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Karzai: US troop immunity up to Afghan elders
By HEIDI VOGT and AMIR SHAH | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan president said Monday that a meeting of the nation's elders should convene to decide whether U.S. troops staying in the country after 2014 would be immune from prosecution under Afghan law.
President Hamid Karzai's remarks were his first since returning from Washington, where he met last week with President Barack Obama about the future of the alliance between the two countries.
This was also the first time Karzai has floated the idea that Afghans should hold a "loya jirga" — a national assembly of elders — to make the decision on U.S. troop immunity.
The United States has said that it needs to maintain sole legal jurisdiction over its forces in Afghanistan as part of the agreement for forces that will stay after 2014. In Iraq, it was the Iraqi government's refusal to grant such jurisdiction that caused U.S. troops to completely quit that country.
"We want our national sovereignty and the Americans want the safety of their soldiers," Karzai said in Kabul. "They don't want their soldiers to be under the laws of another country."
Karzai appeared to be trying to strike a conciliatory note, in sharp contrast to the harsh rhetoric and demands ahead of his U.S. trip.
However, he stressed that the issue of U.S. troop immunity was not up to his administration to decide.
"The Afghan government cannot make that decision. It is the decision of the people of Afghanistan. So a loya jirga of the people of Afghanistan should decide," he said.
Loya jirgas have traditionally been used in the country to make major decisions. The last such meeting occurred in November 2011, when Karzai called elders together to discuss whether they should enter into negotiations with the U.S. about a long-term partnership agreement.
Karzai's tone throughout his speech was solicitous of the United States.
He said his talks with Obama were "very calm" and that the two leaders did not argue. He also said that his delegation received a warm welcome in Washington and told the Afghan people that they should be thankful for the help provided by the United States.
It was a departure from the rhetoric that characterized many of his speeches to the Afghan nation over the last year — in which he regularly demanded new rules for his U.S. allies and accused them of trying to occupy his country.
It may have been a sign that statements from the U.S. administration about the possibility of pulling all troops out of Afghanistan in 2014 had caused Karzai to soften his tone. However, it may also indicate that Karzai came out of the meetings in Washington with a sense that his concerns were finally being addressed.
He stressed Monday that the U.S. agreed to his key demands that Afghan sovereignty will be respected and that U.S. troops will stay out of Afghan villages. He did not provide details on how the U.S. and Afghan forces would navigate this pact, but said that U.S. troops that stay after 2014 should be advising and training the Afghans.
Karzai also said Monday that he expected the U.S. to restart the process of transferring Afghan detainees to Afghan custody — another key issue for Karzai — within two weeks.
But he also stressed that the agreement on U.S. security forces going forward will be something that will still take much discussion.
"The United States wants to sign it soon, but the Afghans want to go more carefully," Karzai explained.
Karzai confident he can get U.S. troops immunity
CNN By Samuel Burke January 12th, 2013
In the only interview that President Hamid Karzai granted while he was in the United States, he expressed confidence to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Afghan people will accept the United States’ demand for immunity for American troops left in place there after the 2014 withdrawal.
In a joint press conference with President Obama on Friday, Karzai had stated that he would take the issue to his people, but now he has said that immunity is likely to become a reality.
“I can tell you with relatively good confidence that they will say ‘alright, let’s do it,” Karzai told Amanpour about selling the issue to Afghans. “And I’m sure that they will understand.”
At the press conference, President Obama said that he had stressed to Karzai that “the United States already has arrangements like this with countries all around the world, and nowhere does the U.S. have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops.”
In the final stages of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, President Obama was unable to obtain a similar agreement, propelling him to withdraw all U.S. forces from that country in December 2011.
Karzai rejected the notion that has been floated that the U.S. might leave “zero troops” in Afghanistan after the pullout is completed at the end of 2014.
He told Amanpour that Afghans need some type of U.S. presence for “broader security and stability” after the withdrawal. For that reason, Karzai believes Afghans will have to grant the U.S. troops left there immunity.
“The United States will need to have a limited number of forces in Afghanistan,” he said, but was unwilling to give an exact number. “That’s not for us to decide. It is for the United States to decide what number of troops they will be keeping in Afghanistan and what strength of equipment those troops will have.”
Karzai said that Afghanistan has turned the corner in terms of battling the Taliban. He does not believe those Islamic fundamentalists will ever regain the strength to enforce their radical agenda again – the closing of girls’ schools and subjugation of women.
“Having experienced the growth of Afghanistan – the creation of a critical mass in Afghanistan that is necessary for turning the corner from bad towards better – I think we have turned the corner,” he said. “I think there is now a critical mass in Afghanistan of the educated – of the Afghan people who want a future of progress and stability. And I think, also, that the Taliban have recognized the corner has been turned – the majority of them.”
Karzai: Afghanistan will be 'more secure' following US troop withdrawal
January 14, 2013
KABUL (Reuters) - A decision on immunity for U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan after the 2014 planned withdrawal will be made by the end of the year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday.
"The issue of immunity is under discussion (and) it is going to take eight to nine months before we reach agreement," Karzai told a news conference in the capital, Kabul, after returning from meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.
The Afghan government rejected an initial U.S. proposal regarding the question of immunity and a second round of negotiations will take place this year in Kabul, he said.
Those negotiations could involve Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, a "grand assembly" of political and community leaders convened for issues of national importance, he added.
When asked if security would deteriorate in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the NATO-led force, Karzai replied: "By no means... Afghanistan will be more secure and a better place."
The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in Afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations while providing training and assistance for Afghan forces. But the administration said last week it did not rule out a complete withdrawal after 2014.
The United States is insisting on immunity from prosecution for any U.S. troops that remain.
(Reporting By Hamid Shalizi, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Dylan Welch; Editng by Robert Birsel)
US Confident of Troop Immunity in Afghanistan: Ambassador
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Sunday, 13 January 2013
The US government is confident that it will reach an agreement on the legal jurisdiction of its troops in Afghanistan with the Afghan government, US Ambassador to Afghanistan said Saturday.
In an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, James Cunningham said that US forces and those from other countries have impunity in any country they operate and they seek the same from Afghanistan.
"I am perfectly confident that we will sort out the jurisdiction issues. As the [US] president said, this is something that we do with every one of our security partners. And indeed all of our allies as well, when they have forces stationed outside their territory, have similar agreements," Cunningham said.
He also added that it is the choice of the Afghan people and government as to whether they want a long-term security pact with the US.
"That's a matter for a sovereign Afghanistan - for a sovereign government and sovereign people - to decide if they want that relationship. We fully acknowledge that our ongoing role will be at the request of the Afghan government and the Afghan people and we will pursue that looking for that at the end of 2014," Cunningham said, adding that plans are for a limited number of US force will continue their engagement to train, equip and assist the Afghan security forces.
He said he is optimistic Afghans will broadly accept the agreement.
"Part of the core purpose of President Karzai's visit and the discussion between our presidents was to discuss that future relationship and what the goals of it would be and how we would carry it out," he said.
He is also confident that the US and Afghanistan will sign the agreement in the near future, but declined to provide a specific timeframe saying that it's impossible to anticipate an exact time.
The US envoy said it would be regrettable if the security pact was not accepted because it is likely to help Afghans reach an agreement with the Taliban.
"My response is that would be regrettable. That's an option providing nowhere to go in terms of ending the conflict in Afghanistan and bringing about peace and reconciliation," he said. "We have very clear that our hope and our goal is to help promote that conversation between the government and the Taliban and to help support a dialogue among the Afghans that will lead to genuine peace and reconciliation."
Cunningham also commented that the proposed Taliban office in Qatar is merely a point of liaison for negotiations.
"The office in Qatar which our presidents have agreed to try to be a place for Afghans to discuss peace, is just a location where we hope that a discussion about peace in future of Afghanistan between the government and Taliban can take place. We have been trying to encourage this for quite a while now," he said, adding that negotiation is the only way to bring real peace and stability to Afghanistan.
News Analysis: Karzai's U.S. visit paves way for U.S.-Afghan security pact
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The recently concluded three-day official visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Washington has paved the way for the signing of the controversial security pact between the United States and Afghanistan, according to political observers here.
