Young Afghan posing in front of one of the graffiti works of artist Reza Amiri. Credit: Giuliano Battiston/IPS

By Giuliano Battiston
JALALABAD, Afghanistan, Jul 8 2013 (IPS)

While United States President Barack Obama and Afghan leader Hamid Karzai scramble to solidify a peace process ahead of the 2014 withdrawal of NATO troops from Afghanistan, fears that the Taliban will use the drawdown to seize power hang like a dark cloud over civil society.

Although NATO handed over the reins to the 352,000-strong Afghan security force on Jun. 18, signaling the end of 12 years of international military presence on Afghan soil that began with the 2001 U.S.-led invasion, unanswered questions mingle with smoke from militant attacks that show no sign of abating.

Even before the power transfer ceremony was complete, a car bomb exploded near the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC) offices in western Kabul, killing three and wounding 20.

Unsurprisingly, the Taliban quickly claimed responsibility for the attack, which raised the ire of civilians and activists keeping a close eye on peace talks and the possible inclusion of Taliban representatives in a post-2014 government.“The fact is that they want (total) power for themselves. And we cannot accept that.” -- Asadullah Larawi, regional officer for the Civil Society Development Center

The militants’ new head office in the Gulf emirate of Qatar seems to suggest that the group has already laid its plans for the soon-to-be independent country, placing itself in a central role as future negotiator and national representative. But the 35 million people who have lived for years under the Taliban’s boot might need some convincing.

In Jalalabad, capital of the eastern Nangarhar Province, which sits at the junction of the Kabul and Kunar rivers not far from the border with Pakistan, no one troubles to lower their voice when expressing scepticism about ongoing negotiations, or when criticising the lack of transparency surrounding future plans, none of which have been made public.

This city is hardened after years of war and still shocked by the May 29 attack on the local offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) that left one guard dead and three staff members injured, and served as a stark reminder that peace is a long way off.

Hambullah Arbab, artist and regional coordinator of the Youth in Action Association, told IPS that the peace process is failing as a result of incorrect assumptions and methods.

He said that conflicts in Afghanistan are traditionally settled through “jirga” and “shura” (local councils), the idea being that there is a need for neutral third parties to arbitrate any dispute between warring sides.

In the current peace process, however, this role has been assigned to the High Peace Council (HPC). It is a body that the Taliban sees as “illegitimate”, having been created by Karzai in 2010 and chaired by former Afghan President Burhanuddin Rabbani, leader of the Jamiat-e-Islami, a party that has a long and conflicted history with the Taliban.

Others fear that the armed group, accustomed to violence, coercion and terror tactics, will be unable to surrender itself to the democratic process or the will of the country’s 35 million people.

“Whoever honestly wants peace can be part of the government,” Ezatullah Zawab, founder and chief editor of the bi-monthly cultural magazine Meena, told IPS, adding that civil society is open to welcoming the Taliban on the condition that the militants stay true to their word of using peaceful means to achieve their goals.

Since late April, Karzai has extended numerous invitations to the Taliban leadership to participate in the upcoming presidential election that is scheduled for Apr. 15, 2014. This will test the waters of public opinion, and allow the Afghan people – not foreign forces or armed groups – to determine the country’s future.

Mohammed Anwar Sultani, a former professor at Nangarhar University and a respected elder in Jalalabad, believes that in the unlikely event that the Taliban fields candidates, few Afghans will be inclined to vote for them.

“The Taliban have already had their chance to rule the country, and they failed,” he said, referring to the period between 1996 and 2001 when, under the flag of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban exercised total control from their seat of power in the southern city of Kandahar, and in central Kabul.

Having risen to power amid clashes between warring mujahideen groups and waves of brutal rapes throughout the country, the majority Pashtun Taliban portrayed themselves as the saviours of the Afghan people and the guarantors of safety.

“We were convinced they were a bird bringing peace,” Sultani told IPS. It was not until Sultani, like scores of others, witnessed their brutal and coercive regime that he realised he had been misguided, and grew suspicious of the militants.

