Since I wrote my last article it would seem that developments in Afghanistan have not been very favourable in the areas that I had identified as posing problems for the Karzai administration. The IMF has not relented on its demand that a greater effort be made to recover the loans made by the Kabul Bank and has now required that the second largest Bank, the Azizi, should also be audited despite the assurance offered by the Acting Governor of the Central Bank that the Azizi Bank is not in any danger. The economic crisis will therefore continue.
In Kandahar a Taliban suicide bomber attacked the condolence prayers congregation at Kandahar’s largest mosque and killed 4 persons, among them Kandahar’s chief cleric. The Governor of Helmand survived a Taliban attack on his convoy when he was on his way to Kandahar to condole but President Karzai’s political adviser Jan Mohammad a former governor of Uruzgan and Hashem Watanwal a Member of Parliament from the same province were not so lucky. They were killed when the Taliban attacked Jan Mohammad’s apartment in Kabul. Shah Wali Karzai, the half brother Karzai has appointed to replace Ahmad Wali Karzai as the head of the Popalzai tribe is a civil engineer by profession who spent many years in the States but then returned to be in effect Ahmad Wali’s deputy in matters relating to family properties. He has according to observers little of the political talent that made Ahmad Wali so formidable. It was noteworthy that there was no effort on Shah Wali’s part to be more publicly conspicuous after the Helmand governor’s aborted assassination or the bombing of the mosque in Kandahar. President Karzai may be sure that this brother will be steadfastly loyal but for politics in the South President Karzai will have to depend on his own efforts. In the meanwhile the insurgency seemsto be intensifying.
The UN has announced that contrary to some claims by NATO the number of civilian casualties in the first six months of 2011 were 15% higher than in the corresponding period of 2010. Most were still attributed to the Taliban and their IEDs but for the Afghans that was little comfort.Deaths of NATO soldiers at the hands of their Afghan colleagues continue and even otherwise the casualty rate in NATO ranks is far higher than in the corresponding period last year.
To turn however to other problems that face Afghanistan. Over the last year or so there has been at least on the surface an improvement in Pak-Afghan relations with Karzai acknowledging that Pakistan would have an important role to play in bringing about the reconciliation with the Taliban that offers the best chance for bringing peace to Afghanistan. The last few weeks however have seen large scale movement of militants from Kunar and Khost province of Afghanistan into Swat, an area that had been cleared of militants with a great deal of effort by the Pakistan army and into the tribal agencies of Bajaur and Mohmand. They have caused heavy casualties and to add insult to injury the Taliban have now circulated a video showing the Pakistani Taliban (TTP) cold-bloodedly massacring 17 members of the Pakistan police and tribal levies who are the first defenders of Pakistan’s borders in that area.
The Pakistanis have retaliated and according to the Pakistani army some of the artillery shells fired at the militants may have inadvertently landed across the border. In Afghanistan however the story is very different. They claim that more than 700 shells have landed on Afghan villages along the border and have killed a large number of civilians. Demonstrations have been held to protest the Pakistani bombing and some local officials have even threatened resignation.
The end product is that even while President Karzai has announced that he will not retaliate and even while the two countries have set up a joint military commission to investigate and prevent such incidents in the future, relations at the public level have deteriorated at a time when the two countries need full cooperation to move reconciliation forward and to deal with the threat of international terrorism posed by the Al-Qaeda which seems to have succeeded in association with the TTP and some local Taliban in setting up camps again in the mountain fastnesses of Kunar and Khost provinces in Eastern Afghanistan. There are credible reports that apart from the TTP local people have provided shelter to Chechen and Uzbek militants along with an indeterminate number of Arab adherents of the Al-Qaeda. It may in my view no longer be correct to accept the NATO estimate that there are no more than 50-100 Al-Qaeda members in Afghanistan.
