Afghanistan News February 4, 2005

February 4, 2005

Plane with 104 on board missing in Afghanistan: officials
Friday February 4, 12:54 PM AFP
A Boeing 737 plane carrying 104 people has gone missing in Afghanistan after failing to arrive in the capital amid heavy winter snow storms, officials said.

An official from private Afghan company Kam Air said there had been no contact with the jet travelling from the western city of Herat to Kabul since late yesterday afternoon, when it had requested to land in Pakistan.

"Yes the plane went missing. There were 96 passengers on board. The plane was going from Herat to Kabul," said Attila Kamgar, Kam Air's financial controller, adding he did not know the nationalities of those on the plane.

"... the plane requested to talk with the (Kabul control) tower. Then there was no more information. After one hour the plane requested to land in Peshawar (in Pakistan) and Peshawar said it did not land," Kamgar added.

Shah Mohammad, a Kam Air representative, said besides 96 passengers, eight crew members were also on board.

Kam Air operations deputy manager Seda Mohammad Sedawi told AFP the plane last made contact with air traffic controllers in Kabul at 3:15pm (1045 GMT).

"We have checked with close airports in the region. Most of them have replied that no such plane has landed," he said.

"Due to the bad weather, the plane could not land in Kabul. It made contact with the tower at 3:15pm and then the contact was broken."

Kamgar said Peshawar airport officials had told them they had no knowledge of the plane when contacted by Kam Air later Thursday at 7.00pm. The Pakistan Civil Aviation Authority told AFP meanwhile they had no record of a Kam Air flight landing in any Pakistani city last night.

The Afghan Civil Aviation Information Service said: "We cannot confirm or deny that the Kam Air flight has gone missing."

The company had contacted the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), the NATO-led peacekeeping force, for help. An ISAF spokesman said the body was still trying to locate the plane at 7:00am local time.

US military meanwhile said they were prepared to assist in the hunt for the plane if requested. "A plane has been listing as missing. It is a private afghan airline, but if needed we will be prepared to provide whatever support we can," said US military spokesman Major Mark McCann.

Another Kam Air official, Aziz Ahmad, refused to speculate on the fate of the plane, saying it could have landed elsewhere. "We can't confirm whether it has crashed. We don't know where it has landed," he told AFP.

Planes bound for Kabul are regularly diverted to Peshawar during the winter months, where blizzards reduce visibility and make landing hazardous in the mountainous region. Kabul airport is also closed to civilian aircraft at night.

Communications are often extremely poor in Afghanistan, where 40 percent of the country is 1,800m above sea level and much of the landscape is rugged mountain terrain.

Kam Air is the first privately-run Afghan airline and was launched in November 2003 with a fleet comprising a Boeing 767, a Boeing 727, an Antonov 23 and the Boeing 737 missing since Thursday, Kamgar said.

The airline connects several towns in Afghanistan and also has international flights to Dubai in the United Arab Emirates.

Cold, disease kills 38 Afghans: papers
February 3, 2005
KABUL (Reuters) - A week of unseasonally cold weather and an outbreak of whooping cough have killed 38 people in Afghanistan's rugged and remote provinces, government newspapers said on Thursday.

Some 32 people have died in the southeastern province of Ghazni and the northeastern province of Badakhshan in the last week, the newspapers said.

Most of the victims, including women and children, were bus passengers who died of cold after being caught up on a main highway linking Ghazni to the capital, Kabul, residents said.

Six died from an outbreak of whooping cough in the remote central province of Ghor, Anis Daily reported.

Some 200 residents of the Torya district of Ghor have also been infected by the disease, the daily quoted Public Health Minister Sayed Mohammad Amin Fatemi as saying.

Doctors and medicines are being air lifted to the region to try to prevent further deaths.

At least 28 children died from whooping cough and measles last month in the neighbouring province of Dai Kundi and in Uruzgan. The provinces of Ghor, Dai Kundi and Uruzgan are among Afghanistan's poorest and roads in the mountainous region are inaccessible during the harsh winter.

Car thieves blamed for grisly killings in Afghanistan
February 3, 2005 Associated Press
Investigators have arrested several members of a criminal gang suspected of luring dozens of drivers to houses before killing them, stealing their vehicles and hiding their bodies in at least three locations, officials said Thursday.

Intelligence agents searching a house in the eastern city of Jalalabad dug up the bodies of 16 men buried in the yard, said Faizan ul-Haq, a spokesman for the government of surrounding Nangarhar.

"One of them was buried only recently and even had money in his pockets," ul-Haq told The Associated Press by telephone from Jalalabad. "They're now checking under the dining room and the living room for more."

Ul-Haq said one man had been arrested in Jalalabad and that authorities believed there could be a total of 60 bodies hidden in Nangarhar.

The raid in Jalalabad followed the arrest last year of the alleged ring-leaders in the town of Bagrami, near the capital, Kabul.

Maj. Abdul Jalil, the police chief in Bagrami, told AP that authorities had arrested four people there last year, including a young woman used by her mother and her uncle to entice the drivers of expensive cars to a house in the district for sex.

The victims were all hanged by the neck with a rope, he said.

Jalil said nine bodies were found in the house opposite a derelict textile factory and that the investigation led to the latest discovery in Nangarhar. He said the man arrested in Jalalabad was a member of the same family.

