Afghanistan: Identity, Society and Politics since 1980 9780755607433, 9781786739445

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Micheline Centlivres-Demont is an anthropologist and specialist on ­Afghanistan. She has been the editor of Afghanistan Info, an analytical periodical, since 1980. She is the author of Popular Art in Afghanistan: Paintings on Trucks, Mosques and Tea-Houses, and the co-author with Pierre Centlivres of Portraits d’Afghanistan, Revoir Kaboul and Afghanistan on the Threshold of the 21st Century.

‘This is a fine and all-too-timely collection of expert witnesses to the fate of Afghanistan, covering topics from statecraft, gender and ethnicity through agriculture and music. Centlivres-Demont has fifty years of Afghan experience and a keen eye for the accuracy and insider knowledge of the contributors.’ Mark Slobin, Winslow-Kaplan Professor of Music, Wesleyan University ‘A unique and immensely valuable perspective on the tragic recent history of Afghanistan […]. There is nothing like this book. Start here if you wish to cut through the political spin, and let this excellent volume lead you to the Afghanistan Info archive and its unparalleled coverage of the people and country. I.B.Tauris is to be congratulated. This book is important.’ Nancy Lindisfarne, Anthropologist and Afghan Scholar, School of Oriental and African Studies, London ‘This set of articles on Afghan events as they happened over the past three decades is a unique contribution to the field. That they well deserve publication in a collected volume is evidence of both their quality and unmatched perceptiveness.’ Thomas Barfield, Professor of Anthropology, Boston University ‘This book offers to all specialists and aficionados of Afghanistan a unique insight into the various phases of the Afghan crisis from 1980 to the present. The multiple dimensions of this protracted conflict are described and analyzed by experts and witnesses from a great variety of perspectives. The book is in many respects a tribute to the resilience of the Afghan people; it reflects the unfailing commitment of Micheline Centlivres-Demont, its editor, to keep for almost four decades the situation of the country [and] the plight of its people on the radar screen of governments, civil society organizations and the media.’ Jacques Forster, Professor Emeritus at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva

afghanistan Identity, Society and Politics since 1980

Edited by Micheline Centlivres-Demont Introduction by Olivier Roy

First published in 2015 by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd www.ibtauris.com Distributed worldwide by I.B.Tauris & Co Ltd Registered office: 6 Salem Road, London W2 4BU Copyright Editorial Selection and Preface © 2015 Micheline Centlivres-Demont Copyright Introduction © 2015 Olivier Roy Copyright Individual Chapters © 2015 Khadija Abbasi, Ludwig Adamec, Hamida Aman, G. Whitney Azoy, John Baily, Ingeborg Baldauf, Rolf Bindemann, Kaja Borchgrevink, Pierre Centlivres, Micheline Centlivres-Demont, Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy, Antonio Donini, Rémy Dor, Gilles Dorronsoro, Bernard Dupaigne, Nancy Hatch Dupree, Gilbert Étienne, Abdul Ghafur Rawan Farhadi, Raphy Favre, Michel Foucher, Edward Girardet, Antonio Giustozzi, Bernt Glatzer, Jonathan Goodhand, Frédéric Grare, Erwin Grötzbach, Kristian Berg Harpviken, Selig S. Harrison, Arnold Hottinger, Mushahid Hussain, Jolyon Leslie, Chantal Lobato, Citha D. Maass, William Maley, Peter Marsden, Alessandro Monsutti, Asta Olesen, Christophe de Ponfilly, Jean-José Puig, Ahmed Rashid, Sayyid Qasim Reshtya, Olivier Roy, Barnett R. Rubin, Conrad Schetter, M. Nazif Shahrani, J.P. Singh Uberoi, Jean-Christophe Victor, Aziz Zekrya The right of Micheline Centlivres-Demont to be identified as the editor of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. Translation of articles originally in French and German by Patrick Camiller. All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or any part thereof, may not be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the publisher. Library of Modern Middle East Studies: 165 ISBN: 978 1 78453 081 5 eISBN: 978 0 85773 581 2 A full CIP record for this book is available from the British Library A full CIP record is available from the Library of Congress Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: available Typeset in Adobe Garamond Pro by A. & D. Worthington, Newmarket, Suffolk Printed and bound by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

contents

Preface Micheline Centlivres-Demont

xi

Introduction Olivier Roy

xv

Map of Afghanistan part i. the pdpa regime ,

1.

xxiii 1978–89

The Bridge on the Amu Darya Micheline Centlivres-Demont

2.

All Roads Lead to Rome Aziz Zekrya

3.

19

What Is Becoming of the Kyrgyz in Turkey? Rémy Dor

8.

15

The Kabul Government Institutions Chantal Lobato

7.

10

The Land Reform of 1979 and Its Aftermath Erwin Grötzbach

6.

7

Pakistan on the Frontline Jean-Christophe Victor

5.

5

The Geopolitical Stakes from the Soviet Point of View Michel Foucher

4.

3

22

The Afghan Situation in Summer 1987 Olivier Roy

24

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9.

Towards a Soviet Withdrawal? Olivier Roy

10.

27

Afghan Women Today Pierre Centlivres and Micheline Centlivres-Demont

11.

Pakistan and the Afghan Issue Mushahid Hussain

12.

36

Afghanistan: An American View Selig S. Harrison

13.

38

The Political Reconstruction of Afghanistan: The Hazaras a Hundred Years after Abdur Rahman Rolf Bindemann

14.

41

The Russians Ready to Intervene in Afghanistan at France’s Request: A Century Ago Pierre Centlivres part ii. the mujahedeen moment,

15.

47 1990–95

Finding a Political Solution: Rejection or Participation Jean-José Puig

16.

74

Reflections on the Political Development since the Fall of the PDPA Regime Asta Olesen

23.

71

Herat: A Model and an Opportunity for Afghanistan Bernard Dupaigne

22.

67

Afghan Women View the Future Nancy Hatch Dupree

21.

62

The Reconstitution of the Afghan State William Maley

20.

59

Consociationalism and Afghan Political Order William Maley

19.

55

Afghanistan and the Arab World Arnold Hottinger

18.

51

Pakistan’s Afghan Policy: No Light at the End of the Tunnel Mushahid Hussain

17.

31

79

From Pashtunistan to Central Asia: Pakistan’s Afghan Policy Frédéric Grare

83

contents 24.

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The Instability of Power Barnett R. Rubin

25.

85

Ethnicity Cannot Be the Basis for a Common Policy: The Hazara Failure in the Struggle for Afghanistan Rolf Bindemann

26.

88

Some Reflections on the Pashtunistan Problem Sayyid Qasim Reshtya part iii. afghanistan under the taliban,

27.

92 1996–2001

Regional Impact of the Taliban Breakthrough Olivier Roy

28.

William Maley 29.

133

Afghanistan’s War Economy and Global Reach Ahmed Rashid

37.

128

The Culture of Music in the Afghan Transnational Community John Baily

36.

124

The Impact of the Taliban on the Afghan Economy Peter Marsden

35.

120

The Taliban: Revolutionary Dynamic and Regional Environment Gilles Dorronsoro

34.

113

The Taliban: The New Forces of Law and Order in Afghanistan Citha D. Maass

33.

108

The End of US Policy Towards Afghanistan? Barnett R. Rubin

32.

105

Greater Afghanistan: A Missed Chance? Ludwig Adamec

31.

101

The Kabul Museum under the Taliban Nancy Hatch Dupree

30.

97

The Taliban: Fundamentalist, Traditionalist or Totalitarian?

137

Farewell to the Buddhas of Bamiyan Pierre Centlivres

141

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part iv. after the taliban

38.

Afghanistan after the Taliban Olivier Roy

39.

Ethnicity and Politics in Afghanistan: The Role Played by Setam-e melli Antonio Giustozzi

40.

188

The Uzbeks of Afghanistan since the End of Taliban Rule Ingeborg Baldauf

52.

184

Making a Presidential System Work William Maley

51.

181

Founding a New Islamic State in Afghanistan J.P.Singh Uberoi

50.

178

Five Theses on the Structural Instability of Afghanistan Conrad Schetter

49.

175

What Went Wrong? Humanitarianism in Crisis in Afghanistan Antonio Donini

48.

171

The New Afghan Constitution Micheline Centlivres-Demont

47.

167

Afghanistan and Pakistan Ahmed Rashid

46.

164

Agriculture in Afghanistan: A Contribution to a Better Understanding Raphy Favre

45.

161

Letter to a Father: Bashfulness and Emotion in the Midst of Migration Alessandro Monsutti

44.

156

A Bad Start to Reconstruction Gilbert Étienne

43.

154

Reconstituting State Power in Afghanistan William Maley

42.

151

Ahmad Shah Massoud: The Man Behind the Legend Christophe de Ponfilly

41.

147

192

How Many Nomads Are There in Afghanistan? Bernt Glatzer

197

contents 53.

Campaign Harvests: Media Coverage of the Presidential Elections of October 2004 Hamida Aman

54.

202

Buzkashi Then and Now G. Whitney Azoy

55.

206

Processes of Political Ethnicization in Today’s Afghanistan Antonio Giustozzi

56.

ix

211

Order and Justice in Afghanistan: Some Reflections on the Problem of Amnesty William Maley

215 part v. an evolving future

57.

The Afghan Roots of the Neo-Taliban Movement Antonio Giustozzi

58.

Soviets and Westerners in Afghanistan: What Elements of Continuity? Gilles Dorronsoro

59.

248

The Hazaras in Afghanistan: Origins and Linguistic Evidence Abdul Ghafur Rawan Farhadi

66.

245

Defending Urban Heritage Jolyon Leslie

65.

241

A Muted Voice? Religious Actors and Civil Society in Post2001 Afghanistan Kristian Berg Harpviken and Kaja Borchgrevink

64.

237

President Obama and the Future of US Policy in Afghanistan M. Nazif Shahrani

63.

234

Afghanistan and the Global Failure of Counter-Narcotics Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy

62.

228

State Administration and Local Power Brokers in Afghanistan’s Provinces Antonio Giustozzi

61.

224

NGOs and Afghanistan: New Challenges, Old Dilemmas Jonathan Goodhand

60.

221

251

The Future of the Afghan National Army: Problems and Reforms Antonio Giustozzi

256

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67.

Afghan Cultural Heritage as Seen by the Afghans Nancy Hatch Dupree

68.

Will the US Achieve a Permanent Military Presence in Afghanistan? Peter Marsden

69.

71.

Towards a New Civil War? Western Withdrawal and the Dynamics of Regionalization

72.

Young Afghanistani Refugees in Iran: Professional Training, Work and Perspectives

Gilles Dorronsoro

Khadija Abbasi

268

272

275

China and Afghanistan: A New Phase? William Maley

74.

265

Negotiating with the Taliban William Maley

73.

262

Afghanistan 2011: An Archipelago of Sovereignties Alessandro Monsutti

70.

259

279

Afghanistan 2014: Another Excuse for Yet More Disaster? Edward Girardet

283

Main Afghan Mujahedeen Parties

289

Chronology

291

List of Acronyms

299

List of Contributors

303

Index

309

preface

Afghanistan has been a target in the cross hairs of Western media since the late 1970s. Up to that time, only political scientists took any notice of the political rivalries between the two opposing blocs in this ‘oh-so-peaceful’ country. But the coup d’ état of 1978 and the ensuing Soviet intervention of December 1979 plunged the country into the ongoing drama of the Cold War. The USSR, it seemed, had taken a giant step on its path towards the ‘warm seas’. Across the country, revolts broke out against the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul, and refugees by the thousand, and soon by the hundreds of thousands, sought refuge in Pakistan and Iran. NGOs on site alerted world opinion to the difficult conditions in which refugees found themselves and to the repressions and atrocities taking place inside Afghanistan. Support groups welled up all over the West, provoked by humanitarian conscience and, perhaps, by anti-Soviet sentiments. In Switzerland a Committee for the Support of the Afghan People was created, its objective being to increase awareness of the Afghan situation among politicians and the media. Its press organ, Afghanistan Info, an analytical and documentary periodical, was, from the very beginning, published in French, German and English. The editorship was entrusted to me, an anthropologist familiar with Afghanistan since the 1960s. Seventy-five issues have appeared since its inception. In 1980, when I became editor of Afghanistan Info, my relations with Afghanistan were marked by long, on-site field trips to the country, following other research in Iran. My memories of those field trips were, and still are, inseparable from the sumptuous beauty of the countryside and the equally gracious and generous hospitality of its inhabitants. These stays and experiences were shared by my husband, Dr Pierre Centlivres. Between two xi

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such research periods we lived in Kabul, in close contact with Afghan and foreign friends and colleagues, most of whom were the anthropologists, teachers and archaeologists who would later become the first collaborators on Afghanistan Info. Following the events of 1978 and 1979, the ‘time of innocence’, truly quite illusory, became a distant memory, as inexorable as it was inaccessible, like the north and central Afghanistan terrains. Publishing Afghanistan Info was therefore designed to inform the Swiss parliament and the public at large of the faraway, worrying news. It was also a way to settle a debt my husband and I felt we owed to the country and its people. The authors represented in Afghanistan Info, both Afghan and nonAfghan, are experts on the country or witnesses to its recent history. The instructions given to them were clear and rigorous: speak the essentials in a maximum of two to three pages. After more than 35 years of the journal, this ‘Best of’ brings together, in chronological order, the most pertinent articles concerning the recent history of Afghanistan. The fields covered include political and military events, the role of ethnic groups in the crisis, religion and ideology, the role of the leaders and war chiefs of the period (from the anti-Soviet resistance to the presidency of Hamid Karzai), economic issues, particularly agriculture, civil society and state reconstruction programmes, and Afghan cultural heritage. Organized diachronically, this collection offers an overview of the evolution of the Afghan crisis and the re-evaluation of its nature and causes, as well as its future. It is a contribution, of unique and diverse views, to the history of a period marked by internal conflicts and foreign intervention as well as by an unprecedented transformation of Afghan society. It also reflects a diversity of experiences and viewpoints of authors, scholars and witnesses in domains as varied as political science, economics, anthropology, musicology, history and architecture. I should like to express my gratitude to the authors, firstly, for their voluntary contributions to the Afghanistan Info news bulletin; secondly, for their fortitude, as a number of them appear more than once in the collection; and, thirdly, for their permission to reprint their articles in this ­compilation. Aware of the interest a publication such as this evokes, the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), Berne, has graciously agreed to support the project financially, for which I am extremely grateful. I particularly wish to thank Frank Wiederkehr, Programme Manager Afghanistan, for his encouragement. Olivier Roy, a long-standing friend, agreed to write the introduction, for which I should like to offer my warmest thanks.

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Sincere thanks go to Patrick Camiller, who was responsible for translating those articles originally in French and German into English, and to Anaïs Laurent who proofread the appendices and translated the preface. My thanks also go to the faithful readers of Afghanistan Info, who by their gifts have made the publication of this work possible. Lastly, this book would never have seen the light of day without the encouragement of my husband, Pierre Centlivres, who not only collaborated on the publication of Afghanistan Info from the very first issue but also backed the project from its inception. I am indebted to him for his help and suggestions. Micheline Centlivres-Demont

introduction

Afghanistan has been at war for 37 years (1978–2015). This means that almost two generations have grown up in wartime, and there is no end in sight. It all began with the communist coup d’ état, called the ‘Saur Revolution’, on 27 April 1978. It is true that the 1970s were already quite agitated, having witnessed the coup d’ état of Prince Daud that ended the ‘good old times’ of King Zahir (1933–73), and the Islamic insurrections in Panjshir in 1975, but these events had nothing to do with civil war. However, since 1978 Afghanistan has been in a permanent state of internal conflict. We may speak in fact of three civil wars in this period, each involving a complex mix of ideological, religious, ethnic and tribal factors, each connected with or manipulated by external powers in the wider context of regional or international strategic polarization, i.e., the Cold War, the rivalry between Pakistan and India, the global radicalization of Islamic factions and the so-called ‘war on terror’ launched by the US government after 9/11. But the internationalization of the Afghan conflict has also had beneficial effects: the country has acted as the springboard of the huge humanitarian movement that transformed artisanal NGOs into influential international actors who would later influence Western public opinion and governments. The 1978 coup triggered an anti-communist insurrection that led to the Soviet invasion of December 1979, which pushed the bulk of the population into supporting armed resistance, merging Islam and nationalism, as often is the case in Afghanistan. It also transformed an obscure domestic conflict into an East–West confrontation by proxy. Coming after the Soviet backlash in Eastern Europe against the Prague Spring of 1968, the communist revolution in Ethiopia and the takeover of South Vietnam by the communist North, Afghanistan’s war was read in an ambivalent way by xv

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the outside world. For conservative Western anti-communists (for instance, the Reagan administration) it was seen as a continuation of the struggle of ‘freedom fighters’ against the Hydra of world communism (from the White Russians of 1918 to the anti-Sandinista ‘Contras’ in Nicaragua in the early 1980s), as an opportunity to start a ‘roll back’ policy, by breaking the taboo of the irreversibility of socialism, or at least as a way to ‘bleed’ the Soviets and deter them from taking any further steps forward. For young European leftist militants who became more critical of the Third World revolutionary movements they had adulated in the 1970s (from Castro to Ho Chi Minh), the Afghan resistance was the new avatar of the traditional antiimperialist struggle, except that this time it was under the green banner of Islam instead of the red banner of Che Guevara; the USSR was perceived by large segments of the European left (including the newly elected French president, François Mitterrand) as the ‘new’ imperialist country. They were increasingly joined by less politicized young idealists in search of ‘humanitarian adventures’, who found in the rugged and beautiful landscapes of Afghanistan a perfect training field, or even a deadly playground. All were convinced that they were making history, and they were right: the Afghan war, directly or indirectly, sounded the death knell of the Soviet Union, ending 70 years of communism and 40 years of the Cold War. The war in Afghanistan was unwinnable and too costly for a Soviet system that was running out of steam. But instead of giving breathing space to the newly appointed General Secretary, Mikhail Gorbachev, to reform the country, the Soviet withdrawal of February 1989 accelerated the fall of the Soviet empire, simply because it broke its very founding principle, that socialism is irreversible. Of course one can claim that the USSR would have collapsed anyway, but the defeat in Afghanistan, more political than strictly military, as usual in counter-guerrilla wars, showed that neither the KGB nor the Red Army was able to resist the decline and thus lift the obstacles of fear and inertia that would have helped the system to go on for some years. The fall of the Soviet Union was the most important strategic effect of the first Afghan war. A second strategic dimension of the first Afghan war was the rise, in many Muslim countries, from Algeria to Indonesia, of the so-called ‘Islamist’ parties (in Afghanistan the Jamiat-e islami and the Hezb-e islami). Sharing much in common with their forerunners, the Muslim Brotherhood of Egypt, the Islamist parties combined a strong religious outlook (the Sharia, the umma – the first Muslim society under the Prophet) with a modern conception of political activism (a centralized party, a political ideology, a revolutionary conception of political power); they recruited mainly among

introduction

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the youth educated in modern institutions (including the recently created faculties of Islamic studies) rather than in the traditional religious schools that trained generations of the Taliban. In this regard, the Afghan Islamist parties were more a case study than a vanguard movement if we compare them with other Islamist parties in the Muslim world: they did not innovate in terms of political thinking and organization and in fact rooted themselves in the countryside according to the traditional patterns of group loyalties. In fact the originality of the Afghan Islamist parties was that, owing to the war, they operated in rural areas and not in cities, as most other Islamist parties used to do. The consequence was that their organizational structures were largely influenced by ethnic and clan affiliations. Moreover the Afghan jihad attracted thousands of Islamist volunteers from other Muslim countries who acquired know-how and prestige through their military involvement and who formed activist movements once they returned to their countries of origin (FIS and GIA in Algeria, for instance). Afghanistan became and remained for the next decades a hotbed of radicalization for foreign militants, although almost no Afghan has been involved in global activism. This pattern has remained a constant until now. But after the Soviet withdrawal, and against most expectations, the communist regime in Afghanistan, headed by Najibullah, did survive the fall of its Russian protector. After a lengthy battle in the spring of 1989, the Mujahedeen were unable to take Jalalabad, let alone Kabul. In order to remain in charge, the regime discarded any ideological pretensions and played along tribal and ethnic lines, in a subtle policy of divide and rule. Behind the ideological and political alignments, it became clear that Afghan politics was more and more driven by a complex set of ethnic and ‘clanic’ affiliations, identities and networks. It would make little sense to say, as is often said, that Afghanistan has ‘reverted’ to its traditional divisions, because in fact those divisions never, during the pre-war history of Afghanistan, assumed the patterns of conflict that emerged after the war against the Soviets. In fact the war created new actors and reshaped the ‘traditional’ patterns of segmentation in the country. Firstly, new actors rose up, the so-called ‘commanders’, latter dubbed ‘warlords’, who held the real power on the ground. This category is sociologically very diverse: traditional tribal leaders such as the Akhundzada in Helmand, young intellectuals such as Massoud in Panjshir, ulamas and Taliban trained in traditional madrasas (Jalaluddin Haqqani in Paktiya), as well as purely military leaders rising from obscurity through their military skills (Dostum). Secondly, the war altered patterns of solidarity and identities: small commanders relied on local networks (the qawm or solidarity

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group), while bigger ones succeeded in controlling larger territories above the qawm level by appealing to other and larger identities (Tajiks, Hazaras and Uzbeks) that were provided for the first time in Afghan history with a military and political organization of their own. This is especially true of the Shia Hazaras, who have often been dispossessed of their lands and rights by the dominant Pashtun ethnic group, but who have found a new leadership made up of Iran-trained clerics (Mohaqiq) that was able, after an internal civil war, to unite them. The commanders reshaped traditional identities at every level: Dostum became a leader of the Uzbeks, Massoud, first of the Panjshiris and then of the ‘Northerners’, and Mohaqiq of an Hazara ethnic community which was reshaped on religious lines (shias) more than on a traditional ethnic identity. But this polarization did not make smaller affiliations (tribal, clanic or based on networks of extended families and clientelism) disappear; it merely contributed to the complexity of the Afghan social fabric, without translating it into a clear set of ethno-political affiliations. Roughly speaking, six ‘poles’ emerged after the Soviet withdrawal: the north-east under Massoud, the centre north under Dostum, Herat under Ismail Khan, the Hazarajat under the Hezb-e wahdat, the eastern Pashtun tribal zone, with no clear leadership, and the Pashtun south around Kandahar, which became the hotbed of the Taliban movement from 1994 onwards. The war also altered the traditional balance of power: for the first time the non-Pashtuns had the military capacity and political will to play a role at the centre, Kabul. This could not have happened in the immediate aftermath of the Soviet withdrawal because they were heavily divided: Dostum supported the Najibullah regime and the Hazaras were not encouraged by Tehran to ally with the others. But in 1992, following an apparent shift of the Najibullah regime towards a pro-Pashtun policy (Najibullah and the cadres of the communist partly were mainly Pashtuns), the northerners formed an alliance (the Northern Alliance) and took Kabul in May 1992, only to open a new kind of civil war where the alignments were more ethnic than ideological. The polarization of Afghan society was also accentuated by outside factors. Afghanistan was caught in a web of conflicts that exacerbated ethnic tensions in the region. In fact the Soviet withdrawal did not put an end to the internationalization of the Afghan civil wars, even if Westerners simply ignored Afghanistan between 1989 and 2001. The main actor was then Pakistan, which wanted to reap the benefits of its support for the Mujahedeen. Pakistan had a very clear objective: to put a pro-Pakistani regime in charge in Kabul in order to thwart any reverse alliance between

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Afghanistan and India and to open a corridor towards the newly independent states of Central Asia. The strategic dogma of Pakistan since the early 1970s has been that only a Pashtun and Islamic regime would fit the bill. Thus it supported the Hezb-e islami of Hekmatyar until 1992, but, given its failure, Pakistan started looking for new friends. The sudden rise of the Taliban (1994–96) was seen as an opportunity by Islamabad, but the Taliban brought Islam to the forefront of their policy, declaring Sharia to be the sole law of their ‘emirate’. They restored law and order, which made them popular at first, but then they engaged in the forced seclusion of women in what seemed as Pashtun revenge against other ethnic groups. The Taliban are Pashtuns from a tribal society but are also a product of the detribalization of Pashtun society: they do not recruit from leading tribal families, they were educated (more or less) in madrasas not linked with tribal identities (either inside or outside Afghanistan), and they belong to transregional networks (educational and business) extending from the Afghan tribal areas to the Gulf, through the city of Karachi. They want to replace the tribal customs system (pashtunwali) with Sharia law. But on the other hand they are almost exclusively Pashtun and behave as occupiers in other areas of Afghanistan (specifically against the Hazaras). In the north they found support mostly among the local Pashtun minorities. Their popularity as promoters of law and order was rapidly eclipsed in the north by their all-Pashtun propensities. Once again the evolution of Afghan society meshed with the general pattern across the Muslim world and saw a shift from Islamism (the giving up of violence and entry into the mainstream political scene, as shown by the Turkish AKP) and ‘neo-fundamentalism’, solely concerned with implementing Sharia, whether through jihad (the Algerian GIA) or by peaceful means (Salafis in Egypt, for instance). Once again Afghan actors found foreign support – sponsors from Saudi Arabia and the Gulf. The Taliban victory in 1996 was at first welcomed by the USA. However, the West became more and more uneasy about the Taliban’s treatment of women. Of course that would not have been a reason to intervene, and the West let the second Afghan war (north versus south) go on from 1994 to 2001. The third Afghan war was triggered by the 9/11 attack on the World Trade Center. Of course it did come out of the blue. Osama bin Laden, who had briefly fought in Paktiya against the communists in 1987, came back to Afghanistan in 1996 (and interestingly enough not in a Taliban-held area). He began to engineer systematic attacks against the West well before 9/11,

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for example, against the USS Cole cruiser and the US embassies in East Africa, which forced the US government to put pressure on the Taliban to extradite or at least expel bin Laden. Protests against the Taliban treatment of women and the destruction of the statues of Buddha filled communiqués and media reports. But a strange combination of negotiations, pressures and radicalization of the Taliban went on for years, with no results. But after 9/11 nothing was left to negotiate. Nevertheless the Bush administration still believed that the main threat was not Al Qaeda but Saddam Hussein, and the decision not to send too many US troops in Afghanistan certainly contributed to the successful escape of bin Laden and Mullah Mohammad Omar. This new chapter in the history of the Afghan wars opened an array of ambiguities. Firstly, the goal of war was not clear. Officially it was about the destruction of the Al Qaeda sanctuary in Afghanistan. But it rapidly turned into a lengthy process of ‘state building’ and ‘nation building’, entailing the transformation of limited military assistance to help the new government ensure security and development into a full-scale war of counter-insurgency in the south. Moreover Western governments ‘sold’ their involvment in Afghanistan as a way of ‘freeing’ Afghan women from their exclusion from the public space – exclusion embodied by the burqa. But it rapidly became clear that Afghan society remained quite conservative and was not ready to embrace rock-and-roll and mini-skirts. Finally, aware that the resentment of the Pashtuns could fuel the resurgence of the Taliban, the West and the UN supported a new regime led by Hamid Karzai, the scion of a prominent aristocratic tribal family. But the inability of the government to curb corruption, clienteles and insecurity damaged its reputation. Nevertheless it was clear that Western intervention created many expectations, and, despite death threats, the Afghans rushed to the polls in 2003 and 2004. Many refugees came back and ended up in the new slums around Kabul. Pakistan, as usual, played a double game, encouraging the return of the Taliban in Afghanistan, despite (or because of) the growth of an indigenous Pakistani Taliban movement in the Pashtun areas of the country. Foreign volunteers for the jihad rushed again to Pakistan. The reconstruction of Afghanistan accentuated corruption and braindrain. The artisanal NGOs which had become a legend in the 1980s have been replaced by commercial private enterprises more eager to have their share of the cake than adapt to the vagaries of Afghan society. The decision of the Western powers to leave the country was thus logical. But what will happen next? The Taliban have no reason to negotiate a sharing of power or to make big concessions. They have the chance to take

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Kabul again, as in 1996. If they indulge in negotiations it is because they want to ‘clear their name’ and gain some international legitimacy instead of being treated as a pariah. They may also reckon on bypassing their Pakistani godfathers. Once again we are back to the regional power game. Iran is maintaining a grip on western Afghanistan and has everything to fear from the return of a Taliban movement that is anchored in strong anti-Shia Sunni fundamentalism and keeps its connections with the arch enemies of Iran in the Gulf. Pakistan paradoxically may not reap the rewards of its 40 years of support for Pashtun Islamists in Afghanistan, because it might be engulfed in the troubles created by the emergence of a Pashtun Taliban belt that would ignore national borders. An ethnic civil war might start again in Afghanistan, pitching the Northerners and the Hazaras against the Taliban. Prospects are dim. The only hope is the neutralization of external factors, thus leaving the Afghans to themselves. Hopefully war fatigue might push the different groups into finding a modus vivendi. Except that the country is more divided than ever. In the south Pashtuns no longer use Persian (Dari) as a second language, but Urdu. Northerners have no incentives to learn Pashtu. Taliban attacks against the school system resulted in a growing gap in education between the Pashtuns and the others. Moreover the longdespised Hazara minority is making its way in Kabul and in the universities. It will take a long time to find a political power that is in tune with the changes in Afghan society. But the lesson of the last decades of war is that no agreement between Afghans is possible without the end of foreign interference. Afghanistan does not need more ‘support’ from outside, but would be better if left alone. Pakistan is probably the next actor to learn that lesson – the sooner the better. It is a sad story, but a story that makes sense, seen from the distance of time and space. But for those who were involved in closely watching the Afghan wars on an almost daily basis the succession of dramatic events seemed too often unexpected and unpredictable. The contributors to Afghanistan Info had to come to terms with the pressure of describing history in the making without knowing the end of the story. This book, then, collects 74 articles written at short notice during the last 30 years by experts and ‘Afghanistan watchers’ who used their expertise to provide clues to an audience of lay people, journalists, politicians and diplomats who had to make up their minds and sometimes take decisions. How to assess the Soviet invasion? And the Soviet withdrawal? And the death of Massoud? 9/11? The Western military intervention? How to understand the role of Islam and ethnicity? This book is a testimony to ‘immediate history’, with all its inherent weaknesses. The articles have not been revised with the benefit of hindsight or

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to fit in with the lessons of history. It is up to the reader now to make up his mind about the accuracy of the statements and analyses provided by the journal during the past 30 years, but reading the articles again may show just how accurate and timely Afghanistan Info was. Olivier Roy Florence, December 2014

part i the pdpa regime, 1978–89

1

the bridge on the amu darya Micheline Centlivres-Demont (Neuchâtel, May 1982)

It took until 1982 for Moscow’s planned bridge linking Soviet Central Asia with Afghanistan to be built over the Amu Darya river (the Oxus of ­antiquity). On 12 May 1982 Babrak Karmal, president of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan, officially opened the road and rail bridge between Termez and Hairatan, 60 km north of Mazar-i Sharif. Work has already begun on extending the railway to Pul-i Khumri, 200 km south of the frontier. The bridge had been talked about for a long time: Facing Afghanistan, in the middle of the [Termez] fortress, two huge blocks of dried-brick masonry lie embedded in the shore. They look like separate fragments of a bridge pile, as if the water has eroded the base and undermined the foundations, causing the front of the pile to become detached from its main bulk. Has an entire bridge ever existed in this place? We think not – and we assume that here, as in the vicinity of Samarkand, on the Zerafshan, we are in the presence of a bridge scarcely begun.1

Around the same time, Major P.J. Maitland of the Afghan Boundary Commission (1884–86) said of Hairatan: The width of the river here is about the same as at Tarmex [Termez], say 1,000 yards. The opposite bank is high and more or less scarped for a mile and a half up, when the river suddenly expands. There is a strip of low jungly flat along the foot of the scarp in most places. Good site for a bridge here, or for a ferry. The current is not stronger than elsewhere.

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In May 1931 there was a Russian project to build a bridge between the Turkmenistan shore and Kilift (125 km north-east of Mazar-i Sharif). British reports indicated that work on it was about to begin: men and materials were ready. At the time, the river crossing was made with the help of four ferries (two Afghan, two Russian). A British memorandum from 1932 informs us that all the materials for the construction of the fixed bridge were on site, but that the Afghans eventually vetoed the project. Goods in both directions (wool, karakul pelt, cotton, livestock, grapes and almonds for Russia; sugar, oil, kerosene, cotton fabrics, matches, metal utensils and cooking oil for Afghanistan) were mainly crossing from Termez to Peta-Kessar on 30 or so flat-bottomed boats. By 1934 the new highway from Kabul to Mazar-i Sharif crossed the Hindu Kush by the Shibar Pass. The Soviet military attaché suggested taking this road over the Oxus, by a bridge that would make it possible to connect with the railway at Termez; he promised substantial financial aid. But the Afghans grew concerned about the risks of an invasion of their northern province and rejected the proposal. In 1936 construction of the road between Mazar-i Sharif and the Amu Darya ran into difficulties because of the sandy terrain, but the Afghans were aiming to extend it as far as Kilift. This put the plan for a bridge back on the agenda on the Soviet side. But the Afghans refused permission for the Soviets to build the bridge and merely agreed on an improved motorboat service across the river. Things have certainly changed since 1936. Now occupying both sides of the Amu Darya, the Soviets are in a position to dictate terms to their protégé. notes

1.

Gabriel Bonvalot, En Asie Centrale: De Moscou en Bactriane (Paris: Plon, 1884), pp. 231–2.

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all roads lead to rome Aziz Zekrya (Lausanne, October 1983)

The world’s largest concentration of firepower finds itself at a dead end and, after more than four years, realizes that no army on earth can defeat a people, however weak and isolated, if it is determined to defend at all costs its national sovereignty and cultural, spiritual and religious values. What a formidable living example for every nation! On this wretched earth of ours, no freedom can be won without suffering and bloodshed. The national uprising against the Soviet invasion might have been less bloody if, despite the people’s diversity and ethnic partitioning, the resistance had fought under one command. It would then have been necessary to have only a single representation to defend the interests and rights of the Afghan people on the international political stage and to seek a negotiated solution for withdrawal of the aggressor’s troops. To make up for this lack of unity, Afghans from every horizon and social layer and from every political tendency supporting its own model for the country’s future society and government went to Rome to demand that, in the present situation, Mohammad Zahir Shah, the ex-king of Afghanistan, must absolutely be present at the centre of a National Union. After all, the king himself had stressed on a number of occasions the vital necessity of a union of the various resistance groups. During the indirect negotiations in Geneva about the fate of Afghanistan (mid-June 1983),1 which took place without the representative of the resistance, Mohammad Zahir Shah took a new step in solidarity with the resistance. On 22 June he gave an interview to Le Monde in which he placed a question mark over the outcome of the talks. On the same occasion, he launched a vibrant call for unity among the Afghans. To achieve this objective, he placed himself as a simple servant and conciliator 5

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at the disposal of his people. His only wish was the liberation of his country and he harboured no ambitions to restore the monarchy. His appeal found favour among a large majority of the Afghan people, both inside and outside the country, except for the fundamentalist group whose ideological orientation is based on considerations other than national sentiment. The important and significant element in the picture is that Moscow has not reacted against this move. This new démarche in Rome is now assuming a clearer structure through the joint efforts of various groups that have rallied in support of it. The backdrop of integration is being achieved as a result of the meeting in Rome on 17 August 1983 which brought together representatives from the Islamic Union of the Mujahedeen of Afghanistan as well as Afghan support groups in the United States, Germany, France, Switzerland, Italy and elsewhere. The meeting appointed a 14-member committee, which in turn will draw up the procedures and functioning of a Constituent Assembly. This Constituent Assembly will adopt a platform and make arrangements for the holding of a Great Gathering of the People, which will certainly take place in a friendly country. In the end, as we can see, the form of society and the future government of Afghanistan will be chosen by the people and for the people. The task of Mohammad Zahir Shah will come to an end when Afghanistan has regained its total independence. As this is both a delicate and important undertaking, which concerns the liberation of an unjustly oppressed people, we wish that everyone enamoured of liberty, justice and other inalienable values of humanity will show active solidarity so that this action can achieve its objective in the best conditions. Inshallah. notes

1.

On 15 June 1983, the foreign ministers of Afghanistan and Pakistan met in Geneva for talks aimed at securing the withdrawal of foreign troops from Afghanistan.

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the geopolitical stakes from the soviet point of view Michel Foucher (Paris, March 1984) The USSR has approximately 20,000 km of land frontier and many neighbours. For a third of this length its neighbour is Chinese. Another third connects it with four East European satellite countries and Mongolia. Across the final third lie two NATO states (4 per cent), Finland (10 per cent), Iran (9 per cent) and Afghanistan (10 per cent). This geopolitical diversity rules out any determinism based on proximity. The USSR exerts formidable pressure on its margins, and its territorial continuity is by definition a strategic trump. It is precisely to dissuade it from playing this card that two European countries have equipped themselves with the arsenal we know. But even there the pressure has remained strong since NATO took its famous ‘twin-track decision’ in December 1979.1 Although the Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan had already been decided in principle, its implementation in late December may be interpreted as a riposte to those same European governments. The message was delivered at the Afghans’ expense. hasty reasoning

The Europeans’ first concerns were over possible threats to the famous oil route, based on a hurried inspection of maps of scant detail and a decidedly Western view of Afghanistan. But the oil market shook considerably more as a result of the present Iran–Iraq conflict, which is incomparably closer. Another conclusion – that the Russians were pushing inexorably towards warm waters – overlooked the fact that the Soviet navy was already present in the Indian Ocean. 7

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Above all, it ignored the fact that the Kabul river does not flow south but joins the Indus to the east. A geohistorical analysis shows that Afghanistan is first and foremost a gateway to India, but since 1947 it has no longer been the buffer state that the British had to handle with care. The British left, and the first agreements between India and the Soviet Union were signed as long ago as 1956. The Russian long-term strategy is to create a strategic political and economic axis all the way from Moscow through Tashkent and Kabul to Delhi – otherwise, why would the Soviets be putting the finishing touches to the vast steelworks in Karachi, in Pakistan, whose government by now gives refuge to two and a half million Afghan oppositionists? There, too, spatial determinism does not apply to the Afghans, and the choices made by the Pakistanis play an essential role. The military occupation of Afghanistan – an intermediate step in all this – is accelerating a colonial-style policy whose economic implications have not been sufficiently analysed in Europe. Why should an area have to be overseas, a long way from the frontiers of the home country, in order to be considered a colony? Because of its temporary situation as a buffer state, there was no formal colonization of Afghanistan. It is a fait accompli, rather, at least in parts of the country judged useful and ‘rewarding’. Most Afghans are putting up armed resistance not so much to this growing economic dependence as to the attempted establishment of a communist regime – and there is plenty of illustrative material floating around in Europe that recalls the martial tradition of the Afghan people. The British encountered ethnic Pashtun warriors (or, to be more precise, the Afridi tribes inhabiting the Khyber Pass, almost the sole base of the Afghan state) as soon as they entered Afghanistan from the east. Today, however, the enemy comes from the north, having first crossed spaces occupied by other ethnic groups (Uzbeks, Turkmens, Tajiks) also present in Soviet Central Asia; he makes contact with the Pashtun demographic core only in Kabul and Kandahar, almost at the end of his advance. Hence the twin strategy: to drive out Pashtun opponents, almost selectively, and to play upon inter-ethnic antagonisms. This is the role of the new Ministry of Nationalities and Tribal Affairs. The construction of a museum of nationalities is being mooted in Kabul, and it is well known how skilled the Soviets are at such things. Pashtuns account for 85–90 per cent of the people living in 331 camps along the Pakistani frontier.

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a concentr ation of refugees

The Bureau International Afghanistan (BIA) mission, in which I took part in September 1983, confirmed, from information collected on the spot, that war refugees, as well as economic and political refugees, in Pakistan make up the largest concentration in the world. Since the Pakistani government and international aid agencies take effective responsibility for them, there is a risk that their presence will become semi-permanent. The question of their return to Afghanistan is political rather than humanitarian. But there is no place for oppositionists in a future socialist republic of Afghanistan, and it is hard to see what could be negotiated between the resistance forces (inside or outside the country) and the present regime in Kabul, which seeks to model itself politically on those in Central Asia and Mongolia. The Afghan resistance wishes to achieve self-determination, but can this be done except through successes on the ground? Contrary to what the Soviets argue, the security of the USSR’s southern frontiers should no longer be treated as if it were the same issue as the character of the political regime in Afghanistan. Is there not the basis here for cooperation between Europeans and Afghan resistance forces? notes

1.

On 14 December 1979 a NATO summit meeting decided in principle to install missiles in Western Europe, in response to the stationing of Soviet SS-20s, and at the same time to begin negotiations to secure the withdrawal of these. If the talks failed to achieve anything after four years, NATO would deploy Cruise and Pershing-II missiles in Europe.

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pakistan on the frontline Jean-Christophe Victor (Paris, September 1984)

For those who had placed some hope in the ‘indirect talks’ in Geneva, the Red Army’s massive push into the Panjshir valley in April–May 1984 was a rude awakening. While Tajiks living there again found themselves in a nightmare, Diego Cordovez, personal representative of the UN SecretaryGeneral (whose job, one must admit, certainly required optimism), and the Pakistani federal government snapped out of a dream world. As the first and only frontline country, how would Pakistan be able to handle the Afghan crisis, nearly six years after its outbreak? Although closely interlinked, three issues facing Pakistan may be distinguished for the sake of clarity: • the Afghan community that has settled, doubtless for a long time, on the western fringes of Pakistani territory; • the consequences for the country’s internal policy; • the conduct of foreign policy, essentially concerning relations with the USSR, the USA and the countries of the Arab Muslim world. Between 1979 and 1984, roughly three million Afghans sought refuge in the North West Frontier Province and in Pakistani Baluchistan. If we add to these the Afghan exiles in eastern Iran (a figure approaching a million), we get an idea of the scale of the exodus: 25 per cent of the Afghan people, the largest population transfer since 1945. From what are they fleeing? The great majority seek to escape the bombs exploding in their home villages. Others want to organize abroad or join resistance networks that, in some cases, have more powerful weapons than rifles, while a minority has decided to build new lives in Pakistan, the Gulf 10

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states, USA, West Germany, France and Switzerland. Whatever the problems, including tensions with the Pakistani bureaucracy and its corruption or slowness, it is important to note the dignity and perseverance with which Pakistanis in the west of the country and the government in Islamabad have welcomed the Afghan refugees. This laudable humanitarian attitude goes hand in hand with an acute sense of Pakistan’s national interests, and in order to ensure that these are respected the government has granted sanctuaries to the Afghan resistance in a small part of its territory. As we shall see in a moment, there are some advantages to this, but so far the creation of sanctuaries has not led to a Lebanon-style situation: there is no Afghan state-in-exile in Pakistan, no ‘Afghanistan Liberation Organization’ (a future ‘ALO’?), no Afghan militias whose authority or force replaces those of the police in the tribal zones, and few major disputes between the two communities of similar ethnic origin. between provisional and permanent

To achieve the impossible task of balancing the provisional and the permanent, the status of refugee and political resistance fighter, there are three different levels of authority: • the government of Pakistan’s High Commission for Afghan Refugees (CAR), which deals with everyday matters through (very heavy) supervision and monitoring; • short-term and long-term policy decisions at ministerial level; • the Afghan crisis team, comprising ten or so people clustered around General Zia and Finance Minister Ishaq Khan, who engage in forward planning and take medium- to long-term decisions. The Commission divides up (rather badly) the efforts of the humanitarian agencies, whether multilateral, governmental or non-governmental. Virtually all the international aid in goods and finance passes via the Pakistani administration, since funds are managed by the Finance Ministry. This aid for Afghan refugees totals roughly US$600 million per annum. A half is covered by the Pakistani budget, the other half by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the World Food Programme, the EEC, Saudi Arabia and a few Gulf states. The EEC and the USA account for 75 per cent of the UNHCR and WFP budgets. Clearly the international (entirely Arab and Western) community is making great efforts. On the positive side this ensures a vital minimum to refugees and support for the host country’s

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economy, but the drawback is that it gives a kind of good conscience to financial and political decision-makers. By relieving the effects, they avoid tackling the causes. The Pakistani army, for its part, is responsible for taking delivery of light weapons sent from China or funded by the USA and for passing them on to the Afghan resistance. This allows it to have the first choice of suitable material, to decide on the quantity and nature of the weapons that will reach their destination, and to select the priority group for delivery of the arms. Its arbitrary powers in these respects fuel networks of corruption – both in the Pakistani army and among certain Afghan oppositionists – and deny the least ‘provisional budgeting’ to the more principled groups. This capacity to control the supply and transit of weapons is compounded by the resolve of the Ministry of the Interior and Tribal Affairs to decide where the Afghans settle. The aim is to contain and disperse the pressure that a mass of three million new inhabitants exert on grazing land, forest wood, water sources and the jobs market. Finally, the ubiquitous and hardly discreet Special Branch attempts to track down drug traffickers and, above all, spies. It is a difficult task: Afghans do remain together in groups, but they can travel freely around the country. Especially since 1980, all kinds of agents with every affiliation have found favourable ground here in which to germinate.

the price of hospitality

Pakistan is thus paying a price for its hospitality. Pro-Soviet agents currently have plenty of opportunity to observe, await or, if necessary, assist Pakistani opposition to the Zia regime. This opposition is vigorous, as we saw from the ‘Whaderas’ movement in Sind in August 1983 or from that of the Pakistani Lawyers in the Punjab in October 1983. It is also courageous: parties have been forbidden since the transitional constitution of March 1981, while demonstrations have given rise to clashes with the police and army that have caused dozens of deaths. However, it is hard to tell whether the unpopularity of the regime is due to its actual nature or to the martial law it has imposed for the last six years. This should become apparent on 25 March 1985, for on that date General Zia has promised (yet again) to ask the country to choose its representatives to the federal parliament. Meanwhile the disturbances of 1983 do not seem to have originated in any clear interference from outside. Soviet–Afghan reprisals for Pakistani support of the Afghan resistance have varied considerably, but they have been none too subtle. On the one

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hand, there have been hundreds of violations of Pakistani air space since 1980, and one bombing raid in January 1984 is said to have caused 20 casualties on the Pakistani side. Reprisals or warnings? The message is not always clear. On the other hand, the USSR has declared its willingness to supply a turnkey 630 megawatt power station to the city of Multan, by opening a ‘low interest’ credit line to the value of US$277 million. This is one of several offers made to Finance Minister Ishaq Khan during his visit to Moscow in December 1983. For Islamabad, the room for manoeuvre is certainly limited. In deciding to maintain its dialogue with Moscow, the Pakistani government has avoided the complete deterioration of relations between the two countries that might logically have been expected. While the USSR skilfully and simultaneously plays the cards of pressure and seduction, the Pakistani government has to display both a lack of provocation and a lack of timidity. As far as lack of provocation is concerned, although there is an evident rapprochement between Pakistan and the USA, it is in the end only one of the consequences of the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan. No doubt this geopolitical necessity delights the men in the Pentagon, who ‘lost’ Iran five years ago, but the Pakistani leaders register it without illusions or enthusiasm. They remain firmly anchored in the Non-Aligned Movement and wish to extract the maximum diplomatic profit from the three years in which Indira Gandhi holds the presidency of the movement founded by her father, Nehru, three decades ago. This is one of the reasons why Islamabad proposed to Delhi in 1982 the signing of a non-aggression pact between the two countries – a pact currently under consideration (that is, on hold), although not categorically rejected on the Indian side. Here too the balance is finely poised, since it is also necessary to display a lack of timidity. General Zia went in person to Shardoga air base to welcome the first six F-16s supplied by the United States. And the American vice president, Bush, evidently failed to convince his Indian colleagues during his visit to Delhi on 14 May 1984, when he declared that the aircraft were meant to counter the threat from the west, not to prepare an attack in the east. The depth of Pakistani territory makes this a specious argument. To its west, Pakistan uses the card of the Mujahedeen to negotiate in Geneva, its pockets being otherwise rather empty. In January 1984 General Zia ordered diplomatic passports to be issued to leaders of the Afghan resistance. The gesture is more than symbolic: Islamabad loses some of its control over the diplomacy of the Afghan opposition but flaunts its total indifference to any reprisals in the shape of a kind of government-in-exile that the Pakistani opposition might form in Kabul.

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Given that military posturing often precedes political manoeuvring, the current efforts of the Red Army in the theatre of operations may herald a wish to negotiate in earnest from a position of strength. But it seems unlikely that the Kremlin’s evident change of tactics will have a deterrent effect on General Zia.

5

the land reform of 1979 and its aftermath Erwin Grötzbach (February 1985) In comparison with the situation in Iran before land reform, the role of really large landholdings was rather small in pre-1978 Afghanistan. In July 1978 the new communist government estimated that owners of more than 100 hectares of agricultural and horticultural land accounted for just 0.2 per cent of all landowning families but owned almost 10 per cent of the cultivated land, while the 67 per cent of small farmers (with up to 2 hectares) also owned nearly 10 per cent. Moreover large and small landholdings were distributed very unevenly in the different parts of the country: the former were common in the west and north, and even dominant in certain areas (especially Nimruz Province), while the latter were found mainly in the east, around Kabul and up to the Pakistani frontier. There, at the southern foot of the Hindu Kush and above all in the mountains themselves, 20 hectares of irrigated, and for the most part intensively farmed, land was considered a large landholding. The political and economic necessity of land reform was already recognized before the 1978 coup. President Daud even passed such a measure into law in 1975, although it was never put into effect. The communist government, however, addressed the issue of agrarian reform with great energy. Decree No. 6, issued in July 1978, immediately cancelled or reduced the mortgage debts of small farmers and other obligations to landowners. But the decisive step in land reform came with Decree No. 8 of 28 November 1978. Its aims were ‘to eliminate feudal and pre-feudal relations in the country’s social-economic system’, to increase agricultural production and to create a classless society without exploitation (Article 1). The key Article 3 stipulated: ‘No family may own more than 30 jeribs [6 hectares] of first-grade land or its equivalent.’ Any ‘surplus’ – that is, holdings above 15

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this limit – would be expropriated without compensation and distributed to those with a legitimate claim, including landless peasants (tenants), owners of tiny plots, rural labourers and nomads. Article 10 divided the land qualifying for expropriation into seven categories or grades; it also established a system of value equivalences among them, so that a maximum of 300 jeribs (60 hectares) was prescribed for land in Category 7 (lacking irrigation and cultivated less than once in two years), which was ten times greater than the upper limit for Category 1 (land with irrigated vegetable gardens and vineyards). The same applied to the proportionality of land redistribution: an eligible beneficiary could claim one hectare of Category 1 land or ten hectares of Category 7. This broad system of classification was roughly based on average yields, and it accurately reflected the very different ecological conditions for land cultivation. A huge propaganda drive attempted to popularize the land reform decree, repeatedly pointing out that only some 50,000 (4 per cent) of the 1.2 million owners of land would suffer expropriation, and 285,000 families would benefit from redistribution. The political objective of the new rulers was evident: to tie the rural underclass to them without impacting negatively on small landowners. The expropriation and redistribution of ‘surplus’ land was carried out by special commissions in the provinces, with a time schedule adjusted to the different climate zones. The operation began on 1 January 1979 and officially concluded on 30 June 1979, six months ahead of the original schedule. According to the final report issued in August, a total of 584,000 hectares were distributed to nearly 250,000 families – or an average of 2.3 hectares per family. This meant that at most 37 per cent of the 667,000 families previously without land received an allocation. Large areas of land (between 46,500 and 71,400 hectares) changed owners, especially in the northern provinces of Kunduz, Takhar, Balkh, Fariyab and Jowzjan, but also in Herat Province (59,000 hectares). On the other hand, the redistributed land areas (between 120 and 3,000 hectares) and the numbers of recipients were smaller in the eastern provinces of Kunar, Laghman, Parwan, Paktiya and Paktika, as well as in Bamiyan and Ghor. This was not only due to the prevalence of smallholdings in the east but also to the political situation on the ground: incipient resistance to the new regime made land redistribution impossible in many districts. After a short time, the redistribution proved to be a failure. Not only was it rushed through without adequate preparation, often by young party cadres devoid of specialist knowledge, but there was also a lack of funding and effective organizational measures to support the new layer of small

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farmers. It is true that agricultural cooperatives and special assistance funds had been advocated beforehand as self-help organizations and sources of credit, and that a considerable number of such initiatives were soon being reported. But, for want of actual financial resources and trained experts, they mostly existed only on paper. The new small farmers, often allocated only small areas and lacking access to seeds or ready cash, were largely left to fend for themselves. In these circumstances they hardly dared break the entrenched system of social relations in their villages. The web of kinship relations and tribal and economic ties linking the former tenant farmers and rural labourers to the landowners thus proved stronger than the redistribution of the land, which remained ineffective wherever opponents of the communist regime gained control – which soon meant extensive rural areas beyond the large towns and highways. After Soviet troops occupied Afghanistan at the end of 1979, the new government under Babrak Karmal tried to salvage the achievements of land reform and gain the trust of the rural population. It advocated a second stage of land reform, but the launch of this in early 1980 had to be postponed because of political developments inside the country. The objectives of this second phase tell us something about the difficulties that had arisen during the earlier land distribution. Now agricultural cooperatives were to be built on a voluntary basis; land not declared for tax purposes was to be registered; farm areas were to be more accurately measured and recorded; uniform new title deeds were to be issued; publicly owned land unsuitable for state farms was to be distributed to cooperatives and individual farmers; grievances resulting from Decree No. 8 were to be properly addressed, and so on. From the statements issued by the Afghan government and the official press (especially the Kabul New Times) it may readily be concluded that the land distribution created total confusion, all the worse because of the constant flare-up of fighting between Mujahedeen and Soviet or government troops, the resort to repressive measures and the flight of many hundreds of thousands of people. In order not to alienate the rural elite entirely, or even to encourage more favourable behaviour on its part, the Afghan government was induced to reverse some of the expropriations carried out under the first phase of land reform. This happened under the terms of Amendment 1 to Decree No. 8, dated 9 August 1981, which stated that land belonging to religious institutions (waqfs) was completely exempt from expropriation; that a partial reversal of expropriation should apply in the case of religious leaders and scholars, as well as tribal leaders of merit to the People’s Republic of Afghanistan, army officers, private individuals who promoted ­agricultural

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mechanization and delivered their produce to the state, and refugees who returned to the country. Lastly, in a resolution dated 5 September 1981, a joint commission set up by the Central Committee of the ‘People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan’ and the Council of Ministers admitted that land reform had encountered ‘phenomenal difficulties’ because of the ‘counterrevolution’ and mistakes on the government side. To avoid similar mistakes in the future, the implementation of the reforms would have to show due respect for the people’s religious beliefs, customs and traditions. From early 1982 onwards, a previously altogether neglected problem came to the fore in official statements and decrees: the revision of water rights. In the land redistribution of 1979, ownership rights over irrigation water had been largely disregarded, but in reality these played a major role in many irrigation areas, especially where water was in short supply. The pressure for a revision of water rights indicates that there was a great lack of clarity on the matter. This and other unsolved problems of land reform were supposed to be cleared up within the framework of several ‘operational plans’, the first of which was adopted on 20 March 1983. In the course of 1982, however, the land reform issue receded into the background in the Afghan press. It seems that other problems have weighed more heavily on the party and government: the confrontation with resistance fighters throughout the country, the consolidation of power in areas under government control, the securing of sufficient farm output to supply the cities, and so on. references

A.D. Davydov, The Agricultural Legislation in the Democratic Republic of ­Afghanistan (Russian) (Moscow: Nauka, 1984). Erwin Grötzbach, ‘Die afghanische Landreform von 1979: Durchführung und Probleme in geographischer Sicht’, Zeitschrift des deutschen Orient-Instituts (1982), pp. 394–413.

6

the k abul government institutions Chantal Lobato (Paris, May 1986) The government institutions discussed below are the ones that operated under Babrak Karmal (December 1979 to May 1986), essentially in Kabul and the government-controlled towns and regions. All are inspired by the organizational structure of the Soviet regime. the party

The Revolutionary Council, proclaimed following the coup d’ état of 1978, elects a presidium. The principal members of the Revolutionary Council are members of the Politburo. The Central Committee of the PDPA elects the Politburo and the Secretariat of the Central Committee. More than half the Politburo members are also members of the Secretariat. Until May 1986 these were Babrak Karmal, Saleh Mohammad Zeary, Dr Mohammad Najibullah and Noor Ahmad Noor. The Central Committee has various commissions, each charged with a particular sector of political, economic and social life. the administr ation

Each ministry has a number of departments. Sometimes it may also have a consultative committee, whose members have the title of advisory minister. In April 1985 a ministry of Islamic affairs and religious foundations (­sho’un-e islami wa auqaf) was set up, and in December the KHAD (khedamat-e ettelahat-e daulat – the Afghan KGB) was transformed into a ministry. Committees responsible for specific fields exist alongside the ministries. The 19

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heads of these state committees have the rank of ministers. All the ministries and state committees are supervised by the Council of Ministers, which is headed by the number two in the official hierarchy, Sultan Ali Keshtmand. Its members are either ministers with portfolio or ministers without portfolio in charge of a particular department within the Council of Ministers. There are a total of 11 departments. Since 1985 there has also been the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly), equivalent to the Supreme Soviet, and provincial jirgas corresponding to national soviets in the USSR. the organizations

There are mass organizations, such as the Organization for Peace, Solidarity and Fraternity, which exist only at national level, and whose members participate in similar international bodies. The other organizations, by contrast, have roots all the way down to village level. Three distinct categories may be identified: (a) socio-cultural organizations, such as the Union of Artists; (b) organizations with a more ideological and political function, such as the Council of the Hazara Nationality or the Council of the Ulamas (theologians, doctors of law); and (c) various cooperatives (of which the agricultural ones are the most important), trade unions and the Democratic Organization of the Women of Afghanistan. All these organizations are supervised by the primary National Fatherland Front (jabha-ye melli-ye padarwatan), which is in turn divided into a number of different fronts (Literacy Front, Youth Front, etc.). The Kabul government bodies are thus organized around three poles: party, administration and social organizations, in that order of precedence. How are they related to one another and how does the party ultimately control the set-up? The Council of Ministers is dependent on the Politburo and the Central Committee, and each ministry on the Council of Ministers, the Central Committee and, above all, the Central Committee Commission in charge of the affairs of its sector. For example, a planned radio broadcast on a religious theme prepared by the Ministry of Islamic Affairs and Religious Foundations must first be submitted to the religious broadcasts ­sub-commission, which is part of the propaganda, publicity and training commission of the Central Committee. The party’s ubiquitous presence means that a minister is simply an administrator; his role can be important only if he is a member of the Politburo, the Central Committee or both.

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The state committees are dependent directly upon the prime minister. In September 1982 the Information and Culture Ministry disappeared and was replaced with three state committees: the Bakhtar information agency, the radio, television and cinema committee, and the culture committee. Sultan Ali Keshtmand, the chairman of the Council of Ministers, justifies this change by arguing that the running of the media is now a political rather than an administrative task. The mass organizations and other organizations are dependent on the ministries as well as the party. Some projects can be implemented with the cooperation of different administrative bodies and associations. Thus the first health brigade was established jointly by the Health Ministry, the Education Ministry and the Democratic Organization of the Young People of Afghanistan. All the leading cadres of these associations belong to either the Revolutionary Council, the Politburo or the Central Committee. For example, Anahita Ratebzad, the chairwoman of the Organization for Peace, Solidarity and Fraternity, is a member of the Politburo and the presidium of the Revolutionary Council; and Sattar Purdelli, the chairman of the Trade Union Federation, is a member of the Central Committee. The higher one goes in the hierarchy of mass organizations, the higher is the rank that their cadres occupy in the party’s organizational structure. These organizations do not escape the rule: they are responsible at the top to the party. This is clearly the model of Soviet institutions.

7

what is becoming of the kyrgyz in turkey? Rémy Dor (March 1987) Nunc et serius: now and later. This might be a terse, pessimistic résumé of the fate of the Kyrgyz from Afghanistan’s Pamir region who have taken refuge in Turkey.1 Originally a Turkic-speaking people from Central Asia, whose name first appears in the early centuries of our era, the Kyrgyz of Afghanistan’s Pamir region belong to a confederation of tribes that settled in the north-west region of what is now Xinjiang in China. Living from nomadic pastoralism, this small group valiantly lived through the upheavals of the twentieth century, most notably the closing of the frontiers of the USSR and China. Through an unprecedented effort of social and economic reorganization, the Kyrgyz of Pamir managed to forge a place for themselves in Afghanistan. Then the communist revolution of 1978 sent them into exile: four years in Pakistan, then resettlement in Turkey. Karagündüz, a modest community in eastern Anatolia, is now home to some 800 of them, while another 400 live in Malatya. Lacking employment, they depend for their subsistence on small handouts from the Turkish authorities. However, the last four years have seen the building of a reception area (Altin Dere, the Golden Valley, to the north of Lake Van) earmarked for the Kyrgyz, who will also receive some 250 square kilometres of land on which to resume their activities as livestock breeders. The project seems to be running out of steam, however, if not actually seizing up, since it was due for completion in 1985 and the Kyrgyz are still waiting today, in 1987 … . Discouragement and weariness have therefore set in. Soon it will be ten years since the Kyrgyz became welfare dependants – they who previously depended on no one in their daily struggle to survive in a difficult environment. Now they are demoralized and their traditional structures and ties of 22

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clan solidarity are growing weaker; the patriarchal family is giving way to nuclear units, authority is trickling away from the elders, and the old cohesion of the Kyrgyz is being diluted. Even their charismatic leader, the khan Rahman Kul, is no longer safe from criticism! Changes in their daily surroundings, including a shift from the horizontality of the yurt to the verticality of Western-furnished houses, has resulted in irreversible damage. The Kyrgyz habitus – from physical gestures to mental attitudes – is undergoing transformation. It is now too late for them to preserve their cultural identity and go through a normal evolution, that is, a gradual process of change without major upheavals in their way of life and customs. Plunged into the modernity of a certain kind of technological progress, they have no other way forward than assimilation into the culture of present-day Turkey. This absorption is taking place at dizzying speed for young people currently at school. Already children speak only Turkish among themselves, and the spread of female literacy will accelerate the phenomenon of integration. What will remain tomorrow of Kyrgyz identity? During my last stay in Karagündüz in October 1986, the factors of dissociation seemed disturbing. Many refugees fear they will never be able to resume livestock breeding: there is too much snow, the vegetation is too unfamiliar, and so on. Young people dream of leaving the Van region, with its dearth of opportunities, and seeking work in Ankara, Istanbul or even the tourist areas on the Mediterranean coast. Problems are also beginning to appear with their neighbours. Surrounded by Kurds, the refugees in Karagündüz made their unease plain to me. Yet, if the fate of the Kyrgyz from Afghanistan’s Pamir region is compared with that of other Afghan refugees, it must be said that their living conditions have markedly improved. A revival of birth rates and the fresh blood resulting from their first inter-ethnic marriages are positive factors. The years to come will be decisive for this small group, whose tenacity and courage in the face of the vagaries of history have never yet failed. notes

1.

Rémy Dor got to know the Kyrgyz in Afghanistan’s Pamir region; he saw them as refugees in Pakistan (1978–82) and visits them every year in their new habitat in Turkey. references

Rémy Dor, ‘Les Kirghiz de Turquie’, Turcica XVIII (1987), and ‘Return to Karagündüz’, Central Asian Survey V/2 (1987).

8

the afghan situation in summer 1987 Olivier Roy (Dreux, October 1987) At the military level, Afghanistan has witnessed the emergence of two sorts of sanctuary. The arrival of Stingers and heavy weaponry has enabled the Afghan resistance to protect its bases, but it does not yet have a strategy to threaten the Soviets in their bastions. The Soviets have fallen back on ‘usable’ parts of the country, that is, the areas around the capital, a few towns under their control and the major routes linking Kabul to the Soviet frontier. The Stinger effect is coming fully into play. The presence of these antiaircraft missiles in some (though not all) resistance zones has challenged Soviet air supremacy, forcing fighter-bombers to remain at high altitude and helicopters to confine themselves to hedge-hopping. Suddenly the resistance has been able to create sanctuaries for itself: since spring 1987 military bases, as well as whole regions and civilian populations, have no longer been subject to Soviet air attacks. The Soviets use artillery to replace deficiencies in air support, but this is effective only within a radius of 30–40 km around the Red Army bases. Whole regions are therefore once again safe from Soviet reprisals, allowing both fighters and civilians to seal themselves off from the war. Another reason why the number of refugees is tending to decline is that the lalmi (dried crop) harvests have generally been good this year. On the other hand, the Mujahedeen are scarcely increasing the pressure on the Soviet army. Most of their frontlines are content to harass government positions, either because there are no Soviets in range or because the local peasantry’s fear of artillery reprisals (as in the Shamali Plain north of Kabul) impels fighters to refrain from attacking Soviet positions. Besides, 24

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the tactics of the Afghan guerrillas are not suited to the capture of bases defended by powerful artillery. Only Ahmad Shah Massoud, whose reputation is not overblown, has learned how to develop a small professional army capable of overrunning government bases, as at Nahrin (in Baghlan Province) in November 1986 and Kalafgan (in Takhar Province) in July 1987. Militarily, the problem for the resistance is more one of tactics and strategy than of logistics. Weapons are getting through to them, despite a resurgence of Soviet ambushes and the old Afghan habit of pillaging convoys bound for rival groups. The Soviets are therefore applying a conservative policy: their aim is to hold on to their trump cards (Kabul, major communication routes, large bases and, politically, a PDPA regime), but without clearly choosing the path of real negotiations. They batten down the hatches, waiting for the situation to turn in their favour if and when the Pakistanis withdraw their support; the Americans grow weary, and so on. On the ground, their objective is to avoid heavy losses and prop up a regime that would collapse without them. The policy of national reconciliation is a complete failure: no new zone has rallied to the regime and there has been no significant return of refugees to a government-controlled area. Instances of new local support do not signal a mood of national reconciliation but merely reflect the traditional cleavages of Afghan society – rivalry among local notables and group vendettas. The government army has made no headway and its strength is still being sapped by desertions. Apart from a few local militias, only military units of the KHAD (secret police) and the Sarandoys (defenders of the revolution, dependent on the Interior Ministry) are effective in battle. But although that is enough to establish a protective cordon around the Soviet bases and a number of towns, it is by no means sufficient to regain territory. Since last April the Soviets have therefore given up major offensives against resistance strongholds. Their position is a defensive one, but they are still far from being overwhelmed. There is also an impasse at the political level, in terms of both Soviet ‘overtures’ and diplomatic breakthroughs by the resistance. Although the parties of the Afghan resistance in Peshawar have agreed on greater institutionalization and a common spokesperson (appointed for six months), dynamic diplomacy should not be expected from their side. One new phenomenon, however, is the widening of regional military coordination in the Afghan resistance. This is visible in Kandahar (the commanders’ council), in the north-east zone (the supervisory council, Shura-ye nazar, presided over by Massoud) and in the west (as evidenced

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by the meeting of 1,200 commanders at Ghor, under the auspices of Ismail Khan). These councils do not attempt to take the place of parties but try to limit local conflicts and to improve the level of military coordination. They conform to what the local population expects. Their development is of great importance and will put pressure on the various parties to be more united. In conclusion, nothing on the ground points to a political solution in the near future. The two camps have dug in for the long haul. The Soviets have lost all hope of crushing the resistance militarily, but they are not prepared to abandon the PDPA, despite what they may say informally. The resistance, for its part, has no strategy to threaten the Soviets in their strongholds and cannot hope to wage a diplomatic offensive until there are improvements in its political apparatus. That does not seem likely any time soon. The war is set to last.

