http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=141422
| The importance of
being political |
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Friday, October 17, 2008
By by Beena Sarwar
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As
Pakistan continues to be rocked by suicide bomb blasts the calls by
decision-makers for political engagement rather than military means to
end the "war on terror" in Afghanistan reflects a major change in US
policy, until now inflexible in its refusal to negotiate with
"terrorists." The worsening security situations in Afghanistan and
Pakistan and the financial meltdown that America and the Western
economies face may well be behind this shift in policy, but the change
allows a sliver of hope and underlines what "peaceniks" have been
saying for years: violence begets violence. What's needed is an
effective long-term strategy involving a political roadmap and a firm
commitment to law and order and economic development.
NWFP
governor Owais Ghani was arguably the first to publicly advocate
holding talks with the insurgents in Afghanistan. "His thinking
reflects that of the conservative hardcore of Pakistan's military
hardliners who are accused by Western intelligence operatives of
supporting the Afghan Taliban as a 'hedging policy' to maintain
influence in Afghanistan," commented Isambard Wilkinson after
interviewing Ghani. ("US told it must hold talks with Taliban's Mullah
Omar," The Daily Telegraph, Sept. 25.)
"They have to talk to
Mullah Omar, certainly – not maybe, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the
Haqqani group," the governor told Wilkinson. "The solution, the bottom
line, is that political stability will only come to Afghanistan when
all political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beards,
are given their just due share in the political dispensation in
Afghanistan."
Significantly, Washington is consulting with
Seth Jones of Rand Corporation over a "new strategy" in Afghanistan.
Rand's recently published report analysed 648 groups between 1968 and
2006, concluding that most terrorist groups ended not through military
force but by joining the political process. (Seth Jones and Martin C
Libicki, "How Terrorist Groups End: Lessons for Countering Al Qaeda,"
Rand Corp, 2008.)
Such a political compromise was most
dramatically seen in this region recently when the Maoists in Nepal
laid down their weapons and contested elections. Nepal is still on a
rocky road, but surely the situation is better than the earlier civil
war.
Beleaguered Afghan president Hamid Karzai reinforced
Governor Ghani's point in his Eid message of Sept 30, when he revealed
that for the past two years he has been asking the Saudis and
Pakistanis to intercede with the Taliban and help bring peace to
Afghanistan. He also appealed for Mullah Mohammed Omar to join peace
negotiations, calling upon him as a "brother" to "come back to your
homeland, come and work for the peace and good of your people and stop
killing your brothers."
US commander in Afghanistan General
David McKiernan, talking to journalists the day after Karzai's speech,
said that starting negotiations with Mullah Omar is a "political
decision that will ultimately be made by the political leadership" and
that "ultimately, the solution in Afghanistan is going to be a
political solution, not a military one."
"We're not going to
win this war," said his British counterpart in Afghanistan, Brigadier
Mark Carleton-Smith, in an interview to The Sunday Times (Oct 5). "If
the Taliban were prepared to sit on the other side of the table and
talk about a political settlement, then that's precisely the sort of
progress that concludes insurgencies like this."
"We all know
that we cannot win it militarily. It has to be won through political
means," said UN special envoy to Afghanistan Kai Eide at a news
conference in Kabul on Oct 6. "That means political engagement… If you
want to have relevant results, you must speak to those who are
relevant. If you want to have results that matter, you must speak to
those who matter."
The ground was thus well-prepared for US
defence secretary Robert Gates's statement of Oct 9, in which he said
that the US would be prepared to pursue reconciliation with the Taliban
in Afghanistan – the first such public declaration from Washington.
Better late than never.
All this talk about reconciliation is
not accompanied by the need for development and law and order – the
lack of which is making people nostalgic for the Taliban when at least
you knew what the rules were, as Sarah Chayes notes in her keenly
observed and deeply felt account of post-Taliban Afghanistan, The
Punishment of Virtue: Inside Afghanistan after the Taliban (Penguin,
USA, 2006). The former NPR reporter also powerfully documents how
botched priorities and bureaucratic bungling paved the way for the
Taliban's resurgence – and damningly indicts Pakistan for its
interference in Afghanistan.
Many question whether political
engagement is possible with men who burn girls' schools, behead
captives and brainwash youngsters into blowing themselves up. On the
other hand, they may have similar misgivings about negotiating with
those who operate remote-controlled aircraft that rain death upon
"their people" and "their land." In any case, what are the choices? The
path of responding to violence with more violence has only led to – no
surprises, even more violence. The problem is that those initiating the
move are doing so because they are left with little choice.
Western
intelligence agencies and the Afghan government claim that Mullah Omar,
who is believed to be distancing himself from Al Qaeda, is holed up
near Quetta. Pakistan denies this, but Taliban links with elements in
Pakistan, even after General Musharraf's famous "u-turn" following
9/11, are no secret. Musharraf himself acknowledged in 2006 that some
retired Pakistani intelligence officials might be supporting the
Taliban with whom they had links as the Taliban moved into Afghanistan
in the 1990s. Since Musharraf's departure from the political scene,
Pakistan has apparently moved further away from the previous policy of
supporting some jihadi elements while opposing others. Among President
Asif Ali Zardari's gaffes during his recent visit to the US was his
reference to Kashmiri insurgents as "terrorists."
But Zardari
also – rightly – brought the focus to the dangerous situation
prevailing in Pakistan, declaring that "we are in a state of war." The
recent reshuffling of the army and ISI top brass is obviously part of
an ongoing effort to bring the intelligence agencies under civilian
control and ensure that the armed forces follow the government's
policies, and not the other way around.
When trouble in the
Swat Valley started, the then military-led government turned a blind
eye, allowing Taliban elements to take over. Now we have to wait and
see how effective the new strategy of supporting tribesmen to oppose
the Taliban proves to be. Tribal lashkars have had some success against
the Taliban in Waziristan, Khyber and Bajaur agencies, and in Dir and
Swat in the NWFP.
Whatever the "new strategy" in Afghanistan,
it must incorporate an end to American military incursions in Pakistan
that have already claimed so many innocent civilian lives and created
thousands of refugees – adding to the casualties and displacements
already caused by Pakistani forces and the Taliban. These incursions
also weaken the elected government and stoke anti-Americanism.
Finally,
a positive new strategy necessitates seeing the world as
multi-dimensional, recognising inherent subtleties rather than the
current "us vs. them" or "East vs. West" thinking. Democracy means
dialogue and negotiation, compromise and flexibility, not
self-righteous stands that only serve to divide.
The writer is an independent journalist and documentary filmmaker based
in Karachi. Email: beena.sarwar @gmail.com |
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