BY CYNTHIA LEE
UCLA Today Staff
While the nascent government in Afghanistan remains confident
that the United States will continue to stay focused on
efforts to rebuild the struggling nation, the Afghan ambassador
to the U.S. warned that the violence, corruption and terror
that have plagued the region could return “if the
Western world had a lapse of attention and turned elsewhere.”
“President [Hamid]
Karzai and I are passionately determined not to squander
this moment in Afghanistan’s history,” His
Excellency Ishaq Shahryar told faculty, students and visitors
during a public lecture March 5 at the Faculty Center.
A week before his lecture
at UCLA, sponsored by the School of Public Policy and
Social Research, Shahryar and Karzai received assurances
from President George Bush that the U.S. would expand
aid to help repair the country’s devastated infrastructure,
including its electrical and irrigation systems. Last
month, Bush signed a budget measure that will give Afghanistan
$3.3 billion in aid over the next four years, focusing
on reconstruction and security.
“The Afghan people
are very grateful. We want America to make Afghanistan
a model for democracy for other Islamic countries,”
said Shahryar, who was educated at UC Santa Barbara as
a solar-energy scientist and entrepreneur.
With multinational aid,
the Karzai government has been able to work out a framework
for long-term national development as well as a budget,
create a central bank and issue a new national currency.
Plans for construction of a large-scale railway system
are under way, along with community development projects.
The U.S. Agency for International Development is building
1,000 schools and 500 health clinics. And Afghan leaders,
including senior warlords, have agreed on the demobilization
of local militias and the training of a new army.
“The grays and blacks
imposed on us by the Taliban are being replaced by color,”
Shahryar said. “Our men can again play music; our
women and girls are returning to school; and our children
can again fly kites.”
But to sustain this progress
requires the continued presence and focused attention
of the United States, he urged, especially since a circle
of instability in the region exists, with Afghanistan
at its center, forming a corridor connecting Asia and
the Middle East.
“Afghanistan is
literally the moral high ground of history. Control the
Afghanistan high ground and you will influence, for good
or for evil, that which flows into Europe and into Asia,”
he cautioned.
Recently, his nation has
invited private business and financial communities to
invest in the many untapped business opportunities there.
Later this year, Afghanistan will host an international
trade show in Kabul.
“Yes, Saddam Hussein
is a very serious problem,” said the ambassador.
“Let America and the world community deal with that
despot. But let us also secure the victories that we have
already won.
