Fw: Afghan Recovery Report No. 7

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From: "Institute for War & Peace Reporting" <[email protected]>
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Sent: Thursday, June 06, 2002 11:01 AM
Subject: Afghan Recovery Report No. 7


> WELCOME TO IWPR'S AFGHAN RECOVERY REPORT, No. 7, June 06, 2002
>
> IN THIS ISSUE...
>
> ETHNIC STRIFE MARS ASSEMBLY PREPARATIONS
> Tensions between Pashtuns and their ethnic rivals are running high in the
> eastern provinces as the Loya Jirga approaches.
> By Walid Baidar in Jalalabad.
>
> LOYA JIRGA DELEGATES FACING INTIMIDATION
> Herat's local power baron is locking up potential opponents in the run-up
> to the grand assembly.
> By Rahimullah Samander in Herat.
>
> AFGHANISTAN: STATE SECTOR JOB LOSS FEARS
> Politicians and workers alike are worried by the interim authority's plan
> to get rid off surplus ministerial staff they can no longer afford to pay.
> By Abdul Qadeer Munsif in Kabul.
>
> CHILDREN SUFFER IN SCHOOL FUNDING LOTTERY
> The majority of Afghan school children are being taught in dangerous,
> war-ravaged buildings.
> By Sultana Farkhanda in Kabul.
>
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> ******************** THIS WEEK'S STORIES ************************
>
>
> ETHNIC STRIFE MARS ASSEMBLY PREPARATIONS
>
> Tensions between Pashtuns and their ethnic rivals are running high in the
> eastern provinces as the Loya Jirga approaches.
>
> By Walid Baidar in Jalalabad.
>
> These are dangerous days for the newly appointed Loya Jirga delegates from
> the eastern province of Nangrahar.
>
> International observers and local community leaders believe they face
> intimidation and even violence as they wait to move up to Kabul from
> Nangrahar's refugee-swollen capital, Jalalabad.
>
> The fears were raised at the end of the final May 27-30 Loya Jirga
> elections, when the names of newly appointed to the grand assembly were
> released. The crucial, much anticipated gathering on June 10 is to agree
> on a transitional government for the country ahead of elections in 18
> months.
>
> British troops pursuing suspected al-Qaeda forces in the region have been
> called in to advise on security matters for the delegates from Nangrahar
> and the neighbouring provinces of Laghman, Kunar and Nouristan. The
> delegates are having to stay in Jalalabad rather than return to their
> remote districts before the opening of the Loya Jirga in Kabul.
>
> The province's governor, Haji Abdul Qadeer, with UN support, convened a
> special three-day seminar for all those attending the gathering. A private
> UN memo said the aim was to allow the delegates to "discuss and reflect on
> important national issues" and keep "any undue pressure and security
> risks" at bay.
>
> Ethnic Pashtuns are a majority in Nangrahar, which was formerly a Taleban
> stronghold, and they have clashed with the incoming allies of the Northern
> Alliance.
>
> The alliance's strategy is to pile pressure on Pashtun political
> representatives, who they see as challenging their grip on the key
> government ministries and covert supporters of the defeated Taleban.
>
> The former Pashtun provincial garrison commander, Haji Mohammad Zaman
> Ghamshareek, has accused the Northern Alliance commander and defence
> minister, Mohammad Fahim, of backing his challenger, the incoming
> provincial security commander Haji Hazrat Ali, an ethnic Nouristani and a
> Northern Alliance leader.
>
> Early in February, Fahim detained Zaman for 15 days while the former's
> deputy accused the latter of helping Osama Bin Laden escape from the US
> forces who were attacking his mountain redoubt in the nearby Tora Bora
> range. Zaman denied the charge, and was only freed after Qadeer's
> intervention.
>
> There were also several firefights between the two sides after a
> particularly ill-disciplined April 23 raid by Ali's men on the famous
> Shinwar opium market, part of a major province-wide drive against the
> drugs trade.
>
> Nangrahar's Shinwari tribal community controlled the local opium industry
> and led the opposition to the Northern Alliance crackdown on the trade,
> which Zaman says sustains thousands of desperate Pashtun farmers in the
> province.
