Afghans Protest Woman's Public Execution

The release of a video showing a young woman’s public execution was absolutely heart breaking. There was a public protest in Kabul today calling for an end to gender-based violence.

Afghan women march with banners to protest the recent public execution of a young woman for alleged adultery, in Kabul on July 11, 2012. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/GettyImages)

Una Moore speaks to the day’s events.

“Today, for the second time this year, progressive Afghans took to Kabul’s streets to voice their outrage at a gruesome act of gender-based violence and demand justice for the victim. This time, the demonstration was prompted by the extrajudicial execution of a young woman named Najiba in a village less than two hours from the capital.

Last week, shocking video of the crime emerged online, causing uproar among civil society activists and human rights advocates. The New York Times published this unsparing description of the footage, which quickly went viral and is still available on the Guardian’s website."

Full post here.

Afghanistan head of Human Rights Commission Seema Samar (C) marches with Afghan women to protest the recent public execution of a young woman for alleged adultery, in Kabul on July 11, 2012. (MASSOUD HOSSAINI/AFP/GettyImages)

Massoud Hossaini, recipient of the Pulitzer Prize last year for his work in Afghanistan has a slideshow of the demonstration.

Una Moore writes for UN Dispatch and has a great site called transitionland.

Young Women for Change have been focused on this issue for a long time. Check out their engaging facebook page.

Naheed Farid | A Portrait of Afghanistan’s Youngest MP

“Young people represent the new identity for Afghanistan. They can show that we are not only the country of violence and blood, but a country of peace. They have big dreams for this country. I am calling on the youth of Afghanistan to be more engaged in politics, to debate and campaign so that they too can help make the change.”

“My name is Naheed Farid.

I am the youngest MP in Parliament. I am a representative of Herat province. I also consider myself a representative of youth and women.

I was the first girl from our family or tribe to leave Afghanistan and go to Europe to study.

After I got married I did my Masters in America. My education in America, as an Afghan woman, was really interesting to me. I had entered a society with a completely different system. I had entered the land of opportunities, something that never existed in Afghanistan.

I found opportunity in the path of politics, and I stepped in that path. There’s a lack of healthy leadership and politics in Afghanistan, and I thought even with small steps, I could make a difference. My steps were not steady in the beginning. I was afraid to be in this field. I was afraid for my family, my husband and my child to become victims of this path of politics.

My campaign holds both sweet and bitter memories for me.

I felt like I was giving hope to women and youth. It was like I was opening a path for them. Particularly women and girls – they were asking me to be their representative – to open up a way for them to step into politics. I really hope I can live up to this responsibility.

I saw some shocking things when I was traveling for my campaign – graveyards full of women who had died in childbirth, villages with children who had never bathed. It made me more determined to win and give these people a voice.

The people who really campaigned for me were young children. Some I had met and others I hadn’t. They persuaded their parents to vote for me. I was receiving so many phone calls from parents saying they had heard about me from their children and that they would support me.

During my campaign I couldn’t really be a mother to my child. It really saddened me to know that I wasn’t looking after her the way she needed me to.

I received so many threats that I had to stop the campaign towards the end. I got messages saying that Taliban were waiting to attack me. I was restricted to just one district in Herat. I had to ask for military protection. My family was also affected by the security problems. I had to take my daughter out of kindergarten because of the threat. This is still an issue now, my friends ask me to be careful; to employ a bodyguard and keep a gun in the car. But I hate such things.

I work in Parliament from 9am until 4pm but that is only one part of the work. Since MPs are representatives of people, we have meetings with many different groups. Often we’re home only 3 or 4 nights a week. Sometimes we have meetings until 11pm. I cannot say yes to every invitation or request, otherwise I would never be at home. I don’t like disappointing my supporters this way.

The image I had for a government of nation building, transparency, and anti-corruption is pale now because there are people inside parliament who work against these things.

Many of the women MPs come from insecure areas and they cannot work for their people the way they want to. Security is still a big issue. These women are those who 10 years ago did not have the right to go to school, to work, to the bazaar, even to hospital. We try to be united to push women’s issues to the front.

But it’s really hard for a commander, who is now an MP, a person that has never cared about women’s values and has always talked with guns. Now he must sit next to me; he gets 3 minutes to talk and I get 3 minutes. I have the right to speak, and he has to hear my voice. This is a different vision towards women.

Young people represent the new identity for Afghanistan. They can show that we are not only the country of violence and blood, but a country of peace. They have big dreams for this country. I am calling on the youth of Afghanistan to be more engaged in politics, to debate and campaign so that they too can help make the change.”

Re-posted from the web site Kabul: A City at Work.
"A portrait of a city through its working people"

Afghan Broadcaster Defies Expectations | Sanga Jabarkhil

Hijratullah Ekhtyar has a nice profile of TV journalist Sanga Jabarkhil for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting*. At 21, Sanga is the head of Radio Television of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar office.

“By the age of 15, she had begun working for the state-owned Radio Television of Afghanistan, RTA, in Nangarhar, balancing this against her school studies. She told her family she was working on a magazine rather than in broadcasting.

When her first report – on arranged marriages – was aired, her relatives were mortified rather than proud.

“After hearing me on the radio, all my family members stopped talking to me. I stayed in my room, apart from them, and this lasted for a whole year,” Jabarkhil recalled.