Another arm of the gang was operating further south, in Paktia and Khost provinces, where more bodies might be found, the officials said.

The cars were allegedly dismantled to disguise the origin of the parts which were then sold.

Reports of killings and theft by organized crime gangs are frequent in Afghanistan, though rarely involving such a high death toll.

Taliban leafleter arrested in southeast Afghanistan
KHOST, Afghanistan, Feb 3 (AFP) - Afghan police said Thursday they have arrested a man carrying 500 leaflets signed by a Taliban commander and urging his countrymen to fight against US forces in the country.

The Afghan was arrested upon arrival from Pakistan in the southeastern province of Khost on Wednesday, provincial police commander Mohmmad Ayoob told AFP. "The letters signed by Mullah Sayful Rahman call for a jihad (holy war) against the government and coalition forces," the commander said.

Mullah Sayful Rahman, who is wanted by the Afghan government and the US-led military, is one of the key Taliban commanders in the violence-hit southeastern region, according to Ayoob. Ayoob said the suspect was heading to Kabul to distribute the pamphlets.

The Taliban, whose fundamentalist regime was toppled by a US-led military offensive in late 2001, continues to attack foreign and government forces, mainly in the south and southeast along the Pakistani border.

Building an army for Afghanistan
By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes European edition, Thursday, February 3, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan — One soldier is satisfied, while another isn’t so pleased with the way things have gone for him in western Afghanistan.

Both have concerns, mainly over money, career paths and family support. Yet each is proud to wear the uniform and appreciate the respect it engenders in their countrymen.

“I want to serve my country,” said Pvt. Abdul Latif, who has been struggling with his new job.

The two men — Samiullah, a sergeant who uses only one name, and Latif — don’t work for Uncle Sam.

Rather, they are part of a grand undertaking known as the Afghanistan National Army. It’s a work in progress, one that will pay huge dividends if Afghanistan and its allies — most notably the United States — can pull it off.

“There are many problems in the ANA,” said Afghan army Brig. Gen. Fazil Ahmad Sayar, the chief of staff of the 207th Corps based in Herat, “but we hope [it] will get better in the future.”

While often compared to its Iraqi army counterpart, the smaller Afghan force has taken tremendous strides in the past three years, U.S. and Afghan officials said.

The Afghan army still has some distance to cover, but the road of apprenticeship doesn’t appear to be as long or as problematic, providing the United States and its allies continue the effort, dubbed Task Force Phoenix.

Iraqis “are not bred warriors like these guys,” said U.S. Army Brig. Gen. Richard Moorhead, the task force commander. Afghans “have the will to fight,” he added, “and that’s what makes them so good.”

Or, so dangerous, if the armed Afghan is fighting against coalition forces.

Afghan fighters “won’t hesitate to engage us,” said Capt. Mike Berdy, a 25th Infantry Division company commander based near the Pakistan border.

But after two decades of fighting, many in Afghanistan seem war-weary, based on conversations with Afghans in the south, east and west.

“War has destroyed my country,” said Samiullah, 18, a platoon sergeant with the 207th Corps, headquartered in Herat.

“The Afghan people are happy,” Khoshhal Murad, a United Nations interpreter in Kabul, said. “We have a new government, and a new army.”

That new army now has roughly 18,000 combat soldiers, according to Moorhead. More than 3,000 Afghans are in a three-step, 20-week training regimen that concludes with a unit assignment.

By September 2007, Afghan troop strength should reach the goal of 45,000.

Launched in June 2003, the task force started slowly, focused for the first year primarily on the infantry. Recruits were tested and evaluated to determine if they were junior enlisted, senior enlisted or officer material. Additionally, U.S., French and British trainers kept an eye out for recruits who would one day take over as instructors.

About a year ago, the task force turned over basic-training duties to those handpicked candidates. Moorhead said the plan is to do the same this April with the command and staff school, which the French army oversees. Later this year, the British will hand their clipboards to Afghan instructors chosen to conduct the senior noncommissioned officer school.

Other countries assisting are Bulgaria, Canada, Germany, Mongolia, New Zealand and Romania.

While the focus has been on combat forces, incrementally the coalition has been building up the support sector — such as training, logistics and communications — and it has been filling billets within the Afghanistan Ministry of Defense. By 2007, there will be about 3,000 troops and civilians assigned to the ministry and roughly 21,000 to 22,000 on the support side.

In addition, various commands and agencies are being created, including a new military academy that will open its doors next month to 120 cadets.

“It’s growing gradually,” Moorhead said, “but it’s growing with good people.”

The ANA consists of five corps. The first was the 201st based in Kabul, which became fully staffed in May. In September, four regional corps came on line in Kandahar, Gardez, Mazar-e-Sharif and Herat.

Other components are falling into place. Two months ago, the Afghans, with coalition input, drafted a military justice code.

“This army has to be sustainable because one of these days we will leave,” Moorhead said.

Sayar, the chief of staff for the Herat Corps, is one of the Afghan soldiers helping to make that happen. Through an interpreter, he ticked off a list of issues his staff is addressing, from pay and leave to supply and medicine.

But the most significant thing Afghan military leaders can do, he said, is “to keep the promises made to recruits.”

Such talk might be enough to keep Latif in the fold.

