دافغان ملت ملي مترقي ګوند

 Afghanistan Social Democratic Party

Afghan Dilemma: Internal Factors and External Involvement

By: Ajmal Shams

Security situation in Afghanistan including the capital Kabul has been deteriorating with little hope of improvement in the near future. Whether it is suicide attack by the insurgents or bombing by coalition forces targeting the former, the major victims are always the innocent civilians. Despite a gradually increasing sense of resentment against the foreign troops, majority of Afghans are still convinced that the presence of coalition forces is vital for the minimal peace and stability they witness since the Afghan government seems neither to have achieved the capacity nor the credibility to consolidate its writ over the entire country.  

Over the past few months, Pakistan has been under tremendous pressure from both the US and NATO to do more in its fight against terrorism. The Democratic-dominated congress has been critical of the Bush administration for being too lenient towards Pakistan in spite of the latter’s inadequate support towards preventing the ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan. This is partly due to a vigorous media campaign during the last several months by Afghan President Hamid Karzai, explicitly holding Pakistan responsible for the continuing violence in his country. Pakistan, on its part, has been blaming the Afghan Government for being incompetent to tackle its internal problem.

It is an open secret, however, that without a patronage and sponsorship, the insurgency, if supposedly indigenous, would have died down long ago. Last year in October, Pakistani President General Musharraf while acknowledging movement of militants across the border into Afghanistan also admitted that some Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) officers in his country might be assisting the insurgents. This makes Pakistan’s overall role look more questionable as to why such abetting goes unchecked. Speculations have also been going around that the Pakistani government is divided on its Afghan foreign policy with Musharraf being highly committed to rooting out religious militancy while certain quarters in his military particularly its intelligence wing ISI covertly supporting the cross border militancy through secret links. Irrespective of whether such presumption could be true, the fact remains that ISI has had a long-standing relationship with religious groups of Afghanistan dating back to the pre-communist era.

The Pakistani proposal to fence and mine its border with Afghanistan as part of its efforts to prevent cross-border terrorism remained the subject of some heated debate for a while, receiving more opposition than support. Although the idea of mining the border was abandoned in the face of growing international criticism due to global opposition of anti-personal mines, the Pakistani government did manage, however, to fence a few sections of the border. From Afghanistan perspective fencing the border bears more significance than mining due to the sensitive nature and historical background of Durand Line. While Pakistan from its perspective could give the impression by arguing that now with more controlled border any violence taking place in Afghanistan is entirely Afghanistan-specific. Whatever Pakistan’s ultimate objective by fencing the border might be, the consensus against the action exists even among the Pakistani polity and intelligentsia.

The way the Afghan government has been handling the situation is not based on political wisdom and ground realities either. In spite of the fact that the democratization process has begun with peaceful holding of elections for presidency, the parliament and provincial assemblies; the rampant corruption, lawlessness, drug trafficking and warlordism have hampered genuine efforts for institution-building. It has been almost five years since the over-throw of the Taliban regime and millions of dollars in aid have been poured into the country but without any visible outputs in terms of socio-economic progress and physical infrastructure development. The ongoing insurgency in Afghanistan, together with a foreign factor, also has roots in the political atmosphere prevalent in the country ever since the Taliban were overthrown. The fact that the South and East of the country, have largely been marginalized, has been a big question mark for the Afghan government.  Extreme poverty, economic disparity and frustration are some of the factors that could easily misguide, particularly the youth, into religious militancy where the anger is expressed in the form of extremist action. President Karzai has been steering the country through extremely difficult circumstances. It is also true that he has a challenging task of keeping the nation together but he must do so in a more shrewd and fair manner.

Bringing security to Afghanistan is a bilateral issue where the political will, steadfastness, political courage and wisdom is needed from both Afghanistan and Pakistan. No matter how much effort one partner makes unless the other partner follows suit, the ‘common’ goal could never be achieved.

The writer is President of the Afghanistan Social Democratic Party (well know as Afghan Millat National Progressive Party) - Courtesy: The Frontier Post, 22 April 2007

Copyright © Afghan Millat 2007-2013 All Rights Reserved