Afghani ambassador asks for help
by Don Kazak
Afghani ambassador asks for help
11/14/2005
http://www.paloaltoonline.com/news/show_story.php?id=2010
Private investment is now needed to rebuild his
country’s war-torn infrastructure and promote economic
development, Afghanistan’s ambassador to the United States
stated at a Stanford University luncheon today.
The ambassador, Said Tayeb Jawad, noted that although
Afghanistan is relying heavily on military assistance from the
U.S. and other countries, it is also training its own army so
such reliance can be phased out.
On the same day that two car bombs killed two
people and inured three in Kabul, Jawad said, “The terrorists
and Taliban are defeated, but not eliminated.”
Suicide car bombings are rare in Afghanistan,
he added.
Jawad spoke to a crowd of about 150 Stanford faculty
and students at the Bechtel Conference Center at Encina Hall,
with former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz in the audience.
Jawad lived and worked for years in the Bay Area
after fleeing his country following the Soviet invasion in 1989,
studying law in Germany and receiving a MBA from Golden Gate
University in San Francisco.
He was chief of staff to Afghanistan President
Hamid Karzai until appointed ambassador to the United States
in December 2003. He gave up his United States citizenship to
become ambassador.
“In order to fight terrorism, investment
and security are needed,” he said.
Afghanistan is the seventh poorest country in
the world and while many children are now attending school,
many of those schools are little more than tents.
Afghanistan is benefiting from the return of 3.6
million Afghani refugees in the last four years, including many
who are well educated.
The country recently certified the results of
its first parliamentary elections, and its parliament will be
seated sometime in December. About 28 percent of the newly elected
members are women, he added.
But security is still a main concern.
“Afghanistan is still not out of the woods
yet,” he said.
