Afghanistan News February 20, 2000

February 20, 2000

Britain urged to grant asylum to Afghan airliners passengers
ISLAMABAD (NNI): A number of women rights organizations have asked Britain to grant political asylum to the passengers of the Afghan Airliner which was hijacked on February 6, reports VOA.
The demand was made by the Women Council and Committee for elimination of gender discrimination in Afghanistan in a letter to the British Home Secretary.
The letter says that majority of the asylum seekers is women and if they return to Afghanistan, they may possibly be tried. The letter has criticized Taliban for trampling women rights. Seventy three passengers of the hijacked Afghan Airliner have returned to their country whereas seventy others have requested political asylum in Britain.

79 Afghan ex-hostages seek UK asylum
LONDON, Feb. 19 (UPI) -- Seventy-nine former hostages from a hijacked Afghan airliner have applied for asylum in Britain and another 14 people accused of aiding the Feb. 6 takeover of the plane over Afghanistan are in police custody, British officials said Saturday.
A Home Office spokesman told United Press International the asylum seekers include 37 children and seven women.All are now housed in Tinsley House immigration detention center in south London, where they would await a decision by Home Secretary Jack Straw, he said.
Another 73 passengers on board the aircraft flew home on Feb. 14. Police said the cost of dealing with the hostage drama could exceed $5.7 million.
Diplomats said Britain was still in negotiation with several countries neighboring Afghanistan to persuade them to take some of the asylum seekers. Pakistani officials in Islamabad earlier said the country would not admit any of the Afghans.
"We do not accept asylum seekers from a third country, and we have conveyed our policy to the British," said Foreign Ministry spokesman Tarique Altaf said in Islamabad Thursday.
Altaf told UPI that the British government had asked Pakistan to accept some of those seeking asylum in Britain, "but we told them that we cannot do so."
On Feb. 6, several armed gunmen hijacked a domestic Ariana airlines flight soon after it took off from the Afghan capital, Kabul, for the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif.
After brief stopovers in two central Asian cities and Moscow, the flight landed in London, where half the passengers applied for political asylum soon after the gunmen surrendered.
Police initially arrested 22 men but later released eight after an investigation.
The 14 men, aged between 18 and 41, have been charged with offenses related to hijack and complicity with the gunmen.
British Home Secretary Jack Straw says Britain is finding it difficult to decide what to do with the asylum seekers.
According to Straw, the Chicago convention on hijacking forbids granting them political asylum, and doing so may encourage others to hijack planes and fly straight to Britain. But he said the political situation in Afghanistan, which is ruled by a harsh Islamic regime of armed militiamen, prevents Britain from summarily dismissing the passengers' requests for asylum.
The mysterious circumstances surrounding the hijacking also make it difficult for the British authorities to take a definite position on the issue.
Freed hostages said the hijackers and some passengers belonged to one large family. Some of the returning hostages told journalists in the Afghan capital that while most passengers cowered in fear after the hijacking, dozens of others -- many of them women and children -- laughed, tossed aside their veils and were given the choicest available food and drink by their apparent captors.

Taliban deny hijacked plane crew wants asylum in Britain
ISLAMABAD (NNI): The ruling Taliban in Afghanistan have denied that the crew of the hijacked Afghan Ariana Airliner has sought political asylum in Britain.
"They have not sought political asylum. We are in constant touch with them. I talked to them twice and they told me they are ready to return whenever are allowed to take the plane to Afghanistan. They met the officials of Civil Aviation Authority in London to seek permission for the purpose", said Deputy Chief of the Afghan Ariana Airlines, Qari Rehmatullah Rehmat in an interview with the VOA.
He said that the plane is still parked at Stansted airport. He said that the pilots were earlier in police protective custody. "The Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan has been in constant touch with the British High Commission in Islamabad, UN Development Programme, Civil Aviation Ministry in London and Insurance Company so that the crew of the Afghan Airliner could be treated under international laws and principles", Rehmatullah. said. They have now been shifted to a hotel having telephone and fax facilities.
The Taliban official said that a pilot and flight engineer had been kept under observation. They were not provided telephone and fax facilities. Their movement had also been restricted. They could not wear even their own dress nor were allowed access to their own luggage. They had been provided with prisoners like dresses. "We complained over it and the crew members have now been shifted to a hotel", he added.

