AFGHANISTAN: Rival patrons fuel potential civil war

November 21, 2001
Issue 

BY EVA CHENG

The Northern Alliance on November 12 created a huge problem for the United States by seizing Afghanistan's capital, Kabul, before a post-Taliban government could be cobbled together. US and British diplomats are hard at work to create a US-approved multinational transitional authority to prevent the NA taking power while a "broad-based" regime acceptable to US imperialism and its closest allies is constructed. Such a government will not be representative of the Afghan people and will have to be imposed.

In the space of days, the NA increased the territory it controlled from less than 10% of Afghanistan to more than half. The NA pushed forward as the Taliban staged a sudden retreat.

The Taliban still holds key cities in the south. A drawn-out war is still not out of the question. More US bombing could weaken the Taliban in these places, but on its own that will not defeat the group.

Unless the Taliban collapses completely, significant numbers of ground troops would be needed to rout them. But, fearful of a domestic backlash, the regime of US President George Bush is unlikely to send such a force, except for small groups of special commandoes. This will mean that Washington must continue to rely on the NA to be its proxy army against the Taliban.

In an historical irony, the situation in Afghanistan seems to have returned to what it was a decade ago. If the past is anything to go by, convincing the rival Afghan factions to agree to a viable government without resorting to bloody civil war will be anything but easy.

In a May 21, 1991, statement, UN secretary general Javier Perez de Cuellar said: "I have just concluded an intensive round of consultations ... with all segments of the Afghan people, including political leaders of the opposition groups and resistance commanders, based in Peshawar, Tehran and inside Afghanistan, as well as with prominent Afghans currently residing outside the region. The governments concerned have also been consulted...

"Whatever the process to attain a settlement, it should be a strictly Afghan political process, free from foreign interference... [there is] the need for a transitional period, details of which have to be worked out and agreed upon through an intra-Afghan dialogue, leading to the establishment of a broad-based government... I appeal to all Afghan leaders to put the interest of the Afghan people above all other interests, and resolve their differences through a political process, bringing to an end the long and devastating war."

History repeats itself

That initiative failed, and the war continued. Many of the same Afghan warlords, and their foreign backers, are key players today. Now, as then, they are deeply divided as they pursue their own narrow interests.

"The governments concerned" that de Cuellar was referring to were the US, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Russia. All five were funding, arming or assisting the warring Afghan factions, and still do. Their Afghan clients later transformed into the Taliban or the components of NA. Many of the same leaders are still leading these factions today.

In 1978, the left-wing People's Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) government came to power in a popular uprising. The PDPA's progressive policies angered the country's landlords and capitalists. The US, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia backed the PDPA's opponents because they feared its example might inspire demands for similar reforms from the reactionary pro-US dictatorships of the region.

Arms and funds flowed to the Afghan counter-revolutionaries, known collectively as the mujaheddin. Soviet troops entered Afghanistan in December 1979 to rescue the PDPA. The US and other powers quickly escalated support to the contras.

The mujaheddin were all Muslim fanatics, but they were divided by conflicting interests. Most were Sunni Muslims. A few were Shiite. Each mujaheddin group was dominated by one ethnic group or another.

The southern and eastern Pashtuns make up about 40% of the Afghan population, while the Tajiks account for 25%, Hazaras 19% and Uzbeks 8%. The Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras are concentrated in north and centre. The Shiite Hazaras, descendants of Mongol invaders from centuries before, were the most marginalised in Afghan society.

The April 1988 Geneva accords signed by Pakistan and Afghanistan, with the US and the Soviet Union as guarantors, ended foreign backing of the mujaheddin in exchange for a rapid Soviet troop withdrawal. But its implementation was delayed by disagreements among the mujaheddin about the make-up of an interim government.

For instance, a shura (consultative assembly) to choose the transitional government went ahead in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in February 1989 which only involved the Pakistan-based Sunni mujaheddin. The Shiite and northern minority mujaheddin were left out. The shura also excluded the PDPA government and former king Mohammad Zahir Shah. The "government" that arose from that meeting was immediately rejected by some armed commanders inside Afghanistan, who accused it of favouring Pakistani and Saudi interests.

Pakistan and Saudi Arabia weren't keen on that process, favouring a military solution driven by their own mujaheddin clients. They changed that line only in early 1991.

In April 1992, Kabul fell to the mujaheddin. An agreement was reached between some of the factions which excluded the Shiite parties as well as Hizb-i-Islami, led by Pakistan's former protege Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Infuriated, Hekmatyar bombarded Kabul with rockets intermittently for the next three years.

