People surrender arms but want rebuilding

Tribal elder Mullah Saleh Mohammad stands with dozens of white-bearded men and other residents under a sparkling sun in a narrow valley in the Narkh district, listening to a government delegation asking them to surrender their arms. Dr Fazal Rahim Bower, provincial coordinator for the Disbandment of Illegal Armed Groups (DIAG) in Maidan Wardak province, has asked the gathering to support the disarmament process in Narkh, 15 km west of the provincial capital Maidan Shar. “Fighting is over. We are in the phase of reconstruction. All our miseries are caused by arms, so I need your strong determination for surrendering arms,” he told them. “All types of weapons in your houses are banned and … would be collected. If anybody feels threatened they could get arms permits from the government,” Bower added. But Mullah Saleh Mohammad’s reaction to the request is mixed. “People are ready to surrender their arms but they do not rely on the promises of the government,” the 57-year-old said. “Our government has done nothing for us,” adding the people were suffering from unemployment, poverty and a lack of health, educational and agricultural facilities. “If the government wants to eliminate insecurity, it should address the problems of unemployment and poverty in the urban areas [first],” he said. Another member of the delegation, Ali Ahmad Khahshie from the ministry of labour and social affairs, told the gathering those who surrendered arms would be rewarded with vocational centres, orphanages, schooling and employment opportunities. The Maidan Wardak province, about 30 km west of the capital Kabul, was a frontline for warring factions during two decades of conflict, but the disarmament programme has enjoyed good success there, according to DIAG officials. Residents in the province’s urban areas, however, complain reconstruction has been slow, although the shape of the provincial capital Maidan-Shar has changed significantly since the newly appointed provincial leadership launched several big projects. Over the past two months alone, local residents had voluntarily surrendered about 250 light and heavy weapons, provincial governor Abdul Jabbar Naeemi said. “All people, including commanders and ordinary individuals, holding weapons in their houses, should surrender their arms,” he said. Lack of awareness among local populations was the main challenge in the disarmament process, the governor added. “We are conveying the message of our president [Hamid Karzai] regarding disarmament to the people [but] with many difficulties,” he added. The governor admitted reconstruction was slow in districts and appealed for international assistance. “In some of the districts, students are studying under the shadow of trees due to a lack of school buildings,” he said. Following the disarmament of Afghan militia forces under the UN-backed Disarmament, Demobilisation and Reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants programme, completed in late June, the Afghan government and the UN are now focusing on the DIAG initiative. According to officials of the disarmament commission, more than 20,000 arms have been collected within DIAG operations across the country since its launch in early June. Financed by the Japanese government, DIAG is run by the interior and defence ministries and the national security agency, and overseen by the UN. According to the disarmament commission, laws will soon be in force banning the unlicensed ownership of private arms and ammunitions. Only those with permits issued by the interior ministry will be allowed to bear arms. All arms stored in caches would be collected first, while individuals keeping small arms in their houses should surrender or license them, said Ahmad Jan Nawzadi, a spokesman for Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme (ANBP), the official name of the DDR programme. More than 60,000 former combatants had been disarmed under the DDR initiative, which took the international community almost 20 months and more than US $150 million to complete. In addition to the decommissioning of ex-combatants, about 35,000 light and medium weapons and 11,004 heavy weapons were collected across the country.