US embassy cables: Iranian influence at Afghanistan parliament

• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 2 December 2010 21.30 GMT
• Article history

Tuesday, 03 March 2009, 12:08
S E C R E T KABUL 000495
NOFORN
SIPDIS
C O R R E C T E D COPY CAPTION
EO 12958 DECL: 03/04/2019
TAGS PREL, PGOV, AF, IR
SUBJECT: IRANIAN INFLUENCE AT PARLIAMENT
Classified By: CDA Christopher Dell for reasons 1.4 (b) and (d).

Summary

1. A 2009 analysis of allegations that Iranian spies bribe MPs in a bid to get the Afghan parliament to back 'anti-Coalition policies'. Some parliamentary staff also believe Iranian intelligence has infiltrated parliament's legal and IT offices. Mirwais Yaseni, the deputy speaker, told US diplomats that he was visited by an Iranian spy who offered him 'support' if he allowed a debate on the legal status of NATO forces in Afghanistan. When he declined, parliament's pro-Iran MPs went ahead anyway. Key passages highlighted in yellow.
   
2. Read related article

1. (S/NF) SUMMARY. Iranian government officials routinely encourage Parliament to support anti-Coalition policies and to raise anti-American talking points during debates. Pro-Western MPs say colleagues with close Iranian contacts accept money or political support to promote Iran's political agenda. Some staff members believe Iranian intelligence officials have infiltrated the Parliament's legal and information technology support offices, compromising the professional staff's legal advice and the legislature's electronic communications. Allegations are difficult to verify and may be inspired more by conspiracy theories and inter-ethnic rivalries than actual facts. However, the number of MPs willing to tell us of first-hand encounters with Iranian agents appears to confirm a dedicated effort by Iran to influence Afghan attitudes toward Coalition forces and other issues. End Summary.

Iranian Embassy Relations with Parliament
-----------
2. (S/NF) Iranian Embassy officials exploit contacts with a number of Afghan politicians to influence Parliament's agenda. Many MPs accuse Hazaras, who like Iran's leaders are mostly Shia Muslims, of having the closest ties with Iran. Moderate Hazaras insist Iranian outreach influences only conservative Hazaras, many of whom received religious educations or lived in Iran while in exile. MPs single out Sayed Hussein Alemi Balkhi (Kabul), Ahmad Ali Jebraili (Herat), and Ustad Mohammad Akbari (Bamyan) as the Hazara MPs who receive the most support from Iran. The Iranian Embassy has also cultivated deep relations with members of opposition groups (including the United Front), Tajik Sayeds, and MPs from Herat and other western provinces.
3. (S/NF) Iranian Embassy officers frequently visit Parliament, but rarely sit in the public gallery and usually avoid high-traffic morning hours, according to Parliament watchers. After Iranian-influence allegations exploded a few years ago, the Iranian Embassy began hosting MPs more often at off-site meetings, where other MPs suspect payments are delivered in exchange for commitments to advocate Iranian policies.
4. (S/NF) According to several contacts, Iran's top policy goals in Parliament are: increasing criticism of civilian casualty incidents caused by Coalition forces, encouraging the Afghan Parliament to "legalize" foreign forces, advocating rights for Shia (including a separate judicial system), promoting "Persian culture," and limiting Western support to Afghan media. These subjects often dominate parliamentary debates, even when not on the official agenda.
Iranian Official Hands Over Talking Points to Deputy Speaker
-----------
5. (S/NF) Lower House Deputy Speaker Mirwais Yaseni (Nangarhar, Pashtun) told PolOff an Iranian intelligence officer visited his office in mid-February, coinciding with the visit of Iran's vice president to Kabul, to pressure him to allow a debate on the status of Coalition forces that would push other scheduled items from the 2/17 agenda (Speaker Yunus Qanooni was out of town, leaving Yaseni to chair the session). The intelligence officer offered to provide "support" to Yaseni if he cooperated. Yaseni declined, only to face the wrath of MPs Balkhi and Akbari, who raised the issue during debate on another item. When Yaseni suggested the MPs wait for a better time to discuss foreign forces, Balkhi accused the deputy speaker of "betraying his country" and being a Western puppet. Yaseni said Balkhi's and Akbari's remarks were identical to the talking points provided to him by the Iranian official earlier that day.

