GroundReport.com

Female Suicide “Epidemic” in Tajikistan

Thu, 07 May 2009 13:38:37 -0500

Female Suicide “Epidemic”in Tajikistan

Unchecked domestic violence seen as root cause.

By Mukammal Odinaeva in Dushanbe (07-May-09)

“One winter evening I went out into the yard, poured aviation fuel over my legs and set fire to myself,” said Mosharif, a young Tajik woman from Vakhsh in eastern Tajikistan.

She was taken to hospital and survived, but she regrets that she did.

“Why did they save me? I don’t want to live like this,” she said.

Suicide rates are high among Tajik women because of unchecked domestic abuse and because victims are unaware of their rights.

From January to September 2008, the latest period for which statistics are available, there were 240 recorded cases of female suicide in Tajikistan. Experts think the true figures are a lot higher as some deaths are misreported.

“Suicide among women has become an epidemic, like HIV/AIDS or malaria,” said Mahmadullo Davlatov, a member of the Association of Psychologists of Tajikistan.

Human rights activists say around eight out of ten violent crimes occur within the family home. It is common for men to assault their wives, who enjoy little protection from relatives as they generally move to the husband’s family home after marriage. (For a report on the status of women, see Gender Equality a Dead Letter in Tajikistan, RCA No. 539, 31-Mar-08.)

“Although there are no official figures on [the number of] victims of domestic violence, it’s a very acute problem in Tajikistan and represents a great threat not just to women, but to the wellbeing of the whole of society,” said Zebo Sharifova, executive director of the League of Women Lawyers.”

Womens’ rights groups list many reasons why women take such extreme measures – domestic violence, sexual assault, a husband’s adultery, or the arrival of a second wife – polygamy is technically illegal but is common in Tajikistan. Other factors include lack of money, and the absence of a husband, leaving wives vulnerable to abuse from his relatives.

Alternatives such as leaving are frequently not an option. A stigma attaches to women who seek a divorce, and their own families may be reluctant to take them back.

Fundamentally, says Orzu Ghanieva, who heads Gulrukhsor, a women’s centre in the northern city of Khujand, suicide is a consequence of women being treated as “chattels and servants”.

After she got married at just 16, Mosharif says her husband and mother-in-law beat her regularly, even when she was pregnant.

“I thought everything would change when my daughter was born, but it got even worse,” she recalled. “My husband hit both me and the baby. He said I should get out of the house because I hadn’t been able to bear him a son and he didn’t need a daughter. At the age of 17 I no longer wanted to live. I kept thinking about how to be free of this nightmare. I dreamed of jumping in the river or setting myself on fire.”

As in Mosharif’s case, one of the most common methods of suicide among women in Tajikistan – as in neighbouring Uzbekistan and Afghanistan – is self-immolation.

Some, like the academic Zafar Saidov, say self-immolation has deep roots that predate the advent of Islam and may be connected with older Zoroastrian beliefs.

“The preference for this specific method of suicide is principally connected with the cult of fire,” he said. “Fire is believed to cleanse the soul and end moral suffering.”

Not all suicide cases involve young women. Sayram was married for 14 years and had four children before she made a number of suicide attempts – poisoning herself, throwing herself in a river, trying to hang herself, and cutting veins.

She was driven to desperation by her husband, who beat her badly and never gave her money for basics like food and children’s clothing.

“In the end I lost sight of the sense of living,” she recalled.

Eventually she doused herself in kerosene and set fire to herself. When she woke up in hospital she had 50 per cent burns.

In other cases, women are driven to make a suicide attempt by members of their own families.

“I am the only girl in the family,” said one young woman. From the age of 12 I had a job as a cleaner and I was saving up so I could study to be a lawyer. But my brother forbade me from studying. He used to kick me and tell me not to go out of the house so I could remain as the servant to all of them.

She too set herself on fire. “I didn’t want to die; I just wanted him to stop assaulting me.”

From a legal point of view, the problem, say many experts, is that Tajikistan lacks specific legislation concerning domestic violence.

Madina Usmanova, a lawyer with the INIS Legal Aid Centre for Women in Dushanbe, says cases can be brought under laws on common assault.

But generally, she says, “Women are afraid to go to the law enforcement agencies or the judiciary because they don’t believe their appeals [for help] will be heard.”

There is also the specific offence of “driving to suicide”, under which 30 prosecutions took place in January-October last year.

Young wives are often mistreated by their in-laws, who regard them as little more than a source of free physical labour for the household.

Lawyer Faizinisso Vohidova says the courts are increasingly prepared to handle domestic cases of this kind, and a number of women have been convicted of abusing their daughters-in-law.

In terms of legislation, the situation is not without hope, as a bill on domestic violence is currently being drafted.

Representatives of the public order department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs, meanwhile, told IWPR that an internal order has been issued setting out penalties for police who fail to respond to complaints from allegations of domestic violence made by members of the public.

However, it is common for women not to take cases forward.

As academic Abdulvohid Shamolov explains, in Tajikistan one does not discuss one’s domestic troubles with friends and relatives, let alone with outsiders.

“People frequently condemn women whose husbands assault and humiliate them,” he said. “There’s a perception they allow themselves to be treated like that. And crimes committed within the family remain invisible, and therefore go unpunished.”

Dr Shoira Yusupova, a surgeon at Tajikistan’s national burns centre, says it is common for husbands to get their wives to sign a statement that their burns were accidental.

Both Sayram and Mosharif recalled how their husbands visited them in hospital for this purpose.

“He asked me to tell the prosecutor the burns resulted from carelessness,” said Mosharif. “I refused to do so for a long time, but he and his mother were always pressuring me. In the end I told the police it was an accident. Then my husband ran off to Russia.”

IWPR spoke to one woman, Shamsia, whose husband was eventually convicted even though she did not report him herself.

Shamsia ended up in hospital after swallowing over 100 sharp items – broken razors, needles, nails and fragments of glass.

The marriage was an arranged one, and although she repeatedly returned to her parents’ home after her husband attacked her, they always sent her back.

Doctors incorrectly diagnosed a stomach ulcer, and Shamsia’s husband refused to pay for further investigation. He sent her back to her parents, where her father had her hospitalised again.

At that point she confided in a female relative, who informed the hospital authorities.

Shamsia’s life was saved by an operation, and her husband was arrested, tried and convicted of forcing her to swallow the sharp objects.

Experts say the government should be doing more to confront the problem of female suicide. It is the role of the state, said Ghanieva, to guarantee equal rights.