Based in Herat, Latif wants to serve, but said his $160-a-month salary is barely enough to support his wife and six kids. A seasoned fighter, the 32-year-old driver/mechanic is weighing his options. He may join the quick reaction force — and nearly double his salary — or he may quit, go home to Kabul and open his own garage.

If the army offered adequate family housing and more money, said Latif, who fought the Taliban as a member of the Northern Alliance, “I would stay forever.”

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Afghan National Army at a glance

Current troop strength: 21,000

Troop strength in 2007: 45,000

Initial training: 20 weeks (basic and specialty training)

Basic pay: $70 (for a private); $900 (for a general)

Future: Will develop an air force to move troops around the country

- Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community.

Afghan troops get instruction on the finer points of soldiering
By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes European edition, Thursday, February 3, 2005
HERAT, Afghanistan — When an Afghan soldier gets assigned to a regional corps command, his combat curriculum doesn’t end.

From corps to company level, Task Force Phoenix is dispatching training teams to Afghan units in the field to instruct officers and enlisted personnel on the finer points of soldiering. The largest contingent of trainers in western Afghanistan is 16 miles south of the provincial capital of Herat, and its commander is U.S. Army Col. Randy Smith.

“When we first came out here,” Smith said, the Afghan “Central Corps [in Kabul] was the only game in town.”

A few months prior to the October presidential election, the Afghan transitional government in Kabul began deploying the Afghanistan National Army to other regions. In Herat, the timing was most advantageous, because Afghan forces, a few trainers and the U.S. Army’s 3rd Squad, 4th Cavalry Regiment, were on hand to help quell a Sept. 12 riot.

Smith, who arrived afterward, said since then his training team has had to adapt on the fly, mixing training with actual missions of the 207th Corps.

Like the other Afghan regional commands, save for Central Corps in Kabul, the 207th formally raised its flag in September. A year from now, Smith said, the unit in Herat should have its full complement.

Adjacent to the current camp, work has begun on a $63 million ANA base that will serve as the regional headquarters. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers envisions more than 100 buildings, including offices, barracks, a power plant, wastewater facility, hospital and sports field.

“It’s not often you get to make history,” said Joe Haugen, the resident engineer.

“It’s basically a city for 4,000 soldiers. Pretty cool, huh?”

Back at the temporary facility, Smith and his deputy, Lt. Col. Bert Owens, talked of the challenges of transforming a band of tough but unpolished warriors.

“We are advisers,” Owens said. “We don’t command them.”

One of the toughest tests is changing a centralized mind-set that devalued empowerment, initiative and improvisation. Owens likened it to a sandlot football team that can flawlessly execute plays etched in the dirt, but gets caught flat-footed when its play breaks down.

Another flaw can be a lack of preparation and prevention.

On Dec. 31, the trainers left their compound for a meeting with an Afghan National Police commander in Shindand, a town 60 miles away. The Afghan commander climbed into his vehicle and joined the convoy. A few miles down the road, a tire on the commander’s car went flat.

Smith said he uses instances such as that as training tools. In this case, he deftly emphasized to his Afghan charges the need to inspect vehicles the day before a trip.

Sometimes he’ll say very little, preferring to lead by example. One day, prior to a mission, Smith had one of his soldiers haul a table outside in plain view of the Afghans housed nearby. One by one, the Americans performed a functions check on their M-16s. The Afghans watched from afar, and now often go through the same routine.

Other lessons are taught over time.

Eventually, Afghan soldiers will assume every role in the army, including paying troops. But in the beginning at Herat, it was Sgt. 1st Class Derrick Kelly. On that first payday, Kelly sat at a table and a queue formed outside his door. Suddenly, there was commotion and shoving.

The Afghan officers “just pushed the [enlisted soldiers] out of the way because they were officers,” Smith recalled.

Kelly coolly gathered his things and walked out.

The Afghan officers were aghast, perhaps because an enlisted soldier upstaged them. Perhaps it was because the soldier was black and, in the past, Afghans have fought many battles along ethnic lines.

Owens, who is black, said he, Smith and other members of the Regional Command Assistance Group-West, used that instance and others to show how the cultural diversity of the U.S. military is an advantage.

“We point that out to them,” Owens said, “so that they realize you’ve got to work as a team.”

Senior Afghan leaders back in Kabul have grasped that concept. The Afghan Ministry of Defense is consciously building battalions along ethnically mixed lines.

The issue of ethnicity in the Afghan army was posed separately to two soldiers. Both soldiers looked somewhat perplexed when it was raised.

“These things are in the past,” said a platoon sergeant named Samiullah. “We are one army. There are no [ethnic] divisions.”

- Stars and Stripes is a Department of Defense-authorized daily newspaper distributed overseas for the U.S. military community.

Afghan disarmament program to be completed within months
KABUL, Feb. 3 (Xinhua) -- Afghanistan's ambitious Afghan disarmament program is going to complete by the end of the first half of this year, spokesperson of the UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) said Thursday.

"Some 36,000 or two thirds of Afghan militias have been disarmed and the remaining around 15,000 or one third will be disarmed by June 2005," spokesperson of the UNAMA Ariane Quentiere told journalists at a news briefing here.

