Full Transcript of President Karzai’s Interview with
British Newspaper, the Sunday Times
January 27, 2014
Christina Lamb, the Correspondent:
Thank you Mr. President for the time to speak with me. I was thinking when I came in;
it is twelve years since you came here inaugurated, at that time you had very good
relations with the United States, now you don’t seem to have it anymore, why do you
think that is happening?
President Karzai:
Even before that when we were at Peshawer during the years of the resistance with the
Soviets, we knew that the Americans were helping the radicals, we knew that, all of that,
but we still considered them the friends of Afghan people and we were constantly trying
to, when the Taliban came initially I supported the Taliban, I felt they were right people,
as you know, I was conducting most of my resistance in Afghanistan with them, through
them at that time till I recognized that they were causing disunity in the country, that
they were generally armed by outside forces and then, from 1996 onwards I put my
entire focus on the United States and then seeking US help to come to Afghanistan and
to help the Afghan people. I went to the Senate; I went everywhere and to Europe as
well. Eventually, they came after 9/11 and the Afghan people welcomed them
wholeheartedly. In most of the country, not even a shot was fired when the Taliban were
driven out by the people, they just evacuated and left, from 2003 onwards, immediately,
when General Mckneill was in charge in here I keep telling the Americans of this
country, of its people, of our traditions, of our way of life, and that the Afghan people
were their friends. When they began to go to homes, when they began to employ
thuggish elements with them, when they began running into people, when they began to
intimidate, I kept telling that it was wrong, they didn’t listen to me and I warned them of
the region and of the regional politics, they didn’t listen to me. When bombardments
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began of civilian homes, the people came to tell me. The government was very weak then
I didn’t have the means of receiving the reports through the government machinery
because there was no machinery, there was no machinery, but the people were there and
the people would come and tell me [that] “well President, we are being bombed, you
don’t know, we are being bombed, our homes are raided, our women and children are
intimidated” and I would bring the US generals to meet with Afghans and their
Ambassador. For a year to two years till 2005, I didn’t go out to address the press or to
raise my voice publicly against it, from 2005 onwards, on civilian casualties, I felt the
need that they were not listening, not paying attention to the Afghan cries, that I should
be doing it now publicly and I began to work publicly, so while this business of theirs
neglecting the civilian population continued, while they continued to bomb Afghan
targets, while they continued to ignore the sanctuaries and all that.
They also began to badly undermine the growth of the Afghan government, the growth
of our institutions, the police they did not pay attention to, rather they were paying all
the money to private security firms, they ignored, rather than paying the money to the
private security firms, which they should pay it to the police but they didn’t and I kept
telling them, so to the private security firms, so the parallel government structures, so
the contracts, so all other issues and a lot more and a lot more in between all this, there
have been issues. They didn’t work with me, they worked against me on these issues, the
prison, the Bagram prison , so whole lot of extremely important issues for us as Afghans,
as a people, as a country, eventually I felt as if we didn’t matter to them, what mattered
was themselves and their interests, so I had to stand up, not that I was against them, no
,not that I am against them, no, I am a pro-Western person by all standards, I want to
engage with the West by all means but I also want an Afghanistan that’s respected, that’s
peaceful, that has a life, that doesn’t live in fear so that caused the trouble between us.
Correspondent:
How do you feel when you read that Gates where he wrote in his book that President
Obama couldn’t stand you?
President Karzai:
I don’t know what that means, President Obama, well perhaps my public statements are
something that they don’t like, perhaps they feel that the President of a poor country like
Afghanistan that is so much dependent how dare he speaks, if that is the attitude, then
of course they are wrong, as poor as we were we are still a nation. We don’t know other
power, we consider ourselves to be the power with all our poverty, we have interests like
any other society, like any other people, our life, our children, our families, I want to
have a good country, I have always respected President Obama and I continue to respect
him, he is the US President, he personally is a very fine person - so on contrary I do have
respect for him and consider him quite good!
Correspondent:
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But President Bush made much more efforts in having relationship with you and having
weekly video conferences with you?
President Karzai:
Yes, not weekly video conferences, President Obama also had quite few video
conferences with me, we just did not have a video conference after the one we had in
July, I believe, or before July in June, where we had a very direct talk from that
conference, we have not been in a video conference, he just sent me a card today for the
new year in this season.
Correspondent:
Have you spoken since?