Taliban, U.S. Firm Bring Digital Phones to Afghans
Sunday, February 20, 2000
KABUL (Reuters) - The ruling Taliban movement and a U.S. telecoms company have set up Afghanistan's first international digital telephone system, Taliban officials said on Sunday.
``This is the first time that such a facility has been established (in Afghanistan),'' Taliban deputy communications minister Allah Dad Tayeeb told Reuters.
Taliban officials said the joint venture was able to go ahead despite U.S. sanctions against Afghanistan because the U.S. partner, Telephone Systems International (TSI), had made the investment before the sanctions were imposed.
Around 500 phone lines have been set up in the southern town of Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital, where 1,500 more lines will be installed in the future, Taliban officials said.
Some 30 lines have been distributed to the United Nations, non-governmental organizations and journalists working for foreign news organizations in the capital Kabul.
Customers can now make calls abroad directly from their home or office via the digital landline network. International calls cost between $1.00 and $1.95 a minute, and there is a $30 monthly line rental.
The project, owned 20 percent by the Taliban and 80 percent by the New Jersey-based TSI, will soon be extended to other major Afghan cities, officials said.
Last month TSI provided landlines, after a seven-year break, for international callers telephoning Afghanistan, but only through an operator. People in Afghanistan had to use satellite phones to call outside the war-ravaged country.
The multi-million dollar deal, agreed last summer, is intended to include mobile phones, e-mail and the Internet and the project will be completed in four to five months.
The officials said TSI could not implement the project on time because of problems related to the U.S. ban on American companies investing in Taliban-held areas.
Washington imposed the ban in retaliation for the Taliban's refusal to hand over Saudi dissident Osama bin Laden, who the U.S. wants to put on trial on charges of masterminding the August 1998 bombing of its embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, killing over 200 people.
Bin Laden denies the charges and the Taliban says it will not ask him to leave Afghanistan against his will because he is a guest.

pakistan asked to hold strategic dialogue with iran
islamabad, feb. 19, irna -- criticizing pakistan's policy on afghanistan, a famous pakistani journalist on friday said islamabad's support for taliban created ethnic polarization in afghanistan. delivering a lecture at the institute of strategic studies here, ahmad rashid said taliban are 'narrow-minded people,' not even fully representing the pushtoons. in a lecture given in the pakistani institute of strategic studies he referred to the recent uprising of pushtoon tribes in eastern afghanistan against taliban. he said the shiite-sunni conflict in afghanistan was the outcome of pakistani madrassa's support for taliban. ahmad rashid said pakistan always tried to legitimize the taliban government and it never called for a ceasefire in afghanistan.
saying that pakistan had isolated itself on international level on account of its faulty policy regarding taliban, the journalist said, turkey and china were both opposing pakistan's support for taliban. ahmad rashid asked islamabad to initiate a strategic dialogue with tehran, regarding the afghan problem. he said pakistan should force taliban to initiate talks with the northern alliance. also present on the occasion, another pakistani journalist, nasim zehra said saudi arabia withdrew its recognition of taliban when the taliban leader, mulla omar denied to hand over osama bin laden to a joint pakistani-saudi delegation in 1997. ah/md/ks end ::irna 19/02/2000 09:44

afghan figures for joint un-oic efforts to solve problem
islamabad, feb. 19, irna -- several afghan personalities have called for joint efforts of the united nations and oic 'if they really wanted a negotiated settlement of the afghan conflict.' shahzada masood, former secretary of the council of understanding and national unity of afghanistan said: "since long whenever, the un initiated efforts for resolving the conflict, the oic also initiated similar steps." he said the afghans respected the oic but 'since invasion of the former soviet union, some of the extremists had misguided the oic. he said officials of the un and the oic must recognize importance of loya jirga and self-determination right of the afghan people. haji badshah khan zadran, a tribal elder from eastern paktya province of afghanistan said there was a conflict in the agendas of the united nations and the oic. he said that the oic was helpless before the hardliners among the warring afghan sides. abdul qadir imami, an elder of ghori clan and a former minister of afghanistan said the un and the oic needed to consider the importance of former king, zahir shah. he also called for convening loya jirga. ah/md/ks end ::irna 19/02/2000 09:31

