Foreign Affairs Minister Maxime Bernier directly told Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai that the governor of Kandahar province should be replaced because he is holding up Canadian development aid, Â鶹´«Ã½ has learned.
"Officials tell me that Maxime Bernier told President Karzai in a meeting that Governor (Asadullah) Khalid should be removed, that he was a corrupt governor and that he was holding up development aid," Robert Fife, CTV's Ottawa bureau chief, told Newsnet on Monday.
Bernier and Karzai met in Kabul on Saturday, along with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner.
Reporters asked Bernier on Monday, at the end of his three-day visit to Afghanistan, what Karzai needs to do about corruption in the south.
"They're a sovereign state, they're going to have to decide, it's a decision that the president is will have to take in the near future about the future of the government we're having here (in Kandahar)," Bernier said at the Kandahar Airfield.
"Is it the right person at the right place at the right time? President Karzai will have to answer these questions as soon as possible."
Bernier's officials immediately called the statement a mistake. The Afghans were apparently furious about the foreign interference and Bernier was forced to backtrack. His office released a statement saying, "Afghanistan is a sovereign state that makes its own decisions about government appointments. I can assure you that Canada fully respects this and is not calling for any changes to the Afghan government."
The opposition has pounced on what some say was a political gaffe -- the fact that Bernier went public with private remarks made to another government. The NDP's Jack Layton said, "There's no question there's a competence question that comes when you get this kind of a flip-flop."
While Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed Bernier's clarification, he didn't dispute that there were problems in Kandahar.
"We have talked to the government of Afghanistan from time to time about the performance of that government and we will continue to express these concerns to them privately," Harper said.
The Prime Minister's Office issued a statement saying: "Minister Bernier is a bold and aggressive foreign affairs minister and he quickly clarified his comments."
Canada's 2,500 troops operate in Kandahar province. Khalid, who appeared last week with top Canadian military officials at a road-building ceremony, strenuously denied reports earlier this year that he had been involved in the torture of an Afghan prisoner.
Omar Samad, Afghanistan's ambassador to Canada, said Khalid has been an effective governor -- considering the province's struggles against the Taliban.
"I think this governor has done fairly well given the circumstances," Samad told CTV's Mike Duffy Live.
"He's been the target of terrorists many times, he is trying to work the best he can. He needs, of course, a strong team. But it's the president of Afghanistan who decides who will be governor."
Military analyst Col. (ret'd) Mike Capstick, who served on the ground in Afghanistan, said Bernier made a mistake by calling for Khalid's dismissal in such a public manner.
"I can't imagine what the minister was thinking to say that out loud," he said.
Capstick suggested Bernier's comments would create tension between Brig.-Gen. Guy Laroche and Elissa Goldberg, Canada's top civilian representative in Kandahar, "for the next couple weeks."
But he acknowledged that widespread corruption is a lingering problem in Kandahar.
"You can't expect much else after 30 years of conflict. The governance structure is very weak and fragile," he said.
Bernier said he told Karzai during their meeting that the Afghan government must get serious about fighting corruption.
"I think (Karzai) can work with us to be sure the (new) governor will be more powerful ... (and) will do what he has to do to help us."
Fife said Canadian officials in the Kandahar area say that Khalid had consistently blocked efforts to put aid on the ground in the Kandahar area.
There are also allegations of corruption whirling around Khalid, he said.
Asadullah Khalid
An ethnic Pashtun, the dominant group in Kandahar province, Khalid fought with the Northern Alliance against the Taliban.
Karzai first named Khalid governor of Ghazni province in 2002 before transferring him to Kandahar in 2005.
Khalid survived an apparent assassination attempt early this year when a bomb detonated near his motorcade. Other blasts targeted him in May 2007 and in June 2006.
"It is widely believed that Asadullah Khalid gained his position as a result of his excellent relationship with U.S. authorities in Afghanistan," the Senlis Council said in a 2006 report.
"Tough on the Pakistan-Taliban connection, Khalid has become increasingly unpopular in Kandahar due to his poppy eradication campaigns."
The Senlis Council is a think tank that operates an office in Kandahar province and has pushed for a different approach to managing Afghanistan's opium production, suggesting it should be grown legally for medicinal use.
Stephen Saideman, who holds the Canada Research Chair in International Security & Ethnic Conflict at McGill University in Montreal, told Newsnet that Khalid has been supportive of Canadian efforts to enhance security in Kandahar.
However, the governor "is apparently less enthusiastic about other parts of the effort - the focus reconstruction and governance," he said.
Saideman, who toured Afghanistan in December, said Canadian soldiers told him they were able to cajole Khalid into co-operating in those other areas.
Corruption is undeniably an issue in Afghanistan, he said. "I don't have any facts in my hands on whether this guy is more or less corrupt than anybody else."
Another issue is that Karzai likely doesn't have an endless supply of governors, and that the very nature of the job and place could make it difficult to remain entirely free of corruption, Saideman said.
