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Afghanistan starts counting votes
by Rachel Morarjee
KABUL, Oct 14 (AFP) - After delays over fraud charges and boycott threats, the vote count in Afghanistan's presidential election finally began Thursday, five days after millions of men and women defied the Taliban to have their first say in their country's destiny.
"The counting has started in all the regional centres," election commission spokesman Sultan Baheen said.
Counting of more than 24,000 stuffed ballot boxes in eight regional centers began at 11:00 am (0630 GMT).
The count from Saturday's historic ballot had been put on hold while diplomats lobbied key opposition candidates to drop calls for a boycott over charges of multiple voting and other irregularities, and an international panel was set up to probe their complaints.
The possible boycott threatened to undermine the credibility of the shattered central Asian state's first exercise in democracy after colonial rule, monarchies, a communist regime, Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban repression.
It also cast a pall over the jubilation of voters who flocked to 5,000 polling stations, braving dust-storms in the south and snow in remote Hindu Kush villages and defying threats, which never materialsed, from bitter loyalists of the former hardline Taliban regime to sabotage the voting.
Thousands of stuffed ballot boxes, carried across the rugged land by helicopter, donkey and truck convoy, had been piling up in the eight counting centres since Saturday, waiting for counting to begin.
It was given the go-ahead earlier Thursday as a UN-appointed panel of three international experts set up to investigate the complaints announced it would isolate ballot boxes it wanted to investigate.
The rest of the boxes were released for counting.
"Ballot boxes that are not being held for investigations (will) return to the normal flow of the counting process," said an official from the joint Afghan-UN election commission.
The international panel extended a deadline for complaints to be lodged until 6:00 pm Thursday (1330 GMT).
By the first deadline Tuesday 43 complaints from at least four candidates had been filed.
They included US-backed incumbent President Hamid Karzai, his chief challenger Yunus Qanooni, ethnic Hazara warlord Mohammed Mohaqeq, and an ethnic Tajik doctor and lecturer, Ghulam Farooq Nijrabi.
The main concern was that ink used to stain voters' fingers and prevent multiple voting was found to wash off.
Other allegations were that polling stations opened late and closed early in areas dominated by opposition supporters, and that electoral staff misbehaved.
Partial results are expected within days, but a final result could take several weeks, officials have said. Karzai is widely expected to beat the 17 other candidates.
Major candidates like Qanooni, who initially called for the vote to be scrapped and re-held, and northern warlord Abdul Rashid Dostam have said they would accept the results of the inquiry.
After the near-crisis over ballot irregularities, officials are desperate to avoid similar problems during the counting, which will be conducted by hand and under strict supervision and observation.
US President George W. Bush and other Western leaders hailed the election as an outstanding success. Karzai and the commander of US-led forces in Afghanistan called it a defeat for "terrorists", including the Taliban and its Al-Qaeda allies.
Afghan voters "delivered a resounding defeat to the terrorists who had sought to deny them their rightful future and that message has been heard around the world," Lieutenant General David Barno told a news conference.
"The overwhelming success of this election is a strategic defeat for Al-Qaeda and the Taliban and is a turning point for Afghanistan and the Afghan people."
The Taliban and their guests from Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda were ousted by a US-led invasion late 2001 after the Taliban refused to surrender bin Laden, alleged to have masterminded the September 11 attacks.
Election experts examine final complaints in Afghanistan, hope tally can start soon
Thursday October 14, 12:57 PM AP
Foreign election experts worked through a final handful of complaints from candidates in Afghanistan's first-ever-presidential ballot in hopes that a vote tally could finally begin Thursday _ five days after the historic election.
The panel of three election experts said it was forced to quarantine ballots from only 10 polling stations so far _ out of the country's 20,000 _ indicating that any problems with the vote may be limited.
A top U.S. general said Saturday's vote spells an end for the "rule of the gun" in a country still controlled by warlords, as ballot boxes poured in to counting centers by road, air and even donkey from across the rugged and war-ravaged land.
The election panel was created to review the balloting after candidates challenging the expected winner _ U.S.-backed interim President Hamid Karzai _ said an election-day glitch with the ink used to stamp voters' thumbs to prevent multiple-voting made the ballot invalid.
The election probe prompted many of Karzai's 15 challengers to back off from their boycott. Ethnic Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum on Thursday became the latest candidate to abandon the threat not to recognize the results.
Craig Jenness, a Canadian lawyer on the panel, said the group was almost finished examining 43 complaints filed by a Tuesday deadline and had given candidates until Thursday to submit additional complaints.
But he said the vote tally, which had been delayed to deal with the allegations of voting irregularities, would begin "very quickly" and would not be held up by the additional complaints.
Karzai is widely tipped to secure a clear victory over the 15 other candidates when final results are announced toward the end of the month.
Many of the complaints have focused on the ink. Election staff were supposed to mark voters' left thumbs with indelible ink, but some apparently used pens meant for marking the ballots or ink meant for stamping them instead.
A spokesman for ethnic Hazara candidate Mohammed Mohaqeq said he filed objections over polling stations that ran out of ballots and a dearth of voting centers in west Kabul, where many Hazaras live.
Charges of voting irregularities have raised questions about the legitimacy of the eventual outcome and whether expected winner Karzai would be able to consolidate his rule over the ethnically diverse, fractious nation.
But the election was a clear triumph for the massive security operation mounted to protect it from militant attack.
Lt. Gen. David Barno, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan, said the lack of major violence over the weekend and the enthusiastic voter turnout were a "resounding defeat" for Taliban and al-Qaida rebels.
"This turning point spells the end of more than two decades of the rule of the gun in this nation and confirms the bright hope of all the Afghan people in a democratic future centered on the rule of law," he told reporters in Kabul.
The upbeat assessment came as NATO defense ministers met in Romania to consider issues including merging U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan with the alliance's separate contingent.
France and Germany rejected American suggestions that NATO's peacekeeping mission in Afghanistan and the larger U.S.-led combat operation hunting Taliban and al-Qaida fighters be integrated under a single command.
However, NATO defense ministers agreed to order military commanders to draw up plans to boost cooperation between the two forces.
India to help Afghanistan build parliament house
KABUL, Oct. 13 (Xinhua) -- The government of India as part of its contribution in rebuilding post-war Afghanistan has decided tohelp build a parliament house for the post-Taliban central Asian state, Afghan presidential spokesman said Wednesday.
"This building with an estimation of 20 million US dollars will be built near the Darul Aman Palace in southwest Kabul," Jawed Ludin told reporters here at a news briefing. He failed to say anything about the inception of the work on the project but added: "It was decided in the cabinet meeting today."
The first-ever Afghan parliamentary election is expected to beheld six months after the inclusion of the presidential polls in next April. India, one of the vigorous donors for the war-shattered Afghanistan, has committed over 100 million US dollars in the rebuilding of this poor nation.
U.S. Allies Don't Want NATO in Afghanistan
Thursday October 14, 1:40 AM AP
France and Germany spoke out Wednesday against a U.S. proposal to put NATO in charge of the military and reconstruction efforts in Afghanistan, but U.S. and other officials said the alliance would go ahead and develop options for merging the missions.
The issue featured prominently in a meeting of NATO defense ministers at this ski resort in the Carpathian Mountains. It is expected to resurface when they reconvene in early February in France.
"There may be some interest in synergy between the two operations, but a merger of the forces makes no sense," said French Defense Minister Michele Alliot-Marie. "It would be counterproductive to have the two missions under a united command."
The United States, backed by Britain, wants greater integration between the 18,000-strong mission it leads to hunt down Taliban and al-Qaida fighters with the 9,000 NATO peacekeepers currently operating in Kabul, the capital, and five northern provinces.
The outcome is important because NATO is on course to expand _ numerically and geographically _ its involvement in the effort to stabilize Afghanistan, even as the United States pursues combat operations. In addition, U.S. forces are working on have reconstruction projects similar to those of NATO.
The evolution of NATO's role in Afghanistan also is important from a political standpoint, given the strong tensions that have divided the United States from some of its longstanding European allies over the Bush administration's invasion of Iraq.
France and Germany were among the more vocal critics of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq.
U.S. officials here spoke confidently of overcoming opposition to the idea of combining the NATO and U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan, although they said it was unclear what the solution would look like.
"Most countries that spoke today, including our country, said the goal should be one NATO mission" rather than separate American and NATO missions, said Nicholas Burns, the U.S. ambassador to NATO.
