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Americas

National Technologies Associates won a $104.9 million deal in support of the Presidential Helicopters Program Office, Helicopter Marine Squadron One (HMX-1), and Air Test and Evaluation Squadron Twenty-One (HX-21). The contract is specifically for contractor logistics; research, development, test and evaluation; limited engineering and aircraft maintenance support on designated aircraft. The Presidential Helicopters Program Office has the responsibility of providing current and future (VXX) safe and timely helicopter transportation for the President and Vice President of the United States, heads of state and other official parties. Work will take place in Maryland and Virginia and is expected to be complete in February 2025.

The US Army awarded Boeing a $54.4 contract modification for retrofit kits and software development for the Apache Attack Helicopter. The Apache is a twin-engined army attack helicopter. It entered service with the US Army in 1984 and has been exported to Egypt, Greece, Israel, the Netherlands, Japan, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates (UAE) and the UK. The US Army has more than 800 Apaches in service. The US military first used the Apache in combat back in 1989 in Panama. It was also used in Operation Desert Storm and has supported low intensity and peacekeeping operations worldwide including Turkey, Bosnia and Kosovo. Boeing will perform work under the modification in Mesa, Arizona. Estimated completion date is November 30, 2021.

Middle East & Africa

The US Air Force has confirmed that one of its Bombardier E-11A aircraft was lost in Afghanistan. The aircraft went down in Taliban-controlled territory in eastern Afghanistan on January 27. The service has four of these aircraft carrying the Battlefield Airborne Communications Node. It is unclear how many people were on board. Taliban social media accounts have posted unverified footage showing a burnt-out plane with US Air Force markings. The E-11A is an electronics surveillance aircraft used to bridge communications on the battlefield. Given the mountainous and rugged terrain in Afghanistan, the E-11A is essential for transmitting communications between ground units, commanders as well as other assets in the region. The aircraft is assigned to the 430th Expeditionary Electronic Combat Squadron at Kandahar Airfield in Afghanistan.

Europe

Lockheed Martin started building the first F-35A Lightning II Joint Strike Fighter for Denmark. Production began at its Fort Worth production facility in Texas. According to the company, the forward fuselage of aircraft L-001, the first of 27 F-35As destined for the Royal Danish Air Force entered production the week prior. Completion of this aircraft is scheduled for late 2020. Having selected the F-35A to replace its Lockheed Martin F-16 Fighting Falcons in 2016, Denmark decided in 2018 to hedge payments of $3.7 billion so that the country’s department of defense could acquire the aircraft at a fixed price in its local currency, the Krone.

Croatia has lost a OH-58D on January 27 when the helicopter crashed off the country’s coast during a training flight. One pilot has been confirmed killed, while search is underway for the second crew member. The military helicopter crashed into the Adriatic Sea during a training flight. Reportedly the helicopter crashed between the island of Zlarin and the coastal town of Zablace near Sibenik. Croatia reportedly obtained 16 Kiowa Warrior helicopters, made between 2010 and 2012, as a donation from the United States in 2016.

Asia-Pacific

The Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said Monday his country will form a space defense unit to protect itself from potential threats as rivals develop missiles and other technology, noting that the new unit will work closely with its American counterpart recently launched by President Donald Trump. The Space Domain Mission Unit will start in April as part of Japan’s Air Self-Defense Force, Abe said in a policy speech marking the start of the year’s parliamentary session. He also said that Japan must defend itself from threats in cyberspace and from electromagnetic interference against Japanese satellites. Concerns are growing that China and Russia are seeking ways to interfere, disable or destroy satellites.

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The next meeting of the Subcommittee on Security and Defence (SEDE) is scheduled to take place on Monday 17 February 2020 from 15:00 - 18:30 and Tuesday 18 February 2020 from 9:00 - 12:30 from 14:30 - 18:30 in Brussels (room SPINELLI 1G3).

You are welcome to follow us on the EP Multimedia Centre.

Recent press releases:

- MEPs exchange views with UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations - 21 November 2019
- Subcommittee for Security and Defence visit to the European Defence Agency - 18 November 2019
- Militarisation of space and race for resources: What can EU do about it? - 12 November 2019
- Children of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: MEPs to assess the situation - 6 November 2019
- AFET/DROI/SEDE meet with UN Secretary General in New York and hold consultations with the US Congress in Washington, DC - 1st November 2019
- Parliament delegation to visit the United Nations General Assembly and US Congress - 25 October 2019
...

Further information
EP Mulitmedia Centre
Press release: MEPs exchange views with UN Under-Secretary-General for Peace Operations - 21 November 2019
Press release: Subcommittee for Security and Defence visit to the European Defence Agency - 18 November 2019
Press release: Militarisation of space and race for resources: What can EU do about it? - 12 November 2019
Press release: Children of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq: MEPs to assess the situation - 6 November 2019
Press release: AFET/DROI/SEDE meet with UN Secretary General in New York and hold consultations with the US Congress in Washington, DC - 1st November 2019
Press release: Parliament delegation to visit the United Nations General Assembly and US Congress - 25 October 2019
Press release: MEPs call for sanctions against Turkey over military operation in Syria - 24 October 2019
Press release: NATO Parliamentary Assembly in London: “Unilateral military operation in north east Syria is a security risk to us all” - 15 October 2019
Press release: Russian actions prompt NATO and EU to improve military mobility in Europe - 8 October 2019
Press release: End of INF Treaty: Is arms control out of fashion? - 26 September 2019
Source : © European Union, 2019 - EP

There are three official crossings on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, a boundary also known as the Durand Line. Two of these crossings are well-known: Torkham in the east and Spin Boldak in the south of Afghanistan. The gates that separate the two countries in the south read “the Gates of Friendship” in Pashto: “De dosti darwaza.” To cross this border in the past, all people usually did not need international legal documents such as a visa or even a passport. This has changed. At Torkham, people are no longer allowed to cross the border without legal documents. At Spin Boldak, a verbal agreement with the Pakistani border authorities still allows people to cross the border without a passport, but they often do so with difficulty. AAN’s Ali Mohammad Sabawoon looks at how the people of these two countries cross these “Gates of Friendship” and how this friendship is really considered.

