VIEW: We do not learn from history —Wazhma Frogh
VIEW: We do not learn from history —Wazhma Frogh
Courtesy to "Daily Times"
Women’s groups, Afghan civil society organisations and activists
have regularly raised alarm because they are concerned that the
cooption of the Taliban is likely to amount to a loss of the
achievements made over the past nine years
Could we turn the
clock back in Afghanistan and travel through time? If so, then the Bonn
Agreement of 2001 would be the right time and place to present the
Taliban reintegration plan introduced at the recent London conference
on Afghanistan. This is because the war was almost over back in late
2001, and a large number of Taliban members were eager for a new life
in a new Afghanistan. But the government’s failures since then have
made the people who had given up violence rejoin militant groups,
turning militancy into a full-fledged insurgency that is not being
tackled by almost 100,000 of international troops and a similar number
of Afghan Police and the Afghan National Army.
The London
Conference on Afghanistan held on January 28 marked another page in the
country’s history. It presented a reintegration plan for those Taliban
who are ready to renounce violence and be brought back into the
‘political process’ as declared by President Karzai. The plan includes
providing financial ‘incentives’ to those leaders and low-ranking
fighters who have joined the militants for economic gains rather than
ideological reasons. This ‘buy out’ plan is guised as a political
settlement or deal. But the plan is likely to backfire and intensify
the crisis.
Women’s groups, Afghan civil society organisations
and activists have regularly raised alarm at the prospect of such plans
because they are concerned that the cooption of the Taliban is likely
to amount to a loss of the achievements made over the past nine years.
The preservation of these achievements is important no matter how
nominal they might appear to the rest of the world. This is because no
peace can ever be brought without justice. But the Afghans lost their
chance for justice when the Afghan parliament passed an amnesty law in
the first year of its establishment, providing immunity from
prosecution to all the parties involved in war crimes of the last 30
years. And right after nine years, another plan to give amnesty to
militants and insurgents is on the table in the name of reintegration.
Justice
is not only about prosecution but also a chance for the people to
remember victims, condemn the injustices of the past and so create ways
to prevent such conflicts in future. Therefore, this plan needs to
assure us all that there are specific red lines to any negotiations and
peace deals.
Civil society groups and activists who are critical
of the reintegration plan are now being regarded as representing an
anti-peace front. The accusation has no ground because such critics
desire justice, which is at the core of any peace process. Their
scepticism about the peace offer to the Taliban reflects the views of a
majority of Afghans, even including some of the architects of this plan
who themselves have doubts about the plan’s success. The plan’s most
likely outcome is not peace but the militants’ takeover of the
presidential palace in Kabul.
The price that Afghan women have
been paying, and are still paying, for this conflict has never been
addressed properly. The Afghan women are rightly feeling resentful of
this plan, which rewards those who are causing trouble and ignores
those who have suffered as a result of Taliban violence. An Afghan
woman in a consultation process said recently, “We are not a threat to
anyone, so why should they care about us? Do they want us women to hold
arms and start a rebellion so as to be taken seriously?” Maybe, that is
the reason we have women also joining militant groups.
I do not
think anyone in Afghanistan, or among its international allies, opposes
the principles of dialogue and reconciliation. We Afghans are tired of
the ongoing violence, but the remedy is not what is being proposed.
While we have failed to carry out the much simpler tasks of need-based
service provision, why are we attempting the most difficult one? If the
government and its allies believe that one of the reasons that the
common people (men) join the militants is for economic gains, then why
do they not strengthen the government’s responsiveness to people’s
needs? For how much longer are we going to continue reintegrating
militants into politics while the same politics make hundreds of young
Afghans desperate and hence ready to join hands with militants? If we
are to reward the ones that renounce violence, what will be the reward
and incentive for the rest of the provinces in the country that did not
join militants nor grew poppy in the past years? In simple words, we
need a strong government that can provide jobs and economic
opportunities for all Afghans, not only those who are affiliated with
militants.
But let us assume that the plan makes sense and
should be implemented. But are we, in practice, capable of implementing
the plan? If the government’s own vehicles are hijacked by militants
and used against the civilian population, as happened during January 1,
2010, Kabul bombing, how will the same government be able to attract
the right beneficiaries for the peace package amidst the current
atmosphere of uncertainty and violence?
Reconciliation and
conflict resolution are the right solutions for the Afghan dilemma, but
only when the common Afghan who sells potatoes on the street has a
stake in this government and trusts it. Then no one would need to pay
him to root out militants from his community, but he himself would
fight for his nation, as the Afghans did in the past.
So the
question is, how will the common Afghan start trusting the government?
The answer is simple. We need a state capable of providing basic
services in an accountable and transparent manner. A state whose
cabinet members will be voted in by parliament because of their
qualification and commitment, rather than the weight of the envelops
filled with dollars left on the seats of MPs. A state that will not
reintroduce its own previously sacked ministers just to fill the
position and the rulers’ pockets.
Let us not forget that this
reintegration plan will take place simultaneously with airstrikes and
drone attacks. While the war is raging with the 39,000 troops surge, we
want to reintegrate the ones we are fighting, while we do not know whom
are we fighting in essence.
Today we have hundreds of families
that fled Helmand after the Marjah operation and now live in desperate
conditions in displaced persons’ camps in Kabul. They have no food and
nothing to shelter them from the snow.
If, after nine years, we
have realised that this war has another alternative, then why are
mud-built homes still being bombed into ashes every day?
Wazhma Frogh is an Afghan civil society activist currently a postgraduate fellow at Warwick University, United Kingdom
In : Wazhma Frogh
Notes