The United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) is re-locating about 600 international following last week's brazen attack on a UN compound which killed five international UN workers. From the UN News Center:
From the UN News Center:
T. Christian Miller and Dafna Linzer write in ProPublica that the United Nations cannot account for "tens of millions of dollars provided to the troubled Afghan election commission." They cite two audits and interviews with current and former UNAMA staff to back up these claims.
These are clearly troubling accusations. Exclusive to UN Dispatch, UN Development Program spokesperson Stephane Dujarric sent the following letter to ProPublica last night:
More terrible news from Afghanistan. A Taliban suicide attack on a compound housing UN employees and other international staff has killed nine people, six of whom worked for the UN mission in Afghanistan. According to the BBC, "the Taliban spokesman said they had threatened to target anyone working on the Afghan run-off presidential election between incumbent Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah."
Here is a link to the full report Addiction, Crime and Insurgency: The Transnational Threat of Afghan Opium
So, in the end, the hubbub surrounding UNAMA and Galbraith was all for naught. Yesterday, after quietly doing its job for monthe before, during, and after the election, the UN-led ECC invalidated 210 polling stations and triggered a run-off, and today Karzai accepted that run-off. The election was widely labeled as flawed, votes were thrown out thro
A lot of ink has been spilled so far about the dispute in the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) between the mission's former deputy Peter W. Galbraith and his boss, Kai Eide. What has been lost in the discussion, though, is the basic point that the disagreement over how to handle fraud in the Afghan elections is an honest one between two people who both believe that they have the best interests of Afghans at heart.
The talented American diplomat Peter W. Galbraith, who serves as the deputy to the United Nations Mission in Afghanistan, has apparently left the country amidst a dispute with his boss, Norwegian mission chief Kai Eide.
According to numerous press reports, the dispute was over the Eide's decision to order a recount of some 10% of disputed ballots from the recent (fraud-laden) Afghan election. The recount may pull Karzai under 50% of the vote, thereby triggering a recount. Galbraith argued that a more robust recount be ordered and that a larger proportion of the ballots be either annuled or recounted. The dispute between old friends grew heated and Galbraith left Kabul for Boston. He was previously scheduled to be in New York for the UN General Assembly next week.
The big question on my mind is the extent to which Galbraith's insistence on a wider investigation of election fraud is a proxy for the Obama administration's estimation of Karzai. If so, Karzai could be in some serious trouble.
By Sameer Lalwani
The UN backed commission's charge of electoral fraud confirmed what most Afghans and observers already knew—that this was a messy election revealing the corruption, fecklessness, and disarray of the government. But the implications are much more strategically disturbing.
In terms of the US and NATO's counterinsurgency strategy, the best possible outcome they could have hoped for was a sweeping electoral mandate for a single candidate (presumably President Karzai) to avoid the infighting and delays in a runoff and demonstrate to the Afghan people (and the international community) that there was a unified Afghan state ready to return to the business of governance and state development.
Unfortunately, the electoral outcome was the worst of both worlds—a fractured vote mired in illegitimacy amidst allegations of vote-tampering and ballot-stuffing with President Karzai likely barely accumulating over 50% of the vote.