Afghanistan Committee on May 7th, 2008

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

You have three minutes.

[Sylvie Boucher, Conservative, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

You mentioned a high-level conference on Afghanistan to be held in Paris on June 12, that will be attended by the international community. I hope that it will provide us with an opportunity to see how much progress has been accomplished so far, and what is being planned for the future.

Can you tell me what the Afghan government is expecting from this conference? Do the government and the international community have any specific and targeted objectives for the future?

[H.E. Omar Samad]

The first International Conference on Reconstruction Assistance to Afghanistan was held in Tokyo in 2002. The second conference was held in Berlin in 2004, the third in London in 2006, and the fourth conference will be held in Paris next June. The aim is for us to work together while building on the experience that has been acquired over the past six years. The donors as well as the Afghan government recognize that a number of lessons have been learned. We acknowledge the existing problems and we want to strengthen the United Nations coordination as well as the coordination between donors and the Afghan government. We want to find real, practical solutions to the problems.

As I said, the National Development Strategy that we will be unveiling in Paris will provide a detailed explanation of our security and socio-economic development goals for Afghanistan for the next five years. We would also like to discuss subjects such as drugs and regional problems with the international community. I believe that it will be a very important conference. We think that our friends around the table all realize that after six or seven years, we must find some other way to deal with situations where we have made little progress or have had little success. It is with that in mind that we will be attending the Paris conference.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.

We're now moving into round two of questions, and I will start with the Liberal Party.

Mr. Wilfert, you had a short question, followed by Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Bryon Wilfert, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador, as you know, in the March 13 resolution, we said the mission must change, and it must be more than military. We talked about the area of training. That certainly stems from the Manley commission's comments on page 17, where they indicated that in the policing challenge, the need for focusing on training is absolutely critical if in fact we want to demonstrate the “capacity for accountable, honest and effective governance”. Could you comment on what you see as the elements needed to ensure effective policing in Afghanistan, given the fact that it is probably the key linchpin, but the worst in terms of effectiveness at the present time?

I'm sharing my comment with Mr. Dhaliwal.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

By all means.

Mr. Dhaliwal.

[Sukh Dhaliwal, Liberal, Newton—North Delta, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Your Excellency, congratulations to you and your wife.

[Member speaks in Punjabi]...here as well.

My question to you is this. You said that you are trying to handle the corruption and the accountability at the highest levels and among the people who are associated with power. All the news we are getting here is that the people who are involved in corruption are associated with the highest level of the regime there.

You also mentioned that there is two-digit growth there and that only 10% of the people in Afghanistan hold the economic power. So is it only that 10% of the people who are benefiting from all this money that's flowing into that country--the international aid--or is it the 90% of people who are below the poverty line?

[H.E. Omar Samad]

Thank you.

You're absolutely right that the police are a central core component of the overall security institutions and rebuilding efforts we have undertaken. Unfortunately, for the first three to four years of this effort we relied on weak means of doing the job and a half-cooked approach that did not provide the police forces with the capacity they needed--the skills, knowledge, equipment, logistics, and so on--and, more importantly, the salaries needed to keep them honest and in the service of the people.

We realized this a couple of years ago. Right now we are in the midst of a very deep change taking place, with billions of dollars of resources having been committed by various countries to do this job, including Europeans, the U.S., and Canada. So we are in the process of bringing change.

I hope that within the next year or two we will see the results of this change. Everybody from the President down, and all our friends across the world, are as concerned as you are about this issue, and we are doing our best to manage this. I remain optimistic that in the same manner that the Afghan National Army is relatively successful because of some very clear reasons and the work that was put into the army, we can do the same with the police.

Every day I read--and it happens every day--that so many young Afghan policemen have died as the result of Taliban attacks. I think about their families. We have had thousands of young policemen die in the line of duty. While I acknowledge that it's easy to target them and call them corrupt, inefficient, and so on, I think that's a generalization. We should avoid that, because the Afghan police have also shown great courage and have made great sacrifices. There are thousands of families in mourning because their sons, and on some occasions their daughters, have died.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Mr. Ambassador, we have to move to the next questioner.

[H.E. Omar Samad]

I just want to say that I think I answered your question to some extent by saying that we have no control over most of the money that flows in. We have control--alongside the World Bank and all of the prestigious international financial institutions you are all part of--over that amount of money that flows to the Afghan government. The moneys that are called corrupt moneys mostly stem from the drug business, arms sales, and all kinds of smuggling. Some money ends up in the pockets of NGOs for fraudulent activities. I'm not trying to pinpoint that all NGOs are fraudulent, but there are some who are and have been shut down by our government. Some individuals are also benefiting from this with very high salaries and perks.

So those are the things that are happening. It's a complex picture, and is not as simple as it's sometimes portrayed in newspaper items.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.

We move now to Mr. Keddy.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for appearing this evening. I concur that it's seldom as simple as in a newspaper article.

But on a more serious side--taking the tack that Mr. Wilfert started--with the training of the police, security still appears to be the predominant issue in Afghanistan today. Without security you can't have agriculture or manufacturing, and people aren't able to carry on with their livelihoods.

