New York- My former editor and colleague at Asia Times Online, Charles McDermid, has an article today with local Suleimani-based reporter Rebaz Mahmood on the fourth and perhaps ultimate death sentence for “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, the most brutal enforcer of the al-Anfal campaign in northern Iraq in 1988. Charles is now working in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and is gearing up for coverage of the Iraqi general elections to be held on March 7th by the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (which is meant to coincide with the “Status of Forces Agreement” referendum on the future of U.S. troops in the Republic of Iraq). Almost seven years after the United States military and its allies tried to erase the legacy of Saddam Hussein by destroying Iraq in order to try and save it, or remake it into a pro-Israel, emasculated Arab client state of neoconservative folly, the legacy of Ba’athism and Halabja continue to haunt the politics of this shattered post-Ottoman successor state.
Abu Dhabi, UAE- I have a new piece in today’s Asia Times about the overall decline of the security environment in Kabul and the collective West’s political will to do something about it. Five more years of Karzai rule is a bitter pill to swallow for anyone who considers themselves to give a damn about Afghanistan. My friends Raymond Pagnucco and Spencer Mandell made an excellent film about the first imposed democratic experiment in 2004 and all the fraud that accompanied that mess entitled God’s Open Hand. Swap Yunus Qanooni for Dr. Abdullah (and figure in that Qanooni was one of Abdullah’s strongest backers in this year’s destined to be flawed contest) and the electoral mess of 2004 begins to resemble this year’s fiasco. One might even go so far as to make a comparison between the 2000 and the 2004 Bush “victories” in the United States. Democracy is imperfect everywhere but in Afghanistan these imperfections yield deadly consequences.
The Independent Election Commission held an arduous total of two (2) voting results announcements before they decided to take a well deserved break? The first event on Tuesday was pretty much a disaster and then yesterday independent candidate Ramazan Bashardost made dramatic outburst about what I can only assume was the IEC’s complicity in some level of fraud. Interestingly, for Tuesday briefing, it seemed like every expat in Kabul was there for the “Big News” and on Wednesday, I was the only Western journalist except for a few of the wire people who would have had to have been there even if this was a Kabul city council election. Bashardost apparently remembered me from a street interview I did with him a few weeks ago while he was campaigning in the bazaar and said he was happy to see me there. Maybe it’s just me but wouldn’t the second day of results be actually more newsworthy than the first (in that it gives us a bigger picture and more of a possible voting pattern)? So why the hell didn’t the other journos deem the event worthy of their presence? Ahh who cares…
My email from the IEC today said that they cancelled today and tomorrow’s polls results which is a little curious seeing as it puts Afghanistan a little deeper into this very dangerous limbo. Holbrooke is yelling at Karzai while Abdullah is yelling at the international media and all of this only leads to further intrigue here. Abdullah has described his opponent as “Conspiratorial” while a Karzai insider told me that Abdullah was making a “Media war.” Anyone smell another palace deal in the works???
Urgent Update: I finally made it into the NY Times….in someone else’s photo…in the far lower left.
The Afghan Independent Election Commission had a pathetic press conference today. The figures for the votes for the candidates counted thus far didn’t match up to the graphic they had projected next to the stage. And the Dari-English translator, where the hell did they find this guy? He’s like a very nervous, Persian Chris Farley. It would have been easier just to have either the whole thing in Dari and try to decipher it later or just have the head of the commission speak English himself (he interjected into English when I pointed out the mismatch in both the translation and the info-graphic on the screen). Twice I pointed this flub out and a group of VIP elders all sitting behind me chimed in that I was right that all the numbers didn’t line up while the bureaucrat at the podium insisted he didn’t know what I was talking about.
Abdullah had everyone over at his house today to show us evidence of fraud and he seems to be playing this situation really well. From the numbers called at the Intercon, he and Karzai are neck and neck from the apparent votes counted so far. The drama continues…
Went out to the Independent Election Commission warehouse out on Jalalabad road today to watch the ballots for Kabul Province come in via faded, clattering Pakistani lorries. Being ramadan, work went by at a snail’s pace. A few men and the odd woman stacked the clear plastic bins organized by district in two massive hangars. As I walked in the tally centre, it looked more like what I imagine an Indian outsourcing office in Bangalore to be than what one would expect in Afghanistan. Young, hip Afghans sat behind buzzing PC terminals doing rote data entry as votes were unfurled. A veteran photojournalist who also happened to be out there said it was nothing like what she witnessed in the 2004 election when everything was done by hand. The partial results are going to be announced tomorrow night here and no one seems to really have a handle on what’s going on. I asked my contact at the IEC if he could give me any “additional” information but he dutifully stuck to protocol and put me on the IEC’s email list. If Karzai is announced the “partial” victor tomorrow when the partial results are called, it will appear to be a defeat for democracy across the board for many. Even if Karzai were to win in a second round, the process would look to both Afghans and the international community as much more vigorous and genuine. Abdullah’s camp is claiming they’re winning outright as well. This could get a little awkward.
