The Dominion - Kabul

Afghanistan's Troubled Election

Ariel Nasr — Fri, 11 Sep 2009 20:37:27 +0000

The Afghan Election Complaints Commission (ECC), with Canadian UN appointee Grant Kippen at it's helm, has published the first results of it's investigation into fraud in the presidential election, held on August 20th. On Thursday the commission announced it would throw out the ballots from 83 Afghan polling stations, where there is definite evidence of fraud. 51 of the problem stations were in Kandahar, 27 in Ghazni, and five in Paktika, according to ECC press releases. Of the 2300 complaints the ECC has received, the largest group concern irregularities at the polls, including ballot box stuffing. Other common complaints include allegations of intimidation, and lack of access to the polls, particularly for women. The ECC investigation is ongoing and could result in a fresh election.

Currently, as vote tallying continues, the three front runners in the presidential election are the incumbent Hamed Karzai with 54.1%, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah with 28 %, and Ramazan Bashardost with 9.2 %. 91.6% of polling stations have been tallied, so the counting is almost done, but further investigations into fraud could change things significantly. According to electoral law, if Karzai doesn't receive at least 50% of the valid votes, there will have to be a run-off election this fall. If enough ballots are invalidated as a result of the ECC investigation, Karzai could lose his current winning position, and fall below the necessary 50%.

Corruption, Impunity Pervade Afghan Government

dru — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:15:42 +0000

Police part of insecurity problem: victims, human rights groups

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--Zohra Madadi represented everything the new Afghanistan should have been about. She was a young, intelligent woman who believed in democracy and dreamed of becoming a politician.

Then someone kidnapped the 16-year-old, stuck a gun in her mouth and pulled the trigger. Her dead body was dumped in the wilderness.

“She was a very open-minded girl and she studied very hard. She didn’t care about TV, she just listened to the news and then kept busy with her studies until 11 o’clock at night,” said her father, Abdul Hussain.

“She kept telling me: ‘Dad, don’t worry about the current situation in Afghanistan. One day it will be good here.’”

Hussain is not expecting justice because he knows that is not the way things work, not when the chief suspect is a leading member of the intelligence services.

“They blame the Taliban, but it’s actually the police doing these things,” he said. “I am not frightened. Because I have lost my daughter, life and death mean nothing to me.”

Zohra lived in the southern province of Ghazni and her corpse was dumped there last summer, on the road to Kandahar. She might have been murdered because her older sister is involved in local politics, or perhaps it was just because she caught the eye of the wrong man.

Whatever the reason, no one should be surprised that an official meant to enforce the law is accused of violating it in the cruellest of ways.

Sayed Hussain was arrested in Kabul for allegedly bringing teenage girls back to his house for sex. Rather than go through the legal system, the police simply beat him to death. Ten months after the event, his elderly-looking wife, Bibi Gul, cried as she remembered what happened.

“They said, ‘Let me tell you the bad news. Just go to the hospital and you will see the dead body of your husband.’ When I complained that he was alive when he was taken, they said I had signed a document that said he had a heart attack,” she recalled.

The Dominion has seen photographs of Sayed Hussain’s blackened corpse, along with other pictures showing the results of police abuse on a number of prisoners.

Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) recorded 290 cases of torture by the security forces between June 2005 and June 2006.

That is 200 less than the year before, but it is still more than enough to stoke the widespread public anger now fuelling the Taliban-led insurgency. Talk to people on the street and they will tell you they do not trust the police. They will tell you uniforms stand for violence, bribery and corruption.

“There is not a very strong rule of law and the government is not keen to follow the law. Also, in the criminal court there is not a very strong and clear code for prosecuting police action,” said Ahmad Zia Langari, a commissioner at AIHRC.

“The main problem in Afghanistan is the culture of impunity. The government is not powerful. When a governor, for example, has committed violence or he has been very corrupt, he is not prosecuted. The president just changes his position.”

