Interview with Afghan tribal elder Naqibullah Shorish
"TALIBAN READY TO TALK TO EUROPE AND USA"
Photo: Otmar Steinbicker (l.) and Naqibullah Shorish in Aachen. Photo: Harald Krömer
07.08.2012 – During the last weeks and months there have been widely contradictory reports in the international press about the willingness of the Taliban to enter into negotiations. Who do they want to talk to, who do they not want to talk to?
aixpaix.de editor Otmar Steinbicker discussed the central questions concerning a peace settlement for Afghanistan with Naqibullah Shorish, the most important clan leader in Afghanistan. Shorish has connections to all parties including the Taliban leadership which has accepted him as a neutral mediator. He represents more than 3 million Afghans as clan chief of the Kharoti.
aixpaix.de: Is there any chance of a peaceful solution? Apparently the talks between the Taliban and the USA failed. The Taliban declared that the talks were definitely broken off.
Naqibullah Shorish: There were talks last year in Qatar between the Taliban and the USA with German mediation. These talks were concerned solely with the exchange of prisoners. For years the Taliban have been holding Bowe Bergdahl prisoner, and they wanted to exchange him for former Taliban leaders held in Guantanamo. The US negotiators in Qatar had promised their release, but the US Senate refused to ratify the agreement. The Taliban were angry, as I can well understand. [my red] In talks like this promises must be kept or it is impossible for trust to develop. The failure of these talks is especially problematical, as they are a test case for future peace talks. A successful mutual exchange of prisoners would be the starting signal for serious talks about a peace settlement. Such negotiations would then be conducted on a different level.
aixpaix.de: Recent Taliban statements on peace talks have been inconsistent. On the one hand they maintain that negotiations with the USA have definitely been called off, on the other hand they signalise a readiness to talk. What can we make of this?
Naqibullah Shorish: Yes, there have been contradictory reports in the international press recently. Yet basically the Taliban want the conflict to be settled. They are ready for talks with the Europeans and the USA. They have been prepared to negotiate for some time now and gave proof of this in talks with ISAF officers from USA, Great Britain and Germany in the summer of 2010. I had arranged the meetings and participated as mediator. They took place in July and August 2010, were solution-oriented and remarkably successful. In October 2010 they were abruptly broken off by Commander Petraeus. If the West is interested, talks could be reopened at any time – naturally without either side stipulating conditions.
aixpaix.de: The USA and the German government insist on negotiations taking place between the Taliban and the Karzai government. According to a press report, President Karzai has now asked the German Government to negotiate talks with the Taliban. Is there any chance of this?
Naqibullah Shorish: The Taliban have always said they do not want to talk to Karzai because they judge him to be a marionette of the USA and challenge the legitimacy of his government. So as far as I can see, direct talks between President Karzai and the Taliban do not seem possible in the near future. But perhaps the German Government should try, in separate talks with both sides, to explore openings and even approaches to a peace settlement. It would not be necessary for the opposite sides to talk directly to each other immediately. Diplomatic mediation in indirect negotiations has proved successful in other difficult international conflicts. Nothing should be left unattempted!
aixpaix.de: Would you be able to mediate such talks between the German Government and the Taliban as part of indirect negotiations with the Karzai government?
Naqibullah Shorish: Certainly, any time the German Government wishes. I am sure that if this wish is expressed, first talks can follow very rapidly.
aixpaix.de: Is a peace settlement between the Karzai Government and the Taliban conceivable?
Naqibullah Shorish: I don’t dare to make any such prophecy, because the Nato is an even more important participant in the conflict than the Karzai government! But talks are always useful when a solution to conflict is sought. [mine]
aixpaix.de: Where might there be openings?
Naqibullah Shorish: A first, and for me central, question would be: What can Karzai do to offer security to the Taliban? If Karzai wants peace talks, there must be a neutral province where the Taliban are not threatened by either the US-American drones or the Pakistan secret service. So it should not be a province bordering on Pakistan. In my opinion the ISAF must guarantee the security of this province.
aixpaix.de: Why should Karzai offer the Taliban security?
