Afghan ambassador urges U.S. to support future 'democratic regime'

Ravan Farhadi, the United Nations representative of the Afghan Northern Alliance, called for the United Sates to give Afghanistan $30 billion in aid in a speech Friday in McCosh 50.

"This is a country completely destroyed by more than 20 years of war," Farhadi said. "Therefore it is very important for the United States to assist Afghanistan in rebuilding."

Farhadi noted that $30 billion would be the first step in continuing U.S. aid to his country. The United States would have to fulfill an ongoing role as adviser and financier to Afghanistan, he said.

"The U.S. is always counted as a friend of Afghanistan and the U.S. will always be listened to," he said.

The Northern Alliance — also known as the United Front — is a loose coalition of anti-Taliban forces. The Alliance controls between five and 10 percent of the country, mostly in the north, according to the Associated Press.

Five hundred people attended Farhadi's speech, with an additional 400 watching simulcasts of the speech in classrooms, Frist Campus Center and dorm rooms, said Jennifer Carter '03, co-chair of the Princeton Committee Against Terrorism. The committee sponsored Farhadi's visit.

At one point, the line of those waiting to get into McCosh 50 stretched across campus on McCosh Walk.

Farhadi called for a "multi-ethnic, broad-based government" to be established in Afghanistan, replacing the rule of the Taliban.

"It is a country of minorities," he said. "This explains why the Taliban will not succeed in Afghanistan."

The basic structure for this new government was established at an Oct. 1 meeting between the exiled king of Afghanistan and Northern Alliance representatives in Rome, Farhadi said.

The new government would be evenly divided between representatives of the king and those of the Northern Alliance. The United States would be one of the nations guiding the establishment of a new multi-ethnic representative government, Farhadi noted.

The Northern Alliance has long condemned Osama bin Laden and the Taliban's support for him, Farhadi said. "Mr. bin Laden's views are not welcome in the Islamic world because there is no real support for them in the vision of Islam," he said.

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When the Taliban seized control of the country from the Northern Alliance in 1996, the Alliance asked for international assistance, Farhadi said. "But no country helped us," he said. "We said to the nations, 'This is very dangerous — the alliance between bin Laden and Taliban.' "

"Nobody really believed us then," Farhadi said. "Today it is quite different."

During a question-and-answer session following the speech, Curtis Deutsch GS, a member of the Princeton Peace Network, asked Farhadi about the Northern Alliance's human rights record. He cited a U.S. State Department report that Northern Alliance leaders were responsible for "political killings, abductions, kidnappings for ransom, torture, rape, arbitrary detention and looting."

Farhadi flatly denied these charges. "I do not remember anyone who engaged in human-rights abuses," he said, dismissing the State Department report as "Pakistani propaganda."

"What is important is the decision of the Afghans — especially the United Front — to establish in Afghanistan a democratic regime," Farhadi said.