Afghan warlords' moves bring unease, resignation

June 08, 2002|By Laurie Goering, Tribune foreign correspondent.

KABUL, Afghanistan — The regional warlords who have long wielded so much of the real power in Afghanistan are supposed to stay on the sidelines as the divided nation struggles to build its first unified national government in 23 years.

The reality is that nearly all the warlords have a seat at the table.

As Afghanistan prepares for its loya jirga, the nationwide governmental selection process that opens Monday, striking a balance between democracy and the warlords' interests is proving delicate.

Ignoring the edict that criminals and human-rights abusers are barred from participating in the loya jirga, supporters of Abdul Rasul Sayyaf on Friday voted the fundamentalist warlord a spot in next week's grand council meeting.

Sayyaf is widely accused of shelling Kabul, at huge human cost, during turf fights that followed the end of Soviet rule. He calls the charges baseless and defends his years of warfare as a battle "for the freedom of Afghanistan."

Sayyaf also has pointed out a more serious flaw in Afghanistan's new democratic process.

"If we exclude all who have fought, who will remain in Afghanistan?" asked Sayyaf. "If that is a crime, we are all criminals."

Despite their protests to the contrary, nearly all the warlords who have flooded Kabul in advance of the loya jirga are seeking top jobs or other influence in the administration of interim leader Hamid Karzai, whose term in power is very likely to be extended in the voting next week.

Some warlords have muscled themselves onto the voting lists through threats or vote buying. Others have been invited as Cabinet ministers, governors or other officials in Afghanistan's far-flung provinces. Some are genuinely popular.

Under the agreement worked out in Bonn last December, most of them should be excluded from the loya jirga under provisions disqualifying delegates who have committed murder, human-rights abuses or other major crimes. But officials have been more afraid of them not participating than about them trying to grab control of the loya jirga.

"If they aren't part of the process, where will they be?" asked Rina Amiri, an international monitor for the loya jirga and political affairs officer for the United Nations. "Will they undermine our only chance to stabilize the country?

Warlords in the `gray middle'

"This is not war or peace. This is the gray middle," she said, gesturing toward Sayyaf as he held court with other delegates at Friday's last-round voting at a high school in Kabul. "This right here is the gray middle."

In some ways, Afghanistan's dilemma looks a lot like politics anywhere, with the powerful grabbing votes, building coalitions and cutting deals behind closed doors.

By the time the loya jirga starts Monday, most observers believe the majority of the issues--from the election of an 18-month transition president to the naming of Cabinet ministers--already will have been worked out.

The warlords--from Herat Gov. Ismael Khan to Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum to Sayyaf--are already driving around Kabul, having private meetings and negotiating for jobs and power.

The difference in Afghanistan is history. No one can forget that the last time these men got into a fight over territory, most of Kabul was destroyed by shelling.

Officials at Human Rights Watch said that is precisely why they should be excluded from the loya jirga.

"Warlords are making a power grab by brazenly manipulating the loya jirga selection process," charged Sam Zia-Zarifi, an Afghan expert with the U.S.-based rights organization. "If they succeed, Afghans will again be denied the ability to choose their own leaders and build society."

He called the loya jirga a "make-or-break time for Afghanistan's future" and urged that UN troops in Kabul be deployed across the country in an effort to defend the process.

Most Afghans accept warlords

However, most Afghans and even some Western diplomats appear to tacitly accept the participation of the nation's powerful faction leaders.

The warlords may have amassed fortunes controlling contraband, killed thousands and committed a variety of other crimes, but most analysts agree they are less of a threat inside the system than outside it.

How successfully they are transformed from armed strongmen to power brokers operating within a new national government may well be the key test of whether Afghanistan's fragile peace will hold.

"If Gen. Dostum and the others are entering this process to transform themselves [and] not to go back to the rule of the gun . . . that in itself would be progress," Zalmay Khalilzad, the Bush administration envoy to Afghanistan, said in a news conference this week.