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** THE DAILY TELEGRAPH
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MONDAY, MARCH 31, 2014
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4<MGJM?N RDGG ?@>D?@ ABC<I @G@>ODJIN DI )<?@I]N H@IOJM <HJIB < >DM>G@ JA NOMJIBH@I N@O OJ =@ KDQJO<G OJ M@NPGO AS Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, a veteran of the jihad against Soviet occupation and a hardline Islamist once close to al-Qaeda, steps to the microphone through a phalanx of armed guards, the crowd of 5,000 takes up a familiar cry. One man raises his fist and shouts: “Death to America. Death to England.” Hundreds of hands are thrust into the air as the response echoes around the rally in Parwan province, all captured on video. “Death, death, death,” they shout. Mr Sayyaf is the man who invited Osama bin Laden to Afghanistan and was mentor to the mastermind who planned 9/11. Yet 12 years after international troops forced the Taliban from Kabul and after billions of dollars has been delivered in aid, he is a contender for president and one of a handful of warlords well placed to act as kingmakers. As President Hamid Karzai’s term draws to an end, the April 5 election remains wide open. The result therefore rests with horse-trading between men who rose to prominence during the country’s brutal civil wars. As well as Mr Sayyaf, General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the notorious Uzbek strongman, is lined up to be vice-president of one of the front-runners. He stands accused of allowing hundreds of Taliban prisoners to suffocate to death in shipping containers as well as a string of other alleged war crimes. Of the 11 candidates who entered the race, six of their candidates or their running mates are regarded as a warlord. Men like Mr Sayyaf could have a decisive role to play. Although unlikely to win, he will garner decisive votes that can be put behind one of the two candidates that make it to a run-off, said Fabrizio Foschini, of the Afghanistan Analysts Network. “He will not win, but he will be one of the next on the list,” he said. “That means
EPA/MUHAMMAD SADIQ
By Rob Crilly in Kabul
Clockwise from above: Abdullah Abdullah, a front-runner; Abdul Rasul Sayyaf; a woman with a voter registration card; and an election rally in Kandahar yesterday
his part in a run-off will be very important.” Mr Sayyaf, who is in his sixties, has been keen to broaden his appeal. The 9/11 Commission Report described him as mentor to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the attacks on the Twin Towers, but today Mr Sayyaf is one of the strongest anti-Taliban voices in the country. He has even said he will work with the West, signing a deal to allow American forces to stay in the country beyond the end of the year. At rallies, he has taken pains to explain how he would protect women’s rights, a concept he tends to conflate with “dig-
nity”. At another rally event he pointed to a handful of ghostlike blue burkas seated to one side of the stage. “Women, you know we will defend your rights and your dignity,” he said, going on to explain that he was in favour of female doctors and teachers, and wanted to provide a good atmosphere for their education – interpreted by analysts familiar with his ties to Saudi Arabia as a euphemism for separate schooling. To protect women, he said, he would remove their images from soap boxes. His deeply conservative message strikes a chord in rural areas. But in
Kabul you need not look far to find evidence of his brutal past, when his forces killed thousands of Hazaras – Shias viewed as infidels by Sunni hardliners – as part of a struggle for the city in the Nineties. Human Rights Watch concluded he was responsible for war crimes. One of the worst-hit areas was Afshar. Dozens of posters of Mr Sayyaf have been defaced, ripped so that his familiar beard is shortened or his face disappears completely. One wizened man, sitting outside a grocery store, was too nervous to discuss Mr Sayyaf without also condemning other
candidates. He said: “Sayyaf did these things, but can you tell me which of the candidates does not have blood on his hands?” Yet this year’s election is a crucial test of the country’s young democracy. If it passes off without incident, it would represent the first peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan’s history. The remaining Nato combat forces are departing this year, leaving responsibility for security in the hands of local forces. A legitimate government in Kabul is key to the exit strategy and one of the most effective bulwarks against the Tali-
ban insurgency. All the front-runners would be acceptable to Western governments, offering varieties of largely ideology-free pragmatism. Abdullah Abdullah is the main opposition candidate, having refused to do a deal with Mr Karzai after finishing runner-up in 2009. Ashraf Ghani, a former World Bank official and finance minister, is a safe pair of hands with the economy and has benefited from an energetic social media campaign. The man to beat is Zalmai Rassoul. He stepped down as foreign minister last year to run and has attracted big name endorsements, including the president’s brother, leaving no one to doubt he has the backing of Mr Karzai – and all the benefits that brings. If the outcome remains uncertain, then the prospect of violence and fraud remain certainties. Twelve million people are registered to vote at more than 6,000 polling stations. The Taliban have made clear their opposition, claiming that “pious people” would not vote. They have promised to attack polling stations, activists and candidates. Last week, they made good on their threats: first attacking an election commission office, before launching an assault on its main headquarters. Suicide squads have also stepped up attacks on other high-profile sites, particularly places where foreigners congregate in the capital. The second major concern for voters is fraud. Only 25 per cent believe the elections will be free and fair, according to a recent poll. Insecurity means rigging will go on in areas unreached by monitors and several candidates have accused Mr Karzai of filling election posts with placemen to deliver the result for his chosen successor. Western officials admit that things will not be perfect. Rather than pushing for free and fair elections, diplomats and generals talk of them being “transparent, inclusive and credible”. As one diplomatic source put it: “It won’t be Switzerland, but that does not matter so long as the result is acceptable to Afghans.”