During his U.S. tour that ended Friday, Karzai's first during the year, no security pact was signed contrary to expectations here.
U.S. President Barack Obama, however, reassured Karzai of the U. S. long-term cooperation with Afghanistan.
Afghan political observers have described the U.S. visit as very significant in terms of maintaining cordial relations between the two countries.
"It was a very important visit during which both governments removed misunderstanding over some contentious issues related to the security pact," said Ahmad Zia Rafat, a political analyst and professor of the Kabul University.
According to Rafat, during their talks in Washington, D.C. the Obama administration agreed to hand over Bagram prison to Afghans and allowed the Afghan government to lead peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar as part of facilitating the signing of security pact.
However, Rafat said, there are still major issues to be resolved, such as the number of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, the U.S. military bases that they would keep, the sovereignty within the bases, and the annual economic support for Afghanistan. "These issues require more discussions by the two sides before any security agreement is signed," Rafat said.
At the end of Karzai's visit, President Obama reiterated the U. S. commitment to support Afghan stability by strengthening Afghanistan's economic foundations and supporting Afghan reforms so that the embattled country could achieve sustainable development and self-sufficiency.
A joint statement released after the Karzai-Obama meeting said: "As we further develop the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership, the United States and Afghanistan look forward to expanded cooperation under the auspices of the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Commission, through 2014 and beyond. President Obama and President Karzai committed to conclude the Bilateral Security Agreement as soon as possible; reaffirming that such an agreement is in both countries' interest."
According to the joint statement, both leaders also discussed the possibility of a post-2014 U.S. presence that is sustainable, that supports a capable and effective Afghan National Security Force, and that continues to pressure the remnants of al-Qa'ida and its affiliates.
"The Afghan president, during his meeting with U.S. leaders including the President, Defense Secretary and Secretary of State received assurances that U.S. administration will continue to stand alongside Afghanistan," said another political observer and Kabul University professor Faizullah Jalal.
Jalal said such assurances are significant for the future of Afghanistan particularly after the 2014 withdrawal of NATO-led troops from the country.
Analysts said the issue of immunity from prosecution of American soldiers stationed in U.S. bases would continue to be a ticklish matter that the two sides would have to address.
Some legislators, particularly those from the opposition, have warned that giving immunity from suits to American servicemen while they are in active duty would not sit well with the Afghan people.
But the Afghan government with poorly equipped security forces would not be able to overcome the security challenges in the absence of a security pact with Washington and the continued assistance from the United States and the international community.
Wahid Omar, former spokesman of Afghan Presidential Palace, said in a recent television panel discussion that the "U.S.troops will not totally withdraw and judicial immunity will be granted at last within the next one year."
US vows $1 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan: Zakhilwal
By Sajad - January 14 2013, 1:52 pm Khaama Press
The United States of America has vowed to provide $800 million to $1 billion in annual aid to Afghan government, Afghan finance minister Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal on Sunday said.
He was speaking during the cabinet meeting led by Afghan Hamid Karzai and said the United States has vowed to provide the funds to the Afghan government which was previously spent in Afghanistan through private contracts.
Mr. Zakhilwal said that Washington has agreed to implement the US funded projects through the Afghan government and contractors.
This comes as the Afghan government accused the west of fuelling corruption and waste in the way it spends money in Afghanistan. The finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal has been pushing for more money to be put straight through the government budget to be spent by ministries like education and health, rather than channelled through foreign aid organisations.
“We believe that the way the US money is spent here, there’s a lot of waste, particularly money spent through contractors and outside sources,” Zakhilwal told the Wall Street Journal before the US visit. Much of the aid cash flowed back to the US through “big consultant salaries and overheads”, he added.
The U.S. has spent around $22.34 billion on governance and development in Afghanistan since it invaded the country following the Sept. 11 attacks, much of that on projects to build roads, schools, power plants and irrigation systems. In the past two years alone, $800 million was earmarked for infrastructure projects.
McChrystal: I regret not finishing the job in Afghanistan
January 13, 2013
(CBS News) Amid news that the White House is pushing for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said today on "Face the Nation" he regrets that he didn't get to finish the job there.
"I have regrets that some of the things I was responsible for, I didn't finish," he said, referring to his forced resignation in 2010 over a Rolling Stone article that quoted members of his team making disparaging remarks about President Obama. "I didn't finish the job in Afghanistan. I let down a lot of people that worked for me, 150,000 troops worked for me, the Afghan people, many of them believed deeply in me."
McChrystal said he doesn't believe the Rolling Stone piece "was particularly accurate in the way it represented my team but, you know, I was in command. And the simple elegance of command is, you assume responsibility." In his new book, "My Share of the Task," he said he chose not to devote time pointing fingers over the incident because "I'm not sure Washington needs another book like that."
Though he wouldn't comment on how many U.S. troops - if any - should remain in Afghanistan, McChrystal said while Afghan forces are "improving," they've "got a long way to go."
"When I got [to Afghanistan] in 2002, the country was physically devastated, and morally and mentally traumatized. The society was in tatters," he said. "There's been an awful lot of... progress, but Afghanistan is hard. It's always hard. If you study their history, it's complex and difficult. [Now] there are females in school, there are opportunities, there are places that are secure that were not secure just a few years ago.
"...My question on the future is what do we want in the region; this is not just a case of, al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, and now they largely are not," McChyrstal continued. "I believe Afghanistan can be stable. I think they must take responsibility for their security, the vast lion's share, but I think the strategic partnership that President Obama offered to President Karzai is critical. Not just physically. It's not how many troops and how much money, it's the idea in the minds of Afghans that they have a reliable partner."
As for former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who will face immediate decisions about troop levels in the region if he is confirmed as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's replacement, McChyrstal said while he's only met him once, "I certainly have no problem with him."
Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, "certainly has a great record, not just as a soldier, but as a senator," he said.
We don't want our burqas back: women in Afghanistan on the Taliban's return
When the troops withdraw from Afghanistan next year, many fear a terrible backlash. Tracy McVeigh meets seven women who rebuilt their lives after Taliban oppression – and finds them at risk once more
The Observer By Tracy McVeigh Sunday 13 January 2013
Pre-dawn in Kabul. In each dark street a short line of giant lightbulbs switch on, red, green and white, marking bakeries where warm slabs of golden flatbread are handed through open shop-front windows to sleepy little boys in white tunics and to men with blankets round their shoulders picking up lunch on their way to work.
"This is man's bread," says Hamil Fareed, a young baker. "Women's bread," he explains, is different, the dough kneaded at home by mothers and cooked out of sight at the back in the clay ovens and returned to the family.
The segregation of Kabul's daily bread is not a cultural tradition, but started under the Taliban in the 1990s. Faced with a half-starved city of war widows barred from working, studying or leaving their homes, someone began a clandestine communal fire pit where women could bake flatbread for their children and earn a few coins by selling them on. The UN, impotent in quelling the vicious war, encouraged more such schemes and, when the Taliban soldiers who roamed the streets seemed to tolerate figures in burqas creeping out to little backstreet bakeries, heralded it as a "step forward" in women's rights.
The international community said the fall of the Taliban in 2001 would bring in a new era of rights. Afghanistan's women and girls would be returned to schools and workplaces and freed from the infamously fierce restrictions on their lives. It was a key political justification used by the British and Americans for their continued presence. That year US secretary of state Colin Powell declared that restoring women's human rights would "not be negotiable". Prime minister Tony Blair promised: "The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside world has done so many times before." Now, with the withdrawal of international forces and their caravan of international agencies, consultants and contractors looming in 2014, there is evidence that Afghan women have seen very few of the promised changes and are terrified of the future.
The outside world has used Afghanistan as a pawn in its geopolitical "great games" since the 19th century and ensnared it in a labyrinth of strategic and economic interests. Since 2001 the country has received some £60bn of aid; there have been tangible improvements in education, maternal mortality, employment, and the representation of women in governance. But there are signs that those gains are too fragile to survive the international community's departure.
