March 12, 1999

Bureaucratic lethargy yet to allow exports via Torkhum
Frontier Post
3-12-99
PESHAWAR - Despite a crystal clear announcement by the Finance Ministry with regard to land route trade with Afghanistan, the bureaucratic lethargy is yet to allow the export of non-rebate items via Torkhum. The local exporters are worried about the credibility of the government policies as the non-implementation of the finance minister's instructions have created unrest among the lawful traders earning the much-needed foreign currency for the government. The member, executive committee of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI), and the members of the All-Pakistan Commercial Exporters Association, Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, Syed Kaleem Sherazi and Mazhar-ul-Haq while talking to the Frontier Post disclosed that a unanimous resolution had been passed in the executive committee meeting of the SCCI that recommending export in dollar rebate.
"We have recommended these measures mainly because rebate is being granted on the export to Central Asian States via Quetta, Balochistan and Iran," they pleaded, adding that the government policy had absolutely changed with regard to export through Torkhum and they did not allow rebate to the local exporters. They were of the view that such policy was tantamount to step-motherly treatment with the NWFP. They said that some bureaucrats wanted to create difficulties for the government. They said that the policies formulated for the increasing of export had been in fact discouraging the exporters, particularly those dealing with Afghanistan. They opined that the government should leash such bureaucrats who were the real impediment in the way of economic development and national export. They pointed out that the federal finance ministry should take action against those officials who were creating hurdles in the implementation of the government policies. They said that departmental action against the responsible officials be taken to remove unrest among the local exporters. They were surprised on the negative action over the policy announcement of the federal finance minister and said that the refund of sales tax facilities which were earlier available to the traders had been withdrawn.
The discontinuation of this facility, they said would discourage the Punjab exporters mostly from Lahore and Gujranwala to carry out their export through Balochistan-Iran routes. Referring to the apprehensions expressed by the official circles claiming that export through Torkhum was paper export only, they termed these concerns unfounded and imaginary." They cannot cite even a single example that can substantiate the allegation of paper export to Afghanistan," they claimed, adding that the incident in Quetta wherein the collector customs was placed under suspension had never happened in the NWFP. They appealed to the concerned quarters to allow rebate on export though dollars and demanded that the facility of duty drawback and sales tax refund be restored to remove the genuine difficulties being faced by the local exporters. It is intriguing to note that while the officials have been creating difficulties in the regular export to Afghanistan through land route business, the unscrupulous elements in league with the border force and concerned excise officials smuggle out commodities including ghee, atta and wheat to Afghanistan.
The official report published sometime ago itself indicated that more than 100 trucks carrying 300000 tons of wheat cross the Durand line every day. According to independent sources, the aggregate impact of massive smuggling to Afghanistan is in the range of billion. The government can generate additional revenue in the tune of 1.5 billion annually if the rampant smuggling across the border is checked and regular export through genuine exporters flourishes.
Taliban have created "apartheid system" for women: UN report
GENEVA, March 12 (AFP) - The ruling Taliban in Afghanistan have set up an apartheid system of intolerance and discrimination with regard to women, a United Nations report said Thursday.
"It is tantamount to veritable apartheid against women, as women, and on the basis of specious interpretations of Islam," the UN special rapporteur on religious intolerance, Abdelfattah Amor, said.
The comparison between Taliban rule and the former South African system of racial segregation was included in a report for the UN human rights commission which begins meeting in Geneva on March 22.
Amor referred to rules banning women from most work and education, or travelling with a man from outside the immediate family, as well as obliging them to wear all-concealing garments in public.
He accused the Taliban of osbcurantism, the product of religious extremism combining religon and politics in the interests of power.
This "excludes women from society and consigns them to a grey area where they enjoy neither citizenship nor rights and where their submission to the all-powerful man in the name of Allah is the order of the day," he said.
"The special rapporteur believes that the maintenance, openly and publicly, of an apartheid policy of this nature is abnormal, from the standpoint of human rights," Amor said.
U.N. reports progress at Afghan peace talks
11:53 a.m. Mar 12, 1999 Eastern
By Mike Collett-White
ASHGABAT, March 12 (Reuters) - Afghanistan's warring parties reached agreement on ``important points'' at peace talks in the Turkmen capital Ashgabat, the U.N. representative at the talks said on Friday.
``There have been important points that have been agreed,'' Andrew Tesoriere, acting head of the United Nations Special Mission for Afghanistan, told a news briefing.
Underlining the sensitivity of the secret discussions, which were in a second day, Tesoriere said he could give no details about the content of the talks or either side's stance.
``We are at a moment of delicacy,'' he said.
``The details of the discussions are confidential but the two sides remain determined to work towards concrete results,'' said a statement released by the two sides through the United Nations.
The Ashgabat talks, held under U.N. auspices and aimed at ending Afghanistan's prolonged civil war, are the second round in as many months between senior representatives of the ruling Islamic Taleban militia and the northern-based opposition alliance.
The Taleban delegation is led by Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil, while Mohammad Younus Qanouni heads the opposition team.
Tesoriere said both sides were determined to reach some kind of deal by the time they finished and described the atmosphere as good.
``The talks have been characterised, as yesterday, by frankness, good humour, but they have also been very focused and frank,'' he said.
At a photo-opportunity On Thursday morning, the two delegations sat opposite each other and discussed the weather, smiling and exchanging jokes as they spoke.
Tesoriere said both delegations had consulted their respective leaderships on points raised during the talks.
An agenda had been set, providing the framework for discussions, but delegates were not sticking to it rigidly.
``The two parties are showing a willingness to be flexible and the discussion is not rigidly bolted to any particular discussion at one moment of time,'' Tesoriere said.
The talks are being held in the secluded Botanical Gardens complex in Ashgabat and have involved full meetings around a single table and smaller meetings in separate rooms.
They were scheduled to resume at 9 p.m. (1600 GMT) on Friday and again on Saturday at 9 a.m. (0400 GMT).
U.N. special envoy to Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi was expected to visit Ashgabat on March 18 and 19, Tesoriere said.
Brahimi last week urged both sides to put an end to the bloodshed, an appeal many analysts feared would fall on deaf ears given deep-rooted suspicions between the factions, which are mainly formed along ethnic lines.
 
