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The perils of delivering aid
Afghans don't support the insurgency; they're its primary targets
SARAH CHAYES – commentary, Globe and Mail, August 15, 2008
KANDAHAR — The gunning down of three female foreign aid workers - two of them Canadians - and their Afghan driver a few dozen miles south of Kabul on Wednesday is the latest bloody
Afghanistan will win medals once track is built, says sprinter
by Pirate Irwin August 15, 2008
BEIJING (AFP) - Afghanistan will begin winning medals at championships once they have a proper athletics track to train on said 100 metres sprinter Massoud Azizi on Friday.
Afghanistan blast kills 3 international troops
International Herald Tribune - Asia-Pacific The Associated Press August 15, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-An explosion hit foreign troops on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killing three service members, the U.S.-led coalition said.
Rockets fired at Afghanistan's main airport
Radio Australia, Australia Thu Aug 14, 2008
Two rockets were fired at Afghanistan's main international airport in Kabul injuring two civilians but causing little damage.
Afghans turning taboo into humor
But no Taliban in comedy acts, writes the Tribune's Kim Barker
Chicago Tribune, United States By Kim Barker Tribune correspondent August 15, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-The rubber-faced comedian rattled off his jokes rapid-fire, the standard method of delivery in this war-torn country. Riaz Ahmad Sher told the one about the prospective father-in-law
Karzai replaces governor of Kandahar province
CTV.ca News Staff - Updated: Fri. Aug. 15 2008
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has replaced the governor of volatile Kandahar province.
UN rights expert denounces Taliban attacks on educators
August 15, 2008
GENEVA (AFP) - The Taliban's "systematic" targetting of educators in Afghanistan must not go unpunished, said the United Nations expert on education in a strongly worded statement Friday.
Using talk as a tactic in Kandahar
The Globe and Mail - International GLORIA GALLOWAY From Friday's Globe and Mail August 14, 2008 at 10:39 PM EDT
BABA SAHEB, AFGHANISTAN-The squarely built Afghan elder rolled up his shirt sleeve to show Master Warrant Officer Keith Jacquard the bruising on his forearm. Then he gingerly lifted his pant leg to display the scrapes on his shin.
America turns its attention to the 'other' war
Globe and Mail, Canada DAVID BERCUSON August 14, 2008
With the U.S. presence in Iraq about to wind down, Americans are already turning their attention to the "other" war -- the one in Afghanistan, the one the United States cannot countenance losing
UN expert calls for end to impunity for attacks on educators
Source: United Nations Human Rights Council August 15, 2008
The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education of the Human Rights Council, Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, released the following statement today in Geneva, on the Taliban attack that killed four aid workers
Concern over Afghan 'withdrawal'
Friday, 15 August 2008 BBC News
Between 100 to 150 US troops have withdrawn from a strategically important district of the the Afghan province of Ghazni, officials say.
Adviser to Karzai says Taliban tactics are succeeding
Toronto Star By Tonda MacCharles 08/15/2008
Afghans' confidence in foreign help falling, Canadian expert says
OTTAWA – The switch by Taliban insurgents to spectacular attacks, including the daylight murders of international aid workers that left two Canadians among the dead, has shattered Afghans' confidence
NATO's campaign in Afghanistan: Go big or get out
August 14, 2008, National Post, by Jonathan Kay
From 2004 till this year, the received wisdom was that Iraq was an apocalyptic failure, while Afghanistan was a troubled, but improving work in progress. Recent events have spun that view on its head:
Top Taliban leader feared dead in Bajaur air strike
By Mushtaq Yusufzai The News International (Pakistan) August 15, 2008
PESHAWAR: Amid reports of the killing of prominent militant Taliban commander Maulana Faqir Mohammad in Bajaur Agency, the security forces on Thursday intensified the ongoing military
India says peace talks with Pakistan under threat
By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press August 15, 2008
NEW DELHI - India's prime minister said Friday that the peace process with Pakistan was in danger of failing because of attacks like last month's bombing of New Delhi's mission in Afghanistan.
Afghanistan's refugee challenge
ALJAZEERA.NET By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul Tuesday, August 12, 2008
With five million refugees repatriated since 2001 and three million still harboured mainly in Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan continues to face formidable challenges in addressing the needs of its refugee population.
Compassion and 'bang-bang addiction'
Aid workers in war zones say job invigorates and haunts them
Globe and Mail, Canada HAYLEY MICK With a report from The Canadian Press August 15, 2008
Every morning since she returned from Afghanistan two months ago, Dana Stinson has switched on her computer and turned to CNN.
Musharraf resignation deal denied
Friday, 15 August 2008 BBC News
A spokesman for President Musharraf of Pakistan has firmly denied newspaper reports that the former general has already agreed to step down.
Treaty of China-Afghanistan friendship, cooperation and good-neighborly relations takes effect
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-14
BEIJING-The treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good-neighborly Relations between China and Afghanistan came into force here Thursday, the date of exchange of instrument of ratification.
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The perils of delivering aid
Afghans don't support the insurgency; they're its primary targets
SARAH CHAYES – commentary, Globe and Mail, August 15, 2008
KANDAHAR — The gunning down of three female foreign aid workers - two of them Canadians - and their Afghan driver a few dozen miles south of Kabul on Wednesday is the latest bloody murder to underscore the relentless deterioration in Afghan security conditions.
Here in beleaguered Kandahar - where I have lived for nearly seven years and currently run a small soap-making co-operative - what most distressed my co-op members was the gender of the victims. "Women?" Nurallah pronounced, aghast. "They're killing women? These people can't be Afghans. If my worst enemy - my own personal enemy - came into my hands, but his wife was present, I wouldn't touch him. I would let him go."
On that point, Canadians and Afghans can agree. Western coverage has brought to light other areas, however, where Afghan and international perceptions of this tragedy diverge.
Humanitarian immunity: Every news article I've read has stressed that the slain humanitarian workers' car was "clearly marked" with their organization's emblem - as if that should protect the passengers. But I fear humanitarian organizations are failing to recognize the transformations in this country since the 1980s and 1990s that have profoundly altered their status. These organizations take their own good intentions for granted, and expect beneficiaries to do the same. They are used to their outsider status and their declared neutrality guaranteeing safe passage across the battle lines of societies in conflict.
This conflict, however, is different. Neither the forces fighting the Afghan government, nor ordinary people, make any distinction between international humanitarian workers, the Afghan government, and international military forces. All are seen as part of the same system.
The vast majority of regular folk desire the presence of these interlocking groups. Afghans have serious criticisms to level against the corruption of government officials, the ways in which development aid is being spent, and the sometimes reckless behaviour of international troops. But by and large they want us here. Anti-government forces, however, are just as hostile to aid workers as they are to soldiers or government officials. The only place as dangerous to be as a NATO military convoy is a clearly marked humanitarian vehicle.
Danger to aid workers: Western media coverage has emphasized that danger to aid workers is shutting down delivery of humanitarian and development assistance. The victims' employer, the International Rescue Committee, is temporarily suspending its operations, for example.
