Kabul Takes Steps Toward Disarming Afghan Population

[owlswan free eagle]

Thought you should see some of the quotes in this:

*****

Afghanistan:

Once the ID cards are issued, the authorities plan to require civilians
to register their weapons with the police. At that time, they will take
on the sensitive issue of who is allowed to keep guns in their homes.

"We haven't decided to go house to house yet," General Khan said, "but
we are studying how to do it." Officials said they hoped to carry out
the program across the country.

and:

That compares with 100 reported cases of all serious crimes: robbery,
murder, drug smuggling and the like in the last two months. "This is not
a normal situation," Mr. Karim said. "When there are no guns in the
hands of people, the number of robberies will decrease. Right now, it's
a very difficult situation to control."

**Huh?***

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/international/asia/14AFGH.html
-- 
Love and peace,
owlswan

"Did you really think that we want those laws to be observed? . . .
We want them broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a
bunch of boy scouts that you're up against - and then you'll know
that this is not the age for beautiful gestures. We're after power
and we mean it. . . . . There's no way to rule innocent men. The only
power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares
so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to
live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding
citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of
laws that can neither be observed nor enforced nor objectively
interpreted - and you create a nation of lawbreakers - and then you
cash in on the guilt. Now that's the system, . . . that's the game,
and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with."
   From Atlas Shrugged, by Ayn Rand. Published by Penguin Boo

January 14, 2002

INTERNATIONAL


<http://www.nytimes.com/2002/01/14/international/asia/#>



Kabul Takes Steps Toward Disarming Afghan Population

By MARK LANDLER

  ABUL, Afghanistan, Jan. 13 - Starting Monday, people here whose jobs 
require them to carry guns will also have to carry government 
identification cards, the authorities said today. It is part of an 
ambitious plan by Afghanistan's interim rulers to end the ubiquity of 
weapons in this heavily armed society.

Disarming Afghanistan's 24 million people is critical to restoring 
order in the country, according to Gen. Bismullah Khan, a Northern 
Alliance commander who oversees security in Kabul and its surrounding 
province.

General Khan said that crime had spiked in Kabul in the chaotic 
aftermath of the Taliban rule, as Northern Alliance soldiers, militia 
members, irregular troops, security guards and any number of other 
people with guns roam this city.

Traumatized by two decades of war and repression, the people of Kabul 
now face the more pedestrian, but equally lethal, dangers of banditry 
and car-jacking as well as the threat of death by violence.

Once the ID cards are issued, the authorities plan to require 
civilians to register their weapons with the police. At that time, 
they will take on the sensitive issue of who is allowed to keep guns 
in their homes.

"We haven't decided to go house to house yet," General Khan said, 
"but we are studying how to do it." Officials said they hoped to 
carry out the program across the country.

Two men were arrested and confessed to having killed Walid Samadi. 
His body was dumped in a well in a remote part of the Shamali Valley, 
north of here. The soldiers said they had ordered him out of the car 
and shot him in the face, chest and back as he pleaded for his life.

It is a tragic but hardly unusual story. From taxi drivers to school 
workers, everyone here seems to know a recent crime victim.

"Whenever there is a knock at the door or a small noise outside, I 
jump," said Naima Samadi, as she huddled in her unheated home, 
cradling a photo of her slain son. "I am afraid that my other sons 
will be killed."

The lawlessness extends beyond the capital. In southern Afghanistan, 
where the interim government has little control and the United States 
continues to bomb suspected hide- outs of Taliban fighters and Al 
Qaeda terrorists, the lack of security is hampering relief efforts.

The United Nations has not been able to distribute food in Kandahar, 
the former stronghold of the Taliban, because of fears that armed 
bandits will attack its convoys and workers.

"Security continues to be a significant obstacle to reaching people," 
said Jordan Dey, a spokesman for the World Food Program.

Last week, Afghanistan's interim government took its first step to 
combat the lawlessness. It ordered between 300 and 400 Northern 
Alliance troops, who had been loitering in Kabul since the Taliban 
fled their advance on Nov. 9, to leave the city.

Today, the interior minister, Yunus Qanooni, said the bulk of the 
soldiers had moved to barracks outside Kabul. Those still here are 
waiting for quarters to be readied.

While Kabul is peaceful enough by day, there has been a surge in 
nighttime robberies by people wearing uniforms, some of whom claim to 
be looking for weapons or fugitive Taliban members.

Abdul Karim, director of research for the Kabul Police, said there 
had been 15 such robberies during one week, from Dec. 30 to Jan. 6.

That compares with 100 reported cases of all serious crimes: robbery, 
murder, drug smuggling and the like in the last two months. "This is 
not a normal situation," Mr. Karim said. "When there are no guns in 
the hands of people, the number of robberies will decrease. Right 
now, it's a very difficult situation to control."

The police are also hopelessly outgunned. Mr. Karim said there were 
only 100 trained police officers in Kabul, constituting 30 percent of 
the force. The other 70 percent, some of them former soldiers, were 
hired off the street to help with assignments.

"Our problem is that we lack the basic elements of a police 
department," Mr. Qanooni said. "It was completely destroyed by the 
Taliban. We must rebuild it from zero."

While the government creates a new police force, the military is 
starting to confiscate weapons from troops no longer on active duty. 
Gen. Qalandar Big, who runs the main ammunition depot here, said he 
had collected 2,000 guns.

General Big showed off a small collection of machine guns and 
rocket-propelled grenade launchers that he said came from Northern 
Alliance troops. But he became evasive when asked where the 2,000 
weapons were, saying they had not yet been delivered to him. "We have 
not faced resistance," General Big said. "Most people in Afghanistan 
are in favor of turning in their weapons."

Still, he noted that when the Taliban abandoned Kabul, they left very 
few weapons behind. Many of those people remain at large, in the 
rugged hills of eastern Afghanistan near the Pakistan border. They 
constitute another armed and dangerous group.

Confiscating weapons from civilians poses its own difficulties. When 
the Taliban collected guns from families, for example, people often 
turned in one, while keeping a spare.

Mr. Qanooni said the government would rather entice than compel 
people to surrender their weapons. The most basic solution, he said, 
would be to provide economic opportunities so that people no longer 
believed that they needed a gun to survive.

"We need to give jobs to the mujahedeen," he said. Failing that, Mr. 
Qanooni said the government could offer to buy guns from their 
owners. "If we spent $200 million, we could buy all of them," he 
said. "Unfortunately, we do not have it."

Perhaps the thorniest challenge is to break the cycle of violence in 
Afghanistan. The murder of Walid Samadi was the second violent death 
in his family; his eldest brother Farid, an engineering student, was 
killed by a shell during the Afghan civil war in 1994.

Asked whether he wanted to carry a gun, Walid's younger brother, 
Habib, shook his head vigorously. "We don't like to carry weapons," 
he said. "We hate weapons." After looking at his grief-stricken 
mother, he added, "Of course it would be good for the security of our 
family."


Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company | 
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