Sunglasses | A Three Minute Vignette by Mustafa Kia

A young Afghan woman's desire to buy sunglasses despite the conflict between traditional Afghan customs and western values.

by Mustafa Kia / Afghanistan (2009)

An Afghan Narrative | One Man’s Story

Wage Peace,
Pablo Ancona, Santa Fe, NM.

From the traveling mural exhibit Windows and Mirrors.

We now have an MP3 recording from last week’s excellent conference call briefing with Zaher Wahab. He describes the daunting challenges Afghan’s face and the rewards he received working with bright, capable, and enthusiastic students at a teacher training college in Kabul.

It is about the impact of war and the choices Afghans are making to create a brighter future. Make time to listen. You will be inspired.

Themes you will learn more about:

• The profound constitutional crisis
• The fiscal crisis triggered by the collapse of the largest private bank and the country being put on probation by the IMF
• Government inability to provide security, employment opportunities, electricity, clean water, schools and health clinics for Afghans.



Dr. Zaher Wahab was born in Afghanistan, received a B.A. in sociology from the American University of Beirut, an M.A. in comparative education from Teachers College, Columbia University and an M.A. in anthropology and a Ph.D. in international development education from Stanford University.

He served as a senior adviser to the Minister of Higher Education in Afghanistan for five years from 2002-2007, and was instrumental in designing and now teaching the only Masters Degree program for teacher education faculty throughout Afghanistan.

He teaches Foundations of Education, Race-Culture-Power, Paulo Freire, and the Middle East in Global Perspective at Lewis and Clark College and has served as a Fulbright Scholar in Egypt, Turkmenistan and twice in Kazakhstan.

Afghanistan: Shining a Light on 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 by the Associated Press has graphics and video that explains what went wrong.

Powers of Darkness in North Afghanistan
By Abdul Latif Sahak | Institute for War and Peace Reporting | 5 July 2011

Although the northern Afghan city of Mazar-e Sharif enjoys a measure of stability and a conveniently-located source of electricity, residents say they are only getting a couple of hours of power a day.

Apart from making life more difficult in the summer heat, the power outages have led to fears of infection due to problems with keeping foodstuffs cool.

Residents are angered that the massive amounts of aid money injected into Afghanistan has failed to improve electricity supplies, a basic building-block of economic development.

People in Mazar-e Sharif get between one and three hours of electricity every 24 hours. IWPR interviewed one man, Fereidun, who said he had an hour a day, but with a current so weak that it would not run his refrigerator.

“You see, I can’t bear this hot weather even though I’m an adult. How can children bear it?” Fereidun said, fanning himself as he sat under a tree in front of his house. “I use this fan on my children all night. Sometimes I even pass out. If there was electricity, I wouldn’t have these problems, as I own [an electric] fan and a refrigerator.”

Fereidun placed the blame squarely on local government, saying, “For God’s sake, every government official in the province has been working for the last ten years as if he inherited his post. If they can’t work, others must replace them.”

How People Define Violence and Justice in Afghanistan

A First Step on a Long Journey:
How People Define Violence and Justice in Afghanistan (1958-2008)

Published by, Afghan Civil Society Forum-organization (ACSFo)

This ambitious report is based on a survey of 3600 people in nine of Afghanistan’s provinces (Badakhshan, Balkh, Bamyan, Herat, Faryab, Kabul, Kandahar, Nangarhar and Paktia). Four hundred surveys were done in each province.

The goal is to start creating a measure of human rights abuses that have taken place under recent governments in Afghanistan. The level and consistency of instability and violence over the years is staggering. There are patterns that need to be broken. The many charts and graphs of this study can help to put it all into perspective as Afghans work towards the need for transitional justice this time around.

Participants were asked a series of broad questions around war, justice and the rule of Law. They were then asked to rank their response to different periods of rule in the country. The time periods were the Zahir Shah reign, Dawood Khan Republic, Communist regime, Mujahedin, Taliban Islamic Emirates, and the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan (current).

The book has six chapters beginning with an overview of the last 50 years and then broad themes looking at the following.

