Doubts about Karzai growing in Afghanistan

By Carlotta Gall The New York Times

Published: August 22, 2006

After months of widespread frustration in Afghanistan over corruption, the economy and a lack of justice and security, doubts about President Hamid Karzai have led to a crisis of confidence in the country.

Interviews with ordinary Afghans, foreign diplomats and Afghan officials make clear that the expanding Taliban insurgency in the south represents the most serious challenge yet to Karzai's presidency.

The insurgency has precipitated an eruption of doubts about Karzai, widely viewed as having failed to attend to a range of problems that have left Afghans asking what the government is doing.

Corruption is so widespread, the government apparently so lethargic, and the divide between rich and poor so great, that Karzai is losing public support, warn officials like Ahmad Fahim Hakim, vice chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"Nothing that he promised has materialized," Hakim said, echoing the comments of diplomats and others in Kabul, the capital. "Beneath the surface it is boiling."

For the first time since Karzai took power four and half years ago, Afghans and diplomats are speculating about who might replace him. Most agree that the answer for now is no one, leaving the fate of the U.S.-led military involvement in Afghanistan intimately tied to Karzai's own success or failure.

On Tuesday, Karzai's office announced that he had spoken that day with President George W. Bush, who assured him of continued American support. Karzai had also accepted Bush's invitation to visit Washington.

Karzai, a consummate tribal politician, has been the cornerstone of the U.S.-led effort to create a centralized democratic government in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban government driven from power in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

To his supporters, he has managed to keep the peace in a fractious society by giving regional warlords and armed leaders a stake in power, while managing to set the country on the road to a democratic future.

"The perception of growing insecurity has affected the psyche of the Afghan people," Jawed Ludin, the president's chief of staff, said in a telephone interview from Kabul. But he called it a reality check rather than a crisis.

He said that people "still trust" Karzai and "still think he can lead them."

But the costs of his compromises are becoming harder to stomach for average Afghans and some foreign donors. Critics say they have insulated many people from the benefits of democratic change and have hampered the running of the president's administration and local government.

Riots in Kabul on May 29, which killed 17 people in the worst violence in the capital since the Taliban were ousted, were a wake-up call, many there say.

The violence came after three Afghans were killed by a runaway American military truck, and four more killed when American soldiers fired into an angry crowd.

Protesters later rampaged through the streets, attacking foreign offices and chanting "Death to Karzai," an indication of how he is blamed for the growing disenchantment.

"He was shaken," said a Western diplomat, asking not to be named because of the political content of his remarks.

Recriminations against Karzai have continued, and his own missteps have not helped redeem his political standing.

In a reaction to the riots, Karzai appointed a powerful local commander with known links to organized crime as police chief of Kabul. He also appointed to senior police posts 13 former commanders who were to have been weeded out under long-awaited improvements in the police system.

Karzai's aides indicated that the steps were necessary to ensure security in the capital. But the appointments further alienated foreign diplomats and aid workers as well as ordinary Afghans.

"He is too accommodating," said Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a policy research organization. "The police reform was incredibly disappointing."

Recent interviews with a range of Afghans illustrated a common theme of complaints against corrupt and self- serving government officials.

Earlier this month, 60 members of the Parliament, which has until now been largely supportive, signed a statement protesting the appointment of certain officials and the poor performance of his government.

A group of elders from Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, said they had come to Kabul to seek the replacement of their governor, who they said was concerned only with his own power and did nothing for his people. But they had no success.

"We just want a neutral, impartial governor," Abdul Shukur Urfani, one of the representatives, said. "People will start demonstrating because they are dissatisfied with what the government is doing."

Karzai has dismissed many such problems as petty corruption, but the range of corruption in fact runs both large and small.

At one end of the scale is a housing scandal from three years ago, when cabinet ministers, in Karzai's absence, awarded themselves and friends prime real estate in Kabul, where land prices have shot up since the U.S. invasion.

An investigation was quietly dropped and the officials were allowed to build their ostentatious villas, which now tower above passers-by as a constant reminder of official excess. Elsewhere, though corruption is small in scale, it has an enormous impact on the poor, which is most of the population.

