Afghanistan's people gather to be heard

KABUL, Afghanistan -- Mohammad Alam Mansour eagerly spins his tale -- how thousands of Afghan refugees in Pakistan sent him to be their voice in the grand council to chart their nation's future. Then he thrusts forward the well-thumbed documents that he says back his claim.

There's only one problem, he says: The commission overseeing next week's loya jirga won't certify him as a delegate and insists there are no more seats. So, far from the camp he calls home, he paces the dirt-caked side street outside the commission compound and waits to be heard.

"It is 20 days I am here," Mansour said. "They didn't come to our camps. Where is our representation? No one talks to me. No one answers me. This is not the way to build Afghanistan."

Dozens of men crowd around with similar accounts: They have traveled far, then have waited day after day, banging on the solid metal gate until a man opens a tiny window to say no one can see them. With each day they grow more frustrated -- and more determined.

As the loya jirga of 1,500 Afghans prepares to pick a new government, these men's gripes are a microcosm of concerns across the land: that many Afghans are being shut out, that the representative process is not working.

Maliktor Khan lives in a camp near Peshawar, Pakistan. He clutches a vinyl portfolio filled with testimonials from 10 camps -- 92,400 people he claims appointed him their representative in a shura, or district meeting.

But he says the commission told him all spots were filled.

"They said, 'Organize your shuras, elect your representatives and then we will talk to you,' " Khan says. "Now they say all the representatives from camps have been chosen. How did they pick them? I am the representative of my people. If not me, who?"

Refugee communities are fluid and often undocumented, and there is no way to verify the claims. But the sentiment hints at a pitfall dreaded by observers of the loya jirga process: If large numbers of Afghans feel unrepresented, people will have little confidence in the outcome.

Nearly all those outside commission headquarters this week wear the flowing turbans of the Pashtuns, an ethnic group that dominates southern and eastern Afghanistan and refugee communities in Pakistan. Some Pashtuns claim they make up 70 percent of the Afghan population, and many worry of being marginalized by ethnic Tajik power brokers in Kabul.

"The Pashtuns are worried -- we are not being represented," says the angriest of the bunch, Payend Gul Shinwareh, speaking in Dari thick with a Pashto accent. "I don't have a mobile phone or a nice car or Western clothes. So they don't let me in."

Ahmad Nader Nadery, the commission's spokesman and, as of Monday, a delegate, says commissioners took pains to ensure refugees were represented, sending multiple delegations to Pakistan, Iran and other Afghan refugee havens.

"We tried our best to meet with all the people and consult them. These people coming here, they're trying to use whatever ways to get a seat in the loya jirga," Nadery said. "The commission's met with many of them several times."

The loya jirga's reserves 100 seats for refugee delegates. Thirty represent refugees living in Iran and 30 are for other parts of the Afghan diaspora, including Europe and the United States. The biggest bloc of seats -- 40 -- is reserved for refugees living in Pakistan.

One major problem the commission and country face, however, is lack of knowledge about their own population. The last census was taken more than 20 years ago, and war and mass migration have altered demographics in uncounted ways.

"Without a census, there can be no total equal representation," says Omar Samad, spokesman for interim Foreign Minister Abdullah. "But we're moving toward that."

Sher Mohammad Zadran says a warlord strong-armed his seat. Amer Salam Khan claims he was excluded for being uneducated. Ashakullah Mir Agha says the commission suspended elections in his district because of fighting, then slipped in and held them with only a few people.

Ajab Khan carries a letter saying he represents 6,700 people in Dargamandi refugee camp in northwest Pakistan. He is not angry. He will keep trying, though, as he has for 16 days.