"Afghanistan's warlords are stronger today then they were ten days ago before the loya jirga started," said Saman Zia-Zarifi, senior researcher for Human Rights Watch. "Short term political expediency has clearly triumphed over human rights."

The cabinet just named by Hamid Karzai, head of the transitional government, differs only slightly from that of the interim administration. The predominantly Tajik Jamiat-e Islami party holds three key cabinet posts while the Shi'a Hazara party, Hizb-e Wahdat, gained a seat. Both parties have been implicated in the recent attacks on ethnic Pashtun civilians in northern Afghanistan following the collapse of the Taliban. Jamiat has also been involved in an ongoing conflict with General Abdul Rashid Dostum's Junbish party in northern Afghanistan, where the fighting and general insecurity has imperiled international humanitarian aid operations.

The appointment of Fazul Hadi Shinwari to the post of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court also raises serious human rights concerns. Shinwari was quoted in press interviews in January as saying that Shari'a punishments including stoning and amputation would be retained, albeit with stricter due process guarantees than under the Taliban. His position contradicted Karzai's assertion during a visit to the United States that same month that Shari'a punishments could only be imposed in a society in which social justice and freedom from hunger prevailed.

Karzai did not announce who would lead the Ministry for Women's Affairs. Given the history of discrimination that Afghan women have suffered and the continuing insecurity in the country, this ministry is key to promoting and achieving Afghan women's rights.

The framers of the Bonn agreement recognized that an interim administration for Afghanistan, established immediately after the collapse of the Taliban, would have to include warlords who had reestablished themselves as effective authorities in most of the country in the fight against the Taliban. However, the selection of the transitional government to lead Afghanistan during reconstruction, by the delegates of the emergency loya jirga was supposed to reflect the voice of civilians, not warlords.

"Instead of creating the space for civilian leadership to emerge during the six-month interval, the lack of an internationally enforced security arrangement meant that warlords used that time to rebuild their military and political networks," said Zia-Zarifi.

A delegate from Kabul told Human Rights Watch, "Warlords who bombed Kabul are not supposed to be here in the loya jirga. People who are contaminated with the blood of Afghans should not be elected as ministers."