Afghanistan News October 19, 2003

October 19, 2003

Canada Urges Others to Join Afghan Peacekeeping
KABUL (Reuters) - Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien urged other countries on Saturday to send troops to expand a NATO-led peacekeeping force in Afghanistan, but said Canada would not itself be able to send more soldiers. With around 1,900 soldiers, Canada already has the single largest contingent in the 5,000-strong, 30-nation International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), which was sent to police Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

The U.N. voted last week to endorse an expansion of ISAF outside the capital, but NATO has so far struggled to find many nations willing to send more troops to support such a move. Chretien, on a one-day visit to Kabul to meet his troops and hold talks with President Hamid Karzai, said Canada would continue to concentrate on peacekeeping in the capital.

But in response to a question at a news conference with Karzai, he said he would not rule out sending Canadian troops to other parts of Afghanistan if other countries sent more troops.

"If more troops are coming, we don't say no to split our troops -- but we will not neglect Kabul," he said. "Later needs might be different, but the needs of today are that we have to concentrate on Kabul." "We are supporting the expansion of ISAF, and we will work to induce and convince other nations to send troops here, but we are not planning to send more troops at this stage," he said.

The German parliament is expected to vote next week on a proposal to send several hundred troops to the relatively peaceful northern province of Kunduz, but no other nations have so far agreed to send significant numbers of soldiers.

The Afghan government, the U.N. and aid agencies say an expansion of ISAF outside Kabul is vital to support the reconstruction of Afghanistan after two decades of war, and ahead of elections planned for next year.

Earlier Chretien visited Canadian forces based in the southwestern part of the war-torn capital, and said Canada would continue to help Afghanistan and prevent it from again becoming a "victim of terrorism and extremism."

He also paid tribute to the price his troops had already paid, after two Canadian soldiers died in a mine blast early this month not far from their base. Canadian troops arrived in August on a one-year attachment to ISAF.

Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince slams extremists as deviants of Islamic faith
PUTRAJAYA, Malaysia (AFP) - Saudi Arabia's Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz denounced extremists as deviants of the Islamic faith and called for stronger institutions to counter creeping militancy. He said in a speech on the final day of the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) summit that the crisis facing the world's Muslim community was partly intellectual in nature.

This emanates from increasing "overzealousness, leading to extremism, which turns them to terrorism." Stressing that Islam is a religion of kindness, mercy and tolerance, Prince Abdullah said a "minority" of deviant terrorists should not be allowed to tarnish the image of Islam.

"The bullets that kill women and children, terrorise those secured in their safety and destroy innocent communities do not come from rifles but from deviant thoughts and misguided interpretations of our great religion and its noble message." He urged the 57-member OIC to strengthen institutions to help counter rising extremism among Muslim youth.

Saudi Arabia had been seen as being soft on terror and of allowing extremist Islamist elements to flourish and find finance. Some US officials say that suicide bombings in Riyadh on May 12 which killed 35 people had changed the Saudi view on terrorism. US officials have said that the country has been more cooperative in the fight against terrorism since May.

The leader of the Al-Qaeda terror group Osama bin Laden is Saudi-born and 15 of the 19 hijackers who slammed hijacked planes into the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon in Washington on September 11, 2001 were from Saudi Arabia. Saudi officials refused to allow US investigators to interview their families. Saudi officials reportedly made commitments to carry out a series of new anti-terrorism measures during a meeting with US officials in August.

Pakistan Again Accuses India Of Operating 'Terrorist Camps' Inside Afghanistan
Radio Free Afghanistan Daily Afghan Report October 17, 2003
Pakistani Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat reiterated his government's accusation that India has set up terrorist camps in Afghanistan to destabilize Pakistan, Karachi daily "Dawn," reported on 17 October. "There are six terrorist camps where the Indian intelligence agency that is called the Research and Analysis Wing trains Pakistani dissidents and like-minded Afghans to stir [up] ethnic and sectarian unrest and carry out attacks in Pakistan," Hayat said. Pakistan has accused Indian consulates in Afghanistan of setting up such camps (see "RFE/RL Newsline," 24 April, 4 August, and 29 September 2003). Hayat added that Islamabad has told the Afghan Transitional Administration "that activities of Indian consulates are [also not] in the interest of Afghanistan.... We expect reciprocity from the Afghan government in cracking down on these camps." One of Pakistan's strategic objectives in supporting the Taliban was widely believed to have been fomenting disagreement between Afghanistan and Islamabad's archenemy, India. At the time, New Delhi accused Pakistan of training Kashmiri terrorists inside Afghanistan.

