Defence`s Feeds

South African Vektor R4 Assault Rifle / Light Machine Gun

Whether it is in the slums of Nairobi, the port of Karachi, or the corridors of power in Bujumbura, in many fragile societies state security organizations serve the interest of ruling elites in maintaining political power or their own institutional interests. What they often provide little of is security for ordinary people. This depressing situation

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Today’s installment of the MCIS 2016 slides brings us to Andrei Ravkov, the Minister of Defense of Belarus, who spoke at the European security plenary session near the end of the conference. Video of his speech is available in Russian and in English.

Russian Vikhr Anti-Tank Guided Missiles

When protesters interrupted President Ashraf Ghani’s speech in London three times on 13 May 2016, the heated controversy surrounding the route of TUTAP, a main electricity grid initiative, received even international attention. In Afghanistan, the tensions have been simmering since January 2016 when Hazara members of the government started trying to prevent a potential rerouting of the electricity transmission line away from their ethnic group’s settlement areas. The leak of their efforts into the media triggered the first public protests. In early May, following a cabinet decision to stick to the rerouting plan, the subject reached the wider public, translating into a broad protest movement. For today, 16 May 2016, large protests in Kabul have been announced and are expected by some to reach or even surpass the scope of the ‘Zabul Seven’ demonstrations in November 2015. AAN’s co-director Thomas Ruttig, with contributions from Ali Yawar Adili, Salima Ahmadi and Jelena Bjelica, looks into what is at stake.

Thousands of demonstrators are expected to gather this morning (16 May 2016) in Kabul to protest the government’s decision where a new key electricity transmission line would cross the Hindu Kush massive. Two alternative routes have been hotly discussed: one over the Salang Pass and one through Bamyan province. The government finally opted for the first one in April 2016.

Protests and counter-protests

The protests are planned to mirror the ‘Zabul Seven’ demonstration of 11 November 2015, one if not the biggest in the Afghan capital since the fall of the Taleban regime. The organisers, who call themselves the People’s High Council (Shura-ye Ali-ye Mardomi), plan to rally protesters converging along ten routes from different parts of the city onto Kabul’s central Jada-ye Pashtunistan in front of the entry to the Arg, the presidential palace. This square was also the venue for the ‘Zabul Seven’ protests, locally known as inqilab-e tabasum (Tabasum revolution), named after an under-age girl beheaded during the abductions by militants in Zabul province in October 2015.

In what amounts to a call for a general strike, or a “city closure” (ta’til-e shahr), as it is called by the organisers, the people’s council issued a follow-up statement on 13 May 2016 calling on “all educational centres, schools, madrasas, universities, shop keepers and business people” to “leave their routine work and pour into the streets” on “Great Monday” (Dushanbe-ye Bozorg) and to support the call for freedom and justice. In this statement the intent was apparently to project broader political aims: “Our dream [sic] is disgust of darkness and getting to the light. By ‘light’ we do not only mean it in its literal meaning.” Some social activists told AAN they would be ready to remain in the streets for many days.

The Kabul protests were preceded by demonstrations in Mazar-e Sharif and Ghazni on 15 May. In Mazar, hundreds of protesters, mainly university students, chanted slogans such as “stop discrimination” and “we want justice.” In Ghazni, according to a local leader of Khalili’s Hezb-e Wahdat “thousands“ of protesters demanded “justice and balanced development.” Simultaneous protests were announced for Daikundi, Baghlan and, again, Bamyan on 16 May as well as for a number of western capitals both on 15 and 16 May, including Washington, Stockholm, Berlin and Tokyo, mainly organised by the Hazara diaspora. The Ghani protests in London on 12 May 2016, when the president attended an anti-corruption summit, as well as the interruption of Ghani’s speech at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) a day later were also organised by locally based Hazara and other activists.

A late-night meeting held in the palace on 14 May 2016, in order to find a last-minute compromise on the route of the power line, so that the protests could be called off, came to nothing. It was attended by the president and politicians in the government who have publicly supported the planned Kabul protests, including second Vice-President Muhammad Sarwar Danesh and Second Deputy Chief Executive, Muhammad Mohaqqeq (here and here). The government is afraid that, as with the ‘Zabul Seven’ protests, security problems might arise. Indeed, some participants tried to scale the Arg’s walls during the ‘Zabul Seven’ protests, and there were rumours that certain individuals participating in the demonstration were planning to storm the palace and topple the government. (The situation de-escalated after the protesters were allowed onto the palace’s premises to hold an overnight vigil.)

The High Council of Jihadi parties backed the government on this. On the eve of the protests, it gathered in Kabul and warned against possible violence caused by the planned demonstration, urging the organisers to call it off. They also urged the government not to take any steps towards the implementation of the initiative until the issue has been resolved and offered to mediate. Participants included Sebghatullah Mojaddedi, Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani, Mawlawi Abdul Hakim Munib, Wahidullah Sabawun, Qutbuddin Helal, Haji Din Muhammad as well as Sarwar Danish from those supporting the Jombesh-e Roshnayi (Enlightening Movement) and other Shia and Ismaili leaders such as Sayed Mansur Naderi and Sayed Hussain Anwari. Muhammad Karim Khalili’s Hezb-e Wahdat published a statement on 15 May 2016 saying that, in contrast to media reports, Khalili “has not participated in the decision[-making]” of the council and only supports one stance and that is the “revocation of the cabinet decision and transiting the electricity through the Bamyan-Maidan route as a national project.”

The protest organisers, however, did not give in. In a statement published on the afternoon of 15 May, the People’s High Council called on Kabulis to “be prepared for a great civil march without paying any attention to the rumours [about a possible compromise] or to the psychological warfare by the government.”

There have also been an increasingly number of counter-rallies. These have been the result of a statement made on 3 May 2016 by the Minister of Water and Energy Ali Ahmad Osmani announcing that the decision about the TUTAP route could not be changed because such a change would “affect” the plans for electricity supplies to 12 mainly southern provinces including Maidan-Wardak, Ghazni, Logar, Paktia, Paktika, Khost but also to Parwan, Panjshir and Kapisa. The following day, acting head of Da Afghanistan Breshna Sherkat (DABS), Mir Wais Alemi stated that: “God forbid there is insistence that the project is routed through Bamyan, there is the risk that this project … might be cancelled.” Rallies and meetings were held in favour of the Salang route in the provinces of Paktia, Khost and Helmand on 10 May; further gatherings followed on 15 May in Paktika, Khost, Logar and Parwan, supporting the Salang route for the transmission line and denouncing the anti-Ghani protesters in London.

What is TUTAP?