"There are many ways you could do that," he added. "You could establish two different task forces, one that does combat and one that does peacekeeping. But this remains to be worked out."
American officials gave no indication that their motivation for trying to put NATO in charge in Afghanistan was related to hopes for reducing U.S. troops levels there.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld did not comment publicly on the day's talks. He met privately with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov on Wednesday evening. Rumsfeld was due to return to Washington on Thursday, ending a week-long overseas trip that included a visit to Iraq and a meeting on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf with defense ministers from 18 countries _ some NATO members, some not _ that support the U.S.-led global war on terrorism.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said combining commands in Afghanistan was an option to be studied, telling a news conference, "The options the military authorities are going to present to ministers in February will certainly also include ... the possibility of a unified command."
German Defense Minister Peter Struck was adamant his government would oppose any fusion.
"There is a clear 'no' of the German government for a merging of the mandates," Struck told reporters. "We'll continue focusing on reconstruction while other nations are engaged in the fight against international terrorism (in Afghanistan)."
Britain's Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon was confident the military could come up with a plan that enable closer ties while respecting Berlin's reservations.
"We have to be sensitive to the national considerations," Hoon said. "I don't see any reason to cross any German red lines."
Struck said he backed the drive to get more NATO troops to expand the peacekeeping mission, but he doubted Germany's parliament would support a change of the German military's mandate to allow the alliance to take on the combat mission.
Germany is one of the largest contributors to the peacekeeping mission, with 2,500 soldiers.
U.S. forces to stay on in Afghanistan - Barno
13 Oct 2004 11:10:19 GMT By Simon Cameron-Moore
KABUL, Oct 13 (Reuters) - A U.S. proposal for NATO to take the leading military role in Afghanistan does not mean American troops seeking to crush the Taliban and hunt down Osama bin Laden will be withdrawn, a top U.S. general said on Wednesday.
The United States has urged NATO countries to assume a bigger role in Afghanistan and to come up with plans to take over all military operations there, possibly as early as next year.
Lieutenant General David Barno, commander of U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, said the United States and its NATO allies were discussing merging their forces in Afghanistan under a single command.
"The merger will entail both of the forces coming together as opposed to one force leaving and one force staying," he said.
"For example the U.S. forces here will play a very large role and a large percentage of the overall merged force... as I would expect," Barno said at a news conference.
Defence ministers from the 26-member alliance are meeting in Romania to discuss the proposal, which comes on the heels of an historic and largely peaceful presidential election in Afghanistan where millions of people came out to vote.
"The overwhelming success of this election was a strategic defeat for the Taliban and al Qaeda and is a turning point for Afghanistan," Barno said, adding that it showed the Taliban were incapable of disrupting the poll.
Barno said he had no idea where al Qaeda leader bin Laden was hiding despite a three-year hunt.
Some 18,000 troops are taking part in the U.S.-led operation, fighting an insurgency led by the remnants of the Taliban militia that was toppled in 2001 after refusing to surrender bin Laden.
Some 9,000 troops under the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) are deployed in the capital, Kabul, and in nine provinces in the more peaceful North.
Speaking before a meeting of NATO defence chiefs in Romania, the U.S. ambassador to NATO asked the alliance to devise a blueprint by February to take over operations.
"Obviously we hope to see, at some point, integration of the NATO effort and Operation Enduring Freedom," Nicholas Burns said.
"It could be 2005. It could be 2006. It just depends on how things go," he told reporters.
Barno said there was no fixed time frame and it was too early to say which countries would contribute to the joint force or who would be in overall command.
Such a force would need to engage in combat operations, Barno said, adding that it was not clear how it would work given that some NATO members have not given their troops a mandate for combat.
He said NATO was trying to muster more forces to expand its peacekeeping role to western Afghanistan, and described raising reinforcements as both a challenge and a test of NATO's resolve.
Asked if the United States had plans to reduce its military presence, Barno's answered: "We will stay the course here in Afghanistan as long as the Afghan people want us to.
"Right now as I travel round the country and talk to various people, their concern is more that we will leave too soon than we will overstay our welcome."
Karzai already talking as though he has won
Sydney Morning Herald 10/13/2004
Despite the mayhem, indomitable Afghans still know how to survive, writes Paul McGeough.
At 24, Abdul Mujib dares to dream - but he sees a schizoid future.
In a glade-like garden on the war-tumbled campus of Kabul University, this lucky son of an Afghan banker sits in the sun. A clean-shaven student of English and French, he is a cool dresser in a land of tatty robes and scraggly beards.
On his finger the sun catches a polished lump of lapis lazuli set in a heavy silver ring; and on the lapel of his colourful and tight-fitting corduroy jacket, he sports a cheeky "Paris" badge. He totes the latest symbol of Afghan privilege, a mobile phone.
"You have to give Hamid Karzai time," he says earnestly. "He has taken us from nowhere to a presidential election, which he will win. Then he will get rid of the warlords and give us a government of professionals that will rebuild this country."
But what about the powerful new parliament that Afghans will elect in April of next year?
"Ah, yes," he says. "It will be so ugly and stupid. Angry people with money and power from the provinces [read warlords] will be elected and they'll be like the people we see on TV in parliament in other countries, brawling and breaking chairs on each other's heads.
"But in Afghanistan we are extremists. Here, they'll be shooting each other."
One of the few givens in the new Afghanistan is that the US-backed Karzai will win the presidency. Counting of votes has yet to start, but he is already talking as though he has won, vowing on Sunday: "The horse-trading times are over in Afghanistan".
It was a declaration of war on the Afghan status quo that drew the same derisive guffaws in some quarters, but serious words of encouragement in others, as when Mr Karzai insisted during the campaign that he would not countenance a coalition government.
For now it was hard to understand - Mr Karzai has been dependent on these self-serving warlords for the past two years and there have been repeated hints of horse-trading as his proxies have attempted to negotiate an end to an opposition boycott that has taken the gloss off Saturday's presidential poll.
In his office near the glade at the university, a voluble Professor Wadir Safi demanded: "No horse trading? Is he not an Afghan? Eighty per cent of Kabul is in ruins, we have 90 per cent illiteracy and I want to know how much of the aid billions we have received has gone into the pockets of the warlords.
"These people have money, power and guns and they use them to their own ends. No coalition? His two vice-presidential running mates are from other parties associated with past violence, so he has a coalition already and it has a bad history."
The professor argued that Mr Karzai would be a hostage to the gunmen forever: "His entire cabinet is associated with them. Why don't they send their engineers, doctors and teachers to sit in government?"
Going back to the Bonn conference that set the course for Afghanistan after the 2001 US-led invasion that forced the collapse of the Taliban regime, Professor Safi said the US had failed by not insisting on an interim government of professionals and technocrats.
"First they [the Americans] fought the Taliban and now they have to fight all these groups one by one. But the warlords are playing a new game, they have changed the names of their organisations to keep their armies at arm's length."
He said 90 per cent of military and police power in all 34 provinces was in the warlords' hands and they would use that power and their money to send their representatives to the new parliament. "If any of the provinces sent an independent representative, they'd kill him."
If confirmed as president, Mr Karzai does not have to draw his ministry from the 249 elected members of the proposed Wolesi Jirga (house of representatives) or the 102 members who will be appointed to the Meshrano Jirga (house of elders) at an unspecified date after next year's Wolesi Jirga election.
But the new Afghan constitution invests sufficient power in both bodies for them to become a nightmare for the Karzai administration if the president is unable to control what are expected to be unruly numbers.
Surprisingly, some foreign observers in Kabul have more faith in Mr Karzai than Professor Safi has, which is not to say they are not critical of his performance.
Despite a near-stalled process of disarming the warlords, Vikram Parekh, a senior analyst with the Brussels-based International Crisis Group, is sceptical of their real power. And he does not expect Mr Karzai to stick to his "no coalition" declaration.
Mr Parekh said: 'Look at his running mates. Karzai is an ethnic Pashtun, but they were selected to pull support from the ethnic Tajik camp and from the mujahideen [the fighters who opposed the Russian occupation]. And his overtures to other candidates to withdraw from the presidential race were about getting the support of their ethnic groups."
When it comes to next year's poll, Mr Parekh believes, Mr Karzai will eschew the 70-plus political parties that have registered and instead work on forging tribal alliances in the regions. "if he wants to get a parliamentary majority, he will have to cobble deals together with other Pashtuns and with players in the [mainly Tajik and Uzbek] north."
