Afghanistan News March 21, 2006

March 21, 2006

HAPPY NEW YEAR 1385

Afghanistan pursues strategic partnership with U.S., say Afghan FM
People's Daily - Mar 20 4:44 PM
Afghanistan is pursuing a strategic partnership with the United States, visiting Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah said here on Monday.

"I am happy to be here and I am especially happy the issue of pursuing strategic partnership with the United States," Abdullah told reporters after his talks with U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Abdullah also thanked the United States for "staying with us in a crucial moment of our history and enabling the Afghans to achieve the goals which as a result it has already contributed to the well-being of the Afghan people, of our region, global peace."

Rice said Afghanistan has become a key partner of the United States.

"We were just there with President Bush and everyone is impressed with the spirit of the Afghan people and with all that you've accomplished. And I just want to thank you for being here and for the great partnership that you provide," Rice said.

Under the leadership of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan has become a strong U.S. ally in the war against terrorism.
Source: Xinhua

Suspected Taliban Gunmen Kill Four Afghan Policemen
Reuters Tuesday, March 21, 2006; Page A12
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, March 20 -- Suspected Taliban gunmen on motorbikes shot and killed four Afghan policemen on Monday in a lawless southern province where 3,300 British troops will soon be based, a provincial official said.

The Taliban has vowed to launch a new offensive against foreign forces and the Western-backed government as Afghanistan's NATO allies, including Britain, Canada and the Netherlands, are sending thousands more troops.

The policemen were killed as they were driving along a road in the Mosa Qala district of the southern province of Helmand, said the district's administrative chief, Haji Mohammad Wali.

"The Taliban were on motorbikes. After they opened fire, they escaped," Wali said.

Helmand is a major opium-growing region, and officials say the Taliban is in league with drug gangs, complicating efforts to improve security and curb the drug trade.

The attack followed a particularly bloody spell in Afghanistan. Nine Afghan policemen were killed in a blast on Friday, and four U.S. troops were killed in an explosion a week ago.

Other incidents in recent days included the killing of four Macedonian workers kidnapped by the Taliban, the assassination of a powerful Taliban critic in an eastern province and the attempted killing of that province's governor.

The U.S. military has said it expects an increase in insurgent raids and bombings in coming months.

The expansion of Afghanistan's NATO-led peacekeeping mission from 9,000 to 16,000 troops is on course to be completed by the summer, a spokeswoman for the force said. As NATO troops take over responsibilities, the United States is hoping to cut the number of its troops in Afghanistan by several thousand to about 16,000.

Two mines recovered in Kabul's Kart-i-Sakhi area
KABUL, Mar 21 (Pajhwok Afghan News): Destruction was averted as security officials recovered and defused two anti-personnel mines in the Kart-i-Sakhi area of this central capital on Tuesday.

A large number of Kabul dwellers gathered at the Sakhi mausoleum to celebrate the new Afghan year. Had the mines went off, it would cause large number of casualties among the jubilant crowd, said the security officials.

Senior official of the counter-terrorism department of the Interior Ministry Tajuddin told Pajhwok Afghan News the mines were freshly planted in the area where large number of people gathers to celebrate the first day of the new Afghan year. He said investigations were on but no one had been apprehended hitherto.

Majority of Kabul dwellers visit mausoleum of the saint to celebrate the year's first day and pray for blessings during the remaining part of the year. Last year, one man was seriously injured during the festivities on the same day in the vicinity of the Sakhi Ziarat (mausoleum).
Safia Milad

Taliban, poverty fueling Afghan opium boom
Mon Mar 20, 2006 08:16 AM ET By Yousuf Azimy
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan farmer Abdul Ghani looks over his field carpeted in small, green plants and knows this crop will feed his family.

His field is covered in opium poppies, now only leaves about 4 inches high and yet to flower.

Ghani explains his simple logic that makes him part of an illicit industry that the government says is funding terrorism and threatens to destroy the country.

"We're very poor people. To feed our families we grow poppies," said the weather-beaten 50-year-old with a gray beard and turban. His two sons, one 11, the other 12, stood by as they took a break from weeding.

Ghani said he grew wheat and vegetables such as tomatoes, but got a pittance from those crops compared with the opium he sold to traffickers, who appeared on motorbikes and in trucks at harvest time.

"We can't support our families with what we get for our wheat but we can with the income from poppies."

Ghani's field is at the epicenter of Afghanistan's drugs crisis, in the flat Helmand river valley in the southern province of the same name.

For hundreds of years networks of canals brought water to fields and orchards, producing rich crops, but the irrigation system has collapsed over years of conflict.

Now only opium brings wealth.

Taliban insurgents encourage opium growing and roam the mountains that rise from the valley in the north, and across vast tracts of lawless desert that stretch south to the Pakistani border, officials say.

Ensuring security so anti-drug efforts can go ahead in the province that produces a quarter of Afghan opium will be a main task of 3,300 British troops who will soon be based here.

They will have their work cut out.

"The Taliban have promised the farmers to protect their poppy fields," provincial governor Mohammad Daoud told a small group of reporters this week. "They have assured the farmers they will not allow the government forces for eradication."

"First security must be in place, there must be no Taliban there, then the eradication campaign will start."

ERADICATION EFFORTS
Afghanistan is the world's largest producer of opium. The heroin refined from it floods city streets across the world.

Production has ballooned since the Taliban, who banned opium at the end of their rule, were ousted in 2001.

The drug gangs have taken advantage of insecurity, weak or non-existent policing, rampant corruption and a reluctance to go after powerful figures involved in drugs but supporting the U.S-led war against the Taliban.

With international pressure mounting to tackle drugs, efforts to eradicate the $2.8 billion a year industry have begun early this season to allow farmers time to replant a legal crop.

Teams have been plowing poppy fields under but only a fraction, at most 10 percent countrywide, can be destroyed, experts say.

The United States and Britain, which fund and oversee drug efforts with the government, also stress getting tough with traffickers and providing farmers with alternatives.

For now at least, they agree with President Hamid Karzai who has ruled out aerial spraying of herbicide over poppy fields.

Karzai's more gentle approach has had results.

Farmers planted more than a fifth less opium last year, largely because of his efforts to shame them and appeals that they stop, coupled with the threat and fear of eradication.

But the U.N. anti-drugs office says production is up again this season in almost half of provinces, including Helmand.

RAISING THE RISK
U.S. Ambassador Ronald Neumann recalls his visit to Helmand in the 1960s -- when his father was the envoy -- and the United States helped rehabilitate the irrigation system that turned the valley green.

Now he's back and the United States is again helping Helmand fix its canals as part of long-term efforts to fight drugs and the Taliban.

"There is more linkage here in Helmand between the drug trade and the Taliban and terrorism than there is anywhere else in Afghanistan," Neumann told reporters during a visit to the provincial capital, Lashkar Gah, this week.

Long-term, the answer to drugs was alternative livelihoods, meaning the restoration of the rural economy -- the canals, roads and electricity.

In the meantime, eradication and action against those involved had to convince farmers of the risks, he said.

"You have to raise the risk and the cost of growing poppy even as you provide alternatives," he said.

Farmer Ghani is not risking much: just the money and time spent on his field, if authorities destroy it.

He'd stop growing opium if he got help, he said.

"This isn't something we can eat and we're not opium addicts. If the government helps us, we won't grow it."

Afghanistan finds more bird flu, likely H5N1
March 20, 2006
KABUL (AFP) - Tests confirmed a new outbreak of bird flu in Afghanistan and authorities strongly believe that it is the deadly H5N1 strain.

The broad H5-type virus was found in dead chickens in the eastern province of Kunar, which borders Pakistan, health ministry advisor Abdullah Fahim told AFP.

Afghanistan and the United Nations last week revealed the presence of H5N1 in six poultry samples taken from the capital Kabul and from the province of Nangarhar.