Her relatives believed she was working alongside male colleagues, which they viewed as quite unacceptable.

For many conservative Afghans, simply working in a mixed-sex environment is immoral behaviour for a woman, and makes her an unattractive marriage prospect.

It took a long time to win the family over, although Jabarkhil’s mother Nuria was always quietly supportive.

Ultimately, only an elder brother remained opposed to her career choice.

“My brother didn’t talk to me, he didn’t look at me and even avoided coming face-to-face with me,” she said. “He told me, ‘Whenever I am sitting with friends and you appear on the TV screen, everyone looks at me and asks whether you are my sister. I feel ashamed; it’s like dying.’”

Jabarkhil even took her brother to work to assure him that women at RTA Nangarhar worked in a separate office from the men.

Today, aged just 21, Jabarkhil heads the women’s section of RTA’s Nangarhar office.”

Article link here.

Goal of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting

"Journalism in areas of crisis is itself invariably in crisis, suffering repression, lack of financing and independence, and an absence of professional skills and ethics. IWPR's core mission is rooting professional journalism skills deeply within individuals and within societies. From the Balkans to Iraq and beyond, IWPR has played a leading role in establishing a leadership cadre across local media and across regions. Capacity-building initiatives strengthen media institutionally, from management training to establishing local radios and news agencies. IWPR is especially known for intensive, one-on-one, apprentice-style training from basic journalism to human rights and elections reporting."

What the Taliban Want

Former Taliban fighters hand over their weapons to Afghan police as part of a reconciliation process in Herat, Afghanistan, Sunday, May 13, 2012. Taliban leaders including one of the most senior members of the organization, Agha Jan Motasim told The AP that most Taliban supported a negotiated end to the protracted war in Afghanistan. (AP Photo/Hoshang Hashimi)(Credit: AP)

Kathy Gannon has a revealing article on what the Taliban want.

“One of the most powerful men on the Taliban council, Agha Jan Motasim, nearly lost his life in a hail of bullets for advocating a negotiated settlement that would bring a broad-based government to his beleaguered homeland of Afghanistan.

In an exclusive and rare interview by a member of the so-called Quetta Shura, Motasim told The Associated Press Sunday that a majority of Taliban wants a peace settlement and that there are only "a few" hard-liners in the movement.”

***

“Looking ahead to next week's NATO summit in Chicago, Motasim said he had a message for participants.

"The decisions of NATO should be for the good of Afghanistan and should not call for more violence. It should call for an end to the fighting, an end to the raids and killings," he said. "Afghanistan is destroyed, the people are displaced, refugees, poor people are dying in their homes and also foreigners are dying here. It should end."”

M K Bhadrakumar, a former Indian diplomat, adds this.

“Kathy Gannon of Associated Press goes back a long way to almost where it all began in the 1980s in the Afghan civil war, and she began reporting from the rim of the volcano. Trust her to have got through to the Taliban’s Quetta Shura to someone who is “one of the most powerful men” within that council — Agha Jan Motasim. The AP interview with Motasim gives a rare insight into the wheels within wheels of what passes for the Taliban movement — or rather, what it has become through the tumult of these 2 decades behind us.

The Taliban have 3 demands: release of all Afghan prisoners languishing for years in Guantanamo Bay and Bagram; removal of their names from the United Nations “blacklist”; and, recognition as a political party. Pray, is it too much to ask for in a lifetime?

Of course, there are “hardliners” within the Taliban family. But then, they are there everywhere — be it in our life at home, or away from home. It’s a human trait. Why be obsessive about it and give it a centrality it doesn’t deserve? Isolate it; we could tell the Haqqanis some day, as Dante wrote, “Consume within thyself with thine own rage.”

The overpowering sense of Motasim’s remarks is a sense of exhaustion, like in the Uncle Tupelo song “Looking For A Way Out” — when you find you can’t somehow / make it like all the rest / you won’t need to scrounge around for someone else / torn between the unknown / and the place that you call home / and the life that you want but have never known…”

Read the Gannon article here.

A Few Good Men For Afghan Women

A nice profile of Afghan feminists by Lianne Gutcher.

A Few Good Men For Afghan Women

“Zafar Salehi knows his fellow students at university make fun of him and Tayeb Khan won't tell his family about his involvement — but as often as their schedules permit, the two young Afghan men make their way to a small office in the west of Kabul to volunteer at Young Women for Change (YWC), an Afghan non-profit organisation. The dirty little secret they keep from their families and many of their friends is that they are women's rights activists in Kabul.

On a March day, Salehi sits in the office surrounded by flyers advocating for girls' education and the elimination of violence against women, working out what still needs to be done to get the first women-only internet cafe ready for opening in a few days time. Stacked in the corner are 15 laptops, ready for installation at the site, once it has been painted.

Khan, smart in a business suit, arrives from his job as an administration coordinator at a local mobile phone company to help out before he rushes off to his evening class at the American University of Afghanistan, where he is studying business administration.

Salehi, 24, says he gets a "weird reaction" when he does tell people he works for free for a women's rights organisation.”

Read full article here.

Pulitzer Profile | Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini

A nice profile of Massoud Hossaini by Abubakar Siddique. Massoud was award the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for breaking-news photography on Monday. You can find a slideshow of his others images at the bottom of the page.

