Afghanistan after the Taliban

By T. Sreedhar

SINCE THE last week of September, the media has been debating the post-Taliban scenarios for Afghanistan. We have also been hearing from people like Gen. Pervez Musharraf that the ``Taliban's days are numbered''. Suddenly the media is also reporting that some of the chieftains of provinces in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan are deserting Mullah Mohammad Omar and taking a neutral stand. All this implies that the Taliban Government in Afghanistan will collapse after the U.S. military operations. This may be possible. But one has to wait and watch.

What is interesting are the post-Taliban scenarios being discussed in the media. The most prominent of these is the return of King Zahir Shah, in exile since 1973 in Rome, to Afghan refugee camps first and next to Kabul. At a press conference on September 27 in Islamabad, Mr. Francis Vendrell, personal representative of the U.N. Secretary-General, said ``though 90 per cent of Afghanistan in controlled by the Taliban, it does not mean that they have 90 per cent support of the people. Majority of the Afghans are hostages in their country''. On a possible solution to the crisis, Mr. Vendrell said all Afghans should have a role in an interim broad-based Government. ``I found King Zahir Shah to be in good health and willing to work for the betterment of his people... he is the only ruler who has not harmed the Afghan people,'' he added.

The U.N. thus is projecting him as head of state for a transitional government. He will consult Afghan elders and convene a Loya Jirga to get the decisions taken ratified. As the days pass, support to King Zahir Shah is increasing. There are reports that even some representatives of the Northern Alliance have called on him in his Rome villa and extended their support to him.

However, there is opposition to his return from Iran. The Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979 overthrew monarchy. The Iranians perceive return of monarchy in neighbouring Afghanistan as a grand design by the U.S. to attempt a similar thing in their country. Second, Gen. Musharraf is also apparently planning for a moderate Taliban coming to power in Kabul which will coopt minorities in the governance of Afghanistan. It will not be Pashtun-dominated, like Mullah Omar's Taliban, but will be a broad-based Government of all ethnic groups in Afghanistan. Pakistan plans to achieve this by politically eliminating Mullah Omar from the scene by stage-managing a coup in Kabul and Kandahar. This is because Pakistan perceives that any other Government, including that of King Zahir Shah, would be detrimental to its interests in the region. As a step in this direction, Gen. Musharraf declared Pakistan a frontline state for the U.S. and its allies in the fight against terrorism.

The third alternative being discussed is that since none of the factions in today's Afghanistan represents the will of the majority of people there, it is better to keep it as a U.N.- administered area for some time and then initiate steps for a democratic political process. This line of argument is advanced by those who feel that two decades of bloody civil war has fractured the Afghan polity. And therefore a cooling-off period is required. Some are even saying normality can be restored only if neighbours and their surrogates in Afghanistan are not given any authority in a future setup. Lastly, a few are arguing that Afghanistan must be handed over to the Organisation of Islamic Conference to evolve a suitable political apparatus to govern it for a transitory period.

No one has defined as yet what should be the parameters for a new Government and how it should be formed. The turmoil in Afghanistan is largely because Pakistan was given the responsibility of reestablishing a proper Government in Kabul. To install a Government amenable to it, Pakistan resorted to three things. One, in the first five years after the Soviet withdrawal, Pakistan virtually played musical chairs with the Afghan leadership. Even at the slightest doubt about the person in authority in Kabul, the Government was toppled and another was brought in. How Pakistan played one leader against the other is now part of Afghan folklore. Two, to serve its interests, Pakistan created the Taliban exclusively of people dependent on it for anything and everything. After creating the Taliban, it systematically eliminated all the Opposition political groups.

Around 1996, people like Ghulam Ishaq Khan, former President of Pakistan, talked in terms of a confederation of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Three, by 1997-98, the Taliban had become an instrument of Pakistan's foreign policy to achieve its objectives. Pakistan went to the extent of violating U.N. sanctions covertly by sending its military advisers to assist the Taliban. The terrorist training camps that came up in Afghanistan became complementary to similar camps being run in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Kashmir. The similarity between the elaborate planning that went into the hijacking of the Indian Airlines plane in December 1999 and the September 11 bombings indicates that Pakistan is not above board regarding the Taliban-Al-Qaeda networking.

To avoid a repetition of a Taliban-type phenomenon creeping into Afghan polity again, or as a matter of fact, even in Pakistan, the international community must ensure that there is a broad- based Government in Kabul to begin with and if possible extend that effort to Islamabad; that any Government that comes to power must ensure good governance; and encourage the democratic process to start in Afghanistan. This too should be extended to Pakistan. The international community responded in the above fashion in the case of the Kurds in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War. The situations may not be identical but it is still an option worth trying.

All this is possible when the Taliban Government collapses. Till now, it has defied all threats. The Taliban supremo is even warning the U.S. that it may suffer the fate of the Soviet Union. As though these threats were not enough, Jaish-e-Mohammad, one of the arms of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda combine, attacked the Jammu and Kashmir State Assembly building in Srinagar on September 29. The timing of the action is extremely important. When the U.S. and its allies were talking in terms of eliminating the Taliban-Al- Qaeda combine, one of its wings struck in not-too-far-off Srinagar.

The attack also took place on the eve of the External Affairs Minister's visit to the U.S. The hectic parleys that took place between India and the U.S. since then indicate that the Srinagar incident is being viewed as a local development. If the Taliban- Al-Qaeda combine realises this, the next act could be closer to U.S. interests.

In addition, one should also remember that the resources required by the Taliban-Al-Qaeda are nominal. According to counter- terrorism experts, to destroy an area of one square kilometre through conventional means, $2000 is required; half the amount if nuclear weapons are used and probably one-fifth for a terrorist attack. Recall the events of August 1998. The U.S. embassies in Dar-es-Salaam and Nairobi were destroyed by a suicide squad. The truck and the explosives loaded in it must have cost at the most $8000. The U.S. responded by firing cruise missiles at the hideouts of those responsible. The value of the property destroyed is valued at less than $100. All this makes one conclude that the means adopted by the U.S. and its allies to deal with terrorism and the violence of the Taliban-Al-Qaeda combine have to be unconventional.

(The writer is Senior Research Associate, Institute of Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi).

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