6. (S/NF) Other MPs have described similar interactions with Iranians they believe to be embassy-based intelligence officers. Some believe Iranian officers work in conjunction with Karzai's Palace staff to stir up heated reactions from MPs following civilian casualty incidents. Pro-Western MPs worry that Iran exploits such incidents to decrease public support for Coalition troop presence. The Iranian Embassy plays a lower-key role on social issues, paying MPs to support Persian cultural programs and oppose Western countries' support to local media. Despite Iran's ambitious lobbying efforts, there are limits to MPs' willingness to toe the Iranian line. A Lower House debate last November on water rights quickly struck a nationalistic tone, with several MPs accusing Iran of "stealing Afghanistan's water." No MP spoke up to disagree.

Suspicions With Staff, Too
----------
7. (S/NF) Parliamentary staffers believe the Iranian Embassy has planted moles in Parliament's legal and information technology offices. An employee in the Lower House's legal affairs and research office told PolOff last fall that his new supervisor was editing the staffer's responses to questions from MPs to reflect Iran-friendly interpretations of Afghan law. Lower House Secretary General Gulam Hassan Gran has repeatedly complained to PolOff that most IT staffers have been trained in Iran and pass electronic communications to the Iranian Embassy. As a result, Gran and other Pashtun staff refuse to use Parliament's email system. Gran's deputy keeps a list of MPs who criticize the U.S. and analyzes trends in anti-U.S. rhetoric.
Comment
----------
8. (S/NF) If Iranian efforts to influence MPs are as dedicated as some believe, it means the Iranian government has successfully identified and exploited Parliament's greatest strength: the bully pulpit. The four-year-old Parliament has often struggled to find its role and usually comes out on the losing end in battles with the judicial and executive branches. Still, MPs have been quick learners when it comes to using the media to draw attention to their causes, even if their views are at times incoherent or serve no other purpose than to bad-mouth the government or political rivals. Iran has deftly taken note, forgoing attempts to influence actual legislation and instead exploiting MPs' proclivity for media coverage. By strong-arming MPs to incorporate Iranian talking points into their public statements, Iran has opened a potential channel to influence public and elite opinion against U.S. goals and policies for Afghanistan. At a minimum, Iranian interference has helped keep Parliament bogged down in unproductive debates and away from more pressing matters. DELL

News Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/194913

نتایج نهایی انتخابات پارلمانی ولایت غزنی اعلام شد

 

تمامی برندگان ولایت غزنی، مربوط به قوم هزاره هستند

کمیسیون انتخابات افغانستان نتایج انتخابات پارلمانی ولایت غزنی را اعلام کرده است.

غزنی تنها ولایتی بود که نتایج انتخاباتی آن به دلیل "مشکلات فنی" اعلام نشده بود.
اعلام نتایج نهایی انتخابات پارلمانی غزنی، ظاهرا به دلیل ادعاها در مورد تقلب گسترده در این ولایت، به تاخیر افتاده بود.
اما پس از بررسی های کمیسیون رسیدگی به شکایات انتخاباتی، هیچ تغییری در نتیجه نهایی انتخابات پارلمانی ولایت غزنی بوجود نیامده است.
ولایت غزنی در مجلس نمایندگان یازده کرسی دارد و براساس فهرست نهایی برندگان غزنی، همه این یازده کرسی را نامزدانی از قوم هزاره به خود اختصاص داده اند و از پشتونهای غزنی کسی به مجلس نمایندگان راه نیافته است.
همین مسئله باعث شده بود کمیسیون رسیدگی به شکایات انتخاباتی، اعلام نتایج انتخابات غزنی را همزمان با اعلام نتایج ولایات دیگر اعلام نکند. تا ببیند که چگونه هیچ یک از نامزدهای مربوط به قوم پشتون در غزنی، موفق به ورود به مجلس نشده اند.
حامد کرزی، رئیس جمهوری افغانستان پیش از این گفته بود که در انتخابات پارلمانی در ولایت غزنی، "توازن قومی" رعایت نشده است.
اما کمیسیون انتخابات افغانستان حالا فهرست برندگان ولایت غزنی را بدون تغییر اعلام کرده و تاکید می کند که این فهرست نهایی و تغییر ناپذیر است.
تاخیر در اعلام نتایج انتخابات ولایت غزنی، با اعتراضهای زیادی روبرو شده بود. اخیرا کمیته صیانت از آرای غزنی از سوی برخی از نمایندگان هزاره در مجلس نمایندگان ایجاد شد.
اعضای این کمیته اعلام کردند که اگر نتایج ولایت غزنی بدون دلیل موجه و قناعت بخش، تغییر کند، هزاره ها به اعتراضهای مدنی گسترده دست خواهند زد.
اعلام نتایج نهایی ولایت غزنی در واقع به پایان کار کمیسیون انتخابات و کمیسیون رسدگی به شکایات انتخاباتی است که سرانجام موفق شدند بعد از نزدیک به سه ماه به کار برگزاری انتخابات و نتایج جنجالی آن نقطه پایان بگذارند.

News Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/afghanistan/2010/12/101201_k01_af_ghazni_election.shtml

Afghanistan announces last set of election results

By Hamid Shalizi
KABUL (Reuters) - Afghanistan announced on Wednesday the final batch of results from a September 18 parliamentary election, with poll organisers aiming to wrap up a vote marred by widespread fraud and pave the way for a new parliament.
The Independent Election Commission (IEC) said preliminary winners would hold their seats in southeastern Ghazni province. The results were delayed because the victors are all ethnic Hazaras even though around half Ghazni's population is Pashtun.
Pashtun areas were plagued by the worst violence on the day of the vote, and in one district just three people voted.
Election officials released results for Afghanistan's other 33 provinces and for Kuchi nomads a week ago, but delayed Ghazni because of technical issues and irregularities.
There were concerns Pashtuns might react badly if all seats went to the Hazaras, and also speculation that the IEC might call a rerun in Ghazni, or allow the members from the last parliament, who reflect a more balanced ethnic mix, to stay in their seats while a deal was worked out.
But in the end the election organiser stuck with the votes, holding on to some credibility after a much-criticised poll.
"For the election commission, ethnicity, language or religious sect do not matter and we have completed our job responsibly," IEC chairman Fazl Ahmad Manawi told reporters.
There was no indication when a new wolesi jirga, or lower house of parliament, would be formed. Election officials had suggested last week the new 249-seat house would be formed soon.
"We look forward to the prompt inauguration of the wolesi jirga as an important further step in Afghanistan's strengthening of its democratic governance," the United Nations mission in Afghanistan said in a statement.
The U.N. mission has congratulated Afghan election officials for conducting an election in the middle of a violent insurgency, but has also noted "considerable fraud" took place.
Afghan officials claimed success on election day because violence was limited, but results were delayed for several weeks by a mountain of complaints about fraud. As a result, the country has also been without a parliament for months.
The final evaluation of the poll will weigh heavily when U.S. President Barack Obama reviews his Afghan war strategy next month amid rising violence and sagging public support, especially after a fraud-marred presidential election last year.
President Hamid Karzai has been critical of the poll, which is likely to have produced a parliament with a larger, more vocal and more coherent opposition bloc than he has faced previously.
As candidates run as independents -- to prevent ethnic factionalism -- it is hard to sort out affiliations yet.
"The president might have concerns but we have done our job professionally," Manawi said.
(Writing by Emma Graham-Harrison; Editing by Paul Tait and Ron Popeski)
Wed Dec 1, 2010 1:19pm GMT

News Source: http://af.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idAFTRE6B01YQ20101201?pageNumber=2&virtualBrandChannel=0

The other conflict in Afghanistan

By Brian M Downing

The ongoing insurgency in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan rightly commands attention, but it obscures a critical second conflict in the country. Long-standing antagonism between the non-Pashtun peoples of the north and the Pashtun people of the south are heading toward fissure. Paradoxically, settlement of the insurgency, through negotiation or force of arms, could exacerbate this divide.

Ethnic politics
Afghanistan comprises a dozen or more sizable ethnic groups, the precise numbers and proportions of which are unclear and contested. Pashtun, Tajik, Uzbek, Hazara, Turkic, Baloch, and other groups differ on demographic matters; and the country's geography and decades of conflict offer little prospect of a neutral, acceptable census.

The center of the demographic dispute is the size of the Pashtun peoples of the south and east, who, on only sparing evidence, purport to be about 52% to 55% of the population and have so claimed since the 19th century.

Other groups, however, disagree. They insist that the Pashtun are perhaps slightly more than 40% of the population, while disinterested assessments say Northerners constitute 45% to 50% of the population. The dispute is not merely a matter for demographers or even for the issue of moneys doled out from Kabul. It now centers on who will preside over Afghanistan - and indeed if there will be an Afghanistan as presently constituted.

For a century or more the question of Pashtun majority could sit on the back-burner as most Afghans had far more interest in local government than in events in faraway Kabul where figures reigned but dared not rule. But decades of war and inept or intolerable central governments have brought the matter to the fore.

