Invasion Of Afghanistan

Pitts, who is a member of the House International Relations Subcommittee on the Middle East and South Asia, went on a trip to Afghanistan in January with Representative Frank Wolf (Republican of Virginia), the co-chairman of the Congressional Human Rights Caucus, and Representative Tony Hall (Democrat of Ohio), chairman of the House Democratic Caucus Task Force on Hunger and founder of the Congressional Friends of Human Rights Monitors. ...

We visited a girls school, the Dorkhanai High School, that had re-opened one week earlier after being shut down for over five years. The concrete building was full of bullet holes from the Soviet invasion, one room had no roof, and no rooms had glass in the windows. The girls sat on blankets on the concrete or dirt floor as there were no desks or chairs. Yet, the students were so motivated to learn they raised the money from the meager earnings of their families to buy thick plastic to cover the window holes and pay for kerosene heat to keep out some of the biting cold in the schoolrooms. The girls greeted us with big smiles and chants of ``Welcome, welcome.'' They were delighted to be back in school. Teachers need to be re-hired, 80 percent of the teachers were women, and the government needs assistance with providing basic supplies such as paper, pens, chalk and books. ... [Read More]

Department of State Washington File: Byliner: U.S. Focus Turns to Afghanistan's Reconstruction

More than 20 years of civil war and invasion have devastated Afghanistan, leaving much of the country in rubble, its people ill-housed, undereducated and without modern medical care. The ouster of the repressive Taliban regime by U.S. and coalition forces has opened the door to the outside world and the future, according to the deputy. ...

"I just had a very productive discussion with President Karzai covering a wide range of issues, particularly, obviously, those issues that fall within the concerns of the Department of Defense," Wolfowitz told about 40 reporters during an informal press briefing. "Most important, we talked about the progress that's been made in training the Afghan national army and the efforts we'd like to make together to accelerate that training." ... [Read More]

Political and Security Situation of Women In Afghanistan

In December 2001, representatives of many Afghan factions met in Bonn and signed an agreement that underscored the centrality of democratic principles and human rights in its provisional arrangements. This includes protecting the rights of women. The Bonn Agreement also provides for the Afghan Interim Authority (AIA) to govern until the establishment of the Transitional Administration by the Emergency Loya Jirga in June 2002. With the strong encouragement of the United States, two women were appointed to the AIA: Sima Simar, Vice Chair and Minister of Women’s Affairs, and Suhalla Siddiqi, Minister of Public Health. The Bonn Agreement also provided for the establishment of a 21-member commission to organize an Emergency Loya Jirga. Three women have been appointed to that body and a significant number of women will attend this important national council meeting. ... [Read More]

Interview With Neda Farhat of Radio Liberty and Radio Afghanistan

SECRETARY RICE: Well, ending the poppy cultivation will take time. It is a problem that took a while to develop and it will take time to end the problem. But we and Great Britain and others now have an integrated strategy to work with Afghanistan in public education, in eradication, in alternative livelihood and in law enforcement, and these efforts, I believe, will bear fruit because the Government of Afghanistan is committed to eradicating the poppy problem.I believe the Afghan citizens, when they look at what poppy growing does to a society, will be committed to that goal as well. And it is not just a problem for the Afghan people alone. It is a problem that the Afghan Government needs the support of the international community and I think they are starting to get that support. MS. FARHAT: One question about the foreign policy of the United States. After invasion of Iraq, the people of Afghanistan think that the message sent is not doing ... [Read More]

Southwest Asia

Illicit Cultivation/Production. Afghanistan contains the largest area of illicit opium poppy cultivation in the world. Poppy is grown commercially in all of its 34 provinces. In 2004, Afghanistan had an unprecedented 206,700 hectares of land planted to poppy. Opium production was an estimated 4950 metric tons. If all of Afghanistan’s opium production were refined into heroin, an estimated 582 metric tons of heroin could have been produced. None of these figures has any precedent. For example, the largest prior production of opium in Afghanistan was 3108 metric tons of opium in 2000; 2004’s production of opium exceeded this level by almost 60 percent. The largest area ever dedicated to growing opium was 165,800 hectares in Burma in 1993; the land devoted to poppy in Afghanistan last year exceeded Burma’s ‘93 cultivation by almost 25 percent. Only pitiful yields for South Asia of 24 kilograms of opium gum per hectare, caused by disease and drought, sa ... [Read More]

Background Notes Archive - Near East and North Africa

U.S. Department of State______________________________________________________ The State Department does not guarantee the authenticity of documents on the Internet. If for legal or other reasons you require the original version of a document in hard copy, please contact the Office of Public Communication, Bureau of Public Affairs. Note that State Department information is not copyrighted unless indicated and can be reproduced without consent. Citation of source is appreciated. Permission to reproduce any copyrighted material (including photos or graphics) must be obtained from the original source.______________________________________________________BACKGROUND NOTES: AFGHANISTANPUBLISHED BY THE BUREAU OF PUBLIC AFFAIRSU.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATEJULY 1994Official Name: Islamic State of AfghanistanPROFILEGeographyArea: 648,000 sq. km. (252,000 sq. mi.); slightly smaller than Texas. Cities (1993 est.): Capital--Kabul (est. 800,000). Other cit ... [Read More]

Deputy Secretary Armitage Heralds Reestablishment of Fulbright Program in Afghanistan

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage today announced the reestablishment of the Fulbright Program with Afghanistan after nearly 24 years dormant. The announcement came in a ceremony hosted by Assistant Secretary of State for Educational and Cultural Affairs Patricia S. Harrison at the U.S. Department of State. His Excellency Ishaq Shahryar, Ambassador of Afghanistan to the United States, participated in the ceremony, and other diplomats from the region attended. The reactivation of the prestigious program signifies the U.S. commitment to rebuilding the once vibrant bilateral relations in education and culture, and acknowledges Afghanistan’s resurgence as a full partner in significant academic exchange. ... [Read More]

Afghanistan (04/05)

In the 1960s, the United States helped build a highway connecting Afghanistan’s two largest cities. It began in Kabul and wound its way through five of the country’s core provinces—skirting scores of isolated and otherwise inaccessible villages; passing through the ancient market city of Ghazni; descending through Qalat; and eventually reaching Kandahar, founded by Alexander the Great. More than 35% of the country’s population lives within 50 kilometers of this highway, called, appropriately, modern Afghanistan’s lifeline. In 1978, the Soviet Union invaded. By the time its forces withdrew more than a decade later, more than 1 million Afghans had been killed and 5 million had fled. Civil war followed. The Taliban emerged, controlling all but the remote, northern regions. Afghanistan was terrorized by this group, which was dogmatically opposed to progress and democracy. More than two decades of war had left the Kabul-Kandahar highway devastated, like much of the country’s infrastructure. ... [Read More]