Kabul, May 11: Hundreds of people demonstrated today in Kabul against President Hamid Karzai, accusing him of "complicity" with the former Taliban regime, reporter witnessed. Grouped in front of the ministry of foreign affairs in the centre of the Afghan capital, between 300 and 500 protesters listened to speakers denounce Karzai's recent speeches in which he has called for the pardoning of thousands of Taliban fighters. Karzai claims many were simple soldiers pushed into the ranks of the Taliban by force.
The President has publicly expressed this point many times during the past weeks, underlining the difference between the simple soldier with no authority and the chiefs of the Taliban who were responsible for the fundamentalist Islamist regime. He says the ringleaders are now being hunted and brought to justice.
The Taliban were ousted from Afghanistan by the United States in November 2001.
The demonstrators today maintained that any assistance to the Taliban was a crime. The Taliban were invaders, pillagers and murderers who ruined Afghanistan, they said.
The protesters also asked for an increase in civil servants' salaries and denounced what they called the "inaction of the international community to assist in the reconstruction of the country".
The protest ended without incident.
Bureau Report