Taliban punish beardless drivers on Afghan highway
Press Trust of India 10/18/2003
Taliban fighters punished drivers without beards and confiscated music cassettes from vehicles and passengers when they briefly seized control of a highway in eastern Afghanistan, a report said on Saturday.

The operation was carried out late on Friday by a group of 50 Taliban on a road linking the western part of Khost province with Gardez, provincial capital of adjoining Paktia, the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported. Quoting unidentified sources in the area, the private news agency said the fighters set up a picket, raised their flag and searched vehicles.

Some clean shaven drivers were punished with three strokes of a stick for violating the Taliban's ultra-orthodox interpretation of Islamic Sharia laws which insist all men grow beards, it said. They also snatched and smashed music cassettes and gave drivers pamphlets warning of harsh penalties for breaches of Sharia, ordering they be distributed on their routes, it added.

Afghans Face Communist-Era Atrocities
Amin Tarzi Daily Afghan Report October 17, 2003
The Afghan Commission for Human Rights (ACHR) recently obtained a photocopy of the list of 4,782 people allegedly murdered by the Afghan communist regime, Reuters reported on 16 October. The document, bearing the stamp of the "Democratic Revolutionary Court of Afghanistan," contains names, professions, and dates of execution. "A large number of people were killed during the Communist regime [1978-92], and their relatives still think they might be alive or have been transferred to jails in the [former] Soviet Union," Lal Gul, head of ACHR, said. However, the list obtained by ACHR "unfortunately...shows [that] most of them were killed," Lal Gul added. The total number of individuals killed by Afghan communist governments or their Soviet allies is a mystery. According to Lal Gul, "thousands of innocent people" were killed because "they were against the policies of that regime." Unlike the cases of the former Yugoslavia or Rwanda, there has been no formal attempt so far to bring Afghans accused of mass murder to justice. The discoveries by ACHR and other human rights groups could pave the way for some sort of tribunal for crimes committed by successive regimes in Afghanistan.

‘Osama’ warns of new attacks in US and Iraq
Daily Times - Pakistan
DOHA: Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden threatened on Saturday to send suicide bombers to the United States and to attack any forces joining the US-led coalition in Iraq, according to Al-Jazeera television.

"We will go on fighting you and we will carry on martyrdom (suicide) operations in and outside the United States until you stop being unjust," he warned in an audiotaped "message to the American people" attributed to Mr Bin Laden by the Doha station.

"We reserve the right to retaliate at the proper time and place against all countries that take part in this unjust war (against Iraq), namely Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy," announced the taped voice. "Islamic countries that take part will not be excluded. This applies particularly to the Gulf states, chiefly Kuwait, launchpad for the crusader forces." The speaker said the American people, had been "enslaved by the Jews" and further warned: "We are counting our dead who fell at the hands of your Jewish allies in Palestine, and we will avenge them by your blood, as happened in New York."

