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Sep
29
2007AFGHAN VICE-PRESIDENT PRESSES KARZAI ABOUT BIG HEROIN KHANS
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Says Some Top Gov’t Officials Linked To Drug Gangs
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Ahmed Zia Massoud: openly addresses heroin menace within the US-backed regime
Afghan First vice-president, Ahmed Zia Massoud, has renewed his challenge to President Karzai to get to grips with officials in the Kabul regime who accept bribes from the country’s big drug trafficking gangs in exchange for shielding criminals from arrest and prosecution.
Speaking at the opening ceremony for a new counter-narcotics police complex, Ahmed Zia said: "We should admit that some top-ranking government officials are unfortunately linked to the smuggling of drugs."
With the head of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency looking on, the vice-president blamed corruption in the regime’s ministries for the country’s boom in opium production.
"The government should take stringent measures against those involved in drug smuggling,” he said.
Though President Karzai often speaks at length on the evils of heroin trafficking and addiction, he avoids mentioning traffickers and their stooges in the regime. Ahmed Zia is one of Karzai’s leading political rivals. In part, he is applying pressure on one of the President's weak fronts, since Karzai relies on the support of a large number of leading druglords and suspect functionaries.
Ahmed Zia’s remarks come one month after he authored a column for Britain’s Sunday Telegraph, in which he declared that the international community’s current policy on opium poppy eradication in the conflict-ridden south of Afghanistan “has completely failed.”
He departed significantly from President Karzai’s position that massive aerial spraying of herbicides to kill the crops should be avoided, writing: "The time has come for us to adopt a more forceful approach. We must switch from ground-based eradication to aerial spraying.”
In one way, that sentiment is music to the ears of the Bush administration, which is seeking to overcome resistance to spraying by both Karzai and the British government. However, DEA chief Karen Tandy would have felt less than comfortable with the vice-president’s frank language about corruption among top regime officials.
The Bush administration, like Karzai, has tolerated the presence of heroin Khans in the Kabul regime, believing that their arrest or forced removal from office would accelerate Karzai’s declining fortunes.
As revealed in skyreporter’s AFGHAN HEROIN series of film reports, which can be viewed in Recent Stories, the DEA stood silently on the sidelines as one of Afghanistan’s most celebrated drug-busters, Kabul Airport police chief Gen. Amerkhel – at one time a trusted ally of the American agents - was removed from office by Karzai’s Attorney General, Abdul Jabar Sabet.
Sabet has been accused of acting for the drug gangs in his vendetta against Amerkhel (see our reports of Sept. 24th).
Although Ahmed Zia’s comments may stir some reaction, it’s doubtful that heads will roll. President Karzai is still resisting calls by parliament to dissolve his special “anti-corruption” office, which is headed by Izzatullah Wasifi, convicted in the 1980’s for selling heroin to an undercover policeman in Las Vegas.
Like Sabet, Wasifi has failed to achieve a single substantial prosecution during his tenure.
The illogic of the Karzai regime’s predicament is exceeded only by that of its principal sponsor and protector, the Bush administration – which continues to “stay the course” of its blowback-prone policies in Afghanistan.
It is one of those instances that if it wasn't for the sad effect of it, I would laugh to hear that of all the people, Ahmad Zia Masoud, a former Afghan ambassador in Moscow would now make statements about the issue of bribery and corruption in Afghanistan.
When he was the ambassador in Moscow, it was common practice to pay a bribe and buy an Afghan passport, as if one would go and buy something from a convenient store.
Except that in a convenient store, you don't have to bribe and buy something. You just buy it!
Aziz, that's a pretty grim accusation. All I can tell you is that in my 28 years' experience in Afghanistan, the conduct of Ahmed Zia and his family stand out as among the most honorable.
Often, you can judge a man's character by the nature of those who attack him. The ISI, ethnic supremacists and political rivals - ghouls like Hekmatyar and Osama. These are the folks who delight in bashing Ahmed Shah's memory and slighting his brothers - in other words, the culprits who are largely to blame for putting Afghanistan in the predicament it's in now.
It would be absurd to compare the ISI, ethnic supremacists and current political rivals - ghouls like Hekmatyar and Osama to the so-called honorable Masoud family to sort out the "blameworthy" from the "innocent." All of them, and others whose names haven't been mentioned and who have been involved in all this, without an exception are to blame for the current situation, including their foreign funders.
Some of them now hide in "suits and ties" to appear "secular" and "reform-minded" and some of them in "traditional clothes" to appear more "religious" and "pious", depending on what particular appearance appeases which foreign funder.
