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Karzai's role in Koran burning protests again reveals divide with US
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow 04/04/2011
KABUL - On the second day of the deadly riots in Kandahar, around the same time a gas canister exploded in a flaming police guard booth outside the governor’s office, Afghan President Hamid Karzai picked up the phone and called the mullah.
Quran Burning Protests Continue in Kabul
VOA News April 5, 2011
Protests erupted for a fifth day in Afghanistan over the burning of a Quran by a U.S. pastor.
UN reveals identities of staff members killed in Afghanistan
UNITED NATIONS, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Monday released the identities of three members and four contract security guards killed in a revenge attack last week at the UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif in north Afghanistan for the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book Koran by a U.S. pastor.
Terry Jones and Afghan mullahs: Who is responsible for violence?
Washington Post By Susan Jacoby 04/04/2011
The multiculturalist true believers are out in force again. Since angry Afghans responded to the the crackpot Florida pastor Terry Jones’s ceremonial burning of a Koran by murdering 12 United Nations workers, some American multiculturalists have been drawing a moral, if not a legal, equation between Jones’s book-burning and the killing of human beings.
Afghan Religious Clerics Slam Attack on UN Office
TOLOnews.com Monday, 04 April 2011
Some of the clerics in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Monday slammed the recent violence in the city in which the UN office was attacked by demonstrators protesting at the recent Koran burning by a US pastor.
Afghan Officials Say NATO Forces Killed Six Civilians
April 5, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say NATO-led forces killed six civilians in a night operation in northern Afghanistan.
Blast wounds five policemen in S Afghan city
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Five policemen were injured Tuesday when a bomb blasted in Kandahar city, capital of the same name Kandahar province, some 450 km south of Afghan capital of Kabul, a statement of provincial administration said.
90 Militants Killed in Afghan Offensive
Sonil Haidari Tolo news April 5, 2011
At least 90 insurgents were killed in the past two days in a joint Afghan and foreign forces operation in eastern Kunar province, officials said.
10 Taliban militants join government in N Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A 10-member group of Taliban insurgents on Tuesday renounced insurgency and joined government-initiated peace process in Kunduz province, some 250 km north of the capital city of Kabul, provincial police spokesman said.
Afghanistan, pushed to the edge
By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Special to CNN April 4, 2011
Deadly protests sweeping Afghanistan in reaction to the Quran-burning by Florida Pastor Terry Jones are a defeat for those on all sides fighting for Afghanistan's peaceful future. They could not come at a worse time for the war effort in Afghanistan or the push to win greater support for the war here in the United States.
Afghan Govt to Introduce 7 Ministers to Parliament
Tolo news April 4, 2011
Afghan government is to introduce the remaining ministers to the parliament to get votes of confidence, President Karzai's Spokesman said at a press conference on Monday.
Afghan MPs to Summon Attorney General Over Election Interference
Tolo news April 4, 2011
Afghan MPs on Monday unanimously decided to summon the Attorney General next week over interference in electoral affairs.
Afghan MPs to Summon Attorney General Over Election Interference
TOLOnews.com Monday, 04 April 2011
Afghan MPs on Monday unanimously decided to summon the Attorney General next week over interference in electoral affairs.
Purdue receives $32 million Afghanistan farm grant
Associated Press April 4, 2011
A grant of $31.9 million awarded to Purdue University may translate into a more sustainable agricultural sector for Afghanistan, according to U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar.
Cleaning up Afghanistan’s banking system
Foreign Policy By Candace Rondeaux Monday, April 4, 2011
When news of Kabul Bank's imminent collapse broke early last fall, some likened the crisis to a slow motion train wreck. Six months later, the failure of Afghanistan's largest commercial bank now looks more like a bullet-train in danger of running the country's precarious reconstruction efforts off the rails.
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Karzai's role in Koran burning protests again reveals divide with US
The Washington Post By Joshua Partlow 04/04/2011
KABUL - On the second day of the deadly riots in Kandahar, around the same time a gas canister exploded in a flaming police guard booth outside the governor’s office, Afghan President Hamid Karzai picked up the phone and called the mullah.
In that urgent moment, he told Maulvi Habibullah, a Kandahar imam and a leader of the protests, that 10 days earlier, he had already condemned in the strongest terms the Rev. Terry Jones’s decision to burn a Koran in a small Florida church on March 20, according to Karzai’s aides.