9

towards a soviet withdr awal? Olivier Roy (Dreux, February 1988) On both the Soviet and American sides, there is more and more talk of an agreement between the US/Pakistan and the USSR for a Soviet troop withdrawal from Afghanistan in less than 12 months. This has ceased to be an absurd scenario. But, if the Soviets pull out, what regime will they leave behind – assuming that they actually have the means to impose one? A Soviet withdrawal is still only a conditional hypothesis, but we may consider its implications as a thought exercise. Since a division of power between the resistance and the communists is inconceivable, any agreement on Afghanistan will necessarily involve the victory of one side over the other at some time in the future – unless the neighbouring powers (obviously including the USSR) maintain a Lebanization of the country. So, what are the American and Soviet calculations? Who are the winners and losers, the naive and the cynical? The USA, in the person of Ronald Reagan, has just reiterated its total support for the resistance. Congress, where some reservations over the signing of an INF treaty have begun to surface,1 will not allow the resistance to be left in the lurch. The US executive therefore envisages the victory, not the abandonment, of the resistance. In this respect, the State Department analysis is identical to that of the Pakistani government: any Soviet withdrawal over a period of 12 months means the collapse of the Kabul regime, hence the short-term victory of the resistance. Since the resistance has enough stocks of weapons to last a year, an end to US aid would not be a handicap, especially if it took place gradually. Any coalition or compromise formula for a transitional government would exist only to enable the Soviets to save face and avoid a massacre of the Afghan communists. The priority is therefore to construct an alliance of the resistance parties capable of taking over 27

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the government in Kabul as quickly as possible. This analysis does not mean that the Americans would ditch the resistance. But it rests on the debatable hypothesis that the regime will collapse and the resistance will therefore take power. Here the Soviet analysis needs to be built into the picture – and that is much more difficult. For the Soviets accept the premises underlying the American argument: the regime cannot hold on militarily without direct Soviet support, and the resistance has stockpiles available. The idea that the Soviets might just pretend to withdraw some troops, as they did in October 1986, does not hold water, since the Americans would immediately resume arms deliveries and the Soviets would not be able to achieve in 12 months what they have failed to do in eight years: Afghanize the war. So, what is the Soviet calculation? The first possibility is that the Soviets (that is, Gorbachev) are willing to withdraw from Afghanistan so long as they can avoid losing face, and that they will drop the Communist Party so long as the future regime is not pro-American – a guarantee that will be readily granted to them. This does not seem a likely hypothesis. Not only would the Soviets lose any chance of regaining a foothold in Afghanistan for several generations, but they would lose their credibility in relation to comparable regimes facing greater danger in more distant parts (Ethiopia, South Yemen), not to speak of the fears within the USSR of what such a policy of abandonment might entail. The key problem for the USSR, then, is how to leave and remain at the same time, that is, how to withdraw its troops while preventing a resistance takeover of power and keeping a foothold in Afghanistan. In this regard, the American analysis – which assumes that the resistance will come to power after a regime collapse – is naively optimistic. The announcement of a political settlement, however fuzzy, would immediately trigger a race to Kabul among all the resistance parties and a collapse of the Peshawar Alliance. Since the Soviet threat would appear to have been removed, the jihadist ideological cement binding the resistance together would give way to ad hoc alliances, including segments of the communist regime (army, militias), thus allowing the USSR not only to save part of the communist apparatus but also to give it a central role in the reshaping of alliances and therefore to retain some influence over the course of events. This process of recomposition could take place in Kabul itself as well as on the various local fronts. As far as the resistance is concerned, we would see a sharpening of rivalry between the Hezb of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (who wishes to play a lone hand) and the other resistance parties, especially Rabbani’s Jamiat, which

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would alone have the means to oppose a Hezb coup in Kabul. Were a Soviet withdrawal to be suddenly announced, the Pashtun tribes would attempt to restage their capture of Kabul in 1929, with a framework rather favourable to the Mahaz-e melli leader Gailani. Refugees would want to stream back, fearing that others might grab their lands and possessions; they would support the Hezb or Gailani, and only the Pakistanis could try to prevent an anarchic armed return en masse. The other parties would make the most of their local assets, and a profusion of regional fronts would either establish autonomous bastions or implode under the impact of mini civil wars. That is when remnants of the Communist Party and the army might be able to play a role, by deciding with whom to form local alliances or to whom to hand over Kabul. In such a scenario, in which Soviet troops really did withdraw, the Americans would have to stop supplying the resistance and therefore lose the little control they currently exercise over Afghan political evolution. A Lebanized Afghanistan, divided among Soviet, Pakistani and Iranian spheres of influence, might in future become the object of a more subtle kind of Sovietization, in which the revolutionary process was set aside in favour of an exclusive pursuit of geostrategic advantages. Such Machiavellianism is not in the tradition of Soviet diplomacy, which seeks stable solutions and does not like having to manage permanent crises, especially on its frontiers. But the true novelty of Gorbachevism lies precisely in the abandonment of such strategic conservatism, not in a supposed love of peace. What can prevent the catastrophic scenario described above? The answer is: an alliance of resistance forces outside Hekmatyar’s Hezb, together with coordinated action by the main commanders inside the country to limit the inevitable clashes, to jointly manage the Soviet withdrawal and to support the Alliance. Although the commanders are now more likely to give proof of their political maturity, it is clear that American indulgence, or even favouritism, towards Hezb is far from preparing the ground for a smooth marginalization of that party. The Peshawar parties are definitely not mature enough to take over the government of the country. A transitional solution (the king or another political entity) would prevent a civil war from erupting only if the commanders inside the country were associated with it. But no moves have been made in that direction. The signing of an agreement would be risky and premature in the present conditions. At the same time, the military leaders of the Afghan resistance are in essence neutralists – it was the Soviet invasion that pushed them into the Western camp. They are not ignorant of the bigger problems facing Afghanistan:

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there will be no development without an economic cooperation agreement with the USSR, and Afghanistan cannot end up in an openly anti-Soviet camp. The war is teaching realism: Afghans know that if the Kabul regime will not last a minute without the Russians, the Russians will be part of the landscape for a long time to come. The key to the transition will therefore be the commanders inside the country, who can combine national independence with a guarantee of neutrality in the event that the USA wishes to make a political comeback (an unlikely development, given that it never accorded any real importance to Afghanistan before 1980). notes

1.

Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (8 December 1987).

10

afghan women today Pierre Centlivres and Micheline Centlivres-Demont (Neuchâtel, July 1988)

In Islam there is no difference between man and woman. Both have the same rights, except in a few particular cases due to natural differences in their constitution. (Gulbuddin Hekmatyar)

To speak of the lot of Afghan women is to give a false generalization. The division of productive tasks between men and women varies according to region and ethnic group. The agricultural labour of ploughing and reaping is generally male, although this does not exclude some complementary female activities in the picking of crops (cotton, for example) or in the household. In Nuristan, however, nearly all agricultural labour falls on women, while the men look after the herds. Among nomadic livestock breeders, men watch over and drive the animals and generally attend to their husbandry, while women process the dairy products and take charge of erecting and dismantling the mobile tents or yurts. Among the Durrani Pashtuns in Kandahar and north-west Afghanistan, the women milk animals and weave the tent canopy, but men are responsible for these tasks among the Ghilzai Pashtuns in the south-east. Lastly, in the towns, craftwork, trade and services are male occupations insofar as they are linked to the public market, but women engage in domestic crafts involving rudimentary levels of technology, tooling and investment. On the eve of the coup d’ état in 1978, the conditions of Afghan women were reminiscent of those in rural societies of the southern Mediterranean and the Middle East. At the centre of an exchange system involving whole families rather than individuals, a wife is acquired through a property transfer to her parents that provides the husband’s family with her reproductive capacities. In fact, it is 31

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as mothers that Afghan women attain their full status, managing the domestic space and assuming responsibility for their children, daughters-in-law and servants. Under Islamic law, the sister inherits only half of the share left to her brother on their father’s death. In practice all the land assets accrue to male heirs; the wife is considered wholly part of the husband’s family, unable to inherit property from her own original family. She does have a right to own, and indeed to run, a business such as a trucking or carpet-weaving firm, but custom keeps her out of the public sphere; she conducts her commercial activities through a representative (wakil), usually a brother or uncle. Within the household group, she has the usufruct of dairy produce, the hen house, the garden and, of course, the fruits of her craft labour (embroidery, weaving, etc.). Divorce is very rare in rural Afghanistan, and polygamy is found in little more than five per cent of marriages. It is considered shameful for a widow to return to her family of origin or to remain isolated, and thus she will often claim the right to a levirate marriage. As a woman she pays a heavy price in terms of maternal and infant mortality. In the 1970s the population structure of Afghanistan differed markedly from Europe’s, with 48.8 per cent females and 51.2 per cent males. In the cities, on the other hand, the condition of women has been regarded as unjust ever since the reign of Amir (later King) Amanullah (1919–29). Women there are often cut off from their female solidarity networks, isolated within the conjugal family. The vagaries and unknowns of urban life, as well as the example of the middle classes, induce women to wear the purdah (the veil of seclusion). Modern economic development, which accentuates the split between production and domestic life, serves to marginalize women. The conflict between progressives (the intellectual elites, academics and government officials) and conservatives (mullahs, small traders and the lower middle class) has repeatedly manifested itself since the 1920s. From the age of Amanullah through to Taraki (1978–79), the regime tried several times to improve the situation of women by decree (abolition of the veil and dowries, introduction of mixed education, etc.). In Kabul in the 1970s, Western modes of dress and behaviour were beginning to spread among the sons and daughters of the bourgeoisie, but the reaction of traditionalists was always violently hostile. Even today, however, in Najibullah’s Kabul, girls told a Washington Post journalist in 1987 that they would accept a marriage arranged by their parents so long as they were consulted in advance. Decree No. 7 of October 1978, following the coup in April, aimed to radically improve the condition of women and relations between the sexes. It established equal political, cultural and civil rights for men and women,

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with the intention of ‘abolishing unjust, patriarchal and feudal relations between men and women and consolidating sincere family ties’. Practical measures included a ceiling of 300 afghanis for the price of a fiancée and ceremonial expenses, a ban on forced marriages and a minimum age for marriage (16 and 18 years), on pain of a jail term of up to three years. Traditional marriage was seen increasingly as a symbol of backwardness. Many men and women stood up against this seemingly emancipatory Decree No. 7, seeing it as wrongful interference in matters regulated by Sharia law. The reduction to near-zero of the bride price and other expenses associated with marriage appeared as an affront to the status of woman, as if her ‘rate’ and her role in exchanges between families and clans were of little consequence. The ‘women’s policy’ of the revolutionary government, which also established compulsory female education, played no small part in alienating the population. In the early years after 1978, schoolgirls in Kabul rebelled several times against the new measures and provided the resistance with its first ‘martyrs’. By 1980, the beginning of the Babrak period, the PDPA had recognized its errors in this respect. At present, the Kabul government policies lay greater emphasis on women’s role as mothers, seeking to improve their welfare, health and development, rather than as emancipated or productive ‘activists’ (15 per cent of PDPA members are women). The Constitution of November 1987 reaffirms the equality of women and men (Article 14), while Article 15 stipulates that ‘the state will take the necessary measures to ensure the health of women and children and the education of children’. It is in the fields of health and education, and above all in the mass organizations, that Kabul appears to have had some success. Mention should also be made of two pro-regime women’s organizations: (1) the Democratic Organization of Afghan Women (DOAW), which has relations with other progressive women’s organizations around the world; (2) the Association of Wives and Mothers of the Martyrs of the Revolution. Furthermore, women occupy as much as 50 per cent of the lower and middle posts in the administration in Kabul, and account for 50 per cent of Kabul university students (a proportion largely resulting from the war). Women in government-controlled regions do not seem to play an active role in the war, however, any more than they do in the resistance movements. In the refugee camps or villages (ARVs) in Pakistan, women make up a majority of adult Afghans who have left their country (28 per cent compared

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with 25 per cent men). Observers have often noted a greater degree of purdah (seclusion) in the ARVs as well as a disturbing increase of nervous disorders and psychological illnesses. This is true but only part of the story. Certainly the situation of women is negatively influenced by exile in an unfamiliar milieu, in tribal regions where an extreme concept of male honour prevails. In the ARVs one sees a fragmentation of the family group resulting from the war and male migration to Pakistani cities in search of work; one also sees people from different origins and tribes living side by side with one another. Moreover the insecure and cramped environment affords little privacy to ARV inhabitants. Unlike at home in Afghanistan, the women have scarcely any opportunity to leave their living quarters and spend time working in the garden or orchard, visiting neighbours or making a pilgrimage to a saint’s tomb. The only time they go out to meet people is when they attend the clinic. However, thanks to the better medical supervision in the refugee villages, the health of women, especially around the time of childbirth, has definitely improved. Infant mortality has declined in comparison with the old days in Afghanistan or the first few years of exile and it is also lower than among the Pakistani rural population. After early difficulties, a number of girls’ schools and even secondary schools have been established, both by the UNHCR and by political parties within the Afghan resistance. In seeking to overcome the widespread negative attitudes to girls’ education, the parties in the Alliance have insisted that Islam itself deems it compulsory, the only condition being that boys and girls are taught separately from the third class on. These parties have also created female organizations such as the Shura-ye zainabia (affiliated to Mohseni’s Shia party) and the Islamic Organization of Afghan Women (which is supported by various Islamist parties). The latter has set up a number of schools and training centres in the Peshawar area. For the Islamist parties in the resistance, ‘the emancipation of Afghan women is not synonymous with Western-style women’s liberation. The Afghan woman has a culture of her own and specific problems. We consider that, so long as the true Islamic status of women is not accorded to Afghan women, it is wrong to believe that our society is evolving in a positive direction’.1 In the (essentially rural) zones of Afghanistan not under Kabul government control, the women who remain in the villages have often developed a new awareness of themselves and their responsibilities; they also take part in the war effort, not as armed fighters but in the spheres of transport, provisioning and communications. Neither are women absent from the new administrative structures set up by certain civilian and military

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c­ ommanders – for example, in the north-east and in regions under the control of Massoud or Amin Wardak. Observers too often take external appearances (such as the wearing of the veil) as signs of the marginalization or inferior status of women. But even in exile the number of young girls at school is proportionately larger than it was in rural Afghanistan before the war. By virtue of their numbers, as well as the responsibilities they have taken on, women have become increasingly aware of their role in society, both in the ranks of the resistance and on the government side. notes

1.

Résistance afghane, No. 2, March–April 1988.

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pakistan and the afghan issue Mushahid Hussain (Islamabad, March 1989)

In the coming crucial weeks and months, the role of Pakistan will be extremely important since it hosts 3 million Afghan refugees and supports the Afghan Mujahedeen through arms, sanctuaries and other logistical assistance. It is pertinent, then, to understand Pakistan’s goals, stated or otherwise. Pakistan’s stated goals have been only two: unconditional withdrawal of Soviet troops and the return of refugees. Actually there are four, in the following descending order of importance: • the ousting of Najib and the PDPA regime (Prime Minister Bhutto said this in so many words during a 6 February 1989 interview with Reuters); • installation of a ‘friendly government’ in Kabul, i.e., preferably dominated by the Peshawar-based Mujahedeen alliance and excluding Zahir Shah; • return of refugees in ‘dignity and honour’; • contribution to the reconstruction of war-torn Afghanistan. During the time of General Zia (1978–88) it was generally believed that he linked his own political survival and continuation in power with Mujahedeen military victory, since Afghanistan was the centrepiece of Pakistan’s American connection. That would not be the case with the present government, since it was elected and so would not require external adventures to boost its internal strength. For the future, Pakistan is concerned on certain counts with continuing its Afghanistan policy of pursuing the military option. Firstly, after the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan is not helping the Afghan resistance in oppos36

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ing foreign military occupation, which is justified as a principled, moral stand, but continuing with the military option means a role as an active partisan in the Afghan civil war. Secondly, attempting to install a particular kind of government in Kabul, based on certain political preferences, could be a difficult and even dangerous exercise. Fashioning together governmental structures in conflict situations, with divisions running deep, can easily backfire. For example, Iran had sought the ousting of Saddam Hussein and his replacement by a pliable regime as a key objective of their war effort, but despite the apparent unpopularity of the Baathist strongman, the Iranians could not achieve this goal. Similarly the United States, for all its awesome power, failed to install governments of its choice in Cuba and Nicaragua. Thirdly, the fallout of the Afghan civil war will be felt in Pakistan, possibly through acts of terrorism, bombings and even missile attacks. Hopefully the authorities will have figured out some of the consequences that may emerge from a protracted civil war close to their own doorstep. Ten years after the Soviet intervention, it needs to be understood that Pakistan’s Afghan policy has not been entirely cost-free. The country and the people have had to pay a heavy price in the form of the ‘Culture of Kalashnikovs’, the proliferation of drugs and the general destabilization of society, particularly in such key urban areas as Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi and Hyderabad. As one senior American diplomat said in Islamabad: ‘If you had known the heavy cost of such a policy in 1980, you wouldn’t have begun it in the first place.’ Islamic solidarity notwithstanding, Afghanistan straddles two sensitive provinces of Pakistan, namely, the North West Frontier and Baluchistan. To date, no prominent Afghan leader or political party has accepted the Durand Line as a recognized international border between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistan’s role after the withdrawal of Soviet troops should be limited to ensure two basic things: keeping Indian influence out and supporting whoever manages to win the war and takes Kabul, rather than relying on favoured political parties or personalities. In such a situation, where lines are sharply drawn even within the Mujahedeen groups, ‘playing favourites’ can be dicey and there is only a thin line that separates ‘advice’ from ‘interference’. Years of foreign military intervention, civil war and internal squabbles have destabilized Afghanistan to such an extent that a smooth transition will not be possible, and political power, in the form of who rules Kabul, will, in the famous dictum of Chairman Mao, ‘grow from the barrel of a gun’.

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afghanistan: an american view Selig S. Harrison (Washington, June 1989) Mikhail Gorbachev clearly recognizes the limitations of the Afghan Communist Party and is actively seeking to escape from the futile commitment to communist domination in Kabul made by his predecessors. This is the unambiguous Soviet position as it was spelled out to me in a series of high-level meetings with officials of the Central Committee, the Foreign Ministry and the Defence Ministry during a recent three-week visit to Moscow. In my view, Gorbachev is prepared to support a peaceful transfer of power in Afghanistan in which President Najibullah’s regime would step down once negotiations to establish a broad-based transitional government had been concluded. Moscow’s minimum conditions for such a political settlement are that the communists should not be excluded from the process of establishing a transitional regime; that the process be conducted under independent auspices, free from the control of Pakistani and American intelligence agencies; and that the Communist Party be recognized as a legitimate participant in any future elections to be conducted by a transitional regime. Representation of the Communist Party, as such, in a transitional government is an expendable bargaining demand. In short, while giving up its effort to ensure communist dominance, Moscow wants to be able to say that it has preserved an opportunity for the communists to compete in the power struggles ahead. Indeed, it is important to recognize that the Geneva Accords (1988) were acceptable to the Soviet Union as a face-saving compromise precisely because they did not require Moscow to abandon its Afghan clients. The basic dilemma now confronting Moscow and Washington alike is that neither the Kabul regime nor the Peshawar government-in-exile estab38

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lished by Pakistan and the United States represent the majority of Afghans. Neither can serve as the nucleus of a broad-based regime because both bear the stigma of foreign parentage. The challenge confronting the international community is to create new, independent processes of intra-Afghan political dialogue and accommodation that will give equitable representation to the unorganized, voiceless majority in shaping a political settlement. Such processes would swamp both the communists and the Islamic fundamentalists, who now enjoy a degree of importance out of all proportion to their following. The Secretary General of the United Nations is uniquely positioned to set in motion what would necessarily be a protracted search for a political solution over a period of many months. Until recently, both the United States and Pakistan, focusing on a military victory, have discouraged intervention by the Secretary General. However, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s visit has signalled a new flexibility in Pakistan’s posture, reflected in her Congressional speech calling on the ‘world community’ to rise to the challenge of finding a political settlement. Regrettably, the Bush administration is clinging to its hope of a military victory while seeking to broaden the base of the Peshawar government-inexile. In my view, this policy is likely to produce inconclusive results both militarily and politically. It is a no-win policy that will entail high costs in bloodshed and devastation as well as the growing alienation of the USA from the majority of Afghans. The motivation and staying power of the communist forces have been demonstrated in the Jalalabad fighting (March 1989). Conceivably, with a large-scale expansion of frontline Pakistani technical and logistical support now being provided, the resistance forces would be able to use armoured vehicles and improve their showing. However, the deep-seated divisions in the resistance make a definitive victory unlikely in the absence of years of training in conventional warfare and a massive escalation of American military aid extending not only to armoured vehicles but also to aircraft. More importantly, even in the event that the communists are dislodged from Kabul, they would not necessarily stop fighting. Afghanistan would in all probability remain locked in a continuing civil war involving the communists, Islamic fundamentalist factions backed by Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia, Shia groups backed by Iran, and many of the resistance field commanders, especially those linked to the powerful tribal groups rooted in the Pashtun ethnic majority, who look to former King Zahir Shah as their spokesman.

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afghanistan what should american priorities be in afghanistan?

1. The United States and the Soviet Union should seek to negotiate a mutually acceptable ‘negative symmetry’ agreement under which both sides would terminate military aid to the Afghan combatants. Originally proposed by the United States in March 1988, ‘negative symmetry’ was rejected at that time by Moscow. Since Gorbachev’s reversal of the Soviet position in November 1988, however, it is Washington that has rejected the concept. An agreement to terminate weapons aid would be a necessary first step in creating a climate conducive to a successful secondstage effort by United Nations Secretary General Perez De Cuellar to promote a broad-based regime. The Bush administration has opposed a mutual aid cut-off on the basis that recent Soviet military aid, especially Scud missiles, has created a qualitative imbalance between Kabul and its opponents. However, on my recent trip to Moscow, Soviet spokesmen indicated a readiness to negotiate a withdrawal of the Scud missiles as part of a ‘negative symmetry’ agreement. 2. Once an aid cut-off has been agreed upon, the Afghan combatants would be compelled, for the first time, to focus seriously on possible political compromises. Secretary General Perez De Cuellar should then be encouraged to abide by the 3 November 1988 General Assembly resolution calling on him to promote a broad-based government embracing ‘all segments’ of the Afghan people.

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the political reconstruction of afghanistan: the hazar as a hundred years after abdur r ahman Rolf Bindemann (Berlin, July 1989) More than ten years of war have brought about far-reaching political, economic and demographic changes in Afghanistan, which make it unlikely that the ancien régime of which many elder statesmen dream in exile can ever return. Meanwhile the period of Soviet occupation appears as a bloody interlude, since the withdrawal of Soviet troops has not yet decisively altered the balance between the Kabul government and the Mujahedeen, neither resulting in nor bringing within grasp a military or political resolution in favour of either side. After the Soviet troop withdrawal, the dissolution of the PDPA government in Kabul remains the last common goal for the resistance parties and groupings, while there is a wide spectrum of divergent opinions and objectives concerning the political future of Afghanistan. Extreme representatives of the Pashtun parties in Peshawar are said to favour a federation with Pakistan, whereas, during the lifetime of Ayatollah Khomeini, influential sheikhs of the Hazara party, the Sepah-e pasdaran, looked to a future under the leadership of the Imam. Some aim to achieve an Islamic republic under the old king Zahir Shah, others a federal system based on councils and supported by the Mujahedeen commanders. In spring 1989, after the Soviet withdrawal, the meeting in Rawalpindi to form a transitional government ended in failure because of still irresolvable conflicts between the Sunni and Shia party coalitions – conflicts which, of course, might also be seen as a wider clash between the regional powers – Iran and Pakistan – supporting the two sides. 41

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A brief historical overview may shed some light on the political ideas of the Shias, especially the Hazaras. The latter first appeared as a political entity during the forcible incorporation of the last independent regions of Hazarajat in the south-central highlands of Afghanistan (1890–93) – not so much on their own initiative or through organizational processes of their own making as because Amir Abdur Rahman Khan declared them to be infidel Shia rebels, common enemies of the other (Sunni) peoples of Afghanistan. The first political pronouncement by members of the Hazara people was a declaration of nine elders from the hitherto independent Hazara region of Uruzgan. It was their answer to Abdur Rahman Khan’s demand that they submit to his authority, in view of an ostensible threat from the four neighbouring countries: With the help of the Five People of the Cloak (Mohammad, Ali, Fatima, Hassan and Hussein), we modestly consider ourselves to be the fifth state. With the support of Ali, we shall bring the voice of this fifth state to the hearing of the world of God’s creatures, and we shall not obey the command of the Amir of the Afghans.1

The response of the Amir of the Afghans is well known. Hazarajat was conquered in the course of the next three years, a large part of its population was killed, enslaved or driven into exile in Iran and (British) India, the depopulated south-western parts of Hazarajat were handed over to Sunni settlers, and the pastoral areas placed at the disposal of Pashtun nomads. Only the reign of King Amanullah Khan (1919–29) brought some degree of political emancipation to certain members of the Hazara people: they obtained access to middle ranks in the army, had some representation in the Kabul parliament of the day and secured the abolition of slavery. As a result of these policies, Amanullah Khan won the support of most Hazaras for his struggle against the Tajik rebel leader Bacha-ye Saqqau. But after his flight from the country in summer 1929, certain features of his fightback made it clear that the absolutist system of his grandfather, the ‘iron amir’ Abdur Rahman Khan, had by no means succeeded in integrating the Hazaras into a (Pashtun-dominated) Afghan nation-state. During his nine-month rule in Kabul in 1929, Bacha-ye Saqqau (Habibullah Kalakani) sent the best-known historian of the Hazara, Mulla Faiz Mohammad Kateb (author of the Seraj at-tavarikh), to negotiate with the Hazaras. But the secular and religious dignitaries who at that time had formed a kind of counter-government in Hazarajat sent him back to Kabul with a list of political demands:

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1. exemption from the land tax until the whole of Afghanistan had accepted rule from Kabul; 2. permission to retain their weapons; 3. release from military service and from the obligation to put up with Afghan officials in Hazarajat; 4. complete autonomy within their frontiers; 5. friendly relations between them and the Kabul government; […] 8. foreign government guarantees of these conditions.2 For a few months during the Saqqau war of 1929 – which, as in 1890–93, took on features of a Sunni–Shia religious confrontation – certain secular and religious Hazara leaders governed an independent Hazarajat. And it was in part these same leaders who, during the seventh, so-called ‘liberal’, parliamentary period of the ‘first democracy’, put forward political demands concerning the specific problems and ambitions of the Hazaras. They demanded the creation of a Hazarajat province, with its seat of government in Panjao for the summer and Bamiyan for the winter; the closure of Hazarajat pastures to Pashtun nomads (Kuchis); and a cessation of the arbitrary behaviour of local officials. They also called for an end to ethnic discrimination against the Hazaras and the recognition of equal educational opportunities.3 In 1964, at the constitutional assembly at the beginning of the ‘royal democracy’, a couple of dozen Hazara delegates put their old demands back on the agenda. In addition, they argued that Twelver Shiism be recognized in the constitution as the second state religion, alongside the Sunni Hanafi branch of Islam. But they were unable to gain a majority for any of their proposals. The failure of Hazara notables and influential people to achieve anything, either in parliament or at an informal political level – the kinship ties of the Mohammadzai royal family created through the numerous Hazara concubines of Amir Habibullah (1901–19) – inevitably led to a dwindling of their authority. So in the late 1960s and early 1970s many young Hazaras joined the so-called ‘Maoist’ parties, Shola-ye javid and Setam-e melli. Both sought to end national oppression in Afghanistan, but at the same time they challenged the traditional regional authorities and pursued social revolutionary goals which did not differ essentially from the ideology of the Khalq/ Parcham Party. Out of economic necessity, thousands of Hazara men migrated during this period to seek work or study theology in Iran or Iraq. They brought back with them the Iranian variant of Shiism and the ideas of Khomeini,

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who had been politically active since the beginning of the 1960s. This led to the formation of oppositional circles, mostly grouped around eminent Shia theologians, which followed Khomeini’s example of politicizing religion in a way that would now be called fundamentalist or Islamist. The ‘presidential dictatorship’ of Daud Khan (1973–78) drove many oppositionists (not only Hazara) into exile. Leftists mainly went to Pakistan, where they joined the Hazara exile community dating from the time of Abdur Rahman Khan and founded the political-cultural association known as Tanzim-e nasl-e naw-e Hazara-ye Moghol. The Khomeinists, for their part, took refuge in Iran. Resistance to the Khalq/Parcham regime began in Hazarajat (early 1979, Dara-i Suf district) as a revolt by miners not organized in parties. Peasant risings followed in all other regions of the central highlands, but urban political organizations with more general (not only Hazara-specific) objectives linked to world revolution or world Islam did not play an identifiable role. During this period, as before in 1929, village notables (arbab, qariadar), prominent religious figures and former deputies in the Kabul parliament were able to take over the traditional administration of liberated areas of Hazarajat. A Revolutionary Council of Islamic Unity of Afghanistan (Shura-ye ittifaq) was established. But the exiles came back when it turned out that Hazarajat remained a securely liberated region, where leftist and Islamist forces from various backgrounds could play out their political experiments. This led to a civil war in Hazarajat, which pitted members of the most diverse groups and parties against one another in murderous combat. Indeed the struggle among rival groups and parties now caused more casualties and drove more families to flee than the attacks of Soviet and Kabul troops. The political and economic effects of the last ten years in Hazarajat should be seen as revolutionary. With their bloody campaigns against the traditional upper classes (the khans and arbabs and the non-political clerics associated with them), the Iran-oriented Islamist parties waged a class struggle that created faits accomplis on the ground (including radical economic changes) that will not be easily reversed. In regions controlled by the strongest Islamist parties (Nasr, Harakat-e islami and Sepah), government is often in the hands of clerics, so that the aim of the Islamic revolution – wilayat-e faqih or rule by Islamic legal scholars – could be transferred to the centralstate level. I am not yet able to gauge the impact of Khomeini’s death on the wishes of some Sepah leaders for an Imam-ruled Iran and Afghanistan, and more

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generally on Iran’s political-religious influence over the Shia resistance in Afghanistan. One thing is certain: the Islamist war on Hazara nationalism, embodied by the khans but also by young left-wing intellectuals, is missing its target, since the aim of such nationalism, an autonomous Hazarajat, has become a reality in the course of the resistance struggle, and any future Afghan government will have to take it into account, either through a federal constitution or through a new round of violent centralization. Among the Islamist parties, Nasr, Harakat and Sepah have agreed to tolerate, and to some extent even to cooperate with, one another. Only the Shura-ye ittifaq (itself now a party) and the Hazara branch of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e islami still fan the flames of civil war with occasional military forays. The joint conquest and amicably shared annexation of the city of Bamiyan points towards cooperation with Sunni parties too. But as in the war against Bacha-ye Saqqau, Hazara hatred of the Pashtuns appears to be playing a stronger political role again. There are rumours that Nasr, Harakat and Sepah, together with Ahmad Shah Massoud’s Jamiat-e islami, are seeking to establish an anti-Pashtun alliance. The nomads (kuchi) have not been able to use summer pastures in Hazarajat since the outbreak of the resistance war, with the result that the Hazaras have increased their herds and the area of land available for winter fodder. To reverse this might cause further major difficulties for a future central government. Since Afghanistan’s great Ring Road (which before the war made parts of Hazarajat peripheral) is still controlled by the Kabul government, the central highlands have developed into the main route for transport between north Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. This has brought an amazing boom in trade and services for the areas concerned, as well as reducing the pressure of (often well-educated) Hazara refugees on the cities of Afghanistan and helping to preserve their labour for the region. At the present time, it is hard to predict how the political future of the Hazara will shape up in a post-war Afghanistan. Since Pashtuns form the largest contingent of refugees, the demographic composition of the country has for the moment changed in favour of non-Pashtun population groups. A transitional parliament would have to take this into account – not least because of the numerically strong representation of the Hazaras. Starting from the current distribution of power in Hazarajat, it seems likely that the Hazaras will no longer choose to be represented by their old professional politicians. An important goal for Hazara representatives in a future central government must be to maintain and strengthen the new transport links mentioned above, and to make the bazaar centres that have developed in recent years the basis for a rural reconstruction programme. The Western aid

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agencies, which will surely play an influential role in funding Afghanistan’s reconstruction, should ensure – while showing all respect for the sovereignty of a central government – that they do not fall into the errors of the past by giving a new impetus to ethnic and regional discrimination. notes

1. 2. 3.

Mulla Faiz Mohammad Kateb, Seraj at-tavarikh (Kabul: Matba‘ah-i Hurūfī Dār al-Saltanah, 1912–17), p. 735. India Office, L/PS/10/1292, P5721, 31.8.29. M.I. Gharjistani, Tarikh-e siyasi-ye hazara (Quetta, 1985), pp. 12, 16; author’s interview with Ya’qubi in 1984.

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the russians ready to intervene in afghanistan at fr ance’s request: a century ago Pierre Centlivres (Neuchâtel, November 1989) After its defeat in the war of 1870, France tried to overcome its isolation by means of a rapprochement with Russia, which led in 1891 to the signing of a political agreement and in 1892 to a defensive military agreement directed against the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy). Théophile Delcassé, the minister of foreign affairs after June 1898, wished above all to strengthen the alliance against the Central Powers – but also, if necessary, against Britain, with which France risked entering into a colonial conflict following the Fashoda Incident of 1898 on the Upper Nile. In 1899 Delcassé went to St Petersburg, where he discussed in secret with Nicholas II the possibility of a war with Britain and secured an adjustment to the pact. Meetings between the French and Russian general staffs took place in July 1900 and February 1901. In his book La France et les Français 1900–1914 (Paris, 1972), the historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle summarizes the content of the military protocols that gave effect to the Franco-Russian agreement. The first two concern the eventuality of a war between France and Germany and a conflict with Austria-Hungary. The third ‘envisaged for the first time a war by one of the two countries with Britain. In the case of a Franco-British war, Russia promised to stage a diversion by invading Afghanistan, on the frontiers of India. In the case of a Russo-British war, France would concentrate 150,000 men on the Channel coast’ (p. 317). These protocols were ratified in December 1901. In the Foreign Affairs Archives in Paris (‘Nouvelle Série. Russie, Politique étrangère. Relations avec la France. Alliance franco-russe’) there are some details about these 47

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talks at general-staff level. For General Kuropatkin, 200,000 would be ‘easily enough’ for a troop concentration on the frontier with Afghanistan, and ‘to keep the respect of the local populations’ (Dossier 34, p. 90). The Russian general staff estimated that a diversion on the borders of Afghanistan and British India would ‘prevent Britain from withdrawing some of its troops to attack nearby French colonies’; its own troop concentration would ‘in any case be superior to what the British could bring to Herat in the same period of time’ (Dossier 34, p. 175). Still, General Sakharov said that the arrival of large numbers of troops (300,000 men) would depend on completion of the railway from Orenburg to Tashkent. ‘Until then, the demonstration that it [Russia] could make on the Afghan frontier would be much less imposing and less clear-cut’ (Dossier 35, docs. 15 and 23). The background to these agreements was the Russian advance in Central Asia, which British India considered to be a threat. The Russian army had seized Samarkand in 1869 and Merv in 1884; it exercised a protectorate over the Amir of Bukhara; and bloody incidents between Russian and Afghan troops had already occurred at Penjdeh, north-east of Herat (arousing fears of an Anglo-Russian war), and at Yashil Kul in the Pamirs in 1892. Despite the advances towards the Entente Cordiale with Britain, French public opinion was very Russophile at the time. In his Histoire contemporaine, published in 1897, E. Maréchal did not hesitate to write (pp. 185–6): ‘From now on, Russia has the fate of Afghanistan in its hands: for the frontier below Penjdeh is not so much as 40 miles from Herat. […] To both the west and east in Asia, Russia is extending its civilizing action and its autocratic empire.’ But the First World War and the Russian Revolution nullified the calculations of the general staffs and the political ambitions of Delcassé and his counterpart Muraviev. To recall them now is to evoke a little-known aspect of the Great Game.

part ii the mujahedeen moment, 1990–95

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finding a political solution: rejection or participation Jean-José Puig (Paris, June–July 1990) A few points to begin with, however painful some of them may be: 1. The war is over and there is no military solution to the current impasse. 2. The Soviets have gone and the Najibullah government has given up the intention (if it ever had one) of turning Afghanistan into a communist country. 3. At present, even a major military success (capture of a provincial capital, for example) would change none of the core facts and might even prove negative if the resistance did not know how to manage its victory (a likely situation, given the rivalry among the various parties). 4. Both the rural and urban populations are weary of the climate of insecurity brought on by the war, and, rightly or wrongly, its continuation is blamed on the Mujahedeen. 5. The political parties based in Peshawar (and to some extent Tehran) are discredited inside the country, but the same is not necessarily true of their leaders. 6. The former king, Zahir Shah, enjoys a popularity that is too often underestimated. At any event his role could be no more than symbolic and transitional. He may be instrumental in the solution, but he is not the solution itself. One should not fear something that cannot happen. 7. The prestige of the ‘commanders of the interior’ and the respect they inspire have declined markedly since the Soviet withdrawal. The time left for them to play a significant role is steadily running out. 8. The great powers involved in the conflict (USSR and USA) are on the point of agreeing to let the Afghans deal with things themselves under UN supervision. 51

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9. The regional powers (Pakistan and Iran) are not in a symmetrical position. A political solution will be a relief for Iran and a source of frustration for some in Pakistan. However, the vital issues facing Pakistan are on its frontier with India. 10. The EU countries will help the UN’s search for a political solution if they place less emphasis on the pledges to be given to the resistance, bearing in mind the image it has portrayed for more than two years. 11. A pacification process to Kabul’s advantage is well under way in Afghanistan and will continue whether or not there is a political solution. If there is no political solution – that is, no general framework for defining the rules of the game with regard to the constitution and exercise of power in Kabul – the pacification will lead to a set of tacit agreements between the present regime and the various protagonists prior to a realignment of forces. 12. The quest for a political solution is currently of interest to Kabul only in so far as it represents an act of good will and an attempt to avoid being blamed for the problems ahead. The time is near when Kabul will no longer need to give such pledges. 13. Many problems are of an ethnic rather than ideological character. Only Kabul recognizes this openly and builds it into its approach. As for the Afghan political parties based in Peshawar, they conduct an ostrich-like policy and an inept public discourse on ‘Islamic or democratic principles’, which they have borrowed from here or there and do not believe in. In reality they all position themselves at a sub-national level, where the only issue is to establish a local or partisan regime in Kabul. 14. No revolution can happen in Afghanistan at present. Afghans in all walks of life and of every persuasion have paid quite a high price for the utopian delusions that some have entertained, and what is happening in the rest of the world ought to provide evidence, if it were needed, that a badly digested ideology of progress at any cost has devastating consequences. So right now there is no place in Afghanistan for intellectuals who are not physically involved in defending their country from the inside but who wish to rebuild it on new foundations. 15. Even if the refugee issue is important at international level, it is marginal as far as the peace dynamic inside the country is concerned. If peace evolves in such a way as to affect the refugees, it will become stronger as a result. But so long as that is not the case, the main political players will be those who have remained in the country, not those who have fled.

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The above is not an exhaustive list, of course, but it should be enough to be getting on with. Although the various points appear to give the advantage to Kabul, the fact remains that the resistance was a political necessity while the Soviets were in Afghanistan and there was a danger of a totalitarian communist regime; now the situation is radically different and politics has become a necessity if the resistance wishes to play an active role in creating a new regime acceptable to a population frustrated with the sacrifices of ten years of war. The resistance has no credible political alternative on offer and takes refuge in a martial rhetoric that disguises its own impotence and disarray. Even its discourse on converting defensive into offensive warfare can no longer be taken seriously, for the simple reason that it evidently lacks the means to do it. And people would not understand the continuation of a war that no longer had an objective. Politics is the only field that the players in the conflict, especially the commanders, can exploit – but it has to be ‘regenerated’ and cleared of Peshawar intrigues. The resistance must therefore place itself within that field, in a manner that is at once evident, strong, symbolic and operative. Evident, because this will allow it to position itself favourably in relation to all those who sneak off to Kabul and anathematize everyone else as a ‘traitor’. A political approach (which at this stage cannot involve direct contact with Kabul but only with UN policy officials) will therefore have to be converted into a political act that deploys the argument of visibility. Strong, because the aim is to be in a position to influence the political solution, not to collect the dividends of surrender. Though unable to offer an alternative solution, the resistance must expose the holes in Kabul’s solution and the ambiguities on which it is constructed. As for the UN, it must think in advance about the problems that will face Afghanistan if a draft solution deliberately ignores the players who have to implement it. In other words, the UN must understand clearly that any solution will be largely impracticable if it does not have the agreement of the ‘main commanders’. In this connection, the attack by the resistance on the Geneva Accords – using the pretext that it was not consulted beforehand – was very damaging to it. The same mistake must not be made again, especially as this time it has been invited to take part. Symbolic, because Afghanistan needs a symbol just as other nations do, and for the moment all it has is the king. A symbolic goal must be set in relation to the king too, especially if he is called upon to play a role in the transition. This aspect is less anodyne than it seems, since the resistance has only been able to create martyrs, not symbolic figures, and has apparently failed to

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mobilize a national sentiment. Najibullah himself, for all his tactical skill, continues to symbolize the evil associated with the Soviets. The success of his policy erases this memory a little more every day, but he will only ever be accepted faute de mieux. Operative, because it does not help to be ambitious if one lacks the means to support one’s ambition. Should the resistance be taken at its word, it will therefore have to show that it actually has the necessary ways and means. These, broadly speaking, are the first steps of a policy that seems to be the last opportunity for the resistance to play a significant positive role in relation to Afghanistan. At this stage it is impossible to know how things will work out, but in any case there is nothing to be lost.

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pakistan’s afghan policy: no light at the end of the tunnel Mushahid Hussain (Islamabad, June 1990) Ever since the uprising in Kashmir assumed primary importance in Pakistan’s foreign policy, Afghanistan has taken a back seat as a foreign policy priority for Pakistan. In fact, after the 6 March 1990 abortive coup against Najibullah,1 Pakistan’s Afghan policy has virtually been ‘on hold’, since the attention of its policy makers is focussed almost exclusively on the Kashmir situation. However, Pakistan is not oblivious to the changes in America’s Afghan policy, whose two key components include gradual acceptance of a political role for Najibullah and the PDPA at one level, and increasing public criticism of the Afghan Mujahedeen, including allegations bandied around by Washington that they are heavily involved in drugs. The early signs of a change in the US’s Afghan policy came as far back as October 1989 when Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s national security adviser, on a visit to Washington, was told by his US counterpart that a ‘reassessment’ of US policy was on the cards. Pakistan did try to influence American policy when, on the eve of the superpower summit in Malta in December 1989, a high-level delegation travelled from Pakistan to Washington in late November to urge the Americans not to ditch the Mujahedeen and to continue pressure on the Soviets for the removal of Najibullah. Both suggestions, it seems, were spurned by the Americans and it was in January 1990 that the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Robert Kimmett, came to Islamabad to inform Pakistan that the US line on Najibullah had undergone what the New York Times would later describe as a ‘subtle but significant shift’. Following the recent superpower summit in Washington (end of May 1990), one of President Gorbachev’s key military advisers, Marshal Sergei Akhromeyev, said that ‘the two sides have agreed to a very considerable degree on how to resolve the Afghanistan question and 55

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the Americans now understand that the Mujahedeen cannot defeat Kabul militarily’. However, Pakistan, for its part, is basically giving the Afghan Mujahedeen based in Peshawar a time-frame until September 1990 to agree on an election plan for a political settlement. But the most important party of the Peshawar-based Mujahedeen, the Hezb-e islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, has already rejected this election plan. Pakistan’s Afghan policy has suffered from its dependence on the United States and the failure of policy makers to understand that US interests and priorities as a superpower are different from that of Pakistan as a regional country which borders Afghanistan. The other problem in Pakistan’s Afghan policy has been its lack of consistency at crucial moments of the decade-long Afghan conflict. Four major errors in Pakistan’s Afghan policy are noteworthy. From 1980 to 1986, Pakistan’s position on Afghanistan had two essential ingredients: unconditional exit of the Soviet army and refusal to have direct dialogue with the Kabul regime. It was only after February 1986, following Gorbachev’s famous speech describing Afghanistan as a ‘bleeding wound’, that Pakistan realized that the Soviets were serious about leaving the country. However, the first error came in 1987 when an entire year was wasted on account of a deadlock between two seemingly irreconcilable positions. Pakistan was insistent that the Soviets must give an acceptable timetable for an unconditional exit from Afghanistan while the Soviets felt that there should be an agreement on an interim government in Kabul before their withdrawal. This deadlock was broken in November 1987 when in expertlevel talks on Afghanistan before the December 1988 Washington summit between Reagan and Gorbachev, the Soviets informed the Americans of their willingness to withdraw unconditionally from Afghanistan. The Americans readily agreed to this proposal, without getting it first cleared with Pakistan. When Pakistan realized that the superpowers had already reached their agreement on the broad outlines of the Soviet withdrawal, Islamabad did a U-turn and now adopted the position that the Soviets had taken all along in 1987, i.e., that an interim government in Kabul should precede a Soviet withdrawal. By then, it was too late. The second error came in January 1988 when Pakistan formally presented what came to be known as the ‘1/3 formula’. Both General Zia and Mr Junejo, in separate press interviews, announced that any future administration in Kabul should have a one-third representation of the Afghan Mujahedeen, one-third of the Afghan refugees based in Pakistan and Iran and the remaining third comprising the PDPA. However, less than a fortnight later, in an

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interview with the Washington Post on 25 January 1988 which even surprised the Foreign Office, General Zia announced that Pakistan would insist ‘on the removal of the PDPA regime, including Najibullah’. The formulation foreclosed any possibility of flexibility regarding the PDPA. The third error came in February 1989 when Pakistan, after spurning the conciliatory gestures of Soviet Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, who had visited Islamabad in early February, went about establishing an Afghan Interim Government (AIG) without representation of the Tehranbased alliance of Afghan Mujahedeen. These Pakistani endeavours were fully endorsed by the United States and Saudi Arabia, since they were keen in any case to exclude the pro-Iranian groups. This one fact – the exclusion of Iran from the AIG established on Pakistani soil – was quite central in the subsequent warming up of Iranian–Soviet relations which was institutionalized through the July 1989 visit of Iran’s president Rafsanjani to Moscow. The fourth error committed by Pakistan was in March 1990 when Islamabad fully backed a coup against Najibullah which its defence minister had organized in connivance with one of the factions of the Afghan Mujahedeen based in Peshawar, namely the Hezb-e islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. The abortive coup weakened Pakistan’s clout among the remaining six factions of the Afghan Mujahedeen2 in Peshawar, which, despite Pakistan’s prodding, refused to follow Hekmatyar in backing the coup. Additionally, it reinforced Iranian suspicions regarding future Pakistan policy objectives in Afghanistan and the role of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, whom the Iranians are averse to. Regarding current Afghan policy, Pakistan remains committed to an Islamic government in Afghanistan, which, in effect, presumes continued support for Pakistan’s long-standing favourite, the Hezb-e islami leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, although the Foreign Office view is different from that of the army. US officials are privately critical of this ‘agenda’ of Pakistan’s, given their own antipathy to radical Islamic politics. Pakistan and Saudi policy continues to converge on Afghanistan, and the Saudis have assured Pakistan that they will continue to support financially and militarily the Mujahedeen, even if the US cuts off all such aid, and will continue their assistance, despite US pressures to the contrary. notes

1.

On 6 March 1990, Lieutenant General Tanai, Minister of Defence from 1988 to 1990, staged a coup from the Bagram airforce base.

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afghanistan The six remaining parties are: Jamiat-e islami-ye Afghanistan (Rabbani), Hezb-e islami (Khales), Jabha-ye melli baraye najat-e Afghanistan (Mujaddidi), Ittihad-e islami baraye azadi-ye Afghanistan (Sayyaf), Mahaz-e melli (Gailani) and Harakat-e inqilab-e islami (Mohammadi).

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afghanistan and the ar ab world Arnold Hottinger (August 1991) The Afghanistan problem, which a few years ago still fascinated and preoccupied the Arab world, has rather retreated from the centre of attention. At most, countries and regions with a strong sense of Islamic solidarity – usually also the ones that experienced Soviet atheism as a threat to their way of life – have taken an interest in the Afghan resistance and invested in it financially. It was therefore mainly the wealthy countries of the Arabian peninsula, above all Saudi Arabia, that focused and continues to focus on the Mujahedeen and their struggle. In contrast to Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf states, the Syrian regime has never shown special interest in the Afghan resistance and has actually maintained diplomatic relations with Kabul. This of course is related to the alliance between the Soviet Union and Syria. In the Arab countries outside the Arabian peninsula interest in the Afghan resistance was mainly centred on Islamic and Islamist groups, and, for reasons of Islamic solidarity, these countries supported and collected money on behalf of the Afghan Mujahedeen. Rarely did they show support for the resistance; they tended to follow the position of India rather than Pakistan. Now a series of developments in Afghanistan itself, as well as in the Arab world, have contributed to a declining interest in the Afghan conflict. The withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989 did not at first reduce the enthusiasm of Islamist groups for the struggle of the Mujahedeen; they were determined to help their friends in Afghanistan to gain final victory over Kabul. However, the failed offensive against Jalalabad in March of the same year brought bitter disappointment. Later the Arab funders expected that the Mujahedeen would organize and cooperate more effectively, and it was in this hope that they provided 59

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further support. Their money went mainly to the Islamist groups of Hekmatyar and Sayyaf, which had the best connections with Arab governments and other Islamic groups and had always been the Saudis’ preferred clients. However, the Hekmatyar group in particular was not prepared to collaborate with the others, aiming instead to win a monopoly of power in certain regions of Afghanistan and one day finally to establish its wished-for Islamic state. After a Hekmatyar agent killed one of Ahmad Shah Massoud’s men in June 1989, fighting broke out between the two groups and Hekmatyar’s forces split away from the other resistance groups in Peshawar (which together make up the Afghan Interim Government – AIG). It seemed fairly clear that the Hekmatyar group favoured by Saudi fundamentalists was a source of trouble among the Mujahedeen rather than an organization able to work with others. Hekmatyar continued to go his own way, when his group was the only one to support General Tanai’s attempted coup in Kabul and to enter into an alliance with him in March 1990. This accorded with the wishes of Islamabad but not with those of the resistance commanders inside the country or of the other resistance parties in Peshawar. Hekmatyar’s Saudi backers stuck with him even when his isolation became apparent. The fact that the Pakistani secret services also chose him as their man may have played a role in confirming him as the resistance leader preferred by the Saudis and other Gulf rulers. Nevertheless, it was AIG groups (Mujaddidi, Gailani and Khales) that sent 310 fighters to Saudi Arabia in February 1991 in an act of solidarity against Saddam Hussein; Hekmatyar, as well as supporters of Rabbani (Jamiat), criticized this move and came out in favour of Saddam, who had called for a ‘holy war’ against the Americans and denounced their ‘desecration’ of the holy sites of Islam. In this respect, Hekmatyar behaved like his fellow Islamists in Tunisia, Algeria, Sudan and Jordan, and their radical Islamist comrades in Egypt, who all initially sought to promote reconciliation between Iraq and Saudi Arabia but then took Baghdad’s side when Riyadh turned a deaf ear. The Pakistani Islamists too declared their support for Saddam Hussein, although their government was at pains to preserve the balance between the Saudis and Iraqis. The Iranian radical supporters of Ali Akbar Mohtashemi also tried to fall in with the Iraqi position and demanded in parliament that their country join the ‘holy war’ against the Great Satan. Rafsanjani explicitly rejected this and declared Iran’s neutrality.

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The support of their Islamist friends for Saddam Hussein – despite the sizeable funds previously bestowed on them – must have been very hard for the Saudis to take. If at first money continued to flow into Hekmatyar’s coffers, this was probably because it came from Islamist groups in the Gulf not directly dependent on their government and because the funding channels had not yet completely dried up. The Saudis and other Gulf rulers now look set to turn away from Hekmatyar (and Rabbani?). But this will probably not involve giving more energetic support to the three groups which have so far, rather symbolically, toed the Saudi line. What is much more likely is that the Saudis will argue for a compromise with Kabul, either with UN backing or with the help of Zahir Shah (towards whom Hekmatyar is particularly vitriolic). The receding of the Soviet threat points in that direction, as does the expectation that, following the failed putsch in Moscow and the dismissal of hardline generals, the supply of Soviet weapons and money to Kabul might now really come to an end. If this happens, the kind of compromise without Najibullah and his supporters that most of the Mujahedeen leaders wish to see will probably return to the realm of the possible. The Arab friends and backers of the liberation struggle are now likely to accept such a solution and even actively promote it while dropping their former protégé, Hekmatyar.

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consociationalism and afghan political order William Maley (Canberra, August 1991) What kind of constitutional order might best assist the reconstruction of Afghanistan in the long run? This question has not been much addressed in writings on Afghanistan. It is, however, a matter of crucial importance, to which the following remarks are addressed. In exploring this question, I am concerned with long-term socio-political structures rather than short-term devices for transition to a viable new order, and I am also concerned with institutional devices which provide some opportunity for the citizenry of a country to have some say in the constitution of the government which claims the right to exercise control over their actions. The different systems which I am about to discuss are therefore inconsistent with the existence of a dictatorship, whether reinforced by coercion or sanctified by charismatic legitimation. On the other hand, they are not inconsistent with the existence of some kind of constitutional monarchy in which a symbol of national unity presides over the system in which the formal instrumentalities of government are constituted by some expression of popular will. I should also emphasize that here I am talking of the central instrumentalities of the state, and I do not take these to exhaust the ambit of government in its full sense. Indeed there seems to me to be a great deal of virtue in making maximum possible use of local instrumentalities of rule, whose traditional authority may not have been so greatly diminished by the impact of years of war. To that extent I am not denying that traditional legitimation may still have an important role to play at some levels in a post-war Afghan political order. However, we cannot be confident in the long run that traditional 62

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l­egitimation will be able to sustain viable instrumentalities of the central state, and it is therefore important to canvass the possible forms which a legal-rational order might assume. The basic problem which these forms have to confront is that of ensuring that individuals who share a particular culture have, to as great an extent as possible, the opportunity to be ruled by people of similar culture, lest a discrepancy between the culture of an elite and the culture of those whom the elite rules create difficulties in maintaining a pattern of rule based on legitimacy rather than coercion. The first form of system I should like to mention is what has frequently been called majoritarian democracy. This system normally implies that those who rule are elected by majority vote and that the decisions of a deliberative assembly are also resolved by a majority vote. Unfortunately the problem of the potential tyranny of a majority is particularly disturbing in societies such as Afghanistan which are marked by cultural cleavages. Where this is the case, there are plausible grounds for fearing that the exercise of power by a majority over a disaffected minority may well lead that minority to deny to the system any legitimacy whatsoever – in which case the activities of the minority may take the form of dissident or oppositional activities which may threaten the stability of the system. The second type of system I should like to discuss is what has been called the control model. Under this model, expounded most clearly by Ian Lustick, important decisions are taken by a dominant majority group and imposed upon minority groups which have no alternative but to accept them. Lustick is clear in his mind that the solution which the control model offers is not an optimal one, but is preferable where the alternatives are ‘civil war, extermination or deportation’.1 There are difficulties, however, in attempting to apply this model to the case of Afghanistan. One of these difficulties is that in the light of the events of the last decade, it is by no means clear that there is any one group, defined in terms of culture, which is in a position to exercise the kind of control which this model requires. This brings us to the third and, from my point of view, most interesting model, namely that of consociational democracy. The consociational model owes its origin to the work of the Dutch political scientist Arend Lijphart, who has been concerned to identify the structural attributes which have contributed to political stability in a number of deeply divided European societies. The consociational model has four major elements. The first and most important is government by a grand coalition of the political leaders of all significant segments of the plural society. The second is the mutual veto which serves as an addition protection of vital minority interests. The third is proportionality as the principal standard of political representation, civil

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service appointments and allocation of public funds. The fourth is a high degree of autonomy for each segment to run its own affairs.2 The consociational model has had a number of successes to its credit, most notably in Switzerland, Belgium and the Netherlands, but it has also had some just as notable failures – most spectacularly Lebanon.3 These failures have led to a number of specific criticisms of the model which are worth mentioning at this point. The first is that it is of limited relevance to so-called ‘Third World’ countries,4 but given the diversity of the Third World, this is not a very satisfactory objection. A more developed argument, put forward by Brian Barry, is that societies deeply divided on ethnic lines are unhappy candidates for consociationalism: ‘if there is to be a leadership of an ethnic group that is not in constant danger of being undercut by challengers, it must inevitably be seen to be taking up an extreme position in defence of the group’s interests’.5 This, however, assumes a particular kind of mechanism for the acquisition of leadership status, which may not apply in all cases where ethnicity is the basis of deep social divisions. A more serious criticism of consociational democracy is that it seems to presuppose the existence of elites which can form a grand coalition, and does not properly address a situation in which significant segments of a plural society are governed not by individual leaders but by collective institutions such as a shura or jirga. As Donald L. Horowitz writes, theories ‘that rest on elite initiative must include variables related to group structure and competition, for these constrain the opportunities for interethnic elite relations’.6 Here the mechanics of bringing together different social groups to engage in a process of political leadership for society as a whole may be awesomely complex. Finally, at a deeper level a major criticism of the consociational model is that in societies which are in the process of transition from cultural cleavage to merely cultural diversity, the imposition of a consociational model may have the effect of entrenching group identities which might otherwise have been slowly obliterated by a process of cultural homogenization. What then does consociationalism offer for a country such as Afghanistan? First, it would make clear to a range of different groups within Afghan society that a new political order established through central instrumentalities of the state had something to offer them. Otherwise one might well find groups such as the Hazaras for whom the re-establishment of a significant central state would simply amount to a replication of patterns of prejudice by which they felt they had been disadvantaged in the past. Second, a consociational system might well hold out the prospect of overcoming some of the specific problems which afflicted public administration

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in Afghanistan since the 1960s, namely, the informal tendency of Tajiks to dominate the state democracy and of Pashtuns to dominate the armed forces – an imbalance which proved extremely debilitating in the mid- to late 1970s when non-elite Pashtuns who felt that they were unable to secure promotion on merit because of their non-elite status moved instead towards radical politics and the kind of destabilizing seizure of power which took place in 1973.7 A new consociational system could not be expected to work if it excluded particular groups from entire institutions. On the other hand, if it ensured a reasonable balance of representation of different groups, then it might prove stabilizing in a way that the practices of the 1960s did not. The specific institutions that consociationalism would entail would be a matter to be determined by individual actors, with Islamic principles an obvious point of departure for those seeking to design specific institutions likely to resonate with a large part of the Afghan population. In conclusion, there are two points I should like to emphasize. First, there are great dangers in trying to link a consociational system with a presidential system, for presidential rule tends to place a member of one particular group in a privileged position vis-à-vis other groups, and this is rarely a stabilizing influence in a deeply divided society. My impression is that in Afghanistan there are a considerable number of individuals who fear ‘a political settlement’ precisely because it might leave a particular individual from a particular group in a position of dominance. For this reason a consociational distribution of power might have much to commend it. This ties in with the final point that I should like to make: there is little to be gained in hoping for the emergence of a ‘Great Leader’. A ‘Great Leader’ can all too easily turn into a ‘Führer’ who leads a society into barbarism, which is the last thing Afghanistan needs at the moment. What one needs is not a political structure that will allow a ‘Great Leader’ to emerge, but rather one that will ensure that ordinary people rule wisely. It seems to me that in this respect there is much to be said for the consociational model. notes

1. 2.

I. Lustick, ‘Stability in Deeply Divided Societies: Consociationalism versus Control’, World Politics 31/3 (April 1979), pp. 325–44, at p. 336. A. Lijphart, Democracy in Plural Societies: A Comparative Exploration (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1977), p. 25. For a more detailed discussion of the consociational model in the Afghan context, see Amin Saikal and William Maley, Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy (Boulder: Westview Press, 1991), pp. 161–5.

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See J.P. Entelis, ‘How Could Something So Right Go so Wrong?: The Collapse of Lebanon’s Ethnoconfessional Democracy’, in F. Kazemi and R.D. McChesney (eds), A Way Prepared: Essays in Islamic Culture in Honor of Richard Bayly Winder (New York: New York University Press, 1988), pp. 216–40. 4. Assertion canvassed in K.D. McRae, ‘Theories of Power-Sharing and Conflict Management’, in J.V. Montville (ed.), Conflict and Peacemaking in Multiethnic Societies (Lexington: Lexington Books, 1990), pp. 93–106, at pp. 98–9. 5. B. Barry, Democracy, Power and Justice: Essays in Political Theory (Oxford: Clarendon, 1990), p. 135. 6. D.L. Horowitz, Ethnic Groups in Conflict (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), p. 574. 7. R.H. Magnus, ‘The Military and Politics in Afghanistan: Before and After the Revolution’, in E.A. Olsen and S. Jurika (eds), The Armed Forces in Contemporary Asian Societies (Boulder: Westview Press, 1986), pp. 325–44, at p. 335.

