KABUL'S ETHNIC TENSIONS

UNCLAS KABUL 001077 SIPDIS SENSITIVE, SIPDIS STATE FOR SCA/FO, SCA/A E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: PGOV ECON AF SUBJECT: KABUL'S ETHNIC TENSIONS REF: A) Kabul 1035 B) Kabul 469 C) Kabul 249 D) Kabul 112 ¶1. (SBU) Summary: Competition for land, basic municipal services, and discrimination may be aggravating latent ethnic tensions among Kabul's increasingly self-segregating Pashtun, Hazara and Tajik populations. The capital's population growth is outrunning the government's gradually improving ability to govern. Inter-communal harmony in Kabul, already home to one-sixth of Afghanistan's population, is important to the government's ability to extend stability throughout the country. ¶2. (SBU) Kabul Citizens' Council head Ghafar Dawi, one of a dwindling number of "Kabulis," pre-war urban natives who proudly deny any ethnic affiliation, told us increasing ethnic tensions are one of the major challenges confronting his city. He says land-hungry urban Pashtun and Hazara migrants accuse Panjshiri Tajiks of having grabbed available urban real estate. Panjshiris Take the High Ground -------------- ¶3. (SBU) Several of our local contacts allege post-war Panjshiri newcomers purposely situated their mountainside-clinging settlements on Kabul's high ground so they could enjoy strategic advantage in the event of an urban inter-communal war. Competition between established neighborhoods and high-ground Panjshiris for scarce drinking water is a more immediate source of tension. Perceived Panjshiri arrogance occasionally results in violence. Late in 2007, a Panjshiri driver's attempt to force his car through a spill-over crowd of non-Tajik Kabul mosque worshipers precipitated a riot and several deaths. Some Panjshiris acknowledge acting peremptorily out of a sense of entitlement. They assert rights derived from having been the first anti-Taliban force to reenter the city after the 2001 liberation. Hazaras Take It to the Streets -------------- ¶4. (SBU) Assertive community leaders in the sprawling and underserved Hazara neighborhoods of southwest Kabul, like MP Fatima Nazary, are becoming more insistent in their demands for municipal services for their communities. Nazary led Hazara demonstrators in January when they protested publicly over the lack of electricity (REF C). Thousands of Hazaras took to the streets in 2003, protesting against alleged police targeting of their ethnic group, in the post-liberation capital's first large-scale demonstrations. Pashtuns: They Think We Are All Taliban -------------- ¶5. (SBU) According to Mohammad Isshaq Daqeeq, a Pashtun elder from Kabul's District 3, his community perceives outright mistreatment rather than neglect from Tajik-run government ministries. He traces Pashtun grievances back to the overthrow of the Taliban when the occupying Tajik militias arbitrarily dismissed Pashtun municipal employees. He accuses the Tajik-dominated Interior Ministry, which controls the police, and National Directorate of Security (NDS) of arresting Pashtun males on false charges of Taliban affiliation so their families can be compelled to pay ransoms for their release. Former Kabul Provincial Council Head Maulawi Abdul Aziz Ahmadzai, also a Pashtun, charged NDS with arbitrarily arresting 10 Pashtun religious leaders last year. They were released when family and friends paid off their captors, he alleged. ¶6. (SBU) The international community effort to stabilize Afghanistan broke the cycle of inter-ethnic bloodletting, which had become a dominant feature in Afghanistan's nearly three decades of war. Unfortunately, the Kabul gvoernment's inability to accommodate or serve its rapidly growing and ethnically diverse population may be reawakening inter-communal hatreds. WOOD