Afghanistan News September 11, 2005

September 11, 2005

Afghan 'assassination bid' denied
Sunday, 11 September 2005 BBC News
Shots fired near the Afghan defence minister's car on Saturday were not an assassination attempt but a dispute between soldiers, the authorities say.

The minister, Gen Abdul Rahim Wardak, had just left his car when it came under fire at Kabul airport. No serious injuries were reported in the incident.

Nine soldiers have been arrested and are being questioned.

The incident comes amid heightened security a week before parliamentary elections. Gen Wardak is not standing.

The Defence Ministry initially said Saturday's shooting was an attempt to kill Gen Wardak, who had just left the airport by helicopter. At least one shot was said to have hit the car seat he had just vacated.

But on Sunday officials said an investigation had determined the minister's convoy had been caught in crossfire between feuding soldiers.

"Soldiers and officers were involved in a clash among themselves when the defence minister's car was by accident passing," Defence Ministry spokesman Gen Mohammed Saher Azimi said.

It is not clear why the soldiers fired at each other.

Gen Wardak was travelling to the Panjshir Valley to attend a ceremony in memory of Ahmed Shah Masood, the celebrated resistance fighter who led opposition to the Taleban until he was assassinated four years ago.

Helicopter crash

In a separate incident, a helicopter carrying the country's army chief, Bismillah Khan, and another government minister, Sediqa Balkhi, crash-landed north of Kabul.

Both the officials and a number of others on board managed to escape the burning wreckage and were safe, reports said.

Gen Azimi said the crash was an accident.

He also said Afghan and US troops had killed nearly 30 Taleban militants and arrested more than 60 in an operation in the southern province of Helmand on Friday.

Meanwhile, gunmen were reported to have opened fire on a vehicle of a parliamentary election candidate as he campaigned near Herat city in the western Afghanistan on Friday.

More than 1,000 people have been killed in violence linked to militancy in Afghanistan this year.

Afghanistan Offensive Kills 30 Suspected Militants
By Patricia Nunan / Voice of America (VOA News) Kabul / 11 September 2005
Senior Afghan officials say they have killed or arrested dozens of suspected militants in the latest operation against insurgents they fear could disturb next week's elections. Officials also now say an incident they earlier had described as an assassination attempt against the defense minister was not aimed at him.

A Defense Ministry spokesman says the arrests were made as part of a military operation carried out by the Afghan army, working with coalition forces in southern Helmand province.

General Mohammed Zahir Azimi says 30 enemy fighters were killed, three were wounded and 45 others were arrested. Also, security forces seized a large quantity of arms and ammunition.

General Azimi told reporters on Sunday that, of those arrested, 15 were determined not to be Taleban or enemy forces, so they were released.

The operation is the latest in a series of recent offensives by Afghan and coalition forces, intended to help shore up security ahead of the September 18 parliamentary and provincial council elections.

Remnants of Afghanistan's ousted Taleban government have threatened to disrupt the polls, which are the latest step in Afghanistan's process of forming a democratic government after a quarter century of war.

Senior Afghan and U.S. officials have said it is highly likely that there will be violent incidents on voting day. But most say the threat is not enough to force a delay in the polls, or to damage the overall success of the election.

Fresh concerns were raised about security when officials reported Saturday that Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak escaped an assassination attempt at the Kabul airport.

The defense minister had already left the airport by helicopter when gunmen reportedly opened fire on his car.

General Azimi said Sunday that the incident was not an assassination attempt. Rather, the minister's car was caught in the crossfire when two groups of feuding Afghan soldiers opened fire on each other. No one was injured, and nine soldiers have been arrested.

Seven killed in eastern Afghanistan flash floods
September 11, 2005
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (AFP) - Flash floods caused by torrential rains killed at least seven people and destroyed several houses in eastern Afghanistan.

Three other people have been missing since heavy rains lashed Kunar province on Saturday, provincial government spokesman Zahidullah Zahid told AFP.

"So far, seven bodies have been recovered and three others are still missing," he said adding that the floods washed away many houses in the area.

