peace building in afghanistan

Pictures credit and©: Global Peace Index 2013 Report

Major Challenges of Peace Buildingin Afghanistan

Homaam Khalilullah

July 30, 2013

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A humble attempt to fulfill the requirements of following question:

“Identify the major challenges of contemporary peace building in reference to, at least, one actual case of peace building effort undertaken around the world”.

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Table of Contents

Brief Background....................................................................................................4

Peace Building Efforts Since 2001............................................................................4

Phase 1: Planning................................................................................................................................................5

Challenges in This Phase................................................................................................................................. 6

Phase Two: Development................................................................................................................................6


Phase Three: Maturity.......................................................................................................................................7

Challenges in This Phase:................................................................................................................................ 8

Phase Four: Handover.......................................................................................................................................8


Cumulative Analysis of Peace Building Efforts......................................................................................9

Conclusion............................................................................................................12

References............................................................................................................13

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Brief Background

Afghanistan has always been a battlefield for major wars and cross road expedition related conflicts in the region, but this case study refers to a recent conflict which started in April 27, 1978, immediately after the Peoples’ Democratic Party of Afghanistan (PDPA) took power in military coup infamously known as the Saur Revolution. Since this party belonged to communist faction and had no good reputation in the country, the absolute majority revolted and resisted their reforms. One year later in December 1979, Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan to rescue its communist puppet government from the afghan revolutionaries, but this invasion ever prolonged the war for nearly 10 more years. The Soviet Union withdrew its troops in February 1989; consequently the communist regime could not survive for more than 3 years and collapsed in 1992 in the hands of Mujahedeen the guerrilla fighters strongly supported by US intelligence agencies. Shortly the country went into one of the worst situation of anarchy in the world, which caused another public movement called Taliban. The Taliban movement initially started in 1994 but only succeeded to capture capital city in September 1996, and announced its new government under the name of Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan. Following the September 2001 attack on twin towers in New York City; NATO invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001, overthrew the Taliban government, and established current government on December 22, 2001, which continued to date.

Peace Building Efforts Since 2001

Unfortunately this last intervention did not end the war in Afghanistan and it proved to be just beginning of another lap of the continued war since the early start of April 1978, in the country. Despite the facts that International Society and US is working hand in hand to bring peace and security in the country so they can leave the country in 2014, no visible improvements have been made in this area. In this year (2013) Afghanistan is ranked 162nd out of total 162 countries surveyed, and thus called the least peaceful country of the world (Global Peace Index, 2013).

In order to better analyze the challenges and deeply understand step by step process of peace building efforts in Afghanistan, the remaining parts of this essay is divided into four major phases and the peace process is analogized to project life cycle. Same as project life cycle the peace building efforts in Afghanistan starts from planning, moves to development, then maturity and ends on

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handover or transition. For more concreteness we will analyze major challenges in each of these major phases.

Phase 1: Planning

Establishment of Afghan Government and Creation of International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) - Bonn Agreement

Since no democratic government existed before the arrival of Taliban, therefore after overthrowing of the Taliban government, international society needed to establish a democratic government from scratch. In December 2001, UN invited 4 groups of delegation to meet in Bonn and create an interim government; the invited people were comprised of anti Taliban ethnic factions whose total number did not exceed 30 people (UN, 2001):

Table 1. Delegation Factions and MembersS. No Group name Number of Delegates1 The northern alliance and Iran supported group

who lived in exile 11 members

2 The Rome group affiliated with former king Muhammad Zahir Shah 11 members

3 The cypress group 5 members4 The Peshawar group Pashtun dominated faction

Though Pakistan insisted to include moderate Taliban in the Peshawar delegates, but the offer was not accepted, and thus Taliban were excluded from taking part in this new government.

On December 25, 2001 the Bonn Delegates selected Hamid Karzai as chairman of the Interim administration and also the establishment of 29 member interim cabinet. Half of the cabinet seats were received by northern alliance, the Rome group got total of 8 positions. In the process of this meeting the UN also created International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF) lead by NATO, in order to bring full security in the country. The ISAF was created with3000- 5000 troops and only had following specific tasks based on the Military Technical Agreement made in Bonn (Military Technical Agreement, 2001):

a. Assist the new government to develop future security structure.b. Assist in reconstruction.c. Training arrangement for future Afghan security.

At the same time the Bonn conference decided to bring all Mujahidin, Afghan armed forces and armed groups under the command and control of Interim Authority by December 22, 2001. They were also “re-organized” based on the

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requirements of new Afghan security forces (Wentzell Tyler D, 2012:32).

Challenges in This Phase In this phase neither security not peace was addressed, the main focus

was on formation of traditional government administration. Afghanistan is tribal society; the meeting did not consider the Pashtun

tribal leaders from inside Afghanistan and were totally ignored. Most of these people later on joined the armed insurgents supported by Pakistan.

Though the foundation of new interim government was made by ethnic representation, still UN made the minority of the population in absolute majority in the formation of government.

