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Obama, Karzai Hold Telephone Talk
April 10, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The White House says the security transition in Afghanistan was discussed during a phone call between U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The call April 9 came after Karzai two days previously condemned a NATO air strike in Kunar Province that Afghan officials said killed 11 children.
A White House statement said Obama and Karzai discussed progress in the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces as NATO-led combat troops move toward withdrawing from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
According to the statement, Obama and Karzai also discussed preparations for Afghanistan's 2014 elections.
It said Obama also welcomed Karzai's recent talks with the emir of Qatar on the possibility that the Taliban could open an office in the Persian Gulf state to facilitate Afghan reconciliation talks.
Based on reporting by AP and AFP
Karzai Assures Obama: 2014 Afghan Vote Will Be Inclusive
Bloomberg By Michael Shepard April 10, 2013
Afghan President Hamid Karzai affirmed his support for fair and inclusive elections in his country next year during a phone call today with U.S. President Barack Obama, according to a White House statement.
The two leaders also discussed progress in transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces from the U.S.-led coalition, according to the statement. Obama and Karzai are looking forward to the point later this year when Afghan personnel will take a leading role and the coalition’s mission will shift to support from combat, the White House said.
Tensions with Karzai had intensified in recent months, with the Afghan president saying on March 10, during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, that Taliban suicide attacks were in the “service of America.” Secretary of State John Kerry, during meetings in Kabul two weeks later, played down those strains and voiced confidence that the two nations would reach an agreement for some U.S. forces to remain after 2014.
Obama has pledged to bring most U.S. troops home from Afghanistan by the end of next year, though he hasn’t said how many would remain. During today’s call, Obama welcomed Karzai’s meetings last month with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, to advance peace talks with the Taliban.
Karzai credited the U.S. handover last month of the Parwan detention facility outside Kabul, according to the statement. The two leaders agreed that officials from the U.S. and Afghanistan would strive to “keep dangerous detainees off the battlefield, and work in partnership at the facility, consistent with Afghan sovereignty,” according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Shepard in Washington atmshepard7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott atjwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Political Leaders Boycott Karzai's Plan to Appoint IEC Chief
TOLOnews By Abdul Wali Arian 09 April 2013
Leading political figures and two government ministers on Tuesday boycotted a meeting convened by President Hamid Karzai which aimed to appoint the new head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC).
The boycott was a deliberate protest against the president's attempt to be directly involved in appointing the current chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi's replacement.
A statement from the presidential palace said Karzai had chaired the meeting "in a bid to appoint a successor" to the current head of the IEC whose term is ending soon.
The palace said it had invited "Jihadi leaders, vice-presidents, heads of the two Houses of Parliament, Representatives of Civil Society, leaders of political parties and the opposition as well as other prominent figures" to attend.
Those who were invited but who did not attend include minister of economy Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, minister of commerce Anwarul Haq Ahady, Jihadi leaders Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf and Sheikh Mohammad Asef Mohseni, head of the National Coalition Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, head of National Front Ahmad Zia Massoud, member of National Coalition and MP Mohammad Yunus Qanuni, member of National Front and MP Mohammad Mohaqiq, member of Right and Justice Hanif Atmar, spokesman for National Front and member of Junbish-i-Mlli Faizullah Zaki, former foreign minister during the Taliban regime Wakil Ahmad Motewakkel and powerbroker Sayed Mohammad Golabzoi.
The meeting concluded without choosing the new IEC chief after those present said the appointment should only follow the approval of the election law, which is still pending.
"Following discussions on the electoral process and the appointment of a new IEC head, it was decided by the meeting to make the new appointment according to the law after the National Assembly approves the draft election law and draft law on the IEC Structure and Mandate," the presidential statement said.
Meanwhile, the Cooperation Council of Political Parties and Coalitions held its own meeting where those present claimed Karzai's attempt to appoint the IEC chief contravened Afghanistan's laws and was in contradiction with democratic norms and values.
"We don't believe the president as he doesn't put into practice his assurances [of democracy]," said Abbasin Noyan, member of Right and Justice Party.
The council warned that the president is seeking to elect the IEC chief based on his own personal preferences, an act which may negatively impact the transparency and fairness of the elections.
"We could not have transparent, fair, and inclusive elections if the president selects the chief and the commissioners of the Independent Election Commission," said Fazlurrahman Oria, member of National Coalition.
The council said that it will not accept any IEC chief who is not appointed democratically.
Their demand echoes calls from the United Nations that recently emphasised the importance of electing an IEC leader who is impartial and trustworthy in the lead-up to the presidential poll on April 5, 2014.
The current IEC chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi is expected to be appointed by Karzai to the position of Chief Justice after his term ends.
British lawmakers insist on Afghan-led peace talks with Taliban
By SADAF SHINWARI - 10 Apr 2013, 9:56 am Khaama Press
A group of British lawmakers following a report insisted on Afghan-led peace deal with the Taliban group in a bid to secure the future of Afghanistan following British troops withdrawal.
The lawmakers also warned that failure to do so could lead to civil war in Afghanistan.
Lawmakers in United Kingdom’s defense select commit also added that UK had a responsibility to use its influence to “make Afghanistan work” after 2014.
This comes as British defense secretary on Tuesday announced that the last group of Royal Marine commando unit will leave Afghanistan as part of the British troops planned withdrawal from the country.
Defense secretary Philip Hammon also said that UK would help Afghans to reach “a sustainable political settlement”.
In the meantime British lawmakers report focused on the planned withdrawal of UK combat troops at the end of 2014 and the transfer of responsibilities to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The lawmakers in their report also insisted on an open and free elections and on appropriate training and equipment of Afghan security forces with continued financial support.
The defense committee also emphasized on a strong judicial system in a bid to protect human rights in country besides continued development aid and immediate steps to tackle corruption and the drug trade.
The MPs in their report highlighted significant gaps in the capabilities of the ANSF in areas such as helicopters and close air support and medical care.
Committee chairman James Arbuthnot quoted by BBC said, “We have received starkly opposing predictions for Afghanistan’s outlook, post 2014.
“The fact is that the UK has limited influence. Indeed, it is for the Afghan people themselves to determine their own future.
“However, the UK and its international partners must show the Afghan people that they will abide by their obligations to continue to support them in their efforts.”
The MPs said they had received “very little” information about the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the UK Foreign Office in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Russia demands investigation of civilian deaths in Afghanistan
MOSCOW, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Afghan civilian deaths from airstrikes of NATO-led forces should be thoroughly investigated, a Russian foreign ministry official said Tuesday.
"Moscow has noticed reports about civilian casualties in Kunar province as a result of an airstrike of the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan," Konstantin Dolgov said in a comment on the ministry's website.
The special envoy for human rights, democracy and the rule of law was referring to an alleged ISAF air raid on Saturday that killed 10 children in Afghanistan's Kunar province.
The frequency of such incidents has been rising lately, said the diplomat, adding that "We believe the episode must be thoroughly investigated and those guilty to be punished."
The official urged all sides in Afghanistan to obey international humanitarian law and not to inflict damage on civilians and infrastructure in the country.
"The unaccepted cases of casualties among Afghan civilians as a result of military operations reconfirm the urgency for ISAF to undertake additional efficient measures" to prevent repetition of such tragedies, Dolgov said.
French photographer escapes Afghan kidnappers after four months
Reuters By Hamid Shalizi and Dylan Welch April 8, 2013
KABUL - A French photographer kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago fled his captors on Monday and was now safe in the hands of officials from his embassy, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.
A second French hostage in Afghanistan was freed by his captors, a spokesman for France's foreign ministry said, without providing any details.
Twenty-nine-year-old freelance Pierre Borghi had been chained up in a crudely dug hole covered by a trap door but managed to escape and reached a checkpoint manned by government security guards in central Wardak province, an Afghan official said.
Borghi, from Grenoble in south-eastern France, was brought to the Interior Ministry's headquarters in Kabul at about 4:30 p.m. (1200 GMT) and left in the company of French embassy officials less than an hour later, ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.
He was in good health, Sediqqi said. The French embassy declined to comment.
Borghi was snatched by four armed men from a street in a busy area of the capital Kabul on November 28 and had been held in several locations, including the back of a vehicle, the Afghan official said.
He said it was likely that Borghi was first taken by organised criminals and then sold to insurgents.
The captors, wearing turbans wrapped around their faces, had filmed Borghi several times and told him they were, variously, Taliban, Haqqani and al Qaeda, the official said.
Afghan Women in Kabul Prison Over 'Moral' Crimes
Associated Press By Kathy Gannon April 9, 2013
KABUL - Lost and alone in a strange city Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She worried he wouldn't help her because she had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeting to the capital Kabul to escape his relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. But he promised to help. Too busy to come himself he sent a friend who took her to "some house", held a gun to her head and raped her.
Finished with her he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun shot her assailant in the head and turned the gun on herself.
