Update From Afghanistan | Zaher Wahab

Last week I received an update about life in Kabul from Zaher Wahab. Since retiring from teaching at Lewis and Clark College in Portland he has returned to Afghanistan to help build the education system.

He has designed two courses, 'Principles of Teaching and Learning' for teacher education faculty from the 17 four-year teacher training colleges throughout the country at Kabul Education University, and a graduate course on 'Strategic Leadership' at the Public Policy and Administration program at Kabul University to men and women working for the government, civil society and/or nongovernmental organizations.

He reports the students very capable, highly motivated, and extremely appreciative; though lacking academic preparation, from writing skills to the subjects they teach, to modern pedagogy.

That’s the inspiring news.

His comments on the broader impact of the on-going war are devastating and reveal a traumatized nation. As we read articles about the administration openness to a zero-option or complete withdrawal at the end of 2014, it is important to understand that for Afghan’s the war will not end with the removal of the last US soldier. The legacy will be long and painful with little hope of accountability from the U.S.

Here are some excerpts of what he has to say.

“At this point there are some 70,000 American and 40000 NATO troops, 110,000 contractors like Blackwater, now called academia and DynCorp, 500,000 Afghan security personnel-trained, equipped, paid for and supported by the US. all fighting some 20000 insurgents. Does this make sense?...

Washington still spends about $100 Billion/year in Afghanistan on the war. And it will spend $2 billion on destroying $7 billion worth of its military hardware here. Meanwhile, the Afghan government and army complain about lacking the necessary tools to fight with. All this when the Afghans, Congress, the American public, and the whole world wants the US/NATO out….

On the development front:

Half the population is hungry; half are un or underemployed; most are desperately poor; per capita income hovers around $450; a school teacher is paid 100-300$ a month, and professors from 300-800 per month. The cost of living in the cities is out of control. Meanwhile, the thousands of expats splurge $10-12 for a can of beer. 70% are illiterate; there are schools and universities with little to no education in them; the country imports 60% of the professionals; there really is no functioning government or economy, or even traffic lights in Kabul- a city of 5 million people and a million vehicles. Same roads I walked on as a child.

There is massive capital and human flight out of the country; Afghans constitute the largest refugee population and asylum seekers in the world; the government is ranked the most corrupt, and the country is the most unstable and dangerous in the world. At least five million school-age children are not in school, and half the schools have no buildings. Only 10% of the girls who start first grade, graduate from high school. At best, 20% of the teachers maybe qualified. Seven percent of the professors have doctorates, 35% MAs the rest just BA/BS. The country still has the highest child and maternal deaths in the world; it has the largest percentage of widows, orphans, street children and amputees in the world.

Only a third of the population has safe drinking water, and 20% electricity. The countries rivers flow out of the land, not a single damn has been built during the occupation, while USAID pays for electricity from Central Asia or generators. Violence, crime and corruption are out of control. There is no peace, safety or security anywhere for anyone, especially if you are a high government official, are part of the army-police-intelligence network, or a Westerner. The entire nation is traumatized. There are one and a half million drug addicts, including women and children, with little to no help. Drugs supply 90% of the world's heroin, constitute a third of the GDP, and are managed by individuals the US/NATO installed and protects.

There is massive pain and suffering throughout the country, while the ruling class is immersed in unbelievable privileges.

The buzz now is about 2014, and what the Americans, Pakistanis, Qataris and the Taliban are up to. Will the Karzai government really relinquish power by April 2014, as the Constitution says? Will civil/sectarian war start when the Americans/NATO leave/chased out? Will the country be partitioned amongst various groups? What about the common people? Who will provide the 97% government budget after 2014? How did the country become so dependent on foreigners? Why wasn't the country prepared for self-reliance, self-defense and self help? Those who know the answers are marginalized, silenced, or worse. People are very angry with some kind of demonstration/riot/protest weekly. The faculty and students shut Kabul University for three weeks recently. People have no faith or trust in and respect for the government or its foreign sponsors. And 70% of the people are under 25.

If I read things correctly, an 'Afghan Spring'- summer, or winter is just a matter of time. And I can hear people in the US wondering 'who lost Afghanistan?!”

Mural Art: What’s Left of Kabul
By: Guilford College Community and Hannah Swenson, Courtney Mandeville and Layth Awartani. Greensboro, NC
From : Windows and Mirrors: Reflections on the War in Afghanistan

Unlearned Lessons From Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance

Snapshots of an Intervention
The Unlearned Lessons of Afghanistan’s Decade of Assistance (2001–11)
Afghanistan Analysts Network, July 2012

The decade of state-building, reconstruction and development assistance in Afghanistan has left many people confused. There have been undeniable changes: Afghanistan now has an election-based, market-driven political system and many socio-economic indicators are far better than they used to be under Taleban rule or during the civil war (although that is, admittedly, not a very high bar). There have been great, albeit unequal, opportunities in terms of education, employment and enrichment. But there is also a strong sense of missed and mismanaged opportunities, which many – Afghans and internationals alike – find difficult to understand: how could so many resources have achieved what feels like so little and so fleeting?

This edited volume explores the question by taking a closer look at a variety of key programmes and projects that were designed and implemented over the last decade, or more. It consists of a collection of 25 articles by analysts and practitioners with long histories in the country, who were closely involved in the programmes they describe. The contributions present a rare and detailed insight into the complexity of the intervention in Afghanistan – including the often complicated relations between donors and representatives of the Afghan government (with projects tending to be nominally Afghan-led, but clearly donor-driven), the difficulties in achieving greater coherence and leverage and, in many cases, the widely shared failure to learn the necessary lessons and to adapt to realities as they were encountered.

The experiences that the authors describe will probably sound all too familiar to anyone who has worked in post-conflict, aid-heavy contexts: the popularity of ‘trophy projects’ (Wiles), the proliferation of ‘encyclopaedic wish lists’ as a result of cumulative planning sessions (Leslie), the diplomatic wrangling to be given a seat at the table (Wilkens), the empty government buildings due to faulty planning (Horne), the frustration of trying to secure government buy-in for measures that threaten to disturb the political and economic status quo (Barr). They will also recognise the tendency for political expediency to trump long-term institution-building and accountability (Ruttig, Olexiuk, Kouvo) and the dubious role that post-conflict elections play in a country’s democratisation (Smith, Slavu).

The overarching lesson of the volume is probably that the key tools of the international assistance intervention – the protracted policy processes and coordination mechanisms, the large and inflexible assistance budgets, the focus on capacity building through mentoring and technical assistance – have proved to be very blunt indeed. There were successes to be found in the cracks, but mainly where a coherence of vision, realism and a fair amount of political will on the Afghan side ensured that good use was made of the resources provided.

The release of this book ahead of the Tokyo conference in July 2012 serves as a reminder of the recurring gaps between ambitious plans and conference statements on one hand and the subsequent realities of aid programming and implementation on the other. It is hoped this volume will help fortify the institutional memory of the donor community in Afghanistan, preventing future lapses and helping enable a greater capacity to learn world-wide. The lessons that have not been learned have relevance far beyond Afghanistan.

- Martine van Bijlert

Pathways to Peace | Peacebuild & CARE Canada

“There have been limited attempts to demobilize rank-and file opposition fighters and to initiate a national dialogue through a national Peace Jirga and High Peace Council. While these efforts might lead to a Government-Taliban pact for power-sharing, they are unlikely to stop the fighting and even less likely to lead to a positive peace, as conceptualized by Johan Galtung.