President Karzai:
I don’t know if we have spoken on telephone since. We met in South Africa. But we have
not spoken. Letters of course, letters have been exchanged. With President Bush, yes, it
was a good relationship, so is with President Obama but relations between countries like
Afghanistan and the United States began to deteriorate way back in the second term of
President Bush in 2007, with that bombing in Hirat of our civilians and with a sharp
difference of opinion on aerial spraying which they wanted to conduct on our
agricultural lands which I was opposed to. Deadly opposed to! But they very much
wanted and I said no. So it actually began then, and then when they tried to bring to
Afghanistan a super UN person, Mr. Ashdown who himself turned out to be very
talented diplomat, I have a lot of respect for him, any other person would have taken it
personally from me, but he didn’t, he understood my point of view, he understood that
Afghanistan needs to have a government and needs to look after its own affairs, we were
not a protectorate, we could not be dealt as a protectorate, so he understood it very well
but the plan to have us go that way was seen as not a friendly pact towards Afghanistan.
Correspondent:
Yes, exactly.
President Karzai:
The plan was a joint American-British plan with the Europeans were with them as well,
there I began to suspect that they were trying to have us in limbo.
Correspondent:
The Americans are very angry today because you released some of the prisoners.
President Karzai:
Yes!
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Correspondent:
And they say they are dangerous.
President Karzai:
We don’t believe that, we definitely don’t believe that, the prison of Bagram is one of the,
so to, before I go to Bagram put it in one word for you, to summarize the whole thing as
to what went wrong in our relationship with the United States, I believe the best way to
summarize this is to put it in the words of Shelley - the great British poet, “I met murder
on the way.” This whole twelve years was one of constant pleading with America, please
treat our civilians respectfully and treat their lives as the lives of people, if you read a
book that has recently come to me, that I began to read it the day before yesterday by
Ben Anderson, the American Correspondent, he says in this book and shockingly to me,
shockingly! I would have raised hell if I had known this then. I came to know of it
through this book yesterday that General Petreaus ordered increased military
operations and that from July to November of 2010, there were 3500 bombardments of
our country.
Correspondent:
That’s huge!
President Karzai:
3500 bombardments of our country, aerial bombardments, unbelievable, shocking!
Correspondent:
When he [General Petreaus] came here I remembered at the time he said we come to
win the war, he wasn’t into kind of negotiate.
President Karzai:
Win the war against whom, against the Afghan people? So, truly, the relations went
wrong, terribly wrong because I met murder on the way. I have never asked the
Americans for assistance or money for our country, I have never engaged with them in
economic issues, I have never asked for their assistance for our country, I have just
asked for the right approach to the war on terror, if they say the sanctuaries are beyond
Afghanistan, then they must address that, if they think it’s a problem inside
Afghanistan, then it is for us Afghans to resolve that cannot be resolved by the US
conducting military operations or bombardments.
Now the Bagram prison was an issue for me, in way back in 2005, 2006, 2007 but it
became an extremely important issue for me, one that I paid an immediate attention
after a meeting with Vice-president Joe Biden who was then Senator Joe Biden and
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Senator Graham and two other respected US senators MacCain and Lieberman. Now I
leave Senator MacCain and Senator Lieberman out of this topic because they were not
engaged in this conversation, they were a lot more considerate and nice even at that
meeting.
Senator Graham told me this is perhaps early 2008, the date is referred to in Mr. Gates’
book but I don’t remember that exactly, perhaps the winter of 2008, Senator Graham
tells me that the Americans are going to build bigger prisons to accommodate more
Afghan prisoners. I said why? Why are you building prisons in Afghanistan? Isn’t that
what the Soviets did? And didn’t the Afghan people rise against the Soviets, because
exactly wasn’t that one of the biggest reason? He said “well, we will put even those that
we have a slight suspicion on in order to put and take thousands of your people into
prison.” I said, “I will not allow you to do that.” He said “you are a one man!” For some
members of the US government Afghanistan was neither a government nor a people, it
didn’t have a president, if it had a president, it was only one man. From that day
onwards, when the US took thousands of people into Bagram, I began to demand the
immediate end to Bagram and worked on it for years and eventually I had to force the
United States in 2009 and 2010 to give up, we see they eventually did in 2010 or 2012
through, we are not going to go into series of things that we did.
In my view, Bagram is not a prison where they keep bad guys as they say, or criminals,
no, in my view Bagram is to create hatred in segments of the Afghan population against
their own country, against their own government and these people who were released
yesterday by the Commission. These are people that we have studied totally for three
months now and the conclusion of our intelligence and everybody else was that of the
eighty eight [88] people, more than forty [40] are, there is nothing about them in our
files, in our intelligence and the twenty seven [27] had only one report about them,
sixteen [16] were considered to be, you know, of a suspicious background and those we
will keep, so our system has cleared them.