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the reconstitution of the afghan state William Maley (Canberra, December 1993) When communist power collapsed in Afghanistan in April 1992, the institutional structures of the Afghan state largely collapsed as well, opening the way for ambitious power-seekers to pursue their objectives through sustained attacks on the Afghan capital. This poisoned inheritance has constituted the central problem of governance ever since. It would be a mistake to impose too bleak a construction on this problem. Over 1.5 million refugees have returned to Afghanistan in the past year, the largest spontaneous repatriation in the history of the office of the UNHCR, and war-related deaths have fallen off dramatically from the average of over 240 a day for ten years straight, which on conservative estimates prevailed from 1978 to 1987.1 This, however, provides scant comfort for those Kabul residents subjected to savage rocket bombardments in August 1992 and January–February 1993. For them, life in post-communist Afghanistan has closely resembled Thomas Hobbes’s grim description of war as marked by ‘no Arts; no Letters; no Society; and which is worst of all, continual fear, and danger of violent death; and the life of man solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short’.2 The obstacles to reconstructing the state in a polity as fragmented as that of Afghanistan are enormous, and could merit a book-length study. In the following paragraphs I wish to focus on five of the most challenging: elite fragmentation; sectarian, ethnic and regional diversity; the diffusion of the instruments of coercion; the absence of a sound fiscal basis for state activities; and outside manipulation. A high level of elite unity, reflected in some consensus as to the rules governing the practice of politics, is a prerequisite of political stability in almost any political system. Such consensus is manifestly lacking in contemporary Afghanistan. Two attempts have been made since the collapse 67

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of the communist regime to forge elite settlements to overcome this problem – namely the Peshawar Agreement of April 19923 and the Islamabad Agreement of March 1993.4 Such settlements can provide elites with an escape route from a situation in which all have suffered heavy losses and in which the resumption of widespread violence appears imminent.5 Yet the 1992 and 1993 agreements seem to have been executed more out of a desire to appease the sensitivities of the elites of Afghanistan’s neighbours than as a result of emerging consensus amongst Afghanistan’s own elites. The March 1993 agreement, by providing a channel for the incorporation of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar into the government as prime minister, at least stalled Hezb-e islami rocket attacks on Kabul. However, it did not resolve elite conflict but simply suppressed it temporarily, as renewed disputes over the position of Defence Minister Ahmad Shah Massoud made clear. Furthermore the message sent by the settlement is that the way to become Afghan prime minister is to kill enough Kabulis, and it is a message which may return to haunt Afghan politics in future years. The problem of elite fragmentation is compounded by the splintering of Afghan society on sectarian, ethnic and regional lines. The extent of sectarian splintering has been all too painfully apparent in Kabul, where allegations of atrocities by both Sunni and Shia militias have darkened the air. Furthermore, in the north, Abdul Rashid Dostum has moved to assert his dominance over a part of Afghanistan substantially peopled by members of ethnic minorities, establishing what he has called an ‘enforced autonomous region’.6 Dostum’s claimed autonomy is merely a symptom of a much broader phenomenon, namely that the retreat of a state to urban strongholds during the communist period strengthened already strong local and regional leaderships, both personal or collective, many of which are uninterested in the reconstruction of instrumentalities of the state and wish mainly to be left alone by Kabul. By adding to the number of Afghan political actors, this process has greatly complicated the process of securing an elite settlement. Federalism and consociationalism may provide some assistance in coping with the consequences of socio-political fragmentation,7 but it would be idle to pretend that the problem of fragmentation is an easy one to address. One of the central reasons why this is the case is that the events of the last 15 years have produced a very substantial diffusion of the means of coercion throughout Afghan society. The pattern of collapse of the Afghan army in 1992 severely aggravated what was already a significant problem.8 Afghan society is not simply fragmented – the various fragments are armed. This presents an immediate challenge to the authority of the state. As Max Weber argued, the ‘claim of the modern state to monopolize the use of force

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is as essential to it as its character of compulsory jurisdiction and of continuous operation’.9 The Afghan state has no real prospect of resuming such a monopoly in the foreseeable future, and even in the long run it will be able to do so only by fostering normative attachments between state and society, rather than attachments of prudence alone.10 Islam is potentially a source of generalized normative attachment to the state, but those who claim to rule in the name of Islam run the risk of provoking widespread cynicism if their conduct manifestly departs from widely accepted Islamic precepts or if they attempt to implement the dictates of puritanical Islamic sects which have no resonance in Afghanistan’s micro-societies. And while the March 1993 Islamabad Agreement implicitly treats popular election as a sound basis for regime legitimacy, the obstacles to be surmounted before free and fair elections can be held in Afghanistan are considerable.11 It is one of the paradoxes of politics that the state can be omnipresent and economically dominant while remaining fundamentally weak in terms of its ability to command normative support. That said, it remains the case that the state can discharge its administrative functions only if it has access to sufficient revenues. These can be obtained in the form of taxes, fees, borrowings, gifts and subventions, income from state trading enterprises, or income from asset sales. The vicious circle in which Afghanistan’s present rulers are caught should at once be apparent: to raise taxes, one must be able either to fund tax collection or collect taxes coercively, which in turn presupposes the capacity to maintain sufficiently robust powers of coercion. Subventions are a way out of this circle, but it is far from clear that there are donors prepared to assist on the scale required to support even minimal state activities or that institutional structures are in place to prevent the misuse of such funds. In such circumstances, it would be foolish in the extreme for Western countries to overlook the danger that if the Afghan state is starved of funds to provide services to the Afghan population, non-state actors will seek to raise even more revenue than is presently the case through the illegal cultivation of crops such as the opium poppy.12 Unfortunately there is every indication that the great powers have lost interest in Afghanistan. Multilateral relief programmes for Afghanistan are regularly undersubscribed, as a result of past UN incompetence but also of more generalized donor fatigue, and Western governments use the only partly valid excuse of ‘instability’ in Afghanistan to avoid making bilateral commitments. As a result, Afghanistan has been exposed to the tender mercies of neighbouring states such as Pakistan, Iran and Saudi Arabia, which as a result of the turmoil in Central Asia13 have very much their own agendas to pursue. While Afghanistan has little to fear from enemies, it has

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much to fear from its friends. These states, or political forces within them, have not hesitated to lend support to surrogates within Afghanistan, and this has crippled the capacity of moderates, such as Massoud, who fought the Soviet Union without looking for significant outside assistance. The men, women and children of Afghanistan have been the losers. The reconstitution of the Afghan state will be impossible unless it can be insulated from these local pressures. When they stood in the frontline against Soviet militarism, the Afghan people enjoyed a remarkable degree of bipartisan support from sympathizers throughout the world. In the post Cold War era, the Afghans’ Western supporters face a new moral challenge: to maintain a concern for the Afghan people now that that frontline has evaporated. To a significant extent the fate of Afghanistan will depend upon whether the West can pass this test. If we fail, it will tell us little about the Afghan people but a great deal about ourselves. notes

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

See Noor Ahmad Khalidi, ‘Afghanistan: Demographic Consequences of War, 1978–1987’, Central Asian Survey 10/3 (1991), pp. 101–26, at p. 107. Thomas Hobbes, Leviathan (Cambridge: CUP, 1991), p. 89. Agreement concluded to form a transitional government after the fall of the Marxist regime in Afghanistan. Agreement signed by eight Mujahedeen leaders in an attempt to restore peace in the ongoing civil war. Michael G. Burton and John Higley, ‘Elite Settlements’, American Sociological Review 52/3 (June 1987), pp. 295–307. BBC Summary of World Broadcasts, FE/1638/A1/5, 11 March 1993. William Maley, ‘Consociationalism and Afghan Political Order’, Afghanistan Info, no. 30 (September 1991), pp. 10–12, reprinted as chapter 18 above. See Anthony Davis, ‘The Afghan Army’, Jane’s Intelligence Review, March 1993, pp. 134–9. Max Weber, Economy and Society: An Outline of Interpretive Sociology (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1978), vol. I, p. 56. See Amin Saikal and William Maley, Regime Change in Afghanistan: Foreign Intervention and the Politics of Legitimacy (Boulder: Westview, 1991), pp. 9–12. See William Maley and Fazel Haq Saikal, Political Order in Post-Communist Afghanistan (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 1992), pp. 33–48. See Scott B. MacDonald, ‘Afghanistan’s Drug Trade’, Society 29/5 (July– August 1992), pp. 61–6. See Graham E. Fuller, Central Asia: The New Geopolitics (Santa Monica, RAND R-4219-USDP, 1992); Robert L. Canfield, ‘Restructuring in Greater Central Asia: Changing Political Configurations’, Asia Survey 32/10 (October 1992), pp. 875–87.

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afghan women view the future Nancy Hatch Dupree (Peshawar, February 1993) As Afghan women ponder the future from the vantage point of February 1993, they express feelings of profound disillusionment. They have been chary ever since April 1992 when an Islamic state was installed in Kabul. After all, the would-be leaders of the new state are one and the same as those who had imposed unaccustomed restrictive codes on women during 14 long years of exile in Pakistan. But the present abuses in Kabul evidence a total breakdown of Afghanistan’s social fabric. ‘We knew there would have to be a period of adjustment, but we believed firmly that our leaders would remain true to those Islamic principles which accord respect for women and demand a purposeful role for them in society. We expected to be regarded as partners in the rebuilding of Afghanistan. We have prepared for this and acquired skills in health, education and administration, despite the social pressures and periodic violent threats we received from the ultra-conservatives.’ Even the initial pronouncements of the new Islamic state dismissing women from government offices and requiring the wearing of the hijab (veil) were received with understanding. ‘The new government has to establish its Islamic credentials,’ women then said, ‘and dignified female behaviour is important symbolically. So even though overly restrictive measures against women are mistaken and patently un-Islamic, this type of rhetoric appeals to many who have been conditioned by 14 years of jihad. Therefore, the new government naturally makes a big noise about confining women while it attempts to establish its credibility.’ Women were very pragmatic in their outlook at this time. Indeed, as time moved on, they returned to their jobs in the ministries, banks, department stores and restaurants. In the Ministry of Education, for example, women 71

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account for 70 per cent of the staff, for they are the only ones with any experience in the day-to-day running of offices; most men were too involved in the war. And, significantly, although government directives specified that women should cover their heads, they did not force them to wear the hijab, which is anathema to those who see it as an un-Afghan, foreign imposition. In the wake of the takeover in Kabul many atrocities were reported, including the molestation of women. Young Mujahedeen, who had been taught that respectable women remained at home, simply assumed that any women showing their faces on TV or appearing in public places were fair game. The leadership made no effort to correct them. Many factors contributed to the new flow of refugees to Pakistan which began at this time, but the preservation of women’s honour loomed large in the minds of the early arrivals. This was particularly disturbing because all through the refugee experience one element remained unique. Unlike other refugee situations, where a reported 70 per cent of women arriving at receiving centres had been raped, incidents among Afghan refugee women were almost nil. Respect for women, an abiding hallmark of Afghan society, was still honoured in practice as well as in principle. Now, in February 1993, the disregard of this respectfulness has added a disastrous dimension to the effects of war in Afghanistan. Afghan history is full of tales of fierce conflicts rising from many different causes, but never have women been so brutally targeted in revengeful retaliation as they are today. Afghan women in Peshawar listen with horror to reports of rape, forced prostitution, suicides to avoid dishonour, and of naked decapitated female bodies found by the wayside. ‘We feel utterly betrayed. We have sacrificed so much for the jihad during our time in exile. We rejoiced in the establishment of an Islamic regime. We sincerely wish to order our lives according to Islamic teaching. Now these “Islamic” leaders have destroyed the meaning of all our sacrifices. They use Islam for their own power-seeking purposes. They make no attempt to apply the positive dictates of Islam. As long as these leaders remain in control, how can you ask us to consider a return?’ So for the moment most women sit benumbed. It is probably the most difficult time in their long period of trauma, especially for those (men as well as women) with education and aspirations to contribute to the rebuilding of Afghanistan. Yet these women have learned fortitude during their years in exile. Outwardly they continue the routines of daily life with grace and often with humour, despite steadily disheartening news from Afghanistan, scurrilous articles in the Mujahedeen press, shrinking assistance facilities,

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cutbacks in employment opportunities and closed doors to resettlement. Four attitudes prevail. Very few can articulate their views. Most say simply: ‘We shall wait and see, having faith that God will provide.’ Others, strongly conditioned by past needs to conform, are convinced that ‘In order to render any assistance, we must comport ourselves according to the will of these leaders, no matter how restrictive their ideas may be. Otherwise we shall be ostracized entirely.’ Still others see absolutely no future as long as the current mentality persists in Kabul: ‘For as long as these people survive, I will beg in the streets rather than return to Afghanistan.’ This reaction takes on added meaning in light of the despair felt by many families in which every member has lost a job. Furthermore, the spectre of ‘joblessness’ is exacerbated by Pakistan’s recent actions threatening to close down numbers of NGO offices in Peshawar and Quetta. The issue, as they see it, is nothing less than raw survival in Pakistan, with return to Kabul an option too frighteningly distasteful to contemplate. A few bravely dismiss both the submissive and the defeatist attitudes. They call upon women to remain steadfast in promoting the spirit of Islam which guarantees women an active role in fulfilling community obligations. ‘I am physically sick when I hear of what is being done to women. A madness infects Kabul today. This is not the Afghan way. Because I love my country, I must fight to bring our society back to its senses. I must remain true to my conviction that this will soon be realized; that people will see that Afghanistan cannot be rebuilt without the help of Afghan women. We cannot do this by meekly submitting to mere ritual and outmoded practices. The time must come when this will be acknowledged and I must continue to work to lay the foundations for the acceptance of women as honourable partners in this effort. We must all work ceaselessly to demonstrate – to prove – that women can work meaningfully towards reconstruction, to the honour of Afghanistan and of Islam.’ So speak the educated, mostly urban, women in Peshawar in reaction to the political and social chaos in Kabul. One must not forget, however, that over 1.5 million refugees have repatriated, mostly to towns and villages where reconstruction programmes move ahead positively. Women are working, along with men, in a number of health and education facilities and requests for additional female health and education programmes come in daily from the countryside. As clouded as the horizons may be, and as disquieting as the immediate future seems, most Afghan women wait with their characteristic strength and courage.

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her at: a model and an opportunity for afghanistan Bernard Dupaigne (Paris, December 1993) Herat, the ancient capital of western Afghanistan, first rose up in March 1979 against the new communist regime of Mohammad Taraki. The reprisal operations, involving air raids and tank assaults, caused losses estimated at the time at 30,000 dead. During the 12 years of repression and resistance, the city itself, together with its inner suburbs (especially in the north and west) and the surrounding countryside, suffered major damage as a result of land and air attacks. After its liberation in April 1992, a week before Kabul, a mass grave was uncovered in the north-east of the city, behind the buildings of a military garrison. The remains of thousands of people executed there in March 1979, including many women and children, show that the victims were shot blindfolded. The location of the massacres, now a site where the people of Herat gather in memory of the fallen, is called ‘the resting place of the unknown martyrs’. reconstruction and restor ation

Whereas today the new town, the citadel and the great mosque are almost untouched, the old town and bazaar bear the marks of considerable wartime destruction. The western and northern districts were virtually razed to the ground. Many of the 193 historical monuments in the city were seriously damaged, some of them completely destroyed. Urgent restoration work, involving reputable local artists and architects, needs to be organized. A dust cloud rises permanently above the city, the wind sweeps the ruins of mud-brick houses and the streets are no longer mere tracks. The priority 74

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is to asphalt the roads and restore the garbage collection system and the drinking water supply. What people complain of most is the lack of electricity. Everyone in exile in Iran, at one point or another during the war, was able to see for themselves the benefits of modernization. But here electricity is available only to parts of the city in turn, and only between six and ten in the evenings. The ancient oil-fuelled power station, operating with machinery more than 30 years old, is quite incapable of providing adequate supply for the present and future needs of the provincial capital. The dual-purpose irrigation/hydroelectric dam at Salma, on the Hari Rud river, building of which began in 1978 by the then president Prince Daud, urgently needs to be completed. The countryside was also badly hit, especially to the west between Herat and the Iranian frontier (Enjil, Ghoriyan, Zendajan), where the resistance was very active. The underground and open-air irrigation channels must be repaired, together with the damaged houses, tracks and bridges. International aid is beginning to come on stream, thanks to the presence of UN agencies (World Food Programme, UNICEF, OCHA) or NGOs (DACAAR, Doctors of the World, and soon also Amitié franco-afghane – AFRANE). Aid should be stepped up so that it covers ­infrastructural works too. the refugees returning from ir an

The region is quickly getting back on its feet; many refugees have returned from Iran to cultivate the fields and rebuild their homes. Out of the 15,000 families (100,000 people) who used to live in the Torbat-e Jam camp in eastern Iran, probably half have already made their way back to their villages of origin. The UNHCR has reached an agreement with Iran and Turkmenistan, and during this winter refugees will be able to travel by train from Iran’s northern frontier to Termez in Uzbekistan and from there to Mazar-i Sharif and the northern provinces of Afghanistan. This agreement will take some of the pressure off Herat, which will no longer have to bear the financial burden associated with the return of refugees whose homes are in the north of the country. ismail khan, the amir of her at

Throughout the war Ismail Khan, a former Afghan army captain, fought at the head of the uprising that began in Herat in March 1979. Assisted by

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Alauddin Khan, who was in charge of military operations, he knew how to organize resistance and to hold out against numerous Soviet offensives while also managing to keep the people on his side despite frequent and devastating air raids. Today this charismatic leader governs the province with the title ‘Amir of Herat’. Alauddin Khan has the rank of general and commands a reconstituted provincial army that includes many soldiers from the old regime. The provincial administration, which, though placed on a new footing, retains a number of civil servants from the old regime, is led by ‘Doctor’ Youssouf. He is one of the most brilliant pupils of the Medical Training for Afghans (MTA) programme, which trained medical auxiliaries in Peshawar in 18 months. MTA was founded by several European organizations, including the French NGO Aide Médicale Internationale. Since he took over in the province, Ismail Khan has attempted to restore civil peace and stimulate economic recovery. In February 1993 he succeeded in disarming the militias that had served the previous regime, many of whose members (some 63,000, it is said) fled to Iran or Pakistan, while others rallied to the new regime and blended into the population at large. In addition to disarming the whole province, Ismail Khan has managed to bring under control the pro-Iranian groups that refused to accept his authority, thus giving to merchants and exporters the confidence to resume their activities. The shops occupying the best positions in the bazaar have been swiftly repaired, and those in ruins have given way to modern ones built of iron and cement according to the latest techniques learned in Iran. These shops are filled with goods imported from all around the world, most often via Iran. Iranian dealers have begun to purchase carpets again. Despite the appalling state of the roads (a week to reach Kabul!), buses and trucks link Herat to Kandahar and Pakistan. Customs duties are levied locally on goods in transit, but not on staple imports such as flour, oil and fertilizer. The civil servants are paid, albeit inadequately. Many schools, including ones for girls, have reopened, and several high schools have been repaired by the Danish NGO DACAAR with UN funds. The central hospital is functioning again, with local doctors and aid from UNICEF and the French NGO Médecins du Monde, and the medical faculty has resumed courses in the hospital premises. The Afghan organization OMAR engages in de-mining operations, with financial assistance from the EEC. Various artisans – weavers, jewellers, boilermakers, stringed-instrument makers – have set up businesses again in the city. The ceramics workshop is once more active in the premises of the great mosque. The glass blower has

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rebuilt his ovens: one opposite the mosque, the other in his home village. Silkworms are again being raised and their cocoons unwound, especially in the village of Gazargah. The maker of ploughshares and cast-iron pots is back at work near the airport. On Sundays, on the south side of the mosque and at the Kandahar Gate, women again sell home-made wares and secondhand goods at the ‘women’s market’. beyond her at province

Ismail Khan closely follows provincial affairs and is trying to get the economy moving again. Every Saturday the council takes stock of current business and every day the governor visits one of the provincial services. A local television unit reports on his activities during the regional evening news. Ismail Khan’s strategy is to extend his influence and the regional peace he has cultivated to the whole of western and south-western Afghanistan, that is, to the provinces of Herat, Farah (whose air base at Shindand was taken back from Hezb-e islami in early 1993), Nimruz, Helmand, Ghor and Badghis. This is not happening without resistance, since it goes beyond the traditional zone of influence of the Herat region. Pockets under Hezb-e islami control have still not been totally eliminated in Farah Province, where several districts are closed to Ismail Khan’s representatives. The brother of the Farah chief of police was assassinated there in November 1993. On 4 November Ismail Khan went to Farah by helicopter and announced his intention to disarm all civilians in the province. This will not be easy, however: Nimruz is a traditional area for smuggling across the Iranian border and is particularly difficult to control. In the west of the province, Ismail Khan has to face the rancour of Pashtuns over the slippage of power from their hands. To the north he runs up against the ambitions of General Dostum, master of the northern provinces, who does not take kindly to Herat’s attempts to spread its influence in the north-west. The clashes that took place in mid-October 1993 between the Amir’s lieutenants and Rasul Pahlawan (an Uzbek ally of Dostum’s) centred on control of Ghormach, a commercial town in the east of Badghis Province, close to Dostum’s fiefdom in Fariyab. ismail khan and his neighbours

It is in the Amir’s favour that he has a project, a strategy, an army and an administration. He knows how to convince people and to bind them

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together. His actions againt the Soviets place him above all the local leaders. He has also been able to position himself on the international scene. He was invited to Ashgabat for the Turkmenistan independence festivities between 26 and 30 November 1993, and while there he signed cooperation and trade agreements with the country’s president. Consuls will be exchanged by 1994 between Herat and Ashgabat, and Afghan traders will be invited to Mary and Ashgabat. Herat needs oil and petrol, and Turkmenistan has undertaken to deliver them. Meanwhile the Turkmen government – which has just signed agreements with Pakistan that allow it to use the port of Karachi – needs the road to Pakistan via Herat, Kandahar and Quetta for its exports and imports. Ismail Khan would also have liked to buy electricity from Turkmenistan (which has just made it free for its own population), but the Turkmen president seems to be demanding too high a price in dollars for the supply and for the construction of high-voltage power lines. Ismail Khan is also seeking to develop friendly trade relations with Iran, but he wants to limit that country’s influence and sees an opening to Turkmenistan as an extra card in his hand. In this regional game, Kabul seems a long way away. It is not possible for the Amir of Herat to intervene in the violent power struggles that are unfolding there. He is neither able nor willing to send part of his army to Kabul. Ismail Khan, a member of Jamiat-e islami, keeps in his office a portrait of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Jamiat leader who is president of the Afghan Republic. But the central government is much too weak to intervene in the affairs of the provinces; it makes itself felt today mainly through the issuing of afghanis, the country’s common currency. There is a regular air link between Kabul and Herat, and Ismail Khan often receives emissaries from the capital. Herat, the ancient centre of the Timurid emperors, maintains an essential position. No future settlement can be negotiated today without the agreement of the ‘Amir of the southern and western provinces of Afghanistan’, as he likes to be known.

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reflections on the political development since the fall of the pdpa regime Asta Olesen (Copenhagen, June 1994) After the liberation from the Soviet occupation (1989) and the collapse of the PDPA regime (1992) the Afghan population has fallen victim to infighting between the various resistance groups. While the struggle against the PDPA regime and the Soviet occupation was almost universally formulated in religious terms – as a jihad – this definition of the liberation struggle was superimposed upon the existing ethnic, tribal, religious and political divisions in the heterogeneous population. Before the fall of the PDPA regime, the question of the national versus the religious character of the resistance was unsettled. Today the question of the secular versus the religious and what constitutes the Islamic character of the Afghan state also remain unsolved. In spite of being far away from the chaotic Afghan scene and the ever changing coalitions and alliances there, I will attempt to describe the forces that threaten to lead to the total disintegration of the Afghan state and society, as these forces are rooted in recent history. It seems obvious that at least three age-old oppositions are presently at work: the oppositions between tribe and state, Pashtun and non-Pashtun, Shia and Sunni, and, some argue, between Durrani and Ghilzai too. These antagonisms, however, have existed throughout the history of modern Afghanistan and thus do not in themselves constitute an adequate explanation for the looming disintegration of the state. Other factors need to be identified. I suggest that the particular form of the state and its changing claims to legitimacy of power vis-à-vis the population is central. The question of legitimacy has from the late nineteenth century onwards centred on a conflict between secular and religious tendencies, aggravated since the 1950s by the increasing differences between the urban and rural, 79

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particularly regarding education. The centralization of the Afghan state, beginning in the 1880s, took the familiar forms of expansion and dominance, i.e., the extension of state control to new sectors of public life or subordination of these to political authority. Constituting the main ideological heritage of society, Islam lent itself particularly well as the medium of dominance and expansion, since the religious tradition operated with the concept of a community of believers, umma, transcending the parochial identities of tribe, ethnic group and local community, which otherwise formed the main components in the identities of the heterogeneous population.1 Thus in the first place the centralization of the state took the form of an Islamization process, as can be identified under Amir Abdur Rahman, where hitherto autonomous sectors of public life came under state control, strengthening religious authority on the one hand and subjugating this to state control on the other. However, in the long run the mechanisms of state expansion and dominance were a precondition for the secularization of state and society, i.e., ‘Islamization’ became a historical precondition for secularization. Such policies were followed both by Amir Habibullah, King Amanullah and during the Musaheban dynasty. However, as a result of this process of state expansion and dominance, the ulama as a group was strengthened by being coopted into the state, culminating in the Constitution of 1931 and the formation of a national Jamiat ul-Ulama. With the consequent weakening of the traditional ties between ulama and tribe, the basis for conflict between Sharia and qawmwali (a return to the tribal society where primordial loyalties define friend and foe and determine alliances) was laid, which was to be actualized with the growing influence of the Islamists after the 1960s.2 The ultimate expropriation of the religious domain by the state was carried out by the PDPA government. This desacralization of the religious domain was challenged and ultimately defeated by the Islamist demand for a resacralization of the state, i.e., for all spheres of life, and in particular the state, to be subjugated to the religious domain. The Islamists did not challenge the centralized structure of the state but only wanted to reverse the relationship between the secular and the religious. Islamic discourse in Afghanistan since the 1960s has centred around the concept of the state, which brought into focus the question of legitimacy of power. The political-religious discourse of the Islamists represents the integration of Western social-revolutionary thinking into Islam and contains what Olivier Roy has characterized as a Leninist party-concept.3 The result was a primarily political-strategical rather than religious-philosophical discourse which was more closely related to Western totalitarian ideologies

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than to classical Islamic thinking. Just as the primordial identities and affiliations of the Afghan population had constituted a problem for successive generations of absolute and constitutional nation-builders throughout the twentieth century, neither the Islamists nor the left were willing or able to incorporate these into their totalitarian ideologies. Islamic discourse contains a latent conflict between Sharia and qawmwali. In Islam as traditionally practised in Afghanistan, Sharia and umma are seen as complementary to qawm (group solidarity: family, tribe, nation) or even inherent in it, as argued by Jon Anderson.4 In the Islamists’ discourse this was not the case, as Sharia was intended to replace qawm as the medium whereby the identity of the individual is constituted. This was amply illustrated to me by an Islamist in Pakistan in 1986, who explained that, ‘this jihad is not for the watan (fatherland) but for Islam. The watan is just khak (dust).’ The consequence of such a view is that Sharia becomes a divisive factor in relation to the social order structured by qawm. Hence the Islamic discourse is totalizing in the sense that it not only subordinates but directly negates other identities among believers. This was clearly stated in an article in the Hezb-e islami (Khales) journal Al Noor (29 June 1987): ‘the concept of nation does not refer to an ethnic/tribal or geographic unit but to a people of one mentality, like infidelity is one nation’. Equally Sharia and tariqat (way, road; the road to Sufi perfection) become opposed, as reflected in the Islamists’ concept of jihad, by which they mean external jihad, not the internal, spiritual jihad which lies at the heart of Sufism.5 During the resistance to the Soviet occupation and the PDPA regime, Islam appeared as a unifying factor in the heterogeneous population through the concept of jihad. All reports, however, also referred to the distinction between the so-called moderates and the Islamists in the resistance, and many traced the ethnic, tribal, regional and sectarian recruitment pattern behind the predominantly religiously defined parties. The unifying potential of jihad and of Islam in the widest sense was wasted by the Islamists’ counterposing Sharia and qawmwali, as reflected in the constant infighting between the resistance parties. However, with the final collapse of the PDPA regime, the stark ideological contrasts between the various shades of communists and Islamists were openly negated through the many unholy alliances between the former PDPA and the various Mujahedeen groups. It became apparent that political convictions in a Western sense gave way to alliances based on more fundamental loyalties such as tribe, ethnic group, etc. – hence, qawmwali turned out to be stronger than Sharia. This is particularly important in view of the above-mentioned fact that Islam historically has been the most significant medium in the unification and centralization

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of the modern Afghan state, and the overplaying of this card is turning out to be fatal for the future of the country. After the Mujahedeen takeover in April 1992, the new government renamed the country the Islamic State of Afghanistan and initiated changes to bring the legal and social systems into conformity with Islamic law. While the intention was a resacralization of the centralized state, according to Amnesty International’s reports, each Mujahedeen group has adopted its own standards for the application of Islamic principles, although all appear to have violated in particular women’s human rights in the name of Islam. Each Mujahedeen commander in control of an area has set up an Islamic court which functions under his direct supervision, but the composition of the court and the trial standards vary from one area to the next. Where former rulers centralized and united the country in the name of Islam, the victorious Mujahedeen are parcelling out the country in the name of Islam, gravely violating the ethics of the religion in the process. But is the present chaotic situation ruled by qawmwali? This is hardly the case, either. Now that the central state has existed for a century, the clock cannot be turned back. From the outside, it rather seems that the years of warfare and forced exile in many parts of the country have ruined the fabric of civil society, so that even qawmwali has lost its power. On the contrary it appears that many former Mujahedeen commanders have now developed into local warlords holding large parts of the country in their hands, and that any attempt to analyze the present situation in terms of political ideologies or primordial loyalties are bound to fail unless the realities of warlordism, to a large extent nurtured by foreign weaponry, are taken into consideration. notes

1. 2. 3.

Asta Olesen, Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (Richmond: Curzon, 1995). Ibid. Olivier Roy, L’Afghanistan: Islam et modernité politique (Paris: Éditions du Seuil, 1985). 4. Jon Anderson, ‘How Afghans define themselves in relation to Islam’, in M.N. Shahrani and R.L. Canfield (eds), Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan (Berkeley: University of California, Institute of International Studies, 1984). 5. Ruud Peters, Islam and Colonialism: The Doctrine of Jihad in Modern History (The Hague: Mouton, 1979).

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from pashtunistan to centr al asia: pakistan’s afghan policy Frédéric Grare (Geneva, February 1995) Since the collapse of the Soviet empire in late 1991, Pakistan’s foreign policy efforts have concentrated on revitalizing its links with Central Asia. This goal reflects Islamabad’s need for new industrial markets. At the same time, the Pakistani leadership wishes its country to become the main access route to the Indian Ocean for raw materials from the newly independent republics of Central Asia. This sudden rediscovery of its Asiatic identity, however, has highlighted the limits of the policy that Pakistan has been conducting in Afghanistan since the beginning of the war with the Soviet Union. Afghan irredentism towards Pashtun-populated areas of Pakistan has always been the chief obstacle to a normalization of relations between the two countries. Pakistani vulnerability in the face of India’s military power has also made it tempting to seek in Afghanistan the strategic depth that is lacking in the Land of the Pure; throughout the Soviet war Islamabad tried to promote the Mujahedeen groups most likely to favour a resolution of the Pashtunistan question in the interests of Pakistan. Thus, of the seven resistance parties to which it gave official recognition, six had an essentially Pashtun ethnic base, and the Islamist ones, particularly Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e islami, were systematically favoured. The Pakistani regime chose them less on account of their ideological orientation than for their opposition to the traditional notables, the King and his cousin Daud, and especially for their rejection of Pashtun-based Afghan nationalism. The implosion of the USSR sharply altered the Pakistani perspective, since Islamabad now had to pursue the opposite of its previous policies by promoting a compromise solution among the various factions. The failure of the Peshawar Agreement of March 1983 soon brought the 83

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military option to the fore, however. Islamabad then tried to encourage an alliance between its protégé Hekmatyar and the ex-communist General Dostum – an alliance that would enable it gradually to link up the north and south of the country and begin to put some flesh on the nascent Tashkent– Islamabad axis. A decisive step in this direction was taken in autumn 1994 when Dostum and Hekmatyar launched their respective offensives in the north and south of Afghanistan. Dostum soon occupied nearly the whole of the northern provinces, with the exception of Badakhshan and the Takhar and parts of Baghlan and Kunduz, while Hekmatyar advanced in the south and took control of Logar Province. Through the intermediary of Afghan factions, Islamabad is therefore gradually putting in place the means to conduct its Central Asian policy. Major challenges continue to weigh on the situation, however: • The recent developments have taken place in a political-strategic context that is extremely difficult for Pakistan. Indo-Pakistani relations are passing through a new phase of acute tension, in which the rivalry between the two countries seems to have shifted towards Central Asia. India still has more important relations in Central Asia than Pakistan, and New Delhi will be strongly tempted to try to block Pakistani expansion towards that region. To do that, it will be sufficient if India can prevent a solution to the Afghan question by materially assisting the elements opposed to the Dostum–Hekmatyar coalition. Moreover, according to the Pakistani press, India has been supplying Commander Massoud with aviation fuel and tank and aircraft parts, as well as artillery, while 15 or so Indian engineers have gone to Bagram airport to help get Massoud’s remaining aircraft back in working order. • The Dostum–Hekmatyar alliance itself remains fragile. The two men have apparently agreed to postpone the resolution of political differences until after their military victory. But, in the absence of national unity, nothing indicates that the resulting government would be strong enough even to guarantee peace and stability for a sizeable part of the country. Whereas Pakistan was able to manipulate Afghan factional struggles during the war with the USSR, that perspective was reversed after the departure of Soviet troops. In fact, Pakistani policy today is partly hostage to such factionalism. No doubt the manipulation operates in both directions, but Afghanistan still remains the main obstacle to Pakistan’s economic expansion towards Central Asia.

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the instability of power Barnett R. Rubin (New York, September 1995)

The astonishing fall of Herat to the Taliban on 5 September 1995 reversed in one day the dominant political trend of the past year and exposed the fragility of all political power in today’s Afghanistan. Since the Taliban’s failed attack on Kabul last winter, forces loyal to or allied with ‘President’ Rabbani (hereafter referred to as ‘government forces’ without any implication regarding their legitimacy) seemed to have no real rivals as contenders for power in Kabul. The Taliban offensive had effectively wiped out Hekmatyar as a military force. Ahmad Shah Massoud took advantage of the consequent isolation of Hekmatyar’s erstwhile Shia allies to crush Hezb-e wahdat in Kabul, levelling much of Kart-e Seh in the process. When Wahdat leader Mazari was killed in Taliban custody, it became clear that the government’s opponents could hardly unite. Massoud pushed back all opposition forces beyond rocketing range of Kabul, and the city began to rebuild. The displaced began to return and a series of foreign delegations passed through Kabul as governments and NGOs alike considered re-opening their missions in the capital. Massoud seemed strong enough to secure Kabul, hold off Dostum in the north and still send 2,000 troops to reinforce the defence of Herat. Commanders from around the country paid visits to Kabul in search of their takhsisat, the special payments Kabul’s rulers had always made to local power holders. Newly printed bank notes from Russia filled their pockets, while the afghani, presumably backed by an influx of contraband dollars linked to the drug trade, held surprisingly steady. While the government lost its previous Saudi backing, it gained support from India, Russia and Iran. India naturally allied itself with the force that had kept Pakistan’s man, Hekmatyar, out of Kabul. Russia dealt with 85

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the government to influence Kabul’s treatment of the Tajikistan opposition fighters based in Kunduz and Takhar. Iran saw the Jamiat-dominated government as the principal bulwark against the Taliban, who had killed the leader closest to them and whom they saw as a tool of Sunni sectarianism, supported by Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and (who knows?) America. Pakistan became increasingly desperate, with no one effective to support in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s view of its interest in the ethnic character of Afghan rulers had changed. Partly as a result of the Afghan war, Pakistani Pashtuns had become well integrated into the country’s power elites, civilian and military. Chaotic Afghanistan could not conceivably serve as a pole of attraction. Hence Pashtunistan was dead; most Pashtun political actors in Afghanistan were weak and dependent on Pakistan. Pakistan sought a way to bring the Pashtuns back into the political game in Afghanistan by various means, even inviting General Abdul Wali1 to canvas the Afghans in Pakistan on behalf of Zahir Shah. But this visit, like all the other such Pakistani initiatives, had few if any positive results. According to Kabul, Pakistan’s next stratagem was re-arming the Taliban and supporting their assault on Herat. But even if these charges prove correct, they would not explain why Ismail Khan, Amir of Herat, supposedly the most popular former Mujahedeen leader in Afghanistan, supported by Ahmad Shah Massoud, the Lion of Panjshir, the greatest former Mujahedeen commander in Afghanistan, fled to Iran without his famed Amir Hamza Division firing so much as a shot. From his exile in Iran, Ismail Khan has been giving interviews claiming that he was a victim of a conspiracy by Massoud to negate his power. Indeed it seems that the presence in Herat of a force of Panjshiris from Shura-ye nazar had both created severe strains with the Jamiat government forces and undermined Ismail Khan’s popularity. Increasingly, Ismail Khan had become identified with the Jamiatis from Kabul (or worse, Panjshir) rather than with the people of Herat themselves. Like all other leaders in Afghanistan, he became increasingly isolated and ceased to consult with the various forces he had originally united in his shura. It seems, therefore, that not only Pashtuns but the seemingly more unified Persian speakers as well are vulnerable to the strains of qawm, though among Tajiks and Farsiwan qawm is regional rather than tribal. The non-Pashtun coalition broke definitively in 1993, when Dostum and Wahdat allied with Hekmatyar; now the Persian speakers have split among themselves. Northern and western Afghanistan may yet achieve the degree of fragmentation of social control attained in the tribal zones.

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Does the new balance of forces give greater hope of a negotiated ­settlement? The triumph of Massoud last winter halted the efforts of UN envoy Mahmud Mestiri to broker the creation of a transitional government. A plan designed to break the stalemate could not survive a victory by one side. Mestiri returned to Afghanistan on 18 September 1994, as the Taliban approached Kabul again, and Pashtun commanders who had taken the government’s banknotes started to defect to them. Rabbani offered to resign again, but as of writing (21 September 1995) the Taliban have given a fiveday deadline to all government forces to withdraw from Kabul, at the end of which they will launch another attack on that already ruined city. In a situation of such instability and fragility of all alliances and power relations, it is virtually impossible to negotiate stable agreements, especially those long-term ones that form the basis of government. The underlying reality of today’s Afghanistan remains the same, whoever dominates the scene for a year, a month or a day. No leader controls a reliable, renewable, autonomous flow of resources with which to create and manage a stable apparatus of power. Power depends on transient foreign support, crisscrossing (and double-crossing) networks of informal ties and the constant renegotiation of all bargains. No superpower will impose order (as the British and Soviets tried to do) or pay an Afghan to impose order (as the British ultimately did). Afghanistan’s neighbours and leaders will ensure that it remains a legally undivided territory of fragmented power. notes

1.

Abdul Wali (1924–2008), top military official in former King Mohammad Zahir’s government, served as the Commander-in Chief of the Central Force when Mohammad Zahir was overthrown by his cousin, Sardar Mohammad Daud. After the return of Mohammad Zahir to Afghanistan, Abdul Wali served as adviser and spokesperson for the former king.

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ethnicity cannot be the basis for a common policy: the hazar a failure in the struggle for afghanistan Rolf Bindemann (Berlin, September 1995) The Hazaras define themselves first of all as Shias, then as people living, or at least originating, in that part of the Afghan central highlands which they call Hazarajat. Western authors variously estimate the numbers of Hazaras in Afghanistan at between 500,000 and 1.6 million, but the Hazaras themselves put the figure at 4 million. At least since the early nineteenth century, the Mongol appearance of the Hazaras has fuelled the idea that their origins lie in the Mongol ‘thousands’ (hazâr (Persian) = thousand) left behind by Genghis Khan, and people today in Afghanistan and Iran still associate them with the atrocities imputed to the Mongols. But there is no secure ethnogenetic knowledge concerning the Hazaras. In pre-1978 Afghanistan, and indeed still today, this issue had a political significance, since local authors sought to prove, in accordance with their own ethnic preconceptions, that either Pashtuns or Hazaras were the original inhabitants of Ghor, Zabul, Gharjestan and Bamiyan, the highest regions of present-day Hazarajat. In February 1979 an armed struggle against local strongholds of the Kabul regime began in the first regions of Hazarajat, and by the summer all Hazara-populated areas had been liberated, though the casualties were high. In the first phase of these spontaneous uprisings, which led to the successive capture of government positions in nearly all Hazara-populated areas, local ‘big men’ and also many clerics took on the tasks of leadership and mobilization. Even before the armed clashes began, clerics had delivered sermons emphasizing the un-Islamic character of the Khalq government and the Islamic duty of resistance to it. 88

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The second, more organized, phase of the uprising led to the founding of the Shura-ye inqilabi-ye ittifaq-e islami-ye Afghanistan (the Revolutionary Council of the Islamic Union of Afghanistan). The Shura took over administration of the liberated areas, in the style of the old Kabul government (bureaucratization, levies, and later also corruption); it introduced military service and attempted, with the use of some force, to raise general taxes to finance its apparatus and a regular army. For a year or so, members of various groups backed by Iran or Pakistan cooperated reasonably peacefully with one another and more or less in harmony with Shura members and the local inhabitants and committees of particular valleys. But soon after the cessation of Russian attacks, a period of internal conflict ensued in Hazarajat, in a general context of party formation. In 1982 most of the Khomeinist clergy in Hazarajat turned away from the Shura. These ‘sheikhs’, who enjoyed increasing support from Iran, sealed an alliance with the Nasr organization, which had already brought a thousand Taliban (militarily trained in Iran) into Hazarajat. Considerable numbers of Hazaras, Qizilbash, Sayyeds and Shia Pashtuns also joined the Harakat-e islami of Sheikh Asef Mohseni, who, as a supporter of Ayatollah Khui, was considered less pro-Iranian. The unified forces of the pro-Iranian groups were able to capture the bulk of Hazarajat in a series of bloody battles. The sheikh movement, previously known as Ruhaniyat-e mobarez (‘Fighting Clergy’), constituted itself as a political party under the name Pasdaran-e enqelab or Sepah-e pasdaran, directly commanded by the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. In summer 1989, in view of the inevitable regime change in Kabul following the withdrawal of Soviet troops, eight Hazara parties in Kabul formed the Unity Party (Hezb-e wahdat-e islami); indeed several of them were proud to have achieved this unity without referring to the party headquarters in Tehran and Qom. The man who took the helm, the cleric Abdul Ali Mazari, was the leader of the now openly Hazara-nationalist Nasr Party. Its most important coalition partner was the Sepah, a party dependent on Iran and led by Sheikh Mohammad Akbari. Sultan Ali Keshtmand – a Hazara belonging to the Parcham faction of the ruling party in Kabul – had as prime minister in the late 1980s recruited ethnic/nationalist-oriented qawmi militias from the ranks of the Hazaras in Kabul, whose leadership – against all historical precedent in Afghanistan – was entrusted to Hazara officers. When the Najibullah regime collapsed in 1992 and the various

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Mujahedeen groups occupied Kabul, the troops of the Wahdat party, with the help of Hazara militias, wrested control over the western districts and the mostly Hazara-populated parts of the city, as well as some barracks that held considerable stocks of heavy weapons. Under Sebghatullah Mujaddidi, the first interim Mujahedeen president, a number of Hazaras were appointed to ministerial positions (without portfolio), but when the rotating presidency fell to Burhanuddin Rabbani they were immediately declared enemies of the state. In February 1993 the Rabbani/Massoud government attempted to arrest the leader of the Wahdat party, Abdul Ali Mazari, and in the process caused a bloodbath in the Shia neighbourhood of Afshar. For this reason, among others, the Wahdat decided in winter 1993–94 to join the anti-government alliance of Hekmatyar’s Hezb-e islami and the Uzbek militias of General Dostum. In summer 1994, when new elections were due to take place for the presidency of the Wahdat, Sheikh Akbari, the leader of the Sepah branch, stood as a candidate in opposition to Mazari. This led to a split in the alliance, and Akbari, with his heavily armed troops, took over the government. In spring 1995, when the Taliban were preparing to crown their victory by capturing Kabul, Mazari found himself cut off from Hekmatyar and was compelled to abandon his strongholds in the capital. He was then killed, together with his companions, on his way to talks with the Taliban. In the wake of the Rabbani/Massoud government’s initially successful offensive against the Taliban, Mazari’s supporters were also driven from the areas they held in west Kabul. Government troops, in conjunction with Sheikh Akbari’s Sepah, even managed to advance deep into Hazarajat and to capture the important regions of Bamiyan and Yakaolang. In the last few weeks, however, the tables appear to have been turned. The Taliban, who, following the military successes of the Kabul government and its ruling allies in Herat, had been virtually declared dead by Ismail Khan, were able to drive him out of Herat and even to capture Shindand, the most important military airport in west Afghanistan, while Rashid Dostum rounded out the territory he held in north-west Afghanistan. The Hazara faction under Mazari’s successor, Khalili, has meanwhile regained control of Yakaolang and Bamiyan. Many Hazaras, being unable to support themselves in Hazarajat or to travel to Iran or Pakistan in search of work, now live in west Kabul (for example, the Dasht-e Barchi district). No doubt some of them, as supporters of Sheikh Akbari (Sepah) or Mohseni (Harakat-e islami), seek the proximity of the government.

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We therefore have three significant Shia parties with a mainly Hazara membership. They now appear to confront one another within two strong blocs: Mohseni and Akbari on the side of the Rabbani/Massoud government coalition in Kabul; and Sayyaf, Khalili and the rump of the Wahdat party together with Hekmatyar and Dostum in the Shura-ye hamahangi (Council of Harmony) alliance, which seems to be acting in military unison with the Taliban.

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some reflections on the pashtunistan problem Sayyid Qasim Reshtya (Geneva, April 1995) At a conference on the Afghan crisis held in Geneva in March 1995, under the auspices of the Institute of International and Development Studies (Geneva), the Ethnology Institute of Neuchâtel University, the Central Asia Institute and the International Committee of the Red Cross (Geneva), one of the speakers said in response to an Afghan participant who had been attributing the country’s present tragedy to errors of judgement by the West (especially the USA): ‘The one really responsible for your misfortunes was Daud and his Pashtunistan.’ An analysis of the background to this complex problem is useful in helping us to reach a more correct and balanced conclusion. The Pashtunistan problem is not the creation of Mohammad Daud or any Afghan leader. It is a national problem going back to the early nineteenth century when the Punjab Sikhs took control of the Afghan province of Peshawar (1832). From that point on, successive governments of Afghanistan tried to regain the province of Pashtunistan, whose main city was the winter capital of the Afghan rulers. The first two Anglo-Afghan wars were directly linked to the problem of sovereignty over the Pashtun territories in the east of the country. Two Afghan sovereigns, Dost Mohammad and Sher Ali, lost their thrones because of this conflict. The Durand Agreement of 1893, signed between Amir Abdur Rahman and the British government, failed to resolve the issue and indeed relaunched the problem of control over this strategic region. Even after Britain recognized the independence of Afghanistan in 1919, the future of these territories again became a bone of contention between Afghan and British negotiators at the talks held in 1920 at Mussorie (India), slowing down the signing of a peace treaty between the two countries. 92

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In the 1940s, when the first Anglo-Indian talks on independence for the subcontinent got under way, the Afghan government headed by Mohammad Hashim (prime minister from 1929 to 1946) raised the question of the future of these territories that the British had taken from Afghanistan for the defence of its Indian empire. In a note sent in 1944 by Sir Giles Squire (British minister in Kabul) to Ali Mohammad (the Afghan foreign minister), the British government undertook that, in the event of a change in India’s political status, the Afghan government would be consulted over the future of the population in those territories and that the Afghans’ legitimate interests would be taken into consideration. However, when the subcontinent was officially declared independent in 1947 and divided into two separate countries, India and Pakistan, the promise was not kept. There followed a new phase in what became known as the Pashtunistan problem. In 1947 the problem flared up again under the Shah Mahmud government (1946–53), now with the newly created Pakistan as Afghanistan’s neighbour. A first diplomatic crisis, and even some frontier clashes, took place between the two countries when Daud became prime minister in 1953. His first task was to define the problem clearly for the Pashtun and Baluchi populations living on Pakistan’s western frontier, in the name of the right to self-determination recognized under the United Nations charter. By then the international situation had changed considerably. On the one hand, Britain’s final withdrawal from the subcontinent had created a dangerous political vacuum for Afghanistan, which only the United States was then in a position to fill. On the other hand, Stalin’s death and the charm offensive waged by his successors towards the Third World required a new political orientation on the part of the Afghan government. Mohammad Daud first turned to Washington, inviting Vice President Richard Nixon to Kabul and asking the United States for political support together with economic aid to develop the country’s natural resources. Unfortunately for Afghanistan, however, Washington could only see either friends or enemies. In the eyes of Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, ‘neutrality was synonymous with immorality’. Washington made a positive response to the Afghan request dependent on Kabul’s renunciation of neutrality and its joining the regional military pacts established and led by the United States. Washington also demanded that Afghanistan cease giving moral backing to the legitimate aspirations of its ‘brothers’ living under the rule of America’s new ally, Pakistan. As these two conditions were unacceptable to Afghanistan, Washington flatly refused to provide it with political or economic support. This was later realized to be a major error, given the geopolitical importance of Afghanistan.

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In these circumstances Afghanistan had no other choice but to turn to the USSR. Despite the Americans’ negative attitude, however, Afghanistan remained neutral and non-aligned, pursuing an independent line in its international relations. This provides the context for any responsibility imputed to Mohammad Daud for the Pashtunistan problem. But it is still too early to pass final judgement on this phase of Afghanistan’s history. On the other hand, Mohammad Daud’s decision in 1973 to ally himself with the Afghan Communist Party, in the coup d’ état that overthrew the monarchy, may be considered an error that cost him his life in 1978 and, above all, drew the Afghan people into a tragedy without end.

part iii afghanistan under the taliban, 1996–2001

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regional impact of the taliban breakthrough Olivier Roy (Dreux, November 1996) Although the Taliban movement has its roots in Afghanistan, it has clearly benefited from Pakistani support since the summer of 1994. The Pakistanis have displayed great consistency in their Afghan policy since the Soviet invasion of 1979, seeking to establish a favourable Mujahedeen-based government by playing a fundamentalist Pashtun card. In this way they hope to make Afghanistan a bridge towards Central Asia, especially now that the new independent republics are seeking to bypass Russia and export their hydrocarbons directly to Western and Asian markets. To play their card, the Pakistanis need American and Saudi aid; so, for example, they had to give up backing Hekmatyar when he supported Iraq in the Gulf War of 1993. The fact that the ‘Afghan’ networks established with American and Saudi support during the anti-Russian war became hotbeds of Islamic terrorism also led to US pressure on Pakistan to drop Hekmatyar. However, the Taliban were acceptable to both Washington and Riyadh, at least until the capture of Kabul in September 1996, since their conservatism and fierce anti-Shiism acted as a barrier against Iranian influence. The American embargo of Iran left no options other than Russia and Afghanistan for the routing of oil and gas pipelines, but the US corporations that invested massively around the Caspian were wary of the troubles looming in Russia and looked for an alternative. UNOCAL, linked to the Saudi Delta Corporation, threw itself into the gas pipeline project linking Turkmenistan to Pakistan through western Afghanistan. After obtaining the go-ahead from the Turkmen president in autumn 1995, the company engaged in intense pro-Taliban lobbying in Washington. This explains the UNOCAL chairman’s triumphant statement to Reuters on 1 October 1996 that the pipeline project had just taken a major step forward, as well as the 97

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State Department’s appraisal that the capture of Kabul was a positive development. The lining up of Pakistan and the USA behind the Taliban could not fail to provoke a chain reaction throughout the area. For their different reasons, Iran, Russia, India and Uzbekistan consider the growing power of the Taliban to be a direct or indirect threat to their interests. Iran cannot accept the idea that hostile pro-American and pro-Saudi Sunni forces should be permanently established on its frontiers; the concomitant fall of Sulemaniye (in Iraqi Kurdistan) and Kabul marks a twofold strategic defeat, all the greater because it follows the capture of Herat in 1995. Yet the Iranians are not well placed to counterattack; indeed, relations with their natural allies in Afghanistan are tense. The Hazara Shias of the Hezb-e wahdat are fighting back against Iranian patronage that they consider too heavy-handed. Ismail Khan, the former Amir of Herat who took refuge in Iran, obviously does not enjoy the room for manoeuvre he would like, and Massoud’s relations with Iran display considerable mistrust (the Iranian ambassador’s closeness to Hekmatyar in Kabul before 1995 is still remembered). The Iranians are therefore pursuing a ‘minimum’ objective: to maintain a non-Pashtun coalition (Massoud–Rabbani, Dostum, the Hazaras) that will prevent the Taliban from becoming hegemonic in Afghanistan. They can accept a proPakistani regime in Kabul if they are separated from it by buffer zones. The question of Herat and the link with Shia Hazarajat is therefore crucial for them. The Uzbeks are in a somewhat similar position, although their overall strategy is pro-American. They are in favour of the gas pipeline but, fearing a resurgence of fundamentalism, do not want to see the Taliban on their borders. The survival of General Dostum’s free state is a vital issue for them, but they also want Massoud’s forces to stand up to the Taliban. They therefore oppose the solution touted by Islamabad and (more discreetly) by Washington, of a modus vivendi between Dostum and the Taliban, potentially directed against Massoud. For although Dostum is an obstacle for Uzbekistan, only the forces of the Jamiat are capable of keeping the frontier with Tajikistan under control. As for the Tajik Islamist opposition, based in Afghanistan, it is today on cool terms with Massoud and Rabbani but will probably be supported by the Taliban. Of course, it is fairly moderate and is fighting for a coalition government in Tajikistan, not for the establishment of an Islamic state there. But the arrival of the Taliban on the country’s borders cannot fail to give it a new dynamism, while also encouraging the Uzbek fundamentalists, who have a solid foothold in the Fergana Valley. It is clear that Tashkent, with its consistent pursuit of total independence, does

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not wish to depend on the Russians to counter a Taliban threat; it prefers local players to do this. Meanwhile the Russians fear a Taliban breakthrough, not because they are obsessed with Islamic fundamentalism but because further aggravation of the situation in Tajikistan would present them with difficulties. With the Uzbeks openly seeking a Russian withdrawal, Tajikistan has become Moscow’s last point of support in Central Asia and problems there would saddle it with a tricky choice: either an uncertain and unpopular escalation coming hard on the heels of the Chechen affair, or an inglorious retreat that would seal the decline of its influence in the Caspian region to the advantage of the Americans. The Russians have no other option than to support Dostum and Massoud, while also seeking a political solution to the Tajik civil war. India, for its part, would like to see a government in Kabul that is truly independent of Pakistan, but it scarcely has the means to take action towards that end. So, of the countries bordering Afghanistan, only Pakistan has a real strategy that presupposes control of Kabul. The other states simply wish to create a buffer zone and keep certain stakes in the Afghan political game. A basis for agreement may therefore exist between the Pakistanis on the one side and the Russians and Uzbeks on the other, if the Taliban are content to hold Kabul and the south while leaving Mazar to Dostum. Once Kabul fell, the Americans began pushing for talks between the Taliban and Dostum – and also, no doubt, General Babar – in the hope that the Taliban would take a back seat behind a more presentable government. But here another factor appears: it is scarcely possible to control the Taliban. Their desire for hegemony, their claim to be the only legitimate political force in Afghanistan, their refusal to recognize other forces or the very principle of regional power interests – all this has wrecked the idea of a new equilibrium favourable to the Pakistanis and also of guarantees to the other regional powers. The proclamation of Mullah Mohammad Omar as Amir al-Muminin (‘Commander of the Faithful’), makes any coalition difficult. And the behaviour of the Taliban in Kabul has quickly led the American administration to distance itself from them. It is therefore understandable that the ‘coalition of the vanquished’ has found a new momentum, believing that nothing can be expected from the victorious Taliban and receiving discreet encouragement from neighbouring countries other than Pakistan. But the game continues to be played out within narrow limits. First of all, the Taliban ‘contagion’ effect is not very great: their Islam appears ­medieval

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not only to liberals and secular forces but even to other fundamentalists, not least the Iranians. And despite their claim to represent the umma, they are exclusively Pashtun and lack followers in the other ethno-religious groups, which, after early enthusiasm, regard the Taliban as occupiers rather than liberators. Direct involvement of the regional powers remains unlikely, or at least will be limited in time and space. The main players are still Afghans. But they are all fighting within the framework of the Afghan state; they want neither partition nor fusion with a neighbouring country or independent fiefdom. Afghanistan is a field in which the regional powers struggle for influence, with Afghans as intermediaries, but it is also a buffer state that none of them calls into question. The paradox today is that the country most threatened by the anarchy in Afghanistan is Pakistan. Indirect absorption of the Pashtun tribal zone into Pakistani space is whittling away the frontier and intensifying movement across it, particularly of drugs. Above all, the frontier areas on the Pakistan side are Pashtun too, and here the contagion effect is significant; ‘Sharia’ emirates have already been imposed among the Yusufzais of Malakand as well as the Afridis. One last point: the famous ‘Afghan’ Arabs once close to Hekmatyar, whose expulsion was demanded by the Americans, seem to be getting along fine in the Taliban regions. Their victory through the Taliban threatens to cost Pakistan dearly.

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the taliban: fundamentalist, tr aditionalist or totalitarian? William Maley (Canberra, March 1997) The Taliban occupation of Kabul in September 1996 drew worldwide attention to Afghanistan in a way that no other event had done since the collapse of the communist regime in April 1992. The killing of former President Najibullah, the prompt imposition of an interpretation of Sharia law which denied most Afghan women any legitimate position outside the home, and the preoccupation with ensuring obedience by Afghans to arcane rules of personal deportment, all fascinated witnesses who had hitherto seen Afghanistan’s major problems as being caused by the ubiquity of heavy weapons, anti-personnel mines and damage arising from nearly two decades of conflict. Yet while the attention the Taliban attracted was understandable, preoccupation with the way in which they had coalesced as a military force, and with their policies, overshadowed consideration of how they should best be characterized. It is this issue that I address in the following paragraphs, but three qualifications are immediately in order. First, the question is an extremely difficult one, and my remarks can do no more than scratch the surface of a very complicated reality. Second, there are many different sets of criteria that one can use to classify social phenomena, and my choice is inevitably an arbitrary one. Third, it is dangerous to treat the Taliban as a monolithic force – an analysis that unfortunately is all too common. A first approach to categorizing the Taliban, and one with obvious appeal, is to describe it as a type of fundamentalist movement. This approach focuses on the source of Taliban doctrine. The concept of fundamentalism should be treated with some caution, not only because it means different things to different people but also because it has been somewhat corrupted 101

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by its adoption as a term of derision in the rhetoric of day-to-day politics in secularized polities. That said, in a minimalist sense it seems to capture an important aspect of Taliban reality, namely the emphasis on the authority of a sacred text as the ultimate source of guidance on social and political matters, and of the legitimacy which the Taliban as ruling theocrats claim to enjoy as bearers of its message. In this respect, the Taliban differ radically from the Rabbani government, which while loosely dubbed ‘fundamentalist’ in some circles, was not a theocracy and was committed to exploiting the fruits of modernity in a way which significant groups in the Taliban simply are not. There is a further and deeper sense in which the Taliban can be seen as fundamentalists, and that relates to the authority of Mullah Mohammad Omar, or as he is now described in Taliban media, ‘His Eminence Amir al-Muminin’. Students of fundamentalism have long been aware that since sacred texts cannot interpret themselves authoritatively, fundamentalist movements typically depend upon an authority figure to play this superordinate role. In practice, fundamentalism tends to entail loyalty not so much to a particular doctrine as to a particular leader. It is here that one finds affinity between groups such as the Iranian revolutionary movement (under Ayatollah Khomeini), the Hezb-e islami (under Gulbuddin Hekmatyar) and the Taliban (under the Amir al-Muminin). These features are more meaningful markers of fundamentalism than alleged connections with radical Islamic groups in other parts of the world, since such ties may exist for a range of reasons, not all of which point to ideological affinity – although that said, some may find further indicators of Taliban fundamentalism in the protection they gave in February 1997 to exiled Saudi financier Osama bin Laden, suspected by the US of complicity in attacks on Americans in Saudi Arabia. This connection should perhaps give cause for reflection to those who optimistically see the political objectives of the Taliban as permanently circumscribed in both space and time. A second approach to characterizing the Taliban relates not so much to the source of the doctrines of the Taliban as to the social origins of those who make up the movement. This interpretation depicts the Taliban as a species of traditionalist movement, representing the recrudescence of modes of behaviour which have existed for centuries in rural Afghanistan, and have become encoded through a process of socialization in the norms of those groups which constitute the Taliban’s core. Again, this approach has a certain appeal. It helps explain why many Taliban are so committed to a view of the Sharia for which Islamic scholars are at a loss to find much textual justification but which seems to make sense to Pashtun tribesmen. It

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may also help explain the support which the Taliban have received in some rural areas, where they successfully attacked predatory bandits and where the social code which they sought to enforce to some extent resonated with traditional cultural practices, in particular the norms of pashtunwali. However, there are a number of considerations which militate against a depiction of the Taliban as a purely traditionalist movement. The first is that the Talib is not a traditional power holder even in Pashtun society, from which the Taliban overwhelmingly come, and that the political and military power which the traditional ulama exercise through the Taliban movement therefore marks a significant break with the past. The second is that the young students within the Taliban represent to a considerable extent a pathological rather than traditional phenomenon, since their upbringing in madrasas, to which many were transported as orphans from refugee camps in Pakistan, has denied them the kind of socialization to which traditional Afghan youths would normally have been exposed. This accounts for their ability to commit acts which would be unthinkable in traditional contexts, such as physical assaults on women whose dress they do not like. The third is that the support which the Taliban have received is based not simply on traditional legitimacy but on prudential commitments extracted either through threat of coercion (backed by Pakistan) or through the offer of cash (backed by Saudi Arabia). What remains unclear, although it is vitally important for Afghanistan’s political future, is the exact balance between normative and prudential factors in the support they have received. A third approach is to characterize the Taliban as a totalitarian movement. This approach focuses on their intent to monopolize the political sphere and to assimilate all of social life into it. Theories of totalitarianism have had an extremely chequered career, not least because their cruder variants seemed to deny the possibility of political evolution and posit the obliteration of all forms of political conflict, even – implausibly – within totalitarian regimes themselves. The concept of totalitarianism has nonetheless proved useful in distinguishing pluralistic movements from those which recognize no private sphere beyond the reach of political authority. Sir Isaiah Berlin once described the Communist Party as a cross between a church and an army, and it is not difficult to see the Taliban as fitting this description too. Indeed one might even speculate that this is why some former members of the communist People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (reputedly drawn mainly from the hardline, Pashtu-dominated Khalq faction) have found a home in the Taliban’s ranks. What distinguishes the Taliban as a totalitarian movement from the familiar totalitarianisms of the twentieth century is that the Taliban have emerged in a country in which the institutions of

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the state have substantially collapsed, as a result of which the institutional resources for the enforcement of totalitarian objectives are not available on a national as opposed to local scale. This is an important factor in explaining the sporadic and inconsistent application of Taliban decrees. Sophisticated theories of totalitarianism suggest that the totalitarian movement will seek to suppress any covert or public political activity, but may well itself be driven by ‘cryptopolitics’, in which members of different factions or proponents of different tendencies struggle for the adoption of particular policies or the advancement of particular associates, all in a political context marked by low levels of institutionalization, and exceptionally high levels of fluidity. The three concepts I have briefly discussed – fundamentalism, traditionalism and totalitarianism – all capture different elements of the reality of the Taliban. This is partly because the Taliban movement brings together persons of rather more diverse backgrounds than is often recognized, but also because these concepts to some extent pertain to different aspects of the movement – the source of its specific doctrines, its social origins and its attitudes to politics and the private sphere. Our exercise of characterization is thus very like the task of the blind men who set out to describe an elephant in Jalaluddin Rumi’s famous fable. There is, however, a deeper lesson which one begins to discern by examining the Taliban through these various lenses, and that is that those who hope for a stable Afghanistan through Taliban domination are likely to be disappointed. The obliteration of countervailing powers could well set the scene for complicated ­re-fracturing at both elite and mass levels, as latent tensions between fundamentalism, traditionalism and totalitarianism boil to the surface. But to explore these possibilities in detail would require another paper.

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the k abul museum under the taliban Nancy Hatch Dupree (Peshawar, 24 February 1997) An announcement on Radio Shariat on Thursday 7 November 1996 called for the return of loot from the Kabul Museum, stating unequivocally that possession of such items is unlawful and violations will be punished according to Sharia law. The following Sunday the newly appointed Acting Director of the Museum, Abdul Khabir, a young electronics engineer, headed an official delegation from the Ministry of Information and Culture to the museum building in Darulaman. There soldiers, using the museum as a barracks, have ripped away the steel doors on the storerooms, removed metal boxes to transport weapons and broken up wooden packing materials for firewood. Mounds of garbage and human waste have accumulated. The delegation ordered the removal of the stockpiles of arms and supervised the securing of the storerooms, with the assistance of volunteers from French NGOs and from SPACH (Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage) representative Jean-Pierre Dufranc. When I visited on 25 November, the hallways were very bare, orderly, free of rubbish, with no doors hanging askew. King Kanishka stood unmolested, a noble still in attendance, the famous inscription proclaiming the construction of his temple at Surkh Kotal undamaged by his side. There were no security guards, only a caretaker. Not much in the way of objects remain in Darulaman, for the former president, Burhanuddin Rabbani, has ordered that the collections be shifted to the Kabul Hotel in the centre of Kabul. Packing began in April 1995, and during the week of 1–8 September 1996 275 crates and boxes, together with miscellaneous pieces including 15 Nuristani grave effigies, were moved to the new location. This constituted about 60 per cent of what remains of 105

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the museum’s once vast holdings. The 40 per cent still at Darulaman include all the prehistoric collections, the Surkh Kotal materials, an early Islamic brick and plaster calligraphic frieze from Lashkari Bazaar dating from the eleventh century and the massive black marble basin with fifteenth- and sixteenth-century Islamic inscriptions found in Kandahar. The delicate stucco ornamentation from a twelfth-century mosque in Lashkari Bazaar miraculously escaped major damage when a rocket tore a hole in the roof above it during last summer. It is rapidly deteriorating from dampness and SPACH has supplied chemicals for restoration as well as modest funds for the repair of the roof. The Taliban do not approve of the shifting of the objects and would prefer to restore the Darulaman building so that the collections can be moved back. According to HABITAT’s estimates, however, restoration would be excessively expensive. Priorities will have to be set and it is doubtful whether the Darulaman building can be considered as an outstanding architectural priority beside other contenders such as Timur Shah’s mausoleum and Bagh-i Babur, where the water system will receive HABITAT’s attention during 1997. In order to prepare plans for the future, SPACH is currently in close and cordial communication with the Ministry of Information and Culture. Acting Minister Amir Khan Muttaqi has assured SPACH that the museum premises, as well as historical monuments and archaeological sites, will be protected as a valued part of the nation’s cultural heritage. They are not included in the high-profile campaign calling for the destruction of posters, photo albums, video tapes and similar depictions of humans. The Ministry has proposed that an international seminar be held to help them set priorities and devise future strategies. They are also negotiating permission to view the status of the Tela Tepa gold in the vaults of the National Bank. Meanwhile SPACH members, together with a member of the now defunct Commission for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage set up by President Rabbani, are surveying the stolen art market in Peshawar. Six unique Bagram matrixes of incomparable importance have been seen. But they are priced beyond reason. This is cause for much heartache. Of the approximately 400 schist and stucco pieces from the Gandhara period that have been examined, however, only four were found to be genuine! The workshops in the tribal areas and at Taxila are obviously working overtime, and thriving.

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But what of the large, quality pieces? None are left in the museum. Have they all been spirited away from the region by greedy private collectors and dealers? Or are they, perhaps, still in Afghanistan? The policy of the former regime was to ask no questions, but instead offer those who returned looted objects a modest reward as a token of responsible citizenship. This brought in 872 pieces; another 728 items were confiscated by the authorities. The present threat of harsh punishment for those found in possession of museum loot is apparently too intimidating. No pieces have been returned since the Taliban took possession of Kabul. At the same time, vigilant border guards have stopped the export of a number of pieces. Only one may be significant: a unique inscription of potentially great importance which is being studied by experts.1 If our expectations are realized, they will prove that in spite of being so badly ravaged, Afghanistan’s rich cultural heritage has yet much to reveal.2 notes

1. 2.

London experts have since declared the inscription to be a hoax (Letter of Nancy H. Dupree, 12 March 1997). Update, May 2012: In February and March 2001 the Taliban showed the true extent of their concern for Afghanistan’s cultural heritage: the Bamiyan Buddhas were destroyed and major museum artefacts, including King Kanishka, were sledgehammered to pieces. King Kanishka has since been restored; some quality schists are safe in Japanese museums.