He recalls the day he took the award-winning image vividly. It was December 6, 2011, on the occasion of the Shi'ite festival of Ashura.




Pulitzer-Winning Image Source Of Pride, Nightmares For Afghan Photographer

Tarana stands erect amid the dead and injured at her feet, her blood-stained hands opened as if asking, "Why?" Tears and blood stream down her face, her mouth agape.

It is a heartbreaking image, one that captures the ubiquitous violence that has befallen Afghanistan, and for that it has been awarded the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for breaking-news photography.

But for the man who took the picture, the photo that has earned him international recognition leaves him conflicted, a reminder of the traumatic experiences he encounters as a news photographer in one of the world's most violent places.

Afghan photographer Massoud Hossaini recalls the day he took the award-winning image vividly. It was December 6, 2011, on the occasion of the Shi'ite festival of Ashura.

As participants of a festival procession gathered outside the Abul Fazel Shrine in Kabul, a powerful blast went off. Standing just 15 meters away from the blast, Hossaini was spared major injury by the hundreds of mourners between him and the suicide bomber.

Hossaini rushed toward the center of the blast, which killed more than 70 people and injured scores more. There, as the smoke cleared, he saw the 10-year-old Tarana, dressed in green, screaming amid the chaos.

"In the blink of an eye, Tarana's surrounding's were filled with blood. The dead and injured bodies of her relatives surrounded her," Hossaini says. "Among them were her brother and playmates. This caused her to go into shock, which led her to stand in the mayhem and cry in pain."

Showing Afghans' Pain To The World

Despite his own shock and shrapnel injuries to his arm, Hossaini continued to shoot pictures. When he was done, he rushed back to his office at Agence France-Presse to upload the images for the world to see.

"The procession was drenched in blood, but I was still responsible for covering it. This sense of responsibility motivated me to continue taking pictures," he says. "So I covered that tragedy from many angles so that people around the world could see what pain I saw that day and what pain we observe almost every day in similar incidents."

Afterward, Hossaini sought treatment for his wounds and retreated home to his family. He soon began receiving telephone calls -- his photograph of Tarana had appeared on the front pages of major U.S. newspapers, including "The New York Times", "The Washington Post," and the "Los Angeles Times."

"To me the picture showed to the people of the world what had happened in Kabul that day. What had struck Tarana and what had I witnessed," he says.

Proud, Despite The Suffering

It was a point of pride for the 30-year-old photographer, who after fleeing to Iran to escape the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan had worked as a tailor to raise money to buy his first camera.

He documented subjects close to him -- the reformist movement in Tehran and fellow refugees living along Iran's border with Afghanistan.

Hossaini returned to his native Kabul after the fall of the Taliban in 2001. There he took various photojournalism courses and joined Agence France-Presse in 2007.

This year, his hard work was awarded, multiple times. He is currently in Holland to receive second prize in the Spot News category for the 2012 World Press Photo contest, which was awarded for his photo of Tarana. Next, he will head to New York to pick up his Pulitzer, and a $10,000 prize.

While Hossaini expresses satisfaction with his awards, they have also left him with conflicting emotions.

"I am happy that, as an Afghan, I am able to reflect the suffering of Afghans. But I am unhappy over what happened and that I witnessed it," Hossaini says.

"I saw Tarana in that condition and I am even in contact with her now. I know that she has nightmares about it just as I do."

We Want Peace | Portraits from Afghanistan

Featuring another of Grace Chung's beautiful portraits from Afghanistan.



Dear World is an on-line project to unite people through pictures. Regardless of race, religion or language. It began as a simple idea. Photograph the love notes to New Orleans after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. It has become so much more.

Dear World | Portraits of Afghanistan

In Afghanistan, everyone has a story to tell. Stories about family, friends and hopes for a future with peace and security. Yet most go untold.



Grace Chung has a beautiful album of 97 portraits from Afghanistan. Sadly, for too many, these images are part of Afghanistan’s untold story.



Click here to see the album.


Dear World is an on-line project to unite people through pictures. Regardless of race, religion or language. It began as a simple idea. Photograph the love notes to New Orleans after the devastation of hurricane Katrina. It has become so much more.

Unheard Voices: Afghan Views on the Peace Process

An interesting report/survey on Afghan opinions. More than simply a challenge to the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme(APRP), it is in fact, a good measure of what Afghans see as the path forward. There is consensus, that all Afghans need to be at the heart of a peace process, and that process must include concepts of transitional justice. The evidence is captured in the key point summary below.

“Many people see the obstacles to the peace process as external to the country, whereas solutions are more readily identified as internal. Locally, specific conditions in localities such as Marjah and Qadis, in Helmand and Badghis, showed distinct perspectives on questions related to Taliban demands and government strength respectively.”

Unheard Voices – Afghan Views on the Challenges of the Peace Process

"Ordinary Afghans are tired of the fighting and overwhelmingly want peace – but not if it means a loss of hard-won rights, according to a major new survey of nearly 5,000 Afghans.

The survey, outlined in a report released today called Unheard Voices – Afghan Views on the Challenges of the Peace Process, was conducted in 16 provinces, including war-torn Helmand and Kandahar, by the Kabul-based Peace Training and Research Organisation (PTRO.

