Schröder gaffe stirs up a storm in Kabul

By Dan Alexe in Kabul

Date: 14/10/04

Gerhard Schröder's six-hour visit to Kabul on Monday (11 October) has sparked controversy in a country in which people are not known to have much patience for nuances.

The German chancellor, at the end of an Asia trip including India, Vietnam and Pakistan, was so enthralled by being the first chief of government to shake the incumbent Afghan president Hamid Karzai's hand after Saturday's elections, the first that Afghanistan has known after decades of war, that he infuriated the fragmented Afghan opposition by declaring: "I am of the opinion that Karzai will win and in the first round."

Schröder's certitude could not have been based on facts. On Monday, the counting of the votes had not even started and it was to be delayed for another day.

While the chancellor was speaking, the vote counting had already been put on hold after all 15 of Karzai's opponents called the vote fraudulent. The ink meant to stain voters' fingers to prevent multiple ballots was rubbing off.

Much fuss had been made about this indelible ink by the Afghan authorities and by the UN officials who had taken part in the preparation of the elections, at the Afghan-UN Joint Electoral Management Body. In a subtle sign of regional repositioning, the indelible ink markers had been bought from an Indian firm.

After Schröder's public bet on Karzai, one of the frustrated candidates in the elections, Mir Mohammad Mahfuz Nedahi, said the chancellor's visit while the ballots were still being counted indicated that "Germany is giving 100% support to US policies with this visit".

Fortunately, by Tuesday, after Schröder's departure, most of Karzai's opponents, including his chief rival, Yunus Qanuni, had decided to withdraw the call to nullify Saturday's elections.

Afghan-born US envoy to Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad, the éminence grise behind all that is bartered behind the scenes in Kabul politics, has been instrumental in negotiating with the rebellious counter-candidates. Many Afghans believe that the reason behind Khalilzad's open interventions was Washington's desire to avoid a foul-up in these polls ahead of the US election on 2 November. Also, all Afghans want the elections closed quickly before the start of the fasting month of Ramadan at the end of this week.

On the EU side, Brussels' special representative to Afghanistan, Francesc Vendrell, has simply called the ink issue an "unfortunate problem" and agreed with the Afghan and UN officials that the call for an election boycott had come too late on the polling day to have a serious impact on voters.

Vendrell said: "We have carefully received testimony from people who were not in the cities. I am not proud to call a black cat white. We literally went trying to search for evidence of intimidation and violence and we found very little indeed."

In the end, on Tuesday (12 October) ballots and boxes with votes from the provinces started pouring into collection centres across the country, some boxes even being brought by donkey, to the delight of the international press corps.

By Wednesday, the Schröder incident was already forgotten. Not that the ostensibly exaggerated indignation of Karzai's rivals had ever been meant to last. The Afghans can't be angry for long with the Germans. The Germans are looked upon with almost as much sympathy as the French these days in Afghanistan. In exchange, the Americans are dutifully disliked, while the other members of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan, with the exception of the British, are being confused in a shapeless "European magma", tolerated with benevolence, or disinterest.

While meeting with the hierarchy of ISAF, Schröder also praised the work of the 2,100-strong German contingent serving as peacekeepers there, Germany's largest military force abroad.

Besides their peacekeeping activities in Kabul, the Germans also run two reconstruction units in the northern towns of Faizabad and Kunduz. These are what in the Afghan administrative jargon are known as PRTs, "provincial reconstruction teams".

Usually, these are multinational units, but the 100-strong PRT in Faizabad is purely German.

The PRTs focus on reconstruction and development, and cooperate with local Afghan militia forces. They build schools, wells and irrigation systems, and assist with the disarmament process.

But many observers doubt whether the PRT units can do much to improve security. Before the elections, 54 aid agencies signed a letter to NATO saying the PRTs "have neither the capacity nor the mandate to confront the countrywide security threats now facing the Afghan people".

They are also reproached for blurring the distinction between civilians and military, thus endangering the safety of international aid workers.

Still, while meeting in Kabul with the German contingent, Gerhard Schröder said that without the ISAF and German troops, the security situation would not have allowed the election to go forward. He also said that the ISAF had prevented any major security problems during the balloting, resulting in a victory for the troops, a smooth election process and "a political success".

Only hours after Schröder left Kabul, four rockets fell over the city, in what appeared to be a coordinated attack. One of them exploded near the airport from where the chancellor's plane had just taken off, killing a teenager.

The others caused damage to buildings in the centre of the city, one not far from the German embassy. The attacks have been blamed on the Taliban, the main absentees from the elections.

Schröder's faux pas in Kabul and his unrestrained praising of Karzai before he was officially announced as the winner were picked up by the German press, never short of Schadenfreude.

But once home, unperturbed, Schröder found an easy answer to the criticism.

"If another candidate wins, I'll go back," said the unrepentant chancellor, quoted on Tuesday by the Süddeutsche Zeitung.

• Dan Alexe is a freelance journalist.

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's six-hour visit to Kabul on Monday 11 October 2004, just after the Presidential elections, has sparked controversy in the country because of the unrestrained praising of candidate Hamid Karzai before he was officially announced as the winner.