recent YORK, Jan. 6 Kyodo prefer...

recent YORK, Jan. 6 Kyodo

prefered editorial excerpts from the U press:

ISLAMIC DEMOCRACY (The of the present day York Times, New York)

Afghanistan's recent Constitution offers hope that the beleaguered nation can finally develop into a modern, democratic state. Forged from weeks of bitter debate at the constitutional loya jirga, or grand council, the document establishs the stage for the first real elections in more than pair decades, possibly by summer.

And it balances the goal of an Islamic state with the promise to abide from the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. America's ambassador to Afghanistan, Zalmay Khalilzad, was right to call it ''one of the mostly enlightened constitutions in the Islamic world.'' Now arrives the difficult part: turning a tolerable constitution into a working democracy.

It is possible to behold how the promises in this Constitution could be sidestepped through powerful interests in Afghanistan. Many freedoms, like the right to create social organizations or the right to publish without sway censorship, could still be limited by way of laws.

Still, there was virtuous news in this document and the way it was approved. The Constitution specifically grants equal rights to women steady promising two Parliament seats in each province to women

That is clear progres after years beneath the Taliban, which did not believe in women's education or equal adequate health care. A nation of many ethnic arranges most represented at the loya jirga, now has a Constitution that grants near respect for languages other than the dominant Pashto or Dari.

The Bush administration, justifiably thrilled by the agency of the outcome, has also acknowledged that the constitution cannot be inflict into effect without the continued support of the United States and its allies. yet to be elections would best be hie under the wing of the United Nations, if it were not that President Bush and his allies will ne to help provide the political support and military security to make presidential and parliamentary elections possible.

In the period Afghanistan's Constitution, like all like documents, is really a catalog of promises, a framework for the dreams of a modern and better government. This single in kind provides an excellent foundation for creating a better Afghanistan.

(Jan. 6)

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