The police obviously are a targeted group. What can the Afghanistan army and Afghanistan's allies do to better protect the police? I expect it would include further training, and I understand that's occurring. But what can we do to further protect them in that initial stage when they're still rookies and getting out on their own?

[H.E. Omar Samad]

Thank you.

Look at the map of Afghanistan today. It's obviously a shifting delineation of what is happening from different perspectives. But the belt that separates us from the tribal regions of Pakistan is the most insecure, unstable region. This is a fact. The rest of Afghanistan is relatively stable and peaceful, where normal life continues and takes place with business activity, education, and development. We have a problem along this tribal belt, for obvious reasons, because on one hand we have infiltration and cross-border activity taking place; on the other hand, arms and men and ammunition are crossing into Afghanistan, and there are safe havens to which they can go back to. So we need to look at the situation from a very realistic point of view as to how we can change the dynamics of the situation.

Coming to the police and protection of police, I have to tell you that one of the failures of my government, the international community, and the donors has been to undersource the police for several years, especially in terms of not giving them the most basic means of protection, which is a gun. A policeman in Afghanistan, who is expected to be facing a terrorist coming with all types of armaments--including suicide attacks and suicide bombers--has at times not had enough ammunition to defend his post. A large percentage of police in Afghanistan have died as a result of a lack of munitions, or arms that have malfunctioned, because somebody gave them the wrong arm or an old or dysfunctional arm.

We have a long road to travel and we have a lot of hard work, and we have to really think hard about how to change the situation. As I said, there are thousands of families who are mourning because their son could not defend himself when he was attacked.

Forget about the pay. Some of these people can do their job for several months without being paid. But they say, “If you do not give me a bullet so I can defend myself, or a gun that can function properly, then you're really doing a disservice to me, to the country, and to your goal as an international community.” These are facts. This is not an illusion.

[Gerald Keddy, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margaret's, NS]

Ambassador, I know we don't have much time left, and I know my colleague, Mr. MacKenzie, would like to get a quick question in.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Be very quick, Mr. MacKenzie.

[Dave MacKenzie, Conservative, Oxford, ON]

I think you had indicated, Mr. Ambassador, the huge number of people who had departed and have returned back to the country. That in itself is a huge success, but it also must create a huge problem for you from a humanitarian perspective. How is that being handled?

[H.E. Omar Samad]

It is a gigantic responsibility and task for us, and for the humanitarian organizations involved, including the UN organizations, UNHCR, and so on. For the past 30 years, Afghanistan has produced the largest refugee population in the world, and today, even though five million Afghans have come back home, we still have the largest refugee population in the world.

We are now faced with another dilemma, which is the forced closure of refugee camps in two of our neighbouring countries. We have agreements with the UNHCR and the governments of Pakistan and Iran, where most of our refugees are living, to facilitate the voluntary and honourable return of Afghans back to their homes--voluntary and honourable. We are seeing signs of involuntary and not so honourable forcing of Afghans to come back to their homes under the worst of conditions, including this past winter, when many of them died just because they were pushed out of their homes, and their families didn't know what had happened to their loved ones. This is a major problem for the Afghan government. There are a lot of sensitivities attached to this, because relations with these two neighbours are a very critical issue, and the Afghan refugees are suffering as a result.

We are trying our best to give those who have come back the minimum we can to start a new life in Afghanistan. They face the prospects of unemployment, land mines that are still buried, villages that have been razed during the Soviet occupation, families whose members cannot find each other, and so on and so forth. If you travel to parts of Kabul, you will see refugee tent cities emerging because they have no housing; they have nowhere to go. I have to say they're frustrated, they're going through very difficult times, but they're also somewhat relieved that they're back home, and the one thing they are all concerned about is how safe they are going to be and what security is going to be like for their children. Are they going to be able to send them to school or are they going to be attacked on the way to school?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador.

The last question for this evening will come from Mr. Bachand.

[Claude Bachand, Bloc, Saint-Jean, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would first like to welcome the ambassador.

I am going to speak to you as a friend. I believe that you are a very good ambassador for Afghanistan. I will be asking frank and direct questions. We have available to us a number of sources of information as well as frequent government briefings. That does not prevent us from seeking information elsewhere. I believe that it is important for a good member of Parliament to check other sources of information, whether it be Le monde diplomatique, the Senlis Council, Human Rights Watch or Amnesty International.

My party has always spoken out against the way in which Canada's mission in Afghanistan is structured, and I am referring to the 3D approach. I won't deal with that now because it has been discussed almost to death. What I would like to raise is the issue of governance. I have three questions for you, and I hope they won't be too difficult for you to answer. I think it is important for us to know what is happening.

I have often read and heard that President Karzaï's authority was limited solely to Kabul. People often refer to him as the Mayor of Kabul, meaning that he is incapable of extending his authority beyond that city.

