Hazara Nation

By Archie McLean, Canwest
Masto Khan and his family live in a tent made of canvas, mud and bits of foraged wood on a patch of land they don't own on the outskirts of Kandahar City. The emaciated goats grazing nearby are their only possessions.

``Right now, our lifestyle has completely failed,'' Khan says, glancing at the cluster of similar tents dotting the dirt field. ``There are hundreds of families here. It used to be that they all owned livestock and could feed their families. Now, if you ask them, they don't have a single heard of sheep.''

It wasn't always this way. Khan, 60, is a member of Afghanistan's Kuchi minority, a nomadic people who have roamed the central Asian plains for centuries. But a pair of droughts and 30 years of war have reduced a proud people to this hardscrabble and largely sedentary life.

In a country rife with poverty and political instability, the Kuchis may the poorest and least stable.

For years, they formed the spine of the Afghan economy. Their trading caravans bridged South Asia and the Middle East. According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, at one time they owned 30 per cent of the country's goats and sheep and most of the camels. They traded things such as dairy products, tea, sugar and wool with the sedentary people for food staples such as wheat and vegetables.

Many of them spent their summers in mountain pastures and their winters on the lowland plains.

``That life was so beautiful. We are starving for that life,'' says Kabul, a man who lives in a nearby camp.

But droughts - one in the early 1970s and another from 1998 to 2002 - killed as much as three quarters of the Kuchi's livestock. Landmines and bombings killed many others.

With few economic prospects, many Kuchis made their way to the cities.

Drought and war forced Khan Mohammed, 32, to Kandahar from nearby Helmand Province. What money he and his family have, comes from day labour in the city. A month ago, the owner of the land they live on told them they must leave.

``For god's sake, where will we go?'' he asked the owner, who plans to sell the land.

The owner hasn't relented, but Kuchis have long dealt with such problems, Mohammed says.

``We'll find another place, another way.''

Kuchis currently make up about 70 per cent of Afghanistan's 200,000 internally displaced people. Many live in camps like the ones outside Kandahar, others in UN camps in the city.

Because they are largely nomadic, Kuchis historically abstained from the country's politics, but under Afghanistan's constitution, they were given 10 seats in parliament. But despite supporting President Hamid Karzai in the 2004 presidential elections, Haji Wakil Abdullah, one of the Kuchi MP's, says they have seen little benefit.

Their best-known leader, Haji Niam Kuchi, even spent more than a year in US custody, including a stint in Guantanamo Bay.

Recently, Abdullah and the other Kuchi leaders met with Karzai, who is currently trying to shore up support for the upcoming presidential election. He promised them parcels of land, but although Abdullah plans to support Karzai, he has little faith the president will follow through.

``So far, nothing has been done for the Kuchi people,'' says Abdullah, who sports a neatly trimmed died black beard and a striking mustard yellow turban.

There is no reliable information on how many Kuchi's are in the country. Their greatest concentration is in the Registan Desert in the southernmost part of the country, where their camel trains still snake across the burnt red sand. Abdullah wants a census of the Kuchis done so they can get more representation and resources.

Their list of needs is long: basic health services, land and livestock, but Abdullah believes their number one priority is education. It's this lack of education he blames for the Kuchi's ties to the Taliban in some parts of the county.

In Wardak Province, southwest of Kabul, Kuchis have engaged in armed clashes with ethnic Hazara's over grazing land. The Hazara's are another historically oppressed group, Shia Muslims who are thought to have descended from Mongols who ruled the area in the 13th century.

The Hazaras say the Kuchis are targeting them with the help of the Taliban - fellow Pashtuns and Sunni Muslims - who want to stoke ethnic and sectarian tensions.

For their part, the Kuchis allege the Hazaras are propped up by Iran and are driving them from grazing land they have always used for centuries.

Abdullah believes the Kuchis have a role to play in the future of the country, if the government would only help them.

``The Kuchis are able to deal with every other tribe,'' he says. ``The Kuchis can even play a role in bringing the Taliban onside.''

The families living in camps outside Kandahar don't know who their political leaders are. In the short term, they want one of two things: livestock or land. If they get livestock, they will resume a partially nomadic lifestyle, if they get land, they will farm it.

Until then, it's hard for Khan Mohammed not to look backward.

``We used to have everything. Our hearts were full, our stomachs were full and our children were healthy.''

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Fatema, a woman from the Naw Abad village of Bamyan province and a mother of seven children is actively participating in a new literacy class. Fatema is 34 years old but after being in class for just three months, she has learned how to read and write, skills that she never learned during her childhood. "When I read my text books and learn something new, I feel a great sense of pride and honour in my heart. I am no longer an illiterate woman," she said.

About three months ago there were no literate women in the entire village of Naw Abad in the Shaidan area of Bamyan province in the central highlands of Afghanistan. The area is most famous for the ruined Buddha statues. Now with the Enhancement of Literacy in Afghanistan (ELA) programme, Fatema and other women from the village are gathering everyday to achieve a common goal - to challenge the traditional idea that women don't need to be educated.

UNESCO with the cooperation of the Ministry of Education and funding from the Government of Japan started the pilot literacy programme in Bamyan province in November 2008. Over the next five years the literacy programme will provide educational assistance to 600,000 men and women in 18 provinces of Afghanistan. Ultimately the goal is to ensure that 60 per cent of the beneficiaries of the programme will be women. In addition to the literacy intervention, the programme provides vocational skills and micro-credit opportunities to the newly-literate women to help them get involved in income generation opportunities and to help their families economically.

Fatema, who is one of the most outstanding students in the Bamyan class, explained her motives: "There is a big difference between a literate and an illiterate woman; being literate means being able to help oneself and one's family. I will encourage my daughters to go to school. Now I can help them with their homework, and sometimes we have discussions on dictations and writing or reading words correctly, which is both interesting and encouraging for me and my children."

But some relatives and neighbours still criticize Fatema's participation in the literacy class. In turn Fatema believes that such a critical attitude is what condemns women to illiteracy. "Despite some criticism, my husband now supports me coming to this class. At first he couldn't believe that at this age I can learn reading and writing, but now things have changed dramatically. He is happy that I help our children with their lessons as he cannot do it himself. I am proud of my achievements and my reading and writing skills, I never want to give up learning even if I must fight against criticism or any other problems," said Fatema.

Source: United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) Read the full story

RW
"Note the difference in the bags" one of our GHNI staff in Afghanistan commented. "We had to pack the food in different bags while we traveled through Taliban country."

We go to the hard places.

The World Food Program estimates that 9 million Afghans face famine this winter. Afghan Members of Parliament are seriously warning the government and the international community that catastrophe is looming if nothing is done. GHNI anticipated a difficult winter and met with the Afghan Department of Disaster Preparedness to get permission to distribute food aid and find out the neediest areas. As a result, GHNI accomplished three distributions in January 2009: one in the remote mountains of Bamyan, one in the refugee camps outside of Kabul, and one in Ghazni, a dangerous south-west region of Afghanistan. Another shipment of food is on its way.

Ghazni

Deep and strong, the Taliban's hold on Ghazni keeps the people there isolated and un-reached from non-governmental organizations (NGO's). Then Global Hope Network received a hand-written letter from the south-west district governor asking for help. The winter months are harsh and families face starvation as they struggle for basic food items. So we went, and because of the generosity of many of you, we were able to bring in 15 tons of flour! Though the road was dangerous, we disguised the food bags and made it through safely. The governor was so thankful, and his people knew that they were not forgotten.

Bamyan

In the snow packed mountains of Bamyan, GHNI had to battle fierce weather that threatened to keep us from the remote villages. With great patience, we made it through the snow. GHNI works closely with the local government in Bamyan who conducted a survey for us. From this survey we had a list of 600 families in desperate need of winter assistance. They were grateful beyond words for the 11 tons of flour your contributions made possible for us to deliver.

