Hamid Karzai was sworn in on Tuesday as Afghanistan’s first popularly elected president, promising to help the impoverished country leave behind its brutal past, shore up its young democracy and confront the challenges of terrorism and the drugs trade.
Wearing a traditional green robe and a black lambskin hat, a smiling Karzai received a standing ovation on his arrival for the ceremony, which took place in a restored hall of the war-damaged former royal palace.
The United States Vice-President, Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking US official to visit since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, was among the 600 guests, who included 150 foreign dignitaries.
Following the playing of the Afghan national anthem, Karzai placed his hand on the Qur’an, repeated the oath of allegiance read to him by Afghanistan’s chief justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari and then the new president swore in his two deputies, Ahmad Zia Massood and Karim Khalili — representatives of the country’s two largest ethnic minorities.
In his inaugural speech, Karzai said the hopes of ordinary Afghans would drive him during what is likely to be a challenging five-year term. He reiterated his main pledges — to crack down on the booming opium trade, disarm militias and raise living standards.
”We have now left a dark and difficult past behind us, and today we are opening a new chapter in our history in a spirit of friendship with the international community,” he said, speaking in Pashtu and Dari, Afghanistan’s two main languages.
But he also warned that fight against terrorism was ”not yet over”, and called for sustained international aid and cooperation to defeat increasing links between extremists and drug trafficking.
”The same cooperation has led to the rebuilding of the Afghan state and significant progress in restoring peace, stability and security to our country,” he said.
Wary of attacks by Taliban or al-Qaeda militants, Afghan and international forces launched their biggest security operation since the October 9 election in which Karzai won a landslide victory.
Kabul was calm, but news of a large overnight assault by insurgents on Afghan troops near the Pakistani border was a reminder of the continuing instability outside the capital.
General Khial Baz, a senior Afghan commander, said about 250 militants armed with assault rifles and rockets attacked a military base in Khost province. Part of the base was destroyed in an hour long battle that left four soldiers and at least six militants dead, he told Associated Press.
”The Americans didn’t come to help us. They only came this morning to ask questions,” he said.
Cheney, however, congratulated some of the 18 000 US troops in Afghanistan for helping to give democracy a chance to take root.
”For the first time the people of this country are looking confident about the future of freedom and peace,” he said. ”Freedom still has enemies here in Afghanistan, and you are here to make those enemies miserable.”
Before the ceremony, Karzai thanked the United States, his main sponsor, for its help.
”Without that help, Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists,” he said. ”Terrorism as a force is gone. As individuals they are all around and we will continue to look for them.”
The US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the Iranian foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi and Pakistan’s interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, were among the guests, while the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan sent his special adviser Lakhdar Brahimi.
Annan also warned in a report to the UN security council that unless Karzai tackles the surge in Afghanistan’s opium production and its arms proliferation, much of the recent progress could be seriously undermined and the economy ”subsumed by the illicit drugs industry”.
The inauguration was the culmination of a three-year drive to transform Afghanistan from a training ground for al-Qaeda extremists into a moderate Islamic republic.
Under Karzai’s interim leadership, Afghans adopted a new constitution labelled by Washington as the most progressive in the region and held their first western-style election, despite attacks by militants that killed at least 15 election workers.
Some three million Afghan refugees displaced by more than two decades of warfare have returned home, and women and girls are back in jobs and schools from which they were barred under the Taliban regime. The economy has also grown strongly.
But insurgents continue to harass US and Afghan forces across a broad swath of the south and east of the country. US officials expect to keep their forces at the current level of about 18 000 troops at least until after parliamentary elections scheduled for the spring.
Karzai has said that the drug economy, which now accounts for an estimated one-third of national income, is a bigger threat than the insurgents and will be the top priority for the coming years. – Guardian Unlimited Â