The future is looking increasingly uncertain with the Taliban’s suspension of negotiations with the US and plans for Afghans to take on the lead combat role next year, yet the survey shows there is widespread support for the national peace process (with an overwhelming 90 per cent hopeful that it could be successful).

The support is not, however, unconditional and the survey shows much more needs to be done by the government and international community to convince the Afghan people it will ultimately lead to a lasting peace.

In fact, 40 per cent fear it could result in a loss of rights instead; and this fear is particularly acute for women in insecure provinces. In Marjah district, Helmand province, 90 per cent of women had concerns over a potential loss of rights. Values seen as under threat included women’s equality, freedom of expression and democracy.

Managing Director of PTRO Mirwais Wardak says: “Afghans are united in their desire to see a just end to the conflict that they have suffered through for three decades. In many cases, they are willing to make compromises to achieve it, including offering amnesty to former insurgents and negotiated changes to the constitution - so long as this does not result in a loss of rights.

“But whilst they are hopeful for the future, many feel excluded from the process. This must change. Ordinary Afghans must be at the heart of the process. This is our country – if we are not all part of it, there is no future for peace. Our voices must be heard.”

Key findings

"In spite of the very real obstacles to peace, Afghans are exceptionally hopeful for a future without conflict. This is a view shared irrespective of ethnicity, location, security situation and gender.

A clear majority of respondents (84%) supported the government’s preconditions for the Taliban – that they stop fighting, sever ties with Al Qaeda, and support the constitution. A significant majority (59%) supported the Taliban demand for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Despite this overall support for the process, divisions were evident over exactly how peace should be achieved, and differences in the approach and detail of the APRP were apparent between ethnicities, genders, and geographic locations. Simply put, the majority of respondents wanted peace, but were divided on how to go about it, and significant differences remain in attitudes towards the prescribed APRP structures.

Many people see the obstacles to the peace process as external to the country, whereas solutions are more readily identified as internal. Locally, specific conditions in localities such as Marjah and Qadis, in Helmand and Badghis, showed distinct perspectives on questions related to Taliban demands and government strength respectively.

While respondents are overwhelming supportive of a political settlement, 40% of all respondents fear that it will result in a loss of rights. These fears were more acute for women, and while overall they were only marginally more fearful, in some insecure provinces (Helmand, Jawzjan, Kunduz, Nagarhar and Paktia) the proportion of women with this fear was approaching double the proportion of men. The most extreme case was in Marjah district, where 90% of women feared a loss of rights.

61% of respondents doubted that the Taliban leadership was interested in reconciliation. However, a similar percentage, 64%, of respondents recognised that armed opposition groups in their area would be interested in reconciling.

Many respondents questioned the credibility of the reintegration programme. More than 50% of all respondents see reintegration events as mostly benefiting criminals. This result also varied by province, with respondents in Herat more likely to associate reintegrees with Mullah Omar Taliban (50%), and those in Helmand and Laghman more likely to identify them as criminals (75%).

The major obstacles to the process were consistently identified, and two thirds of all respondents identified either Pakistan or Iran as the biggest spoilers. These results differed slightly between ethnicities and regions: Hazara respondents more readily identify the Taliban as spoilers, in the east of the country more accuse Pakistan, and in the west, Iran.

The suspicion of “foreigners” also includes the International forces, but although they are seem as a significant obstacle to the peace process, they are at the same time recognised as playing a crucial stabilising role.

Improvements in the government were seen as critical to the success of the process, with 27% stating that it would be a prerequisite for the reintegration of armed groups. Furthermore, a significant proportion of respondents (20% altogether) identified the lack of credibility of both the government and the process itself as major problems.

Communication of every element of the APRP appeared to be lacking, demonstrated by the absence of a clear understanding of the process, particularly in isolated communities. This allows hearsay and rumour to take a much more prominent role, and threatens the credibility of the programme and the institutions involved.

The majority of respondents reported that solutions to the myriad problems associated with the APRP should involve the extensive engagement of local trusted social actors. Religious leaders were most often cited as a credible group to be responsible for leading the peace process. While many respondents believed that the high peace council was the correct body to lead the process they also had strong reservations about the membership structure."

Link to full report here.

Tags: Transitional Justice, Reconciliation

Military Land Seizures Feed Resentment in Helmand

The Institute for War and Peace Reporting looks at the resentment brewing in Helmand province over the seizure of land and homes by Afghan and International Forces. Unlike night raids and other sensational abuses that receive media attention these actions ignite a slow burn. It’s what occupation looks like.

“Officials in Helmand province acknowledged there was a problem, although not all agreed on the scale of the home occupations or whether compensation was paid.

Helmand governor Mohammad Gulab Mangal said that he was aware of the issue and confirmed that both government units and NATO’s International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, made use of private property, including houses and farmlands.

“I have repeatedly told our police and army commanders to avoid damaging private property when they enter these areas, but there have been a number of cases where Afghan and ISAF forces have taken over and used people’s properties…”

Background:

Last year the US military commissioned a study on attitudes between US and Afghan soldiers. It reported that Afghan soldiers described their American comrades as rude, disrespectful and reckless with gunfire when civilians were nearby, while US troops saw Afghan personnel as traitorous, lazy, drug-addled and corrupt. It highlighted the deep divisions. A copy of the report is linked below.

