Afghanistan News December 19, 2005

December 19, 2005

First Afghan parliament in decades meets in Kabul
By Sayed Salahuddin Mon Dec 19,12:34 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Four years after the overthrow of the Taliban, members of the first Afghan parliament in decades gathered for its opening session on Monday with security tight following Taliban attacks and threats.

Roads around the parliament building in western Kabul, refurbished with foreign aid after being damaged in the civil war, were blocked by Afghan troops and NATO-led peacekeepers. Snipers were in position on rooftops nearby.

The security threat was underlined on Friday when a suicide attacker detonated a car bomb between two NATO vehicles near the parliament, killing himself and wounding two passers-by.

Taliban spokesmen have vowed more attacks to disrupt "a symbol of American occupation" and warned Afghans to stay away as "agents of foreign infidels" were legitimate targets.

Taliban guerrillas killed three police officers early on Monday at a frontier post in the eastern province of Kunar bordering Pakistan, provincial governor Asadullah Wafa said.

The inauguration, to be attended by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney, represents the culmination of a U.N-backed plan to bring democracy drawn up after U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban in 2001.

It follows presidential elections won by Hamid Karzai last year and parliamentary polls in September. MPs and many Afghans hope the parliament will help foster peace and reconciliation after three decades of conflict.

"This a momentous day; I am excited because this is the first parliament we have had after so many decades," said Shukria Barakzai, one of two women among more than a dozen candidates bidding to head the lower house.

However, many people have been disappointed by the election of factional leaders blamed for rights serious abuses in polls marred by significant fraud.

Human Rights Watch says up to 60 percent of deputies are warlords or their proxies, boding ill for efforts to account for abuses and to stamp out a huge opium and heroin trade.

WHO'S WHO OF PROTAGONISTS
Lineups of the 249-seat Wolesi Jirga, or lower house, and the 102-member upper house, or Meshrano Jirga, read like a Who's Who of protagonists of the bloody past.

Former Communists, leaders of guerrilla groups that overthrew them and ex-Taliban commanders will sit side by side with idealistic new politicians, including technocrats and women's rights activists, who will try to offset their influence.

Officials said the inaugural session would be addressed by former King Zahir Shah and members sworn in by Karzai at about 10.30 a.m. (0600 GMT). Zahir Shah was overthrown in 1973 by his cousin, Daud Khan, who dissolved parliament.

Officials said the interim head of the lower house would then announce a time for the next sitting and adjourn the house, possibly until January.

Moderate MPs and ordinary Afghans have expressed hope the parliament could mean more representative government, but it remains unclear how much power it will be able to exercise.

The election was held on an individual not party basis creating a disparate body expected to have a parochial focus.

Analysts say Karzai appears to have enough support to avoid major problems, although one of parliament's jobs will be to approve his cabinet.

This could prove tricky for him given widespread disappointment with his administration's failure to improve people's lives and carry out crucial reforms.

Tens of thousands of U.S.-led foreign troops and billions of dollars of aid have ensured relative stability and brought new prosperity to cities such as Kabul.

But the Taliban insurgency has intensified in the past year and most beneficiaries of the urban boom have been the already rich, while the poor struggle with soaring prices.

There could also be questions raised about the status of foreign troops fighting the insurgency, with many Afghans feeling their country should have a say in their activities.

Newly Elected Afghan Parliament Convenes
By ERIC TALMADGE, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan -     Afghanistan's first popularly elected parliament in more than three decades convened Monday, marking a major step toward democracy following the ouster of the hardline Taliban.

But there were concerns about whether the legislature would be a constructive political force. More than half of the new lawmakers are regional strongmen, and fears were high that they will block efforts to reform government and bring to justice those responsible for years of bloodshed.

Vice President     Dick Cheney flew in to attend the opening session, which began with a reading from the Koran, followed by the national anthem and a folksong by schoolgirls dressed in brightly colored robes.

After the delegates were sworn in, President Hamid Karzai called the gathering a display of Afghan unity.

"This gathering shows that all of the people of Afghanistan are unified," Karzai said. "This is an important step toward democracy."

He said the approval of a constitution and the establishment of the National Assembly "bring us all under one roof to discuss our problems."

The 249-seat body is an eclectic mix of tribal leaders, Westernized former refugees, warlords, women, and ethnic minorities, in itself a victory for a nation recovering from a ruinous civil war.

Afghans voted for the lower house in September, and also elected provincial councils that then chose two-thirds of the 102-seat upper chamber. Karzai appointed the remaining 34.

The legislators, with little or no experience at governing and many lacking basic education, will have to learn quickly if they are to help pull Afghanistan out of poverty, rid it of terrorism and rampant drug trafficking, and end a stubborn Taliban insurgency.

Afghanistan's constitution vests little authority in the legislature. Most power is still concentrated in the hands of the president, although parliament will be able to pass laws and veto his Cabinet selections.