Similar floods and storms killed five people in the same province on Wednesday while more than 300 head of livestock were killed in neighboring Nangarhar province last weekend.

After almost a decade of drought, Afghanistan experienced its worst winter last year, causing serious human disasters in country which has little infrastructure to cope with floods resulting from storms and melting snow.

Orgun-E opens first paved road in Paktika Province
September 11, 2005 COMBINED FORCES COMMAND – AFGHANISTAN COALITION PRESS INFORMATION CENTER
BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan – Coalition and Afghan officials opened the first cobblestone road in the Paktika Province , named “The Road of the Future,” in a historic ribbon-cutting ceremony Sept. 10 in Orgun-E.

Paktika Province ’s Governor Gulab Mangal said the road was a visible symbol of the improving quality of life and infrastructure possible now that peace has come to that province. Afghan masons and laborers finished the 2,600-meter road in three months.

“This is a historic day for our province and a sign of more improvements to come,” Governor Mangal added. “As long as we all work hard to maintain good security in our area, we can continue to progress.”

Set under the backdrop of a beautifully decorated archway leading directly into the town of Orgun- E , the event was well attended by the citizens of Orgun-E and a number of officials from the Combined Joint Task Force-76. Officials included 1st Battalion, 508th Airborne Commander Lt. Col. Timothy McGuire; 1st Battalion, 82nd Airborne Division Commander Col. Patrick Donahue; Satar, mayor of Orgun-E; and several Shura elders of Orgun-E.

“What makes this road so special is the fact that it was built by the sweat and hard labor of proud Afghan workers,” Col. Donahue said. Using large stone in a traditional cobblestone method assures the road will be strong and last many years. The road project cost an estimated $200,000 and provided more than 100 jobs to Afghans during the three months of construction.

The road will bring a number of life improvements to the Afghan people. Commerce will improve by allowing quicker, easier delivery of goods as well as making travel possible to other districts in order to buy goods. This road and future road projects will improve security by allowing the Afghan National Police and Afghan National Army quicker access to problem areas. The roads will also provide easier access for people visiting friends across Afghanistan .

Perhaps the most relevant side benefit the road will offer will be to allow voters to get to polling stations for the upcoming parliamentary elections. The road is also an investment in human capital. Now there is a trained and experienced work force available to do other road projects in the area. Future road projects will be in Waza Kwah, Sarobi, Sharon, and Sar Hawza.

US "War on Terror" faces gloomy future
BEIJING, Sept. 11 (Xinhua) -- Sept. 11 marks the fourth anniversary of of the tragic terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001 and also the start of the fourth year of the US-initiated "War on Terror."

Although the anti-terror war helped President George W. Bush get reelected, it itself has not achieved much progress since last year. In fact, as the US troops are increasingly bogged down in the Iraqi and Afghan quagmires and as the US people and their allies have been constantly alerted to threats of attacks from Al Qaida and other terrorist groups, the American public and intellectuals could not help but wonder what is the future of this"Anti-Terror War"?

At present, the United States is suffering a rising number of casualties and facing more problems in Iraq and Afghanistan. In Afghanistan, the overthrown Taliban and Al Qaida are staging a comeback. Furthermore, they are now recruiting terrorists worldwide, thus making it almost impossible to forestall every terrorist attack.

In Iraq, the post-Saddam era is witnessing an increasingly worsening security situation, fierce power struggle among the political parties, and a difficult start of the reconstruction of the country.

As Michele Flournoy, an expert from the American Strategic and International Studies Center, pointed out, America's "War on Terror" has achieved some progress, but not as much as the US government boasts of.

After "9.11," the US government has gradually pushed ahead with a strategy characterized by unilateralism and preemptive strike, which has become both America's national security strategy and guidelines in the fight against terrorism.

However, the strategy has proved not feasible. Although it easily toppled the Saddam Hussein regime by means of war, the US administration later stumbled in the process of helping build a "democratic and free Iraq." The reason was that it had neither the strong support of the United Nations and the international community as a whole, nor with the understanding and cooperation of the Iraqi public. As a result, the US administration has to "lower the expectation of Iraq," according to The Washington Post on Aug. 14.

