Afghanistan News March 2, 2005

March 2, 2005

Karzai names strongman Dostum his chief of staff
By Yousuf Azimy
KABUL, March 1 (Reuters) - Afghan President Hamid Karzai appointed a controversial regional strongman as his personal military chief of staff on Tuesday, despite calls by rights groups for him to sideline warlords.

Karzai's spokesman Jawed Ludin said General Abdul Rashid Dostum, who finished fourth in October presidential elections, had been named chief of staff to the commander in chief, a post held by Karzai.

The appointment was announced on national television.

Asked earlier about charges that Dostum was guilty of human rights violations and war crimes, Ludin told a briefing: "Let's not talk about that because that's a completely different issue."

"That's a completely separate discussion, and I think that's for the future, but as things stand, everyone in Afghanistan has the right to basically fulfil their responsibilities and be given opportunity to do so."

Despite urgings by rights groups for him to use his election win to marginalise regional warlords, in naming his cabinet last year Karzai found room for another strongman, Ismail Khan, who resisted attempts to extend central control in the west of the Afghanistan last year.

FOURTH IN ELECTION
Dostum came fourth in October's presidential elections and diplomats say he had felt sidelined after being left out of Karzai's new cabinet, having served as a military adviser to his previous government.

Relations between the two have often been strained.

After Karzai came to power following the overthrow of the Taliban by U.S.-led forces in 2001, Dostum's fighters threatened attempts to bring stability by clashing repeatedly with those of an ethnic Tajik rival.

And last April, the president was forced to send national army troops to restore order after the general's federalist militiamen moved into a northern province.

Before the elections, Karzai vowed to make warlord militias such as Dostum's a thing of the past, but analysts have warned that despite some progress, the process of disarming such private armies is in danger of derailing.

This month, the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank said Karzai's government and its U.S.-led international backers had been complicit in maintaining the power of militia commanders to fight Islamic militancy, threatening parliamentary polls due later this year.

In naming Dostum to his post, Karzai will be aware that the general retains considerable popularity in his native ethnic Uzbek heartlands of northern Afghanistan, where his private army helped U.S. forces defeat the Taliban.

In January, Dostum narrowly escaped injury when a suicide bomber blew himself up and wounded more than 20 people in his home town of Shiberghan. The Taliban said the attack was in retaliation for Dostum's killing of their fighters in 2001.

Dostum's forces were accused of letting hundreds of Taliban prisoners suffocate to death in transport containers after their capture in 2001. Dostum has denied the charge but said that many may have died of wounds from the fighting.

Afghanistan about to become a 'drug state', UN agency warns
Tue Mar 1, 7:08 PM ET South Asia - AFP
VIENNA (AFP) - Opium poppy cultivation in Afghanistan increased further in 2004, posing a threat to the country's stability, and has reared its head in Pakistan after a long absence, the International Narcotics Control Board (INCB) said.

"In Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation increased from 3,200 tonnes 2003 to 4,200 tonnes in 2004 to itself," the president of the INCB, Hamid Ghodse of Iran, told a press conference in Vienna as the agency released its report for 2004.

"This total comes close to the record of 4,600 tonnes registered in 1999 under the Taliban regime," he added, warning that the renewed increase put Afghanistan "on the road to becoming a major drug-trafficking state."

In its report, the INCB estimated that a third of the opium poppies harvested in Afghanistan last year passed through countries in the region, in particular Kazakhstan and Tajikistan.

"The large quantities of Afghan heroin transiting through Central Asia towards the Russian Federation and other countries in Europe is adding to the illicit drug problems in this sub-region," it remarked.

These problems included an increase in intravenous heroin use, which in turn contributed to the spread of HIV, the virus that causes AIDS, in the region, notably in India and Nepal, it said.

The INCB said it noted with alarm that poppy cultivation returned last year to Pakistan, where authorities also confiscated acetic anhydride, a chemical used in the manufacture of heroin.

The good news was that the cultivation of opium poppies "reduced significantly" in 2004 in Myanmar and Laos, and Thailand ceased to be an important supplier of opium and heroin, the report said.

The INCB said it was also satisfied that the fight against the production of precursors, chemical compounds used in the manufacture of heroin and cocaine, had dropped.

Afghanistan to seek long-term US partnership
KABUL, March 1 (Xinhuanet) -- The Afghan government has been advocating for the long-term US partnership with the post-war central Asian state, a ranking official disclosed Tuesday.

"For the consolidation of peace and security and for the long-term rebuilding of the institutions of state we do need a long-term friendship with the United States," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin told reporters at a press conference here.