Under a UN-backed Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration(DDR) program launched in October 2003, the post-war Afghanistan was designed to get rid of thousands of armed militias.

Some 100,000 militias loyal to different commanders, according to reports of the Defense Ministry, had existed after the fall of Taliban in late 2001 but officials at UNAMA put the number between50,000 to 60,000.

Over 40 percent of the former militia had laid down their arms before the historic October presidential polls while the remainingwas scheduled to be disarmed before parliamentary elections slatedfor next April.

Nearly 20,000 mines destroyed in Afghanistan
February 3, 2005 Associated Press
Demolition experts blew up nearly 20,000 anti-personnel mines in western Afghanistan Thursday in a growing effort to rid the country of weapons left over from two decades of fighting, officials said.

A total of 19,179 mines collected from militia units in and around the city of Herat were detonated in a huge explosion near the city on Thursday morning, the largest event of its kind since the fall of the Taliban three years ago.

Afghanistan joined the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, or Ottawa Convention, on Sept. 11, 2002, and has until February 2007 to destroy its entire stockpile of mines under a program sponsored by Canada, the United States and the United Nations.

Under separate disarmament efforts, the country has already demobilized about half of the country's estimated 60,000 militia fighters to make way for a new national army and rounded up thousands of heavy weapons.

However, an unknown quantity of arms remain in the hands of warlords and factions who retain control of swaths of the country.

The mines destroyed Thursday included American, Italian and Iranian designs. But the majority were Russian-made, a legacy of the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

Millions of explosives were laid in that period and the brutal civil war which followed.

Afghan officials have said that mines or unexploded bombs, some dropped during the U.S. air war against the Taliban, still kill or wound about 100 Afghans every month, despite the operations of the world's largest mine clearance operation.

U.S. marine general says 'it's fun to shoot some people' in Afghanistan
Canadian Press February 4, 2005
WASHINGTON (AP) - A decorated U.S. Marine Corps general said "It's fun to shoot some people" and poked fun at the manhood of Afghans as he described the wars U.S. troops are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan.

His boss, the commandant of the Marine Corps, said Thursday the comments reflect "the unfortunate and harsh realities of war" but the general has been asked to watch his words in public. Lt.-Gen. James Mattis, a career infantry officer who is now in charge of developing better ways to train and equip marines, made the comments Tuesday while speaking to a forum in San Diego, Calif.

In an audio recording, Mattis said: "Actually, it's a lot of fun to fight. You know, it's a hell of a hoot...It's fun to shoot some people."

"I'll be right upfront with you, I like brawling."

He added: "You go into Afghanistan, you got guys who slap women around for five years because they didn't wear a veil. You know, guys like that ain't got no manhood left anyway."

"So it's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot them."

His comments were met with laughter and applause from the audience. Mattis was speaking during a panel discussion hosted by the Armed Forces Communications and Electronics Association, a spokeswoman for the general said.

On Thursday, Gen. Mike Hagee, commandant of the Marine Corps, issued a statement saying: "Lt.-Gen. Mattis often speaks with a great deal of candour. I have counselled him concerning his remarks and he agrees he should have chosen his words more carefully."

Hagee also said: "While I understand that some people may take issue with the comments made by him, I also know he intended to reflect the unfortunate and harsh realities of war."

Mattis is currently the commanding general of the Marine Corps Combat Development Command in Quantico, Va., and deputy commandant for combat development.

Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, said it was up to Mattis to address his own comments but he added: "All of us who are leaders have a responsibility in our words and our actions to provide the right example all the time for those who look to us for leadership."

Pace spoke to a Pentagon news conference. U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said he had not read Mattis's words and deferred to Pace.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a Muslim civil-liberties group, called on the Pentagon to discipline Mattis for the remarks.

"We do not need generals who treat the grim business of war as a sporting event," said the council's executive director, Nihad Awad.

"These disturbing remarks are indicative of an apparent indifference to the value of human life."

Mattis's comments were reported by the television station KNSD in San Diego and the audio recording was posted on its website www.nbcsandiego.com .

As a lieutenant-colonel, Mattis led an assault battalion into Kuwait during the first war with Iraq. During the war in Afghanistan, he commanded the 1st Marine Expeditionary Brigade and subsequently Task Force 58, which fought in southern Afghanistan as the Taliban fell.

During the second war in Iraq, he commanded the 1st Marine Division during the invasion and also when the unit returned to Iraq for counter-insurgency operations last year.

He is not the first senior military officer since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks on the United States to stir controversy with his comments.

Lt.-Gen. William Boykin, a senior military-intelligence officer, was criticized for speeches he made at evangelical Christian churches. He said the United States' enemy was Satan, God had put President George W. Bush in the White House and one Muslim Somali warlord was an idol-worshipper.

Boykin later issued a written statement apologizing and saying he did not mean to insult Islam.

A Pentagon investigation concluded Boykin violated regulations by failing to make clear he was not speaking in an official capacity in the speeches beginning in January 2002.

Pounding the people with free information: Radio Jaghori opens in Ghazni Province
Source: Internews Network Inc. 31 Jan 2005
Kabul, January 31, 2004: The sounds of a free and blossoming press are now being propelled off a hill in Ghazni Province from where Mujahideen fighters were once launching rockets. The building housing Radio Jaghori, in Jaghori District, once housed a faction of these fighters during the civil war in the 1990s. Later a Taliban spy post where locals were tortured, the building has now been resurrected by the media and stands as a symbol of free thought in Afghanistan.