TUTAP – an acronym for the participating countries Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan and Pakistan – is an initiative designed to close the large gap in Afghanistan’s current need for electrical power by connecting existing “insular” grids inside the country and linking this unified grid system to neighbouring countries. This would allow the export of surplus electricity from Afghanistan and the Central Asian republics to Pakistan and be used to cover seasonal power shortages in participating countries by the use of ‘two-way’ lines. The TUTAP regional power-sharing initiative and the better known CASA-1000 project (another 1000kV transmission line planned to connect Tajikistan with Afghanistan and Pakistan) (for initial information regarding the initiative, see this 2015 AAN dispatch) constitute the first phase of the East-Central-South Asia Regional Electricity Market (E-CASAREM) development program, which envisions the creation of a shared power market among the countries of East, Central and South Asia. For Afghanistan, TUTAP should provide all the power it needs by 2030.

The controversial Hindu Kush passage, whether via the Salang or Bamyan, covers only a short distance but topographically, it is the most complicated part of one of the lines of the envisioned TUTAP grid through the project’s main hub in Pul-e Khumri. From there, it crosses the Hindu Kush mountains to southern and southeastern Afghanistan.

Afghanistan ranks among the five per cent of countries with the lowest per capita energy consumption in the world, and is still a net energy importer. In 2014, for example, more than 80 per cent (1,000 megawatts [MW]) of its total power supply (1,247 MW) came from Iran (16%), Tajikistan (25%), Turkmenistan (12%), and Uzbekistan (27%), with the rest generated through indigenous hydropower and thermal sources (see a 2015 ADB report). According to the same report, the “lack of domestic generation remains the key challenge for energy security in Afghanistan,” which often “create disparities in economic development; and fuel ethnic and regional tensions, insecurity, and discontent.”

In 2008, Afghanistan began a comprehensive programme to expand its power grid and to develop new capacity in the generation, transmission, and distribution of electrical power. The Strategy for Regional Cooperation in the Energy Sector of the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation Program (CAREC) endorsed by the Seventh Ministerial Conference on Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation held between 19 and 21 November 2008 in Baku, Azerbaijan decided on an investment proposal for Afghanistan. This included “transmission and distribution rehabilitation in Afghanistan to enable the country to absorb the imported power from Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and distribute it to load centers.” CASA-1000 and TUTAP are initiatives that were derived from this decision.

The executing agency for TUTAP in Afghanistan is the Asian Development Bank (ADB), through which the funding from multiple donors is also being channelled.

In October 2012, the Afghan government developed a national priority programme, called the National Energy Supply Programme (NESP), which detailed Afghanistan’s energy supply challenges and demands. The NESP highlighted that:

The current transmission system for import of power from the neighboring countries is operating at its limit. Imports from Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Turkmenistan to the north of Kabul are severely constrained by the transmission line over the Salang Pass. All three countries plan to continue supplying Afghanistan in the same amount and even increase their power transfer, which would require increasing the current transmission line capacity. The option of the Salang Pass transmission line is being studied and analyzed in the Power Sector Master Plan and results will be available in 2013.

In 2013 the Asian Development Bank commissioned the German consulting company Fichtner to develop the country’s Power Sector Master Plan. In May 2013, Fichtner came up with a 450-pages document that states in its executive summary:

For the additional [TUTAP] Hindu Kush crossing it is recommended to use the so called Bamyan route … The Bamyan route will avoid the narrow space and difficulties along the Salang Pass… 

Choosing the Salang Pass route for construction of the new line to Kabul may have the advantage of slightly shorter time for construction and will have slightly less investment costs, as a separate investigation on technical feasibility of this route has shown.

From the other point of view, significant disadvantages need to be considered. First, the network integration of the coal fired power plants along the Bamyan route [another government mega project that has fallen into serious delay, however; more in this AAN analysis] and the power supply of Bamyan region will require an additional transmission line and the additional investment will be significant high, adding to the total investment. The Salang Pass will also be the route for the HVDC line for CASA-1000 project, as the actual planning of CASA-1000 project indicates and the construction of a third line along the Salang Pass will be very difficult, if not impossible. 

Routing all lines to Kabul on one corridor will increase the risk of losing the whole supply for Kabul region due to one single event, with its major consequences.

What appears to be a recommendation (and indeed became one of the main lines of argument by the protesters), comes with the disclaimer that “this consultant’s report does not necessarily reflect the views of ADB or the Government concerned, and ADB and the Government cannot be held liable for its contents” and that “all the views expressed herein may not be incorporated into the proposed project’s design.” This practically refers the decision-making back to the government in Kabul – which it did, and which triggered the current protests.

How did the conflict emerge?

In early January 2016, second Vice President Muhammad Sarwar Danesh wrote a letter, first to President Ghani and then to the Ministry of Energy and Water (MoEW) and the state-owned electricity company, DABS (the only electricity grid operator in the country and party to the TUTAP initiative) to raise his concerns about the planned rerouting of the TUTAP line from Bamyan to the Salang. He also listed the arguments against the Salang and those for the Bamyan route. The letter was somehow made public and was published by the media on 9 January 2016 (see for example here).

The leaking of Danesh’s letter – it is unclear by whom – led to the first street protests. Still on the same day, 9 January 2016, people in Bamyan demonstrated. A member of the local provincial council and of Khalili’s Wahdat party, Muhammad Hassan Assadi, who participated in the protest, was the first one who reportedly demanded Bamyan’s MPs to boycott parliament in protest. On 12 January 2016, Mohaqqeq echoed Danesh’s concerns in a social media post and joined the protest.

Tawassoli Gharjistani, a member of the technical committee set up by the president following the leaking of Danesh’s letter, told AAN that the president’s office responded to the letter by ordering the MoEW and DABS to work with Danesh’s office. According to Gharjistani, after a first meeting on 10 January 2016, the following main decisions were taken: firstly, that the procurement process for TUTAP be stopped, and secondly, a technical committee comprising of representatives of the MoEW, DABS, the offices of the Second Vice-President and of the Second Deputy Chief Executive as well as other relevant ministries be established to review the pros and cons of the two routes. After some delay and further meetings, on 10 March 2016 the technical committee agreed on an assessment report that was to be submitted to the cabinet.

A copy of this report, received from Taqi Amini, a former member of the technical committee and now one of the protest leaders, includes two major (and somewhat contradictory and unrealistic) recommendations. First, it was recommended that TUTAP be built through Bamyan and that this should take place within the framework of the existing financial plan or obtain additional funding. Secondly, it was recommended that, should the Salang route be chosen, a further 220 KV power line be added to connect Bamyan to TUTAP in order to alleviate local concerns that the rerouting would not cut the province off from the main power system (which would further increase the costs).

