The meeting, organized by a former intelligence director, Amrullah Saleh, and attended as well by Abdullah Abdullah, a former presidential candidate, was a frontal attack on the current government’s policies, and speakers denounced both Al Qaeda and the Taliban. The organizers promised that if they were not listened to, they would “go to the streets and protest.”
Under the name “a gathering for justice,” the meeting was attended overwhelmingly by Afghans from the north and particularly from Panjshir Province, the home of the Afghan icon Ahmed Shah Massoud, who was killed by suicide bombers backed by Al Qaeda two days before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Panjshir is also the home province of Mr. Saleh and Mr. Abdullah.
Both men have long experienced friction with President Hamid Karzai: Mr. Karzai forced out Mr. Saleh, and Mr. Abdullah withdrew from a runoff election against Mr. Karzai in 2009 because, he said, the voting would be rigged. “The Taliban and Al Qaeda are terrorists,” said Mr. Saleh, as he looked out across the crowd, many of them young people. “They have destroyed our lands and houses, dishonored our wives and families.”
Then Mr. Saleh addressed Mr. Karzai: “You call them your brothers, this is oppression — to this nation; they are not our brothers,” he said in a criticism of Mr. Karzai’s frequent reference to the Taliban not as enemies or terrorists but as “upset brothers” or “angry brothers.”
The meeting struck a strongly nationalist tone and seemed aimed at generating the kind of grass-roots movement that has swept the Middle East. It was advertised on Facebook, radio and television stations, as well as in local newspapers.
Banners in Dari, one of the official Afghan languages, around the edge of the large tents were critical of the government: “The international community should not support Karzai for deals with the Taliban;” “Don’t step on our national interest by making deals with the Taliban;” “Every government organ is screaming with corruption, let’s root it out.”
The meeting was held in the parking lot of one of Kabul’s many immense wedding halls, and the manager, who asked that his name not be used, said that his staff had set out more than 10,000 chairs. Almost every one was filled, and overflow crowds gathered outside to listen to the speeches over loudspeakers.
The dominance of northerners at the gathering raised the issues of the growing tension over the prospect of a peace deal with the Taliban and the very different outlooks of the predominantly non-Pashtun north of Afghanistan and the overwhelmingly Pashtun south.
“As you know, one tribe, one circle has governed Afghanistan,” said Rasullah Paya, 22, a Kabul University student, referring to the Pashtuns, the ethnic group of Mr. Karzai. “From now on we don’t want one circle, one tribe, one nation, to run the government,” said Mr. Paya, who is from the Hazara ethnic group and is originally from Parwan Province, which is also in the north.
In fact, the government’s senior figures come from all ethnic groups, but perhaps because there is general frustration with day-to-day corruption and inefficiency, people feel deeply disenfranchised.
Others were even blunter. Abu Bakr, 32, from Panjshir Province, said, “We came today to participate in this gathering, to express our hatred of the Taliban and of the High Peace Council.”
The peace council, with more than 60 members, picked by Mr. Karzai, has been involved in reaching out to the Taliban and other insurgent groups to persuade them to lay down their weapons and join the government.
Mr. Saleh worked for Mr. Karzai until last June when insurgents attacked a peace jirga held in Kabul with rockets. In the wake of the attack, Mr. Karzai forced both Mr. Saleh and the interior minister at the time, Hanif Atmar, to offer their resignations because they had not pre-empted the attack. While Mr. Saleh is a Tajik, Mr. Atmar is a Pashtun, and they have criticized the government’s failure to root out corruption and to take a tough stand against the Taliban.
Underlying the reason for the gathering and on the minds of many in attendance was Mr. Karzai’s recent meeting with senior Pakistani officials at which the two countries’ leaders pledged to work together to bring peace to the region. However, in private the Pakistanis pushed for changes in Afghan policies, urging the country to draw closer to China and implicitly distance itself from the United States.
After the meeting, several local newspapers released what they said were lists of Pakistan’s demands to Afghanistan. While some of the demands were completely fabricated, others appeared to have been mentioned at the meeting, and the overall lack of transparency, coupled with the recent revelation that Osama bin Laden was living near a Pakistani military compound, has exacerbated people’s suspicions of Pakistan.
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