President George W Bush sent US soldiers "to slaughter and be slaughtered" in Iraq, the speaker told Americans, hiding the fact that he was doing the bidding of "the Zionist lobby" that sought to cripple Iraq and that he and that lobby covet Iraq’s oil wealth. Al-Jazeera did not give a date for the audiotape, but a "message to the Muslim Iraqi people" also aired by the channel referred to "the government of Mahmoud Abbas," the Palestinian prime minister who stepped down on September 6. In the message to Iraqis, Mr Osama hailed their jihad against the American occupiers. He also praised "Ansar al-Islam, the descendants of Saladin," in a reference to the Iraqi Kurdish group. The speaker also called on "Muslim youths everywhere, especially in countries neighbouring (Iraq) and in Yemen," to "roll up their sleeves" and join the jihad. —AFP

Afghanistan rejects Pakistani charge of Indian ‘terror camps’
Daily Times - Pakistan
KABUL: Afghanistan on Saturday rejected Pakistani claims that India had set up terrorist training camps on its territory, local television reported. "The Afghan Deputy Interior Minister, and acting interior minister, Hilaluddin Hilal rejected the Pakistani interior minister’s claims that India has terror camps inside Afghanistan," Kabul TV said.

"Afghanistan is fighting terrorists and won’t allow anybody to use Afghan territory for terrorist purposes," it quoted Hilal as saying. "There are coalition forces fighting terrorism in Afghanistan; if there are any terrorist camps in Afghanistan, whether they belong to India or any other country they cannot be kept a secret from them," he said. "Afghanistan is fighting any sort of terrorism itself and Afghanistan wants better and friendly relations with its neighbours." —AFP

Afghan officials say new US funding request insufficient
(VOA) October 16, 2003 Gary Thomas Washington
In requesting new aid for Iraq, the Bush administration also included assistance for Afghanistan. However, Afghan officials say the amount is not enough to fund massive reconstruction of the country.

Incoming Afghan Ambassador Said Tayeb Jawad says Afghanistan welcomes the prospect of new aid. But, in a telephone interview, Mr. Jawad says the amount of new assistance is small, especially when compared to what is being spent in Iraq.

"The amount of the assistance provided to Afghanistan is substantial," he said. "Most of the assistance will continue to be used in building of the infrastructure in Afghanistan, and also creating the capacity in the [Afghan] administration to deliver services throughout the country. This is a significant step and we are hoping to get a larger portion of such assistance because the amount allocated to Afghanistan compared to Iraq is much smaller. And the needs in Afghanistan are as large as in other countries."

Mr. Jawad points out that of the nearly $21 billion in reconstruction aid the Bush administration is asking Congress to appropriate for Iraq and Afghanistan, Afghanistan is slated to get $1 billion.

Afghanistan is moving towards getting a freely elected government and institutions in place. But outside of the capital, Kabul, Afghanistan remains in the grip of regional warlords. On Saturday, President Hamid Karzai promulgated a law on political parties that bars any group with an armed militia from becoming a political party. How such a law will be enforced remains unclear. But Mr. Jawad says the armed groups can either disarm and enter the political process, or keep their arms and stay out of politics.

"We are trying to build a civil society," he said. "This is the most basic requirement. It is part of the demobilization, disarmament, and reintegration. A portion of the armed forces or armed groups will be disarmed and reintegrated into civil society. But, in the long run the faction, the armed group, has the option to become a national political party, or remain a faction with arms."

Afghanistan is also writing a new constitution. More than one half million questionnaires were sent out to seek Afghans' views on a new charter. A Loya Jirga, or grand council, was to have met this month to adopt a draft, but that has now been moved to December. Mr. Jawad blames the delay on logistical rather than political reasons.

There is a draft document, although it is still undergoing revision. However, the ambassador says it is clear Afghans want a strong central government with direct presidential elections - that can provide them security.

The thorniest issue, however, remains the legal system. Conservatives in overwhelmingly Muslim Afghanistan insist that Islamic law, or Sharia, be made the country's legal code. But Mr. Jawad says there is no widespread support to enshrine Sharia in the new constitution as the country's sole legal code.

"The constitution will most probably see something like, 'no laws in Afghanistan can contradict the principles of Islam.' The constitution of Afghanistan will be a model constitution that does respect the principles of Islam," said Said Tayeb Jawad. "But there is no demand by the Afghan people to make the Sharia the only source of law in Afghanistan."

Under the Bonn Agreement that set up Afghanistan's post-Taleban interim structure, elections are to be held in June. Mr. Jawad says there may be some delay in that target because many measures, such as institution of a new national identity card, are not yet in place. However, he says if there is a delay, it will only be a matter of months.