On 30 April 2016, the NUG cabinet approved the Salang as the route for the TUTAP power line. This was confirmed in a video message by President Ghani dated 9 May 2016:

The cabinet’s decision regarding this project, which was announced last week, was in fact in line with steps already taken in previous years by the leaders of the then-government and in accordance with an agreement they had signed with the Asian Development Bank. This project, which was supposed to have started a long time ago and already be operational by 2016, was delayed for several years. At this juncture, we had to consider the development opportunity cost. As our financial resources are sadly insufficient, our current dependence on funding has meant that our options regarding national projects are also limited and dependent on conditions, which are presented mostly with a particular perspective of economic rationality. For this reason, we had to use this last chance and deadline and take the final steps towards the implementation of this national project in order not to lose this important development opportunity.

The president further announced that in order to ensure that “big development steps are taken with national consensus,” he had tasked a national commission, whose members are to be appointed “in consultation with representatives of the people, political and civil activists and specialists.” This commission will review all related documents and finally submit “a comprehensive and coherent opinion, taking into consideration both its economic aspect and social impacts” for Ghani’s final decision. He also appealed to all parties to “keep the doors for negations open, instead of emotions resort to professional arguments, and take the collective interest as criterion for our decision-making.”

The conflict pours onto the streets

Following the cabinet’s decision in April, the Jombesh-e Roshnayi political and social movement developed. It gave the government an ultimatum of 72 hours to respond to the “demands of the people” and have the TUTAP line run through Bamyan province. On 6 May, it brought out “thousands of people” in Bamyan city criticising the government’s decision. Demonstrations in Daykundi and Herat followed.

The logo of the Enlightening Movement.

When the government did not respond as demanded, the People’s High Council held a large open-air gathering on 9 May in the Shahid Mazari Mosala, an open space in the west of Kabul, to decide on further steps, that included the preparation of a larger demonstration. Former Vice President Muhammad Karim Khalili, Danesh, Mohaqqeq and Sadeq Modaber, another Hazara party leader close to former president Karzai and the former head of the Office of Administrative Affairs, as well as a number of Hazara MPs joined the gathering. In a symbolic move, they left the platform erected for the leaders and sat with the rest of the crowd on the ground. The council then issued a statement setting 16 May 2016 as the date for the large-scale protest in Kabul.

Mere hours after the gathering, Ghani released a video message calling for negotiations and ordering yet another review committee. The following day, the People’s High Council responded to the president’s message by making the revocation of the pro-Salang cabinet decision the precondition for negotiation with the government.

Who are the organisers?

At least some the ‘Zabul Seven’ organisers are part of Jombesh-e Roshnayi which is mainly a Hazara movement. The People’s High Council is its leading body. It includes representatives from political parties, independent politicians, MPs, civil society and social activists from different spheres like independent journalism, education and social work. It is the non-party activists, though, who run the preparation of the protests and shape the face of the movement. With this composition, the protest movement is much broader than the ‘Zabul Seven’ protests in November 2015 although it finds it difficult to mobilise beyond the Hazara community.

Furthermore, the movement’s methods of communicating are distinct. All gatherings, held in the Baqir ul-Ulum mosque close to the Darulaman Palace, are open to the public. Decisions and the call for today’s protests are communicated through social media. One of the major channels of communication is the Facebook group Jumhuri-ye Sukut (The Republic of Silence). It has been reporting and discussing Hazara issues and promoting ‘humanist’ education and human rights beyond the ethnic group for a number of years already. Decisions of the council and the announcements for the protests have also used these channels but have also been publicly disseminated through public loudspeakers in some parts of Kabul.

On 14 May 2016, most Hazara and a number of other MPs – altogether 31 people – walked out of the Wolesi Jirga session, announcing that they would not return until the fate of the TUTAP initiative had been determined. The non-Hazara MPs are Latif Pedram from Badakhshan who, after the announcement of the NUG, declared there was a need for an opposition and that he would lead it; the Uzbek MP Muhammad Hashem Ortaq (the movement is not supported by Uzbek leader Dostum) and Mohiuddin Mehdi, a Tajik Jamiati intellectual. This walkout now threatens to delay major parliamentary decisions in the coming days, such as the vote over the new defence minister and NDS chief.

Last-minute measures

As emotions run high, the controversy has increasingly taken on an ethnic colouring. With Bamyan mainly populated by Hazaras, and given that the protests were started and are mainly carried out by Hazaras, this has created a counter-reaction among Pashtun MPs and Pashtun communities living in the provinces south of where TUTAP is supposed to cross the Hindu Kush. Mirroring the feelings of people in Bamyan, they also fear they might not profit from the new TUTAP system if it is not routed through the Salang. (In fact, neither would make much of a difference for them, as in both instances the transmission line will end in the power-hungry capital Kabul and go south from there. Many of the protesters and politicians involved have possibly not read or understood the – indeed complicated – project documents.) Among Hazaras, deep-seated feelings of what they see as government neglect of the central provinces over the past 15 years became apparent, finding its most extreme expression by the London RUSI protestor calling Ghani a “racist” (which was in fact rejected also by many of those supporting the protest movement).

In parliament, there were mutual accusations of “discrimination” and turning the TUTAP initiative into a “victim of ethnic politics” between different groups of MPs. The bad word of a baghi – “rebel” in a religious connotation, recently used by President Ghani for the Taleban – was hurled at the protestors. The dispute on 14 May almost turned into a physical brawl but some cooler-headed MPs stepped in just in time.

There are also a number of politicians – both Tajik and Pashtun (but few Uzbeks) – that have tried to capitalise on the protests by supporting the protesters’ demands and turning them into a vehicle for further undermining the NUG, which is already under pressure, or to encourage the administration to bring them back into (or keep them in) government positions. The former category includes ex-Minister of Interior Muhammad Omar Daudzai who is close to former president Karzai; among the latter are the acting governor of Balkh province Atta Muhammad Nur as well as two former chiefs of the National Directorate of Security (NDS), Amrullah Saleh (who wrote on his Facebook page that the “central regions are part of the country’s soil, not a colony of the central government”) and Rahmatullah Nabil. This papers over the fact that at least some of these politicians had been a part of the Karzai government when the initial decisions regarding TUTAP were taken. Several leading Hazara politicians have climbed on the bandwagon to win back popularity they lost during the ‘Zabul Seven’ protests when they tried to speak on behalf of the protesters without being asked to do so. Hence, the need for their humble and symbolic gesture of sitting on the ground besides the protests’ foot soldiers.

In the meantime, during the afternoon of 15 May 2016, the protests spawned their first success. Following a morning meeting with MPs – minus the boycotting group – and senators  in the presidential palace (the day’s Senate session was cancelled), President Ghani reportedly promised to send all documents related to TUTAP to parliament for deliberation. The president also issued a decree with the names of the 12 members of the new review commission he had announced earlier.  Dr. Mohammad Humayoun Qayoumi, one of the President’s Chief Adviser, was named as the head of the review commission, which, among others, includes also the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan and former finance minister Omar Zakhilwal as well as the Minister of Economy Abdul Sattar Murad and the Minister of Urban Development Sayed Sadat Mansur Naderi. Ghani also suspended the 30 April cabinet decision on the trans-Hindu Kush route. The commission now has ten days to come up with a solution.