The country has had no elected parliament since 1973, when coups and a Soviet invasion plunged it into decades of chaos that left more than 1 million people dead. Civil war raged in the early 1990s, followed by the disastrous rule of the Taliban.

U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001 after the regime refused to stop sheltering     Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida network in wake of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The inauguration of the assembly formally concludes the political transition process agreed on by Afghan factions under U.N. auspices in December 2001. But Afghanistan is still a long way from stability, a major issue for lawmakers in the weeks ahead.

Some 20,000 U.S. troops are deployed here, along with thousands of     NATO peacekeepers. But violence is rife in the country's south and east, where remnants of the Taliban are waging an insurgency marked by near daily killings and bombings.

A few days ago, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a car not far from the assembly building, damaging a Norwegian peacekeeping vehicle.

The country's economy also continues to rely heavily on the trade in illicit drugs — a threat NATO's top operational commander, U.S. Gen. James L. Jones, has suggested is more serious than the Taliban insurgency.

Opium production has boomed since the fall of the Taliban and Afghanistan and is now source of most of the world's heroin.

The makeup of the assembly itself has cast further doubt on whether it will be a positive political force. More than half of the new lawmakers are regional strongmen.

Among those in the parliament with bloody pasts are Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a powerful militia leader accused of war crimes by New York-based Human Rights Watch, and Abdul Salaam Rocketi, a former Taliban commander who has since reconciled with the government.

Another winner was the former Taliban leader who oversaw the destruction of two massive 1,500-year-old Buddha statues during the fundamentalists' reign.

"The international community will try to portray the opening of parliament as a triumph," said Sam Zia-Zarifi, Asia research director at the New York-based Human Rights Watch. "But many Afghans are worried about a parliament dominated by human rights abusers."

One former militia commander who won election wasn't at the opening session — he was shot dead earlier this month. Eight parliamentary candidates were killed in the run-up to the September polls.

Cheney Looks on As Afghan Parliament Meets
By NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Vice President     Dick Cheney celebrated a milestone in     Afghanistan's transition to democracy Monday, watching from the front row while its national assembly took its first oath of office.

Cheney did not speak at the ceremony but signified the event's importance to the White House simply by attending.

The vice president's somewhat chaotic arrival in Kabul marked the second day he had brought attention to important democratic events that have stemmed from the Bush administration's hawkish foreign policy.

On Sunday, Cheney made an unannounced trip to     Iraq to highlight last week's parliamentary elections there. In Kabul, he attended the inauguration of the politically diverse 249-seat assembly, Afghanistan's first elected parliament in more than three decades.

"The victory of freedom in Afghanistan as well as Iraq will be an inspiration to democratic reformers in other lands," Bush said in a speech to troops at Bagram Air Base.

At the parliament, Cheney and his wife, Lynne, sat in the front row to the left of a speakers' podium. Along with two other U.S. representatives — Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann and coalition commander Lt. Gen. Karl Eikenberry — Cheney listened through an earpiece to an English translation of the speakers' remarks.

After the ceremony Cheney signed a guest book, writing, "It's a privilege to be present on this historic day for the people of Afghanistan."

Cheney then had lunch with Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his presidential palace. The vice president was greeted by two dozen Afghan soldiers standing at attention as he and Karzai shook hands for the cameras.

Asked what the day meant, Karzai said: "It means progress. It means achievement. It means togetherness."

Later Monday, Cheney addressed hundreds of U.S. troops at Bagram and got a briefing from Eikenberry.

The vice president is on a five-day tour aimed at strengthening support for the war on terror. He also planned to visit key allies in Oman, Pakistan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

The Cheneys' seven-hour visit to Afghanistan began when their unmarked C-17 cargo plane landed at Bagram Air Base. They then flew by helicopter to a spot outside the parliament building. The chopper stirred up a massive dust storm, but the Cheneys were shielded when they ducked into a black sport-utility vehicle.

Security forces surrounded the Cheneys' vehicle and walked along as it moved with their hands on the side of the vehicle. A gun-toting Afghan soldier dressed in fatigues pushed the rest of Cheney's entourage against an outside wall until the gates to the parliament building closed behind them.

Afghan security forces insisted on searching all the bags carried by members of Cheney's staff and the press who were left outside.     Secret Service agents objected, saying they had already been checked. A White House advance staffer already on site came out and angrily demanded that the Afghans admit military aides carrying the briefcase that contains the U.S. government's nuclear weapon codes.

"I'm telling you to open the gates now," the White House staffer said. "These are the vice president's military aides."

The Afghans allowed Cheney's military aides through but insisted on doing complete body searches of the rest of his traveling party. Men were searched outside in a dusty courtyard, while women were taken in a small room and searched completely by hand by Afghan women.