In pressing ahead with its preemptive-strike strategy, the Bush administration first took aim at what he called countries of "the axis of evil," namely Iraq, Iran and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. However, the administration suffered many setbacks while using the strategy against these countries. The reconstruction process in Iraq has suffered twists and turns. Its hard stand on Iran's nuclear issue has not achieved much and it was forced to support the EU's diplomatic negotiations with Iran.

All this proves that in order to win the war against terrorism,it is not enough just to hunt down the terrorists. To achieve its goal, the US administration needs to get to the root of terrorism to find the solution. It is obvious that the war on terror can be won only by relieving poverty, eliminating the political, economicand social conditions under which terrorism and extremism breed and cooperating closely with the rest of the international community under the UN leadership. Enditem

9/11 remembered as sun sets in Afghanistan
September 11, 2005
KABUL (Reuters) - As the sun was setting in Afghanistan on Sunday and the day just beginning in New York and Washington, soldiers from the U.S.-led force gathered in Kabul to remember victims of Sept. 11. and the war on terror.

Almost four years to the hour since three planes slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, U.S. Major-General John Brennan told a small gathering at Kabul's Camp Eggers the United States had succeeded in taking the fight to the enemy since then.

"We have flushed them out of their caves here in Afghanistan and we are extinguishing them on the hot plains of Iraq," he said, standing before flags of the force's 24 countries flying at half mast, the American flag slightly higher than all others.

"Stand tall and stand proud. The eyes of the world are upon you. You are the reason millions of Americans ... sleep peacefully tonight."

The Sept. 11, 2001, attacks killed almost 3,000 people and prompted U.S.-led forces to attack Afghanistan to overthrow the hardline Taliban for refusing to give up their architect, al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

Tens of thousands more have died in the U.S.-led wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and in major militant attacks from Indonesia to Britain, Spain, Turkey and Russia.

Four years later, bin Laden is still at large and about 20,000 U.S. troops remain in Afghanistan where they face a dogged Taliban insurgency in the south and east.

Violence has mounted this year in the lead-up to parliamentary elections next Sunday, which the Taliban have denounced. More than 1,000 people have been killed in clashes, bombings and ambushes, including 49 U.S. troops.

Taliban spokesman Abdul Latif Hakimi said Washington had used the Sept. 11 attacks as an excuse to invade Afghanistan and use it as a base to seize regional control.

"The U.S. has no firm proof to show that al Qaeda was behind it," he told Reuters by satellite phone from an undisclosed location. "September 11 was an excuse and partially a plot for invading Afghanistan.

"The intention of the Americans was to topple the Islamic government."

For 22-year-old British Lance Corporal Matthew Proudman, who has also fought in Iraq, Sunday was a day to remember fallen comrades.

"I was a bit emotional, to be honest," he said after the ceremony at Camp Eggers, the U.S. military headquarters.

"We lost some of our guys, so it was important to get here t pay our respects," said Proudman, from Middlesborough.

"It has to be worth the cost, otherwise it will never end."

Despite the losses this year, the worst for U.S. forces since the 2001 invasion, Lieutenant Commander Randy Herrill of the U.S. Navy said the U.S.-led force was gaining.

"While we have taken some losses, so have the anti-coalition forces. They are back on their heels, too."

Taleban Hit and Run, and Come Back for More
Violence has surged as the election draws closer, but the insurgents say their real objective is to oust the Kabul government.
By Borhan Younus in Band-e-Sardah, Ghazni province (ARR No. 185, 10-Sep-05)
Institute for War & Peace Reporting

Twenty-two hardened Taleban fighters slip down a dirt track in the darkness of this late August night, closely watching the beams from the headlights of two approaching vehicles.

The men move from the track and crouch down in a dry water-channel. Safety catches are released on Kalashnikovs and rocket-launchers made ready to fire. But as the four-wheel-drive vehicles draw near, they are seen to be carrying civilians. The Taleban stop the cars, and the travellers - from a nearby town in Ghazni province - are briefly searched and then allowed to go on their way.