Among the measures human rights activists are pressing for are the domestic violence legislation currently in the drafting stage, a new commission which would work to prevent female suicide, and a network of social services to help women in difficulties.

Shamolov says that for a start, the authorities should set up a research centre to collate and study data on violence within the family so that the basic information is available.

Pessimists argue that since society is male-dominated, there is little sense of the urgency of change.

A senior government official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told IWPR there was an awareness of the link between suicide and domestic violence. The reason why little was being done about it was not indifference, but lack of available funds, he said.

“The government has almost no funds for addressing domestic violence,” he said. “And there are no statistics on it. We are under an obligation to gather data, but we don’t get any resources allocated for this. So no one talks about it.”

Dr Yusupova says the consequences of suicide attempts are far-reaching for the women involved and for those around them.

Treatment and recovery from appalling burn injuries are slow and painful for the victim.

“To see it is to experience physical and psychological pain,” she said Dr Yusupova. “You wouldn’t wish it on your worst enemy.”

Mukammal Odinaeva is a journalist in Tajikistan.

This article was produced under IWPR’s Building Central Asian Human Rights Protection & Education Through the Media programme, funded by the European Commission. The contents of this article are the sole responsibility of IWPR and can in no way be taken to reflect the views of the European Union.

This article was originally published on www.iwpr.net

In Sudan, Activists Mount Legal Challenge to NGO Closures

Fri, 10 Apr 2009 08:32:21 -0500

Civil society groups attempt to resist government crackdown in wake of ICC’s indictment of Bashir.

By Amy Stillman in London (AR No. 209, 9-Apr-09)

It was late in the afternoon when the letter arrived at the Sudan Social Development Organization, SUDO, headquarters in Khartoum.

Signed by the Sudanese government’s Humanitarian Assistance Commission, HAC, it sounded the death knell for the largest Sudanese humanitarian organisation operating in Darfur.

Claiming that SUDO had been working outside its humanitarian mandate, the letter called for its immediate closure. It wasn’t long before security forces arrived to ensure that all of SUDO’s ten offices, computers, documents and furniture were handed over to the government. Its bank accounts were instantly frozen.

“We have no access to our funds, so we can’t even pay our employees,” said SUDO’s head, Mudawi Ibrahim Adam.

“The government shut us down because we are an independent organisation. They want their own organisations, organisations that are following the line of the government.”

SUDO is among many NGOs that have fallen victim to a recent government crackdown, which led to the expulsion of 13 foreign aid agencies and the closure of two other local human rights organisations.

An NGO representative close to SUDO said “the human rights scene in Sudan has been wiped off the map” since the International Criminal Court, ICC, indicted Sudanese president Omar al-Bashir for war crimes on March 4. Bashir said the NGOs were targeted because they “threatened the security of Sudan”, accusing them of collaboration with the ICC.

Only two hours after the warrant was issued, security forces shut down the Khartoum-based Amel Centre for the Rehabilitation of Victims of Torture. The centre works to inform people of their rights and provide psychological and medical assistance to victims of human rights violations. According to the Amel Centre director Najib Najm El Din, the organisation had been seeing up to 30 new torture victims a month.

“We don’t know what is going on with our clients, because we can’t reach them,” said Najib. “For those that went to court, now nobody is following their cases. We are trying to do something through other organisations, but we don’t have enough money to offer care and pay for victim’s treatment.”

The Khartoum Centre for Human Rights and Environmental Development, KCHRED, was targeted on the same day, with security forces raiding the offices and confiscating a safe, computers and classified documents. KCHRED provides legal aid to victims of torture and human rights training to lawyers.

The organisation’s staff has since fled Sudan, including legal aid coordinator, Ali M Agab who is in the United Kingdom. He told IWPR that files containing the names and details of thousands of victims are now in the hands of HAC, which works closely with the security forces. “Those people’s lives are in danger now,” he said.

SUDO, which had 300 members of staff, has provided clean drinking water, health services and sanitation to 700,000 internally displaced persons.

A major project was the construction of a much-needed health clinic at the Zam Zam refugee camp in north Darfur. Several international aid agencies IWPR spoke to said they don’t know how the clinic will survive.

Selena Brewer from Human Rights Watch said the closure of SUDO and the other NGOs is having a massive impact. “It’s basically closing down that sector of Sudanese civil society. For anybody that works on human rights in Darfur or anywhere else in the country, the situation is really terrifying,” she said.

But the NGOs are determined to challenge the government over the closures. On March 10, the activists appealed the HAC decision. Their case will be heard on April 13 at the Administrative Court of Justice in Khartoum. And, they say, if that is unsuccessful, they will take their case to a higher court.

“We are not going to give up on our supporters. We have to go to the courts,” said Najib.

While outwardly bullish, some are concerned about their prospects, as there are doubts about whether Adam will be able to turn up for the appeal. He is due to appear in court on corruption charges the day before, accused of embezzling 40,000 US dollars of SUDO funds in 2004.

“They have found this out now? I don’t think they have any case, and I’m not at all scared about what they are saying,” he told IWPR.

The closure of the Sudanese NGOs follows years of state pressure on civil society activists. “The pattern of repression has been getting worse and worse, and it’s becoming impossible for people to speak out,” said Brewer.

Both SUDO and Adam have previously been subject to government intimidation. In March 2003, officials closed two of the organisation’s offices and froze its bank accounts. Adam was arrested the same year for alleged anti-state crimes. After no evidence could be produced, he was released. He was arrested again without charge in 2005, and released on bail.

Though the outcome of their appeal is uncertain, Brewer is cautiously hopeful that the NGOs will be allowed to resume their work. “I don’t think the government wants to take on providing food and water for a million people, and they certainly don’t have the capacity to do it,” she said. “So I’m hoping that the appeals process will give them a way to back down without losing face.”

Amy Stillman is an IWPR contributor in London.

Syrian Rappers Find Their Voice

Mon, 06 Apr 2009 08:16:31 -0500

By an IWPR-trained reporter (01-Apr-09)

With a swift move, he brings the microphone close to his mouth.

“Brothers in Gaza, my microphone is your cannon. You kneel down only to God, and no one can force you to surrender,” blares out Hani al-Sawah, as if on stage in front of a huge audience.

But Sawah, 20, is performing with friends in his bedroom and makeshift recording studio in the city of Homs.

Sawah’s head is shaved – his only obvious fashion statement, though he’s no ordinary young man. He sees himself as a poet, writing and performing rap songs with two other friends.

