AP: Trouble brewing in the model transitional government

[Michael Pollak <mpollak@xxxxxxxxx>]

The New York Times In America
December 31, 2003

Karzai Refuses Deal on 18th Day of Afghan Talks

   By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

   Filed at 2:36 p.m. ET

   KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) -- President Hamid Karzai's insistence on a
   powerful presidency under Afghanistan's new constitution is driving a
   dangerous wedge between his Pashtun kinsmen and smaller ethnic groups,
   delegates and analysts warned Wednesday.

   With marathon talks on the new charter at a stalemate, opponents said
   the strong Pashtun -- and American -- flavor of Karzai's support
   risked a backlash among minorities whose militias still control much
   of the country.

   ``If they don't include our ideas in the constitution, we won't give
   up our weapons,'' said Habiba Danish, an ethnic Tajik delegate to the
   ongoing loya jirga in Kabul. ``If they want national unity, we want
   equal rights.''

   The council is in disarray amid open feuding over Karzai's reluctance
   to share power in a country he says needs strong leadership because it
   is fractured by ethnic mistrust.

   Pashtuns, the country's largest ethnic group and traditional rulers,
   have rallied behind Karzai -- a boost for a leader maligned here as
   the ``mayor'' of Kabul for his lack of influence beyond the capital.

   But smaller groups from farther north including Tajiks, Uzbeks and
   Hazaras protest that Pashtuns are ignoring their demands, such as
   recognizing their languages and sharing more influential government
   posts.

   Karzai allies, confident they have a majority, are pressing for a vote
   on dozens of articles still contentious in an already amended draft.
   Minorities want a consensus hammered out in advance.

   Karzai has said even a slim majority of the 502 delegates is enough to
   pass the constitution. But council leaders and Western diplomats
   acknowledge that the charter could be stillborn if it doesn't command
   broad support.

   Officials said they would try again Thursday, Day 19 of the gathering
   in a huge tent on a Kabul college campus, to begin voting on proposed
   amendments. There was no sign of a let up in the rancor.

   ``The Pashtuns were in power for years and should now behave like
   equal brothers under the umbrella of democracy,'' said Mohammed Hashim
   Mehdawi, a Hazara delegate.

   Pashtuns are equally indignant -- railing at attempts to sideline
   former king Zaher Shah, a Pashtun, and insert the name of Tajik
   resistance hero Ahmad Shah Massood into the charter.

   Delegates insist the acrimony of the past must be overcome, but the
   current fault lines are uncomfortably familiar.

   Militias from the north fought a losing battle against the
   Pashtun-dominated Taliban militia until the United States weighed in
   two years ago to punish the Taliban for sheltering Osama bin Laden.

   Karzai, with strong American backing, was installed at the resultant
   peace conference in Bonn, Germany, on an understanding that he would
   try to reunite the country.

   But the struggle over the constitution ``may sound alarm bells'' among
   minorities that they are once again slipping under Pashtun hegemony,
   said Vikram Parekh, an analyst in Kabul for the International Crisis
   Group, a Brussels-based think tank.

   Warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum, for instance, has pressed in vain for
   regional devolution and for the Uzbek language to be used in schools
   in the areas where his group is strongest.

   Tajiks, meanwhile, are incensed that under the current draft the
   national anthem will be sung only in Pashto -- not Dari, the
   Farsi-related lingua franca of much of northern Afghanistan.

   ``I don't think (the splits) will lead to civil war, but they could
   throw up road blocks to the Bonn process and efforts to extend the
   central government's control,'' Parekh said.

   That process was supposed to culminate in national elections under the
   new constitution next summer. But the United Nations warns security
   must first improve -- and has made the disarming of the armed
   factions, most of them ethnically rooted, a priority.

   Hedayatullah Hedayat, an Uzbek delegate from Faryab province,
   predicted warlords would regain power in his region if the minorities
   don't get their way.

   ``We are against the warlords. But if they don't recognize our
   languages, those warlords will get angry and the people will follow
   them,'' he said.

   Observers are at pains to name a candidate who could present a serious
   challenge to Karzai in a presidential vote. Still, they said his
   credibility as a national figurehead had taken a knock.

   ``He should be neutral, despite his Pashtun ethnicity,'' said
   Christopher Langton of the Institute for International Institute for
   Strategic Studies. ``The emergence of a Pashtun bloc is good. It is
   the close linkage to Karzai that is not so good.''

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