Inside the Subcommittee on Human Rights

Photo : Afghan women students at Kabul University, 1995.
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Speaking to his fellow members of the Subcommittee on International Human Rights on Tuesday at a meeting which heard that the situation for Afghan women has considerably worsened over the last two years, Lib MP Mario Silva recounted his own conversations with womens groups in Afghanistan this past June :

"They told us when they were young, they had full freedom in terms of education, they didn't have to wear the head scarf, they could go out in public without any problem. It was more restricted with the Taliban but they did have more progrssive attitudes towards women some time ago so I think when we in the West say we have to be culturally sensitive to them and it takes time - I think that is a false argument."

He stated that that all the womens groups told him that concessions to the Taliban were won on the backs of women, that they strongly opposed the Karzai government, and that continued Canadian presence in Afghanistan was important to them.

The only witness Tuesday was Reverend Majed El Shafie of the Christian Toronto-based human rights group, One Free World International.

He testified that while working in Afghanistan four years ago, he was able to connect with local human rights orgs and individuals through their networks but in the last four years, and specifically in the last two, reports indicated the human rights situation is much deteriorated, so in June he returned with the delegation that included committee member Lib MP Mario Silva.

El Shafie outlined three main issues.

Number one - the severe abuse and shocking punishments meted out to women, abetted and sanctioned by the new 2009 laws passed by the Karzai government before the last election.

Number two - Boy play or "bacha bazi" - sexual slavery in which boys are dressed up to dance as girls and afterwards whoever pays the most gets to rape the boy. Members of the government take part, says El Shafie, and some boys are raped six to eight times a day, including by the police if they complain. He has video.

Number three - Persecution of 25 Afghans converting to Christianity, including calls for their deaths by members of parliament, backed up by Karzai's spokesman, the deputy secretary. El Shafie tabled the document authorizing them being stoned to death.

He recommended future Canadian aid be tied to preconditions on human rights improvements.
Although he testified that "our support of Karzai and the corruption of his family is what is negatively affecting our image" to the Afghan people, he made a passionate plea for Canada not to abandon them, to stay on in Afghanistan.

The committee met hours before the defeat of the Bloc motion condemning the Conservative government's extension of the Afghanistan mission without a parliamentary vote.

There is a notable lack of partisan party bickering on this seven member committee - possibly because a majority of them also work together on the Steering Committee of the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA). Scott Reid is Chair of both, Mario Silva is Vice Chair of both, and Irwin Cotler and David Sweet are members of both. So the Steering Committee of the CPCCA holds a majority on the human rights committee.

This also perhaps explains why human rights abuses perpetrated on Palestine/Gaza do not show up anywhere on their radar. Rather unusual for a human rights committee, no?
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Banksters, Afghan style

Der Spiegel in July: "Billions of dollars are being secreted out of Kabul to help well-connected Afghans buy luxury villas in Dubai."

The Dubai villas are usually registered in the name of those issuing the loans, such as Sherkhan Farnood, deposed chairman of Kabul Bank, who transferred hundreds of millions of dollars from Afghanistan to Dubai in 2009.
In July Farnood boasted :

"Kabul Bank is so flush that it is building a 30 million headquarters, a cluster of shimmering towers of bulletproof glass."

Since yesterday Kabul Bank is more like a clusterfuck of shimmering droves of Afghans making bank withdrawals and the only bulletproof part is the time-honoured bankster strategy of asking the US Treasury for a bailout. Farnood today :

"If we survive Saturday and Sunday, we will be okay," said Farnood, who spoke at his luxury waterfront villa in Dubai shortly after his return to the Persian Gulf emirate from Kabul.

Mahmoud Karzai, brother to President Karzai, third largest shareholder in Kabul Bank and ... wait for it ... proud owner of a Dubai villa :

"America should do something. If the Treasury Department will guarantee that everyone will get their money, maybe that will work," said the president's brother, who rushed to Kabul on Wednesday from Dubai, where he spends most of his time in a Palm Jumeirah villa purchased with Kabul Bank money. "

Quick financial status update on your investment as a shareholder in those Dubai villas :
Canada's aid in Afghanistan will amount to $1.9B over the ten-year period ending in 2011, making Canada one of Afghanistan's largest donors. In the 2008/2009 fiscal year, Canada disbursed approximately $224M in Afghanistan but unfortunately the Dubai real estate market was already collapsing by 2008.
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Funding both sides of the war

On a day marking the worst number of casualties NATO has seen in Afghanistan this year, the New York Times adds to recent reports of Afghan security contractors buying off the Taleban the next obvious step - Taleban and Afghan officials cooperating to hold NATO to ransom.
Rule of the Gun :

After a pair of bloody confrontations with Afghan civilians, two of the biggest private security companies — Watan Risk Management and Compass Security — were banned from escorting NATO convoys on the highway between Kabul and Kandahar.
The ban took effect on May 14. At 10:30 a.m. that day, a NATO supply convoy rolling through the area came under attack. An Afghan driver and a soldier were killed, and a truck was overturned and burned. Within two weeks, with more than 1,000 trucks sitting stalled on the highway, the Afghan government granted Watan and Compass permission to resume.