Internews, with its partner, Future Generation, opened the station in early January. Future Generation works on sustainable development through vocational institutes and professional trainings such as this radio station. Four staff and seven volunteers produce five programs, including Nama ha wa Ahangha Shuma ("Your Letters and Your Songs"), a program designed to facilitate dialogue within the community. The station also plays a selection of programs from the Tanin initiative. It plans to add programs on culture and poetry, education, sports and business in the next few weeks.

Broadcasting on 93.5 kHz FM, Radio Jaghori can be heard for 10 hours every day. With Salaam Watandar, the daily four-hour national cycle of programming produced by Internews in Kabul, and in-house productions, the people of Jaghori are now connecting with the rest of Afghanistan and receiving news to make informed decisions about their futures. Radio Jaghori’s signal reaches an estimated 30,329 people in and around this remote district.

Funded by the United States Agency for International Development, Radio Jaghori joins the Internews-assisted network of 29 radio stations around Afghanistan, broadcasting to eight and a half million people.

First Iranian bank opened in Kabul
By Noria Ashori
KABUL, Feb. 03, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- The first private Iranian bank has opened its branch in the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Wednesday. Asghari, director general of Aryan bank, told Pajhwok that the bank would undertake money transfers to all parts of Afghanistan, though its office is currently located only in Kabul.

He said the bank would also open its branch in the eastern province of Herat soon and would expand its operations to the entire country in one year. This is the 13th private bank which has started operations in Kabul.

Pakistan promises release of Afghan goods from Karachi Port
By Mustafa Basharat
KABUL, Feb. 03, (Pajhwok Afghan News) -- Goods of Afghan traders being held up in the Karachi port for 25 years may soon be released following an agreement secured by Commerce Minister Hedayat Amin Arsala during his visit to Pakistan last week.

Announcing this in a press conference in Kabul on Thursday the Deputy Minister of Commerce, Ghulam Nabi Farahi, said Arsala's talks with the Pakistani authorities had raised hopes that the problem of Afghan traders would be solved finally.

Farahi had earlier said that there were 3,000 containers of goods worth more than $400 million held up at the Karachi Port and the Pakistani government had sought payment of additional tax before they would release the goods.

"Afghanistan signed an agreement with Pakistan during the 1990s to allow Afghan traders use this port for transit but despite that Pakistan has not kept its side of the agreement" Farahi said.

Hameed Faroqi, professor of economics at the Kabul University, said the release of these goods would have a considerable impact on market prices in Afghanistan.

Afghan NGOs criticize cabinet decision
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/02/2005 By Qadam Ali Nikpai
KABUL – Some local Afghan NGOs have come together against a recent cabinet decision that may threaten their foreign funding. In a meeting here on Wednesday,13 organizations said that the cabinet decision to put an end to their foreign funding would lead to an end to their operations that would be akin to killing democracy and civil society in the country.

The participants of the meeting also asked for an exact clarification of the "controversial" expressions used in a resolution issued by the cabinet. They referred to the decision on "cutting aid to social parties and organizations" and "to keep under observation foreign aid for the social parties and organizations" taken in the cabinet resolution passed on 24 January.

In today's meeting, representatives of 13 organizations from among 261 registered with the Ministry of Justice voiced their concern over the government's decision.
The participants included Afghan Youth Union, Countrywide Women's Union, Doctors' Union, Union of Farmers Cooperatives, and the National Association of the Disabled.

Government owned enterprise fails to pay poor farmers
Pajhwok Afghan News 02/02/2005 By Rohullah Arman
KUNDUZ – Selling cotton crop to the government has turned out to be a costly exercise for some cotton farmers of Kunduz. Three months after the sale they are still awaiting payment from the state-owned Spinzar Enterprises.

Criticising the company and its officials for delaying the payment the farmers complained they waited every day in front of the company's office for their payment in vain. The wait is made more difficult for the farmers because of the dire circumstances in which they have survived for so many years.

Mohammad Wazir, a 56-year old farmer from Sidarak village told Pajhwok:
"Twenty-five years of oppression, trouble and waiting is enough for us. We voted for Karzai hoping to get rid of these calamities but the old robbers are still there, trying to rob people's wealth while Karzai boasts of doing this and that." Wazir said the farmers had sold 7000 kilos of cotton at a price of 15 Afs per kilo three months ago but were yet to receive any payment.

On 27 January, during a visit to Kunduz, the Minister of Mines and Industries, Eng. Mohammad Seddiq promised that the problems would be solved soon with the transfer of money form Kabul.

Jabarkhil Zazai, acting president of the Spinzar company said : "due to the bad weather and continuous rain, transfer of the money from Kabul to Kunduz by airplane was delayed for some time and as soon as we get it we'll pay the farmers." He said the problem of the factory was shortage of cash and if there was enough they would encourage the farmers to increase their production.

Arbab Bahadar Khan from Gul Tapa village of Kunduz however said : "Is it right that the government levies fines if people delay the payment of their dues to the government, but there is no such fine when the government delays its payment to the people?" Spinzar was established in 1935 as a joint-stock company called Shamali but changed to a state enterprise in 1983.