It is high time that someone starts to distinguish the technical arguments from the political ones. These last-minute steps might also take the edge off today’s protests that, as it turns out, will go ahead anyway. Given the lack of trust in the government, however, whatever decision the new commission will finally take will almost surely lead to new protests.

The security forces, meanwhile, were also active. A number of the planned demonstration routes have been blocked with containers, as witnessed by AAN colleagues. The garrison commander of Kabul held a press conference and said that the demonstrators would only be allowed to march to the Chaman-e Huzur, the fairground near the National Stadium in the southeast of the city.

Canadian Colt Canada C8 Carbine

German Armbrust Anti-Tank Rocket Launcher

The European Defence Agency has decided to extend the deadline for the submission of proposals following the Agency's call for proposals for the Pilot Project on defence research from 20 May to 23 June 2016.

Interested parties are invited to consult the revised Project Call Text (dated 13/05/2015) which contains the revised schedules.

Requests for additional information and/or clarification can be made in writing only at the following e-mail address: Grant@eda.europa.eu

 

The National Unity Government (NUG) has finally moved to fill the last two vacant key posts in the national cabinet, those of defence minister and head of the intelligence agency. In the climate of mistrust between its two camps, it was not easy to identify mutually acceptable candidates – and, so, the names are neither a surprise nor new. AAN senior analyst and co-director Thomas Ruttig (with input from Kate Clark, Fazal Muzhary, Ehsan Qaane, Jelena Bjelica and Christine-Felice Roehrs) looks at their biographies and the politicking around the nominations – with both candidates still needing parliament’s approval.

Five months after the resignation of the head of the country’s intelligence agency and ten months after their last pick for defence minister was rejected by parliament, Afghan President Ashraf Ghani and his quasi-prime minister, Dr Abdullah, have come up with (not so) new picks for both posts. The names – Muhammad Massum Stanakzai for the National Directorate of Security (NDS) and General Abdullah Khan Habibi for Defence – were made public in two different presidential decrees during the night of 5 to 6 May 2016. The decrees also included the candidates’ immediate appointments as acting heads of the institutions they are supposed to lead, once approved by parliament.

With this, Abdullah Khan replaces Stanakzai, who has been acting as defence minister ever since the Afghan parliament denied him its vote of confidence in early July 2015. The NUG, now in its 19th month, never had a regular defence minister; its four previous candidates were either voted down or withdrew before the vote. As for the NDS, it has been led by an acting director general (its head has cabinet rank but is not called a minister), Massud Andarabi, since December 2015. His predecessor, Rahmatullah Nabil, left (or lost) his job, after he publicly criticised President Ghani’s efforts to re-engage Pakistan and re-launch peace talks with the Taleban during a trip to Islamabad.

Forward to the past

Both names come as no surprise. Stanakzai, who was the first ever civilian in a defence position (although never confirmed by parliament), had, according to Kabul’s rumour mill, long been considered the favourite candidate for the NDS job. Abdullah Khan, who is already the fifth NUG candidate for the top defence job, had already been picked once before (he was third in this line at the time) but was never officially introduced to parliament. (It is not clear why, although it might have had to do with his lacklustre mujahedin background). The fact that he has yet to be rejected might make him acceptable to the parliamentarians who, over the past years, have blocked many attempts, mainly by Ghani’s predecessor Hamed Karzai, to re-introduce candidates already voted down.

The filling of these two positions has been a recurring demand of both houses of parliament (see this AAN analysis) (both led by politicians who are close to the new quasi-opposition), but also of donor countries. Ghani is expected to attend the 2016 NATO summit in Warsaw in early July 2016, and it would cost him a degree of credibility in those circles (who, off the record, are all but uncritical about the NUG’s poor performance so far) if he, in spite of repeated promises, were to show up with those two positions still vacant. The other key positions, which were vacant for a long time, that of interior minister and attorney general, were filled in April 2016.

Abdullah Khan is not unknown. He is a career army officer who has served in every regime since that of President Najibullah (ie also under the mujahedin and Taleban regimes), posts that have culminated in his current position as director of the Afghan army’s general staff. Stanakzai, however, is the more prominent of the two. As the long-standing head of the Joint Secretariat of the High Peace Council and CEO of the Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Programme from 2009 to 2015, he was a key figure for the international community in its (so far futile) attempt to get peace talks with the Taleban underway. He managed to gain Ghani’s trust, even though according to a number of Afghan and international insiders he was initially suspicious of Stanakzai as a ‘Karzai man.’ But the president has obviously been convinced of Stanakzai’s qualities, to the extent that he kept him on as acting defence minister for almost a year after he was rejected by parliament. This, despite the fact that when he took office, Ghani had insisted that he wanted to run a ‘legal cabinet’ without unapproved acting ministers.

Ghani seems to have held on to Stanakzai for a number of reasons. For one, both seem to work well together – a rarity given the president’s temperament and his frequent impatience with even the highest-ranking government officials’ performances. Stanakzai also gets on well with Hanif Atmar, now in charge of what has become the overarching security agency, the National Security Council. He also, maybe equally importantly, got on well with the US commanders of both NATO’s Resolute Support mission and the US counter-terrorism mission, Freedom’s Sentinel. The US seems to have lobbied throughout 2015 to keep Stanakzai at the defence ministry. Given its large financial footprint, most certainly it will have had a say. (According to the October 2015 report of the US government’s Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (pp 75,78, 79), US funding for the Afghan security sector was over 3.2 billion dollars in 2015, totalling 68.4 billion since 2002. For 2017, 3.5 billion dollars more have been requested from US Congress.)

While he was kept on in his position, US diplomats say Stanakzai delivered on some key issues that had been long lagging in the MoD, including sending home high-ranking officers past retirement age and clarifying competencies in the ministry and in the provincial defence departments – something that had apparently not been undertaken for many years, despite massive international funding for the ANA.

Stanakzai has, incidentally, not only been appointed acting NDS chief but also adviser-minister (see presidential website in Dari here), which looks like a precautionary measure in case the Wolesi Jirga says “no” to him again. The lively twitter account of the Kabul Council of the Jamiat-e Islami party, in a hint of dissatisfaction, has already reminded its readers of Stanakzai’s last rejection by parliament. With no safety net in place, this could otherwise easily end his political career; however the adviser position would enable him to continue to serve the NUG from the second row, although with less public prestige.