2MPBP<T]N KM@ND?@IO PMB@N OC@ RJMG? OJ =<>F CDN \><II<=DN M@QJGPODJI] By Donna Bowater in Montevideo
ON the fields of his small farm, half an hour’s drive from central Montevideo, José Mujica has just harvested his annual crop of chard. But as president of Uruguay, he is about to oversee an unprecedented experiment in a far more controversial cultivation – cannabis. The small South American country of 3million people will next month become the first in the world to legalise, regulate and participate in the production, sale and taxation of marijuana. Uruguay’s so-called “weed revolution” will be scrutinised across the globe as international leaders wrestle with narcotics policy amid deepening critiques of the long-standing principles of the “war on drugs”. Mr Mujica, a 78-year-old former Leftwing guerrilla and political prisoner, is no stranger to headlines after his decision to eschew the presidential palace in favour of his ramshackle farmhouse and to give away 90 per cent of his £7,100-a-month salary. But in an interview with The Daily Telegraph conducted amid piles of agricultural tomes, in the dimly lit front
room of the bungalow where he has lived for 30 years, he expressed his surprise at the furore. “It’s targeting the battle against drug trafficking,” he said. “It’s not a law supporting addiction. It’s a way of battling the black-market economy.” Waxing lyrical, even on such a contentious issue, he continued: “Every addiction is a scourge, except for love.” Under the radical new law not only are citizens and private businesses allowed to grow, buy and sell cannabis, but the government will also enter into the business itself – cultivating and harvesting the crop, distributing and selling it from authorised outlets and taxing the profits. The legislation is much more sweeping than in the famously liberal Netherlands, where cultivation remains banned, or the new arrangements in the American states of Colorado and Washington, where there is no direct government involvement. Mr Mujica and his allies argue that the new policy offers a ground-breaking alternative to what they call the failures of the “war on drugs” championed by the US in Latin America, which has killed tens of thousands in producer and
President José Mujica says the traditional ‘war on drugs’ has failed and a new approach is necessary
transit countries while comparatively little is done in the consumer nations of Europe and the US. The law also aims to deliver a major blow to the narco-cartels trafficking hard drugs by removing one of their biggest money-earners. “If you want to change a reality, it’s foolish to continue doing the same thing, instead of changing something, even if it hasn’t been successful,” Mr Mujica said. Under the new law, Uruguayans will be able to buy a limited amount of cannabis, expected to be capped at around 1.4oz (40 grams) a month, from pharmacies or from Post Office-type one-stop shops, which are normally used for paying bills or changing money. Users will have to register on a government-held database and those who make excessive requests will be referred to health authorities for
4JMG? PGG@ODI @DEDIB N@DU@N d =I DI >JMMPKODJI KMJ=@ Chinese authorities have seized assets worth at least 90billion yuan (£8.7 billion) from family members and associates of Zhou Yongkang, the retired domestic security chief at the centre of China’s biggest corruption scandal in more than six decades.
*PB<=@]N <IB@M <O "2 NIP= OJ RDA@ Zimbabwe’s president Robert Mugabe has announced he will boycott Wednesday’s European Union-Africa summit in Brussels, because his wife Grace was not invited. The EU had relaxed a travel ban on Mr Mugabe so he could attend, but refused to do the same for his wife.
0>D@IOJGJBDNON GJN@ T@<M =JJF ADBCO A book that the Church of Scientology spent 27 years trying to ban has finally gone on sale in the US. Russell Miller’s Bare-Faced Messiah, a biography of L Ron Hubbard, the Scientology founder, was published outside America in 1987.
0@@ OC@ NDBCON RDOC < AJMH@M HJ= =JNN A former mob hitman has found a job taking tourists around his old mafia haunts in Las Vegas. Frank Cullotta, 75, nicknamed “The Las Vegas Boss”, leads a bus tour entitled The Real Story Behind Casino, a reference to the 1995 film.
treatment. The database is also intended to ensure that only Uruguayan residents can purchase the product in an effort to reduce the risks of drug tourism. In a traditionally conservative Roman Catholic country, opinion polls indicate that many Uruguayans dislike the innovation introduced by the Broad Front Left-wing coalition, either because they suspect drug use will grow or disapprove of a government role in the drug trade. Mr Mujica is, however, undeterred, saying that his opponents are simply “scared” by such dramatic change, while acknowledging that the
new law could pave the way for the decriminalisation of other drugs. He has allies in the region: other Latin American leaders including Otto Pérez Molina, the Guatemalan president, have also spoken out against the war on drugs, while Enrique Peña Nieto, the president of Mexico, has ended his predecessor’s relentless military struggle with the narco-traffickers. Amid more cautious views in Europe, last month Norman Baker, the Liberal Democrat Home Office minister, held an hour-long video conference with Uruguayan officials, discussing the
public health and security implications of the new law. There are meanwhile practical challenges for implementing the policy, not least that Uruguay does not produce enough cannabis for supply to meet demand. Broad Front leaders, including Lucía Topolansky, a senator who is also the first lady, suggested that Canadian medical marijuana producers could temporarily fill the gap. That was news to Canada, where a health ministry spokesman said there were “no plans” to export marijuana to Uruguay, or anywhere else.