My second question deals with the presence of undesirable elements within Afghanistan's Parliament. I would like you to tell us honestly if drug lords and war lords have been elected to Afghanistan's Parliament, and why they are tolerated. Have they been provided with some type of amnesty or is there another reason for it? This is something that we often hear about.

My third question is a rather sensitive one. It involves the case of Malalai Joya. It seems to us that this female member of Parliament was expelled because the government in power could not easily accept criticism. If that were the case here in Canada, I would probably be one of the first ones to be kicked out. If what she said is true, then why is the government refusing to accept criticism, something that is an important tenet of democracy?

[H.E. Omar Samad]

I will answer candidly, like a friend, but I hope you won't mind if I express myself in English, since I am more comfortable in that language.

On these three questions, President Karzai started out as an interim leader. He oversaw the holding of two loya jirgas in Afghanistan, he oversaw the process of constitutional reform and the adoption of a constitution in Afghanistan, he took the country to elections and was elected by almost 54% of the Afghan people--more than eight million Afghans voted for the first time in their lives--and he has a five-year term, which will end next year, when we will again be facing elections in Afghanistan, hopefully inshallah.

He started out as an interim leader, when Afghanistan was divided, politically and militarily. Today there is one army, but still there are small groups of armed men who are going through the process of being disarmed; tens of thousands of others have been disarmed from these private armies.

Today, in 34 provinces we have 34 governors selected by the President. We have district chiefs, police chiefs, and representatives of various ministries running the institutions in almost all of the districts of Afghanistan. For you to tell me that he is the mayor of Kabul flies in the face of reality. His authority today, compared to six years ago, is on a national scale.

Does he have challenges to his authority? Yes. Are there people who try to undermine him? Yes. Is he not able to, for example, enforce something in Afghanistan, anywhere in Afghanistan? He is able to enforce it, sometimes under difficult conditions, sometimes by wheeling and dealing politically, like what happens in most democracies and parliaments.

From that point of view, that is my short answer to that.

Regarding warlords and drug lords in Parliament, we are a country that came out of 30 years of warfare, of hundreds of thousands of people who were, in one way or another, either victimized or were themselves part of the armed groups that fought the Soviets, fought the Communists, fought each other, fought the Taliban, fought al-Qaeda, and eventually some survived and are part of the new Afghanistan.

Our choices are either to go and fight every one of them again in the name of whatever--reconciliation by force and through violence--or to say that the tent is now large enough to accommodate everyone, including, as I mentioned earlier, so-called Taliban who are willing to accept the constitutional order in Afghanistan and lay down their arms.

We have choices, and the Afghan people have made that choice to accept, to deal with people under new conditions in Afghanistan. This doesn't mean that some of these individuals who may be involved or may have been involved in grave human rights violations or massacres or so on and will not one day account for their deeds. There is a process called transitional justice that is in place in Afghanistan that is supposed to take care of this issue.

You may call somebody a warlord. To most Afghans, that person may have been a freedom fighter, or whatever other term you want to give them. Drug lords are a different issue. I think anyone involved in drugs should be out of office and prosecuted. Anyone involved in continued human rights violations today should be out of office and prosecuted. Anyone breaking the laws of Afghanistan and international laws should be prosecuted.

Malalai Joya is an Afghan woman who rose during the first loya jirga--and I was there, a witness to that--and attacked and accused some people in that gathering of being warlords and violators of human rights, and so on. She rose to prominence and became a member of Parliament from a western province of Afghanistan. I am not going to either defend her or attack her.

All I want you and those who think they know Malalai Joya to do is go and study what she says, but study it thoroughly: what it represents, what the message means, what the origin of this message is, what it is trying to accomplish, and finally, whether it offers any solution to Afghanistan's thousands of problems or whether it is trying to exacerbate the situation and add to the problems of Afghanistan. All I want you to do is go and study her case, without my taking a position on her in this gathering, and to be very honest about what she is saying, what it means, and whether it is helping the Afghan cause at all. Then at the end of the day, let the Afghan people--and not somebody outside of Afghanistan--judge her.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

Your Excellency, thank you so much for appearing here before us tonight. I appreciate your taking time out of your schedule. It is a Wednesday night as well. I also thank you for the time and effort you put into your opening statement, but also for the direct and forthright way in which you've answered questions that have been put to you by the members of Parliament around this table.

[H.E. Omar Samad]

Thank you very much for this opportunity.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

I am going to suspend this meeting for five minutes so that you have the opportunity to thank Mr. Samad as well for his presence. Then we're going to move in camera, because we have some committee business that we'd like to finish the meeting with.

[Alexa McDonough, NDP, Halifax, NS]

Mr. Chairman, a point of order. I'm not a regular member of the committee, but it is my understanding that in previous meetings of the committee, Ms. Black, on behalf of the New Democratic Party, had a second final brief question. Am I not correct about that?

[The Chair, Conservative, Pierre Lemieux]

No. In one of our earlier meetings, we had set out a list of parties and in which order they would ask questions. When we get into round two, it alternates between the Bloc and the NDP, so in round one every party is able to ask a question. In round two, since the Bloc has two members, it has precedence over round two.