Justice – including the Imprisonment/killing of intellectuals
Security – including refugee
Violations and Killings – including extra-judicial killings
Transitional justice – including immunity of criminals from prosecution
People’s Recommendations – including expectations of the government

Introduction

"Afghanistan is in the most momentous period of history. On the one hand, it is in the constructive change process and on the other hand it faces the formidable challenge of past human rights abuses and crimes. The Government of Afghanistan supports investigation of past crimes. The establishment of an independent human rights commission as agreed in Bonn Accord, the convention of national human rights workshop and President Hamid Karzai’s emphasis on investigating the past crimes in its inauguration, and refraining from signing the national reconciliation bill 2007 are all examples of support to the transitional justice process. Nevertheless, the Government of Afghanistan has not been able to formulate a clear mechanism to implement transitional justice. Afghans demand justice more than ever. Investigating the previous crime is a legitimate right of Afghans. If the government does not seriously consider this issue, the current distrust and gap between people and government will increase and can create gigantic problems for Afghanistan’s future.

Afghans have witnessed many rights violation and crimes committed by ethnic and ideological leaders, commanders, belligerent factions and locally powerful forces. After 9/11, the international community and civil institutions have taken steps to redress people’s grief. They have strived to assess the human rights violations and crimes committed during different periods in order to inform people. As a result, human rights organizations have published several reports on human rights issues. Nonetheless, Afghanistan has a long road to truth seeking and there exists a wide-range of hidden crimes. Human rights organizations have not been able to identify these hidden areas, since there are powers in the country that prevent the truth to be found.

How People Define Violence and Justice is a research project on international crimes, massacres, rapes, murders, destruction of residential areas, homicide and imprisonment of intellectuals, torture and human rights abuses of the past fifty years. This research extends to the past fifty years of Afghan history and starts from Shah Mahmud Khan premiership during Muhammad Zahir Shah monarchy. Human rights abuses have deep roots and can be traced back to Muhammad Hashim Khan premiership. Therefore, certain parts of this report refer to that period. Afghanistan witnessed rather stable regimes during Muhammad Zahir Shah monarchy and Dawood Khan republic; however, human rights abuses were systematically committed during those periods. An outstanding example of which was depriving ethnic and religious minorities from political and social participation and from the right to education which continued till the end of Dawood Khan republic.

After the communist coup in Afghanistan, the civil war broke out. During these periods heinous human rights abuses took place, the most prominent of which were arbitrary imprisonments, forced disappearances and massacres. After the collapse of Communist regimes and Mujahedin triumph, a new chapter of crimes in Afghanistan began. Ethnical, sectarian and lingual conflicts, territorial divide of cities and villages by belligerent factions, rule of local commanders on the lives and properties of people, destruction of house, rapes, plundering government and people’s properties and stealing historic monuments are examples of such crimes.

During Taliban rule, areas such as northern Kabul and Bamyan were turned into burned lands. Some evident examples of Taliban crimes were the massacre in northern Kabul, Bamyan and Mazar-e- Sharif, women rights violation, confiscation of public properties, wanton imprisonments, forced disappearances, and humiliation of human dignity.

In order to assess the past events, How People Define Violence and Justice Project developed a questionnaire that encompasses these abuses and crimes. It consists of five sections and 36 questions. The last fifty years that constitutes our scope of research has been divided in six following periods:

1. The Monarchy (King Mohammad Zahir Shah) 1958 – 1973
2. The Republic (President Mohammad Dawood) 1973 – 1978
3. The Communist Regime 1978 – 1992
4. The Islamic State (Mujahedin) 1992 – 1995
5. The Islamic Emirates (Taliban) 1996 – 2001
6. Islamic Republic (Karzai) 2001 – 2008

The research has been conducted in nine provinces including Kabul, Kandahar, Badakhshan, Bamyan, Herat, Nangarhar, Paktia, Balkh and Faryab. In each province 400 questionnaires were filled, making the total number of interviewees 3600 respondents. These provinces were selected on the basis geographical, political, historical and ethnical criteria. The various sections of this report are in the order of questions answered by respondents. In other words, the table of contents of the current report, with a few changes, is the same as the questionnaire.

The standards for justice and human rights violation in this project are defined by people. Views, beliefs and utterances of respondents constitute the basis of this research. We have strived to utilize the concept of Do No Harm during the implementation of this project, and therefore we have refrained from stating directly the names of criminals. Nonetheless, the names given by the people are noted in the questionnaires and are recorded in ACSFo’s archives.

ACSFo cherishes the value of reflecting the voice of masses and has remained impartial throughout the course of this research. ACSFo has tried to project the grievances of the victims in this research and present it in a statistical format. This research demonstrates the realities in words of the respondents who were and are victims of the 50 years of atrocity. This research has been conducted therefore to bring to light the darkest realities from the point of view of the respondent so that measures are adopted to prevent its reoccurrence."