A War on Poppies That Works
Los Angeles Times, Editorial 02/02/2005
It's not as if the world forgot Afghanistan, at one point ground zero in the war on terrorism, but the distraction of Iraq has meant that half-baked ideas like aerial spraying to poison Afghan poppies have gotten further than they should.

When the Bush administration raised the possibility of attacking the poppies, the raw material for opium, Afghan President Hamid Karzai objected.
Last month, Washington listened to Karzai and backed off.

The State Department has asked Congress to authorize $750 million in aid to Afghanistan for counter-narcotics programs, a request that should be granted. But of the $750 million, $152 million was proposed for aerial eradication; that money would be better spent on encouraging farmers to plant other crops and on building roads so those crops could get to market.

There's no sense pretending that getting rid of the opium problem will be easy. Crop substitution programs have a poor record because drug crops like poppies and coca are much more lucrative than wheat or barley. The best estimates suggest that if opium were legal, it would boost Afghanistan's legitimate economy by 60%. Even were it possible to eliminate the entire crop immediately, what would happen to poverty- stricken tenant farmers who depend on the little money they receive from it to fend off starvation? The farm owners take a good cut of the profits from the finished product, as do the traffickers who move it to warehouses and processing plants. So do the warlords, who take a cut of everything.

But a coordinated program could reduce Afghanistan's poppy harvest. One good tactic is increasing efforts to find and destroy the warehouses and laboratories. That would show a willingness to attack the opium trade from the top end. Also needed are aid to farmers in growing alternative crops and job training for such needed work as building roads. The United States plans to pay tens of thousands of Afghans to help rebuild the shattered infrastructure.

The election of Karzai last year correctly was hailed as a step toward a democratic Afghanistan. The United States and allies like Britain that are trying to help the country rebuild its institutions, security forces and agriculture could help democracy flourish by talking to officials and the rural population before drawing up plans, not after.

The View from the Plane
The Daily Standard 02/02/2005 By Tom Donnelly
What the Iraq elections looked like from Afghanistan, England, and elsewhere

I'VE JUST FLOWN IN from Afghanistan, and boy, are my arms tired. Simply sitting in an economy-class seat--even on British Airways, the world's only civilized airline--gave me quite a compacted feeling.

But the exhaustion and compression were well worth it to get in better touch with the elections in Iraq, or at least world reaction to them. Afghans weren't paying much attention to Iraq, other than to express their dislike of Arabs in general and express their wonderment than the Iraqi insurgents were attacking their liberators. While no peoples have a greater natural hostility to foreign armies than the Afghans--after decades of Soviet socialist fraternal help and a brief dose of the Taliban--they are pretty clear on the distinction between liberation and occupation.

With a feeling that I had gained at least some understanding of Afghan opinion on the matter--and motivated by a very strong desire for my own bed and a really hot shower--I started Saturday on the long trek home from Kabul to Washington. Getting out of Kabul was the hardest part; the phrase "regularly scheduled" does not translate well into Dari or Pahsto, I guess.
And the first flight only got me as far as Dubai. Now that's a regularly scheduled place--"regularly" as in unvarying. The Dubai airport is ripe for a combination Bill Murray-Tom Hanks movie: Terminally Lost in Translation.
It's a place out of time, but with a peculiarly Las Vegas-emirate twist. The idea that there were historic political doings just up the Gulf was nowhere in evidence, at least in Dubai Terminal Number 1.

Next connection was London, where on early Sunday morning the BBC was broadcasting the early returns. The relative lack of violence and the obvious enthusiasm of the Iraqi voters--the initial Beeb telecasts came from Basra, where British forces are centered but which is also a Shia stronghold--seemed a bit of a disappointment to the presenters and analysts in the United Kingdom, but the reporters in the field carried the day. By the time I got on the plane, pictures of celebrating Iraqis were dominating the BBC coverage.

By the time I touched down in Washington and settled in for a full dose of cable-news coverage--speed-dialing between Fox, MSNBC, and CNN is the fastest way to reconnect to the punditocracy--it was nearly undeniable that the Iraqi elections were a tremendous success. Even Chris Matthews seemed to be in touch with his small-d democratic roots. Military analysts like retired General Wayne Downing were biting their tongues to preserve a façade of modesty; it wasn't pro-Bush partisanship so much as relief that the U.S.
military was seen to be winning, at least for the moment.

It was such a nice homecoming that I slept through the entire Monday news cycle. I figured I wasn't going to miss much other than a one-day truce in the assault on Bush administration Iraq and Middle East policy. Sure enough, by Tuesday morning the American insurgency was back in full swing. In the Washington Post, E.J. Dionne urged us to "Keep the Euphoria in Check;" just underneath him Richard Cohen warned of the "Unfinished Story in Iraq." Both stressed the need for "modesty" and demonstrated that they knew who Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani was. And both more or less concluded, as Dionne put it, that now was the time for President Bush to listen to his critics, men such as themselves, who believed not only that U.S. policy in Iraq was mistaken but morally bankrupt, too.

