Afghanistan News February 6, 2006

February 6, 2006

One killed, several hurt, in Afghan cartoon protest
Mon Feb 6, 4:43 AM ET
KABUL (Reuters) - Protests flared in several parts of Afghanistan on Monday against cartoons depicting caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad and one person was killed and two wounded when shooting erupted in an eastern town, police said.

Hundreds of protesters took to the streets in Mehtarlam, capital of Laghman province, and police fired into the air after protesters threw stones at a police station, a police official in the town, Yar Mohammad, told Reuters by telephone.

He said instigators in the crowd linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda had also opened fire and one person had been killed and two wounded.

"There was some firing from within the crowd by Taliban and al Qaeda members, too, in order to enrage the protesters," he said.

"We've heard that by the firing from the Taliban and al Qaeda, one person was killed and two were wounded," Mohammad said. Two policemen were wounded by stones thrown by protesters, he said.

Protests were also taking place in Kandahar in the south, Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, Taloqan in the northeast and Charikar town to the north of Kabul, residents of those towns said.

The cartoons were first published in a Danish newspaper in September. Other European newspapers, saying press freedom was more important than religious taboos, began reprinting them last week.

Many Muslims consider any images of Mohammad to be blasphemous and offensive.

Despite protests and boycotts across the Muslim world, the cartoons have now appeared in papers in Bulgaria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Jordan, Spain, Switzerland, Hungary, New Zealand, Norway and Poland.

More than 170 Taliban, Islamic militants surrender in Afghanistan
Monday February 6, 12:32 AM
KABUL (AFP) - More than 170 Taliban and other Islamist fighters have surrendered as part of a government amnesty scheme, vowing to lay down arms and work to rebuild war-ravaged Afghanistan, officials said.

The men travelled from various provinces from across Afghanistan to Kabul for a ceremony at which their surrender was announced by the head of the government's reconciliation commission, Sebghattullah Mujaddadi.

They included members of the extremist Hezb-e-Islami faction of wanted warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an anti-Soviet resistance commander who is part of a bloody anti-government insurgency.

"In the ceremony today 172 brothers who were former Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami surrendered," commission spokesman Sayed Sharif Yousufi told AFP Sunday.

More than 1,000 Taliban and Hezb-e-Islami members have signed up to the amnesty scheme since it was launched less than a year ago, Yousufi said.

One of the former fighters, Qazi Joma Khan from the Hezb-e-Islami faction, said the men wanted to help rebuild Afghanistan.

"We vow to help ensure security and peace and take part in reconstruction of our country," he said.

"We promise not to stand against the government any more," said ex-Taliban, Mawlawi Abdul Rehman.

President Hamid Karzai has offered amnesty to members of the Taliban movement, which was in power from 1996 to 2001, and other Islamic militias "whose hands are not stained with innocent people's blood" from the past 25 years of war.

Among those who have taken up the offer are former Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil and the Taliban regime's ambassador to Pakistan, Abdul Salam Zaeef.

The insurgency by Taliban and other Islamic insurgents, including some with links to Al-Qaeda, has claimed more than 1,700 lives in the past year with most of the dead militants killed by Afghan and foreign security forces.

US soldier killed in Afghan attack
KABUL (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier was killed in Afghanistan on Monday when militants opened fire on a patrol, the U.S. military said.

The attackers fled after the patrol returned fire and called in air support, the military said.

The attack was in Laghman province, northwest of the provincial capital, Mehtarlam, where a demonstrator was killed during a protest earlier on Monday over cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammad in several Western publications.

The U.S. military did not identify the attackers. Taliban and allied militants are known to operate in the province.

The United States has about 18,000 troops in Afghanistan, battling the Taliban insurgency, more than four years after the Taliban were ousted.

In a separate incident, south of the town of Khost, Afghan and U.S. forces killed one insurgent and wounded one in a clash near the Pakistani border, the U.S. military said.

Two border policemen were wounded.

Russia to address Afghanistan's Soviet debt in Paris Club
12:06 | 06/ 02/ 2006
MOSCOW, February 6 (RIA Novosti) - Russia has decided to resolve the issue of Afghanistan's $10 billion Soviet-era debt within the Paris Club of creditor nations, diplomats said Monday.

The Foreign Ministry said in a statement that Russia, as the main creditor of Afghanistan, would resolve the issue on a multilateral level, as part of the HIPC Initiative, or a comprehensive approach to debt reduction for heavily indebted poor countries, and in accordance with domestic legislation.

The diplomats added that Afghan government could accelerate the process by developing trade and economic relations with companies in the creditor nations on a non-discriminatory basis.

"Afghanistan's successful efforts under the HIPC Initiative are likely to yield a 100% write-off of its debt to the Russian Federation," the statement read, adding that the resolution of the debt problem would boost its trade, economic and investment cooperation with major creditors and the rest of the international community.