A 2012 survey of women across Afghanistan by the charity ActionAid found that nine out of 10 feared the departure of the international community, believing that their lives will significantly deteriorate. And violence against women has never been higher: 87% of women report domestic abuse.
The return of 2.2 million girls to school after 2001 was considered the international community's great triumph, but in the past few years schools have been closing behind the departing backs of phased-out foreign forces. There have been reports of schoolgirls poisoned and beaten, headteachers assassinated and classrooms firebombed. The majority of girls don't stay on after fifth grade and nine out of 10 15-year-old girls are illiterate. Some girls are enrolled in schools but never go.
The British and other forces have built dozens of rural schools which the Afghan government cannot afford to keep open after 2014, and the same is true of the health clinics. Of the 5.8 million without access to healthcare in Afghanistan, 4.4 million are women.
There is rhetoric. And there is reality. Last year the UK's international development committee found "little evidence" to back up the British government's claims of commitment to promoting the rights of Afghan women. Among projects that receive the current £178m of UK annual aid poured into Afghanistan, only two are earmarked to help women.
The Elimination of Violence Against Women Act was brought into law in 2009, but it is widely ignored by courts, religious leaders have declared it un-Islamic, and in 2012 the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai undermined it by upholding the right of a husband to beat his wife.
Half the female prison population are convicted of "moral crimes" – which include running away from violent husbands, fathers or in-laws. Federal law is universally ignored in the local courts, where nearly 90% of all criminal and civil legal disputes are settled, and where girls are bartered to settle family disputes and a man who kills his wife can expect a fine.
It is estimated the US government put $15m (£9.3m) into supporting the "informal justice" sector last year, entrenching repressive mentality. In April 2011, the Afghan government sought to reintroduce public morality laws, regulation was drafted to impose wedding codes to ensure that brides were modestly dressed, to ban music at weddings and to prevent male and female guests mixing. Shops were to be fined for selling inappropriate wedding clothes.
That caused consternation among the businessmen owners of Kabul's kitsch wedding halls. But Afghan's wealthy are unlikely to be around much longer. In the capital building grit still smothers the air, rising from spades and pickaxes as men work the giant ditches that line the pock-marked, uneven streets, but construction is slowing – many villas remain half-built and building sites deserted. The boom is over, the exodus has started, and property prices are dropping as houses empty of foreign agencies and wealthier Afghans.
Outside Kabul, in Balkh Province where the Taliban is gaining strength, signs of its influence are everywhere. Few women in Mazar-i-Sharif travel without a burqa – last year the religious council of the famous Blue Mosque, one of the few places where women are able to socialise in public, banned women from its weekly meetings.
The women I spoke to in Afghanistan were deeply afraid of the future, and thoroughly exhausted by their precarious lives, in which bombs and rockets still explode. 2014 will bring elections and a powerful network of conservative men; Taliban and warlords are edging into the gap the internationals will leave. And the little clay ovens still cook up women's bread and men's bread in a country expecting their return.
For more on the plight of Afghanistan's women, go to actionaid.org.uk/afghanistan
Visit Pop Up 38, a designer and vintage charity shop set up in aid of the Lapis Lazuli School for Boys & Girls in Kabul at 38 Caledonian Road, London N1 (0796 780 5097;lapislazulischools.org), until mid-February
A mother of two teenage daughters, Fawzia Koofi, 36, has been MP for Badakhshan Province for seven years, and recently announced her intention to stand as a presidential candidate in 2014. Her husband died in a Taliban prison. Her father was killed by mujahaideen during the civil war. The seventh daughter, as a newborn she was left out in the sun to die before her parents relented.
If it hadn't been for the Taliban, Koofi would be a doctor now. "I was studying medicine when the Taliban came in 1996. That was my last day as a student. All of a sudden I was at home. You can see everything from your window, but you can't taste it, you can't touch it. I felt like a dead body."
Today she fears for the security of women in the public eye. "When the opportunity came in 2001, that was the time many of us started thinking of doing greater things, to contribute. We started programmes in health and education. We were told the international community was behind us – it was as if life had begun again after having been buried away in a box for so long.
"But the reality has not been what we were promised. There is lip service paid by the Afghan and US governments – gender projects created – but we can't access budgets.
"A few in this nation have come to the understanding that stopping girls' education halts a family's progress. I'm hopeful we will not go back to scratch. But I also know we will suffer – the main victims of the political games will be women and children."
She believes the women of Afghanistan have become "stronger" and adds: "They know how to use social networks, and if a woman is beaten in the streets then I hope there will be a phone camera and the world will know." But for women activists, "day by day it becomes more difficult. How many women really make their voices heard? I can count them on my fingers. There are 18 committees in our parliament, and I'm the only woman chair.
"When we talk about rights, about the taboos we face, they undermine you. Then they will use all the techniques including commenting – men will comment on your clothes, the way you talk and look, to bring you down.
Dr Qumar Frahmand, 40, is the head of a busy public clinic for women and children in Balkh Province. She sees 35 to 40 patients a day. "The situation has been getting better all the time because of the international NGOs coming in, and access to family planning, and vaccination for children has improved. But we still have a big problem with malnutrition because of poverty and ignorance.
"In the past 10 years, women have started to come out of their houses and see that having fewer children could mean a better life. Before, if a woman didn't have a boy she would keep having babies until she did.
"But will it all slip back? There is so much uncertainty, insecurity and rising unemployment, and the big thing I'm seeing is a rise in domestic violence. Last week a woman who was five months pregnant came here very seriously beaten and the foetus died. She went back to this husband because she has no other opportunity.
"We worry where we will find the money to keep the clinic going when the troops leave, and I cannot think what will happen if these clinic doors have to close. It's too terrible to think about. The security situation is worse for women in the rural areas and if they cannot come here I'm terrified to think how their lives will be."
A large desk puts space between Zarghona Walizada and her visitors. Beneath her chair are two large stones, her second line of defence. "I keep them close to my hands," she says. Her office in a suburb of Kabul – where she runs her own freight firm – is no longer a safe place.
"They came in cars with windows blacked out," she says. "My assistant tried to lock the doors, but these men with scarves around their faces came up the stairs with guns and broke down the door. I sat here behind my desk and stayed calm. I offered them tea, but I had my stones ready.
"They threatened me and demanded why I was not at home. For a long time we argued. They said it was not right for a woman to run a company. I thought they might shoot me, but finally they left. They'll be back."
On the wall is a newspaper cutting, a report of a speech by a UN official citing Walizada as an example of how women are forging ahead in Afghanistan. But Walizada is not the rule – she is the exception. "Women are encouraged by the US and the UN and the UK to make handicrafts, not to make business. The US army has contracts but gives them only to the corrupt politicians."
A widow, she trusts no one but "my driver, my brother and my sister. That is all. I can't worry about what people think. In Afghanistan two people accept me and 20 don't. People say bad things. Even the young boys make threats and throw stones."
She fears troop withdrawal in 2014 will kill the firm she has built. Her truck drivers face increasing threats from bandits, and three have been murdered in as many years. Fuel prices are rising, and those firms with US and UN contracts, which will dry up after the withdrawal, will come looking for the smaller freight contracts, like those she holds. "But I have my son studying in Paris, and at least I have done that – educated my son."
Medical student Maryam Farid, 20, lost her voice after being caught up in a bomb blast aged six and still has a speech impediment. Her father, a university professor, is liberal in allowing his seven daughters to be educated – their mother ran an underground girls' school in their tiny flat during the Taliban rule – but he has chosen her future specialisation, gynaecology, so she will only work among females.
"Is it what I want to do?" asks Farid. "Maybe not. But there is no choice, and I have accepted that." Farid studies hard and looks tired. She shares a laptop with her sisters, but internet access is prohibitively expensive for most young Afghans and the computer is mostly used to play educational CDs.
"The boys my age are the worst – they think we should not be studying," she says. "They say: what is the point, because after 2014 we will have to go back into the home again. They say it is against Islam. I know it is not. I love Islam. I am proud of my religion.
