Impact or Illusion? Reintegration under the APRP

This Peace Brief is part of a project by the Chr. Michelsen Institute (CMI), Peace Research Institute Oslo (PRIO), and the United States Institute of Peace (USIP) to identify issues and options to help Afghanistan move toward sustainable peace.

The report was completed before the assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the High Peace Council. The full report is published on the PRIO site. Peace From the Bottom-Up?

Previous studies on the dangers of reintegration without a reconciliation process are here.

Summary

• The Afghan Peace and Reintegration Program (APRP) aims to reintegrate insurgents in return for security, jobs and other incentives, but has seen limited results.
• Rapid implementation of the program has failed to address adequately a variety of political, employment and security concerns.
• As a result, reintegrees of varying backgrounds are joining the Afghan Local Police, potentially perpetuating instability.
• Without a political approach addressing drivers of the insurgency and higher-level reconciliation, reintegration will see limited results. The government and its partners should concentrate on how to make reintegration part of a broader political process.

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The Missing Political Approach

On paper, the APRP is a two-track program “aiming to promote peace through a political approach”—involving reintegration and reconciliation. In reality, international actors and the Afghan government have disagreed on the sequence of both. ISAF and donors hoped that the reintegration of low- and mid-level fighters, combined with the pressure of kill-capture campaigns would force insurgent leaders to negotiate. However, this largely military-led strategy is unlikely to fully address the ties of patronage and loyalty within the Taliban movement. Almost all active insurgent commanders interviewed argued they were not interested in reintegration unless their leaders were at the table with the Afghan government and the process addressed the core grievances of the international military presence and government corruption and predation. At the same time, many former fighters reintegrated under the program appear only loosely tied to the insurgency, if at all. All this suggests that reintegration without broader reconciliation will have limited strategic impact.

The main national and international civilian and military actors involved in APRP used a review conference in May to evaluate its progress. Their plan for the APRP now aims to put the necessary infrastructure in place quickly. But many of the people interviewed find it overly focused on econom­ics, while overlooking other factors like the behavior of foreign forces, dissatisfaction with the Afghan government and Pakistan’s influence. The emphasis on economics also ignores the destabilizing impact of development aid, which can fuel corruption and competition for limited resources.

The international community and Afghan government appear reluctant to tackle drivers of the insurgency linked to their own behavior—notably government corruption and foreign troop’s tactics. Also, some interviewees noted that those who are implementing reintegration are far from neutral in that they are parties to the conflict. That has led to groups questioning the legitimacy of the HPC, for example, some of whose members have more experience waging war than making peace. Many insurgents therefore regard reintegration as surrender. As one Taliban commander from Helmand said, “This is not a reintegration process, this is an American process. With whom should we join? With this corrupt and unjust government? I will never join this process and won’t let any of my friends.”

Many U.N. and Afghan officials agree that significant reintegration will not occur unless insur­gents see it as part of a broader, politically negotiated settlement process

Conclusion

There is broad support among Afghans and Afghanistan’s partners for a peace process. On paper, the APRP is quite comprehensive, however, to date it has yielded limited results. In rolling out the program quickly, political issues like grievance resolution and amnesty were inadequately tackled, and the lack of a political approach to reintegration embedded in a broader reconciliation process remains a fundamental flaw.

Reintegration began during an American military troop surge and was aimed by ISAF at weakening the Taliban movement before inviting them to the negotiating table. However, as troops withdraw and the Afghan government assumes increasing security responsibilities, there may be an expansion of talks with the Taliban leadership. This “transition” involves challenges, but also opportunities to tie reintegration to a broader political process. Looking ahead to this process, the international community and the Afghan government should:

Link reintegration with reconciliation. • Situate reintegration of low- and mid-level com­manders within a broader reconciliation process aimed not only at insurgent leaders, but also disenfranchised groups. Prepare for scenarios under which reintegration supports the implementation of a peace settlement, potentially including a broader based Afghan management mechanism acceptable to settlement parties, or management by a third party implementer.

Focus on quality not speed. • Afghanistan will require a robust reintegration infrastructure able to handle large numbers to secure a sustainable peace. Instead of trying to quickly re­integrate the highest numbers possible, concentrate on establishing effective institutions, particularly political and judicial, and manage expectations through clear communication of program goals and features.

Support local processes. • Expand administrative, financial and moral support for local of­ficials involved in implementing APRP, coupled with monitoring of the use of resources and community vetting of reintegrees.

About This Brief

Deedee Derksen is a journalist, Ph.D. candidate and author of “Tea with the Taliban,” a Dutch book nominated for a non-fiction award. Research was conducted in Kabul and two provinces, Baghlan and Helmand, and included about 65 interviews with Afghan and Western officials, active and reintegrating insurgent commanders and analysts.

