Delegates Get to Speak Their Minds

They’ve also had a chance to raise their concerns directly with cabinet members who have been attending the sessions.

Security was a major concern for many regions, followed closely by education, public health and transportation concerns.

Mir Ghulam, a delegate from northern Jowzjan Province, complained about warlords and gunmen in his province and asked the government to take positive steps to control them.

“In Jowzjan, the warlords have their own private jails. Anybody who displeases the warlords, they put in prison”, he said. “The government must stop them doing so as soon as possible, and put the warlords on trial.”

Maria Sazawar, a woman delegate from Mazar-e-Sharif, made the same complaint. "The problems of the people will not be solved until the warlords are removed," she said.

Abdul Ahad Alizai, from southwest Helmand Province, said "most of the commanders have set up their own military posts. Their aims are to make other peoples’ pockets empty and to fill their own."

When Minister of Information and Culture Sayed Makhdoum Raheen tried to address the assembly, a delegate interrupted him to complain that, since he had become minister, people have been referring to mujahedin as warlords, despite the fact that the mujahedin were responsible for removing the Soviet army.

Raheen replied - to applause from many of the delegates - that there was a big difference between the mujahedin and warlords. "I myself was part of the jihad for 13 years, but I never robbed the national treasury," he said. "Was jihad for God, or was it for girls, cars and property?" he asked, adding that "religion and jihad are different from crime".

Many of the women delegates at the convention have used the opportunity to complain about the traditional treatment of women by men in Afghanistan. They made strong calls for women's rights to be specified within the constitution.

Soraya Akbari, a woman delegate from the southern Paktika Province, said "in most provinces men are using women as slaves." She complained that "sisters are still being given to the family of victims of their brothers. And widows have no rights; they still have to marry their brothers-in-law on the death of their husband."

Dr. Sima Samar, the head of the Afghan Commission for Human Rights, also expressed concern about women's issues.

“The reputation of women must be upheld. Women must not be exchanged for blood”, she said. “Widows must have the right to decide their own destiny. Their rights must be specified under the constitution. They must be punished according to law, rather than by private decisions”, she said.

A women delegate from Kandahar, Rangina Hamidi, said that many of the jihadi delegates offered money to women delegates to persuade them to refrain from making appeals for women’s rights at the Loya Jirga.

Article 54 of the draft constitution states that, with regard to women and family issues, the government will take necessary action to prevent traditions that are against Islam.

But many women delegates said this was simply not enough.

Some delegates spoke out against the actions of American troops in their country.

One women delegate, Sharifa Safi from Kunar Province, complained about American soldiers "searching women without permission. We cannot tolerate this," she said. "They must stop it or bring women soldiers for this purpose."

Mohammad Sadiq from Uruzgan said that Americans “should use other tactics to stop al-Qaeda rather than bombing ordinary people by using false intelligence”.

Some delegates used the Loya Jirga as a forum in which to call for the construction of dams in their areas to help with irrigation and the harnessing of hydropower. Qazi Abdul Sataar from Kunar, said "we want our roads and bridges to be rebuilt, we want a dam to be constructed on the Kunar River, and the government must stop the cutting down and smuggling of Kunar's forests."

Sheikh Mohammad Asif Muhsini, the leader of the Shia jihadi party Harakat-e-Islami, said Russia must acknowledge that it interfered in Afghanistan and called upon Moscow to make reparation payments of one billion dollars a year.

Rohul Amin from Nangarhar Province, said no one must commit aggression across Afghanistan's national borders. Amin said the issue of the Durand Line, which forms much of the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan, should be mentioned in the constitution. He also said that the border between the two countries should be renegotiated.

The Durand Line, which was drawn in 1893 between Afghanistan and British India, has been a source of great contention with Pakistan for years. Deputy defence minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told Amin that solving the Durand Line issue was a matter for a future elected government and not the responsibility of the current transitional administration.

Sayed Mohammad Ali Sader from Islamabad, one of several delegates representing the interests of Afghan refugees, complained about a large number of Afghan prisoners in Pakistani jails. “Many of our Afghan brothers are being put in jail without charge”, he said. “The Afghan foreign ministry must take serious action to stop this.”

Hafizullah Gardesh is a reporter/editor for IWPR in Kabul and Bashir Ghwakh is an independent journalist from Jalalabad who is participating in IWPR's Loya Jirga reporting project. Malyar Masjidi and Lailuma Sadid, independent journalists in Kabul, also contributed to this report.