Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee

Message of Afghan Civil Society for Advocacy

Editor — Mon, 23 Apr 2012 11:08:28 +0000

In the Name of Allah:

We the members of the Afghan Civil Society for Advocacy vehemently condemn the chain of violent attacks in the capital Kabul and across Afghanistan which resulted in the killings and wounding of many civilians and caused widespread horror and fear among the residents of Kabul and other cities.

Conducting and mounting armed assaults on civilian targets for the purpose of spreading horror and intimidation are against all International Conventions. According to these conventions the perpetrators and organizers of this sort of actions are subject to sever criminal punishments.

We as activists of civil society and civil institutions express our deep condolences and share the sorrows of the families who lost loved ones in last day’s incident. We hail and honor the heroism and sacrifices of the Afghan National Security Forces who have suffered injuries or lost their precious lives while defending civilians. They are the true and genuine heroes, they made history and will be remembered as a part of history.

While hailing the tireless efforts of the Afghan security institutions and personnel of Afghan National Police (ANP) and Afghan National Army (ANA) in safeguarding the lives of Afghan people, we inquire the Government of Afghanistan to launch an inclusive investigation on how the attackers managed to bypass numerous established security cordons and examinations and smuggled arms and equipments to their targeted spots and mounted numerous concurrent assaults. The investigation should highlight the shortcomings and inadequacies of Afghan security institutions in preventing such an organized and planned attacked.

While we would like to highly praise the security personnel, who risked their lives to save and protect the lives of civilians – we demand full financial and emotional support for the families of servicemen who lost their loves in action.

Furthermore; we once again request security officials to take appropriate measures, in cooperation with municipalities of Kabul and other cities across the country to ensure that yesterday’s incidents don’t repeat and high-rise buildings are not used for violent attacks.

As impartial civil society institutions, we once again ask all parties including the Taliban to restrain from conducting armed attacks in residential and civilian places.

Additionally, we inquire United Nations and other international institutions to support Afghan Government in investigating these attacks and indentifying the organizers for the attacks which took many lives and caused heavy financial damage to civilians, and render the orchestrators to justice for their crime.

Security and protection of civilians is of constitutional duties of the Government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan which is headed by the President Karzai. Following these abhorrent attacks people had expected a message for the President – after the silence – we request the President to present an accurate definition of peace process.

This statement is from:

Afghan Civil Society for Advocacy that is comprised of civil society organizations and individuals who advocate for justice, rule of law, elimination of violence and protection of civilian rights.

For more information kindly contact;

Mr. Hamid Zazai - 7701088973900 – 7701077980000

Ms. Nargis Nehan – 0093799030631

Mr. Raz Mohammad Dalili - 7701077997918

Afghans do not want the tanks to leave, and nor should we

Editor — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:22:24 +0000

Jillian Hocking
March 27, 2012
www.theage.com.au
Original Article

The increasingly predictable commentary on Western involvement in Afghanistan centres on the need to abandon that troubled country.

Having recently completed a 12-month contract working for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan as head of radio broadcasting, I can offer a very different picture of this broken yet incredibly proud country. My picture comes from the perspective of a journalist mentoring Afghan journalists, talking, laughing and hoping with them - and sometimes their families - every day.

I left Australia in February last year convinced that international forces should leave Afghanistan, and that all Afghans must feel the same.

How ill informed I was.

These were assumptions made without having visited the country or having spoken to an Afghan, but I was nonetheless sure of my opinions. Yet every Afghan I spoke with, and there were many over the past 12 months, pleaded that the West remain or civil war would resume. ''We like the army tanks; they brought peace to our country,'' I was told repeatedly.

Most commentary on the situation in Afghanistan comes from within the prism of either the American military or agenda-driven politicians. These are people with the authority to fly into Afghanistan, speak to a few chosen people, then leave as quickly as possible.

They conclude quite rightly that Afghanistan isn't ready for the transition to Afghan-controlled police and military, and consequently the International Security Assistance Force should withdraw from the country, as it's hopeless.

