Eurasia Insight:
September 9
Aunohita Mojumdar
Two developments on September 8 seem likely to plunge Afghanistan into a long and debilitating battle over the country's electoral process and the government's very legitimacy. The crux of the unfolding problem is that the country's two main electoral institutions appear at odds with each other.
A split became evident on September 8. The government-appointed Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced results that put incumbent President Hamid Karzai above the majority mark on the basis of votes counted from 91.6 percent of polling stations. But the announcement defied an order issued earlier in the day by the UN-appointed Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) to exclude results from a number of polling stations demonstrating "clear and convincing evidence of fraud."
The IEC results - giving Karzai 54.1 and challenger Abdullah Abdullah 28.2 percent of the votes - would enable the Karzai camp to claim victory without the necessity of a run-off vote. "We see this as a victory even though we do not announce it as one," Waheed Omar, the spokesman for Karzai's campaign, told EurasiaNet, noting the campaign would wait for certified results before celebrating.
Many reports of widespread fraud stemming from the August 20 presidential election originate in southern provinces said to heavily favor Karzai. The New York Times has reported that Karzai supporters reported made-up results for as many as 800 polling stations, each of which showed relatively heavy turnout and large majorities of ballots cast in the incumbent's favor.
In a detailed statement accompanying the order to exclude results, the ECC - which has the mandate to order a re-poll or recount - said fraud in a number of polling stations was characterized either by an exceptionally high number of votes, or an exceptionally high percentage in favor of one candidate. Terming these strong indicators of electoral irregularities, the ECC has ordered the IEC to conduct an audit and recount in polling stations for which the preliminary results have shown 100 percent turnout or where 95 percent of the votes are in favor of one candidate.
Observers were surprised the IEC announced the latest batch of results only hours after the ECC's directive. [For additional information see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In a brief evening press conference announcing Karzai's definitive lead, the IEC refused to exclude the results from the suspicious polling stations. The commission claimed it was unable to understand the ECC's order because of a supposed discrepancy between the Dari language version and the English-language version. The IEC's Chief Electoral Officer, Daoud Najafi, insisted that his commission could not implement the criterion for audits until after the preliminary count had been made. Facing repeated questions on the ECC order, Najafi insisted that the IEC had tallied votes based on completed documentation.
Indications of a political challenge to the ECC were also evident from the Karzai camp, where spokesman Omar tacitly challenged the recount directive.
"We respect the ECC's order, though we do not agree with it. In a way it could be counterproductive. We hope the ECC does its work in a way that does justice to the votes of people in Afghanistan and we will wait for that. We will not interfere with the process, but we are going to take it up with the ECC," he said.
For its part, the IEC insisted that it would "take a long time" to recount if it were to follow the ECC directive. Deputy Electoral Officer Zekria Barakzai said the ECC order could impact 70 to 80 percent of polling stations.
Such reference to a slow recount strikes a sensitive nerve with officials and diplomats. The ECC mandates that audits must take place in the presence of ECC officials. But the ECC's lack of resources is likely to increase the time required for the audits ordered on September 8. With winter approaching, a second round of polling - required if no candidate wins more than 50 percent of the vote - would be increasingly difficult to hold in a timely fashion after these further delays.
Though the international community is concerned that a prolonged period without results could lead to instability, the widespread reports of fraud have made questions about the presidential vote's legitimacy difficult to ignore.
Both the UN and the European Union Observer Mission (EUOM) issued statements on September 8 expressing concern, and calling for the exclusion of results where there is evidence of irregularities. The EUOM said its findings had confirmed large-scale ballot stuffing and that despite legal provisions on fraud detection and mitigation, hundreds of thousands of fraudulent votes were accepted at the main tally center in Kabul and included in the preliminary results.
In a clumsy attempt to deflect further criticism, the IEC removed detailed fact sheets on the results from its website September 8, turning dozen's of URLs into dead links.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 19 years.
September 08, 2009
September 06, 2009
AFGHANISTAN: ATTENTION RIVETS ON COMPLAINT COMMISSION AS FRAUD ALLEGATIONS MOUNT
Recaps / Q & A:
9/04/09
A EurasiaNet Q&A with commission head Grant Kippen Conducted by Aunohita Mojumdar
As evidence of electoral fraud continues to mount, and the Afghan government delays publicizing results of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections, attention is focusing on a single point -- the Electoral Complaints Commission. Comprised of Afghan and international advisers, the ECC - the repository for all allegations of electoral fraud, manipulation and wrongdoing - will not only help determine the final outcome of the elections, but also the way Afghans view the democratic process.
According to the most recent figures, the ECC has received 2,187 complaints since polling day, of which it says 652 have the potential to influence results.
Grant Kippen, the ECC's Canadian head, held the same position during the last elections in 2005. He says awareness about voters' rights and the electoral process has increased over the past four years. In an interview with EurasiaNet, Kippen laid out the tasks and the limitations of the ECC, insisting that the commission's role is not to rubber stamp a process that lacks legitimacy, but to add credibility to Afghanistan's democratic process.
EurasiaNet: How do you compare the political contest today to 2005? Kippen: It may sound hokey, but I am not really paying much attention to the political situation. We have a lot of challenges just because we were late in setting up this organization and getting our headquarters open; finding and hiring people; training them; getting our provincial offices open. We had the first meeting of our commission on April 26. [Editor's note: Dates for the 2009 elections were only finalized in late January after a political tussle between the president and parliament.]
EurasiaNet: Do you feel the expectations of the ECC are too high and too wide? Are there things that people should not be expecting from this office when the final results are out? Kippen: I think people are expecting us to make some sort of statement about the credibility and the legitimacy of the elections. We are not going to do that. We will be rendering decisions based on the complaints we receive. We'll let the decisions speak for themselves. How others want to interpret our decisions -- that is up to them.
EurasiaNet: The pressure on your commission has increased since the international community was seen to have rushed too quickly to endorse the elections. Do you think this has increased the expectations people have of the ECC? Kippen: If you look at the process, we have very little ability to influence activities at the front end before they take place. We deal with alleged violations - infractions. It is after something takes place that our role comes into play.
We can inform people about what we do and hopefully discourage the various stakeholders from taking wrong actions, or what is deemed to be in violation of the electoral law. But we have very little influence in being able to actively prevent things. One of the things, had we been established earlier, we could have done more of, was public outreach - to advise candidates and others about the law, and what they needed to respect. But there is also a responsibility on all the stakeholder groups involved in the process to know the law as well. We can only do so much from our perspective.
EurasiaNet: Your mandate enables you to order a re-poll. Theoretically speaking, could you order the entire election process to be rescinded and held again? Kippen: Under the law, it states re-polling [is in our mandate], so theoretically you could say the entire country. But you have to think of what that would entail, what kind of evidence would be needed to make that kind of decision. In the complaints that have come in since Election Day, I don't recall any saying that the entire elections were fraudulent and therefore the entire process needs to be redone. The complaints have been about a certain polling station or polling center, about certain districts.
EurasiaNet: But if they were widespread enough, might a certain percentage - an overwhelming percentage - be considered enough to call for a re-poll? Kippen: We will have to wait and see. We are still in the early days of our investigations and some of the complaints do speak to large areas - a district-wide basis. We will have to see what evidence comes forward from the investigations and make our decisions accordingly.
EurasiaNet: There has been much focus on fraud and malpractice. But many voters were unable to vote. Does your mandate look at people's inability to exercise their right to vote? And to what extent did insecurity prevent people from voting? Kippen: Yes, some of the allegations are about access to a polling station or polling center. That is something we will be investigating. We would have to look at what kind of remedy was possible, if security was an issue, and if it prevented people [from voting].
If the polling station was open and people did not come to vote, one can argue that was a personal decision. We can't fault the IEC, [the president-appointed Independent Election Commission] or the security forces. The IEC went to a lot of effort to make sure they could open as many polling centers as possible. But we also have to recognize that we are in a conflict environment here.
EurasiaNet: One of the things you have addressed is the absence of benchmarks, and the need for an electoral certification process. In the absence of that, is everyone fishing around to determine what constitutes credibility? Kippen: At the end of the day it's really the Afghan population: the voter population that is going to have to decide how they felt about the election, and if their will is reflected in the vote.
EurasiaNet: Before the elections, you made a number of recommendations, including the need for a strengthened ECC. But not much has changed since the last elections. Were you going into this process with your hands tied? Kippen: We basically have a structure that mimics what we had in 2005. It would have been much more advantageous to our organization had we been [formed] earlier. For example, if we had provincial offices established during the challenge period, we would not have had to work the process through IEC provincial offices. We could have done it through our own offices. [Editor's note: The challenge period allows for vetting candidates for possible links to armed groups].
A lot of the things in the observer reports [on the 2005 elections] were not followed through on: the civic education recommended in the interim period, a voter registry, some sort of national identity card, or voter ID. Unfortunately, those things didn't happen in the interim. But we have a process, we can't go back, we just need to look at what we can do going forward.
EurasiaNet: Given the fact your recommendations were not accepted, and given the limitations of resources and your mandate, is there not a risk that you end up rubber-stamping a compromised electoral process? Kippen: No, I don't think we are rubber-stamping at all. Part of the challenge here - but also a great privilege and opportunity certainly for the internationals - is to work with our Afghan colleagues to build up an institution like the ECC and to try to demonstrate to Afghans that there is an institution that they can rely on, that they can access if they feel they need to. So I don't think we are rubber-stamping anything. I think we have been very upfront and transparent about what we are doing and I think and I hope that that we are able to contribute to the credibility of the process by our actions.
9/04/09
A EurasiaNet Q&A with commission head Grant Kippen Conducted by Aunohita Mojumdar
As evidence of electoral fraud continues to mount, and the Afghan government delays publicizing results of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections, attention is focusing on a single point -- the Electoral Complaints Commission. Comprised of Afghan and international advisers, the ECC - the repository for all allegations of electoral fraud, manipulation and wrongdoing - will not only help determine the final outcome of the elections, but also the way Afghans view the democratic process.
According to the most recent figures, the ECC has received 2,187 complaints since polling day, of which it says 652 have the potential to influence results.
Grant Kippen, the ECC's Canadian head, held the same position during the last elections in 2005. He says awareness about voters' rights and the electoral process has increased over the past four years. In an interview with EurasiaNet, Kippen laid out the tasks and the limitations of the ECC, insisting that the commission's role is not to rubber stamp a process that lacks legitimacy, but to add credibility to Afghanistan's democratic process.
EurasiaNet: How do you compare the political contest today to 2005? Kippen: It may sound hokey, but I am not really paying much attention to the political situation. We have a lot of challenges just because we were late in setting up this organization and getting our headquarters open; finding and hiring people; training them; getting our provincial offices open. We had the first meeting of our commission on April 26. [Editor's note: Dates for the 2009 elections were only finalized in late January after a political tussle between the president and parliament.]
EurasiaNet: Do you feel the expectations of the ECC are too high and too wide? Are there things that people should not be expecting from this office when the final results are out? Kippen: I think people are expecting us to make some sort of statement about the credibility and the legitimacy of the elections. We are not going to do that. We will be rendering decisions based on the complaints we receive. We'll let the decisions speak for themselves. How others want to interpret our decisions -- that is up to them.
EurasiaNet: The pressure on your commission has increased since the international community was seen to have rushed too quickly to endorse the elections. Do you think this has increased the expectations people have of the ECC? Kippen: If you look at the process, we have very little ability to influence activities at the front end before they take place. We deal with alleged violations - infractions. It is after something takes place that our role comes into play.
We can inform people about what we do and hopefully discourage the various stakeholders from taking wrong actions, or what is deemed to be in violation of the electoral law. But we have very little influence in being able to actively prevent things. One of the things, had we been established earlier, we could have done more of, was public outreach - to advise candidates and others about the law, and what they needed to respect. But there is also a responsibility on all the stakeholder groups involved in the process to know the law as well. We can only do so much from our perspective.
EurasiaNet: Your mandate enables you to order a re-poll. Theoretically speaking, could you order the entire election process to be rescinded and held again? Kippen: Under the law, it states re-polling [is in our mandate], so theoretically you could say the entire country. But you have to think of what that would entail, what kind of evidence would be needed to make that kind of decision. In the complaints that have come in since Election Day, I don't recall any saying that the entire elections were fraudulent and therefore the entire process needs to be redone. The complaints have been about a certain polling station or polling center, about certain districts.
EurasiaNet: But if they were widespread enough, might a certain percentage - an overwhelming percentage - be considered enough to call for a re-poll? Kippen: We will have to wait and see. We are still in the early days of our investigations and some of the complaints do speak to large areas - a district-wide basis. We will have to see what evidence comes forward from the investigations and make our decisions accordingly.
EurasiaNet: There has been much focus on fraud and malpractice. But many voters were unable to vote. Does your mandate look at people's inability to exercise their right to vote? And to what extent did insecurity prevent people from voting? Kippen: Yes, some of the allegations are about access to a polling station or polling center. That is something we will be investigating. We would have to look at what kind of remedy was possible, if security was an issue, and if it prevented people [from voting].
If the polling station was open and people did not come to vote, one can argue that was a personal decision. We can't fault the IEC, [the president-appointed Independent Election Commission] or the security forces. The IEC went to a lot of effort to make sure they could open as many polling centers as possible. But we also have to recognize that we are in a conflict environment here.
EurasiaNet: One of the things you have addressed is the absence of benchmarks, and the need for an electoral certification process. In the absence of that, is everyone fishing around to determine what constitutes credibility? Kippen: At the end of the day it's really the Afghan population: the voter population that is going to have to decide how they felt about the election, and if their will is reflected in the vote.
EurasiaNet: Before the elections, you made a number of recommendations, including the need for a strengthened ECC. But not much has changed since the last elections. Were you going into this process with your hands tied? Kippen: We basically have a structure that mimics what we had in 2005. It would have been much more advantageous to our organization had we been [formed] earlier. For example, if we had provincial offices established during the challenge period, we would not have had to work the process through IEC provincial offices. We could have done it through our own offices. [Editor's note: The challenge period allows for vetting candidates for possible links to armed groups].
A lot of the things in the observer reports [on the 2005 elections] were not followed through on: the civic education recommended in the interim period, a voter registry, some sort of national identity card, or voter ID. Unfortunately, those things didn't happen in the interim. But we have a process, we can't go back, we just need to look at what we can do going forward.
EurasiaNet: Given the fact your recommendations were not accepted, and given the limitations of resources and your mandate, is there not a risk that you end up rubber-stamping a compromised electoral process? Kippen: No, I don't think we are rubber-stamping at all. Part of the challenge here - but also a great privilege and opportunity certainly for the internationals - is to work with our Afghan colleagues to build up an institution like the ECC and to try to demonstrate to Afghans that there is an institution that they can rely on, that they can access if they feel they need to. So I don't think we are rubber-stamping anything. I think we have been very upfront and transparent about what we are doing and I think and I hope that that we are able to contribute to the credibility of the process by our actions.
AFGHANISTAN: NARCO-CARTELS A GROWING THREAT, UN DRUG AGENCY WARNS
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 9/02/09
A report released September 2 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has good news and bad news about narcotics cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan. The good news is that 800,000 Afghan farmers have stopped cultivating poppies; the bad is that those who continue to grow illicit crops are becoming more efficient, and traders are forging stronger ties with criminal and insurgent groups, as well as corrupt officials. The UNODC report, titled Afghan Opium Survey 2009, documents a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second consecutive year, dropping by as much 22 percent since 2008. Prices for opiates are also at a 10-year low. But, signaling improved efficiency, the production of narcotics from poppy plants was down only 10 percent.
Good news is deeply entangled with the bad. Helmand, a province with a notorious reputation for the drug trade, showed a one-third decrease in areas used for poppy cultivation. Nevertheless, the province still accounts for the lion's share -- 56 percent -- of poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the report.
Officials say several factors contributed to the gains made in the anti-drug fight, including more robust counter-narcotics operations by Afghan security and NATO forces, stronger provincial leadership, and favorable market conditions for the cultivation and sale of other crops.
The UNODC declared the strategy of eradication a continuing "failure" noting that, despite the enormous human and economic cost, only 4 percent of the crop had been effectively eradicated with force. Speaking with the media in Kabul on September 2, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa criticized the continuing collusion between the drug trade and corrupt government officials and questioned some recent actions by the Afghan government.
"Drug lords should be brought to justice, not executed in violation of international law or pardoned for political expediency," he said. President Hamid Karzai recently pardoned several drug smugglers including a relative of his election campaign manager. The international community had earlier criticized the Afghan government for executing drug smugglers, arguing that a weak criminal justice system lacking checks and balances made such executions suspect. Costa expressed concern about the pardon and release of traffickers, adding that corruption was "an enabling factor" and "major lubricant" to the drug trade.
While welcoming the good news at a "time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan," Costa cautioned against foreseeing a trend, warning that stockpiling and a fluctuating opium market were also contributing factors to the decline. "Is it a trend or a market correction?" Costa asked rhetorically. "Hopefully the former, and certainly the latter."
In a well-attended news conference held jointly with Minister of Counter Narcotics General Khodaidad Khodaidad, and UN Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan Peter Galbraith, Costa warned that new links among insurgents and criminal groups were "spawning narco-cartels in Afghanistan linked to the Taliban."
The linkage between poppy cultivation and insurgency is growing. "Like never before, the fates of counter-narcotics and counter insurgency are inextricably linked," Costa added.
Costa also expressed concern about opium stockpiling. He estimated that 10,000 tons had accumulated, and described this burgeoning stockpile as a "ticking-bomb" that needed to be uncovered and defused.
Speaking to EurasiaNet after the news conference, Costa emphasized the importance of law enforcement, good governance and delivery of aid to provinces that had performed well. "Control of territory" and security will be crucial to maintaining momentum in the anti-drug fight. Greater development assistance needs to be delivered faster, more efficiently and through fewer intermediaries, he said.
The risks to cultivators and drug lords had been low until Afghan security forces and international forces began carrying out more robust operations, Costa added. "The impunity enjoyed thus far by the Afghan drug economy is under threat," he noted.
The UNODC report documented that the number of poppy-free provinces increased from 18 last year to 20 in 2009, including Kapisa, Baghlan and Faryab. But Nangarhar, which was poppy free last year, lost that coveted status to become a poppy-producing province once again. Reversals also included Badghis Province, where poppy cultivation increased tenfold from 500 to 5000 hectares in the past year, according to the UNODC report. Overall, Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
Though many observers have become concerned that cannabis is replacing opium in areas that have successfully beaten back poppy growth, no such figures were included in the report. UNODC Country Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu told EurasiaNet that such figures were expected in January of 2010. Satellite imaging technology used to detect cannabis is more exacting than that for poppy and the UNODC only recently acquired the funding to undertake such a study. Lemahieu emphasized that the linkages between cannabis production and insurgency were not as strong as with opium.
Costa called for a regional approach to Afghanistan's drug problem, emphasizing the need to widen antinarcotics programs to Iran and the Central Asian states. To that end, the UNODC has brokered a Trilateral Initiative involving Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan to share counter-narcotics intelligence and run joint operations. It has also created a Central Asia Intelligence Centre, headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
"Controlling drugs in Afghanistan will not solve all of the country's problems, but the country's problems can not be solved without controlling drugs," Costa concluded.
Aunohita Mojumdar: 9/02/09
A report released September 2 by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime has good news and bad news about narcotics cultivation and trafficking in Afghanistan. The good news is that 800,000 Afghan farmers have stopped cultivating poppies; the bad is that those who continue to grow illicit crops are becoming more efficient, and traders are forging stronger ties with criminal and insurgent groups, as well as corrupt officials. The UNODC report, titled Afghan Opium Survey 2009, documents a decline in opium cultivation in Afghanistan for the second consecutive year, dropping by as much 22 percent since 2008. Prices for opiates are also at a 10-year low. But, signaling improved efficiency, the production of narcotics from poppy plants was down only 10 percent.
Good news is deeply entangled with the bad. Helmand, a province with a notorious reputation for the drug trade, showed a one-third decrease in areas used for poppy cultivation. Nevertheless, the province still accounts for the lion's share -- 56 percent -- of poppies grown in Afghanistan, according to the report.
Officials say several factors contributed to the gains made in the anti-drug fight, including more robust counter-narcotics operations by Afghan security and NATO forces, stronger provincial leadership, and favorable market conditions for the cultivation and sale of other crops.
The UNODC declared the strategy of eradication a continuing "failure" noting that, despite the enormous human and economic cost, only 4 percent of the crop had been effectively eradicated with force. Speaking with the media in Kabul on September 2, UNODC Executive Director Antonio Maria Costa criticized the continuing collusion between the drug trade and corrupt government officials and questioned some recent actions by the Afghan government.
"Drug lords should be brought to justice, not executed in violation of international law or pardoned for political expediency," he said. President Hamid Karzai recently pardoned several drug smugglers including a relative of his election campaign manager. The international community had earlier criticized the Afghan government for executing drug smugglers, arguing that a weak criminal justice system lacking checks and balances made such executions suspect. Costa expressed concern about the pardon and release of traffickers, adding that corruption was "an enabling factor" and "major lubricant" to the drug trade.
While welcoming the good news at a "time of pessimism about the situation in Afghanistan," Costa cautioned against foreseeing a trend, warning that stockpiling and a fluctuating opium market were also contributing factors to the decline. "Is it a trend or a market correction?" Costa asked rhetorically. "Hopefully the former, and certainly the latter."
In a well-attended news conference held jointly with Minister of Counter Narcotics General Khodaidad Khodaidad, and UN Deputy Special Representative for Afghanistan Peter Galbraith, Costa warned that new links among insurgents and criminal groups were "spawning narco-cartels in Afghanistan linked to the Taliban."
The linkage between poppy cultivation and insurgency is growing. "Like never before, the fates of counter-narcotics and counter insurgency are inextricably linked," Costa added.
Costa also expressed concern about opium stockpiling. He estimated that 10,000 tons had accumulated, and described this burgeoning stockpile as a "ticking-bomb" that needed to be uncovered and defused.
Speaking to EurasiaNet after the news conference, Costa emphasized the importance of law enforcement, good governance and delivery of aid to provinces that had performed well. "Control of territory" and security will be crucial to maintaining momentum in the anti-drug fight. Greater development assistance needs to be delivered faster, more efficiently and through fewer intermediaries, he said.
The risks to cultivators and drug lords had been low until Afghan security forces and international forces began carrying out more robust operations, Costa added. "The impunity enjoyed thus far by the Afghan drug economy is under threat," he noted.
The UNODC report documented that the number of poppy-free provinces increased from 18 last year to 20 in 2009, including Kapisa, Baghlan and Faryab. But Nangarhar, which was poppy free last year, lost that coveted status to become a poppy-producing province once again. Reversals also included Badghis Province, where poppy cultivation increased tenfold from 500 to 5000 hectares in the past year, according to the UNODC report. Overall, Afghanistan has 34 provinces.
Though many observers have become concerned that cannabis is replacing opium in areas that have successfully beaten back poppy growth, no such figures were included in the report. UNODC Country Representative Jean-Luc Lemahieu told EurasiaNet that such figures were expected in January of 2010. Satellite imaging technology used to detect cannabis is more exacting than that for poppy and the UNODC only recently acquired the funding to undertake such a study. Lemahieu emphasized that the linkages between cannabis production and insurgency were not as strong as with opium.
Costa called for a regional approach to Afghanistan's drug problem, emphasizing the need to widen antinarcotics programs to Iran and the Central Asian states. To that end, the UNODC has brokered a Trilateral Initiative involving Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan to share counter-narcotics intelligence and run joint operations. It has also created a Central Asia Intelligence Centre, headquartered in Almaty, Kazakhstan.
"Controlling drugs in Afghanistan will not solve all of the country's problems, but the country's problems can not be solved without controlling drugs," Costa concluded.
Creating an audience from the void
Himal
September 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
After decades of upheaval, Afghanistan today finds itself unable to remember its cultural past.
Bollywood songs blare from taxis and street corners. In wedding halls, guests sit glued to the next episode of “Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi” dubbed into Dari, the main language in Afghanistan. In shops selling pirated CDs and DVDs in Kabul’s busy Flower Street, young Afghans walk in to ask for the latest Hollywood action movie, the music of a hot new Tajik singer or the most recent Iranian soap opera. The removal of the Taliban has been celebrated as the end of cultural censorship in Afghanistan, and the easy availability of imported pop culture touted as evidence of new freedoms. But the tragedy of the years of conflict in Afghanistan runs much deeper. What remains after years of violence and fighting, displacement and censorship, is a void. Built over years of absence of art and culture, what echoes today is the lack of an audience where once existed a deep appreciation of arts and music. This is an emptiness – as opposed to a simple tug of war between cultural freedoms and censorship, which could be resolved by lifting the arbitrary restrictions of the Taliban regime. It is also a void that is being filled too quickly and indiscriminately with whatever is at hand.
Contrary to the oft-repeated mantra that equates all censorship with the Taliban, the advent of cultural restrictions in Afghanistan goes back much farther. While the Soviet-sponsored regimes saw a chance for propaganda in art and music, the subsequent mujahideen government had senior leaders whose conservative interpretation of Islam did not encourage music and the arts. What space remained was squeezed in the last years of the Taliban, when its leaders turned more brutal and censorious, systematically destroying the art and culture that they had earlier permitted to exist. The purge culminated in the infamous destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, an act that turned the Taliban into pariahs. But Bamiyan residents still talk of how, in earlier years, the mujahideen soldiers would amuse themselves by taking pot shots at the Buddha statues.
Omara Khan Masoudi is the director of the national museum in Kabul, which he joined 30 years ago. He was forced to leave the country in 2000 because of the growing pressure of the Taliban, but remembers that the destruction of the national treasures did not begin and end with them. Masoudi says most of the losses of the artefacts in the museum took place during the civil war of the mid-1990s, before the Taliban came to power. “When power changed from communist to mujahideen hands [in 1992], there was a security vacuum,” he recalls. “The museum was looted.” The area where the national museum is situated became a frontline in the civil war, and could not be accessed by the staff. “For two years, this area was cut off and we could not reach the museum,” he says. “Rocket attacks set the museum building on fire, destroying a large part of it.” Today the museum is undergoing refurbishment, but the Darul Aman Palace, right opposite it, stands shattered and pockmarked with the brunt of many attacks, a mute testimony to what took place in the area.
In the initial years after the Taliban took over power in Kabul, its members actually helped to rebuild the museum and to safeguard the remaining artefacts. Edicts were also issued by Taliban chief Mullah Omar calling for the safeguarding of the Bamiyan Buddhas. However, as the regime came under increasing pressure of al-Qaeda, it took an increasingly stronger stance against ‘un-Islamic’ activity, eventually desecrating the museum that it had until then worked to preserve. While al-Qaeda’s hardline ideology does not tolerate the more liberal arts, political analysts have said that its leadership pushed the Taliban to adopt a more intolerant attitude. The idea, some suggest, was to make the Taliban more isolated from the international community and, hence, more dependent on al-Qaeda.
Reflection and regeneration
Ommolbanin ‘Shamsia’ Hassani’s “Portal”
With the Taliban completing the process of emaciating Afghan art and culture, a new generation of Afghans grew up under the shadow of conflict, completely oblivious to the world of art and music. What remained from earlier years was lost as families migrated and were torn apart, losing the thread of continuity that had helped generations to pass on their knowledge, including that of art appreciation. While the removal of the Taliban has allowed art to flourish, most of what was produced in the initial post-Taliban years has been reproductions of postcard kitsch – the burqa-clad woman, the Bactrian camel, the old man in a turban. At its worst, this art recreated the stereotypes of Afghans and Afghanistan; at best, it was well executed but simplistic real-life representations.
With no link to the organic growth of art and the movements in art and culture in other parts of the globe, it has been difficult to shake the Afghan art scene out of its static limitations. One man trying to do this so, and who can testify to the difficulties, is Rahraw Omarzad, a teacher in Kabul University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, a department that was set up in 1976, just three years before the country began to explode with violence. Though Omarzad continues to teach at the Faculty, his real initiative has been in setting up the Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan, where he has been trying to teach young men and women artists interested in exploring contemporary and abstract art. (For samples of works from the Centre’s artists, see Himal commentary sections for July-December 2008.) “I found that by the time students reached the last semester, where they learn about contemporary art, they had already forgotten how to think out of the box,” Omarzad says. “When they come to the Centre, I do not teach them theory or any ‘ism’. I just ask them to create art from what is inside them. It is only when they themselves have started expressing themselves, and are confident, that we go to theory.”
The first-ever exhibition of contemporary women artists, held early last year, bore testimony to this confidence. The young women artists who displayed their works appeared to follow no set pattern of painting, and many of them produced works that varied greatly in technique, style and subject. Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai is a multimedia artist who works in paint, collage, video installations and photography. She says that for her, the conceptual clarity of her work is more important than the technique. “Some think that to paint they should possess innate skills,” she says. “But I believe that possessing good knowledge, open vision and awareness is of no less value than innate talents and skills.”
Many of the artists have been nurturing their talent for years, through trying circumstances. Another artist, 21-year-old Ommolbanin Shamsia, says she has been painting for as long as she can remember, as a child and refugee in Iran and, later, after her family returned home to Afghanistan. One of her paintings depicts a woman with a layer of gold jewellery covering her eyes. “I tried to show a woman who cannot see the way because of the gold,” Shamsia says. “She is in a golden cage.” Another of Shamsia’s paintings shows a woman standing at the edge of a pool of water. Instead of her own reflection, she looks at a young, green tree. “This represents woman as life, as regeneration,” she says.
This year, Stanikzai won the first prize in a contemporary-arts competition organised by the Turquoise Mountain, an organisation that is working to promote the revival of traditional arts and crafts of Afghanistan. In October 2008, Turquoise Mountain organised a first-of-its-kind three-nation contemporary-art exhibition, bringing together artists from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The exhibition recently travelled to the Venice Biennale, where it received rave reviews. But perhaps its greatest contribution was in bringing this art to an audience never previously exposed to it. Explaining the rationale, the curator of the Living Traditions exhibition, Jemima Montagu, who formerly worked at the Tate Gallery in London, says, “The three countries share a strong bond, particularly in art and in the way Islamic calligraphy and painting evolved. These traditions can and need to be adapted if they are to survive.”
In order to organise the exhibition, Montagu had to insure the paintings against potential acts of war and violence, and face the doubts of painters who were too anxious to send their paintings into a conflict zone – as well as the scepticism of those who felt Afghanistan lacked the necessary audience for such a show. Eventually, the exhibition opened to a packed audience comprised of both Afghans and international workers in Afghanistan. But for Montagu, the real audience was in those who had never seen such art before. “This is not a project for expatriates,” she says. “There is no existing audience for arts and culture here. You have to create it.”
As a result, an important component of the exhibition was school visits. During these, schoolchildren were exposed to a specially prepared package of materials that not only explained the exhibition, but also challenged them to ask questions and express themselves. Eventually, 7000 Afghans visited the exhibition, a third of them schoolchildren. Visiting Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi gave a lecture at Kabul University, after which he expressed his excitement about the initiative. “This is historic; it is important,” he said. “Things may be primitive here after the impact of years of war, but they will not remain the same. We cannot control things, but we can make efforts to change it.”
Culture of nothingness
Shinkai Alam Stanikzai with her “Introvert”
Meanwhile, at the national museum, Masoudi wants more visitors. “This country has an ancient civilisation,” he says. “We have to be proud of it, about the pre-Islamic history.” Masoudi feels that it was a lack of education that led to the past looting, and he is keen to ensure that exposure to the museum now starts at a young age. “I hope some donors can provide us with one or two buses, then we could arrange to bring schoolchildren here and show them around for free. We could do this every day – we can host as many as 300 to 400 children at one time!” he says, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. “We can show them our country’s rich past.”
Creating a receptive audience is also a challenge faced by Mirwaiss Sidiqi, the programme coordinator for the Aga Khan Music Initiative for Central Asia in Afghanistan. The programme teaches classical music to young Afghans, with classes conducted in vocal music and the traditional instruments of Afghanistan – the dilruba, rubab, tabla and sarinda. Initially, it was hard to find students to come and even harder to make them stay. As such, the classes remain free in order to encourage families to send their children, and students even get a small stipend as travel expenses so as to remove any disincentive.
The biggest challenge, however, has been creating a new appreciation for traditional music. Speaking painfully of the 5000-year-old cultural identity of Afghanistan, Sidiqi bemoans “the culture of nothingness” that has replaced it. What Afghanistan has now in the way of musical culture “does not belong to us,” he says. “It is imported in a nasty way to Afghanistan. It doesn’t have depth. It is a bad copy, a dark copy of Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Tajik and European pop and rap music – a mixture of all these things trying to become a culture.” Sidiqi emphasises that he is not against pop culture, but says that it also should not be allowed to wipe out Afghanistan’s own traditions. “There is space for everyone, for everything,” he says. “But right now, we need to create a foundation, to build what we lost in the last thirty years. After that, it is their wish what they put on top of it.” Sidiqi is also concerned about the passage of time, and about what could be lost before the skills are transferred from one generation to the other. The generation that possessed the traditional cultural skills is today old and dying. One of those who teaches at the music school is Ustad Amruddin, the only skilled exponent of the lute-like rubab. “If we lose his knowledge,” says Sidiqi, “we can bury the rubab.”
It is not just through students that the Aga Khan programme seeks to rebuild the musical tradition. It is also trying to create an audience that can appreciate such music through public concerts, radio and television broadcasts, by talking about these issues through the media and preserving the knowledge. Sidiqi had just returned from a visit to the remote northeastern corner of the country, in the province of Badakhshan, as part of a project to document and record the country’s myriad musical traditions. These first important steps, however, also emphasise the long distance that has yet to be travelled. Traditional Afghan music cannot be accessed quite as easily as the cheap copies of Bollywood and Hollywood. There is no funding for a recording studio, and no means of making or disseminating the music in easily accessible ways such as CDs.
More heart than money
Still, the Aga Khan Foundation is one of the lucky ones, as others struggle just to keep their initiatives afloat. When Montagu organised the three-nation exhibition, she faced the timeless question of arts versus bread: Why, in a country of so many urgent and competing needs, should anyone spend money on art? Likewise, at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Omarzad has had to reduce the time he can keep the Centre open to just two days a week. Though there is widespread appreciation for his work, the enthusiasm has not been matched by funding. While the notion of young women artists creating unusual art has caught on in some circles, funding has only come through project-specific grants. The Centre has been funded repeatedly for exhibitions abroad, since these are visible, popular and help the donor nation to ‘preen’ itself. However, there has been no funding for the institution that could actually help young local artists learn, grow and instil a wider culture of art appreciation. The international community’s constant complaint that ‘good’ news stories from Afghanistan are ignored appears to apply to itself – and the Centre and others like it end up suffering from neglect, despite the billions spent in Afghanistan.
The bazaars of Istalif are evidence of the challenge of sustaining traditional crafts. Istalif, famous for its pottery, had been bombed into smithereens during the war. Yet when the families returned, the main demand was for gaudy artefacts, copies of the cheap, mass-produced objects sold in the bazaars in Pakistan and China. In an attempt to regain and preserve the tradition, Turquoise Mountain established a pottery school that has worked with potters helping them regain traditional skills and use new techniques. A year later, however, funding for the project has run out.
Those involved in arts and music also know they are up against more than one challenge. Though they are all loath to talk about it, Afghanistan has recently seen a resurgence of conservative culture and power of the Taliban – both attempting to assert themselves by defining the boundaries of Afghan identity and culture. It is against these odds that the younger generation is seizing upon the small spaces available to it, pushing against the boundaries and questioning both the conservative ideology and the pop culture that has been imported to fill the void. One of young Stanikzai’s paintings, called “Introvert”, shows the figure of a man crouching with his head held in his hands, depicted on a background of an array of geometric shapes of different colours that end in the shimmer of reflective glass. “He is an Afghan trying to find himself in the mirror of history,” she says. “He has returned home and is searching for himself – and wondering why he can’t find himself.”
Aunohita Mojumdar is a contributing editor to Himal Southasian.
September 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
After decades of upheaval, Afghanistan today finds itself unable to remember its cultural past.
Bollywood songs blare from taxis and street corners. In wedding halls, guests sit glued to the next episode of “Kyunki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi” dubbed into Dari, the main language in Afghanistan. In shops selling pirated CDs and DVDs in Kabul’s busy Flower Street, young Afghans walk in to ask for the latest Hollywood action movie, the music of a hot new Tajik singer or the most recent Iranian soap opera. The removal of the Taliban has been celebrated as the end of cultural censorship in Afghanistan, and the easy availability of imported pop culture touted as evidence of new freedoms. But the tragedy of the years of conflict in Afghanistan runs much deeper. What remains after years of violence and fighting, displacement and censorship, is a void. Built over years of absence of art and culture, what echoes today is the lack of an audience where once existed a deep appreciation of arts and music. This is an emptiness – as opposed to a simple tug of war between cultural freedoms and censorship, which could be resolved by lifting the arbitrary restrictions of the Taliban regime. It is also a void that is being filled too quickly and indiscriminately with whatever is at hand.
Contrary to the oft-repeated mantra that equates all censorship with the Taliban, the advent of cultural restrictions in Afghanistan goes back much farther. While the Soviet-sponsored regimes saw a chance for propaganda in art and music, the subsequent mujahideen government had senior leaders whose conservative interpretation of Islam did not encourage music and the arts. What space remained was squeezed in the last years of the Taliban, when its leaders turned more brutal and censorious, systematically destroying the art and culture that they had earlier permitted to exist. The purge culminated in the infamous destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, an act that turned the Taliban into pariahs. But Bamiyan residents still talk of how, in earlier years, the mujahideen soldiers would amuse themselves by taking pot shots at the Buddha statues.
Omara Khan Masoudi is the director of the national museum in Kabul, which he joined 30 years ago. He was forced to leave the country in 2000 because of the growing pressure of the Taliban, but remembers that the destruction of the national treasures did not begin and end with them. Masoudi says most of the losses of the artefacts in the museum took place during the civil war of the mid-1990s, before the Taliban came to power. “When power changed from communist to mujahideen hands [in 1992], there was a security vacuum,” he recalls. “The museum was looted.” The area where the national museum is situated became a frontline in the civil war, and could not be accessed by the staff. “For two years, this area was cut off and we could not reach the museum,” he says. “Rocket attacks set the museum building on fire, destroying a large part of it.” Today the museum is undergoing refurbishment, but the Darul Aman Palace, right opposite it, stands shattered and pockmarked with the brunt of many attacks, a mute testimony to what took place in the area.
In the initial years after the Taliban took over power in Kabul, its members actually helped to rebuild the museum and to safeguard the remaining artefacts. Edicts were also issued by Taliban chief Mullah Omar calling for the safeguarding of the Bamiyan Buddhas. However, as the regime came under increasing pressure of al-Qaeda, it took an increasingly stronger stance against ‘un-Islamic’ activity, eventually desecrating the museum that it had until then worked to preserve. While al-Qaeda’s hardline ideology does not tolerate the more liberal arts, political analysts have said that its leadership pushed the Taliban to adopt a more intolerant attitude. The idea, some suggest, was to make the Taliban more isolated from the international community and, hence, more dependent on al-Qaeda.
Reflection and regeneration
Ommolbanin ‘Shamsia’ Hassani’s “Portal”
With the Taliban completing the process of emaciating Afghan art and culture, a new generation of Afghans grew up under the shadow of conflict, completely oblivious to the world of art and music. What remained from earlier years was lost as families migrated and were torn apart, losing the thread of continuity that had helped generations to pass on their knowledge, including that of art appreciation. While the removal of the Taliban has allowed art to flourish, most of what was produced in the initial post-Taliban years has been reproductions of postcard kitsch – the burqa-clad woman, the Bactrian camel, the old man in a turban. At its worst, this art recreated the stereotypes of Afghans and Afghanistan; at best, it was well executed but simplistic real-life representations.
With no link to the organic growth of art and the movements in art and culture in other parts of the globe, it has been difficult to shake the Afghan art scene out of its static limitations. One man trying to do this so, and who can testify to the difficulties, is Rahraw Omarzad, a teacher in Kabul University’s Faculty of Fine Arts, a department that was set up in 1976, just three years before the country began to explode with violence. Though Omarzad continues to teach at the Faculty, his real initiative has been in setting up the Centre for Contemporary Arts Afghanistan, where he has been trying to teach young men and women artists interested in exploring contemporary and abstract art. (For samples of works from the Centre’s artists, see Himal commentary sections for July-December 2008.) “I found that by the time students reached the last semester, where they learn about contemporary art, they had already forgotten how to think out of the box,” Omarzad says. “When they come to the Centre, I do not teach them theory or any ‘ism’. I just ask them to create art from what is inside them. It is only when they themselves have started expressing themselves, and are confident, that we go to theory.”
The first-ever exhibition of contemporary women artists, held early last year, bore testimony to this confidence. The young women artists who displayed their works appeared to follow no set pattern of painting, and many of them produced works that varied greatly in technique, style and subject. Sheenkai Alam Stanikzai is a multimedia artist who works in paint, collage, video installations and photography. She says that for her, the conceptual clarity of her work is more important than the technique. “Some think that to paint they should possess innate skills,” she says. “But I believe that possessing good knowledge, open vision and awareness is of no less value than innate talents and skills.”
Many of the artists have been nurturing their talent for years, through trying circumstances. Another artist, 21-year-old Ommolbanin Shamsia, says she has been painting for as long as she can remember, as a child and refugee in Iran and, later, after her family returned home to Afghanistan. One of her paintings depicts a woman with a layer of gold jewellery covering her eyes. “I tried to show a woman who cannot see the way because of the gold,” Shamsia says. “She is in a golden cage.” Another of Shamsia’s paintings shows a woman standing at the edge of a pool of water. Instead of her own reflection, she looks at a young, green tree. “This represents woman as life, as regeneration,” she says.
This year, Stanikzai won the first prize in a contemporary-arts competition organised by the Turquoise Mountain, an organisation that is working to promote the revival of traditional arts and crafts of Afghanistan. In October 2008, Turquoise Mountain organised a first-of-its-kind three-nation contemporary-art exhibition, bringing together artists from Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan. The exhibition recently travelled to the Venice Biennale, where it received rave reviews. But perhaps its greatest contribution was in bringing this art to an audience never previously exposed to it. Explaining the rationale, the curator of the Living Traditions exhibition, Jemima Montagu, who formerly worked at the Tate Gallery in London, says, “The three countries share a strong bond, particularly in art and in the way Islamic calligraphy and painting evolved. These traditions can and need to be adapted if they are to survive.”
In order to organise the exhibition, Montagu had to insure the paintings against potential acts of war and violence, and face the doubts of painters who were too anxious to send their paintings into a conflict zone – as well as the scepticism of those who felt Afghanistan lacked the necessary audience for such a show. Eventually, the exhibition opened to a packed audience comprised of both Afghans and international workers in Afghanistan. But for Montagu, the real audience was in those who had never seen such art before. “This is not a project for expatriates,” she says. “There is no existing audience for arts and culture here. You have to create it.”
As a result, an important component of the exhibition was school visits. During these, schoolchildren were exposed to a specially prepared package of materials that not only explained the exhibition, but also challenged them to ask questions and express themselves. Eventually, 7000 Afghans visited the exhibition, a third of them schoolchildren. Visiting Pakistani artist Imran Qureshi gave a lecture at Kabul University, after which he expressed his excitement about the initiative. “This is historic; it is important,” he said. “Things may be primitive here after the impact of years of war, but they will not remain the same. We cannot control things, but we can make efforts to change it.”
Culture of nothingness
Shinkai Alam Stanikzai with her “Introvert”
Meanwhile, at the national museum, Masoudi wants more visitors. “This country has an ancient civilisation,” he says. “We have to be proud of it, about the pre-Islamic history.” Masoudi feels that it was a lack of education that led to the past looting, and he is keen to ensure that exposure to the museum now starts at a young age. “I hope some donors can provide us with one or two buses, then we could arrange to bring schoolchildren here and show them around for free. We could do this every day – we can host as many as 300 to 400 children at one time!” he says, his eyes lighting up with enthusiasm. “We can show them our country’s rich past.”
Creating a receptive audience is also a challenge faced by Mirwaiss Sidiqi, the programme coordinator for the Aga Khan Music Initiative for Central Asia in Afghanistan. The programme teaches classical music to young Afghans, with classes conducted in vocal music and the traditional instruments of Afghanistan – the dilruba, rubab, tabla and sarinda. Initially, it was hard to find students to come and even harder to make them stay. As such, the classes remain free in order to encourage families to send their children, and students even get a small stipend as travel expenses so as to remove any disincentive.
The biggest challenge, however, has been creating a new appreciation for traditional music. Speaking painfully of the 5000-year-old cultural identity of Afghanistan, Sidiqi bemoans “the culture of nothingness” that has replaced it. What Afghanistan has now in the way of musical culture “does not belong to us,” he says. “It is imported in a nasty way to Afghanistan. It doesn’t have depth. It is a bad copy, a dark copy of Indian, Pakistani, Iranian, Tajik and European pop and rap music – a mixture of all these things trying to become a culture.” Sidiqi emphasises that he is not against pop culture, but says that it also should not be allowed to wipe out Afghanistan’s own traditions. “There is space for everyone, for everything,” he says. “But right now, we need to create a foundation, to build what we lost in the last thirty years. After that, it is their wish what they put on top of it.” Sidiqi is also concerned about the passage of time, and about what could be lost before the skills are transferred from one generation to the other. The generation that possessed the traditional cultural skills is today old and dying. One of those who teaches at the music school is Ustad Amruddin, the only skilled exponent of the lute-like rubab. “If we lose his knowledge,” says Sidiqi, “we can bury the rubab.”
It is not just through students that the Aga Khan programme seeks to rebuild the musical tradition. It is also trying to create an audience that can appreciate such music through public concerts, radio and television broadcasts, by talking about these issues through the media and preserving the knowledge. Sidiqi had just returned from a visit to the remote northeastern corner of the country, in the province of Badakhshan, as part of a project to document and record the country’s myriad musical traditions. These first important steps, however, also emphasise the long distance that has yet to be travelled. Traditional Afghan music cannot be accessed quite as easily as the cheap copies of Bollywood and Hollywood. There is no funding for a recording studio, and no means of making or disseminating the music in easily accessible ways such as CDs.
More heart than money
Still, the Aga Khan Foundation is one of the lucky ones, as others struggle just to keep their initiatives afloat. When Montagu organised the three-nation exhibition, she faced the timeless question of arts versus bread: Why, in a country of so many urgent and competing needs, should anyone spend money on art? Likewise, at the Centre for Contemporary Arts, Omarzad has had to reduce the time he can keep the Centre open to just two days a week. Though there is widespread appreciation for his work, the enthusiasm has not been matched by funding. While the notion of young women artists creating unusual art has caught on in some circles, funding has only come through project-specific grants. The Centre has been funded repeatedly for exhibitions abroad, since these are visible, popular and help the donor nation to ‘preen’ itself. However, there has been no funding for the institution that could actually help young local artists learn, grow and instil a wider culture of art appreciation. The international community’s constant complaint that ‘good’ news stories from Afghanistan are ignored appears to apply to itself – and the Centre and others like it end up suffering from neglect, despite the billions spent in Afghanistan.
The bazaars of Istalif are evidence of the challenge of sustaining traditional crafts. Istalif, famous for its pottery, had been bombed into smithereens during the war. Yet when the families returned, the main demand was for gaudy artefacts, copies of the cheap, mass-produced objects sold in the bazaars in Pakistan and China. In an attempt to regain and preserve the tradition, Turquoise Mountain established a pottery school that has worked with potters helping them regain traditional skills and use new techniques. A year later, however, funding for the project has run out.
Those involved in arts and music also know they are up against more than one challenge. Though they are all loath to talk about it, Afghanistan has recently seen a resurgence of conservative culture and power of the Taliban – both attempting to assert themselves by defining the boundaries of Afghan identity and culture. It is against these odds that the younger generation is seizing upon the small spaces available to it, pushing against the boundaries and questioning both the conservative ideology and the pop culture that has been imported to fill the void. One of young Stanikzai’s paintings, called “Introvert”, shows the figure of a man crouching with his head held in his hands, depicted on a background of an array of geometric shapes of different colours that end in the shimmer of reflective glass. “He is an Afghan trying to find himself in the mirror of history,” she says. “He has returned home and is searching for himself – and wondering why he can’t find himself.”
Aunohita Mojumdar is a contributing editor to Himal Southasian.
A flawed democratic exercise
September 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
Defying the ban from the Taliban, the Afghan people came out to vote amidst tight security. But it might be too early to celebrate the victory of democracy.
Polling booth in Tajurbai High School, Charikar
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghans struggled with their hopes and fears to take part in their second presidential and provincial council elections on 20 August, with uneven participation across the country, reflecting the ground realities. As the Kabul government claimed success and the international community rushed to proffer congratulations, there were initial signs that the electoral process may have been compromised through disenfranchisement, inadequate preparations as well as electoral malpractice. While the extent of these problems was difficult to judge, the initial reactions of the Afghan people, as reflected in the local media, indicated that unless these were acknowledged and addressed, the lack of legitimacy could further undermine the stability of both Afghanistan and the region.
The 2009 election was unprecedented in terms of the intense political debate and competition surrounding it. The incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, faced a challenge due to the disenchantment of a population tired with the lack of economic growth, non-delivery of services, growing violence and high civilian casualties caused by the international military forces. While a fragmented opposition still allowed Karzai a clear lead in the contest, the presence of at least three high profile candidates opened up a political debate on issues and personalities. The campaign had none of the trappings of other Southasian electoral campaigns which resemble a jamboree as much as they do a political contest. Insecurity has been growing in Afghanistan, making life increasingly unsafe for ordinary Afghan citizens as well as their leaders. Election meetings, Afghan style, were carefully calibrated interactions with the public, with several layers of security mechanisms.
On a campaign visit with Karzai’s challenger Abdullah Abdullah, this writer flew in a military helicopter which hugged the ground, rising and dipping with the contours of the mountainous terrain in order to avoid hostile fire. A gunman at the open door was keeping a sharp eye out for gunners on the ground. Most meetings, especially in rural areas begin with a gathering of the village elders – inevitably all men. And so did Abdullah’s that hot August day in the Pashtun belt of eastern Afghanistan. While Abdullah insisted to reporters that the elections had gone beyond ethnic divides, making him a national rather than an ethnic candidate, during meeting after meeting on this day his supporters appealed to the electorate on grounds of tribal affiliations, reminding would-be voters of Abdullah’s Pashtun antecedents from his father’s Kandahari Ghilzai family.
While calculations on ethnic grounds were a sine qua non of the electoral process, the 2009 polls revealed a more complex mix of motivations and issues that came together to determine the vote. Abdullah’s hosts in Hesarak were a traditional Pashtun family, the Khans of the area, who had never supported any non-Pashtun candidate. Abdullah is half Tajik and a leading member of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance. “Yes, it is difficult to ask for votes from Pashtuns, but we did it. In politics you have to take sides, and we decided to take the risk this time” said provincial candidate Abdullah Arsala, who had staved off appeals for support from tribal compatriots who were also in the contest.
Flawed system
A new feature of the elections this time was the televised debates involving the top incumbents, which saw millions glued to their radios and television screens. Karzai’s electoral platform seemed to be based on continuity, feeding off fear of change, as he repeated earlier promises of negotiations with the armed opposition and rewriting of the agreement with the international military forces. Ramazan Bashar Dost travelled on the negative ticket, criticising the incumbent for his failure to deliver good governance to the people. Meanwhile, the international high-flier Ashraf Ghani produced a minutely detailed blueprint that was more focused on programming than politics. Abdullah Abdullah, on the other hand, was vague on programming but more forthcoming on the political component, campaigning on the promise of ushering in a parliamentary democracy.
In the current circumstances, a change of the horse in the presidential saddle, if it happens, is unlikely to make much more than a superficial initial difference to the polity. Afghanistan’s present political and administrative system concentrates all decision-making authority in the president, marginalising both parliament and provincial bodies. The attempt to rule this complex, diverse and difficult country from a single point of power was initially seen by a Western compact, led by the US, as a means of control and stability that would avoid the messy business of a more democratic polity. Wider administration was to be enforced through a series of strongmen – warlords, commanders and leaders backed by armed power – appointed to control their individual areas. After having witnessed the failure of governance, the international community still continues to toy with the idea of changing the man rather than the method, looking for suitable individuals rather than building institutions.
Afghanistan’s electoral system reflects this concentration of power and the attempt to keep the polity fragmented. Its bizarre electoral system is followed only by three other countries: Jordan, Vanuatu and the Pitcarin Islands. It combines a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) with a multi-seat constituency. What this means is that each voter picks one candidate from a list which names many candidates for several seats. Under the specific formula used, the candidates win by a preferential system which picks the top scoring candidates. Consequently, many of the votes cast are ‘excess’ ballots, so to speak. To address just this situation, a number of countries use the single transferable vote (STV) system under which voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. In this way, no vote is wasted. This is not the case in Afghanistan where the SNTV system discourages the participation of political parties. Political parties are, in addition, also banned from contesting as political parties, but their members can contest as individuals. The ban on political parties’ participation was ostensibly in response to the Afghan population’s dislike of them after years of war. But insiders say this was put in place in order to keep the Afghan polity fragmented, thereby strengthening individuals rather than political groups and formations.
Eight years into the reconstruction of Afghanistan, there is still no census and no electoral roll. Furthermore, there are no checks and balances on voter registration since no standard proof is required, resulting in registration of underage voters or multiple registrations by the same individual. The result is an incredible 17 million registered voters out of an estimated population of between 25 to 30 million. While there has been no census, the estimated voting population in 2004 was a mere 9 million. Observers maintain that the high registration numbers arising out of successive cycles of voter registration in 2004, 2005 and 2009, was a sign of multiple or fake registrations.
While there is indelible ink in use, much of the checks and balances are dependent on polling station officers, who are vulnerable to many pressures – political, monetary as well as threats of violence. Initial reports indicated that proxy voting had taken place in many places, as was expected, with boxes of voter cards being brought to the polling station. Counting took place at the polling station, thus further minimising oversight by independent monitors. The Independent Election Commission’s own independence has been in question with its members appointed directly by President Karzai, who turned down a move to bring these appointments under parliamentary scrutiny. At a press conference to announce the completion of voting, the IEC appeared with a galaxy of senior government ministers who used the platform to hail the elections as a success.
Assessing realties
While the polling day passed off without any major acts of violence designed to cause large-scale casualties, sporadic incidents did occur, affecting the voting. Overall, the threat of violence loomed large. The result was a turnout that was much lower than for the elections in 2004 and 2005, suggesting that a substantial part of the population may have been disenfranchised. Reports also indicated that a major portion of the disenfranchised were women, who were unable to access polling booths because of insecurity as well as prevailing conservative attitudes. However, the immense lack of transparency accompanying the process – even voter turnout percentages were not available several days after the polling – suggests that the full extent of any malpractice may never be fully understood. Adding to the absence of a full flow of information were censorship curbs imposed by the government prior to the elections. In a carefully calibrated order, the government advised the international media not to report on any violent incidents during the polling, but ordered the national media not to do so. While not all Afghan media complied with the order – some bravely and publicly opposing it – the extent of compliance was commended by the head of the National Security Directorate at the end of it all.
Both Afghans and internationals linked to administering the polls had heaved a great sigh of relief that the threat of widespread violence had not been fulfilled. While there were a long list of incidents including rocket attacks, arson and the chopping off of the fingers of two voters, the final civilian death toll nation-wide was nine persons. Blasé as this may sound, that is not a very high number for Afghanistan, as well as in terms of expectations. While the Afghan National Security agencies claimed success in defeating the designs of the Taliban to disrupt the polls, an assessment of the incidents suggested that the armed opposition may willingly have refrained from carrying out major strikes in order to win hearts and minds. However, the insurgents’ behaviour differed not just from province to province but from district to district and polling station to polling station, ‘allowing’ the process in some areas while attacking it in others.
Giving credence to the idea that there was a deliberate policy of reduced violence was recent evidence of the striking power of the Taliban. In the week before the elections, they managed a rocket attack inside the presidential palace compound, a suicide attack on an international military convoy on the outskirts of Kabul and a massive bomb blast outside the gates of the NATO headquarters in Kabul. This suggested that the absence of violence on polling day was as much a result of the Taliban decision not to cause large scale disruption as a dividend of the preventive steps taken by the Afghan and international security forces.
Keeping this context in mind, projection of the election as an achievement against the insurgency and other forces which have sought to disrupt polls by the Afghan government and the international community is simplistic and one-dimensional. Desperate for some signs of progress to justify their involvement in a country sucking up their human and financial resources, the Western international community, including the UN, has rushed to congratulate the Afghans on their achievement and success. Troop-contributing countries have especially been desperately seeking a symbolic event that would help validate their military engagement, which has becoming increasingly unpopular with domestic constituencies back home.
While there has been some acknowledgement of the anomalies and malpractices, the international community has concentrated on celebrating the fact that elections were held at all under the existing difficult circumstances. Unlike 2004, however, when the outcome of the results was a fait accompli, there has been a real contest this time. (Though the results were not out at the time of this writing, and the reported numbers are inconclusive, both Karzai and Abdullah are claiming victory). The competition was driven by a combination of disenchantment, an appetite for change and greater awareness of democratic principles on the part of Afghans. Unwillingness, on the part of the Afghan government and the international community, to acknowledge and address shortcomings in the democratic process could lead to further disengagement of the population, not just from the government but also the state-building project.
While a less than free-and-fair election was to be expected, Afghans do, however, expect that the international community will at least acknowledge the compromises made with democratic principles, rather than pretend all was well or that these do not matter. Leading members of the international community have repeated ad nauseam that the elections showed the engagement of Afghans with the democratic process. Until now, the international community itself has not shown a matching engagement with the democratic principles of the electoral process. Indeed, it is clear that they are treating the election as an unmitigated success story mainly because they desperately need one. In this way, the community is essentially telling the Afghan people a flawed process is good enough for them. By doing so, it is eroding the faith of Afghans on the all important democratic exercise that an election represents. If the realities of the elections just past are ignored, the result could be the loss of faith of Afghans in the democratic polity itself, a point of view which has extracted a great cost from both Afghans and the rest of the world in earlier decades.
Aunohita Mojumdar is a contributing editor to Himal Southasian.
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
Defying the ban from the Taliban, the Afghan people came out to vote amidst tight security. But it might be too early to celebrate the victory of democracy.
Polling booth in Tajurbai High School, Charikar
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghans struggled with their hopes and fears to take part in their second presidential and provincial council elections on 20 August, with uneven participation across the country, reflecting the ground realities. As the Kabul government claimed success and the international community rushed to proffer congratulations, there were initial signs that the electoral process may have been compromised through disenfranchisement, inadequate preparations as well as electoral malpractice. While the extent of these problems was difficult to judge, the initial reactions of the Afghan people, as reflected in the local media, indicated that unless these were acknowledged and addressed, the lack of legitimacy could further undermine the stability of both Afghanistan and the region.
The 2009 election was unprecedented in terms of the intense political debate and competition surrounding it. The incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, faced a challenge due to the disenchantment of a population tired with the lack of economic growth, non-delivery of services, growing violence and high civilian casualties caused by the international military forces. While a fragmented opposition still allowed Karzai a clear lead in the contest, the presence of at least three high profile candidates opened up a political debate on issues and personalities. The campaign had none of the trappings of other Southasian electoral campaigns which resemble a jamboree as much as they do a political contest. Insecurity has been growing in Afghanistan, making life increasingly unsafe for ordinary Afghan citizens as well as their leaders. Election meetings, Afghan style, were carefully calibrated interactions with the public, with several layers of security mechanisms.
On a campaign visit with Karzai’s challenger Abdullah Abdullah, this writer flew in a military helicopter which hugged the ground, rising and dipping with the contours of the mountainous terrain in order to avoid hostile fire. A gunman at the open door was keeping a sharp eye out for gunners on the ground. Most meetings, especially in rural areas begin with a gathering of the village elders – inevitably all men. And so did Abdullah’s that hot August day in the Pashtun belt of eastern Afghanistan. While Abdullah insisted to reporters that the elections had gone beyond ethnic divides, making him a national rather than an ethnic candidate, during meeting after meeting on this day his supporters appealed to the electorate on grounds of tribal affiliations, reminding would-be voters of Abdullah’s Pashtun antecedents from his father’s Kandahari Ghilzai family.
While calculations on ethnic grounds were a sine qua non of the electoral process, the 2009 polls revealed a more complex mix of motivations and issues that came together to determine the vote. Abdullah’s hosts in Hesarak were a traditional Pashtun family, the Khans of the area, who had never supported any non-Pashtun candidate. Abdullah is half Tajik and a leading member of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance. “Yes, it is difficult to ask for votes from Pashtuns, but we did it. In politics you have to take sides, and we decided to take the risk this time” said provincial candidate Abdullah Arsala, who had staved off appeals for support from tribal compatriots who were also in the contest.
Flawed system
A new feature of the elections this time was the televised debates involving the top incumbents, which saw millions glued to their radios and television screens. Karzai’s electoral platform seemed to be based on continuity, feeding off fear of change, as he repeated earlier promises of negotiations with the armed opposition and rewriting of the agreement with the international military forces. Ramazan Bashar Dost travelled on the negative ticket, criticising the incumbent for his failure to deliver good governance to the people. Meanwhile, the international high-flier Ashraf Ghani produced a minutely detailed blueprint that was more focused on programming than politics. Abdullah Abdullah, on the other hand, was vague on programming but more forthcoming on the political component, campaigning on the promise of ushering in a parliamentary democracy.
In the current circumstances, a change of the horse in the presidential saddle, if it happens, is unlikely to make much more than a superficial initial difference to the polity. Afghanistan’s present political and administrative system concentrates all decision-making authority in the president, marginalising both parliament and provincial bodies. The attempt to rule this complex, diverse and difficult country from a single point of power was initially seen by a Western compact, led by the US, as a means of control and stability that would avoid the messy business of a more democratic polity. Wider administration was to be enforced through a series of strongmen – warlords, commanders and leaders backed by armed power – appointed to control their individual areas. After having witnessed the failure of governance, the international community still continues to toy with the idea of changing the man rather than the method, looking for suitable individuals rather than building institutions.
Afghanistan’s electoral system reflects this concentration of power and the attempt to keep the polity fragmented. Its bizarre electoral system is followed only by three other countries: Jordan, Vanuatu and the Pitcarin Islands. It combines a single non-transferable vote (SNTV) with a multi-seat constituency. What this means is that each voter picks one candidate from a list which names many candidates for several seats. Under the specific formula used, the candidates win by a preferential system which picks the top scoring candidates. Consequently, many of the votes cast are ‘excess’ ballots, so to speak. To address just this situation, a number of countries use the single transferable vote (STV) system under which voters can rank the candidates in order of preference. In this way, no vote is wasted. This is not the case in Afghanistan where the SNTV system discourages the participation of political parties. Political parties are, in addition, also banned from contesting as political parties, but their members can contest as individuals. The ban on political parties’ participation was ostensibly in response to the Afghan population’s dislike of them after years of war. But insiders say this was put in place in order to keep the Afghan polity fragmented, thereby strengthening individuals rather than political groups and formations.
Eight years into the reconstruction of Afghanistan, there is still no census and no electoral roll. Furthermore, there are no checks and balances on voter registration since no standard proof is required, resulting in registration of underage voters or multiple registrations by the same individual. The result is an incredible 17 million registered voters out of an estimated population of between 25 to 30 million. While there has been no census, the estimated voting population in 2004 was a mere 9 million. Observers maintain that the high registration numbers arising out of successive cycles of voter registration in 2004, 2005 and 2009, was a sign of multiple or fake registrations.
While there is indelible ink in use, much of the checks and balances are dependent on polling station officers, who are vulnerable to many pressures – political, monetary as well as threats of violence. Initial reports indicated that proxy voting had taken place in many places, as was expected, with boxes of voter cards being brought to the polling station. Counting took place at the polling station, thus further minimising oversight by independent monitors. The Independent Election Commission’s own independence has been in question with its members appointed directly by President Karzai, who turned down a move to bring these appointments under parliamentary scrutiny. At a press conference to announce the completion of voting, the IEC appeared with a galaxy of senior government ministers who used the platform to hail the elections as a success.
Assessing realties
While the polling day passed off without any major acts of violence designed to cause large-scale casualties, sporadic incidents did occur, affecting the voting. Overall, the threat of violence loomed large. The result was a turnout that was much lower than for the elections in 2004 and 2005, suggesting that a substantial part of the population may have been disenfranchised. Reports also indicated that a major portion of the disenfranchised were women, who were unable to access polling booths because of insecurity as well as prevailing conservative attitudes. However, the immense lack of transparency accompanying the process – even voter turnout percentages were not available several days after the polling – suggests that the full extent of any malpractice may never be fully understood. Adding to the absence of a full flow of information were censorship curbs imposed by the government prior to the elections. In a carefully calibrated order, the government advised the international media not to report on any violent incidents during the polling, but ordered the national media not to do so. While not all Afghan media complied with the order – some bravely and publicly opposing it – the extent of compliance was commended by the head of the National Security Directorate at the end of it all.
Both Afghans and internationals linked to administering the polls had heaved a great sigh of relief that the threat of widespread violence had not been fulfilled. While there were a long list of incidents including rocket attacks, arson and the chopping off of the fingers of two voters, the final civilian death toll nation-wide was nine persons. Blasé as this may sound, that is not a very high number for Afghanistan, as well as in terms of expectations. While the Afghan National Security agencies claimed success in defeating the designs of the Taliban to disrupt the polls, an assessment of the incidents suggested that the armed opposition may willingly have refrained from carrying out major strikes in order to win hearts and minds. However, the insurgents’ behaviour differed not just from province to province but from district to district and polling station to polling station, ‘allowing’ the process in some areas while attacking it in others.
Giving credence to the idea that there was a deliberate policy of reduced violence was recent evidence of the striking power of the Taliban. In the week before the elections, they managed a rocket attack inside the presidential palace compound, a suicide attack on an international military convoy on the outskirts of Kabul and a massive bomb blast outside the gates of the NATO headquarters in Kabul. This suggested that the absence of violence on polling day was as much a result of the Taliban decision not to cause large scale disruption as a dividend of the preventive steps taken by the Afghan and international security forces.
Keeping this context in mind, projection of the election as an achievement against the insurgency and other forces which have sought to disrupt polls by the Afghan government and the international community is simplistic and one-dimensional. Desperate for some signs of progress to justify their involvement in a country sucking up their human and financial resources, the Western international community, including the UN, has rushed to congratulate the Afghans on their achievement and success. Troop-contributing countries have especially been desperately seeking a symbolic event that would help validate their military engagement, which has becoming increasingly unpopular with domestic constituencies back home.
While there has been some acknowledgement of the anomalies and malpractices, the international community has concentrated on celebrating the fact that elections were held at all under the existing difficult circumstances. Unlike 2004, however, when the outcome of the results was a fait accompli, there has been a real contest this time. (Though the results were not out at the time of this writing, and the reported numbers are inconclusive, both Karzai and Abdullah are claiming victory). The competition was driven by a combination of disenchantment, an appetite for change and greater awareness of democratic principles on the part of Afghans. Unwillingness, on the part of the Afghan government and the international community, to acknowledge and address shortcomings in the democratic process could lead to further disengagement of the population, not just from the government but also the state-building project.
While a less than free-and-fair election was to be expected, Afghans do, however, expect that the international community will at least acknowledge the compromises made with democratic principles, rather than pretend all was well or that these do not matter. Leading members of the international community have repeated ad nauseam that the elections showed the engagement of Afghans with the democratic process. Until now, the international community itself has not shown a matching engagement with the democratic principles of the electoral process. Indeed, it is clear that they are treating the election as an unmitigated success story mainly because they desperately need one. In this way, the community is essentially telling the Afghan people a flawed process is good enough for them. By doing so, it is eroding the faith of Afghans on the all important democratic exercise that an election represents. If the realities of the elections just past are ignored, the result could be the loss of faith of Afghans in the democratic polity itself, a point of view which has extracted a great cost from both Afghans and the rest of the world in earlier decades.
Aunohita Mojumdar is a contributing editor to Himal Southasian.
Afghanistan: Blanket Election Support Damaging Internationals’ Credibility
Aunohita Mojumdar
After rushing to endorse the Afghan elections, the international community may emerge from the process with its image scathed, having squandered a valuable opportunity to improve its bona fides. In their hurry to score quick gains, some international observers and diplomats have placed a stamp of approval over a process that looks patently flawed. Now they find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place: unable to swallow their early cheerleading statements or take a more critical stance without offending the Afghan government.
“They were too quick to endorse the elections. All they need have done was make their approval more conditional,” said a diplomat who requested anonymity, speaking on an issue growing more sensitive each passing day. A conditional approval would have provided internationals the elbowroom to modulate responses according to emerging realities, a space that was nearly closed off by the early ringing approval, the diplomat added.
“In terms of the international community and its role in the elections, its reputation in Afghanistan and worldwide very much depends on the success of the rest of the process and also on the aggressiveness and comprehensiveness of the Electoral Complaints Commission’s [ECC] review of claims and frauds,” said Candace Rondeaux of the Brussels based International Crisis Group.
Observers have questioned the capacity of the ECC to address these complaints, both because of the limitations of its mandate and its resources. While saying he had no doubt about the intentions and credibility of the ECC, Hamid Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, in response to a question from EurasiaNet, said, “their capability remains to be seen.”
“If we see, as in the past, patterns which indicate that bodies like the IEC [Independent Election Commission] and the ECC remain under-resourced and unsupported, then investigating these claims would remain a challenge and yet everything depends on the sanctity of this process,” Rondeaux added.
The international community’s early endorsement the elections, she said, had been disappointing: “The risk of appearing too enthusiastic too soon is that you undermine your own credibility as an impartial observer and guarantor of the democratic processes.”
While diplomats have stressed that the elections were Afghan-led for the first time, this hardly absolves foreigners of their perceived influence and role. Afghans have a complicated relationship with the international community, seeing foreigners as having undue influence over their lives, while still looking towards them as impartial arbitrators. That much of the anger until now has been directed at the internationals rather than the national players who are accused of having vitiated the democratic process, underlines this tendency.
Though most of the diplomatic community’s comments have been confined to celebrating that the elections took place at all, the endorsement of selective facts about the elections, on a day when a large section of the Afghan voters found their voice hushed either through inability to access the vote or through fraud, has lent credence to charges that the international community has biases.
The attempts to pass off the elections as a success against the Taliban have not surprised observers who see domestic political agendas of the donor countries lurking behind such statements. “What does it say about the British-American effort in Helmand if days after they poured troops into the province in order to make it safer for people to vote, the turnout is a bare 5 percent? Can they admit it was a failure?” asked an international analyst.
Yet not everyone agrees about the international community’s motivations. “The internationals probably spoke too soon and should have acknowledged early on that there were allegations of widespread irregularities that needed to be addressed before issuing an elections report card,” said John Dempsey, the Kabul director for the U.S. Institute of Peace. “But again, I think that they wanted to mute any potential violent reaction from supporters of one candidate or another on polling day as well as acknowledge that millions still turned out in the face of security threats and that there were no spectacular mega attacks.”
Efforts to minimize the impact of flawed elections have helped introduce imaginative arguments into the mix. New buzz amongst internationals in Kabul has it that since most of the disenfranchisement took place in southern provinces where the bulk of Karzai’s voter base is supposed to be, ballot stuffing has merely made up for the votes that were rightfully his in the first place.
Long before the votes have even been counted, moreover, the internationally community has also begun pushing for a “government of national unity.” While the rationale for such a move, which attempts to bring leaders above self-serving political divides, is laudable in theory, it cannot replace the electoral mandate to which Afghans are entitled.
Responding to a flawed election by telling the major candidates to go beyond the results may help silence the losers. However such unity of purpose should come from processes that are based either on post-conflict peace agreements, such as were decided in 2001 at Bonn, or be based on initiatives of legitimately elected governments. A unified government cannot succeed an electoral process in which millions of Afghans risked their lives to cast votes which were subsequently ignored.