A positive peace would restore relationships, meet the needs of the whole population, provide ways to manage conflicts constructively, and hence be widely regarded by Afghans as legitimate, fair, and worthy of support.”

Pathways to Peace: New Directions for an Inclusive Peace in Afghanistan

Executive summary

The planned withdrawal of the majority of international military forces from Afghanistan, coupled with a recognition that force alone will not lead to success in the destabilized region, demands a serious consideration of a negotiated end to the current war.

To date, negotiations have been limited to closed door ‘talks about talks’ between high-level leaders in the Afghan government and armed opposition groups, as well as among regional governments, armed opposition groups and members of the United Nations mandated, NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).

There have been limited attempts to demobilize rank-and file opposition fighters and to initiate a national dialogue through a national Peace Jirga and High Peace Council. While these efforts might lead to a Government-Taliban pact for power-sharing, they are unlikely to stop the fighting and even less likely to lead to a positive peace, as conceptualized by Johan Galtung.

A positive peace would restore relationships, meet the needs of the whole population, provide ways to manage conflicts constructively, and hence be widely regarded by Afghans as legitimate, fair, and worthy of support.

A lasting, positive peace can only be achieved through a comprehensive peace process that addresses the major causes of three decades of war and includes all major stakeholders.

Any peace process will be neither comprehensive nor lasting without the full implementation of United Nations Security Council Resolutions (UNSCR) 1325 and 1889 or without the full inclusion of women. Women play a transformational role in peacebuilding and have a particularly high stake in a more just, open, and tolerant society; a society that allows for their participation in politics and the workforce, and respects the expansion of their rights along with the human rights of all residents. A legitimate peace process should be guided by the core values of accountability, transparency, inclusivity, and transitional justice, along with trust building, nation building, and the rejection of impunity.

Positive peace requires a transformation of society, a process that takes generations. However, the peace process provides a window of opportunity to sow the seeds for achieving this change.

A move in this direction would require:

• links between grassroots and national processes through elected representatives, a structured consultation process, and/or the effective mediation of civil society organizations;

• participation of men and women from all sectors of society in local and national dialogues; and

• peace education and trust-building to prepare people for participation in the comprehensive peace process, and to transform a culture and mentality of war into an appreciation for human rights, participatory governance, and non-violent conflict resolution.

Click here for the full report.

Afghan Broadcaster Defies Expectations | Sanga Jabarkhil

Hijratullah Ekhtyar has a nice profile of TV journalist Sanga Jabarkhil for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting*. At 21, Sanga is the head of Radio Television of Afghanistan’s Nangarhar office.

“By the age of 15, she had begun working for the state-owned Radio Television of Afghanistan, RTA, in Nangarhar, balancing this against her school studies. She told her family she was working on a magazine rather than in broadcasting.

When her first report – on arranged marriages – was aired, her relatives were mortified rather than proud.

“After hearing me on the radio, all my family members stopped talking to me. I stayed in my room, apart from them, and this lasted for a whole year,” Jabarkhil recalled.

Her relatives believed she was working alongside male colleagues, which they viewed as quite unacceptable.

For many conservative Afghans, simply working in a mixed-sex environment is immoral behaviour for a woman, and makes her an unattractive marriage prospect.

It took a long time to win the family over, although Jabarkhil’s mother Nuria was always quietly supportive.

Ultimately, only an elder brother remained opposed to her career choice.

“My brother didn’t talk to me, he didn’t look at me and even avoided coming face-to-face with me,” she said. “He told me, ‘Whenever I am sitting with friends and you appear on the TV screen, everyone looks at me and asks whether you are my sister. I feel ashamed; it’s like dying.’”

Jabarkhil even took her brother to work to assure him that women at RTA Nangarhar worked in a separate office from the men.

Today, aged just 21, Jabarkhil heads the women’s section of RTA’s Nangarhar office.”

Article link here.

Goal of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting

"Journalism in areas of crisis is itself invariably in crisis, suffering repression, lack of financing and independence, and an absence of professional skills and ethics. IWPR's core mission is rooting professional journalism skills deeply within individuals and within societies. From the Balkans to Iraq and beyond, IWPR has played a leading role in establishing a leadership cadre across local media and across regions. Capacity-building initiatives strengthen media institutionally, from management training to establishing local radios and news agencies. IWPR is especially known for intensive, one-on-one, apprentice-style training from basic journalism to human rights and elections reporting."

No One Hears the Poor | Kathy Kelly in Kabul

Mostly men from an extended family that fled to a Kabul displacement camp after a bombardment. They are originally from Helmand.

No One Hears the Poor

"One hospital in Kabul, the Emergency Surgical Center for Civilian War Victims, serves people free of charge. Emanuele Nannini, the chief logistician for the hospital, reminded us, the previous day, that the U.S. spends one million dollars, per year, for each soldier it deploys in Afghanistan. “Just let six of them go home,” he said, “and with that six million we could meet our total annual operating budget for the 33 existing clinics and hospitals we have in Afghanistan. With 60 less soldiers, the money saved could mean running 330 clinics.”

Just before leaving Chicago, while the NATO summit was convening, Amnesty International announced its intention to campaign for NATO to protect the rights of Afghan women and children. Amnesty International should talk with the Afghan Peace Volunteers and the Emergency hospital network about caring, practically and wisely, for women and children in Afghanistan.

Surrounded by fierce warlords, cunning war profiteers, and foreign armies with menacing arsenals and wild spending habits, it’s hard for the mothers who visited us today to imagine that the situation can ever change. And yet, before leaving us, they smiled broadly. “For us,” said Nuria, “the possibility of a bright future is over, but at least for our children there is a chance.”"

- Kathy Kelly writing from Kabul

Afghan Youth Protest Against Warlords

Afghans have lived with the violence of failed ‘peace processes’ for decades.

This inspiring clip shows people seeking accountability - in visible ways - from the cycles of violence. Beginning with foreign financial support to groups that fought the Soviets to the same groups fighting themselves and then fighting the Taliban.

As partners in the US attack after 9/11 they again became allies, given amnesty, and allowed into the government. Here is an excerpt from an earlier article.

Afghan Youth Target Former Warlords Ahead Of Contentious Holiday

“A new Afghan youth group is making waves in Kabul with an unprecedented campaign against the country's former warlords.

Members of the Afghan Freedom-Loving Youth Group swept through the streets of Kabul this week, putting up hundreds of posters and spraying graffiti messages critical of the strongmen, many of whom still wield significant influence on the country's political affairs.

While Afghan security forces swiftly removed the derogatory placards and signs, the campaign adds fuel to rising public scrutiny of regional despots who once waged war against the ruling Taliban as leaders of the mujahedin.
Years later, they are viewed as enemies by some and even as war criminals by Human Rights Watch and Afghanistan's own Independent Human Rights Commission. But to their supporters, they have risen to hero status, with some carving out legitimate -- and often high-ranking -- roles within the government.”

To read the article click here.

Additional Resources: Transitional Justice, AREU, 30-Years of Conflict.

Iran, Afghanistan and the Deadly Impact of Sanctions

Bloomberg reported this week that Afghanistan’s commerce minister “hopes the U.S. will give it leeway from economic sanctions intended to curb imports of oil from Iran.“

“Afghanistan’s trade with Iran has grown to more than $1 billion annually, placing Iran second after Pakistan’s $3 billion when transit trade via the Pakistani port of Karachi is included. The next-largest trade partners are China and India, Ahady said.

