Taliban at it Again

[Timber Loftis]

You know, some groups just need to get their asses kicked every couple of years to keep them in line.

February 19, 2004
Taliban Try to Frighten Afghan Voters in Rural Areas
By CARLOTTA GALL

ABUL, Afghanistan, Feb. 18 — After a relatively dormant winter, Taliban insurgents are waging a violent campaign in the countryside to frighten people from cooperating with the American-backed government and from taking part in elections scheduled for the summer.

In Zormat, a district in southeastern Afghanistan, the police recently detained three men carrying Taliban leaflets warning people not to register for the vote, a process being overseen by the United Nations that is months behind schedule.

"You should not take an election registration card," the leaflets read, according to the local deputy police chief, Zazai Kamran. "If anyone does, his life will be in danger." The leaflets also call on people to fight against the government.

The leaflets were discovered three weeks ago, and the three men were handed over to the American forces based there. But the message continues to circulate.

Similar warnings have been going around the southern provinces of Kandahar and Helmand, residents say. The campaign has been accompanied by a series of bombings and suicide attacks in Kandahar and Kabul since November.

"People want to register for elections, but they are scared," said Rahmuddin, security chief of the Kandahar office of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Like many Afghans, he uses one name.

The United Nations, which began getting voter roles together in December, has registered only 1 million of an estimated 10.5 million eligible voters, half of what it had planned by this time.

Registration of women is proving especially problematic. They are only 23 percent of those registered, a reflection of the insecurity in the country, but also of a deeply traditional culture in which many women never leave the home.

Only one registration office has opened in southern Afghanistan, in Kandahar, and it has registered barely 45,000 people. A second office, for women, opened this week, but no other southern province has even started registrations.

President Hamid Karzai's mandate as leader of the transitional government ends in June, and under an agreement sponsored by the United Nations, national elections should be held to elect a new leader by then.

American and United Nations officials said they were trying to keep to that timetable, to build on the success of the new Constitution adopted in January, and to cement the fragile progress in the country.

The newly appointed United Nations special representative to Afghanistan, Jean Arnault, said Wednesday that since the constitutional assembly, he had detected a new momentum among the population to take part in the political process. "Something has happened," he said. "We now have a process of social mobilization."

But the pattern of violence, not only from the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but also from warlords who maintain well-armed militias, is such that United Nations officials acknowledge that the elections may miss their June target date.

A number of government and foreign officials voiced doubts that elections could or should go ahead this year. Even if they did, large parts of the country might be excluded, which would jeopardize the legitimacy of the vote, they warned.

"I am concerned about the nonregistration of large numbers in the country, and the people's feeling that these are not free elections," said Sarah Chayes, coordinator of Afghans for Civil Society, a nonprofit organization in Kandahar.

The United Nations plans to open 4,200 registration offices around the country in May for three weeks, and then to begin polling two weeks later. But without greater progress in combating the Taliban, officials fear, offices in the south and southeast could present potential targets.

American military commanders have been meeting with the Afghan government and United Nations officials in Kabul in recent weeks on how to tackle the security problems.

Efforts to build a new national army and police force are moving painfully slowly. They are so far behind schedule that the United States military announced a stopgap measure to train an Afghan guard force of 2,000 to 5,000 men to bolster security.

The Afghan National Army this week sent three battalions to the provinces to help with disarmament and to inhibit activities by the Taliban and Al Qaeda, a spokesman, Maj. Muhammad Arif Anas, said.

In addition, diplomats in Kabul said this week that NATO countries would send extra peacekeeping troops during the voter registration and polling. Some are optimistic that the elections, even if flawed, will go according to plan.

"Even if some districts or provinces do not hold elections," a diplomat said, "the overall result could be accepted as broadly representative, especially if Mr. Karzai emerges as a clear winner."