Set up three years ago, his band, Street Art, is now beginning to win over other Syrian youngsters.

Sawah is one of a growing number of rappers and hip-hop performers in Syria who sing about politics, social change and the problems faced by Syrian youth. Most of these homegrown talents, like Rap Refugees, Wrong Way, and Sons of Rage, are gaining popularity among teenagers and university students.

They perform on the street, in parks and college campuses all over Syria, mainly in cities like Damascus, Homs, Aleppo and Lattakia.

“At first, we started imitating foreign rap singers,” said Sawah, recalling that he used to dress and perform like famous artists, such as Latin-American performer Immortal Technique whose lyrics are highly political and often call for revolution.

But he gradually created his own style inspired by life in Syria. He now sings in Arabic with western rap beats.

“We started singing about domestic issues that fit the reality we live in,” said Sawah, who every Thursday meets with his friends on the corner of a street in Homs to exchange ideas and improvise new lyrics.

“Through Arabic rap, we found a great style to express ourselves. Simply, it is a matter of letting off steam.”

Most rap groups haven’t the means to record tracks and produce CDs. They rely on Facebook and other websites to publicise their songs.

Very few get to perform on stage because of the total lack of support for their music, which is considered marginal by record companies, said Imad al-Helou, who works as a sound technician and helps a number of rap bands.

Helou, who also owns a CD shop in Homs, said that local rap songs are downloaded from Syrian websites or passed from one person to another via flash discs. One song was downloaded 50,000 times only hours after it was put online, he said.

The Song of an Exile, performed by Khalid Gailani, obviously hit a nerve in a country where many youngsters dream of leaving – even though many of those who do so and then come back are often disillusioned and disappointed.

“It is a lie to say that abroad everything is great, everything is sweet and good. Take it from me, it is all fantasy. Here, life is decent. Abroad, you are humiliated, so it’s not worth it,” said Khalid, 21, who is one of Syria’s best known rappers.

Khalid wrote the song based on the experience of one of his friends who went abroad but had no luck.

Lyrics that relate to the day-to-day issues of young Syrians seem to be key to the success of local rappers.

Some manage to record their songs in big studios in Damascus by splitting the fee of roughly 100,000 Syrian pounds (2,000 US dollars) between them.

But most produce their songs at home, using simple sound mixers.

“This is the story of my life from birth to death. I hear the sounds of my ahs (used in Arabic to express pain) but still resist,” sings Firas Maasarani, a rapper with the band Underground Pound.

Massarani believes that his songs have a “purpose and a meaning”, that each song is a piece of art, like a painting, trying to convey a message and make people think.

In the first place, they want to express themselves.

But of course, there is also the hope that they will some day be able to make a living out of it, move from the bedroom to a professional studio – a dream that still seems very far away.

“Our music is often looked down upon,” noted Massarani.

So far, though, the authorities have not tried to ban any of the music. This is perhaps because most rappers – either consciously or subconsciously – know the red lines.

Their lyrics mostly deal with social issues or with political topics that are considered acceptable to discuss.

In the aftermath of the Israeli incursion in Gaza in December last year, for example, many rappers devoted their songs to the plight of the Palestinian people.

In the song I Call on You, Khalid criticised Arab regimes that did not come to the aid of Palestinians in Gaza.

“A nation on whose forehead shame we write. There are men under fire who defend themselves by stones,” he sings.

Lyrics like this, he feels, cannot be sung in baggy American pants like most US rappers wear. He prefers to perform in the Kefiyeh, the black and white headscarf that has become the symbol of the Palestinian cause.

In another of his successful songs, The Coffee Has Boiled, he criticises the Syrian youth’s growing obsession with western looks and fashion.

“I have a headache,” run the lyrics. “I feel my heart is hurting when I see my country’s young men and women good only at imitation.”

ICC Urges Congo to Hand Over Ntaganda

Tue, 03 Feb 2009 01:44:57 -0600

By Jacques Kahorha in Goma and Lisa Clifford in The Hague (AR No. 199, 29-Jan-09)


	ICC indictee Bosco Ntaganda shakes hands with Congo's interior minister Celestin Mbuyu. © Jacques Kahorha/Goma

“We are very, very, very happy,” said Yves Jean Bosco Batechi from the North Kivu village of Matanda as he celebrated the news that the rebels waging war on the Congolese army have apparently made peace with the government.

Less happy about the recent developments in eastern Congo are prosecutors at the International Criminal Court, ICC, in The Hague. It was ICC indictee and fugitive Bosco Ntaganda who announced the peace deal during a press conference last week, at which he said he would join forces with the government to fight a rival Rwandan milita.

Accused by the ICC of recruiting child soldiers and wanted in The Hague, Ntaganda was earlier this month pictured shaking hands with a senior government minister who thanked him for his contribution to the peace process.

The government called in the ICC in 2004 and is responsible for arresting Ntaganda, but analysts say that seems unlikely to happen. The new leader of the rebel National Congress for the Defense of the People, CNDP, militia group has been highly visible in recent days, spending most of his time at a top Goma hotel where he meets with journalists and diplomats.

“At the moment there are no indications the Congolese government are prepared at all to arrest Ntaganda,” said Anneke van Woudenberg from Human Rights Watch.

With no police force of its own, the ICC has struggled to execute many of its warrants, with indictees from Uganda and Sudan also proving elusive.

Prosecutors accuse Ntaganda of enlisting and conscripting children under the age of 15 to fight in the Ituri conflict in northeastern Congo. He is alleged to have worked closely with Union of Congolese Patriots, UPC, leader Thomas Lubanga who is currently on trial in The Hague on the same charges.

Until recently, Ntaganda was CNDP chief of staff under Laurent Nkunda but apparently ousted his former boss in a coup. Nkunda was subsequently arrested in Rwanda where he remains. Congo is demanding he be extradited.

As new CNDP leader, Ntaganda quickly announced he was joining forces with the Congolese and Rwandan armies to drive out the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda, FDLR, a Hutu militia group of Rwandan origin which crossed into Congo after the genocide.

“Ntaganda has emerged as winner of the dispute between himself and Nkunda and is now in effect in partnership with the Congolese government and the Rwandan government in military operations against the FDLR,” said van Woudenberg.

Conflict has been raging in North Kivu for years, claiming thousands of lives and displacing hundreds of thousands. Human Rights Watch and others accuse the CNDP of committing atrocities in North Kivu including recent killings in the village of Kiwanja. As chief of staff it was Ntaganda who allegedly planned the rebel group’s military campaign.

