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Integrated Regional Information Network for Central Asia

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Central Asia
IRIN-CA Weekly Round-up 102
08 - 14 March 2003


CONTENTS:

AFGHANISTAN: Change for some as Kabul women celebrate
AFGHANISTAN: Amnesty report advocates police reform
AFGHANISTAN: Development forum finalises budget
AFGHANISTAN: Peacekeepers needed to facilitate northern disarmament, say NGOs
AFGHANISTAN: ISAF comes under bomb attack
PAKISTAN: Repatriations of Afghan refugees resumes
PAKISTAN: Land dispute threatening refugee camps over
PAKISTAN: UNHCR-assisted Afghan repatriation drive kicks off
PAKISTAN: Women want action from new representatives
UZBEKISTAN: OSCE States to discuss economic impact of drug trafficking
CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

AFGHANISTAN: Change for some as Kabul women celebrate

Under the theme of 'Empowering Women in Peace and Reconstruction', there
was an enthusiastic International Women's Day in the Afghan capital,
Kabul, on Saturday - the second time since the demise of the Taliban. "The
participation of 1,500 women from the capital and provinces in today's
ceremony is a big change in Afghan women's life, as well as a significant
sign of their interest in social affairs," Minister of Women's Affairs
Habiba Surabi told IRIN in Kabul. Organised by Surabi's ministry and the
Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission, with support from the United
Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM), the event received
large-scale participation by Afghan women, after years of having been
victims of massive and systematic violations of their most basic human
rights - particularly under the Taliban regime.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32746&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Amnesty report advocates police reform

The Afghan Minister of Interior told IRIN on Thursday that police training
was the top priority of his ministry, following a report issued by Amnesty
International (AI) a day earlier, which said Afghan police did not have
the capacity to protect human rights. "I agree with Amnesty International
that police should be trained and disciplined to ensure better security
and protect human rights," Ali Ahmad Jalali, Afghan Minister of Interior,
told IRIN in the capital Kabul. He accepted that most police officers
hadn't had professional training, but rejected the notion that torture or
harassment was practiced by the country's police force. "I myself monitor
human rights issues and cases in the country," Jalali said.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32822&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Development forum finalises budget

Afghanistan's minister of finance announced on Friday that US $350 million
dollars were needed from donors to meet the government's annual budget of
$550 million. "Funding the ordinary budget will require $550 million, of
which $200 million is anticipated to come from domestic revenue and $350
million from donor financing," Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai told IRIN at the end
of a two-day meeting of the Afghanistan Development Forum (ADF)attended by
senior government officials and international donors in the capital Kabul.
He also outlined a medium-term requirement of $1.7 billion for the
country. "We have also presented an ambitious 1.7 billion dollars
developmental budget and thus far have received pledges of 712 million
dollars leaving a gap of one billion dollars," he said.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32852&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: Peacekeepers needed to facilitate northern disarmament, say
NGOs

Analysts and aid workers have told IRIN ongoing disarmament and
demilitarisation efforts in northern Afghanistan need to be supported by a
political process as well as improved security. "So long as the political
competition there is not resolved, there is not going to be any incentive
for a fair disarmament, demobilisation and demilitarisation process,"
Vikram Parekh, a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group ICG)
think-tank, told IRIN from the Afghan capital, Kabul, on Monday. His
comments follow a UN statement on Sunday hailing the departure of 200
rival fighters from Nasari village in the northern Jowzjan Province
following the resolution of a land dispute.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32730&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

AFGHANISTAN: ISAF comes under bomb attack

The International Security Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (ISAF) has
confirmed that a local interpreter had been killed and a Dutch soldier
injured following an explosion on the outskirts of the Afghan capital,
Kabul, on Friday. "It was a normal patrol in Bagram District, with several
ISAF vehicles, when the explosion happened," a spokesman for the UN
mandated multinational peacekeeping force, Lt-Col Thomas Loebbering, told
IRIN in Kabul, adding that it had been an improvised explosive device,
planted on the edge of the road and detonated remotely when the ISAF
vehicle passed. Loebbering noted that despite expert medical attention,
the interpreter had died of his injuries, while the Dutch soldier had
sustained light wounds.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32741&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=AFGHANISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Repatriations of Afghan refugees resumes

The Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) resumed the
voluntary repatriation of Afghans last week following a one-month
suspension in February due to staff training. The refugee agency is
concentrating on an estimated 1.5 million Afghan refugees living in some
200 camps across Pakistan for repatriation - gradually extending that
effort to other parts of the country. "The repatriation that started is
focused on the camps because last year most of the returns came from
cities," agency spokesman, Jack Redden told IRIN in Pakistan's capital,
Islamabad. "It's a phased introduction of repatriation, which will include
all of the camps and the major cities where Afghan refugees live

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32733&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]
 
PAKISTAN: Land dispute threatening refugee camps over

A dispute with land owners that brought about the suspension of
humanitarian supplies to some 72,000 Afghan refugees living in four
refugee camps in the border town of Chaman in south-central Pakistan has
been resolved, IRIN learnt on Tuesday. "It was a local dispute that
disrupted the provision of humanitarian aid for weeks last month, and was
settled after an agreement that increased the number of local people to be
employed there as chowkidars [guards]," a spokesman for the Office of the
United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jack Redden, told
IRIN in Pakistani capital, Islamabad. The landowners blocked access to the
Landi Karez, Roghani, Dara 1 and Dara 2 camps last month after the
government's Commissioner of Afghan Refugees (CAR) in the southwestern
Balochistan Province cut the number of guards from 20 to five in each camp
due to financial constraints. Although their protest was suspended after a
week, the landowners threatened to reimpose the blockade after six weeks
if there was no agreement.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32769&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: UNHCR-assisted Afghan repatriation drive kicks off

The first convoy of 323 Afghan refugees from Pakistan's northwestern city
of Peshawar, left for home on Wednesday as part of the UN High
Commissioner for Refugees' (UNHCR) voluntary return assistance programme
for 2003. Muhammad Asif, aged 22, was born in the Kacha Gari refugee camp
on the outskirts of Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province
(NWFP). Ever since, the provincial capital has been the only home he has
known. "I have mixed emotions. I want to go to my homeland, but I will
surely miss Peshawar," he told IRIN at the Takhtabaig Voluntary
Repatriation Centre near the city.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32800&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

PAKISTAN: Women want action from new representatives

Pakistan now has the largest number of women ever in its government,
following compulsory female representation in the country's general
election last October. But activists celebrating International Women's Day
on Saturday say more of them in power must be turned into an improvement
in women's status. "One major change is the very substantial number of
women in policy-making areas. We owe our gratitude and thanks to General
[Pervez] Musharraf [Pakistan's President] for doing great service for the
women of Pakistan," a prominent Pakistani women's rights' activist, Shanaz
Bokhari, told IRIN in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, noting, however,
that now was the time to see some results. "It is now up to these women
who are in the National Assembly to push forward our cause and to stay
passionate about these issues."

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32739&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=PAKISTAN]

UZBEKISTAN: OSCE States to discuss economic impact of drug trafficking

The economic impact of drug trafficking will be the core topic of a
two-day seminar organised by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation
in Europe (OSCE), set to open in the Uzbek capital, Tashkent on Monday.
"The issue of trafficking needs to be wider understood," Ivo Kersten,
advisor to the OSCE Coordinator of Economic and Environmental Activities
told IRIN from Vienna. "This is a comprehensive security issue among all
the OSCE states," he explained, noting the major economic impact it was
having around the world. According to the group, illicit production and
trafficking of drugs has become one of the greatest modern blights on
humanity and despite its economic impact, has so far received
comparatively little attention.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32826&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=UZBEKISTAN]

CENTRAL ASIA: Weekly news wrap

In Uzbekistan on Wednesday, a rare protest against allegedly corrupt
judges took place at a justice department building in Fergana; an eastern
town long associated with militant Islam. More than 20 people had taken
part in the demonstration, the protest leader, Mutabar Tazhiboyevoye told
AFP. Their demands included the resignation of 16 judges whose decisions
the protestors questioned. Some 4,000 people are currently imprisoned in
Uzbekistan for membership of banned religious organisations, rights
campaigners maintain. The demonstration had come in the same week that a
delegation led by UN Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand
Ramcharan visited the Uzbek capital, local media reported.

[For a complete copy of this report see:
http://www.irinnews.org/report.asp?ReportID=32849&SelectRegion=Central_Asia&SelectCountry=CENTRAL_ASIA]


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