The ministry also called on other bilateral creditors to join the move.

According to Russian experts, 70% of the debt was provided to Afghanistan by the Soviet Union in the form of fighter planes, other heavy weaponry, spare parts and the services of the Russian military experts. The other 30% remains unexplained and probably consisted of civilian aid under programs to propagate communist ideas and to educate local officials.

Afghanistan Blames Taleban, Drug Traffickers for Deadly Violence
Voice of America By Benjamin Sand Islamabad 05 February 2006
Senior officials say a series of major clashes in southern Afghanistan may be linked to the region's powerful drug cartels. Two days of violence and pitched battles have left at more than 30 people dead, most of them militants.

Afghan officials say the fighting has largely subsided Sunday, but government forces are combing the area looking for suspected insurgents.

A roadside bomb in Kandahar killed six policemen late Saturday. The attack is the latest in a string of bloody assaults that seem to be spreading across much of southern Afghanistan. It was blamed on supporters of the Taleban, a hard-line Islamic group that controlled Afghanistan until it was ousted in 2001.

Interior Ministry spokesman Yousuf Stanezai says the violence is fueled, at least in part, by a growing coalition of Taleban insurgents and local drug lords.

"The Taleban fighters and the drug traffickers jointly want to disrupt the security situation because police have put pressure on drug smuggling," he said. "The circle for drug smuggling and terrorist activities has become smaller."

He says both groups rely on the same underground networks to transport drugs, weapons and personnel. Afghanistan is a leading producer of illegal opium, which is used to make the addictive drug heroin.

The fighting erupted Friday when militants ambushed a police convoy in Helmand province, long considered a hotbed for insurgent activity.

As government forces regrouped, U.S.-led coalition airplanes bombed suspected Taleban targets in the area.

Speaking Saturday, U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant Mike Cody described the coalition involvement.

"Coalition forces provided close air support and were involved on the ground," said Lieutenant Cody. "As of yesterday we have no coalition casualties or damages."

Just a few hours after the initial attack, more than 200 insurgents attacked government offices in the region, killing a district chief and several policemen.

The violence forced hundreds of terrified residents from their homes Saturday as government troops and suspected Taleban rebels traded fire.

Reinforcements have arrived from the capital and security across the volatile southern provinces has been sharply increased.

Officials say both Helmand and Kandahar provinces are centers for drug trafficking and the Taleban insurgency.

NATO peacekeepers will deploy to the region later this year with nearly double their existing troop strength. Around 18,000 British, Canadian and Dutch forces will complement U.S. troops already in the area.

Drug trade 'reaches to Afghan cabinet'
The Telegraph -UK Toby Harnden in Kabul 2/5/06
Some cabinet ministers in Afghanistan are deeply implicated in the drugs trade and could be diverting foreign aid into trafficking, the country's anti-narcotics minister said yesterday.

The admission will dismay Western governments, which last week pledged $10.5 billion (£6 billion) in aid, including £505 million from Britain, to help to fight poverty, improve security and crack down on the drugs trade.

It raises the prospect that money being donated by the West could be used indirectly to kill British soldiers, 3,300 of whom will be stationed in anarchic Helmand province, where corrupt officials, insurgents and drug lords overlap.

"I don't deny that," said Habibullah Qaderi in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph, when asked whether corruption linked to the £2.7 billion-a-year drugs trade went right up to the cabinet.

Such high-level criminality, he said, would help account for why "a lot of trafficking through different parts of the country" was being conducted with apparent impunity.

But he declined to name names and said Afghanistan's weak justice system, itself bedevilled by corruption, meant that it was difficult to convert allegations and rumours into fact. "The question is how to find evidence against these people [politicians]."

In Kabul, the houses of several senior politicians resemble small palaces with marble corridors, painstakingly manicured lawns and dozens of armed guards.

Even in provincial town such as Lashkar Gah, the capital of Helmand, ostentatious homes stand in stark contrast to the poverty around them and are known locally as the houses of "smugglers" - a euphemism for drug traffickers.

Western aid officials and several European diplomats named the same high-ranking politicians and officials, including one with close links to Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's President, as drug lords.

"The Afghans complain that 75 per cent of aid is spent directly rather than being filtered through their government but the reason for that is because otherwise a significant proportion is skimmed off into the pockets of drug lords," said one American aid worker. "Post-Taliban Afghanistan is going to emerge as a low-level narco-state at best."

But a veteran European diplomat in Kabul said: "The problem, as ever, is the smoking gun. We all know it is happening. We all know the names. But I have never seen any direct evidence and I don't know anyone who has."

Ali Ahmad Jalali, who resigned as Afghanistan's interior minister last year, said: "Sometimes government officials allow their own cars to be used for a fee. Sometimes they give protection to traffickers.