"Three days later I woke up in the hospital," she said, slowly, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.
From the hospital Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months Mariam has been waiting to find out why she is in jail, the charges and when she can leave.
"I haven't gone to court. I am just waiting." Hugging a ratty brown sweater to protect her from the damp cold of the prison, Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six- year- old jail. The majority of the women packed are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parent's home with a man of their choice —— all so-called "moral" crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi.
Some of the women were jailed while pregnant, others with their small children. Naebi says there are 62 children living with their imprisoned mothers, sharing the same grey steel bunk-beds, napping in the afternoon hidden behind a sheet draped from an upper bunk, oblivious to the chatter and the crackling noises from the small fussy television sets shoved off to one side of the rooms.
The Taliban were thrown out 12 years ago ending five years of rule and regressive laws that enforced a tribal tradition and culture more than religious compulsions denying girls schools, ordering women to stay indoors unless accompanied by a male, and in some of the more severe cases even blackening the first story windows so prying eyes could not see women within. Women were forced to wear the all- encompassing burqa or suffer a public beating.
In the first years after the Taliban's December 2001 removal strides seemed to be made for women, schools opened, women came out of their house, many still in the burqas but appearing on television and getting elected to Parliament.
But women's activists in Kabul say within a few years of the Taliban's ouster the ball was dropped, interest waned and even President Hamid Karzai began making statements that harkened back to the Taliban rule saying women really should be accompanied by a man while outside their home. A new law was enacted called the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW), but its implementation is erratic and rare, says the United Nations Assistance Mission on Afghanistan, whose human rights arm monitors such things.
An UNAMA report issued in December last year says it is difficult to even get information about violence against women from the authorities partially because they don't want to look bad if it showed that little was being done and little, if any, official documentation on violence against women exists.
While it might not be against the law to run away or escape a forced marriage, the courts routinely convict women fleeing abusive homes with "the intent to commit zina (or adultery)" which are most often simply referred to as "moral crimes," says the report.
"Perceptions toward women are still the same in most places, tribal laws are the only laws followed and in most places nothing has changed in the basics of women's lives. There are policies and papers and even laws but nothing has changed," said Zubaida Akbar whose volunteer Haider organization fights for women's rights and sends lawyers and aid workers to the women's prison to defend the inmates in court.
In the overwhelmingly male dominated legal system, Akbar said even when an inmate gets in front of the judge, "he says 'it is her husband, she should go back and make it work. It is her fault and not her place to leave him —— not in our society.'"
Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative society, where men dominate and tribal jirgas still hand out rulings that offer girls and women to settle debts and disputes.
Surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire, there is one small patch of open space where children being kept with their mothers in Badam Bagh prison play. Nearby women hang out their laundry. The two story building is only six years old but already it is grimy and neglected looking. On balconies obscured by mesh and steel bars women sit and smoke.
Naebi said inmates attend a variety of classes during the week, ranging from basic literacy, to crafts and sewing, with the intention of giving the women a skill once they leave the prison.
Inside the stark building, six people often share a small room that is their cell. Three sets of bunk-beds line the walls. In some of the beds infants tucked under grimy blankets sleep while their mothers tell their story.
Nuria, dressed in maroon colored clothes from head to toe, quieted her infant boy as she told of going to court to demand a divorce from a husband she was forced by her parents to marry. Defiant even in prison, Nuria said "I wanted to get a divorce but he wouldn't let me go. I never wanted to marry him. I loved someone else but my father made me. He threatened to kill me if I didn't."
Nuria had pleaded with her father before her marriage, begging to marry another.
"When I went to court for the divorce, instead of giving me a divorce, they charged me with running away," she said. The man she wanted to marry was also charged and is now serving time in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, one of the country's largest prisons, overcrowded and with a reputation over the last several decades of maltreatment.
At the time she went to court Nuria didn't know she was pregnant. She gave birth to her son in jail. Although the baby is her husband, who has offered to have the courts set her free if she returns home, Nuria said she has refused.
"He wants me to come home now because I have his son but I said 'no. I will wait until my sentence is up,'" in eight months, she said.
Twenty seven year old Adia left her husband, a drug addict, seeking shelter with her parents. They wanted her to return to her husband, who followed her demanding she return.
"Instead I escaped with another man but it wasn't a romance. I was desperate to get away and he said he would help me but he didn't he just left me. I went to the court. I was angry. I wanted him charged and my husband charged but instead they charged me and sentenced me to six years. I went back to court to appeal the conviction and this time I was sentenced to seven and a half years." Afghanistan.JPEG
Seven months pregnant, Adia will have her baby in jail. Fauzia isn't sure of her age. She looks to be early 60s. She stares out of the prison bars. Already seven years in jail, Fauzia will serve a 17 year sentence for killing her husband and her daughter in law. Expressionless she tells her story, rolls up her sleeve to display a mangled elbow where her husband had smashed her with a stick. She was his fourth wife.
"I was in one room. I came into the next room and they were there having sexual relations. I found a big knife and killed them both."
Zubeida, the women's activist, said despite what she calls a veneer of change, little is different for most Afghan women.
"We have the appearance of everything, but when you dig in deep down below the surface nothing fundamentally has changed. It has been tough. It has been really tough," she said.
The socio economic effects of American withdrawal
KHAAMA PRESS - 10 Apr 2013, 9:31 am By: Mohammad Khan, Program Manager at Ministry of Education, Afghanistan
Visit any government office in Kabul and you will see young employees in their twenties or early thirties, flashing expensive cloths, smart phones and the latest computer gadgets. They are the so called National Technical Assistants; receiving their salaries in dollar values averaging thirty thousands in annual salary, forty times more than the per capita income in the country. Contrary to that, the regular government employees receive much lower wages, who on average receive $ 4,000 in annual salary. The same is true with the private sector the large number of NGOs operating in Afghanistan, who are willing to pay high salary mainly because someone is good with English and able to use basic computer applications.
Though forming only a small percentage of the total population of the cities, this group has developed their unique subculture. Fancy restaurants, shopping malls, luxury fitness gyms, indoor swimming pools and Kabul’s only bowling club have all sprouted to serves the needs of this unique class of citizens. Though the sudden flood of aid money and investments in Afghanistan has created many millionaires but such millionaires are usually less educated thus having a rather different lifestyle.
Things like family planning, dieting, and having hobbies, the hall marks of modern societies, are mainly limited to this unique sub-middle class. At the same time volunteering and doing social work are slowly making its way into Afghan society through the same group of people.
But more importantly, since such people have benefited immensely from their education, they place great value on it. They spend a good amount of their income on their own and the education of their family members. This has created a market for private schools and universities, something that never existed before the arrival of western troops into the country. Ten years ago knowing English would guarantee high paid job, whereas nowadays master degree is a minimum requirement for most jobs. The demand for good education is such that the American University of Afghanistan accepts only 25 percents of its applicants to its masters program which costs $17,500 in tuition fees for the two years program.
In the last 10 years billions of dollars are spent to stabilize Afghanistan and transform and modernize the Afghan society. Part of the aid was channeled to transform local communities, improve woman rights, establish democracy, improve living standards and health, etc. But the amount of money spent in this regard never brought about the expected results. There might be many reasons for this failure, but three of the main causes can the lack of capacity on behalf the local staff implementing these projects, lack of education of the masses, and lack of role models. And I believe that this special class of people can both be good roles models and the backbone of Afghanistan’s working capacity.
Serving as the early adopters for any new idea, it is very important for the international community to maintain this special group in order to channel new ideas into the highly traditional Afghan society. Whether it is democracy, woman rights, environmental protection, modernized business, quality education, etc, they all should make way into Afghan society through this specific group of people.
But as with the planned exit of Foreign forces in 2014, and hence the lack of interest in Afghanistan, it is expected that the foreign aid to Afghanistan will substantially be reduced. The Afghan government is working hard towards preparing itself for post 2014 Afghanistan. Part of the preparation is to cut down on its developmental budget and hence the salaries of these high paid employees, resulting in a ten percent cut for the coming year alone. The plan is to gradually reduce such salaries to half the current amounts in short term and eliminate them altogether in long term.
This may save some funds for the donor community in the short term and enable the Afghan government to pay for its employees. But in the long run such a decision may result in the collapse of this class by many of these employees migrating to foreign countries. Even if that does not happen, the urge to get quality education among such people in order to compete for high paid jobs will definitely cease to continue. Thus instead of channeling money directly towards security, social changes, and education, it is better to allocate part of the money to encourage those who have sit good examples and attract our best talent towards education and have a reason for them to stay in the country. Such people should be supported to continue in the same manner so we can get highly educated class in future who may come up with Afghan solutions for the Afghan problems.
Security the Main Concern Ahead of 2014 Poll: IEC
TOLOnews By Rafi Sediqi 09 April 2013
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) will not struggle financially to manage next year's presidential election given the financial pledges from donors; the greater concern is security for the polling booths, the commission chief said Tuesday.