He is not alone; suspicion is widespread, as is confusion about exactly who and what constitutes the Taliban.

Jalalabad regional officer for the Civil Society Development Center (CSDC) Asadullah Larawi firmly believes that the country should reject “foreign elements”, referring to allegations that the Afghan Taliban is backed by, and takes its orders from, Pakistan’s intelligence service.

Still, he strongly endorses the idea of dialogue with the Afghan Taliban if they are willing to accept the achievements of the last decade, like “freedom of speech, freedom of the media, human rights and women’s rights.”

“The fact is that they want (total) power for themselves,” Larawi told IPS. “And we cannot accept that.”

The country’s constitution also offers some middle ground between continued militarism and total political control in the Taliban’s hands.

While the debate rages on in cities across Afghanistan, the U.S. should not consider itself out of the line of fire just yet.

“If the Americans really wanted peace, they would easily find a way to achieve it,” said Baz Mohammad Abid, a journalist at Radio Mashaal, the local branch of Radio Free Europe. “The fact is, they have different goals in mind – they want to maintain a long presence in Central Asia to stop Chinese economic and political growth.”

Tragically, while the Afghan war “is not our war, but a war of foreigners”, the consequences of an ineffective peace process has been paid almost entirely by Afghans, with a 24-percent rise in the number of civilians killed and injured in the first half of 2013 compared to the same time period in 2012, according to Ján Kubiš, the United Nations secretary-general’s special representative in Afghanistan.

Since 2008, militants in Pakistan have torched over 5,000 vehicles carrying NATO supplies to Afghanistan. Credit: Ashfaq Yusufzai/IPS

By Ashfaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR, Pakistan , Jun 18 2013 (IPS)

The United States is laying meticulous plans ahead of its 2014 withdrawal from Afghanistan, but it has clearly overlooked how its continued drones strikes on the tribal areas of neighbouring Pakistan will affect the much-anticipated pullout.

Last week, a group of militants belonging to the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) torched three containers stuffed with supplies for NATO troops in Afghanistan, as they trundled along the stony mountain pass known as Torkham Road in Pakistan’s northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) province.

The militants claimed the attack on the convoy of 12 containers was payback for the drone strike on May 29 that killed TTP Deputy Leader Waliur Rehman in North Waziristan province, one of seven zones comprising the country’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).

The incident last month brought the total number of drone strikes on the region to over 355 since 2005. But while the U.S. government has hitherto been happy to turn a blind eye to various forms of protest against its campaign of remote warfare – from civilian marches, to government statements – the burning of NATO-bound vehicles might signal a turning point in its controversial foreign policy.

Muhammad Mushtaq, an office-bearer of the NATO Suppliers Association – a local collective of drivers, cleaners and vehicle owners involved in the transport of supplies across the border – told IPS, “Since 2008, more than 5,000 NATO vehicles have been burnt down in Peshawar and the Khyber Agency, all of them en route to Afghanistan to replenish the forces engaged in a war against terrorism since 2002.”

In the process, he said, not only have roughly 10 million dollars worth of equipment and supplies been reduced to ashes, but more than 500 people, including drivers and cleaners, have lost their lives.

In December 2008, 160 NATO vehicles carrying Humvees destined for Afghanistan were burnt in a single attack near Peshawar, capital of the KP, Mushtaq said. The militants later paraded triumphantly amid billowing flames that blackened the sky.

Most of the vehicles heading to Afghanistan carry military equipment, food, and other logistical supplies for the roughly 100,000 foreign troops stationed there, Retired Major Anwar Khan, a security analyst, told IPS.

“This same route will also likely be used for the withdrawal of heavy military hardware as well as soldiers,” he said. Thus, if drone strikes continue, the U.S. risks leaving its main access and exit route vulnerable to attacks.

Khan says that the U.S. and its coalition partners in the so-called ‘War on Terror’ must revisit their military strategy if they are determined to stick to the 2014 date. “Otherwise, the chances of their withdrawal and peace in Pakistan and Afghanistan will remain a dream.”

