Little hope for Afghan peace

Opinion: June 17, 2011 at 12:00a.m.

By Mina Habib

The Institute for War & Peace Reporting

KABUL, Afghanistan

A government panel established last year to undertake negotiations with insurgents and finally bring peace to the war-torn country may be the latest casualty of the latest surge of violence by the Taliban.

Some accused the High Peace Council, set up by President Hamid Karzai last fall, of being too anxious to grant concessions to terrorists in order to halt the fights.

Others say that, given that the level of fighting since the body came into existence, the council must be talking to the wrong terrorists.

“The peace council is failing to find those it should hold peace talks with,” charged Mohammad Saleh Saljuki, a member of parliament.

Part of the problem stems from the council’s broad mandate, which authorizes it to talk with a wide range of insurgent groups, including Gulbuddin Hekmatyar’s Hezb-i Islami faction and the “Haqqani network,” as well as the Taliban.

Failed effort

Jawid Kohistani, a political analyst, said negotiations so far have failed to engage any senior Taliban figures and most of the talks so far have been with inconsequential groups.

“Massive amounts of money have been spent on this process, yet no significant gains have been made,” he said.

Much of the criticism of the council has come from leaders in the northern part of the country, often associated with the armed factions that battled and lost to the Taliban during the civil war of the 1990s.

Among them is Hajji Mohammad Mohaqeq, leader of the Hizb-e Wahdat party, who has spoken out against the peace council despite being a member of the panel.

“The security forces arrest terrorists and the High Peace Council ... sets them free,” he told parliament earlier this year. “Negotiations with the opposition are unilateral, and conducted from a position of weakness. This has further emboldened the opposition to pursue bloodshed.”

Other members of the council reject the claim.

“What Mohaqeq said is not true,” said Fazel Karim Aimaq, a council member. “The High Peace Council has released nobody so far.”

Aimaq defended the council’s record, saying much of the progress it has made could not be made public, as the issues were so sensitive.

In fact, no one at this point knows whether talks between the council and various insurgents have led anyone to lay down their arms.

Incentives

Insurgents refute government claims that more than 1,000 Taliban have laid down their arms since the creation of the High Peace Council have been denied by the insurgents themselves. And even supporters of the council concede that some of those who have surrendered were never in fact insurgents, but instead were individuals trying to take advantage of a package of incentives offered by the government to those who turn in their weapons.

Others fault the composition of the 68-member council, which is made up of former militia leaders and ex-members of the Taliban and Hezb-i Islami. Critics say former warlords are hardly the best people to task with a peace effort.

“Some members of the peace council are accused of crimes themselves,” the political analyst Kohistani said. “Implementing the peace process will be impossible as long as such individuals are present on the peace council.”

And finally, some believe such talks are an exercise in futility, given that the Taliban are unlikely to accept the preconditions imposed by the government that they unconditionally lay down their weapons, accept the current Afghan constitution and renounce ties with al-Qaida.

Despite all the criticism, it’s unlikely the council will be disbanded.

Presidential spokesman Wahid Omar said the work to build a peace deal would continue and there was no chance of the council being dissolved.

Mina Habib is a reporter in Afghanistan who writes for The Institute for War & Peace Reporting, a nonprofit organization that trains journalists in areas of conflict. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.