Border history

Disagreement over the status of the border has been a recurring problem in Afghanistan-Pakistan relations, one on which neither side wants to compromise. The de facto border that divides Afghanistan and Pakistan – the Durand Line – was drawn based on an agreement signed in 1893 between Abdul Rahman Khan, the emir of Afghanistan and Mortimer Durand, a British diplomat representing British India. Based on this agreement, Afghanistan’s territorial claims on the area from Chitral to the present-day area of Balochistan were ceded to British India.

In 1947 when the British left the subcontinent and Pakistan came into being, Khyber Pashtunkhwa (also sometimes spelt as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa) and the current Balochistan province were given to Pakistan. The government of Afghanistan at that time did not recognise the new state of Pakistan and Shah Mahmud Khan, the prime minister of Afghanistan, voted against the admission of Pakistan to the United Nations. The government of Afghanistan continued to claim Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan as its own territory. Government officials argued that since the 1893 agreement had been with the British, who had now left the area, it was no longer in force. (Later Afghan governments have argued that the Durand Line agreement was entered into for a period of one hundred years only; and on 26 July 1949, a Loya Jirga declared all previous agreements regarding the Durand Line void.)

Since then, none of the Afghan governments has recognised the Durand Line as an official international border, nor has the Pashtun and Baloch ethnic groups living on either side of the Durand. Two well-known Pashtun leaders – Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan (1890–1988), who is also known as Bacha Khan and Fakhr-e Afghan (Afghans’ pride), and the ‘Frontier Gandhi’ in the West, due to his non-violent struggle against British colonialism as the head of the Khudai Khedmatgaran (God’s Servants) movement that was allied with Gandhi’s Congress Party, and Khan Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai (1907–73), also a Khudai Khedmatgaran leader, who is also known as Khan Shahid – led the struggle to create a united country. They considered Khyber Pashtunkhwa and Balochistan as Afghan soil. The government of Pakistan, for its part, considers the Durand Line the international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan. Neither side has been willing to compromise on the issue. Even the government of the Taleban, which Pakistan had officially recognised and which was considered very close to the Pakistan government, did not accept the Durand Line as an official border. (1)

The Afghanistan-Pakistan border regime

The Durand Line is almost 2,400 kilometres long and borders one-third of the provinces of Afghanistan. It has three official border crossings that have all the border crossing essentials, such as immigration, customs and security checkpoints: Torkham, Spin Boldak and Ghulam Khan. The Spin Boldak border crossing in the south connects the southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan with Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s Balochistan province, via the Khojak pass. The Torkham border crossing links Jalalabad city, the capital of the eastern Nangrahar province, with Peshawar through Momand Dara district and the Khyber Pass. The Ghulam Khan border crossing connects Gurbaz district of the eastern Khost province to Meranshah city, the capital of North Waziristan.

Additionally, there are 18 unofficial motorable crossings and around 235 crossings that are navigable only on foot or by animal, some only with difficulty (see our analysis here). Motor crossings include Nawapas in Sarkani district of Kunar province, Angur Ada in Barmal district of Paktika province, Barikot in Narai and Khash pass in Marawara districts of Kunur province, Jaji Maidan in Jaji Maidan district of Khost province and Zanzir in Shumulzai district of Zabul province.

The Durand Line cuts through two large ethnic groups – the Pashtuns and the Baloch – that have always sought to maintain their cross-border links and have argued their right to free travel. Afghan citizens in general travel in large numbers to Pakistan. According to Afghan officials in Spin Boldak, tens of thousands of people commute through the southern border crossing on a daily basis. A survey report published by the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) in 2017 gave 20,000 per day for Torkham and 25,000 to 30,000 for Spin Boldak. Many Afghans cross for work or business. Others go to see their relatives, as millions of Afghan refugees still live in Pakistan, or travel to Pakistan for medical treatment or education. In addition, Pakistani businessmen and daily workers commute to Afghanistan on a daily basis, as thousands of Pakistani residents from Chaman district, located near the border, have shops and other businesses in Spin Boldak. Those who cross sometimes do not even carry identification. “Tens of thousands of people from every province of the country cross the Spin Boldak border on a daily basis without legal documents and 500 to 600 people cross this border with visa and passport,” Muhammad Sharif Gharzai, a border commissary in Spin Boldak, told AAN on 7 January 2020.

The Pakistani government has over the past years sought to strengthen its control over the border. It has, at different times, either closed the border or tightened the border crossing rules for Afghans, especially after major security incidents in Pakistan or whenever Pakistan is politically pressured by Afghanistan or the United States over its interference in Afghanistan’s affairs or for giving refuge to terrorist-designated groups. Rules for Afghans crossing the border, for instance, became very strict after the Tehrik-e Taleban-e Pakistan (TTP) attacked a cadet school in Peshawar in late 2014 in which nearly 141 cadets were killed (see media report here). After this incident, the government of Pakistan gradually tightened border security and did not allow people to cross the Torkham border without legal documents. Before this, people were crossing the border to Pakistan and back to Afghanistan without identification. The Pakistani government also closed one of the official border crossings – Ghulam Khan – during its June 2014 Zarb-e Azb military operation in North Waziristan. The operation was launched in the wake of an attack on Jinnah International Airport in Karachi that was claimed by TTP and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). (The route through Ghulam Khan remained closed for four years. In 2018 it was reopened for limited trade, and on 19 August 2019 this port was officially reopened for all trade, as well as for personal crossings. See this report)

In early 2017, Pakistan started fencing the border with barbed wire along the Durand Line, stating that this tactic was aimed at stopping cross-border terrorists entering into Pakistan. Both the Afghan government and the Pashtun and Baloch ethnic groups strongly opposed the move. (2) Before this, Pakistan had already started to plant landmines along the Durand Line, which Pakistan said was to stop terrorists from coming to that country to carry out attacks. The United Nations and the Afghan government both strongly opposed the deployment of landmines. Pakistan has also dug trenches that are three metres deep, three to four metres wide and topped by barbed wire (see Dawn’s reporting here).

