Nomads, women and refugees to be represented in Loya Jirga
The Frontier Post
3/02/02

PESHAWAR: Five hundred individuals will be invited to participate in an emergency Afghan grand assembly scheduled to be inaugurated in June for
selecting members of an interim government which will rule Afghanistan for not more than two years, head of the UN-assigned commission for conducting
the assembly announced in Kabul.

The assembly, called Loya Jerga, will be inaugurated on June 22, the day six-month term of the Afghanistan Interim Administration (AIA) expires, by
former Afghan King Muhammad Zaher Shah, expected to return on March 21st, said Professor Muhammad Esma’il Qasemyar, head of the Commission for
Conducting the Emergency Loya Jerga.

The former king has been living in Rome of Italy in self-exile since 1973, and is expected to land on the Afghan soil on Hamal 1st, the first day of the
new Afghan year, 1381, confirmed head of AIA, Hamed Karzai, in New Delhi over the weekend.

With allocating one seat of the Jerga to each one of the 325 administrative units or districts forming 32 provinces of Afghanistan, the remaining 175
members are to be selected from nomads, women and Afghans living in different countries as refugee, it was announced.

Ruling out holding of elections under the existing conditions as ‘just not possible,’ Qasemyar said his 21-member commission was entrusted by UN for
selecting members for the Jerga, evading queries how those selected by his team are to accepted as representatives of the Afghan people.

About the organizational structure of the Commission, Abdul-Baqi Khaled, working in the Commission, said the body was formed of a secretariat headed
by Dr Abdul-Aziz Ahmad and three sub-committees: Setting Regulations led by Taher Bourgai, Establishing Contacts led by Kazem Ahang, and Setting
Standards led by Mahfooz Nedaii.

Admitting that the individuals selected by the UN for the Jerga Commission are ‘not so famous,’ Khaled opined the ‘UN Secretary General had better to
publish the biographies of the members prior to the announcement of the list.’ ‘Aware of this shortcoming,’ went on Khaled as saying, ‘a special
column has been allocated for the publication of their biographies along with their pictures in Anis and Hiwad weeklies in Kabul.’ He could not confirm
reservations that many of these 21 persons have been staunch supporters of the oppressive rule of Communism over Afghanistan (1978-1992) and having
justified exerting torture for extracting confessions from anti-Communism and anti-Soviet political prisoners.

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