Foreign Affairs Committee on March 13th, 2008

[Sally Armstrong]

Thank you.

I wanted to respond to the two questions that madame asked. One was about the status of women today and if there had been any change, and the other one was about how to deal with the Koran and sharia law, etc.

I'll deal with the religious issue first. I think it's valuable to know that what the Taliban did was hijack their own religion for political opportunism, and the extraordinary thing is that they got away with it. There's nothing in the Koran to support what the Taliban did. There's no place that says a girl can't go to school, a woman can't go to work, or even that a woman must cover her face. So their version of the Koran...I mean, they were making it up as they went along and they were getting away with it.

In terms of the effect, this is an Islamic state, and what you have now is sharia law, tribal law, and civil law. There is a new program, another program that Canada has invested an enormous amount of money in through Rights and Democracy in Montreal. It is the reform of family law. It's a very tricky file, but it is working. It has started. They've already started sitting down with—you have to consider this—illiterate mullahs who also make it up as they go along, who live in the village, and who have had that power in the village all this time. It takes time to convince the mullah to sit down and—heaven forbid—to sit down with women. It is happening, but it is tricky.

As for how women are doing, there are women parliamentarians and women journalists. There are six million kids in school, and two million of them are girls. That means approximately 3.5 million girls are not in school, but two million is a start. And women are back at work. What would you say—is it 20% of the workers in Kabul right now? There weren't that many out in the country....

Things are better, but again, it's a very fragile place.

[Flora MacDonald]

I would just add one thing about the differences, about the ethnicities and this kind of thing. In Kabul, the Pashtuns are the prime ethnic group. They've always thought they've run the country anyhow. The people out where I go, in Ghazni, in Bamian, and so on, are Shia Muslims. The rest are Sunni Muslims. There is a big difference between the way they look at things. You don't see women in the Shia areas covered up with the burka. You don't see that sort of thing ever.

So you have to get to know, when you cross boundary lines, how the women are treated. There's a much fairer distribution of responsibilities between men and women when you're in Shia country.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Jackson, on that point...?

[Robert Jackson]

I'm not going to comment on the women issue. I agree with everything my colleagues have said.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

All right. Thank you.

Mr. Chan.

[An hon. member]

[Inaudible--Editor]

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Well, the answers were basically all going back to your time. The NDP's time was up. We'll get you a question.

[An hon. member]

Good.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Chan.

[Raymond Chan, Liberal, Richmond, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Welcome to our distinguished guests. Welcome to the panel. I watch you all the time on television. It's nice to see you in person. Paul we encountered in the Chrétien government, and we always appreciate his input.

I have two points. One is that I agree that military will not win us this battle. I think we need to have a peace process, both at the grassroots level and at the higher level within Afghanistan, between all the different factions.

Is there such a process being initiated? If there isn't, would an eminent person appointed by the UN be helpful in coordinating that kind of process? That's my first question.

Second, I always believe we should have rotation. We're doing a lot of heavy lifting in the Kandahar region on the military side. And even though, yes, we chose Kandahar at the beginning, I don't think we should be stuck with that responsibility all the time. To be fair to our soldiers who are put on the line, I believe there should be some rotation, some integration of other countries' operations, so that we can rotate out for a couple of years and then maybe go back there again.

I want to seek your input on that. Would you agree with me that this is just being fair?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Chan.

I'm going to ask if Ms. Armstrong has an answer to that. If not, perhaps one of these guys can take her to Centre Block, where she has an interview.

Do you have a response, Ms. Armstrong?

[Sally Armstrong]

I can tell you that negotiations are going on. They're not official negotiations. Karzai is meeting with moderate Taliban. Even the UN are holding meetings with low-level Taliban. But this is a trickle of moderate, low-level Taliban who are basically saying, “Help us find a way out of this. We don't want to fight anymore.” That trickle has to turn into a flood before anything can really happen.

We cannot tell or instruct President Karzai to negotiate with the Taliban. The people in Afghanistan go ballistic when you talk about negotiating with the Taliban. They don't want anything to do with the Taliban.

But I think you're right, and I think the international community has come to understand that we have to negotiate a way out of this. It's just a matter of how soon and how well you can bring the players together.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Ms. Armstrong. Mr. Obhrai will take you over to Centre Block.