NATO, EU Hail Afghan Parliamentary Session
Newly elected members of the People's Council being sworn in on 19 December
(AFP)
19 December 2005 -- NATO and the European Union have hailed today's inaugural session of the Afghan parliament, the first meeting of an elected legislature in more than 30 years of war and conflict in Afghanistan.

NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer in a statement said the session today in Kabul of the People's Assembly, the lower house of the National Assembly, was "a visible sign that the democratic process is taking hold" in Afghanistan.

De Hoop Scheffer stressed that NATO peacekeepers will continue to play a "key role" in that respect as the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) expands its operations in the months ahead throughout the country.

The European Union meanwhile called the parliamentary session a "historic occasion."

Both NATO and the EU pledged to continue efforts to help Afghanistan meet its aspirations of peace, security, and democracy.

Landmark Session

The inauguration of the assembly was the culmination of a UN-backed plan to bring democracy drawn up after U.S.-led forces overthrew the former Taliban regime in 2001.

Former monarch Mohammad Zaher Shah addressed the inaugural session.

"After long years of war and misfortunes, the Afghan people are gathering once again," said Zaher Shah, whose ouster in 1973 by a cousin marked the start of three painful decades of Afghan history. "The inauguration of this national assembly is the determination and demand of the Afghan people. I want from you -- the representatives of the Afghan people -- unity, national solidarity, and the creation of a prosperous Afghanistan. Do your best."

Lawmakers were sworn in by President Hamid Karzai, and the oath-taking ceremony was conducted in the country's official Dari and Pashto languages.

(compiled from RFE/RL's Radio Free Afghanistan and wire reports)

Afghan lawmakers remain divided
The Associated Press SUNDAY, DECEMBER 18, 2005
KABUL When he came to an orientation session before the opening of Afghanistan's new Parliament, Sayyad Mohammad Muhsin brought a small sheet of paper crammed with handwriting on both sides: his manifesto for the first elected National Assembly in more than 30 years.

The turban-clad former militia fighter's modest document reflected both the high hopes and the tough challenges the Parliament will face following its inauguration Monday.

"We must put the ethnic arguments and other differences behind us," Muhsin proclaimed, reading from the paper in a hotel conference room. "Now is the time to sit together and solve the problems of our people."

Formation of the assembly marks the last major step on an internationally sponsored path to democracy and stability laid out after the ouster of the Taliban in 2001. But like other crucial elements of Afghanistan's recovery effort, Parliament will face tough hurdles thrown up by a quarter-century of war.

For some legislators, just sitting together will be excruciating: Many Parliament members are warlords or members of other armed groups involved in years of fighting and forceful regional rule, some of them accused of human rights abuses. Anger over past wrongs will likely intensify the ethnic, political and ideological differences that could lead to conflict in Parliament.

"It's going to be very difficult for communities that feel that they have been on the receiving end of violence" to see "the very people they hold responsible standing up in Parliament and giving speeches about the future of the country," said Paul Fishstein, director of the independent Afghan Research and Evaluation Unit.

Some legislators may seek redress for wrongs suffered during the decades of rule by the gun. President Hamid Karzai has added to concerns about the political role of warlords with appointees to the upper house that included his onetime defense minister, Muhammad Qasim Fahim, an ethnic Tajik and a former Northern Alliance leader who has been implicated in abuses by Human Rights Watch.

Another potentially crippling legacy of the past may be inexperience with the day-to-day process of elective democracy. "This is going to be a new exercise for most people," Fishstein said. "There's not a clear and consistent understanding of what a parliamentarian does."

Karzai is likely to have strong support, but there is plenty of room for fierce debate and opposition.

All members of the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house, were elected as individuals, not party members - a system that came under sharp criticism and could make legislation painstaking and contentious. Shifting alliances and the need to assemble support for every action may significantly slow the assembly's work.

Afghans filled the 249-seat lower house in September elections that were widely hailed as a success, despite the killings of a handful of candidates and fraud allegations that led to the dismissal of 50 election staff and the disqualification of about 3 percent of the ballot boxes.

Voters also elected provincial councils that then chose two-thirds of the 102-seat upper chamber, the Meshrano Jirga.

The work of the National Assembly will test Afghanistan's ability to overcome rifts that run deep. Social issues, ranging from education and the role of women to music, movies and morals, are also likely to be subjects of debate.

Another prominent issue remains the foreign presence in Afghanistan, where some 20,000 U.S.-led forces are fighting a persistent Taliban insurgency.

Rights group says U.S. had secret Afghanistan prison
Monday December 19, 5:18 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A human rights group said on Sunday that the United States operated a secret prison for terrorism suspects as recently as last year in Afghanistan, where detainees where subjected to torture and other mistreatment.

The Bush administration has faced international criticism over detainees after a November 2 Washington Post article said the CIA held dozens of terrorism suspects in secret prisons called "black sites" in countries around the world, including eastern Europe.

