Afghanistan News February 21, 2006

February 21, 2006

US general expects more violence in Afghanistan
By Yousuf Azimy
BAGRAM, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Insurgents will increase attacks in Afghanistan in coming months, the top U.S. general in the country said on Tuesday, as NATO finalized plans to deploy troops in the restive south of the country. Lieutenant-General Karl Eikenberry said U.S.-led forces would expand efforts to improve coordination and trust between Afghan and Pakistani forces as part of a campaign aimed against insurgents Afghan officials say operate from neighboring Pakistan.

"We can anticipate there will be more fighting in the months ahead," Eikenberry told a ceremony for a change of command between U.S. forces at the main U.S. military base at Bagram, north of Kabul.

"The enemy will increasingly resort to atrocities in an effort to attack the will of the Afghan people and their international partners and to reverse the extraordinary gains that have been made during the last four years," he said.

Eikenberry was referring to the period since U.S.-led forces overthrew the Taliban government in late 2001 for refusing to hand over Osama bin Laden, mastermind of the September 11 attacks on the United States.

The general's comments come as NATO-led troops brace to expand their mission in coming months into the south, the focus of a Taliban-inspired insurgency that has killed more than 1,500 people in the past year, including nearly 70 foreign troops.

The expansion, which will eventually include the east, will allow Washington to trim its troop strength in Afghanistan and focus on hunting militants active near the border with Pakistan.

The Afghan government says the militants orchestrate most of their attacks from Pakistan, which says it does all it can to stop the cross border infiltration of the guerrillas.

President Hamid Karzai visited Pakistan last week and urged it to crack down on the militants. Officials said he handed over dossiers detailing Taliban activities in Pakistan.

"We will broaden our efforts to...improve operational coordination between Afghanistan and Pakistan and promote exchanges and trust between the Pakistani military and the Afghan national security forces," Eikenberry said.

Australia to Increase Afghan Forces
By MERAIAH FOLEY, Associated Press Writer Tue Feb 21, 1:36 AM ET
SYDNEY, Australia - Australia will send another 200 troops to help with reconstruction efforts in     Afghanistan, nearly doubling the country's military presence in the war-ravaged country, Prime Minister John Howard said Tuesday.

Howard said the troops would be deployed in late July for two years and will come under the command of a Dutch-led provincial reconstruction team.

Australia originally sent 150 special forces troops to Afghanistan as part of the U.S.-led war that ousted the Taliban and al-Qaida forces in late 2001, but then gradually reduced its troop commitment to just one soldier.

Australia began increasing its military presence in Afghanistan last year, sending 190 elite forces to help stem a rising tide of insurgent-led violence ahead of the country's elections in September.

Last month, Australia announced it would also send an extra 110 troops and two helicopters to Afghanistan — bringing its total troop commitment to 300.

Howard said the new Australian contingent will be a mixed security and reconstruction task force and will be focused in the volatile southern province of Uruzgan, considered a Taliban stronghold.

Fighters loyal to the toppled Taliban regime have renewed attacks in recent months, increasingly using suicide bombings against international forces and the Afghan authorities.

The announcement comes as     NATO prepares to expand its peacekeeping mission from 9,000 to about 16,000 troops in Afghanistan and become responsible for security in about three-quarters of the country. The separate U.S.-led combat force will keep the lead role in the eastern sector where Taliban holdouts have been most active.

A staunch U.S. ally, Australia also maintains about 1,320 troops in and around     Iraq, including about 460 soldiers guarding Japanese reconstruction teams in the southern province of al-Muthanna.

Howard said he was confident that the new deployment would not overstretch the capacity of Australia's defense forces.

"We are confident that, based on the advice that we have received, that it can be carried out without imposing an unreasonable or unfair strain on the (military)," Howard said.

Chance for a new start in Afghanistan
By John Simpson BBC World Affairs Editor Monday, 20 February 2006
Afghanistan is not Iraq. It should not be necessary to make the point, of course.

But after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein there is a growing resistance in the West to further adventures.

In the minds of many people in Europe, sending more troops to Afghanistan is both dangerous and imperialistic.

It does not necessarily have to be either.

The motives that have led Britain, Canada, France, Germany and other countries to send their soldiers to Afghanistan are very different from those which led the United States and Britain to invade Iraq three years ago.

Mutual interest

And the response by most Afghans to the presence of foreign troops in their country is nothing like the hatred and anger which so many Iraqis feel towards the Americans and British.