"All the girls are worried – we all think about this issue all the time, that after 2014 there will be no girl students and the women who worked to help other women in society will be killed.
"When I go to classes, only half of my energy is spent on my studies because the other 50% is spent in dealing with harassment from the male students. The teachers do not interfere because they do not want to get involved. You cannot complain to the principal because they say there are not these problems at our university, and I often want to leave. I am so tired of it."
Farid's mother, Shahla, is a former judge and teaches in the faculty of law and political science at Kabul University. She has acted as an advocate for battered women and is writing a book about women's rights in Afghanistan. A fifth of her students are female. She was the first woman from her region, Faryab Province, to study law.
"At that time there were more girls studying than now," she tells me.
"Myself, I am afraid for 2014. I have seven daughters – two are married, five are studying. I fear my youngest two will not get the chance to go to university even though both are best in their class. The youngest, Mahaba, doesn't understand, but my 13-year-old feels hopeless about the situation."
She says that when the foreigners go, Afghan men will fight again. "Our government doesn't think about women. If I had known this would happen I would have taken another path and not have been an activist. So I'm angry. I am afraid for my daughters, who might be kidnapped or punished for the advocacy work I have done.
"Women have started to reduce our activities, because the closer we get to 2014 the laws made to support women are losing their strength. My students who can leave are doing so.
"I've a daughter who begs us every day to leave, but my husband will not. He says we must all love our country."
Raihana Karimi is an engineer, like her husband. "But in this country it is shameful for a man to know a colleague's wife's name, so he could not have me working with him. He is happy now that I work among women."
In 2008 she joined a programme that trained women as paralegals. Now she runs a safe house for women, directly funded by the US embassy in Mazar-i-Sharif. "It's usually girls escaping forced marriage or violence – if they run away they can be arrested and go straight to jail. The effects of war are plain, and women bear the brunt. I talk to families to see if anything can be done to help solve the problems and their girl can return. But often they are very angry – they want to find and burn down the safe house."
Karimi says she now faces "a lot of threats. I know I will not only lose my job but will be the first target after the international community pulls out in 2014. The safe house will close, and although some NGOs say they will stay, everyone is working separately – there is no one aim. Our government is weak.
"I burned my burqa when the Taliban left; I don't want a new one. I beg the US and the UK, do not leave us. Please stay. We are very vulnerable, we are very afraid."
A 28-year-old teacher in a boys' high school in Mazar-i-Sharif, Shekiba Azizi also has three children of her own. She feels that uncertainty is allowing a creeping conservatism to dominate women's lives once again in Afghanistan. "Most of the other teachers now wear a burqa. But I hate it. I cannot see out and it's very claustrophobic. To walk to the bus stop I have to pass some warlords' houses, and they have armed guards who shout at me and harass me, so now I have to take a taxi to work, which is expensive. I even have to carry a burqa in my handbag now – just in case," she says, showing me the blue swathe of nylon fabric in her bag.
"The international community has spent a lot of money in Afghanistan, they say, but I have seen no effect on poor people. Now that they are going, we have the right to know our own future. They have to be clear about what is going to happen to us – they owe us that."
Dr Monisa Sherzada Hassan, 53, answers the communal door to her small apartment block in Kabul. Two small boys in the street stop and gape. Her head is covered but her heels are high and her make-up liberal. "I am a woman, and in my own home I will allow myself to be a woman even if outside I am not allowed," she says, leading the way to her modest living room, where every surface is heavy with welcoming platters of nuts and dried fruits. She escaped the Taliban in 1994, fleeing over the mountains by donkey with her toddler daughter. Her son and daughter are studying medicine in Germany. Hassan returned in 2001, and sits on a government committee set up on the insistence of the Nato coalition to look at peace and reconciliation.
"There are 70 members, and nine are women. The women have just a symbolic presence. By voting they get nothing – committees only have functions to hear, not be heard. For women it's not that they are not tough or capable, but that their position is not equal. I see progress if a man says: 'Hello, how are you?' Otherwise they see a woman and they look over her head.
"The younger women are the most broken and depressed. We try to show them we are with them, but they see no future. They are dependent financially on their families.
"If the US and UK wanted, they could eliminate the Taliban in two days. They brought them and they can get rid of them. Now they are trying to leave Afghanistan isolated.
"I don't understand why the foreign forces would leave now, because they just ensure that the next Afghan crisis will be bigger. Our young people have never lived without bloodshed, and the hunger of youth is a great weapon for fundamentalists.
"When the conservatives come back they will shoot all these women who have been fighting for justice. Any fundamentalist knows the addresses of those who speak out for women's rights. The international community should support and protect these women, but they just think about their own departure. These women think about what will happen when the doors of these embassies are closed in their faces and when nobody at all will think about them.
"I am lucky in that I've got a German passport and can leave when I want, but I would beg the British and the American politicians who promised so much: please make one page in Afghanistan's history a lighter one. Before it's too late."
Afghan Intelligence Chief to Return to Afghanistan 'Soon'
TOLOnews.com Monday, 14 January 2013
Afghanistan's intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital in the US, said his health is improving and he will soon return to Afghanistan.
In a video message broadcast by the Afghan presidential palace office, Khalid said he was recovering from the injuries he received in a suicide bomb attack against him last month.
"I am fine and I am getting better day by day. I am feeling very well and I will return back my county very soon," he said.
On the video, he is seen showing his hands, saying that he is able to move them and the doctors have taken out the rods from of them.
Khalid survived the suicide attack at a National Directorate of Security (NDS) guesthouse in Kabul on December 6, sustaining serious injuries to the lower parts of his body. He was taken to the US for treatment on December 15.
The bomber, who met with Khalid on the pretext of peace talks, carried the bomb in his underwear.
President Hamid Karzai visited Khalid in hospital last week during his three-day official trip to the US.
Karzai appointed Khalid the head of the NDS in September 2012.
Corruption Will Bring Afghanistan to its Knees: Mojaddadi
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Sunday, 13 January 2013
Corruption in Afghanistan will bring the country to its knees if it continues, the former head of the senate told government officials and civil society activists on Sunday at a gathering to address national concerns.
Labeling corruption in Afghanistan as shameful, Sebghatullah Mojaddadi said that the rampant graft may cripple Afghanistan, and suggested that to eradicate it tougher punishments need to be enforced on everyone equally and with no exception.
"The main cause of people's problems is corruption. In our country, there is murder, rape, kidnapping, stealing, and until religious laws are enforced on all – from the President to the ordinary citizen – we will not be out of this problem," he told the gathering in Kabul.
The Minister of Information and Culture Sayd Makhdoom Raheen said that better communication will help resolve the problems discussed at the meeting.
"What we need now is to resolve the country's important issues by communications and talks. We should listen to all opinions here and plan a solution for the issues, and put it into practice," he said.
An official from the Ministry of Defence stated that low capacity and sabotaging of activities were among the main challenges facing security, a topic also addressed at the gathering.
"Lack of capabilities among us is known as a threat. If we don't improve it, and if the lives of our soldiers are at risk every day, we will definitely lose the support from people and the soldiers' families which will cause us not to be triumphant in the battles," said Operational Head of Ministry of National Defence Afzal Aman said.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Sediq Sediqi said, "The intelligence of the neighbouring countries is trying to sabotage the process of police trainings. The neighbouring countries don't want the Afghan police to be trained by the international community."
The current number of military staff in the country is almost 352,000, with about 195,000 in the Afghan National Army and 157,000 in the national police. That is an average of 800 security personnel per district, although they are not distributed evenly across the districts.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
By HEIDI VOGT and AMIR SHAH | Associated Press
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The Afghan president said Monday that a meeting of the nation's elders should convene to decide whether U.S. troops staying in the country after 2014 would be immune from prosecution under Afghan law.
President Hamid Karzai's remarks were his first since returning from Washington, where he met last week with President Barack Obama about the future of the alliance between the two countries.
This was also the first time Karzai has floated the idea that Afghans should hold a "loya jirga" — a national assembly of elders — to make the decision on U.S. troop immunity.
