Early Life
Hamid Karzai was born on the 24th of December, 1957 (Qaus 9th, 1336) in the village of Karz, near Kandahar, Afghanistan. His grandfather, Khair Mohammad Khan, had served during Afghanistan’s war of independence and as the Deputy Speaker of the Senate. His father, Abdul Ahad Karzai, was a tribal (Popalzai) elder and a significant national political figure, who served as the Deputy Speaker of the Parliament during the 1960s. Abdul Karzai moved with his family to Kabul upon his election to the Parliament.
Karzai has six brothers and one sister. In 1999, he married Dr. Zeenat Quraishi. He has one son, Merwais. He speaks Pashto, Dari, Urdu and English fluently, and enjoys riding horses and studying philosophy.
Hamid Karzai studied at Mahmud Hotaki Elementary School, Sayed Jamaluddin Afghani School, and Habibia High School. After graduating from high school, he traveled to India as an exchange student in 1976, and was accepted to study for his Masters Degree in International Relations and Political Science from Simla University. He obtained his Master’s Degree in 1983, shortly after the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan (which began in 1979).
Political Career
Hamid Karzai then traveled to Pakistan, joining the Mujahideen fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of his homeland. In 1985, he traveled to Lille, France, to attend a three-month journalism course. When he returned to Peshawar, Pakistan, he served as the Director of Information and later as the Deputy Director of the Political Office of the National Liberation Front led by Professor Sebghatullah Mujadidi. After the formation of the transitional government of the Mujahideen in 1989, he was appointed Director of the Foreign Relations Unit in the Office of the President of the Interim Government.
When the Mujahideen Government was established in Kabul in 1992, Hamid Karzai was appointed Deputy Foreign Minister. Two years later, when the civil war between the various Mujahideen groups began, he resigned from his post, and began to work actively for the organization of a national Loya Jirga (Grand Council).
When the Taleban erupted on to Afghanistan's political scene in the early 1990s, Hamid Karzai initially supported them. However, by late 1994 he had become suspicious of the movement, fearing it had been infiltrated and was controlled by foreigners, including Pakistanis and Arabs. He said it was time to get rid of such people.
"These Arabs, together with their foreign supporters and the Taleban, destroyed miles and miles of homes and orchards and vineyards," he said.
"They have killed Afghans. They have trained their guns on Afghan lives.
"These Arabs are in Afghanistan to learn to shoot. They learn to shoot on live targets and those live targets are the Afghan people, our children our women. We want them out."
In August 1999, Abdul Ahad Karzai, who was organizing resistance to the Taliban from his base in Quetta, Pakistan, was assassinated. The murder was widely attributed to the Taleban.
When the Taliban government failed to comply, the coalition forces, led by the United States and Great Britain, launched a
massive air assault on Afghan military installations and al-Qaeda training camps in the first week of October. The coalition also supported the Northern Alliance, still in power near the Uzbek and Tajik borders, to regroup and resume their campaign against the Taliban. The Northern Alliance managed to break Taliban resistance and recapture the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif and also Kabul, the capital, in November. Kandahar, the last remaining Taliban stronghold, fell in December. In the
same month non-Taliban Afghan factions convened in Bonn, Germany. The conference set up an interim government to take charge for the next six months, to be led by a respected Pashtun leader, Hamid Karzai. However, warlords remained in power in the various provinces, while the important ministries of defense, foreign affairs, and internal affairs were assigned to non-Pashtun Northern Alliance leaders. Hamid Karzai with other three like-minded men returned to Uruzgan Province in October 2001, and worked to coordinate local efforts to rid Afghanistan of the Taliban. On December 5th, 2001, while he was still in Afghanistan leading these efforts, he was elected Chairman of the Interim Administration of Afghanistan, by participants at the UN-sponsored Bonn Conference. He, along with the appointed Cabinet, took his oath of office on December 22nd of that year.
The American invasion and occupation of Afghanistan continued. A loya jirga, or grand council, comprising traditional leaders, was held in June 2002, as sponsored by the United States. Karzai was elected the head of state of a transitional government until popular elections could be held. On September 5, 2002, Karzai survived an assassination attempt, and another plot against him was stopped on November 22. In 2003 more than 10,000 coalition troops, led by 8,000 from the United States, were still engaged in fighting remnants of the Taliban, al-Qaeda forces, and the former mujahideen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in the eastern and southern regions of Afghanistan. There were signs that the Taliban was making a come-back in some districts, and some observers began calling Karzai the mayor of Kabul, implying that his rule did not extend beyond the capital.Popular elections were held in October 2004, and Karzai was elected president. Despite political, military, and financial support from the United States, a number of problems remain. Warlords, previously supported by the United States in its hunt for bin Laden, solidied their control of large sections of the country. The warlords in turn have given new life to Afghanistan’s opium production: the country supplies 70 percent of the world’s opium, used in the production of heroin. Critics point out that after several years the United States has failed in its major objectives of capturing bin Laden and of putting an end to the Taliban. Reconstruction efforts in the country have also been slowed as a result of the redirection of funds to the U.S.-led war in Iraq. Most crucially, many Afghans have grown impatient with the U.S. presence in their country. An estimated 20,000 deaths have occurred in Afghanistan as a result of U.S. bombing.
During Afghanistan’s first Presidential Election, on October 9th, 2004, Hamid Karzai won the majority of the votes, and was elected to a 5-year term as President of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. He took his oath of allegiance at Salam Khana Palace on December 7th, 2004, in the presence of dignitaries and officials from around the world.
Hamid Karzai run for the second term in 2009 Presidential Elections and was elected as the President of Afghanistan. He took oath of allegiance at Salam Khana Palace onNovember 19, 2009 in presence of dignitaries and high level foreign officials.
Western nation building in Afghanistan has resulted in the promulgation of a constitution and the holding of elections.
However, the 2009 presidential vote has not brought about a stable political settlement. Hamid Karzai’s legitimacy as
president has hardly been strengthened by what was believed to be a flawed vote. The parliamentary election, originally
scheduled for the spring of 2010, has been postponed, and for good reason. A stable and strong central government in
Afghanistan is not in sight. But is this a problem? Political decentralization agrees with the country’s traditions, and any
attempt to create a strong central authority immediately breeds resentment. The issue in Afghanistan is not Kabul versus
the provinces, but rather the ethnic balance within the Afghan government’s structure. The intriguing question in this respect
is the link between the Pashtuns, who make up a plurality, but not a majority, of Afghanistan’s population, and the Taliban. [1]
Beyond the Taliban versus Kabul dynamic, there is the issue of the Pashtuns versus Kabul—even though Karzai is a Pashtun. Afghanistan’s cuture will depend on whether and how this issue is resolved. This, however, is a matter for the Afghans themselves. The support that the outsiders—including the Soviets in the past and the U.S.-led coalition today—give to the non-Pashtun ethnic groups, such as the Tajiks and the Uzbeks, breeds resentment against oreigners and those who
are seen as their agents, such as Karzai. Generally, a foreign military presence helps recruit people to the cause of jihad. [1]
Hamid Karzai has been awarded many honors, among them a Honorary PHd Degree from Simla University of India (2002), Honorary Knighthood from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth (2003), the Philadelphia Liberty Medal (2004), World’s Most Successful President (2004), Indira Gandhi Prize for Peace, Disarmament and Development (2005) and the American Bar Association-Asia Rule of Law Award (2003).
- 2001–02 Hamid Karzai (chairman of the interim administration)
- 2002–04 Hamid Karzai (head of state for the transitional administration)
- 2004– Hamid Karzai (president of the Islamic State)
References