Kabul

On the outskirts of Kabul, refugees huddle to keep warm in make-shift tents. They fled their homes and all they had in the Taliban held south. They have no where to go and no means to provide for their families. They've lost everything. Anxious for help, they look to NGO's like GHNI for any possible assistance. These refugee camps are the primary concern of the Department of Disaster Preparedness. So we went to them and distributed sacks of food. Again, your generosity has made it possible for us to reach these hurting refugees with Help and Hope. As they say in Afghanistan, "tashakor" –"thank you"!

Read the full story

InD A grim picture of spiralling violence and a disintegrating society has emerged in Afghanistan in a confidential Nato report, just as Barack Obama vowed to send 17,000 extra American troops to the country in an attempt to stem a tide of insurgency.

Direct attacks on the increasingly precarious Afghan government more than doubled last year, while there was a 50 per cent increase in kidnappings and assassinations. Fatalities among Western forces, including British, went up by 35 per cent while the civilian death toll climbed by 46 per cent, more than the UN had estimated. Violent attacks were up by a third and roadside bombings, the most lethal source of Western casualties, by a quarter. There was also a 67 per cent rise in attacks on aircraft from the ground, a source of concern to Nato which depends hugely on air power in the conflict.

The document, prepared by the Pentagon on behalf of the US-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan and seen by The Independent, also reveal how swathes of the country have slipped out of the control of President Hamid Karzai’s government. According to a poll taken towards the end of last year, a third of the population stated that the Taliban had more influence in their locality.

The growing unpopularity of Mr Karzai, along with accusations of corruption against figures associated with his government, has led the new US administration to repeatedly warn the Afghan President he will lose Washington’s support in the coming national elections unless there are drastic changes. The military “surge”, say US officials, must be accompanied by significant improvement in governance with Mr Obama describing the Karzai government of being “detached” from what was going on in his own country.

Mr Obama acknowledged that the reinforcements, with the total numbers of extra forces expected to rise to 30,000, had been sent because “urgent and swift action” was required “to stabilise a deteriorating situation … in which the Taliban is resurgent in Afghanistan and al-Qa’ida threatens America from its safe haven along the Pakistani border.”

Mr Karzai was informed of the new deployments in a telephone call on Tuesday. The Afghan leader had complained publicly at the weekend that he had not heard from the US leader since the inauguration almost a month ago.

The new US administration had indicated that it was prepared to talk to Iran about the Afghan situation and yesterday, Italy, which assumes the presidency of the G8 this year, said that Tehran would be invited to participate in a summit on Afghanistan. The Italian Foreign Minister Franco Frattini said: “We want to consider how to involve Iran, not whether to involve Iran.”

Nato has accused the Iranian regime of allowing weapons to be smuggled into Afghanistan while drugs go in the other direction, with some of the profits pumped back in to funding the insurgency. The UN’s International Narcotics Control Board said in its annual report that due to overproduction of opium there has been a rise in the production of cannabis in Afghanistan. Many provinces which had been declared by the Afghan government and Nato to be free of poppy cultivation have switched to cannabis. The report stated: “The lack of security in Afghanistan has severely hampered government efforts to eradicate illicit opium poppy; a total of 78 persons involved in the eradication efforts lost their lives in 2008, a six-fold increase over the previous year. The increase in illicit cultivation of cannabis in Afghanistan is also a worrying development.”

Meanwhile, eight years after “liberation” and the fall of the Taliban, many Afghan people still lack basic amenities. Across the country 38 per cent of the population did not have access to medical facilities with the figure rising to 44 per cent in rural areas.

The Taliban has also carried out a violent campaign against education for children in many parts of the country, claiming it was being used for Western indoctrination, and targeting girls’ schools in particular as being against Islam. The Nato report states that “access to schools for both girls and boys varies across the country and is tightly linked to security. Degree of access to girls’ schools is also an ethno-geographic factor”.

Whereas 74 per cent of Uzbek, 73 per cent of Tajik and 72 per cent of Hazara girls are in a position to receive an education, it falls to 44 per cent among the Pashtuns and, in the conservative deep south of the country, in provinces like Helmand where British troops are based, no more than 24 per cent attend schools.

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ana Greece's supreme administrative court, the Council of State, has revoked a ministerial decision denying asylum to an unaccompanied minor from Afghanistan, who had entered Greece as an illegal immigrant in November 2001.

The young man, then aged just 15, and had been arrested by the Kos coast guard when he attempted to enter Greece from neighbouring Turkey, unaccompanied by a parent or guardian. His application to be given asylum as a political refugee, claiming fear of persecution in his native Afghanistan due to his racial background and religion, had been denied by the then public order ministry three times.

Specifically, the boy claimed to be a Shi'ite Muslim of the Hazara tribe and that he had been forced to leave Afghanistan due to the civil war and the religious and political turmoil in his native country, believing that he would be personally targeted if he returned. He had also requested to be given a temporary residence permit on humanitarian grounds.

Since arriving in Greece, the youth had been living in a hostel for underage minors on Crete, where he had been attending classes.

The CoS revoked the ministry's decision as insufficiently justified, finding that the ministry had failed to observe laws that obliged it to investigate the validity of the claims put forward by the boy, who as a minor was entitled to a special protective status and guarantees under international, European and Greek laws.

The CoS decision noted, also, that the ministry had failed to assign a special temporary commissioner to the minor, as it was obliged to do.

Read the full story

GL he Australian Hazara community protested in Canberra on February 3 to strongly condemn the continued killing of Hazara people in Quetta City, Pakistan, by Taliban and al Qaida-backed religious extremists.

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Afghanistan on Thursday announced presidential elections for Aug. 20, hoping a U.S. troop surge will improve security at a time when violence is at the highest levels since the overthrow of the Taliban.

Below are facts on five candidates expected to run in the presidential election. [For full story on election, click on ID:nISL383254].

Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's first elected president, since 2004:

* The 51-year-old Karzai, is an ethnic Pashtun from the same tribe as the Afghan royal family. He received a masters degree in Political Science in India in 1983 and then joined a small monarchist faction of the anti-Soviet mujahideen in Pakistan.

He served as deputy foreign minister after the fall of the Soviet-backed government in 1992.

At first supporting the Taliban, Karzai later worked from pakistan to overthrow the austere Islamists, returning to Afghanistan in late 2001 where he was appointed president of the country's interim government.

Karzai became the first democratically elected leader of Afghanistan in 2004. Endemic government corruption, slow development and civilian casualties caused by foreign forces, have eroded his public support. Karzai has hinted at running in the election, saying he has "a job to complete".

Ali Ahmad Jalali, former interior minister, 2003 to 2005:

* The 68-year-old Jalali, an ethnic Pashtun, received a masters degree in Military Science in Kabul in 1966. Jalali was a top military planner with the Afghan resistance after the Soviet invasion, and a colonel in the Afghan army.

He became a U.S. citizen in 1987 and apart from the years he served in Karzai's government, has lived in the U.S. where he is a professor at the National Defense University, Washington.

Dr. Ramazan Bashardost, member of parliament and planning minister, 2004 to 2005:

* The 43-year-old Bashardost is an ethnic Hazara who spent more than 20 years in France, where he received masters degrees in Law, Diplomacy and Political Science and a PhD in Law.

Openly criticising the government and accusing ministers of corruption, Bashardost has modelled himself as a man of the people. While briefly serving as planning minister, Bashardost was critical of the role of aid agencies in Afghanistan and later resigned under government and foreign pressure.

Bashardost is the only person who has said openly he will stand in the election and runs his campaign from a tent opposite parliament.

Dr. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai, a senior fellow in foreign policy at the Brookings Institute and finance minister, 2002-2004:

* The 59-year-old Ahmadzai, an ethnic Pashtun, received a PhD in Anthropology from Columbia University. Ahmadzai has spent more than two decades outside Afghanistan where he worked at different universities and the World Bank.