Windows and Mirrors | Video Animation

Art reveals hidden truths.

We invited muralists from around the world and school children in Kabul to create art illustrating the human cost of war in Afghanistan. This is their work.

Check out our new video animation with images taken from Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan. The art exhibit is a touring show and an online experience that shows the devastating impact of the war in Afghanistan.

To see the new webpage click here.
To post a link to the video on Facebook and Twitter click here.

Principles Sold-out | A Farewell to Afghanistan

A sharp critique of the United Nations and the broader International community’s role in bringing the warlords back to power in Afghanistan. Jan Malekzade worked as a UN Political Officer in Afghanistan from 2001-2003 and from 2009-2011. He has just left the country and offered this post.

“Afghanistan's heritage of literature is one on of the oldest and most sophisticated of the world and most Afghans can easily recite by heart the ancient verses of Jalaluddin Rumi, Jami, Rudaki, Nasir Khosrou Balkhi, the poetess Rabia Balkhi and the Pashtun warrior/poet Khushal Khan Khattak. Instead of the usual farewell message I would like to share with you a parabel I was told by an Afghan friend. It describes my experience of the last two years in Afghanistan better then lengthy words:

A Malik (land owner) called his servant and told him that he would release him after 30 years of servitude, if he fulfilled a last task. The old man had been serving the Malik for his whole life, cultivating his lands and keeping his gardens lush and green. He was tired and looking forward to be released into retirement. The Malik asked him to build a house as large, as comfortable and as luxurious as possible and not shy away from any costs.

The servant started with the construction, but was angered that in his old age he had been given such a difficult job. The fundaments of the house were done hastily, the walls not strong enough and the whole building came out as quiet unstable. The servant went to the Malik and told him that the house had been completed and insisted that he would now be granted his well deserved retirement.

The Malik agreed to release his servant and told him that he had a special gift for him: 'The house you have built is yours!'”

“I was in 2001 in Afghanistan when the Afghans were left with no choice but to accept that the old class of war criminals and civil war leaders were brought back from exile and dealt with as 'heroes of resistance against the Taleban'. In fact it was a simple - but wrong - tactical calculation of the Coalition: instead of expensive troops on the ground they armed and financed these ragtag criminals with a record of some of the worst human rights crimes and re-installed them in a country that had forced them into exile. In June 2001, when I was posted with the Northern Alliance in the tiny mountain area that the Taleban had not yet under their control, these 'heroes of resistance' were busy with feuding each other over income of smuggling alcohol into Afghanistan from Tajikistan.

The silent consent of the UN to re-instate these war criminals into positions of power was hard to stomach in 2002, and many of us argued with our seniors that they had sold the principles of the UN for a cheap political compromise. But at least there was a civil society left with whom we worked. There were more legitimate representatives of Afghan society, like those we had helped to elect into the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002.

Coming back in 2009 was a sobering experience: not only that war criminals had consolidated their power, now controlling large parts of an economy that was once described by Ashraf Ghani as a 'drug economy' (before he became a government official).

To many of my Afghan friends it seemed that the international community had spared no effort to push Afghanistan back into civil war and conflict. After the resurrection of the warlords, their old foes, the Taleban, who had forced one of the most obscurantist and violent regimes in human history upon the Afghan population, are now dealt with as a legitimate political power to negotiate with.”

Quarterly Report | Afghanistan NGO Safety Office

The chart shows the number of countrywide attacks from armed opposition groups. The NGO safety network believes that the core of the insurgency is the struggle against the foreign presence. You can click on the chart to enlarge.

This quarterly report from the Afghanistan NGO Safety Office documents the escalating violence. Finding that civilian deaths have increased 106% since the US troop surge in June 2009.

The short report is packed with helpful charts and graphs. It includes a short summary statement with a section on NGO trends and one that looks at the state of the conflict.

Here are some of the more revealing figures.

“The number of armed opposition group initiated attacks has grown 42% over the second quarter of 2010 and 119% since the US military surge began in June 2009.”

“Throughout 2010 and for 2011 to date, the data shows no deviation from the established pattern (going back to 2006) of continuous growth starting in February and likely to peak in August/September this year.”

They have a term for this.

“We call this co-evolutionary dynamic the ‘perpetually escalating stalemate’ and it suggests that disengagement and de-escalation may stand a chance of achieving what staying and fighting never could – delegitimizing the insurgency, which at its heart is a struggle against the foreign presence, by removing its reason for being and compelling local settlement.”