>
> An April 8, bomb attack against Fahim that killed four and wounded some 70
> bystanders in Jalalabad was blamed on opponents of the crackdown. The
> opium traders, meanwhile, accuse the interim authority and prominent
> Northern Alliance figures of looting and ethnic discrimination.
>
> "We know that they (the interim authority) only use the campaign against
> opium as an excuse to loot our shops and steal our money," said one
> Shinwar trader, Malak Mira Jan.
>
> "The Northern Alliance want to see non-Pashtuns in charge of the eastern
> provinces. They want to keep on harassing the Pashtuns."
>
> There have been widespread reports of attempted bribery to secure votes.
> However, the overall consensus is that the Loya Jirga process in Nangrahar
> and its surrounding provinces, despite some violence in all three areas,
> was reasonably satisfactory.
>
> Only after Karzai succumbed to Fahim's pressure and replaced Zaman and Ali
> took firmer command of his troops did a semblance of peace return to
> Jalalabad.
>
> Qadeer, who also serves as interim minister for urban reconstruction, now
> fully backs Ali's control of the city, which is underpinned by a unit of
> 15,000 Northern Alliance troops.
> He said the raids on the opium market were part of government policy that
> "were a good thing", though he said he did not condone looting.
>
> Referring to the clashes between the incoming alliance forces and the
> Nangrahar Pashtuns, he said, "I am trying to reconcile them but both the
> factions are well-armed and in the city. Sometimes they don't obey me. In
> a month or so everything will be fine, following the Loya Jirga and the
> creation of the new government."
>
> Walid Baidar is a psuedoynm for a journalist based in Jalalabad.
>
>
> LOYA JIRGA DELEGATES FACING INTIMIDATION
>
> Herat's local power baron is locking up potential opponents in the run-up
> to the grand assembly.
>
> By Rahimullah Samander in Herat.
>
> Will Ismail Khan, the long-time strongman in the key western province of
> Herat, participate in the imminent Loya Jirga process or try to wreck it?
>
> That's a question that many here are asking. Concerns have been fuelled by
> the hard line that his men have taken with opposition delegates who have
> been elected in a two-phase process to attend the Loya Jirga, the grand
> assembly planned for June 10-16. The body is charged with setting up a
> transitional government ahead of nationwide elections in 18 months.
>
> Several local candidates have been arrested in Herat, including Mohammad
> Rafiq Shaeed, chair of Herat's business council, and Mullah Mohammad Malik
> Khan Alizai, a religious leader in the provincial border town of
> Toreghundai.
>
> Challenged to justify the arrests, Ziauddin Mahmoodi, the province's
> security chief, rejected criticism as "rumours from our enemies and
> al-Qaida. They only want to disgrace us. We have jailed only those who
> create problems and help terrorism".
>
> But the United Nations has condemned the intimidation that has resulted in
> at least six Herat delegates resigning their grand assembly places within
> days of their election. The Loya Jirga Commission, supervising the voting,
> has been forced to repeat, or invalidate, several first-stage elections in
> districts where vote-rigging or intimidation was suspected.
>
> The region's ethnic Pashtun minority has accused the commission of bowing
> to Khan, by refusing to increase the number of jirga representatives in
> districts where their community is large enough to win seats that they
> could not hope to secure elsewhere in Herat.
>
> The province is alive with speculation, meanwhile, that Khan
> has reached a deal with the interim authority and with the titular
> head of the grand assembly, former king Zahir Shah, guaranteeing his
> continued authority over Herat after June 16, in return for his
> cooperation and participation in the event.
>
> The once popular Khan has seen his support fall in the months since the
> defeat of the fundamentalist Taleban militia. He is said to be raking in
> millions of US dollars each week from the road tolls that his soldiers
> impose on the tens of thousands of truckloads of imported goods and
> commodities that come over the Iranian border into Herat. Khan is
> increasingly criticised for his failure to improve both public services
> and the local economy.
>
> Then there are old disputes, dating back to the 1991 civil war that
> followed the collapse of the old communist regime, when Khan's troops
> battled the ethnic Pashtun Hezb-e-Islami forces led by the former prime
> minister, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.
>
> Khan's forces also battled the Pashtun Taleban when they took over most of
> the country in 1996. He regards the former king and the present interim
> authority president, Hamid Karzai, both Pashtuns, with great suspicion.