"It is very likely that the H5 type confirmed in Kunar provinces is the N1 sub-type since it is confirmed positive in neighbouring Nangarhar... and in Kabul," Fahim said Monday.

UN spokesman Adrian Edwards said it was the first time infected birds had been found in Kunar.

No human cases have been reported yet in Afghanistan, he added.

Afghanistan ordered the slaughter of thousands of chickens after last week's announcement that H5N1 had been detected.

About 85 percent of the Afghan population live in close contact with poultry, officials have said, with most rural families having several chickens in the backyard.

Afghanistan to start bird flu cull on Wednesday
KABUL, March 20 (Reuters) - Afghanistan hopes to begin culling chickens in areas infected by the H5N1 bird flu virus on Wednesday after the U.S. military supplied some protective suits for workers, an Agriculture Ministry official said.

The H5N1 virus was confirmed in two provinces last week and it has assumed to have spread to at least three others, officials said.

"The day after tomorrow we will start the depopulation of affected areas," Azizullah Osmani, chief of the Agriculture Ministry's veterinary department told Reuters.

Tests at a U.N. Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) laboratory in Italy confirmed H5N1 had been found in the capital, Kabul, and the eastern province of Nangarhar.

The H5 subtype of bird flu had also been found in dead birds in Laghman province east of Kabul, Wardak to the west and in Kunar province, on the eastern border with Pakistan, Osmani said.

While tests had yet to determine if the strain in those three provinces was H5N1, experts were working on the assumption that it was, said a spokesman for the FAO.

Bird flu has killed about 100 people since late 2003, most of them in Asia. Experts fear the virus could mutate into a form that passes easily between humans and trigger a pandemic that could kill millions.

There have been no human cases in Afghanistan but there is concern that with veterinary and health sectors still recovering from decades of conflict, the country could struggle to contain an outbreak.

Osmani said he was speaking by mobile telephone from a district to the west of Kabul where H5N1 had been confirmed, to explain Wednesday's cull, which is due to begin there, to village elders and municipal authorities.

He said the U.S. military in Afghanistan had provided 50 protective suits for cull workers.

A U.N. spokesman stressed the importance of quick action to contain the disease.

"It's clearly important to see action rather than just statements on this and we look forward to see what the government is coming up with," said the spokesman, Adrian Edwards.

"The imperative here is speed," he said.

Afghan and U.N. officials have stressed the importance of giving farmers compensation for their culled birds.

Afghanistan's poultry industry was decimated by several years of drought up to 2005 and is small-scale with only an estimated 12 million chickens in the country, another Afghan official said.

US keeping close eye on trial of Afghan Christian
Mon Mar 20, 4:17 PM ET
WASHINGTON (AFP) - The United States said it was watching closely the trial of an Afghan man who could face death for converting to Christianity in a test of religious freedom for the key US ally.

State Department spokesman Sean McCormack urged the Afghan authorities to deal with the proceedings against Abdul Rahman transparently and according to the rule of law.

"It's a case that we're following very closely," McCormack said of Rahman's week-old trial on charges of violating Islamic Sharia law.

"Our view certainly ... is that tolerance, freedom of worship, is an important element of any democracy," he said. "These are issues, as Afghan democracy matures, that they are going to have to deal with increasingly."

Rahman was detained two weeks ago after his relatives reported his conversion to Christianity to the police. A Supreme Court judge said he could be executed if he refused to return to Islam.

If sentenced, the defendant will be the first Afghan punished for conversion since US-backed forces ousted the hardline Taliban regime at the end of 2001 in reprisal for the September 11 terror attacks on the United States.

McCormack said Afghanistan, which has become a major ally in Washington's war on the Al-Qaeda terrorist network, was debating varying constitutional interpretations of religious freedom.

"These issues rightfully should get resolved through the court system," he said. "But they need to be resolved in a transparent (manner) and according to the rule of law."

Afghanistan's Taliban shifts to propaganda war: US
March 20, 2006
KABUL (AFP) - The Taliban have abandoned attempts at a serious military campaign in Afghanistan and are now fighting a propaganda war, the US military said, despite an increase in attacks by the rebels.

"The insurgents have clearly failed in their objectives to establish a regional control in Afghanistan," US chief military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts told a regular news conference in Kabul.

"So they shifted their tactics to tactics such as improvised explosive devices (IED). They have shifted to a propaganda war instead of a tactical war," he said.

Rebels loyal to the former Taliban regime, which was toppled by a US-led invasion in late 2001, are still waging an intense insurgency against the 20,000-strong US-led coalition and thousands of Afghan troops.

Violence linked to the Taliban claimed around 1,700 lives last year, including nearly 100 US soldiers along with many militants. Another nine American troops have died since January this year.

Afghanistan has seen more than 30 suicide car bombings and roadside bombings in recent months that are similar to those seen in Iraq, while the Taliban are avoiding pitched battles against the superior firepower of the US-led forces.

Yonts said that some insurgent methods seen in Iraq were being used by Taliban militants, but he added that the technology used by Iraqi fighters had not come to Afghanistan.

"We see the same form of tactics but not the same technology," he said.

"The enemy shifted to IEDs. We also shifted our tactics, our intelligence and our operations to combat that shift," he said.

On Sunday a French soldier with the US-led force suffered minor injuries when a suicide car bomber slammed his explosive-laden vehicle into a coalition convoy in violence-prone southern Afghanistan.

Stinger missiles in Afghanistan a threat: US
March 20, 2006
KABUL (AFP) - US-made Stinger missiles will pose a threat to military and commercial aircraft across the region if they fall into the hands of Taliban rebels in Afghanistan, the US-led coalition said.

Washington supplied a large number of shoulder-fired Stingers to Afghans fighting the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and dozens are still thought to be missing.

There was no evidence to support media reports that the Taliban had obtained some of the heat-seeking missiles but coalition forces were continuously monitoring the situation, spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts said.

"Stinger missiles are a dangerous threat. It's a worry to all Afghans, Pakistanis and the coalition," Yonts told reporters in Kabul.

"Stinger missiles can be used not only against coalition aircraft but against civilians flying in the area, commercial aircraft coming in and out," he added.

"(Stingers are) a common enemy and a regional threat that we have to address."

The CIA has offered 150,000 to 200,000 dollars for each remaining missile in Afghanistan, an Afghan intelligence official has said.

Recent media reports recently said that US and NATO authorities were concerned that some had been bought by the Taliban, who are waging a bloody insurgency more than four years after their regime was ousted.

"Right now we don't have any indications they are in theater. But it's one of those items that we continously look at from a regional perpsective," Yonts said.

A US-led military operation overthrew the Taliban in late 2001 for not handing over Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden following the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
Violence linked to the Taliban has claimed thousands of lives, including 1,700 last year, most of whom were militants. Nearly 100 US soldiers also died in Afghanistan 2005, and another nine since January this year.

Off Course in Afghanistan
By Chris Van Hollen Tuesday, March 21, 2006; Page A17 The Washington Post
When President Bush touched down briefly in Afghanistan on his way to India, he was probably the closest he will ever get to the man who masterminded the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States: Osama bin Laden, who is believed to be hiding in Pakistan along the rugged Afghan-Pakistani border. It was a stark reminder that we have not accomplished our mission of destroying bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Fulfilling that mission and preventing a resurgence of the Taliban will depend on the actions we take in Afghanistan. This is no time to reduce our commitment there.

While the president was in Afghanistan, the director of the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Gen. Michael Maples, was testifying before Congress that the Taliban insurgency is growing and will increase this spring, presenting a greater threat to the Afghan central government's expansion of authority than at any point since late 2001. Under these circumstances, the current plan to replace the 2,500 U.S. troops in southern Afghanistan this spring with contingents of Canadian, Dutch, British, Romanian and Australian troops is a mistake. Given the intensifying Taliban insurgency, these allied forces should augment, not displace, U.S. forces. We should also reassess the administration's proposal to turn over the command of most U.S. troops in Afghanistan to NATO by early next year.