The fencing construction by the Pakistanis along the Durand Line has several times led to clashes between Afghan border police and Pakistani troops. Despite the controversy, the government of Pakistan said in January 2019 that 900 kilometres of barbed wire had been extended so far. In early November 2019, the Pakistani government said that it expected the fencing and trenches to be completed by the end of 2020.

Clashes have, in turn, regularly resulted in border closures. This was for instance the case in March 2017, when Afghan border police stopped Pakistani officials who were conducting a (Pakistani) population registration survey on Afghan territory, in the Jangir and Loqman villages of Spin Boldak district. After this turned into an armed clash, inflicting casualties on both sides, the Spin Boldak and Torkham borders were closed for nearly 23 days (see media report here). Similarly, on 14 October 2018, when Afghan security forces stopped Pakistani forces from extending the barbed wire fence into the Sro Sahanoarea of Shorabak district, clashes ensued. In response, Pakistani officials closed the Spin Boldak border, even though Shorabak district is nearly 50 kilometres from the Spin Boldak crossing. The border remained closed for two days (see media report here). (See also this 2013 AAN report about Afghan-Pakistani tensions over the border in Nangrahar province.)

The installation of the fence has blocked all motorable unofficial border crossings. The Pakistani government has repeatedly said that it will install alternative crossings. Local residents have confirmed that the Pakistani government has indeed installed alternative gates, for example in Nawapas and Zanzirs, but they say it is not yet permitting people to cross – with the exception, allegedly, of the Taleban. A local journalist in Nangrahar province, who did not want to be named, told AAN in December 2019 that the Pakistani militia does open the gates for the Taleban when they need to cross the border. All indications are that this is part of an official policy of the Pakistani government to facilitate the movement of the Taleban, who have sanctuaries in Pakistan as well as rented hospitals for their wounded fighters in some major cities of Pakistan, for example in Quetta and Karachi. (3)

How do the people commute?

In June 2016, the Pakistani government started enacting stricter border control efforts in both Spin Boldak and Torkham (Ghulam Khan was closed at the time). In Torkham, travellers without a visa were no longer allowed to cross the border in either direction. In Spin Boldak, legal documents were still not necessary, but border crossing rules were tightened. For example, no Afghans were allowed to cross the border without an Afghan national ID. According to a 2017 IOM survey report, the Pakistani actions reduced the traffic through the Torkham border crossing from 20,000 on a daily basis to a mere 2,000 to 2,500 persons. The IOM report also stated that at Spin Boldak, border rules were more flexible and around 25,000 to 30,000 individuals still crossed this border on daily basis. (See IOM’s report here.)

At the Ghulam Khan border point, now that it is open again, only people from the three southeastern provinces – Paktia, Paktika and Khost – are allowed to cross with their tazkeras (national ID card),provided they have relatives living across the Durand Line. They must give the names and places of residency of their relatives, after which the Pakistani border authorities register the names and allow them to cross.

Some people of Chaman district (Pakistan) and Spin Boldak district (Afghanistan) are provided with a simple document by the Pakistani government called a “border pass.” These passes are issued at the border. Travellers do not need to apply; they merely show their national IDs to the Pakistani border police and are provided with these passes. However, sometimes when travellers do not possess a border pass they are allowed to cross without them. The pass is valid for three months and renewable.

According to Afghan officials, as well as travellers who have gone to Quetta and returned, Pakistani officials in Spin Boldak nowadays only accept a certain type of original Afghan identification card (the most recent tazkera in A-4 size) or a passport. They do not allow people to pass with other kind of ID cards. However, Afghans without the required ID are still sometimes allowed to pass after they pay a bribe.

On 27 December 2018, a journalist who worked for a local radio station in Kandahar province told AAN, on the condition of anonymity, “Nearly ten years ago, I was working with an international media NGO. My office had issued me an ID card, which read PRESS at the top. I had that card with me for nearly two years. When I had to go to Quetta, I took that card with me. By showing that card to the Pakistani police, I was able to cross the border.” But now, he said, he needs to show his Afghan national ID card. Once when he was going to Quetta, he only had a copy of his national identity card with him and the Pakistani police told him to turn back. Some young men standing close to the border crossing called him over. “They asked me to give them 1,000 rupees [around seven US dollars]),” the journalist said. “I was sure those young men were linked to the police, as I was already aware of this, as the people who had crossed this border had already told me about them. I gave them the money and they told the police, ‘he is sick, let him pass’, and then they let me cross through the gate.” This man said at many other places he had also paid money to the police to be allowed to cross.

Muhammad Hashem, a traveller from Kandahar, told AAN, “When I went to Quetta to see my relatives, I had my original ID card (A-4 size) with me. When the police asked me for the tazkera, I showed that and the police allowed me to pass the border.” Two of the men who were with him in the vehicle from Kandahar told him, after they met again inside the terminal, that they had needed to give money to the police. He said one of the two passengers had a passport and another had a tazkera, but it had been issued during President Daud Khan’s era (1973–78).