Editor’s Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 19 years.
After rushing to endorse the Afghan elections, the international community may emerge from the process with its image scathed, having squandered a valuable opportunity to improve its bona fides. In their hurry to score quick gains, some international observers and diplomats have placed a stamp of approval over a process that looks patently flawed. Now they find themselves caught between a rock and a hard place: unable to swallow their early cheerleading statements or take a more critical stance without offending the Afghan government.
“They were too quick to endorse the elections. All they need have done was make their approval more conditional,” said a diplomat who requested anonymity, speaking on an issue growing more sensitive each passing day. A conditional approval would have provided internationals the elbowroom to modulate responses according to emerging realities, a space that was nearly closed off by the early ringing approval, the diplomat added.
“In terms of the international community and its role in the elections, its reputation in Afghanistan and worldwide very much depends on the success of the rest of the process and also on the aggressiveness and comprehensiveness of the Electoral Complaints Commission’s [ECC] review of claims and frauds,” said Candace Rondeaux of the Brussels based International Crisis Group.
Observers have questioned the capacity of the ECC to address these complaints, both because of the limitations of its mandate and its resources. While saying he had no doubt about the intentions and credibility of the ECC, Hamid Karzai’s main rival, Abdullah Abdullah, in response to a question from EurasiaNet, said, “their capability remains to be seen.”
“If we see, as in the past, patterns which indicate that bodies like the IEC [Independent Election Commission] and the ECC remain under-resourced and unsupported, then investigating these claims would remain a challenge and yet everything depends on the sanctity of this process,” Rondeaux added.
The international community’s early endorsement the elections, she said, had been disappointing: “The risk of appearing too enthusiastic too soon is that you undermine your own credibility as an impartial observer and guarantor of the democratic processes.”
While diplomats have stressed that the elections were Afghan-led for the first time, this hardly absolves foreigners of their perceived influence and role. Afghans have a complicated relationship with the international community, seeing foreigners as having undue influence over their lives, while still looking towards them as impartial arbitrators. That much of the anger until now has been directed at the internationals rather than the national players who are accused of having vitiated the democratic process, underlines this tendency.
Though most of the diplomatic community’s comments have been confined to celebrating that the elections took place at all, the endorsement of selective facts about the elections, on a day when a large section of the Afghan voters found their voice hushed either through inability to access the vote or through fraud, has lent credence to charges that the international community has biases.
The attempts to pass off the elections as a success against the Taliban have not surprised observers who see domestic political agendas of the donor countries lurking behind such statements. “What does it say about the British-American effort in Helmand if days after they poured troops into the province in order to make it safer for people to vote, the turnout is a bare 5 percent? Can they admit it was a failure?” asked an international analyst.
Yet not everyone agrees about the international community’s motivations. “The internationals probably spoke too soon and should have acknowledged early on that there were allegations of widespread irregularities that needed to be addressed before issuing an elections report card,” said John Dempsey, the Kabul director for the U.S. Institute of Peace. “But again, I think that they wanted to mute any potential violent reaction from supporters of one candidate or another on polling day as well as acknowledge that millions still turned out in the face of security threats and that there were no spectacular mega attacks.”
Efforts to minimize the impact of flawed elections have helped introduce imaginative arguments into the mix. New buzz amongst internationals in Kabul has it that since most of the disenfranchisement took place in southern provinces where the bulk of Karzai’s voter base is supposed to be, ballot stuffing has merely made up for the votes that were rightfully his in the first place.
Long before the votes have even been counted, moreover, the internationally community has also begun pushing for a “government of national unity.” While the rationale for such a move, which attempts to bring leaders above self-serving political divides, is laudable in theory, it cannot replace the electoral mandate to which Afghans are entitled.
Responding to a flawed election by telling the major candidates to go beyond the results may help silence the losers. However such unity of purpose should come from processes that are based either on post-conflict peace agreements, such as were decided in 2001 at Bonn, or be based on initiatives of legitimately elected governments. A unified government cannot succeed an electoral process in which millions of Afghans risked their lives to cast votes which were subsequently ignored.
Editor’s Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 19 years.
AFGHANISTAN: POPULAR ANGER SIMMERS OVER ELECTORAL FRAUD ALLEGATIONS
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/26/09
Six days after Afghanistan’s presidential poll, the legitimacy of the outcome appears threatened by a lack of electoral transparency, negligible pressure from Afghanistan’s international sponsors, and a complaint mechanism stymied by its lack of mandate and resources.
At a press conference in Kabul’s plush Intercontinental Hotel on August 25, an audible murmur of disbelief swelled as Afghanistan’s Chief Electoral Officer Daud Najafi read from a list of numbers showing President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah in a neck-and-neck race. The actual totals appeared to contradict rumors that had been circulating in the capital that Karzai was winning by a healthy margin. The figures released by Najafi covered only 10 percent of the ballots cast.
While most western correspondents rushed off to file reports emphasizing the closeness of the race, the primary significance of Najafi’s numbers was that they helped deflect the growing anger and lack of credulity in the electoral process. Some believe the release may have been timed to do just that. One Afghan observer also suggested that the timing of the daily press briefings -- scheduled to begin at 5 pm every evening (though invariably starting later) -- reflects a government effort to keep the chances of spontaneous protests to a minimum. "People will be too busy with prayers and Iftar [the meal breaking the day-long Ramadan fast, which begins around 6:30 pm local time] to protest," the observer said.
Two competing narratives are now vying for attention in Afghanistan. One consists of the official count, sanctioned responses to criticism and the international community’s reactions. But a parallel narrative of claims, counterclaims and rumors of back-room deals is growing.
So strong are these rumors that Abdullah, who has charged the government with conducting widespread electoral fraud, felt compelled to hold a news conference to dispel rumors he was seeking a deal. "My message to our people is that I will not make deals based on your votes. I will not compromise your rights in exchange for anything," he told journalists on August 25.
Meanwhile, though the count is still officially weeks from completion, some Karzai supporters appeared to have no difficulty accessing figures. Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal, for example, announced as early as August 24 that the incumbent had secured 68 percent of the votes.
With reports of low voter turnout and fraud trickling steadily out of the provinces, anger among Afghans is rising. Behind the scenes, negotiators are working "to lower the margin of victory to give the perception of a more legitimate outcome," according to one foreign diplomat.
One important mechanism for determining fraud is the release of data on the number of votes cast in each polling station at intervals throughout Election Day. If the reporting shows an abnormal spike, it does not automatically certify fraud, but it warrants investigation. Were these numbers available, observers would be able to compare and detect anomalies.
But in the six days since the vote, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has refused to provide any figures on the total turnout of voters -- which it, by law, must have. The commission also has not provided provincial breakdowns that could enable observers to compare figures with what they witnessed on the ground.
IEC officials claim they need to "tally" the documentation -- check and recheck -- to make sure it is accurate. Western diplomats have supported this argument, which puts the value of the process above the transparency and credibility that could have come from the early release of provisional figures, as was done in the 2004 elections.
Tallies are no check against ballot stuffing, says a detailed account by Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network. His blog report on Paktia Province in southern Afghanistan indicates ballot stuffing was neatly performed on the eve of the elections. "If [ballot boxes were] delivered from the polling centers together with the legitimate ones, it would become very difficult to find them and quarantine them, in particular when they are accompanied by the required documentation," writes Ruttig.
Unofficial estimates suggest that around 5.5 million votes were cast. The figure is substantiated to some extent by the IEC’s announcement that the 555,842 votes counted so far represented 10 percent of the total. It is impossible to estimate what percentage of the actual electorate these figures represent, however, since there is no record or even estimate of the actual number of voters in the country. Officials accept that the figure of 17 million registered voters is inflated and represents multiple registrations, fake voter cards, under-age and proxy registration. In the absence of a real number, even official figures, when they are available, cannot enable a full assessment of the degree of fraud.
While the international community and IEC officials have claimed the August 20 polls had better checks and balances against fraud in place than was the case for previous elections, these safeguards depended to a large extent on how they were implemented by officials tasked with administering the vote. And, in many instances, officials are facing accusations of fraudulent practices on August 20. Even in relatively secure areas of Afghanistan, such as Parwan Province, EurasiaNet saw free and reasonable access denied to accredited reporters who were made to wait for lengthy periods outside some polling areas: sufficient time for anyone attempting to conceal fraud.
The Electoral Complaints Commission’s work, moreover, has been compromised by the IEC’s declaration on August 24 that nothing the ECC finds will have a bearing on the final results. This remarkable statement also overlooks the impact of small margins in provincial council contests that may be decided by narrow voting margins.
Some western diplomats allude to annoyance at the media’s strong coverage of fraud, complaining of an unproductive debate undermining the electoral process they quickly approved on Election Day. Since Karzai was expected to win anyway, "why waste time and energy on a second round," appears the prevailing argument.
Such an attitude may provoke a backlash. Because for Afghans who voted, at stake is more than western opinion. If allegations of fraud are ignored, they could lose their right to speak and to be heard -- a promise the West was quick to deliver after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/26/09
Six days after Afghanistan’s presidential poll, the legitimacy of the outcome appears threatened by a lack of electoral transparency, negligible pressure from Afghanistan’s international sponsors, and a complaint mechanism stymied by its lack of mandate and resources.
At a press conference in Kabul’s plush Intercontinental Hotel on August 25, an audible murmur of disbelief swelled as Afghanistan’s Chief Electoral Officer Daud Najafi read from a list of numbers showing President Hamid Karzai and challenger Abdullah Abdullah in a neck-and-neck race. The actual totals appeared to contradict rumors that had been circulating in the capital that Karzai was winning by a healthy margin. The figures released by Najafi covered only 10 percent of the ballots cast.
While most western correspondents rushed off to file reports emphasizing the closeness of the race, the primary significance of Najafi’s numbers was that they helped deflect the growing anger and lack of credulity in the electoral process. Some believe the release may have been timed to do just that. One Afghan observer also suggested that the timing of the daily press briefings -- scheduled to begin at 5 pm every evening (though invariably starting later) -- reflects a government effort to keep the chances of spontaneous protests to a minimum. "People will be too busy with prayers and Iftar [the meal breaking the day-long Ramadan fast, which begins around 6:30 pm local time] to protest," the observer said.
Two competing narratives are now vying for attention in Afghanistan. One consists of the official count, sanctioned responses to criticism and the international community’s reactions. But a parallel narrative of claims, counterclaims and rumors of back-room deals is growing.
So strong are these rumors that Abdullah, who has charged the government with conducting widespread electoral fraud, felt compelled to hold a news conference to dispel rumors he was seeking a deal. "My message to our people is that I will not make deals based on your votes. I will not compromise your rights in exchange for anything," he told journalists on August 25.
Meanwhile, though the count is still officially weeks from completion, some Karzai supporters appeared to have no difficulty accessing figures. Finance Minister Omar Zakhilwal, for example, announced as early as August 24 that the incumbent had secured 68 percent of the votes.
With reports of low voter turnout and fraud trickling steadily out of the provinces, anger among Afghans is rising. Behind the scenes, negotiators are working "to lower the margin of victory to give the perception of a more legitimate outcome," according to one foreign diplomat.
One important mechanism for determining fraud is the release of data on the number of votes cast in each polling station at intervals throughout Election Day. If the reporting shows an abnormal spike, it does not automatically certify fraud, but it warrants investigation. Were these numbers available, observers would be able to compare and detect anomalies.
But in the six days since the vote, the Independent Election Commission (IEC) has refused to provide any figures on the total turnout of voters -- which it, by law, must have. The commission also has not provided provincial breakdowns that could enable observers to compare figures with what they witnessed on the ground.
IEC officials claim they need to "tally" the documentation -- check and recheck -- to make sure it is accurate. Western diplomats have supported this argument, which puts the value of the process above the transparency and credibility that could have come from the early release of provisional figures, as was done in the 2004 elections.
Tallies are no check against ballot stuffing, says a detailed account by Thomas Ruttig of the Afghan Analysts Network. His blog report on Paktia Province in southern Afghanistan indicates ballot stuffing was neatly performed on the eve of the elections. "If [ballot boxes were] delivered from the polling centers together with the legitimate ones, it would become very difficult to find them and quarantine them, in particular when they are accompanied by the required documentation," writes Ruttig.
Unofficial estimates suggest that around 5.5 million votes were cast. The figure is substantiated to some extent by the IEC’s announcement that the 555,842 votes counted so far represented 10 percent of the total. It is impossible to estimate what percentage of the actual electorate these figures represent, however, since there is no record or even estimate of the actual number of voters in the country. Officials accept that the figure of 17 million registered voters is inflated and represents multiple registrations, fake voter cards, under-age and proxy registration. In the absence of a real number, even official figures, when they are available, cannot enable a full assessment of the degree of fraud.
While the international community and IEC officials have claimed the August 20 polls had better checks and balances against fraud in place than was the case for previous elections, these safeguards depended to a large extent on how they were implemented by officials tasked with administering the vote. And, in many instances, officials are facing accusations of fraudulent practices on August 20. Even in relatively secure areas of Afghanistan, such as Parwan Province, EurasiaNet saw free and reasonable access denied to accredited reporters who were made to wait for lengthy periods outside some polling areas: sufficient time for anyone attempting to conceal fraud.
The Electoral Complaints Commission’s work, moreover, has been compromised by the IEC’s declaration on August 24 that nothing the ECC finds will have a bearing on the final results. This remarkable statement also overlooks the impact of small margins in provincial council contests that may be decided by narrow voting margins.
Some western diplomats allude to annoyance at the media’s strong coverage of fraud, complaining of an unproductive debate undermining the electoral process they quickly approved on Election Day. Since Karzai was expected to win anyway, "why waste time and energy on a second round," appears the prevailing argument.
Such an attitude may provoke a backlash. Because for Afghans who voted, at stake is more than western opinion. If allegations of fraud are ignored, they could lose their right to speak and to be heard -- a promise the West was quick to deliver after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
AFGHANISTAN: INTERNATIONALS CLAIM VICTORY WHILE AFGHANS CRY FRAUD
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/24/09
Diplomats have rushed to declare Afghanistan’s August 20 presidential and provincial council elections a success, while downplaying credible reports of disenfranchisement and widespread electoral irregularities. The apparent reluctance to acknowledge circumstantial evidence of substantial vote-rigging could have damaging, even irreparable consequences for Afghanistan’s democratization process, some experts contend.
In Kabul and donor capitals, the emphasis has been on celebrating the fact that elections were held at all, rather than on the likelihood that the voices of a considerable number of Afghans will not be heard. Both Afghans and internationals heaved a sigh of relief when polling day passed with a much lower-than-expected level of violence.
Noting the extremist challenge, US President Barack Obama characterized the elections as an important step forward. The European Union Observer Mission (EUOM) and the observer missions of the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) also termed the elections successful, adding that the voting offered evidence of Kabul’s commitment to democratization. Meanwhile, in his congratulatory remarks, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon referred to the "extremely challenging environment."
In their assessments, international observers appeared to focus mainly on the Taliban’s attempt to disrupt the polls. They paid far less attention to other electoral problems, including alleged irregularities carried out by government functionaries.
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, an Afghan body, documented a widespread "lack of impartiality of election staff at the local level." It also recorded numerous cases of proxy voting and some voters’ use of multiple cards. It reported underage voting, and said it was difficult to judge the credibility of the elections at this stage.
Independent reports from around the country echoed the foundation’s findings. In her blog post on the elections, former EU diplomat and analyst with the Afghan Analysts Network, Martine Van Bijlert, wrote: "consistent and credible reports from the south and the southeast have been coming in for days now: massive and blatant ballot stuffing; the removal or invalidation of votes for rival candidates; complete overhaul of ballot boxes; intimidation of witnesses and IEC [Independent Election Commission] staff; systematic removal of the publicly displayed tally sheets."
Given the preoccupation with the insurgent threat, there has not been much attention paid to the possibility that low voter turnout provided more space for electoral manipulation. There are signs that suggest a large number of people have been deprived of their constitutional right to cast a ballot.
Addressing the issue of disenfranchisement during a news conference on August 22, the head of the NDI delegation, Kenneth Wollach, stated "disenfranchisement here takes on a different meaning" since it is "not the work of partisan actors, but the result of those trying to disrupt the elections. You cannot blame the IEC for it."
Regardless of who was responsible, Van Bijlert told EurasiaNet, voters were still deprived of their rights: "If there was a flood in the country and half the country couldn’t vote, that’s nobody’s fault but that doesn’t mean that the voters weren’t disenfranchised. That doesn’t mean that it was fine."
The European Union Mission, which termed the holding of elections as a "victory for the Afghan people" said the IEC "generally functioned efficiently" and that "the process seems at this stage to have been largely positive." Currently, the EU seems reluctant to address questions of fraud, saying it is too early in the process for any definitive assessment, and that only Afghans themselves could make the judgment.
By remaining tight-lipped, the EU mission threatens to undermine its credibility, some human rights advocates say. "An assessment this positive will be hard to [believe] for millions of Afghans in insecure parts of the country," said Rachel Reid, the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch.
The initial findings of the observer missions lauded the polling process and its fairness. Many local experts, however, say that irregularities appear to have been most prevalent in the insecure southern provinces, where most observer missions were unable to deploy. Some observers who did make it to southern areas remained confined to secured military compounds for the better part of election day.
While acknowledging that insecurity hampered their movements, the missions have been reticent in providing details of their election-day activities. Their conclusions, based solely on observations from the more secure areas where polling was less tainted, therefore may well provide only a partial, if not distorted, perception of the proceedings.
While the lack of official statistics from the IEC is certainly a constraint for diplomatic missions and international observers, even the right questions are not being asked at this stage, experts say.
Of half a dozen observer groups and a plethora of diplomatic representatives, only Democracy International (DI), pointed out the problems related to the IEC’s decision to withhold the vote count until five days after Election Day, terming it "unfortunate." DI has noted that releasing the partial results would be a way to enhance confidence in the process by increasing transparency.
Concerned analysts say that downplaying irregularities could have practical consequences for the democratization process. "Most observers are treating the election as if it is over, but I think the real contest is just beginning. The main question is how much blatant breaking of the law will be accepted for the sake of [what seems to bring] short-term stability," Van Bijlert said, adding, "Much of the fraud has been widespread, blatant and linked to government or electoral officials. If that is left unchallenged and unacknowledged, the message to the population is clear: this is how it is going to be."
Echoing these sentiments, Reid said, any attempt "to deny the full extent of the flaws in this election would only serve to further disenfranchise the Afghan electorate."
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/24/09
Diplomats have rushed to declare Afghanistan’s August 20 presidential and provincial council elections a success, while downplaying credible reports of disenfranchisement and widespread electoral irregularities. The apparent reluctance to acknowledge circumstantial evidence of substantial vote-rigging could have damaging, even irreparable consequences for Afghanistan’s democratization process, some experts contend.
In Kabul and donor capitals, the emphasis has been on celebrating the fact that elections were held at all, rather than on the likelihood that the voices of a considerable number of Afghans will not be heard. Both Afghans and internationals heaved a sigh of relief when polling day passed with a much lower-than-expected level of violence.
Noting the extremist challenge, US President Barack Obama characterized the elections as an important step forward. The European Union Observer Mission (EUOM) and the observer missions of the US-based National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI) also termed the elections successful, adding that the voting offered evidence of Kabul’s commitment to democratization. Meanwhile, in his congratulatory remarks, UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon referred to the "extremely challenging environment."
In their assessments, international observers appeared to focus mainly on the Taliban’s attempt to disrupt the polls. They paid far less attention to other electoral problems, including alleged irregularities carried out by government functionaries.
The Free and Fair Election Foundation of Afghanistan, an Afghan body, documented a widespread "lack of impartiality of election staff at the local level." It also recorded numerous cases of proxy voting and some voters’ use of multiple cards. It reported underage voting, and said it was difficult to judge the credibility of the elections at this stage.
Independent reports from around the country echoed the foundation’s findings. In her blog post on the elections, former EU diplomat and analyst with the Afghan Analysts Network, Martine Van Bijlert, wrote: "consistent and credible reports from the south and the southeast have been coming in for days now: massive and blatant ballot stuffing; the removal or invalidation of votes for rival candidates; complete overhaul of ballot boxes; intimidation of witnesses and IEC [Independent Election Commission] staff; systematic removal of the publicly displayed tally sheets."
Given the preoccupation with the insurgent threat, there has not been much attention paid to the possibility that low voter turnout provided more space for electoral manipulation. There are signs that suggest a large number of people have been deprived of their constitutional right to cast a ballot.
Addressing the issue of disenfranchisement during a news conference on August 22, the head of the NDI delegation, Kenneth Wollach, stated "disenfranchisement here takes on a different meaning" since it is "not the work of partisan actors, but the result of those trying to disrupt the elections. You cannot blame the IEC for it."
Regardless of who was responsible, Van Bijlert told EurasiaNet, voters were still deprived of their rights: "If there was a flood in the country and half the country couldn’t vote, that’s nobody’s fault but that doesn’t mean that the voters weren’t disenfranchised. That doesn’t mean that it was fine."
The European Union Mission, which termed the holding of elections as a "victory for the Afghan people" said the IEC "generally functioned efficiently" and that "the process seems at this stage to have been largely positive." Currently, the EU seems reluctant to address questions of fraud, saying it is too early in the process for any definitive assessment, and that only Afghans themselves could make the judgment.
By remaining tight-lipped, the EU mission threatens to undermine its credibility, some human rights advocates say. "An assessment this positive will be hard to [believe] for millions of Afghans in insecure parts of the country," said Rachel Reid, the Afghanistan researcher for Human Rights Watch.
The initial findings of the observer missions lauded the polling process and its fairness. Many local experts, however, say that irregularities appear to have been most prevalent in the insecure southern provinces, where most observer missions were unable to deploy. Some observers who did make it to southern areas remained confined to secured military compounds for the better part of election day.
While acknowledging that insecurity hampered their movements, the missions have been reticent in providing details of their election-day activities. Their conclusions, based solely on observations from the more secure areas where polling was less tainted, therefore may well provide only a partial, if not distorted, perception of the proceedings.
While the lack of official statistics from the IEC is certainly a constraint for diplomatic missions and international observers, even the right questions are not being asked at this stage, experts say.
Of half a dozen observer groups and a plethora of diplomatic representatives, only Democracy International (DI), pointed out the problems related to the IEC’s decision to withhold the vote count until five days after Election Day, terming it "unfortunate." DI has noted that releasing the partial results would be a way to enhance confidence in the process by increasing transparency.
Concerned analysts say that downplaying irregularities could have practical consequences for the democratization process. "Most observers are treating the election as if it is over, but I think the real contest is just beginning. The main question is how much blatant breaking of the law will be accepted for the sake of [what seems to bring] short-term stability," Van Bijlert said, adding, "Much of the fraud has been widespread, blatant and linked to government or electoral officials. If that is left unchallenged and unacknowledged, the message to the population is clear: this is how it is going to be."
Echoing these sentiments, Reid said, any attempt "to deny the full extent of the flaws in this election would only serve to further disenfranchise the Afghan electorate."
Afghan Women's Vote Hindered by Taliban and More
Run Date: 08/20/09
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
Afghan women's participation is expected to be low in Thursday's national elections. Security fears and conservative customs are expected to hinder female voters, candidates and poll watchers.
KABUL, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)--On a hot summer's day early this month, the loya jirga, or grand council, here in the capital was buzzing with activity.
Women--students, professionals and activists--milled around, exchanging stories, ideas and laughter, readying themselves for the fusion of two voter turnout efforts: The 5 Million Women Campaign and the 50 Percent Campaign.
The two campaigns, one focused on demanding the government secure women's right to vote and the other on ending discrimination and ensuring women's participation, came together in the face of worries that few women would make it to their polling places.
The activists face what are widely considered extreme difficulties.
While Thursday's elections are sometimes hailed as another step in Afghanistan's slow march towards democracy, a large section of the country's women stand in danger of being disenfranchised through a combination of increasing violence and a resurgence of conservative attitudes inhibiting women's political involvement.
The elections occur in the bloodiest phase of an eight-year conflict. The war has caused a 24 percent increase in the number of civilian casualties in the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago, according to July 31 U.N. report that says actual deaths may be much higher due to difficulties collecting information.
Large Areas Off Limits
Large areas of the country are categorized as either under enemy control or at high risk for attack by insurgents. An official map obtained by Reuters in April showed half the country in this situation. Since then security has worsened, especially in the week before the elections with militants carrying out several targeted strikes in Kabul, including a suicide-bombing on Tuesday that killed seven.
Voter registration could not take place in several districts because of the presence or control of the Taliban. The government officially admits to 8 of the country's 364 districts being under Taliban control, but polling may not take place or may be severely compromised in many more.
While the increasing insecurity affects all voters, women are likely to be far more severely impacted, says Leeda Yaqoobi, deputy director of Afghan Women's Network, the umbrella organizations of over 70 women's groups that organized the loya jirga meeting.
"Security is one of the major problems that prevents women from voting on election day," she told Women's eNews.
In addition to the generally violent atmosphere, women's rights advocates worry about targeted attacks on women in the public sphere.
"Women participating in public life face threats, harassment and attacks," a July 8 U.N. report on violence in Afghanistan found, and contributed to an effective imprisonment of women in their homes.
Local Traditions Also Blamed
Despite a tendency to blame violence against women on the Taliban, the July report says women in public life have also been targeted by "local traditional and religious power holders, their own families and communities and, in some instances, by government officials."
In Thursday's provincial council elections, not enough female candidates were found to fill the 25 percent quota for women.
In Kandahar, for example, three women are running for the four reserved seats. None of these candidates was able to either live or campaign in the province because of the threats to them, according to the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
A joint verification exercise of political rights carried out by this commission and the U.N. mission in Afghanistan found "women's right to vote appears to be at risk in insecure areas."
Within days of the election, despite several months of preparatory time, the country's Independent Election Commission had not been able to locate women to staff many of the polling booths in at least 8 of the 34 provinces in the country. It was sending out desperate appeals.
Without female staff at polling booths to assist and frisk women voters--a necessary security precaution--many women are likely to be unable to cast their votes.
Dangerous Travel Required
Polling booths in many of the insecure areas are also likely to be moved, forcing voters to traverse large distances through insecure territory, a hurdle more likely to discourage women.
In culturally conservative parts of Afghanistan women still are still required to have permission from their families to leave their home; participation in the polling exercise is not considered appropriate.
In some parts of the country this has been legally enshrined by the new Shia Personal Status Law signed by President Hamid Karzai in mid-July. Among other things, that law--governing the minority Shia Muslim community--makes it illegal for a woman to vote without her husband's permission, if custom dictates.
Vote tallies are unlikely to reflect the full extent of women's disenfranchisement. In conservative areas, men cast the votes of the women in their families, a practice that is accepted by polling staff in deference to the conservative attitudes.
"We will of course give our votes (voter registration cards) to the men," a young Pashtun woman in the eastern province of Nangarhar, bordering Pakistan, recently told Women's eNews. "We do not have permission to go out to vote."
Firebrand parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai fears such "proxy voting' may be widespread. "This is a concern, that in the name of women, men may vote," she said in an interview in Kabul.
In some areas the registration of women did not require photographic identity cards, creating the opportunity for massive forgery of registration cards, says Martine van Biljert, an analyst with the Afghan Analysts Network, a think-tank based in Berlin.
Biljert, who has spent several years working in Afghanistan, says "the absence of a credible voter registry, or any other reliable form of registry, and the lack of effective safeguards against multiple registrations has greatly facilitated the widespread incidence of multiple and proxy voting."
In the parliamentary elections of 2005, high female turnout was initially hailed as a sign of progress, but later attributed to the kind of fraud that may be repeated on Thursday.
Women's ability to vote is expected to depend on the local conditions.
In the village of Langarkhel in the Pashtun belt of Nangarhar province, for instance, no women were visible in the campaign rallies when presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah came to visit. However the provincial council candidate Abdullah Arsala, said a meeting of male village elders had decided that women could be allowed to vote.
By Aunohita Mojumdar
WeNews correspondent
Afghan women's participation is expected to be low in Thursday's national elections. Security fears and conservative customs are expected to hinder female voters, candidates and poll watchers.
KABUL, Afghanistan (WOMENSENEWS)--On a hot summer's day early this month, the loya jirga, or grand council, here in the capital was buzzing with activity.
Women--students, professionals and activists--milled around, exchanging stories, ideas and laughter, readying themselves for the fusion of two voter turnout efforts: The 5 Million Women Campaign and the 50 Percent Campaign.
The two campaigns, one focused on demanding the government secure women's right to vote and the other on ending discrimination and ensuring women's participation, came together in the face of worries that few women would make it to their polling places.
The activists face what are widely considered extreme difficulties.
While Thursday's elections are sometimes hailed as another step in Afghanistan's slow march towards democracy, a large section of the country's women stand in danger of being disenfranchised through a combination of increasing violence and a resurgence of conservative attitudes inhibiting women's political involvement.
The elections occur in the bloodiest phase of an eight-year conflict. The war has caused a 24 percent increase in the number of civilian casualties in the first seven months of 2009 compared with the same period a year ago, according to July 31 U.N. report that says actual deaths may be much higher due to difficulties collecting information.
Large Areas Off Limits
Large areas of the country are categorized as either under enemy control or at high risk for attack by insurgents. An official map obtained by Reuters in April showed half the country in this situation. Since then security has worsened, especially in the week before the elections with militants carrying out several targeted strikes in Kabul, including a suicide-bombing on Tuesday that killed seven.
Voter registration could not take place in several districts because of the presence or control of the Taliban. The government officially admits to 8 of the country's 364 districts being under Taliban control, but polling may not take place or may be severely compromised in many more.
While the increasing insecurity affects all voters, women are likely to be far more severely impacted, says Leeda Yaqoobi, deputy director of Afghan Women's Network, the umbrella organizations of over 70 women's groups that organized the loya jirga meeting.
"Security is one of the major problems that prevents women from voting on election day," she told Women's eNews.
In addition to the generally violent atmosphere, women's rights advocates worry about targeted attacks on women in the public sphere.
"Women participating in public life face threats, harassment and attacks," a July 8 U.N. report on violence in Afghanistan found, and contributed to an effective imprisonment of women in their homes.
Local Traditions Also Blamed
Despite a tendency to blame violence against women on the Taliban, the July report says women in public life have also been targeted by "local traditional and religious power holders, their own families and communities and, in some instances, by government officials."
In Thursday's provincial council elections, not enough female candidates were found to fill the 25 percent quota for women.
In Kandahar, for example, three women are running for the four reserved seats. None of these candidates was able to either live or campaign in the province because of the threats to them, according to the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.
A joint verification exercise of political rights carried out by this commission and the U.N. mission in Afghanistan found "women's right to vote appears to be at risk in insecure areas."
Within days of the election, despite several months of preparatory time, the country's Independent Election Commission had not been able to locate women to staff many of the polling booths in at least 8 of the 34 provinces in the country. It was sending out desperate appeals.
Without female staff at polling booths to assist and frisk women voters--a necessary security precaution--many women are likely to be unable to cast their votes.
Dangerous Travel Required
Polling booths in many of the insecure areas are also likely to be moved, forcing voters to traverse large distances through insecure territory, a hurdle more likely to discourage women.
In culturally conservative parts of Afghanistan women still are still required to have permission from their families to leave their home; participation in the polling exercise is not considered appropriate.
In some parts of the country this has been legally enshrined by the new Shia Personal Status Law signed by President Hamid Karzai in mid-July. Among other things, that law--governing the minority Shia Muslim community--makes it illegal for a woman to vote without her husband's permission, if custom dictates.
Vote tallies are unlikely to reflect the full extent of women's disenfranchisement. In conservative areas, men cast the votes of the women in their families, a practice that is accepted by polling staff in deference to the conservative attitudes.
"We will of course give our votes (voter registration cards) to the men," a young Pashtun woman in the eastern province of Nangarhar, bordering Pakistan, recently told Women's eNews. "We do not have permission to go out to vote."
Firebrand parliamentarian Shukria Barakzai fears such "proxy voting' may be widespread. "This is a concern, that in the name of women, men may vote," she said in an interview in Kabul.
In some areas the registration of women did not require photographic identity cards, creating the opportunity for massive forgery of registration cards, says Martine van Biljert, an analyst with the Afghan Analysts Network, a think-tank based in Berlin.
Biljert, who has spent several years working in Afghanistan, says "the absence of a credible voter registry, or any other reliable form of registry, and the lack of effective safeguards against multiple registrations has greatly facilitated the widespread incidence of multiple and proxy voting."
In the parliamentary elections of 2005, high female turnout was initially hailed as a sign of progress, but later attributed to the kind of fraud that may be repeated on Thursday.
Women's ability to vote is expected to depend on the local conditions.
In the village of Langarkhel in the Pashtun belt of Nangarhar province, for instance, no women were visible in the campaign rallies when presidential candidate Abdullah Abdullah came to visit. However the provincial council candidate Abdullah Arsala, said a meeting of male village elders had decided that women could be allowed to vote.
AFGHANISTAN: GOVERNMENT DECLARES ELECTIONS SUCCESS AMIDST MIXED TURNOUT
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/20/09
Counting the ballots in Afghanistan’s second presidential and provincial council elections has begun. Despite some reports of attacks and election irregularities throughout the country, polls closed on August 20 without any major violent disruptions by insurgents.
At an evening news conference in Kabul, the Independent Election Commission and the Afghan government declared the process a success. Meanwhile, representatives of the international community rushed to offer congratulations on the completion of the process that many had feared would be disrupted by a much higher level of violence.
Voter turnout appeared to vary widely across the country, with some areas, especially the more volatile southern provinces, reporting low polling. No official polling figures were available and the country’s Independent Election Commission said the actual voter turnout would not be made public for three or four days.
Preliminary results of the counting process are expected to be available by August 25. The certified results will take much longer, however, and can be released only after the Electoral Complaints Commission has completed its investigation into any complaints it receives.
If no candidate clears 51 percent in the first round, a runoff will be held. Opinion on the advantages of a second round is sharply divided. While some feel that the best option is to complete the process as quickly and cleanly as possible, leaving no room for dissension and possible instability, others believe a second round would be a healthy precedent for a nascent democracy, demonstrating the complexity of their options to voters.
Sporadic complaints of electoral irregularities were reported. But in the absence of any definitive election-related data, it was difficult to judge the extent to which the voting -- the first to be led by Afghan institutions -- was free and fair. Moreover, an August 18 government directive that called on media organizations not to report on any incident of violence during the polling hours further hampered the flow of information.
In the Tajurbai High School in Charikar, about an hour north of Kabul, Zubaida Shaheeba a doctor in the local hospital arrived in a burkha and with three children to cast her vote. While she refused to say for whom she had voted, the area is a stronghold of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance and most voters were casting their ballots for Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.
Nearby, at the Mir Ali Ahmed Shaheed High School, 205 men and 88 women had voted by midmorning -- a reasonable turnout -- and election observers were closely monitoring the process.
While the ethnicity of the candidate appeared to be a primary motivation in these districts, voters also cited disenchantment with the President Hamid Karzai’s administration. In an indication of apathy, even polling staff in several polling stations in the area did not appear to have voted, with several telling EurasiaNet they were too busy or had lost their cards or had found it difficult to obtain one. In a mosque that was serving as a temporary polling station, and situated only 200 meters from the US military base at Bagram, Ismatullah and Mohammed Fahim said they had voted in the hope of peace.
Journalists visiting that station were prevented from asking questions about the polling process after initial difficulty in getting entry, despite being accredited to observe the electoral process.
Back in Kabul, the streets were deserted and most businesses closed. Some polling stations saw a brisk turnout, according to voters. Farid, a taxi driver, who had told EurasiaNet last month that he would vote for Karzai even though he didn’t like him, opted to vote for Abdullah instead. Though Ramazan Bashardost was his favorite candidate, he decided to back Abdullah who had a better chance of winning against Karzai, he said.
In addition to sporadic incidents reported around the country, violence hit the capital when two armed insurgents holed up in a building were reportedly shot dead by security forces.
Although journalists complained that security forces barred them from covering the Kabul clash, the government’s directive not to report on violence had a mixed impact. International media ignored it and some Afghan media outlets like the independent Pajhwok Afghan News opposed the ban with a strongly worded statement, saying such orders did not have any basis in the Afghan constitution or principles of democracy.
But many Afghan media outlets appeared to have bowed to official pressure. Outlets that followed the directive were praised by the head of the National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, "for complying with the government’s rules and regulations." The head of the Independent Election Commission Azizullah Lodin -- who had supported the directive -- said the media were free to criticize in a positive way, as long as it did not interfere with the Commission’s work.
In a joint press conference during the evening of August 20, a phalanx of top government officials flanked Lodin and proclaimed the elections to be a success, describing election day as a government victory over the radical Islamic insurgency. At the event, the ministers of interior and defense and the head of the National Security Directorate described several instances where security forces had discovered and disrupted insurgent plants of attack.
Responding to the election process, the UN’s top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the fact that elections had taken place was itself an achievement since the possibility of holding elections in the current situation had itself been in doubt.
Some observers, however, disputed the notion that the relative calm on August marked a major triumph for the government. They pointed out that the Taliban and other insurgent groups had already demonstrated their capabilities in recent weeks, staging targeted attacks, showing they could have disrupted the elections if they wished. That they did not, the observers add, indicates that the opposition is growing more sophisticated and concerned for civilian casualties.
The UN envoy said the security situation was better than had been feared, that young Afghans had shown their confidence in the democratic process and that, overall, the day had been good for Afghanistan. He said the international community expected the political leadership and the other parts of the establishment to make sure there was no instability following the elections and to come together and unite behind a common agenda.
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/20/09
Counting the ballots in Afghanistan’s second presidential and provincial council elections has begun. Despite some reports of attacks and election irregularities throughout the country, polls closed on August 20 without any major violent disruptions by insurgents.
At an evening news conference in Kabul, the Independent Election Commission and the Afghan government declared the process a success. Meanwhile, representatives of the international community rushed to offer congratulations on the completion of the process that many had feared would be disrupted by a much higher level of violence.
Voter turnout appeared to vary widely across the country, with some areas, especially the more volatile southern provinces, reporting low polling. No official polling figures were available and the country’s Independent Election Commission said the actual voter turnout would not be made public for three or four days.
Preliminary results of the counting process are expected to be available by August 25. The certified results will take much longer, however, and can be released only after the Electoral Complaints Commission has completed its investigation into any complaints it receives.
If no candidate clears 51 percent in the first round, a runoff will be held. Opinion on the advantages of a second round is sharply divided. While some feel that the best option is to complete the process as quickly and cleanly as possible, leaving no room for dissension and possible instability, others believe a second round would be a healthy precedent for a nascent democracy, demonstrating the complexity of their options to voters.
Sporadic complaints of electoral irregularities were reported. But in the absence of any definitive election-related data, it was difficult to judge the extent to which the voting -- the first to be led by Afghan institutions -- was free and fair. Moreover, an August 18 government directive that called on media organizations not to report on any incident of violence during the polling hours further hampered the flow of information.
In the Tajurbai High School in Charikar, about an hour north of Kabul, Zubaida Shaheeba a doctor in the local hospital arrived in a burkha and with three children to cast her vote. While she refused to say for whom she had voted, the area is a stronghold of the Tajik-led Northern Alliance and most voters were casting their ballots for Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.
Nearby, at the Mir Ali Ahmed Shaheed High School, 205 men and 88 women had voted by midmorning -- a reasonable turnout -- and election observers were closely monitoring the process.
While the ethnicity of the candidate appeared to be a primary motivation in these districts, voters also cited disenchantment with the President Hamid Karzai’s administration. In an indication of apathy, even polling staff in several polling stations in the area did not appear to have voted, with several telling EurasiaNet they were too busy or had lost their cards or had found it difficult to obtain one. In a mosque that was serving as a temporary polling station, and situated only 200 meters from the US military base at Bagram, Ismatullah and Mohammed Fahim said they had voted in the hope of peace.
Journalists visiting that station were prevented from asking questions about the polling process after initial difficulty in getting entry, despite being accredited to observe the electoral process.
Back in Kabul, the streets were deserted and most businesses closed. Some polling stations saw a brisk turnout, according to voters. Farid, a taxi driver, who had told EurasiaNet last month that he would vote for Karzai even though he didn’t like him, opted to vote for Abdullah instead. Though Ramazan Bashardost was his favorite candidate, he decided to back Abdullah who had a better chance of winning against Karzai, he said.
In addition to sporadic incidents reported around the country, violence hit the capital when two armed insurgents holed up in a building were reportedly shot dead by security forces.
Although journalists complained that security forces barred them from covering the Kabul clash, the government’s directive not to report on violence had a mixed impact. International media ignored it and some Afghan media outlets like the independent Pajhwok Afghan News opposed the ban with a strongly worded statement, saying such orders did not have any basis in the Afghan constitution or principles of democracy.
But many Afghan media outlets appeared to have bowed to official pressure. Outlets that followed the directive were praised by the head of the National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, "for complying with the government’s rules and regulations." The head of the Independent Election Commission Azizullah Lodin -- who had supported the directive -- said the media were free to criticize in a positive way, as long as it did not interfere with the Commission’s work.
In a joint press conference during the evening of August 20, a phalanx of top government officials flanked Lodin and proclaimed the elections to be a success, describing election day as a government victory over the radical Islamic insurgency. At the event, the ministers of interior and defense and the head of the National Security Directorate described several instances where security forces had discovered and disrupted insurgent plants of attack.
Responding to the election process, the UN’s top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, said the fact that elections had taken place was itself an achievement since the possibility of holding elections in the current situation had itself been in doubt.
Some observers, however, disputed the notion that the relative calm on August marked a major triumph for the government. They pointed out that the Taliban and other insurgent groups had already demonstrated their capabilities in recent weeks, staging targeted attacks, showing they could have disrupted the elections if they wished. That they did not, the observers add, indicates that the opposition is growing more sophisticated and concerned for civilian casualties.
The UN envoy said the security situation was better than had been feared, that young Afghans had shown their confidence in the democratic process and that, overall, the day had been good for Afghanistan. He said the international community expected the political leadership and the other parts of the establishment to make sure there was no instability following the elections and to come together and unite behind a common agenda.
The game continues
Hindustan Times
August 20
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan will take one more baby step towards democracy and the international community one more towards its exit strategy as the country goes to the polls today to elect a new President. The 2009 presidential elections will take place in the midst of intensifying violence that has reached levels unprecedented since 2001 when the Taliban were removed. Unlike the presidential elections in 2004 and the 2005 parliamentary polls, which were viewed as the last pieces in the jigsaw puzzle which would complete the framework of the new Afghan State, these elections are taking place at a time of enormous political flux.
In 2004, the results appeared a fait accompli and the emphasis was on how the technical exercise involving logistics and security of the polling could be carried out with minimal disruption. This time however the mood of the country is considerably different with a real appetite for change. Three serious contenders threaten the political position of incumbent President Hamid Karzai who needs to secure 51 per cent of the votes in order to stave off a run-off involving a second round of polling. Current opinion polls suggest Karzai is well short of the mark and a second round of polling could consolidate the fragmented opposition vote.
The slow pace of economic recovery and delivery of services accompanied by credible evidence of wastage of resources and corruption has created strong resentment against the incumbent regime. Though the Taliban’s brutality and rigid intolerance continues to alienate Afghans, public support for the State-building exercise now comes with increasing conditions attached.
Afghans would like to see greater sovereignty restored to them, whether it is through control of the resources spent in their name in their country or through more checks on the operations of the international military forces which have taken increasingly high tolls of civilian lives. Antipathy towards the Taliban may not express itself through the ballot and a large section of voters may choose to stay at home given the surge in violence in the week ahead of the polls.
While there has been a great deal of focus on the likely winner, it is unlikely that either change or continuity through these elections will throw up any real answers. The current administrative and political system, which concentrates decision-making authority in the presidential office, marginalising both Parliament and the provinces, ensures that any man put in the position will have limited impact.
However what could be significantly different is the approach of the next incumbent to negotiations with the Taliban, which are being increasingly seen as a sine qua non for peace in Afghanistan by the western countries and a section of Afghan polity.
While the Taliban have threatened to disrupt the polls asking voters to stay away, it is not clear whether they will carry out large-scale violent attacks on the population, not least because of divisions within the Taliban’s own leadership on the long-term strategy and eventual peace talks. A section of the insurgent group may also prefer to see more sympathetic candidates being elected to the provincial councils, elections to which will also be held simultaneously.
The fear of polling day will not be the only factor keeping voters away. With some districts in the volatile south and south east of the country out of government control, no registration of voters has taken place. The incredibly high number of registered voters — which stands today at 17 million — is viewed with alarm by independent observers who see it as a sign of electoral malpractice and multiple voter cards. With no voter rolls or census and little substantive proof required of identity, much of the checks and balances on electoral malpractice may be dependent on polling staff whose ability to work independently is in question. Proxy voting, tampering of tally sheets, ballot stuffing were observed and documented in the past and are expected to be repeated again.
In past elections such malpractices have been by and large condoned by internationals engaged in the electoral process including those tasked with oversight. The prevailing opinion then was that political stability was more necessary than pursuing electoral malpractices that might undermine the credibility of the elections and lead to instability. Current indications are that this will also be the approach this time.
Troop contributing countries in Afghanistan hope to tout the Afghan elections as a sign of the progress made in Afghanistan towards a democratic polity, that will eventually allow them to withdraw troops from an increasingly unpopular military engagement. Fearful of possible unrest and violence that may rock the fragile stability holding the country together, the international community is likely to, by and large, endorse the elections as the lesser of two evils.
In Afghanistan, however, there is a discernible change in the perception of voters. Debates about a level playing field, the misuse of State resources and the past record of the incumbent government have been part of a lively debate. While internationals may be willing to compromise on the credibility of a democratic exercise in a country in conflict, Afghans are less willing to do so than before. In these elections, as in the entire State-building exercise, Afghans are being asked to choose ballots over bullets. The appeal to their democratic credentials must be matched by an equal commitment from the international community.
August 20
Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan will take one more baby step towards democracy and the international community one more towards its exit strategy as the country goes to the polls today to elect a new President. The 2009 presidential elections will take place in the midst of intensifying violence that has reached levels unprecedented since 2001 when the Taliban were removed. Unlike the presidential elections in 2004 and the 2005 parliamentary polls, which were viewed as the last pieces in the jigsaw puzzle which would complete the framework of the new Afghan State, these elections are taking place at a time of enormous political flux.
In 2004, the results appeared a fait accompli and the emphasis was on how the technical exercise involving logistics and security of the polling could be carried out with minimal disruption. This time however the mood of the country is considerably different with a real appetite for change. Three serious contenders threaten the political position of incumbent President Hamid Karzai who needs to secure 51 per cent of the votes in order to stave off a run-off involving a second round of polling. Current opinion polls suggest Karzai is well short of the mark and a second round of polling could consolidate the fragmented opposition vote.
The slow pace of economic recovery and delivery of services accompanied by credible evidence of wastage of resources and corruption has created strong resentment against the incumbent regime. Though the Taliban’s brutality and rigid intolerance continues to alienate Afghans, public support for the State-building exercise now comes with increasing conditions attached.
Afghans would like to see greater sovereignty restored to them, whether it is through control of the resources spent in their name in their country or through more checks on the operations of the international military forces which have taken increasingly high tolls of civilian lives. Antipathy towards the Taliban may not express itself through the ballot and a large section of voters may choose to stay at home given the surge in violence in the week ahead of the polls.
While there has been a great deal of focus on the likely winner, it is unlikely that either change or continuity through these elections will throw up any real answers. The current administrative and political system, which concentrates decision-making authority in the presidential office, marginalising both Parliament and the provinces, ensures that any man put in the position will have limited impact.
However what could be significantly different is the approach of the next incumbent to negotiations with the Taliban, which are being increasingly seen as a sine qua non for peace in Afghanistan by the western countries and a section of Afghan polity.
While the Taliban have threatened to disrupt the polls asking voters to stay away, it is not clear whether they will carry out large-scale violent attacks on the population, not least because of divisions within the Taliban’s own leadership on the long-term strategy and eventual peace talks. A section of the insurgent group may also prefer to see more sympathetic candidates being elected to the provincial councils, elections to which will also be held simultaneously.
The fear of polling day will not be the only factor keeping voters away. With some districts in the volatile south and south east of the country out of government control, no registration of voters has taken place. The incredibly high number of registered voters — which stands today at 17 million — is viewed with alarm by independent observers who see it as a sign of electoral malpractice and multiple voter cards. With no voter rolls or census and little substantive proof required of identity, much of the checks and balances on electoral malpractice may be dependent on polling staff whose ability to work independently is in question. Proxy voting, tampering of tally sheets, ballot stuffing were observed and documented in the past and are expected to be repeated again.
In past elections such malpractices have been by and large condoned by internationals engaged in the electoral process including those tasked with oversight. The prevailing opinion then was that political stability was more necessary than pursuing electoral malpractices that might undermine the credibility of the elections and lead to instability. Current indications are that this will also be the approach this time.
Troop contributing countries in Afghanistan hope to tout the Afghan elections as a sign of the progress made in Afghanistan towards a democratic polity, that will eventually allow them to withdraw troops from an increasingly unpopular military engagement. Fearful of possible unrest and violence that may rock the fragile stability holding the country together, the international community is likely to, by and large, endorse the elections as the lesser of two evils.
In Afghanistan, however, there is a discernible change in the perception of voters. Debates about a level playing field, the misuse of State resources and the past record of the incumbent government have been part of a lively debate. While internationals may be willing to compromise on the credibility of a democratic exercise in a country in conflict, Afghans are less willing to do so than before. In these elections, as in the entire State-building exercise, Afghans are being asked to choose ballots over bullets. The appeal to their democratic credentials must be matched by an equal commitment from the international community.
AFGHANISTAN: UNCERTAINTIES AND FEAR LOOM DAY BEFORE VOTE
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 8/19/09
Polling for the second presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan will open early on August 20 in a milieu of competing hopes and fears, uncertain logistics and precarious security conditions. The 2009 polls also take place in a state of political flux unprecedented since the forced removal of the Taliban in 2001.
How many polling stations will open, where they will be located and how much of the electorate will be able to access the ballots remains as uncertain as the level of anticipated violence. Equally uncertain is the extent of expected electoral malpractice, how much this will compromise the vote's legitimacy, and the tolerance of ordinary Afghans to fraud.
Less than 48 hours before polls open, the Election Complaints Commission said on August 18 that it was "possible that irregularities may occur during polling, and the counting and tallying of votes," and ruled out setting a final date for the results to be released. Reacting to the increase of targeted violence from anti-government elements, including rocket attacks and suicide bombings in Kabul this week, the Foreign Ministry called for censorship on Election Day, urging a blackout of all reporting on violence. "All domestic and international media agencies are requested to refrain from broadcasting any incident of violence during the election process," a statement from the ministry read, in order to "ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people."
Local conditions, interests and security, rather than media coverage, are more likely to determine voting conditions, however.
Unlike the previous elections where a positive outcome for incumbent President Hamid Karzai appeared a fait accompli, this time voters approach a real contest with a widespread appetite for change. One opinion poll, a US government-commissioned survey conducted in July by Glevum Associates, gave Karzai 36 percent support among registered voters, well below the 51 percent mark he needs to stave off a second round of voting. While polls indicated a fair number of undecided voters could change these figures, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah has emerged as a strong contender at the head of a fragmented opposition.
The four top presidential contesters -- running in a field of 41 candidates, including two women -- represent both the complex wishes and the competing interests of Afghan voters. Karzai exemplifies the Afghan penchant for deal making by appearing to have secured the support of major power brokers, including a catalog of former warlords. However, the campaign of Dr. Abdullah, who has inherited the Northern Alliance's political movement -- the foremost anti-Taliban faction before the US invasion -- is challenging the expectation that votes will be delivered solely by strongmen. Another contender, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, represents an alternative facet of Afghan politics today: the western-returned technocrat with strong links to the donor community. The fourth major contender, Ramazan Bashardost, a former planning minister, has made a name for himself by tapping into the public mood of disenchantment with violence, lack of development and corruption.
When Afghans go to the polls, they will do so with a mixture of hope and fear of change. While disenchantment with lack of economic development, delivery of services, increasing insecurity and high civilian casualties has shaped opinion in favor of change, the ongoing conflict also makes voters fearful that the situation could deteriorate further, pushing many to conclude that a known devil is better than an unknown one.
Whatever the outcome, change is unlikely to start merely with a new president. The current administrative and political structure has concentrated all decisions in the office of the president, marginalizing the role of the parliament and depriving provincial councils of any authority. Over the past eight years, the internationally supported central government has set up structures that bypass local decision making in an attempt to administer this large, unwieldy and varied country from a single seat in Kabul. The result has been a powerful presidency that is a source of patronage -- by the central appointment of governors and dishing out of development projects -- rather than legitimate authority, in the eyes of many Afghans.
Abdullah, calling for a parliamentary democracy more suited to Afghanistan's diverse and disparate population, has presented the most formidable opposition platform. But even if elected, he would find it difficult to dislodge powerbrokers embedded and strengthened through a combination of government backing and international support.
The major difference any of the candidates could bring to office immediately would be in the approach to negotiations with the armed opposition, often lumped together misleadingly under the rubric of the Taliban. A significant section of the international community and the Afghan polity view negotiations with armed groups as the sine qua non of any progress in Afghanistan, and pressure for the resumption of talks is likely to resume soon after the elections.
For the international community, desperate for some sign of progress in an engagement that is becoming increasingly unpopular back home, the elections are a needed signal of the legitimacy of their intervention. To that end, it is unlikely that foreign policy makers will make any significant criticism on the credibility of the vote, even if it is marred by lack of inclusiveness or electoral fraud. However an unquestioning endorsement of the electoral exercise could also be counterproductive. Afghans, who have been repeatedly asked to understand and adopt democracy and eschew conflict, have higher expectations of the democratic process today than in 2004.
Of course, the biggest question before the polling remains: How will the Afghan electorate react? The perception of legitimacy will be even more important than the actual legitimacy of the polls. In a context of growing public disenchantment and low tolerance for fraud, public anger could increase support for violence and other non-peaceful means of changing the status quo. If the August 20 elections and the response both lack legitimacy, those voting with the ballots for the building of Afghanistan's democracy today may vote against it with bullets tomorrow.
Aunohita Mojumdar: 8/19/09
Polling for the second presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan will open early on August 20 in a milieu of competing hopes and fears, uncertain logistics and precarious security conditions. The 2009 polls also take place in a state of political flux unprecedented since the forced removal of the Taliban in 2001.
How many polling stations will open, where they will be located and how much of the electorate will be able to access the ballots remains as uncertain as the level of anticipated violence. Equally uncertain is the extent of expected electoral malpractice, how much this will compromise the vote's legitimacy, and the tolerance of ordinary Afghans to fraud.
Less than 48 hours before polls open, the Election Complaints Commission said on August 18 that it was "possible that irregularities may occur during polling, and the counting and tallying of votes," and ruled out setting a final date for the results to be released. Reacting to the increase of targeted violence from anti-government elements, including rocket attacks and suicide bombings in Kabul this week, the Foreign Ministry called for censorship on Election Day, urging a blackout of all reporting on violence. "All domestic and international media agencies are requested to refrain from broadcasting any incident of violence during the election process," a statement from the ministry read, in order to "ensure the wide participation of the Afghan people."
Local conditions, interests and security, rather than media coverage, are more likely to determine voting conditions, however.
Unlike the previous elections where a positive outcome for incumbent President Hamid Karzai appeared a fait accompli, this time voters approach a real contest with a widespread appetite for change. One opinion poll, a US government-commissioned survey conducted in July by Glevum Associates, gave Karzai 36 percent support among registered voters, well below the 51 percent mark he needs to stave off a second round of voting. While polls indicated a fair number of undecided voters could change these figures, former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah has emerged as a strong contender at the head of a fragmented opposition.
The four top presidential contesters -- running in a field of 41 candidates, including two women -- represent both the complex wishes and the competing interests of Afghan voters. Karzai exemplifies the Afghan penchant for deal making by appearing to have secured the support of major power brokers, including a catalog of former warlords. However, the campaign of Dr. Abdullah, who has inherited the Northern Alliance's political movement -- the foremost anti-Taliban faction before the US invasion -- is challenging the expectation that votes will be delivered solely by strongmen. Another contender, Dr. Ashraf Ghani, represents an alternative facet of Afghan politics today: the western-returned technocrat with strong links to the donor community. The fourth major contender, Ramazan Bashardost, a former planning minister, has made a name for himself by tapping into the public mood of disenchantment with violence, lack of development and corruption.
When Afghans go to the polls, they will do so with a mixture of hope and fear of change. While disenchantment with lack of economic development, delivery of services, increasing insecurity and high civilian casualties has shaped opinion in favor of change, the ongoing conflict also makes voters fearful that the situation could deteriorate further, pushing many to conclude that a known devil is better than an unknown one.
Whatever the outcome, change is unlikely to start merely with a new president. The current administrative and political structure has concentrated all decisions in the office of the president, marginalizing the role of the parliament and depriving provincial councils of any authority. Over the past eight years, the internationally supported central government has set up structures that bypass local decision making in an attempt to administer this large, unwieldy and varied country from a single seat in Kabul. The result has been a powerful presidency that is a source of patronage -- by the central appointment of governors and dishing out of development projects -- rather than legitimate authority, in the eyes of many Afghans.
Abdullah, calling for a parliamentary democracy more suited to Afghanistan's diverse and disparate population, has presented the most formidable opposition platform. But even if elected, he would find it difficult to dislodge powerbrokers embedded and strengthened through a combination of government backing and international support.
The major difference any of the candidates could bring to office immediately would be in the approach to negotiations with the armed opposition, often lumped together misleadingly under the rubric of the Taliban. A significant section of the international community and the Afghan polity view negotiations with armed groups as the sine qua non of any progress in Afghanistan, and pressure for the resumption of talks is likely to resume soon after the elections.
For the international community, desperate for some sign of progress in an engagement that is becoming increasingly unpopular back home, the elections are a needed signal of the legitimacy of their intervention. To that end, it is unlikely that foreign policy makers will make any significant criticism on the credibility of the vote, even if it is marred by lack of inclusiveness or electoral fraud. However an unquestioning endorsement of the electoral exercise could also be counterproductive. Afghans, who have been repeatedly asked to understand and adopt democracy and eschew conflict, have higher expectations of the democratic process today than in 2004.
Of course, the biggest question before the polling remains: How will the Afghan electorate react? The perception of legitimacy will be even more important than the actual legitimacy of the polls. In a context of growing public disenchantment and low tolerance for fraud, public anger could increase support for violence and other non-peaceful means of changing the status quo. If the August 20 elections and the response both lack legitimacy, those voting with the ballots for the building of Afghanistan's democracy today may vote against it with bullets tomorrow.
AFGHANISTAN: VOTE MAY DISENFRANCHISE WOMEN
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/17/09
With only three days before presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan, the Independent Election Commission is sending out desperate appeals. In nearly a quarter of the country’s provinces, despite repeated pleas, the Afghan institution charged with managing the elections has been unable to recruit enough women to staff polling stations. Female staff members are necessary for searching women coming to vote, an essential part of the security matrix in polling stations across the country. Unless they are recruited -- rapidly -- in many areas women may be unable to cast their vote.
The possible disenfranchisement of a substantive section of the country’s population is more than a mere logistical concern. Increasing insecurity, including violence specifically targeted at women, as well as conservative attitudes, may combine to prevent many women from entering polling booths on August 20.
Despite certain advances in women’s rights, especially in some urban areas, women are facing increasing levels of retributive violence for participating in Afghanistan’s public space. Threats, attacks and even high profile assassinations have sent a clear warning to women to curb their participation in public activities. The result, said the UN in a recent report, is that the "pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. [. . .] The effective imprisonment of women in their homes in an electoral period raises additional concerns" about the legitimacy of the forthcoming elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
On the surface, it appears woman have made great gains since elections were last held in 2004. This time, there are more female candidates contesting for provincial council seats. But in southern provinces such as Kandahar and Uruzgan, despite the fact that 25 percent of the seats are reserved for female delegates, there are not enough female candidates to fill the quota.
In Kandahar Province, where the incumbent president’s brother Ahmad Wali Karzai heads the provincial council, there are just three female candidates, despite four seats set aside for women. According to Sima Samar, the chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), the three women "cannot live there because of the insecurity." Elsewhere, she said, there are examples of female candidates whose families and communities, opposed to their candidacy, forbid them to campaign. A joint monitoring exercise conducted by the AIHRC and UNAMA (the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) found that community leaders in some provinces had called upon people not to vote for female candidates.
Initially, observers touted the high rates of female voter registration, especially in conservative areas, as a sign that liberal democratic values were taking root. The reality is somewhat different, however. Often, male family members not only register the women in the family, but also vote for them, especially in conservative areas where women traditionally are not allowed to appear in public, something that was reported by international and national observer missions in past elections.
The system of proxy voting appears likely to be repeated in the current elections, said the feisty female parliamentarian and champion of women’s rights Shukriya Barakzai. "This is our concern. Our legal right to vote may be taken away. Women’s voter cards are not required to have photographs. So the male members of the family can use them," she told EurasiaNet.
In the village of Sarkot in conservative Nangarhar Province’s Sherzad District, on the Pakistani border, this female EurasiaNet correspondent was invited to visit the home of the largest landowning family, the local power brokers. Over 20 women of voting age live in this large extended family, but queried on whether or not they will vote, they do not comprehend the question until it is repeated several times.
"Of course not. We will give our votes to the [male] elders in the family and they will cast them," said a young woman. "We don’t have permission to leave our homes for the polling station," she added.
Despite concerns about the participation of women, female activists are not sitting by idly. On August 4, between 1200 and 1500 female activists launched ’The 50 Percent Campaign’ and the ’Five Million Campaign’ in Kabul’s Loya Jirga -- Grand Council -- tent, where equal rights for Afghan women were written into the country’s constitution in 2004.
The idea is to boost female turnout.
Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a female rights activist who mobilized women from the eastern provinces for the campaign launch, is hopeful. "Yes there is insecurity. But I think people will put this to one side and come out to vote, because the voting is about a democratic transition of power and we have all experienced the violence of a non-democratic transition. You can see how 1500 women came together the morning after Kabul had a series of rocket attacks while the internationals stayed indoors," she said.
The activists have certainly managed to put women’s issues higher on the agenda of some prominent candidates. While most campaigns scarcely mentioned women at first, this week prominent challengers Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah took time off from their busy campaigns to participate in a discussion on women’s rights hosted by an Afghan activist, Mahbouba Seraj. Missing from the platform was the incumbent president.
The government’s lack of support has not gone unnoticed by the female activists. In the Loya Jirga tent where a photograph of Karzai looms large, the activists first tried to remove the image. Unsuccessful, they asked media outlets not to include the portrait of the president in their footage or photographs. "We don’t want him using our event to get votes," said an activist. "We want the government to ensure our security so that we can go out and vote."
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/17/09
With only three days before presidential and provincial council elections in Afghanistan, the Independent Election Commission is sending out desperate appeals. In nearly a quarter of the country’s provinces, despite repeated pleas, the Afghan institution charged with managing the elections has been unable to recruit enough women to staff polling stations. Female staff members are necessary for searching women coming to vote, an essential part of the security matrix in polling stations across the country. Unless they are recruited -- rapidly -- in many areas women may be unable to cast their vote.
The possible disenfranchisement of a substantive section of the country’s population is more than a mere logistical concern. Increasing insecurity, including violence specifically targeted at women, as well as conservative attitudes, may combine to prevent many women from entering polling booths on August 20.
Despite certain advances in women’s rights, especially in some urban areas, women are facing increasing levels of retributive violence for participating in Afghanistan’s public space. Threats, attacks and even high profile assassinations have sent a clear warning to women to curb their participation in public activities. The result, said the UN in a recent report, is that the "pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. [. . .] The effective imprisonment of women in their homes in an electoral period raises additional concerns" about the legitimacy of the forthcoming elections. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
On the surface, it appears woman have made great gains since elections were last held in 2004. This time, there are more female candidates contesting for provincial council seats. But in southern provinces such as Kandahar and Uruzgan, despite the fact that 25 percent of the seats are reserved for female delegates, there are not enough female candidates to fill the quota.
In Kandahar Province, where the incumbent president’s brother Ahmad Wali Karzai heads the provincial council, there are just three female candidates, despite four seats set aside for women. According to Sima Samar, the chairwoman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), the three women "cannot live there because of the insecurity." Elsewhere, she said, there are examples of female candidates whose families and communities, opposed to their candidacy, forbid them to campaign. A joint monitoring exercise conducted by the AIHRC and UNAMA (the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan) found that community leaders in some provinces had called upon people not to vote for female candidates.
Initially, observers touted the high rates of female voter registration, especially in conservative areas, as a sign that liberal democratic values were taking root. The reality is somewhat different, however. Often, male family members not only register the women in the family, but also vote for them, especially in conservative areas where women traditionally are not allowed to appear in public, something that was reported by international and national observer missions in past elections.
The system of proxy voting appears likely to be repeated in the current elections, said the feisty female parliamentarian and champion of women’s rights Shukriya Barakzai. "This is our concern. Our legal right to vote may be taken away. Women’s voter cards are not required to have photographs. So the male members of the family can use them," she told EurasiaNet.
In the village of Sarkot in conservative Nangarhar Province’s Sherzad District, on the Pakistani border, this female EurasiaNet correspondent was invited to visit the home of the largest landowning family, the local power brokers. Over 20 women of voting age live in this large extended family, but queried on whether or not they will vote, they do not comprehend the question until it is repeated several times.
"Of course not. We will give our votes to the [male] elders in the family and they will cast them," said a young woman. "We don’t have permission to leave our homes for the polling station," she added.
Despite concerns about the participation of women, female activists are not sitting by idly. On August 4, between 1200 and 1500 female activists launched ’The 50 Percent Campaign’ and the ’Five Million Campaign’ in Kabul’s Loya Jirga -- Grand Council -- tent, where equal rights for Afghan women were written into the country’s constitution in 2004.
The idea is to boost female turnout.
Orzala Ashraf Nemat, a female rights activist who mobilized women from the eastern provinces for the campaign launch, is hopeful. "Yes there is insecurity. But I think people will put this to one side and come out to vote, because the voting is about a democratic transition of power and we have all experienced the violence of a non-democratic transition. You can see how 1500 women came together the morning after Kabul had a series of rocket attacks while the internationals stayed indoors," she said.
The activists have certainly managed to put women’s issues higher on the agenda of some prominent candidates. While most campaigns scarcely mentioned women at first, this week prominent challengers Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah took time off from their busy campaigns to participate in a discussion on women’s rights hosted by an Afghan activist, Mahbouba Seraj. Missing from the platform was the incumbent president.
The government’s lack of support has not gone unnoticed by the female activists. In the Loya Jirga tent where a photograph of Karzai looms large, the activists first tried to remove the image. Unsuccessful, they asked media outlets not to include the portrait of the president in their footage or photographs. "We don’t want him using our event to get votes," said an activist. "We want the government to ensure our security so that we can go out and vote."
Helping Afghan women find a voice
Al Jazeera/ August 7, 2009
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Shinkai Karokhail, a member of parliament in Afghanistan, has hopes that candidates running in upcoming presidential elections will bring women's issues to the fore.
She says she is concerned that since the US-led effort to oust the Taliban in 2001, women in many parts of the country have continued to face a lack of liberties and access to education.
Karokhail, who campaigned against a controversial Shia Family Law passed by the government in April, believes the major contenders for the presidential race have largely avoided women's issues in their election campaigns.
"Women's issues are as sensitive as the Durand line (the contested border between Afghanistan and Pakistan). Why should they [candidates] do something that might lose them the votes of conservatives and extremists?"
Women's political rights
Rights activists in Afghanistan are concerned that local media have focused on the high profile electoral campaigns of the candidates, particularly the top contenders, but sidelined women's issues.
special report
Al Jazeera's in-depth look at the presidential poll
Hoping to push their agenda forward, a group of women activists from Kabul organised a loya jirga (grand assembly) to mobilise women's votes and raise awareness of their rights.
Bringing together activists from around the country, the jirga was designed to put women's issues back on the agenda and to make sure that their voices are not ignored.
"We want women to learn how to obtain their political rights in a society dominated by men," Karokhail told Al Jazeera.
"Men will realise we have a voice. We need more women ministers, more diplomats, and for those who are there to come together and speak in one voice."
Making a difference
The campaign may be working.
Last week, candidates Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, and Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, participated in a special TV programme debating women's issues.
in video
Violence threatens women's vote
Although Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president, did not participate in the programme, the discussion was considered a major acknowledgement of women's issues and the importance of their vote.
Mahbouba Seraj, an activist who moderated the programme, told Al Jazeera: "Women's issues may have been low in priority for the candidates but they have been pushed higher as a result of the pressure of women activists."
Although women's voting patterns have not yet developed to sufficiently decide an election, they can still play a role in the provincial council polls which are being held simultaneously on August 20.
How a woman votes, or whether she chooses to vote at all, will make a difference to many of the 3,177 candidates contesting 420 provincial council seats.
Threats and intimidation
Orzala Ashraf, a human rights campaigner who mobilised women to play a more active role in politics in the volatile eastern provinces, says a woman's vote is integral to democratic development.
"What is important in this contest is also the culture of democracy and the principle of elections. We want to maintain the value of this principle," she says.
But many activists have complained of intimidation and violence against women ahead of the elections in many parts of the country.
They say there are also real fears of disenfranchisement because of increasingly conservative attitudes which restrict women from public affairs.
Gulalai Achakzai, a delegate to the jirga from Kandahar city, feels there is a "big difference between the previous elections and this one".
"Security has become so bad that I doubt if more than 10 per cent of the women voters will come out to vote on polling day," she says.
Achakzai's own distant relative, Sitara Achakzai, a member of Kandahar's provincial council, was shot dead in April.
"Stay at home"
A recent report prepared by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says that "the lives of a large number of Afghan women are seriously compromised by violence".
Activists say they need a candidate who will fight for women's education [GALLO/GETTY]
"The pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home ... The effective imprisonment of women in their homes in an electoral period raises additional concerns," the report said.
The UN report also indicated that the threats have come not just from the armed opposition, including the Taliban, but also religious leaders, village mullahs and even the women's families.
The violence has already impacted the democratic process as fewer women stand for elections.
While a concerted campaign by NGOs, electoral bodies and the media helped increase the number in Kabul, there are few women candidates in Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces.
Karokhail hopes that meetings such as the women's jirga would send a message of support to women candidates and any future government. "We want them to know that we will not be silenced. We want them to understand that we have to be counted," she said.
Small steps
Wazhma Frogh, the country director of Global Rights, a human rights advocacy group, said the women's jirga is a step in the right direction
"Our campaign is not for any particular candidate. We want women to follow the agendas of the different candidates and see which is best for them," Frogh told Al Jazeera.
Hasan Bano Ghazanfar, the sole woman minister in Karzai's cabinet, refrained from asking women to vote for the incumbent president.
But she did press women at the jirga to make their voices heard at the ballot box.
"Don't believe your vote does not matter. A single vote can change your family's fortunes," she said.
"It can change your life."
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Shinkai Karokhail, a member of parliament in Afghanistan, has hopes that candidates running in upcoming presidential elections will bring women's issues to the fore.
She says she is concerned that since the US-led effort to oust the Taliban in 2001, women in many parts of the country have continued to face a lack of liberties and access to education.
Karokhail, who campaigned against a controversial Shia Family Law passed by the government in April, believes the major contenders for the presidential race have largely avoided women's issues in their election campaigns.
"Women's issues are as sensitive as the Durand line (the contested border between Afghanistan and Pakistan). Why should they [candidates] do something that might lose them the votes of conservatives and extremists?"