Surely we should be doing the exact opposite, precisely because the need is clear. The current situation continues to be a nightmare for Afghans; they fear the international community leaving and the return of the Taliban, and their fate once again being ignored by the world.

I have seen the sadness and despair on Afghans' faces amid the suicide bombings, and I have also seen the productive work the UN and other international agencies are doing on the ground. Ethically, how can we justify leaving?

What would be more productive is to ask questions of Afghans struggling to make a living or hospitalised from war wounds or landmine injuries; or those huddled in displaced persons camps, enduring the lack of food and freezing in makeshift tents; or working-women and young girls attending school; students coping with under-resourced universities; or young women protesting against harassment and discrimination who are fomenting change on the streets of Kabul.

The key players being neglected in Afghanistan are young people, who are keen to forget their recent war-ravaged past and start rebuilding the country they love. Young political leaders (and there are many potential ones despite what well-intentioned but agenda-driven Westerners tell you) need training in contemporary political framing, infrastructure and discourse. The way forward is to help this generation throw out the old, tainted and mostly hated past and herald the new at every level of government and society.

Young people don't want to carry on the historical hatreds and resentments of those in the Afghan parliament. As one student told me, they want to find a different path that does not include the current crop of political leaders.

By continuing to support former warlords we are fostering yet another generation of disaffected, bitter and angry youth. And if you ask them, they do not want the Taliban to be part of any negotiation process. This is anathema to them, and yet this "solution" is touted as a possibility by both the US and the UN.

If Australia is serious about helping to shape Afghanistan's future, it's far more constructive to focus on positive initiatives since the fall of the Taliban; however, it seems these stories don't attract an audience or sell papers. One journalist based in Kabul, writing for a UK daily, told me he had submitted many positive stories about progress in Afghanistan but they were rarely accepted by editors.

According to an Afghan journalist, ''when we Afghans see nothing but negative stories in the Western media, it makes us depressed and continues a sense of hopelessness in our country.

''Why don't Western media write about the good things happening here?''

I hang my head in shame and reluctantly tell him it's all about political agendas, audience, readers, consumers and, ultimately, money.

The US should never have interfered in Afghanistan in the first place, but it did, so we now have a moral obligation to finish the job we said we came to do.

Jillian Hocking is a media development and communications specialist.

Original Article

Afghanistan as "Lost Cause"

Editor — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 08:40:32 +0000

Praveen Swami
March 20, 2012
Original article: thehindu.com

The idea that liberal democracy is alien to the country, now being used to legitimise early western withdrawal, is racist libel.

In 2004, at a packed gathering in southern Afghanistan's troubled Paktia province, the eminent Pashto laureate, Matiullah Turab, read out a wrenching new poem: “war is a female fly,” it went, “hatching a hundred eggs a day.”

Last week, a deranged United States soldier shot dead 16 people in a village near Kandahar: the latest evil spawn to join a swarm of events that could ensure the war in Afghanistan will run on without end. In February, murderous riots broke out after copies of the Koran were found to have been burned by U.S. troops; earlier, video surfaced showing soldiers urinating on the corpses of killed enemies.

Each disaster has sharpened tensions between Afghans and the West — tensions which, in turn, have legitimised calls for an early withdrawal from intellectuals in Europe and the United States. In a sharp commentary in The Atlantic, for example, James Joyner demanded a “hastening [of] the day Americans stop dying for a lost cause.”

Powerful voices in western geo-strategic discourse had long railed against efforts to build a secular-democratic order in Afghanistan after 9/11. Now, the notion that liberal democracy is in some way alien to Afghanistan has become a pervasive meme. In order to legitimise early withdrawal, the anti-democratic politics of the Taliban is being marketed as an authentic voice of Afghan tradition. The ideological underpinnings of these ideas need extremely careful examination.

