Round The  World

New Delhi, 15 May 2012

Peace Negotiator Killed

US, WEST SEARCH FACE SAVING EXIT

By Monish Tourangbam

Research Scholar, School of International Studies (JNU)

The assassination of peace negotiator Arsala Rehmani in broad daylight in Kabul has cast a gloom over Afghan reconciliation efforts. That it came nine months after the killing of the country’s former President and High Peace Council Chief Barhanuddin Rabbani raises a crucial question: Are the Taliban militants really interested in talking? If yes, who are willing to talk and who are not?

Think. While Western forces including US set withdrawal timelines and look at handing over responsibility to Afghan forces, such violent attempts at sabotaging peace efforts sends a grim reminder: Taliban maybe interested only in ruling the country, and will not let any other power have their piece of pie.

Undeniably, Rehmani’s killing is a major setback to efforts of bringing the Taliban to the negotiating table.  Hopes of a breakthrough had increased early this year with the Taliban planning to open a liaison office in Qatar but disagreements over a prisoner exchange deal halted efforts towards a compromise. 

Despite no group claiming responsibility for Rehmani’s killing all eyes are on the Taliban as it had recently announced that peace council members would be targets of its spring offensive.  But the Taliban has denied its involvement in the killing.

Recall, Rehmani was a key negotiator in the peace efforts, as he was not only a former Minister in Taliban ruled Afghanistan, a close associate of the insurgents, but was crucial in striking deals with them. According to sources, he was credited with having reached out to key commanders across Southern and South-Eastern Afghanistan.

In fact, his death was a fatal blow to NATO leaders and the Karzai Government who wanted to show forward movements in their efforts to talk to the Taliban at the NATO Summit in Chicago. Instead, they, now, have to handle another high prolife murder that reflects the continued uncertainty and insecurity in Afghanistan.

Besides, with the US and other Western countries setting a 2014 withdrawal timeline, there is a hasty transformation in the way the war is fought. Afghanistan’s Supreme Allied Commander Gen. John R. Allen instead of being involved in long-drawn counter-insurgency operations is busy accelerating handover of responsibility to Afghan forces. He reportedly plans to order American and NATO troops to push Afghans into the lead across the country this summer, even in insurgent-ridden places that had not been candidates for an early transfer.

Pertinently, Rehmani was killed on the same day when a new list allocating areas that would be transferred from US and allied troops to Afghan forces was released. This included strategic city Kandahar and other volatile areas, about half of insurgent hotbed Nurestan province, a third of violent Paktika province's districts and all of Uruzgan province.

According to the plan, Afghan forces and officials would be responsible for over more than 75% of their own territory. NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen said, once the move was implemented, "Transition will have begun in every one of Afghanistan’s 34 provinces including every provincial Capital."

The regions being handed over to Afghan forces include many areas where insurgents remain active. Of late, animosity and misunderstanding between western and Afghan forces serving together have increased, with many incidents coming to fore where they have targeted each other instead of the insurgents.

Western forces have been accused of showing disrespect to Islamic religion, including burning the Koran with a deranged American soldier going on a killing spree, murdering 16 Afghan civilians including 9 children at the Belandai base in Kandahar on 11 March. More recently, US soldiers have been accused of macabre acts like posing for photographs with body parts of Afghan bombers. On the other hand, attacks carried out by members of the Afghan police or army have been blamed for about 14% of the deaths of Western service members this year.

These instances have increased voices against war efforts on both sides. While President Karzai has to cater to his domestic constituencies and call for quick withdrawal of Western forces, domestic elements in the US and other countries have increased their criticism against keeping their soldiers in Afghanistan’s badlands.

Clearly, the Karzai Government’s High Peace Council faces a tough task ahead, with the death of two of its most prized negotiators.  Add to this, reports of internal feud within the Taliban has only muddied waters more along-with divisions between the so-called moderate Taliban and the hardcore elements. Analysts point to infighting between Afghanistan-based Taliban and its Pakistan faction. With members accusing each other of embezzling funds and working with the UN mission in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani Establishment too has been accused by its Afghan counterparts of not helping in the investigations regarding Barhanuddin Rabbani’s assassination. Former Indian ambassador to Kabul Vivek Katju points fingers at Pakistan’s intelligence ISI.  He said, “For years now, the ISI has made clear it will not tolerate an arrangement in Afghanistan that does not accommodate its perceived interests. This assassination is part of that continuum,” he added.  

The fractures within the Taliban are increasingly coming to light and its differences will probably be fought on the streets spewing more violence and attacks targeting anyone and anything that talk about reconciliation.

Notwithstanding, the US and Afghan Government recent signed strategic partnership that specially talks about American engagements in Afghanistan post 2014 withdrawal. But, Western forces are eager to leave hardcore combat responsibility to the Afghans while the Karzai Government wants a compromise with Taliban before 2014.

Questionably, what is stopping the Taliban from talking? Observers aver the Taliban is a political fact and their inclusion is inevitable if some semblance of stability is to be brought in this war-torn country. At the same time, others concur that post the last decade of bloodshed, a return to Taliban rule which existed in the 90s is not in the interest of Afghanistan and the region.

Thus, as things stand, an amicable resolution is hardly visible. What do the militants want in Afghanistan?  If at all there is a bloody feud between the Taliban ‘moderates’ and ‘hardliners’ will the ensuing violence run roughshod over the country, yet again plunging the country into another vortex of bloodshed?

In sum, at this juncture, all the Western forces are looking for is a face saving exit. Given that the Taliban militants seem dis-interested in a compromise and are eying an eventual victory. They seem intent on ruling Afghanistan, even if it takes violence. ----- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)