Naqibullah Shorish. Photo: Harald Krömer
Naqibullah Shorish: Pakistan is exerting massive pressure on the Taliban not to hold talks with the USA or with Karzai, especially since the signing of the contract between the USA and Afghanistan, and since September 2011 when 24 Pakistani soldiers lost their lives in a gunfight in the border area between Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is Pakistan and not the USA, the Taliban or Karzai, which is the main obstacle to a peace settlement in Afghanistan. So long as the Taliban leaders live in Pakistan under the eyes of the ISI secret service, they and their families are subject to massive pressure from the Pakistani secret service. Western diplomats know of at least one bomb attack by the ISI on the house of a Taliban leader who was ready to negotiate. His wife was seriously injured at that time.
In the talks between ISAF and the Taliban in the summer of 2010, this question played a major role. Both sides considered the possibility of setting up a neutral interim government in an Afghan province which would enjoy the trust of both the Karzai Government and the Taliban, so as to enable the Taliban to move to Afghanistan and escape the clutches of the ISI.
aixpaix.de: Were the ideas put forward by the ISAF officers and the Taliban leaders in their talks in summer 2010 based on your peace plan, the "Shorish Plan"?
Naqibullah Shorish: Yes. It seems very important to me to begin where there has been mutual agreement, or where ideas have been facing in a common or similar direction. That is why I have set down the first three steps the conflicting parties should take directly after the opening of peace talks:
• 1. End hostile propaganda, • 2. Release prisoners, • 3. Operate a ceasefire.
The key factor of my peace plan is a neutral interim government which would prevent civil war after the withdrawal of NATO troops in 2014, and facilitate a permanent peace settlement for all conflicting parties in Afghanistan. Provision would be made for the Taliban to form a political party and take part in free and fair elections, in the same way as everybody else.
aixpaix.de: NATO and the Karzai Government insist on the Taliban recognising the present constitution of Afghanistan.
Naqibullah Shorish: That will not and cannot work. A constitution must be the basis of national and political activity agreed upon by a consensus of all relevant forces. It cannot be imposed on a country from outside and cannot be imposed by a doubtful majority on the other groups in the same country. Since its foundation, Afghanistan has had the Loya Jirga as its constitutional assembly. The Loya Jirga will have to deliberate once again and pass a resolution on Afghanistans’s constitution so that a consensus may be arrived at which all can and are obliged to support.
Besides, the Afghan government itself does not observe the constitution, as is shown clearly in the prevailing corruption. How then are the Taliban supposed to accept this constitution?
aixpaix.de: Does this mean that the women’s rights prescribed after 2001 are going to be repealed?
Naqibullah Shorish: No, Afghanistan has a long tradition of women’s rights. It is true that women’s rights were trampled on during the Taliban period of government. But the Taliban have learnt that this was a mistake. In the meantime they have recognised the importance of the right of women and girls to an education and a career. Afghanistan’s Minister of Education has admitted that the Taliban have also changed their position with regard to girls’ schools. When 23 schools in the south of the country were closed recently, first it was said that the Taliban were to blame, but then the Minister had to concede that there were not enough teachers.
aixpaix.de: Women’s employment was not undisputed in the first years of the German Republic. Up to the fifties husbands could forbid their wives to go out to work. That means that the Taliban today is more modern than the Conservatives in Germany 50 or 60 years ago.
Naqibullah Shorish: An interesting point. Yes, that’s true.
aixpaix.de: What do the Taliban think of your peace plan?
Naqibullah Shorish: Taliban say that about 95% approve.
aixpaix.de: And the other sides?
Naqibullah Shorish: In the Afghan tribes and in the non-Pashtunish ethnic groups my ideas have met with a great deal of agreement. European diplomats take exception to the proposal for an interim government. They say that the Karzai government was democratically elected, although they realise there was electoral fraud …
aixpaix.de: ... …and in the crisis of european currency Euro, governments in Italy and Greece which were democratically elected have been very quickly replaced by interim governments.
Naqibullah Shorish: The main problem is that in the West there is no consistent line of action, let alone a peace plan, which could be seriously discussed and, if applicable, realised.
aixpaix.de: So the "Shorish Plan" is the only peace plan?
