Hazara Nation

FROM Baghdad, to Bangkok, to Brisbane, the drama was played out, but coach Pim Verbeek, expressionless and stoic, never seriously doubted tomorrow's World Cup qualifier would go ahead.

Sectarian rivalry, international politics, football politics and Sepp Blatter's unquenchable thirst for a headline were all in the melting pot.

But if the match hung in the balance, Verbeek was having none of it. On the manicured turf of Ballymore all week, the players trained as normal. At the team hotel, they were told by their coach to ignore the fuss because he was "100%" sure the game would go ahead. In other words, situation normal. In the end, after Blatter's typically theatrical attempt to paint himself in the role of game-saviour, Verbeek was proved right.

And so, at the end of an abnormal week, things are as they were always meant to be.

On the surface, the odds seem to be in Australia's favour. Iraq is bottom of the group after picking up only one point in its opening two qualifiers. Indeed, since the Asian Cup success, it has only won two in 10.

There are other factors, as well. When Iraq's under 23s were beaten in Gosford in February, three of their players and the assistant coach slipped away and claimed political asylum. Ali Mansur changed his mind, but the other two, Ali Khader and Ali Abbas, are living in Sydney and have been accepted as refugees.

It was a blow to Iraqi soccer's unity, and pride, and Ali Abbas, in particular, might have been playing against the Socceroos tomorrow if things had worked out differently.

As it is, coach Adnan Hamad has enough problems on his hands. Nobody knows the players better than Hamad. He has nurtured them through the ranks, from the team that won the Asian under-20 title, to the team that inspired the world to finish in the last four at the Athens Olympics.

But sometimes familiarity breeds contempt. Hamad has had to get tough on players still dining out on the Asian Cup success. He wants to see the pride back in the shirt tomorrow, but after being stabbed in the back by their own government, he knows that won't be easy.

Verbeek knows it won't be easy, either. "I know these Iraqis very well, they are used to playing against the outside world," Verbeek said.

Any Iraqi team that still has goalkeeper Noor Sabri, defenders Bassim Abbas and Ali Hussein Rehema, midfielder Qusay Munir, playmaker Nashat Akram and striker Younis Mahmoud cannot be taken lightly. Verbeek knows it, and intends to make sure his players know it, too.

With their World Cup hopes on the line, the Iraqis will be desperate, and dangerous. The Socceroos cannot afford to draw, so everything is on the line.

Under Verbeek, Australia's defence has grown stronger, and for the first time, he has almost a full deck of midfielders. But stopping goals is only half the equation. The other half is scoring , and who's going to hit the net?

If ever Australia needed Scott McDonald to live up to the hype, now is the time. Inside a packed stadium, the atmosphere will be charged with anticipation. Read the full story

Refugees settling in rural and regional areas of Australia can be a real asset to the community, a new report has shown.

The report, titled Refugee Resettlement in Regional and Rural Victoria: Impacts and Policy Issues, was released on Saturday and says successful settlement in regional areas can provide clear health, economic and social benefits for refugees and their adopted towns.

The Victorian Health Promotion Foundation (VicHealth) commissioned the report and chief executive officer Todd Harper said Australia has a proud history of welcoming refugees and that their integration can lead to positive results.

"It benefits the economy and local communities as well as the health and wellbeing of new settlers themselves," he said.

Since the end of the World War II, over six million refugees have settled in Australia, mainly in metropolitan areas such as Sydney and Melbourne.

In the period 1997 to 2005, non-metropolitan areas were home to fewer than 10 per cent of all new arrivals but in recent years there has been a move toward encouraging migration to rural areas, the report said.

Mr Harper said the report focuses on ways that have been proven to work in assisting refugees to settle in Australia.

"There is strong evidence that when new settlers are able to access resources such as housing, health services, employment and education their wellbeing increases and productivity improves," Mr Harper said.

"It is vital for the health of newcomers that their cultures are respected and that they do not experience discrimination."

The report said some migrants move to escape problems associated with city life, such as violence, drug abuse and youth peer pressure and others because family members are already there.

But it highlighted some problems faced by refugees in rural communities such as discrimination, violence, feelings of alienation and inability to find permanent employment.

Other problems included a lack of community engagement, lack of suitable housing or public transport and limited support services.

The report called for greater cooperation between all levels of government on ensuring successful refugee resettlement in regional Australia.

"It is essential that refugees are welcomed by supportive local communities and that sufficient resources are provided to assist newcomers to settle in rural and regional areas," Mr Harper said.

The Victorian Foundation for Survivors of Torture co-authored the report and director Paris Aristotle said refugees bring many skills to Australia and can help strengthen regional labour markets and societies.

The Refugee Health Research Centre, La Trobe University, The McCaughey Centre, VicHealth Centre for the Promotion of Mental Health and Community Wellbeing and the University of Melbourne also worked on the report. Read the full story

ABOUT 200 Camden residents cheered wildly as their council formally decided to reject an application for an Islamic school in their area last night.

Dressed in a hat decorated with Australian flags and a long yellow dress, a resident, Kate McCulloch, emerged from the meeting declaring a victory for "decency" - and insisted Muslims were incompatible with the local community.

"The ones that come here oppress our society, they take our welfare and they don't want to accept our way of life," she said.

But the Mayor, Chris Patterson, was at pains to stress that the refusal of the application had nothing to do with the seething religious tensions that have underpinned much of the debate.

Police blocked off the street outside the hall last night and about a dozen security staff kept guard inside the meeting. But no supporters of the Islamic school turned up and the crowd inside was unanimous in its opposition.

A council report recommended that the application be refused after more than 3000 submissions had been received from the public. The vast majority opposed the development. "Racist is just a word," Ms McCulloch said. "I have many English, Irish, Greek and Italian friends. I even have a Turkish friend who opposes this."

Cr Patterson pointed to a report from council officers showing the proposed development was flawed on environmental and planning grounds. These included inadequate public transport to the site, in Burragorang Road at Cawdor, and fears that it might be contaminated by hazardous materials. Cr Patterson insisted the ruling was "on planning grounds alone". The council criticised the proposed developers, the Quranic Society Dar Tahfez El-Quran, for not responding to questions concerning the impact on the local environment. The society's spokesman, Jeremy Bingham, was not at the meeting and was unavailable for comment.

If the council had no cultural concerns, residents did. One, Simon McCarthy, said: "I've been rolled before and we came out here for the quiet life. The fact is that Camden has been a strongly white community for a long time and the people here are scared. I'm not a racist person - that's just a statement of fact."

Addressing the meeting, the Camden Macarthur Resident Group's spokesman, Andrew Wannet, said there had been "name-calling and abuse for anyone who opposed this development, even likening us to Nazis". Opposing residents' wishes were Muslims, the Greens and the "politically correct".

"They should apologise to the people of Camden for bringing the area's good name into disrepute."

Laurie Armstrong said he did not oppose a school, but it was the wrong site. The road was too small and "a couple of hundred cars" every day would "be an absolute nightmare", he said.

Leichhardt Council, meanwhile, met last night to discuss the closure of a photographic exhibition about Palestinian refugees at the council library this month. A local pro-Palestinian group, Friends of Hebron, had condemned the decision to shut their exhibition as "an act of censorship" after a visit from counter-terrorism police, while the Jewish group Inner West Chavurah wanted to know why it was not invited to stage its own exhibition.

The council voted that all future events for the two groups would be vetted by a subcommittee of councillors and representatives from both organisations.

Cr Jamie Parker censured police for visiting the display. "That has been the most divisive thing about all of this. The police really need to think about the way they interact with the community." Read the full story

PSYCHIATRISTS say they have identified a new mental illness that afflicts asylum seekers in Australia — a combination of major depression, anxiety and psychosis.

One former oncology nurse, who now works with asylum seekers, said her new patients were often more traumatised than people diagnosed with terminal cancer.

The condition was discussed at yesterday's Royal Australian and New Zealand College of Psychiatrists' Congress in Melbourne.

Melbourne University associate professor Suresh Sundram said the clinical features of the unnamed syndrome were similar to post-traumatic stress disorder, major depression and anxiety disorders.

It was caused by the chronic and prolonged stress, occasional acute distress and repeated "rejections and humiliations" attached to their situation, he said.

"The effect on memory and concentration is very significant — especially short-term memory, which seems to ebb away completely," he said. "There is a pervasive dejection."

At any one time the illness affected about 40 of the 180 to 200 people at Melbourne's Asylum Seekers Resource Centre, and was more prevalent as they got closer to the end of the process, he said.

It can persist for months even after a protection visa is granted. He said it demanded a "social cure": the end of mandatory detention and expedited visa processes.

Dr Fiona Hawker, formerly in charge of psychiatry at South Australia's Glenside Hospital, which housed psychiatric patients from the Woomera and Baxter detention centres, has identified what she called "Baxter syndrome" — an even more acute version of the malady.