But the most important constraint on aid work is the risk it poses to Afghans. Many villages in Kandahar have been refusing development assistance for several years now. They are afraid that the mere acceptance of these projects will transform their homes into targets. Recently, villagers to the west of town sent a delegation to the Taliban to explain that the repairs they were about to make to their irrigation channel were not a development project. The Taliban leaders replied: "If we find out you used a tractor lent to you by the government, we will burn it and kill you."
Afghan death toll: It is normal for people to feel most keenly the tragedies that strike people they know or can easily identify with. For precisely this reason, while bowing before the grief of the families of Wednesday's victims, I would like to share some stories you may not have heard.
Three days ago, the governor of Ghazni province was ambushed on the main road to Kabul and barely escaped alive. In the village where one of my co-operative members was born, Taliban are using what was the school as the gallows. In the past two weeks, one suspected anti-Taliban spy was hanged. A second was beaten till he cried out a confession, then also hanged, dollar bills stuffed in his mouth. When the Taliban wished to strip the body so it would hang shamefully naked for the two days during which they forbade relatives to cut it down and bury it, the villagers protested. "Sit down and shut up," came the answer. "Your turn is coming." Then a 16-year old was hanged from the feet and shot. His crime? Working as an apprentice to the driver of a truck carrying humanitarian wheat to Kandahar. Where another of my co-operative members lives, a baker who sold bread to soldiers, a school principal, and a former government worker were abducted last week.
The Afghans do not support this so-called insurgency. They are its primary targets.
Sarah Chayes is the founder of Arghand, a soap-making co-operative in Kandahar. She is also the author of "The Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan After the Taliban".
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Afghanistan will win medals once track is built, says sprinter
by Pirate Irwin August 15, 2008
BEIJING (AFP) - Afghanistan will begin winning medals at championships once they have a proper athletics track to train on said 100 metres sprinter Massoud Azizi on Friday.
The 23-year-old Afghan failed to better his personal best of 11.11sec, finishing last behind Jamaica's 2005 world silver medallist Michael Frater in a time of 11.45 but declared himself happy to have made his first Olympics.
"It has been a long and hard road for me and my fellow athletes through the years of the Taliban and the war but now it is easier," said Azizi.
"Training though for the Olympics or indeed any other championships is extremely hard in Afghanistan because we do not have a proper track and we run on concrete in the stadium in Kabul.
"However, I am confident that once there is a track there is enough natural talent in the country for us to start winning medals at championship level," he added.
Azizi, who took up athletics seven years ago, said that it had practically been impossible to train under the Taliban regime.
"It was really difficult under the Taliban regime. They would not let you train every day. I got fed up and knew I had to move somewhere to make a real go of making it in athletics.
"Thus I went to Pakistan and trained there."
Azizi said that it was hard to get funding for training but that a benefactor had dangled a carrot in front of them with offers of performance-related bonuses.
"He encourages us to pursue our dream," he said.
"For the Olympics he offered 60,000 dollars for a medal, 50,000 for making the final and 5,000 dollars for going out in the first round.
"This of course is on condition that we return home."
Azizi, who will return home on Sunday after a fellow female Afghan athlete has competed in the athletics on Saturday, said just to be at an Olympics was something he had never really believed could happen in the dark days of the Taliban.
"It is a dream for me to be competing at this competition alongside sprinters of the quality of Asafa Powell (former world recordholder) Usain Bolt (present world recordholder) and Tyson Gay (2007 world champion)," said Azizi.
"To be with them in the warm-up area and to see them run is unbelievable for me."
Azizi, who trained in Malaysia prior to the Olympics thanks to a grant from the IOC, said that whilst he had not got near his personal best he was happy with his performance which set him up for a busy post Games programme.
"I go back and then I have a competition in Iran and then another in Indonesia. The more international experience the better I will become."
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Afghanistan blast kills 3 international troops
International Herald Tribune - Asia-Pacific The Associated Press August 15, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-An explosion hit foreign troops on a foot patrol in southern Afghanistan killing three service members, the U.S.-led coalition said.
The last three months have been the deadliest for international troops in Afghanistan since the 2001 U.S. led invasion. A record number of U.S. and NATO troops are in Afghanistan — around 65,000 — exposing more soldiers than ever to increasingly lethal Taliban bombings and ambushes.
The coalition did not release any details about Wednesday's attack, including the troops' nationalities or the blast's location. American forces comprise the vast majority of the U.S.-led coalition, which includes special forces units and soldiers who train Afghan army and police. The 40-nation NATO-led force operates under a separate command.
The nations with the most troops in southern Afghanistan are Britain, Canada, the United States and the Netherlands.
Southern Afghanistan is the center of the Taliban-led insurgency. More than 3,200 people have died in violence countrywide so far this year, according to an Associated Press tally of figures provided by Afghan and Western officials.
At least 93 U.S. troops have died in Afghanistan this year, a pace that would make 2008 the deadliest for American forces since the 2001 invasion. At least 29 British troops have died, as have at least 15 Canadian forces.
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Rockets fired at Afghanistan's main airport
Radio Australia, Australia Thu Aug 14, 2008
Two rockets were fired at Afghanistan's main international airport in Kabul injuring two civilians but causing little damage.
The interior ministry says one rocket landed on empty ground near the main runway and the other landed at an outer entrance to the heavily secured airport wounding two passers-by.
It is not known who might have fired the rockets from a nearby mountain.
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Afghans turning taboo into humor
But no Taliban in comedy acts, writes the Tribune's Kim Barker
Chicago Tribune, United States By Kim Barker Tribune correspondent August 15, 2008
KABUL, Afghanistan-The rubber-faced comedian rattled off his jokes rapid-fire, the standard method of delivery in this war-torn country. Riaz Ahmad Sher told the one about the prospective father-in-law demanding hundreds of pounds of food and house paint in return for his daughter.
Then Sher, whose day job is driving a taxi, threw out his major crowd-pleaser, about the time U.S. troops mistook him for Osama bin Laden.
"They showed me an Osama bin Laden picture and said, 'See, you look like Osama bin Laden — you're Osama bin Laden,' " said Sher, who bears little resemblance to the leader of Al Qaeda. The crowd roared.
At this comedy show, the topics seemed more apt for tears than big laughs — child marriage, corrupt cops, the poor behavior of international troops, heroin addiction, high food prices. But none of these often taboo subjects were off-limits for the four amateurs vying to be picked as the best comic on the TV show "Laugh Bazaar" on Tolo TV, one of the country's most popular stations.
In Afghanistan, where violence, drugs and poverty seem to loom in every corner, where Taliban-led militants are proving surprisingly tough to defeat, where war is a fact of life, laughter has been an antidote. In plays and TV shows, Afghans seem to find the terrible funny. Here, Woody Allen's adage about comedy being tragedy plus time holds true, yet time can be all of 10 minutes.
Modern material But in recent years, a new generation of comics has increasingly used humor and political satire to point out problems with the fledgling Afghan government, rather than simply repeating the standard jokes that have been passed through generations, about stupid people from the province of Wardak and tricky ones from Laghman.
In the first season of "Laugh Bazaar," comics were largely judged on their ability to deliver those old jokes. But this season, comics have been forced to come up with their own material — simply because they don't want to be repetitive. And that has led to more caustic political humor.
