CU's Muna Ndulo works toward free and fair elections in Afghanistan

By Linda Myers

What is it like to try to establish free and fair elections in a country emerging from decades of armed conflict, where the majority of the people, including all women, have never voted and where violence remains a daily occurrence?

Cornell Law Professor Muna Ndulo, center, talks with a guard at an Afghanistan army guard post as part of a U.N. assistance mission in Kabul this past August. Ndulo's translator stands nearby. Courtesy of Muna Ndulo

After 23 years of war and the recent U.S. invasion that deposed the Taliban government, Afghanistan is now preparing for elections scheduled for June 2004. Cornell Law Professor Muna Ndulo spent most of August in that country helping to lay the legislative framework for the vote. This fall his students in international law and human rights are getting a firsthand account of his experience, and he is also speaking about them today, Sept. 11, at 4 p.m. in G85 Myron Taylor Hall.

Free and fair elections to establish a democratic government and rebuild Afghanistan are a major element of the Bonn Agreement, Ndulo explains. The agreement was developed under U.N. auspices in December 2001 following the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan and defeat of the Taliban regime. Bonn created the timetable for the elections and led to the establishment of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) under a U.N. Security Council Resolution.

In Afghanistan this August, Ndulo worked with UNAMA and the Afghanistan provisional government's Ministry of Justice to draft electoral law for the country. Among the issues he tackled were what type of electoral process to adopt, how to include refugees and nomadic tribes and how to establish voter identity in a country with no readily available identification documents -- and where, in some regions, women may not be photographed even for identification purposes.

Ndulo, who also is director of the Institute for African Development at Cornell, is a seasoned U.N. veteran who has done similar work for the international organization in such hot spots as South Africa, East Timor and Kosovo. While each country has its own set of complexities, he said, Afghanistan is uniquely challenging.

One problem: Conflicts are still going on. "The post-Taliban provisional government does not have much authority outside Kabul," observed Ndulo. "The rest of the provinces are still very much ruled by warlords and their armies." A complication: U.S. troops in Afghanistan have been forced to enter into alliances of convenience with some of the warlords in the hopes of being led to remnants of Al Qaeda and Taliban forces, said Ndulo. And some warlords were made more legitimate when they were allowed to participate in the Bonn agreement process.

"If the 2004 election process is to have any legitimacy, it must be administered in an environment free from violence, intimidation and retribution," states the U.N. mission's document on election rules that Ndulo helped draft. "People with guns aren't likely to give them up if others still have them," Ndulo commented. "For disarmament to succeed, there must be a perception that everyone is disarming and such confidence-building measures as a new, effective authority -- a national army and police force -- to take the place of the warlords and provide security for the election process."

Afghanistan also lacks the institutions to promote effective governance, such as a parliament, a constitution (one is still being drafted) and a judicial system with "legitimacy," said Ndulo. Indeed, little has changed since the Taliban ruled, he observed. In many parts of the country women continue to wear the heavily veiled burka. Under sharia courts run by Islamic religious leaders, they have disproportionately fewer rights than men and are subject to much more severe punishments for such crimes as unmarried sex and adultery. In some places, male doctors are not permitted to examine female patients.

The place of religion in the new government still needs to be decided. At issue are whether Islam, viewed as sacred by many in Afghanistan, is named in the constitution as the official religion, whether religious parties -- which are well-funded -- will be allowed to compete in elections and, if they are, how to ensure that nonreligious parties have similar financial resources.

Afghanistan also faces severe health issues, the result of a shattered economy and infrastructure, that will need the international community's intervention to alleviate. A UNICEF report found that one in four Afghani children dies before the age of 5, most from hygiene-preventable waterborne illnesses like diarrhea, acute respiratory problems, malnutrition and vaccine-preventable illnesses.

In addition, with no ability to collect taxes at this point, the Kabul government is entirely dependent on outside support.

But despite the enormous challenges, "there is reason for hope, if the international community plays its part," said Ndulo. His advice is to channel more funding through nongovernmental organizations, which, he said, are doing a commendable job in providing much-needed basic services.

While there were dangers in Afghanistan, on most days Ndulo was so busy working that he didn't have time to worry about his own safety. "It's important to have people to do this kind of work," he said. But when, during his stay, he learned that the U.N. headquarters in Iraq had been blown up by a terrorist bomb, it was a shock. He knew and had worked with some of the victims, among them Arthur Helton, a former colleague on the Human Rights Watch Advisory Committee on Africa, who had gone to Iraq for a few days on an assessment mission.

"It's sad that people are now targeting the United Nations," Ndulo said. "Despite its shortcomings, it remains the only international organization with the legitimacy to deal with international conflicts and the only forum to which all nations belong. It is all we have."