Afghan Democracy Died

The funeral to be announced in September

Afghanistan witnessed the second presidential elections under the US led illegal occupation. Major challenges are awaiting any new president in the war-torn country that has so many unremitting problems: Chronic government corruption, insecurity, unemployment, poverty, lack of practical development schemes, and others. Majority of the Afghans believe that it's not viable to have fair elections under foreign occupation, and the US led occupation is the problem, not the solution, as it failed to achieve any real change into people's lives under US-backed president Karzai. While the election authorities are preparing to publish the first partial results from last week’s presidential election, but the small sample of ten percent may do little to resolve a dispute over the outcome. The August 20th election was marred by fraud, intimidation, violence and low turnout in many areas. The Electoral Complaints Commission says it is looking into at least 250 allegations of misconduct.

Gareth Porter in his current published article talked about the consistent and credible reports from the south, the southeast, Balkh and Panjshir Provinces that tell a clear story. Massive and blatant ballot-stuffing; the removal or invalidation of votes for rival candidates; complete overhaul of ballot-boxes; intimidation of witnesses and Independent Election Commission staff; systematic removal of the publicly displayed tally-sheets. Local IEC representatives are informally releasing figures that bear no relationship to observations on the ground and that are beyond the absurd. Fraud in Afghanistan's presidential election have compromised as many as one in five ballots, a UN official warned today , compounding fears that ballot-stuffing, intimidation and other irregularities could have a decisive impact on the vote.

He further elaborated that Afghanistan's presidential election has long been viewed by U.S. officials and its allies as a key to conferring legitimacy on the Afghan government, but Afghan President Hamid Karzai and his powerful warlord allies have planned to commit large-scale electoral fraud that could have the opposite effect. Karzai has been laying the groundwork for just such a contingency for many months. By all accounts, he has forged political alliances with leading Afghan warlords who control informal militias and tribal networks in the provinces to carry out a vote fraud scheme accounting for a very large proportion of the votes. Afghan President Hamid Karzai has brought a notorious warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum who killed 3000 Taliban prisoner of war. He is an influential backer out of exile just ahead of Thursday's presidential vote – a sign that old-style kingmaking continues to play a powerful role even as the country tries to move to a more modern form of campaigning. Karzai chose another war criminal Muhammad Qasim Fahim , the ethnic Tajik warlord who had been vice-president and defence minister in his government until the 2004 elections, as his running mate. In return for their support, he promised Hazara warlords Haji Muhammad Moheqiq who also killed thousands of innocent pashtuns and Karim Khalili that new provinces would be carved out from largely Hazara districts in Ghazni and Wardak provinces, as reported by Richard Oppel of the New York Times.

Observers found rampant distribution of multiple voting cards. During the third phase of registration, at least four incidents of such abuses in 85 percent of the centres. The voter registration staff was seen handing out cards even before applicants had been registered. In one case, the observers saw about 500 voting cards being given to a single individual. Another element in the Karzai scheme involves the registration of women without their actually being physically present, often on the basis of lists of names given to the registration officials. The list system for registering women was found in 99 percent of registration stations in Paktika province and 90 percent of those in Zabul and Khost provinces.

The Afghan Independent Election Commission announced that more than 10 provinces have no security. Therefore it will be very difficult to operate voting stations in these provinces because of security threat. Currently there are military operations in 65 districts. The Afghan Interior Minister admitted that the elections will not be held in all the 34 Provinces in Afghanistan. It will be impossible for ordinary people to attend voting stations in more than 10 provinces because of the security situation on the ground.

As for Abdullah Abdullah he should sit in a dark room and think for a moment about his past. How on earth he accuses Hamid Karzai of rigging the election where his own supporters forced the voters with Gun point in Balkh Province to vote for him. He should also look at his past where he was part , face and mirror of this corrupt regime for five years. He was the one defending this corrupt regime for years and made millions and filled his bank accounts.

Abdullah Abdullah should teach himself before he accuses others. He was part of the Northern Alliance led by the then war criminal Ahmad Shah Masood. His criminal gang who still occupy important positions was responsible for the killing of 56,000 innocent citizen of Kabul from 1992-1996. His past is very dark and bleak where his group (Northern Alliance) raped, tortured, abducted and murdered political rivals for the control of the capital city. Apart from killing the innocent citizens of Kabul his other victims during the four long years were from Hezb-e- Islami and its supporters and other Pashtun groups. His fighters, the so called Mujahideen (thieves) even stole pillows, mattresses and televisions set from the citizens of Kabul.