"Afghanistan is a political society right now. Many people have a lot to say about what's going on and all the problems," said comic Sharif Watandost, 28, who left his job as a baker to try out for the comedy show. "We are like their tongues. We tell what's happening in a funny way and we remove people's pains from their hearts."
In a country where officials are reputed to be thin-skinned, the comics are often treading on dangerous ground. Another show, called "Alarm Bell," has been particularly hard-hitting, an Afghan version of Comedy Central's "The Daily Show." It has mocked corrupt and incompetent leaders, even showing actual videos of parliamentarians sleeping in session and throwing water bottles at each other.
Nonetheless, contestants on "Laugh Bazaar" never mention top Afghan officials by name, even while they insult Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and President George W. Bush directly.
No names "We do not name names," Sher said. "We describe people who we are talking about, and everyone knows who we are talking about. But it's dangerous to name names."
The show is low-rent, compared with its more popular sibling, "Afghan Star," a singing contest similar to "American Idol." It is filmed in the banquet hall of the Afghan Paris Wedding Hall.
At a recent taping, the chairs were filled with about 400 boys and men — none of the contestants are women, and female audience members are a rarity. The comics delivered their routines in front of a black velvet curtain, from a makeshift stage that looked more suited to a high school talent show than television.
No matter. The comics and the audience were more concerned about winning laughs than style points. Just as in an American TV talent show, Afghans vote over cell phones. One of the crowd favorites was Qassim Ibrahimi, 18, who just graduated high school.
Ibrahimi told jokes about marrying a neighborhood girl, hardly the kind of joke that would win laughs at Second City.
"When we got the girl home, I was mad because she was playing with dolls all the time," Ibrahimi said. "She didn't know anything about being a wife. I said fine. I'm not that old either. So I started playing with marbles with other kids. You know what? I was 13, and my wife was 9."
Despite poking fun at people in power and often at police for taking bribes, there is one subject that most comics avoid taking on too directly — the Taliban, who are not known for their sense of humor. Before being driven out of power in late 2001, the Taliban banned TV, entertainment and anything resembling fun. The comics shook their heads when asked about saying the T-word.
"If we do that, they'll send a suicide bomber after us," said Ibrahimi. He added that he was only joking.
Kim Barker is the Tribune's South Asia correspondent.
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Karzai replaces governor of Kandahar province
CTV.ca News Staff - Updated: Fri. Aug. 15 2008
Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai has replaced the governor of volatile Kandahar province.
Asadullah Khalid will be replaced by Rahmatullah Raufi, the former chief of the Afghan National Army in five provinces, including Kandahar.
In April, in one of the most memorable gaffes of his tenure in cabinet, Canada's then-foreign affairs minister Maxime Bernier told Karzai he should replace Khalid.
During the meeting with Karzai in Kabul, Bernier said Khalid was holding up Canadian aid intended for humanitarian assistance and that he was a corrupt governor -- a major faux pas for a foreign affairs minister.
Bernier also told reporters that Karzai would have to decide whether Khalid was the right person for the job. Bernier's officials immediately called the statement a mistake and said Afghanistan's government appointments are its own business.
CTV's Chief Political Correspondent Craig Oliver said Bernier was likely repeating a belief that was widely-held among NATO diplomats and officials in Afghanistan -- one that he had probably been briefed on while visiting the country.
"There will be a great sigh of relief in NATO circles that Khalid will be gone," Oliver told CTV Newsnet.
While Khalid had close ties to the Afghan police, his replacement comes from more of a military background, Oliver said.
"The army particularly is what's important because NATO diplomats and NATO officials have all complained bitterly about the corruption of the Afghan police and Mr. Khalid was particularly tied to the police," Oliver said.
"Perhaps this means a larger role for the Afghan army in the Kandahar area rather than the police who really have a bad reputation."
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UN rights expert denounces Taliban attacks on educators
August 15, 2008
GENEVA (AFP) - The Taliban's "systematic" targetting of educators in Afghanistan must not go unpunished, said the United Nations expert on education in a strongly worded statement Friday.
"Their attacks on schools, teachers and others working on education are systematic, not random," said Vernor Munoz Villalobos in a statement.
"They are part of a deliberate attack on human rights, on equality for women and on any attempt by their fellow citizens to control their own destiny," he added.
"There must be an end to impunity for those who attack schools, students and educators," said Villalobos, who is the UN special rapporteur on the right to education.
Villalobos issued the statement after the Taliban killed three female aid workers with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) and their Afghan driver in Afghanistan.
It was the deadliest attack in years on international aid workers and came amid growing concern about the deteriorating security situation in Afghanistan.
He paid tribute to the aid workers and urged states to "intensify efforts to put an end to the growing pattern of attacks" on education and educators that is common in armed conflicts.
"Such attacks violate international humanitarian law and international criminal law, and their perpetrators must know that they will not go unpunished," he said.
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Using talk as a tactic in Kandahar
The Globe and Mail - International GLORIA GALLOWAY From Friday's Globe and Mail August 14, 2008 at 10:39 PM EDT
BABA SAHEB, AFGHANISTAN-The squarely built Afghan elder rolled up his shirt sleeve to show Master Warrant Officer Keith Jacquard the bruising on his forearm. Then he gingerly lifted his pant leg to display the scrapes on his shin.
The injuries, offensive as they were, would heal. The Taliban had been gentle with Alam Aka – relatively speaking.
Three of the eight villagers kidnapped with the old man this week in the Arghandab district just outside Kandahar city were not so lucky. Their abductors killed them on suspicion they were NATO sympathizers – or simply to cause underlying fear that could weaken the Afghan government.
MWO Jacquard, a reservist who is taking time off from his job at an Edmonton newspaper to play a sort of a public relations role in Afghanistan, listened intently.
This dignified Afghan was about to do something courageous.
In the same week that he was abducted and his neighbours were killed, he was heading into a shura – or meeting – Thursday morning with about 20 of his countrymen and NATO soldiers. The Taliban kill for less.
“I think it is very brave of him to come back to the shura after what he has been through,” MWO Jacquard said to the congenial Afghan interpreter, who arrived in disguise so that he does not become a victim of the insurgents.
MWO Jacquard and his colleague, Sergeant Ron Leblanc, of Vancouver, are members of the Civil Military Co-operation unit, part of the Provincial Reconstruction Team based in Kandahar city.
Sgt. Leblanc, a Mountie, is also a reservist, as are 29 of the 31 members of the CMC.
It is their job to ensure that the people of this region see the Canadians as more than soldiers with tanks and guns – and to demonstrate that there is a NATO presence here despite the apparent ability of the Taliban to maim and kill at will.
The CMC determines what the villages most need – roads or schools or walls or wells. They decide which projects are priorities. If a job deemed worthwhile will cost less than $5,000, they can hand over the money themselves. If a job will cost more than that, they tender the contract and hire Afghan contractors to do the work.
But most of all, they wade patiently through local disputes, listening to conflicts between one villager and another that sometimes go back generations and are woven into the intricate Afghan social fabric.
The soldiers and elders, who represent 72 villages between them, were ushered into the office of the district leader, Ghulan (Yari) Farouq, with its Persian rugs and leather furnishings.