Mohammed Daoud's reforms of the late 1970s led to violent opposition in most parts of the country and plunged the country into decades of intermittent warfare and foreign interventions from which the country has yet to recover. His successors fared little better and the various mujahideen groupings could not govern, which led to the Taliban government of the mid-1990s through 2001.

There is wide agreement in the northern regions that Pashtun governments from Mohammed Daoud to Hamid Karzai have been incompetent, intrusive cabals that long misgoverned the country and are poised now to give it back to the Taliban in concert with foreigners from Pakistan and China. Northerners bitterly recall the Taliban as harsh southerners who slaughtered non-Pashtun people by the thousands.

Post-Taliban government
After fighting the Taliban to a standstill and ousting them in 2001, northerners felt their efforts guaranteed them predominance in the new government. They acceded to the accession of Karzai, the head of the (Pashtun) Popalzai tribe, to the presidency.

This was done in part owing to US pressure and despite considerable support in the country for the Tajik statesman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who also enjoyed support from regional powers that had supported the north well after the US washed its hands of the area.

Over the past nine years, however, northerners have seen their politicians pushed out of key ministries, especially the Ministry of Defense, which was once administered by the Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim. That portfolio is now in the hands of Abdul Wardak, a Pashtun who has used his office to reassert his people's predominance in key military commands and simultaneously vitiated the militias of northern warlords. Northerners have been reduced to the rank-and-file of the Afghan National Army and ceremonial positions such as the country's two vice presidencies.

Outsiders have criticized the presidential and parliamentary elections as fraudulent. Karzai is widely believed to have interfered with local polling stations and given himself and his supporters wide victory margins. Northerners certainly agree but insist that outsiders miss an important aspect of Karzai's fraudulence. He not only inflated the national support for himself and his supporters, he also suppressed evidence of non-Pashtun voters and their support for Tajik, Uzbek, and other peoples' candidates. Pashtun politicians counter by insisting that it is the northerners who are tampering with the ballot box to overstate their numbers.

Today, northerners contend the nation is on the brink of another act of legerdemain that will ensure Pashtun predominance - and misgovernment. The loya jirgas, which are romanticized in the West as a protodemocratic institution in colorful local dress, are simply another Pashtun ploy to ensure their dominance.

Karzai's peace council has been hand-selected to approve whatever settlement he presents them. Northerners sense that Karzai is about to betray them by settling with the Taliban, granting them large swathes of territory which northerners feel the Pashtun mullahs will one day use again to assert control across the country. Further, Karzai is seen as collaborating with Pakistan to exploit Afghan resources in conjunction with China.

Warlords, army and the regional powers
Over the past few years, Generals Fahim and Rashid Dostum, leaders of Tajik and Uzbek forces, respectively, are said to have demobilized their forces and turned over their armor and artillery to the Afghan National Army (ANA) - as noted, a force largely purged of non-Pashtun commanders. Turning over heavy weapons is credible; full demobilization is not. There can be little doubt that these wily northerners, and other smaller ones, have retained patronage networks and forces in-being - lightly-armed, yet trained and loyal and angered by events in the south.

The position and reliability of the ANA are unclear. Though chiefly commanded by Pashtuns now, northerners constitute at least 55% of the ANA's officers and rank-and-file, with Tajiks greatly over-represented and judged to be the best fighters. Resentment toward Pashtun superiors - military and political - are almost certainly parts of soldierly conversations. The ANA's battle record thus far is sparse, unremarkable, and unlikely to have instilled a super-ethnic identity.

A break between northerners and Karzai would lead to serious conflicts within the ANA, including large-scale desertions and mutinies, particularly if called on to do so by Fahim and Dostum and the family of the late legendary mujahideen chieftain, Mohammed Ahmad Shah Massoud.

Regional powers are more aware of growing north-south tensions than the US. They have had ties with northern forces going back to the war in the 1980s and the standoff with the Taliban in the 1990s. India, Iran and Russia have aid programs and intelligence officers in the country, chiefly in the north. They, along with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and other Islamic former Soviet Socialist Republics, are concerned with the insurgency in the south and prepared to take extraordinary steps to prevent Islamist militancy and terrorism from spreading north. (Uzbekistan knows well that its militants fled south in the 1990s and today serve with al-Qaeda.)

Naturally, geopolitics and economics are at work as well. India seeks to counter growing Pakistani and Chinese influence in Afghanistan. Russia, too, is worried of growing Chinese influence in a region close to tsarist, Soviet and Russian interests.

