Afghanistan: Hekmatyar changes color
again By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - With the Afghan
resistance poised for a do-or-die spring offensive
against occupying forces in the country, already torn by
instability, details are emerging of a breakthrough
agreement that
could see the
implementation of a truce, at least in the troubled east
of the country.
Steady behind-the-scenes efforts
on the part of Washington, Islamabad and Kabul to find a
political solution to Afghanistan's woes appear to have
finally borne some fruit. Asia Times Online has learned
that Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hezb-i-Islami
Afghanistan (HIA) - the engine of the resistance in the
east of the country - has provisionally agreed to call a
ceasefire in resistance fighting in return for his party
being allowed to contest September's general elections.
Such a move, though, is hinged on the United
States and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)
setting a date for the withdrawal of the more than
13,000 US-led forces in the country.
Asia Times
Online reported in February that Hekmatyar had been
offered a truce by the US and a role in the future
political mainstream, but the veteran fighter did not
respond. (Afghanistan: Now it's
all-out war Feb 24)
News
of a possible breakthrough could not have come at a
better time for Afghanistan. Donor nations on Thursday
concluded a meeting in Berlin with pledges of US$8
billion for Afghanistan over the next three years.
According to quarters in Pakistan close to
Hekmatyar, a delegation comprising the top HIA
leadership, including Khalid Farooqui, Dr Qasim Hamat,
Dr Jan Mohammed Hamkar and Engineer Tariq will visit
Kabul at the invitation of Afghan President Hamid Karzai
to start a new round of dialogue. On the government
side, representatives of the ruling factions will
include former president Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani,
Professor Abdul Rab Rasool Sayyaf and Qasim Fahim, the
defense minister and first vice president.
The
agenda of the talks will center on a ceasefire and the
HIA's role in Afghan politics. The HIA has agreed to
establish political offices in Kabul pending agreement
on a ceasefire, which, the HIA stresses, is entirely
subject to a deadline being set for the withdrawal of
foreign forces.
Pakistan's
role Pakistan's initial plan to fill the vacuum
left by the demise of the Taliban regime in late 2001
was to cultivate "moderate" Taliban, flushing out the
hardline Taliban leadership, with the consent of local
Afghan commanders. This third tier of Taliban
leadership, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, would be
acceptable to the international community. However,
these efforts were aborted at an early stage as few
Taliban were prepared to betray 39-year-old Mullah
Omar's leadership.
Subsequently, Pakistan
initiated another move to persuade even lower-level
Taliban leaders to establish their own parties, such as
the Jamiat-i-Khudamul Koran (or Furqan) and the Jaishul
Muslemeen. But this backfired as the Jamiat-i-Khudamul
Koran - which was heavily funded by both the US Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) and Pakistan's Inter-Services
Intelligence (ISI) - ditched Islamabad and joined the
Taliban's resistance movement against the US. Other
parties, such as the Jaishul Muslemeen, could not
elevate themselves beyond issuing statements to the
local media.
Meanwhile, the ISI began to
actively promote the HIA as a major force as a safeguard
for Islamabad's interests in Afghanistan as it felt it
was losing ground to the Northern Alliance, which India
backed. The ISI, using the contacts it forged in the
Afghan resistance to the Soviets in the 1980s, also
helped reestablish local mujahideen commanders to
counter the influence of the Northern Alliance. However,
Pakistan's real motive was lost as many HIA commanders
joined the resistance movement against the US.
However, both the ISI and the CIA retained their
old connections with HIA leaders based in Peshawar in
Pakistan. Additional pressure was exerted by the US when
HIA spokesperson, political affairs leader in Islamabad
and son-in-law of Hekmatyar, Dr Ghairat Bahair, was
apprehended by the ISI and passed on to the US Federal
Bureau of Investigation.
Background and
significance Elections had been scheduled for
Afghanistan in June, but these have been put back to
September. The United Nations had imposed the condition
that the voters' list should contain at least 10 million
names, but to date hardly 15 percent of this enrollment
target has been achieved. A vast belt of Pashtun regions
in the east, including Kandahar, Kunhar, Nooristan,
Nagarhar and Oruzgan, are inaccessible for the
registration of voters due to the law and order
situation.
The Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan was the
largest fighting faction during the Afghan resistance
against the Soviet invasion in the 1980s. At the same
time, the HIA had vast political influence on Afghan
campuses, in Islamic seminaries and in Afghan urban
centers as it was also the most organized political
force in the country.
But with the success of
the Taliban, the HIA became the prime victim. Hekmatyar,
who was prime minister in 1996 when the Taliban seized
power, went into exile in Iran. Many HIA commanders
surrendered to the Taliban, while those political
leaders with Uzbek or Tajik origins either fled, joined
the Northern Alliance or became politically neutral and
chose to operate businesses in Pakistan and European
countries such as Cyprus, France and England.
At
present, interestingly, the Afghan bureaucracy in Kabul,
Jalalabad, Khost and Kandahar is largely run by former
HIA officials, even though their loyalties are viewed
with some suspicion.
A part of Hekmatyar's
strategy has been to restore communication with his
former mujahideen friends from the war against the
Soviets who are now a part of the US-sponsored Karzai
administration. These include Ismail Khan from Herat,
Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum and Sayyaf.
Hekmatyar has regrouped several thousand of his
old fighters under a number of loyal commanders and he
figures prominently in eastern Afghanistan in the fight
against US forces in Afghanistan.
The million-dollar question,
though, is whether Hekmatyar will retain his present
clout if he betrays Mullah Omar and the Afghan
resistance?
A possible answer to
this can be drawn from the past.
The
Jamiat-i-Islami of Rabbani and the late Ahmed Shah
Masoud and Hekmatyar's HIA are ideologically the legacy
of the Muslim Brotherhood in Afghanistan. However, they
fell out over political differences that resulted in a
bloody battle for the takeover of Kabul in the early
1990s. But the arch rivals immediately shook hands when
the Taliban first emerged and began, without bloodshed,
to take over major Afghan cities. Hekmatyar accepted the
position of prime minister, and Rabbani became president
in what turned out to be a doomed marriage of
convenience to stave off the Taliban threat.
This political compromise for the first time
caused serious differences within the HIA. Hekmatyar
held a meeting with all his major commanders and party
leaders in Peshawar, and tried to justify his alliance
with Masoud. When he failed to convince his party, he
tried to use his last card - his personal charisma
gained as a fearsome mujahideen and leader of men. He
placed his turban (a symbol of respect in Afghan tribal
society) on the ground and asked those party leaders who
did not want to support him to walk over his turban (in
other words, over his honor). Most of the party members
stood up and walked over the turban. It was at this
point that Hekmatyar realized that he had lost ground
against the newly emerging Taliban student militia, and
he announced that he would not obstruct the way of the
Taliban, and chose exile in Tehran.
Hekmatyar's
withdrawal from the resistance at this stage would
certainly be a setback in eastern areas such as Kunhar,
and many of the plans of the Afghan resistance would
face delays. But there is the possibility that - like
before - most of his commanders would not follow him and
would chose to melt with the Taliban instead.
Hekmatyar is not a man afraid to switch sides to
satisfy his political ambitions, and ever since the
Taliban took over Kabul he has been looking for a role
in the country.
However, in the present global
scenario, where the Afghan resistance has a global
perspective as the International Islamic Front has
special plans to use the resistance as a world-wide
rallying call for anti-US activity, Hekmatyar will have
to weigh his options with a lot of care as any hasty
decision could leave him completely in the wilderness
with no role to play on either side.
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could see the
implementation of a truce, at least in the troubled east
of the country. 
resistance? 