You have had your 28 years' of experience in Afghanistan as an outsider, in which period, you have had the luxury to leave whenever the going would get tough, but most have of us have lived through these horrible years and have experienced them first-hand, from the communist regime to the present.
Tell us something beyond the limited boundaries of ethnicity, which have been promoted in a manipulative manner to serve the self-interests of the few. Similarly, tell us something that is not caught up in the "civilized us" and "barbaric other" dichotomy.
As for the accusation, all you have to do is verify it with the Canadian Embassy or UNHCR in Moscow, whose staff members, have had first-hand experience with the Afghan refugee community residing in Russia and the Afghan embassy in Moscow.
"...In the garden of they heart plant naught but the rose of love, and from the nightingale of affection and desire loosen not thy hold..."
Baha'u'llah
Those are strong words, Aziz. Thanks for sharing them with us. Why don't you tell us a little more about yourself, and your background - just so we can all have a better measure of where those sentiments come from.
Aziz,
Zia Massoud has enough money (HALAL OR HARAM)here is not the place to talke and he had that before you was born in this earth.it would be absloutly nonsence to say that he had any interest on brib money which related to passport.it is such a fool opinion of you and possible that you measasure every one on your own scale. think again!!! have you or your family anyone else around you paid any sum of money for such a brib,
1- the ambassador never issues possport in mosscow!
2- from such big position to aske your stuff to take a 20$ brib for me it could be you or your father.
3- i dont know why you paid a brib to take a passport or related issues, i have been 15 years in moscow and i never paid anything whoever was in charg!!and no relation as will.
i know that your comment is not bassed on truth, just you are talking Rubbish!!!!!!
Let your enumerated argument stand as testimony to its validity.
I am glad that you personally did not have to go through the red tape and normalized practice to obtain your passport!
Arthur
I deeply appreciate what you have done for Afghanistan, but my friend, things are not how they seem. The vice president is perhaps one of the biggest thieves in all of Afghanistan. He hides it well. Others who seem like criminals are in fact the ones who are trying to make a difference. No one gives them authority to reel in the big fish. Believe it or not Mr. Sabet is an honest man. He may be belligerent but he is honest. Many common Afghans share my views. Interviews some villagers.
These guys like Aziz are just racist Pashtuns and will throw accusations against any non-Pashtun leader as a smear campaign. Just ignore these people.
Hi Arthur:Some pretty heavy comments on here today.
So what's this I,m reading today about Karzai telling the Taliban he will find positions in his government for them in exchange for peace.
Has it come down to peace at any cost.Or is this just more absurd posturing by Karzai.
Canada has said no negoiations with terrorists.But then again Canada isn't calling the shots there.Many have died including Canadian troops at the hands of the Taliban.
Just what is going on here now ???
As for Mr. Massoud sounds like he just made a few enemies among the drugs people.
The ever destructive nature of "labeling" and "assuming" without debating the contents of the argument...
dear Aziz!
why can not you answer naijil's question 1?
1-it is the consular who issues passports, not the embassador.
please answer this question.
secondly: a passport was and i guess still is around $120, how much he could get bribe?
dear aziz, even the fools arround u can not bye your accusations. but we know they will continue to spread such kind of shamefull stories every where among other fools.
dear aziz, we all know your feelings are extreamly hurt, not by massod or his family but by hekmatyar and mula omar, taliban and people arround them.
we know it is not easy, where ever these embarrasing names go thier ethnicity is mentioned, as much as they continue to destroy thier country for KALDAR from ISI that much more embarassment will be noted in the hitory for u as well.
dear aziz remember, that this time the history will not be wrritten by absolute governments of 1 ethnicity. this time the whole world is observing people like hekmatyar and mula omer thier originality, thier culture and thier dark aged mintality. they will be studied and they will be every where, on the net, on the books , on documantaries ....
other blind followers of them will never be allowed to the power structure of afghanistan. unless they get civilaized enough first.
you are not the first to accuse massod and his family. ur leader hekmatyar with all his support from pakistan sudiye arabia and all GHAIORs and GHOLs after him faild.
u better bear the pain if you were one of them.
MS-RW
Next time if either of you wished to embark on PR (public relations) work or publicity for Mr. Zia Ahmed Masoud, the work and effort put into it can be effective only if you observed one key rule: to refrain from abusive language.
Only then would people start to pay attention to the contents of the message. That is not to say that you may not be pointedly critical in your assertions.
Further, you should be careful about your claim to "civility," and "open-minded mentality" implied in your poster, when all evidence suggests otherwise.
I MIGHT consider answering your questions only IF you read again my poster, in which you might find the answer and also if I see a genuine effort on your part to confirm that you are interested in a civil debate.