In Afghanistan, the self-interest of Western countries happens to coincide with that of the Afghan people. We need a peaceful, prosperous and well-governed Afghanistan.

When it is none of these things, it can do us immense damage. The attacks of 11 September 2001 in the United States were planned and organised in Taleban-ruled Afghanistan.

The great majority of the heroin that reaches the streets of Western cities comes from the wilder parts of Afghanistan.

Help the Afghan government grow strong, support the living standards of the Afghan people, and we ourselves will be safer.

The trouble is, the West has never seen Afghanistan as a real country. It has always seen it, instead, as a square on the international chess-board.

In the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan was president of the United States and Margaret Thatcher was the British prime minister, we heard a great deal about the sufferings of the Afghans under the Soviet yoke.

But when the Russians withdrew from Afghanistan in February 1989, the Americans, the British and everyone else lost all interest in the country. Now it was just an extremely poor country with no natural resources.

Taleban loathed

In the 1990s, ignored by the outside world, Afghanistan descended into a spiral of insane violence which ended only with the arrival in power of the most perverse and retrograde government in modern times: the Taleban.

The overthrow of the Taleban in November 2001 was a triumph of minimalism. A small number of US special forces and a certain amount of bombing helped the anti-Taleban Northern Alliance to chase them out of Kabul.

The Taleban had been loathed by most Afghans, and their departure was greeted like a new dawn. Britain and America promised they would not lose interest in Afghanistan again.

Then came the invasion of Iraq. All the attention was redirected there. As the resistance movement blossomed and spread in Iraq, its influence spread back into Afghanistan.

The Taleban, which had seemed to be finished, began to grow in influence again. It imported the tactics of the Iraqi insurgents and became a training-ground for Islamic militants again.

New start

Anyone who knows Afghanistan knows how ordinary people there long for peace and prosperity.

The author and commentator Ahmed Rashid writes: "Western forces are still welcome - as long as they are really useful and are willing to both fight and help in reconstruction."

Even the south-east, where the Taleban always had greater support, and where British troops are now going to be based, is less dangerous than Iraq.

They can do a great deal more good in Afghanistan - especially if they learn from their Iraqi mistakes.

The key is to act as partners in Afghanistan, not as occupiers.

One of the most thoughtful American commentators on Afghanistan, Vanni Cappelli, argues cogently that the Western forces need to work with the tribes along the wild borderlands between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where Osama Bin Laden and the Taleban leaders are being sheltered.

Last month the CIA launched a missile attack across the border, killing 18 civilians.

This kind of action against the tribes will not, Cappelli argues, "sway this warrior people if it feels it can uphold its honour and dignity by supporting Islamic extremists. The trick is proving to them that there are better ways to secure these things."

Cappelli is entirely right. If the trick can be performed, Afghanistan will be a safer, better, more prosperous country.

The trouble is, public opinion in the United States still favours the use of force rather than reason.

Although he is a well-regarded authority, Cappelli's eminently sensible article was rejected by 24 American newspapers before finding a home in US Italia.

There is a brief opportunity for a new start in Afghanistan. The Americans could rethink their whole approach; the British could restore their reputation, so battered in Iraq, and other Nato countries could show they can be something more than merely critics on the sidelines.

Let us hope they get it right for a change.

Another school set alight in Helmand
LASHKARGAH, Feb 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Unidentified armed men set ablaze a boys' high school in the Nad Ali district of the volatile Helmand province last night, officials said on Tuesday.

Director of the Education Department Haji Mohammad Qasim told Pajhwok Afghan News the school, located in Zarghon village, was sealed after some miscreants gunned down one of its teachers Arif Laghmani a few months back. About 1,200 students were enrolled in the school at the time of the incident.

Qasim said all the furniture, stationery and the building had been gutted in the arson. Confirming the incident, provincial police chief Lt Gen Abdul Rahman Sabir told Pajhwok Afghan News several copies of the Holy Koran had also been burnt.

Torching of schools, especially girls' schools are rampant in the southern parts of the country. The recent incident has mounted the number of schools torched to 15 during the past one year. About 60 schools had so far been closed down in Helmand due to insecurity and attacks on teachers and students.