Correspondent:
Wasn’t the timing provocative? Given that the Americans are angry about that.
President Karzai:
It’s not, we don’t behave in accordance to timings, we behave on the rights and wrongs
of things, our conduct is based on the rights and wrongs of things you cannot keep a
person, prisoner if you consider him or her innocent and we consider them innocent, the
system consider them innocent, so they had to be released and to go home.
Correspondent:
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And you could tell what happened during the last twelve years? It is incredibly sad, isn’t
it? I mean the United States actually lost a lot of lives and spent a lot of money.
President Karzai:
Unfortunately, for them as well, unfortunately for them as well, for the US, for the US
soldiers, for the people who have lost their lives here, we have immense sympathies with
that, I feel for those families in the United States just like I feel for the families in
Afghanistan and now we separate that from the way things were done by the US
government, immense respect for the US people, for the taxpayers’ money that was
brought to Afghanistan, but was not properly spent, I respect for the taxpayers’ money
but disagreeing with the way this money was spent by their government, respect for the
life of the US soldiers lost in Afghanistan, but strong disagreement with the way the US
conducted itself in Afghanistan, so we do have the differentiation and we were mindful
of it by all means.
Correspondent:
Well, were you concerned that the US say they are not leaving any troops behind?
President Karzai:
Look, if they do that, it’s their decision; they will have to go one day anyway. And
Afghanistan has to find its way out itself, we have been through war and upheavals and
sufferings now for thirty years, you were here and followed us closely, now it is thirty
[30] years that you are familiar with Afghanistan since 87, since 87 this country has not
had a quiet day, how many of our people are saying they should have sent their children
to school? Mothers are worried whether they would come back, this has to end and I am
trying to do my best to end this before I sign the partnership deal with America, the
partnership must serve our purpose, the purpose of security and peace for the Afghan
people.
Correspondent:
And you see a way to end this is to have a deal with the Taliban?
President Karzai:
You see, if the Taliban is our internal problem, then as all other internal problems we
must find a way, we must find a way ourselves, if the Taliban is an external problem
then the United States must join us to identify that external problem, if it has elements
of both external and internal, then we must work in separating one from another and
find a way out.
Correspondent:
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Did you talk on Saturday about wanting the US to bring peace and security, the peace
process and bring the Taliban to the table, how can they actually do that, they don’t have
much power to make the Taliban come, sit and talk to you?
President Karzai:
They should say it so, they should clarify as to where is that they don’t have power, if
they don’t have power over the government of Pakistan, they should say so, if it is the
government of Pakistan not helping, they should say it so, if it is the Taliban, they think
that they are not willing to come, then we will find out and then it is our job. What I am
seeking is clarity.
Correspondent:
Do you believe that the US government could persuade Pakistan government to do this
and you think that Pakistan government has the power to bring the Taliban to the Table
or perhaps with certain government?
President Karzai:
There are four parties to this problem, the Afghan government, the Afghan country, the
US government, the Pakistani government [and] the Taliban, they killed my brother, the
next day I stood and called the Taliban brothers and continued to emphasize peace, they
killed President Rabbani the Head of the Peace Council, I still called them brother and I
asked for peace, they keep blowing bombs or at least the bombs are blown up in their
name but I still keep calling them Afghans and brothers, so our position is clear, we
want peace, the Americans say that they are also trying for peace, now the two other
elements remain, Pakistan. Pakistan tells us that they will try their best but if they are
trying their best, some result has to come out of it, therefore there still be progress, if the
three parties in this circle of four, in this square of four, or of something, just one corner
remains, the Taliban corner, we can handle that, if the three of us are working in this
imprecation. I am seeking this clarity, I have conveyed to the American government this,
as well this morning that they must come out and clarify their position, so then I can go
to the Afghan people and say “well, this is the situation, the condition is to have for the
peace process and for the launch of the peace process cannot be met by the Americans
because of these reasons, now let’s find another way.”
Correspondent:
Do you believe when Pakistan says they don’t control, they can’t make the Taliban come
and sit with you?
President Karzai:
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The Pakistanis say that they don’t control the Taliban but they do say that they have
influence over the Taliban, now influence can be considerable, influence can be used,
let’s prove that that influence has been used.