The news surprised Habibullah — “Did you really do that, Mr. President?” he said, according to one aide — and the imam agreed to urge his followers to calm down. “After the call, things got better, and people went home,” the aide said. Habibullah could not be reached for comment.
In the palace version of events, Karzai has been a concerned leader taking an active part in restoring order, amid four days of mob violence and clashes with the police that left at least 21 people dead and about 150 wounded in cities across Afghanistan.
But many U.S. and Western officials here believe Karzai has played a more damaging role. They see his initial public condemnation of Jones four days after the March 20 Koran burning as a provocative statement that informed many Afghans of an event that was not widely known and helped mobilize public anger toward the United States.
Throughout the crisis, Karzai has repeatedly pushed the issue, calling for Jones’s prosecution, despite the fact that Koran burning is not a crime in the United States, and for the U.S. Congress to join in his condemnation.
“As soon as that release came out” from Karzai, said one NATO official in Kabu, “you knew that this could really be bad.”
Afghan and Western sources spoke on condition of anonymity to speak frankly about the politically sensitive episode.
The episode has revealed again the divide between Karzai and the West, a gulf of mistrust and acrimony that poses one of the most serious challenges to success in Afghanistan. In many ways the past few difficult years have denied Karzai the benefit of the doubt among his Western partners, after repeated public confrontations over issues of corruption, governance and the role of the foreign militaries have sapped their energy and patience.
“When I read his statements and accusations against Americans, it’s like an amazing sense of his willingness just to humiliate,” said one Western diplomat here. “It’s not that he would like to confront the issue in partnership, but just to retaliate through humiliation like someone owes him something.”
Afghan officials have also expressed frustration: over the U.S. response, which they feel came late and has been insufficient, and over the sense that somehow this could have been prevented. “How can they talk about freedom of expression when it comes to burning the Koran?” said one palace official. “Afghanistan’s on the brink and it’s about to explode.”
Some Western officials acknowledge that it was naive to think that a Koran burning in Florida could remain unnoticed. “We have missed an opportunity to really condemn the burning of Koran as soon as it happened,” the Western diplomat said. “We all thought, genuinely, that it would just go unnoticed. Karzai did notice.”
In their public statements, top U.S. and international officials here have sought to place the blame on Jones for provoking the outrage that followed, while at the same time denouncing the violence that killed seven U.N. employees in northern Afghanistan on Friday and more Afghans there and in Kandahar.
When asked about Karzai’s role, the U.N. envoy Staffan de Mistura said: “I still believe frankly, that the real person to be condemned is the one who actually burned the Koran, because he should know what is at stake.”
“Freedom of speech does not mean freedom of offending cultures, religions, traditions of others, especially when he knows, and he has seen in the past, that when that touches Islam they become so violent,” he said.
When Jones burned the Koran on March 20 the event made little news in the U.S. or abroad. Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari condemned the act two days later, followed by Karzai on March 24. Eight days later, during Friday sermons, the wider Afghan public took up the issue and the protests began.
“This is a very religious Islamic country, and the president is the leader of this Muslim country,” said Waheed Omer, Karzai’s spokesman. “The president saw it as his moral and religious duty on behalf of the Afghan people to condemn this.
“People would have been informed anyway; this was something that would not have kept a low profile in a country like Afghanistan,” he said. “The president’s primary concern was not to prevent this information from getting to the people of Afghanistan.”
The demonstrations continued on Monday in two eastern provinces — Nangarhar and Laghman — which included burning an effigy of Jones and rock throwing at police. The protests were less violent than in previous days. In northern Faryab province, a man wearing an Afghan border police uniform shot and killed two NATO service members inside their compound before fleeing the scene. Karzai condemned the killings in a statement, identifying the victims as Americans.
Similar incidents have happened before and add further difficulty to the strained partnership.
“This is a war between fundamentalists,” said Rangin Dadfar Spanta, Afghanistan’s national security adviser, reflecting on the turmoil at the moment. “And we are all the victims.”
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Quran Burning Protests Continue in Kabul
VOA News April 5, 2011
Protests erupted for a fifth day in Afghanistan over the burning of a Quran by a U.S. pastor.
Hundreds of people rallied at Kabul University in the capital Tuesday, chanting "death to America" and calling for the pastor who burned the Muslim holy book to be put on trial.
Afghan police in riot gear guarded the area as the peaceful protest took place.
