Afghan Biographies

Karim, Muhammad Amin Eng.


Name Karim, Muhammad Amin Eng.
Ethnic backgr. Pashtun
Date of birth 1959
Function/Grade Hizb-e-Islami Afghanistan HIG chief negotiator
History and Biodata

2. Previous Functions:

Afghanistan's Hizb-e-Islami party's Senior Political Board Member (20120610)
HIG chief negotiator (20160523)

3. Biodata:

Eng. Muhammad Amin Karim was born 1 March 1959. Karim attended the Franco-Afghan Esteqlal High School (Lycée Esteqlal) where he obtained a scholarship allowing him to study Sociology and Architecture in Strasbourg (France). In 1979, he founded the Afghan Muslim Student Organisation as well as the representation of Hezb-e Islami Afghanistan in France. He was also one of the founding members of the Union des Musulmans de France, which was established in 1982. Throughout his youth and his studies, he travelled through the Mujahideen fronts in Afghanistan and fought against the Soviet occupation. He also gave conferences in universities and mosques in many cities of Europe, Africa and the United States of America, where he would collect money to help the victims of the Soviet occupation across Afghanistan. He guided many French doctors and journalists through his native country in order to provide audio and video evidence of the situation to the western media. Among them he took the Franco-German journalist and publicist Peter Scholl-Latour.

 

Karim also helped establishing the Hezb-e Islami representatives in Europe. He is a France-based Senior Political Board Member of Afghanistan's Hezb-e Islami Party under the leadership of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar.

 

In 2010, Amin Karim was part of a senior, five-member delegation which was sent by Hekmatyar to Kabul to hold negotiations with the Afghan Government. The meetings included many Afghan and foreign officials and the delegation proposed 17 articles as a platform to the Kabul regime and also to the ‘foreign governments’ in Afghanistan. According to Karim this proposal was asking for the withdrawal of foreign forces from Afghanistan which would be followed by free and fair elections in the country in order to prevent the so-called civil war in Afghanistan”. The delegation included Qutbuddin Hilal, Dr. Ghairat Baheer (Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's son-in-law), Qaribur-Rahman Saeed, Daoud Abedi and Amin Karim.

In the context of the 2014 presidential elections of Afghanistan, Amin Karim was invited to Kabul alongside other European-based Members of the HIA Political Council to support the independent candidate and former Hezb-e-Islami member Qutbuddin Hilal. The Hezb-e Islami Party did not participate in the elections but decided to support a like-minded runner if the respective candidate would accept the Party's conditions. The conditions consisted of not signing the Bilateral Security Agreement with America and expelling foreign troops from Afghanistan.

A delegation from Hizb-e-Islami party led by Karim Amin has arrived in Kabul to discuss parts of a draft agreement in detail with the Afghan government.

Karim Amin said that Hizb-e-Islami party, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, wants to discuss some specific terms in the deal and that they want participation in elections.

"There are a number of ambiguities and questions in the draft agreement. We want them removed in order to prevent misinterpretations in the future. It is about the use of words. Hizb-e-Islami [party] wants to sign this agreement with Islamic Republic of Afghanistan because the word of the National Unity Government is a new issue and we are not against the National Unity Government. This is a logical and legal argument," Amin said. He added that the Afghan government has provided them with details verbally but they want it in a written document embedded in the draft agreement.(20160612)

Hours after the unofficial announcement of the Coalition for the Rescue of Afghanistan, a senior member of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hizb-e-Islami labeled the ‘Ankara triangle’ a suspicious move but stressed that the party would support any step which is taken for national unity and national interests. The draft resolution of the alliance has laid out a number of personal demands – rather than other issues, Hizb-e-Islami member Mohammad Amin Karim said on Saturday July 1, 2017 . According to Karim, raising the issue of the CEO Abdullah Abdullah, deputy CEO Mohammad Mohaqiq and the First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum’s authorities was a personal matter. The new alliance formed by leaders from three mainstream Afghan political parties including Jamiat-e-Islami, the National Unity of People of Afghanistan and the National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan on Friday issued a draft resolution where they made various demands from government. The draft resolution has named the alliance the Coalition for the Rescue of Afghanistan. Leaders of the alliance in their draft resolution accused President Ashraf Ghani of working beyond the law and monopolizing political power. (20170701)

Karim speaks Pashtu, Dari and French

Last Modified 2017-07-01
Established 2016-05-23