"In Afghanistan, corruption is a low-risk enterprise in a high-risk environment. Because of the lack of investigative capacity it is very difficult to get evidence. You always end up arresting foot soldiers."

But he accused Western governments of exaggerating the problem to justify limiting their long-term commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan. The "drug problem in Afghanistan is demand-driven" from the West, he said, with 90 per cent of profits being made outside the country. Nato policies, moreover, had helped to consolidate the drugs lords because they had focused solely on fighting Taliban and insurgent forces rather than attacking the trade.

Mr Jalali urged British troops in Helmand not to ignore narcotics, 90 per cent of which end up in Europe. "I understand Nato's argument that if they eradicate poppy fields then that antagonizes the population. But there are legitimate targets - mobile labs and stockpiles - which only drugs lords, rather than ordinary poppy growers, are involved with."

A British official said that a number of Afghan MPs were linked to the drugs trade and that some officials had to be circumvented because they were corrupted by drugs. "There are plenty of people in the national assembly who are very dodgy. Corruption is endemic so I have to be careful with some figures in the Afghan set-up who might not be 100 per cent committed to eradicating drugs."

Last week, the World Bank castigated Western governments for failing to channel money through the Afghan government, leading to vast amounts of cash being spent on exorbitant salaries, security guards and fortified accommodation for aid workers.

But the Kabul Weekly, an Afghan newspaper, summed up the dilemma: "If aid is given to NGOs, huge amounts go into their own expenditures. If it's given to the Afghan government, the poor bureaucracy and corruption waste it."

'The new Afghanistan is a myth. It's time to go and get a job abroad'
As British troops prepare to tackle the Taliban's remnants, hundreds of thousands of jobless Afghan refugees who returned home to start a new life are queueing up to leave again
Dan McDougall in Kabul Sunday February 5, 2006 The Observer

An unforgiving wind howls across the Shomali Plains from the distant snowcaps of the Hindu Kush. Overhead, a US Chinook helicopter disappears into the dark mass of clouds, an armoured Jeep dangling from its grey hull, straining against the winch cable. It's just past 5am and the roar of the rotors momentarily drowns out the first call to prayer of the day echoing from the minarets of Kabul's Ismailia mosque. Within minutes, other muezzins follow suit, in a bleary-eyed symphony across the city.

Outside the iron gates of the Iranian embassy, braced against the winter sleet in woollen caps and ankle-length chupans, hundreds of Afghan men roll out blankets and kneel towards Mecca. At each bow the men's noses merge with the slushy grey mixture of mud, snow and sewage that covers the rutted pavements and roads of Kabul. Their prayers are for a new life elsewhere and food for their starving families - they are queueing in the dawn's half light to leave Afghanistan.

'I wish I hadn't come back home from Iran after the Taliban left. I had a better life there, I had occasional work at least, so I am going back.' Zahair Mohammad stands in the line trying, with hundreds of others, to get an Iranian visa. 'I was thinking positively for a long time about rebuilding a life here in Kabul, where I was born, but I was wrong, very wrong. It's time to go. I need to work abroad, like most, as a cheap labourer and send money home. What we're hearing on the radio about a new Afghanistan is nothing but a dream.' He gestures at the kilometre-long queue. 'I was a refugee before and now I'm choosing to become one again. I'm not alone.'

Five years after the Taliban were deposed by a US-led military alliance, Afghanistan remains entrenched in poverty. Intense frustration with the government, particularly among refugees who returned amid promises of change, is growing. The Observer has learnt that such is the demand among ordinary Afghans to leave that this weekend the Interior Ministry has run out of the basic materials to make passports.

According to human rights watchdogs, the huge increase in economic migrants exposes the shortcomings of Western-led reconstruction, estimated to have cost $8bn (£4.5bn) so far, failures which are disturbingly apparent in the overflowing slums of the capital, Kabul. Hundreds of thousands may have returned from Pakistan and Iran, swelling the city's population to more than two million, but with local unemployment running at 70 per cent there is simply no future for them.

A United Nations report concluded last year that Afghanistan remains one of the world's least developed countries, ranking 173rd out of 178 countries surveyed. For every 1,000 babies born in Afghanistan, 142 die before their first birthday. An Afghan woman dies in pregnancy every half-hour. Overall life expectancy is estimated at just under 42 years. Three-quarters of adults are illiterate and few girls go to school. But no problem haunts the country more than its displaced peoples - the UN estimates four million Afghans are refugees in Pakistan and Iran, and another two million are uprooted in their own country. The total, a fifth of the population, represents the largest refugee crisis in the world.