At a briefing before Afghanistan's senators on Tuesday, IEC chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi said that while there is no anxiety related to the budget, there are concerns that if the government doesn't ensure security for 7,000 polling stations it puts the entire election at risk.
"There will be 7,000 polling stations. The security organisations should present an exact report of the stations to the Independent Election Commission about their security measures so that we don't face any challenges and can hold election there," Manawi said.
He said multiple donors have committed to funding the election budget and there is no concern in connection with financing the poll and its extra staff.
The senators voiced their concerns about the security, fearing not only the activity of insurgents but the influence of other powerful figures.
"The provincial governors and police chiefs should not have any interference in the election. Their interference needs to be prevented. In the last election, we witnessed a number of local officials intervening in the election and they were campaigning for some specific candidates," senator Tayeba Zahidi said.
Senator Gul Ahmad Azimi said he feared some parts of the country were not suitable to have polling stations.
"Some of the districts in the country are not suitable for holding an election. If there is no security there will be fraud," Azimi said.
"Insecurity is the main challenge ahead of the election so security forces should consider it and the election should be held on the specific date," senator Ali Akbar Jamshidi said.
It is understood that the IEC will employ up to 160,000 people for the April 5 election. But it is still unclear how many 7,000 stations will actually be able to operate without security problems.
U.S. Watchdog Warns of Fire Risk in Afghan Army Buildings
Bloomberg By David Lerman April 8, 2013
A federal watchdog has urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop building structures for the Afghan Army that “pose a serious fire and safety risk.”
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, faulted the Army Corps in an April 4 letter for using foam insulation and thermal-barrier systems that don’t comply with international building standards.
“We are alerting you to our concern over this serious fire and life safety risk,” Sopko wrote.
He urged the Corps to reconsider its decision to proceed with construction while posting warning signs and having a “fire-watch during rest hours.”
Three of the so-called K-Span structures caught fire during construction last year, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, Sopko said.
In southern Afghanistan, 704 of the 1,002 K-Span structures under construction use non-compliant foam insulation and barrier systems, he said.
The Army Corps, in a March 10 “decision paper,” acknowledged the fire risk while citing concerns about delays and additional cost if the non-compliant materials had to be removed.
The Army Corps didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The K-Span structures, which are designed to be rust- and weather-resistant, replaced concrete and masonry structures for the Afghan Army beginning in 2010, according to Sopko’s letter.
Sopko said he is opening an investigation of the matter.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington atdlerman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott atjwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Colleagues Recall Steady Rise of a Young Diplomat Killed in Afghanistan
The New York Times By Graham Bowley and Monica Davey April 9, 2013
She was an unassuming young diplomat, only 25, who greeted journalists at the heavily fortified American Embassy gates in Kabul, escorting them to interviews and impressing them with her organization and her studied wish to build bridges between Afghan and American cultures. Anne Smedinghoff arrived in Afghanistan in the middle of the summer heat last July. Tentative, even nervous about her relative inexperience in the war, she was nevertheless ambitious and eager to impress as a public diplomacy officer during her long hours fielding inquiries from journalists, chatting at parties around the city, and in trips to regions beyond Kabul.
One of her first breaks was to be selected from hundreds to be the on-the-ground control officer for the visit of Secretary of State John Kerry to Afghanistan last month, arranging logistics and publicity. The feeling at the embassy was that she had handled herself well, and was on her way.
But on Saturday, traveling in Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan on a day trip to deliver books to schoolchildren, Ms. Smedinghoff’s promise was cut short by a Taliban car bomb. She was killed along with three American soldiers, a Department of Defense civilian employee and several Afghans. Others in her group were injured. They were attacked as they walked from a small air base to a school in Qalat, the provincial capital — a walk that would normally have taken just a few minutes, but was still conducted wearing helmets and protective gear, and with a military escort, officials in Kabul said.
Her death has deeply shaken her colleagues, a diplomatic corps already kept in pressure-cooker conditions in the tightly secured embassy in Kabul.
At a service for her in Kabul on Monday, Ambassador James B. Cunningham said, “It was clear that she was one of the best,” and that it was “indeed tragic that Anne’s great, promising story ended too soon.” In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Kerry said, “She was everything a Foreign Service officer should be: smart, capable, eager to serve, and deeply committed to our country and the difference she was making for the Afghan people.”
Her dedication distinguished her early on, growing up in River Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Even in the midst of grief, and shock at the manner of her death, her family and friends unanimously shared a sense of pride that Ms. Smedinghoff’s drive had taken her so far.
“We are so proud of what she was doing, so proud of her,” said her father, Tom Smedinghoff, a lawyer, on Monday after visiting Dover Air Force Base, where his daughter’s flag-draped coffin arrived back in the United States. “It was something that made a difference.”
Her interest in foreign affairs grew early. Richard Borsch, associate principal at Fenwick High School, where Ms. Smedinghoff graduated, recalled her as a deeply involved, gifted student who “was almost a poster child for what we try to do when it comes to the whole child.”
Even back then, a counselor described her in a recommendation as “a future public servant” who was highly respected at school and seemed destined to have an impact.
At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Ms. Smedinghoff focused on international relations and Spanish. She helped organize a speakers’ symposium, inviting outside speakers to talk on international affairs. In 2007 she went to Madrid for a semester.
She had a close-knit group of friends, including Marissa Neto, one of 11 friends with whom she formed a Facebook group, and they kept in touch. “She was just so ambitious,” said Ms. Neto, who went with her to Madrid. They talked a lot about what they were going to do in their lives and, when it came up, how a posting in Kabul would open doors and further her career.
“She was not going to change what she was going to do for anyone,” Ms. Neto said.
After serving in Venezuela for nearly two years as a consular official, she arrived in Kabul in July. She dove straight into the “bullpen” — the communications center deep in the embassy, one of four press officers answering calls from Afghan and international journalists sometimes 14 hours a day, six days a week. She immediately impressed, said colleagues who worked closely beside her, and her selection as the go-to person for Mr. Kerry’s visit reflected her ability.
“She was the go-to person on the ground,” said John Rhatigan, a spokesman who worked with her. “When you are selected for the job it tells you it is someone who is full of potential.” She did not have formal training in Dari, the language of the Afghan government, said Solmaz Sharifi, another colleague, but “in the bullpen she frequently wrote and defined impromptu Dari vocab words on the whiteboard. Anne’s favorite phrase was ‘salam watandar,’ or ‘hello, countrymen.’ ” Ms. Sharifi said Ms. Smedinghoff “copied down the Dari words we talked about in a notebook and tried to use words she had learned.”
Ms. Smedinghoff made reminders of Chicago, including postcards and a Cubs T-shirt, a prominent part of her life in her living quarters, one of the stark single-housing units that otherwise contained little more than a bed, desk and bathroom.
“She was a Chicago girl,” Ms. Sharifi said. She talked a lot about her family, and last fall, appearing on Afghanistan’s Ariana television channel around Id al-Adha, the most important Muslim holiday, Ms. Smedinghoff emphasized to the Afghan audience the similarities to Thanksgiving and the importance of family in both celebrations.
The life of a Kabul diplomat is a tightly proscribed one, and trips beyond the embassy’s walls are cherished. Ms. Smedinghoff’s father recalled that even a trip to Kabul’s only bowling alley became a noteworthy occasion for her.
In her downtime, she would go running in the embassy gym, or pursue her passion for soccer. She organized the visit to Kabul of the former Olympic soccer player Lorrie Fair, and played right forward for the embassy women’s team — on the rough grass soccer field in the international military coalition’s compound in the summer, or in the gym there during colder weather.
She was helping to organize the annual Kabul marathon this month. And last month, during a break, she and four friends went on a week’s cycling tour in Jordan. They were tentatively planning another trip, to Vietnam.
In Afghanistan, she went on regular official trips — to Herat, with Ambassador Cunningham last year for an art exhibition opening, for example, and this month on the day visit, accompanying Afghan journalists in Zabul to present a set of translated books to Afghan children, meant especially for girls, part of a program that has already delivered 1.9 million books around the country. Advancing Afghan women’s rights was one of her passions, journalists said.
Her next posting was to be the information officer at the American Embassy in Algiers — another challenging assignment. She was to begin two years of Arabic training after her year was up in Kabul.
On Monday, some residents of River Forest tied white ribbons around their trees in her honor, the village president, John Rigas, said in a statement. The flag at Village Hall was to be flown at half-staff until her burial. Mr. Borsch, the associate principal, said she had returned home in December and had spoken to students about her experience. The school held a memorial Mass on Tuesday.
The photographs she had shared with her family of her life abroad are especially treasured now. One of her in a helicopter wearing a helmet and heavy gear struck her father as oddly fitting for a woman often noted as having a soft touch. “She was quiet, but she was a force to be reckoned with,” he said.