Nur Khan, another Afghan, told AAN in October 2018 that when he went to Pakistan to see his relatives, he had crossed the border easily, as he had his tazkera with him. However, when he came back with his sister and her children, he realised he had forgotten his tazkera in Pakistan. The policeman told him to return. Nur Khan said, “I asked him what alternatives there were to cross the border. I meant for them to ask for money, so I could pay them, but he told me to be careful, as cameras were fixed nearby. After about 15 minutes, he let me go. I think it was because of the children, otherwise I would probably not have been able to come back.” Many other people told AAN that the Pakistani police in practice allow people to cross the border without documents, or without the proper documents, after they pay a bribe.

Apart from the gate at the border, checkpoints mark the road from Chaman to Quetta in as many as six different places where police take money from Afghans travelling to Quetta. Often even visa and passport holders who travel through the Spin Boldak border are compelled to give money to the Pakistani police on the road from the Spin Boldak border into Quetta city.

Different forms of national identity cards

The different forms of national Afghan identity card are a source of confusion and hassle. Afghans can have one of the more than five different identity cards that have been issued in the different eras. ID cards issued during the rule of King Muhammad Zaher Shah and Prime Minister (and later President) Muhammad Daud are passport sized and read “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan” next to a logo. This ID comprises 14 pages. The IDs issued during pre-Najibullah PDPA era (1979-87) are also passport sized but with red colour (for communism) and read at the top “Democratic Republic of Afghanistan.” The ID issued in the era of the mujahedin government (1992–96) was also passport sized, again reading “Islamic Republic of Afghanistan.” During the Taleban regime, there were two kinds of tazkeras: one in passport size and the second on A-4 sized paper. The second one was issued right up until the Taleban’s collapse. The Taleban tazkera reads “The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.” The current government also gave out A-4 sized ID documents. The most recent kind of ID card is an electronic version that the current government started issuing to residents of Kabul in May 2018 in a process that continues (see earlier AAN reporting here).

Pakistani border police take advantage of this situation. Sharif Gharzai, the border commissary mentioned above, told AAN in October 2018 that Pakistani officials pretend they accept only one tazkera. In response, in October 2018, a high-ranking Pakistani official in the embassy of Pakistan in Kabul, told AAN, on the condition of anonymity, “Pakistan is a different country and Afghanistan is a different country; the people who cross the border should have legal documents.” He added that as there was a concern about the different types of identity card. Afghan officials should give samples of all valid identity cards to the Pakistani border police. The official said, “At the Torkham border, we do not let Afghans cross the border without passport. In Spin Boldak, we have given this [that they are allowed to cross with only an ID card] as a special concession to the Afghans so that they can cross the border. We will soon implement the visa rules and regulations in Spin Boldak as well.” Well over a year later, this has still not been implemented.

In August 2019, Afghan border official Gharzai told AAN that a few months earlier the Pakistani authorities had said that only the people of the four southern provinces (Kandahar, Helmand, Zabul and Urozgan) would be allowed to cross the border without documents, and that by August they were saying that only people from Kandahar province and Spin Boldak district would be permitted to pass – this despite the fact that people from other parts of Afghanistan (such as Herat, Farah and Nimroz in the west, and Ghazni and Wardak in central Afghanistan) also go through this border. But for now, he said on 7 January 2020, “Pakistani officials have been allowing Afghans to cross the border with any kind of tazkera ID card for the last three months.” He said that tens of thousands of people still cross the border on a daily basis and that around 500 to 600 individuals cross the border per day with legal documents. According to him, “the Pakistani border police sometimes bother the visa holders as well and take money from them. When we [Afghan officials] hear about this, or when travellers complain that the Pakistanis have taken money, we talk to Pakistani officials and take the money back.” Gharzai said that although Pakistani officials still take money from those who do not have tazkeras, he thought it happened less now compared to the past. He did not say why the Pakistani government had eased the way for travellers to cross the border.

In January 2020, AAN approached travellers who had recently crossed the border, as well as residents of Kandahar province, for an update on the situation. One traveller, Asadullah Khan, told AAN that when he recently returned from Quetta to Kandahar, he did not have his tazkera with him. A Pakistani police officer did not let him cross the border and Asadullah said he quarrelled with the officer, asking him why he did not let him return to his own country. Asadullah said the police officer beat him and searched him. He had 40,000 rupees (around 300 US dollars) with him and when the police officer saw the money in his pocket, “he told me to go with him to a nearby container. When I went with him, he told me that I should give him 10,000 Rupees [around 65 US dollars] or he would put me in prison. I was very afraid so I gave him the money.” Asadullah said that when he crossed the border, he told the story to the Afghan police standing near the gate. He said, “The Afghan police told me to wait for one hour and that they would take the money back from the Pakistanis, but I didn’t want to wait.”

Muhammad Ebrahim Taj, a civil society activist in Spin Boldak district confirmed to AAN that the Pakistani border officials had somewhat eased the border crossing for travellers, but he said that the police still took money from travellers. He thought there were two reasons for Pakistani officials easing the crossings: First, Pakistani shopkeepers with shops in Spin Boldak had staged protests in Chaman district, demanding that their government facilitate the border crossings. Apparently, the Afghan government had also pressured these shopkeepers to seek redress from Pakistani officials. Second, the Afghan government had expelled many Pakistanis (mostly Punjabis) who had come to Kandahar city and Spin Boldak district, with legal documents, to work there – in the construction business but also as barbers, shopkeepers or businessmen, sharing shops with Afghans or Pashtun residents from the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. He said these two pressure tools may have made the Pakistanis ease the border crossings to some extent.