She told the symposium it was common to all but one of the 70-plus asylum seekers who came to the hospital from Baxter, suffering episodes of agitation and violence, reduced appetite, nightmares and disturbed sleep, anger, anxiety, auditory and visual hallucinations and severely damaged short-term memory.

It was caused by their mistreatment, stress and alienation in detention and the trauma associated with an "unpredictable and arbitrary" visa application process, she said.

"I don't think I have ever worked in a situation where my individual humanity was challenged at such a level," she said.

Mary Harvey, a trained oncology nurse who now runs counselling at the Asylum Seeker Resource Centre, said that before asylum seekers' applications were rejected they were like people who had been diagnosed with cancer.

"Once they have a negative ministerial decision, it's like working with clients who have exhausted all available cancer treatments," she said. Read the full story

Writers often write about atrocities, persecution and other acts of human degradation to provide an historical record for the future, so that in the act of remembering we might avoid repeating the mistakes of the past. In the area of Australian refugee policy, an inhumane and unworkable system of granting temporary protection visas to vulnerable refugees has continued to re-emerge over recent years and it is now time we buried it forever.

In 1999 the Howard government introduced Temporary Protection Visas (TPVs) for all refugees arriving by boat. Refugees who received these visas were denied family reunion, denied the right to re-enter the country if they left temporarily, denied resettlement assistance, and left to an uncertain future without the guarantee of ongoing protection. The visas were mostly granted for three years with some on Nauru receiving five-year temporary status.

Recently, the ALP Government reversed the policy, abolishing both TPVs and Temporary Humanitarian Visas (THVs). Immigration Minister Evans stated that, “the Temporary Protection visa was one of the worst aspects of the Howard government’s punitive treatment of refugees” and that it was, “a cruel and ineffective policy”.

But in 1999 the ALP in opposition did support the introduction of TPVs and back in the early 90s a domestic four-year temporary visa was part of Labor Party policy in government. Like the recent temporary visa, the Labor Party’s four-year visa was also condemned for the damage it could cause to the human beings involved.

In 1992 the clear and well documented message coming from anyone working with refugees was the same as it has been in recent years: granting only temporary protection status to refugees means re-traumatising vulnerable people.

Some of the submissions to a Joint Standing Committee inquiry in 1992 included comments from the Human Rights Commission that, “Refugees who have suffered serious trauma as a result of severe persecution have a particular need for assured continuity of protection.”

The Victorian Immigration Advice Centre said that, “four-year temporary permits wreak havoc on the lives of genuine refugees who want to put the past behind them and get on with their lives”, and the Australian Migration Couselling Service warned that, “many will confront employers who will choose not to recruit or promote them in the knowledge that their permanent stay is not guaranteed”.

If only the major political parties had listened.

In 1999 the Howard government ignored the inevitability of human damage that would lie ahead and introduced the temporary visas. Part of Immigration Minister Ruddock’s reasoning at the time was that a visa with no family reunion rights would act as a deterrent to married male refugees, as they would no longer be able to sponsor wives and children to join them in Australia. The Temporary Visa policy was designed to make life difficult for people arriving by boat and it was deliberately and unapologetically punitive.

But what soon became disastrously clear was that the TPVs created an incentive for vulnerable women and children to travel to Australia by fishing boat as the only means of reuniting with their husbands and fathers. The SIEVX tragedy in 2001, when 353 mostly women and children drowned trying to reach Australia, was the obvious worst case example of how this policy went horribly wrong.

The introduction of the visas had absolutely no impact on reducing the number of boat arrivals. During the 1999-2000 financial year 4,175 people arrived by boat, followed by another 4,137 arrivals in 2000-01. The large numbers continued in the 2001-02 period with a further 3,649 arrivals recorded. But still the policy continued.

Thousands of refugees became trapped in the web of uncertainty created by their temporary status. Refugees who had spent years in detention centres were given no resettlement assistance on release into the community. The burden of their care was shifted to individual community members who volunteered their time and money and to organised charities and refugee support groups who rescued people from sometimes disastrous circumstances. But many refugees fell through the cracks and ended up without any assistance to endure an uncertain future in a new country.

Employment opportunities were limited, including for those who wanted to apply for apprenticeships involving a longer time frame than the term of their visa. Many refugees wanted to study and improve their education level in Australia, but although this was possible for some though the assistance of generous community members and scholarships from universities, colleges and schools, the full fee costs kept further education out of reach for many TPV holders.

Refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan in particular watched the scenes of horror unfold in their homelands on TV each day. Many sunk further into depression as their fears for the future took hold, knowing that they could be killed if they were forced to return to their places of persecution. Their lives were lived on hold, without any guarantee that they would not be sent back when their temporary visas expired. Each day they waited for a change of policy or a change of government that would allow them to move forward.

Enforced family separation has, without doubt, been the most damaging and cruel condition of temporary visas. The Howard government designed the conditions of the visa so that people would be hurt where they were most vulnerable, and for many refugees the separation from family has indeed caused them and their family deep and long lasting pain and suffering.

Fathers were forced to remain separated from children and wives for many long years and some are now approaching a decade without seeing their children. Even when a permanent visa is granted, the wait for family reunion can be long, and under current policy there is little opportunity to ever sponsor relatives other than a wife or child.

In 1999 one commentator noted that Philip Ruddock, in his goading of the ALP to support the introduction of TPVs, had turned the temporary refugee visa issue into, “a smelly little litmus test of whether the ALP is willing to take tough decisions to keep boatpeople away from our shores”.

The sad consequence of years of political manoeuvering between the coalition and the ALP, competing to see who could be the toughest on boat arrivals, has been that thousands of traumatised and vulnerable refugees have been made to suffer greatly and unnecessarily. It must stop now.

It will never be clearer than now that temporary protection visas destroy human beings and they should never again be reinvented as part of Australian policy. I hope both parties are listening now. Read the full story

Vancouver Sun
Kevin Griffin

It's one of those images that hits you with a bang.

The assault of red against the black and white background makes your heart jump. By covering the eyes, bridge of the nose, and forehead, it obliterates the parts of the face that register emotion and personal identity.

The brutality of the red contrasts sharply with the softness of the subject who looks like an male or female adolescent wearing a baseball cap. You could imagine the sandy-haired youth spending the summer eating hotdogs and playing baseball.

The person is wearing a U.S. flag over the mouth and the lower part of the face. It's the kind of thing worn by someone protesting against censorship, the war in Iraq or any of the empire-building wars the U.S. has started in the past 200 years. The red paint drips like blood on the youth's face, recalling all the blood that's dripped on the U.S. since its violent birth as a republic.

The title torques up the emotional content of the image even more. It's called Eyescream Sunday, a play on the wholesome all-American dessert, an ice cream sundae.

Oddly enough, the image isn't crassly anti-American propaganda. By wearing the U.S. flag like an outlaw from the Wild West celebrated in Hollywood movies, the youth is situated as a modern American outlaw taking on a contemporary version of the sheriff. There's a sadness about Eyescream Sunday, as if the protester is part of a recurring cycle of violence of which he or she is unaware.

The mixed media work illustrates perfectly the name of the exhibition at the Back Gallery Project that it's a part of: Can You Not See. The 18 paintings and mixed-media works in the exhibition are by Raif Adelberg, an artist, designer and publisher Made Magazine, a Vancouver-based art book. As a designer, he's created the line of clothing called Richard Kidd.

For Can You Not See, Adelberg is exploring the legacy of North American colonial history and 1940's European imagery in popular visual culture.

In his artist's statement, Adelberg said his work is looking at actual and implied emotional and physical domination and how the culture of fear works to control and deflect dissent. The Back Gallery Project is at 109 West Cordova, under the shadow of the new Woodward's Block. The exhibition continues to Saturday, May 31.

A work in progress about a different but related kind of representation is being presented next Wednesday at Centre A at the corner of Carrall and West Hastings. Vancouver-based artists Jayce Salloum and Hazara-Afghani artist Khadim Ali will be showing parts of their work-in-progress (the heart that has no love/pain/generosity is not a heart). The work will premiere at the Alternator Gallery for Contemporary Art in Kelowna Monday, June 9 to Thursday, July 31.

The collaborative project of the two artists focuses on Afghanistan's Bamiyan valley where the Taliban destroyed two ancient Buddha statues in 2001. Western media accounts suggested that the Taliban destroyed the statues due to a fundamentalist interpretation of Islam. But another possibility has to do with the Hazara people who live in the region. The Hazara are an Asiatic-looking ethnic group believed to be descended from Genghis Khan. As a minority group, the Hazara have been routinely massacred and discriminated against by the Taliban. The statues may have been destroyed because the Taliban didn't like having huge Hazara-looking figures looking down on them.

Their collaborative project was made possible through a grant from the Arts Partners in Creative Development, one of the arts funding initiatives made possible by the 2010 Olympics.

