Shared in accordance with the "fair dealing" provisions, Section 29, of the Copyright Act.
Brian Hutchinson, Vancouver Sun, 9 Dec 06
Rookie Afghan parliamentarians from different ethnic
and religious factions waggle fingers at each other and shout across
the curved pavilion. Cellphones ring constantly inside the dingy,
249-seat chamber, one half of the bicameral National Assembly that
convened late last year, for the first time in a generation.
Today's proceedings will not include the flinging of objects and
the raising of fists, although such incidents have happened in the
new Afghan parliament.
At issue this week is a proposed $119 million US loan to
Afghanistan's state bank, from the International Monetary Fund.
One might think a large, low-interest financial package would
receive fast approval; after all, this country seems to need all the
help it can get.
However, there is sharp dissent, and most of it comes from a seat
in the chamber's second row where one of Afghanistan's most
outspoken politicians -- Ramazan Bashardost -- rails against the
proposed IMF loan.
Recently returned from a 25-year exile in France, where he worked,
studied, and received a doctorate in political science, the
44-year-old bachelor is best known for denouncing international
relief and funding agencies that operate in Afghanistan, including
those from the UN and World Bank.
For more than a year, Bashardost has alleged corrupt practices by
foreign agencies.
He describes them as self-serving as the local bureaucracies and
government departments they are supposed to help.
Relief agencies "are more dangerous than warlords," Bashardost has
said. Some of them, he claims, operate like "mafia," diverting funds
meant for reconstruction.
He said they should be thrown out of Afghanistan.
The allegations are serious, but Bashardost -- who a year ago was
the country's planning minister in President Harmid Karzai's cabinet
-- has offered little hard evidence to support them. And his
preoccupation with the issue cost him that job, which he was given
in 2004, just a year after returning from France.
While in cabinet, Bashardost raised the ire of Afghanistan's
international community, first by asking precisely where billions of
aid dollars were being spent in the country, and then suggesting
some were being used more to benefit foreign workers than Afghans.
He launched an official investigation into the matter, but it was
never completed.
Last year, Bashardost and his ministry were marginalized, and it
was reported Karzai planned to shuffle him from cabinet.
But Bashardost resigned his post as a "protest against corruption."
His defiance endeared him to Afghans who also wondered why promised
improvements to infrastructure and schools seemed slow to
materialize, despite a large foreign-aid presence for the past
several years.
Seizing an opportunity, Bashardost declared himself a House of
Representative candidate in last autumn's election, and sailed to
victory. He claims to be the only independent, non-aligned member of
the entire National Assembly; everyone else, he said, owes his or
her seat to tribal, religious, or political affiliations.
"I serve the people, and the others do not," declares Bashardost,
during a break in this week's IMF loan debate. "That means that I
can speak my mind when others cannot. I am alone."
But he makes himself remarkably accessible. While some elected
Afghans seldom make time to meet with ordinary citizens, much less
hear their complaints, Bashardost maintains an open-tent policy.
Literally.
Three days a week, he can be found at Kabul's only outdoor
constituency office, a makeshift tent set up in the middle of Park E
Shahre Naw, a popular downtown greenspace in Kabul.
Bashardost welcomes visitors to sit with him under a haphazard
construction of blue plastic tarpaulins. On Sunday, he received a
small delegation of elders, sombre men who had come to air
grievances. A wood stove sat in the centre, unlit despite the late
autumn chill.
Outside, another crowd was gathered. Some men stood reading
newspaper articles Bashardost pasted to a half-dozen large
signboards. Others peered at photographs: Bashardost shaking hands
with delegations or Bashardost speaking at rallies.
A sentry hut is nearby with two security guards to keep an eye on
things.
Rarely is there any trouble, Bashardost said.
"I think it's great that he comes here and speaks with us," grinned
Arman Shahrarian, a 21-year-old high school student. "I wish all
politicians had a tent like this, so we could discuss issues with
them." Bashardost has a certain popularity with the working classes,
but he's not a "populist," the former exile insists.
That's a label worn by politicians who "will do anything for
power," he adds.
He's more comfortable with the word reformist, and Bashardost wants
change.
All of Karzai's cabinet ministers must leave office, he said.
"They are part of the mafia systems running the country."
The National Assembly is dysfunctional, he adds.
"Some representatives cannot read or write. A majority are
warlords. Some are involved in the drug trade. We only sit three
days a week, for three hours. It's too much for the salaries we
receive."
He notes ordinary members of Parliament receive about $1,350 per
month, or 28 times what a clerk or professor might earn.
But he saves his sharpest attacks for those who spend aid money on
themselves. Instead of helping rebuild Afghanistan, they are pushing
it backwards, he said.
"You people in Canada, you work hard and pay many taxes. A lot of
your money is coming here. Unfortunately it is used by a minority of
people for their own interests, to buy $60,000 cars ...
"In five years, the IMF and the World Bank and the UN agencies have
directed the Afghan state. The result has been negative."
Few of the nation's most powerful would admit paying any attention
to Bashardost.
Still, he's not as alone as he claims.
Bashardost won a measure of support in the Wolesi Jirga -- the
lower house of Afghanistan's National Assembly -- this week when the
proposed IMF loan he opposed was not approved. Instead,
representatives decided to ask Afghanistan's Ministry of Finance for
more information about how the large sum would be directed, and to
whom, and for what.