Spokesman: Good afternoon, thank you for coming, as we announced in the briefing we have Mr. Ercan Murat, the Country Director of the United Nations Development Programme, Minister Pashtun who is the Vice Chair of the Demobilization and Reintegration Commission and Mr. Brahimi, the Special Representative of the Secretary-General for Afghanistan. They will be signing the project document which will provide the mechanism for funding and management of the Afghanistan’s New Beginnings Programme. Following that they will take your questions.

Minister Pashtun will make a few remarks then all three will be available to take your questions.

Minister Pashtun: Ladies and gentlemen, it’s a pleasure to start a long journey towards peace. I believe the instrument we just signed is a first step and a major document to start one of the most important steps of bringing peace to Afghanistan, that is disarmament, demobilization and reintegration of demobilized elements.

There is no doubt that it is a very difficult process, it requires lots of expertise, understanding of the Afghan situation and of course respecting the delicacies of the different factions, groups and people involved but with the international community around us, with their help, and particularly the United Nations and very particularly with our distinguished Afghan, Mr. Brahimi, behind us I’m sure we’ll be successful.

I usually warn my friends when I talk about Afghanistan that I’m usually optimistic. I have to be optimistic, but I would like to say that this is an operation, a process which the Afghans have no experience of, even in the region we have no experience of this on such a scale and it requires a lot of preparation and input from all those international communities who had similar experiences and particularly the United Nations agencies who should be helping us to complete this important step to bring peace to Afghanistan. I think that’s all I can say right now. The only extra thing I could say is I can promise that the whole of the cabinet and practically 99.9 per cent of the Afghans are behind this process. Thank you.

Questions and Answers

Question: When is this process actually going to start and how long will it take?

Minister Pasthun: Well according to the schedule already being finalized the actual process of disarmament will start on first of Saratan, which is roughly the 10th of July. The [preparatory] work began this Saturday which was the 15th of our first month for four weeks. The time is for establishing administrative systems for the operation and the next four weeks, which will take us to 8 or 9 weeks, will be preparation for logistical purposes, arrangements for the vast amount of equipment and facilities to establish actual field operational units and then the last two weeks, which will take us to ten weeks, that will be preparation for the real work in the field so that brings us to almost the first of Saratan. It’s something like two and a half months from today or ten weeks from today. You’re asking how long it will take, at this stage we are planning the operation for one year but I’m sure that’s not sufficient. I should maybe go into a couple more details. I think personally the disarmament part of it is the easier part as far as logistics are concerned. The actual bottleneck will be the reintegration. The reintegration of such a big number [of people], to create employment for them, it will take a much longer time. A large number of these people will have to be trained actually to prepare them for good levels of employment, to be really instrumental in the Afghan reconstruction process, so that will take a much longer time.

Question: I understand that President Karzai was supposed to give a speech on DDR on 21 March which has been postponed over and over again, what makes this speech delayed so much, is there any disagreement or conflict within the government? How many soldiers are you disarming in this programme and which province do you plan to begin with?

Minister Pashtun: You have three questions actually. The first question as far as the government is concerned definitely there was no problem of the sort [you mention]. If you mean refining the details, refining the process yes, we needed some more time. The President was actually planning to give a speech on 1 April, then we told him it was April Fools [Day] and we told him people might not take him very seriously that’s why he postponed it. I hope you will hear his speech tonight so if his speech is delayed it’s because the Commission has [not] yet finalized its work. The second question was how many soldiers – to be very frank it’s very difficult to establish exact [numbers] but we have roughly agreed that the number that we are planning for will be something like 100,000 at the moment. The third question is where to start. Our plan actually is to do the whole country but to start we have five provinces as the candidates. We still have to study and choose two or three amongst them. The five provinces are Kabul, Gardez, I mean Khost area, Bamyan, Kunduz and Kandahar.

Question: Everyone says be optimistic but we see the real problem with many people having guns at home, part of the heritage from the time of Jihad. How can you be optimistic?

Minister Pasthun: My greatest optimism comes from the people, from my people. I believe all of them are ready, they want to get rid of guns. Definitely their prerequisite will be to give them sufficient security. The most important security in my opinion, of course [you need to] establish the police and national army, the most important security they are looking for is economic security. For more than twenty years they were in the field of fighting, they know nothing else. Shifting them directly to any other job will [make any of us feel] insecure. For example I’m an engineer and you take me to medicine, I’ll be in trouble, similarly for anybody else. As I said, I believe that 99.9 per cent of the people want this to happen, to get rid of guns, they just don’t want the sight of it any more. Of course the personal security and family security of those people is very important for them and if we can arrange for that then the rest is then of course just a matter of procedures.