Correspondent:
And where do you think Mullah Omar is? Do you think he is still alive?
President Karzai:
Sure, he is alive, yes; I believe he is in Pakistan.
Correspondent:
Do you have any contacts?
President Karzai:
Not directly, not directly.
Correspondent:
Saturday, I was very interested to the comparison you were making with the BSA, you
bringing the examples from our joint history.
President Karzai:
The Durand Line? Yes!
Correspondent:
Yeah, Durand Line, Gandomak, how do you feel about what the British have done here
in Helmand. I have gone back and forth and it is hard to see the situation is really better
than it was before when they went it in?
President Karzai:
I have expressed myself on the British in Helmand in the past. Once in Davos I said
something about this, I think it was 2007, just by the time when they were thinking of
Mr. Ashdown’s appointment, it created a lot of rebel and anger in the British press if you
remember? But let’s say in general terms that the NATO US-led mission in Afghanistan
bringing security and stability has not been successful particularly in Helmand. But the
British government conducted itself with us in a very civilized way and that I admire and
appreciate, all the British governments, especially Prime Minister Cameron’s
government has been very civilized and understanding partner with us and has
constantly tried to bring better relations between us and Pakistan.
Correspondent:
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But in the beginning they [the British] insisted in moving your governor who had good
relations with …
President Karzai:
Which was a bad thing to do, which was wrong, which was wrong, which was a mistake,
which the British have now learned, hopefully, not to have done.
Correspondent:
Do you think that the situation would have been better if they have never sent their
troops and it doesn’t seem that the attack is a magnet for insurgents and also they could
join the insurgency?
President Karzai:
I guess so, the Afghans were not anti-American or anti-British, they did actually support
them a lot, and they did support the arrival of the international community. It was the
bombardments and forceful entries into civilian homes and a lot more and actually in
real terms the undermining of the Afghan government that caused us the trouble.
Correspondent:
But what is it that you feel they did undermine you?
President Karzai:
Well, all those things, creating militias, creating private security firms--caused
lawlessness, corruption, brutality, highway robbery, creating parallel structures,
systematically waging a psychological war against our people, weakening our resolve,
threatening us with consequences if we did not go with their line, encouraging our
money to go out of the country, all of those things, a big list I have.
Correspondent:
It does seem to me, as you know I come back and forth all these years that each time I
come now, I can go to fewer and fewer places in Afghanistan.
President Karzai:
Exactly, you are right, exactly this is the point, exactly, so effectively what they did was
to create pockets of wealth and a vast countryside of deprivation and anger that is
exactly what they did and that’s exactly causing trouble, that’s exactly why I am angry. I
have been telling them repeatedly not to do, so that’s exactly why I am seeking the peace
process because without that the BSA will be having the opposite impact - a negative
one, where a part of the country would be under attack and some who take dollar wages
and contracts will be attached to a foreign power, the rest detached or worse than that
under attack.
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Correspondent:
In here everybody I was speaking to, since I have been here, including your brother, says
that they want the BSA.
President Karzai:
I want it too, I am not against the BSA, I would have not called the Jirga if I were
against the BSA, no! I want the BSA too, but I want it under the right circumstances for
the right purpose, why do we want the Americans to stay here? Do we want them to stay
to perpetuate war and conflict and civilians suffering and families in fear or do we want
the US bases to stay here to provide our security and what do you call that an anchor, so
the peace process will bring us that, or visible and vivid clarity from America on what it
is that’s stopping it the launch of the peace process.
Correspondent:
But the US, you would have seen in New York Times yesterday and today saying that
you are probably fabricating the photographs and paying people that those things are
happening, what do you say to that?
President Karzai:
That’s not true, tell the New York Times, I saw the video myself, I visited other people
who suffered vastly the day before yesterday, they were women and children killed, the
New York Times says that they were not twelve, they were fewer than twelve, well, let’s
say they were not twelve, let’s agree with New York Times, let’s say they were six, why
six? Why one? You cannot reduce the whole issue of a brutal bombardment of a civilian
home, of a home, to numbers, to photographs. Somebody brought an old photograph
that doesn’t remove the fact that women and children died there, that doesn’t remove
the fact that a civilian home was bombarded, that people and women and children were
killed.
Correspondent:
Aren’t you concerned that if they do pull out their troops, that they will be still using
drones, as they have been doing that in Pakistan?
President Karzai:
Well then, that will be warfare against the Afghan people that will be seen as a war
against the Afghan people while they claim to be allies with us, we want allies, not rivals.