Taliban trying to convince Europe for lifting sanctions
ISLAMABAD (NNI): A Taliban delegation headed by Deputy Foreign Minister, Abdul Rehman Zahid has held threadbare discussion with the authorities of Germany, Switzerland, France, Denmark, Holland and Belgium in a bid to find a way for lifting UN sanctions against Afghanistan.
"We held threadbare discussions with the officials of these countries. They had some reservations about the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan and we are convinced that we have removed their misunderstanding and reservations", Taliban Deputy Foreign Minister Abdul Rehman Zahid told the BBC in an interview.
He said that they have assured them that the West has been provided with false and baseless information about Islamic Emirates of Afghanistan. "We invited them to visit Afghanistan to personally know the situation and ground realities". He said that a number of countries have accepted to visit Afghanistan to closely watch the situation and issues discussed with them.
The minister said the European countries have pledged to continue their humanitarian assistance to Afghanistan in health, agriculture and mine sweeping sectors. Zahid said that these countries also promised to enhance the assistance.

Iran waging quiet war on drug traders
Mostly solo effort may help to ease isolation from West - 02/20/2000
By Drusilla Menaker / Special Contributor to The Dallas Morning News
NEAR THE IRANIAN-AFGHANI BORDER - In these harsh mountains, Iran is waging an aggressive but largely unrecognized war against drug trafficking that has raised a bulwark on a major transit route to the West.
Iranian agents are responsible for 90 percent of all opium seizures worldwide, and 10 percent of all heroin interceptions, according to United Nations statistics. In the process, nearly 3,000 Iranian agents have been killed during the last 15 years, more than 100 in 1999, when 36 were tortured and executed in one November clash.
It is a moral crusade for the Islamic republic, Iran's top drug fighters say, one that the country has undertaken alone during years of diplomatic isolation from the West - even though Europe is the prime beneficiary of the Iranian interdiction.
Now, with the opening of a U.N. Drug Control Program bureau in Tehran and donations from European countries, the battle against narcotics-smuggling is creating a politically neutral bridge between the West and the reform-oriented government of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami.
"If Iran seizes more, less is going to Europe," said Antonio Mazzitelli, transferred from Colombia to direct the U.N. effort. "The two sides have discovered this issue offers benefits to all."
The smugglers cross the unpopulated border zone from Afghanistan and Pakistan, picking among countless trails through forbidding peaks and ravines. The terrain camouflages their caravans of four-wheel-drive vehicles with extended-range gas tanks, motorcycles, camels and couriers on foot. Felt shoes are sometimes used to muffle the step of the camels, who may first be addicted to opium in Iran so they will more willingly make the trip back.
Well-armed smugglers
The traffickers, many tied into the complex tribal web that spans the border, are armed with Stinger missiles to use against surveillance helicopters, rocket launchers, machine guns, radio communications and cases of cash for bribes. They head into Iran's desert interior for rendezvous with co-conspirators who will carry the drugs toward Turkey to feed into European crime networks or to ports along the Persian Gulf.
A portion of the narcotics stays in Iran, where the Islamic government has almost wiped out opium production since the revolution, according to the U.N. and other outside evaluators. Opium smoking is a regional tradition, but abuse increasingly involves heroin, creating an estimated 1.2 million Iranian addicts.
Advocates for Iran's anti-narcotics efforts note that traffickers, with an eye on exponentially higher profits from European sales, would be willing to ensure that no drugs "leak" into Iran if the authorities would look the other way to let smugglers pass.
However, although outgunned and out-financed in their pursuit of an unpredictable enemy through inaccessible, arid terrain where temperatures soar over 120 degrees, Iran's drug fighters seem remarkably committed and, the U.N. and European diplomats say, uncorrupted.
"We do feel alone," said Mohammed Fallah, head of Iran's anti-narcotics effort. "Although most of the drugs trafficked through our country are aimed at Europe or other countries, most of the load is shouldered by us alone.
"The question is for how long we can carry on with our struggle, considering our human and material losses," he said. "Just saying 'Bravo!' and 'Well done!' does not do the job."
Long border to watch
Iran has a 550-mile border with Afghanistan, which produced an estimated 4,200 tons of opium in 1999, up at least 100 percent from the year before, by U.N. estimates. In that war-ravaged country, opium is the most secure cash crop for farmers. The Islamic extremist Taliban regime uses smuggling as a major revenue producer, with no apparent religious compunction against supplying drugs to those it views as infidels, Mr. Mazzitelli said.