'Refugees who returned to Afghanistan after the Taliban have become fed up with promises and not seeing much improvement practically,' said Wadir Safi, a law professor at Kabul University. 'Millions returned hoping some brave new world awaited them, but found no work, no housing and no hope. The billions of dollars' worth of aid apparently given to date has made little difference to the lives of ordinary Afghans. Now the men have no option but to leave again, in order to support their families, who must remain behind. They may not be fleeing persecution this time, but they are escaping unimaginable poverty and can no longer sit by as their families starve.'

Last week, following a crisis conference in London, international donors, led by the US and the UK, pledged more than £5.9bn to Afghanistan in a wide-ranging reconstruction programme known as the Afghan Compact. President Hamid Karzai claimed much progress had been made and the money would ensure it continues. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said: 'The transformation of Afghanistan was remarkable, but incomplete.' In Kabul people are asking: 'What transformation?'

In the bombed remains of Kabul's Ministry of Energy, Nasir Salam, aged eight, skips through the mud, his jacket flapping in the wind, exposing his skinny ribs. He is running towards a vast mound of rubbish where children are playing with kites, one of Afghanistan's most popular pastimes, although the kites are composites of plastic bags and greasy lengths of string. The youngsters are badly malnourished, their hair and flesh a mass of sores. their chests wheezing. On the road that runs parallel to the slum, their mothers congregate, dressed in filthy burqas and chadris, eyes visible through latticed slits as they bang on car windows begging for money. Others like them had earlier caught a bus to beg in central Kabul, hoping that passing aid workers will spare a dollar. Idle men are everywhere, standing in small groups amid creeks of raw sewage.

Nasir and his parents are among hundreds of families who have taken up residence in this abandoned compound - most were refugees, encouraged to return home from Iran or Pakistan, after the fall of the Taliban but now destitute. The buildings where some are squatting have collapsed ceilings, but they offer some respite from the cold. Few charities come here. The only visitors in the past month have been officials from a government ministry who came to inspect the site and said they would evict the squatters and reclaim the land for the state.

Nasir's father, Allahnazzar, 47, says he would leave, if he could. 'What is there for us here? There are hundreds of thousands like us, perhaps millions. There is no work. We are squatting in the corner of a bombed building for shelter, there is no clean water and children die from disease here every month. Many friends who were with me in Pakistan after the Taliban took power have gone back to find work as labourers. Abroad they can work and send money back to their families to help them survive.' In a far corner of the slum, 20-year-old Enayatullah Khan has invited neighbours to his 'home' for a celebration. He is clutching his Afghan passport, empty save for an Iranian visa. He is due to leave the next day. 'I know I will earn money in Iran, I will get work as a labourer and with spring coming I will work in the fields. I am young, I don't mind leaving Kabul, most of my friends have gone.'

Outside the Ministry of Interior, a cottage industry has sprung up supplying services to those who want to leave the country, from roadside photographers providing passport pictures to local people filling out forms for the illiterate.

Tariq has raised the money to buy an ancient camera and takes at least 200 passport snaps a day. 'The demand is high. Everyone wants to go to Iran and Pakistan to work, young and old, nobody wants to stay here. The queue for the visas is so large that the traffic police marshal it. But what you are seeing here is the people who want to enter within the law, probably because they have been put in jail as illegal immigrants before and don't want that again.

'Hundreds of thousands more will go over the border illegally, what other option do they have,' he adds, pointing across the street where a group of men have monopolised a playground. 'Look at them, they are playing on a children's roundabout, there is nothing else to do.'

Afghan leader, Saudi envoy criticize Prophet cartoons
Mon Feb 6, 12:07 AM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Afghanistan President Hamid Karzai and Saudi diplomat Prince Turki al-Faisal have separately criticized cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed published in the European media, amid protests throughout the Muslim world.

Karzai told CNN television Sunday that the cartoons, which initially appeared in a Danish newspaper followed by European newspapers, were "insulting" and had stoked anger in his country.

In a separate CNN interview, the Saudi ambassador to the United States, Prince al-Faisal, said the cartoons were "offensive" and represented "absolutely horrible depictions of the Prophet Mohammed".

Twelve cartoons, first published last September by the conservative Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, and then reprinted by a Norwegian magazine, have caused an uproar in the Muslim world.

The caricatures, which included depictions of the Muslim prophet as a knife-wielding bedouin and another as wearing a time bomb-shaped turban, have sparked widespread protests in the Muslim world.

Angry crowds set ablaze the building housing the Danish consulate in Beirut, Lebanon, on Sunday in violent protests against the cartoons that left almost 30 people wounded.

Meanwhile, a smaller protest, involving some 1,000 people, occurred in eastern Afghanistan against the cartoons a day after riots in Syria saw the diplomatic missions of Denmark and Norway burned, despite the presence of security forces.

