[Despite strong support from the Afghan
public, the initiative has met with considerable criticism, both from political
figures who were excluded and from observers who warn that the huge contingent
— which has no leader — could produce a profusion of opinions rather than a
unified position needed to confront the demands of a hierarchical religious
militia.]
By Pamela Constable
 |
|
Afghan security forces
gather April 9 at the site of an attack near Bagram air base,
north of Kabul. The
Taliban claimed responsibility for
the attack. (Rahmat
Gul/AP)
|
KABUL
— Hopes are high here that a
first-ever meeting Friday between the Taliban and a large delegation of
prominent Afghan figures will prove a turning point in a U.S.-led peace process
that has dragged on inconclusively for months.
The insurgent group, which has long refused
to recognize the Kabul government and said it would not deal with Afghan
concerns until U.S. forces leave the country, finally agreed to meet informally
with a group of Afghans, despite the Taliban announcement of a spring
offensive. As the meeting neared, however, signs of trouble emerged.
On Tuesday, the office of President Ashraf
Ghani announced that 250 delegates — an inclusive but unwieldy array from
across the political and social spectrum — would fly Thursday to Doha, the
Qatari capital, to meet with a far smaller group of Taliban officials. The
militia leaders will hold separate formal meetings with U.S. officials.
The Afghan delegation will include Ghani’s
chief of staff, former national intelligence director and numerous cabinet
ministers, plus a variety of politicians from ethnic minorities and former
anti-Soviet militia leaders, members of parliament, and representatives of
civic and women’s groups. They will travel on a plane chartered by the Qatari
government, which has hosted the previous U.S.-Taliban talks.
“The main idea is to get to know each other
informally, to give the Taliban a feeling of how Afghanistan has changed in 17
years, to make sure they understand it is a different country now,” said
Mohammad Umer Daudzai, a senior aide to Ghani who is coordinating the
government’s peace initiatives. He said his hope is to see the interactions
continue and a peace settlement reached by year’s end.
But there were reports from Kabul late
Wednesday of new difficulties in putting together the final delegation. A
spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, issued a statement ridiculing the
delegation as too large and disorganized.
Mujahid said that the ongoing talks with U.S.
officials have been “orderly” and “pre-arranged” in a foreign country and that
they are “not an invitation to some wedding or other party in a hotel in
Kabul.” His statement said the Taliban team in Doha had “no plans” to meet with
such a large Afghan group. He later said any Afghan officials in the group
would be met only in their personal capacity, not as government officials.
Despite strong support from the Afghan
public, the initiative has met with considerable criticism, both from political
figures who were excluded and from observers who warn that the huge contingent
— which has no leader — could produce a profusion of opinions rather than a
unified position needed to confront the demands of a hierarchical religious
militia.
“Every person will want to express their own
ideas, while the opposite side will have a single voice,” said Ahmad Wali
Massoud, a candidate for president. Young liberals charged that the delegation
was stacked with aging ex-warlords; some ex-warlords charged that Ghani had
designed the list to sabotage the peace process. Even pro-government parties
could not agree on a message to the Taliban.
“The intra-Afghan talks are much more
complicated than the Taliban negotiations with the U.S.,” said Mohammad Nateqi,
an aide to one ethnic Hazara leader who plans to attend the talks. “What will
happen to Taliban fighters and the Afghan army? What will happen to our
constitution? How will the Taliban join the system?”
The Taliban, for its part, sent mixed signals
as the talks neared. On Monday, a Taliban spokesman told news agencies that
several unidentified women would be part of its delegation — a remarkable shift
that seemed aimed at assuaging Afghan and international concerns that women’s
rights would be ignored in the talks and curtailed if the Taliban returned to
power.
Last weekend, however, the insurgents
launched their annual “spring offensive,” which they dubbed “Operation
Victory.” In a statement little changed from previous years, the group said
attacks would be carried out across the country with the aim of “eradicating
occupation, cleansing our Muslim homeland from invasion and corruption, and
establishing an Islamic system.”
As promised, Taliban fighters in the past
week have staged several attacks, including a suicide truck bombing and firearms
assault in eastern Nangahar province, an attack on the northern provincial
capital of Kunduz, and a multipronged assault on a district in far-northern
Badakhshan province.
The surge in violence drew angry retorts from
Ghani, who called it a sign of Taliban intent to continue an “illegitimate
war,” and from Zalmay Khalilzad, the U.S. envoy spearheading the peace process,
who condemned it as “reckless.” In March, Afghan security forces announced
their own spring operation to force the Taliban to negotiate with Kabul.
“We did not impose this war,” Khalilzad
tweeted Sunday. “. . . Tens of thousands of innocent civilians
have died. . . . By refusing to work w/ us to end the
killing, the Talibs are prolonging it.” American troops invaded Afghanistan in
2001, joining with Afghan forces to topple the Taliban regime, and have
remained in the country for 17 years.
While some prominent Afghans were fighting
for seats on the plane to Doha, others announced they would boycott a separate
gathering convoked by the Ghani government to discuss the peace process at the
end of April. The traditional consultative meeting of some 2,500 Afghans, known
as a jirga, will be held in Kabul.
In the past week, a number of political party
leaders and rivals of Ghani, who is seeking reelection in polls scheduled for
September, have declared they will not participate. They include the
government’s chief executive, Abdullah Abdullah, and key ethnic leaders, who
have called the meeting a waste of time and a political show. The Taliban were
invited but refused to attend.
“This will be the largest and most
representative jirga ever held in Afghanistan. But the hard thing will be to
achieve political consensus,” said Daudzai, the senior aide to Ghani. He said
his biggest concern was that “candidate campaigning” at the gathering would
interfere in efforts to bring peace, which polls have shown is far more
important to Afghan voters than the presidential contest.
For the moment, though, all eyes are on Doha
and on the historic chance this round of talks offers for face-to-face discussion,
and possibly the beginning of reconciliation, between the religious extremists
who ruled Afghanistan by force between 1996 and 2001, and the leaders of a
democratic society and institutions that have been built since the Taliban was
overthrown.
Sharif Hassan and Sayed Salahuddin
contributed to this story.
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