As UN Council Moves to De-List Taliban for Karzai, Louis Maxwell Probe Stalled

By Matthew Russell Lee
June 28, 2010
The Inner City Press
http://www.innercitypress.com/un1talama062810.html
UNITED NATIONS, June 28 -- When the UN Security Council was in Afghanistan last week, Hamid Karzai announced that they had committed to remove people from the Al Qaeda / Taliban sanctions list of the 1267 Committee. On Monday at the UN in New York, Inner City Press asked this month's Council president, Claude Heller of Mexico:
Inner City Press: When you were in Afghanistan, did the government of Hamid Karzai stressed particular names to the Council [inaudible] mediating between the authorities of Afghanistan and the Taliban. Were particular names discussed [inaudible] removed from the list?
CH: I think it's important to say that the Sanctions committee, all of the sanctions committees, are touching very sensitive issues, but of course they do it on a confidential basis. The fact that the chairman of the sanctions committee was in Afghanistan was an opportunity that he had to be in touch with the authorities. President Karzai publicly mentioned this issue, and the willingness of his government to cooperate with the sanctions committee.
After Heller's polite dodging of the question, the chairman of the 1267 committee Thomas Mayr-Harting came to speak with the Press, on the record but off camera. Inner City Press asked, if the standard to remove a Taliban is that they are not in contact with Al Qaeda, how the Karzai government can make this negative proof.
Mayr-Harting said that his Committee in the past has applied four tests: renunciation of violence, laying down of arms, no contact with Al Qaeda and accepting the Afghan constitution. He said that Afghanistan's specialized services should be able to provide information about accepting the constitution -- some of the list are members of parliament -- and perhaps about contacts with Al Qaeda.
He said he is hoping to remove dead people from the list, and that the Afghans can help by providing proof of death. But that's not the group of people of most concern to Karzai.
It is not clear whether during the Council's visit any member raised the killing of UN staff member Louis Maxwell by Afghan National Forces, as described in a UN Board of Inquiry report that calls on the Karzai government to further investigated [HYPERLINK: http://www.innercitypress.com/un4maxwell051010.html]. It appears that no Afghan investigation has been done or even begun. Some think that should be a condition for removing Karzai's friends from the sanctions list. We'll see.