He made this comment just a week after US senator John McCaine's tour to Afghanistan during which he called for the establishmentof permanent US military bases in the post-Taliban nation.

"The United States has played a leading role in liberating Afghanistan from the clutch of terrorists. The United States has been generously contributing in rebuilding Afghanistan and Afghanistan needs the US lasting support to ensure durable stability in the country," Ludin stressed.

However, he avoided to clearly explain the Afghan government's stance on the subject by saying "it is too early to go into details."

Nonetheless, the spokesman noted that the "strategic partnership covers cooperation in all fields."

At present more than 18,000 US-led foreign troops with majority of whom being deployed in the militants-plaguing south, southeast and eastern provinces of Afghanistan where Taliban's loyalists are active since the ouster of the fundamentalist regime from power in late 2001.

To further facilitate the US engagement in Afghanistan, the Afghan Foreign Ministry allocated over 3,000 square meters of plotto the US administration last week in the Afghan capital city of Kabul, local media reported.

Afghanistan Seeks US Military Partnership
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press - March 1, 2005
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan and the United States will establish a long-term military partnership and officials have already begun working out the details, a spokesman for President Hamid Karzai said Tuesday.

To consolidate the war-ravaged country's fragile recovery from years of impoverishing conflict, "we do need a long-term, strong and strategic partnership with the United States," presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said at a news conference.

"The question of what form that will take is being worked on but it will, we believe, span over a broad range of spheres including the economy, including politics, including military," Ludin said.

Ludin declined to comment on a visiting U.S. senator's suggestion last week that America needs permanent bases in Afghanistan to secure its interests in the region, which include Iran, nuclear rivals Pakistan and India and oil-rich Central Asia.

However, the spokesman said Karzai's government was optimistic it can reach an agreement with officials in Washington.

"They also understand that Afghanistan's situation, Afghanistan's location in this region and the strategic importance that the U.S. presence has here will continue to be there for some time," Ludin said.

Three years after driving out the Taliban for harboring al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, the American military has about 17,000 troops in Afghanistan, many of the them deployed near the mountainous Pakistani frontier.

It also operates air bases at Bagram, north of the capital, Kandahar in the south and Jalalabad in the east, equipped with helicopter gunships and ground-attack aircraft.

Maj. Gen. Eric Olson, the No. 2 U.S. commander in Afghanistan, told The Associated Press on Friday that he was concerned that American policy-makers will reduce that force too soon, arguing that militants remain a grave threat to Karzai's feeble government.

However, he also said work was progressing on a new runway at Bagram and that the sprawling Soviet-era base "is a place where we see a long-term presence of coalition and, frankly, U.S. capabilities."

Sen. John McCain, the No. 2 Republican on the Armed Services Committee, said after talks with Karzai on Feb. 22 that he favored permanent American bases in Afghanistan. His office later issued a statement saying the U.S. commitment he envisaged didn't necessarily require "permanent" bases.

US State Deparment Publish Human Rights Report on Afghanistan
Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
1 March 2005 – The State Department of the United States publishes a Human Rights Report each year about any country that receives aid from the United States or any country that is the member of the United Nations. The Human Rights report is then submitted to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the Committee on Foreign Relations of the Senate.

The individual country report has 6 sections which deal with issues such as respect for civil liberties, respect for political rights or worker rights.

The State Department report still rates Afghanistan’s record on human rights to be poor. It also says that although steps have been taken to improve the situation the effectiveness of these steps is not sufficient.

Iran's first lady arrives in Afghanistan
People's Daily Online / March 1, 2005
The first lady of the Islamic Republic of Iran Mrs. Zahra Sadiqi arrived in Kabul Tuesday for a three-day official visit to the Afghan capital Kabul.

As wife of Iranian President Mohammad Khatami, Zahra Sadiqi's visit is taking place at the invitation of Afghan first lady Zinat Karzai, presidential spokesman Jawed Ludin said.

It is the first visit of Iran's first lady to Afghanistan during which she will hold talks with her counterpart Zinat Karzai as well as other Afghan officials including the Minister for Women Affairs.

"The visit by such a dignitary from Iran would further enhance bilateral relations between the two countries," Ludin noted.

Afghanistan's first lady paid a visit to Iran last year.

District elections in Afghanistan may be delayed, U.S. envoy says
Wednesday March 2, 1:37 PM
(Kyodo) _ District elections in Afghanistan may not be held in tandem with parliamentary and provincial elections as planned partly because of boundary disputes, and may be delayed to the next year, U.S. ambassador to Afghanistan Zalmay Khalilzad said Wednesday in Tokyo.
Khalilzad also expressed hope that Japan will continue to play a key role for the reconstruction of Afghanistan.

