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Afghanistan risks losing support |
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"We have saved this country from another civil war and people from starving," Afghan president Hamid Karzai told Spiegel magazine last month. "... there are new roads, the first students received their degrees from Kabul University a few days ago. That is great!"
Yes, it is. But the endemic incompetence and double-dealing that plagues Afghan state institutions is not. It is dangerous. Unchecked, it will steadily erode international support for Afghanistan's reconstruction, to the point where foreign troops, including Canada's, will leave. Were that to happen, Karzai's government would not likely last long.
How immediate a threat is this? Right now, not very. NATO has said it is in Afghanistan for the long haul. Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama has signaled this will change under the next U.S. administration.
But that does not absolve the Afghan government of responsibility for putting its house in order. Karzai has been at this for a while now. It was back in November of 2002 that he launched his first high-profile "purge" of corrupt officials.
And yet today, in 2008, it emerges that a massive jail break from Kandahar's biggest prison, was likely an inside job. A gaggle of senior Afghan security officials are being investigated for complicity in the jail break.
It doesn't end there. The governor of Kandahar, Assadullah Khalid, has been accused of being personally involved in torture -- a claim he denies. Ahmed Wali Karzai, the head of Kandahar's provincial council and also the president's brother, has been accused of involvement in the opium trade. This, too, the Karzais deny.
At the same time, the Taliban insurgency shows no signs of cooling. On the contrary, the number of insurgent attacks have increased sharply this year. Ordinary Afghans who back the Taliban often cite corruption in the Karzai government as their reason.
There is no standing still. Afghanistan will move forward, or it will move back. Karzai needs to do more to make sure it moves forward. Or, he will lose the unwavering international support that he has so far enjoyed. |
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NWFP govt demands Abaseen TV feasibility report |
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PESHAWAR: The NWFP government has demanded that the federal government launch Pashto TV channel Abaseen feasibility report for which was forwarded to the federal government a year ago, officials sources have told Daily Times.
Feasibility report for the TV channel was sent to Prime Minister Secretariat by the Ministry of Information in 2007, Pakistan Television (PTV) sources said.
Former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, they said, was going to launch the Pashto channel for NWFP and Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) population, but some hidden hands played their role and forced the previous government for not launching the channel.
The government is in dire need of a Pashto TV channel to effectively communicate its policy on war on terrorism to Pashtun population. It also wants to counter propaganda by satellite channels from Afghanistan through a TV channel, the sources said, adding that the channel can play a significant role in establishing peace in FATA.
The government has taken notice of the delay in the launch of the channel and efforts are afoot to start it at the earliest, said the sources.
The aim of the project, they said, is to counter the Afghan governments anti-Pakistan propaganda and to convey its (Pakistani governments) policy on war on terror to FATA and NWFP population.
NWFP Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain, when contacted, said that the province has forwarded its demand for launching the Pashto TV channel to the federal government.
He said that the provincial government will take this initiative with its own limited resources if the federal government further delayed the project.
The minister said that it would be an injustice on part of the federal government with the Frontier government if it did not launch the channel within weeks. Work had been completed for launching of the channel.
But unknown hidden hands played their role and stopped the channels launch, the minister said, adding the channel has become a dire need of the government to convey its message to illiterate population who are in majority.
Earlier, the government had planned to launch the channel from Peshawar on August 14 the last year, but it was delayed due to unknown reasons.
PTV officials told Daily Times that plan to launch the Pashto TV channel was approved a year ago and it was the prime minister who had given the go-ahead in this regard.
The officials said that a state-of-the-art studio and master control room had been set up specifically for Abaseen TV. PTV Peshawar centre had also put the up-linking facility in place so that transmission could reach the audience through 13 boosters across the NWFP and FATA, they added.
The sources said the 2003 project was shelved some time back and again caught attention of the authorities in 2007. akhtar amin |
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Afghan women protest anti-Islam film |
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KABUL, Afghanistan - About 70 Afghan women burned the Dutch and Danish flags during a demonstration Wednesday in the capital against an anti-Islam film and the reprinting of a cartoon of the Prophet Muhammad.
The women chanted slogans against the two countries during the protest outside the Ministry of Information and Culture in Kabul. Most wore the all-covering blue burqa.
The women called on Danish and Dutch troops to leave Afghanistan and urged the Afghan government to shut down their embassies and cut diplomatic relations with the two countries.
The protesters were angered by the release last week of a 15-minute film by a Dutch lawmaker, Geert Wilders, and the recent reprinting in Denmark of a cartoon showing the Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb-shaped turban.
The film "Fitna" - Arabic for ordeal - portrays Islam as targeting Western democracy with violence and has prompted denunciations in Muslim capitals and street protests in the Islamic world.
The film urges Muslims "to tear out the hateful verses from the Quran," the Islamic holy book.