In 2002, he served as special adviser to the United Nations and later as finance minister under Karzai. In 2005, Ahmadzai founded the Institute of State Effectiveness in the United States aimed at promoting effective government. Ahmadzai lives in the United States but visits Afghanistan regularly.

Dr. Abdullah, Afghan foreign minister, 2001-2006:

* The 48-year-old Abdullah obtained a medical degree from Kabul University and worked as an ophthalmologist until 1985. A year later he joined the Panjshir Resistance Front against the Soviets and served as an adviser to the late Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Abdullah was foreign minister of the Northern Alliance from 1998 onwards, and after Massoud's assassination in 2001, became a dominant figure in the alliance. He was appointed foreign minister under Karzai's interim government, a position he held until 2006. He is seen as a prominent leader of the northern ethnic Tajiks, but himself is half Pashtun.
reuters(Reporting by Jonathon Burch; Editing by David Fox) Read the full story

adn By Syed Saleem Shahzad

Simmering sectarian violence once again erupted in Pakistan on Monday. Violent protests took place in Quetta, capital of gas-rich western Balochistan province after the slaying there of a Shia Muslim politician. And at least five people died in a bombing outside the town hall in Dera Ismail Khan, in restive, Pashtun dominated Northwest Frontier province.

The banned Sunni extremist group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the drive-by slaying in Quetta of Hussain Ali Yousufi. A prominent Shia figure and ethnic Hazara, he led the Hazara Democratic Party.

Ethnic Hazaras form a sizeable population (around 90,000) in Balochistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran - the country from which they originally migrated to Pakistan.

Clashes between the Taliban and Hazara in Afghanistan have in recent years damaged previously peaceful relations between Sunni Pashtun and Baloch tribesmen.

Hazara Shias have been a frequent target of Sunni extremist groups in Pakistani Balochistan. The Hazara community originally comes from the Afghan province of Bamyan.

Angry Hazara youths ransacked the main commercial centre in Quetta after Yousufi's killing on Monday. They pelted passing vehicles with stones, set other vehicles alight and smashed the windows of a bank in the city's main boulevard.

The Hazara Democratic Party meanwhile announced a strike in the city on Tuesday and a 40-day period of mourning for Yousufi.

HDP secretary general Abdul Khaliq Hazara strongly condemned the government and police for the inadequate protection given to ethnic Hazaras targeted by extremists.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the blast in Dera Ismail Khan, which reportedly occurred minutes before the parliamentary affairs minister, Khalifa Qayyum, had passed through the area.

Prime minister Yousaf Raza Gillani condemned the bombing and vowed to bring to justice those responsible. Other politicians also condemned the attack as a barbaric act of terrorism. Read the full story

AFP Paramilitary troops were Monday deployed in Pakistan's southwestern city of Quetta to quell violent protests against the killing of a Shiite Muslim politician, police said.

Gunmen riding on a motorbike shot dead Ghulam Hassan Yousufi, a prominent Shiite figure, in an attack claimed by a banned Sunni extremist group.

"The Frontier Corps (FC) has been called to assist local police control the law and order situation," senior police official Wazir Khan Nasir told AFP.

He said police were questioning at least 18 people arrested for suspected links to the assassins following the second sectarian attack in Quetta in less than two weeks.

The FC fanned out across the city centre after hundreds of protesters took to the streets and turned violent, setting ablaze vehicles and smashing the windows of a bank in the main boulevard where Yousufi was killed.

"Police launched tear gas shells and baton-charged the protesters in a bid to prevent any untoward incident and disperse them," Nasir said.

At least 12 people were wounded, seven when protesters in the crowd opened fire, Nasir said.

"They are ordinary people injured from firing by the protesters," he said.

Residents said the situation was returning to normal as dusk fell. Shops remained closed, however, and traffic was thin in the city.

Monday's drive-by shooting took place on Jinnah road in Quetta, the capital of gas-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

Yousufi, who led the Hazara Democratic Party, a predominantly Shiite movement, was shot as he got out of his car outside a travel agency and died on the way to hospital.

Hundreds of people blocked Jinnah road and burnt tyres to protest against the killing, an AFP photographer said.

The banned Sunni extremist group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) claimed responsibility for the killing in a telephone call to the local press club.

"We claim responsibility for this attack," said the caller, who identified himself as Ali Haider, an LJ spokesman.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has been blamed for the killings of hundreds of Shiite Muslims since its emergence in the early 1990s.

Monday's shooting followed a sectarian attack on January 14, when unknown gunmen killed four policemen, three of them Shiites, on the outskirts of the city, sparking street protests.

Aside from the sectarian attacks involving Sunni and Shiite Muslim extremists, the province has been gripped by insurgency for four years.

Hundreds of people have died in insurgent violence in Baluchistan since late 2004, when rebels rose up demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region's natural resources.

The province has also been hit by attacks blamed on Taliban militants.

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TheAge EIGHT Afghan asylum seekers rescued by the navy from a sinking boat off Western Australia last year will be flown to the mainland after the Immigration Department found they would face persecution or death if returned to their homeland.

The decision to grant the permanent protection visas comes less than a week after 28 Afghan and Iranian asylum seekers — the first group to be processed on Christmas Island under the Rudd Government — were also found to be refugees.

One of the eight Afghans, a medical doctor and human rights activist, told The Age from Christmas Island he was forced to flee his homeland after being shot twice.

"I have the scars of these bullets on my body," he said through a Dari interpreter.

The man, who asked that his name not be used until he reached the mainland, said he was from the Hazara ethnic minority group, which was targeted by the Taliban.

"Eighty-five per cent of Afghanistan is now covered by people of al-Qaeda and the Taliban," he said.

The man, who practised as a GP in Afghanistan, said one of his "deepest desires" was to become a cardiologist to "pay back the good deeds of the Australian people".

"I want to convey my deepest appreciation to the Government of Australia and the people of Australia," he said.

The eight Afghan adults and two children, who are already in Adelaide, were rescued by HMAS Ararat on November 19, after Coastwatch spotted their sinking ship — which had a broken engine and hole in the hull — about 150 kilometres from Ashmore Island.

Their lawyer David Manne, from the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre, welcomed the Government's "prompt and efficient processing of the claims".

"This represents a vast improvement on past practice of prolonged processing, which caused such unnecessary and huge human and financial cost," he said.

Mr Manne said the Afghans were the direct victims of a vicious and unrelenting pattern of human rights abuse targeting minorities.

"They fled from brutality and terror inflicted by the Taliban and other extremists — exactly the same elements which Australia and other Western countries have been battling against," he said.

The decision to grant the men visas comes as the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Antonio Guterres, this week told the Security Council the number of refugees world-wide had increased to more than 11 million over the past two years.

Mr Guterres said 3 million Afghans remained in exile in Pakistan and Iran.

Eight boats of mostly Afghan, Iranian and Sri Lankan asylum seekers have been intercepted in Australian waters in the past four months, with the most recent arriving off the coast of Western Australia last Sunday.

Although the number of unauthorised arrivals rose only slightly in 2008 to 164, compared with 148 the previous year, the Government's border protection scheme has come under intense scrutiny.

While human rights activists and immigration lawyers have applauded the scrapping of temporary protection visas and faster processing times, the Opposition has claimed this has made Australia a "soft target" for people smugglers. Read the full story

TheN As religious chanting filled the air and cars carrying huge green flags trawled through the muddy streets, Qayum took a moment to think about the future.

“I hear from the people that the Taliban are close to Kabul and they will soon be here,” he said. “If they come and they are very strict like before, then we will fight them.”

The 20-year-old man – who gave only one name – together with the rest of Afghanistan’s minority Shiite community were preparing to commemorate Ashura yesterday with a freedom that may yet again be under threat.