The Taliban were not part of the process though proposed by Pakistan, the strong supporter country of Taliban, mainly because the UN and US considered them as a defeated force that does not exist hereafter. This refusal of proposal forced Pakistan to extend its military support to Taliban to make the new government instable. Now after many of years of war with Taliban the afghan government is now asking Pakistan to request Taliban to set with them on the peace table. This would have been possible just in the planning stage and would not need to shed huge amount of innocent blood in these two neighboring countries of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Establishment of the security sector started very weak, there was no serious effort made to follow-up on the insurgents and take long-term measures. Every one considered the game over and totally diverted the attention to interim elections, started power struggle, etc. The Taliban moved to rural areas and started establishing bases and nationwide strongholds.

Phase Two: Development

Tokyo Donors Conference

On January 21st, 2002, a two-day conference was held in Tokyo on reconstruction assistance to Afghanistan, but as a side story it also addressed the security sector development based on the promise they had made in Bonn Conference. In this meeting the security sector was divided into 5 pillars and each pillar’s development responsibility was assigned to one developed country, which was called the Lead Nation. This process was designed to give full ownership of the specific sector to the designated countries so they become a responsible party for its development. Following is the table of the security sector reform (SSR) pillars and its lead nations (Wentzell Tyler D, (2012):

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Table 2: Security Sector Pillars and lead nations

S. No Security sector Pillar Lead nation

1 Afghan National Army (ANA) USA

2 Judicial Reform Italy

3 Disarmament, Demobilization and Reintegration (DDR) Japan

4 Counter-narcotics UK

5 Afghan National Police (ANP). Germany

Challenges in This Phase

As the security sector reform pillars were distributed among different courtiers, therefore the reform process was faced with lack of coordination among the lead nations and also with the government of Afghanistan. For example the DDR process was headed by Japan but the program was implemented by UNDP,and both parties were not clear on their own individual roles in developing this pillar till the end of the whole period. USA was a lead nation for ANA but the troops were trained by British trainers in Kabul Military Training Center (KMTC) while Germany had no partner in development efforts and was let alone as hers sole responsibility (Wentzell Tyler D, (2012). Lack of coordination was a serious problem and still exists in the whole security sector.

Phase Three: Maturity

London Conference: The Afghanistan Compact

The London conference was held in January 2006 to support the newly established government on security, governance, and economic and social development. But at this time afghan people have been frustrated from the government; moreover the insurgents had already recovered into a great extent and had become strong enough to challenge the writ of government in all over the country. That is why this conference gave enough emphasis to security sector and also defined the SSR in more comprehensive terms. Here they also established specific goals and targets to be achieved in the peace building and

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security programs. In this conference the international society decided to change the Lead national approach to key partner approach and give the main responsibility to afghan government, and keep the assistance role in terms of key partners. In this conference they also made following commitments: by the end of 2007, all illegal groups should be disarmed, by the end of 2010, army should reach 70,000 soldiers, 62000 police force has to be established, and etc. (Afghanistan Compact, 2006).

Challenges in This Phase:

This is the only serious effort made toward establishing an afghan led security sector reform supported by world nations. But in the negative side it was already too late, and 6 years were more than sufficient time for insurgents to hold steps in the provinces especially rural areas, and prove the government as weak and incapable to solve the security challenges. The insurgents had already started attacks in capital city Kabul and had caused severe damages to economic and social development. But still this could be a good start if everything would went good in the same manner as promised by Afghan government and promise of support was extended by International society. But if we evaluate the reform sector in real world, it was again too slow to face the over arching challenge of Taliban and socio-economic deprivations hence caused.

Phase Four: Handover

Security Transition to Afghan Force

During the reelection campaign in US, Barak Obama came to Kabul in a dark night on an announced trip and signed well-known Strategic Partnership Agreement with president Karzai on May02, 2012(New York times, 2012). This agreement phased out the security transition from US and other international security forces to Afghan National Army, and also both countries committed to a long-term mutual security commitment in the country (Strategic Partnership Agreement, 2012). I put the story of reelection in this context of strategic partnership agreement because this visit was only 4 days before the big relays in the US to make a strong case for re-election and make his claim stronger in ending this unpopular war. This transition is not because there is peace in the country, but because the US citizens are no more interested in this engagement, and want to close this chapter at its earliest. Later on that year in Lisbon summit in November 2010, NATO agreed to gradually handover the security responsibilities to Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) by the end of 2014.

In another NATO summit held in Chicago in May 2012, the alliance confirmed its mission would end in Afghanistan on December 31, 2014 (UK House of commons, 2012).That means, highly trained NATO troops of 129000 personnel

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from 50 countries (ISAF, 2013), will be replaced by weakly trained, poorly equipped Afghan national security forces by the end of 2014. As of June 2013 the ANSF had following number of troops in the country, in which half of the force is non-combatant and serve as crisis prevention force in urban areas (NATO, 2013):

Table 3. ANSF StrengthS.No Security force type Number of personnel1 Afghan National Army – ANA 183,000 (Including

10,500 Special Forces)2 Afghan National Police (Including

community police, traffic police, and fire-fighters; the Afghan Border Police; the Afghan Anti-Crime Police, including a counter narcotics, a counter terrorism, and a criminal investigations department; and the Afghan Civil Order Police)

151,000

3 Afghan Air Force (AAF): approximately 6,700 personnel

6,700

Challenges in This Phase

The transition was a political move by US administration and weakly considered the ground realities of Afghanistan. Afghan force is not well trained, lacks war equipment, and actually will take several more years in order to become able to take the responsibilities and bring peace and security in the country.