Enlightenment vs. darkness

Last week, in an essay published in The New Yorker, the influential British diplomat, scholar and Conservative politician Rory Stewart, made the most comprehensive “lost cause” case so far. He claimed that the pursuit of modern democratic values post-9/11 Afghanistan was founded on was “an Enlightenment faith that there is nothing intrinsically intractable about Afghan culture and society and that all men can be perfected [to a western ideal] through the application of reason.” Mr. Stewart doesn't explain which Enlightenment faith he is referring to, since there was no one single Enlightenment dogma, nor what “intrinsically intractable” might mean — but his propositions underpin much recent writing.

Doug Bandow, writing in the National Interest in 2010, claimed that the U.S. government “was embarking on a long-term mission to transform Afghanistan by turning it into a Western-style liberal democracy.” Hamida Ghafour, writing in the United Arab Emirates-based National, had this variant: “European and North American donor nations … are obsessed with the idea of establishing a western-style liberal democracy”.

“Lost cause” polemic draws, perhaps unconsciously, from Joseph Conrad's brilliant but profoundly racist masterpiece, The Heart of Darkness. Afghanistan, in this narrative, is a place where the West's efforts to promote its values will fail — and where those values themselves will become corroded from within.

The problem with this line of argument is this: there is nothing in recent Afghan political behaviour that suggests it is any different from that of peoples elsewhere. There are few places on the planet where the killings of innocents, such as those in Kandahar, do not have the potential to incite large-scale violence. Indeed, irrational scale violence has been a feature of the West's political heritage, too.

No one in his right mind, however, would link race riots in the U.S. to the culture of black Americans Nor could a reasonably literate commentator attribute the lynching of black people in the U.S.' southern States in the 1960s to a traditional honour code — even if it was invoked by the killers. Political scientists and media know that tradition was invoked by political actors to sharpen group boundaries, and to scare white women from asserting their rights. In writing on Afghanistan, however, it remains perfectly acceptable to attribute political behaviour to a supposedly self-evident term called “Islam” or “tradition.”

Myth & reality on democracy

A lack of thought has allowed a few key myths about the democracy-building project in Afghanistan to entrench themselves. The first is that the practice of democratic politics — and its foundational structure, a central state — was a post-9/11 western imposition. Even a cursory acquaintance with Afghan history would show that the state had strengthened itself steadily for over a century, building up to the promulgation of a new constitution in 1964.

Muhammad Zahir's monarchy was overthrown in 1973, and a republic declared — but the idea that Afghanistan ought to be a democracy was not assaulted, except from Islamists who argued that the Shari'a, not popular will, ought to be the basis of the government. In 2001, when Afghan leaders met in Bonn to deliberate how the country ought to be rebuilt, they chose to adopt the 1964 constitution as its basis: simply, democracy was an Afghan choice, not a western one.

The second myth is this: President George W. Bush was committed to the promotion of western values — whatever this ill-defined thing might be — in Afghanistan. Neoconservative dogma held, on the contrary, that left to themselves, people would make rational choices. The Iraqi state was thus dismantled; in Afghanistan, administration and security were subcontracted to warlords. Hamid Karzai, it bears remembering, was installed as President not in pursuit of some grand project to promote democracy, but to address concerns that a regime led by the victorious Northern Alliance might not have legitimacy among southern Pashtuns, and would displease Pakistan.

Thirdly, the proposition that there is no cultural foundation for democracy is dubious. Farhat Taj has demonstrated the existence of democratic traditions among the Pashtun tribes who straddle the Afghanistan-Pakistan border; the work of historian Sana Haroon demonstrates, likewise, that what western commentators refer to as tradition was, in fact, the outcome of complex political contestation between tribal custom, nationalism and neo-fundamentalist theology.

Historically, there is evidence that Afghanistan's cultural-religious traditions have been capable of considerable flexibility. In spite of the Koran's express prohibition of interest, scholar Ashraf Ghani has shown, Afghanistan's 19th century cleric-run court system routinely mediated commercial disputes involving loans. Put another way, god's words were given meaning by human power. The merchant class, not exegetes, shaped the substance of Sharia.