President Zardari who is visiting Afghanistan to condole with President Karzai must now have serious and action oriented discussions with Karzai and his team to determine how best this menace can be curbed. Without such action Pakistan would be exposed to the prospect of Afghanistan’s eastern provinces becoming a safe haven for Pakistani militants intent on overthrowing, at Al-Qaeda’s behest, the present political order in Pakistan. One difficulty is that Afghan security forces are not well prepared enough and with the American withdrawal underway there will not be the NATO manpower available on the Afghan side for the operations needed to uproot the growing Al-Qaeda instigated insurgency in this area.
President Karzai has also to move ahead on reconciliation. So far he has had the cooperation of the international community. The UN sanctions committee has separated the Al-Qaeda adherents and the Taliban and from the Taliban list has delisted, as requested by President Karzai 14 of the previously sanctioned Taliban. The Taliban while maintaining in public statements that they will not negotiate until all foreign troops have been withdrawn have been talking to the Americans directly thorough a Tayab Agha who is known to have been a close confidant of Mullah Omar in the past but whose present influence in Taliban circles is not clear. President Karzai has apparently been briefed on these contacts and his own 70 member High Peace council has also claimed that it has established contact with the Taliban. How successful these have been is not known. What is clear however is that the reintegration programme that was meant at the lower level to persuade the Taliban in the field to lay down arms and to accept government assistance in reintegrating into Afghan society has not been a success. It has received some $132 million in funding but as one report from the eastern province of Khost shows that what is now known as the Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Programme has not yet gotten off the ground because the head o the programme is still busy setting up his offices. This is also true as far as one can tell in other provinces of Afghanistan.There are also question marks about the number of Taliban who have opted to integrate-the NATO claims some 5000 but on the ground observers suggest that this figure is highly exaggerated and that most who have benefitted are people who had no Taliban connections.
For reconciliation to work, all parties in Afghanistan including particularly the ethnic minorities must bless the process. So far this does not seem to be the case.These minorities-particularly the Tajiks want to retain the disproportionate share of power they now enjoy but in opposing talks with the Taliban they stress the fear they have of the repressive practices of the Taliban when they were in power. The Tajiks and other members of what was known as the Northern Alliance are strengthened in their opposition by the belief that their erstwhile allies-the Iranians, Indians and Russians along with some of the Central Asian Republics -are also apprehensive of the sharing of power with the Taliban…
President Karzai has to convince these minorities that their legitimate interests will be protected and the Taliban will not get a disproportionate share of power nor will they be allowed to change those facets of the Afghan constitution as safeguard women’s rights or other fundamental rights. Even more importantly he has to work with the support of his international partners, on ensuring that none of the countries that have in the past been players in Afghanistan’s internal polity encourage their protégés in Afghanistan to take a negative stance.
There should be a good chance to do so with Russia. From their own long experience the Russians, I think,have reached the conclusion that only with sharing of power among all factions in Afghanistan can there be the sort of stability that will stem the flow of opium from Afghanistan through the Central Asian Republics to Russia.India’s Prime Minister during a recent visit to Kabul and then in the Indo-US strategic dialogue has conveyed its support for an Afghan-led and Afghan-owned reconciliation process. The Americans of course want the reconciliation process to move forward and for the Indians it is important at this stage of the evolution of their strategic partnership to be sensitive to American concerns. For Iran the position is more difficult but if such reconciliation leads to a reduction, if not elimination, of American presence and influence in Afghanistan they may be persuaded to go along.
Pakistanof course is supposed to be a partner in the reconciliation process. It is the hope of the Americans and the Afghans that the Pakistanis will use such influence as they have with the Taliban to moderate their demands and to agree to an acceptable power sharing arrangement under an amended but acceptable constitution. The Americans, Pakistanis and Afghans are part of the core group that is supposed to carry the reconciliation process further. It is reinforced by a Pak-Afghan Joint Commission, which is charged with the same task.
The question is whether President Karzai with his internal problems and the loss of his half brother and best lieutenant will have the necessary political strength and the necessary skills to pull all this together in the relatively short time that is available to him.