Iran plays a double game. It gives small amounts of arms to insurgents and trains them at an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base in southeastern Iran. But this is a warning to the US should it, or Israel, attack Iranian nuclear facilities. Support to insurgents can go up markedly, perhaps to include Stinger-like missiles, and Quds Force guerrillas could be deployed against US troops to make supply lines even more parlous than they are today.

Despite its limited support for the insurgency, Iran is deeply hostile to the Taliban, whom they recall as merciless Sunnis who slaughtered tens of thousands of Shi'ite Hazaras and who invaded an Iranian consulate and killed several diplomats. The three powerful regional powers also wish to share in the exploitation of Afghan resources and have a say in any pipeline that might be built there.

India, Iran and Russia are pressing Karzai on neglected northern interests. Bagfuls of money have been known to bring nettlesome matters to a politician's attention. They would support the north in the event of a break with the Pashtuns and are at least preparing to help rebuild separate military forces there. Each regional power has its intelligence people operating in the country, especially in the north.

The US position
Northern concerns are being articulated to US officials by Tajiks, Uzbeks, Hazaras and other disgruntled non-Pashtuns who have been able to retain positions in the military and diplomatic service and also by those peoples. But US attention is mainly directed on counter-insurgency operations in the south and east and in seeking to begin a negotiated settlement.

Despite its maladroitness over the past nine years, the US can join the regional powers in pressing Karzai on restoring positions in the army and state to northerners and in seating them prominently at any peace conference that might convene one day.

Failure to do so may leave Karzai with a Taliban south and a secessionist north, leaving him with palaces in Kabul and restaurants abroad. A break between north and south could force the US to withdraw from the insurgent-wracked south and concentrate, politically and militarily, in the north.

This would not be uniformly adverse: the US would find political development and military support far easier among the northerners than it is with the disparate and increasingly hostile Pashtun tribes in the south. In this regard, Washington and Kabul alike should pay greater attention to the ominous conflict with the north.

Brian M Downing is the author of The Military Revolution and Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com

News Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LL01Df04.html

کمیته صیانت از آراء ولایت غزنی تشکیل شد

 

نمایندگان ولایت غزنی و شماری دیگر از نمایندگان هزاره ها که به مجلس دوم راه یافته اند، تاخیر اعلام نتایج نهایی این ولایت از سوی کمیسیون انتخابات را غیر قانونی خوانده و خواستار اعلام فوری آن شده اند.

کمیسیون مستقل انتخابات افغانستان، به استثنای ولایت غزنی نتایج نهایی تمامی ولایات دیگر را اعلام کرده است.
این کمیسیون در روز اعلام نتایج نهایی انتخابات علت اعلام نشدن نتایج نهایی ولایت غزنی را "مشکلات تکنیکی"(فنی) خواند و سخنگوی این کمیسیون تاکید کرد که نتایج نهایی این ولایت نیز به زودی اعلام خواهد شد.
ولایت غزنی در مجلس نمایندگان یازده کرسی دارد، فهرست نتایج ابتدایی این ولایت نشان می دهد که همه این یازده کرسی را نامزدانی از قوم هزاره به خود اختصاص داده اند و از پشتونهای غزنی کسی در مجلس نمایندگان راه نیافته است.
شماری از نمایندگان هزاره ها که به عنوان اعضای کمییته صیانت از آراء مردم غزنی در یک کنفرانس خبری شرکت کرده بودند، اعلام کردند که "آنها در یک گردهمایی بزرگ که از سوی احزاب سیاسی و حلقات مختلف هزارها تشکیل شده بود، به عنوان اعضای این کمیته انتخاب شدند."
احمد بهزاد نماینده هرات، جعفر مهدوی و عالمی بلخی نمایندگان کابل، اسدالله سعادتی نماینده دایکندی، حاجی محمد عبده نماینده بلخ و همه نمایندگان غزنی عضو این کمیته هستند. اعضای این کمیته می گویند، استدلال کمیسیون انتخابات برای اعلام نتایج ولایت غزنی به دلیل "مشکلات فنی" پذیرفتنی نیست.