Indeed, Mr. Stewart's suggestion that reason is not central to Afghanistan's Islamic tradition is utterly without foundation. Though powerful anti-rational tendencies exist in Islamic tradition — just as they do in other faith-systems — the canon stretches to the frankly atheist. Muhammad ibn al-‘Arabi al-Ta al-Hatimi, a 13th century philosopher, saw reason as a key element that could elevate man to the status of khalifa, god's vice-regent. Earlier, Muhammad ibn Muhammad al-Ghazali also placed reason at the core of his work.

The western philosophical tradition, for its part, doesn't rest on the idea of human perfectibility alone. For every philosopher like Jean Jacques Rousseau, there were those from Thomas Hobbes to Carl Jung with somewhat darker perspectives on humankind. Like every other crisis on our planet today, the roots of the war in Afghanistan lie in modernity: the battles for empire of the 19th century; the Cold War; secularisation against faith.

There are entirely legitimate debates to be conducted on when the West should leave Afghanistan, and how the war there should be fought. The truth, though, is this: the world chose not to commit the resources, and blood, needed to build a modern nation-state from the ruins of the Cold War. Blaming Afghans for a fate they did not choose isn't legitimate debate — it is deeply racist libel.

praveens@thehindu.co.in

Original article: thehindu.com

Event. Nawroz Celebration in Vancouver

Jonathon Narvey — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 08:34:33 +0000

Come celebrate Nawroz in Vancouver with your fellow Canadians at a special event on Saturday, March 17th, 2012 .

Royal Banquet Hall

www.royalbanquetvancouver.com

2122 Kingsway (near Victoria Drive)

Vancouver, BC

♦ Buffet style Afghan dinner and dessert

♦ Live music featuring Ustad Majid Qiyam

♦ Silent auction

♦ Fashion show

Doors open at 4:30, Dinner at 6:30

Tickets $25 each

Children 5 and under no charge

Keynote Speaker:

Lauryn Oates, Projects Director

Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan

Tickets:

Susan Pinkham Tel: 604.732.9652

Email susanpinkham@gmail.com

Zulu Records Tel: 604.738.3232

1976 West 4 Avenue, Vancouver

Shaz Video Tel: 604.439.0463

3845 Canada Way, Burnaby

Proceeds will support Girls Education Projects in Afghanistan

Brought to you by the Vancouver Chapter

Canadian Women for Women in Afghanistan

http://www.cw4wafghan.ca/whoweare

Event. Women’s Rights in Transition

Jonathon Narvey — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 08:27:39 +0000

International Women’s Day at Hycroft: “Women’s Rights in Transition”, Sunday 11th March 2012, 12 Noon Social ~ 1pm Luncheon ~ 2:15pm Program with Guest Speakers Gulalai Habib and Eva Sajoo

Gulalai Habib, an engineer and computer programmer by training was born in Kabul, Afghanistan and has over 20 years of involvement in peace, human rights and gender equality efforts in war zones in the Middle East and South Asia. She is currently Assistant Manager of the Resettlement Assistance Program, Immigrant Services Society of BC.

A Research Associate in the Centre for the Comparative Study of Muslim Societies at Simon Fraser University, Eva Sajoo has published work on gender, development, and education in Muslim societies. Her current research interest builds on her previous work on the roles of women in transitional states.

Luncheon & Speakers: General $50 + tax ~ UWCV Members $45 + tax; Speakers Only: General $25 + tax ~ UWCV Members $20 + tax
Register by Wednesday 7th March at Hycroft (No Wheelchair Access). Net proceeds for this event will be divided between CW4WA projects in Afghanistan and the Canadian Federation of University Women’s IWD project with CARE Canada

TO REGISTER CONTACT THE UNIVERSITY WOMEN’S CLUB of VANCOUVER AT HYCROFT, 1489 McRae Avenue Vancouver V6H 1V1 604-731-4661 -uwcv@uwcvancouver.ca
www.uwcvancouver.ca

What next for Afghanistan?