"We, as Muslims, all over the world are angry for those cartoons appearing in the European press," the Afghan leader told CNN.

"We feel angry about this," he said, adding "I as a Muslim feel very offended".

Karzai called on western governments to take strong measures against the publication of such cartoons and urged western newspapers to dismiss editors involved their publication. Al-Faisal supported Kharzi's sentiments.

"The cartoons are offensive," he said.

"They are absolutely horrible depictions of the Prophet Mohammed, a man esteemed not just by Muslims but even by non-Muslims," he said, appealing for calm and dialogue rather than violence.

He said people had protested peacefully to the Danish embassy in Riyadh.

The US' largest Muslim association appealed for calm in a statement Sunday.

"Everyone has the right to peacefully protest defamatory attacks on their religious figures, but protestors should not reinforce existing stereotypes by resorting to violence or inflammatory rhetoric," said Ibrahim Hooper, a communications director for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

US Senator Barbara Boxer told CNN the issue was related to freedom of speech.

"If I had an opportunity to talk to the people in the streets ... what I'd tell them is that freedom of speech can be very painful sometimes," the California senator said.

"A lot of these folks are not used to dealing with freedoms like this," she added.

"It's right to demand an apology. It's right to boycott the newspaper that ran it. But it's not right to use violent means to combat freedom of speech which you may not agree with," said Boxer.

Secret contacts at the summit level between Israel and Afghanistan in British capital
Pravda 02/06/2006
Senior diplomats from Israel and Afghanistan met secretly in London last week, stepping up lower-level contacts that took place earlier in Europe , an Israeli daily reported Monday. The Maariv daily said the two sides have been discussing cooperation in areas where Afghanistan needs Israeli equipment and expertise. It did not elaborate.

The Israeli delegation included the director of the foreign ministry, Ron Prosor, and Yaakov Dayan, a senior aide to Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, the report said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev would not confirm the report, but said Israel has continuously tried to improve its relationships with the Muslim world.

"There is no reason Israel could not have more normal and cooperative relationships with countries like Afghanistan, Pakistan and Indonesia, and we're working toward that end," he said.

In an AP interview last month, Afghanistan's pro-Western president, Hamid Karzai, said his government would forge official diplomatic ties with Israel if the Palestinians can form a state of their own.

"If a Palestinian state is recognized, we will recognize Israel, we will have relations with Israel. We will have trade with Israel ," he said at the time.

Karzai also gave an interview to an Israeli paper last October, congratulating Israel for its withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and saying he had met Israeli politician Shimon Peres. After Prime Minister Ariel Sharon suffered a stroke early last month, Karzai wished the Israeli leader a speedy recovery.

Israel and Afghanistan have never had formal relations. Forging ties with Israel would infuriate Afghanistan's neighbor Iran, which has called for Israel's destruction.

Afghanistan is the latest Muslim state to make gestures toward Israel. Since the Gaza pullout was completed in September, Israeli diplomats have met with counterparts from Qatar , Pakistan and Indonesia , reports the AP.

American University of Afghanistan draws vision from Portland
Monday, February 06, 2006 ANGIE CHUANG The Oregonian
A piece of Afghanistan's future sits in a 27th-floor downtown Portland conference room.

In the architectural firm Yost Grube Hall, two walls papered with diagrams of a 42-acre plot of land hold the promise of that country's first private university. The approximately $35 million campus also will be the country's first American university, taught completely in English.

Officials from the new American University of Afghanistan traveled from Kabul to Portland recently to discuss the campus with the architects who will make it a reality. In December, Yost Grube Hall beat seven finalists on the bid to design the master plan for the university, which is being launched with a U.S. Agency for International Development grant and a major international fundraising effort.

"The United States has sent $4 billion to Afghanistan (for reconstruction), but in Kabul you don't really see anything where you can really say, 'This is monumental. This will be,' " Sharif Fayez, the university's pro tem president, said during his Portland visit. "This is probably going to be the most beautiful campus in the country."

The discussions were about more than construction timelines and buildings, participants say. This "model university" for a nation emerging from the ruins of multiple wars will set the standard for educating entrepreneurs, teaching technology and giving women access to higher education.

And it will have an unmistakable Oregon stamp. From Yost Grube Hall's key role to the involvement of local individuals and universities with everything from the initial planning to offering fundraising advice, the gathering of key players in Portland reinforced that connection.

Good match for firm

The vision for the university began in 2002, as Afghanistan's post-Taliban interim government looked at rebuilding the country and its institutions. Fayez was interim minister of higher education and handpicked a Portlander, Zaher Wahab, to be his senior adviser.

Fayez and Wahab, a Lewis & Clark College professor who was born in Afghanistan, set the vision for the university, got the startup money and oversaw the initial planning.