While Gen. James Jones, NATO's supreme allied commander, has tried to play down Maples's grim assessment, it is hard to ignore the fact that the Taliban has stepped up its operations. Last year, attacks by the Taliban and other anti-government groups jumped by 20 percent. Suicide bombings increased almost fourfold, and strikes with improvised explosive devices, a tactic imported from Iraq, doubled. The main battlegrounds in this insurgency are the provinces of Kandahar, Uruzgan, Helmand and Zabul, the Pashtun areas that formed the Taliban stronghold.

As recently as Jan. 10, Mullah Mohammad Omar, the Taliban leader who was born in southern Afghanistan and forged a close bond with bin Laden -- rejected a call to reconcile with the government of President Hamid Karzai and publicly exhorted his followers to fight on. It appears that his followers are listening. James Kunder, assistant administrator of the U.S. Agency for International Development, told Congress that in January: a school headmaster was shot in Helmand; 200 schools in Kandahar and 165 schools in Helmand closed for security reasons; and in Zabul, where a campaign of intimidation had already closed all but five of 170 schools, a high school teacher was beheaded. February was also deadly: In a 14-day period, 24 violent incidents and 37 deaths were reported in the media.

Stopping this violence requires forceful action. Until now, NATO forces have been stationed in relatively quiet areas and their role has been limited primarily to peacekeeping, rather than combat, operations. There are real questions about whether NATO will be able to engage the Taliban as aggressively as U.S. forces.

The withdrawal of U.S. forces from southern Afghanistan will also weaken our ability to demand that Pakistan move more forcefully to prevent the Taliban from using Pakistan as a base of operations. Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence Agency has had a cozy relationship with the Taliban, and many in the Afghan government doubt Pakistan's commitment to denying sanctuary to Taliban fighters. If U.S. troops won't pursue them, why should Pakistan's?

Afghanistan's stability depends on strengthening the central government, developing the economy and limiting the booming opium trade. Progress on these fronts requires that the Taliban be neutralized and that security be improved. The anticipated withdrawal of U.S. forces has reportedly already caused some local leaders to hedge their bets with respect to the Taliban. Economic development has been slowed because, as Kunder testified, "our contractors are being targeted, and a number of them have been killed, making it more difficult for USAID to recruit appropriately qualified staff." And the lack of security in southern Afghanistan makes it more difficult to eradicate the drug trade in places such as Helmand, which produced more opium last year than any other province, representing about 20 percent of the world's supply of heroin.

We should never forget that the Taliban came to power in the chaos that followed the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan and the subsequent U.S. disengagement from the region. With the Bush administration and political Washington focused on Iraq, many Afghan leaders worry that the reduction of U.S. forces is a sign that we will again lose sight of Afghanistan. We do so at our peril. Let us not forget that the Sept. 11 plot was launched from Afghanistan, and not from Iraq.

The writer is a Democratic member of Congress from Maryland.

Investor to Open Furniture Factory in Afghanistan
MEHTARLAM, March 20 [Asia Pulse] - An Afghan investor currently living in France is poised to launch a furniture manufacturing factory in Nangraj district in Afghanistan's northeastern Nuristan province.

Barakzai Wardak, an Afghan investor has built a US$5.5 million factory in Kalagosh, Nangraj, and has already started installing machines.

Barakzai told Pajhwok Afghan News Sunday that he has run a furniture factory in Paris for 20 years.

He said there has been much illegal logging and exporting of timber in Afghanistan and that he wanted to use the wood to benefit the country.

After signing an agreement with the ministry of food, agriculture and livestock, he said he wanted to send his money to Afghanistan to manufacture furniture.

The foreign millionaire said: "If the Afghan government and people help me I am confident of defeating furniture of France, Indonesia, India and other countries in Kabul market."

He said all the items that could be made of wood would be manufactured in the factory.

Regarding professional people, Barakzai said he would hire some experts from France, however, the common labourers would be the Afghans.

Hailing the project, Tamim Nuristani told this news agency that he was giving prime importance to such special sector. He said he would fully support all entrepreneurs who wanted to invest money in the region.

District head of Nangraj Engineer Nauroz Khadim said that they had granted five-acres of land for the factory and would continue their efforts in future.
(Pajhwok Afghan News)

Bitter Turn in Afghan-Pakistan Political Ties Seen to Sour Trade
Tuesday March 21, 10:53 AM
ISLAMABAD, Mar 21 Asia Pulse - Pakistani and Afghan traders agreed Monday that the recent bitter turn in ties between the two neighbouring neighbouring countries had badly damaged their economic links.

Former president of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry and exporter of trade goods to Afghanistan Sarwar Khan Momand said due to current tension Pakistan might reduce trade with Afghanistan.

He told Pajhwok Afghan News that on one hand the Pakistani government wanted to strengthen trade ties with Afghanistan but on the other hand had soared political links with the war-torn country.

Ghazanfar Bilour, A Member of the Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry, told this news agency that the poor trade polices of Pakistan and the meager facilities available in Afghanistan had badly affected the export of goods to the impoverished and war-battered country and the recent tension had further aggravated trade ties.

Ghazanfar said: "Pakistani products have to face two competitors in the shape of India and Iran in Afghanistan, that have bitterly damaged market for Pakistani goods due to minimum tax on them, but the recent turn in links may further affect this market."

An Islamabad based economist Manzoor Bajwa told Pajhwok Afghan News that those to blame for the escalation in tensions not want to see close Afghan-Pakistan ties develop.

But, Head of the Afghanistan Chamber of Commerce Hamidullah Farooqi said the renewed tensions had not impacted on the trade links between Islamabad and Kabul.

He said: "I think the recent strain could not disrupt trade ties in the two Islamic countries."
(Pajhwok Afghan News)

Afghan child addicts bring the heroin problem home
From Tim Albone in Kabul London Times - Mon, Mar 20, 2006
::nobreak::SOAMAN is like any other four-year-old — except that she used to be a heroin addict.
The child’s 27-year-old mother, Najia, said from behind her stained blue burka: “My husband used to smoke in the house when she played and she breathed it in. One day he couldn’t afford his drugs and she was sick and crying — we realised she was addicted too.”

In a poor country, Najia is the poorest of the poor. She lives with her husband and daughter in Kabul’s old city, an area of winding dirt lanes, tumbling mud huts and drug addicts who openly smoke their goods.

The smell from the open sewers is overpowering.

To pay for their addictions, Najia and her husband sold their furniture, their carpets and even their clothes, leaving them destitute.

Najia, who like many Afghans is known by one name, said: “My husband became addicted when he returned to Afghanistan from Iran. He couldn’t find a job and became depressed. When I married him I didn’t know he was an addict. He got me addicted.”

Afghanistan has long been the largest heroin-producing nation, responsible for 90 per cent of the world’s supply.

The abundance of the drug has led to a sharp increase in the number of Afghans using it.

The Nejat Centre, which treats child and female drug addicts in the old city, has more than 900 women and 110 children on its books.

The latest United Nations report estimates that more than 2 per cent of the country’s female population are drug users and about 1 per cent of under-15s use drugs. For the male population, the figure is even higher, at 12 per cent.

Muhammad Aman Roufi, supervisor at the Nejat Centre, said: “The problem of drug addiction has increased hugely since the fall of the Taleban, especially among the women.”

Balqis Kabir, 29, a social worker in the old city, said: “People get desperate for drugs; they will do anything to get money. I’ve even heard of addicts stealing shoes from outside a mosque to sell for drugs money.”

According to Mr Roufi, the reasons for addiction are varied. Many people picked up drugs in the refugee camps of Iran and Pakistan, having fled there during the civil war. Others are depressed about unemployment and many are war widows who lost husbands in the years of strife.

Shajina, 45, lost her husband nine years ago when he was killed fighting the Taleban. She told The Times: “I couldn’t sleep, and I couldn’t tolerate the loneliness. I was poor and my children were crying for food. I started to take opium to numb the pain.”