Asked whether all the three elections will be held this year, Khalilzad said in an interview with Kyodo News that parliamentary and provincial elections "are very likely to take place this year."

"But whether district elections take place this year or not, I'm not certain about that."

The elections are slated for the Afghan month of Saur, which ends May 21, but a U.N. official indicated that the schedule is no longer possible.

While citing such complexities as boundary disputes in some districts and desirable ways to allow Afghan refugees abroad to participate in the elections, Khalilzad said Afghanistan's independent election committee has to "decide whether all the three (elections) can take place or two of the three at this point."

He said the commission is expected to make a decision in "coming days."

The ambassador said Afghanistan's security situation is improving and that it will not be an obstacle for the elections.

The parliamentary vote was originally slated for June last year along with Afghanistan's first presidential election, but both were put off.

The presidential election took place last October, in which President Hamid Karzai won a landslide victory.

The ambassador said it is desirable for Afghanistan to hold the elections as early as possible to advance its reconstruction process.

"The sooner it takes place the better for completing Afghanistan political transition," Khalilzad said.

As for Japan's assistance for Afghanistan, Khalilzad said he hopes Japan will remain committed to helping the country because there are "a lot more works needed to be done" in such fields as rebuilding infrastructure.

"If the journey of rebuilding Afghanistan is a 10 mile journey, we are at mile four," Khalilzad said.

He said Afghanistan does not have a water management system, which is crucial for its agriculture, and has very little power, with only 6 percent of Afghan people have access to electricity.

Japan extended $810 million to Afghanistan for its reconstruction between September 2001 and September 2004, according to Japan's Foreign Ministry.

Turkmenistan, Afghanistan Agree on Pipeline
Associated Press / Tuesday March 1, 7:32 am ET
Leaders of Turkmenistan, Afghanistan Agree to Speed Up Work on Gas Pipeline
ASHGABAT, Turkmenistan (AP) -- Turkmenistan and Afghanistan have agreed to accelerate work on a long-delayed pipeline intended to carry natural gas to India, Turkmen President Saparmurat Niyazov's office said.

Niyazov and Afghan President Hamid Karzai discussed the project over the telephone on Monday following a visit by Karzai to India last week.

India is weighing whether to meet its expanding energy needs with pipelines from Turkmenistan or Iran, both of which would pass through archrival Pakistan, or alternately from Myanmar in the east.

The Turkmen-Afghan pipeline project's main sponsor is the Asian Development Bank.

The 1,680-kilometer (1,044-mile) pipeline, on which construction is to begin next year, is to run through Herat and Kandahar in Afghanistan, the Pakistani cities of Quetta and Multan and on to the Indian border town of Fazilka.

The US$3.5 billion (euro2.7 billion) pipeline would tap into natural gas wells at Turkmenistan's huge Dauletabad-Donmez field, which holds more than 2.83 trillion cubic meters (100 trillion cubic feet) in gas reserves.

Since the U.S.-led offensive that ousted the Taliban from power in Afghanistan, the pipeline project has been revived and drawn strong U.S. support. It would allow formerly Soviet Central Asian nations to export rich energy resources without relying on Russian routes.

A helping hand for Afghanistan
Bangkok Post (Thailand) / March 1, 2005
Afghanistan has achieved more in the past three years than many nations accomplish in a decade or more. The American-led invasion threw out a harsh and ruinous dictatorship, expelled the Arab terrorists and destroyed their training camps. The nation has made giant steps towards national reconciliation, and the warlords are falling or supporting the Kabul government. An amazing country-wide election last year won universal support, notably from previously disenfranchised and often oppressed women. But the country faces a major challenge to democratic reform. International drug traffickers have made Afghanistan the world's major supplier of opium and heroin. Kabul is looking to Thailand for help, and both the government and private sectors should rush to comply.

When the Taliban was crushed and its leaders fled in the US-led strike after the Sept 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on America, Afghanistan looked like the classic basket case. Millions of refugees had fled more than two decades of war and repression. Afghanistan had no economic base, a feudal regime, disunited provinces and a recent history of survival of the fittest and most violent. Phoenix-like, it rose from its ashes of defeat and subjugation. Dozens of countries and hundreds of private companies and non-governmental organisations helped. A Thai construction battalion spent a year helping to rebuild a corner of the nation.

Democratic institutions laid foundations, and international aid helped to sustain the Afghans and the more than two million refugees who returned. Diplomacy and good will _ and the occasional regional fighting _ got the warlords on the side of the national government. But amid the nation-building and power alignments, the economy remained weak to non-existent in most of the country. Farmers had one reliable crop to grow and sell to support their families. In two years, the opium fields encouraged and then banned by the Taliban were back in bloom.

