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THE adviser to the Prime Minister on Foreign Affairs and National Security, Sartaj Aziz, visited Kabul on Sept 4 to relieve tension and revive talks. However, he received a wintry response.
After 13 years of the Afghan Taliban fighting the Americans, great hopes had surged on July 7, 2015 for peace in Afghanistan.
The second round of talks was announced on July 31. There were great expectations of the process because all the relevant parties — the governments of Afghanistan and Pakistan and the Afghan Taliban — were eager for peace. Moreover it was reported that the move was blessed by China and the United States.
Yet the peace talks were suddenly scuttled by the announcement by Afghan government sources of Mullah Omar’s death. This was an opportune announcement. It was followed by deadly attacks in Kabul in August in which more than 50 people lost their lives.
Is the US happy to concede regional leadership to China?
President Ashraf Ghani directly blamed the government of Pakistan for complicity in the attacks. His tone was hurt; he called for both governments to follow the same definition of terrorism.
Unfortunately, making peace is harder than making war. Bernard Shaw in Man and Superman said that in the arts of peace man was a bungler. The longer the war lasts the more difficult it becomes to bring it to an end on the negotiating table. The Afghan conflict has been among the longest in history. During this long war parties have come to possess important secrets which they will use at moments appropriate to their interests.
One way to identify the most crucial players is to discuss who has done or supposed to have done what and why in the ongoing melodrama of Afghanistan.
Eamon de Valera was an Irish statesman, prime minister and president. It was said that negotiating with him was like trying to pick up mercury with a fork, to which De Valera replied: “Why don’t they use a spoon?” A big spoon will be required to pick up the Afghan mercury.
The beans of Mullah Omar’s death were spilt in the name of the Afghan government. No government in the world is monolithic. The Afghan government in particular is a house divided. President Ashraf Ghani had a lot to gain from the success of the talks. It is illogical to expect him to discontinue the process for which he worked so hard. To bring the Taliban to the negotiating table was a success of sorts.
Yet in the Afghan capital sits the uneasy Abdullah Abdullah who is the country’s chief executive officer. Plainly speaking, he is Ashraf Ghani’s rival. Afghans are past masters of cloak and dagger games. So the finger points to his clique in the government to bring down the roof on negotiations.
Once the announcement was made in the name of the government, it was difficult for Ashraf Ghani to deny it and create further complications for his fragile coalition. It was better for him to wait for another opportunity for peace talks. In this scenario Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah both have lost popularity according to a TV poll.
It was further alleged that Mullah Omar died around two years ago under mysterious circumstances in Pakistan. If he had indeed died in Pakistan then the authorities here were privy to the occurrence. He would not have died an unknown man in an unknown hospital in Karachi. The news must have been kept under wraps to allow Mullah Akhtar Mansour, Omar’s successor, to act in his name. The common prevailing perception that Pakistan has considerable influence on the Taliban is strengthened because of such secrets, which are mutually shared.
The US had endorsed the peace talks but China and Pakistan were seen to have taken the primary roles. It begs the question: was the US happy to concede the regional leadership to China? China and the US both have their eyes on the natural resources of Afghanistan.
Diplomacy is saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you find a rock. The untapped mineral deposits, which include quantities of iron, gold, copper, cobalt and critical industrial metals such as lithium, are said to be so huge and so rich that the war-plagued and long-exploited Afghanistan could change forever, emerging as one of the most important and affluent mining centres in the world, according to the US Geological Survey, the Pentagon and the Afghan government.
The final resting place of Mullah Omar is still not known and perhaps never will be. The irony in this case is that Mullah Omar preferred to live a reclusive life despite the deeds that he accomplished; death also chose to keep him obscure. But in the gallery of Afghan history his portrait shall remain original, and not a copy.
The writer is a former secretary of the federal government.
Published in Dawn, September 15th, 2015
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