AFGHANISTAN: Peace Hopes Revive, Taliban Lift Food Blockade

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Nasim Zehra

ISLAMABAD, May 8 1998 (IPS) - The Taliban’s decision to lift a food blockade on rival-controlled areas in Afghanistan this week has raised hopes for the revival of stalled peace talks in Afghanistan.

The Northern Alliance of anti-Taliban forces have reciprocated with an offer of an immediate resumption of talks that could put the derailed peace process, initiated by Pakistan, back on track.

The Northern Alliance had walked out of the first face-to-face meeting with Taliban leaders in the Pakistani capital on May 3 when the Taliban refused to lift the siege.

The Taliban’s unexpected climb down on the issue shows political expediency and its savvy. The talks, militia leaders seemed to have realised, are their best bet for international recognition.

Though the Taliban control more than 80 percent of the country, only three countries — Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates — recognise their rule. The ousted government of Burhanuddin Rabbani, of the Northern Alliance, still occupies Afghanistan’s seat in the U.N General Assembly.

In addition, international isolation has meant that it has not been able to get Western and Japanese funding which is essential for the reconstruction of a country devastated by nearly two decades of fighting.

During his visit to Afghanistan last month, U.S Ambassador Bill Richardson, the highest ranking U.S official to visit since the 1970s, is said to have told the Taliban that aid and economic growth would not take place until the war stopped.

Afghan watchers in Islamabad believe that the Taliban’s best chance of being recognised as the government of Afghanistan hinges on talking to the Northern Alliance.

The Taliban militia have not been able to break through the Northern Alliance’s military defences since its embarrassing retreat from Mazar-e-Sharif in May 1996. The Taliban was forced to lay siege to parts of Afghanistan under the control of its rivals, but that has been bad publicity for the militia.

Unconfirmed reports from Afghanistan say at least one hundred people have died of hunger in the Hazarajat and Ghurband areas because of the food blockade. On Wednesday, Abdul Hakim Mujahid, the Taliban’s ambassador to Pakistan, told the press that 1,000 tonnes of foodgrains would be supplied to the region.

The U.N. World Food Programme has been told to supply the foodstuff to the “needy areas in central Afghanistan” on the condition that the supplies will not end up in the hands of fighters of the Northern Alliance, Ambassador Mujahid told a press conference in Islamabad.

He accused Iran of being interested in sabotaging peace prospects in Afghanistan as that provided an opportunity for Iran to be the supplier of Central Asian oil and gas to the world.

Sunni Taliban and Shi’ite Iran have been suspicious of each other ever since the arrival of the Taliban in Afghanistan from Islamic seminaries in Pakistan. Iran is uneasy about Saudi support for the militia and the effect of the Taliban on restive Sunni populations on its eastern frontier.

In fact, the Taliban were the cause of a long estrangement between Islamabad and Tehran, despite Pakistan’s repeated efforts at damage-limitation to convince Tehran that the Taliban did not pose any threat.

Icy relations have thawed since the intensive seven months diplomatic effort launched by Pakistan to engineer a political breakthrough aimed at ending the civil war in Afghanistan. Under Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, who took over last February, Pakistani has sought to establish that it is only a concerned neighbour advancing peace in war-ravaged Afghanistan.

Keeping open communication channels with both the Taliban and the Northern Alliance leaders like the Uzbek General Rashid Dostam and the Tajik commander Ahmed Shah Masood who stopped the Taliban’s march, Islamabad won over the Northern Alliance to the idea of an intra-Afghan dialogue in February this year.

U.N special envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, an experienced Algerian diplomat, who met with representatives of the Northern Alliance in March confirmed that Pakistan had achieved a breakthrough in the Afghan stalemate.

A month later, the Taliban told U.S Ambassador Richardson that they were ready for a truce to give peace negotiations a fresh chance — a diplomatic “success” that Richardson was generous enough to credit Pakistan with.

Pakistani officials say they alone are responsible for “guiding” the Taliban to agree to the idea of a negotiated peace pact in Afghanistan.

Now, they are pushing hard for a comprehensive arms embargo, which envisages a total blockade of all the supply routes into Afghanistan, including all airports and routes that can be traversed by jeep.

Pakistan thinks that to “consolidate what has now been achieved it is hoped that countries working under the auspices of the U.N for peace in Afghanistan will move swiftly towards the imposition of a total arms embargo.”