European Commission provides a further €11.53 million in humanitarian aid
Reuters 10/17/2003
The European Commission has approved an aid package worth €11.53 million to help victims of the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan. The funding will help vulnerable populations to prepare for harsh winter conditions and to cope with the effects of ongoing drought, as well as assisting people who have been displaced from their homes.

The aid is channelled through the Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO), which comes under the responsibility of Commissioner Poul Nielson. Commenting on the decision, Mr Nielson said: "We have seen some progress in Afghanistan over the last two years, reflected above all in the huge numbers who have returned home, but there are still major challenges to overcome. In providing vital support to those who are most in need in Afghanistan, the Commission will continue to be guided by the principles of neutrality, impartiality and humanity – the jewels in the crown of the humanitarian aid system."

In the north and centre of the country, the emphasis is on enabling vulnerable groups to meet their winter needs through a series for cash for work and income-generating schemes including water and sanitation projects, tree-planting and the production of quilts and children's clothes. In addition, funds are being provided for shelter, primary health care and psycho-social support for street children. €5.57 million has been earmarked for these activities.

In the drought-struck south and west, cash for work schemes are also planned, with a focus on the water/sanitation sector including well-digging, pump installations and water storage. A food security component covers the distribution of seeds and vegetables, and measures to support poultry rearing. €3.7 million is envisaged for these actions.

As regards refugees, internally displaced people and returnees, assistance worth up to €1.76 million will be directed through UNCHR. This covers the provision of shelter, and projects to protect refugee camp residents and vulnerable women. Almost 2.5 million Afghan refugees have returned home since the beginning of 2002 but there are still an estimated 4-6 million living in neighbouring countries, as well as some 300,000 people who continue to be internally displaced inside Afghanistan.
Finally, the decision has a component (€0.5 million) to boost the security of ECHO's NGO partners running projects on the ground. Insecurity poses a significant threat to the implementation of humanitarian projects, particularly in southern Afghanistan, and the focus of this component is on ensuring that partners have access to expert advice and information on security issues.

The latest funding is in addition to €36.2 million allocated in April 2003 for a wide range of humanitarian activities in Afghanistan. ECHO-funded projects are implemented by UN humanitarian agencies, NGO partners and Red Cross/Crescent organisations.

Amendment Passes Increasing Aid for Afghan Women
U.S. Newswire 10/17/2003
WASHINGTON - The House of Representatives last night adopted by voice vote a measure earmarking $65 million to assist Afghan women and girls in the areas of political and human rights, health care, education, training, security, and shelter.

"This is a tremendous victory not just for the people of Afghanistan, but for U.S. national security," said Ritu Sharma, Executive Director of the Women's Edge Coalition. "Women make up over 55 percent of the population in Afghanistan, and reconstruction efforts can only be successful if they draw on the contributions of women. Given that fundamentalists continue to terrorize girls' schools, maternal mortality rates are the highest in the world, and poor girls are still being stolen and trafficked, this amendment will provide needed resources to address these critical issues."

The amendment to the Emergency Supplemental for Iraq and Afghanistan (H.R. 3289), sponsored by Representative Carolyn Maloney (D-NY), designates $60 million for assistance to women and girls in Afghanistan, as well as $5 million for the Human Rights Commission. The Women's Edge Coalition, a non-partisan alliance of organizations dedicated to promoting human rights and economic opportunities for women around the world, along with the Feminist Majority Foundation and other Afghan women's rights advocates, worked closely with Representative Maloney to develop and build support for the amendment.

Having been adopted by the full House of Representatives, the Maloney amendment is now part of the House version of the $87 billion supplemental appropriation. The House continues to debate the appropriations measure and is expected to pass it today or early next week. Key Senate supporters, including Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), have undertaken efforts to ensure that the Maloney provision is retained conference.Contact: Ana Rahona of Women's Edge Coalition, 202-884-8399

Saudi Arabia to hold first legislative elections ever
RIYADH (AFP) - The first legislative elections to be held in Saudi Arabia will take place in three years, a leading newspaper reported. The Saudi-owned daily Al-Hayat on Saturday quoted Saudi sources as saying elections would be held to fill one-third of the 120 seats in the Majlis ash-Shura, or Consultative Council, which until now has been an all-appointed body offering advice to the government.