Another photograph showed her with Mr. Kerry during his recent visit. Her family passed it around, along with an e-mail from a superior who praised her work during that trip, at a family gathering in Illinois for Easter, just days before her death.
Her aunt, Cathy Tokarski, said the photo showed “such a smile of complete pride” on her face. She added: “I was just kind of in awe of her sometimes. She made these sorts of things seem easy.”
How to stalk elusive truths as a correspondent in Afghanistan
Global Post By Ben Brody April 9, 2013
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Truth is elusive in Afghanistan. You have to stalk it with stealth and energetic enterprise.
You have to vet people by asking them questions you already know the answers to. You have to listen in on conversations you're not a part of. No matter how candid they seem, generals and colonels will often misinform you and privates almost always will. You have to talk with experienced sergeants at small outposts, and earning their trust is not always easy or safe. It comes most reliably from sharing their risks and their suffering.
By spending most of my time at the lowest military levels, I could be accused of cultivating my own tunnel vision — deliberately missing the "big picture" of counterinsurgency strategy. But I feel that senior leaders are susceptible to a more insidious version of tunnel vision. The reports they receive disproportionately highlight successes to the exclusion of challenges and failures. Visits to their troops' outposts are short and sanitized by the soldiers there, as I'm sure they have been since the invention of military commanders and far-flung outposts.
What I found at an outpost in rural Kandahar in 2011 was an area depopulated by violence, where Americans occupied an outpost in order to fight the Taliban, and the Taliban came to the area to attack the outpost. Military reports about the outpost focused on how many Taliban were killed there, how troops were protecting Kandahar City and promoting the rule of law.
Being on the ground you miss all that smooth talk. You clearly see the folly of promoting the rule of law in an area where there is no community to abide by the laws, of building a school where there are no children or teachers. You see the savage catch-22s that shadow soldiers here. And you see that the soldiers, faced with these existentially crushing truths, perform their duties admirably and honorably.
My reporting methods have a rapidly diminishing shelf life here. These outposts are closing fast, some of them bulldozed to the ground and some turned over the Afghan National Army. I've visited some of these ANA-only outposts and the ones I've seen so far are too dangerous for a Westerner (with my calculus of risk) to be alone there.
I don't trust all of the soldiers not to shoot me, and some of the smaller outposts will surely be overrun by determined, well-planned Taliban attacks this summer. I would surely fare worse with the Taliban than with the ANA.
I'm aware that being a former Army sergeant, military deficiencies will grab my attention more than successes, as it was once my duty to identify and correct them. So I try to build a certain correction factor into my opinions. But when I see that the Afghan army and police outposts are ringed in with IEDs and outgunned by highly mobile Taliban fighters, it sways my prognosis very little to hear that their commanders in the cities are well-trained in filling out supply requisition paperwork.
I strongly believe that the truth in southern Afghanistan is most readily found on the ground, in the fight, that it is what you see with your own eyes and hear from voices you trust, in a place where trust is earned dearly.
Ben Brody will be reporting for GlobalPost in Afghanistan in the coming months, covering the transition as US troops return home and hand off responsibilities to the Afghan military.
Kabul Residents Angry About Flooding Roads
TOLOnews.com By Azem Arash Tuesday, 09 April 2013
Residents of Kabul have criticised the city mayor for failing to construct proper drainage in the streets after heavy rains brought flooding to the capital again.
"Kabul municipality hasn't paid any attention to solve this problem," one of the residents told TOLOnews from his car.
Another resident said the streets had sufficient water to be a river with 500 fish living in it.
However, Kabul mayor Muhammad Yunus Nawandish rejected the claim saying that the municipality has been working on the problem and it has been resolved in some parts of the city, but admitted there was more work to be done.
"We will conclude the development work of these canals by the end of this year otherwise we don't have any remedy to solve this problem," he said.
Many roads in Kabul including busy public areas turn into muddy rivers when there are heavy rains. The effect causes havoc for pedestrians and businesses alike – a point acknowledged by the mayor.
"The flooded streets in Kabul city not only create challenges for the drivers but also has a bad impact on the business dealings of shopkeepers," Nawandish said.
One of the angry residents said that if the mayor does not have the money then the local residents will make a fund for him.
"If the municipality doesn't pay urgent attention or doesn't have money for the reconstruction of these canals, we will each collect 20 Afs for its reconstruction," the resident told TOLOnews.
Staff from one of the municipality departments were seen on Tuesday hitching rides from a nearby tractor in order to cross the flooded road from their office.
Last Royal Marines leave Afghanistan after more than 10 years of deployments in war-torn country
Marines have been awarded nearly 200 honours for acts of bravery and distinguished service in Afghanistan
The Independent By James Edgar 09 April 2013
The last commando group of Royal Marines to serve in Afghanistan is heading back to the UK, the Ministry of Defence said today.
After more than a decade of operational deployments in the war-torn country, troops from 40 Commando Royal Marines (40 Cdo) lowered the Royal Navy's white ensign above their main operating base, MOB Price, before flying out.
Servicemen from from 40 Cdo were the first British troops to deploy to the country in 2001, securing Bagram airfield and going on to patrol the streets of Kabul.
Since then the Marines have served in successive deployments in Sangin, Nahr-e Saraj and Musa Qala in Helmand Province.
The symbolic lowering of the ensign at MOB Price on Saturday in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand was the last time the flag will fly in the region.
The MoD said the equivalent of more than 14,000 Marines have served in Afghanistan across 12 deployments from the 7,200-strong Royal Marine Corps, while many others have been attached to other units.
The Royal Marines have been awarded nearly 200 honours for acts of bravery and distinguished service in Afghanistan, including a George Cross, seven Distinguished Service Orders and ten awards of the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, including one posthumously.
The commando group - who nicknamed MOB Price "HMS Price" - have now handed over to 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
During their deployments they helped develop the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan police units in the area to take on responsibility for security.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: "The courage of the Royal Marines, and indeed all of our Armed Forces who have served in Afghanistan over the past decade, has been truly outstanding.
"Their commitment has made sure that transition of security to Afghan control is deliverable by the time we end our combat operations in December 2014.
"The hard work of 40 Commando Royal Marines in Afghanistan over the winter has led to impressive progress in the capabilities of Afghan forces as they take on security responsibility, with decreasing levels of assistance from UK and ISAF forces.
"It is these Afghan forces, developed and trained by UK personnel, who will ensure that Afghanistan never again provides a safe haven for terrorists."
In the past year, the number of UK bases across Helmand has reduced from 80 to 12 as they are handed over to Afghan forces or dismantled.
First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, said: "Royal Marines have been a key part of the Afghanistan effort since the UK committed to the region in 2001 and I would like to thank them for serving their country so valiantly, showing determination, commitment and courage.
"It has not been easy - with the many successes there have also been a number of sacrifices. Our thoughts and continued support are with those who were injured and their families and we will never forget those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
"The seminal contribution made by the Royal Marines has undeniably helped the Afghan Army strengthen its capability and with that brought greater stability to the region."
Lieutenant Colonel Matt Jackson, Commanding Officer of 40 Cdo, added: "The Commando group has been able to transfer lead security responsibility from ISAF to the Afghan National Security Forces in a very difficult area of Central Helmand.
"Working together over the winter, we have given the Afghan Army and the Afghan police the confidence in their own abilities to operate together.
"More importantly, we have given them the belief that they can operate independently from us; they now know that they are good enough to face down any future challenges that lie ahead.
"This is in no small measure due to the sacrifice made not just by the 61 Royal Marines who have lost their lives in this campaign, but by all Service personnel."
40 Cdo served with Task Force Helmand, led by the British Army's 4th Mechanised Brigade, who will shortly transfer authority to 1st Mechanised Brigade.
The Marines will now return to their base in Taunton, Somerset to start training for contingency operations, providing part of the UK's amphibious warfare capability.
The MoD said some Royal Marines will remain serving in Afghanistan on an individual basis, working alongside their colleagues from other services, as the UK continues to support the development of the Afghan National Security Forces.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com
April 10, 2013 Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
The White House says the security transition in Afghanistan was discussed during a phone call between U.S. President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai.
The call April 9 came after Karzai two days previously condemned a NATO air strike in Kunar Province that Afghan officials said killed 11 children.
A White House statement said Obama and Karzai discussed progress in the transition of security responsibilities to Afghan forces as NATO-led combat troops move toward withdrawing from Afghanistan by the end of 2014.
According to the statement, Obama and Karzai also discussed preparations for Afghanistan's 2014 elections.
It said Obama also welcomed Karzai's recent talks with the emir of Qatar on the possibility that the Taliban could open an office in the Persian Gulf state to facilitate Afghan reconciliation talks.
Based on reporting by AP and AFP
Karzai Assures Obama: 2014 Afghan Vote Will Be Inclusive
Bloomberg By Michael Shepard April 10, 2013
Afghan President Hamid Karzai affirmed his support for fair and inclusive elections in his country next year during a phone call today with U.S. President Barack Obama, according to a White House statement.