The Taleban squad appears fleetingly disappointed at not having confronted a patrol of United States or Afghan troops. But the young fighters shrug it off and prepare to look for other prey.

"We are absolutely sure we will win the war since we have the greatest support of all -- that is, God. Our enemies put all their trust in material equipment and have no firm morale to win a fight, as they are not motivated by religion," said the group's commander, Mullah Habib Rahman Aziz.

The mullah’s men are aged between 18 and 25 and say they have suffered virtually no losses in their battle to inflict casualties and oust what they term the American-orchestrated regime that has ruled Afghanistan for almost four years.

Only two of the young men are veterans of the fighting that took place between the Taleban and the Northern Alliance before the US bombing campaign finally drove the fundamentalists from power in 2001. The rest are new recruits in what many now call the neo-Taleban, joined in a jihad or holy war against the foreigners.

A lull follows the disappearance of the two vehicles down the now track. Mullah Aziz uses it to explain that, contrary to what the US and Afghan military and the politicians suggest, the Taleban’s aim is not specifically to disrupt the September 18 parliamentary and provincial council elections.

Rather, it is part of a long-term strategy – a commitment to topple the government of President Hamed Karzai and expel its foreign supporters, he says. And he warns that the fighting will become "more and more bloody as the American troops get further into our areas and villages".

"Our warfare is a continuing jihad. It will not stop with the elections or other dramas. It will go on as long as necessary, until we bring a pure Islamic government to Afghanistan,” said the mullah.

Since March, when heavy winter snow in the insurgents' hideouts began to melt, the Taleban and its allies have been intensifying their attacks.

At the United Nations in August, Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Afghanistan faced a worrying resurgence of violence despite the presence of 10,000 peacekeepers under NATO command and about 20,000 US-led coalition troops.

"Afghanistan today is suffering from a level of insecurity, especially in the south and parts of the east, not seen since the departure of the Taleban," he said. "There have been troubling indications that remnants of the Taleban and other extremist groups are reorganising."

Bombings and landmine explosions in May were up 40 per cent from the same month the previous year in the south and southeast, Annan said.

And 2005 has undoubtedly been the most deadly year for the US military since it ousted the Taleban.

"There is certainly more violence, and there are violent elements trying to come back," said Ronald Neumann, the new US ambassador to Kabul speaking at his maiden press conference on August 18.

"I think this is a situation that will probably be difficult for some time. But there is a strong international presence and there is a strong American presence, which is quite adequate to deal with the violence."

According to an unofficial fatality list posted for Washington's Operation Enduring Freedom, OEF, (http://icasualties.org/oef/Afghanistan.aspx), 76 American troops were killed in operations linked to Afghanistan during the first eight months of this year. This compared with 52 for all of last year, 47 for 2003 and 43 for 2002. The dead are all named, with age and rank.

The official US Defence Department website (http://www.dod.mil/news/casualty.pdf) gives a slightly higher total of 232 deaths since military operations began in 2001. But it provides no annual breakdown, and also includes deaths in other locations including Tajikistan and even the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

US spokeswoman Lieutenant Cindy Moore in Kabul also could not give a breakdown of casualty figures for individual years, referring IWPR’s inquiries to the Secretary of Defence’s public affairs department in Washington.

Sixteen of this year's US deaths were occurred in one incident when a Chinook helicopter was shot down in late June over the eastern Kunar province. It was ferrying troops in to rescue a squad of SEAL commandos under fire from insurgents.

Taleban commander Mullah Dadullah said his fighters brought down the aircraft.

US military commanders maintain that it is their troops who are inflicting significant casualties as they take the battle to the enemy.

Mullah Aziz would disagree. His group, like others in the region, believes that its knowledge of the terrain and the support of local residents gives it a vital edge over the Americans.

The Taleban operate in small units like this one, which moves around on red motorbikes, two men on each machine, under cover of dark.

The US troops based near Ghazni city carry out most of their road patrols during the day and conduct surprise home searches at night, according to Mullah Aziz.

