posted August 16, 2004, updated 1:15 p.m.
Fighting underscores obstacles to Afghan vote
Factional violence, voter intimidation, and fraud mar runup to landmark elections.
By Matthew Clark | csmonitor.com
As Afghanistan prepares for its landmark presidential elections, scheduled for Oct. 9, factional fighting increasingly threatens to derail the process.
The New York Times reports that two more battalions of Afghanistan's newly trained, multiethnic army were dispatched to the western province of Herat on Sunday, to take back control of an air base.
The troops were sent in response to deadly clashes in the area. At least 50 people died in fighting between forces loyal to Herat governor Ismail Khan and a rival militia, reports the BBC. The heaviest clashes were reportedly centered on an air base north of Shindand.
President Hamid Karzai condemned the fighting as an attempt to disrupt the upcoming elections, according to the BBC.
The elections, which were supposed to take place in June, have already been pushed back twice due to security concerns.
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Voter fraud is also increasingly a worry for Afghan officials. As The Los Angeles Times reported last week, Afghan President Hamid Karzai acknowledged in a joint appearance Wednesday with visiting US Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that the number of people who have registered more than once could be anywhere from 1,000 to 100,000.
The Toronto Star reports that a French fry vendor in Kabul intends to "supplement his meager income" by selling voter identification cards.
After getting six voter registration cards – all containing his real name and photograph – he expects to make $1,000 for five cards and keep one for the Oct. 9 vote. ...
Although the final tally is not yet in, UN election officials are scrambling to explain why more than 9.9 million cards have been issued, surpassing the original estimated 9.8 million voters.
In an election the US had hoped to hold up as an example of democracy dawning in the developing world, there is now growing evidence that attempted vote-rigging has run amok.
In an instance of voter intimidation, The Seattle Times reports that "Taliban militants beat to death a community leader for encouraging people to vote."
Perhaps a less pressing obstacle to democracy in Afghanistan than factional violence and voter intimidation ahead of the elections, the country's burgeoning opium trade seems to be more of a worry to officials in Washington.
Last week Mr. Rumsfeld warned again of the damage Afghanistan's opium trade could do to the establishment of democracy there while announcing a "master plan" to combat it. A Globe and Mail editorial says "such a plan is long overdue" and points out that the US focused "almost exclusively on the military matters at hand" when it toppled the Taliban regime in 2001.
Afterward, scant attention – and far too little money – was devoted to such crucial problems as how to extend the rule of law throughout the country, disarm the warlords who still control huge swaths of territory, and develop the institutions needed to underpin a functioning democracy and a national economy. It was in this economic and political vacuum that the drug trade flourished. ...
But once opium production was allowed to take root again, it grew rapidly into a major force, with global implications for the wars on drugs and terror.
Meanwhile, Jonathan Keith "Jack" Idema, the American accused of running a free-lance antiterror operation and private prison in Afghanistan, testified in court Monday that that US and Afghan authorities were fully aware of his actions, reports The Washington Post. US military and intelligence officials have repeatedly denied having any affiliation with Mr. Idema, although they acknowledge having received one prisoner from him, writes the Post.
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