| | Lack of social justice and growing corruption Anis (in Dari) Via Afghaniyat NewsGroup
09/18/2003
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War in Afghanistan has left behind many negative phenomena, one of them being seizure of property Citizens of Afghanistan, and particularly those of Kabul, left their country due to continuous warfare and lived as immigrants. On return, most of them discovered that others who had also prepared ownership deeds now own their property. How these so-called (legal) ownership documents are prepared warrants another discussion. However, discovering the fact that their property is owned by some other people and the problems they face to reclaim their property and the vain efforts they make are considerable. Naturally, every person who has suffered such a loss knocks on the door of justice first and presents its ownership documents to the court of law to prove his ownership. Meanwhile, in a short period of time, the identity of the (illegal) confiscator is revealed and the real owner faces a harsh reality. The reality is that his property has been seized by a powerful person and even being shocked about it means running a risk and facing dire consequences. The bitter reality today is that many people are witness to the seizure of their property by powerful persons. But due to the fact that they have powers, money and even arms, neither the real owner nor the judicial authorities can overpower them. How can we ensure the rule of law and social justice under such circumstances? Perhaps by exerting more pressure this issue could have been addressed to some extent if seizure of property were the only problem of this country. The problems do not come to an end here. Today a number of people who possessed nothing until yesterday own everything. Today there are a number of people about whom there is no information as to how and by doing what legal job they succeeded in making so much money to buy houses and lands in best localities. We would have not argued about them if they had purchased a piece of land or a house or five plots or five houses. It is a different story here. A number of well-known persons now have 100 to 120 houses, several many-storey buildings and several major projects. Incidentally, these are people who could not make a living for their families until yesterday. Another mysterious problem is allocation of plots by the Kabul municipality. As everyone knows, recently the western part of Wazir Akbar Khan i.e. Shir Pur has been allocated to a number of people. The name of the areas Wazir Akbar Khan and Shir Pur serve as a clear demonstration that those who have succeeded in being allocated plots in these areas are not ordinary people. In addition to this problem, another issue which arises is whether or not those who formerly possessed property in those areas should have been given priority in terms of allocating plots. Is it human rights and social justice to destroy their houses, seize their plots and force them to buy lands on the outskirts of Kabul? Were these people not the first to merit allocation? When plots are seized, and houses destroyed, while its inhabitants are inside and then a plot is forcefully given to them outside the city is when the beautiful term 'social justice' is questioned. This is when this nation discovers that social justice under prevailing circumstances can only be a slogan. Subsequently, it is felt that ensuring social justice requires attention, efforts and the rule of law. It requires the efforts of people who love and sympathize with Afghanistan and with its poor people. It is very regrettable that the minority sympathetic group overshadowed by the majority wicked and opportunist group finds fewer opportunities to be kind.
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