Bigger Initiatives to Bring Peace in Afghanistan Underway

Peace efforts in Afghanistan after a decade of fruitless war appear to be taking more serious grounds. In the last couple of days, major developments regarding Peace Efforts have been talks about establishing a long term Strategic Partnership with the United States of America for which the President has announced the convening of a Loya Jirga, Afghan Tribal Grand Assembly, and the convening of a Peace Conference in the holy city of Mecca to be hosted by the Saudis under the auspices of the High Peace Council.

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Loya Jirga is a grand assembly of the Afghan Tribal leaders (elected and non-elected), the Afghan Parliament and the Cabinet. It has been part of the Afghan tradition and constitution. Such gatherings have been called to take the vote of confidence from the Afghan masses, which are not otherwise represented directly in other affairs, related to issues of national interest and future direction of the country. Since the establishment of the current system, two Loya Jirgas have been called so far. The first for drafting a constitution for the country as per the new democratic values agreed by the Afghan factions in the Bonn Conference; while, the second was called to set the direction for opening or otherwise of talks with the fighting actions including the Taliban and Hizb-e-Islami and defining the enemy of the country. This will be the third Loya Jirga that will have to decide the course of events and the nature of the Strategic Partnership with the United States of America that also envisions a permanent US military presence on Afghan soil. This is believed to have a direct impact on the efforts for brining a durable peace in Afghanistan.

In the meanwhile, a meeting of the High Peace Council with the President resulted in the formulation of a comprehensive peace effort in the form of a high profile talk to be held in the Muslim holy city of Mecca, Saudi Arabia. This apparently will involve direct face-to-face talks with the Taliban leadership. The talks are supposed to be held under the auspices of the High Peace Council, a council of elders and religious leadership of the country and Taliban. According to the Council’s Vice President and spokesman, the talks will also include senior religious leadership from the rest of the Muslim world as well.

Though such efforts appear very serious in nature, the outcome of such conferences with the same old techniques and strategies is still doubtful. Such a conference was also held in the 70’s to address Afghan peace efforts in the same city. However, its practical application never materialized. In that conference, the then Mujahideen leadership had agreed and promised of establishing peace in Kabul, however, Kabul presented the worst scene of factional fighting soon after the Mujahideen took over. In the four year of civil war in Kabul at least 60,000 people died and over a 100,000 were injured with more forceful emigration to the neighboring countries. The civil unrest left Kabul to ashes and a decade of reconstruction hasn’t yet put Kabul back to what it looked in the 70’s before the inception of the factional fighting.