A young man in a white cap is pushed to the centre of the room. He is another of those who were abducted. His father and brother were killed in the attack, he explains. “He was beaten very badly, but still he attends the shura,” the translator relates. Another boy whose father was killed the same night sits along the wall with the elders. He appears to be in shock.
But the conversation at the shura did not dwell on the crime. The Afghans were there to make sure the Canadians are paying attention to their needs and to get their share of the foreign aid.
Haji Abdul Rahman, the elder from the villages of Sikh Chala, pleads for security.
“Our people are very innocent. We don't have anything in our hands like a machine gun to protect ourselves,” he said. “When the insurgents come to know that we have meetings with the foreign people they kidnap us, they kill us.”
He then explains that the road in his village needs to be wider because trucks keep falling off the bridge.
A man in a white scarf with a walking stick starts by praising the Canadians. Then he chides them for not beginning work on a road he says was promised. And he asks for walls to keep the Arghandab River from washing over homes and mosques during the rainy season.
Finally there is a heated dispute about the contractors that have been hired to build a road in another village. The contractors are friends of the local police chief who is not friends of the village elder. This fight gets so tense that MWO Jacquard and Sgt. Leblanc take the aggrieved parties into a separate room to find a solution.
After the shura, the two CMC members and their convoy head off to Mazra, a dusty village of about 300 mud-walled homes to confer with the elders there about the infrastructure they need.
When the Taliban attacked this area in force in June, the Afghan army fought back. But so too did some of the villages.
It is that kind of response that the CMC wants to engender, even if it's a tough sell in a place where people are being kidnapped and killed.
“If we can convince locals that what their government offers is a better situation than what the insurgents offer, and if the locals can be convinced that's a fact, then they can beat this insurgency,” MWO Jacquard said.
“If the Afghan government can't convince the locals that what they are offering is better, then it's going to be a much longer road.”
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America turns its attention to the 'other' war
Globe and Mail, Canada DAVID BERCUSON August 14, 2008
With the U.S. presence in Iraq about to wind down, Americans are already turning their attention to the "other" war -- the one in Afghanistan, the one the United States cannot countenance losing because of the alliance between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Look for some dramatic shifts in U.S. policy there over the next 15 months.
The first changes were announced last week by U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates. He plans to reorganize the command structures of both NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan and has pledged to raise $20-billion from NATO and the U.S. to double the size of the Afghan National Army to 120,000 troops by 2013.
The current command structure has been called a "spaghetti sandwich" by one retired U.S. officer. It bifurcates the anti-Taliban coalition into two distinct forces. One is the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom, located almost entirely along the Afghan-Pakistani border. It is under the jurisdiction of the U.S.'s Central Command (Centcom) in Tampa.
The other is the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force, with contingents large and small from some 26 countries. By the end of this month, all the U.S. forces in Afghanistan - currently split between the two commands - will come under the ISAF commander, U.S. General David McKiernan. He will be placed shortly under the new Centcom commander, General David Petraeus, the combat veteran-PhD who recently commanded U.S. troops in Iraq, where he shifted U.S. strategy. He is largely credited with the vastly improved security situation.
Mr. Gates has also announced the U.S. will bolster its forces in Afghanistan by at least two brigades (about 10,000 troops) in the next 15 months.
There are seven regional commands in Afghanistan. (The Canadians operate in Regional Command South.) Each contains national contingents trained, equipped and led to different standards. Many of these contingents operate under national caveats, or restrictions, which limit their use. There is thus a patchwork of capabilities. In addition, command of some of the regions is regularly rotated among the largest of the regional contributors. Each change in regional command can bring a new style and sometimes a new command philosophy, which are often drawbacks.
Mr. Gates's mini-surge will raise the total of U.S. troops to about 45,000, and Washington can be expected to seek, and probably get, greater control over the regional commands as well. From a military point of view, the change will be positive; greater unity of command and intent will give Gen. McKiernan and, ultimately, Gen. Petraeus, a far more united military force to wield.
From a political point of view, a stronger U.S. command presence might make the war a harder sell in Canada and other countries. War opponents will no doubt claim that Canadian and others will be Pentagon cannon fodder. But the reality is that the NATO effort in Afghanistan is already heavily dependent on the United States.
Changing the command structure and boosting U.S. troop strength will not be enough. Afghanistan is not Iraq and a "surge" in troop strength will not accomplish much without other initiatives. If the people's support is lost, Afghanistan will be lost.
A far larger development effort is in the works, focusing on roads and communications. Training of the Afghan National Police and the Afghan National Army will be stepped up and more and much better equipment will be supplied, including light armoured vehicles.
NATO's (and Washington's) ambiguous attitude to narcotics cultivation in Afghanistan is also about to end. There is simply no doubt any longer that the approximately $800-million a year that flows into Taliban coffers from heroin and marijuana production must be stopped. The only way to do this is by aerial spraying.
The ultimate solution to the Afghanistan war must involve a Pakistani crackdown on al-Qaeda, a thorough cleansing of the government in Kabul, and meeting the Afghan people's expectations for rising living standards and less corruption. None of these conditions is likely to be in place very soon.
That is why the reform of NATO's military effort is still the best place to start - as long as it isn't the only place.
David Bercuson is director of the Centre for Military and Strategic Studies at the University of Calgary
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UN expert calls for end to impunity for attacks on educators
Source: United Nations Human Rights Council August 15, 2008
The Special Rapporteur on the Right to Education of the Human Rights Council, Vernor Muñoz Villalobos, released the following statement today in Geneva, on the Taliban attack that killed four aid workers supporting education in Afghanistan: There must be an . In the latest such attack on Wednesday, the Taliban brutally murdered four staff of the International Rescue Committee, working on education projects in Afghanistan.
A Taliban spokesperson declared the movement does not "value" such aid projects and does not believe their victims were working for the progress of the country. The Taliban do not simply fail to value education: they deliberately target it. They strike at Afghan girls in particular – but also boys - who so desperately want and need education, as well as at the dedicated professionals who try to provide it. Their attacks on schools, teachers and others working on education are systematic, not random. They are part of a deliberate attack on human rights, on equality for women and on any attempt by their fellow citizens to control their own destiny.
Jackie Kirk was an Adjunct Professor at McGill University and Technical Adviser to IRC; she played a key role in the Inter-Agency Network for Education in Emergencies. She and her IRC colleagues - Shirley Case, Nicole Dial and Mohammad Aimal - were dedicated human rights workers, trying to ensure that this generation of Afghan children would not be denied an education, like so many of their parents.
In the midst of conflict, education can be both life-sustaining and life-saving. It is the basic right of every girl and every boy, vital for their enjoyment of all other human rights and critical to the future of any society.
Jackie Kirk knew that better than anyone. She was a major contributor to, and inspiration for, the report on the right to education in emergencies that I submitted to the Human Rights Council in June, and for the one the General Assembly will discuss this fall. In these reports, I urge States and the international community to intensify efforts to put an end to the growing pattern of attacks on education and educators that have become common in armed conflicts. Such attacks violate international humanitarian law and international criminal law, and their perpetrators must know that they will not go unpunished.
