Military

DATE=06/24/02

TYPE=U-S OPINION ROUNDUP

TITLE=AFGHANISTAN'S LOYA JIRGA

NUMBER=6-125724

BYLINE=ANDREW GUTHRIE

DATELINE=WASHINGTON

EDITOR=ASSIGNMENTS

TELEPHONE=619-3335

CONTENT=

INTRO: After nearly a week of tumultuous meetings and some behind the scenes bargaining, Afghanistan's great tribal council, or Loya Jirga, has concluded its session. The interim leader of the war-torn nation, Hamid Karzai, has been elected to run the nation for two more years until internationally-supervised elections can be held.

However, the American press is not totally satisfied with the political convention's outcome, or the way in which U-S operatives conducted themselves. We get a sampling now from _____________ in today's U-S Opinion Roundup.

TEXT: There had not been such a grand council in more than thirty years, since before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. It brought together tribal leaders and warlords from all of the nation's varied linguistic, cultural and religious groups including the Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.

As Afghanistan's turbulent history shows, it is never easy gaining a consensus from such a diverse group, and it is almost a forgone conclusion that some group will feel it was shortchanged. At any rate, after a good deal of diplomatic pressure form the west, the ailing and elderly King, Mohammad Zaher Shah was convinced not to run for president, clearing the way for Mr. Karzai's election. There is concern in the western media that some powerful regional leaders included in the new, interim government may not have total allegiance to the central authority in Kabul.

We begin our sampling in the capital of Connecticut, where the Hartford Courant suggests:

VOICE: Democracy is forever a work in progress. In Afghanistan the work has just begun. Last week, a grand council representing cities, towns, districts and ethnic groups throughout the country, voted to make interim leader Hamid Karzai president. . The exercise was democratic to the extent that Mr. Karzai had two challengers for the job. It was historic because one of the challengers is Dr. Massouda Jalal, the first female presidential candidate in Afghanistan's history.

Only ten months ago, Kabul was under the thumb of a fundamentalist patriarchy that prohibited women from going to school. Still, let there be no mistake about the imperfect nature of Mr. Karzai's election, or more appropriately, selection. The . Loya Jirga, was supervised by the United Nations and its proceedings orchestrated behind the scenes by the United States and other members of the military coalition that toppled the maniacal Taliban regime. Delegates to the council did not have a free hand in picking their transitional president and parliament members.

[However] In many ways, Mr. Karzai is what the doctor ordered for Afghanistan at this fragile point in its history. But much more needs to happen before Afghans live under anything resembling a democracy. For one thing, there must be no ham-handed [Editors: slang for "heavy or obvious"] interference, especially from Americans and Europeans, in Afghanistan's affairs.

TEXT: A somewhat less than enthralled New York Times echoes The Courant, calling the recently concluded grand tribal council "a lost opportunity . marred by heavy-handed American and United Nations maneuvering."

VOICE: Afghans expected that the . Loya Jirga, or grand council, would lead to a fairer sharing of power among the country's ethnic and political factions. Instead, President Hamid Karzai presented delegates with the results of a backroom deal that confirmed the tight grip of Tajik leaders based in one small area, the Panjshir Valley, over the most important posts. If Mr. Karzai is to become Afghanistan's first truly national political leader since the monarchy's fall in 1973, he will have to emerge from the shadow of this narrow faction.

. Mr. Karzai is a member of Afghanistan's largest ethnic group, the Pashtuns. Because many Pashtuns supported the Taliban until shortly before it fell, this groups was conspicuously underrepresented in the interim government. The Loya Jirga, chosen by local councils across the country, was a chance to remedy that, and to strengthen the position of other underrepresented groups, like Uzbeks and Hazaras. Instead, the hard realities of military power prevailed.

With outside countries unwilling to expand the international security force beyond Kabul . Mr. Karzai's authority still depends on the military muscle of Northern Alliance leaders. His best hope for independent authority in the future lies with the American-led effort to train a new national army.

TEXT: Some disappointments voiced by The New York Times.

Taking a somewhat more upbeat view, The Kansas City [Missouri] Star says that at least the Loya Jirga gives the nation a semblance of democracy, after the dictatorial Taliban.

VOICE: The expected selection of interim leader Hamid Karzai as head of state shows that representatives of the Afghan people want stability, liberty and progress. But Afghanistan has desperate needs and deep divisions. Its economy, never great, is in shambles. Warlords continue to fight among themselves for power, land and influence. Ethnic differences create tensions. Allied soldiers prowl the land, looking for remnants of the Taliban as well as for Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida terrorist network.

[President] Karzai appears to be the right person to lead the country through these struggles. He shows that he is rational and focused despite the chaos. He has widespread support that was solidified after the two most serious other contenders for the presidency . dropped out of the running and endorsed him. Some Afghans suspect [Mr.] Karzai is an American puppet. This vastly overestimates the power Americans have to control things in Afghanistan.

TEXT: There is concern in several Scripps Howard newspapers, including The Memphis [Tennessee] Commercial Appeal and The Cincinnati [Ohio] Post that despite results of the Loya Jirga, Afghanistan "seems to be slipping down the White House list of priorities." Both papers say: "It shouldn't." The Commercial Appeal continues:

VOICE: U-S intervention in Afghanistan raised high hopes of aid and assistance that have not been realized. The administration's decision not to base peacekeepers outside . Kabul has proved to be a mistake. Restive warlords have felt free to reassert their authority and act as marauders on the roads. We need a larger international military and aid presence there to prove this is not a purely American show.

TEXT: Finally, some thoughts from a less than thrilled Washington Post.

VOICE: The decidedly mixed results of Afghanistan's political convention, of Loya Jirga, were largely preordained by the conditions in which it was held. Because the United States and other Western nations declined, during the past six months of interim government, to extend international peacekeeping throughout the country or take other steps that would have neutralized regional warlords, the politics of force rather than the wishes of most of the Afghan delegates governed the major decisions.

. Mr. Karzai also delivered major posts to several regional warlords, in hopes of buying their allegiance. While this upset some of the ... Loya Jirga delegates, who had hoped that men responsible for years of destruction and civil war could be excluded from the new government, some foreign observers found it more worrisome that the two most powerful warlords, Abdurrashid Dostum, who controls much of the north, and Ismail Khan, who governs the southwestern city of Heart, refused the posts they were offered.

Mr. Karzai will have little choice but to continue playing suitor to Mr. Dostum and Mr. Khan, and to other warlords, as long as the central government lacks the ability to extend its authority outside Kabul.

TEXT: On that note, we conclude this sampling of editorial comment on the latest chapter in the rebuilding of Afghanistan.

NEB/ANG/SAB