The other conflict in Afghanistan
By Brian M Downing
The ongoing insurgency in the Pashtun regions of Afghanistan rightly commands
attention, but it obscures a critical second conflict in the country.
Long-standing antagonism between the non-Pashtun peoples of the north and the
Pashtun people of the south are heading toward fissure. Paradoxically,
settlement of the insurgency, through negotiation or force of arms, could
exacerbate this divide.
Ethnic politics
Afghanistan comprises a dozen or more sizable ethnic groups, the precise
numbers and proportions of which are unclear and contested. Pashtun, Tajik,
Uzbek, Hazara, Turkic, Baloch, and
other groups differ on demographic matters; and the country's geography and
decades of conflict offer little prospect of a neutral, acceptable census.
The center of the demographic dispute is the size of the Pashtun peoples of the
south and east, who, on only sparing evidence, purport to be about 52% to 55%
of the population and have so claimed since the 19th century.
Other groups, however, disagree. They insist that the Pashtun are perhaps
slightly more than 40% of the population, while disinterested assessments say
Northerners constitute 45% to 50% of the population. The dispute is not merely
a matter for demographers or even for the issue of moneys doled out from Kabul.
It now centers on who will preside over Afghanistan - and indeed if there will
be an Afghanistan as presently constituted.
For a century or more the question of Pashtun majority could sit on the
back-burner as most Afghans had far more interest in local government than in
events in faraway Kabul where figures reigned but dared not rule. But decades
of war and inept or intolerable central governments have brought the matter to
the fore.
Mohammed Daoud's reforms of the late 1970s led to violent opposition in most
parts of the country and plunged the country into decades of intermittent
warfare and foreign interventions from which the country has yet to recover.
His successors fared little better and the various mujahideen groupings could
not govern, which led to the Taliban government of the mid-1990s through 2001.
There is wide agreement in the northern regions that Pashtun governments from
Mohammed Daoud to Hamid Karzai have been incompetent, intrusive cabals that
long misgoverned the country and are poised now to give it back to the Taliban
in concert with foreigners from Pakistan and China. Northerners bitterly recall
the Taliban as harsh southerners who slaughtered non-Pashtun people by the
thousands.
Post-Taliban government
After fighting the Taliban to a standstill and ousting them in 2001,
northerners felt their efforts guaranteed them predominance in the new
government. They acceded to the accession of Karzai, the head of the (Pashtun)
Popalzai tribe, to the presidency.
This was done in part owing to US pressure and despite considerable support in
the country for the Tajik statesman, Burhanuddin Rabbani, who also enjoyed
support from regional powers that had supported the north well after the US
washed its hands of the area.
Over the past nine years, however, northerners have seen their politicians
pushed out of key ministries, especially the Ministry of Defense, which was
once administered by the Tajik leader Mohammed Fahim. That portfolio is now in
the hands of Abdul Wardak, a Pashtun who has used his office to reassert his
people's predominance in key military commands and simultaneously vitiated the
militias of northern warlords. Northerners have been reduced to the
rank-and-file of the Afghan National Army and ceremonial positions such as the
country's two vice presidencies.
Outsiders have criticized the presidential and parliamentary elections as
fraudulent. Karzai is widely believed to have interfered with local polling
stations and given himself and his supporters wide victory margins. Northerners
certainly agree but insist that outsiders miss an important aspect of Karzai's
fraudulence. He not only inflated the national support for himself and his
supporters, he also suppressed evidence of non-Pashtun voters and their support
for Tajik, Uzbek, and other peoples' candidates. Pashtun politicians counter by
insisting that it is the northerners who are tampering with the ballot box to
overstate their numbers.
Today, northerners contend the nation is on the brink of another act of
legerdemain that will ensure Pashtun predominance - and misgovernment. The loya
jirgas, which are romanticized in the West as a protodemocratic
institution in colorful local dress, are simply another Pashtun ploy to ensure
their dominance.
Karzai's peace council has been hand-selected to approve whatever settlement he
presents them. Northerners sense that Karzai is about to betray them by
settling with the Taliban, granting them large swathes of territory which
northerners feel the Pashtun mullahs will one day use again to assert control
across the country. Further, Karzai is seen as collaborating with Pakistan to
exploit Afghan resources in conjunction with China.