Editor — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 12:40:29 +0000

Canadian sacrifices and Beijing’s looming shadow

Thursday, March 8th, 2012 poster: click here

Fraser Institute Boardroom
4th Floor-1770 Burrard St
Vancouver

A conversation with Terry Glavin, author of Come from the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan and co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee

There can be little argument that Canadian troops have played a critical role in Afghanistan, whether driving the Taliban out of Kandahar or providing training to Afghan security forces and helping rebuild needed infrastructure.

But despite Canada’s ongoing commitment to helping the Afghan people find liberty and self-determination, policy vacillation in Washington is creating an opening the Chinese government is all too willing to exploit, says journalist Terry Glavin, author of the book, Come from the Shadows: The Long and Lonely Struggle for Peace in Afghanistan, and co-founder of the Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee.

After having failed to lift a finger in support on the United Nations action in Afghanistan, Beijing is now rushing in and acquiring vast copper and other mineral leases as well as forming ties with the Pakistani ISI while the United States is prepared to abandon the Afghan people to recurring threats of Islamic violence and oppression. Meanwhile, Canada and other Western nations have failed to stand up to Washington.

Recommendations for a Canadian leadership role at the Bonn Summit, December, 2011

Editor — Mon, 28 Nov 2011 12:05:29 +0000

Monday, November 28, 2011

PDF versions: English Dari

Translations in progress: Pashto and French

As we reflect on the outcome of the ten-year effort, we find growing insecurity, bad governance, a corrupt judiciary, official corruption, sabotage of political institutions such as parliament, inexperienced security organs, sluggish pace of economic development, lethargic rebuilding process and stalled political process. If there is one more chance, it will require that Afghans help the international community correctly diagnose the problem, so that at Bonn the international backers of Afghan democracy can pledge to aid real political reform.
- Hussain Yasa, Editor-in-chief, Outlook Afghanistan.

The international commitment to remain engaged after the withdrawal of ISAF forces is the political consequence of our common decision to engage ten years ago. That is why the International Afghanistan Conference in Bonn needs to credibly assure Afghans—and thus, the region—that they will not be abandoned again.
- Michael Steiner, Germany’s Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, chair of the International Contact Group.

Who We Are

The Canada-Afghanistan Solidarity Committee (CASC) was established in the autumn months of 2007 to bring together Canadians from all walks of life who were committed to international and Canadian intervention in Afghanistan with the aim of ending the violence of all illegal armed groups, alleviating poverty, and supporting Afghan struggles for democracy, peace, justice, and stability. We support the UN-sanctioned ISAF mission, and we have fully supported the UN’s call for Canada’s continued military contribution to the Afghan cause for security, democracy and the rule of law.

Where We Stand

We insist that human rights are universal, not culture-specific, that women’s rights are human rights, and that the world should heed the demands of the Afghan people for a democratic and accountable government. We will persist in our call for Canadians to pay close attention to Afghan public opinion, which consistently reflects these demands. We will also persist in encouraging Canadians to inform themselves about Afghanistan, its people, culture, and its history, and we will lend our voices to those of the many Canadians who are committed to supporting humanitarian and development projects that meet the needs of the Afghan people.

The contents of this document are partly informed by CASC’s March 2010 report, “Keeping Our Promises – Canada in Afghanistan Post-2011: The Way Forward.” That report was aimed at providing recommendations for a Canadian rededication to Afghanistan following the July 2011 conclusion of the Canadian Forces’ “combat role” in Kandahar province. We were not displeased with the Government of Canada’s decision to reconfigure the Canadian Forces’ contributions to a training role, based mainly in Kabul. However, Canada (and the international community in general) has failed to adequately address the critically important work of democratic and constitutional reconstruction in Afghanistan, and this threatens to undermine all the accomplishments for which Canadians and Afghans have suffered over the past decade.

