KABUL, 24 July 2004 — Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, a key power broker from northern Afghanistan, tendered his resignation as military adviser to President Hamid Karzai to challenge him in October elections, an aide said yesterday. Dostum, from Afghanistan’s ethnic Uzbek minority group, will stand against Karzai, from the country’s largest Pushtun tribe.
Akbar Bai said the decision was based on Dostum’s belief that Karzai had targeted non-Pushtun groups, suggesting that the explosive issue of ethnicity could be a major theme in Afghanistan’s first free and direct vote.
Dostum announced his candidacy for the race in the key northern city of Mazar-e-Sharif at a gathering on Thursday, the same day he submitted his resignation to Karzai, Bai said. A presidential official confirmed Dostum’s resignation offer.
Afghanistan’s election law stipulates that military officials intending to stand for president need to resign before registering their candidacy. Monday is the last day for registrations and candidates are required to announce the names of their two vice presidents simultaneously. “Dostum has decided to stand because he is unhappy with Karzai’s policies,” Bai told Reuters. He said they included Karzai calling non-Pushtun commanders “warlords” and carrying out an “imbalanced” disarmament drive of factional forces that has mainly affected minority groups in the north and west.
Pushtuns have traditionally ruled Afghanistan, but many complain of the lack of representation in Karzai’s government, installed in power after US-led forces overthrew the Taliban regime in late 2001. Dostum was key in that operation, helping a small number of US military personnel overrun the mainly Pushtun Taleban in the north of the country, triggering the regime’s collapse.
The burly, mustachioed former Communist general emerged as an important powerbroker during 23 years of war triggered by the 1979 invasion by the Soviet Union. His Junbish forces have been involved in a series of bloody clashes over territory in the north since the Taleban’s ouster, and Dostum has often defied Karzai’s orders.
Known for switching sides in Afghanistan’s recent turbulent history, Dostum has failed in a bid to become defense minister. He has also refused to hand over all of his heavy weapons to the central government under a nationwide disarmament plan, arguing that it should also cover east and south Afghanistan, the main areas where Taleban and militant allies are active. Dostum’s decision to contest the presidency came less than two weeks after Karzai said “warlords” and their private militias posed a bigger threat to stability and security in Afghanistan than the insurgency.
Meanwhile, aid workers and Afghan officials are struggling to avert a looming humanitarian crisis as thousands of Afghan refugees living in Pakistan pour across the border fleeing Pakistani Army operations to hunt Al-Qaeda-linked militants. Over 20,000 refugees have already crossed the border into Afghanistan’s insurgency-hit southeastern provinces, many of them leaving Pakistan after decades with only hours to pack what little they can carry, aid workers said.
“Because of the military operations in South Waziristan many refugees have been forced to leave and because they have no time to pack or gather their things they face difficulties when they come back to Afghanistan,” UN refugee worker Paul Stromberg told AFP.
The refugees are streaming into the Taleban stronghold of Paktika province over border crossings where the UN and aid organizations have no presence, said Stromberg, senior repatriation coordinator the United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Afghanistan.