“Iran is becoming a very large trade partner,” Ahady said during a briefing yesterday for reporters in Washington. The estimated $1 billion in commerce with Iran is dominated by oil and fuel, as well as some consumer and industrial goods, he said.

Trade with Pakistan continues to be hampered by border delays and regulatory disagreements that too often require high- level intervention and cost Afghan business owners in the meantime, Ahady said.”

The U.S. announced at the end of March that if third countries do not reduce or stop their oil purchases and commercial dealings with the Central Bank of Iran, those countries would not be allowed to do any business with the United States.

What does this mean for regional security?

The summary recommendations from this conference held in 2008 remain central and fundamental to a path forward that embraces the basic needs of Afghans and the region.

The 15 page summary is a great background resource. This is the key point.

"...policymakers who redesigned post-war Western Europe rejected a country-by-country planning approach in favor of a regional approach that integrated the region’s economy and laid the groundwork for what became the European Union"

Among the key Recommendations

“Future efforts by the United States and NATO to build stability in Afghanistan should be addressed in a regional context. Giving all the states in the region common and mutually beneficial economic ties will pay large security and political dividends that the current bilateral agreements alone cannot provide.

Iran and the United States should begin a bilateral discussion on how best to bring stability to Afghanistan. Because stabilizing Afghanistan is one of the few areas where Iran and the United States have a common interest, a diplomatic dialogue has considerable promise and need not be linked to the issues that still divide the two countries.”

*****

Conclusions about Iran

It is important not to over-generalize the intentions of Iran in Afghanistan (or indeed any of the other regional or international actors) or to limit them simply to governments. There are important Iranian actors, including some Afghan refugees, who can play a critical role independent of the policies of the Iranian government.

Participants drew the following conclusions about how Iran and Afghanistan currently view their relationship:

1. Although Iran plays a much larger role in Afghanistan today than it has at any time since the mid-19th century, its policy toward the country is superseded by other international priorities, particularly its relationship with the United States. This makes it difficult or impossible for the Afghan government to establish independent bilateral relations with Iran.

2. The large Afghan refugee presence in Iran has given the two countries a closer network of ties than ever before, and refugees’ remittances to Afghanistan are a vital part of the Afghan economy. The refugees’ continued presence in Iran, however, is a source of tension because the majority are undocumented aliens subject to deportation. Iranians also see them as unwelcome immigrants who increase the competition for jobs.

3. There is a prejudice toward Afghan refugees returning from Iran, where they were better integrated into society than were refugees in Pakistan. Afghans educated in Iran have been denied positions in the government and NGOs, resulting in a “brain drain” that Afghanistan can ill afford.

4. Afghanistan sees itself as the victim of a U.S.-Iranian rivalry that is an uncomfortable reminder of its earlier history as a buffer state where its interests were sacrificed to the priorities of others. Although the Afghan government would like to see better cooperation between these two powers, it fears the consequences of any arrangements made without its participation.

*****

Conclusion:

“Because U.S. and NATO policy for managing relations between Afghanistan and its neighbors is limited to specific issues and projects, there has been no attempt to integrate them into a regional framework.

Participants noted that the policymakers who redesigned post-war Western Europe rejected a country-by-country planning approach in favor of a regional approach that integrated the region’s economy and laid the groundwork for what became the European Union. Although no one was optimistic about achieving such an ambitious goal in Central and South Asia, it was agreed that there should be much more emphasis on projects that go beyond merely linking countries to their neighbors and instead focus on economic integration. The key to achieving stability in the region is by ensuring that the success of each is a vital concern of all.”

Tag: Regional Security Summit in Tajikistan

Unheard Voices: Afghan Views on the Peace Process

An interesting report/survey on Afghan opinions. More than simply a challenge to the Afghan Peace and Reintegration Programme(APRP), it is in fact, a good measure of what Afghans see as the path forward. There is consensus, that all Afghans need to be at the heart of a peace process, and that process must include concepts of transitional justice. The evidence is captured in the key point summary below.

“Many people see the obstacles to the peace process as external to the country, whereas solutions are more readily identified as internal. Locally, specific conditions in localities such as Marjah and Qadis, in Helmand and Badghis, showed distinct perspectives on questions related to Taliban demands and government strength respectively.”

Unheard Voices – Afghan Views on the Challenges of the Peace Process

"Ordinary Afghans are tired of the fighting and overwhelmingly want peace – but not if it means a loss of hard-won rights, according to a major new survey of nearly 5,000 Afghans.

The survey, outlined in a report released today called Unheard Voices – Afghan Views on the Challenges of the Peace Process, was conducted in 16 provinces, including war-torn Helmand and Kandahar, by the Kabul-based Peace Training and Research Organisation (PTRO.

The future is looking increasingly uncertain with the Taliban’s suspension of negotiations with the US and plans for Afghans to take on the lead combat role next year, yet the survey shows there is widespread support for the national peace process (with an overwhelming 90 per cent hopeful that it could be successful).

The support is not, however, unconditional and the survey shows much more needs to be done by the government and international community to convince the Afghan people it will ultimately lead to a lasting peace.

In fact, 40 per cent fear it could result in a loss of rights instead; and this fear is particularly acute for women in insecure provinces. In Marjah district, Helmand province, 90 per cent of women had concerns over a potential loss of rights. Values seen as under threat included women’s equality, freedom of expression and democracy.

Managing Director of PTRO Mirwais Wardak says: “Afghans are united in their desire to see a just end to the conflict that they have suffered through for three decades. In many cases, they are willing to make compromises to achieve it, including offering amnesty to former insurgents and negotiated changes to the constitution - so long as this does not result in a loss of rights.

“But whilst they are hopeful for the future, many feel excluded from the process. This must change. Ordinary Afghans must be at the heart of the process. This is our country – if we are not all part of it, there is no future for peace. Our voices must be heard.”

Key findings

"In spite of the very real obstacles to peace, Afghans are exceptionally hopeful for a future without conflict. This is a view shared irrespective of ethnicity, location, security situation and gender.

A clear majority of respondents (84%) supported the government’s preconditions for the Taliban – that they stop fighting, sever ties with Al Qaeda, and support the constitution. A significant majority (59%) supported the Taliban demand for the withdrawal of foreign forces.

Despite this overall support for the process, divisions were evident over exactly how peace should be achieved, and differences in the approach and detail of the APRP were apparent between ethnicities, genders, and geographic locations. Simply put, the majority of respondents wanted peace, but were divided on how to go about it, and significant differences remain in attitudes towards the prescribed APRP structures.

Many people see the obstacles to the peace process as external to the country, whereas solutions are more readily identified as internal. Locally, specific conditions in localities such as Marjah and Qadis, in Helmand and Badghis, showed distinct perspectives on questions related to Taliban demands and government strength respectively.

While respondents are overwhelming supportive of a political settlement, 40% of all respondents fear that it will result in a loss of rights. These fears were more acute for women, and while overall they were only marginally more fearful, in some insecure provinces (Helmand, Jawzjan, Kunduz, Nagarhar and Paktia) the proportion of women with this fear was approaching double the proportion of men. The most extreme case was in Marjah district, where 90% of women feared a loss of rights.

61% of respondents doubted that the Taliban leadership was interested in reconciliation. However, a similar percentage, 64%, of respondents recognised that armed opposition groups in their area would be interested in reconciling.