Assassination of Burhanuddin Rabbani

Burhanuddin Rabbani was a founder and leading activist in the Afghan Islamist movement in the 1960s and 1970s, one of the seven leaders of the (Sunni) mujahedin parties in the 1980s and – at least formally – president for almost a decade.

More recently, he has been an MP and chairman of the High Peace Council, charged with seeking to make peace with the Taleban.

Rabbani was killed in his Kabul home Tuesday evening by a suicide attacker.

Kate Clark, a senior analyst for the Afghan Analyst Network assesses Rabbani’s life and what his death may mean for the prospects of peace.

“Although many of the media reports referred to him as the lead peace negotiator, Rabbani’s record hardly merited the description of a ‘peace-maker’. Indeed, in relation to his most recent incarnation, many Afghans and observers remained sceptical of the High Peace Council and Rabbani’s role in it, questioning whether it was really set up as a serious body or something more cosmetic – designed to give the appearance that the government was seeking peace. Such scepticism, however, seems irrelevant this evening. Whether or not Rabbani and the High Peace Council were serious about making peace, if the Taleban claim this killing, it sends a powerful message that they are not interested in talking. This would make Rabbani’s assassination highly significant and dangerous for the prospects of an end to the war in Afghanistan.

The killing is poisonous in other ways, laying open again the fracture lines of the last real bout of civil war (1996-2001) when the ‘northerners’ – the old Northern Alliance, who were mainly non-Pashtuns - were fighting the largely Pashtun Taleban. Putting Rabbani in charge of the High Peace Council had been a way for President Karzai to try to reassure this constituency, who are on the whole not keen on a deal with the Taleban, that their interests would not be sold out in any negotiations.

For these northern jihadi leaders, already reeling from the killings of Generals Daud and Seyidkheili earlier this year, Rabbani’s assassination is a further blow to any confidence they might still have had that their interests would be protected. His killing will further harden sentiments against any deal making. Already one of the other major northern leaders, the governor of Balkh and Jamiat stalwart, Nur Muhammad Atta, has asked (on Tolo television), ‘How are we supposed to negotiate with these wild devils?’ Rabbani may not have been a peace-maker, but his killing may well harm the prospects for a negotiated end to the bloodshed.

The attack also ends the life of one of the major Afghan political figures of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

Rabbani’s beliefs eventually – and only through various historic accidents – helped shape the nation’s politics. Perhaps the most significant influence on his beliefs came when he travelled to Cairo in the late 1960s to study at the prestigious al-Azhar University. He returned a convert to the ideas of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (Ikhwan ul-Muslimin), determined to spread their ideology at home.* During the 1970s, he was an Islamist activist at that cauldron of ‘modern’ Afghan politics, Kabul University, where he taught Islamic law. He hooked up with more senior ‘Brotherhood’ figures whose names are now not so well known,** as well as with students who would, like him, become giants of the Afghan political stage in the following decade, particularly Ahmad Shah Massud and Gulbadin Hekmatyar."

Read the full article.
See this post for a listing of recent attacks in Kabul.

Gilles Dorronsoro | Impossible Transition

Afghanistan: The Impossible Transition
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (June 2011)

Gilles Dorronsoro lays out the need for a dramatic new U.S. policy in Afghanistan. Arguing that “… Western withdrawal requires a political agreement with the Taliban leadership, which implies abandoning the coalition’s reintegration policy.”

“A combination of two critical problems threatens to undermine the mission of the United States–led coalition in Afghanistan: the failure of the counterinsurgency strategy and a disconnect between political objectives and military operations. If anything, the current strategy is making a political solution less likely, notably because it is antagonizing Pakistan without containing the rise of the armed opposition. That has put the coalition in a paradoxical situation, in which it is being weakened militarily by a non-negotiated and inevitable withdrawal while at the same time alienating potential negotiating partners.”

Introduction

“The U.S. strategy is hard for the public to understand; in fact, despite ambiguities stemming from varying assessments within the Obama administration, the United States is banking, at least as far as we can see on the ground, on a military victory. Targeted strikes against Taliban fighters are the weapon of choice to destabilize the insurgency and force the fighters to surrender. The “reintegration” program, to which the United States has already allocated some $50 million, represents the institutional cornerstone of this policy. Contrary to what is often said about local and national approaches complementing each other, reintegration is fundamentally contrary to any negotiation process because it assumes the progressive weakening of the insurgency. Likewise, operations in the provinces of Kandahar and Helmand must succeed for the coalition to change perceptions in Afghanistan and in the West and to disrupt the Taliban movement in areas where it is strong. Military progress would then allow the coalition to gradually withdraw. This strategy assumes that sufficient time and money have been allocated, which explains why the importance of July 2011—the withdrawal’s scheduled beginning date—is being played down in favor of 2014, the slated end of the transition. In effect, the U.S. army plans to maintain military pressure on the Taliban during the next three years while security responsibilities are transferred to the Afghan army.”