Meanwhile, the Dutch Defense Ministry said there was no indication that a roadside bomb that wounded three Dutch soldiers in Afghanistan on Sunday was planted in retaliation for Wilders' movie.
The attack, which cost one soldier both legs, was "unfortunately not unusual" in nature, ministry spokesman Detlev Simons said.
The Site Intelligence Group said a statement posted on Web sites used by militants claimed the attack was in retribution for Wilders' film.
By AMIR SHAH
Associated Press Writer
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Muslim troops help win Afghan minds |
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The BBC's security correspondent, Frank Gardner, can reveal that Arab soldiers have been taking part in dangerous missions alongside US troops in Afghanistan.
Troops from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) have been delivering humanitarian aid to their fellow Muslims and, on occasion, fighting their way out of Taleban ambushes. Though Jordanian forces have been carrying out some base security duties, the UAE's troops are the only Arab soldiers undertaking full-scale operations in the country.
Until now, their deployment has been kept so secret that not even their own countrymen knew they were here.
In a windowless room, surrounded by sandbags, the Emirati patrol commander briefs his troops for tomorrow's mission: a hearts-and-minds visit to an Afghan village.
His troops are dressed in desert fatigues, topped with sand-coloured shemaghs, the traditional wrap-around headdress of the Gulf.
When the patrol moves out through the mountain valleys, it looks exactly like any other convoy from the US-led coalition.
The Emiratis are on their guard, wary of ambush, alert for roadside bombs.
At the last minute, the village they had originally planned to visit was deemed too dangerous: the Americans could not guarantee to provide air cover.
So they travel instead to one they have been to before, to hand out gifts and discuss what projects need building.
As fellow Muslims, they get a warm reception from the villagers.
"At first I thought these were American soldiers and I wanted them to leave but when they said they were Muslims I knew they were our brothers," a young Afghan man says.
Hajji Fazlullah, another Afghan villager, says: "The Arab troops come in our country and our village, we are very happy."
Riot risk
Of course, these are not the only coalition troops giving out aid to Afghans. But what is really winning hearts and minds is the Islamic connection.
In a sunlit courtyard, a small boy recites the Koran from memory, watched by his proud father, and by the UAE's Maj Ghanem Al-Mazroui.
Unlike most western military officers, he has spent over two years getting to know these villagers, eating and praying with them.
But handing out humanitarian aid in Afghanistan is not as easy as it sounds.
As the crowd builds up rumour spreads that there is not enough to go round and people surge forward.
The Afghan police wade in, pushing and hitting the villagers.
More than once, Maj Ghanem has to restrain them. Without sensitive handling, the situation could easily descend into a riot.
There is even a scramble for the empty cardboard boxes.
But eventually the Arab troops manage to restore order and they leave without a shot being fired.
'Here to help'
Still, it is going to come as a surprise to most people that for the last five years, an Arab Muslim army has been operating here in Afghanistan, alongside the Americans as part of the coalition.
So I asked Maj Ghanem whether he was worried about how some people in the Arab world might react to this.
"We have an answer for that. Even if you are asking back in the UAE or in the Gulf, or you asking here, we have the same answer," he said.
"We make a contract with the US Army to help the people down here, not to fight".
But I put it to him that in fact his troops have been fighting insurgents as well as handing out aid.
"If we have any types of personal attacks we react with fire. And after that we go to the elders in this area: 'Why are you shooting us? We came here to help you.
"'If you have the same picture of all coalition forces, we are different. We came here to help you.'
"And we try to convince the people about the US, about British. They came here to give you peace."
Blueprint for Afghanistan
The man who kick-started the Arab humanitarian effort in Afghanistan five years ago is Hamad al-Shamsi, the UAE's humanitarian aid co-ordinator.
A devout Muslim, a father of 10, and a former fighter pilot, he has been travelling all over Afghanistan, often at great personal risk.
He believes his country's efforts are smoothing a path for the rest of the coalition.
"If we are visiting [somewhere] like this village and we do some service for them, then the coalition will know when they are approaching that there is somebody from their side who is coming here who has done something for us," Mr Shamsi says.
"So the relations will be easier than if they come directly with no first approach".
His words are born out by some of the Afghans we meet, including Governor Merajudeen Patan, who was instrumental in getting UAE's money invested in the troubled province of Khost.
"People are not afraid that Emiratis will harm their religion, or disrespect the mosque or burn the mosque, things of this nature," Governor Patan says.
"People are very friendly with them. Everybody will drag them in for lunch or for dinner."
These are hearts-and-minds operations at their most effective - drinking tea with Afghans, discussing what help can be provided.
The Emirati approach is to meet their fellow Muslims' religious needs first, then build schools and clinics later.
But for this to have a wider, lasting, and national effect, the blueprint would need to be repeated and expanded by others, many times over and throughout Afghanistan.
And that is not likely to happen in the near future. |
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