Posted on 01/03/2004 3:27:45 AM PST by slimer
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) - Delegates at a marathon council to create an Afghan constitution have narrowed disagreements that threatened to scuttle the process and are close to approving President Hamid Karzai's demand for a strong central government, Karzai said Saturday. Some delegates still held out against a clause that would allow dual citizenship for top officials. That was an apparent jab at ministers who have returned from exile abroad to take up key Cabinet posts but have been unwilling to give up coveted American and European passports.
Some 500 delegates at the grand council, or loya jirga, have spent three weeks arguing over the new constitution, which is supposed to lay the foundations for stability and reconstruction after more than 20 years of fighting in Afghanistan.
The debate has exposed fault lines between modernizers and Islamic conservatives. It also has underscored the raw ethnic divisions left by the country's recent civil war.
Karzai had insisted that the constitution could be ratified even with a narrow majority. He adopted a more conciliatory tone Saturday after apparently getting enough backing for a powerful presidency.
"Lots of solutions have been found for the problems and there are one or two other matters that are going to be worked on this morning," he told reporters outside his palace in Kabul. "It is important to have a constitution that comes with near consensus if not total consensus."
Ethnic Uzbek, Tajik and Hazara delegates have led the opposition, boycotting voting on amendments to the latest draft on Thursday, and holding crisis meetings with American and U.N. officials on the sidelines to win concessions. Those talks helped smooth over some opposition.
Council leaders and Western diplomats suggest faction leaders are inflaming the debate on ethnic issues to secure powerful positions in the government or on a constitutional commission.
Council spokeswoman Safia Saddiqi issued a ringing warning to the delegates, telling them that Saturday's session should be decisive.
"Don't let enemies celebrate the failure of this jirga. You have been elected by the people and hold the destiny of the country in your hands," she said. "I think in any case that today will be the last day."
Jirga organizers also say Saturday is expected to be the last day.
Delegates frustrated with the slow progress milled around the huge jirga tent erected on a Kabul college campus for the event. Mohammed Gul Yunisi, a prominent critic of the U.S.-backed government's plans, said the citizenship issue was the last obstacle.
He said ministers who were unwilling to give up their foreign passport lacked patriotism.
"We say keep your Afghan passport and drop your foreign one," Yunisi told The Associated Press. "This is betrayal."
Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official, and Interior Minister Ali Ahmad Jalali, once a Voice of America reporter, both spent years in the United States.
It was unclear whether they still hold U.S. passports. Both have adopted high profiles in the government.
The two also are ethnic Pashtuns brought in to rebalance a government initially dominated by members of the Tajik-dominated Northern Alliance, which helped U.S. forces drive out the mainly Pashtun Taliban two years ago.
Deputy Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said delegates also were still divided by the explosive issue of language rights.
A block of Pashtun delegates who have swung behind Karzai's presidential plans oppose recognizing Uzbek as an official language alongside Pashto and Dari.
"We are asking our Pashtun brothers to be generous, but so far the discussion is still going on," Wardak told AP.
Outsiders worry that the jirga is dominated by proxies of Afghan warlords and regional faction leaders who still control much of the country.
What, you subscribe to the Oregonian also? ;) Same story in my local fish-wrap.
Afghans Agree on Historic New Constitution
3 minutes ago
By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer
KABUL, Afghanistan - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s constitutional convention agreed Sunday on an historic new charter, overcoming weeks of division to reach a compromise meant to bind together this war-ravaged nation's mosaic of ethnic groups, the chairman said.
Just a day after warning the summit was heading to humiliating failure, council chairman Sibghatullah Mujaddedi told the 502-delegates meeting under a giant tent in the Afghan capital that last-ditch diplomacy secured a comprehensive deal.
"We are very happy that all the members of the loya jirga have reached a very successful agreement," Mujaddedi said.
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