Temporary verbal agreements 

The border crossing issues along the Durand Line are the kind that would be best addressed with a permanent, bilateral agreement. The freedom to travel between Afghanistan and Pakistan is a social and economic necessity. People of these two countries are ethnically, religiously and historically interlinked. An additional consideration, at a lower economic level, is the importance of border crossings for the poor and vulnerable (eg, for shuttle trading, visiting relatives or medical treatment). At the Torkham crossing, the legal document requirements now result in weeks-long travel delays, as Afghans have to wait for their visas. If this visa system is implemented at the Spin Boldak border crossing as well, this will require a huge increase in the number of Pakistani consular employees to deal with the demand. Travellers would need to wait for weeks in front of the Pakistani consulate in Kandahar, just as they are now waiting in front of the Pakistani embassy in Kabul.

An additional complication arises for women and children, as the majority of them do not possess identity cards, due to some Afghan families traditionally not allowing pictures of women taken (keeping their faces from being exposed to strangers). Also, these men might not have considered the need for identification cards for the entire family.

Neither Pakistan nor Afghanistan wants the border to be sealed permanently; nor do they want the crossings to become practically impassable. Both sides have an obvious incentive to meet and find a permanent solution to this issue. And yet, neither government has been able to find such a solution.

In practice, the agreements tend to be verbal and made on an ad hoc basis. Sharif Gharzai, for instance, told AAN that border officials of both sides had made a verbal – but not written – agreement in July 2018 that all Afghans and Pakistanis can cross the Spin Boldak border with just their national identity cards. He said that these kinds of meeting take place whenever it is necessary. Gharzai said the Afghan central government does not allow him to make written agreements about the border crossings with Pakistani officials. Although he did not say why he was not allowed to do this, an Afghan government official in the Ministry of Border and Tribal Affairs, who did want his name published, explained. He told AAN that the government of Afghanistan is wary that Pakistan might treat any signed agreement related to the border or border crossings as an Afghan recognition of the Durand Line as an official border. All in all, there appears to be no clear roadmap to a settlement on the various issues that restrict cross-border journeys for Afghans.

Edited by Christian Bleuer, Martine van Bijlert and Thomas Ruttig

 

(1) Khan Abdul Ghafar Khan was the grandfather of currently active Pakistani Pashtun politician Asfandyar Wali Khan of Awami National Party, while Khan Abdul Samad Khan Achakzai was the father of Mahmood Khan Achakzai, who leads the Pakhtunkhwa Melli Awami Party. For example, AsfandyarWali, the leader of the Awami National Party (ANP), the biggest Pashtun political party in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, told an interviewer that Parvez Musharraf, the then president of Pakistan told him that if he could convince Afghanistan’s president at the time, Hamed Karzai, to recognise the Durand Line, the war in Afghanistan would end. Asfandyar replied that if Musharraf recognised the Line of Control with India in Kashmir, Hamid Karzai would recognise the Durand Line. Musharraf then told him that his nation would not accept this and that he was told Karzai’s nation would also not accept the Durand Line. Asfandyar also relayed how when Pakistan’s Interior Minister Nasirullah Babar had asked Mullah Omar, when the leader of the Taleban still governed Afghanistan, to recognise the Durand Line, Mullah Omar had told him, “Get the hell out of here, you treacherous man.”(See Asfandyar’s video here.)

(2) Mahmood Khan Achakzai  also strongly criticised the spread of barbed wire along the Durand Line (see here), as didAsfandyar Wali Khan (for both politicians, see footnote 1). Asfandyar, for instance, welcomed the opening of the road to Kartarpur between India and Pakistan in November 2019 – which allows the Sikh community of India to visit the tomb of Guru Nanak (who died in 1538) in that city without visa and passport – and urged Pakistan to remove the barbed wire from the Durand Line as soon as possible (see here). See also this video of a Pakistani mullah who belongs to the Jamaat-e Ulama-e Islam Fazl Rahman group (JUI-F) from Chaman district of Balochistan province, in which he condemns the fencing and the visa system.

(3) Despite the difficulties, many routes are still open for the Taleban. For example, the Taleban usually cross the border in the Zanzir area of the Shumulzai district of Zabul province or in the Bahramcha area of Dishu district of the southern Helmand province. The Taleban can even move injured fighters to their hospitals in Quetta for treatment. In 2015, when Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansur had to take over the leadership of the Taleban, up to two thousand local commanders passed through these illicit border crossings (Bahramcha of Helmand and Zanzir of Zabul province) to participate in the selection of their new leaders. See AAN’s dispatches here and here. In the east and southeast, residents have told AAN that the Taleban are allowed to cross the motorable unofficial crossings whenever they want.

 

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Source : © European Union, 2020 - EP

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The process to determine the outcome of Afghanistan’s 2019 presidential election has moved into its last phase. The Electoral Complaints Commission (ECC) has started to deal with the 6,292 appeals filed against the decisions made by its provincial offices. The ECC has 15 working days to adjudicate the appeals, but it may need more time, given that the most complicated questions have been deferred to this last phase. Moreover, the ECC decisions are likely to result in renewed recounts, which could lead to even further delays. The process is carefully scrutinised, in particular by the teams of the two runners-up, as even relatively small changes in the number and distribution of the votes could change the outcome of the election. AAN’s Ali Yawar Adili answers the main questions surrounding the conclusion of the complaints process.

1. How did the first phase of the complaints procedure – complaints registration – go?

Article 91 of the electoral law provides the following timeframe for complaints regarding the preliminary results:

• three working days for candidates or their agents to file any complaints or objections they may have;
• 15 working days for the provincial ECCs to finalise and publish the results of their adjudications of these complaints;
• three working days for the candidates or their agents to lodge their appeals with the central ECC, if they are not happy with the adjudications by the provincial ECCs; and
• 15 working days for the central ECC to adjudicate the appeals, if any.