Andrew Wilder, director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, believes that legitimacy for Mr Karzai will come from the independence of the administration he appoints.
"Will we see more of the same old faces or a new government that responds to the wishes of the Afghan people? They'll forgive election organisers for the debacle of the ink pot, if there is positive change; if there isn't, they'll want to know why $US200 million ($274 million) was wasted on an election," he said.
Mr Wilder said that in the wake of the presidential poll, the politically timid Karzai must appreciate he would have more power and that he needed to risk moving beyond the traditional Afghan deal-making culture to provide broader national leadership.
Also identifying the Bonn conference as the root of the Afghan malaise, Mr Wilder claimed: "He has the ability to do it. The power of these vested interests is often exaggerated. Remember, they were defeated by the Taliban and it was only the Bonn deal that restored their power."
His advice for Mr Karzai and the US, and others who advise him, was to postpone next year's parliamentary elections.
He listed the consequences of sticking to the timetable: "If there is no rule of law, if disarmament is not complete and if there is as much drug money as there is now, the warlords and the drug kings will dominate the parliament and any reform of Afghanistan will be dead in the water.
"These people have a vested interest in keeping central government weak and keeping themselves strong in their provincial fiefdoms."
The upshot is that, in the medium term at least, Afghans face a fraught future - but it was ever thus. Getting a grasp of events in the country is akin to an exercise in anthropology, digging through historic layers of ethnic, tribal, political and military allegiances, all rooted in a warrior-like national psyche that has proved as indomitable as it is susceptible to foreign intervention.
Disarmament teams from the British-based Halo Trust have become military anthropologists, destroying huge caches of weapons from every layer of war - British guns from the 1880s, still in working order; and arms and munitions from Russia, Iran and Pakistan.
Don't worry; the Americans were here too, long before their 2001 invasion.
In the 1980s Afghan revolt against Soviet occupation, the CIA spent billions on covert arms supplies for the Afghan mujahideen, but to cover their tracks they scoured the world for Soviet-made stock.
Despite, or because of all the suffering, Afghans have come back for more, and through it all some of them have a charmed existence. Halo Trust is looking for one such individual right now.
On a stony hill above Kabul, the Russians installed 78 huge surface-to-air missiles which, between wars, fell into the control of the various Afghan regimes - communist, mujahideen and Taliban.
As Halo Trust's Rob Pavey explains: "Some were fuelled up and had warheads fitted - all in different stages of lunacy. When the Americans bombed in 2001 four of them self-launched; they were still in their metal transport tubes, but they were ready to go with 70 kilograms of high-grade explosive and 4800 ball-bearings in each warhead.
"Destruction was going to be a delicate operation. But a few nights ago a scrap dealer saved us the trouble. He went in with oxyacetylene gear and cut through the high-quality aluminium metal casing.
"He got the missile out and butchered it into three pieces and left the fused warhead behind. There were scorch marks on the warhead. I don't know how he did it without vapourising himself," he said.
It seems that despite the mayhem, some Afghans know how to survive.
DONKEY VOTE
* About 27,000 ballot boxes from 5000 polling stations and refugee camps in Iran and Pakistan are being brought - many by donkey - to eight counting centres.
*The candidate who gets one vote more than 50 per cent of the total electorate will be declared winner.
* If no candidate wins outright, the election goes into a run-off in November.
Source: BBC
Questions arise over Karzai's U.S. guards
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON -- Personnel from a private U.S. security firm in Afghanistan have engaged in "aggressive behavior" while protecting President Hamid Karzai, the State Department said Wednesday.
Spokesman Richard Boucher said U.S. concerns about inappropriate activities by some guards from the Texas-based DynCorp firm have been passed on to company officials.
Mike Dickerson, of the Computer Sciences Corp., the parent company of DynCorp, said the firm's employees are working closely with State Department officials to do "the best possible job in a very difficult, dangerous and challenging environment."
He said the employees will continue to work closely with the State Department to adjust procedures as necessary, "keeping in mind the utmost importance of the mission."
The State Department's bureau of diplomatic security has been responsible for Karzai's protection since 2002. DynCorp personnel have assisted in that task but the State Department provides overall supervision.
"It's a very difficult mission. It's a very dangerous mission," Boucher said. Less than a month ago, Karzai was the target of an assassination attempt when a rocket was fired at his helicopter near the city of Gardez. He escaped injury.
Afghan authorities say they have uncovered previous assassination plots against Karzai by an "international terrorist group."
Boucher said that overall the security assistance DynCorp provides has been outstanding.
At the same time, he said, "we have seen these reports and from time to time have heard other reports of aggressive behavior by some of the contractors.
"And we have addressed that issue with the contractors on the ground, as well as with DynCorp management."
Boucher was responding to a New York Times article which said the Dyncorp guards, at best, reinforce the stereotype of Americans as "brawny and boorish." The article was titled, "The Intimidating Face of America."
Dostum ends boycott, Afghan vote count soon
Daily Times
KABUL: A top rival to Afghan election frontrunner President Hamid Karzai called off his boycott of the process on Wednesday, making it likely that the historic poll’s result would be recognised by all despite voting irregularities.
With ballot counting expected to begin later on Wednesday, Uzbek general Abdul Rashid Dostum joined the two other main challengers in agreeing to recognise the eventual outcome of the country’s first ever-direct presidential vote. “Dostum is of the view that the election is a major achievement for everyone,” said spokesman Faizullah Zaki.
“He met yesterday with the candidates and all termed the election a victory, but they all said that there were violations and that they should be assessed.” A panel appointed by the UN-Afghan Joint Electoral Management Body (JEMB) was in Kabul on Wednesday to assess complaints among candidates of multiple voting made possible by a mix-up over the ink used to mark voters’ thumbs. On Saturday, 15 of 18 candidates announced they would boycott the vote, casting a pall over a day when millions of Afghan men and women queued outside polling stations across the war-ravaged country in defiance of Taliban threats to launch major attacks. reuters
Election Day Survey Updated Preliminary Findings
12 October 2004
Background: The International Republican Institute (IRI) conducted a one-day, public opinion survey in Afghanistan for the October 9th 2004 presidential election. David Williams and Associates, a US-based opinion research firm that specializes in international research projects, designed the methodology and oversaw the data collection process. An Afghan research network managed the fieldwork.
Since there were neither extensive nationwide observers on election day, nor a parallel vote tally, this election day poll was conducted in order to provide confidence in the election process and an eventual check on the outcome. In addition, IRI felt it was important to survey the opinion of ordinary Afghans so that the President-elect will better understand his or her mandate.
Over 450 Afghans (including both men and women) took part in the field work. Teams were placed in 177 locations spread across 26 provinces and Pakistan. All data included below is preliminary and includes 17,110 respondents.
Preliminary Findings:
• According to the survey, the leading candidate received a very strong majority of the vote and will be able to claim a powerful mandate from the Afghan people.
• There is a difference of 47% between the first and second place candidate. The third place candidate had 5% of the vote. Twelve candidates each received 1% or less of the vote.
• 82% of respondents said that the election was free and fair. This finding was consistent throughout the day.
• 97% said that any problems in the election did not affect the outcome.
• 50% of respondents said that “disarming commanders” was the number one priority of the new government. Reconstruction and the development of the economy had 16% and 11% support respectively.
• 89% of the respondents said that their current situation is improving.
• 84% said that life has improved since the fall of the Taliban.
• 92% said that life will be better in one year.
• 22% of the current sample are women. This is not a prediction for the turnout of women on election day.
• Karzai received support from 86% of Pashtuns sampled, 40% of Tajiks, 16% of Uzbeks and 21% of Hazaras.
• Qanuni received the support of 5% of Pashtuns sampled, 34% of Tajiks, 9% of Uzbeks, and 5% of Hazaras.
• 8% of all women sampled voted for Jalal.
• Uzbeks were least likely to believe the election was free and fair.
The International Republican Institute is a non-profit, non-governmental organization based in Washington, D.C. It is not affiliated with the Republican Party. IRI is active in over 50 countries worldwide, working to advance democracy and strengthen democratic institutions. IRI has worked in Afghanistan since January of 2002.
Russia warns against dragging out Afghan parliamentary vote
Interfax 10/11/2004
ISFAHAN - Russia has warned against dragging out parliamentary elections in Afghanistan, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told reporters on Monday. "In any case, we still find it crucial not to put off parliamentary elections, which will be decisive for attaining national accord in Afghanistan," he said. Moscow "has undoubtedly noticed the reports of breaches of the law during the election campaign and the following demarche of 15 candidates," he said.