Many respondents questioned the credibility of the reintegration programme. More than 50% of all respondents see reintegration events as mostly benefiting criminals. This result also varied by province, with respondents in Herat more likely to associate reintegrees with Mullah Omar Taliban (50%), and those in Helmand and Laghman more likely to identify them as criminals (75%).

The major obstacles to the process were consistently identified, and two thirds of all respondents identified either Pakistan or Iran as the biggest spoilers. These results differed slightly between ethnicities and regions: Hazara respondents more readily identify the Taliban as spoilers, in the east of the country more accuse Pakistan, and in the west, Iran.

The suspicion of “foreigners” also includes the International forces, but although they are seem as a significant obstacle to the peace process, they are at the same time recognised as playing a crucial stabilising role.

Improvements in the government were seen as critical to the success of the process, with 27% stating that it would be a prerequisite for the reintegration of armed groups. Furthermore, a significant proportion of respondents (20% altogether) identified the lack of credibility of both the government and the process itself as major problems.

Communication of every element of the APRP appeared to be lacking, demonstrated by the absence of a clear understanding of the process, particularly in isolated communities. This allows hearsay and rumour to take a much more prominent role, and threatens the credibility of the programme and the institutions involved.

The majority of respondents reported that solutions to the myriad problems associated with the APRP should involve the extensive engagement of local trusted social actors. Religious leaders were most often cited as a credible group to be responsible for leading the peace process. While many respondents believed that the high peace council was the correct body to lead the process they also had strong reservations about the membership structure."

Link to full report here.

Tags: Transitional Justice, Reconciliation

Talking about Talks | International Crisis Group

The International Crisis Group is a policy-oriented think tank focused on conflict and areas of conflict. This detailed report (51 pages) is hard-hitting and critical. What is missing is a focus on the role civil society should play in any comprehensive peace process and the influence of the US military.

You can find a good introduction here on the dangers of a US-Afghanistan strategic partnership here. And a good survey on the need to have civil society organizations involved in all aspects of negotiations here.



Talking about Talks: Toward a Political Settlement in Afghanistan

“No matter how much the U.S. and its NATO allies want to leave Afghanistan, it is unlikely that a Washington-brokered power-sharing agreement will hold long enough to ensure that the achievements of the last decade are not reversed. A lasting peace accord will ultimately require far more structured negotiations, under the imprimatur of the UN, than are presently being pursued. The Security Council should mandate Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon to appoint a small team of mutually agreeable mediators as soon as possible to ensure that critical stakeholders are fully consulted and will remain engaged in the negotiations process.”

A History of Failure (excerpt)

“For 35 years, Afghanistan has been shaped by repeated failures to negotiate a sustainable political settlement. Each stage of the conflict, starting with the violent coup against Prime Minister Sardar Mohammad Daoud Khan in 1978, has been capped by government programs to reconcile parties to the conflict. In each case, the attempt to broker a peace has suffered from intrinsic design flaws and lack of adequate support from the international community that has allowed external actors to undermine it. The root of these repeated failures lies primarily in confusion over the elements of reconciliation and disagreement over the desired end-state of a negotiated settlement. The successive rise and fall of Afghan governments – Daoud’s, the Soviet-backed People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA), the mujahidin under Rabbani and the Taliban – also provided little room for manoeuvre, let alone sufficient time to carve out lasting compromises on the political and constitutional contours of the state.”

*****

“However, by September 1987, the Soviets delinked the issue of withdrawal from the shape of the future Afghan government and began bypassing the UN in favour of backchannel bilateral talks with the U.S. The tempo was dictated primarily by the ebb and flow of relations between the superpowers, but the focus was always on a formula for withdrawing Soviet troops and eliminating covert U.S. support for the mujahidin. Despite informal UN efforts to push parties to the conflict toward an agreement that also outlined the status of the government in Kabul following the withdrawal of foreign forces, the Afghan government essentially became a casualty of superpower politics and factional infighting among the seven main mujahidin parties. As agreement on the timetable for Soviet withdrawal began to take shape, political tensions between the mujahidin factions also emerged.”

Link to the full report
Link to Executive Summary and Recommendation

Anti-Government Mobilization in Afghanistan 1978-2011 | AREU

Antonio Giustozzi with Niamatullah Ibrahimi
Published by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit

The authors provide an accessible analysis of the social and political factors underlying the long conflict. The purpose is to “bring together the existing literature, review it, and start a more rigorous discussion of what has been driving anti-government mobilisation in Afghanistan for over 30 years. The paper has therefore been designed to highlight existing gaps in the literature, map future research opportunities and needs, and provide an initial, although not conclusive, brief on what existing evidence suggests are the main drivers of mobilisation in the current situation.”

The key point.

“The current, post-2001 armed confrontation can be seen as the third phase of a conflagration that started in 1978. From a political analysis perspective, minimising the differences between the different phases of the conflict might seem debatable. However, when the underlying social, cultural, and political factors are analyzed, it becomes clear that the ongoing phase of the conflict cannot be understood without looking at the previous phases as well (which is not to say that the violent, recent past is a sufficient cause of the current conflict). Prolonged conflict reshapes society, often changing the reasons why a conflict is fought. The original destabilisation of the country in the 1970s created an environment in which various sectors of the population were mobilised by different political movements, each carrying out a revolution (or trying to) against its predecessors and subject to external interference. It also changed Afghan society to a fair extent and even created two new social classes with a heightened self-consciousness of their political role: the clergy and a class of military professionals (the “commanders” as they are known in Afghanistan).”

Executive Summary

The literature concerning the last 30 years of war in Afghanistan has over the last few years reached such a critical mass that it is now possible to identify structural factors in Afghan history that contributed to the various conflicts and have been its signal feature from 1978 onward. The state-building model borrowed from the neighbouring British and Tsarist empires in the late 19th century contained the seeds of later trouble, chiefly in the form of rural-urban friction that gained substantial force with the spread of modernity to rural Afghanistan starting in the 1950s. Following the Khalqi regime’s all-out assault on rural conservatism in 1978-79, this friction ignited into large-scale collective action by a variety of localised opposition groups, including political organisations, clerical networks, and Pakistani military intelligence, as well as the intelligence services of several other countries.

During the 1980s, Soviet heavy-handedness, combined with the local dynamics of violence and massive external support, intensified and entrenched the existing conflict. New social groups emerged with a vested interest in prolonging the conflict, while existing social groups were transformed by it. Communities everywhere armed themselves to protect against roaming bandits and rogue insurgents, eventually dismantling the monopolisation of violence that Amir Abdur Rahman had started to marshal from 1880 onward.

In 1992, on the eve of civil war, the national army and police, as well as the security services, were disbanded. This was a complex process, featuring factional infighting and the desire of the new mujahiddin elite to eliminate an alternative and potentially rival source of power. Armed insurgent groups eventually became semi-regular or irregular militias with little discipline and weak command and control from the political leadership. As a result, Afghanistan reverted to the pre-Abdur Rahman state of rival and semi-autonomous strongmen, with the central government having to negotiate for their allegiance.

Explanations of the Taliban’s rise usually refer to the disorder and chaos that characterized this situation as it existed in Afghanistan during 1992-94; however, the biggest challenge now is to understand how such an example of collective action could take place in a fragmented political and social context.