This enables the Taleban fighters to avoid daytime confrontations with better equipped forces, while at night they can ambush their enemy and plant roadside bombs, one of the main causes of casualties among US troops this year.

Many of the tactics used by the insurgents appear to be copies of those used against US-led Coalition troops in Iraq: hit-and-run attacks, beheading of "US spies", and occasional kidnappings and suicide bombings, although the latter are still rare.

One of these tactics has, however, backfired on the Taleban. Many Afghans see beheading captives as gratuitous violence, and this has somewhat diminished the sympathy of those who are normally on the side of the anti-American forces.

"We approve of the Taleban attacks against Americans, but their beheading and killing of Afghans and ulema [religious scholars] is not in keeping with the characteristics of Afghans," said Abdul Qayom, a 45-year-old shopkeeper in Ghazni city.

Qayom returns to his home area of Wazi Khwah in the southeast Paktika province every couple of weeks, and reports that Taleban fighters move freely around that district at night time.

Last month, a US commander forecast that the Taleban might escalate their attacks, and noted that they were becoming more ruthless in their tactics.

"They are targeting government officials and religious scholars. We are seeing an increased threat of the rebels using suicide bombers and child soldiers," Major-General Jason Kamiya, operational commander of US-led Coalition forces in Afghanistan, told a news conference in Kabul.

In the Uruzgan province, Khan Pacha, a village elder in the provincial centre Tarin Kowt said that despite what he termed the Taleban’s brutality in killing civilians mere because they were accused of “spying for the US military”, he still saw them as true Muslims fighting a war for freedom.

"The Taleban brought peace and security to the country, and they were our own sons,” he said. “The Americans, with all the facilities and money they have poured into Afghanistan, cannot bring calm.”

Borhan Younus is a freelance correspondent for IWPR.

Outcry Over Russian Debt Demands
Moscow wants repayment of loans from war era, but Afghans say they’re the ones who should be paid for losses the Soviets inflicted on their country.
By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi and Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 185, 10-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
Moscow's demand that Kabul repay loans estimated at 10 billion US dollars has sparked anger and threats of counter-claims from Afghanistan for reparations for the Soviet invasion 25 years ago.

The debt issue has also revived dissent between those Afghans who supported the mujahedin and those who backed the Soviet-backed communist regime after the invasion of December 1979.

Many Afghans think Moscow has no right to demand repayment of money that was spent on military hardware used to further the Soviet Union’s aims in their country, killing and maiming people and destroying cities, crops and infrastructure.

“Our country was set back 50 years by the Russian invasion, which cannot be compensated for even by hundreds of billions of dollars,” said Engineer Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai, a former mujahedin leader who served as prime minister in the post-communist regime of the early Nineties.

“If Russia demands its loans back, we will demand hundreds of billions for the damage inflicted by the Russians who left our country in ruins,” he added.

In August, Russia's finance ministry invited an Afghan delegation headed by Finance Minister Anwar-ul-Haq Ahadi to discuss the debt issue.

During the talks, Moscow demanded repayment while Kabul asked for the loans to be written off as they were incurred during the war.

According to Afghan finance ministry spokesman Azizullah Shams, Moscow then indicated it might be prepared to write off 70 per cent of the debt, which had been used for military supplies sent to Afghanistan.

“These loans include the money that the Russians gave to Afghanistan during the communist regimes,” said Shams, adding that Kabul was not prepared to pay the balance and the matter would now go to the Paris Club, an informal group of creditor nations which seeks to resolve payment difficulties experienced by debtor nations.

The Soviet Union spent the money for its own political and strategic purposes, not to benefit the Afghan people, Shams told IWPR, adding that if Russia pursued repayment, Kabul would demand war reparations for the invasion.

“We hope to overcome this problem in a friendly way in an upcoming meeting,” he said.

The Russian embassy in Kabul would not comment, despite being contacted several times by IWPR.

Afghan analysts see the repayment demand as a fresh form of intervention by Moscow in their country, and a way of putting pressure on Washington and the US-backed Afghan government.

Qasim Akhgar, a political analyst in Kabul, rejected Moscow's claims out of hand, saying that the Afghan governments that received the loans were illegitimate and did not represent the people, so the country was not obliged to honour the debt.