The International Monetary Fund recently calculated that Afghanistan is the source of 90% of the world's opium trade. The crop generates about $2.8 billion _ 107.2 billion baht. That is 60% of the entire non-drug gross domestic product of Afghanistan. Worse, at least 10% of all Afghans work in opium production, but almost all of the money goes abroad to the smugglers, heroin makers and traffickers. Farmers are dirt poor and most are effectively indentured to opium traders who take the crops and dole out pitiful amounts of cash to farmers trapped in an economy that goes directly against the Muslim religion and offers no opportunity.

If this sounds vaguely familiar, think back to northern Thailand 20 or 30 years ago. Given their slave-like dependence on the opium trader, farmers leapt at the chance to make a fresh start. Coffee, potatoes, fresh flowers and fruit orchards began to bloom where only poppies had previously grown. Supported in the beginning only by His Majesty the King and a tiny handful of foreign officials, the crop replacement projects of the North became the talk of the world. The King _ and now thousands of experts _ realised that farmers needed roads and transport to get to markets, and ideas for crops. After that, commercial opium growing in Thailand quickly became history.

The second Afghan government delegation in a year has visited northern Thailand, including the model projects at Doi Tung in Chiang Rai. This time, Counter Narcotics Minister Habibullah Qaderi asked Thailand for help. Thai officials can provide aid to the new and emerging Afghanistan in two ways. Experts in crop replacement can advise Afghan officials on how to encourage farmers to switch to sustainable crops, suitable for their fields. Thai suppression officials can help the new Afghanistan ministry in setting up agencies to combat drug trafficking and money laundering.

As a new democracy still finding its feet, Afghanistan is vulnerable to international drug traffickers. It needs help to avoid the threat of becoming a narco-state, where drug smugglers buy government influence. Thailand has the expertise and should help Afghanistan quickly and extensively.

25 Afghans among quake dead in Zarand
LONDON, March 1 (IranMania) - Twenty-five Afghan refugees, most of them children and women, were among the victims of a powerful earthquake that hit southeastern Iran last week, Afghanistan’s Foreign Ministry said Monday.

“According to our consulate in Iran, 25 Afghans have died and another 40 have been injured,“ said ministry spokesman Naveed Ahmad Moez, AFP reported.

He said they had been buried in Iran.

“Iranian authorities have assured us that they will help treat the injured Afghans,“ Moez added.

A total of 612 people died and 1,400 were injured when a 6.4-magnitude quake struck Iran’s Zarand district before dawn on Tuesday.

The epicenter of the quake was 60 kilometers (35 miles) northwest of the city of Kerman.

Iran, Afghanistan’s western neighbor, still hosts millions of Afghan refugees from two and a half decades of war despite efforts to repatriate them after the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Meanwhile, 140 aftershocks have hit the quake-hit town of Zarand since a major earthquake shook the town on February 22.

Five aftershocks have been registered in the town of Zarand on Sunday alone.

According to Tehran’s seismographic base, on Sunday the most powerful aftershock measuring 4.1 and the mildest one measuring 3.7 on the Richter scale hit the town at 09:50 hours local time (0620 GMT) and 09:06 hours local time (0536 GMT), respectively.

According to early estimates, the 6.4-Richter scale quake has inflicted over $700 bln of damage upon rural areas and infrastructural installations in the quake-hit region.

The quake destroyed four villages by 100% and damaged some 40 villages by over 25%.

Ex-UNHCR Ogata calls for stronger ties with Afghan locals over aid
Wednesday March 2, 5:17 PM
(Kyodo) _ Former U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Sadako Ogata called Wednesday on the international community to strengthen a partnership with Afghan locals so as to improve the efficiency of its aid to the war-torn country amid lingering security concerns.
"I think what we have to do, and we will have to do more, is to explore ways to work with locals, strengthen the local NGOs (nongovernmental organizations) and local Afghan personnel so that we can rely on them much, much more under different, fluctuating security situations," she said in a speech at a symposium on Afghanistan.

Ogata, now president of the Japan International Cooperation Agency, made the call as she outlined the progress in peace-building efforts following the U.S.-led war on terrorism in Afghanistan in 2001 and the challenges facing the country.

"There could have been more progress made last year if it weren't for security concerns related to the presidential elections and sporadic threats on Afghan people, international forces and aid workers," she said. "And there is a serious need to look into alternative ways to deliver development assistance."

