Kabul calling

Mahendra Ved / Mar 6, 2007, 00:00 IST

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Right-thinking people across the world are dismayed at efforts in Afghanistan to pass a law granting immunity to war criminals and exempting them from judicial proceedings.

Right-thinking people across the world are dismayed at efforts in Afghanistan to pass a law granting immunity to war criminals and exempting them from judicial proceedings.
'For bringing peace and reconciliation among various stratum in the society and starting a peaceful life in Afghanistan, all those political and belligerent sides, which were involved during the two and half decades of war, will not be prosecuted legally and judicially", says a resolution passed after a heated debate by the National Assembly.
It is part of a Bill that also seeks an extraordinary reconciliation commission to be formed within the assembly to accelerate the talks with opposition groups that include Taliban militants and the Mujahi-deen who fought each other during 1992-96.
It will be debated and put to vote in the upper House. President Hamid Karzai would need to sign it to become law.

Shukria Barekzai, a woman member, walked out when the Bill was put to vote, saying, 'It is the act of some warlords who try to bury their past atrocities by approving such a Bill".
The UN, under whose aegis the Bonn Agreement was signed in December 2001 to usher in the present era in Afghanistan, has been the first to voice its strong opposition saying that it violates the basic tenets of human rights and the Geneva Convention.

Others, who have been concerned about the fratricidal conflict of nearly 30 years, are bound to follow suit. The UN has said: 'There can be no sustainable peace and security in Afghanistan without respect for the rule of law".
The criticism of the assembly's move is undoubtedly valid. However, it seems unmindful of the ground reality that prevails in Afghanistan.
For one, Afghanistan's government and institutions are nascent and weak. The country has failed to stabilise politically and economically.
Worse, Taliban, yesterday's rulers, have not only survived, but have displayed a capacity for resurgence against a combined military force of the government in Kabul and its supporters within and outside.
Worst still, the past record of Taliban's adversaries, who are in power now - a good number of them elected to Parliament - has been no better. Indeed, people on both sides are responsible for human rights violations.
Non-combatants, women and children have been victims of their policy. Realising that he is too weak to take on Taliban, Karzai has repeatedly held out the olive branch, urging all to accept the constitution and join the national mainstream.
Parliament debated the Bill days after his last such appeal which, significantly, did not meet with the usual derisive rejection from Taliban.
The Taliban wants Karzai to evict all foreign forces before considering reconciliation. They know they have the upper hand.
Any reconciliation would actually be a wholesale compromise. The role of Pakistan, the 'frontline' state in this fight, is well known.
Pakistan's own geopolitical interests, the Pushtuns' sympathetic stance towards Taliban and the presence of foreign mercenaries in the no-man's-land between Pakistan and Afghanistan, make Islamabad a broker of sorts.
While everyone in the Afghan imbroglio is committed to fighting terrorism, their actual role has been different. For some, this fight is just another phase of countering Russian and Chinese presence. The US has the biggest stake, but it has outsourced the task of Afghanistan's security to NATO.
Within NATO, the Germans and the French are losing interest, leaving the US and the UK, mainly, to hold the baby.
Despite claims to the contrary, and measly augmenting of forces, there is a certain fatigue in the West that began with the Iraq war and grows worse with the rising prospects of another one in Iran. All along, the US has never stopped looking for 'good' Taliban.
The British too reached an understanding with local tribes in the area they are supposed to police - something that is breached repeatedly.
It would be unfair and unrealistic to expect the Afghans alone to abide by the Geneva Convention and human rights and conduct war crime trials.
Unlike South Africa, the Afghan Bill seeks to pave the way for a national reconciliation that is really guided by realpolitik.
Unfortunately, Afghanistan is too poor and remote to be anything but a sacrificial lamb in the new Great Game.
The writer is a journalist.

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