It came one day after hundreds of stone-throwing demonstrators scuffled with police during a rally in the provincial capital of eastern Laghman province.
The protests stem from the March 20 burning of a Quran by the head of a small fundamentalist church in the southern U.S. state of Florida.
Officials say at least 19 people have died and 100 people have been wounded in Afghanistan since Friday when the demonstrations began. In the deadliest incident, seven foreign United Nations staff members were killed in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif when protesters attacked a U.N. compound.
U.S. president Barack Obama and the commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David Petraeus, have condemned the Quran burning.
Some information for this report was provided by AFP and Reuters.
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UN reveals identities of staff members killed in Afghanistan
UNITED NATIONS, April 4 (Xinhua) -- The United Nations on Monday released the identities of three members and four contract security guards killed in a revenge attack last week at the UN compound in Mazar-i-Sharif in north Afghanistan for the burning of a copy of the Muslim holy book Koran by a U.S. pastor.
The UN Department of Peacekeeping Operations identified the victims and after notifications were made the UN Staff Union released the names. They were identified as Joakim Dungel, 33, a human rights officer, from Sweden; Filaret Motco, 43, a political officer, from Romania; Lt. Col. Siri Skare, 53, a female pilot serving as military liaison officer, from Norway; the union's Standing Committee on the Security and Independence of the International Civil Service said.
The panel also identified the four Ghurka security guards working under contract as Min Bahadur Thapa, Chhabi Lal Purja Pun, Narayan Bahadur Thapa Magar and Dil Prasad Gurung, all from Nepal.
The identities were in a press release mourning the loss of their fellow members last week and recalling colleagues previously killed in Afghanistan, as well as Afghan staff members and a World Food Program security guard -- an Afghan national.
"The Staff Union notes a significant flaw in the UN security management system -- a system based on the fundamental principle that the primary responsibility for the security and protection of staff members, their dependants and property and the (UN) organization's property rests with host governments," the release said.
The United Nations has long counted on host nations to provide primary protection wherever it operates, but does have its own Department of Safety and Security Services.
"In conflict and post-conflict environments, as evidenced in Afghanistan, governments are either non-existent or too fragile to uphold the principle of the host country's responsibility for the safety and security of the staff," it said. "This latest incident reveals major security lapses by the Afghan authorities and the discordance between the United Nations key policy principles of " no program without security" and "how to stay" (on assignment) even in situations of extreme insecurity." The staff union committee called for renewed efforts to prevent similar tragedies in the future.
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Terry Jones and Afghan mullahs: Who is responsible for violence?
Washington Post By Susan Jacoby 04/04/2011
The multiculturalist true believers are out in force again. Since angry Afghans responded to the the crackpot Florida pastor Terry Jones’s ceremonial burning of a Koran by murdering 12 United Nations workers, some American multiculturalists have been drawing a moral, if not a legal, equation between Jones’s book-burning and the killing of human beings.
“The problem is religious zealots on both sides,” writes one commenter on The Daily Beast Web site in a declaration that exemplifies the most distorted brand of mutliculturalist illogic. “I wish we could put all of them in a room together to go after each other. The world would be a more peaceful place.” Wrong. There is no legitimate equation between the hateful act of burning a book—including a book sacred to millions—and murder. Offending people’s feelings and mocking their beliefs is not a hanging offense—except to radical Islamists.
It is tedious to repeat, once again, that—as an atheist and a thinking human being—I disapprove of ignorant religious bigots like Jones, and of politicians, like New York’s Republican Rep. Peter King, who, to promote themselves and their right-wing agendas, engage in activities that question the loyalty of American Muslims as a group. But the idea that Jones is responsible for the savagery of those who murdered the first westerners they could get their hands on in Afghanistan represents multiculturalism run amuck.
I’ll tell you who is responsible, in addition to those who actually carried out the murders. The three prominent Afghan mullahs who demanded that Jones be arrested by U.S. authorities for what is a perfectly legal act here, and who urged people to take to the streets to express their outrage, bear a huge share of the responsibility. One well-known Afghan mullah, Qymaudin Kashaf, told the New York Times that “We expressed our deep concerns about this act, and we were expecting the violence that we are witnessing now. Unless they try him (Jones) and give him the highest possible punishment, we will witness violence and protests not not only in Afghanistan but in the entire world.” Are we supposed to abandon our laws and traditions guaranteeing freedom of speech when it comes to Islam because otherwise, some Muslims will seek violent vengeance somewhere in the world? This is blackmail.