It will be shown at OurTube on Wednesday, May 28 at 8 p.m. The moderator for the slide show and talk will be Haema Sivanesan, director/curator of South Asian Visual Arts Collective in Toronto. Centre A is at 2 West Hastings.

A play on YouTube, OurTube is meant to be a place where artists can share their video and work with others while talking about it.

There is no charge to attend OurTube which is held on the last Wednesday night of the month.

More information is at 604-683-8326 and www.centrea.org. Read the full story

Afgha.com

“I would rather work as your servant, cut grass and tend your garden than be the
ruler of Afghanistan.”
Amir Yaqub Khan, to a British viceroy, 19th Century.

While violence in Iraq seems to be subsiding for the moment, it’s rising in our “other war” in Afghanistan. The victory over the Taliban that appeared certain six years ago is falling apart, but if we heed the lessons of Iraq, we can still prevail.

Conventional wisdom blames “foreign elements” (namely Pakistan, accused of stirring trouble by harboring Taliban insurgents), but that’s not accurate. The crux of matter is that Afghanistan suffers from Weak Government Syndrome. “He who has money in his pocket has power in his arms;” or so goes the old
Persian saying. Afghanistan lacks both. It doesn’t have sufficient skilled human and natural resources to generate enough revenue to maintain a functional government or attend to the basic needs of its citizens. The result is lawlessness, ethnic rivalries, rampant corruption and the fear of total collapse, causing paralysis at all levels of pubic and private life.

How can an enduring peace be established in this country? Throwing money at the problem is not a long-term solution. We must strike at the heart of the crisis. As a native of Afghanistan, I suggest the following:

A NEW FEDERATION: Afghanistan’s centralized government tries to micro-manage the economy and appoints civil servants from Kabul, top to bottom. This Soviet-style system, a remnant of the Communist era, has never worked. Economic progress stalls while officials wait for orders from Kabul bureaucrats. This central command is out of touch with the ethnic structure of the country.

In many ways, Afghanistan shares the ethnic structure of Iraq, where Sunni, Shia and Kurds hold sway in separate regions. In Afghanistan, Pashtuns have dominated the south and east, Tajiks live in the north and Hazara in central Afghanistan. While Afghanistan hasn’t been torn by the level of sectarian violence seen in
Iraq, the Pashtuns complain that the Tajiks have overrun Parliament and the Karzai government, and the Tajiks accuse the Pashtuns of harboring the Taliban to assert their hegemony.

As the Karzai government weakens, ethnic tensions mount, evidenced by the Nov. 7 suicide bombing in the once-calm northern city of Baghlan, killing 73 people including six members of Parliament. I am not suggesting that we should divide the country into ethnic states, but giving a certain level of autonomy to regions would help reduce ethnic tension and also cut the Gordon Knot that has locked economic activity since this country’s inception two centuries ago.

In Iraq, we overthrew the Saddam Hussein tyranny and are hoping that Sunni, Shia and Kurds can run their own affairs in a loose central government. We could do the same in Afghanistan by allocating power to locals while still keeping the country together with a single currency, defense and Parliament. This decentralization
might save the country from falling to extremists.

REACH OUT TO LOCALS: In 1996, a handful of Taliban delegates visited San Diego in an attempt to solicit political support from the Afghan Diaspora, and they met with my father, who had worked most of his adult life as a representative of the Afghan government in local districts. ”Do you guys have the support of locals?”
my father asked them. “If not, forget about us.”

My father, who died in San Diego three years later, knew that without the cooperation of the public, progress was nearly impossible in Afghanistan’s semi-feudal society. “Build trust,” he would say when asked how he was able to build bridges, schools and roads that still bear his name in Badakhshan and Hazarajat. “Once you build trust, people obey you.”

The U.S. is not wholly responsible for the misery in Afghanistan . The attacks of 9/11 led to U.S involvement, but after the Taliban appeared routed, the U.S. made unrealistic promises to Afghans, then left the job half-done by going into Iraq. Today, Afghans seem to have lost trust in the U.S and their own government.
One way to regain that lost trust is to apply the lessons of Iraq. “We got down at the people level and are staying," U.S. Gen. David Petraeus said. "Once the people know we are going to be around, then all kinds of things start to happen." We have to reach out to the religious students and lure them from Al Qaeda to our side. If we can create positive dialogue with the former Saddam Baathists in Faluja, we should do the same with the moderate Taliban. Appealing to their nationalism, we should be able to separate them from the Arab extremists.

SURGE: Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s repeated appeals to NATO and the U.S. for a military surge has fallen on deaf ears. Today, 53,000 coalition forces are no match for the revived insurgency. The Afghan government is frayed and tattered. NATO has been reluctant to become engaged in a ground operation, much less provide more troops, and its members are squabbling about burden-sharing “Our European partners are dropping the ball,” Hans Binnendigik wrote in the Wall Street Journal. Europeans want to win hearts and minds by being engaged in humanitarian missions. This is a good intention, but without a big stick and the will to use it, good intentions could be famous last words. This fissure in NATO is playing into the hands of the insurgents. If the Taliban takes over, Europe will be inundated not only with opium and terrorism, but also
the flow of refugees.

If we do nothing, President Karzai may echo the sentiments of Amir Yaqub Khan, who said he’d rather be a servant cutting grass than ruler of Afghanistan. Karzai might already be wishing he’d never left the restaurant business in Chicago.

Wahab Ghafar Raofi is a former public prosecutor for the Ministry of Justice in Kabul. He is now a resident of Irvine, California. and a Consultant for SMC Consulting. The opinions expressed are his own and do not reflect the opinions of SMC Consulting. Read the full story

The Australian government has donated US $1.4 million for Rohingya refugees in Bangladesh for the construction of new homes for the refugees, stated a press release issued by the UNHCR office in Dhaka yesterday.

"It is to build new homes for 10,000 Rohingya refugees at Kutupalong Camp in Cox's Bazar at a cost of US $1.4 million," said the press release.

This is the first time Australia has contributed to the UNHCR's program in Bangladesh. The contribution came at different times and in two parts from the Australian International Refugee Fund, with a $517,000 contribution, and from the Australia Minister of Immigration, with a $883,000 contribution, it was stated.

Kutupalong Camp is home to almost 10,800 Rohingya refugees, while Nayapara Camp, a second camp near Cox's Bazar houses nearly 17,000 refugees. The Rohingya refugees have been in Bangladesh since fleeing Burma's northern Arakan State in the early 1990's.

The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Bangladesh is going to build new homes for 10,000 Rohingya refugees at Kutupalong Camp in Cox's Bazar.

Each of the 280 new six-unit bungalows will house six families in more spacious shelters than the decrepit huts they have been living in, read the press release. Read the full story

Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan

UNAMA: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Aleem Siddique from UNAMA Spokesperson’s Office and welcome to our weekly press briefing. As usual, I have some news from UN agencies around the country, after which I will be happy to take your questions.

UN to assist 1,500 displaced families from Garmser district

Starting with Garmser district of Helmand province, there has been much media coverage on displacement of people from Garmser district following recent military operations. UN agencies in the south will be providing assistance to around 1,500 battle-displaced families from Garmser district of Helmand province. Of these 1,500 families, around 900 are currently located in Lashkar Gah and 600 in different villages of Garmser district. These families will receive essential food and shelter, which are already pre-positioned in Lashkar Gah. This assistance is provided by the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR).

WFP truck destroyed on the ring road

On 17 May a convoy of 79 commercial trucks loaded with United Nations World Food programme (WFP) food left Kandahar city, destined for Herat and Nimroz provinces. The convoy, which was escorted by the Afghan National Police, was attacked by anti-government elements using small arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades on the main ring road in Maiwand district of Kandahar province. Two trucks loaded with WFP food were hit by rocket-propelled grenades and burned down. This resulted in the loss of 84 tons of wheat for 10,500 people. Thankfully, no human casualties have been reported.

In a separate incident, on 8 May, a commercial truck with 48 tons of WFP wheat for 6,000 people went missing on the way from Kandahar to Herat

According to WFP, more than 30 attacks against commercial vehicles or convoys carrying WFP food were reported in 2007. In total, 870 tons of food, valued at US dollars 730,000, were lost in the last year. In at least four of the incidents last year, vehicle crew members and Afghan police escorts were either killed or wounded.

The United Nations is working to deliver life-saving assistance to Afghanistan’s poorest people under a strict principle of impartiality. We condemn the unscrupulous theft and pointless destruction of such life-saving food aid. This is particularly upsetting in light of the current food security situation we are facing in Afghanistan. We want an immediate end to these attacks, which deny vital food from Afghanistan’s poorest communities and goes against all the Islamic and traditional values of the Afghan people.