The daily, published in London, also said half the members of regional councils would be elected in the kingdom within two years. Political activist Mohammad Said Taieb confirmed the report, saying he had been informed by the defence minister, or the number three in the ruling family.

"Prince Sultan bin Abdul Aziz told me the Saudi leadership intends to organise partial elections for the regional councils and the Majlis ash-Shura, in two years and three years, respectively," Taieb told AFP.

The activist was among 305 "liberals" who signed a petition to Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz in September demanding radical political reform to eradicate terrorism and save the kingdom.

The news came after the official Saudi Press Agency, quoting the cabinet, announced October 13 that the first ever polls in the conservative kingdom would take place in 2004 to elect half the members of municipal councils.

"The Saudi cabinet decided at its session today to broaden citizens' participation in running local affairs through elections. This will be done by activating municipal councils ... electing half the members of each council," it said.

"The cabinet said the sides concerned should complete measures (to conduct the polls) within a maximum of one year," the official news agency added. It said the decision to hold nationwide municipal polls was in keeping with the policy advocated by King Fahd and Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz to "press ahead on the path of political and administrative reform."

The municipal polls will be the first national elections in the oil-rich kingdom. Currently, ballots are only held to choose some members of the governing boards of chambers of commerce and industry. Saudi Arabia has been under US pressure to open up its ultra-conservative system based on sharia, or Islamic law, and has also faced growing demands from Saudi liberals to pursue democratic reforms.

Iran funding Afghan roads, bridges to revive spice routes
(Gulf News) - The Silk Road conjures up images of camel trains and turbaned merchants but Iran is reviving ancient spice routes and hopes once again to become the indispensable mercantile nexus between Europe and Asia. Iran is pouring funds into roads, bridges and petrol stations in Afghanistan to reopen the well-trodden route that carried centuries of merchants from Europe to China.

But these schemes are hampered by regional lawlessness and Iran's own dismal investment rating so, for the meantime, Iran's new spin on the Silk Road focuses on a Caspian Sea to Gulf transit route aimed at stealing trade from the Suez Canal.

Mehdi, 30, a cargo ship crewman, said he was staggered by the volume of goods racing between Iran's north and south coasts. "There's so much more work coming in," he said. "We used to shift mainly fuel – now it's cars, machinery and everything you can think of." Iran's officials are confident they can once again fill the caravanserais, or lodging houses of the Silk Road, with weary travellers by investing heavily in roads, railways and ports.

Mohammed Javad Atrchian, government director of this north-south transit corridor, said modern caravans ferrying goods from Asia to Europe slice 5,000km off the Suez Canal route by travelling across Iran.

He added the Iran route was also 20 to 30 per cent cheaper. "Iran has the position to become the pivotal transit point between Europe and Asia and revive its position on the Silk Road," he said.

Analysts said the idea of Iran as a vital transit route is a powerful political statement from a country that the United States has tried to isolate. The United States has insisted transcontinental oil and gas pipelines meander huge distances in order to bypass Iran, labelled by Washington as a member of the so-called "axis of evil".

"The more dependent people are on you, the more secure you are – this is true in terms of oil and transit routes," said political analyst Hossein Rassam. Iran's Chamber of Commerce, Industries and Mines has published statistics describing the potential scale of this economic dependence.Its website on Iran's 21st-century caravan trails says experts reckon the new Silk Roads can earn $5-6 billion each year in transit fees by ferrying about 20 million tonnes of goods.

"The authorities unanimously believe that Iran can rationally acquire four to five per cent of the $120 billion of transit trade exchanged between Asia and Europe," the chamber adds.This income from transit trade is particularly alluring to an Iranian government trying to wean its economy off its dependence on finite reserves of hydrocarbons.