Lieutenant General Abdullah Khan, whose penultimate position was chief of personnel in the ANA’s general staff, comes across as a good choice to succeed Stanakzai at the MoD. According to officials both in the National Security Council and the Resolute Support Mission, he enjoys a reputation of professionalism, attaining high marks in his military training (including in the Soviet Union), and clean hands. This was confirmed to AAN by Atiqullah Amarkhel, a former high-ranking MoD official who has worked with Abdullah Khan. Amarkhel, who is now a military analyst, had stated before:“If the government wants better war management, the institutions should be non-political and the heads of the institutions must be professional people.” With his unbroken career throughout the most diverse regimes, Abdullah Khan seems to be ‘un-political’ enough to be considered for this position – but, at the same time, might lack full-hearted political backing.

Ethnicity and politics

The nominations also continue to go against the 50:50 job distribution formula between the two NUG camps, often considered along ethnic lines: both are Pashtuns – Abdullah Khan is a Kunari and Stanakzai is a Logari. (The Ghani side mainly nominates Pashtuns, the Abdullah side mainly Tajiks – the latter has already led to protests on social media by other allies, including Hazaras and Uzbeks, who demanded to know why none of their own were being considered.)

When reviewing Stanakzai’s chances of becoming defence minister in 2015, people involved in the appointment negotiations on both sides of the NUG told AAN that the president wanted what he considered ‘loyal Pashtuns’ in all four key security positions. With Atmar in the NSC, then-NDS and Interior Minister chiefs Rahmatullah Nabil and Nur ul-Haq Ulumi (both out of their offices now) and Stanakzai acting, this had clearly been achieved. However, it came at the cost of increasing criticism that the NUG had been disregarding the role of former mujahedin leaders.

In the controversy surrounding Ulumi, the former interior minister who had been an Abdullah candidate, his political affiliations seemed to have been even more important than his ethnicity: for the former mujahedin who opposed his nomination, it appeared to be of significance that he had not only not been a mujahed (instead a former communist general), but that he was a Pashtun – despite the fact that Ulumi had been a political ally of Dr Abdullah since the 2009 election. In particular, memories of former ‘communist’ affiliations do not fade away. (The reason Abdullah introduced him was probably that he wanted a professional officer as his candidate and to show that he also nominated non-‘northerners’.) With General Jahed (a Panjshiri Tajik, mujahed and relative of the former ‘Northern Alliance’ (NA) leader, Qassim Fahim) having succeeded Ulumi in April 2016, this might have partly been rectified in their eyes. Abdullah Khan, who, according to his former colleague Amarkhel, joined Jamiat-e Islami after the collapse of Najib’s regime (a step many former communist generals took; there are also rumours that he has an ID card from Panjsher province), might still run into the same problems due to his affiliation with the former PDPA regime. Some senators during the session on 8 May 2016 already voiced their criticisms of both candidates for not having a ‘transparent background.’

Recycling the elite

That two old names came up again shows that the NUG continues to have trouble finding candidates for key positions that are acceptable to both camps. There do not seem to be many obvious, well-trained or mutually acceptable newcomers for the top positions in the security ministries, beyond the relatively limited circle who already held positions during the post-2001 period. The names of the former incumbents were brought into the discussion following the inauguration of the NUG in late 2014 and again now, including former interior and defence minister General Bismillah Muhammadi and former NDS chiefs Amrullah Saleh and Eng. Aref Sarwari – and now Stanakzai and Abdullah Khan again.

The situation has become even more difficult since many influential former mujahedin leaders, as well as those in circles close to former President Karzai, have made it one of their goals to give Ghani a hard time for appointing too many young people to influential positions. But it is also a sign of a much wider problem that the post-2001 elites – largely consisting of the 1978-96 mujahedin elite, plus a number of ‘technocrat’ newcomers, some ex-communists and a sprinkling of ex-Taleban officials – have clung to their posts, powers and privileges. This is particularly the case for the former mujahedin, who seem to believe that only those who have fought the Soviets and the Taleban are fit to govern.

It is not clear yet when the Wolesi Jirga will vote on Stanakzai and Abdullah Khan.

 

Annex: Biographic details for both candidates

Abdullah Khan Habibi 

(an official biography in Dari of Abdullah Khan Habibi can be found on the MoD website)

Abdullah Khan, as he is usually known, had already been flagged for the MoD position in 2015 but he withdrew before being introduced to the Wolesi Jirga for a vote, possibly in response to misgivings among some former mujahedin to his ‘communist’ background (despite his shift to Jamiat). A Pashtun from Sauki district of Kunar province (year of birth 1952, equivalent to the Afghan year 1331), he is a professional army career officer who was trained as an artillery officer both at the Military Academy in Kabul (graduated 1972/1351 with a bachelor’s degree) and in the Soviet Union in the late 1970s (lisans [master’s equivalent] of Military Science in 1980), all reportedly with distinction. He held different posts at the Ministry of Defence during the Najibullah, Rabbani, Taleban and Karzai governments. This included a stint as the head of the Afghan border troops under Najibullah. (The border troops were under the defence ministry then. Also, shifts between army and police are normal in Afghanistan; see also current interior minister Jahed who came from the army.)

In 1995, during Rabbani’s government, he became the head of the training and education department; he was deputy head of the same department during the Taleban regime. In the early Karzai years he initially continued to work in the same department, until in 2003 he became head of inspection at the office of the Chief of Army Staff, and then the head of information (pezhandwal) department in the same office. From 2008 to 2010, he served as a military aide for the minister of defence and in 2010 he became Commander of the 201st ANA corps, responsible for the eastern region (Nangarhar, Kunar, Nuristan, Laghman). This is also his place of origin, close to the Pakistani border, and surely one of the areas he had an eye on when heading the border police. In 2012, he returned to his former positions as the head of pezhandwal department at the office of the Chief of Army Staff. From there, in 2015, he rose to the position of Chief of Staff (rais-e arkan) where he served in this capacity until his ministerial nomination.

 

Muhammad Masum Stanakzai 

(shortened version from an earlier AAN dispatch)

Stanakzai (born in 1958) is a Pashtun from Logar province. He graduated from the communications (mukhabara) section of Kabul Military University. Later, he got a Masters degree in Philosophy of Engineering for Sustainable Development from Cambridge University. As a young man, Stanakzai served in the Afghan army for a decade, where he worked his way up, eventually attaining the rank of Colonel in Communications. No official dates are given, but this would have been during the PDPA era. At some point, he moved into NGO work in Peshawar, serving as Director of one of the largest Afghan NGOs, the Agency for Rehabilitation and Energy Conservation (AREA) (2001-2002). Stanakzai also served on the steering committee of ACBAR, the Agency Coordinating Body for Afghan Relief.

