It would not seem to augur good things for this city that while everyone agrees that the Taliban have been vanquished here, not everyone agrees who deserves the credit.
Two groups, both part of the Northern Alliance, joined together to fight the Taliban in Herat. But now each is portraying itself as the city's liberator and making its grab for power, backed up by the wea-pons used to defeat the Taliban. And each is accusing the other of being armed by Iran, whose border is about 100km away.
One group is the Islamic Population, led by Ismail Khan, the commander who governed here before the Taliban came to power and whose supporters proclaimed him governor once again last week. Khan has said he wants to hold elections, but in the meantime he plans to appoint officials to govern based on "capability," he said, not ethnicity or religion.
The other group, the Party of Unity, mostly represents the region's ethnic Hazara and Shiite Muslim minorities. Its leaders want to make sure that whatever regional government is ultimately formed represents every ethnic group and religious sect. The Hazara were particularly persecuted under the Taliban, who are mostly Pashtun.
The party's political director, Moosa Rezai, said, "We believe as long as all ethnic groups' demands are not met, peace will not return."
It would be one thing if the struggle between the two were confined to the graffiti war under way here, in which each side writes its name over the other's. But both sides are heavily armed, and while Khan has sent most of his troops out of the city or to military bases in the past day or two to help restore order, Rezai has deliberately avoided doing so. He has 1,000 men in the city, he said, and 2,000 outside it.
"To try to send troops out of the city will not work until there is an agreement with other leaders on how governing will work in Herat," he said. "We've had a very clear stand from the beginning: according to the proportion of our supporters, we have to have representation."
Khan's spokesman, Nasir Ahmad Alavi, said that he hoped that after 24 years of civil wars, divergent groups would identify themselves simply as Afghans "and expect to have a position in the future government of Afghanistan based on capabilities and efficiencies, not because they are the leader of an ethnic group or religious minority."
Although Khan's supporters are getting set to govern for the long haul, the Party of Unity sees his rule as a short-term proposition.
"In liberating Herat there was no talk of supporting one person," said Qari Ahmadali Ghoordarvazi, the secretary-general of Hezbollah of Afghanistan, one of the factions in Party of Unity. "We liberated Herat together."
Ghoordarvazi, a man who some here say would like to be governor himself, said the central government had not appointed Khan; rather, expediency had anointed him. When things normalized, he said, a more representative government would have to be established.
Things are far from normal yet. There have been two reported skirmishes between the camps in Herat itself, where Khan's forces have made no secret of their desire to disarm the Party of Unity or at least get its soldiers into military bases. And there have been clashes near the Iranian border, as both groups battle for control there.
Khan's supporters say the tension is being inflamed by the arms flowing to the Party of Unity. While many of the weapons probably date back to the Soviet occupation, others appear to be new.
ROLLER-COASTER RIDE: More than five earthquakes ranging from magnitude 4.4 to 5.5 on the Richter scale shook eastern Taiwan in rapid succession yesterday afternoon Back-to-back weather fronts are forecast to hit Taiwan this week, resulting in rain across the nation in the coming days, the Central Weather Administration said yesterday, as it also warned residents in mountainous regions to be wary of landslides and rockfalls. As the first front approached, sporadic rainfall began in central and northern parts of Taiwan yesterday, the agency said, adding that rain is forecast to intensify in those regions today, while brief showers would also affect other parts of the nation. A second weather system is forecast to arrive on Thursday, bringing additional rain to the whole nation until Sunday, it
LANDSLIDES POSSIBLE: The agency advised the public to avoid visiting mountainous regions due to more expected aftershocks and rainfall from a series of weather fronts A series of earthquakes over the past few days were likely aftershocks of the April 3 earthquake in Hualien County, with further aftershocks to be expected for up to a year, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. Based on the nation’s experience after the quake on Sept. 21, 1999, more aftershocks are possible over the next six months to a year, the agency said. A total of 103 earthquakes of magnitude 4 on the local magnitude scale or higher hit Hualien County from 5:08pm on Monday to 10:27am yesterday, with 27 of them exceeding magnitude 5. They included two, of magnitude
CONDITIONAL: The PRC imposes secret requirements that the funding it provides cannot be spent in states with diplomatic relations with Taiwan, Emma Reilly said China has been bribing UN officials to obtain “special benefits” and to block funding from countries that have diplomatic ties with Taiwan, a former UN employee told the British House of Commons on Tuesday. At a House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee hearing into “international relations within the multilateral system,” former Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) employee Emma Reilly said in a written statement that “Beijing paid bribes to the two successive Presidents of the [UN] General Assembly” during the two-year negotiation of the Sustainable Development Goals. Another way China exercises influence within the UN Secretariat is
Taiwan’s first drag queen to compete on the internationally acclaimed RuPaul’s Drag Race, Nymphia Wind (妮妃雅), was on Friday crowned the “Next Drag Superstar.” Dressed in a sparkling banana dress, Nymphia Wind swept onto the stage for the final, and stole the show. “Taiwan this is for you,” she said right after show host RuPaul announced her as the winner. “To those who feel like they don’t belong, just remember to live fearlessly and to live their truth,” she said on stage. One of the frontrunners for the past 15 episodes, the 28-year-old breezed through to the final after weeks of showcasing her unique