Man Publicly Beaten in Kabul
Friday, March 12, 1999; 10:38 a.m. EST
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- A young man found guilty of fornication writhed and screamed Friday as Taliban soldiers publicly beat him 100 times with a leather strap in Kabul, witnesses said.
It was the latest example of Islamic justice by Afghanistan's ruling Taliban religious army, which executes murderers in public, cuts off the limbs of thieves and beats lesser offenders.
The woman in the case, identified only as Farzana, was spared a similar beating because she was nine months pregnant. However Qari Mohammed Sadiq, a Taliban spokesman, said she will also receive 100 lashes after the baby is born.
The punishment was a public beating because both were unmarried. Had they been married, Sadiq said the couple would have been stoned to death in keeping with strict Islamic injunctions.
Sadiq said couple will either marry after the baby is born ``or we will put him in the orphanage.''
Three Taliban soldiers carrying automatic rifles brought Saeed Sarwar in chains to the Amani High School grounds, opposite the presidential palace in the heart of Kabul. Witnesses said he took the first 30 lashes stoically, but as the beating continued he cried out in pain.
After the punishment, an Islamic cleric Mullah Sanaullah extolled the virtues of the Taliban's Islamic society, which now controls 90 percent of the country.
Under Taliban rule, women must cover their face and wear an all-enveloping long sheath called a burqua, cannot work outside the home and cannot leave the home unless accompanied by a male relative. Girls are not allowed to go to school and men must grow beards and pray at the mosque.
Sanaullah, however, praised the purity of the Taliban's Islamic society, and used President Clinton's affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky as an example of western moral corruption.
``The society of Europe and America is barbaric,'' he said. ``Clinton is the president of a superpower and you see the kind of corrupt society they have.''
The Taliban are fighting their opponents on several battlefields in northern Afghanistan.
U.N. Returning to Afghanistan
Friday, March 12, 1999; 12:37 p.m. EST
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The United Nations is returning some of its international staff to Afghanistan after a seven-month absence sparked by the killings of three U.N. staffers in July and August.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard on Friday cited progress in the Taliban investigations into the deaths as well as evidence of Taliban efforts to address U.N. security concerns in key cities such as the capital Kabul, Herat, Jalalabad and Kandahar.
``The United Nations will continue to monitor closely the situation in Afghanistan as a basis for its continued presence in the country,'' Eckhard said.
U.N. officials have said the gradual return would probably focus on U.N. humanitarian, human rights and political staff.
The United Nations withdrew its international staff from Afghanistan on Aug. 22, a day after an Italian U.N. military adviser was shot and killed in the Afghan capital, Kabul.
The United Nations had conditioned its return on security guarantees and proof from Afghanistan's Taliban militia that they are making progress on their investigations into the slaying and two other U.N. workers killed in July.
Afghan man lashied for adultery
3-12-99
An Afghan man has been publicly given one hundred lashes in the capital, Kabul, for adultery.
The lashes were adminstered in front of a crowd of thousands at the football ground of the Amani High school in central kabul.
The woman with whom he is accused of committing adultery is pregnant and Taleban officials said she will be lashed forty days after giving birth, .
Both the man and woman were unmarried.
Officials said had either been married, they would have ben stoned to death for adultery.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
 
Afghan political activist attacked in Pakistan
3-12-99
The two sons of a leading political activist, Haji Sarferazhkan Rahimi, have been shot dead in the Pakistani city of Peshawar in an attack by unidentified men.
Mr Rahimi himself was injured in the attack in the Hayatabad district of the city late on Thursday.
Mr Rahimi is a member of the Afghan Council of Understanding formed by Afghan intellectuals trying to find a solution to the Afghan conflict through peaceful means.
There have been a number of such attacks last year in Peshawar which the police have attributed to personal feuds between Afghans but some obeservers say they are politically motivated.
From the newsroom of the BBC World Service
 
UN concerned at plan to move Afghan refugees
The News: Jang
3-12-99
The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) on Thursday expressed concern over a plan to restrict Afghan refugees to camps in NWFP. "It will be very painful and increase uncertainty among the refugees, particularly women and children," Marie France Sevestre, the head of the commissioner's sub-office in Peshawar, told Reuters. NWFP Chief Minister Sardar Mehtab said that his government planned to shift an estimated one million Afghan refugees from cities, towns and villages to the camps. "Our people have suffered enough.
We can't subject them to further punishment," Mehtab told reporters. A government official said the operation was to begin from Tuesday, but there were indications that preparations would not be ready for some time. The UNHCR, which already looks after an estimated 950,000 Afghan refugees in camps in the province, said it had not been informed of the government's decision. "We have not been officially informed of the event," Sevestre said.