There is nothing new about this behavior. In 2006, when Danish cartoonists satirized the prophet Muhammad, four westerners were killed within a few days in Afghanistan. The multiculturalists were also in full-throated voice then, condemning the cartoons for being offensive to Muslims. American academic multiculturalists led the craven chorus. At the University of Illinois, two student editors were suspended by cowardly university officials for publishing the cartoons in their student newspaper. (They were afraid of offending Muslim students on campus.) What a glorious demonstration of academic freedom in a university community!
Some members of the rampaging crowd that filled the streets before the murders of the U.N. workers were carrying sings proclaiming “Down with America” and “Death to Obama.” Such acts only underscore the futility of our continuing war in Afghanistan. We are sending young Americans to their deaths, and endangering our own economic welfare, on behalf of people who do not have the slightest respect for or understanding of our most basic institutions and civic values, as expressed in the Bill of Rights. I’m sorry for the women who will be returned to near-slavery if the Taliban regain control after U.S. troops leave Afghanistan and I’m sorry for everyone who helped us, but it’s time to go.
I was particularly disgusted when our feckless so-called ally, Afghanistan’s President Hamid Karazai, called on the United States to punish those responsible for burning the Koran.
Isn’t it telling that we’ve heard nothing from Afghan government officials or clerics about punishing the people who killed the innocent U.N. workers? You can bet that no one will ever try to bring them to justice.
Terry Jones is, as he ought to be, a pariah among mainstream American religious believers and among secular Americans. He ought to be a pariah not because he insulted someone else’s religion but because he is an ignorant representative of hate. But let us recall that all he did—and of course, he broadcast his video over the Internet—was place the Koran “on trial” before his online viewers chose the “punishment” of burning.
This is pretty much the equivalent of what the city-state of classical Athens did to inanimate objects that caused the death of a human being. If a piece of marble fell off a column and killed someone, it was placed on “trial” before a special court and exiled from the borders of the city if found guilty. And the Athenian populace didn’t go out and kill people who worked in quarries.
Respect for religion—any religion—is not required under American law, despite the wrongheaded idea that the United States was founded as a Christian nation. You can burn copies of the Torah, the New Testament, or the Koran. You can depict the Virgin Mary covered with dung or sculpt a statue of Buddha wearing a Hitler mustache. What you cannot do is burn down publishing houses that print copies of the Bible and the Koran or threaten the lives of those who publish words or images that offend you (as Islamic radicals have done repeatedly). You cannot kill irreverent artists who mock saints and deities. You cannot kill Terry Jones or put him in prison for overseeing the destruction of one copy, out of millions around the world, of a book.
There is absolutely no moral equivalency between the symbolic act of one demented pastor—who apparently commands a congregation of only 30 warped souls—and revenge killings abetted by the voices of so-called religious leaders in Afghanistan.
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Afghan Religious Clerics Slam Attack on UN Office
TOLOnews.com Monday, 04 April 2011
Some of the clerics in the northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif on Monday slammed the recent violence in the city in which the UN office was attacked by demonstrators protesting at the recent Koran burning by a US pastor.
Demonstrators overran the Unama's regional office in Mazar on Friday and some insurgents who had reportedly infiltrated in the crowd killed seven foreign workers.
Four civilians lost their lives in the incident and 24 others were injured.
Calling the Koran burning by the Florida pastor a shameful act, clerics emphasised that the reaction should not have violent leading to the killing of innocent individuals.
Clerics said as Muslims respect all the holy heavenly books, they expect others not to desecrate the Muslims' holy book.
One of the clerics slamming the deadly attack is Maulawi Qasem Khateeb at the Blue Mosque where demonstrators had first gathered before marching on the UN office.
"I disapprove of what happened in Mazar. People did not expect the demonstration to lead to bloodshed and spoil the beauty of Balkh province," Maulawi Khateeb said.
Meanwhile, residents of Alingar district of the eastern Laghman province on Monday staged a protest at the Koran burning and peacefully blocked the Jalalabad-Torkham route for some hours.
The protesters chanted anti-US slogans and urged punishement of the Florida pastor.
In violent protests in the southern city of Kandahar 14 people were killed and more than a hundred were wounded over the past two days.
Head of the Kandahar Religious Council condemned the violence in the city describing is as against Islamic teachings.