In 2001, the new interim government took power and inherited a heavily compromised situation. Rather than mobilising scarce human resources and reactivating as much of the state administration as possible, the government instead emphasized patronage distribution, in the process surrendering virtually all levers of central control to strongmen and warlords associated with the victorious anti-Taliban coalition. This combined with other factors to radically undercut governance, which undermined the state’s legitimacy and pushed some communities toward revolt.

The predominant social, cultural, and economic trends of the post-2001 period abetted the spread of the Taliban’s recruitment base by deepening the rural-urban divide mentioned above. The concentration of economic growth in the cities, the arrival of mass media typically rather disrespectful of the villages’ predominantly conservative social mores, and the affirmation of capitalist attitudes at the expense of established redistributionist attitudes among the wealthy classes, all contributed to the population’s polarisation. Massive levels of expenditure in Afghanistan also triggered an inflationary process, which badly harmed all those who were not direct financial beneficiaries of the intervention.

The clergy, having much to lose in the new political set-up, gradually remobilised as an opposition force. Its general expansion and prior military experience, along with the fact that many of its members had been part of a single political organisation (Harakat-i- Enqelab) during the 1980s, had all contributed to the re-emergence of a militant clerical movement in 1994, as did the jihadist indoctrination of new generations of clerics. By steadily co-opting more and more local clerical networks, the Taliban not only expanded, albeit temporarily, but also socialised newcomers into the movement, thereby creating a relatively strong sense of identity. The idea of clerical rule seems only gradually to have gained ground within the Taliban, but by 2001 it was entrenched within their ranks.

The Taliban are often depicted as relying on poverty and social marginality as spurs to the recruitment of village youth, although there is little actual evidence of that. Whatever the cause of many young Afghans joining the insurgency, mercenary motivations seem to dissipate once the Taliban have a chance to socialise and indoctrinate their new members. The behaviour of the Taliban in the battlefield suggests that mercenary aims are not a major, long-term motivating factor.

The Taliban have also been seen as a Pashtun revanchist movement, aiming to redress the imbalance that emerged in 2001 when mostly non-Pashtuns seized control of the state apparatus. In fact, there is growing evidence of the Taliban recruiting from the ethnic minorities as much as possible. While it is possible that some Taliban supporters might after 2001 have seen them as a source of Pashtun empowerment, there is little or no evidence that such considerations have played an important role in recruitment.

By contrast, there is substantial evidence that the Taliban have exploited conflicts among communities to establish their influence, if not necessarily to recruit individuals to their cause. In a number of occasions, the Taliban have also succeeded in mobilising disgruntled communities on their side, encouraging them to fight against government and foreign troops. Such community mobilisation was mostly relatively short-lived, as the communities were extremely vulnerable to the reaction of the Afghan state and the Western armies and suffered heavily in the fighting; by 2011, such mobilisation appeared to have declined.

Much has been said on the role of opium in fuelling the conflicts over the years. While it is evident that insurgents tax the drugs trade, their involvement in it is likely to have been overstated. In reality, the Taliban do not appear to attribute much importance to the drug taxes raised in southern Afghanistan and were in early 2011 shifting their military effort to other areas of the country. While narcotics revenue likely represents a solid majority of the Taliban’s own tax revenue, external support from Pakistani and Iranian sources is reportedly a significantly larger portion of their overall revenue. Similarly, since the Taliban tax any economic activity, including aid contracts and private security companies, development aid theoretically fuels the conflict as much as the narcotics trade does.

The intensification of the international military presence from 2006 onward, meant to contain the insurgency, has had the opposite effect, with greater numbers of troops eventually presiding over an acceleration of the insurgency’s expansion. In part this was due to regional powers increasing their support as a particular reaction to the growing American presence. The acceleration of the insurgency’s spread was also the result of local reactions to the presence of foreign troops.

In order to fully explain the post-2001 insurgency, a unifying factor is needed, a “driver of drivers.” The Taliban have been able to link together and integrate various causes and groups, capturing their energy and rage and directing it toward the strategic aim of expelling foreigners from the country and imposing a new political settlement. In their use of xenophobic and occasionally nationalistic recruitment arguments, the Taliban, aware of the difficulty of fully integrating communities under their own leadership into the movement, have privileged the role of individuals.

There are many weaknesses and gaps in our knowledge that should be addressed in order to confirm or reject some of the hypotheses formulated here. In particular, the Taliban’s organisational system is still poorly understood, as is their system of socialisation. Social and political dynamics such as the urban-rural divide and the impact of cash inflows after 2001 are also poorly understood. How much of the pre-war social organisation is left intact or at least functional is also far from clear. Future research would certainly benefit from a comprehensive mapping exercise.

Young Women for Change | Noorjahan Akbar

Noorjahan Akbar is a co-founder of Young Women for Change, an inspiring organization that works for gender equality in Afghanistan.

She has just been chosen as one of the recipients of the 2012 Women of Distinction Award by the National Conference for College Women Student Leaders.

"Born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1991, Noorjahan Akbar has had the rare opportunity of receiving an education, something not available to the majority of women in Afghanistan. She earned scholarships to attend two years of high school at the George School in Pennsylvania, and she is currently a sophomore at Dickinson College.

Akbar learned English and computer skills when her family moved to Peshawar, Pakistan, after the Taliban entered Afghanistan. In 2001, her family returned to Afghanistan and started an English-language center for about 400 women in the Qala-e-Fatullah region of Kabul.

At a very early age, Akbar started working with Radio Azadi (Radio Free Europe) as a writer for children’s programs. In the ensuing years, she worked as a writer and a translator at several organizations. Through her job at a German education program, she worked with children to write a book of six short stories for kids. The collection, which was printed and distributed in Afghanistan, inspired Voices for Hope, an effort focused on teaching children to write and think creatively. She later designed a program called Stories to Heal, which worked with 100 Afghan orphans on creative writing projects.

In summer 2011, Akbar co-founded Young Women for Change, an organization of volunteers who work for gender equality in Afghanistan. Since then, YWC has gained nonprofit status, formed a male advocacy group, organized monthly lectures on gender and women’s studies, collected books to build libraries in Kabul and Helmand, and began conducting research on street harassment in Kabul, thanks to a new grant."

Here is a link to their active facebook page.

Here is a previous story.

She published this article in the March 2011 issue of Friends Journal about a project to gather and record traditional Afghan music.

Here is a profile of her work at Dickinson College.

Congressional Briefing | Afghan Civil Society Perspectives

I am thrilled to be a part of this briefing hosted by Rep. James McGovern and Rep. John Garamendi. It will be Wednesday 29 February at 2 PM. Click on the image above for details.

The screening, presentation and live discussion will be an opportunity to bring Afghan perspectives to the forefront of the conversation about crucial economic and social development issues.

It will also serve as the formal launch of the Windows and Mirrors mural exhibit that will be in Washington for the month of March. A key sponsor of the exhibit will be the Faith Roundtable on Afghanistan.

The briefing will feature a live video conference with Afghan NGO directors and filmmakers, a screening of a selection of the Afghan–made documentary shorts The Fruit of Our Labor, and a roundtable discussion with Community Supported Film, 3P Human Security, and the American Friends Service Committee.

The live video conversation and Q&A with Afghan and US participants will include: Zarah Sadat, filmmaker and Founder and Director of Open Society Organization in Afghanistan; Jamal Aram, filmmaker and Program Coordinator of Community Supported Film, Afghanistan; Michael Sheridan, Director and Founder of Community Supported Film; Peter Lems, AFSC Program Director for Education and Advocacy on Afghanistan and Iraq; Lisa Schirch, Director of 3P Human Security

Take a moment to check out The Fruit of Our Labor on their home page.