A joint report released last month by the Pentagon and the US State Department was hugely critical of the American-trained Afghan police. It said the force was ‘far from adequate’ at carrying out even conventional responsibilities, with illiterate recruits and pervasive corruption cited as some of the key problems. The report also revealed that it is unclear how many officers are actually on duty.

Mohammed Yahya’s lower right leg looks like it has been ripped off by an animal, with bone sticking out from the bloody flesh above his severed foot. The photograph showing this wound was taken in 2005, soon after he refused to pay the police in Kabul a bribe.

“They came to me and said, ‘Stop working. We will go away and come back and if you want to work, give us some money.’ Then when they came back, they started beating four old people who were working with us,” the 19-year-old said.

“I told them if I had money I would not be working here, then they opened fire. I can’t remember anything from that moment on.”

An entire magazine from a Kalashnikov was emptied into Mohammed, with one bullet shot into his left leg and the rest blowing away the bottom half of his right leg. Although the policemen who attacked him have been jailed, his family still regret giving up their lives as refugees in Iran.

“Everyone in the government is proud of themselves, but who cares about the poor people?” lamented his mother, Zahra Azimi.

When The Dominion contacted the Ministry of Interior, it was referred to Colonel Haq Nawaz Haqyar. He acknowledged some police officers were still under the control of warlords and happy to commit human rights abuses. But he insisted he would never sanction torture.

“Whatever the chief of police says and does, his staff will do the same. Everything depends on him. The Taliban tortured me and it had a very bad effect on my mind,” he said.

“Once a week I talk to my staff about human rights and respecting the people. I tell them, ‘If you care about human rights, the people will co-operate because you will have left them with good memories. But if you torture them, they will never join you; they will join outsiders like the Taliban.’”

Last summer, the police in Ghazni beat Rahullah Amiri’s 22-year-old brother with their guns and some kind of cable.

“Two or three of his teeth were missing, his nose was broken and his back was as black as your coat,” said Rahullah.

“I can’t describe my feeling; it’s very hard. But let’s say at that time I hated the Karzai government and I decided to join the Taliban. When the Taliban were here everything was okay. At least when they arrested people, they had allegations against them. They were not arresting people without any reason. Now all the countries of the world are here -- the Americans are here, the UK is here -- how can this happen?

“Even now I don’t know why they beat him. The only thing I can think of is that it was because of our low culture and the culture of war. For three decades we have been at war.”

With the words flowing from him, he continued: “Please pass my voice, my words, onto your officials, your newspapers. Tell the world you are coming here, you are losing your young people [soldiers] in the fighting and it’s a waste because the government is nothing. Karzai has failed, everything has been lost. Five years have passed, there is no security here; there are a lot of explosions, a lot of suicide attacks.

“So what can the people do? My brother was beaten so I want to give up my life here, I want to sell my factory and leave this country because there is no security.

I am not a jihadi and that means I can’t get a high position in the government, so I want to leave the country. I want to tell the world Karzai has failed, it’s a waste of time.

“There is only one way for us now: leave the country or join the Taliban. I really feel like joining the Taliban and fighting the government.”

Mohammed Yahya

dru — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 22:06:29 +0000

Yahya

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 07:24:34 +0000

"Yes, soon the jihad will start. I will fight against the Taliban and the infidels, the foreigners. If your stomach is empty, of course you will do something and what we will do is fight," said Yahya, a local labourer. ©2006 Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Shia in Kabul Preparing for War

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 05:18:22 +0000

Residents warn sectarian violence is just around the corner

This trash-strewn Kabul suburb is dotted with giant furnaces used for baking bricks. Yet not so long ago the smoke coming from these chimneys carried the stench of charred human flesh. People were cooked alive here in the 1990s simply because they belonged to the wrong ethnic group or fought for the wrong commander.

The men who murdered them are not the insurgents NATO-led forces have been struggling against. This is a Shiite neighbourhood and its residents are staunch opponents of the Taliban. But after five years of trying to eke out an honest living from Afghanistan’s shattered economy, they have had enough and are once again waiting for war.