WFP launches food for work project, building schools and clearing irrigation canals in Jawzjan province

WFP has just started its food for work project in Aqcha district of Jawzjan province. The project will help construct five primary schools in Kalta Shakh, Jangal Arigh, Jangal Arigh Mahajer, Kotana Qar and Yanda Arigh villages. This project will also result in clearing over 41 km of vital irrigation canals in villages on the outskirts of Aqcha district. WFP has allocated over 222 tons of food for this project

In a separate effort, WFP has allocated nearly 360 tons of food rations for women, disabled and elderly-headed households in all eight districts of Dai Kundi province.

UNICEF Trains Health Workers in Herat

If we turn our attention to Herat, many of you will be aware that Afghanistan has made huge strides in reducing maternal and child mortality in recent years. 80,000 children are now saved every year thanks to improvements in healthcare but we still have a long way to go. In an effort to further reduce the maternal mortality rate, the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF), in cooperation with the Directorate of Public Health, has launched a three-week training course on Basic Emergency Obstetric Care for 16 medical doctors and midwives in Herat city. Healthcare workers graduating from the course will be able to facilitate safe deliveries in health facilities in rural and remote areas and recognize danger signs in pregnancies.

158 doctors and midwives from the four provinces in western Afghanistan have already received such training.

Also in Herat, a UNICEF-funded school was inaugurated in Kohsan district of Herat city recently. The school will provide education for around 1,500 students, of which 615 are expected to be girls.

FAO distributes animal feed to thousands of Afghan farmers

Moving to the work of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), 272 tons of concentrate animal feed will be distributed over the coming weeks to farmers in Bamyan and Dai Kundi provinces by FAO.

A total of 2,730 farmers in Waras, Yakowlang and Panjab districts of Bamyan province and Sangtakht, Kiti and Shikhminan districts in Dai Kundi province will benefit from this.

Each beneficiary will receive 100 kg of animal feed, sufficient for feeding four sheep or goats or one cow and calf for up to 50 days.

This is in addition to 60 tons of concentrate animal feed already provided by FAO to 1,200 farmers in Bamyan province in late March.

UNDP Supports Afghan National Disaster Management Authority in Preparing Provincial Disaster Management Plans

As part of a nationwide project, the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) supported a training workshop for disaster management specialists from Herat province between 7 and 17 May.

UNDP and the European Commission Humanitarian Aid Office (ECHO) are supporting the Afghanistan National Disaster Management Authority (ANDMA) in preparing Provincial Disaster Management Plans, which in the long run can save lives in local communities during, before and after natural disasters.

In the first phase, the project is being implemented in Kunduz, Mazar-i-Sharif, Herat, Kabul, Dai Kundi, Paktya, Nangarhar and Kandahar. The workshop in Herat province was the second of its kind, following a first training session in Kunduz.

Some 50 disaster management workers from Herat province took part in the workshop. A team of 10 members (male and female) from the Provincial Emergency Preparedness and Response Commission were trained to teach disaster management techniques to the general public through face to face training and public awareness campaigns using community radios, TV channels and print media.

That is all from me; I will now open the floor to questions.

QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS

BBC: I have two questions. Do you have any idea whether the attackers on the WFP convoy were Taliban, armed groups or anybody else? On the internally displaced persons in Garmser district of Helmand province: do you have any up-to-date information on their condition?

UNAMA: On the WFP attacks, I do not have any details on who is behind those attacks. The important point is not who is behind the attacks, but what the consequences of such attacks are. When the United Nations is trying to reach those people who need our help the most, these attacks are depriving the most vulnerable parts of Afghan society from receiving our assistance. We want to send a strong message today that these attacks must stop. They are preventing us from reaching people who need our assistance and people will suffer as a result of their actions.

On Garmser district, UN agencies have been working closely with local authorities on the ground to assess how many families have had to leave their homes due to the fighting. What we can tell you is that experience shows that, when such incidents do occur, often families leave their homes temporarily and return home very quickly as soon as it is safe to do so. That is why quite often the initial media reports we see seem high but within a matter of days the number of people requiring assistance comes down quite drastically because people are obviously keen to return home. Our assessment has shown that there is a need for 1,500 families who have not been able to return to their homes, who will need shelter and food during the time they are away from home. UN agencies are gearing up; they have assistance pre-positioned: essential shelter materials such as tarpaulin, essential food and cooking materials are being provided to the most vulnerable people in need.

Ariana TV [translated from Dari]: The Government of Afghanistan has shown a strong reaction to the report of the Special Rapporteur. The Supreme Court has summoned some journalists. What is your view on this?

UNAMA: You will recall from last week’s press conference that both I and Professor Alston, the Special Rapporteur, made clear that he is not a UN official, he is an independent expert. He is appointed and reports to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva. The statement issued by him was an outline of his preliminary findings from his visit to Afghanistan and he is due to publish his final report towards the end of this year. No doubt there will be many discussions with all the relevant parties and Professor Alston over the coming months on the important issues he has raised. UNAMA has always made clear that all parties to the conflict must respect both Afghan and international law when it comes to the safety and welfare of Afghan civilians. We continue to coordinate with the military forces to ensure that every effort is made to protect civilians. We note the considerable efforts that the military forces have made to minimize civilian casualties which have resulted in fewer reported civilian casualties in recent months than compared to previous months. Nevertheless, there is no room for complacency on anyone’s part; we must continue all efforts to ensure that every Afghan civilian is protected. We need to work together to achieve this; we need to work with the Government of Afghanistan and with the military forces and that is where our focus is right now.

On the second part of your question: Our legal advice suggests that it is for the Media Commission to impose any sanctions on the media or to investigate any alleged media violations before such a case should be referred to the Attorney General or the Supreme Court. We will only see a stronger effective regulation once the rule of law is adhered to and we are making this point to the Government.

GMA [translated from Dari]: Regarding the people affected in Garmser district, what kind of assistance is being provided? Have you started distribution or you are planning to start?

UNAMA: We hope to start as soon as possible; we are talking to the local authorities to identify the exact locations of these families. The food is positioned and ready to go, and we hope that this can start within the next day or so. In terms of exact type of the assistance, can I ask you to speak to my colleagues from UNHCR and WFP who are both present here today? They can outline exactly what type of assistance is being provided. My understanding is that they include essential food items, cooking items and shelter materials such as tarpaulin sheets.

Press TV: Food prices continue to surge in Afghanistan and now it is becoming unaffordable for people to run their life as usual. Reports from the Afghan Ministry of Public Health indicate that people, due to lack of adequate access to food, are becoming malnourished and micro-nutrient deficient, I would like to know if your organization has any programmes to ease this crisis?

UNAMA: As I am sure you are aware, the food situation is not only affecting Afghanistan but it is a challenge that the whole world community is currently facing. The Government of Afghanistan should be credited for being among the first governments in the world to take action on this issue, with discussions that were first initiated last year between the Government of Afghanistan and the international community on how to handle this situation. May I refer you to the joint appeal that was launched specifically to tackle this issue back in January; it was a joint UN and Government of Afghanistan appeal for around 80 million dollars. You will know that that appeal is now fully funded and the food distribution has been happening for a number of months, specifically to help those people most severely affected by the rise in food prices. The food assistance under that appeal is set to continue until July of this year and it will benefit millions of Afghans around the country.

Meanwhile, discussions with the Government of Afghanistan are ongoing to look what steps need to be taken once food from this appeal comes to an end. We need to see two or three key actions. We need to look at what the short-term needs of this country will be, and those discussions are currently ongoing, looking at import of wheat from neighbouring countries, looking at where else wheat can be brought in from. In the medium term we need to look at the viability of creating strategic grain reserves to be able to ride out periods of time when food becomes an issue. And in the longer term, Afghanistan need’s to pay more attention to building the capacity of Afghanistan's agricultural sector, so that Afghanistan can become self-sufficient in food. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) is playing a leading role in assisting the Government of Afghanistan in rehabilitating the agricultural sector so that we can avoid food insecurity in the future.

Saba TV [translated from Pashto]: In the near future, the security responsibility for Kabul city will be handed over to Afghan security forces. What is UNAMA’s view on this?

UNAMA: We welcome the announcement from the Government of Afghanistan that it will be taking over responsibility for security in Kabul. It is a strong signal of the leadership demonstrated by the Afghan Government. We want to see more of this, the Afghan Government taking over responsibility for security in this country and we see to this as an encouraging sign for the future.

Thank you very much; have a good day. We look forward to seeing you next week. Read the full story

The Age

Tribal loyalties and traditions and border sanctuary for extremists are undermining efforts to secure peace in Afghanistan.

WHEN Australian troops moved deep into Taliban territory in the rugged Chora Valley to build three bases for the Afghan army, they employed 300 local tribesmen as labourers.

But was it a case of opening the door to the enemy? Mike Hindmarsh, the Australian general in charge of Australian operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, says it is likely that some of the workforce were Taliban fighters.

He believes they would not have been hard-core Taliban or al-Qaeda members but second-tier, part-time fighters called on to fight when numbers were needed. Some would be paid by the Taliban and some would be coerced, while others simply liked a fight.

