kabul.
"Now the same girls talk of being a governor when they grow up; some even talk of being the president," says Abdullah Barat, an activist with various civil society groups working to rebuild Bamiyan.
Bamiyan, the home of the giant Buddhas that were dynamited by the Taliban in March 2001, lies in Hazarajat and is dominated by the Hazaras, descendents of Mongol or Turkic groups. They are the third largest ethnic community in Afghanistan and were under Taliban control between 1998 and 2001.
After some Hazaras mounted resistance, the Taliban massacred 200 people in Yakawlang, a town in Bamiyan in early 2001. Reports by the media including the BBC indicated that a scorch-and-burn policy in several villages left at least 1,000 Hazaras dead. The United Nations subsequently reported four mass graves in the town of Bamiyan, which has the same name as the province.
Show of Women's Rights
When Sarobi became governor last year international media hailed it as a sign of the Karzai government's commitment to promoting women in a country where political parties are traditionally male-dominated and which, during the last two decades, completely excluded women as armed groups fought each other for political control.
The New York Times described it as a "major advance in a society where only four years ago, under the Taliban, women were denied everything from school lessons to lipstick."
"Her appointment is part of a national initiative to promote women to positions of power," a Voice of America Web site report said at the time.
"There are gifted women in Afghanistan emerging from the destruction and intolerance that is all around," a BBC report concluded. "Habiba Sarobi seems to be one of them."
But a year and a half later, Sarobi, a 49-year-old chemist, says many ultra-conservatives, both nationally and within her own province, are waiting for her to trip and fail.
"Road, road and road," she says when asked to list what she needs most to keep her constituents happy and hang on to her post. Sarobi met with Women's eNews for an interview at her Kabul home.
Sarobi says she raises the province's need for better infrastructure in every meeting, whether with the central government or international donors.
Neither the governor nor Sarobi's staff provided Women's eNews with details of the provincial budget or funding sources. For proof of the province's dire financial straits, Sarobi simply points to Bamiyan's lack of a single meter of asphalted road.
Bone-Rattling Trip to Market
An official involved with disbursing U.S. development aid denies the province is being neglected, and says a ground-breaking ceremony for the first paved road in the province is going to take place soon.
The central government also recently began building a paved road to link Kabul to Bamiyan. The project, announced three years ago, is only just now getting underway.
Sarobi says these road projects are a big relief, but the political heat on her will not let up until traffic is rolling.
A trip from Kabul to Bamiyan that would take three hours on a smooth road currently takes a bone-rattling 10 to 12 hours along an unpaved road.
There are no regular commercial flights to the province and Bamiyan, in the central highlands, needs roads to help diversify its economy. The province chiefly grows potatoes because they are less perishable than other crops and can survive long trips to market.
Three Conditions for Aid
In various statements and compacts, international donors including the U.S. government and U.N. entities, have promised to link development aid to peace, drug eradication and gender justice.
Sarobi says her province boasts all three conditions.
She says it is one of the most peaceful of the country. Insurgent activity is absent and local commanders have largely been demobilized. That relative security allows local government to police poppy cultivation, which is illegal but still rampant in many places. She says the area under poppy cultivation in Bamiyan province has declined from 803 hectares in 2004 to 17 hectares in 2006. A hectare is about two and a half acres.
Hazara women enjoy relative freedom. Few wear the head-to-toe covering burka common in some other parts of the country. Sarobi herself is a sign of the relatively strong status of women in the province. When asked if she could be governor in Helmand or Kandahar, two southern districts, Sarobi laughs. "It would have been impossible there," she says.
Those districts suffer frequent outbreaks of violence between the international forces and the anti-government insurgents. By custom in those provinces, women can be killed by family members--a father, brother or husband--for the slightest hint of dishonor, such as the suspicion of extramarital sex. They can also be given in marriage to settle a feud or to compensate for a crime.
In Bamiyan, Sarobi says, women are not subject to such treatment.
But a confidante of Sarobi's--who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject--said her gender is still a political factor. "Some people are not happy that there is a female governor here," she says. "This is still a country where in many places women are not allowed to go out. The fact that she has no political base allows them to create problems. The warlords and lesser warlords who have lost their power in the Bamiyan area are waiting for her to fail."
(Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and she has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict development in Punjab extensively.)
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information:
"Italians Train Afghans for Non-Traditional Jobs":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2843/
"Afghan Women Wind Up Tough Campaigns":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2455/
"Afghan Women Building Their Own Councils":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2488/
October 9, 2006
Afghan Governor Says Her Future Rides on Asphalt
Run Date: 10/08/06
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
Habiba Sarobi was appointed Afghanistan's first female provincial governor last year amid media fanfare about women's rights. Now she says nothing matters for her province or her political career except getting some paved roads.
(WOMENSENEWS)--Two years ago, even the most ambitious girls going to school in Afghanistan's central province of Bamiyan dreamed only of becoming schoolteachers, the favored job for educated young women in Afghanistan.
Then came Habiba Sarobi, Afghanistan's first and so far only female governor, appointed by President Hamid Karzai in March 2005. She presides in a relatively peaceful, poppy-free region where women have significantly more freedom than in neighboring regions.