Van Woudenberg thinks the Congolese government is putting its desire for peace ahead of its duty to the ICC. As a signatory of the Rome Statute, Congo is obliged to hand over those wanted by the court.

“They are abdicating their legal responsibility to arrest Bosco Ntaganda,” she said. “He is not a viable partner for peace. He is not a viable partner for any military operation. He has committed serious human rights abuses and needs to be arrested and handed over to the ICC.”

That is a view, not surprisingly, shared by the court.

“Bosco Ntaganda should be arrested at the earliest possible occasion and transferred to The Hague. The [office of the prosecutor] will continue efforts to galvanise his arrest and is in contact with all the actors in the region,” said the ICC’s Beatrice Le Fraper in a written statement for IWPR.

She declined to say whether the ICC had been in recent contact with the Congolese government about Ntaganda or if the court had spoken to the United Nations Mission in the Congo, MONUC, about making the arrest.

The Congolese government has also been silent on the issue of Ntaganda’s arrest. Interior minister Celestin Mbuyu declined to comment at his recent press conference with Ntaganda. Instead he praised the rebel leader.

“I have to thank you and your colonels for having taken a courageous decision as Congolese. You are conscious that your brothers and sisters are suffering in the bush and forest that you decided to alleviate their suffering,” he said.

“I promise you that the government is going to do the best so that you can work hand in hand with us to develop our country.”

Ntaganda has promised to integrate his CNDP soldiers into the Congolese army and join in with the Congolese-Rwandan military action against the FDLR.

Barriers separating the front lines have been dismantled and residents allowed to move freely again.

The day after the CNDP declared peace, rival militia the Congolese Patriotic Resistance, PARECO, said it would also stop fighting. PARECO had accused the CNDP of collaborating with Rwanda while the CNDP in turn said PARECO supported the FDLR.

The deal was sealed at a meeting between Ntaganda, his Congolese army counterpart General Vainqueur Mayala and Pie Mugabo, a senior PARECO representative.

“As the CNDP has decided to join the government, there is no more reason for us to continue [fighting]. We have also decided to submit our forces at the disposal of the government for their integration in the national army,” said Sendugu Museveni, PARECO’s president.

North Kivu residents reacted with joy to the news that the fighting could be over.

“War is not a good thing. Three of my relatives were killed in these conflicts and houses were destroyed. Most of our relatives are starving in IDP camps. I am very happy because my parents and my relatives will come back home and start living with us and our children as was the case in the past,” Batechi told IWPR.

Another said they were glad the CNDP would no longer be exacting taxes from travellers passing their front lines. “I have no words to express my joy. People from Sake to Masisi had to get fuel out of their motorbikes or cars and give it to rebels. We were also asked to pay money at each roadblock,” said Baeni from the town of Sake.

However, he worries that this peace process – like so many before – won’t last. “In this country people sign agreements in the morning and at noon, the signature is forgotten. Let’s wait two or three weeks and see what happens,” he said.

Jacques Kahorha is an IWPR contributor in Goma. Lisa Clifford is the international justice/ICC project manager.

This article was originally published by the Institute for War and Peace Reporting.

Darfur's Janjaweed Loyalty to Bashir Under Strain

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:54:23 -0600

By Abdhalla Tajeldin Adam in Belgium (AR No. 198, 27-Jan-09)

The pending indictment of Omar al-Bashir by the International Criminal Court, ICC, appears to have eroded critical support for the embattled Sudanese president among his notorious janjaweed militia allies.

Often translated as “devils on horseback”, the janjaweed are ethnic-Arab militias who have fought alongside the Sudan Armed Forces, SAF, in Darfur against ethnic African rebels.

Since ICC chief prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo asked the ICC in July to issue war crimes indictments against al-Bashir, some janjaweed commanders say they no longer support the government, fearing that they too, might be indicted.

“When the ICC brought its charges against Ali Kushayb, all the commanders on the ground were astonished and terrified because they didn’t know that someone was tracking them,” said Said Hassab Elrasoul. “But they were completely wrong. The court knows a lot of detail as you see now.”

Elrasoul identified himself as a former janjaweed commander under Mohamed Hamdan, based in the north Darfur town of Kabkabeya.

Hamdan is a well known janjaweed leader who in October 2007 threatened to abandon the government, along with his 20,000 armed men, and join Darfur rebels. Hamdan remained loyal, however, after reportedly hatching an unspecified deal with Khartoum officials.

In April 2007, judges at the ICC issued arrest warrants for two Sudanese, humanitarian affairs ministers Ahmad Harun and janjaweed militia leader Ali Kushayb, for 51 counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes related to Darfur. Neither has been arrested.

“We are weighing alternatives and examining all possibilities,” Elrasoul said. “This thing is real. They are going to charge the president. You have to believe it now and be ready for it.

“For me, the accusation [against] Kushayb was an early warning. I took it seriously at the right time, and gave up being [an] agent of Khartoum. In fact, in the eyes of Khartoum, we, as Darfur Arabs, are not different from our African brothers.”

Dissatisfaction with the Sudan government arose because promises have not been kept, Elrasoul said.

“The government promised us land and glory, but we end up as fugitives today,” Elrasoul said. “I learned the lessons now. I got it. We have been used as dirty tools in a political game.”

Another janjaweed commander, known as A Zakey, who is from the South Darfur area of Buram, also said he no longer supports the Sudan government.

“We were in harmony with the government until news about a possible indictment of al-Bashir broke,” Zakey told IWPR.

When word spread that some janjaweed were abandoning the regime, officials are said to have feared that they might cooperate with ICC prosecutors.

“Khartoum thought that we could easily be tempted by its enemies after hearing rumours that some of us were ready to testify before the [ICC] if the government didn’t offer us more power and wealth,” Zakey said.

“Officials in Khartoum took the rumours as facts, and sent a heavily armed rival group, which engaged us in a battle. We lost 19, and more than 26 were injured. That is why we are fighting the government now.

“This is a frightened and cowardly government who lost its courage and is fearful of being tried abroad,” Zakey said. “I am no longer on their side.”

It’s unclear just how many janjaweed are breaking ranks. But those who remain loyal to the regime seem rattled by the defections.