In January the NYT’s ran excerpts of the report.

"The 70-page coalition report, titled “A Crisis of Trust and Cultural Incompatibility,” — which was originally distributed as an unclassified document and later changed to classified — goes far beyond anecdotes. It was conducted by a behavioral scientist who surveyed 613 Afghan soldiers and police officers, 215 American soldiers and 30 Afghan interpreters who worked for the Americans.
While the report focused on three areas of eastern Afghanistan, many of the Afghan soldiers interviewed had served elsewhere in Afghanistan and the author believed that they constituted a sample representative of the entire country.

“There are pervasive feelings of animosity and distrust A.N.S.F. personnel have towards U.S. forces,” the report said, using military’s abbreviation for Afghan security forces. The list of Afghan complaints against the Americans ran the gamut from the killing of civilians to urinating in public and cursing.

“U.S. soldiers don’t listen, they are too arrogant,” said one of the Afghan soldiers surveyed, according to the report. “They get upset due to their casualties, so they take it out on civilians during their searches,” said another.

The Americans were equally as scathing. “U.S. soldiers’ perceptions of A.N.A. members were extremely negative across categories,” the report found, using the initials for the Afghan National Army. Those categories included “trustworthiness on patrol,” “honesty and integrity,” and “drug abuse.” The Americans also voiced suspicions about the Afghans being in league with the Taliban, a problem well documented among the Afghan police.

“They are stoned all the time; some even while on patrol with us,” one soldier was quoted as saying. Another said, “They are pretty much gutless in combat; we do most of the fighting.”

A copy of the full report here.

tags: Afghan Voices, Strategic Partnership, Troop Levels

Nowruz | Afghan New Year and First Day of Spring

Nowruz also known as the Persian New Year, has been celebrated for over 3,000 years. Coinciding with the spring equinox, it is marked in parts of the Balkans, the Black Sea Basin, the Caucasus, Central Asia, the Middle East and other regions.

Celebrating with the Afghan Women’s Writing Project

Nowruz means a new day and for the coming of Nowruz we have to make ready our homes, the streets, and every corner. The thoughts, the clothes, everything is about becoming new. The gift of Nowruz is smiling and happiness. — Fatima Hu

We are making haft mewa—seven fruits—and we’ll go together with ten families to green places. — Zahra

We sit down with haft mewa on the tablecloth, make a wish, and then we go outdoors to have fun. But there is a traditional belief that on the last day of Nowruz—Sizdah Bedar—if you go outside it will bring misfortune the rest of the year. —Fatima H.

We celebrate with orange flowers in Nangarhar. — Seema

We make haft mewa and eat this sweet dish with seven kinds of fruit with the whole family. We go to the Naranj Gul Mela festival, which means Festival of Orange Flowers, in Nangarhar. —Hila

We celebrate by making wishes for ourselves and for others. — Fatima Ha

Everyone makes something new—clothes or food. We make haft mewa and seven dishes that start with the letter S. We go to relatives’ houses and our family goes for a picnic in Mazar-e-Sharif or Kapisa. Having Nowruz once a year makes me happier than ever. — Basirah

More images on the MSNBC Photoblog.

U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership on the Rocks

M K Bhadrakumar, a former diplomat from India, breaks down the motives on why the US is seeking to establish a bi-lateral agreement with the government of Afghanistan and abandon the constraints of a UN mandate. The second article, by the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers with Kathy Kelly, gives an on-the-ground perspective.

“The renewal of the mandate of the ISAF - multinational force leading the campaign in Afghanistan - comes up for renewal in the UN Security Council this week. The ensuing debate can be expected to bring into focus the issues of the proposed ‘transition’ in 2013, the ending of the ‘combat mission’ in 2014 and the post-2014 scenario itself. I am keenly awaiting the Indian statement.

The United States and NATO are hoping to change ships — move out of the UN mandate to a more comfortable bilateral framework with the government in Kabul so that they are not accountable to the UN and can pursue their geo-strategies in the region with impunity. The US and NATO’s expectation is to formalize a long-term military presence in the region. Simultaneously, NATO is also probing the scope for expanding its presence in Central Asia.

But the best-laid plans can go awry in Afghanistan. The present moment is one such, full of imponderables. A new, unexpected and yet compelling factor has surged, which was always there lurking below the surface but the US found it expedient to ignore — Afghan nationalism. After having taken decades of battering and with its economy in shambles, somehow a notion had crept in the Western mind that the Afghans are up for sale to the highest bidder…”

Read full blog here.


Debating the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement

“Currently, citizens of Syria and the world can at least discuss Mr Kofi Annan’s warning that the situation in Syria should be handled “very, very carefully” to avoid an escalation that would de-stabilize the region, after an earlier warning against further militarization of the Syrian crisis. The crisis in Afghanistan is as severe as the one in Syria, and it is more chronic. 2 million Afghans have been killed in the wars of the past 4 decades. But not a single diplomat is warning against the further militarization of the Afghan crisis.

The previous UN Envoy to Afghanistan, Kai Eide, did try. “The most important reason for my bitterness was my ever-growing disagreement with Washington’s strategy in Afghanistan,” Kai Eide writes, in his book Power Struggle over Afghanistan. “It had become increasingly dominated by military strategies, forces, and offensives. Urgent civilian and political requirements were treated as appendices to the military tasks. The UN had never been really involved or consulted by Washington on critical strategy-related questions, nor had even the closest NATO partners. More importantly, Afghan authorities had mostly been spectators to the formation of a strategy aimed at solving the conflict in their own country.