Our “Keeping Our Promises” report was based on consultations within the CASC membership, within the Afghan-Canadian community, the community of academic and expert opinion, and most importantly, we consulted across the spectrum of Afghanistan’s emerging civil society and Afghanistan’s political leadership. We directly canvassed more than 100 organizations, agencies and individuals. In Afghanistan, we consulted a cross-section of opinion, from former warlords to women’s rights organizations. We interviewed opinion-makers, government officials, civil rights advocates, teachers, several MPs, journalists and power brokers. We also spoke with representatives of international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and officials with NATO and other international community agencies.

With a year and a half of hindsight, we are convinced that our recommendations were prescient, and the need for a Canadian rededication along the lines we proposed has grown more urgent. Circumstances have radically changed since March, 2010. Some for the better. Some for the worse.

Perhaps the most significant event to threaten the prospects for Afghanistan’s re-emergence as a sovereign and independent republic at peace with itself and its neighbours is the radical shift that has occurred in the United States’ policy under President Barack Obama. State Department communiqués betray a fluid and sometimes contradictory overall approach. However, the new American policy appears to be a reversion to the same “We don’t do nation-building” posture that so encumbered the early years of American involvement in Afghanistan following September 11, 2011 – the posture that is in large measure the cause of the predicament Afghanistan finds itself in today.

The word “democracy” now only rarely appears in any American pronouncement about US objectives in Afghanistan. A US Department of Defence October 2011 statement of strategic goal is a case in point: “The goal of the United States is to disrupt, dismantle, and eventually defeat al Qaeda, and to prevent its return to either Afghanistan or Pakistan. The specific objectives in Afghanistan are to deny safe haven to al Qaeda and to deny the Taliban the ability to overthrow the Afghan Government. To support these objectives, U.S. and coalition forces will continue to degrade the Taliban insurgency in order to provide time and space to increase the capacity of the Afghan National Security Forces and the Afghan Government so they can assume the lead for Afghanistan’s security by the end of 2014.”

Tragically, many NATO countries appear reluctant to challenge the new US administration’s narrow, wholly self-interested and short-sighted position. The new US strategy places no priority on the necessity of working with Afghans to ensure that accountable and effective state institutions replace mob rule, the way of the gun, warlord law and the fanatical “justice” of the Taliban throughout the country. Most informed observers recognize that it is the absence of accountable and competent state institutions that is most effectively fuelling the so-called “insurgency” in Afghanistan. The result is a vacuum, a state of affairs that invites Taliban terror, shadow-government subversion and proxy-war depredations fostered by the avowed and committed enemies of Afghan democracy in Tehran and Rawalpindi.

Canada is uniquely positioned to show leadership at the Bonn conference to staunch the haemorrhaging of the trust Afghans have placed in the international community, especially in the NATO countries and other democracies in the International Security Assistance Force alliance. At Bonn, Canada should work closely with Afghan civil society, especially with the Afghan women’s leadership, to ensure that the international community does not lose sight of the objective for which Canadian soldiers and their families have sustained such sacrifice and suffering.

Why Canada?

Unlike any of the other leading contributors to the 47-nation ISAF coalition (the United States and Britain, for example) and unlike the key regional powers (Pakistan, Iran and China) Canada is understood to be unique. Among Afghans, Canada is known as a democracy with no history of foreign conquest, and particularly, no authorship of or involvement in the wars, imperialist adventures and proxy wars that tormented Afghanistan during the 19th century and especially in the latter half of the 20th century. Canada is trusted and well placed to play a particularly assertive role in the advance of democracy, security and human rights in Afghanistan. This is the cause for which Canadian soldiers have fought and the purpose to which the Canadian public has tolerated, as much as $18 billion of Canadian tax contributions since 2001.

Canada is exceptionally well suited to take on an aggressive role in support of self-reliant, Afghan-led institutions answerable to a fully accountable, transparent, and representative Afghan government. Canada must be uncompromising in its insistence that the Afghan government conducts all its affairs in accordance with democratic principles and international human rights norms. In its insistence upon an Afghan government that is democratically accountable to its people, Canada need not be concerned with trespassing upon Afghan sovereignty.