When word went out that the Australians were recruiting labourers, they lined up for work with the engineers.

The Australians see it as a positive. They believe the experience could woo these tribesmen away from the Taliban and show others that they can earn money without picking opium poppies or helping the Taliban attack coalition forces.

The episode illustrates the complexity of a situation where Taliban fighters melt back into the civilian population after carrying out attacks, where every Afghan household is entitled to own a gun and where the Taliban use proceeds from poppy crops to pay tribesmen to join its ranks and make payments to families of those killed in action.

In borrowing from capitalism, the extremists sometimes prove more efficient than the Government in Kabul. A police reservist in the dangerous Chora Valley complained recently that he had not been paid for two months.

The Chora area is dusty brown, bare of vegetation except for the small and startlingly green belts where the locals have found enough water to grow poppies for heroin production alongside their food crops.

Despite claims by commentators that the war cannot be won, Australian Defence Force head Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston says Australian troops are winning their war at a tactical level.

He says they are continuing their push to clear the Taliban out of a large area of southern Afghanistan's Oruzgan Province.

A new strategic approach adopted by NATO is still being implemented. Houston says that as the NATO plan - involving more troops, increased training for Afghan forces and much more rapid rebuilding of the instruments of governance and health and education systems - widens, the overall situation will improve.

Houston says the war can be won with a properly co-ordinated civil and military strategy.

He says the Australian strategy of using special forces to track down Taliban leaders, hide-outs and bomb-making factories far from the Australian base at Tarin Kowt is working well.

It puts the insurgents on the defensive so that they find it much more difficult to mount attacks on coalition forces and the Afghan Army. It also leaves the reconstruction troops free to win over hearts and minds and shows the locals that the insurgents can be defeated.

"We've established coalition control over a huge area and in the ensuing years we will go further," Houston says.

He says Australian forces have killed or captured a significant number of insurgent leaders in recent months, though he won't say how many.

The special forces commandos and SAS troops told Houston that after the recent death of Lance-Corporal Jason Marks they were more determined to pursue the militants.

Houston says locals are increasingly unhappy with Taliban killings and are regularly pointing out to Afghan and Australian troops where bombs have been placed.

But tracking down insurgents living within a civilian population contains its own recipe for tragedy, as when special forces went to a qala, a homestead surrounded by high earth walls, to capture a Taliban leader. The Taliban fought back and a baby was found dead at the scene.

An investigation concluded that the Australians were not to blame for the baby's death, but the war in Afghanistan has a dangerous built-in multiplier effect with centuries of tradition obliging an Afghan who loses a family member to extract revenge on the killer or his tribe. Some deaths blamed on the Taliban are revenge killings by relatives.

NEIGHBOURING Pakistan is seen as barrier to victory in Afghanistan, with its mountainous border with Afghanistan providing a sanctuary for the Taliban and al-Qaeda.

On his way to visit troops in Afghanistan and Iraq, Houston stopped in Islamabad for talks with military commanders concerned that their country is being tagged as "terror central".

Covering the visit, I was standing outside the Serena Hotel in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave when two Pakistani officers approached.

They offered me a lift to the airport and we followed Houston's well-guarded convoy as it wove through the streets towards the local air force base.

For 20 minutes the officers dissected Pakistan's situation. They were convinced that the war in Afghanistan would last 15 to 20 years and there could be no military solution.

They said the coalition nations must keep their promises to help build the economy because, if more people had jobs, fewer would be willing to fight for the Taliban.

The pair said the members of the NATO-led coalition, including Australia, must talk to moderates in the Taliban.

They also wanted help with military technology, including Australian-made unmanned reconnaissance planes fitted with sophisticated day and night cameras to help guard the 2400-kilometre border with Afghanistan.

They rejected suggestions their country was encouraging the Taliban, saying they had paid a heavy price with 1200 soldiers killed in counter-terrorism operations.

Pakistan's internal security problems could only be sorted out once there was peace in Afghanistan, the officers said.

The big question for the allies urging officials in Islamabad to shut down the Taliban's operations in Pakistan is not whether they have the will to do it but whether it is remotely possible.

Pakistan's new Government is trying to run a country with one foot firmly in the modern world - it was long ago able to build its own nuclear bombs - and the other in tribal areas where loyalties and traditions pay little heed to modern borders or to orders from Islamabad.

On the day that Houston arrived in Pakistan, 22-year-old Rafia Ditta went to court to plead for an order allowing her to marry the man she loved, against the wishes of her father. A posse of relatives turned up and shot her, then followed her to hospital where they finished her off.

While that was happening, Pakistani police picked up 13 religious extremists who burned down a girls' school; a suicide bomber from the local militant group Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan killed himself, a police constable and two civilians and wounded 12 other in North-West Frontier Province; and a Taliban force fired on an army patrol, wounding a soldier. That level of extremism leaves Pakistan's security forces with little time or energy to seal the border with Afghanistan.

Adding to Pakistan's problem are the Pashtun people, Afghan refugees who fled across the border almost 30 years ago to escape the invading Russians.

Many have married and merged into local tribal groups, which are now obliged by thousands of years of tradition to protect them. An estimated 2 million are still in Pakistan.

All of that makes for heavy traffic across a mountainous border, and in a land where men are likely to carry an automatic rifle it is difficult to determine who is a Taliban member and who is a returning refugee or a visiting tribal cousin.

Houston emerged from this week's meeting in Islamabad saying he was impressed with the Pakistanis' determination to deal with the border problems.

"We are very keen to engage them on counter-terrorism tactics, techniques and procedures," he said.

While Pakistan's porous border is likely to remain a problem, Australians have been warned by Prime Minister Kevin Rudd that more casualties are likely in Afghanistan.

He has also warned NATO that Australia is not providing an open cheque and Australia will not be sending more troops until NATO members increase their contributions.

In Oruzgan Province, the Australians are working with a much larger Dutch force that provides air and artillery support. The Dutch are likely to pull out most of their forces in 2010 and a key issue is what happens if Australia is asked to increase its force to fill that gap. It may have to deploy its new attack helicopters, if they are ready by then, jet fighter-bombers and a force similar to the 550-strong group that is about to be withdrawn from Iraq.

Houston says only that the Government has no plans to send more troops. "And the ADF is currently pretty stretched, particularly the army and particularly in the sort of capabilities needed in both Iraq and Afghanistan."
Read the full story

Frontier of Faith: Islam in the Indo-Afghan Borderland;
By Sana Haroon; Hurst & Company London 2007;
Pp254;
Price £25;
Special Price £15.95;
Available at bookstores in Pakistan

Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly has finally won his battle in 2008, albeit at the cost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embraced the Deobandis in the hope of making itself acceptable but to no avail

Sana Haroon has written an excellent book that will help us understand the killing fields of the Tribal Areas of Pakistan today. This month (April 2008) the local Al Qaeda warlord and alleged killer of Ms Benazir Bhutto, Baitullah Mehsud of Wana, convened a big conference of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) in Aurakzai Agency near the tomb of Haji Turangzai to proclaim that his emirate had come to stay. He was himself not there for fear of being killed by an American drone but his deputy representing Bajaur was there as were warriors from all other tribal areas including Malakand in the NWFP.

The book explains the role of the local mullah in Pakhtun society and traces his journey from mystical faith to the hardline Deobandi one which was actually more suited to the stark highlander’s life of challenges rather than the quietism of the sufi from the plains. Haji Turangzai actually stands at the axis of change in the spirituality of the Tribal Areas and his war against British Raj fits him for the homage of those who are fighting the global hegemony of America and punishing with suicide-bombing such American allies as Pakistan.

Historically the Pakhtun of the Tribal Areas were ruled by their tribal code Pakhtunwali intertwined with faith through the agency of their mullahs. The mullahs were mostly a part of the chain (silsila) of mystics — mostly Qadiriya — who decided the matters of sharia in the light of their jurisprudence and in deference to the tribal code. Gradually the mullahs all changed to the Mujaddadiya chain of mysticism, which meant they became militant rather than quiescent in the qadiri tradition. We at least have one evidence about when the change actually began.

Ahmed Shah Abdali had induced descendants of Mujaddid Alf Sani to move to Kabul after his raid of Delhi in 1748. On their arrival, and with patronage from the court of Ahmed Shah, and later Timur Shah (1772-93) and Shah Zama (1793-1800), they gained pre-eminence at the Afghan court. The were also granted lands in Kabul, Kohistan, Jalalabad, Kandahar and Herat where the influence of the Naqshbandiya-Mujaddidiya line grew to its strongest (p.41). It is Alf Sani’s majuddadi militancy that informs the Pakhtun personality.

