After Wrangling, Afghans Approve New Constitution

KABUL (Reuters) - Rival Afghan factions agreed to a new national constitution Sunday, clearing the way for the country's first free elections after nearly a quarter of a century of war.

Ending weeks of bitter squabbling over sweeping powers proposed for the president and the rights of ethnic minorities, delegates at the Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, overwhelmingly rose to their feet to endorse the charter.

"There is no winner or loser," an impassioned President Hamid Karzai told a crowd wearing traditional turbans, skullcaps and headscarves in a giant white tent on a Kabul college campus.

Last-ditch diplomacy by the United Nations (news - web sites) and United States helped to avert failure.

"We came close to a major problem, but it was resolved by the people of Afghanistan (news - web sites)," assembly chairman Sibghatullah Mojaddidi told delegates.

"We are hoping to be able to unite together as one nation and to be able to overcome challenges of the future."

The agreement ended three weeks of debate that laid bare ethnic divisions and resulted in some compromise on the U.S.-inspired vision of a strong presidency. The role of Islam, women's rights and the political system were also disputed.

Afghanistan's last constitution was drawn up in 1964. Since then the country has lived through Soviet occupation, ruinous civil war and five years of fundamentalist Taliban rule.

U.S. ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad praised Afghans for adopting "one of the most enlightened constitutions in the Islamic world."

Outgoing U.N. special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi took the floor and called it "a time of great emotion for all of us," but added the charter was worthless as long as Afghans did not feel safe in their violence-wracked country.

The assembly ran for 22 days instead of the 10 envisaged by Karzai, and was marred by the threat of violence against a woman delegate and accusations of meddling by ministers.

Thursday, nearly half the 502 delegates boycotted the first and only ballot, complaining their proposed amendments had been dropped by the pro-presidential bloc.

Karzai, who like his backers in Washington argued for extensive powers to steer his war-weary country to stability, will get his wish but the president will be "responsible before the nation and the parliament."

Opposition to Karzai, a Pashtun, at the Loya Jirga was orchestrated by members of the mainly Tajik Northern Alliance faction that helped the U.S. military topple the Taliban in late 2001 and which remains the backbone of his government.

But Washington's allegiance is now firmly behind Karzai, a Western-leaning moderate expected to contest and win the presidential elections supposed to be held in June.

In the revised constitution, women are set to win extra parliamentary seats. There is no mention of Sharia, the strict Islamic law enforced by Taliban before its ouster two years ago, although Afghanistan remains a deeply conservative Muslim state.

In the constitution, Pashto spoken by the largest Pashtun clan and Dari spoken by Tajiks, are set to be official languages. Other languages will be officially recognized in areas where they are spoken by the majority.

Pashtun delegates vented frustration at what they saw as a concession to minorities, while Pashto has not been named as the national language in the charter as they had wished.

"We are very, very upset, to the extent that we think it is impossible to enforce," said Abdul Rahman, a turbaned and bearded delegate from the eastern province of Paktia.

A Western diplomat warned that a sense of alienation could add to insecurity in the Pashtun-dominated south and east, where the U.S.-led "war on terror" is fiercest and vital aid work has virtually been halted due to Taliban guerrilla activity.

Karzai, aware of the divisions opened up by the Loya Jirga, urged people to put their country before their ethnicity.

"I want an Afghanistan where a poor boy from the Baluch tribe can become president," he said, referring to a little known clan.

From the infoplease.com almanac-

Government
In June 2002 a multiparty republic replaced an interim government that had been established in Dec. 2001, following the fall of the Islamic Taliban government.

History
Darius I and Alexander the Great were the first to use Afghanistan as the gateway to India. Islamic conquerors arrived in the 7th century, and Genghis Khan and Tamerlane followed in the 13th and 14th centuries.

In the 19th century, Afghanistan became a battleground in the rivalry between imperial Britain and czarist Russia for control of Central Asia. Three Anglo-Afghan wars (1839–1842, 1878–1880, and 1919) ended inconclusively. In 1893 Britain established an unofficial border, the Durand Line, separating Afghanistan from British India, and London granted full independence in 1919. Emir Amanullah founded an Afghan monarchy in 1926.

