Settling Things in Kabul The Afghan Way

By M.M. Ali

On the morning of May 30, 1992, a very knowledgeable Washington source remarked: "Leave it to the Afghans and they will resolve their crisis the Afghan way." In the evening came word that interim President Sibghatullah Mojaddedi's plane had been shot at as it landed at the Kabul airport. Mojaddedi accused Hizb-e-Islami's still irreconciled leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar of trying to kill him. Hizb-e-Islami spokesman Abdul Qadir Qaryab denied the charge in typical Afghan style. "If we had done it, we would have used 20 missiles and left no chance for survival," he said.

Political stalemate continues in Kabul, and the Pashtuns under Hekmatyar on one side and the Tajiks and Uzbeks under Ahmed Shah Masoud and Gen. Abdul Rasheed Dostam on the other keep their powder dry sitting in bunkers facing each other in and around the capital city.

Responsibility for the present tension and crisis has to be shared by several powers, groups and individuals, principally the former Soviet Union, which plunged into the affairs of a country inhabited by an almost medieval people strongly given to the religion of Islam and ready to die for the protection of their faith.

Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev had signaled the end of occupation and thus the possible end of the war in Afghanistan around 1988. Early 1989 saw the final withdrawal of Soviet troops. However, the 13 years of fighting had demolished old ways and created a new crop of leaders. These included the Soviet protegé, Najibullah, in Kabul, his Tajik opponent, Ahmed Shah Masoud, in the north, and the Pashtun leader, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, in exile in Peshawar, Pakistan.

It is obvious today that alliances made under wartime conditions do not always hold good under conditions of peace. The problem now is how to introduce accommodation and conciliation among factions that have never had to compromise. No wonder that U.N. representative Benon Sevan is reportedly frustrated at the manner in which the end-game in Kabul has slipped out of his hands. It is apparent that what was conceived with the best of intentions has come to be delivered in great pain.

The U.S., Saudi Arabia and Pakistan used Hekmatyar as their point-man to funnel economic aid to the mujahedeen in the refugee camps and military supplies to the infiltrating forces inside Afghanistan. Other Afghan leaders, also in the camps, went along with the arrangement. Hekmatyar, a hard core conservative, grew in stature, at least in the eyes of the freedom fighters.

Ahmad Shah Masoud established himself in the north and ran a parallel government of his own in and around Mazar-e-Sharif and Panj Sher. While continuing his freedom struggle, he tactfully maintained his contacts with Peshawar and later with the disintegrating elements of the Kabul regime. In Kabul, Najibullah, while participating in the U.N.-sponsored negotiations, sought to neutralize his potential rivals and ensure his personal survival. He courted Abdul Rasheed Dostam, a fierce Jouzjani who controlled the Uzbek militia in Kunduz, bordering Uzbekistan. Najibullah also befriended Syed Mansur Naderi, and Ismaili tribal chief who controlled the Kayan Valley, also in the north. As Sevan progressed in his mediation to resolve the problem peacefully, Najibullah's strategy collapsed. Dostam made peace with Masoud and brought with him the support of Momin and Ashak, two military generals who also defected from Najibullah's government. Naderi also struck a deal with Masoud. The stage was thus set to move into Kabul at the right time. Najib, who had previously sent his family to India, sought to join them there. He was stopped at the airport and took refuge in a U.N. compound. His failed escape triggered Masoud's move into Kabul.

On the southern front, the Peshawar-based mujahedeen leaders had worked out a formula under which moderate leader Sibghatullah Mojaddedi, already the president of the government-in-exile, would head an interim government in Kabul once Najibullah departed. Both Hekmatyar and Masoud would be included in the interim government.

What was not factored in, even by the Sevan formula, was the inclusion of the remnants of Najib's Watan party or his general in the interim arrangement. Masoud is now the defense minister and more recently Dostam has been made a general. Hekmatyar refuses to join hands as long as Dostam and Najib's former supporters are part of the interim government. Instead, Hekmatyar is poised to subject an exhausted people and half-destroyed country to yet another round of warfare. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia continue to counsel compromise by both sides.

While the political stalemate continues, the Afghans, with a severely damaged economy, suffer. The U.S. has cut off military supplies to the mujahedeen but wheat shipments continue. Food assistance also is coming in from Pakistan. Much of this humanitarian aid, however, finds its way into the black market. With almost 80 percent of the arable land made uncultivable by a decade of bombings, what is growing there instead of food are opium poppies.

Tim Weiner, writing for the Philadelphia Inquirer, reports: "The Afghan crop now coming in could yield 200 tons of heroin." It will be some time before this situation changes.

The biggest obstacles to recovery are the little fiefdoms set up by heavily armed tribal leaders along the highways. Food convoys are looted or drivers end up paying arbitrary taxes on relief supplies.

The unpredictability that reigns underneath the apparent calm in Kabul is discernible from the conflicting and even contradictory alliances that have been formed. Dostam-Masoud-Mojaddedi is just one of them. In spite of the general amnesty that has been offered, most of the officials of the former regime remain in hiding.

"There is no rule to prevent people from leaving Kabul and I am personally not against it," Defense Minister Masoud has stated. But few believe him. Abdul Wakil, the former foreign minister, has fled to Moscow. Former Defense Minister Shah Nawaz Tanai has joined the Hekmatyar camp. Not only is Najibullah reportedly still sheltered inside the U.N. compound, his brother-in-law, the former Afghan ambassador to India, is nowhere to be found in Delhi.

Amidst all this uncertainty in Kabul, the only heartening news is that Hekmatyar and Masoud have met and reached some tentative agreements. However, the two also want an early end to the interim arrangement, while Mojaddedi wants at least two years as president to put the Afghan house in order. With the promotion of Dostam to the rank of general, Hekmatyar-Masoud talks are stalled. The demand that is gaining momentum is to call the Loya Jirga (the supreme assembly of the tribes). The man to be watched is Prof. Burhanuddin Rabbani, who is emerging as a candidate acceptable to both Hekmatyar and Masoud. Meanwhile, the Iran-backed Shi'i faction is also demanding a proportionate share in the war booty. Peace is being sought under threat of war. That is the Afghan way.

M.M. Ali is a professor at the University of the District of Columbia.