"Some U.N. agencies, for example UNICEF (the U.N. Children's Fund), do have the network of local people and the NGOs who can not only deliver (development assistance) but also can monitor the way aid is moving on," she said.

"And I think this kind of thing is something that the international community will have to learn much, much more, including Japan," she said, adding, "There are Afghan experts, there are third-country experts who are much more available, and to 'Afghanize' our own international aid work is one thing that I think we have to follow."

On other overall issues, Ogata said Afghanistan has been going through a smooth process of rehabilitating itself, most notably last year's presidential election.

"I would say Afghanistan represents the first right-scale peace-building attempt with conscious efforts to realize a seamless transition...from war to peace...I think there was conscious effort to bring this seamless transition into reality," she said.

She said the next challenge will be the soon-to-be-held local and parliamentary elections in the country.

"I would say by far the most immediate challenge is the coming local and parliamentary elections. The success of the elections is the next test to President (Hamid) Karzai and people of Afghanistan and how much the international community will be able to support it," she said.

The elections are slated for the Afghan month of Saur, which ends May 21, but a U.N. official indicated that this timetable is no longer feasible.

The parliamentary vote was originally scheduled for June last year along with Afghanistan's first presidential election, but both were put off.

The presidential election took place last October, in which Karzai won a landslide victory.

Kuchi nomad leader returning from Guantanamo wants to enter the political arena in Afghanistan
By Numan Dost and Safia Milad Pajhwok Afghan News 03/01/2005
KABUL - Haji Naim Kuchai, a nomad Kuchi tribal elder who was released from the US detention center of Guantanamo Bay in Cuba last September says he wants to represent his tribe and play a political role in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

In an exclusive interview with Pajhwok Afghan News at the beginning of this week, he said he now believes he may receive a compensation for the 22 months he was detained.

Intelligence officials say Kuchai was arrested nearly two years ago by the US-led coalition forces, for allegedly holding the post of deputy minister of frontier affairs, under the Taliban regime.

But Kuchai says he was working on his own in Khost province during the Taliban government and was not the deputy minister as claimed. However he said he held the post in 1992, during the three month rule of President Sebghatullah Mojaddidi, who was appointed the leader of the Nejat-e-Milli party.

"I was deputy minister of frontiers during the government of Sebghatullah Mojaddidi," he said. the Kuchi elder now lives in a house in Logar province and rears sheep.

Wearing a white baggy tunic and pants and a stripy waist-coat and a grey turban, speaking calmly and eloquently, sipping a cup of green tea, said although he lived quite a comfortable life, he still remains a nomad at heart and yearns for a nomadic life style.

"When we were roaming in deserts we had a calm heart," Kuchai said. He said the US forces arrested him in Char Asyab district of Kabul from where he was taken to the US detention of Guantanamo in Cuba.

The US-led war against terror and the drive to overturn the Taliban regime and capture Osama Bin Laden, has led the US forces to detain people from Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. Human rights groups claim that there are nearly 440 'enemy combatants' detained by the United Sates at Guantanamo Bay.

Kuchai recalls the times he spent in Guantanamo Bay, and wearing the orange boiler suit, a prison-uniform given to all detainees, with the hand cuffed to the front of the body, at waist height and chains shackled around the ankles.

He says he did not have a moment of peace. He said that though they had a doctor at the detention center, the long prison sentence affected his health, and the diabetes he has been suffering for the past 15-years deteriorated.

When he was released five months ago, a spokesman at the presidential palace, Rafiullah Mojaddidi said that Kuchai was freed along with 10 other inmates after President Karzai appealed for their release.

Speaking to reporters in Kabul after his release, he said: "I was freed due to my innocence." But the 'unlawful' detention has led him to demand compensation.

"Can the American government compensate the 22 months I was detained for in Guantanamo?" Kuchai said every moment in the day was difficult, but he felt free to practice his religion and pray. "I felt like a prisoner."

The nomad elder who did not receive a formal education is keen to see girls going to school. He asked for some land nearby his village for building a school for girls. According to Kuchai, he was born in Bamiyan province and owns land in Maidan Shahr city of Wardak province, Khost, Gardiz and Logar provinces with 150,000 tribal followers.

The leader of the Afghan Watan Islamic party, Mohammad Hassan Firozkhail, says though Kuchai is not educated, he should be allowed to practice his right and enter politics as he wishes and this may benefit the country. He says Kuchai is a mujahid and a thinker and has widespread popularity among his tribe.

Has the US succeeded in Afghanistan?
Kashmir Images: February 26, 2005 - Off the Record - By Mohammad Shehzad
Had the US role in Afghanistan situation been criticized only by the rightwing press, I would have believed that the propaganda is malicious. Unfortunately, some most liberal, optimistic and positive writers (including my friend Ayaz Amir) have not hailed the US for what it has done in Afghanistan.