The United States has said that it needs to maintain sole legal jurisdiction over its forces in Afghanistan as part of the agreement for forces that will stay after 2014. In Iraq, it was the Iraqi government's refusal to grant such jurisdiction that caused U.S. troops to completely quit that country.
"We want our national sovereignty and the Americans want the safety of their soldiers," Karzai said in Kabul. "They don't want their soldiers to be under the laws of another country."
Karzai appeared to be trying to strike a conciliatory note, in sharp contrast to the harsh rhetoric and demands ahead of his U.S. trip.
However, he stressed that the issue of U.S. troop immunity was not up to his administration to decide.
"The Afghan government cannot make that decision. It is the decision of the people of Afghanistan. So a loya jirga of the people of Afghanistan should decide," he said.
Loya jirgas have traditionally been used in the country to make major decisions. The last such meeting occurred in November 2011, when Karzai called elders together to discuss whether they should enter into negotiations with the U.S. about a long-term partnership agreement.
Karzai's tone throughout his speech was solicitous of the United States.
He said his talks with Obama were "very calm" and that the two leaders did not argue. He also said that his delegation received a warm welcome in Washington and told the Afghan people that they should be thankful for the help provided by the United States.
It was a departure from the rhetoric that characterized many of his speeches to the Afghan nation over the last year — in which he regularly demanded new rules for his U.S. allies and accused them of trying to occupy his country.
It may have been a sign that statements from the U.S. administration about the possibility of pulling all troops out of Afghanistan in 2014 had caused Karzai to soften his tone. However, it may also indicate that Karzai came out of the meetings in Washington with a sense that his concerns were finally being addressed.
He stressed Monday that the U.S. agreed to his key demands that Afghan sovereignty will be respected and that U.S. troops will stay out of Afghan villages. He did not provide details on how the U.S. and Afghan forces would navigate this pact, but said that U.S. troops that stay after 2014 should be advising and training the Afghans.
Karzai also said Monday that he expected the U.S. to restart the process of transferring Afghan detainees to Afghan custody — another key issue for Karzai — within two weeks.
But he also stressed that the agreement on U.S. security forces going forward will be something that will still take much discussion.
"The United States wants to sign it soon, but the Afghans want to go more carefully," Karzai explained.
Karzai confident he can get U.S. troops immunity
CNN By Samuel Burke January 12th, 2013
In the only interview that President Hamid Karzai granted while he was in the United States, he expressed confidence to CNN’s Christiane Amanpour that the Afghan people will accept the United States’ demand for immunity for American troops left in place there after the 2014 withdrawal.
In a joint press conference with President Obama on Friday, Karzai had stated that he would take the issue to his people, but now he has said that immunity is likely to become a reality.
“I can tell you with relatively good confidence that they will say ‘alright, let’s do it,” Karzai told Amanpour about selling the issue to Afghans. “And I’m sure that they will understand.”
At the press conference, President Obama said that he had stressed to Karzai that “the United States already has arrangements like this with countries all around the world, and nowhere does the U.S. have any kind of security agreement with a country without immunity for our troops.”
In the final stages of the U.S. intervention in Iraq, President Obama was unable to obtain a similar agreement, propelling him to withdraw all U.S. forces from that country in December 2011.
Karzai rejected the notion that has been floated that the U.S. might leave “zero troops” in Afghanistan after the pullout is completed at the end of 2014.
He told Amanpour that Afghans need some type of U.S. presence for “broader security and stability” after the withdrawal. For that reason, Karzai believes Afghans will have to grant the U.S. troops left there immunity.
“The United States will need to have a limited number of forces in Afghanistan,” he said, but was unwilling to give an exact number. “That’s not for us to decide. It is for the United States to decide what number of troops they will be keeping in Afghanistan and what strength of equipment those troops will have.”
Karzai said that Afghanistan has turned the corner in terms of battling the Taliban. He does not believe those Islamic fundamentalists will ever regain the strength to enforce their radical agenda again – the closing of girls’ schools and subjugation of women.
“Having experienced the growth of Afghanistan – the creation of a critical mass in Afghanistan that is necessary for turning the corner from bad towards better – I think we have turned the corner,” he said. “I think there is now a critical mass in Afghanistan of the educated – of the Afghan people who want a future of progress and stability. And I think, also, that the Taliban have recognized the corner has been turned – the majority of them.”
Karzai: Afghanistan will be 'more secure' following US troop withdrawal
January 14, 2013
KABUL (Reuters) - A decision on immunity for U.S. troops staying in Afghanistan after the 2014 planned withdrawal will be made by the end of the year, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said on Monday.
"The issue of immunity is under discussion (and) it is going to take eight to nine months before we reach agreement," Karzai told a news conference in the capital, Kabul, after returning from meetings with U.S. President Barack Obama in Washington.
The Afghan government rejected an initial U.S. proposal regarding the question of immunity and a second round of negotiations will take place this year in Kabul, he said.
Those negotiations could involve Afghanistan's Loya Jirga, a "grand assembly" of political and community leaders convened for issues of national importance, he added.
When asked if security would deteriorate in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of the NATO-led force, Karzai replied: "By no means... Afghanistan will be more secure and a better place."
The Obama administration has been considering a residual force of between 3,000 and 9,000 troops in Afghanistan to conduct counterterrorism operations while providing training and assistance for Afghan forces. But the administration said last week it did not rule out a complete withdrawal after 2014.
The United States is insisting on immunity from prosecution for any U.S. troops that remain.
(Reporting By Hamid Shalizi, writing by Amie Ferris-Rotman and Dylan Welch; Editng by Robert Birsel)
US Confident of Troop Immunity in Afghanistan: Ambassador
TOLOnews.com By Rezwan Natiq Sunday, 13 January 2013
The US government is confident that it will reach an agreement on the legal jurisdiction of its troops in Afghanistan with the Afghan government, US Ambassador to Afghanistan said Saturday.
In an exclusive interview with TOLOnews, James Cunningham said that US forces and those from other countries have impunity in any country they operate and they seek the same from Afghanistan.
"I am perfectly confident that we will sort out the jurisdiction issues. As the [US] president said, this is something that we do with every one of our security partners. And indeed all of our allies as well, when they have forces stationed outside their territory, have similar agreements," Cunningham said.
He also added that it is the choice of the Afghan people and government as to whether they want a long-term security pact with the US.
"That's a matter for a sovereign Afghanistan - for a sovereign government and sovereign people - to decide if they want that relationship. We fully acknowledge that our ongoing role will be at the request of the Afghan government and the Afghan people and we will pursue that looking for that at the end of 2014," Cunningham said, adding that plans are for a limited number of US force will continue their engagement to train, equip and assist the Afghan security forces.
He said he is optimistic Afghans will broadly accept the agreement.
"Part of the core purpose of President Karzai's visit and the discussion between our presidents was to discuss that future relationship and what the goals of it would be and how we would carry it out," he said.
He is also confident that the US and Afghanistan will sign the agreement in the near future, but declined to provide a specific timeframe saying that it's impossible to anticipate an exact time.
The US envoy said it would be regrettable if the security pact was not accepted because it is likely to help Afghans reach an agreement with the Taliban.
"My response is that would be regrettable. That's an option providing nowhere to go in terms of ending the conflict in Afghanistan and bringing about peace and reconciliation," he said. "We have very clear that our hope and our goal is to help promote that conversation between the government and the Taliban and to help support a dialogue among the Afghans that will lead to genuine peace and reconciliation."
Cunningham also commented that the proposed Taliban office in Qatar is merely a point of liaison for negotiations.
"The office in Qatar which our presidents have agreed to try to be a place for Afghans to discuss peace, is just a location where we hope that a discussion about peace in future of Afghanistan between the government and Taliban can take place. We have been trying to encourage this for quite a while now," he said, adding that negotiation is the only way to bring real peace and stability to Afghanistan.
News Analysis: Karzai's U.S. visit paves way for U.S.-Afghan security pact
by Abdul Haleem
KABUL, Jan. 14 (Xinhua) -- The recently concluded three-day official visit of Afghan President Hamid Karzai to Washington has paved the way for the signing of the controversial security pact between the United States and Afghanistan, according to political observers here.