"اگر خدای نخواسته دستبردی درنتایج صورت بگیرد ما آن را به مفهوم دفن روند دموکراتیک در افغانستان می دانیم"

عبدالقیوم سجادی نماینده غزنی در مجلس پیشین که این بار نیز اسمش در فهرست ابتدایی نمایندگان غزنی دیده می شود در این کنفرانس خبری گفت: "اظهارات آقای رئیس جمهور که خواستار چاره اندیشی در باره ولایت غزنی مبنی بر مصلحت اندیشی برای تامین وحدت ملی شده بودند از همان آغاز برای ما نگران کننده بود، باور ما این است که بهترین راه تامین وحدت ملی، حاکمیت قانون و پاسداری از آن است."
آقای سجادی افزود: "اگر خدای نخواسته دستبردی درنتایج صورت بگیرد ما آن را به مفهوم دفن روند دموکراتیک در افغانستان می دانیم. هرنوع مهندسی که در آراء ولایت غزنی صورت بگیرد، به مفهوم، آغاز یک بحران ملی در افغانستان خواهد بود. اگر با استناد به مسایلی چون رعایت ترکیب قومی دستبرد صورت بگیرد چنین چیزی در همه سطوح و مناطق کشور سرایت خواهد کرد. جامعه تشیع و هزاره ها در اجتماع بزرگی تصمیم گرفتند که نسبت به این مساله و عواقب آن هشدار دهند."
احمد بهزاد از دیگر اعضای کمیته صیانت از آرای غزنی گفت، تاکید رئیس جمهوری مبنی بر رعایت ترکیب قومی، مبنای قانونی ندارد، زیرا به گفته او در قوانین افغانستان به صراحت یا به اشاره ذکر نشده است که باید ترکیب قومی نمایندگان پارلمان در حوزه های انتخاباتی حفظ و رعایت شود.
آقای بهزاد افزود: "براساس قانون اساسی افغانستان، هر نماینده مجلس بدون در نظر داشت اینکه از کدام حوزه انتخاب شده، مذهبش چیست و به کدام زبان سخن می گوید، وقتی در یک حوزه انتخاباتی برنده شد، نماینده تمام مردم افغانستان است، پس در این صورت چگونه هزاره های غزنی نمی توانند از پشتونهای این ولایت یا مردمان مناطق دیگر نمایندگی کنند؟ اگر معیار آقای کرزی را بپذیریم که هزاره های غزنی نمی توانند از پشتونهای غزنی نمایندگی کنند، پس خود جناب ایشان هم به عنوان یک پشتون نمی تواند از اقوام دیگر افغانستان نمایندگی کند".

"اگر معیار آقای کرزی را بپذیریم که هزاره های غزنی نمی توانند از پشتونهای غزنی نمایندگی کنند، پس خود جناب ایشان هم به عنوان یک پشتون نمی تواند از اقوام دیگر افغانستان نمایندگی کند"

احمد بهزاد گفت او به نمایندگی از کسانی که اورا به عنوان عضو کمیته صیانت از آراء غزنی برگزیده اند هشدار می دهد که ابتال نتایج ولایت غزنی، نه تنها منجر به ابتال کل انتخابات "بلکه منجربه ابتال نظام در افغانستان خواهد شد و مردم مصمم هستند با استفاده از رویشهای قانونی به صورت گسترده دست به اعتراض بزنند.
در همین حال شماری دیگر از کسی که در انتخابات برنده نشده اند نیز به اعتراضهای چند روزه خود ادامه داده و خواستار رسیدگی به شکایات خود هستند.
دادستانی کل افغانستان نیز بعد از اعلام نتایج انتخابات با صدور اعلامیه ای اعلام نتایج را قبل از وقت خواند و خواستار رسیدگی به شکایات نامزدهای معترض شد.همچنین دادستانی افغانستان پنج تن را که دوتن از آنها صراف هستند و سه تن دیگر از آنها را دادستانی اعلام کرده که خود را به جای ناظران بین المللی انتخابات معرفی کرده بودند، به اتهام اینکه در معاملات پولی در رابطه به انتخابات دست داشته اند، بازداشت کرده است.
همه این حوادث نشان می دهد که درگیری برسر نتایج انتخابات پارلمانی افغانستان که بعد از اعلام فهرست ابتدایی شروع شده بود، همچنان ادامه دارد و ظاهرا به نظر نمی رسد راه ساده ای برای حل نهایی آن وجود داشته باشد

News Source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/persian/afghanistan/2010/11/101127_l09_ghazni_province_candidats_protest.shtml

Why Isn't the Vote in a Volatile Afghan Province Certified Yet?