Question: (Pashto) We have reports of insecurity in many part of the country, to what extent are you sure that this programme will contribute to stability and security?

Minister Pashtun: (Pashto) It’s true that there are incidents of insecurity around the country but again the problem in this country has two sides, one is political one is economic. On the political side, there is no stability in the country right now, one hundred per cent. On the economic side the government has been able to deliver on very few of the promises made to the people across the country and I believe that it is mainly insecurity, physical insecurity which doesn’t allow the government to implement its projects and deliver on its promises. As I said earlier the vast majority of the people support this programme and if successfully implemented it will bring about security in the country and also confidence, the much needed confidence among the people towards the government and the future of this country. It will also provide employment for those who create insecurity and that in general will result in security around the country and prepare the ground for reconstruction.

Question: (Pashto) While professionals in this country are looking out for jobs and do not get the jobs they deserve and they want, how can we make sure that the ones who have guns today will have jobs tomorrow after they lay down their weapons?

Minister Pashtun: (Pashto) On the question of the educated people coming from abroad and not being able to find jobs, I would challenge that. You can introduce professionals to my ministry and I will be in a position to give them employment but I don’t believe that professionals are without jobs in this country. We actually lack professionals in this country for our projects. I hope that professional Afghans will come from abroad, from foreign countries and participate in reconstruction. Nonetheless if we assume that professionals are looking for jobs and employment will be necessary for the disarmed and demobilized elements. They will not be filling professional positions. The most they will become is skilled workers not professionals so there is no fear of them filling professional positions.

Question: The UN has been running a pilot programme in the north, how has it been going and what have you learnt from it?

SRSG: I’m not sure that we have had a pilot programme. I think it is not a pilot programme that was run by the UN but some disarmament activities that have been implemented by the military set up in the north in Kunduz in particular and to a lesser extent in Mazar-e-Sharif. In Mazar-e-Sharif we have been involved directly. We have made the agreement as it were between the parties there. I think it has been running reasonably well in both places, both the initiative that was taken by the Afghans and the initiative that was taken in conjunction with us in the north, in Mazar-e-Sharif.

Question: Do you know how many people have been disarmed?

SRSG: I’m afraid I can’t give you numbers. In the north it is the tensions that exist between the different factions and the problems we have had that have led to these disarmament activities. I can’t tell you about numbers but I think it did help a great deal to reduce tensions locally, although it hasn’t really solved the problems at the level of the region.

Question: It’s a very interesting story today, we can see if this project is successful you can understand that it will indeed lead to the creation of a single nation and a modern prosperous state. What is puzzling to an uninitiated observer from Britain is simultaneously international money is helping to disarm the militias, the United States are paying the commanders, in Kandahar for instance, to keep their militias going to help in the war against terror. Can you explain your attitude to this glaring contradiction?

SRSG: How many hours do I have? Let me say that you are absolutely right that this is a very, very important project and let me also use the excuse of your question to express gratitude to the governments of Japan, the United States, Britain and Canada who have contributed funds to this project. The documents we have signed today allow UNDP to open the account and to start receiving these funds so we are also very grateful to UNDP for their contribution and cooperation in the management in the finance of this project. Let me add also that this is not an independent project, it’s not what Engineer Pashtun is going to do, it’s not a kind of side job that he is getting in addition to his ministry, independently from everything else. This is very much a part of the security sector reform, it is very, very much part of what is happening in the efforts to create the national army and also the fundamental base for that is the efforts that are being made, that have started in the reform of the Ministry of Defence. I think it’s no secret and I don’t think anyone has to be embarrassed by the fact that some of the institutions especially in the security sector are not national. You see this is the inheritance of the civil and other wars that you have had in this country and efforts are being made to transform these institutions into genuinely national institutions. So the fact that this reform of the Ministry of Defence has started, completing this will be a very, very important basis to make this project succeed. And the question that has been asked about the people who are keeping weapons at home it is not those weapons that you are going after, it is the weapons, the tanks, the cannons, that are in the hands of the factional army that you want to take away and help the people who are in these factional armies, some of them to go home with dignity and find new jobs, while others will go through tests and so on and training if they want to, to remain as soldiers. What the Americans are doing, I think, what you are saying about them actually paying factions or creating factions, I think that it is not happening to the extent that it was happening before. The Americans I think are very, very much part of this project, they are not in DDR itself but they are very much [involved] in the creation of the national army and they know that DDR is the other face of the coin and that you cannot have a national army if you don’t disarm the existing armies otherwise you’ll just be creating one more army in the country.

