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There is still hope for Afghanistan

International conferences on Afghanistan have almost become an annual event and no longer generate the hope that peace will return to that war-ravaged country anytime soon. Since the ouster of the Taliban, 12 such meetings have been held starting with the Bonn conference in December 2001 which put in place the Karzai regime. This turned out to be the overture to a gruesome symphony of violence which has intensified in recent weeks.

The Bonn conference was the precursor to similar meetings in Berlin (2004), London (2006), Rome (2007), Paris (2008), Moscow (2009), The Hague (2009), London (2010), Bonn (2011), and Tokyo (2012). There have been several other smaller international consultations in which ridiculous joint statements were issued. For instance, the final communiqué of the third UK-Afghanistan-Pakistan summit in London on February 3-4, 2013, unbelievably called for a settlement of the decades-old conflict within six months.

The outcome of the Tokyo conference on July 8, 2012 was a pledge by donors to provide Afghanistan $16 billion in economic assistance over a four-year period. But it was also made clear that there would be no free lunches. Under the Tokyo Mutual Accountability Framework Kabul was required to take measures to deal with endemic corruption and to work out a mechanism for streamlining the utilisation of the aid.

The final paragraph of the Tokyo Declaration called for a follow-up “ministerial meeting to be co-hosted by Afghanistan and the United Kingdom within the year 2014 after the presidential election in Afghanistan.” It was against this background that the December 4 London Conference was convened.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif who, like the Moroccan explorer Ibn Battuta (1304-1368) never misses an opportunity to venture abroad, attended the London ‘ministerial meeting’ on special invitation from his British counterpart. The 60-plus countries that participated in the event pledged substantial though unspecified levels of economic support to Afghanistan after the withdrawal of foreign forces by the end of the month.

The US Secretary of State, John Kerry, was particularly upbeat and announced that Washington wanted to “create a powerhouse region,” and, towards this end Congress would be asked to approve “extraordinary” amounts of economic assistance through 2017.

Though this was as vague as one can possibly get, it must have been reassuring for the Afghan president especially because 85 percent of his country’s budget comes through external assistance. Furthermore, a recent World Bank estimate shows that foreign aid accounts for 95 percent of Afghanistan’s GDP.

For his part, Ashraf Ghani told the delegates in London, “History will not be repeated, we’ve overcome the past” and then sought endorsement for his plans for a “transformation decade from 2015-2024.” According to one account, he was even more persuasive than he was at the Berlin Conference when, on March 31, 2004 he outlined a seven-year programme titled ‘Securing Afghanistan’s Future’ to 65 finance and foreign ministers. It was described as “the most comprehensive programme ever prepared and presented by a poor country to the international community.”

The programme was built around the concept of a ‘double compact’ – between donors and the Afghan government on the one hand and, the regime in Kabul and the people of Afghanistan on the other. It aimed at poverty eradication accompanied by the establishment of the rights of ordinary citizens and this is what lies at the heart of Ashraf Ghani’s economic stabilisation and development strategy.

The presentation was well-received and the donors at the Berlin meeting not only pledged $8.2 billion for the first three years of the programme as requested by the Afghan government, but also endorsed the entire seven-year package of assistance totalling $27.5 billion.

No such specific commitment was forthcoming at the London Conference even though its main purpose was to review the implementation of the commitments made in Tokyo, in particular the Mutual Accountability Framework. The final communiqué therefore urges the Afghan government to put in place “sustained realistic strategies to root out corruption, combat terrorism and strengthen good governance…”

However, this may not be possible without immediate economic assistance. I was informed by a Kabul-based diplomat on Thursday that the government has run out of funds and has been unable to pay state employees for the last two months. If this is correct, the situation could spiral out of control and further exacerbate the ongoing surge in violence perpetrated by the Taliban.

The story of Afghanistan has been one of continuous tragedy. Last month there were 11 terrorist attacks in Kabul which resulted in several fatalities and on November 22, a suicide bomber killed 57 people and injured hundreds at a volleyball tournament in Paktika province. This year alone, a total of 4,700 soldiers and more than 5,000 civilians have been killed by the Taliban.

But far more disquieting are reports sourced to top-ranking Afghan politicians that the Taliban have infiltrated into the security forces and intelligence agencies of the country. On November 18, First Vice President Abdul Rashid Dostum unhesitatingly admitted: “There are insiders who cooperate with the enemy in carrying out such attacks, otherwise how can they come and reach the Darul Aman and the airport road?”

This was later corroborated by several members of the Afghan parliament who alleged that elements within the government were hand-in-glove with the Taliban. The media in Kabul also reported that Senator Lutfullah Baba from Jalalabad had openly accused powerful officials within the establishment of “providing transport to the terrorists to get to their targets.”

Morale in the Afghan National Security Forces is at an all time low. The Taliban insurgency is gathering steam which resulted in the dramatic capture of Camp Bastion in Helmand, recently vacated by the British. It was eventually retaken by the Afghan forces but only with the help of Nato/Isaf airstrikes.

In a recent article, the Afghan author and columnist, Musa Khan Jalalzai, cited a Pajhwok news agency report that army chief General Sher Muhammad Karimi was quick to blame the government and accused it of not providing the wherewithal to neutralise the Taliban onslaught particularly in the Helmand and Kandahar provinces. This again boils down to the non-availability of funds and the international community has to move fast in providing the desperately needed assistance failing which Afghanistan will descend into chaos.

Despite this dismal backdrop there is still hope. For one, Ashraf Ghani and his close associates are gifted with the rare ability of realistically thinking through the challenges that confront Afghanistan. Ghani has decided to go the extra mile to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

The regime in Kabul will have to come to terms with the unpleasant truth as confirmed in a recent study by the Asia Foundation that one-third of the Afghan population are sympathetic towards the Taliban. It was in this context that former foreign secretary, Najmuddin Shaikh, recalled in his opinion column carried by a Karachi-based newspaper on Monday that in November 2012 the Afghan High Peace Council brought a proposal to Islamabad that envisaged offering the Taliban governorships in some of the provinces.

But far more important is the radical change in thinking within the Pakistan Army. Operation Zarb-e-Azb has not only had a stupendous impact militarily but has also transformed the Pakistan-Afghan equation and stabilised the relationship between Islamabad and Washington.

Latifullah Mehsud has been handed over to Islamabad, US drones have hit the TTP in their hideouts in eastern Afghanistan and the Pakistan Army has driven out the Haqqani Network. It is only when the Taliban on both sides of the border have been weakened militarily that they will agree to negotiations.

Through all this the political leadership in Pakistan have been passive bystanders. The last four months have been wasted in futile rallies and sit-ins, the most recent being the shutdown of Karachi on Friday. Like Afghanistan, Pakistan also bleeds. It bleeds profusely. The wounds that have been inflicted on this long-suffering country by its leaders will not heal till such time that they repent and reform. This is unlikely to happen.

The writer is the publisher of Criterion Quarterly.

Email: iftimurshed@gmail.com

S Iftikhar Murshed, "There is still hope for Afghanistan," The News. 2014-12-14.
Keywords: Political science , Political issues , Foreign forces , World Bank , Political system , Political parties , Political leaders , Terrorist attacks , Terrorism-Pakistan , Corruption , Ashraf Ghani , Latifullah Mehsud , PM Nawaz Sharif , Afghanistan , Kabul , GDP , TTP