Dr. Fischer: [audio unavailable]

Question: Your role specifically in the Commission, you are appointed by the UN to monitor the Commission, what exactly is your role?

Dr. Fischer: I am the Chief of Staff of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan, as we are called since 28 March, and in so far pertaining to the particular role I am playing, I have to support the Commission in its work.

Question: But you are not actually a Member of the Commission?

Dr. Fischer: No, none of us are Members of the Commission. It is a 21-member Commission of only Afghans which is being supported by us [the UN].

Question: How concerned are you with the various warlords around the country that you see in the central Government?

Dr. Fischer: This is a repetition of the answer I have just given. Everybody is concerned and everybody knows that in a process, every single step is imperfect so what we are working for, all of us, the Commission, the United Nations, also in its support for the Commission, to see that the next step, the Emergency Loya Jirga will be a step or two steps or three steps ahead in the process, at the end of which we want to have a broadly, national as well as internationally legitimised Government, after elections, in Afghanistan after perhaps two years time.

Question: Did you sit in on all the discussions of this Commission?

Dr. Fischer: No. We sat in whenever we were asked to sit in and we gave advice when we were asked to give advice.

Question: Were there any issues or articles that the Commission had some trouble agreeing on?

Dr. Fischer: I think any Commission and any discussion means give and take, opinions and counter-opinions. The Commission has worked hard, six days a week, five days in [committees] and one day regularly in plenary sessions to sort out whatever was to be sorted out because many of the issues have been fairly complicated and they have come to conclusions and unanimous decisions.

Question: Was there anything that stuck out that took more time?

Dr. Fischer: Everything stuck out, everything took time.

Question: ISAF will provide security inside Kabul only and in the other regional areas there will basically be observation committees, just observers.

Dr. Fischer: Observation, monitoring. Armed security would be provided through the Interim Administration wherever required.

Question: So that means through the national army.

Dr. Fischer: Yes, and the police, particularly the police, not so much the army.

Question: And that will be provided everywhere or just where needed?

Dr. Fischer: Basically everywhere because the functions of the Interim Administration include providing security everywhere.

Question: So they will have police and observation teams everywhere, and if something goes wrong, if this warlord or that warlord is dominating the process, then they will invalidate it and move it somewhere else?

Dr. Fischer: When you read the documents you get the answers. One of the answers was this is a two-stage process, so where there is a problem locally, the electoral college will be removed from the first locality to a regional centre where it is given more transparency and less influence from outside circles who could conduct the election process.

Question: In terms of preventing ex-war criminals or ex-terrorists from being Members of the Loya Jirga, how do you actually do that? Particularly the point about there being members of the actual Interim Government who have been accused of war crimes and killing innocent civilians, so how do you address that?

Dr. Fischer: This brings us back to the first question and to the answer I gave. Nothing will be perfect in this stage of the process. We do believe that the criteria which have been drawn up, largely cater to this issue so that we do hope, that by and large, we will have a Loya Jirga which does not represent the war lords but represents the opinion and the wishes of the people of Afghanistan.

Question: How confident are you that the Loya Jirga can go ahead in a free and fair manner, given the number of guns and gunmen, armed men in Afghanistan?

Dr. Fischer: The Loya Jirga process, is as the name says, a process, and we are all aware that this process means that, we started from a very difficult situation where a few groups agreed in the beginning, this is the time to start to change the history of the country. What we intend to do to achieve, within two or three years, a situation where a peaceful Afghanistan is guaranteed, where the Afghans themselves take their destiny into their own hands. So every step leading there will hopefully be a bit better, and a bit more forward towards achieving a broad-based, multi-ethnic, nationally and internationally legitimised government and a sustainable system in Afghanistan. So answering your question would be to say that, particularly in this stage of the process, we cannot expect anything perfect. What we do expect, that by and large, the process will be peaceful, will be free to the extent the society itself allows it, and to the extent the Interim Administration supports this process which we are quite sure of.

Question: I think two people have already been murdered in Kunar who were seeing Members of the Loya Jirga Commission. There is already a precedent for coercion, how worried are you?

Dr. Fischer: I would like to counter this by a question from my side; whether you know how many people were murdered in Washington or New York or Marseille or Berlin in the same time.

Question: But not before elections.

Dr. Fischer: You could take the precedent of India or Pakistan in this context so I think we should not look at the possible negative side effects which do happen in these countries along political processes. Any murder is a worrying incident, any murder worries us. Such incidents, murder and other forms of pressure, have been taken up by us with the Interim Administration and have been followed up by the Interim Administration, so that we hope there would be less incidents of this sort as compared to a situation where this support would not be there.

Question: Are you confident that there will be a more broad-based, more multi-ethnic Government at the end of June?

Dr. Fischer: Everybody is hopeful and if we were not confident to some extent we would not be doing this work here and would not be supporting the Afghans. We know from the experience we have gathered in the field so far that the majority of Afghans are expecting a change, but they are expecting a change for the better, but they all know, as Mr. Brahimi said in an interview in New York, “You cannot change Afghanistan within a couple of weeks into Switzerland”.

Question: If people do have anxieties or worries during the next three months while trying to independently elect representatives for the Loya Jirga, what can they do?

Dr. Fischer: Well the procedures have been set for the Loya Jirga process which will take place in the next eight weeks. United Nations is tuned with its national and international teams, also to address worries, problems of the people where they feel that the process is not being allowed to flow freely. I can inform you that Mr. Brahimi personally has taken up and will take up such issues, address the Interim Administration in its central regional and its provincial sectors to stick to the Bonn Agreement in letter and spirit, and we will do whatever is in our power to support this process.

Question: In Article 14 of the Agreement which bans people who have smuggled narcotics, committed human rights abuses, committed war crimes, killed innocent people. Will that apply to every Member of the Loya Jirga?

Dr. Fischer: It should.

Question: Even Members of the current Interim Administration who have seats allocated to them by right?

Dr. Fischer: In case it is not applied or in case there are deviations, we are sure that the Loya Jirga itself will draw the proper conclusions. As has been pointed out in the press conference, those in the Interim Administration today are among the few who decided last year in December it is high time to change the destiny of Afghanistan. They took the initiative. I am sure that the Loya Jirga will take due consideration of what these persons are doing for Afghanistan and will decide how they should be treated.

Question: Will there be some sort of appeals process if people object to Members of the Loya Jirga before they sit?

Dr. Fischer: Yes, there is an appeals process and this is within the mandate of the Loya Jirga Commission itself to deal with such appeals.

Question: So Afghans do have doubts about Members of the Interim Administration, their past records.

Dr. Fischer: They can appeal, they can address their appeals to the Commission itself.

Question: There are thousand of factional fighters in Kabul. You are due to try and hold a free and fair Loya Jirga here, is that going to be a problem?

Dr. Fischer: I do not think that will be a problem in Kabul. Kabul is perhaps the best secured place and if you look around you will find very few guns in the city now. Armed factions have largely been removed outside the city to the barracks. This is a process being controlled also by ISAF, in close coordination with the Interim Administration and in consultation with UNAMA.

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