BRAHIMI TOUR SEEKS TO EASE REGIONAL RIVALRIES, PROMOTE POST-TALIBAN AFGHAN GOVERMENT
Over the last six days, the UN Secretary General's Special Representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi, met with a broad range of anti-Taliban Afghan commanders, non-governmental organization representatives and Afghan women's group leaders, working to build support for a new broad-based government in Afghanistan.
Brahimi made Islamabad his first stop on a regional tour that also includes visits to Iran and the Gulf States. The main aim of the mission is an exploration of the political possibilities for post-Taliban Afghanistan.
Brahimi told EurasiaNet that he was encouraged with his meetings with Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and General Ehsan ul Haq, head of the Inter Services Intelligence. He said everyone knows that there has been a sea change in the region since the September 11 bombing and Pakistan's policy stance reflects that change.
Musharraf pressed Brahimi for a major UN role in Afghanistan's reconstruction. Afghan groups who met with Brahimi urged the UN to play a major role in bringing together the Afghan factions. A majority of Afghan tribal and NGO leaders expressed support for former King Mohammed Zahir Shah's initiative to use the Loya Jirga process to form a new Afghan government.
Brahimi's tour comes amidst signs that the US-led anti-terrorism campaign is going badly. After four weeks of bombing, the Taliban are stronger than ever. Their front lines have not crumbled as anticipated by Washington, no major Afghan city has fallen to the anti-Taliban United Front (UF) and there have been no Taliban defectors despite hectic efforts by Pakistan to lure them out. Taliban morale has strengthened and they have been able to muster more recruits to fight, even though many are conscripts rather than volunteers. In the meantime the anti-war crusade by Islamic parties and peace groups around the world is picking up momentum, as nightly images of civilian casualties from US bombing raids fill the airwaves.
A few days after the US-led bombing campaign started on October 7, US and British leaders were in "a panic" according to US officials in Washington, that the Taliban may fall quickly and there would be a vacuum in Kabul. US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair reportedly asked Brahimi to get moving and put together a peacekeeping force for Kabul even as the war continued.
However, Brahimi, the UN's most senior negotiator, a veteran Afghanistan mediator and author of an all important UN Report on Peacekeeping, believes that it is too early to embark on a peace-keeping force initiative. Instead, he is trying to address the geopolitical rivalries that have hindered state-building efforts for more than a decade.
Indeed, the UN at this time is refusing to undertake the task of building a peacekeeping force, saying it cannot play a role until the capital is secure and the Taliban have been removed. Talk about a Muslim led force under the UN umbrella has temporarily ceased after the most likely candidates Turkey, Jordan and Morocco indicated their refusal until Kabul is secured.
"The UN cannot get involved while the war is on - the Americans never consulted us before the they started bombing - now they should finish their business, and then we will see what we can do," says a senior UN diplomat in New York.
Pakistani leaders, who have made four air bases available to US forces, are now feeling vulnerable. By mid-October it seemed that anti-government demonstrations by Islamic parties attacking President Musharraf's support for the US campaign had decreased. But the intense bombing campaign has again intensified the opposition to Musharraf.
There is a tense standoff on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border where some 10,000 Pakistani tribesmen are waiting to cross over and fight for the Taliban. In the north of the country, militants have seized a small airport and blocked a strategic road that links China with Pakistan through the Karakorum Mountains. On October 28, a massive demonstration by the Jamaat-i-Islami in Lahore, the capital of the so far peaceful Punjab province has shaken the military rulers. Jamaat chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad urged the army to topple Musharraf, and threatened to organize a massive march on Islamabad and stage a sit in there until Musharraf is removed.
The failure of the bombing campaign and the growing unease of Pakistan's top generals prompted an urgent visit to Islamabad on October 29 by General Tommy Franks, the head of the US Central Command, which is directing the US military campaign against the Taliban.
"We are not in the loop of what the Americans are trying to do and we are worried about the increasing civilian casualties in Afghanistan, which is increasing the political fallout in Pakistan," says an angry Pakistani official.
In private US officials retort that Islamabad has failed to deliver so-called "moderate" Taliban defectors and food and fuel supplies to the Taliban continue to be smuggled into Afghanistan by their sympathizers in Pakistan. "The Taliban are stocking up for the winter and they have easy access to everything in Pakistan due to the porous border and the help they receive from Pakistani supporters," says the Afghan head of an Afghan non-governmental organization in Peshawar.
US officials are hoping Brahimi can help ease building tension within the anti-terrorism coalition. In behind the scenes discussions in Washington and London, the UN is being asked to help the war effort by putting together either a multi-national or Muslim countries-led peacekeeping force that could secure Kabul.
So instead Brahimi is first tackling the perennial problem of the rivalry amongst Afghanistan's neighbors, which has stymied UN attempts to end the Afghan civil war for the past decade [See interview]. "Unless there is first agreement between Pakistan and Iran on the shape of the future government in Kabul, both have the power and influence to act as spoilers," says a Western diplomat in Islamabad. In fact the US led alliance of countries in the region is already a victim of growing rifts.
Pakistan is trying to create a block of moderate Taliban defectors to ensure that the pro-Pakistani Pashtuns in the south of the country remain dominant in any future government. Pashtuns are the largest ethnic group in Afghanistan comprising up to 45 per cent of the 25 million population. Pashtuns also form about 20 per cent of Pakistan's 140 million population. Pakistan is also vehemently opposed to a major political role for the Northern Alliance, which is made up of Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, including Tajiks and Uzbeks. "The Northern Alliance has neither the political capacity nor the military capacity to govern Afghanistan," Musharraf told Pakistan Television on October 23.
Musharraf's tough stance has angered Russia, Iran, India and the Central Asian republics that have stepped up military and political support to the Northern Alliance. Russia and other countries have publicly stated steadfast opposition to any Taliban role in a future Afghan government.
Informed sources say Iran is demanding 30 percent of the seats in any government for the UF. "We don't see any place for the Taliban, but we see all the ethnic groups of Afghanistan in the (future) coalition government," Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told reporters in Dushanbe on October 19.
"Iran's talk of percentages has been provoked by the fact that Pakistan is now also talking of percentages and this is ruinous for the peace process. You will never [hear] an Afghan leader talking of percentages in such a way," said a senior Western diplomat in Teheran.
India, which is also arming the Northern Alliance, and is providing US aircraft refueling facilities, has told Washington that it is ready to pledge $100 million US for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, in return for a major role in Afghan state-building efforts - a demand that has infuriated Islamabad.
Russia is also firming up its support for the Northern Alliance. In a provocative move October 22, in Dushanbe, President Vladimir Putin signed an arms supply and cooperation agreement with President Burhanuddin Rabbani, the UF leader whose is still recognized by the UN as Afghanistan's president.
Brahimi's says his first task is to try to iron out these differences - a tough call because it was precisely these regional differences that forced Brahimi to resign as UN mediator in 1999. The irony of course is that this regional power play is taking place even before the United States is anywhere near to defeating the Taliban. And the downside - if the United States does succeeds in driving the Taliban out of Kabul - these rivalries could easily intensify.
Ahmed Rashid is a journalist and author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam and Fundamentalism in Central Asia."
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