Afghanistan Analysts Network – English

Posts tagged: UN

UN

Council of Ministers Removes Election Complaints Commission

admin •

Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission will not only not have any UN-mandated international members, it will cease to exist. This has been decided by the Afghan cabinet. In its place, the highly controversial Special (Elections) Court will be responsible for dealing with election-related complaints. ToloNews, 4 December 2012 Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission will not only not […]

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UN imposes sanctions on Haqqani network

AAN Team •

Deutsche Welle (online), 7 November 2012 Quotes by AAN’s Thomas Ruttig on the new UN sanctions against the Haqqani network: ‘Of course, they [the Haqqani network] do not get arms from UN member states and their governments. [But] Pakistan is constantly accused of covertly supporting the Haqqanis, who operate out of Waziristan, which is Pakistani […]

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Shelling at the Durand Line: Popular outrage building up

Gran Hewad •

For the second year in a row, Pakistan is shelling Afghanistan’s eastern provinces, especially Kunar. The issue has recently become politically explosive, with calls for an army of volunteers to man the border and two key ministers being dismissed (on 4 August) over their failure to stop the shelling. Ordinary Afghans expect their government to […]

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New approach needed to end Afghanistan’s insurgency

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Global Post, 19 April 2012 Louise Arbour, president of the International Crisis Group and former UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, urges the UN to replace the US as the lead peace negotiator in Afghanistan: ‘The Security Council should adopt a resolution to appoint a team of negotiators and an individual to lead it as […]

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Afghan asylum bids hit 10-year high

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AP, 21 January 2012 ‘More Afghans fled the country and sought asylum abroad in 2011 than in any other year since the start of the decade-long war, suggesting that many are looking for their own exit strategy as international troops prepare to withdraw. From January to November, more than 30,000 Afghans applied for political asylum […]

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UN: Afghan Refugee Strategy a ‘Big Mistake’

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AFP, 28 December 2011 Peter Nicolaus, head of the UN refugee programme in Afghanistan on Tuesday described its strategy in the war-wracked country since 2002 as the ‘biggest mistake UNHCR ever made’. He said the international community had failed to help returnees find a means of earning a living and therefore reintegrating into society and […]

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ANALYSIS: Afghan police – civilians or combatants?

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IRIN, 7 April 2011 This author-less article of the UN news agency says that ‘discrepancies in the number of civilian casualties of war in Afghanistan and the varying levels of blame attributed to warring parties by the UN and human rights organizations could, in part, be due to different interpretations of the legal status of […]

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Afghanistan: UN Losing PR Battle in Kabul

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Eurasianet, 6 April 2011 In the light of the recent unrest in Mazar and the Afghan government’s letter to limit the Unama mandate, Aunohita Mojumdar says that the United Nations ‘is struggling to remain relevant in Afghanistan. At the heart of the UN’s challenge is a growing perception that it has lost the trust and […]

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(Former) Red Lines and Blue Helmets: More on the Century Foundation report

Barbara Stapleton •

AAN continues commenting on the Century Foundation’s Afghanistan Task Force report on ‘Negotiating Peace’. Today, Barbara J. Stapleton(*) points to the issue of (non-)permanent US bases in Afghanistan, to Hillary Clinton’s Asia Society speech that turned ‘red lines’ into an ’end state’, to Pakistan’s role and to the idea to deploy UN blue helmets after […]

International Engagement Read more
Celebrating Nawruz in Mazar-e Sharif, 2005 (Photo: Thomas Ruttig)

The Dead of Mazar

Thomas Ruttig •

Today, our thoughts are with the UN colleagues who were killed in Mazar-e Sharif yesterday and also with the Afghans killed there(*), not knowing whether they had just been using their constitutional right to demonstrate or indeed had murder in their hearts. And we hope that Pastor Jones in Gainesville, Florida, had a sleepless night, […]

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U.N. Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths from U.S. Raids in Afghanistan

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IPS, 25 March 2011 The recent UN/AIHRC report about civilian casualties failed to apply the same humanitarian law standard for defining a civilian to SOF raids that it applied to Taliban assassinations, report Gareth Porter and Shah Noori. According to the AIHRC, the figure for SOF casualties represented only 13 incidents that the commission had […]

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Reality off the records: Afghan civilian casualties and NATO’s narrative

Thomas Ruttig •

Facts from the latest UN and AIHRC report: 2,777 Afghan civilians have been killed in 2010 – these are more than ever before since the US-led intervention started in 2001 and 15 per cent more than in 2009. Insurgents were held responsible for 75 per cent of these casualties, Afghan government and Western forces for […]

War and Peace Read more

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