At a social—but exclusive—gathering a few days ago, a group of journalists, civil society activists, politicians and diplomats candidly shared their concerns about Afghanistan, which gave rise to a very enlightening debate.

The most important question—the most fundamental too—was why has the US failed to control the situation in Afghanistan? Why there is no sign of political stability yet? A diplomat who has a vast experience of working in Afghanistan answered this question. He was of the view that the Afghanistan’s situation needs to be analyzed in different phases. In the first phase, the US objective was to overthrow the tyrant regime of the Taliban. The US has bee successful in that. The people of Afghanistan welcomed the US intervention.

The next phase was establishing a democratic government. The Bonn Agreement, the Loya Jirga and the presidential elections made this phase successful. Hamid Karzai represents the will of the people of Afghanistan. The preparations for the parliamentary elections are underway and it is hoped that they will be held successfully.

The most difficult phase—which the US is currently going through—is the reconstruction of Afghanistan. Afghanistan has been destroyed by a long war of 23 years. Reconstruction in such circumstances is a great challenge. The US has set some short term and some long-term development goals. But prioritizing them is difficult.
The diplomat did not agree with the notion that the US was undertaking the construction of roads and highways to enhance the mobility of their troops and was not bothered about the development needs of the people e.g. sanitation, water supplies, employment, environmental degradation.

The diplomat did not agree that Karzai’s writ was confined to his palace. ‘Dealing with the powerful warlords like Ismail Khan and General Fahim was the most difficult political task. Karzai removed both from their respective positions (Ismail Khan was the governor of Herat and General Fahim was the Defense Minister.) and they both accepted his decision. Moreover, it is wrong to say that Karzai’s writ is not beyond his palace. It extends to every part of Afghanistan.’

The diplomat was reminded that Ismail Khan was offered a substitute—he is part of Karzai’s current cabinet whereas, General Fahim was reportedly paid a huge bribe for stepping down from his post and not making problems for Karzai in future. According to the latest reports, Fahim is forging alliance with anti-Karzai forces.
The popular perceptions are the Pak-Afghan relations have worsened ever since the US attack on Afghanistan and the US has failed in its war against terror since bin Laden is still at large. Countering these perceptions, the diplomat said: ‘The Pak-Afghan ties have improved. Look at the trade between the two countries. It has increased to a significant extent. Afghanistan has provided employment to a large number of unemployed Pakistanis.’

Responding to why bin Laden has not been arrested yet, the diplomat said: ‘Bin Laden is not using any communications equipment that could help the US trace him. If he is not planning any activity, it is almost impossible to arrest him. But the US has been successful in destroying the al-Qaeda’s network in Afghanistan.’

Afghanistan-Pakistan: Census extended
QUETTA, 1 March (IRIN) - A countrywide 10-day census of the Afghan population living in Pakistan, which got under way last Wednesday, is expected to extend for another couple of days as bad weather conditions have hampered the operation in the southwestern province of Balochistan, officials told IRIN on Tuesday.

"Hopefully, we will complete [on time] in most areas of Balochistan [province]. But in some parts of the northern districts of Ziarat and Pishin, we may have to extend for another couple of days as the roads are not passable due to snow," Waqar Ali, provincial head of the Commissionerate of Afghan Refugees (CAR), told IRIN in Quetta, the provincial capital.

The bad weather caused a five-day delay to counting in Balochistan, which only got under way in Quetta on Sunday amid light rain.

Pakistan has hosted millions of Afghans fleeing conflict in their country for over a quarter of a century. But there has never been any comprehensive registration for those Afghan nationals arriving in Pakistan since the Soviet invasion in December 1979.

In January, the government of Pakistan and the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) agreed to conduct a census and record vital information about the Afghan population. The counting exercise covers all the Afghans residing in Pakistan, excluding those who arrived before December 1979 and who hold Pakistani national identity cards (NICs).

About 2,600 enumerators and 300 supervisors from the Pakistan Census Organisation (PCO) have been participating in the census in all four provinces of the country, federally administered tribal and northern areas and Pakistani-administered Kashmir.

"As for as the response of Afghans is concerned, they certainly have their own fears and apprehensions. But we have made it very clear that this census is only to get their figures and analytical profiles to formulate further policies beyond March 2006 after the tripartite agreement expires," Ali noted.

The UN refugee agency has assisted some 2.3 million Afghans to voluntary repatriate since 2002 under the tripartite agreement between the governments of Afghanistan, Pakistan and UNHCR that runs until March 2006.