Naqibullah Shorish: It is not the only plan, but the only one which is accepted basically by one of the conflicting parties and is thus relevant.
aixpaix.de: In recent months there have been reports of serious conflict among the Taliban.
Naqibullah Shorish: At the moment there is tension between the different groups of the Taliban. A Taliban leader, Kare Mohammad Ismail, was even arrested by the Taliban leadership. This would have been impossible earlier. Essentially, there is a fraction of the Taliban which obeys the Pakistan secret service, and another which follows Afghanistan politics and does not want to listen to ISI. However: a split of the Taliban would increase the problem and not lessen it!
aixpaix.de: The Haqqani Network is often mentioned as an especially problematical group of the Taliban.
Naqibullah Shorish: Haqqani stated his strict opposition to the Qatar talks, but he has changed his mind. The talks in Qatar came as something of a surprise to many of the Taliban.
aixpaix.de: What perspectives are left to Afghanistan if no peace talks are realised or these fail?
Naqibullah Shorish: If there are no talks until 2014, there is the risk of civil war. The USA are already paying war lords who are building up and reinforcing their militia. This trend will increase when, as planned, the army is reduced by 100.000 men. These militia of the war lords are already daily involved in looting. Village militia are being set up to defend themselves against the war lords’ militia.
If it comes to a civil war, the result is foreseeable - there will be an interim government along the lines of the Taliban, but not as the USA would like and not according to the wishes of the Afghans themselves.
After Karzai: Do Afghanistan’s Presidential Elections Matter?
By contributors | Mar. 29, 2014 |
(By Julie Poucher Harbin for IslamiCommentary)
March 19 Ashraf Ghani campaign rally in the Awden desert in northern Kunduz province, Afghanistan. Photo: Twitter feed of Habib Khan Totakhil (@HabibKhanT)
Afghanistan Goes to the Polls
First, the election timeline. While Karzai is due to step down – he’s limited by the constitution from seeking another term — his departure, realistically, might not come for some time.
Provided elections go forward April 5, there’s likely to be a second round, said [the WSJ's Nathan] Hodge, which according to the IEC, would likely be sometime later in May. Taking into account further vote counting, adjudication of disputes and the like, a new president might not be in place before mid-to-late summer. (In other words, if the new president kept to his campaign promise and signed the BSA, it might not leave enough time to adjust to facts on the ground.)
Hodge warned there could be protests over the results and allegations of fraud as there was following the 2009 presidential election.
The ideal outcome for Afghans and the international community alike, he said, is an election that’s credible, seen as fair, and doesn’t become “embroiled in violence.”
There is also widespread concern, especially in insecure areas, about how the polls will be monitored, Hodge said: “Is there going to be ballot stuffing in places where security is bad? How do you win an election in parts of the country where people are worried about Taleban intimidation, where they’re worried about violence on the day of the polls ?”
“Certainly I’m not in the business of trying to predict how the election will come out but the ideal outcome at least in the eyes of the international community and most of the ordinary Afghans that we speak to, and officials we speak to, is an election that doesn’t become embroiled in violence; that there is not major or massive violent disruption of the election by the Taleban, by other groups, and that it is not a result that leads some of the factions — the traditional factions that fought each other in the (Afghan) Civil War in the 90s — to rearm… because that’s what led to considerable destruction of part of the city of Kabul, and the deaths of a lot of people in the 1990s,” said Hodge. “No one would like to see a reprise of that, but if the elections are not seen as fair, and if they are seen as giving short shrift to one or another group, then it could be potentially dangerous.”
As of this week there were nine presidential contenders remaining in the field. Former Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, and Qayyum Karzai, brother of current President Hamid Karzai, both dropped out in recent weeks.
Abdullah Abdullah (Photo: US embassy Kabul/Flickr)
One candidate who’s been seen as a likely frontrunner is Abdullah Abdullah, a former Foreign Minister who came in second place in the 2009 election with more than 30% of the vote but during the second round “withdrew from a head-to-head runoff with incumbent Karzai, claiming he lacked confidence that the ballot would be free and fair.”
