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Progress and Pitfalls of “Peace-Building”
in Afghanistan
continues....
Building on this, the Afghanistan Compact recognises that ‘security
remains a fundamental prerequisite for achieving stability and
development in Afghanistan’. It states that security cannot be provided by
military means alone, but requires ‘good governance, justice and the rule
of law, reinforced by reconstruction and development’. Therefore, in a
sense, the Compact as a whole is intended to address the problem of
16 insecurity. Measures aiming directly to address insecurity are outlined in
Annex I to the Compact.
In particular, the presence of international forces and provincial reconstruction teams, combined with the expansion of
the Afghan national army and a national and border police, are intended
to prevent reemergence of violence. While there is no doubt that such
measures ensure stability, they are intrinsically limited in their capacities
to consolidate peace.
In a society with a well-founded mistrust on foreigninterference, and in which local and tribal affiliations are powerful, foreign and government forces may be in a position to enforce calm in some areas, but have limited capacity to strengthen it to the level of perpetual peace. The Compact also provides for the ‘disbandment of all
illegal armed groups’, but so far only limited steps have been taken to
implement this, rather as the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board (JCMB) observes, ‘rearming has taken place in some areas in response to the perceptions of a growing security threat’.
To be continued....