The murder of Jackie Kirk and her colleagues is a crime, a tragedy and a terrible loss for Afghanistan. Their only sin was to want Afghan children to get the education they and their parents hunger for. Jackie Kirk was a friend, a colleague and a great champion of the right to education. She contributed directly to all my activities as a Special Rapporteur of the Human Rights Council, and was a central reference for the work of the international community to ensure greater attention to the right to education in emergency situations.
I wish to extend my sincere condolences to the victims' families, friends and colleagues, as well as to the people of Afghanistan who have already lost so much. Their loss highlights starkly the extreme risks faced by all those promoting the right to education in conflict areas and the urgent need for the international community, and all those involved in this and similar conflicts, to put a stop to such attacks.
The Special Rapporteur is an independent expert appointed by the United Nations Human Rights Council to help States, and others, promote and protect the right to education. For further information on the mandate of the Special Rapporteur and copies of available reports, please consult the website of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights. (http://www.ohchr.org/english/issues/education/rapporteur/index.htm)
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Concern over Afghan 'withdrawal'
Friday, 15 August 2008 BBC News
Between 100 to 150 US troops have withdrawn from a strategically important district of the the Afghan province of Ghazni, officials say.
They say that soldiers retreated from the district of Nawa after repeated attacks by Taleban insurgents.
A Taleban spokesman told the BBC that the withdrawal after 10 days of fighting was a "great victory".
Correspondents say that the withdrawal further weakens the authority of the Afghan government in rural areas.
There has been no comment from the US-led coalition on the reported withdrawal and it is not clear whether it is permanent.
The BBC's Bilal Sarwary in Kabul says that the withdrawal is significant for two reasons.
Firstly, it will enable the Taleban to launch more attacks on the main road linking the cities of Kabul and Kandahar. In recent days the road has been increasingly targeted by the militants.
Secondly, our correspondent says that Nawa adjoins the strategically important and volatile Zabul province, which will enable the Taleban to consolidate their positions there.
A government intelligence official - who wished to remain anonymous - told the BBC that the withdrawal sent out the "wrong signals" and would undermine local people's confidence that the government still had a remit in rural areas.
The Taleban have a strong presence in Ghazni - more than 50 schools have recently been shut in the province after they threatened to force their closure.
Southern Afghanistan is the centre of the Taleban-led insurgency.
Correspondents say more than 3,200 people have died in violence countrywide so far this year - of whom 161 have been foreign troops.
Three US-led coalition soldiers were killed by an explosion on Thursday in the south while on foot patrol.
Violence has escalated in Afghanistan in 2008 as the Taleban strives to oust the pro-Western Afghan government and foreign troops through a campaign of guerrilla warfare involving the use of suicide and roadside bomb attacks.
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Adviser to Karzai says Taliban tactics are succeeding
Toronto Star By Tonda MacCharles 08/15/2008
Afghans' confidence in foreign help falling, Canadian expert says
OTTAWA – The switch by Taliban insurgents to spectacular attacks, including the daylight murders of international aid workers that left two Canadians among the dead, has shattered Afghans' confidence in the international community and the Afghan government's ability to provide basic security, says a top Canadian adviser to President Hamid Karzai.
Retired colonel Mike Capstick returned 10 days ago from Kabul, where he worked on a British-led counter-narcotics project with Karzai's government.
In an interview, Capstick gave a grim assessment of the latest developments in Afghanistan, saying there is a sense of growing insecurity in the country.
"It's a pretty bad year – not only for aid workers – it's a bad year for Afghan national police, international military forces, Afghan national army and tragically, Afghan civilians," said Capstick.
Prime Minister Stephen Harper did not take questions yesterday but, while in Newfoundland, extended sympathy to the aid workers' families.
"This cowardly attack on unarmed aid workers yet again shows the depravity of the Taliban and the bleak alternative that they represent. Canada remains steadfast in our commitment to the people of Afghanistan," Harper said in a written statement.
Capstick, who led the first Canadian strategic advisory team to Karzai's government in 2005-06, said "strategically, in the rest of the country" the picture is troubling as insurgents move "towards a tactic of doing the spectacular attacks."
Citing an attempted assassination of Karzai in April at a military parade, the Kandahar prison break in June, the July bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul that killed more than 50 people, and a rash of "attacks on internationals like this," Capstick said the Taliban tactics are "working."
Assaults on unarmed humanitarian workers, on food aid convoys, and bombings that slaughter Afghan civilians have not triggered a backlash against the insurgents as might be expected.
Instead, he said, "it's causing people to become more fearful and for them to lose confidence."
"The Afghan people have lost any confidence that they had in the international community's and the Afghan government's ability to provide basic security."
Capstick said it is increasingly difficult to carry out the kind of aid and development work – such as a dam reconstruction project Canada is undertaking – without "huge expenditures on security."
He said it's easy "in a military sense" to shift the focus of Canada's military mission toward training Afghan security forces but noted the latest two Canadian soldiers killed were working with Afghan national security forces.
Yesterday, the bodies of Master Cpl. Josh Roberts and Master Cpl. Erin Doyle – Canada's 89th and 90th military casualties on the Afghan mission – were returned to Canada.
At roughly the same time the International Rescue Committee's humanitarian workers were gunned down south of Kabul yesterday, Capstick noted there was another big firefight between insurgents and Afghan security forces on the main road east out of Kabul, towards Jalalabad.
Almas Bawar Zakhilwal, director in Canada for the Senlis Council think-tank, also sees conditions worsening. "The insurgency was confined to the south before, now we see it in the east and all around Kabul It looks like they're closing their circle on Kabul."
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NATO's campaign in Afghanistan: Go big or get out
August 14, 2008, National Post, by Jonathan Kay
From 2004 till this year, the received wisdom was that Iraq was an apocalyptic failure, while Afghanistan was a troubled, but improving work in progress. Recent events have spun that view on its head: While the U.S. troop surge of 2007 led to the rapid stabilization of Baghdad and Anbar province, southern and eastern Afghanistan have been drifting in the opposite direction. Unless Western powers apply the lessons of Iraq to Afghanistan, our military campaign in that country is doomed.
The latest news from Afghanistan is especially tragic: On Wednesday, Taliban gunmen killed three female aid workers — two of them Canadian. Supporters of the war will cite such monstrous crimes as proof that we must stay the course in Afghanistan: The Taliban are a cruel, barbaric lot — and so it would be unthinkable to abandon the country to them.
But an awkward must also be asked: How exactly were these killing allowed to happen in the first place?
Western forces have been in Afghanistan, en masse, for almost seven years — a period longer than the entire Second World War. Yet great swathes of the country remain outside NATO control. In parts of the south and east, the Taliban run large-scale drug-running operations, and work openly with local farmers and smugglers. Their military strength, bolstered by a continuous feed of men and weapons from Pakistan, remains considerable.
Not only are the Taliban able to launch cowardly small-scale terrorist attacks like the one that claimed the lives of Ms. Kirk and Ms. Case, but also company-scale military assaults — such as the June 13 raid on a Kandahar jail, which resulted in the escape of 1,200 prisoners. A month later, a force of 200 Taliban attacked a NATO base in Kunar province, killing 9 U.S. soldiers.
The simple truth is that, after seven years, the U.S.-led coalition in Afghanistan isn’t able to provide basic security in much of the country. Why?
