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| Afghanistan |
| Afghan constitution vote suspended |
| 2003-12-31 |
| Afghan leaders suspended voting on the country’s first post-Taliban constitution Tuesday after failing to close an ethnic split over issues from power-sharing to recognition for minorities. Delegates to the grand council, or loya jirga, were dismissed and told to return Wednesday, leaving a core of powerful leaders to join U.N. and U.S. officials to seek a compromise among the country’s fractious ethnic groups. Before disappearing into the crisis talks, the council’s embattled chairman, Sibghatullah Mujaddedi, appealed for calm — and suggested a deal could be reached in overnight talks. "Sometimes our loya jirga gets so hot that the people catch fire, and sometimes it’s so cold you need warmer clothes," he told the council gathered in a huge tent on a city college campus. "God willing, tomorrow we will gather again and won’t even need to vote or debate any more." The 502-member council has spent more than two weeks debating and revising a 160-article draft supported by U.S.-backed President Hamid Karzai. Karzai appears to have rallied a clear majority for the strongly centralized presidential system laid out in the draft, mostly among his ethnic Pashtun kinsmen from the south of the country. But representatives of the Northern Alliance faction, which helped U.S. forces throw out the Pashtun-dominated Taliban in late 2001, have put up stubborn resistance. Critics including hardline Islamists who fought the Soviet occupation in the 1980s and the civil war that followed, want a parliament strong enough to keep the president in check. They are also pressing for the recognition of minority languages and stronger regional councils, as well as a state with a stronger Islamic flavor. Officials exasperated at snail-paced discussions and the $50,000-a-day cost handed out voting slips Tuesday morning so that the council could decide on a dozen of 18 last-minute amendments. But delegates close to Burhanuddin Rabbani, a Tajik leader and former president, called for a halt, claiming their demands were being ignored amid heavy-handed government lobbying. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, a regular presence at the jirga, later met with Mujaddedi, U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi and other Afghan officials. Many Pashtuns are confident they have a majority to turn the constitution back in Karzai’s favor and impatient for a vote. "They just want to disrupt the whole process," said Omar Zakhilwal, a delegate from Kandahar, said of the opposition. "They think they are losing." Others appealed for moderation to heal the wounds left by years of war. "After 24 years of war, different people can have different ideas," said Mahmoud Shah Suleyman Khel, a Pashtun delegate from Paktia who said he decided to attend the loya jirga despite threats in his region by Taliban militants. "Everybody wants security and peace and stability. This is what is important to the people of Afghanistan." |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |
| #3 "...a state with a stronger Islamic flavor." Yumm. Chocolat. |
| Posted by: Attaboid 2003-12-31 7:34:04 PM |
| #2 I really wish someone would point out to them that their previous Islamic republic - FAILURE Why? If these guys can't learn from the mistakes of others, then the only way they're going to learn is to make their own mistakes. At least that's how it works in theory. |
| Posted by: Bomb-a-rama 2003-12-31 2:58:40 PM |
| #1 I really wish someone would point out to them that their previous Islamic republic - FAILURE Islamic Republic of Iran - FAILURE And the grandaddy of them all, SA - FAILURE. |
| Posted by: Anonymous2U 2003-12-31 3:03:15 AM |