Appeal: Lengthen the mandate, stop the air attacks, demand good government from Kabul!

The parliamentary debate on Afghanistan begins on Tuesday and the Society for Threatened Peoples (GfbV) appealed in a letter to the members of the German Parliament to vote for a continuation of the Bundeswehr mission. Breaking off the mission half-way is not a credible alternative since without the protective force the safety of the civilian population is not secure. The warlords have been using the seven years since the fall of the Taliban to equip themselves with new weapons with which to attack one another when the international forces have left. The dreadful scenario of the 90s, when tens of thousands of civilians were the victims of the murderous warlords, must not be repeated.

The German Parliament urgently needs an honest debate on the aims and a new strategy of the ISAF operation of the Bundeswehr, said the GfbV. The Bundeswehr must speak out vigorously to say that the air attacks of international forces must be stopped since the increasing number of civilian victims are endangering the presence of the protective forces and endangering reconstruction. It is only by stopping once and for all the air attacks that one can be sure that innocent civilians will not continue to be killed. For in spite of an official policy of zero tolerance for attacks on civilian targets an increasing number of completely innocent Afghans are being killed by bombs.

It is also vitally important to look back at the Bonn Process. The Bonn Agreement of December 2001 required the ISAF not only to help the Afghan central government to assert itself, but also to work for the establishment of democratic structures. This goal is rapidly disappearing from view. The country is still far from having good government. Corruption and nepotism are hampering effective reconstruction. The victims of the violence of the warlords wait in vain for justice. Indeed these potentates are building up their influence in Parliament and in the entire country with the support of the ISAF. This is in the long run the biggest danger for democratisation and the building-up of a constitutional state. Violations of the freedom of speech, of the press and of religion are becoming more frequent, there is no independent and predictable system of justice and critics of Karzai’s regime are being intimidated and persecuted. The ISAF must not close its eyes to such undesirable developments.

The GfbV regrets also that the ISAF mandate, which is to be discussed in Parliament, does not contain the fight against drugs, although this is hoped for by NATO. It is true that in the operational areas of the Bundeswehr in the north and north-east there is no longer any large-scale cultivation of poppy, but here is the hub of trade in drugs and arms, in which the local administration and the daily partners of the German army are involved.