Afghanistan: Anarchy if vacuum not filled

FOCUS ARCHIVE:

The UN needs to move in fast to address the power vacuum created by the departure of the Taliban....writes Imtiaz Gul

With Kandahar having fallen to anti-Taliban forces, it is clear that the incessant carpet bombing on the Taliban frontlines has finally broken the militia’s back, and along with it, the myth of Taliban invincibility.

The US-led coalition threw everything possible into its war on terrorism and after five weeks of incessant rocketing and systematic carpet-bombing of Taliban positions triggered a process that until Wednesday evening (November 14) saw the Taliban retreat even from their eastern and southern strongholds.

For observers of the Afghanistan scene, the fall has not come as a surprise. The US decision to carpet-bomb the militia’s positions in the north, especially along Mazar-e-Sharif badly dented the Taliban defences, forcing them to pull out under the pretext of tactical withdrawal. That withdrawal has now become a strategic retreat.

The situation has also put Pakistan in a quandary. The Taliban are gone, the rag-tag Northern Alliance has entered Kabul despite warnings by the US and Pakistan, and there is a clear and present danger of power wrangling among the former mujahideen leaders and commanders. Pakistan’s Afghan policy lies in tatters and Islamabad has to confront new dangers as well as possibilities.

Having practically ditched the long-held view of keeping a strategic presence in Kabul through a friendly government, Islamabad now confronts several critical questions. Will it be able to assert the “multi-ethnic and broad-based” card it has been waving since writing off the Taliban? How will it remove the deeply embedded mistrust within the Pashtuns vis-à-vis the Northern Alliance that comprises Tajik, Uzbek and Hazara ethnic groups?

These apprehensions are real. Dr Abdullah Abdullah, the Northern Alliance’s foreign minister, told a press conference at Jabel Siraj soon after the fall of Mazar-e-Sharif that the “US policy on Afghanistan should not be shaped through Pakistan…because we have been the target of Pakistani dis-information.”

How long will it take for Pakistan to appease the Alliance is the question the policy-makers are asking. And that is a big question, especially since the NA seems to have given both Pakistan and the US a fait accompli by entering Kabul after the Taliban withdrew from the city overnight. “Death to Pakistan,” were the chants that welcomed Northern Alliance troops in Kabul on Tuesday. Later in the day, hooligans looted computers and blankets and whatever else they could lay their hands on from the Pakistani embassy in Kabul. And the talk of “Punjabi generals having brutalised Afghanistan through the Taliban” is bound to resurface in northern Afghanistan as well, where the general perception likens Pakistani military with Punjabis.

Thirdly, and most importantly, will Pakistan be able to stem the Taliban spillover into the tribal areas which served as the backbone of the militia. Most of the Taliban leaders and activists will most likely take refuge in the seven agencies of the tribal area, posing another challenge to Islamabad, especially if they try to either use the areas for launching guerilla operations or fomenting trouble for Islamabad through armed tribesmen. “That is a real danger and could pit Pakistan army against these people,” says a top official in Islamabad.

Until Wednesday, Pakistan’s frantic calls for the de-militarisation of Kabul – “No single group must control Kabul” – and a fair representation to the Pashtun Afghans appeared to have fallen on deaf ears as far as the Northern Alliance was concerned. Whether and how the United Nations plans to achieve and implement its five-point plan for Afghanistan is still unclear, particularly in view of a statement by former president Burhanuddin Rabbani. In an interview with the Al-Jazeera TV, Rabbani almost rejected the King Zahir Shah option by saying that the ex-monarch could come to Kabul as an ordinary citizen but not as the head of a government.

However, in a statement from Rome November 14, Zahir Shah urged the Afghans to remain calm, avoid revenge and await his return following the fall of the capital Kabul. “Very soon, I will return to serve my country, not as a monarch, but as a servant of Afghanistan,” the 87-year-old Shah said.

“The real problems will begin now. Afghanistan does not lend itself easily to good governance and the fault-lines run pretty deep,” says an analyst. All this leaves the Afghan scene very murky and confused.

Diplomats in Islamabad, while happy with the fall of the Taliban, remain unsure of the situation, however. “The NA does not have a good record and in fact it was incessant fighting among these commanders that led to the rise of the Taliban in the first place,” says one.

The danger of infighting remains. The crisis could deepen if Zahir Shah is not accepted or the NA refuses to share power with the Pashtun elements. Other mujahideen could then enter the fray and try to take control of their respective areas.

"The UN has to play a very important role. Its special representative for Afghanistan, Lakhdar Brahimi needs to move fast and assemble disparate Afghan groups together in the next few days to chart out the future political set up. If that attempt fails, then we will have another problem at our hands,” says a diplomat.

Pakistani officials admit that the power vacuum has to be filled and quickly. “The Taliban power has been decimated. Many commanders have defected and a force of nearly 15,000 is stranded in Kunduz. They are likely to be butchered once they run out of ammunition and supplies. Those who have defected have simply become commanders in their respective areas again. There is a danger that they will once again start acting independent of any central authority. That is why it is important to have central control,” says an official in Islamabad.

Filed on November 20th 2001.