An eye for an eye 

When U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban government in Kabul in 2001, it signaled the beginning of a war that would drag on for over a decade.

Members of the deposed regime, along with their supporters, fled en masse into the mountains that form the rugged 1,200-kilometre-long border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, prompting the latter to throw in its lot with the U.S. in the hopes of preventing the militants from taking root in its own, volatile tribal zones.

But promises to destroy the Al Qaeda network charged with carrying out the bombing of the U.S.’s twin towers on Sep. 11, 2001, have failed to bear fruit, with many commentators observing that the militants are stronger than ever.

Last May, against the backdrop of rising costs, a mounting death toll and loud public opposition to the war, U.S. President Barack Obama signed a Strategic Partnership Agreement with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, agreeing to withdraw forces by 2014 and hand over power to the locally elected government.

But experts like Pervez Jamal, professor of political science at the University of Peshawar, believe this plan will fall flat unless immediate measures are taken to appease the TTP.

As Khan pointed out, “The burning of vehicles has already made the war against terrorism more expensive for the U.S. and its allies.”

Currently, 70 percent of supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan come through Pakistan, where they arrive by ship at the Arabian Sea port of Karachi before travelling 3,000 kilometres to the Bagram Airfield in Kabul.

In November 2011, the Pakistan government ordered the closure of this supply route when U.S. forces attacked a Pakistani security post in FATA’s Mohmand Agency, killing 24 soldiers.

Deprived of a land route, the U.S. was forced to explore alternative, aerial routes through Russia and the former Soviet republics that border Afghanistan. During this time, the cost of transporting supplies went from 17 million dollars to 104 million dollars.

Unable to sustain these costs, the U.S. government issued an apology for the attack, and the supply route was re-opened in 2012, with the understanding that it would remain functional until 2015, to facilitate a smooth withdrawal from Afghanistan.

But this agreement is now in jeopardy.

The burning of supplies also spells danger for the 10,000 troops tasked with remaining on the ground to assist the 350,000 Afghan National Security Forces with the political transition.

The local security force currently lacks training and military equipment; without the promise of reinforcements, some experts say they will be no match for an attempted power grab by the militants.

Javed Hasham, an Afghan war analyst based in Peshawar, told IPS that the Taliban are capable of destroying convoys very easily. Torkham Road is an exposed mountain pass, with no security outposts along the way. The Taliban, familiar with the terrain, have hideouts in hills and houses that overlook the winding road.

Attacks on supply convoys had recorded a massive decrease over the past four months but have recently picked up again, keeping pace with increased drone strikes.

Hasham believes it unlikely that even the Pakistan government, which is loathe to support the Taliban, will not chastise the militants for these attacks, as it, too, sees the drone strikes as a severe encroachment on national sovereignty.

“The only way forward is for the U.S. to put its drone strikes on hold,” Hasham said.

The Hasht-e Sobh newspaper is now offering cheap SMS news-alerts to over 15,000 subscribers across Afghanistan. Credit: Shelly Kittleson/IPS

By Shelly Kittleson
KABUL, May 31 2013 (IPS)

As Afghanistan prepares for the 2014 withdrawal of foreign forces that have occupied this country for over a decade, investors are already beginning to bid a hasty retreat amid rumours that “chaos” and civil war will replace NATO’s boots on the ground late next year.

Among those most fearful of this approaching financial drought are journalists and media organisations who have long relied on international support to stay afloat.

Najiba Ayubi, director of the independent Afghan media group known as The Killid Group (TKG), described the last 10 years as the “golden decade for Afghan media”, which saw the establishment of 175 FM radio stations, 75 television stations and hundreds of print publications that have taken up the cudgels on everything from rural girls’ right to education to the public’s right to information.

The radio stations in particular have been very effective in developing a strong civil society and there is “a serious danger of losing all that if funding dries up,” Ayubi told IPS.

