Bonn conclave may yield little

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, NOV. 23. Even as the meeting of rival Afghan factions in Bonn next week to kickstart the political process in Kabul is seen here as a significant first step, no breakthrough is expected and the best hope is that it does not break up in acrimony. For, as The Times remarked, there would be enough of them to have a ``traffic-stopping fight, if that is what they choose''.

Downing Street consciously played down expectations saying it was only the start of the process. ``We should not raise expectations too high,'' the Prime Minister, Mr. Tony Blair's spokesman, Mr. Alastair Campbell told correspondents. He admitted that it was not going to be easy to get a political settlement up and running but said the Bonn conclave was an ``important start''. He said the coalition's three-pronged strategy comprising the military, humanitarian and political goals might look ``ragged'' but was working and would be pursued.

Commentators said the Bonn gathering would be a test of the Northern Alliance warlords' political will to share power with their rivals, particularly the Pashtuns who form 30 per cent of Afghanistan's population, and must be included in any truly ``broadbased, multi-ethnic'' government. ``Despite agreement from all the four main ethnic groups in the country to attend U.N. talks in Germany, there are already doubts about the likelihood of any real breakthrough. None of the major Afghan leaders will be present at the weeklong meeting. They will be represented by junior officials who may not have the authority to make the tough compromises needed to share power,'' one analyst said.

Influential alliance leaders had already started to flex their muscles and made it known that ``real'' talks would have to be held in Afghanistan, observers pointed out recalling the former President, Mr. Burhanuddin Rabbani's statement that the Bonn meeting would be ``mostly symbolic''. Reports indicated that there was also opposition in some alliance quarters to a deal with the representatives of the former king Zahir Shah. In what was seen as an `` uncompromising'' move a prominent alliance warlord Ismail Khan dismissed Shah's supporters as ``eccentrics'' and suppressed a small pro-Shah demonstration in Herat.

The Pashtun factor apart, the Northern Alliance itself was too fractious to make for an easy compromise on the shape of a future government, according to observers. ``One faction capable of causing plenty of trouble within the Northern Alliance, often overlooked, is the Hazaras,'' The Times' foreign affairs expert said pointing out that Mr. Rabbani, a Tajik, had ``reason to be alarmed'' at the Hazaras' ambitions for a ``piece of the action in Kabul''.

About 30 Afghan delegates, representing the various factions, would attend the meeting amid fears that a failure to get them to agree to a broad framework could create a ``dangerous'' political vacuum. It is acknowledged here that the political and humanitarian agenda has not kept pace with the military developments which, in the past week, have moved more rapidly than expected. More than the U.S., Britain is anxious to get the political process moving and the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Jack Straw's visit to Iran and Pakistan was intended to stress the urgency of the situation. However, reconciling the interests of Teheran and Islamabad would not be easy.

In Iran, Mr. Straw had a taste of it when the alliance ``Foreign Minister'' Mr. Abdullah Abdullah bluntly told him that there was no question of accommodating the ``moderate'' Taliban in a ``broad-based'' government. ``It would be very broad-based if we accepted such a term. Such a term is a contradiction,'' he said. His remarks were seen as a setback to Britain's efforts to get the moderate Taliban elements into a future government, a demand consistently raised by Pakistan.

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