Mr. President,
1. As members of the Council will recall Mr. Lakhdar Brahimi, Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan, in his briefing to the Council on 6 May, described the significant progress made in the Bonn Process, but warned that the security environment, now prevalent throughout much of Afghanistan, threatened the gains made so far and the tasks that lie ahead.

2. The emphasis on drugs and Afghanistan that you have designated for this meeting is indeed welcome, given the importance of the issue to both immediate and long-term stability and security in Afghanistan and the region. I understand that Mr. Costa, Executive Director for UNODC, will be focusing directly on the drugs issue, and the Secretariat will provide the Council with an update on events since the last briefing.

3. Over the past month, some positive progress was made. Most notably, President Karzai took resolute action towards establishing the Government’s authority over the provinces, the commencing public consultations on the Constitution, and the planning for the electoral process entered its final stages. But the security situation is a serious impediment to progress, and is a major risk to the entire process. Solutions do exist to this problem, but resolving it will require commitment from both the Afghan authorities and the international community.

4. Before turning to the issue of security and its influence on the Bonn process as a whole, I should first provide the Council with an overview of recent developments in a number of areas.

A. Center-Periphery Relations

5. Some 18 months since the Bonn Agreement and the establishment of an Interim Authority, the authority of the Transitional Administration beyond Kabul is still much too limited. The majority of provincial authorities continue to act with an autonomy that denies the Transitional Administration the means to implement its National Development Plan. Yet the administration must deliver to the population, as a whole, basic improvements in their economic and physical security, if it is to be credible. And it is clear that the population’s patience is wearing thin.

6. In a determined effort to bring the provinces under the writ of his government, President Karzai summoned twelve of the country’s most powerful governors and regional commanders to Kabul on 20 May, threatening to resign if he failed to secure their full cooperation. The twelve agreed to comply with a 13-point decision of the National Security Council, which, among its provisions, forbids recruitment of private military personnel and unauthorized military action, reaffirms the ban on any individual holding both a military and civilian post, and dissolves extra-governmental bodies and titles, along with any accompanying administrative and executive powers.

7. The National Security Council decision also requires that all governors ensure that provincial incomes are regularly passed on to the central government. The Minister of Finance has since secured the transfer of customs revenues from several provinces, including USD 20 million from Herat’s Ismael Khan and is continuing to visit other provinces to collect funds and put in place a regular remittance. Bringing the total revenue collected to some $40 million, against the $200 anticipated in the Budget. This infusion of new cash has enabled the Government to pay some of the overdue salaries of its civil servants and Afghan National Army troops. However, regular remittances will be the real test of the provinces’ compliance with the government’s directive.

8. Unfortunately, already there are signs that written agreements do not necessarily translate into tangible action. For example, Ismael Khan has already signaled his unwillingness to yield any authority to Kabul, refusing, for the moment, to resign one of his posts. The government and the international community must send a strong signal that the signatories will be held accountable for their pledges.

B. Administrative Reform

9. On 11 June, President Karzai issued a presidential decree establishing the Independent Reforms Commission of Administrative and Civil Services. The Commission will have the power to appoint and remove high ranking civil servants on the basis of merit and overall qualifications.

C. Government-Led Provincial Initiatives

10. A number of important economic development programmes incorporated in the current fiscal year budget demonstrate the clear determination of the government to extend its authority and at the same time enhance the capacity of the public administrations in the provinces and districts. I would like to focus on two of these.

National Area-Based Development Programme

11. Under the National Area-Based Development Programme, provinces receive funds from the national budget and are responsible for determining, within the established national development priorities, the assistance project to be conducted in each district. Earlier this month workshops were held in each of the provinces, with the support of UNDP, to determine the utilization of this year’s allocation of $500,000 per province. Participants included Provincial Governors, representatives from relevant ministry departments, two community leaders from every district including a Loya Jirga representative, NGOs, and UN agencies.

National Solidarity Programme (NSP)

12. Under the National Solidarity Programme (NSP) block grants of some $20,000 are being transferred by the Transitional Authority directly to democratically elected, village level development councils which include women and members from marginalized sections of the villages. The funds, which are in addition to those allocated to provinces through the NABDP, will be used for infrastructure and other investments. The NSP has now commenced in five provinces, Herat, Farah, Kandahar, Bamyan and Parwan, with UN-Habitat as the facilitating partner. During 2003-2004, it will target 3-5,000 communities, and another 5-6,000 communities during 2004-2005—nearly half the communities of the country. It is hoped that this innovative programme may also benefit other process such as census data verification and elections.

D. Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF)

13. The Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund (ARTF) is the primary channel for donor funding to the national budget. Current commitments for the fiscal year of some $230 million fall far short of the some $600 million sought. Without timely delivery of pledged contributions, the Transitional Authority will ultimately falter – it will not be able to pay civil servant salaries or undertake development and investment activities. Voluntary funding is also, required for the UN assistance activities to be carried out by its various agencies under the Transitional Assistance Programme for Afghanistan (TAPA), as identified in the national development budget. As of last month, some $225 million of the $729 million sought has been received.

E. Human Rights Situation

14. The overall human rights situation continues to be negatively affected by extortion by local commanders, arbitrary detentions, and the general lack of rule of law. This remains a source of instability and diminishes the credibility of the government. As part of the response, the seven satellite offices of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission are now fully operational. Their staff have, with the support of UNAMA, undertaken joint monitoring and investigations of human rights violations, as well as the organization of educational and other promotional activities. During the public consultation on the constitution and initial preparations for next year’s elections, it is expected that the offices of the Commission will play an important role in the civic education process, and through its capacity to monitor human rights abuses.

F. Judicial Reform Commission

15. Of all the elements of the peace process, reestablishing the rule of law and, in particular, the justice sector, is one of the most important areas for long term stability. Yet it is also one which requires the greatest investment of time, to train lawyers, build the judiciary and public confidence in it ant to bolster with respect to other state institutions. As part of its overall work plan, which includes determining which laws are currently in force, and surveying and developing the human, technical, and logistical needs of the justice sector, the Judicial Reform Commission has taken several steps this past month. The Ministry of Justice has begun to compile and index national laws with participation of foreign experts. Law revision has been initiated in the fields of criminal law and criminal procedure, as well as on judicial organizations which are crucial areas for the reestablishment of rule of law. The Commission also initiated discussions with the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission on areas of the constitution relating to the judiciary. In Kabul, reconstruction of the High Court and Property Deeds Office is already underway with US support.

G. Constitutional Review Commission

16. The Constitutional Review Commission formally inaugurated the start of public consultations on 6 June. Teams of three commissioners will lead the consultations with elders, local shuras, and ordinary citizens in all 32 provinces of Afghanistan, as well as with the refugee community in Iran and Pakistan. The first five teams were sent to Mazar, Gardez, Jalalabad, Kunduz and Bamyan on 10 June. The Commission has decided not to circulate the current draft of the Constitution, which was prepared by the first drafting committee and which is incomplete. It reasoned that it would first wish to learn population’s expectations of its provisions and that consideration of the current draft as it now stands could limit the dialogue. A draft constitution, which takes into account the results of the public consultation and the views of the full Commission, will be circulated in September. Meanwhile, a working group appointed by the President has been discussing options for the organization of the Constitutional Loya Jirga. Recommendations will be finalized and forwarded to the President later this month. Logistical and security arrangements are being discussed between the Government, UNAMA, international representatives, as well as the international security forces. Their complexity should not be underestimated.

H. Electoral Process

17. UNAMA’s preparations for the electoral registration process have continued and last month the capacity to do so was significantly enhanced beyond the original four-person team with the approval of the supplementary budget that established the Electoral Unit. Six Regional Coordination Officers have now been recruited and are being deployed into the regions, where they will undertake an on-the-ground needs assessment of the situation as it now exists and they will determine the practicality of the current work plan. Due to the lack of an Afghan counterpart and the timing of the election, UNAMA has had to plan on the assumption that most of the electoral registration would have to be done directly by UN staff, international and local. However, we were recently informed that the Government is now considering more actively the option of establishing an elections commission, which would allow for greater Afghan involvement in the electoral management, given time for capacity building. The finalized draft budget is to be presented to donors shortly and it is hoped that the necessary voluntary funding will be forthcoming.

18. The election process is fundamentally a shared responsibility between the government, the UN, and the international community. The feasibility of conducting the registration and its ultimate credibility will depend not only upon the various technical contributions to the management of the registration process from the UN and the Government, but critically upon the effective creation of an improved political environment, and most important, on security.

I. Security

Mr. President,
19. On 7 June, the international community was dealt a brutal reminder of how fragile peace remains even in Kabul when a suicide car bomber detonated a large explosion alongside a German ISAF bus, killing 4 personnel and one bystander, and injuring 29 personnel in the most deadly attack on the international security force in its 18 months of operations. This dreadful act was designed to shake the resolve of the international community in its commitment to the peace process. But it did not -- Germany and the rest of the international community have reaffirmed their commitment to Afghanistan. Nevertheless, this incident underscores that Kabul is not immune to the security problems of the hinterland, and that if security is not extended from Kabul, then the city itself will become more vulnerable – and thus less stable.

20. Other signs of the activity of those seeking to subvert the process continued to occur in the rest of the country. Across the north, factional fighting regularly continues. The outbreak of fighting on 16 May between two police commanders belonging to rival factions in Mazar-i-Sharif led to the suspension of UN activities in the city for four days. Among those killed was the local UN security focal point.