Women's political rights
Rights activists in Afghanistan are concerned that local media have focused on the high profile electoral campaigns of the candidates, particularly the top contenders, but sidelined women's issues.
special report
Al Jazeera's in-depth look at the presidential poll
Hoping to push their agenda forward, a group of women activists from Kabul organised a loya jirga (grand assembly) to mobilise women's votes and raise awareness of their rights.
Bringing together activists from around the country, the jirga was designed to put women's issues back on the agenda and to make sure that their voices are not ignored.
"We want women to learn how to obtain their political rights in a society dominated by men," Karokhail told Al Jazeera.
"Men will realise we have a voice. We need more women ministers, more diplomats, and for those who are there to come together and speak in one voice."
Making a difference
The campaign may be working.
Last week, candidates Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister, and Ashraf Ghani, a former finance minister, participated in a special TV programme debating women's issues.
in video
Violence threatens women's vote
Although Hamid Karzai, the incumbent president, did not participate in the programme, the discussion was considered a major acknowledgement of women's issues and the importance of their vote.
Mahbouba Seraj, an activist who moderated the programme, told Al Jazeera: "Women's issues may have been low in priority for the candidates but they have been pushed higher as a result of the pressure of women activists."
Although women's voting patterns have not yet developed to sufficiently decide an election, they can still play a role in the provincial council polls which are being held simultaneously on August 20.
How a woman votes, or whether she chooses to vote at all, will make a difference to many of the 3,177 candidates contesting 420 provincial council seats.
Threats and intimidation
Orzala Ashraf, a human rights campaigner who mobilised women to play a more active role in politics in the volatile eastern provinces, says a woman's vote is integral to democratic development.
"What is important in this contest is also the culture of democracy and the principle of elections. We want to maintain the value of this principle," she says.
But many activists have complained of intimidation and violence against women ahead of the elections in many parts of the country.
They say there are also real fears of disenfranchisement because of increasingly conservative attitudes which restrict women from public affairs.
Gulalai Achakzai, a delegate to the jirga from Kandahar city, feels there is a "big difference between the previous elections and this one".
"Security has become so bad that I doubt if more than 10 per cent of the women voters will come out to vote on polling day," she says.
Achakzai's own distant relative, Sitara Achakzai, a member of Kandahar's provincial council, was shot dead in April.
"Stay at home"
A recent report prepared by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) says that "the lives of a large number of Afghan women are seriously compromised by violence".
Activists say they need a candidate who will fight for women's education [GALLO/GETTY]
"The pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home ... The effective imprisonment of women in their homes in an electoral period raises additional concerns," the report said.
The UN report also indicated that the threats have come not just from the armed opposition, including the Taliban, but also religious leaders, village mullahs and even the women's families.
The violence has already impacted the democratic process as fewer women stand for elections.
While a concerted campaign by NGOs, electoral bodies and the media helped increase the number in Kabul, there are few women candidates in Kandahar and Uruzgan provinces.
Karokhail hopes that meetings such as the women's jirga would send a message of support to women candidates and any future government. "We want them to know that we will not be silenced. We want them to understand that we have to be counted," she said.
Small steps
Wazhma Frogh, the country director of Global Rights, a human rights advocacy group, said the women's jirga is a step in the right direction
"Our campaign is not for any particular candidate. We want women to follow the agendas of the different candidates and see which is best for them," Frogh told Al Jazeera.
Hasan Bano Ghazanfar, the sole woman minister in Karzai's cabinet, refrained from asking women to vote for the incumbent president.
But she did press women at the jirga to make their voices heard at the ballot box.
"Don't believe your vote does not matter. A single vote can change your family's fortunes," she said.
"It can change your life."
AFGHANISTAN: ELECTIONS SHAPING UP AS A COMPLICATED STEP FORWARD
EURASIA INSIGHT
A Eurasianet Q&A With European Commission Delegation Ambassador Hansjorg Kretschmer Aunohita Mojumdar 8/10/09
The difficulty in achieving consensus among its 27 member states is a major factor in keeping the European Union from playing a more robust role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, despite the considerable resources provided through the European Commission and individual bilateral contributions. In June, however, the EU agreed on the need to deepen its engagement with Afghanistan. Change is already evident. The EU is providing 35 million euros to help ensure a fair-and-secure presidential election on August 20, and will be deploying a 100-member Election Observer Mission. The European Commission delegation’s ambassador in Kabul, Hansjörg Kretschmer, talked recently with EurasiaNet’s Aunohita Mojumdar on the importance of elections, the current situation and the engagement of the international community with Afghanistan. The text of Kretschmer’s comments follows:
EurasiaNet: Why do you think the elections are important for Afghanistan?
Kretschmer: The elections are absolutely imperative in order maintain the credibility, or to give more credibility to the current system. From the side of the international community and our constituencies in the different countries [that] participate in this collective effort here, it is of course important to see that the elections can be held now five years after the preceding elections -- that the country is able to carry out such elections and therefore has made progress -- because these elections are conducted basically under Afghan leadership. If the elections take place in a proper way, it is a signal to our people abroad that our efforts here in Afghanistan have brought some fruit, notwithstanding all the negative media reporting we have these days about the security situation.
EurasiaNet: Surely the negative media reporting is based on a situation generally accepted to be quite dismal?
Kretschmer: Yes, of course. The security situation is worrying. No one will hide that now. We see the degree of insecurity getting bigger in the northern and western parts of the country, which until not so long ago was considered rather peaceful and stable.
EurasiaNet: Do you think it is wise to have elections in such a difficult situation where there is concern about the difficulties of campaigning and voting?
Kretschmer: We have to look at the constitution. It imposes this date. So there is no choice, but to make the utmost effort to carry out and hold the elections. There is a need for Afghans to express their verdict on the Afghan government, and authorities’ record over the last five years. The other question is, of course, whether the elections can be carried out in a way that is legitimate: on the one hand without major irregularities; on the other hand with as vast a part of the Afghan population as possible being able to participate. Measures are taken. Efforts are taken. For the time being we have to see -- especially with regard to possible disenfranchisement of the part of the population -- how many people will be able to vote. Of course the intention is to allow as many Afghans as possible to participate in the elections. The final decision has not yet been made whether some polling stations cannot be opened because of security concerns, or technical reasons. But the effort is to have the biggest possible participation in order to ensure the legitimacy of the final result.
EurasiaNet: Is there not a danger that a less-than-legitimate election will further complicate the atmosphere?
Kretschmer: Of course the risk exists and therefore all efforts are undertaken to ensure as wide and as correct a process of elections as possible. I am very impressed by the way in which the campaigning has been going until now. There appears to be a real debate in the media, in the public, about these elections; about the pros and cons of the government action and so on. That is very positive. So the Afghan people seem to be engaging in this process.
EurasiaNet: One of the factors affecting the credibility of the elections is the continuing presence of candidates who have been accused of past crimes. There has been such criticism of one of the vice presidential candidates of the incumbent president himself. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Kretschmer: There was the possibility to challenge [the eligibility of candidates]. In fact, 57 candidates have been challenged and the Electoral Complaints Commission has decided on that and removed names from the final list. But of course you are right that from an international perspective we can have questions with regard to some of the names; but in the end, again, that is an Afghan process and you can have a wider debate in relation to transitional justice. You remember the Transitional Justice Action Plan signed in December 2006 by the president. We have not seen much happening on this front. So there are, of course, difficulties in this country to carry this through and that is just the Afghan reality. It does not mean it is forgotten forever. But certainly, reality has shown that the situation is not ripe yet to handle this, as it would be in some other countries.
EurasiaNet: Do you foresee problems if this legitimacy and credibility is lacking?
Kretschmer: People sometimes ask whether the reaction will be like in Iran. I really don’t know. But I hear from Afghans that it will not be like in Iran. Because what you saw in Iran was, after all, peaceful demonstration on which the authorities cracked down. My Afghan interlocutors are concerned that if there is widespread dissatisfaction this could easily turn into violent action. This would of course pour oil in the fire of the general level of insecurity, so we must do everything to avoid reasons for such widespread dissatisfaction.
EurasiaNet: Stepping back, how do you see the political and security situation as having developed since you have been here?
Kretschmer: I came in the last quarter of 2006. Since then we have seen a continuous increase of insecurity, the spread of insecurity, and what was interesting was that this somehow happened in parallel with continuous gradual building up of international security forces and increase in the number and also -- I would hope -- in the quality of Afghan National Security Forces.
The big question now is whether the surge of international troops -- essentially the 17,000 American soldiers that came into the country recently -- will break the increasing tendency of insecurity. Whether this will be the case, I cannot judge at the moment. It is too fresh. Certainly the very competent, very impressive new commander of ISAF [NATO’s International Security and Assistance Force], General [Stanley A.] McChrystal, has in my view an excellent approach in having the sense to say we must first secure the Afghan people before we think of killing or attacking the insurgents.
That is very important because I think this aspect in the past has not got sufficient attention, not only in terms of civilian casualties but in terms of the overall image projected by the international community here. In military terms, this extreme buildup of security measures and also the other aspect -- behaviour in traffic, for example -- all these have been elements that clearly contributed to antagonizing the Afghan people toward the international military presence here. I think this new approach is absolutely fundamental and very correct. I hope over time the troop reinforcements together with the new approach -- which is more sensitive considering what is the Afghan wider population’s perception of us -- will lead to a positive result.
EurasiaNet: Apart from the military component of the strategy, do you think there were mistakes in the approach to civilian reconstruction?
Kretschmer: If you talk about the civilian dimension of assistance and reconstruction, we also see a very improved situation over the last one to one-and-a-half years with improved coordination of the international community and more ownership being taken by a stronger Afghan government that now, in certain areas has a clear strategy. But development, which is to have sustainable results, will take time.
EurasiaNet: The political part of the reconstruction has been dominated by the United States though the EU has spent resources here. Will that change now?
Kretschmer: I think now all sides, including the Europeans, will provide more civilian reconstruction assistance. But personally, I think it is not necessarily a matter of quantity, but quality. I think the amount of money that has come into this country since 2002 -- perhaps with a better coordinated approach and better preparedness on the side of the Afghan authorities, more could have been obtained. So quality is as important if not more important than quantity. We want to achieve sustainable development -- and for this you don’t necessarily need big money, you need right people and the right approach.
You talk about political when you refer to a civilian approach, but I think there is one dimension that is still rather a white sheet of paper. Personally I consider the situation in Afghanistan as being to a large extent a political issue and the focus on the side of the international community has until now been a dual approach -- military on the one side and civilian reconstruction on the other side. But there has not been on the side of the Afghan, or the international community, a policy on how to tackle the political questions involved. [. . .] This is usually referred to as a reintegration-reconciliation debate, which we have now had for a couple of months or a year. That is another important aspect that I think policymakers especially here in Afghanistan [must address] because it must be an Afghan-led process, but also those in the capitals abroad have to think more on it.
A Eurasianet Q&A With European Commission Delegation Ambassador Hansjorg Kretschmer Aunohita Mojumdar 8/10/09
The difficulty in achieving consensus among its 27 member states is a major factor in keeping the European Union from playing a more robust role in Afghanistan’s reconstruction, despite the considerable resources provided through the European Commission and individual bilateral contributions. In June, however, the EU agreed on the need to deepen its engagement with Afghanistan. Change is already evident. The EU is providing 35 million euros to help ensure a fair-and-secure presidential election on August 20, and will be deploying a 100-member Election Observer Mission. The European Commission delegation’s ambassador in Kabul, Hansjörg Kretschmer, talked recently with EurasiaNet’s Aunohita Mojumdar on the importance of elections, the current situation and the engagement of the international community with Afghanistan. The text of Kretschmer’s comments follows:
EurasiaNet: Why do you think the elections are important for Afghanistan?
Kretschmer: The elections are absolutely imperative in order maintain the credibility, or to give more credibility to the current system. From the side of the international community and our constituencies in the different countries [that] participate in this collective effort here, it is of course important to see that the elections can be held now five years after the preceding elections -- that the country is able to carry out such elections and therefore has made progress -- because these elections are conducted basically under Afghan leadership. If the elections take place in a proper way, it is a signal to our people abroad that our efforts here in Afghanistan have brought some fruit, notwithstanding all the negative media reporting we have these days about the security situation.
EurasiaNet: Surely the negative media reporting is based on a situation generally accepted to be quite dismal?
Kretschmer: Yes, of course. The security situation is worrying. No one will hide that now. We see the degree of insecurity getting bigger in the northern and western parts of the country, which until not so long ago was considered rather peaceful and stable.
EurasiaNet: Do you think it is wise to have elections in such a difficult situation where there is concern about the difficulties of campaigning and voting?
Kretschmer: We have to look at the constitution. It imposes this date. So there is no choice, but to make the utmost effort to carry out and hold the elections. There is a need for Afghans to express their verdict on the Afghan government, and authorities’ record over the last five years. The other question is, of course, whether the elections can be carried out in a way that is legitimate: on the one hand without major irregularities; on the other hand with as vast a part of the Afghan population as possible being able to participate. Measures are taken. Efforts are taken. For the time being we have to see -- especially with regard to possible disenfranchisement of the part of the population -- how many people will be able to vote. Of course the intention is to allow as many Afghans as possible to participate in the elections. The final decision has not yet been made whether some polling stations cannot be opened because of security concerns, or technical reasons. But the effort is to have the biggest possible participation in order to ensure the legitimacy of the final result.
EurasiaNet: Is there not a danger that a less-than-legitimate election will further complicate the atmosphere?
Kretschmer: Of course the risk exists and therefore all efforts are undertaken to ensure as wide and as correct a process of elections as possible. I am very impressed by the way in which the campaigning has been going until now. There appears to be a real debate in the media, in the public, about these elections; about the pros and cons of the government action and so on. That is very positive. So the Afghan people seem to be engaging in this process.
EurasiaNet: One of the factors affecting the credibility of the elections is the continuing presence of candidates who have been accused of past crimes. There has been such criticism of one of the vice presidential candidates of the incumbent president himself. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Kretschmer: There was the possibility to challenge [the eligibility of candidates]. In fact, 57 candidates have been challenged and the Electoral Complaints Commission has decided on that and removed names from the final list. But of course you are right that from an international perspective we can have questions with regard to some of the names; but in the end, again, that is an Afghan process and you can have a wider debate in relation to transitional justice. You remember the Transitional Justice Action Plan signed in December 2006 by the president. We have not seen much happening on this front. So there are, of course, difficulties in this country to carry this through and that is just the Afghan reality. It does not mean it is forgotten forever. But certainly, reality has shown that the situation is not ripe yet to handle this, as it would be in some other countries.
EurasiaNet: Do you foresee problems if this legitimacy and credibility is lacking?
Kretschmer: People sometimes ask whether the reaction will be like in Iran. I really don’t know. But I hear from Afghans that it will not be like in Iran. Because what you saw in Iran was, after all, peaceful demonstration on which the authorities cracked down. My Afghan interlocutors are concerned that if there is widespread dissatisfaction this could easily turn into violent action. This would of course pour oil in the fire of the general level of insecurity, so we must do everything to avoid reasons for such widespread dissatisfaction.
EurasiaNet: Stepping back, how do you see the political and security situation as having developed since you have been here?
Kretschmer: I came in the last quarter of 2006. Since then we have seen a continuous increase of insecurity, the spread of insecurity, and what was interesting was that this somehow happened in parallel with continuous gradual building up of international security forces and increase in the number and also -- I would hope -- in the quality of Afghan National Security Forces.
The big question now is whether the surge of international troops -- essentially the 17,000 American soldiers that came into the country recently -- will break the increasing tendency of insecurity. Whether this will be the case, I cannot judge at the moment. It is too fresh. Certainly the very competent, very impressive new commander of ISAF [NATO’s International Security and Assistance Force], General [Stanley A.] McChrystal, has in my view an excellent approach in having the sense to say we must first secure the Afghan people before we think of killing or attacking the insurgents.
That is very important because I think this aspect in the past has not got sufficient attention, not only in terms of civilian casualties but in terms of the overall image projected by the international community here. In military terms, this extreme buildup of security measures and also the other aspect -- behaviour in traffic, for example -- all these have been elements that clearly contributed to antagonizing the Afghan people toward the international military presence here. I think this new approach is absolutely fundamental and very correct. I hope over time the troop reinforcements together with the new approach -- which is more sensitive considering what is the Afghan wider population’s perception of us -- will lead to a positive result.
EurasiaNet: Apart from the military component of the strategy, do you think there were mistakes in the approach to civilian reconstruction?
Kretschmer: If you talk about the civilian dimension of assistance and reconstruction, we also see a very improved situation over the last one to one-and-a-half years with improved coordination of the international community and more ownership being taken by a stronger Afghan government that now, in certain areas has a clear strategy. But development, which is to have sustainable results, will take time.
EurasiaNet: The political part of the reconstruction has been dominated by the United States though the EU has spent resources here. Will that change now?
Kretschmer: I think now all sides, including the Europeans, will provide more civilian reconstruction assistance. But personally, I think it is not necessarily a matter of quantity, but quality. I think the amount of money that has come into this country since 2002 -- perhaps with a better coordinated approach and better preparedness on the side of the Afghan authorities, more could have been obtained. So quality is as important if not more important than quantity. We want to achieve sustainable development -- and for this you don’t necessarily need big money, you need right people and the right approach.
You talk about political when you refer to a civilian approach, but I think there is one dimension that is still rather a white sheet of paper. Personally I consider the situation in Afghanistan as being to a large extent a political issue and the focus on the side of the international community has until now been a dual approach -- military on the one side and civilian reconstruction on the other side. But there has not been on the side of the Afghan, or the international community, a policy on how to tackle the political questions involved. [. . .] This is usually referred to as a reintegration-reconciliation debate, which we have now had for a couple of months or a year. That is another important aspect that I think policymakers especially here in Afghanistan [must address] because it must be an Afghan-led process, but also those in the capitals abroad have to think more on it.
AFGHANISTAN: UN REPORT DOCUMENTS STEADY INCREASE IN CIVILIAN DEATHS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/04/09
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased sharply during the first six months of 2009, according to a mid-year review conducted by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
The UNAMA review found civilian deaths increased by 24 percent during the first half of this year in comparison to the same period in 2008. The report also indicated that existing factors on the ground are likely to cause civilian casualties to keep on rising.
The UN only counts civilian fatalities when victims can be verified as non-combatants. In cases where there is even slight doubt, or where the UN cannot corroborate the status of the victim, it does not list the individual as a civilian casualty. The final UN tally is therefore likely to be lower than the actual number of civilian fatalities.
The mid-year review, released on July 31, found that the number of civilians killed by anti-government elements (AGEs) and pro-government forces had both increased, though the proportionate increase of deaths caused by AGEs, including the Taliban and other insurgent groups, was far greater. The findings may heighten anxiety as Afghanistan goes through the final weeks of campaigning before the country holds a presidential election, scheduled for August 20.
The UN attributes the rise in civilian casualties to the surge of foreign troops and the insurgent response, as well as stepped up operations by pro-government forces in civilian residential areas. Improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks by anti-government elements and air strikes carried out by international military forces were identified as the major causes of civilian deaths, which rose from 818 during the first half of 2008 to 1,013 in the corresponding period this year, according to the UN. A close reading of figures however reveals the numbers don’t provide the complete picture
In what was perhaps the single largest incident of civilian casualties since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, for example, a May 4 American air strike in Herat Province’s Bala Baluk District killed 63 civilians according to UNAMA. That figure excluded all men from the total, counting only the women and children. With difficulty in determining whether the "men of military age" were combatants or non-combatants, the UN figures still exclude all men killed in the Bala Baluk attack, even though the incident occurred three months ago.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission found that as many as 97 civilians may have been killed in the May 4 attack, 76 of whom it said were women and children, the commission’s spokesperson Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The discrepancy in numbers suggests that UN figures are, at best, incomplete. Acknowledging this possibility, Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit, the office behind the report, told EurasiaNet that, "we can only record and report figures that we have triple checked. Our focus is on trying to mitigate the impact of war on civilians. We also focus on the circumstances in which civilians are killed so that avoidable deaths do not occur." Niland acknowledged that figures reported in the regular UNAMA reports on civilian casualties may well underestimate the actual number killed.
The UN report found that civilian deaths caused by anti-government elements had almost doubled since last year. AGE attacks on humanitarian workers and government employees, moreover, appeared to be impairing Afghans’ access to humanitarian assistance.
Even so, casualties caused by international forces appear to generate the most public anger. Tolerance among Afghans for civilian casualties caused by international military forces is steadily decreasing, making every small incident a potential tinderbox. Highlighting the trend, a rally of clerics in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan on August 1 called for the government to set the date for withdrawal of foreign troops.
In response to such public sentiments, one of President Hamid Karzai’s main reelection promises is to rewrite agreements with international troops operating in Afghanistan.
As fighting intensifies ahead of Election Day, the UN report predicts a further climb in civilian causalities. Recent Taliban statements calling for fighters to place themselves among civilians, insurgent promises of violence under "Operation Victory" in response to the Obama Administration’s troop surge, and promises of attacks on the presidential and provincial council elections are immediate causes for concern, the report says. These factors "raise the prospect of a further intensification of the conflict in Afghanistan. Given the pattern of the conflict so far, further significant casualties in the coming months are likely" the UN states.
Aunohita Mojumdar 8/04/09
Civilian casualties in Afghanistan increased sharply during the first six months of 2009, according to a mid-year review conducted by the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan.
The UNAMA review found civilian deaths increased by 24 percent during the first half of this year in comparison to the same period in 2008. The report also indicated that existing factors on the ground are likely to cause civilian casualties to keep on rising.
The UN only counts civilian fatalities when victims can be verified as non-combatants. In cases where there is even slight doubt, or where the UN cannot corroborate the status of the victim, it does not list the individual as a civilian casualty. The final UN tally is therefore likely to be lower than the actual number of civilian fatalities.
The mid-year review, released on July 31, found that the number of civilians killed by anti-government elements (AGEs) and pro-government forces had both increased, though the proportionate increase of deaths caused by AGEs, including the Taliban and other insurgent groups, was far greater. The findings may heighten anxiety as Afghanistan goes through the final weeks of campaigning before the country holds a presidential election, scheduled for August 20.
The UN attributes the rise in civilian casualties to the surge of foreign troops and the insurgent response, as well as stepped up operations by pro-government forces in civilian residential areas. Improvised explosive devices and suicide attacks by anti-government elements and air strikes carried out by international military forces were identified as the major causes of civilian deaths, which rose from 818 during the first half of 2008 to 1,013 in the corresponding period this year, according to the UN. A close reading of figures however reveals the numbers don’t provide the complete picture
In what was perhaps the single largest incident of civilian casualties since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, for example, a May 4 American air strike in Herat Province’s Bala Baluk District killed 63 civilians according to UNAMA. That figure excluded all men from the total, counting only the women and children. With difficulty in determining whether the "men of military age" were combatants or non-combatants, the UN figures still exclude all men killed in the Bala Baluk attack, even though the incident occurred three months ago.
The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission found that as many as 97 civilians may have been killed in the May 4 attack, 76 of whom it said were women and children, the commission’s spokesperson Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The discrepancy in numbers suggests that UN figures are, at best, incomplete. Acknowledging this possibility, Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA’s Human Rights Unit, the office behind the report, told EurasiaNet that, "we can only record and report figures that we have triple checked. Our focus is on trying to mitigate the impact of war on civilians. We also focus on the circumstances in which civilians are killed so that avoidable deaths do not occur." Niland acknowledged that figures reported in the regular UNAMA reports on civilian casualties may well underestimate the actual number killed.
The UN report found that civilian deaths caused by anti-government elements had almost doubled since last year. AGE attacks on humanitarian workers and government employees, moreover, appeared to be impairing Afghans’ access to humanitarian assistance.
Even so, casualties caused by international forces appear to generate the most public anger. Tolerance among Afghans for civilian casualties caused by international military forces is steadily decreasing, making every small incident a potential tinderbox. Highlighting the trend, a rally of clerics in Laghman Province in eastern Afghanistan on August 1 called for the government to set the date for withdrawal of foreign troops.
In response to such public sentiments, one of President Hamid Karzai’s main reelection promises is to rewrite agreements with international troops operating in Afghanistan.
As fighting intensifies ahead of Election Day, the UN report predicts a further climb in civilian causalities. Recent Taliban statements calling for fighters to place themselves among civilians, insurgent promises of violence under "Operation Victory" in response to the Obama Administration’s troop surge, and promises of attacks on the presidential and provincial council elections are immediate causes for concern, the report says. These factors "raise the prospect of a further intensification of the conflict in Afghanistan. Given the pattern of the conflict so far, further significant casualties in the coming months are likely" the UN states.
AFGHANISTAN: KARZAI BRACES FOR EMBOLDENED CHALLENGERS AS ELECTION NEARS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/28/09
"Its probably going to be Karzai, isn’t it?" lamented Fareed, a taxi driver in Kabul as he weaved his way through crowded traffic on cratered roads lined with open sewers and glitzy new glass and chrome buildings. "I don’t like him, but I might vote for him," he added with a tone of deep resignation.
Afghan citizens will go to the polls next month amid an escalation of Taliban violence. The first four months of 2009 saw a 46 percent increase in security-related incidents over the previous. Since then, the fighting has continued to intensify with a new large-scale military operation in southern Helmand Province. While those operations are being touted as an effort to boost security before the polls, most observers expect violence will continue to increase until election day on August 20.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai’s shrewd maneuvering in the early stages of the campaign appears to have put him ahead in the race. Despite considerable voter disenchantment due to increasing violence, bad governance and inadequate reconstruction progress, the anti-incumbency vote is divided among as many as 41 challengers. Moreover, observers speculate that Afghanistan’s nascent democratic polity also tends to favor the likely winner, thus drawing votes even from those who would prefer to see him replaced. They suggest this tendency developed over 30 years of war when backing the most powerful figure was a survival mechanism.
To enhance his chances, Karzai and his supporters have sought to forge a series of truces with Taliban insurgents. The government reached the first such truce on July 25 in Badghis Province, situated near the border with Turkmenistan. The area is not considered a Taliban stronghold.
In recent days, what appeared to be a fait accompli is now seeing a subtle subterranean shift. The image that Karzai is vulnerable seems to be spreading. "Yes, it looks like Karzai has done all the right deals. But if the mood changes, this might even go against him. The powerful figures he has aligned with are themselves discredited. Can they even deliver the votes? They are no longer as powerful as they were four years ago," says Javid, who works with an international news agency and asked his last name not be printed.
Among those now on Karzai’s side are the northern strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum, who was earlier appointed to the mainly symbolic post of presidential chief of staff, was removed from that position following a series of embarrassing events that included the kidnapping of a rival in downtown Kabul. Evidence also came to light earlier in July that forces under Dostum’s control may have carried out war crimes, in particular the mass killing of prisoners.
Karzai also sought to bolster his base by reaching out to Northern Alliance commander Marshall Mohammed Qasim Fahim, who is currently campaigning as Karzai’s vice-presidential running mate. Some international observers have expressed reservations about Fahim, who was a leader of the anti-Taliban resistance in the late 1990s. Early on in Karzai’s presidential administration he served as defense minister and was for a brief period vice president. In a 2005 report, Human Rights Watch said Fahim was responsible for "systematic human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law." While campaigning in Kunduz Province on July 26, Fahim’s convoy experienced an ambush. The vice presidential candidate was not hurt in the episode.
As the attack underscored, increased violence has curtailed the ability of candidates to canvass for votes, not just for the presidential polls but also for the concurrently held provincial council elections. A joint monitoring project carried out by the UN’s Assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission during the nomination and challenge period from April 25 to June 12 expressed concern that the period was characterized by deteriorating security in many parts of the country. Worryingly, the report described widespread intimidation throughout the country. "Insecurity will have an impact on the overall ability of candidates to actively campaign and by extension, on the ability of voters to make informed choices," the report stated.
Violence is a constant feature of the campaign as it enters the home stretch. On July 28, for example, a campaign manager for Abdullah Abdullah, one of Karzai’s leading challengers, was badly wounded and his driver killed in a July 28 attack in Laghman Province. In Helmand Province on the same day, a bomb killed eight private security guards.
The pool of possible winners appears to have narrowed to the incumbent Karzai and two former cabinet members: former Foreign Minister and Northern Alliance leader Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani.
In recent weeks, speculation on the likely winner, which centered for weeks on Karzai, has shifted to a question on whether the elections will necessitate a second round of polling. Under Afghanistan’s electoral law, unless a candidate can secure more than 51 percent in the first round, there must be a runoff. In a runoff, the contest would likely narrow to a choice between Karzai and one other opposition candidate, thus making possible a consolidation of anti-incumbency votes. "A second round would at least be healthy, in terms of democracy. I think a Karzai win in the first round will disappoint Afghans and create greater resentment and instability," said a western aid worker who wished not to be identified.
The polls are also turning into a test of Afghanistan’s independence. Many Afghans suspect, perhaps unfairly, that the next president of the country will be picked in Washington. "Do you think we will be the ones to decide? It is America which picks our leader," says Naqib, an educated, middle-aged former civil servant who stayed in Afghanistan through all the years of war.
While the US did play a major role in selecting Karzai as the first president and backing him for his second term, relations between Karzai and the Obama Administration have been much cooler than during the Bush years. The US has kept a respectable distance from the contest, perhaps, some say, since there are no clear challengers to back.
Both the suspicion about a hidden foreign hand and the resignation about the reelection of the incumbent candidate reflect Afghan voters’ limited belief in their own ability to affect democratic change. However, there are signs that this is already changing with some questioning the qualification of candidates and the fairness of the process.
On a July 21 election-related visit to Afghanistan, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana was repeatedly asked by the Afghan media why he had singled out three of the 41 challengers for meetings. Was this based on his presumption that no one else could win, journalists asked. While the repetitive questions annoyed EU officials, they perhaps denoted the Afghans’ increasing awareness about the importance of a transparent and credible electoral process.
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/28/09
"Its probably going to be Karzai, isn’t it?" lamented Fareed, a taxi driver in Kabul as he weaved his way through crowded traffic on cratered roads lined with open sewers and glitzy new glass and chrome buildings. "I don’t like him, but I might vote for him," he added with a tone of deep resignation.
Afghan citizens will go to the polls next month amid an escalation of Taliban violence. The first four months of 2009 saw a 46 percent increase in security-related incidents over the previous. Since then, the fighting has continued to intensify with a new large-scale military operation in southern Helmand Province. While those operations are being touted as an effort to boost security before the polls, most observers expect violence will continue to increase until election day on August 20.
Incumbent President Hamid Karzai’s shrewd maneuvering in the early stages of the campaign appears to have put him ahead in the race. Despite considerable voter disenchantment due to increasing violence, bad governance and inadequate reconstruction progress, the anti-incumbency vote is divided among as many as 41 challengers. Moreover, observers speculate that Afghanistan’s nascent democratic polity also tends to favor the likely winner, thus drawing votes even from those who would prefer to see him replaced. They suggest this tendency developed over 30 years of war when backing the most powerful figure was a survival mechanism.
To enhance his chances, Karzai and his supporters have sought to forge a series of truces with Taliban insurgents. The government reached the first such truce on July 25 in Badghis Province, situated near the border with Turkmenistan. The area is not considered a Taliban stronghold.
In recent days, what appeared to be a fait accompli is now seeing a subtle subterranean shift. The image that Karzai is vulnerable seems to be spreading. "Yes, it looks like Karzai has done all the right deals. But if the mood changes, this might even go against him. The powerful figures he has aligned with are themselves discredited. Can they even deliver the votes? They are no longer as powerful as they were four years ago," says Javid, who works with an international news agency and asked his last name not be printed.
Among those now on Karzai’s side are the northern strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum. Dostum, who was earlier appointed to the mainly symbolic post of presidential chief of staff, was removed from that position following a series of embarrassing events that included the kidnapping of a rival in downtown Kabul. Evidence also came to light earlier in July that forces under Dostum’s control may have carried out war crimes, in particular the mass killing of prisoners.
Karzai also sought to bolster his base by reaching out to Northern Alliance commander Marshall Mohammed Qasim Fahim, who is currently campaigning as Karzai’s vice-presidential running mate. Some international observers have expressed reservations about Fahim, who was a leader of the anti-Taliban resistance in the late 1990s. Early on in Karzai’s presidential administration he served as defense minister and was for a brief period vice president. In a 2005 report, Human Rights Watch said Fahim was responsible for "systematic human rights abuses and violations of international humanitarian law." While campaigning in Kunduz Province on July 26, Fahim’s convoy experienced an ambush. The vice presidential candidate was not hurt in the episode.
As the attack underscored, increased violence has curtailed the ability of candidates to canvass for votes, not just for the presidential polls but also for the concurrently held provincial council elections. A joint monitoring project carried out by the UN’s Assistance mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission during the nomination and challenge period from April 25 to June 12 expressed concern that the period was characterized by deteriorating security in many parts of the country. Worryingly, the report described widespread intimidation throughout the country. "Insecurity will have an impact on the overall ability of candidates to actively campaign and by extension, on the ability of voters to make informed choices," the report stated.
Violence is a constant feature of the campaign as it enters the home stretch. On July 28, for example, a campaign manager for Abdullah Abdullah, one of Karzai’s leading challengers, was badly wounded and his driver killed in a July 28 attack in Laghman Province. In Helmand Province on the same day, a bomb killed eight private security guards.
The pool of possible winners appears to have narrowed to the incumbent Karzai and two former cabinet members: former Foreign Minister and Northern Alliance leader Abdullah Abdullah and former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani.
In recent weeks, speculation on the likely winner, which centered for weeks on Karzai, has shifted to a question on whether the elections will necessitate a second round of polling. Under Afghanistan’s electoral law, unless a candidate can secure more than 51 percent in the first round, there must be a runoff. In a runoff, the contest would likely narrow to a choice between Karzai and one other opposition candidate, thus making possible a consolidation of anti-incumbency votes. "A second round would at least be healthy, in terms of democracy. I think a Karzai win in the first round will disappoint Afghans and create greater resentment and instability," said a western aid worker who wished not to be identified.
The polls are also turning into a test of Afghanistan’s independence. Many Afghans suspect, perhaps unfairly, that the next president of the country will be picked in Washington. "Do you think we will be the ones to decide? It is America which picks our leader," says Naqib, an educated, middle-aged former civil servant who stayed in Afghanistan through all the years of war.
While the US did play a major role in selecting Karzai as the first president and backing him for his second term, relations between Karzai and the Obama Administration have been much cooler than during the Bush years. The US has kept a respectable distance from the contest, perhaps, some say, since there are no clear challengers to back.
Both the suspicion about a hidden foreign hand and the resignation about the reelection of the incumbent candidate reflect Afghan voters’ limited belief in their own ability to affect democratic change. However, there are signs that this is already changing with some questioning the qualification of candidates and the fairness of the process.
On a July 21 election-related visit to Afghanistan, EU Foreign Policy Chief Javier Solana was repeatedly asked by the Afghan media why he had singled out three of the 41 challengers for meetings. Was this based on his presumption that no one else could win, journalists asked. While the repetitive questions annoyed EU officials, they perhaps denoted the Afghans’ increasing awareness about the importance of a transparent and credible electoral process.
AFGHANISTAN: FIRST LOCAL TEAM CONQUERS AFGHANISTAN’S HIGHEST PEAK
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/21/09
It may not be a feat that matches walking on the moon, but a small group of Afghan villagers are nevertheless stoking national pride in their war-ravaged nation. The group has become the first local expedition to successfully scale Afghanistan’s tallest peak, the Noshaq, situated in the remote northeastern Badakhshan region.
Wakhis -- as the inhabitants of the valleys abutting Pakistan, Tajikistan and China are called -- had long dreamed of scaling the peak near their home villages. A group of local men finally planted the Afghan tricolor flag on the summit on July 19. With this feat, Malang, a cook by profession and Amruddin, a farmer, set an exciting example for others to emulate, as well as highlighted their country’s tourism and adventure travel potential.
Malang, speaking to EurasiaNet on a satellite phone from the base camp on the evening of July 20, said he was very happy to have made it to the top and "to become a part of the history of my country." The name of the expedition ’Afghans to the Top’ has exemplified not just this climb, but the lives of these ordinary Afghans who have achieved what was long thought impossible in a land which usually makes news only for its enduring conflict.
Noshaq is the second highest peak in the Hindu Kush range. At 7,492 meters (24,580 feet), it surpasses the highest mountains in both North America and Europe -- the 6,194-meter Mt. McKinley in Alaska (20,320 feet), and 5,642-meter Mt. Elbrus (18,510 feet) in the Caucasus range -- respectively. Even the third base camp, which two other Afghan team members -- Afiyat, a mason and Gurg Ali, a teacher -- also reached, sits at 6,902 meters.
The expedition began on July 2 in the village of Qazideh, close to the entrance of the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow finger of land that once provided a buffer zone between Tsarist Russia and British India. Its isolation made it a formidable boundary, surrounded as it was by the Hindu Kush, Pamir and Karakoram ranges.
Their journey began nearly two years ago. It was stoked by the Afghans’ hopes and the vision of a trio of young Frenchmen -- Louis Meunier, Jerome Veyret and Nicolas Fasquell -- living and working in Afghanistan.
The mountain ranges in the Wakhan Corridor have long been a draw for mountaineers. A Japanese team first reached the summit of the Noshaq in 1960. The relatively clear weather in the short summer season makes the area ideal for climbing, writes Italian mountaineer Carlo Alberto Pinelli in his book ’Peaks of Silver and Jade,’ which he authored in 2007 with a view to attracting climbers.
The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, starting in 1979, caused visitors to stay away. Few have ventured into the area since then. In the late 1990s, Badakhshan suffered during the Taliban era, as it was a stronghold of resistance to the rule of the militant Islamic movement.
Despite continuing conflict in other areas of post-Taliban Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor itself is considered stable and secure, and is easily accessible through Tajikistan.
But the area lacks infrastructure and suffers from widespread poverty. Its semiarid climate supports only subsistence agriculture and its topography makes access to health, education and markets difficult. For the four Wakhis on this expedition, mountaineering is not an indulgence. Their relationship with the mountains is much more elemental and they have not had the luxury of years of climbing or practice sessions with fancy equipment.
Over the past few years, the Wakhan has seen a steady stream of visitors, mainly internationals living and working in Afghanistan who have been lured by its beauty, its wilderness, and its virgin peaks. Wakhis hope more will come once this climbing achievement draws attention to the place.
Despite having been a part of the team that climbed Noshaq, Afiyat and Gurg Ali will not be taking part in the celebrations planned in Kabul. In early August they are scheduled to accompany a team of international climbers as guides, and, to them, such employment in the short summer season is impossible to pass up.
The Afghan members of the climbing team have known only hardship for most of their adult lives. Afiyat, for example, lost his father at a young age, forcing him to leave school and find work as a mason to support his mother and siblings. During the conflict against the Taliban, he joined the mujahideen, working for one of the commanders of the legendary Ahmed Shah Masood.
After 2001 and the removal of the Taliban, he trained and became a skilled master mason. What Afiyat dreamed of though, was his father’s tales of working with foreign visitors. When the Italian mountaineer and author Pinelli arrived in his village, looking to revive mountaineering among Afghans and train them as guides, Afiyat immediately signed up.
"When I first went climbing I had no idea that special shoes were needed, or how much mountaineering equipment cost," he said. His dream has always been to be among the first Afghans to scale the Noshaq and though he did not reach the summit, he is still part of the unique team.
Making the Afghan conquest of the Noshaq economically feasible were the Frenchmen, two of whom, Meunier and Veyret, joined the expedition. Before setting off, Meunier explained their rationale to EurasiaNet. "It is a symbolic expedition, to plant an Afghan flag as a symbol of hope and achievement for Afghanistan." The mission, he said, hopes to send a message of peace and illustrate "the determination of Afghans to overcome difficulties and bring peace and success to a country torn apart by 30 years of war."
From the base camp on July 20, Meunier said the expedition was getting ready for a party. "We feel Noshaq is the centre of the world. It feels like the first man on the moon."
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/21/09
It may not be a feat that matches walking on the moon, but a small group of Afghan villagers are nevertheless stoking national pride in their war-ravaged nation. The group has become the first local expedition to successfully scale Afghanistan’s tallest peak, the Noshaq, situated in the remote northeastern Badakhshan region.
Wakhis -- as the inhabitants of the valleys abutting Pakistan, Tajikistan and China are called -- had long dreamed of scaling the peak near their home villages. A group of local men finally planted the Afghan tricolor flag on the summit on July 19. With this feat, Malang, a cook by profession and Amruddin, a farmer, set an exciting example for others to emulate, as well as highlighted their country’s tourism and adventure travel potential.
Malang, speaking to EurasiaNet on a satellite phone from the base camp on the evening of July 20, said he was very happy to have made it to the top and "to become a part of the history of my country." The name of the expedition ’Afghans to the Top’ has exemplified not just this climb, but the lives of these ordinary Afghans who have achieved what was long thought impossible in a land which usually makes news only for its enduring conflict.
Noshaq is the second highest peak in the Hindu Kush range. At 7,492 meters (24,580 feet), it surpasses the highest mountains in both North America and Europe -- the 6,194-meter Mt. McKinley in Alaska (20,320 feet), and 5,642-meter Mt. Elbrus (18,510 feet) in the Caucasus range -- respectively. Even the third base camp, which two other Afghan team members -- Afiyat, a mason and Gurg Ali, a teacher -- also reached, sits at 6,902 meters.
The expedition began on July 2 in the village of Qazideh, close to the entrance of the Wakhan Corridor, a narrow finger of land that once provided a buffer zone between Tsarist Russia and British India. Its isolation made it a formidable boundary, surrounded as it was by the Hindu Kush, Pamir and Karakoram ranges.
Their journey began nearly two years ago. It was stoked by the Afghans’ hopes and the vision of a trio of young Frenchmen -- Louis Meunier, Jerome Veyret and Nicolas Fasquell -- living and working in Afghanistan.
The mountain ranges in the Wakhan Corridor have long been a draw for mountaineers. A Japanese team first reached the summit of the Noshaq in 1960. The relatively clear weather in the short summer season makes the area ideal for climbing, writes Italian mountaineer Carlo Alberto Pinelli in his book ’Peaks of Silver and Jade,’ which he authored in 2007 with a view to attracting climbers.
The Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, starting in 1979, caused visitors to stay away. Few have ventured into the area since then. In the late 1990s, Badakhshan suffered during the Taliban era, as it was a stronghold of resistance to the rule of the militant Islamic movement.
Despite continuing conflict in other areas of post-Taliban Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor itself is considered stable and secure, and is easily accessible through Tajikistan.
But the area lacks infrastructure and suffers from widespread poverty. Its semiarid climate supports only subsistence agriculture and its topography makes access to health, education and markets difficult. For the four Wakhis on this expedition, mountaineering is not an indulgence. Their relationship with the mountains is much more elemental and they have not had the luxury of years of climbing or practice sessions with fancy equipment.
Over the past few years, the Wakhan has seen a steady stream of visitors, mainly internationals living and working in Afghanistan who have been lured by its beauty, its wilderness, and its virgin peaks. Wakhis hope more will come once this climbing achievement draws attention to the place.
Despite having been a part of the team that climbed Noshaq, Afiyat and Gurg Ali will not be taking part in the celebrations planned in Kabul. In early August they are scheduled to accompany a team of international climbers as guides, and, to them, such employment in the short summer season is impossible to pass up.
The Afghan members of the climbing team have known only hardship for most of their adult lives. Afiyat, for example, lost his father at a young age, forcing him to leave school and find work as a mason to support his mother and siblings. During the conflict against the Taliban, he joined the mujahideen, working for one of the commanders of the legendary Ahmed Shah Masood.
After 2001 and the removal of the Taliban, he trained and became a skilled master mason. What Afiyat dreamed of though, was his father’s tales of working with foreign visitors. When the Italian mountaineer and author Pinelli arrived in his village, looking to revive mountaineering among Afghans and train them as guides, Afiyat immediately signed up.
"When I first went climbing I had no idea that special shoes were needed, or how much mountaineering equipment cost," he said. His dream has always been to be among the first Afghans to scale the Noshaq and though he did not reach the summit, he is still part of the unique team.
Making the Afghan conquest of the Noshaq economically feasible were the Frenchmen, two of whom, Meunier and Veyret, joined the expedition. Before setting off, Meunier explained their rationale to EurasiaNet. "It is a symbolic expedition, to plant an Afghan flag as a symbol of hope and achievement for Afghanistan." The mission, he said, hopes to send a message of peace and illustrate "the determination of Afghans to overcome difficulties and bring peace and success to a country torn apart by 30 years of war."
From the base camp on July 20, Meunier said the expedition was getting ready for a party. "We feel Noshaq is the centre of the world. It feels like the first man on the moon."
AFGHANISTAN: UNITED NATIONS REPORT HIGHLIGHTS PROBLEM OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 7/15/09
One of the first women to be elected to a public post in conservative Afghanistan, Zarghuna Kakar serves as a member of the provincial council in Kandahar. Public service has come at a high price for her. She and her husband were attacked and her husband killed in a Kandahar market, and she now fears for her own life and wonders why she ever entered politics.
In the western province of Herat, Maria Bashir receives threats in connection with her official duties as the chief prosecutor, the sole female prosecutor in Afghanistan. In her job she has to witness terrible things. "I have seen women who immolated themselves out of despair. I cannot forget those images," she said, adding that peril is a constant part of her life. "If we women do not accept risks and work, no changes will happen," Bashir adds.
Contrary to perception that threats to women in Afghanistan originate primarily from the Taliban's restrictive interpretation of Islam, a new UN report shows that the risks to women in Afghanistan are growing under President Hamid Karzai's administration. It also shows that the perpetrators of the violence come from all sectors of society, not just from among Islamic militants. Aptly named 'Silence is Violence,' the report also documents how the lack of condemnation or action to counter this violence on the part of society at large -- and government institutions and leaders in particular -- is helping perpetuate and intensify it.
At considerable risk to themselves, both Bashir and Kakar were in Kabul on July 8 for the report's release. Yet they were the lucky ones. Women in public places are being increasingly targeted. And many women in high-profile positions have already perished as they tried to build civil society in Afghanistan. Among the most prominent women to have been assassinated are; Malali Kakar, a senior police officer in Kandahar; Sitara Achakzai, a provincial council member in Kandahar; Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabal-e Saraj, an hour north of Kabul; and Shakia Sanga Amaj, a newsreader at a Kabul TV station. Countless others have been silenced by threats and fear, opting to censor themselves rather than put their lives and families at risk.
The UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in the joint report, acknowledge for the first time the real and growing threat to Afghan women. Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA's human rights unit told EurasiaNet that the report was "trying to shine a light on the problem." A past verbal commitment needs to be followed by "real investment [and] practical measures to improve the protection of women," she said.
The "Silence in Violence" report demonstrates that the problems faced by women in Afghanistan are not rooted in cultural nuances, but constitute basic breaches of the right to life, liberty and basic protection.
In an interview with EurasiaNet, Dr. Sima Samar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, offered explanations as to why the violence-against-women issue has not received sufficient international attention. A major reason, she explained, was that the perception of cultural differences made Western experts and officials skittish about commenting on Afghan practices. Another reason, according to Samar, was the argument that it was more important to "have security rather than human rights. This is an absolutely wrong concept since you need human rights for sustainable peace."
Apart from the UN, there has also been some change in the perspective of other international actors, most notably the United States. While the Bush Administration seemed focused solely on promoting success stories, the Obama administration's approach has been more nuanced. Following a recent visit to Afghanistan, the US Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, Melanne Verveer said, "there is progress in some areas, but not in others. Security remains a paramount challenge. Violence against women and girls is endemic and much remains to be done, including access to institutions of justice, civil education and prosecution of the crimes."
The new UN report states that the pattern of violence against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. The report states that sexual violence against Afghan women "is an everyday problem in all parts of the country" and a "human rights problem of profound proportions." Moreover, "women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes and in their communities, in detention facilities, and as a result of traditional harmful practices to resolve feuds within the family or community."
The report found that awareness of the criminal nature of the act of rape is very limited. In some areas, rapists are, or have links to, powerful individuals, and are thus protected from prosecution and arrest. Currently, Afghanistan's criminal justice system, based on the 1976 Afghan Penal Code does not have any specific provisions for the crime of rape. Rape is tried in the court under the provision of 'Zina,' defined as adultery or any sex outside marriage. It is up to the female victim to prove she did not consent. A new law is currently being drafted, but women's rights activists fear it may not reflect all their concerns, due to pressure from powerful conservative elements in society, the government, and the judiciary to limit the draft legislation's scope.
Aunohita Mojumdar: 7/15/09
One of the first women to be elected to a public post in conservative Afghanistan, Zarghuna Kakar serves as a member of the provincial council in Kandahar. Public service has come at a high price for her. She and her husband were attacked and her husband killed in a Kandahar market, and she now fears for her own life and wonders why she ever entered politics.
In the western province of Herat, Maria Bashir receives threats in connection with her official duties as the chief prosecutor, the sole female prosecutor in Afghanistan. In her job she has to witness terrible things. "I have seen women who immolated themselves out of despair. I cannot forget those images," she said, adding that peril is a constant part of her life. "If we women do not accept risks and work, no changes will happen," Bashir adds.
Contrary to perception that threats to women in Afghanistan originate primarily from the Taliban's restrictive interpretation of Islam, a new UN report shows that the risks to women in Afghanistan are growing under President Hamid Karzai's administration. It also shows that the perpetrators of the violence come from all sectors of society, not just from among Islamic militants. Aptly named 'Silence is Violence,' the report also documents how the lack of condemnation or action to counter this violence on the part of society at large -- and government institutions and leaders in particular -- is helping perpetuate and intensify it.
At considerable risk to themselves, both Bashir and Kakar were in Kabul on July 8 for the report's release. Yet they were the lucky ones. Women in public places are being increasingly targeted. And many women in high-profile positions have already perished as they tried to build civil society in Afghanistan. Among the most prominent women to have been assassinated are; Malali Kakar, a senior police officer in Kandahar; Sitara Achakzai, a provincial council member in Kandahar; Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabal-e Saraj, an hour north of Kabul; and Shakia Sanga Amaj, a newsreader at a Kabul TV station. Countless others have been silenced by threats and fear, opting to censor themselves rather than put their lives and families at risk.
The UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in the joint report, acknowledge for the first time the real and growing threat to Afghan women. Norah Niland, the head of UNAMA's human rights unit told EurasiaNet that the report was "trying to shine a light on the problem." A past verbal commitment needs to be followed by "real investment [and] practical measures to improve the protection of women," she said.
The "Silence in Violence" report demonstrates that the problems faced by women in Afghanistan are not rooted in cultural nuances, but constitute basic breaches of the right to life, liberty and basic protection.
In an interview with EurasiaNet, Dr. Sima Samar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, offered explanations as to why the violence-against-women issue has not received sufficient international attention. A major reason, she explained, was that the perception of cultural differences made Western experts and officials skittish about commenting on Afghan practices. Another reason, according to Samar, was the argument that it was more important to "have security rather than human rights. This is an absolutely wrong concept since you need human rights for sustainable peace."
Apart from the UN, there has also been some change in the perspective of other international actors, most notably the United States. While the Bush Administration seemed focused solely on promoting success stories, the Obama administration's approach has been more nuanced. Following a recent visit to Afghanistan, the US Ambassador at Large for Global Women's Issues, Melanne Verveer said, "there is progress in some areas, but not in others. Security remains a paramount challenge. Violence against women and girls is endemic and much remains to be done, including access to institutions of justice, civil education and prosecution of the crimes."
The new UN report states that the pattern of violence against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home. The report states that sexual violence against Afghan women "is an everyday problem in all parts of the country" and a "human rights problem of profound proportions." Moreover, "women and girls are at risk of rape in their homes and in their communities, in detention facilities, and as a result of traditional harmful practices to resolve feuds within the family or community."
The report found that awareness of the criminal nature of the act of rape is very limited. In some areas, rapists are, or have links to, powerful individuals, and are thus protected from prosecution and arrest. Currently, Afghanistan's criminal justice system, based on the 1976 Afghan Penal Code does not have any specific provisions for the crime of rape. Rape is tried in the court under the provision of 'Zina,' defined as adultery or any sex outside marriage. It is up to the female victim to prove she did not consent. A new law is currently being drafted, but women's rights activists fear it may not reflect all their concerns, due to pressure from powerful conservative elements in society, the government, and the judiciary to limit the draft legislation's scope.
New UN report takes firm stand on women's rights in Afghanistan
The 'Silence is Violence' report documents the failure of state institutions to protect women from increasing violence in public spaces.
By Aunohita Mojumdar | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 8, 2009 edition
Kabul, Afghanistan - Widespread violence against women in Afghanistan is being ignored in a culture of impunity that neither challenges nor condemns this violence, says the United Nations in a new report calling for an end to the prevailing abuse.
Wednesday's report, titled "Silence is Violence," documents the increasingly insecure environment for women in public spaces and the failure of state institutions to deal with it.
Despite claims to the contrary, say advocates, women's rights have been viewed as a luxury by an international community reluctant to question those in power for fear of upsetting Afghanistan's fragile coalition government and delaying stability. But this document, which was co-written by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCR) and the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), treads new ground by directly confronting the issue.
The argument that it's more important to "have security rather than human rights ... is absolutely the wrong concept, since you need human rights for sustainable peace," says Dr. Sima Samar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, explaining that the denial of women's rights is usually on the grounds of culture and tradition.
Perpetrators from all walks of life, says report
The report documents violence that inhibits participation of women in public life, identifying perpetrators as antigovernment elements, local traditional and religious power holders, women's own families and communities and, in some instances, government authorities. Sexual violence against women was found to be perpetrated by close family members, staff of prisons and rehabilitation centers, military commanders, and members of illegal armed groups and criminal gangs.
"The pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home," says the report. "This has obvious ramifications for the transformation of Afghanistan, the stated priority of Afghan authorities, and their international supporters."
Less talk, more action, say advocates
"Rhetoric [has not been] matched by reality," says the head of UNAMA's human rights unit, Norah Niland. "There has been a verbal commitment, and now we need real investment in practical measures. Unless the negative trends are challenged, they will get worse."
The UN report and its message were backed at the highest level of the UN's presence in Afghanistan. It was released in the residence of the UN secretary-general's special representative, Kai Eide, the top UN diplomat in Afghanistan.
In his remarks, Mr. Eide stopped short of blaming Afghan government institutions, but said the issue of violence against women in Afghanistan was not being faced and was holding the country back.
A little star power adds punch
Adding oomph to the report's release Wednesday was the presence of Indian actress Shabana Azmi, who spoke of the similarity of challenges in India and drew an appreciative response from Afghan women, many of whom have grown up watching her movies.
Officials within the large UN community deployed in Afghanistan, who have been advocating greater attention on the issue of women's rights, expressed cautious optimism about the UN's willingness to take a firm stand. Said one senior UN diplomat who declined to be named: "This is good, but let's see how far it goes."
By Aunohita Mojumdar | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
from the July 8, 2009 edition
Kabul, Afghanistan - Widespread violence against women in Afghanistan is being ignored in a culture of impunity that neither challenges nor condemns this violence, says the United Nations in a new report calling for an end to the prevailing abuse.
Wednesday's report, titled "Silence is Violence," documents the increasingly insecure environment for women in public spaces and the failure of state institutions to deal with it.
Despite claims to the contrary, say advocates, women's rights have been viewed as a luxury by an international community reluctant to question those in power for fear of upsetting Afghanistan's fragile coalition government and delaying stability. But this document, which was co-written by the UN High Commissioner on Human Rights (UNHCR) and the UN's Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), treads new ground by directly confronting the issue.
The argument that it's more important to "have security rather than human rights ... is absolutely the wrong concept, since you need human rights for sustainable peace," says Dr. Sima Samar, the chairperson of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, explaining that the denial of women's rights is usually on the grounds of culture and tradition.
Perpetrators from all walks of life, says report
The report documents violence that inhibits participation of women in public life, identifying perpetrators as antigovernment elements, local traditional and religious power holders, women's own families and communities and, in some instances, government authorities. Sexual violence against women was found to be perpetrated by close family members, staff of prisons and rehabilitation centers, military commanders, and members of illegal armed groups and criminal gangs.
"The pattern of attacks against women operating in the public sphere sends a strong message to all women to stay at home," says the report. "This has obvious ramifications for the transformation of Afghanistan, the stated priority of Afghan authorities, and their international supporters."
Less talk, more action, say advocates
"Rhetoric [has not been] matched by reality," says the head of UNAMA's human rights unit, Norah Niland. "There has been a verbal commitment, and now we need real investment in practical measures. Unless the negative trends are challenged, they will get worse."
The UN report and its message were backed at the highest level of the UN's presence in Afghanistan. It was released in the residence of the UN secretary-general's special representative, Kai Eide, the top UN diplomat in Afghanistan.
In his remarks, Mr. Eide stopped short of blaming Afghan government institutions, but said the issue of violence against women in Afghanistan was not being faced and was holding the country back.
A little star power adds punch
Adding oomph to the report's release Wednesday was the presence of Indian actress Shabana Azmi, who spoke of the similarity of challenges in India and drew an appreciative response from Afghan women, many of whom have grown up watching her movies.
Officials within the large UN community deployed in Afghanistan, who have been advocating greater attention on the issue of women's rights, expressed cautious optimism about the UN's willingness to take a firm stand. Said one senior UN diplomat who declined to be named: "This is good, but let's see how far it goes."
AFGHANISTAN: PRIVATE SECURITY CONTRACTORS BECOME A SOURCE OF PUBLIC SCORN
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/08/09
A recent shootout in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that left 10 people dead is helping to focus attention on the issue of private security companies, and the existing lack of accountability concerning their activities.
The June 29 incident in Kandahar involved security contractors employed by coalition military forces. A group of the contractors attacked a local police station apparently in an attempt to free a colleague who had been taken into custody for supposedly forging documents. In addition to two senior police officers, eight civilians died in the armed confrontation. Hours after the shootout, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement asking the US-led coalition forces to hand over the private security contractors suspected of involvement in the killings. Later, 41 Afghan security contractors were placed under arrest.
Representatives of coalition forces emphasized that no foreign troops and no "foreign nationals" were involved in the incident. A coalition spokesman went on to characterize the attack as "Afghan on Afghan."
Nevertheless, the attack is prompting heightened scrutiny of the coalition practice of employing de-mobilized local militiamen to provide security. Up to 3,000 former Afghan militia fighters are directly employed by the US military in Operation Enduring Freedom, according to an estimate prepared by Swisspeace, a research outfit focusing on conflict resolution.
In the absence of adequate troop levels and well-trained Afghan forces, international militaries and civilian agencies have used private security firms to protect their personnel and assets since 2001. Given the growing international presence and spiraling insecurity in recent years, the security sector has proven to be highly lucrative. Accordingly, the number of private security companies mushroomed.
Early this year, 39 companies -- 21 of them foreign-based -- were licensed under regulations issued in 2008. However, loopholes in criminal jurisdiction and accountability allow many security firms to operate in a gray area, seemingly beyond the reach of the Afghan justice system. Some companies, which did not, or could not obtain licenses, reportedly continue to operate with impunity. In some instances, private security contractors employed by foreign militaries or diplomatic missions enjoy immunity.
There are several instances in which security contractors have avoided facing Afghan justice in connection with deadly incidents. For example, on May 5, a shooting in Kabul left one civilian dead and injured two others. The four American Xe (formerly Blackwater) contractors involved left the country after an initial "detention" period, during which the US military carried out its own investigation. The findings of that investigation have not been made public.
Earlier, on an April visit to Afghanistan to gauge the impact of the private security companies on the Afghan population, the UN’s working group on the use of mercenaries, suggested contractors involved in such shootings should leave the country to placate critics. Group leader Alexander Nikitin said that “when foreign nationals working in these companies are involved in some problems with the local population” it was important that “the companies recognized that the Afghan authorities have the right to expel individuals from the country, individuals working for the companies, if these foreigners were involved in any violations on Afghan territory.” While not addressing the question of further criminal prosecution, Nikitin added that, “this should become a normal practice if the system of monitoring is to work more and more intensively over time.”
The expulsion or escape, as it may be seen locally, of these personnel however rankles an Afghan population with no means of pursuing justice. Anger among Afghans against private security firms has steadily escalated over the past few years, due to what is seen as unwarranted aggression and thuggish behavior. While incidents involving the use of lethal force usually manage to make their way into the public discourse, the routine harassment and bullying behavior of security contractors, involving contact with Afghan civilians, usually goes undocumented and unreported. For example, private security firms are widely loathed among Afghans for indiscriminately closing roads, setting up private checkpoints, commanding civilian vehicles off the road and frequently using the barrel of a gun to keep Afghans at bay.
While no representative of a private security company would publicly comment, some said privately that they would welcome tighter regulations. Several representatives complained that in the absence of such regulations, their firms end up being tarred with the same brush as the more brutish firms.
The absence of a comprehensive legislative framework is widely seen as one impediment to reform. A bill containing a new set of regulations for private contractors is currently stuck in parliament.
Incidents involving private contractors are expected to increase as more foreign troops arrive in Afghanistan, senior military and UN officials tell EurasiaNet. In his quarterly Afghanistan report issued on June 23, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predicted an upsurge of violence. "The significant increase in Afghan and international troops fighting the insurgents could also result in an increase in security incidents," the secretary-general said.
With the increase in violence and the winding down of operations in Iraq, Afghans fear a surge of foreign security contractors will arrive in Afghanistan looking for work. That would be an unwelcome development to Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar. Following a visit to Kandahar after the June 29 incident, the minister declared that illegal militias were "intolerable" and should be disarmed immediately. This, however, seems easier said than done
Aunohita Mojumdar 7/08/09
A recent shootout in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar that left 10 people dead is helping to focus attention on the issue of private security companies, and the existing lack of accountability concerning their activities.
The June 29 incident in Kandahar involved security contractors employed by coalition military forces. A group of the contractors attacked a local police station apparently in an attempt to free a colleague who had been taken into custody for supposedly forging documents. In addition to two senior police officers, eight civilians died in the armed confrontation. Hours after the shootout, Afghan President Hamid Karzai issued a statement asking the US-led coalition forces to hand over the private security contractors suspected of involvement in the killings. Later, 41 Afghan security contractors were placed under arrest.
Representatives of coalition forces emphasized that no foreign troops and no "foreign nationals" were involved in the incident. A coalition spokesman went on to characterize the attack as "Afghan on Afghan."
Nevertheless, the attack is prompting heightened scrutiny of the coalition practice of employing de-mobilized local militiamen to provide security. Up to 3,000 former Afghan militia fighters are directly employed by the US military in Operation Enduring Freedom, according to an estimate prepared by Swisspeace, a research outfit focusing on conflict resolution.
In the absence of adequate troop levels and well-trained Afghan forces, international militaries and civilian agencies have used private security firms to protect their personnel and assets since 2001. Given the growing international presence and spiraling insecurity in recent years, the security sector has proven to be highly lucrative. Accordingly, the number of private security companies mushroomed.
Early this year, 39 companies -- 21 of them foreign-based -- were licensed under regulations issued in 2008. However, loopholes in criminal jurisdiction and accountability allow many security firms to operate in a gray area, seemingly beyond the reach of the Afghan justice system. Some companies, which did not, or could not obtain licenses, reportedly continue to operate with impunity. In some instances, private security contractors employed by foreign militaries or diplomatic missions enjoy immunity.
There are several instances in which security contractors have avoided facing Afghan justice in connection with deadly incidents. For example, on May 5, a shooting in Kabul left one civilian dead and injured two others. The four American Xe (formerly Blackwater) contractors involved left the country after an initial "detention" period, during which the US military carried out its own investigation. The findings of that investigation have not been made public.
Earlier, on an April visit to Afghanistan to gauge the impact of the private security companies on the Afghan population, the UN’s working group on the use of mercenaries, suggested contractors involved in such shootings should leave the country to placate critics. Group leader Alexander Nikitin said that “when foreign nationals working in these companies are involved in some problems with the local population” it was important that “the companies recognized that the Afghan authorities have the right to expel individuals from the country, individuals working for the companies, if these foreigners were involved in any violations on Afghan territory.” While not addressing the question of further criminal prosecution, Nikitin added that, “this should become a normal practice if the system of monitoring is to work more and more intensively over time.”
The expulsion or escape, as it may be seen locally, of these personnel however rankles an Afghan population with no means of pursuing justice. Anger among Afghans against private security firms has steadily escalated over the past few years, due to what is seen as unwarranted aggression and thuggish behavior. While incidents involving the use of lethal force usually manage to make their way into the public discourse, the routine harassment and bullying behavior of security contractors, involving contact with Afghan civilians, usually goes undocumented and unreported. For example, private security firms are widely loathed among Afghans for indiscriminately closing roads, setting up private checkpoints, commanding civilian vehicles off the road and frequently using the barrel of a gun to keep Afghans at bay.
While no representative of a private security company would publicly comment, some said privately that they would welcome tighter regulations. Several representatives complained that in the absence of such regulations, their firms end up being tarred with the same brush as the more brutish firms.
The absence of a comprehensive legislative framework is widely seen as one impediment to reform. A bill containing a new set of regulations for private contractors is currently stuck in parliament.
Incidents involving private contractors are expected to increase as more foreign troops arrive in Afghanistan, senior military and UN officials tell EurasiaNet. In his quarterly Afghanistan report issued on June 23, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon predicted an upsurge of violence. "The significant increase in Afghan and international troops fighting the insurgents could also result in an increase in security incidents," the secretary-general said.
With the increase in violence and the winding down of operations in Iraq, Afghans fear a surge of foreign security contractors will arrive in Afghanistan looking for work. That would be an unwelcome development to Interior Minister Muhammad Hanif Atmar. Following a visit to Kandahar after the June 29 incident, the minister declared that illegal militias were "intolerable" and should be disarmed immediately. This, however, seems easier said than done
Afghan climbers hope to make history
BBC News July 1
By Aunohita Mojumdar
BBC News, Kabul
It sounds like an old joke - a farmer, a cook, a mason and a schoolteacher go climbing together.
But this unlikely foursome from the Wakhi community in north-eastern Afghanistan hopes to make mountaineering history.
On Thursday, they aim to become the first ever Afghans to scale the country's highest mountain peak, Mount Noshaq, in a remote corner of Badakshan province.
At 7,492m (25,000 ft), Noshaq is the second-highest peak of the famous Hindu Kush range - only just topped by the tallest summit, Tirich Mir.
Mt Noshaq is located at the beginning of the Wakhan corridor, the tiny strip of land jutting out of Afghanistan, like a finger pointing towards China, a corridor that separated British Imperial India from Tsarist Russia.
From mujahideen to mountaineering
In the 1960s and 1970s the mountain peaks along the Wakhan were an international draw.
“ I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes - I just started climbing ”
Afiyat Khan Afghan mountaineer
Three decades of war, however, ended that.
International teams abandoned the area as many Afghans struggled for survival.
Among them was Afiyat Khan.
Losing his father at a young age, he dropped out of school and signed up with the mujahideen, joining Northern Alliance commanders in the only area of the country to keep the Taliban at bay.
He emerged from the war to become a skilled master mason.
But stories of his father, who worked with visiting tourists, stayed with him.
"I just had the idea that someday I wanted to climb the mountains," he recalled.
The opportunity came in 2002 when an accomplished Italian climber, Carlo Alberto Pinelli, came to revive mountaineering in Afghanistan, and train local Afghan youths.
Mr Khan joined immediately.
"At that time I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes. I just started climbing."
Since then he has been to the Alps on several professional training courses - the latest in April and May.
Mt Noshaq was first ascended in 1960 by a Japanese team and most recently tackled, by a European-led expedition, in 2003.
But the peak has never been conquered by Afghans before.
Making the July expedition possible is a young group of Frenchmen who have been living and working in Afghanistan for the past several years: Louis Meunier, Jerome Veyret and Nicolas Fasquelleis.
'Symbol of hope'
"This is a symbolic expedition," said Mr Meunier who was in Kabul last week to finish buying supplies and equipment.
"The idea is to plant an Afghan flag at the top, as a symbol of hope and achievement in Afghanistan."
“ There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain ”
Afghan proverb
The expedition is being launched under the aegis of the Rome-based organisation, Mountain Wilderness and the French national Alpine skiing school among others, but has been organised by the three Frenchmen.
The team comprises the four Afghan climbers and two experienced international guides as well as Mr Munier and Mr Veyret.
It aims to "send a message of peace and hope and to foster national pride and unity".
"This will be a strong positive message illustrating the determination of Afghans to overcome difficulties and bring peace and success to a country torn apart by 30 years of war," the expedition's mission statement says.
There is also a more concrete aim. They hope to pave the way for more high-altitude adventures and sustainable tourism in the area.
Despite the violence in other parts of the country, the Wakhan region has remained safe.
Tourism here has been growing steadily, with visitors lured by the area's spectacular beauty and its gentle inhabitants.
The area is surrounded by the Pamir, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and each valley is distinct.
'Luck and pluck'
Add to that the pristine peaks and beautiful rivers, and there is every reason for it to prove catnip to tourists and climbers in search of pastures new.
Increased tourism would give a welcome cash injection.
The inhabitants of the Wakhan corridor live off subsistence agriculture and herding, with the semi-arid zone yielding few crops.
No-one knows this better than the four Wakhis about to attempt the Noshaq.
Mr Khan himself has worked as a porter on previous expeditions.
Now their own mission will bring short-term employment to the 80 porters who will accompany them to base camp.
Training in the Alps, none of the four has climbed heights beyond 6,000m (20,000 ft).
Much of the success of the attempt will depend on good weather, luck and sheer pluck.
Despite a short warm season, the weather in the area is considered ideal for climbing, as is the short distance from the road to base camp.
Adopted as the motto of the expedition is an Afghan proverb that seems to echo not just the determination of the mission, but even the lives of the climbers.
It simply says: "There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain."
By Aunohita Mojumdar
BBC News, Kabul
It sounds like an old joke - a farmer, a cook, a mason and a schoolteacher go climbing together.
But this unlikely foursome from the Wakhi community in north-eastern Afghanistan hopes to make mountaineering history.
On Thursday, they aim to become the first ever Afghans to scale the country's highest mountain peak, Mount Noshaq, in a remote corner of Badakshan province.
At 7,492m (25,000 ft), Noshaq is the second-highest peak of the famous Hindu Kush range - only just topped by the tallest summit, Tirich Mir.
Mt Noshaq is located at the beginning of the Wakhan corridor, the tiny strip of land jutting out of Afghanistan, like a finger pointing towards China, a corridor that separated British Imperial India from Tsarist Russia.
From mujahideen to mountaineering
In the 1960s and 1970s the mountain peaks along the Wakhan were an international draw.
“ I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes - I just started climbing ”
Afiyat Khan Afghan mountaineer
Three decades of war, however, ended that.
International teams abandoned the area as many Afghans struggled for survival.
Among them was Afiyat Khan.
Losing his father at a young age, he dropped out of school and signed up with the mujahideen, joining Northern Alliance commanders in the only area of the country to keep the Taliban at bay.
He emerged from the war to become a skilled master mason.
But stories of his father, who worked with visiting tourists, stayed with him.
"I just had the idea that someday I wanted to climb the mountains," he recalled.
The opportunity came in 2002 when an accomplished Italian climber, Carlo Alberto Pinelli, came to revive mountaineering in Afghanistan, and train local Afghan youths.
Mr Khan joined immediately.
"At that time I didn't know we needed special equipment or special shoes. I just started climbing."
Since then he has been to the Alps on several professional training courses - the latest in April and May.
Mt Noshaq was first ascended in 1960 by a Japanese team and most recently tackled, by a European-led expedition, in 2003.
But the peak has never been conquered by Afghans before.
Making the July expedition possible is a young group of Frenchmen who have been living and working in Afghanistan for the past several years: Louis Meunier, Jerome Veyret and Nicolas Fasquelleis.
'Symbol of hope'
"This is a symbolic expedition," said Mr Meunier who was in Kabul last week to finish buying supplies and equipment.