The two leaders also discussed progress in transferring responsibility for security to Afghan forces from the U.S.-led coalition, according to the statement. Obama and Karzai are looking forward to the point later this year when Afghan personnel will take a leading role and the coalition’s mission will shift to support from combat, the White House said.
Tensions with Karzai had intensified in recent months, with the Afghan president saying on March 10, during a visit by U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, that Taliban suicide attacks were in the “service of America.” Secretary of State John Kerry, during meetings in Kabul two weeks later, played down those strains and voiced confidence that the two nations would reach an agreement for some U.S. forces to remain after 2014.
Obama has pledged to bring most U.S. troops home from Afghanistan by the end of next year, though he hasn’t said how many would remain. During today’s call, Obama welcomed Karzai’s meetings last month with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad Bin Khalifa Al Thani, to advance peace talks with the Taliban.
Karzai credited the U.S. handover last month of the Parwan detention facility outside Kabul, according to the statement. The two leaders agreed that officials from the U.S. and Afghanistan would strive to “keep dangerous detainees off the battlefield, and work in partnership at the facility, consistent with Afghan sovereignty,” according to the statement.
To contact the reporter on this story: Michael Shepard in Washington atmshepard7@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott atjwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Political Leaders Boycott Karzai's Plan to Appoint IEC Chief
TOLOnews By Abdul Wali Arian 09 April 2013
Leading political figures and two government ministers on Tuesday boycotted a meeting convened by President Hamid Karzai which aimed to appoint the new head of the Independent Election Commission (IEC).
The boycott was a deliberate protest against the president's attempt to be directly involved in appointing the current chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi's replacement.
A statement from the presidential palace said Karzai had chaired the meeting "in a bid to appoint a successor" to the current head of the IEC whose term is ending soon.
The palace said it had invited "Jihadi leaders, vice-presidents, heads of the two Houses of Parliament, Representatives of Civil Society, leaders of political parties and the opposition as well as other prominent figures" to attend.
Those who were invited but who did not attend include minister of economy Abdul Hadi Arghandiwal, minister of commerce Anwarul Haq Ahady, Jihadi leaders Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf and Sheikh Mohammad Asef Mohseni, head of the National Coalition Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, head of National Front Ahmad Zia Massoud, member of National Coalition and MP Mohammad Yunus Qanuni, member of National Front and MP Mohammad Mohaqiq, member of Right and Justice Hanif Atmar, spokesman for National Front and member of Junbish-i-Mlli Faizullah Zaki, former foreign minister during the Taliban regime Wakil Ahmad Motewakkel and powerbroker Sayed Mohammad Golabzoi.
The meeting concluded without choosing the new IEC chief after those present said the appointment should only follow the approval of the election law, which is still pending.
"Following discussions on the electoral process and the appointment of a new IEC head, it was decided by the meeting to make the new appointment according to the law after the National Assembly approves the draft election law and draft law on the IEC Structure and Mandate," the presidential statement said.
Meanwhile, the Cooperation Council of Political Parties and Coalitions held its own meeting where those present claimed Karzai's attempt to appoint the IEC chief contravened Afghanistan's laws and was in contradiction with democratic norms and values.
"We don't believe the president as he doesn't put into practice his assurances [of democracy]," said Abbasin Noyan, member of Right and Justice Party.
The council warned that the president is seeking to elect the IEC chief based on his own personal preferences, an act which may negatively impact the transparency and fairness of the elections.
"We could not have transparent, fair, and inclusive elections if the president selects the chief and the commissioners of the Independent Election Commission," said Fazlurrahman Oria, member of National Coalition.
The council said that it will not accept any IEC chief who is not appointed democratically.
Their demand echoes calls from the United Nations that recently emphasised the importance of electing an IEC leader who is impartial and trustworthy in the lead-up to the presidential poll on April 5, 2014.
The current IEC chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi is expected to be appointed by Karzai to the position of Chief Justice after his term ends.
British lawmakers insist on Afghan-led peace talks with Taliban
By SADAF SHINWARI - 10 Apr 2013, 9:56 am Khaama Press
A group of British lawmakers following a report insisted on Afghan-led peace deal with the Taliban group in a bid to secure the future of Afghanistan following British troops withdrawal.
The lawmakers also warned that failure to do so could lead to civil war in Afghanistan.
Lawmakers in United Kingdom’s defense select commit also added that UK had a responsibility to use its influence to “make Afghanistan work” after 2014.
This comes as British defense secretary on Tuesday announced that the last group of Royal Marine commando unit will leave Afghanistan as part of the British troops planned withdrawal from the country.
Defense secretary Philip Hammon also said that UK would help Afghans to reach “a sustainable political settlement”.
In the meantime British lawmakers report focused on the planned withdrawal of UK combat troops at the end of 2014 and the transfer of responsibilities to the Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF).
The lawmakers in their report also insisted on an open and free elections and on appropriate training and equipment of Afghan security forces with continued financial support.
The defense committee also emphasized on a strong judicial system in a bid to protect human rights in country besides continued development aid and immediate steps to tackle corruption and the drug trade.
The MPs in their report highlighted significant gaps in the capabilities of the ANSF in areas such as helicopters and close air support and medical care.
Committee chairman James Arbuthnot quoted by BBC said, “We have received starkly opposing predictions for Afghanistan’s outlook, post 2014.
“The fact is that the UK has limited influence. Indeed, it is for the Afghan people themselves to determine their own future.
“However, the UK and its international partners must show the Afghan people that they will abide by their obligations to continue to support them in their efforts.”
The MPs said they had received “very little” information about the involvement of the Ministry of Defence and the UK Foreign Office in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
Russia demands investigation of civilian deaths in Afghanistan
MOSCOW, April 9 (Xinhua) -- Afghan civilian deaths from airstrikes of NATO-led forces should be thoroughly investigated, a Russian foreign ministry official said Tuesday.
"Moscow has noticed reports about civilian casualties in Kunar province as a result of an airstrike of the International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) in Afghanistan," Konstantin Dolgov said in a comment on the ministry's website.
The special envoy for human rights, democracy and the rule of law was referring to an alleged ISAF air raid on Saturday that killed 10 children in Afghanistan's Kunar province.
The frequency of such incidents has been rising lately, said the diplomat, adding that "We believe the episode must be thoroughly investigated and those guilty to be punished."
The official urged all sides in Afghanistan to obey international humanitarian law and not to inflict damage on civilians and infrastructure in the country.
"The unaccepted cases of casualties among Afghan civilians as a result of military operations reconfirm the urgency for ISAF to undertake additional efficient measures" to prevent repetition of such tragedies, Dolgov said.
French photographer escapes Afghan kidnappers after four months
Reuters By Hamid Shalizi and Dylan Welch April 8, 2013
KABUL - A French photographer kidnapped in Afghanistan four months ago fled his captors on Monday and was now safe in the hands of officials from his embassy, the Afghan Interior Ministry said.
A second French hostage in Afghanistan was freed by his captors, a spokesman for France's foreign ministry said, without providing any details.
Twenty-nine-year-old freelance Pierre Borghi had been chained up in a crudely dug hole covered by a trap door but managed to escape and reached a checkpoint manned by government security guards in central Wardak province, an Afghan official said.
Borghi, from Grenoble in south-eastern France, was brought to the Interior Ministry's headquarters in Kabul at about 4:30 p.m. (1200 GMT) and left in the company of French embassy officials less than an hour later, ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi said.
He was in good health, Sediqqi said. The French embassy declined to comment.
Borghi was snatched by four armed men from a street in a busy area of the capital Kabul on November 28 and had been held in several locations, including the back of a vehicle, the Afghan official said.
He said it was likely that Borghi was first taken by organised criminals and then sold to insurgents.
The captors, wearing turbans wrapped around their faces, had filmed Borghi several times and told him they were, variously, Taliban, Haqqani and al Qaeda, the official said.
Afghan Women in Kabul Prison Over 'Moral' Crimes
Associated Press By Kathy Gannon April 9, 2013
KABUL - Lost and alone in a strange city Mariam called the only person she knew, her husband's cousin. She worried he wouldn't help her because she had left her home in Afghanistan's northern Kunduz province, fleeting to the capital Kabul to escape his relentless and increasingly vicious beatings. But he promised to help. Too busy to come himself he sent a friend who took her to "some house", held a gun to her head and raped her.
Finished with her he settled in front of a TV set, the gun on a table by his side. Choosing her moment, Mariam picked up the gun shot her assailant in the head and turned the gun on herself.
"Three days later I woke up in the hospital," she said, slowly, shyly removing a scarf from her head to reveal a partially shaved head and a long jagged scar that ran almost the length of her head where the bullet grazed her scalp.
