Afghanistan: avoiding past mistakes

ONE can hardly over-emphasize the need for Pakistan to build a mutually rewarding relationship with Afghanistan. Our dealings with our western neighbour, one must admit, have often been based on a misreading of the Afghan situation and on a failure to comprehend the dynamics of political change taking place in that country. As a result we have often faced disappointments and frustrations in managing our relations with Kabul. It is of very great importance that we follow the complex changes currently under way in Afghanistan with great care and not allow our earlier assumptions to colour our understanding of the intricacies of the Afghan reality. Some Afghan dignitaries, including President Karzai, have been quite outspoken in articulating their concerns with regard to Pakistan-Afghanistan relations. We need to formulate proper responses to these Afghan concerns. In the same category fall the frank utterances of Afghan Finance Minister Ashraf Ghani at a meeting of the joint economic commission in Islamabad. Some of the Afghan minister’s remarks, or perhaps the way they have been reported, may sound a little irksome but they have the merit of being forthright. Those remarks represent the official Afghan view and deserve to be taken seriously because they have a bearing on Islamabad’s long-term relations with Kabul. In brief, the Afghan minister wanted Pakistan to do away with the negative list of the 1965 trade pact and extend financial support to Afghanistan the way India was doing. By enforcing the negative list, he said, Pakistan had forfeited its right to have free trade with Afghanistan. Referring to the broader question of bilateral economic relations, he bluntly told Pakistan to compete with India for competition was the spirit of the times. As the Afghan minister pointed out, India had given the country 400 buses and was helping with establishing a fibreglass factory. New Delhi was also involved in several construction and educational projects across the country. We also know that India is helping Afghanistan in training its civil aviation staff and has given it three passenger airliners. In sharp contrast, Pakistan seems to have concentrated on the political side of the relationship and paid far less attention to the economic dimension of their bilateral ties. It is true Pakistan has committed 100 million dollars to Afghanistan’s post-war reconstruction, and the Afghan minister appreciated this gesture. But, unlike India, which has adopted a highly imaginative approach to the question, Pakistan seems less clear-headed about how to build a lasting and friendly relationship with the post-Taliban Afghanistan.

The situation in Afghanistan today is complex and unstable. The Afghan people, by and large, appreciate Pakistan’s role during their fight against Soviet occupation and the refuge which this country provided to more than three million refugees. Nevertheless, many politically involved Afghans have strong reservations about Islamabad’s interventionist policies which have exerted a negative impact on that country’s internal situation. The mess in which Pakistan finds its Afghan policy today is the result of the role which the intelligence agencies played in the Afghan imbroglio. In training and foisting the Taliban on Afghanistan, our intelligence outfits acted on their own without realizing the broader foreign policy implications for Pakistan. Now in the changed scenario, Pakistan must not allow these outfits to dictate our policy towards Afghanistan. Our neighbour needs peace and reconstruction. Invariably, an Afghanistan that faces chaos exports its troubles to Pakistan. Conversely, Pakistan stands to gain if its western neighbour enjoys peace and prosperity. Thus, it is in this country’s interest to have a peaceful and economically solvent Afghanistan as its neighbours. Helping Afghanistan economically means helping Pakistan. Islamabad should, therefore, do well to concentrate on the economic side of its relationship with Afghanistan and help that country stand on its own feet. The distrust of the past must not be allowed to cast a shadow on our relations with Kabul, whose sensitivities we must always bear in mind.

Sri Lanka impasse

ACCORDING to reports coming from Sri Lanka, efforts are under way to put the stalled peace process back on track. The Norwegian Facilitator has been negotiating behind-the-scenes with the government in Colombo and the Tamil Tigers to persuade them to reach a common meeting ground and at least begin talking to each other again, which they have not been doing since April. The Japanese and other foreign governments are also discreetly working on the two sides to make sure they do not abandon the dialogue on which many hopes are pinned. It would be a pity if, after agreeing on a truce in February 2002 and having re-built social and human bonds — even though somewhat tenuous — between the Tamil and Sinhalese communities, the two sides in Sri Lanka were to resume fighting.

The two-decade civil war has cost the country dearly in terms of human lives, population displacement and economic devastation. Nearly 64,000 people have been killed, and the ethnic violence has damaged the island’s economy, as the once thriving tourist trade dwindled and the foreign donors held back aid, and investments ceased coming. Sri Lanka, which was at one time held up as a model of socio-economic development for the Third World, was brutalized by violence. It was, therefore, a happy development when the Norwegians managed to bring the two sides to the negotiating table after the government of Ranil Wickremesinghe came into office following the December 2001 elections. Common sense prevailed as arms were laid down.

If the talks are now deadlocked, there are many factors responsible for it. The government has not gone far enough to satisfy the Tamil Tigers’ demand for autonomy. Thus, the interim council to be set up in the north-east of the island has not been given control over land, revenue and security, which are key sectors for any administration. The Tigers are unhappy, and not surprisingly so because they made a major concession when they withdrew their demand for Tamil Eelam, an independent Tamil state. With the two major Sinhalese parties co-habiting in the government, they have also politicized the issue making accommodation difficult. The Tigers, on their part, are believed to be capitalizing on the truce to regroup and recruit. In the absence of a final settlement, this state of no-war no-peace can easily slide back into strife. If the government fails to make reciprocal concessions to the Tamils, what has been gained in the last 20 months may well be lost.