Exit west, enter chaos

Times of India Crest Edition, February 6, 2010


Kabul will once again be the backdrop of an intense power struggle. The West wants a power-sharing deal between the Taliban and Karzai, but Karzai doesn’t really stand a chance When Nadir returned to his homeland from the West, following the collapse of the Taliban, one of his first ventures was a restaurant at one of the most popular picnic spots frequented by Afghans. Sitting there and sipping tea, overlooking the waters of the placid lake, it was easy for him to believe that his dream of peace and, perhaps , prosperity was possible. Well, that dream died several years ago.

The restaurant had to be abandoned , not because of the worsening conflict or the resurgent Taliban, but because of the threat from a local commander (who still calls the shots in the area; Nadir's name has been changed to ensure his safety).

While 'strategic imperatives' and the 'war against terror' occupy much of the space in the mental map of Afghanistan that observers outside the country carry around with them, for Afghan citizens the daily diet of violence comes in myriad forms.

Large pockets of southern Afghanistan face the brunt of the intensifying conflict between the progovernment forces and the anti-government armed groups.

In many other areas, the threat emanates from the local commander, the predatory muscleman or the rapacious leader. It also comes from a police force and an army, both of which are under-trained , underpaid and lack effective command and control structures . Terror comes as well from international troops trying to flush out the insurgents through aerial bombing . Remarkably, too, the unraveling of social, political and economic structures has vitiated the lives of Afghan citizens.

Though suicide bombings and mountain warfare encapsulate the most common public images of the country, detailed surveys of Afghans reveal a contrary picture. In an Asia Foundation survey last year, 17 per cent said they had directly experienced some form of violence in the previous year. Of this group, only 9 per cent said they had experienced violence from Taliban.

Worryingly, an equal proportion said they had experienced violence from the international military forces, while another 7 per cent attributed the violence to actions of the national police and the national army.

An overwhelming proportion said they were victims of crime and lawlessness . The survey, it must be underlined , does not record actual occurrences , but the perceptions of Afghans.

An overwhelming focus on 'stability' in the past eight years has led to the neglect of the needs of Afghanistan's extraordinary citizens as predatory individuals were put back in power for quick fix solutions, and pernicious practices tolerated in the name of strategy.

Now, it appears likely that the desire of influential western troop-contributing countries to make a hasty exit will result in sacrifices of hardwon rights, civil liberties and democratic practices.

'Reintegration and Reconciliation' and 'Afghanisation' are the new buzz - words, most recently bandied about in the London Conference, where western nations laid out their plans to begin handover of security operations to Afghan forces.

Despite paeans to the Constitution of Afghanistan, civil society groups fear that even the minimal rights to life, liberty, equality and safety for all sections of the population that have been won at great cost, remain extremely vulnerable and may be the first point of compromise.

The signs are already there. The initial signals include rearming of communities to ensure quick and cheap 'security' - even though it was the population's hatred for armed militias that had earlier led the way to the rise of the Taliban; increasing rhetoric about the suitability of 'Democracy' for the Afghan temperament, even though Afghans have had their own brand of participatory decision making for thousands of years; and a focus on supporting 'traditional justice systems' , which, women fear, will revert them to customary law practices that are biased against them. The constitution, the government and the parliament have proven themselves inadequate defences against a growing trend of conservatism that is dovetailing smoothly into an ideology of political compromise that might save the face of the West as they look for an exit.

You only have to ask the brave Afghan women who took to the streets to protest against a Shia personal law introduced by the government that necessitated submission to the husband in bed and permission for leaving the house. Or, the young student and journalist, Pervez Kambakhsh, who now lives in asylum - after he was sentenced to death (the sentence was commuted to 20 years and he was finally pardoned by the President) for downloading an article on the role of women in Islam. Or the women who ran away from violent abusive marriages only to find themselves in the Pule Charkhi prison outside Kabul for having violated social custom.

Most countries have taken decades to develop and strengthen jurisprudence that reflects basic human rights and values. But Afghanistan could well be on the brink of a path of reversal.

If further rights are eroded through a combination of increasingly violent conservatism in Afghanistan , the growing impatience of the West and the refusal of regional countries like India to take a stand, it will all have been done in the name of the new magic words - 'Afghanisation' and 'Afghan leadership.'