Gilles Dorronsoro, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Endowment, is an expert on Afghanistan, Turkey, and South Asia. His research focuses on security and political development in Afghanistan, particularly the role of the International Security Assistance Force, the necessary steps for a viable government in Kabul, and the conditions necessary for withdrawal scenarios.

He is the co-founder and editor of the South Asian Multidisciplinary Academic Journal and the European Journal of Turkish Studies. He is the author of Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present (Columbia University Press, 2005), and La révolution afghane, des communistes aux Taleban (Karthala Publishers 2000), and editor of La Turquie conteste. Régime sécuritaire et mobilizations sociales (Editions du CNRS, 2005).

The Hidden War

Sari Kouvo reviews steps being taken in Afghanistan to explore transitional justice and the healing process that can come about through truth and reconciliation.

"While most policymakers in the West and in Afghanistan have been talking this year about the prospect of negotiations with the Taliban, transitional justice, an important element of any comprehensive peace process, has received much less attention. Transitional justice -- the process of dealing with legacies of past war crimes and human rights violations -- has always been an awkward subject for the Afghan government and for some of its more powerful international partners, which are implicated in previous injustices. However, some Afghan and international organizations have carefully laid the groundwork for a transitional justice agenda."

A broader survey of this issue is in the current issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice. When Truth Commissions Improve Human Rights.

Most studies of truth commissions assert their positive role in improving human rights. A first wave of research made these claims based on qualitative analysis of a single truth commission or a small number of cases. Thirty years of experience with truth commissions and dozens of examples allow cross-national statistical studies to assess these findings. Two recent studies undertake that project. Their findings, which are summarized in this article, challenge the prevailing view that truth commissions foster human rights, showing instead that commissions, when used alone, tend to have a negative impact on human rights. Truth commissions have a positive impact, however, when used in combination with trials and amnesties. This article extends the question of whether truth commissions improve human rights to how, when and why they succeed or fail in doing so.

Peace Offerings: Theories of Conflict Resolution

This discussion paper by Matt Waldman and Thomas Ruttig takes a more theoretical approach to the current debate about reconciliation, often too narrowly described just as ‘talking to the Taliban’. It looks into various theories of conflict resolution and which insights they may offer for a peaceful solution of the Afghan conflict.

Peace Offerings: Theories of Conflict Resolution and Their Applicability to Afghanistan

Matt Waldman & Thomas Ruttig, Afghanistan Analyst Network, Jan. 2011

Despite the recent deployments of more troops and greater military resources to Afghanistan by the US-led Western coalition, there has been no abatement in the insurgency. It rather is increasing in lethality, territorial scope and mobilisation beyond their main base in the Pashtun ethnic group. As a result, doubts about the efficacy of conventional war-fighting, counter-insurgency and transition strategies grow and alternative means of mitigating the conflict come into sight.

The paper briefly discusses seven such theories and draws conclusions from them for peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan: ripeness theory, theories of mediation, theories of reconciliation, power-sharing theories, credible commitment theory, spoilers’ analysis and local peace-building. While such theories are not panacean, they can help to understand the conflict and point towards practical steps that can contribute to improve the prospects for peace. The authors point out, though, that as abstractions they must necessarily be adapted to circumstances.

Challenges of Reintegration

Matt Waldman has an in-depth study on the challenges facing reintegration. Noting that reintegration is one step in reducing violence but that it only "addresses the symptoms of the disease, not the disease itself."

While economic pressure is a factor – the infamous $10 Taliban - there are often more immediate and fundamental reasons that drive people to fight. These include resistance to foreign occupation, civilian casualties, government impunity, tribal conflict and exclusion. These fundamental issues or ‘root cause’ highlight the need for substantial political reconciliation.

At its core, reintegration must offer something of value to all Afghans.

“Some believe its principal, legitimate role is to reduce violence, enhance community cohesion, and support a credible process of reconciliation. For General McChrystal, however, it is ‘a normal component of counterinsurgency warfare’ in other words, its central utility is as an instrument to weaken and potentially divide the enemy. Indeed, the US Military’s joint doctrine on Counterinsurgency Operations states that ‘offering amnesty or a seemingly generous compromise can also cause divisions within an insurgency and present opportunities to split or weaken it.”

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Reintegration is more complex and difficult to accomplish than is commonly appreciated. There are significant obstacles, including lack of trust, insurgent cohesion, and revenge attacks on participants. There is also a dissonance between the economic incentives offered by reintegration and some of the powerful social, political, ideological, and personal factors that cause people to fight.

A well-executed reintegration scheme could have positive social, economic, and stabilisation benefits – and thus reduce the force of the insurgency – but if mishandled, it could do the reverse. Without intelligent design, effective delivery, and political resolve it has the potential to exacerbate local security conditions, undermine high-level talks, and even increase insurgent recruitment. It could also distract policy-makers from action to tackle the root causes of the conflict. Reintegration addresses the symptoms of the disease, and not the disease itself.