"The idea is to plant an Afghan flag at the top, as a symbol of hope and achievement in Afghanistan."
“ There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain ”
Afghan proverb
The expedition is being launched under the aegis of the Rome-based organisation, Mountain Wilderness and the French national Alpine skiing school among others, but has been organised by the three Frenchmen.
The team comprises the four Afghan climbers and two experienced international guides as well as Mr Munier and Mr Veyret.
It aims to "send a message of peace and hope and to foster national pride and unity".
"This will be a strong positive message illustrating the determination of Afghans to overcome difficulties and bring peace and success to a country torn apart by 30 years of war," the expedition's mission statement says.
There is also a more concrete aim. They hope to pave the way for more high-altitude adventures and sustainable tourism in the area.
Despite the violence in other parts of the country, the Wakhan region has remained safe.
Tourism here has been growing steadily, with visitors lured by the area's spectacular beauty and its gentle inhabitants.
The area is surrounded by the Pamir, the Karakoram and the Hindu Kush mountain range, which lies between Afghanistan and Pakistan, and each valley is distinct.
'Luck and pluck'
Add to that the pristine peaks and beautiful rivers, and there is every reason for it to prove catnip to tourists and climbers in search of pastures new.
Increased tourism would give a welcome cash injection.
The inhabitants of the Wakhan corridor live off subsistence agriculture and herding, with the semi-arid zone yielding few crops.
No-one knows this better than the four Wakhis about to attempt the Noshaq.
Mr Khan himself has worked as a porter on previous expeditions.
Now their own mission will bring short-term employment to the 80 porters who will accompany them to base camp.
Training in the Alps, none of the four has climbed heights beyond 6,000m (20,000 ft).
Much of the success of the attempt will depend on good weather, luck and sheer pluck.
Despite a short warm season, the weather in the area is considered ideal for climbing, as is the short distance from the road to base camp.
Adopted as the motto of the expedition is an Afghan proverb that seems to echo not just the determination of the mission, but even the lives of the climbers.
It simply says: "There is a path to the top of even the highest mountain."
Fighting season
Himal July 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
As everyone braces for a bloody summer, the new US administration has shaken up its top military command in Afghanistan. But is the continued focus on the military intervention still too predominant?
The commemoration of World Refugee Day, on 20 June, was marked in Afghanistan by an announcement by the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, that the movement of people across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had changed in character for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, when Russia imposed a government in 1978. Instead of the ‘classical’ movement of Afghan refugees crossing into Pakistan, a recent study by the agency suggested, this movement was now becoming increasingly ‘normalised’, with most of the crossborder movement that of economic migrants rather than those fleeing war. Yet while the agency’s country office touted this as a positive trend, behind the numbers is another story.
An understanding of the complexity of the situation seems to be tacit within UNHCR, as well. As the agency’s Afghanistan director, Ewen Macleod, pointed out, “People are moving increasingly for social and economic purposes to and from Afghanistan. But this does not mean that the factors that can give rise to refugee flight or internal displacement have been fully overcome.” The findings of the study, which mapped the border crossings at Torkham and Spin Boldak, could largely be a result of the fact that Pakistan is not only unwilling to continue to host Afghan refugees, but is also pressuring the remaining refugees to leave the country. With camps forcibly shut down, harassment from the authorities and the deteriorating economic and security situation within Pakistan, Afghans have little option but to head back to their own country.
Those who were forced to flee within Afghanistan are now forced to take shelter in another part of the country, thus becoming what the jargon would describe as ‘internally displaced persons’. According to UNHCR, precise figures about the number of such IDPs within Afghanistan are hard to come by, as access to insecure areas is limited and many ‘displacements’ last for only a short period. However, the estimates of those displaced internally during the last three decades of conflict by violence, drought and poverty, and those recently displaced by fighting in the southern provinces, is conservatively estimated to be 235,000.
Such numbers have, unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the very top levels of the international community. The situation has been so acute that it prompted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, to warn in mid-June that the refugee situations around the world “do not include the millions more uprooted people who are displaced within their own countries and who far outnumber the world’s refugees. Many of them have also been unable to return home, sometimes for decades.” Guterres continued: “Although international law distinguishes between refugees and the internally displaced, such distinctions are absurd to those who have been forced from their homes and who have lost everything. Uprooted people are equally deserving of help whether they have crossed an international border or not.”
US military dominance
Many within Afghanistan humanitarian agencies expect that the increased fighting following the influx of some 20,000 additional US troops in recent months will result in greater displacement. In a joint report issued in early April, a number of reputed international humanitarian agencies warned that social protection and access to basic services were being adversely affected by the widening conflict, “with significant levels of displacement and severe disruption of health and education services”. The report, released by agencies such as Oxfam, Care International, ActionAid and DACAAR, continued: “Planned increases in troops and military operations during 2009 are likely to lead to higher levels of displacement, further restrictions on social services and greater impediments for aid agencies to reach civilians in need of protection and assistance.” Yet, such considerations were not being adequately factored into international security strategies, the agencies warned.
There is one thing that the various aid agencies and military actors agree upon, however. There is common expectation of increased violence and of still-bloodier fighting over the summer of 2009. Still, there is almost no agreement on the assumed impact of this fighting, nor how to deal with it. While the military forces expect that civilian aid will be used in support of military operations, both to mitigate the losses incurred during fighting and development work in the areas ‘cleared’ by the military, civilian aid agencies, especially humanitarian organisations, would like to distance themselves further from the military as the fighting intensifies.
Much of the unfolding scenario will depend on the US and the strategy adopted by the Barack Obama administration, the impact of which is yet to be felt. In recent weeks, the only significant change has been on the military front, with an abrupt replacement of the US commander in Afghanistan. On 11 May, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates fired General David McKiernan unceremoniously, appointing Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal in his place. While the need for fresh thinking was officially touted as the reason for the change, (Gen McKiernan is considered an expert in ‘conventional’ warfare, and thus was seen as unfit for the types of battles being waged in Afghanistan), many see this as indicating a shift in US military strategy. Until his new charge, Gen McChrystal was commanding the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command. He is credited both with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
While this would appear to dovetail into the professed aims of the US to go after al-Qaeda and high-value Taliban targets, Gen McChrystal has been at pains to signal a change in operating tactics with greater emphasis on civilian safety. Soon after taking command in mid-June, he began by emphasising the need to avoid civilian casualties, saying protection of civilians – rather than body counts – would be his yardstick of success. While some have welcomed this as a departure from the recent trend of military operations and the use of air power that were resulting in an increasing number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and frontier areas in Pakistan), there is a fair degree of scepticism about the oft-repeated rhetoric, which many criticise as not addressing the situation on the ground.
The changeover has allowed the new command to be at least partially critical of last month’s US air strikes in the western province of Farah. Afghan government authorities have claimed this to be the highest civilian death toll ever by international air strikes – forcing the payment of compensation to over 140 families. While the US military command has suggested that civilian casualties were much lower, it has admitted that ‘standard operating procedures’ may have been violated.
Less visible has been the restructuring of the command structure of the international troops operating in Afghanistan, backed by a NATO meeting in Brussels on 11-12 June. Under it, Gen McChrystal will focus on strategy while an intermediate headquarters responsible to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander will be established to take care of the day-to-day operations. This plan reportedly draws heavily on the US experience in Iraq. Along with the increase in American troops, expected to double to 68,000 by the end of the year, this new structure will represent a greater US domination over the military strategy in Afghanistan. Currently non-US troops constitute over half of the roughly 61,000 troops on the ground.
Quiet on the political front
Over the past few weeks, levels of violence have refused to dip in Afghanistan, and Gen McChrystal has termed the next 18 months as a decisive period. That upcoming year and a half will also be politically decisive for Afghanistan in more ways than one, as presidential and provincial-council elections, scheduled for August, will be followed by parliamentary elections next year. But the initial flurry of excitement over candidates has now subsided somewhat into a resignation that suggests that the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has stitched up the elections through a series of shrewd deals – not just with his supporters, but also with potential spoilers. While President Karzai’s unpopularity has been on the increase over the past two years, many Afghans seem resigned to what appears to be an inevitable outcome. Until the announcement of Mohammed Fahim as his running mate, President Karzai and Fahim, a former defence minister and vice-president, were thought to be at odds.
While the possibility of former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad (appointed by George W Bush), emerging as a presidential candidate has receded, his larger-than-life apparition still looms, with rumours of an appointment of a super chief executive to ‘assist’ the president. The Karzai administration has been careful neither to accept nor deny the possibility, while emphasising that any appointment would be within the bounds of the Afghan Constitution. But the possibility of a Bush administration official emerging as a key official within the Afghan administration is not the only unique feature of the upcoming Afghan elections. According to the Election Complaints Commission, “Fifty-five candidates didn’t meet Article 15.3 of the Electoral Law for having links to or commanding unofficial military forces; plus one candidate had both criminal conviction as well as [being] found not comply[ing] under Article 15.3. And, one candidate was found to have [a] second nationality.”
The end of the candidate-vetting procedure saw over 40 contenders for the post of president. But only two of them – former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah – are popularly accepted as serious challengers. Abdullah, a former Northern Alliance leader, received a fresh shot in the arm on 20 June, when the governor of the northern province of Balkh, Atta Mohammed, extended his support. Atta, as he is commonly known, was also a former Northern Alliance leader, and is considered to be an efficient if somewhat autocratic governor.
While a fragmented opposition puts President Karzai far ahead two months before the polls, it is not yet clear whether he will be able to secure 51 percent of the votes in the first round of polling, particularly if multiple opposition candidates split the vote share. If he gets less than that number, Afghanistan’s electoral law would require a second round of polling. It is then that the contest could see a polarisation between two candidates – a potent chance for the opposition, or a simple anti-Karzai vote, to unite behind a single candidate.
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
As everyone braces for a bloody summer, the new US administration has shaken up its top military command in Afghanistan. But is the continued focus on the military intervention still too predominant?
The commemoration of World Refugee Day, on 20 June, was marked in Afghanistan by an announcement by the UN’s refugee agency, UNHCR, that the movement of people across the Afghanistan-Pakistan border had changed in character for the first time since the beginning of the conflict, when Russia imposed a government in 1978. Instead of the ‘classical’ movement of Afghan refugees crossing into Pakistan, a recent study by the agency suggested, this movement was now becoming increasingly ‘normalised’, with most of the crossborder movement that of economic migrants rather than those fleeing war. Yet while the agency’s country office touted this as a positive trend, behind the numbers is another story.
An understanding of the complexity of the situation seems to be tacit within UNHCR, as well. As the agency’s Afghanistan director, Ewen Macleod, pointed out, “People are moving increasingly for social and economic purposes to and from Afghanistan. But this does not mean that the factors that can give rise to refugee flight or internal displacement have been fully overcome.” The findings of the study, which mapped the border crossings at Torkham and Spin Boldak, could largely be a result of the fact that Pakistan is not only unwilling to continue to host Afghan refugees, but is also pressuring the remaining refugees to leave the country. With camps forcibly shut down, harassment from the authorities and the deteriorating economic and security situation within Pakistan, Afghans have little option but to head back to their own country.
Those who were forced to flee within Afghanistan are now forced to take shelter in another part of the country, thus becoming what the jargon would describe as ‘internally displaced persons’. According to UNHCR, precise figures about the number of such IDPs within Afghanistan are hard to come by, as access to insecure areas is limited and many ‘displacements’ last for only a short period. However, the estimates of those displaced internally during the last three decades of conflict by violence, drought and poverty, and those recently displaced by fighting in the southern provinces, is conservatively estimated to be 235,000.
Such numbers have, unsurprisingly, caught the attention of the very top levels of the international community. The situation has been so acute that it prompted the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, António Guterres, to warn in mid-June that the refugee situations around the world “do not include the millions more uprooted people who are displaced within their own countries and who far outnumber the world’s refugees. Many of them have also been unable to return home, sometimes for decades.” Guterres continued: “Although international law distinguishes between refugees and the internally displaced, such distinctions are absurd to those who have been forced from their homes and who have lost everything. Uprooted people are equally deserving of help whether they have crossed an international border or not.”
US military dominance
Many within Afghanistan humanitarian agencies expect that the increased fighting following the influx of some 20,000 additional US troops in recent months will result in greater displacement. In a joint report issued in early April, a number of reputed international humanitarian agencies warned that social protection and access to basic services were being adversely affected by the widening conflict, “with significant levels of displacement and severe disruption of health and education services”. The report, released by agencies such as Oxfam, Care International, ActionAid and DACAAR, continued: “Planned increases in troops and military operations during 2009 are likely to lead to higher levels of displacement, further restrictions on social services and greater impediments for aid agencies to reach civilians in need of protection and assistance.” Yet, such considerations were not being adequately factored into international security strategies, the agencies warned.
There is one thing that the various aid agencies and military actors agree upon, however. There is common expectation of increased violence and of still-bloodier fighting over the summer of 2009. Still, there is almost no agreement on the assumed impact of this fighting, nor how to deal with it. While the military forces expect that civilian aid will be used in support of military operations, both to mitigate the losses incurred during fighting and development work in the areas ‘cleared’ by the military, civilian aid agencies, especially humanitarian organisations, would like to distance themselves further from the military as the fighting intensifies.
Much of the unfolding scenario will depend on the US and the strategy adopted by the Barack Obama administration, the impact of which is yet to be felt. In recent weeks, the only significant change has been on the military front, with an abrupt replacement of the US commander in Afghanistan. On 11 May, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates fired General David McKiernan unceremoniously, appointing Lieutenant-General Stanley McChrystal in his place. While the need for fresh thinking was officially touted as the reason for the change, (Gen McKiernan is considered an expert in ‘conventional’ warfare, and thus was seen as unfit for the types of battles being waged in Afghanistan), many see this as indicating a shift in US military strategy. Until his new charge, Gen McChrystal was commanding the US military’s Joint Special Operations Command. He is credited both with the capture of Saddam Hussein and the operation that killed Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the al-Qaeda leader in Iraq.
While this would appear to dovetail into the professed aims of the US to go after al-Qaeda and high-value Taliban targets, Gen McChrystal has been at pains to signal a change in operating tactics with greater emphasis on civilian safety. Soon after taking command in mid-June, he began by emphasising the need to avoid civilian casualties, saying protection of civilians – rather than body counts – would be his yardstick of success. While some have welcomed this as a departure from the recent trend of military operations and the use of air power that were resulting in an increasing number of civilian casualties in Afghanistan (and frontier areas in Pakistan), there is a fair degree of scepticism about the oft-repeated rhetoric, which many criticise as not addressing the situation on the ground.
The changeover has allowed the new command to be at least partially critical of last month’s US air strikes in the western province of Farah. Afghan government authorities have claimed this to be the highest civilian death toll ever by international air strikes – forcing the payment of compensation to over 140 families. While the US military command has suggested that civilian casualties were much lower, it has admitted that ‘standard operating procedures’ may have been violated.
Less visible has been the restructuring of the command structure of the international troops operating in Afghanistan, backed by a NATO meeting in Brussels on 11-12 June. Under it, Gen McChrystal will focus on strategy while an intermediate headquarters responsible to the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) commander will be established to take care of the day-to-day operations. This plan reportedly draws heavily on the US experience in Iraq. Along with the increase in American troops, expected to double to 68,000 by the end of the year, this new structure will represent a greater US domination over the military strategy in Afghanistan. Currently non-US troops constitute over half of the roughly 61,000 troops on the ground.
Quiet on the political front
Over the past few weeks, levels of violence have refused to dip in Afghanistan, and Gen McChrystal has termed the next 18 months as a decisive period. That upcoming year and a half will also be politically decisive for Afghanistan in more ways than one, as presidential and provincial-council elections, scheduled for August, will be followed by parliamentary elections next year. But the initial flurry of excitement over candidates has now subsided somewhat into a resignation that suggests that the incumbent president, Hamid Karzai, has stitched up the elections through a series of shrewd deals – not just with his supporters, but also with potential spoilers. While President Karzai’s unpopularity has been on the increase over the past two years, many Afghans seem resigned to what appears to be an inevitable outcome. Until the announcement of Mohammed Fahim as his running mate, President Karzai and Fahim, a former defence minister and vice-president, were thought to be at odds.
While the possibility of former US ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad (appointed by George W Bush), emerging as a presidential candidate has receded, his larger-than-life apparition still looms, with rumours of an appointment of a super chief executive to ‘assist’ the president. The Karzai administration has been careful neither to accept nor deny the possibility, while emphasising that any appointment would be within the bounds of the Afghan Constitution. But the possibility of a Bush administration official emerging as a key official within the Afghan administration is not the only unique feature of the upcoming Afghan elections. According to the Election Complaints Commission, “Fifty-five candidates didn’t meet Article 15.3 of the Electoral Law for having links to or commanding unofficial military forces; plus one candidate had both criminal conviction as well as [being] found not comply[ing] under Article 15.3. And, one candidate was found to have [a] second nationality.”
The end of the candidate-vetting procedure saw over 40 contenders for the post of president. But only two of them – former Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani and former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah – are popularly accepted as serious challengers. Abdullah, a former Northern Alliance leader, received a fresh shot in the arm on 20 June, when the governor of the northern province of Balkh, Atta Mohammed, extended his support. Atta, as he is commonly known, was also a former Northern Alliance leader, and is considered to be an efficient if somewhat autocratic governor.
While a fragmented opposition puts President Karzai far ahead two months before the polls, it is not yet clear whether he will be able to secure 51 percent of the votes in the first round of polling, particularly if multiple opposition candidates split the vote share. If he gets less than that number, Afghanistan’s electoral law would require a second round of polling. It is then that the contest could see a polarisation between two candidates – a potent chance for the opposition, or a simple anti-Karzai vote, to unite behind a single candidate.
AFGHANISTAN: KABUL COURT RULING COULD FREE AFGHAN TERRORISM SUSPECTS HELD AT
EURASIA INSIGHT
GUANTANAMO
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/23/09
A short message on the back of Maj. Eric Montalvo’s business card reads: "My lawyer has told me not to talk to anyone about my case, not to answer any questions and not to reply to any accusations." The message is intended for those who try to approach his clients. Montalvo has one of the most difficult jobs anywhere. As a soldier and prosecutor for the US military, he is tasked with defending those suspected by the US government of committing acts of terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world. Some of his clients have not even been charged.
Now, Montalvo is fighting in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court to represent an Afghan national in a legal case that could have far-reaching implications for the US government’s attempts to relocate Guantanamo Bay prisoners to third countries, or detain them indefinitely in the United States.
At the heart of his petition is the case of Mohammed Jawad, a minor when he was arrested in December 2002 for his alleged involvement in a hand grenade attack on a US military vehicle. Jawad was reportedly 12 at the time he was sent to Guantanamo. While Jawad’s exact age is difficult to determine because of an absence of official records, military prosecutors have accepted that he was a juvenile at the beginning of his incarceration.
Montalvo’s petition argues that Jawad was not involved in the attack and that his confession was obtained under torture and duress, perpetrated both by Afghan police officers who initially arrested him and by interrogators at US detention facilities at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held.
In a boon to the defense, Montalvo’s plea to suppress Jawad’s statements under interrogation has been accepted by a US military judge in the Guantanamo Military Commission. Moreover, in September 2008, Lt. Col. Darryl Vandeveld, the lead prosecutor in the case against Jawad, left the commission because, he said, he could not ethically continue to prosecute the case. "I personally do not believe there is any lawful basis for continuing to detain Mr. Jawad," Vandeveld wrote in his resignation letter. "There is no reliable evidence of any voluntary involvement with any terrorist group."
Vandeveld added that he did not believe Jawad to be a threat. Describing himself as a "former prosecutor and now repentant persecutor," Vandeveld wrote that "six years is long enough for a boy of 16 to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand."
The petition argues that Jawad was not extended any of the privileges and rights of a juvenile during the years of his incarceration, and that he endured torture in various forms, including blindfolding and hooding, ’shock techniques,’ stress positions, physical and linguistic isolation, being pushed down stairs and chained to a wall, beating, threats of death and physical violence, and was subjected to the ’frequent flyer’ program (in Jawad’s case this involved forcibly moving him from cell to cell 112 times in a period of 14 days to cause sleep deprivation). Jawad, according to official prison logs cited in the petition, tried to commit suicide by repeatedly banging his head against the cell walls.
It is however not the torture, or even the innocence of Jawad, as has been well documented in a large number of other Guantanamo cases, and not even his status as a juvenile, that has immediate repercussions for America’s new administration. Montalvo and his colleague, Capt. Christopher L. Kannady, challenge Jawad’s detention and his continuing incarceration on the grounds that in the absence of an extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan, the arrest and detention of Jawad was illegal and must be overturned.
"Clear violations of foreign sovereignty in the extradition process deprive US criminal courts of jurisdiction over foreign nationals," the petition states. "There has and is currently no formal extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan. In fact, the Afghan Constitution of 1964 expressly prohibits the extradition of Afghan citizens to a foreign state." The 1964 constitution was in effect at the time Jawad was transferred by Afghan authorities to the United States on December 17, 2002, and on February 6, 2003, when Mr. Jawad was forcibly removed from Afghanistan.
Not only did the 1964 Constitution prevent extradition, but also there is no evidence the United States even bothered to ask the Afghan government for permission, the petition argues. While the new constitution, adopted in January 2004, does make provisions for the Afghan government to enter into extradition treaties with other states, to date no such pact exists between Afghanistan and the United States. Currently, the extradition bill has been referred to an Afghan parliamentary committee. In its present version, the draft requires the requesting state to submit evidence including witness testimony in support of the extradition request.
In May, Montalvo and Kannady filed the petition challenging Jawad’s ongoing Guantanamo incarceration in the Afghan Supreme Court. It calls on the Afghan government "to pursue by all means necessary the immediate release and repatriation of Jawad." During their visit to file the petition, Montalvo and Kannady said that not only had the US government made it difficult to obtain the information they needed, but that the US Marine Corps had so far refused to respond to their request to practice law before the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association have supported the two US military lawyers.
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court has directed the office of the Attorney General to look into the case. "Under international law and the Afghan Constitution, Jawad should be released," Montalvo told EurasiaNet. "Afghanistan has shown hope and promise that they will follow the law."
If Afghanistan’s Supreme Court does indeed accept the petition on grounds that the extradition was invalid, it will lay the groundwork for not just Jawad, but for all Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo to be returned to Afghanistan -- even those whom the Obama Administration believes should continue to be held in custody.
GUANTANAMO
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/23/09
A short message on the back of Maj. Eric Montalvo’s business card reads: "My lawyer has told me not to talk to anyone about my case, not to answer any questions and not to reply to any accusations." The message is intended for those who try to approach his clients. Montalvo has one of the most difficult jobs anywhere. As a soldier and prosecutor for the US military, he is tasked with defending those suspected by the US government of committing acts of terrorism in Afghanistan and around the world. Some of his clients have not even been charged.
Now, Montalvo is fighting in Afghanistan’s Supreme Court to represent an Afghan national in a legal case that could have far-reaching implications for the US government’s attempts to relocate Guantanamo Bay prisoners to third countries, or detain them indefinitely in the United States.
At the heart of his petition is the case of Mohammed Jawad, a minor when he was arrested in December 2002 for his alleged involvement in a hand grenade attack on a US military vehicle. Jawad was reportedly 12 at the time he was sent to Guantanamo. While Jawad’s exact age is difficult to determine because of an absence of official records, military prosecutors have accepted that he was a juvenile at the beginning of his incarceration.
Montalvo’s petition argues that Jawad was not involved in the attack and that his confession was obtained under torture and duress, perpetrated both by Afghan police officers who initially arrested him and by interrogators at US detention facilities at Bagram Air Base, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, where he is still held.
In a boon to the defense, Montalvo’s plea to suppress Jawad’s statements under interrogation has been accepted by a US military judge in the Guantanamo Military Commission. Moreover, in September 2008, Lt. Col. Darryl Vandeveld, the lead prosecutor in the case against Jawad, left the commission because, he said, he could not ethically continue to prosecute the case. "I personally do not believe there is any lawful basis for continuing to detain Mr. Jawad," Vandeveld wrote in his resignation letter. "There is no reliable evidence of any voluntary involvement with any terrorist group."
Vandeveld added that he did not believe Jawad to be a threat. Describing himself as a "former prosecutor and now repentant persecutor," Vandeveld wrote that "six years is long enough for a boy of 16 to serve in virtual solitary confinement, in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand."
The petition argues that Jawad was not extended any of the privileges and rights of a juvenile during the years of his incarceration, and that he endured torture in various forms, including blindfolding and hooding, ’shock techniques,’ stress positions, physical and linguistic isolation, being pushed down stairs and chained to a wall, beating, threats of death and physical violence, and was subjected to the ’frequent flyer’ program (in Jawad’s case this involved forcibly moving him from cell to cell 112 times in a period of 14 days to cause sleep deprivation). Jawad, according to official prison logs cited in the petition, tried to commit suicide by repeatedly banging his head against the cell walls.
It is however not the torture, or even the innocence of Jawad, as has been well documented in a large number of other Guantanamo cases, and not even his status as a juvenile, that has immediate repercussions for America’s new administration. Montalvo and his colleague, Capt. Christopher L. Kannady, challenge Jawad’s detention and his continuing incarceration on the grounds that in the absence of an extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan, the arrest and detention of Jawad was illegal and must be overturned.
"Clear violations of foreign sovereignty in the extradition process deprive US criminal courts of jurisdiction over foreign nationals," the petition states. "There has and is currently no formal extradition treaty between the United States and Afghanistan. In fact, the Afghan Constitution of 1964 expressly prohibits the extradition of Afghan citizens to a foreign state." The 1964 constitution was in effect at the time Jawad was transferred by Afghan authorities to the United States on December 17, 2002, and on February 6, 2003, when Mr. Jawad was forcibly removed from Afghanistan.
Not only did the 1964 Constitution prevent extradition, but also there is no evidence the United States even bothered to ask the Afghan government for permission, the petition argues. While the new constitution, adopted in January 2004, does make provisions for the Afghan government to enter into extradition treaties with other states, to date no such pact exists between Afghanistan and the United States. Currently, the extradition bill has been referred to an Afghan parliamentary committee. In its present version, the draft requires the requesting state to submit evidence including witness testimony in support of the extradition request.
In May, Montalvo and Kannady filed the petition challenging Jawad’s ongoing Guantanamo incarceration in the Afghan Supreme Court. It calls on the Afghan government "to pursue by all means necessary the immediate release and repatriation of Jawad." During their visit to file the petition, Montalvo and Kannady said that not only had the US government made it difficult to obtain the information they needed, but that the US Marine Corps had so far refused to respond to their request to practice law before the Supreme Court of Afghanistan. The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission and the Afghanistan Independent Bar Association have supported the two US military lawyers.
Afghanistan’s Supreme Court has directed the office of the Attorney General to look into the case. "Under international law and the Afghan Constitution, Jawad should be released," Montalvo told EurasiaNet. "Afghanistan has shown hope and promise that they will follow the law."
If Afghanistan’s Supreme Court does indeed accept the petition on grounds that the extradition was invalid, it will lay the groundwork for not just Jawad, but for all Afghan prisoners in Guantanamo to be returned to Afghanistan -- even those whom the Obama Administration believes should continue to be held in custody.
AFGHANISTAN: AFGHANS TRACKING TEHRAN POWER STRUGGLE
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/24/09
During Afghanistan’s nearly 30 years of civil strife, over 2 million Afghans found refuge in neighboring Iran. Most Afghan refugees have returned in recent years, and now, with Iran gripped by political turmoil, some in Kabul and elsewhere are waiting and watching anxiously to see what happens in their former country of residence. The outcome, the Afghans say, will exert considerable influence over Afghanistan’s own development.
Fauzia is among the Afghans who have strong connections to Iran. She was born and lived in Iran until she was 18, returning to Afghanistan with her parents shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Since then, she followed developments in Iran as closely as possible. As a young woman who yearns for expanded civil rights, Fauzia expressed a clear preference to see Iran’s aggrieved presidential challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, emerge as the winner of the power struggle playing out in Tehran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"Whatever happens there will affect Afghanistan," said Fauzia, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. If Mousavi were to become president in Iran, she believes, it would lead to expanded opportunities in Kabul, especially for women. "Mousavi can have a good relationship with Western countries and that would be good for Afghanistan," Fauzia explained.
Fauzia feels that while social pressures on women are possibly greater in Afghanistan, she believes she enjoys more personal freedom in Kabul than she did in Iran. "Here [in Afghanistan], I can work, study, do what I want and there is no one to point a finger and tell me what I can do or not do."
There are a significant number of former Afghan refugees who share Fauzia’s views. But among Afghanistan’s overall population, events in Iran are not so preoccupying. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Afghans have mixed views and varying levels of interest in the ongoing situation there. Even those who claim to be carefully monitoring the news don’t seem to be glued to their radios and televisions. While events in Iran are recognized as being intrinsically important to Afghanistan, it is Pakistan that has for decades consistently foisted a more immediate visible impact on Afghanistan, many Afghans tell EurasiaNet.
In the aftermath of the controversial Iranian presidential vote on June 12, what has been perhaps most interesting for Afghans has been the Western reaction, especially comments coming out of Washington. While most viewed the departure of former US President George W. Bush as a positive development, they still reserved judgment on whether Obama’s administration would be able to improve America’s image in the Muslim world. In that context, Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo, followed by his restrained and carefully calibrated response to the Iranian turmoil, is being viewed as evidence of some real progress in relations between the West and the Muslim world.
Najib Manalai, a political analyst who until recently was a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Culture, echoes Fauzia’s views. "What happens in Iran affects Afghan politics. Mousavi would try to create an understanding between the United States and Iran. He is less of an extremist [than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]. Iran would continue to play a role and fund different groups here, but their intervention would be less violent than now," he told EurasiaNet. While acknowledging that the Iranian government may not have a direct hand in supplying weapons, Manalai believes Tehran is tacitly encouraging weapons shipments into Afghanistan.
Of course, not everyone is an enthusiastic observer. Waheed, a Kabul resident who lived for several years in Iran, greets radio broadcasts of violent demonstrations in Tehran with apathy. Voicing little concern for Iranian politics, he says he is more concerned with the here and now, such as the slow pace of development, rising prices and the lack of jobs in Afghanistan.
His lack of interest resonates with Ahmed Khalid, a Kabul University student. Self-described as politically aware, Khalid feels Afghans suffered a great deal of humiliation as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. "Afghans were treated badly. We don’t care what happens there." Yet, further questioning elicits the view that a stable Iran is important to Afghanistan.
Like others following the Iranian situation, Khalid paid close attention to the Western response. He made a careful distinction between the ’West’ in general and the United States in particular. "In general, Obama has shown a soft policy towards Muslim countries. Look at his speech in Egypt. This is more normal than under Bush. It is very good."
Aunohita Mojumdar 6/24/09
During Afghanistan’s nearly 30 years of civil strife, over 2 million Afghans found refuge in neighboring Iran. Most Afghan refugees have returned in recent years, and now, with Iran gripped by political turmoil, some in Kabul and elsewhere are waiting and watching anxiously to see what happens in their former country of residence. The outcome, the Afghans say, will exert considerable influence over Afghanistan’s own development.
Fauzia is among the Afghans who have strong connections to Iran. She was born and lived in Iran until she was 18, returning to Afghanistan with her parents shortly after the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Since then, she followed developments in Iran as closely as possible. As a young woman who yearns for expanded civil rights, Fauzia expressed a clear preference to see Iran’s aggrieved presidential challenger, Mir Hussein Mousavi, emerge as the winner of the power struggle playing out in Tehran. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
"Whatever happens there will affect Afghanistan," said Fauzia, who asked to use a pseudonym to protect her identity. If Mousavi were to become president in Iran, she believes, it would lead to expanded opportunities in Kabul, especially for women. "Mousavi can have a good relationship with Western countries and that would be good for Afghanistan," Fauzia explained.
Fauzia feels that while social pressures on women are possibly greater in Afghanistan, she believes she enjoys more personal freedom in Kabul than she did in Iran. "Here [in Afghanistan], I can work, study, do what I want and there is no one to point a finger and tell me what I can do or not do."
There are a significant number of former Afghan refugees who share Fauzia’s views. But among Afghanistan’s overall population, events in Iran are not so preoccupying. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. Afghans have mixed views and varying levels of interest in the ongoing situation there. Even those who claim to be carefully monitoring the news don’t seem to be glued to their radios and televisions. While events in Iran are recognized as being intrinsically important to Afghanistan, it is Pakistan that has for decades consistently foisted a more immediate visible impact on Afghanistan, many Afghans tell EurasiaNet.
In the aftermath of the controversial Iranian presidential vote on June 12, what has been perhaps most interesting for Afghans has been the Western reaction, especially comments coming out of Washington. While most viewed the departure of former US President George W. Bush as a positive development, they still reserved judgment on whether Obama’s administration would be able to improve America’s image in the Muslim world. In that context, Obama’s June 4 speech in Cairo, followed by his restrained and carefully calibrated response to the Iranian turmoil, is being viewed as evidence of some real progress in relations between the West and the Muslim world.
Najib Manalai, a political analyst who until recently was a senior adviser in the Ministry of Information and Culture, echoes Fauzia’s views. "What happens in Iran affects Afghan politics. Mousavi would try to create an understanding between the United States and Iran. He is less of an extremist [than current President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad]. Iran would continue to play a role and fund different groups here, but their intervention would be less violent than now," he told EurasiaNet. While acknowledging that the Iranian government may not have a direct hand in supplying weapons, Manalai believes Tehran is tacitly encouraging weapons shipments into Afghanistan.
Of course, not everyone is an enthusiastic observer. Waheed, a Kabul resident who lived for several years in Iran, greets radio broadcasts of violent demonstrations in Tehran with apathy. Voicing little concern for Iranian politics, he says he is more concerned with the here and now, such as the slow pace of development, rising prices and the lack of jobs in Afghanistan.
His lack of interest resonates with Ahmed Khalid, a Kabul University student. Self-described as politically aware, Khalid feels Afghans suffered a great deal of humiliation as refugees in Iran and Pakistan. "Afghans were treated badly. We don’t care what happens there." Yet, further questioning elicits the view that a stable Iran is important to Afghanistan.
Like others following the Iranian situation, Khalid paid close attention to the Western response. He made a careful distinction between the ’West’ in general and the United States in particular. "In general, Obama has shown a soft policy towards Muslim countries. Look at his speech in Egypt. This is more normal than under Bush. It is very good."
AFGHANISTAN: CIVIL CASUALTIES REMAINS A DIVISIVE ISSUE FOR KABUL AND WASHINGTON
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 5/28/09
Despite US efforts to minimize accidents, the issue of civilian deaths remains a source of tension between American forces and the Afghan government, and it appears to be eroding popular support for coalition forces fighting Islamic militants. Afghan officials contend that US commanders need to shift their combat priorities to ensure civilian safety. US military representatives counter that it is the Taliban that does not value life, adding that the insurgents are using civilians as "human sacrifice."
The controversy of civilian casualties boiled over yet again following an early May incident in the Bala Baluk district, a Taliban stronghold in southwestern Afghanistan. Preliminary findings released by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on May 26 show US air strikes in and around Bala Baluk may have caused the single largest civilian toll caused by NATO air power since 2001.
While the Commission has not confirmed its estimate of 97 civilians killed, AIHRC officials stated categorically that at least 52 females, including 31 girls, had been killed in Bala Baluk. The number is expected to rise as investigators verify how many of the remaining deaths are of non-combatants -- including male children -- commission spokesman Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The findings dispute the accounts released by both the US forces on May 21 and the Afghan government. While US forces have said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed, the Afghan government paid compensation for 140 deaths on May 12.
Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told EurasiaNet that "there are some disagreements on the number of people, but that is not important. The important thing is that defenseless people, women and children, amongst others, were killed. This could have been avoided. We are working closely with our partners in the international community, including the US forces, so that we should find ways to bring to an absolute minimum the civilian casualties. So far we have not succeeded."
Disputing the AIHRC and government numbers, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told EurasiaNet on May 26, that the Pentagon would be issuing its own report "soon." While admitting that the military's initial figures may be revised upward, Julian claimed that the physical evidence on the ground showed that AIHRC and government numbers were "exaggerated." "They don't have the evidence we have from the footage of the site and the intelligence we have that reveals the Taliban telling its people to gather and regroup in the compounds," he said.
The dispute over the numbers suggests that despite several tactical directives issued by the former American commander, Gen. David McKiernan, to minimize civilian casualties, the implementation of the directives will be largely left to commanders on the ground. This would seem to leave lots of leeway in how heavy weapons are employed in the Afghan conflict.
While human rights groups and NGOs have called for making the safety of Afghan civilians central to all operations, US President Barack Obama's administration is advancing a strategy that clearly states the "core goal of the United States must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." In pursuit of this goal, US commanders' interpretation of acceptable levels of collateral damage appears to differ significantly from that of human rights organizations.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which carried out a rigorous documentation of the rules of engagement last September, pointed out that defensive operating procedures followed by US forces were substantively different from those used by other coalition partners. US forces seemed to have a much lower threshold on the need for air strikes. According to the United Nations, 68 percent of civilian casualties caused by pro-government forces in 2008 resulted from air strikes. Pro-government forces caused 39 percent of the 2,118 civilian casualties documented that year.
While disputing the AIHRC's findings on the use of disproportionate force in Bala Baluk, Julian alleged that the Taliban was deliberately using tactics that produced higher civilian deaths. "Civilians were used not just as human shields, but as human sacrifice," he said.
HRW has called for specific changes in operational tactics including avoiding air strikes on populated areas, urging use of precision guided low-collateral-damage munitions rather than howitzers and heavy artillery, and calling on the military to develop better intelligence on the ground.
Afghans, international monitors and international forces have all cited a lack of intelligence as a cause of civilian casualties. Feuding Afghan groups have been known to call in air strikes against rivals. Several times, the AIHRC says, international forces have acted on such information without cross verification.
"Afghans manipulate the international forces to get at their enemies," said analyst Haroun Mir, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). Mir called for better intelligence gathering, but conceded there is no way of fighting the war with the given troop numbers without using air strikes.
President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to air strikes following the Bala Baluk incident, an appeal rejected by US officials. Karzai spokesman Hamidzada said the president had ordered a commission that included ministers and experts to come up with a draft strategy that could become the basis for the new Status of Forces Agreement, currently in the process of revision.
The Afghan government's investigations into Bala Baluk -- which the AIHRC, citing concerns about accuracy, described as "hasty" -- appears to have been prompted by a desire to contain the political damage to Karzai's reelection campaign.
Aunohita Mojumdar: 5/28/09
Despite US efforts to minimize accidents, the issue of civilian deaths remains a source of tension between American forces and the Afghan government, and it appears to be eroding popular support for coalition forces fighting Islamic militants. Afghan officials contend that US commanders need to shift their combat priorities to ensure civilian safety. US military representatives counter that it is the Taliban that does not value life, adding that the insurgents are using civilians as "human sacrifice."
The controversy of civilian casualties boiled over yet again following an early May incident in the Bala Baluk district, a Taliban stronghold in southwestern Afghanistan. Preliminary findings released by Afghanistan's Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) on May 26 show US air strikes in and around Bala Baluk may have caused the single largest civilian toll caused by NATO air power since 2001.
While the Commission has not confirmed its estimate of 97 civilians killed, AIHRC officials stated categorically that at least 52 females, including 31 girls, had been killed in Bala Baluk. The number is expected to rise as investigators verify how many of the remaining deaths are of non-combatants -- including male children -- commission spokesman Nader Nadery told EurasiaNet.
The findings dispute the accounts released by both the US forces on May 21 and the Afghan government. While US forces have said that between 20 and 30 civilians were killed, the Afghan government paid compensation for 140 deaths on May 12.
Presidential spokesman Humayun Hamidzada told EurasiaNet that "there are some disagreements on the number of people, but that is not important. The important thing is that defenseless people, women and children, amongst others, were killed. This could have been avoided. We are working closely with our partners in the international community, including the US forces, so that we should find ways to bring to an absolute minimum the civilian casualties. So far we have not succeeded."
Disputing the AIHRC and government numbers, US military spokesman Colonel Greg Julian told EurasiaNet on May 26, that the Pentagon would be issuing its own report "soon." While admitting that the military's initial figures may be revised upward, Julian claimed that the physical evidence on the ground showed that AIHRC and government numbers were "exaggerated." "They don't have the evidence we have from the footage of the site and the intelligence we have that reveals the Taliban telling its people to gather and regroup in the compounds," he said.
The dispute over the numbers suggests that despite several tactical directives issued by the former American commander, Gen. David McKiernan, to minimize civilian casualties, the implementation of the directives will be largely left to commanders on the ground. This would seem to leave lots of leeway in how heavy weapons are employed in the Afghan conflict.
While human rights groups and NGOs have called for making the safety of Afghan civilians central to all operations, US President Barack Obama's administration is advancing a strategy that clearly states the "core goal of the United States must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan, and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan." In pursuit of this goal, US commanders' interpretation of acceptable levels of collateral damage appears to differ significantly from that of human rights organizations.
New York-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), which carried out a rigorous documentation of the rules of engagement last September, pointed out that defensive operating procedures followed by US forces were substantively different from those used by other coalition partners. US forces seemed to have a much lower threshold on the need for air strikes. According to the United Nations, 68 percent of civilian casualties caused by pro-government forces in 2008 resulted from air strikes. Pro-government forces caused 39 percent of the 2,118 civilian casualties documented that year.
While disputing the AIHRC's findings on the use of disproportionate force in Bala Baluk, Julian alleged that the Taliban was deliberately using tactics that produced higher civilian deaths. "Civilians were used not just as human shields, but as human sacrifice," he said.
HRW has called for specific changes in operational tactics including avoiding air strikes on populated areas, urging use of precision guided low-collateral-damage munitions rather than howitzers and heavy artillery, and calling on the military to develop better intelligence on the ground.
Afghans, international monitors and international forces have all cited a lack of intelligence as a cause of civilian casualties. Feuding Afghan groups have been known to call in air strikes against rivals. Several times, the AIHRC says, international forces have acted on such information without cross verification.
"Afghans manipulate the international forces to get at their enemies," said analyst Haroun Mir, Co-Founder and Deputy Director of Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS). Mir called for better intelligence gathering, but conceded there is no way of fighting the war with the given troop numbers without using air strikes.
President Hamid Karzai had called for an end to air strikes following the Bala Baluk incident, an appeal rejected by US officials. Karzai spokesman Hamidzada said the president had ordered a commission that included ministers and experts to come up with a draft strategy that could become the basis for the new Status of Forces Agreement, currently in the process of revision.
The Afghan government's investigations into Bala Baluk -- which the AIHRC, citing concerns about accuracy, described as "hasty" -- appears to have been prompted by a desire to contain the political damage to Karzai's reelection campaign.
AFGHANISTAN: ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION INITIATIVE A SIGN OF HOPE FOR RECONSTRUCTION
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 5/04/09
When Mustafa Zahir was growing up, he recalls meeting people who had traveled thousands of kilometers out of a desire to breathe Kabul’s invigorating air. Back then, Afghanistan was a tourist destination that enjoyed renown for its crystalline lakes, spectacular mountains, flowering gardens and fruit-laden orchards. Both affluent families and backpacking hippies visited. "Now," says Zahir, the grandson of Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, "if you breathe in the Kabul air, your lungs fill with poison."
Zahir has channeled his frustration into hope. On April 22, in his capacity as the head of the country’s National Environment Protection Agency, he proclaimed Afghanistan’s first national park in an area encompassing the spectacular Band-i Amir lakes in the country’s central highlands.
Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict, urgent humanitarian needs and chronic poverty make it difficult to focus attention on long-term requirements like environmental protection. However, efforts over the past several years appear to be finally paying off, laying the foundation for a broad-based conservation effort to preserve and regenerate a quickly disappearing national resource. Unlike many other countries that have tried and failed to enact a conservation program by relying on a top-down approach, Afghan officials have embraced a bottom-up strategy, in which local residents have a stake in the success of environmental protection endeavors.
Band-i Amir is arguably not the most logical spot for the inaugural biodiversity conservation project, given the fact that much of the area’s wildlife has suffered from acute depletion during the past three decades of tumult, points out Peter Smallwood, Afghanistan Country Director for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). What led to the choice of the site as Afghanistan’s first national park was its popularity, he says.
Belinda Bowling, program manager with the United Nations Environmental Program, who was central in helping push through environmental legislation, agrees. "There are few places in the world that have this visual natural beauty. It is a unique geologically aesthetic site. In terms of its biodiversity, it is not particularly important, but it is by far the most visited site in Afghanistan," she told EurasiaNet.
Legend holds that the succession of pristine blue and green lakes and giant travertine dams of the area were created by Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. That folklore, combined with the location’s stunning natural beauty and relative safety make Band-i Amir attractive to visitors both local and international. Despite the ongoing violence in other parts of the country, the Band-i Amir area is relatively secure, and already possesses some tourism infrastructure. This makes it possible to visibly demonstrate the linkage between preservation and income generation.
The people of the Ajar valley - a thickly forested area north of Band-i Amir and the former hunting ground of the king - who were openly hostile to the idea of a protected area at first, have now asked for help after seeing the benefits accruing to the people of Band-i Amir, says Smallwood. Ajar may become the country’s second national park.
Mohammad Ayub Alavi, who works with the WCS as a conservation specialist, exemplifies the community-based approach. With a masters degree in geology, Alavi is among the small and privileged group of Afghans who learned English while studying abroad. He possesses the skills to find far more lucrative employment in Kabul, or even abroad, but he chose to remain in Band-i Amir in large measure because his work produces an abundance of satisfaction. "I hope making this a national park will mean there will be job opportunities for others as well," he said.
During the past decades of strife and deprivation, economic factors have fueled the depletion of Afghanistan’s natural resources. The giant old walnut trees of the richly forested Nuristan area date back two or three centuries. "Those trees end up being sent to Pakistan and being trimmed into beautiful furniture and sent to the Gulf states," says Smallwood.
In the Wakhan corridor, an area rich in biodiversity in northeastern Afghanistan, the subsistence-level pastoral economy has led to over-grazing. There, a dead Marco Polo sheep, an endangered species, is worth more than a live one, laments Smallwood. "It is free meat that if it had lived would have eaten the grass that could be fed to livestock," he points out. The challenge is to make that sheep valuable while alive, by linking its presence to the idea of attracting tourists to the area.
In Band-i Amir, relocating the small shops polluting the lakeside was not easy. Here the sheer force of will of Bamiyan’s leader, Afghanistan’s only female governor, Habiba Sarobi, prevailed. To provide an incentive, those who shifted quickly were provided with bricks and roof beams. Small gestures can often make the difference between community acceptance and hostility. "We need a community based approach," says Alavi. "The major hope for us is the ecotourism project. Without it, this project will fail."
The country has a long way to go before it has a fully fledge environmental protection framework; even the declaration of the first national park still requires parliamentary approval. But its initial efforts have already been noticed in an important way. For the first time since the years of conflict began, says Smallwood, flamingoes have been returning to Afghanistan. Even Siberian cranes, an endangered species worldwide, have been sighted. For Afghanistan, still facing political and economic uncertainty, the reappearance of such species serves as a powerful expression of faith in the country’s future.
Aunohita Mojumdar 5/04/09
When Mustafa Zahir was growing up, he recalls meeting people who had traveled thousands of kilometers out of a desire to breathe Kabul’s invigorating air. Back then, Afghanistan was a tourist destination that enjoyed renown for its crystalline lakes, spectacular mountains, flowering gardens and fruit-laden orchards. Both affluent families and backpacking hippies visited. "Now," says Zahir, the grandson of Zahir Shah, the last king of Afghanistan, "if you breathe in the Kabul air, your lungs fill with poison."
Zahir has channeled his frustration into hope. On April 22, in his capacity as the head of the country’s National Environment Protection Agency, he proclaimed Afghanistan’s first national park in an area encompassing the spectacular Band-i Amir lakes in the country’s central highlands.
Afghanistan’s ongoing conflict, urgent humanitarian needs and chronic poverty make it difficult to focus attention on long-term requirements like environmental protection. However, efforts over the past several years appear to be finally paying off, laying the foundation for a broad-based conservation effort to preserve and regenerate a quickly disappearing national resource. Unlike many other countries that have tried and failed to enact a conservation program by relying on a top-down approach, Afghan officials have embraced a bottom-up strategy, in which local residents have a stake in the success of environmental protection endeavors.
Band-i Amir is arguably not the most logical spot for the inaugural biodiversity conservation project, given the fact that much of the area’s wildlife has suffered from acute depletion during the past three decades of tumult, points out Peter Smallwood, Afghanistan Country Director for the US-based Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS). What led to the choice of the site as Afghanistan’s first national park was its popularity, he says.
Belinda Bowling, program manager with the United Nations Environmental Program, who was central in helping push through environmental legislation, agrees. "There are few places in the world that have this visual natural beauty. It is a unique geologically aesthetic site. In terms of its biodiversity, it is not particularly important, but it is by far the most visited site in Afghanistan," she told EurasiaNet.
Legend holds that the succession of pristine blue and green lakes and giant travertine dams of the area were created by Hazrat Ali, the son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed. That folklore, combined with the location’s stunning natural beauty and relative safety make Band-i Amir attractive to visitors both local and international. Despite the ongoing violence in other parts of the country, the Band-i Amir area is relatively secure, and already possesses some tourism infrastructure. This makes it possible to visibly demonstrate the linkage between preservation and income generation.
The people of the Ajar valley - a thickly forested area north of Band-i Amir and the former hunting ground of the king - who were openly hostile to the idea of a protected area at first, have now asked for help after seeing the benefits accruing to the people of Band-i Amir, says Smallwood. Ajar may become the country’s second national park.
Mohammad Ayub Alavi, who works with the WCS as a conservation specialist, exemplifies the community-based approach. With a masters degree in geology, Alavi is among the small and privileged group of Afghans who learned English while studying abroad. He possesses the skills to find far more lucrative employment in Kabul, or even abroad, but he chose to remain in Band-i Amir in large measure because his work produces an abundance of satisfaction. "I hope making this a national park will mean there will be job opportunities for others as well," he said.
During the past decades of strife and deprivation, economic factors have fueled the depletion of Afghanistan’s natural resources. The giant old walnut trees of the richly forested Nuristan area date back two or three centuries. "Those trees end up being sent to Pakistan and being trimmed into beautiful furniture and sent to the Gulf states," says Smallwood.
In the Wakhan corridor, an area rich in biodiversity in northeastern Afghanistan, the subsistence-level pastoral economy has led to over-grazing. There, a dead Marco Polo sheep, an endangered species, is worth more than a live one, laments Smallwood. "It is free meat that if it had lived would have eaten the grass that could be fed to livestock," he points out. The challenge is to make that sheep valuable while alive, by linking its presence to the idea of attracting tourists to the area.
In Band-i Amir, relocating the small shops polluting the lakeside was not easy. Here the sheer force of will of Bamiyan’s leader, Afghanistan’s only female governor, Habiba Sarobi, prevailed. To provide an incentive, those who shifted quickly were provided with bricks and roof beams. Small gestures can often make the difference between community acceptance and hostility. "We need a community based approach," says Alavi. "The major hope for us is the ecotourism project. Without it, this project will fail."
The country has a long way to go before it has a fully fledge environmental protection framework; even the declaration of the first national park still requires parliamentary approval. But its initial efforts have already been noticed in an important way. For the first time since the years of conflict began, says Smallwood, flamingoes have been returning to Afghanistan. Even Siberian cranes, an endangered species worldwide, have been sighted. For Afghanistan, still facing political and economic uncertainty, the reappearance of such species serves as a powerful expression of faith in the country’s future.
A Thousand Terrible Twilights
Hard News May 2009
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege
Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
In capital Kabul, every week sees new cement bollards in front of buildings, fresh barbed wire concertinas strung across roads, new check points and road blocks. Each successive bomb blast in front of an important building, that is, buildings housing important people, sees yet another road being blocked to the Afghan public. The international community and elite Afghans barricade themselves behind more sandbags as ordinary Afghans get squeezed more and more into the remaining open areas of the capital.
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege. This fact made it all the more curious when the Director General of Afghanistan's National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, claimed this week. "We are victorious." Making a speech at a security seminar, he asked: "What more victory do you want?"
Saleh explained his contention: the world had finally come around to accepting the Afghan government's claim that the source of insecurity lay beyond Afghanistan's borders. Finally, he said, the battle had been taken to the place where those centres existed.Saleh was referring to the recent formulation of an 'Af-Pak' policy by the Barack Obama administration and its attention on Pakistan as a source of terror.
It is an approach that has gone down well with the governments of both Afghanistan as well as India, both of whom view it as a triumph of their diplomatic efforts. Officials of both countries are, however, less clear on how the Obama administration intends to act upon this understanding and how this will play into their strategies.
Within Afghanistan the mood is a somber one - of waiting. Opinion across the spectrum is agreed only on one thing: that the fresh influx of US troops will mean intensified fighting as the winter snows melt allowing for easier access across the rugged terrain.
For Afghan citizens the war against terror being waged in their territory in their name is not the only source of violence. While there is intense fighting between pro and anti-government elements in many of the southern and south eastern provinces, violence against citizens comes from multiple sources.
In Balkh province, governor Mohammad Atta, a former northern alliance commander, overlooks a province that has eradicated poppy and has been free of insurgency. However, he knows he sits on a powder keg. Balkh was hit by a severe drought last year and its dry brown fields point to the failure of crop. Economic deprivation could upset the fragile balance pushing people to re-enter poppy cultivation and destabilise the modicum of law and order that has been achieved.
In capital Kabul, its elite live in fear of kidnappings. While kidnappings in the city are usually followed by reports of the approaching spectre of the Taliban, the reality is that they are carried out by criminal networks looking for ransom - a get rich quick scheme that is made lucrative by the absence of an effective law and order machinery. Part of the problem of policing Afghanistan has been the use of police in counter insurgency duties for which they are ill-equipped. Between 2007 and 2009, 568 Afghan National Army soliders were killed compared to 1,504 policemen in the same period.
In the central province of Bamiyan, one of the most peaceful areas of the country, a hotelier explains why they never advertise widely. "It is better to get to know by word of mouth. Going to public could invite the wrong kind of attention." There are many armed militia or even gunmen who have no compunction shaking down businessmen and rich Afghans knowing that in all likelihood they will escape the criminal justice system.
In the Shind and district of the western province of Herat, an estimated 90 civilians were killed in bombing by international military forces. The international forces initially claimed they had bombed a Taliban camp but later conceded they had been misled by misinformation. Warring groups or tribes see the use of US air power as an easy and cost effective way to settle feuds.
The combination of poor intelligence on the ground, and heavy reliance on air strikes, has caused an escalation in civilian casualties. In the year 2008, the use of aerial munitions went up by 40 per cent. In the same period the number of civilian deaths from air strikes shot up by 72 per cent. Almost 60 per cent of the deaths were attributable to the approximately 10-20,000 (numbers are constantly changing) US- Operation Enduring Freedom (number of American forces stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the US Operation Enduring Freedom); rather than the 50-62,000 by International Security Assistance Force (number of forces stationed in Afghanistan under NATO command and control).
In the southern provinces where heavy fighting and civilian casualties are frequent, villagers in many areas no longer care who is in charge, just wanting peace at any cost. While outside Afghanistan the battle is seen as one between Al Qaeda and Taliban and the government and international forces, the character of the anti government armed battle is more complex. While there is a core of the Taliban regime which remains under the command and control of Mullah Omar, the homogeneous picture of the 'enemy' is more of a convenient construct of the war against terror.
The anti-government fighters comprise a mix of ideologically motivated Taliban, the Taliban merely fighting for a share of the pie, small time commanders who have been divested of their 'territory', criminals and drug traders. Their links with each other and with the Al Qaeda are fluid and changing, making this nexus much more dangerous than it would have been had it been a clear-cut homogeneous group with a clear command and control structure.
Parallel movements such as that led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are also active and coordinate with the Taliban on a needs-based basis. Each of these groups has been able to hold small areas for short bursts of time but do not have staying power. Rather, their real impact lies in their ability to disrupt governance, instill fear and erode public trust in the mechanisms of governance both in terms of security forces and administration.
Popular perception outside Afghanistan puts the Taliban at the doorstep of Kabul. Indeed, the Taliban has been able to carry out some audacious strikes inside the capital with increasing degrees of coordination. However, their support base within the capital remains extremely limited, restricting their ability to plan and coordinate operations.
While it is more convenient to countries like the US to project the perception of an 'evil' movement that can be annihilated, neither the numbers nor the ideology can be eliminated quite so easily. While the body count has been replaced with growing numbers, the intolerant ideology is not limited to those who call themselves the Taliban. Within Afghanistan's 'legitimate' polity, there are politicians, commanders and power brokers who are much more comfortable with the social and cultural practices of the Taliban than they are with the more modern political paradigm Afghanistan is currently under.
For Afghanistan's single biggest minority, its women, the greatest threat comes from the growing power of cultural conservatives and the rising intolerance. Though its Constitution promises equality, and initial steps with the urging of the international community reserved more than 20 per cent of seats in Afghanistan's Parliament for women, women in public space face increasing threats, and Constitutional guarantees appear to be only as good as its implementers want it to be.
The recent controversy over the Shia personal family law, portions of which are discriminatory towards women, brought this into sharp focus. While this particular law received considerable international focus, in part because of the sensationalised reporting on complex issues of conjugal rights, there has been far less attention on the increasing intolerance for women's participation in public space and the general growth of violence against women.
While several women have been killed by Taliban in the southern provinces such as the killings of Malalai Kakar, a senior and well- known policewoman, and recently Sitara Achakzai, a woman activist (both were killed in Kandahar), there have been several murders in non-Taliban areas as well, such as that of Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabbal Seraj in Parwan province close to Kabul. In Kabul city, the head of a woman's organisation says the staff, mainly women, have become more nervous about their role as advocate of women's rights, preferring to stay low key.
The increasing violence against women is taking place in a milieu where aspects of human rights, media freedoms and democratic principles are increasingly being attacked from powerful sections of Afghanistan's polity as being 'alien' to Afghanistan. Many women fear that it is their rights which may be the first to be sacrificed. They point out that in the 'negotiations' with the Taliban, half of Afghanistan's population remains unrepresented. Women's groups feel that their rights may be the easiest compromise their leaders and the international community may be willing to make, pushing them into a renewed cycle of violence and oppressions.
MAY 2009
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege
Aunohita Mojumdar Kabul
In capital Kabul, every week sees new cement bollards in front of buildings, fresh barbed wire concertinas strung across roads, new check points and road blocks. Each successive bomb blast in front of an important building, that is, buildings housing important people, sees yet another road being blocked to the Afghan public. The international community and elite Afghans barricade themselves behind more sandbags as ordinary Afghans get squeezed more and more into the remaining open areas of the capital.
Seven-and-a-half years after the removal of the Taliban, the feeling is of a city increasingly under siege. This fact made it all the more curious when the Director General of Afghanistan's National Security Directorate, Amrullah Saleh, claimed this week. "We are victorious." Making a speech at a security seminar, he asked: "What more victory do you want?"
Saleh explained his contention: the world had finally come around to accepting the Afghan government's claim that the source of insecurity lay beyond Afghanistan's borders. Finally, he said, the battle had been taken to the place where those centres existed.Saleh was referring to the recent formulation of an 'Af-Pak' policy by the Barack Obama administration and its attention on Pakistan as a source of terror.
It is an approach that has gone down well with the governments of both Afghanistan as well as India, both of whom view it as a triumph of their diplomatic efforts. Officials of both countries are, however, less clear on how the Obama administration intends to act upon this understanding and how this will play into their strategies.
Within Afghanistan the mood is a somber one - of waiting. Opinion across the spectrum is agreed only on one thing: that the fresh influx of US troops will mean intensified fighting as the winter snows melt allowing for easier access across the rugged terrain.
For Afghan citizens the war against terror being waged in their territory in their name is not the only source of violence. While there is intense fighting between pro and anti-government elements in many of the southern and south eastern provinces, violence against citizens comes from multiple sources.
In Balkh province, governor Mohammad Atta, a former northern alliance commander, overlooks a province that has eradicated poppy and has been free of insurgency. However, he knows he sits on a powder keg. Balkh was hit by a severe drought last year and its dry brown fields point to the failure of crop. Economic deprivation could upset the fragile balance pushing people to re-enter poppy cultivation and destabilise the modicum of law and order that has been achieved.
In capital Kabul, its elite live in fear of kidnappings. While kidnappings in the city are usually followed by reports of the approaching spectre of the Taliban, the reality is that they are carried out by criminal networks looking for ransom - a get rich quick scheme that is made lucrative by the absence of an effective law and order machinery. Part of the problem of policing Afghanistan has been the use of police in counter insurgency duties for which they are ill-equipped. Between 2007 and 2009, 568 Afghan National Army soliders were killed compared to 1,504 policemen in the same period.
In the central province of Bamiyan, one of the most peaceful areas of the country, a hotelier explains why they never advertise widely. "It is better to get to know by word of mouth. Going to public could invite the wrong kind of attention." There are many armed militia or even gunmen who have no compunction shaking down businessmen and rich Afghans knowing that in all likelihood they will escape the criminal justice system.
In the Shind and district of the western province of Herat, an estimated 90 civilians were killed in bombing by international military forces. The international forces initially claimed they had bombed a Taliban camp but later conceded they had been misled by misinformation. Warring groups or tribes see the use of US air power as an easy and cost effective way to settle feuds.
The combination of poor intelligence on the ground, and heavy reliance on air strikes, has caused an escalation in civilian casualties. In the year 2008, the use of aerial munitions went up by 40 per cent. In the same period the number of civilian deaths from air strikes shot up by 72 per cent. Almost 60 per cent of the deaths were attributable to the approximately 10-20,000 (numbers are constantly changing) US- Operation Enduring Freedom (number of American forces stationed in Afghanistan under the command of the US Operation Enduring Freedom); rather than the 50-62,000 by International Security Assistance Force (number of forces stationed in Afghanistan under NATO command and control).
In the southern provinces where heavy fighting and civilian casualties are frequent, villagers in many areas no longer care who is in charge, just wanting peace at any cost. While outside Afghanistan the battle is seen as one between Al Qaeda and Taliban and the government and international forces, the character of the anti government armed battle is more complex. While there is a core of the Taliban regime which remains under the command and control of Mullah Omar, the homogeneous picture of the 'enemy' is more of a convenient construct of the war against terror.
The anti-government fighters comprise a mix of ideologically motivated Taliban, the Taliban merely fighting for a share of the pie, small time commanders who have been divested of their 'territory', criminals and drug traders. Their links with each other and with the Al Qaeda are fluid and changing, making this nexus much more dangerous than it would have been had it been a clear-cut homogeneous group with a clear command and control structure.
Parallel movements such as that led by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar are also active and coordinate with the Taliban on a needs-based basis. Each of these groups has been able to hold small areas for short bursts of time but do not have staying power. Rather, their real impact lies in their ability to disrupt governance, instill fear and erode public trust in the mechanisms of governance both in terms of security forces and administration.
Popular perception outside Afghanistan puts the Taliban at the doorstep of Kabul. Indeed, the Taliban has been able to carry out some audacious strikes inside the capital with increasing degrees of coordination. However, their support base within the capital remains extremely limited, restricting their ability to plan and coordinate operations.
While it is more convenient to countries like the US to project the perception of an 'evil' movement that can be annihilated, neither the numbers nor the ideology can be eliminated quite so easily. While the body count has been replaced with growing numbers, the intolerant ideology is not limited to those who call themselves the Taliban. Within Afghanistan's 'legitimate' polity, there are politicians, commanders and power brokers who are much more comfortable with the social and cultural practices of the Taliban than they are with the more modern political paradigm Afghanistan is currently under.
For Afghanistan's single biggest minority, its women, the greatest threat comes from the growing power of cultural conservatives and the rising intolerance. Though its Constitution promises equality, and initial steps with the urging of the international community reserved more than 20 per cent of seats in Afghanistan's Parliament for women, women in public space face increasing threats, and Constitutional guarantees appear to be only as good as its implementers want it to be.
The recent controversy over the Shia personal family law, portions of which are discriminatory towards women, brought this into sharp focus. While this particular law received considerable international focus, in part because of the sensationalised reporting on complex issues of conjugal rights, there has been far less attention on the increasing intolerance for women's participation in public space and the general growth of violence against women.
While several women have been killed by Taliban in the southern provinces such as the killings of Malalai Kakar, a senior and well- known policewoman, and recently Sitara Achakzai, a woman activist (both were killed in Kandahar), there have been several murders in non-Taliban areas as well, such as that of Zakia Zaki who ran a radio station in Jabbal Seraj in Parwan province close to Kabul. In Kabul city, the head of a woman's organisation says the staff, mainly women, have become more nervous about their role as advocate of women's rights, preferring to stay low key.
The increasing violence against women is taking place in a milieu where aspects of human rights, media freedoms and democratic principles are increasingly being attacked from powerful sections of Afghanistan's polity as being 'alien' to Afghanistan. Many women fear that it is their rights which may be the first to be sacrificed. They point out that in the 'negotiations' with the Taliban, half of Afghanistan's population remains unrepresented. Women's groups feel that their rights may be the easiest compromise their leaders and the international community may be willing to make, pushing them into a renewed cycle of violence and oppressions.
MAY 2009
AFGHANISTAN: EXCLUSIONARY HUMANITARIAN AID PRACTICES HITTING HEARTS AND MINDS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/30/09
The governor of Balkh, a northern Afghan province bordering Uzbekistan, is a smooth-talking, dapper former mujaheddin commander, Atta Mohammad. During a recent interview, he repeatedly expressed frustration with the international approach to Afghanistan. His chief complaint: Despite totally eradicating poppy cultivation in 2007, his province is being ignored by the international aid community.
Atta expressed pride in achieving a measure of security and stability in Balkh. Crime is low and anti-government insurgents are not posing a particular problem. But endemic poverty and a critical humanitarian situation, he said, are threatening to reverse these fragile gains. Under current conditions aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the population’s needs. The reason, many say: donors predominantly fund political and military objectives.
Balkh’s plight seems to be connected in large part to this competition for resources. Dependent on rain-fed agriculture, the province was devastated by severe drought in 2008, crippling a region without substantial access to ground water. Yet despite the security and the need, Balkh’s overwhelming needs have largely gone unaddressed.
If the issue was one of scarce funds thinly spread between competing emergencies, the Balkh governor would perhaps not be complaining. The reason for his resentment, though, is that there seems to be plenty of money available -- so much that some donors have been "throwing it at NGOs" says one aid worker. Money is available for the asking, if aid agencies and NGOs are willing to work for projects when and where the donors dictate.
"We have no problems getting funds for conflict areas," says Dave Hampson of Save the Children, "but it is a struggle to continue excellent work in the non-conflict areas. The interest of donors is quite often in the areas where they have troops. It is understandable for them as a country, but it is not a division of resources based on humanitarian aid needs."
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy and Research of Action Aid Afghanistan, concurs. "Aid is tied to locations where [a donor’s] troops are based. Some countries preference them through PRTs," he says, referring to the controversial civil-military provincial reconstruction teams. ECHO, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office, is the only donor giving independent funding to NGOs now, he says.
Humanitarian aid, intended for basic survival and emergencies, is under pressure. On a visit to Afghanistan in early April, Esko Kentrschynskyj, the Head of Unit for Asia and Latin America of ECHO, emphasized that despite the huge commitment for development and reconstruction in Afghanistan, humanitarian aid had been very limited. "One should not lose sight of significant humanitarian needs that remain in this country," he told journalists in Kabul.
ECHO’s acting country director, Luc Verna, says the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan "are so huge that it will take years and years to cover them all." While he and other aid workers caution that reliable and comprehensive estimates are hard to measure as large swathes of Afghanistan are out of bounds even for assessment, he affirms that anecdotal evidence from the field suggests malnutrition is again on the rise. "The trends are not very good," he says.
The Humanitarian Action Plan appeal launched by the United Nations in February points out that "extreme poverty and lack of development have also left the population more susceptible during times of crisis and emergency, limiting their coping strategies and draining contingency reserves."
"People are resorting to negative coping mechanisms," such as selling off their livestock, says another aid worker who asked to remain anonymous. "The lack of humanitarian funding is a huge issue. All the funding we get is development funding. The humanitarian funding that is offered is linked to political objectives."
This linkage can vary vastly. "We are constantly being pushed to take up projects in areas where the major donors have their troops. They are throwing money at those projects even though the complete push on the south has not prevented the insecurity from spreading," says the aid worker. Other linkages include contractual obligations on the NGOs to build strong ties with military PRTs, or, in the most blatant cases, stipulations that the NGO beneficiary may be asked to do "post battlefield clean-up." "We are forced to reject many projects because of the stipulations," she says.
"After 2001, there was significant involvement of the international community in humanitarian aid that was replaced step-by-step by a trend towards the development of political assets or infrastructure," says Verna of ECHO. He feels that this was probably because of the initial security improvements, but the practice is continuing, despite a drastic change in the situation.
"Independent and flexible humanitarian funding has not been a priority of the donor community in Afghanistan," says Ingrid Macdonald, the Regional Protection and Advocacy Adviser of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The tendency has been to fund large scale and high-value development and reconstruction projects. Often these projects are implemented through large for-profit private companies, linked to military and political priorities, and targeting geographic areas where the donors have a military presence or political interest. The humanitarian needs of the Afghan people are not being met, despite significant donor funding to Afghanistan," she says.
In an interview with EurasiaNet in August last year, then-UNODC country chief, Christina Oguz, warned that provinces like Balkh, which had suffered severely from drought, might slip back into poppy cultivation unless steps were taken to redress the unfolding humanitarian crises. If the province does slip from its current position as a secure and stable province, Governor Atta’s angry message may become prophetic.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/30/09
The governor of Balkh, a northern Afghan province bordering Uzbekistan, is a smooth-talking, dapper former mujaheddin commander, Atta Mohammad. During a recent interview, he repeatedly expressed frustration with the international approach to Afghanistan. His chief complaint: Despite totally eradicating poppy cultivation in 2007, his province is being ignored by the international aid community.
Atta expressed pride in achieving a measure of security and stability in Balkh. Crime is low and anti-government insurgents are not posing a particular problem. But endemic poverty and a critical humanitarian situation, he said, are threatening to reverse these fragile gains. Under current conditions aid agencies are finding it increasingly difficult to meet the population’s needs. The reason, many say: donors predominantly fund political and military objectives.
Balkh’s plight seems to be connected in large part to this competition for resources. Dependent on rain-fed agriculture, the province was devastated by severe drought in 2008, crippling a region without substantial access to ground water. Yet despite the security and the need, Balkh’s overwhelming needs have largely gone unaddressed.
If the issue was one of scarce funds thinly spread between competing emergencies, the Balkh governor would perhaps not be complaining. The reason for his resentment, though, is that there seems to be plenty of money available -- so much that some donors have been "throwing it at NGOs" says one aid worker. Money is available for the asking, if aid agencies and NGOs are willing to work for projects when and where the donors dictate.
"We have no problems getting funds for conflict areas," says Dave Hampson of Save the Children, "but it is a struggle to continue excellent work in the non-conflict areas. The interest of donors is quite often in the areas where they have troops. It is understandable for them as a country, but it is not a division of resources based on humanitarian aid needs."
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy and Research of Action Aid Afghanistan, concurs. "Aid is tied to locations where [a donor’s] troops are based. Some countries preference them through PRTs," he says, referring to the controversial civil-military provincial reconstruction teams. ECHO, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid Office, is the only donor giving independent funding to NGOs now, he says.
Humanitarian aid, intended for basic survival and emergencies, is under pressure. On a visit to Afghanistan in early April, Esko Kentrschynskyj, the Head of Unit for Asia and Latin America of ECHO, emphasized that despite the huge commitment for development and reconstruction in Afghanistan, humanitarian aid had been very limited. "One should not lose sight of significant humanitarian needs that remain in this country," he told journalists in Kabul.