 

By Jason Motlagh / Andar Friday, Nov. 26, 2010

The results of Afghanistan's parliamentary elections announced this week were an anti-climax, coming two months later and tainted by an avalanche of fraud and vote-rigging allegations. But returns from one of the country's 34 provinces were not certified, and that's where things get interesting. In Ghazni, a Taliban stronghold with an ethnic Pasthun majority, preliminary results apparently show that the Hazara minority swept the polls by claiming all 11 seats. Given the eastern province's mixed demography, it's widely agreed the improbable outcome stems from the insecurity that kept tens of thousands of Pashtuns away from the polls. Much as the Afghan government and its foreign backers want to move on, there are now fears that if corrective steps are not taken, the country's largest ethnic group could be further isolated — to the Taliban's advantage.

While the threat of violence had an impact across most of Afghanistan when people went to the polls on Sept. 18, it caused paralysis in Ghazni. According to U.S. military officers based here, there were at least 23 attacks on election day. Of these, more than half took place in Andar, a volatile district where only four voting stations were open. The dearth of stations here was emblematic of other Pashtun-dominated areas in the province, they say, and in the end it didn't matter: a total of three people cast votes. Shahbas Khan, 32, a Pashtun shopkeeper, said going to the polls was out of the question due to the militants' pre-election warnings that participants would be harmed. He called it "a big show" staged by the government and NATO despite foreknowledge that a free and fair process was impossible. As a U.S. officer later admitted to TIME, "We weren't surprised when no one showed up." (See how bullets trumped ballots in the Afghan election.)

Hazaras, meanwhile, turned out in droves. Having suffered terribly under the Sunni-Muslim, largely Pashtun Taliban regime, the Shi'ite minority has rebounded since late 2001 to secure greater constitutional rights and gain an outsized stake in the fledgling democracy. Their success in Ghazni extended to other provinces like neighboring Wardak, another mostly Pashtun province, that yielded the Hazaras, who have a sizeable presence there, three of five seats. Informed for the first time of the landslide results, some Pashtuns in Ghazni said they don't have a problem with the idea of non-Pasthun's representing them; it's their trust in the Afghan government and its claims to democracy that has being lost. "We're all brothers in Islam," says Abdul Hadir, 35, a local mullah, speaking among an ethnically mixed crowd in the village of Arazu. "Our problem is with leaders that have forgotten us all and play games." (Can the allies trust Afghan soldiers to watch their backs?)

Indeed, ethic tension seems beside the point. In recent weeks protests have come from all sides over sundry election irregularities. Nearly a quarter of 5.6 million votes have been tossed out, while the Afghan attorney general has called for a broad investigation into systemic fraud. Although the Independent Election Commission is eager to draw a close to an election that has sullied the reputation of the parliament as well as its own, it is still hesitant to endorse Ghazni's lopsided results over concerns such a move could backfire. In what may be a bid to shape the dispute in favor of the president's allies, members of the Karzai administration have already warned that the insurgency would likely profit in contested areas, a prospect Pashtun candidates on the losing end have no doubts about.
Khial Mohammad Hossaini, a Pashtun candidate from Ghazni who did not win election, is convinced the vote was rigged by "foreign hands" and ethnic Tajik-led northerners who don't want any Pashtuns in government, though he doesn't stop there. "[President] Karzai is Pashtun, but you cannot count on him," he says. "It's not because of security, it's because they don't want us to be elected as parliamentarians," adding that there "are lots of countries involved. Of course, it will cause violence in Ghazni because these people will not trust the government and will stir trouble and help the Taliban." According to Haroun Mir, an independent analyst in Kabul, this is not to be dismissed as just another angry politician's bluster. "Security-wise," he says, "I think [the reaction among Pashtuns] will be a big problem."
This leaves Afghan authorities with a difficult choice: They can certify the Ghazni results next week, as some election officials have said, and chance the consequences; or, have a re-run in Ghazni sometime in the near future. Yet with Taliban influence still prevalent and a hard winter approaching, there's little reason to believe conditions will be any better the second time around. Shah Jahan, an ethnic Hazara and projected winner from the province, maintains that while militant intimidation surely undermined the Pashtun turnout, anti-Hazara vote-rigging was also a reality in core parts of Ghazni, where some voting stations reportedly ran out of ballots. The existing results should therefore be accepted. "Even if a re-re-run happens, the result will be the same as it is now," he says.
Angling for a solution, some Western officials have suggested appointing Pashtuns to seats in the upper house of parliament, or or staff positions in the provincial government. Karzai supporters, for their part, favor allowing the exiting MPs from Ghazni, most of whom are Pashtun, to stay in office until a re-vote is completed. Others have talked of waiting until the spring to do a second round, but there again the picture remains bleak. That's just the time fighting tends to pick up, and in the intervening weeks other candidates claiming to have lost due to Taliban threats could make their case to be included. Would-be winners would then fight back, potentially pulling the country deeper into gridlock. That's to say nothing of the fatalism shared by some disenfranchised Pashtuns, who say there's really no point in elections at all with more pressing concerns at hand. "Our main problem here is the same," says Shabas, the shopkeeper who didn't vote. He was referring to the Taliban, without naming names.