He moved into government in 2002, first as Minister of Telecommunications (2002-2004), then as an advisor on security to President Karzai. In 2009, he was appointed Head of the Joint Secretariat of the newly created High Peace Council (HPC) and its Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Programme (APRP) – one of the few senior officials to stay in office during the transition from Karzai to Ghani. Stanakzai was centrally involved in Karzai’s peace-making efforts, serving as his loyal ally and having contact with the Taleban. His final action in this capacity – under Ghani – appears to have been organising and “holding talks,” as it was reported in The Wall Street Journal, with three senior Taleban officials on 19 and 20 May 2015 in Urumqi, the capital of China’s western Xinjiang region.

In September 2011, Stanakzai was seriously injured in the suicide bombing that killed Burhanuddin Rabbani, the head of the HPC. He eventually recovered from his injuries, although he still walks with a cane. He returned to his job, although he was targeted in another suicide attack on 21 June 2014.

 

Here’s another set of slides, this one from a presentation by Col. General Sergey Makarov, Commandant of the Military Academy of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff. He spoke at the final plenary panel, on problems of war and peace in Europe. Unfortunately, the MCIS website has provided neither the text of his remarks, nor a video.

I took notes on his remarks, so here are the highlights, followed by the slides.

The European security system was created after World War II and institutionalized with the Helsinki Final Act. The main problem in recent years has been the result of double standards and other countries’ inability to convince the U.S. to reject its backward policies.

Russia is concerned about the ties between terrorist activities in the Middle East and European security, including the threat posed by uncontrolled migration. Russia is also concerned about the return of Nazism and the falsification of history in the Baltics and Ukraine.

Russia can not be separated from Europe, as they are part of a single economic and political space. We need to create a new common security structure that includes the United States but does not exaggerate its role. There’s a need for mutually respectful cooperation on many areas, including counter-narcotics, counter-terrorism, opposing Nazism, and cyber crime.

European values are being diluted. For the first time in centuries, Europe is no longer the center of the international system. Power is moving eastward.

Existing European agreements need to be transferred from a political to a legal basis. Russia would like to see a new treaty, but this is a long and difficult process. For now, would be satisfied if existing agreements were followed and perhaps expanded.

South African Truvelo Armory SG-1 Sniper Rifle

Twenty-three experts from nine countries have recently gathered in Bern, Switzerland, for the fourth edition of the Ammunition Safety Workshop organised by the European Defence Agency (EDA).

The primary objective of the event, which took place at the Armasuisse Test Centre in Thun, was to give Ammunition safety experts the floor to discuss results from a European ammunition safety test (Round Robin Test) and to provide an overview of the military test centre capabilities.

Thanks to the fruitful expert discussions at the laboratories and test ranges, the workshop delivered tangible results to participants and contributed to the further harmonisation of ammunition safety test procedures. Furthermore, even the first test results of the Round Robin test demonstrated the importance of EU T&E networking, since all tests could only be performed in a collaborative approach.

 

More information

• European Network of National Safety Authorities for Ammunition (ENNSA)
• Defence Test and Evaluation Base (DTEB)

A 7 Members-delegation of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence, led by SEDE Chair Mrs A. Fotyga is travelling to Georgia on 17-20 May. The main objective of the SEDE mission is to visit the EU Monitoring Mission and scrutinise its activities and main challenges. The programme will also include meetings with Georgian authorities – President and Prime Minister, governmental representatives (Minister of Foreign Affairs, Defence and Interior) and related parliamentary committees.
Source : © European Union, 2016 - EP

On the president’s order, six convicts sentenced to death were executed by hanging in Pol-e Charkhi prison on the morning of 8 May 2016. The executions came after the president’s speech at the joint session of both houses of Parliament on 25 April 2016, in which he announced that the time for unjustified amnesty was over. Although the death penalty is legal in Afghanistan, according to both the criminal code and Islamic law, actual executions have been implemented on an ad-hoc basis. The recent executions, however, may signal an end to the informal moratorium on capital punishment that has been in place for the past fifteen years, partially at the urging of the international community. The public’s increasing impatience with insurgent violence and the desire of the Afghan government to present itself as acting decisively seem to point in that direction. AAN’s Ehsan Qaane and Jelena Bjelica take a closer look at the issue.

On the morning of 8 May 2016, six convicts who had been sentenced to death were executed by hanging in Pol-e Charkhi prison in Kabul. According to information released by the National Directorate of Security (NDS) following the executions, the six were:

1. Muhammad Usman, a member of the Taleban who was convicted for planting an improvised explosive devise (IED) in Khairkot district of Paktika, which killed seven police officers. (No further details are available)

2. Khan Agha, also known as Abdul Rahman and a member of al-Qaeda, who was convicted for his involvement in the attack on Abdullah Laghmani, the deputy head of the NDS in 2009. Laghmani, local officials and 14 civilians were killed and 56 injured in the attack that took place outside a mosque in Mehtarlam.

3. Hamidullah, a member of the Taleban who was convicted for being involved in the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani in Kabul on 20 September 2011. Burhanuddin Rabbani was one of the founders of Jamiat-e-Islami, a former president of Afghanistan during the mujahedin era and head of the High Peace Council since 2010. (1)

4. Muhammad Ismail, a member of the Haqqani network who was convicted for his involvement in the planning of the suicide attack on Finest Supermarket in 2011. In this attack, Ms. Hamida Barmaki, a commissioner of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) was killed together with her husband and four children; in total nine Afghans and five foreigners died in the attack.

5. Hujatullah, a member of the Taleban who was convicted for planting an IED on a vehicle in Paghman province. The explosion killed nine civilians and injured others. (No further details are available)

6. Akmal, a member of the Taleban who was convicted for planning the attack on the Muhammad Daud Khan Military Hospital in 2011. The attack killed at least six people, including four members of the Afghan National Security Forces and injuring more than 20.

Presidential order

The execution of the six convicts comes in the wake of President Ghani’s hard-hitting speech at the joint session of both houses of Parliament on 25 April 2016 and a deadly attack in Kabul on 19 April 2016, which killed 68 and injured 347 people, and for which the Taleban claimed responsibility. In his address, which signalled the government’s hardening position on the war, on peace talks and on the Taleban (see AAN’s previous analysis here), the president avowed his resolve to implement tough justice, including through capital punishment:

The time for those who enjoyed unjustified amnesty is over. The government of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is committed to resolutely implementing decisions of the courts and judicial entities, including the rulings of execution.

At the same time, Ghani assured MPs (and a wider audience, including the international community) that his committment to punishing those who commit terrorists acts would be accompanied by respect for human rights, the rule of law and the Afghan constitution:

The enemies of Afghanistan should know that if they are caught on the combat field while committing terrorist acts against the people of Afghanistan, they will be brought to justice and the rule of law will be fully implemented. I assure you, respected representatives, elders, and the noble people of my country that as president and protector of the rights and security of the people of Afghanistan, I will resolutely deal with those who shed the blood of our soldiers and our innocent people and I will not hesitate to punish them. […] Our resolute acts have one clear message: our hand of justice is long and powerful and can reach all criminals and terrorists. Obviously, our firmness in establishing justice goes with our respect for our constitution, our human rights commitments and justice seeking policy.