Human Rights Watch said eight detainees now held in the U.S. military facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have told their attorneys that they were arrested separately in countries in Asia and the Middle East and flown to Afghanistan at various times between 2002 and 2004.

The men were taken to a prison near Kabul where they were shackled to walls, kept in darkness for weeks, deprived of food and water for days at a time, bombarded with loud rap and heavy metal music, and punched and slapped during questioning by U.S. interrogators.

"The prison may have been operated by personnel from the Central Intelligence Agency," the New York-based group said in a report released on Sunday.

It said the facility, which detainees called the "dark prison," may have been closed after several prisoners were transferred to a main military detention site outside Bagram in late 2004.

"Without confirming that account in any way, I would underscore that the CIA does not torture," CIA spokeswoman Michele Neff said in response to the Human Rights Watch report.

A Human Rights Watch report at the time of the Washington Post report on CIA-run secret prisons said the group believed secret prisons were operating in Poland and Romania.

President George W. Bush bowed to political pressure this week by agreeing to back legislation banning inhumane treatment of prisoners in U.S. custody. A week earlier, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Europe with assurances that the United States had done nothing unlawful.

In its latest report, Human Rights Watch said it was not able to speak directly with detainees and based its conclusions on accounts provided through the men's lawyers.

But the group said the allegations were credible enough to warrant an official investigation.

"The detainees offer consistent accounts about the facility, saying that U.S. and Afghan guards were not in uniform and that U.S. interrogators did not wear military uniforms," the group said.

None of the eight detainees, who include a Yemeni and an Ethiopian-born man who grew up in Britain, spent more than six weeks at a time in the facility near Kabul, the group said.

Spy agency eavesdrops between US, Afghanistan
WASHINGTON, Dec. 18 (Xinhuanet) -- The US National Security Agency(NSA) first began to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The New York Times reported Sunday.

The NSA's surveillance of telecommunications between the United States and Afghanistan started months before President George W. Bush officially authorized a broader version of the agency's special domestic collection program, current and former government officials were quoted as saying.

The agency operation included eavesdropping on communications between Americans and other individuals in the United States and people in Afghanistan without the court-approved search warrants that are normally required for such domestic intelligence activities.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration and senior American intelligence officials quickly decided that the existing laws and regulations restricting the government's ability to monitor American communications were too rigid to permit quick and flexible access to international calls and e-mail traffic involving terrorism suspects, the report said.

In the days after the attacks, the Central Intelligence Agency determined that al Qaeda, which had found a haven in Afghanistan, was responsible. Congress quickly passed a resolution authorizing the president to conduct a war on terrorism, and the security agency was secretly ordered to begin conducting comprehensive coverage of all communications into and out of Afghanistan, including those to and from the United States, current and former officials said.

It could not be learned whether Bush issued a formal written order authorizing the early surveillance of communications between the United States and Afghanistan that was later superseded by the broader order, according to the report.

Three policemen killed ahead of historic Afghan parliament opening
Mon Dec 19, 2:42 AM ET
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Three policemen were killed and one was missing following an attack by Taliban insurgents hours ahead of the historic first session of Afghanistan's parliament after decades of war, an official said.

The insurgents attacked a police post in insurgency-hit eastern Kunar province early Monday, provincial governor Asaddullah Wafa told AFP on Monday.

The rebels, whom Wafa said were from the Taliban movement ousted in a US-led invasion in 2001, had control of the post for hours. At dawn they set it ablaze before fleeing, he said.

"I confirm that three police were killed, one is missing and the enemies set fire to the post before they fled," Wafa said.

The attack came hours before a ceremony in the capital to swear in Afghanistan's first parliament since 1973.

Thousands of police and troops secured the parliament building in west Kabul and helicopters flew overhead amid concern of attacks by Taliban and other militants.

US Vice President Dick Cheney headed the guest list at the event.

The United States is leading a coalition of about 20,000 troops, most of them American, in Afghanistan to hunt down militants from the Taliban and other radical Islamic outfits.

An insurgency by the Taliban and other groups has killed more than 1,500 people this year, casting a shadow over the war-scarred country's attempts to install democracy, with the sitting of parliament a key step in the process.

Eavesdropping Effort Began Soon After Sept. 11 Attacks
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and JAMES RISEN The New York Times / Published: December 18, 2005
WASHINGTON - The National Security Agency first began to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on telephone calls and e-mail messages between the United States and Afghanistan months before President Bush officially authorized a broader version of the agency's special domestic collection program, according to current and former government officials.

The security agency surveillance of telecommunications between the United States and Afghanistan began in the immediate aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington, the officials said.

The agency operation included eavesdropping on communications between Americans and other individuals in the United States and people in Afghanistan without the court-approved search warrants that are normally required for such domestic intelligence activities.

On Saturday, President Bush confirmed the existence of the security agency's domestic intelligence collection program and defended it, saying it had been instrumental in disrupting terrorist cells in America.