Still, a concern over the safety of women working in Afghanistan was underscored by the assassination two weeks ago of Safia Ama Jan, a provincial director for Afghanistan's Ministry of Women's Affairs. Ama Jan was murdered by two gunmen on a motorcycle outside her house in Kandahar while she was going to her office.
Before naming her as a governor, Karzai had selected Sarobi in 2001 to be minister for women's affairs, a job she held for two and a half years. She spent five years of Taliban control over Kabul in Peshawar, Pakistan, running workshops for women and funding an underground school in Kabul.
"Now the same girls talk of being a governor when they grow up; some even talk of being the president," says Abdullah Barat, an activist with various civil society groups working to rebuild Bamiyan.
Bamiyan, the home of the giant Buddhas that were dynamited by the Taliban in March 2001, lies in Hazarajat and is dominated by the Hazaras, descendents of Mongol or Turkic groups. They are the third largest ethnic community in Afghanistan and were under Taliban control between 1998 and 2001.
After some Hazaras mounted resistance, the Taliban massacred 200 people in Yakawlang, a town in Bamiyan in early 2001. Reports by the media including the BBC indicated that a scorch-and-burn policy in several villages left at least 1,000 Hazaras dead. The United Nations subsequently reported four mass graves in the town of Bamiyan, which has the same name as the province.
Show of Women's Rights
When Sarobi became governor last year international media hailed it as a sign of the Karzai government's commitment to promoting women in a country where political parties are traditionally male-dominated and which, during the last two decades, completely excluded women as armed groups fought each other for political control.
The New York Times described it as a "major advance in a society where only four years ago, under the Taliban, women were denied everything from school lessons to lipstick."
"Her appointment is part of a national initiative to promote women to positions of power," a Voice of America Web site report said at the time.
"There are gifted women in Afghanistan emerging from the destruction and intolerance that is all around," a BBC report concluded. "Habiba Sarobi seems to be one of them."
But a year and a half later, Sarobi, a 49-year-old chemist, says many ultra-conservatives, both nationally and within her own province, are waiting for her to trip and fail.
"Road, road and road," she says when asked to list what she needs most to keep her constituents happy and hang on to her post. Sarobi met with Women's eNews for an interview at her Kabul home.
Sarobi says she raises the province's need for better infrastructure in every meeting, whether with the central government or international donors.
Neither the governor nor Sarobi's staff provided Women's eNews with details of the provincial budget or funding sources. For proof of the province's dire financial straits, Sarobi simply points to Bamiyan's lack of a single meter of asphalted road.
Bone-Rattling Trip to Market
An official involved with disbursing U.S. development aid denies the province is being neglected, and says a ground-breaking ceremony for the first paved road in the province is going to take place soon.
The central government also recently began building a paved road to link Kabul to Bamiyan. The project, announced three years ago, is only just now getting underway.
Sarobi says these road projects are a big relief, but the political heat on her will not let up until traffic is rolling.
A trip from Kabul to Bamiyan that would take three hours on a smooth road currently takes a bone-rattling 10 to 12 hours along an unpaved road.
There are no regular commercial flights to the province and Bamiyan, in the central highlands, needs roads to help diversify its economy. The province chiefly grows potatoes because they are less perishable than other crops and can survive long trips to market.
Three Conditions for Aid
In various statements and compacts, international donors including the U.S. government and U.N. entities, have promised to link development aid to peace, drug eradication and gender justice.
Sarobi says her province boasts all three conditions.
She says it is one of the most peaceful of the country. Insurgent activity is absent and local commanders have largely been demobilized. That relative security allows local government to police poppy cultivation, which is illegal but still rampant in many places. She says the area under poppy cultivation in Bamiyan province has declined from 803 hectares in 2004 to 17 hectares in 2006. A hectare is about two and a half acres.
Hazara women enjoy relative freedom. Few wear the head-to-toe covering burka common in some other parts of the country. Sarobi herself is a sign of the relatively strong status of women in the province. When asked if she could be governor in Helmand or Kandahar, two southern districts, Sarobi laughs. "It would have been impossible there," she says.
Those districts suffer frequent outbreaks of violence between the international forces and the anti-government insurgents. By custom in those provinces, women can be killed by family members--a father, brother or husband--for the slightest hint of dishonor, such as the suspicion of extramarital sex. They can also be given in marriage to settle a feud or to compensate for a crime.
In Bamiyan, Sarobi says, women are not subject to such treatment.
But a confidante of Sarobi's--who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the subject--said her gender is still a political factor. "Some people are not happy that there is a female governor here," she says. "This is still a country where in many places women are not allowed to go out. The fact that she has no political base allows them to create problems. The warlords and lesser warlords who have lost their power in the Bamiyan area are waiting for her to fail."
(Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and she has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict development in Punjab extensively.)
Women's eNews welcomes your comments. E-mail us at editors@womensenews.org.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For more information:
"Italians Train Afghans for Non-Traditional Jobs":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2843/
"Afghan Women Wind Up Tough Campaigns":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2455/
"Afghan Women Building Their Own Councils":
http://www.womensenews.org/article.cfm/dyn/aid/2488/
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