During his U.S. tour that ended Friday, Karzai's first during the year, no security pact was signed contrary to expectations here.
U.S. President Barack Obama, however, reassured Karzai of the U. S. long-term cooperation with Afghanistan.
Afghan political observers have described the U.S. visit as very significant in terms of maintaining cordial relations between the two countries.
"It was a very important visit during which both governments removed misunderstanding over some contentious issues related to the security pact," said Ahmad Zia Rafat, a political analyst and professor of the Kabul University.
According to Rafat, during their talks in Washington, D.C. the Obama administration agreed to hand over Bagram prison to Afghans and allowed the Afghan government to lead peace talks with the Taliban in Qatar as part of facilitating the signing of security pact.
However, Rafat said, there are still major issues to be resolved, such as the number of U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan after 2014, the U.S. military bases that they would keep, the sovereignty within the bases, and the annual economic support for Afghanistan. "These issues require more discussions by the two sides before any security agreement is signed," Rafat said.
At the end of Karzai's visit, President Obama reiterated the U. S. commitment to support Afghan stability by strengthening Afghanistan's economic foundations and supporting Afghan reforms so that the embattled country could achieve sustainable development and self-sufficiency.
A joint statement released after the Karzai-Obama meeting said: "As we further develop the U.S.-Afghanistan partnership, the United States and Afghanistan look forward to expanded cooperation under the auspices of the U.S.-Afghanistan Bilateral Commission, through 2014 and beyond. President Obama and President Karzai committed to conclude the Bilateral Security Agreement as soon as possible; reaffirming that such an agreement is in both countries' interest."
According to the joint statement, both leaders also discussed the possibility of a post-2014 U.S. presence that is sustainable, that supports a capable and effective Afghan National Security Force, and that continues to pressure the remnants of al-Qa'ida and its affiliates.
"The Afghan president, during his meeting with U.S. leaders including the President, Defense Secretary and Secretary of State received assurances that U.S. administration will continue to stand alongside Afghanistan," said another political observer and Kabul University professor Faizullah Jalal.
Jalal said such assurances are significant for the future of Afghanistan particularly after the 2014 withdrawal of NATO-led troops from the country.
Analysts said the issue of immunity from prosecution of American soldiers stationed in U.S. bases would continue to be a ticklish matter that the two sides would have to address.
Some legislators, particularly those from the opposition, have warned that giving immunity from suits to American servicemen while they are in active duty would not sit well with the Afghan people.
But the Afghan government with poorly equipped security forces would not be able to overcome the security challenges in the absence of a security pact with Washington and the continued assistance from the United States and the international community.
Wahid Omar, former spokesman of Afghan Presidential Palace, said in a recent television panel discussion that the "U.S.troops will not totally withdraw and judicial immunity will be granted at last within the next one year."
US vows $1 billion in annual aid to Afghanistan: Zakhilwal
By Sajad - January 14 2013, 1:52 pm Khaama Press
The United States of America has vowed to provide $800 million to $1 billion in annual aid to Afghan government, Afghan finance minister Hazrat Omer Zakhilwal on Sunday said.
He was speaking during the cabinet meeting led by Afghan Hamid Karzai and said the United States has vowed to provide the funds to the Afghan government which was previously spent in Afghanistan through private contracts.
Mr. Zakhilwal said that Washington has agreed to implement the US funded projects through the Afghan government and contractors.
This comes as the Afghan government accused the west of fuelling corruption and waste in the way it spends money in Afghanistan. The finance minister, Omar Zakhilwal has been pushing for more money to be put straight through the government budget to be spent by ministries like education and health, rather than channelled through foreign aid organisations.
“We believe that the way the US money is spent here, there’s a lot of waste, particularly money spent through contractors and outside sources,” Zakhilwal told the Wall Street Journal before the US visit. Much of the aid cash flowed back to the US through “big consultant salaries and overheads”, he added.
The U.S. has spent around $22.34 billion on governance and development in Afghanistan since it invaded the country following the Sept. 11 attacks, much of that on projects to build roads, schools, power plants and irrigation systems. In the past two years alone, $800 million was earmarked for infrastructure projects.
McChrystal: I regret not finishing the job in Afghanistan
January 13, 2013
(CBS News) Amid news that the White House is pushing for a full withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan, retired Army Gen. Stanley McChrystal said today on "Face the Nation" he regrets that he didn't get to finish the job there.
"I have regrets that some of the things I was responsible for, I didn't finish," he said, referring to his forced resignation in 2010 over a Rolling Stone article that quoted members of his team making disparaging remarks about President Obama. "I didn't finish the job in Afghanistan. I let down a lot of people that worked for me, 150,000 troops worked for me, the Afghan people, many of them believed deeply in me."
McChrystal said he doesn't believe the Rolling Stone piece "was particularly accurate in the way it represented my team but, you know, I was in command. And the simple elegance of command is, you assume responsibility." In his new book, "My Share of the Task," he said he chose not to devote time pointing fingers over the incident because "I'm not sure Washington needs another book like that."
Though he wouldn't comment on how many U.S. troops - if any - should remain in Afghanistan, McChrystal said while Afghan forces are "improving," they've "got a long way to go."
"When I got [to Afghanistan] in 2002, the country was physically devastated, and morally and mentally traumatized. The society was in tatters," he said. "There's been an awful lot of... progress, but Afghanistan is hard. It's always hard. If you study their history, it's complex and difficult. [Now] there are females in school, there are opportunities, there are places that are secure that were not secure just a few years ago.
"...My question on the future is what do we want in the region; this is not just a case of, al Qaeda was in Afghanistan, and now they largely are not," McChyrstal continued. "I believe Afghanistan can be stable. I think they must take responsibility for their security, the vast lion's share, but I think the strategic partnership that President Obama offered to President Karzai is critical. Not just physically. It's not how many troops and how much money, it's the idea in the minds of Afghans that they have a reliable partner."
As for former Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb., who will face immediate decisions about troop levels in the region if he is confirmed as Defense Secretary Leon Panetta's replacement, McChyrstal said while he's only met him once, "I certainly have no problem with him."
Hagel, a Vietnam War veteran, "certainly has a great record, not just as a soldier, but as a senator," he said.
We don't want our burqas back: women in Afghanistan on the Taliban's return
When the troops withdraw from Afghanistan next year, many fear a terrible backlash. Tracy McVeigh meets seven women who rebuilt their lives after Taliban oppression – and finds them at risk once more
The Observer By Tracy McVeigh Sunday 13 January 2013
Pre-dawn in Kabul. In each dark street a short line of giant lightbulbs switch on, red, green and white, marking bakeries where warm slabs of golden flatbread are handed through open shop-front windows to sleepy little boys in white tunics and to men with blankets round their shoulders picking up lunch on their way to work.
"This is man's bread," says Hamil Fareed, a young baker. "Women's bread," he explains, is different, the dough kneaded at home by mothers and cooked out of sight at the back in the clay ovens and returned to the family.
The segregation of Kabul's daily bread is not a cultural tradition, but started under the Taliban in the 1990s. Faced with a half-starved city of war widows barred from working, studying or leaving their homes, someone began a clandestine communal fire pit where women could bake flatbread for their children and earn a few coins by selling them on. The UN, impotent in quelling the vicious war, encouraged more such schemes and, when the Taliban soldiers who roamed the streets seemed to tolerate figures in burqas creeping out to little backstreet bakeries, heralded it as a "step forward" in women's rights.
The international community said the fall of the Taliban in 2001 would bring in a new era of rights. Afghanistan's women and girls would be returned to schools and workplaces and freed from the infamously fierce restrictions on their lives. It was a key political justification used by the British and Americans for their continued presence. That year US secretary of state Colin Powell declared that restoring women's human rights would "not be negotiable". Prime minister Tony Blair promised: "The conflict will not be the end. We will not walk away, as the outside world has done so many times before." Now, with the withdrawal of international forces and their caravan of international agencies, consultants and contractors looming in 2014, there is evidence that Afghan women have seen very few of the promised changes and are terrified of the future.
