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| Afghanistan |
| Talking to the Taliban |
| 2008-06-07 |
| Nushin Arbabzadah "I pray night and day that America will destroy the Taliban," said Fatima Syed, a woman who had lost her husband in a Taliban massacre. That was in 2001 and seven years later it's clear her prayers have not been heard. Nato has failed to pacify Afghanistan and the Taliban are still fighting. To add insult to injury, they may soon even become salonfähig - socially acceptable at the tea parties of Kabul. This is because the view that talking to the Taliban is the only way to establish peace has become increasingly popular inside and outside Afghanistan, albeit only among the politicians. People like Fatima Syed have not been asked for their view but they're likely to agree with Kamran Mirhazar, the editor-in-chief of the Kabulpress website. Mirhazar says co-opting the Taliban would be the natural conclusion of the appeasement process which began with the return to power of the war criminals of the last 30 years. After all, he says, what are the Taliban but the final missing piece in the government's colourful collection of warlords? Be that as it may, everyone - from Karzai to party leaders like Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai - seems ready to negotiate, what's stopping the talks? According to Mullah Zaif, ex-Taliban ambassador to Pakistan, it's the foreign troops. In a recent interview with Quqnoos news website, Zaif said: "As long as the foreign troops are here, negotiations with the government will be difficult." Later, during a BBC discussion programme, he elaborated, saying the Taliban claim foreigners operate scot-free in Afghanistan and that you can't trust a government that lets this happen. Reading between the lines, this means that the Taliban fear that if they enter into negotiations, there'll be no guarantee that Nato will stop bombing them. This is because Karzai has no control over the troops and they can't be held accountable for their actions in Afghanistan. In the Taliban's view, this is a serious risk and as long as the risk persists, holding talks is going to be a challenge. Mullah Zaeef held senior posts during the Taliban regime and was envoy to Pakistan when the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001. The Pakistanis later handed Zaif over to the US and he spent four years in Guantánamo. Though he is no longer a Taliban member, many see him as an unofficial mediator between the government and the Taliban. If this is true, then his statement above should be taken seriously because it indicates a shift in Taliban policy. In the past, the Taliban's response to offers of peace talks has always been the same: the "crusaders" must go and so must their "stooge", Karzai. But this statement seems to suggest that the Taliban have changed their stance and that Karzai is no longer a problem. So can we expect to see Nato troops packing up to go home because there'll be peace with the Taliban? No, not if you listen to Mullah Ibrahim, a Taliban commander in Helmand province. According to him, there's still another impediment to talks: the mujahideen leaders of the Northern Alliance. In a recent interview, he said: "The government lacks the required mandate to start negotiating with the Taliban. Divisions within the government and the presence of Northern Alliance leaders in the government have prevented the start of negotiations. That's why the Taliban have no choice but to carry on fighting." In other words, the Taliban fight because they have no alternative. It's a-man-has-to-do-what-a-man-has-to-do scenario and the Pashtun code of honour requires them to fight. The reason is simple. When the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001, it doubly dishonoured the Taliban. The first dishonour was that it attacked them without providing evidence of Bin Ladin's involvement in 9/11. The second was when the US helped the return to power of the Taliban's enemies – the mujahideen leaders whose civil war had paved the way for the rise of the Taliban. It's an often forgotten detail that the Taliban movement was a response to mujahideen corruption and that Karzai, like many other disenchanted mujahideen, was an early supporter of the Taliban, and makes no secret of it. To refresh the reader's memory about the Taliban's view of the mujahideen leaders, here is what the BBC said when Kabul fell to the Taliban in September 1996: Ousted President Burhanuddin Rabbani, his prime minister and his military chief are being hunted by the radical Islamic group who branded them "national criminals".Needless to say, the "national criminals" are back in power and so if you're a sincere Talib you have no choice but to fight on. If Mullah Ibrahim is right that the Northern Alliance is a serious problem for the Taliban, then the fighting will go on for the foreseeable future. That's why many suspect that if Nato leaves now the fighting will turn into another civil war. But this would not be a simple return to 1992 because now there are additional players in government to consider, including former communists, royalists and former exiles from the west. Iran, Russia and Pakistan have also become bolder in their policy towards Afghanistan than they were in the 1990s. Needless to say, a full-blown civil war is far worse than the current scenario and so some Afghan commentators suggest that Nato must stay for as long as it takes to pacify the country. To go back to Mullah Ibrahim's view that they are fighting an honourable war, the Taliban's behaviour does not always reflect this attitude in a clear or coherent manner. For example, their leader, Mullah Omar, recently asked "the mujahideen" to join the Taliban in the struggle against the government. If the Taliban have a problem with the mujahideen, then why does their leader ask them to join the Taliban? There is an explanation for this contradictory behaviour. Mullah Omar's invitation could be an attempt to divide Karzai's administration along ethnic lines in response to Karzai's efforts to split the Taliban into moderates and hardliners. Karzai has repeatedly said that there are two types of Taliban. The first are brain-washed youths and those who fight for money. To use Karzai's phrase, these are "the sons of the Afghan soil" and reconciliation with them is possible. The second are the ideological extremists with links to al-Qaida. Critics, like the young Afghan intellectuals in charge of the Omid-e Vatan website, say negotiating with the latter would hammer the final nail in the coffin of Afghan democracy. Karzai is conveniently vague about exactly who he plans to talk to, though sometimes he explicitly mentions the name of Mullah Omar. Politicians like Ahmad Shah Ahmadzai believe that whatever Karzai's choice might be regarding his negotiation partners, his opinion is inconsequential. In a recent interview with Radio France's Dari service, Ahmadzai said that in his view negotiations depend on two parties alone: the US and the Taliban. When asked if he supported negotiations, he said: "Yes, yes, I do, but it's not up to me." (Hats off to Ahmadzai! Such modesty is rare among Afghan politicians.) If he's right, then the future of talks depends on whether America is ready to negotiate with … urm … what was that word again? "Terrorists". Some commentators believe that Mullah Omar's name has already been crossed off the US terrorist list in preparation for precisely this. |
| Posted by:Fred |
| #1 Typical Guardian fare: a major error of fact or logic in every single paragraph... and the writer has what appears to be a Persian name. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-06-07 21:52 |