He even thanked judges who had tried and ruled death penalties, and promised to protect them from revenge attacks: “I thank those who have tried the baghis (2) and ruled to execute them, and I assure them that we shall protect them.”

Ghani’s deputy spokesperson said on 29 April 2016 that “a week ago” the president ordered a review of the death sentences in accordance with the country’s legal system, which is based on Islamic law, Afghanistan’s constitution and human rights values. Indeed, a couple of days before his speech in parliament, the president established a committee to review all death sentences handed out so far, prior to their carrying out. While the exact composition of the review committee is unclear, AAN was told that it is chaired by the Attorney General and includes the deputy Attorney General, a member of the Supreme Court and unidentified “independent experts.” The president’s office reportedly also asked the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) to join the committee, but they were said to have refused. With at least two or three members of the committee affiliated to the country’s judiciary organs, which prosecuted and tried those sentenced to death, they are essentially put in charge of reviewing their own institutions’ work. This raises possible questions about the impartiality of death sentence reviews.

During the first week of the review committee’s work, ten cases were considered. The committee ruled that in six of the ten cases all legal standards had been met. A press release, issued by the presidential palace (Arg) on 8 May 2016, stated that the president had signed the execution orders “after careful consideration, completion of due process and [ascertaining the] fairness of the trials conducted.” According to Afghanistan’s legal system, once a death sentence has gone through all judiciary instances (Primary Court, Appeals Court and Supreme Court), execution orders for each death sentence still require the president’s signature.

The Arg press release also noted that the decision to carry out the death sentences had taken into account “the repeated requests of the families of the victims of terrorist attacks” and highlighted that the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan and the president are “committed to justice and punishing criminals who committed the criminal and terrorist acts, killed innocent people, or put security and public safety at risk.”

The six executions could be the first of many. According to palace officials in October 2014, shortly after Ghani came to power (quoted by Khaama news here), there were, at the time, 400 cases still waiting to be reviewed or signed off for execution by the president. Around 100 of these cases had been approved by the Supreme Court at the time and were awaiting the president’s signature. The remaining 300 had yet to be approved by the Supreme Court. This figure does not appear to have changed since then.

The 400 cases represent approximately 600 individuals sentenced to death.
 AAN was told that the majority of these individuals have been sentenced for ‘ordinary’ crimes, such as murder, while a notable number—estimated to be around 100 individuals—were sentenced for mass murder through acts of terrorism. It appears that the review process is focused on this latter category of convicts.

Taleban reaction

The Taleban issued an initial statement on 29 April 2016 in reaction to Ghani’s speech to the Parliament and the press statement made by the president’s spokesperson on the same day. In their statement, the Taleban said that the call for execution “holds no legal basis because these political prisoners are handed the death penalty by the most corrupt and incompetent judicial body in the world.” It also said that the “known individuals or unions and their workers advocating implementation of such crimes [ie execution]”, will “be classified as legitimate military targets.” The Taleban statement called on “international human rights organizations, independent media outlets, the ICRC and other free impartial committees not to remain indifferent in using their influence concerning [the] matter of prisoner execution.”

Following the 8 May 2016 executions, the Taleban issued two more statements. The first one, issued on the morning of the same day, was rather generic, lamenting the poor conditions in the overcrowded Afghan prisons and the lack of fair trials and accusing the Afghan government of torturing prisoners. The statement, which seems to have been prepared ahead of time and was probably not in response to the executions, was addressed to the United Nations and called on the UN’s shared responsibility to ensure that the Afghan government adhered to its international commitments.

The second statement issued in the evening of 8 May (available in English here) directly referred to the executions that were carried out, describing them as a “vindictive barbarity” that “spinelessly martyred six defenseless Mujahideen inmates.” The statement reiterated the warning to those involved in the executions, saying they would become “the top priority during military planning” and that “they will not be allowed to breathe peacefully, nor will they ever be able to feel secure.”

After 14 executions were carried out in 2012, the Taleban also demanded that the United Nations, Islamic countries, international human rights organisations and the Red Cross prevent prisoners’ executions (see AAN previous reporting here). Two days after the executions took place on 23 November 2012, a massive truck bomb by the Taleban targeting a joint Afghan/ISAF command facility in Wardak province was labeled as a “revenge attack.”

Public opinion and political complexities

The death penalty is legal in Afghanistan, according to both the criminal code and Islamic law. Public opinion also seems to be strongly in support of the capital punishment. Nader Nadery, a former commissioner of the AIHRC and currently a senior adviser in the presidential palace, told AAN in 2012 “there is more public demand for the death penalty because the rate of crime is increasing.” After the execution of five men found guilty of gang rape in Paghman province, carried out on 8 October 2014, local human rights groups as well as officials in Afghanistan welcomed the executions and the Afghan media found “public opinion appears solidly behind capital punishment,“ despite concerns over rushed proceedings and a possible lack of due process. In 2016, the rhetoric and position on capital punishment remains unchanged. When a young Afghan girl was raped and killed in Iran earlier this year, Afghan civil society activists went public with their demand for capital punishment for the perpetrator.

Arman-e Melli, a daily that is close to the National Union of Journalists of Afghanistan, wrote on 8 May 2016 under the headline “Well done, Ashraf Ghani!”: “The president has taken a good and constructive measure and we believe that such measures can have a positive impact on stability and security in the country… We support the measure taken by the president of our beloved country in this particular issue….” The privately owned Mandegar daily wrote that “the people of Afghanistan welcome the executions of terrorists and perpetrators of crimes against humanity and they expect these executions to be carried out and reported in full transparency… The media outlets should be present where the executions take place so that they can document the executions and report on them.” Daily Afghanistan, linked to Muhammad Mohaqqeq, now deputy to the CEO Dr Abdullah Abdullah, also welcomed the executions, adding that “The previous governments in Afghanistan did not take the war against the Taleban seriously… By taking this action, it seems that the government is no longer showing leniency towards the Taleban… This reaction puts the Taleban in a difficult situation and sends them a message that if they do not make peace, they are practically at war with the government and the government will treat them this way.”

Victims’ families, MPs and intellectuals have often been strong advocates for capital punishment. On 4 May 2016, for instance, Balkh MP Mawlavi Rahman Rahmani said at a Wolesi Jirga session that he had received a list of the 631 criminals who had been sentenced to death. “President Ghani has said he will seek the views from the international community and human rights organisations on sentencing these criminals to death,” Rahmani added that in his opinion “the criminals should be punished, otherwise we will continue to face the consequence we have been facing until now.”