The Afghan government gave the university a free 99-year lease on land next to the historic but ruined Darulman Palace on the western edge of the city, next to the country's future parliament buildings. In March, during first lady Laura Bush's visit, USAID pledged $17.7 million.

Officials broke ground that month, starting construction not on a building but on a security wall that officials said was necessary to help keep the high-profile institution safe in a volatile environment.

Joachim Grube, a principal with Yost Grube Hall, said the project, the firm's first in Afghanistan, was a good match. The firm is known for designs of the new Portland Community College Cascade campus and Portland State University's School of Business, as well as its work in Sudan, Angola, Jordan and other countries.

"Having done work in countries which provided, physically and politically, major challenges, this was right up our alley," Grube said. "When you look at the site and the surrounding mountain ranges, being at the site of a former palace, you get a sense of the importance and possibility."

Fayez said university officials were particularly impressed that Yost Grube Hall submitted a joint bid with an Afghan firm, Studio Zarnegar.

"This collaboration matches our vision for an integrated campus, both in connecting physical buildings and in combining Islamic architecture and Western architecture," Fayez said. "It symbolizes an integration of knowledge."

The campus is not slated to be finished until 2008 or 2009, but the initial freshman class of 200 students will start this fall at a renovated international school building near the construction site. The goal is to gradually increase the student body to a maximum of 5,000 students, Fayez said.

The university will launch a major donor campaign to supplement the USAID money, Fayez said. During the Portland visit, university development officials from Lewis & Clark and Portland State University shared strategies.

"Mixed feelings about it"

The university has encountered criticism in Afghanistan from those who say such an elite, private institution would siphon resources and faculty from the public university system and benefit only wealthy Afghans, said Wahab, who is on the university's board of trustees.

"I still have very mixed feelings about it," Wahab said. "But the truth is that the public system simply cannot absorb all the students who want to pursue higher education."

Only one in three university applicants gain admission, he said. Furthermore, skills that are crucial to the reconstruction economy -- business administration and high technology, taught in English -- are not available in the current system.

In the tradition of such universities in the Middle East and elsewhere, this institution will provide more opportunities for Afghan students to connect with U.S. universities and Americans -- particularly Afghan expatriates -- who study or teach in Afghanistan, Wahab said.

Because the university will be a top institution, great emphasis will be put on recruiting female students, said Peggy Poling, the American University of Afghanistan's provost.

Even in the earliest planning, officials are considering things such as providing extensive, secure women's dormitories, she said. This will help persuade families, particularly those from outside Kabul, to make the unconventional decision to send their daughters away to college.

"One of the things we've talked about is starting a student government association as part of extracurricular activities and to encourage women to become officers," Poling said. "My experience is that Afghan women are a lot more self-confident than they are portrayed. Given just a little push, they will step into leadership roles."

Poling said she is grateful for Laura Bush's interest in the university and can't help looking ahead to 2010, when the first class of the American University will graduate.

"I have no idea where she'll be, or if she'd be willing, but I like to think of her as our first commencement speaker," Poling said. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if Laura Bush could go and do that?"

Afghanistan: Empty Promises At London Conference?
The international community has pledged to stay the course in Afghanistan, but expectations are low in Kabul.
By Wahidullah Amani and Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Kabul Institute For War and Peace Reporting (ARR No. 201, 04-Feb-06)
The London Conference on Afghanistan brought fulsome speeches and promises of aid, as more than 60 nations and international organisations vowed not to abandon the country during the challenging times ahead. With over 10 billion US dollars now pledged for what is called the Afghanistan Compact, the nation can look forward to five more years of international assistance.

The conference came four years after a similar event in Germany produced the Bonn Agreement, which served as the blueprint for Afghanistan’s transition to democracy. With the parliamentary elections in September and the Bonn process completed, many in Afghanistan feared that international donors would lose interest in their nation’s development. The purpose of the London Conference was, in part, to set those fears to rest.

Afghanistan is no stranger to conferences and promises. Donor meetings in Tokyo in 2002 and Berlin in 2004 promised close to 13 billion dollars in aid and raised hopes and expectations at home.

But many question why the promised aid has failed produce tangible results. More than four years after the ouster of the Taleban, Afghanistan remains largely without paved roads, clean water or stable electricity. Construction projects lag behind schedule.

Afghans grumble that the money has been misused or stolen, and many are afraid that this time will be no different. Corruption and mismanagement will drain any benefit from donor assistance, they say.

“If the international community wants to give its money to the Afghan government, first of all they should appoint honest and patriotic people to the government,” said Habibullah Ghamkhoor, a political analyst based in Sweden. “The present administration is totally corrupt. If the money is handed over to them, they are the only ones who will ever see it.”

Non-governmental organisations, NGOs, are also at fault for misusing funds or failing to achieve their goals, said Ghamkhoor. But this is because the Afghan government is incapable of monitoring their activities, he said.

