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Afghan President Contends His Multi-Ethnic Country is United
Monday, November 11, 2002
(6:30 AM)
By Kathy Gannon
Associated Press Writer

"People told us: 'we don't care who is Tajik, who is Pashtun, who is Hazara. We just want people who are honest, who won't steal from us,'" Karzai said. In a move designed to further embrace all ethnic groups, Karzai has begun to appoint governors representing one ethnic group to a province dominated by another ethnic group. "And people liked that," he said. Karzai said survival not ethnicity preoccupies ordinary Afghans.

KABUL, Afghanistan -- AP
The Afghan president, in the midst of a risky campaign to whittle away at the power of regional warlords, protested Sunday against portrayals of his country as one that is riven along ethnic lines -- with Tajiks pitted against Pashtuns.

"It's just not true. We are a nation, a united nation. There are individuals perhaps, but believe me as a nation we are one," Hamid Karzai said in an exclusive interview with The Associated Press.

With a notebook in hand, Karzai carefully and thoughtfully ran through a roster of his government ministers.

One by one he ticked them off the list, noting they represented every ethnic group, and most in fact belonged to Afghanistan's majority Pashtun ethnic group. Pashtuns often are portrayed as under attack by the mostly Tajik forces who ousted the predominantly Pashtun and hardline Taliban late last year.

"It is completely unfair that the international media is always writing about Tajiks and Pashtuns, one against the other. I know my people, my country, and this is just unfair and is a wrong portrayal of Afghanistan," Karzai said.
(More: A Gainesville Sun News Source)
2002 © The Associated Press.

Dan