He said plundering people's properties is considered a major crime in Islam.
Meanwhile, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has sent a delegation to Kandahar for investigation.
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Afghan Officials Say NATO Forces Killed Six Civilians
April 5, 2011 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
Afghan officials say NATO-led forces killed six civilians in a night operation in northern Afghanistan.
Provincial Governor Sayed Anwar Rahmati said the raid was conducted in the Sayad district of Sar-i-Pul Province.
Michael Johnson, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), confirmed the operation but said coalition forces came under fire during the raid, so they engaged and returned fire, resulting in the death of those who had fired first.
Civilian casualties have been a major issue of contention between the Afghan government and international forces, who have been fighting the Taliban in the country since 2001.
compiled from agency reports
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Blast wounds five policemen in S Afghan city
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, April 5 (Xinhua) -- Five policemen were injured Tuesday when a bomb blasted in Kandahar city, capital of the same name Kandahar province, some 450 km south of Afghan capital of Kabul, a statement of provincial administration said.
"A unit of border police force was on routine patrol in sub- district nine of Kandahar city but at round 11:40 a.m. local time a roadside bomb was detonated near police vehicle. As a result five policemen slightly injured,"the statement said.
The statement blamed the enemies of peace and stability, a term use by Afghan officials referring to Taliban insurgents, for initiating the explosion.
However, Taliban militants who largely rely on roadside and suicide bombings have yet to make comments.
The southern Afghanistan has seen escalating violence and attacks against interest of government and international troops during the past couple of weeks as a suicide bomb attack in neighboring Helmand province claimed the life of the bomber and injured two civilians and a policeman on Monday.
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90 Militants Killed in Afghan Offensive
Sonil Haidari Tolo news April 5, 2011
At least 90 insurgents were killed in the past two days in a joint Afghan and foreign forces operation in eastern Kunar province, officials said.
The operation was launched on Monday in Mongai district of Kunar province to clear it of militants. Ninety insurgents were killed and eighteen others were wounded in the operation, an Afghan official in Shamshad military corps told TOLOnews.
Afghan and foreign forces have seized many weapons during the operation in the district, officials said.
Afghan and foreign forces have suffered no casualties and the operation continues in the other parts of the district, officials added.
The operation comes as the Afghan and foreign forces have launched military operations in Maror and Sarkano of Kunar province six days ago to wipe out the militants.
Six US troops, one Afghan soldier and three insurgents were killed in the operation.
Afghan officials said there were no civilian casualties in the operations.
The province is bordered by Pakistan and Maror, Sarkano, Ghazi, and Chapa Dara districts are among the insecure areas of the province.
Afghan officials have previously said that insurgents often infiltrate from the other side of the border and target Afghan border police check posts.
Afghan and foreign forces have increased their operations in the country as the Afghan forces are to take over security responsibilities of seven areas in July this year.
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10 Taliban militants join government in N Afghanistan
KUNDUZ, Afghanistan, April 5 (Xinhua) -- A 10-member group of Taliban insurgents on Tuesday renounced insurgency and joined government-initiated peace process in Kunduz province, some 250 km north of the capital city of Kabul, provincial police spokesman said.
"The 10-memeber Taliban group led by Salahuddin renounced insurgency and joined government in Imam Sahib District this morning," Mohammad Harroon told Xinhua.
He said the ex-insurgents also handed over 10 weapons to security authorities in the district.
With these former militants being part of the peace process, security would be further improved in Imam Sahib and neighboring areas, the police spokesmansaid.
He also said that authorities would provide job oppurtunities to former rebels and recruit them to police and other government bodies.
Taliban militants fighting Afghan and NATO-led troops have yet to make comment.
More than 500 Taliban fighters have laid down arms and resumed normal life throughout the insurgency-hit Afghanistan since the beginning of this year.
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Afghanistan, pushed to the edge
By Gayle Tzemach Lemmon, Special to CNN April 4, 2011
Deadly protests sweeping Afghanistan in reaction to the Quran-burning by Florida Pastor Terry Jones are a defeat for those on all sides fighting for Afghanistan's peaceful future. They could not come at a worse time for the war effort in Afghanistan or the push to win greater support for the war here in the United States.
For the last two weeks, Afghan media have reported both on the Quran-burning and the horrific charges that American soldiers created "kill teams" that targeted Afghan civilians for sport and captured their murders on video, in some cases even posing with their corpses.
