- QAGARAH, Afghanistan (CP)
-- About 100 army officers, most of them highly skilled rocket and electrical
engineers who were on the brink of retirement, refused to sign their discharge
papers Monday at a ceremony intended to mark Afghanistan's demilitarization.
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- The ceremony outside Kabul marked commencement of the
main phase of the country's disarmament, demobilization and reintegration,
or DDR, program.
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- But with the deputy defence minister in attendance, along
with the Japanese ambassador, whose country is sponsoring the attempt to
disarm mainly Afghan militias and demobilize 100,000 of their troops, the
officers balked.
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- During the two-hour ceremony, which included patriotic
music and speeches, the first of 62 Soviet-made anti-aircraft missiles
belonging to 99 Rocket Brigade were hauled off to a cantonement site about
40 kilometres away.
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- But the supposedly retiring officers, who are not militiamen,
said the whole process was a charade. They had no intention of walking
away from their jobs, they said, and the missiles were all duds, disarmed
and rendered useless years ago. Many of the five-metre rockets were badly
damaged, riddled with shrapnel and bullet holes or bent and twisted out
of shape.
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- "They are taking these weapons but these weapons
are not functioning," said one. "They have no explosives or propellant;
they can't be used."
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- When it came time for them to formally tender their resignations,
shouting matches erupted between Afghan generals and the soldiers who were
supposed to be heading off to promising new lives on Civvy Street.
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- The government had offered the men similar incentives
to what they offered militiamen in the provinces: $200 (U.S.) a head, a
bag of wheat and training in any one of several vocations. The engineers
called the offer an insult.
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- "I have been serving this country for the past 25
years and I have studied for 21 years," said Mohammad Sharif, a 44-year-old
electrical engineer with three wives and 10 children. "This process
is for illiterate people. The government has nothing to offer me. They
expect me to become a shopkeeper. It is an insult."
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- The DDR was supposed to be a voluntary process, but the
soldiers who were lined up behind the podium on Monday said there was nothing
voluntary about it. They said they are being pushed out by the country
they served.
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- The supposedly outgoing officers, some of whom were trained
in Russia, said no promises were kept, either to them, the international
community, or to the people of Afghanistan.
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- Monday's event was supposed to be the first step in "a
major initiative that will help ensure peaceful elections and return Afghanistan
to stability after more than two decades of war," said a news release
distributed by NATO's International Security Assistance Force on behalf
of Afghan authorities.
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- "More than 6,230 personnel have been disarmed and
demobilized under the DDR pilot phase, which is in place in five regions,
and more than 5,550 personnel have been reintegrated into civilian life,"
said the release.
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- In his speech, Japanese Ambassador Kinichi Komano said
sponsors agreed that 40 per cent of the program should be completed by
July and 100 per cent by September's national elections.
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- "There are still challenges ahead of us," he
added.
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- Indeed, international agency personnel involved in the
process say the DDR has been woefully disorganized and misdirected. Reintegration
programs have been sluggish or off the mark, they say, and many supposedly
retired soldiers have abandoned the process and returned to duty or sent
their sons or brothers in their stead.
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- Many warlords, meanwhile, have resisted DDR all the way.
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- Mr. Komano acknowledged negotiations with "non-compliant
commanders" continue both in the provinces and the capital, Kabul,
where ISAF has maintained peace since the war that ousted the Taliban ended
more than two years ago.
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