Voters concerned about intimidation - survey

Afghans have voiced concern over possible intimidation by local commanders during next month's presidential elections, calling disarmament the single most important issue in improving security, a new survey released on Thursday said. Written by the Kabul-based Human Rights Research and Advocacy Consortium (HRRAC), the survey, entitled "Take the Guns Away: Afghan Voices on Security and Elections", highlights the views, collected in June and July 2004, of 763 Afghans from six major Afghan provinces; Faizabad, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e Sharif and the capital, Kabul. While those surveyed continued to complain of a wide range of human rights abuses at the hands of gunmen, they remained hopeful that the election on 9 October would bring positive changes, particularly an end to the rule of the gun. "About 88 percent of the people want the government to do more to reduce the powers of commanders in Afghanistan," Horia Mosadiq, HRRAC's deputy project director, told IRIN on Thursday, explaining that the interviews were conducted primarily by international researchers, while the surveys were carried out by the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission. Though most of the polling stations would be guarded by local security forces, the survey showed that people lacked trust in the local police, many of whom were loyal to local commanders rather than to the central government. "This is a reflection of Afghans' voices and we want to inform Afghan policymakers in Kabul, Washington and Brussels [NATO headquarters]," Mosadiq said. HRRAC is a group of 13 Afghan and international organisations working in the fields of humanitarian relief, reconstruction, human and women's rights, peace promotion, research and advocacy. The HRRAC survey follows a separate report by Human Rights Watch (HRW) released earlier this week, entitled "The Rule of the Gun: Human Rights Abuses and Political Repression in the Run-up to Afghanistan's Presidential Elections". HRW warned that warlord factions continued to threaten voters, candidates and political organisers. "These human rights abuses are jeopardising the integrity of the country's first national election," the watchdog group said. Observers in Kabul expressed concern at the findings of the HRRAC and HRW reports. "It's shocking that people in the six provinces have said they are under pressure from the warlords. The number is much higher in the provinces that HRRAC has not been able to visit due to insecurity," Abdul Kabir Ranjbar, president of the lawyers' union of Afghanistan, told IRIN. "If we are truly aware of absolute intimidation against voters and candidates, then holding the elections in such conditions is against the human rights declaration and the Afghan constitution," the law professor maintained. But despite these concerns, the United Nations in Kabul remained optimistic. According to the UN, there were more Afghan security forces now than before in securing polling stations. "You have the Afghan army and the Afghan police that will be present to guarantee the security of the process," Manoel de Almeida e Silva, a spokesman for the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA), told IRIN. According to the UNAMA official, the Afghan Interior Ministry was deploying some 25,000 men throughout the country to safeguard polling centres. Silva said there were more militia during the selection of delegates for the Emergency Loya Jirga (General Assembly of 2002) and the Constitutional Loya Jirga in late 2003, "and yet you saw how people throughout the country still came forward to vote and elect representatives".