"The new Silk Road would help Iran diversify its mainly oil-dependent economy," said independent analyst Hooman Peimani.Widescale building and infrastructure projects are also enticing to a country with 16 per cent unemployment.

Taliban launch money raising campaign
(News International - Pakistan) - KABUL: The Taliban have launched an unprecedented campaign to win money and support from Muslim militants outside Afghanistan in a resurgence marked by a spate of roadside killings, military ambushes and public statements boasting of their successes relatively quiet for months, a bevy of Taliban spokesmen have been turning up on Arab TV and the Pakistani media, and a handful have started making direct phone calls to the international press, including The Associated Press.

The calls have increased in step with a bolder, bloodier insurgency that has shaken faith in the Washington-backed Afghan government’s ability to assert its control, and the US military’s resolve at crushing the rebels.

Omar Samad, the Afghan Foreign Ministry spokesman, said the Taliban are using the media blitz to try to get their message out to hard-liners in neighboring Pakistan, who share their strict brand of Islam. "I think it is all part of a more organized effort," he told The Associated Press. "They have lost much of their ability to be a real threat to the whole process of change here, but they unfortunately still have substantial support among influential groups in Pakistan with money and access to arms and manpower."

Most of today’s Taliban fighters are not the same young men as those who fought with the militia during the US-led bombing campaign in 2001, Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali said recently. They are new recruits, many drawn from the poor religious Madressahs of Pakistan.

Jalali told AP during a recent interview that several recently captured Taliban said they came to Afghanistan on the instructions of hard-line Pakistani clerics, who convinced them it was every Muslim’s duty to wage Jihad, or holy war, against the Americans and their Afghan surrogates. One of the men said he was paid $55 in Pakistan to come and fight.

With Taliban leader Mullah Omar and other top figures in hiding, captured or killed, a crop of front men - some new, some old names from the regime’s heyday in power - has gone into high gear.

Sometimes their claims sound outlandish: that the Taliban killed 10 US soldiers in fighting in September in southern Zabul province. The Americans say one special operations’ soldier died in a fall during a combat operation there.

The militia also calls to take credit for recent attacks or to warn of bloody repercussions for those who collaborate with the international community. A fax sent to AP in September claimed the Taliban was behind a wave of recent killings of employees of international aid groups - often referred to as non-governmental organizations, or NGOs.

Aid workers have been pulled from their cars and executed in southern Ghazni, Helmand and Zabul provinces in recent months. "Our government has always respected the people who are working in NGOs that really want to build Afghanistan," read the Taliban statement. "But there is another kind of NGO, which only uses the name NGO but is actually working and spying for the United States. We advise Taliban all over the country to attack them and extradite them from Afghanistan."

A purported Taliban spokesman who calls himself Mullah Hedayatollah Akhund appeared on the Arabic television channel Al-Jazeera two weeks ago threatening resistance to the US-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai. Another, Muhammad Hanif, claimed responsibility for the recent assassination of an Afghan official in southern Kandahar province in a phone call to "The News," Pakistan’s largest English-language daily.

The Taliban has also used the media to manage its image. One of the main Taliban spokesmen, Sayed Hamid Agha, faxed a signed letter to AP in late September to deny a widely-circulated report that Taliban fighters had threatened to disfigure Afghans who listen to music or men who shave their beards.

"We would never cut the nose or ears off of people who do not have beards," the statement read. Taliban supreme leader "Mullah Omar declares anybody who uses the name of the Taliban to issue such threats is an enemy of Islam and the people of Afghanistan. They are not Taliban."

It is impossible to independently confirm the credentials of the men claiming to be Taliban spokesmen. Some professed Taliban spokesmen are quite openly operating from Pakistan. Atiqullah Azizi, the former Taliban information minister in the eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar, has met with journalists in Pakistan. Calls and faxes from at least two-purported Taliban spokesman appear to come from the southwestern Pakistani province of Balochistan.

