Ethnic split emerges at Loya Jirga

Delegates from Afghanistan's Constitutional Loya Jirga (CLJ) reassembled in private on Friday in order to heal an ethnic rift that could stall the mammoth gathering trying to hammer out a new set of laws for the nation. The Loya Jirga, or Grand Assembly, descended into chaos a day earlier after an estimated 200 ethnic minority members of the 502 delegates refused to vote on amendments to the draft charter. The 502-delegate gathering began on 14 December and was expected to last 6-10 days. But it has yet to ratify the country's 160-article post-conflict constitution as it entered its twentieth day on Friday. The event is costing foreign donors about US $50,000 per day to stage. CLJ chairman Sebghatullah Mujadidi announced on Thursday morning that the gathering had to stop talking and start voting on contentious aspects of the draft, like the power of the presidency, but only 270 out of 502 delegates participated. But many delegates from the minority Tajik, Hazara and Uzbek ethnic groups, refused to vote for fear that their rights would be ignored by the majority Pashtuns. "I am concerned that there is an ethnic polarisation that was unnecessary that could be, if allowed to continue, very damaging," the European Union (EU) envoy to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, said on the same day. The vote, on five disputed articles, including official languages, presidential powers, dual nationality, and the issuance of bank notes, had been postponed from Wednesday when members failed to agree. The debate made no progress on Thursday and eventually the session was called off until Saturday. By which time interim leader Hamid Karzai and his supporters hope to have won over opponents seeking to dilute his powers ahead of presidential elections in June. "They did not have one specific request. Some had issues like official languages, there were some others with proposals like more authority to parliament and there should be a constitutional tribunal and others like Uzbeks and Hazaras had their specific requests," Nader Naderi, a commissioner from the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) told IRIN. Afghans outside the UN-supervised event said they were disappointed that the grand assembly which was expected to ratify Afghanistan's new constitution, had degenerated into ethnic bickering. "I think this was not the time to gather all these people around. Yes we needed new laws but not at the cost of remerging of ethnic and political tensions," Shah Mohammad, a local civil servant and CLJ observer in Kabul told IRIN.