Afghan officials put the blame on ousted Taliban, who believe the western style of education is against the teachings of Islam. However, the militia's purported spokesman Qari Yousaf Ahmadi, in one of his statements, denied the fighters' involvement in school burning.
Abdul Samad Rohani

Minorities safe in Afghanistan: Parliamentarian
Peninsula On-line, Qatar 2/20/06
Doha: Minorities comprising Hindus and Sikhs are safe and well-protected in Afghanistan, says a visiting parliamentarian from Kabul.

The Hindus and Sikhs barely account for one per cent of the Afghan population and they are originally Indians who migrated to Afghanistan during the mogul rule in India centuries ago, says Mir Ahmed Joyenda.

Joyenda represents Kabul in the 248-member national assembly of Afghanistan which came into being in September last year.

Some 390 candidates vied for 33 parliamentary seats from the Afghan capital alone.

Joyenda is here to attend the 4th US-Islamic world forum that concludes today. He told this newspaper yesterday that there were Jews in his country as well but they left during the time of the mujahideen (natives who fought during the Russian invasion).

Taleban militia had disappeared from Afghanistan entirely and crossed over into the tribal areas on the other side of the Pakistan-Afghan border.

They are manufacturing weapons in these areas where the Pakistani government literally has no control, said Joyenda, who took a master's degree in archaeology from India's Allahabad University in 1978.

Already, stockpiles of arms and ammunition remain stored in the tribal areas from the time of the mujahideen, Some groups in Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) were still supporting these Talebans, claimed Joyenda.

Although the Pakistani government had banned the entry of foreigners to religious schools (madarsas), many Chinese, Chechens and Arabs, among others, were still studying in some of these institutions.

According to Joyenda, the condition of women was improving fast in his country after the downfall of Taleban. Some 68 members of the parliament are women.

"Some 25 per cent parliamentary seats are reserved for women, but many of them won from unreserved seats by huge margins," he said. Women are also taking active part in other fields.

Joyenda was briefly jailed during the Taleban rule for his involvement with an underground movement against them.

He said that a recent survey conducted shows that 93 per cent of respondents favour the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan.

There are 15,000 Nato peace-keeping troops while another 12,000 coalition forces are there dominated by British and American forces.

Rebuilding the ravished country after 25 years of war and strife is a major challenge. "But we hope to do it with the $10.2bn the donors have committed for the purpose at the London conference recently," said Joyenda.

Parliamentary Pay Deal Draws Protests
Institute for War and Peace Reporting By Abdul Baseer Saeed in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)
Many Afghans see the sizeable salaries awarded to members of the new legislature as a thinly-veiled bribe from the government.

Samiullah shivers as he stands in the cold on a street corner in central Kabul waiting for a bus to take him home. The civil servant says he can’t afford a shared taxi on his meagre salary.

“I receive just 50 [US] dollars a month, so I have to decide between food for my family and transportation,” he said.

But he heats up when discussing the salaries announced for members of Afghanistan’s new parliament.

“This is treason,” he said. "With these salaries, the government is trying to shut the mouths of the deputies. To preserve their salaries, they will be afraid to oppose the government openly.”

According to the pay schedule recommended by the finance ministry and approved by President Hamed Karzai, the speakers of the two houses of parliament receive monthly salaries of 3,500 dollars; their deputies get 1,500 dollars each, while the post of secretary carries 1,200 a month. The remaining deputies - 245 in the Wolesi Jirga, or lower house, and 98 in the Meshrano Jirga, or upper house - are being paid 1,100 dollars a month, with three months’ paid holiday a year.

A junior clerk working in a government office, by comparison, makes 40 dollars a month while a senior civil servant earns up to 120 dollars. Most government employees are given no more than six weeks’ paid leave, and that includes both vacation and sick leave.

Dr Shafaq Nejrabi, who works at the government-run Maiwand Hospital, is paid just 50 dollars.

“This is unfair,” he fumed. “Whoever made the decision to reward deputies like this should have realised that public-sector employees have families as well.”

Even some members of parliament think that their salaries are out of line.

Ramazan Bashardost, a former planning minister and now member of the Wolesi Jirga, said that the salaries being paid to parliamentarians are an attempt by the government to co-opt the legislature.

“These payments mean the government is trying to attract the deputies, to make them well-disposed towards it,” he said. “There shouldn’t be such a big difference between parliamentarians’ salaries and those of government employees.”

Bashardost says that he has not spent his own salary on himself. "When I got my 1,100 dollar salary, I went to the Dehmazang neighbourhood of Kabul together with the district head, and gave some of it to refugees, and some to the cleaners at the Dentistry Hospital,” he said.

