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Afghanistan: a cauldron - II
By J. Daulat Singh
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India must now be in the vanguard of international efforts for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan.
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THE SAUR Revolution, Afghanistan's third moderniser regime, remained in power from 1978 to 1992. In more respects than otherwise, the Revolution was more a tribal, rather than an idealogical (i.e. so-called communist) one. From April 1978 till Amin's ouster in December 1979, Afghanistan was, veritably and finally, exclusively ruled by the mainstream south-central and eastern Pashtuns. But Pashtuns savouring their newly-won predominance, eschewed moderation: Amin and his Khalq cohorts barnstormed their way upto causing the collapse of the Revolution by December 1979, thus necessitating the main-force Soviet military intervention commencing December 27, 1979.
The mainstream Pashtuns in the Khalq were effectively sidelined by Babrak Kamal whom the Soviets installed in power in Kabul in January 1980. Babrak was not mainstream Pashtun; many said he was a Tajik. Whatever his origin, there is no gainsaying that he created a greatly more ethnically representative regime in Kabul; and which, in tribal terms, could be said to mark the advent of the non-Pashtuns to rulership. It is quite another matter that he was looked upon as a Soviet puppet and stooge; and eventually had to give way to Najibullah, who again was an ebullient mainstream Pashtun, but noticeably wiser than Amin. The USSR withdrew from Afghanistan by 1990. Najibullah was ousted in 1992. The Mujahideen, or rather the congeries of groups comprising the Mujahideen, acceded to power in Kabul. There were Pashtuns of all hues; Tajiks; Uzbeks and Hazaras. While they could not agree on virtually anything, they could certainly have cobbled together a governing structure if left alone to do so. But alas, from the 19th century, the Afghans have never been left alone to chalk out their destiny. Now, and again, Pakistan fomented not consensus, but serious discord and violence. Its chosen vehicle was Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, an eastern Pasthun, but whom all Afghan regimes looked upon since the early 1970s (when he began his depredations against earlier regimes) as a Pakistani stooge. Hekmatyar harried and bombarded Rabbani and his regime in Kabul during most of the 1992-95 period, but to no avail. Thousands died in Kabul and the city was extensively damaged or destroyed. When Hekmatyar was discovered to be a failure, Pakistan dumped him. Hekmatyar fled for his life, eventually appearing in Iran, where he is still ensconced. Rabbani and his so-called Government in Kabul remained an ineffective and ragged mob. There was a power vacuum for all intents and purposes.
Hindsight, and dispassionate scholarship, now tells us, however, that the so-called ``power vacuum'' was not an ineluctable consequence as much as it was a Pakistani contrivance. After having supported Hekmatyar, and because he did not find acceptance, he was dumped. Pakistan then financed and armed various Mujahideen groups and provoked internecine strife. And all this while, it was quietly nurturing its Taliban option.
The Taliban was a denominationally incandescent name given to a group of south-eastern (Kandahar) Pashtuns and Pakistani army and intelligence operatives, along with narco-hoodlums, who together set up a Government or a so-called emirate in Kandahar. With narco-money and arms, the Taliban, after invoking the call for a jehad against the `infidels' in Kabul and elsewhere, gradually bought out the quiescence and neutrality of some of the neighbouring Pashtun tribes. Slowly but surely from 1996, fully armed, staffed and led by officers and other ranks of the Pakistan Army and the ISI, the Taliban went on the offensive. The rest is history. The Taliban seized Kabul and the bulk of the country.
It is now fairly well established that Osama and most of the Al-Qaeda operatives were trained and funded by the CIA to fight the Soviet forces in Afghanistan during much of the 1980s. Also now established on the testimony of several American scholars and commentators is the fact of the U.S. having initially tacitly acquiesced to the creation by Pakistan of the Taliban: but this to facilitate oil-gas pipelines from Central Asia and not mindless medieval barbarisms. And so it is not surprising that America's reaction against Osama and the Taliban has been so spontaneously ferocious. But will the Americans ever acknowledge that but for Pakistan none of these would have become monsters in the first place?
The combination of the U.S. formidable air power and the United Front ground forces will achieve final sway and victory over the Taliban before very long. Al-Qaeda will be found and eliminated. Osama too will not escape chastisement: though, during the foreseeable future whether the U.S. will officially acknowledge his neutralisation is doubtful, and remains to be seen.
What of the post-Taliban scenario and denouement? In a word, let alone the inter-ethnic rivalries and animosities, the intra-ethnic lack of unity and consensus will inhibit any smooth and trouble-free denouement in Kabul. Ahmad Shah Masood, the Tajik, and Abdul Haq, the eastern Pashtun, were credible rallying points. But that's why the Taliban got rid of the former, and Pakistan (the ISI is most reliably said to have betrayed him to the Taliban) the latter.
King Zahir Shah is old and infirm; and he was not liked very much towards the end of his reign as it is. So he or any other Mohammadzai, even Hamid Karzai, are all non-starters. In short, the prospects in the short term for social and political order returning to a post-Taliban Afghanistan on an enduring basis are problematic in the extreme, but not impossible. If the world community is genuinely serious about preventing abominable human deprivation and deaths in Afghanistan, the following are incumbent:
a) the U.N. proclaiming some kind of present-day trusteeship over Afghanistan. (the fourth moderniser?). b) The major powers and those in the broad neighbourhood must agree to be concretely engaged in the effort to restore a tranquil civil order in the country. c) The country is largely if not wholly demilitarised and de-weaponised. d) The country is endowed with a governing legislature and executive (and of course the other usual appurtenances of state) which is genuinely representative of the mosaic of ethnicities, and reflective of the country's own hoary institutions of this genre. e) The polity is made to function along democratic and liberal lines. f) Afghanistan is concretely and enduringly insulated and protected from interference or inimical acts by and from neighbouring countries.
And, finally, what might India do in this imbroglio? For one, let us deal with Afghanistan autonomously and not in reaction to what Pakistan says or does. But first and above all, let us prepare ourselves to deal effectively and proactively with any spillover into India of terrorists fleeing or deflected from Afghanistan.
For another, we have been grossly remiss in squandering our traditional and historical linkages with the Pashtuns of Afghanistan. We and the bulk of the world community may have had no option but to support the United Front after 1996. But why did we gratuitously sever all meaningful links and contacts with the Pashtuns? Most of Afghanistan's Pashtuns - particularly the eastern Pashtuns - looked askance at the Taliban. But they were left defenceless and unsupported against the brutally repressive, Pakistan-backed Taliban regime.
Accordingly, we must now be in the vanguard of international efforts for relief and reconstruction in Afghanistan. In point of fact, together with the ethnic groups of Afghanistan, particularly the Pashtuns, and since we do not covet territory or privileged place, access or returns, we must work together with them to restore peace and stability to Afghanistan in particular, and the region as a whole.
(Concluded)
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