With the news of back channel negotiations between the Taliban and the United States coming to light, the Karzai government’s fear of the hijacking of the reconciliation process with the Taliban by foreign partners might not be ill found. These become more apparent when President Karzai recalled Afghanistan Ambassador to Doha, Khaled Ahmad Zakaria, after it became known that the Taliban was opening a liaison office in Qatar. The assassination of former President and head of the High Peace Council (HPC) Burhanuddin Rabbani in September 2011 had disrupted the Afghan/led peace process.
To reassert Afghanistan’s role in the reconciliation process, President Hamid Karzai must now reinvigorate the High Peace Council by appointing a leader of the stature of President Rabbani as its head.
The existence of the High Peace Council can be traced back to the 2010 peace Jirga, where 1600 delegates met to establish a framework for negotiations with the insurgents, mainly the Taliban. The desire of the Afghan public to find a political solution to post 9/11 conflict led to the creation of the Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme (APRP) with the High Peace Council as its apex body. This sentiment for a peaceful political solution has again been echoed by the public in the recent Asian Foundation’s survey on Afghanistan 2011.
The key objective of the APRP is the reintegration of insurgents, who are willing to lay down their arms and accept the Constitution. For this purpose the programme uses local leaders to reach out to insurgents through a process of social outreach followed by demobilisation and reintegration. Once the grievances are brought to light, the local leader proceeds to convince the insurgents to lay down their arms in return for special community packages. Once the insurgents agree to the proposition biometric scans are taken and their community is provided with aid packages that address their most pressing requirements.
Thus far, the programme has yielded some positive results - 1700 insurgents have laid down their weapons, another 2000 insurgents are in the process of signing up for the reintegration programme. Clearly the APRP seems to have a positive appeal to the fighters, yet significant issues relating to the High Peace Council need to be addressed before further results can be achieved.
Not that the Council has been without criticism - the most contentious being its lack of operational transparency. Secrecy surrounding its operations has fuelled fears over the Council’s intentions. The Council must represent the voice of the public, for it to gain political legitimacy in the negotiation process. To insure proper representation, efforts have to be made to increase civil society involvement.
The issue that has gravely undermined the Council’s legitimacy has been its membership composition. Most of its members have participated in the wars and face accusation of war crimes and human rights violations. This factor alone questions the Council’s authority as an apex body for negotiations with the insurgents.
For the High Peace Council to succeed a re-evaluation of its membership along with greater civil society representation and transparency is called for. President Karzai must take the initiative without any further delay, and appoint a leader to head the Council along with the necessary restructuring of its membership. These efforts would go a long way in putting the Afghan/led reconciliation process back on track.
Haripal Singh Brar is a Research Intern at Observer Research Foundation
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