One loyalist janjaweed commander, who wished to remain anonymous, but said he was a relative of janjaweed leader Musa Hilal, from the Saraf Omra area of northwest Darfur, said, “Of course, no one can deny or ignore the new reality created by this threat [of] the ICC. Yes, there is an impending danger, but we are determined to carry on fighting. We are going to stand firm with [al-Bashir] until the very end.

“I know many who became scared after the threat of the court ICC, and left us for their own good. But this is not the time to back down. I am not sure whether we are going to win the war or not, but there is no option left rather than continue fighting.”

Since the janjaweed militias have played a vital role in Khartoum’s counter-insurgency against Darfur rebels, Sudan is desperate to keep them close.

Earlier this month, however, Ali Hussein Daousa, an associate of former Darfur rebel leader Minni Minnawi who joined the government, told a press conference in Khartoum that only trusted janjaweed militias were being rearmed.

Lacking full support from the janjaweed, some suggest, casts doubt on the government’s claim that the situation in Darfur will deteriorate if ICC indicts al-Bashir.

In addition, the Sudan government faces potentials threats from the South Kordofan region which borders Darfur, and from growing tensions with the semi-autonomous South Sudan over the disputed oil-rich Abyei region.

Abdhalla Tajeldin Adam is an IWPR-trained journalist.

ZImbabwe's Power-Sharing Agreement Brings Hope

Mon, 02 Feb 2009 09:48:19 -0600

By Chipo Sithole in Harare (ZCR No. 178, 29-Jan-09)

A ray of hope has been flickering in Zimbabwe amid the filth, disease and wasted lives since President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, MDC, agreed on January 26 to share power, potentially ushering in the political stability critical for economic recovery.

After an all-night emergency summit of Southern African leaders at South Africa’s Presidential Guest House in Pretoria, the MDC indicated a willingness to enter a unity government with Mugabe.

The decision – which follows four months of deadlock since a power-sharing deal was signed on September 15 between Mugabe and opposition rivals Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara, leaders of the two factions of the MDC – has still, however, to be endorsed by the MDC’s supreme decision-making body, the 135-member National Council, which will meet on January 30.

If, indeed, the truce holds, long-suffering Zimbabweans may at last get a new government. The country has effectively been without leadership since the disputed elections of March 29 last year.

The January 26 breakthrough, besides being a victory for diplomatic efforts to resolve the crisis and a testament to the give-and-take nature of politics, offers hope of a resurgence of the moribund economy, which, experts have warned, will show negative growth for the tenth successive year if nothing is done to save it.

"If the MDC national council endorses the decision to join government it will no doubt give confidence to investors," said an investment analyst in Harare, while Karikoga Kaseke, chief executive of the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, saw it as "a good start for Zimbabwe to get back on her feet”.

Although one of the terms of the deal is the establishment of a 31-member cabinet, which will put considerable strain on the country’s finances, the business community received the news of the agreement with a sigh of relief.

"It’s a big sign of hope," said businessman William Murota. The deal would have a direct impact on the stock market, he believed, with foreign investors again trading on the local bourse, which has been shut for two months, since the central bank accused traders of using fraudulent cheques.

"We need to re-establish the credibility of the country," said Murota. "It will not be easy; it will require the combined efforts of both government and the private sector."

In terms of the deal, Mugabe will remain president, but, in a communiqué issued early on January 27, the SADC said it had been decided that on February 11 Tsvangirai will be sworn in as prime minister. His two deputies will also take the oath of office that day while other ministers and their deputies will be sworn in on February 13. Parliament will convene next week to start the legislative process required to back the deal.

The SADC leaders have pushed Mugabe into making a series of concessions, including reversing all executive appointments he has made since the signing of the Memorandum of Understanding in September. He has also undertaken to review the appointment of the new attorney-general, Johannes Tomana, a staunch ZANU-PF supporter, and the renewal of the mandate of reserve bank governor Gideon Gono, who has presided over the highest inflation rate in the world.

The SADC has also forced Mugabe to share out the ten provincial governorships he had unilaterally allocated to his party. The regional bloc resolved that the party that had won the majority of seats in a province in last year’s parliamentary elections should govern that province.

In terms of the deal, Tsvangirai’s portion of the MDC will have five provincial governors, ZANU-PF four and Mutambara's breakaway MDC faction one. All senior appointments in government and its agencies will be reviewed once the MDC is in government.

SADC sided with Mugabe in insisting that the rival parties should share the vital cabinet portfolio of home affairs, which oversees the police, who have been accused of kidnapping and brutalising opposition supporters. Other ministerial portfolios remain heavily skewed in favour of Mugabe, who retains control of all the security ministries and the lion's share of powerful ministries, but SADC has recommended that the parties review all ministerial appointments after six months.

On January 30 ZANU-PF and opposition negotiators will resume talks, facilitated by SADC-appointed broker Thabo Mbeki, the former South Africa president, to choose governors and debate the National Security Council legislation, which defines the parameters of the security forces.

The meeting will also establish a Joint Monitoring and Implementation Committee to oversee issues of compliance with the memorandum of understanding and the terms of the deal.

While hope is dawning in some quarters in Zimbabwe, not everybody is optimistic that the new government will succeed. Eldred Masunungure, a political science professor at the University of Zimbabwe, believes "this resolution doesn't resolve anything".

Calling it "a victory for Mugabe and ZANU-PF”, he said “there isn't much for the people of Zimbabwe to enjoy”.

Some have expressed fears that Mugabe will use the arrangement to draw in and marginalise the MDC, as he has done with other opposition groups in the past. Critics say the power-sharing deal is reminiscent of the Unity Accord of 1987, when ZANU-PF merged with Joshua Nkomo's ZAPU organisation, effectively swallowing it whole.

The MDC, too, is less than euphoric. "Quite clearly, the conclusions reached as reflected fall far short of our expectations," MDC spokesman Nelson Chamisa said in a statement issued shortly after the conclusion of the meeting.

But he added that "it is important that finality be brought to this issue” and that the MDC’s forthcoming national council meeting would “define the party position”. The party’s policy coordinator, Eddie Cross, predicted that the council would endorse the decision to join government.

Even with a government finally in place, experts believe Zimbabwe’s economic future will depend on the quality of the international support it receives. The country owes more than 5 billion US dollars to the African Development Bank and international financial institutions such as the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank.

Another problem is that western governments have categorically stated that they will not back any new government that retains Mugabe as head of state and this week the European Union added 25 officials and 36 companies linked to President Mugabe's administration to a list of banned allies of the Zimbabwe regime because of their links to suspected human rights abuses.