There were some other misgivings, but not with regard to the death penalty per se. Atta Muhammad Nur, the acting governor of Balkh, for instance, was quoted on the Nunn.asia website on 10 May 2016, as saying that the convict’s family had not been consulted on the execution of Rabbani’s assassin – which he said should have been done and had been agreed upon. Atta added that “this person had many secrets about Rabbani and with his execution all those secrets were also buried.”

At the same time, Afghanistan faces pressure from donor countries, mostly by those who have abolished capital punishment themselves. The European Union has traditionally been the most outspoken in trying to convince Afghanistan not to implement death sentences. As EU Special Representative to Afghanistan, Franz-Michael Skjold Mellbin wrote in an earlier editorial published by Pajhwok news agency on 5 October 2015:

The European Union and its member states hold a strong and principled position against death penalty. Its abolition represents one of the main objectives of our Human Rights Policy – not only in Afghanistan, but worldwide. To honour the European & World Day against the Death Penalty, we therefore urge the Government to establish a moratorium with immediate effect that suspends the execution of death sentences in Afghanistan. Afghanistan needs less – not more violence.

Executions from 2001 until 2015

From the beginning, the EU and human rights organisations encouraged president Karzai, if not to abolish capital punishment entirely, to at least declare a formal moratorium on executions until the criminal justice system was sufficiently reformed to ensure that all convicts received a fair trial.

In April 2004, Abdullah Shah, a military commander from Paghman convicted for multiple murders committed during the country’s civil war, was executed in Kabul – the first execution since the establishment of the interim government in late 2001. He had been convicted in October 2002 in special court proceedings, which, according to Amnesty International, fell far short of international fair trial standards: Abdullah Shah had had no defense lawyer at his trial, the hearing was held in a closed court and the chief judge in the initial trial was dismissed for accepting bribes. The case was also criticised by those who saw it as an attempt to eliminate a key witness who could have implicated powerful figures in past human rights abuses.

President Karzai’s then chief spokesperson, Jawed Ludin, called the execution of Abdullah Shah an exception rather than a new rule, and stressed that this did not mean that the execution process had started.

Indeed no executions took place in 2005 or 2006, but in 2007 Afghanistan carried out fifteen executions and in 2008, eighteen death sentences were carried out. After another two years without executions, there were again two in 2011, fourteen in 2012, two in 2013, six in 2014 and one in 2015 (see here for the list of crimes that are punishable by death in Afghanistan).

Since taking office on 29 September 2014, Ghani signed one other execution order before the 8 May 2016 cases: on 28 February 2015, Rais Khudaidad (also known as Rais Saidullah) was hanged after being convicted of murder, kidnapping and armed robbery one month earlier. At least 12 new death sentences have been imposed for murder and rape under the new government, but have yet to be implemented.

Five more individuals were executed on 8 October 2014, shortly after Ghani became president. Their execution order for armed robbery and rape had been signed by Karzai only days before he handed over power and was carried out by Ghani, despite UN calls for a stay of executions, see here and here).

Walking a tightrope

President Ghani is walking a tightrope as he tries to show both the Afghan people and the international community that he can deliver on his promises to be tough and decisive on the insurgency. The government’s new position on executions, while playing to public demands, still sits uncomfortably with the international community, particularly the United Nations and the European Union. The United Nations issued a press release following the executions, in which the organisation reiterated its “continued call for a moratorium on the use of the death penalty.” The United Nations noted that there is no conclusive evidence of the death penalty having any deterrent value and that its use does not contribute to public safety, encouraging the Government of Afghanistan to expedite legal reforms, which would allow death sentences to be commuted to life imprisonment. Human Rights Watch (HRW) on 10 May 2016 called on President Ghani to “impose an immediate death penalty moratorium” and called on Afghanistan’s donors, who have bankrolled the reform of the country’s judicial system, to make ending the death penalty “a top priority.” Part of the context is that, apart from doubts regarding due process in all cases, torture is still an existing practice among Afghan security organs and that it cannot be ruled out that, in certain instances, confessions are obtained by such means.

However, with the review of the many pending cases having just begun and in a climate where executions seem to be welcome and wished for by the public, as well as with the government seeking to project a tougher position on its armed opponents – who show no signs of dropping terrorism from their agenda – the six executions carried out on 8 May 2016 may be just the beginning.

 

(1) For more background on Hamidullah’s role in Rabbani’s assassination, see earlier AAN reporting here, here  and here (the last dispatch also has the transcript of a video recording of Hamidullah’s confession, that was released by the NDS on 4 October 2011).

(2) Baghi is a legal term in Islamic jurisprudence used for a specific group that transgresses and conducts violent acts against a legitimate Islamic authority. In the context of Sharia law, baghis are outlaws and criminals that need to be eliminated.

 

Jorge Domecq, EDA’s Chief Executive, was in Bratislava on 10 and 11 May for talks with the Slovak Minister of Defence Peter Gajdoš, State Secretary of the Ministry of Defence Ivan Máčovský, as well as other senior officials in the MoD and the Armed Forces. Mr. Domecq also participated in a meeting of the National Armament Directors of the Visegard Group, attended the International Defence Exposition Bratislava (IDEB) and met with industry representatives.

Discussions with the Minister of Defence mainly focused on the upcoming Slovak Presidency of the European Union, Slovakia’s current and potential future contributions to EDA projects and programmes, the general state of play in European defence cooperation as well as several upcoming important defence-related milestones: the publication of the new EU Global Strategy in June, the Warsaw NATO summit in July and the European Commission’s Defence Action Plan expected to be presented by the end of this year. „Slovakia is currently considering its participation in some of the projects organised by EDA. We are evaluating available information and the possibility of our future involvement,” said Minister of Defence of the Slovak Republic Peter Gajdoš.

Mr. Domecq ensured Minister Gajdoš of the Agency’s support to any defence related events organised in the framework of the Slovak Presidency. Potential topics for seminars discussed were cyber defence and access to EU funding for dual-use R&T projects. Minister of Defence of the Slovak Republic Peter Gajdoš also informed Mr. Domecq about the preparations that Slovakia is currently undertaking and about the events it is organising during the Slovak Presidency.

The meeting of the National Armament Directors of the Visegard Group mainly included discussions of a Multinational Training Centre, Security of Supply and airworthiness. Based on an EDA analysis through the Agency’s Collaborative Database (CODABA), the Group also engaged in in an exchange of views on opportunities for cooperative capability initiatives. National Armament Directors received a presentation of a study on the Central and Eastern European (CEE) Member States by the EDA.

Mr. Domecq attended the opening of the IDEB which was followed by discussions with representatives of Slovak and Czech industry representatives. 

More information

• News "EDA Chief Executive visited Poland" (28 April 2016)