Shajina, who was addicted for more than seven years and says that she is now free from opium, lives with her daughter Nooria, 30, also a former addict and a war widow.

Their house is dusty, there is little furniture and a burka hangs on the wall. Their lives illustrate the pain and suffering that Afghanistan and its people have had to endure during almost three decades of war.

Nooria said: “My husband was killed the same year as my mother; they never found the body. The pain for us was too much. We both started using soon after and then became addicts.”

Swiss documentary on Afghanistan: Pakistani, Saudi engineers helped destroy Buddhas
Daily Times –Pakistan -Khalid Hasan March 19, 2006
WASHINGTON: The Bamiyan Buddhas in Afghanistan were destroyed by the Taliban with the help of Pakistani and Saudi engineers.

According to an account published here on Saturday, a local Afghan told the makers of a Swiss documentary on the giant statues which had stood there, carved in the side of a mountain for hundreds of years, had been destroyed by engineers from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. The dynamiting of the statues took place in March 2001. Swiss documentary filmmaker Christian Frei, who has made several documentaries that have won praise at various international film festivals, shot ‘The Giant Buddhas’ in Afghanistan. The film is due to be shown at the National Gallery of Art in Washington on 26 March.

The Taliban went ahead with the destruction of the giant statues, revered for centuries, because they considered them “offensive to Islam”. They ignored appeals from around the world, including UNESCO and an appeal from the then Government of Pakistan, made, it would appear now, more “for the record” than any serious intent to stop the Islamist zealots from destroying what the rest of the world considered mankind’s heritage.

Taliban minister of information Qudratullah Jamal said in a statement later, “The destruction work is not as easy as people would think. You can’t knock down the statues by dynamite or shelling as both of them have been carved in a cliff. They are firmly attached to the mountain.” Museums and governments around the world kept hoping until the end that the Taliban would desist from committing what the rest of the world saw as an act of “cultural sacrilege” but they were adamant in their resolve.

A delegation from the Organisation of the Islamic Conference went to Kandahar to urge the Taliban leaders to change their mind, but was turned down. The Taliban information minister was quoted at the time as saying, “We would repeat to them as we have to other delegations that we are not going to back away from the edict, and that no statues in Afghanistan will be spared.” UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan also urged the Taliban not to go ahead but was rebuffed.

Koichiro Matsuura, the head UNESCO, said the agency would continue efforts to salvage other Afghan relics targeted for destruction. “It is abominable to witness the cold and calculated destruction of cultural properties which were the heritage of the Afghan people, and, indeed, of the whole of humanity,” he said in a statement. Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak dispatched the Grand Mufti of Egypt to Afghanistan to plead with the Taliban rulers to spare the statues but his emissary had no success either. Zahi Hawas, the man in charge of the plateau holding the great pyramids outside Cairo, said at the time, “They are making bad publicity about Islam - and Islam has nothing to do with what is happening in Afghanistan.”

Xuanzang, a 7th century Chinese monk, pilgrim and chronicler, travelled to Bamiyan and wrote a graphic description of the statues. He even mentioned a giant “sleeping Buddha” in the area, but no trace has been found of that in modern times.

Family of Afghan man shot by troops wants Canadian citizenship: brother
MURRAY BREWSTER / March 20, 2006
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (CP) - The price of compensating Nasrat Ali Hassan's immediate family for his accidental shooting death at a military checkpoint should start with an offer of Canadian citizenship and education, the victim's eldest brother said Monday.

"Afghanistan is too much broken," Qasimali Ali Hassan, 64, said in an interview with The Canadian Press through a translator. "The family should be taken to Canada, where it is safe. If the children are taken to Canada for the highest education, it would be appreciated."

A formal investigation into the checkpoint shooting of Ali Hassan by a Canadian soldier has yet to assign blame, but commanders on the ground here have already begun looking into ways to compensate his relatives and to placate the local Shi'a community.

Although they have exchanged letters of condolence, military authorities have yet to meet the family to express regrets - an important formality in local culture.

Quasimali Ali Hassan said his sister-in-law, her six children, one grandchild and the wife of the eldest son should be allowed to immigrate to Canada as reparation for the shooting.

"They don't have any other option," he said, noting that women - widowed or otherwise - have very few opportunities in the male-dominated Afghan society.

The demand will be put to Canadian authorities when they formally meet, likely in two or three days.

The face-to-face encounter, which was supposed to happen over the weekend, has been postponed because the family requested it be in their home, but military officials say it's not a secure location.

The family's bid to immigrate has the backing of Mohammed Yousef Hussaini, a local Kandahar politician running for Afghanistan's parliament.

"If Canada does not agree to this, then Canada is not our friend, Canada is our enemy," he said through a translator.

Canada's deputy commander of the provincial reconstruction team (PRT) said dealing with the family's immigration request is not a decision he can make.

"I personally am not involved in the decisions that would lead to a settlement," said Maj. Erik Liebert.

"I look at this in context. I don't see this as any different than a situation in Canada. The family would want some kind of compensation and the family would be speaking to the press and whoever would listen, requesting what they considered adequate compensation."

Nasrat Ali Hassan was shot a week ago as the motorized rickshaw in which he was a passenger came suddenly upon a Canadian PRT convoy parked at a traffic circle in this volatile community.

Military authorities say the rickety overloaded three-wheeled scooter blew past a police checkpoint and ignored several warnings to stop. A soldier opened fire, but did not specifically aim at the vehicle, Canadian commanders said.

Ali Hassan's widow, Semem Gul, disputed the military's version of events and claimed there was no warning.

Bleeding and with sobbing relatives around him, Ali Hassan was treated by a Canadian medic, who didn't consider the injuries to be serious. Ali Hassan was left for local authorities to call an ambulance.

The family claimed it begged the Canadians, through an interpreter, to take him to hospital, but were refused. They also say the interpreter warned they'd be shot if they came close to the convoy.

Forced to call another taxi, relatives took Ali Hassan to hospital where he died three hours after being admitted.

Reaction to Ali Hassan's death on the streets of Kandahar has been somewhat muted by the fact that he was a minority Shi'a.

Sensitive to that aspect of the tragedy, Liebert, the deputy commander of the PRT, said the military is trying to convince the Canadian International Development Agency to establish some kind of project in the community.

Parliament Makes Little Headway
The newly-elected body is at loggerheads with President Karzai over how the government is appointed
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Amanullah Nasrat and Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi in Kabul and Mazar-e-Sharif (ARR No. 207, 19-Mar-06)
It’s been more than two months since member of Afghanistan’s first democratically elected parliament in almost 40 years took their seats, but legislators cannot yet point to a single solid achievement.

Even members of the Wolesi Jirga or National Assembly - the lower house of parliament which so far has failed to win public trust, has been ridiculed in the media and aroused some hostility from the government - acknowledge that there’s been little progress.

“We have had no achievements over the past two months,” said Shukria Barakzai, a deputy from Kabul. “Our time is taken up with making deals.”

While they’ve been busy coming to terms among themselves, parliamentarians have been unable to reach agreement with the presidential administration office on how the current government should be confirmed in office.

According to article 64 of the constitution, parliament has the right to confirm the cabinet and other major appointments. And article 161 states that the government must be formed within one month of parliament’s opening session.

Parliament first convened on December 19, and since then it has been engaged in a pitched battle with President Hamed Karzai over the confirmation process.

The legislature wants to confirm each minister individually. The president wants a straight yes or no vote on the entire cabinet.

“There are both good and bad ministers in the current cabinet. We cannot accept dishonest ministers for the sake of a few competent ministers, or reject all of them because of a few traitors,” said Kabir Ranjbar, a member of parliament and prominent legal scholar.

Presidential spokesman Karim Rahimi countered, “We respect parliament as an independent body. We do not want to interfere in its affairs. We would not force parliament to accept our cabinet, but we think it is much easier to vote for a group.”