Another lawmaker, former army general Noor ul-Haq Ulumi, agreed that the salaries were inappropriate.

“The salaries of parliamentarians should be fair. There should not be such a disparity with government employees, like between heaven and earth,” he said.

Like Bashardost, Ulumi believes the high salaries reflect a desire to buy the goodwill of legislators. “The government wants individuals in parliament to work for the its own benefit,” he said.

But Fawzia Kofi, a member of the Wolesi Jirga, says these salaries are barely sufficient to meet her colleagues’ needs. “When a deputy receives 1,100 dollars, he or she has to pay house rent, telephone bills and so on. It’s not nearly enough,” she said.

Delegates also have to have meet the public and entertain guests. She believes the government should ensure that lawmakers’ needs are adequately addressed, “That way there will be no need for them to take bribes.”

The low salaries paid to government employees are often cited as a major reason for the corruption that is endemic to the Afghan administration.

Abdul Ghafoor Lewal, spokesman for the ministry of parliamentary relations, said that the salaries had been determined in discussions between the government and both houses of parliament.

“I do not think that this is a lot of money for them,” he said. “They have a lot of contact with people, they have to entertain. And the government is still trying to raise the salaries of all its employees.”

Abdul Hafiz Mansoor, political analyst and editor of the weekly newspaper Payam-e-Mujahed, who narrowly missed winning a seat in the parliament, warns that paying high salaries has a distorting effect.

“It isn’t good to give them so much money,” he said. “It causes mismanagement and unfair competition. If parliament continues to get these kinds of privileges, in the next election we will have more candidates than voters.”

Abdul Baseer Saeed is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

10 bags of charas seized in Kandahar
KANDAHAR CITY, Feb 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Police in the southern Kandahar province claimed they had seized huge quantity of charas destined for Pakistan.

Deputy police chief Colonel Abdul Hakim Angar told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday the contraband narcotics were seized as a result of a crackdown in the Maroof district of the province.

He said police exchanged fire with the smugglers, who managed to flee. However, they left 10 bags of charas behind. The seized narcotics were shifted to the police headquarters, where it was set ablaze in presence of an official committee.

It is pertinent to recall that security officials had seized 183 kilograms of charas in the same province a fortnight back.

Separately, security officials in the Spin Ghar district of the eastern Nangarhar province captured 10 kilograms of heroin following an operation in the area.

District chief Said Zaman Sherzad told Pajhwok Afghan News on Tuesday the narcotics were recovered from a man. He added police also foiled a bid to smuggle timber to Pakistan.

Spokesman for the police headquarters Colonel Abdul Ghafoor said three vehicles loaded with timbers had also been confiscated and shifted to the police headquarters.

Reported by Saeed Zabuli/Zawab & translated by Daud

Former Jihad commanders to surrender weapons to govt
KABUL, Feb. 20 (Xinhuanet) -- Five former commanders from Afghan eastern province of Paktia will surrender their ammunition and weapons to the government on Tuesday, the UN said in a press release Monday.

"Five former Jihad commanders from Paktia, Torab Khan, Sardar, Safihullah, Zahirullah, Rozi Khan will surrender 15 tons of ammunition as well as a mixture of over 30 light and heavy weapons to the DIAG (Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups) weapons collection team," the UNAMA (UN Assistance Mission in Afghanistan)announced.

"By voluntarily surrendering their weapons, the commanders are not only complying with the Gun Law regulating the possession of weapons in Afghanistan, but also actively supporting, in association with the governor of Paktia, the DIAG program, a process which is intending to consolidate peace, rule of law and prosperity in Afghanistan," it added.

The DIAG process was launched in June 2005 after the finish of DDR (Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration) program which was initiated in October 2003 and is aimed at the disarmament and demobilization of former combatants prior to their reintegration into Afghan society.

So far, through this DIAG program, 17,655 weapons as well as 25,760 pieces of boxed and 72,253 pieces of unboxed ammunition have been handed over to the government.

Liberty memorial in Zabul being reconstructed
KANDAHAR CITY, Feb 20 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Work is underway to reconstruct the liberty memorial in Kalat, which was destroyed during years of war and civil strife.

The memorial was erected in 1973 during the era of Mohammad Daud Khan. However, it was bitterly damaged during decades of war and civil strife.