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Correspondent:
What would you like to see as your legacy when you step down?
President Karzai:
I think, my legacy has already been framed in a sense there are only two months left
luckily, I am in such a hurry, twelve years is too long. When I came as the President of
Afghanistan this country had no government, today it has one, it had no Constitution,
and today it has one.
Correspondent: I think you didn’t have heater in this palace?
President Karzai:
Nothing, nothing, today we have millions of children going to school, universities,
thousands of our youth, boys and girls are studying abroad, Mujahid, communist, tribal
chief, clergy, women are sitting side by side doing business in government. Afghanistan
is a country for all Afghans now, my most important achievement [is that] Afghanistan
is home to all Afghans. We have now eleven candidates running for President, a
combination of Afghan thinking and people there represented.
Correspondent: And warlords
President Karzai:
And warlords, everybody, everybody, so this country has a lot to show, we are also
grateful for the assistance the world has given, I didn’t talk about that. The schools they
built for us, the clinics they built for us, the money that came to build roads for us, better
standards of living, we are grateful where help was provided, immensely grateful to
America, to Britain, to Europe, to everybody. But this could have been a lot better
country with a good and honest alliance, and much less suffering for the Afghan people
or for the US and NATO troops.
Correspondent:
If the BSA is not signed, the US will also pull out its funding and a lot of this would be
threatened.
President Karzai:
I will not want that, but if that comes to that, I would stand before the Afghan people
and tell them that we must make a choice whether to continue of this uncertain life of
seeing no end to conflict and bombs or to say good bye with the hope that can we find
our own means and live our own life the way we want, try our own chances for peace, if
you ask as an individual, an Afghan citizen, I would accept to live in poverty rather than
living in uncertainty, I would love my son to be the son of a very poor man but safe and
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confident and going to school every day and coming back to a poverty-stricken house
where I am sure he returns home and that there is a future for him. The United States
and the BSA must guarantee to the Afghan people that future, money is not everything.
Correspondent:
But you wouldn’t be able to pay your own army?
President Karzai:
Why? We have been paying our own armies for centuries, it is not the first time we have
an army, and we had armies, magnificent ones.
Correspondent: We knew that!
President Karzai:
Yes, so we can pay that, yes that’s not a problem, it’s not a problem, I don’t think
dependency today should be the driving factor for the BSA, no, the driving factor
behind or the desire for the BSA is to bring clarity to this conflict and bring peace or
identify the culprit.
Correspondent:
Isn’t that you don’t want to be the President who signs this?
President Karzai:
No, I would very much sign the BSA if I can be sure that I have done the right thing for
the Afghan people, I know that part of it is right to stay engaged with the West, I know
part of it is right to stay engaged with the West, with America but to give the BSA to
America, without us having the surety of a better life tomorrow is wrong, I cannot sign
something that I am not sure of or confident of myself, I cannot give something to the
Afghan people that I cannot consider right.
Correspondent:
Do you expect that it would be the next President to sign?
President Karzai:
The next President will not have my experience or my mindset or in other words, he
would not be and he would not have gone through the stages and the things that I went
through, so my mind is made by what I saw, I saw no good, so I am cautious and careful
perhaps wiser as a result, so I am trying to stay prudent to do the right thing, it’s a
monumental decision, a monumental decision for the Afghan people!
Correspondent:
Yes, can see that, presumably your history plays an important part in this?
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President Karzai:
Significantly important, significantly important, under pressure, our kings signed
things, all of that turned out to be disastrous for Afghanistan, and if under pressure I do
the same today, I don’t know the consequences, so I should be sure of the consequences
before I sign it, I cannot just gamble, no, it is not an individual decision, it is a national
decision.
Correspondent:
What will you do when you are no longer the President anymore?
President Karzai:
The [government] is building a very nice house, a very good one, and I will have very
good pension, by Afghan standards it is a good pension, and I will be busy.
Correspondent: And you still will be very young?
President Karzai:
I will be fifty-six (56) and half and I will be no longer the President. So I will have plenty
of time and if God gives me a life to go around, visit the country and enjoy myself and go
to cafes, visit London during Christmas, and see the lights, visit places, work on Afghan
education and be with the Afghan people.
Correspondent: I remember you used to say that you missed being able to take walks.
President Karzai: Absolutely, I will continue to do that.
Correspondent: Spend more time with the children
President Karzai: Yes, a lot more.
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