But fear breeds innovation, and as the drawdown approaches, media practitioners are finding creative solutions to the post-NATO quandary, including the creation of a new journalists’ federation, efforts to build a culture of investigative journalism and the drafting of a “code of conduct” for the press.

Media practitioners close ranks

One of the first responses to the threat of a funding shortage has been a heightened sense of solidarity in times of distress.

When the independent daily Hasht-e Sobh decided to take the Afghan ministry of mines to task in a special edition in late March for “irregular tender procedures” and the squandering of resources on so-called advisors who were paid as much as 107,000 dollars per month, the paper’s editor-in-chief Parwiz Kawa was promptly summoned to the attorney general’s office.

This raised fears that he might be fated to a similar end as the many Afghan journalists who have been killed on the job in the last decade, including two in the past few weeks.

But local media organisations just as promptly issued statements denouncing the violation of the right to free speech. Hasht-e Sobh, winner of Reporters Without Borders (RSF)’s 2012 Press Freedom Award, says the matter is currently on hold.

This spontaneous reaction came partly in response to the paper’s daily struggle for survival: while in 2011 it was able to employ some 125 staff across the country, its bureau has since dwindled to 70, axing crucial correspondents in the eastern city of Jalalabad and the southern Kandahar province.

“We had to let them go when donors cut the funding,” Kawa told IPS, adding that 50 percent of Hasht-e Sobh’s budget comes from international donors, with less than 30 percent coming in from advertising, sales and subscriptions.

The group is now scrambling to secure loans from supporters and began offering a low-cost SMS news alert service through an agreement with telecommunications provider Etisalat two months ago.

The service has already attracted 15,000 subscribers and hopes to eventually reach at least 100,000 of Afghanistan’s estimated 30 million inhabitants, according to Kawa.

Ayubi is similarly concerned about the future of TKG, which achieved full self-sufficiency in 2005 but took a hit after the announcement of the 2014 military pullout. With advertisers’ pockets growing shallower, Killid has once again resorted to seeking grants in order to maintain its operations.

According to Ayubi, it is particularly important for media organisations to remain functional in the lead up to the April 2014 presidential elections so that the population can make informed decisions.

Nader Nadery, former human rights commissioner of Afghanistan and current executive chairman of the Free and Fair Elections Foundation, highlighted the crucial role the media plays in nurturing a vital society, pointing out that news sources have become much more critical of the government’s failure to deliver on its promises.

This initially caused the government to dig in its heels and adamantly refuse to release even the most innocuous information on the grounds that it is classified and that releasing it would pose a “national security risk.”

But after extensive lobbying by media and civil society groups, the government published a draft Access to Information law earlier this year.

Though the Centre for Law and Democracy has criticised the draft on a number of points – such as the restricting of access to “information that serves a right or brings ease to performing of the relevant duties’’ – Nadery believes the government’s overture to civil society represents an “important step forward” for press freedom and the right to information.

With these newly won rights come responsibilities, Afghan National Journalists’ Union (ANJU) Chief Fahim Dashti noted, drawing attention to the recent collaboration between more than 30 media organisations over a seven-month period that resulted in a draft Code of Practice, designed to ensure media quality.

The code calls for journalists to pay greater attention to the psychological and social impact of news reports, especially those covering delicate issues like child abuse and rape, and aims to “sensitise” the public by, for example, refraining from using the word “criminal” for those not yet convicted of crimes. Dashti believes this will also strengthen the public’s trust in media outlets.

Though his own widely respected publication ‘Kabul Weekly’ folded in 2011 due to financial difficulties, Dashti is hopeful about the overall future of journalism.

Meanwhile, the newly established Afghan Journalists’ Safety Committee has embarked on efforts to alleviate some of the risks journalists incur in their work, offering first aid training, medical treatment, and legal advice. A 24-hour hotline offers a lifeline to distressed journalists by connecting media practitioners with a vast network of civil society activists, as well as local and international media.

In a country where the literacy rate is estimated to be hovering close to 28 percent, though, print publications will find it the hardest to survive.