Chipo Sithole is the pseudonym of an IWPR-trained reporter in Zimbabwe.

Georgia: Economic Slump Hurting

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:55:03 -0600

Once buoyant economy is hit by downturn and war over South Ossetia.

By Tamar Khorbaladze in Tbilisi

Having enjoyed double-digit economic growth for several years, Georgia is now bracing itself for hard times as it comes to terms with the double blow of the August war and the world financial crisis.

Since October, increasing numbers of people have lost their jobs, property prices have plunged, banks have reduced lending, and the national currency, the lari, has depreciated sharply.

The country’s leadership had put on a cheerful front but acknowledged the gravity of the crisis in November.

“Winter and spring will be very hard for the economy of the country,” said President Mikheil Saakashvili on December 7, visiting a confectionery factory. “We ought to do everything to keep jobs.”

The 2009 draft budget was recalled from parliament only six weeks after it was first submitted on October 1 and a more modest version was introduced to deputies. The revised bill envisages four per cent economic growth in 2009 and has reduced government spending by a billion laris (around 600 million US dollars) compared to 2008.

The population as a whole first felt the impact of the crisis on November 7 when the lari fell sharply against the dollar from 1.45 to 1.65.

The Georgian banking sector, which had been developing rapidly, has suffered badly. Since the August war, the value of bank deposits, which were worth 4.1 billion laris, has shrunk by more than half a billion laris.

The National Bank says the Georgian government has struck deals with international lenders to receive low-interest credit lines, worth one billion dollars, for Georgian commercial banks. But ordinary people are being hit by a squeeze on credit.

In recent years, an increasing number of Georgians have taken bank loans to start a small business, finance repairs to their house, buy a new apartment, car, furniture or household appliance. Now they are finding it hard to get bank loans.

Two months ago, Giorgy Gegechkori, a computer programmer, decided to buy an apartment. At first, he could not find one, even though prices had fallen. A month ago, he found a two-room apartment for 40,000 dollars – a huge reduction in price given that before August the same flat would have cost him 65 – 70,000 dollars.

Now Gegechkori’s problem is that he cannot find a bank to loan him 30,000 dollars. “All the banks say that they will give loans only to clients whose salary is paid into their bank and who have a good credit history. Even though I have used a credit card and have never been late with my payments I was told that the apartment I had found was not sufficient for me to borrow 30,000 dollars,” he said.

With fewer buyers available, the property market has also suffered badly. According to former finance minister Lekso Aleksishili, accumulated debts in the property market amount to 1.5 billion laris. And yet around a quarter of construction has yet to start.

“This indicates that risks are very high in this field, and if a crisis strikes the sector, it will inevitably spill over to other areas,” Aleksishvili told IWPR.

Businessmen right across the economy are reporting problems. At the end of October, the Young Economists Association conducted a poll among 1000 businessmen. Only two per cent of them said the crisis had not affected their businesses, whereas 71 per cent complained about fewer sales.

The sectors that have suffered the greatest loss in sales are tourism, construction, services and retail.

Two weeks ago, the building materials firm Metekhis Keramika sent 210 employees, with salaries averaging 300 laris (around 180 dollars), on unpaid holiday because of a drop in demand.

The company has three million bricks stacked in its warehouse and still says it wants to see them sold by next April.

Georgian exporters also have been struggling to cope with the increasing strain on their finances. Ferro, a plant that produces ferroalloys in the town of Zestaphoni, has been working at half capacity, using only five of its 11 furnaces.

The company’s management says the plant has been losing orders after the world financial crisis hit and may have to cut back on its 6000-strong workforce

Georgian wine exporters, whose main market is now Ukraine following the Russian boycott, are also seeing lower sales, as are firms trading in household equipment.

Arktika, a network of stores selling computers and mobile telephones, used to make 700,000 laris a month, but after the August war its sales have plunged by 70 per cent, mainly because banks have tightened up on issuing consumer loans, which accounted for 87 per cent of Arktika’s sales.

Anna Katamadze, head of the Young Economists Association, said the slowdown in Georgia was the result of the August war as well as the global financial turmoil.

Experts and international organisations made gloomy forecasts for the Georgian economy as far back as early October.

A joint mission of the United Nations, the World Bank and European Commission carried out a Joint Needs Assessment for Georgia. To date, only an abridged and strongly edited version of the JNA has been made public. The non-governmental organisation Transparency International Georgia managed to get hold of the full version of the document and summarises it in a special report.

The report predicts that 100,000 Georgians will lose their jobs and says, “Between now and 2010, poverty levels are projected to rise from 23.6 per cent to 25.9 per cent, and those already poor may slide even deeper into poverty.”

The JNA was the basis for an international donor conference held in Brussels in October, at which donors pledged to give Georgia 4.5 billion dollars over the next three years to help it cope with the crisis. The finance minister Nika Gilauri said that it has so far received 600 million dollars of the promised aid.

Tamar Karosanidze, who is executive director of International Transparency Georgia, is worried that the global crisis will stop donors providing all of the promised aid to Georgia.

“According to the optimistic forecasts set out in the document, it will take two years to get business activities in Georgia back to normal,” said Karosanidze. “Until then the state has to act as the engine of economy, ensuring, above all, that the aid is used effectively.”

Tamar Khorbaladze is a correspondent with 24 Hours newspaper in Tbilisi.

Ethnic Uzbeks Opt Out of Turkmen Polls

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:53:45 -0600

Many feel alienated by election process and do not plan to lend their votes to anyone.

By IWPR staff

Members of the sizeable ethnic Uzbek community in Turkmenistan say they will not take part in the December 14 election since they have been given no stake in it.

The Uzbeks are the country’s second largest ethnic group after the Turkmen, numbering perhaps 300,000 to 400,000 out of a total population of 5.2 million and concentrated in the Dashoguz and Lebap regions, along the eastern border with Uzbekistan.

Ahead of a parliamentary election which Turkmenistan’s president Gurbanguly Berdymuhamedov has said will mark a watershed on the road to a more democratic system, the newspapers published a list of candidates who had been approved to stand. Although Berdymuhammedov had promised voters a genuine choice and an opportunity to nominate candidates, those selected to stand mainly represent either the Democratic Party of Turkmenistan, the only party, or institutions affiliated to government like the women’s, youth, veterans’ and trade union movements.

Public selection meetings have been held, but IWPR investigations show that they are engineered by government. The audience is hand-picked and armed in advance with “spontaneous” questions to ask a candidate who has in any case been vetted and approved by the secret police. (See Turkmenistan’s Silent Election Candidates, News Briefing CentralAsia, 04-Dec-08.)