The constitution does not provide any clarification on how confirmation should take place. The result is a standoff that does not bode well for future cooperation between the legislative and executive.

The two sides cannot even agree on how to begin the process. The president’s office says it is waiting for a request from parliament before submitting its list of ministers.

“Parliament has now agreed that it will vote individually, but they still have not officially asked us for a list of ministers. When we get a letter from parliament, we will then announce our final decision,” said Rahimi.

But Mohammad Younus Qanooni, the speaker of parliament, said that they were waiting for the list from the president, “The new cabinet has not been submitted yet, and we will decide about the vote of confidence once the president presents his list.”

Meanwhile, a new conflict is brewing over the voting system. The president’s administration wants an open vote, while parliamentarians prefer a secret ballot.

“There are still gunmen in power, so if the vote is conducted openly, parliamentarians cannot vote for whom they want,” said Farooq Mirani, a delegate from Nangarhar. “Even now, members of parliament are being threatened.”

According to Rahimi, an open, transparent vote would be more democratic. “People voted for their representatives. They should be able to see how they vote,” he said.

The present ministers were appointed by Karzai in December, 2004. In the absence of a parliament, they have run the country with very little oversight from any other branch of authority.

The dispute is about more than a list of ministers - it is a trial of wills between two branches of power. Karzai’s administration has ruled by decree since the elections in October 2004, but now it must accommodate itself to a fractious and inexperienced legislature which appears determined to flex its muscles.

“The government has not yet realised that there is another centre of power. It is called parliament,” said Ranjbar.

Analysts say it should come as no surprise that the newly-formed legislature has accomplished so little in its first two months.

“It has been a relatively short time since parliament was formed,” said political analyst Mohammad Qasim Akhgar. “We cannot expect great results so quickly.”

But, he cautioned, “Parliament’s performance to date does give rise to concern that it is unable to focus on basic issues. All they are doing is wasting time.”

So far, Akhgar pointed out, the only concrete work that parliament has carried out has been to take the minister of information, culture and tourism to task for “un-Islamic” broadcast content in the media. This, he says, has just distracted them from their basic task of approving the cabinet.

Malalai Shinwari, a parliamentarian from Kabul, agreed that confirmation of the government was the most pressing issue. But it will require some political horse-trading, she said.

“There is political rivalry in every society,” she said. “There must be concessions from both sides on the cabinet issue.”

So far, no one is budging. Parliament insists it has the right to examine multiple candidatures for each cabinet post until it finds one to its liking. Karzai’s office says that if parliament rejects three of its nominees for a post, the fourth should be confirmed automatically.

Legislators reject this proposal. “Parliament has decided that until a minister is presented who reflects the wishes of the people, it can reject all of them [candidatures],” said Ranjbar.

Presidential spokesman Rahimi is sure such disputes will be resolved. “We will ultimately reach agreement, because both we and parliament are seeking to establish an effective and skilled cabinet,” he said.

But some deputies aren’t so sure their colleagues are up to this.

“Parliament is made up of many groups and factions, most of whom gained their seats through the use of force,” said Mohammad Hashem Watanwal, a representative from Uruzgan in the south. “They cannot make decisions because they know nothing about parliamentary affairs.”

Political analyst Mohammad Hassan Wolesmal believes Karzai ultimately holds the upper hand in any dispute with parliament.

“The parliament has received a lot of privileges from the government,” he said, referring to what many see as the high salaries and generous expense accounts awarded to lawmakers. “These privileges are like a pillow over their mouths. The parliamentarians will vote according to their own personal interests.”

Some members of parliament so far have done little to enhance the body’s reputation. One private television station recently broadcast video footage of several deputies either asleep or playing games during a legislative session.

Small wonder, then, that few in Kabul have a kind word to say about their parliament.

“We thought that parliament would help us determine our future, but it has done nothing for young people or for society as a whole,” said Ahmad Khalid, 26, who sells coal in central Kabul. “Parliamentarians think about their own privileges, nothing else.”

Shahla, 30, who works at the Afghan Chamber of Commerce, agreed. “They have not been able to solve even one small problem since they began,” she said. “They will do nothing in the future, either.”

Sayed Yaqub Ibrahimi is an IWPR staff reporter in Mazar-e-Sharif. Amanullah Nasrat is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul. Salima Ghafari also contributed to this report.

Provincial Councils Demand Power
Local representatives are trying to turn their largely symbolic positions into seats of real authority Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Wahidullah Amani in Kabul (ARR No. 207, 19-Mar-06)
It was hardly surprising that many of the provincial councillors who attended a recent meeting in Kabul to discuss their rights and responsibilities seemed a bit confused and annoyed.

After all, the local assemblies on which they sit have no clearly defined role.

The local councils were elected along with the lower house of parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, in a general ballot held in September. And like the national body, they are struggling to define their place in the slowly emerging political process.

Part of the problem is that the constitution provides little guidance on exactly what the provincial bodies are supposed to do.

The 34 councils are elected for a four-year term by a proportional representational system based on the estimated population of each province, and they then select their own chairperson.

But the constitution is less clear about their job, and their powers vis-à-vis other government bodies, particularly the regional administrations led by governors which are appointed by Kabul rather than elected.

“The provincial council takes part in meeting the developmental targets of the state and improving its affairs in a manner defined by law, and gives advice on important issues falling within the domain of the province,” says the document. “Provincial councils perform their duties in cooperation with the provincial administration.”

In an attempt to encourage debate about the councils’ role, the Ministry for Parliamentary Affairs recently organised a three-day seminar for council members from around the country. In advance of the meeting, they issued delegates with copies of the law on provincial councils approved by President Hamed Karzai. In a nod to the country’s high illiteracy rate, the document was distributed as a tape recording as well as in paper copies.

The local representatives clearly had their own ideas about their posts and were not shy about voicing their concern over the impotent role they think the law assigns them.

“We do not want to be mere observers charged with advising local authorities on provincial matters. We want some genuine oversight,” said Maulawi Habibullah Hassam, head of the Kabul provincial council, addressing the seminar on behalf of other delegates.

Council members grumble that the current law binds them hand and foot, giving them no authority at all. Among the areas in which they are demanding more power are provincial budgets and the appointments made by the regional administrations.

“The current law on provincial councils should be amended by parliament,” said Habibullah. “Local government should be required to consult with the provincial council before removing or appointing district chiefs, police chiefs and other major personnel at district and provincial level. In addition, provincial councils should approve budgets and control expenditures.”

One provision of the law particularly irked delegates at the seminar. According to article 11, the Afghan president can dissolve the councils if he deems them a threat to national security. He must gain the approval of the Supreme Court to do this, but even so, council members say that this gives the executive too much power over them.

“We are elected representatives of the people - the same as parliament - and no one should have the authority to dissolve the councils,” said Habibullah. “This article should be removed.”

Another sore spot has to do with their privileges and salaries. Provincial council members are paid 10,000 afghani per month (200 US dollars) which, while ample in a country where most government workers make no more than 60 dollars a month, pales in comparison with the 1,100 dollars being handed out to members of the Wolesi Jirga.

“Our salaries and other privileges need to be equivalent to parliament’s,” said Habibullah.

He also asked for council members to be assigned offices, equipment and transport. At present the 34 provincial administrations allot just two rooms to the council – clearly inadequate in places like Kabul where there are 29 representatives vying for space.

Some delegates bristled at media reports that all they were interested in was gaining material benefits for themselves.

“We don’t want cars or dollars. We only want someone to sort out our problems,” said Fazal Hadi Muslimyar, head of Nangarhar’s provincial council. “The current law is not acceptable. A system needs to be created for us.”

Belqis Roshan, a female delegate from Farah, told IWPR that she was satisfied with her salary but had other demands. “I want power, not money,” she said. “We should have some power to control the regional administration. All we do now is consult. We are just symbols.”

Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Ghulam Farooq Wardak told IWPR that the government had listened intently to the delegates’ demands, and would respond.