Karzai Looks To Rebuild a Nation
Far Eastern Economic Review
Final results won’t be available for many days, but it appears that Hamid Karzai has easily won the race to become Afghanistan’s first elected president. Now he must work to heal a fractious nation without conceding too much to power-hungry warlords
By Ahmed Rashid/Kabul
As dawn broke on October 9, thousands of Afghans began to gather at polling stations around the country to cast their votes for a new president and the first legally sanctioned government in the country since 1973. For most Afghans it was the first time they had ever seen a ballot box. “Afghans have been waiting for this moment of empowerment for years,” President Hamid Karzai told reporters, as the polls closed after a two-hour extension to allow everyone to vote.
Although the polling was marred by significant irregularities and subsequent protests by some of the 15 opposition presidential candidates, the massive turnout—estimated by the United Nations at 70%-80%—placed Afghanistan at the forefront of representative new democracies, not to mention earning a position as one of the few Muslim countries in the region where leaders have been freely elected. “Despite the problems, the elections will have a profound impact on the region,” says a Western ambassador. (See related article on page 16.) Especially significant, the Taliban and Al Qaeda failed to carry out pledges to disrupt the polls, signalling that one of Islamic terrorism’s former breeding grounds may be turning toward peace.
Collecting and counting the votes will take between two and three weeks, but close observers of the election have little doubt that Karzai will secure the 51% vote needed to avoid a run-off election and become president for the next five years.
An election victory is only the beginning of Karzai’s challenges. One key task will be to establish a legitimate, representative government that wins broad support from a fractious Afghanistan without relying too heavily on powerful warlords. It’s a tall order, but the relative success of the election gives hope that Karzai is up to it. Speaking to the Review before the vote, Karzai said that if elected his new “government will be efficient, clean and patriotic like hell and will reflect the whole country and the whole Afghan nation.” He said he would not form a coalition with warlords or allow them to set conditions on his reforms.
The enthusiasm of Afghans for the election was visible both before and during the vote. Before the election, 10.5 million Afghans registered to vote; another 1.5 million registered in refugee camps in Pakistan and Iran. And on election day, the excitement at several of the polling stations visited by the Review in Kabul and the Shomali valley north of the city was obvious despite heavy security and fears of Taliban attacks. Contrary to expectations, women turned out in large numbers, even in areas where resident Pashtun tribes are deeply conservative. Many women across the country were expected to vote for Karzai. “Karzai is the only person to fly the white bird of peace, the other candidates are just warlords,” said Mehbooba, a young teacher, as she voted in Kabul.
The fact that the elections were mostly violence-free was partially due to the massive deployment of some 80,000 troops and police from Afghan security and militia forces, the 19,000-strong United States-led coalition forces and the 9,000-strong Nato-led peacekeeping force in Kabul. United States Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad praised the performance of the Afghan security forces, who had arrested over 100 extremists trying to smuggle in rockets and explosives.
The election was not free of controversy. Serious discrepancies led to an initial boycott by 14 of 15 opposition candidates. Intimidation by warlords and multiple voting by Afghans who had acquired more than one voter-registration card were noted by national and international monitoring groups, who nevertheless declared the result to be valid. At some polling stations, local officials did not use indelible ink intended to mark voters’ fingers to prevent them voting more than once. Some officials apparently mixed up two kinds of ink and used the wrong one to mark voters’ thumbs.
Opposition candidates jumped on the issue to call for a halt to the elections. “Today’s election is not a legitimate election, we are not part of today’s election,” presidential candidate and opposition spokesman Abdul Sitar Serat told hundreds of reporters halfway through polling day. Within hours, Western ambassadors met the candidates to try to effect a compromise, while Karzai called upon all Afghans to accept the results. “Millions of people have voted and we all have to accept the results—that’s how it is all over the world,” Karzai told the Review.
One of three particularly influential opposition contenders, Mohammed Mohaqeq, the Hazara warlord from central Afghanistan, quickly accepted a United Nations-offered compromise on the vote: Set up an independent investigative commission to investigate irregularities. Younus Qanooni, a former education minister for Karzai, a Tajik leader of the former Northern Alliance and probably the strongest of Karzai’s opponents, accepted the compromise two days after the vote. Other candidates were expected to follow suit.
Claims put to the test
Karzai, a Pashtun, cannot afford to alienate opponents who represent major non-Pashtun ethnic groups. “Every warlord, ethnic group, tribe wants to test their actual support in these elections. Tall claims have been made by everyone for past 25 years; now we will know the truth,” says retired Gen. Attiquallah Barylai, Qanooni’s campaign manager.
Karzai and Western diplomats say the election should help Western and Afghan intelligence efforts to encourage senior, moderate Taliban leaders to return home from Pakistan. “The elections are a major step in encouraging many Taliban to realize that the best approach is to enter the political process,” says Francesc Vendrell, the European Union’s ambassador to Afghanistan. The next test for whether that approach is successful may come next year: Parliamentary elections will be held in April 2005.
In the end, the elections were imperfect, but they represent a significant step forward in stabilizing the country. Says UN Special Representative Jean Arnault: “This election shows an accelerated transition from the rule of the gun to something else, which is not full democracy but empowers people to take decisions.”
AFGHANISTAN HOPES FOR NEIGHBORLY GOODWILL.
Ahmed Rashid in Kabul Far Eastern Economic Review on October 14, 2004
For the past 25 years, landlocked Afghanistan has suffered from constant interference from its neighbours—Pakistan, Iran and the Central Asian Republics—and from regional powers like Russia and India. The neighbours are still interfering, but there are signs that rather than undermining Afghanistan’s stability, they may now actually be trying to strengthen it.
Speaking to the Review before the election, President Hamid Karzai said, “The elections should be reassurance to all our neighbours . . . that a stable Afghanistan, a peaceful Afghanistan, is good for all. Nobody should feel [like] a loser.” All the regional countries have publicly backed the Karzai government and supported the electoral process, but serious undercurrents remain as they all have their favourite proxies in Afghanistan.
Pakistan has often been accused of harbouring Taliban extremists planning to disrupt elections. But at the highest level, the United States has avoided criticism of Pakistan’s President Pervez Musharraf on the ground that he is helping to catch Al Qaeda elements inside Pakistan. That changed last month when President George W. Bush, Musharraf and Karzai met in New York on the sidelines of a United Nations General Assembly session.
Western and Afghan diplomats intimately involved with the meeting said Bush pushed Musharraf hard on reining in the Taliban so that elections could take place peacefully. Bush is reported to have asked a flustered Musharraf: “Where are Mullah Omar, Mullah Usmani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar?” All three are extremist Taliban members or key Taliban allies and known to be living in Pakistan. “It was the first time that Bush totally focused on the Taliban threat rather than Al Qaeda with the Pakistanis,” says a Western ambassador. Karzai was clearly pleased. “President Musharraf promised to help us and cooperate with us on curbing terrorist activity by the Taliban,” says Karzai.
The next day an angry Musharraf said that Pakistan would categorically not send Pakistani troops to Iraq, a clear snub aimed at the Americans. Until then he had said Pakistan’s options were open. However, Pakistani officials insist that the decision was unconnected to the tripartite meeting.
U.S. and Nato military officers in Kabul say it is too early to say whether Bush’s tough message succeeded in persuading Musharraf and the powerful Interservices Intelligence (ISI) to try to rein in the Taliban. However, there are signs of a crackdown on the Pakistan side. “Pakistan now has a large force deployed in the province of Baluchistan, which was not there before,” says Lt.-Gen. David Barno. He says Taliban elements still cross the border, but “there is much better tactical cooperation between our forces.”
Afghan officials welcomed the appointment on October 3 of Lt.-Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani as the new ISI chief. Kiyani is well known and liked in Kabul—for the past year he has led the Pakistani delegation in monthly meetings with the Afghan military on issues related to their common border.
Karzai also has to deal with the stepped-up rivalry between India and Pakistan in Afghanistan. Islamabad accuses New Delhi of using two of its consulates in Afghanistan, Kandahar and Jalalabad, to train Baluchi insurgents who are active in Pakistan’s Baluchistan province. Pakistani officials claim there are 42 Indian intelligence agents based in Kandahar and another 12 in Jalalabad. “They have no business being there,” says a Pakistani official. Both India and Afghanistan deny the claim. Amrullah Saleh, the head of Afghanistan’s National Security Directorate, said “we will take it very seriously” if Pakistan can show evidence of its claims.