He is the man with little or no morality at all. I am sure there will be horse trading in the coming days and Abdullah Abdullah will surely sell his voters to be part of another disabled and corrupt regime and this time his justification and excuse will be the Afghan National Unity. He will not give any consideration to the feelings of his supporters and those who voted for him.

Afghans including presidential candidates, Political Analysts and other experts are complaining that last week’s elections were marred by serious fraud, in contrast to the international community’s assessment that voting was fair.

But to those closer to the process, the elections were characterised by widespread fraud, intimidation and violence, to the point that many seriously questioned the legitimacy and credibility of the results and any future President and his government. For the west to come up with such conclusion that the elections were fair, are scared of their people back at homes. The most recent ABC/Washington Post poll held (13-17/08/09) found that more than 51 % American do not support their government in Afghanistan. Also recently the Independent UK based Newspaper poll revealed that 57% of the British people want their troops out of Afghanistan immediately. So Mr. Obama and the UK which is a tool for the US administration have to lie about the real situation in Afghanistan to deceive their masses back at homes by saying that progress have been made there.

So the Afghans voted but do not know for what they have voted for. I suspect if anyone in Afghanistan voted because of the policies of their favourite candidate. They purely voted for whoever their ethnic leaders told them to vote for. Hence Karzai asked Dostum to deliver him the Uzbek vote. Abdullah Abdullah relies on the Tajik vote, Karzai on the Pashtuns. Afghanistan is a more divided country now than it was before the election and once more the race card is played by imperial powers such as the US, UK, and NATO to divide the Afghans to make it easier for themselves to continue the illegal occupation. Any little hope of optimism and democracy which were there before the election is now gone with the wind and that hope and positivity have vanished permanently by the illegal occupiers of Afghanistan.

Democracy is dead in Afghanistan no matter how much oxygen is pumped by the US, UK and NATO into its mouth. Afghans and the friends of Afghanistan are invited to take part in the funeral of Democracy in September after the result of presidential election. May God bless the Afghan Democracy and rest it soul in peace in the hereafter.

Mohammad N Asif

President, Scottish Afghan Exiles and

Exiled Afghan Journalist

Fake Political Theatre, not Election

Will it bring peace to Afghanistan?

The US and NATO watch in horror as their casualties sharply mount and they have nothing to show voters for the latest Afghan imperial misadventure but body bags and tantalizing mirages of Central Asia’s fabled oil and gas.

This Thursday’s presidential election in Afghanistan is an elaborate piece of political theatre organised by the west, especially America and Great Britain to show its citizens who do not support the war in Afghanistan but yet are told by their government that progress is being made there. The citizens of the world especially the Afghans already know who will win the vote. The candidate chosen by the United States and its NATO allies is clear to Afghans but the west still treat Afghans as stupid and try to stage a political drama which is based on lies and deceit in the name of democratic election and human rights.

The fake election will mostly be held in urban area, under the guns of US and NATO troops. Even in the urban areas votes have been bought in advance by different candidates. In many public election rallies millions of dollars were distributed.

If one candidate gives $10,000, then the other gives $20,000 and a third one offers even more. It has become such a lucrative and competitive business. I don't know where they get their money from.