The piri-muridi tradition was strong among the Pakhtuns till another great man in the tradition of Naqshbandiya-Mujaddadiya chain became their patron in chief, Shah Waliullah. The big tradition of the warlord mullah in the Tribal Areas must begin with Abdul Ghafur (1793-1878) of upper Swat who got his early education at Hazrat Ji of the Mujaddadiya silsila in Peshawar who found him in violation of the tariqa, after which he joined a Qadiri-Suhrawardiya-Chistiya teacher of a multiple order. Ghafur became the akhund whose line was to be the owners of Swat because he fought on the side of Amir Dost of Afghanistan against Ranjit Singh and won for his Yusufzai followers the lands of Swat and Mardan. The ‘Miangul’ descendants of Ghafur were first known as akhund but were later called wali.

Akhund Ghafur set up the throne of Swat and in 1849 put Syed Akbar Shah on it as Amir of Swat, the Syed being a former secretary of Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly, but after his death took the throne himself. He kept his line with the Mujaddadi chief mullah of Kabul open and derived a lot of power from the Kabul throne through the mystic silsila. His military might was respected in the region surrounding Swat, but his authority spread far and wide when he accepted, as murid, Mullah Najmuddin of Hadda, a khalifa or appointed deputy of Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly. (Syed Ahmad of Rai Bareilly had come to the Frontier from Delhi to defeat the Sikhs and establish an Islamic state, but was killed at Balakot in today’s Hazara district in 1831.)

The new Mujaddadi wave rolled back the earlier maverick mysticism fitfully represented by such ‘heretic’ saints as Pir Roshan Bayazid Ansari (1525-1560) who united the Pakhtuns against the Mughals and remained true to the reputation of warrior mystics. The Mujaddadis rejected Pir Roshan’s cutting down of the namaz and other central tenets in the tradition of Mansur Hallaj. (Former cricket captain Majid Khan’s son cricketer Bazid Khan is named after the Pir-e-Roshan.) The great tradition that came to Swat was given in the hands of the Hadda Mullah of Mohmand. He came to Swat and proclaimed an eclectic silsila led by the Mujaddadi school.

Hadda Mullah fought Amir Abdur Rehman Khan of Kabul on the one hand and battled the British on the other. As a pupil of Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly who fought South India’s most immaculate jihad in the Frontier, Hadda Mullah created a stronghold in 1897 when he saw his follower from Kabul Sadullah Khan Sartor Faqir fighting the British at Malakand. The Miangul line of Akhund Ghafur was soon disenchanted by the politically suicidal but heroic strategies of Hadda Mullah and broke from their family silsila to go to the less warlike school of Manki Sharif.

But the Akhund Ghafur-Hadda Mullah legacy was moved forward by one Fazl Wahid Haji Sahib of Turangzai (1842-1937), which was really the teachings of Mujaddid Alf Sani and Shah Waliullah. Turangzai is supposed to have gone to Deoband in India’s Saharanpur to learn the Quran where he saw the most militant of all clerics Maulana Mahmudul Hasan preparing a group of pupils to go to Hijaz in Saudi Arabia. He insisted on going to haj with Maulana Mahmudul Hasan and seemed to have repeated the experience of Shah Waliullah himself when he came under the Wahabi influence of Haji Imdadullah in Makka. Haji Turangzai’s first bayt was with Imdadullah, the one he took at the hand of Hadda Mullah was his second.

Although the descendants of Akhund Ghafur like Miangul Aurangzeb the Wali of Swat greatly revered the great Mujaddadi tradition their rule in Swat was less stringent than in Mohmand and Bajaur where Haji Turangzai left behind a strong Deobandi-Wahhabi influence that was to coalesce with the Arabs who arrived in the region with Al Qaeda. Baitullah Mehsud is claiming from the Mianguls the legacy of Akhund Ghafur while the family of the Wali is keen to take the governance of Swat away from Peshawar and reactivate the soft shariat of the Wali. The Pakistan army could therefore be facing the tradition of the Wali and the larger challenge of Haji Turangzai legacy represented by Baitullah Mehsud.

But if the Pakistan army loses, the next rout will be that of the representatives of the Wali who are in the habit of quickly leaving Swat after indirectly supporting Maulana Fazlullah of TNSM. The legacy of Haji Turangzai is in the ascendant. Syed Ahmad Shaheed of Rai Bareilly has finally won his battle in 2008, albeit at the cost of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan which embraced the Deobandis in the hope of making itself acceptable but to no avail. Read the full story

Afghan development worker and researcher
Mirwais Wardak will be in Montreal on May 22 to discuss peace-building and
civil-military relations in war-torn Afghanistan.
Hosted by Development and Peace and Oxfam-Quebec, the visit will include
several round-tables with Montreal-based international development
organisations working in Afghanistan, as well as a public conference at the
Centre 7400 at 6 PM.
Mr. Wardak will provide first-hand accounts of the changing relationship
of development and defence in the country, focussing particularly on the roles
of civil society and governments in creating a lasting peace for Afghans.
The Montreal visit is part of a week-long tour including Toronto and
Ottawa, during which Mr. Wardak will meet with Canadian MPs to discuss
Canada's role in Afghan civil society.
Development and Peace has been working in Afghanistan since 2001. The
organisation is currently working with its partners in the country on
strengthening civil society and empowering women, particularly in Ghor, Kapisa
and Parwan.
Oxfam has been present in Afghanistan since the beginning of the 1990s.
The organisation currently supports partners in different regions of the
country, particularly in Hazarajat, Badakshan where it has development and
humanitarian aid projects.

Photos taken by 20 Afghan women will be exposed at the Centre 7400
(7400 boul. St-Laurent) at 6PM on May 22.

Mr. Wardak will be available for English-language interviews in Montreal
on May 22.

Biography notes available upon request.



For further information: Eleonore Fournier-Tombs, Development and Peace,
(514) 257-8711 ext. 307, eleonore.fournier@devp.org; Justine Lesage,
Oxfam-Quebec, (514) 382-7922 ext. 237, LesageJ@oxfam.qc.ca
Read the full story

MOHAMMAD DAWLAT HUSSAIN is among 1000 refugees who can apply for family members to join them in Australia after the Federal Government scrapped temporary protection visas in Tuesday night's budget.

Previously, asylum seekers found to be in genuine need of protection under Australia's international obligations were confined to temporary protection visas, or TPVs, which restricted their rights.
The Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Chris Evans, yesterday said these people would gain permanent residency.

"The previous government just left people in detention to rot," Mr Evans said.

Of the 11,000 people issued temporary visas by the Coalition, 9800 were eventually granted permanent protection.

"The only impact of the policy was to hurt these people in the meantime," Mr Evans said.

Refugees on TPVs had no guarantee of staying in Australia and were banned from travelling to their home country. They could not bring spouses and children to Australia and had limited access to settlement services such as English lessons, employment advice and income help.

Mr Hussain, 28, said the abolition was a relief to himself and his sister, who had not seen her husband, the father of her three children, for seven years.

"It's just lifting a lot of weight for me because it used to be very time-consuming and stressful to apply for permanent residency," Mr Hussain said.

The darkest aspect of his three-year detention on the Pacific island of Nauru was not knowing when or if his term would end.

Mr Hussain fled the Taliban in Afghanistan in 1999 and stayed in Iran for two years before travelling by boat to Ashmore Reef, off the northwest coast of Australia.

"We are finally welcome within Australian society," he said.

The advocacy group, Refugee Council of Australia, also applauded the decision.

But Opposition immigration spokesman Chris Ellison said dropping the TPVs sent a "clear message to people smugglers that Australia's borders are open for business". Read the full story

Australia has told the United States it will no longer honor a deal to swap refugees who attempt to reach the two countries by boat, the Australian immigration minister said Thursday.
The informal agreement was reached a year ago so that the two allies could refuse to accept such asylum seekers. But
no refugee has ever been transferred under the deal, and Australia's new government has changed policy on the issue.
When the deal was struck, around 90 asylum seekers _ Sri Lankans and Burmese _ who were being held at an Australian-run immigration detention camp on the Pacific island nation of Nauru were eligible to be resettled in the United States if they qualified as genuine refugees.
Australia, in turn, agreed to resettle up to 200 Cubans and Haitians annually from asylum seekers intercepted at sea while trying to reach the United States and held at the U.S. Navy base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans said Thursday that Washington had been told that the deal was scrapped after his government came to power in elections last November. He did not say when the United States was notified.
Australia was no longer prepared to accept refugees held by the U.S. at Guantanamo Bay, he said.
«I just made it clear that it's inappropriate,» Evans told reporters. «We're not looking for third-country resettlement and swapping our refugees for their refugees _ I never understood the proposal.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd has dismantled the previous government's policy of sending asylum seekers intercepted at sea to island detention camps to wait for years until another country agreed to accept them.
Evans said the deal with Washington was part of former Prime Minister John Howard's plan to prevent these refugees from ever reaching the Australian mainland.