With the U.S. military now on two sides of Iran in Iraq and Afghanistan, moderates among Iran’s leadership are keen to help stabilize Karzai so that the U.S. reduces its presence in Afghanistan. However, powerful hardliners in Teheran may be trying to undermine that strategy. Iranian officials played a major role in persuading failed presidential candidate Younus Qanooni to accept the results of the election.
However, Iran is deeply concerned about the U.S. occupation of Shindand, a massive Soviet-era air base just 30 kilometres from Iran’s border. The enhanced American presence in western Afghanistan was only made possible after the ousting last month of Ismail Khan, the warlord and governor of Herat province. Khan was a close ally of Iranian hardliners, though Iranian officials say they didn’t object to Khan’s ousting because they want to strengthen Karzai’s campaign against warlords.
At a time of heightened tensions between Teheran and Washington over Iran’s nuclear-weapons programme and calls by neo-conservatives in Washington that a second Bush term should deal with Iran aggressively, the Iranians fear that Shindand could be used as a listening post, spying facility and even a launching pad for future U.S. action against Iran. Afghan officials say the Americans have moved more than 100 special-forces personnel and helicopters to Shindand. However, Barno insists that the U.S. presence poses no threat to Iran.
This places Karzai in a difficult and sensitive position because he has to maintain excellent relations with both Washington and Teheran. “Afghanistan has had the benefit of cooperation from both the U.S. and Iran,” says Karzai. “So far, what they have done together has been good for us, and that’s how we would like to keep it.” Nobody can claim that elections have brought an end to the neighbours’ interference in Afghanistan. But Karzai’s electoral mandate now should make it more difficult for the neighbours to put pressure on him.
India hails Afghan elections
PTI WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 13, 2004 THE TIMES OF INDIA
NEW DELHI: India on Wednesday hailed the Presidential elections in Afghanistan as a "historic milestone" in its journey towards peace, stability and prosperity and said New Delhi was looking forward to strengthening traditional ties with it.
The government said the people of Afghanistan, who defied the threat of terrorism, had displayed their support for democracy and rejection of the ideology of violence.
"We welcome the Presidential elections that were held in Afghanistan. They are a historic milestone in Afghanistan's journey towards peace, stability and prosperity," an External Affairs Ministry spokesman said here.
He noted that the people of Afghanistan had defied the threat of terrorism and come out in strength to exercise their right to vote.
They had "demonstrated through this process their support for the establishment and consolidation of democracy and conclusively rejected the ideology as well as the sponsors of obscurantism, hate and violence," the spokesman said.
He said India was looking forward to working closely with Afghanistan to further strengthen the traditional ties of friendship and cooperation between the two countries.
Voting for Afghanistan's Future
Washington Post 10/12/04 - By Ashraf Ghani
On Saturday, the Afghan people took another step toward lasting peace and prosperity while dealing a blow to terrorism. Afghan women and men turned out in massive numbers to participate in the first direct presidential election in the country's history. Despite threats from al Qaeda and the Taliban, and notwithstanding claims of electoral fraud that must be fully investigated, no one can challenge the Afghan people's courage and determination to exercise their sovereign rights. Saturday's election was a joyous moment, but it was a moment, nonetheless, on a 10-year journey toward rebuilding our country.
For more than two decades, Soviet occupation, civil war and Taliban dictatorship had imposed an unrepresentative order on an unwilling people. This bloody legacy enabled al Qaeda to capture our country and use it for a campaign of global terrorism. But the election underscores a major break with the vicious cycle of the past. Just three years and two days after an international military coalition came to free our country, we Afghans have once again chosen the path of peace and democracy.
Afghanistan is making an impressive though difficult transition from conflict and dictatorship to popular empowerment. In December 2001, a group of Afghans met for U.N.-sponsored talks in Bonn and overcame factional differences to agree on a road map for peace and stability.
Weeks later, for the first time in our history, power was transferred peacefully to an interim government. At the June 2002 loya jirga (Grand Assembly), the Afghan government took its next step toward increased legitimacy: representative delegates elected Hamid Karzai president through a secret ballot and approved choices for the key posts in his cabinet. After national consultations, a second loya jirga debated and ratified a new constitution that enshrined democratic institutions and citizens' rights, especially those of women.
While the election represents another milestone on our journey, the future will soon bring new hurdles. As the expectations of Afghans grow, Afghan leaders and our international partners must continue to deliver public security, economic growth and good governance. While the presence of international peacekeepers and the military coalition have been essential for the past three years, sustainable peace will now require urgent strengthening and expansion of Afghan national security institutions. The national army and police forces must create a safe environment for disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of militias. And rule of law will require establishing an impartial and effective judiciary, as well as addressing the menace of a criminalized economy dominated by drug networks.
In April 2004 in Berlin, the international community acknowledged Afghanistan's long route to lasting peace by endorsing our $27.5 billion public investment plan for the next seven years. When they generously pledged $8.2 billion over three years as the down payment on that plan, they acknowledged that poverty was as great a threat to securing Afghanistan's future as militias, narcotics and terrorism. More than 70 percent of our people live on less than $2 a day, making us vulnerable to the cynical politics of patronage, xenophobia and criminality.
To free ourselves from endemic poverty and aid dependency in the next seven years, we will need predictable flows of international funds, and we will need to spend wisely. If we use these funds to alleviate immediate suffering, strengthen our human capital and rebuild our infrastructure, the Afghan people can prosper. With schools, basic health care, functioning roads, electric power, adequate water and other basic needs met, our entrepreneurs will thrive and our small and medium-size businesses will create jobs. Meanwhile, large-scale private investment programs will open markets for our goods and services. Our farmers and traders want to participate in the regional and global economy. We must help them to do so.
In December 2001, we saw the beginning of a remarkable partnership between the international community and the Afghan people. Since then, women and men from around the world have served our nation as soldiers, peacekeepers, diplomats, aid workers and election observers.
Grateful for this unusual support, Afghans came to the polls en masse to affirm their commitment to a better future. Yet our journey together toward a democratic, secure and prosperous Afghanistan will not be realized overnight. Saturday's election is a historic achievement, but it is only one step forward. We must now recommit to our shared future, for we have all come to understand that whatever road we take in Afghanistan, we will take it together. The writer is Afghanistan's finance minister.
Afghanistan's Anti-Fear Vote
The Christian Science Monitor 10/12/2004
No one anticipated the ink problem. Before Saturday's election in Afghanistan, the big concern was not the thumb-staining system to prevent multiple voting, but widespread violence.
For months, Taliban militants had been trying to disrupt Afghanistan's first-ever presidential election, attacking election workers and intimidating would-be voters with death threats. Allied troops were reinforced and plans made to secure polling areas and cities.
But a massive turnout of voters in the face of snow, rain, and dust storms proved that millions of Afghans were not to be intimidated. The expected widespread attacks didn't materialize.
The Afghan people's strong showing seems to reflect the views that voter Zia Jan told Monitor reporter Scott Baldauf on election day: "We are not afraid of any attacks," she said. "If we are killed, we will still vote."
It is freedom from fear, far more than voting irregularities, that ought to be the marker of this election, for as Franklin D. Roosevelt warned in 1933, fear "paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance."
And certainly, Afghanistan still has much advancing to do. While the economy is growing at a rate of 20 percent, girls are attending school for the first time, a national road network is being built, and millions of refugees have returned home, the challenges ahead are daunting. Afghanistan's opium trade is booming. The Taliban insurgency is not yet quashed; the tribal chieftains' militias are not disbanded. Not to mention pervasive poverty and illiteracy.
That's where the election irregularities such as the ink issue come in, because an election polluted by widespread fraud can also sap the legitimacy of a leader to move ahead with change.
Candidates opposed to highly favored front- runner and incumbent Hamid Karzai called for an election boycott Saturday when it was discovered that some polling stations marked voters' thumbs with removable instead of indelible ink.
The election's organizers promise an independent panel will investigate this and other irregularities along with the crucial issue of how widespread they were. That appears to have calmed objections for now.
It's important to remember that the technical difficulties experienced in the first democratic presidential election in a communal and tribal society such as Afghanistan can decrease with each new election. Breaking the grip of fear, however, is a much harder task, and that seems to have been accomplished last weekend.
