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Canadian minister rejects poll that suggests Afghan support for NATO plummets |
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Written by NotOverYet
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Wednesday, 05 December 2007 |
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The Canadian Press
OTTAWA - Canada's international development minister took issue with a new poll Monday that suggests Afghans are increasingly critical of the war in their country.
Bev Oda, the minister responsible for the Canadian International Development Agency, dismissed the findings of the survey, which suggested support for NATO has plummeted the last year and the Taliban is growing in strength.
"I disagree," Oda said following an announcement to increase funding for mine-clearing in the war-torn country.
"I was in Afghanistan myself. I saw the progress we are making. I saw the difference it's making in the lives of the Afghan people."
The survey - conducted for ABC News, the BBC and the German public TV station ARD - suggested that Afghans overwhelmingly prefer the government of President Hamid Karzai to the Taliban. But they also believe that government should negotiate with the Taliban to end the war.
The poll found that in southwestern Afghanistan, support for NATO-led forces has plummeted to 45 per cent this year, from 83 per cent a year ago. According to the survey, the biggest complaint is the rising number of civilian casualties.
Almost all of Canada's 2,500 troops are based in the volatile southern province of Kandahar.
But Oda said she's seen lots of evidence of lives being improved by the presence and security of international troops.
"It was exciting for me being in classrooms where children are in school, particularly young girls and seeing women and young ladies walking the streets of Kandahar," she said.
The survey released Monday was more pessimistic than a similar Environics poll conducted by the Globe and Mail newspaper and the CBC in September.
That study found slightly more Afghans supporting the presence of NATO forces, but also noted simmering anger about mounting civilian casualties.
The ABC News, BBC and ADR survey suggests that anger is being exploited by the insurgency. Last year, 81 per cent of residents in the southwest said the Taliban had "no significant support at all." Now, only 52 per cent say so.
Despite the increasingly negative view of U.S. activities in their country, 71 per cent of Afghans surveyed still support the American presence, and 76 per cent view the Taliban's overthrow as a good thing, the poll found.
Testifying before the Senate security and defence committee Monday, the president of the Senlis Council echoed the survey's findings.
"I don't think there's anybody there that wants to see the return of the Taliban," said Norine MacDonald, a Canadian lawyer who's spent almost three years in and out of Afghanistan doing field research.
"I don't see widespread support for Taliban ideology. They are gaining control through clever manipulation, clever propaganda and terror of the local people. Anyone found working with internationals will be beheaded or hanged."
MacDonald, whose organization is funded by a network of European foundations, repeated her criticism that Canadian aid and development efforts have fallen short.
The Senlis Council has called for Oda's department to be replaced in Afghanistan by a special envoy and its budget handed over to the military, which could deliver reconstruction quicker and more efficiently.
But Liberal Senator Joseph Day questioned whether progress is being held up more by corruption within the Afghan government than by ineptitude on the part of CIDA.
The survey firm Polltakers conducted 1,377 face-to-face interviews with Afghans in all of the country's 34 provinces. The poll was the third survey in Afghanistan sponsored by ABC News and media partners, and was conducted between Oct. 28 and Nov. 7. It has a three percentage point margin of error.
An overwhelming majority of respondents preferred the current government to the Taliban, but 60 per cent said Karzai's government should negotiate a settlement in which Taliban leaders would be allowed to hold political office in exchange for laying down their arms.
Karzai said last month that he has had increasing contact with Taliban leaders in exile, but that they have ruled out talks as long as foreign troops remain in the country. |