The Independent Election Commission (IEC) announced the preliminary results of the 28 September 2019 presidential election on 22 December 2019, almost three months after the vote took place. On the same day the ECC announced in a press conference that it was ready to receive complaints: the complaints process would start the following day, on 23 December, and continue for three days (AAN’s report here). After this three day period, ECC chair Zohra Bayan Shinwari told a press conference on 26 December that the ECC had registered around 16,500 complaints. Around 14,000 of these complaints were about 33 provinces, and around 2,300 complaints were about Kabul. She said that around 8,000 complaints had been lodged by the Stability and Integration team led by Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, 4,400 by Peace and Islamic Justice led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, more than 3,000 by the Stable Builder team led by President Ashraf Ghani and 15 by the Security and Justice team of Rahmatullah Nabil (AAN’s background on these teams here).

Table 1: Categorisation of complaints by electoral team

No Number of complaints Electoral team 1 8,000 Stability and Integration 2 4,400 Peace and Islamic Justice 3 3,000 State Builder 4 15 Security and Justice

Source: Table by AAN using data from ECC’s 26 December press conference

ECC commissioner Qutubddin Roydar told the same press conference that “around 84 per cent of the complaints and objections” had been registered directly with the central ECC. ECC secretary and spokesman Muhammad Qasem Elyasi said that the large volume of complaints registered with the central ECC in Kabul (instead of the respective provincial ECCs) had been beyond their expectation. He said it would be time-consuming to send these complaints to the respective provincial ECCs for adjudication.

2. How did the second phase of the complaints procedure – adjudication by the provincial offices – go?

After the registration of the complaints, the ECC first divided them into 16 categories. The ECC in its bulletin number 23 said that complaints and objections could be classified based on province, subject, nature, priorities and electoral tickets. On 5 January 2020, ECC chair Shinwari provided the details (see Table 2) about how complaints were categorised.

Table 2: Division of 16,545 complaints into 16 categories

No Number of complaints Subject of complaints 1 6,881 complaints regarding the discrepancy between biometric votes and the result forms 2 119 complaints regarding increasing of votes in favour of a candidate 3 552 complaints about decreasing of votes to the disadvantage of a candidate 4 4 complaints about counting of votes of one candidate for another candidate 5 282 complaints regarding the casting of votes before the specified time 6 381 complaints about the casting of votes after the specified time 7 657 complaints about votes without biometric data 8 2,140 complaints concerning invalidation of [votes from] polling stations without any reason 9 39 complaints about missing result forms 10 36 complaints about changes to the result forms after the recount 11 1,338 complaints about suspicious votes 12 29 complaints about biometric devices 13 1,380 unjustified complaints 14 4 complaints regarding partiality of IEC staff in the recount process 15 3 Complaints about vote count in absence of agents 16 1,209 Other complaints

Source: Table by AAN using data from ECC’s bulletin 23

The ECC also categorised the complaints in terms of their nature into three sets: electoral negligence, electoral violations and electoral crimes (See Table 3).

Table 3: Categorisation of complaints in terms of their nature

No Number of complaints Type of complaints 1 1,371 Electoral malpractices 2 4,303 Electoral violations 3 3,272 Electoral crimes

Source: Table by AAN using data from ECC’s 5 January press conference

A third categorisation was based on the priority in terms of their impact on the election results (see Table 4). It is assumed that category A is the highest priority and has the largest potential impact on the election results, followed by B, C and D respectively.

Table 4: Categorisation of complaints in terms of their impact on the election results

No Number of complaints Priority 1 8,794 A 2 1,318 B 3 2,677 C 4 100 D

Source: Table by AAN using data from ECC’s 5 January press conference

This bulletin also provided a map showing the number of complaints in each province. As shown in Table 5, the provinces with the highest number of complaints were Nangahar (2,283), Kandahar (1,924), Khost (1,587), Helmand (1,439), Kabul (1,400), Paktia (1,283) and Paktika (997). Jawzjan had the lowest number of complaints (4), followed by Samangan (17).

Table 5: Provincial breakdown of complaints related to preliminary results

No Province Number of complaints 1 Nangrahar 2,283 2 Kandahar 1,924 3 Khost 1,587 4 Helmand 1,439 5 Kabul 1,400 6 Paktia 1,283 7 Paktika 997 8 Baghlan 553 9 Kunar 503 10 Ghazni 466 11 Logar 360 12 Laghman 335 13 Ghor 297 14 Herat 270 15 Nimruz 265 16 Zabul 243 17 Farah 215 18 Wardak 207 19 Kapisa 186 20 Takhar 162 21 Balkh 158 22 Nuristan 103 23 Parwan 92 24 Faryab 76 25 Badakhshan 64 26 Kunduz 63 27 Daikundi 55 28 Urozgan 49 29 Bamyan 36 30 Badghis 25 31 Panjshir 22 32 Sar-e Pul 21 33 Samangan 17 34 Jawzjan 4

Source: Table by AAN using data from ECC’s bulletin 23

3. What was the outcome of the adjudications by the provincial ECCs?

The adjudication of the complaints by the provincial ECCs was completed on 13 January 2020, within the specified timeline and despite considerable difficulties. (1) This was announced by the ECC at a press conference on 14 January, where ECC chair Shinwari said that the provincial ECCs made the following decisions:

• 9,866 out of 16,545 registered complaints were rejected due to lack of evidence;
• 18 complaints resulted in corrective actions;
• 5,316 polling stations in 21 provinces were referred for recount;
• 109 polling stations were invalidated;
• 75 individuals were given a cash fine;
• 71 individuals were relieved from their duties;
• 3 complaints were introduced to judicial agencies; and
• 111 complaints were considered exceptional cases (ie, cases the provincial ECCs were unable to adjudicate and had referred to the central ECC).

