Former Afghan warlords rally for amnesty

In one corner of a soccer stadium that has seen both athletic contests and executions stands a poster some 20 feet tall of Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai. Perhaps appropriately, Feda Mohammad Mujahid has turned away from it.

The 25,000 Afghans crowded into this bare concrete oval hoist up different posters of stern-faced mujahideen commanders who first fought the Soviets, and then each other, before joining with America to oust the Taliban in 2001.

To Mr. Mujahid, wrapped in a white scarf against the winter chill, these are the heroes of Afghanistan's "holy wars," not war criminals. So he has come here to rail against Mr. Karzai and the tyranny of Western nations, which have opposed an Afghan bill that would grant the mujahideen amnesty for war crimes committed during the past 25 years.

"This is a mujahideen nation," he says, as nearby loudspeakers crackle with speeches of defiance. "We want the law of Islam, and the government of mujahideen."

Away from the teeming streets around the stadium, the attitudes of average Afghans take on a different air. Many express frustration that former military leaders who killed thousands and destroyed Kabul in a four-year civil war might never be brought to justice. Yet in a country still divided by tribes, tongues, and traditions, Friday's rally sent a clear message – that even now, Afghanistan's onetime warlords alone have the power to muster the masses.

In this rally, "you saw their continuing ability to mobilize people and to potentially influence politics," says Paul Fishstein, director of the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, an independent analysis organization here.

The bill itself, which was recently approved by both houses of Afghanistan's parliament, has attracted international attention largely because it has been portrayed as a self-serving political ploy. Those likely to benefit most from the legislation are legislators and government officials themselves, many of whom are former mujahideen who stepped into the political vacuum following the fall of the Taliban.

Among the speakers at Friday's event were members of parliament, the vice president, the president's top security adviser, an army chief of staff, and an energy minister.

To them, amnesty does offer a measure of self-preservation. The momentum for warlord amnesty here began after the execution of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, a onetime US ally.

Former mujahideen members of parliament "thought that there might be a day that maybe they will face the same thing that Saddam Hussein faced," says Najibullah Kabuli, a member of the lower house of the Afghan parliament, the Wolesi Jirga, who abstained from voting on the amnesty bill because he thinks it is too broad.

"Didn't the US support the mujahideen?" asks protester Abdul Malik, noting how the mujahideen, too, were allies of the United States during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979.

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