Mr. Jackson, please.

[Robert Jackson]

To me, we're giving this a lot of importance, but I don't think it's the central question.

I want to come back to a question that was posed a long time ago, and I want to go back to my second point, which is what do you people believe is the strategic goal that Canada wants to see achieved there? I said that the strategic goal should be that the Afghan political system would be so strong that it could endure without international support.

With regard to that principle, I want to then comment on the details people have been mentioning. If Mr. Karzai and the government do not want to have a UN ambassador there, then of course there's not much we're going to be able to do about it. Much of what I've seen is that they in fact think that people who come in from outside will be telling them what to do.

I've heard continually today, in both the questions and the answers, that we should be letting the Afghans decide what they want to do. Now all of a sudden, at the highest level, we should have some kind of outside ambassador come in and tell them what to do. I thought the purpose was to let the Afghans decide what they want to do.

Let's go to the second point, which is reconstruction. I've heard a lot of very, I'd say, vague and quite unrealistic discussion about reconstruction. First of all, if reconstruction takes place today without military support, we in fact will have the people who are carrying out the reconstruction killed. It's as simple as that. The Taliban will in fact murder them.

Secondly, if you want to talk about reconstruction, we should talk about things like the gas pipeline. The gas pipeline Russia had built. It goes throughout Afghanistan and helps to bring the electricity to the country. People say they want to do reconstruction. Canada should help with the reconstruction of the pipeline, which is needed. Norway's taking the lead here. They're having trouble with countries like Canada providing enough money and enough clout and saying they will support them.

So I think when we talk about aiding and reconstruction, first of all we have to bear in mind that the Taliban are there, and therefore we have to protect the people who are carrying out reconstruction. Secondly, the government has its ideas of what needs to be done. In my opinion, building a national pipeline is crucial in order to make electricity work again in the country. Rather than some of the low-level projects, maybe it's more important.

Last, I implore the committee to go back and decide what they think the principal strategic goal is. Rather than discussing some of the specific details, what is the strategic goal that Canada wants to see achieved in that country?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Jackson.

Very quickly—because we're out of time—I will give you time, but you can answer it in the next round.

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

I'd like to explore a little further the development and what is being done to modernize the sharia law and the interpretation of the Koran, because it seems to be at the heart of the problem in the border areas of Pakistan too, particularly with the Taliban.

As you said, Ms. MacDonald, there are other groups throughout the country too. There's far more to it, but this seems to have been one of the most archaic interpretations with the Taliban in the region. We hear continuously, even from the women members of Parliament, that this is what they're afraid to return to and go back to. Might a more moderate interpretation, a more moderate acceptance within the government, bring back some of the Taliban if they had some of what they wished to do to keep their religious integrity, but still moderate it somewhat?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Ms. Boucher, did you have a question as well?

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

He was answering my question.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

He answered it? Okay.

Where did you direct that one to, Mr. Goldring?

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Maybe it could be directed to Ms. MacDonald.

[Flora MacDonald]

When you ask, I just seem to think there isn't the fundamental knowledge about Afghanistan in Canada that there should be. We keep putting people into little pockets, and we don't see them as a country that has been unified. It was unified under King Zahir in his early years, and it will happen again. But as long as occupied forces are in there, with all due regard...one of the real problems is the Americans on the ground. We have to get people into a position where they can make their own decisions.

When you talk about the women members of Parliament, a good number of those women members of Parliament whom I've met with on a number of occasions are there in lieu of their husbands. They're taking direction from others.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Goldring.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

But in Pakistan it seems they have the problem without the Americans being there.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Goldring.

Mr. Heinbecker is next, and then we'll come back here.

[Paul Heinbecker]

I don't want to take the time of the committee, but I have two points.

I asked Mr. Brahimi, if he had a decision to make over again, what it would be. His decision would have been to include the Taliban from the outset in the efforts to create a new state. We left them on the outside, and they've done what they've done. There are Taliban and Taliban, I guess. But that was one thing.

Second, sharia law doesn't necessarily equate directly to Islam, because in a country like Turkey they don't have sharia law--at least not yet. I want to reinforce what Ms. MacDonald and Ms. Armstrong said. What we're dealing with is one of the more extreme interpretations even of sharia law.