If Russia sees itself as the heir of the former Soviet Union, then before it asks for debt repayment it should compensate Afghanistan for the damage inflicted by the Soviet Army, he said.

“Can Moscow compensate for all those people who died under the Russians and [for the fate of] the thousands of survivors?” said Akhgar, adding that two million Afghans had been killed and thousands taken prisoner and shifted to Russia, many of whom were still missing.

Another political analyst, Abdul Karim Khuram, said Russia made the loans to a puppet regime set up in a coup that was not supported by the Afghan people. It was that regime that received the loans, not the Afghan people, owed the money to Russia.

Those who still retain sympathies for the communist regime, however, say the government of the time was legitimate, and was supported by the international community and the United Nations.

“It is true that the communist government was formed based on a coup, but 85 nations of the world used to recognise it, and it had representatives in the United Nations,” said Nur al-Haq Ulumi, leader of the United National Party, Hizb-e Mutahid-e-Milli, which is regarded as a successor to the moderate wing of the now defunct communist party, the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan.

“Anyway, the government of that time was a [proper] government, and had to get loans to meet the country's needs,” he told IWPR. These loans were not just for military equipment but also to build schools, bridges, houses and scores of other public works projects which are still being used by Afghans, he said.

Ulumi said that the mujahedin themselves were responsible for the destruction of many of the facilities the loans had put in place. On balance, the Soviet loans, some of which he said dated back some 50 years, had a positive impact on the country, he said.

He said Afghanistan is now completely dependent on other countries, and the UN should resolve the debt issue.

Sheikh Mohammad Asef Mohseni, leader of Harakat-e-Islami, one of the former mujahedin factions, disagreed, arguing that the loans paid for military supplies such as artillery, tanks and aircraft, delivered to the puppet government of the time.

“The economic infrastructure of Afghanistan was destroyed because of the invasion by Red Army troops. Afghanistan didn’t enjoy political independence for 14 years, and Russia was told several times by the UN to leave Afghanistan, but did not do so,” said Mohseni.

“Russia spent money in Afghanistan in order to achieve its aims, not to help the Afghan people.”

He added that Kabul was under no obligation to pay for the invasion. The Russian state, as the successor to the Soviet Union, should make amends for all the damage inflicted by its intervention and its support for the communist regime, he said.

By the time the last Russian troops pulled out in 1989, the conflict had left two million dead, thousands more disabled, and a ruined country strewn with mines.

In the Paghman district of Kabul province, Shir Mohammad recalled two of those dead - his sons. “Now Russia is calling in its debts. Can it bring back my sons?” he demanded.

“We suffered a lot from the Russians. We saw nothing from them except exploding rockets and artillery shells and the killing of innocent people,” said Shir Mohammad, whose house was also destroyed in the conflict.

Kabul resident Abdul Hamid, who is still working on rebuilding his mud-brick house, destroyed during the warfare that continued after the Soviet withdrawal, said, “Russia's entire contribution was the ruins and wars they left behind them.

“The Russians have no conscience or sense of shame. If they had, they wouldn’t make such claims.”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif. Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Provincial Candidates Running in the Dark
Most council candidates have no idea of what’s involved in the political office they are seeking.
By Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 185, 10-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
More than 3,000 candidates are chasing seats on the country's 34 provincial councils, but many of them do not much idea what their powers or responsibilities will be if they are elected.

It is hardly their fault. The law detailing the tasks facing the nation's 420 councillors has only just emerged in public, barely two weeks before the September 18 election.

It was only signed into law by President Hamed Karzai on August 21, weeks after the deadline for the 3,025 hopefuls – a quarter of them women - to register as candidates.

Copies of the law are still not available in many of the provinces.

Professor Abdul Kabir Ranjbar, president of the Lawyers Union of Afghanistan, told IWPR that candidates had to put themselves forward without having any real understanding of their responsibilities if elected.

“The law should have been available to candidates and everyone else prior to the registration process, so that they would have seen what their responsibilities will be in the councils,” he said.