"I will kill [foreign] civilians and not soldiers. There won't be any soldiers on the ground; they will all have disappeared and you will just see them in the sky in their planes. But I will kill civilians because they have stolen all our money. All the money that's been given to Afghanistan goes in their pockets.

"Of course I will kill you if you come back to see me when the jihad starts. That happens when there is fighting. I have seen men kill their own brothers."

Strip away all the NATO talk of winning hearts and minds and it becomes clear the nation is approaching meltdown.

As the insurgency grows stronger, so does the fear and anger among the Shiite Hazara community. Following a civil war in the early to mid 1990s, they faced a brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing under the Sunni-extremist Taliban regime. They are not about to let that happen again.

Qurban Hussain told The Dominion that the arrival of international troops had helped save his people from further bloodshed. But he also claimed a new wave of internecine violence lies just around the corner.

"At first, the four per cent of Hazaras who are rich will leave the country. But the others will stay here and the Taliban will start killing and arresting them. Those people who have got small houses will then have to sell them to get their relatives released," he said.

The 32-year-old was speaking in what was once a notorious jail run by Shiites. Men from Afghanistan's two largest ethnic groups, the Pashtuns and the Tajiks, were frequently imprisoned, tortured and murdered between these walls.

"The next civil war will be twice as bad," said Hussain.

The building is now a warehouse and few signs of the horrors remain. One room still lies in ruins from a rocket attack and on a nearby door there is a child-like drawing of an obese man carrying a gun and a knife.

"The last civil war was horrible," said Khoda Dad Attay, as he sat beside Hussain. "Even if we were at home or at work the rockets were raining down and killing us."

He is now preparing for the next round of carnage.

"It's 100 per cent certain we will fight the Taliban. We will fight them to the best of our ability," he said.

Afghanistan's Shiites are found mainly among the Hazara, an ethnic group believed to have descended from Genghis Khan's Mongol hordes. Their heartland is in the province of Bamiyan, where they were massacred by the Taliban regime.

Haji Mehdawi, a former militia commander, said most of them had surrendered their weapons after the 2001 invasion. Now they want them back.

"We just want peace because we are hoping the government will build schools, will build hospitals, will improve our economic situation. But to be honest, nothing has been done," he told The Dominion.

"Many times I have met the Americans in Bagram, and I have met the Canadians. I have said, 'Give us guns and we will fight against the Taliban. If anything happens we will defend our tribes and families. Make us an army, give us guns and a salary, then we can defend our tribes and families.'

"We will fight against the Taliban, but we need the foreigners to give us guns. We believe that the foreigners are the water of life for us."

When asked why he did not enlist in the Afghan National Army (ANA), Mehdawi's response spoke volumes about the deep hatred that exists between the country's different ethnic groups.

"If you join the ANA you have to sign a contract. We want to do it as a community, so if someone has a problem they can leave. Our standards are different to theirs," he said.

"Most of our people believe if we join the ANA the Pashtuns will ask us to go to the front line, then from behind they will shoot us in the back."

Qurban Hussain

Yahya

Qurban Hussain

dru — Sat, 30 Dec 2006 02:37:47 +0000

Qurban Hussain told The Dominion the arrival of international troops had helped save his people from further bloodshed. But he also claimed a new wave of internecine violence lies just around the corner. ©2006 Reproduction without permission prohibited.

Afghan MPs Predict "Very Big War"

Tue, 19 Dec 2006 08:43:50 +0000

Civilian deaths, corruption, occupying troops leading to "jihad" against foreigners, say leaders

KABUL, AFGHANISTAN--As a former senior Taliban commander and associate of Osama bin Laden, Mullah Abdul Salaam Rocketi was a shining example of the warlords who seemed to be rejecting violence and embracing Afghanistan's new democracy.

But the MP for the southern province of Zabul now typifies the anger and despair raging through this blood-soaked country.

In a series of interviews with The Dominion, a number of Afghan politicians said a mass uprising against NATO-led forces will soon begin, driving out the foreign troops and igniting a civil war.

"When the Taliban came along, I gave everything to them because I wanted the country to improve and the people to be safe," said Rocketi. "Then when the current government came along, I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that.

