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Kabul Grinds to Halt Amid Protest Over Change to Power Line’s Route Huge Protest Against Afghan Government Brings Kabul to a Halt
(about 3 hours later)
KABUL, Afghanistan — A large demonstration against the Afghan government’s proposed route of an electric transmission line brought Kabul to a standstill on Monday, with security forces stacking shipping containers to block all paths to the city center and presidential palace. KABUL, Afghanistan — A large demonstration against the fragile Afghan government brought Kabul to a standstill on Monday and put security forces on alert, with the authorities stacking shipping containers to block all routes to the city center and presidential palace.
The police also resorted to the sporadic use of water cannons to disperse the demonstrators, some of whom were pelting the containers with rocks. The demonstration, which was driven by ethnic Hazaras’ outrage over the proposed route for a new electricity transmission line, tapped a deep well of factional tensions and frustration about the government of President Ashraf Ghani.
Thousands of largely peaceful demonstrators, most of them belonging to the ethnic Hazara group, marched from the west of Kabul, the capital, to demand that the government scrap its decision to reroute a 500-kilowatt transmission line of electricity imported from Turkmenistan. The line was initially supposed to go through the central province of Bamian, one of the most deprived in Afghanistan, but the current proposed route avoids it, instead going through Parwan Province. Though most of the protest remained peaceful, the police forces resorted to sporadic use of water cannons to disperse crowds, some of whom were pelting the container blockades with rocks and also used violence against at least five reporters.
The protesters see the government’s decision as prejudiced against the occupants of a part of central Afghanistan, most of whom are Hazaras, a group that is emerging from a long history of oppression. Thousands of demonstrators marched from the west of Kabul to demand that the government scrap its decision to reroute the line, which would transmit electricity from Turkmenistan. The line was initially supposed to go through Bamian, a Hazara-dominant central province that is one of the most deprived in the country. But the current proposed route avoids the province, instead going through the Salang Pass in Parwan Province, which protesters say is vulnerable to avalanches.
President Ashraf Ghani, who appointed a commission to review the project’s contracts, said that the decision to reroute the line was made by his predecessor, and that his government had little to do with it. He said his government has delayed the execution of the project to ensure that Bamian receives electricity from it, even if the main transmission line does not go through the province. Afghanistan still relies heavily on imported electricity, with decades of persistent conflict derailing the building of its own dams and keeping internal energy production minimal. The government continues to import more than 80% of its total power supply from neighboring countries.
The protesters see the government’s decision as prejudiced against the occupants of central Afghanistan, most of whom are Hazaras, a group that is emerging from a long history of oppression. But Mr. Ghani’s government has blamed his predecessor for the change of route, saying two years of costly preparation work had been done on the new route already.
In a declaration before their march ended in the afternoon, the protesters demanded that the government scrap the decision on the change of route and promised further demonstrations until it happened.
But much of the declaration focused on larger issues of what they called “the systematic and shameful injustices that have gone on for 70 generations.”
“We can tolerate a lack of electricity, but the degradation of a nation and systematic discrimination is no longer tolerable,” the declaration said.
President Ghani, who appointed a commission to review the project’s contracts, has said that his government had little to do with it, and that he was delaying the execution of the project to ensure that Bamian receives electricity from it, even if the main transmission line does not go through the province.
“In the past two weeks, the government has spared no efforts in reaching out to the protesters to hear their views and engage in discussions,” Mr. Ghani’s office said on his official Twitter account. “The government has endeavored to address the issue in a way that the project’s funding is maintained & power supply is ensured for Bamian.”
Meanwhile, at the forefront of the protest are leaders who were part of the cabinet in the former government that supposedly made the decision about the electrical line. Those leaders include Karim Khalili, who was Afghanistan’s vice president at the time, and Sadeq Mudaber, who was chief of the cabinet secretariat.
The protests have largely been organized by young activists who have tried bring technical details to the discussion, including the idea that routing the line through Bamian could tap into the coal mines for internal energy production. But many of the traditional Hazara leaders have also jumped on board. These leaders, who are either part of the government or allied with it, are trying to make up for damage done to them when they sided with the Mr. Ghani’s government in a previous demonstration and used strong language against protesters.
The demonstration on Monday was the second major protest against the government in Kabul, and the largest, since Mr. Ghani took office in September 2014.
In November last year, thousands of people protested the beheading of seven Hazara hostages in southern Afghanistan by groups believed to be affiliated with the Islamic State. During that demonstration, some of the protesters
reached the gates of the presidential palace, with a smaller group scaling the walls.
This time, full security measures were in place, with the Kabul security garrison announcing strict guidelines on the eve of the protest. The garrison commander, in a news conference, read a list of protest leaders, including former Vice President Khalili, - who would be held accountable if chaos erupted.
Overnight, the government blocked all the main routes leading to the presidential palace from a wide radius, stacking shipping containers. Aside from the security forces already deployed to Kabul, hundreds of others were also brought from the neighboring provinces as reinforcements.