News-Info-Alerts

To: ALL

From: Andi Wolos & Bob Necci

(POW-MIA InterNetwork)

Re: Warlords, POWs & Tribunals

Date: December 20, 2001

"Lobbyist Adds Afghan Warlord as Client

By FREDERIC J. FROMMER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Self-described ``guerrilla lobbyist'' Philip Smith has promoted the interests of Buddhists from Vietnam and rebel fighters from Laos. Now he's taken on another unusual client: Afghan warlord Rashid Dostum.

Smith has made a career of representing rebel groups and outside agitators. As lobbyist for the Lao Veterans of America, who fought covertly for the CIA during the Vietnam War, he has fiercely opposed efforts to normalize trade relations with the communist Laotian government.

Last year, he helped win passage of legislation easing U.S. citizenship requirements for these veterans, most of whom are Hmong from the Laotian highlands.

``He was tenacious,'' said Sen. Paul Wellstone, D-Minn., who sponsored the Senate bill. ``He was constantly in touch, and seemed to be everywhere with the Hmong.''

He's also lobbied Congress to pressure Vietnam to provide more religious freedom for Buddhists and other religious groups. And now he's taken on Dostum, an ethnic Uzbek and northern alliance fighter who heads the Junbish militia.

``He has been working on issues that others don't generally touch,'' said T. Kumar, Asia Advocacy Director for Amnesty International in Washington. ``Even before the Taliban came on the scene, he was one of the few people who were active on Afghanistan.''

The powerfully built Smith, 39, doesn't work for one of the powerful lobbying firms that line K Street in Washington. He works out of a condominium he owns in a Virginia suburb, though most of his work is done on the fly on Capitol Hill. Many of his faxes are sent from copy shops.

``My de facto office is the halls of Congress and Starbucks Coffee,'' he joked in a recent interview.

Smith agreed to lobby for Dostum on Sept. 11, after watching the terrorist attacks on TV at the home of Dostum's U.S. representative, Homayun Naderi, and speaking by phone with Dostum. At the time, Dostum was 50 miles outside of Mazar-e-Sharif, a city he controlled until the Taliban drove him out four years ago.

``He told us he had 10,000 troops, 3,000 horses, and was willing to do the fighting himself,'' Smith said. ``But he needed help. He didn't have enough food for his horses and troops, let alone weapons.''

Smith, whose work on the region dates to his days as staff director for the Congressional Task Force on Afghanistan in the late 1980s, met with several members of Congress and their staffers, urging them to pressure the Bush administration to send aid to Dostum.

``For a long time, there was no assistance,'' Smith said. ``It took longer than we expected.''

In mid-October, Dostum's forces began receiving guns, ammunition and anti-tank weapons. In early November, his troops led the successful northern alliance assault on Mazar-e-Sharif.

``Philip did a good job,'' Naderi said. ``He knows the congressmen. He knows a lot about Afghanistan. That was very important.''

On Wednesday, Dostum presented traditional Uzbek robes and Afghan carpets to American soldiers who rode with his fighters on horseback and helped his forces seize Mazar-e-Sharif. He also gave them a horse blanket and a machine gun as a parting gift.

Smith can be confrontational and his style alienates some. He often parades groups of Hmong veterans wearing green military fatigues around Capitol Hill and sometimes leads their protests outside the Laotian embassy.

Ann Mills Griffiths, executive director of the National League of POW/MIA Families, said Smith's approach can be counterproductive.

``I see some of the stuff as somewhat flamboyant and overstated and a little bit heated rhetorically,'' said Griffiths, whose organization favors a more cooperative approach to Laos.

Smith concedes he sometimes ruffles feathers, but doesn't plan to change.

``You've got to break an egg sometimes to make an omelet,'' he said. "