Said Hodge, “He’s said to this paper (WSJ), that his main enemy in this campaign is going to be fraud.”
Another contender, one who placed a distant fourth in the 2009 election, but who’s also on the frontrunner list, is Mohammad Ashraf Ghani Ahmadzai.
Duke professor [Bruce] Lawrence — who first met him back when Ghani was an academic in the ‘70s and before Ghani joined the World Bank — recently had the chance to see him again. Ghani’s benefit is also his deficit: he is so closely connected to overseas forces that have countered the Taleban that Ghani, in Lawrence’s words, “has to defend himself against the perception that he lacks the ability to connect with voters.” Bluntly stated, is Ghani too connected with the international community to get Afghan votes?
Ashraf Ghani (photo: US embassy Kabul/Flickr)
Ghani returned to Afghanistan in 2001 following the defeat of the Taleban to serve as Special Advisor to UN envoy Lakhdar Brahimi. It was he who “helped draw up the Bonn Agreement that shaped structures for the new Afghan state.” He went on to serve as finance minister with the transitional government before running for president in 2009 and placing a distant fourth.
Lawrence asked Hodge about the read on Ghani’s chances this time around.
“He is well known in the international community and is well known in development circles and is a prominent thinker about development issues,” said Hodge. “He’s come into I think, it’s fair to say, more prominence in the past couple of years. He was the chief transition advisor to President Karzai, which meant that he spent a lot of time travelling around the country, meeting with provincial and district leaders to talk about how this process of handing over responsibility for security would happen across the country as U.S. troops drew down.”
Ashraf Ghani’s wife making a women’s day speech in Loya Jirga tent, Kabul, March 8, 2014. Photo: Twitter feed of @SultanFaizy??
Ghani is a member of an influential family within the Ahmadzai, a powerful Pashtun tribe.
“He (Ghani) joined forces with (his choice for first vice-president) Abdul Rashid Dostum who’s a prominent former warlord who can be counted on to draw a good number of votes in the north, which is an interesting move,” said Hodge. “One of the things that happened after Ghani joined forces with Dostum was that Dostum issued an apology for some of the … misdeeds that happened in the past, during the (Afghan) civil war, which was a pretty remarkable thing.”
[...]
“There’s a lot of trepidation around the upcoming elections in Afghanistan, not only a concern about the number of candidates who are not conducive to women’s rights protection,” said Duke law professor [Jayne] Huckerby, “but a broader concern that, in a post-reconciliation phase in Afghanistan, women’s rights will be bartered away, will be part of what gets dropped off the table, in an attempt to promote a cohesive government structure.”
Warned Huckerby, “There’s a lot of concern about what a drawdown looks like, what the support will be, and who will be the remaining advocates for women’s rights in Afghanistan in that event. ”
Speaking to the escalation of violence against women and girls and their increasing insecurity, she not only mentioned attacks by the Taliban insurgency on female officials, including assassination attempts, but also said women were coming under increasing threat from their own government.
“When I talk to my colleagues in Afghanistan, it’s like we’re fighting on both fronts,” she said.
She and Hodge both drew attention to what the international community would call backsliding on women’s rights in recent weeks and months.
Women’s rights efforts have lately gone both toward “maintaining existing gains,” Huckerby said, “whilst also trying to advance laws.”
For example, parliament recently sought to abolish a quota law, Huckerby said, that had secured women’s representation at 25% in provincial councils. Women’s advocates directed their attention to keeping that law, and did end up saving it but with the quota reduced to 20%. (Provincial Council elections will be held concurrently with the presidential elections on April 5)
Huckerby described another two laws that were recently introduced in parliament (seemingly “out of nowhere”); one that gives fathers a greater role in terms of arranging child marriages, and a second one — a proposed amendment to the domestic violence law that would ban family members from giving evidence in cases of domestic violence abuse, “essentially making it impossible to pursue any prosecution for family based crimes.”
Karzai has sent the proposed amendment back to parliament with a request to look at it again, so the law’s ultimate fate remains unclear.
“The fact that it was even introduced and the gravity of what it sought to do is a really bad indicator of where women’s rights protection are in Afghanistan,” said Huckerby.
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