The monument is built by the US-led provincial reconstruction team (PRT) at the cost of $18,000, Kalat mayor Janat Gul said on Monday.

Speaking to Pajhwok Afghan News, Gul said work was underway to construct a big park around the minaret to provide entertainment to people of Zabul as well as the neighbouring provinces.

Appreciating the move, vice president of the Tarnak Literary Society Naseer Ahmad Faizan said it was the first time the government had taken a step to promote cultural activities in the province.

Abdul Ghafoor, resident of Kalat, said construction of the minaret and park would add to the beauty of the provincial capital.

Lamenting the performance of the provincial government, Ghafoor said no developmental works had been done in the province. He alleged the money allocated for reconstruction was gobbled up by a few influential.

Bismillah Lodin, director of the Information and Culture Department, said he had met the PRT officials in Kandahar a few days back and demanded of them to reconstruct historical sites in Zabul.

He said the officials assured them of reconstructing the Zabul's Bala Hisar Fort as well as replica of Ahmad Shah Baba's arrow in the city.
Reported by Saeed Zabuli & translated by Daud

Bin Laden Vows Never to Be Captured Alive
Cairo (AP) - Osama bin Laden vowed never to be captured alive and said the U.S. military had become as "barbaric" as Saddam Hussein in an audiotape reposted on a militant Islamic Web site after first being broadcast last month.

In the tape posted to the Web site Monday, bin Laden offered the United States a long-term truce but also said his al-Qaida terror network would soon launch a fresh attack on American soil. The tape was initially broadcast Jan. 19 on Al-Jazeera, the pan-Arab satellite channel.

Islamic militant Web forums often repost messages from al-Qaida leaders to ensure sympathizers can see them. U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that last month's tape was of bin Laden — making it his first message in more than a year.

"I have sworn to only live free. Even if I find bitter the taste of death, I don't want to die humiliated or deceived," bin Laden said, in the 11-minute, 26-second tape. In drawing the comparison to American military behavior in Iraq to that of Saddam, he said:

"The jihad (holy war) is ongoing, thank God, despite all the oppressive measures adopted by the U.S. Army and its agents (which has reached) a point where there is no difference between this criminality and Saddam's criminality."

Bin Laden also denied Bush administration assertions that it was better to fight terrorists in Iraq than on U.S. soil.

"The reality shows that the war against America and its allies has not been limited to Iraq as he (Bush) claims. Iraq has become a point of attraction and restorer of (our) energies," he said.
The last audiotape purported to be from bin Laden was broadcast in December 2004 by Al-Jazeera. In that recording, he endorsed Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq and called for a boycott of Iraqi elections.

Saving Kabul’s Pedestrians
The first in a series of foot-bridges is intended to save Kabulis’ nerves – and lives.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)
Draped in a burqa and toting a blue shoulder bag, Khori Gul murmurs a prayer of thanks before she starts across the new pedestrian bridge in the centre of the Afghan capital Kabul.

“God bless him who made this bridge, and give him paradise,” she said.

In Kabul’s chaotic traffic, crossing the road can be a life-threatening exercise. Taxis and minivans race at breakneck speed along the thoroughfares, jockeying for position at roundabouts with trucks, buses, donkey carts and cyclists.

Pedestrians don’t stand a chance in the melee, and often pay a high price for a badly-timed move. According to General Abdul Shakoor Khair Khwa, head of the national traffic police, there are close to 500 accidents a year involving pedestrians, of which one-third involve fatalities.

The new pedestrian walkway spans Deh Afghanan, a major artery in one of the most congested areas of this overcrowded city.

“I was always afraid of crossing the road,” said Khori Gul, 40. “Sometimes I used to have to wait half an hour, and I almost got hit many times, but now I am calm.”

The bridge, standing about six metres high and 25 metres long, opened at the end of January and has already made life easier for the city’s traffic police.

“Since the day the bridge opened, we’ve had fewer problems with traffic,” said one officer who did not want to give his name. “Before this, there were a lot of accidents here.”

The pedestrian overpass was financed by Sherkat-e-Cheshm-e-Sheshai, an Iranian firm that put up the 50,000 US dollars needed for the construction work. In exchange, it has the right to rent out advertising space on the bridge for the next five years, according to city officials.

“We will eventually have six bridges altogether under our contract with the Iranian company,” said Mohammad Asef Akbari, head of Kabul’s information and culture department. “They are very important for preventing traffic accidents.”