It has taken the killing of 16 civilians in Kandahar for the world to notice the anger that the war has inflamed in the hearts of both U.S. soldiers and Afghan mothers.

Military and foreign policy elites in Washington have encouraged a conventional presumption that the ‘war on terror’ requires a long-term U.S. military presence in Afghanistan. Underlying that presumption is a deeper assumption that ‘terrorism’ can be resolved through war, that is, a supposition that humanity can somehow counter ‘terrorism’ by killing as many ‘terrorists’ as possible, regardless of the deadly anger these killings, so similar in themselves to terrorist acts, must necessarily fuel, not to mention the costly ‘collateral damage.’

Tax-payers from the 50 coalition countries involved in the Afghan war should be alarmed at how and where their money is spent. They should be considering how they would feel were they offered $2000 in compensation for the murder of a child, husband, father or mother, the compensation NATO handed out ‘ex-gratia’ (with no admission of its own wrongdoing) to the families of the 16 children, women and men slaughtered in their sleep on March 11, 2012.

Will the Afghan Parliament, the U.S. public or the UN debate the 10 year U.S. war strategy in Afghanistan?

Will the Afghan Parliament, the U.S. public or the UN debate the U.S. Afghan Strategic Partnership Agreement?...”

Read full article here.

The Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers are a grassroots group of multi-ethnic, ordinary Afghans working towards non-military solutions for Afghanistan, based on non-violence, unity, equality and self-reliance. http://ourjourneytosmile.com and http://globaldaysoflistening.org.


Additional Links:

Loya Jirga to Approve Long-Term US Military Presence

Tags: Strategic Partnership

Kabul: A City at Work | Who is the head of City Power?

‘A portrait of a city through its working people’



My name is Abdul Malek

"I am the head of City Power. I have worked for City Power for around 40 years, I started at zero as a guard, but I have always been so interested in the work that is why I have been promoted. Everyone has ambitions at school; when I chose the field of electricity I wanted to serve the people, I didn’t think that one day I would be the head of City Power."

“During the war Kabul lost all its structures. Nobody had power, there was just two hours in every 48. The fighting has affected people badly, financially and through losing people. I don’t see how anyone living in Afghanistan has not been affected by war. I lost one of my brothers when he was 24. Now though, there have been changes in the city. Whether it’s the buildings or roads, electricity or education, there have been many positive changes here.

One of my best memories was when we activated Chamtala substation – Afghanistan’s biggest. We bought power from Uzbekistan and brought light to new areas in Kabul. We have to provide a lot of electricity because so many people want to live in Kabul. So we have to keep making the network better. We hope to build two dams and more power plants, to produce our own power instead of importing it. Now there is maybe a one-hour power cut in 48 hours. About 70% of people have power. Of course we have problems when a substation shuts down or there are issues with the wires, but this is mostly in winter.”

Additional Resource: Shining a Light in the Dark

"More than $1.6 billion from the US and at least 14 other countries has been spent on energy projects since 2002

Yet after years of reconstruction efforts, no other country in the world has less electricity per person that Afghanistan.

This interactive study done in June of 2010 by the Associated Press has graphics and video that explains what went wrong. and the challenges Afghans face."

Afghan Women’s Writing Project | International Women’s Day

To Tell One’s Story is a Human Right

Writers and poets speak out, sharing their ideas for how Afghanistan, which ranks as one of the world’s most oppressed countries for women, should celebrate International Women’s Day on Thursday, March 8.

Click on the image above for featured stories and poems.

Celebrate with village women. Tell them about their rights, instead of celebrating in a big hotel and spending a lot of money. — Zarah A.

Give them a present. It can be a pen that costs just five afghanis. It is a great gift to reward their courage and to encourage their education. — Seema

A celebration in Afghanistan could be like caring for the soul. The best gift for a girl is to encourage and motivate her to grow her up to catch her wish, not to just put her under foot! — Zeinab N.

Establish some professional girls’ schools. Women need to be educated because they have to build a foundation in Afghanistan. The best gift for them is education. — Fatima

Let brave hearts fly and thank women for all that they have done in these years! — Masooma

Have meetings about the position of women in society and spread the culture of respect for women in Afghanistan. Men don’t want women to be part of society because they say society is not ready for women. But we can’t have this kind of society. — Narges

Men should show their respect and support for women. This is a good present. I hope the respect is not just for one day. It should be forever. — Kamilah

Write about women’s day. Let people know women are the most important gift that God gave to the world and we should respect them. Without women we would not live. Let people know what they wish for. They are like a beautiful butterfly that makes the world full of colors. — Sana S.

I hope every man with honest smile on his face will look at his wife and say, “my life is nothing without you.” — Fatima S.

Young Women for Change | Noorjahan Akbar

Noorjahan Akbar is a co-founder of Young Women for Change, an inspiring organization that works for gender equality in Afghanistan.

She has just been chosen as one of the recipients of the 2012 Women of Distinction Award by the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders.

"Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1991, Noorjahan Akbar has had the rare opportunity of receiving an education, something not available to the majority of women in Afghanistan. She earned scholarships to attend two years of high school at the George School in Pennsylvania, and she is currently a sophomore at Dickinson College.

Akbar learned English and computer skills when her family moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, after the Taliban entered Afghanistan. In 2001, her family returned to Afghanistan and started an English-language center for about 400 women in the Qala-e-Fatullah region of Kabul.

At a very early age, Akbar started working with Radio Azadi (Radio Free Europe) as a writer for children’s programs. In the ensuing years, she worked as a writer and a translator at several organizations. Through her job at a German education program, she worked with children to write a book of six short stories for kids. The collection, which was printed and distributed in Afghanistan, inspired Voices for Hope, an effort focused on teaching children to write and think creatively. She later designed a program called Stories to Heal, which worked with 100 Afghan orphans on creative writing projects.

In summer 2011, Akbar co-founded Young Women for Change, an organization of volunteers who work for gender equality in Afghanistan. Since then, YWC has gained nonprofit status, formed a male advocacy group, organized monthly lectures on gender and women’s studies, collected books to build libraries in Kabul and Helmand, and began conducting research on street harassment in Kabul, thanks to a new grant."

Here is a link to their active facebook page.

Here is a previous story.

She published this article in the March 2011 issue of Friends Journal about a project to gather and record traditional Afghan music.

Here is a profile of her work at Dickinson College.

Caravan of Nonviolence to Jalalabad | AYPF Profile

On Sunday the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers began a Caravan of Nonviolence to Jalalabad. A city of the Mughal Empire previously known as Adinapour.

On Saturday there will be a unique Global Day of Listening call with students from the U.S.



Here is the announcement they sent to supporters

“As we set off on the road with a niggling worry, we wondered as usual, “Is non-violence possible in Afghanistan?”

But then, that is like asking, “Is love possible in Afghanistan?”

Or like asking, “Are Afghan mothers really human beings capable of love?”

Or, as in this video clip of our Caravan, “Do Afghan mothers wish the same for their children?”

Jalalabad is where young people took to the streets peacefully to protest the US Afghanistan Strategic Partnership dealings and where much good exists despite foreign intervention.

As our host and friend in Jalalabad, Hameed Tasal, would say, “Come to Jalala-good!”

Love,

Hakim and the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers”

*****

Additional Resource: Global Day of Listening | 9 March | Jalalabad

SPECIAL Afghan Conversation with AYPVs from Jalalabad:
Students in USA on March 9 ~ 10:30 am EST

Parwan Prison and the Destruction of Religious Items | Adding Insult to Injury

Image above from January 2012 ceremony.

"An Afghan calligrapher has worked for five years to create the world's biggest Quran, a bid to show the world that Afghanistan's rich cultural heritage and traditions have been damaged but not destroyed by 30 years of war."

AP reports that seven people have been killed in protests over Quran burning at the Bagram Air Base.

“Afghan President Hamid Karzai appealed for calm Wednesday after clashes in several cities between Afghan security forces and protesters furious over the burning of Muslim holy books at a U.S. military base left seven people dead.

The anger over the Quran burning has sparked two days of protests across Afghanistan and tapped into anti-foreign sentiment fueled by a popular perception that U.S. and Western troops disrespect Afghan culture and Islam. The demonstrations prompted the U.S. to lock down its embassy and bar its staff from traveling.”

The WSJ points out:

“The clashes highlighted mounting anti-Western resentment in Afghanistan as top American officials tried to contain the damage by personally apologizing to Afghan President Hamid Karzai at his Kabul palace.

Such contrition failed to dampen the anger as Afghans reacted to reports that coalition soldiers at Bagram Air Field Monday night tried to incinerate a truckload of Islamic religious items, including copies of the Quran, Islam's holiest book. U.S. military officials have launched an investigation to try to determine why the soldiers were directed to destroy Islamic books from the detention center's library that were said to have contained "extremist literature" and "clandestine communications" shared among detainees."

The religious items being destroyed were from the US- Run military detention center library in Parwan.


U.S. Super-Sizing Afghan Jail It Promised to Abandon


Reproduced in full from Spencer Ackerman | 20 February 2012

There once was a plan to turn over the main U.S. detention center in Afghanistan to control of the Afghans in 2011. That’s out the window. Instead, the military is offering millions to vastly expand the center’s inmate intake.

Specifically, $35 million will fund expansions necessary to house “approximately 2,000 detainees” at the Detention Facility at Parwan on the outskirts of Bagram Air Field, an hour’s drive from Kabul. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to expand “detainee housing, guard towers, administrative facility and Vehicle/Personnel Access Control Gates, security surveillance and restricted access systems,” according to a recent solicitation. A Turkey-based company received the contract in late January.

This wasn’t supposed to happen. As far back as summer 2010, senior military officials in charge of the detention center boasted to Danger Room outright that by January 2012, they wouldn’t be running the square-mile sized prison. They considered handing the detention center to the Afghans a mark of their own success at fostering a culture of law and order within the Afghan government.

Alas. A year later, the command in charge of the detention center, Joint Task Force-435, admitted that it wouldn’t complete the handoff until the U.S. ended combat in 2014. The reason? “The Afghans don’t have the legal framework or the capacity to deal with violence being inflicted on the country by the insurgency,” an official told the Financial Times.

