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The Taliban have come a long way
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Feeling let-down at being ignored and kept out of the Qatar talks between the Taliban and the United States, Afghan government officials have been sending feelers that they would be holding their own negotiations with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia. They even said it could happen before the formal opening of the Taliban office in Qatar. It sounds more like wishful thinking in view of the situation on the ground because there has been no indication that the Taliban are ready to change their stance against negotiations with the administration headed by President Hamid Karzai.
Besides, the Saudis have shown no interest in assuming the role of mediator unless certain tough conditions were met. One such condition was that the Taliban dissociate themselves from Al-Qaeda, which was founded by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and is a sworn enemy of the Saudi royal family. Until now, the Taliban also have shown no inclination to make such a commitment publicly, though their supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has lately been promising not to allow anyone to use Afghanistan’s soil against other countries. This could mean greater Taliban commitment than in the past not to harbour non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda. However, the Taliban were unable to honour similar commitments they made when they were in power.
Once bitten twice shy, the Saudi government is aware that peacemaking in Afghanistan could be a daunting, and at times impossible, task. It attempted to do this before and failed. Once it even got Afghan Mujahideen leaders fighting the Soviet occupying forces to make peace and unity vows at the holy Ka’aba in Mecca, only to forget and violate their pledges once they returned to the killing fields of Afghanistan. As some Saudi officials said earlier, their government won’t get involved in efforts to end the Afghan conflict unless they saw a real chance of success of attempts at peacemaking.
In its desperation to talk to the Taliban, the US didn’t bother to take the Afghan government into confidence while entering several months ago into these talks. It also didn’t inform Kabul that the US was ready to allow the Taliban to open an office in Qatar’s capital, Doha. The Taliban had made it clear they wouldn’t talk to the Karzai government. As the US didn’t want to miss this rare opportunity to enter into talks with the Taliban, it readily agreed to the condition that the Afghan government would be kept out of the process. A price had to be paid to make the elusive Taliban to talk.
No doubt the beleaguered government in Kabul was annoyed, but the Americans knew they would be able to persuade it to agree to the Qatar peace process. They were aware that Kabul didn’t really have other options if it wanted the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. Kabul’s repeated overtures to the Taliban had been rebuffed and President Karzai’s pleas to Mullah Omar to tell him his address so that he could be contacted had gone unanswered. The Taliban were now going to have an address and it didn’t matter if it was in Qatar or somewhere else. The Taliban office would also address Kabul’s repeated complaints that Pakistan wasn’t letting the Taliban enter into talks with the Afghan government. If the Taliban agree, Karzai could now directly approach them in Qatar, bypassing Pakistan.
Qatar also kept the Afghan government in the dark about these developments. It knew the US would take care of the diplomatic sensitivities involving Afghanistan. Subsequently, Afghan officials said that Qatar would be sending a delegation to Kabul to explain the tentative agreement on opening the Taliban office in Doha. It has been a while that the Qataris were supposed to travel to Kabul. That they haven’t yet come could mean that Qatar primarily wants the US to clarify the situation to the Afghan government.
All sides to the Afghan conflict have been dying to talk to the Taliban. On occasions the rush to contact the Taliban resulted in embarrassing mistakes. The Western nations, and even the Afghan government, sometimes ended up talking to the wrong people. Twice in the recent past, the British, the Americans, the Dutch and the Afghans met fake Taliban, and even impostors. Once talks were held in Dubai with men claiming to be Taliban but who were unable to deliver. Then, a man who was supposed to be an important Taliban commander and was given due protocol, provided money and flown to Kabul for talks was eventually recognised as an impostor and described as “the shopkeeper from Quetta”! For a shopkeeper to be able to dupe US, British and Afghan intelligence agents says something about the calibre and naivety of the overrated secret services of some of the big powers of the world. It seems the US will now have to spend some more money to locate and punish the clever and daring shopkeeper.
