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| Afghanistan/South Asia |
| Afghan warlords moved to civilian roles |
| 2004-07-20 |
| Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, removed three powerful militia commanders from their posts on Tuesday but awarded them key civilian jobs, disappointing hopes of a robust move to curb the so-called warlords' influence. Jawed Ludin, Mr Karzai's spokesman, said General Atta Mohammad, one of the country's strongest provincial commanders, would step down as head of a northern army corps and become governor of Balkh, the province in which his militia is based. Gen Hazrat Ali, corps commander in the eastern province of Nangahar, will become provincial police chief, while Khan Mohammad, his counterpart in the southern province of Kandahar, makes the same switch. "The changes are part of the ongoing process of trying to improve governance at the provincial level," Mr Ludin said. Local and foreign officials in Kabul have advocated stripping recalcitrant militia commanders of their positions in an attempt to dismantle provincial power structures and boost the strength of the central government outside Kabul. They voiced scepticism that the new appointments would improve the way local government was run. Under pressure from local and international officials, the three commanders have reluctantly complied with the disarmament programme and Mr Ludin insisted the reshuffle had nothing to do with last week's threat. "They are not being moved as a gesture of punishment, they're being promoted." Observers in Kabul on Tuesday said that the commanders' reassignment was a sign that Mr Karzai remained anxious not to make political enemies with elections looming in October. "You have the centre nominally standing up to the strongmen but not fundamentally changing the reality on the ground," said Vikram Parekh, an analyst in Kabul for the International Crisis Group, a Brussels-based think-tank. "They've been handled rather gingerly because Karzai feels the need to maintain alignments in the run-up to elections." The decision to make Gen Atta governor of Balkh is likely to anger his arch rival, Gen Abdul Rashid Dostum, who controls a large militia in the region and heads one of the main political parties. |
| Posted by:Dan Darling |