Many Afghans don't realize that these few do not stand for the majority of Americans, who respect Islam and vocally condemn the desecration of a holy book by a rogue, publicity-seeking pastor. And that Americans feel overwhelming shame and outrage at the killing of innocents at the hands of U.S. soldiers, a sentiment particularly strong among those in uniform who see such crimes as a brutal desecration of their own standards and values.
In the last several days, American television has rediscovered Afghanistan, following weeks in which the nuclear disaster in Japan and turmoil in the Middle East dominated the airwaves. Disturbing images of throngs of men in the street shouting against the United States and chilling reports of murderous protesters attacking innocent United Nations employees in Mazar-e-Sharif -- and a girls' high school in Kandahar -- are the only pictures from Afghanistan that Americans have seen recently.
Many Americans don't realize that these few do not stand for the majority of Afghans, who condemn the killing of innocents and feel horror and shame at the attack on United Nations personnel. And that in a December 2010 opinion poll, about 60 percent of Afghans said they continue to support the U.S. military presence in their country and oppose the Taliban, despite growing insecurity.
On either side of this war, America's longest ever, a gulf of understanding gapes ever wider. Increasingly, this chasm separating the two publics is filled by pictures that widen the divide even further. War-weary Americans wonder why in the world they should offer their blood and treasure to a country that burns their flag. Afghans exhausted by war wonder how they can support an American presence that does not even respect their most basic beliefs. Television cannot be relied upon to provide context, but it is expert in igniting emotion.
In the past week, men peddling hate and anger have scored thumping victories. The extremist few have ably outmaneuvered the peaceful many, their heinous acts amplified by repellent images played over and over on television. Those who traffic in destruction have won -- at least for the moment.
On the losing side: men and women of goodwill acting valiantly and quietly each day to build a stronger and more secure country. Among the most soundly defeated are those fighting on all sides for a better future for Afghanistan.
The battle for hearts and minds is not waged in one direction. Right now it is being lost in both.
The opinions in this commentary are solely those of Gayle Tzemach Lemmon.
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Afghan Govt to Introduce 7 Ministers to Parliament
Tolo news April 4, 2011
Afghan government is to introduce the remaining ministers to the parliament to get votes of confidence, President Karzai's Spokesman said at a press conference on Monday.
Waheed Omar, a Spokesman to Afghan President Hamid Karzai, said the government is also working to introduce news members of the Supreme Court.
He said some changes may occur in the cabinet, but added that commenting on it would be ahead of time.
The proposed budget for this year that was earlier rejected by the parliament has also been revised by the Council of Ministers based on lawmakers' suggestions and will soon be sent back to the parliament for approval, Mr Omar said.
Mr Omar said the Afghan government has also decided to allocate five million dollars of its incomes to send Afghan youths for educations in the countries in the region.
Meanwhile, referring to the recent violent demonstrations against the Koran burning in Florida, Mr Omar said every citizen has the right to demonstrate and stage protests according to the constitution, but damaging public property is against the law.
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Afghan MPs to Summon Attorney General Over Election Interference
Tolo news April 4, 2011
Afghan MPs on Monday unanimously decided to summon the Attorney General next week over interference in electoral affairs.
Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, Afghan Attorney General, refused to appear before the house today and sent a letter to the MPs saying his office is independent and the parliament does not have the right to summon him.
"Based on the law, the Attorney General cannot be summoned to the house of representatives," the letter said.
Some lawmakers believe the Attorney General has insulted the house by refusing to appear there.
"His letter should be rejected," Mohammad Sarwar Osmani, an Afghan MP said.
Speaker of the House Abdul Rauf Ibrahim said the Attorney General would be summoned on Saturday.
Last week the House of Representatives accused the Attorney General's Office of acting irresponsibly during the Afghan parliamentary poll.
It has been months since the parliamentary elections ended, but tensions still continue over the disputed votes.
After tensions soared between the winning and losing candidates, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved establishement of a special tribunal to investigate about the disputed votes.
The Attorney General had filed many cases of electoral fraud against some of the winning candidates and it shared the files with the Special Tribunal that the winning candidates see as unconstitutional.
Lawmakers have repeatedly urged the President to dissolve the special tribunal, but without success.
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Afghan MPs to Summon Attorney General Over Election Interference
TOLOnews.com Monday, 04 April 2011
Afghan MPs on Monday unanimously decided to summon the Attorney General next week over interference in electoral affairs.