The inability of the Afghan government and its allies to differentiate between the real and fake Taliban even led to tragic consequences late last year when former Afghan president Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the high-sounding but ineffectual High Council for Peace, was assassinated at his Kabul home by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban emissary. His assassination was not only a setback for the sputtering Afghan peace process, which in any case was stalled, but also a factor in widening the distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Afghan government has yet to withdraw its claim that Pakistan’s ISI was involved in a Taliban conspiracy to assassinate Rabbani. Pakistan had angrily denied the accusation and explained that the suicide bomber was an Afghan refugee living in Balochistan.
The Taliban’s Qatar office hasn’t become formally operational yet and already there are disagreements on the issue between the parties to the Afghan conflict. Understandably angry, the Afghan government is insisting the office cannot be equated with a political venue and that it doesn’t mean recognition of the Taliban movement. Noises have also been made that the Taliban would use the office to raise funds. Qatar would certainly take care of these things, as reports from Doha indicate that the Taliban officials there aren’t accessible. The Taliban finally have an address, but only a few people would know the place or gain access to it.
Whatever name, diplomatic or political, is given to the Taliban’s Qatar office, it is a victory for the Mullah Omar-led movement to win recognition as a legitimate negotiating partner for deciding Afghanistan’s future. The Taliban have come a long way from being shunned and demonised to be appeased and seated at the negotiating table with US officials. They also risked disunity by agreeing to talk as there is strong opposition to the idea within their ranks, particularly from commanders and fighters.
The Qatar talks may not yield much initially, particularly if the prisoners’ swap demanded by the Taliban doesn’t happen due to US concerns and Karzai’s opposition, but a good beginning has been made and the principle of negotiating and finding a political solution has been accepted by all sides hitherto intent on achieving a military settlement. In fact, even the willingness to talk is a significant breakthrough after a decade of war, though reaching a negotiated end to the conflict is stall beyond reach. And contrary to the widely-held belief, Pakistan is very much part of the Qatar process after having played a critical role to convince the Taliban to agree to the talks.
Rahimullah Yusufzai
Tuesday, February 07, 2012
Feeling let-down at being ignored and kept out of the Qatar talks between the Taliban and the United States, Afghan government officials have been sending feelers that they would be holding their own negotiations with the Taliban in Saudi Arabia. They even said it could happen before the formal opening of the Taliban office in Qatar. It sounds more like wishful thinking in view of the situation on the ground because there has been no indication that the Taliban are ready to change their stance against negotiations with the administration headed by President Hamid Karzai.
Besides, the Saudis have shown no interest in assuming the role of mediator unless certain tough conditions were met. One such condition was that the Taliban dissociate themselves from Al-Qaeda, which was founded by the Saudi-born Osama bin Laden and is a sworn enemy of the Saudi royal family. Until now, the Taliban also have shown no inclination to make such a commitment publicly, though their supreme leader, Mullah Mohammad Omar, has lately been promising not to allow anyone to use Afghanistan’s soil against other countries. This could mean greater Taliban commitment than in the past not to harbour non-state actors such as Al-Qaeda. However, the Taliban were unable to honour similar commitments they made when they were in power.
Once bitten twice shy, the Saudi government is aware that peacemaking in Afghanistan could be a daunting, and at times impossible, task. It attempted to do this before and failed. Once it even got Afghan Mujahideen leaders fighting the Soviet occupying forces to make peace and unity vows at the holy Ka’aba in Mecca, only to forget and violate their pledges once they returned to the killing fields of Afghanistan. As some Saudi officials said earlier, their government won’t get involved in efforts to end the Afghan conflict unless they saw a real chance of success of attempts at peacemaking.
In its desperation to talk to the Taliban, the US didn’t bother to take the Afghan government into confidence while entering several months ago into these talks. It also didn’t inform Kabul that the US was ready to allow the Taliban to open an office in Qatar’s capital, Doha. The Taliban had made it clear they wouldn’t talk to the Karzai government. As the US didn’t want to miss this rare opportunity to enter into talks with the Taliban, it readily agreed to the condition that the Afghan government would be kept out of the process. A price had to be paid to make the elusive Taliban to talk.