“During the past four years the NGOs have spent grant money without consulting anyone,” said Ghamkhoor. “There was no legal government in existence.”

Even now, with an elected president and parliament, the government cannot handle the money, he said.

“If the money is given to the Afghan government, the conference will have no more positive effect than any of the previous ones,” said Ghankhoor. “It will only serve to show that the international community did not forget Afghanistan.”

The Afghanistan Compact, drafted by the government of Afghanistan, outlines the country’s development strategy through 2010. It lists three critical areas: security, governance and economic and social development. Each objective is also intended to counter the growing drug trade.

The government in Kabul has promised that, with the cooperation of the international community, it will establish a 70,000-strong national army and a 62,000-strong national police force by the end of 2010. The government has also pledged to ensure that all illegal armed groups are disbanded by the end of 2007.

The Afghan government has been hoping to attract additional financial support and a renewed commitment to Afghanistan’s development. It has also been active in trying to persuade potential donors to funnel the money directly to the government rather than working through NGOs as has been the practice until now.

"Over the past four years, the awarding of grant money to NGOs has not been successful,” said political analyst Fazel Rahman Oria. “The people of Afghanistan have not profited from these grants, because the government was not able to control the NGOs.”

But giving the money to the government directly is the answer either, according to Oria.

“At present, if the money comes through the government, the people of Afghanistan will not benefit, because the government is more corrupt than the NGOs,” he said.

Corruption is one of the issues addressed in the Afghanistan Compact. The government has promised to tackle the problem, by ratifying the UN Convention against Corruption by the end of 2006, and creating monitoring mechanisms to stop graft and embezzlement in government.

Ramazan Bashar Dost, a member of parliament and long-time critic of NGO activities, managed to find fault with the government of President Hamed Karzai, the NGOs and donor organisations for the lack of progress in developing Afghanistan.

“The only way to prevent embezzlement is to get rid of the present government, starting with Karzai’s office and including all the ministers,” he told reporters on the eve of the conference. “But there should also be changes in the leadership of international organisations, such as GTZ, USAID, the Asian Development Bank, and the International Monetary Fund.”

Bashar Dost added that he was sceptical that the London Conference would bring any more benefits than the previous ones.

“There may be talk about billions of dollars in grants, but that is just talk. As long as the mafia system in Afghanistan remains in place, these grants will not benefit the people.”

The only people who seem hopeful about international assistance are ordinary Afghans.

“In comparison to the Taleban regime, my life has improved a lot,” said Kabul resident Nasratullah.

Noor Mohammad, a shopkeeper in Kabul, said that he has followed the London Conference from the beginning on radio.

“It is very useful and vital for Afghan people,” he said.

“If the United Nations had not helped Afghanistan, we would never have been freed from the Taleban’s oppression,” said another Kabul resident, Naqibullah. “Our lives have improved, but we need more assistance.”

But Mohammad Nabi, who earns his living by hawking top-up cards for mobile phones by the side of the road, was less positive.

“I know nothing about this conference,” he said. “I am too busy earning my daily bread. I have not seen any benefits of assistance over the past four years. The poor are still poor. The money donated to Afghanistan reaches only those who own cars and houses.”

Wahidullah Amani and Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi are IWPR staff reporters in Kabul.

“Un-Islamic” TV Channel in Trouble
Government cracks down on a private television station it claims is violating traditional values.
By Amanullah Nasrat in Kabul Institute For War and Peace Reporting (ARR No. 201, 04-Feb-06)
In its first move against a private television station, the government has imposed a 1,000 US dollars fine on Afghan TV for broadcasting “un-Islamic” materials.

The fine was levied by a special media commission, composed of six members from various government organs, and headed by the minister of information, culture and tourism.

The commission, which has been in place for about a year, is responsible for enforcing the country’s media law and reviewing the public’s complaints against newspapers and broadcasters.

Afghanistan’s media law prohibits the publication or broadcast of any material that is considered counter to Islamic law.

Deputy Minister of Information and Culture Sayed Aqa Hussain Sancharaki, who was present when the decision to fine Afghan TV was taken, said that the media commission had previously met with the heads of all five of Kabul’s television stations, both public and private, and urged them to cut materials that violated the Koran and Afghan culture.

But despite the warning, said Sancharaki, Afghan TV, a private station, continued to air movies and music videos that broke the media law.

“We are protectors of press freedom, but we have a responsibility to society as well, not to let our young people be misled by violence and sensuality,” he told IWPR.

Ahmad Shah Afghanzai, the owner of Afghan TV, said he is angry and bewildered by the fine. “I still do not know why [we have] been fined, nor do I know to whom I am supposed to give the money,” he told IWPR.

