Integrity Score 380
No Records Found
No Records Found
Progress and Pitfalls of “Peace-Building”
in Afghanistan
continues....
Similar attempts to get the powerful northern warlords Abdur Rashid
Dostum and Atta Mohammed to take posts in Kabul and allow their
militias to be demobilized is yet to bear fruit, but after renewed sharp
fighting in October between the two forces, a ceasefire-to include
disarmament was reached in November. Also, as noted earlier, Defense
Minister Fahim’s Shura-yi Nazar (Council of the North) militia is caught
squarely in the crosshairs of the Disarmamant, Demobilization and
Reintegration (DDR) of ex-combatants program, as well. DDR is the
first step towards transition from war to peace and as the name suggests
aims to a sustained social and economic reintegration of ex-combatants
into a peaceful society through demobilisation of armed groups.
Other important transitions included the appointment of Afghan-American
Ahmed Ali Jalali to the key post of Interior Minister in January, the
accidental death in a plane crash of Mines and Industry Minister Joma
Mohammad Mohammadi in February, arrival of new U.S. Ambassador
Zalmay Khalilzad in November, and the retirement of U.N. Special Representative Lakhdar Brahimi at the end of December 2003.
Conflictual political interests were largely reflected in dissident voices
which scathingly criticized the Bonn process and the current “puppet”
government.
Mr. Shahmahmood Miakhel pointed out that Afghanistan was in a
state of denial as far as the process of nation-building is concerned.
According to him the government adopted a “cheap-approach”— arousing
a lot of expectations from the people that they could hardly fulfill due to
misgovernance. An important element of misgovernance stressed by him
was incompetence. According to him, incompetent people were placed in
highly responsible positions and that the Parliament was backed by the
drug lords, war lords and criminal elements. He also stressed upon the
absence of a good media policy and a poorly designed civil service
commission imposed upon by external experts who failed to understand
the ground realities. Mr. Miakhel questioned the implementability and
affordability of a model of governance which in order to become successful
has to be adaptive to the local situations and regretted the tendency to place
all blame upon the Al Qaeda and the Taleban.