The promise of Afghan democracy is a promise that Canada (and other democratic states) made to the Afghan people. Canada’s commitment in Afghanistan amounts to a solemn promise that is not made merely to the current occupant of Afghanistan’s Presidential Palace, or to the current occupant of the American White House. Afghan sovereignty is the function of a triangular relationship between the Afghan people, the Afghan government, and the

international community. Afghan sovereignty consists of a complex suite of rights and obligations. In all of our engagements in Afghanistan, Canadians should be informed by this reality, and our government should act accordingly.

Recommendations for Canada’s Position at the Bonn Conference:

The way forward in Afghanistan is democracy: equal rights, the rule of law, a representative and accountable government, freedom of speech and assembly, a comprehensive and generous education, an entitlement to basic health services, and a fair chance at prosperity. There is no other way forward to peace and security in Afghanistan. So long as the international community allows Afghanistan’s neighbours to subvert Afghan sovereignty and democracy, there will be no peace or justice in Afghanistan, no matter how much or how little military effort is expended upon the fighting, degrading or containing the so-called Afghan “insurgency.”

1. Canada should actively oppose any initiative undertaken by any power (including the United States) under the auspices of “reconciliation” or “negotiation” with the Taliban or with any other armed groups involved in Afghanistan (including the Pakistani ISI) that do not fully engage the ISAF states, the Afghan parliament, Afghan civil society and women’s movement, and Afghan national minorities.

2. At the Bonn conference, Canada should take every opportunity to make space for the participation of Afghanistan’s parliamentary opposition and civil society, including representation from women from both of these groups.

3. Working with the Afghan parliament, Canada should lead and support a robust democratization initiative that includes the guarantee that by 2014, the Afghan Constitution has been subjected to a thorough review for the purpose of removing the constitution’s anti-democratic provisions, particularly the crippling centralization of political power in the presidential palace.

4. Working with Afghan parliamentarians, Canada should ensure that by 2014, Afghanistan’s absurd and unworkable single non-transferable vote electoral system is replaced by a rational and effective electoral law. Further, Canada should work with the major donor countries involved in Afghanistan to develop a clearer definition and determination of the breadth and scope of Afghan citizenship by way of a national census.

5. Canada’s military and police presence in Afghanistan should not be determined by any arbitrary 2014 end-date or by any American timetable, but rather by the objectives the training function is intended to accomplish. Further, the Canadian Forces should assist all branches of the Afghan security forces in developing their competence in the monitoring and enforcement of free and fair elections.

6. Canada’s role in assisting Afghanistan with its elections processes should be elevated to include an ambitious, long-term program of education and training aimed at all participants in the elections process – not just all relevant Afghan National Security Forces components but prospective candidates, their campaign teams, government officials at the national, provincial and district level, and the emerging political parties and coalitions. Voter education should be dramatically enhanced. Canada should actively recruit among Canadians with experience in running and monitoring elections to train and mentor their Afghan counterparts.

7. Canada should insist that for both practical reasons and for reasons of public trust, “Afghanization” of the elections process must not exclude the unencumbered engagement of internationally-appointed observers, monitors and overseers.

8. Afghanistan should be identified as a high priority for the on-again, off-again proposed Canadian democracy-promotion agency – an agency that should be established by consolidating the various efforts different Canadian institutions already make in this foreign-policy field. An agency field office should be established in Kabul as soon as practicable. The Agency should play a leading role in a new Canadian mission in Afghanistan, with a focus on the entrenchment of democratic institutions, good governance, and democratic capacity-building.

9. Canada should directly fund broad-based Afghan institutions with mandates to promote the study of democracy and the dissemination of democratic ideas, to advance national unity and the administration of justice, to elevate the legal and social status of women, and to restore Afghanistan’s central place in the intellectual, cultural and economic life of Central Asia.