Portraits showing Imam Hussein Ali and banners praising him have dominated the Kabul landscape this past week. At makeshift stalls, volunteers dressed in black have given out tea, hot milk and dates to the public.

Not so long ago such scenes were unthinkable. Under the Sunni-fundamentalist Taliban government, iconic imagery was outlawed and, in a number of provinces, Shiites were slaughtered.

On the surface then, the change has been remarkable, but over it all looms the shadow of a growing insurgency. One recent report by an international think tank claimed the Taliban now have a permanent presence in 72 per cent of Afghanistan, up from 54 per cent in 2007.

Last year was the bloodiest since the US-led invasion, with 151 US soldiers among the dead. According to the Associated Press, at least 850 Afghan police and 1,160 civilians were also killed. Similar or higher levels of violence are expected during the next 12 months.

Mohammed Baqir is from Behsud, an area of Maidan Wardak province where the Shia Hazara community has been involved in fierce land disputes with Pashtun nomads, who some claim are members of the Taliban. For him, even that unrest is a clear sign of the rebels’ spreading influence.

“If we have anything in our hands, we will fight them in Kabul. If the Taliban get here, first of all they will attack us and kill our women and children,” he said.

Ashura comes at the end of a 10-day mourning period that Shiites around the world observe. Accompanied by public displays of self-flagellation, it is held to remember the martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammed’s grandson, Imam Hussein.

Mr Baqir, 50, was sitting in front of a cobbler’s in the west of Kabul city while elderly men made their way along the road to a sprawling graveyard on a snow-covered hillside.

“During the Taliban, we were not allowed to hang these posters or put up these flags. The people had to celebrate quietly and the women were not allowed to go to the mosques. Now all the Shias can celebrate in the street, but then it was impossible,” he said.

The discrimination is not only confined to one period in Afghanistan’s history. Hazaras in particular have traditionally been regarded as best suited for the more menial jobs this impoverished society has to offer, working as cleaners and servants.

Now they have representatives in parliament and if a presidential election takes place this year, they will inevitably field a candidate who will receive a significant proportion of the national vote.

Not everyone, though, is happy with the amount of progress that has been made under the government of Hamid Karzai, the president.

Sher Mohammed took a break from handing out tea to list his complaints.

“Life has changed by about 50 per cent. If you go farther into this area you will see there is no electricity for the Shia people. And lots of organisations have promised to give us wood to build our houses, but they haven’t done that yet,” he said.

These concerns stretch across any ethnic and religious lines that remain, with high unemployment and a lack of basic infrastructure adding to the fears all Afghans have about the future. In a country where everyday survival is a struggle, optimism does not last long.

“It’s not important for us who is in the government or how many of its members are Shia,” Mr Mohammed said. “We just need peace and security. If we are alive and in good health, that is enough for us.” Read the full story

For the past week, caravans of cars have raced triumphantly around the Afghan capital, trailing huge green and red banners. Overpasses are draped with black cloth, and loudspeakers blare hypnotic religious chants punctuated with the slow rhythm of clanking chains.

This is Muharram, the 10-day period of ritual mourning -- including emotional bouts of chest-beating and self-flagellation -- observed by Shiites throughout the world in remembrance of Imam Hussein and other Shiite martyrs who died defending their faith in the 7th century.
But in Afghanistan, a Sunni-dominated country where Shiites have been a despised and oppressed minority during many periods of history, this Muharram is being observed with new boldness and political acceptance. It is a dramatic sign of the rapid emergence of Shiism under democratic rule in the seven years since the overthrow of the ultraconservative Sunni Taliban

"I think the current situation is the best Shiites in Afghanistan have ever had. We not only have more freedom, but our rights to worship are specified in the constitution," said Syed Hussein Alemi Balkhi, a Shiite cleric and member of parliament. Moreover, Sunnis are now coordinating with Shiites in observing Muharram. "They celebrate it a little differently than we do, but we respect each other," he said.

Shiites still make up less than 25 percent of the Afghan populace, which is nearly all Muslim. Many Shiites, especially the ethnic Hazaras, remain isolated in some of the most impoverished regions of the country, such as Daikundi and Bamian provinces. Here in the capital, many Hazaras are still relegated by tradition to such menial jobs as domestic servants or handcart pullers, who strain like animals under loads of furniture or commercial cargo.

But since the departure of the Taliban, which forcibly suppressed Shiism as un-Islamic, tens of thousands of Shiites have returned from exile in next-door Iran, many bringing professional skills and modernized civic views. Young Shiite women are generally more emancipated than Sunni women here, and female voter turnout in the 2004 national elections was highest by far in Shiite districts.

Shiites have now been elected to parliament from numerous provinces and appointed to various government posts. One of the most prominent young Shiite leaders of the post-Taliban era was former commerce minister Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, who was killed in a suicide bombing last year while visiting a factory in Baghlan province, north of Kabul.

During the current Muharram celebrations, portraits of Kazemi have appeared among the posters of Imam Hussein, his martyred relatives and Iran's Ayatollah Khomeini in the markets and mosques of West Kabul's Shiite district. So have images of the late Abdul Ali Mazari, an Islamist Afghan militia leader who fought the Soviets and the Taliban. Revered by Afghan Shiites, Mazari was also known as an exceptionally cruel and ruthless commander.

The Shiite emergence here has been openly aided by the government of Iran, which has built mosques, gymnasiums and a brand-new university in Kabul, a complex of soaring blue-tiled domes and towers. This boon is viewed as a worrisome development by some Afghans, who mistrust Iran's intentions and fear that its Shiite theocracy seeks to gain undue influence over Afghanistan and weaken its government.

Local Shiite leaders, however, say they have no intention of allowing that to happen. They say that they have more open, democratic political views than their counterparts in Iran and that they have few illusions about Iran's motives toward its poorer neighbor that is being protected by U.S. troops and rebuilt with Western aid.

"There is no doubt that people are concerned about Iran's influence here," said Balkhi, who received his religious education in Iran but brought his family home shortly after the Taliban fell. "We know Iran does not want to see Afghanistan develop socially, economically or militarily, but our officials tell us they have not seen any evidence that Iran is trying to disturb our peace and stability. What we want is to be good neighbors."

This Muharram will mark the third year in a row that Afghan officials, including senior Sunni leaders, will worship with Shiites on the climactic 10th day, called Ashura. And although many Sunnis disapprove of the Shiite chest-beating known as matam, some Sunni leaders have fasted and offered meals to the poor this week.

There are fears that Taliban insurgents may attempt to sabotage these rites with a suicide bombing or other attack, and police protection has been heavy this week around Shiite mosques in Kabul where men and boys gather to pray, chant, weep and beat their chests in a ritual fervor of grief that is expected to build to a climax by Ashura.
But many of the Shiite faithful, feeling newly empowered this week as they displayed their faith with flags hoisted high above the snow- and mud-choked capital, said nothing can deter them now.

"We feel more free and proud than ever before," said Ghulam Hazrat, 32, a laborer in shabby clothes who was preparing to enter a Shiite shrine Saturday and participate in the chest-beating ritual. "During Taliban time, the only place we could celebrate Muharram was in our basements. Now we are out on the streets for everyone to see."

By Pamela Constable

Washington Post Foreign Service Read the full story

NP Everyone had told me not to go west by road, not alone, not as a foreigner. Even my travelling through cities alone was regarded, by most of the expats I spoke to, as somewhat insane. To cross the mountains of central Afghanistan by van and truck was a voyage that not even my Afghan friends in Kabul would consider. Yet as scared as I was, I couldn't pass up an opportunity to see the remote interior firsthand.

There were two main routes overland from Kabul to Herat, a major city near the Iranian border. The fast way was the long loop south over paved highway through Kandahar and Helmand. It was also extremely dangerous for foreigners, with Taliban checkpoints a regular occurrence. Even ordinary Afghans were at risk: while I was in Kabul, 23 civilians were pulled off a bus outside of Kandahar City and executed by the Taliban, on suspicion of working for the government.