One candidate, Maulavi Abdul Rahman Ansari, who is standing for Kabul provincial council – the biggest in the country, with 29 seats - said he had just read the law, but that it should have been available before now so that people knew what was expected of them.

“People made me put myself forward as a candidate, so I nominated myself - but without having enough information about provincial councils since there was no law,” he said.

The councillors will have wide-ranging responsibilities, including overseeing local administration in areas such as social, economic, health and education policy, and taking local concerns to the provincial governor to raise with central government.

One task set out in the 20-article law could be particularly contentious: Councillors are expected to coordinate with central government to eradicate poppy-growing and opium-smuggling by which many rural people - their constituents - make their living.

Council members will also have a key role in creating the Meshrano Jirga, or upper house of parliament. Each provincial council - even the smallest, with just nine seats - will elect one member to the upper chamber – and these seats will account for one-third of the 102-member assembly. Another third of seats will be elected from district councils, and President Karzai will appoint the final 34 members.

The upper chamber is expected to act as a link between provinces and the parliament, the lower house of which is also being elected on September 18. Its principal function is to review legislation sent to it by the Wolesi Jirga, or lower chamber.

Ranjbar said he believed provincial councils could play an effective role in making central government comprehend ordinary people's problems, and at the same time help spread respect for national laws by being close to the people.

It was impossible to implement law purely by government decrees, he said.

“The councils can make people aware of laws by holding meetings in various traditional ways. And when people realise the importance of law, it will be implemented more completely," he added.

Analysts say that village elders, who traditionally handled problems at a local level, have a good chance of being elected to provincial and district councils because of their standing in the community. Their presence should augment the respect that people accord to the councils, and the elders' years of experience will also be an asset.

Given the late publication of the law, candidates will have to make do until they can get a copy.

Justice ministry legal expert Sayed Yousef Halim said there were technical problems behind the delay in publishing the law, but the information ministry was trying to ensure that its content is publicised in all provinces.

Once the provincial councils are formed, representatives will definitely have access to copies of the law, he said.

In the northern Balkh province, council candidate Mohammad Sardar Sayedi said he had just heard on the radio that a law on councils had been ratified – but he had not seen it yet.

“I only know that the provincial council is responsible for overseeing the activities of local government… I thought provincial councils had the same authority as the Wolesi Jirga has to oversee the central government before I heard something about the law,” he said.

Lack of legal detail is not going to deter Haji Mohammad Yousuf, a council candidate in the northwestern Sar-e-Pul province.

"I don't have any information about the council law, though I have just heard on radio that such a thing has been ratified. But I will still run for election. Once I'm elected I'm sure I will have access to the law,” he said.

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Teaching Women to Campaign
For Afghan women to get out of the home and onto the hustings takes some encouragement and some new-found courage.
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 185, 10-Sep-05) Institute for War & Peace Reporting
It's a race against time, to transform more than 200 normally shy women into public speakers and campaigners. The terrain is unknown for all of them, but the destination is clear - a seat in the new Afghan parliament or on a provincial council.

Standing against them are the years of Afghan tradition which has largely confined women to the home. On their side is the fact that 68 seats are reserved specifically for women in the 249-seat parliament, along with 25 per cent of council seats.

They also have a textbook, "Women's Guide to Winning in the 2005 Afghan Elections", and a formidable instructor who by the September 18 poll will have trained about 235 of the 582 women candidates competing in the elections.

The seminars, run by Nasrine Gross of the Roqia Centre for Women's Rights, are being attended by female candidates from 14 of Afghanistan's 34 provinces. Violence and insecurity in the other provinces, notably in the south, made it simply too dangerous to hold such sessions there.

Even a meeting that had been due to place in Ghazni for women from the central provinces of Wardak and Daikondi could not be held there and had to be moved to Kabul.

"We worry about the security and safety of our candidates, which is why we cannot go to the southern provinces …these provinces have complete security problems. Even the government cannot launch seminars there," said Gross.

The need for training becomes evident at the sessions. Those women who had sufficient courage to ask questions tended to shrink into themselves and speak in a whisper when handed a microphone.