On 17 January, deputy head of the ECC secretariat, Yasin Hamraz, told AAN that the number of polling stations invalidated was actually 47, not 109. He said that 62 polling stations from Badakhshan, which had been referred for recount, had mistakenly been included in the list of invalidated polling stations. The number of polling stations referred for recount was thus 5,378, not 5,316. The ECC has not provided any details as to how many votes were invalidated from the 47 polling stations or which candidate these favoured most. The recounts, as will be discussed below, have also not yet commenced, so it is too early to predict how the election results might be affected.

Table 6 (see here for the higher resolution) shows the overview of the decisions by province (with the corrected details as provided by Hamraz).

Table 6: Adjudications by provincial ECCs of 16,545 complaints. Source: election stakeholders

The 111 exceptional cases, the ECC said, are the complaints which the provincial ECCs did or could not adjudicate and referred to the central ECC. They include four important areas of complaints that concern large numbers of votes: the 102,012 votes cast outside polling hours, the 137,630 votes that have been deemed suspicious, an unknown number of votes that are affected by discrepancies between the biometric votes and result forms, and the votes of 2,423 stations whose biometric data are missing (media reports here and here).

The IEC has included these sets of votes in the preliminary results, including votes from 298 out of 2,423 polling stations with missing biometric devices/memory cards and biometric data. On 7 November 2019, through decision number 105, the IEC ordered the audit and recount of votes from 2,423 polling stations where biometric devices or memory cards, and thus biometric data, were missing (see AAN’s reporting here). After the recount and audit, the IEC, decided that the result forms of 298 of these 2,423 polling stations should be processed, ie included in the count, because respectively the audit and recount report showed that the ballots of these polling stations had biometric confirmation stickers, no complaints had been registered against them, and the biometric devices of 82 of these stations had been checked and fount to show 1,746 sets of biometric data (they did not explain how and where they had found the biometric devices; see decision number 116, dated 21 December 2019, in Dari here). Two IEC commissioners, Mawlana Muhammad Abdullah and Mosafer Qoqandi, refused to sign this verdict.

The provincial ECCs have, in turn, ordered almost 5,400 polling stations to be recounted. ECC secretary and spokesman Elyasi said during the 14 January press conference that the plan for the recount would be shared with the IEC within two days. Now, more than a week later, the recount has still not started (more on this below).

4. How did the third phase of the complaints procedure – registration of appeals against ECC decisions – go?

According to the electoral law, complainants can register their appeals with the ECC within the three working days following the announcement of the decisions. In the end, the appeals period continued until 20 January. According to a deputy spokesperson, Zarmina Kakar, the adjudications in three provinces – Kabul, Khost and Paktika – were communicated to the parties only on 15 January. Therefore the period was extended in order not to waste the electoral campaigns’ right to appeal (media report here). (2)

ECC chair Shinwari told a press conference (see video here) on 21 January that 6,292 appeals had been made. The highest number of appeals were registered in Kandahar (1,573), Paktia (853), Nagrahar (818),Khost (772), Kabul (505) and Paktika (485). No appeals were lodged in the five provinces of Parwan, Maidan Wardak, Takhar, Jawzjan and Badghis.

Table 7 (see here for higher resolution) shows the result of the adjudication of the 16,545 registered complaints per province that may affect the outcome of the election, as well as the number of appeals. The final adjudication was as follows: 9,864 complaints rejected, 5,378 polling stations ordered to be recounted, 47 polling stations invalidated, and 111 exceptional cases referred to the centre.

Table 7: Provincial breakdown of complaints, adjudications by PECCs and appeals. Source: election stakeholders

Shinwari said that the central ECC had started addressing these appeals by going through the following procedure: categorisation, examination, analysis, scrutiny, decision, communication and implementation of decisions. Shinwari also said that the central ECC had not yet made any decisions about the decisions by the provincial ECCs.

ECC commissioner Sayed Qutbuddin Roydar said that all appeals had been registered by the three major electoral tickets – Stability and Integration led by Chief Executive Abdullah, State Builder led by President Ghani, and Peace and Islamic Justice led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar – but did not provide details on how many appeals had been made by each ticket.

The two main teams, however, did release numbers. On 19 January, a member of Abdullah’s Stability and Integration team, Nur Rahman Akhlaqi, wrote in a Facebook post that Abdullah’s team had completed its process and had filed 4,370 appeals with the central ECC. A spokesman for President Ghani’s State Builder team, Ahmad Folad Hamdard, told the daily Hasht-e Sobh that their team had lodged 1,164 appeals with the ECC. If correct, this indicates that a total of 5,534 appeals could have been registered by the campaigns of the two main contenders, and a total of 758 appeals by Hekmatyar’s ticket.

ECC secretary and spokesman Elyasi said that the appeals revolved around the following issues: the discrepancy between the biometric data and the votes recorded on the result sheets, votes cast outside the polling hours, non-biometric votes, suspicious votes, and a relatively small discrepancies of votes (between one and five).

While at the 14 January press conference, ECC commissioner Elyasi said that the ECC would share the recount plan with the IEC within two days; at the 21 January press conference he said that they were still debating whether the polling stations referred by the provincial ECCs for recount should be recounted immediately, or only after the central ECC had addressed the appeals against the decisions ordering the recount. He said that the ECC had not made any decision yet, but that after categorisation of the appeals they might be able to develop a better understanding as to how many polling stations needed to be recounted and when.

He also said that different provincial ECCs had dealt with the same type of complaints in different ways. For example, in the case of complaints against votes cast outside polling hours, in some provinces the ECC had treated these complaints as exceptional cases that needed to be referred to Kabul, some offices had rejected them, some had confirmed them and some had referred the polling stations for recount. According to him, if they did the recount now, they would be implementing only one type of decision in this category of complaints. Therefore, he said, the ECC needed to first unify the decisions. (3) The unification of different decisions within the same category of complaints implies that the number of polling stations referred for recount could still significantly go up, as well as down.