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greater afghanistan: a missed chance? Ludwig Adamec (Tucson, Arizona, January 1998) A secret document (see below) found by me in the archives of the Oriental and India Office Collection of the British Library seems to indicate that the Afghan government could have engineered the annexation of the tribal area on its north-eastern border ‘if the tribes had placed themselves under the protection of Afghanistan or if, with the consent of the tribes, the tribal areas had been annexed by Afghanistan’. The British Foreign Office sought legal advice on the matter in case the frontier dispute was taken for arbitration to an international tribunal. Although Afghan nationalists would have liked to integrate all of the North West Frontier Province of India and Baluchistan into ‘historical’ Afghanistan, London confined this issue to ‘the tribal area lying between the outer boundary of the Province and the line recognized by Article 2 of the Anglo-Afghan Treaty of 1921’.1 The area in question included the five tribal agencies: Malakand, Khyber, Kurram, North Waziristan and South Waziristan. The British government considered this area to be ‘part of India, but not British India’. According to subsection (2) of Section 2 of the Indian Independence Act of 1947, ‘the tribal areas (over which on that day [15 August 1947] His Majesty’s powers, rights, authority and jurisdiction lapsed by virtue of paragraph c of subsection (1) of section 7 of the India Independence Act) were to included in Pakistan’. Therefore ‘the tribal areas of the North West Frontier became a sort of international limbo, not being part of any state. This being so and the tribal areas being independent of Pakistan, though having certain treaty relations with her as regards customs, communications and similar matters, it would appear that Pakistan could not have inherited either the frontier fixed by the 108

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treaty with Afghanistan of 1921 or any right under Article 2 of that treaty.’ However, London felt that since the tribes did not request independence or union with Afghanistan and, in fact, voted for union with Pakistan, the matter had been legally resolved. This ignores the fact that the tribes were not given the right to vote for independence or union with Afghanistan – the choice was rather for union with Pakistan or India. Furthermore, Pashtun nationalists contend that a boycott by members of the Frontier Congress, a Muslim party allied with the Hindu Congress, resulted in a low voter turnout (68 per cent), and that given the choice the tribes would not have voted for union with Pakistan. When Amir Abdur Rahman (1880–1901) was forced to accept the Durand Line as the international border of Afghanistan, a British document2 declared the tribal areas as ‘not lying within the limits of India’ and referred to the tribes as ‘independent tribes’. After the death of the Iron Amir, the London government, hoping for concessions in a new treaty, declared that the agreements concluded with Amir Abdur Rahman were personal and not with the state of Afghanistan. At the same time Britain insisted that the Durand Agreement was perpetual. The question was moot, because the government of India eventually renewed the agreements when it recognized Amir Habibullah (1901–19) in 1905.3 In the peace treaty of Rawalpindi (8 August 1919) a passage in Article V stated that ‘The Afghan Government accepts the Indo-Afghan frontier accepted by the late Amir’, a pledge which was renewed in the Treaty of Kabul of 1921 (ratified on 6 February 1922) and subsequent renewals. London, however, felt that Afghanistan could have denounced the treaty ‘and thus annul the Durand Line agreement and create Pashtunistan’.4 It seems that Afghan diplomacy missed the chance to regain the Pashtun tribal belt, but it was a very slim chance. Western governments discouraged irredentist movements and supported the legitimacy of boundaries drawn by the colonial powers, and it seemed easier to implement the union of the tribal areas with Pakistan. The dream of Afghan nationalists of gaining the entire North West Frontier Province of India, as well as Baluchistan to win access to the Arabian Sea, was not to come true. But there was a chance, no matter how small, that Afghanistan could have gained the unadministered areas of the tribal belt. Would the addition of this area have been an asset to the state of Afghanistan? The area was essentially independent because neither the British nor the Afghan government could rule the area directly. Had it become part of Afghanistan, the preponderance of the Pashtun element would only have increased at the cost of the interests of other ethnic groups.

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Although the heart of the frontier tribes was with Afghanistan, they could not resist the temptation of raiding Jalalabad during a British air raid in the third Anglo-Afghan war. Could Kabul have controlled the tribal belt any better than anyone else? The conservative influences from the tribal belt might well have changed the course of Afghan history: no democratization, emancipation of women, political revolution and Marxist control. Afghanistan might have remained in its traditional mould – not much different from the state the Taliban plan to establish in the country today. Pol-Ext. 6912/49 Foreign Office, S.W.l 28th April, 1949 SECRET Dear Chancery, We and the Commonwealth Relations Office recently thought it necessary to test our hitherto tacit assumption, based on the legal opinion contained in Afghan print section 1 of the 5th November, 1947, F 14976/9774/97, that (if) the issues were submitted to an international tribunal, the court would without doubt find that Pakistan had inherited from the British Government the international frontier laid down by Article 2 of the 1921 Treaty. We stated our problem as follows. First we noted that in the days of British rule in India the area described loosely and the North-West Frontier consisted of (i) the NorthWest Frontier Province, which was part of British India, and (ii) the tribal area lying between the outer boundary of the Province and the line recognized by Article 2 of the AngloAfghan Treaty of 1921, these areas being part of India, but not British India. The term ‘tribal area’ is defined in subsection (1) of section 311 of the Government of India Act, 1935 as ‘the areas along the frontier of India or in Baluchistan which are not part of British India, of Burma or of any Indian state or of any foreign state’. (There are, of course, tribal areas on the frontiers of India other than those on the NorthWest Frontier now in dispute.) Definition of ‘India’ and ‘British India’ to be found in the same sub-section of the Government of India Act, 1935. In the second place we noted the definition in sub-section (2) of Section 2 of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, of the territories of Pakistan as created on the 15th August, 1947. From this sub-section it is seen that the tribal areas (over which on that day His Majesty’s powers, rights, authority and jurisdiction lapsed by virtue of paragraph c of subsection (1) of section 7 of the India Independence Act) were not included in Pakistan which, [illegible] […] Frontier Province, i.e., the area which was formerly British India. Nor, of course, were these tribal areas included in the new India, to which also former territories of British India were assigned. On these grounds we asked the following questions. If Pakistan did (not?) inherit The territory (i.e., the tribal areas) where the boundary line

afghanistan under the taliban, 1996–2001 de(marcated?) in Article 2 of the 1921 Treaty runs, can it be said that the Pakistan Government inherited the international frontier laid down by that Article (on?) frontier which does not touch the territories assigned to Pakistan by the Indian Independence Act? In asking this question we wondered whether the Legal Adviser, in giving his opinion which now appears in the print section (of) 5th November 1947 under reference, was aware of the fact that the whole of India was defined in sub-section (1) of section 311 of Government of India Act, 1935, was not parcelled out between the new India and Pakistan and (that) both received only British India territory which did not include the tribal areas. We have found that in fact the Legal Adviser was not aware, when he gave his opinion in 1947, of the fact that the North-West Frontier Province of British India did not extend as far as the Afghan frontier and that the tribal areas constituted a gap between the boundary of British India and the boundary of India. The Legal Adviser now considers therefore that the tribal area did not become part of Pakistan or India under Article 2 of the Indian Independence Act, 1947. They were areas to which Article 7(i)(c) and also the proviso to Article 7(i) applied. As from the 15th August, 1947, all the rights and obligations of His Majesty with respect to those areas ceased in accordance with Article 7(i) (c); under the proviso Pakistan was to continue to give effect on a provisional basis to certain agreements relating to customs, transit and communications, posts, telegraphs and other like matters; but the proviso did not operate to make the tribal areas part of Pakistan or to make Pakistan responsible for their international relations. This interpretation of the Indian Independence Act, 1947, is borne out by paragraph 17 of His Majesty’s Government statement of Policy in India of the 3rd June 1947 (Cmd.7136). On the 15th August 1947, therefore, the tribal areas of the North-West Frontier became a sort of international limbo, not being part of any state. This being so and the tribal areas being independent of Pakistan, though having certain treaty relations with her as regards customs, communications and similar matters, it would appear that Pakistan could not have inherited either the frontier fixes by the Treaty with Afghanistan of 1921 or any right under Article 2 of that treaty. This does not mean to say that the Durand Line ceased to be the international frontier of Afghanistan. The new situation did not give Afghanistan any right to extend her territories to include the tribal areas without the consent of the tribes any more than it gave Pakistan the right to do so; but it may well be that Pakistan would not have been able to raise any legal objection if the tribes had placed themselves under the protection of Afghanistan or if, with the consent of the tribes, the tribal areas have been annexed by Afghanistan. However in the view of our legal adviser the situation now brought to light does not affect the ultimate result of the substance of Pakistan’s case, though it may affect the way in which it should be put to an international

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afghanistan tribunal. Whether or not there was a period following the division of India when Afghanistan could have accepted a voluntary request for incorporation from the tribal areas, the tribes did not make any request and in fact, in the Jirgas described in Karachi telegram No. 530 to the Commonwealth Relations Office, requested and obtained affiliation with Pakistan. This gives Pakistan the conduct of their foreign relations and enables Pakistan to claim the observance of the boundary on their behalf. There was provision in Section 2(3) on the Indian Independence Act for the inclusion in Pakistan at any time of areas additional to those parts of British India allotted to Pakistan under Section 2(2) of the Act. Perhaps much greater care than we had supposed would be required in putting the Pakistan case, but our legal adviser still does not think there is any doubt that the Afghan claim that the Durand Line is no longer valid is bad in law. It seems therefore that neither Pakistan nor we need have any hesitation on legal grounds about taking the frontier dispute to an international tribunal. Whether reference to an international tribunal is desirable on political grounds is of course a different question. Copies of this letter are being sent to Washington, Moscow, Singapore and United Kingdom High Commissioners in Karachi and New Delhi. Yours ever, Southeast Asia Department

notes

1.

Ludwig W. Adamec, Afghanistan, 1900–1923: A Diplomatic History (­Berkeley: University of California Press, 1967). This volume contains copies of the Anglo-Afghan agreements and treaties. 2. IO, P&S, Despatch 155 (16-8-1892). 3. Adamec, Afghanistan, 1900–1923. 4. L/P&S/12 (1892).

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the end of us policy towards afghanistan? Barnett R. Rubin (New York, August 1998) The 20 August 1998 US missile attack on alleged terrorist bases in Zhawar, Khost Province, may have marked the end of a US policy, intermittently enunciated over the previous year, aimed at encouraging a peaceful settlement of the civil war in Afghanistan and the stabilization of this unsettled region. Through this attack, simultaneous with another that destroyed a pharmaceutical plant in Khartoum, Sudan, Washington assimilated its Afghan policy into a global, strategic campaign against terrorism. In his speech and subsequent statements, President Clinton made no reference to Afghanistan as anything other than a site of terrorist bases. He did not mention either the country’s historical role in the last stages of the Cold War or the immense losses its people had sustained in that struggle and the internecine bloodshed it later spawned. He did not even remark that the attack was not aimed at Afghanistan and its people but at certain foreigners who were using the territory. And he certainly did not mention the role the US had played in setting the stage for the incidents to which it now reacted with massive, though carefully targeted, violence. The attack, in which the US fired 67 Cruise missiles (estimated cost: $1 million per missile) from aircraft carriers in the Indian Ocean, was aimed at bases used for training, communications and weapons storage by the network of international Islamists in Afghanistan that had come to be associated with the figure of Osama bin Laden.1 The US charged that a network led and financed by bin Laden, son of a wealthy Saudi family, had organized the simultaneous 7 August bombing attacks on US embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, which had killed 12 Americans (all in Kenya) and nearly 300 Africans. Thousands were injured. Evidence quickly mounted implicating bin Laden’s network. Suspects 113

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arrested trying to transit Pakistan with fake passports on their way from Kenya to Afghanistan reportedly implicated bin Laden, as did, so the US claimed, communications intercepts from bin Laden’s cellular telephone. The US also claimed that it had information indicating that the bases were about to be used for imminent attacks on yet more American targets and citizens. And bin Laden’s own words incriminated him: in a 28 May interview with ABC News reporter John Miller, he described a fatwa he had issued (though he has no formal Islamic authority to do so) calling for the killing of Americans and said, ‘We do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians; they are all targets in this fatwa.’ The connection between bin Laden and the Sudanese target remained less evident. The US at first claimed that the factory in question was at least partly owned by bin Laden (later they modified this to state that he had invested in the ministry that owned the factory) and that it was producing precursors of VX nerve gas, the same chemical weapon substance found on Iraqi missile parts. Press leaks later claimed that Iraq was also involved in the factory. Sudanese sources denied all these charges and noted that the factory produced 50 per cent of all medicines in Sudan. The name and face of Osama bin Laden now flashed across millions of TV screens for the first time, as he occupied the role of public enemy number one that had for several years been assumed by Saddam Hussein. Osama bin Laden shared more than that distinction with Saddam, however; before emerging as the personification of evil in the eyes of the US, he, like the Iraqi dictator, had been involved in a US-backed effort against a perceived strategic threat – Saddam against Iran, and Osama against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Osama bin Laden came to Afghanistan early in the jihad, some say as early as 1979. Using his family’s wealth and experience in construction, he became a key actor in the effort to bring over the international Islamists (the so-called ‘Afghan Arabs’, though not all were Arab and none were Afghan) to participate in the jihad.2 While the Palestinian Dr Abdullah Azzam (killed in a November 1989 car bomb) played the role of overall political leader from Peshawar, bin Laden was the single figure most responsible for the creation of fronts and bases inside the country. In a way Azzam was the tanzim (party) leader and bin Laden a major (though not the only) commander. The Arab and other non-Afghan Islamic militants whom bin Laden helped to organize played certain key roles in the jihad. They funded the transport of weapons into the interior and were also willing to go on fighting after the Soviet withdrawal, when many Afghan groups preferred to

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return to village life or negotiate a modus vivendi with the weakened Kabul regime. Along with their principal allies and hosts among the Mujahedeen – Hekmatyar and Sayyaf – they played a significant role in US and Pakistani plans for a military victory over Najibullah. Many Afghans protested against these foreigners and the increasing role they played in their national struggle. These complaints fell on deaf ears at the time, however, as the antiSoviet effort trumped all other considerations. Bin Laden returned home to Saudi Arabia some time after the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, but he soon turned against the governments with which he had cooperated. He was among those who opposed the stationing of US troops in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War (President Bush issued his order to send these troops on 7 August 1990, the same date as the Africa bombings eight years later). Saudi Arabia deprived him of his citizenship and expelled him in 1994. After a sojourn in the Sudan, which expelled him under US pressure, bin Laden returned permanently to Afghanistan apparently in early 1996. Although by that time the Taliban already controlled southern Afghanistan and Herat, bin Laden instead took up residence in Jalalabad, close to the Pakistani border, an area where his old allies were still strong. Among his entourage, apparently, were the leader of the Jihad Group in Egypt, the brother of the assassin of Anwar al-Sadat, at least one son of Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman (imprisoned in New York for the bombing of the World Trade Center), and other exiled leaders of the most violent fringes of world Islamic movement. According to one report, bin Laden supplied £3 million to the Taliban in the summer of 1996. This deal, brokered by the Pakistani Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence, funded the Taliban offensive against eastern Afghanistan and Kabul (New York Times, 25 August 1998). After coming under pressure from the US and Saudi Arabia over bin Laden’s support for violent Islamic movements, the Taliban moved him to Kandahar in early 1997, promising to keep him under surveillance in their home area in order to prevent him from engaging in political or terrorist activity outside the country. Until after the US raids no government had announced any indictment of him that could form a basis for his extradition. On 25 August, however, government sources leaked to the press that a US federal grand jury sitting in New York had indicted bin Laden several weeks earlier for solicitation of murder, a federal crime punishable by life in prison. Such an indictment would provide the legal basis for taking custody of bin Laden. By the spring of 1998, despite the Taliban’s promises, bin Laden became

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more active, giving the interview to ABC and organizing a series of conferences that culminated in the establishment of a new group called the International Islamic Front for the Jihad Against Jews and Crusaders. The bombings in East Africa may have been the first acts coordinated by this new group. Even before the bombings, these activities led both the US and Saudi Arabia to protest further to the Taliban that bin Laden was violating the conditions they had set. These events came just as the Taliban reached a key turning point. On 8 August, one day after the embassy bombings, Taliban troops marched almost unopposed into Mazar-i Sharif, seizing the last major city out of their control and thus fortifying their claim to be the government of Afghanistan. As they fanned out in the coming weeks, they reduced the opposition to pockets in Badakhshan and Panjshir (Rabbani and Massoud, with Rabbani’s forces subject to defections) and the Hazarajat, under Hezb-e wahdat. Russia and Iran claimed that they did so with massive Pakistani military support. Thus the Taliban set the stage to campaign for diplomatic recognition and Afghanistan’s UN seat. The international community, in turn, could have used the Taliban’s desire for such recognition as leverage in negotiation over a variety of issues. Concern at the presence of terrorists, as well as opium cultivation (‘drugs and thugs’ as they were known in the State Department), had long figured in the US’s official definition of its interests in Afghanistan, along with the need for a broad-based government, the desirability of constructing oil and gas pipelines from Turkmenistan to Pakistan via Afghanistan and (sometimes) respect for human rights, including the rights of women. The US, however, never made clear the priorities among these goals or devoted serious resources – diplomatic or financial, to say nothing of military – to seeking them. Washington’s silence, which continues to this day, on Pakistani aid to the Taliban made many in the region suspect that the US, too, supported this group, mainly in the hope of building oil and gas pipelines that would connect Central Asia to the world market while maintaining sanctions on Iran. Initial US reaction to the Taliban had been mixed. Traditional reliance on Pakistan for evaluation of the situation in Afghanistan, the desire to build the pipelines, the Taliban’s stated opposition to drug trafficking and terrorism, and the hope for stability led some to advocate engagement with the Taliban. Their draconian decrees in Kabul made this position difficult to sustain, especially as the US feminist movement, an important element in the Clinton administration’s political support, organized opposition to dealings with the movement. Under Secretary of State Madeleine Albright,

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the US forthrightly opposed Taliban policies. In the wake of the bombings, as the evidence of bin Laden’s involvement mounted, concern over the terrorism issue clearly took precedence over all others. Anti-Taliban activists were worried that Washington would recognize the Taliban in return for concessions on bin Laden, but on a visit to Nairobi the day before the US strikes, Secretary of State Albright stated that while controlling (not handing over) bin Laden was a condition for recognition, other conditions would apply as well, including establishment of a broad-based government and respect for human rights. The Taliban Amir, Mullah Mohammad Omar, perhaps choosing his words carefully, stated, ‘We will never hand Osama over to anyone and [will] protect him with our blood at all cost’, according to the Afghan Islamic Press. He and other Taliban spokesmen, however, reiterated their previously violated promises to prevent him from engaging in international activity and offered to try him under Islamic law if they were presented with evidence that he had committed a crime. The bombings may have been necessary to destroy terrorist infrastructure and, as the US claims, prevent imminent attacks. But they have now effectively rendered any concession by the Taliban on bin Laden more difficult, not to mention cooperation on reducing opium production, construction of gas pipelines and improving the treatment of women. The Taliban announced their refusal to talk to the US in the wake of the attacks. Both the Taliban and bin Laden are now widely perceived as protecting the honour of the Muslim world from US double standards. The symbolic effect of the attack by the US on Afghan territory (without even a presidential statement that the attack was not directed against Afghanistan) will complicate any discussions between the US and the Taliban for the foreseeable future. Furthermore, the reaction against the bombings has forced the withdrawal of virtually all US diplomats from Pakistan. The killing in Kabul of an Italian colonel and the wounding of a French diplomat (both seconded to the UN Special Mission) led to the withdrawal of all remaining UN international staff in the country. Most international NGO staff had left earlier, as a result of both Taliban edicts and US warnings. The US and the international community more generally are thus now far less equipped than previously to pursue the multiple goals they have been seeking in this tense region. The dangers now present in the region have perhaps not been fully appreciated by the high-level policy makers who decided on the raids. Guerrilla wars and terrorism continue from Kashmir through Afghanistan and Tajikistan and into the Uzbekistan portion of the Ferghana Valley. India

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and Pakistan have both gone nuclear. Pakistan poses particular problems. While it has helped the US investigate the embassy bombings, it has also enabled the Taliban to take power. Torn by confusion about its own identity, this country teeters on the brink of financial collapse as its main city and business centre, Karachi, is wracked by constant political and sectarian killings. Thousands of Pakistanis who have fought in Afghanistan may return home in the coming year, primed for a similar campaign at home, just as their country’s economy disintegrates. The most extreme Islamic groups in Pakistan (some of whose members were killed in Zhawar) have become more outspoken and public, and the mainstream Islamic groups have become more radical. Despite Pakistan’s massive aid to the Taliban, today it seems that the Taliban have more influence in Pakistan, including the military, than Pakistan has with them. Iran’s opposition to US military action, even against a country whose regime it clearly loathes, will also undermine any possibility of US–Iranian cooperation on Afghanistan, which had been one of several possible routes to dialogue and an eventual improvement of relations. At the time of writing it is unclear whether the bombing will pressure the Taliban effectively or move them in a more radical direction. On 24 August Mullah Omar publicly rebuked bin Laden for threatening the US from Afghan territory, noting that there could be only one government in the Islamic emirate. Indeed, for some time there have been signs of tension between the Taliban’s ultra-conservative, Afghan, Islamic goals and the attempt to portray themselves as exemplars for the entire international Islamic movement. Perhaps to their surprise, this originally parochial movement of Kandahari mullahs has increasingly become a focus of hope for some in an international Islamist movement that had been deeply embarrassed by the failure of the Mujahedeen to establish a stable Islamic regime in Afghanistan. When the Taliban first appeared, Muslims around the world denounced them as a backward phenomenon with no international importance, and the Taliban themselves emphasized their purely Afghan background and lack of connection to international terrorist groups. Among the Taliban are still some who wish to pursue only a national agenda, but the movement’s new status as the guardian of the dignity of the umma and the vanguard of international jihad may be too tempting for its leaders. For the US these raids mark the end of the post-Cold War period when it had no overall strategic framework to guide its policy in the region. ‘Terrorism’ has now replaced ‘communism’ as the strategic enemy, and other goals are now subordinate to that schema. Such strategic concepts provide terrible over-simplifications of complex problems for political and military

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leaders who hardly understand the societies and cultures that their status as a global superpower forces them to confront. The sheer strength of the US may compel some changes in behaviour, especially when exerted against such weak targets as Afghanistan and Sudan. But the struggle against communism, pursued without regard for the complexities of Afghan society, helped produce the new threat of Afghanistan-based terrorism. Who can say what spawn will issue from the new struggle against terrorism? notes

1.

2.

I first heard of bin Laden in Jeddah in March 1989. Jamal Khashoggi, the Jeddah bureau chief of the Arabic newspaper al-Hayat (London) gave me copies of admiring articles he had written on the Afghan Mujahedeen for several publications, including the English-language Arab News. One of the two articles in Arab News was illustrated with a photograph of bin Laden inside Afghanistan holding a Kalashnikov. I reported on some of the charges against the Arabs in ‘Actions of the Pakistan Military with Respect to Afghanistan: Human Rights Concerns’, News from Asia Watch, 27 February 1989.

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the taliban: the new forces of law and order in afghanistan Citha D. Maass (Berlin, September 1998) In Kandahar, their southern stronghold, the following official version of the origins of the Taliban has been doing the rounds. In June 1994, it is said, Mullah Omar and 20 or 30 of his men sallied forth from a small mosque in Maiwand near Kandahar to put an end to the arbitrary rule of corrupt warlords, to clear away the ubiquitous roadblocks, to restore an honourable existence to women living in fear and to bring pure Islam to Afghanistan. According to the official myth, the triumphal march of the Taliban on Kabul in September 1996 was possible because an advance guard, equipped with white flags and the Koran, persuaded local potentates to surrender voluntarily; only particularly unruly ones had to be forcibly put to flight. Houses were searched and all weapons collected in order to bring peace and security to the civilian population. The only truth in this myth is that no men carrying guns are now to be found on the streets of Taliban-controlled cities. Leaving aside Kabul, both men and women in Herat, Jalalabad, Kandahar, Logar and parts of Wardak Province report that life has become safer under the Taliban. After nearly 20 years of war, the population can appreciate the new personal security, protection from rape and revival of modest bazaar activity – factors which should not be disregarded in Western discussions of human rights ­violations. At least since the taking of Kabul in 1996, however, more and more stains have besmirched the white Taliban flag. The list of human rights violations has become ever longer: ethnic minorities have been targeted in Kabul, draconian punishments meted out for minor crimes and misogynist decrees passed against women; the Taliban in Mazar-i Sharif acted imperiously in May and September 1997, engaging in shootings, looting and acts 120

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of revenge; a blockade to starve Bamiyan into submission led to numerous deaths in the winter of 1997–98; Western aid agencies were forced to close their offices in Kabul in July 1998; Mazar-i Sharif witnessed further massacres in August 1998, with 4,000–6,000 deaths, ethnic cleansing and the killing of nine Iranian diplomats; and in September 1998 the capture of Bamiyan in the central highlands led to the expected punitive actions against the Shia Hazara minority. Against this background the Taliban request on 6 September 1998 for formal accreditation and a seat at the United Nations has aroused great concern. Previously the Taliban ‘government’ of Afghanistan had been recognized only by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. What concept of the state did they wish to realize in the renaming of the country as the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan in November 1997? What constitution did the Taliban leader Mullah Omar have in mind on 3 April 1996 when he borrowed the traditional title ‘Commander of the Faithful’ (Amir al-Muminin) from the religious scholars in Kandahar? I raised these central questions in numerous interviews with Taliban leaders between November 1996 and June 1998 but I always received the same pat answer, whether from Mullah Omar’s spokesman, Wakil Ahmad Muttawakil, from members of the Kandahar or Kabul shura, or (in June 1998) from Maulawi Qalamuddin, the new ‘superminister’ in Kabul for religious and moral affairs (amr-e bel maruf ). The disturbing stock reply was as follows: (1) the doctrine of Islam (Koran and Sharia) is being made a reality in the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan; (2) only when we have brought the whole country under our control can we begin to build the state. Until then we will concentrate all our forces on the war. The last formulation should be seen in the context of the UN vocabulary of mediation, which sees no prospect of a ‘military solution’ to the 20-year war and envisages instead a ‘political solution’ involving negotiations with ethnic minority leaders and the formation of a multi-ethnic transitional government. Given that the Taliban – at least since their first defeats in Mazar-i Sharif in May 1997 – are strongly identified with the Pashtun tribes (approximately 40 per cent of the Afghan population) living in the south and east, the above answer indicates that they are still unwilling to compromise with the ethnic and religious minorities that constitute a fragmented majority of roughly 60 per cent. The first answer was disappointingly vague. Even a long interview in July 1997 with Mullah Abbas, the health minister in Kabul and member of the inner leadership, shed no light on what a future Taliban constitution might look like. He referred to the last pre-communist constitution and mentioned

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the dissolution of the prime ministerial office as the only concrete measure, otherwise remaining non-committal and denying that work is already being done on a draft. Neither the four years of Taliban rule in the Pashtun city of Kandahar nor their three years of control in the Tajik-dominated city of Herat (with its large Hazara Shia minority) suggest a model for the ‘Islamic Emirate’. Historically, the capital Kabul was always marked by a system of rule and an attitude to life untypical of the rest of the country. Therefore the Taliban ‘moral decrees’, issued there in a religious guise since 1996, should be seen as mere instruments for the preservation of power in a conquered city. This suggests that for the time being the Taliban are incapable of government in a structured sense: they have not prepared themselves ideologically or religiously for such a role at national level and will be rigid in dealing with ethnic and religious minorities and their different norms and social structures. Finally, developments in the Taliban power structure since summer 1997 give cause for concern. Over the last year, power seemed to shift from Kandahar to Kabul, giving rise to hopes that a ‘political’ wing might take shape in Kabul and prove open to international mediation and, in the long run, a multi-ethnic national transitional government. But since spring 1998 this process has apparently gone into reverse, as the Kandahar shura under Mullah Omar has taken the reins of power undisputed. This transfer has gone together with a radicalization in ideology and power politics. New moral edicts directly intervene in the private lives of the population, and the power struggle against opponents of the Taliban aims exclusively at a ‘military’ solution. This fuels speculation about who stands behind Mullah Omar. Is he, as in the early years, chiefly advised by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence? Or has the radical core of the Taliban wrested greater autonomy from its Pakistani (and Saudi/Wahhabi) ‘foster fathers’? Or have extremist Islamist underground groups, including so-called ‘Arab Afghans’ from the time of the anti-Soviet jihad, gained increased influence? There are two pointers to the last of these possibilities. On the one hand, the number of training camps for extremist Islamist fighters has grown markedly since 1997 in Taliban-held areas. On the other hand, a new extremist united front seems to have been formed in spring 1998 in Afghanistan – one evidently including Osama bin Laden, who is wanted by the Americans as an ‘Islamist terrorist’ and regarded by the House of Saud as a mortal enemy. This united front might be the same as the Army for the Liberation of Islamic Sanctuaries (al-jaysh tahrir al-muqaddasat al-islamiyah), which

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has admitted to the bomb attacks of 7 August 1998 on the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. According to the Pakistani newspaper The Nation of 6 September 1998, Osama bin Laden lives just behind the Taliban governor’s residence in Kandahar and has married Mullah Omar’s 18-year-old daughter; his followers apparently include ‘Arab Afghans’ from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Sudan and Yemen. Should these extremist forces become influential advisers of the Kandahar shura, they would probably show little interest in an effective, state-building Taliban government in Kabul that observes the basic norms of international law.

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the taliban: revolutionary dynamic and regional environment Gilles Dorronsoro (Paris, March 1999) The emergence of the Taliban in autumn 1994 dramatically altered the internal politics of Afghanistan. To assess the regional implications, we shall first try to understand the nature of this movement, whose aim is to impose a fundamentalist revolutionary order that conflicts at many points with tribal customs. the taliban or the second afghan revolution

Although the values of the Taliban are clearly remote from those of the West, it is necessary to treat the media clichés with some caution, especially since Ahmad Shah Massoud, his Islamist leanings conveniently forgotten, has been built up into an Asian Che Guevara. Between 1994 and 1996 the Taliban managed to take control of two-thirds of Afghanistan, mainly because they enjoyed sizeable popular support in the countryside on account of the disorder reigning in the south since the fall of Kabul in 1992. This represents a striking contrast with Hezb-e islami, which was incapable of gaining the upper hand despite the comparable support it received from the Pakistanis. The novelty of the Taliban movement, as well as the swiftness and extent of its breakthrough, have suggested various hypotheses about its nature. Do the Taliban signal the resurgence of a tribal model of mobilization in the Pashtun regions? It seems that this position should be rejected, since it fails to account for a number of important facts. In contrast to what was seen in the past, Mullah Omar is not an isolated ulama, not a charismatic figure 124

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who has emerged temporarily to overcome tribal cleavages. A comparison with the revolt of 1929 against Amanullah shows that ulamas are directly taking collective power, not allying themselves with the tribes (which are now rather unstructured in the Kandahar region). Two points may further clarify the difference, and often opposition, between tribal dynamics and the Taliban project. On the one hand, the Taliban have constructed their legitimacy by remaining external to local conflicts – hence the shuffling of cadres and their systematic allocation outside their home provinces. This is the reason why the gathering of weapons has been so effective in the south of the country: the Taliban are not thought of as representing a tribal or communitarian group, even if, in the north, their Pashtun identity makes them allies of local Pashtun groups (a distinction should be drawn here between tribal and Pashtun identity). On the other hand, the legal system established by the Taliban rests entirely on interpretation of the Sharia, often conflicting with the traditional Pashtun code of behaviour (pashtunwali) in such matters as the prohibition of vendettas, music, games of chance, and so on. Hence the repeated clashes with the population, who are tired of that kind of puritanism. Thus, in a break with the dominant tradition in Afghanistan, the Taliban are imposing a theocratic regime with no equivalent elsewhere in the world, legitimized by religion rather than a tribal genealogy or nationalist ideology. Although Islam has been a source of legitimacy for all the regimes, except the Khalqis in 1978–79, the Taliban are now reverting to a purely religious basis of rule, as in the pre-Amanullah era, with no reference to tribes or nation. This is why it seems that, at least in theory, non-Muslims will have to wear distinctive signs (reminiscent of the Loya Jirga amendment to the 1923 Constitution). However, although the Taliban reject in principle any nationalist legitimation, they are in practice bearers of a strong sense of identity, expressed particularly in a drive to Pashtunize society to the detriment of Persian culture (which merely strengthens the opposition of urban, educated, Persian-speaking layers). The regime indisputably draws some of its inspiration from the Deobandi. In some respects, however, its functioning distances it from that current as it manifests itself in Pakistan. More precisely, the Taliban do not appear to have an overtly anti-Shia policy, even if Mazari’s death in March 1995 prevented the initial Taliban policy of openness from immediately taking effect. There is a marked difference with Saudi-funded parties such as the Ittihad, which has now ceased to exist. The Taliban massacres during their first seizure of Mazar-i Sharif, then those of the Hazara reprisals the following summer, should not obscure a phenomenon that may be more impor-

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tant in the long term, namely, the agreement between the Shia religious hierarchy and the ulamas who lead the Taliban. This agreement, facilitated by the grievous military plight of the Hezb-e wahdat, has led Mohammad Akbari to support the Taliban clerical regime and to side with it in his role as a religious dignitary. This capacity for integration on the basis of ulama membership is incomprehensible within a tribal or ethnic schema. impact of the taliban on regional equilibrium

As a revolutionary fundamentalist movement, the Taliban have their own foreign policy agenda. In this respect, their relations with Pakistan need to be analysed more precisely. Pakistan government aid to the Taliban is openly acknowledged, and their military strength would be inexplicable without the massive support they receive from the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). Pakistan has acted no differently from the regional powers that help Massoud (Russia and Iran), but the scale of its support is incomparably greater. For example, during Ismail Khan’s advance on Kandahar in spring 1995, ISI logistical backing enabled the Taliban to hold out and then mount a victorious counter-offensive. Pakistani officers often fought alongside the Taliban, most notably in the operations to capture Kabul (which were successful largely thanks to this Pakistani aid). But the Taliban seem to be growing more autonomous and do not hesitate to contradict their protectors; the execution of Najibullah in April 1992 during the capture of Kabul, for example, was carried out against the wishes of Islamabad. The support of Pakistani fundamentalist movements and control of the heroin traffic give the Taliban real autonomy vis-à-vis the divided Pakistani state. In fact, Pakistan’s official objectives – particularly its opening to Central Asia and the maintenance of good relations with Western powers – conflict with its support for the Taliban, not to speak of the fact that the training of Pakistani fundamentalists in Afghanistan to fight in Kashmir has important consequences for the political stability of Pakistan. The Taliban are engaged in a policy of confrontation with Iran and the ex-communist regimes of Central Asia. From this point of view, the civil war in Tajikistan has an Afghan dimension that threatens to become more and more pronounced. Taliban support in men and weapons for the Tajik opposition is the result of ideological, not ethnic, solidarity and continues the policies of the Ittihad or the Hezb-e islami. Besides, in summer 1998 relations between the Taliban and Iran passed through an acute crisis, after the killing of Iranian diplomatic personnel present in Mazar-i Sharif during the capture of the city. The situation has been less tense in the last few

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months, but the Iranian regime remains mistrustful of the Taliban and has tightened border controls, thereby hindering the activity of drug traffickers. The Taliban seem unwilling to make concessions even to governments favourable to them in principle. The American bombing of a training camp near Zhawar (Paktiya) on 20 August 1998 probably marked an important break in US policy towards Afghanistan, signalling that Washington would reject any dialogue with the Taliban so long as they failed to take measures against Osama bin Laden. But this did not prevent the Taliban from officially closing the case in late November 1998 because of ‘lack of evidence’. At least for a time, therefore, they are willing to pay a high diplomatic price – the withholding of international recognition – for ideological reasons. Even Saudi Arabia, one of the three countries to have recognized the Taliban government, expelled the Taliban representative after their refusal to extradite bin Laden, and his mysterious ‘disappearance’ cannot soften for ever the hostility of the Saudis and the Americans. There is a strong ideological element in the Taliban perception of their environment, although it is possible that international recognition (far from won at present) and membership of international institutions will eventually have modifying effects. In any event, the continuing war stands in the way of a Thermidorean evolution of the regime, which justifies its ideological venture by the need to bring peace to Afghanistan once and for all.

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the impact of the taliban on the afghan economy Peter Marsden (Oxford, February 1999) Any attempt to assess an economy in the midst of a conflict is almost certainly doomed to failure, not least because of the paucity of credible data with which to measure economic developments. The virtual collapse of the state infrastructure over the past 20 years has made this a particularly difficult task in relation to Afghanistan. There are, nonetheless, a number of broad trends that can be identified and it is on these that I shall focus, while making no apologies for what has to be a somewhat impressionistic and subjective assessment. In order to put these trends into context, it is important to look at the nature of the pre-war economy and to differentiate between the specific impact of the Taliban on the economy and that of the occupying Soviet forces and the Mujahedeen before them. Before embarking on a historical analysis, it is important to emphasize that Afghanistan has a number of micro-economies, which relate as much to the economies of Afghanistan’s neighbours as they do to internal economic factors. Further, the vagaries of war have created a high degree of fluidity over time so that the economic fortunes of one part of Afghanistan or another have risen or fallen in response to developments. the pre-war economy

The Afghan economy is essentially based on subsistence agriculture, with wheat the primary crop. Some areas are more productive than others, particularly those where the land can be irrigated. In the irrigated areas, grapes and other fruit have tended to supplement wheat as a means of earning 128

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cash from nearby and more distant markets. Inevitably the areas with lowest productivity are those where the high altitude creates harsh growing conditions and reduces cultivable land to narrow river valleys. The grazing of animals has been an additional element in the agricultural economy, and nomadic groups have historically been an important part of Afghan society. Prior to the 1978 coup, the Afghan economy was becoming increasingly modelled on the command economy of the Soviet Union, with centralized planning a key feature. The economy was also being dovetailed with that of the Soviet Union so that cotton was being grown in the fertile Kunduz triangle for the Soviet market and gas from the northern fields was being piped over the border into Soviet Central Asia. Major highways were built between the urban centres of Afghanistan using both Soviet and US aid, which facilitated the strategic and economic interests of both powers. Kabul was the major warehouse for trade between the Indian subcontinent and the Soviet Union by virtue of its position astride the main route north over the Salang Pass. the impact of the soviet occupation on the afghan economy

During the Soviet military occupation of Afghanistan, 1979–89, the ability of the Soviet Union to maintain its investment in the Afghan economy gradually declined, and there was a further acceleration in this decline between 1989 and 1992 when the Soviet-backed government of Mohammad Najibullah was in power. The occupation saw a gradual deterioration in agricultural output, occasioned by the flight of farmers into internal or external exile and the consequent neglect of the land and irrigation systems. The road system suffered from heavy military use and from a failure to invest adequately in repairs and maintenance. Access to markets was therefore much curtailed. Kabul and the other urban centres were constrained in their ability to trade by blockades organized by Mujahedeen groups. However, deals were struck and supplies did manage to get through. the period of the mujahedeen government,

1992–96

When the Mujahedeen entered Kabul in April 1992, the centralized economy was already on the point of collapse. But there remained an administrative infrastructure of government ministries and municipalities. The Mujahedeen takeover provoked a mass return of refugees from Pakistan and Iran and it became possible for farmers in the border provinces of

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both ­western and eastern Afghanistan to embark on a rebuilding of their damaged villages and irrigation structures and to get their land working again. Many were helped by aid agencies. The north and the south of the country saw lower levels of return but the north at least enjoyed sufficient stability for the agricultural economy to function at a reasonable level. In the southern provinces, however, a period of chronic anarchy from 1992 onwards hindered any significant return of refugees and made it difficult for farmers to ensure more than a marginal level of survival. The economy of western Afghanistan benefited particularly and Herat experienced three years of stability and economic expansion. Jalalabad and Khost, in eastern Afghanistan, drew more on the black economy of opium, heroin, smuggling and logging. Jalalabad became the major warehouse for the smuggling of consumer goods from Dubai into Pakistan. Mazar-i Sharif also functioned reasonably well from the economic links it had developed with Uzbekistan. However, Kabul experienced three years of fighting after the takeover, which destroyed large areas of a city that had hitherto been hardly touched by the conflict. the impact of the taliban on the afghan economy

At the very least, we can say that the Taliban capture of the southern provinces over the autumn and winter of 1994–95, and the stability they provided, acted as a clear boost to the agricultural economy of southern Afghanistan. Furthermore, through this stability, the opium production of Helmand Province, which had been a feature of that local economy during the Mujahedeen period and before, was able to expand. The subsequent takeover of Jalalabad by the Taliban in September 1996 brought the other major opium production area into the Taliban domain and there, also, production expanded. Another consequence of the Taliban takeover has been the development of Kandahar as a major trading centre linked to the smuggling of goods into Pakistan, the development of the transit route to Central Asia and the timber trade. Herat has also begun to pick up after an initial slump when the Taliban first captured it in September 1995, largely as a result of the transit trade. Jalalabad has remained an important centre for smuggling, continuing to serve as the primary link by air with Dubai. Kabul, on the other hand, has seen its role as the major trading warehouse further evaporate, with the loss of the route over the Salang Pass due to the military standoff between the Taliban and Massoud north of Kabul.

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Kabul’s importance as the administrative seat of government has also witnessed a serious decline. It has been an explicit policy of the Taliban to prune the government bureaucracy as part of their drive to root out corruption. Further, the Taliban have not given priority to social needs and have, therefore, been relatively unconcerned at the impact that any further reduction in an already emaciated bureaucracy might have. In fact, much of the axe on the bureaucracy fell on the education sector where the ban on female employment immediately led to the dismissal of thousands of teachers. The closure of schools and the reduction in employment opportunities led to an increase in the number of professionals leaving the country, which had begun in the early 1980s and been given a further boost when the Mujahedeen took Kabul. Many of those opting to leave also did so in response to the behavioural restrictions imposed by the Taliban and to the late payment of government salaries. The low priority attached to the social sector has also led to a reduction in the value attached to humanitarian agencies. During the period of the Mujahedeen government, although there was a degree of antipathy on the part of certain organizations to the presence of Western agencies, both NGOs and UN agencies, as well as the ICRC, were able to work with relative freedom to assist in the process of agricultural rehabilitation and to provide public health and other services in the urban areas. The antipathy demonstrated by the Taliban to humanitarian agencies has been much more acute and it has become enormously difficult for these agencies to continue their operations. Donor governments have responded to these difficulties by imposing increasingly strict conditions on their funding. Interestingly, in spite of the clear antipathy demonstrated by the Taliban towards Western humanitarian agencies, there have been significant contacts with Western companies in relation to potentially major ventures. We have thus seen a readiness on the part of the Taliban to contemplate deals to build pipelines, establish telecommunications systems and to extract ­minerals. We therefore have a situation where the Kabul-based centralized economy created during the 1960s and 1970s has been replaced by one which is highly decentralized and laissez faire. The state bureaucracy has all but disappeared and humanitarian agencies are no longer able to substitute for it in meeting social needs on a sufficient scale to alleviate severe hardship. Agricultural production has increased in many areas, to the point where there has been a resumption of the previous trade in grapes and other fruits. However, in areas such as the Hazarajat, where the already marginal growing conditions of this high-altitude region were exacerbated by a year-long blockade, people are scarcely surviving. We have little information on how

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the north is faring, following the Taliban takeover of Mazar-i Sharif last summer. We have also seen a continuation of the major role that the black economy played during the Mujahedeen period. Thus, in spite of statements by the Taliban that they would tackle opium and heroin production, there has been little evidence of any significant change. We have yet to see whether recent statements regarding action to combat the logging of Afghanistan’s scarce timber reserves will have a real impact. The smuggling of duty-free goods into Pakistan is of such a scale as to inflict serious damage on the Pakistan economy. There are, therefore, two parallel economies: that relating to the population at large, which draws on the vagaries of subsistence agriculture and the declining social-sector provision of humanitarian agencies; and that of the black economy, which is likely to be benefiting a relatively small elite within Afghanistan and the wider region, while at the same time strengthening the Taliban movement itself and its military potential.

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the culture of music in the afghan tr ansnational community John Baily (London, September 1999) Music matters because of the crucial role it plays in human life, whether through bringing people together in special relationships, its place in emotional expression, its importance for enculturation or its use in the articulation of identity. Music not only reflects wider social and cultural processes but can be a means of creating, interacting with and controlling them. In the past, popular music broadcast by Radio Afghanistan played an important role in creating something approaching an Afghan national identity, bringing together elements of Pashtun and Tajik musical culture. In the present situation music has great potential for expressing national identity, intra-community reconciliation and individual therapy. The need to use and maintain Afghan music is made all the more urgent because of the Taliban’s current ban on all forms of music making that involve musical instruments. Afghanistan’s considerable musical heritage today is in the hands of expatriate Afghans, in Pakistan, Iran, Europe, North America and elsewhere. Their efforts are worthy of study. There is patronage and communication within the diaspora, with musicians travelling from one continent to another to give concerts. And there are attempts by musicians to set up Afghan music courses. For example, the Afghan Music Academy of London offers lessons in playing harmonium and tabla, while International Immigrant Services in Fremont, California, offers much the same. Two recent concerts in London illustrate different aspects of the current state of music in the Afghan transnational ­community.

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afghanistan ustad eltaf hussain at the kufa gallery,

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1999

The Kufa Gallery is a small Iraqi-owned art gallery in fashionable Bayswater in London, frequently used for concerts of Indian classical music. There is a low dais for the musicians, and many in the audience sit on the carpeted floor at their feet. This concert was organized by the Afghan Music Academy to commemorate two of Afghanistan’s most celebrated musicians of recent times, Ustad Sarahang, the vocalist, and Ustad Hashim, the tabla player and music director. Their ancestors were brought to Kabul as court musicians from what was then India and they carried with them a knowledge of north Indian classical music that was to become an important part of the Afghan national music that developed from the 1920s. The concert was organized by Ustad Asif Mahmood, the late Hashim’s brother, and Asif’s son Yusuf, both residents in London. The audience was largely Afghan, with a strong presence of Indian music lovers including several professional musicians from India. The concert in a sense affirmed the Kabuli musicians’ connections with India and its classical music culture. The concert started with a tabla solo by Ustad Asif, followed by a sitar and tabla performance by the Indian musicians Ustad Mehmood Mirza and Fazal Qureshi. The second half saw an unusual extended tabla duet between Fazal Qureshi and Yusuf Mahmood. This was of particular significance because Fazal Qureshi is the youngest son of the great Ustad Alia Rakha, the senior exponent of the Punjabi tabla ‘school’ to which these Afghan players belong, of whom Yusuf Mahmood is a recognized student. The purpose of this duet seemed to be to make a public statement of Yusuf’s status as a highly competent member of the school. Finally Ustad Eltaf Hussain came on. He is the only son of Ustad Sarahang, and sings ghazal and thumri in the style of his illustrious father. Eltaf Hussain resides in Delhi and has come over to give a number of concerts in Europe. He provided an extraordinary direct link with the former world of Kabuli art music. haidar salim and salma at wembley conference centre ,

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1999

Haidar Salim represents a very different aspect of Kabuli music to that of the ‘hereditary’ musicians, Ustad Asif Mahmood and Ustad Eltaf Hussain. He is one of a number of originally amateur singers, often from upper-class Kabuli families, who found fame, if not fortune, as singers of popular music on Radio Afghanistan. The best-known singer of this kind was Ahmad Zaher, a Mohammadzai, son of a prime minister, Dr Zaher. Haidar Salim

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and his sister Salma were just beginning their careers on Radio Afghanistan before becoming refugees. They now live in California. As befitted their much more modern image, their concert was in the large Wembley Conference Centre, next to the Wembley football stadium, a plush hall seating more than 2,000 people, a venue for popular music and rock concerts. Haidar Salim sings and plays harmonium, with tabla accompaniment from Haidar Haidari, one of Ustad Assif’s Californian students, and keyboard played by Abdullah Qassimi, grandson of the illustrious Ustad Qassim, King Amanullah’s court singer, often described as ‘The Father of Afghan Music’. Abdullah was educated in France and works as a computer programmer for the USA – a very useful skill for playing the modern keyboard, with its sophisticated sampling, looping and drum-machine capabilities. This concert was attended by some 800 smartly dressed Afghans, many in family groups with their children, who greeted the highly amplified band with enthusiasm. The concert was a mixture of old and new songs, and, like other Afghan groups in North America and Europe, the band used certain elements of Western music, such as chords and harmonic progressions. This concert was organized by Hafiza Nadi, from a well-known Kabuli family, now resident in the UK. Financially the concert was a loss but Hafiza was unconcerned, feeling that through this, and other concerts she had already organized for Hafizullah Khyal from New York, she was making her contribution to the continuation of Afghan culture. prospects for the future

These two concerts tell us quite a lot about what is going on in the Afghan transnational community by way of music making. They illustrate rather different aspects of music in expatriate Afghan life. The Kufa Gallery concert looked to the past, to Kabul’s musicians’ quarter, the celebrated Kucheh Kharabat, now destroyed. The hereditary professional musicians who lived and worked there, many originally from the Indian subcontinent, are scattered. Most are probably in Pakistan and India, and are re-connecting with the musical heritage of their ancestors, north Indian classical music. It looks as though the unique Afghan art music that developed in Kabul in the twentieth century, principally a form of Persian ghazal singing, is doomed to extinction. The music of Haidar Salim, on the other hand, represents the future of Afghan music in the West, modernized (with instruments like the electronic programmable keyboard) and Westernized (by adopting simple harmonic principles). Music provides one means through which to create a new identity as permanent citizens of the West.

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Neither concert was aimed at a regular ‘English’ audience. Afghan music is not being marketed in Europe as ‘world music’, as the Haidar Salim poster illustrated, with most of its text in Dari. The same applies to the considerable number of CDs of Afghan music currently available in the West; the texts are all in Dari or Pashto and completely inaccessible to a Western audience. This supports the general impression that Afghan music is currently being used ‘internally’ within the transnational communities rather than engaging with its host communities. Further research is required, and is in hand, but already it is clear that music has an important place in the lives of Afghan refugees.

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afghanistan’s war economy and global reach Ahmed Rashid (Lahore, July 2000) The long-awaited Taliban offensive against the Northern Alliance, which began on 1 July 2000, has highlighted the continued deterioration and criminalization of the economy of Afghanistan. Despite a severe drought, international isolation and the dwindling of international humanitarian aid, both still seem to be able to sustain their war effort. Moreover Afghanistan’s war economy, which is now totally dependent on the drugs and arms trade and the smuggling of goods across a huge swathe of territory that stretches from Dubai to Pakistan and Iran to Central Asia, is now seriously undermining the economies of the entire region. The drugs trade is a major economic provider for the warring factions. Afghanistan is the world’s largest producer of opium (which is refined into heroin), representing 4,500 tons or 75 per cent of world production in 1999. Ninety-seven per cent of Afghan opium is grown in Taliban-controlled areas.1 The sale of opium has created a vast transnational network for the Taliban, which involves drug dealers in Central Asia, Pakistan and Iran and most recently the Caucasus and Chechnya. The Taliban recognition of the government of the Chechen breakaway republic was largely motivated by the desire to formalize drug-smuggling links. These transnational links also provide the means, the routes and the carriers to smuggle in and smuggle out illicit arms for radical Islamic militants in China, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, Kashmir and Chechnya. Drugs, arms and Islamic fundamentalism are now intimately linked with one another. According to the UN Drugs Control programme, the 1999 opium harvest was worth some US$183 million at farm-gate prices for Afghan farmers, who pay ushr, an Islamic agricultural tax, to local Taliban commanders 137

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and mullahs, which is almost wholly locally spent. But the Taliban also levy a separate tax (which they call zakat) of 20 per cent on drug dealers, transporters and refining laboratories. Traditionally zakat is an obligatory 2.5 per cent tax on all Muslims to pay towards charity and the relief of the destitute. The Taliban raise an estimated US$30–40 million through zakat which goes directly into the Taliban war chest. The drugs and smuggling trade has virtually destroyed traditional agriculture and food production, which involves 80 per cent of the population. Poppy growing has replaced wheat production in most areas and Afghanistan now has to import much of its food. This year’s drought has killed off some 80 per cent of the livestock in southern Afghanistan and crippled remaining food production, but it will also have an effect in lowering next year’s opium harvest. The destruction of traditional agriculture has also helped create forced urbanization, while the 20-year-long war has created a vast floating internal refugee population. Some 3 million Afghan refugees still live in Iran and Pakistan and another 1 million in the West. Thus nearly a quarter of the country’s total population of 20 million lives outside the country. The 20-year war and the Taliban’s primitive social policies have also led to an almost total brain drain from the country. There are virtually no educated Afghans left with even rudimentary modern skills. However, the largest source of income for the Taliban comes from the smuggling of consumer and other durable goods. In 1997 the World Bank estimated that the Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) between Afghanistan and Pakistan was worth US$2.5 billion. This is equivalent to half of Afghanistan’s estimated GDP and 15 per cent of Pakistan’s total trade. The smuggling of duty-free goods has crippled industry, revenue collection and border controls and increased corruption multifold in all the neighbouring states, while creating temporary food shortages and raising inflation throughout the region. This trade has now expanded to Dubai, Iran, the five Central Asian Republics and the Caucasus via Turkmenistan. The total smuggling trade across the region, including ATT, is estimated at US$4.5–5 billion. Pakistan could raise 30 per cent more revenue if it was able and willing to tax this smuggling trade. However, Taliban taxes on this trade raise some US$70 million for their war chest. The Taliban claim that they have established security on the roads is quite true because security has been a major factor in boosting smuggling. A group of independent scholars (including this writer) estimate that the present Taliban war budget is around US$100 million. Of that, 60–70

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per cent is derived from the revenues from smuggling, some 30–40 per cent from the drugs trade and about 5–10 per cent from direct financial aid. Pakistan has been paying some US$10 million a year for the salaries of Taliban administrators in Kabul, while until 1998 Saudi Arabia was also a major financial contributor. The wanted Saudi terrorist Osama bin Laden, who is based in Afghanistan, funds an Arab brigade of some 800 men that fights alongside the Taliban and also helps finance specific Taliban offensives. Pakistan and recently Turkmenistan provide other indirect aid such as fuel, technical help in maintaining airports and aircraft, restoring electricity in major cities and road construction to keep the Taliban war machine functional. The anti-Taliban Northern Alliance led by Ahmad Shah Massoud has a war budget of around US$60–70 million. Some 40–50 per cent of this is raised from the mining and sale of lapis lazuli and emeralds from the Panjshir Valley and Badakhshan in the north of the country. Massoud has imposed ushr on mine owners and miners and takes a zakat tax of an estimated 20 per cent from gemstone dealers, both Afghan and foreign. However, in 1997 he established monopoly control over all sales of gemstones and in 1999 signed an agreement with a Polish company, Inter Commerce, to market all Afghan gemstones. That deal could raise his income to US$200 million over the next few years. Another 20–30 per cent of Massoud’s war budget is derived from the trade in opium to the Central Asian Republics, but a further 10–20 per cent is derived from foreign aid, both financial and material from Russia, Iran, the Central Asian states and India. This criminalized economy has enormously enhanced the political role of drug smugglers, arms dealers, transporters and truckers – both Afghan and from across the region. They now all have a vested interest in seeing the war continue, expanding the criminalized economy across an even wider region and providing the Taliban with continued financial and military support. At the same time, any development work carried out by the Taliban is only there to enhance the capacity of this criminalized economy. Thus their efforts to import satellite telephone systems to Kabul, rebuild shattered roads, set up petrol pumps and repair workshops for trucks are all prompted by a desire to make the smuggling and drugs networks more efficient – rather than providing basic amenities to the population. No faction has a consistent or accountable budget for public welfare and both sides depend entirely on UN agencies, the International Committee of the Red Cross and other Western NGO agencies to provide food, water, medical facilities and any basic developmental work to the population. The dependence on outside aid is also partly a legacy of the 1980s war

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with the Soviet Union, when both the communist government in Kabul and the Mujahedeen parties based in Peshawar received billions of dollars in military aid, while the bulk of the population were dependent on Western humanitarian agencies. However, today, with massive donor fatigue setting in amongst the wealthy countries, a lack of interest in Afghanistan as the war continues and other international commitments such as Yugoslavia and East Timor, donor aid and the ability of UN agencies to deliver goods on the ground has declined dramatically. Afghanistan ranks 169 out of the 174 countries on the UN’s Human Development Index. This year the drought, the war, the failure of the wheat crop and the lack of funds from UN humanitarian agencies have created a horrendous economic crisis for most of the population. Any peace plan for Afghanistan will have to involve an international commitment to turn a criminalized drugs-based economy back into a traditional agricultural economy. This will require considerable funds but certainly far less than that committed to other war zones. It is estimated by UN agencies that if peace comes, Afghanistan could absorb no more than US$200–400 million over the first three years in humanitarian and reconstruction aid. But no international agency is carrying out any comprehensive research into how the massive task of turning around a black economy into a functional white economy can take place. Although there are at present numerous peace initiatives for Afghanistan, what is entirely lacking is a fund for reconstruction once peace comes. If the international community were to put together such a fund, which would be held over the warlords as a kind of bribe or inducement under the stipulation that it would be only disbursed after certain conditions were met, such as a ceasefire, inter-Afghan talks and a coalition government, it could provide a major incentive for the warlords to talk peace. Even more important, with such a fund in place, Afghanistan’s civil society would have a lever with which it could pressurize the warlords to make peace. Cowered, exhausted and starved by years of war, traditional civil society has no platform under which it could reorganize and demonstrate an alternative to war. None of the present problems emanating from Afghanistan – terrorism, drugs, weapons proliferation and Islamic fundamentalism – can be tackled unless serious international attention is paid not just to the peace process but also the criminalized economy. notes

1.

In July 2000 the Taliban put a ban on poppy cultivation.

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farewell to the buddhas of bamiyan Pierre Centlivres (Neuchâtel, March 2001) In 356 bce Herostratus set fire to the great temple of Artemis in Ephesus, one of the Seven Wonders of the World, in the hope that the enormity of his action would make him immortal. Contrast this with Mullah Omar’s decree ordering the destruction of those other wonders, the statues in the Kabul Museum and the colossi in the cliff face at Bamiyan. Herostratus’s aim was notoriety, but Mullah Omar is a secretive being, whose face is unknown to non-Muslims. The famous decree, based on a fatwa by a college of ulamas in Kandahar, aims to achieve in the land of Afghanistan a particular vision of the divine order resting on religious law. The decree, then the actual destruction in March 2001, had an unprecedented resonance throughout a stupefied world. Its universal condemnation is a distant and muffled echo of that which struck Herostratus, who was tortured for his monstrous deed. But in the two cases, beyond the accusations of vandalism, there is a kind of sacrilegious crossover between idol worship (ended by the Taliban) and the iconoclasm of an attack on the human heritage. Can beauty and perfection so captivate the human mind that it forgets everyday needs or divine law? The destruction of works of art, especially the most beautiful and spectacular among them, would then be a redemptive operation designed to eliminate what distracts men and women from struggling on the path of godliness. The decree issued by the Commander of the Faithful forcefully asserts the irrevocability of religious law as it emerges (in the Kandahar ulamas’ fundamentalist interpretation) from the Koran and Sharia. The high religious, political and cultural figures who rushed to Kabul received a polite, even courteous, welcome, but the attitude of Mullah Omar and his ministers 141

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was unyielding: their implicit message was that the Emirate of Afghanistan was steadfast in accomplishing its mission; that the global outcry against the destruction of the statues, like the sanctions imposed in connection with bin Laden, was of little importance. This interpretation would partly confirm the ‘contextual’ explanation of the destruction as an act of political calculation, whose aim is to compel international political recognition, to cover up the massive theft of archaeological objects, and so on. But it would also define their limits, since Mullah Omar’s decrees rule out any horse-trading and invoke timeless principles rather than contingencies. The whole affair has prompted numerous commentaries. Here are a few: • The disappearance of Afghan cultural heritage through the plunder of the Kabul Museum collections, as well as secret excavations initiated from abroad or the recent professional operation to remove paintings adorning the hollows at Bamiyan represent a disaster at least as great as the programmed destruction of the giant statues. • Statues, even more than paintings or other two-dimensional images, are covered by the provisions of the Book that forbid ‘graven images’ and the graphic representation of living beings. The artist who sculpted them is suspected of wanting to compete with the Creator – an ambition both arrogant and derisory. One can understand those who are shocked by the universal clamour against the destruction of the Buddhas, at a time when the famished Afghan population is fighting for survival and international aid remains parsimonious. The campaign to destroy works of art that are part of the human heritage is a misfortune of a different kind: it arouses the same unease as any other iconoclasm, whether of Byzantine icons, Gothic church sculptures or African masks and sculptures (burned by missionaries not so long ago); it causes the same anguish as the destruction of books or artworks under totalitarian regimes. Over and above a particular country or category of art, a whole legacy belonging to humanity as a whole is annihilated. The famous Bamiyan statues were majestic figures: numerous travellers, both ancient and modern, mentioned them with admiration and sometimes awe – from Chinese pilgrims in the fifth and seventh centuries through to Arab explorers and geographers, British agents in the 1830s and 1840s and French and Afghan archaeologists and to envoys working in the last few years for the Society for the Preservation of Afghanistan’s Cultural Heritage. Understandably, when certain Islamic stalwarts came face to face with these imposing statues, they were tempted to damage them in some way, if

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not actually to destroy them. But despite the artillery fire attributed to the troops of Aurangzeb (1618–1707) and Nadir Shah Afshar (1688–1747), the Buddhas resisted surprisingly well the squalls of history and the successive masters of the Bamiyan Valley. In 1939 Ella Maillart was overcome by Bamiyan’s ‘spirit of smiling restfulness’.1 She mentions the reinforcement of the masonry in the part of the cliff housing the ‘small’ Buddha. In order to preserve it, she writes, ‘a sum of sixty thousand afghanis was easily collected’,2 proving the attachment that Afghans, or at least some Afghans, feel for these emblematic figures. But she immediately adds: ‘some years ago the Afghan Government issued a stamp reproducing the Buddha of Bamiyan but it was withdrawn, for too many Muslims were shocked at a representation of the human form’.3 The suspicion that weighed on the ‘idols’ of Bamiyan had not ceased to express itself. notes

1. 2. 3.

Ella K. Maillart, The Cruel Way: Switzerland to Afghanistan in a Ford, 1939 (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2013), p. 174. Ibid. Ibid.

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afghanistan after the taliban Olivier Roy (Dreux, October 2001)

Twenty years of war have left Afghanistan so devastated that the only remaining basis for politics lies in ethnic and regional factions. Efforts to unite Afghans with a class-based ideology failed years ago with the end of Afghan leftist parties and of Soviet support. The Taliban’s own Islamist appeal promised, for a time, to transcend factionalism and unite Afghans on a religious basis. That promise has gone unfulfilled. Taliban Islamic fundamentalism has become, in recent years, too rigid, simplistic and oppressive to retain Afghan loyalties and too closely associated with the foreign methods and ambitions of Osama bin Laden and the Arab and other guests in his circle. Increasingly, it too has become reliant on regional and ethnic loyalties, in this case the loyalties of Pashtuns – who make up the great majority of Taliban followers – and in particular Pashtuns from the Kandahar region. Against this background, any postTaliban government will have to, at least in the short term, cobble together a coalition based on recognizing the country’s various centres of power. Britain and Pakistan agreed on 5 October 2001 that such a government must have ‘every key ethnic group included’, as Britain’s prime minister, Tony Blair, put it after meeting President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan. Ideological affiliations, for now, do not make sense in Afghanistan. the opponents of the taliban

The main opponents of the Taliban are united in the loose coalition of the Northern Alliance. The late Ahmad Shah Massoud’s forces hold the northeast; they are mainly Tajiks (Sunni Persian speakers) and constitute the best 147

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military units. Around the city of Mazar-i Sharif in the north-east, General Rashid Dostum continues to head a small force of local Uzbeks. The main power in the north-west is Ismail Khan, who is a Sunni Persian speaker but does not consider himself Tajik. Finally, the country’s centre is populated by Shia Persian speakers, mainly represented by the Hezb-e wahdat, a formally pro-Iranian group. None of these movements has total control of its area. There are also dozens of local warlords – truly the plague of Afghanistan – who will take whatever power they can grasp and will shift loyalties in the blink of an eye. The armed opposition to the Taliban inside Afghanistan, then, is mainly composed of non-Pashtuns. Pashtuns joined the Taliban in 1996 as a kind of protest against being excluded from central power, which was then headed by non-Pashtuns who would later form the Northern Alliance. But the Pashtuns are themselves not united: eastern Pashtuns, who straddle the border with Pakistan, also feel alienated by the hegemony of the Kandahar Pashtuns who dominate the Taliban. The eastern Pashtuns have never had a political movement of their own and usually rely on temporary gatherings of tribal elders, called jirga, which find a consensus as necessary on specific issues. is a political settlement possible ?

How to set up a political settlement in such a complex landscape? The first point is that despite ethnic antagonisms, no Afghan ethnic group claims independence or seeks attachment to a neighbouring country. Afghanistan’s Tajiks, for example, are not hoping to join up with Tajikistan. All Afghans claim to be Afghan and want a unified country – with fair shares of power for their own groups. Nevertheless there is no precise census showing the relative numbers of each group. Pashtuns may form the largest group but probably not an absolute majority. The second point is that if the Northern Alliance joins with Pashtuns to form a coalition, such an entity might represent Afghan ethnic diversity adequately enough to begin stable government. The agreement made in Rome between the Northern Alliance and the exiled king, Mohammad Zahir Shah, is a good omen. The king, himself a Pashtun from Kandahar – although his mother tongue is Persian – plausibly represents the continuity of the Afghan nation. That continuity, through decades of conflict and devastation, has all but disappeared from the Afghan scene: the king may well be the only means of bringing it back. However, the Pashtuns around the king are mainly exiles lacking a

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constituency inside Afghanistan. To be effective, a post-Taliban government will need a third element: tribal leaders from the Kandahar region. The greatest immediate challenges to such a government will be, first, to pry southern Pashtun, particularly Kandahari, loyalty, away from the Taliban, and, second, to moderate the influence of Pakistan. Will southern Pashtuns support the Taliban when conflict with the United States finally arrives? There are many signs of disaffection. In the beginning, Pashtuns were happy with the Taliban’s re-establishment of law and order and of a Pashtun regime in Kabul. Soon, however, many became alarmed by the Taliban’s purist onslaught on tribal customs and resented being forced into the army and forbidden from growing opium poppies at a time of profound economic depression. the growing isolation of mullah omar

Finally, the growing ideological radicalization of the Taliban’s leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has run counter to the trend against ideology in Afghanistan. During the last year Mullah Omar has become more and more isolated. He has not met with the Taliban government in Kabul, preferring to seclude himself in Kandahar and rule through a small inner circle of local clerics and foreign radicals, whose leading figure is Osama bin Laden. Many decisions taken in 2000 and 2001 bear the mark of that puritan influence: destroying the Buddhist statues in Bamiyan, requiring nonMuslims to wear insignia and arresting foreign humanitarian workers for Christian proselytizing. The growing influence of Wahhabis, as they are called in the region – meaning that their concept of religion is based on the puritanism of official Saudi Islam – has created a nationalist backlash among many Afghans. the policy of pakistan

If Pashtun loyalty to the Taliban is weakening in Afghanistan, it probably remains strong among Pakistan’s 16 million Pashtuns who live along Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan. Pakistani ethnic Pashtuns are heavily influenced by Taliban-style fundamentalism and hold many key positions in the Pakistani government, army and security services. Pakistan has long used both ethnic and religious leverage to influence Afghanistan, whether through the Pashtun fundamentalist warlord and politician Gulbuddin Hekmatyar in the 1980s or the Taliban after 1994.