If leftist columnists counseled modesty, Democratic party leaders were ready to declare victory and get out of Iraq as fast as possible. To minority leader Senator Harry Reid, the elections were such a smashing success that now was the time--"most of all"--for the administration to define "an exit strategy so that we know what victory is and how we can get there." Reid stopped short of Ted Kennedy's timetable for withdrawal, but the basic impulse was the same. And it was summed up very neatly by columnist Robert Scheer in the Lost Angeles Times: "After the excellent election news, it's time for Bush to plan a pullout."

As soon as they get a little more electricity and hot water, I'm going back to Kabul. The place has got a lot of problems, to be sure, but at least they know what victory looks like--and that immodesty in the pursuit of liberty is no vice.

Tom Donnelly is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and a contributing writer to The Daily Standard.

Afghanistan: A cry for justice
International Herald Tribune 02/02/2005 By Sima Samar and Nader Nadery
KABUL - Haji Qudos, a middle-aged man from Nangarhar Province, is one of a vast majority of Afghans who are willing to commit their lives to promote peace and stability in order to pave the way for a sustainable democracy.
But peace and stability in our country are possible only if the United States and the international community help the Afghan people bring to justice those who have committed crimes against humanity.

Haji's wife, sons and daughters were killed in front of his eyes in his house on June 7, 1995. Those responsible now hold very powerful political positions in the country and work closely with U.S. military officials in the war against terror.

Hundreds of ordinary Afghans like Haji from remote areas of the country travel every month to our office at the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission here to recount atrocities. Haji told us that in 1995, after he refused to let his 16-year-old daughter marry a local commander, militia forces loyal to the warlord slaughtered his family and tortured him in an underground cell. Worried for his safety, I asked him if he was concerned that the warlord would find out about his visit. He said, "I am here to seek justice, and I am not worried about what will happen to me."

Like many Afghans, I am grateful for American-led efforts to bring democracy and rebuild the country. But if the United States wants to retain the faith of the Afghan people, it should act immediately to help people like Haji achieve justice for past crimes and to protect them from future ones.

Millions of ordinary Afghans had hoped that they would benefit from the establishment of the rule of law after the Taliban fell. But while some courthouses are being reconstructed and limited efforts are being made to train judges and lawyers, much of Afghanistan lacks a functioning judicial system. In a national poll we conducted, 65 percent of respondents had little or no faith in the current judicial system, with courts staffed by untrained or corrupt judges often acting under the orders of the warlords.

The power of Afghanistan's central government is limited, with private armies controlling large parts of the country and continuing to commit human rights abuses. The U.S. military has fought the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the south and east, but has not prevented infighting among warlords, often over control of the opium trade. Civilians are the most common victims of these bloodbaths, and local militias as well as common criminals often enjoy impunity from prosecution.

Some say that while justice and human rights are vital, Afghans must wait until the country is more secure and a democratically elected central government is formed. But three-quarters of those who responded to our poll believe that bringing human rights violators to justice will bolster peace, stability, and security. Afghans believe that democracy and freedom are meaningless without justice and the rule of law.

Without any consideration for the desires of the Afghan people and the effects on democracy and justice, the U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, General David Barno, recently announced an initiative to grant amnesty to Taliban perpetrators. Yet 61 percent of Afghans in the poll showed no desire for amnesty and rejected it, particularly when imposed by non-Afghans.

Afghans want a special court established to ensure that war criminals and other human rights offenders are prosecuted. Hundreds of thousands of Afghans have witnessed or been victims of abuses under different regimes since the early 1980s. Nearly 70 percent of those we polled identified themselves or immediate family members as direct victims of human rights violations during the conflicts.

The international community must stand by the Afghan people and respect and heed their cries for justice. It must help us rebuild our judicial system into one that can be trusted to deliver swift and impartial justice.
Otherwise, Haji Qudos and millions of other Afghans will once again lose hope, and the prospects for a peaceful and secure society based on the rule of law will be significantly set back.

Without justice, sustainable peace will remain forever elusive.

(Sima Samar, who chairs the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, was the first woman to serve as Afghan vice president and minister of women's affairs. Nader Nadery is a member of the commission, in charge of transitional justice.)

Business turns bad for Chinese brothels in Afghan capital
KABUL (AFP) - On the surface they look like Chinese restaurants and occasionally prospective diners wander in and try to order food from the incredulous staff.

But most foreigners in the Afghan capital Kabul know exactly what business these establishments are in -- defying an Islamic ban on alcohol and prostitution that has just led to a number of them being closed down.

One advertises its presence with a few strings of lights, nothing more. It looks like it could be one of the restaurants patronised by foreign security companies, diplomats and aid workers here since the fall of the Taliban.

Inside the lights are dimmed and young women, all Chinese, walk round the room or warm themselves next to a boukhari -- an Afghan gas or wood stove.

Sitting at the bar, or installed on comfortable sofas, men from various Western countries watch the girls go by. Here there are no loving touches, only women who from time to time disappear with a client after a slow dance.

"These places have really flourished recently in Kabul," says one regular on condition of anonymity, adding they are also frequented by the rare Afghan.

"Some close down then reopen under another name," and at least a dozen are operating in Kabul, he says.

All this in Afghanistan, where wives are jailed for cheating on their husbands and young women are killed for losing their "honour".

Islamic law strictly forbids prostitution, as well as the sale of alcohol.