The films allow viewers to witness reality through Afghan eyes, offering a deeper understanding of Afghanistan that is crucial for mapping a peaceful and stable path forward as US and NATO troops withdraw.

The films are a collection of documentary shorts made by Afghans in a training provided by Community Supported Film in Kabul.

Windows and Mirrors DC Schedule here.

The Forgotten Victims | Institute for War and Peace Reporting

“The Forgotten Victims”, a new documentary produced by IWPR, sheds light on the war crimes and other human rights abuses committed in Afghanistan over two decades of serial conflict. The film raises difficult issues about accountability in a country where the victims of crimes against humanity are sidelined, while the perpetrators walk free and in some cases continue to hold political power.

“The Forgotten Victims” covers the period from just before the 1979 Soviet invasion and the ensuing war with the mujahedin, through the brutal civil war of the early 1990s, to the Taleban’s rule from 1996 to 2001.

Because of this wide historical sweep, the film focuses on selected incidents, such as a massacre of civilians in Yakawlang, central Afghanistan, committed by Taleban forces at the beginning of 2001.

At public screenings around Afghanistan, audiences praised the filmmakers for telling the victims’ stories and opening up a debate on justice and accountability.

“Making a film like this in the current climate requires a lot of courage. It’s a great step towards seeking justice,” Mohammad Nader Atash, a defence lawyer in Nangarhar.”

While this film may focus on pre-2001 IWPR has done a tremendous amount of documentation about the war that began with the US attack and occupation.

Here is a previous story on the film.

Profiles of Nonviolent Resistance | Maya Evans

In December Maya Evans was part of a peace delegation to Afghanistan. Below is a profile she had published in Peace News. Peace News is a grassroots peace and justice movement building magazine in the UK.

Forgiving the Taliban

In the morning we were visited by one of the female members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers, Lena, a young, intelligent, outspoken Afghan woman who has just qualified as a teacher and has already taught in various schools inside Kabul.

Lena was very much anti-NATO intervention and felt that foreign involvement in Afghanistan was only bringing further violence and unrest. She also emphasised the importance of free state education for all, explaining that she could earn a very good wage working for private schools, but she preferred to work in government schools, educating the people of Afghanistan. She felt that providing she had food for lunch and dinner that was good enough for her.

We were then visited by Feda Mohammed, a former official in the ministry of education and now an education consultant. Over lunch, Feda, a slim, tall, middle-aged family man, dressed in a neat suit and tie, put across the opposing view to Lena. He was very much in favour of NATO and foreign intervention, his analysis was very black-and-white: Afghanistan could have either foreign occupation or the Taliban (a horrible prospect to most in Afghanistan, especially those who had experienced their previous reign). He viewed the killing of civilians by NATO as “collateral damage”, a necessary part of eradicating the Taliban, even if those deaths included his three sons.

There was a stony silence in the room.

AYPV Abduli, a 16-year-old Hazara boy from Bamiyan, whose father had been killed by the Taliban, was asked for his opinion. One of the most moving moments of my life then took place.

Abduli was silent for a while and then he quietly said: “If a Talib was in this room now, I know there is only one way forward to resolve the situation… forgiveness”.

The room fell silent.

I looked down and wept quietly. I wept for his pain and I wept for his strength and wisdom. I was astounded that such a young person, who had experienced one of the worst things a child could endure, had chosen the hardest path to walk. Without a doubt that moment will stay with me forever and whenever I weaken in my conviction to walk the path of nonviolence and forgiveness I will think of Abduli.

Click here for more stories about the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

Maya also participated in a recent delegation to India with members of the Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers to India. Visit their inspiring travelogue here.

The Forgotten Victims |A Film by Firouz Rahimi

- Click image for link -

Activists in Afghanistan are using film to open conversations with young people about the countries recent history and concepts of transitional justice and accountability.

“ My aim is to start out a dialogue regarding the implementation and transition of human rights issues in this political climate. So that the audiences will want to discuss it openly and not shove it under the carpet. Many HR institutions have said repeatedly that the war crimes committed in this country are extremely widespread. In the last 30 years - especially up until 2001 – many people lost their lives or were disabled as a result of various wars, they have to live with it every day.”

- Firouz Rahimi, Filmmaker

Additional Resources:

The Afghan Experience With War

Healing the Legacy of Conflict in Afghanistan

Afghanistan Experience With Conflict 1978 – 2009

Reconciliation, Justice and Mobilization of War Victims

Sari Kouvo and Dallas Mazoori have an accounting of steps being taken in Afghanistan to embrace the concepts of transitional justice. The article was published in the November issue of the International Journal of Transitional Justice.

"Victims are the first people who want peace but peace should come with justice. We do not want revenge or to wash blood with blood but at least these criminals should come and publicly apologize to the people of Afghanistan.

– Man whose brother was arbitrarily detained, tortured and murdered by the Taliban, speaking at the Victims’ Jirga for Justice, Kabul, 9 May 2010"



Mural Image: The Women See Through a Different Lens
Janet Braun-Reinitz, Brooklyn, NY
Part of Windows and Mirrors



"I lost two of my children during the civil war. They imprisoned my husband, a medical doctor, for 10 months under the Taliban and he lost his mind under their torture. Under the present government, a judge who had been bribed deprived me of the ruins I had converted to a house, and gave it to somebody who had arrived from Canada.

– Woman who stated she had been a victim of all periods of the conflict, speaking at the Victims’ Jirga for Justice, Kabul, 9 May 2010"

“This article traces the early stages of civil society mobilization for transitional justice and recent efforts to establish a network of war victims in Afghanistan. Specifically, it focuses on the development of the Transitional Justice Coordination Group and its victim-centered activities, such as organizing a Victims’ Jirga for Justice in 2010 and a National Victims’ Conference in 2011. It also situates these developments in the context of the broader transitional justice and reconciliation processes occurring in Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan has faced over three decades of conflict, beginning with a Communist coup in 1978, followed by a decade of Soviet occupation, a civil war, the emergence of the Taliban regime and, after the US-led international military intervention, ethnic and political tensions within the internationally supported government led by President Hamid Karzai and now a military conflict between a resurgent Taliban and the Afghan government and international forces. The civilian population has suffered during all phases of the conflict. Which region, ethnicity or segment of society has been most targeted has depended on who was in power at different times, but illegal detention, torture, disappearances, killings and indiscriminate bombings have been an Afghan reality for decades.

The UN-sponsored power-sharing conference organized after the US-led military intervention gave little attention to justice and accountability. However, the resulting Bonn Agreement did call for the establishment of the AIHRC, which has become one of the staunchest promoters of transitional justice in Afghanistan. National consultations undertaken by the AIHRC, the findings of which were released in 2005, show that the overwhelming majority of Afghans or their families are victims of human rights violations or war crimes and that they expect perpetrators to be prosecuted or removed from power. Moreover, Afghans are clear that, for them, reconciliation and justice are interconnected. They are equally clear that justice is integral to peace, with 76 percent of respondents believing that bringing war criminals to justice would increase stability and bring security. Only 10 percent felt that stability and security would decrease as a result.”

The strength and independence of the Afghanistan Independent Human Right Commission (AIHRC) has been challenged since all of its directors were not offered contract extensions at the end of December.

