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KABUL (PAN): An international human rights organisation has urged US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other foreign ministers attending the inauguration of President Hamid Karzai to press for concrete action to sideline warlords and criminals

As Karzai was sworn in for a second term, Human Rights Watch (HRW) said that warlords, criminals and rights abusers should not hold positions of authority in national or local government, or the security forces of Afghanistan.

Brad Adams, Asia director at HRW, said: "The new if belated US and European focus on governance and the rule of law in Afghanistan is welcome. It shouldn't have taken a failed presidential election, rampant corruption and deteriorating security to realise that this is important.

"Karzai and his international backers should realise that it's now or never to regain the trust of the Afghan people," Adams observed in a statement mailed to Pajhwok Afghan News on Thursday.

Over the past eight years, the group alleged, neither the US nor other donors and supporters had confronted the problem of warlordism and criminality permeating the current Afghan administration.

It called on the US and other nations engaged in Afghanistan to review all of their political and military relationships in Afghanistan to ensure that they were not providing financial or political support to individuals or groups known to be engaged in criminal activity or with a record of human rights abuse.

"This includes addressing Afghan perceptions of corruption in foreign aid programmes, distancing all diplomatic and military personnel from criminal actors, and ending contracts with private security contractors and unregistered armed groups that are tied to criminal networks," the press release said.

Adams believed President Karzai was rightly coming under immense pressure to break his dependence on former warlords and criminals who terrorised local populations, abused womens rights, flouted the law and stole from the state

"Influential governments should set a good example by cleaning up their own acts and stop dealing with the wrong people, he said. HRW called on Karzai to make the following commitments:

Ensure that no known human rights abusers or corrupt individuals are appointed to his cabinet, as advisers, or to provincial or local government.

Create a strong and independent vetting body and mechanism to exclude known human rights abusers and corrupt individuals from all levels of government. Create an independent vetting process for the 2010 parliamentary elections.

Make a strong and principled commitment to womens rights by appointing women to key positions in the cabinet, and to not relegate them to second-tier or isolated positions. Repeal the discriminatory Shia Personal Status Law and strengthen the Elimination of Violence Against Women Law now under consideration in parliament.

Ensure that any build up of the Afghan security forces is sustainable through adequate training, oversight, and accountability. Otherwise, new recruits are likely to commit abuses and engage in corruption, further alienating them from the public.

Train the police in crime prevention and crime-solving instead of using them primarily as paramilitaries in order to strengthen the rule of law.

mud/pr