Karzai Pledges to Prosecute Warlords
This article is from the archive of The New York Sun before the launch of its new website in 2022. The Sun has neither altered nor updated such articles but will seek to correct any errors, mis-categorizations or other problems introduced during transfer.
KABUL, Afghanistan – Hamid Karzai pledged yesterday to use his five-year term as Afghanistan’s first elected president to crack down on warlords and the re-emerging country’s booming drug economy.
Accepting his victory in the historic October 9 ballot, he also offered an olive branch to the Taliban, even as an offshoot of the former ruling terrorists threatened to kill three kidnapped U.N. workers who helped organize the vote.
“The Afghan people have placed their trust in us, for which we are very grateful,” Mr. Karzai said in the grounds of his bomb-damaged Kabul palace, flanked by his two smiling running-mates and circled by bodyguards. “They voted for a government based on laws and institutions, and that is what we are going to provide.”
Mr. Karzai has said that smashing Afghanistan’s opium and heroin smugglers will be his top priority, and the key to reining in warlords resisting the feeble authority of the central government.
He has also pledged to clear his Cabinet of faction leaders who helped America oust the Taliban three years ago but have proved to be deadweights in office.
Asked if any warlords or government officials believed to profit from drugs would survive the purge, Mr. Karzai said: “There will not be any private militia forces in Afghanistan.”
“There will definitely, definitely not be any drug thing in Afghanistan,” he said. “We’re going to be dedicated, strong in working against that.”
He said he would not announce his Cabinet before his inauguration in November.
But he renewed an offer to followers of the Taliban – with the exception of a few dozen top fugitives – “to come and participate in the rebuilding of this country.”
“The rest of them, thousands of them, they are sons of this earth, they are welcome,” he said.
Election officials declared Mr. Karzai the winner Wednesday after more than three weeks of laborious counting and arguments about whether he had cheated his way to victory.
Yunus Qanooni, who finished second with 16%, compared with Mr. Karzai’s 55%, accepted the result just hours before Mr. Karzai made his televised acceptance speech.
“For me, Afghanistan’s national interests are the most important,” said Mr. Qanooni, Mr. Karzai’s former education minister. “If we didn’t accept the result, the country would go toward a crisis.”
Ethnic Hazara chieftain Mohammed Mohaqeq and Uzbek strongman Abdul Rashid Dostum followed suit.
A boycott could have undermined Mr. Karzai’s chances of extending his authority across a country still torn by ethnic tensions and poisoned the political atmosphere for parliamentary elections slated for next spring.
Foreign experts drafted in to examine the allegations found a string of irregularities, including ballot-stuffing, but said they couldn’t have changed the result.
Mr. Karzai has vowed to accelerate the slow rebuilding of a country after war and drought with the goal of doubling the income of Afghans by 2009.
But any attempt to focus on the economy will be complicated by the challenge of confronting warlords, drug traffickers, and Taliban terrorists all at the same time.
Mr. Karzai denounced as “terrorist elements” an armed group who kidnapped three foreign election workers in Kabul a week ago.
Jaish-al Muslimeen, a little-known terrorist band, said yesterday that talks on demands including the release of Taliban prisoners had broken down, and that they would decide today whether to kill the three – Irish-British citizen Annetta Flanigan, Filipino Angelito Nayan, and Shqipe Hebibi from Kosovo.
A purported commander of the group said U.N. and Afghan officials contacted them by telephone yesterday but were “not ready for negotiations.”
“We have decided that we won’t negotiate any more either, because they are not making a serious effort to get the hostages released,” a man identifying himself as Sadir Momin said in a satellite telephone call. Another meeting will be held Friday, “then we will decide whether to kill them or allow more time,” Mr. Momin said.
Mr. Karzai said authorities “hope with God’s help to succeed in freeing them safely.” But neither Afghan nor U.N. officials have confirmed any contact with the kidnappers.