By AJMAL SHAMS
The historic US-Taliban agreement of last February provided the foundation for intra-Afghan negotiations, which began in September. However, the agreement called for these negotiations to start on March 10, 2020. Afghans were very much looking forward to the peace talks beginning as anticipated in the deal, and the delay of several months was disappointing for a nation that has been suffering from a bloody conflict for the past four decades. Almost 2 million Afghans have been killed since the communist coup of 1978 and the bloodshed still continues. The message from every single Afghan is “Afghan Lives Matter.”
The need for national consensus on Afghan peace is considered to be vital to the success of the peace process. While Afghans may disagree on many issues of national importance, they do agree on one thing and that is the restoration of peace in their war-ravaged country. Thus, the ongoing conflict must end and peace must be restored. However, peace-making in Afghanistan is not easy and many obstacles on the road to peace must be removed before any meaningful outcome can be expected from the ongoing talks. This requires strong political will from both sides, i.e., the Afghan government and the Taliban movement.
The Afghan government has created many parallel institutions to advance its peace agenda. These include the High Council for National Reconciliation chaired by Abdullah Abdullah, who agreed to take this role in return for recognizing Ashraf Ghani as president following the disputed presidential election of 2019. President Ghani has also established the State Ministry for Peace, a strange measure per se. Ministries are supposed to operate as permanent or long-term government entities for continued policy support or the delivery of services. The establishment of such a ministry has raised skepticism regarding the government’s commitment and political will for bringing peace to the country. It has given the impression that it may have no plans for peace in the near term.
It took the Afghan government quite a while to finalize its list of representatives for talks with the Taliban in Doha. Was this delay an intentional tactic or was it due to internal differences over the number of representatives and composition of the team? This is up to ordinary Afghans to judge, as they are the major victims of the ongoing conflict, not the high-ranking government elites who reside within the perimeters of tall concrete walls in their safe havens and who drive around in armored vehicles accompanied by bodyguards.
The Afghan delegation contains a mix of loyalists to Ghani and Abdullah, with a few neutral figures too. It is questionable whether the government delegation enjoys wide national credibility and possesses the required negotiation skills. There is also no clarity in terms of the authority the members of the delegation have and uncertainty surrounding the harmony between the Taliban delegation and its political office in Qatar and the movement’s leadership, which commands its militant operations.
Both Ghani and Abdullah are regularly meeting Afghan political leaders, members of civil society organizations, and women and youth representatives. Although these engagements contribute to building consensus on the road map for peace, the circle of engagement must be widened and made more inclusive. It has been noticed that the government leadership has been meeting on a regular basis with a certain minority of Afghan politicians as though they represent the entire population. There is a clear need to initiate a more organized, inclusive and institutionalized effort by both Ghani and Abdullah to make the peace process more credible and trustworthy in the eyes of Afghans.
Many obstacles on the road to peace must be removed before any meaningful outcome can be expected. –AN
