December 6, 2001	Thursday	Ramazan 20, 1422

BONN, Dec 5: The unseen side of things was one of the remarkable aspects of the intra-Afghan talks in Germany: satellite telephone calls to guerrilla commanders in the field, international diplomatic arm-twisting, the sheer attrition of sleepless nights...

The strain of nine days and eight nights of bargaining and arguing was exacerbated for the delegates by the fact that this took place during the month of Ramazan, meaning that they they could not eat or drink during daylight hours.

Delegates feasted in the evenings after a day without food, negotiated long into the night before sleeping, and then took another light meal early in the morning on rising. They were thus not in a physical condition to resume talks before about 9:00 am, a UN spokesman explained.

The chief animator of the event, UN special representative Lakhdar Brahimi, of Algeria, also respected the Muslim month of fasting.

That the Afghan parties finally chose Hamid Karzai to chair the interim administration was not really a surprise, least of all for the United Nations, aside from the fact that his credentials were considered perfect.

Soon after the conference opened, a UN spokesman reported a “very interesting and dramatic development”: during the first closed session, after the TV cameras had left, a telephone call from Karzai was broadcast to the conference over loudspeakers.

“This meeting,” Karzai said from the battle zone near Kandahar by satellite phone, “is the path towards salvation.”

The United Nations in fact knew the call was coming, but for many of the delegates it was a surprise.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan also sent a message, telling the delegates they had an historic opportunity to bring peace and reconciliation to Afghanistan. “You must not allow the mistakes of the past to be repeated,” he warned, referring to the internecine fighting of 1992.

A mysterious event was the walkout by an ethnic Pakhtoon governor, Haji Qadir, who complained that the Pakhtoon were insufficiently represented. He was soon back at the conference and apologized for his behaviour, but effectively took no further part.

Undoubtedly the most critical behind-the-scenes struggle was with the nominal political leader of the National Alliance, Burhanuddin Rabbani, the Afghan head of state ousted by the Taliban but still officially recognised by the United Nations. He stood in the way of a takeover by a new administration.

It was not only the Northern Alliance delegation that had to deal with the ex-president still back in Kabul.

The international powers were originally and officially urged to leave the Afghans decide among themselves in Bonn, without outside interference. In reality, several were called upon to discreetly influence events.

Among these, German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer twice intervened. Last week he asked his Russian counterpart Igor Ivanov to intercede with Rabbani. Earlier this week Fischer then himself successfully pleaded with Rabbani to allow a successful conclusion to the Bonn talks.—AFP