Which is why Afghan authorities on Monday decided to crack down on the trade -- which contributes to the prevalent hatred of foreigners in this conservative country -- and shut down three Chinese guest houses in Kabul allegedly doubling as brothels.

The interior ministry also set up a commission to investigate all foreign guest houses in Kabul.

"Those which are not registered should register with the ministry of information and culture and Kabul municipality, and those accused of immoral activities or selling alcohol to Afghans should be closed," said interior ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal.

"There were complaints about some guest houses," he said.

According to the regular brothel-goer, prostitutes in Kabul are divided into two categories: Chinese and those from the former Soviet republics.

The first kind can be found in bars and restaurants and cost around 50 dollars, while the second, who are more discreet, offer the services of young girls for 200 dollars.

"You can be sure these girls have no papers," the client added, suggesting that some were sexual slaves forced to stay by traffickers who would withhold their passports.

"International prostitutes come here to make this place a work opportunity for themselves and to draw our country towards prostitution," said Waheed Mojda, spokesman for the Afghan supreme court, which is responsible for upholding Islamic law.

He made no mention of the destitute Afghan women also drawn into the sex trade to survive.

"One of the main problems that human society faces today is the issue of AIDS and HIV. In Afghanistan the level of HIV is quite low but such guest houses not only spread immoral activities but deadly diseases as well," he told AFP.

"It should be the government's priority to ban such places," he said.

Helping Afghanistan to Boost Its Low Literacy Rate
Friday, 4 February 2005, 11:17 am Press Release: United Nations
UN Agencies And Aid Groups Help Afghanistan Try To Boost Its Low Literacy Rates
Aiming to lift Afghanistan's perilously low literacy rates, United Nations agencies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) have begun a series of programmes with the country's government ministries to build or renovate hundreds of schools, train teachers and instruct thousands of illiterate adults.

About 43 per cent of adult Afghan men and just 14 per cent of adult women are literate, UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) spokesperson Ariane Quentier told reporters today in the capital Kabul.

She said the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the UN Office for Project Services (UNOPS) have helped the Afghan Ministry of Education construct or rebuild 193 primary schools since last year.

In Saripul province in the northwest, NGOs and the Education Ministry last month started a four-year literacy course where 300 teachers will give lessons to 9,000 adults across many of the province's villages. A separate literacy course that ultimately aims to teach 1,500 women is underway in neighbouring Bamiyan province.

Teacher-training courses are also taking place in Panjao district, with the programme to be expanded into at least four other districts, Ms. Quentier said..

Meanwhile, Cherif Bassiouni, the Independent Expert on Human Rights in Afghanistan, is currently in the country on a week-long mission to assess the situation - his first since August last year.

Mr. Bassiouni is scheduled to take a field mission to Mazar-i-Sharif, as well as meet UN officials, government officials and representatives of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) during his visit.

Women who voted in Afghan, Iraqi elections honored
By JENNIFER LOVEN Associated Press Thu, Feb. 03, 2005
Special guests included women who voted in Iraq and Afghan elections, representatives of the military and a Florida doctor and her patient.

WASHINGTON - Two women who voted in recent elections in Iraq and Afghanistan were Laura Bush's special guests in her VIP box at President Bush's State of the Union address Wednesday.

Safia Taleb al-Suhail, leader of the Iraqi Women's Political Council and a civil society organization called Alliance for International Justice, joined the first lady along with more than a dozen other special guests.

Al-Suhail became politically active after her father was assassinated in 1996 in Beirut by Saddam Hussein's secret service. She is married to Bakhtiar Amin, a Kurdish political activist and founder of the Iraqi Democracy Institute in the United States. He is now Iraqi minister of human rights.

AFGHAN VOTER
The other guest, Homira G. Nassery, voted in Afghanistan's historic presidential election last October. She wants to set up a venture capital firm for women in her native Afghanistan, according to the White House.

Nassery runs a program that trains female civil servants and teaches leadership development at the University of Kabul School of Law and Political Science.

Previously she worked as a public health specialist for The World Bank in Rwanda, Eritrea, Mozambique, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Afghanistan.

FLORIDIANS
The other VIP guests were:
• Three people supporting the president's call for private accounts in Social Security: Robert McFadden of Medford, N.J.; Sandra Jaques of West Des Moines, Iowa, and Robert Wright of Millard County, Utah.

• Two Floridians chosen to highlight what Bush says is the need for capping awards in medical malpractice lawsuits: Dr. Karen Liebert of Bradenton, an OB/GYN who stopped delivering babies last year because of rising insurance premiums, and Julianne Ferguson of Bradenton, a patient of Liebert's who is expecting her second child.

• Two people who participated in relief efforts to help victims of the December tsunami in the Indian Ocean: Don Cressman, a pilot who has been in the region coordinating helicopter deliveries of supplies, and Linda Goble of Livermore, Colo., who donated money.

• Janet and William Norwood of Pflugerville, Texas, whose 25-year-old son, Sgt. Byron Norwood, was killed Nov. 13, 2004, by sniper fire during an assault on Fallujah. After her son's death, Mrs. Norwood wrote to the president in support of his policies in Iraq.

• Representatives of each military service branch.

• Two school officials to call attention to the landmark No Child Left Behind Act that is the centerpiece of Bush's education agenda.

• A representative of the faith-based community, which Bush wants to give more access to federal social services dollars.