Disarming Conflict

That the security situation has “deteriorated markedly” in Afghanistan over the past year is confirmed in a new (Sept 23/08) report on Afghanistan from the UN Secretary-General. Even before that Canada’s persistently optimistic spin on developments in Kandahar had to finally yield to an acknowledgement by the new Chief of Defence Staff that “ the situation is getting worse in Kabul, in eastern Afghanistan where U.S. forces have the lead and in southern Afghanistan where Canadian troops are based.”

It has also become the almost conventional wisdom that this growing insecurity will not be reversed by military means alone, or even primarily. The International Crisis Group’s analysis puts it pointedly: “We are never going to shoot the last insurgent and leave.” The Harper Government put it more diplomatically in its June 10 report to Parliament, but meant the same thing: “Afghanistan cannot secure peace or realize its governance and development objectives by military means alone.”

Indeed, the military means employed in the counter-insurgency war frequently alienate rather than win over the Afghan population. While documenting escalating and heinous crimes against humanity perpetrated by the Taliban and al Qaeda in direct attacks on Afghan civilians, the Secretary-General also reported that 40 percent of civilians killed in the first eight months of 2008 died at the hands of international and pro-Government forces – most often in US air raids on villages.

The missing link is an energized resort to diplomacy to find political solutions to the Afghan conflicts that war cannot settle. A welcome step in that direction has been for Canada to include “political reconciliation” as one of its six priorities in Afghanistan. But the reconciliation agenda remains constrained by an unworkably narrow mandate. Former Foreign Minister Maxime Bernier told the House of Commons Foreign Affairs Committee that negotiations should be undertaken only “by the government of Afghanistan with people who respect the Constitution of Afghanistan and who renounce violence.” That effectively limits Canada’s support for reconciliation to amnesty programs which invite armed insurgents to lay down their arms and join the Government.

While that invitation must always be present and genuine, the tragic reality of escalating war points to the urgent need to engage all Afghans, including those now in violent opposition to the Government, in a new process toward a more inclusive and trusted political order.

Last Spring Canadian NGOs told the Parliamentary Committee that Canada must encourage a major new initiative in political dialogue that is supported by the UN, extends to regional actors, and especially engages all sectors of Afghan society. It is centrally important that such a peace process be owned and trusted by Afghans, but the international community, through encouragement and funding from states like Canada, can play a key catalytic role.

When the Parliamentary Committee reported in July it recommended that all of Canada’s efforts – diplomatic, military, and development – in Afghanistan be oriented, not to winning a war, but to creating “conditions favorable to a peace process.” It asked Canada to make “a concrete commitment to promote…broad-based negotiations,” nationally and in local communities, and to “encourage dialogue among all sectors of Afghan society and all communities of interest, and thereby help to establish conditions conducive to peace negotiations.”

Canadians should understand that these are not only calls to negotiate with the Taliban. Not only is the insurgency broader than the Taliban, but reconciliation efforts will also have to reach beyond warring parties to promote regional cooperation, inter-communal dialogue at the national level, local (people-to-people) reconciliation initiatives, and sustained education programs in support of a culture of peace.

These multiple efforts need to be assisted with the same levels of urgency and resources that now go to international attention to Afghan military and police forces.

Some reconciliation efforts are already underway. The Government has ongoing amnesty programs to engage moderate Taliban and other dissidents. It has certainly made efforts to include more Pashtuns – the Pashtun community being the centre of the insurgency – in the Cabinet and other areas of leadership. The international community manages programs that focus on the disbandment of illegal armed groups. The bi-national peace jirga between Afghanistan and Pakistan is seeking ways for the two governments to cooperate in bringing some law and order into the Pashtun belt that spans their common border.

Recent reports of Saudi-sponsored overtures to the Taliban indicate that both sides are beginning to recognize that the current devastatingly destructive stalemate on the battlefield must finally yield to diplomacy.

The involvement of the international community, through the UN and with the support of countries like Canada, is essential to ensuring that current fledgling and ad hoc peace efforts are converted into a comprehensive, sustained, and inclusive peace initiative, and to ensuring that they do not once again victimize the Afghan people by morphing into a few surface adjustments and power-sharing deals among armed elites.

Questions for Candidates:

Do you share the widening view that the current military effort to end the insurgencies in Afghanistan is seriously failing and leading to a deteriorating security situation?

Will you work to ensure Canadian encouragement and support for a broad based peace process that includes negotiations with groups now in violent opposition to the Government?

What do you think Canada can do to support regional efforts, with Pakistan in particular, but also with others like India and Iran, to build support for a stable and democratic Afghanistan?