However, most have since been resettled in Australia and the islands camps closed.
The deal had been widely criticized by human rights groups. Doubts were raised about whether presenting Australia as a backdoor to the world's richest nation would deter asylum seekers from journeying into Australian waters by boat.
An official at the U.S. Embassy in Canberra said Thursday she could not immediately comment. Read the full story

Australian Bishops' delegate for immigration issues, Bishop Joseph Grech, has welcomed the Federal Government's budget announcement that it will abandon Temporary Protection Visas for refugees.
It was an important step in restoring integrity to Australia's protection visa system, Bishop Grech said in an ACBC statement.

While much of the detail of the measure was yet to be seen and considered, in principle, the move restored equality of treatment to all protection visa seekers, regardless of how they arrived in Australia, Bishop Grech continued.
"This means that any person arriving in Australia who is found to be a refugee under the international convention will now receive a Permanent Protection Visa and all the entitlements that come with that," he said.

"The Catholic Church has argued consistently that all genuine refugees are deserving of Australia's complete and ongoing protection and there should be no distinction of visa entitlement based on the method of their arrival in this country.

"We congratulate the Federal Government on this Budget measure which will ensure that Australia once again fully meets its obligations under international law in this area.

"It will also restore Australia’s reputation as a nation which truly cares for all those people who come to our shores in need of protection." Read the full story

By Michael Bhatia

We present the last installment of Michael Bhatia's exploration of post-9/11 Afghanistan. As his photographs reveal, the simple process of walking broadens one's conceptions of the country. He concludes that our view of Afghanistan should incorporate the twin realities of placid everyday life — and of conflict and insurgency.

For me, Afghanistan is not a nation of combatants — of Mujahideen, Taliban or tribal riflemen. Nor is it a place wholly defined by destruction and tragedy. Instead, when thinking of Afghanistan, I think of quieter moments and other isolated events.

In 2004, Kate Clark and I were traveling for a few days through Paktia and Khost province. Kate was the sole BBC correspondent covering Taliban Afghanistan for several years — and was ultimately expelled from the country for reporting on the massacre of Hazaras in Yakawlang, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas and the presence of training camps for foreign fighters.

Poets and soldiers

Upon our arrival at the USA Gardez PRT, we were subjected to a brief wait by the Afghan guards while our credentials were reviewed. Their guard post was surrounded by potted plants and singing bird cages, the guards only recently rustled from their afternoon naps. Driving away after that generally unsatisfying interview, we turned to see these guards running after the truck.

Worried that we had breached some security protocol, a hand was thrust through the window containing a neatly folded piece of paper. The inscribed Pashtun poem spoke of fleeting glances between man and woman, and of poverty and longing.

The guards then pleaded with Kate to deliver the folded note to the BBC in the hopes of it being read over the air. Here is the Afghanistan of poets.

Escalating violence

In 2005, upon returning from a one-week trip into Ghor province, I was looking to interview combatants in central Herat. A week before, during Mujahideen Day celebrations, a local police contingent and the Afghan National Army had exchanged gunfire, killing several civilians.

The violence was a continuation of an armed competition for power between Ismail Khan and a centrally appointed governor.

Life in the city
The city itself was full of life and trade, its broad modern avenues and shops mixing with its Timurid- and Safavid-era (10th-15th century) tombs and mosques, inlaid with blue tile.

At the central Congregational mosque, a Hazara man knelt for his mid-day prayers next to a monument commemorating the defeat of the British and with his daughter imitating his movements. Wandering through the city, speaking to traders, I was constantly referred to other parts of the city.

Ultimately, no combatants could be found. Instead, I sat, talked and discovered the Afghanistan of traders. In one of the few covered bazaars left in Afghanistan, I sat and spoke to a silk trader about his life and family while sipping green tea and chewing on a molasses treat.

Business as usual

These Afghans were able to avoid mobilization with all armed groups and to maintain businesses during times of conflict. Some shops were full of newly fashioned tin items (spades, watering cans). Others were full of large reams of cloth and bags of brightly colored spices.

In Kabul, each weekend I would set out for its surrounding hills, scouring its book shops, sitting in its tea and kabob shops, looking, absorbing and considering all that had happened there — and wondering about the future direction of the city.

Progress in the midst of conflict

Downtown construction — of a select number of gleaming high-rises — was offset by unofficial housing snaking up Kabul’s surrounding hills, driven up even higher by the excessive housing costs.

Throughout Afghanistan, I witnessed the passion for fruit, gardens and flowing water.

I joined a pick-up volleyball match in central Gardez, where I was roundly humiliated at the Afghan national sport, unable to serve, volley, spike, bump or set.

The untaken image

I am also reminded of pictures not taken — moments and images not captured — that can now only be recalled imperfectly. Some of these were simply missed opportunities — the decision to leave a camera in a car prior to entering the Kandahar mosque, missing remarkable photographs of the religious instruction of children and Koranic recitation.

Others were deliberate decisions, based on the desperate and sad events witnessed. Those moments related to stories of child labor in vicious conditions in Pakistan — more powerful still than any witnessed scene of violence or act of physical violence.

An intrusion

Without any immediate avenue for publishing the resulting image, for drawing attention or inducing change, the taking of a photograph would be an intrusion. As a form of response, the act of taking a photo in warfare can easily be proposed as a transgression.

The difficulty of witnessing brutality, deprivation, fear and sorrow is partly due to the resulting feelings of helplessness and imposition.

The reality was far more complex than child labor. In the midst of chronic drought, families had sent their youngest children to work in household carpet factories run by community members. The funds allowed families to survive. Yet young children were working for hours in a suffocatingly hot environment.

Entering Afghanistan

A few days later, I made my first crossing into Afghanistan via the Tulkarem border point at the Khyber Pass. In 2001, the Pakistan government was beginning to expel Afghan refugees, arguing that Taliban Afghanistan was now safe for return.

The border gates were packed on the Afghanistan side, with Pakistan’s border guards wielding rubber tubes to beat back those pushing against the gate.

Memories we carry

A small girl moved through the gate carrying a piece of an engine on her back and was immediately struck by the border guard. She would then return to the other side to transport another piece of the engine.

Each time I lowered my camera. I had made similar decisions during other travels in East Timor, Kosovo and elsewhere.

And so, war photography can also be about the pictures you don’t take but always bring home in memory.

My conclusion

These stories and photographs say nothing conclusive about Afghanistan. However, at their most ambitious, they should broaden our conceptions and realities of that country.

Some editorialists and commentators derive and construct entire theories from such brief, fleeting moments, with Thomas Friedman’s reliance on the taxi driver as a constant source.

An honest account

Every image, experience and discussion is said to speak to core truths. Some may see this essay as reflecting naïve sentimentality, promoting an Afghanistan of gardens and daily life that disregards the very real dangers, challenges and dilemmas occurring within its borders.

Stories of survival should not discard the destructive consequences of 30 years of conflict. Stories of armed outposts surrounded by gardens and of city districts rich with traders should not be adopted in substitution for descriptions of warfare, destruction and insurgency. Instead, our view of Afghanistan should incorporate both realities.
Read Part I here Read the full story

By Michael Bhatia

We present the second installment of Michael Bhatia's three-part photogallery examining post-9/11 life in Afghanistan. His photographs reveal a different view of the country outside of security concerns and meta-descriptions — revealing an Afghanistan of trade and poverty, of reconstruction and continued deprivation, and of daily life next to and within conflict.

What do photographs reveal about Afghanistan? A photograph is embedded with multiple meanings. However, absent explanatory text, the image tends to confirm existing perceptions. In capturing a singular moment, the image is proposed to reflect broader realities and contain core truths.

A singular image of Afghanistan is said to reveal the reality of a situation in one picture. It has a multiplier effect — producing a belief that the one captured represents the reality of many others.

In war photography, what would be an otherwise commonplace image becomes significant because of location and surrounding event. A family photo becomes art with the addition of pockmarks, graves, tragedy and loss.

Coloring landscapes

When presented in black and white, in pursuit of contrast, drama and artistry, the photograph presents the foreign location as aged and ageless, producing difficulties of situating the photograph and its subjects in both space and time. The locale is proposed as distant, aged and archaic. While color reflects immediacy, black and white threatens to denote art, permanence and age.

These images generally confirm rather than challenge existing assumptions, presenting an Afghanistan of burqa-covered women and turbaned soldiers with ever-present Kalashnikovs, of destroyed buildings and poppy fields. Afghanistan becomes a nation of combatants or a nation of fanatics — the Taliban and the Mujahideen as the perfect representation of society.

No matter the complexity of the individual’s story or his actual affiliation, the photograph of an Afghan with a weapon is proposed as menacing and threatening, and immediately assigned to membership in the Mujahideen and the Taliban.

Diverse histories

My interviews with 345 ex-combatants revealed a diverse series of histories. I talked with individuals negotiating both local and national insecurity and personal needs with broader communal family and tribal obligations.

Meta-accounts of jihad-inspired fanatics or of poppy-funded warlords collapse in these interviews, revealing diverse local histories of participation in conflict. Combatants were also traders, farmers, shepherds, business-owners, and migrant-laborers — and they had conceptions of legitimate and illegitimate fighting.