From the hospital Mariam was sent to a police station and from there to Badam Bagh, Afghanistan's central women's prison where she told her story to The Associated Press. For the past three months Mariam has been waiting to find out why she is in jail, the charges and when she can leave.
"I haven't gone to court. I am just waiting." Hugging a ratty brown sweater to protect her from the damp cold of the prison, Mariam is one of 202 women living in the six- year- old jail. The majority of the women packed are serving sentences of up to seven years for leaving their husbands, refusing to accept a marriage arranged by their parents, or choosing to leave their parent's home with a man of their choice —— all so-called "moral" crimes, says the prison's director general Zaref Jan Naebi.
Some of the women were jailed while pregnant, others with their small children. Naebi says there are 62 children living with their imprisoned mothers, sharing the same grey steel bunk-beds, napping in the afternoon hidden behind a sheet draped from an upper bunk, oblivious to the chatter and the crackling noises from the small fussy television sets shoved off to one side of the rooms.
The Taliban were thrown out 12 years ago ending five years of rule and regressive laws that enforced a tribal tradition and culture more than religious compulsions denying girls schools, ordering women to stay indoors unless accompanied by a male, and in some of the more severe cases even blackening the first story windows so prying eyes could not see women within. Women were forced to wear the all- encompassing burqa or suffer a public beating.
In the first years after the Taliban's December 2001 removal strides seemed to be made for women, schools opened, women came out of their house, many still in the burqas but appearing on television and getting elected to Parliament.
But women's activists in Kabul say within a few years of the Taliban's ouster the ball was dropped, interest waned and even President Hamid Karzai began making statements that harkened back to the Taliban rule saying women really should be accompanied by a man while outside their home. A new law was enacted called the Elimination of Violence Against Women (EVAW), but its implementation is erratic and rare, says the United Nations Assistance Mission on Afghanistan, whose human rights arm monitors such things.
An UNAMA report issued in December last year says it is difficult to even get information about violence against women from the authorities partially because they don't want to look bad if it showed that little was being done and little, if any, official documentation on violence against women exists.
While it might not be against the law to run away or escape a forced marriage, the courts routinely convict women fleeing abusive homes with "the intent to commit zina (or adultery)" which are most often simply referred to as "moral crimes," says the report.
"Perceptions toward women are still the same in most places, tribal laws are the only laws followed and in most places nothing has changed in the basics of women's lives. There are policies and papers and even laws but nothing has changed," said Zubaida Akbar whose volunteer Haider organization fights for women's rights and sends lawyers and aid workers to the women's prison to defend the inmates in court.
In the overwhelmingly male dominated legal system, Akbar said even when an inmate gets in front of the judge, "he says 'it is her husband, she should go back and make it work. It is her fault and not her place to leave him —— not in our society.'"
Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative society, where men dominate and tribal jirgas still hand out rulings that offer girls and women to settle debts and disputes.
Surrounded by a high fence topped with razor wire, there is one small patch of open space where children being kept with their mothers in Badam Bagh prison play. Nearby women hang out their laundry. The two story building is only six years old but already it is grimy and neglected looking. On balconies obscured by mesh and steel bars women sit and smoke.
Naebi said inmates attend a variety of classes during the week, ranging from basic literacy, to crafts and sewing, with the intention of giving the women a skill once they leave the prison.
Inside the stark building, six people often share a small room that is their cell. Three sets of bunk-beds line the walls. In some of the beds infants tucked under grimy blankets sleep while their mothers tell their story.
Nuria, dressed in maroon colored clothes from head to toe, quieted her infant boy as she told of going to court to demand a divorce from a husband she was forced by her parents to marry. Defiant even in prison, Nuria said "I wanted to get a divorce but he wouldn't let me go. I never wanted to marry him. I loved someone else but my father made me. He threatened to kill me if I didn't."
Nuria had pleaded with her father before her marriage, begging to marry another.
"When I went to court for the divorce, instead of giving me a divorce, they charged me with running away," she said. The man she wanted to marry was also charged and is now serving time in Afghanistan's notorious Pul-e-Charkhi prison, one of the country's largest prisons, overcrowded and with a reputation over the last several decades of maltreatment.
At the time she went to court Nuria didn't know she was pregnant. She gave birth to her son in jail. Although the baby is her husband, who has offered to have the courts set her free if she returns home, Nuria said she has refused.
"He wants me to come home now because I have his son but I said 'no. I will wait until my sentence is up,'" in eight months, she said.
Twenty seven year old Adia left her husband, a drug addict, seeking shelter with her parents. They wanted her to return to her husband, who followed her demanding she return.
"Instead I escaped with another man but it wasn't a romance. I was desperate to get away and he said he would help me but he didn't he just left me. I went to the court. I was angry. I wanted him charged and my husband charged but instead they charged me and sentenced me to six years. I went back to court to appeal the conviction and this time I was sentenced to seven and a half years." Afghanistan.JPEG
Seven months pregnant, Adia will have her baby in jail. Fauzia isn't sure of her age. She looks to be early 60s. She stares out of the prison bars. Already seven years in jail, Fauzia will serve a 17 year sentence for killing her husband and her daughter in law. Expressionless she tells her story, rolls up her sleeve to display a mangled elbow where her husband had smashed her with a stick. She was his fourth wife.
"I was in one room. I came into the next room and they were there having sexual relations. I found a big knife and killed them both."
Zubeida, the women's activist, said despite what she calls a veneer of change, little is different for most Afghan women.
"We have the appearance of everything, but when you dig in deep down below the surface nothing fundamentally has changed. It has been tough. It has been really tough," she said.
The socio economic effects of American withdrawal
KHAAMA PRESS - 10 Apr 2013, 9:31 am By: Mohammad Khan, Program Manager at Ministry of Education, Afghanistan
Visit any government office in Kabul and you will see young employees in their twenties or early thirties, flashing expensive cloths, smart phones and the latest computer gadgets. They are the so called National Technical Assistants; receiving their salaries in dollar values averaging thirty thousands in annual salary, forty times more than the per capita income in the country. Contrary to that, the regular government employees receive much lower wages, who on average receive $ 4,000 in annual salary. The same is true with the private sector the large number of NGOs operating in Afghanistan, who are willing to pay high salary mainly because someone is good with English and able to use basic computer applications.
Though forming only a small percentage of the total population of the cities, this group has developed their unique subculture. Fancy restaurants, shopping malls, luxury fitness gyms, indoor swimming pools and Kabul’s only bowling club have all sprouted to serves the needs of this unique class of citizens. Though the sudden flood of aid money and investments in Afghanistan has created many millionaires but such millionaires are usually less educated thus having a rather different lifestyle.
Things like family planning, dieting, and having hobbies, the hall marks of modern societies, are mainly limited to this unique sub-middle class. At the same time volunteering and doing social work are slowly making its way into Afghan society through the same group of people.
But more importantly, since such people have benefited immensely from their education, they place great value on it. They spend a good amount of their income on their own and the education of their family members. This has created a market for private schools and universities, something that never existed before the arrival of western troops into the country. Ten years ago knowing English would guarantee high paid job, whereas nowadays master degree is a minimum requirement for most jobs. The demand for good education is such that the American University of Afghanistan accepts only 25 percents of its applicants to its masters program which costs $17,500 in tuition fees for the two years program.
In the last 10 years billions of dollars are spent to stabilize Afghanistan and transform and modernize the Afghan society. Part of the aid was channeled to transform local communities, improve woman rights, establish democracy, improve living standards and health, etc. But the amount of money spent in this regard never brought about the expected results. There might be many reasons for this failure, but three of the main causes can the lack of capacity on behalf the local staff implementing these projects, lack of education of the masses, and lack of role models. And I believe that this special class of people can both be good roles models and the backbone of Afghanistan’s working capacity.
Serving as the early adopters for any new idea, it is very important for the international community to maintain this special group in order to channel new ideas into the highly traditional Afghan society. Whether it is democracy, woman rights, environmental protection, modernized business, quality education, etc, they all should make way into Afghan society through this specific group of people.
But as with the planned exit of Foreign forces in 2014, and hence the lack of interest in Afghanistan, it is expected that the foreign aid to Afghanistan will substantially be reduced. The Afghan government is working hard towards preparing itself for post 2014 Afghanistan. Part of the preparation is to cut down on its developmental budget and hence the salaries of these high paid employees, resulting in a ten percent cut for the coming year alone. The plan is to gradually reduce such salaries to half the current amounts in short term and eliminate them altogether in long term.
This may save some funds for the donor community in the short term and enable the Afghan government to pay for its employees. But in the long run such a decision may result in the collapse of this class by many of these employees migrating to foreign countries. Even if that does not happen, the urge to get quality education among such people in order to compete for high paid jobs will definitely cease to continue. Thus instead of channeling money directly towards security, social changes, and education, it is better to allocate part of the money to encourage those who have sit good examples and attract our best talent towards education and have a reason for them to stay in the country. Such people should be supported to continue in the same manner so we can get highly educated class in future who may come up with Afghan solutions for the Afghan problems.