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This policy has been driven by Pakistan’s desire to use its own Pashtun minority and other Pakistanis who lean towards fundamentalism as tools to bring Afghanistan into its sphere of influence. If Pakistan is now ready to get rid of Mullah Omar and bin Laden, who have become liabilities, it will still, following the well-established pattern, try to promote some other brand of Pashtun Islamism. It will probably work to undermine the coalition around the king and play on America’s presumed inability to engage in state-building for any length of time. If Pakistan does pursue such a policy, it would recreate the conditions that brought the Taliban to power in the first place. To give Afghanistan a real chance of peace, Pakistani influence will have to be either dramatically altered or aggressively curtailed. America and its allies should strengthen the coalition around the king by enticing southern Pashtuns to join. Afghanistan should be returned to all Afghans.

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ethnicity and politics in afghanistan: the role played by setam-e melli Antonio Giustozzi (London, September 2001) The role played by ethnicity in Afghan politics remains a matter of controversy. While Soviet advisers during the war tended to attribute great importance to this issue, and some Russian writers continued to do so after the war, Western commentators have never considered it very relevant. The example of the so-called Setam-e melli (National Oppression) and its role during the war can help clarify the terms of the debate. Setam-e melli is in reality just a nickname attributed by political rivals to a splinter faction of the People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) led by Tahir Badakhshi,1 which came into being in the early 1970s in opposition to the ‘Pashtun domination’ of the PDPA and in support of the rights of ethnic minorities. By the time of the Saur Revolution in 1978 the group had split into two different movements, Sazman-e Inqilab-e Zahmatkashan-e Afghanistan, or Revolutionary Organization of the Workers of Afghanistan (SAZA), and Sazman-e Fedayan-e Zahmatkashan-e Afghanistan, or Organization of the Fedayin of the Workers of Afghanistan (SAFZA). Neither organization took part in the Saur Revolution and both remained on the sidelines until Hafizullah Amin obtained full control of the PDPA and unleashed a new and more virulent wave of repression against, among others, the SAZA and SAFZA. SAZA was hit particularly badly, both because of its larger size and its stronger presence in areas within easier reach of the repressive apparatus of Amin, such as Kabul. At the same time, the Islamist component of the anti-PDPA insurrection, which was spreading across the country, also targeted SAZA and SAFZA. SAZA sources claim that before the Soviet arrival, 3,000 of their members succumbed to both Khalq and the Islamists. This figure is probably an overestimate, but 151

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the losses were undoubtedely heavy and included T. Badakhshi, leader of SAZA, executed by Amin, and several other leaders. In the ideological debates of the 1970s, SAZA had taken the Castroist/ Ho Chi Minh line, the essence of which was that party activists had to work in the villages, in direct contact with the people. By the late 1970s, most of its members actually lived, if not in the villages, at least in the small provincial centres of northern and north-eastern Afghanistan. The repression of Amin pushed even those who lived in Kabul and other major cities (and who survived) to seek refuge in remote corners of the countryside. Despite the losses, therefore, SAZA and SAFZA were in 1980 in a much better position to play a role in the ongoing civil war than the PDPA, at least in those regions. PDPA members from across the country had moved towards the capital after the Saur Revolution, seeking a position in the army or in the state administration. With the Mujahedeen insurrection, even the few left in the provinces were forced to flee to Kabul to save their lives. By the time the Soviets were in Kabul, trying to sort out the mess created by Amin, the PDPA had become a completely ineffective machine in the Afghan countryside, where the real war was being fought. Despite being more or less pro-Soviet organizations, in the early 1980s SAZA and SAFZA were mostly tolerated, with some members still held in prison from the time of Amin and others cooperating with the PDPA. Both asked for arms to fight against the Mujahedeen and at the same time defend themselves in the areas where their membership was concentrated, but in general such requests were not answered very positively, although SAZA and SAFZA members were reported to be already fighting alongside Soviet troops against Pashtun Mujahedeen in Badakhshan Province in this early period. SAZA and SAFZA, in turn, carried out anti-PDPA propaganda. The Soviets were keen to convince SAZA and SAFZA to merge with the PDPA, but while SAFZA formally agreed to this in 1984, SAZA always refused, fearing that it would discredit it among its followers; it also criticized the top–down method adopted by the PDPA in implementing its policies. It was only from 1986 that General Varennikov, who commanded the corps of Soviet military advisers in Afghanistan, began to equip SAZA and SAFZA members with arms, which led to the formation of militia to fight actively against the Mujahedeen. By 1990 SAZA, the largest of the two organizations, was estimated by Soviet observers to have 9,000 armed men in the field, a sizeable number even if still short of the 20,000 which was the target of the leadership of the party. At about the same time, SAZA controlled an estimated 1,000 villages throughout Afghanistan, mostly concentrated in Badakhshan and Takhar Provinces, but with an important

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presence as far as Herat. The impact of SAZA and SAFZA on the conduct of the war was crucial in the provinces where they were strong. Starting from Badakhshan, where they contributed to the strengthening of the government side already in 1983–84, they helped the Soviet army to bring back under its control large parts of the provinces of Takhar, Baghlan and Herat. Why did these small parties succeed, at least to some extent, where the PDPA had failed? To what extent can this success be attributed to their anti-Pashtun ethnic ­nationalism? Undoubtedly the ethnic discourse of SAZA and SAFZA appears to have appealed to sections of the Tajik intelligentsia, whose presence in the two parties must have ranked in the low hundreds. It is certainly not a coincidence that Tajiks were the most numerous ethnic group in all the areas where SAZA and SAFZA managed to root themselves. There is little sign, however, that ethnic discourse has represented much of a factor in pushing other town-dwellers and peasants into the parties and the militias, especially in those areas where Pashtun presence was weak, as it was in Takhar and most of Badakhshan. As always in Afghan politics, patronage rather than ideology appears to have been the key to winning support. Varennikov did not just provide arms but also food and other supplies, which the two parties then redistributed to the villagers. Of course in this context having men of influence in as many villages as possible is crucial to establishing the early connection and trust which makes all the subsequent steps possible. SAZA and SAFZA appear to have been more successful than the PDPA in competing for the allegiance of peasants with the Mujahedeen owing to their stronger roots in the countryside. That, of course, persisted as long as the Soviet Union was able to guarantee a steady flow of supplies. When that ceased in 1991, the structures created by the heirs of the original Setam-e melli collapsed. notes

1.

Born in Faizabad, educated in Kabul at the Habibia School and at the faculty of economics of Kabul University; imprisoned in Pul-e Charkhi jail, summer 1978, and executed during the rule of Hafizullah Amin on 17 September 1979.

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ahmad shah massoud: the man behind the legend Christophe de Ponfilly (Paris, September 2001) Perhaps because legend said he was invisible (and invincible), omnipresent in his resistance to the Soviet army, perhaps because he was at every front where each man needed him, perhaps because he flew above the rocks, some thought he had been chosen by God. Perhaps because of what the storytellers dreamed up at teatime, when Afghans become poets, Ahmad Shah Massoud is still so present in everyone’s mind.1 His brutal death through an act of treachery already assigns him a place in the list of great men. Today all who really knew and loved him sorely miss his human presence. So much sadness for so long in people’s hearts! To experience the events since that 9 September 2001, and since the tragic 11 September that saw the death of so many innocent people unconnected with Afghanistan; to witness political developments suddenly at the centre of the world stage, after years in which they had been so remote from it – to live through all this without Massoud is quite simply to suffer from being alive. Where is the sense in this injustice? I am not the only one to ask the question. It was well known that death was just around the corner. But for so many years of war, people forgot that he too might fall victim. Massoud went through so many trials, like the long-suffering Afghan people themselves. While some thought that I idealized this man to the point of heroworship, his detractors never understood his profound human value. Of course Massoud made mistakes, especially in Kabul, where the complexity of the situation overwhelmed him, where many of those who should have helped him did no more than betray him, and where quite a few of those around him thought only of their own interests. To be sure, the pride of the Panjshiris played a detrimental role in the writing of the script.

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The war in Kabul destroyed all hope of peace; outside interference kept the fires burning. Massoud did not want to take power. At a time when he deserved to light up the country with love, he found no support. Of this I am sure: Massoud learned from his experience. When he came to France for the first time in early April 2001, those who welcomed him encountered a truly wise man. What he asked for was not weapons but humanitarian aid for the Afghan people and a political effort to end Pakistani interference. He spoke of peace, whereas he had too often been presented as a man of war. Of course he was an amazing strategist, of course he had inflicted huge blows on the powerful Soviet army, but Massoud did not like war and dreamed of peace. He wanted to be an architect: to build, to educate himself, to travel, to read. He loved poetry and knew how to listen to those who approached him. He was in love with life, with his wife and children, with his free and independent country. Today, like all who knew him and understood who he really was, I feel an incurable sadness. I watch in dismay as people who scarcely knew him speak of his life and tell their own story through his legend, while at the same time transforming it. I watch mankind twirl in every direction, lacking the wisdom to take its time (which Afghans know how to do). Massoud had modesty and discretion. His words were in keeping with his actions. He turned reflection about past errors into a new force that dwelt within him and gave him added strength. I also learned from him that one should never give up, that the battle is never lost so long as one has courage, conviction and ideals. I have confidence in the strength of the Afghans. Massoud sowed seeds in some of their hearts, and these will nurture the trees and flowers of tomorrow’s gardens. notes

1.

Commander Ahmad Shah Massoud was assassinated by a suicide squad on 9 September 2001.

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reconstituting state power in afghanistan William Maley (Canberra, March 2002) The Bonn Agreement of December 2001 on the political future of Afghanistan has understandably left many questions unanswered, and some of the most important relate to whether, and if so to what extent and in what ways, power should be shared between the different levels of government. In the past, such questions have produced sharply polarized responses among Afghan commentators, with some excoriating the performance of a centralized state while others fear the consequences of a deconcentration of power.1 What is perhaps not adequately appreciated is that this debate mirrors fundamental tensions in political theory, between an emphasis on order, such as one finds in Thomas Hobbes’s famous book Leviathan, emphasizing the importance of a ‘common power’, and on freedom of the kind which suffused Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws, which provided the classic argument in favour of the separation of powers. The collapse of the state in Afghanistan had many disastrous consequences, but in the light of the Taliban’s removal, there is a real opportunity for Afghanistan to try to develop new political institutions free of some of the flaws that have contributed to state failure across a range of Third World countries. Historically, many developing countries have been saddled with state structures that attempt to do many things and do most of them badly; they tend to concentrate power in flashy capital cities and prove unresponsive to the needs and interests of ordinary people in more remote localities; moreover, they rely for their survival on high levels of coercion by armies and police, often funded from externally supplied ‘rentier’ income, and enjoy the freedom to extract resources from the populace for their own benefit. However, such autocratic or sultanistic regimes are not impregnable; indeed, splits within ruling elites, or disruption to the flow of resources to 156

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feed the army’s appetite, can easily lead to a regime crisis and to state failure. Afghanistan in the years before 1978 reflected a number of these pathologies, and in reconstructing the Afghan state it is important to avoid them if at all possible. what should a new afghan state do ?

A first point to note is that any rapid attempt to build a strong state is fraught with danger. Even if one accepts that a powerful state can maintain order by supplying a ‘common power’, it does not follow that where the state has collapsed, any resulting disorder is best overcome by returning to the situation that previously prevailed. Where levels of distrust between political actors are high, monopolistic control of a strong state is a very significant asset, and a move to restore such a state can provoke an intense struggle between parties wishing to procure such control.2 However, against this needs to be placed the problem of warlordism which has resurfaced in the post-Taliban period,3 not least because of the abandon with which the US has armed groups that have marketed themselves as opponents of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in eastern and southern Afghanistan. The problem of warlords can be addressed in different ways: by combating them directly, by luring away their supporters, by buying their loyalty, by coopting them into the state, or, in the long run, by fostering norms of behaviour which prohibit predatory extraction. A mix of these strategies is probably required, depending upon the exact nature of the warlord involved, but at the very least it is necessary to reconstitute a national army. The International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has a key role to play in aiding this process, and there is a case for trying to extend this role into the indefinite future as a way of ensuring that the force is politically neutral between different forces within the Afghan government, even if it must play a role in affirming the dominance of the Afghan government over warlords. Afghanistan, of course, is very far from having anything remotely like a strong state: the revenues needed to sustain such as state are not available, and the majority of Afghans have become used to living without the state, which may hamper efforts to redevelop a tax base to fund government activities. However, it is notable that the departmental structure of the interim administration is wide-ranging in its ambit, and not exactly a recipe for limited government. The boundaries of proper state action will be a major issue to be confronted in the next stage of state-building. It is important that the state provide a framework of rules within which private economic activity can be pursued – including enforceable laws of contract and tort,

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and a secure currency and banking system – but at the same time, it should not be engaged in activities of the type that could just as well be discharged by private markets. Markets have played a tremendously important role in sustaining ordinary Afghans in recent years, simply as part of the circular flow of income in a trading economy, and state activities which undermine the livelihoods of entrepreneurs, merchants, petty traders and farmers have little to commend them. It is equally important to avoid inroads into the norms of reciprocity which oblige qawm members to help their fellows: all too easily, states can put at risk such tools of effective social welfare and replace them with costly dependence systems. How should the state be configured to discharge its proper roles? A unitary state is one model but runs the risk of alienating ordinary Afghans, for whom Kabul was a remote locale even before the disruption of transport and communications produced by two decades of war. Some might suggest that any departure from a unitary model creates space for warlords, but that is not necessarily so. It is possible to locate the main coercive powers of the state exclusively in the hands of the central authorities, through control of the armed forces, but at the same time to distribute important responsibilities to local government which is closer to ordinary communities – the very basis upon which John Stuart Mill famously defended the diffusion of state power in his Considerations on Representative Government. Through such an approach, one can do much to exploit the capacities of local structures of governance which have emerged through two decades of political disturbance. This is one basis upon which one can bring about a desirable separation of powers. An emphasis on matching local concerns with local authorities to address such concerns also helps address the extremely sensitive issue of ethnic influence in politics. If the political system offers multiple points of access for citizens, either as petitioners or aspirants to political office, particular groups are less likely to feel marginalized. This is also one of the reasons why a parliamentary system is preferable to a presidential one. promoting democr acy?

The idea of promoting democracy in Afghanistan has recently been strongly criticized as a ‘fantasy’.4 If by democracy one has in mind simply a ‘quickfix election’, then caution is warranted: there are good grounds for wariness about such a crude approach, which does little to secure a consensually unified elite, a moderate political culture, appropriate institutions or the institutionalization of new political structures.5 However, for stable politics in the future, it is important to ensure that state power is accountable.

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Democracy in the very basic sense of a system of government in which the ruled can change the rulers without bloodshed is vital in this respect. But there are other institutions which can assist in the control of state power on a more day-to-day basis. The Judicial, Civil Service and Human Rights Commissions envisaged in the Bonn Agreement all have important roles to play. Of course, these are important avenues for capacity building, through which lessons painfully learned in other political systems can be shared with young Afghans. But there is no reason in principle for excluding even more imaginative devices for restraining political power while building political trust. It may be worthwhile to explore whether certain key positions in a future Afghan state – such as Director of Public Prosecutions, Ombudsman, Independent Electoral Commissioner or even Chief Justice – might not be better appointed by the United Nations Secretary General or the President of the International Court of Justice. Such a quasi-internationalization of the Afghan state could disadvantage coup plotters, since the international community would perforce be immediately affected, with consequent risk to the plotters’ well being. There is no precedent for such measures, but nor is there much precedent for the kind of situation in which Afghanistan presently finds itself. If there is an acute danger at present, it is that the resources necessary to fund an appropriate process of state reconstruction will simply not materialize. At the Bonn meeting, the Afghan parties took a considerable step forward, by committing themselves to a process of rebuilding, rather than simply carving up the spoils from the Taliban’s collapse.6 But state structures cannot be whistled up out of thin air. The responsibility of wealthy Western states, which until 11 September 2001 largely ignored the Afghans’ cries for help, is a heavy one. If sufficient resources are supplied, there are reasonable chances that Afghanistan will eventually escape from its rut. If the attention of the West drifts and Afghanistan disappears from its political agenda, the result could be a new and perilous cycle of despair. While great opportunities have opened up with the displacement of the Taliban, Afghanistan is by no means out of the woods. notes

1.

See M. Nazif Shahrani, ‘The future of the state and the structure of community governance in Afghanistan’, in William Maley (ed.), Fundamentalism Reborn? Afghanistan and the Taliban (New York: New York University Press, 1998) pp. 212–42; Sayed Qassem Reshtia, ‘Les obstacles à un système fédéral’, Les Nouvelles d’Afghanistan, no. 80 (1998), p. 19.

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See Russell Hardin, One for All: The Logic of Group Conflict (Princeton: ­Princeton University Press, 1995); Caroline A. Hartzell, ‘Explaining the Stability of Negotiated Settlements to Intrastate Wars’, Journal of Conflict Resolution 43/1 (1999), pp. 3–22. 3. Barnett R. Rubin, ‘Putting an End to Warlord Government’, New York Times, 15 January 2002. 4. Marina Ottaway and Anatol Lieven, Rebuilding Afghanistan: Fantasy versus Reality (Washington, DC: Policy Brief no. 12, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2002). 5. See William Maley, ‘Peacekeeping and Peacemaking’, in Ramesh Thakur and Carlyle A. Thayer (eds), A Crisis of Expectations: UN Peacekeeping in the 1990s (Boulder: Westview Press, 1995), pp. 237–50; Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict (New York: W.W. Norton, 2000). 6. See William Maley, The Afghanistan Wars (London: Palgrave, 2002), chapter 11.

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a bad start to reconstruction Gilbert Étienne (Geneva, August 2002) Although worrying political and military disturbances have affected various regions, aid has been getting through to huge areas that are more or less quiet. However, reconstruction is off to a bad start, largely through the fault of the donors. The situation is all the more distressing because in 1978, just before the war, the country had been undergoing real development in agriculture, infrastructure, trade and modern elite training. And despite the destruction, the population movement and the elite emigration, it has not lost all its previous gains: some of them might even gather fresh momentum in the short to medium term with the help of the Afghans’ well-known ability to cope! At the Tokyo Conference in January 2002, the Western countries, Japan, Saudi Arabia, the United Nations and the World Bank undertook to disburse a total of US$4.5 billion, with US$1.8 billion coming in 2002. The UN representatives, including the envoy to Kabul, Lakhdar Brahimi, wanted to oversee this aid, but the idea was rejected for all but a quarter of the amount: each country preferred to remain its own master in this regard. Foreign dependence looks like being more acute than in the period from 1950 to 1978. The Afghan state does not even have the means to pay its employees. The bulk of the intelligentsia, senior civil servants, businessmen, teachers and doctors left the country in successive waves between 1978 and the fall of the Taliban in November 2001. To find competent and motivated foreign experts in sufficient numbers, to entice back Afghan senior managers from Europe or the United States and to train new ones – these are more than difficult tasks. Eight months after the Tokyo agreement, the release of funds and the initiation of reconstruction work are making slow progress. Of the US$1.8 161

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billion promised in 2002, US$570 million has been paid out and even World Food Programme aid for drought-stricken regions threatened with famine lacks the necessary liquidity. While a million and a half Afghan refugees in Pakistan are on their way back home, the UNHCR does not have the funds to help them resume their activities. It took the Asian Development Bank six months to approve $50 million in gifts and loans. Highway repairs should have begun in February, but only in mid-May did Islamabad and Kabul sign a preliminary memorandum covering the road links between Afghanistan and Pakistan. From 1992 to 1996 a large part of Kabul was destroyed by fighting between Afghan factions, but still today construction machinery is a rare sight. With picks and shovels, the city’s inhabitants are unblocking the drains and trying to repair their homes. Meanwhile expatriates are paying rents of US$3,000–$10,000 a month for housing or office space. Afghanistan remains a rural country par excellence, with a peasantry which, though illiterate, has been able to innovate thanks to the Green Revolution, growing wheat or cotton and improving orchards and vineyards. Seed-sowing, chemical fertilizer and equipment easily bought from Pakistan have made it possible to revive agriculture this year. To be sure, such projects are supported by NGOs and foreign governments, but they ought to be undertaken on a more massive scale. Slow progress and delays are a source of worry. Rain-fed wheat (lalmi) should be sown in early spring, yet many peasants did not receive seeds or, if they did, they arrived too late. After three consecutive years of drought, however, snow-melt and rainfall in 2002 allowed fine harvests in a number of regions. Irrigated wheat is actually sown in October; it would seem that the seeds are currently being distributed. On the other hand, there is a lack of chemical fertilizer, and the factories in neighbouring Pakistan are only operating at half-capacity, so that, instead of harvesting 2,000–2,500 kg of wheat per hectare, farmers are bringing in only half that amount. After the slow waltz of aid funds, the time came for the ordering of priorities: agricultural revival, road repair, de-mining, the reconstruction of Kabul. The Afghan authorities complain that things are happening so slowly. The UNDP document on reconstruction places agriculture last and roads next to last, while elaborating at length on tasks which will in any case take time to achieve (human rights, the position of women, ‘good ­governance’).

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the regional context

A more or less stabilized Afghanistan with a recovering economy would allow it to integrate with ex-Soviet Central Asia (if it is not shaken by too much turbulence), Pakistan and perhaps India; this would involve gas and oil pipelines from Turkmenistan to Pakistan and countries outside the region, for which Afghanistan would receive transit charges, and a development of export–import links with Central Asia through the port of Karachi that would recreate an ancient trading zone. This possible future would also bring many benefits to the West and Japan, including a reduction in their dependence for oil on the unsettled Saudi Arabia. a marshall plan in reverse ?

The weaknesses and divisions of the Afghans by no means excuse the attitude of Western countries, where funding delays, lack of solid organization and administrative routine get the upper hand over decisive action and any sense of urgency. One might imagine a Marshall Plan in reverse, such that a single country would be the beneficiary of a number of bilateral and multilateral donors, overseen by a kind of proconsul who would have wide powers over the funders and negotiate with the Afghans. Lakhdar Brahimi, however, for all his talents, does not enjoy such room for manoeuvre. These shortcomings are troubling. For a cynic or someone schooled in Realpolitik, countries like Rwanda or Sierra Leone can tear themselves apart without having a negative impact on the rest of the world. But in Afghanistan today, as in the age of the Marshall Plan, assistance is in the interests of both donors and recipients. The point is to purge the region of terrorist hotbeds, whose effects we have seen at global and regional level, while creating new outlets for Central Asian gas and oil through a reconstructed Afghanistan. For their part, the Afghans will not find a way out unless they receive swift and massive aid. Such a convergence of interests – not to speak of aid to a suffering people – is not very common in history, yet its evident reality does not seem to have leapt to the eyes of Western leaders.

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letter to a father: bashfulness and emotion in the midst of migr ation Alessandro Monsutti (October 2000/February 2002) The Afghan conflict led to an exodus of several million people from the country. The Hazaras, a Persian-speaking Shia people originating in central Afghanistan, went to Iran – the country with which they share a religion and a language. Before the war, many already left in search of work in the capital, Kabul, or in neighbouring countries. But owing to the climate of insecurity and economic difficulties, the migratory flows have increased without precedent in the last two decades. As far as possible, the Hazaras communicate with one another by telephone across Pakistan, Iran and the Gulf countries. The lack of telephones in Afghanistan means that Quetta, the capital of Pakistani Baluchistan, is an indispensable relay station. Contacts and the exchange of information then take place via relatives, friends or mere acquaintances on the move. Letters also play an important role; as a Persian proverb puts it, khat nesb-e didar ast: ‘a letter is half a meeting’. The letters are simple sheets of paper torn from notebooks, folded and refolded until they form a tiny square; they are never posted and mostly lack an envelope. They circulate through migrants travelling between Hazarajat, Quetta and various Iranian cities. The writer, knowing that a certain individual is leaving on a journey, gives him a letter but – most importantly – sits with him around a cup of tea. The addressee will not only receive the written note but also listen to the messenger’s stories. The scene at both departure and arrival is always the same: a customary exchange of greetings, then the traveller’s long report to an attentive audience and, finally, a more dialogic session of questions and answers. The writers ask about the political situation in their home village, about their close relatives, about shops that have recently opened or 164

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closed, and so on. At first sight, the public character of the information is surprising. Whereas in other contexts Afghans like to surround themselves with secrecy, and whereas distrust seems to dominate most of their social interactions, the handing over and reading of letters is done publicly. They pass from hand to hand and are read even before they get to their addressee. Widespread illiteracy means that the sender often has to ask a third person to write the text for him, while the recipient may need to have it read out aloud. The letters contain little concrete or personal information, consisting mainly of greetings and wishes. However, they display a tact, or even bashfulness, which often makes them touching. Here is one example, sent by a young 18-year-old Hazara working in Tehran to his father in Hazarajat:1 From your servant Mohammad Husain Jahangir for my father and/or Mohammad Hasan in Chaghl-e Sang with all my respect, 2 Mizan 1374 [24 September 1995] In the name of God In the name of God the merciful and compassionate, from your servants Mohammad Husain and Mohammad Ali, first of all for my respected father and my compassionate mother and my dear brother Hazrat Ali’s father and Hazrat Ali’s mother and Hazrat Ali himself and my dear Malika and my dear Guljan and my uncle Mardan Ali’s father and Mohammad Hakim Hakimi and my dear Abdul Khaleq and Mohammad Juma and Ali Ata Jan and Mohammad Yunus Jan and the other family members and for my uncle the father of Mohammad Mehdi and for Mohammad Mehdi himself and Abdul Latif Jan and Nawruz Ali Jan and Qorban Ali Jan and Mohammad Dust Jan and my uncle the father of Mohammad Jawad Khan and Mohammad Jawad Khan himself and Mohammad Ali Khan and Reza Ali Khan and for all the other relatives and friends who have been overlooked in this letter I also send by my pen my best greetings. If you wish to be informed of my situation, thanks to God the merciful and compassionate, I have at present the features of health. May God grant that you do too my dear ones. I wish to say to my dear and fortunate brother Hazrat Ali’s father that your servant has sent a ball and a net via Mohammad Jawad Khan, did you receive it or not. Let me know and keep me informed about yourselves. Respectfully Mohammad Husain Jahangir What sadness before a son becomes as his father. Though I am far from you, my spirit is with you Though water is separated into a hundred parts, they recognize one another What is life if not suffering

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afghanistan In the beginning was pain and at the end is death The salt in my eyes is sweeter than morning sleep

This letter consists of a long list of greetings and polite expressions, their intention being to refresh a relationship and to provide the occasion for an exchange of words (Mohammad Husain Jahangir’s father will obtain more concrete information by asking questions of its bearer). The use of teknonyms is ubiquitous when referring to an elder (the author writes ‘Hazrat Ali’s father’ to designate his elder brother) or a woman (apart from little girls). The text has scarcely any factual information as such, but it would be wrong to think that it has no content. By means of the greetings, the author reaffirms his ties of solidarity and makes them public. However, having only recently finished school, he expresses his emotions with great bashfulness in the final lines of verse. Similarly, another Hazara working in Tehran, old before his time, receives a letter dictated by his wife back in Afghanistan. It contains the usual greetings and says hardly anything about the life of the family. On the reverse side, in the guise of a poem, it bears the little footprints of his children, whom he will not see growing up. These examples show that, despite their apparently banal and stereotypical character, these written messages play an essential role in the maintenance and refinement of social and affective ties among people at a geographical distance from one another. As a physical object circulating from place to place and passing from hand to hand, the letter is the bearer of emotion: it expresses the permanence of a community, which is not imagined but embodies the transnational migratory situation of the Hazaras. notes

1. All the names have been changed for the sake of discretion.

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agriculture in afghanistan: a contribution to a better understanding Raphy Favre (Kabul, July 2002) A review of production and importation data from 1964 to 2001 shows that Afghanistan is chronically deficient in cereal production. The good production level achieved in 1978, before the war, was due to a combination of improved production methods and particularly favourable climatic conditions. But the estimated increase in population from 15 million before the war to 24 million now represents a huge challenge to the Afghan economy. To feed 9 million more people, an increase in Afghan agricultural production of about one metric tonne per hectare as compared to the pre-war level will be necessary. Given that the average land available per person is as little as 775m², food self-sufficiency will be difficult to achieve even in the long term without support for improved agricultural methods. The combination of a chronic food shortage and the collapse of other sectors of the economy as a result of two decades of war and failed governance resulted in the installation of a ‘war economy’ as a mean to diversify incomes to cover even the most basic needs. This war economy has taken deep roots in Afghanistan and involves narcotics trafficking, smuggling across borders, outside funding of rival factions, mining of natural resources, humanitarian assistance, remittances, etc. The rural life and sources of income have dramatically changed over the past two decades. The transformation of the war economy into a ‘legal national’ economy is a great challenge that the international community is facing in Afghanistan today, on the success or failure of which depends the entire future of Afghanistan. Agriculture is at the centre of the problem, as it remains the main legal economic sector still functioning, and so the success of agriculture programmes to improve the economic situation in rural Afghanistan is essential. 167

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In that sense, the findings of this paper are worrying in that they show that agriculture programmes are generally failing to address rural problems in Afghanistan. The underlying cause is that the complex nature of the rural economy is not understood. My paper thus focuses on important aspects of agriculture in Afghanistan that are generally misinterpreted or not addressed properly in the ongoing discussions. The main findings are as follows: 1. Afghanistan faced the worst drought for at least the last 30 years in 2000 and 2001, resulting in its lowest harvest ever recorded and a food shortage of well over 2 million metric tonnes, or more than double the national produce. Famine was, however, averted and Afghans managed to keep going. Indeed, nutritional surveys showed that at the peak of the drought acute malnutrition, or wasting, was not yet a public-health problem. But the failure of standard nutritional indicators to reflect the severe deterioration of the economic situation of Afghan households should be fully taken into consideration when designing a food security Early Warning System (EWS). 2. During the drought, consumption of unhealthy food led to outbreaks of micro-nutrient deficiencies and the means used by vulnerable households to cope with this (e.g., the sale of productive assets, indebtedness, young daughters below 12 given as collateral) have been harmful to their future ability to preserve food security. Moreover, mortality rates beyond the emergency threshold were caused by the outbreak of diseases. The enormous loss of life and livelihood in the last three years has only added to two decades of protracted conflict. 3. Food support to Afghanistan needs to be generous and sustained (but not necessarily free) in order to support recovery. Those who lost their productive and household assets and contracted debts in the course of the drought will need more than one good yield to recover. Besides Food for Work (FFW) activities, the creation of a cereal ‘Buffer Stock’ to stabilize food prices at provincial/district level should be implemented. 4. Cereal production in Afghanistan is erratic, and therefore judgements on Afghan agricultural capacity should take into consideration a succession of good and below-average years rather than any specific year. Rain-fed production accounts for up to 25 per cent of the total cereal production, but this can be entirely absent in below-average years. These characteristics have led to a misinterpretation of how to achieve food self-sufficiency in the past as well as more recently. 5. Rain-fed production techniques are absent from most agriculture

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programmes, with the unfortunate exception of seed-distribution activities generally implemented using ‘improved/modern’ irrigated varieties that do not adapt to rain-fed conditions in Afghanistan. Different supports are proposed, such as the creation of rain-fed landrace seeds, ‘Buffer Stock’ or the cleaning/processing of local seeds. Irrigated farming is the mainstay of Afghan agriculture and it is on irrigated land that significant production increases can be achieved (the Green Revolution). However, the current programmes are not designed to achieve Green Revolution objectives: ‘improved/modern’ irrigated seeds are distributed across the country without any demonstration of their usefulness; fertilizers are either not included in the package or in insufficient quantities, resulting in low performances of modern seeds; the seeds produced by the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Afghanistan are not renewed regularly and therefore degenerate. More concerning, however, is that FAO multiplied varieties are in large part ‘facultative’ and not well adapted to Afghan farming conditions – in particularly harsh winters these varieties can suffer from severe frost damage. The adaptability of introduced ‘improved/modern’ seeds (selected abroad) to the agro-ecological system requires testing methodologies that take into account the diversity of Afghan conditions. Farming practices are generally overlooked and the locations chosen for testing are not representative of the diverse agro-ecological environment. While the international community has widely supported ­seed­distribution activities across the country following the Geneva Accords of 1988, actual seed requirements have never been evaluated. Two different needs should be distinguished: (a) for quality improved/modern varieties with high production potential, and (b) for landraces or modern varieties to farmers who no longer have sufficient quantities. In the first case, in the absence of any comprehensive survey, evaluation models have been developed and the most likely options have been discussed. However, FAO figures are based on incorrect assumptions that do not reflect realities in the field. In the second case, the need exists in more opportunistic farming systems such as the rain-fed. The strategies adopted by farmers to ensure their needs are met should be assessed and analysed. Water availability is the main limiting agricultural factor. Although surface water availability in Afghanistan is reasonable (2,360m³ per head per year), the water is largely underused, as there is too much of it around in spring, following snow melt and significant rainfall, and too little in late summer when crop requirements are still high. Watershed

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­ anagement structures designed at local level need to be developed m in order to decrease maximum and to increase minimum stream flow. These could be ideal decentralized cash/food-for-work programmes that could be implemented through communities. 10. Fertilizers have been recognized as the second main limiting factor, after water availability, for crop production. Unfortunately the need for fertilizers has not been adequately addressed in any of the agricultural programmes currently under way. 11. Afghanistan is also chronically deficient in wood and energy, which is resulting in wild and damaging forest and range-land exploitation. During the last two decades of war and the recent drought, Afghans have demonstrated an amazing resilience to adverse situations. However, appropriate support for the rural economy is necessary for a smooth transition of the country.

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afghanistan and pakistan Ahmed Rashid (Islamabad, January 2003)

Since the end of January 2003, American B-1 heavy bombers, fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships have been attacking the largest force of Afghan rebels to have surfaced in nearly a year in southern Afghanistan. The battle, which began on 27 January, now involves some 400 US and Afghan government troops who are looking for the remainder of a force of 80 rebels. At least 18 rebels have been killed so far. The ominous issue is not that they are there but that they assembled in Pakistan with heavy weapons, sophisticated communications equipment to set up a clandestine radio station, with posters and pamphlets announcing a jihad against US forces and the government of President Hamid Karzai and enough supplies to set up a base camp in the mountains south of Spin Boldak, just 15 miles from the Pakistan border. Their target was clearly to harass the US 82nd Airborne Division camp near Kandahar – some 120 miles to the west. Hundreds more extremists are mobilizing in Waziristan in the Pakistani tribal belt adjacent to eastern Afghanistan for a spring offensive calculated to coincide with a US invasion of Iraq. They come from a variety of groups, a few Arabs from Al Qaeda, former Taliban, Afghans loyal to the renegade commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, members of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan and Pakistani extremist groups. The Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and Osama bin Laden are also at large. In the past few weeks US Special Forces camps along the Afghanistan– Pakistan border have been rocketed almost daily. Mines and rockets have exploded outside the US army headquarters at Bagram outside Kabul. In the capital young men have thrown grenades at guards and vehicles belonging to both the 8,000-strong US army and the 4,800 soldiers of the International 171

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Security Assistance Force (ISAF) which provides security in Kabul. So what is going on? Is Pakistan a friend or foe of terrorism? Pakistan is a frontline US ally against terrorism. President Pervez Musharraf has delivered over 400 Al Qaeda terrorists to US security agencies and the majority of Al Qaeda leaders now in Guantanamo Bay were arrested by Pakistan over the past 14 months. There are some 60,000 Pakistani troops and militia on the Afghanistan border with about a dozen US Special Forces advisers, who are supposed to be stopping anyone trying to cross into Afghanistan. But Western diplomats in Kabul, Afghan leaders and Pakistani secular politicians are convinced that Pakistan is now pursuing a dual strategy which constitutes another U-turn on top of the U-turn after September 11, when Musharraf dumped the army’s support for the Taliban and sided with the US. In a long meeting I had with President Karzai last month in Kabul, he made it clear that Pakistan’s policy is giving him sleepless nights – despite his excellent personal rapport with Musharraf, who telephones him frequently. Karzai says he cannot understand why Musharraf is allowing these extremists, who have been living in Pakistan since the defeat of the Taliban, to undermine his government and the Pashtun belt, nor why these rogue elements have not been arrested or handed over to the Afghan g­overnment. Western diplomats in Islamabad and Kabul, Afghan officials and US army officers at Bagram now strongly believe that elements of Pakistan’s intelligence services and its religious parties are allowing the Taliban to regroup on the Pakistani side of the border. US officers at Bagram say that 90 per cent of attacks they face are coming from groups based in Pakistan. ‘I think the security situation in eastern Afghanistan is going to be a problem for some time to come just because of the freedom of operating back and forth from the Pakistan border,’ said General Richard Myers, Chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff at Bagram, in an address to US troops on 21 December 2002. Simply put, Pakistan’s strategy appears to be to continue hunting down non-Afghan members of Al Qaeda hiding in Pakistan so that a level of cooperation with the US continues, but allowing the Pashtun Taliban and others to maintain their presence in Pakistan. Pakistan has strongly denied such charges and says that it is still a frontline state in the US-led war against terrorism. The US has not raised this issue publicly, fearing that it would destabilize Musharraf’s government and open another front in a Muslim country where anti-Americanism is already high, just when US forces prepare for Iraq.

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However, last weekend (26–27 January 2003), General Tommy Franks, the head of the US Central Command, who will probably lead the expected US invasion of Iraq, was in Islamabad for two days of talks with Musharraf and senior army officers. A British delegation led by Britain’s Special Representative for Afghanistan, Tom Phillips, was also in town. Western diplomats said that both delegations gingerly raised the issue of the continued Taliban presence in Pakistan. Pakistan’s strategy in Afghanistan remains dominated by its bête noire, India. Pakistan is extremely apprehensive of the increasing influence in Afghanistan of India and Russia, who are arming and funding several non-Pashtun warlord armies as well as giving support to the Tajik Defence Minister, Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, who has the largest factional army in the country and is an ally of Karzai and the US. Russia has promised to deliver US$100 million worth of weapons to Fahim’s army, which is outside the US-led initiative to build a new multiethnic Afghan national army that will be loyal to the central government. Several US démarches to stop such arms deliveries have met with no response from the Russians. Pakistan also wants to retain a major influence in the Pashtun belt in the south and east of the country, as millions of Pashtuns also live in Pakistan. However, President Karzai, who is himself a Pashtun, laments that Pakistan is not using its influence on the border Pashtuns to deliver them to the central government. Instead Pakistan’s actions are only ensuring that those Pashtun tribal chiefs who have been sitting on the fence since the defeat of the Taliban will actually gravitate back to the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Interference in Afghanistan’s affairs by all of its neighbours is once again increasing, but while other states – India, Russia, Iran and the Central Asian republics – back this or that warlord or ethnic group, Pakistan is seen to be once again backing extremists. Pakistan’s military has failed to see that its role should be to moderate Pashtun extremism and ensure the strengthening of Karzai’s hand as he tries to assert himself against Fahim and provide Afghanistan with a genuinely multi-ethnic government and promote national reconciliation. Instead, while promising to support Karzai, Pakistan is undermining him and the global effort to erase terrorism from Afghanistan. The silence of the US and its Western allies is only encouraging Pakistan’s Islamic parties, who now govern the North West Frontier Province, to extend an even greater helping hand to Afghan and Pakistani extremists. The army has willingly played into their hands, fixing last October’s general election so that the Islamic parties were successful at the polls, releasing

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from jail leaders of banned Pakistani terrorist groups and quietly encouraging them to mount pro-Iraq demonstrations. All this is part of a larger power play where Musharraf can claim to the Americans that he needs greater US support because he is threatened by fundamentalists. This is a game that every Pakistani regime since the 1980s has played with Washington and it has always worked. Western silence on these latest antics of the military is deeply demoralizing for Pakistan’s liberal forces and secular democratic parties, not to speak of Afghans who want to see a return of stability and economic development.

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the new afghan constitution Micheline Centlivres-Demont (Neuchâtel, February 2004) On 4 January 2004 the 502 representatives who had been gathered at the Loya Jirga assembly in Kabul since mid-December 2003 approved by simple majority the text of the new Afghan constitution. It consists of a preamble and 162 articles grouped into 12 chapters.1 Since the Bonn Agreement of December 2001, the Afghan government had based itself on the constitution of 1964 adopted under Zahir Shah, but without, of course, accepting the articles concerning the monarchy. The 1964 constitution also served as a reference for the new draft, which was hotly disputed by representatives of the armed factions that had been the main political actors in the country since the fall of the Taliban regime in late 2001. Article 1 of the new constitution declares that ‘Afghanistan is an Islamic Republic, an independent, unitary and indivisible state’, and Article 2 that ‘the religion of the state of the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan is the sacred religion of Islam’. Although the document does not explicitly mention the Sharia (religious law), it states in Article 3 that no law may be contrary to the ‘beliefs and provisions’ of Islam. As members of the Supreme Court (an institution established under Article 116) are required to have a higher training in law or in Islamic jurisprudence (Article 118), it is not impossible that judges will base their verdicts more on the Koran than on civil law. Islam is the state religion, not the religion of Afghanistan as a whole, and non-Muslims are free to practise their faith and perform their religious rites within the limits of the law. The preamble invokes the United Nations Charter and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, with a view to the creation of a more humane civil society, without oppression, atrocities, discrimination and violence. 175

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The founding text of the new Islamic Republic of Afghanistan ensures a strong presidential regime, as President Karzai wished, and envisages that there will be two, not one, vice presidents (apparently a concession to non-Pashtun, non-Tajik ethnic groups). The president is accountable to the nation and the National Assembly (Wolesi Jirga). The president, like the two vice presidents, will be elected directly by the people for a term of five years. Among the president’s prerogatives are command of the armed forces, the appointment of ministers, the nomination of the prosecutor general, the head and members of the Supreme Court, judges, commanders of the army, police and security and the governor of the central bank; these appointments and nominations have to be approved by the Wolesi Jirga. The powers of the president will therefore be enlarged. Article 22 makes it clear – unlike the proposed draft – that ‘citizens of Afghanistan – whether man or woman – have equal rights and duties before the law’. Women may be members of parliament. The constitution reserves a minimum of 64 seats (out of 250) for them in the National Assembly; ‘at least two female delegates [amounting to 25.6 per cent of the seats] should be elected from each province’. Women will also be present in the Senate. The problem of official languages, which was the theme of many discussions, was solved by the following compromise: Pashto and Dari are the official languages, but Uzbek, Turkmen, Baluchi, etc. – that is, the minority languages – have official status alongside the first two ‘in areas where the majority speaks them’; they may also be taught there. The national anthem will be in the Pashto language and mention ‘Allahu Akbar’ as well as the names of the country’s ethnic groups. Ministers do not have the right to hold a foreign passport. But, given the present composition of the cabinet, members of the Wolesi Jirga voted by a majority of one to approve the appointment of ministers with dual ­nationality. Education is free up to baccalaureate (BA) level, as is medical care. Lastly, under Article 158, the former king, Zahir Shah, receives the title ‘Father of the Nation’ for life. On 26 January 2004, President Karzai promulgated the new constitution, which opens the way to elections. This constitution is meant, above all, to be an instrument for the longterm rebuilding of the state apparatus and the achievement of a more stable polity. For President Karzai, it is a personal victory through which he will acquire legitimacy. It is also a victory for the USA and the UN. On the other hand, its acceptance causes the warlords to lose part of their local

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‘legitimacy’, even though 60 per cent of them recognize the central government and even hold official positions in it. Will that be enough? Another obstacle to the restoration of stability and security is the continuing presence of the Taliban; they represent an armed opposition, and fighting, ambushes, kidnappings and assassinations are still facts of life. notes

1.

The terminology of and quotations from the new constitution are here taken from the unofficial English version. For the official version, see the texts in Pashto and Dari.

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what went wrong? humanitarianism in crisis in afghanistan Antonio Donini (Providence, USA, March 2004) When historians 20 or 30 years from now write about the rise and fall of humanitarianism they may well divide the ideological and operational history of the movement that had its origins in the blood-soaked fields of Solferino in the pre- and post-11 September periods. The year 2001 is a crucial marker for Afghanistan of course, but it also signals the emergence of a new hegemonic order centred on globalization and the anti-terrorism agenda. It is too early to say if the Afghan transition process will fulfil the promise of Bonn, but it is not too early to reflect on how this process – and the wider revolution in international relations that it is linked to – is affecting humanitarianism. Afghanistan is the first example of a new generation of ‘world ordering’ operations conducted by the only remaining superpower. It was followed, on an altogether different scale, by Iraq and, as events in Haiti seem to indicate, it will likely be followed by others. The implications for humanitarians have been severe. Iraq has left the humanitarian community divided unto itself, weakened and unsure which way to go. In some troubling ways, Iraq has shed light on Afghanistan by clarifying underlying trends that most humanitarians did not see in late 2001 and early 2002. Both crises present a number of critical challenges. In Iraq and Afghanistan humanitarian agencies are confronted with a contested environment, a security crisis, major policy quandaries and a host of issues arising from the need to interact with coalition forces whose intervention is seen as illegitimate by armed spoilers and some segments of the public. In Afghanistan and Iraq alike, the UN and other humanitarian agencies have been seen as taking sides. Lines have been blurred and humanitarian prin178

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ciples devalued, with tragic consequences for the security of staff and ongoing humanitarian operations. Humanitarian agencies face unique political problems – challenged as they are to work with an occupying power (in Iraq) and a belligerent (in Afghanistan) who is also their prime funder and the most powerful and active political player on the international stage. Not since the late 1940s in Europe and Japan has there been such a situation, but then humanitarian action, as opposed to economic and political reconstruction, was a drop in the ocean, a mere side show. Of course, there are differences as well: in Afghanistan the coalition intervention has strong international legitimacy, a multilateral force is present and in large parts of the country humanitarian and reconstruction work can proceed unhindered. Nevertheless it is the similarities that do not bode well for the future. Specifically, in Afghanistan it is the issue of taking sides that poses the most serious challenges. Under the Taliban, humanitarian agencies had operated with relative independence from the de facto authorities and, at least nominally, under the twin banners of neutrality and impartiality. Both the Taliban and their opponents of course tried to take advantage of humanitarian assistance for their own political ends. Assistance was never immune from pressure or diversion. Access was sometimes denied and staff harassed. The authorities often accused the UN or the NGOs of providing ‘too much’ assistance to their enemies. Working with abusive authorities was by no means easy. But by and large humanitarian agencies were tolerated, if not respected. If problems arose, access to the highest levels of both belligerents was possible. The Taliban did not necessarily like us, or our values, but they thought twice before putting us in harm’s way. All this changed after 9/11. The humanitarians committed two cardinal sins. The first relates to the nature of the Bonn Agreement. It was an agreement among victors, and the humanitarian agencies in the post-Bonn euphoria accepted the conventional wisdom that their erstwhile interlocutors, the Taliban, were no longer players with whom a dialogue needed to be maintained. This in turn broke the social contract of acceptability which normally allows humanitarian agencies to operate in volatile environments. They did not see it at the time, because the conflict appeared to be over, but they had sided with the victors. As in Iraq, they are now being directly attacked not only because they are soft targets but also because they are seen as an extension of the coalition intervention that overthrew a legitimate (according to the Taliban) regime. The second sin is more subtle and has to do with how the situation was defined. While the international legitimacy of the Karzai regime was strong, its internal legitimacy was, and is, contested by a combination of

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­ arlordism, corruption generated by the criminalized economy, continuw ing insecurity and the sheer weakness of state structures. Nevertheless the UN, and by extension the NGOs, accepted the double mantra that the country had shifted from conflict to post-conflict mode and therefore that the government was in the driver’s seat. This was a premature move because there were still massive humanitarian needs in the country, which should have been addressed according to established principle (i.e., although the government was mostly sympathetic to the humanitarian perspective it was not necessarily keen for the humanitarian agencies to assess and address needs independently). This not only reinforced the perception that humanitarian agencies were siding with the government, but also blurred the lines between what was ‘humanitarian’ and what was ‘reconstruction’ and created confusion in the interactions with the authorities at the central and local levels, especially for those agencies that were trying to do both. This confusion is also compounded by the different attitudes in the aid community vis-à-vis the coalition military and their Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). So what lies ahead for humanitarianism in Afghanistan? Are the compromises made in Afghanistan (and Iraq) a passing phenomenon or the harbingers of more profound changes in how the international community chooses to address the consequences of conflict and crisis? The first question is difficult to answer: the jury on the Afghan transition is still out. Humanitarian actors could regain some bona fides or, on the contrary, face more instrumentalization. As for the second, hard choices lie ahead. In the context of the global war on terror, the space for principled and independent humanitarian action is rapidly shrinking. Some have argued for a ‘back to basics’ approach centred on the traditional ‘Dunantist’ values and modus operandi. Others see no option but to engage more directly with politics by accepting that in certain situations neutrality is not a tenable position. This may lead some agencies to deliberately align themselves with superpower designs and others; on the contrary, to take much more ‘solidarist’ positions based on human rights and justice objectives. For better or for worse, a bifurcation in the humanitarian community may well ensue.

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five theses on the structur al instability of afghanistan Conrad Schetter (Bonn, August 2004) Present-day Afghanistan exhibits several fault-lines of conflict, which frequently overlap at local or provincial level and lead to non-uniform constellations and security deficits. In addition, local conflict situations often impact at the national level, while lines of conflict that shape the national level can be traced through to the local. The texture of conflict in Afghanistan thus resembles a highly complex mosaic, in which slight changes have inestimable effects on the security and stability of the country. This makes it immensely difficult to predict how conflicts will develop. All in all, current events in Afghanistan are marked by oscillations in violence. Although conflicts repeatedly appear in every province, scarcely any region is in a permanent state of war, and the picture is rather one of occasional skirmishes, raids and arbitrary demonstrations of force. Violent confrontations generally last for only a few days, remain highly local and usually claim only a small number of lives. The exception is the southern border area with Pakistan, where regular clashes have taken place since early 2003. The causes of this structural instability and repeated flare-ups of violence lie in economic and social conditions that were already virulent in previous centuries and have continued to have a determining force to this day. First, regardless of progress in reconstruction and in implementation of the Bonn peace timetable, the question remains as to whether Afghanistan will ever be capable of feeding its population and maintaining an efficient state. Afghanistan is one of the poorest countries on earth. Despite the war, its population has doubled in the last 20 years and is currently among the fastest-growing in the world. On the other hand, its natural potential is very limited, and with more than 60 per cent illiteracy it scarcely has the human 181

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capital needed for job creation outside agriculture. For want of alternatives, therefore, the growing and selling of drugs will remain the only economic activity allowing many peasants and dealers to keep their heads above water in the struggle for survival. Three-quarters of the heroin in the world today is grown in Afghanistan, and there alone the trading volume of the opium poppy is approximately US$2.5 billion per annum – the equivalent of half of the country’s gross domestic product. Second, the striking contradiction between town and country became the dominant line of conflict in the twentieth century. The cities, above all Kabul, are the development engines of the state and of modernization, while more traditional social structures persist in the rural areas. Not only economic imbalances but also different social conceptions divide Afghan society: the enforcement of human rights, democracy and female equality cannot happen fast enough for those living in the cities, whereas large parts of the rural population consider modernity as anti-Islamic and a threat to the survival of the traditional social order. In the rural areas of southern Afghanistan, then, the Taliban movement can count on the support of a population that feels neglected economically, under-represented ethnically and not taken seriously in its values and norms. Third, Afghan society is characterized by extreme particularism. Villages, valleys, clans, tribal groups and religious communities are the main reference points of people’s identity and behaviour. It therefore follows that social prestige, political hierarchies and public representation are constantly called into question and become the focus of intense struggle. The dominance of individual interests is the greatest danger to the reconstruction of the countryside. The break-up of Afghanistan into many military principalities not only hinders the development of a state monopoly of violence but is the main reason for the lack of physical security throughout the country. However, this situation should not be attributed to individual warlords, as if their removal would ensure peace forthwith. Rather, structures of violence have developed in such a way that they mark the whole society and continue to exist independently of leaders. Fourth, Afghanistan’s great cultural heterogeneity serves time and again the purpose of political mobilization. From a religious as well as ethnolinguistic point of view, it is an extremely diverse country – a fact that rulers and politicians constantly utilize in their own interests. This cultural mosaic was experienced as a special obstacle in the process of achieving statehood. But the heterogeneity still harbours a great conflict potential, even though national identity is more pronounced than ever among Afghans. The greatest difficulty is to create a regional and religious balance in state institu-

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tions such as the government, civil service and army; the introduction of democratic principles does not reduce the problem but makes it even more intense. There is just too great a danger that election candidates will try to pick up votes by pitching their argument along cultural lines, so that the authority of the state becomes concentrated in the hands of one religious, ethnic, tribal or regional grouping, and large parts of the population feel unrepresented. Long-term exclusion of one of the major ethnic or religious groups from the centres of power would be fatal for the future of Afghanistan. Fifth, Afghanistan has repeatedly written the history of world politics. In the nineteenth century, the Great Game between Britain and Russia marked the highpoint of the age of imperialism. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 brought the Cold War détente to an end, and the ensuing occupation eventually led to the collapse of the USSR. Finally, traces of the much discussed watershed of 11 September 2001 point towards Afghanistan; the events of that historic day are directly linked to the growth of foreign influence in the country. As before, all the neighbouring states are endeavouring to assert their influence, and future conflicts that have little to do with Afghanistan as such (for example, the Kashmir conflict between India and Pakistan or the rivalry between Saudi Arabia and Iran) will impact directly on the country because of its geographical position. Furthermore, after the events of 9/11 it is scarcely possible to leave Afghanistan off the conceptual map of international politics. It is there that the international community must show it is serious about the war on terror – which means that the coalition against terrorism is itself part of the Afghan conflict. If the reconstruction of Afghanistan fails, the international community will have failed in the war on terror. So it is not unlikely that, as in past centuries, the future of Afghanistan will be decided not in the country itself but in nerve centres of power such as New York, Washington, Moscow, Tehran and Islamabad. Although the complexity of the conflict hardly permits of a prognosis for the future, we can assume that Afghanistan’s road to peace will know many setbacks and be a matter of decades rather than years.

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founding a new islamic state in afghanistan J.P. Singh Uberoi (New Delhi, June 2004) Seven weeks’ participant-observation was conducted before and during the constitutional Loya Jirga in Kabul in 2003–04 in the belief that a constituent national assembly is always a signal event in the dialogue of a nation with itself. This article divides the narrative under three analytical headings: (1) Islam, (2) civil society and (3) the state in Afghanistan. I should explain that I first went to Afghanistan in 1959, not from India, where interest seemed limited to current affairs, but from London, through the support of the Royal Anthropological Institute. A frontier district of Persian-speaking farsiwan or Tajiks, peasant-proprietors, orchardists and part-pastoralists was selected for fieldwork to study a historical and literate area, the Andarab Valley in the Hindu Kush mountains, dividing central and south Asia. Two years’ participant-observation of the elements of social organization during the period 1959–61 showed underlying consistencies and contradictions in the interrelations between the local social structure, the Afghan state and the system of Islam. islam

The spiritual monopoly of Arab Islam over Ajam, non-Arabs, is now broken and cannot be restored by appeals to the unity of the umma, the universal Muslim society. In material terms, the Caspian and Central Asian reserves of oil and natural gas, however much they are overestimated, have also broken the monopoly of the Arab ‘Middle East’. In terms of social organization, the whole underground of Central Asia now follows the Islam of Deoband in India, not that of the Wahhabis in Arabia. It is not inherently 184

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fundamentalist but hopefully pluralist, and tries to combine the ways of the mullah and the Sufi, of Sharia and tariqat, the road to Sufi perfection. The Arabs in Afghanistan of the recent past had three main antipathies: anti-Shia, anti-Sufi and anti-non-Muslim (kafir), not only anti-communist. These three antipathies were scrupulously eschewed throughout the constitutional Loya Jirga. Osama bin Laden is thus the first political Arab to come to Ajam to ask non-Arabs for help in defending Islam: this was perhaps the secret of his appeal. If the system of Islam is to prove itself capable of self-renewal, it will have to concede the equality of Arab and non-Arab in religion, and in Afghanistan the equality of Pashtun and non-Pashtun, however defined, in ethnicity and politics. The Islamists with a political ideology in the Loya Jirga wanted the state to set up an independent organ to oversee the implementation of Sharia in all areas of life: politics, the economy, social life and culture. But their proposed amendment did not make it to the floor, having failed to muster the required number of signatories: one-third of the total of 502 delegates or deputies. The same fate befell the Taliban-inspired proposal to make the Muslim headdress (hijab) compulsory for women. (Incidentally, the ex-communist constitutional amendment to use ‘mixed economy’ in place of the draft’s ‘market economy’ was also thrown out.) the nation/the people (mellat )

The British strategy, which centred on the Pashtuns, Afghans or Pathans as rulers of themselves and of others, and which centred on the Khyber Pass as a frontier, is also gone for good. The frontier is now on the Salang Pass in the Hindu Kush mountains, which are themselves part of the great chain or watershed around Central Asia, from the Mediterranean to the lakes of Balkhash and Baikal, whose waters never reach any ocean but remain within the inner Asia basin. The new democratic pluralism – the common future of all the races of Afghanistan – will be reflected in the new national anthem, for instance, and in the new three-language formula of official, national and regional languages, as in India. The national, as opposed to the international, view of the infrastructure of Afghanistan will focus on restoring profitable agriculture, orchards and animal husbandry rather than simply on disarmament, roads and communications. The finance minister, in reply to delegates’ questions, has said or implied that international humanitarian aid, always plentiful for relief and rehabilitation, should now be turned to reconstruction, renovation and

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development. Neither should the so-called ‘warlords’ and ‘drug barons’ be lumped together: the former are national and Islamic freedom fighters who fell foul of foreign interference during the (internecine) civil war period, 1992–96, but who have now largely recovered, especially after the martyrdom of Massoud in 2001. The latter are to this day an illegal consortium of private war profiteers, with various foreign patrons, notably in Pakistan, which continues to fish in troubled Afghan waters. the state (daulat )

The speeches and debates of the Loya Jirga delegates focused too much on executive matters, such as the presidential system versus the prime ministerial or parliamentary system, and too little on judicial and legislative matters; on the principle of the separation of powers nothing was said at all. No one had come with an alternative draft constitution to discuss or explain how to separate civil and military affairs. It was a foregone conclusion that the pre-Loya Jirga draft, prepared after consultations by the constitutional commission set up under the Bonn Agreement of 2001, sponsored by the UN, EU and US two years before, would be accepted and adopted with some ‘balance of power’ amendments – out of fear of renewed anarchy, if nothing else. So it was approved and signed by the interim president on 26 January 2004. But there were also continuous behind-the-scenes discussions of affairs of state, conducted away from the eyes, if not the ears, of the sponsors, which addressed the problems of power sharing, ethnic federalism and regional aspirations, in place of simple Pashtun domination and monopoly. The deepest social divisions surfaced over the question of dual nationality. As against the old Pashtun landed aristocracy, who had left Afghanistan for good, the new, international higher-educated class of returnees may get the dual nationality they want for the sake of their divided families. In terms of numbers, those for and against were possibly ranged three to two. But there was such a serious risk of non-cooperation by the government that the issue was not put to the vote and was settled in the next few days through a suitable compromise formula – a notable victory for consensus politics in Afghanistan. One can say that, despite the unhappy legacies of the three intervening constitutions – the dictatorial (Daud, 1977), the dogmatic left (Najibullah, 1987) and the right (Rabbani, 1992) – it was the spirit of the 1964 constitution, liberal, democratic, secular or Islamist pluralist, which happily prevailed.

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I was a friend of Musa Shafiq, one of the two principal draftsmen of the 1964 constitution, afterwards deposed as prime minister by President Daud and later executed by the communists, whose spirit would be happy with this outcome; and so was I. The single most outstanding question is that of the organization of political parties that can link the state and civil society, with an ethical and spiritual rather than a constitutional role for Islam. The general elections now announced for autumn 2004 – for a new president and parliament – will surely be a step in the right direction.

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making a presidential system work William Maley (Canberra, October 2004) The design of new political institutions for post-Taliban Afghanistan has been a complex and challenging task, facilitated in part by the ‘road-map’ that was created at the Bonn Conference in November–December 2001, but nonetheless dependent upon the creative energies of a range of Afghan political actors, most recently on display at the Constitutional Loya Jirga of December 2003–January 2004. The holding of Afghanistan’s presidential election on 9 October 2004, and Hamid Karzai’s comfortable victory, constitute notable steps in progress towards the consolidation of new central institutions. However, if these new institutions are to be at all effective, much remains to be done. Some measures, including the disarming of predatory warlords and the expansion of state capacity in the large tracts of the country where the state presently can do little to guarantee the security of ordinary people’s lives, have been the subject of serious discussion. However, the challenge of making Afghanistan’s new presidential system work has received less attention than it deserves. To say that a country has a presidential system involves more than simply its having a president. Countries such as Singapore, the Irish Republic and Germany have presidents, but their responsibilities are ceremonial, and executive power rests in the hands of other office holders, with titles such as prime minister, Bundeskanzler and taoiseach. The defining feature of a pure presidential system is that the offices of head of state and head of government are combined. In a pure parliamentary system, the government is headed by a prime minister who is the leader of that party or coalition of parties that can secure the support of a majority of members in a legislative assembly, but is subject to removal through a parliamentary vote of ‘no-confidence’. Between these two extremes are a variety of mixed systems, in which both 188

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presidents and premiers have significant powers, and it may be necessary for office-holders of different political complexions to work together.1 A presidential system holds out the promise of a strong leader with a popular mandate, but involves risks where the occupant of the presidency is weak,2 or where a society is deeply fragmented.3 The USA is almost the sole example of a successfully functioning pure presidential system, and the record of pure presidential systems in developing countries is not encouraging.4 Afghanistan’s 2004 constitution contains no provision for a prime minister, and therefore locates the country towards the pure presidential end of the institutional spectrum. The president has a significant range of explicit powers under Article 64 and a claim to popular political legitimacy as a result of the process of direct election. The president is charged with ‘determining the fundamental policies of the state with the approval of the National Assembly’ and with appointing key ministers and officials with the approval of the lower house of the National Assembly (the Wolesi Jirga). Crucially the National Assembly does not have the power to prevent the adoption of the state budget,5 and this means that the president’s role in determining fundamental policy is substantial, not just nominal. This, in turn, creates real demands on the president if policy paralysis is not to result, but also coordination challenges as different office-holders within the government seek to maximize their own influence, not to mention the broader problem of making the de jure and de facto states match.6 To enhance the prospects of successful institutional development, it is important first of all to recognize the distinction between the president and the presidency. The presidency is a constitutionally defined office; the president is merely the occupant of that office for a particular term – and under the constitution, a president is limited to two five-year terms. The focus of international support should not be on boosting Hamid Karzai simply because he is an individual whom donors find personally congenial; rather, it is vital that resources be directed to developing an effective presidency that will be empowered to do good but constrained from doing ill. Of particular importance is the establishment of a smoothly operating presidential office. If a president has key policy initiation responsibilities but does not discharge them well, policy paralysis can result. What may follow are ferocious battles between different line ministries and agencies seeking to advance their own interests. This is particularly a problem where cabinets are products of political compromises; policy can become a hostage to rivalries on personal, ideological or even ethnic and sectarian grounds. In the period of the transitional administration (2002–04), the key architect of economic policy was not President Karzai, but Finance Minister Ashraf

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Ghani, who had spent a decade as Senior Social Scientist at the World Bank and had a very clear vision of what needed to be done to commence the re-establishment of state capacity on a realistic basis. Strongly supported by outside donors, he was able to make considerable progress. However, like most finance ministers, he encountered opposition from his colleagues, and the cabinet reshuffle after the October 2004 election saw him move to the position of rector of Kabul University. Whether there is anyone in the new ministry who can combine his drive and vision remains to be seen. But ultimately, it is the president’s responsibility to provide this drive and vision, drawing on the support of an office which is charged with doing just that, rather than promoting particular policy lines or bureaucratic interests. For an effective office of the president, it is necessary that three basic requirements be met. First, such an office must be coherently organized. Some presidents thrive in an environment in which their immediate advisers have overlapping responsibilities. At best, this can generate a ‘Socratic dialogue’, which advances the president’s understanding of complex issues, as different advisers offer diverse perspectives on the same issue. However, this depends upon the president having a clear sense of priorities. The danger is that the president will be bewildered by complexity and will respond to the pressures of the last adviser with whom he spoke. In Afghanistan it would be best if policy advisers to the president had carefully demarcated responsibilities, to minimize the danger of fruitless and confusing politicking. Second, such an office must be bureaucratically efficient. With the president at the apex of the system, it is essential that proper records be kept of his meetings, that policy papers be circulated to the appropriate recipients in a timely fashion, that all decisions are minuted and that line ministries are properly informed of key decisions. Third, such an office must be properly staffed. Officers must be selected on account of their competence rather than on partisan, ethnic or family ties, and they must have job descriptions that identify their specific tasks and guide them as to what they must do on a day-to-day basis. The importance of these requirements cannot be overemphasized. Without an office of this kind, any Afghan president will be the focal point for ‘Peshawar’ politics, based not on policymaking but on plotting and the nurturing of patron–client relationships. This was an affordable luxury during the Mujahedeen era of the 1980s, although even then it had its costs. It is not affordable now.

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notes

1.

See Matthew Soberg Shugart and John M. Carey, Presidents and Assemblies: Constitutional Design and Electoral Dynamics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992); Giovanni Sartori, Comparative Constitutional Engineering: An Inquiry into Structures, Incentives and Outcomes (London: Macmillan, 1997), Part II. 2. See, for example, M. Steven Fish, ‘The Pitfalls of Russian Superpresidentialism’, Current History, vol. 96, no. 612 (October 1997), pp. 326–30. 3. Juan Linz, ‘The Perils of Presidentialism’, Journal of Democracy, vol. 1, no. 1 (1990), pp. 51–69. 4. Fred W. Riggs, ‘Fragility of the Third World’s Regimes’, International Social Science Journal, no. 136 (1993), pp. 199–243. 5. Stéphane Guimbert and Joachim Wehner, ‘Making the New Fiscal Constitution Work’, in Michael Carnahan, Nick Manning, Richard Bontjer and Stéphane Guimbert (eds), Reforming Fiscal and Economic Management in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: The World Bank, 2004), pp. 81–93. 6. Anne Evans, Nick Manning, Yasin Osmani, Anne Tully and Andrew Wilder, A Guide to Government in Afghanistan (Kabul: Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit, 2004), pp. 12–21.

