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Hamid Karzai sworn in as Afghan President
(Agencies)
Updated: 2004-12-07 20:35 KABUL, Afghanistan - Hamid
Karzai was sworn in Tuesday as Afghanistan's first popularly elected president,
calling for sustained help from the international community to bolster a young
democracy that still faces the twin threats of terrorism and drugs.
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| Former Afghan King, Mohammed Zahir Shah (R), Afghan President Hamid
Karzai (2R), former Afghan President, Hazrat Sebghatullah Mujadidi (3R),
US Ambassador and Special Presidential Envoy to Afghanistan Zalmay
Khalilzad (2L), and US Vice-President Dick Cheney (L) attend a swearing-in
ceremony at The Presidential Palace in Kabul, December 7, 2004.
[Reuters] | The U.S.-backed leader, wearing a
traditional green robe and a black lambskin hat, took the oath of office in a
solemn ceremony in a restored hall of the war-damaged former royal palace.
Vice President Dick Cheney, the highest-ranking American official to visit
Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, and Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld were among those who gave Karzai a standing ovation when he
arrived.
Karzai repeated the oath of allegiance read to him by Afghanistan's
white-bearded chief justice, Fazl Hadi Shinwari. He then swore in his two vice
presidents, Ahmad Zia Massood and Karim Khalili, members of the country's two
largest ethnic minorities.
Kabul was calm amid massive security for the ceremony, but overnight attacks
near the Pakistani frontier that left 12 dead provided a strong reminder of
threats to the nation's stability.
In his inaugural address, Karzai said the hopes of ordinary Afghans would
drive him during what is likely to be a tough five-year term. He reiterated his
main pledges — cracking down on the booming opium trade, disarming militias and
lifting living standards.
"We have now left a hard and dark past behind us and today we are opening a
new chapter in our history in a spirit of friendship with the international
community," Karzai said, speaking in Pashto and Dari, Afghanistan's two main
languages.
He said the fight against terrorism was "not yet over" and urged continued
international aid and cooperation to defeat increasing links between extremists
and drug-trafficking.
"The same cooperation has led to the rebuilding of the Afghan state and
significant progress in restoring peace, stability and security to our country."
Wary of attacks by Taliban or al-Qaida militants, Afghan and international
forces launched their biggest security operation since the Oct. 9 election that
gave Karzai, who had been interim leader, a landslide victory.
Hours before the ceremony, dozens of insurgents armed with assault rifles and
rockets attacked an Afghan military base in Khost province, sparking a firefight
that left four Afghan soldiers and at least six militants dead, an Afghan
commander said.
Also in Khost, insurgents opened fire on a U.S. patrol, which returned fire
and killed two of the assailants, U.S. spokesman Maj. Mark McCann said. No
Americans were reported hurt.
Militants also tried to launch a rocket toward Kabul on Monday evening, but
it landed harmlessly on a cattle farm outside the city limits, a NATO spokesman
said.
Cheney, arriving at the main U.S. base north of Kabul earlier Tuesday,
congratulated some of the 18,000 U.S. troops here for helping give democracy a
chance to take root.
"For the first time the people of this country are looking confident about
the future of freedom and peace," Cheney said. "Freedom still has enemies here
in Afghanistan, and you are here to make those enemies miserable."
Before the ceremony, Karzai thanked the United States, his main sponsor, for
its help.
"Without that help, Afghanistan would be in the hands of terrorists," he
said. "Terrorism as a force is gone. As individuals they are all around and we
will continue to look for them."
The list of 150 foreign dignitaries included Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal
Kharrazi and Pakistan's Interior Minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao. Lakhdar Brahimi,
special adviser to U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, represented the world
body.
Rumsfeld cautioned that the military mission here is not over.
"There are still groups, extremists, that would like to take this country
back — the Taliban, the al-Qaida — and use it for a base for terrorist
activities around the world as they did on 9/11," Rumsfeld told a group of
special forces soldiers at Bagram. "But it's not going to happen."
Annan has warned in a report to the U.N. Security Council that unless Karzai
tackles Afghanistan's surge in opium production and its arms proliferation, much
of its recent progress could be seriously undermined and "the economy may well
be subsumed by the illicit drugs industry."
The inauguration was the culmination of a three-year drive to transform
Afghanistan from a training ground for al-Qaida extremists into a moderate
Islamic republic.
Afghans have adopted a new constitution labeled by the United States as the
most progressive in the region and held their first Western-style vote, despite
militant attacks that killed at least 15 election workers.
Some 3 million Afghan refugees displaced by more than two decades of warfare
have returned home, and women and girls are back in jobs and schools from which
they were barred under the previous regime. The economy is growing strongly.
But insurgents continue to harass U.S. and Afghan forces across a broad swath
of the south and east. American officials expect to keep their force strength at
about 18,000 at least until after parliamentary elections slated for the spring.
Karzai has said the drug economy, which now accounts for an estimated
one-third of national income, is a bigger threat than the insurgents and will be
the top priority for the coming years.
U.N. surveys show cultivation of opium poppy in Afghanistan, from which most
of the world's heroin is refined, jumped more than 60 percent this year, and
warn that drug smuggling mafias are taking an iron grip on the country.
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