After the Sept. 11 attacks, the Bush administration and senior American intelligence officials quickly decided that existing laws and regulations restricting the government's ability to monitor American communications were too rigid to permit quick and flexible access to international calls and e-mail traffic involving terrorism suspects. Bush administration officials also believed that the intelligence community, including the Central Intelligence Agency and the N.S.A., had been too risk-averse before the attacks and had missed opportunities to prevent them.

In the days after the attacks, the C.I.A. determined that Al Qaeda, which had found a haven in Afghanistan, was responsible. Congress quickly passed a resolution authorizing the president to conduct a war on terrorism, and the security agency was secretly ordered to begin conducting comprehensive coverage of all communications into and out of Afghanistan, including those to and from the United States, current and former officials said.

It could not be learned whether Mr. Bush issued a formal written order authorizing the early surveillance of communications between the United States and Afghanistan that was later superseded by the broader order. A White House spokeswoman, Maria Tamburri, declined to comment Saturday on the Afghanistan monitoring, saying she could not go beyond Mr. Bush's speech.

Current and former American intelligence and law enforcement officials who discussed the matter were granted anonymity because the intelligence-gathering program is highly classified. Some had direct knowledge of the program.

The disclosure of the security agency's warrantless eavesdropping on calls between the United States and Afghanistan sheds light on the origins of the agency's larger surveillance activities, which officials say have included monitoring the communications of as many as 500 Americans and other people inside the United States without search warrants at any one time. Several current and former officials have said that they believe the security agency operation began virtually on the fly in the days after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The early, narrow focus on communications in and out of Afghanistan reflected the ad hoc nature of the government's initial approach to counterterrorism policies in the days after Sept. 11 attacks.

But after the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan succeeded in overthrowing the Taliban government in late 2001, Al Qaeda lost its sanctuary, and Osama bin Laden and other Qaeda leaders scattered to Pakistan, Iran and other countries. As counterterrorism operations grew, the Bush administration wanted the security agency secretly to expand its surveillance as well. By 2002, Mr. Bush gave the agency broader surveillance authority.

In the early years of the operation, there were few, if any, controls placed on the activity by anyone outside the security agency, officials say. It was not until 2004, when several officials raised concerns about its legality, that the Justice Department conducted its first audit of the operation. Security agency officials had been given the power to select the people they would single out for eavesdropping inside the United States without getting approval for each case from the White House or the Justice Department, the officials said.

While the monitoring program was conducted without court-approved warrants, senior Bush administration officials said the far-reaching decision to move ahead with the program was justified by the pressing need to identify whether any remaining "sleeper cells" were still operating within the United States after the Sept. 11 attacks and whether they were planning "follow-on attacks."

Mr. Bush, in his speech on Saturday, cited the disruptions of "terrorist cells" since Sept. 11 in New York, Oregon, Virginia, California, Texas and Ohio as evidence of a very real threat. And he pointed to overseas communications by two of the Sept. 11 hijackers who were living in the San Diego area as evidence that the security agency needed the power and flexibility to track international communications.

The two men "communicated to other members of Al Qaeda who were overseas," Mr. Bush said. "But we didn't know they were here, until it was too late."

In his speech, Mr. Bush pointed to the layers of oversight and review that are built into the secret spying program to ensure that it is "consistent with the letter and intent of the authorization."

International women’s forum inducts female Afghan Army officer
December 18, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
By Army Maj. Ruby Stewart Office of Security Cooperation-Afghanistan Defense Reform Directorate
KABUL, Afghanistan – Khatol Mohammadzai, a senior officer in the Afghan National Army, recently became the first Afghan woman inducted into the International Women’s Forum Hall of Fame in Washington D.C., where she was recognized for the impact she has made on the lives of Afghan women and men.

“Being invited to America is something I never thought would happen. I broke all the chains women have faced in my country to be here today. I am honored to be here with other strong women from all over the world,” Mohammadzai said.

The IWF, founded in 1982, is a private, non-profit organization comprised of 61 affiliates in more than 20 countries throughout the world. Membership is by invitation only and includes some of the most powerful and influential women in the world, including Dalia Grybauskaite, European Union commissioner for Financial Programming and Budget; Marsha Evans, American Red Cross president and CEO; U.S Congresswoman Maxine Waters; and U.S. Supreme Court Judge Sandra Day O’Connor.

Mohammadzai , Afghanistan ’s only female paratrooper, serves as the deputy head of the Afghan Ministry of Defense Education Department.

She was only 16 when she took her first leap for Afghan women by parachuting from an airplane. In 1982, after her husband’s death, she quit her studies in law at the University of Kabul and joined the army, eventually leading to a career spanning two decades.

