Interview with Ms. Fawzia Kofi, Head of Women Affairs Committee at Afghanistan Parliament

Kofi: if Afghan government persists to follow its reconciliatory efforts while ignoring the parliament, political parties, Afghanistan citizenry, and civil society organizations as the main party to the conflict these efforts will result into violating citizenship rights and can do nothing for peace. Naturally, those opposing the process will get frustrated and start a new internal conflict. Keeping in mind that Afghanistan hasn’t disarmed all illegal groups and individuals, if these groups see that their interest aren’t served through democratic processes, the easiest way for them would be to start violence as Taliban is doing it.

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By Dr. Mohammad Jawad Salehi, PHD political science/ Political analyst and university professor

After collapse of Taliban in late 2001, the dominant understanding was that the group had been eliminated from Afghanistan political arena and that the group will be able to claim ground in a foreseeable future. Therefore the Bonn Conference laid down the structure of the new Afghan Administration without giving any role to Taliban. Now, after  years from the new administration, Taliban has reorganized itself as a serious challenge for Afghan government and the international community.

The government of Afghanistan, the international community and the political analysts has proposed various approaches including military, reconciliatory and a mixture of the two options to overcome the current challenging situation. The government particularly, is emphasizing on reconciliation and Hamid Karzai keeps calling Taliban members as “brothers” and so far has taken many steps towards bringing Taliban on the table including establishment of the High Peae Council to name one; even the government in order to gain trust of Taliban has been ignoring their terroristic activities and tries to make them somehow acceptable to public opinion.

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By Mahmoud Baqeri, Political Analyst

Our situation is similar to a patient, whose disease in sot diagnosed yet. But we are trying to heal the disease, prescribing medicines. We pay for the medicines while we do not know about the main cause of the disease. Therefore, the time and budget goes wasted and the patient remains ill. To heal the disease, we are required to have profound checkups, proceeding with defining a mechanism for treatment of the patient.

Challenges of the post-Taliban Afghanistan are not exceptional and the country does not face a vacuum of historical experiences. There are numerous countries which had the same circumstances as Afghanistan has, but today they have overcome the challenges pretty well. Now it is upon us to learn lessons from such experiences in the world. One of the teachings of the universal experiences for the countries such as Afghanistan, which has witnessed horrible crimes against humanity, is different and wide-varied methods for administering justice and reconciliation. The most fundamental lesson we ought to learn from the post-conflict countries is that peace without justice is fragile.

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By Yaseen Rahyab, Researcher in International Affairs

Peace and security is one of the natural needs of humankinds and it serves as a precondition for a sound and civilized living environment in any society. The country’s leadership should have the capacity and talent to reconcile with all players involved in Afghanistan insurgency. However, if the price of reconciliation with armed insurgents is paid by discontent of Afghan citizens and international community such peace- talks won’t be favorable anymore.

The Taliban peace- talk agenda was, for the first time, officially discussed at London Conference in early 2011. Participants of the Conference in their final statement officially announced their desire to support the Afghan government peace- talks with Taliban.

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By Saifuddin Saihon; Professor at Economics Faculty/ Kabul University

The on-going, long-lasting and resurgent conflicts in Afghanistan and endless insurgency of belligerent factions aimed at fortifying their position and hegemony for looting public properties, and transcendence over economic resources, taking money by force, killing innocent people by the name of totalitarian and justifying ideologies have resulted into extensive devastations. Continued insurgencies in the wake of interferences of foreign elements and expansion of resistance against those elements caused into some negative consequences such as collective massacre and the “burning farm policy”. This fact has revitalized the sense of revenge in Afghanistan barbarian and traditional society and to heal the wounds originating from atrocities, there has been no attitude based on mutual understanding or any cultural and civil mechanism in place to strengthen the spirit of forgiveness. Under domination of war elements criminal liability of serious offenders has also been ignored from legal perspective.

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By Muhammad Hussain Saramad, Writer and Researcher

The officials of High Peace Council have directly and indirectly said that we should accept some of the options of the Taliban and have demanded for the release of Taliban leaders.

However, talks with the Taliban have popped up major concerns and questions: On what issues the government will show resilience in talks with the Taliban? Will human rights, women rights, democracy, constitution and civic values be sacrificed for the purpose of talks with the Taliban? If it is so then will Afghanistan be caught again in the paws of the Taliban?  If it is not so, then will Taliban accept these civic values? What are the preconditions of Taliban for peace talks as High Peace Council talks about? In all, where will Afghanistan head to after the reconciliation with the Taliban; violence and genocide of 90s or moving out of the current war?

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Interview with Muhammad Sarwar Jawadi, Former MP and Politic Analyst

Jawadi: The High Peace Council is appointed by Mr. Karzai himself. This council has no legal and judicial bases in the laws of Afghanistan. Therefore, any institution that is appointed by an individual and lacks judicial and legal bases then has no authority to make any decision or judgment either.