Gross said she started her efforts to help women campaign effectively because she realised that most of them would only meet female votes while campaigning and would avoid contact with men.

Women are also entitled to compete for seats outside the quota reserved for them, but are unlikely to succeed if they limit their campaigning to only half the electorate.

In what may seem blindingly obvious in other countries more accustomed to democratic elections, Gross shed light on ways of attracting votes. Talk to people about their problems - poor health services, illiteracy, joblessness and insecurity - and then promise to do something about them. That will attract their votes, she told the candidates.

Her guide offers statistics to help make the point. On healthcare, it points out that a woman dies every 30 minutes due to complications in childbirth; there are on average 6.8 pregnancies for each woman; the maternal mortality rate is 1,600 per 100,000 (in Badakhshan province it is 6,400 per 100,000, the highest in the world); and the government spends only one US dollar per person per year on public health.

Martin de la Bey, the Dutch ambassador to Afghanistan, told the 60-odd women at the training session in Kabul that women in the Netherlands originally did not have the right to vote, let alone stand for parliament. Now, 69 of the 150 members of the Dutch parliament are women, as are five of the 16 cabinet member.

"You must be brave women and must fight for the rights of other women," he said, in translated remarks.

One candidate who took the ambassador's words to heart was Kobra Sadat.

She is standing for parliament in Ghazni and said that until now her main problem was that she "did not have the courage to speak like the men do" while she was campaigning, and that she had only attended meetings of women.

"The men don’t like the women … but now I know that I must encourage men as well to cast their vote for me." she said, adding that she was determined to go out and meet them.

Gross’s guide offers at least one reason why women are excluded from male society – the wars which for more than two decades kept men isolated from women.

"Afghan society has become very segregated. For example, women do not use the word ‘husband’. They refer to their spouses as ‘the father of my children’… Men never use the word 'wife' or 'spouse'. They use words such as ‘household’, ‘children’, ‘furnishings’ or even ‘goat’ when referring to their wife," it notes.

Latifa Shujaee, who at 25 only just meets the minimum age requirement for candidates, is standing for a seat in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house of parliament, in the Daikondi province.

"I didn’t know anything about my own society and traditions because I grew up in Iran,” she said, “But with the help of the seminar, I now know about the problems facing women here and this will help me in my campaign."

Eric Kite, who attended the seminar on behalf of the United States development agency USAID, offered words of encouragement to female candidates.

"We want to see the face of Afghan women as real representatives of Afghans in the future parliament,” he said.

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Vida the Diva
The Times of India MANISHA ALMADI TIMES NEWS NETWORK SUNDAY, SEPTEMBER 11, 2005 03:35:23 AM
Vida Samadzai, 24, boldly walked the ramp in a swimsuit while participating in the Miss Afghanistan contest, held in Manila in 2003. She faced "death threats after returning to Afghanistan... people were angry about a Muslim woman showing skin."

Miss USA 1994 Susan Jerke encouraged Vida to participate in a beauty contest in the US that led to the Miss Afghanistan pageant, but Vida "didn't tell" her parents about the pageant because it would "go against" her religion. "I told my family that I was going for a conference in Manila as part of my job as a loan officer. When my parents found out, they were shocked. Now, they are proud of me."

Today, Vida lives in the US with her parents. Because "women in Afghanistan don't have rights like those in the US." And she's proud to have been "the first Muslim woman to be crowned a beauty queen in 31 years... I showed the door to others."

During her recent visit to India, Vida "modelled for Suneet Varma, Abu Jani and Sandeep Khosla, and met Amitabh Bachchan." But she has "no plans of joining Bollywood" even though she has "received two film offers." If she does take the plunge in Bollywood, Vida will be "fine wearing a bikini and doing kissing scenes." She knows where to draw the line. "I was offered big bucks to pose semi-nude for Playboy after I was crowned but I'm not ready for that kind of exposure."

Vida "likes Indian men and would like to have six children,” but doesn't have a boyfriend "because it's hard to find the right man." Also, a relationship will "distract" her from her work."