Samad said the Taliban are using neighboring Pakistan as a centre of its new PR campaign, and the presence of at least some spokesmen there is of growing concern. "Almost all of them are across the border," said Samad. "We know very well that if the authorities across the border wanted to put an end to this Taliban fiasco, they could. There is nothing to stop them from shutting them down."

Tribesmen block road
(Dawn - Pakistan) - PESHAWAR: Hundreds of tribesmen blocked the Peshawar- Torkham highway for more than five hours in Jamrud, Khyber Agency on Friday to protest against the arrest of their leaders by the administration.

But officials said that the angry tribesmen were demanding that the administration should resolve their dispute with the rival Qamberkhel tribe over the ownership of a hillock, Sur Ghar.

They said armed men belonging to Malik Dinkhel tribe reached the Torkham highway, the main trade and communication route between Pakistan and Afghanistan, and erected hurdles on the road at 7am.

An official of Jamrud sub-division said that the administration sought help from the elders of both tribes after which the protesters cleared the road peacefully. The political administration of the Khyber Agency arrested 50 men of the Malik Dinkhel tribe over the dispute on Tuesday.

Seminar in Peshawar denounces "Durand line"
RFE/RL 10/17/2003 By Amin Tarzi
Participants in a seminar that began on 15 October in the Pakistani city of Peshawar have reportedly questioned the legality of the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic Press reported on 16 October.

The seminar, titled "The Pakhtun People Under the Negative Influence of the Durand Line," was organized by the Pakhtun Quami Party and attended by ethnic Pashtun political figures from Afghanistan and Pakistan. According to the report, most speakers at the conference "expressed [their] strong opposition to the Durand Line, describing it as a plot designed to tear apart an ethnic group [i.e., Pashtuns]."

The current border between Afghanistan and Pakistan -- known as the "Durand Line" after Sir Henry Mortimer Durand, the British signatory of the 1893 agreement that demarcated the border between Afghanistan and British India -- has never been officially recognized by Afghanistan. It has been at the core of disagreements between Afghanistan and Pakistan since the creation of Pakistan in 1947.

Afghan diplomats to rebuild country
(Dawn - Pakistan) - PESHAWAR: A nine-member group of Afghan diplomats, comprising the participants of the first specialized diplomatic course of Foreign Services Academy, Islamabad, called on Governor Syed Iftikhar Hussain Shah here on Thursday.

"We have centuries-old strong bonds, based on common history, culture, religion, traditions and values with our Afghan brethren and now it is the time to exploit this unique feature to ensure better and prosperous future for the people of both countries," said the governor on this occasion.

"We have the honour of hosting more than three million Afghan refugees in this province for over two decades. They also include hundreds of thousands of youth and children born, brought up and educated in this country, who, having great understanding would definitely prove as our ambassadors on return to their homeland," he said.

At present, the governor said, Afghanistan needed peace to ensure its rehabilitation and development. As far as prospects for future cooperation, especially in the field of economic and trade sectors were concerned, he mentioned the geographical position of Pakistan, especially the NWFP.

He said being situated at a distance of a few minutes from the border of Afghanistan, "we enjoy unprecedented advantage to join hands with our Afghan brethren in the development of every field of life."

In this connection, the governor also mentioned the recently held Afghan trade fair in Peshawar, saying that not only 250 Afghan trade houses took part in the event, but business deals to the tune of a total of about $ 200 million were also concluded with the Pakistani counterparts.

The under-training Afghan diplomats, while expressing their views on this occasion, said: "We need to develop no new links and bridges to strengthen our relations, rather we must concentrate on the revival of old bonds and links for further strengthening of our relationships."

They mentioned presence of Afghan refugees in Pakistan and said that they would never forget the warm hospitality extended to them and the patience observed by Pakistanis during this period. The on-going reconstruction process, they said, provided ample opportunities in this respect, which needed to be availed, they said.
Mr Javed Hussain, director-general of Foreign Services Academy, Islamabad, and Mr Wahidullah Amin, a representative of Afghan diplomats, thanked the governor for the meeting.