ECHO’s acting country director, Luc Verna, says the humanitarian needs in Afghanistan "are so huge that it will take years and years to cover them all." While he and other aid workers caution that reliable and comprehensive estimates are hard to measure as large swathes of Afghanistan are out of bounds even for assessment, he affirms that anecdotal evidence from the field suggests malnutrition is again on the rise. "The trends are not very good," he says.
The Humanitarian Action Plan appeal launched by the United Nations in February points out that "extreme poverty and lack of development have also left the population more susceptible during times of crisis and emergency, limiting their coping strategies and draining contingency reserves."
"People are resorting to negative coping mechanisms," such as selling off their livestock, says another aid worker who asked to remain anonymous. "The lack of humanitarian funding is a huge issue. All the funding we get is development funding. The humanitarian funding that is offered is linked to political objectives."
This linkage can vary vastly. "We are constantly being pushed to take up projects in areas where the major donors have their troops. They are throwing money at those projects even though the complete push on the south has not prevented the insecurity from spreading," says the aid worker. Other linkages include contractual obligations on the NGOs to build strong ties with military PRTs, or, in the most blatant cases, stipulations that the NGO beneficiary may be asked to do "post battlefield clean-up." "We are forced to reject many projects because of the stipulations," she says.
"After 2001, there was significant involvement of the international community in humanitarian aid that was replaced step-by-step by a trend towards the development of political assets or infrastructure," says Verna of ECHO. He feels that this was probably because of the initial security improvements, but the practice is continuing, despite a drastic change in the situation.
"Independent and flexible humanitarian funding has not been a priority of the donor community in Afghanistan," says Ingrid Macdonald, the Regional Protection and Advocacy Adviser of the Norwegian Refugee Council. "The tendency has been to fund large scale and high-value development and reconstruction projects. Often these projects are implemented through large for-profit private companies, linked to military and political priorities, and targeting geographic areas where the donors have a military presence or political interest. The humanitarian needs of the Afghan people are not being met, despite significant donor funding to Afghanistan," she says.
In an interview with EurasiaNet in August last year, then-UNODC country chief, Christina Oguz, warned that provinces like Balkh, which had suffered severely from drought, might slip back into poppy cultivation unless steps were taken to redress the unfolding humanitarian crises. If the province does slip from its current position as a secure and stable province, Governor Atta’s angry message may become prophetic.
Old military hardware in a new bottle
Asia Times
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy, goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power - diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides". Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details, the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care, Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since 2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May 2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs. Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money. "We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38 billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment, $3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In 2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72% over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan, speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for "Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged. Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys' that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
By Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL - Obama's call for a fresh approach to Afghanistan and his promise of allocating greater resources have all but obscured the fact that Washington remains focused on its strategic military interests and the exit strategy, goals not synonymous with the interests of Afghans or long-term stability in the region. The added danger this time round is that the use of soft power - diplomacy and aid initiatives that kept a counterbalance to the military perspective - may now be reduced to handmaidens in the aid of strategic military aims.
One does not have to go much further than last month's White Paper outlining the Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy to understand the Obama administration's main tactical aims in Afghanistan. The "core goal of the US", the paper states, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al-Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan
and to prevent their return to Pakistan or Afghanistan". This core has been reiterated time and again at different levels by senior administration officials, but continues to be ignored by other members of the international community. Desperate for some signs of a positive change, other donor countries, the United Nations (UN) and even the Afghan government have cherry-picked the parts of the Obama strategy that suit their contentions.
While President Hamid Karzai dwelt on the US recognition that the theater of war would now extend to Pakistan, the UN's top man in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, focused on the "greater balance between the military and civilian sides". Indeed the White Paper has something for everyone. The hold-all strategy lays out a number of simultaneous aims that include bolstering governance, economic aid, building political institutions and establishing the rule of law. What analysts are ignoring, however, is that the Obama administration has already signaled its priorities within the wish list it has spelt out and these remain focused on short-term tactical military advantages.
A focus on the military strategy itself does not presage an undermining of other goals. The evidence for that lies in the details: the budgetary details, the tools of implementation, a high tolerance for operating procedures that result in violence against civilians, and a "hearts and minds" campaign that impacts on the ability of aid workers to deliver independent aid. The evidence also lies in hints about the apparent willingness to compromise on some aspects of fundamental democratic and human-rights principles.
Obama's core goals are a reiteration of the early goals of the Bush era before it got into the messy business of "nation-building". The means it uses to achieve these may also merely result in an expanded version of the George W Bush administration's toolbox.
Take the talk of a civilian surge. At best the number of civilians who are going to be sent by Washington will number in the hundreds, not the thousands that the "military surge" entails. Moreover, according to the office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan's Reconstruction in the US administration, the 215 civilian posts are related to the expansion of the civilian-military provincial reconstruction teams (PRT), ie the civilian and aid workers will be embedded within the military bases. The decision to expand the PRTs comes at a time when 11 reputable international non-governmental organizations (NGOs), with a track record of years of consistent work in Afghanistan, have called for a phasing out of the PRTs. The NGOs Oxfam, Care, Action Aid, Save the Children and others have joined hands to express concern that the continued delivery of humanitarian and development aid through the military component has not only been ineffective but is continuing to intensify the danger to the operations of civilian agencies working on the ground.
While the PRTs were set up as a means of reaching out to areas where the civilian agencies had not been able to reach, the intensifying conflict since 2005 has fundamentally altered that role. The heavy fighting has meant that soldiers engaged in fighting are also delivering aid, blurring the lines between the civilian and military and eroding the neutrality that aid workers depend on for effective and safe delivery of aid.
There appears to be a willful disregard of the need to maintain this distinction. Though the international military forces have signed onto the May 2008 Afghanistan National Civilian Military guidelines, they have not followed them. The UN, which is expected to play the role of coordinator, has also not fulfilled its mandate. "It is profoundly regrettable that for over a year the UN took few steps to fulfill this important responsibility" said a report on civilians caught in conflict released earlier this month by this group of NGOs. Some examples of the disregard are in the unwillingness of military forces to carry clear identification, the military's continued use of unmarked white vehicles that are universally used by humanitarian workers, and the location of military facilities and the passage of military convoys in urban areas.
Rather than emphasizing the need for the neutrality in aid delivery, many of the major donors have tended to pour their money into the PRTs. As fighting has intensified, donor money has also followed the troops, with some of the largest donors like the US, Britain and Canada routing substantive chunks of their money into the provinces where their troops are fighting. In the existing conditions the aid money has come to resemble pacification tactics: money that is expected to win the hearts and minds battle and mitigate the fallout of the intense fighting.
Humanitarian and aid agencies talk of the difficulty of getting donor money. "We are feeling the pull on our sleeve from the military tent and the political tent", said Dave Hampson of Save the Children UK, adding "we are not being funded on the basis of humanitarian need".
The $75.5 billion for Afghanistan and Iraq in the Supplemental Appropriations Request for 2009 has been widely reported. Less reported is the fine print: $38 billion will fund ongoing military operations, $11.6 billion is for equipment, $3.6 billion is for the Afghan security forces and $3.1 billion for counter-terrorism operations. Only $1.6 billion will go towards economic assistance for Afghanistan, a portion of it for supporting additional civilian personnel and diplomatic operations. Only $170 million is earmarked to support economic growth in Afghanistan, including agriculture sector development.
An example of the preference for routing funds through the military is evident in the figures for the US Commander's Emergency Response Program (CERP). In 2008, this was close to $0.5 billion, which exceeds the total amount the Afghan government spends on health and education. The supplementary budget provides for an additional $0.5 billion in additional funds to continue the CERP "which enables US military commanders to respond to urgent, humanitarian relief and reconstruction needs in their areas of responsibility".
With a former military commander, General Karl Eikenberry, nominated in March as the next US ambassador to Afghanistan, will the emphasis on using aid to buttress military strategy undergo any change?
The tolerance for civilian casualties is another example of how the long-term goal of stability and security of the civilian population is being compromised for short-term military goals. "Corollary damage" - that euphemistic term for civilian casualties from use of excessive use of force - has grown not diminished. In the year 2008, a year when the international military forces reportedly changed their operating methods to minimize civilian casualties, the number of deaths from air strikes by international military forces rose by 72% over the previous year, with a 40% increase in the use of aerial munitions.
According to the NGO report, almost 60% of the civilian deaths caused by international military forces were attributable to American-led forces serving in Operation Enduring Freedom.
The NGOs have also expressed concern about the possible adverse fallout of the presence of an increased number of international troops on the civilian population. They are calling for significant changes in the operating procedures of the international military forces.
US policy makers have made much of not creating a "Valhalla" in Afghanistan, speaking of shorter goal posts and lowered ambitions. There are fears here that these could represent a willingness to compromise on essential human and democratic rights in exchange for a measure of illusory "stability".
A resurgent conservatism has provided a useful tool for political mobilization amongst a section of powerful political powerbrokers. Debate within the international community has also shifted. It now speaks of the need for "Afghanisation" and to respect Afghanistan's culture. There has been increasing rhetoric around the fact that Afghanistan does not need to replicate the model of democracy. While such talk is always made with deference to the country's constitution, the recent controversy over the Shia bill - that would return Taliban-style restrictions on women - has shown that the constitution is only as good as its implementers and no bulwark to the erosion of basic rights.
Aspects of women's rights, democracy, media freedoms and cultural tolerance are increasingly being labeled as "foreign concepts" by a powerful section of Afghan leaders. The international community has largely left this unchallenged. Long before Afghanistan's citizens can lay claim to the basic rights of life and liberty, the debate now centers around the need to curtail these rights in accordance with Afghanistan's traditions.
President Bush was castigated for the US policy of supporting predatory warlords with untenable human-rights records. There are no signs that this policy will change. Individual commanders with poor track records continue to be propped up by the US administration on the grounds of being 'can do guys' that the Obama administration feels it can do business with. The world view and ideologies of some of these so-called leaders have little to differentiate them from that of many of the Taliban on several counts.
Little wonder then that negotiations with the Taliban are increasingly being touted as a way out of the current morass. If hard-won democratic freedoms and human rights are bartered in exchange, it will undoubtedly be dubbed "the Afghan way" of doing things. After all the US has long been quite comfortable with authoritarian undemocratic regimes, as long as they are seen to be on the American side.
Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian journalist who is currently based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for 16 years and has covered the Kashmir conflict and post-conflict situation in Punjab extensively.
AFGHANISTAN: PRESIDENTIAL POLITICS REVEAL COMPLEXITIES IN THE AFGHAN POLITICAL
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/21/09
One of the chief weaknesses of President Hamid Karzai’s administration in Afghanistan is that its authority does not extend across the entire country. It is ironic, then, that one of Karzai’s main challengers in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election asserts that the incumbent has too much power concentrated in his hands.
Speaking at an April 20 security conference, Abdullah Abdullah -- a former Afghan foreign minister and himself a presidential hopeful in the August election -- complained that Afghanistan’s current security woes can be attributed in part to the marginalization of forces that played an instrumental role in resisting both Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.
"Those who played a role in bringing security" in earlier years should have a say in the present security debates, Abdullah asserted. Instead, Karzai in recent years has managed to consolidate authority in his hands, and has succeeded in pushing out those individuals and forces that could provide checks on his authority. The current governmental decision-making process is so centralized that "even the smallest decisions have to go to the president’s office," Abdullah said.
Abdullah should know. He was part of the team that took over in Kabul after a US-led blitz toppled the Taliban. His influence stemmed from the fact that he was a leader of the Northern Alliance, which provided most of the armed resistance to the Taliban only to see its influence wane dramatically in recent years.
The need to strike a new balance in Afghanistan’s still nascent democratic system seems to be one of the emerging themes of the presidential campaign. But as Abdullah and others are finding, fixing perceived flaws in the system will not be easy. As Karzai critics now see it, the United States and European Union miscalculated during the 2001 Bonn Conference, which created the country’s existing political framework and launched the process of drafting a new constitution.
Back then, the United States reportedly pushed strongly for the creation of a powerful presidency -- apparently believing that a strong chief executive would offer the best way to promote stability in the strife-torn country. Over time, however, Karzai’s administration has proven ineffectual in combating corruption, and the consensus among democratization advocates has shifted -- to the point where some policy-makers in the West reportedly now wish that stronger checks and balances on presidential authority had been built into the Afghan system.
In March, the British daily The Guardian reported that US officials were keen to create the post of prime minister in the Afghan government structure as a way of counter-balancing Karzai’s influence. But in an interview with EurasiaNet, a US government spokesman denied that Washington had any such plans.
In any event, introducing the post of prime minister at this point would be a difficult task. Afghanistan’s Constitution currently does not provide for that post and thus would require amending. While amendments can be introduced by a majority in parliament, the commission that approves amendments, and the Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, which ratifies constitutional changes, both require presidential assent, as does the final endorsement of the amendments. Any sitting president, not just Karzai, would seem unlikely to support a measure that would considerably dilute his (or potentially her) presidential authority.
In addition, any perception that the United States supports the creation of the prime ministerial post would, at this stage, seem a sure way of squashing all hopes of it ever becoming reality. Most Afghans are convinced that Washington wants to influence the election’s outcome, despite Washington’s insistence that it is neither supporting nor opposing any candidate. Within Afghanistan, anti-foreigner sentiment, especially anti-American sentiment, may well turn out to be a major factor in the presidential election.
The question of checks and balances is just one of the complexities of the Afghan system that is exerting influence on the presidential campaign. One other major issue is the matter of individual influence in politics, and the lack of well-organized political parties.
Afghanistan’s electoral law poses obstacles to the involvement of political parties in the presidential campaign. As a result, the campaign’s outcome hinges on not necessarily the articulation of policy programs, but on back-room deals made by power brokers -- a process that appears to be currently underway.
For example, to blunt Abdullah’s criticism, Karzai loyalists announced on April 21 that another leader of the Northern Alliance, Mohammad Fahim, was formally endorsing the incumbent for reelection. The announcement thus exposed a split in the National Front, the main political opposition group in the country.
Yet another intricacy of this presidential election revolves around citizenship. Some of those who aspire to the Afghan presidency now find themselves in a position of first having to reaffirm their Afghan citizenship. One such presidential hopeful is Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist who also served as Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002-2004. Ghani is currently in the United States, where he is in the midst of revoking his US citizenship. According to his office here in Kabul, Ghani intends to return to Afghanistan on an Afghan passport.
The citizenship hurdle confronted by Ghani and others is connected with Afghanistan’s legacy of three-plus decades of foreign occupation and civil strife. Over that time, more than 8 million Afghans became refugees, with most finding safe havens in Pakistan and Iran. A privileged few, including Ghani, migrated to the West, where they acquired US and European citizenship.
Ghani’s citizenship did not prevent him from serving as finance minister, but the constitution expressly forbids the chief executive from being a citizen of any other country. Ministers are appointed, not elected, and the prerogative of vetting the qualifications of a ministerial nominee rests with the Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament. In presidential contests, the Independent Election Commission has the responsibility of ensuring that candidates meet all constitutional requirements.
The commission’s deputy chief, Zekria Barakzai, told EurasiaNet that the IEC will strictly interpret the constitution on the citizenship issue. "They [candidates] have to provide proof of revoking their citizenship (of another country), and the proof must state that they have already annulled the citizenship," Barakzai said. The requirement will affect not only Ghani, but several other contenders including the former interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, who was born in Afghanistan in 1940, but subsequently acquired American citizenship.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/21/09
One of the chief weaknesses of President Hamid Karzai’s administration in Afghanistan is that its authority does not extend across the entire country. It is ironic, then, that one of Karzai’s main challengers in Afghanistan’s upcoming presidential election asserts that the incumbent has too much power concentrated in his hands.
Speaking at an April 20 security conference, Abdullah Abdullah -- a former Afghan foreign minister and himself a presidential hopeful in the August election -- complained that Afghanistan’s current security woes can be attributed in part to the marginalization of forces that played an instrumental role in resisting both Soviet occupation and Taliban rule.
"Those who played a role in bringing security" in earlier years should have a say in the present security debates, Abdullah asserted. Instead, Karzai in recent years has managed to consolidate authority in his hands, and has succeeded in pushing out those individuals and forces that could provide checks on his authority. The current governmental decision-making process is so centralized that "even the smallest decisions have to go to the president’s office," Abdullah said.
Abdullah should know. He was part of the team that took over in Kabul after a US-led blitz toppled the Taliban. His influence stemmed from the fact that he was a leader of the Northern Alliance, which provided most of the armed resistance to the Taliban only to see its influence wane dramatically in recent years.
The need to strike a new balance in Afghanistan’s still nascent democratic system seems to be one of the emerging themes of the presidential campaign. But as Abdullah and others are finding, fixing perceived flaws in the system will not be easy. As Karzai critics now see it, the United States and European Union miscalculated during the 2001 Bonn Conference, which created the country’s existing political framework and launched the process of drafting a new constitution.
Back then, the United States reportedly pushed strongly for the creation of a powerful presidency -- apparently believing that a strong chief executive would offer the best way to promote stability in the strife-torn country. Over time, however, Karzai’s administration has proven ineffectual in combating corruption, and the consensus among democratization advocates has shifted -- to the point where some policy-makers in the West reportedly now wish that stronger checks and balances on presidential authority had been built into the Afghan system.
In March, the British daily The Guardian reported that US officials were keen to create the post of prime minister in the Afghan government structure as a way of counter-balancing Karzai’s influence. But in an interview with EurasiaNet, a US government spokesman denied that Washington had any such plans.
In any event, introducing the post of prime minister at this point would be a difficult task. Afghanistan’s Constitution currently does not provide for that post and thus would require amending. While amendments can be introduced by a majority in parliament, the commission that approves amendments, and the Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, which ratifies constitutional changes, both require presidential assent, as does the final endorsement of the amendments. Any sitting president, not just Karzai, would seem unlikely to support a measure that would considerably dilute his (or potentially her) presidential authority.
In addition, any perception that the United States supports the creation of the prime ministerial post would, at this stage, seem a sure way of squashing all hopes of it ever becoming reality. Most Afghans are convinced that Washington wants to influence the election’s outcome, despite Washington’s insistence that it is neither supporting nor opposing any candidate. Within Afghanistan, anti-foreigner sentiment, especially anti-American sentiment, may well turn out to be a major factor in the presidential election.
The question of checks and balances is just one of the complexities of the Afghan system that is exerting influence on the presidential campaign. One other major issue is the matter of individual influence in politics, and the lack of well-organized political parties.
Afghanistan’s electoral law poses obstacles to the involvement of political parties in the presidential campaign. As a result, the campaign’s outcome hinges on not necessarily the articulation of policy programs, but on back-room deals made by power brokers -- a process that appears to be currently underway.
For example, to blunt Abdullah’s criticism, Karzai loyalists announced on April 21 that another leader of the Northern Alliance, Mohammad Fahim, was formally endorsing the incumbent for reelection. The announcement thus exposed a split in the National Front, the main political opposition group in the country.
Yet another intricacy of this presidential election revolves around citizenship. Some of those who aspire to the Afghan presidency now find themselves in a position of first having to reaffirm their Afghan citizenship. One such presidential hopeful is Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank economist who also served as Afghanistan’s finance minister from 2002-2004. Ghani is currently in the United States, where he is in the midst of revoking his US citizenship. According to his office here in Kabul, Ghani intends to return to Afghanistan on an Afghan passport.
The citizenship hurdle confronted by Ghani and others is connected with Afghanistan’s legacy of three-plus decades of foreign occupation and civil strife. Over that time, more than 8 million Afghans became refugees, with most finding safe havens in Pakistan and Iran. A privileged few, including Ghani, migrated to the West, where they acquired US and European citizenship.
Ghani’s citizenship did not prevent him from serving as finance minister, but the constitution expressly forbids the chief executive from being a citizen of any other country. Ministers are appointed, not elected, and the prerogative of vetting the qualifications of a ministerial nominee rests with the Wolesi Jirga, or the lower house of parliament. In presidential contests, the Independent Election Commission has the responsibility of ensuring that candidates meet all constitutional requirements.
The commission’s deputy chief, Zekria Barakzai, told EurasiaNet that the IEC will strictly interpret the constitution on the citizenship issue. "They [candidates] have to provide proof of revoking their citizenship (of another country), and the proof must state that they have already annulled the citizenship," Barakzai said. The requirement will affect not only Ghani, but several other contenders including the former interior minister, Ali Ahmed Jalali, who was born in Afghanistan in 1940, but subsequently acquired American citizenship.
AFGHANISTAN’S FIRST FEMALE GOVERNOR STRIVES TO CHANGE ATTITUDES AND HABITS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/16/09
Habiba Sarobi is levying punitive fines -- fines for arriving late and fines for failing to silence cell phones during meetings. The penalties are a major part the governor of Bamiyan’s strategy to overhaul the work ethic of her province, a place made famous by the Taliban’s destruction of giant Buddhas in 2001.
Though it is still early in her reform effort, some provincial officials quietly express surprise at the progress already made. At one recent public function, for example, several functionaries showed up early, a fact practically unheard of elsewhere in Afghanistan. Already Sarobi is Afghanistan’s first and only female governor. If her experiment in punctuality succeeds, she would also become the first governor to instill in bureaucrats a healthy respect for time and discipline anywhere in the country. "One man paid the fine this morning," she declares with a mischievous smile.
In a country still ravaged by conflict, and where corruption and nepotism are rampant, late arrivals at meetings may seem like an outlandish issue -- one too trivial to bother with amid pressing economic and social concerns. But for Bamiyan, discipline may be the critical component in promoting economic growth. The province is fortunate to be one of the most stable in Afghanistan. But stability is both a blessing and a curse: with international attention focused on the more insecure provinces in the south and east, Bamiyan has been largely left to its own devices during the reconstruction process.
For Sarobi and other officials in the province, there is not a lot to work with other than their own ingenuity. Bamiyan’s history -- going back to before the Soviet invasion -- is one of economic deprivation. As a province dominated by the Hazara community, who are racially distinct and face social segregation and discrimination throughout the country, Bamiyan has experienced years of neglect from successive rulers. While a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now working there, the absence of essential infrastructure makes it difficult for Bamiyan to capitalize on the benefits of their work.
According to Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy, Afghanistan has rehabilitated 12,200 kilometers of roads since 2001. Only in the last year has the rehabilitation reached Bamiyan. So far the province has just one mile of asphalt, hardly enough to encourage investment in industries or tourism.
As Bamiyan does not tie into existing infrastructure networks, NGO aid does not yield the same benefits that it would in other provinces. The province enjoys renown for its fertile fields and agriculture, but farmers have difficulty in getting their produce to market because of the lack of roads. It has the potential for tourism, but no commercial flights land in the vicinity.
Sarobi has ideas for promoting growth. The tourism potential is ripe. But despite the province’s spectacular beauty, fascinating history and linkage with contemporary events, tourism in Bamiyan could only provide small revenues. Agriculture and mining (the region has abundant iron and coal deposits) would seem to be the best engines for growth.
These days, Sarobi can usually be found multitasking: asking NGOs to invest in small scale units to help with milk and wool production; drawing up plans to extract iron in the Hajigak mines; flying off to New Zealand where she succeeded in persuading Wellington to provide a $1 million grant towards tourism development at a time when most of the international community has grave doubts about Afghanistan’s security; or lobbying the central government to relocate the tiny airport so Bamiyan can retain its status as a world heritage site, an accolade bestowed on the remote valley in 2003 for its beauty and archeological treasures.
Sarobi is hands on, whether it is organizing a meeting at the spectacular lakes of Band-i Amir where she has had lakeside buildings removed to preserve the pristine beauty of the lake, or clambering up the steep scaffolding in front of one of the Buddhas on hearing an ancient relic had been discovered hidden in a small alcove.
"We hope we can have a regional museum here to keep the archeological finds," says Sarobi. It is a proposal that is endorsed by the director of National Museums in Kabul, Omara Khan Masoudi.
On the debate about the future of the Buddhas, she dismisses outlandish proposals to reconstruct them and says simply, "I would like them to be reconstructed using anastylosis" (a process where no new material is used, but the fragments are reattached to the existing structure wherever possible).
Sarobi’s greatest contribution to the province’s regeneration is perhaps the one that defies quantification -- serving as a role model for Afghan girls and women who desire to participate in civil society development. It is a space Sarobi herself has carved out after a long struggle, which began with discrimination within her own family.
After much persuasion, she speaks of childhood matter-of-factly, but with an underlying sadness. "The first stage of my life was very tough. My father, like all other men in Afghanistan, had an attitude of discrimination. He preferred my brothers to me. This affected me a lot. It affected me enough to [work hard and] show my family that I am here and I can do something. I would work hard and always come first in class to show I could do better than my brothers," she says.
It was not her father, however, who was convinced by this determination, but her uncles who encouraged Sarobi to continue studying: "This changed my personality at that time. In university I became involved with some student unions during the [era of Soviet occupation in the 1980s]. I was a very emotional person. But in middle age, I said it is not good for a woman to be emotional but better to be strong. I witnessed many crimes during the mujahedeen time and I decided to stop crying."
Sarobi helps both her sister and daughter overcome the prevalent disadvantages facing females in Afghan society. "I witness many bad attitudes towards women even among educated families," she says. In her own family she has found support from her husband whose own liberal views influence their children, two sons and a daughter. But Sarobi feels Afghan society has a long way to go.
"I hope that it will change," she said.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/16/09
Habiba Sarobi is levying punitive fines -- fines for arriving late and fines for failing to silence cell phones during meetings. The penalties are a major part the governor of Bamiyan’s strategy to overhaul the work ethic of her province, a place made famous by the Taliban’s destruction of giant Buddhas in 2001.
Though it is still early in her reform effort, some provincial officials quietly express surprise at the progress already made. At one recent public function, for example, several functionaries showed up early, a fact practically unheard of elsewhere in Afghanistan. Already Sarobi is Afghanistan’s first and only female governor. If her experiment in punctuality succeeds, she would also become the first governor to instill in bureaucrats a healthy respect for time and discipline anywhere in the country. "One man paid the fine this morning," she declares with a mischievous smile.
In a country still ravaged by conflict, and where corruption and nepotism are rampant, late arrivals at meetings may seem like an outlandish issue -- one too trivial to bother with amid pressing economic and social concerns. But for Bamiyan, discipline may be the critical component in promoting economic growth. The province is fortunate to be one of the most stable in Afghanistan. But stability is both a blessing and a curse: with international attention focused on the more insecure provinces in the south and east, Bamiyan has been largely left to its own devices during the reconstruction process.
For Sarobi and other officials in the province, there is not a lot to work with other than their own ingenuity. Bamiyan’s history -- going back to before the Soviet invasion -- is one of economic deprivation. As a province dominated by the Hazara community, who are racially distinct and face social segregation and discrimination throughout the country, Bamiyan has experienced years of neglect from successive rulers. While a number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs) are now working there, the absence of essential infrastructure makes it difficult for Bamiyan to capitalize on the benefits of their work.
According to Afghanistan’s National Development Strategy, Afghanistan has rehabilitated 12,200 kilometers of roads since 2001. Only in the last year has the rehabilitation reached Bamiyan. So far the province has just one mile of asphalt, hardly enough to encourage investment in industries or tourism.
As Bamiyan does not tie into existing infrastructure networks, NGO aid does not yield the same benefits that it would in other provinces. The province enjoys renown for its fertile fields and agriculture, but farmers have difficulty in getting their produce to market because of the lack of roads. It has the potential for tourism, but no commercial flights land in the vicinity.
Sarobi has ideas for promoting growth. The tourism potential is ripe. But despite the province’s spectacular beauty, fascinating history and linkage with contemporary events, tourism in Bamiyan could only provide small revenues. Agriculture and mining (the region has abundant iron and coal deposits) would seem to be the best engines for growth.
These days, Sarobi can usually be found multitasking: asking NGOs to invest in small scale units to help with milk and wool production; drawing up plans to extract iron in the Hajigak mines; flying off to New Zealand where she succeeded in persuading Wellington to provide a $1 million grant towards tourism development at a time when most of the international community has grave doubts about Afghanistan’s security; or lobbying the central government to relocate the tiny airport so Bamiyan can retain its status as a world heritage site, an accolade bestowed on the remote valley in 2003 for its beauty and archeological treasures.
Sarobi is hands on, whether it is organizing a meeting at the spectacular lakes of Band-i Amir where she has had lakeside buildings removed to preserve the pristine beauty of the lake, or clambering up the steep scaffolding in front of one of the Buddhas on hearing an ancient relic had been discovered hidden in a small alcove.
"We hope we can have a regional museum here to keep the archeological finds," says Sarobi. It is a proposal that is endorsed by the director of National Museums in Kabul, Omara Khan Masoudi.
On the debate about the future of the Buddhas, she dismisses outlandish proposals to reconstruct them and says simply, "I would like them to be reconstructed using anastylosis" (a process where no new material is used, but the fragments are reattached to the existing structure wherever possible).
Sarobi’s greatest contribution to the province’s regeneration is perhaps the one that defies quantification -- serving as a role model for Afghan girls and women who desire to participate in civil society development. It is a space Sarobi herself has carved out after a long struggle, which began with discrimination within her own family.
After much persuasion, she speaks of childhood matter-of-factly, but with an underlying sadness. "The first stage of my life was very tough. My father, like all other men in Afghanistan, had an attitude of discrimination. He preferred my brothers to me. This affected me a lot. It affected me enough to [work hard and] show my family that I am here and I can do something. I would work hard and always come first in class to show I could do better than my brothers," she says.
It was not her father, however, who was convinced by this determination, but her uncles who encouraged Sarobi to continue studying: "This changed my personality at that time. In university I became involved with some student unions during the [era of Soviet occupation in the 1980s]. I was a very emotional person. But in middle age, I said it is not good for a woman to be emotional but better to be strong. I witnessed many crimes during the mujahedeen time and I decided to stop crying."
Sarobi helps both her sister and daughter overcome the prevalent disadvantages facing females in Afghan society. "I witness many bad attitudes towards women even among educated families," she says. In her own family she has found support from her husband whose own liberal views influence their children, two sons and a daughter. But Sarobi feels Afghan society has a long way to go.
"I hope that it will change," she said.
AFGHANISTAN: IS THE OBLIGATORY SEX LAW POLITICALLY MOTIVATED TO BOLSTER KARZAI'S POLL HOPES?
Eurasia Insight:
Aunohita Mojumdar: 4/10/09
Following an international outcry, officials in Afghanistan have backtracked on legislation that would have drastically curtailed women's rights. While some international observers characterized the draft bill as an aberration in Afghanistan's democratization process, critics insist Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration is willing to endorse discrimination in order to bolster its standing in conservative constituencies.
The Shi'a Personal Status bill would codify unequal marriage rights and duties for men and women within the Shi'a minority. Foreign critics have complained that the legislation would enable a husband to compel his wife to have sex with impunity, in effect engaging in action that in several Western states meets a legal standard of rape. The law would also lower the marriage age below the minimum enshrined in the civil law, currently 16 for girls and 18 for boys, allowing for the marriage of minors.
Women's rights activists say they have been agitating against the discriminatory provisions of the law since it was first drafted in 2007. They see a negative trend and fear that the bill is the beginning of a process that will see women's rights bartered in lieu of political deals and compromises, both during the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and in the larger process of reconciliation with the Taliban.
Female MP Shinkai Karokhail, who has been at the forefront of raising this issue within parliament, says the discriminatory provisions were by no means an aberration or oversight. "We have pointed these out in detail over the past two years. As recently as March, just before the bill got presidential assent, we had questioned why the bill contained these discriminatory provisions," she told EurasiaNet.
The bill has been passed by both houses of parliament and signed by President Karzai, thus completing three of the four stages for adoption of the law. However, it has still not been published, the last step before it becomes legally binding. Karokhail says the bill was passed in haste. "Different departments of the legislative process rushed through the bill. This was entirely for political reasons. Only four or five powerful people within parliament supported it, but not the majority," she asserted.
The perception that political machinations or a political deal were behind the bill is widespread amongst women's rights activists. "It has nothing to do with religion," asserts Wajma Frogh, the Country Director of Global Rights in Afghanistan. "It is political. Women's issues are being compromised for political gain."
Activists, however, are also aware that they have to tread cautiously so as not to be seen as discriminatory toward a religious minority group in Afghanistan. Karokhail emphasizes that the changes they are demanding in the Shi'a bill are similar to the safeguards they are seeking under the Sunni version of the law, which is still in the drafting process. Indeed, the fear is that if the discriminatory provisions of the Shi'a law are not overturned, it could set a precedent that would impact the majority Sunni community as well.
The swift reactions of international leaders -- including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer -- led Karzai to order a review. If anything in the legislation is found to contravene the country's constitution or Sharia law, the president said, "measures will be taken."
"We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community," Karzai told a press conference in Kabul. "Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law, or a misinterpretation of it."
The somewhat haphazard international reaction to the bill has, in part, allowed the government to shield itself. To date, there is no authoritative translation, preventing many organizations and international bodies from taking a firm, clear and public stand on this issue. In a statement issued early this month, UNIFEM Afghanistan made clear its concerns about the initial draft, noting that, "the question was raised as to whether the draft law was consistent with Afghanistan's own legal framework which includes the Afghan Constitution."
In the absence of a definitive version of the legislation, Karzai has some wiggle room to speak of "inappropriate" concerns based on incorrect interpretations. Some say his characterization that opposition to the bill emanated from the international community is misleading, since the most fierce and consistent opposition has come from Afghan women and Afghan groups. Local activists claim that the president's office and the Ministry of Justice have long been aware of the specific objections, as well as suggested amendments.
Bolstered by the international reaction, Afghan activists are still worried that the "review" will become an excuse for not taking action, and that the international community's interest in the issue will dwindle. "In the beginning we were a priority, and efforts were made to have the active participation of women in public life. Now we are no longer on the agenda of the government and international community," said Karokhail. "We are not being consulted on any major decisions. We are not being consulted on talks with the Taliban. There is a fear in our heart that the politicians will compromise our rights."
Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of Human Rights Watch, is worried that, as diplomats and government officials speak more openly about reconciliation with the Taliban, the bill portends a decrease in attention to women's rights. "In passing this law, Parliament and the president have behaved as though women's rights are expendable," she told EurasiaNet. "All of this makes the prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban deeply worrying if women's rights can be so easily abandoned and those who want to speak up for women can be so easily silenced. One has to hope that those international politicians who expressed outrage at the Shi'a family law will show the same commitment to women's rights when deals are being made with the Taliban."
Aunohita Mojumdar: 4/10/09
Following an international outcry, officials in Afghanistan have backtracked on legislation that would have drastically curtailed women's rights. While some international observers characterized the draft bill as an aberration in Afghanistan's democratization process, critics insist Afghan President Hamid Karzai's administration is willing to endorse discrimination in order to bolster its standing in conservative constituencies.
The Shi'a Personal Status bill would codify unequal marriage rights and duties for men and women within the Shi'a minority. Foreign critics have complained that the legislation would enable a husband to compel his wife to have sex with impunity, in effect engaging in action that in several Western states meets a legal standard of rape. The law would also lower the marriage age below the minimum enshrined in the civil law, currently 16 for girls and 18 for boys, allowing for the marriage of minors.
Women's rights activists say they have been agitating against the discriminatory provisions of the law since it was first drafted in 2007. They see a negative trend and fear that the bill is the beginning of a process that will see women's rights bartered in lieu of political deals and compromises, both during the upcoming presidential and parliamentary elections and in the larger process of reconciliation with the Taliban.
Female MP Shinkai Karokhail, who has been at the forefront of raising this issue within parliament, says the discriminatory provisions were by no means an aberration or oversight. "We have pointed these out in detail over the past two years. As recently as March, just before the bill got presidential assent, we had questioned why the bill contained these discriminatory provisions," she told EurasiaNet.
The bill has been passed by both houses of parliament and signed by President Karzai, thus completing three of the four stages for adoption of the law. However, it has still not been published, the last step before it becomes legally binding. Karokhail says the bill was passed in haste. "Different departments of the legislative process rushed through the bill. This was entirely for political reasons. Only four or five powerful people within parliament supported it, but not the majority," she asserted.
The perception that political machinations or a political deal were behind the bill is widespread amongst women's rights activists. "It has nothing to do with religion," asserts Wajma Frogh, the Country Director of Global Rights in Afghanistan. "It is political. Women's issues are being compromised for political gain."
Activists, however, are also aware that they have to tread cautiously so as not to be seen as discriminatory toward a religious minority group in Afghanistan. Karokhail emphasizes that the changes they are demanding in the Shi'a bill are similar to the safeguards they are seeking under the Sunni version of the law, which is still in the drafting process. Indeed, the fear is that if the discriminatory provisions of the Shi'a law are not overturned, it could set a precedent that would impact the majority Sunni community as well.
The swift reactions of international leaders -- including US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and outgoing NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer -- led Karzai to order a review. If anything in the legislation is found to contravene the country's constitution or Sharia law, the president said, "measures will be taken."
"We understand the concerns of our allies in the international community," Karzai told a press conference in Kabul. "Those concerns may be out of inappropriate or not-so-good translation of the law, or a misinterpretation of it."
The somewhat haphazard international reaction to the bill has, in part, allowed the government to shield itself. To date, there is no authoritative translation, preventing many organizations and international bodies from taking a firm, clear and public stand on this issue. In a statement issued early this month, UNIFEM Afghanistan made clear its concerns about the initial draft, noting that, "the question was raised as to whether the draft law was consistent with Afghanistan's own legal framework which includes the Afghan Constitution."
In the absence of a definitive version of the legislation, Karzai has some wiggle room to speak of "inappropriate" concerns based on incorrect interpretations. Some say his characterization that opposition to the bill emanated from the international community is misleading, since the most fierce and consistent opposition has come from Afghan women and Afghan groups. Local activists claim that the president's office and the Ministry of Justice have long been aware of the specific objections, as well as suggested amendments.
Bolstered by the international reaction, Afghan activists are still worried that the "review" will become an excuse for not taking action, and that the international community's interest in the issue will dwindle. "In the beginning we were a priority, and efforts were made to have the active participation of women in public life. Now we are no longer on the agenda of the government and international community," said Karokhail. "We are not being consulted on any major decisions. We are not being consulted on talks with the Taliban. There is a fear in our heart that the politicians will compromise our rights."
Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of Human Rights Watch, is worried that, as diplomats and government officials speak more openly about reconciliation with the Taliban, the bill portends a decrease in attention to women's rights. "In passing this law, Parliament and the president have behaved as though women's rights are expendable," she told EurasiaNet. "All of this makes the prospect of reconciliation with the Taliban deeply worrying if women's rights can be so easily abandoned and those who want to speak up for women can be so easily silenced. One has to hope that those international politicians who expressed outrage at the Shi'a family law will show the same commitment to women's rights when deals are being made with the Taliban."
Afghanistan unravelling
April 2009
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
In early March, Kabul was abuzz with talk about the next presidential elections. When would they be held, and under what circumstances? Who would be able to vote? Would the Election Commission be prepared? Were any of the opposition candidates ready? Could the security forces ensure security? And how many times would the Constitution be violated in the course of whatever decision was ultimately taken?
Under Afghanistan’s Constitution, the elections should have been held by 21 April, at least a month before the constitutionally mandated date for the end of the presidential term. But following discussions, it was last year ‘agreed’ – between the parliamentarians, the country’s independent Election Commission and the presidency – to hold the elections in August 2009. This was a time period the commission said would be required if it were to attempt to implement the ballot throughout the country, large parts of which are snowbound till late spring. Now, this agreement appeared to have unravelled, with the opposition demanding that either the elections be held in accordance with the Constitution, in April itself, or that President Hamid Karzai step down for the period between the end of the presidency and the elections. With this move, the opposition – which includes the United National Front, a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-Communist leaders and various social and ethnic groups – was hoping that it would be able to deprive President Karzai of the advantages of incumbency in the run-up.
Afghanistan, still a nascent political democracy, does not have public electoral campaigning in the style of most democracies. Instead, security concerns, resource constraints, geography and the very culture, which is as yet unused to a full representative government based on the principles of parliamentary democracy, conspire to limit the candidates’ access to voters. In this situation, the advantage goes to whoever controls the Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA), which still remains under state control despite numerous efforts to free up the airwaves. Any incumbent president would also benefit from the highly centralised system of authority and financial power in the current form of government, where provincial governors are appointed by the president rather than by the elected provincial councils.
President Karzai initially fought the move to shunt him out. Unwilling to step down, he first argued that he be should allowed to stay till the completion of his five-year term, since the presidential elections were last held late in 2004. When the opposition parties did not budge, he hoisted them on their own petard, ordering the Election Commission to follow the Constitution to the letter – an order that was interpreted as the president’s call for early elections in April. Not only would this have ensured that he remained in his position during the conduct of the elections because it was within the Constitutional timeframe, but it also put the opposition in quite a spot, since no one was even half ready to challenge the incumbent.
As the opposition reverted its position to supporting August elections, the international community also backed that date, terming it impossible to organise the logistics before that. Finally, the Election Commission formally stated that it would be impossible to hold free and fair elections anytime before August. While President Karzai agreed to this decision, the question of whether he could be forced to step down remains unresolved, as does the issue of constitutional impropriety of having elections well beyond the constitutionally mandated date. Worryingly, both of these matters appear to be able to be resolved only through the imposition of a state of emergency, though that is being seen as an unlikely step now.
Alienation
SABIR NAZAR, “Tree of knowledge”
It is the political manoeuvres and legal technicalities that have preoccupied those in the seat and circle of power in Kabul. But talk of the elections has also engendered some hope, in that people think a change by itself may be positive in a country that has endured a downward slide for some time. This optimism is tempered with a realisation of the limitations of the voter, however, and there is as much discussion on which candidate the Americans will back as there is regarding the candidates that are entering the fray.
An analysis of the hopes and fears about Afghanistan leaves one sober. The Asia Foundation’s annual survey (which offers the largest sample size of any survey in Afghanistan) on public opinion on a range of issues found that 36 percent of the Afghan population feels that they were more prosperous under the Taliban than they are now; only 39 percent feel they are better off today than back then. The survey further reported that of the 16 percent of the population that reported having experienced violence, only eight percent said they had faced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants; in a worrying trend, as much as six percent also said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces.
There has been a 40 percent increase in civilian casualties over the last year of intensifying conflict. UN data states that of the 2118 civilian casualties in 2008, 55 percent were attributed to anti-government elements, and 39 percent to pro-government forces. (The rest could not be attributed.) For the high number of dead from pro-government forces, there is growing public alienation from both the Kabul government and the international community. Though casualties caused by insurgents are higher, Afghans explain their anger by stating that they hold the international community to higher standards. This is because, they point out, the international community and the Karzai government has sought public support on grounds of a higher moral authority, and the promise to uphold rule of law. Increasing civilian casualties, stagnation in the delivery of development and the escalating number of barriers in the form of physical obstacles, denial of access and increasingly complex procedures designed to minimise contact with the public used by the government (including the international community working in support of it) have caused growing public anger, and led to a lower threshold of tolerance.
After seven years of development expenditure amounting to some USD 20 billion, economic progress in Afghanistan has been paltry, erratic and unbalanced. While a small section of the population has been able to benefit from the aid, the majority continue to survive on agriculture – ironically, and interestingly, the most neglected sector by the major international donors. USAID, the American aid arm, for example, has spent less than five percent of its Afghanistan budget on agriculture since 2002. It is not hard to understand why: between 2005 and 2008, an additional five percent of the country’s population was pushed below the minimum nutritional levels, while average household expenditure on food rose from 56 percent to 85 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food scarcity has been exacerbated by rising worldwide prices and a severe drought, a factor that development agencies warn could affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest.
Civilian casualties in the international military operations have acted like lightening rods on the Afghan polity, drawing criticism from the Parliament, President Karzai and the public. This has prodded the UN to join hands in demanding changes in the operational strategies of the international forces. The UN’s seniormost official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has called for a change in the agreements that mandate the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil, especially with respect to house-to-house searches, arbitrary detention and the use of air power in operations. All three are elements that the Taliban has exploited to energise public opinion against the Karzai government.
In Kabul, the alienation is visible in the form of growing checkpoints and physical barriers that protect the international community and the small section of elite Afghans in power. Everyday, more road blocks are put up, barbed wire is strung, and guns are trained on the local population. Debate over the security situation is frenetic. The old mantra that a military solution alone is the answer, which made its appearance soon after the resurgence of insurgency in 2005-06, was revived in 2008, albeit with a new twist: the push for negotiations with the Taliban. While a reconciliation process with those Taliban militants willing to give up arms and join the government has been in place for some time, without yielding substantial results, the emphasis now seems to be on high-level talks. However, there are differing perceptions of who could or should be brought to the table, and at what stage that should happen. The dominant thinking at this point – that of the US with new President Barack Obama at the helm – is to increase the military pressure on the insurgents and the Taliban, while at the same time carrying on negotiations. But the efficacy of this carrot-and-stick approach is yet to be demonstrated.
The change in US administration following the last elections there was eagerly awaited in Afghanistan, though Afghans emphasise that the real change will lie in the detail. While the broad contours of President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan are yet to be spelled out, there are indications of a deepening of the militarised approach in the Afghanistan policy. The new US National Security Adviser, Marine General James Jones, is a former military commander, breaking the earlier precedent of having civilian advisors. The new US ambassador to Afghanistan is also a former military man, General Karl Eikenberry, who served as the commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, and is currently deputy chairman of the NATO military committee in Brussels.
As an initial step, President Obama has sanctioned the sending of an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, whereas military commanders in the field had sought 30,000. The delay in the training of the Afghan National Army has also given impetus to a proposal to train and arm the tribal militia as a means of meeting the shortfall. This proposal now finds the backing of the American generals. Initial statements emanating from Washington, DC have suggested lowered political ambitions and shorter goalposts, with some officials stating that the US must concentrate on its early goals of tackling al-Qaeda and the Taliban, rather than the wider aims of nation-building and stabilisation.
Love thy neighbour
The other defining aspect to emerge from the first months of President Obama’s administration is the concept of ‘Af-Pak’, or viewing the two countries and the violence emanating from and within them as a combined problem. The appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy for ‘Af-Pak’ saw several other countries, including Britain, France and Germany, swiftly following suit by appointing similar envoys in addition to their ambassadors.
Pressure on Pakistan is likely to continue under the Obama administration. However, the fragility of Pakistan’s polity makes it unclear where and how the pressure can be applied. The policy of crossborder strikes carried out by US Special Forces into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, a signature of the Bush years, was supported by candidate Obama. It is not clear whether these strikes will now continue, and it is not clear whether the Americans are sensitive to the enormous negative baggage they collect as a result of the attacks by aircrafts and drones. But it is a fact that there is greater operational coherence in the American operations now, with the Special Forces, which was not answerable to the US commander in Afghanistan, also being brought under the command of the US top military commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.
The deepening crisis within Afghanistan has led to an escalation of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in Kabul, with repeated demands being made for international action on training camps and militant bases across the border, within Pakistan. President Karzai has asked the international forces to move out of the villages of Afghanistan’s hinterland and spread out instead along the border, in order to reach targets across the frontier. This demand for action against Pakistan cuts across the political spectrum, and is likely to increase in intensity as the country moves closer to the elections.
This rhetoric, of course, has been bolstered by similar sentiments within India, heightened in its warmongering frenzy after the Bombay blasts. New Delhi’s role vis-Ã -vis Afghanistan is likely to be enhanced in the near future, though it is far too early to predict the exact contours of this engagement. India has four consulates apart from its embassy in Kabul, a fact that Islamabad has always cited as evidence of New Delhi’s anti-Pakistan intentions in Afghanistan. For its part, South Block claims, somewhat incongruously, that the relationship with Kabul is bilateral, and has no correlation with its relationship with Pakistan. Afghanistan is the largest beneficiary of Indian foreign aid anywhere, with a USD 1.2 billion package covering infrastructure, capacity-building and community-based projects.
Yet India’s role in helping shape the future of Afghanistan has been limited. Either as a reaction to the criticism levelled by Pakistan or due to its own insecurity about competing with the Western-led project, India has largely stayed away from the decision-making table with regards to Afghanistan, which sees the participation of most major countries of the West as well as the Afghan government. Over the past seven and a half years, the Indian government has preferred to limit its activities to the bilateral arena or to follow the US lead in most issues relating to Afghanistan. With the possibility of a thaw in relations between Iran and the US, and a more assertive Russia increasingly active in the Central Asian republics, it will be interesting to watch whether India makes use of its earlier close ties with these countries, or restricts its role to support of the US. The only possible hiccup on the horizon of the evolving India-US relationship on the Afghanistan front is Washington’s desire to link Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations to the situation in Afghanistan – something New Delhi is adamantly set against.
The situation on the ground is shifting, with national chauvinism on the ascendancy along with an increase in conservatism. Political leaders who have relied on social and political conservative ideology to consolidate their hold have once again begun asserting themselves, and are now finding greater support from the Karzai government. As the country moves towards elections, this platform is likely to be used with increasing frequency. One finds the values of democracy, political, civil and human rights being questioned with increasing frequency, described as imported, Western concepts alien to Afghan life and culture.
This questioning has not come only from interest groups within Afghanistan. It is also emanating from Western donor countries – now eager to wrap up the Afghanistan project, which appears in danger of unravelling. Recent decisions, statements as well as the support provided to ‘leaders’ who have woeful track records in the area of democracy and human rights have shown that some in the Western compact might be willing to accept an Afghan state that is less than democratic, as long as it is somewhat stable and friendly to the Western capitals. Democracy and civil rights look likely to take a back seat as long as the country is able to control the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their ability to hit at the West.
By: Aunohita Mojumdar
In early March, Kabul was abuzz with talk about the next presidential elections. When would they be held, and under what circumstances? Who would be able to vote? Would the Election Commission be prepared? Were any of the opposition candidates ready? Could the security forces ensure security? And how many times would the Constitution be violated in the course of whatever decision was ultimately taken?
Under Afghanistan’s Constitution, the elections should have been held by 21 April, at least a month before the constitutionally mandated date for the end of the presidential term. But following discussions, it was last year ‘agreed’ – between the parliamentarians, the country’s independent Election Commission and the presidency – to hold the elections in August 2009. This was a time period the commission said would be required if it were to attempt to implement the ballot throughout the country, large parts of which are snowbound till late spring. Now, this agreement appeared to have unravelled, with the opposition demanding that either the elections be held in accordance with the Constitution, in April itself, or that President Hamid Karzai step down for the period between the end of the presidency and the elections. With this move, the opposition – which includes the United National Front, a broad coalition of former and current strongmen, commanders from the anti-Soviet resistance, ex-Communist leaders and various social and ethnic groups – was hoping that it would be able to deprive President Karzai of the advantages of incumbency in the run-up.
Afghanistan, still a nascent political democracy, does not have public electoral campaigning in the style of most democracies. Instead, security concerns, resource constraints, geography and the very culture, which is as yet unused to a full representative government based on the principles of parliamentary democracy, conspire to limit the candidates’ access to voters. In this situation, the advantage goes to whoever controls the Radio and Television Afghanistan (RTA), which still remains under state control despite numerous efforts to free up the airwaves. Any incumbent president would also benefit from the highly centralised system of authority and financial power in the current form of government, where provincial governors are appointed by the president rather than by the elected provincial councils.
President Karzai initially fought the move to shunt him out. Unwilling to step down, he first argued that he be should allowed to stay till the completion of his five-year term, since the presidential elections were last held late in 2004. When the opposition parties did not budge, he hoisted them on their own petard, ordering the Election Commission to follow the Constitution to the letter – an order that was interpreted as the president’s call for early elections in April. Not only would this have ensured that he remained in his position during the conduct of the elections because it was within the Constitutional timeframe, but it also put the opposition in quite a spot, since no one was even half ready to challenge the incumbent.
As the opposition reverted its position to supporting August elections, the international community also backed that date, terming it impossible to organise the logistics before that. Finally, the Election Commission formally stated that it would be impossible to hold free and fair elections anytime before August. While President Karzai agreed to this decision, the question of whether he could be forced to step down remains unresolved, as does the issue of constitutional impropriety of having elections well beyond the constitutionally mandated date. Worryingly, both of these matters appear to be able to be resolved only through the imposition of a state of emergency, though that is being seen as an unlikely step now.
Alienation
SABIR NAZAR, “Tree of knowledge”
It is the political manoeuvres and legal technicalities that have preoccupied those in the seat and circle of power in Kabul. But talk of the elections has also engendered some hope, in that people think a change by itself may be positive in a country that has endured a downward slide for some time. This optimism is tempered with a realisation of the limitations of the voter, however, and there is as much discussion on which candidate the Americans will back as there is regarding the candidates that are entering the fray.
An analysis of the hopes and fears about Afghanistan leaves one sober. The Asia Foundation’s annual survey (which offers the largest sample size of any survey in Afghanistan) on public opinion on a range of issues found that 36 percent of the Afghan population feels that they were more prosperous under the Taliban than they are now; only 39 percent feel they are better off today than back then. The survey further reported that of the 16 percent of the population that reported having experienced violence, only eight percent said they had faced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants; in a worrying trend, as much as six percent also said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces.
There has been a 40 percent increase in civilian casualties over the last year of intensifying conflict. UN data states that of the 2118 civilian casualties in 2008, 55 percent were attributed to anti-government elements, and 39 percent to pro-government forces. (The rest could not be attributed.) For the high number of dead from pro-government forces, there is growing public alienation from both the Kabul government and the international community. Though casualties caused by insurgents are higher, Afghans explain their anger by stating that they hold the international community to higher standards. This is because, they point out, the international community and the Karzai government has sought public support on grounds of a higher moral authority, and the promise to uphold rule of law. Increasing civilian casualties, stagnation in the delivery of development and the escalating number of barriers in the form of physical obstacles, denial of access and increasingly complex procedures designed to minimise contact with the public used by the government (including the international community working in support of it) have caused growing public anger, and led to a lower threshold of tolerance.
After seven years of development expenditure amounting to some USD 20 billion, economic progress in Afghanistan has been paltry, erratic and unbalanced. While a small section of the population has been able to benefit from the aid, the majority continue to survive on agriculture – ironically, and interestingly, the most neglected sector by the major international donors. USAID, the American aid arm, for example, has spent less than five percent of its Afghanistan budget on agriculture since 2002. It is not hard to understand why: between 2005 and 2008, an additional five percent of the country’s population was pushed below the minimum nutritional levels, while average household expenditure on food rose from 56 percent to 85 percent, according to the Food and Agriculture Organisation. Food scarcity has been exacerbated by rising worldwide prices and a severe drought, a factor that development agencies warn could affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest.
Civilian casualties in the international military operations have acted like lightening rods on the Afghan polity, drawing criticism from the Parliament, President Karzai and the public. This has prodded the UN to join hands in demanding changes in the operational strategies of the international forces. The UN’s seniormost official in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, head of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), has called for a change in the agreements that mandate the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil, especially with respect to house-to-house searches, arbitrary detention and the use of air power in operations. All three are elements that the Taliban has exploited to energise public opinion against the Karzai government.
In Kabul, the alienation is visible in the form of growing checkpoints and physical barriers that protect the international community and the small section of elite Afghans in power. Everyday, more road blocks are put up, barbed wire is strung, and guns are trained on the local population. Debate over the security situation is frenetic. The old mantra that a military solution alone is the answer, which made its appearance soon after the resurgence of insurgency in 2005-06, was revived in 2008, albeit with a new twist: the push for negotiations with the Taliban. While a reconciliation process with those Taliban militants willing to give up arms and join the government has been in place for some time, without yielding substantial results, the emphasis now seems to be on high-level talks. However, there are differing perceptions of who could or should be brought to the table, and at what stage that should happen. The dominant thinking at this point – that of the US with new President Barack Obama at the helm – is to increase the military pressure on the insurgents and the Taliban, while at the same time carrying on negotiations. But the efficacy of this carrot-and-stick approach is yet to be demonstrated.
The change in US administration following the last elections there was eagerly awaited in Afghanistan, though Afghans emphasise that the real change will lie in the detail. While the broad contours of President Obama’s policy on Afghanistan are yet to be spelled out, there are indications of a deepening of the militarised approach in the Afghanistan policy. The new US National Security Adviser, Marine General James Jones, is a former military commander, breaking the earlier precedent of having civilian advisors. The new US ambassador to Afghanistan is also a former military man, General Karl Eikenberry, who served as the commander of the Combined Forces Command in Afghanistan, and is currently deputy chairman of the NATO military committee in Brussels.
As an initial step, President Obama has sanctioned the sending of an additional 17,000 US troops to Afghanistan, whereas military commanders in the field had sought 30,000. The delay in the training of the Afghan National Army has also given impetus to a proposal to train and arm the tribal militia as a means of meeting the shortfall. This proposal now finds the backing of the American generals. Initial statements emanating from Washington, DC have suggested lowered political ambitions and shorter goalposts, with some officials stating that the US must concentrate on its early goals of tackling al-Qaeda and the Taliban, rather than the wider aims of nation-building and stabilisation.
Love thy neighbour
The other defining aspect to emerge from the first months of President Obama’s administration is the concept of ‘Af-Pak’, or viewing the two countries and the violence emanating from and within them as a combined problem. The appointment of Richard Holbrooke as the special envoy for ‘Af-Pak’ saw several other countries, including Britain, France and Germany, swiftly following suit by appointing similar envoys in addition to their ambassadors.
Pressure on Pakistan is likely to continue under the Obama administration. However, the fragility of Pakistan’s polity makes it unclear where and how the pressure can be applied. The policy of crossborder strikes carried out by US Special Forces into Pakistani territory from Afghanistan, a signature of the Bush years, was supported by candidate Obama. It is not clear whether these strikes will now continue, and it is not clear whether the Americans are sensitive to the enormous negative baggage they collect as a result of the attacks by aircrafts and drones. But it is a fact that there is greater operational coherence in the American operations now, with the Special Forces, which was not answerable to the US commander in Afghanistan, also being brought under the command of the US top military commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan.
The deepening crisis within Afghanistan has led to an escalation of anti-Pakistan rhetoric in Kabul, with repeated demands being made for international action on training camps and militant bases across the border, within Pakistan. President Karzai has asked the international forces to move out of the villages of Afghanistan’s hinterland and spread out instead along the border, in order to reach targets across the frontier. This demand for action against Pakistan cuts across the political spectrum, and is likely to increase in intensity as the country moves closer to the elections.
This rhetoric, of course, has been bolstered by similar sentiments within India, heightened in its warmongering frenzy after the Bombay blasts. New Delhi’s role vis-Ã -vis Afghanistan is likely to be enhanced in the near future, though it is far too early to predict the exact contours of this engagement. India has four consulates apart from its embassy in Kabul, a fact that Islamabad has always cited as evidence of New Delhi’s anti-Pakistan intentions in Afghanistan. For its part, South Block claims, somewhat incongruously, that the relationship with Kabul is bilateral, and has no correlation with its relationship with Pakistan. Afghanistan is the largest beneficiary of Indian foreign aid anywhere, with a USD 1.2 billion package covering infrastructure, capacity-building and community-based projects.
Yet India’s role in helping shape the future of Afghanistan has been limited. Either as a reaction to the criticism levelled by Pakistan or due to its own insecurity about competing with the Western-led project, India has largely stayed away from the decision-making table with regards to Afghanistan, which sees the participation of most major countries of the West as well as the Afghan government. Over the past seven and a half years, the Indian government has preferred to limit its activities to the bilateral arena or to follow the US lead in most issues relating to Afghanistan. With the possibility of a thaw in relations between Iran and the US, and a more assertive Russia increasingly active in the Central Asian republics, it will be interesting to watch whether India makes use of its earlier close ties with these countries, or restricts its role to support of the US. The only possible hiccup on the horizon of the evolving India-US relationship on the Afghanistan front is Washington’s desire to link Kashmir and India-Pakistan relations to the situation in Afghanistan – something New Delhi is adamantly set against.
The situation on the ground is shifting, with national chauvinism on the ascendancy along with an increase in conservatism. Political leaders who have relied on social and political conservative ideology to consolidate their hold have once again begun asserting themselves, and are now finding greater support from the Karzai government. As the country moves towards elections, this platform is likely to be used with increasing frequency. One finds the values of democracy, political, civil and human rights being questioned with increasing frequency, described as imported, Western concepts alien to Afghan life and culture.
This questioning has not come only from interest groups within Afghanistan. It is also emanating from Western donor countries – now eager to wrap up the Afghanistan project, which appears in danger of unravelling. Recent decisions, statements as well as the support provided to ‘leaders’ who have woeful track records in the area of democracy and human rights have shown that some in the Western compact might be willing to accept an Afghan state that is less than democratic, as long as it is somewhat stable and friendly to the Western capitals. Democracy and civil rights look likely to take a back seat as long as the country is able to control the Taliban and al-Qaeda and their ability to hit at the West.
Every 29 minutes
Himal
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Last year, 1500 civilians were killed as a result of fighting between pro-government and anti-government elements in Afghanistan, the highest number since 2001. But there is another reason why Afghanistan is an unsafe country, a problem that takes some 24,000 civilian lives a year. Their deaths are less newsy; they make no banner headlines, lead to no talk shows, and generate little shock. These 24,000 were young Afghan mothers, all of whom died as a result of pregnancy and childbirth.
The maternal-mortality ratio in Afghanistan is around 1600 per 100,000 live births. In the remoter parts of the country it is several times this figure, reaching 6500 in the largely inaccessible northeastern province of Badakshan. Despite concerted attempts, and granted same success in certain areas, the underlying causes of the high maternal-mortality ratio (MMR) have not shown much change over the last seven years, since the fall of the Taliban and the influx of international aid. Afghanistan has the second-highest MMR in the world and the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. Further, the figure of 1600 is actually the lower estimate in a range of 1600-2200 – the upper estimate of which surpasses that of Sierra Leone, with an MMR of 2000 per 100,000 live births, officially the highest in the world.
In Afghanistan today, a woman giving birth is estimated to die every 29 minutes. According to the Kabul government, this extremely high MMR is due to a “tragic combination of poverty, conflict and cultural tradition”. Each factor exacerbates the impact of the other, and the overall ratio is slow to change. Explaining the individual causes, Dr Malalai Ahmadzai, a specialist in maternal health with UNICEF in the country, says the barriers are extremely straightforward: the non-recognition of a medical problem due to lack of awareness, the insufficient training of birth attendants, or the complete absence of health facilities. “People here see birth as a natural phenomenon, a private matter,” she says. “And so it complicates the decision of when to call for medical help.”
Gender dynamics play a tragic role. Even where a problem may be recognised by the pregnant woman or other female members of the family, the decision to seek medical help rests with the male head of the household. That individual, meanwhile, may or may not recognise or accept the gravity of the situation. Furthermore, even when the condition is recognised and medical help is sought, there may simply be no medical help to access, either due to the remoteness, the difficulty of travel or the expense involved. “There are great disparities in health care because of the geography of our country,” says Dr Ahmadzai. The absence of roads in much of rural Afghanistan can mean a journey lasting hours if not days, with some areas completely cut off during the winter. “Even after reaching the facility, the required medical care may not be available, even when the family can afford to pay.”
Barren Wakhan
The health of the mother and infant can remain unaddressed even if a family reaches a functioning health post. If the only available help is a male doctor or nurse, a woman patient will most likely not be able to approach him. Indeed, cultural and social factors significantly add to the vulnerability of women in Afghanistan. Another factor is that most girls are married very young, and have children soon after marriage. An estimated 50 percent of girls below the age of 15 are already married, and some of them are as young as eight years old, according to the UN Fund for Population Activities. Social custom sets an excessively high value on childbearing, with the average number of children borne by an Afghan woman being 7.2 compared with 1.2 in Iran and 3.4 in Pakistan.
The young age of childbearing, coupled with quick successive pregnancies, inevitably make women in Afghanistan more vulnerable to maternal mortality. This risk is only heightened by poor levels of nutrition, especially in the more isolated rural areas with subsistence agriculture. This is starkly evident in the fields of Wakhan, in the northeastern corner of Afghanistan. Much of the food here, including vegetables and fruit, is transported by road and therefore difficult to access because of scarcity and high costs. The barren rocky landscape, located at the junction of the Pamir, Karakoram and Hindukush ranges, is inaccessible by road for five months of the year.
With the land remaining icy and snowbound for many months of the year, nutrition levels in Wakhan are very poor. Dr Abdul Momin Jalaly, Director of Public Health for the province of Badakshan, within which Wakhan lies, says the entire province suffers from malnutrition. “In the Wakhan-Pamir area, there is no fruit and it is impossible to grow vegetables. The difficulty of reaching the area means that produce from other markets also cannot reach there. Most women here suffer from anaemia and vitamin deficiency due to bad nutrition.” The inaccessibility also means that trained health professionals are unwilling to be based there. “There are no roads in 12 districts of the province,” says Jalaly. “People use donkeys and horses to travel, and there is no communication with this area from the end of autumn to the beginning of spring. Tangshao village in Darwaz, for example, can be reached only after 72 hours of walking.” Little wonder that trained medical practitioners tend to forego the opportunity to work here.
Afghanistan has a severe shortage of trained, educated and skilled women in the health sector. Low literacy rates among girls have meant an absence of skilled female doctors and nurses; those with the means of obtaining an education are likely to be from urban centres, and unwilling to work in the remote areas. Meanwhile, qualified senior professionals have long since emigrated. In a 2005 report, Afghanistan was estimated to have just a single doctor per 10,000 people, compared to the average of 10.1 for all developing countries. New skilled professionals are difficult to find, since conservative mores have traditionally excluded girls from schooling, especially beyond the primary level. This practice has now been strengthened by the years of conflict and lack of security. In addition, the absence of educated women works as a vicious cycle. With not enough women teachers, there are fewer schools for girls, and even fewer at the secondary level. Parents prefer to have their girls stay at home as they reach puberty, and the long distances to school is a problem. The easier option is to keep the girls ‘safe’ by marrying them off.
Trivial ‘ifs’
Since 2006, the Badakshan provincial government has been running a community midwifery school, run by the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS), aimed specifically at training girls. But even for this community school, it has been difficult to find girls from the more remote districts. While most girls do not even complete primary school, applicants must have passed Class 9 in order to join the training.
In the village of Kipkut, halfway up the Wakhan Corridor, Christel Bosman, a doctor from Holland, has been working to train community health workers in basic gynaecology. In her small room in the village, she explains why she lives in this remote outpost. She had studied tropical medicine to become broad-based in her knowledge, and had worked with Afghan refugees in the Netherlands. That was her link to Afghanistan and Wakhan. Here, her primary focus is on bringing down the MMR, which she ascribes to some very basic factors. “High blood pressure, complications during childbirth and obstructed labour resulting in haemorrhage and blood loss are the main causes,” she says. “In the Netherlands, it would mean a simple blood transfusion. Here, where can I get the blood?”
This particular day is a difficult one. Bosman has just learned of the death of one of her patients, Sahib Daulat, who died soon after childbirth. In this case, as in so many others, the family had delayed calling the doctor. By the time Bosman got to see her, Sahib Daulat had lost too much blood. “If they had only called me earlier, or if I only had access to a blood bank, I could have saved her,” she says.
The difference between life and death is often a series of seemingly trivial ‘ifs’ for the young mothers of Afghanistan. As with Sahib Daulat, haemorrhage is the most common cause of death, at 38 percent, followed by obstructed labour at 26 percent. Afghan women have a 1-in-8 risk of maternal death, compared to the average risk of 1-in-59 for Southasian women. Following the only qualitative study of MMR (by UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control, in 2002), the lifetime risk of death from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes for Afghan mothers was estimated to be in the range of 1 in 6 to 1 in 9. The study also found that women of reproductive age were more likely to die from maternal causes than due to any other medical reason. Perhaps most importantly, 78 percent of the cases studied were estimated to have been preventable. According to the study, deaths could be averted if complications are prevented through improving the general health status, and if complications that occur are treated to reduce their severity. These efforts require a multisectoral approach to increase availability and accessibility of health care, states the study.
This emphasis on ‘multisectoral responses’ is important. “Health in Badakshan province is not just a small job for health providers,” says Dr Jalaly. “If we do not have the support of other sectors, we cannot provide coverage. Road links, investment in agricultural and poverty reduction policies are all needed.” Although the Kabul government claims to have provided health services that cover some 85 percent of the population, “the physical access to functional facilities is far more limited,” the UNFPA’s country director, Dr Ramesh Penumaka, said in a press conference earlier this year. According to the agency, only 18 percent of deliveries last year were attended by skilled birth attendants. Even this constitutes an important increase, however. Likewise, a modest increase has also been seen in the attention given to pregnant women during pregnancy by health professionals, which increased from an estimated four percent in 2001 to 30 percent in 2007.
Bamiyan kabilas
One of the projects that have significantly assisted in this increase is located in Bamiyan, in the centre of the country, the small town put on the international map by the destruction of its giant Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001. Here, Fatima Alizada, just out of her teens, has been attending midwifery classes for the past six months, after having completed her schooling. She is a student at one of the 19 midwifery schools set up by the Aga Khan Foundation. For Alizada, her education is not a textbook course, learned in the sanitised surroundings of a classroom. A year and a half ago, she was witness to the death of her neighbour, Hawagul, a young mother who had been unable to receive medical help during labour. She was 35 when she died. Though a traditional birth attendant was called in when Hawagul was in acute labour, the attendant did not have the skills necessary to treat the problem.
Supportive traditional practices, skills and knowledge may have been lost over decades of war, as populations were repeatedly displaced, disrupting the social networks as well as access to traditional materials and techniques. As yet, says Dr Ahmadzai, there has been no study of the traditional healing practices during pregnancy and childbirth that are practiced in different parts of Afghanistan. In some areas, however, traditional practices can be deathly. In the Wakhan area, for example, local superstition prevents a mother from breastfeeding her child for the first few days after birth, on the grounds that the milk is considered impure. Dr Alex Duncan, a British doctor who has worked in Wakhan for several years, says this belief persists despite attempts to explain that the first few days of life are the most important for an infant, in order that it can acquire a natural immunisation through breast milk. On the whole, says Dr Ahmadzai, “We have seen that the traditional birth attendants have not been able to reduce the maternal mortality, and this is where skilled midwives become necessary.”
Alizada has a long, hard slog ahead of her before she can become a kabila, a midwife. Having completed six months of her training, she has another year to go before she graduates. But she has no doubts as to why she is here: “I would like to help people of this area,” she says with conviction, “to help the mother and child.” By rights, Alizada should not be here at the Bamiyan midwifery school; the school only takes students from Bamiyan, while she is from Dai Kundi province, to the southwest. However, Dai Kundi’s acute poverty and inaccessibility, even more severe than that of Bamiyan, led the school administrators to make an exception for applicants from the province. According to the charitable organisation Oxfam, the people of Dai Kundi may be facing their worst overall conditions in two decades, as well as a potential humanitarian crisis due to food insecurity. The midwifery school also relaxed its stipulation that students needed to have completed Class 9, since in many of the remoter districts they could not find girls who had studied that far. “They do have to be literate, however, since they will need to study from books,” says Farzana Dost, trainer and the deputy manager of the school.
To overcome social and cultural barriers, the selection of students involves the families as well as local community leaders and shuras (informal decision-making groups of elders), as well as the mayor from the local area. Dost says that it is only with the consent of each of these that the girls are allowed to take part in the training. This automatically overcomes one of the major barriers faced by most women Рbedune mehram, or the lack of permission to leave their homes without the escort of a male member of the immediate family. Such an arrangement also ensures that the girls will be accepted back, and allowed to work as community midwives when they return to their villages. It is not just young girls who attend the school, however. The age of students range between 18 to 35, and ten of the current students are mothers themselves, for whom a cr̬che has been provided to assist them.
To make sure their students do return to help their communities, rather than leaving for more lucrative jobs in more attractive parts of the country, the certification is dependent upon the student’s return to her own village or district. During the first two years of schooling, there was also a small stipend given to encourage girls to enrol. Happily, in the current third batch, this was not needed due to the large number of applicants – about 100 girls, of whom 25 were selected. Alizada herself was inspired to join by the examples of four girls of her area, who had attended the previous batch. Like the other students, Alizada lives in a hostel on the school grounds. When she finishes, Alizada will return to Dai Kundi’s local basic health clinic as a trained midwife.