The slow way was a straight shot west through the rugged mountain ranges of central Afghanistan, a four-to-six-day journey over serpentine, broken dirt roads. Gruelling as it was, it passed through what had until recently been safer, if desolate, territory. But with the security situation in the country deteriorating almost across the board, the route was now considered unsafe and exposed to bandits and militants, particularly in the territories between Ghor and Herat provinces where a renegade warlord named Mullah Mustafa was rumoured to be stopping traffic.

On the way was Bamiyan, site of the infamous destruction of the giant Buddha statues by the Taliban. To get there from Kabul I took a crowded public minivan -- one of the indomitable, four-wheel-drive Toyota Town Aces that ply the mountains here -- back north toward Mazar, and then east into the high mountains. I had to detour this way in order to avoid violent Wardak Province -- south and west of Kabul, the Taliban were operating nearly to the capital's doorstep.

The town of Bamiyan, nestled in a fertile valley at 2,800 metres, is the capital both of Bamiyan Province and the Hazarajat, a region in central Afghanistan inhabited by the Hazara people, Shia Muslims who are descendants of Genghis Khan's army ("Hazara" means "one of the thousands"). Long at the bottom of Afghanistan's socioeconomic hierarchy, the Hazara suffered terribly under the Taliban and have little sympathy for the current insurgency, making the area one of the safest in Afghanistan.

Even with the Buddhas gone, the area around Bamiyan contains a wealth of early Buddhist shrines and caves, and with its gorgeous mountain scenery would make, in some alternate universe, for a first-class touristic destination. There is in fact a small four-star hotel there, frequented mainly by NGO staff, that offers wireless Internet and Japanese cuisine, not far from where Bamiyan's poorest citizens were living in caves.
I met up with Yama Ferozi and Yaghya Ghaznawi, two Afghans working for a Japanese-funded literacy program, and drove down the valley with them to the little villages the program served, small clusters of mud and brick houses with piles of dry sheep dung stacked in front of them as fuel for the coming killer winter.

This is one of the poorest and least-developed places in the world. According to UN statistics, Afghanistan ranks at or near the bottom of every social indicator. With a life expectancy of 43 years, less than a third of the population is literate, and less than a quarter has access to safe drinking water --and the figures are lower in the rural areas.

We spent the day working the villages, speaking with teachers and restocking their supplies of books and pencils. We were a spectacle: the men watching us guardedly, the veiled women turning away from us, the children staring in unabashed fascination.

Programs like this provide a key first step in breaking the cycle of poverty, although its questionable what opportunities will exist for their students in the absence of further development. Yama spoke enthusiastically of what it could do for his country; still, the day came with disappointment, as he discovered that several of the teachers and their supervisors had not been showing up to class. "They don't even want to help themselves," he sighed.

From Bamiyan, my trip into the wilderness began in earnest. I was leaving the relative safety of the Hazarajat, and I now had to shed my identity as a Canadian, something associated both with extreme wealth and the troops fighting in Kandahar. Fortunately, my half-Japanese face resembled those of the Hazara, and with my beard, cheap shoulder bag and grubby Afghan outfit -- a knee length gown, turban, baggy trousers and a plaid waistcoat -- I looked like just another poor traveller. Still, my limited Dari meant that anyone who had a proper conversation with me would realize I was a foreigner -- to that end, I pretended to be Abdul Aziz,

The ravages of geopolitics have swept across this land, again and again a migrant labourer from Kazakhstan heading to Iran for work.

It was a three-day trip westward to Chagcharan, the capital of Ghor Province, the last two days in the cab of an ancient Sovietera cargo truck -- the south of the country had gotten so dangerous that even the truckers were taking the same route as me. During that time, I lived, ate and slept with Afghans, stopping by the rivers to wash before prayer, and bunking down at night in the one-room chaikhanas, where 30 rough-edged men laid out on the floor together.

The rutted, dirt road we travelled took us up over snowbound mountain ranges and down into narrow, jagged river gorges. Once we had to clear a small avalanche from the road by hand. There were hardly any other vehicles on the road, just laden donkeys and flocks of fat-tailed sheep and their shepherds. It seemed like a land lost to time -- until you remembered how the ravages of geopolitics had swept across it, again and again, and how some of those illiterate village elders had satellite phones.

My arrival in the little alpine town of Chagcharan brought new problems. As a young Kazakhstani travelling alone with a big blue shoulder bag, I fit the profile of a foreign jihadist, and I was arrested and questioned twice there, once by the local police anti-terrorism office, and once by the Directorate of National Security -- an "A" for vigilance, I suppose, but an "F" for inter-agency co-ordination.

A greater worry was the final two-day stretch from Chagcharan to Herat. The chaikhanas on the way over had been full of stories about how Mullah Mustafa, a former mujahadeen commander-cum-warlord ostensibly disarmed under a 2004 UN program, had recently turned against the central government and set his men loose -- an example of how complex the situation is, with far more actors than simply the government and the Taliban. Travellers from the west had seen gunmen on the roads, and two men from Kabul had been killed there a week before. With ransoms for foreigners reportedly in the millions, an Afghan could feed his family for a lifetime with a phone call tipping off militants or bandits to a kidnapping opportunity.

As I was pondering my next step in Chagcharan, I sneaked out to the base of the local Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), making my way through the maze of concrete walls and machine gun nests to the inner gate of the compound, where I was met by Lieutenant Ruta Gaizutyte, a young press officer from Vilnius.

The 200-strong, mainly Lithuanian PRT is responsible for assisting security and development in Ghor Province, and to that end they participate in medical programs and distribute aid through the local Afghan institutions.

"People back home ask what are we doing, why are we here, but when you go out to the villages and you are able to do something for these people who have nothing, well," Ruta gushed to me, her blue eyes shining with enthusiasm.

Ghor has traditionally been a safe province, but lately things have worsened. With bad neighbours -- there are full-scale insurgencies in nearby Helmand, Farah and Badghis Provinces -- attacks in the province have increased, including several rocket strikes on the base itself.

"This has been the most difficult rotation in the history of this PRT," Ruta said. They had their first fatality that summer: when reports that a U. S. sniper in Iraq had used a Koran for target practice surfaced, there was an angry demonstration here in front of the base. A hidden gunman opened fire during the riot, and two civilians and a Lithuanian soldier were killed. "Someone used the Koran incident for their own purpose here," she said.

The incident led to a change in rules as security around the base was tightened up. Indeed, as the situation in the province worsens, some of the PRT's aid work has been scaled back. "The NGOs are already leaving," she said. "If the situation gets worse we won't be able to do a lot of the work we are doing now."

The next morning, I left Chagcharan in a crowded Town Ace with 20 of us packed shoulder to shoulder. We followed the River Sargangal through its narrow gorges back down into the plains and stopped for the night in the village of Obe, near the border of Herat and Ghor provinces. I kept my mouth shut pretty much the whole way.

We didn't see any gunmen, though I hid in the van during two police checkpoints, in order to avoid comprising my identity. Two days later, we arrived in Herat, kilometres from the Iranian border. It was still Afghanistan, but after two weeks in the mountains, it felt like civilization again.

Read the full story

BT By Army 1st Lt. Lory Stevens, Task Force Warrior public affairs office

BAGRAM AIRFIELD, Afghanistan - A unit of the 10th Mountain Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team had a new mission in Afghanistan recently when it teamed up with Afghan and New Zealand forces to combat crimes in the eastern part of the country.

After an increase in robberies and other insurgent activities in parts of Bamyan province, a team from Task Force Warrior security force joined forces with the New Zealand Provincial Reconstruction Team and Afghan National Police to conduct combat patrols and searches in several areas of the province.