Security the Main Concern Ahead of 2014 Poll: IEC
TOLOnews By Rafi Sediqi 09 April 2013
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) will not struggle financially to manage next year's presidential election given the financial pledges from donors; the greater concern is security for the polling booths, the commission chief said Tuesday.
At a briefing before Afghanistan's senators on Tuesday, IEC chief Fazil Ahmad Manawi said that while there is no anxiety related to the budget, there are concerns that if the government doesn't ensure security for 7,000 polling stations it puts the entire election at risk.
"There will be 7,000 polling stations. The security organisations should present an exact report of the stations to the Independent Election Commission about their security measures so that we don't face any challenges and can hold election there," Manawi said.
He said multiple donors have committed to funding the election budget and there is no concern in connection with financing the poll and its extra staff.
The senators voiced their concerns about the security, fearing not only the activity of insurgents but the influence of other powerful figures.
"The provincial governors and police chiefs should not have any interference in the election. Their interference needs to be prevented. In the last election, we witnessed a number of local officials intervening in the election and they were campaigning for some specific candidates," senator Tayeba Zahidi said.
Senator Gul Ahmad Azimi said he feared some parts of the country were not suitable to have polling stations.
"Some of the districts in the country are not suitable for holding an election. If there is no security there will be fraud," Azimi said.
"Insecurity is the main challenge ahead of the election so security forces should consider it and the election should be held on the specific date," senator Ali Akbar Jamshidi said.
It is understood that the IEC will employ up to 160,000 people for the April 5 election. But it is still unclear how many 7,000 stations will actually be able to operate without security problems.
U.S. Watchdog Warns of Fire Risk in Afghan Army Buildings
Bloomberg By David Lerman April 8, 2013
A federal watchdog has urged the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to stop building structures for the Afghan Army that “pose a serious fire and safety risk.”
John Sopko, the special inspector general for Afghanistan reconstruction, faulted the Army Corps in an April 4 letter for using foam insulation and thermal-barrier systems that don’t comply with international building standards.
“We are alerting you to our concern over this serious fire and life safety risk,” Sopko wrote.
He urged the Corps to reconsider its decision to proceed with construction while posting warning signs and having a “fire-watch during rest hours.”
Three of the so-called K-Span structures caught fire during construction last year, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars in property damage, Sopko said.
In southern Afghanistan, 704 of the 1,002 K-Span structures under construction use non-compliant foam insulation and barrier systems, he said.
The Army Corps, in a March 10 “decision paper,” acknowledged the fire risk while citing concerns about delays and additional cost if the non-compliant materials had to be removed.
The Army Corps didn’t immediately respond to an e-mailed request for comment. The K-Span structures, which are designed to be rust- and weather-resistant, replaced concrete and masonry structures for the Afghan Army beginning in 2010, according to Sopko’s letter.
Sopko said he is opening an investigation of the matter.
To contact the reporter on this story: David Lerman in Washington atdlerman1@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: John Walcott atjwalcott9@bloomberg.net
Colleagues Recall Steady Rise of a Young Diplomat Killed in Afghanistan
The New York Times By Graham Bowley and Monica Davey April 9, 2013
She was an unassuming young diplomat, only 25, who greeted journalists at the heavily fortified American Embassy gates in Kabul, escorting them to interviews and impressing them with her organization and her studied wish to build bridges between Afghan and American cultures. Anne Smedinghoff arrived in Afghanistan in the middle of the summer heat last July. Tentative, even nervous about her relative inexperience in the war, she was nevertheless ambitious and eager to impress as a public diplomacy officer during her long hours fielding inquiries from journalists, chatting at parties around the city, and in trips to regions beyond Kabul.
One of her first breaks was to be selected from hundreds to be the on-the-ground control officer for the visit of Secretary of State John Kerry to Afghanistan last month, arranging logistics and publicity. The feeling at the embassy was that she had handled herself well, and was on her way.
But on Saturday, traveling in Zabul Province in southern Afghanistan on a day trip to deliver books to schoolchildren, Ms. Smedinghoff’s promise was cut short by a Taliban car bomb. She was killed along with three American soldiers, a Department of Defense civilian employee and several Afghans. Others in her group were injured. They were attacked as they walked from a small air base to a school in Qalat, the provincial capital — a walk that would normally have taken just a few minutes, but was still conducted wearing helmets and protective gear, and with a military escort, officials in Kabul said.
Her death has deeply shaken her colleagues, a diplomatic corps already kept in pressure-cooker conditions in the tightly secured embassy in Kabul.
At a service for her in Kabul on Monday, Ambassador James B. Cunningham said, “It was clear that she was one of the best,” and that it was “indeed tragic that Anne’s great, promising story ended too soon.” In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Kerry said, “She was everything a Foreign Service officer should be: smart, capable, eager to serve, and deeply committed to our country and the difference she was making for the Afghan people.”
Her dedication distinguished her early on, growing up in River Forest, Ill., a Chicago suburb. Even in the midst of grief, and shock at the manner of her death, her family and friends unanimously shared a sense of pride that Ms. Smedinghoff’s drive had taken her so far.
“We are so proud of what she was doing, so proud of her,” said her father, Tom Smedinghoff, a lawyer, on Monday after visiting Dover Air Force Base, where his daughter’s flag-draped coffin arrived back in the United States. “It was something that made a difference.”
Her interest in foreign affairs grew early. Richard Borsch, associate principal at Fenwick High School, where Ms. Smedinghoff graduated, recalled her as a deeply involved, gifted student who “was almost a poster child for what we try to do when it comes to the whole child.”
Even back then, a counselor described her in a recommendation as “a future public servant” who was highly respected at school and seemed destined to have an impact.
At Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Ms. Smedinghoff focused on international relations and Spanish. She helped organize a speakers’ symposium, inviting outside speakers to talk on international affairs. In 2007 she went to Madrid for a semester.
She had a close-knit group of friends, including Marissa Neto, one of 11 friends with whom she formed a Facebook group, and they kept in touch. “She was just so ambitious,” said Ms. Neto, who went with her to Madrid. They talked a lot about what they were going to do in their lives and, when it came up, how a posting in Kabul would open doors and further her career.
“She was not going to change what she was going to do for anyone,” Ms. Neto said.
After serving in Venezuela for nearly two years as a consular official, she arrived in Kabul in July. She dove straight into the “bullpen” — the communications center deep in the embassy, one of four press officers answering calls from Afghan and international journalists sometimes 14 hours a day, six days a week. She immediately impressed, said colleagues who worked closely beside her, and her selection as the go-to person for Mr. Kerry’s visit reflected her ability.
“She was the go-to person on the ground,” said John Rhatigan, a spokesman who worked with her. “When you are selected for the job it tells you it is someone who is full of potential.” She did not have formal training in Dari, the language of the Afghan government, said Solmaz Sharifi, another colleague, but “in the bullpen she frequently wrote and defined impromptu Dari vocab words on the whiteboard. Anne’s favorite phrase was ‘salam watandar,’ or ‘hello, countrymen.’ ” Ms. Sharifi said Ms. Smedinghoff “copied down the Dari words we talked about in a notebook and tried to use words she had learned.”
Ms. Smedinghoff made reminders of Chicago, including postcards and a Cubs T-shirt, a prominent part of her life in her living quarters, one of the stark single-housing units that otherwise contained little more than a bed, desk and bathroom.
“She was a Chicago girl,” Ms. Sharifi said. She talked a lot about her family, and last fall, appearing on Afghanistan’s Ariana television channel around Id al-Adha, the most important Muslim holiday, Ms. Smedinghoff emphasized to the Afghan audience the similarities to Thanksgiving and the importance of family in both celebrations.
The life of a Kabul diplomat is a tightly proscribed one, and trips beyond the embassy’s walls are cherished. Ms. Smedinghoff’s father recalled that even a trip to Kabul’s only bowling alley became a noteworthy occasion for her.
In her downtime, she would go running in the embassy gym, or pursue her passion for soccer. She organized the visit to Kabul of the former Olympic soccer player Lorrie Fair, and played right forward for the embassy women’s team — on the rough grass soccer field in the international military coalition’s compound in the summer, or in the gym there during colder weather.
She was helping to organize the annual Kabul marathon this month. And last month, during a break, she and four friends went on a week’s cycling tour in Jordan. They were tentatively planning another trip, to Vietnam.
In Afghanistan, she went on regular official trips — to Herat, with Ambassador Cunningham last year for an art exhibition opening, for example, and this month on the day visit, accompanying Afghan journalists in Zabul to present a set of translated books to Afghan children, meant especially for girls, part of a program that has already delivered 1.9 million books around the country. Advancing Afghan women’s rights was one of her passions, journalists said.
