The elections that drive
Afghanistan By Syed Saleem Shahzad
KARACHI - After the attacks of September 11,
2001, the United States received the backing of the
world community to go after al-Qaeda and the Taliban
government that harbored it in Afghanistan, with the
implicit implication that the US would help rebuild the
devastated country, both politically and economically.
Two-and-a-half years later, Afghanistan remains
a virtual basket case, with the US-backed Hamid Karzai
regime's writ barely extending beyond the capital Kabul.
Warlordism and a growing guerrilla insurgency against
thousands of US-led troops still in the country threaten
to pull the country apart.
Yet in this
environment, Afghanistan is scheduled to stage elections
in September, followed two months later by US
presidential elections, before which President George W
Bush would sorely like to have washed his hands of the
Afghanistan problem once and for all.
Time,
then, is of the essence for Washington to cobble
together some arrangement that will allow for a graceful
exit. Key in this initiative is Pakistan, erstwhile
Taliban supporter and now aligned with the US in the
"war on terror".
Taliban
remodeled Mullah Arsala Rehmani was a Taliban
minister in the Afghan government before fleeing the
country in the face of the US-led attack in late 2001.
Like many of his Taliban colleagues, he crossed the
border into Pakistan, and melted into the population.
Initially, these "refugees" were housed and fed
by the madrassas (seminaries) from which many of
the Taliban had emerged in the first place. But this was
not a long-term solution, especially as Pakistan began
to put a squeeze on funding from foreign charities that
supported the madrassas.
So as an
alternative, the Taliban revived their old connections
from the jihadi days against the Soviets. Arsala, for
instance, turned to his former jihadi outfit the
Harkat-i-Inqilabi-i-Islami, led by Moulvi Nabi
Mohammadi. However, the jihadi organizations were also
feeling the financial squeeze as a result of the global
"war on terror", and of course they no longer had the
flow of money the US Central Intelligence Agency had
given them in the anti-Soviet days.
Not being a
military commander, Arsala was unable to tap into the
lucrative poppy business, which was sewn up by
commanders such as Jalaluddin Haqqani and Saifullah
Mansoor and others, who had their respective fields.
(Incidentally, the Taliban have recently been saying
that poppy cultivation in itself is not prohibited in
Islam as the plant has several applications, such as
medicinal uses. But it is prohibited to turn it into
heroin.)
So Arsala, as he was a theologian, eked
out an existence as a teacher in the seminaries.
In the meantime, the Taliban were slowly
regrouping and intensifying their resistance in
Afghanistan, and proving a stubborn thorn in the United
States' side. So it was that, out of the blue, Arsala
was summoned to Islamabad, and a powerful Land Cruiser
with tinted glass was sent to take him to the Pakistani
capital.
So from raising calls for the death of
all Americans, Arsala found himself employed by
Pakistani authorities (with the US not far in the
background) as an agent of peace as a go-between for the
Karzai administration, the Taliban and the Americans.
As a part of the deal, Arsala was given a
cold-storage business in Islamabad, a house, a car and
an affluent lifestyle, and new slogans that are likely
to give a fresh face to the Afghan government in a few
weeks. "Whether it is Mullah Omar, Osama bin Laden or
the USA, they are equally responsible for the
destruction of Afghanistan," Arsala has said.
When Taliban leaders Mullah Ghous and Abdul
Waqil Muttawil meet with Karzai in Kabul in the very
near future, they will have the backing of more than a
dozen mullahs like Arsala, none of whom has military
field experience, but all of whom now share the desire
for peace and security in Afghanistan.
Key to
the process of reconciliation is the influential
Hezb-i-Islami Afghanistan (HIA). Already, a
Peshawar-based HIA team, led by Mullah Sarfraz Janbaz
and Khalid Farooqui, has met with Karzai and his cabinet
ministers, and are now scheduled to hold the HIA's first
political meeting in Kabul since 1996, when the Taliban
took over Kabul.
Well-placed sources in the HIA
in Peshawar tell Asia Times Online that during the
initial round of meetings with Afghan officials, US
officials intervened and insisted that the delegation
announce its separation from Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the
legendary mujahideen who heads the HIA's field command
and who is an important resistance figure in the east of
the country. However, the negotiations are being led by
the HIA's political wing, which has already separated
from Hekmatyar's field command council.
The US
officials also wanted the delegation to denounce
Hekmatyar as a terrorist, which they refused to do,
although they did denounce terrorism in general. The
delegates also demanded the release from US detention of
Dr Ghairat Bahair, Hekmatyar's son-in-law, for the
dialogue to be a success.
The delegation also
refused to endorse the presence of US troops in
Afghanistan, and asked Karzai to announce a schedule for
the departure of all foreign troops from the country.
Karzai told the delegates that he personally held
Hekmatyar in high regard and wanted to meet with him. He
said that he had already spoken to US authorities about
the release of Hekmatyar's son-in-law.
Karzai
then apparently offered powerful ministries to the HIA
leaders who had come from Peshawar.
While these
developments - the HIA meeting and the upcoming one with
the mullahs - are encouraging, Karzai and the US know
full well that crucial to any peace process are the
field commanders, and as yet no significant progress has
been made with them.
The Peshawar-based
politicians and mullahs such as Arsala, however, can act
as links to placating the commanders. Certainly, Karzai
and his American backers all the way to the White House
are hoping so.
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