The security force normally provides transportation for key personnel throughout the area of operations. But for the last couple of weeks, they conducted offensive operations in conjunction with other elements of the brigade as well as the PRT and ANP, Army Lt. Col. Stephen Jeselink, the task force's deputy commander, said.

"There had been a couple recent robberies along the Shibar Pass, which runs along the boundary of Bamyan and Parwan provinces," said Army 1st Lt. Brian Capra, officer in charge of the force, who implemented vehicle checkpoints and static observation posts throughout Shibar Valley.

The force also conducted patrols along the Gandak Highway, which runs along the territory where Hungarians conduct operations in Baghlan province.

"The operation targeted insurgents known to traffic weapons and explosives used to conduct attacks," said Jeselink, who reported the operation as successful and without incident.

Coalition forces established more of a presence to dissuade criminal activity and deny the enemy freedom of movement, officials said. In addition, they established relationships with local villagers.

"Afghan people were very generous," Capra said, noting that village elders allowed troops to stay overnight in village schoolhouses as they traveled throughout the territory.

The force also distributed radios and handed out other humanitarian aid as they conducted patrols. Read the full story

By Patrick Cockburn (independent) Why are we asking this now?

There is no sign of the war ending. The Taliban is growing stronger and has a presence in more parts of the country, despite the presence of 70,000 non-Afghan troops. The government of Hamid Karzai is losing authority and credibility at home and abroad. There have been spectacular attacks on the capital, Kabul, this year – such as a devastating bomb at the Indian embassy and another at the luxury Serena Hotel. What happens in Afghanistan is also more relevant now because the US President-elect, Barack Obama, has said America will fight on, unlike in Iraq, where he is committed to withdrawing 150,000 US troops. Gordon Brown has promised to reinforce the 8,000-strong British contingent in Afghanistan. There are also menacing signs of the war spreading into Pakistan, because the US has begun to use unmanned drone aircraft to attack targets there.

How did the Taliban come back when it seemed completely defeated in 2001?

The White House believed the war to overthrow the Taliban after the 11 September attacks in 2001 had succeeded more swiftly and at less cost than anybody could have imagined. In the face of a US air campaign in support of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Kabul and other cities fell without a fight. This was all a little deceptive. The Taliban did not fight to a finish – its fighters went back to their villages or its leadership fled across the border into Pakistan. The fact that the Taliban had a safe refuge there after 2001 was key to its survival. It had, after all, always relied on Pakistan's Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for military support and operational guidance. The Pakistani military, fearing encirclement by hostile powers, still sees the Afghan Taliban as one of its few allies. At first, the Pakistani military was cowed by the US after 2001, but when President George Bush invaded Iraq in 2003, its leaders began to perceive that his "war on terror" was not entirely serious. They began to revive the Taliban as a serious force.

Why was the Afghan government unable to stabilise after the fall of the Taliban?

The central government of Hamid Karzai had little to build on in terms of trained, capable and honest personnel. The economic infrastructure was wrecked. Afghans saw little improvements in their lives. The US often looked to the warlords as local allies, though they were widely detested by ordinary Afghans. The Taliban's political appeal, aside from its religious bigotry and obscurantism, had always stemmed from its supposed opposition to warlordism. The insurgency could also be funded through the opium business. The UN now estimates that Afghanistan produces 92 per cent of the opium which is converted into heroin. The product is sold for some $4bn a year. There is also some concern that although extra foreign troops may strengthen the government in some respects, they will also reinforce the belief among Afghans that their government is a foreign puppet.

Will foreign troop reinforcements ensure military victory overthe Taliban?

This is unlikely because the war is spreading into Pakistan. This is where the Taliban is able to train, recruit and re-supply its forces. So long as the insurgents have these redoubts, they will always recuperate from any military defeat. The US has long been trying to get the Pakistani army to close the border, but this is not politically or military possible. The Afghan government itself does not recognise the present frontier arbitrarily imposed by Britain in the 19th century. The Pakistani army also views the Afghan Taliban as a long term asset, unlike al-Qa'ida and the Pakistani Taliban, whom it sees as a threat. The ease with which militants armed with assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenade-launchers have been able to come close to closing the vital Nato and US supply line through the Khyber Pass in the past few weeks shows the danger to western forces in land-locked Afghanistan. Insurgents are able to move freely, not just among the mountains of the frontier but in Peshawar, the Pakistani city at the mouth of the Khyber.

Is the West being sucked into a confrontation between India and Pakistan?

This is a significant danger. Afghanistan is fast replacing Kashmir as the place where Pakistan and India confront each other. The Pakistani elite is highly sensitive to all signs of India increasing its influence in Afghanistan and possibly seeking to destabilise Pakistan by aiding insurgents in its Baluchistan region. This confrontation has intensified since the attack on Mumbai by 10 Lashkar-e-Toiba fighters who came from Pakistan in November. The Pakistani government may suppress these jihadi movements but it will not eliminate them because, as with the Afghan Taliban, it views them as long-term assets. It is also recalls with some bitterness that when it did reduce infiltration of insurgents into Kashmir by 85 per cent after 2004, it got very little in return from the Indian side. One of the most menacing aspects of the growing crisis in southern Asia is that conflicts involving Afghanistan, Pakistan and India are all beginning to merge.

Could the Taliban win in Afghanistan?

This is not really possible. The Taliban is hated by the Tajiks, Hazara, Uzbeks and other Afghan minorities to which most of the population belongs. It might be offered a share in power but, for ordinary Afghans, this may mean that they are sucked dry by the Taliban commanders as well as local government officials.

Should the Afghan government be left to sink or swim alone?

It should be supported but not turned into a colonial dependency. Reliance on a foreign power for military support and foreign aid carries with it disadvantages which Washington and London have never quite taken on board. It means there is no real incentive for citizens or officials to undertake reform because foreign powers will always bail out the government in Kabul.

Does the US intervention in Iraq have lessons for Afghanistan?

Yes, but not the lessons one might expect. The increased deployment of American troops in Iraq in 2007, and the much-publicised surge, achieved very little alone. The end of the Sunni Arab uprising against the US occupation and the Shia-Kurdish Iraqi government came because the Shia were winning on the ground. The situation in Afghanistan is very dissimilar. A more important lesson is that the violence in Iraq decreased when the neighbouring countries, notably Iran and Syria, no longer felt threatened. The same is true in Afghanistan. Above all, it needs to be recognised that Pakistan has real reasons to feel insecure and these insecurities must be addressed if the US wants to ensure there is a stable government in Kabul.

Should Nato countries be sending extra forces to fight the Taliban?

Yes...

* They will prevent the Taliban from expanding its authority over more of the country.

* They will allow more aid to be used to raise living standards and increase the popularity of the government.

* More troops will create islands of peace in which the Afghan government can begin to establish itself.

No...

* They will make the government in Kabul look like a foreign puppet.

* There are not enough troops and the Afghan government cannot fill the power vacuum left by the Taliban.

* Foreign aid cannot help because the Afghan administration is too dysfunctional and corrupt to administer the country honestly.

Read the full story

NZH Abdulrahman Ikhtiari beat almost insurmountable odds to bring his family to freedom. But their dreams turned to a nightmare.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari clung to his family and prayed for their survival as the wooden boat taking them to their new life began sinking.

As the boat crammed with terrified refugees floated aimlessly on the Indian Ocean, he was hoping for another chance at life free from persecution at the hands of the Taleban in his homeland of Afghanistan.

Mr Ikhtiari would make it through this traumatic ordeal at sea, and find this prized new life for his family in Christchurch, only for it to be taken in a mindless act of violence a few years later. Two teenagers have been charged with Mr Ikhtiari's murder after he was stabbed in his taxi last weekend.

Old friends told his story at his funeral in his adopted home town yesterday. Seven years ago Mr Ikhtiari was facing death off the Australian coast on the dilapidated 20m fishing boat KM Palapa. Around him more than 400 other refugees, including pregnant women and toddlers, were crying and throwing up in the ocean swells.

