UN-backed northern disarmament begins

Standing in a long queue with his battered AK-47 assault rifle, Sultan Mohammad said his weapon was useless now as there was no longer any war in the country. "The jihad [holy war] of guns is over and now it is time for the jihad of work," the 45-year-old military officer told IRIN on Wednesday as a long-awaited disarmament exercise began in the northeastern Afghan city of Konduz. Mohammad is one of about 600 out of 100,000 ex-combatants in Afghanistan who may eventually be disarmed through the UN-backed country-wide Disarmament Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR). "I hope we are not left without a destiny and there are jobs or other civil activities," he said, noting that unemployment was already a big problem in his village of Imam Sahib, in a northern district of Konduz. Mohammad said he was being paid about US $90 per month in his battalion. "I am a farmer and will earn more than that in agriculture if I am provided with support," he said. According to the UN, the initial DDR pilot project was launched in Konduz on Tuesday. Around 1,000 people are scheduled to be disarmed in the next few days. "We have not had any challenges and it is going very smoothly so far," James Hession, a public information officer for the UN's Afghanistan New Beginning Programme (ANBP), told IRIN in Konduz. The ANBP asserted that there were many employment opportunities in and around Konduz, saying that it had already talked with its implementing partners. "Our implementing partners have assured us that there are many jobs here - for more than 1,000 people," Hession said. According to ANBP, six pilot projects will be undertaken before the main phase - the disarming of 100,000 ex-combatants - scheduled to start early next summer. "Six thousand people will be disarmed in the pilot projects in six provinces, comprising Konduz, Gardez, Mazar-e Sharif, Parvan (Kabul), Kandahar and Bamiyan provinces," he said. While the Konduz governor is happy about the DDR process, he warned that any failure in Konduz would impact on disarmament in all the other provinces. "It is a privilege that they [UN] started in this province. I hope all the elements of DDR, mainly re-employment of disarmed soldiers, also take place in the near future, so that an example can be set for the other provinces," Abdul Latif Ibrahimi told IRIN in Konduz city. According to officials in the city, only 1,000 out of thousands of armed people were selected for the pilot phase. "We have verified 500 people from division 54 and 500 from army corps number 6," Haji Hafizullah, a team member of the ANBP Regional Verification Committee, told IRIN, maintaining that there were thousands of armed men in both the units. "They will be addressed once the main phase of DDR starts," he noted. The UN in Konduz said the DDR was a voluntary process and that the ANBP was providing an incentive package to enable those disarmed to support their families during the transitional phase until they could fend for themselves. "The ex-combatant will receive a compensation/severance package including US $200 cash and a clothing and food package [130 kg of different types of food]," Hession said, adding that this was merely to ensure that the transition from a life of essentially no salary and no prospects to a reintegrated life would be easier and simpler. The UN-backed DDR process finally got under way following recent major reforms at the Afghan defence ministry. The multimillion dollar DDR programme was scheduled to start in the middle of this year, but was suspended by the UN pending major changes within the Northern Alliance-dominated ministry to render it more ethnically balanced.