Government workers - supposed to be impartial but they have actively and illegally campaigned for candidates. There is evidence that some people working for candidates have deliberately tried to influence the outcome of the presidential election by offering bribe. The BBC reported that voting cards were being sold in the capital. An Afghan working for the BBC went undercover, posing as a potential buyer. He was offered 1,000 cards on the spot. Each one would cost about $10 (£6). We were given some samples as proof of what was being offered. They are all authentic with the name, photo and home details of the voter on them. This is just happening on a small scale and the bigger scale is not thinkable. Over half of Afghanistan is under the control of Taliban and other opposition groups by day and 75 percent by night. There is no doubt that the Afghans are voting this election but the big question is who will be counting the votes? The entire election and vote-counting election commission are financed and run by the US and UNAMA. Thousands of Afghan mercenaries hired by the US will police the polls and intimidate voters. The Afghan American poppet media are busy promoting the American candidates. Taliban and other resistant groups vow to fight the sham election, which it calls a tool of foreign occupation. Many other nationalist and tribal groups who are rightly fighting the illegal invasion are excluded but General Abdul Rashid Dustom who killed 3000 prisoner of war is allowed to return to Afghanistan and declare his support for Karzai. Also is allowed General Fahim who is the running mate of Hamid Karzai and whose hands are still wet with the blood of innocent Afghans. In fact, all parties are banned including Hezb-e-Islami, Taliban and the Haqani group but yet individuals are allowed to run. This is a favorite tactic of non-democratic regimes, particularly the US-backed dictatorships of the Arab world. President Hamid Karzai’s main opponent are Abdullah Abdullah, fronts for the Russian and Iranian-backed Tajik Northern Alliance. Technocrat Ashraf Gani is another supposedly leading candidate. Both men are expected to get high positions in any new government formed by Karzai. Their primary role is to give the impression of an electoral contest.

The northern Tajiks and Uzbeks, traditional foes of the majority Pashtun, are in cahoots with Russia, Iran and India, all of whom have designs on Afghanistan. They continue to dominate Karzai’s faltering regime. The majority Pashtun are largely excluded from power. When the Soviets occupied Afghanistan from 1979-1989, they held fairer elections than the US-run votes. Of course, the Soviet’s man, Najibullah, won, but at least dissention was voiced. In Washington’s stage-managed Afghan votes, real opposition is excluded. The US used the same trick in Iraq’s rigged elections.

Much has gone wrong in Afghanistan. The insurgency is resilient, security has deteriorated, coalition casualties are rising, NATO's performance has disappointed, Afghan authorities are by turns incompetent and corrupt, the situation for women has worsened, poppy fields are in bloom. In the last week, Kabul has been struck by two car bombings, while mortar shells landed near Hamid Karzai's presidential palace.

Afghans do not want this election but the US, UNAMA and NATO want to hold it no matter what it costs. According to the Washington Post newspaper survey which revealed that more than 60 percent Afghans want reconciliation with resisting groups. According to the SKY TV news survey, more than 57 percent of the British population want their troops out of Afghanistan immediately. This election will cost more than $240 million but peaces will not come and many more innocent British soldiers will die and of course more defenceless Afghan will be killed too. Why young innocent British soldiers have to die for an American war. Why innocent Afghans have to be killed for sins of Al- Qaeda and Taliban

We do not need this political theatre and drama in the name of election and democracy. The people of Afghanistan know you very well and you can not deceive them again and again. This is just a black spot in the name of democracy.

Mohammad N Asif

Exiled Afghan Journalist

President, Scottish Afghan Exiles

CAN NATO WIN IN AFGHANISTAN?

Please watch live Press TV debate between Mohammad N Asif (Exiled Afghan Journalist) and other TV pundits. To see the debate please click on the video below

IS IT TIME TO BRING THE BRITISH TROOPS HOME?

Please watch the live Press TV debate between Mohammad N Asif (Exiled Afghan Journalist) and other high level panalists. Please click on the video below to watch the debate

THE WAR IN AFGHANISTAN - LIVE TV DEBATE

Please watch live Press TV debate between Mohammad N Asif (Exiled Afghan Journalist) and other high profile penalists.

Please click on the link below to see the debate

http://larawbar.org/article.php?id=7402&date=2008-11-30

ASYLUM PROTEST AT THE HOME OFFICE

Mohammad N Asif took part in an early protest against the Home Office to stop the early dawn raids. To see the video please click on the link below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VDyYTxSBjPA&feature=PlayList&p=E8050BA2BC6434DE

Scottish Afghan Society Slams the BBC

The Scottish Afghan Society Slams the BBC for not airing the DEC appeal for the people of GAZA.

To watch the videon please click on the linl below

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=py-r-lfhK3M

AFGHANS DEMANDED THE TROOPS OUT OF AFGHANISTAN

The Afghans In Scotland demanded the troops out of Afghanistan. A protest was held infont of the American Consulate in Edinburgh to demand the full withdrawal of all foreign troops from Afghanistan. Mohammad N Asif (Exiled Afghan Journalist) led the protest.

Please click here to see the video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gh04YVT8b3w