They had paid thousands of American dollars for transport on the cramped fishing vessel from Indonesia to Australia, after travelling various routes from Afghanistan.

Mr Ikhtiari's cousin, Mohammad Ikhtiari, was on the boat with him. He remembers them praying together and the calmness his cousin displayed. But as the boat buckled and seawater poured in, they feared the worst.

"Maybe we die at any time. For three days we don't know. It was a very hard time," said Hamidullah Habibi, a friend of Mr Ikhtiari who was also on the boat.

Then, as the panic grew, some on board spotted a dark spot on the horizon and suddenly there was hope. The now famous Norwegian vessel Tampa came into view and the refugees cried with relief.

The refugees, short of food and water, slept in shipping containers or on the exposed deck of the Tampa as they awaited their fate.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari had a better grasp of English than most, and was able to speak to the Tampa's captain as frantic negotiations were taking place over the radio. Eventually, they would travel to temporary detention on the Pacific island of Nauru under Australian military escort.

Mr Habibi remembers being shown a laptop computer by an Australian Army officer with the news to give them all hope. "It shows [then Prime Minister] Helen Clark wants to take 150 people who have families. We [were] very, very happy."

Abdulrahman's wife and five children were among those Tampa refugees accepted into New Zealand. They set up in Christchurch with others from the Hazara tribe who had been on board the Tampa.

Mr Ikhtiari had to spend a month in the Mangere Resettlement Centre before he could join them in May 2002.

Trying to adapt to the new culture and language was not easy, but his family at least had security.

Friend Baryalai Waziri said: "He was feeling very free, and feeling very safe in New Zealand. And he was very happy to get his children educated in New Zealand."

It was a tragedy that such a quiet family man who "never had a quarrel with people" should die like this.

Mr Waziri spoke to Mr Ikhtiari a week before he was killed and asked him how his taxi driving job was going.

"He said he was not happy with the business, but he had to do it because his wife is a student at the polytech studying language. He could not support the family with the benefit he was getting from the Work and Income."

"He said there was risk involved and there were lots of people who get very aggressive and they attack the driver."

Read the full story

RH The United States has mired itself in the Great Game of Central Asia in a way that promises no easy escape.

There was a reason we did so, going all the way back to 1979. That is when the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan, and the United States decided to help the Afghan people resist Soviet occupation. We spent billions of dollars, in league with the security forces of Pakistan, building up fundamentalist Islamic groups to fight the Soviets.

Fast forward to 2001. The fundamentalist group that took control of Afghanistan in the mid-'90s, the Taliban, had provided safe haven for a radical, largely Arab group, al-Qaida, which attacked the United States on Sept. 11. It was clear the Taliban had to go, a goal that U.S. military forces swiftly accomplished, though al-Qaida escaped to rebuild itself in the mountains of Pakistan.

The hostility of fundamentalist Afghans and Pakistanis toward the United States is an example of what is called blowback. Forces we helped unleash have turned against us, and now they are turning against the Pakistanis. The Pakistanis have used radical groups to harass their archenemy, India, by fomenting violence in the disputed region of Kashmir. But radical groups are now targeting Pakistan itself, forcing Pakistan to increase military pressure on al-Qaida, the Taliban and others in the mountainous border region near Afghanistan.

This is the mess where we find ourselves. The attack by Islamic radicals on sites in Mumbai last month is now being seen as an effort to enflame tensions between India and Pakistan in order to shift Pakistan's military attention away from the fight on the Afghan border and toward India. Pakistan's new president, Asif Ali Zardari, is said to be seeking peace with India, and the unanswered question is whether Pakistan's military or security forces helped terrorists attack Mumbai as a way of curbing Zardari's peace efforts. For decades conflict with India has been the raison d'etre for the Pakistani military.

President-elect Barack Obama has promised to increase the U.S. military presence in Afghanistan by about 30,000 in order to quell violence by the Taliban. Our main interest is in preventing Afghanistan from becoming a staging area for terrorism once again. But the violence in Afghanistan, as in Pakistan, will be hard to stop because it is rooted in a complex web of ethnic and religious conflicts. A recent article in The New Yorker magazine described how Hazara police officers are trying to fight the Taliban insurgency in the south. The Taliban is made up mainly of ethnic Pashtuns, and it is questionable whether use of Hazaras to fight Pashtuns is likely to result in a peaceful outcome, ever.

Afghanistan has never been a coherent nation. Even in the peaceful days under the former king, regional leaders had great power, and the Pashtuns exerted harsh control over Hazaras and others. The Pashtuns in both Afghanistan and Pakistan remain essentially uncontrollable, though in the days of Gandhi a great Pashtun leader, Khan Abdul Ghaffur Khan, was an ally of Gandhi's in nonviolence.

It is not clear whether Zardari's crackdown on terrorists in Pakistan can make rapprochement with India a reality or whether terrorism rooted in the Pashtun homeland will continue to entangle everyone. It is clear there is no easy way out of the Great Game.

Read the full story

INTERVIEW:By Shih Hsiu-chuan (TT)

The Taiwan Foundation for Democracy (TFD) will today honor Sima Samar, chairwoman of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, with its 2008 Asia Democracy and Human Rights Award for her dedication to improving the status of women in Afghanistan. As well as the award, Samar will receive a US$100,000 grant. Living in countries where women have long been denied education and health care, it is through perseverance that Sima Samar stays the course to assist people in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and now in war-torn Sudan.

“It’s really difficult, but I didn’t give up. I stand by my principles and beliefs because I think that nobody would give you rights as a gift, you have to earn it,” said Samar, internationally recognized for her devotion to human rights, especially on behalf of Afghan women.

Born in 1957, Samar is the first woman from the Hazara minority — a persecuted ethnic minority in Afghanistan — to obtain a medical degree. She graduated from Kabul University in 1982, when the country was under Russian control following the 1979 invasion.

After graduation, she practiced medicine at a government hospital in Kabul and provided treatment to patients in remote areas of central Afghanistan.

She defied her father’s demand that she return home and accept another arranged marriage after her first husband disappeared in 1984 following his arrest by the communist regime. She instead fled to Pakistan to work with Afghan refugees facing a dire lack of medical and education resources, particularly women forbidden to see male doctors or attend school.

The Afghan physician said she decided early on to fight for women’s rights and equality as she experienced discrimination as a woman in her family and also in school when she was young, prompting her to “study hard to go to college” and become “more or less tough on my work.”

“And honestly, the pressure on me, it is hard to resist. At one time it was really hard. They really wanted to kill … and it was very difficult time, but I did resist. Because I thought, if I give up, then they will repress others very soon, quickly,” she said.

She returned to Afghanistan in December 2001 to become the deputy prime minister and minister of women’s affairs for the interim administration after the removal of the Taliban regime, being one of only two women Cabinet ministers in the transition government.

Samar was appointed to the most senior position ever held by a woman in Afghanistan, but her political career was cut short in June 2002 when she was accused of questioning Islam, especially Shariah Law, following an interview in Canada with a Persian-language newspaper. Samar said she was misquoted.

“What I said was I don’t believe in the Taliban style of Shariah, which is the misinterpretation of free Islam. [The newspaper] misquoted me that I don’t believe in Shariah Law … But, that [the interview] was just a reason. It was all because that I kept calling for justice and they didn’t like it,” she said.



Then-interim leader Hamid Karzai, who was elected president in 2004, told Samar she must move to either lead the foreign affairs ministry or the human rights commission after a group of people at an assembly, or Loya Jirga, shouted “we don’t want her. She is not Muslim.”

As she pursued human rights for all, Samar put her and her family members’ lives at immense risk, facing continuous death threats until now, but she remains undeterred.

“It’s not an easy life. But as I said, that as a human being, you would die one day anyway. So if you die for something positive, it’s much better,” Samar said.