American commanders in Iraq were asking a similar question in 2006: Despite three years of war in that country, much of Anbar province remained under the effective control of al-Qaeda, and Baghdad was a jigsaw puzzle of militia fiefdoms. Ultimately, George W. Bush decided that the war could be won only with more troops.
The five extra brigades the U.S. President authorized for deployment in 2007 turned the tide of the war. Finally, American division commanders were able to not only clear terrorists from neighbourhoods, but hold them as well — so the death squads couldn’t come back. As author Bing West argues in his recently released book, The Storngest Tribe: War, Politics, and the Endgame in Iraq, this is how a classic counterinsurgency campaign is supposed to work: Once you force the bad guys out of a village, you keep the place clear — for good.
Unfortunately, NATO commanders in Afghanistan don’t have the troops needed for that kind of campaign: There are just 70,000 Western troops in Afghanistan, less than half the number deployed in Iraq. So our troops play whack-a-mole, scrambling from one hot spot to the next as the Taliban shift targets and strategies. NATO's offensives carry grandiose names — “Mountain Fury,” “Falcon Summit,” “Volcano,” “Achilles,” “Medusa” — and consistently chalk up an impressive number of enemy killed. But when the smoke clears, the men in helmets often move on to the next fight, and the Taliban come back to roost.
So long as NATO does not have the troops it needs to execute a true clear-and-hold counterinsurgency campaign across the whole of the south and east, Afghanistan will be in a constant state of limbo, and innocent souls such as Ms. Kirk and Ms. Case will have their lives snuffed out by murderers. If Afghanistan is to be saved, it needs its own surge.
There are signs that such a surge is coming. Both John McCain and Barack Obama have declared that Afghanistan will be a priority if they become president. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is talking about sending 10,000 troops to Afghanistan as they became available in the wake of an Iraq drawdown. And Canadian Defense Minister Peter MacKay recently announced Canada may be sending an extra 200 troops to add to our current complement of 2,500 — a small addition in the grand scheme, surely, but significant by the standards of our military.
These moves are encouraging. But more is needed. Without tens of thousands of additional troops, there is no reason to expect that the battlefield in Afghanistan will look any different next year, or the year after that.
As patriotic supporters of the war, we all agree we should be fighting to win. If we’re not, then what exactly are we doing in Afghanistan? jkay@nationalpost.com
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Top Taliban leader feared dead in Bajaur air strike
By Mushtaq Yusufzai The News International (Pakistan) August 15, 2008
PESHAWAR: Amid reports of the killing of prominent militant Taliban commander Maulana Faqir Mohammad in Bajaur Agency, the security forces on Thursday intensified the ongoing military operation against the militants in the troubled tribal region, killing 33 more Taliban fighters.
Military officials based in the troubled Bajaur Agency seemed quite satisfied with their success against the militants in Bajaur, saying two vehicles carrying important Taliban commanders, including their regional chief Maulana Faqir Mohammad and his close aides, were targeted in Damadola on Thursday afternoon.
"Two vehicles carrying senior Taliban commander Maulana Faqir Mohammad and his close aides were targeted by two gunship choppers. But I am not sure whether he (Maulana Faqir) died in the attack or not," said a senior military official, wishing not to be named.
The sources said Maulana Faqir and his men were crossing a seasonal stream in Damadola village when all of a sudden two choppers attacked their vehicles. Military authorities said 11 militants were killed in the attack on the vehicles.
The officials said they were following both the vehicles right from the beginning when the militants were camouflaging these pick-up trucks with mud and maize crops near Omari area. "The choppers opened fire when the vehicles drove toward Damadola. One of the vehicles, which was loaded with ammunition and explosives, exploded," said the military sources.
Spokesman for Taliban Maulvi Omar confirmed the air attack on double-cabin pick-up truck of Maulana Faqir, saying the vehicle was badly damaged. However, he said Faqir Mohammad remained unscathed in the attack, as he had just alighted from the vehicle.
The seemingly panicked and upset Omar said first two gunship choppers targeted the vehicles and then artillery and mortar shells were fired at the same position, which caused heavy loss to their people, but didn't provide exact figures of his men lost in the attack. Sources close to Maulana Faqir also disagreed with reports about his death.
Similarly, four gunship helicopters continued blitzing militants' suspected hideouts in their strongholds in Seway, Mamond, Mulla Said Banda, and Utmankhel Tehsil. According to military officials, 22 suspected militants were killed and several others injured when gunship choppers targeted a madrassah run by ameer of Tanzim Nifaz Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM), Bajaur Agency and Taliban commander Maulana Mohammad Munir at Seway in Mamond subdivision.
Officials said the militants were using the madrassah, built in middle of orchards, as their hideout. However, there were no details whether Maulana Munir, who is head of transport wing of the Taliban militants in Bajaur, was killed in the attack or not.
Tribal sources told The News from Bajaur Agency that there was a huge intensity in the week-long military operation against militants on Thursday."For the first time I saw the military helicopters targeting accurate locations and hideouts of Taliban," a tribesman Haji Rahmanullah told The News from militant stronghold Mamond tehsil.
On the other hand, government officials said the security forces first wanted local population to vacate the area so that they could easily figure out the militants and target them in their hideouts.
Majority of the population had already fled their homes and shifted to Dir, Mardan, Peshawar and rest of the districts where they are living in miserable conditions. PPI adds: The victims of Bajaur operation observed Independence Day as "Black Day" against the ongoing military operation and staged a demonstration here in front of Peshawar press club on Thursday.
The protestors holding banners and placards chanted slogans against military operation, displacement of common people and increasing number of civilian casualties during the operation.They demanded of the government to immediately stop the operation and compensate the affectees.
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India says peace talks with Pakistan under threat
By ASHOK SHARMA Associated Press August 15, 2008
NEW DELHI - India's prime minister said Friday that the peace process with Pakistan was in danger of failing because of attacks like last month's bombing of New Delhi's mission in Afghanistan.
India and Afghanistan say Pakistan's powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency orchestrated the attack, which killed 58 people. Islamabad denies playing any role but has promised to investigate the allegation.
"If this issue of terrorism is not addressed, all the good intentions that we have for our two peoples to live in peace and harmony will be negated," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said in an Independence Day speech. "We will not be able to pursue the peace initiatives we want to take."
Hindu-majority India and Muslim Pakistan were born during the bloody partition of the subcontinent at independence from Britain in 1947. The split sparked one of the most violent upheavals of the 20th century and created a rivalry that has led to three wars.
But relations between the nuclear-armed rivals have improved considerably since the start of a peace process in 2004, and India's leader has pledged to continue the talks despite the allegations of a Pakistani role in the embassy attack.
"I have personally conveyed my concern and disappointment to the government of Pakistan," said Singh, speaking from behind a bulletproof screen atop the ramparts of the historic Red Fort, the massive 17th-century sandstone palace built by the Muslim Mogul emperors who ruled much of India before the British arrived.
Responding to Singh's speech, Pakistan's Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq denied Pakistan took part in the embassy attack and said, "We have deep interest in the continuation of the peace process. We think that is important for the people of South Asia."