I’m suddenly feeling down. The adrenalin rush has worn off and the couple other journos I was socializing with have all left. I imagine today’s Safi flight to Dubai was packed with Westerners fleeing temporarily directionless politics and the discipline of ramadan here. Not to mention the end of MSM interest in the story. But I can’t leave Afghanistan just yet. Have to push through the doldrums. There are more people to talk to and further intrigue to delve into.
It’s been a weird, intense couple of weeks. Richard Engel asking me why I was wearing Blu Blockers™ and if I was a “hipster.” Getting knocked by one of McChrystal’s machismo Italiano guards. Getting left behind at Kabul airport by Dostum’s entourage at night and taking a local taxi back to his house. One of Karzai’s presidential guards asking me, with a straight face, if I had an appointment at the palace to see the Taliban rocket that crashed through the kitchen. Seeing Gary Hart in the lobby of the Serena and then google imaging him on my laptop and holding my laptop next to his head for confirmation. Dr. A’s guy Ali asking us journos if we were ready to go to Gardez by road instead of helicopter and everyone jumping out of the HiLux and bailing. Realizing that Afghan paranoia and conspiracy theories are still child’s play compared to their ilk across the Durand Line. Being told by the kid at the front desk of the hotel that he saw me on state TV next the intel chief at the Intercon. No wonder this weekend was a weird let down…
Afghanistan now sits in this awkward interim phase on this first day of Ramadan (Ramazan in Farsi) between the election and the official announcement of the preliminary results in about ten days. Allegations of fraud are being hurled back and forth between Karzai operatives and Abdullah’s campaigners and Carlotta Gall is claiming a few purple fingers actually were lopped off over in Nangarhar Province. Talk in Kabul is bubbling up that the was much more violence in the provinces than was originally thought while the capital was spared save for the Karte Nau incident. No one knows whether Karzai’s dreadful alliance of a who’s who of skeletons in Afghanistan’s closet will hold together beyond the next few weeks. Dr. Abdullah will not take a defeat lying down either but the rumors of “Iranian-style” streets protests to come are being denied by those at his headquarters. For now, Afghanistan begins it’s lunar month of fasting and it’s politicians are just beginning to bicker. Where it will lead, no one here really has any idea.
Yesterday’s elections in Kabul went off with a few hitches but at least they went. People, mostly men, turned out in numbers that were substantial considering the threat this society is under. Within Kabul’s city limits, there was only one militant assault that I am aware of and it didn’t add up to much. There were plenty of attacks leading up to election day including a bizarre siege in a bank building the day before which left three men, likely Taleban members, dead and two Afghan National Police injured. Like Pakistan’s elections last year after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, there was an immense amount of anxiety leading up to the 20, August date. And like Pakistan, not nearly as much happened as insurgent leaders would have liked. There were disparate attacks carried out across the country but the Taleban could not build enough momentum to halt the election besides the districts the central government and the Independent Election Commission had already deemed unsafe and under control of “Anti-government elements.” I crossed the capital from north and south and east to west in what was an extraordinarily long, tense day. But Tajik, Hazara, Pashtun and Sunni and Shia and men and women came out to vote. The only group I couldn’t find were the illusive Uzbeks who had, according to my driver, all set off for points north in the Turkic heartland to vote and to begin the month of Ramadan which starts tomorrow morning.
According to an email I just received from a UNDP contact at the election commission, the preliminary results will definitely be announced on 3, September though the BBC site claims they will be called in the next few days. Sorry Beeb, I have to stick with official sources on this one. The donkeys have to come over the hill from Nuristan, I don’t know who’s telling the Beeb that the results will be called in the next two days.
The security around Kabul looks to have eased up today, either that or the police are as exhausted as everyone else. The security services touted how few people they lost on election day but the security shortfall was massive everyday leading up to the election. Kabul hasn’t seen this kind of violence in a very long time. The Halcyon days here are long over.
New York- My former editor and colleague at Asia Times Online, Charles McDermid, has an article today with local Suleimani-based reporter Rebaz Mahmood on the fourth and perhaps ultimate death sentence for “Chemical” Ali Hassan al-Majid, the most brutal enforcer of the al-Anfal campaign in northern Iraq in 1988. Charles is now working in Iraqi Kurdistan for the Institute for War & Peace Reporting and is gearing up for coverage of the Iraqi general elections to be held on March 7th by the Independent High Electoral Commission of Iraq (which is meant to coincide with the “Status of Forces Agreement” referendum on the future of U.S. troops in the Republic of Iraq). Almost seven years after the United States military and its allies tried to erase the legacy of Saddam Hussein by destroying Iraq in order to try and save it, or remake it into a pro-Israel, emasculated Arab client state of neoconservative folly, the legacy of Ba’athism and Halabja continue to haunt the politics of this shattered post-Ottoman successor state.
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