In the name of Almighty Allah
Suggestions of Civil Society Institutions
to the Paris Conference
Hashmatullah Raadfar
A number of Civil Society organizations have issued a seven articled statement in respect to the Paris conference and asked the government of Afghanistan and the international community to consider their proposals in this conference.
The Civil Society Organizations have also considered coordination among the political, economical and Civil Society sectors, as one of the most essential needs of Afghanistan for creating citizenship’s values, in the statement.
Generating citizenship values is one the foreground of the Civil Society Institutionalization and the continuance of democratic norms in the society, which undoubtedly this process had faced great challenges in post-conflicts countries and the efforts in this field also requires to pave the way for durability and stability of manners and procedures free of prejudices and dependencies that are against the citizenships values.
Although, it is stated that working for the creation of citizenships values in Afghanistan has been started long ago, but the institutionalization of such values in traditional and social structures of the country has always been faced with many challenges that one of the major cause of such challenges was the ruptures which were made on the way of this process because of the different reasons.
Although, there have been optimisms toward the institutionalization of Afghanistan on democratic norms and values since six years, but there always have been challenges regarding the incomplete efforts and movements of Afghanistan in this way and also, the transformation of citizenship’s values because of the slogans and purposes of conservative political groups and event semi-intellectual circles in the country.
With the worsening of security situation in some parts of the country, increasing of economical problems of people and exposure of cultural, ethnic and ideological differences in the manner and attitude of the leading groups in the political, cultural and social arena in the country, and conducting the fourth international conference about Afghanistan in Paris, the civil societies point out the consideration of the current facts in Afghanistan to the local and international developers of the strategies relevant to state-building process and the continuation of international support from this process has been noted.
Paving the ground for creation of citizenship’s values through addressing the basic needs of the people and recognition of the role of the different sectors should be considered in Paris conference.
This issue is considered as an important and essential subject, by the member organizations of the Civil Society & Human Rights through the message issued on Saturday.
In this 7 articled statement the issues such as, the support of the international community and allocation of more resources by the government of Afghanistan for generalization of human rights especially the main victims or vulnerable groups as women, children, immigrants, refugees and displaced have been emphasized, and lake of the rule of law and lake of respect to law and the rule of law has been considered as factor of social abnormality in the society.
In the other part of statement the abuse of the extremists from the beliefs of people has been pointed out as;” we state it regretfully that the ideological extremists misuse the religious beliefs of Afghan people. The people of Afghanistan are loyal and honest people against their religious beliefs. But, the extremists intend to abuse this prominent values of Afghans for their political purposes. The government of
Afghanistan should take serious action and pay more attention in this context and should not let the people of Afghanistan to be victimized once again by the extremist ideologies of right-wing and left-wing.
Furthermore, for coordinating the activities of the political, private and Civil Society sectors the efforts and attention of the government of Afghanistan, foreign countries, international institutions and the participators of Paris conference haven been considered as the axis of valuable system of Afghanistan And enhancing the legitimacy of the system is emphasized by strengthening the role of the Civil Society organizations. According to the statement, during the last six years integrated and appropriate efforts have not been made for creating citizenship values in the country.
Mr. Barry Salaam, Director of good morning Afghanistan radio and the member of the board of directors of the Civil Society and Human Rights Network called the citizen as the most important value in a democratic society and according to him citizen has not been created in the social foundation of Afghanistan because, not only the people of Afghanistan do not have access to their civil rights, but even there is no respect for the civil rights of people in governmental and public service institutions, he believes that in many cases the rights of governmental officials and law enforcement officials have been violated by the local powerful men and the international community had also not supported those endeavors and efforts by which citizenships values could be created in Afghanistan.
In this statement, civilian casualties in military operations due to lake of coordination among the international and local security forces have been called the reasons of the dissatisfaction of people against the new system of Afghanistan and also, the government and the international forces have been asked to review and simplify their military and political strategies in Afghanistan.
These recommendations are being proposed by the civil society institutions of Afghanistan while the government of Afghanistan is to participate in the fourth international conference the goal of which is to attract more aids of the international community for the rehabilitation of Afghanistan, since the number of civil society institutions have also been invited to participate in the conference, some officials of these institutions have criticized the selection of those individuals close to the government for participating in Paris conference by the name of the representatives of the Civil Society Institutions.