3. Biodata:
Mohammad Naseem Sharifi Pashtun was born 1974 in Kandahar. Born to a respected branch of the prominent Barakzai tribe, Sharifi had been sent away at age 16. It was an adoption into exile, with the young Sharifi joining relatives in Seattle, USA who, by marriage, were distant Karzai cousins. After 12 years in exile, 2002 he was back with U.S. citizenship, a Western education, a zest to make his mark. Sharifi married a local Kandahari woman in 2004.

Sharifi had vivid memories of the outdoor advertising billboards that clutter America’s highways, a concept then alien to Afghanistan. And with new banks and new cellphone companies opening daily, he thought the idea might just click. Sharifi assembled a fledgling team and Arakozia was born. War-torn Kandahar was then so starved for visual stimulation that when he planted his first billboard Afghans gathered from far and wide just to look at it. The contracts poured in. Afghan Wireless, Roshan cellular. Even NATO bought in, with a series of poppy-eradication billboards. He pumped profits into expansion with the launch of Surghar, Kandahar’s first-ever independent weekly Surghar. And then Kandahar’s first-ever coffee shop. “The goal for both the newspaper and the coffee shop was the same — to encourage civil society and help create a sense of community,” says Sharifi.

But tension with the Karzai family boiled up in 2007 with the appointment of Ghulam Hamidi, a lifelong friend of the Karzai brothers, as mayor of Kandahar. Within days of the new mayor’s arrival a tax dispute erupted, with Mayor Hamidi publicly accusing Arakozia of not paying its share. Sharifi says he was blindsided — but quickly produced what he claims is full accounting of every bill, to the last Afghani. Mayor Hamidi would not let the matter rest. The final cut, says Sharifi, came in when the mayor arbitrary declared a tenfold increase in municipal taxes against Arakozia’s billboards — from six per cent to 60 per cent. Perhaps one explanation is a particularly provocative cartoon published by Surghar in early 2008, which portrayed Mayor Hamidi as a snarling dog on a leash held by Qayum Karzai. Even in a stable democracy, such an image likely would make noise. In Kandahar, it was a thunderclap. Surghar, however, kept pushing. In 2008, the newspaper became more aggressive about reporting corruption allegations. It also began translating and reprinting in Pashtu the widening array of international media stories drawing attention to the growing power of the house of Karzai.

Ahmed Wali Karzai (AWK) in 2009 the elected head of the Kandahar Provincial Council, summoned local journalists to disclose details of a suicide attack. At the end of the news conference, as reporters packed their equipment, AWK called on Surghar’s reporter and issued an ominous warning that was heard by all: “Tell Naseem we have information there are four more suicide bombers in Kandahar. He is the next target.” Sharifi: “I knew I had to leave immediately. My (pregnant) wife, my two kids, my dad, my brother and my sister — we were on the next plane to Dubai.” Ahmed Wali Karzai, in a statement conveyed through his U.S. lawyer, adamantly denied threatening Sharifi. The “intel report” about a Taliban suicide bomber was real, he said, and thus Karzai felt duty-bound to convey the information.

In Sharifi’s absence, Arakozia shrunk rapidly, losing two-thirds of its staff as the billboard business collapsed. The final blow, said Sharifi, came by acetylene torch. “Every one of my billboards was cut with a torch, taken and confiscated.” The next twist of fate, Sharifi says, was the sudden emergence of a new billboard company — Innovative Kandahar Advertising. On paper, the new operation belonged to Kandahar businessman Qazi Omar. But everybody in Kandahar, says Sharifi, knew the real owner was Qayum Karzai, brother of President Karzai. Sharifi claims the new firm, with its ties to power, forced out Arakozia and the other three smaller billboard companies in the south, creating a de facto monopoly and raising prices accordingly.

To verify the claim, the Star located the owner of one of those firms, Pashtani Advertising, in Quetta, Pakistan. Noman Kaker, speaking in halting English on his cellphone, confirmed, “All of the business has been taken over by Qayum Karzai. “He destroyed us all and took all the billboard contracts for himself,” said Kakar. “Arakozia was the biggest but I had 14 people working for me. Now we are all unemployed and I have come to Quetta to try and find work to feed my family. It is a mafia. If you want billboards you must go through Qayum. Nobody else can do the work.” To further test Karzai’s denial of ownership, the Star contacted the new company, Innovative Kandahar Advertising, posing as a prospective client — a fictitious American charity looking to mount a counter-narcotics billboard campaign. Company manager Qazi Omar quoted a price of $700 per billboard per month — a fourfold increase over what the now-defunct billboard companies in Kandahar, including Arakozia, charged for their services.

The Star then asked whether “Your company’s owner, Qayum Karzai, might agree to a discount for such a large contract?” Omar responded, “Yes, this is possible. You should contact Qayum Karzai directly to negotiate a discount. You can email him. Do you have his address?” He then proceeded to carefully recite Karzai’s email address, spelling it slowly letter by letter. In a subsequent telephone interview, Qayum Karzai denied any financial ties to the company, suggesting that Qazi Omar’s poor grasp of English was the reason for the “miscommunication.” “I have absolutely nothing to do with this company. What kind of a nutty businessman would own or invest in such a thing if he does not even know the employees. It is absolutely, totally wrong,” Qayum Karzai said. Afghan cell telephone records obtained by the Toronto Star, meanwhile, show very active lines of communication between Qayum Karzai and Qazi Omar. Over the span of six months this year, Qazi Omar’s phone registered nearly 60 calls to Qayum Karzai’s Baltimore cellphone. Karzai, in turn, appears to have placed eight calls to Omar’s phone in Kandahar over the same span.

Arakozia is not quite dead, relying upon its small-scale printing operation — posters, handbills, and the like — that pay some bills. And Surgar, the weekly, is as popular and feisty as ever, even to this day, with a subscription base of 15,000 and popular support throughout the Sharifi belt. But shorn of the billboard income, the paper barely breaks even. Ahmed Wali Karzai, in a statement to the Toronto Star, pointed to the continuing existence of Surgar as part of his defence against Sharifi’s allegations. “His paper is still open, so no one tried to close it,” AWK said through his lawyer. “If it closes, it’s because he is not making any profit, not because anyone is telling him to close.” (20101224 The Toronto Star, Mitch Potter, Washington Bureau)

Background:
The Kandahar weekly newspaper Surghar is supported by an advertising company called Arakozia based in Kandahar (run by Mr. Mohammad Naseem Pashtoon Sharifi). Mohammad Naseem, C.E.O Arakozia Afghan Advertising (AAA) Arakozia Consulting Group Ahmed Shahi Market, Top Floor Office No # 9, Sardar Madad Chowk, Kandahar, Afghanistan Phone: +93(0)70-300-169 UAE 971-50-150-8803+ E-mail: aaa_afg@yahoo.com or realnaz2003@yahoo.com