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the uzbeks of afghanistan since the end of taliban rule Ingeborg Baldauf (Berlin, September 2005) Of the local forces on the ground, the military wing of General Abdul Rashid Dostum’s Junbesh-e melli-ye islami-ye Afghanistan (National Islamic Movement of Afghanistan) – which, despite a large Turkmen component of combat troops and other ethnicities, is commonly known as the ‘Uzbek army’ – played a considerable role in the overthrow of the Taliban regime in late autumn 2001. However, the Junbesh position was nowhere near as strong in the post-Taliban period as in the early years of its rule (Awal-e Junbesh, 1992–97). In the north-west provinces of Fariyab and Jowzjan, the movement (or ‘party’, since April 2005) has long dominated political life (without limitation, until the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process caught it by surprise in 2004–05) and continues to paralyse Kabul’s attempts to parachute people into high military and administrative posts. In Sar-i Pul, Balkh and Samangan it is the leading or second political force, with varying degrees of strength. Takhar has been a Junbesh-dominated zone since several powerful local commanders unofficially changed their alliances in summer 2003, against the wishes of the central government in Kabul; the local Uzbek tribal elites are giving up the once generally shared Iranianization policy and turning towards a distinctly Uzbek ethnic identity, in a development that also seems to be affecting neighbouring regions in Badakhshan and Kunduz. Given the common history of persecution under the Taliban followed by a common victory over them, and given the long-lasting political agreement between Junbesh and Hezb-e wahdat leaders, it is understandable, but also surprising, that a ‘re-ethnicization’ among Hazara circles is tending to draw in the Uzbeks through the construction of a common origin and linguistic history. The other side of this discursive strengthening of ‘Uzbekhood’ in Afghanistan 192

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is the marked estrangement of many Turkmens – both in the ordinary population and in the economic and political leaderships (e.g., Shura-ye Turkmanan, the Turkmen Council) and the educated elite – from ‘Uzbeks’ in general and the Junbesh in particular, as a result of what is seen to be a skewed distribution of risks and successes in earlier military enterprises and ongoing economic and social policies. Despite heavy casualties in every phase of the war, interrupted growth during and immediately after the drought of 1997–2001 and large numbers of migrants who have not returned from abroad, the Uzbek population of Afghanistan has sharply increased over the past quarter of a century. In the northern region between Qaisar in the west and Faizabad in the east – apart from a majority-Turkmen strip along the Amu Darya and the multiethnic city of Mazar-i Sharif – and as far as the first Bandi Turkistan ridge it constitutes the largest population group, though nearly everywhere in close proximity to concentrations of Turkmens, Pashtuns and Arabs (in rural areas), Persian-speakers (in urban and semi-urban areas as well as the countryside in the east) and Hazaras (in Mazar-i Sharif and southwards to Dara-i Suf). Linguistically these Uzbeks are made up of three dialect groups: a very large Uighur group in the north-west, stretching from Mazar–Sar-i Pul–Maimana northwards through Shibirghan to Andkhoy and speaking dialects with an ever stronger Oghuz inflection; a second, still considerably Iranianized, Uighur group in the north-east; and a Kipchak group inhabiting an ever narrower strip from western Badakhshan through Takhar– Kunduz–Samangan–Sangcharak–Darzan to individual mountain villages in the region of Gurzivan and Belchiragh. Agriculture is the source of livelihood for the great majority of the Uzbek population. In the north-east, irrigated and rain-fed crops such as wheat, rice, millet, vegetables and (at least until 2004) poppy, as well as cattle and sheep breeding, have had very good results since the end of the drought years. The same applies to areas up to the middle course of the Hashtdah Nahar (18 canals) and Tagab irrigation systems in Balkhab/Aqcha and Maimana/Shirin respectively. Here the breakdown of water regulations means that growing population pressure has led to unchecked expansion of irrigation zones and a changeover to water-intensive crops (especially rice) with higher yields. At the same time, the irrigation economy is visibly declining in the lower reaches of the systems, and even in the new period of high rainfall since 2002 Maimana, including its dry oasis of Andkhoy, has not recovered from catastrophe in the region roughly north of a line from Balkh through Murdiyan and Mingachik to Daulatabadi. Here fruit crops and village horticulture (from which households often without males must

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extract a living) have been largely destroyed; areas formerly under wheat and vegetables must be converted to inferior, less demanding crops, and more and more fields lie altogether desolate. Only sheep breeding, down in 2001 to a seventh of its former level, has staged a recovery; it again provides a basis for the rug production which, despite widespread unemployment, came to a virtual halt in the Taliban era because of the shortage of materials and capital. National and international action cannot adequately compensate for the lack of a comprehensive state plan to develop regions with Uzbek (and other ethnic) populations. Measures urgently required for the Uzbek population, but not presently in sight, are: coordinated development and regulated use of underground and surface water; resumption of the innovative improvements in agriculture and livestock breeding that were abandoned in the early 1980s; and job creation in crafts and small industries for people with little or no land, especially for families without males able to work. Infrastructural initiatives are already visible, however: the only asphalt road in the north-west is advancing slowly towards Andkhoy, the one in the north-east to Taluqan is being restored, and a project to asphalt the road from Shibirghan to Sar-i Pul was launched by the president during the 2004 election campaign. Large bridge-building operations on the Maimana and Aqcha rivers and many smaller bridge, ford and canal repair projects under NGO or PRT leadership, as well as road, hospital and school construction, mostly in combined local and NGO/PRT initiatives, have continually and considerably, though by no means sufficiently, improved living conditions, especially in rural areas. In the last few years, however, security has deteriorated in the regions where Uzbeks and other ethnic groups coexist. The former ­para-governmental regional princes – mainly General Dostum in the north and north-west, and strong local commanders in the north-east – can no longer perform security functions as they did before, on account of the demilitarization and fragmentation of power in their region. Lower-level local commanders and units have therefore acquired a much freer hand, as have drug producers and dealers. The corruption of regional and local government, both ‘upward’ (towards the state or, previously, the para-state) and ‘downward’ (towards the general population), has noticeably increased since the dismantling of local authorities. The central state, which delegates no actual power structures to the periphery, is not (yet) capable of intervening to bring order or else destabilizes provinces by stirring up local power rivalries, so that the security situation, especially in the countryside, has markedly worsened since early 2004. Anomie paralyses the legal system more than before, and

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the old patronage network, well established and therefore transparent and relatively ‘satisfied’ in its demands, is being dissolved by new shifting ones which are still hard to satisfy. Presumably this also holds back the economic development that began in 2002 in agriculture, manufacturing and especially trade; it is anyway a danger to peace within the region. The everyday life of Uzbeks is marked by the coexistence of accelerated development (e.g., in weapons, transport and communications technology) and elements of deeply rooted premodernity, from the use of hook ploughs and human motive power in agriculture to the complete absence of a drinking water supply or sewerage system even in large cities. The state system of primary education – unlike the NGO-initiated emancipatory projects of the pre-Taliban era – neglects the basic needs of particularly deprived layers of the population and has lapsed back into methods that were already failing in the monarchical and republican periods. If it is nevertheless widely accepted, this is probably due to the shock of the Taliban era and the euphoria of new beginnings (girls’ education). But it is already tailing off in rural areas in particular, since those who finish school have no better prospects in life, and the type of discourse is increasingly attuned once more to that of the earlier Mujahedeen. Prosperous urban Uzbeks gravitate, at the latest by the middle grades, towards privately subsidized business courses, which to a not insignificant degree are offered by Islamist or other decidedly non-state (for example, old left or Christian fundamentalist) teachers. A new 1980s-style split in society according to whether one ‘affirms, avoids or rejects public education (and the state)’ is not to be ruled out if the state system remains unable to demonstrate its efficiency. In part, transformative cultural processes set in motion after 1978 actually became more intense and were scarcely ever revised as a result of the Taliban interlude. With regard to language, clothing, food customs, religious practices, ‘political culture’ and so on, massive internal migration to the big cities led to adaptation among Uzbeks and a degree of interethnic homogenization. The civil war period had already brought about deep changes in weddings and other major ceremonial occasions, since the prevalence of fighting at night caused these to be held in broad daylight. The Taliban made deeper inroads into the everyday and festive culture of Uzbeks by banning music and dance even in the private realm, by ordering the observation of traditional clothing habits (e.g., the wearing of white by women as a sign of mourning) and important elements of popular religion (pilgrimages or the veneration of saints), and by imposing ritual prayers and fasting for show and an ‘Islamic’ sartorial and bodily culture (alien to the region) for men too. While these changes were soon reversed after the fall of

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the Taliban regime, developments that had begun in an earlier period were taken further: the constant replacement of personal singing, music-playing or folk narrative (especially among women) with commercial sound media and television broadcasts, until traditional folklore completely disappeared; a major speeding up of tempos and replacement of older regional instruments with all-Afghan ones in what was left of popular music; a reorientation of women’s dress to formulae from Western fashion magazines and the full-body burqa, and of men’s dress to deregionalized variants of shirt and trousers or cap and turban. In the late 1970s the Uzbek language – partly by free choice, partly by dictate – was visibly in retreat. Although the more liberal language policy of the communist governments did not reverse the trend, Uzbek clearly gained in prestige and importance from the early Junbesh period on, especially because of its growing presence in the army and administration. Since the 2004 constitution recognized it as the ‘third official language’ in regions with a large Uzbek population, there have been attempts to refine a writing system and to develop the language for future use in schools, media, the legal system and the state administration. Contemporary literature in the Uzbek language continues to move within the conventional ­post-classical ambit (Divan poetry); there is no sign for the moment of a ‘modernist’ expansion of genres and themes, while it is noticeable that forms such as epic or historical prose are becoming less common. Large sections of the Uzbek population, especially women and young people, are involved in the current developments in social policy. This was reflected in a high rate of participation in the 2004 presidential elections, major interest in the disarmament, demobilization and reintegration process, and most recently (summer/autumn 2005) lively activity by candidates and voters around the parliamentary elections. War weariness, commitment to peace and reconstruction, and a widespread rejection of religious or political extremism mark both public discourse and the mood of ordinary people. Despite feelings of partial deprivation, the shock of the Taliban era is still sufficiently deep-rooted to motivate people to actively support the state, so long as it is prepared to prevent the return of such conditions.

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how many nomads are there in afghanistan? Bernt Glatzer (Bonn, March 2006) ‘Trust no statistics that you haven’t falsified yourself!’ Why does this bon mot, variously attributed to Churchill and others, keep coming to mind, even as we learn from official government and UN sources – the National Multi-Sectoral Assessment of Kuchi (NMAK) – that in late winter 2004 there were precisely 2,588,719 Afghan nomads or ‘Kuchi’ living in and around Afghanistan? Not only the exactness of the figure but also its size surprise us. Previously the last serious estimate, conducted with international involvement in 1978, had put the Kuchi population at roughly 1 million – which included 370,000–390,000 ‘nomads’ and 500,000–620,000 ‘semi-nomads’. Daniel Balland, who interpreted these figures, reported that they were unwelcome to the Afghan government, which at the time was sticking to a total of 2.5 million.1 In 2003 the Central Statistics Office of the Kabul government, probably assuming that nomadism had been severely affected by the long war, the major drought at the turn of the millennium and the inaccessibility (for political reasons) of summer lands in central Afghanistan, reduced the 2.5 million figure to 1.5 million,2 and the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) put the total at no more than 1.3 million.3 If, however, we start from the serious pre-war figure of 1 million, even 1.3 million or 1.5 million appears definitely on the high side for the year 2003. The usual index of growth cannot be applied to a nomadic population, which does not increase at random but is demographically restricted by what a given territory can sustain ecologically and economically. If it grows beyond those limits, part of the population must abandon the steppes and migrate to the villages and towns. Nomads might increase the load-bearing 197

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capacity of the steppes with the help of external resources and economic and technological innovations, but there is no sign that that happened in the period after 1978. Indeed, international aid available in refugee camps inside and outside the country encouraged nomads to settle down, as we can see from the experience of the IDP camps in southern Afghanistan. The year 1978 was preceded by years especially favourable to Afghan nomadism. The great drought of 1970–71 and the extreme winter of 1972–73 had forced hundreds of thousands of nomads into sedentarism. But their figures had recovered in the following years,4 probably reaching by 1978 the level at which they stood before the catastrophe of 1970–73. There is also good reason to suppose that in 1978 the Afghan steppes again reached their demographic maximum of ecological and economic sustainability, and that no room was left for further population growth. In the following years of war, hundreds of thousands of nomads had to flee abroad. The remaining pastures were not sufficiently fertile to compensate for the blocking of vital summer areas in central Afghanistan (still partly the case today); on the contrary, the drought of the years before 2001 dealt a further blow to nomadism. I would therefore consider it miraculous if, even on a very broad definition of nomadism, there were more than 500,000 nomads currently moving around the country. Unfortunately we are still reliant on estimates, since the new NMAK census of nomads has brought no quantitative clarity. How was the incredible figure of 2,588,719 Afghan nomads reached? The problem with all estimates is the definition of ‘nomad’. Here there are two extreme positions. One is to define nomads so strictly – for example, people living exclusively from animal husbandry and travelling with entire families for 12 months of the year – that the numbers fall below 100,000. But if the point is to present nomads as a population group greatly in need of international aid (which must naturally come about from the vantage point of special institutions), then it is deemed advisable to make the definition looser and broader, or even to forego one altogether. In this way, the number of nomads can be set at any level. The NMAK team chose this latter course. ‘Kuchi’ is a term that is generally used to describe the transhumant or nomadic pastoralists of Afghanistan. In fact it is a term that can cause confusion, since it may refer to a lifestyle (migratory), a production mode (livestock-dependent) or a cultural identity. The more appropriate term to use for this group of people is ‘pastoralists’, which refers to its livestockproduction mode. Pastoralism is a social and economic system based on the raising and herding of livestock.5

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NMAK explained the matter as follows: [T]he term ‘Kuchi’ is likely to cause confusion and a blurring of lines between different types of people. Many Kuchi that settled a long time, if not decades, ago still consider themselves Kuchi. It is as much a lifestyle as it is a cultural identity. To differentiate between these people and to ensure that nationwide the same definition is used, the following definition was adopted in the NMAK: A Kuchi is either migratory, or has settled recently due to loss of livestock during the last drought.6

The term ‘Kuchi’ does indeed cause confusion, as the author rightly points out, but she leaves readers to fend for themselves – which was probably also the case with the census personnel sent into the field. When I met members of the NMAK team in Kabul and asked about the definition of ‘Kuchi’ or ‘nomad’, I received the terse answer that everyone knows what a ‘Kuchi’ is – you just have to ask people themselves. Of course, by reading the text more closely, one can work out from the context what NMAK understands by ‘Kuchi’. But it remains questionable whether that is what the fieldwork team meant by it in its assessments and questionnaires. Indeed, use of the term ‘Kuchi’ is highly contentious in a survey covering the whole of Afghanistan. It may be appropriate for the east of the country, since nomads there use it to describe themselves without feeling demeaned. Former nomads are also happy to be called ‘Kuchi’ and many even have the word in their family name, in which case it carries the connotation of a rugged and free way of life requiring the efforts of ‘the whole man’. But in west Afghanistan, as my surveys showed, ‘Kuchi’ carries the negative connotations of vagabond (the Persian kuch = wandering, moving), homeless, dishonourable and unreliable. Nomadic livestock breeders call themselves maldar (livestock breeders). In the west there is also the derogatory expression kuchi-maldar, meaning a homeless, vagabond livestock breeder, as opposed to watani maldar (someone who, though also wandering far and spending part of the year under canvas, has a settled place in winter to which he regularly returns and calls his watan (home country). At one point, the NMAK text introduces a distinction between ‘longrange’, ‘short-range’ and ‘settled’ Kuchis. Evidently it is assumed that settled Kuchis (with the help of the organizations?) might return to nomadism. We know from experiences before the war, however, that poverty-stricken former nomads seldom find their way back to the steppes.7 Such a nomad census does not have to serve academic purposes but should yield tangible results as the basis for humanitarian and ­administrative

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measures. But assuming that the pastoral economy and mobile lifestyle of nomads call for special measures, it is hard to understand why NMAK includes settled ex-nomads instead of confining itself to the section of the population that is actually nomadic in the year of the count and therefore requires suitable measures in education, health and veterinary care. One is left with the suspicion that settled ex-Kuchis serve miraculously to multiply the nomad population. After all, according to NMAK, they make up 40 per cent of the total count – or at least that is what we learn from the study, though only on closer inspection. Apart from the questionable count, the NMAK report contains a wealth of valuable qualitative information and a series of sensible recommendations. It emphasizes that because of local commanders and the attitude of local populations, many nomads are still unable to move into their old summer pastures, with harmful effects on the national economy. State authorities should intervene here soon, supported by local conciliation bodies. The greatest health problem is contaminated water, and nomads are simply unable to come up with the required technical solutions. Nor should nomads be left any longer without medical care. Their mobile way of life should not stand in the way of seeing a doctor. Nomads no longer reject school education as they did at the time of my field research in the 1970s. The author sensibly proposes that it should be made easier for nomad children to attend school in the wintering regions. We learn much of interest from NMAK. But the question remains open: how many nomads are there in Afghanistan?

notes

1.

D. Balland, ‘Le déclin contemporain du nomadisme pastoral en Afghanistan’, in E. Grötzbach (ed.), Neue Beiträge zur Afghanistanforschung, Stiftung Bibliotheca Afghanica: Schriftenreihe 6 (Liestal: Stiftung Bibliotecha Afghanica, 1988), pp. 175–98, at 175ff. 2. FAO, ‘Special Report FAO/WFP Crop and Food Supply Assessment Mission to Afghanistan 8.8.2004’, www.fao.org/docrep/007/j2971e/j2971e00.htm. 3. UNAMA, Disaster Management Framework for Afghanistan, January 2003, p. 9; http://unpan1.un.org/intradoc/groups/public/documents/ APCITY/UNPAN019503.pdf. 4. B. Glatzer, ‘Processes of Nomadization in West Afghanistan’, in O. Salzman (ed.), Contemporary Nomadic and Pastoral Peoples: Asia and the North, Studies in Third World Societies, 18 (Williamsburg, VA: Department of Anthropology, College of William and Mary, 1981), pp. 61–86.

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6. 7.

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Frauke de Wejer, National Multi-Sectoral Assessment on Kuchi. Main Findings, May 2005, p. 4. This work was commissioned by several Kabul ministries and the United Nations, especially the MRRD and the WFP (www.mrrd.gov.af/ vau/nmak/htm). Ibid., p. 5. Emphasis in the original. Glatzer, ‘Processes of Nomadization in West Afghanistan’.

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campaign harvests: media cover age of the presidential elections of october 2004 Hamida Aman (Kabul, March 2006) In spring 2004, when the official date of the Afghan presidential elections was finally announced in line with the timetable of the Bonn Agreements, very few would have bet on the success of this novel phenomenon in the country’s history. The challenges facing the poll organizers – Afghan authorities and the international community – were on par with their hopes: incomplete pacification of the provinces (Taliban and armed militias), lack of a democratic tradition, disappearance of the political elites (war and exile), poor means of communication, widespread illiteracy and, not least, complex logistics. Amid all these uncertainties (to put it mildly), the Afghan communications agency Awaz (‘The Voice’) was mandated by the United Nations to alleviate another major problem: the weak media coverage of certain candidates in the election. Two types of candidate for the country’s highest office were easily identifiable: those supported by a political structure mostly issuing from the jihad, and those representing civil society, with no organization to back up their campaign. There was a blatant disproportion in the funding of and the logistics available to these two types, even if their broadcasting time was guaranteed and monitored by the Afghan Electoral Commission. The task of Awaz was to restore the balance by offering all candidates the same publicity opportunities (design and production of election material) and hence some equality of media access, and to advise the rival campaign teams on their communications strategy.

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an arid media landscape

The media resources for a national election campaign were certainly limited: • a locally centred press with very low print-runs (fewer than 20,000 copies of the main news magazine throughout the 34 provinces); • a government television service (RTA), a legacy from the Soviet days, with which a rudimentary commercial station (Tolo TV), broadcasting only to Kabul, could not yet compete; • a single nationwide radio station, the government-owned RTA, plus the major international networks (BBC, Voice of America, Radio Tehran) broadcasting in Dari and Pashto and long commanding a large audience among the population. Considering the low literacy rate, the strong oral tradition and the paltry level of TV ownership outside the big cities, the radio was undoubtedly the medium best suited to electioneering. In fact, encouraged by an international community eager to appear democratic, all the radio and television networks broadcast political material in great abundance (talk shows, radio and TV debates, questions from the public). Though often disjointed and rarely constructive, these programmes aroused real enthusiasm. The public appreciated the unique opportunity to question the high and mighty who had made the country tremble for decades without ever having to give an account of themselves. It must be said that very few politicians relished this tricky exercise in dialogue with the people. But the real campaign revolution came with the election posters that mushroomed on the walls of the country. Costing little to produce, they made it possible to occupy a physical space and to stay there. It is also amusing to note that campaign teams generally showed plenty of civic spirit in carefully pasting their material alongside, not on top of, that of their opponents. Yet it was here that the difference between the candidates was most cruelly felt and the work of Awaz bore most of its fruit. For whereas the candidates of political parties visibly benefited from experience, funding and logistical backup, sometimes even direct support from abroad, those coming from civil society had to make do with black-and-white photocopies churned out on a table somewhere and crammed with text that was often unclear (especially for the large numbers of illiterate voters). The Awaz project – which fielded professionals in political marketing, graphic design

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and photography – allowed such candidates to improve their posters and slogans, while providing the means to print significant numbers (20,000– 30,000 posters, depending on size and design). As for the media coverage of actual election programmes, it was first of all necessary for the candidate to have one. too many words for so many evils

In a country so afflicted with illiteracy, few politicians escaped the temptation to outdo their opponents in the language they used. The themes of national unity, liberty, security and prosperity constituted the entire programmes of all the candidates, hammered out all the more forcefully and ardently to mask the total absence of a political project. In fact, the election campaign soon began to revolve around the personalities and life histories of the candidates, all of whom contrived to position themselves on the social-ethnic chessboard and to assemble an electorate around membership of a particular community, even if, in their media appearances, they preached national unity and avoided playing too blatantly on community affiliations. It was also important to position oneself in relation to the tortured history of Afghanistan, by declaring either that one had not been involved in the waging of war (for candidates from civil society) or that one had taken an active part in the jihad (for the candidates of political parties). As to the tools of communication, it seemed evident that the representatives of political parties – who had mostly exercised some military or tribal power in the past – had learned how to tame the media and were perfectly skilled in verbal exercises, whereas for most of those from civil society this was their first experience of a microphone, a camera or even a crowd. The Awaz project, which also involved the production of radio and TV clips, enabled them to get used to these instruments of propaganda and use them to their own advantage. It did not take long, however, for a dispute to break out over claims that the media (largely in government hands) were giving greater coverage and preferential treatment to the head of the interim government, Hamid Karzai. Although his speaking time, like that of the other presidential candidates, was fixed and monitored by the Afghan Electoral Commission, it was undoubtedly tricky for the media to draw a line between his activities as head of government and those as candidate for office. Massouda Jalal, the only female candidate for the presidency, received huge attention from the foreign media, which saw her as a kind of Pasionaria

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loaded with the symbols of the struggle of Afghan women. Her nomination for the post of Minister of Women’s Affairs is certainly not unrelated to this spotlighting in the media. Despite the equitable access of candidates to the media, it is difficult today to measure its real impact on people’s minds. On the ground it was often the heads of communities (villages or tribes) who had the last word, by virtue of the influence and authority they traditionally held over their constituents. It goes without saying that these leaders were fiercely wooed by the various candidates, whose fate they held in their hands.

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buzk ashi then and now G. Whitney Azoy (January 2006)

Buzkashi, the violent and venerable equestrian folk game of Central Asia, has survived a quarter-century of chaos in Afghanistan, appropriately so since Afghans often use the wild game as a metaphor for chaos itself. ‘If you want to know what we’re really like,’ a demure Afghan diplomat told me in 1972, ‘go to a buzkashi game.’ And between 1978 and 2001 ‘life became a buzkashi’ as political strongmen, in rapid succession and by sheer force, grabbed power … only to have it grabbed away. How has buzkashi itself fared? Is it basically the same as before? In what ways is it different? Several essentials have not changed. Horses are bred, fed and trained according to ancient custom. The semi-professional riders still display timehonoured skills and extraordinary courage. Likewise, the game still figures prominently in the dynamics of image management, personal prestige and, ultimately, political power. In Afghan politics, power is what power seems, and personal reputation is therefore all important. Whoever ‘has a name’ for controlling volatile events becomes, by definition, a leader who attracts followers in the hope of sharing his spoils. Of all volatile events – save for open conflict – the most publicly visible and closely observed in much of Afghanistan is buzkashi. A generation ago, the game was controlled by wealthy, rural, traditional landowners known generically as khans. These men, often elderly patriarchs, owned the best horses, hired the best riders and – above all – sponsored the most memorable buzkashi competitions. Rivals in real-world politics, they competed with one another for the prestige that comes with success in buzkashi.

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the new buzk ashi elite

Now the locus of power has shifted. Decades of warfare led to the rise of a new elite – military commanders with new backgrounds and qualifications. As they displaced the old khans in real-world power, so they became the new powers behind buzkashi. Foremost among them, at least until his forced retirement in 2006, has been (former) First Vice President, Defence Minister, and Field Marshal Mohammad Qasim Fahim, whose Northern Alliance forces took Kabul from the Taliban in November 2001. In the first year or so after his triumphal entry into the capital, Fahim possessed de facto power rivalling that of Chairman (later President) Hamid Karzai. His militias, mostly from Fahim’s home Panjshir Valley, controlled Kabul’s urban crossroads and patrolled its streets. Fahim soon inaugurated Friday buzkashi games, not in Ghazi Stadium where national tournaments used to be held but on the grounds of Kabul’s Military Club. On most Friday afternoons between November and late March, Fahim would preside over buzkashis that in several ways epitomized the changes that the game had recently undergone. First is the issue of sponsorship and control. The son of a village mullah, Fahim would never in pre-conflict Afghanistan have had the resources – financial, political and social – to play the lead role. Now, in 2002 and 2003, he had more muscle at hand than anyone else, including Karzai. Hence the sudden buzkashi prominence of Fahim’s native Panjshir Valley, previously unheralded for its horses or riders. Acting in concert with his brother Hajji Moqim, Fahim ‘invited’ many of the best riders from provinces further north to represent his Panjshir team in Kabul. Likewise many northern horse owners ‘gave’ him their finest mounts. Another Panjshiri and Fahim chum was installed as president of a ‘National Buzkashi Federation’, and in the winter of 2003–04 Fahim was able to pass weekly buzkashi operating costs onto the newly formed Afghan Wireless Communications Company (AWCC) which, as a competitor in the booming and bitter mobile phone trade, was only too happy to curry Fahim’s favour. AWCC posters festooned the arena and cell phones were awarded to winning riders. But always acting the role of host and arbiter was Marshal Fahim. The same shift in patterns of sponsorship is evident in buzkashi’s Afghan heartland north of the Hindu Kush. In province after province, the biggest post-Taliban buzkashi spectacles are no longer organized by white-bearded men with landed pedigrees. Into that lead role have stepped the younger, newly powerful military commanders such as Uzbek leader Abdul Rashid Dostum. Born into poverty like Fahim, Dostum rose by fists and guile

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to control his own pro-government militia during the Soviet-dominated 1980s. When the last vestige of communist regime tottered in 1992, Dostum switched sides and for several years ran his own quasi-state based in Mazar-i Sharif. A keen horseman and a scion (unlike Fahim) of Turkic-speaking buzkashi culture, Dostum began sponsoring games not only in hometown Shiberghan but also in his ‘capital’ of Mazar-i Sharif which boasts buzkashi’s most famous arena called Dasht-i Shadian (Field of Joys). As always with buzkashi, the purpose of such sponsorship has been two-fold. On the face of it, it’s all for fun. Politically, however, it’s meant to impress not only the local populace but also – certainly with Fahim in Kabul and Dostum in Mazar – whatever deep-pocketed dignitaries could be attracted from the wider world. These ‘chief guests’ – ambassadors, UN representatives, generals of the International Security and Assistance Force – would be seated next to the sponsor, served lavish refreshments and given carpets at the close of play. disintegr ation of government control

A second change concerns the weakening of government control over buzkashi. In 1953 Prime Minister (later President) Mohammad Daud embarked on a programme to make buzkashi Afghanistan’s national sport – despite its never before having been played south of the Hindu Kush. Responsibility fell to the Afghan National Olympic Committee (ANOC). By the mid-1970s an official government buzkashi structure had grown to include ten provinces. Most recently added were Bamiyan and Parwan (including the Panjshir Valley) to which provinces the game was not native and whose teams annually finished last at the National Tournament held in Kabul every October to celebrate the king’s birthday. Daud continued this practice after his 1973 coup. All ten provinces, in annual compliance with presidential decree, produced their teams in time to compete. Subsequent Marxist regimes were far less successful. Taraki managed to stage a full tournament in 1978, but each year thereafter witnessed a smaller tournament with fewer teams. Increasingly the countryside was beyond the control of central government and by 1982 the tournament had been abandoned. The Soviet military, equating gatherings of horsemen with 1920s basmachi (bandits), tried to suppress buzkashi in the mid-1980s, as did the fun-hating Taliban a decade later. Neither succeeded – with the result that buzkashi slipped ever further from government control. In the summer of 2005 I asked one of my Kunduz buzkashi cronies when, in his opinion, central

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government will again be broadly effective beyond Kabul. His answer: ‘As soon as it can organize a full tournament as in the days of the King and Daud’. He paused and then added, ‘That day is not soon.’ forms of play

The third change deals with the forms of play itself. Originally – before 1953 – all buzkashi was privately sponsored and played on the open steppe without teams, umpires, numerical scores or boundaries. Hundreds of horsemen, sometimes more than a thousand, would mass around a dead goat or calf, each with the aim of getting the carcass off the ground and riding free and clear of everyone else. Both to increase control of the game and to make it playable in arenas, the ANOC devised ‘official rules’ in which small teams scored points by taking the carcass around a flag and dropping it in a circle – all under the supervision of a designated referee. These rules were refined and established until, by 1978, their application was uniform in most government games. This government form of the game, by then almost a ‘sport’, came to be known as qarajai (black or designated spot) as distinct from the traditional tudabarai (emerging from a mass). Significantly the two were seldom mixed. Now, however, buzkashis tend to be a hodgepodge of forms, with the rules vague and often changing whimsically in the course of a single afternoon. internationalization

Still other developments stem from independence of the formerly Soviet ‘Stans’ and the consequent revival and internationalization of buzkashi. A century ago the game was freely played everywhere in eastern Turkestan. Then revolutions in Turkic-speaking sections of the USSR and China reduced buzkashi to a de-natured, self-conscious folk spectacle. Northern Afghanistan remained its last unfettered bastion. Now, however, buzkashi is experiencing a renaissance in former Soviet areas, and an Afghan team has competed – unsuccessfully and with complaints of unfair treatment – in a multi-national tournament in Kyrgyzstan. The Stans are of more lasting importance as a source of new buzkashi horses to replace the nasl (breed) of Afghan mounts decimated since 1978. Here again, it is mostly the military commanders – that new breed of Afghan horse owner – who can afford travel costs and inflated horse prices north of the Oxus.

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On 5 November 2005 buzkashi of a sort was staged in Livermore, California. Billed as a ‘dream come true’ for Sonny Amin, the AfghanAmerican founder of Horse-Ox USA, this spectacle heeded host country sensibilities by using ‘a heavy, burlap, tailed object’ instead of an actual carcass.

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processes of political ethnicization in today’s afghanistan Antonio Giustozzi (London, August 2006) The unfolding of the electoral process in Afghanistan has among other things demonstrated that the ethnicization of Afghan politics is a fact. In the presidential elections of 2004 it can be estimated that 95 per cent of Pashtuns voted for Karzai, the Pashtun incumbent, 90 per cent of Uzbeks for fellow Uzbek Dostum and 80 per cent of Hazaras for Mohaqiq, the Hazara candidate. The Tajik electorate turned out to be more fragmented, but still about 60 per cent of them appear to have voted for Qanuni. Karzai was running a multi-ethnic ticket with a prominent Hazara leader, Karim Khalili, and a prominent Tajik representative, Ahmad Zia Massoud. Nonetheless he had only a limited (although decisive) success in attracting the Tajik and Hazara vote. Of the 55 per cent he received, about 70 per cent was Pashtun, 10 per cent Tajik and 15 per cent Hazara. The parliamentary elections of 2005 confirmed this trend. Of the elected members of parliament, about 72 per cent of the Tajiks were with the various Jamiat factions (Rabbani, Ismail Khan, Qanuni, Massoud), 83 per cent of the Uzbeks and 67 per cent of the Turkmens with Junbesh (Dustom) and 58 per cent of the Hazaras with the various factions of Wahdat (Khalili, Mohaqiq, Kazimi). The Pashtun vote was more fragmented, but still very few Pashtuns were elected with Jamiat (just 3 per cent), a party that put substantial effort into attracting the Pashtun vote. By contrast 21 per cent of the elected Pashtuns turned out to be linked to Hezb-e islami and 13 per cent to Afghan Mellat.1 It should also be taken into consideration that many of the ‘independent’ members of parliament may have ethno-nationalist sympathies even when they do not belong to any particular group. While ethno-nationalist talk is rarely used in public campaigning, 211

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o­ ff-the-record comments tend to be of a very different tone. Groups which explicitly express an ethno-nationalist agenda are few and mostly weak. Historical parties such as the different branches of Setam-e melli2 and Guruh-ye kar3 and newer ones such as Kangra-ye melli of Latif Pedram struggled to get even a few candidates into parliament. The main exception was Afghan Mellat, 15 members of which were elected. However, the weak direct influence of the ethno-nationalist parties does not truly reflect the cultural hegemony they exercise over large sections of the intelligentsia and even among the population in general. Across the northern half of Afghanistan, it is a widespread notion that an abstract category of ‘Pashtuns’ have colonized large tracts of the territory, rather than a weak state having deliberately played divide and rule among the country’s disparate tribes and ethnic groups. At the same time, the idea that northern Afghanistan was ‘empty’ when the resettlement policy started is commonly held in the southern half of the country. This hegemony is often of a negative kind. Opposite sides regularly refer to ‘Setam’ or Afghan Mellat to justify their own ethnocentric positions. Occasional statements by individuals are given huge publicity and are held up by adversaries as examples of the other side’s evil intentions. The policy of playing tribes and ethnic groups against each other is nothing new, of course. But it can work only as long as a strong and authoritarian state is in place. As soon as the hold of a state over territory starts lapsing, or some form of ‘democratic’ regime is introduced, the structure built through this divide-and-rule tactic starts unravelling. This appears to be the case in Afghanistan. Inevitably, political organizations start picking up the growing local animosity, often exacerbated by the continuing (small-scale) resettlement of Pashtuns on ‘state land’ in the north and north-east. Although some of the main political organizations currently on the Afghan scene have long been described as ‘ethnic’, in reality this is a recent trend. Even Wahdat, an almost exclusively Hazara party, was never fully meant to be an ethnicist organization, but always gave pre-eminence to religion. In fact, it never even tried to attract Sunni Hazaras until 2004, when Mohammad Mohaqiq, having split from the main body of the party, started to half-heartedly target Sunni Hazara voters. Junbesh is another example of an organization which has usually been cast, in Afghanistan and abroad, as an ‘Uzbek’ group. However, in its early days the leadership of Junbesh had a regionalist agenda and was trying to include all northern ethnic groups. Many Tajiks figured in prominent positions and quite a few Pashtuns were there too, at least among the military commanders. The essentially opportunistic leadership of

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Junbesh shifted only gradually towards a pro-Turkic agenda, in part under the influence of Turkey and possibly Uzbekistan. Mostly, however, this was a reaction to what it found on the ground in terms of local conflicts, often pitting Uzbeks against Tajiks or Pashtuns, and to the need to create a more effective and compact political organization. Moreover, Tajiks showed increasingly little interest in joining Junbesh, whose image among Tajiks had been tarnished by endless local conflicts between Uzbeks and Tajiks. Before the presidential elections of 2004, Junbesh offered one of the two vice presidential slots to a Tajik leftist who had had links with the party after 1992, but he declined, opting to run with Mohaqiq.4 As the intelligentsia starts again playing a role in Afghan society, after its complete marginalization under the Taliban, ethnic discourse is becoming increasingly prevalent, helped by the absence or weakness of competing ideologies. This process is particularly pronounced among the Hazaras, many of whom received education abroad before returning to Afghanistan. Significantly, when Mohaqiq launched his bid for the presidency in 2004, in opposition to Wahdat’s leader Khalili, who was running as one of Karzai’s vice presidents, he adopted an ethnic discourse in his campaign rather than the usual Shia one that had characterized Wahdat until then. Rather than seeking the support of the clergy, the backbone of the old Wahdat, he gathered the Hazara intelligentsia around him. The national parties, despite their (sometimes) best efforts, are also to some extent prey to the ethnic split. For example, the various follow-on parties of Parcham and Khalq have mainly elected members of parliament among Pashtuns. Jamiat, which on the basis of its Islamic platform claims to be a national party too, emerged from the elections as a largely Tajik party, except for the support of some Pashtun tribes in the Kandahar area. In the current context, there do not seem to be many factors pushing Afghans to cross the ethnic divide, as was happening in the 1960s owing to the incipient economic development and the first signs of the formation of class divisions among the population.5 The process of ethnic polarization is likely to continue, with consequences that are difficult to predict. notes

1. 2.

Afghan Mellat (Afghan Nation): Pashtun nationalist party formed in the late 1960s. Setam-e melli (National Oppression): nickname of the group formed in 1968 by Tahir Badakhshi, one of the leaders of the People’s Democratic Party. The actual name was Grup-e entezar (Waiting Group) (hence ‘Setam-e melli’

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in inverted commas). Later three different organizations were formed by members of Setam-e melli. 3. Guruh-ye kar (Workers’ Group): leftist group formed in the early 1970s, which later turned into a Turkic nationalist group. 4. See A. Giustozzi, The Ethnicisation of an Afghan Faction: Junbesh-i Milli from its Origins to the Presidential Elections, Working Paper 67, Crisis States Research Centre, LSE, 2005. 5. See R. Tapper, ‘Ethnicity and class: dimensions of intergroup conflict in north-central Afghanistan’, in M. Nazif Shahrani and Robert L. Canfield (eds), Revolutions and Rebellions in Afghanistan (Berkeley: Institute of International Studies, 1984).

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order and justice in afghanistan: some reflections on the problem of amnesty William Maley (Canberra, April 2007) One of the most awkward problems in Afghanistan since the overthrow of the Taliban in 2001 has been how to meet the demand for public justice. Justice is a fundamental political concept which dates at least from the time of Aristotle, and is an idea which is deeply ingrained in Islamic political thought. Ibn Balkhi famously remarked, ‘There is no kingdom without an army, no army without wealth, no wealth without material prosperity, and no material prosperity without justice.’ 1 However, it is also a matter of intense practical concern for a population emerging from decades of severe social and political disruption. Amongst those who have suffered, the demand for justice may be intense, as a means of holding individuals accountable for their actions, and the credibility of a justice system in the future may be heavily dependent on its capacity to handle crimes from the past. This is complicated, however, by the reality that those who have sinned in the past may often be actors in the present: new political arrangements are rarely written on an entirely blank sheet. And more seriously still, sinners from the past may be actors in the present because they retain the capacity to derail new arrangements. As one scholar has put it, ‘Peace is forward looking, problem solving and integrative, requiring reconciliation between past enemies within an all-inclusive community. Justice is backward looking, finger pointing and retributive, requiring trial and punishment of perpetrators of past crimes.’ 2 Thus the pursuit of justice can appear to be a threat to the achievement of wider order from which even the victims of past injustice might wish to benefit. This has been thrown into sharp focus by the moves in Afghanistan’s Wolesi Jirga (Lower House of the National Assembly) to enact a blanket 215

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amnesty in respect of crimes committed in Afghanistan since the 1978 communist coup. Such amnesties have precedents elsewhere. In 1989 the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued just such a blanket amnesty in respect of crimes committed by Soviet forces in Afghanistan.3 Nonetheless amnesties of this sort remain relatively rare. A more commonly used model in recent times has been one in which exculpation for individual crime has been dependent on a willingness to own up to what one has done to others. The classic example here is the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, headed by Archbishop Desmond Tutu. This approach draws on a new and very influential strand of modern criminology which focuses on the reintegration as well as punishment of offenders.4 A case can be made that traditional local problem-solving institutions in Afghanistan may have a restorative role to play in promoting reintegration of offenders,5 but this is a far cry from the kind of approach which the Wolesi Jirga has taken. The case for seeking a blanket amnesty is instead built on the notion that the pursuit of justice would open the door for an endless cycle of feuds and recriminations which would absorb huge quantities of resources, poison the atmosphere of political and societal transition and choke off the hope of developing a consensually unified, cooperative political elite. These are legitimate concerns, which have led Professor Ramesh Thakur to argue that ‘Only the previously traumatized and war-torn societies can make the delicate decisions and painful choices between justice for past misdeeds, political order and stability today, and reconciliation for a common future tomorrow.’ 6 The problem, however, is that ‘societies’ are not actors. Political leaders make the choices of which Thakur writes, and some of those who are positioned to make such choices in Afghanistan are also potential beneficiaries of an amnesty, which highlights a serious conflict-of-interest problem. How might these problems be resolved? At the outset, it is important to recognize that there is no ‘solution’ that will leave all parties satisfied. The issues surrounding past human rights violations in Afghanistan – violations abundantly substantiated by credible testimony 7 – are fraught with the burdens of sorrow that victims and witness must bear on a daily basis. Indeed the tension over how to proceed is not just a simple battle between principle and pragmatism, but a much more complex and long-recognized tension between a deontological approach to ethics, reflecting absolute concepts of right and wrong, and a consequentialist approach to ethics, stressing the need to evaluate actions in terms of the consequences which flow from them. The famous aphorism of Emperor Ferdinand I – ‘Let justice be done though the world perish’ (Fiat justitia et pereat mundus) – is sentimentally appealing but philosophically contentious. Justice processes are complex mechanisms

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with punitive, deterrent, integrative and restorative dimensions.8 What the whole amnesty issue throws up is a need for practical responses which pay appropriate respect to the victims’ legitimate demand for justice, and to the dangers of entrenching amongst power-holders a sense of impunity, but do not in the process derail progress towards a better future. One response might be to refocus discussion from the execution of justice to the development of a judicial system. The post-Taliban judicial system in Afghanistan falls far short of even minimal standards of probity, not least because of the pervasive role of political influence and bakhshish in determining the outcomes of individual cases.9 Where due process cannot be guaranteed, the holding of trials to punish offenders from the past runs the risk of degenerating into a shambles. This was unfortunately the case with the trial in Kabul of the notorious communist secret policeman and human rights violator Asadullah Sarwari.10 More broadly, the establishment of a defensible judicial system is not simply a prerequisite for the handling of past crimes. It is also an essential foundation for a political order in which the weak can have some confidence that the predations of the strong can be resisted. It is arguably this, rather than the pursuit of offenders from the past, that is the most important judicial challenge for Afghanistan in the long run. notes

1.

Quoted in Patricia Springborg, Western Republicanism and the Oriental Prince (Cambridge: Polity Press, 1992), p. 264. 2. Ramesh Thakur, ‘Dealing with guilt beyond crime: The strained quality of universal justice’, in Ramesh Thakur and Peter Malcontent (eds), From Sovereign Impunity to International Accountability: The Search for Justice in a World of States (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2004), pp. 272–92, at p. 287. 3. ‘Postanovlenie Verkhovnogo Soveta SSSR Ob Amnistii Sovershivshikh Prestupleniia Byvshikh Voennosluzhashchikh Kontingenta Sovetskikh Voisk v Afganistane’, Pravda, 30 November 1989, p. 1. 4. See John Braithwaite, Crime, Shame and Reintegration (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989); John Braithwaite and Philip Pettit, Not Just Deserts: A Republican Theory of Criminal Justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1990). 5. Ali Wardak, ‘Building a Post-War Justice System in Afghanistan’, Crime, Law and Social Change, vol. 41 (2004), pp. 319–41. 6. Ramesh Thakur, The United Nations, Peace and Security: From Collective Security to the Responsibility to Protect (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), p. 130.

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See Casting Shadows: War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity 1978–2001 (Kabul: Afghanistan Justice Project, 2005); Blood-Stained Hands: Past Atrocities in Kabul and Afghanistan’s Legacy of Impunity (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2005). 8. Helen Durham, ‘Mercy and Justice in the Transition Period’, in William Maley, Charles Sampford and Ramesh Thakur (eds), From Civil Strife to Civil Society: Civil and Military Responsibilities in Disrupted States (Tokyo: United Nations University Press, 2003), pp. 145–60. 9. See Paul Watson, ‘In Afghanistan, money tips the scales of justice’, Los Angeles Times, 18 December 2006. This point was made forcefully to me by a taxi driver in Kabul in early 2007: ‘Daulat-e qanun nest’. 10. See Afghanistan: Conviction and Death Sentence of Former Intelligence Chief Flawed (New York: Human Rights Watch, 2 March 2006).

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the afghan roots of the neo-taliban movement Antonio Giustozzi (London, October 2007) It is often contended, both in Kabul and in the capitals of the Western world, that the Taliban do not have deep roots inside Afghanistan and are only penetrating the country from Pakistan, relying on a relatively small core group of Pakistan-educated Afghans and foreigners and recruiting locals as mercenaries to do most of the fighting. However, over the last two years overwhelming evidence to the contrary has been emerging: that the Taliban succeeded in establishing deep roots in southern Afghanistan and increasingly also in parts of the south-east and east. The first province where the Taliban succeeded in establishing a mass base was Zabul, which by 2003 was already largely under their control. The reasons for this quick success are not clear, but the strength of radical clerical networks in this province seems to have been an important factor. Another factor might have been that in Zabul the Taliban maintained a higher degree of support after 2001 because the province has never been a major poppy-producing area and was therefore not negatively affected by the ban enforced by Mullah Omar in 2000.1 Remote mountainous parts of Uruzgan and of Kandahar Province, particularly along the border with Zabul Province and in the north, followed in 2004. Here the key motivation seems to have been conflicts between provincial authorities (administration and police) and a number of local communities. As in many parts of Afghanistan the local authorities were taken over in 2002 by specific groups and factions, which then proceeded to use their power to harass personal and tribal rivals. But in contrast to other regions, the oppressed communities of the south had somebody to turn to, that is the resurgent Taliban. Emissaries of Mullah Omar were already travelling throughout the south in 2003–04 trying to attract recruits and win over local communities. Military 221

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incursions were taking place all along the border with Pakistan. Some of the strongmen supported by President Karzai, however, managed to maintain a firm hold on the situation despite their own abusive or unfair rule and the efforts of the Taliban to mobilize opposition against them. This was the case in Helmand Province, where the Taliban initially found little support. Governor Sher Mohammad Akhundzada, able to maintain a large military following and to distribute patronage thanks to his dubiously accumulated wealth,2 was until his removal at the beginning of 2006 more or less in control of the situation. The flat districts of central Kandahar and Helmand and the mountainous northern Helmand started giving large-scale support to the Taliban only after the deployment of large contingents of foreign troops there in the spring of 2006. Is this proof that the arrival of the British and Canadians was a direct cause of the intensification of the violence and of increased support for the Taliban? In the case of the British in Helmand, this seems a plausible explanation, given the pre-existing tradition of hostility towards them,3 their reputation as supporters of poppy eradication (in a province which leads the rest of Afghanistan in terms of production) and their insistence on the removal of Sher Mohammad from the governorship. Although the British proclaimed their disinclination to be directly involved in eradication efforts, in the eyes of the locals the despatch of the largest provincial contingent of foreign troops to their area must have sounded really ominous. Although Sher Mohammad was not a popular man beyond his own patronage circle, his removal critically weakened the pro-government forces in Helmand. At the same time, Kabul, unhappy about the imposition by the British of their own choice of governor, sabotaged the effort to improve local administration and undermine the new governor. In Kandahar, more than the deployment of the Canadians per se, the cause of the successful infiltration by the insurgents in districts such as Panjwai, Zhari and Maiwand seems to be related to the intensification of the abuses of the Afghan security forces, particularly the border police, which in turn might have been caused by the strengthened sense of confidence of having strong international support and backup. Beyond the south, the first areas to offer mass support to the Taliban were the south-eastern districts of Paktika, where opposition to the government seems to have been strong already in 2003–04. Again, bad governance appears to have been the main reason. Gradually the Taliban managed to enlist the support of sparse communities throughout the whole ‘Pashtun belt’. Kunar was deeply infiltrated already in 2003–04, with Pech becoming a major stronghold of the insurgents; the southern and eastern districts

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of Ghazni fell under Taliban influence in 2005–06; the southern districts of Kapisa and, in particular, Tagab were hosting large concentrations of Taliban by 2006, while the influence of the insurgency was steadily growing in the northern districts of Laghman. By 2007 Zurmat of Paktiya was a major springboard of Taliban operations, while the Pashtun districts of Wardak witnessed a complete loss of government influence. In the west, too, the Taliban were beginning to find an audience in 2007, with strong support growing in pockets like Shindand (Herat Province), Ghormach and Bala-e Murghab (Badghis). The causes seem to have been pretty uniform, including abusive authorities, often captured by factions and communities and used to their exclusive benefit, heavy-handed behaviour by foreign troops and perceptions by local power players that the expanding presence of foreigners was against their interests. To the extent that the Taliban were able to make men and weapons available, they seemed to be able to exploit a whole range of local grievances throughout Afghan Pashtunistan. As 2007 was drawing to a close, the big question increasingly being asked was whether the Taliban might be able to break through the ethnic barrier and start mobilizing significant support among the ethnic minorities. Small groups of Uzbek and Tajik madrasa trainees were reported to be already infiltrating provinces like Fariyab, Sar-i Pul, Baghlan, Kunduz, Takhar and Badakhshan, while similarly small groups of former collaborators of the Taliban or of socially marginal elements were also said to be organizing throughout the north and even in some Hazara-populated areas. Allies of the Taliban such as Hezb-e islami were also devoting efforts to reactivate groups in northern areas. Although this did still not amount to a serious military threat, the risk of gradual destabilization and of spreading insecurity was obvious. notes

1. 2. 3.

One of the proposed explanations of the Taliban collapse in 2001 is in fact that they lost support because of their banning of poppy cultivation. It has repeatedly been alleged that the governor was deeply involved in the trafficking of narcotics. It dates back to the Anglo-Afghan wars of the nineteenth century.

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soviets and westerners in afghanistan: what elements of continuity? Gilles Dorronsoro (Paris, March 2008) Afghanistan holds the dubious honour of having been invaded twice in less than a generation, as the arrival of foreign troops has complicated and exacerbated a civil war already under way. In both cases, the largely ‘accidental’ Afghan war became a test in the global balance of power, either of the irreversibility of socialism or of the role of NATO as world gendarme. At the risk (freely assumed) of being politically incorrect, I believe that a comparative analysis of the Soviet and Western experiences in Afghanistan is of heuristic value in explaining the current political dynamic, especially the forms of counter-insurgency that have been adopted over time. Let us look in turn at the expertise, the social supports and the growing weight of pacification policies. expertise

The main divergence between the Soviets and the West is at the level of field intelligence and expertise. The KGB and various other Soviet security services had expert knowledge of Afghan movements and had personnel who spoke the local languages. Although they were unable to stem the polarization of the PDPA after the coup d’ état, their intimate knowledge of Afghan political players at national and local level often allowed them to form a coherent strategy. Thus the national reconciliation policy established after 1986 with a view to withdrawal was technically a success. On the Western side, the overall level of expertise was disastrous, and the ‘defeat’ of the Taliban was presented as a done deal, whereas from late 2001 onwards there were a number of indications that guerrilla warfare was 224

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likely to resume. Texts can be found as late as 2005 that speak of ‘rebuilding’ the state, but as a worsening security situation led the United States to ask for extra troops from its allies, a more realistic strategy prevailed in 2006 – when it was too late. The initial definition of ‘peacekeeping’ and ‘reconstruction’ trapped the Western forces both in a certain mode of organization (troops under dual ISAF and US command, with little coordination until 2003) and in a strategy that saw the use of armed groups under poor US control and brutality towards the local people. Operationally the weakness of human intelligence (not offset by technology) is an essential limitation to the forces on the ground. the supports

There are highly significant similarities in the coalition of social groups or political parties that have supported or accepted the foreign powers: urban bourgeoisie (especially in Kabul), the communist movement and its descendants, and certain ethnic groups (Hazaras and Uzbeks). In the 1980s urban population groups were quite favourable to the state, at least from the point when Soviet withdrawal became a reality; the popularity of Najibullah was real among those frightened by the radical nature of the Mujahedeen. After the detestable Taliban interlude, a majority of the Kabul bourgeoisie rallied to the new regime. Some therefore passed from ‘Soviet progressivism’ to Western liberalism and rejected fundamentalism. Here we should stress that Soviet and Western forces shared an anti-fundamentalist outlook that spoke in terms of ‘terrorists’ and ‘reactionaries’, often also dwelling on the same themes of social development, the position of women, and so on. At the same time, both were forced to abandon a large part of their socialengineering project because of the resistance they encountered in Afghan society. Today the whole of the political class in Kabul openly flirts with fundamentalism. Furthermore, the Westerners have based themselves on groups or individuals who came out of the Afghan communist movement. Dostum, a local heir of the pro-Soviet militias, was a central element in the ­pro-American coalition. Scattered individuals can also be found who were formerly in charge of the national reconciliation policy. And finally, the zones of relative tranquillity are much the same: the Hazaras have regained their autonomy and have no major quarrel with the Kabul government (a development largely reminiscent of the 1980s). The support map is changeable, however: some zones of major resistance in the 1980s, most notably the north-east and west, remained fairly calm,

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perceptions being initially very different the second time around (immediate jihad against the Soviets, frequent wait-and-see attitudes to Western forces). But the definition of the present conflict as a jihad is becoming more credible – which partly explains the general worsening of security and the growing similarities with the Soviet period. The case of Badakhshan Province, where there is much opposition to Kabul, is a pointer to this widening of the conflict. switching to an indirect str ategy

On account of military constraints, the Soviet and Western strategies underwent the same evolution towards indirect pacification programmes. Right from the beginning, the Soviets decided to stabilize their troop presence to around 100,000 men, whereas the gradual increase of Western forces (today around 60,000) is indicative of greater improvisation. In both cases, the early years were marked by frontal strategies to destroy the enemy without particular regard for ‘collateral damage’. Despite incomparably more effective logistics and air power, the Westerners are not in much better control of the terrain. The drive to liquidate the military opposition by military means (large-scale combing operations) falters because of the same weakness of ground forces, the solidity of the guerrilla roots in the population, the existence of a sanctuary in Pakistan, and so on. The realization that a frontal policy is doomed to failure encouraged the switch to a more indirect approach. After the last great offensives of 1985–86, the Soviets concentrated on a national reconciliation policy that enabled the Kabul government to hang on until 1992; the security of the cities then became the central objective, while the countryside was essentially abandoned to the Mujahedeen. As far as the Western forces are concerned, we are currently in a transitional phase. The Iraq-style policy initiated by General Petraeus – which aims to weaken the Taliban through direct attacks combined with isolation of the population – has not yet borne fruit. After their military setback in Helmand, the British went further in the direction of negotiations with the Taliban, thereby provoking a crisis with the Karzai government. The latter has made overtures of its own to the Taliban, proposing that they become political partners in a coalition government. The difficulty in handling the armed opposition has many causes. In comparison with the Soviets, the Westerners face a much more coherent and better organized enemy, and this limits the scope for wearing down the opposition through fragmentation. Moreover, the Soviets had a function-

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ing state at their disposal, at least in the cities, and that is scarcely the case today outside Kabul. So the reconstruction of the Afghan army seems to be proceeding very chaotically, and the Westerners cannot envisage a withdrawal in less than ten or 15 years at best. In conclusion, it should be emphasized that the Westerners now find themselves in a position comparable to that of the Soviets – with regard to their support, their discourse and the constraints of military action. This explains the similar evolution towards forms of indirect warfare.

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ngos and afghanistan: new challenges, old dilemmas Jonathan Goodhand (London, March 2008) This article briefly explores some of the challenges faced by NGOs working in post-Bonn Afghanistan. But before doing so, four points about the preBonn characteristics of NGOs are important to bear in mind when considering the contemporary situation. Firstly, the label ‘NGO’ masks a diverse range of organizations with differing backgrounds, mandates, sources of funding, levels of professionalism and perceived legitimacy, as the following taxonomy indicates: • Single-country international NGOs, such as DACAAR, the Swedish Committee for Afghanistan, AFGHANAID, most of whom originated as solidarity NGOs in the 1980s; • Western international NGOs (INGOs) that have global operations including multi-mandate organizations such as CARE International, Oxfam, Save the Children and specialist ‘niche’ NGOs such as MSF and Merlin. Following the Bonn Agreement there has been a new wave of INGOs, some involved in traditional areas of relief and development but others involved in new fields such as democratization and the media including, for example, the Institute of War and Peace Reporting and AsiaFoundation; • International Islamic NGOs, many of which first started in the 1980s with Middle Eastern funding; but there has also been a more recent growth of Western-funded Islamic NGOs, partly the result of Western donors’ growing interests in faith-based organizations; • Afghan NGOs (ANGOs), most of which emerged in the early 1990s as a result of an earlier period of ‘Afghanization’ and United Nations funding. Many subsequently faded away but a new generation of ANGOs has 228

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emerged in the post-Bonn period, in response to the changed funding environment. Secondly, NGOs have undoubtedly played an important humanitarian role in the absence of an Afghan state able to provide protection and basic services to its population. But their role should be kept in perspective. Afghans have rarely been dependent on aid, and they have survived by drawing upon local and transnational kinship-based networks. The aid economy has therefore been largely a footnote in the story of how Afghans have managed to survive (and sometimes thrive) in war time. Thirdly, as the above taxonomy implies, the NGO sector is characterized by great diversity and fluidity. The sector has changed over time in response to a range of external and internal factors, including changing political regimes and the shifting nature of the conflict; shifts in international policy and the funding environment; and new initiatives and strategic adaptations within the sector itself. Taken together these factors have influenced NGOs’ room for manoeuvre or political influence over the years. Fourthly, the image NGOs have of themselves as neutral, humanitarian actors rarely corresponds with the perspective of most Afghans. Whilst NGO programmes depend to some extent on the fiction that they somehow operate in a self-defined ‘humanitarian space’, in practice few Afghans believe that NGOs can stand above the political fray; they are viewed as political (and economic) players and are consequently instrumentalized by warlords, community leaders and government officials in order to pursue non-humanitarian goals. the post-bonn environment : new challenges , old problems

The fall of the Taliban at the end of 2001 and the signing of the Bonn Agreement in early 2002 transformed the operating environment for NGOs, though it did not mark the end of the war. NGOs paradoxically find themselves involved in a highly internationalized post-war reconstruction effort alongside an equally internationalized counter-insurgency campaign. Some of the challenges associated with this ‘new’ context are unprecedented for NGOs. But many are old ‘recycled’ problems which have taken on new guises, as explained below. One under-reported and relatively unexplored NGO success story has been to keep a future Afghan leadership in ‘cold storage’ during the war years. NGOs, by employing and training a cadre of planners and managers, effectively stemmed the flow of ‘human capital flight’. Many of leaders of

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these NGOs have subsequently found senior cabinet-level positions in the Karzai-led administration and arguably they have been more effective than their émigré Afghan or jihadi counterparts. However this has not meant that NGOs’ relationship with the new government has been an easy one. dealing with the state and the governmentalization of ngos

Perhaps the most salient challenge facing NGOs has been learning to engage with a recognized and internationally supported government. Having spent the last two decades working more or less autonomously, this has involved a significant adjustment on the part of NGOs. Whereas in the past NGOs were the preferred vehicle for donors, more and more resources are now being allocated to building the nascent Afghan state. Donors like DFID (Department for International Development), for example, now allocate the lion’s share of their funding towards direct budget support. For NGOs this has meant, first, that they are competing for a smaller part of the funding pie and, second, that they are increasingly becoming contractors or adjuncts to a broader state-building project rather than autonomous actors in their own right. This arguably reflects a broader international trend towards the governmentalization of NGOs, in the sense that they have increasingly become the agents of government policy – something that has been accentuated by their growing dependence on official funding. The Strategic Framework process during the Taliban period was perhaps an early manifestation of this trend. But it is one that has intensified with the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Increasingly NGOs are seen as the servants of empire who, if they are to remain operational in such contexts, must align themselves behind the policies of the occupying powers. an unruly aid market

However, in practice there are many inconsistencies and contradictions in donor policies towards Afghanistan. Whilst state-building is the proclaimed priority, many of the larger donors such as USAID, Germany and Japan tend to provide their assistance outside the government budget through private contractors or handpicked NGOs. Firstly, the aid market might best be described as a ‘casino economy’ in which there are many actors, low barriers to entry and few enforcement mechanisms to prevent free riding and rent-seeking behaviour. The way that aid money has been auto-consumed through multiple contracting arrangements and the growing evidence of corruption within the aid sphere

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has led to an anti-NGO backlash – the term ‘NGO’ becoming a generic label of abuse applied by Afghans to all international organizations. Kabul parliamentarian Bashardust very successfully mobilized public anger about corruption and waste in the international sector during the parliamentary elections. The Kabul riots of May 2006, in which some NGO offices were attacked, were also symptomatic of a growing anti-Western sentiment. NGOs, in spite of spending years patiently building up relationships with Afghan communities, are thus tainted by association. Secondly, Afghanistan is awash with money, but it is not reaching the right places. This unruly aid market has led to a ‘dual public sector’ in which there is an underfunded state sector, dependent largely on external donors for its development budget and an unruly and over-funded international sector composed of international financial institutions (IFIs), the United Nations, private sector contractors and NGOs. The IFIs, the UN and private sector contractors, because they pay the best salaries, have absorbed many of the most qualified Afghans, and as a result have actively ‘de-capacitated’ the state and NGO sectors. Since 2002 many NGOs have haemorrhaged staff as their trained engineers and technicians have gravitated towards betterpaying jobs in the World Bank or the United Nations. This has meant that less and less capacity resides at the operational level where it is most needed. the securitization of aid

The withdrawal of MSF (Médecins sans Frontières) in August 2007 following the killing of their staff members is just one manifestation of a deteriorating security situation for NGOs. Whereas NGOs have always accepted a level of risk when working in Afghanistan, the deliberate and systematic targeting of aid workers is a new phenomenon. The objective of the Taliban insurgency is to make the south ungovernable, and one way of doing this is to hit ‘soft targets’ that are associated with the government and international forces. The bracketing of NGOs with the military has been accentuated by the growing securitization, not to say militarization, of aid; increasingly aid is viewed as a means of winning hearts and minds, and NGOs, particularly ANGOs, are seen as the vehicles for delivering this assistance, owing to supposed comparative advantages such as flexibility, local knowledge and community embeddedness. The fact that the military are increasingly involved in small-scale reconstruction projects, through for instance PRTs (Provincial Reconstruction Teams) further blurs the division between military and aid actors. Therefore NGOs are facing pressures not only to make their programmes coherent through state-building goals but

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also through counter-insurgency objectives. Apart from the dubious morality of this, there is no empirical evidence to suggest that such a policy can be successful even on its own terms. There is, for instance, no link between poverty and the insurgency, with some of the poorest areas in the centre and north of the country being unaffected, whilst provinces such as Kandahar and Helmand, the recipients of most of the funding, are worst affected by the insurgency. The militarization of aid has also skewed its distribution in favour of the south, leading to growing north–south tensions. And NGOs that have traditionally focused on the northern provinces are finding it difficult to maintain their programmes. some implications

Is it significant that many NGOs are struggling to survive? Is this merely a symptom of their inability to remain relevant to the new challenges of post-Taliban Afghanistan? Should state-building be the ultimate priority, with NGOs needing to harness their resources behind this higher policy objective? If they cannot adapt, don’t they deserve to wither away? But this viewpoint (which mirrors that of many of the principal donors) is based on a very limited understanding of both NGOs and state-building. Donors can and should pursue a dual-track approach of supporting state-building and supporting credible NGOs – the two strategies are mutually reinforcing. Evidently this requires NGOs to do things differently, but it also demands a more imaginative and nuanced approach on the part of donors. Firstly, as already argued, NGOs have played and can continue to play a critical role in nurturing and protecting a small cadre of educated technocrats, many of whom have subsequently gravitated into the upper echelons of the state sector. Secondly, NGOs in the short term at least are the only organizations with the capacity to deliver services to rural areas – national programmes in the health sector and the National Solidarity Programme, for instance, would grind to a standstill without NGO involvement. Donors have tended to equate state-building purely with institution building at the centre and have been slow to realize that few Afghans will support ‘the state’ in the abstract unless there are tangible benefits at the local level. Thirdly, NGOs over the years have been experimenters and innovators in a range of areas including the fields of education, rural livelihoods and the health sector. They could be funded to field test new approaches across a range of sectors which government bodies could subsequently replicate and scale up. Fourthly, NGOs are not only deliverers of services but also whistleblowers and critics of government. They have a vital role to play on behalf

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of Afghan citizens, as critics both of the Afghan government and Western governments, whose practices have often fallen well short of their rhetorical commitments to human rights and democracy. In this sense, NGOs need to fulfil their role as a check on state power rather than being a mere extension of that power.