Prior to the Taliban’s reign, Afghanistan ’s army employed both men and women in a variety of specialty skills. Mohammadzai, the ANA’s only female parachute instructor, was trained by the Russians. With more than 570 parachute jumps from helicopters and airplanes, plus static and free-fall jumps, she ranks among the best of the ANA in this dangerous skill.

She has always championed the underprivileged, taking every chance to bring light to their situation. During a recent celebration marking Afghanistan ’s New Year’s Day, Mohammadzai parachuted into the event carrying a sign that read: “We want education, employment and salaries for widows, orphans and handicapped people.” It was her first parachute jump in more than six years and she was greeted by cheering crowds that showered her with flowers.

Under the rule of the Taliban, when many Afghan officers escaped to neighboring countries, Mohammadzai stayed and continued to serve her countrymen and women. The female paratrooper was forced to give up her passion and earned a living working from home through approved women’s tasks such as sewing, weaving scarves and making mattresses.

She had to hide her uniform under the floorboards of her living room, but that didn’t stop her from trying to educate women. With her mother acting as a lookout, she taught local women how to read and write by candlelight in her home. She knew she was putting her life at risk by defying the Taliban, but she didn’t care, she said.

“Education is important. Never stop learning and educating yourselves. You can become the future doctors, lawyers, teachers, engineers, technicians, policewomen and soldiers of a new Afghanistan . If I can do it – you can do it too,” she explained.

After the Taliban were removed from power, she very promptly dug up her uniform, dusted it off and “reported for duty.”

Mohammadzai explained that she risks her life to serve as an example for Afghan women. “I serve my country because there is nothing more honorable than serving your country.

“I want a better future for my sons, for my sisters, for their children, and for my mother. I do not like to be told I cannot do something. It makes me mad and makes me want to do it more,” she said.

At the sold-out black tie gala in Washington D.C. , Mohammadzai was inducted into the IWF Hall of Fame alongside Supreme Court Justice Judge Ruth Bader Ginsberg and U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

At the end of a five-minute video tribute in her honor, the crowd erupted when Mohammadzai, who is never seen without her uniformed chest full of medals, climbed the stairway and walked to the stage wearing traditional Afghan dress.

“Afghanistan has a rich history of art, agriculture, music, education. Afghan people are strong and resilient. They have endured enough in one lifetime. It is time for peace,” she said.

Afghanistan's Chance to Heal
Diverse New Parliament Will Bring Together Former Adversaries
By Griff Witte Washington Post Foreign Service Sunday, December 18, 2005; A22
KABUL, Afghanistan -- Mamoor Shelgaray is a former fighter. He spent a decade battling Soviet troops as a member of one of the country's most hard-line Islamic parties. Wary of U.S. involvement in Afghanistan, he said he believes his country should return to its religious roots by shielding its children from Western television and videos.

Roshanak Wardak is a healer. She spent five years defying Taliban authorities by providing medical care in one of Afghanistan's poorest provinces, while refusing to veil her face. A political independent, Wardak strongly supports the American role here and wants to expand the rights of women.

On the surface, the two Afghans share little. But as of Monday, they will have one thing in common. Both will become members of Afghanistan's new parliament, which will open more than three decades after the country's last freely elected legislature closed its doors. In between came unrelenting conflict, and each of the 351 new members bears its scars.

Like the country, the parliament is badly fractured. The 249 members of the lower house, who were elected in September, and the 102 members of the upper house, who were partly chosen by local councils and partly appointed by President Hamid Karzai, include Islamic scholars, communists, women, Taliban members and technocrats.

Most are people like Shelgaray and Wardak, little known outside their home provinces. But some are nationally known former leaders of factional militias -- such as Mohammed Fahim and Abdurrab Rasul Sayyaf -- who are revered by their followers and despised by others for their bloody roles in the civil war of the 1990s.

When the first session convenes Monday, with Karzai, Vice President Cheney and other foreign dignitaries expected to be looking on, former oppressors will stand and take the oath beside former victims. But a question will hang over the ceremony: After a generation of violent score-settling, will such an eclectic array of people be able to resolve their differences through civilized debate?

"They're going to have to learn to tolerate each other and to cooperate with each other," said Musa Maroofi, a professor of law and political science at Kabul University. "They sense that conflict doesn't work, that fighting each other with weapons is not getting them anywhere. This is the best, and only, opportunity for them to work for a common cause -- for the public interest, rather than their individual interests."

Afghanistan's recent history -- especially the civil war that followed the withdrawal of Soviet troops in 1989 -- suggests such hopes may be misplaced. But Wardak and Shelgaray, both elected members of the lower house, offer at least some cause for optimism. Both have sacrificed much to get to the parliament, and both say they do not plan to waste the chance to help reknit their broken country.

A Doctor and Politician

In the past several months, Wardak's homestead of wheat fields and apple orchards in Wardak province, 25 miles southwest of the capital, has been sprayed by machine-gun fire and assaulted with rockets. It is the work, she suspects, of political opponents.