“There is ambiguity in the law of provincial councils. The delegates want the law to be amended, and it will indeed be amended by parliament - but according to the Afghan constitution,” he said.

Wardak assured the delegates that the government would work with regional leaders to broaden the councils’ authority.

“We will send official letters to all the [administrations in the] provinces telling them to consult with the provincial councils on all matters,” he said.

On the financial question, Wardak said that the government would do everything possible to meet the delegates’ needs.

Finance Minister Anwar ul-Haq Ahadi told delegates that the main problem is the constitution, which does not go into enough detail on the role the councils should play.

“This is why the delegates are unhappy,” he told IWPR. “The government does not really see a way to resolve this problem, either.”

Political analyst Habibullah Rafi said provincial councils must have more authority.

“Councils are like a provincial parliament, and they have to be given as much authority as the parliament is given in the capital,” he said. Provincial councils must have the authority to control the regional administration and call in officials for questioning, he added.

While most delegates have now returned home, the council heads are still in Kabul, where they say they will sit with government representatives and lawyers to bring about changes in the law.

“We will stay until we solve all of our problems,” said Mohammadjan, the head of Paktia council. “If the government cannot solve our problems, how can they solve the problems facing the population?”

Wahidullah Amani is an IWPR staff reporter in Kabul.

Slow Progress on Women’s Rights
The women’s affairs ministry is trying to combat centuries of mistreatment and violence, but many are demanding more rapid results
Institute for War & Peace Reporting
By Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada in Kabul (ARR No. 207, 19-Mar-06)
Women in parliament, girls in school, uncovered female faces on the streets – life has changed significantly for women in this country since the Taleban regime was ousted more than four years ago.

But few would dispute that Afghan women are among the most disadvantaged on the planet.

“A cruel joke has it that in Afghanistan, women never grow old,” said Massouda Jalal, Minister of Women’s Affairs. The reason? Women’s life expectancy is only 44 years, one of the lowest in the world.

Only 15 per cent of women are literate, compared with 50 per cent for men. Statistics show that those women who do work are paid only half as much as their male counterparts. Up to 80 per cent of marriages are arranged without the consent of the bride, and maternal mortality rates in some parts of Afghanistan are the highest ever recorded.

Most of these conditions pre-date the Taleban, and are more the product of deeply-rooted cultural traditions than a product of the fiercely fundamentalist but short-lived regime.

Because of this, Jalal and her ministry are taking a long-term approach to improving women’s lives.

Over the next ten years, Jalal said that if her policies are implemented; all girls under the age of five will be vaccinated against a range of diseases; 60 to 70 per cent of girls will attend school; maternal mortality will fall by 15 per cent; and the number of female teachers will increase by 50 per cent.

"The Ministry of Women’s Affairs has created a national work plan for women and tied it into Afghanistan’s national strategy,” said Jalal.

Jalal, a medical doctor, is the third woman to head the ministry, which was created in 2001. Sima Samar, the first person in the post, now chairs the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Her successor, Habiba Sorabi, was appointed by President Hamid Karzai as governor of Bamian province, the first woman to be elevated to such a post.

Jalal, who finished sixth in a field of 18 presidential candidates in 2004, has been in charge of the ministry since December 2004.

She points to the ministry’s numerous achievements since she took office, such as encouraging women to run for parliament and the provincial councils in the 2005 elections and helping to form women’s councils and associations throughout the country.

Nor is she above taking more direct action to foster change, as when she led a group of women who went to pray in a Kabul mosque earlier this month. Mosques are generally all-male bastions.

Jalal’s high-profile actions seem geared to call more attention to her ministry’s role.

After the donors’ conference in London earlier this year, Jalal made a widely publicised plea for more funding for women’s projects. She recommended that up to 10 per cent of the 10 billion US dollars pledged for Afghanistan’s reconstruction at the conference be set aside for women. The suggestion met with approval at international level. but the Afghan government did not respond.

Some observers wonder whether the government is really serious about women’s rights.

“The Ministry of Women’s Affairs is just a symbol, a way for the government to say to the world community and to women within Afghanistan that women are important to it. The government does not take the ministry seriously,” said Soraya Parlika, head of the All-Afghan Women’s Union.

Last year the ministry had a budget of approximately 2.4 million dollars, out of the government’s overall 632-million-dollar spending plan.

With funding at the current level, the pace of reform is unlikely to accelerate.

“In the past four years the ministry has not been able to really tackle women’s problems,” said Parlika. “And without the support of the government, they won’t be able to do anything in the next 40 years.”

Experts disagree on whether the ministry is doing enough to help women.

“Women are the most vulnerable, they have sustained the major losses due to war and society’s problems,” said Bashir Bejan, a political analyst. “But since its creation, the women’s ministry has done nothing to resolve the problems of women.”

But Angeles Martinez, the head of Medica Mondiale, a non-governmental organisation that specialises in women’s affairs, told IWPR that she was quite satisfied with the ministry’s performance.

“We launch all of our projects in conjunction with the ministry of women’s affairs,” she said. “The ministry is cooperating with us in all fields.”

But many ordinary Afghan women say the ministry’s programmes have done little to improve their lives.

"I have not seen any effect from this ministry yet, so it doesn’t matter to me whether it exists or not,” said Anis Gul, 46, a housewife buying vegetables from a market stall in central Kabul.

Najibah, 34, who teaches at the Wazirabad Middle School, is a widow. “Sometimes I have nothing to feed my children for days on end,” she said. “I don’t even let my neighbours know about this. What has the ministry done for me? Afghan women have many problems, and the ministry must look into them.”

Fahima, 36, a teacher at Tajwar Sultana High School, complained that the ministry’s main accomplishment has been to promote itself on television. But she said she believes it still fulfilled a valuable function in giving women a forum to air their difficulties.

"The existence of this ministry serves as a haven for women, a place where they can go to talk about their problems,” she said.

Jalal seems unruffled by the criticism, although she acknowledges the difficulties she and her ministry face, and cautions against over-inflated expectations.

“If we work together to make the situation better, it will take two or three decades,” she said. “If we don’t, it will take two or three centuries.”

Mohammad Jawad Sharifzada is an IWPR reporter in Kabul.

Sayed and de Man at Yale
The campus that ran off a Nazi propagandist today welcomes one from the Taliban.
Monday, March 20, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST HuffingtonPost - Mar 20 10:13 AM
Three weeks after the New York Times revealed that former Taliban official Sayed Rahmatullah Hashemi is attending classes at Yale, many at the university still have little to say about the controversy. Meredith Startz, president of the Yale Political Union, told me "there's more discussion of military recruiting among people at Yale than about the Taliban student."

That's partly because Ms. Startz's own organization is discouraging discussion of the subject. The union's vice president had invited me, along with Yale alumnus and Army veteran Flagg Youngblood, to debate both military recruitment and the Rahmatullah case, on campus March 29. But when he brought the proposal to the executive board, it was rejected.

"No matter how carefully we frame this debate, it would inevitably turn into a trial of a fellow student and his personal life and beliefs," Ms. Startz wrote me. "The [Political Union] is not a forum for that sort of discussion." When I asked her how mentioning Mr. Rahmatullah's professional record as an apologist and propagandist for the murderous Taliban could be construed as a discussion of "his personal life and beliefs," she told me I was playing "semantics." But she stuck to her view that the debate would be improper.

Yet Mr. Rahmatullah's views have been deliberated on the Yale campus before, by Mr. Rahmatullah himself. In March 2001 Gustav Ranis, then director of Yale's Center for International and Area Studies, moderated a debate on the Taliban at Yale between the Taliban mouthpiece and Prof. Harold Hongju Koh of the Yale Law School. It was a heated confrontation, with Mr. Koh only "reluctantly" shaking Mr. Rahmatullah's hand at the end. But it apparently made an impression on Mr. Ranis, who, one Yale official told me, soon took to calling then Attorney General John Ashcroft and other Bush administration officials "the American Taliban." Mr. Ranis did not respond to phone calls or emails.