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state administr ation and local power brokers in afghanistan’s provinces Antonio Giustozzi (London, July 2008) The system of local administration that functioned in Afghanistan in the 1960s and 1970s was relatively institutionalized and well supervised, at least by the standards of South Asia. Like Afghanistan’s police, the subnational administration was less affected by corruption than that of India or Pakistan. Although the effectiveness of the administration was limited and did not penetrate very deeply into the countryside, it was nonetheless able to maintain a degree of law and order and allow the establishment of a growing network of schools and health facilities. Even in this period, however, strong elements of patrimonialism survived: the ability of provincial administrations to function was to a considerable extent dependent on the personality of the governor, and interference from the rulers and their cronies was very common. Indeed personal networks clustered around the royal family played a key role in making the system work. A charismatic, capable and assertive governor would be able to get things done, have thieves arrested and ‘troublemakers’ eliminated or intimidated; his reputation in fact would have been in most cases more than sufficient to prevent any form of opposition from arising. Nonetheless the social environment would also help determine how effective or ineffective a governor would be; where local notables were powerful and resourceful, they could influence governors or counter-balance their power. For example, the local notables constituted a very powerful force particularly in Kandahar, where they were big landlords and had privileged relations with the royal clan. In some areas, mainly Paktiya, the views of the tribal councils had to be taken into account by governors. Direct relations with Kabul was in fact the most important weapon in the hand of the notables; among the ethnic 234

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minorities even the powerful khans of the Uzbeks, of the Hazaras and of the Tajiks of Badakhshan could not match the influence of their southern equivalents, although at least some Uzbek khans did have direct relations with the royal family. During Daud’s republic central control was somewhat strengthened at the expense of local players; in part this was due to Daud’s greater assertiveness but also to the gradual weakening of the khans and other local notables as a result of economic development, at least in some parts of the country. The real turning point, however, was in 1978–79, as the Khalqis took power and set out to radically re-shape the administrative structure of the country. The Khalqis did not change the formal structure of the administration but completely abolished the informal personal networks that ultimately allowed the central government to control and manage the provinces. They entirely replaced the upper ranks of the administration, appointing young, or at any rate inexperienced, party cadres and severing the links with the local notables. The consequent loss of effectiveness of the administration played no small role in the crisis of the Afghan state, which started taking major proportions in 1979. The more moderate Parchamis, who took power at the end of that year, inherited an extremely difficult situation and not just because they had been brought to power by the Soviets. Again they had to purge the administration and appoint their own men, in most cases somewhat more experienced than the Khalqis, but still isolated from the notables. In their efforts to re-establish some effective administration, the Parchamis engaged in a series of administrative reforms, which, however, failed to deliver because the government was unable to develop its own circuit of notables in the villages, despite some well-funded attempts (the National Fatherland Front). Only in the second half of the 1980s, under the leadership of President Najibullah, did a serious effort to re-establish this type of connection take place, with some success. However, the structure of Afghan society had undergone further deep changes during the years of war. From the perspective of this article, the most important change had been the emergence of a rural military class that partially replaced the old state-sponsored notables. Increasingly the effort to rebuild networks among local power players focused on leaders of armed groups, who effectively took over big chunks of the local state administration towards the end of the 1980s. Some of them even became governors. The government established by the Mujahedeen in the 1990s paid hardly any attention to local administration, busy as they were trying to survive the chaos they themselves had created. The Taliban, by contrast, after they took Kabul in 1996, had both the chance and the willingness to re-establish

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some kind of local administration. The model they adopted resembled the original Abdur Rahman template, except for their reliance on the clergy as opposed to lay notables. Both the notables and the military class were marginalized. The post-2001 period represented a new situation, in that the ingredients which characterized the post-1992 context combined with international intervention. The chaos of 1992 onwards was prevented, at least in the short and medium term, and a new system based on old notables and even more so on the military class emerged. A major difference from the pre-1978 period was that the military class was not simply incorporated into the informal structure of influence and control but directly subsumed in the formal structure of government, often becoming governors. In a sense it could be argued that by 2002 Afghanistan had reverted to the situation that predated Abdur Rahman’s successful centralization: the military class was not subjugated to the central government but effectively controlled territory and paid little more than lip service to the demand of the central ­government. Kabul’s effort to re-centralize after 2001 was mostly half-hearted. Even when professional governors were appointed, who were willing to serve the interests of the central government, they could do little to impose their will on leaders of local armed groups. The re-patrimonialization of the administration was more evident when particularly resourceful, ambitious and determined leaders of armed groups were appointed governors of key provinces. The best known examples are Ismail Khan in Herat (2001–04), Mohammad Atta in Balkh (2004–) and Gul Agha Sherzai in Kandahar (2001–03, 2004–05) and then Nangarhar (2005–). All of them had greater success in delivering effective administration than their less resourceful colleagues in other provinces. Much of their success was indeed due to their ability to mobilize resources to spend in their provinces, even if the sources varied widely. Ismail Khan relied on the custom revenues which he used to seize at Islam Qala, while Atta relied more on government handouts. Their personal charisma also played an important role, in line with what was said above about the functioning of their administration in the 1960s and 1970s. Again as in the past, their success in mobilizing resources owed much to their connections in Kabul, which accounted for Sherzai’s and Atta’s longevity. The former, a Barakzai from Kandahar, was throughout 2001–08 in an uneasy alliance with the Karzais, while Atta relied on the support of Vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud and on the desire of Kabul to use him to weaken the influence of General Dostum in the north. Ismail Khan, who never developed good relations with any major player in the cabinet, lost his governorship in 2004 and since then his efforts to recover it have not succeeded.

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afghanistan and the global failure of counter-narcotics Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy (Paris, September 2008) The failure to address the problem of Afghanistan’s opium production is not surprising. About 60 years of Asian opium bans have demonstrated that drug supply reduction is very rarely effective and, in fact, is most often counterproductive. The Chinese ‘success story’ is unique, for it took only a full decade (1950s) to achieve and because it was made possible by the very specific nationalistic and ideological context of the Chinese communist revolution. All other Asian opium bans were carried out hastily and with little or no economic alternatives. In Iran and Turkey, the first opium bans failed and led to renewed production authorized by both governments. It took a theocracy to suppress opium production in Iran, most likely at high human cost. Turkey eventually opted for licit opium poppy cultivation and is still a producer of the concentrate of poppy straw for the pharmaceutical industry. In Afghanistan the opium ban imposed by the Taliban in 2000 failed because the economic shock that it caused to the country and to the poorest of its farmers made the ban clearly counterproductive. Indeed, in Afghanistan opium poppy cultivation has expanded from 82,000 hectares in 2000 to 193,000 hectares in 2007 when the country’s 8,200 tonnes of opium amounted to 93 per cent of global illicit production. According to UNODC (United Nations Office for Drugs and Crime), in the late 2000s Southeast Asia’s Golden Triangle of opium production would virtually disappear as Thailand has all but suppressed cultivation (but still conducts annual eradication campaigns) and Burma and Laos have curtailed their production. Yet even UNODC frequently questions the sustainability of these ‘successful’ opium bans, as alternative production is either absent or at least largely insufficient to make up for the loss of income of some the poorest of Asian farmers. 237

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Eradication is the forced destruction of standing crops, whether manually, mechanically, chemically or even biologically. Eradication is even more destructive than it first appears, as it basically targets the crops and the livelihoods of the most vulnerable segment of the drug industry – the farmers themselves and especially the resource-poor farmers. Worse still, since opium production clearly proceeds from poverty and food insecurity (whether war-related or not), eradication is likely to be counterproductive, as it threatens highly precarious livelihoods, increases poverty and raises opium prices. Here, as is the case with opium bans, a socio-economic issue is addressed from a legal point of view: opium production is targeted as a cause of further problems (illegality, corruption, addiction) rather than as a consequence of other problems (poverty and low availability of physical, financial and human assets). The causes of poppy cultivation are therefore ignored and even made more acute.1 It is important to understand that poppy cultivation is closely connected with poverty because it explains why eradication is likely to fail and why it proves counterproductive in most cases. To be more precise, the close links that exist between poverty and opium production must be acknowledged and understood if eradication is to be used as an effective deterrent, that is, only after legal, viable and sustainable livelihoods have been established. The first international development project that was really designed and implemented in order to reduce or suppress agricultural production of illicit drugs started in 1972 in Thailand. Until then, crop substitution had only be resorted to after opium bans had been imposed, either in order to make forced eradication possible (as in China) or as a way to make up for a brutal loss of income (as in Turkey). But crop substitution quickly proved too simple, some would say simplistic, as development programmes then focused less on the causes of poppy cultivation than on poppy cultivation itself. In Thailand and in the rest of the world the crop substitution approach was replaced in the 1980s by integrated rural development. From then on ‘the issue was less to find substitute crops than to introduce alternative sources of income and improve living conditions’.2 But ‘the projects were so complex that they were management nightmares, impossible to evaluate. Their long-term impacts were uneven, with some interventions being more effective than others in particular circumstances.’ 3 Therefore, in the 1990s ‘alternative development’ (AD) programmes replaced ‘integrated rural development’ (IRD) programmes. AD programmes differed from IRD programmes in their broader ­perspective.

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Despite its overall disappointing results it must be said that AD cannot be dismissed altogether for having failed to address the illicit production of plant-based drugs. In fact, alternative development as a strategy has not failed because it was the wrong approach to drug-supply reduction but because it has barely been tried and because drug-supply reduction has constantly been regarded as distinct from poverty reduction. While the links between poverty and agricultural drug production have been widely and convincingly demonstrated worldwide, drug-supply reduction has mainly focused on interdiction and repressive measures such as crop bans and forced eradication. The vast majority of the funds and of the material and human means that have been invested during almost 40 years of the global war on certain drugs have been used to design, implement and reinforce repressive measures, that is, to increase poverty (the main cause of illicit agricultural drug production in the first place) rather than to alleviate it. Yet, most recently, a new approach to alleviating poverty in illicit drugproducing countries has been considered. Faced with renewed and unheeded opium bans, and with increasing but ineffective eradication campaigns, the ‘emergence of an “alternative livelihoods” approach, which seeks to mainstream counter-narcotics objectives into national development strategies and programmes, is an attempt to respond to the causes of opium poppy cultivation and to create links with the wider state-building agenda’.4 While real alternative livelihoods programmes are still to be implemented, on paper they clearly differ from AD programmes. Unlike AD programmes, alternative livelihoods programmes should not be conducted through a discrete area-based approach but should mainstream counternarcotics objectives into national development strategies and programming. Alternative livelihoods programmes should be designed to treat the causes rather than the symptoms of cultivation and should ‘address the factors that influence households’ drug crop cultivation’ rather than attempt ‘to replace on-farm income generated by coca and opium poppy’.5 However, from a more political point of view, it is obvious that no development agenda can be reasonably set without first strengthening the state, civil society and democracy. Obviously, economic development, whether rural or urban, can only occur in countries and regions where peace prevails and is sustainable. The problem is that this is far from being the case in Afghanistan. notes

1.

P.-A. Chouvy, ‘The dangers of opium eradication in Asia’, Jane’s Intelligence Review 17/1 (January 2005), pp. 26–7.

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GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit), Drugs and Development in Asia: A Background and Discussion Paper, Drugs and Development Programme (Eschborn, 1998), p. 10. 3. UNODC, Thematic Evaluation of UNODC Alternative Development Initiatives, Independent Evaluation Unit (Dir. Allison Brown), draft version, 4 September 2005, p. 23. 4. D. Mansfield and A. Pain, Alternative Livelihoods: Substance or Slogan?, AREU Briefing Paper, Kabul, October 2005, pp. 1–2. 5. Ibid., p. 4.

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president obama and the future of us policy in afghanistan M. Nazif Shahrani (Bloomington, March 2009) The US and her international coalition partners’ policies during the last eight years of the war on terror and the reconstruction of Afghanistan are proving to be ineffective in delivering peace, stability and democracy. Indeed the failure of current policies has been acknowledged by both Democratic and Republican presidential candidates during their campaigns. Other US politicians have also joined the chorus more recently. However, what is still lacking is a critical analysis of the reasons for policy failures and an articulation of meaningful alternative approaches to the worsening security situation and crisis of legitimacy in Afghanistan. The questionable strategy offered by President Obama, so far, has been an Iraq-like military surge to vanquish the resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda. He may not be aware that such a strategy has already been tried in Afghanistan and has failed. The military intervention in Afghanistan began in October 2001 with only a small number of US soldiers on the ground; they were supported by the small UN International Security for Afghanistan Force (ISAF) which watched over the capital, Kabul. The country was considerably more peaceful during the first several years following the initial demise of the Taliban regime, with much smaller foreign military forces on the ground. The violence has increased proportionately with the gradual military surges of the recent years. Today there are close to 37,000 American troops and just about as many NATO soldiers in the country, but with much reduced security. These troops are to be augmented by the deployment of another 17,000 US soldiers soon. This appears to be ‘more of the same’, as Senator Obama often said during his campaign, and is unlikely to work. Therefore, the new US administration has to come up with some bold policy alternatives to 241

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rescue Afghanistan and the region from yet another looming disaster. The first steps in this process must be to assess the causes of policy failures and give answers to the many questions now raised by the international media and within Afghanistan. The questions asked by the international community about the Afghanistan war, not surprisingly, are not the same as those asked by the Afghans themselves, especially among those seriously affected by this failure of policy. Indeed the questions asked (or not asked or not allowed to be asked) offer valuable insights into the policy challenges facing the United States, her NATO partners and their Afghan clients. Some of the questions asked by the international media and by some politicians are as follows: has the United States failed to devote the necessary military resources (especially after spending more than US$200 billion as of summer 2008) to fight the ‘real war on terror’ against resurgent Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Or has the Iraq war, as Senator Barack Obama was saying during his presidential campaign, distracted the US from effectively fighting ‘the real war on terror in Afghanistan’? Was the US war against the Taliban and Al Qaeda poorly planned and executed from the beginning, perhaps because of the initial easy victory against the Taliban regime and/or the subsequent complicity of the Karzai government, which consistently downplayed the Taliban threat while exaggerating the danger from the so-called non-Taliban ‘warlords’? Why were the Bush administration and their coalition allies so soft on the Pakistani generals and their intelligence services (ISI) who have obviously been aiding and abetting the enemy, especially within the border regions of Pakistan–Afghanistan? Have the US and her allies been too slow in building and equipping a large Afghan national army, police and security force? Or more significantly, why have the campaigns against poppy cultivation and narcotics production failed so miserably? On the other hand, those inside Afghanistan are asking whether US and coalition resources could have proved more cost effective if directed towards: (1) drafting a more appropriate Afghan constitution, resulting in an effective, appropriate and transparent governmental system based on grassroots participatory politics instead of a strong centralized presidency; (2) a government that could have created community-based defence and police forces (not a tribal militia as is being created by the state) in support of a smaller, sustainable, professional national army and police; (3) a government with strong popular support that was capable of undertaking economic development initiatives aimed at improving the living conditions of the largely warweary and utterly impoverished peoples of Afghanistan? With the security situation now worsening almost daily in large parts of

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the country – aggravated by the rising casualties among the security forces (international and Afghan) and among innocent Afghan civilians caught up in aerial bombardments of villages or in frequent suicide bombings in the cities – members of parliament and the Afghan media are starting to ask: are the powerful US and NATO forces in Afghanistan going to bring them peace and security or instead victimize and humiliate them in their own homes and villages as the Soviets did? If they are not able to bring peace and security, what then are their hidden motives for being in the country and in the region? Why the disarmament and disempowerment of many important local and regional leaders, especially in the non-Pashtun regions of western, central, northern and north-eastern Afghanistan who fought alongside US forces to defeat the Taliban after 9/11 (and why label them ‘warlords’?) while re-arming and empowering the increasingly volatile Pashtun tribal belt in the eastern, southern and south-western areas along Pakistan’s border which is increasingly supporting the Taliban and Al Qaeda? Why have the US and NATO been intent on promoting ethnic and tribal politics by favouring members of one group – the ethnic Pashtuns – in the name of expanding the questionable authority of the Karzai government in Afghanistan? Ultimately, have the old Afghan power elites in exile, who have become collaborators (as in the case of Iraq) and who have been returned to power in post-Taliban Afghanistan, misled their Western patrons in pursuit of their own narrow, personal and tribal objectives? Further questions, seldom asked, must also be raised in any realistic reassessment of the Bush administration’s failed policies: could the introduction of more American and international troops or doubling the size of the Afghan national army and police forces, as suggested by the British Prime Minister and US Secretary of Defence Gates, reverse the security situation and address the looming crisis in the governance of Afghanistan? How has President Karzai’s regime, arguably one of the most corrupt and inefficient in the history of the country, succeeded in losing the confidence and trust of its people so rapidly, not just through its inept attempt to establish a thoroughly tribalized government? And what of its patrons, the United States and NATO, who enjoyed considerable trust and respect among Afghans during the first few years of intervention? Did the US underestimate, misunderstand or was it simply misled by the Karzai regime about the organizational capabilities, ideological commitment and motivation of the Taliban and their supporters on both sides of Afghan–Pakistan border? Why did President Karzai consistently insist that the Taliban did not present the greatest threat to Afghanistan’s national security but that the so-called ‘warlords’ did? Why are the Western powers supporting

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the reconstruction of the old monarchical-type, person-centred, Kabuldominated, sovereignty-based governmental system which is promoting nepotism, tribalism, cronyism and corruption, while vehemently opposing popular demands from the provinces (in the non-Pashtun-majority western, central, northern and north-eastern parts of the country) to adopt the democratic principles of community ­self-governance within a unitary federal system? How has Pakistan benefited from her continuing support of war and violence in Afghanistan since the 1980s, and what can be done to address Pakistan’s legitimate concerns (including the recognition of its international borders, the so called Durand Line) regarding Afghanistan, to ensure peace and stability in both countries? What were/are the fundamental assumptions underlying the current failing policies of the United States and NATO that have led to reconstructing the same old political system in Afghanistan? Who were/are the advocates and architects of these failed policies both in Afghanistan and the United States? Why are these assumptions not clearly articulated and subjected to ongoing re-examination and reassessment? Finally, can propping up a corrupt, inappropriate and inefficient government, which does not relate to its people and has failed to earn their confidence and trust, bring peace and security to Afghanistan? The need for a change of policy by the Obama administration – to correct past failures and to rescue Afghanistan from yet another impending disaster before it is too late – is all too clear. The people of Afghanistan and those of the international community, especially in the United States and NATO countries, have high hopes for a positive systemic change in Afghanistan. To achieve this it will be necessary to formulate and implement alternative policies to bring peace and security to Afghanistan and the region. But the question remains: will the new administration of President Barack Obama, who successfully campaigned for change in America, be willing and able to change the failed American policies of the last eight years in Afghanistan?

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a muted voice? religious actors and civil society in post-2001 afghanistan Kristian Berg Harpviken and Kaja Borchgrevink (Oslo, February 2009) In general, religious actors are not perceived as likely contributors to civil society. In Afghanistan, where religion permeates society and politics, and where religious leaders and networks bear considerable influence, this is particularly problematic. There is a need for a thorough rethink of what civil society is and the role of religion within it. While knowledge is deficient in vital areas, what we do know merits a thorough reorientation of policy and practice. Religious actors are under double pressure. The Taliban, as the main armed opposition, see Islam as their main source of legitimacy. Religious leaders who express support for the government or who declare their neutrality are subject to pressure and, not infrequently, assassination. The government and their international allies, on the other hand, are deeply suspicious of religious authority, which they tend to associate with traditionalism and backwardness, if not with radical militancy. Given the immense politicization of religion in Afghanistan, both historically and during the last three decades of war, this is not surprising. But Islam remains a strong force in Afghan society, and current policies tend to radicalize large parts of the religious leadership, thus strengthening the militant opposition. The insistence on a role for religious actors in civil society is controversial. Ernest Gellner has argued that the idea of a civil society is intrinsically linked to a civility norm and democratization rooted in individualization, in contrast to Islamic collectivism.1 Others would argue that the ulamas – the higher clergy – see themselves as custodians of the law, which places them above the law. A related argument is that the ulamas – being on the state payroll – lack independence. 245

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Each of these arguments has certain merits and alerts us to the danger of seeing everything religious as part of civil society. In Afghanistan there is an institutionalized system of ulama councils, paid for by the government, but a large section of religious leaders stand outside this system. And while it is true that Islam is a law religion and that many of the ulamas see themselves as its guardians, there are other possible interpretations and alternative roles. Most importantly, religious actors fulfil genuine civil-society functions in areas such as socialization, advocacy, conflict resolution and social security. As part of our research, we have interviewed religious leaders in the capital, and – with the Cooperation for Peace and Unity (CPAU) – conducted case studies in Kunduz and Wardak. We found that a majority expressed positive views about the government’s development agenda. Although cautiously sceptical of the government, many believe that, as religious leaders, they could positively contribute to this agenda by generating support among the people, as well as through more direct participation in development projects. Most religious leaders, however, say that they have not been invited to take part in such processes. A majority of the religious leaders interviewed – and virtually all those interviewed in Wardak – were critical of the foreign military presence. Yet even those who were critical of foreign military assistance welcomed development projects and signalled their willingness to cooperate with them. Overall the religious leaders find that to the extent that the government and international agencies interact with them it is to secure their support for predetermined initiatives, but rarely in genuine consultation. These impressions are confirmed when talking to representatives of the government and the international community. Here there is a great deal of scepticism about religious actors. Although there is a realization that they may be important at the local level, there is a reluctance to give them any tangible influence over plans and programmes. There is also competition about who genuinely represents civil society, as NGOs, despite their brief history in the Afghan context, lay claim to funding and influence. NGOs have become agents of modernization, pushing for reform, challenging traditional norms and practices and upsetting long-standing power structures. But there are exceptions: where NGOs work closely with religious leaders, particularly at the local level, they find that this sort of collaboration is successful. Systematic knowledge of the role religion plays in Afghanistan is severely limited. What is the interface between religious and other types of leader at the local level? When and how are the former able to play an independent role? How has traditionalist Islam been influenced by Islamic radical

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movements, including the increasingly militant Taliban? How are Afghan religious networks embedded in transnational ones, and to what extent are non-Afghan influences the drivers of radicalization? We need to know more on these and a range of other issues. Yet we do know something. The virtual exclusion of religious actors in the post-Bonn process has come at a severe cost. Currently, religious leaders are in a squeeze between the government and the insurgency, with little space for independent action. The challenge for the government and the international community is to start creating that space. For the government it implies that religious actors should be taken seriously and engaged in dialogue before decisions are taken. For the internationals it requires a level of understanding and respect, without necessarily becoming embroiled in religious dialogue. Ultimately we all need to realize that Islam and its leaders constitute a force – indeed a resource – that must be an integral part of any sustainable road towards peace in Afghanistan. notes

1.

Ernest Gellner, Civil Society and Its Rivals (London: Penguin Books, 1994), chapter 3. references

Kaja Borchgrevink, Religious Actors and Civil Society in Post-2001 Afghanistan (Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 2007). Kaja Borchgrevink and Kristian Berg Harpviken, ‘Afghan Civil Society: Between Modernity and Tradition’, in Thania Paffeholz (ed.), Civil Society and Peacebuilding (Boulder: Lynne Rienner, 2009). Mirwais Wardak, Idrees Zaman and Kanishka Nawabi, ‘The Role and Functions of Religious Civil Society in Afghanistan: Case Studies from Kunduz and Sayedabad’ (Kabul: CPAU, 2007).

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defending urban heritage Jolyon Leslie (Kabul, September 2009)

As Afghanistan again becomes a site of intense military and political conflict, and its international partners reconsider the nature of their engagement, the threats to its rich cultural heritage mount. This is particularly evident in the accelerating destruction being wrought on the fragile historic cores around which the cities of Kabul and Herat continue to grow. The networks of narrow alleyways that provide access to these historic neighbourhoods is where many of the narratives of Afghan social history come together; shrines, mosques, daramsals (Hindu and Sikh temples) and synagogues embody the diverse strands of faith; crumbling houses retain traces of past prosperity; tumble-down serais are stacked high with gaudy plastic imports; brash new buildings overshadow ruins in which drug addicts lurk; mounds of earth bear witness to fierce conflict – the only traces of the homes of families that are now scattered across Afghanistan and the globe. Having survived in part the modernizing visions of previous generations and fierce urban conflict, Afghanistan’s urban heritage now faces an altogether graver threat. As the population of Kabul and Herat multiplies, the value of urban property soars and the long-neglected historic quarters now draw the attention of both Afghan planners and speculators. With no effective system of urban management, efforts to designate these neighbourhoods as heritage zones have made little headway, and historic property is being demolished and ‘redeveloped’ at will. The very Afghan politicians and civil servants who routinely denounce the cultural vandalism of the Taliban era seem unwilling to prevent the destruction of their architectural heritage. Ill-conceived external assistance also plays a part. A senseless ­road-widening scheme that is being driven through the heart of Kabul’s old city was conceived by Japanese advisers and is funded by the United Arab Emirates. 248

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In Herat, the Italian PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) has funded the construction of a monstrous new school close to the Timurid shrine complex of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari, the famous philosopher and Sufi poet (Herat 1006–89), in Gazargah. It is in this context that the ongoing urban conservation programme of the Historic Cities Programme of the Aga Khan Trust for Culture (AKTC) operates. Beginning with the pilot project to conserve a war-damaged mosque in Kabul in 2002, the programme has since grown in scale and scope to include documentation, conservation, training and upgrading work that benefits nearly 50,000 inhabitants of historic neighbourhoods in Kabul and Herat, where employment for hundreds of Afghans is generated on a year-round basis. To date, a dozen public buildings in the old city of Kabul, including mosques, mausoleums, shrines, traditional hammams (bath-houses), a madrasa (religious school) and other educational facilities, have been restored, along with 13 historically important houses, while support has been provided to repair the traditional homes of another 70 families. AKTC staff consults with community elders in assessing the social or architectural significance of a structure, the likelihood of the owner/s maintaining it and, in the case of public buildings, its eventual use. In some cases, the residents’ needs outweigh conservation priorities – laying a drain or re-surfacing of a street might be deemed more important than restoring a historic shrine. Since early 2005 a similar approach has been adopted by AKTC in Herat, where 18 mosques, shrines and public facilities have been restored in and around the old city. Among these is the fifteenth-century shrine complex of Khwaja Abdullah Ansari in Gazargah, which retains fine Timurid tile and brick decoration, and the massive citadel of Qala Ikhtyaruddin, where work continues on the creation of a museum, archives and other cultural facilities. In the shadow of the walls of the citadel, 20 historic homes in the old city have been restored; one now houses a school of traditional music and crafts workshops. Six of the distinctive domed cisterns – redundant after the arrival of piped water – have been restored and are used for cultural events or educational purposes. In a context where there is little documentation of the architectural heritage, it has been important to record in detail key property, to map the historic fabric and to collect oral testimony. In Herat, some 26,000 residential and commercial premises were visited in order to prepare an accurate map of the historic fabric of the city. In Kabul, interviews have been conducted with some 50 residents as part of an effort to record the social history of specific quarters. Continuing socio-economic surveys enable

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the AKTC team to track the transformations under way in both cities. Information about inadequate domestic bathing facilities in Kabul led to the reconstruction of two hammams, which are now visited by hundreds of residents daily, and the proceeds of the facilities re-invested in maintaining infrastructure. The next round of surveys will help to assess the impact of these investments on family health. The health of residents has also been addressed through investments in upgrading infrastructure, including drainage, paving of alleyways and streets, and improvements in community water supplies – work that generates year-round employment among some of the poorest urban ­communities. The fine architectural heritage of Kabul and Herat was largely built with revenues generated by commerce which, at least until the nineteenth century, revolved around bazaars at the heart of each city. While much of the commerce is now located elsewhere, the viability of the surviving historic neighbourhoods hinges on their ability to generate economic activity. Investments have therefore been made in restoring two historic covered bazaars in Herat: one is presently used by sellers of silk-thread and weavers, while the other is being gradually colonized by purveyors of hand-woven carpets. Incomes derived from these bazaars will supplement the wages earned through AKTC-funded conservation and upgrading works. A contribution to the economy is also being made through on-the-job training for Afghan craftsmen, which has enabled hundreds of masons, carpenters and plasterers to develop skills through apprenticeships. In Kabul, support is also provided for home-based training in tailoring, embroidery and kelim-weaving for women, who also have access to literacy classes. Despite the gains that have been made in the old cities of Kabul and Herat in recent years, the processes of safeguarding, conserving and upgrading remain something of an act of collective defiance in the face of official indifference and aggressive market forces. Although the ‘safeguarding of historic cities’ appears in the 2008 Afghan National Development Strategy, there is little evidence of this being translated into policy, let alone enforced on the ground. In these circumstances it seems that enlightened community action offers the best hope for the surviving urban heritage of Afghanistan. As one Kabuli community elder explained – politely but firmly – to a senior official during a mosque meeting in 2007, ‘our grandfathers planned, built and defended this place – not any government. What makes you think that you can come from the suburbs and tell us how to manage our neighbourhood now?’

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the hazar as in afghanistan: origins and linguistic evidence Abdul Ghafur Rawan Farhadi (Paris, April 2009) What is the meaning of the word hazara? It seems quite clear that it comes from the Dari/Persian word hazar, meaning one thousand (1,000).1 The bibliographies listed at the end of the ‘Hazara’ entries in the Encyclopaedia Iranica are an indication of the numerous works that have been written about the Hazaras in Afghanistan. However, many fundamental issues remain unresolved; in particular, there is no consensus whatsoever amongst the various authors as to their origin. The same stories are found again and again, especially the most pervasive one about their Mongolian origin, according to which the Hazaras of Afghanistan are allegedly the descendants of Genghis Khan’s armies, who came to conquer the region in the thirteenth century. In 1948 I recall reading a book about the tribes of Afghanistan in which the Hazaras were said to be of Turkish origin.2 I believe that the nineteenthcentury oriental author Sher Mohammad Gandapur had come up with the correct answer long before certain English authors started taking seriously the ‘Mongolian theory’. There are nevertheless a small number of Mongolians living in Afghanistan. Researchers have met some Mongolian speakers on the outskirts of Herat, more precisely to the south-east of the city, in the villages of Kundur, Karez-e Mullah, Buryabaf, Bedawi and Zirni. The villagers (Sunnis) not only speak Mongolian but their facial features clearly indicate that they are descended from mixed marriages between Mongolians and local women. Mongolian is also spoken in the village of Zamanabad near Obeh in Ghor Province, and Dorodi and Morchagal in Maimana Province. In 1961 the Japanese scholar Shinobu Iwamura, who led an expedition to 251

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study the Mongolians, published a poem in Persian and Mongolian, the manuscript of which is dated 1825 and was written by a certain Hanafi mullah called ‘Abd al-Qadr.3 The Mongolian language, strongly influenced by spoken Persian/Dari, could well disappear and simply be replaced by the latter. For this very reason, we believe that the Academy of Sciences of Afghanistan must carry out field studies and should find the means to publish a grammar of Mongolian as spoken in Afghanistan. We know for sure that the Hazaras in Afghanistan use some Mongolian words and that these same words are found in modern Kirghiz and Kazakh. Some of them may originate from prehistoric times when Turco-Mongolian was spoken, while others were adopted from Mongolian at a later stage in history. It may also be that, by living close to Mongolian families, the Hazaras inherited their language. The Hazaras adopted Persian/Dari very early on. Hazaragi is different from the language spoken in Kabul. Despite small differences, the various languages spoken by the Hazara clans display an impressive unity in terms of phonetics, morphology, syntax and semantics. Fortunately there exists a major work on the subject, published in Kabul in 1982.4 Shah ‘Ali Akbar Shahrestani spent many years travelling around the country and devoted 26 years of his life researching the language. As a friend, I personally participated in his Vocabulary of the Dari-Hazaragi Dialect and was involved in designing the research methodology. The Vocabulary (in Persian) consists of 1,487 entries and includes unknown words, words that are not very well known and well-known words that have a different meaning in Persian/Dari. The chapter on Hazaragi grammar highlights the importance of suffixes and prefixes and especially the grammatical heritage from oriental Turkic languages. Kirghiz and Kazakh contain approximately 900 words from the Hazaragi vocabulary that are listed in the collective work Dictionary of the Turkic Languages5 (1998), to which unfortunately Shahrestani did not have access. Sharestani’s Hazaragi vocabulary covers many different fields: natural habitat, climate, agriculture and animal husbandry, household utensils, rural crafts, social life, family life, etc. Many words do not have an exact equivalent in classical Dari or in the Dari spoken in towns. The KirghizKazakh substrate is evident in these words. Regarding the spoken languages that formed the basis of the Persian language adopted by the Hazaras when they arrived, I ‘discovered’ some crucial information in an article by M. Sa‘id Mash‘al from Herat.6 Mash‘al, whose parents emigrated from Ghor to Herat, revealed the existence of a

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vocabulary that is found both in the Persian dialect spoken in Ghor and in Hazaragi. Phonetic, morphological and semantic data confirm that the language spoken by the Hazaras comes either from Ghor or from adjacent regions where Persian/Dari was spoken. It would be interesting to compare spoken Hazaragi with the Persian/Dari spoken in Ghor based on Mash‘al’s article. What would prove even more useful would be an etymological study of the language of the Hazaras, thus updating Shahrestani’s work, taking into account the Dictionary of Turkic Languages and other more recent studies. Today the majority of Hazaras living in Afghanistan are Shias, but at the time of their migration it appears that they were Sunnis.7 Ja‘farite Shiism seems to have existed amongst a few Hazaras before the sixteenth century, at a time when ‘missionaries’ from the Iranian province of Khorasan came to Afghanistan. More than 80 per cent of Afghan Hazaras are thought to be duodeciman Shias. There seems to have been a small number of Ismaili Hazaras well before the sixteenth century. They are now living in the village of Shaikh-Ali, near the Shibar Pass – close to the Sunnis and duodeciman Hazaras – in Kayan (Lokh-Toghay) and in Siyah-Sang, near Raqol (Behsud). Lastly, there are still Sunni Hazaras in the Sorkh Valley, in the Ghorband region, in the villages of Sayghan and Kahmard, in Takhar Province, in the villages of Kohgaday (Badakhshan), Doab-e Mekh-e Zarin, (Abash, Tatar, Qara, Karam Ali) and in Qala-i Naw in the Badghis Province. During the reign of King Zahir Shah, a French team specializing in land planning studied the climatic conditions, economic resources and potential of the Hazarajat region and submitted to the Afghan authorities a report translated into Persian. One of the specialists told me at the time, around 1964, that the difficult mountainous terrain and harsh climate – long winters and heavy snow falls – made improvement of the local population’s economic condition highly improbable, even with modern technology. This shows the complete absurdity of the theory behind the Hazaras’ alleged Mongolian origin: conquerors would have settled on the most fertile land, such as in Logar and Arghandab. We know from written history that there were no women in Genghis Khan’s army. Given the Hazaras’ physiognomy, it is unlikely that Mongolian soldiers ever married local women. This confirms the belief that the Hazaras arrived with their own women and children. They had nothing to do with a Mongolian military expedition. As a consequence of the successive political events that followed the 1978 tragedy, there have been major population movements amongst the

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Hazaras in Afghanistan. First, there was massive internal migration towards Afghanistan’s larger cities, Herat, Mazar-i Sharif and especially Kabul. The exile of hundreds of thousands of people to the Iranian province of Khorasan, the western Iranian provinces and Tehran had its consequences. Such displacements had and still have a fundamental linguistic impact: the young Hazaras today hardly speak Hazaragi, but speak the language of the city in which they live. To conclude, I feel comfortable in stating that the Hazaras in Afghanistan originally came from High Asia. Due to environmental conditions or insecurity, they migrated, perhaps in several waves, with women and children, to the higher valleys of the Hindu Kush. When did these migrations take place? Before Genghis Khan? Written history offers no answers to these questions. However, the history and origins of the Hazaras in Afghanistan definitely deserve further in-depth study. notes

1.

On a journey to Kunduz and Takhar in 1957, I discovered the word hazara used to describe populations ‘that had migrated’. I was told, ‘They are Hazaras from Kandahar’, when in fact they were Ghilzai Pashtuns, in accordance with Babur’s definition of the word hazara (Babur-nama). 2. Sher Mohammad Gandapur, Tawarikh-e khorshayd-e jahan (Lahore, 1884; reprinted Peshawar, circa 1985). 3. Shinobu Iwamura (with Natsuki Osada and Tadashi Yamasaki), The Zirni Manuscript: A Persian–Mongolian Glossary and Grammar, with preliminary remarks on the Zirni manuscript by Nicholas Poppe (Kyoto: Kyoto University, Committee for the Kyoto University Scientific Expeditions to the Karakoram and the Hindukush, 1961). 4. Shah ‘Ali Akbar Shahrestani, Qamus-e lahja-ye dari-e hazaragi (Kabul, 1361). Shahrestani is also the author of another work, still in manuscript, entitled Tarikh-e Hazara (History of the Hazaras). 5. K. Oztopchu, Zh. Abuov, N. Kambarov and Y. Azemonn, Dictionary of the Turkic Languages. English, Azerbaijani, Kyrgyz, Tatar, Turkish, Turkmen, Uighur, Uzbek (London: Routledge, 1996). 6. Mohammad Sa‘id Mash‘al, Khoshk-o tar (Dry and Humid), 1998. 7. See Mirza ‘Abd al-Mohammad Isfahani, Aman ot-tawarikh, a manuscript held at the Kevorkian Library in New York. The summary by R. McChesney does not mention the part on the Safavid attack in Hazarajat, which brought about this change. This important historical work (in Persian) has not yet been published.

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references

Robert L. Canfield, ‘The Hazaras’, in Muslim Peoples: A World Ethnographic Survey (Greenwood Press, 1978). Sayed Askar Mousavi, The Hazaras of Afghanistan: An Historical, Cultural, Economic and Political Study (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998). Mohammad Sa‘eed Mash‘al (Herawi Ghori), Khoshk-o tar (Dry or Humid), poems and articles (in Persian/Dari) published in 1998 by Mohammad Wazir Akhi Karrokhi Herawi. The collection (from pages 454 to 486) contains the article by Mash‘al (author and painter, former mayor of the city of Herat, now deceased), regarding the Persian spoken in Ghor. (Mash‘al himself did not identify the heritage of Ghor Persian/Dari in the Hazaras’ language). Alessandro Monsutti, War and Migration: Social Networks and Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (New York and London: Routledge, 2005). Encyclopaedia Iranica. See the articles in English entitled ‘Hazara’ by Jamil Hanifi, Alessandro Monsutti and Charles Kieffer. There is a bibliography at the end of each article. editor’s note

Recent researches into human DNA (2003) have proved the Mongolian origin of the Hazaras (Genghis haplotype). See L. Morgan, The Buddhas of Bamiyan (London: Profile Books, 2012), p. 124.

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the future of the afghan national army: problems and reforms Antonio Giustozzi (London, March 2010) Until early 2009 the Afghan National Army (ANA) was widely touted in Washington as the most successful example of post-2001 nation-building in Afghanistan. There was some truth in this, as the army was relatively more functional than most other Afghan institutions. However, during 2009 it became obvious, even to the true believers, that the advance of the ANA project had been significantly overestimated up to that point. The series of reviews ordered by the new Obama administration in the US revealed that the official statistics and assessments used to determine the success of the project were often flawed. The weaknesses that have emerged are several. There is a consensus that the logistics of the ANA is too under-developed and is lagging far behind the development of the combat units, but what is often overlooked is that logistics is more demanding in terms of administrative skills than combat, hence the high demand of educated people. Such demand seems unlikely to be met under the present system of voluntary recruitment, as few people of the requisite skills are tempted into army service. The army intake largely consists of illiterate or barely educated recruits from the more remote and poorest communities of the country; very few Afghans with degrees join up. There is also near consensus on another key weakness of the ANA: the lack of leadership skills. Particularly at senior level, the ability of the ANA to autonomously plan and execute complex operations is very low. At the tactical level the ANA is better off, with a number of competent battalion commanders and junior officers. However, there are still too many uncommitted or incompetent officers at the battalion level and below. Complaints about the predominant culture of nepotism and favouritism are common 256

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and explain why promoting good-performing officers and non-commissioned officers (NCOs) is not so easy. Leadership is such an important problem area because it can only be developed slowly over time, if at all. Interim measures now being considered include bringing back both a greater number of former officers trained under the Soviet army and a greater number of former Mujahedeen commanders, particularly from southern Afghanistan. There is reason to be sceptical about the impact of these measures, particularly the latter: the Mujahedeen of southern Afghanistan were among the most disorganized of the country during the 1980s jihad and turning them into effective officers might be a tall order. On the issue of ethnicity and the internal fault-lines of the ANA, the debate is still open and views are quite heterogeneous. Official sources are reluctant to publish any statistics, but in general it is agreed that Tajiks are over-represented at the expense of Hazaras and Uzbeks. Pashtuns are probably slightly under-represented (there is no agreement on the actual ethnic breakdown of the population), but among them most troops are northern or eastern Pashtuns; southern Pashtuns represent no more than 3 per cent of the ANA, despite the fact that the south is the main theatre of the war. A more controversial issue is the distribution of ethnicities at the different levels of responsibility. It seems clear, even if statistics are somewhat contested, that Tajiks predominate among the commanding officers of combat units. This has some obvious implications in terms of the ability of the ANA to interact successfully with the Afghan population in the combat areas, but also matters for the medium- and long-term stability of Afghanistan. The presidential elections of 2009 revealed the extent of the political friction between old anti-Taliban partners (chiefly Karzai’s group and the old Jamiatis). To what extent this is reflected in the ANA is not wholly clear, but it is known that Minister of Defence Wardak and Chief of Staff Bismillah Khan are on bad terms. Since the latter is still more influential than the former and is more likely to sympathize with his former party comrades of Jamiat, it would not be surprising if Karzai felt that the ANA is not really loyal to him. It cannot be said that the extensive effort to train and mentor the ANA has been a failure. Certainly the ANA is now growing fast and the yearly attrition rate has come down somewhat. The sloppy attitude towards training which characterized the years to 2009, when numbers were privileged over quality in a public-relations-driven effort to present a positive picture, is gradually changing. The new command of the training mission, NTM-A/ CSTC-A (NATO Training Mission-Afghanistan/Combined Security Command-Afghanistan), is tightening the graduation requirements from

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the basic training course, which used to be very lax. The effort is still under-resourced in terms of the numbers of foreign mentors, instructors and consultants assigned to the task – the mission cannot afford to be too selective in assigning its officers to the mentoring effort. At the beginning of 2009 a whole US battalion was assigned to NTM-A to fill some of the gaps. The main point about mentoring, however, is that because of the ambitious ultimate target (a conventional infantry army modelled on the American example) and the limited human resources available on both the international and the Afghan sides, it has rapidly turned into a ‘protectorate-like’ operation more than a mentoring effort. In other words, the mentors act more as supervisors, sometimes even as commanding officers, rather than as mere mentors, in order to fill the gaps opened by the insufficient training of most Afghan officers. This is likely to breed dependency. Moreover, the ANA is being trained to fight as a NATO army that is heavily reliant on close air support, which in turn can only be called in by the foreign mentors attached to each ANA unit. This is another aspect of the dependency that is developing within the ANA.

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afghan cultur al heritage as seen by the afghans Nancy Hatch Dupree (Kabul/Peshawar, March 2010) When speaking about their cultural heritage most Afghans refer to the looting of the Kabul Museum, the destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas, the plundering of archaeological sites and the smuggling of artefacts. They criticize government failure to stem the haemorrhage, placing the entire onus for protecting cultural properties on official shoulders. The impossibility of employing sufficient guards for every site is scarcely mentioned, for hardly a soul is aware that their country is so richly endowed with archaeological sites that policing them all is simply not feasible. Deeper probes into what the character of the lost treasures might be are mostly met with vague references to ‘Buddha heads’ and ‘gold’. This is not surprising. Even before the war a majority of Afghans had no clear ideas about their history. Afghan institutions seldom encouraged citizens to take pride in their heritage, scholars rarely shared their knowledge with the general public, and schoolchildren were taught little about the richness of the past. Now a whole generation has grown up in refugee camps outside the country, without the slightest conception of the wonders that once existed in their land. Even the new history textbooks fail to convey the fact that thousands of years, stretching from the fourth century bce to the sixteenth century ce, are filled with brilliant cultural achievements that should be a source of national pride. Afghan schoolchildren are thereby deprived of the inspiration that their cultural heritage could provide. Yet the Afghan landscape is liberally dotted with tangible vestiges of this glorious past. Unless these monuments form a living part of the communities in which they stand, most will continue to deteriorate. Developing awareness is therefore a 259

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top priority. Only with awareness can citizen-centred activities for their ­protection be devised. Few realize that cultural heritage embodies more than monuments and artefacts. The equally rich intangible heritage includes the creative arts, music, literature and folklore. These have also languished under the exigencies of war and political turmoil; only a few groups devote their energies to their revival. Artists lack the community and government support extended to them in the 1970s, although the National Art Gallery, established in Kabul during the Soviet period, is a welcome addition to the cultural life of the city. It has yet to capture the public imagination, however. Music in many forms has been passionately nurtured for centuries at all levels of society, starting with the shepherd and his flute. Masters of classical music, however, have suffered grievously during these years of conflict and exile, and enthusiasts have only recently initiated programmes devoted to the traditional master-apprentice method of transmitting musical skills from one generation to the next. That more students than can be accommodated are signing up for admission to the several music schools established around the country since 2004 indicates that interest among the young is high. Poetry is also dear to the hearts of all Afghans. Budding literary circles meet weekly in Kabul. Individuals, both men and women, publish novels privately. Folk-story tellers draw crowds of spellbound listeners, especially at festive religious gatherings. Their tales – of heroism, gallantry, loyalty, tolerance and the dangerous paths of love – bond individuals to their heritage. But it is the tales told at grandmother’s knee that traditionally perpetuate the values of the society. The intangible heritage embraces shared beliefs and customs that mould behaviour. Many of the older generation grumble about the weakening of cherished values. In their view there is now less respect for elders, inattention to etiquette, declining loyalty to colleagues and friends, less trust in others, rising ethnic tensions fuelled by intolerance, creeping opportunism and a growing lust for money manifested by rampant corruption. The older generation is worried. The youth, on the other hand, say that they have had enough of displacement and deprivation. They have vaulted into the era of technology with scarcely a glance at transition. The mobile phone has become the symbol of this new era. Unthought of before 2001, it is now an essential part of the daily lives of over 10 million subscribers. Many phones are loaded with every multimedia device imaginable, for the determination to keep up with the rapid changes in technology is insatiable. Still, beneath it all, cell phones

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simply provide easier and quicker means of keeping in touch with family and friends. That has always been central to Afghan culture. The state-run radio had already made its impact before the war, but today there are more than 20 independent radio stations in Kabul and over 70 in the provinces. TV was just being talked about when the troubles began in 1978. Now, in addition to the state-run channel, 16 independent TV stations operate in Kabul and 35 in the provinces. Programmes range from the political to the religious. Through these communication systems the young are creating a new pop culture of their own. ‘If there is no music people will be sad. We have been sad for too long,’ said one young gentleman of barely ten years, responding to conservative criticism of TV’s most popular entertainment programme, Afghan Star. Each year since 2004, upwards of 2,000 contestants audition for Afghan Star, which is broadcast from major cities around the country, each show being watched by some 11 million viewers who vote for their favourites on their mobile phones. The final winner is chosen, again by phone, at the end of the season at a gala performance in Kabul. Afghan Star is more than an entertainment diversion. It lives up to its claim to be a ‘major contribution towards unifying diverse ethnic groups from all parts of Afghanistan through the universal love of music – symbolizing a modern and more hopeful future’. Perhaps a grandmother’s impatient quip to her grandson best sums up Afghan thoughts on their culture today: child, you were brought up with a tasbih (prayer beads) in your hand, now all you know is text messaging. reference

Nancy Hatch Dupree, Afghanistan over a Cup of Tea (Stockholm: Swedish ­Committee for Afghanistan, 2009).

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will the us achieve a permanent military presence in afghanistan? Peter Marsden (London, February 2011) A key consideration in relation to any eventual pullout of international military forces from Afghanistan is whether the US government will seek to negotiate a permanent retention of all or some of its military bases in the country. The website www.satelliteinsight.com notes that the US government currently has eight airbases, 24 forward operating bases, eight fire bases, 20 camps and 14 Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs) in Afghanistan. The US government has a clear interest in permanently retaining its bases. There are, potentially, major threats to its interests in the wider region – tensions with Iran, the growth of Islamic radicalism in Pakistan, the risk that Pakistan’s nuclear facilities may get into the wrong hands, the growing power of China and the significant oil and gas reserves in the Middle East and Central Asia. There are strong indications that the US is continuing to invest heavily in the infrastructure of its military sites. This investment would suggest, at the minimum, that the US Air Force may seek to remain in Afghanistan even if the army and the marines withdraw. While such investment may be consistent with a planned end to combat operations in 2014, it may also suggest plans for a more long-term presence. A further scenario is that the US government may seek permanent, albeit conditional, access to some of its bases in Afghanistan in order to run intelligence-gathering missions in those areas of Afghanistan that border Iran, China and the former Soviet republics of Central Asia. Alternatively the US government may seek to retain its bases for as long as possible, albeit on the understanding that they are not seeking a perma262

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nent presence. They may, for example, seek to justify this on the basis that they may be called upon to play a training role in relation to the Afghan National Army and the Afghan National Police for some time to come. This would be consistent with its practice in Iraq, where it retained 50,000 troops in a training role after it ceased combat operations in August 2010. It has, however, announced that it will withdraw these remaining troops at the end of 2011. The US government added that, in the process, 350 bases and 3.5 million pieces of equipment would be closed down, transferred to the Iraqi security forces or redeployed to other American units. It may be, therefore, that the US government will seek to transfer some of its military bases to the ANA, while maintaining continued access for training and surveillance purposes. At the NATO summit in Lisbon of 19–20 November 2010, NATO spokespersons stated that they planned a phased transfer of responsibility for security to Afghan forces and an end to NATO’s combat role by 2014, adding that they were committed to remaining thereafter in a support role. However, the US government simultaneously warned that it would continue combat operations after 2014 if the security situation deteriorated. The US government would, of course, need the consent of the Afghan government for any kind of future military presence. In considering its options, it will have to take account of the fact that President Karzai has a highly ambivalent attitude towards the US and may not be willing to commit himself to a long-term presence. It will also have to take account of the wide range of opinions of the Afghan people, some of whom see the US as playing a role in preventing interference in Afghanistan by its neighbours. While the US may hope that President Karzai’s successor, following the presidential elections of 2014, will be more amenable to an ongoing presence, there are many possible variables in Afghan politics between now and then. Among these is the growing strength of the insurgency. It is most unlikely that the Taliban would accept a permanent US military presence and this may be a key factor in the apparently lukewarm response of the US government to any process of political engagement with the Taliban. For the moment the US appears to be basing its strategy on being able to undermine the Taliban by military means so that any process of negotiation is, in theory at least, based on the Taliban being the weaker party. The Taliban, however, are confident that they are continuing to gain ground, following a significant expansion in their support base across the north over the past year. Afghanistan’s neighbours will certainly regard a permanent US military presence with considerable wariness, if not outright suspicion. The

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continuation of the bases could further inflame anti-US sentiment in Pakistan, where it is already high because of the use of predator drones to target suspects. Similarly a planned significant investment in the infrastructure of the Shindand airbase, near the Iranian border, risks heightening tensions between the US and Iran. China and Russia are also uneasy over the US presence in, and its designs on, Central Asia and may not be willing to provide continued support for the long-term retention of US bases in Afghanistan, including, in the case of Russia, the use of its territory as a transit route for US military supplies to Afghanistan. Furthermore, in seeking to negotiate considerable loans from China, the US is in a weak position in attempting to finance high levels of expenditure on military bases in Afghanistan. Finally, all the regional powers are understandably concerned over the use of Afghan territory for intelligence surveillance missions by the US government. Thus, while there will be many within the US establishment who would hope to achieve a permanent military presence in Afghanistan, there are many factors which will stand in the way of such a goal.

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afghanistan 2011: an archipelago of sovereignties Alessandro Monsutti (Geneva, February 2011) The situation in Afghanistan in 2011 is far removed from the optimistic projections of ten years ago, at the time of the fall of the Taliban. The Taliban have now rebuilt their forces and seem to enjoy renewed popularity in the south and east of the country. While President Karzai adopts a more and more openly anti-Western stance, many international experts explain the failure of the reconstruction process by the corruption that plagues every level of the Afghan administration. One dilemma, in particular, crops up all the time in conversation: should the national government be bypassed – which would compromise further its ability to deliver basic services – or should everything be done through the state structures, inevitably fuelling the client networks that those at the top have put in place? It sounds like a puzzle without a solution. Furthermore, one cannot fail to be struck by the ever growing numbers of people involved in reconstruction and development – and by the lack of coordination or even competition between them. At the level of the Afghan state, the Ministry of Rural Rehabilitation and Development and the Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock Farming are competing with each other for the attention of funders; the Interior Ministry and the Independent Directorate for Local Government are tearing each other apart, while the presidency hesitantly arbitrates between their respective mandates. Multilateral organizations such as the World Bank or UNDP and bilateral agencies such as USAID, DFID, JICA, GTZ or SDC plan their operations without always coordinating with one another.1 Similarly the US armed forces and ISAF consult with no one when they propose a whole series of development projects for the Provincial Reconstruction Teams (PRTs). The NGOs, which feel threatened as to their funding, accuse those military265

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civilian teams of being guided by tactical considerations, not by the needs of the population, and of helping to blur boundaries in ways that threaten the independence of humanitarian operations. Meanwhile, private development, security and construction companies are becoming increasingly important players on the Afghan stage. At one private party, a high-ranking American responsible for the ISAF anticorruption squad (the Combined Joint Interagency Task Force, or CJIATFShafafiyat) confided that five large US development corporations – including Development Alternatives Inc (DAI) and Chemonics2 – are getting 80 per cent of USAID’s US$4 billion Afghan aid budget for 2011. A major share of this imposing sum is made up of expatriate salaries. Indeed, these companies have made a speciality of Capacity Development Programmes (CDPs), which consist of small training and awareness workshops under the direction of experts mostly parachuted in from North America. Their contribution to the development of Afghanistan remains to be demonstrated, and the juicy positions seem to be allocated in a manner that is particularly opaque. Times have changed on the Afghan side too. Whereas a few years ago local NGOs were springing up everywhere to garner the aid resources coming in from abroad, the new model hinges on consortia of private companies (active in construction, logistics, transport and agricultural production) that include one NGO. Businessmen and politicians work together on the division of tasks, the former concerning themselves with the revenue side, the latter taking care of the contacts and contracts. Are we heading for the privatization of reconstruction and development aid? Are we witnessing the end of the NGO era? Faced with the multiplicity and ambiguity of development practices, only the one-eyed would think it sufficient to blame the corruptness of Karzai and his entourage or the leading figures in the anti-Soviet resistance. It is also urgently necessary to weigh the negative effects of the international presence in Afghanistan, for example, the fact that each Afghan ministry pays some employees in the national currency (5,000–30,000 afghanis a month, or US$100–600), others on a ‘superscale’ receiving a supplement of several hundred dollars (sometimes as much as US$2,000 or more) from multilateral or bilateral funders, and still others working for programmes directly funded by the World Bank, UNDP or FAO, whose salaries often amount to several thousand dollars a month. Thus the Afghan director of a UNDP-backed development programme will receive a basic salary higher than that of a minister or vice minister, and a UN chauffeur more than a university professor.

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Among the other distortions resulting from the international presence are the Serb ‘ghost soldiers’ responsible for targeted assassinations outside all state control – everyone talks of them, though no one admits they exist – and Hamid Karzai’s fruitless attempts to ban private security companies in summer 2010. By multiplying the centres of decision-making, these encroachments on governmental authority give Afghanistan the appearance of a fragmented political space in which different modes of action, legitimation and resource distribution exist alongside one another – an archipelago of sovereignties! Yet all is not doom and gloom. Despite the killings, Kabul comes across (ultimately unsurprisingly) as a Third World metropolis, choked by foul air, snarled up by traffic, dusty beneath the sun, muddy beneath the rain and snow. And it cannot be said that there is no middle class; its members often try to avoid the north of the capital, where the internationals huddle together, and prefer instead more discreet districts such as Kart-e Seh or the new Shahrak-e Sabz development, not far from the old palace of Darul Aman. The conflict seems remote in these areas rarely visited by Westerners. Cafés and restaurants do a flourishing trade, do not insist on security measures, and offer meeting places for young people who have never known combat or Taliban rule. (Despite the bleakness of the situation, we should remember that according to the CIA’s World Factbook 43.6 per cent of the Afghan population is aged 14 or under.) At the National Music School I stumble upon the furtive contacts between two young couples who, like me, are listening to a North American virtuoso violinist accompany a great Bangladeshi sitar master. In the interval, I overhear snatches of their conversation and recognize the Iranian tones of their Persian. These pert iranigak (‘little Iranians’) grew up, and in some cases were born, in Tehran, Meshhed or Shiraz, before they were expelled from Iran with their families and brought back with them subtle ways of challenging the social and political order. Flirting with one another by SMS, these young people are re-inventing life in society and teaching us – as the last few weeks in North Africa and the Middle East have shown – that all hope is never lost. notes

1.

2.

DFID = Department for International Development (UK); JICA = Japan International Cooperation Agency; GTZ = (German) Gesellschaft für Technische Zusammenarbeit; SDC = Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation. An international development company (www.chemonics.com).

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negotiating with the taliban William Maley (Canberra, September 2011)

Reports of progress towards the opening of a Taliban political office in Qatar have triggered further discussion of the possibility of serious negotiations directed at achieving a political settlement in Afghanistan. For some time now it has become almost a mantra of certain Western leaders that there is no military solution to Afghanistan’s problems, only a political one. The former British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was a strong proponent of this view,1 and some of his arguments have received support in the writings of a number of experienced observers, most notably Ahmed Rashid.2 A close reading of this discourse, however, suggests that the concept of a ‘political solution’ is rather narrow in its focus. To its proponents it seems mainly to mean striking a bargain with the Taliban rather than using diplomatic and political pressures to induce Pakistan to arrest the leaders of the armed opposition to the Karzai government – leaders who, like Osama bin Laden, almost certainly moved to Pakistan in late 2001 or early 2002. Yet the hurdles that lie in the way of any satisfactory negotiated outcome are extremely high, and it is surprising that they have not received more attention.3 Nothing illustrates this more clearly than the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, Chairman of the High Peace Council, on 20 September 2011. Six particular problems deserve to be highlighted. The first relates to the nature of the armed opposition in Afghanistan. It is a decidedly complex phenomenon, involving groups such as the Taliban ‘Quetta Shura’, the Hezb-e islami of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, the Haqqani network and actors with various degrees of autonomy inside Afghanistan itself. Furthermore Pakistan-based actors are linked in various ways to elements of the Pakistan state, most notably the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), but it is not clear that the various Pakistani elements are singing 268

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from the same hymn sheet. This raises real questions as to who can bind whom as part of a negotiation and, on occasion, as to the very identity of the negotiating partners – an issue that arose in 2010 when it turned out that one Taliban ‘representative’ was an imposter.4 Even more seriously, the Rabbani assassination raises doubts as to whether the Taliban have any commitment to the fundamental norms on which meaningful negotiation depends, whether their ‘moderate’ rhetoric5 is anything more than propaganda, whether they have shifted at all from the totalitarian mindset that marked their approach to politics in the 1990s,6 and whether, even if they signed an agreement, they would not tear it up and push for control of the whole country as soon as the opportunity arose. The second problem relates to the lack of a deep national consensus in Afghanistan in favour of negotiation, something that the Rabbani assassination is likely only to aggravate. The importance of willingness to compromise was highlighted in a recent report by a high-level task force co-chaired by Lakhdar Brahimi and Thomas Pickering,7 but there is little evidence at present of any such willingness on the part of key actors or any likelihood of its emerging in the foreseeable future. In the absence of a national consensus, any attempt to strike a deal with the Taliban (which would inevitably involve ceding them some kind of power, most probably through territorial spheres of influence) runs the grave risk of triggering renewed civil war, into which Iran and Russia could easily be drawn as supporters of anti-Taliban forces. A third problem flows from President Karzai’s diminished legitimacy in the aftermath of the fraud-tainted 2009 presidential election. If Karzai were a widely respected leader with a robust popular mandate, he might have some capacity to promote a consensus in favour of negotiations. However, were he to attempt to sign a deal with the Taliban from his present position of weakness, it is more than likely that this would trigger a fully fledged legitimacy crisis. Compromised leaders typically lack the authority to make controversial decisions stick. A fourth problem relates to the uncertain attitude of the United States towards negotiations. President Obama inherited a deteriorating situation in Afghanistan from President George W. Bush, and while he has an interest in seeing a positive outcome in Afghanistan, he has no desire to see his presidency blighted by Afghanistan in the way that Lyndon Johnson’s was blighted by Vietnam in the 1960s.8 Some key figures, such as CIA Director David Petraeus, have been sceptical from the outset that the Taliban would negotiate meaningfully unless confronted by a stark choice between real negotiation or disaster on the battlefield.9 This has put him at odds with

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other US actors more sympathetic to more open-ended engagement. In the light of the Rabbani assassination, however, the balance in the debate may begin to tip in Petraeus’s favour: a ‘negotiation process’ rarely maintains its credibility if a negotiator is at risk of being murdered by one of his counterparts. A fifth problem is that any deal with the Taliban would likely involve compromising a range of important values and interests. There is a danger that many of the positive developments in Afghanistan over the last decade would be lost with the return to office of the Taliban. The issue of gender is especially important to note. It was this more than any other that blighted the Taliban’s reputation in the late 1990s, and there is little to suggest that they would be any more ‘feminist’ in the twenty-first century than they were in the twentieth. Minorities such as the Hazaras of Afghanistan are also likely to regard any Taliban return with the deepest apprehension, and with Quetta hardly a safe haven, more and more are likely to attempt to flee the region, possibly in very large numbers. Finally, it should not be forgotten that merely embarking on a process of negotiation can have negative consequences, most notably by encouraging actors on the ground to pursue hedging strategies. Why would a rational Afghan come out in support of the government and its backers if there were a risk that the district or province in which he lived might be handed over to the government’s Taliban opponents as part of a political settlement? This is not simply a problem that flows from talk of talks with the Taliban: to a great degree it flows from the pursuit of ‘transition’ by 2014 when it is far from clear that the Afghan government and state are strong enough to survive without significant external support. Nonetheless it does suggest that what is going to be a hugely challenging period in Afghanistan may be made even more challenging if the objective of striking a deal with the Taliban remains a central part of the exit strategies of Western powers. notes

1.

Matthew Weaver, ‘Britain renews calls for Afghanistan talks with Taliban’, Guardian, 27 July 2009. 2. Ahmed Rashid, ‘The Way Out of Afghanistan’, New York Review of Books, 13 January 2011. 3. For earlier critiques, see William Maley, ‘Talking to the Taliban’, The World Today, vol. 63, no. 11 (November 2007), pp. 4–6; Ashley J. Tellis, Reconciling with the Taliban? Toward an Alternative Grand Strategy in Afghanistan (Washington, DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 2009). 4. Dexter Filkins and Carlotta Gall, ‘Taliban Leader in Secret Talks Was an

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Impostor’, New York Times, 22 November 2010. See Ahmed Rashid, ‘What the Taliban Say They Want’, New York Review of Books, 29 September 2011. See William Maley, ‘The Taliban: Fundamentalist, Traditionalist, or Totalitarian?’, Afghanistan Info, no. 40 (March 1997), pp. 7–9 (chapter 28 in this collection). Afghanistan: Negotiating Peace. The Report of The Century Foundation International Task Force on Afghanistan in Its Regional and Multilateral Dimensions (New York: The Century Foundation Press, 2011), p. 27. See William Maley, ‘Afghanistan: Grim Prospects?’, in Shahram Akbarzadeh (ed.), America’s Challenges in the Greater Middle East: The Obama Administration’s Policies (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), pp. 195–216. Ahmed Rashid, ‘Once again US Afghan policy is hobbled by divisions’, Financial Times, 19 September 2011.

