May 31, 2006
After Riots End, Kabul's Residents Begin to Point Fingers
By CARLOTTA GALL
KABUL, Afghanistan, May 30 -- As they swept up broken glass and boarded up windows and doors on Tuesday, Kabul residents placed blame for Monday's rioting on young hoodlums and criminal gangs who seized on a fatal accident involving an American military convoy to spark a citywide conflagration.
But they also criticized the American military for its arrogance, saying military vehicles frequently crush civilian cars, and they doubted that the government or the military would conduct an honest investigation of the incident.
While a survey of hospitals on Monday found 14 people dead from the rioting, the Interior Ministry said Tuesday that 12 had been killed, including one policeman, and that 138 had been wounded. Afghan troops were deployed across the capital on Tuesday, sitting atop armored personnel carriers at main intersections. Gen. Jamil Junbish, the Kabul police chief, said a curfew would be enforced for a second night.
There was an unmistakably anti-government and anti-American tinge to Monday's protests. In the main square, rioters burned a huge banner of President Hamid Karzai, who is frequently caricatured by his opponents as a puppet of Washington. A similar banner of the late commander of the anti-Taliban Northern Alliance, Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was assassinated by Al Qaeda on Sept. 9, 2001, remained untouched.
While Mr. Karzai blamed opportunists for the violence, many in the city, including Western diplomats and aid workers, said the protests appeared spontaneous and were aggravated by frustration with joblessness and the slow pace of reconstruction, despite the hopes raised by a new Afghan government.
''It was frustration at the whole process, especially the lack of reconstruction and security,'' said Faheem Dashty, the editor of The Kabul Weekly newspaper. ''For the last four years, people were waiting to see some changes in the government. But they did not see it.''
Other residents complained about the presence of not only foreign troops but also Western aid workers, who live in upscale compounds, drive fancy S.U.V.'s and, in many Afghans' minds, are responsible for the spread of vices like alcohol consumption and prostitution. Protesters even trashed the headquarters of CARE International, one of the longest-serving nongovernmental organizations -- and much loved in Kabul for its work with war widows and the poor.
But CARE officials said the group was victimized only because of its location. ''It was unfortunate that we were in the way of this demonstration,'' said Paul Barker, the country director for CARE, as he sat at a borrowed desk near the smoldering ruins of his burnt-out office.
The American and Afghan authorities sought to reduce tensions from the fatal crash on Monday, in which an American military truck crashed into 12 cars, killing five people and wounding scores.
The United States Embassy expressed its regret at the loss of life and blamed a mechanical failure. ''The vehicle apparently lost the ability to brake due to a mechanical failure,'' said Ambassador Ronald E. Neumann in a statement that also promised compensation for the victims and a full investigation.
General Junbish also said there was no doubt the car crash, in the northern district of Khair Khana, was an accident, and dismissed claims by demonstrators that the truck had deliberately rammed cars.
Jawed Ludin, the chief of staff to Mr. Karzai, said in an interview with a local television channel that an investigation into the car crash and subsequent riots would reveal an element of organization and political opposition in the riots against the government and its foreign backers. ''If any organized elements existed, and I think maybe they did exist, we will soon find out about it,'' he said.
Mr. Ludin also accused police forces of failing to bring security to the city and said that some had even taken off their uniforms and joined the demonstrators and looters. ''The reaction of our police was really shameful,'' he said. ''What we learned from yesterday is that we have to strengthen our police.''
General Junbish defended the performance of his police but said they lacked resources, in particular tear gas, water hoses and other crowd-control equipment. ''I would call the people who rushed to public places and destroyed and burned police checkpoints, I would not only call them opportunists, but sick people.''
He also insisted that the police had fired into the air, and refused to accept that police bullets may have been responsible for the deaths and injuries on Monday. Witnesses said they saw American and Afghan personnel firing their weapons during the riots, though it was not clear if they were firing into the crowd or over the protesters' heads.
General Junbish said 106 people had been arrested during and after the violence.
As calm returned to the capital, more violence was reported in northern Afghanistan, as three Afghan women and their driver, all working for the aid agency ActionAid, were shot to death on a village road in the northern province of Jowzjan.
In a separate incident, two Afghans working for a development organization whose name was not disclosed were killed in a roadside explosion in another northern province, Badakhshan, and two Americans traveling in the same convoy were slightly wounded.
The attacks follow at least two other fatal attacks on aid workers in northern Afghanistan in recent weeks and raised concerns that security in the formerly peaceful north may be deteriorating.