Additional posts on transitional justice are here. For a detailed accounting of the Afghan experience with war, go here.

Community Voices for Justice, Peace and Reconciliation

This newest report in the on-going series by the Afghanistan Research and Evaluation Unit focuses on the provinces of Ghazni, Bamiyan and Kabul. It explores the failure of the Afghan government and its international partners to implement a comprehensive program to provide justice or compensation for past and present war crimes. Its strength comes from a reliance on Afghan testimonies.

Accountability starts at the top, not just with Afghan actors, but with the immunity that has been a feature of foreign interventions in Afghanistan for the last 30 years.

Healing the Legacies of Conflict in Afghanistan
Emily Winterbotham | AREU | January 2012

“Ten years after the overthrow of the Taliban, Afghanistan is an environment of escalating conflict and prevailing impunity. In this context, the narrative of the Afghan government and its international partners has increasingly focused on ending the violence through negotiating with insurgent leaders and reintegrating their fighters into Afghan society. In their attempt to secure peace, policymakers have largely failed to include justice as a component of reconciliation and reintegration processes. This has continued the predominant approach since 2001 (and before) with the need for immediate stability outweighing the need for wartime accountability. The fact that the Afghan government and its international partners have failed to implement a comprehensive program to provide justice or compensation for past and present wartime crimes has inhibited people’s ability to deal with the legacies of conflict. Subsequently, the majority of people participating in AREU’s research said they were struggling to cope emotionally, psychologically and practically, and the desire for some form of “closure” remains strong.”

The author explores in details some of the options available to afghans. Including different models to address conflict that include a retribution model, a restorative model, a reparative model and finally, a forgive and forget model. She also explores the peace and reconciliation options from community-level to national level.

Different Models to Address Afghanistan’s Past and Present Conflicts

"To date, there have been no concerted efforts to deal with this complex legacy of wartime atrocities. At best, this has meant that wartime events have been largely ignored in Afghanistan. At worst, revisionist historical interpretations promoted by the perpetrators of crimes have dominated at the political level. In this environment, the experiences and suffering of ordinary people, who make up the bulk of Afghanistan’s victims, have been largely ignored…."

The Retributive model

“The demand for retribution was strong across all research sites. People widely argued that perpetrators of gross human rights violations should face punishment. While respondents suggested a number of different punitive measures, this paper concentrates on the mechanisms that received the most attention and only includes those in accordance with domestic and international law: criminal trials, including state-led prosecutions (administering capital punishment or imprisonment) and international trials; removing individuals from power; and punishing perpetrators through financial or material means. It is possible to broadly compare the provinces, although there was of course variation and fluctuation within communities. Respondents in Bamiyan and Ghazni widely rejected forgiving those guilty of wartime violations and came out strongly in favour of retributive actions. In Kabul Province, the urban community was most in favour of holding people to account. The rural site was more divided over how to deal with the perpetrators of wartime violations, especially between the men and women interviewed. Male respondents were the least in favour while a majority of women supported punishment.”

The restorative model

“Restorative processes are designed to uncover the truth about past events. Establishing a full, official accounting of the past is increasingly seen as an important element to a successful democratic transition. An accurate record of past crimes can make it embarrassing and difficult for official actors to deny them, apply pressure to remove perpetrators from power, and raise awareness toward preventing future abuse. However, in Afghanistan no official enquiry into either specific violations or the general consequences of Afghanistan’s wars has been published to date. Consequently, wartime actors have sought to fill this vacuum by promoting self-serving visions of the past. Most notably, the amnesty law glorified mujahiddin achievements during jihad against the Soviets, which as discussed also led to numerous atrocities. Others, including some who have occupied high-level positions in the Afghan government, deny any direct responsibility for past war crimes despite evidence to the contrary.”

Reparative policies

“International law recognises that a reparatory approach is an important way of acknowledging the collective societal responsibility that is owed to victims. Reparations can take many forms to compensate for harm and to rehabilitate the mind, body and status. These can include measures such property restitutions, monetary payments, education vouchers, memorials, apologies, or even the return of a loved one’s body for burial.153 While it may be impossible to fully repair the damage done to victims or make individual assessments of the harm suffered by each, a reparations programme can provide solutions to some of the problems derived from the harm suffered. There is growing consensus in international law that the state is obligated to provide compensation to victims of egregious human rights abuses perpetrated by the government and if the regime which committed the acts in question does not provide compensation, the obligation carries over to the successor government. Sierra Leone’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), in its final report, recognised that reparations are a primary tool for rebuilding national trust and encouraging reconciliation. This section concentrates on two broad compensation policies that received the most attention from respondents—symbolic reparation in the form of memorialisation and financial or material compensation.”

Financial reparations

“While it may be impossible to fully repair the damage done to victims or make assessments of the harm suffered by individuals, a reparations programme can still offer certain solutions. The idea that the people of Afghanistan should be materially or financially compensated for the wide-scale damage caused by war was strongly supported by people in all research sites. There was a widespread perception that if people’s living conditions were improved and assistance was provided to help them manage the material aspects of their losses then they would be able to handle their wartime grief better. Compensation was identified to have several impacts of varying significance for different groups interviewed: firstly, people felt it would help repair the physical and material damages caused by war; secondly, it could assist healing processes; finally, in some cases, it was presented as an alternative to a retributive approach.”

Peace and Reconciliation in Afghanistan

"The overwhelming majority of people in all research sites stated that they did not currently feel “at peace.” Achieving durable security and long-lasting calm for all of the country was therefore one of the most basic demands shared by all respondents. While in Ghazni people most frequently linked this with ongoing violence in their province and presented a narrow interpretation of peace as the attainment of security, in Kabul and Bamiyan provinces people generally argued that security had largely been reached in their areas, but that they still did not feel they had achieved peace. Instead, they felt that peace in Afghanistan rested on the fulfilment of certain key conditions: security, legitimate government, justice and reconciliation. Even in Ghazni, while immediate responses to questions about peace concentrated on the lack of security, on further expansion peace also clearly encompassed these components. Moreover, reconciliation was identified as a component of both justice and peace. Consequently, processes of justice, peace and reconciliation were seen as intrinsically linked, overlapping and mutually beneficial.

Afghanistan has experienced decades of conflict, which has fractured the bonds between different groups, qawms and ethnicities in the country. Moreover, there is a clear lack of trust between the population and Afghanistan’s leaders. This social context influences prospects for peace and reconciliation. Having addressed the concept of justice for Afghanistan’s conflicts, this chapter explores how people felt peace and reconciliation could be developed at the community level between Afghan people and what is required at the high level to reconcile the different parties to Afghanistan’s conflicts. Finally, it explores people’s perceptions of what a legitimate Afghan government looks like."

Additional Resources:

The Afghan Experience With War | ICRC | 6 October 2011

Documenting the Kill/Capture Missions | AAN | 13 October 2011

Violence Increases 21% | UNSG | 20 December 2011

Talking to the Taliban | Bhadrakumar, Schirch, Habib

Three insights to help make sense of the long road ahead.

M K Bhadrakumar, a former diplomat from India, offers a regional analysis of the challenges that lie ahead. He highlights the urgent need of a breakthrough by the Obama administration before the NATO summit in Chicago and speculates on the ramification of releasing Taliban detainees held by the United States in Guantanamo Bay Cuba.

