Meeting Kicks Off Afghan Nation-Building

Nov. 26, 2001 -- The crumbling buildings and pock-marked streets of Afghanistan's capital city are painful reminders of the last time the country tried to build a broad-based government among its many warlords.

Shortly after the government was established in 1992, one rejected warlord shelled Kabul for months, others played hopscotch with their allegiances, squabbling over positions in the government, ultimately leaving thousands dead.

Now, just about a decade later, the people of Afghanistan will try it again.

On Tuesday, four groups will meet in Bonn, Germany, to take the first steps towards what the U.N. Security Council has demanded be a "broad-based, multi-ethnic and fully representative" government.

Hopes for a new era of peace are high, but many who are familiar with the country are cautious. The country had been in a state of warfare before 1992, and conditions are little different today. Many of the warlords then are still in power today.

Then there is the well-known Afghan antipathy towards outsiders. The current war that ousted the repressive Taliban regime was made possible by a U.S. campaign against terrorism — but the subsequent peace is also expected to require outside involvement as well.

Early Speed Bumps

There have already been hints of the difficulties to come. The most obvious comes from the Northern Alliance, the rebel force which has taken most of the ground formerly occupied by the Taliban.

On Nov. 15, the alliance, a loose affiliation of soldiers from Afghanistan's ethnic minorities, seized Kabul despite fears among the global community that they would not be acceptable to Pashtun Afghans, who make up the country's dominant ethnic group.

The rebels said they had no choice but to move in and fill the void left by retreating Taliban forces, claiming they would only act in a peacekeeping capacity.

Less than a week later, the Northern Alliance's top political leader, Burhanuddin Rabbani, moved into Kabul and claimed the presidency.

In talks to create a government, Rabbani has consistently refused to accept the participation of former king Zahir Shah, a popular Pashtun who was the last person to rule the country in a period of peace. However, he has said he has no interest in returning to power.

Rabbani also resisted for days attempts to hold meetings outside of Kabul.

Even after relenting, he insisted that the meeting would merely be "symbolic," and that substantive decisions would be discussed in Afghanistan. The U.N. envoy to Afghanistan expressed disappointment over the statement.

Rabbani has a history of being uncooperative. He was part of the country's previous rotating presidency — but when it came time for him to relinquish control, he refused, leading in part to the civil war.

A Fractured Voice

Seeking consensus in the Northern Alliance alone is expected to be difficult.

Although Rabbani is the recognized head of the Northern Alliance, and is supported by warlords who have their own spheres of influence, like Rashid Dostum in the north and Ismail Khan in western Afghanistan, he has plenty of enemies.

Not only do many Afghans hold him responsible for causing the previous breakdown, but they see him as a proxy for foreigners. "He has never burned his bridges with neither the Arabs or the Pakistanis," said Ahmed Raheem Yasser, the assistant director of Afghan Studies at the University of Nebraska.

Top Northern Alliance figures like its current foreign minister do not like him either.There were times when Rabbani obstructed Ahmed Shah Massood, the beloved Mujahideen commander who was the Taliban's greatest rival. When Massood was killed in September, there were suspicions he was responsible.

And though Dostum and Khan have agreed to participate as part of the Northern Alliance, they were also reportedly contributing their own representatives to the delegation.

The delegation is also expected to include representatives of the Hazara ethnic minority, who have been subjected to pogroms for belonging to the Shia sect of Islam. The majority of Afghan Muslims belong to the Sunni sect.

Hazaras are so concerned about the treatment of their brethren in Kabul under the Northern Alliance that one of their top commanders, Karim Khalili, has brought 3,000 troops to the capital to represent their interests.

One sticking point has already emerged: Khalili reportedly wants the United Nations to move quickly to set up an interim government in the capital, fearing the onset of factional fighting, but Dostum and Khan, among other alliance figures, have opposed foreign forces.

Other Pretenders to the Throne

In addition to the Northern Alliance, groups from Rome, Cyprus and Peshawar will also participate in the meeting in Bonn.

The group from Rome will represent the interests of the king, and the Cyprus group is closely aligned with the king, but has leaders of its own.

One is Pir Syed Ahmed Gailani, the spiritual head of a Sufi religious sect and a wealthy Pashtun businessman, has called for an Islamic constitutional republic. He is supported by pro-royalist Pashtuns and Western-educated elites of the old regime.

However, Gailani is also looked on with suspicion by some Afghans, because he is related by marriage to Pakistan's political elite, Yasser said.

The Cyprus group is also reported to have a representative of the notorious Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, who was once the darling of CIA efforts against the Russians, then for a time aligned himself with the Taliban.

Hekmatyar has always been anti-American, even when accepting CIA support, and when air strikes began on Afghanistan last month, he echoed Osama bin Laden's sentiments by calling them attacks on Islam.

The Peshawar group, composed mainly of exiles, will likely be the most anonymous. Composed mainly of Afghan exiles from Pakistan, some of their allegiances will also be suspect.

One unknown quantity is Hamid Karzai, a Pashtun who made a risky jaunt into Afghanistan in the early days of the current conflict to try to convince tribal chiefs to persuade the Taliban to surrender. Some experts say he is a member of the Rome group, but others say he will act on his own.

Karzai wants to convene a tribal council to work on details of the new government. He is seen as a moderate, and popular among Western leaders.

However, Afghans might have their own suspicions of Karzai as well, Yasser said. He has been accused of working with the CIA.

A Middle Step

Experts pointed out that for all their ideas, most of the representatives to this meeting would be warlords.

Yasser warned "unless the meeting is closely supervised by the U.N. and the international community, it will be used and manipulated like in the past."

Many also said meeting has to take place. "This is a transitional meeting in which we deal with the warlords because they have power," said Dr. Barnett Rubin, an Afghanistan expert from New York University.

Moreover, it has to be done soon, to end instability and prevent the creation of more refugees — but it shouldn't be permanent, said Samina Ahmed, an Afghanistan expert at Harvard University.

She said a multi-national force should move in as soon as possible to prevent the warlords from consolidating their gains — and for the U.S. officials to expand their focus from Rabbani in Kabul — to others, as well as the many groups that make up the Northern Alliance.

"It will depend very much on what the U.S. does," she said.

But the most important factor will be the world community's commitment, experts said. "If the international community loses interest and goes on and fights a war somewhere else then you will see these warlords re-establish control," said Ahmed.

The world community has accomplished peace in even bloodier, warlord-dominated states, like Mozambique, Ahmed said."This is not to say this will be an impossible task," she said.