Even though the walkway offers safe passage to the other side of the street, the traffic police estimate that only about 50 per cent of pedestrians are using it.

Some are in too much of a hurry to climb the stairs up the bridge; others say they don’t have confidence in the structure.

“I did use the bridge once, but it shook as I was crossing it. It will collapse one day. I’m not going to use it again,” said Abdul Saleh, 56.

Company officials insist the structure is sound. “These bridges are made by professional Iranian engineers, who have build more than 50 similar bridges in various parts of Iran,” said Sayed Ali Islami, an official at the firm.

Drivers say they are happy with the new bridge, too.

Nadir Shah, 43, who like many here drives a Toyota Corolla, praised the city authorities for putting the bridge up. “I was always anxious when I came to [this part of town],” he said. “I’ve been in a lot of accidents here. But now I feel much calmer. There are far fewer people on the road crossing to the other side.”

Abdul Hadi, 35, in a grey minivan, was just as pleased, saying, “Most people don’t pay enough attention when they’re crossing the road. Bridges like this are very good for drivers.”

Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Barriers Prove Insurmountable for Karzai
The Afghan president has not been able to enforce his order to remove security barriers in the capital, leading many to wonder how much authority he really has.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)
Motorists in Kabul face a number of hazards, from overcrowded streets to the increasing number of novice drivers on the roads. But what they complain about most are the heavy concrete barriers strategically placed so as to protect embassies, the offices of international aid organisations and the homes of the powerful.

The roadblocks have turned the city’s streets into an obstacle course which few drivers are able to master.

President Hamed Karzai thought he had fixed the problem when he issued a decree on January 1 ordering all the concrete barriers to be removed. He gave those who had blocked off access to their offices or homes one week to remove the barriers themselves, or else, he warned, the government would do it for them.

Six weeks have passed since he issued his ultimatum, and the barriers remain in place.

According to Abdul Shakoor Khair Khwa, head of the national traffic police, there are about 46 areas in Kabul where roads have been blocked by barriers, resulting in traffic jams, long delays and short tempers. He said that the police, working through the interior ministry, had petitioned the president many times to take action.

Now, presidential order in hand, Khair Khwa is eager to get down to work.

“We are determined to put this decree into practice, and we will not listen to any objections,” he told IWPR. "We bear responsibility for the traffic system and we are going to remove all the barriers from the roads. Those who are concerned for their security should talk to the police – they can ensure safety.”

But his words so far have not translated into action. First there was heavy snow, then the Eid al-Adha holiday. The concrete blocks are still in place.

Foreign organisations have taken a firm stand, citing Afghanistan’s notoriously fragile security situation. Some have threatened to pack up and leave if they lose their protective concrete.

The Asian Development Bank, ADB, is a case in point. When police removed the barriers around the bank’s offices on January 8, it promptly closed its doors. ADB mission head Brian Fawcett said that the offices would not reopen until the barriers were replaced.

“We only block the road to make it safer,” he said angrily. “We have stopped our activities in Afghanistan and will keep our office closed until we receive permission to put the barriers back.”

Traffic police chief Khair Khwa said that his agency would not bow to threats from foreign organisations. “This is an order from the president and we have to implement it,” he said. “If they have a problem, they should discuss it with high-ranking officials in the government.”

That is exactly what ADB did. By mid-February, workers were busy erecting new barriers, the street in front of the bank was once again closed, and Fawcett said that he anticipated being able to open again soon.

Nevertheless, interior ministry spokesman Mohammad Yousuf Stanikzai insists that the police will press ahead with removing the barriers.

“These barriers have no purpose except to create traffic problems,” he said. “Our decision is final. We have given [the organisations] time but they have not removed the barriers. So now we will do it ourselves.”

Asked why no barriers have yet been removed for good, Stanikzai said the government had appointed a panel to study which of them should be removed first.

The American embassy is one of the worst offenders, closing off a major thoroughfare to protect its compound. Many were keen to see what would happen when the US government and Kabul police squared off.

Officials at the embassy say that they have not received any formal instruction to open the roads leading to the mission.

“Ensuring the safety of our staff in Afghanistan is one of our highest priorities. The United States and Afghanistan routinely discuss measures to provide appropriate protection for the US embassy and military facilities,” said spokesperson Lou Fintor.

Interior ministry officials say privately that the American embassy will be exempt from the decree.