During the cold war, King Mohammed Zahir Shah developed close ties with the Soviet Union, accepting extensive economic assistance from Moscow. He was overthrown in 1973 by his cousin Mohammed Daoud, who was himself ousted in a 1978 coup by Noor Taraki. Taraki and his successor, Babrak Karmal, attempted to create a Marxist state. However, the new leadership was criticized by armed insurgents who bitterly opposed communism and hoped to create an Islamic state in Afghanistan. Fearing his government was on the verge of collapse, Karmal called for Soviet troops. Moscow responded with a full-scale invasion of the country in Dec. 1979.

The Soviets were met with fierce resistance from groups already energized by opposition to the Karmal government. The guerrilla forces, calling themselves mujahideen, pledged a jihad, or holy war, to expel the invaders. Initially armed with outdated weapons, the mujahideen became a focus of U.S. cold war strategy against the Soviet Union, and with Pakistan's help, Washington began funneling sophisticated arms to the resistance. Moscow's troops were soon bogged down in a no-win conflict with determined Afghan fighters. In April 1988 the USSR, U.S., Afghanistan, and Pakistan signed accords calling for an end to outside aid to the warring factions. In return, a Soviet withdrawal took place in Feb. 1989, but the pro-Soviet government of President Najibullah was left in the capital, Kabul.

By mid-April 1992 Najibullah was ousted as Islamic rebels advanced on the capital. Almost immediately, the various rebel groups began fighting one another for control. Amid the chaos of competing factions, a group calling itself the Taliban—consisting of Islamic students—seized control of Kabul in Sept. 1996. It imposed harsh fundamentalist laws, including stoning for adultery and severing hands for theft. Women were prohibited from work and school, and they were required to cover themselves from head to foot in public. By fall 1998 the Taliban controlled about 90% of the country and, with its scorched-earth tactics and human rights abuses, had turned itself into an international pariah. Only three countries, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAR, recognized the Taliban as Afghanistan's legitimate government

On Aug. 20, 1998, U.S. cruise missiles struck a terrorist training complex in Afghanistan believed to have been financed by Osama bin Laden, a wealthy Islamic radical sheltered by the Taliban. The U.S. asked for the deportation of Bin Laden, whom they believed was involved in the bombing of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania on Aug. 7, 1998. The UN also demanded the Taliban hand over Bin Laden for trial.

In Sept. 2001, legendary guerrilla leader Ahmed Shah Masoud was killed by suicide bombers, a seeming death knell for the anti-Taliban forces, a loosely connected group referred to as the Northern Alliance. Days later, terrorists attacked New York's World Trade Center Towers and the Pentagon, and Bin Laden emerged as the primary suspect in the tragedy.

On Oct. 7, after the Taliban repeatedly and defiantly refused to turn over Bin Laden, the U.S. and its allies began daily air strikes against Afghan military installations and terrorist training camps. Five weeks later, with the help of U.S. air support, the Northern Alliance managed with breathtaking speed to take the key cities of Mazar-i-Sharif and Kabul, the capital. On Dec. 7, the Taliban regime collapsed entirely when its troops fled their last stronghold, Kandahar. However, al-Qaeda members and other mujahideen from various parts of the Islamic world who had earlier fought alongside the Taliban persisted in pockets of fierce resistance, forcing U.S. and allied troops to maintain a presence in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden and Taliban leader Mullah Muhammad Omar remained at large.

In Dec. 2001, Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun (the dominant ethnic group in the country) and the leader of the powerful 500,000-strong Populzai clan, was named head of Afghanistan's interim government; in June 2002, he formally became president. The U.S. was one of 31 nations contributing peacekeeping forces to the country in 2002 and 2003, but it also maintained 9,000 additional troops to combat the remnants of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Fighting persisted into 2003, and in March, in the largest operation in more than a year, about 1,000 soldiers raided Kandahar, seeking out al-Qaeda members. U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld declared in May that major combat in Afghanistan had ended, marking the formal transition from military operations to reconstruction. But attacks on American-led forces intensified over the summer, and warlords maintained tight regional control. Indeed, President Karzai had almost no power beyond Kabul. In August, NATO assumed command of the peacekeeping troops (most of whom were German and Canadian), and promised a more effective operation. Two years after the U.S.-led war resulted in the collapse of the Taliban, Afghanistan remained in a desperately fragile state, ruled by warlords and coming under renewed attack by Taliban and al-Qaeda forces.

In November the Afghan government submitted a draft of its new constitution, and in December, its loya jirga, or grand assembly, began the process of ratifying it. If the constitution is approved, elections for a national assembly will be expected in June 2004.

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