Burhanuddin Rabbani, of Jamiat-i-Islami, was chosen as the president in June 1992. But fighting between two other factions, Hizb-i-Wahdat and Ittihad-i-Islami, soon erupted, inflicting considerable civilian casualties. Rabbani was "re-elected" in December but Hekmatyar joined forces with Abdul Rashid Dostum, a leader of another northern faction, Junbish-i-Milli-yi, to oust Rabbani, leading to a full-scale war.

As a result, in Kabul in 1994 alone, an estimated 25,000, mostly civilians, were killed. In September that year, fighting between the two key Shiite groups, Hizb-i-Wahdat and Harakat-i-Islami, also left hundreds of civilians dead.

A July 2001 report by Human Rights Watch (HRW), Afghanistan: crisis of impunity, said: "By 1994 the rest of [Afghanistan] was carved up among the various factions, with many [mujaheddin] commanders establishing themselves as virtual warlords... It was against this background that the Taliban emerged." The Taliban took power in 1996.

Northern Alliance

The National Islamic United Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, also known as the Northern Alliance, formed among the Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras. Its constituent parties are:

  • Jamiat-i-Islami, dominated by Persian-speaking Sunni Muslim Tajiks, and is headed by Rabbani. Assassinated military leader Ahmad Shah Massoud was a central leader. The party has been backed by Iran and Russia;

  • Hizb-i-Wahdati, the principal Shiite party. It draws its support mainly from the Hazaras. It receives Iranian support;

  • Junbish-i-Milli Islami, based mainly among ethnic Uzbek Persian speakers, and is led by Dostum. It has been supported by Uzbekistan and Russia;

  • Harakat-i-Islami has significant Hazara support but its leaders are mostly non-Hazara Shiites. It has received support from Iran; and

  • Ittihad-i-Islami is based among Hazaras and is headed by Abdul Rasul Sayyaf. It has received assistance from Saudi Arabia.

Only the governments of Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates ever recognised the Taliban. Pakistan's support for the Taliban was critical, multifaceted and often covert. That support started more than a decade ago when Pakistan was the main agent through which US support (including arms and training) was channelled to the mujaheddin. In recent years, Pakistan even "unofficially" sent fighters to assist the Taliban.

Meanwhile, the NA government, headed by Rabbani since 1992, has continued to hold the Afghan UN seat and is recognised by the rest of the world. Its record of human rights violations has been, according to HRW, "deplorable" and well-documented. Horrific abuses were committed last year.

Terrified by the recent international surge of support for the NA, HRW last month urged caution and demanded that NA commanders who have committed human rights abuses be brought to justice. Dostum, Haji Mohammad Muhaqqiq, Sayyaf and Abdul Malik Pahlawan, a former senior Junbish commander, were singled out as abusers.

The Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan went further. In a November 13 statement, it described the NA regime's "criminal and inhumane" record when it ruled Afghanistan between 1992 and 1996.

Patrons

The civil war in Afghanistan could have long lost its momentum had it not been for the support and the arming by rival factions by Afghanistan's neighbours and imperialist powers. The HRW 2001 report said: "Though there have been numerous agreements by Afghanistan's neighbours and other states involved in the conflict over the past twenty years to end arms supplies as part of a larger peace process, no agreement to date has been backed by any enforcement mechanism."

The "Six Plus Two" was formed by the UN in 1997 from Afghanistan's six immediate neighbours - China, Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - as well as the US and Russia. A September 1999 remark by UN secretary-general Kofi Annan indicates how useful this body had been. Annan accused members of the group of continuing to fuel the conflict and only "paying lip service to their own stated intentions".

Russia and Iran are open about their continuing support for their favoured factions. Russian President Vladimir Putin affirmed on September 25 that Russia would "expand cooperation" with the NA and supply additional weapons, reportedly to the tune of US$45 million. Iran also agreed to continue to support the NA with arms.

US Congress is considering the provision of up to US$300 million in direct military assistance to "eligible Afghan resistance organisations".

A tricky problem for Washington after the collapse of the Taliban is how to get credible Pashtun representation in any "interim government". The US at first thought it could recruit "moderate" Taliban defectors, but no substantial defections have yet to take place. The NA and itsbackers - Russia and Iran - have rejected Taliban participation.

From Green Left Weekly, November 21, 2001.
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