Warlords, army and the regional powers
Over the past few years, Generals Fahim and Rashid Dostum, leaders of Tajik and
Uzbek forces, respectively, are said to have demobilized their forces and
turned over their armor and artillery to the Afghan National Army (ANA) - as
noted, a force largely purged of non-Pashtun commanders. Turning over heavy
weapons is credible; full demobilization is not. There can be little doubt that
these wily northerners, and other smaller ones, have retained patronage
networks and forces in-being - lightly-armed, yet trained and loyal and angered
by events in the south.
The position and reliability of the ANA are unclear. Though chiefly commanded
by Pashtuns now, northerners constitute at least 55% of the ANA's officers and
rank-and-file, with Tajiks greatly over-represented and judged to be the best
fighters. Resentment toward Pashtun superiors - military and political - are
almost certainly parts of soldierly conversations. The ANA's battle record thus
far is sparse, unremarkable, and unlikely to have instilled a super-ethnic
identity.
A break between northerners and Karzai would lead to serious conflicts within
the ANA, including large-scale desertions and mutinies, particularly if called
on to do so by Fahim and Dostum and the family of the late legendary mujahideen
chieftain, Mohammed Ahmad Shah Massoud.
Regional powers are more aware of growing north-south tensions than the US.
They have had ties with northern forces going back to the war in the 1980s and
the standoff with the Taliban in the 1990s. India, Iran and Russia have aid
programs and intelligence officers in the country, chiefly in the north. They,
along with Uzbekistan and Tajikistan and other Islamic former Soviet Socialist
Republics, are concerned with the insurgency in the south and prepared to take
extraordinary steps to prevent Islamist militancy and terrorism from spreading
north. (Uzbekistan knows well that its militants fled south in the 1990s and
today serve with al-Qaeda.)
Naturally, geopolitics and economics are at work as well. India seeks to
counter growing Pakistani and Chinese influence in Afghanistan. Russia, too, is
worried of growing Chinese influence in a region close to tsarist, Soviet and
Russian interests.
Iran plays a double game. It gives small amounts of arms to insurgents and
trains them at an Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps base in southeastern Iran.
But this is a warning to the US should it, or Israel, attack Iranian nuclear
facilities. Support to insurgents can go up markedly, perhaps to include
Stinger-like missiles, and Quds Force guerrillas could be deployed against US
troops to make supply lines even more parlous than they are today.
Despite its limited support for the insurgency, Iran is deeply hostile to the
Taliban, whom they recall as merciless Sunnis who slaughtered tens of thousands
of Shi'ite Hazaras and who invaded an Iranian consulate and killed several
diplomats. The three powerful regional powers also wish to share in the
exploitation of Afghan resources and have a say in any pipeline that might be
built there.
India, Iran and Russia are pressing Karzai on neglected northern interests.
Bagfuls of money have been known to bring nettlesome matters to a politician's
attention. They would support the north in the event of a break with the
Pashtuns and are at least preparing to help rebuild separate military forces
there. Each regional power has its intelligence people operating in the
country, especially in the north.
The US position
Northern concerns are being articulated to US officials by Tajiks, Uzbeks,
Hazaras and other disgruntled non-Pashtuns who have been able to retain
positions in the military and diplomatic service and also by those peoples. But
US attention is mainly directed on counter-insurgency operations in the south
and east and in seeking to begin a negotiated settlement.
Despite its maladroitness over the past nine years, the US can join the
regional powers in pressing Karzai on restoring positions in the army and state
to northerners and in seating them prominently at any peace conference that
might convene one day.
Failure to do so may leave Karzai with a Taliban south and a secessionist
north, leaving him with palaces in Kabul and restaurants abroad. A break
between north and south could force the US to withdraw from the
insurgent-wracked south and concentrate, politically and militarily, in the
north.
This would not be uniformly adverse: the US would find political development
and military support far easier among the northerners than it is with the
disparate and increasingly hostile Pashtun tribes in the south. In this regard,
Washington and Kabul alike should pay greater attention to the ominous conflict
with the north.
Brian M Downing is the author of The Military Revolution and
Political Change and The Paths of Glory: War and Social Change in
America from the Great War to Vietnam. He can be reached at brianmdowning@gmail.com
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