> This has exacerbated his problems with Herat's Pashtun minority.
>
> "The Herat authorities capture our leaders to frighten us," a Pashtun
> resident of the Kushk district said. "They say we are Zahir Shah's friends
> and that all Pashtuns are Taleban. They don't want our leaders elected
> because they are afraid votes will go to the king."
>
> Pashtuns boycotted some phase-one elections after disputing the allocation
> of seats between the ethnic communities. In the district of Gulran,
> Pashtuns were allocated three of the 19 local seats for the second phase,
> though they say they make up 50 per cent of the area's population.
>
> Population counts in the ethnically divided nation have become
> propaganda tools. Owing to the sudden influx of returning refugees, the
> imprecise figures about nomadic communities and the lack of any systematic
> local government under the Taleban, no one has reliable data on which to
> base the election system.
>
> In Gulran, the authorities relied on a recent vaccination programme for
> their figures, a local Pashtun named Haji Ahmed Shah said. He dismissed
> this information as "faulty", adding, "We have boycotted the election and
> will never take part in it."
>
> There were even sharper disputes in Shendand district, where the brother
> of the local Hezb-e-Islami military leader, Commander Amanullah, was
> jailed along with the then favourite to win the district Jirga elections,
> Ghullam Farooq.
>
> Jan Malakzada, the UN coordinator for voting in western Afghanistan, said
> the arrests had deterred many people from going to the provincial capital
> for the second phase of the elections. "They would say, 'If we go, he
> (Khan) will catch us, too'," he said.
>
>
> Rahimullah Samander is a freelance journalist.
>
>
> AFGHANISTAN: STATE SECTOR JOB LOSS FEARS
>
> Politicians and workers alike are worried by the interim authority's plan
> to get rid off surplus ministerial staff they can no longer afford to pay.
>
> By Abdul Qadeer Munsif in Kabul.
>
> The word is spreading through the corridors of Afghanistan's ministries -
> 30 per cent of their jobs are going to be cut.
>
> The threat of imminent unemployment has hit morale and some senior state
> officials believe political discontent could soon follow.
>
> "I am worried just like any other government worker," said education
> ministry executive director of administration Mohammad Saleem. "They don't
> understand why the interim authority should create more unemployment. If
> this goes ahead it will be a cruel blow to the public."
>
> Initially proposed by the ministry of finance and agreed by the cabinet on
> May 11, the 30 per cent cut will not be universally applied across the
> civil service, according to Ahmed Waheed Shekaib, the interim authority's
> director of administrative policy development.
>
> Yet according to his own figures, the cuts will be greater than the
> proposed figure. For example, the ministries of communication and higher
> education will see staff reductions of around 40 per cent to 2,869 and
> 5,090 respectively.
>
> A shortage of funds from the donor nations and a near absence of state
> taxation have left only limited resources with which to pay state sector
> salaries. Some employees have not been paid in months, even in essential
> areas such as health care and education.
>
> The interim government has set itself an annual budget of 480 million US
> dollars to cover these kinds of costs, but it realistically expects to
> raise only 80 million dollars in taxes.
>
> The balance is supposed to come from a World Bank trust fund likely to
> come into effect  in July, though the donor nations have been slow to
> pledge funds. The bank has deposited 40 million dollars and the European
> Union promised 50 million euros in May, but that is all that has been
> received to date.
>
> Ashraf Ghani, the former top World Bank official who now heads the
> Afghanistan Assistance Coordination Authority, denied that donor nations
> have demanded the cuts as a precondition for financing, as has happened in
> other developing and post-conflict states.
>
> But some Afghan authorities see the current situation as a chance to shake
> out the scores of unqualified or under-performing staff members who
> originally got their jobs as favours or through political connections. The
> talk is making employees and their department bosses skittish.
>
> "The interim authority should solve the people's problems, not increase
> them," says Najibullah Amani, a civil servant in charge of the education
> ministry's transportation requirements.
>
> "The government and the administration belong to the people. They have
> legal rights to work and no one must take these rights from them - the
> bitter experiences of the past must not be repeated."
