Afghanistan

Afghanistan reacts mildly to corruption allegations revealed by WikiLeaks

Topics: 
Corruption, Afghanistan
Rating: 
2

Laura King – November 29, 2010

In diplomatic cables, President Hamid Karzai is called weak and paranoid, and his half-brother, a key government figure, is referred to as a corrupt drug dealer. But a spokesman for the president says 'there is not much in the documents that surprises us.'

Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan — The Afghan government said Monday that the publication of secret diplomatic cables that disparaged President Hamid Karzai and his half-brother Ahmed Wali Karzai was "unfortunate" but that it did not expect relations with Washington to be affected.

Harper throws down corruption gauntlet to Karzai

Topics: 
Corruption, Afghanistan
Rating: 
0

Juliet O’Neill – November 20, 201

LISBON, Portugal — Prime Minister Stephen Harper told Afghan President Hamid Karzai on Saturday that he must reduce corruption or Canada will “not dispense a dime” directly to his government.

Harper said Karzai expressed an expectation at the NATO summit in Lisbon that 50 per cent of the multibillion-dollar aid coming from donor countries go directly to his government instead of through the United Nations and other multilateral programs or non-government aid agencies.

The detainees file appears lost in the fog of committee

Topics: 
Richard Colvin, Afghanistan
Rating: 
0

Lawrence Martin – November 16, 2010

Remember the Afghan detainees’ controversy? You might not because the Liberals, who had the government cornered on this explosive file, have let it fade from public view.

The dispute over the question of whether the government knowingly allowed war captives to be tortured by Afghan authorities is an issue that has visited more embarrassments on the Conservatives than perhaps any other.

Marks, nearby cables, not proof of Afghan torture says general

Topics: 
Afghanistan
Rating: 
3

Murray Brewster – October 6, 2010

OTTAWA - A former senior commander who oversaw Canada's war in Afghanistan clashed sharply Wednesday with a human rights lawyer over what constitutes evidence of torture.

Retired lieutenant general Michel Gauthier told a hearing that marks on a prisoner's body and a pair of suspicious cables nearby weren't ironclad evidence of torture, although it was "certainly possible'' the man was abused.

"What more facts do you need general?" asked Paul Champ, lawyer for Amnesty International and the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.

One in five Afghan detainees reported abuse to Canadian diplomats

Topics: 
Afghanistan
Rating: 
0

Murray Brewster – October 4, 2010

Roughly 21 per cent of Afghan prisoners interviewed by Canadian diplomats over a nine-month period reported some form of abuse by Afghan authorities, according to new figures released Monday.

The numbers, laid out during testimony before a Military Police Complaints Commission hearing, show that eight of 38 captives taken into custody by the Canadian army in late 2007 and early 2008 claim to have been mistreated.

US soldiers in Afghanistan accused of killing civilians for sport

Topics: 
USA, Afghanistan
Rating: 
0

Craig Whitlock – September 18, 2010

AT JOINT BASE LEWIS-MCCHORD, WASH. The U.S. soldiers hatched a plan as simple as it was savage: to randomly target and kill an Afghan civilian, and to get away with it.

For weeks, according to Army charging documents, rogue members of a platoon from the 5th Stryker Combat Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, floated the idea. Then, one day last winter, a solitary Afghan man approached them in the village of La Mohammed Kalay. The "kill team" activated the plan.

Casualties are unambiguous, it's why government hides or distorts them

Topics: 
Government transparency, Afghanistan, Access to information, Message control or 'spin'
Rating: 
0

So in the absence of casualty reports, war becomes interpretive. But is it worthwhile at 4,500 Canadian casualties in Afghanistan, by CTV's estimate?

Tom Korski –September 27, 2010

In these last months of war, will they say we couldn't even count?

The mission in Afghanistan is so caked in half-truths and concealment the government now lies to itself. The official Department of National Defence weekly The Maple Leaf recently reported "the 143rd casualty of the Afghan conflict was repatriated."

In fact casualties—the dead, wounded, disabled and mentally unfit—number many times that figure. No correction was published (see The Maple Leaf vol. 13, no.22, p. 9).

Afghan intelligence officer bragged about torture

Topics: 
Afghanistan
Rating: 
1

Startling 2009 admission spurred troops to halt prisoner transfers and sent Canadian officials scrambling to verify NDS statement

Murray Brewster – September 08, 2010

Ottawa — A member of Afghanistan's notorious intelligence service boasted to Canadian military officers in the spring of last year that his organization was able to “torture” or “beat” prisoners during the course of its investigations, federal documents say.

The startling declaration, believed to be the first to come directly from a serving National Directorate of Security officer, sent officials in Ottawa reeling and left Canadian diplomats and correctional officers in Kandahar scrambling to verify the statement, according to briefing notes obtained by The Canadian Press.

Inside Corrupt-istan, a Loss of Faith in Leaders

Topics: 
International, Corruption, Afghanistan
Rating: 
0
Afghan Corruption

Dexter Filkins – September 4, 2010

The government of President Hamid Karzai may be awash in corruption, venality and graft, but if you walk the tattered halls of the ministries here, it is remarkably easy to find an honest man.

One of them is Fazel Ahmad Faqiryar, who last month took the politically risky course of trying to prosecute senior members of Mr. Karzai’s government. Two weeks ago, Mr. Faqiryar was fired from his job as deputy attorney general — on the order, it appears, of Mr. Karzai himself.

“The law in this country is only for the poor,” Mr. Faqiryar said afterward.

Graft-Fighting Prosecutor Fired in Afghanistan

Topics: 
International, Corruption, Afghanistan
Rating: 
0

Dexter Filkins and Alissa J. Rubin – August 28, 2010

KABUL, Afghanistan — One of the country’s most senior prosecutors said Saturday that President Hamid Karzai fired him last week after he repeatedly refused to block corruption investigations at the highest levels of Mr. Karzai’s government.

Fazel Ahmed Faqiryar, the former deputy attorney general, said investigations of more than two dozen senior Afghan officials — including cabinet ministers, ambassadors and provincial governors — were being held up or blocked outright by Mr. Karzai, Attorney General Mohammed Ishaq Aloko and others.

Pages

Subscribe to Afghanistan