Mohammad Ishaq Aloko, Afghan Attorney General, refused to appear before the house today and sent a letter to the MPs saying his office is independent and the parliament does not have the right to summon him.
"Based on the law, the Attorney General cannot be summoned to the house of representatives," the letter said.
Some lawmakers believe the Attorney General has insulted the house by refusing to appear there.
"His letter should be rejected," Mohammad Sarwar Osmani, an Afghan MP said.
Speaker of the House Abdul Rauf Ibrahim said the Attorney General would be summoned on Saturday.
Last week the House of Representatives accused the Attorney General's Office of acting irresponsibly during the Afghan parliamentary poll.
It has been months since the parliamentary elections ended, but tensions still continue over the disputed votes.
After tensions soared between the winning and losing candidates, the Afghan President Hamid Karzai approved establishement of a special tribunal to investigate about the disputed votes.
The Attorney General had filed many cases of electoral fraud against some of the winning candidates and it shared the files with the Special Tribunal that the winning candidates see as unconstitutional.
Lawmakers have repeatedly urged the President to dissolve the special tribunal, but without success.
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Purdue receives $32 million Afghanistan farm grant
Associated Press April 4, 2011
A grant of $31.9 million awarded to Purdue University may translate into a more sustainable agricultural sector for Afghanistan, according to U.S. Sen. Dick Lugar.
Lugar, an Indiana Republican and ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, announced Monday that Purdue has received the five-year grant from the United States Agency for International Development. The grant will fund a project that trains the faculties of agricultural programs at five Afghan universities — including the University of Kabul, the University of Nangarhar, the University of Balkh, the University of Herat and the University of Kandahar.
"Rebuilding Afghanistan's agricultural economy remains one of the highest priorities for United States interests," Lugar said in a statement.
The grant will build off the work experts in the agricultural economics department's Afghan Faculty Exchange Program have undertaken in the war-torn central Asian country since 2006, when the school began bringing Afghan scholars to Indiana for graduate studies, according to program director Kevin McNamara. The program's main focus, McNamara said, is aiding Afghan faculty in maintaining and designing curriculum for agriculture-related disciplines like agronomy, the study of plant utilization in everyday life.
So far this year, the department's exchange program has one staff member on a long-term assignment training university faculty in Afghanistan, and it has continued to send three or four of its professors to teach management and methods seminars for a few weeks at a time, McNamara said. The program has accepted 12 junior university faculty members from Afghanistan as graduate students through a joint Purdue-USAID scholarship, along with 58 students who have completed graduate degrees in India on a USDA-backed scholarship.
According to McNamara, the new grant will bring 18 new master or doctoral candidates into the program.
McNamara has said a sound agricultural sector is crucial to economic growth in Afghanistan, where 85 percent of available work is in agriculture but many of the highly trained faculty fled the country after the Soviet invasion in the 1980s — leaving the country in critical need of agricultural know-how.
Purdue's program to cultivate faculty has been a key investment in human capital in Afghanistan since its inception, according to McNamara.
The Afghan higher education system, McNamara said, went through a 35-year slump in which people weren't getting good educations and the professors who came of age didn't have the knowledge or skill set their new counterparts have developed over the past few years.
"I think the greatest success (of the program) is giving opportunity to a lot of young Afghans who had very difficult lives up to their twenty or twenty-second birthday, giving them the opportunity to go to India and the U.S. and get master's degrees to demonstrate to themselves and others that they could be successful," McNamara. "And seeing them back at home trying to develop a system so others can have this opportunity ... so it's really this empowerment of young people to lead."
Purdue president France Cordova said in the statement that the grant goes along with the university's past collaborations with other institutions.
"This partnership extends our previous work in Afghanistan to help build the educational capacity required to improve agriculture and food systems and empower Afghan citizens to contribute to the country's development," Cordova said.
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Cleaning up Afghanistan’s banking system
Foreign Policy By Candace Rondeaux Monday, April 4, 2011
When news of Kabul Bank's imminent collapse broke early last fall, some likened the crisis to a slow motion train wreck. Six months later, the failure of Afghanistan's largest commercial bank now looks more like a bullet-train in danger of running the country's precarious reconstruction efforts off the rails.