Watan’s president, Rashid Popal, strongly denied any suggestion that his men either
colluded with insurgents or orchestrated attacks to emphasize the need for their services.
But the episode, and others like it, has raised the suspicions of investigators here and in Washington, who are trying to track the tens of millions in taxpayer dollars paid to private security companies to move supplies to American and other NATO bases.

Although the investigation is not complete, the officials suspect that at least some of these security companies — many of which have ties to top Afghan officials — are using American money to bribe the Taliban. The officials suspect that the security companies may also engage in fake fighting to increase the sense of risk on the roads, and that they may sometimes stage attacks against competitors.

“We’re funding both sides of the war,” a NATO official in Kabul said.

The investigation is complicated by, among other things, the fact that some of the private security companies are owned by relatives of President Hamid Karzai and other senior Afghan officials. Mr. Popal, for instance, is a cousin of Mr. Karzai, and Western officials say that Watan Risk Management’s largest shareholder is Mr. Karzai’s brother Qayum.

The principal goal of the American-led campaign here is to prepare an Afghan state and army to fight the Taliban themselves. The possibility of collusion between the Taliban and Afghan officials suggests that, rather than fighting each another, the two Afghan sides may often cooperate under the noses of their wealthy benefactors.

We pay off the security contractors who escort our convoys not to bomb them or attack NATO troops; if we don't pay up, we get a little reminder from Karzai's relatives.

Harper's Afghanistan occupation MEPs emphasize building schools and promoting democracy.
They don't mention anything about racketeering.
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"Good Morning, Afghanistan"

On Sunday hundreds of Afghan students and protesters shouted slogans against the US, Nato and Afghan government and burned an effigy of the President Obama during a rally in Kabul before attempting to storm the parliament building.

- updated below -

Eric Margolis : Take poor Hamid Karzai, the amiable former business consultant and CIA "asset" installed by Washington as Afghanistan's president. As the U.S. increasingly gets its backside kicked in Afghanistan, it has blamed the powerless Karzai for its woes and bumbling.

You can almost hear Washington rebuking, "bad puppet! Bad puppet!"

The U.S. government has wanted to dump Karzai, but could not find an equally obedient but more effective replacement. There was talk of imposing an American "chief executive officer" on him. Or, in the lexicon of the old British Raj, an Imperial Viceroy.

Washington finally decided to try to shore up Karzai's regime and give it some legitimacy by staging national elections in August. The UN, which has increasingly become an arm of U.S. foreign policy, was brought in to make the vote kosher. Canada eagerly joined this charade.

No political parties were allowed to run. Only individuals supporting the West's occupation of Afghanistan were allowed on the ballot.

As I wrote before the election, it was all a great big fraud within a larger fraud designed to fool American, Canadian and European voters into believing democracy had flowered in Afghanistan. Cynical Afghans knew the vote would be rigged. Most Pashtun, the nation's ethnic majority, didn't vote. The "election" was an embarrassing fiasco.

Ironically, the U.S. is now closely allied with the Afghan Communists and fighting its former Pashtun allies from the 1980s anti-Soviet struggle. Most North Americans have no idea they are now backing Afghan Communists and the men who control most of Afghanistan's booming drug trade."

Scott Taylor : "Spending millions of dollars to stage elections — and run-offs — to exercise a democratic process to appoint a U.S. puppet hasn’t fooled the Afghan people.
It’s time we stopped fooling ourselves."

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The National Post reports a poll this morning showing Support for Canada’s role in Afghanistan has fallen below 50%.

Wesley Wark, Munk Centre : "Good news stories -- good news stories could change their opinion."

Independent : "At 6.30am Helmand time today, the words "Good Morning, Afghanistan" boomed forth from the first British Forces radio station in the country.

DJ Dusty Miller mimicked Robin Williams's greeting this morning."

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Oct 28 Update : [h/t Pogge at Bread 'n Roses]

NY Times : Brother of Afghan Leader Said to Be Paid by C.I.A.
That would be Ahmed Wali Karzai, alleged drug lord and fixer of the Afghan election, on the CIA payroll for the last eight years. In what sounds like a scene out of the movie Traffic, brother Karzai is said to finger rival drug lords to the DEA and then take over their territories.

Also :

"The agency pays Mr. Karzai for a variety of services, including helping to recruit an Afghan paramilitary force that operates at the C.I.A.’s direction in and around the southern city of Kandahar, Mr. Karzai’s home."

Isn't that what we used to call Al Qaida?

