Ambassador shares Afghans' greatest fear
By Sally Connell
The Tribune
11/11/2005
Afghanistan's ambassador to the United States
told a crowd of 200 at Cal Poly on Thursday that Afghans fear
any talk of the United States leaving the country prematurely.
Said Tayeb Jawad said the country clearly remembers
its descent into a Taliban-led world of extremism after the
United States disengaged from Afghanistan at the end of the
Soviet occupation.
He told the crowd of Cal Poly students, faculty
and area residents that the southwest Asian country needs the
United States' help to improve its health care system, train
its army and police and rebuild infrastructure.
"The biggest concern that Afghans have about
the United States' presence in Afghanistan is that the presence
might be short lived," he said during an interview before
the speech.
Jawad appeared on campus at the special invitation
of Maliha Zulfacar, a Cal Poly ethnic studies professor born
in Afghanistan, as part of the campus' celebration of International
Education Week.
"Cal Poly students really live on a big island,"
Zulfacar said. "But when students hear about what is going
on in other parts of the world, they get concerned, they get
involved."
Jawad said that women are dying in childbirth
at incredible rates. Afghanistan has one of the highest infant
mortality rates and the lowest life expectancies of any nation
in the world.
But he also said the country has made great strides
since the United States went to war in Afghanistan to overthrow
the Taliban, the country's former Islamic rulers who had strong
ties to terrorist Osama Bin Laden.
Jawad returned to Afghanistan in 2002 after living
abroad for 20 years. He was appointed ambassador in 2003 after
serving various posts in the government.
Jawad spoke about advancements made in the rights
of Afghan women. He said more women are attending school and
29 percent of the Parliament members are women, but there is
tremendous catching up to do.
"You can provide all the rights you want
to in a constitution for women," he said. "But that
won't do enough unless you provide education to the women, enable
the women to have an income."
Zulfacar met with Cal Poly President Warren Baker
and Jawad and asked Baker to support the idea of two English-speaking
Afghan women studying engineering at Cal Poly, fulfilling their
lifelong dream.
"We said we'd help to see that gets
done," Baker said after Jawad's speech.