One of the few people to defend Yale publicly has been Mark Oppenheimer, a Yale graduate who is now editor of the weekly New Haven Advocate. While Mr. Oppenheimer allows that "perhaps Islamofascists shouldn't get the privilege of studying at Yale" he notes that "the determination about this particular young man was for the admission office to make. . . . Admission offices don't ask about students' politics--should they?" Mr. Oppenheimer also says he is "sure Yale enrolled some students who fought for, or somehow abetted, the Third Reich."

That may or may not be true, but a pair of infamous incidents involved Yale professors who turned out to have been Nazi propagandists.

The case of Vladimir Sokolov presents an interesting contrast with how Yale is reacting to its Talib student today. After his activities during World War II were exposed in 1976, he was run off campus and later deported.

Sokolov, a native Russian, taught at Yale for nearly 20 years, rising to the rank of senior lecturer. He was beloved by his students, and the New York Times reported that his department's chairman considered him the school's best language instructor. He had not been known to harbor any anti-Semitic views, and indeed he lent his name to appeals that Jews be allowed to emigrate from the Soviet Union.

He also frequently wrote anticommunist articles for Russian-language papers in New York. Those apparently raised the hackles of the KGB, which in 1976 released files that showed he had been a willing tool of the Nazis during their occupation of much of Russia. In Orel, a city of 115,000 south of Moscow, Nazi propagandists hired Sokolov as a columnist and deputy editor for Rech (Speech), a Russian-language newspaper they controlled. Between 1942 and 1944, Sokolov, under a pen name, wrote articles that, according to the U.S. Justice Department, "advocated the persecution of the Jews" and attacked America. Among his more memorable phrases were "Let us salute our glorious Liberator, the Fuehrer" and "Never again will [Jewish] feet tread upon our soil."

After the Nazis were driven out of Russia, Sokolov moved to Berlin, where he worked for another Russian-language Nazi paper. After the war Sokolov was able to enter the U.S. as a displaced person by claiming he had been only a "proofreader" in the Soviet Union and hadn't been involved in persecution.

In the 1970s, when Sokolov was confronted with the evidence of his wartime propaganda, he offered the excuse that he'd been young. He was in his late 20s during the war, like Mr. Rahmatullah today. He also claimed that Nazi censors must have inserted the most anti-Semitic statements into his stories.

An uproar occurred on the Yale campus. "There was a great deal of anger, many letters in the paper and much complaint," recalls Hanna Holborn Gray, who was Yale provost at the time and later acting president. Robert Jackson, a professor of international relations, described Sokolov's writings as "Goebbels-like." The noted historian Peter Gay vowed he would not "serve on the same payroll" with the "despicable" Sokolov and demanded he be fired. (Mr. Gay did not respond to phone calls.) Two Yale alumni recall the case being debated at the Yale Political Union, although because many YPU records from that time are missing they can't locate the specifics.

Mr. Sokolov had a few defenders. Alexander Schenker, a Slavic professor of Russian Jewish background, wrote that "people have a right to change. [Sokolov] is not anti-Semetic now. In fact, he is probably the most pro-Semetic professor in the Russian department." After several Yale faculty members bullied Sokolov into resigning, the Yale Daily News editorialized that his "due process" rights had been violated and that he "deserved forgiveness."

That wasn't forthcoming. The Reagan Justice Department, with the tangential involvement of an up-and-coming lawyer named John Roberts, moved to have him deported for lying on his citizenship application. Before a final hearing could be held, Sokolov fled to Canada, where he died in 1992.

One Yale professor who must have followed the Sokolov episode with some interest was Paul de Man, the leading guru of deconstructionism, the dominant school of cultural criticism in the U.S. in the 1970s and 1980s. De Man, who had fled his native Belgium after World War II, had his own history of Nazi collaboration.
To its adherents, deconstructionism was a powerful tool of analysis that held that language is always so compromised by hidden influences and ulterior motives that a text never means what it appears to mean. "The relationship between truth and error that prevails in literature cannot be represented genetically," de Man wrote. "Truth and error exist simultaneously, thus preventing the favoring of one over the other." Since words are always shifting their meaning, no interpretation of them is more correct than any other. To paraphrase Henry Ford, literature and history are therefore bunk.

Many critics thought deconstructionism a joke, describing de Man and his disciples as an insular literary Mafia that was "trying to make people an offer they couldn't understand." But others believed that purposefully viewing texts as not inherently worthy allowed them to be twisted to serve an individual professor's personal agenda. David Lehman, the editor of the Oxford Book of American Poetry and the author of the leading biography of de Man, regards deconstructionism as "a program that promotes a reckless disregard of the truth and a propensity for hero worship." Roger Kimball, once a graduate student at Yale and now the publisher of Encounter Books, notes that stripping texts of their meaning reminds him of George Orwell's warning that the debasement of speech can provide a veneer of justification for any behavior: "We had to destroy the village in order to save it."

Yale was stunned in 1983, when de Man died at 64. Two months after his death, the New York Times ran a piece headlined "Yale Still Feeling Loss of Revered Professor." But the university was even more stunned in the fall of 1987, when a Belgian graduate student uncovered evidence that de Man had written nearly 200 articles for Nazi-controlled newspapers between 1940 and 1942.

To those who believe words do have meaning, these articles had a very clear one. John Brenkman, a professor of English as Northwestern University, concluded they showed de Man to be "a fascist, an anti-Semite and an active collaborator with the Nazis." In one article, de Man proclaimed that "the future of Europe can be envisioned only within the framework of the possibilities and needs of the German spirit."

In his most infamous piece, de Man said a "solution to the Jewish problem that envisions the creation of a Jewish colony isolated from Europe would not have, for the literary life of the West, regrettable consequences." The article was surrounded by caricatures of hook-nosed Jews and a spurious quotation from Benjamin Franklin that referred to Jews as "Asiatics" who were "a menace to the nation that admits them." The Franklin hoax has gained new life in recent years, propagated by both Islamist and neo-Nazi Web sites. In early 2002 the Middle East Media Research Institute reported that an Egyptian government newspaper had published it.

De Man had landed his gig as "literary critic" for Le Soir, Belgium's leading daily paper, in his early 20s through the intervention of Hendrik de Man, his uncle, who was head of the country's Socialist Party. When Germany invaded in 1940, the elder de Man was King Leopold's closest political confidant and the only one of his advisers to support the king's decision to surrender to the Germans and remain in the country. Hendrik de Man infamously issued a manifesto to his party's members telling them the German conquest was welcome: "For the working classes and for socialism, this collapse of a decrepit world, far from being a disaster, is a deliverance." Convicted of treason in absentia after the war, Hendrik de Man committed suicide in exile in 1953.

Paul de Man's collaborationist articles landed him a spot in a Belgian Resistance photo montage of 44 journalists called the "gallery of traitors." Ironically, after the war de Man himself at least once claimed to have been part of the Resistance, and he never corrected those who formed that impression. In 1946, 26 employees of Le Soir were put on trial for collaboration, but since de Man had not officially been on the newspaper's payroll (a result of Belgium's restrictive labor laws) and had stopped writing in 1942 he wasn't included. But all journalists who had worked during the war were barred from media employment. The next year, de Man left for America to reinvent himself and fashion a glittering career in academia.

"Anyone who thinks that he left this all behind him, that it did not motivate the life and career that followed, is crazy," Frank Lentricchia, an English professor at Duke University, told The Nation, a left-wing magazine, in 1988. "Then you come to deconstruction: a philosophy that says you can never trust language to anchor you into anything; that every linguistic act is duplicitous; that every insight you have is beset by blindness you can't predict. . . . [De Man] didn't just say "forget history'; he wanted to paralyze the move to history."