>
> Thousands of workers lost their jobs in the huge communist-era state
> bureaucracies after the fall of the Najibullah regime. The chaos of civil
> war and the esoteric employment practices of the Taleban were followed in
> turn by the arrival of the Northern Alliance - dominated by ethnic Afghan
> Tajiks - which has been widely accused of discriminating against other
> ethnic groups and promoting its allies to key positions.
>
> "It's only in the adverts and the newspapers that they say that jobs go to
> the 'suitably qualified'," said one jobless youth, regarding the no
> vacancies sign outside one ministry. "Go inside and ask in any department
> where they come from. Whole offices are staffed by people from the same
> village or valley."
>
> Former Kabul university political science professor Gul Rahman Qazi argues
> that the interim authority has to put an end to the employment of the
> unqualified and the filling of non-essential posts.
>
> Yet he recognised the domestic discontent such policies would cause when
> alternative employment across the country is so scarce. "These surplus
> jobs should go and their holders should be made redundant - but this does
> not mean that people should be left with no work," he said.
>
> He warned that if the authorities went ahead with their plans, there was a
> danger that people might revolt.
>
> But the interim authority's general director of administrative affairs,
> Mohammad Yousef Etibar, insisted that there had to be a link between the
> scale of the state workforce and "the realistic ability of the state to
> pay for its gross national product".
>
> The various ministries have been canvassed for their views on possible job
> cuts and their responses have yet to be analysed. But Etibar repeatedly
> said that staff would not be dismissed against their will or sacked
> without alternative employment.
>
> "We do not want to just sack state workers, so we will offer retirement
> packages to staff old enough to qualify and offer new jobs to others in
> other state agencies," he said.
>
> Abdul Qadeer Munsif is a freelance journalist in Kabul.
>
>
> CHILDREN SUFFER IN SCHOOL FUNDING LOTTERY
>
> The majority of Afghan school children are being taught in dangerous,
> war-ravaged buildings.
>
> By Sultana Farkhanda in Kabul.
>
> In a windowless room with a damaged roof, the pupils in class 12A at Gulam
> Haidar Khan School sit cross-legged on the cold, dusty ground and
> painstakingly write notes taken from their shared books.
>
> Years of war have left the ceilings and walls blackened with soot and
> grime. A broken water tap hangs uselessly from the wall.
>
> Plastic sheeting over the window frames keeps out the light but not the
> cold, and shoppers in the nearby Bibi Maryam bazaar can peer through and
> disturb the children. Where there are no spaces in the classrooms, lessons
> are held in corridors or outside in the yard.
>
> More than 4,500 boys aged between five and 16 are registered at the
> school - which was reopened this spring after years of use as a refugee
> center. Named after a hero of the Anglo-Afghan wars, it also provides
> education for around 400 schoolgirls who are taught separately.
>
> Principal Abdul Hakim Kohdamani reels off a list of his school's
> shortcomings.  "Beside lack of drinking water there are few windows, no
> doors, no working toilets and we need at least 2,000 tables and chairs,"
> he said.
>
> There is also no electricity, which is a particular problem for the 1,361
> night school students from government offices who move in between 4pm and
> 7pm for vocational training.
>
> Yet for all it problems,  the education ministry ranks the school's
> curriculum and management as being the second best in the city.
>
> The facilities contrast sharply to those available to the 3,800 pupils of
> the Lycee Esteqlal in downtown Kabul. In January, its buildings were
> beautifully restored in a programme overseen by the UN cultural and
> education agency UNESCO and the French technical support NGO ACTED.
>
> Classrooms are well-equipped and there are plenty of books and teaching
> materials - all paid for by a direct grant from the French government.
>
> Principal Mohammad Wali Gulbahari recognises that his school is not only
> privileged but is also an exception. He believes the donor nations have
> failed to coordinate aid to the country's schools and, like an increasing
> number of public sector workers here, he blames NGOs for spending a
> "disproportionate" amount of funds on administration, accommodation and
> salaries for its foreign staff.
>
> "The donor nations have given them funds without checking the expenses of
> these organisations," he said. "They should consider allocating separate
> funds for these costs."
>
> Deputy education minister Mohammad Moeen Marastyal accuses donor countries
> of failing to support his ministry and wants funds to be paid directly
> instead of through the NGOs. He says that the present situation has
> resulted in significant disparities within the education system, with some
> schools denied vital resources while others flourish.