In an effort to demonstrate the importance of taking part in the census, UNHCR has run a wide publicity campaign in recent months, including ads on Pashto TV, radio programmes in Quetta and Peshawar and ads in Pashto newspapers.

"I know this [census] is not to expel us forcefully, but this will be helpful to remove problems hindering our return to Afghanistan, like issues of security, livelihood, and shelter," Mamoor Zalmay, a 50-year-old Afghan living in a slum area of the Pakistani capital Islamabad, told IRIN.

Like thousands of other Afghans, Zalmay has been living in this slum since 1982 earning his livelihood by working in the nearby vegetable and fruit market of Islamabad.

Census officials have been recording the number and profile of Afghans, including details of their arrival, their place of origin in Afghanistan, where they are living now, current livelihood, as well as their intention to repatriate.

UNHCR expects the first results of the survey to be available by the end of March.

Rumsfeld sued over alleged torture in Iraq, Afghanistan
Tue Mar 1, 6:10 PM ET Politics - AFP
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Two US human rights groups filed a lawsuit charging Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld with "direct responsibility" for the illegal torture and abuse of eight men held prisoner in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Human Rights First charged in an Illinois federal court that Rumsfeld was behind the torture of the men conducted by US forces, violating the US constitution, US federal laws and international law.

It was the first lawsuit in a federal court to charge a senior government official with culpability in alleged cases of torture in Afghanistan and Iraq, said ACLU officials.

"Secretary Rumsfeld bears direct and ultimate responsibility for this descent into horror by personally authorizing unlawful interrogation techniques and by abdicating his legal duty to stop torture," said ACLU official Lucas Guttentag, the lead counsel to the lawsuit.

The Pentagon issued a statement denying that Rumsfeld condoned abuse of prisoners as a matter of policy.

"We vigorously dispute any assertion or implication that the Department of Defense approved of, sanctioned, or condoned as a matter of policy detainee abuse," it said.

"No policies or procedures approved by the Secretary of Defense were intended as, or could conceivably have been interpreted as, a policy of abuse, or as condoning abuse," it said.

The Pentagon said the issue has been a subject of eight major reviews, inspections and investigations, and none concluded there was a policy of abuse.

The lawsuit was filed by the two organizations on behalf of the eight men, four Iraqis and four Afghans, who were subjected to torture, beatings, cutting with knives, assault, sexual humiliation, mock executions and other illegal treatment, the lawsuit charged.

The abuse took place at Bagram and other locations in Afghanistan, in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison and in elsewhere in Iraq.

"None of the men were ever charged with a crime. All have been released," the two groups said in a statement.

The lawsuit charges that Rumsfeld authorized torture generally and personally approved the use of illegal interrogation techniques in 2002 and 2003.

Joining the two groups as co-counsel were prominent former government and military legal officials, including Rear Admiral John Hutson, formerly a US Navy Judge Advocate General.

"It is about image and self-respect. We have always been a role model and I don't think we are now," said Hutson, referring to the photographs of Iraqi prisoners being tortured at Abu Ghraib prison, which became public in early 2004.

"We tarnished our reputation and will need generations to recover from this," he said.

Polio vaccination campaign gets under way
KABUL, 1 March (IRIN) - The Afghan government, working in conjunction with the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF), launched a three-day national polio vaccination campaign on Tuesday in an effort to finally eradicate the virus from the country.

An estimated 5.3 million Afghan children under the age of five will receive the life-saving polio vaccine under the National Immunisation Days (NID) campaign.

Afghanistan is among only seven countries in the world, along with Nigeria, India, Egypt, Niger, Somali and Pakistan, where polio remains endemic.

“The government and UNICEF [the UN Children’s Fund] are hoping that this year is the year when there will be no new cases in polio,” Edward Carwardine, a UNICEF spokesman, told IRIN in Kabul.

Led by the Ministry of Public Health (MoPH), with support from UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 35,000 health workers will administer the oral vaccine across the country.

“We continue to hope that this will be the year that we break the transmission. Of course it will depend on the number of children who are vaccinated and the continued efforts throughout the year to get newborn children vaccinated against polio.”

According to UNICEF, Afghanistan has already made steady progress towards the eradication of polio over the last three years. In 2004, there were just four reported cases of polio compared to 10 in 2002.

At the same time as receiving the polio vaccine, children will also get vitamin A supplements, which help to boost resistance to other childhood diseases.

“The vitamin A campaign had been planned for later in the year, but in the light of the particularly harsh winter planners decided to bring forward the exercise to afford increased protection to children now,” Carwardine noted.

