Situating Workable Response continues....

Peace-building is one important means of addressing insecurity, yet

most of the peace-building measures in Afghanistan have been at a

political level, where there are links to warlordism, corruption, or

criminality, or it has been target-limited, such as the disarmament

programmes. Other initiatives, such as the Action Plan for Peace, Justice

and Reconciliation and the Peace Commission, are significant, but lack

clarity and are primarily concerned with military peace and reconciliation

at the national level. With sufficient resources and political will, these

initiatives have the potential to improve the comprehensive security

situation in the country. The capacity of Afghan communities to resolve

their own disputes, and build and sustain peace, has largely been

11 neglected in the planning. The recent deterioration in security,

particularly in the south and south-east of Afghanistan, is an evidence of

the fact that the ‘top-down’ approach by itself is inadequate without

parallel nationwide comprehensive peace-building efforts.

Decades of war have not only undermined the social cohesion at local

levels, they also have aggravated poverty, which is itself an underlying

cause of insecurity. Nearly twenty years of Oxfam programme experience

in Afghanistan, interviews with peace-building practitioners, and a recent

Oxfam Security Survey of five hundred people in six provinces, show that

local disputes are often related to resources, particularly land and water.

To a lesser degree, they also relate to families and women, or to ethnic, tribal, and inter-community differences.  The

resulting insecurity, not only destroys quality of life and impedes

development work, but is also exploited by criminal or anti-government

groups to strengthen their positions in the larger conflict. Perceived

security threats also impact on local security: such threats are diverse and

configured differently in different localities. The Taleban are not the only

threat, as is sometimes portrayed, but warlords, criminals, and

international and national security forces are also perceived as posing

significant threats.

To be continued....