21. In southern and southeastern Afghanistan, incidents of violent crime and reported clashes between suspected Taliban, and Coalition and ANA forces continue amidst an apparent marked increase in Taliban infiltration. In the second week of June, police officers were twice ambushed while traveling on roads in the province of Zabul, resulting in the death of two of their number.

22. International and national NGOs operating in several cities, including Kandahar and Jalalabad, have been the target of grenade attacks. In response to a series of attacks and threats to demining teams, the UN Mine Action Center was forced to suspend all activities in ten provinces and along the Kabul/Kandahar road (Ghazni province).

23. In the current security environment, UN road missions have had to be severely restricted in the provinces of Zabul, Uruzgan, Kandahar, and norther Helmand. Where not suspended, missions along main roads must be accompanied by armed escorts provided by the Afghan authorities. In effect, one third of the country is currently inaccessible to the UN – which seriously hinders the ability of the UN and others to carry out reconstruction efforts and to lay the groundwork for the Constitutional Loya Jirga, for the elections, for disarmament, demobilization, and reintegration in the affected regions.

Mr. President,
24. Ultimately, national security structures will have to assume responsibility for domestic security backed by a functioning justice system, but for these institutions to develop the necessary capacity and for them to be truly national in character will take time. Satisfactory progress has been made in the training of the national army and police forces, by the lead nations the US and Germany, respectively. Some of those forces have already been successfully deployed. But the funding for the forces’ salaries is woefully inadequate. The success of these structures in providing security depends also on the establishment of an effective justice system – to which I referred earlier -- and in disarmament, demobilization and reintegration efforts.

25. With the support from the Government of Japan and UNAMA, the DDR programme would be ready to commence later this week. Within the Government, the Ministry of Defence is to have the lead role in the implementation of the Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration programme. But the Ministry of Defence is conspicuously lacking in regional and ethnic balance and thus does not have the trust of the factions that are to participate in the DDR programme. Until it reforms itself, including at the uppermost echelons, the Ministry of Defence will not enjoy the necessary trust of the factions. Accordingly, the commencement of DDR has now been made contingent on the implementation of a series of confidence-building measures signaling that reform of the Ministry of Defence is indeed irreversible and is in conformity with the Presidential decree of 1 December 2002.

26. We welcome the Provincial Reconstruction Teams contribution to improved security and are encouraged by the recent expression of interest by a number of countries in participating in these teams —of which presently there are three, composed of 185 personnel. They can provide a platform for supporting and expanding the work that is being undertaken on security sector reform – they can assist in provincial training of police, help provide an environment conducive for judicial reform as well as other measures aimed at improving local governance. They can also carry out infrastructure work to support government authority such as renovating police stations, rebuilding courthouses, and constructing barracks for the new Afghan National Army. The early deployment of elements of the ANA to Gardez and Bamyan has also highlighted the role the PRTs can play in familiarizing such forces with the concept of civic-action and, through such engagement, contribute to the establishment of greater security. Finally, the PRTs can play a confidence building role in connection with a number of processes that have or are about to start, namely the constitution-making process, DDR, and electoral preparations. However, in the current environment, we must be aware that PRTs, in their current strength and deployment, are still far from an adequate response to the security challenge posed to the Bonn process.

27. We must, therefore, continue to stress that, while national Afghan institutions are ultimately the answer, further deployment of international security elements, of a reasonable size and able to project credible strength, are needed to provide the security environment and confidence for the Bonn process to move forward to its natural conclusion.

In conclusion Mr. President,
28. In the past month, civic processes central to the Bonn Agreement have commenced and others will soon begin, that offer all Afghans a stake in achieving a stable state. The technical and logistical dimensions of moving ahead with the peace process are being put in place, but the necessary environment is not there. There are still some within Afghanistan for whom the process represents a threat and it is their intent to subvert it and force the government and international community into retreat. They are relatively few in number, but the vicious technology of terror gives them a power that is disproportionate to their number. The aims of the Taliban, al-Qaeda, and Hekmatyar are reasonably clear. More difficult to gauge is whether the professed commitment of regional commanders and powerful governors to the nation-building process is in fact genuine, or whether in fact, they are prepared to undermine it.

29. So much has been invested in the progress made to date in Afghanistan. The process has entered into its most critical and most sensitive stage – the constitutional and electoral processes -- but prevailing insecurity poses a serious risk of derailing it. Those who wish to subvert the process should not be allowed to triumph over the aspirations of the vast majority of Afghans, for a stable state. I encourage the Afghan authorities and the international community to demonstrate a shared commitment to provide the necessary conditions for the peace process to move forward.

Thank you Mr. President.

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