Progress and Pitfalls of “Peace-Building”

in Afghanistan continues...

A more significant underlying problem is the decision to reconstruct

Afghanistan’s government on a UN formula proposed during the 1990s,

known as “broad-based government.” This formula acknowledges the

traditional ethnic-linguistic-religious fragmentation of Afghan society

that had crystallized in the latter days of the Taleban period.

The Taleban were drawn heavily from the Pushtun ethnicity, Afghanistan’s largest

group and traditional rulers, located in the south and east and straddling

the porous border with Pakistan. The anti-Taleban forces were primarily

an on-again-off-again alliance of minority ethnic groups based in the

center and north of the country, especially the Hazara, Tajik, and Uzbek.

The Bonn Process produced a government that, although headed by

Karzai, who is a leading Pushtun, nonetheless was drawn heavily from

northern minority ethnic leaders, thus alienating many Pushtun

tribesmen.

Moreover, the formula for rebuilding the state has been

weighed toward creating a strong central government, though the light

American military footprint opened the door for warlords to return and

entrench themselves in the provinces. In a country that traditionally had a

weak state and strong social determinants, a push for a strongly

centralized government means an inevitable showdown with the powerful

warlords.

Indeed, Afghanistan’s political scenario in 2003 demonstrated that

such a showdown was already underway. In Herat, Ismael Khan claims to

be the Amir of Afghanistan’s five western provinces, and controls a

30,000-man militia and lucrative customs posts on the borders with Iran

and Turkmenistan.

Then, in an August shuffle, Ismael Khan was forced to step down as provincial military commander, under a rule that

an individual could not hold a civil and a military position simultaneously. Ismael Khan has thus far resisted a December order to demobilize his militia, claiming that it is already part of the Afghan

National Army. In August, Karzai also changed three provincial governors

and fired or transferred 20 provincial or district security chiefs. Most

notably, Kandahar Governor Gul Agha Sherzai was called to Kabul, where

he traded jobs with Minister of Urban Development Yusuf Pashtoon.

To be continued....