Ramazan Bashardost, a member of parliament and outspoken critic of both the barriers and the organisations that have erected them, is bitter about the lack of action. He had tabled an initiative in parliament to have the barriers removed, but was pre-empted by the presidential decree.

“Unfortunately, like previous Karzai decrees, this remains nothing more than a dead piece of paper,” he told IWPR. “It will not be put into practice - but I will continue my own efforts to get these barriers removed until the situation is resolved.”

Bashardost’s ire is not directed only at foreign governments and non-government organisations, NGOs. He was also quick to criticise such powerful figures as former defence minister Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who is currently serving as a presidential appointee in the Meshrano Jirga, or upper house of parliament.

“Fahim has blocked off many streets leading to his house,” fumed Bashar Dost. “This is also a cause of the problem. It is not only the embassies and the NGOs.”

Ordinary Afghans are not happy with the delay, nor are they pleased that their president seems unable to enforce a decree that affects the foreign presence in the country.

“When Karzai ordered the barriers removed people were very happy,” said Kabul resident Nisar Ahmad, 40. “We thought that now we wouldn’t be stuck in traffic for hours and hours. But now we see that no one listens to the president’s decrees.”

Habibullah, 28, also of Kabul, agreed, “Karzai’s decrees don’t have any authority even over Afghans - how can we expect them to have an impact on foreigners?”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Film Director Gets Early Start
At seven, Jawanmard Paeez already has impressive credentials.
Institute for War and Peace Reporting By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 203, 18-Feb-06)
Jawanmard Paeez is hardly your typical film director. For one thing, he is only seven years old.

Dressed in a red coat and blue jeans, he sat beside his father, actor Humayun Paeez, in the offices of Afghan Film, talking easily and expansively about his career in films.

“I had my first role when I was two-and-a-half,” he told IWPR, describing his part in “Almaz-e-Sharq” (“Diamond of the East”), where he played one of a gang of children throwing stones at a beggar. In his second film, “Khak wa Khakistar” (“Dust and Ashes”) he played a small boy who became deaf when a rocket attack destroyed his house.

His directorial debut came late last year with a seven-minute film called “Bad” (which means the same as the English word) about a young boy who does not listen to his parents.

The reviews have been positive, at least from his colleagues in the film industry.

“Jawanmard’s talent is unique, it is a gift from God,” said Engineer Abdul Latif Ahmadi, head of the Afghan Film studio. “If he gets support, he will be a world-class director. He will be brilliant.”

Cameraman Najibullah Ahmadi, 22, worked with the young director on “Bad”. “Jawanmard has a remarkable talent,” he told IWPR. “I have not had such an easy time with any other director.”

Actress Breshna Bahar, 36, played the lead in the film. She confirmed Jawanmard’s abilities as a director.

“In one scene I was slicing an onion, and tears were running down my face. I wanted to use my scarf to wipe them away, but Jawanmard stopped the camera, and told me angrily to use the back of my hand, as the scene had to be natural,” she said.

Jawanmard showed a talent for directing from the start, according to his father.

“When he was doing ‘Dust and Ashes’ I saw that when he was not in shooting, he was making up his own scenes and imitating the director,” said Humayun. “After that, colleagues kept asking him to make a role for himself and direct it. Jawanmard did it so quickly that everyone was surprised. They all encouraged him.”

When he is not busy with movie-making, Jawanmard is a typical seven-year-old. He takes English classes, goes to the mosque every morning to learn the Koran, and then attends school. He also likes to play football and play hide-and-seek with other children, and is a master at snowball fights.

He said he likes educational films and wants to make his own one day.

“I don’t like romantic films, or films where there is a lot of violence,” he said.

Some of Jawanmard’s colleagues are not so positive about the attention being heaped on the boy.

“Jawanmard is clever, yes, but we should not encourage him too much,” said Mohammad Seddiq Barmak, a prominent Afghan film director. “He will think that he has already reached his highest point and he will not grow as a director.”

Ahad Zhewand, a long-time film director, dismisses Jawanmard as an insult to Afghan cinema.

“This is a joke, but it’s not funny,” he said. “Directing needs life experience. How can someone who can’t read and write compose a scenario?”

Jawanmard, who has now finished third grade in school, said that he dictates his scenario to his older sister and she writes it down for him.

He is unruffled by the criticism, saying, “Those who say that Afghan film is insulted because a small boy has made a film – I just tell them to watch my movie once, and then pass judgement.”

Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.