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TechnoratiUN 'to Remove Afghanistan Envoy'
A senior UN official in Afghanistan is to be removed from his post following a row about the country's presidential election, the BBC has learned.
![[The deputy UN special envoy to Afghanistan Peter Galbraith attends a meeting in Munich, southern Germany, April 2009. Galbraith will not return to his post after a row with his boss over fraud-tainted elections, dealing a blow to US prestige in the country, a UN official said. (AFP/DDP/File/JOERG KOCH)]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/unenvoy_afghan_out.jpg "unenvoy_afghan_out.jpg")
UN officials said Peter Galbraith had not been fired but would be removed from the mission.
Mr Galbraith, a US diplomat, said: "The secretary general appointed me and has not fired me so far as I know."
Mr Galbraith angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai by reportedly calling for a complete recount of the vote.
Last week the top UN Afghan envoy, Kai Eide, said Mr Galbraith had left the country after a row between them.
But he denied he had ordered him to go.
UN sources say Secretary General Ban Ki-moon decided to end Mr Galbraith's mission after it became clear he was no longer able to carry out his work in Afghanistan, says the BBC's Lyse Doucet.
Some Afghan cabinet ministers had said they no longer wanted to work with him.
It is understood that Mr Galbraith would have been kept in his post until after a final ruling on the disputed presidential election - a process that is in its final stages - but leaks emerged in Kabul before Mr Galbraith himself had been informed of the secretary general's decision, said Ms Doucet.
A UN spokesman in Kabul told the BBC: "We are aware of the reports. An announcement of this nature would come from the UN secretary general's office in New York. At this stage there has been no announcement".
'Valuable deputy'
Last week, Mr Eide told the BBC the dispute had been resolved by Mr Galbraith agreeing to leave the country for a while.
He described Mr Galbraith as "a valuable deputy" and said he hoped they could "re-establish a good team and work together".
Mr Eide declined to talk about details of his disagreement with Mr Galbraith, but said the UN should respect the constitutional bodies in charge of the presidential election "to avoid any impression that there is foreign interference".
The row is between two men who have known each other for a long time but have very different styles, but a UN source said that had not been the only factor in Mr Galbraith's removal, Lyse Doucet says.
It is understood that Mr Ban would not have dismissed Mr Galbraith - who came to the post with US support - without backing from the Washington, she adds.
The US, along with other foreign missions in Afghanistan, appears to want to move on from the election dispute to deal with the country's other considerable problems, she says, but this will anger observers who believe a more robust response is needed to the allegations.
EU election observers have said that about 1.5m votes - about a quarter of all ballots - cast in August's presidential vote could be fraudulent.
They say that 1.1 million votes cast for President Karzai are suspicious.
5 Comments so far
Show AllThank you Zbigniew and Henry......your policies have helped to kill over 5 million people from Viet Nam to Iraq/Afghanistan and you continue to chant, "American Vital Interests are reasons to use military force"
As 13 more Militants were killed by drone attacks in Pakistan,.....Who are militants? How do you have the nerve to use the terms: militants, insurgents, terrorists after you kill unarmed human beings? The United States illegally and immorally invaded two countries that had never threatened to attack or invade the United States.....The United States is an occupying force and the people of those countries have a right to defend themselves.....
When Barack Obama uses the term "American Character" in pursuit of healthcare reform, I am ashamed of him, for he is still killing innocent people so that the wealthy can enrich themselves through illegitimate wars.....Until there is an independent investigation of 9./11 and the "Demollition of World Trade Center #7", the U.S. economy will flounder for "They" have decided that 60% or more of American People will be living below the poverty level by the end of 2010. (My belief)....And, that seems to be ok, because 30 to 40% will still be able to keep the sports teams going, the restaurants open, and the colleges attended.
Interesting to note that an international Organization did a poll of Iranians to determine their view of the elections recently held in that country.
Using FARSI speakers worldpublicopinion.org called 1003 Iranians to ask them their views on the election.
81 percent polled claimed Ahmadinejad the rightful winner of the election. 10 percent called him illegitimate and 9 percent offered no opinion.
>>Sixty-two percent said they had strong confidence in the election results, which showed Ahmadinejad winning by about a 2-to-1 margin, and another 21 percent said they had some confidence in the official vote count, for a total of 83 percent expressing favorable views on the election. By comparison, only 13 percent said they had little or no confidence in the results.
http://politicaltheatrics.org/2009/09/30/was-the-iranian-election-rigged/
This poll did not make the headlines of any major newspaper.
UNOCAL counts the votes and Obama keeps the Bush Quisling!
America will leave Afghanistan like the British did in 1840.
Isn't the US just great at getting everyone to "move on" and forget about the facts, whether it be 9/11, WMD, wars in Iraq or Afghanistan, torture, kidnapping, murder by drone, support of War Criminals and terrorists in Palestine or completely dummy elections for which Afghans risked their lives for in voting.
Now tell me about the "bigger picture" that I have to take into consideration. Is that like the "lesser evil" that I'm now having to stomach?
Oh, deliver us from this sophistry of Thoulessian crooked thinking.
mr karzai - the mayor of baghdad - sellor of heroin - us puppet - in his voting district of 50,000 voters he somehow managed to get 350,000 votes
he did better than bush in ohio in '04 and he had to do that without the help of diebold voting machines
thank god and allah too while we are at it - that we got this "freedom machine" spreading freedom and democracy throughout his homeland in our name
if that doesn't help our favorability factor over there i don't know what will...