India also accuses Pakistan of playing a role in more than a dozen bombings that have hit India in the past three years, and the two sides have blamed each other for a surge in shootings across their heavily fortified de facto border in Kashmir, the divided Himalayan region at the center of their rivalry.
The latest reported shooting — the 20th so far this year — came Friday when India said its forces along the frontier, called the Line of Control, were fired on by Pakistani forces armed with rocket-propelled grenades.
No casualties were reported by the Indian side, and Pakistani officials were not immediately available for comment.
Kashmir, an overwhelmingly Muslim region, is claimed by both India and Pakistan and has been the focus of two of their three wars.
There were regular exchanges of gunfire along the Line of Control before the two sides signed a cease-fire in late 2003.
But the recent shootings have led to a familiar round of accusations, with Pakistan blaming India for violating the cease-fire and New Delhi accusing Islamabad of helping Islamic rebels sneak into its part of Kashmir.
Nearly a dozen Islamic rebel groups have been fighting for Kashmir's independence from India or its merger with Pakistan. More than 68,000 people, most of them civilians, have been killed in the conflict since 1989, and India routinely accuses Pakistan of assisting the insurgents, a charge Islamabad denies.
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Afghanistan's refugee challenge
ALJAZEERA.NET By Aunohita Mojumdar in Kabul Tuesday, August 12, 2008
With five million refugees repatriated since 2001 and three million still harboured mainly in Pakistan and Iran, Afghanistan continues to face formidable challenges in addressing the needs of its refugee population.
Increasing tensions between Afghanistan and its neighbours, especially Pakistan, and deteriorating security conditions within the country have dampened initial enthusiasms of the refugees' homecoming.
Salvatore Lombardo, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) country representative in Afghanistan, says a more challenging period lies ahead for the Kabul government and international agencies seeking the reintegration of refugee populations both within and outside Afghanistan.
In an exclusive interview with Al Jazeera, Lombardo said there is not enough recognition that a population that has been in exile for 30 years does not necessarily want to be repatriated.
"The aspirations they have, the wishes they have certainly do not find an answer in the Afghanistan of today and because of the insecurity many of them cannot go back to the places where they came from," he said.
Injection of pragmatism
Lombardo says national and international repatriation efforts must be more pragmatic.
"What is required is a moment of truth to see what can be done and what cannot be done," he said.
Ingrid Macdonald, the regional protection and advocacy advisor of the Norwegian Refugee Council, agrees, saying that refugees with ties to Afghanistan – such as property, assets, and family - have already come back.
She said: "[But] those who remain, many of whom have lived in Pakistan for over 25 years or were born there, have no access to land or property, are under 25 years of age or are elderly. Is it really legitimate for them to come back to Afghanistan now with all the challenges we face here?"
One of the integral challenges is that refugees considering repatriation may no longer identify with the Afghanistan they left.
For many, living in neighbouring countries has changed the way they dress and speak, and affected their status of education, their status as working women and their standard of living.
"Whereas their families may have come from a rural environment originally – that does not mean after 25 [years] of living in a camp or urban area that they have the ability or desire to return to that rural area," Macdonald said.
Voluntary return principle
The new Afghanistan National Development Strategy (ANDS) presented by the Afghan government to donors in Paris in June stressed the principle of voluntary return and indicated that "the desire of neighbouring countries to engineer large scale return is a challenge to the principle of voluntary repatriation".
But the strategy avoided making political statements on the possible integration of long-term exiles into their host countries.
Robbie Thomson, the interim country head of the International Organisation of Migration (IOM), says it is up to both the Iranian and Pakistani governments to decide whether to return Afghan refugees.
"Decisions on the fate of refugees are political decisions. The international community can have an input on the issue but may not necessarily be able to change the outcome."
"Militant sanctuaries"
But Lombardo says the status of diplomatic relations between Afghanistan and its neighbours plays a critical factor in any repatriation effort.
"The quality of that relationship will always influence the destiny of this population. When relations between states on issues like these are not very ideal there is no great will to discuss solutions," he said.
"There needs to be trust. When that is not there it delays solutions, it complicates matters. This has always been the case for the Afghan presence in Pakistan. If the relationship does not go well the population hosted over there will suffer."
Political constraints have often translated into increased hardships for many Afghan refugees and have often undercut the principle of voluntary return.
The Iranian government, for example, has said it has a "sovereign right" to deport refugees who have not registered with the UNHCR, branding them "illegals".
Pakistan, under pressure from the international community to take action against cross border militancy, has claimed that the refugee camps in the border areas need to be dismantled since they have become sanctuaries for militants and that Afghans staying in those camps have carried out terror attacks.
Community pressure
But sometimes local communities who play host to refugee populations also apply pressure to convince Afghans to leave the area.
In Baluchistan, the largest province in Southwest Pakistan, the residents of the Zher Kareez camp found their water supply turned off, apparently at the behest of the locals.
In the North West Frontier province, the local jirga (council) accused the residents of being involved in illegal activities and asked them to leave.
Nevertheless, Lombardo feels that in general the generosity of the host populace has been extraordinary, saying "whatever the politics the human element has been quite exemplary".
Pressure from UNHCR has slowed down the closure of camps and the rate of refugee return - just 200,000 have returned so far this year, which is far viewer than the mass returns of earlier years.
But the number of returnees continues to outpace the reintegration capacity in Afghanistan.
The initial euphoria expressed by refugees returning home has long since tapered off as they begin to struggle with the lack of land, homes, shelter, services and employment.
While the enduring poverty impacts all Afghans, refugees often find themselves more vulnerable without the links to subsistence structures that others have developed over time.
Promised land
Part of the problem, repatriation analysts say, is that the Afghan government promised land for every returnee.
"The dream that you are going to give a piece of land to everyone who comes back was false and certainly should never have been done and should not have been shared because that dream does not exist," Lombardo said.
The scarcity of land has meant that refugees are often allotted land 50km away from urban centres and usually in areas where refugees have no means of livelihood or family connections.
Macdonald also says that the land ownership claims are drawn out and have added further complications to repatriation.
"Of the two million refugees remaining in Pakistan – almost 90 per cent claim to have no claim to land or property in Afghanistan – along with insecurity, this will be one of the greatest challenges facing their return and reintegration in Afghanistan," Macdonald said.
Thomson says: "When refugees or migrants are returned from Pakistan or Iran and come back to Afghanistan they may or may not be able to return to the point of origin. Local settlement is a second option but is not as easy as it sounds. There are land issues both qualitative and quantitative."
Refocus
International relief organisations and various UN agencies dealing with refugees and their reintegration have said that much emphasis is placed on the initial stage of refugees' return and not enough on issues which may later arise.
Repatriated refugees could end up in urban areas without adequate basic services such as shelter, water, food, healthcare and education facilities.
Many appear to end up living with extended families which can place enormous levels of pressure and stress on those communities.
"Tens of thousands of people who most recently returned from the Jalozai camp this year are still living in the desert, with makeshift tents made out of plastic and reliant on water tankers, months after they crossed the border into Afghanistan," Macdonald said.
Some of the repatriated refugees find that they no longer fit into the social fabric they left behind long ago and choose to return to Pakistan or Iran in search of safety, work and basic services.
But Macdonald warns that refugees leaving Afghanistan once again do so illegally, which can make them vulnerable to extortion and exploitation.