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By Ali Amiri

It is increasingly evident that peace with the Taliban has turned to be the main goal of Afghan government. The government of Afghanistan has sent many green signals to the Taliban during past one year, which indicates the importance of a political settlement for the Afghan government. Long before, President Karzai called Mollah Omar “brother” and requested him personally to stop fighting and join peace process. On different occasions, the President has been repeating this request.

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By Jawad Naji

The year 2010 is perhaps, an important year in the new political system of Afghanistan. Besides the issues of security, corruption, elections and the exit plan of international forces, the most important discussion of 2010 proposed by the government of Afghanistan, was negotiation and reconciliation with the Taliban. In the early days of Mr. Karzai’ government there was an international and political intention against the Taliban to oust them from the region. It seemed that the trend would continue and the return of Taliban was improbable. Now, there is no talk of defeating and removing the insurgents but they are assumed as the second party to be negotiated with. There were talks of government’s stance and direct and indirect contact through with the Taliban, particularly through the commission for strengthening peace, but after the London Conference the discussion of talks with the Taliban became official.

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As part of our efforts to explore and highlight different views and concerns with regard to negotiations and talks with the anti-government armed forces, this time we interviewed Ahmad Behzad, a member of the House of Representatives from Herat province. Behzad is a vocal critic of the Afghan government and believes the Taliban do not constitute a defined political force with whom one can sit behind a negotiating table.

Behzad: Unfortunately, the members of the Council are those people who are accustomed to destructive political dealings. They exist in Afghanistan because of these destructive political deals. A number of these members are those who were critics of negotiation with the Taliban including those who weeks before gave handsome speeches denouncing the policies of negotiation with the Taliban.

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In the following you read the opinions and views of the two Kabul University lecturers Mr. Nasrullah Stanekzai, professor of law and political science at Kabul University and Sayed Masood, professor of Economics at Kabul University about the reconciliation and talks with the anti-government forces. Their viewpoints are placed together about the two same questions.

Stanackzai: In order to achieve peace the criminals should be tried and the government must start the process from within. There are many criminals in important posts inside the government.

Massoud: The insurgents cannot be attracted by financial means because they earn millions of dollars through cultivation and trafficking of narcotics. This is an old fashioned way of negotiation with the anti-government forces.

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By Abdul Ahad Bahrami

The government of Afghanistan and the High Peace Council are struggling to move forward the process of peace talks with Taliban. While the Taliban have rejected negotiations for peace, the Afghan government is hopeful to finally bring the insurgents back to civil life and end the long-lasting war. For the purpose, it initiated the National Consultative Peace Jirga, which recommended establishing the High Peace Council and granting many other concessions to the Taliban. The Council has assiduously and through different channels has pursued talks with the insurgent groups, but so far the efforts have borne no results. This is at a time that the NATO-led international forces including the US troops are set to begin leaving Afghanistan, starting from mid-2011, and transition of security responsibility to Afghan forces, a process which will be completed by end of 2014.

Ms. Sara Sorkhabi a member of the High Peace Council and Mishrano Jirga discusses her uniquely optimistic views regarding possible negotiations with the Taliban in an interview with Jawad Naji of Afghanistan Watch.

Sorkhabi: There are many small insurgent groups that are fighting in the ranks of Taliban. These groups are not essentially ideological extremists as the mainstream and the leaders of Taliban are. Some of the fighters for the “war machine of Taliban” are made up by dissidents who protest against widespread poverty, corruption and incapability of the government and the local officials.

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Interview with Sari Kouvo Head of Afghanistan Program of the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ)

There is currently much focus on reconciliation in Afghanistan, and the Afghan government has recently launched the Afghanistan Peace and Reconciliation Program (APRP) and appointed the High Peace Council (HPC). Afghanistan Watch asked Sari Kouvo, Head of the Afghanistan Program of the International Centre for Transitional Justice (ICTJ) and analyst with the Afghanistan Analysts Network (AAN) to reflect on the notion of reconciliation and on its relationship with transitional justice.

By Batur Beig

On Thursday 7 October the High Peace Council was inaugurated in Kabul. President Karzai speaking during opening session of the council stressed that the council is an independent and enjoys the full backing of the Afghan government. He also said the process of reconciliation or talks with the insurgents enjoys the full support of the international community in Afghanistan.

The High Peace Council is to henceforth take the lead on opening and pursuing negotiations with the armed oppositions groups. The council includes 68 members. A quick look at the list of its members shows the predominance of groups and individuals that either fought against the Taliban during the 1990s or lack an effective leverage in initiating real negotiations. In its second session the council elected Burhanuddin Rabbani the former President of Afghanistan (1992-96) as its chairman. Rabbani had also chaired the Peace Jirga held in Kabul which among other things called for the formation of the peace council and release of Taliban prisoners. Many see his role in the anti-Taliban alliance of the 1990s as an obstacle to any serious peace talks with the Taliban. Furthermore, the list also includes many other senior former political leaders that fought against the Taliban in the past.