Speaking to AAN on 22 January, the executive director of the Free and Fair Election Forum of Afghanistan (FEFA), Yusuf Rashid, criticised the central ECC for not having communicated a guiding, principled stance to the provincial ECCs on how to deal with the major types of disputed votes. He said that if the ECC had taken a clearer position on those votes, the provincial ECCs would have taken unified decisions. Rashid believed that different decisions about the same complaints might have also been made in the complaints process of the parliamentary elections, but since the constituency for the presidential election is the entire country, it was now easier for the different electoral tickets to recognise that this had been the case, since they were following and cross-checking the procedure in all provinces.

5. What happens now?

Officially, the central ECC now has 15 working days, starting from 21 January, to adjudicate the 6,292 appeals made by three electoral tickets in 29 provinces. If all goes to plan, the outcome of the adjudications could be expected by 8 February.

However, several challenges lie ahead of the central ECC. First, it needs to categorise and map the apparent mess created by the varying adjudications by its own provincial offices. As mentioned above, the provincial ECCs made four different types of decisions about complaints regarding votes cast outside polling hours alone.

Second, the central ECC needs to make the tough decisions about certain major blocks of votes that have been disputed by many electoral tickets, in particular by Chief Executive Abdullah. These include the 102,012 votes cast outside polling hours, the 137,630 ‘suspicious’ votes, and the votes from the 298 polling stations. Some provincial ECCs might have rejected complaints about these votes or about some of them, some might have referred them for recounts, some might have invalidated them and some might have referred them to the centre. There are probably appeals against all these different decisions by the different electoral tickets, which the ECC may decide on individually, but the ECC could also decide to deal with all similar cases in one go (which could involve block invalidation or validation, either with or without recounts).

Third, the ECC needs to come up with the final list of the polling stations that need to be recounted as soon as possible. Currently, the provincial ECCs have referred 5,378 polling stations for recount. There seems to be some appeals against these decisions. The central ECC now needs to decide whether it confirms the existing list of polling stations or adds to it or decreases it. Once the ECC is clear about the number of polling stations to be recounted, the recount still needs to take place, which may take more time.

So although in terms of procedures, the process is approaching its end, many of the most complicated questions on how to deal with relatively large numbers of suspicious, disputed or irregularly cast votes will only now be faced. The confusions and ambiguities surrounding the complaint process, and the unresolved question of how the ECC may deal with these thorny issues, make it difficult to predict whether we might still be facing a first-round winner or whether we will need to prepare for a runoff. Given the very small margin that put President Ghani above the 50 per cent threshold in the preliminary results (less than 12,000 votes; see AAN analysis here), invalidation of any of the disputed blocks of votes – or even less far-reaching decisions – could easily push Ghani’s share under the threshold.

Edited by Martine van Bijlert

 

(1) In the process of addressing the complaints, ECC officials had criticised the IEC for not cooperating. For instance, on 6 January 2020, head of the ECC secretariat Chaman Shah Etemadi accused the IEC of procrastinating in providing the necessary user account and password details to the provincial ECCs, which, he said, would prevent them from addressing “complaints emanating from the difference between the biometric and non-biometric votes.” The IEC responded by saying that they had already acted according to the memorandum of understanding between the IEC, the political parties and Dermalog (the provider of the biometric technology) by giving each candidate a user account and giving the ECC two accounts. Etemadi, however, said that the two user accounts were being used by the central ECC and were not available to the provincial offices (see here). This resulted in what Muhammad Reza Fayaz, deputy spokesman for the ECC, called the “wastage of the candidates’ right to appeal” since the adjudication of complaints regarding the difference between biometric voter data and the result forms now had to be referred to the central ECC, where the decision will be final.

(2) The period for appeals seems to have started in each province as soon as the adjudication of complaints was finished. For example, on 12 January 2020, Muhammad Reza Fayyaz, deputy spokesman for the ECC, told Hasht-e Sobh that a number of campaigns had filed a total of 39 appeals in five provinces against the decisions communicated by the respective provincial offices. These included 28 appeals in Zabul, two in Urozgan, three in Sar-e Pul, three in Badakhshan and three others in Panjshir. Explaining the procedure to AAN on 13 January, Fayyaz told AAN that whenever a provincial office makes a decision about the complaints, one copy is provided to the complainant, one to the person implicated in the complaint , one to the relevant provincial IEC and one to the observers.

(3) The different and conflicting decisions by the provincial ECCs seem to have been one of the main reasons for the registration of a high number of appeals. According to a member of Abdullah’s Stability and Integration team, Nur Rahman Akhlaqi, in a Facebook post on 19 January, the central ECC now faces the following list of challenges:

• The provincial ECCs had made different decisions about the same complaints, which the ECC has to unify in accordance with the electoral law, and relevant regulations and procedures.
• Provincial ECCs rejected many “valid and documented complaints” which the ECC has to carefully clear and ensure their transparency.
• The previous recount (by the IEC, see AAN’s reporting here) has in many cases led to “double fraud” about which complaints have been filed and although the IEC opposes the [renewed] recount out of fear of legal consequences, the ECC should give preference to the law over “any illegal and treacherous pressures.”
• The separation of fraudulent and non-fraudulent votes needs to be done through a QR code reader that needs to be updated based on new decisions; otherwise, they may bring back fraudulent votes which had been separated before.
• A clear decision is needed about the votes without biometric data and the votes that were cast outside the polling hours.
• The ECC needs to seriously deal with perpetrators of electoral violations.

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