A man’s issue
The impact of the Bamiyan school is already being felt. Most of the cases of complicated pregnancy that come to the province’s only secondary-care hospital are now referred by the trained midwives who have graduated from the school, says the hospital’s head doctor, Ghulam Mohammad Nadir. He also hopes that, over time, the presence of midwives will lessen the need for secondary health care entirely. Simple matters such as hygiene, the need for sterilisation during delivery and even nutrition can be communicated and observed in the home, without extra effort or expense. At the moment, Dr Nadir says, most families simply do not know what is required in a healthy diet. Many families own cattle and poultry for instance, but utilising the protein from milk and eggs, is not part of Afghan tradition. It is not just access to health care that decreases with remoteness, but also availability of knowledge.
Knowledge about birth spacing is another aspect that would reduce the number of pregnancies and improve the chances of survival for women of reproductive age. Again, however, cultural mores as well as religious conservatism make this one of the most challenging aspects. Two months ago, a woman health worker in Kandahar, in the southwest, was shot dead after the Taliban labelled her work in family planning and birth control as ‘un-Islamic’. And, with increasing insecurity in many parts of the country, those involved in education and health services have come under renewed threat. In November, Minister of Health Mohammed Amin Fatemi drew attention to the decreasing availability of health-care professionals, warning that this trend could lead to worsening public health, and a spurt in disease spread. According to the Ministry of Public Health, at least 51 health centres were torched or damaged in armed attacks during the 18 months leading up to June 2008.
The increasing violence has also forced schools to shut down in many districts. According to the Ministry of Education, over 600 schools in 45 districts are now closed, affecting at least 300,000 children. These schools account for 80 percent of the academic institutions in the four provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan, all in southern Afghanistan. The first casualty in the education system is inevitably girls’ schools; in Helmand, where there are currently 54 schools in operation (compared with 223 in 2002), almost all are boys’ schools. The long-term impact of this will, naturally, mean fewer educated girls and, incidentally, fewer women health professionals.
In the meantime, there has been no study since 2002 on maternal mortality, though one is currently slated for 2009-10. Either way, however, many suggest that the conception of maternal health as a problem in Afghanistan is still too limited. The issue of maternal health is not a ‘women’s issue’, says UNFPA’s Dr Penumaka. “The key to better maternal health lies with men. They have to be sensitive and aware of the health requirement and the needs of women. Maternal health is not really a woman’s issue – it’s really a man’s issue.” As such, meeting the challenge of reducing maternal mortality will require education, communication and changes in cultural practices. Due to cultural factors, there is very little communication about reproductive health and sexual behaviour within the family. In Afghanistan, the UN-developed Millennium Development Goal on MMR is to reduce the ratio by 50 percent between 2002 and 2015, well below the global target of reducing MMR by 75 percent in the same period. Yet the possibility of meeting even this target is judged to be merely a ‘potential’ rather than a probability.
The increasing number of skilled attendants at birth, the increasing recourse to health facilities, better vaccination and growing awareness collectively point to the hope that the ratio will eventually show a decline, says Dr Ahmadzai. But UNFPA cautions that several more decades will be needed before any major impact will be seen on maternal mortality in Afghanistan. In the meantime, with continuing conflict and decreasing services in the vulnerable areas, there are fears that even the small gains of the past seven years may soon be eroded. Yet this aspect of the ‘collateral damage’ of an ongoing conflict goes un-remarked upon, save for in the footnotes of public attention, tucked away in academic journals or sporadic reporting by the media.
AUNOHITA MOJUMDAR
Last year, 1500 civilians were killed as a result of fighting between pro-government and anti-government elements in Afghanistan, the highest number since 2001. But there is another reason why Afghanistan is an unsafe country, a problem that takes some 24,000 civilian lives a year. Their deaths are less newsy; they make no banner headlines, lead to no talk shows, and generate little shock. These 24,000 were young Afghan mothers, all of whom died as a result of pregnancy and childbirth.
The maternal-mortality ratio in Afghanistan is around 1600 per 100,000 live births. In the remoter parts of the country it is several times this figure, reaching 6500 in the largely inaccessible northeastern province of Badakshan. Despite concerted attempts, and granted same success in certain areas, the underlying causes of the high maternal-mortality ratio (MMR) have not shown much change over the last seven years, since the fall of the Taliban and the influx of international aid. Afghanistan has the second-highest MMR in the world and the highest in the Asia-Pacific region. Further, the figure of 1600 is actually the lower estimate in a range of 1600-2200 – the upper estimate of which surpasses that of Sierra Leone, with an MMR of 2000 per 100,000 live births, officially the highest in the world.
In Afghanistan today, a woman giving birth is estimated to die every 29 minutes. According to the Kabul government, this extremely high MMR is due to a “tragic combination of poverty, conflict and cultural tradition”. Each factor exacerbates the impact of the other, and the overall ratio is slow to change. Explaining the individual causes, Dr Malalai Ahmadzai, a specialist in maternal health with UNICEF in the country, says the barriers are extremely straightforward: the non-recognition of a medical problem due to lack of awareness, the insufficient training of birth attendants, or the complete absence of health facilities. “People here see birth as a natural phenomenon, a private matter,” she says. “And so it complicates the decision of when to call for medical help.”
Gender dynamics play a tragic role. Even where a problem may be recognised by the pregnant woman or other female members of the family, the decision to seek medical help rests with the male head of the household. That individual, meanwhile, may or may not recognise or accept the gravity of the situation. Furthermore, even when the condition is recognised and medical help is sought, there may simply be no medical help to access, either due to the remoteness, the difficulty of travel or the expense involved. “There are great disparities in health care because of the geography of our country,” says Dr Ahmadzai. The absence of roads in much of rural Afghanistan can mean a journey lasting hours if not days, with some areas completely cut off during the winter. “Even after reaching the facility, the required medical care may not be available, even when the family can afford to pay.”
Barren Wakhan
The health of the mother and infant can remain unaddressed even if a family reaches a functioning health post. If the only available help is a male doctor or nurse, a woman patient will most likely not be able to approach him. Indeed, cultural and social factors significantly add to the vulnerability of women in Afghanistan. Another factor is that most girls are married very young, and have children soon after marriage. An estimated 50 percent of girls below the age of 15 are already married, and some of them are as young as eight years old, according to the UN Fund for Population Activities. Social custom sets an excessively high value on childbearing, with the average number of children borne by an Afghan woman being 7.2 compared with 1.2 in Iran and 3.4 in Pakistan.
The young age of childbearing, coupled with quick successive pregnancies, inevitably make women in Afghanistan more vulnerable to maternal mortality. This risk is only heightened by poor levels of nutrition, especially in the more isolated rural areas with subsistence agriculture. This is starkly evident in the fields of Wakhan, in the northeastern corner of Afghanistan. Much of the food here, including vegetables and fruit, is transported by road and therefore difficult to access because of scarcity and high costs. The barren rocky landscape, located at the junction of the Pamir, Karakoram and Hindukush ranges, is inaccessible by road for five months of the year.
With the land remaining icy and snowbound for many months of the year, nutrition levels in Wakhan are very poor. Dr Abdul Momin Jalaly, Director of Public Health for the province of Badakshan, within which Wakhan lies, says the entire province suffers from malnutrition. “In the Wakhan-Pamir area, there is no fruit and it is impossible to grow vegetables. The difficulty of reaching the area means that produce from other markets also cannot reach there. Most women here suffer from anaemia and vitamin deficiency due to bad nutrition.” The inaccessibility also means that trained health professionals are unwilling to be based there. “There are no roads in 12 districts of the province,” says Jalaly. “People use donkeys and horses to travel, and there is no communication with this area from the end of autumn to the beginning of spring. Tangshao village in Darwaz, for example, can be reached only after 72 hours of walking.” Little wonder that trained medical practitioners tend to forego the opportunity to work here.
Afghanistan has a severe shortage of trained, educated and skilled women in the health sector. Low literacy rates among girls have meant an absence of skilled female doctors and nurses; those with the means of obtaining an education are likely to be from urban centres, and unwilling to work in the remote areas. Meanwhile, qualified senior professionals have long since emigrated. In a 2005 report, Afghanistan was estimated to have just a single doctor per 10,000 people, compared to the average of 10.1 for all developing countries. New skilled professionals are difficult to find, since conservative mores have traditionally excluded girls from schooling, especially beyond the primary level. This practice has now been strengthened by the years of conflict and lack of security. In addition, the absence of educated women works as a vicious cycle. With not enough women teachers, there are fewer schools for girls, and even fewer at the secondary level. Parents prefer to have their girls stay at home as they reach puberty, and the long distances to school is a problem. The easier option is to keep the girls ‘safe’ by marrying them off.
Trivial ‘ifs’
Since 2006, the Badakshan provincial government has been running a community midwifery school, run by the Aga Khan Health Services (AKHS), aimed specifically at training girls. But even for this community school, it has been difficult to find girls from the more remote districts. While most girls do not even complete primary school, applicants must have passed Class 9 in order to join the training.
In the village of Kipkut, halfway up the Wakhan Corridor, Christel Bosman, a doctor from Holland, has been working to train community health workers in basic gynaecology. In her small room in the village, she explains why she lives in this remote outpost. She had studied tropical medicine to become broad-based in her knowledge, and had worked with Afghan refugees in the Netherlands. That was her link to Afghanistan and Wakhan. Here, her primary focus is on bringing down the MMR, which she ascribes to some very basic factors. “High blood pressure, complications during childbirth and obstructed labour resulting in haemorrhage and blood loss are the main causes,” she says. “In the Netherlands, it would mean a simple blood transfusion. Here, where can I get the blood?”
This particular day is a difficult one. Bosman has just learned of the death of one of her patients, Sahib Daulat, who died soon after childbirth. In this case, as in so many others, the family had delayed calling the doctor. By the time Bosman got to see her, Sahib Daulat had lost too much blood. “If they had only called me earlier, or if I only had access to a blood bank, I could have saved her,” she says.
The difference between life and death is often a series of seemingly trivial ‘ifs’ for the young mothers of Afghanistan. As with Sahib Daulat, haemorrhage is the most common cause of death, at 38 percent, followed by obstructed labour at 26 percent. Afghan women have a 1-in-8 risk of maternal death, compared to the average risk of 1-in-59 for Southasian women. Following the only qualitative study of MMR (by UNICEF and the US Centers for Disease Control, in 2002), the lifetime risk of death from pregnancy and childbirth-related causes for Afghan mothers was estimated to be in the range of 1 in 6 to 1 in 9. The study also found that women of reproductive age were more likely to die from maternal causes than due to any other medical reason. Perhaps most importantly, 78 percent of the cases studied were estimated to have been preventable. According to the study, deaths could be averted if complications are prevented through improving the general health status, and if complications that occur are treated to reduce their severity. These efforts require a multisectoral approach to increase availability and accessibility of health care, states the study.
This emphasis on ‘multisectoral responses’ is important. “Health in Badakshan province is not just a small job for health providers,” says Dr Jalaly. “If we do not have the support of other sectors, we cannot provide coverage. Road links, investment in agricultural and poverty reduction policies are all needed.” Although the Kabul government claims to have provided health services that cover some 85 percent of the population, “the physical access to functional facilities is far more limited,” the UNFPA’s country director, Dr Ramesh Penumaka, said in a press conference earlier this year. According to the agency, only 18 percent of deliveries last year were attended by skilled birth attendants. Even this constitutes an important increase, however. Likewise, a modest increase has also been seen in the attention given to pregnant women during pregnancy by health professionals, which increased from an estimated four percent in 2001 to 30 percent in 2007.
Bamiyan kabilas
One of the projects that have significantly assisted in this increase is located in Bamiyan, in the centre of the country, the small town put on the international map by the destruction of its giant Buddhas by the Taliban in 2001. Here, Fatima Alizada, just out of her teens, has been attending midwifery classes for the past six months, after having completed her schooling. She is a student at one of the 19 midwifery schools set up by the Aga Khan Foundation. For Alizada, her education is not a textbook course, learned in the sanitised surroundings of a classroom. A year and a half ago, she was witness to the death of her neighbour, Hawagul, a young mother who had been unable to receive medical help during labour. She was 35 when she died. Though a traditional birth attendant was called in when Hawagul was in acute labour, the attendant did not have the skills necessary to treat the problem.
Supportive traditional practices, skills and knowledge may have been lost over decades of war, as populations were repeatedly displaced, disrupting the social networks as well as access to traditional materials and techniques. As yet, says Dr Ahmadzai, there has been no study of the traditional healing practices during pregnancy and childbirth that are practiced in different parts of Afghanistan. In some areas, however, traditional practices can be deathly. In the Wakhan area, for example, local superstition prevents a mother from breastfeeding her child for the first few days after birth, on the grounds that the milk is considered impure. Dr Alex Duncan, a British doctor who has worked in Wakhan for several years, says this belief persists despite attempts to explain that the first few days of life are the most important for an infant, in order that it can acquire a natural immunisation through breast milk. On the whole, says Dr Ahmadzai, “We have seen that the traditional birth attendants have not been able to reduce the maternal mortality, and this is where skilled midwives become necessary.”
Alizada has a long, hard slog ahead of her before she can become a kabila, a midwife. Having completed six months of her training, she has another year to go before she graduates. But she has no doubts as to why she is here: “I would like to help people of this area,” she says with conviction, “to help the mother and child.” By rights, Alizada should not be here at the Bamiyan midwifery school; the school only takes students from Bamiyan, while she is from Dai Kundi province, to the southwest. However, Dai Kundi’s acute poverty and inaccessibility, even more severe than that of Bamiyan, led the school administrators to make an exception for applicants from the province. According to the charitable organisation Oxfam, the people of Dai Kundi may be facing their worst overall conditions in two decades, as well as a potential humanitarian crisis due to food insecurity. The midwifery school also relaxed its stipulation that students needed to have completed Class 9, since in many of the remoter districts they could not find girls who had studied that far. “They do have to be literate, however, since they will need to study from books,” says Farzana Dost, trainer and the deputy manager of the school.
To overcome social and cultural barriers, the selection of students involves the families as well as local community leaders and shuras (informal decision-making groups of elders), as well as the mayor from the local area. Dost says that it is only with the consent of each of these that the girls are allowed to take part in the training. This automatically overcomes one of the major barriers faced by most women Рbedune mehram, or the lack of permission to leave their homes without the escort of a male member of the immediate family. Such an arrangement also ensures that the girls will be accepted back, and allowed to work as community midwives when they return to their villages. It is not just young girls who attend the school, however. The age of students range between 18 to 35, and ten of the current students are mothers themselves, for whom a cr̬che has been provided to assist them.
To make sure their students do return to help their communities, rather than leaving for more lucrative jobs in more attractive parts of the country, the certification is dependent upon the student’s return to her own village or district. During the first two years of schooling, there was also a small stipend given to encourage girls to enrol. Happily, in the current third batch, this was not needed due to the large number of applicants – about 100 girls, of whom 25 were selected. Alizada herself was inspired to join by the examples of four girls of her area, who had attended the previous batch. Like the other students, Alizada lives in a hostel on the school grounds. When she finishes, Alizada will return to Dai Kundi’s local basic health clinic as a trained midwife.
A man’s issue
The impact of the Bamiyan school is already being felt. Most of the cases of complicated pregnancy that come to the province’s only secondary-care hospital are now referred by the trained midwives who have graduated from the school, says the hospital’s head doctor, Ghulam Mohammad Nadir. He also hopes that, over time, the presence of midwives will lessen the need for secondary health care entirely. Simple matters such as hygiene, the need for sterilisation during delivery and even nutrition can be communicated and observed in the home, without extra effort or expense. At the moment, Dr Nadir says, most families simply do not know what is required in a healthy diet. Many families own cattle and poultry for instance, but utilising the protein from milk and eggs, is not part of Afghan tradition. It is not just access to health care that decreases with remoteness, but also availability of knowledge.
Knowledge about birth spacing is another aspect that would reduce the number of pregnancies and improve the chances of survival for women of reproductive age. Again, however, cultural mores as well as religious conservatism make this one of the most challenging aspects. Two months ago, a woman health worker in Kandahar, in the southwest, was shot dead after the Taliban labelled her work in family planning and birth control as ‘un-Islamic’. And, with increasing insecurity in many parts of the country, those involved in education and health services have come under renewed threat. In November, Minister of Health Mohammed Amin Fatemi drew attention to the decreasing availability of health-care professionals, warning that this trend could lead to worsening public health, and a spurt in disease spread. According to the Ministry of Public Health, at least 51 health centres were torched or damaged in armed attacks during the 18 months leading up to June 2008.
The increasing violence has also forced schools to shut down in many districts. According to the Ministry of Education, over 600 schools in 45 districts are now closed, affecting at least 300,000 children. These schools account for 80 percent of the academic institutions in the four provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Zabul and Uruzgan, all in southern Afghanistan. The first casualty in the education system is inevitably girls’ schools; in Helmand, where there are currently 54 schools in operation (compared with 223 in 2002), almost all are boys’ schools. The long-term impact of this will, naturally, mean fewer educated girls and, incidentally, fewer women health professionals.
In the meantime, there has been no study since 2002 on maternal mortality, though one is currently slated for 2009-10. Either way, however, many suggest that the conception of maternal health as a problem in Afghanistan is still too limited. The issue of maternal health is not a ‘women’s issue’, says UNFPA’s Dr Penumaka. “The key to better maternal health lies with men. They have to be sensitive and aware of the health requirement and the needs of women. Maternal health is not really a woman’s issue – it’s really a man’s issue.” As such, meeting the challenge of reducing maternal mortality will require education, communication and changes in cultural practices. Due to cultural factors, there is very little communication about reproductive health and sexual behaviour within the family. In Afghanistan, the UN-developed Millennium Development Goal on MMR is to reduce the ratio by 50 percent between 2002 and 2015, well below the global target of reducing MMR by 75 percent in the same period. Yet the possibility of meeting even this target is judged to be merely a ‘potential’ rather than a probability.
The increasing number of skilled attendants at birth, the increasing recourse to health facilities, better vaccination and growing awareness collectively point to the hope that the ratio will eventually show a decline, says Dr Ahmadzai. But UNFPA cautions that several more decades will be needed before any major impact will be seen on maternal mortality in Afghanistan. In the meantime, with continuing conflict and decreasing services in the vulnerable areas, there are fears that even the small gains of the past seven years may soon be eroded. Yet this aspect of the ‘collateral damage’ of an ongoing conflict goes un-remarked upon, save for in the footnotes of public attention, tucked away in academic journals or sporadic reporting by the media.
AFGHANISTAN: INTERNATIONAL AID AGENCIES WARY OF US-BACKED SECURITY SURGE
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/06/09
Despite increasing calls from aid agencies to let them handle Afghanistan’s humanitarian needs, NATO is proceeding with plans to enhance civil-military cooperation in the country, especially through the operations of provincial reconstruction teams.
While the rhetoric drew self-congratulatory pats from most member countries during the April 4 NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, humanitarian aid workers based in Afghanistan say they are worried about how the Atlantic Alliance’s new security and aid policies will affect their work, and their safety.
Their concerns appear to have gone largely unheeded by NATO leaders. The summit’s declaration on Afghanistan noted that NATO members "are boosting . . . efforts to coordinate the contribution of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) to build stability and further align their work with Afghan Government priorities."
Just before the summit, in an unprecedented move, a group of influential aid agencies joined hands to urge for an immediate halt to some of the specific civilian-military policies. In all, 11 organizations called for a de-linking of aid delivery from military goals, changes in the operational strategies of the international military forces, phasing out the strategy of distributing aid through the PRTs and halting two specific new security policies that they say will put Afghan communities at greater risk.
While humanitarian and development agencies have expressed concern about the civilian population from time to time, this concern previously tended to be expressed in general terms. Never before have NGOs gotten so specific. The NGOs who have come together to formulate a common position are all widely respected and with long-term track records in Afghanistan, including Oxfam, Care, Action Aid and Save the Children.
Among the military measures that these organizations are wary of are the Afghan Social Outreach Program (ASOP) and the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), both sometimes referred to as "empowerment programs." The ASOP seeks to build local support and communication networks by gathering information about militant activities through shuras (local bodies of influential people). The deputy head of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR, an umbrella body of over 100 NGOs), M.H. Mayar, questioned the program, saying it would compromise the independence and impartiality of NGOs that work with shuras.
The opposition to the APPF, a program that is currently in the testing phase, has been much stronger. The APPF seeks to arm local community forces, essentially creating militias to meet the shortfall in security forces, much like programs the United States has used in Iraq. The forces, which will be answerable to local networks, will have less oversight than regular police or army units, less accountability and less training. Mayar challenged the efficacy of the scheme saying such attempts had failed in the past. Mayar added that the APPF’s intent ran counter to another program, which was designed to promote disarmament among armed groups. He stressed that armed groups could change sides, or use their weapons and new status to settle local feuds, thus further endangering local communities and the NGOs delivering aid.
Concern about the safety of civilians and the aid agencies also lies at the heart of the opposition to the proposed expansion of PRTs, which were initially set up as a temporary strategy to plug the gaps in the small pockets of insecurity where civilian agencies where unable to function. As insecurity grew, they were later expanded throughout the country. With intensifying conflict, the PRTs’ role changed, focusing more on heart-and-minds campaigns. Donor agencies, under pressure from their governments, followed suit, redirecting a substantial portion of their aid to the areas where their troops were based. Increasing insecurity has meant that this aid delivery is now routinely directed from the confines of regional military bases. NGOs argue that this has resulted in increasing dangers to them, as well as to the recipients of aid, both of which are seen to be having links to the international military forces.
At a press conference to release the report, Dave Hampson, Country Director of Save the Children UK, said "the main problem is the blurring of lines" between the civilian and military. Matt Waldman of Oxfam added that the "increasing militarization of aid" means aid is more often addressing "military objectives and not the needs of Afghans." He said the NGOs and humanitarian agencies hoped that "more aid will be channeled through civilian agencies and that the PRTs will transition to focus on security."
"When security and other conditions exist, which allow specialized civilian development actors to operate, the military should not be engaged in activities in the development or humanitarian sector," says the report on civilians in conflict released by the same group of NGOs. "The PRTs’ hearts-and-minds approach to assistance, drawn from counter-insurgency doctrine, is not only unsustainable, it is highly unlikely to achieve its intended security objectives," the document states.
NATO, however, appears ready to move ahead seemingly undeterred. A statement on the NATO website after Strasbourg said that Atlantic alliance leaders "recognized that to do this work will require a greater civilian component to the forces being sent to Afghanistan." A January report to the US Congress from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction noted that the US Embassy in Kabul had proposed the establishment of four new PRTs and the creation of 215 new related civilian positions. This, Waldman of Oxfam argued, would lead to increasing distortion of the use of aid to achieve military objectives.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/06/09
Despite increasing calls from aid agencies to let them handle Afghanistan’s humanitarian needs, NATO is proceeding with plans to enhance civil-military cooperation in the country, especially through the operations of provincial reconstruction teams.
While the rhetoric drew self-congratulatory pats from most member countries during the April 4 NATO summit in Strasbourg, France, humanitarian aid workers based in Afghanistan say they are worried about how the Atlantic Alliance’s new security and aid policies will affect their work, and their safety.
Their concerns appear to have gone largely unheeded by NATO leaders. The summit’s declaration on Afghanistan noted that NATO members "are boosting . . . efforts to coordinate the contribution of Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRT) to build stability and further align their work with Afghan Government priorities."
Just before the summit, in an unprecedented move, a group of influential aid agencies joined hands to urge for an immediate halt to some of the specific civilian-military policies. In all, 11 organizations called for a de-linking of aid delivery from military goals, changes in the operational strategies of the international military forces, phasing out the strategy of distributing aid through the PRTs and halting two specific new security policies that they say will put Afghan communities at greater risk.
While humanitarian and development agencies have expressed concern about the civilian population from time to time, this concern previously tended to be expressed in general terms. Never before have NGOs gotten so specific. The NGOs who have come together to formulate a common position are all widely respected and with long-term track records in Afghanistan, including Oxfam, Care, Action Aid and Save the Children.
Among the military measures that these organizations are wary of are the Afghan Social Outreach Program (ASOP) and the Afghan Public Protection Force (APPF), both sometimes referred to as "empowerment programs." The ASOP seeks to build local support and communication networks by gathering information about militant activities through shuras (local bodies of influential people). The deputy head of the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief (ACBAR, an umbrella body of over 100 NGOs), M.H. Mayar, questioned the program, saying it would compromise the independence and impartiality of NGOs that work with shuras.
The opposition to the APPF, a program that is currently in the testing phase, has been much stronger. The APPF seeks to arm local community forces, essentially creating militias to meet the shortfall in security forces, much like programs the United States has used in Iraq. The forces, which will be answerable to local networks, will have less oversight than regular police or army units, less accountability and less training. Mayar challenged the efficacy of the scheme saying such attempts had failed in the past. Mayar added that the APPF’s intent ran counter to another program, which was designed to promote disarmament among armed groups. He stressed that armed groups could change sides, or use their weapons and new status to settle local feuds, thus further endangering local communities and the NGOs delivering aid.
Concern about the safety of civilians and the aid agencies also lies at the heart of the opposition to the proposed expansion of PRTs, which were initially set up as a temporary strategy to plug the gaps in the small pockets of insecurity where civilian agencies where unable to function. As insecurity grew, they were later expanded throughout the country. With intensifying conflict, the PRTs’ role changed, focusing more on heart-and-minds campaigns. Donor agencies, under pressure from their governments, followed suit, redirecting a substantial portion of their aid to the areas where their troops were based. Increasing insecurity has meant that this aid delivery is now routinely directed from the confines of regional military bases. NGOs argue that this has resulted in increasing dangers to them, as well as to the recipients of aid, both of which are seen to be having links to the international military forces.
At a press conference to release the report, Dave Hampson, Country Director of Save the Children UK, said "the main problem is the blurring of lines" between the civilian and military. Matt Waldman of Oxfam added that the "increasing militarization of aid" means aid is more often addressing "military objectives and not the needs of Afghans." He said the NGOs and humanitarian agencies hoped that "more aid will be channeled through civilian agencies and that the PRTs will transition to focus on security."
"When security and other conditions exist, which allow specialized civilian development actors to operate, the military should not be engaged in activities in the development or humanitarian sector," says the report on civilians in conflict released by the same group of NGOs. "The PRTs’ hearts-and-minds approach to assistance, drawn from counter-insurgency doctrine, is not only unsustainable, it is highly unlikely to achieve its intended security objectives," the document states.
NATO, however, appears ready to move ahead seemingly undeterred. A statement on the NATO website after Strasbourg said that Atlantic alliance leaders "recognized that to do this work will require a greater civilian component to the forces being sent to Afghanistan." A January report to the US Congress from the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction noted that the US Embassy in Kabul had proposed the establishment of four new PRTs and the creation of 215 new related civilian positions. This, Waldman of Oxfam argued, would lead to increasing distortion of the use of aid to achieve military objectives.
AFGHANISTAN: OBAMA AF-PAK STRATEGY AND AFGHANISTAN’S RESPONSE
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/02/09
Cautious optimism in Kabul is greeting US President Barack Obama’s new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When Obama originally unveiled his Afghan policy blueprint on March 27, government officials and non-governmental actors alike greeted it with a sigh of relief, as it endorsed a strong American commitment to Afghanistan. However, an initial burst of enthusiasm for the new strategy has given way to a more nuanced approach, with Afghans and Afghanistan-based internationals cautioning that the real test will lie in the details, implementation, and prioritization of multiple goals.
Speaking on conditions of anonymity, a European diplomat said that the general opinion among his European colleagues was that "it was one of the better strategies" and a "good document." But the diplomat stressed that "many questions remain."
While the regional approach outlined in the Obama administration blueprint is generally welcomed, some officials and observers worry that Washington may be conflating the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan to an undesirable degree. "The problem is linked, but not the same in the two countries," the diplomatic source said. The diplomat added that overemphasis on Pakistan could distract attention from the very real problems within Afghanistan.
Similarly, while the Obama’s administration’s ability to recognize that a number of different factors -- including unemployment and local grievances -- is driving the insurgency, the diplomat voiced concern that problems were being oversimplified.
Both the Afghan government and the UN’s Mission in Afghanistan cheered the Obama plan for its focus on development. The UN’s top official in the country, Kai Eide, termed it a "greater balance between the military and civilian sides." Other analysts, however, see the approach as still being a predominantly military one. They point out that the "core goal of the United States" in the blueprint’s own words, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan."
"The stress is on defense and less on development and diplomacy," says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, an aid worker. "The decision to send more human and development professionals is welcome, but if the development advisers are located within the PRTs (the provincial reconstruction teams of the international military forces) they will not be able to make a difference, unless they can de-link development work from the security goals."
The international NGO Oxfam said the delivery of aid by USAID, the US government’s development arm, had had limited success in part because "the US uses foreign aid to achieve short-term or security objectives."
For political analyst Ahmed Dawi, the primary problem with the Obama strategy is an absence of a matching commitment from the Afghan side. "As an Afghan, I am concerned about a lack of strategy from our side," Dawi said. "The implementation of the American strategy will depend on the conductive environment in Afghanistan. It cannot be a one-way street. The words are promising. We have to see how they will be implemented."
Dawi’s compatriot, Aziz Hakimi, an independent political analyst, is less optimistic. While the "intention is good," Hakimi said, the impulse of the US plan is worrisome. The emphasis, in Hakimi’s view, is on "al Qaeda and (US) homeland security. It is not about Afghanistan. Where is the Afghan voice in all this? It is not about us."
As the United States undertakes a military buildup in Afghanistan, some civil society activists are concerned that civilians will continue to suffer. Civilian casualties from military operations has emerged in recent years as a major source of friction between the local population and coalition forces.
"What we have to see is that the intervention does not cause harm but contributes to relief and rehabilitation that the country needs," said Siddiqui, the aid worker. "The process remains very important. Security should be a priority not just in terms of killing Taliban but protecting Afghans."
Civilian security is also becoming a rallying cry for international rights organizations. "While the United States is deploying more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda, greater attention is needed to provide basic security for Afghans in both conflict and non-conflict areas," Human Rights Watch said in a recent statement on the new US policy.
Amnesty International wants to see greater accountability for violations of international humanitarian law by coalition forces. The rights group additionally has called for clarifying and harmonizing the rules of engagement by the different international military forces present in Afghanistan. "The challenge for the United States and its allies is to ensure that the surge of international troops into the country will provide better security for Afghans and not put them at greater risk," it stated.
Aunohita Mojumdar 4/02/09
Cautious optimism in Kabul is greeting US President Barack Obama’s new strategy on Afghanistan and Pakistan.
When Obama originally unveiled his Afghan policy blueprint on March 27, government officials and non-governmental actors alike greeted it with a sigh of relief, as it endorsed a strong American commitment to Afghanistan. However, an initial burst of enthusiasm for the new strategy has given way to a more nuanced approach, with Afghans and Afghanistan-based internationals cautioning that the real test will lie in the details, implementation, and prioritization of multiple goals.
Speaking on conditions of anonymity, a European diplomat said that the general opinion among his European colleagues was that "it was one of the better strategies" and a "good document." But the diplomat stressed that "many questions remain."
While the regional approach outlined in the Obama administration blueprint is generally welcomed, some officials and observers worry that Washington may be conflating the problems in Pakistan and Afghanistan to an undesirable degree. "The problem is linked, but not the same in the two countries," the diplomatic source said. The diplomat added that overemphasis on Pakistan could distract attention from the very real problems within Afghanistan.
Similarly, while the Obama’s administration’s ability to recognize that a number of different factors -- including unemployment and local grievances -- is driving the insurgency, the diplomat voiced concern that problems were being oversimplified.
Both the Afghan government and the UN’s Mission in Afghanistan cheered the Obama plan for its focus on development. The UN’s top official in the country, Kai Eide, termed it a "greater balance between the military and civilian sides." Other analysts, however, see the approach as still being a predominantly military one. They point out that the "core goal of the United States" in the blueprint’s own words, "must be to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat al Qaeda and its safe havens in Pakistan."
"The stress is on defense and less on development and diplomacy," says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, an aid worker. "The decision to send more human and development professionals is welcome, but if the development advisers are located within the PRTs (the provincial reconstruction teams of the international military forces) they will not be able to make a difference, unless they can de-link development work from the security goals."
The international NGO Oxfam said the delivery of aid by USAID, the US government’s development arm, had had limited success in part because "the US uses foreign aid to achieve short-term or security objectives."
For political analyst Ahmed Dawi, the primary problem with the Obama strategy is an absence of a matching commitment from the Afghan side. "As an Afghan, I am concerned about a lack of strategy from our side," Dawi said. "The implementation of the American strategy will depend on the conductive environment in Afghanistan. It cannot be a one-way street. The words are promising. We have to see how they will be implemented."
Dawi’s compatriot, Aziz Hakimi, an independent political analyst, is less optimistic. While the "intention is good," Hakimi said, the impulse of the US plan is worrisome. The emphasis, in Hakimi’s view, is on "al Qaeda and (US) homeland security. It is not about Afghanistan. Where is the Afghan voice in all this? It is not about us."
As the United States undertakes a military buildup in Afghanistan, some civil society activists are concerned that civilians will continue to suffer. Civilian casualties from military operations has emerged in recent years as a major source of friction between the local population and coalition forces.
"What we have to see is that the intervention does not cause harm but contributes to relief and rehabilitation that the country needs," said Siddiqui, the aid worker. "The process remains very important. Security should be a priority not just in terms of killing Taliban but protecting Afghans."
Civilian security is also becoming a rallying cry for international rights organizations. "While the United States is deploying more troops to Afghanistan to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda, greater attention is needed to provide basic security for Afghans in both conflict and non-conflict areas," Human Rights Watch said in a recent statement on the new US policy.
Amnesty International wants to see greater accountability for violations of international humanitarian law by coalition forces. The rights group additionally has called for clarifying and harmonizing the rules of engagement by the different international military forces present in Afghanistan. "The challenge for the United States and its allies is to ensure that the surge of international troops into the country will provide better security for Afghans and not put them at greater risk," it stated.
AFGHANISTAN: US AND INDIA MULL WAYS TO CONTAIN THE TALIBAN
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/23/09
In the past, a visit to India by a CIA director could have set off a storm of protest and political jousting in New Delhi. But given the troubling Taliban issue in neighboring Pakistan, Indians’ perception of the United States is changing. These days, the emerging US-Indian partnership is developing into an important element of Washington’s stabilization plan for Afghanistan.
When newly minted CIA Director Leon Panetta visited India recently, he was greeted only by a mild protest from leftist parties over his meeting with Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. Panetta was in India to discuss Afghanistan, the ’Af-Pak’ situation and India’s role in a new American regional policy initiative. Highlighting the importance of emerging US-Indian ties, the March 19 foray to New Delhi marked Panetta’s first overseas trip since his Senate confirmation. It also followed visits by other senior US intelligence officials, including one earlier in March by FBI Director Robert Mueller. After his visit to India, Panetta went on to Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders.
Further emphasizing Washington’s growing interest in New Delhi’s Afghanistan approach, on March 21 President Barack Obama’s special envy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told an audience in Brussels that India would be a "major factor in resolving" the situation in Afghanistan. Holbrooke also appeared to echo Indian concerns that Pakistan has replaced Afghanistan as the epicenter of the threat posed by international terrorists.
"We must recognize that the heart of the threat to the United States, to the European Union, to Australia, to many other countries in the world including India and, I stress, including Pakistan itself, comes from . . . western Pakistan," Holbrooke told participants at the Brussels security conference.
Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, India, which provided support and supplies to the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, has had extensive bilateral contacts with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration. Afghanistan has become the largest beneficiary of Indian aid, receiving $1.2 billion since 2001.
Through its embassy in Kabul -- as well as four consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i Sharif -- India is now able to project its influence across Afghanistan. That fact has caused consternation in Pakistan, with Islamabad calling on Kabul to curb New Delhi’s "anti-Pakistani" activities within the country, charges that range from spying to training militants operating against Pakistan.
For its part, India has consistently accused Pakistan of supporting anti-Indian and anti-Western militants. It has also drawn repeated attention to Pakistan’s unwillingness to allow Indian goods overland access to Afghanistan -- through Pakistani territory -- forcing India to route supplies for its projects through the more circuitous Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
India’s low public profile may soon change. Given the considerable agreement between the United States and India on Afghanistan policy, New Delhi appears poised to assume a larger role in Afghan stabilization efforts.
T.C.A. Raghavan, a senior Indian diplomat overseeing the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran division in the External Affairs Ministry, recently welcomed the ’Af-Pak’ approach of developing a "coordinated policy" on Afghanistan and Pakistan. "We have always seen [the region] as a single issue," he said during a March 18 seminar on Afghanistan, organized by the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute for Asian Studies, a think-tank funded by his ministry.
Raghavan also welcomed the "inclination to see Iran as a stabilizing element," adding that Tehran’s role in Afghanistan "cannot be minimized." The diplomat also embraced American promises to strengthen the Afghan army and remarked that the US commitment to increase its troop level in Afghanistan was a positive step and a sign of its resolve to remain committed to stabilization efforts.
While India has officially dismissed talk of sending Indian troops into Afghanistan, there is increasing talk within Indian circles of a "regional force" that could replace the "international forces" currently operating under a NATO mandate. Ved Pratap Vaidik, a scholar and analyst with close links to the government, articulated this view forcefully. He called for "a deadline for the removal of foreign forces" from Afghanistan.
It is "time for a regional solution," he said, adding that "foreign [i.e. western] forces should be replaced by regional forces." Vaidik suggested a maximum deadline of three years for this withdrawal.
India has been wary of attempts to talk to the Taliban, insisting on strict parameters for any such dialogue. India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, told EurasiaNet last year that talking with terrorists or those who did not accept democracy and political pluralism was akin to accepting that "you can fry snowballs."
While India has had considerable links with Iran and Russia, its developing ties with the United States over the past decade have overshadowed, but not mitigated, these historical linkages. India will send representatives to the SCO meeting to be held in Moscow March 27, as well as the international meeting on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon was in Washington earlier in March for consultations that included the ’Af-Pak’ issue. Both Holbrooke and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen are expected in India on April 8 to discuss the results of the forthcoming US strategic review on Afghanistan.
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/23/09
In the past, a visit to India by a CIA director could have set off a storm of protest and political jousting in New Delhi. But given the troubling Taliban issue in neighboring Pakistan, Indians’ perception of the United States is changing. These days, the emerging US-Indian partnership is developing into an important element of Washington’s stabilization plan for Afghanistan.
When newly minted CIA Director Leon Panetta visited India recently, he was greeted only by a mild protest from leftist parties over his meeting with Indian Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram. Panetta was in India to discuss Afghanistan, the ’Af-Pak’ situation and India’s role in a new American regional policy initiative. Highlighting the importance of emerging US-Indian ties, the March 19 foray to New Delhi marked Panetta’s first overseas trip since his Senate confirmation. It also followed visits by other senior US intelligence officials, including one earlier in March by FBI Director Robert Mueller. After his visit to India, Panetta went on to Islamabad for talks with Pakistani leaders.
Further emphasizing Washington’s growing interest in New Delhi’s Afghanistan approach, on March 21 President Barack Obama’s special envy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard Holbrooke, told an audience in Brussels that India would be a "major factor in resolving" the situation in Afghanistan. Holbrooke also appeared to echo Indian concerns that Pakistan has replaced Afghanistan as the epicenter of the threat posed by international terrorists.
"We must recognize that the heart of the threat to the United States, to the European Union, to Australia, to many other countries in the world including India and, I stress, including Pakistan itself, comes from . . . western Pakistan," Holbrooke told participants at the Brussels security conference.
Since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, India, which provided support and supplies to the Northern Alliance against the Taliban, has had extensive bilateral contacts with the Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s administration. Afghanistan has become the largest beneficiary of Indian aid, receiving $1.2 billion since 2001.
Through its embassy in Kabul -- as well as four consulates in Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat and Mazar-i Sharif -- India is now able to project its influence across Afghanistan. That fact has caused consternation in Pakistan, with Islamabad calling on Kabul to curb New Delhi’s "anti-Pakistani" activities within the country, charges that range from spying to training militants operating against Pakistan.
For its part, India has consistently accused Pakistan of supporting anti-Indian and anti-Western militants. It has also drawn repeated attention to Pakistan’s unwillingness to allow Indian goods overland access to Afghanistan -- through Pakistani territory -- forcing India to route supplies for its projects through the more circuitous Iranian port of Bandar Abbas.
India’s low public profile may soon change. Given the considerable agreement between the United States and India on Afghanistan policy, New Delhi appears poised to assume a larger role in Afghan stabilization efforts.
T.C.A. Raghavan, a senior Indian diplomat overseeing the Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran division in the External Affairs Ministry, recently welcomed the ’Af-Pak’ approach of developing a "coordinated policy" on Afghanistan and Pakistan. "We have always seen [the region] as a single issue," he said during a March 18 seminar on Afghanistan, organized by the Maulana Abdul Kalam Azad Institute for Asian Studies, a think-tank funded by his ministry.
Raghavan also welcomed the "inclination to see Iran as a stabilizing element," adding that Tehran’s role in Afghanistan "cannot be minimized." The diplomat also embraced American promises to strengthen the Afghan army and remarked that the US commitment to increase its troop level in Afghanistan was a positive step and a sign of its resolve to remain committed to stabilization efforts.
While India has officially dismissed talk of sending Indian troops into Afghanistan, there is increasing talk within Indian circles of a "regional force" that could replace the "international forces" currently operating under a NATO mandate. Ved Pratap Vaidik, a scholar and analyst with close links to the government, articulated this view forcefully. He called for "a deadline for the removal of foreign forces" from Afghanistan.
It is "time for a regional solution," he said, adding that "foreign [i.e. western] forces should be replaced by regional forces." Vaidik suggested a maximum deadline of three years for this withdrawal.
India has been wary of attempts to talk to the Taliban, insisting on strict parameters for any such dialogue. India’s ambassador to Afghanistan, Jayant Prasad, told EurasiaNet last year that talking with terrorists or those who did not accept democracy and political pluralism was akin to accepting that "you can fry snowballs."
While India has had considerable links with Iran and Russia, its developing ties with the United States over the past decade have overshadowed, but not mitigated, these historical linkages. India will send representatives to the SCO meeting to be held in Moscow March 27, as well as the international meeting on Afghanistan in The Hague on March 31.
Indian Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon was in Washington earlier in March for consultations that included the ’Af-Pak’ issue. Both Holbrooke and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. Michael Mullen are expected in India on April 8 to discuss the results of the forthcoming US strategic review on Afghanistan.
AFGHANISTAN: UNDAUNTED, BAMIYAN PROVINCE PONDERS TOURISM POSSIBILITIES
CIVIL SOCIETY
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/06/09
In her home village in Afghanistan’s central Bamiyan province, Bibi Khala welcomes the occasional visitor to her home with hot tea and homemade butter and bread. Her infrequent guests usually are interested in enjoying one of the world’s most stunning natural landscapes: the nearby lakes of Band-i Amir. As part of Afghanistan’s unwritten tradition of hospitality, Bibi does not charge guests for their visits. But if Bamiyan’s new eco-tourism project achieves its objective, she one day may find herself operating a bed-and-breakfast.
Investing in tourism at a time when most predict increasing violence in Afghanistan may seem counter-intuitive. But officials and non-governmental organization activists in Afghanistan’s central province of Bamiyan are doing exactly that. They say they are determined not to let development be held hostage to the ’gloom-and-doom’ scenario facing most of the country. The province, which recently received a grant of $1.2 million from New Zealand’s government, has launched an eco-tourism development initiative that hopes to build a sustainable visitor environment, putting the livelihood of the people at the centre of the policy. (New Zealand troops maintain a small military outpost in the province).
Implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) in coordination with the provincial government, the project seeks to ensure preservation of the region’s unique natural and cultural heritage while helping locals enhance their skills to meet the demands of visiting tourists. Following the successful model of community-based tourism it has implemented in other areas of Central Asia, the AKF is focusing on capacity building, enhancing local handicraft production and constructing basic facilities for travelers. This could range from installing the most basic roadside hostels to encouraging investment in luxury accommodation.
Officials say Bamiyan will be connected to Kabul by a new road in three years. For Bamiyan residents, that is an exciting prospect and a working timeline.
"It is true that insecurity is a problem in Afghanistan now. But three years is enough for the international community and the Afghan government to think about security. We are optimistic that things will change positively in three years and that security will be better," says Amir Foladi who heads the eco-tourism program for the province. Foladi’s optimism is based not just on future hopes, but also on past realities. Though visitors to the province have dropped in the past two years, Foladi reports that up to 44,000 visitors, local and foreign, spent time in the area in 2006. Tourists are drawn to the province by its natural beauty, the local legends, religious piety, and the thrill of adventure. The main attraction is a series of interlocking lakes that sparkle in brilliant crystalline blues and greens.
The province, once a cultural crossroads, is replete with layers of history and legend, some brutal -- such as the massacres carried out by Genghis Khan’s legions -- and others auspicious, such as legends crediting Hazrat Ali with creating the lakes of Band-i Amir. Fable, history and the spectacular geography of the area fuse together.
The rise of modern commerce, trade and travel, however, caused this old branch of the Silk Road to become a backwater. The province became more isolated. The area’s neglect deepened following Sunni Islam’s rise as the predominant religious force in the region. Largely populated by Sh’ia-practicing ethnic Hazaras, Bamiyan faced horrific massacres under the Taliban. To this day, the Hazaras are some of the most welcoming to foreigners in the whole country.
With a bang, literally, the international spotlight returned to province, when the Taliban, in the last year of their rule in Kabul, blew up the area’s two giant Buddhas as a gesture of defiance. The action drew international opprobrium. Since the fall of the fundamentalist movement, the destroyed Buddhas have attracted thousands of curious visitors, just as they did during the days of the ’Hippie Trail’ of the 1960s and 70s. Combined with the relative safety of the province and the openness and warmth of the people, the area is a must-see on the itinerary of every foreigner and tourist in Afghanistan. Even several large Japanese tour groups have visited, drawn by the religious significance of the place.
While growing insecurity has caused a drop in visitors, for Hiromi Yasui, who used to help organize the Japanese tours, the hospitality business is still booming. Looking out at the caves where the fifth century Buddhas once stood some fifty meters tall, and across the verdant valley, on a recent chilly fall day, her Silk Route hotel is full. Hiromi’s spectacular cooking, combined with the luxurious trappings of her guesthouse, makes the business she runs with her Afghan husband a popular place.
But it is the development community, not tourists, who consistently fill Hiromi’s guesthouse. Bamiyan has no commercial flights and the road to Kabul is unpaved. Bumpy and pitted, it turns a distance of three hours into a backbreaking drive of eight to 12 hours, depending on the roadworthiness of the transport. The crowd at the hotel has mainly flown in on aircraft dedicated to serving the UN, NGOs, and the donor community.
At the ’Roof of Bamiyan,’ an older hotel perched on nearby cliffs, hotelier Razaq is uncertain what benefits the new eco-tourism will bring.
"What we need is security. The rest we can do ourselves. Bamiyan may be secure, but if the neighboring areas are not, people will not come," he says.
Bamiyan’s dynamic governor has an answer.
"Road, road and road," says Governor Habiba Sarobi, chanting a mantra she has repeated for several years. "Roads still remain our number one priority." Sarobi, the sole woman governor in Afghanistan, was instrumental in securing the aid for the tourism project and is generally considered to be an efficient and able administrator.
"Along with agriculture and mining, tourism can generate revenue for our people," she adds.
The natural beauty helps. Band-i Amir will likely become the first national park in Afghanistan, fulfilling a long-delayed destiny. "The area is very weak in bio-diversity," says WCS Country Director Peter Smallwood candidly, noting how the years of conflict have taken their toll on the wilderness. However he hopes that the area can be an engine to drive policy and legal issues that could then protect other large areas of bio-diversity scattered through the country.
Admitting that 2009 could be a difficult year for Afghanistan, Smallwood says WCS has nonetheless been engaged in identifying potential camping sites that seek to enhance the experience of visitors while preserving the natural habitat. "Band-i Amir is an important site," he says. "If Afghanistan can find peace, Band-i Amir will draw international tourists because there is nothing like those giant travertine dams in the world."
If that happens, tourists may enjoy the view from Bibi Khala’s doorstep.
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/06/09
In her home village in Afghanistan’s central Bamiyan province, Bibi Khala welcomes the occasional visitor to her home with hot tea and homemade butter and bread. Her infrequent guests usually are interested in enjoying one of the world’s most stunning natural landscapes: the nearby lakes of Band-i Amir. As part of Afghanistan’s unwritten tradition of hospitality, Bibi does not charge guests for their visits. But if Bamiyan’s new eco-tourism project achieves its objective, she one day may find herself operating a bed-and-breakfast.
Investing in tourism at a time when most predict increasing violence in Afghanistan may seem counter-intuitive. But officials and non-governmental organization activists in Afghanistan’s central province of Bamiyan are doing exactly that. They say they are determined not to let development be held hostage to the ’gloom-and-doom’ scenario facing most of the country. The province, which recently received a grant of $1.2 million from New Zealand’s government, has launched an eco-tourism development initiative that hopes to build a sustainable visitor environment, putting the livelihood of the people at the centre of the policy. (New Zealand troops maintain a small military outpost in the province).
Implemented by the Aga Khan Foundation (AKF) in coordination with the provincial government, the project seeks to ensure preservation of the region’s unique natural and cultural heritage while helping locals enhance their skills to meet the demands of visiting tourists. Following the successful model of community-based tourism it has implemented in other areas of Central Asia, the AKF is focusing on capacity building, enhancing local handicraft production and constructing basic facilities for travelers. This could range from installing the most basic roadside hostels to encouraging investment in luxury accommodation.
Officials say Bamiyan will be connected to Kabul by a new road in three years. For Bamiyan residents, that is an exciting prospect and a working timeline.
"It is true that insecurity is a problem in Afghanistan now. But three years is enough for the international community and the Afghan government to think about security. We are optimistic that things will change positively in three years and that security will be better," says Amir Foladi who heads the eco-tourism program for the province. Foladi’s optimism is based not just on future hopes, but also on past realities. Though visitors to the province have dropped in the past two years, Foladi reports that up to 44,000 visitors, local and foreign, spent time in the area in 2006. Tourists are drawn to the province by its natural beauty, the local legends, religious piety, and the thrill of adventure. The main attraction is a series of interlocking lakes that sparkle in brilliant crystalline blues and greens.
The province, once a cultural crossroads, is replete with layers of history and legend, some brutal -- such as the massacres carried out by Genghis Khan’s legions -- and others auspicious, such as legends crediting Hazrat Ali with creating the lakes of Band-i Amir. Fable, history and the spectacular geography of the area fuse together.
The rise of modern commerce, trade and travel, however, caused this old branch of the Silk Road to become a backwater. The province became more isolated. The area’s neglect deepened following Sunni Islam’s rise as the predominant religious force in the region. Largely populated by Sh’ia-practicing ethnic Hazaras, Bamiyan faced horrific massacres under the Taliban. To this day, the Hazaras are some of the most welcoming to foreigners in the whole country.
With a bang, literally, the international spotlight returned to province, when the Taliban, in the last year of their rule in Kabul, blew up the area’s two giant Buddhas as a gesture of defiance. The action drew international opprobrium. Since the fall of the fundamentalist movement, the destroyed Buddhas have attracted thousands of curious visitors, just as they did during the days of the ’Hippie Trail’ of the 1960s and 70s. Combined with the relative safety of the province and the openness and warmth of the people, the area is a must-see on the itinerary of every foreigner and tourist in Afghanistan. Even several large Japanese tour groups have visited, drawn by the religious significance of the place.
While growing insecurity has caused a drop in visitors, for Hiromi Yasui, who used to help organize the Japanese tours, the hospitality business is still booming. Looking out at the caves where the fifth century Buddhas once stood some fifty meters tall, and across the verdant valley, on a recent chilly fall day, her Silk Route hotel is full. Hiromi’s spectacular cooking, combined with the luxurious trappings of her guesthouse, makes the business she runs with her Afghan husband a popular place.
But it is the development community, not tourists, who consistently fill Hiromi’s guesthouse. Bamiyan has no commercial flights and the road to Kabul is unpaved. Bumpy and pitted, it turns a distance of three hours into a backbreaking drive of eight to 12 hours, depending on the roadworthiness of the transport. The crowd at the hotel has mainly flown in on aircraft dedicated to serving the UN, NGOs, and the donor community.
At the ’Roof of Bamiyan,’ an older hotel perched on nearby cliffs, hotelier Razaq is uncertain what benefits the new eco-tourism will bring.
"What we need is security. The rest we can do ourselves. Bamiyan may be secure, but if the neighboring areas are not, people will not come," he says.
Bamiyan’s dynamic governor has an answer.
"Road, road and road," says Governor Habiba Sarobi, chanting a mantra she has repeated for several years. "Roads still remain our number one priority." Sarobi, the sole woman governor in Afghanistan, was instrumental in securing the aid for the tourism project and is generally considered to be an efficient and able administrator.
"Along with agriculture and mining, tourism can generate revenue for our people," she adds.
The natural beauty helps. Band-i Amir will likely become the first national park in Afghanistan, fulfilling a long-delayed destiny. "The area is very weak in bio-diversity," says WCS Country Director Peter Smallwood candidly, noting how the years of conflict have taken their toll on the wilderness. However he hopes that the area can be an engine to drive policy and legal issues that could then protect other large areas of bio-diversity scattered through the country.
Admitting that 2009 could be a difficult year for Afghanistan, Smallwood says WCS has nonetheless been engaged in identifying potential camping sites that seek to enhance the experience of visitors while preserving the natural habitat. "Band-i Amir is an important site," he says. "If Afghanistan can find peace, Band-i Amir will draw international tourists because there is nothing like those giant travertine dams in the world."
If that happens, tourists may enjoy the view from Bibi Khala’s doorstep.
AFGHANISTAN: CONSTITUTIONAL CRISIS DEVELOPING IN KABUL, AS KARZAI STRIVES TO REMAIN RELEVANT
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/02/09
Afghanistan’s fledgling Constitution is facing a test, as President Hamid Karzai and his opponents are currently battling for control of the country’s political agenda. The dispute centers on the dates for the country’s next presidential election. The legitimacy of Afghanistan’s government is at stake.
The confrontation began brewing last fall when an informal political "understanding" between parliament, the president and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on holding elections in early autumn 2009 appeared to fall through. Following the IEC’s January 29 announcement that elections would be held August 20, members of the opposition balked. They insisted letting Karzai hold onto the presidency until August would violate the constitution, which states that all presidential terms must end on the first of the Afghan month of Jawza, this year coinciding with May 21 of the western calendar.
In response, Karzai announced on February 28 that elections should be held this spring in accordance with the constitution. His deft move surprised the opposition, which had apparently hoped the president would step down or at least agree to reduce his powers during the three-month interim between the official end to his term and elections in August.
Observers say the opposition is now in a dither. An April election puts Karzai in an advantageous position, as the perks of incumbency would prove especially useful in a short campaign season. Challengers, for instance, would have little time to organize campaigns. On the defensive, some members of the opposition United Front say they have changed their mind, and now favor an August election.
While anti-incumbency feeling is strong, the lack of a viable alternative will be Karzai’s biggest strength as he campaigns for a second term. Political analyst Haroun Mir, founder of Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), points out that no potential candidate has come forward with an alternative agenda. "Saying Karzai is bad is not enough," he told EurasiaNet. "Where are [the opposition’s] programs?"
An early election would also allow the US administration of President Barack Obama -- which appears increasingly frustrated with Karzai -- less time to formulate a new Afghan policy. Though the Obama Administration has publicly stated it will not back any candidate, most Afghans and observers believe that any sign of American support could tilt the results in favor of a particular candidate.
In response to Karzai’s call for early elections, acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood appeared to contradict the Afghan president’s view, saying in a statement that Washington preferred sticking with a summer vote. "Elections in August, as proposed by the Independent Elections Commission, are the best means to assure every Afghan citizen would be able to express his or her political preference in a secure environment," Wood said.
The country’s electoral law further complicates Karzai’s avowed intensions. Afghanistan’s constitution says the IEC must announce elections 140 days before polling, a date that has already passed if the elections are to be held in April or even May.
Independent MP Shukria Barakzai thinks the subject of dates "is a political problem, not a legal one." She suggested that invoking emergency powers in parts of the country might be a way to defuse the constitutional crisis. Afghanistan’s Constitution allows for elections to be delayed in case of an emergency declared by the president, and ratified by the parliament. The biggest drawback to this option, though, is that it would serve as a tacit admission that the government is not able to govern.
Reacting to some suggestions that a Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, could be held as a stopgap measure, Barakzai said: "Elections are the only legitimate way of choosing a leadership, and a young democracy needs elections. We should not take a step back and have a Loya Jirga, or temporary arrangement."
Mir of ACRPS also favors change through elections, saying it would bring new momentum to the political process. "The conflict is also based on psychological perception. If people gain hope, the situation will automatically improve. We need new leadership, not a repeat of what we have had for the past five years," he said.
The IEC has not reacted to the recent developments, stating only that it would make known its stance once it is officially notified of the presidential decree. The United Nations -- which is supporting the electoral process -- and other members of the international community have also maintained public silence. Privately, however, Western officials have expressed disquiet over recent developments, concerned that given the mammoth task of preparing logistics, an early election would be nearly impossible, or at the very least compromise the principles of fairness.
The logistics of voter registration, including security, making lists and vetting of candidates, and printing and distribution of ballots are difficult tasks given the lack of capacity in Afghanistan. The difficulty is compounded by the country’s topography, the heavy snowfall in winter, and the ongoing Taliban insurgency.
While constitutional requirements and legal technicalities form the front piece of the ongoing tussle, it is the backroom agreements that will finally determine when the elections shall be held, experts say. As an international observer in Kabul remarked wryly, "All these issues were known to us. Why didn’t we deal with them before?"
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted March 2, 2009 © Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar 3/02/09
Afghanistan’s fledgling Constitution is facing a test, as President Hamid Karzai and his opponents are currently battling for control of the country’s political agenda. The dispute centers on the dates for the country’s next presidential election. The legitimacy of Afghanistan’s government is at stake.
The confrontation began brewing last fall when an informal political "understanding" between parliament, the president and the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) on holding elections in early autumn 2009 appeared to fall through. Following the IEC’s January 29 announcement that elections would be held August 20, members of the opposition balked. They insisted letting Karzai hold onto the presidency until August would violate the constitution, which states that all presidential terms must end on the first of the Afghan month of Jawza, this year coinciding with May 21 of the western calendar.
In response, Karzai announced on February 28 that elections should be held this spring in accordance with the constitution. His deft move surprised the opposition, which had apparently hoped the president would step down or at least agree to reduce his powers during the three-month interim between the official end to his term and elections in August.
Observers say the opposition is now in a dither. An April election puts Karzai in an advantageous position, as the perks of incumbency would prove especially useful in a short campaign season. Challengers, for instance, would have little time to organize campaigns. On the defensive, some members of the opposition United Front say they have changed their mind, and now favor an August election.
While anti-incumbency feeling is strong, the lack of a viable alternative will be Karzai’s biggest strength as he campaigns for a second term. Political analyst Haroun Mir, founder of Afghanistan’s Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), points out that no potential candidate has come forward with an alternative agenda. "Saying Karzai is bad is not enough," he told EurasiaNet. "Where are [the opposition’s] programs?"
An early election would also allow the US administration of President Barack Obama -- which appears increasingly frustrated with Karzai -- less time to formulate a new Afghan policy. Though the Obama Administration has publicly stated it will not back any candidate, most Afghans and observers believe that any sign of American support could tilt the results in favor of a particular candidate.
In response to Karzai’s call for early elections, acting State Department spokesman Robert Wood appeared to contradict the Afghan president’s view, saying in a statement that Washington preferred sticking with a summer vote. "Elections in August, as proposed by the Independent Elections Commission, are the best means to assure every Afghan citizen would be able to express his or her political preference in a secure environment," Wood said.
The country’s electoral law further complicates Karzai’s avowed intensions. Afghanistan’s constitution says the IEC must announce elections 140 days before polling, a date that has already passed if the elections are to be held in April or even May.
Independent MP Shukria Barakzai thinks the subject of dates "is a political problem, not a legal one." She suggested that invoking emergency powers in parts of the country might be a way to defuse the constitutional crisis. Afghanistan’s Constitution allows for elections to be delayed in case of an emergency declared by the president, and ratified by the parliament. The biggest drawback to this option, though, is that it would serve as a tacit admission that the government is not able to govern.
Reacting to some suggestions that a Loya Jirga, or grand tribal council, could be held as a stopgap measure, Barakzai said: "Elections are the only legitimate way of choosing a leadership, and a young democracy needs elections. We should not take a step back and have a Loya Jirga, or temporary arrangement."
Mir of ACRPS also favors change through elections, saying it would bring new momentum to the political process. "The conflict is also based on psychological perception. If people gain hope, the situation will automatically improve. We need new leadership, not a repeat of what we have had for the past five years," he said.
The IEC has not reacted to the recent developments, stating only that it would make known its stance once it is officially notified of the presidential decree. The United Nations -- which is supporting the electoral process -- and other members of the international community have also maintained public silence. Privately, however, Western officials have expressed disquiet over recent developments, concerned that given the mammoth task of preparing logistics, an early election would be nearly impossible, or at the very least compromise the principles of fairness.
The logistics of voter registration, including security, making lists and vetting of candidates, and printing and distribution of ballots are difficult tasks given the lack of capacity in Afghanistan. The difficulty is compounded by the country’s topography, the heavy snowfall in winter, and the ongoing Taliban insurgency.
While constitutional requirements and legal technicalities form the front piece of the ongoing tussle, it is the backroom agreements that will finally determine when the elections shall be held, experts say. As an international observer in Kabul remarked wryly, "All these issues were known to us. Why didn’t we deal with them before?"
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted March 2, 2009 © Eurasianet
AFGHANISTAN: SOME IN KABUL SAY WHAT’S NEEDED IS A POLITICAL & ECONOMIC SURGE, NOT NECESSARILY MORE FOREIGN TROOPS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 2/19/09
The US plan to carry out a troop surge in Afghanistan is proving a deeply divisive issue inside the country. While most Afghans are supportive of any move that could end the Taliban insurgency, many already view the presence of foreign troops as a mixed blessing. Some experts suggest that a winning strategy must include drastic revisions in the way foreign forces operate in Afghanistan, along with an intensification of efforts to improve political and economic conditions.
Underscoring existing misgivings is the fact that at about the same time US President Barack Obama confirmed that an additional 17,000 American soldiers would be heading to Afghanistan, the United Nations announced that civilian deaths in 2008 had risen 40 percent over the previous year’s toll. Of 2,118 civilians known to have been killed amid combat operations in 2008, the UN says, 39 percent died due to the actions of Afghan government and coalition forces.
Civilian casualties have long stoked public anger. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has regularly ratcheted up public angst, repeatedly calling for an end to the civilian deaths. On February 4, for example, he said his government and the United States had a difference of opinion over the use of air strikes and described the dispute as a cause of "tensions in our ties," adding the "tension has become severe."
Surprisingly, on February 17, Karzai welcomed Obama’s proposed "surge" and described a new agreement with the American forces to improve coordination and minimize civilian causalities. "The tension the Afghan government had with the US government is now over," Karzai said February 18. "From now on, no foreign troop operations will be uncoordinated with Afghan forces."
Stemming growing public disenchantment -- now at its highest level since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001 -- will depend more on the Afghan government’s ability to contain corruption and deliver basic services than on more fighting, most observers believe.
Aziz Hakimi, a political analyst and the Country Director for Future Generations, a non-governmental organization, is unenthused by the coming surge. "More troops will mean more fighting, more bloodshed. The conflict will be prolonged," he said. Hakimi feels more troops cannot win this war. "It is . . . too late to get the upper hand militarily. What we need is a political surge, not a military surge," he said, referring to his desire for more development aid and accountability in government.
Journalist Najiba Ayubi, managing director of Radio Killid in Kabul, agrees. Noting pros and cons to the US presence, she says Afghanistan has gained a lot in terms of assistance, but adds international troops are operating in an alien culture that they have failed to grasp. At this point, she says, rather than increasing their presence, the international military must accept "a date for withdrawal."
However, another close observer of Afghan politics, Haroun Mir, founder of the Kabul-based Centre for Research and Policy Studies, is eager for more foreign troops. He laments the deteriorating security situation and says the country needs help, quickly, to prevent the Taliban’s return to Kabul.
Of late, the UN has adopted a firmer stance on civilian casualties. At a December press conference, Kai Eide, the UN Secretary General’s new Special Representative to Afghanistan, raised the bar. He called for greater troop restraint and a revision of the bilateral agreement for their deployment, asking for changes in the procedures of house searches, arbitrary detentions and use of air power. "Any expanded military presence has to be accompanied by that change in behavior," he demanded.
Rights watchdogs also see a change in rules of engagement as critical. Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for a review of the weapons used in combat. Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of HRW in Afghanistan, told EurasiaNet that, "an increase in troops will lead to a surge in violence if the troops are not used differently." There will still be "too much emphasis on protecting the lives of international troops and not enough emphasis on protecting the lives of Afghans," she said.
"Are the costs of civilian casualties too high to justify the military gains? Can they defeat the insurgency while losing so much public support through civilian casualty incidents and unjust detention policies?" she asked.
International observers have repeatedly warned that coalition troops keep too far from their Afghan hosts. Operating in an atmosphere of growing public disenchantment, arriving foreign troops are likely to minimize rather than expand contact with the local population. Foot patrols, even in the capital, which were earlier meant to reassure the public, take place now with the local population kept at a distance as soldiers march through in heavy armor.
The lack of contact will further exacerbate the continuing failures in intelligence gathering. Heavily reliant on local strongmen or ’leaders’ to provide intelligence, the troops have at times found themselves used as a weapon in an ongoing feud between tribes or large families. The frequency of their rotation gives little chance to develop local intelligence, with the UN’s Eide bemoaning the detention of people "who happen to be amongst the UN mission’s closest contacts in the community."
So far, it is unclear what the new agreement between Kabul and Washington will mean for rules of engagement. But armed with inadequate intelligence, hemmed in by growing disenchantment and faced with the growing fighting capacity of anti-government elements, international troops may well find their numbers increased to the detriment of their mission.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted February 19, 2009 © Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar 2/19/09
The US plan to carry out a troop surge in Afghanistan is proving a deeply divisive issue inside the country. While most Afghans are supportive of any move that could end the Taliban insurgency, many already view the presence of foreign troops as a mixed blessing. Some experts suggest that a winning strategy must include drastic revisions in the way foreign forces operate in Afghanistan, along with an intensification of efforts to improve political and economic conditions.
Underscoring existing misgivings is the fact that at about the same time US President Barack Obama confirmed that an additional 17,000 American soldiers would be heading to Afghanistan, the United Nations announced that civilian deaths in 2008 had risen 40 percent over the previous year’s toll. Of 2,118 civilians known to have been killed amid combat operations in 2008, the UN says, 39 percent died due to the actions of Afghan government and coalition forces.
Civilian casualties have long stoked public anger. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has regularly ratcheted up public angst, repeatedly calling for an end to the civilian deaths. On February 4, for example, he said his government and the United States had a difference of opinion over the use of air strikes and described the dispute as a cause of "tensions in our ties," adding the "tension has become severe."
Surprisingly, on February 17, Karzai welcomed Obama’s proposed "surge" and described a new agreement with the American forces to improve coordination and minimize civilian causalities. "The tension the Afghan government had with the US government is now over," Karzai said February 18. "From now on, no foreign troop operations will be uncoordinated with Afghan forces."
Stemming growing public disenchantment -- now at its highest level since the Taliban’s ouster in 2001 -- will depend more on the Afghan government’s ability to contain corruption and deliver basic services than on more fighting, most observers believe.
Aziz Hakimi, a political analyst and the Country Director for Future Generations, a non-governmental organization, is unenthused by the coming surge. "More troops will mean more fighting, more bloodshed. The conflict will be prolonged," he said. Hakimi feels more troops cannot win this war. "It is . . . too late to get the upper hand militarily. What we need is a political surge, not a military surge," he said, referring to his desire for more development aid and accountability in government.
Journalist Najiba Ayubi, managing director of Radio Killid in Kabul, agrees. Noting pros and cons to the US presence, she says Afghanistan has gained a lot in terms of assistance, but adds international troops are operating in an alien culture that they have failed to grasp. At this point, she says, rather than increasing their presence, the international military must accept "a date for withdrawal."
However, another close observer of Afghan politics, Haroun Mir, founder of the Kabul-based Centre for Research and Policy Studies, is eager for more foreign troops. He laments the deteriorating security situation and says the country needs help, quickly, to prevent the Taliban’s return to Kabul.
Of late, the UN has adopted a firmer stance on civilian casualties. At a December press conference, Kai Eide, the UN Secretary General’s new Special Representative to Afghanistan, raised the bar. He called for greater troop restraint and a revision of the bilateral agreement for their deployment, asking for changes in the procedures of house searches, arbitrary detentions and use of air power. "Any expanded military presence has to be accompanied by that change in behavior," he demanded.
Rights watchdogs also see a change in rules of engagement as critical. Human Rights Watch (HRW) is calling for a review of the weapons used in combat. Rachel Reid, the Country Representative of HRW in Afghanistan, told EurasiaNet that, "an increase in troops will lead to a surge in violence if the troops are not used differently." There will still be "too much emphasis on protecting the lives of international troops and not enough emphasis on protecting the lives of Afghans," she said.
"Are the costs of civilian casualties too high to justify the military gains? Can they defeat the insurgency while losing so much public support through civilian casualty incidents and unjust detention policies?" she asked.
International observers have repeatedly warned that coalition troops keep too far from their Afghan hosts. Operating in an atmosphere of growing public disenchantment, arriving foreign troops are likely to minimize rather than expand contact with the local population. Foot patrols, even in the capital, which were earlier meant to reassure the public, take place now with the local population kept at a distance as soldiers march through in heavy armor.
The lack of contact will further exacerbate the continuing failures in intelligence gathering. Heavily reliant on local strongmen or ’leaders’ to provide intelligence, the troops have at times found themselves used as a weapon in an ongoing feud between tribes or large families. The frequency of their rotation gives little chance to develop local intelligence, with the UN’s Eide bemoaning the detention of people "who happen to be amongst the UN mission’s closest contacts in the community."
So far, it is unclear what the new agreement between Kabul and Washington will mean for rules of engagement. But armed with inadequate intelligence, hemmed in by growing disenchantment and faced with the growing fighting capacity of anti-government elements, international troops may well find their numbers increased to the detriment of their mission.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted February 19, 2009 © Eurasianet
AFGHANISTAN: FOOD INSECURITY, THE PROBLEM THAT NEVER WENT AWAY
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar 2/10/09
Just as the United States is preparing for a massive reinforcement of its troops in Afghanistan, so too is the United Nations calling for a surge in humanitarian relief. Forty thousand people die every year in Afghanistan not from violence, but from the unnoticed collateral damage of war -- hunger and poverty. The number is 25 times higher than the toll due to violence, says the UN Security Council in its most recent report.
Despite repeated calls for greater attention to food security, the numbers of those who cannot meet their minimum dietary needs in Afghanistan is on the rise, growing from 30 percent to 35 percent between 2005 and 2008. The crisis is expected to worsen over the next few months as the impact of local drought and high global food prices push more Afghans into food insecurity.
Underscoring the crisis, the UN launched a Humanitarian Action Plan for Afghanistan on February 3, calling for a $604 million emergency relief package. The appeal, which will also aid health, education, water, and shelter, has earmarked over 50 percent to food and agriculture assistance. It even warns that, without urgent action, post-Taliban gains in education and health stand the risk of reversal.