A statement issued by the broadcaster said, “Afghan TV is upset by this decision, which was made in its absence. We consider it unfair. Afghan TV has always designed its broadcasts based on the constitution and the media law.”

Sancharaki disputed the station’s version of events,

“The commission called Afghanzai in twice and outlined to him the complaints against him. We showed him clips which had been broadcast by his station, and he admitted that they were against our society’s values and promised it would not happen again.”

Afghan TV is one of four private stations in Kabul, and has been broadcasting since late 2004. It has a limited reach – it cannot be seen outside the capital, and does not reach every neighbourhood even in Kabul.

Afghan TV devotes the bulk of it 24-hour programming to music and films, with no news and a few analytical programmes.

At first glance, Afghan TV would not seem to be the most daring of the private stations. Tolo TV, one that is widely considered the most popular television channel in the country, has been at the centre of many controversies since it went on air in October 2004.

Ariana, another private outlet that began broadcasting at the end of 2005, has also shown movies and music videos that some have called obscene. The difference, said Sancharaki, is that Tolo and Ariana have agreed to what amounts to self-censorship.

“They [Tolo and Ariana] established offices in their stations to censor and control their broadcasts," said Sancharaki.

But the head of the news section at the Ariana Television Network, Ali Yawar Salimi, said that Araina’s censorship section was established independently of the government to ensure that Ariana’s broadcasts did not put it in conflict with Islamic culture.

"We have always had a section for controlling our broadcasts,” he said. “This was not due to pressure from the government.”

Tolo TV declined to comment on the issue. However, it has recently begun obscuring the screen during particularly risqué music videos and movies.

Rahimullah Samander, head of the Afghan Independent Journalists Association, AIJA, and a member of the media commission, defended the decision to fine Afghan TV. According to Samander, Article 33 of the media law provides for penalties against private media outlets if they go against the law.

“I am not happy that Afghan TV was fined, but I have to say it was fair,” he told IWPR. “Media in Afghanistan are only now becoming familiar with their new freedoms. If a media organisation is closed down, it would be a major blow, so levying a fine is the best option. This happens all over the world.”

Under the Taleban, music and film were forbidden; even photography was banned. When the restrictions were lifted, some media outlets sought to test the limits of what is considered acceptable.

Even today, material that would seem fairly tame by international standards – such as women dancing “suggestively” or with bare midriffs, and movies depicting couples kissing – is considered taboo.

Some Kabul residents applaud the commission’s decision, hoping this will be a lesson to other media to respect Afghan tradition.

“These private television stations are trying to replace Afghan culture with foreign culture,” said Sayed Atta Mohammad, 36. “I want the ministry of information and culture to shut these stations down.”

Others, however, fear that the ruling signals a crackdown on press freedom.

According to 29-year-old Habibullah, “By taking this decision, the ministry of information and culture once again showed the world that there is no freedom of the press in Afghanistan, and that the culture of the Taleban is still dominant.”

Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Afghan Official Asks Cable TV Stations to Respect Religious Values
Source: BBC Monitoring Media via Red Orbit Saturday, 4 February 2006
Excerpt from report by Afghan independent Aina TV on 2 February
Jowzjan Province Governor Joma Khan Hamdard had a meeting with owners of cable TV stations in his office today.

Azimollah Rahmanyar, the head of the Jowzjan Province Information, Culture and Tourism Department, also attended the meeting.

Bakhtar Information Agency reports that Azimollah Rahmanyar talked about the activities of cable TV stations and their broadcasts in Sheberghan.

There are two main cable TV stations, and one of them has a branch in Sheberghan.

Rahmanyar said that the Jowzjan Province Information, Culture and Tourism Department had been regularly monitoring programmes broadcast by cable TV stations.

He added that cable TV stations had been repeatedly asked to broadcast programmes in line with Afghan cultural values and the law and regulations regarding the media.

Evaluating the activities of cable TV stations in Sheberghan and highlighting the bravery and heroism of the Afghan people, he said: The freedom-loving and heroic people of Afghanistan have made great sacrifices during the Jihad to protect their independence and national chastity. Suffering torture, distress and disasters, they made enormous efforts to create a peaceful and friendly atmosphere in the country. We need more devotion to keep this atmosphere alive.

[Passage omitted: people's role in meeting martyrs' wishes and acting in line with Islamic values]

Cable TV stations have a duty to act in accordance with the media policy of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and in line with Afghan cultural standards and religious values. They should seriously avoid airing programmes which seduce society and run counter to Afghan culture. They should try to air sound and informative programmes, he said.

Haji Naser, an official in charge of cable TV stations in Sheberghan, gave reassurances that cable TV officials would do their best to act in line with religious values, cultural standards and media regulations of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.

The meeting ended after the necessary decisions had been taken and cable TV officials had been advised on how to improve their programmes.