The winners are warlords, not women
The Guardian 10/13/2004 By Natasha Walter
In the elections held in Afghanistan last weekend, many reporters concentrated on the extraordinary spectacle of women queueing, their blue burkas billowing, at the polling stations. George Bush also hit upon this as proof of the success of the American presence in Afghanistan. He stated that the first person to vote in the election was a 19-year-old woman, and commented that she was "voting in this election because the United States of America believes that freedom is the almighty God's gift to each man and woman in this world".
Bush has frequently used his policy in Afghanistan as evidence of his commitment to women's rights, and as an attempt to woo women voters. Recently, Laura Bush spoke at an election rally at which women in the audience held placards saying, "W stands for women". She told her husband's supporters: "After years of being treated as virtual prisoners in their own homes by the Taliban, the women of Afghanistan are going back to work. And wasn't it wonderful to watch the Olympics and see that beautiful Afghan sprinter race in long pants and a T-shirt, exercising her new freedom."
It was wonderful, but it wasn't the whole story. If we listen to what Afghan women themselves are saying we glimpse a darker reality than politicians here or in the US would like to show us. Undoubtedly, the removal of the Taliban did improve the lot of many Afghan women, and I say that even though I opposed the war at the time. Many girls have gone to school, many women have gone to work. The sole female presidential candidate in the election, Massouda Jalal, can speak openly about building a society in which women have equality; and 40% of those who registered to vote in the election were women.
But the Americans and the British did not go into Afghanistan to defend women's rights, however eagerly our politicians sell that picture back to us. When I visited Afghanistan a couple of years ago, I was struck by the depth of anger against the old mujahideen commanders, and how passionately people, especially women, longed for them to face justice.
Instead, their power has been entrenched by the Americans' reliance on them as allies against the Taliban and al-Qaida. That horrifies not only western observers with access to Amnesty International reports, but also ordinary women who experienced, and still experience, their crimes. Sahar Saba, a spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a secular organisation still unable to work openly, told me last week: "People who should be on trial for their crimes are still in key positions in the government, so in such a situation speaking about democracy and women's rights is futile."
As is well known, the warlords - men such as Rashid Dostum and Atta Mohammed - have many of the same attitudes to women as the Taliban. Between Hope and Fear, a report just published by Human Rights Watch, provides a chilling reminder of what that means. These men are targeting women who take part in any political or development work. Even in Kabul, by far the safest and most open part of the country, one woman working at a women's organisation said, "Even entering the door of this office, that itself is a grave risk."
A woman from Kabul who went to a northern province to investigate why a women's centre had been forced to close down by local strongmen, received death threats and was forced to leave the country. Many of the women who spoke to Human Rights Watch are those who tried to participate in public life, but who have now dropped out in fear and despair.
One of the most depressing of many depressing tales in the report is the story of a women's organisation that was forced to close a project in the Panjshir region because a group of mullahs objected to it. The staff tried to go on despite threats by armed men, but in the end they gave up. "Nothing worked. We felt we had lost."
Even the figure of 40% of voters being female has been questioned by observers, who have noted multiple registration in some areas, while in others fewer than 10% of registered voters were women. Female reporters - able to talk to ordinary women, who are often prevented from talking to male outsiders - talked to many women who obtained cards but were prevented by the men in their families from going to vote.
It is a mistake to put too much store on the election in the lives of the women in Afghanistan. Its outcome is not in much doubt, but even after the election Afghan women will have to go on living in a society in which, beyond Kabul, power is still parcelled out between those brutal regional commanders.
Those female voices that do get heard are still calling for more funding for development and disarmament initiatives in Afghanistan, and the expansion of the UN-backed peacekeeping force in order to create a less threatening situation on the ground. But although our politicians like to use the tale of the women of Afghanistan as a selling point, their real energy and interest has moved on.
In a strange twist of logic, Tony Blair said at Labour's conference that the resistance in Iraq was led by "the same people who stopped Afghan girls going to school ... They are in Iraq for the very reason we should be." The idea that the occupation forces in Iraq are fighting the Taliban is nonsensical.
It is bizarre that the example of the needs of Afghan girls should be used not as a spur for redoubled humanitarian efforts in that country, but as a spur for the occupation of another country. Politicians in the west are keen to use the rhetoric of women's rights as a justification for their policies, and they are refusing to listen to women who say those policies are failing them.
In Nangarhar, the Opium Mafia Reigns Supreme
Libération 10/14/2004 By Philippe Grangereau
The anti-drug police hope that after the presidential election they will finally be able to work effectively. From our special envoy to Jalalabad.
Opium and war lords. Now more than ever, these two Afghanistan calamities haunt the province of Nangarhar as well as the neighboring provinces of this Pakistan border region. The anti-drug repression units, with a ridiculously low level of staffing, are impotent there in the face of an opium mafia in bed with the highest officials, beginning with the governor, even though he was named and sustained by the Kabul central government. As in many other places in Afghanistan, after the fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001, the local war chiefs had official titles conferred on them by a weak central power. The situation persists, since the United States, which allied itself to them to remove the Taliban from power, believes it still needs them to continue the chase. The tribal chieftains' armed militias, hundreds of men strong, have been rechristened army and police "regiments", while, in fact, they fulfill the function of private militias in the service of these local potentates. In the lower ranks, little Mudjahadijn commanders have also obtained official positions, often in the police force.
Mission Impossible
The situation is designed to drive Ahmed Shah Himat, the regional commandant for the anti-drug police unit, based in Jalalabad and created a year ago by the Interior Minister, to despair. Thirty men strong, this cell has the "mission impossible" of cracking down on the drug traffic in Nangarhar (a province which had become the top producer in 2003, with an estimated 964 tons of opium) as well as in four other neighboring provinces. His black beard trimmed, an official cap on his head, he confesses to having seized a pitiful haul of only 59kg of heroin, 300 kg of opium, and 1,800 kg of hashish since March. The unit does not have any vehicles. For some operations targeting heroin production laboratories, sometimes 50-80 men from other services are mobilized. But it's too few. Often informed ahead of time, well-armed traffickers easily repulse their assaults. "And even the trafficker arrests we've been able to make have been useless," explains the commandant. Practically all the people apprehended in the midst of criminal acts are released against a guarantee by Jalalabad judges who have been bribed by the big traffickers. The collusion between the latter and the authorities is obvious. "Some district chiefs, notorious criminals, were recently dismissed from their official functions because of their involvement in the drug trade, but a few days later they were renamed to the same positions by the governor, foisting a fait accompli on the central government," observes the commandant in disgust.
Three Nangarhar jang salar (warlords) divide up power and millions of dollars from drugs and smuggling with Pakistan among themselves: the governor, Hadji Din Mohammed, named by President Hamid Karzai; Hadji Zahir, his nephew, who holds the position of Chief of Border Security, and Hazrat Ali, the security commandant for the entire province. In Jalalabad, where tongues do not easily loosen, it's an open secret. Those who dare to express themselves are often exasperated and courageous low level officials. The risk to them is great.
"I know I'm doomed, and my men too," says Ahmed Shah Himat. "The traffickers have let it be known that they've put a bounty of $100,000 on my head," continues the commandant, who, ever since, no longer dares send his children to school, for fear they'll be kidnapped. "We get no serious help, neither from Kabul, nor from the United States or the rest of the international community and our meager salaries [30 to 50 Euros per month, an] are paid late," sighs his assistant. "We know where the heroin production laboratories are; we know which local officials make them work, but we can't do anything because they're all protected by high authorities... Let's hope that after the presidential election, the governor and Hadji Zahir will be relieved of their functions so that we can finally work effectively."
Abdul Rasulzai, who manages the Anti-drug Directorate in Jalalabad, placed directly under the authority of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, for his part deplores the central government's lack of will, "to the point where the fight against drugs was more effective under the Taliban, who, by decree of Mullah Omar, succeeded in reducing national production to 185 tons in 2001." Since then, it has not stopped growing, reaching a level of 3,600 tons in 2003 and probably much more in 2004, according to the UN's projections. More than one and a half million Afghans are involved in a business worth 2.5 billion dollars, according to the estimate of the United Nations Office against Drugs and Crime (UNODC). Afghanistan, which supplies 75% of the world's opium, has become a de facto narco-state, since, according to the IMF, that business represents half the Afghan Gross Domestic Product (GDP).