"Everything is gone now, we have nothing. I regret it not because I am no longer with the Taliban, but because this government does not have the power to improve our country.

"It's getting worse and worse and worse. I don't have any hope. But whatever is happening now, the people can't complain. If they make a noise the local governor will say they are Taliban or Al-Qaeda and get them sent to Bagram."

Rocketi -- whose name derives from his famed ability with a Rocket-Propelled Grenade launcher -- said pressure is building as his country slips backwards.

"I know, I am sure, that soon a very big war will start between the foreigners and the population," he explained.

The parliamentary elections of September 18, 2005, were hailed as a key event in Afghanistan's transition from a war-torn nation ruled by Islamic extremists to a peaceful and moderate democracy.

However, the Taliban-led insurgency has grown rapidly during the last year and MPs believe the rebellion is an accurate reflection of public anger.

While all militants are usually portrayed as isolated radicals, the reality is not so simple. Fierce anti-American and anti-NATO rhetoric can be heard almost everywhere in this country now. Even moderates who support the presence of foreign troops are predicting catastrophe.

With his well pressed suit and smart tie, Mohammad Hashem Watanwall, MP for the southern province of Uruzgan, would look perfectly at home in the House of Commons. But his vision of the future is bleak.

"When the current government came along I gave everything to them because I thought they would make the country better. But I regret that." -- Mullah Abdul Salam Rocketi, MP for Zabul. © 2006 Chris Sands

"There is a big fire under the earth. It's like a volcano and soon it will explode," he warned. "It will explode if everything continues like now; the corruption, the bad security, the bombing of civilians by coalition forces. Soon it will explode and people will stand up in the name of jihad and martyrdom if there are no big changes.

"Now in parliament the MPs are saying 'Forget about Pakistan and the Taliban; why are the foreigners here?'

"They are saying a thousand-headed dragon is here and it's the foreign armies. Just imagine, if the MPs are saying that in an official place, what will a simple person in a village be saying?"

He added: "Now in parliament they say if you kill a foreigner, a non-Muslim, and then you yourself are killed, you will become a martyr and go straight to paradise. They see no difference between the military or civilians."

The insurgency that overpowered Soviet troops and Kabul's puppet communist regime began with small rebel movements. It developed into a nationwide struggle during which Mujahideen battled against the Russians, local government forces and each other.

That occupation ended in 1989, but peace remained elusive and between 1992 and 1996, a brutal civil war raged between Afghanistan's different ethnic groups and political factions.

Watanwall predicted any new full-scale jihad would have the same result. "Of course some tribes will fight each other," he said. "They will say: you are Pashtun, I am Tajik; I am Tajik, you are Hazara; you are Shia, I am Pashtun. The civil war will start because of differences of skin, differences of language, differences of religion."

"Hazaras say they don't have enough positions in the government; Uzbeks say that, Tajiks say that, even Pashtuns say that and they have Karzai as President. Now it's ideological and with words, but soon it will turn to violence.

"I believe if the international forces and the government don't take any strong steps then soon it will start and it could get as bad as Iraq."

Ahmad Shah Khan Achekzai is MP for Kandahar, where Canadian troops are based. He joined Rocketi in demanding that Pashtuns -- the ethnic group from which the Taliban draw their core support -- be given more positions in government. He also launched into a tirade against the foreign troops.

"The population hates the government, hates the Americans and hates their friends because they are all liars," he said.

"Soon the jihad will start, that's right. The Americans and the coalition came to Afghanistan by way of the United Nations, but when they go into people's houses and search them, it's unacceptable. They are acting against Islam and they are attacking innocent people.

"There will be jihad, I am 100 per cent sure. It's against our culture, it's against Islam -- if they want to come to our houses, they need permission."

Then, almost as an afterthought, he added: "If the jihad starts, of course I will join it -- it's natural."

Afghanistan correspondent Chris Sands interviews Afghan MPs, and hears predictions of a "very big war" and jihad against foreign troops.