>
> Privately, the donor nations have said that they are not willing to fund
> the current regime as a new one is soon to be elected by the Loya Jirga,
> though they accept that NGO sector coordination is a problem.
>
> "The problem is that NGOs only deliver where they can operate, not where
> they are needed," said one western official.
>
> The government, meanwhile, is dependent on western donations because it is
> unable to raise funds through taxation. But the latter isn't enough to
> restore the country's damaged schools. Marastyal said he has only received
> 320,000 US dollars from the United Arab Emirates, which was divided
> equally between the country's 32 provinces.
>
> "That's not enough," he complained. "You couldn't even buy carpets for
> that."
>
> Whoever is to blame, the gulf in resources between the supported and
> unsupported schools is a remarkable one.
>
> In Kabul's Khairkhana district on the other side of town, Abdul Ghafoor
> Nadeem School caters for around 3,800 children. Unlike the Lycee Istiqlal,
> it is housed in a war-ravaged, decrepit and dangerous building.
>
> "The classrooms are held together with raw bricks and bamboo," said
> principal Jalaludin Hashemi.
>
> "There is the constant danger that bits of the ceiling will fall on the
> children, who have to sit on the muddy floors. There is no drinking water
> and no glass in the windows. The children cannot use the toilets because
> there are no doors on the stalls."
>
> Over in the Shah Shaheed quarter of Kabul, by the city's Itifaq Mosque,
> sits Amena-e- Fidawi, one of the city's oldest girls' schools. A strategic
> target for warring militias in 1991, its shattered frame is home not only
> to new students from Amena-e- Fidawi school but also pupils from the
> former Bibi Shamso school, who are temporarily billeted with them.
>
> Hanifa Ihsan, Bibi Shamso's principal, is as keen to move her students out
> of Amena-e-Fidawi as their over-stretched and under-resourced hosts are to
> see them go. Ihsan has asked the government for a tent that she can put in
> the yard until a suitable building is found for her students.
>
> But neither tent nor new home is expected soon and sixth grade student
> Haseebullah Abdulsaboor said, "All we do is wait and wish for a time when
> we will be sitting on a chair, writing at a desk and have a playground for
> skipping and football."
>
> Sultana Farkhanda is a journalist with the Bahktar Agency in Kabul.
>
>
> **************** ABOUT AFGHAN RECOVERY REPORT *******************
>
> Afghan Recovery Report from the Institute for War & Peace Reporting is a
> unique free service providing local media outlets and the international
> community with objective and reliable news from local sources.
>
> Afghan Recovery Report is produced as part of IWPR's training work to
> develop the professional capabilities and sustainability of the Afghan
> print media, facilitating their role as a critical monitor and guardian of
> the stabilization and recovery process.
>
> IWPR Afghanistan provides workshops and practical on-the-job training for
> local journalists, with weekly publicaton and syndication in local
> languague media. Further activities include maintaining an Afghan-run news
> Website, <http://www.afghanweb.org>, training Afghan trainers, working
> with Kabul University journalism students and faculty and reporting on
> human rights and humanitarian issues. The project operates in parternship
> with the Geneva-based Media Action International and, in Peshawar, with
> the Afghan Media Resource Centre.
>
> Executive Director: Anthony Borden; Managing Editor: Yigal Chazan; Project
> Coordinator and Editor: Jamila Aman; Programme Manager: Duncan Furey;
> Training Coordinator: Andrew Stroehlein; Local trainers: Rohan Jayasekera
> (Kabul) & Jack Redden (Peshawar).
>
> The opinions expressed in IWPR's Afghan Recovery Report are those of the
> authors and do not necessarily represent those of the publication or of
> IWPR.
>
> ************************ ABOUT IWPR *****************************
>
> The Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) is an independent
> London-based non-profit organisation supporting regional media and
> democratic change.
>
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>
> For further details on this project and other information services and
> media programmes, visit IWPR's website: <http://www.iwpr.net>
>
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> Copyright (c) 2002 The Institute for War & Peace Reporting
>
> Afghan Recovery Report No. 7
>
>
>
>




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