Part of the problem is drought. Last year, the country received less than 24 percent of the rainfall level of 2007, resulting in an 85 percent drop in wheat production. Overall, there occurred a 30 percent drop in cereal harvest over the previous year countrywide. Today, on average, an Afghan family spends 77 percent of its income on food, compared to 56 percent in 2005. The increase, says the UN’s humanitarian appeal, "quickly pushed large segments of previously borderline food-insecure people into an inability to obtain enough basic food and having to resort to destructive coping measures."
Launching the humanitarian appeal in Geneva, the UN Under-Secretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said: "In 2008, at a time of rising global food prices, Afghanistan harvested only two-thirds of its annual food requirements, leaving a serious gap for the government and the humanitarian agencies to fill."
Despite the urgency, and awareness among international monitors, concern has not translated into relief. A Joint Emergency Food Appeal launched in July 2008 by the Afghan government and the UN, calling for $404 million to "feed Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people who are in desperate need of food aid," was dismally under-funded. Despite repeated appeals, it has only been half-funded. The current estimate doubles the number of people in need of food assistance since last year, to almost 9 million.
According to Oxfam, the health of over a million young children and half a million women is at serious risk due to malnutrition. One out of every two Afghan children under five is stunted and 39 percent are underweight, the humanitarian agency says.
In a memo to US President Barack Obama, Oxfam has warned of the possibility of significant food shortages in 2009 that could "adversely affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest."
In the southern province of Kandahar, the new governor Tooryakai Wesa is asking for tractors and training, rather than troops, even though his province is considered one of the most violent in the country. During a recent visit to Canada, Wesa said he would like to create security through jobs, not tanks and artillery.
Though 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population is dependent on agriculture, the sector has been one of the most under-funded, receiving only $500 million out of the $15 billion spent on non-security related reconstruction in this country. The country’s leading donor, the United States, is estimated to have spent less than 5 percent of USAID’s budget for Afghanistan since 2002 on agriculture. In 2007, US spending on agriculture amounted to less than 1 percent of what it spent on security.
Speaking in Kabul on February 1, the UN’s top official in Afghanistan, the Secretary General’s Special Representative Kai Eide, described agriculture as a neglected sector: "The government and donors must make sure that agriculture becomes a priority not only in rhetoric, but in the allocation of resources."
The apparent unwillingness of donors to fund the emergency appeals for food and development aid for agriculture lie in the structural inadequacies of the funding mechanisms, say experts.
Remarking on the launch of the UN appeal, the Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Elizabeth Rasmusson urged "donor nations to commit more funds to establish and maintain independent humanitarian funding for Afghanistan." She pointed out that "most aid is for development and reconstruction," rather than aid for civilians in the midst of conflict.
Indeed, humanitarian funding has dried up as donors have moved towards funding the ’post-conflict’ state. Donors often target conflict zones in need of humanitarian assistance with money for development projects. Many of these target areas are unable to absorb development aid.
Spending on agriculture development, which could prevent such humanitarian crises, is less appealing. It requires long-term painstaking dedication at the ground level. Many donors are unwilling to make such commitments, Oxfam says, as it is easier to quantify development projects such as the construction of bridges and schools. Returns on humanitarian investment are both lower and slower, making such projects unattractive to the private sector with its eye on quick profits and large returns.
"A large volume of aid money goes to private, profit-making companies," Oxfam points out in its memo to President Obama, adding that "too much aid seeks to achieve rapid material results, without sufficiently promoting local ownership, sustainable poverty reduction or longer term capacity building."
According to Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy & Research
Action Aid Afghanistan, an NGO, "the key issue here is that we are in this vicious cycle of drought and food insecurity every year. This can be attributed to lack of investment in agriculture and rural employment or livelihoods in Afghanistan."
Much will depend on the new Obama administration’s plans for Afghanistan. Initial signs suggest an approach weighted to military solutions, with a reduced emphasis on development and "less ambitious" short-term goals. None of this adds up to an encouraging future for Afghanistan’s hungry millions.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted February 10, 2009 © Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar 2/10/09
Just as the United States is preparing for a massive reinforcement of its troops in Afghanistan, so too is the United Nations calling for a surge in humanitarian relief. Forty thousand people die every year in Afghanistan not from violence, but from the unnoticed collateral damage of war -- hunger and poverty. The number is 25 times higher than the toll due to violence, says the UN Security Council in its most recent report.
Despite repeated calls for greater attention to food security, the numbers of those who cannot meet their minimum dietary needs in Afghanistan is on the rise, growing from 30 percent to 35 percent between 2005 and 2008. The crisis is expected to worsen over the next few months as the impact of local drought and high global food prices push more Afghans into food insecurity.
Underscoring the crisis, the UN launched a Humanitarian Action Plan for Afghanistan on February 3, calling for a $604 million emergency relief package. The appeal, which will also aid health, education, water, and shelter, has earmarked over 50 percent to food and agriculture assistance. It even warns that, without urgent action, post-Taliban gains in education and health stand the risk of reversal.
Part of the problem is drought. Last year, the country received less than 24 percent of the rainfall level of 2007, resulting in an 85 percent drop in wheat production. Overall, there occurred a 30 percent drop in cereal harvest over the previous year countrywide. Today, on average, an Afghan family spends 77 percent of its income on food, compared to 56 percent in 2005. The increase, says the UN’s humanitarian appeal, "quickly pushed large segments of previously borderline food-insecure people into an inability to obtain enough basic food and having to resort to destructive coping measures."
Launching the humanitarian appeal in Geneva, the UN Under-Secretary General and Emergency Relief Coordinator John Holmes said: "In 2008, at a time of rising global food prices, Afghanistan harvested only two-thirds of its annual food requirements, leaving a serious gap for the government and the humanitarian agencies to fill."
Despite the urgency, and awareness among international monitors, concern has not translated into relief. A Joint Emergency Food Appeal launched in July 2008 by the Afghan government and the UN, calling for $404 million to "feed Afghanistan’s most vulnerable people who are in desperate need of food aid," was dismally under-funded. Despite repeated appeals, it has only been half-funded. The current estimate doubles the number of people in need of food assistance since last year, to almost 9 million.
According to Oxfam, the health of over a million young children and half a million women is at serious risk due to malnutrition. One out of every two Afghan children under five is stunted and 39 percent are underweight, the humanitarian agency says.
In a memo to US President Barack Obama, Oxfam has warned of the possibility of significant food shortages in 2009 that could "adversely affect public health and even spark displacement and unrest."
In the southern province of Kandahar, the new governor Tooryakai Wesa is asking for tractors and training, rather than troops, even though his province is considered one of the most violent in the country. During a recent visit to Canada, Wesa said he would like to create security through jobs, not tanks and artillery.
Though 80 percent of Afghanistan’s population is dependent on agriculture, the sector has been one of the most under-funded, receiving only $500 million out of the $15 billion spent on non-security related reconstruction in this country. The country’s leading donor, the United States, is estimated to have spent less than 5 percent of USAID’s budget for Afghanistan since 2002 on agriculture. In 2007, US spending on agriculture amounted to less than 1 percent of what it spent on security.
Speaking in Kabul on February 1, the UN’s top official in Afghanistan, the Secretary General’s Special Representative Kai Eide, described agriculture as a neglected sector: "The government and donors must make sure that agriculture becomes a priority not only in rhetoric, but in the allocation of resources."
The apparent unwillingness of donors to fund the emergency appeals for food and development aid for agriculture lie in the structural inadequacies of the funding mechanisms, say experts.
Remarking on the launch of the UN appeal, the Norwegian Refugee Council Secretary General Elizabeth Rasmusson urged "donor nations to commit more funds to establish and maintain independent humanitarian funding for Afghanistan." She pointed out that "most aid is for development and reconstruction," rather than aid for civilians in the midst of conflict.
Indeed, humanitarian funding has dried up as donors have moved towards funding the ’post-conflict’ state. Donors often target conflict zones in need of humanitarian assistance with money for development projects. Many of these target areas are unable to absorb development aid.
Spending on agriculture development, which could prevent such humanitarian crises, is less appealing. It requires long-term painstaking dedication at the ground level. Many donors are unwilling to make such commitments, Oxfam says, as it is easier to quantify development projects such as the construction of bridges and schools. Returns on humanitarian investment are both lower and slower, making such projects unattractive to the private sector with its eye on quick profits and large returns.
"A large volume of aid money goes to private, profit-making companies," Oxfam points out in its memo to President Obama, adding that "too much aid seeks to achieve rapid material results, without sufficiently promoting local ownership, sustainable poverty reduction or longer term capacity building."
According to Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, Manager of Policy Advocacy & Research
Action Aid Afghanistan, an NGO, "the key issue here is that we are in this vicious cycle of drought and food insecurity every year. This can be attributed to lack of investment in agriculture and rural employment or livelihoods in Afghanistan."
Much will depend on the new Obama administration’s plans for Afghanistan. Initial signs suggest an approach weighted to military solutions, with a reduced emphasis on development and "less ambitious" short-term goals. None of this adds up to an encouraging future for Afghanistan’s hungry millions.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted February 10, 2009 © Eurasianet
AFGHANISTAN: RESURRECTION OF MUSEUM HELPING FORGE NEW NATIONAL IDENTITY
Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar: 1/30/09
A giant granite bowl standing in the entrance to the newly rebuilt National Museum in Kabul embodies the complexity and richness of Afghanistan's past. Literally layered with history, the bowl was carved during the Buddhist era and inscribed hundreds of years later, after the advent of Islam. On display, it exemplifies how the country was transformed by centuries of invasion and trade, and how an appreciation of change is essential to rebuilding Afghanistan's identity. Today the bowl also symbolizes survival in a museum that has lost more than 70 percent of its treasures to the depredations of war. It sits on a gleaming pedestal over polished floors, housed in a museum that is painstakingly restoring itself step by step: renovating the building, restoring the damaged artifacts, re-cataloging a fractured inventory, and introducing modern methods of preservation. What's more, the museum is also working to reestablish its role as protector of heritage in a society fragmented by years of conflict.
The Director of the National Museum, Omara Khan Masoudi, is well acquainted with the challenges. His association with the museum dates back 30 years, many of them painful. At times he watched as militias looted or destroyed the museum's treasures. At other points, fighting prevented him from even reaching the site. He finally left the country in 2000, returning two years later when the post-Taliban Minister of Information and Culture invited him to take charge of the museum once again.
Contrary to the popular myth that links the Taliban to the destruction of much of Afghanistan's art and culture, Masoudi reveals that most of the losses took place during the civil war of the mid-1990s, before the Taliban came to power. It was during the mujahidin's chaotic rule that many of the museum's artifacts were destroyed, he says.
"When power changed from communist to mujahidin hands [in 1992], there was a security vacuum. The museum was looted," Masoudi told EurasiaNet. When the mujahidin factions began fighting among themselves, the South Kabul neighborhood where the museum is located became a battleground. "For two years this area was cut off and we could not reach the museum. Rocket attacks set the museum building on fire, destroying a large part of it."
Masoudi actually recalls how the Taliban helped the museum in the initial years. Most members of the movement were against the destruction of cultural artifacts and paid attention to safeguarding them, he says. In the late 1990s, even the reclusive Mullah Omar issued edicts calling for the preservation of cultural treasures, including the very Bamiyan Buddhas he would later order destroyed.
"I remember one time a Taliban commander said he would destroy the Buddha statutes," Masoudi said. "The [Taliban] Minister of Information refuted the idea, saying the Taliban regime would not destroy the pieces in Bamiyan. Up until 2000, they helped keep the artifacts safe. I don't know what happened after that. I think it was some outside pressure that resulted in the edicts issued in 2001 to destroy the Buddha statues and also all the artifacts in the museum that resembled human figures."
Many observers have speculated that it was the influence of Osama bin Laden on the Taliban leadership that eventually led to the Buddhas' destruction. Conservative interpretations of Islam forbid the representation of living creatures.
Much of what is left in the museum was saved through a combination of luck, courage and ingenuity. In 1988, as Soviet forces prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, and as mujahidin forces advanced on Kabul, the government there decided to store many artifacts in three different places around the capital. These efforts helped save precious collections such as the Bactrian Gold, long thought lost forever, that is currently touring museums in the United States.
Now, thanks to the efforts of Masoudi and others like him, Kabul's National Museum is restoring damaged pieces and reviewing its inventory. With the help of UNESCO and the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the museum is also identifying stolen treasures and attempting to have known pieces returned. Masoudi describes efforts to develop a "red list" of antiquities, illegal to be owned or traded by individuals. "Last year we got back 5,000 pieces," he said. But preserving the existing treasures is still a challenge. Officials lack the resources to stop illegal archaeological excavations throughout the country.
The museum, Masoudi adds, urgently needs a security system, climate control, and illumination that will allow light sensitive objects to be stored and displayed according to conservationist requirements.
One of Masoudi's greatest laments is that the museum's collection of Afghan heritage is inaccessible to many of the country's citizens. "It is also important to have museums in the provinces. Not everyone can come to Kabul," he said. Bamiyan, for example, could have its own museum to display and store artifacts excavated locally, he suggests.
Asked what role the museum will play in shaping Afghanistan's cultural identity after years of fighting over definitions of identity, Masoudi speaks of the importance of recognizing a multi-layered past. "This country has an ancient civilization. We have to be proud of it, about the pre-Islamic history. We have artifacts which date back 60,000 years or more. When we can display the artifacts belonging to earlier periods in the museum -- for example pieces from the Bronze Age -- it will be possible for people to understand this very clearly."
"Educated people try to preserve their culture," he continued. "Now it is a big challenge." He believes that it was a lack of education that led to the past looting, and he is keen to ensure exposure to the museum now starts at a young age. "I think every museum has a role in the education of the younger generation. . . . I hope some donors can provide us with one or two buses. Then we could arrange to bring school children here and show them around for free," he said.
"We could do this everyday. We can host as many as 300 to 400 children at one time," he continued, as his eyes lit up. "We can show them our country's rich past."
Aunohita Mojumdar: 1/30/09
A giant granite bowl standing in the entrance to the newly rebuilt National Museum in Kabul embodies the complexity and richness of Afghanistan's past. Literally layered with history, the bowl was carved during the Buddhist era and inscribed hundreds of years later, after the advent of Islam. On display, it exemplifies how the country was transformed by centuries of invasion and trade, and how an appreciation of change is essential to rebuilding Afghanistan's identity. Today the bowl also symbolizes survival in a museum that has lost more than 70 percent of its treasures to the depredations of war. It sits on a gleaming pedestal over polished floors, housed in a museum that is painstakingly restoring itself step by step: renovating the building, restoring the damaged artifacts, re-cataloging a fractured inventory, and introducing modern methods of preservation. What's more, the museum is also working to reestablish its role as protector of heritage in a society fragmented by years of conflict.
The Director of the National Museum, Omara Khan Masoudi, is well acquainted with the challenges. His association with the museum dates back 30 years, many of them painful. At times he watched as militias looted or destroyed the museum's treasures. At other points, fighting prevented him from even reaching the site. He finally left the country in 2000, returning two years later when the post-Taliban Minister of Information and Culture invited him to take charge of the museum once again.
Contrary to the popular myth that links the Taliban to the destruction of much of Afghanistan's art and culture, Masoudi reveals that most of the losses took place during the civil war of the mid-1990s, before the Taliban came to power. It was during the mujahidin's chaotic rule that many of the museum's artifacts were destroyed, he says.
"When power changed from communist to mujahidin hands [in 1992], there was a security vacuum. The museum was looted," Masoudi told EurasiaNet. When the mujahidin factions began fighting among themselves, the South Kabul neighborhood where the museum is located became a battleground. "For two years this area was cut off and we could not reach the museum. Rocket attacks set the museum building on fire, destroying a large part of it."
Masoudi actually recalls how the Taliban helped the museum in the initial years. Most members of the movement were against the destruction of cultural artifacts and paid attention to safeguarding them, he says. In the late 1990s, even the reclusive Mullah Omar issued edicts calling for the preservation of cultural treasures, including the very Bamiyan Buddhas he would later order destroyed.
"I remember one time a Taliban commander said he would destroy the Buddha statutes," Masoudi said. "The [Taliban] Minister of Information refuted the idea, saying the Taliban regime would not destroy the pieces in Bamiyan. Up until 2000, they helped keep the artifacts safe. I don't know what happened after that. I think it was some outside pressure that resulted in the edicts issued in 2001 to destroy the Buddha statues and also all the artifacts in the museum that resembled human figures."
Many observers have speculated that it was the influence of Osama bin Laden on the Taliban leadership that eventually led to the Buddhas' destruction. Conservative interpretations of Islam forbid the representation of living creatures.
Much of what is left in the museum was saved through a combination of luck, courage and ingenuity. In 1988, as Soviet forces prepared to withdraw from Afghanistan, and as mujahidin forces advanced on Kabul, the government there decided to store many artifacts in three different places around the capital. These efforts helped save precious collections such as the Bactrian Gold, long thought lost forever, that is currently touring museums in the United States.
Now, thanks to the efforts of Masoudi and others like him, Kabul's National Museum is restoring damaged pieces and reviewing its inventory. With the help of UNESCO and the International Council of Museums (ICOM), the museum is also identifying stolen treasures and attempting to have known pieces returned. Masoudi describes efforts to develop a "red list" of antiquities, illegal to be owned or traded by individuals. "Last year we got back 5,000 pieces," he said. But preserving the existing treasures is still a challenge. Officials lack the resources to stop illegal archaeological excavations throughout the country.
The museum, Masoudi adds, urgently needs a security system, climate control, and illumination that will allow light sensitive objects to be stored and displayed according to conservationist requirements.
One of Masoudi's greatest laments is that the museum's collection of Afghan heritage is inaccessible to many of the country's citizens. "It is also important to have museums in the provinces. Not everyone can come to Kabul," he said. Bamiyan, for example, could have its own museum to display and store artifacts excavated locally, he suggests.
Asked what role the museum will play in shaping Afghanistan's cultural identity after years of fighting over definitions of identity, Masoudi speaks of the importance of recognizing a multi-layered past. "This country has an ancient civilization. We have to be proud of it, about the pre-Islamic history. We have artifacts which date back 60,000 years or more. When we can display the artifacts belonging to earlier periods in the museum -- for example pieces from the Bronze Age -- it will be possible for people to understand this very clearly."
"Educated people try to preserve their culture," he continued. "Now it is a big challenge." He believes that it was a lack of education that led to the past looting, and he is keen to ensure exposure to the museum now starts at a young age. "I think every museum has a role in the education of the younger generation. . . . I hope some donors can provide us with one or two buses. Then we could arrange to bring school children here and show them around for free," he said.
"We could do this everyday. We can host as many as 300 to 400 children at one time," he continued, as his eyes lit up. "We can show them our country's rich past."
Afghans rue Bush's 'war on terror'
Al Jazeera/ January 11, 2009
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
In his last visit to Afghanistan as president, George Bush said progress had been made [AFP]
On the day George Bush, the US president, ends his period in office, millions of Afghans will be battling the bitter cold of winter and possible starvation.
Eight years after Bush launched his "war on terror" following the September 11 attacks, much of the human cost of it remains under-reported.
Increased fighting in the country has gradually decreased the ability of the UN, humanitarian agencies and NGOs to deliver basic services to the most vulnerable Afghans.
The UN now categorises 79 of the 364 districts of the country as areas of "extreme risk," and international staff almost never travel by road.
The lack of access is likely to increase in the short term, further debilitating the delivery of basic services like food, health and education.
Not only is the country facing a worsening security situation, but even the best case scenario, which sees hope in the influx of additional troops next year, predicts increased fighting and greater violence in the short term.
Farewell visit
During his recent visit to Afghanistan, his last one scheduled before he leaves office, Bush spoke of the challenges ahead but said the situation had improved since the Taliban were removed from power by US forces in 2001.
US troops are coming under increasing
pressure in Afghanistan [AFP]
"You know, I was thinking ... how much Afghanistan has changed since I have been the president.
"Sometimes its hard when you're in the midst of a difficult situation, it's hard to get perspective.
"In 2002 the Taliban were brutally repressing the people of this country. I remember the images of women being stoned, or people being executed in the soccer stadium because of their beliefs.
"There was a group of killers that were hiding here and training here and plotting here to kill citizens in my country."
However, for many Afghans, 2001 no longer remains a valid comparison, as worsening security, disappointed hopes and increasing economic challenges erode the goodwill of the initial years of the government of Hamid Karzai, a government that Afghans say, was selected by the US.
'No power'
Mariam is a middle-aged woman from a proud family in the northeastern province of Panjshir, the former stronghold of the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban commander.
"Isn't Karzai an American installation? Najibullah worked to help Afghans. What is Karzai doing? I don't see any hope in the future."
Mariam
She is conservative enough to stay indoors when non-family male members are visiting, but also advocates family planning to her daughter-in-laws.
Mariam saw her family battle troops from the Soviet Union following their invasion in 1979.
"Then, during the Taliban, we took refuge in Panjshir. But during Najibullah's [the Soviet-backed former Afghan leader] time we had power. Now there is none. I am ill but the doctor costs so much. During the Soviet time we had free medical care.
"Isn't Karzai an American installation? Najibullah worked to help Afghans. What is Karzai doing? I don't see any hope in the future."
In decline
In a recent survey carried out by The Asia Foundation, a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), only 39 per cent of the population said they were more prosperous now than under the Taliban, while 36 per cent said they were less prosperous.
Many Afghans rely on foreign aid
for basic foodstuffs [AP]
Two years ago, those who felt more prosperous were nearly double those who felt less prosperous, indicating a trend of declining economic prosperity.
While Mariam is well-off by Afghan standards with several of her sons employed in urban jobs, the Afghan population at the bottom of the ladder faces severe hardship.
The percentage of the population below the minimum dietary level has increased from 30 to 35 per cent, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
While there has been considerable focus on the need for more troops, the UN joint emergency appeal remains under-funded by 50 per cent, with donor commitments trickling in too slowly to make sure food stocks arrive before winter.
"Around 1.6 million children under five years and 625,000 women of child-bearing age are at risk of dying this winter due to malnutrition," the ministry of public health said in a recent statement, adding that food shortages had been exacerbated by drought, high food prices and loss of livestock across the country.
Deliveries of emergency food stocks have also been hampered by insecurity, with WFP food convoys being attacked more than two dozen times this year.
The crisis has been in the making for several years.
Though 80 per cent of the Afghan population is dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, the sector has been severely under-funded, receiving only about $500m of the $15bn spent on development aid in the country since 2002.
USAID, the largest donor, has spent only five per cent of its budget on the sector in this period, according to Oxfam.
Education threatened
Initial gains in the health and education sectors were largely the result of NGOs who partnered with the donor agencies and the Afghan government.
Their decreasing access means "these gains are on the verge of being reversed", says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, a policy advocacy and research manager for Action Aid, an international NGO.
Childbirth remains dangerous in
Afghanistan [GALLO/GETTY]
Siddiqui also points to increased threats to schools if they are used as voter registration areas or polling booths during the election year (presidential elections are expected in 2009), a step that would make them "more vulnerable to attacks since they would be perceived as legitimate targets" by Taliban-supporting fighters.
Between July 2007 and June 2008 there were 230 incidents affecting education, according to Unicef.
These included the burning down of schools, bombings, military operations in the vicinity and killings of teachers and students.
Jamshid Hashimi is from a traditional family in Logar province, adjoining Kabul.
"During the Taliban years, girls from my family attended the secret underground schools to get an education. After the departure of the Taliban, they attended the new overground schools.
"Even the young brides married into the family went to school to finish their interrupted studies. That is until last year, when they all stopped."
"My sister-in-law was shot dead by insurgents as she walked to school," says Jamshid recalling the day with a painful clarity that brought tears to his eyes.
"Now, we are too scared to send the girls to school, including my own wife. They have all stopped going."
According to the ministry of education, attacks on schools and insecurity have forced 300,000 children to abandon their schooling.
Healthcare
"We know what to expect from the Taliban, but we don't expect the same from the international forces. They are the ones upholding the rule of law and establishing democracy. They can't be the ones killing innocents."
Mohammed
Health facilities have also been forced to close as a result of attacks and threats.
Though government statistics boast that 80 per cent of Afghans receive healthcare, 36 health facilities in the southern and eastern provinces have been shut down.
As a result more than 360,000 people in the provinces of Helmund, Kandahar, Farah, Zabul and Paktika are deprived of health coverage.
Unicef says the insecurity is also hampering the polio eradication initiatives and efforts to expand the number of women health professionals in the country.
The result is one of the highest maternal mortality ratios anywhere in the world.
This year, 24,000 maternal deaths are expected in Afghanistan - several times the number of civilians who will die directly from the ongoing conflict.
Roots of anger
Most who have been affected by violence this year say the violence was not related to the insurgency.
According to the Asia Foundation survey, only eight per cent of those who had suffered violence attributed it to the Taliban.
However, civilian casualties as a result of military operations by international forces have been a lightening rod for public anger and Mohammed, a resident of Kabul, explains the roots of this anger and why deaths caused by the international forces stir more anger than those by the Taliban.
"We know what to expect from the Taliban, but we don't expect the same from the international forces. They are the ones upholding the rule of law and establishing democracy. They can't be the ones killing innocents," he said.
This willingness to hold the international community to higher standards of accountability is seen as a positive sign and evidence that Afghans still have great hope for change.
However, by constantly comparing itself to the Taliban, as Bush did during his recent visit, the international community is, many say, putting this significant distinction at risk.
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
In his last visit to Afghanistan as president, George Bush said progress had been made [AFP]
On the day George Bush, the US president, ends his period in office, millions of Afghans will be battling the bitter cold of winter and possible starvation.
Eight years after Bush launched his "war on terror" following the September 11 attacks, much of the human cost of it remains under-reported.
Increased fighting in the country has gradually decreased the ability of the UN, humanitarian agencies and NGOs to deliver basic services to the most vulnerable Afghans.
The UN now categorises 79 of the 364 districts of the country as areas of "extreme risk," and international staff almost never travel by road.
The lack of access is likely to increase in the short term, further debilitating the delivery of basic services like food, health and education.
Not only is the country facing a worsening security situation, but even the best case scenario, which sees hope in the influx of additional troops next year, predicts increased fighting and greater violence in the short term.
Farewell visit
During his recent visit to Afghanistan, his last one scheduled before he leaves office, Bush spoke of the challenges ahead but said the situation had improved since the Taliban were removed from power by US forces in 2001.
US troops are coming under increasing
pressure in Afghanistan [AFP]
"You know, I was thinking ... how much Afghanistan has changed since I have been the president.
"Sometimes its hard when you're in the midst of a difficult situation, it's hard to get perspective.
"In 2002 the Taliban were brutally repressing the people of this country. I remember the images of women being stoned, or people being executed in the soccer stadium because of their beliefs.
"There was a group of killers that were hiding here and training here and plotting here to kill citizens in my country."
However, for many Afghans, 2001 no longer remains a valid comparison, as worsening security, disappointed hopes and increasing economic challenges erode the goodwill of the initial years of the government of Hamid Karzai, a government that Afghans say, was selected by the US.
'No power'
Mariam is a middle-aged woman from a proud family in the northeastern province of Panjshir, the former stronghold of the legendary Ahmed Shah Massoud, the anti-Taliban commander.
"Isn't Karzai an American installation? Najibullah worked to help Afghans. What is Karzai doing? I don't see any hope in the future."
Mariam
She is conservative enough to stay indoors when non-family male members are visiting, but also advocates family planning to her daughter-in-laws.
Mariam saw her family battle troops from the Soviet Union following their invasion in 1979.
"Then, during the Taliban, we took refuge in Panjshir. But during Najibullah's [the Soviet-backed former Afghan leader] time we had power. Now there is none. I am ill but the doctor costs so much. During the Soviet time we had free medical care.
"Isn't Karzai an American installation? Najibullah worked to help Afghans. What is Karzai doing? I don't see any hope in the future."
In decline
In a recent survey carried out by The Asia Foundation, a US-based non-governmental organisation (NGO), only 39 per cent of the population said they were more prosperous now than under the Taliban, while 36 per cent said they were less prosperous.
Many Afghans rely on foreign aid
for basic foodstuffs [AP]
Two years ago, those who felt more prosperous were nearly double those who felt less prosperous, indicating a trend of declining economic prosperity.
While Mariam is well-off by Afghan standards with several of her sons employed in urban jobs, the Afghan population at the bottom of the ladder faces severe hardship.
The percentage of the population below the minimum dietary level has increased from 30 to 35 per cent, according to the World Food Programme (WFP).
While there has been considerable focus on the need for more troops, the UN joint emergency appeal remains under-funded by 50 per cent, with donor commitments trickling in too slowly to make sure food stocks arrive before winter.
"Around 1.6 million children under five years and 625,000 women of child-bearing age are at risk of dying this winter due to malnutrition," the ministry of public health said in a recent statement, adding that food shortages had been exacerbated by drought, high food prices and loss of livestock across the country.
Deliveries of emergency food stocks have also been hampered by insecurity, with WFP food convoys being attacked more than two dozen times this year.
The crisis has been in the making for several years.
Though 80 per cent of the Afghan population is dependent on agriculture for their livelihood, the sector has been severely under-funded, receiving only about $500m of the $15bn spent on development aid in the country since 2002.
USAID, the largest donor, has spent only five per cent of its budget on the sector in this period, according to Oxfam.
Education threatened
Initial gains in the health and education sectors were largely the result of NGOs who partnered with the donor agencies and the Afghan government.
Their decreasing access means "these gains are on the verge of being reversed", says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, a policy advocacy and research manager for Action Aid, an international NGO.
Childbirth remains dangerous in
Afghanistan [GALLO/GETTY]
Siddiqui also points to increased threats to schools if they are used as voter registration areas or polling booths during the election year (presidential elections are expected in 2009), a step that would make them "more vulnerable to attacks since they would be perceived as legitimate targets" by Taliban-supporting fighters.
Between July 2007 and June 2008 there were 230 incidents affecting education, according to Unicef.
These included the burning down of schools, bombings, military operations in the vicinity and killings of teachers and students.
Jamshid Hashimi is from a traditional family in Logar province, adjoining Kabul.
"During the Taliban years, girls from my family attended the secret underground schools to get an education. After the departure of the Taliban, they attended the new overground schools.
"Even the young brides married into the family went to school to finish their interrupted studies. That is until last year, when they all stopped."
"My sister-in-law was shot dead by insurgents as she walked to school," says Jamshid recalling the day with a painful clarity that brought tears to his eyes.
"Now, we are too scared to send the girls to school, including my own wife. They have all stopped going."
According to the ministry of education, attacks on schools and insecurity have forced 300,000 children to abandon their schooling.
Healthcare
"We know what to expect from the Taliban, but we don't expect the same from the international forces. They are the ones upholding the rule of law and establishing democracy. They can't be the ones killing innocents."
Mohammed
Health facilities have also been forced to close as a result of attacks and threats.
Though government statistics boast that 80 per cent of Afghans receive healthcare, 36 health facilities in the southern and eastern provinces have been shut down.
As a result more than 360,000 people in the provinces of Helmund, Kandahar, Farah, Zabul and Paktika are deprived of health coverage.
Unicef says the insecurity is also hampering the polio eradication initiatives and efforts to expand the number of women health professionals in the country.
The result is one of the highest maternal mortality ratios anywhere in the world.
This year, 24,000 maternal deaths are expected in Afghanistan - several times the number of civilians who will die directly from the ongoing conflict.
Roots of anger
Most who have been affected by violence this year say the violence was not related to the insurgency.
According to the Asia Foundation survey, only eight per cent of those who had suffered violence attributed it to the Taliban.
However, civilian casualties as a result of military operations by international forces have been a lightening rod for public anger and Mohammed, a resident of Kabul, explains the roots of this anger and why deaths caused by the international forces stir more anger than those by the Taliban.
"We know what to expect from the Taliban, but we don't expect the same from the international forces. They are the ones upholding the rule of law and establishing democracy. They can't be the ones killing innocents," he said.
This willingness to hold the international community to higher standards of accountability is seen as a positive sign and evidence that Afghans still have great hope for change.
However, by constantly comparing itself to the Taliban, as Bush did during his recent visit, the international community is, many say, putting this significant distinction at risk.
Afghans fear spiral of violence
Al Jazeera, December 28, 2009
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Sitting in a room warmed by woodfire because there is no electricity, Jamshid Hashimi, a young employee of a local architecture firm, watches from his window as Kabul residents hurry to avoid the rain which has turned unpaved streets into mud.
"More troops will mean more fighting," he says.
Afghan analysts agree that the expected arrival of an additional 30,000 US troops in 2009 could lead to an escalation in the ongoing battle with the Taliban and other anti-government forces.
Haroun Mir, the co-founder and deputy director of Afghanistan's Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), said: "There is a continuing trend of a downward spiral in security that we are witnessing in Afghanistan with the Taliban getting closer to Kabul."
He is still hopeful, however, that an increase in US and Nato troops will in the long-term stem the advance of the anti-government forces towards Kabul.
Situation worsening
Shakti Sinha, a former senior official with the UN's Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (Unama), feels that the situation will likely worsen before it improves.
He says an immediate influx of troops will result in increased fighting.
"The international troops have always been able to achieve battlefield success but this does not mean holding territory. The hope is that there will now be a theatre reserve that will be able to hold territory and that the lessons learned [from past battles] will be applied here," he said.
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, the manager of policy advocacy and research in Action Aid, and international NGO, wonders if the increased troop deployment could be part of a political settlement with the Taliban.
"The political climate will certainly be hotter because of the [presidential] elections in 2009 and security will deteriorate in the run-up to the elections," he told Al Jazeera.
The nature of deployment, both geographic and operational, will also determine the course of the ongoing conflict.
While US officials have indicated that troops will deploy in provinces close to Kabul, senior leaders including Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, have said that the battle against the Taliban needs to be fought not in the villages of Afghanistan but in the safe havens and training centres in Pakistan.
Negotiating with the Taliban
In the meantime, calls for negotiations with the Taliban, which were first suggested by Afghan leaders as well as some western allies in late 2008, are expected to grow during the coming year.
However, some senior diplomats and analysts have cautioned that such talks should be held from a position of strength rather than weakness.
Political exigencies, including that of the presidential elections, will determine much of the course of this ongoing debate in 2009 as leaders, especially the incumbent president, weigh the conventional wisdom of convening such talks.
The presidential elections themselves continue to be shrouded in uncertainty. While voter registration has begun, there is much greater public disenchantment with the process, as many blame the government of having limited ability to deliver services.
Many Afghans say they feel disenfranchised from the political and economic reconstruction of their country and say foreign leaders in remote capitals are determining the national agenda.
Threat of winter
However, for many Afghans, the more immediate threat will be the hardship of an Afghan winter.
Severe cold and drought in many parts of the country and decreasing access of humanitarian agencies to remote areas have put larger numbers of the Afghan population at risk.
Non--governmental organisations like Oxfam have warned that five million Afghans are likely to face food shortages.
The uncertain security situation, the unstable political climate and the lack of essential infrastructure like energy, water and roads will impede private sector development.
In such conditions both the government and the international community will be responsible for driving economic recovery and creating employment opportunities.
Eid Mohammad Mangal, the manager of a Kabul restaurant, says security woes are compounded by continuing high unemployment rates.
"When people have no job, no work and they are unhappy, they can join the Taliban," he says.
Mir believes severe hardship during winter may create fertile ground for Taliban recruitment. While the severity of the winter will unfold over the first two months of the year, early snow already presages a difficult period for Afghans, thousands of whom live in villages inaccessible during the severest winter.
"Even inside Kabul many families cannot find food to have three meals a day. People here don't want creature comforts," he said.
"They just want bread to survive. If this is not possible the security will deteriorate further."
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Sitting in a room warmed by woodfire because there is no electricity, Jamshid Hashimi, a young employee of a local architecture firm, watches from his window as Kabul residents hurry to avoid the rain which has turned unpaved streets into mud.
"More troops will mean more fighting," he says.
Afghan analysts agree that the expected arrival of an additional 30,000 US troops in 2009 could lead to an escalation in the ongoing battle with the Taliban and other anti-government forces.
Haroun Mir, the co-founder and deputy director of Afghanistan's Centre for Research and Policy Studies (ACRPS), said: "There is a continuing trend of a downward spiral in security that we are witnessing in Afghanistan with the Taliban getting closer to Kabul."
He is still hopeful, however, that an increase in US and Nato troops will in the long-term stem the advance of the anti-government forces towards Kabul.
Situation worsening
Shakti Sinha, a former senior official with the UN's Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (Unama), feels that the situation will likely worsen before it improves.
He says an immediate influx of troops will result in increased fighting.
"The international troops have always been able to achieve battlefield success but this does not mean holding territory. The hope is that there will now be a theatre reserve that will be able to hold territory and that the lessons learned [from past battles] will be applied here," he said.
Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, the manager of policy advocacy and research in Action Aid, and international NGO, wonders if the increased troop deployment could be part of a political settlement with the Taliban.
"The political climate will certainly be hotter because of the [presidential] elections in 2009 and security will deteriorate in the run-up to the elections," he told Al Jazeera.
The nature of deployment, both geographic and operational, will also determine the course of the ongoing conflict.
While US officials have indicated that troops will deploy in provinces close to Kabul, senior leaders including Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, have said that the battle against the Taliban needs to be fought not in the villages of Afghanistan but in the safe havens and training centres in Pakistan.
Negotiating with the Taliban
In the meantime, calls for negotiations with the Taliban, which were first suggested by Afghan leaders as well as some western allies in late 2008, are expected to grow during the coming year.
However, some senior diplomats and analysts have cautioned that such talks should be held from a position of strength rather than weakness.
Political exigencies, including that of the presidential elections, will determine much of the course of this ongoing debate in 2009 as leaders, especially the incumbent president, weigh the conventional wisdom of convening such talks.
The presidential elections themselves continue to be shrouded in uncertainty. While voter registration has begun, there is much greater public disenchantment with the process, as many blame the government of having limited ability to deliver services.
Many Afghans say they feel disenfranchised from the political and economic reconstruction of their country and say foreign leaders in remote capitals are determining the national agenda.
Threat of winter
However, for many Afghans, the more immediate threat will be the hardship of an Afghan winter.
Severe cold and drought in many parts of the country and decreasing access of humanitarian agencies to remote areas have put larger numbers of the Afghan population at risk.
Non--governmental organisations like Oxfam have warned that five million Afghans are likely to face food shortages.
The uncertain security situation, the unstable political climate and the lack of essential infrastructure like energy, water and roads will impede private sector development.
In such conditions both the government and the international community will be responsible for driving economic recovery and creating employment opportunities.
Eid Mohammad Mangal, the manager of a Kabul restaurant, says security woes are compounded by continuing high unemployment rates.
"When people have no job, no work and they are unhappy, they can join the Taliban," he says.
Mir believes severe hardship during winter may create fertile ground for Taliban recruitment. While the severity of the winter will unfold over the first two months of the year, early snow already presages a difficult period for Afghans, thousands of whom live in villages inaccessible during the severest winter.
"Even inside Kabul many families cannot find food to have three meals a day. People here don't want creature comforts," he said.
"They just want bread to survive. If this is not possible the security will deteriorate further."
Interview: Adrian Edwards
Al Jazeera/ December 9, 2008
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
The UN prepared local communities for Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections [GALLO/GETTY]
The UN has been providing assistance to Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979 but significantly increased its aid efforts after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
It was recognised at a meeting of Afghan leaders and world powers in Bonn, Germany in December 2001, that the "United Nations, as the internationally recognised, impartial institution, has a particularly important role to play".
On March 28, 2002, the Security Council established the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) "to promote national reconciliation ... strengthen government capacity and institutions; promote human rights, the rule of law, and women's rights; assist in the rehabilitation of security forces and the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration of former combatants; and coordinate all UN humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and development programmes in Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera recently interviewed Adrian Edwards, the Unama spokesman in Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera: How has Unama's role developed since it was established? What of its mandate has been achieved?
Edwards: The UN has been here in Afghanistan for half a century. In that time we have developed a perspective that is somewhat different from others. We view Afghanistan as a country and a people not just as a conflict.
The UN has a role in many areas people don't often look at: refugees, it supports development in healthcare and agriculture - somewhat un-trendy things to look at- but we do it 365 days a year through thick and thin.
We also have the UN's political mission here, Unama, a small mission which looks at the core objective of all of us in Afghanistan which is to search for peace and for justice in this country.
The mission has had a job in trying to build peace, trying to coordinate the efforts of the international community since 2002 in terms of development, in terms of other assistance here. Fundamentally our aim is about peace in this country and the search for it and the search for solutions which will be needed if the country is to move forward.
Recently the mandate of the UN in Afghanistan was increased. Why was this felt to be necessary?
Edwards says the police are now tasked with fighting terrorism rather than public security
If you look back over the last years the original expectations were that we would move from a period of rapid reconstruction into a development phase during which people would start to see the peace dividends, the effect of considerable investment in development and so on.
What happened of course as we all know now is that in 2004, 2005 and entering into spring of 2006 we saw a return towards conflict and the situation we are in today.
That of course has changed circumstances enormously here and it does mean that people are being robbed of the development that they were led to expect would be coming here and people hoped would be coming here.
So although you have seen enormous progress in some areas - for example education, heath care, growth of a media here - people are nonetheless frustrated with the fact that they haven't seen the progress that was expected in the early years.
So our mandate has had to change accordingly. We have a mandate that gives us a role in supporting a reconciliation, in supporting human rights in this country and in coordinating all the efforts that go into helping Afghanistan.
Which things could have been done differently that may have allowed the progress to continue?
Very many of the problems stem from insecurity. For example the police - you would have seen the growth of an institution that delivered on law enforcement.
Now the effect of insecurity has meant the police has been sidelined into combatting insurgency and protection issues and that has meant that one of the most crucial institutions of any country is not able to deliver satisfactorily.
You have constant problems with corruption, you have breakdown of law and order in some areas, that allows, combined with insurgency issues, the growth of illegality, the poppy trade, criminality.
I think security is one of the core elements.
If you look at the political development in Afghanistan, you may say in 2008-2009 that were we back in 2001 we would have done things differently. We would have included the Taliban in peace talks, we would have strengthened justice and transitional justice systems.
Certainly were we able to turn back the clock and do thing differently for sure we would love to take that opportunity but at the time people really did their best efforts under the circumstances and we have to adjust as we go along.
The "Balkanisation" of the country – which has seen different countries take on different sectors and different areas – do you think it was a good idea?
The Taliban have grown stronger in recent years and now mount brazen attacks [AFP]
That model is not being followed so much nowadays and that says something. We are coming up to the seventh anniversary of the Bonn agreement. There is a tendency to look back at what we did right and what we did wrong. We have done a lot of that over the years.
What we are concerned about at this point is much more forward-looking given where we are today.
Right now we are in the process of seeing a new US administration come into being. Everyone, Afghan and internationals looking to see what the impact might be of changes outside the country.
We are seeing changes in the immediate surrounding region: the recent signs of open Saudi involvement.
We have a changing situation in Pakistan. You need a mixture of circumstances to resolve the problem inside the country. One is resolving the external conflict, the conflicts between the neighbours or the powers behind those neighbours sometimes and of course within the country you need to de-conflate local issues.
So we are some way away from arriving at an enduring solution for Afghanistan and there are certainly challenges along the way to getting there.
What is your view on talks with the Taliban? How do you see it unfolding and what will be the role of UN?
We are mandated to support reconciliation if that is what the government wants us to do. We very clearly think that there has to be a real emphasis on political direction, both in renewing the determination to build proper institutions and getting government delivering better to the people and of course in finding solutions to the conflict here.
We do not think military solutions alone will be the answer to Afghanistan’s needs but there has to be an end to this conflict. We have to get Afghanistan back to the position where it can start to move forward again ad we can start delivering on things people need.
Are Afghans increasingly alienated from the international community and their goverment?
The trajectory of this country from reconstruction through development and then conflict arose along that track. That has had a real effect in robbing people of some of the development dividends, the peace dividends they could have expected.
Yes, of course that causes frustration when people look at a police that doesn't work as they want it, when they look at courts that don't work as they want it, when they look at other things.
It's only natural that there is frustration. That doesn't mean you abandon the project. There is a lot of work to be done in this country. Even without any conflict at all development takes many years, many decades.
Look at where Afghanistan is today and where it was back in 2001 and how far its got to go. There is a long, long route to go and you need the best of circumstances and at the moment we are a long way from achieving the best of circumstances. In other words we are a long way from ending the conflict.
In Afghanistan people tend to focus on negatives but if you look at it you still have an Afghanistan with a great deal of international support. We need to work together with everyone to make sure the common visions best serve the country.
In some areas there is real progress.
The recent Asia Foundation survey shows a relatively high degree of satisfaction with education, with improved health systems. When you have that in an environment where people don't have security, don't have jobs there is frustration.
We need security. We need jobs in Afghanistan for sure.
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
The UN prepared local communities for Afghanistan's first parliamentary elections [GALLO/GETTY]
The UN has been providing assistance to Afghanistan since the Soviet invasion of the country in 1979 but significantly increased its aid efforts after the fall of the Taliban in 2001.
It was recognised at a meeting of Afghan leaders and world powers in Bonn, Germany in December 2001, that the "United Nations, as the internationally recognised, impartial institution, has a particularly important role to play".
On March 28, 2002, the Security Council established the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (Unama) "to promote national reconciliation ... strengthen government capacity and institutions; promote human rights, the rule of law, and women's rights; assist in the rehabilitation of security forces and the disarmament, demobilisation, and reintegration of former combatants; and coordinate all UN humanitarian relief, reconstruction, and development programmes in Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera recently interviewed Adrian Edwards, the Unama spokesman in Afghanistan.
Al Jazeera: How has Unama's role developed since it was established? What of its mandate has been achieved?
Edwards: The UN has been here in Afghanistan for half a century. In that time we have developed a perspective that is somewhat different from others. We view Afghanistan as a country and a people not just as a conflict.
The UN has a role in many areas people don't often look at: refugees, it supports development in healthcare and agriculture - somewhat un-trendy things to look at- but we do it 365 days a year through thick and thin.
We also have the UN's political mission here, Unama, a small mission which looks at the core objective of all of us in Afghanistan which is to search for peace and for justice in this country.
The mission has had a job in trying to build peace, trying to coordinate the efforts of the international community since 2002 in terms of development, in terms of other assistance here. Fundamentally our aim is about peace in this country and the search for it and the search for solutions which will be needed if the country is to move forward.
Recently the mandate of the UN in Afghanistan was increased. Why was this felt to be necessary?
Edwards says the police are now tasked with fighting terrorism rather than public security
If you look back over the last years the original expectations were that we would move from a period of rapid reconstruction into a development phase during which people would start to see the peace dividends, the effect of considerable investment in development and so on.
What happened of course as we all know now is that in 2004, 2005 and entering into spring of 2006 we saw a return towards conflict and the situation we are in today.
That of course has changed circumstances enormously here and it does mean that people are being robbed of the development that they were led to expect would be coming here and people hoped would be coming here.
So although you have seen enormous progress in some areas - for example education, heath care, growth of a media here - people are nonetheless frustrated with the fact that they haven't seen the progress that was expected in the early years.
So our mandate has had to change accordingly. We have a mandate that gives us a role in supporting a reconciliation, in supporting human rights in this country and in coordinating all the efforts that go into helping Afghanistan.
Which things could have been done differently that may have allowed the progress to continue?
Very many of the problems stem from insecurity. For example the police - you would have seen the growth of an institution that delivered on law enforcement.
Now the effect of insecurity has meant the police has been sidelined into combatting insurgency and protection issues and that has meant that one of the most crucial institutions of any country is not able to deliver satisfactorily.
You have constant problems with corruption, you have breakdown of law and order in some areas, that allows, combined with insurgency issues, the growth of illegality, the poppy trade, criminality.
I think security is one of the core elements.
If you look at the political development in Afghanistan, you may say in 2008-2009 that were we back in 2001 we would have done things differently. We would have included the Taliban in peace talks, we would have strengthened justice and transitional justice systems.
Certainly were we able to turn back the clock and do thing differently for sure we would love to take that opportunity but at the time people really did their best efforts under the circumstances and we have to adjust as we go along.
The "Balkanisation" of the country – which has seen different countries take on different sectors and different areas – do you think it was a good idea?
The Taliban have grown stronger in recent years and now mount brazen attacks [AFP]
That model is not being followed so much nowadays and that says something. We are coming up to the seventh anniversary of the Bonn agreement. There is a tendency to look back at what we did right and what we did wrong. We have done a lot of that over the years.
What we are concerned about at this point is much more forward-looking given where we are today.
Right now we are in the process of seeing a new US administration come into being. Everyone, Afghan and internationals looking to see what the impact might be of changes outside the country.
We are seeing changes in the immediate surrounding region: the recent signs of open Saudi involvement.
We have a changing situation in Pakistan. You need a mixture of circumstances to resolve the problem inside the country. One is resolving the external conflict, the conflicts between the neighbours or the powers behind those neighbours sometimes and of course within the country you need to de-conflate local issues.
So we are some way away from arriving at an enduring solution for Afghanistan and there are certainly challenges along the way to getting there.
What is your view on talks with the Taliban? How do you see it unfolding and what will be the role of UN?
We are mandated to support reconciliation if that is what the government wants us to do. We very clearly think that there has to be a real emphasis on political direction, both in renewing the determination to build proper institutions and getting government delivering better to the people and of course in finding solutions to the conflict here.
We do not think military solutions alone will be the answer to Afghanistan’s needs but there has to be an end to this conflict. We have to get Afghanistan back to the position where it can start to move forward again ad we can start delivering on things people need.
Are Afghans increasingly alienated from the international community and their goverment?
The trajectory of this country from reconstruction through development and then conflict arose along that track. That has had a real effect in robbing people of some of the development dividends, the peace dividends they could have expected.
Yes, of course that causes frustration when people look at a police that doesn't work as they want it, when they look at courts that don't work as they want it, when they look at other things.
It's only natural that there is frustration. That doesn't mean you abandon the project. There is a lot of work to be done in this country. Even without any conflict at all development takes many years, many decades.
Look at where Afghanistan is today and where it was back in 2001 and how far its got to go. There is a long, long route to go and you need the best of circumstances and at the moment we are a long way from achieving the best of circumstances. In other words we are a long way from ending the conflict.
In Afghanistan people tend to focus on negatives but if you look at it you still have an Afghanistan with a great deal of international support. We need to work together with everyone to make sure the common visions best serve the country.
In some areas there is real progress.
The recent Asia Foundation survey shows a relatively high degree of satisfaction with education, with improved health systems. When you have that in an environment where people don't have security, don't have jobs there is frustration.
We need security. We need jobs in Afghanistan for sure.
Interview: Afghan war on narcotics
Al Jazeera/ December 5, 2008
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Afghan farmers in some provinces have continued to cultivate poppy fields [EPA]
Afghanistan's fight against the drug trade is becoming more challenging as ties between the insurgency and drug-traffickers appear to strengthen.
In her tenure as the the country director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, Christina Oguz, has had to fight a multi-faceted battle.
Though 2008 saw a drop in poppy cultivation for the first time, Oguz says real dangers remain.
Speaking to Al Jazeera just before concluding her term in Afghanistan, Oguz discussed her concerns about the justice sector, the lack of trained judges, what she says is an ineffective police force and the absence of the fundamental right of all citizens - the presumption of innocence.
Al Jazeera: You have had one of the most challenging assignments in Afghanistan – dealing with both drug control and the justice sector. Which are the areas which have shown progress and which have not?
Oguz: I wish I could be only positive but I think there are still so many things that are needed in this country. If I look at the justice side it is very gloomy I am afraid because the rule of law doesn't really exist in this country and that is very grave because it is fundamental to democracy.
But now there is the first independent bar association and I am very hopeful that will make a lot of difference with more defence lawyers.
But it will take time. Because in terms of the authorities, there is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.
Has progress been made in Afghanistan's war on the drug trade?
Christina Oguz has had to fight a multi-faceted battle against drug-traffickers
Drug reduction its still a major major major major problem so there remains a lot to do, to say the least.
But I think what has happened in the last two years is quite interesting. First of all this year we saw a little bit of a reduction - 20 per cent in terms of cultivated area.
But also what is quite important is that this year, 98 per cent of the production is taking place in seven provinces in the south and southwest while the rest of the country is either free of poppy cultivation or is cultivating very little.
The reduction is in the areas where there is a government. The rest of the 98 per cent of the production is in the areas where the government has lost control; areas which are controlled by a kind of alliance of insurgents, corrupt officials and criminal networks.
In a way it is easier to understand the problem and see what you could do about it but it is also in a way more difficult.
The carrot-and-stick approach has worked in the north. But the north and also the east are characterised by small landholdings and as you know there has been a drought which has very very severely affected these parts of Afghanistan because it is rain-fed land there isn’t enough irrigation.
The implications can be very serious.
If people suffer during the winter because they do not have any more food and because they do not have any means to buy food then they may turn back to cultivating opium. I would urge the international community and the government to speed up and really make a concerted effort.
I am not talking about bureaucratic layers of analysing, reviewing and planning. I am talking about action. We have to get food aid out to these areas and we have to start to involve the people themselves in building up income opportunities.
The drug control policy and implementation has been somewhat controversial or at least debated with differences over whether there should be more emphasis on eradication or interdiction. What is the shift in policy direction you think is necessary?
I think you have to have a two-pronged policy. What I talked about in the northern part is containing the problem. In the south it is obvious that because there is this overlap between insecurity, lack of control over territory and opium cultivation that eradication will play a very marginal role because they are not even afraid of eradication.
In the south they do not care about that because the government cannot enforce the law or anyhow only around the areas where they are in control or close to the city or whatever but otherwise they cannot enforce that.
So you have to keep eradication or the threat of eradication as a tool in your toolbox but you have to sharpen the other weapons which is interdiction.
When I talk about interdiction I mean wiping out some laboratories, emptying stocks interdicting convoys of drugs going out of the country and chemicals used in manufacturing of heroin and morphine going in.
That has to be done but I do not have the illusion that it would be forever because the laboratories are small and mobile so its not that you would solve the problem by bombing the laboratories or something like that but you induce a risk to those who are running these businesses and you make it more expensive for them. T
hat is important.
Some consider reform of the justice sector in Afghanistan to be lacking. What is your assessment of where it stands today?
There is so much to do in the justice sector. It is absolutely crucial for people's lives but you have for example judges that have no legal training - very common.
You have low investigative capacity within the police and the prosecution and you have very very few defence lawyers. So it is a weak system for the ordinary Afghan.
There are many who are working with training these groups and criminal justice institutions. It will take a long time but I think it is not only professional training, it is also the mindset.
How you view crime and punishment because for example detention and incarceration should be the exception not the rule but here it is the rule, the norm.
It seems that the first thing that comes to mind is to arrest people or put them in prison and many people are there without having had a trial.
Even young people and children are incarcerated for years for crimes that are minor and for crimes that they may not even have committed.
It is important to have a reaction to these kind of criminal activities but there must be proportion between the offence and the punishment. Now the connection here seems to be the poorer you are the less power you have and the more severe the punishment.
How is the government incorporating the protection of human rights as it moves towards a democratic country?
Experts say the drug trade and the insurgency are strongly linked [AFP]
The Constitution is very clear - it does not apply only to some people. It is the task of the state to defend the dignity and liberty of everybody in the country so I really don't think that Afghanistan is different from other countries in that respect and I am convinced that the people of Afghanistan would not accept anything else.
The problem we are facing here is the low level of education and the fact that so many people are not reached by radio or television the kind of institutions that could play a crucial role in educating the public.
The rule of law is fundamental to democracy and I cannot imagine that the Afghan people would say that human rights do not matter to them. I cannot envision that.
There is growing anti-foreigner sentiment. Where will this lead?
Are we sure that this sentiment is an Afghan sentiment? I am not sure it is.
I do not think this anti-foreigner feeling is a general sentiment. I know that it is a sentiment that can be exploited by various groups obviously.
I do think, however, that we as the intentional community need to learn how to communicate with people. We need to understand better where this country is in terms of development.
For us, coming, in many cases from well-functioning countries it is difficult to understand what it means to work in a country where 60 per cent of the police officers cannot read and write for example.
With no bad intention is easily done that we start at the wrong level. We start with something we are familiar with rather than what people need.
I think we need to become better in communicating with people and having a dialogue with people and talking to people to find out what they need and what is it they want but we also need to come with new ideas because being so isolated means you need ideas.
What are your hopes and fears for this country?
My fear is that the international community and the government will not be strong enough, united enough, to put in place some positive measures for the people here. That is what I fear because I don't believe a military solution is the only solution in this country.
But if we allow the insurgents to take on even distributing electricity or collecting the electricity bills which they do in some places down in Helmand; if we allow them to run the justice system because the government is not able to do it, then I think this country is in great danger.
We cannot allow that. We need to make sure we reach people to provide for their immediate needs with the winter coming up and the drought. We need to create simple solutions, not come up with grand schemes about how to transform this or how to do that.
Very simple things can be done here including increasing the number of people who can read and write, increasing the number of judges who have legal training and increasing the number of police who are honest and willing to work.
These are some of things I hope for.
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
Afghan farmers in some provinces have continued to cultivate poppy fields [EPA]
Afghanistan's fight against the drug trade is becoming more challenging as ties between the insurgency and drug-traffickers appear to strengthen.
In her tenure as the the country director of the UN Office on Drugs and Crime in Afghanistan, Christina Oguz, has had to fight a multi-faceted battle.
Though 2008 saw a drop in poppy cultivation for the first time, Oguz says real dangers remain.
Speaking to Al Jazeera just before concluding her term in Afghanistan, Oguz discussed her concerns about the justice sector, the lack of trained judges, what she says is an ineffective police force and the absence of the fundamental right of all citizens - the presumption of innocence.
Al Jazeera: You have had one of the most challenging assignments in Afghanistan – dealing with both drug control and the justice sector. Which are the areas which have shown progress and which have not?
Oguz: I wish I could be only positive but I think there are still so many things that are needed in this country. If I look at the justice side it is very gloomy I am afraid because the rule of law doesn't really exist in this country and that is very grave because it is fundamental to democracy.
But now there is the first independent bar association and I am very hopeful that will make a lot of difference with more defence lawyers.
But it will take time. Because in terms of the authorities, there is a presumption of guilt rather than innocence.
Has progress been made in Afghanistan's war on the drug trade?
Christina Oguz has had to fight a multi-faceted battle against drug-traffickers
Drug reduction its still a major major major major problem so there remains a lot to do, to say the least.
But I think what has happened in the last two years is quite interesting. First of all this year we saw a little bit of a reduction - 20 per cent in terms of cultivated area.
But also what is quite important is that this year, 98 per cent of the production is taking place in seven provinces in the south and southwest while the rest of the country is either free of poppy cultivation or is cultivating very little.
The reduction is in the areas where there is a government. The rest of the 98 per cent of the production is in the areas where the government has lost control; areas which are controlled by a kind of alliance of insurgents, corrupt officials and criminal networks.
In a way it is easier to understand the problem and see what you could do about it but it is also in a way more difficult.
The carrot-and-stick approach has worked in the north. But the north and also the east are characterised by small landholdings and as you know there has been a drought which has very very severely affected these parts of Afghanistan because it is rain-fed land there isn’t enough irrigation.
The implications can be very serious.
If people suffer during the winter because they do not have any more food and because they do not have any means to buy food then they may turn back to cultivating opium. I would urge the international community and the government to speed up and really make a concerted effort.
I am not talking about bureaucratic layers of analysing, reviewing and planning. I am talking about action. We have to get food aid out to these areas and we have to start to involve the people themselves in building up income opportunities.
The drug control policy and implementation has been somewhat controversial or at least debated with differences over whether there should be more emphasis on eradication or interdiction. What is the shift in policy direction you think is necessary?
I think you have to have a two-pronged policy. What I talked about in the northern part is containing the problem. In the south it is obvious that because there is this overlap between insecurity, lack of control over territory and opium cultivation that eradication will play a very marginal role because they are not even afraid of eradication.
In the south they do not care about that because the government cannot enforce the law or anyhow only around the areas where they are in control or close to the city or whatever but otherwise they cannot enforce that.
So you have to keep eradication or the threat of eradication as a tool in your toolbox but you have to sharpen the other weapons which is interdiction.
When I talk about interdiction I mean wiping out some laboratories, emptying stocks interdicting convoys of drugs going out of the country and chemicals used in manufacturing of heroin and morphine going in.
That has to be done but I do not have the illusion that it would be forever because the laboratories are small and mobile so its not that you would solve the problem by bombing the laboratories or something like that but you induce a risk to those who are running these businesses and you make it more expensive for them. T
hat is important.
Some consider reform of the justice sector in Afghanistan to be lacking. What is your assessment of where it stands today?
There is so much to do in the justice sector. It is absolutely crucial for people's lives but you have for example judges that have no legal training - very common.
You have low investigative capacity within the police and the prosecution and you have very very few defence lawyers. So it is a weak system for the ordinary Afghan.
There are many who are working with training these groups and criminal justice institutions. It will take a long time but I think it is not only professional training, it is also the mindset.
How you view crime and punishment because for example detention and incarceration should be the exception not the rule but here it is the rule, the norm.
It seems that the first thing that comes to mind is to arrest people or put them in prison and many people are there without having had a trial.
Even young people and children are incarcerated for years for crimes that are minor and for crimes that they may not even have committed.
It is important to have a reaction to these kind of criminal activities but there must be proportion between the offence and the punishment. Now the connection here seems to be the poorer you are the less power you have and the more severe the punishment.
How is the government incorporating the protection of human rights as it moves towards a democratic country?
Experts say the drug trade and the insurgency are strongly linked [AFP]
The Constitution is very clear - it does not apply only to some people. It is the task of the state to defend the dignity and liberty of everybody in the country so I really don't think that Afghanistan is different from other countries in that respect and I am convinced that the people of Afghanistan would not accept anything else.
The problem we are facing here is the low level of education and the fact that so many people are not reached by radio or television the kind of institutions that could play a crucial role in educating the public.
The rule of law is fundamental to democracy and I cannot imagine that the Afghan people would say that human rights do not matter to them. I cannot envision that.
There is growing anti-foreigner sentiment. Where will this lead?
Are we sure that this sentiment is an Afghan sentiment? I am not sure it is.
I do not think this anti-foreigner feeling is a general sentiment. I know that it is a sentiment that can be exploited by various groups obviously.
I do think, however, that we as the intentional community need to learn how to communicate with people. We need to understand better where this country is in terms of development.
For us, coming, in many cases from well-functioning countries it is difficult to understand what it means to work in a country where 60 per cent of the police officers cannot read and write for example.
With no bad intention is easily done that we start at the wrong level. We start with something we are familiar with rather than what people need.
I think we need to become better in communicating with people and having a dialogue with people and talking to people to find out what they need and what is it they want but we also need to come with new ideas because being so isolated means you need ideas.
What are your hopes and fears for this country?
My fear is that the international community and the government will not be strong enough, united enough, to put in place some positive measures for the people here. That is what I fear because I don't believe a military solution is the only solution in this country.
But if we allow the insurgents to take on even distributing electricity or collecting the electricity bills which they do in some places down in Helmand; if we allow them to run the justice system because the government is not able to do it, then I think this country is in great danger.
We cannot allow that. We need to make sure we reach people to provide for their immediate needs with the winter coming up and the drought. We need to create simple solutions, not come up with grand schemes about how to transform this or how to do that.
Very simple things can be done here including increasing the number of people who can read and write, increasing the number of judges who have legal training and increasing the number of police who are honest and willing to work.
These are some of things I hope for.
AFGHANISTAN: REFUGEE RETURNS SHOULD NO LONGER BE A CAUSE FOR CELEBRATION IN KABUL
Eurasia Insight:
11/18/08
A EurasiaNet Commentary by Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan lately boasts few reasons for optimism. But on the short list that international community representatives and Afghan government officials regularly point to as cause for optimism, one holds pride of place: the fact that 5 million refugees have returned to their homeland since 2001.
Indeed, returnee statistics headline the Government of Afghanistan's report card of achievements in its National Development Strategy adopted earlier this year.
Following the removal of the Taliban, Afghans who had sought refuge in camps in Iran and Pakistan started returning. Again and again, the government and aid groups held up this single fact as evidence of something right about the country, and justly so. Had intervention not toppled the Taliban, most of the 5 million refugees would still be languishing abroad. Though they had left Afghanistan during different periods over the past three decades, and for differing reasons, they returned united in the hope of building a stable and prosperous future.
Behind the glossy number of returnees, however, the reality has been changing for some time. Since 2005, returnees, due to a variety of factors, have felt more of a push to head home, rather than feel a pull to go back. Over the same span, the situation for returnees has become more strained, and a growing number of people must jostle for slender resources.
On November 19, a high-level conference in Kabul will take a look at some of the challenges of return and reintegration. The question is will it go far enough. Tackling some of the root problems demands an acknowledgement of political realities that the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, as well as the international community, may find too sensitive to broach.
The first challenge is acknowledging that the returning population has changed over the past two to three years, according to UNHCR's Acting Representative in Afghanistan, Ewen MacLeod. "Since 2006, the return and particularly the reintegration challenges have been more difficult mainly because the majority of those involved have now been absent from the country for more than 20 years and, indeed, half of them have been born outside Afghanistan."
For this population, as for the remaining 3 million refugees still abroad, the sense of identification with the country of refuge is likely to be stronger than the ties they have with Afghanistan.
Because of the way they have grown up, "they find themselves to be completely different," the former UNHCR Country Representative, Salvatore Lombardo, told a EurasiaNet reporter earlier this year. Many of them left as peasants, he says, but have been urbanized and would find it difficult to return to their former rural communities.
Their wishes "certainly do not find an answer in the Afghanistan of today. But one issue that is often neglected is what they have become after 30 years?" he said. "There is not enough recognition that a population that has been in exile for 30 years doesn't necessarily want to [go] back."
Lombardo expressed hope that the November conference would provide an "injection of reality," into the way the refugee situation is perceived. "How many people actually can come back to Afghanistan? We would like discussion in the conference to clarify that. I think the reality today tells you very clearly that if the conditions are what they are today that number would be [miniscule]."
But accepting that the remaining population may wish to be absorbed into the host countries is politically inexpedient. Even those living for two or three decades in Pakistan and Iran are rarely afforded the opportunity of citizenship. Moreover, the Afghan government's position is to seek the return of all the refugees, no matter how tenuous their links with home.
Under two separate trilateral agreements that the UNHCR has signed with the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the two host countries agreed repatriation should be voluntary. That is, neither country would coerce refugees to leave. While the UNHCR has succeeded in preventing a mass forced exodus, the definition of 'voluntary' appears to be shifting.
Some are returning to Afghanistan under the pressure of worsening security and economic conditions in the host countries. In Pakistan, authorities fear the camps shelter terrorist groups.
Iran has forced back what it terms illegal emigrants, deporting 350,000 "unregistered Afghans." Some of those might be migrant workers, but many are refugees, and Iran uses the gray area to avoid its commitments. Pakistan has closed some refugee camps, leaving residents no choice but to return. Earlier this year, authorities shut the Jalozai Camp, one of the largest and oldest in Pakistan. Though the UNHCR was able to delay the closure, Pakistani authorities made their intentions clear by shutting off water and electricity to the enclave.
The second challenge facing the conference is acknowledging the state of conditions for returnees. When refugees return hoping for easier conditions in Afghanistan, they often find themselves trapped. The scarcity of land, jobs and insecurity in their homeland drives many to try to return to Pakistan or Iran. There, they become illegal migrants without the legal rights of refugees.
According to the UNHCR the bulk of the returns have been to the central and eastern region, with Kabul province alone accounting for 1.1 million, and the province of Nangarhar for 850,000, creating crowded settlements of jobless returnees.
The future is grim for Afghanistan's unwanted abroad. The government estimates between 400,000 and a million more refugees will return over the next five years. And according to its own prognosis, the outcome depends on future uncertain conditions inside Afghanistan, as well as relations with Pakistan and Iran.
With ongoing violence inside Afghanistan, internally displaced populations are again swelling. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The UNHCR says there are currently 235,000 internally displaced persons inside the country. But even this problem is hidden to a large extent in the folds of traditional family and kinship ties. Afghanistan's population has been extremely generous in absorbing the returnees. Small rooms are packed to overflowing, sparse meals become sparser to accommodate new arrivals, and it is only the really destitute who live in camps and get counted.
The conference also is expected to look at basic aspects of successful reintegration.
According to Lombardo, the success of the refugee reintegration policy will depend on how it is woven into the overall reconstruction picture. "When you enter into the question of how do you develop a community, how do you sustain a community, how do you find an answer for the long term wishes of the population, we don't have the answers," he said.
If the conference tackles even some of these contentious issues, it will have achieved much. But this would necessitate an admission by the Afghan government, and the international community, that the returns are now a problem, rather than a source of satisfaction.
11/18/08
A EurasiaNet Commentary by Aunohita Mojumdar
Afghanistan lately boasts few reasons for optimism. But on the short list that international community representatives and Afghan government officials regularly point to as cause for optimism, one holds pride of place: the fact that 5 million refugees have returned to their homeland since 2001.
Indeed, returnee statistics headline the Government of Afghanistan's report card of achievements in its National Development Strategy adopted earlier this year.
Following the removal of the Taliban, Afghans who had sought refuge in camps in Iran and Pakistan started returning. Again and again, the government and aid groups held up this single fact as evidence of something right about the country, and justly so. Had intervention not toppled the Taliban, most of the 5 million refugees would still be languishing abroad. Though they had left Afghanistan during different periods over the past three decades, and for differing reasons, they returned united in the hope of building a stable and prosperous future.
Behind the glossy number of returnees, however, the reality has been changing for some time. Since 2005, returnees, due to a variety of factors, have felt more of a push to head home, rather than feel a pull to go back. Over the same span, the situation for returnees has become more strained, and a growing number of people must jostle for slender resources.
On November 19, a high-level conference in Kabul will take a look at some of the challenges of return and reintegration. The question is will it go far enough. Tackling some of the root problems demands an acknowledgement of political realities that the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, as well as the international community, may find too sensitive to broach.
The first challenge is acknowledging that the returning population has changed over the past two to three years, according to UNHCR's Acting Representative in Afghanistan, Ewen MacLeod. "Since 2006, the return and particularly the reintegration challenges have been more difficult mainly because the majority of those involved have now been absent from the country for more than 20 years and, indeed, half of them have been born outside Afghanistan."
For this population, as for the remaining 3 million refugees still abroad, the sense of identification with the country of refuge is likely to be stronger than the ties they have with Afghanistan.
Because of the way they have grown up, "they find themselves to be completely different," the former UNHCR Country Representative, Salvatore Lombardo, told a EurasiaNet reporter earlier this year. Many of them left as peasants, he says, but have been urbanized and would find it difficult to return to their former rural communities.
Their wishes "certainly do not find an answer in the Afghanistan of today. But one issue that is often neglected is what they have become after 30 years?" he said. "There is not enough recognition that a population that has been in exile for 30 years doesn't necessarily want to [go] back."
Lombardo expressed hope that the November conference would provide an "injection of reality," into the way the refugee situation is perceived. "How many people actually can come back to Afghanistan? We would like discussion in the conference to clarify that. I think the reality today tells you very clearly that if the conditions are what they are today that number would be [miniscule]."
But accepting that the remaining population may wish to be absorbed into the host countries is politically inexpedient. Even those living for two or three decades in Pakistan and Iran are rarely afforded the opportunity of citizenship. Moreover, the Afghan government's position is to seek the return of all the refugees, no matter how tenuous their links with home.
Under two separate trilateral agreements that the UNHCR has signed with the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran, the two host countries agreed repatriation should be voluntary. That is, neither country would coerce refugees to leave. While the UNHCR has succeeded in preventing a mass forced exodus, the definition of 'voluntary' appears to be shifting.