The outside world has used Afghanistan as a pawn in its geopolitical "great games" since the 19th century and ensnared it in a labyrinth of strategic and economic interests. Since 2001 the country has received some £60bn of aid; there have been tangible improvements in education, maternal mortality, employment, and the representation of women in governance. But there are signs that those gains are too fragile to survive the international community's departure.
A 2012 survey of women across Afghanistan by the charity ActionAid found that nine out of 10 feared the departure of the international community, believing that their lives will significantly deteriorate. And violence against women has never been higher: 87% of women report domestic abuse.
The return of 2.2 million girls to school after 2001 was considered the international community's great triumph, but in the past few years schools have been closing behind the departing backs of phased-out foreign forces. There have been reports of schoolgirls poisoned and beaten, headteachers assassinated and classrooms firebombed. The majority of girls don't stay on after fifth grade and nine out of 10 15-year-old girls are illiterate. Some girls are enrolled in schools but never go.
The British and other forces have built dozens of rural schools which the Afghan government cannot afford to keep open after 2014, and the same is true of the health clinics. Of the 5.8 million without access to healthcare in Afghanistan, 4.4 million are women.
There is rhetoric. And there is reality. Last year the UK's international development committee found "little evidence" to back up the British government's claims of commitment to promoting the rights of Afghan women. Among projects that receive the current £178m of UK annual aid poured into Afghanistan, only two are earmarked to help women.
The Elimination of Violence Against Women Act was brought into law in 2009, but it is widely ignored by courts, religious leaders have declared it un-Islamic, and in 2012 the US-backed government of President Hamid Karzai undermined it by upholding the right of a husband to beat his wife.
Half the female prison population are convicted of "moral crimes" – which include running away from violent husbands, fathers or in-laws. Federal law is universally ignored in the local courts, where nearly 90% of all criminal and civil legal disputes are settled, and where girls are bartered to settle family disputes and a man who kills his wife can expect a fine.
It is estimated the US government put $15m (£9.3m) into supporting the "informal justice" sector last year, entrenching repressive mentality. In April 2011, the Afghan government sought to reintroduce public morality laws, regulation was drafted to impose wedding codes to ensure that brides were modestly dressed, to ban music at weddings and to prevent male and female guests mixing. Shops were to be fined for selling inappropriate wedding clothes.
That caused consternation among the businessmen owners of Kabul's kitsch wedding halls. But Afghan's wealthy are unlikely to be around much longer. In the capital building grit still smothers the air, rising from spades and pickaxes as men work the giant ditches that line the pock-marked, uneven streets, but construction is slowing – many villas remain half-built and building sites deserted. The boom is over, the exodus has started, and property prices are dropping as houses empty of foreign agencies and wealthier Afghans.
Outside Kabul, in Balkh Province where the Taliban is gaining strength, signs of its influence are everywhere. Few women in Mazar-i-Sharif travel without a burqa – last year the religious council of the famous Blue Mosque, one of the few places where women are able to socialise in public, banned women from its weekly meetings.
The women I spoke to in Afghanistan were deeply afraid of the future, and thoroughly exhausted by their precarious lives, in which bombs and rockets still explode. 2014 will bring elections and a powerful network of conservative men; Taliban and warlords are edging into the gap the internationals will leave. And the little clay ovens still cook up women's bread and men's bread in a country expecting their return.
For more on the plight of Afghanistan's women, go to actionaid.org.uk/afghanistan
Visit Pop Up 38, a designer and vintage charity shop set up in aid of the Lapis Lazuli School for Boys & Girls in Kabul at 38 Caledonian Road, London N1 (0796 780 5097;lapislazulischools.org), until mid-February
A mother of two teenage daughters, Fawzia Koofi, 36, has been MP for Badakhshan Province for seven years, and recently announced her intention to stand as a presidential candidate in 2014. Her husband died in a Taliban prison. Her father was killed by mujahaideen during the civil war. The seventh daughter, as a newborn she was left out in the sun to die before her parents relented.
If it hadn't been for the Taliban, Koofi would be a doctor now. "I was studying medicine when the Taliban came in 1996. That was my last day as a student. All of a sudden I was at home. You can see everything from your window, but you can't taste it, you can't touch it. I felt like a dead body."
Today she fears for the security of women in the public eye. "When the opportunity came in 2001, that was the time many of us started thinking of doing greater things, to contribute. We started programmes in health and education. We were told the international community was behind us – it was as if life had begun again after having been buried away in a box for so long.
"But the reality has not been what we were promised. There is lip service paid by the Afghan and US governments – gender projects created – but we can't access budgets.
"A few in this nation have come to the understanding that stopping girls' education halts a family's progress. I'm hopeful we will not go back to scratch. But I also know we will suffer – the main victims of the political games will be women and children."
She believes the women of Afghanistan have become "stronger" and adds: "They know how to use social networks, and if a woman is beaten in the streets then I hope there will be a phone camera and the world will know." But for women activists, "day by day it becomes more difficult. How many women really make their voices heard? I can count them on my fingers. There are 18 committees in our parliament, and I'm the only woman chair.
"When we talk about rights, about the taboos we face, they undermine you. Then they will use all the techniques including commenting – men will comment on your clothes, the way you talk and look, to bring you down.
Dr Qumar Frahmand, 40, is the head of a busy public clinic for women and children in Balkh Province. She sees 35 to 40 patients a day. "The situation has been getting better all the time because of the international NGOs coming in, and access to family planning, and vaccination for children has improved. But we still have a big problem with malnutrition because of poverty and ignorance.
"In the past 10 years, women have started to come out of their houses and see that having fewer children could mean a better life. Before, if a woman didn't have a boy she would keep having babies until she did.
"But will it all slip back? There is so much uncertainty, insecurity and rising unemployment, and the big thing I'm seeing is a rise in domestic violence. Last week a woman who was five months pregnant came here very seriously beaten and the foetus died. She went back to this husband because she has no other opportunity.
"We worry where we will find the money to keep the clinic going when the troops leave, and I cannot think what will happen if these clinic doors have to close. It's too terrible to think about. The security situation is worse for women in the rural areas and if they cannot come here I'm terrified to think how their lives will be."
A large desk puts space between Zarghona Walizada and her visitors. Beneath her chair are two large stones, her second line of defence. "I keep them close to my hands," she says. Her office in a suburb of Kabul – where she runs her own freight firm – is no longer a safe place.
"They came in cars with windows blacked out," she says. "My assistant tried to lock the doors, but these men with scarves around their faces came up the stairs with guns and broke down the door. I sat here behind my desk and stayed calm. I offered them tea, but I had my stones ready.
"They threatened me and demanded why I was not at home. For a long time we argued. They said it was not right for a woman to run a company. I thought they might shoot me, but finally they left. They'll be back."
On the wall is a newspaper cutting, a report of a speech by a UN official citing Walizada as an example of how women are forging ahead in Afghanistan. But Walizada is not the rule – she is the exception. "Women are encouraged by the US and the UN and the UK to make handicrafts, not to make business. The US army has contracts but gives them only to the corrupt politicians."
A widow, she trusts no one but "my driver, my brother and my sister. That is all. I can't worry about what people think. In Afghanistan two people accept me and 20 don't. People say bad things. Even the young boys make threats and throw stones."
She fears troop withdrawal in 2014 will kill the firm she has built. Her truck drivers face increasing threats from bandits, and three have been murdered in as many years. Fuel prices are rising, and those firms with US and UN contracts, which will dry up after the withdrawal, will come looking for the smaller freight contracts, like those she holds. "But I have my son studying in Paris, and at least I have done that – educated my son."
Medical student Maryam Farid, 20, lost her voice after being caught up in a bomb blast aged six and still has a speech impediment. Her father, a university professor, is liberal in allowing his seven daughters to be educated – their mother ran an underground girls' school in their tiny flat during the Taliban rule – but he has chosen her future specialisation, gynaecology, so she will only work among females.