But the expansion is only going to increase the caseload the Afghans will eventually deal with. This is no minor refurbishment. The Detention Facility at Parwan held 1,000 inmates in August 2010. The $35 million expansion will prepare it to double the detainee population.

That should underscore the amount of fighting still to come in Afghanistan ahead of 2012. Even though much of the U.S. military views Afghanistan as a war with an expiration date — as I learned during a brief trip to Fort Leavenworth, Kan. yesterday, where soldiers referred to the war in the past tense — there will still be 68,000 troops there by summer’s end, and it’s not clear how many troops will leave Afghanistan by 2014.

Nor will 2014 mark the end of the war. The U.S. wants a residual military presence in Afghanistan, keeping troops on bases run by Afghans, as an insurance policy against the country falling apart and to stage the shadow war in Pakistan. The war will become heavy on Special Operations Forces in lieu of conventional troops — and human rights workers allege that the commandos run an unacknowledged torture facility at Parwan.

Even if they don’t, there are few who believe the Afghanistan War is on the cusp of ending, even if the U.S. will — slowly, incompletely — cease waging it. Where there’s war, there’s wartime detentions. And Parwan isn’t the only detention center on the grow: the U.S. is spending up to $100 million building jails across Afghanistan.

The Forgotten Victims | Institute for War and Peace Reporting

“The Forgotten Victims”, a new documentary produced by IWPR, sheds light on the war crimes and other human rights abuses committed in Afghanistan over two decades of serial conflict. The film raises difficult issues about accountability in a country where the victims of crimes against humanity are sidelined, while the perpetrators walk free and in some cases continue to hold political power.

“The Forgotten Victims” covers the period from just before the 1979 Soviet invasion and the ensuing war with the mujahedin, through the brutal civil war of the early 1990s, to the Taleban’s rule from 1996 to 2001.

Because of this wide historical sweep, the film focuses on selected incidents, such as a massacre of civilians in Yakawlang, central Afghanistan, committed by Taleban forces at the beginning of 2001.

At public screenings around Afghanistan, audiences praised the filmmakers for telling the victims’ stories and opening up a debate on justice and accountability.

“Making a film like this in the current climate requires a lot of courage. It’s a great step towards seeking justice,” Mohammad Nader Atash, a defence lawyer in Nangarhar.”

While this film may focus on pre-2001 IWPR has done a tremendous amount of documentation about the war that began with the US attack and occupation.

Here is a previous story on the film.

A Refugee Profile | Abdul Rahim

The UN refugee agency has been asking refugees and others all around the world to tell us their stories on camera. They are stories of escape, survival, and triumph after being forced to flee their homes.



Abdul Rahim, 24, was born in Pakistan after his family fled the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. His family lived in Azakhel refugee camp in Pakistan's north-west, until their home was destroyed in the devastating floods of summer 2010. Abdul Rahim almost drowned and lost everything he owned. Luckily, he managed to salvage his refugee card, saying

“It is a very important card, proof that we are the nationals of Afghanistan… We are the citizens of Afghanistan”

Here is the full play list.Storytelling: Through the Eyes of Refugees.

For more posts on refugees click here.
For more posts on Pakistan click here.

Profiles of Nonviolent Resistance | Maya Evans

In December Maya Evans was part of a peace delegation to Afghanistan. Below is a profile she had published in Peace News. Peace News is a grassroots peace and justice movement building magazine in the UK.

Forgiving the Taliban

In the morning we were visited by one of the female members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, Lena, a young, intelligent, outspoken Afghan woman who has just qualified as a teacher and has already taught in various schools inside Kabul.

Lena was very much anti-NATO intervention and felt that foreign involvement in Afghanistan was only bringing further violence and unrest. She also emphasised the importance of free state education for all, explaining that she could earn a very good wage working for private schools, but she preferred to work in government schools, educating the people of Afghanistan. She felt that providing she had food for lunch and dinner that was good enough for her.

We were then visited by Feda Mohammed, a former official in the ministry of education and now an education consultant. Over lunch, Feda, a slim, tall, middle-aged family man, dressed in a neat suit and tie, put across the opposing view to Lena. He was very much in favour of NATO and foreign intervention, his analysis was very black-and-white: Afghanistan could have either foreign occupation or the Taliban (a horrible prospect to most in Afghanistan, especially those who had experienced their previous reign). He viewed the killing of civilians by NATO as “collateral damage”, a necessary part of eradicating the Taliban, even if those deaths included his three sons.

There was a stony silence in the room.

AYPV Abduli, a 16-year-old Hazara boy from Bamiyan, whose father had been killed by the Taliban, was asked for his opinion. One of the most moving moments of my life then took place.

Abduli was silent for a while and then he quietly said: “If a Talib was in this room now, I know there is only one way forward to resolve the situation… forgiveness”.

The room fell silent.

I looked down and wept quietly. I wept for his pain and I wept for his strength and wisdom. I was astounded that such a young person, who had experienced one of the worst things a child could endure, had chosen the hardest path to walk. Without a doubt that moment will stay with me forever and whenever I weaken in my conviction to walk the path of nonviolence and forgiveness I will think of Abduli.

Click here for more stories about the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

Maya also participated in a recent delegation to India with members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers to India. Visit their inspiring travelogue here.