As further details of Kabul Bank's profligate lending practices and its nearly $1 billion in unresolved debts leaked early last week, it became clear that Afghanistan's Central Bank would have to move quickly to prevent full-on implosion. But it is not at all certain that the Afghan government will act quickly enough on the International Monetary Fund's recommendation that Kabul Bank enter into receivership-a move the international lending institution hopes will prevent collapse of the economy. Nor is it a given that the Afghan government will deliver on its promise to launch criminal investigations against Kabul Bank's politically connected shareholders, including President Hamid Karzai's brother, Mahmoud, who according to recent news reports received $18 million in no strings attached loans.
What is clear is that with a number of other large-scale Afghan commercial banks also buckling under the pressure of bad loans and risky investment strategies more aggressive international intervention is not only likely but necessary. Without it the Afghan economy could plunge into a freefall, reversing the fragile gains the country has made since 2001.
At the start of the U.S. military engagement in 2001, Afghanistan's banking sector was comprised of six defunct state-owned commercial banks. When the Kabul Bank scandal first broke in September 2010, 17 commercial banks were operating in the country with total assets valued at roughly $2.6 billion. This is up from $300 million in total assets in 2004. Kabul Bank and its next closest competitor Azizi Bank have for years dominated the industry, with both banks' holdings representing about 50 percent of the overall commercial market.
Given the tight knit relations between Afghan business elites' interests it should come as no surprise then that Azizi Bank is now also facing scrutiny. Indeed, in addition to Azizi Bank, reviews and full-scale audits are underway at several politically connected Afghan banks, including the United Afghan Bank, whose chairman owns a substantial stake in Mahmoud Karzai's sprawling upscale real estate development in the southern province of Kandahar.
Despite its impressive growth, Afghanistan's banking sector has been under-regulated for years with the vast majority of banks posting very low ratings. On an industry standard scale of 1 to 5 where a rating of five is the lowest, five of Afghanistan's banks were reported to be rated at four in a 2009 IMF report, indicating a troubling imbalance between capital, asset quality, management performance, earnings and liquidity. Though most of the cash slushing through Afghan banks consists of taxpayer dollars drawn from NATO countries, international donors have never showed much interest in pushing for genuine reform. Promoting an agenda of regulatory reform, fiscal responsibility and insisting on accountability and transparency in international assistance is just not as sexy as arming Afghan militias, building up national security forces or shelling out millions to reintegrate insurgents.
Luckily, a few international donors have finally gotten a clue and taken decisive action. In response to the Kabul Bank crisis, the United Kingdom's Department for International Development opted in early March to freeze $137.6 million in contributions to the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, the main conduit for international assistance to Afghanistan. The British aid agency said that it was loathe to continue assistance to the fund as long as it remained unclear whether the International Monetary Fund would withdraw its support for aid to Afghanistan.
After visiting Kabul in early February, IMF officials said the only way it will continue its assistance is if Kabul Bank is swiftly liquidated. As the Central Bank continues to dither over whether and how to initiate a sell-off of Kabul Bank's assets, other major European donors are now also considering following the United Kingdom's lead. It is unfortunate that it took international donors so long to use what little leverage they have left to push the Afghan government to do the right thing. Hopefully, Kabul officials will, nonetheless, get the message: clean up, or else.
Given that the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund finances salaries for almost all of the government's civil service workers, some might argue that withholding contributions to Afghanistan's largest source of cash could pose a threat to stability and the success of the counterinsurgency campaign. How, it likely will be asked, can the Afghan government deliver much needed services in insecure places like Helmand and Kandahar if it can't even pay its civil servants? In the long-term, however, the real question is: How will U.S. European and Japanese donors be able to justify continued spending in Afghanistan to their financially strapped constituents if Kabul continues to allow commercial banks to finance the lifestyles of Afghanistan's filthy rich and ignominious? The answer is blindingly simple. International donors must do more to ensure greater oversight of their assistance to Afghanistan. Kabul likewise must move aggressively to close regulatory loopholes that foster corruption and allow politically con
nected high-flyers to profit from the government's failure to do its job.
Several Kabul Bank shareholders have said publicly that they are in the process of paying back the millions in loans they took out to buy luxury estates in Dubai. Let's hope that's the case. But no one should count on it. If donors hope to reap peace dividends from the billions in aid poured into Afghanistan they would do well adopt more transparency in their assistance programs and to keep the pressure on Kabul until action is finally taken to clean up the Afghan banking sector.
Candace Rondeaux is Senior Analyst for Afghanistan at the International Crisis Group. She is based in Kabul.
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