Los Angeles Times
September 23, 2004
KABUL, Afghanistan — Mohammed Mohaqiq says he was getting ready to make
his run for the Afghan presidency when U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad dropped
by his campaign office and proposed a deal.
"He told me to drop out of
the elections, but not in a way to put pressure," Mohaqiq said. "It was like a
request."
After the hourlong meeting last month, the ethnic Hazara
warlord said in an interview Tuesday, he wasn't satisfied with the rewards
offered for quitting, which he did not detail. Mohaqiq was still determined to
run for president — though, he said, the U.S. ambassador wouldn't give up
trying to elbow him out of the race.
"He left, and then called my most
loyal men, and the most educated people in my party or campaign, to the
presidential palace and told them to make me — or request
me — to resign the nomination. And he told my men to ask me what I need
in return."
Mohaqiq, who is running in the Oct. 9 election, is one of
several can didates who maintain that the U.S. ambassador and his aides are
pushing behind the scenes to ensure a convincing victory by the pro-American
incumbent, President Hamid Karzai. The Americans deny doing so.
"It is
not only me," Mohaqiq said. "They have been doing the same thing with all
candidates. That is why all people think that not only Khalilzad is like this,
but the whole U.S. government is the same. They all want Karzai — and
this election is just a show."
The charges were repeated by several
other candidates and their senior campaign staff in interviews here. They
reflected anger over what many Afghans see as foreign interference that could
undermine the shaky foundations of a democracy the U.S. promised to
build.
"This doesn't suit the representative of a nation that has helped
us in the past," said Sayed Mustafa Sadat Ophyani, campaign manager for Younis
Qanooni, Karzai's leading rival. "You have seen Afghanistan suffering for 25
years, from the Russians, then the Taliban . Why is the U.S. government now
looking to make people of Afghanistan accept whatever the U.S. government
says?"
Qanooni said he and 13 other presidential candidates planned to
meet today in Kabul, the capital, to air complaints about Khalilzad's
interference.
In a statement released this week, Khalilzad denied the
allegations that he and his staff were meddling in the election.
"U.S.
Embassy officials regularly keep in touch with all presidential candidates, and
we listen to their ideas and proposals," he said in an e-mailed response from
New York, where he was attending the opening of the U.N. General Assembly.
"Officials from the U.S. mission support the elections process, not
individuals," the statement added. "No U.S. official can or will endorse or
campaign on behalf of any individual presidential candidate."
Khalilzad
also said he "has never asked a candidate to withdraw — this is a decision
for each candidate to make for him or herself."
Since c oming to power
after the American-led invasion that overthrew the Taliban in 2001, the interim
Afghan government largely has been beholden to the United States for its
survival. The U.S. has deployed about 18,000 troops and is spending about $1
billion a year on reconstruction in the Central Asian nation. Karzai depends on
the Americans for his safety: DynCorp, a Virginia-based firm, has provided his
bodyguards since November 2002 under a contract with the State
Department.
Khalilzad has been nicknamed "the Viceroy" because the
influence he wields over the Afghan government reminds some Afghans of the
excesses of British colonialism. Some of Karzai's rivals think that the
ambassador has taken on a new role: presidential campaign manager.
This
is not the first time Khalilzad has been accused of meddling in Afghan politics.
Delegates to gatherings that named Karzai interim president in 2002 and ratified
Afghanistan's new Constitution last December also accused the ambassador of
interfering, even of paying delegates for their support. Khalilzad denies the
claims.
The latest allegations are perhaps more serious because the Bush
administration is portraying Afghanistan's presidential election as a democratic
victory for the country's people, who suffered under more than two decades of
strife. President Bush has touted bringing Afghan democracy as a foreign policy
success in his election campaign.
There are 18 candidates in the Afghan
election. Such a divided field is expected to favor Karzai, whom Afghans hear
and see frequently on state-controlled radio and television.
The
president, who is usually holed up in his heavily fortified palace because of
threats to his life, has made only one campaign trip outside Kabul since the
election campaign began Sept. 7. That trip last Thursday was aborted when a
rocket missed the U.S. military helicopter in which he was traveling.
Mohaqiq commands strong loyalty among Hazaras and, if he chooses to step aside
and endorse Karzai, pro bably could deliver a large bloc of votes. Mohaqiq said
Tuesday that he might still do so — for the right deal.
Mohaqiq
said his senior aides met the U.S. ambassador at the presidential palace,
without Karzai. The aides agreed try again to persuade their candidate to drop
out of the race and throw his support behind the incumbent, Mohaqiq said.
The pressure was so intense that he agreed to quit under certain
conditions, he added.
Mohaqiq said his demands, in the event of
Karzai's victory, would be four Cabinet posts for his party, four governorships
in the mainly Hazara provinces of central Afghanistan and a new road from Kabul
into the region, informally known as Hazarajat.
Mohaqiq said Khalilzad
told him that the new road would not be a problem, but that his party would have
to settle for two ministerial posts, two deputy spots in other ministries and
one governorship.
"I was very interested in taking part in the
elections, but since many of my men were askin g me to accept Khalilzad's ideas
— and he was also telling me to do so — I didn't have much choice,
and I was ready to agree," Mohaqiq said.
"But a good thing happened, and
Karzai didn't agree with those terms," he added. "I don't know why."
Several leaders of the Northern Alliance, whose troops ousted the Taliban regime
in late 2001 with the help of U.S. air power, met in Kabul on Friday to discuss
what they said was Khalilzad's electoral arm-twisting, said Mohammed Qasem
Mohseni, one of presidential candidate Abdul Latif Pedram's two running
mates.
Mohseni said the summit participants included Foreign Minister
Abdullah, who goes by one name; former President Burhanuddin Rabbani, who like
Abdullah is a member of the Tajik minority; and Ustad Abdul Rasul Sayyaf who,
like Karzai, is a Pushtun, Afghanistan's largest ethnic group.
"In this
meeting, Ustad Sayyaf said that we have been under pressure for 25 days by the
U.S. government, by Khalilzad, to make Younis Qanoo ni resign from the post of
candidate for the presidency," Mohseni said.
Qanooni is not expected to
win the race. However, he could prevent Karzai from gaining more than 50% of
the votes, forcing a runoff and prolonging a campaign that already has drawn
violent attacks by Taliban and other insurgents.
Qanooni's campaign
aides said Khalilzad was trying to persuade the candidate to accept defeat
before any ballots were counted and to agree to join Karzai in a coalition
government after the vote.
"Our hearts have been broken because we
thought we could have beaten Mr. Karzai if this had been a true election,"
Ophyani said. "But it is not. Mr. Khalilzad is putting a lot of pressure on
us and does not allow us to fight a good election campaign."
Some say
Khalilzad is working to draw Rabbani, the former president, to Karzai's side,
which would deepen the split in Qanooni's Northern Alliance.
Qanooni
supporters say that Rabbani, whose son-in-law is one of Karzai's running mate s,
visited Badakhshan province last month with Khalilzad and urged local militia
commanders to back the incumbent. The former president insists that the
discussions in his home province dealt only with reconstruction.
"I
told Mr. Khalilzad, 'The people of Badakhshan are waiting for you, and they are
always asking, what is the U.S. government doing?' " Rabbani said. "I told
him to go there and see the people, and he promised to construct a road and a
dam for them."
There is nothing wrong with the U.S. ambassador
working closely with Afghanistan's president as long as he only offers advice
and doesn't make decisions, Rabbani added.
"I believe that Mr. Karzai
and Khalilzad are linked very closely with each other now and they were in the
past too," Rabbani said. "And when they have links, they probably have
political links or any other kind of links."