One year after Taliban, Afghans say world reneged on promises

Associated Press/Vincent Thian

An Afghan boy stopped his bicycle on a hillside during sunset above the city of Kabul on Tuesday. Few people in Afghanistan's capital long for the return of the Taliban, but it's also hard to find anyone who thinks the world has kept its promise to help the Afghans.By Kathy Gannon ~ The Associated Press

KABUL, Afghanistan -- One year after U.S. warplanes drove the Taliban from Kabul, few in Afghanistan's capital long for their return, but it's also hard to find anyone who thinks the world has kept its promise to help the Afghans.

The face of Kabul has changed since the Taliban retreated south. Traffic jams stretch for blocks. Women are in the streets, most still in burqas or hidden behind large shawls. But gone are the men with wooden sticks and steel cables who beat women for exposing their faces.

"Yes, things are much better for women. No one is beating them. There is no law to wear the burqa. Girls are in school. But still there are a lot of problems," said Sima Samar, head of the Afghan Human Rights Commission.

One of the most serious problems is that President Hamid Karzai's government is weak and its control is largely confined to the capital. Religious restrictions have crept back into the administration, with the establishment of a religious instructions department, television censorship and attacks on schools for girls -- some say with the approval of some in government.

'An official threat'

Warlords, who rule by virtue of their private armies, are stronger today than a year ago.

The search for fleeing al-Qaida and Taliban troops has strengthened the country's regional bullies, permitted the Defense Ministry to flout a U.N.-brokered agreement and some say even sabotage attempts to build a national army.

"The problem now is because of the warlords. In some cases, they are an official threat," said Yusuf Pashtun, minister of housing and urban development.

"It is the weakness of the central government that is allowing these people to operate," he said in an interview Tuesday in Kabul.

But a former Afghan general said the first mistake was when the U.S.-led coalition allowed northern alliance troops, their allies in the war on terror, to enter the capital on Nov. 13, 2001, when the Taliban fled. That began rule by force and discrimination against other ethnic groups. Most of the Defense Ministry is Tajik, as is the Defense Minister Mohammed Fahim.

The next mistake was allowing the northern alliance to dominate the transitional Cabinet named in Bonn, Germany. At the same time, Fahim was allowed to flout the Bonn accord when he refused to withdraw his military from Kabul.

The U.N.-organized loya jirga, or grand council -- which was supposed to bring in a broad-based government last June -- gave unprecedented power to the warlords and allowed Fahim to retain the Defense Ministry.

As attempts to build a national army foundered, some in Kabul -- including government officials who didn't want their names used -- said the United States began to rethink its policy of complete support for the Defense Ministry.

'I will sack them'

At the same time, Karzai has increasingly criticized the warlords, whose bickering threatens aid to some parts of the country.

Last month, he issued his first real threat, saying: "If anyone thinks our flexibility, our compassion, humorous words and admiration will last until doomsday, they are wrong. If they do not improve, I will sack them."

This month he did just that, dismissing several commanders and two senior intelligence men. He recently told The Associated Press the dismissals would not be the last. "There will be more," he said, refusing to elaborate.

No one expected it to be easy to rebuild Afghanistan, ravaged by 23 years of war and repression.

Still, Karzai says, some progress has been made in the last year.

"We are so much better off today than we were at this time last year because we are back together as one nation, one Afghanistan," he said in an interview.