To prevent such difficulties following repatriation, the attitude from international agencies and local governments must change.
"The difficulty is that they [the returning refugees] are looked at as a problem and not as a solution," Thomson said.
"If we can demonstrate they bring something with them - skills or other benefits - it would make their return more welcome."
Source: Al Jazeera
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Compassion and 'bang-bang addiction'
Aid workers in war zones say job invigorates and haunts them
Globe and Mail, Canada HAYLEY MICK With a report from The Canadian Press August 15, 2008
Every morning since she returned from Afghanistan two months ago, Dana Stinson has switched on her computer and turned to CNN.
She scrolls past the Obama news and the weather. Instead, the American consultant, who has worked in some of the world's most dangerous conflicts, makes sure nothing terrible has befallen former colleagues in the war-torn country she left behind.
"It's scary, and you worry about losing people," said Ms. Stinson, 40. "But at the same time, most of the people that are out there are out there because they love the work and they want to be there."
On Wednesday, the worst news: Three aid workers, including two Canadian women, and their driver had been killed by Taliban gunmen. And from Sudan to Gaza to Kabul, Ms. Stinson and her tight-knit community of aid workers began texting and calling, frantically cross-referencing to see which one in their ranks had died.
It may be one of the world's most dangerous career choices. Driven by compassion, conviction and what one veteran called a "bang-bang addiction," aid workers hop from hot spot to hot spot, helping the wounded and the displaced to rebuild.
Certainly Shirley Case of Williams Lake, B.C., one of the aid workers killed on Wednesday, was aware of the dangers inherent in her job.
"It is difficult not to feel a wee bit vulnerable when an armed convoy cruises by," she e-mailed friends from Afghanistan on July 1. "There are military vehicle convoys that traverse the city roads on a regular basis; generally, traffic making way for the convoys to travel through, as the convoys are often the primary target for suicide attacks, etc., so we all keep our distance. ..."
In order to carry out their assignments, aid workers sacrifice relationships, delay having babies and form multinational surrogate families with like-minded individuals. They face some of the same dangers as soldiers with guns, but are protected only by the humanitarian status trumpeted by their white, marked vehicles, something that did not save the four killed in Afghanistan.
It's a job that leaves them both invigorated and haunted. And for some, a homecoming can be even more difficult than the chaos of war.
Yet, many say it's a job like no other; one they couldn't evade if they tried.
"It's like an addiction," said Shaun Barcavage, 38, of working in a conflict zone. "It's high energy and high stimulation. You're up close and personal with life situations that consume you. And I think there's no other job like that."
Dustin Okazaki, a 29-year-old Canadian working for the United Nations in Gaza, says his drive comes from everyday graces, like witnessing the devotion of Gazan colleagues, or seeing a child refugee delight in a day at the beach.
"It's been an incredibly rewarding experience," he said in an interview from Jerusalem. "Every day there's something else that gives you a sense of inspiration."
But there can also be terrible lows. Some aid workers emerge from their postings unable to shake some of their experiences: the close-calls, the one you couldn't save, the child staring you down holding an AK-47.
"Just imagine you're in a refugee camp with 150,000 people. And they look at you, like, 'Where's the water coming from?' " said Mathius Eick, 32, who has spend over a decade doing work in places like Kosovo and Sarajevo.
"You get this idea: I can't deal with this. Sometimes you have to make the decision: This person's not going to eat today."
Coping strategies come down to individuals. Mr. Eick, now in Rwanda, says he maintains a home base in Cape Town. Ms. Stinson takes vacations or spends time with family in Massachusetts whenever she gets time off.
"You do reach a point with yourself where you really have to recognize, I'm not behaving normally. The stress is getting to me," said Ms. Stinson, who is now looking for postings in the Sudan or East Africa, which sound a little less stressful, she said.
(Ms. Stinson, who worked in Afghanistan for two years, did not know the aid workers who were killed this week, including 30-year-old Shirley Chase of B.C. and Jackie Kirk, 40, of Montreal. But like many aid workers, she was close to people who did).
When they need a break, she said, some eventually take stable jobs in headquarters of development organizations, or turn to more traditional development work: HIV prevention, building wells or public-health campaigns.
Others return to their old lives. But even that can be strangely difficult.
"You really go through a struggle to reintegrate yourself into your own society," said Mr. Barcavage.
A year ago, Mr. Barcavage returned to New Jersey after spending 15 years abroad, including a two years in Kosovo, where he endured bomb blasts, power outages and being trapped inside his home while French forces shot a man outside his door.
He's now training to become a nurse, a skill he hopes to apply in another posting in another volatile place. But some days, he holds himself back.
"I actually accepted a contract in Iraq," he said. "And then I'm like, 'No, what am I doing?' "
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Musharraf resignation deal denied
Friday, 15 August 2008 BBC News
A spokesman for President Musharraf of Pakistan has firmly denied newspaper reports that the former general has already agreed to step down.
Rashid Qureshi said Mr Musharraf - who is under the threat of impeachment - would not resign or seek immunity.
A leading supporter of the president said that messages were being exchanged between the different parties but no agreement had yet been reached.
The ruling coalition says it may start impeachment proceedings next week.
Dignified exit
The BBC's Mark Dummett in Islamabad says the stand-off might not go as far as an impeachment motion in parliament, as it is almost certain Mr Musharraf would lose if confidence votes that are being held this week in provincial assemblies are anything to go by.
Our correspondent says that in each case, support for the president has almost entirely collapsed.
His best way out would now seem to be a dignified exit before parliament meets to debate the impeachment, he adds.
Talks are going on behind the scenes.
Our correspondent says that the parties will have to decide where the former army chief, a key ally in Washington's war on terror, is allowed to live and what protection he will receive.
Former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who was toppled in a coup by President Musharraf in 1999 and is leading the second-largest party, said he was opposed to any deal which would give his old rival a "safe passage".
Our correspondent say that a lot now depends on where the army, still Pakistan's most powerful institution, stands on the issue.
One of the president's former ministers, Tariq Azim, told the AFP news agency that one option would be for Mr Musharraf to become a "figurehead president" without the power to dissolve parliament.
"Talks are under way and many people are interested that the issue is settled amicably without going into the impeachment of President Pervez Musharraf," he said.
On Thursday, the president said the country needed political stability for economic development and to fight militancy.
Differences should be buried, he said, pointing out that Pakistan was going through a "difficult phase in its history".
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Treaty of China-Afghanistan friendship, cooperation and good-neighborly relations takes effect
Xinhua, China www.chinaview.cn 2008-08-14
BEIJING-The treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Good-neighborly Relations between China and Afghanistan came into force here Thursday, the date of exchange of instrument of ratification.
Hu Zhengyue, assistant minister of foreign affairs of China, and Afghan Ambassador to China Eklil Ahmad Hakimi signed the certificate for the exchange of the instrument of ratification as representatives of their respective governments.
The treaty was jointly signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on June 19, 2006.
The Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress, the top legislature, and Afghan National Assembly finished the discussions and ratified the treaty in succession. The exchange of instrument symbolized that the two countries have finished their domestic legislative process.
Editor: Bi Mingxin
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