“…Fazl's possible release from Guantanamo comes as a masterstroke by Washington aimed at scattering the growing regional bonhomie over the Afghan situation. The Obama administration hopes to release a fox into the chicken pen. Fazl is one of the most experienced Taliban commanders who has been with Taliban leader Mullah Omar almost from day one and he held key positions commanding the Taliban army.

He would have been a favorite of both Mullah Omar and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and his "homecoming" ought to bring joy to both. On the other hand, he was also culpable for the massacre of thousands of Hazara Shi'ites during 1998-2001 and was possibly accountable for the execution of eight Iranian diplomats in the northern Afghan city of Mazar-i-Sharif.

Fazl inspires visceral hatred in the Iranian mind and could create misunderstandings in Pakistan-Iran relations (which have been on an upswing in recent years) and put Islamabad on the horns of a dilemma vis-a-vis Mullah Omar.”

It is precisely this path – and a potential disregard for accountability - that has many in Afghan civil society so worried. Concerned that some of the gains achieved in recent years might be negotiated away.

Lisa Schirch commenting on the civil society forum at the Bonn gathering in early December articulates the Afghan call for a just peace. That any negotiation with the Taliban must included the participation of civil society if it is to be successful.

“What does justice mean in Afghanistan? A decade earlier, the 2001 Bonn Conference on Afghanistan excluded the Taleban while simultaneously including equally atrocity-prone warlords who had fought against the Taleban. The international community allowed the Afghan government to reward these warlords with government positions. This rush for a quick peace in 2001 laid an unstable foundation for peace and contributed to a decade of corruption, further violence and injustice. A just peace requires negotiations between all stakeholders, including armed groups like the Taleban as well as unarmed civil society groups. It also means accountability mechanisms to ensure all are held to account for past crimes. But a just peace will not bargain away the Afghan constitution’s protections of human rights and women’s rights. And a just peace requires a process including the Afghan public.”

Mina Habib, writing for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting offers this on-the-ground-reaction from 23 December 2011.

“Political analyst Abdol Ghafur Lewal expressed suspicions about the Americans’ intentions in pursuing peace talks along a separate track.

“Afghans do not want the gains they have made to be sacrificed for deals between the Americans and the Taleban. It is possible they [the Americans] might trade away those achievements,” he said. “They are trying to clinch a deal with the Taleban to secure peace and get America out of the war.”

Lewal said that if talks were to be held, it was essential that the Afghan government was at the centre of them.

“Every negotiation and contact is a positive step towards ensuring peace, and the Afghan people prefer the logic of talks over war,” he said, “but if such talks take place without the Afghan government being aware of them, they could do irreversible damage.”

Mohammad Ismail Qasemyar is a member of the High Peace Council, which Karzai has tasked with negotiating with insurgent groups, and insists this body should manage all talks.

“It has been accepted that the process is an Afghan process, owned by the Afghans…, not foreigners. We will be seriously concerned if this principle is violated,” he said.

In September, the High Peace Council’s chairman Burhanuddin Rabbani was assassinated by a suicide bomber.

Those with long memories recall the last days of the Soviet-backed regime in the late 1980s, arguing that attempts to reach a settlement with mujahedin groups failed because the talks were led by the Russians, rather than the then government of President Najibullah.

“The results of that mistake, that calamity still cause us pain,” Lewal said.

Addition posts of interest.

What the Taliban Want | Ahmed Rashid | 30 August 2011

Gilles Dorronsoro | Impossible Transition | 27 June 2011

Talking to the Taliban | A Roundtable | 27 April 2011

Justice Seekers | A Profile by Kathy Kelly

Kathy Kelly writing from Kabul-

"Arab Spring, European Summer, American Autumn, and now the challenge of winter. Here in Kabul, Afghanistan, the travelers of our small Voices for Creative Nonviolence delegation share an apartment with several of the creative and determined “Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers” who’ve risked so much for peace here and befriended us so warmly over the past two years.

…

Yesterday, I met with three young people who’ve sustained an inspiring example of community formation. Weeda Ahamd directs the Social Association for Afghan Justice Seekers, with help from Basir and Riha, her co-workers.

…

During their University years, Weeda and her colleagues had become impassioned on behalf of achieving social justice for those brutalized and bereaved by the violent forces at work within Afghanistan. “We realized that many young people who were thinkers had sacrificed their lives” said Weeda. “They refused to say anything but the truth, and there are so many of them to remember. Whereas the war criminals in power will not remember any of these people, we will hold up the pictures in walks. Some of them are people whom family members have not seen for a long time. These are the heroes whom people of Afghanistan should remember.”

Since 2007, Weeda and her colleagues have worked to gather information about people killed, imprisoned or disappeared by armed forces. They go to villages and talk to families who have lost loved ones to Taliban fighters, US/NATO forces, warlords and druglords. They carefully preserve the data. Once it became public that they intended to issue their report, they received threats from several warlords. The report should appear in the near future.

Not only do Weeda and her co-workers assemble stories, documents and pictures from the families of victims of war, they also help build supportive communities amongst the families whose trust they have gained through their repeated visits. Then they invite the families to form larger networks and come together for public protests and demonstrations, demanding an end to the wars. Grassroots democracy is even harder work at gunpoint.

“It’s always a present reality that we could die tomorrow or be killed,” said Basir, “but we would rather do that than have people remember us in the future as people who didn’t live in a principled way. We hold on to truth and justice principles. We’d rather live this way than live under the control of those who commit the crimes.”

“Crimes are not only crimes of the past,” Weeda explains. “War criminals are continuing to commit the crimes, and the US and NATO give military, political and financial support to the war criminals. Their militaries commit crimes as well.

“If a government were formed by the people of Afghanistan,” says Weeda, “we wouldn’t find Afghans easily accepting permanent military bases. Nor would they accept warlords in positions of power.”

“America is in Afghanistan to gain strategic control against China, Iran and regional countries,” she continues. “On top of power and strategic control, we know that America is here to tap on resources that may be present in Afghanistan, or Afghanistan may be a strategic route for the transport and sale of raw materials.” Estimates say these materials may have a net worth of one trillion per year.

She wishes that activists beyond Afghanistan, whose governments are occupying and fighting in her country, would pressure their own governments to stop interfering in the affairs of other countries.

“Any human with a conscience needs to consider himself or herself as a member of the larger human family,” says her colleague, Basir. “I feel I am a member of every family that has become a victim of war. Hundreds of mothers have buried their children with the beautiful white burial cloth. Hundreds walk the streets without a father.”

Weeda is aware that a solution is not easy. She says it may take a long time and insists it must come from the people themselves. Uprisings in the Middle East have encouraged her. “We need to get out into the streets,” she says, recalling images from Cairo. “There, people filled the streets as far as you could see.” Smiling softly, she mentioned the “Occupy” movement. “Maybe they will highlight the crimes that their governments are committing here,” she said, “and speak out against them — call on them to end complicity with war criminals.”

It’s hard work in the winter, and it seems like winter everywhere, but we create small patches of warmth to get us through the winter. All around us, people are finding hope in new connections and in their own startling example of the determination to create hope for others; fear is being traded in for ardent compassionate service; visions are being exchanged, seeds planted beneath the snow, crossing borders and creating new, unprecedented circumstances.

The warmth we keep alive now, the fires we stoke in a dark season, are small, but they’re everywhere. There is simply no predicting what we may be building with the work we do now to keep ours lit, guarding precious human warmth as we move towards another astonishing Spring."

Additional Resource:
Social Association of Afghan Justice Seekers