The Taliban Sunni Muslims, hostile to the Shiite Muslims of Iran, are believed to be supported by Pakistan. Pakistan and Iran share another 400 miles of porous border, poorly patrolled by Pakistani authorities and used for smuggling opium refined as morphine and heroin.
With little access to cutting-edge interdiction techniques, the Iranians have employed home-grown tactics. They erect concrete blockades, 20 feet high and 450 feet long, across the smugglers' favored gullies. They also dig trenches to impede flat-land crossings and build remote towers for surveying the desert.
"Smugglers used to be able to pass up to 60 vehicles across with no problem," said Gen. Ali Shafie, head of the police anti-narcotic division. "They were heavily armed and they chose the route themselves. Now [by blocking ravines] we have guided them to some routes we can watch and reduced the amount they can carry by vehicles."
Using camels instead, in one recent incident Gen. Shafie described as representative, a caravan of 60 animals was driven from Afghanistan across the border in the pitch black to reach the mountain heights at dawn. Acting on a tip, Iranian agents tracked the convoy before surrounding it on a plain and buzzing the camels with helicopters to scatter them. The ensuing shootout left five smugglers dead and two in custody; agents seized 3 metric tons of opium and 1,500 tons of morphine.
Move for assistance
During the first half of 1999, agents - there are more than 20,000 stationed along the border alone - seized 109 tons of opium, 10 tons of hashish, 4,420 pounds of heroin and 14,500 pounds of morphine, U.N. statistics show. A quarter of the seizures involved armed conflicts with traffickers.
Despite such successes, Gen. Shafie estimated, as little as 20 percent of the drug traffic is stopped.
To attract more help and signal new openness to international cooperation, Iranian authorities recently escorted a half-dozen European ambassadors and several Western journalists to the usually top-security border region. In carefully nursed, pre-1979 U.S.-made helicopters used to patrol for smugglers, visitors were flown over mountainside fortifications, burned-out vehicles littering desolate ridges and desert shrines to "martyred" agents.
In the provincial capital of Zahedan, an inspection was permitted at a prison with 3,700 inmates from drug offenses, 470 of them foreigners, mostly Afghanis, and 160 women, generally used as carriers by relatives and abandoned after arrest.
British Ambassador Nick Brown, who led the diplomatic delegation, classified anti-narcotics efforts as part of a "very important political dialogue" between Iran and the European Union.
Aid is on way
Britain, which recently lifted a 20-year ban on exporting security equipment to Iran, has agreed to provide $700,000 for bullet-proof vests and night vision equipment. France is providing drug-sniffing dogs trained to avoid touching people, which many Muslims consider offensive.
The U.N. Drug Control Program last year designed a $13 million European-funded plan. Requests from the Iranians, who say they spend $800 million annually against drug smuggling, range from bulldozers to advanced medical help for paralyzed officers.
The United States, with no diplomatic relations with Iran, has not participated. In December 1998, however, Washington did drop Iran from a list of countries considered major producers or transit routes for illicit drugs bound for the United States.
Iranian interdiction efforts have pushed smugglers to open new channels through the former Soviet Union, Mr. Mazzitelli said. Unable to curb Afghani opium production, the U.N. strategy is to create a "security belt" around that country, but finds law enforcement weak in the central Asian republics, he said.
The drug networks have responded to Iranian enforcement efforts by putting more processing plants in Afghanistan and Pakistan to turn opium to morphine and heroin, which is easier to conceal and less bulky to transport, Mr. Mazzitelli said.
This, in turn, has flooded Iran with the harder drugs, luring younger users from the traditional opium, which is becoming more expensive.
Addiction in Iran
Iran has 1.2 million addicts among its 62 million people, and perhaps 800,000 "casual users," according to official estimates. In the first AIDS survey last year, health workers found that 1.4 percent of the drug users were HIV positive, a result of needle-sharing.
"Everybody knows we have this [drug] problem, but it is the extent that no one knows," said Marzieh Seddighi, a parliament member from Mashaad near the Afghani border who founded one of the new civic organizations encouraged by President Khatami to fight narcotics abuse.
Drug abuse, seemingly at odds with a strict Muslim society that rejects alcohol and anything else that distances a person from God, stems from the social use of opium customary for centuries in the region. Availability coupled with a population that is 70 percent under 30 and faces unemployment, economic frustration and social stresses similar to those felt worldwide have created vulnerability, Mrs. Seddighi said.
Narcotics addiction and trafficking are concerns Iran and the West can share, whatever their other differences, said Mohammed Amier Khizi, a veteran Iranian diplomat.
"This is an area where we have the same ideas, the same feelings, the same strategy," he said.
Drusilla Menaker is a free-lance journalist based in Cairo and a regular contributor to The Dallas Morning News.