Prohibition
Opium production has only been officially prohibited for several months, Abdul Rasulzai reminds us. Previously, Kabul compensated growers who destroyed their crops, which only incited them to produce more. Last year, it was decided opium should be eradicated within ten years, i.e. by 10% a year. This decree was applied in such a way in Nangarhar as to have had no impact whatsoever. After months of palaver, five districts out of 21 in the province were targeted. "They were the only ones in Nangarhar where there was almost no production," Rasulzai clarifies. In Kabul, Vice Minister for Customs Jelani Popal comments, "If we don't get rid of the war lords soon, Afghanistan will become a Mafia-state."
Afghan 'said he enjoyed killing'
BBC Online
An alleged Afghan warlord who lives in London told one of his victims "I like killing" seconds before shooting him, the Old Bailey has heard.
Giving evidence via a live video link with Afghanistan, a witness said he saw Faryadi Sarwar Zardad kill the man for delivering flour to a rival faction.
The witness also said he had suffered imprisonment and beatings at the hands of Mr Zardad and his men.
Mr Zardad denies conspiring to kidnap and torture in his homeland.
He is the first person to be tried at the Old Bailey under Section 134 of the Criminal Justice Act, which allows Britain to try alleged torturers regardless of where the crime is alleged to have occurred.
'Better to be killed'
The witnesses are the first to give evidence from a specially-prepared room in the British Embassy in Kabul, which is being used as an extension of the Central Criminal Court in London.
Witness C, who cannot be named for legal reasons, said he and his co-workers were stopped and told their flour delivery was forbidden.
"One of the drivers pleaded with Zardad and said 'We are trying to earn a living to feed our children and if you do not allow this it is better to be killed.'
"He said 'I like killing'."
The driver replied "I would like to be killed rather than live like this," according to witness C.
He continued: "Zardad asked him 'would you like to be killed?' The driver said 'Yes, I would like.'
"Zardad pulled his handgun and shot him and after killing him he kicked him."
Witness C claims he was then imprisoned for three days.
'Petrified'
He also told how he was imprisoned on a separate occasion for three weeks by Mr Zardad's men.
"I was imprisoned in a dark room. There were chains hanging from the roof.
"They tied one chain to my foot and the other to my hand.
"The walls were full of blood. I was petrified. Sometimes I was beaten. I had bruises to my body," he said.
On Tuesday another witness told the court how he was imprisoned and whipped with a cable every night for six months by Mr Zardad and his men.
Mr Zardad, 42, of Gleneagle Road, Streatham, south London, denies conspiracy to torture and conspiracy to take hostages between 31 December 1991 and 30 September 1996.
The trial continues.
Corps of Engineers Builds Infrastructure to Create Terror-Free Afghanistan
Provides Facilities for More Than 56,000 Afghan National Army Soldiers
KABUL, Afghanistan — Remnants of former Russian bases, with the shells of their buildings, near bombed-out tanks, minefields and leftover munitions scatter the mountainous landscape in Afghanistan. For a country that has been at war for more than 20 years, it is an all too familiar scene.
Constructing modern day facilities for the newly trained Afghan National Army (ANA) has become a primary mission for the Afghanistan Engineer District of the US Army Corps of Engineers.
Supporting Combined Forces Command-Afghanistan’s efforts to win the war on terror, the Corps is spearheading a comprehensive infrastructure program for the reception and training of recruits, and subsequent stabilization of up to 70,000 ANA soldiers. Sites currently being constructed, and those completed since the start of the program, provide facilities for 56,000 troops at a cost of $575 million.
The program, which began in 2003, includes construction, rehabilitation and refurbishment of barracks, dining facilities, administration centers, clinics, motor pools, multipurpose training ranges and support facilities. It also includes construction of a military hospital, military academy, entrance processing station, and training center. Funding for the program to date has been provided by the United States, Taiwan and the United Kingdom.
“The Afghan National Army program is a critical component to our strategy to establish a safe and secure environment in Afghanistan that is free of terrorism,” said Col. John B. O’Dowd, commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Afghanistan District. “The all volunteer ANA has proven, in the field, its dedication to the future of Afghanistan.
“The Corps is honored that our engineering experience, gained in the accomplishment of our civil works and military construction program back home, is providing these dedicated soldiers with the quality facilities they deserve.”
In addition to creating comfortable living conditions for the ANA, the Corps manages the construction of power plants, water supply and wastewater
treatment facilities for each site. The new bases are located in key areas such as Kabul (Pol-e-charki, Darualman, Kabul Military Training Center) Herat, Gardez, Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif.
Combined, the installations total 1,300 acres with more than 600 major structures. Currently, there are seven sites under construction.
“This is the first time in the history of Afghanistan that we have the infrastructure, the barracks and the headquarters in one instillation,” said Brig. Gen. Mohamad Akhtar Hamdam, the ANA’s garrison commander at Darualaman. “We are very pleased to have similar facilities used by other military all around the world.”
According to Hamdam, the approximately 3,000 ANA soldiers at his base are from all over the country, some from such remote and far places that they have never lived with running water or electricity. As commander, once the soldiers transition to Darualaman, he ensures they are trained on how to properly care for themselves and their new surroundings.
“Our government prepared all the facilities for complete use, so an incoming soldier does not have to worry about food, cold or heat,” said Hamdam. “They are able to come here and just work.
“Our Army is here for serving the nation and the people of Afghanistan. It is all connected directly to each other. The infrastructure that serves the ANA serves the nation of Afghanistan.”
Prior to the start of construction, the Corps oversaw the de-mining and removal of unexploded ordinance (UXO) leftover at each site. According to the UN Mine Action Centre in Afghanistan, there are more than 872 square kilometers of suspected mined land and an additional 450 square kilometers of land thought to be contaminated by UXO, making Afghanistan one of the most heavily mined countries in the world.
The Corps has deployed more than 1,700 civilian and military volunteers to help support the Armed Services fight against the war on terror here and in Iraq. Currently, there are more than 80 Corps personnel working throughout Afghanistan. The ANA program is one of several ongoing initiatives spearheaded by the AED.
15 Afghan Candidates to File Vote Complaints With Panel
New York Times 10/12/2004 By Carlotta Gall
KABUL - Fifteen of the 17 candidates who ran against the interim president, Hamid Karzai, in Afghanistan's first presidential election met here on Tuesday to prepare official complaints of multiple voting, ballot box stuffing and other irregularities.
The complaints will be investigated by a commission set up by the United Nations after the 15 candidates called for a suspension of the election on Saturday and accused the United Nations and Afghan Joint Election Management Board of bias toward Mr. Karzai. The candidates agreed to abide by the panel's findings.
A spokesman for Mr. Karzai's campaign, Hamid Elmi, said Mr. Karzai's campaign office was also submitting complaints involving other candidates' supporters, but he did not specify what. The large number of complaints may slow down a counting process already expected to take at least two weeks.
The candidates' main complaint focused on the failure of a system to prevent multiple voting, in which voters' hands were marked with what was supposed to be indelible ink but which often washed off easily. Critics said the problem had opened the election to widespread fraud.
"It was systematic rigging," said Dr. Yassa, an aide to one candidate, Muhammad Mohaqeq, an ethnic Hazara and a Shiite Muslim.
"There are 15 candidates against Karzai and every one has dozens of complaints," said Abdul Bashir Bezhan, a party deputy to another candidate, Latif Pedram. He said there were numerous accounts of multiple voting, with some reports of people who had voted up to 15 times, and who were ready to admit it and show their multiple cards.
Other complaints involved ballot-box fraud. Dr. Yassa said two boxes from a Hazara district of Kabul had been found to be missing ballots - one lacked 300 and one 200 - at the counting center during the first checking procedure. He said he suspected foul play because the district was known for its support for Mr. Mohaqeq and the missing ballots would have almost certainly been in his favor.
Another candidate, Homayoun Shah Assefi, a former Afghan diplomat, told of a case he learned of on Saturday from a police official in Ghazni, some 100 miles south of Kabul, in which the manager of a polling station took home two ballot boxes and returned them on election morning stuffed with ballots. The police official, he said, gave the names of those involved and also had the numbers of the boxes.
The story did not end there: the manager was briefly detained by the local police but was released after saying the falsified ballots had been filled out in favor of Mr. Karzai, Mr. Assefi said, and the boxes were put in with the legitimate boxes.
"I don't know if such an infamous case has occurred in other places at this stage, but on that day I received complaints of fraud and cheating from Kandahar and Nangarhar as well," Mr. Assefi said.