Samar said that she just “ignored” the threats from different groups of fundamentalists most of the time but she did try to be more cautious about her safety “because I really want to continue my work on educating people, and especially the girls.”

“If girls are educated, they will understand what’s their rights, and they will fight for their rights. Without half of the population not being educated, we can not move the society forward,” she said.

Under Samar’s leadership, the Shuhada Organization, founded in 1989, now operates twelve clinics and four hospitals in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as well as 71 schools in Afghanistan and three schools for Afghan refugees in Quetta, Pakistan, educating over 48,000 girls and boys.

Believing that education is “the main tool to change the mentalities and the whole behaviors within the society,” Samar said that if people were educated, the war in Afghanistan would not have lasted so long, Islam would not have been misused and there wouldn’t be suicide attacks.

“Educated people will not accept what the political leaders preach and used by them under the name of Islam and jihad,” she said. “The problem in Afghanistan is lack of education.”

Samar said the situation in Afghanistan has improved since 2001 as the new Constitution includes an equal-rights provision for women and girls now comprise 30 percent to 35 percent of the total number of students enrolled in school, which was not the case during the Taliban.

However, there is still a long road ahead, she said.

“For the women to be able to exert their rights, the Constitution should become reality, not in the paper. There aren’t enough school facilities, books and trained teachers. A lot of women still do not have access to health care. And the security situation is getting worse,” Samar said.

“Some of the districts are still under the control of Taliban where children, especially girls, can not go to school, health service is not in very good shape, and most of the non-governmental organizations [NGOs] can not go to the areas because of the kidnapping problem. There is lack of law enforcement. On top of these, suicide attacks stop people on the roads and intimidate the people,” she said.

In 2005, Samar was appointed as the UN Special Rapporteur on human rights for Sudan, extending her efforts for human rights to another country facing a difficult situation.

Citing what happened in Afghanistan when the Russians left in 1992 as an example, Samar said that neither isolation nor sanction could help a country.

“At that time when the pro-Russian government continued to be in power until 1992 and when the mujahedeen government was formed in Pakistan and Central Afghanistan, the whole international community left Afghanistan, including the NGOs. Afghanistan became isolated, a training ground for terrorists and a place of opium production,” she said.

“Supporting human rights is the responsibility of every person,” Samar said.

Asked about President Ma Ying-jeou’s (馬英九) recent remarks that Tibetan spiritual leader the Dalai Lama is not welcome to visit Taiwan at this time, Samar said she was not able to comment on that because she was traveling and didn’t know the details.

“I would have commented on that if I knew the whole background of the story,” she said, but she restated her belief that it’s everybody’s responsibility to promote human rights.

Samar, who has received numerous awards for advocating human rights, suggested that young people not familiar with countries like Afghanistan and Sudan get to know them through reading, traveling or volunteering for NGOs in the countries.

“Young people in Taiwan or in Afghanistan or in any other parts of the world are the owners of this world, the futures of this world. They have to be more respect for human rights and human dignity so they will be more responsible for a peaceful future for this planet,” she said. Read the full story

Theage

A refugee who was refused entry to Australia amid the Tampa scandal in 2001 has been killed working as a taxi driver in New Zealand.

Abdulrahman Ikhtiari fled persecution in his native Afghanistan seven years ago.

One of 438 asylum-seekers rescued by the MV Tampa from a sinking fishing boat off WA in August 2001, he was refused entry to Australia and subsequently taken to New Zealand.

The 39-year-old father-of-five was killed during a night shift in Christchurch on Saturday night. He was found in his taxi with a single stab wound to the chest.

Police had yet to find two men believed to have been the United Taxi driver's last fare, press.co.nz said.

The United Taxis fleet does not have alarm systems or cameras.

Ikhtiari's home in Bryndwr was a sombre scene yesterday, press.co.nz said.

More than 30 taxi drivers and members of the Afghan community were at the home to lend support to the family.

Ikhtiari's wife, Ziagul, and his children aged six to 14, had been moved to a different address and were suffering extreme distress.

A family spokesman, who declined to be named, expressed concern for Ikhtiari's widow, who was "very frail".

"She can't cope," he said.

Christchurch man Ali Tausif said Ikhtiari was known in the Christchurch Muslim community as a "very quiet, polite person".

Hagley Community College associate principal Rex Gibson said members of Ikhtiari's extended family worked at the college and Ikhtiari volunteered at the school's refugee homework program.

Ikhtiari came to New Zealand after persecution of his Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan by the ruling Taliban.

He was aboard the container ship the MV Tampa which created international headlines when it rescued him and more than 400 other Afghan refugees from a distressed fishing vessel but then was refused access to Australian ports.

New Zealand took 131 of the 438 asylum-seekers (including about 40 unaccompanied boys) rescued by the Tampa.

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WHEN Maryam Hossein releases the handbrake and pulls away from the kerb for her first driving lesson, it will be more than just her maiden journey behind the wheel.

For the 23-year-old refugee it will be the latest step in a journey that began when her parents were forced to flee Afghanistan for Iran during the Russian occupation in the early 1980s.

By learning to drive, she is doing something once virtually impossible for women in her home country — and fast-tracking her integration into Australian society.

She is not alone; Ms Hossein is one of 28 Afghan women, including her 41-year-old mother and 19-year-old sister, attending a driving school in Dandenong designed to help recent refugee arrivals gain their licences.

"This is a very good opportunity for Afghani women," she said. "All of the things we need in life, like going to the doctors or school, mean that we have to drive."

Traditionally, very few women drove in Afghanistan's male-dominated society, a situation that worsened under Taliban rule when they were denied the right to drive and forced to remain at home.

This has caused problems for the Afghan community in Melbourne's eastern suburbs, which comprises around 3000 families.

Female-only families such as the Hosseins have been practically immobile and unable to get access to the services needed to integrate into society.

"It was causing a lot of stress as men were under pressure to handle the settlement process for their families and provide for them financially with houses and cars while the women were totally dependent," said Abbas Amiry, co-ordinator of the driving school.

"By running this course we want to give women the opportunity to drive and at the same time increase their self-confidence and self-worth so that they really feel part of the community here in Australia."

The driving school is run by the Association of Hazaras in Victoria, assisted by $19,700 in funding from the Transport Accident Commission and a car provided by Adult Multicultural Education Services.

It is already oversubscribed. The women, who range from 18-year-olds to mothers with five or more children, is halfway through a series of sessions run by senior community members, alongside Vic Roads, Victoria Police and Ambulance Victoria, in which they are taught road rules and driving theory. It is an essential precursor to taking control of a vehicle as not only do they come from a country without road rules but, according to Aisha Mahboob, a female Afghan driving instructor from Hampton Park, some women she has taught had never sat in a car before moving to Australia.

Ms Mahboob, who moved to Australia 11 years ago, has helped about 50 Afghan women learn to drive since becoming an instructor in 2006, often giving lessons for free.

She said: "The women can handle the car very well after just five lessons, but they don't know the rules of the road so this course is very important.

"Most have realised they need to drive to get their kids to school or to get to work and now they have the chance to get up and do it."

Once the women have finished learning the theory, the driving school will fund their first five lessons with Ms Mahboob. After that, they hope members of the local community will come forward to act as volunteer trainers.

Mr Amiry says plans are in place to bring in professional instructors who will train people to act as mentors who can guide the women through extra hours of driving practice as they work towards qualification.

"We need the support of the mainstream community," he said. "I came to Australia on a boat and entered society as a TPV holder, which meant I couldn't go to school without paying, but I received amazing support from volunteers.

"They made a huge difference to my life and I hope people will be willing to help us again."

Ms Hossein, from Dandenong, who supports her mother and younger sister, said: "I'm very happy to have this chance.

"It would have been very expensive for us to learn to drive with another company, but now we are able to learn a lot."

The age

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