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Malalai Joya on Democracy Now [h/t Waterbaby]:

"You know, my people call him “Small Bush” in Kandahar province, this brother of Hamid Karzai.
And this was the main project of the CIA in Afghanistan, that under the banner of women rights, human rights, democracy, they occupied my country. They imposed these terrorists, blood and creed of the Taliban, on my people. And also they changed my country to the center of drug."

Meanwhile the similarities to Viet Nam continue. Wherever the CIA goes, the drug trade follows.

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Afghanistan and Taliban Steve

The Independent : British ambassador warns against Afghan surge
"Britain's ambassador to Afghanistan has warned the international mission is failing and that sending more troops will only make things worse, according to a top-level telegram leaked from Kabul.
Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles told a senior French diplomat that "American strategy is destined to fail," and he warned that increasing troop levels would serve only to "identify us even more clearly as an occupying force and multiply the number of targets".

L.A. Times : More U.S. troops needed in Afghanistan 'quickly,' general says
"Allied forces are facing a tougher fight in Afghanistan than was expected and need an infusion of American troops "as quickly as possible," the top U.S. commander there said Wednesday."


Meanwhile Impolitical points out that Steve's unswerving support for Operation We're-Sorry-We-Didn't-Support-Your-Iraq-Oil-Occupation-More-Wholeheartedly seems to be heading for some vote-collecting in Quebec :

"Toward the end of the [French] debate, Mr. Harper said he supports efforts by Afghan President Hamid Karzai to attempt peace negotiations with elements of the Taliban.
"Mr. Harper, on negotiations with the Taliban?" asked moderator Stéphan Bureau.
"This is not entirely new," said Mr. Harper. "The government of Afghanistan has made local efforts from time to time with the Taliban. President Karzai is looking for a political solution and a democratic debate instead of a debate with arms. It's an essential part of his program and I support it."

Does this mean we won't be hearing quite so much about "Taliban Jack bin Layton" any more?

I guess that depends on how widely this attempt to unshit the bed on Steve's part is reported - so far one story, paragraph 24 - and whether he repeats his remarks in the English debate tonight. Aaah , except that the English debate is being televized at exactly the same time as the highly publicized U.S. vice-presidential debate/Pallin slapfest soap - oh, what a surprise! - so just how many people do you think are going to be watching it?

Operation Enduring Pipeline

If asked, Canada would help the Afghan army defend a proposed $7.6-billion U.S.-backed natural gas pipeline running from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, to Pakistan and India.

We've heard about this pipeline before. A bidding war for the contract between U.S. Unocal and Bridas of Argentina ended when the Taliban pulled out of negotiations just one month before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan. Afghan President Karzai, who either was or wasn't previously a Unocal employee, signed an agreement with the Turkman president this April to begin construction of the pipeline in 2010. Named TAPI after the four nations involved, it will run straight through Kandahar where Canadian troops are slated to stay till at least 2011.

Energy economist John Foster has written a report for the Canadian Council of Policy Alternatives, questioning the motives of the countries involved and outlining three reasons why the US wants it :

1) To limit Russia's influence in the region. Turkmanistan currently exports nearly all its gas to Russia.

2) To isolate Iran and their proposed rival pipeline that would run from Iran to India and Pakistan.

3) To forge links with India that would isolate India from China, who have already begun
their gas pipeline from Turkmenistan east through Kazakhstan to China.

Is this why Canada is in Afghanistan?

G&M : "Liberal Senator Colin Kenny - chairman of the Senate's national security and defence committee - said Canada has similar interests in the global energy market as the United States, and should not shy away from supporting U.S. geopolitical objectives. "I don't think we would be serving Canadian interests if we were ignoring American interests," he said."

John Foster says he wrote his report to foster debate about pipeline politics in the absence of any official statement from the Canadian government :
A PIPELINE THROUGH A TROUBLED LAND: AFGHANISTAN, CANADA, AND THE NEW GREAT ENERGY GAME

A very interesting read.

Notes on the Kandahar prison break

NYT : Taliban Free 1,200 in Attack on Prison
"In a brazen attack, Taliban fighters assaulted the main prison in the southern Afghan city of Kandahar on Friday night, blowing up the mud walls, killing 15 guards and freeing around 1,200 inmates. Among the escapees were about 350 Taliban members.

The prison was recently the scene of unrest, with some 400 prisoners staging a hunger strike in May to protest their long detention without trial. Some had been held for as long as two years without trial, and some were being refused the right to appeal very harsh sentences, they said. More than 40 of the prisoners stitched their lips together with needle and thread to demonstrate their determination.

Some 300 women who came to protest outside the prison at the time said their relatives inside had been picked up by NATO and American military sweeps and were innocent but nevertheless held without trial for months and even years."