In Spinbaldak, in southern Afghanistan, poll officers were ordered by their supervisor to fill out 700 ballots in favor of Mr. Karzai, according to an election official interviewed in Kandahar. Two men, tribal elders from a nearby refugee camp, arrived with 700 registration cards and said they wanted to vote for the entire camp, said the election official, who asked to remain anonymous.
The 700 cards were divided among the poll officers in five adjoining rooms. A poll official said he was handed 100 cards and ordered to punch each of them with a hole-puncher, while his colleague was told to mark ballots for Mr. Karzai. The election official said the poll official had objected but had been told by his supervisor, "You should not worry, you should just do your work."
Another poll official described working in a mountainous area in southern Afghanistan and being ordered by tribal chiefs to fill out 60 to 70 extra ballots for absentee voters, many of them women. The man said his supervisor had told him to comply. "It was in the middle of the desert," he said. "The supervisor said we are so far from anywhere, please just do it. It does not matter." All the extra ballots were filled out for Mr. Karzai, he said.
Wednesday October 13, 9:45 PM
4 Killed in Attack at Afghan Wedding
An attacker tossed a grenade into a wedding ceremony at the home of an Afghan refugee living in northwest Pakistan, killing four people and injuring 35, police said Wednesday.
The attack occurred late Tuesday night while the wedding guests were listening to music at the house in Jalala, a village home to an Afghan refugee camp about 35 miles northeast of the provincial capital of Peshawar, said local police official Rehan Khan.
North West Frontier Province is ruled by a conservative Islamic coalition that has banned musicians from playing in some public places, claiming it goes against Muslim teachings.
Several of the injured were hospitalized with serious wounds, Khan said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, two men were killed and a child was wounded Wednesday when a grenade they found exploded in their hands in a village in eastern Punjab province, police officer Zafar Alam said.
4 Killed in Attack at Afghan Wedding
Wednesday October 13, 9:45 PM AP
An attacker tossed a grenade into a wedding ceremony at the home of an Afghan refugee living in northwest Pakistan, killing four people and injuring 35, police said Wednesday.
The attack occurred late Tuesday night while the wedding guests were listening to music at the house in Jalala, a village home to an Afghan refugee camp about 35 miles northeast of the provincial capital of Peshawar, said local police official Rehan Khan.
North West Frontier Province is ruled by a conservative Islamic coalition that has banned musicians from playing in some public places, claiming it goes against Muslim teachings.
Several of the injured were hospitalized with serious wounds, Khan said. No one claimed responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, two men were killed and a child was wounded Wednesday when a grenade they found exploded in their hands in a village in eastern Punjab province, police officer Zafar Alam said.
Bush strategy of multifront war weakens rebels in Afghanistan
By Rowan Scarborough THE WASHINGTON TIMES October 14, 2004
President Bush's three-year-old strategy of fighting a multifront war on terror is stretching enemy forces thin and reducing their ability to mount attacks in Afghanistan, said U.S. officials and independent authorities.
Much of the debate in the United States has centered on U.S. forces being stressed in the global war. But military analysts are pointing to Afghanistan's near-violence-free elections on Saturday as an example of enemy forces being depleted to the point where they cannot sustain attacks.
The analysts also say some of the thousands of terrorists trained in Osama bin Laden's Afghan camps have gone to fight in other areas, such as Iraq, further stretching their capabilities.
"The terrorists are being used up, and they're losing hundreds a day in many cases," said retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Tom McInerney, a military analyst. "The administration has a low profile on that. But [the terrorists] are suffering severe casualties. That's why there was success in Afghanistan, Samara, and now you have negotiations in Fallujah and Ramadi." The Iraqi cities of Fallujah and Ramadi are run, in part, by militants.
"The fact is the summer offensive we conducted that has been going on for the last six months has had a significant impact on terrorists trying to organize attacks that could have come about during the election," Gen. McInerney said. "There's just no question about it."
Robert Andrews, a former Green Beret and CIA analyst who advises the Pentagon on war issues, said he suspects "the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan are getting thinned out."
In the months before the Afghan election, the U.S.-led coalition teamed with Pakistani troops to pinch and kill militants in hide-outs along the borders. The joint offensive killed hundreds of fighters from the terror network al Qaeda and the hard-line Taliban that ruled Afghanistan until the Oct. 7, 2001, invasion.
Mr. Andrews attributed the drop in attacks to reduced capability as well as political sensitivity.
"Don't underestimate the power of national elections -- the appeal to Afghanis is to run their own government."
A U.S. special operations official agreed. "There is popular support for a stable Afghanistan, and the bad guys would do their cause no good by going against the population," said this source, who has fought the Taliban in Afghanistan.
The Bush strategy of pre-emption has meant that U.S. forces, covert and overt, have engaged terrorists on several fronts, including in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Iraq, the Horn of Africa, the Philippines and Asia.
Army Lt. Gen. David Barno, chief of the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan, said before the election that intelligence reports pointed to the Taliban-al Qaeda alliance trying to carry out a string of attacks on and around election day.
Only a handful materialized, and U.S. forces intercepted some attackers. Some analysts said the Taliban might have lacked the resources after a bloody summer.
Also, Gen. Barno had dispatched a security force of 100,000 troops and police throughout the country.
L. Paul Bremer, the former U.S. civilian administrator in Iraq, said captured foreign fighters had told the U.S.-led coalition there that many of them had been trained in bin Laden's terrorist camps in Afghanistan. They presumably would have been fighting in Afghanistan today if they did not have to move to Iraq, officials said.
Gen. Barno changed strategy earlier this year, breaking up troops into units that would embed with villagers and collect intelligence.
"What we're doing is moving to a more classic counterinsurgency strategy here in Afghanistan," Gen. Barno said. "That's a fairly significant change in terms of our tactical approach out there on the ground."
The election "was a big defeat for the Taliban and a huge defeat for al Qaeda," Gen. Barno said on Tuesday.
A second source close to the U.S. operations community said, "We are diminishing their numbers on the ground."
The problem, as Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said, is that it is difficult to develop "metrics" that tell whether the enemy is replacing troops as fast as the United States kills them.
The source said, "Terrorists don't have the affirmative duty to kill us. They can sit and bide their time if they have to. We don't have that luxury. We're trying to force them into battles where we can kill them.
"Clearly, we have them reacting to us. No doubt about that. That is part of our goal. It's a victory when they don't hit us when they said they would. But it's not the end of the game. The problem is they could attack us in four months and create just as much havoc."
Afghan women throw off their burqas to count votes
Agence France-Presse Kabul, October 13
Until three years ago Afghan women could not work, study or step outside without being shrouded in a burqa. Now they are part of the wheels of democracy, collecting ballots and preparing to count them.
At a counting center on an Afghan Army base on the outskirts of Kabul Wednesday, scores of women worked at checking, consolidating and sorting ballots before the counting begins.
"There are heaps of women working here," said David Avery, chief of logistics for the Election Commision, which is jointly staffed by US and Afghan officials.
"We also had very large numbers of women working as civic educators and trainers on the election."
Across the deeply conservative land, even in Afghanistan's ultra-traditional Pashtun south, unexpected numbers of women turned out to vote in their country's historic first presidential election.
"Women were wearing brand new dresses to vote," said Roshan Sirran, a female human rights activist who organised election monitors for the Free and Fair Elections Foundation of Afghanistan.
Eight people rescued from Afghan election helicopter crash: UN
KABUL, Oct 12 (AFP) - Eight people were rescued Wednesday after they were stranded in a remote area of Afghanistan overnight after their UN helicopter developed engine trouble and made an emergency landing while on a trip to pick up ballot boxes, a UN spokesman said.
"At 14:41 (1011 GMT) this afternoon a UN helicopter which left Kabul this morning landed in Faizabad with all eight individuals that were in the helicopter that had an emergency landing yesterday," said Manoel de Almeida e Silva told a news conference.
Nobody was injured in the incident three days after Afghanistan's landmark elections, but the three Russian crew members and five Afghan passengers were stranded in the snow in the Wakan corridor in northeastern Badakhshan province overnight.
"I can also tell you that they spent the night well, a little bit cold because the temparature overnight was 10 degrees farenheit (minus 12 deg C) but they were able to keep warm with the emergency supplies that were air-dropped," de Silva said.
Emergency supplies of food, warm clothing and shelter materials were dropped Tuesday.
Ballot boxes from some 5,000 polling stations around Afghanistan's rugged landscape were still being taken to eight counting centres after Saturday's vote.
Counting of the votes that have arrived at the centres has been put on hold until a dispute about alleged irregularities is resolved.
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