Afghan Council weighs ethnic representation

[Harold F. Schiffman]

>>From the NYTimes,

December 31, 2003

Chairman Walks Out of Afghan Council

By CARLOTTA GALL

     KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 30 The chairman walked out of the loya jirga
on Tuesday as nerves began to snap on the 17th day of the grand council,
gathered here to draw up a new constitution for Afghanistan. The chairman,
Sebaghatullah Mojadeddi, an elderly professor of Islam, suddenly walked
out of his office and went home after speaking on the phone to President
Hamid Karzai in the early afternoon.

The loya jirga was already at a standstill, with at least 100 delegates
boycotting the voting on final amendments in protest at what many called
government interference, and all the political leaders had converged on
Mr.  Mojadeddi's office. The arguments that have exploded during the last
two days inside the vast tent pitched on the grounds of Kabul Polytechnic
have revealed the ugly scars of two decades of fighting and ethnic strife.

The debate in its final stages has turned away from the hot topics of
Islam, women and human rights, and centered on the struggle for power
between the two main ethnic groups: the Pashtuns, who once more feel
themselves in the ascendant, and the Tajiks, who have dominated Kabul
since the fall of the Taliban. The rivalry heated up when the Tajik camp
accused the chairman and his deputies of rewriting parts of the
constitution without consultation and of ignoring their proposed
amendments. Sheik Muhammad Asif Mohseni, a Shiite mujahedeen leader,
complained that five items agreed to by the working committees were
omitted from the final draft.

Delegates also accused government ministers and officials of interfering,
and said the chairman and his deputies were discriminating against them.
The day had begun promisingly with a powerful speech from a deputy
chairman, Qiyamuddin Kashaf, a member of one of the most conservative
religious parties, who urged unity and cooperation, and castigated the
Afghans for the destructive infighting in the early 1990's.

He praised the jihad, when the Afghans fought against the Soviet
occupation, but said the 12 years of fighting that followed had been
"senseless." "This war was only for selfish, personal gain and for power,
which lit a fire, destroyed the country, and transformed the gardens and
farmland to a desert," he said. "That all these disasters came to our
country was the result of opposing each other and becoming the enemy of
each other."

He added, "Today this huge task and responsibility we have in front of us
can be achieved by being united." But the political struggle carried on.
Voting on the amendments was delayed for hours as a group of 25 delegates
presented the chairman with the list of the five items mentioned by Sheik
Mohseni. Mr Mojadeddi promised to work them into the draft, according to
Dr. Muhaiuddin Mehdi, a delegate from Kabul who was in the group.

Then in a telephone call with President Karzai the chairman apparently
cracked, Dr. Mehdi said. "On one side there is pressure from you and the
other side it is the delegates' views," he told the president. "I cannot
continue any longer." Mr. Mojadeddi left for home and returned only when
Vice President Abdul Karim Khalili and Foreign Minister Abdullah went to
his home to fetch him back, Dr. Mehdi said.

"God please show us the way of truth," Mr. Mojadeddi prayed as he returned
to his chair. He told the delegates, "Sometimes this meeting of the loya
jirga is not so moderate, and sometimes it becomes so hot it is close to
burning, and sometimes it is so cold that I must go home and get something
warm to wear." He called an end to the session until the morning, saying
that he hoped to bring the loya jirga to a conclusion with full consensus.

But in a sign that the protesters might get their way, he ended with an
Afghan saying, "Those who win with the sword, may they digest it well."
Meeting the Tajiks' demands would be a considerable compromise for Mr.
Karzai, who has held out for a strong presidential system. His opponents
want Parliament to control the printing of money, the creation of a
constitutional court, three vice presidents rather than one, a ban on top
officials holding dual citizenship or having a foreign spouse, more power
devolved to provincial councils, and for Uzbek and Turkmen language rights
in their ethnic regions.

At least two of the demands have drawn in two other ethnic minorities in
northern Afghanistan, the Shiite Hazaras, who want a Hazara to be one of
the vice presidents, and the Uzbeks, who want more recognition as the
third largest ethnic group. Nevertheless, delegates were showing signs of
weariness of the entire process as they waited all day for voting that
never happened.

"Something is going on behind the scenes, and it should not happen like
that," said Muhammad Alam, a delegate from Farar. "People feel that they
are not listening to the majority."

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/12/31/international/asia/31AFGH.html