When people in Lebap and Dashoguz looked down the candidate lists for the people who would be representing them, it dawned on them that there was not a single Uzbek name among them.

Uzbeks might not have been expecting a real democratic choice, but were hoping for at least a few members of parliament who would be sympathetic to their community.

“This is not only an outrageous violation of our rights; it is an open insult to us,” said Abdul-Aka, an elderly Uzbek from a village in Dashoguz, angrily waving a newspaper containing the list.

“There are suitable people among the local Uzbeks who would have been able to represent our interests in parliament, and they are no worse than this lot.”

A young mother added, “We are very disappointed.”

A local election official confirmed this was the case, saying, “All the candidates are ethnic Turkmen.”

Disappointment among Uzbeks runs particularly deep as they had been expecting to see some change under Berdymuhamedov, who hinted at reforms after he came to power last year.

Under his predecessor, Saparmurad Niazov, who died in December 2006, the Uzbeks had a hard time and appeared to be discounted from the Turkmen nation-building exercise. From 2003 on, he seems to have viewed them as a fifth column, as he blamed the government of Uzbekistan of complicity in an attempt to assassinate him. As a result, Uzbeks were gradually removed from senior positions.

The new Turkmen leader has offered hope that things might change. For example, he and Uzbek president Islam Karimov have met and promised to improve relations.

Earlier this year, Berdymuhammedov pushed through significant changes to the constitution, almost doubling the number of seats in parliament to reach 125, which suggests there is more scope for nationwide representation.

According to one local journalist, “With the adoption of the new constitution, ethnic Uzbeks hoped that they would have some chance of nominating their representatives to the legislature. Under the dictator [Saparmurat] Niazov, parliament was homogeneous in its membership and consisted only of Turkmen.”

Even if it were possible to hold voter meetings freely, the Uzbeks do not seem keen to raise their heads above the parapet.

Analysts say ethnicity is one of the criteria the authorities have used to vet prospective candidates.

A lawyer, who asked not to be named, said any candidate who was nominated independently of the official selection process could expect trouble.

“The organisers of such [selection] meetings, along with their relatives, would be hauled in and intimidated by the security services, and that would knock any desire to show initiative out of them, even though that is their legal right,” he said.

The lawyer predicts that faced with few options, the Uzbek community will express its protest by quietly boycotting the vote.

“They intend to ignore the parliamentary election,” he said.

A straw poll in heavily Uzbek areas suggests that he may be right.

“I’m not going to vote for candidates who’ve been imposed on me,” said Qodirbergen, a 30-year-old man from a village close to the border with Uzbekistan.

“I am not going to the polling station at all on December 14, and many are intending to do likewise," said another man.

Analysts say a mass boycott could prove embarrassing, were the authorities planning to report accurate turnout figures. However, past practice in Turkmen elections suggests that results bear little relation to reality.

“The authorities will do everything possible, and even the impossible, to ensure that it is only Turkmen who get into parliament,” said a Dashoguz based-observer.

(Names of interviewees withheld out of concern for their security.)

Crippled and Destitute Stranded in Camps

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:51:40 -0600

With nowhere to go and no-one to look after them, they face an uncertain future.

By Caroline Ayugi in Gulu

Dorine Ajok's fingers are gnarled, the result of leprosy, she says, and her legs are paralysed from polio.

Yet, she manages to push her wheel chair around the largely abandoned camp which she still calls home.

Ajok, 34, lives in the internal refugee camp of Anaka, near Gulu, and is among those who can't leave because they are physically unable to do so or have nowhere else to go.

Ajok told IWPR that her ancestral home is only ten kilometres from the camp, but she won’t go there because she can’t build a hut to live in. Otherwise, she would, she said.

"I am taking care of my two children who are too young to build a hut,” she explained. “Their father died three years ago. There is no way I can get out of the camp, unless a sympathiser or some organisation volunteers to build a hut for me."

Ajok’s situation is typical of those who have not abandoned the 200 refugee camps across northern Uganda that were once home to an estimated two million people who fled the rebel Lord’s Resistance Army, LRA.

Most people have left the camps to try to rebuild their lives, only those considered extremely vulnerable individuals, or EVIs, remain behind.

In 2006, when the government urged people to leave the camps, saying they all will be closed by March 2009, most able-bodied heeded the call.

But the elderly, physically handicapped, orphaned, and child-headed families are unable to move back to their villages. Such people are either too weak to build new huts in their home villages or have nowhere to go.

Among those unable to leave is 65-year-old Marcelina Akot, whose fragile hut is covered with torn tarpaulin sheets donated by a relief agency.

Akot cares for her three grandchildren whose parents were killed by LRA rebels in 2004. She survives by collecting coarse grass she uses to make brooms, which she then sells.

"I only have the energy to [make] these brooms and sell [them] to get a meal a day," Akot told IWPR, as she spread out her brooms to dry in the sun.

In equally desperate conditions are two teenage girls at Bobi camp, about 20 km south of Gulu on the Gulu-Kampala highway.

Vicky Aciro, 15, and Mercy Akello, 13, lost their parents. Their father was abducted by the rebels in 1997 when he went to their home village of Opit to collect food. Their mother died of AIDS in 2006.

Following the death of their mother two years ago, the two girls survived on the equivalent of ten US dollars per month that Aciro earned as house help for a family in Gulu.

But Aciro lost her job six months ago when her employer relocated to Kampala.

Since the World Food Programme, WFP, and other relief agencies have drastically reduced food distributions to the former camps, Aciro and Akello now survive on handouts from local people.

"Some days we sleep hungry because food is so scarce,” Aciro said. “Sometimes our neighbours give us a little food. But that is only after we are really badly off."

While many former internal refugees are now farming again, there are children still in the camps such as Aciro and Akello who don't know where their lands are.

"We found ourselves growing up in the camp,” Aciro explained. “To go back home is close to impossible, although our late mother told us that our land is in Opit." Opit is about 40 km southeast of Gulu.

"I am sure that land has already been grabbed," said Grace Apiyo, who also lives in the camp.

Apiyo said the children’s land had probably been taken illegally because many former refugees have failed to reclaim traditional family parcels. Orphans and the elderly are often the victims.

"There are relatives who have even denied children access to their land, simply because they don't have a voice," Apiyo complained.