Iran Reformists Appear To Lead Vote - The Associated Press, Sun 20 Feb 2000
TEHRAN, Iran (AP) — Iranians yearning for more social and political freedoms appeared to give reformers a commanding lead in parliamentary elections, rejecting the hard-liners' 21-year monopoly over lawmaking, partial results showed Sunday.
Results were out for 172 of the 290 parliamentary seats, and reformist candidates had an overwhelming lead, state media reported.
With 22 million votes counted from 32 million cast, the Islamic Republic News Agency said 67 percent of the winners were reformists, 25 percent were conservatives and the rest independents. It did not give a numerical breakdown.
Attention is now focused on Tehran, a prestigious constituency where several high-profile candidates are running. The first results from the capital, which has 30 seats in Majlis — or Parliament — could be known later Sunday.
The Interior Ministry, which is in charge of the elections, will only announce the final results when they become known later this week. Elections are not run on party lines and winners are only listed by name, making it difficult to pinpoint affiliations of lesser-known candidates.
The election result is a continuation of the reformist wave that has swept Iran since the May 1997 election of President Mohammad Khatami. A moderate Shiite cleric, the 56-year-old president has captured the hearts of the young with his efforts to widen individual freedoms, free the press, reduce the clergy's interference in the government, the judiciary and people's lives.
Khatami wants to change Iran's image as a fundamentalist nation and end its international isolation, but like nearly every politician in the country, he wants to work under an Islamic system.
Most of the results so far have come from the provinces, and the count has been slowed by hand counting of the ballots. Results from Tehran were expected to further tilt the balance in favor of reformers because the capital is considered less conservative than many outer provinces.
The new Parliament will convene in June. If trends continue, as is likely, it would be the first time the Parliament would be free of hard-line domination since the 1979 Islamic revolution brought the clergy to power.
Despite the expected victory in Parliament, hard-liners continue to wield considerable powers.
The Guardian Council, 12 clerics and lawyers, must approve all bills passed by Parliament. And Khamenei, the supreme leader, has the final word. He heads the armed forces, judiciary, and state-run radio and television.