News Source: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2033312,00.html

MASSACRES OF HAZARAS IN AFGHANISTAN (A report by Human Rights Watch)

You can access the whole report by clicking on following link:

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2001/afghanistan/

I. SUMMARY

This report documents two massacres committed by Taliban forces in the central highlands of Afghanistan, in January 2001 and May 2000. In both cases the victims were primarily Hazaras, a Shia Muslim ethnic group that has been the target of previous massacres and other serious human rights violations by Taliban forces. These massacres took place in the context of the six-year war between the Taliban and parties now grouped in the United National Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan (the "United Front"), in which international human rights and humanitarian law have been repeatedly violated by the warring factions. Ethnic and religious minorities, and the Hazaras in particular, have been especially vulnerable in areas of conflict, and Taliban forces have committed large-scale abuses against Hazara civilians with impunity. In this report Human Rights Watch calls upon the United Nations to investigate both massacres and to systematically monitor human rights and humanitarian law violations by all parties to Afghanistan's civil war.
The massacre in Yakaolang district began on January 8, 2001 and continued for four days. In the course of conducting search operations following the recapture of the district from two Hazara-based parties in the United Front, the Taliban detained about 300 civilian adult males, including staff members of local humanitarian organizations. The men were herded to assembly points in the center of the district and several outlying areas, and then shot by firing squad in public view. About 170 men are confirmed to have been killed. The killings were apparently intended as a collective punishment for local residents whom the Taliban suspected of cooperating with United Front forces, and to deter the local population from doing so in the future. The findings concerning events in Yakaolang are based on the record of interviews with eyewitnesses that were made available to Human Rights Watch and other corroborating evidence.
The May 2000 massacre took place near the Robatak pass on the border between Baghlan and Samangan provinces. Thirty-one bodies were found at one site to the northwest of the pass. Twenty-six of the dead were positively identified as civilians from Baghlan province. Of the latter, all were unlawfully detained for four months and some were tortured before they were killed. Human Rights Watch's findings in this case are based in large part on interviews with a worker who participated in the burials and with a relative of a detainee who was executed at Robatak. These accounts have been further corroborated by other independent sources. With respect to both massacres, all names of sources, witnesses, and survivors have been withheld.
Mullah Mohammad Omar, the head of the Taliban movement, has stated that there is no evidence of a civilian massacre in Yakaolang and blocked journalists from visiting the district, until recently accessible only by crossing Taliban-held territory. On the night of February 13-14, 2001, however, United Front forces recaptured Bamiyan city, the provincial capital. The offensive secured an airport and a road link to Yakaolang.
On January 19, 2001, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan issued a statement expressing concern about "numerous credible reports" that civilians were deliberately targeted and killed in Yakaolang. The secretary-general called on the Taliban to take "immediate steps to control their forces," adding that the reports required "prompt investigation" and that those responsible should "be brought to justice."¹ On February 16, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson called for the establishment of an independent commission of inquiry into human rights violations in Afghanistan. Human Rights Watch is concerned that such a commission would take too long to establish; the need is for a small team of experts that could be deployed immediately.
The Taliban's denial of responsibility for the Yakaolang massacre, and its failure to hold its commanders accountable for these and other abuses against civilians by its forces, make it critical that the U.N. itself investigate both cases. There have been preliminary discussions within the U.N. on the feasibility of investigating the Yakaolang massacre; a similar discussion also took place after the Robatak massacre, although no further action was taken. These discussions should be resumed. In doing so, however, the U.N. should not repeat the missteps that resulted in an inconclusive 1999 field investigation by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, into the 1997 killing of Taliban prisoners by United Front forces in Mazar-i Sharif and the reprisal massacre of Hazara civilians by Taliban forces the following year. To allow an effective investigation into the cases documented in this report, the U.N. should adopt the measures outlined below.
¹ Secretary-General, United Nations, "Secretary-General very concerned about reports of civilians deliberately targeted and killed in Afghanistan," January 19, 2001, as posted on Relief Web, http://www.reliefweb.int/w/rwb.nsf (accessed February 16, 2001).