The Hindu : Nation building and anti-terrorism

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Sep 07, 2002

Opinion

Opinion - Editorials

Nation building and anti-terrorism

THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT on Afghanistan's President, Hamid Karzai, and the tremors that it set off globally have once again drawn attention to the extreme fragility of the current dispensation in that war-ravaged country. This bold attack, which was carried out in defiance of the U. S.-manned security ring around Mr. Karzai and on his home turf of Kandahar, shows that those prepared to use violence to achieve their objectives still feel free to operate. While the identity of the would-be assassin, who was killed before he could do serious damage, has not been fully established the fact that the attempt took place just before the first anniversary of the Al-Qaeda inspired attack on targets in the U. S. suggests that the remnants of this terror outfit are still active in the field. If the attempt had been successful it could have led to an unravelling of the coalition Government in Kabul which would in turn have been the prelude to another period of chaos in Afghanistan. The return to such conditions, in a situation where the Al-Qaeda/Taliban is apparently still active in the field, could once again have placed the world in serious peril.

At the same time the international response to the violent incidents that took place in Afghanistan on Thursday is symptomatic of certain fundamental shortcomings in the concerted approach that the global community has taken in respect of that country. An attempt to assassinate a political leader, and an unsuccessful attempt at that, was taken as a matter of greater concern than the deaths of over a dozen civilians and injuries to a score more caused by a bomb explosion in Kabul. One fundamental shortcoming of the blue-print of those currently engaged in the nation-building exercise in Afghanistan is that the fragility or strength of the Kabul dispensation has been made to be dependent on the life or death of one person. It is difficult to refute the argument that Mr. Karzai is the one political figure around whom the clutch of warlords and faction-heads (each of whom has at best a limited territorial or ethnic base) can rally. Yet the attempt on Mr. Karzai's life brings out the urgent need to build an intra-Afghan dispensation that is not so centralised on one personality, or so dependent on the support of the United States.

The slow progress towards the building of a dispensation that is not so Karzai-centric is also probably attributable to other flaws in the current global approach to Afghanistan one of which is that the much needed nation-building exercise is given a very distinctively lower priority than second place to the hunt against the Taliban/Al-Qaeda network. Such nation-building exercises as are taking place also appear to place excessive emphasis on the military-related aspects. Yesterday's attack took place just as the idea of spreading the presence of international security forces outside the Afghan capital — at least to the extent of covering some of the other major centres such as Kandahar and Mazar-e-Sharif — was gaining momentum and this might now become the new thrust of the global coalition's policy. The International Security Assistance Force personnel have played a very useful role as buffers between war-like factions and as advisers on security matters but it should not be forgotten that most of the more powerful factions that are represented in the Kabul coalition are able to maintain a semblance of law and order (in their own fashion) in the regions under their control. The greater need does not appear to be so much for additional military forces but for real assistance for other aspects of nation-building so that Afghans can have a real chance to fulfil their own developmental aspirations and to build a forward-looking nation, drawing upon its own economic potential.

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