Blame On The Mob Of Religious Pilgrims example essay topic

More than 1,000 South Korean war veterans and right-wing activists rallied Tuesday in front of the U.S. military complex in central Seoul, trying to turn back anti-American protesters and welcome U.S. President George W. Bush. The demonstrators from the Free Citizens' Alliance of Korea said they support Bush's efforts to address concerns about North Korea's suspected development of weapons of mass destruction. THE FOREIGN MINISTER, Abdullah Abdullah, said that Rahman had been killed as originally reported-by a mob of Muslim pilgrims, or haji's, who were angry over delays in their journey to Mecca. Karzai has blamed the brutal murder on other government officials. Abdullah, in an interview with NEWSWEEK at his foreign ministry office, also blamed Afghanistan's interim government for mishandling arrangements for the pilgrims' travel to Mecca, and for not intervening when delays endangered the haji's.

"I'm not the foreign minister in a communist regime, to follow whatever is said. I will not do that", he said. "There was a clear failure in our attitude as a government in regard to the haji's". By directly contradicting the version of events put out in recent days by Karzai, Abdullah exposed the Afghan leader to charges that he had shifted blame for the murder because of pressure from the politically powerful Muslim religious community. And though he did not say this outright, Abdullah's comments also suggested that Karzai had publicly slandered senior members of his own government and ordered their arrests on trumped-up charges.

Rahman's murder "was not a plot", said Abdullah. His comments marked an unusual breach of unity by the foreign minister, who accompanied Karzai on a recent trip to Washington and stood somberly by the Afghan leader at Rahman's funeral on Saturday. It was not clear why Abdullah decided to speak out now, although he expressed anger with the government's handling of the case. "If this is our attitude in the future, we will be losers", he said. Rahman was beaten and stabbed to death at Kabul's Bagram airport Thursday evening after his plane, which was scheduled to depart on official business abroad, was surrounded by a large crowd of enraged haji's forced to wait for days in freezing weather for a plane, with little food and no place to sleep. Though Karzai had said in recent statements that the haji's were not upset, Abdullah said three of them had died during the ordeal.

Eyewitness accounts from the haji's themselves at first laid the blame on the mob of religious pilgrims. But Karzai called a news conference late Friday night at which he said in a statement that those responsible for the killing "are not part of the haji's". He then accused seven officials of taking part in the murder, including the deputy intelligence chief, Gen. Abdullah Jan Tawhidi; Gen. Qalanderbeg, a deputy to Defense Minister Muhammad Q assem Fa him; and Saran wal Hale em, prosecutor in the justice ministry. The three were said to have fled to Saudi Arabia with the haji's on one of two planes provided for the pilgrims soon after Rahman's death. At a news conference at the presidential palace on Sunday, Karzai reiterated the charges and said his cabinet was "fully united" in agreeing that the suspects should be arrested.

"There will.