"Is it what I want to do?" asks Farid. "Maybe not. But there is no choice, and I have accepted that." Farid studies hard and looks tired. She shares a laptop with her sisters, but internet access is prohibitively expensive for most young Afghans and the computer is mostly used to play educational CDs.
"The boys my age are the worst – they think we should not be studying," she says. "They say: what is the point, because after 2014 we will have to go back into the home again. They say it is against Islam. I know it is not. I love Islam. I am proud of my religion.
"All the girls are worried – we all think about this issue all the time, that after 2014 there will be no girl students and the women who worked to help other women in society will be killed.
"When I go to classes, only half of my energy is spent on my studies because the other 50% is spent in dealing with harassment from the male students. The teachers do not interfere because they do not want to get involved. You cannot complain to the principal because they say there are not these problems at our university, and I often want to leave. I am so tired of it."
Farid's mother, Shahla, is a former judge and teaches in the faculty of law and political science at Kabul University. She has acted as an advocate for battered women and is writing a book about women's rights in Afghanistan. A fifth of her students are female. She was the first woman from her region, Faryab Province, to study law.
"At that time there were more girls studying than now," she tells me.
"Myself, I am afraid for 2014. I have seven daughters – two are married, five are studying. I fear my youngest two will not get the chance to go to university even though both are best in their class. The youngest, Mahaba, doesn't understand, but my 13-year-old feels hopeless about the situation."
She says that when the foreigners go, Afghan men will fight again. "Our government doesn't think about women. If I had known this would happen I would have taken another path and not have been an activist. So I'm angry. I am afraid for my daughters, who might be kidnapped or punished for the advocacy work I have done.
"Women have started to reduce our activities, because the closer we get to 2014 the laws made to support women are losing their strength. My students who can leave are doing so.
"I've a daughter who begs us every day to leave, but my husband will not. He says we must all love our country."
Raihana Karimi is an engineer, like her husband. "But in this country it is shameful for a man to know a colleague's wife's name, so he could not have me working with him. He is happy now that I work among women."
In 2008 she joined a programme that trained women as paralegals. Now she runs a safe house for women, directly funded by the US embassy in Mazar-i-Sharif. "It's usually girls escaping forced marriage or violence – if they run away they can be arrested and go straight to jail. The effects of war are plain, and women bear the brunt. I talk to families to see if anything can be done to help solve the problems and their girl can return. But often they are very angry – they want to find and burn down the safe house."
Karimi says she now faces "a lot of threats. I know I will not only lose my job but will be the first target after the international community pulls out in 2014. The safe house will close, and although some NGOs say they will stay, everyone is working separately – there is no one aim. Our government is weak.
"I burned my burqa when the Taliban left; I don't want a new one. I beg the US and the UK, do not leave us. Please stay. We are very vulnerable, we are very afraid."
A 28-year-old teacher in a boys' high school in Mazar-i-Sharif, Shekiba Azizi also has three children of her own. She feels that uncertainty is allowing a creeping conservatism to dominate women's lives once again in Afghanistan. "Most of the other teachers now wear a burqa. But I hate it. I cannot see out and it's very claustrophobic. To walk to the bus stop I have to pass some warlords' houses, and they have armed guards who shout at me and harass me, so now I have to take a taxi to work, which is expensive. I even have to carry a burqa in my handbag now – just in case," she says, showing me the blue swathe of nylon fabric in her bag.
"The international community has spent a lot of money in Afghanistan, they say, but I have seen no effect on poor people. Now that they are going, we have the right to know our own future. They have to be clear about what is going to happen to us – they owe us that."
Dr Monisa Sherzada Hassan, 53, answers the communal door to her small apartment block in Kabul. Two small boys in the street stop and gape. Her head is covered but her heels are high and her make-up liberal. "I am a woman, and in my own home I will allow myself to be a woman even if outside I am not allowed," she says, leading the way to her modest living room, where every surface is heavy with welcoming platters of nuts and dried fruits. She escaped the Taliban in 1994, fleeing over the mountains by donkey with her toddler daughter. Her son and daughter are studying medicine in Germany. Hassan returned in 2001, and sits on a government committee set up on the insistence of the Nato coalition to look at peace and reconciliation.
"There are 70 members, and nine are women. The women have just a symbolic presence. By voting they get nothing – committees only have functions to hear, not be heard. For women it's not that they are not tough or capable, but that their position is not equal. I see progress if a man says: 'Hello, how are you?' Otherwise they see a woman and they look over her head.
"The younger women are the most broken and depressed. We try to show them we are with them, but they see no future. They are dependent financially on their families.
"If the US and UK wanted, they could eliminate the Taliban in two days. They brought them and they can get rid of them. Now they are trying to leave Afghanistan isolated.
"I don't understand why the foreign forces would leave now, because they just ensure that the next Afghan crisis will be bigger. Our young people have never lived without bloodshed, and the hunger of youth is a great weapon for fundamentalists.
"When the conservatives come back they will shoot all these women who have been fighting for justice. Any fundamentalist knows the addresses of those who speak out for women's rights. The international community should support and protect these women, but they just think about their own departure. These women think about what will happen when the doors of these embassies are closed in their faces and when nobody at all will think about them.
"I am lucky in that I've got a German passport and can leave when I want, but I would beg the British and the American politicians who promised so much: please make one page in Afghanistan's history a lighter one. Before it's too late."
Afghan Intelligence Chief to Return to Afghanistan 'Soon'
TOLOnews.com Monday, 14 January 2013
Afghanistan's intelligence chief Asadullah Khalid, who is undergoing treatment at a hospital in the US, said his health is improving and he will soon return to Afghanistan.
In a video message broadcast by the Afghan presidential palace office, Khalid said he was recovering from the injuries he received in a suicide bomb attack against him last month.
"I am fine and I am getting better day by day. I am feeling very well and I will return back my county very soon," he said.
On the video, he is seen showing his hands, saying that he is able to move them and the doctors have taken out the rods from of them.
Khalid survived the suicide attack at a National Directorate of Security (NDS) guesthouse in Kabul on December 6, sustaining serious injuries to the lower parts of his body. He was taken to the US for treatment on December 15.
The bomber, who met with Khalid on the pretext of peace talks, carried the bomb in his underwear.
President Hamid Karzai visited Khalid in hospital last week during his three-day official trip to the US.
Karzai appointed Khalid the head of the NDS in September 2012.
Corruption Will Bring Afghanistan to its Knees: Mojaddadi
TOLOnews.com By Haseeb Maudoodi Sunday, 13 January 2013
Corruption in Afghanistan will bring the country to its knees if it continues, the former head of the senate told government officials and civil society activists on Sunday at a gathering to address national concerns.
Labeling corruption in Afghanistan as shameful, Sebghatullah Mojaddadi said that the rampant graft may cripple Afghanistan, and suggested that to eradicate it tougher punishments need to be enforced on everyone equally and with no exception.
"The main cause of people's problems is corruption. In our country, there is murder, rape, kidnapping, stealing, and until religious laws are enforced on all – from the President to the ordinary citizen – we will not be out of this problem," he told the gathering in Kabul.
The Minister of Information and Culture Sayd Makhdoom Raheen said that better communication will help resolve the problems discussed at the meeting.
"What we need now is to resolve the country's important issues by communications and talks. We should listen to all opinions here and plan a solution for the issues, and put it into practice," he said.
An official from the Ministry of Defence stated that low capacity and sabotaging of activities were among the main challenges facing security, a topic also addressed at the gathering.
"Lack of capabilities among us is known as a threat. If we don't improve it, and if the lives of our soldiers are at risk every day, we will definitely lose the support from people and the soldiers' families which will cause us not to be triumphant in the battles," said Operational Head of Ministry of National Defence Afzal Aman said.
Ministry of Interior spokesman Sediq Sediqi said, "The intelligence of the neighbouring countries is trying to sabotage the process of police trainings. The neighbouring countries don't want the Afghan police to be trained by the international community."
The current number of military staff in the country is almost 352,000, with about 195,000 in the Afghan National Army and 157,000 in the national police. That is an average of 800 security personnel per district, although they are not distributed evenly across the districts.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com