-Caveat Lector-

http://www.khilafah.com/1421/category.php?DocumentID=2807&TagID=2

First cracks in accord as warlord boycotts council

The Bonn agreement, which is supposed to bring
stability to Afghanistan, began to unravel within a
day of being signed. General Rashid Dostum, the most
powerful warlord in the north of the country, said he
would boycott the interim government because his
faction had been treated unfairly.

A day after the delegates in Bonn said they believed
the interim government fairly represented the many
factions in Afghanistan, the general disagreed. "We
are very sad," he said. "We announce our boycott of
this government and will not go to Kabul until there
is a proper government in place."

Nobody can afford to ignore General Dostum, the
leading warlord from Afghanistan's ethnic Uzbeks. He
and his allies control five provinces in the north,
including Mazar, one of the most important cities and
a vital transit corridor to Uzbekistan. He heads one
of the largest and most effective private armies in
the country.

It was his victory in Mazar-i-Sharif, which he once
ruled as his privatef iefdom, that started the
collapse of the Taliban across Afghanistan, as he did
not hesitate to point out yesterday. "There are
intellectual people in Junbish [Dostum's party]
without whose sacrifice and struggle the Americans
could not have defeated the Taliban and terrorism. We
actually caused the demise of the Taliban," he said.

General Dostum, a man who has changed allegiances many
times, may be feeling let down by his American allies.
A month ago, they were busy arming him with a view to
capturing Mazar as a forward base. But within days of
the fall of Mazar, most of the rest of the country
folded as well. Now that the Taliban's stronghold in
the north, Kunduz, has fallen, the general may fear he
has outlived his usefulness to the Americans.

Sayed Ahmad Gailani, an ethnic Pashtun leader, also
condemned the Bonna greement, saying: "Injustices have
been committed in the distribution ofm inistries."
Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a hardline Islamic warlord in
exile in Iran, complained as well.

But it will be General Dostum's anger that will cause
the most immediated isquiet. Soldiers under his
command were involved in the fierce fighting last week
at Qalai Janghi fortress jail where at least 150
Taliban prisoners of war were massacred. During the
civil war in the Nineties he was one of those
responsible for the devastation of Kabul and the
deaths of some 50,000 civilians.

If he stands by his refusal to take part in the
interim government, it could be fatal to the chances
of the new premier, Hamid Karzai, uniting Afghanistan
after 22 years of war.

General Dostum said he had demanded the foreign
ministry for his party,J unbish-i-Milli, but had been
given only the agriculture and mining and industry
portfolios. The foreign ministry went to Abdullah
Abdullah of the NorthernA lliance, which also took the
two other most important ministries, defence and
interior.

Although General Dostum nominally allied himself with
the Northern Alliance for the purposes of overthrowing
the Taliban, there are deep rifts between them.
General Dostum was a long-standing rival of the
Northern Alliance's murdered warlord, Ahmed Shah
Masood.

The Bonn conference was presented with a fait accompli
by the NorthernA lliance, once it had captured the
capital, Kabul. The agreement on the interim
government compromised by allowing the Tajiks to keep
their grip on the most powerful ministries, but naming
Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun, as premier. The Uzbeks have
ended up with a handful of minor ministries, and the
Shia ethnic Hazara, who make up almost a fifth of the
population, have done equally badly.

Source:  Independent



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