No doubt the beleaguered government in Kabul was annoyed, but the Americans knew they would be able to persuade it to agree to the Qatar peace process. They were aware that Kabul didn’t really have other options if it wanted the Taliban to come to the negotiating table. Kabul’s repeated overtures to the Taliban had been rebuffed and President Karzai’s pleas to Mullah Omar to tell him his address so that he could be contacted had gone unanswered. The Taliban were now going to have an address and it didn’t matter if it was in Qatar or somewhere else. The Taliban office would also address Kabul’s repeated complaints that Pakistan wasn’t letting the Taliban enter into talks with the Afghan government. If the Taliban agree, Karzai could now directly approach them in Qatar, bypassing Pakistan.
Qatar also kept the Afghan government in the dark about these developments. It knew the US would take care of the diplomatic sensitivities involving Afghanistan. Subsequently, Afghan officials said that Qatar would be sending a delegation to Kabul to explain the tentative agreement on opening the Taliban office in Doha. It has been a while that the Qataris were supposed to travel to Kabul. That they haven’t yet come could mean that Qatar primarily wants the US to clarify the situation to the Afghan government.
All sides to the Afghan conflict have been dying to talk to the Taliban. On occasions the rush to contact the Taliban resulted in embarrassing mistakes. The Western nations, and even the Afghan government, sometimes ended up talking to the wrong people. Twice in the recent past, the British, the Americans, the Dutch and the Afghans met fake Taliban, and even impostors. Once talks were held in Dubai with men claiming to be Taliban but who were unable to deliver. Then, a man who was supposed to be an important Taliban commander and was given due protocol, provided money and flown to Kabul for talks was eventually recognised as an impostor and described as “the shopkeeper from Quetta”! For a shopkeeper to be able to dupe US, British and Afghan intelligence agents says something about the calibre and naivety of the overrated secret services of some of the big powers of the world. It seems the US will now have to spend some more money to locate and punish the clever and daring shopkeeper.
The inability of the Afghan government and its allies to differentiate between the real and fake Taliban even led to tragic consequences late last year when former Afghan president Prof Burhanuddin Rabbani, head of the high-sounding but ineffectual High Council for Peace, was assassinated at his Kabul home by a suicide bomber posing as a Taliban emissary. His assassination was not only a setback for the sputtering Afghan peace process, which in any case was stalled, but also a factor in widening the distrust between Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Afghan government has yet to withdraw its claim that Pakistan’s ISI was involved in a Taliban conspiracy to assassinate Rabbani. Pakistan had angrily denied the accusation and explained that the suicide bomber was an Afghan refugee living in Balochistan.
The Taliban’s Qatar office hasn’t become formally operational yet and already there are disagreements on the issue between the parties to the Afghan conflict. Understandably angry, the Afghan government is insisting the office cannot be equated with a political venue and that it doesn’t mean recognition of the Taliban movement. Noises have also been made that the Taliban would use the office to raise funds. Qatar would certainly take care of these things, as reports from Doha indicate that the Taliban officials there aren’t accessible. The Taliban finally have an address, but only a few people would know the place or gain access to it.
Whatever name, diplomatic or political, is given to the Taliban’s Qatar office, it is a victory for the Mullah Omar-led movement to win recognition as a legitimate negotiating partner for deciding Afghanistan’s future. The Taliban have come a long way from being shunned and demonised to be appeased and seated at the negotiating table with US officials. They also risked disunity by agreeing to talk as there is strong opposition to the idea within their ranks, particularly from commanders and fighters.
The Qatar talks may not yield much initially, particularly if the prisoners’ swap demanded by the Taliban doesn’t happen due to US concerns and Karzai’s opposition, but a good beginning has been made and the principle of negotiating and finding a political solution has been accepted by all sides hitherto intent on achieving a military settlement. In fact, even the willingness to talk is a significant breakthrough after a decade of war, though reaching a negotiated end to the conflict is stall beyond reach. And contrary to the widely-held belief, Pakistan is very much part of the Qatar process after having played a critical role to convince the Taliban to agree to the talks.