Sibghatullah Mojaddedi
Sibghatullah Mojaddedi (1926-) is an Afghan political leader, of an academic, not warlord background. [1]. Mojadeddi was long associated with educational and mediating role, and chaired the 2004 Constitutional loya jirga. He now leads the registered political party, Afghanistan Republican Party (Hizbi Jamhori Kwahan), and is Speaker of the House of Elders, the upper house of the legislature. [2] He is Pashtun and Sufi.
Early life
He received undergraduate and graduate degrees at Al-Azhar University, with honours in Islamic Law and Jurisprudence. Beginning in 1952 he taught at Kabul University as well as the Higher Institutes of Arabic studies and Teachers’ Training, but also guest lectured at high schools, to start an early interest in learning.
Early anticommunism
Warning against Communist influences, he was first imprisoned in 1959, for over four years.[1]
First organization
In 1972, in his capacity as the most effective and best-recognised religious and scholarly personality of Afghanistan, Prof. Al-Mojaddedi established the movement of Jamiat-e-Ulamae Mohammadi. This movement played a decisive role in awakening the various sectors of the Afghan society all over the country, against communists, their conspiracies and foreign backing.
Daoud coup and exile
In 1973, while he was attending a multinational Islamic conference outside the country, the communist dominated military coup of Daoud Khan took place; he stayed in exile. After spending a year in Saudi Arabia, he proceeded to Denmark where he established the Islamic Cultural Centre of Scandinavia in Copenhagen, several smaller centres of Islamic learning in different parts of Denmark and another Islamic Centre in Oslo, Norway.
After the outright power seizure in April 1978, he joined in a common resistance, the Afghan National Liberation Front (Jabhai Milli Nejate Afghanistan), which called for resistance and jihad on 13th March 1979.[1]
Mujahideen
He stood for unity among the fractious mujahadeen groups, and was elected as the President of the Islamic Interim Government of Afghanistan (AIG) on 23rd February 1989 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. Once the Mudjahadeen took power in 1992, he became the first interim president, making an example of transferring power after two months to Burhanuddin Rabbani.
Continued mediating role
His role as a mediator continued beyond the mujahadeen period, into the struggle between the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. In January 1990, he created the Association for Peace and National Unity of Afghanistan in January 1990 for unifying the voice of the majority of the Afghan people who were totally against the power struggle. He actively participated in various Afghan peace initiatives, including the Cyprus and Rome Processes.
Karzai government
While he considered the Bonn Conference unbalanced, he supported the initial appointment of Hamid Karzai as Chairman of the Afghan Interim Authority in 2001. Again with reservations, he supported the Emergency Loya Jirga of June 2002 that elected Mr. Hamid Karzai President of the Islamic Transitional Government of Afghanistan in June 2002.
Constitutional loya jirga
He was elected chairman of the Constitutional Loya Jirga in January 2004.
Current activity
He now leads the registered political party, Afghanistan Republican Party (Hizbi Jamhori Kwahan), and is Speaker of the House of Elders, the upper house of the legislature.
Mojaddedi was slightly injured in a suicide attack, for which the Taliban took credit, in 2006. [3]
When the House of Elders was visited by ISAF officials, Amnesty International presented him with an open letter of concerns related to the International Security Assistance Force. [4] AI agrees that the forces came to Afghanistan with UN authorization. and "that individual ISAF forces have sought to mitigate the effect of injury, death and damage to property by providing monetary compensation to the aggrieved and by providing other forms of relief to help in the short term. Acknowledging that it cannot replace the lives lost, ISAF will reportedly provide more than eight million US dollars to the development of the Panjwayi, Zhari and Speran Ghar districts... In particular, Article 3a of the ICCPR provides for ‘an effective remedy’ for all those whose rights or freedoms have been found to be violated.
He has expressed thanks to Iran for its assistance, [2], and hopes for the early withdrawal of the International Security Assistance Force.
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 Rahimullah Mojaddedi, Concise Biography of Prof. Sibghatullah Al-Mojaddedi, Leader of Afghan National Liberation Front And Former President of Afghanistan
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 "Jalili: Western countries quite unaware of realities in region", Tehran Times, March 7, 2009 Cite error: Invalid
<ref>tag; name "TehTimes2008-03-07" defined multiple times with different content - ↑ , Appendix A: Examples of Insurgent Attacks in 2006, The Human Cost: The Consequences of Insurgent Attacks in Afghanistan, Human Rights Watch
- ↑ Afghanistan: Open letter to His Excellency Sibghatullah Mojaddedi on the occasion of the 15 November 2006 visit to the Meshrano Jirga by military and civil leaders of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Amnesty International, Index Number: ASA 11/019/2006