Peter Brooks, a Yale French professor who was a colleague of de Man, told me the reaction at Yale to his wartime collaboration was "much puzzlement and deep sadness, but there was sober discussion and no rush to judgment." He confirmed to me that at least one senior faculty member at Yale had known of de Man's past but said nothing about it. Another professor told me that several of his colleagues knew, but because de Man was "a star member of the club" they kept their silence. Questions about how de Man came to be hired (his collaborationist past was known to his former colleagues at Harvard) were swept aside. By 1995, Carra Leah Hood, a graduate student in comparative literature, would write in the Yale Daily News that on campus the name of Paul de Man is "a curse or else it is enshrouded in a don't-ask-don't-tell mutism. . . . His silence [about his past] produced even more silence."

While most people at Yale are similarly responding with silence to questions about the Rahmatullah case, there are exceptions. One is Amy Aaland, executive director of the Slifka Center for Jewish Life at Yale, where Mr. Rahmatullah takes his meals. (Kosher food also complies with Islamic dietary laws.) Slifka, which has a $1.5 million annual budget, focuses on social and religious programs along with efforts to promote coexistence between Arabs and Israelis. Sen. Joe Lieberman, a Yale graduate, and his wife, Hadassah, are honorary trustees.
Ms. Aaland was friendly and engaging as she told me that when she learned that a former Taliban official was having meals at Slifka, she was surprised but not displeased: "It's a chance to learn about him and his culture. Dialogue starts at a table. You have to share a meal together."

When I asked her if any of the revelations about Mr. Rahmatullah's past disturb her, she said that "while he has made some mistakes," she trusts that university officials had "investigated things" and satisfied themselves about him. She noted that Mr. Rahmatullah was "very, very young" when he had been a Taliban official, and said that "it's not like the Taliban attacked this country."

As for Mr. Rahmatullah's recently calling Israel "an American Al Qaeda," Ms. Aaland said there were many other people on Yale's campus who felt the same way. "He's been at Yale less than a year, and an undergraduate education is four years," she told me. "Just living here he can learn values and ideals from our society."

Ms. Aaland draws her belief in reconciliation from the Jewish concept of teshuvah, which means "repentance" or "returning to God." One way to do that is to reach out to others with kindness, empathy and generosity. When I pointed out that Mr. Rahmatullah has proved in the past that he is a skilled liar, Ms. Aaland said there are dangers in any contact with others. "But why not come from a place of trust, break out of old molds and consider him innocent until proven guilty?" she asked. As for his work as an apologist for the Taliban's human rights abuses, she told me that all spokesmen in his position are "performers in a sense, actors." She told me he would learn new things at Yale. Yes, but might that not include learning to simply become a better actor?

I finished my chat with Ms. Aaland by asking her about one of the Taliban's most infamous fatwas. In May 2001, the Taliban announced that all non-Muslims--chiefly Hindus, who numbered between 500 and 2,000--would have to wear yellow badges on their clothing. The order was met with instant censure around the world. A German diplomat recalled that "the visible marking of people was the beginning of the Holocaust." U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said the policy "recalls some of the most deplorable acts of discrimination in history." The U.S. House voted unanimously to condemn a policy it said was eerily similar "to the yellow Star of David that Jews were forced to wear" by the Nazis.

The Taliban justified the measure by claiming it was designed to end harassment of minority groups by the infamous religious police. Westerners who were in Afghanistan at the time tell me that Mr. Rahmatullah was among those offering this explanation. One reporter told me he recalled a conversation with Mr. Rahmatullah in which it was quite clear he'd been well briefed on the policy. "He had no trouble defending the decree until I pointed out it also required non-Muslims to move out of housing they shared with Muslims within three days," the reporter recalled. "He didn't have a coherent response to that." After the international outcry, the Taliban relaxed the fatwa so that non-Muslims were only required to carry identification cards.

Ms. Aaland absorbed all that I told her, and then said she understood the parallels involved between the Holocaust and the Taliban's badge edict. "I don't expect learning to happen overnight," she told me. "As much as possible we should approach these matters with the concept of teshuvah in mind." Asked if she will welcome Mr. Rahmatullah back to her dining hall as classes begin today, she said "Yes, so long as he's not disruptive."

Since I began writing about Yale's admission of Mr. Rahmatullah, I have been accused of launching a vendetta against the school. In truth, as I wrote three weeks ago, my initial interest in the case stemmed from a memorable 90-minute meeting I had with the Taliban diplomat in the spring of 2001 at The Wall Street Journal's offices, just across the street from the World Trade Center. Yale is one of our country's great institutions of higher learning, and it is the fear that it is now foolishly sacrificing its credibility that has compelled nearly a dozen former and current officials to contact me privately about their concerns.

I also know something about the nature of officials in totalitarian regimes, having interviewed several, ranging from an East German finance minister to the deputy head of the secret police in communist Albania. As the late Nazi architect Albert Speer once observed, "Officials in the secret-police atmosphere of a totalitarian regime become skillful liars to survive. I know, I was one of them." And Speer's deception did not end with the war. During his trial for war crimes and after his release from prison in 1966, he carefully cultivated an image as the only "decent" member of Hitler's inner circle. This turned out to be a further lie. Six months after Speer's death in 1981, it was revealed he had concealed incriminating passages from his wartime diary. They convinced even Gitta Sereny, Speer's sympathetic biographer, that he had known about the Holocaust by 1943.

In light of this history, and given Mr. Rahmatullah's service to one of the most brutal regimes since the Nazis, why should anyone--especially at Yale--give him the benefit of the doubt, especially when he has not publicly renounced the Taliban? Late last year he wrote an essay in which he said that the regime "honestly practiced what they had learned in their religious schools. They did what they had been taught to do. Whether what they had been taught was good or bad is another subject." When a Times of London reporter asked Mr. Rahmatullah this month about the Taliban's public executions in a Kabul soccer stadium, he quipped, "There were also executions happening in Texas."

Yale refuses to defend its position, but others are talking. Afghan exiles are appalled that Mr. Rahmatuallah was given a coveted place that could have gone to an Afghan man or woman who had been oppressed by the Taliban. Author Sebastian Junger reports from Afghanistan in the current Vanity Fair on the atrocities the Taliban are committing today. They include skinning a man alive and leaving him to die in the sun. Another man was forced to watch as his wife was gang-raped. Then his eyes were put out, so that the horrific crime would be the last image he would ever see. The relatives of U.S. soldiers killed in action in Afghanistan are likewise appalled. "It's not like the Taliban ever signed a peace treaty," Natalie Healy, the mother of a Navy SEAL killed by a Taliban rocket last year, told me. "They're still killing Americans."

Yale's silence is disconcerting to Hanna Holborn Gray, a former Yale provost who also served as its acting president for 14 months before heading the University of Chicago. She told me that while she had no specific views on the Taliban student, in general she didn't buy the argument that one should invite the enemy to teach or study on campus. "There are so many ways to get that point of view, through lectures by them on campus, through the Internet, through study by students abroad that I don't see the need to accord them special status," she told me.

Malalai Joya, a 27-year-old member of Afghanistan's parliament, is coming to Yale this Thursday to speak about women's rights and the growing power of both the Northern Alliance warlords and the Taliban in her country. She is harshly critical of President Hamid Karzai's government, which she says is infiltrated by warlords, and of the U.S. for supporting it. But she is also appalled that many people have forgotten the crimes of the Taliban. She was surprised to hear that Mr. Rahmatullah was attending Yale. "He should apologize to my people and expose what he and others did under the Taliban," she told me. "He knew very well what criminal acts they committed; he was not too young to know. He should give interviews so we know what he thinks now. It would be better if he faced a court of justice than be a student at Yale University." Somehow I doubt Mr. Rahmatullah will be attending her lecture on Thursday.

Here's hoping that Ms. Joya's visit to Yale will touch off a full-fledged debate about the Taliban propagandist. At the same time it might be useful for Yalies to discuss how his case is both different from and similar to those of Vladimir Sokolov and Paul de Man, the Nazi propagandists in Yale's past.