"Maybe," she said matter-of-factly, "I will lose my life."

Wardak, a serious woman of 49 with a sturdy build and dark green eyes, operates a rudimentary clinic -- a couple of beds, an IV drip and basic medical supplies -- out of her rural home. She was trained as a gynecologist, but in a province with so few doctors, she ends up handling any medical case that comes her way, day or night.

Wardak's grandfather and uncle both served as leaders of the former Afghan national assembly. As a student, she aspired to politics, but her father convinced her that medicine was more suitable for a woman. After the Soviet invasion in 1979, she spent years in Pakistan caring for Afghan refugees. She returned during the civil war and opened her clinic.

She continued treating patients under the Taliban, despite its severe restrictions on women's public activities. She also refused to wear a head-to-toe veil, or burqa .

"I told them, 'If you can show me where the Koran says I should wear the burqa, I will wear seven burqas,' " she said.

Initially, Wardak did not want to run for parliament. She worried it would take her away from her patients, but they convinced her she could do both jobs. After she won, though, some had second thoughts.

"We all trust her. Even the men trust her. That's why they send us to the lady doctor," said Bibi Jamila, a longtime patient in her fifties, who supported Wardak's run for office but is now worried about where she will get medical care. "She doesn't even want any money."

Wardak conceded that her decision to enter politics was a gamble: Can she do more for the people of her destitute province in the parliament than in her clinic? As one of 68 women in the lower house, she said she hopes to help protect Afghan women from abusive husbands and to get more public facilities built in her long-neglected province.

"We depend on the central government. If the center decides to build schools for us, we have schools. If the center decides to build hospitals, we have hospitals," she said. "But right now, students are sitting under the rain, the sun and the snow."

Breaking With the Warlords

Mamoor Shelgaray, 51, an imposing figure with jet-black hair and a long, bushy beard, has similar aspirations for his constituents in Ghazni province, an hour's drive south of Wardak on a dusty plain wedged between snow-capped peaks. But he is also realistic.

"I told the people, 'If I get to the parliament, you should not think that the next day I will build a school for you. It will take a long time,' " he said over tea in his home village of Ander. "Besides, the government doesn't have any money."

Shelgaray said he thinks a more achievable, and urgent, goal is to curb the import of racy Western television programming, which he believes is undermining Afghanistan's Islamic values. He also said he would push for a more severe penalty for Ali Mohaqeq Nasab, a Kabul journalist who was recently sentenced to two years in prison for writing articles deemed blasphemous by the courts.

The son of a tribal leader and Islamic scholar, Shelgaray was denied formal education because of the war with the Soviet Union that broke out in his country when he was a young man. Veterans of that war, known as mujaheddin, form the largest single bloc in the parliament. Shelgaray, who killed countless Soviet soldiers, sees his mission as much the same today as he did then: to defend Islam.

Shelgaray is a longtime member of Hezbi Islami, an Islamic militia that received large amounts of covert U.S. aid during the war against the Soviets. In more recent years, its leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has been hunted by the U.S. military as a terrorist. Shelgaray said he and the 40 other Hezbi Islami members in parliament have reluctantly broken with Hekmatyar.

"After a long discussion, we decided we should support the government. If I was supporting Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, I would not be here now. I would have a Kalashnikov and be in the mountains," he said.

Still, he questioned why Hekmatyar had not been invited to participate in Afghanistan's reconstruction. Shelgaray ran for parliament on a platform of national unity. He said that should mean reconciling with individuals who are now considered terrorists.

On that point, Shelgaray has a surprising ally in Wardak, who believes that in parliament she can stand toe-to-toe with commanders who once spread fear.

"The position of the warlord is much different than his previous position. Now he is the people's representative. According to the rules, there is no difference between him and me. Now we are equal," she said. "And today, or tomorrow, or maybe after a few months, he will learn that."

Each day for the past week, Wardak has been sitting with those commanders as all new members of parliament participate in training sessions. And each night, she has made the hour-long drive to her village of Shakhabad, in Wardak province, so she can treat as many patients as possible before morning.

But her absence has already been felt. An hour after Wardak left for the capital this month for the first day of training, a woman appeared at her gate. Crying and crouched in obvious pain, she asked to see the doctor. It was left to Wardak's brother to tell the woman that the doctor had gone to Kabul.

Free trade between Pakistan, Afghanistan urged
The News International
PESHAWAR: ANP president Senator Asfandyar Wali Khan has repeated his party demand to do away with the visa restriction between the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan and allowing free trade and introduction of bus service via Peshawar-Kabul and Quetta-Kandahar routes.

The suggestion was made during a meeting with the Peshawar-based Afghan Consul-General, Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who called on the ANP president on Friday. Farahi was accompanied by Ahmad Saeedi and Zahir Babari while Asfandiar Wali was assisted by Haji Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, Afrasyab Khattak, Bashir Bilour, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, Imran Afridi, Khan Nawab and the party MPAs, Khalil Abbas, Shaukat Habib, Mukhtiar Ahmad and Mir Rehman.