G&M : "The crumbling bricks of Sarpoza, the largest detention facility in Kandahar province, usually contain hundreds of inmates, from hardened Taliban prisoners to women whose only crimes were running away from their husbands."

Independent : "The country's prisons have been heavily criticised for the lawlessness inside their own walls. British officials in Kabul have warned that the capital's main jail risks being overrun by its inmates. There have been a series of riots where guards have lost control of entire wings for days at a time."

CBC : "A spokesman for the Canadian Forces, said troops were on the scene and had established a security perimeter in the vicinity.
"We believe the situation is under control,” Janzen said, without elaborating.

But Wali Karzai, president of Kandahar's provincial council and the brother of President Hamid Karzai, said "all the prisoners escaped. There is no one left."

Canada has spent $1 million on improvements to the facility, including new cell blocks and new windows."

'I Wish I Had the Taliban as My Soldiers'

A refreshingly frank Spiegel interview with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, bearing no resemblance whatsoever to the crap we read in the Canadian media.

SPIEGEL: Some of your closest aides are suspected of stealing land, drug smuggling and having illegal militias, among them respected governors and police chiefs. Your attorney general, Abdul Jabar Sabet, just named a few of them, including the governor of Nangarhar. Why do you still protect these people?

Karzai: I am not protecting anybody. We are trying to govern Afghanistan and bring peace and stability. I know about the problems with the police. The international community finally agreed after two years of very intense and angry negotiations that the police are a problem and in the middle of 2007 they began to work with us. The checkpoints on the roads, for example, were developed during the years of the Soviet invasion, a time when the country became lawless and each local commander set up his own checkpoint to collect money.

SPIEGEL: During the Taliban times there were no checkpoints at all.

Karzai: That was the best aspect of the Taliban. They did a lot wrong, but they also did a few things right. I wish I had the Taliban as my soldiers. I wish they were serving me and not people in Pakistan or others. When we came back to Afghanistan, the international community brought back all those people who had turned away from the Taliban …

SPIEGEL: … you mean the brutal commanders who fought in the civil war …

Karzai: … who then became partners with the foreign allies and are still paid by them today for their support. It is not always easy for me to find a way that can enable Afghanistan's administration to function.

SPIEGEL: Dirty deals are still necessary for the stability of Afghanistan?

Karzai: Absolutely necessary, because we lack the power to solve these problems in other ways. What do you want? War? Let me give you an example. We wanted to arrest a really terrible warlord, but we couldn't do it because he is being protected by a particular country. We found out that he was being paid $30,000 a month to stay on his good side. They even used his soldiers as guards …

continued....

Also from Spiegel : Why NATO troops can't deliver peace in Afghanistan :
"Last year, 1,469 bombs exploded along Afghan roads, a number almost five times as high as in 2004. There were 8,950 armed attacks on troops and civilian support personnel, 10 times more than only three years earlier. One hundred and thirty suicide bombers blew themselves up in 2007. There were three suicide bombings in 2004."

Which "course" are we "staying" till 2011 exactly?

A 23 year old Afghani journalism student has been sentenced to death for downloading material about women's rights off the internet.
Sayed Pervez Kambaksh was convicted of blasphemy by a religious court for distributing "a report from a Farsi website which stated that Muslim fundamentalists who claimed the Koran justified the oppression of women had misrepresented the views of the prophet Mohamed."

The Afghan Senate passed a motion yesterday confirming the death sentence. The MP who proposed the ruling condemning Mr Kambaksh is a key ally of Afghan President Karzai.

Malalai Joya : "The majority of seats in Afghanistan's parliament are occupied by some kind of warlord, who is doing crimes under the name of Islam.We can start right now, taking power away from the warlords. Instead, they give them more power. Countries like the US have their own strategic policies in Afghanistan ... As long as [they] support the Northern Alliance with the mask of democracy, there will never be improvements in Afghanistan."

Insert obligatory remark here from any Canadian Con MP about all our wonderful work painting the little Afghan schoolhouses for the little Afghan girls.

Then go and sign the petition at the Independent to free a young journalist who will otherwise be executed for the crime of passing around a paper about women's rights to fellow students and teachers at his university. Go.

Feb.2 Update : 38,000 signed the petition, and along with support from Reporters Without Borders, Malalai Joya, and some British MPs, successfully pressured the Afghan Senate to withdraw its confirmation of a death sentence on Mr. Kambaksh.
Score one for petitions.

The delicate art of sock puppetry

Reuters : "A speech that Afghan President Hamid Karzai delivered to Canada's Parliament a year ago, urging the country's continued military support, was nothing more than a "political stunt," written by Canadian defense ministry staff, an opposition party charged on Tuesday."

The President of Afghanistan selling the war to Parliament on behalf of the Canadian military.

Nice.

Hey Bush, your lips are moving.

"Death to Canada", outraged Afghans chant.

Yes, we are rather worried about that too.

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