Her next posting was to be the information officer at the American Embassy in Algiers — another challenging assignment. She was to begin two years of Arabic training after her year was up in Kabul.
On Monday, some residents of River Forest tied white ribbons around their trees in her honor, the village president, John Rigas, said in a statement. The flag at Village Hall was to be flown at half-staff until her burial. Mr. Borsch, the associate principal, said she had returned home in December and had spoken to students about her experience. The school held a memorial Mass on Tuesday.
The photographs she had shared with her family of her life abroad are especially treasured now. One of her in a helicopter wearing a helmet and heavy gear struck her father as oddly fitting for a woman often noted as having a soft touch. “She was quiet, but she was a force to be reckoned with,” he said.
Another photograph showed her with Mr. Kerry during his recent visit. Her family passed it around, along with an e-mail from a superior who praised her work during that trip, at a family gathering in Illinois for Easter, just days before her death.
Her aunt, Cathy Tokarski, said the photo showed “such a smile of complete pride” on her face. She added: “I was just kind of in awe of her sometimes. She made these sorts of things seem easy.”
How to stalk elusive truths as a correspondent in Afghanistan
Global Post By Ben Brody April 9, 2013
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan - Truth is elusive in Afghanistan. You have to stalk it with stealth and energetic enterprise.
You have to vet people by asking them questions you already know the answers to. You have to listen in on conversations you're not a part of. No matter how candid they seem, generals and colonels will often misinform you and privates almost always will. You have to talk with experienced sergeants at small outposts, and earning their trust is not always easy or safe. It comes most reliably from sharing their risks and their suffering.
By spending most of my time at the lowest military levels, I could be accused of cultivating my own tunnel vision — deliberately missing the "big picture" of counterinsurgency strategy. But I feel that senior leaders are susceptible to a more insidious version of tunnel vision. The reports they receive disproportionately highlight successes to the exclusion of challenges and failures. Visits to their troops' outposts are short and sanitized by the soldiers there, as I'm sure they have been since the invention of military commanders and far-flung outposts.
What I found at an outpost in rural Kandahar in 2011 was an area depopulated by violence, where Americans occupied an outpost in order to fight the Taliban, and the Taliban came to the area to attack the outpost. Military reports about the outpost focused on how many Taliban were killed there, how troops were protecting Kandahar City and promoting the rule of law.
Being on the ground you miss all that smooth talk. You clearly see the folly of promoting the rule of law in an area where there is no community to abide by the laws, of building a school where there are no children or teachers. You see the savage catch-22s that shadow soldiers here. And you see that the soldiers, faced with these existentially crushing truths, perform their duties admirably and honorably.
My reporting methods have a rapidly diminishing shelf life here. These outposts are closing fast, some of them bulldozed to the ground and some turned over the Afghan National Army. I've visited some of these ANA-only outposts and the ones I've seen so far are too dangerous for a Westerner (with my calculus of risk) to be alone there.
I don't trust all of the soldiers not to shoot me, and some of the smaller outposts will surely be overrun by determined, well-planned Taliban attacks this summer. I would surely fare worse with the Taliban than with the ANA.
I'm aware that being a former Army sergeant, military deficiencies will grab my attention more than successes, as it was once my duty to identify and correct them. So I try to build a certain correction factor into my opinions. But when I see that the Afghan army and police outposts are ringed in with IEDs and outgunned by highly mobile Taliban fighters, it sways my prognosis very little to hear that their commanders in the cities are well-trained in filling out supply requisition paperwork.
I strongly believe that the truth in southern Afghanistan is most readily found on the ground, in the fight, that it is what you see with your own eyes and hear from voices you trust, in a place where trust is earned dearly.
Ben Brody will be reporting for GlobalPost in Afghanistan in the coming months, covering the transition as US troops return home and hand off responsibilities to the Afghan military.
Kabul Residents Angry About Flooding Roads
TOLOnews.com By Azem Arash Tuesday, 09 April 2013
Residents of Kabul have criticised the city mayor for failing to construct proper drainage in the streets after heavy rains brought flooding to the capital again.
"Kabul municipality hasn't paid any attention to solve this problem," one of the residents told TOLOnews from his car.
Another resident said the streets had sufficient water to be a river with 500 fish living in it.
However, Kabul mayor Muhammad Yunus Nawandish rejected the claim saying that the municipality has been working on the problem and it has been resolved in some parts of the city, but admitted there was more work to be done.
"We will conclude the development work of these canals by the end of this year otherwise we don't have any remedy to solve this problem," he said.
Many roads in Kabul including busy public areas turn into muddy rivers when there are heavy rains. The effect causes havoc for pedestrians and businesses alike – a point acknowledged by the mayor.
"The flooded streets in Kabul city not only create challenges for the drivers but also has a bad impact on the business dealings of shopkeepers," Nawandish said.
One of the angry residents said that if the mayor does not have the money then the local residents will make a fund for him.
"If the municipality doesn't pay urgent attention or doesn't have money for the reconstruction of these canals, we will each collect 20 Afs for its reconstruction," the resident told TOLOnews.
Staff from one of the municipality departments were seen on Tuesday hitching rides from a nearby tractor in order to cross the flooded road from their office.
Last Royal Marines leave Afghanistan after more than 10 years of deployments in war-torn country
Marines have been awarded nearly 200 honours for acts of bravery and distinguished service in Afghanistan
The Independent By James Edgar 09 April 2013
The last commando group of Royal Marines to serve in Afghanistan is heading back to the UK, the Ministry of Defence said today.
After more than a decade of operational deployments in the war-torn country, troops from 40 Commando Royal Marines (40 Cdo) lowered the Royal Navy's white ensign above their main operating base, MOB Price, before flying out.
Servicemen from from 40 Cdo were the first British troops to deploy to the country in 2001, securing Bagram airfield and going on to patrol the streets of Kabul.
Since then the Marines have served in successive deployments in Sangin, Nahr-e Saraj and Musa Qala in Helmand Province.
The symbolic lowering of the ensign at MOB Price on Saturday in the Nahr-e Saraj district of Helmand was the last time the flag will fly in the region.
The MoD said the equivalent of more than 14,000 Marines have served in Afghanistan across 12 deployments from the 7,200-strong Royal Marine Corps, while many others have been attached to other units.
The Royal Marines have been awarded nearly 200 honours for acts of bravery and distinguished service in Afghanistan, including a George Cross, seven Distinguished Service Orders and ten awards of the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross, including one posthumously.
The commando group - who nicknamed MOB Price "HMS Price" - have now handed over to 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers.
During their deployments they helped develop the Afghan National Army (ANA) and Afghan police units in the area to take on responsibility for security.
Defence Secretary Philip Hammond said: "The courage of the Royal Marines, and indeed all of our Armed Forces who have served in Afghanistan over the past decade, has been truly outstanding.
"Their commitment has made sure that transition of security to Afghan control is deliverable by the time we end our combat operations in December 2014.
"The hard work of 40 Commando Royal Marines in Afghanistan over the winter has led to impressive progress in the capabilities of Afghan forces as they take on security responsibility, with decreasing levels of assistance from UK and ISAF forces.
"It is these Afghan forces, developed and trained by UK personnel, who will ensure that Afghanistan never again provides a safe haven for terrorists."
In the past year, the number of UK bases across Helmand has reduced from 80 to 12 as they are handed over to Afghan forces or dismantled.
First Sea Lord, Admiral Sir Mark Stanhope, said: "Royal Marines have been a key part of the Afghanistan effort since the UK committed to the region in 2001 and I would like to thank them for serving their country so valiantly, showing determination, commitment and courage.
"It has not been easy - with the many successes there have also been a number of sacrifices. Our thoughts and continued support are with those who were injured and their families and we will never forget those who paid the ultimate sacrifice.
"The seminal contribution made by the Royal Marines has undeniably helped the Afghan Army strengthen its capability and with that brought greater stability to the region."
Lieutenant Colonel Matt Jackson, Commanding Officer of 40 Cdo, added: "The Commando group has been able to transfer lead security responsibility from ISAF to the Afghan National Security Forces in a very difficult area of Central Helmand.
"Working together over the winter, we have given the Afghan Army and the Afghan police the confidence in their own abilities to operate together.
"More importantly, we have given them the belief that they can operate independently from us; they now know that they are good enough to face down any future challenges that lie ahead.
"This is in no small measure due to the sacrifice made not just by the 61 Royal Marines who have lost their lives in this campaign, but by all Service personnel."
40 Cdo served with Task Force Helmand, led by the British Army's 4th Mechanised Brigade, who will shortly transfer authority to 1st Mechanised Brigade.
The Marines will now return to their base in Taunton, Somerset to start training for contingency operations, providing part of the UK's amphibious warfare capability.
The MoD said some Royal Marines will remain serving in Afghanistan on an individual basis, working alongside their colleagues from other services, as the UK continues to support the development of the Afghan National Security Forces.
www.afghanistannewscenter.com