Great article about Ustad Noor Mohammad Atta Instead, he criticized Mr. Karzai’s management of the country and said the president never followed through on plans to regulate revenue collection, policing and relations between the central government and the provinces. He derided Mr. Karzai’s efforts to curb corruption, saying the president should not appoint corrupt people in the first place. Mr. Karzai had also failed to act as the Taliban insurgency spread into the north in recent years, he said. “If we don’t have the cooperation of the people, you cannot stop it,” he said of the insurgency. “There has to be a deep contact between the people and the government. If officials are not embezzling or taking bribes, then definitely the people will trust the government.” Even for skeptics of Mr. Noor, the success of his approach in Mazar-i-Sharif is hard to ignore. While insurgents remain active in two districts of the province, this city has emerged as an investment haven and has become one of the largest sources of revenue in the country, according to the Finance Ministry. Mr. Noor, who is from Mazar-i-Sharif, knows everyone, including the thieves and gangsters, Nader Nadery, deputy head of the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, said. While protecting some, Mr. Nadery added, Mr. Noor has gained popularity by catching thieves and returning stolen goods to their owners. Dr. Muhammad Afzal Hadeed, a surgeon and the newly elected head of the provincial council, said: “He had good relations with the people, and the people are cooperating with him. These two factors made it work.” In the farming district of Balkh, west of Mazar-i-Sharif, the mainly Pashtun residents said security had vastly improved in the last five years. Businessmen, some of whom have moved from the south to invest in Mazar-i-Sharif, say they can do business here without fear of the kidnapping and extortion that plagues the capital. The governor, whose father was a fur and rug trader, is pro-business, they say. nytimes/2010/05/18/world/asia/18mazar.html?_r=0
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 23:37:07 +0000