After months of widespread frustration in Afghanistan over corruption, the economy and a lack of justice and security, doubts about President Hamid Karzai have led to a crisis of confidence in the country.

Interviews with ordinary Afghans, foreign diplomats and Afghan officials make clear that the expanding Taliban insurgency in the south represents the most serious challenge yet to Karzai's presidency.

The insurgency has precipitated an eruption of doubts about Karzai, widely viewed as having failed to attend to a range of problems that have left Afghans asking what the government is doing.

Corruption is so widespread, the government apparently so lethargic, and the divide between rich and poor so great, that Karzai is losing public support, warn officials like Ahmad Fahim Hakim, vice chairman of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

"Nothing that he promised has materialized," Hakim said, echoing the comments of diplomats and others in Kabul, the capital. "Beneath the surface it is boiling."

For the first time since Karzai took power four and half years ago, Afghans and diplomats are speculating about who might replace him. Most agree that the answer for now is no one, leaving the fate of the U.S.-led military involvement in Afghanistan intimately tied to Karzai's own success or failure.

On Tuesday, Karzai's office announced that he had spoken that day with President George W. Bush, who assured him of continued American support. Karzai had also accepted Bush's invitation to visit Washington.

Karzai, a consummate tribal politician, has been the cornerstone of the U.S.-led effort to create a centralized democratic government in Afghanistan to replace the Taliban government driven from power in 2001 after the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

To his supporters, he has managed to keep the peace in a fractious society by giving regional warlords and armed leaders a stake in power, while managing to set the country on the road to a democratic future.

"The perception of growing insecurity has affected the psyche of the Afghan people," Jawed Ludin, the president's chief of staff, said in a telephone interview from Kabul. But he called it a reality check rather than a crisis.

He said that people "still trust" Karzai and "still think he can lead them."

But the costs of his compromises are becoming harder to stomach for average Afghans and some foreign donors. Critics say they have insulated many people from the benefits of democratic change and have hampered the running of the president's administration and local government.

Riots in Kabul on May 29, which killed 17 people in the worst violence in the capital since the Taliban were ousted, were a wake-up call, many there say.

The violence came after three Afghans were killed by a runaway American military truck, and four more killed when American soldiers fired into an angry crowd.

Protesters later rampaged through the streets, attacking foreign offices and chanting "Death to Karzai," an indication of how he is blamed for the growing disenchantment.

"He was shaken," said a Western diplomat, asking not to be named because of the political content of his remarks.

Recriminations against Karzai have continued, and his own missteps have not helped redeem his political standing.

In a reaction to the riots, Karzai appointed a powerful local commander with known links to organized crime as police chief of Kabul. He also appointed to senior police posts 13 former commanders who were to have been weeded out under long-awaited improvements in the police system.

Karzai's aides indicated that the steps were necessary to ensure security in the capital. But the appointments further alienated foreign diplomats and aid workers as well as ordinary Afghans.

"He is too accommodating," said Joanna Nathan, a senior analyst at the International Crisis Group, a policy research organization. "The police reform was incredibly disappointing."

Recent interviews with a range of Afghans illustrated a common theme of complaints against corrupt and self- serving government officials.

Earlier this month, 60 members of the Parliament, which has until now been largely supportive, signed a statement protesting the appointment of certain officials and the poor performance of his government.

A group of elders from Baghlan Province, in northern Afghanistan, said they had come to Kabul to seek the replacement of their governor, who they said was concerned only with his own power and did nothing for his people. But they had no success.

"We just want a neutral, impartial governor," Abdul Shukur Urfani, one of the representatives, said. "People will start demonstrating because they are dissatisfied with what the government is doing."

Karzai has dismissed many such problems as petty corruption, but the range of corruption in fact runs both large and small.

At one end of the scale is a housing scandal from three years ago, when cabinet ministers, in Karzai's absence, awarded themselves and friends prime real estate in Kabul, where land prices have shot up since the U.S. invasion.

An investigation was quietly dropped and the officials were allowed to build their ostentatious villas, which now tower above passers-by as a constant reminder of official excess. Elsewhere, though corruption is small in scale, it has an enormous impact on the poor, which is most of the population.