[Peace-discuss] The official story

[C. G. Estabrook]

[The Obama administration is removing those who embarrassingly point out the 
fraudulence of the Karzai government, which suggests that they intend to fight 
it out on this line if takes all summer -- and even much longer.  I think we 
should avoid overstating parallels between Vietnam and Afghanistan, but Obama 
seems once again to be following rather closely the practice of the Johnson 
administration.  After the fraudulent election of September 1967 in South 
Vietnam, the USG expanded the war with the notion that it had an adequate puppet 
in place.  They seem to be doing it again.   --CGE]


	Published on Wednesday, September 30, 2009 by BBC News
	UN 'to Remove Afghanistan Envoy'

A senior UN official in Afghanistan is to be removed from his post following a 
row about the country's presidential election, the BBC has learned.

The deputy UN special envoy to Afghanistan Peter Galbraith attends a meeting in 
Munich, southern Germany, April 2009. Galbraith will not return to his post 
after a row with his boss over fraud-tainted elections, dealing a blow to US 
prestige in the country, a UN official said. (AFP/DDP/File/JOERG KOCH)UN 
officials said Peter Galbraith had not been fired but would be removed from the 
mission.

Mr Galbraith, a US diplomat, said: "The secretary general appointed me and has 
not fired me so far as I know."

Mr Galbraith angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai by reportedly calling for a 
complete recount of the vote.

Last week the top UN Afghan envoy, Kai Eide, said Mr Galbraith had left the 
country after a row between them.

But he denied he had ordered him to go.

UN sources say Secretary General Ban Ki-moon decided to end Mr Galbraith's 
mission after it became clear he was no longer able to carry out his work in 
Afghanistan, says the BBC's Lyse Doucet.

Some Afghan cabinet ministers had said they no longer wanted to work with him.

It is understood that Mr Galbraith would have been kept in his post until after 
a final ruling on the disputed presidential election - a process that is in its 
final stages - but leaks emerged in Kabul before Mr Galbraith himself had been 
informed of the secretary general's decision, said Ms Doucet.

A UN spokesman in Kabul told the BBC: "We are aware of the reports. An 
announcement of this nature would come from the UN secretary general's office in 
New York. At this stage there has been no announcement".

'Valuable deputy'

Last week, Mr Eide told the BBC the dispute had been resolved by Mr Galbraith 
agreeing to leave the country for a while.

He described Mr Galbraith as "a valuable deputy" and said he hoped they could 
"re-establish a good team and work together".

Mr Eide declined to talk about details of his disagreement with Mr Galbraith, 
but said the UN should respect the constitutional bodies in charge of the 
presidential election "to avoid any impression that there is foreign interference".

The row is between two men who have known each other for a long time but have 
very different styles, but a UN source said that had not been the only factor in 
Mr Galbraith's removal, Lyse Doucet says.

It is understood that Mr Ban would not have dismissed Mr Galbraith - who came to 
the post with US support - without backing from the Washington, she adds.

The US, along with other foreign missions in Afghanistan, appears to want to 
move on from the election dispute to deal with the country's other considerable 
problems, she says, but this will anger observers who believe a more robust 
response is needed to the allegations.

EU election observers have said that about 1.5m votes - about a quarter of all 
ballots - cast in August's presidential vote could be fraudulent.

They say that 1.1 million votes cast for President Karzai are suspicious.

BBC © MMIX

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/09/30-5