Breaking misconceptions

The Taliban were less linked to than permitted, and then opposed, by the Pashtun tribal system, particularly after 9/11 when a number of prominent tribes allied with U.S. Operation Enduring Freedom.

Ultimately, when viewing Afghanistan, we tend to fit new pictures within existing frames. A graduate art student’s first reaction to the photograph of Pashtun men at an engagement party was to exclaim — "terrorists." Whether reflecting humor or immediate reaction, this comment revealed a broader reality.

Even when captured in their most common celebratory moment, most Afghans are symbolically relocated from their own experiences into our own preconceptions. Similarly, images of Afghans with weapons — even if undergoing disarmament — are first interpreted as “dangerous,” with only a modifying caption altering that immediate perception.

Photography and movement

Building on Robert Capa’s statement that "If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close enough," James Nachtwey, the preeminent photo-realist and conflict photographer, once indicated that the primary characteristic of a good war photographer was proximity, closeness and involvement.

Physical distance would produce emotional distance — and be immediately revealed in the composition and weight of the photograph.

A sheltered existence

In addition to the over 30,000 soldiers deployed to Afghanistan as part of ISAF, NATO and the United States, there are thousands of expatriates in Afghanistan, predominantly concentrated in Kabul.

Yet many foreign “helpers” live sheltered from daily life in Afghanistan — rarely traveling outside of Kabul and only interacting with Afghans as colleagues, servants or beneficiaries. Closeness is prevented by guardposts, compound walls, restaurants and the closed doors of white landcruisers.

For many international staff in Afghanistan, all movement is controlled, as are the abilities to interact and see other parts of Afghanistan. The challenges to closeness are substantial — with both Afghans and expatriates subject to kidnapping and armed attacks.

Soldier's experience

These tactics were adopted by the insurgents in anticipation of this counter-reaction — pushing internationals further into closed compounds, slowing reconstruction, and removing the potential for local interaction.

Without opportunities to interact, the outside becomes threatening. Once, I arranged to fly by a UK Air Force C-130 to visit the United Kingdom’s Provincial Reconstruction Team in Mazar-i-Sharif.

To do so, I needed to travel between a UK forward base to the Kabul airport in an armored vehicle and in a flak jacket. Traveling this short distance on a well-familiar road allowed me to briefly experience the world of the soldier.

Changed view
The process of strapping on a flak jacket, of sitting within a lightly armored vehicle, of peering outside from its small viewing windows, transformed a daily trip into something more menacing.

Ultimately, "being there" — working in Afghanistan — is not the same as "going out." During my five research trips to Afghanistan since August 2001 — ranging from one to four months — I have tried to walk as much as possible, both between meetings and on the weekends, also traveling to provinces and regions in order to research conflict dynamics.

This formal and informal wandering opened up a different view of Afghanistan outside of security concerns and meta-descriptions. It revealed an Afghanistan of trade and poverty, of both reconstruction and continued deprivation, of contentious politics and of community reconciliation — and of daily life next to and within conflict.
Read Part III here Read the full story

By Michael Bhatia

Although Iraq dominates the headlines, Afghanistan remains a crucial battleground. This week, we present Michael Bhatia’s three-part photo essay examining life in post-9/11 Afghanistan. Today’s gallery features images of combatants going through the disarmament process — and depicts the continued role of commanders in Afghan daily life.

Editor's Note:

Many social scientists do research, and some do actual field research — but very few have the courage and determination to take their field research to truly treacherous territory. Michael Bhatia was such a social scientist — one who found his calling in taking a very close look at some of the toughest challenges of our time. Michael was the author of a brilliant, three-part photo essay published on The Globalist in August 2007. We say "was," because tragically he died on May 7, 2008 after having returned to Afghanistan to continue his field research in September 2007.

To celebrate his life and his calling, we are re-presenting his essay series. It is a vivid testament, for all to see, to the futility of destruction — and the nobility of those who seek to make a difference on those difficult terrains, even if it costs them their own lives.

Desperate milestone

Afghanistan has reached a desperate milestone — the 30th anniversary of ongoing conflict.

Although the first local rebellions occurred in 1975, it was the overthrow of the Daoud government by the Communist Khalqi party in 1978 that sparked a violent cataclysm from which Afghanistan apparently cannot escape.

War-torn country

The war has been described in many different ways — a tribal war, a holy war, a civil war, an ethnic war and an opium war. Local tribal rebellions against the Communist government evolved into a mass rebellion against the Soviet invasion forces.

The Soviet withdrawal in 1989 surprisingly marked an acceleration of the conflict between the state and competing political-military parties. The subsequent collapse of the Soviet-backed Najibullah government violently heightened intra-Mujahideen competition and enhanced the power of armed strongmen.

Next, the rise of the Taliban in 1994 brought peace to the south but ethnic persecution to the Hazaras. Operation Enduring Freedom expelled the Taliban, but is not able to defeat the insurgency or reduce poppy production. Nor has it secured the majority of the population from warlords, insurgents or criminals — both inside and outside the government.

Outside interests

Local armed actors have espoused a range of ideologies, involving multiple interpretations of both Islamism (within both the Shi’a and Sunni populations) and Marxism-Maoism.

The conflict was significantly fuelled by outside powers and interests. At least $15 billion worth of weapons and financial assistance was provided to the armed parties in Afghanistan between 1983 until 1992 by both neighbors (Iran, Pakistan, China, the states of Central Asia) and other regional actors (Turkey, the various Gulf states and Saudi Arabia).

Destruction of a way of life

The war destroyed livelihoods, created the world’s largest refugee population and undermined community conflict resolution mechanisms and resource management practices.
And it instilled inter-village distrust and ethnic violence, empowered armed strongmen at the expense of community elders — and radicalized displaced youth.

Even after a presidential and parliamentary election, Afghans experience little peace. The Taliban and their network of allies have graphically escalated a campaign of suicide bombings against both NATO and government forces, while assassinating prominent Pashtun tribal and religious leaders and school teachers.

Continuing tensions

President Karzai continues to protest the death of Afghan civilians due to Coalition air strikes — as well as the incommunicado detention of citizens acquired through search and seizure operations.

Meanwhile, there are profound tensions between the assertion by ex-Mujahideen commanders of a “right to rule” and the continued empowerment of armed groups for use against the Taliban versus democratization, liberalization and human rights agendas.

Mistaken identity

The renewed insurgency has only fortified a belief in the West that war is an intrinsic part of Afghan culture. The image of the Afghan is commonly that of a refugee child, a woman in the burqa or a Mujahideen with the Kalashnikov.

A century earlier, British lithographs commonly depicted the turbaned Afghan on a mountain perch in flowing robes, with his jezail aimed at a British convoy marching below, and with a long knife tucked into his waistband. While the technology had changed, the core themes are strikingly similar.

And so, our first ideas of Afghanistan are of warfare, desolate rural villages, destroyed urban centers — and of squalid refugee camps. And of suffering, oppression, conflict and fanaticism.

A violent people?

Ideas of the old affect the interpretation of the recent. The Taliban resurgence in the summer of 2006 prompted commentators and journalists to seek out core Afghan truths from the three Anglo-Afghan wars of the past century — and from Alexander’s invasion in 300 BC.

Accordingly, Afghanistan is proposed as a location of chronic violence and treachery — a country determined less by its centuries as a flourishing cultural crossroads than by those short periods of invasion and conquest by the Persians, Macedonians, Mongols, Mughals, British, Soviets and now the United States, NATO and its allies.

Incorrect portrayal

These associations partly descend from authorial and journalistic self-aggrandizement. A discussion of past explorers, campaigns and conquests and of current dangers fortifies a writer’s status, providing him/her with the authority of "being there" and the romance of ancient association.

To challenge this fixed concept of Afghanistan, I would like to explore dilemmas by delving into popular images and photography. There are, in fact, many different Afghanistans.

These Afghanistans exist both distinct from, intertwined with, and near the war. And though I have spent the majority of my time there researching the wars and those involved in it, conflict is not my primary memory and way of knowing that country.

Setting the record straight

As one ex-Mujahideen told me in 2005: “Afghans are not aliens to this world — supernatural creatures — but we do have specific characteristics…that make us different.”

I am compelled to write about experiences and ideas that cannot be placed into analytical paradigms, which do not speak to theories of war or peace, to destruction or to reconstruction, but instead to daily interactions that occurred in the course of research.

These stories and interactions do not fit into academic accounts or into a journalism that focuses first on war and suffering. For the individual, these experiences are typically partly remembered rather than diligently recorded.

I feature photographs that are not placed on the front pages of newspapers or books — but which reflect the pace and constitution of daily life. The sequence of this photo essay is deliberate. Beginning with the most common images of the Afghan — the combatant — the photo essay progresses to contain alternative images of Afghans at worship and at work.
Read Part II here Read the full story