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towards a new civil war? western withdr awal and the dynamics of regionalization Gilles Dorronsoro (Paris, September 2011) The transition, as jointly defined by the Afghan authorities and the international coalition, assumes that by 2014 the army and police will be capable, at least in the main, of containing the armed insurgency. Such a transition process is not credible, however, for a number of reasons to which we shall return; and in reality its effect is to accelerate a regionalization dynamic that increases the risks of civil war. Behind the optimistic discourse of the Western command centres is looming the abandonment of Afghanistan to the play of regional powers and the Afghan actors on whom they rest. First of all, the pace of the international coalition’s withdrawal means that the transition timetable is practically impossible. In particular, the Western forces have already begun to withdraw, yet the insurgency has not been lastingly weakened (above all, because its leaders are mostly in Pakistan), even in parts of the south where the main Western efforts have been concentrated. In fact, the progress being made in Kandahar or Helmand is of a tactical nature, in so far as there is no Afghan partner capable of taking over, while recent months in the east have seen clear advances by the Taliban – for example, in Nuristan and Kunar provinces. What is more, the Afghan army still suffers from a high desertion rate (2–3 per cent a month) and no unit engages in independent combat. At the political level, Afghan institutions are blocked: the executive does not really recognize the legitimacy of parliament, and the lack of nationally structured parties means that parliament is powerless to define a collective will. With one-third of its troops gone by the end of 2012, the coalition will lose ground to an insurgency that can now look for victory in the space of a few years. Because of weariness on the part of the Western public, the coalition withdrawal is irreversible in the sense 272

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that it will take place whatever the situation on the ground. These internal political constraints explain why Obama went directly against the recommendations of his generals for a much slower withdrawal. With fewer troops and less money, the international coalition will have (and already has) less influence on political developments in Afghanistan. In particular, a significant reduction in funding is accompanying the withdrawal. USAID will have a half less than last year and the US civilian ‘surge’ is already being scaled down. Threatened by the insurgency, foreigners in Afghanistan have gradually become ‘invisible’ in the cities and contract out development activities in the countryside. Relations between the Karzai government and the United States are better since the appointment of Ryan Crocker as US ambassador, but the fact remains that on the core issues the Afghan regime has not moved in the direction desired by Washington. Still, this does not indicate greater autonomy on the part of the Karzai government (which would ultimately be a good sign), but rather a dual dynamic of internal collapse and rising external influences. On the one hand, there is a growing risk (underestimated by the coalition) of institutional breakdown. District capitals in provinces of the east and south – the most affected by guerrilla activity – no longer take responsibility for governing the population. The insurgents’ policy of targeted assassinations has proved especially effective in the south, where networks linked to the Karzai family have been severely hit in recent months. And regional authorities – most often men like Ismail Khan, Ustad Atta or Rashid Dostum, who played a role in the war between 1980 and 1990 – no longer answer more than formally to the central government. On the other hand, the international powers in the region – primarily Pakistan, Iran, India and Russia – expect American policy to fail and are positioning themselves for the post-withdrawal period. US policy is seen as hard to read because of hesitancy over talks with the Taliban, and its means of pressurizing Pakistan, India and Iran are very limited. This reflects both a relative decline of the United States on the world stage and the fact that the perceived stakes vary from country to country: marginal for the West, important for India and Iran, vital for Pakistan. This context increases the dangers of civil war for a number of reasons. First, Western withdrawal presupposes success in talks among Afghans to form a coalition government. Yet Karzai is too weak to force his political allies to accept an agreement, and so talks are necessary to integrate the movements historically opposed to the Taliban (Hezb-e wahdat, Shura-ye nazar, Junbesh-e melli). These, however, are openly supported by Iran and especially India, which oppose a return of the Taliban to Kabul. In other

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words, the northern movements have an (above all financial) incentive to reject talks with the Taliban and therefore to scupper the transition. As for Pakistan, it supports the Taliban movement – in part as a barrier to India’s presence in Afghanistan. Whatever one may think of how Pakistan views the security issues, the Western countries have no real way of changing it. For example, the assassination of bin Laden created an uproar in Pakistan, above all because the Pakistani army was taken by surprise and might not be able to protect its nuclear weapons from an American raid. Second – a key point for the West – the talks bear upon guarantees that Afghanistan will not again become a safe haven for transnational jihadist groups. Rather, as in the case of Iraq, Washington sees the continuing presence of US bases as a guarantee of its influence in the region. But, on this issue too, the logic of regionalization is working against the satisfaction of American wishes, since Iran and Pakistan are agreed in opposing an American presence. In the view of the Pakistani military, its main effect would be to promote the cultural, economic and – why not? – military presence of India. Western disengagement without a negotiating strategy is ultimately creating a political vacuum, which makes negotiations more difficult and impels regional players to choose right now the networks they will favour in the event of a civil war in Afghanistan. From this point of view, the outcome of present policies might well be an attempt to divide Afghanistan into a Pashtun-dominated south and a north where the Pashtuns are in a minority. This would have two consequences: ethnic warfare might then tear up the Afghan social fabric, which until now has been remarkably resilient at local level, and a Taliban movement dominating the south and east would be a major security problem for the Western countries (the most radical movements are already using Afghanistan as a sanctuary). In the end, the rivalry between India and Pakistan might express itself more directly on Afghan soil, thereby contributing to a rise in regional tensions.

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young afghanistani refugees in ir an: professional tr aining, work and perspectives Khadija Abbasi (Geneva, September 2011) background

The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the following civil wars triggered the migration of millions of Afghanistanis1 to neighbouring countries – Iran and Pakistan. Iran, however, with its similarities to Afghanistan in terms of culture, language and religion (especially in the case of Shia Afghanistanis), had already attracted many migrants for various reasons, such as work and pilgrimage. Based on a report by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), three out of ten refugees in the world are from Afghanistan (3 million)2 and that made Iran become host to the world’s largest population of Afghanistani refugees. According to the UNHCR3 nearly 1 million Afghan (Afghanistani) refugees are living in Iran and 33 per cent of them are between the ages of 15 and 29. About half of these refugees and migrants are from the Shia, Darispeaking Hazara ethnic group in Afghanistan. Although the Iranian government tolerated refugees from Afghanistan in the beginning (i.e., after the Islamic Revolution of 1979), the authorities have recently adopted a more hostile stance towards them and have used various means of repatriation. Because of the Iranian immigration law, the refugees have never been able to obtain Iranian citizenship or permanent residency, even those born or domiciled for decades in Iran. They carry refugee status and live under time-limited conditions of stay. There are two main types of Afghanistani refugee and migrant in Iran: those who were lucky enough to obtain the ‘Blue Card’ and get documented, and those who were too late. The Blue Card, which is interestingly called the ‘Green Card’ by most Afghanistanis, has been issued on a prima facie basis 275

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to Afghanistani refugees ever since the Iranian Islamic Revolution. The card entitles the holder to free schooling and subsidized healthcare and food but does not guarantee the right to work. Card holders cannot own anything in person, although in some cases they can own real estate in partnership with a ‘trusted’ Iranian. The Iranian government stopped issuing the card around the mid-1990s and Afghanistanis who arrived after that are thus termed ‘illegal migrants’. This coincided with Mujahedeen, then Taliban, then finally US intervention that resulted in a flood of refugees entering Iran. As the newcomers did not have a Blue Card, they had no access to education, healthcare or any other services that a citizen of Iran was entitled to. The Iranian authorities have taken tough steps to return refugees home. This is leading the documented refugees to gradually fall into the category of non-documented refugees. This can happen when, for example, Blue Cards are confiscated or replaced with a temporary document and eventually cancelled so that the holder then has to leave Iran. It is worth pointing out that whenever the Iranian government attempted to register the newcomers, it was merely for the purpose of refugee management and so-called ‘voluntary repatriation’ and not necessarily to give new refugees access to public services and employment. schooling and tr aining

Young Afghanistani refugees who have the Blue Card have access to free governmental education up to high-school level. This also includes any vocational training that is part of state schooling. A minority of refugees were lucky enough to find their way through to free university education, which helped establish an educated generation of Afghanistani refugees in Iran. However, there has always been a limit on how far these refugees can progress in comparison with their Iranian counterparts. For example, many of them have been unable to take part in countrywide sporting events and academic competitions simply because of their refugee status. The educational opportunities for those non-documented refugees who came to Iran after the government stopped issuing the Blue Card are different and very limited. It is believed that their number is higher than documented refugees. The non-documented refugees, including children and young people, have no right to free governmental schooling and public services in Iran, thus leaving many of them illiterate. In response to this, some innovative Afghanistanis in Iran set up clandestine self-run schools which aimed at educating young, non-documented refugees. These schools were

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often in poor condition, had very basic resources and, being illegal, were closed down once discovered by the Iranian authorities. work opportunities

There is strict legislation governing the employment of Afghanistani nationals. In practice, being documented or non-documented makes very little difference when it comes to finding a job. Neither category is permitted to be hired by an Iranian employer and any such employment would be considered illegal and subject to punishment. Because of this, not only the skilled refugees who have come from Afghanistan, but also the skilled refugees who had been trained in Iran, found it impossible to find legal jobs. This is why a generation of welleducated refugees entered into the non-skilled, low-paid manual-work sector. There are, however, very few educated Afghanistanis employed illegally in skilled jobs. Illegal employment paves the way for exploitation, as the refugees and migrants are not entitled to unemployment insurance, medical cover or any other benefits that an Iranian worker might expect, and if caught risk deportation. The documented refugees and migrants do not possess travel papers. They are not allowed to move freely out of the province they are registered in unless they obtain permission, which is always difficult and timeconsuming. And even with this special authorization they can travel only inside Iran; as soon as they leave the country the Blue Card becomes invalid. The absence of travel documents limits the work opportunities for people who are registered and live in smaller cities. For non-skilled and low-educated refugees the chances of finding work are even lower. They are predominantly employed in illegal, non-skilled manual work such as tile-making, well-digging, farm labouring, construction work, brick factories and in very small businesses – anything where they can be hidden from the Iranian authorities. They receive the lowest salaries and the majority of them are exposed to mistreatment and abuse. Here I give three examples of the refugee employment in Iran: A. Khadim has been working for a tile-making factory for more than 27 years in remote areas of Tehran. He has a verbal contract, with no employment insurance, protection or promotion prospects attached to it. Having escaped from poverty and unrest in Afghanistan, he could not wish for more. He commands a salary slightly higher than what he earned 27 years ago. He could buy a small house under the name of his

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brother’s wife, who is Iranian. His four boys finished their high-school education and work illegally as tailors. B. Khalifa Abbas has been in Iran as long as Khadim and runs his own tailoring firm. He could possibly make a fortune, but his entire business is illegal and hidden. He has more than 200 refugee tailors working for him, including Khadim’s sons who were taught the trade on the premises. His workshop is in a residential area and is thus difficult for the authorities to spot. C. Ibrahim has been in Iran for ten years. He has no documents and lives with his family in a single room on a dairy farm in a very remote village in Karaj. His work day lasts from early morning until late evening. He has no clear job description and does whatever he is asked to do. There is no self-run school, so his children are illiterate. His salary is meagre but is better than having no job at all. Although he has been deported several times, he can quite easily come back – illegally. During the Iran–Iraq war and the subsequent rehabilitation movement in the country, the Iranian authorities were aware of this cheap labour but closed their eyes to it because they simply needed more hands. However, that was temporary, and recent tough measures, particularly against Iranian employers who hire refugees, have made it increasingly difficult for refugees to find jobs. notes

1.

2. 3.

The term ‘Afghan’ is controversial. It has been used to refer both to one of the ethnic groups of the country – Pashtuns – and to people who are residents of Afghanistan. I use the term ‘Afghan’ only when referring to the ethnic group of Pashtun or Afghan. I use the term ‘Afghanistani’ when referring to people who live in Afghanistan. UNHCR Global Trends 2010. UNHCR, Islamic Republic of Iran, Country operations profiles, 2010, retrieved 15 March 2010.

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china and afghanistan: a new phase? William Maley (Canberra, November 2012) On 22 September 2012 an important Chinese leader, Zhou Yongkang, paid an unexpected visit to Kabul. Mr Zhou, formerly China’s Minister of Public Security and now Secretary of the Politics and Law Commission of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, was the most senior Chinese official to visit Afghanistan since Liu Shaoqi in 1966. The visit lasted barely four hours, and little immediately came from it. The symbolic importance of the visit, however, is potentially immense. No longer content to sit on the sidelines as the Afghan transition approaches its 2014 crunch-point, China appears to be moving towards more active engagement. If this indeed materializes, it will likely have important ramifications for Afghanistan not only in the short run but in the medium and long term as well. Chinese interest in Afghanistan is by no means a novel phenomenon.1 In the aftermath of the victory of Mao Zedong’s Chinese Communist Party in the 1949 revolution, and especially following the death of Stalin in March 1953, China was seen as offering something of an ideological alternative to the Soviet model of socialist development, a perception that was accentuated following the dramatic Sino-Soviet split of 1960.2 In 1965 the Chinese Defence Minister Lin Biao produced a provocative pamphlet entitled Long Live the Victory of People’s War, which many read as an incitement to revolution by poor people in under-developed countries, and the so-called ‘Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution’ of 1966–76 was seen as an attempt to protect Maoism from the corrupting effects of bureaucratization. These radical messages found listeners in many parts of the world – including Afghanistan, where the Maoist Shula-ye Jawid (‘Eternal Flame’) party developed a complex constituency including a number of Hazara intellectuals.3 279

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To some degree this is ancient history: both Afghanistan and China have changed beyond recognition since the 1960s. But that said, they are physically adjacent, albeit with a very short land border; they exist in a region that has been significantly reconfigured in political terms by the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991; and their interests overlap. It is this confluence of interest that makes China’s renewed attention to Afghanistan of more than passing relevance. Three kinds of Chinese interest deserve to be noted. First, China has a range of economic interests in Afghanistan. Following the liberalization of the Chinese economy after the reforms of Deng Xiaoping,4 Chinese foreign investment surged in a wide range of projects in different parts of the world. Post-2001 Afghanistan has now become a beneficiary of this development. Especially in the area of extractive minerals exploration, China has become active in Afghanistan through the work of the Metallurgical Corporation of China. One area of activity is the Ainak copper mine in Logar, although it has progressed at a slow pace and has recently faced Taliban threats; another is in the area of energy resources, where the China National Petroleum Company in December 2011 secured an exploration contract for the Amu Darya basin.5 While the funds invested by China are less than enormous, they nonetheless give China an interest in the security of Afghanistan that it might not otherwise have. This will be even more the case if Chinese workers in significant numbers are deployed to assist with project implementation. Second, China has a strong interest in preventing the spillover into its territory of radical ideas or extremist movements of the sort that have flourished in the region in recent decades. In particular, it has shown itself extremely sensitive to developments that might contribute to the radicalization of the Uighur Muslim population in the western autonomous region of Xinjiang. In contrast to the Hui Muslims who are scattered throughout China, the Uighurs have been perceived as constituting a serious threat to the domination of the Han Chinese and the Communist Party; it is for this reason that the ‘Strike Hard’ policy was put forward to deal with any manifestations of Uighur separatism. In the late 1990s, when the Taliban regime in Afghanistan was internationally isolated, it sought to build links with a number of Muslim groups in different parts of the world, including Chechens from Russia, but also Uighurs from Xinjiang. The Chinese authorities have no desire to see this repeated. Third, China has significant geostrategic interests to its west. The establishment in June 2001 of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) saw China assert its desire to play a more active role in Central Asia, a region

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that had long been dominated by the USSR and then Russia. At the time that the SCO was set up, China had no reason to anticipate the return of the US to the region that came following the 11 September 2001 attacks, but the SCO provided a framework within which it could seek to block any attempt by the US to build a new sphere of influence in Central Asia. In this, if perhaps in little else, it has been reasonably successful, and its presence is likely to prove more enduring than anything that flows directly from Washington’s ‘New Silk Road’ idea. Of course, how China might give effect to these interests remains an open question. China is itself a country facing many complex challenges,6 and events in Afghanistan and its region may pale into insignificance when compared to domestic challenges such as those exposed by the 2012 Bo Xilai affair, and to its increasingly competitive relationship with the United States in various spheres and arenas. Nonetheless the country that has the most to fear from a change in China’s orientation is probably Pakistan. It has long cherished a special relationship with China. During the Cold War period, when India was close to the Soviet Union, Pakistan sought to protect its position by cultivating intimate relations with China alongside its more fitful relationship with United States. China has provided Pakistan with vital cover in the UN Security Council, and it is unlikely that it will move in ways that would embarrass its longstanding ally and neighbour. Yet the Pakistan–China relationship is more complicated than its surface appearance would suggest, and Islamabad has reason to fear pressure from China, to which it would undoubtedly respond more expeditiously than pressure from the United States. Pressure from China was one of the factors that forced President Musharraf of Pakistan to move against radicals in the Lal Masjid in Islamabad in 2007, and this episode potently demonstrated the force of Chinese muscle should the Chinese seek to use it. China has not publicly condemned the sanctuaries in Pakistan from which the Taliban, the Hezb-e islami and the Haqqani network continue to operate, and on the whole it is unlikely to do so. But if the Chinese conclude that their fundamental interests are being compromised by the surrogates that Pakistan’s military has chosen to support, then Islamabad is likely to find that the pressure that China can apply even behind the scenes is inexorable. This may offer the best hope for a peaceful solution to the Afghanistan conflict.

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1.

Gerald Segal, ‘China and Afghanistan’, Asian Survey 21/11 (November 1981), pp. 1158–74. 2. See Lorenz M. Lüthi, The Sino-Soviet Split: Cold War in the Communist World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2008). 3. See Niamatullah Ibrahimi, Ideology without Leadership: The Rise and Decline of Maoism in Afghanistan (Kabul: AAN Thematic Report, March 2012; Afghanistan Analysts Network, August 2012). 4. See Ezra F. Vogel, Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (Cambridge, Mass. and London: Belknap, 2011). 5. Peter Simpson, ‘China begins scramble for Afghanistan’s oil reserves’, Daily Telegraph, 27 December 2011. 6. Henry Kissinger, On China (London: Allen Lane, 2011).

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afghanistan 2014: another excuse for yet more disaster? Edward Girardet (Geneva, March 2013) The sad reality about Afghanistan since the US-led invasion of October 2001 is that the international community has no excuse for having handled the situation so catastrophically. The arrogance, incompetence and lack of a long-term vision among so many Western policymakers coupled with the willingness of select Afghans – not just the warlords – to enrich themselves on the backs of their fellow countrymen have ensured that the bulk of donor-backed ‘recovery’ initiatives have proved ineffective, if not a waste of valuable resources. Given the nearly US$60 billion aid that has been spent – or misspent – in Afghanistan over the past 12 years, not to speak of the hundreds of billions of dollars, euros and pounds wasted on a pointless war, what has been achieved is hardly commensurate with the funds supposedly channelled towards the recovery process. Far too much donor backing has been used for politically inspired projects that sounded good back in Washington, London or Brussels but in the end produced little of sustainable value. Furthermore, far too much investment was placed in the hands of costly if not corrupt private contractors with no real interest in the country. For many Afghans, particularly those in rural areas, there has been little tangible improvement since the intervention. Notwithstanding the messages of success put out by major donors such as USAID, DFID-UKAID or the European Union, the improvements that have been made represent the bare minimum of what could have been expected. To boast of seven million children now at school (roughly half the school-age population) masks the fact that most still do not have properly trained teachers, sufficient books or even proper classrooms. The same goes 283

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for health. While the figures may look good on paper, most Afghans still do not have access to even basic medical care, primarily because they cannot afford it. Up to 70 per cent of health care is private, which means that few Afghans will indulge in preventive medicine, such as bringing their wives to a doctor during the early stages of pregnancy. Furthermore, the quality of health care remains dismal. As Western coalition armies pursue their respective pullouts of military forces, the challenge for those governments still involved in Afghanistan is whether they have learned anything at all from the past. This will determine whether the troops, development support programmes and private investment they leave behind will contribute towards remedying – or at least alleviating – the many mistakes of the past 12 years. It will also determine whether the past 12 years have been for naught and whether over 3,000 coalition soldiers and some 30,000 Afghans have died in vain. Foremost among these tragic blunders, of course, was the launching of a completely unnecessary war in October 2001 by the United States, Britain and other allies. The decision by US President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to launch ‘shock and awe’ military action against the Taliban was the epitome of poor judgement. It also demonstrated a complete of lack of understanding of the Afghan issue, whereby foreign interests, whether the United States, Russia, Pakistan or Al Qaeda, have always sought to meddle in Afghan affairs to their own advantage. The fact that the Taliban were already in the process of imploding by the end of 2000 was conveniently and deliberately ignored. Growing numbers of pro-Taliban commanders at the time were upset by the expanding dominance of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) as well as foreign Islamic Legionnaires from Chechnya, Algeria and Saudi Arabia, such as Osama bin Laden. Many were declaring themselves ready to join the anti-Taliban alliance that former jihadist commanders such as Ahmad Shah Massoud, Abdul Haq and others were in the process of building with former Afghan king Zahir Shah as its symbolic head. What the initiative offered was the prospect of a political solution that would appeal to Afghans of all tribal and ethnic backgrounds tired of so many years of devastating war. Furthermore both Massoud and Haq warned the Americans that any form of outside military intervention would only encourage armed opposition to a perceived foreign occupation. Even potentially sympathetic commanders such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, founder of the now renowned Haqqani Network and a veteran Mujahedeen leader who had won his spurs fighting the Soviets during the 1980s, would take up arms against the West, they warned.

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Following the assassination of Massoud by two Al Qaeda suicide bombers on 9 September 2001, Haq sought to continue rallying support for the proposed anti-Taliban alliance. Yet Western incompetence and ignorance, but above all political expedience, thwarted the effort. Officials in Washington and London refused to listen to a small group of well-informed British, Americans and French who sought to make them aware of what was happening on the ground. Someone had to be punished for 9/11, so why not the Taliban? Ironically both the Pakistanis and the Americans had been supporting the Taliban. This included a US$40 million grant by the US government to the Taliban regime in Kabul in the spring of 2001. For its part, ISI did everything possible to ensure that the outspoken Haq, a pro-American Pashtun commander, would fail. The last thing Pakistan wanted was an independent Afghanistan. Both Washington and London quietly sidelined such realities. In many ways their conceit was similar to that of British policymakers leading up to the disastrous 1842 Kabul retreat in which some 16,000 imperial troops and camp followers were killed. While it may prove impossible to return to the days of opportunity for genuine peace and reconstruction following the fading away of the Taliban regime in the autumn of 2001, at least recognizing where both the international community and powerful Afghans went wrong would be a good first step. So would embracing a more genuine and better-informed commitment to the interests of ordinary Afghans rather than allowing outside interests to dictate ‘what’s best for Afghanistan’. Ever since the December 2001 Bonn conference, Afghanistan has been dominated by successive ‘high-level’ international meetings dominated by ‘experts’ and sherpas with little grasp of what this country, its people and its culture are really about. Led by often poorly defined agendas, such as the ‘war on terror’, capturing bin Laden or the need to impose unrealistic counter-narcotics campaigns, the United States, Britain and other coalition partners have pursued actions that have led to even more war and a situation in which more than 70 per cent of the country is now considered a ‘security zone’ by the United Nations. NATO countries also allowed their generals, not better-informed diplomats or aid specialists, to decide Afghanistan’s fate. Such inappropriate decisions largely inspired by Washington included allowing the warlords to reassert control, appointing Zalmay Khalilzad, an already compromised US ambassador of Afghan origin (all Afghans knew of his tribal ‘baggage’) to become the ‘dark prince’ behind the Kabul presidency, and pushing back the aging former king – the only figurehead leader

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capable of uniting Afghans in a nationwide recovery process – in favour of Hamid Karzai. In a similar vein, the World Bank, the United Nations and various international donors came up with projects that made little practical sense, such as relying largely on highly paid but often uninformed foreign consultants to impose their own visions on what should be done. Too many of these projects were Kabul-centric rather than designed to bring about real change in the countryside, where 75–80 per cent of the population lived. And despite ample advice by aid workers, diplomats and others with years of Afghan experience not to throw money at the problem but rather to adopt a gradual, long-term approach with workable initiatives involving local Afghans rather than foreigners, the bulk of the international community chose to go their own way. Many of these past approaches will need to be candidly revisited if the West is to do a better job today. Much, too, will depend on the quality of those Afghans who will assume responsibility for trying to bring an end to a war that has plagued this Central Asian land for the past 35 years. For if Afghanistan is to work, Afghans need to be in the lead, even if it takes another 30–40 years to bring about real change with a sustainable peace. Key to this will be an open, nationwide reconciliation process involving all players, from the Taliban and other armed insurgents to pro-Kabul officials and civil society representatives. The mediating role for this process should not be assigned to Pakistan or any other foreign power with strategic or military interests in Afghanistan, but rather to a neutral country such as Switzerland. So what can the international community do to help Afghanistan to evolve beyond the 2014 endgame, or ‘new game’ as some see it? First, any peace or recovery process needs to involve people who understand Afghanistan. What the country does not need are more ‘high-level’ negotiations headed by officials, diplomats and ‘experts’ who have little idea what they’re talking about. A possible Swiss mediation role emerged at a recent meeting in Geneva hosted by SwissPeace, the Geneva Centre for Security Policy and the Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan. Traditionally mediation has been handled by discreet organizations such as the Geneva-based Centre for Humanitarian Dialogue, which is conducting its own contacts with select Taliban, but any reconciliation initiative for Afghanistan needs to be done in a fully transparent manner involving Afghans and outside players from all sides.

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Crucial, however, are the following points:

1. All Afghans need to be represented in peace talks, whether they represent the government, insurgent fronts or credible political and religious leaders. Equally critical are respected civil society actors, who are emerging as a significant third group. There is also a whole generation of young Afghans – 60 per cent of the population is under the age of 25 – whose aspirations have little to do with the former jihadists, the Taliban or the warlords. They should have a say. 2. The talks must be Afghan-led and sincerely backed by the United States and its allies. Islamabad should not be granted excessive dominance. While trade routes and border disputes are often cited as reasons for allowing Pakistan such influence, this neighbour is not the only outside link to Afghanistan. Iran and the Central Asian republics also offer viable commercial routes to Europe, Russia and beyond. 3. The talks have to be transparent. No secret deals. As anyone who has worked in Afghanistan knows only too well, grassroots Afghans believe they have been badly duped by the donor countries, starting with the top–down Bonn talks at the end of 2001. 4. Reconciliation efforts should be overseen – at least initially – by a neutral, non-NATO country. The Swiss have already indicated that they are ready to step in. Traditional Afghan mediation institutions should then take over without outside meddling. 5. And finally, even with the pullout of most foreign troops by the end of 2014, the West cannot simply abandon Afghanistan. It did so once before following the Red Army withdrawal in 1988, with horrendous consequences, notably a brutal civil war and the rise of the Taliban. This time, the West, particularly the US, needs to persist with long-term development and investment. This does not mean wasting billions more dollars, but rather focusing on ‘smart’ recovery initiatives. Given its natural resources plus exceptional cultural and eco-tourism potential, Afghanistan could have a good future. For all this to happen, however, the West needs to be serious about wanting a credible peace. It also means acting in the interests of ordinary Afghans.

main afghan mujahedeen parties

sunni parties (forming the seven-member alliance of the afghan interim government in

1989)

harakat-e inqilab-e islami (Islamic Revolutionary Movement). Head: Maulawi Mohammad Nabi Mohammadi (1921–2002). Based on a network of clergy and madrasa students with some Pashtun tribal support in the south. The movement, traditional in outlook, was counted among the moderate forces. hezb-e islami (Islamic Party). Head: Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (1947–). The larger of the two Islamist Mujahedeen movements with the same name. Radical Islamist. Predominantly Pashtun. hezb-e islami ii (Islamic Party). Head: Yunus Khales (1919–2005). In 1979 split from the more radical group headed by Hekmatyar. Mainly found in Pashtun regions. Favours cooperation with all Mujahedeen parties. ittihad-e islami baraye azadi-ye afghanistan (Islamic Union for the Liberation of Afghanistan). Head: Abdul Rabb al-Rasul Sayyaf (1946–). Islamist group. jabha-ye melli baraye najat-e afghanistan (National Liberation Front of Afghanistan). Head: Sebghatullah Mujaddidi (1925–). Naqshbandi Sufi, traditional Islamic, ideologically close to the moderate groups of Gailani.

289

290

afghanistan

jamiat-e islami-ye afghanistan (Islamic Society of Afghanistan). Head: Burhannuddin Rabbani (1940–2011). Largely non-Pashtun. Its main commanders are in control of north-eastern (Massoud) and western (Ismail Khan) Afghanistan. mahaz-e melli-ye afghanistan (National Islamic Front of Afghanistan, NIFA). Head: Sayyid Ahmad Gailani (1932–), spiritual leader of the Qadiri Sufi order, who was a supporter of former king Zahir Shah. Nationalist, Islamic. main shia parties

harakat-e islami (Islamic Movement). Head: Mohammad Asef Mohseni (1935–). Does not belong to Hezb-e wahdat. hezb-e wahdat (Unity Party). Head: Abdul Ali Mazari (1946–95), then (since 1995) Mohammad Karim Khalili (1950–). Coalition of eight Hazara Shia parties, formed in 1990. sazman-e nasr (Victory Organization). Pro-Iranian, Islamist, led by young clerics inspired by the Khomeini revolution. Recruited Hazaras living in Iran. Allied with Sepah-e pasdaran. Now part of Hezb-e wahdat. sepah-e pasdaran (Guards’ Army). Radical Islamist Shia group, established in Hazarajat in 1983, supported by Hazaras living in Iran. Now part of Hezb-e wahdat. shura-ye inqilabi-ye ittifaq-e islami (Revolutionary Council of Islamic Union). Head: Sayyid Ali Beheshti. Traditional Islamic resistance group; lost ground to Sazman-e nasr and Sepah-e pasdaran after 1984. Almost exclusively Hazara.

chronology

1973 July

1978 27 April

5 December 1979 16 September 9 October 28 November 27 December

King Zahir Shah is overthrown by his cousin Mohammad Daud in a military coup. Daud establishes a republic. Marxist coup (Saur Revolution) fomented by the PDPA (People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan, comprising two factions led by Khalq and Parcham). President Daud is assassinated. Nur Mohammad Taraki (Khalq) is appointed President of the Revolutionary Council and of the new Democratic Republic of Afghanistan. Afghanistan and the Soviet Union sign a 20-year treaty of friendship and cooperation. Hafizullah Amin (Khalq) proclaims himself president. Taraki is assassinated. Launch of the land reform (Decree No. 8) aiming ‘to destroy feudal and pre-feudal relationships’. Soviet military intervention. Amin is killed and replaced by Babrak Karmal (Parcham).

291

292

1980 August 20 November

1981 May 22 September

1982 12 May

16–25 June

1985 23 April

1986 2 April 4 May

1987 January

afghanistan

Afghan refugees in Pakistan exceed 1 million. The UN General Assembly votes 111 to 22 (with 12 abstentions) for the ‘unconditional’ pullout of ‘foreign troops’ from Afghanistan. This same resolution will be voted for until 1988 (with some differences in the number of votes). Pakistani officials estimate the number of Afghan refugees in Pakistan at 2 million. According to Egyptian President Sadat, the United States is buying old Soviet-made arms from Egypt and sending them to Afghan rebels fighting Soviet forces. Inauguration of the first bridge on the Amu Darya river linking the Afghan highway from Mazar-i Sharif to the Soviet rail terminal at Termez. In Geneva, the first UN-sponsored talks between the foreign ministers of Pakistan and Afghanistan, aimed at ending the Soviet intervention in Afghanistan, take place. There will be ten rounds of negotiations between 1982 and 1987. President Karmal opens a grand tribal assembly (Loya Jirga) in order to gain popular support in the government’s war against the Mujahedeen. The USA decides to supply Stinger missiles to the Afghan Mujahedeen. Karmal resigns as Secretary General of the PDPA because of ‘ill health’. He is replaced by Mohammad Najibullah, former head of the Khad, the secret police. President Najibullah launches a policy of national reconciliation.

chronology

1988 23 February 14 April

1989 14 February

1990 6 March 16 June 25 July

1991 April

1992 1 January 6 February 25 April

28 June July–August

293

The Mujahedeen Alliance announces the formation of an interim government in exile. Afghanistan, Pakistan, the Soviet Union and the USA sign the Geneva Accords. Under this agreement, the Soviet Union will withdraw its troops in February 1989. The last Soviet soldier leaves Afghanistan. Moscow continues to support the Kabul regime logistically and financially. Defence Minister Tanai launches a coup against President Najibullah. It fails. Foundation of the Hezb-e wahdat (Unity Party), a coalition of the main Shia parties of Afghanistan. Beginning of UN-assisted repatriation of refugees from Pakistan. According to the UNHCR, the Afghan refugees in Pakistan and Iran number more than 6 million. After a two-year siege, the Mujahedeen under the command of Jalaluddin Haqqani (Hezb-e islami/ Khales) capture Khost (province of Paktiya). The USA and USSR (Russia) end their military support to Afghanistan. General Dostum turns against President Najibullah. Fall of Najibullah, who takes refuge in UN offices. The Mujahedeen enter Kabul. Proclamation of the Islamic State of Afghanistan. Burhanuddin Rabbani (Jamiat-e islami) is appointed head of the interim government. Kabul sees fighting between the forces of Ahmad Shah Massoud and Hekmatyar. Kabul is severely damaged.

294

1992–96 1993 7 March 9–12 May

23–28 June 1994 Summer 5 November 25 November 1995 11 February 5 September 1996 3 April May 26 September 10 October

1997 24 May 25 May 1998 8 August

afghanistan

Afghanistan is under the influence of various warlords. The Afghan parties (except Khales and Dostum) nominate Rabbani as president for 18 months. Heavy fighting takes place between the forces of Ittihad (Sayyaf) and Hezb-e wahdat (Shias) in Kabul. The Kabul Museum is severely damaged by fire. Heavy fighting takes place between Hezb-e wahdat and the forces of Massoud in Kabul. The Taliban emerge in south-eastern Afghanistan. The Taliban take over Kandahar. The Taliban take control of Helmand Province. The Taliban control all of Logar Province. The Taliban take the city of Herat. Talib Mullah Mohammad Omar is chosen as Amir al-Muminin by an assembly of the ulama. An alliance is formed between Rabbani and Hekmatyar; the latter becomes prime minister. The Taliban enter Kabul and execute former President Najibullah. Massoud withdraws to the Panjshir. The anti-Taliban Northern Alliance (Jamiat-e islami, Hezb-e islami, Junbesh-e melli, Hezb-e wahdat) is formed. The Taliban enter Mazar-i Sharif. On 28 May they are driven out by the Hezb-e wahdat and the Junbesh. Pakistan recognizes the Taliban government. The Taliban recapture Mazar-i Sharif; thousands of Hazaras are massacred.

chronology

1999 14 November 2000 28 July 2001 26 February 12 March 9 September 11 September

6/7 October

mid-November

27 November–5 December 7 December 20 December

2002 18 April 11–20 June 11 August

295

UN economic sanctions against the Taliban regime (voted in October by the Security Council) begin. Mullah Omar orders a ban on poppy cultivation. Mullah Omar decrees that all non-Islamic monuments in Afghanistan be destroyed. The Taliban announce the destruction of the two Buddhas statues in Bamiyan. Ahmad Shah Massoud is assassinated by a suicide squad at Khwaja Bahuddin (province of Takhar). Terrorists attack the World Trade Center, New York. The United States accuses Osama bin Laden and the Taliban. America and Britain begin bombing Taliban and Al Qaeda military bases in Afghanistan – the start of Operation Enduring Freedom. The Northern Alliance, supported by the Western coalition, capture Mazar-i Sharif, Bamiyan, Kabul, Kunduz and Jalalabad. At a conference on Afghanistan held in Bonn under UN auspices, an interim government is created. Hamid Karzai is nominated as interim leader. The Taliban surrender in Kandahar. Security Council Resolution 1386 provides for the creation of the peacekeeping International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and its deployment in Kabul and surrounding areas. Ex-king Zahir Shah returns to Kabul. A Loya Jirga establishes a transitional government under the presidency of Hamid Karzai. NATO takes over command of ISAF.

296

2003 6 April

2004 4 January

March 9 October December 2005 18 September 19 December 2006 2007 July November 2008 9 September 24–27 September 2009 20 August 19 November

afghanistan

The Afghan government and the UN sign an agreement to launch a three-year programme ‘Disarmament, Demobilization, and Reintegration (DDR)’ of some 100,000 militiamen. Resurgent Taliban and other anti-government forces gain control of rural areas in the south of Afghanistan. The Loya Jirga votes in a new constitution, establishing, among other things, an Islamic state, a presidential system of government and a bicameral parliament. Habiba Sorabi is the first Afghan woman to be appointed governor of a province, Bamiyan. Hamid Karzai is elected president with 55 per cent of the votes. The Afghan National Museum in Kabul is reopened. Parliamentary elections. The new parliament is opened, the first for 32 years. The Taliban’s attacks multiply mainly in south Afghanistan. The former king Zahir Shah dies in Kabul. ISAF and coalition forces, led by the US, number 55,000. President Bush announces a ‘surge’ of US troops to nearly 31,000. A delegation of the Afghan government meets the Taliban in Mecca. Presidential and provincial elections take place. Karzai is sworn in for a second five-year term as president.

chronology

1 December 2010 17 September 18–19 November

2011 6 January February 2012 22 May

2013 2014 5 April and 14 June 21 September

31 December

297

President Obama announces an increase of 30,000 troops and the start of an exit strategy in 18 months. Parliamentary elections take place. At the Lisbon Summit, NATO allies launch the process of transition by which Afghan security forces will increasingly take the lead in security operations across the country, starting in early 2011. The new parliament opens. Foreign troops in Afghanistan number 131,283 from 48 countries. NATO leaders endorse plans to hand over combat command to Afghan forces by mid-2013 and agree to withdraw by the end of 2014. There are still 1.5 million registered Afghan refugees in Pakistan and 800,000 in Iran. First and second rounds of the presidential election. Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai is declared winner of the election and is designated as the new president. Abdullah Abdullah becomes chief executive officer. NATO’s withdrawal date.

acronyms

AFGHANAID

AFRANE AKP AKTC ANA BIA CARE International CIA DACAAR DAI DFID EEC EU FAO FIS GIA GTZ

British organization working with rural communities helping them to find sustainable solutions to their everyday problems Amitiés Franco-afghanes, Paris Adalat ve Kalkinma Partis (Turkish political party) Aga Khan Trust for Culture Afghan National Army Bureau International Afghanistan, Paris Global confederation of 12 national organizations working together to end poverty Central Intelligence Agency (USA) Danish Committee for Aid to Afghan Refugees Development Alternatives Inc. Department for International Development European Economic Community European Union Food and Agriculture Organization Islamic Salvation Front (Algeria) Armed Islamic Group (Algeria) Deutsche Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit 299

300

ICRC IDP ISAF ISI JICA KHAD MERLIN MSF NA NATO NGO NIFA NSP NWFP OMAR OXFAM

PDPA PRT SAVE THE CHILDREN SDC SPACH UNAMA UNDP UN-HABITAT UNHCR

afghanistan

International Committee of the Red Cross Internally Displaced Persons International Security Assistance Force Inter-Services Intelligence (Pakistan) Japan International Cooperation Agency State Intelligence Services; the Afghan KGB Medical Emergency Relief International, London Médecins sans Frontières Northern Alliance North Atlantic Treaty Organization Non-Governmental Organization National Islamic Front for Afghanistan National Solidarity Programme North West Frontier Province (Pakistan) Organization for Mine Clearance and Afghanistan Rehabilitation Confederation of 17 organizations working together to find lasting solutions to poverty and injustice People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan Provincial Reconstruction Team Organization creating lasting change for children around the world Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation Society for the Preservation of the Afghan Cultural Heritage United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan United Nations Development Programme United Nations Humanitarian Settlements Programme United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

acronyms

UNICEF UNOCHA UNODC USAID

301

United Nations Children’s Fund United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime US Agency for International Development

contributors

Khadija Abbasi is an Afghan born in Iran who is a researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva. She is currently studying the social life of young Afghan refugees. Ludwig Adamec is Honorary Professor, Department of Near Eastern Studies, University of Arizona, and author of Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. Hamida Aman is an Afghan specialist on media and communications. G. Whitney Azoy is the former Director of the American Institute of Afghanistan Studies in Kabul and has been involved with the country since 1971 as a US diplomat, field anthropologist and refugee relief worker. He is also a Pulitzer nominee journalist, National Geographic filmmaker, Fulbright grantee and the author of Buzkashi: Game and Power in Afghanistan. John Baily is Emeritus Professor and Head of the Afghanistan Music Unit at Goldsmiths, University of London. His interests centre on music in the Afghan transnational community and has undertaken research in Fremont (California), Sydney, Melbourne, London, Hamburg and Dublin, as well as Afghanistan. Ingeborg Baldauf is Professor in Central Asian Languages and Cultures at Humboldt Universität, Berlin. In the late 1970s, the late 1990s and since 2002 she has researched into the dialects, folklore, history and local religion of the Uzbeks of northern Afghanistan. 303

304

afghanistan

Rolf Bindemann is an ethnologist and oriental scholar, formerly of the Freie Universität, Berlin. He has undertaken field research in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. He is currently Director of the Art Project ‘Weltkultur Neukölln’ in Berlin. Kaja Borchgrevink is a researcher at the International Peace Research Institute (PRIO), Oslo, whose work centres on the relationship between private Islamic charity and anti-poverty practices in Pakistan. Pierre Centlivres was an adviser at the National Museum, Kabul, from 1962 to 1964. He is now Honorary Professor (formerly Director) of the Institut d’ethnologie, University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland. He has conducted field research in and produced numerous publications on Afghanistan since 1966. Micheline Centlivres-Demont is an anthropologist who has worked in and written about Afghanistan since 1968. She has been Editor-in-Chief of Afghanistan Info since 1980. Pierre-Arnaud Chouvy is a geographer and Research Fellow at the Centre national de la recherche scientifique (CNRS), Paris. His publications include Les territoires de l’opium (2002) and Opium: Uncovering the Politics of the Poppy (2009/2010). Antonio Donini is Senior Researcher at the Feinstein International Centre, Tufts University, and from 1999 to 2002 was Director of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs to Afghanistan (UNOCHA). He has written extensively on humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and on UN reform issues. He is the co-editor, along with with Norah Niland and Karin Wermester, of Nation-Building Unraveled? Aid, Peace, and Justice in Afghanistan (2004). Rémy Dor is a linguist and ethnologist specializing in the Turkic world. He is Professor at INALCO (Paris) and author of Contribution à l’ étude des Kirghiz du Pamir Afghan (1975). Gilles Dorronsoro is a political scientist specializing in Afghanistan and contemporary Turkey. He is Professor at the Université de Paris 1-Panthéon, and author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan 1979 to the Present (2005). Bernard Dupaigne is an anthropologist, former Director of the Laboratoire

contributors

305

d’Ethnologie du Musée de l’Homme, Paris, and author of Afghanistan: Monuments millénaires (2007). Nancy Hatch Dupree is an expert and scholar on the history, art and archaeology of Afghanistan. She is the founder and Director of the Afghanistan Centre at Kabul University. Gilbert Étienne (1928–2014) was an economist who specialized in development and agriculture and was Honorary Professor at the IHEID, Geneva. He undertook research in India, China and Afghanistan. His publications include Imprévisible Afghanistan/Unpredictable Afghanistan (2002). Abdul Ghafur Rawan Farhadi was Afghan Ambassador in Paris in 1973 and Afghan Ambassador to the United Nations from 1993 to 2006. He was former Professor at Sorbonne Nouvelle, Paris III, and at the University of California, Berkeley. Raphy Favre is an agronomist and freelance consultant. He took part in the design and implementation of various agricultural programmes in Afghanistan on behalf of the World Bank, the IFC and FAO, as well as various Afghan and international NGOs. Michel Foucher is a geographer, diplomat, Professor at the École normale supérieure, Paris, and Head of Studies at the Institut des hautes études de défense nationale. He has researched on border dynamics and the territorial impact of geopolitical changes. Edward Girardet is a journalist, writer and producer. He is editor of The Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan and the Region and author of Afghanistan: The Soviet War (1985) and Killing the Cranes: A Reporter’s Journey Through Three Decades of War in Afghanistan (2011). Antonio Giustozzi is Research Fellow at the Crisis States Research, London School of Economics, and specialist on governance in Afghanistan. His publications include The Art of Coercion: The Primitive Accumulation and Management of Coercive Power (2011) and (with Mohammad Isaqzadeh) Policing Afghanistan (2013). Bernt Glatzer (1942–2009) was an anthropologist and specialist on nomadism in Afghanistan. His field research in west and north-west

306

afghanistan

Afghanistan (1970–77) was on the political organization, economics and society of nomadic and sedentary Pashtuns. He was Professor at the Südasieninstitut of the University of Heidelberg. Jonathan Goodhand is Reader in Conflict and Development Studies at the Department of Development Studies, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He has managed NGO aid programmes in South and Central Asia, and has researched into the political economy of armed conflict and into NGOs and peace building, with particular reference to Afghanistan and Sri Lanka. Frédéric Grare is Senior Research Associate and Director of the South Asia Programme at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington. He is the author of Pakistan and the Afghan Conflict, 1979–1985: At the Turn of the Cold War (2003). Erwin Grötzbach is Honorary Professor of Cultural Geography, Catholic University of Eichstätt, Germany. He has conducted field research in Afghanistan in 1963, 1965, 1971, 1973 and 1978 and is the author of Afghanistan: eine geographische Landeskunde (1990). Kristian Berg Harpviken is Director of the Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). His research centres on the dynamics of civil war, migration and transnational communities and his publications include Networks in Transition: Wartime Migration in Afghanistan (2006). Selig S. Harrison covered Afghanistan as the South Asia bureau chief of the Washington Post and for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He is co-author (with Diego Cordovez) of Out of Afghanistan: The Inside Story of the Soviet Withdrawal (1995). Arnold Hottinger is an Arabist and journalist and former Middle East correspondent of the Neue Zürcher Zeitung. Mushahid Hussain was editor of Islamabad’s English daily newspaper The Muslim from 1982 to 1987. Formerly a senator, he is now a commentator on foreign affairs. Jolyon Leslie is an architect who has worked in Kabul since 1989, managing a range of rehabilitation and urban conservation initiatives. He is

contributors

307

currently undertaking research into the history and growth of Kabul. He is co-author (with Chris Johnson) of Afghanistan: The Mirage of Peace (2004). Chantal Lobato is a historian who has worked for UNOCHA in Afghanistan. Citha D. Maass was a senior researcher on South Asian and Afghan affairs at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP), Berlin (1990–2011), and has published works on the internal, regional and international aspects of the Afghan conflict. William Maley is Professor and Director of the Asia-Pacific College of Diplomacy at the Australian National University. His numerous publications include Rescuing Afghanistan (2006) and The Afghanistan Wars (2009). Peter Marsden has been a specialist on Afghanistan since 1989, with particular focus on aid programmes and refugees. He is author of The Taliban: War, Religion and the New Order in Afghanistan (1998) and Afghanistan: Aid, Armies and Empires (2009). Alessandro Monsutti is Associate Professor of Anthropology Sociology of Development at the Graduate Institute of International Development Studies, Geneva. He has undertaken research in Iran Afghanistan and is author of War and Migration: Social Networks Economic Strategies of the Hazaras of Afghanistan (2005).

and and and and

Asta Olesen is a social anthropologist whose works include Afghan Craftsmen: The Cultures of Three Itinerant Communities (1994) and Islam and Politics in Afghanistan (1995). She is currently Senior Social Development Specialist at the World Bank, Afghanistan. Christophe de Ponfilly (1951–2006) was an author, filmmaker (Massoud l’Afghan, 1998) and journalist. Jean-José Puig is an engineer, consultant and team-leader of Salam 3 (UN assessment mission in Afghanistan). He is the author of La pêche à la truite en Afghanistan (2004). Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and author. He has covered Afghanistan since 1989, and has published five books on Afghanistan,

308

afghanistan

Pakistan and Central Asia, including Taliban (2000) and Descent into Chaos (2008). He lives in Pakistan. Sayyid Qasim Reshtya (1913–98) was an Afghan diplomat, historian and writer, whose works included Between Two Giants: Political History of Afghanistan in the Nineteenth Century (1990). Olivier Roy is Professor at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute (Florence), whose works include Islam and Resistance in Afghanistan (1990). Barnett R. Rubin is Senior Fellow and Director of Studies at the Center on International Cooperation, New York University. He has served as senior adviser to the US Special Representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan and as senior adviser to the UN Secretary General’s Special Representative for Afghanistan. He is author of Afghanistan from the Cold War through the War on Terror (2012). Conrad Schetter is Director of Research at BICC (Internationales Konversionszentrum Bonn), and Professor at the Rheinische FriedrichWilhelms-Universität, Bonn, with a particular interest in the local politics of Afghanistan. He is a committee member of the academic working group Arbeitsgemeinschaft Afghanistan, Bonn, and founding member of the Competence Network Crossroads Asia, Bonn. He has carried out field research in north-eastern and south-eastern Afghanistan since 2003. M. Nazif Shahrani is Professor of anthropology, Central Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, at Indiana University, Bloomington, USA, and is author of The Kirghiz and Wakhi of Afghanistan: Adaptation to Closed Frontiers and War (2002). J.P. Singh Uberoi has taught sociological theory and cultural area studies at the Delhi School of Economics, University of Delhi, 1968–99, and is now working on the problem of Islam and the state among the Tajiks of Afghanistan. He carried out field work on local politics in north Afghanistan between 1959 and 1961. Jean-Christophe Victor is a geopolitical scientist, anthropologist and presenter of Le dessous des cartes on Arte/TV5 Monde. Aziz Zekrya (1933–2009) was a dental surgeon of Afghan origin.

index

Abbas, Mullah, 121 Abdul Wali, General, 86–7 Abdur Rahman, Amir, 42, 44, 80, 92, 109, 236 Africa see East Africa; North Africa Akbari, Sheikh Mohammad, 89–91 Akhromeyev, Marshal Sergei, 55 Akhundzada, Sher Mohammad, 222 Al Qaeda, 171–3, 242–3 Albright, Madeleine, 116–17 Algeria, xvi, xix, 284 Ali, 42 Ali Mohammad, 93 Altin Dere (Turkey), 22 Amanullah, Amir, then King, 32, 42, 80, 135 America see USA Amin, Hafizullah, 151–3 Amin, Sonny, 210 Amu Darya (river and basin), 3–4, 193, 280 Anatolia, 22 Andarab Valley, 184 Anderson, Jon, 81 Andkhoy, 193–4

Ankara, 23 Ansari, Khwaja Abdullah, 249 Aqcha, 193–4 Arabian Sea, 109 Arghandab, 253 Aristotle, 215 Asia see Central Asia Atta, Mohammad, 236, 273 Aurangzeb, 142 Azzam, Abdullah, 114 Babar, General Naseerullah, 99 Bacha-ye Saqqau (Habibullah Kalakani), 42–3, 45 Badakhshan, 84, 116, 139, 152–3, 192–3, 223, 226, 234, 253 Badakhshi, Tahir, 151–3, 213 Badghis, 77, 223, 253 Baghdad, 60 Baghlan (town and province), 25, 84, 153, 223 Bagram, 57, 84, 106, 171–2 Baikal, Lake, 185 Bala-e Murghab, 223 Balkh, 16, 192–3, 236 Balkhab, 193 309

310

afghanistan

Balkhash, Lake, 185 Balland, Daniel, 197 Baluchistan, 10, 37, 108–10, 164 Bamiyan, 16, 43, 45, 88, 90, 121, 141–3, 149, 208, 259 Barry, Brian, 64 Bashardust, Ramazan, 231 Behsud, 254 Belchiragh, 193 Berlin, Isaiah, 103 Bhutto, Benazir, 36, 39, 55 Biao, Lin, 280 Bin Laden, Osama, xix–xx, 113–19, 122–3, 127, 139, 141, 147, 149–50, 171, 185, 268, 274, 284–5 Blair, Tony, 147, 284 Bo Xilai, 282 Bonn Agreement (2001), 156, 159, 175, 178–9, 181, 186, 188, 202, 228–9, 247, 285, 287 Brahimi, Lakhdar, 161, 163, 269 Britain see Great Britain Brussels, 283 Buddha(s), xx, 107, 141–3, 259 Bukhara, 48 Burma, 110, 237 Bush, George W., xx, 13, 39–40, 115, 242–3, 269, 284 California, 133, 135 Caspian Sea, 184 Castro, Fidel, xvi, 152 Caucasus, 137–8 Central Asia, 22, 48, 69, 83–4, 97, 99, 116, 126, 129–30, 137–9, 173, 184–5, 206, 262, 264, 280, 286–7 Che Guevara, xvi, 124 Chechnya, 137, 284 China, 7, 12, 22, 137, 209, 237–8, 262, 264, 279–81

Churchill, Winston, 197 Clinton, Bill, 113, 116 Cordovez, Diego, 10 Crocker, Ryan, 273 Cuellar, Perez de, 40 Dar es Salaam (Tanzania), 113 Dara-i Suf, 44, 193 Darul Aman, 105–6, 267 Darzan, 193 Daud, Mohammad, xv, 15, 44, 75, 83, 87, 92–4, 186–7, 208–9, 235 Daulatabadi, 193 Delcassé, Théophile, 47–8 Delhi, 8, 13, 84, 112, 134 Deoband (India), 125, 184 Dost Mohammad, 92 Dostum, Abdul Rashid, xvii–xviii, 68, 77, 84–6, 90–1, 98–9, 148, 192, 194, 207–8, 211, 225, 236, 273 Dubai, 130, 137–8 Dufranc, Jean-Pierre, 105 Dulles, John Foster, 93 Durand Line and Agreement, 37, 92, 109, 111–12, 244 Duroselle, Jean-Baptiste, 47 East Africa, xx, 116 Egypt, xix, 60, 115, 123 Enjil, 75 Ephesus, 141 Europe, 8, 133–6, 161, 179, 287 European Union (EU), 52, 186, Fahim, Mohammad Qasim, 173, 207–8 Faizabad, 153, 193 Farah, 77, Fariyab, 16, 77, 192, 223 Fatima, 42

index

Ferdinand I, 216 Ferghana Valley, 98, 117 Finland, 7 France, 6, 10, 47, 135, 155 Franks, General Tommy, 173 Fremont (California), 133 Gailani, Pir Sayed Ahmad, 29, 58, 60 Gandapur, Sher Mohammad, 251 Gandhara, 106 Gandhi, Indira, 13 Gates, Robert, 243 Gazargah, 77, 249 Gellner, Ernest, 245 Geneva, 10, 13, 55–6, 92, 286 Geneva Accords (1988), 38, 53, 169 Genghis Khan, 88, 251, 253–4 Germany, 6, 10, 47, 188, 230 Ghani, Ashraf, 189–90 Gharjestan, 88 Ghazni, 223 Ghor, 16, 26, 77, 88, 253 Ghoriyan, 75 Ghormach, 77, 223 Gorbachev, Mikhail, xvi, 28, 38, 40, 55–6 Great Britain, 47–8, 92–3, 109, 147, 183, 284–5 Guantanamo Bay, 172 Gulf states, xix, xxi, 10–11, 60–1, 164 Gurzivan, 193 Habibullah, Amir, 43, 80, 109 Hairatan, 3 Haq, Abdul, 284, 285 Haqqani, Jalaluddin, and network, xvii, 268, 281, 284 Hari Rud, 75

311

Hashim, Mohammad, 93 Hassan, 42 Hazarajat, xviii, 42–5, 88–90, 98, 116, 131, 164–5, 254 Hekmatyar, Gulbuddin, xix, 28–9, 31, 45, 56–7, 60–1, 68, 83–6, 90– 1, 97, 100, 102, 115, 149, 171, 268 Helmand, xvii, 77, 130, 222, 226, 232, 272 Herat, xviii, 16, 48, 74–8, 85–6, 90, 98, 115, 120, 122, 130, 153, 236, 248–52, 254 Herat Province, 223 Hindu Kush, 4, 15, 184, 185, 207, 208, 254 Ho Chi Minh, xvi, 152 Hobbes, Thomas, 67, 156 Horowitz, Donald L., 64 Hussein, 42 Hyderabad, 37 Ibn Balkhi, 215 India, xv, xix, 8, 42, 47–8, 52, 59, 83–5, 93, 98–9, 108–12, 129, 134–5, 139, 163, 173, 183–5, 234, 273–4, 281 Indian Ocean, 7, 83, 113, 117 Indonesia, xvi Indus, 8 Iran, 7, 10, 37, 39, 41–5, 52, 56–7, 60, 69, 75–6, 78, 85–6, 88–90, 97–8, 114, 116, 118, 126, 129, 133, 137–9, 164, 173, 183, 237, 262, 264, 267, 269, 273–8, 287 Iraq, 7, 43, 60, 97, 114, 163, 171, 173– 4, 178–80, 226, 230, 241, 242–3 Irish Republic, 188 Islam Qala, 236 Islamabad, xix, 11, 13, 37, 55–7, 60, 83–4, 98, 126, 162, 172–3, 183, 281, 287

312

afghanistan

Islamabad Agreement (1993), 68–9 Istanbul, 23 Italy, 6, 47 Iwamura, Shinobu, 251 Jalal, Massouda, 204 Jalalabad, xvii, 39, 59, 110, 115, 120, 130 Japan, 161, 163, 179, 230 Johnson, Lyndon, 269 Jordan, 60 Jowzjan, 16, 192 Junejo, Mohammad Khan, 56 Kabul, xvii–xviii, xxi, 4, 8–9, 13, 24–5, 27–30, 32–4, 36–45, 52–3, 56, 59–61, 67–8, 71–4, 76, 78, 85–91, 97–8, 105, 107, 110, 115–17, 120–3, 126, 129–31, 134–5, 139–41, 149, 151–2, 154, 158, 161–2, 164, 172, 175, 182, 192, 197, 199, 203, 207–9, 217, 221–2, 225–7, 231, 234, 236, 241, 248–50, 252, 254, 260–1, 267, 273, 279, 285–6 Kalafgan, 25 Kandahar, xviii, 8, 25, 31, 76, 78, 106, 115, 120–3, 125–6, 130, 141, 147–9, 171, 213, 221–2, 232, 234, 236, 272 Kanishka, King, 105, 107 Kapisa, 223 Karachi, xix, 8, 37, 78, 112, 118, 163 Karagündüz (Turkey), 22–3 Karmal, Babrak, 3, 16, 19, 33 Karzai, Hamid, xii, xx, 171–3, 176, 179, 188–9, 204, 207, 211, 213, 222, 226, 230, 236, 242–3, 257, 263, 265–7, 269, 273, 286 Kashmir, 55, 117, 126, 137, 183 Kateb, Faiz Mohammad, 42

Kayan, 253 Kazimi, Sayed Mustafa, 211 Kenya, 113–14, 123 Keshtmand, Sultan Ali, 20–1, 89 Khabir, Abdul, 105 Khales, Yunus, 58, 60, 81 Khalili, Karim, 90–1, 211, 213 Khalilzad, Zalmay, 285 Khan, Allauddin, 76 Khan, Bismillah, 257 Khan, Ishaq, 11, 13 Khan, Ismail, xviii, 26, 75–8, 86, 90, 98, 126, 148, 211, 236, 273 Khartoum (Sudan), 113 Khashoggi, Jamal, 119 Khomeini, Ayatollah Ruhullah, 41, 43–4, 102 Khorassan, 253–4 Khost Province, 113, 130 Khui, Ayatollah Abu al-Qasim al-, 89 Khyber, 8, 108, 185 Kilift, 4 Kimmett, Robert, 55 Kunar, 16, 222, 272 Kunduz, 16, 84, 86, 129, 192–3, 209, 254 Kunduz Province, 223, 246 Kuropatkin, General Alexei Nikolaevich, 48 Kurram, 108 Kyrgyzstan, 137, 209 Laghman, 16, 223 Laos, 237 Lashkari Bazaar, 106 Lebanon, 11, 64 Lijphart, Arend, 63, 65 Lisbon, 263 Livermore (California), 210

index

Logar, 84, 120, 253, 280 London, 108–9, 133–4, 184, 283, 285 Lustick, Ian, 63 Maillart, Ella, 143 Maimana, 193–4, 251 Maitland, Major P.J., 3 Maiwand, 120, 122 Malakand, 100, 108 Malatya (Turkey), 22 Mao Zedong, 37, 279 Maréchal, E., 48 Mary, 78 Mash‘al, M. Sa‘id, 252–3 Massoud, Ahmad Shah, xvii–xviii, xxi, 25, 35, 45, 60, 68, 70, 84–7, 90–1, 98–9, 116, 126, 130, 139, 147, 154–5, 186, 284–5 Massoud, Ahmad Zia, 211, 236 Mazar-i Sharif, 3, 4, 75, 99, 116, 120–1, 125–6, 130, 132, 148, 193, 208, 254 Mazari, Abdul Ali, 85, 89–90, 125 McChesney, Robert, 254 Merv, 48 Mestiri, Mahmud, 87 Middle East, 31, 262, 267 Miliband, David, 268 Mill, John Stuart, 158 Miller, John, 114 Mingachik, 193 Mitterand, François, xvi Mohammad, 42 Mohammad Zahir Shah, 36, 39, 41, 51, 61, 83, 86–7, 148, 175–6, 253, 284 Mohammadi, Mohammad Nabi, 58 Mohaqiq, Mohammad, xviii, 211–13 Mohseni, Sheikh Asef, 34, 89–91 Mohtashemi, Ali Akbar, 60

313

Mongolia, 7–8 Montesquieu, Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de, 156 Moqim, Hajji, 207 Moscow, 3, 6, 8, 13, 38, 40, 57, 61, 99, 112, 183 Mujaddidi, Sebghatullah, 58, 60, 90 Multan, 13 Muraviev, Mikhaïl, 48 Musharraf, General Pervez, 147, 172–4, 281 Mussorie (India), 92 Muttaqi, Amir Khan, 106 Muttawakil, Wakil Ahmad, 121 Myers, General Richard, 172 Nadir Shah Afshar, 142 Nahrin, 25 Nairobi (Kenya), 113, 117 Najibullah, Mohammad, xvii–xviii, 19, 32, 36, 38, 51, 54–5, 57, 61, 89, 101, 115, 126, 129, 186, 225, 234 Nangarhar, 236 Nehru, Jawaharlal, 13 Netherlands, 64 New Delhi see Delhi New York, 115, 135, 183 Nicholas II, Tsar, 47 Nile, 47 Nimruz, 15, 77 Nixon, Richard, 93 Noor, Noor Ahmad, 19 North West Frontier Province (NWFP), 10, 37, 108–11, 173 Nuristan, 31, 272 NWFP see North West Frontier Province Obama, Barack, 241–2, 244, 256, 269, 273

314

afghanistan

Obeh, 251 Omar, Sheikh Abdul Rahman, 115 Omar, Mullah Mohammad, xx, 99, 102, 117–18, 120–4, 141–2, 149–50, 171, 221 Orenburg, 48 Oxus see Amu Darya Pahlawan, Rasul, 77 Pakistan, xv, xviii, xix, xxi, 10, 13, 22, 27, 36–7, 39, 41, 44–5, 52, 55– 7, 59, 69, 71–3, 76, 78, 81, 83–6, 89–90, 93, 98–100, 103, 108–12, 114, 116–18, 121, 125–6, 129–30, 132–3, 135, 137–9, 147–9, 162–4, 171–4, 183, 221–2, 226, 234, 242–4, 262, 264, 268, 272–5, 281, 284–7 Paktika, 16, 222 Paktiya, xvii, xix, 16, 127, 223, 234 Pamir, 22–3, 48 Panjao, 43 Panjshir, xv, xvii, 10, 86, 116, 139, 207–8 Panjwai, 222 Paris, 47 Parwan, 16, 208 Pashtunistan, 83, 86, 92–4, 109, 223 Pech, 222 Pedram, Latif, 212 Penjdeh, 48 Peshawar, 25, 29, 34, 37–9, 41, 51–3, 56–7, 60, 72, 76, 92, 106, 114, 140, 190 Peta-Kessar, 4 Petraeus, General David, 226, 269–70 Phillips, Tom, 173 Pickering, Thomas, 270 Prague, xv

Pul-i Khumri, 3 Punjab, 12 Purdelli, Sattar, 21 Qaisar, 193 Qalamuddin, Mohammad, 121 Qanuni, Yunus, 211 Qatar, 268 Qom, 89 Quetta, 37, 73, 78, 164, 270 Rabbani, Burhanuddin, 28, 58, 60–1, 78, 85, 87, 90–1, 98, 102, 105–6, 116, 186, 211, 268–70 Rafsanjani, Hashemi, 57, 60 Rahman Qul, 23 Rashid, Ahmed, 268 Ratebzad, Anahita, 21 Rawalpindi, 41 Reagan, Ronald, xvi, 27, 56 Riyadh, 60, 97 Rome, 5, 6, 148 Roy, Olivier, 80 Rumi, Jalaluddin, 104 Russia, 4, 47–8, 85, 97–8, 116, 126, 139, 173, 183, 264, 269, 273, 280– 1, 284, 287; see also USSR Sadat, Anwar al-, 115 Saddam Hussein, xx, 37, 61, 114 St Petersburg, 47 Sakharov, General Viktor, 48 Salang Pass, 129–30, 185 Salma (dam), 75 Samangan, 192, 193 Samarkand, 3, 48 Sangcharak, 193 Sar-i Pul, 192–4, 223 Sarwari, Asadullah, 217 Saudi Arabia, xix, 11, 39, 57, 59–60,

index

315

69, 85–6, 102–3, 115–16, 121, 123, 127, 139, 161, 163, 183, 284 Sayyaf, Abdul Rasul, 58, 60, 91, 115 Shafiq, Musa, 186 Shah, Mahmud, 93 Shamali Plain, 24 Shahrestani, Shah Ali Akbar, 252–3 Shaoqi, Liu, 279 Sher Ali, 92 Sherzai, Gul Agha, 236 Shevardnadze, Eduard, 57 Shibar Pass, 4, 253 Shibirghan, 193–4 Shindand, 77, 90, 223, 264 Shirin, 193 Sind, 12 Singapore, 188 Solferino, 178 South Vietnam, xv Soviet Union see USSR Spin Boldak, 171 Squire, Sir Giles, 93 Stalin, Joseph, 93, 279 Sudan, 60, 114–15, 119, 123 Sulemaniye (Iraq), 98 Surkh Kotal, 105–6 Syria, 59

Termez, 3–4 75 Thailand, 237–8 Thakur, Ramesh, 216 Torbat-e Jam, 75 Tunisia, 60 Turkestan, 209 Turkey, 22–3, 213, 237–8 Turkmenistan, 4, 75, 78, 97, 116, 138–9, 163 Tutu, Desmond, 216

Tagab, 223 Tajikistan, 86, 98–9, 117, 126, 148 Takhar, 16, 25, 84, 86, 152–3, 192–3, 253–4 Taluqan, 194 Tanai, Shahnawaz, 57, 60 Tanzania, 123 Taraki, Mohammad, 32, 74, 208 Tashkent, 8, 48, 84, 98 Tehran, xviii, 51, 57, 89, 165–6, 183, 254, 267, 277 Tela Tepa, 106

Wardak, Abdul Rahim, 257 Wardak, Amin, 35 Wardak Province, 120, 223, 246 Washington, DC, 38, 40, 55–6, 93, 97–8, 112–13, 116–17, 127, 174, 183, 273–4, 281, 283, 285 Waziristan (North and South), 109, 171 Weber, Max, 68

United Arab Emirates, 121, 248 Uruzgan, 42, 221 USA, xix, 6, 10, 12–13, 27, 30, 37, 39–40, 51, 55–7, 86, 92–3, 97–8, 113–18, 149–50, 161, 172, 176, 186, 189, 225, 241–4, 256, 262–4, 266, 269, 273, 276, 281, 283–5, 287 USSR, xvi, 7–8, 10, 13, 22, 27–8, 30, 40, 51, 59, 70, 83–4, 94, 129, 140, 153, 183, 209, 216, 280–1; see also Russia Uzbekistan, 75, 98, 117, 130, 137, 171, 213 Van, Lake, 22–3 Varennikov, General Valentin, 152–3

Xianjiang, 22, 280 Xiaoping, Deng, 280

316

afghanistan

Yahsil Kul, Lake, 48 Yakaolang, 90 Yemen, 123 Yongkang, Zhou, 279 Youssouf, ‘Doctor’, 76 Zabul, 88, 221 Zahir Shah see Mohammad Zahir Shah

Zeary, Saleh Mohammad, 19 Zendejan, 75 Zerafshan, 3 Zhari, 222 Zhawar, 113, 118, 127 Zia ul-Haq, General Mohammad, 11–14, 36, 56, 57 Zurmat, 223