Empty words of war


	November 27, 2001	atimes.com

Central Asia/Russia

Empty words of war
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - With the last remnants of the Taliban's administrative rule in Afghanistan likely to disappear in the next couple of days, efforts to form a broadbased government to fill the political vacuum will likely come to nothing as several of the all-important elements of the Bonn conference have deliberately played down the importance of the event. And further, it will not be a truly representative forum of all of Afghan society.

Following the capitulation at Kunduz, and the expected surrender soon of Kandahar in a similar vein, the Taliban regime is likely to give up all of its control to local tribal commanders. Leader Mullah Omar has gone into hiding and he has delegated his authority to his army chief, Mullah Akhtar Osmani. The Taliban will revamp its strategy to prepare for a prolonged guerrilla warfare.

The conference in Germany had been scheduled to take place on Monday, but was postponed to give participants enough time to travel. Preliminary arrangements for the conference in Petersberg Castle, a luxury government guest house on a hill overlooking the Rhine, indicate that about 40-70 participants are expected, some 30 of them representing Afghanistan's main groups.

No Western governments will be officially represented, to comply with UN special representative for Afghanistan Lakhdar Brahimi's stated goal of a "home-grown" solution. Representatives from the main North Atlantic Treaty Organization powers, India, Russia, Pakistan and Iran will attend in the sidelines, and Washington is sending its envoy to Afghanistan James Dobbins as an observer.

Only three groups other than the Northern Alliance, dominated by Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazara groups, but without the allegiance of the Pashtuns - who constitute 40 percent of Afghanistan's population - will be represented in Bonn.

The groups include representatives of Zahir Shah, Afghanistan's former king, now exiled in Rome, an overseas group of mainly Hazara intellectuals and politicians known as the Cyprus group after the venue of talks held by the group last October, and mainly backed by Iran, and the Pakistan-based group led by Pashtun Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani in Peshawar, which is supported by Islamabad. The Cyprus group in particular is linked with the former Pashtun warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, now in exile in Iran and loathed by the Northern Alliance.

According to reports coming from across the Pakistan border, Taliban officials, having stored much of their heavy and light weapon arsenal in the Pakistani tribal belts, are now holding talks with local leaders there to finalize the terms and conditions of handing over Kandahar to them. These weapons have been saved for use in a widespread and prolonged guerrilla warfare this coming spring. During the winter, the Taliban will try to engage the Northern Alliance forces on different fronts, with the help of their tribal supporters, as happened in Maidanshar. These sorts of advances and retreats will continue until spring, at which time a large scale guerrilla war will begin. The cold months will be used for the Taliban to regroup, with the help of its supporters in Pakistan tribal areas.

It is against this scenario that the Bonn conference begins on Tuesday. The key participants have already down-played its importance as neither Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Northern Alliance, nor Zahir Shah will attend, sending instead representatives. This is a real setback as personalities are of great importance in processes such as these.

In addition, the organizers claim that as Afghanistan is a multi-ethnic society, they will ensure the participation of all ethnic groups. Yet beyond the Pashtuns, Hazaras, Tajiks and Uzbeks, ethnic groupings to which most warlords belong, there is no representation from the Nooristani, Turkamans, Kargaizs, Balochs and Amaqs. These minorities, which collectively account for more than 8 percent of the population, have been left on the sidelines.

And of course, the Pashtun Taliban are not invited. And the largest former Afghan resistance group, which is dominantly Pashtun but which has a strong sprinkling of other ethnic communities, the Hizb-i-Islami (Gulbuddin Hikmatyar), has refused to participate. It considers the conference to be a means of extending US aims in the region.

The conference is meant to agree on a framework to set up a broad-based government for a progressive democratic government. But, except for some of Zahir Shah's delegation, there will be no women delegates. The organizers have even ignored the most powerful women's rights organization RAWA (Revolutionary Association for the Women of Afghanistan). Tahmeena Faryal of the organization says that the Northern Alliance government would not be acceptable at any cost, calling them as bad as the Taliban.

"They [Northern Alliance] were the first who imposed restrictions on women, including making a veil compulsory for all women," says Faryal. Many women were forced to become the brides of alliance warriors or functionaries and many opted for suicide instead, she adds.

Jessica Neuwirth, of the international women's rights group Equality Now, says that between 1992 and 1996, when the main factions within the current Northern Alliance controlled the country, gross abuses and violations of women's rights were committed against the backdrop of general disregard for human rights. "Supporting non-democratic forces such as the Taliban and the Northern Alliance, which have a history of human rights abuse, will lead to a continuation of violence," Neuwirth says.

Until the 1980s, women made up 70 percent of Afghanistan's teachers, 50 percent of its government workers, and 40 percent of doctors, according to the US State Department. In 1977, women held 15 percent of the country's main legislative body.

In 1992, mujahideen groups, including those under Abdul Rashid Dostum, who continues to command an Uzbek faction within the alliance and who is now in control of the city of Mazar-e-Sharif, and the late Ahmad Shah Massoud, defeated a Soviet-backed government and founded the Islamic state of Afghanistan.

According to a 1995 Amnesty International report, the main factions within this new government started "preventing women from exercising several of their fundamental rights, including the rights to association, freedom of expression and employment", on the pretext that these were "un-Islamic". In 1994, it noted, the Supreme Court of the Islamic state of Afghanistan issued an ordinance on women's veils that required women to wear a full-body veil.

Rabbani has said that he is ready to step down if a formula is decided at the conference for a broadbased government. But given things as they stand, he will not have to do this for some time to come.

(Additional reporting by Inter Press Service)

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