Carwardine said the cold weather conditions in recent weeks had led to a delay in the NID coverage of 61 districts in 19 provinces where access had become restricted by snowfalls. “These districts will be covered in an extra round of immunisation scheduled for May,” the UNICEF spokesman said.

Child mortality is very high in the war-ravaged country. Afghanistan’s first national human development report, released last week, indicated that 20 percent of children died before the age of five.

In the past several weeks, outbreaks of whooping cough, pneumonia and measles have claimed over 200 victims, the majority of them children. Carwardine said these diseases were easily preventable through routine immunisations.

“While immunisation campaigns reach large numbers of children, routine vaccination levels are under 50 percent in some parts of the country,” he noted.

War on terror lets poppies return to Pakistan
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Opium poppy production has resurfaced in Pakistan because security forces have been busy tackling militants linked to the Al-Qaeda network along the Afghan border, a key official said.

Major US ally Pakistan was declared a poppy-free country in 2000 but farmers began cultivating the heroin-producing flowers again in 2002, said Major General Nadeem Ahmed, chief of the army-led Anti-Narcotics Force.

Pakistan needed more international help if it was to win both the war on terror and the war on drugs, Ahmed told reporters at the launch of a report by the United Nations' International Narcotics Control Board. "After a break of two years there has been some resurgence of poppy crop in Pakistan," he said on Tuesday.

Poppies had sprung up over some 6,700 hectares (16,500 acres) in Pakistan in that time, and while 78 percent had been eradicated another 22 percent remained intact, the general said. Ongoing counter-terrorist operations in North West Frontier Province, as well as moves to tackle a tribal revolt in southwestern Baluchistan province, had diverted key forces, he added.

"These two issues have hampered our efforts going for full eradication," the anti-drugs chief said.

Pakistan used to be one of the world's largest heroin producers -- churning out around 800 tonnes a year in the late 1970s -- until it brought in tough measures to cut its output almost to zero.

However in the wake of the September 11 attacks it was faced with a new problem -- hunting down scores of Al-Qaeda-linked militants believed to have sneaked out of Afghanistan following the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

It pushed tens of thousands of regular troops into its lawless tribal areas as well as soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps, catching some 700 foreign fighters, according to the government.

This year the Frontier Corps has also been deployed to guard Pakistan's largest gas field and other installations in restive Baluchistan after attacks by tribesmen demanding economic benefits from the province's natural resources.

"If the Frontier Corps is available in both these provinces and they are not committed to internal security tasks then hopefully we will be able to keep it (drugs) well under control," Ahmed said.

However he warned that international efforts led by the United States to stamp out drugs in neighbouring Afghanistan -- now the world's biggest producer of opium -- could backfire on Pakistan.

"Pakistan is likely to see an upsurge in poppy cultivation, reverse flow of labs from Afghanistan into Pakistan and shifting of storage sites," Ahmed said. Its frontline position meant Pakistan needed more financial and material support from the international community, Ahmed added.

"We are fighting our war as well as the international war on narcotics. We need air, ground mobility and electronic intelligence where international community need to come forward and help Pakistan," he said.

Pakistan asks southwest province to go tough on insurgents
ISLAMABAD (AFP) - Pakistan has asked authorities of the restive southwestern Baluchistan province to take "tough punitive action" against insurgents involved in attacks on government installations, state media reported.

The direction was issued at the National Security Council meeting presided over by Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf, the Associated Press of Pakistan said on Tuesday.

"The National Security Council (NSC) took serious note of activities of certain anti-state elements, who at the behest of vested interests were causing damage to national assets in Baluchistan," it said.

Baluchistan has suffered a string of rocket attacks and bombings blamed on nationalist tribesmen demanding jobs and more royalties for the natural resources extracted from the province which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

A shadowy group called the Baluchistan Liberation Army has said it was behind an attack on Pakistan's biggest natural gas plant last month which left eight people dead and sparked a surge in violence in the region.

The meeting Monday attended by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, key cabinet ministers, top provincial officials and military chiefs also discussed action against people harbouring militants and criminals in Baluchistan, state media said.

The NSC asked Baluchistan government to initiate a political dialogue with the people to address the prevailing unrest. Meanwhile, some 300 women and children belonging to renegade Marri tribe held a protest demonstration outside local press club in Baluchistan's capital Quetta against "police excesses" during a raid at the weekend.

Quetta police chief Pervez Rafi Bhatti said his men had arrested 20 suspects during a raid on a Marri neighbourhood on Sunday and recovered huge cache of automatic weapons and ammunition, besides unearthing underground prisons and torture cell.