10. To strengthen the protection of women’s human rights, Canada should focus on supporting the enforcement of existing domestic laws and of international law to which Afghanistan is a party to protect women, through the gender rights sensitization and training of the Afghan

National Police and by advocating for and supporting the reform and expansion of the judiciary. This should include the removal of judges with no formal training in secular law, the expansion of the family courts, and a well-funded monitoring agency to better prevent the use of tribal and other informal legal prescriptions within the courts system that systematically harm women’s rights.

11. To build on the investment Canadians have made in Afghanistan over the years, a sharper focus on long-term results is required. A substantial and long-term Canadian commitment to all levels of Afghanistan’s education sector would allow Canada the leverage to control the quality of the “outputs,” force greater coordination among Afghanistan’s donor partners, ensure greater efficiency in program delivery, build administrative capacity in Afghanistan’s education ministry, and eliminate corrupt practices particularly rampant in this Ministry.

12. Canada should remain committed to key education projects initiated during Canada’s tenure at the helm of the Kandahar PRT, and enhance Canadian involvement in the development of Kandahar University, with an emphasis on women’s education and Canadian-Afghan academic partnerships.

13. Canada should aggressively foster and fund initiatives in the recovery of Afghanistan’s cultural patrimony and its literary canon, the development of a vibrant Afghan publishing industry, and the cross-translation of works in English, French, Dari and Pashto. Canada should directly invest in the national public library, a network of provincial and regional libraries, village libraries and mobile libraries for remote rural areas.

14. Canada should further enhance Afghanistan’s intellectual, academic, trades and technical capacities by fostering partnerships between Canadian and Afghan universities and institutions, and by investing in scholarships, academic exchanges, civil-service exchanges, and a range of vocational and skills-transfer programs.

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As troops plan their exit, ‘Green Scarves’ seek safety – and a voice – for Afghan women

Editor — Sat, 26 Nov 2011 14:19:36 +0000

By Susan Sachs

Globe and Mail
Friday, November 18, 2011
Paris

When the world meets in Germany in two weeks to talk about Afghanistan, will women’s voices be heard?

That’s the question – and the concern – being expressed by a wide range of international human rights organizations and by Afghan women who are behind the Green Scarves for Solidarity campaign and a host of other initiatives.

The aim of the Bonn conference, which is expected to feature 90 foreign ministers and 1,000 participants, is to garner international pledges of long-term support for Afghanistan after the planned exit of foreign troops in three years.

But like most big get-togethers of this type, the most intensive lobbying and politicking is taking place before the scripted conference. They concern who will go as official delegates, who will get face time with the VIPs, who will get access to the media and whose agenda will get attention.

The competition will be fierce.

Full story

Afghanistan's new spirit caught on camera

Editor — Thu, 24 Nov 2011 14:13:27 +0000

Peter Stanford 08 Oct 2011 The Telegraph

It had been a regime, rooted in an extreme form of Islam, which had closed girls’ school and even refused women access to medical treatment. Much has been achieved in the past decade – 2.7 million girls are now in education and laws have been passed to ban child marriages, honour killings and the practice of daughters being given away by their families like commodities to settle disputes – but much remains to be tackled, insists Danziger, who has been visiting Afghanistan since 1984.

His most recent trip, on behalf of Oxfam, was to capture images to support its report, launched this week, warning that the gains Afghan women have made these past 10 years are under threat, as behind-the-scenes efforts are made by the coalition to talk to the Taliban. “I met dozens and dozens of Afghan women while I was there,” says Danziger, “and they were unanimous in saying that if the coalition withdraws, if it compromises with the Taliban, then they will suffer and go backwards.

Full Article

What did Canada learn from its Afghanistan mission?

Editor — Mon, 21 Nov 2011 04:16:53 +0000

The CBC interviewed CASC founding member Terry Glavin on its Cross Country Checkup show today, about what Canadians know about the mission, what they should know, and what is in store for our future involvement.

Listen to Terry Glavin interviewed by Rex Murphy on Cross Country Checkup