By Steve Hynd
Well, Hamid Karzai has had his peace jirga and like any political conference packed with yes-men it delivered exactly what he wanted it to. But how much use will it be?
Well, Karzai will use the jirga as a reason to ask for one heck of a lot of money at the upcoming Kabul Conference, the follow-on from the London conference back in January attended by Afghanistan's neighbours and occupiers.
Haroun Mir with Afghanistan's Center for Research and Policy Studies agrees with Gailani and points to a requirement in the resolution that it be part of the agenda at next month's international conference in Kabul.
He says that in the previous conference on Afghanistan held in London, Mr. Karzai requested $1 billion for his Taliban reintegration project, but countries only committed $150 million. By using the jirga resolution, Mir says President Karzai wants to pressure donors to get more money.
Knowing what we do about Afghanistan, we should be healthily sceptical about the prospect of that donor money doing very much more than enriching the Karzai family and its cronies.
And the media attention has conferred, belatedly, some international legitimacy on Kazai himself:
Eshaq Gailani, a member of parliament and a strong supporter of Mr. Karzai's former presidential rival Abdullah Abdullah, who boycotted the jirga also did not attend, despite his invitation as a parliamentarian. He says the jirga's declaration focuses too much on old points, such as freeing so-called political prisoners from jail and removing names from a United Nations embargo list.
"The resolution was not new," he said. "It was all old things from long time ago ... [the] Kabul government is asking about this?"
He says the big winner of the jirga is President Karzai, especially after corruption complaints and last year's election fraud allegations.
However, Taliban factions are still saying that the big issue is withdrawal of occupation forces - something that Karzai wasn't allowed to discuss at his jirga.
"The Islamic Emirate has a rule. While foreign forces are here, no representatives are allowed to attend any jirgas, or any talks. After the foreign troops leave, Afghans can sit and talk together," said Mullah Zayfan, a local Taliban commander, using the Taliban's name for itself.
In neighbouring Kunar province, members of the Hizb-e-Islami militia group affiliated with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former Afghan prime minister, said much the same thing, insisting they would not talk with the government until foreign forces withdrew.
There's something of a parallel with US/Iran interactions here, with the US making it clear that it is happy to negotiate but that the heart of the matter isn't up for discussion. In Iran, the US insists uranium enrichment must be halted before talks about, basically, whether Iran will halt its uranium enrichment. In Afghanistan, the very thing that could crystallize the situation and lead to meaningful peace talks - a certain date for withdrawal - is kept off the table. Given that basic intransigence, the jirga will fail in its most basic ostensible task even as it succeeds in legitimizing Karzai somewhat, which was its secondary task.
And, once one gets into the nitty gritty of the jirga's decisions, there are other questions for US policy (emphasis mine).
The proposals they endorsed also included an end to air strikes in civilian areas, the release of prisoners held on false charges or the testimony of rivals and the establishment of some kind of peace commission.
...The 200 points that were agreed upon included the preservation of the rights of women in any eventual deal, an end to unnecessary house searches by Afghan and foreign troops, and the need for insurgents to renounce violence and sever ties with al Qa�eda.
I don't think anyone believes General McChrystal is ready to halt airstrikes and SOF night raids on the say-so of Karzai's jirga. However, this jirga is constitutionally empowered and Karzai is supposed to be, by McChrystal's own admission, the guy in charge in his own country. If the General and Karzai ignore its proposals all they will do is underline the fact that Afghan sovereignty is more a pretense than reality, thus empowering the insurgents who say the occupiers must go before they'll negotiate. (After all, why talk to the monkey instead of the organ-grinder?)
Karzai's jirga is yet another of those attempts at finding a "mechanism" for "government in a box" that turns out to be just foam peanuts.
No comments:
Post a Comment