Colonel Francis Acoka, the Ugandan army officer charged with monitoring the return of refugees, said vulnerable people once had the safety net of a family before the war. But such support is now rare because of conflict-related social breakdown.

"We still have the social obligation to help the EVIs, but we need financial backing before we can assist (them),” Acoka said.

An official with the United Nations High Commission for Refugees, UNHCR, in Gulu, who asked not to be named, agreed, saying that international donors would have to get involved as the problem was too big for the authorities.

“It is true there are some EVIs who don't have anywhere else to go. But no single [local] agency can solve the problem,” he said.

Caroline Ayugi is an IWPR-trained reporter.

Kandahar Schools Empty After Acid Attack on Girls

Mon, 15 Dec 2008 08:49:33 -0600

Arrest of alleged Taleban militants for attack on schoolgirls fails to reassure nervous and angry population.

By Mohammad Ilyas Dayee in Kandahar

The Mirwais Meena girls’school used to be a bustling place with over 1300 students. But now the halls and grounds are nearly empty, the swings hang motionless on the recreation field.

On a late November morning, there were only a dozen or so girls and three female teachers to be seen. The rest, traumatised by a vicious attack on November 12 that left several girls disfigured and two blinded, have chosen to stay at home.

A middle-aged teacher, her burqa draped over her arm, was making her way slowly out of the building. The click of her high heels echoed in the halls, and she wore a very sad expression. She said her name was Najila.

“That Wednesday was a very, very bad day,” she said. “Some girls fainted; they were so afraid that the next day it would be their turn. We had never heard of anything like this before. I want to ask those who did this, ‘Why?’ Girls should be able to go to school and study. I do not know when this country will ever be okay.”

The attack came as the girls and their teachers were leaving the school, according to eyewitnesses. Men on motorbikes, wielding what appeared to be water pistols, squirted acid on several groups of girls and their teachers. Many were wearing burqas, but they were targeted just the same. School officials say that most of the girls were related, and they all came from the same village.

Atifah was one of the group that was attacked. She escaped with injuries to her hands, but her cousins were not so lucky.

“There was a man with a black pistol in his hand, and he was glaring at me,” she recalled. “Then he pointed the pistol at me and squirted acid at me. It got on my hands, but my cousins had acid thrown on their burqas. One of my cousins is in very bad shape now. She got acid in her eyes. They have now sent her to India for treatment.”

The attacks shocked the country, and the world. Footage of the injured girls was shown on CNN, the BBC, and other international media, in addition to topping the news in Afghanistan.

But despite the government’s well-publicised late-November arrest of ten men who have been accused of involvement in the incident, feelings are running high in Kandahar.

The principal of the school, Mahmoud Qaderi, told IWPR that his student body had been severely traumatised by the attack.

“First of all, I have to say that this was one of the saddest things I have experienced in my life,” he said. “Our students and teachers were saying ‘there is no security, there is no police.’ They were very upset, because they no longer feel like they can come to school. We used to have 1300 pupils here. Nowadays we get only around 30. Three female teachers showed up. This is nothing.”

Fatima, whose daughter had acid thrown on her face, has pushed her to go back.

“I will never let my daughter refuse to go to school,” she said, standing with the girl on the school grounds. “The government has to find a way to provide transportation for the students, particularly for the girls. Look at Pakistan and Iran. They send their girls to school, but we cannot. I will never block the way for my daughter to go to school. Those who did this thing should know that is not human. My daughter even wore hijab, but they threw acid on her face.”

Mothers like Fatima are rare. Many parents are keeping their children at home, say sources close to the department of education.

Mohammad Anwar Khan, who heads Kandahar’s department of education, would not speak with journalists. But one official spoke on condition of anonymity.

“The number of children in school all over Kandahar has dropped dramatically,” he said. “Attendance is down about 30 per cent. If the people responsible are not arrested and hanged, I do not think that girls will go back.”

On November 25, the governor of Kandahar, Rahmatullah Raufi, announced that ten men had been arrested in connection with the attack. “Several of them” had confessed, he added.

Mohammad Daoud Daoud, deputy interior minister, told the media in Kandahar that the men had been paid the equivalent of 2,000 US dollars for each girl they attacked. He said that, once the investigation was completed, the men would be punished to the full extent of the law.

While the world press and much of the Afghan media has rushed to put the blame squarely on the Taleban, the insurgents deny responsibility. Their objections to girls’ schooling have been well-documented, but such attacks, say Taleban officials, are to be condemned.

Qari Yusuf Ahmadi, spokesperson for the Taleban in the south, told IWPR that his group was not involved in the outrage.

“This criminal act was not done by the Taleban,” he said. “We condemn this. I say it again – we have not done this thing, and those who were arrested are not our people. This government will say anything, and they punish people who are not even guilty.”

Abdul Ahmad Mohmmadyar, a member of Ruhi cultural society in Kandahar, is sceptical of the government’s claims that they have the perpetrators behind bars.

“I think that the authorities are just trying to pull the wool over our eyes,” he told IWPR. “I am sure that they have arrested some people. But how do we know they are the real criminals? They have not shown us these men. Those who are responsible should be hanged right in the main intersection of Kandahar.”

Education and security officials are now coming under pressure to take measures to protect the students. Many parents and girls are adamant that the province should provide buses to take them to the school, to avoid the dangers of the road.

“Our students come from very far away,” said Mirwaid Meena’s principal, Qaderi. “If there was a transportation system, 80 per cent of the problem would be solved. I have asked about this many times, from the government. But nobody has done anything about it.”

Atifah is also eager to get back to school, along with her classmates. She agrees with her principal that transportation is the answer.

“I think a good way to get all those girls back to school is to give them buses,” she said.

But until the problem is solved, the residents of Kandahar remain angry. They are looking for someone to blame, and for many the main culprit is the weak central government.

“I and my family are very upset,” said Zahra, whose daughter was a pupil at Mirwais Meena. “If girls cannot go to school, I am worried that my daughter and others will remain illiterate. The government and [President Hamed] Karzai should take serious steps. Karzai will ask us for votes in the next elections? While a girl cannot go to school? How would we vote for him?”

Afghanistan’s presidential elections are scheduled for next year, with Karzai facing stiff opposition.

Qaderi just wants his school back the way it was.

“Our school was a good school,” he said. “But these things happen. This is Afghanistan, after all. I think it will take time to raise people’s morale. And then, God willing, we will have our students back.”

Mohammad Ilyas Dayee is an IWPR-trained reporter in Helmand Province.