Some are returning to Afghanistan under the pressure of worsening security and economic conditions in the host countries. In Pakistan, authorities fear the camps shelter terrorist groups.
Iran has forced back what it terms illegal emigrants, deporting 350,000 "unregistered Afghans." Some of those might be migrant workers, but many are refugees, and Iran uses the gray area to avoid its commitments. Pakistan has closed some refugee camps, leaving residents no choice but to return. Earlier this year, authorities shut the Jalozai Camp, one of the largest and oldest in Pakistan. Though the UNHCR was able to delay the closure, Pakistani authorities made their intentions clear by shutting off water and electricity to the enclave.
The second challenge facing the conference is acknowledging the state of conditions for returnees. When refugees return hoping for easier conditions in Afghanistan, they often find themselves trapped. The scarcity of land, jobs and insecurity in their homeland drives many to try to return to Pakistan or Iran. There, they become illegal migrants without the legal rights of refugees.
According to the UNHCR the bulk of the returns have been to the central and eastern region, with Kabul province alone accounting for 1.1 million, and the province of Nangarhar for 850,000, creating crowded settlements of jobless returnees.
The future is grim for Afghanistan's unwanted abroad. The government estimates between 400,000 and a million more refugees will return over the next five years. And according to its own prognosis, the outcome depends on future uncertain conditions inside Afghanistan, as well as relations with Pakistan and Iran.
With ongoing violence inside Afghanistan, internally displaced populations are again swelling. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. The UNHCR says there are currently 235,000 internally displaced persons inside the country. But even this problem is hidden to a large extent in the folds of traditional family and kinship ties. Afghanistan's population has been extremely generous in absorbing the returnees. Small rooms are packed to overflowing, sparse meals become sparser to accommodate new arrivals, and it is only the really destitute who live in camps and get counted.
The conference also is expected to look at basic aspects of successful reintegration.
According to Lombardo, the success of the refugee reintegration policy will depend on how it is woven into the overall reconstruction picture. "When you enter into the question of how do you develop a community, how do you sustain a community, how do you find an answer for the long term wishes of the population, we don't have the answers," he said.
If the conference tackles even some of these contentious issues, it will have achieved much. But this would necessitate an admission by the Afghan government, and the international community, that the returns are now a problem, rather than a source of satisfaction.
November 15, 2008
Obama win hailed by US Afghan aid workers
BBC November 6
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
There has been a warm welcome among aid workers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, over the election of Barack Obama as US president.
The last seven years of Western-led reconstruction in Afghanistan have been determined by policies emanating from George W Bush's Republican administration - and aid workers in Afghanistan are predominantly Democrats.
In contrast, senior US embassy staffers are often political appointees and the US army has a large proportion of Republican supporters.
Aid workers, including many senior staff working in the US government's aid agency, USAID, have often expressed extreme frustration with the approach of the White House, especially during President's Bush's second term.
'Respect'
The Obama victory saw many in this community express hope that "change", the watchword of the Democratic campaign, would go beyond the polling booth and transform the direction of policies in Afghanistan.
But many aid workers also argue that changes in the White House will not automatically make much difference. They point out that there are not yet enough details of the president-elect's policies.
Even so, many see Barack Obama's triumph an opportunity that will be enhanced greatly by his openness towards dialogue and the respect he is held within the international community.
"The US interest in Afghanistan had fallen apart after Iraq," said Kevin Gash, a development worker, who felt that the country was now a high priority for the new administration.
"We need dialogue between the two governments [Afghanistan and the US] and a long term commitment, though it will take a while to see the difference on the ground."
Mr Gash, who has eight years of experience working in the US Congress, also emphasised the need for the US to negotiate with allies in the region including Pakistan, India and Iran.
He and other aid workers see Mr Obama's willingness to engage in dialogue with governments previously seen as hostile to the US as a major asset.
The election of Mr Obama will, they hope, signal a change within the US.
"We have been able to show a more tolerant and open side to America," he said.
'Strategic significance'
Aid workers argue that Mr Obama's victory will also go a long way towards reducing animosity towards America by securing solidarity from other countries.
Eric Bartz, another aid worker, stressed that while increased attention on Afghanistan is helpful, the way this is done is what really matters. He argues that more consultation with the Afghan government is required, so that the people of the country believe that there is a common agenda for both countries.
Susan Marx, a compatriot, felt Mr Obama had already shown understanding of the complexities of the region. What was needed was someone who could grapple with the strategic significance of Afghanistan, she argued, and not someone who approached it from an ideological standpoint.
"Obama gets it," she said.
Ms Marx recently acquired US citizenship through marriage and was the lynchpin for Democrats Abroad in Afghanistan.
She said that she was surprised by the show of support her events drew.
"The first time we expected 25 people to show up but we got 90 instead."
The same desire to get involved in the polling process seen in the US was also evident among aid workers in Afghanistan, despite the logistical difficulties.
Postal ballots could not be received in Kabul, a city where years of bombing have meant that streets remain unnamed and houses are unnumbered.
Eventually the ballots were downloaded and mailed with the help of the US embassy.
Many aid workers have been in Afghanistan for several years. While they are cautious about the future of Afghanistan, they are uninhibited about the significance they see in Mr Obama's win.
Vitelli said that she felt that America had lost its morale and soul over the last few years, but the results proved "that we can be the change".
There is now a real sense among aid workers that their period of alienation under the Bush administration, especially in the post-9/11 period, is coming to an end.
"I had a hard time identifying with America," said one. "Every time I went back I would be frustrated with its policies and way of life. I tended to escape it by leaving. For once I feel it would be exciting to go back and get involved. There is a chance that things could be a little different."
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
There has been a warm welcome among aid workers in the Afghan capital, Kabul, over the election of Barack Obama as US president.
The last seven years of Western-led reconstruction in Afghanistan have been determined by policies emanating from George W Bush's Republican administration - and aid workers in Afghanistan are predominantly Democrats.
In contrast, senior US embassy staffers are often political appointees and the US army has a large proportion of Republican supporters.
Aid workers, including many senior staff working in the US government's aid agency, USAID, have often expressed extreme frustration with the approach of the White House, especially during President's Bush's second term.
'Respect'
The Obama victory saw many in this community express hope that "change", the watchword of the Democratic campaign, would go beyond the polling booth and transform the direction of policies in Afghanistan.
But many aid workers also argue that changes in the White House will not automatically make much difference. They point out that there are not yet enough details of the president-elect's policies.
Even so, many see Barack Obama's triumph an opportunity that will be enhanced greatly by his openness towards dialogue and the respect he is held within the international community.
"The US interest in Afghanistan had fallen apart after Iraq," said Kevin Gash, a development worker, who felt that the country was now a high priority for the new administration.
"We need dialogue between the two governments [Afghanistan and the US] and a long term commitment, though it will take a while to see the difference on the ground."
Mr Gash, who has eight years of experience working in the US Congress, also emphasised the need for the US to negotiate with allies in the region including Pakistan, India and Iran.
He and other aid workers see Mr Obama's willingness to engage in dialogue with governments previously seen as hostile to the US as a major asset.
The election of Mr Obama will, they hope, signal a change within the US.
"We have been able to show a more tolerant and open side to America," he said.
'Strategic significance'
Aid workers argue that Mr Obama's victory will also go a long way towards reducing animosity towards America by securing solidarity from other countries.
Eric Bartz, another aid worker, stressed that while increased attention on Afghanistan is helpful, the way this is done is what really matters. He argues that more consultation with the Afghan government is required, so that the people of the country believe that there is a common agenda for both countries.
Susan Marx, a compatriot, felt Mr Obama had already shown understanding of the complexities of the region. What was needed was someone who could grapple with the strategic significance of Afghanistan, she argued, and not someone who approached it from an ideological standpoint.
"Obama gets it," she said.
Ms Marx recently acquired US citizenship through marriage and was the lynchpin for Democrats Abroad in Afghanistan.
She said that she was surprised by the show of support her events drew.
"The first time we expected 25 people to show up but we got 90 instead."
The same desire to get involved in the polling process seen in the US was also evident among aid workers in Afghanistan, despite the logistical difficulties.
Postal ballots could not be received in Kabul, a city where years of bombing have meant that streets remain unnamed and houses are unnumbered.
Eventually the ballots were downloaded and mailed with the help of the US embassy.
Many aid workers have been in Afghanistan for several years. While they are cautious about the future of Afghanistan, they are uninhibited about the significance they see in Mr Obama's win.
Vitelli said that she felt that America had lost its morale and soul over the last few years, but the results proved "that we can be the change".
There is now a real sense among aid workers that their period of alienation under the Bush administration, especially in the post-9/11 period, is coming to an end.
"I had a hard time identifying with America," said one. "Every time I went back I would be frustrated with its policies and way of life. I tended to escape it by leaving. For once I feel it would be exciting to go back and get involved. There is a chance that things could be a little different."
US votes, Afghan hopes
Al Jazeera, November 5
Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
As Americans voted in a new president on the promise of "change," Afghans were watching the election of Barack Obama with cautious optimism, hopeful that a loud and clear mandate for change will extend to US policy towards Afghanistan, so helping to transform their lives.
Increasing insecurity, rising costs and growing lawlessness have left many Afghans sceptical of the US-dominated Western intervention, which began seven years ago.
But the infectious enthusiasm of Obama's supporters seems to have touched Afghanistan too - resulting in a cautious optimism that has been absent for a very long time.
At an election night gathering for American-Afghans and other foreign nationals, organised by the US embassy in Kabul, a mock poll saw 74 out of 77 votes cast in favour of Obama by the mixed group, according to Zubair Babakarkhail, who attended the event.
Babakarkhail, a journalist with the independent Afghan news agency Pajhwok, said event at Kabul's Serena Hotel was held in a room decorated with red and blue while badges of the two candidates were distributed.
However, it was the "Obama badges that were being snapped up by most people. We in Afghanistan mainly supported Obama. It is a historic election not just for Americans but for the whole world," he said.
Frustration
Babakarkhail said Afghans have been "frustrated with the situation here and we need someone in America who can lead the war against terrorism.
"Obama, during his campaign, has paid attention to Afghanistan and we think this will make a big difference. He has promised to take troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan. He will bring a change".
"Change" was also the watchword in the remote province of Bamiyan in the central highlands of Afghanistan.
Though less affected by the security situation, Bamiyan has seen a dwindling number of tourists due to deteriorating security in adjoining areas.
Hotelier Razaq was huddled around the TV with his friends on the cold late autumn morning watching the results on Al Jazeera in his hotel, The Roof of Bamiyan, which overlooks the giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban.
"This is history. It is unbelievable. It is a new day for the whole world," he said.
"I am one of the strong supporters of Obama in Afghanistan. I think he has a good policy towards my country as well as towards the border region of Afghanistan-Pakistan and will deal with the problems in Pakistan."
Successive Republican administrations had failed to deal with problems emanating from Pakistan because, Razaq believes, they just continued to treat the country as "a good friend".
With the country still deeply dependant on external aid, Western troops and American support, many Afghans were closely following the results on TV and radio, aware that their own futures were inextricably linked to that of the American election.
Mustafa Rawan, a young business manager living in Kabul, followed the unfolding drama, switching from TV to radio as the city power, scant even seven years after the Western intervention, ran out.
Obama's promise to deal with al-Qaeda and the Taliban was his top priority.
Troops promise
Obama's promise of bringing troops from Iraq to Afghanistan was reason enough to win Rawan's backing and support, sentiments which he says are echoed amongst his friends and family.
Rawan hopes, however, that the new administration will seek to work with Afghans - consulting the people on policies - rather than act unilaterally.
"We still need the help of other countries and I hope Americans will provide it," he said.
Referring to Obama's promise to make Afghanistan a priority, Shahir Zahine, the managing director of Radio Killid, was all smiles.
"For eight years I was on the wrong side of history. I said, even then, that we should all be allowed to vote in the US elections because the faith of the US changes the faith of the world," he said.
"Today it is a great message for America and a great message for the world."
Zahine emphasised that the details of the US administration's new strategy towards Afghanistan were yet to be articulated.
Wahed Hashimi, who works for a media development non-governmental organisation, feels the US needs to re-evaluate its strategy in Afghanistan to see what had worked and what had not.
"The fundamentals of the American policy will not change since this is decided by multinational corporations rather than individual leaders," he said.
However, Hashimi believes change within America will also change its attitude towards the world and so have an indirect effect on other countries including Afghanistan.
Abdul Suboh Faizy, a political adviser to some Western diplomats, says the overwhelming desire for change forms a direct link between the two countries at this time.
"There has been a major gap between the people and the government of Afghanistan. The ordinary people have not seen the change they need in their lives," he said.
"After the American polls there will be a change towards Afghanistan. When we go to the polls we will also be voting for a change."
Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
As Americans voted in a new president on the promise of "change," Afghans were watching the election of Barack Obama with cautious optimism, hopeful that a loud and clear mandate for change will extend to US policy towards Afghanistan, so helping to transform their lives.
Increasing insecurity, rising costs and growing lawlessness have left many Afghans sceptical of the US-dominated Western intervention, which began seven years ago.
But the infectious enthusiasm of Obama's supporters seems to have touched Afghanistan too - resulting in a cautious optimism that has been absent for a very long time.
At an election night gathering for American-Afghans and other foreign nationals, organised by the US embassy in Kabul, a mock poll saw 74 out of 77 votes cast in favour of Obama by the mixed group, according to Zubair Babakarkhail, who attended the event.
Babakarkhail, a journalist with the independent Afghan news agency Pajhwok, said event at Kabul's Serena Hotel was held in a room decorated with red and blue while badges of the two candidates were distributed.
However, it was the "Obama badges that were being snapped up by most people. We in Afghanistan mainly supported Obama. It is a historic election not just for Americans but for the whole world," he said.
Frustration
Babakarkhail said Afghans have been "frustrated with the situation here and we need someone in America who can lead the war against terrorism.
"Obama, during his campaign, has paid attention to Afghanistan and we think this will make a big difference. He has promised to take troops out of Iraq and put them in Afghanistan. He will bring a change".
"Change" was also the watchword in the remote province of Bamiyan in the central highlands of Afghanistan.
Though less affected by the security situation, Bamiyan has seen a dwindling number of tourists due to deteriorating security in adjoining areas.
Hotelier Razaq was huddled around the TV with his friends on the cold late autumn morning watching the results on Al Jazeera in his hotel, The Roof of Bamiyan, which overlooks the giant Buddha statues destroyed by the Taliban.
"This is history. It is unbelievable. It is a new day for the whole world," he said.
"I am one of the strong supporters of Obama in Afghanistan. I think he has a good policy towards my country as well as towards the border region of Afghanistan-Pakistan and will deal with the problems in Pakistan."
Successive Republican administrations had failed to deal with problems emanating from Pakistan because, Razaq believes, they just continued to treat the country as "a good friend".
With the country still deeply dependant on external aid, Western troops and American support, many Afghans were closely following the results on TV and radio, aware that their own futures were inextricably linked to that of the American election.
Mustafa Rawan, a young business manager living in Kabul, followed the unfolding drama, switching from TV to radio as the city power, scant even seven years after the Western intervention, ran out.
Obama's promise to deal with al-Qaeda and the Taliban was his top priority.
Troops promise
Obama's promise of bringing troops from Iraq to Afghanistan was reason enough to win Rawan's backing and support, sentiments which he says are echoed amongst his friends and family.
Rawan hopes, however, that the new administration will seek to work with Afghans - consulting the people on policies - rather than act unilaterally.
"We still need the help of other countries and I hope Americans will provide it," he said.
Referring to Obama's promise to make Afghanistan a priority, Shahir Zahine, the managing director of Radio Killid, was all smiles.
"For eight years I was on the wrong side of history. I said, even then, that we should all be allowed to vote in the US elections because the faith of the US changes the faith of the world," he said.
"Today it is a great message for America and a great message for the world."
Zahine emphasised that the details of the US administration's new strategy towards Afghanistan were yet to be articulated.
Wahed Hashimi, who works for a media development non-governmental organisation, feels the US needs to re-evaluate its strategy in Afghanistan to see what had worked and what had not.
"The fundamentals of the American policy will not change since this is decided by multinational corporations rather than individual leaders," he said.
However, Hashimi believes change within America will also change its attitude towards the world and so have an indirect effect on other countries including Afghanistan.
Abdul Suboh Faizy, a political adviser to some Western diplomats, says the overwhelming desire for change forms a direct link between the two countries at this time.
"There has been a major gap between the people and the government of Afghanistan. The ordinary people have not seen the change they need in their lives," he said.
"After the American polls there will be a change towards Afghanistan. When we go to the polls we will also be voting for a change."
Afghans sceptical of US intentions
Al Jazeera: November 4, 2008
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
As a managing director of Radio Killid, a radio station dedicated to socially relevant programming, Najiba Ayubi keeps a keen eye on international political developments and is well aware of public opinion in Afghanistan.
Like many Afghans, the rhetoric towards Afghanistan used by the US presidential candidates ahead of Barack Obama's victory left her less than impressed.
"They are tools to come to power with," she says.
Unlike the focus on talk of a so-called "surge" in the number of troops in Afghanistan which dominates US talk shows and occupies American political pundits, Afghans are concerned on what the troops will do, the nature of the military operations and the rules of engagement.
The increase in both the violence and the number of Afghan civilians being killed, continuing poverty and a loss of hope are making Afghans' relationship with the foreign presence in their land more complicated.
Anger over casualties
Many Afghans continue to view foreign troops on their land as a necessary evil, but even those supporting them want fundamental changes in the conditions of their presence.
"We have got some good things from the US - the laws, the new constitution, the parliament - but we would like the international military presence here to be under a framework which includes a date for its withdrawal," says Ayubi.
Ayubi is no traditionalist. Her radio programming raises social awareness and tackles difficult subjects such as violence against women.
However, she feels Afghans have become very critical of the US because of the increasing civilian casualties in military operations.
She says: "In 2001, we would have welcomed anyone who came to deliver us from the Taliban. But now that feeling is changing.
"The US does not consult anyone. It decides, unilaterally, to do whatever it wants."
Civilian casualties, for example, could be prevented if there was greater consultation with locals "since the foreign troops do not know the customs or culture".
What the soldiers take for a militant gathering may just be the Afghan tradition of setting-up open kitchens for weddings which go on for several days," she says.
Occupation anger
Khalid Dawari, a young man who works in an architect's firm, shares Ayubi's lack of interest in how Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential elections will affect Afghanistan.
"The foreign policy of the US doesn't depend on one individual. It will not change." he says but, unlike Ayubi, he feels civilian casualties are part of any conflict.
He is more strident in his criticism of the western presence.
"Afghanistan has been occupied or captured by Americans or other European countries," he says, explaining that the very presence of foreign soldiers denotes occupation.
"It is fine for now. But they are doing it for their own benefit. Bush is in the oil and gas business isn't he?"
A 'tortured' relationship
Khalid's remarks reflect the tortured relationship of many Afghans to the presence of the West which is something they cannot live with, nor without.
He believes his country's president, Hamid Karzai, has been selected by the US and not the Afghans.
"Who is he? We never heard of him earlier. He was not a leader. He has been selected by Mr Bush," he said.
He sees a substantive portion of the country's aid going back to the donor countries but sees no way out.
"Afghanistan is not in a situation where it can help itself. We are hopeless from every side. If they withdraw, the Taliban may come and capture Kabul."
Dawari is clear that the western intervention in Afghanistan is dominated and led by the US.
As for other countries, he says "the rest are just members of the party".
Taliban memories
US dominance of the foreign intervention in Afghanistan is overwhelming.
It has contributed approximately half of the troops there and, between 2002 to 2008, provided one-third of the entire aid to Afghanistan.
The large presence of US consultants, contractors and aid workers has spawned its own economy, services and goods for the expatriate market.
The Kabul Coffee House, for example, is an American style cafe that is frequented largely by internationals.
Haseebullah Fayez, 20, is grateful for his work there as a cashier.
He was living in Kabul during the rule of the Taliban and has strong memories of what life was like.
"I went to school, but got no education. There was no work," he says.
"After they [the Taliban] left I could study. I learnt English. Now at least we can find some work. I support my family. My father's salary as a school teacher is only $60 a month and not enough for our family of five," he said.
Haseeb has been in the cafe for three years and along the way has acquired a taste for cheeseburgers, Bob Dylan's music and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
He regularly hears the criticism of the foreign reconstruction effort in his country.
He agrees that civilians get killed in military operations and that a substantial portion of the money Afghanistan receives goes back to the donor countries.
But his anger is not directed towards them.
"I wonder why it [war and destruction] had to happen to Afghanistan," he says.
He says that lives do get lost in a war but "they [US forces] don't want to kill them. It happens by mistake".
No 'nation building'
Aziz Hakimi, the country director of the charity Future Generations, digs much deeper than his compatriots, questioning not just the US role but the entire idea of "nation building" by the West.
The mistakes made in the initial days of the US intervention – such as putting in power 'warlords' and "the very people who are a threat to security" has cost dearly, he feels.
"The Afghans welcomed the intervention as they welcomed change each time. However, just as in the past, they were disappointed again," he said.
The change in Afghan society must be rooted in the community, he feels.
Decisions must be made by local communities "rather than being dictated by budgets in Brussels or Washington" he says.
Hakimi does not buy into the popular notion that the foreign aid has not been enough.
"It's dangerous to assume that throwing dollars at the problem will solve it. It will compound the problem. You cannot use development dollars and military might to deal with a political problem."
While he agrees that the Western presence is dominated by the US, he blames, at least partially, the Europeans who have contributed to Nato's Afghan troop force, for it, and echoes the feelings of many Afghans who believe the West has abandoned them repeatedly.
"The West abandoned us after they got what they wanted in the Cold War. They are here now to fight the 'war on terror'," he says.
He insists: "They will abandon us again if the al-Qaeda is routed. Afghans should think about this."
Source: Al Jazeera
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
As a managing director of Radio Killid, a radio station dedicated to socially relevant programming, Najiba Ayubi keeps a keen eye on international political developments and is well aware of public opinion in Afghanistan.
Like many Afghans, the rhetoric towards Afghanistan used by the US presidential candidates ahead of Barack Obama's victory left her less than impressed.
"They are tools to come to power with," she says.
Unlike the focus on talk of a so-called "surge" in the number of troops in Afghanistan which dominates US talk shows and occupies American political pundits, Afghans are concerned on what the troops will do, the nature of the military operations and the rules of engagement.
The increase in both the violence and the number of Afghan civilians being killed, continuing poverty and a loss of hope are making Afghans' relationship with the foreign presence in their land more complicated.
Anger over casualties
Many Afghans continue to view foreign troops on their land as a necessary evil, but even those supporting them want fundamental changes in the conditions of their presence.
"We have got some good things from the US - the laws, the new constitution, the parliament - but we would like the international military presence here to be under a framework which includes a date for its withdrawal," says Ayubi.
Ayubi is no traditionalist. Her radio programming raises social awareness and tackles difficult subjects such as violence against women.
However, she feels Afghans have become very critical of the US because of the increasing civilian casualties in military operations.
She says: "In 2001, we would have welcomed anyone who came to deliver us from the Taliban. But now that feeling is changing.
"The US does not consult anyone. It decides, unilaterally, to do whatever it wants."
Civilian casualties, for example, could be prevented if there was greater consultation with locals "since the foreign troops do not know the customs or culture".
What the soldiers take for a militant gathering may just be the Afghan tradition of setting-up open kitchens for weddings which go on for several days," she says.
Occupation anger
Khalid Dawari, a young man who works in an architect's firm, shares Ayubi's lack of interest in how Barack Obama's victory in the US presidential elections will affect Afghanistan.
"The foreign policy of the US doesn't depend on one individual. It will not change." he says but, unlike Ayubi, he feels civilian casualties are part of any conflict.
He is more strident in his criticism of the western presence.
"Afghanistan has been occupied or captured by Americans or other European countries," he says, explaining that the very presence of foreign soldiers denotes occupation.
"It is fine for now. But they are doing it for their own benefit. Bush is in the oil and gas business isn't he?"
A 'tortured' relationship
Khalid's remarks reflect the tortured relationship of many Afghans to the presence of the West which is something they cannot live with, nor without.
He believes his country's president, Hamid Karzai, has been selected by the US and not the Afghans.
"Who is he? We never heard of him earlier. He was not a leader. He has been selected by Mr Bush," he said.
He sees a substantive portion of the country's aid going back to the donor countries but sees no way out.
"Afghanistan is not in a situation where it can help itself. We are hopeless from every side. If they withdraw, the Taliban may come and capture Kabul."
Dawari is clear that the western intervention in Afghanistan is dominated and led by the US.
As for other countries, he says "the rest are just members of the party".
Taliban memories
US dominance of the foreign intervention in Afghanistan is overwhelming.
It has contributed approximately half of the troops there and, between 2002 to 2008, provided one-third of the entire aid to Afghanistan.
The large presence of US consultants, contractors and aid workers has spawned its own economy, services and goods for the expatriate market.
The Kabul Coffee House, for example, is an American style cafe that is frequented largely by internationals.
Haseebullah Fayez, 20, is grateful for his work there as a cashier.
He was living in Kabul during the rule of the Taliban and has strong memories of what life was like.
"I went to school, but got no education. There was no work," he says.
"After they [the Taliban] left I could study. I learnt English. Now at least we can find some work. I support my family. My father's salary as a school teacher is only $60 a month and not enough for our family of five," he said.
Haseeb has been in the cafe for three years and along the way has acquired a taste for cheeseburgers, Bob Dylan's music and Arnold Schwarzenegger movies.
He regularly hears the criticism of the foreign reconstruction effort in his country.
He agrees that civilians get killed in military operations and that a substantial portion of the money Afghanistan receives goes back to the donor countries.
But his anger is not directed towards them.
"I wonder why it [war and destruction] had to happen to Afghanistan," he says.
He says that lives do get lost in a war but "they [US forces] don't want to kill them. It happens by mistake".
No 'nation building'
Aziz Hakimi, the country director of the charity Future Generations, digs much deeper than his compatriots, questioning not just the US role but the entire idea of "nation building" by the West.
The mistakes made in the initial days of the US intervention – such as putting in power 'warlords' and "the very people who are a threat to security" has cost dearly, he feels.
"The Afghans welcomed the intervention as they welcomed change each time. However, just as in the past, they were disappointed again," he said.
The change in Afghan society must be rooted in the community, he feels.
Decisions must be made by local communities "rather than being dictated by budgets in Brussels or Washington" he says.
Hakimi does not buy into the popular notion that the foreign aid has not been enough.
"It's dangerous to assume that throwing dollars at the problem will solve it. It will compound the problem. You cannot use development dollars and military might to deal with a political problem."
While he agrees that the Western presence is dominated by the US, he blames, at least partially, the Europeans who have contributed to Nato's Afghan troop force, for it, and echoes the feelings of many Afghans who believe the West has abandoned them repeatedly.
"The West abandoned us after they got what they wanted in the Cold War. They are here now to fight the 'war on terror'," he says.
He insists: "They will abandon us again if the al-Qaeda is routed. Afghans should think about this."
Source: Al Jazeera
November 03, 2008
THREE-NATION ART SHOW OPENS IN KABUL
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar
October 31, 2008
It is not often a painting arrives at an exhibition with the extra protection of war and terrorism insurance. But that is exactly what Jemima Montagu, the director of culture and heritage at the Turquoise Mountain Foundation (TMF), had to obtain when she planned an international art exhibition in Kabul, bringing together contemporary artists from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The show -- titled Living Traditions, and containing 50 pieces by 15 artists from the three countries -- opened October 11 in the restored Babur Gardens of the eponymous Mughal Dynasty founder.
The exhibition, organised by TMF, a charity working to preserve Afghanistan’s traditional crafts, is going forward against the odds. It is scheduled to run through November 20. There were perhaps more reasons not to hold the show than to hold it. At the opening, a bomb scare saw several of the elite visitors depart hastily. Two paintings missed the opening due to transit delays, and few artists were willing to participate in an exhibition in Kabul, a city where there is as yet no sophisticated constituency for art and no PR points for those wishing to further their careers. Artists "thought if they sent their work, they would never see it again," recalled Montagu.
If it was difficult to get people to contribute their work, it was even more difficult to get them to participate in person. Why Kabul? Why now? How was it possible to ensure an exhibition of international quality with all its exacting standards? In the end, the answer to all those doubts and questions had to be answered with the single simple question: ’Why not?’
"The three countries [represented in the show] share a strong bond, particularly in art and in the way Islamic calligraphy and painting evolved," said Montagu. "These traditions can and need to be adapted if they are to survive."
Of the 15 artists who contributed their work, five were present at the opening. Among those in attendance was a young Pakistani couple, Muhammed Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid. A professor at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Qureshi saw participation as an act of faith. "It was exciting and scary at the same time. It is important for the people of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to have this connection," he said, speaking as he worked to help his wife finish her installation the day before the opening. Both were well aware that they had to complete the job before dusk since -- like most of Kabul -- the exhibition grounds would have no electricity. "Things may be primitive here after the impact of years of war. But they will not remain the same. We cannot control things, but we can make efforts to change it," he said.
Both Qureshi and his wife had their sanity questioned by their friends and family who perceive Kabul as a very dangerous place. For Khalid the decision to come was impelled by her desire to challenge western stereotypes of women from this region. Khalid’s exhibits center around the theme of the ’burkha,’ whether it is a graphical pattern of the ruffle of the hem or how it outlines the shape of a woman. "I want to question the stereotype that goes with the image of a burkha. If the Taliban were imposing their values, so is the West," she said.
For Iranian Khosrow Hassanzadeh, this visit was the first step in what he hopes will be a continuing regional collaboration. Hassanzadeh, who has shown his work in many western capitals, said "this is more important than showing in New York. We have a shared tradition and it is important for people here to get an idea about their own rich culture."
Most of the artists were conscious that their cross-cultural exchange countered existing political tension among the three countries. "We need to look at each other rather than have outsiders look at us," said Hassanzadeh. Qureshi, meanwhile, stressed how his own perceptions about Afghanistan had been changed by the visit.
Zolaykha Sherzad, an Afghan designer who has been interpreting traditional Afghan design in contemporary form, saw immediate similarities in the works coming from across borders: the use of calligraphy, the use of certain colours, the use of gold were present in many of the art works in the exhibition, she said. Sherzad, who divides her time between New York and Kabul, said this exhibition was a way to find common ground in the midst of conflict.
Despite the attendance of Kabul’s elite, largely foreigners, at the opening, Montagu made it clear this was not the target audience. "This is not a project for expatriates. There is no existing audience for arts and culture here. You have to create it," the former Tate curator said. The exhibition’s most important audience will be the 3,000-4,000 school children who will attend guided tours explaining the relevance and context of the artwork, Montagu suggested.
The past three decades of conflict in Afghanistan have caused the slow and steady decimation of art in the country. Survival, displacement and violence all took their toll. Long before the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of works depicting living forms, art had become a luxury that virtually all Afghans could not bother to contemplate. Post-2001 artists are back at work, but the extended, enforced hiatus has skewed Afghanistan’s art environment. Much of what is being produced now is tourist kitsch. Showing contemporary art in this milieu created perhaps even more of a challenge for organizers than the security constraints imposed by the difficult reconstruction process.
Ahead are more challenges. Montagu hopes she can take the exhibition to both Pakistan and Iran, but is not quite sure. "It is hard to raise funds for culture anywhere, but especially here, where there is often a feeling that any money spent on culture is money taken away from hospitals." Qureshi, who gave a lecture at Kabul University’s faculty of fine arts, expressed his strong conviction about the relevance of this exhibition. "This kind of opportunity is historical. We will feel the value of it later."
Qureshi’s special moment in the exhibition came from one of the Babur Gardens’ caretakers. "He saw me doing the floor paintings and said, ’The other art pieces can be sold. But what you painted on the floor is really just for us.’"
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 31, 2008 © Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar
October 31, 2008
It is not often a painting arrives at an exhibition with the extra protection of war and terrorism insurance. But that is exactly what Jemima Montagu, the director of culture and heritage at the Turquoise Mountain Foundation (TMF), had to obtain when she planned an international art exhibition in Kabul, bringing together contemporary artists from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The show -- titled Living Traditions, and containing 50 pieces by 15 artists from the three countries -- opened October 11 in the restored Babur Gardens of the eponymous Mughal Dynasty founder.
The exhibition, organised by TMF, a charity working to preserve Afghanistan’s traditional crafts, is going forward against the odds. It is scheduled to run through November 20. There were perhaps more reasons not to hold the show than to hold it. At the opening, a bomb scare saw several of the elite visitors depart hastily. Two paintings missed the opening due to transit delays, and few artists were willing to participate in an exhibition in Kabul, a city where there is as yet no sophisticated constituency for art and no PR points for those wishing to further their careers. Artists "thought if they sent their work, they would never see it again," recalled Montagu.
If it was difficult to get people to contribute their work, it was even more difficult to get them to participate in person. Why Kabul? Why now? How was it possible to ensure an exhibition of international quality with all its exacting standards? In the end, the answer to all those doubts and questions had to be answered with the single simple question: ’Why not?’
"The three countries [represented in the show] share a strong bond, particularly in art and in the way Islamic calligraphy and painting evolved," said Montagu. "These traditions can and need to be adapted if they are to survive."
Of the 15 artists who contributed their work, five were present at the opening. Among those in attendance was a young Pakistani couple, Muhammed Imran Qureshi and Aisha Khalid. A professor at the National College of Arts in Lahore, Qureshi saw participation as an act of faith. "It was exciting and scary at the same time. It is important for the people of Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan to have this connection," he said, speaking as he worked to help his wife finish her installation the day before the opening. Both were well aware that they had to complete the job before dusk since -- like most of Kabul -- the exhibition grounds would have no electricity. "Things may be primitive here after the impact of years of war. But they will not remain the same. We cannot control things, but we can make efforts to change it," he said.
Both Qureshi and his wife had their sanity questioned by their friends and family who perceive Kabul as a very dangerous place. For Khalid the decision to come was impelled by her desire to challenge western stereotypes of women from this region. Khalid’s exhibits center around the theme of the ’burkha,’ whether it is a graphical pattern of the ruffle of the hem or how it outlines the shape of a woman. "I want to question the stereotype that goes with the image of a burkha. If the Taliban were imposing their values, so is the West," she said.
For Iranian Khosrow Hassanzadeh, this visit was the first step in what he hopes will be a continuing regional collaboration. Hassanzadeh, who has shown his work in many western capitals, said "this is more important than showing in New York. We have a shared tradition and it is important for people here to get an idea about their own rich culture."
Most of the artists were conscious that their cross-cultural exchange countered existing political tension among the three countries. "We need to look at each other rather than have outsiders look at us," said Hassanzadeh. Qureshi, meanwhile, stressed how his own perceptions about Afghanistan had been changed by the visit.
Zolaykha Sherzad, an Afghan designer who has been interpreting traditional Afghan design in contemporary form, saw immediate similarities in the works coming from across borders: the use of calligraphy, the use of certain colours, the use of gold were present in many of the art works in the exhibition, she said. Sherzad, who divides her time between New York and Kabul, said this exhibition was a way to find common ground in the midst of conflict.
Despite the attendance of Kabul’s elite, largely foreigners, at the opening, Montagu made it clear this was not the target audience. "This is not a project for expatriates. There is no existing audience for arts and culture here. You have to create it," the former Tate curator said. The exhibition’s most important audience will be the 3,000-4,000 school children who will attend guided tours explaining the relevance and context of the artwork, Montagu suggested.
The past three decades of conflict in Afghanistan have caused the slow and steady decimation of art in the country. Survival, displacement and violence all took their toll. Long before the Taliban’s deliberate destruction of works depicting living forms, art had become a luxury that virtually all Afghans could not bother to contemplate. Post-2001 artists are back at work, but the extended, enforced hiatus has skewed Afghanistan’s art environment. Much of what is being produced now is tourist kitsch. Showing contemporary art in this milieu created perhaps even more of a challenge for organizers than the security constraints imposed by the difficult reconstruction process.
Ahead are more challenges. Montagu hopes she can take the exhibition to both Pakistan and Iran, but is not quite sure. "It is hard to raise funds for culture anywhere, but especially here, where there is often a feeling that any money spent on culture is money taken away from hospitals." Qureshi, who gave a lecture at Kabul University’s faculty of fine arts, expressed his strong conviction about the relevance of this exhibition. "This kind of opportunity is historical. We will feel the value of it later."
Qureshi’s special moment in the exhibition came from one of the Babur Gardens’ caretakers. "He saw me doing the floor paintings and said, ’The other art pieces can be sold. But what you painted on the floor is really just for us.’"
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 31, 2008 © Eurasianet
OPINION SURVEY REVEALS INCREASING WORRY AMONG AFGHANS
EURASIA INSIGHT
Aunohita Mojumdar
October 29, 2008
The lack of security outranks poor economic conditions as the population’s top worry in Afghanistan, according to a newly released public opinion survey. While support for the country’s reconstruction process has declined over the past two years, a plurality still believes the country is moving in the right direction.
The opinion survey, prepared by the Asia Foundation and released October 28, represents one of the largest efforts to gauge the mood of Afghans. When compared with Asia Foundation polls in previous years, the 2008 results indicate that Afghans are experiencing a steady decline of hope for a better future, and they are growing increasingly disenchanted with the government’s performance. At the same time, the 2008 survey shows that public acceptance of the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil remains steady, as does approval of international assistance efforts.
According to the survey, the percentage of the population that feels the country is moving in the right direction dropped from 44 percent in 2006 to 38 percent in 2008, while the number saying the country is going in the wrong direction increased from 21 percent in 2006 to 32 percent this year.
In 2006, economic worries topped the list of concerns for Afghans, but over the last two years security worries have surged ahead. Nationally, 36 percent of respondents in the 2008 survey identified security as the biggest problem, followed by 31 percent who cited unemployment as their main concern. A breakdown of responses by region showed that insecure feelings are spreading across Afghanistan, and are no longer limited to the traditional hotbeds of Islamic militant activity in southern and eastern sections of the country. Even relatively stable areas in the North registered a drop in confidence.
The survey also indicates that the perception of insecurity is more widespread than actual incidents of violence. In addition, the results seem to dispel the notion that Islamic insurgents are the most widespread cause of insecurity. Just over 1 percent of the Afghan population reported they had experienced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants. In a worrying trend, 1 percent of Afghans said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces, drawing attention once again to the dangers associated with the growing number of civilian casualties connected with US and NATO military operations. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In the southwest region -- which in the survey covers the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Nimroz and Zabul, where the bulk of radical Islamic insurgent activity occurs -- 16 percent reported suffering from insurgent-related violence; 12 percent in those provinces suffered violence connected to actions by foreign forces.
In a deeply worrying trend, despite the expenditure of $25 billion in aid over the past seven years, and the promise of $21 billion more in additional assistance pledged during the Paris summit in June this year, there is now little difference in the number of people who feel their economic situation is better today than it was under the Taliban (39 percent) and those who feel they were better off during the Taliban era (36 percent).
The survey identifies unemployment as a "major problem." More than three-fourths said the availability of jobs in their area was very low and "a significant proportion of respondents expect the availability of jobs to be even lower in the coming year."
In analysing the biggest problems facing their country, Afghans surprisingly did not cite the lack of foreign assistance as a major issue, even though 30 percent identified the poor economy, poverty, unemployment and corruption as the biggest problems they face.
Corruption was seen as a major problem at the national level (76 percent), with as many as 51 percent terming it a major problem in their daily lives. Over half the respondents felt corruption had increased at the national level over the past 12 months, while a quarter felt it had increased in their daily lives. While a majority felt the government had done a good job, the number of those dissatisfied with the government increased by 13 percent.
In evaluating public services, Afghans positively rated their access to education and health care. Unemployment was cited as the biggest local problem followed by lack of electricity and water.
On the matter of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the results were mixed. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. An overwhelming majority, 82 percent, considered it wrong to cultivate poppy. But in some of the country’s leading poppy-producing regions in the Southeast and East, opposition to poppy cultivation is eroding. In southeastern Afghanistan, for example, the percentage opposing poppy cultivation slipped from 85 percent in 2006 to 77 percent this year.
The revelation that fewer people believe that participation in the electoral process will bring future benefits is a worrying trend, as the country prepares to hold presidential and parliamentary elections over the next two years. Confidence in the electoral process dropped from 75 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2008; the number of people who were likely to vote dropped by 9 percent over last year.
Satisfaction with the democratization process in Afghanistan dropped from 73 percent last year to 68 percent in 2008, with dissatisfaction rates highest in the insurgency-prone areas of the South and the East. On the positive side, the number of Afghans who felt democracy was a challenge to Islam dropped slightly, from 29 percent to 26 percent.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 29, 2008 © Eurasianet
Aunohita Mojumdar
October 29, 2008
The lack of security outranks poor economic conditions as the population’s top worry in Afghanistan, according to a newly released public opinion survey. While support for the country’s reconstruction process has declined over the past two years, a plurality still believes the country is moving in the right direction.
The opinion survey, prepared by the Asia Foundation and released October 28, represents one of the largest efforts to gauge the mood of Afghans. When compared with Asia Foundation polls in previous years, the 2008 results indicate that Afghans are experiencing a steady decline of hope for a better future, and they are growing increasingly disenchanted with the government’s performance. At the same time, the 2008 survey shows that public acceptance of the presence of foreign troops on Afghan soil remains steady, as does approval of international assistance efforts.
According to the survey, the percentage of the population that feels the country is moving in the right direction dropped from 44 percent in 2006 to 38 percent in 2008, while the number saying the country is going in the wrong direction increased from 21 percent in 2006 to 32 percent this year.
In 2006, economic worries topped the list of concerns for Afghans, but over the last two years security worries have surged ahead. Nationally, 36 percent of respondents in the 2008 survey identified security as the biggest problem, followed by 31 percent who cited unemployment as their main concern. A breakdown of responses by region showed that insecure feelings are spreading across Afghanistan, and are no longer limited to the traditional hotbeds of Islamic militant activity in southern and eastern sections of the country. Even relatively stable areas in the North registered a drop in confidence.
The survey also indicates that the perception of insecurity is more widespread than actual incidents of violence. In addition, the results seem to dispel the notion that Islamic insurgents are the most widespread cause of insecurity. Just over 1 percent of the Afghan population reported they had experienced violence at the hands of insurgents or militants. In a worrying trend, 1 percent of Afghans said they had suffered violence at the hands of the foreign forces, drawing attention once again to the dangers associated with the growing number of civilian casualties connected with US and NATO military operations. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
In the southwest region -- which in the survey covers the provinces of Helmand, Kandahar, Uruzgan, Nimroz and Zabul, where the bulk of radical Islamic insurgent activity occurs -- 16 percent reported suffering from insurgent-related violence; 12 percent in those provinces suffered violence connected to actions by foreign forces.
In a deeply worrying trend, despite the expenditure of $25 billion in aid over the past seven years, and the promise of $21 billion more in additional assistance pledged during the Paris summit in June this year, there is now little difference in the number of people who feel their economic situation is better today than it was under the Taliban (39 percent) and those who feel they were better off during the Taliban era (36 percent).
The survey identifies unemployment as a "major problem." More than three-fourths said the availability of jobs in their area was very low and "a significant proportion of respondents expect the availability of jobs to be even lower in the coming year."
In analysing the biggest problems facing their country, Afghans surprisingly did not cite the lack of foreign assistance as a major issue, even though 30 percent identified the poor economy, poverty, unemployment and corruption as the biggest problems they face.
Corruption was seen as a major problem at the national level (76 percent), with as many as 51 percent terming it a major problem in their daily lives. Over half the respondents felt corruption had increased at the national level over the past 12 months, while a quarter felt it had increased in their daily lives. While a majority felt the government had done a good job, the number of those dissatisfied with the government increased by 13 percent.
In evaluating public services, Afghans positively rated their access to education and health care. Unemployment was cited as the biggest local problem followed by lack of electricity and water.
On the matter of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan, the results were mixed. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive]. An overwhelming majority, 82 percent, considered it wrong to cultivate poppy. But in some of the country’s leading poppy-producing regions in the Southeast and East, opposition to poppy cultivation is eroding. In southeastern Afghanistan, for example, the percentage opposing poppy cultivation slipped from 85 percent in 2006 to 77 percent this year.
The revelation that fewer people believe that participation in the electoral process will bring future benefits is a worrying trend, as the country prepares to hold presidential and parliamentary elections over the next two years. Confidence in the electoral process dropped from 75 percent in 2006 to 65 percent in 2008; the number of people who were likely to vote dropped by 9 percent over last year.
Satisfaction with the democratization process in Afghanistan dropped from 73 percent last year to 68 percent in 2008, with dissatisfaction rates highest in the insurgency-prone areas of the South and the East. On the positive side, the number of Afghans who felt democracy was a challenge to Islam dropped slightly, from 29 percent to 26 percent.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 29, 2008 © Eurasianet
October 25, 2008
US' Afghan market dreams faltering
Saturday, October 25, 2008
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
A dormant industrial park cordoned off by a wall stands on the main highway outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar e Sharif.
Funded by USAID, the US government's development aid arm, the park was the representation of hopes for a flourishing market-led economy in Afghanistan, an economic policy that was supposed to put the war-torn country back on its feet.
But it lies strangely silent, lacking the hum of machinery and noise of human activity. A non-starter in the absence of basic requirements such as power and water.
In a reconstruction effort led by Western countries and dominated by the US through its sheer political clout and large financial contribution, Afghanistan adopted the free-market approach with little debate, less research and none of the existing conditions that have presaged a shift to such an economy in western countries.
The ideology was enshrined within the 2002 National Development Framework, but there were "no discussions with civil society or political parties" says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, a policy research manager with Action Aid in Afghanistan.
"It was formulated by citizens or Afghans residing in the US and led by the World Bank," he says.
More recently, the approach was enshrined as one of the defining tenets of the vision for Afghanistan as "a society of hope and prosperity based on a strong private sector-led market economy" in what is known as Afghanistan's National Development Strategy (ANDS), finalised and adopted at the Paris Conference in June 2008.
Four months later, despite the spectacular collapse of the market in Western countries and an ongoing debate over the pros and cons of the value of the market-led economy in those nations, there is little discussion here in Afghanistan about the approach and what it has delivered.
Endorsing ANDS, Michael Yates, the Afghanistan mission director of USAID, said: "The US government and the broader donor community are committed to helping Afghanistan achieve this important vision."
Reform 'laboratory'
But Bahman Hares, an Afghan working with Action Aid, laments the fact his country has become "a laboratory" for different policies from other countries.
And Haroun Mir and Idrees Rahmani, researchers for the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, argue that ambitious economic reforms were launched without adequate thought and planning.
"International institutions have brought policies studied by foreign experts and imposed them on the government for implementation," they say.
Afghanistan has had to follow these policies in order to get debt relief and access to financial and technical assistance from these institutions.
Yates argues that the telecom sector is a good example of the private-sector model.
Afghanistan's four mobile companies recently surpassed $100 million in combined quarterly revenue and have invested more than $1.3 billion in the economy.
The beneficiaries of this 100 per cent, private-sector led, market-oriented achievement are Afghans, he says.
The investments stay in Afghanistan, the jobs go to Afghans, the taxes paid by the telecoms companies go to the Afghan government – allowing the government to offer greater public services to its people.
The success of Afghanistan's telecoms sector serves as a model to the rest of the economy, and to the world, of what can be achieved with the right policies, he says.
But is the telecom sector a model or an exception?
Deregulation has not automatically translated into growth and the industries to supply even basic goods is almost non-existent.
Lack of competition
A walk around Kabul, one of the most economically active areas of the country, tells its own tale.
Mushrooming houses, shops stocked with goods, the chaos of traffic and throngs of people suggest the hustle and bustle of economic activity.
A second look however reveals a different story. Walk into the shops stocked with goods and a look at the manufacturer's origin will reveal that the goods are imported.Food items are largely sourced from Pakistan and Iran while household goods are largely Chinese.
While few countries in the world are exempt from the threat of cheap imports, Afghanistan's tragedy is that here there are no indigenous competitors, no local industry that can even provide an alternate source of goods and services beyond the subsistence agricultural economy that has always existed.
Despite this, the Afghan government and its international backers follow a low-tariff regime in the name of a free-market economy, even while countries exporting a massive amount of goods into Afghanistan continue to follow protectionist policies and impose tariffs on Afghan carpets, raw hides and plants.
Six years into reconstruction, the promise of a better economic future, stable environment and improved security still remain elusive.
Despite growth figures that are quoted frequently in a bid to prove signs of economic recovery, the benefits of economic growth remain skewed and despite a high rate of growth (13.5 per cent in 2007), food insecurity has increased with 4.5 million people facing severe food shortages, according to the World Food Programme.
According to the WFP, more than half the population, estimated at 24.9 million, live below the poverty line and the 2005 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment found that around 6.6 million Afghans do not meet their minimum food requirements.
Targeting the poor
Opinion is divided on the reasons for the lack of economic development.
In a recent paper, ACBAR, the umbrella organisation for more than 10 non-governmental organisations, argued that a pilot participatory survey had revealed an urgent need for pro-poor targeted schemes rather than the "trickle down" theory of the market place.
The government, it said, must develop policies and programming that "explicitly contain components and programmes that directly included the poor in targeted initiatives".
For an effective trajectory of poverty reduction, the poor cannot be an add-on category, it said.
Yates, however, argues a strong free-market economy "attracts new businesses, creates jobs and ensures higher demand is met by higher productivity, not higher prices".
Freddy Bob-Jones from the British government's aid arm, DFID, in Afghanistan, also argues in favour of the free-market approach, saying "recent evidence shows the failure of the market economy has been caused primarily by state failure through corruption, lack of policy clarity and good infrastructure".
"The state is standing in the way of the growth of the private sector.
"Growth in the telecom sector shows the potential for commercial success - the government has deregulated in that area and the sector has grown massively."
But some economic analysts feel that the free-market policy does not take into account the very real absence of power, water and roads, which continue to present the biggest stumbling blocks to the growth of indigenous industry, along with the prevailing insecurity.
Power failures
"Unfortunately the debate is among experts from donor countries and international multilateral organisations and does not include Afghan voices" say Haroun Mir and Idrees Rahmani, researchers for Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies
According to current government statistics, only 20 per cent of the population have access to public power (grid-supplied) "on certain days for a limited number of hours".
On a per capita basis, the electricity generating capacity is "well below what it was in 1978", while on water resources the national development strategy refers to the current "unclear delineation of responsibilities between ministries with regards to the water strategy" adding "co-ordination between water-related institutions remains weak".
While a considerable amount of roads have been built or repaired, they are highly unstable due to the increasing insecurity.
Rahmani and Mir say Afghanistan is far away from meeting other basic free-market prerequisite conditions as well.
"A market-led economy without basic requirements like power, water and roads leaves investors with no incentive to invest," says Action Aid's Siddiqui.
Siddiqui feels some form of protectionism is required to allow the domestic industry to grow as, without that, it is more cost-effective for businessmen to import cheap goods than produce them in Afghanistan.
Jones agrees that "there could be some protection in a neutral way, by creating infrastructure, some limited protection in areas like value-added agriculture" but insists that this has to be limited.
An earlier assessment of the free-market policy by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit had, however, argued for more, rather than less, state intervention, saying the market on its own would not deliver the wider benefits expected of it.
Asked whether the market-led approach could work in Afghanistan if privatisation was on track and in the absence of corruption, Jones states: "I cannot give a definite answer to this. It needs more analysis."
Both Mir and Rahmani, however, feel the debate has never included Afghans.
"Unfortunately the debate is among experts from donor countries and international multilateral organisations and it does not include Afghan voices from civil society and the business community," they say.
Both, it seems, would seem to have some grounds for their critique.
By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul
A dormant industrial park cordoned off by a wall stands on the main highway outside the northern Afghan city of Mazar e Sharif.
Funded by USAID, the US government's development aid arm, the park was the representation of hopes for a flourishing market-led economy in Afghanistan, an economic policy that was supposed to put the war-torn country back on its feet.
But it lies strangely silent, lacking the hum of machinery and noise of human activity. A non-starter in the absence of basic requirements such as power and water.
In a reconstruction effort led by Western countries and dominated by the US through its sheer political clout and large financial contribution, Afghanistan adopted the free-market approach with little debate, less research and none of the existing conditions that have presaged a shift to such an economy in western countries.
The ideology was enshrined within the 2002 National Development Framework, but there were "no discussions with civil society or political parties" says Mudasser Hussain Siddiqui, a policy research manager with Action Aid in Afghanistan.
"It was formulated by citizens or Afghans residing in the US and led by the World Bank," he says.
More recently, the approach was enshrined as one of the defining tenets of the vision for Afghanistan as "a society of hope and prosperity based on a strong private sector-led market economy" in what is known as Afghanistan's National Development Strategy (ANDS), finalised and adopted at the Paris Conference in June 2008.
Four months later, despite the spectacular collapse of the market in Western countries and an ongoing debate over the pros and cons of the value of the market-led economy in those nations, there is little discussion here in Afghanistan about the approach and what it has delivered.
Endorsing ANDS, Michael Yates, the Afghanistan mission director of USAID, said: "The US government and the broader donor community are committed to helping Afghanistan achieve this important vision."
Reform 'laboratory'
But Bahman Hares, an Afghan working with Action Aid, laments the fact his country has become "a laboratory" for different policies from other countries.
And Haroun Mir and Idrees Rahmani, researchers for the Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies, argue that ambitious economic reforms were launched without adequate thought and planning.
"International institutions have brought policies studied by foreign experts and imposed them on the government for implementation," they say.
Afghanistan has had to follow these policies in order to get debt relief and access to financial and technical assistance from these institutions.
Yates argues that the telecom sector is a good example of the private-sector model.
Afghanistan's four mobile companies recently surpassed $100 million in combined quarterly revenue and have invested more than $1.3 billion in the economy.
The beneficiaries of this 100 per cent, private-sector led, market-oriented achievement are Afghans, he says.
The investments stay in Afghanistan, the jobs go to Afghans, the taxes paid by the telecoms companies go to the Afghan government – allowing the government to offer greater public services to its people.
The success of Afghanistan's telecoms sector serves as a model to the rest of the economy, and to the world, of what can be achieved with the right policies, he says.
But is the telecom sector a model or an exception?
Deregulation has not automatically translated into growth and the industries to supply even basic goods is almost non-existent.
Lack of competition
A walk around Kabul, one of the most economically active areas of the country, tells its own tale.
Mushrooming houses, shops stocked with goods, the chaos of traffic and throngs of people suggest the hustle and bustle of economic activity.
A second look however reveals a different story. Walk into the shops stocked with goods and a look at the manufacturer's origin will reveal that the goods are imported.Food items are largely sourced from Pakistan and Iran while household goods are largely Chinese.
While few countries in the world are exempt from the threat of cheap imports, Afghanistan's tragedy is that here there are no indigenous competitors, no local industry that can even provide an alternate source of goods and services beyond the subsistence agricultural economy that has always existed.
Despite this, the Afghan government and its international backers follow a low-tariff regime in the name of a free-market economy, even while countries exporting a massive amount of goods into Afghanistan continue to follow protectionist policies and impose tariffs on Afghan carpets, raw hides and plants.
Six years into reconstruction, the promise of a better economic future, stable environment and improved security still remain elusive.
Despite growth figures that are quoted frequently in a bid to prove signs of economic recovery, the benefits of economic growth remain skewed and despite a high rate of growth (13.5 per cent in 2007), food insecurity has increased with 4.5 million people facing severe food shortages, according to the World Food Programme.
According to the WFP, more than half the population, estimated at 24.9 million, live below the poverty line and the 2005 National Risk and Vulnerability Assessment found that around 6.6 million Afghans do not meet their minimum food requirements.
Targeting the poor
Opinion is divided on the reasons for the lack of economic development.
In a recent paper, ACBAR, the umbrella organisation for more than 10 non-governmental organisations, argued that a pilot participatory survey had revealed an urgent need for pro-poor targeted schemes rather than the "trickle down" theory of the market place.
The government, it said, must develop policies and programming that "explicitly contain components and programmes that directly included the poor in targeted initiatives".
For an effective trajectory of poverty reduction, the poor cannot be an add-on category, it said.
Yates, however, argues a strong free-market economy "attracts new businesses, creates jobs and ensures higher demand is met by higher productivity, not higher prices".
Freddy Bob-Jones from the British government's aid arm, DFID, in Afghanistan, also argues in favour of the free-market approach, saying "recent evidence shows the failure of the market economy has been caused primarily by state failure through corruption, lack of policy clarity and good infrastructure".
"The state is standing in the way of the growth of the private sector.
"Growth in the telecom sector shows the potential for commercial success - the government has deregulated in that area and the sector has grown massively."
But some economic analysts feel that the free-market policy does not take into account the very real absence of power, water and roads, which continue to present the biggest stumbling blocks to the growth of indigenous industry, along with the prevailing insecurity.
Power failures
"Unfortunately the debate is among experts from donor countries and international multilateral organisations and does not include Afghan voices" say Haroun Mir and Idrees Rahmani, researchers for Afghanistan Centre for Research and Policy Studies
According to current government statistics, only 20 per cent of the population have access to public power (grid-supplied) "on certain days for a limited number of hours".
On a per capita basis, the electricity generating capacity is "well below what it was in 1978", while on water resources the national development strategy refers to the current "unclear delineation of responsibilities between ministries with regards to the water strategy" adding "co-ordination between water-related institutions remains weak".
While a considerable amount of roads have been built or repaired, they are highly unstable due to the increasing insecurity.
Rahmani and Mir say Afghanistan is far away from meeting other basic free-market prerequisite conditions as well.
"A market-led economy without basic requirements like power, water and roads leaves investors with no incentive to invest," says Action Aid's Siddiqui.
Siddiqui feels some form of protectionism is required to allow the domestic industry to grow as, without that, it is more cost-effective for businessmen to import cheap goods than produce them in Afghanistan.
Jones agrees that "there could be some protection in a neutral way, by creating infrastructure, some limited protection in areas like value-added agriculture" but insists that this has to be limited.
An earlier assessment of the free-market policy by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit had, however, argued for more, rather than less, state intervention, saying the market on its own would not deliver the wider benefits expected of it.
Asked whether the market-led approach could work in Afghanistan if privatisation was on track and in the absence of corruption, Jones states: "I cannot give a definite answer to this. It needs more analysis."
Both Mir and Rahmani, however, feel the debate has never included Afghans.
"Unfortunately the debate is among experts from donor countries and international multilateral organisations and it does not include Afghan voices from civil society and the business community," they say.
Both, it seems, would seem to have some grounds for their critique.
AFGHANISTAN: THE CHALLENGES FACING THE NEXT US PRESIDENTIAL ADMINISTRATION
EURASIA INSIGHT
october 21, 2008
A EurasiaNet commentary by Aunohita Mojumdar
During the US presidential campaign, both candidates have endorsed the idea of deploying more troops to Afghanistan to help the embattled country surmount its present stabilization challenges. While the candidates may think they are being generous with this offer, they would do well to take a hard look at the nature and details of the deployment, as well as how it would dovetail with a larger Afghan strategy that includes humanitarian relief, reconstruction programs and civil society development.
In Afghanistan there is no public demand for more troops, but rather growing scrutiny of military conduct. Indeed, an increasing number of Afghans seems to want the Afghan government to exert greater control over foreign troops in the country. Such a desire, of course, is not likely to be met. But it reflects building resentment among Afghans.
A major cause for the shifting attitudes is civilian casualties resulting from ongoing military operations. Foreign forces appear to be increasingly resorting to air strikes, resulting in a growing number of civilian deaths and injuries. Of the 1,500 civilian killed in 2007, the UN estimates that 629 were killed by pro-government elements, while 700 were attributed to anti-government elements. (The remainder could not be attributed conclusively to either side). Human Rights Watch noted in a September report that the number of civilian deaths "nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, with recent deadly airstrikes exacerbating the problem and fuelling a public backlash." Most airstrike casualties were connected to missions carried out under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom -- the codename for the campaign carried out by US-led coalition forces -- rather than the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force, the rights group found.
The Afghan parliament and government have echoed increasing public anger at civilian deaths. The anger has been exacerbated by the seeming reluctance of US forces to grapple with the issue.
Seven years into the reconstruction of the country, Afghans are less tolerant of the presence of the international community and less forgiving about the inefficiencies of aid delivery. Despite figures of double-digit growth, the percentage of the population living below the poverty line is rising. So is food insecurity. While internationals may lament the corruption in Afghanistan, a survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan showed that 92 percent of Afghans would like international aid to be funnelled through their own government, warts and all.
To many Afghans it is inconceivable that the petty corruption of local officials is considered a greater crime than the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid in salary and expenses to expatriates -- not all of whom demonstrate a commensurate skill and capacity -- or when millions of dollars are absorbed by the sub-contracting process.
Afghans are growing increasingly disenchanted with their perceived second-class status in their own country. Afghans are paid a fraction of the salaries given to international experts, and it is disgruntling for well-educated locals to see foreign aid workers frequenting restaurants and shops that they themselves cannot afford. The Taliban have skilfully exploited this rising discontent as a force multiplier in their favor, a fact documented effectively by the International Crisis Group in its July report on Taliban propaganda.
As Afghanistan prepares for its own election cycle -- presidential elections are scheduled for 2009, with parliamentary elections to follow in 2010 -- it is likely that this resentment will become a rallying point for politicians and administrators alike. Anti-foreigner jingoism stands to increase in the coming months, and politicians will likely pander to the conservative sensibilities of many Afghans. There have been growing indications of this from President Hamid Karzai’s administration. But the international community’s response remains unclear. Increasing talk of "Afghan-led" projects or "Afghan culture" suggest that many members of the Western coalition, tiring of the long slog, are willing to abandon quietly their limited support to basic human rights and rule of law issues.
Indeed, the last few years have seen increasing compromises on issues related to women’s rights, human rights and rule of law, while the international community pursues the chimera of "stability first."
The United States needs to undertake a hard-headed reassessment of the political realities in Afghanistan and address local concerns. Otherwise the incoming administration may find that its changes in strategy may be quickly overtaken by shifting realities on the ground.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 21, 2008 © Eurasianet
october 21, 2008
A EurasiaNet commentary by Aunohita Mojumdar
During the US presidential campaign, both candidates have endorsed the idea of deploying more troops to Afghanistan to help the embattled country surmount its present stabilization challenges. While the candidates may think they are being generous with this offer, they would do well to take a hard look at the nature and details of the deployment, as well as how it would dovetail with a larger Afghan strategy that includes humanitarian relief, reconstruction programs and civil society development.
In Afghanistan there is no public demand for more troops, but rather growing scrutiny of military conduct. Indeed, an increasing number of Afghans seems to want the Afghan government to exert greater control over foreign troops in the country. Such a desire, of course, is not likely to be met. But it reflects building resentment among Afghans.
A major cause for the shifting attitudes is civilian casualties resulting from ongoing military operations. Foreign forces appear to be increasingly resorting to air strikes, resulting in a growing number of civilian deaths and injuries. Of the 1,500 civilian killed in 2007, the UN estimates that 629 were killed by pro-government elements, while 700 were attributed to anti-government elements. (The remainder could not be attributed conclusively to either side). Human Rights Watch noted in a September report that the number of civilian deaths "nearly tripled from 2006 to 2007, with recent deadly airstrikes exacerbating the problem and fuelling a public backlash." Most airstrike casualties were connected to missions carried out under the auspices of Operation Enduring Freedom -- the codename for the campaign carried out by US-led coalition forces -- rather than the NATO-led International Security and Assistance Force, the rights group found.
The Afghan parliament and government have echoed increasing public anger at civilian deaths. The anger has been exacerbated by the seeming reluctance of US forces to grapple with the issue.
Seven years into the reconstruction of the country, Afghans are less tolerant of the presence of the international community and less forgiving about the inefficiencies of aid delivery. Despite figures of double-digit growth, the percentage of the population living below the poverty line is rising. So is food insecurity. While internationals may lament the corruption in Afghanistan, a survey by Integrity Watch Afghanistan showed that 92 percent of Afghans would like international aid to be funnelled through their own government, warts and all.
To many Afghans it is inconceivable that the petty corruption of local officials is considered a greater crime than the hundreds of thousands of dollars paid in salary and expenses to expatriates -- not all of whom demonstrate a commensurate skill and capacity -- or when millions of dollars are absorbed by the sub-contracting process.
Afghans are growing increasingly disenchanted with their perceived second-class status in their own country. Afghans are paid a fraction of the salaries given to international experts, and it is disgruntling for well-educated locals to see foreign aid workers frequenting restaurants and shops that they themselves cannot afford. The Taliban have skilfully exploited this rising discontent as a force multiplier in their favor, a fact documented effectively by the International Crisis Group in its July report on Taliban propaganda.
As Afghanistan prepares for its own election cycle -- presidential elections are scheduled for 2009, with parliamentary elections to follow in 2010 -- it is likely that this resentment will become a rallying point for politicians and administrators alike. Anti-foreigner jingoism stands to increase in the coming months, and politicians will likely pander to the conservative sensibilities of many Afghans. There have been growing indications of this from President Hamid Karzai’s administration. But the international community’s response remains unclear. Increasing talk of "Afghan-led" projects or "Afghan culture" suggest that many members of the Western coalition, tiring of the long slog, are willing to abandon quietly their limited support to basic human rights and rule of law issues.
Indeed, the last few years have seen increasing compromises on issues related to women’s rights, human rights and rule of law, while the international community pursues the chimera of "stability first."
The United States needs to undertake a hard-headed reassessment of the political realities in Afghanistan and address local concerns. Otherwise the incoming administration may find that its changes in strategy may be quickly overtaken by shifting realities on the ground.
Editor's Note: Aunohita Mojumdar is an Indian freelance journalist based in Kabul. She has reported on the South Asian region for the past 18 years.
Posted October 21, 2008 © Eurasianet
LEADER ARTICLE: Between Two Elections
Times of India
20 Oct 2008, Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL: Ahead of the US presidential polls Afghanistan is getting a renewed share of attention in Washington as the presidential candidates vie to prove their credentials in foreign and domestic policy. An 'Afghan strategy' has become a necessary part of the electoral paraphernalia as attention, which had once shifted from the Afghan to the Iraq theatre, returns.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, the attention is largely occasioned by the spiralling insecurity which is taking a larger toll of lives including that of American soldiers than at any time since 2001. The UN recorded a total of 1,445 civilian deaths between January and August 31 this year, an increase of over 39 per cent over last year. Combined with increasing public disenchantment, non-delivery of basic services and increasing civilian casualties as a result of military operations, this has led to some soul-searching for answers amongst members of the international community with varying assessments.
However, whatever the opinion of the members of the western alliance, the reality is that it is America which dominates just by the sheer size of its support - both military and aid. Currently the US contributes more than 20,000 of the 50,700 troops for the NATO-led ISAF command and approximately another 13,000 under the US-led Coalition Forces.
In Afghanistan, it dominates western economic, political and security policies towards the country and US-centric financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF also play a determining role. Even where other western countries differ, this difference is usually not articulated because of the difficulties of securing enough support within the western coalition that could actually influence policy. In the foreseeable future this US dominance is likely to continue not least because of the considerable interests US has in the region.
9/11 and the ensuing 'war against terror' provided the US with the first foothold in terms of military and political bases in the region, not just in Afghanistan but also Central Asia. Currently the US is well positioned to pursue any military and political objectives in Iran and Pakistan from Afghanistan and its bases in Central Asia have been a source of considerable pressure and irritation for Russia. US interests in the energy resources of the region will also determine the direction of the growth of energy routes in the future which will be of considerable relevance to India.
Currently both the US presidential candidates support an increase in troop strength in Afghanistan. Though there is less detail about how exactly this 'surge' will play itself out, it is likely that future operations will see an increasing focus on Pakistan. Hawks in the Indian establishment may be gleeful about the cross-border strikes into Pakistan, but there is an absence of reasoned analysis. While it might suit India to let lie, institutionalisation of unilateral cross-border intrusions by inter- national military forces in the region has long-term implications for Indian security.
From the US presidential debates there is not much detail about the possible shift in American policy towards Afghanistan post-elections. Certainly the current presidential race suggests a limited awareness of realities on the ground, an ignorance whose extreme form was evident in the gaffe of the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who described Afghanistan as a "neighbouring country" of the US.
It is US officials, both military and adminis-trative, who have given more indicators of change in US policy though it is still too early to judge whether talk of change is being used more as a device to stem the tide of despondency, especially amidst partners in the military coalition. Recent weeks have seen an increasing number of US' western partners in Afghanistan terming Afghanistan a battle that cannot be won, but must be managed, amidst renewed signals of "talks with the Taliban".
While it has been clear that a pure military solution could never provide a complete solution, the response to the proposed negotiated settlement with the insurgents does not appear to have been well thought out. The international community seems content to let the Afghans take the lead on the political negotiations. While the
20 Oct 2008, Aunohita Mojumdar
KABUL: Ahead of the US presidential polls Afghanistan is getting a renewed share of attention in Washington as the presidential candidates vie to prove their credentials in foreign and domestic policy. An 'Afghan strategy' has become a necessary part of the electoral paraphernalia as attention, which had once shifted from the Afghan to the Iraq theatre, returns.
Unfortunately for Afghanistan, the attention is largely occasioned by the spiralling insecurity which is taking a larger toll of lives including that of American soldiers than at any time since 2001. The UN recorded a total of 1,445 civilian deaths between January and August 31 this year, an increase of over 39 per cent over last year. Combined with increasing public disenchantment, non-delivery of basic services and increasing civilian casualties as a result of military operations, this has led to some soul-searching for answers amongst members of the international community with varying assessments.
However, whatever the opinion of the members of the western alliance, the reality is that it is America which dominates just by the sheer size of its support - both military and aid. Currently the US contributes more than 20,000 of the 50,700 troops for the NATO-led ISAF command and approximately another 13,000 under the US-led Coalition Forces.
In Afghanistan, it dominates western economic, political and security policies towards the country and US-centric financial institutions like the World Bank and the IMF also play a determining role. Even where other western countries differ, this difference is usually not articulated because of the difficulties of securing enough support within the western coalition that could actually influence policy. In the foreseeable future this US dominance is likely to continue not least because of the considerable interests US has in the region.
9/11 and the ensuing 'war against terror' provided the US with the first foothold in terms of military and political bases in the region, not just in Afghanistan but also Central Asia. Currently the US is well positioned to pursue any military and political objectives in Iran and Pakistan from Afghanistan and its bases in Central Asia have been a source of considerable pressure and irritation for Russia. US interests in the energy resources of the region will also determine the direction of the growth of energy routes in the future which will be of considerable relevance to India.
Currently both the US presidential candidates support an increase in troop strength in Afghanistan. Though there is less detail about how exactly this 'surge' will play itself out, it is likely that future operations will see an increasing focus on Pakistan. Hawks in the Indian establishment may be gleeful about the cross-border strikes into Pakistan, but there is an absence of reasoned analysis. While it might suit India to let lie, institutionalisation of unilateral cross-border intrusions by inter- national military forces in the region has long-term implications for Indian security.
From the US presidential debates there is not much detail about the possible shift in American policy towards Afghanistan post-elections. Certainly the current presidential race suggests a limited awareness of realities on the ground, an ignorance whose extreme form was evident in the gaffe of the Republican vice-presidential candidate, Sarah Palin, who described Afghanistan as a "neighbouring country" of the US.
It is US officials, both military and adminis-trative, who have given more indicators of change in US policy though it is still too early to judge whether talk of change is being used more as a device to stem the tide of despondency, especially amidst partners in the military coalition. Recent weeks have seen an increasing number of US' western partners in Afghanistan terming Afghanistan a battle that cannot be won, but must be managed, amidst renewed signals of "talks with the Taliban".
While it has been clear that a pure military solution could never provide a complete solution, the response to the proposed negotiated settlement with the insurgents does not appear to have been well thought out. The international community seems content to let the Afghans take the lead on the political negotiations. While the