Question: So Mr. Brahimi you would urge the Americans then to desist from this activity which is undermining the great project which you announced today.

SRSG: Those are your words. What I would say is that the Americans are very much aware that factionalism is not compatible with the objective of creating a national army and a national police and helping dissolve the existing factional armies.

Question: If the programme is not for people with guns in their homes, it is rather encouraging people to have a gun and be part of a factional army?

SRSG: What I am saying is do you know how many guns there are in Afghanistan? Plenty and as you said yourself it is tradition in this country that people have guns at home. You see it is not the fact you have a gun at home that creates insecurity. It’s the fact that you use it and you use it because you are in a group or because there is nobody who is maintaining law and order. The people who are really creating problems are not the individuals who have a gun at home, it is the formation, the small groups, the big groups, the factional armies that are creating this insecurity. If you create a national army the fact that you have a gun at home is not going to be a terrible problem, then we can get to that in a second stage. The problem is to get the people who have formations, who have 20 people or 200 people or 2,000 people. These are the people who are creating insecurity and if you go after them and that’s why I said all these projects are part, are building blocks of the same project. DDR alone is not enough, building the army alone is not enough but together they create security and then they reduce the danger of people having guns at home and then in the second stage you address that situation. That’s not a very big problem and you are talking about 100,000, if you really demobilize 100,000 people in this country I think you’ll be alright.

Question: How many armed militia do we have in this country, how many are you going to disarm and how many are going to be recruited back into the Afghan National Army and what is the number of soldiers and officers who have been trained in the Afghan National Army?

Minister Pashtun: The militias are different from what we call the existing army. If you mean by militia someone who has got a gun at home that is not included. Our target is to disarm all those armed people who are part of the Ministry of Defence right now, other than the national army of course because all these factions that you are talking about whether they are militia or not they are already being organized under the organization of the Ministry of Defence. So these are the target people to be actually disarmed and demobilized. So when it comes to the gun with the farmer who is just ploughing [his fields] and then still keeps a gun, we are not after that farmer at this moment. Besides in this country there was a tradition long before for people to keep weapons at home. The actual problem with the gun, as His Excellency put it, is not having a gun, it’s actually the use of it. I would go further, for self defence it’s still good enough, but when you are using it illegally that’s where the problem comes. If individually he still uses a gun then it’s still easy to prosecute him both from the Islamic laws and civil laws but the problem comes when 10-15 persons come and use a gun that’s usually the problem. The prosecution is also becoming a problem because you know that in Islam if five people come and do a premeditated murder of one person it is very difficult to excuse all of them. So this is where the complications will come so as far as your question is concerned, the militia are already part of the existing Ministry of Defence so our target is the Ministry of Defence.

Question: What is the estimate for the number of people?

Minister Pashtun: We are estimating there are roughly 100,000 to be disarmed.

Question: (Dari) Some disarmament started in the north of the country but the problem was that there was some redistribution of weapons collected because of factional problems and factional rivalries. Is there anything in this programme which can guarantee, ensure this does not happen in future as well?

Minister Pashtun: (Dari) There has been no evidence that weapons have been redistributed after being collected in the north. The main reason for that is that we haven’t had an impartial partner in the exercise in the north. This time round one of the main reasons we would like to have the United Nations with us, on board throughout this programme is the fact that it would increase trust among the various factions and parties that would be demobilized and disarmed. I’ll give you another example about mistrust among various groups and various parts of the country. When the new currency was being introduced, you would hear from Khost that new money was coming in from abroad into the north of the country in containers, shipping containers, and in Mazar you would hear that new money was coming in through Kandahar and in Herat you would hear stories about the rest of the country. At the end of the day there was only 5-10 per cent difference in the overall estimation of the Afghanistan Bank so all the rumours were not necessarily true. This is not because of mistrust among the people, it is because of mistrust specifically among groups of individuals in various parts of the country so we hope this time we will not have [inaudible]

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