He said that the ANP was in favour of promoting peace, economic stability and cultural relations with Afghanistan and in the region, adding that his party reiterated its stand on lifting the visa restriction between the two countries, construction and establishment of trade routes, contacts among educational institutions and starting bus services between Kabul and Peshawar and Quetta and Kandahar.

Afghanistan: Kabul conference affirms importance of addressing past Human Rights violations comprehensively and practically
Source: United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) 16 Dec 2005
A conference on truth-seeking and reconciliation, held in Kabul during the past three days, has concluded with a statement from participants affirming the importance of addressing the legacy of past human rights violations in a comprehensive and practical fashion.

The conference, organized by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), in cooperation with the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), was attended by more than 120 participants from all regions of Afghanistan, and included representatives of government, civil society, academia and the religious community. Representatives of the international community, the International Center for Transitional Justice and international experts in truth-seeking and reconciliation also attended the conference. The conference, held with support from the Netherlands, was preceded by a series of regional consultations on transitional justice in all provinces.

The conference was the first public forum to discuss the issue of transitional justice – how to deal with human rights violations of the past – in Afghanistan. "The holding of the conference itself is a major achievement", Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Mehr Khan Williams said in her statement to the meeting. "It has allowed Afghans from across the country to express their anguish and to demand accountability for past crimes".

The main focus of the conference was to discuss whether Afghanistan needs a mechanism for truth-seeking and reconciliation. Many participants stressed their desire for justice measures, including prosecutions and removal of human rights abusers from positions of power. "Peace without justice will not be sustainable in Afghanistan," said Dr. Sima Simar, Chairperson of AIHRC. "The people of Afghanistan are tired of waiting for justice. The action plan now needs to be implemented as soon as possible," she concluded. There was broad support from the participants for truth-seeking as part of a comprehensive approach to addressing crimes of the past. Many participants stressed the need to acknowledge victims and to ensure their involvement, as well as many others in local communities, in the development of any transitional justice activities that are undertaken. In addition, participants welcomed the support of the international community and requested its continuing commitment.

The conference took place following the adoption of an Action Plan on Peace, Justice and Reconciliation in Afghanistan by the Cabinet on 12 December 2005, and marked the start of its implementation. "This conference means that the work is under way," Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan Foreign Minister told the meeting.

The approval of the Action Plan was considered a significant achievement, indicating an important political commitment to implement measures for transitional justice. The Action Plan lays out a multi-pronged approach, including measures to publicly acknowledge and commemorate the plight of victims; measures for institutional reform and the vetting of human rights abusers from positions of power; exploring options for truth-seeking and reconciliation; and to strengthen a national capacity for criminal justice while reaffirming a commitment that no amnesty will be granted for gross violations of human rights.

"The achievement of transitional justice must help to strengthen peace and stability in our country. The action plan represents an appropriate procedure in this regard", Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in his message to the conference.

For use of the information media; not an official record

France Will Bolster NATO Troops in Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 18 (Reuters) - France will send several hundred more troops to Afghanistan to reinforce security in Kabul, the capital, when NATO expands operations in the country next year, the French defense minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, said here on Sunday.

NATO took over the International Security Assistance Force peacekeepers in 2003, two years after United States-led forces overthrew the Taliban government. Earlier this month, NATO agreed to expand its presence in 2006, but still left the most dangerous counterinsurgency work to the American-led coalition.

Ms. Alliot-Marie, in a speech to French troops at the Kabul airport, said France would also increase the training it is providing for officers in the Afghan Army.

"Not only will France stay in Afghanistan, it will also reinforce its presence within the framework of regionalization," she said.

France plans to send about 450 more soldiers for the Kabul mission by mid-2006, she said.

France currently has 600 troops with the peacekeeping forces. Another 200 special forces troops are deployed in the south, where Taliban guerrillas and their allies are most active.

Ms. Alliot-Marie said Afghanistan needed long-term diplomatic, economic and military support to combat inequality between various parts of the country, which has encouraged militancy.

The peacekeeping force plans to increase its strength to about 15,000 troops next year from about 9,000 troops now, and to extend its presence into the troubled south, where the separate American-led international force is pursuing the Taliban.

Britain is scheduled to take command of the peacekeeping force next year and to send troops to the south alongside Canadian and Dutch forces.

Ms. Alliot-Marie said France would alternate command in Kabul with Turkey and probably Italy.

She said that security in Afghanistan had improved overall but that there had been a deterioration of the situation in Kabul and an increase in insurgent attacks using roadside bombs and in suicide bombers.

She also said that the inauguration on Monday of Afghanistan's first Parliament since the 1970's would be an essential step toward enabling Afghanistan to assume eventual responsibility for its own security.