Cumulative Analysis of Peace Building Efforts

The final effect of peace building should be considered as saving lives of military and civilians, and here I analyze the peace building efforts on this end result. After 12 years of continuous efforts by international society the security situation is getting worse year by year in terms of casualties and fatalities alike for International Forces and Afghan Civilians.

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Figure 1 : Coalition deaths by year

Num

ber

of d

eath

s

Number of Deaths per year (first year 2001 – last year 2013)

Source: http://icasualties.org/oef/ByYear.aspx

The above figure shows that there were little or no incidents of war in the country during first six years taken from 2001 to mid 2006. This was the best period of relative peace in the country, but in mid 2006 the insurgency raised sharply. The main reasons for calm period is because all the people were optimistic and looking forward to the economic and social development activities of the government including the Taliban forces, because they started the movement at very first place against the war lords and other anarchist which were disrupting the security of the country and they showed no strong interest in holding state ownership at all. Beside the above reason, flow of foreign money increased corruption in the countryside, moreover the police forces and night raids made the people nervous and contributed to previous problems thus made people to rise against the government and especially the international forces. Four– five years was plenty of time for people to test the government in its approach toward security and development, but unfortunately in this period the people got very bad impression, which was manipulated and negatively used by Taliban. The international society also did not give good attention to strengthening security sector of the country and moved out to focus on Iraq war in the crucial period. That is why they failed to respond in time or even take contingency measures to the insurgency situation in Afghanistan.

Based on the above figure 1, in mid 2006, the insurgency attacks became intense and increased exponentially. By the end of 2010 the insurgency reached its highest level and took lives of 711 international military personnel. These

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attacks increased each year, but have recently decreased not because the situation is getting better but because they have handed over the responsibility to Afghan Forces, and now the Afghan Forces are in the same situation.

The civilian casualty is also in the most alarming situation. Following is only the data released by UNAMA from January 2007 when the agency started data collection, and lasts till November 2010. After this year UNAMA stopped releasing monthly casualty data but produce year data. Monthly data is as following:

Figure 2: Afghan Civilian monthly data (Jan 2007 – Dec 2010)

Source: http://www.zen111450.zen.co.uk/casualty_monitor/afghancasualties1b.htm

The above figure shows the average of fatalities is steadily moving up while the numbers of accidents are changing each month. The above diagram also shows that springtime is the most worst in terms of Afghan civilian fatalities.

Table 4: Civilian Casualties, Annual DataS.No Year Civilian Fatalities

(Deaths)Civilian causalities

1 2008 2,118

242952 2009 2,4123 2010 2,7904 2011 3,021

http://www.casualty-monitor.org/p/civilian-casualties-afghanistan.html

The above table also shows continuous increase in civilian fatalities per year while the total casualties have reached more than 24000 from 2008 to 2011.

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Conclusion

Global Peace Index has placed Afghanistan as the least peaceful country in the world; this result can be a very concrete conclusion for all peace building efforts have been done so far in the country. Ending last is not the result of recent years’ incidents, but it goes back to the formation of new government when peace building was neglected all together. The international society also ignored the ethnic composition of the country in new administration and gave more than half of the cabinet seats and other divisions to northern alliance, which is a minority ethnic faction group, dominated by Tajik. The Taliban and its supporters in the south got the impression that government is made by northern alliance and is not inclusive; therefore their rights and privileges will not be safe. From the very beginning the huge majority of the ethnic people “Pashtun” were not only ignored but also repeatedly repressed in different ways such as night raids, unnecessary detentions, etc. which created socially and politically hostile sphere in the country.

The peace building process was also disrupted by diversion of international society attention to Iraq war, which further postponed the development of ANSF and gave plenty of time to insurgents to make its roots strong in rural areas. Civilian casualties and huge corruption in police and justice sectors caused the insurgency to get public support and increase its number more steadily. From historical background of afghan wars, defeating the insurgency especially when it becomes nation widespread is impossible in the context of Afghanistan. This case has been proved from thousands of years in the country, which was repeated again in this particular period of time. If the peace building efforts do not change fundamentally based on the challenges mentioned in the four phases, the war and armed conflict will not only continue but may also destroy the basic foundation of this fragile government in the future.

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References

Afghanistan compact (2006), Annex 1 ‘Benchmarks and Time Lines’, available at: http://www.nato.int/isaf/docu/epub/pdf/afghanistan_compact.pdf (accessed: 2013: July 07)

Global Peace Index (2013), ‘Ten Countries Least at Peace’, available at: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/pdf/gpi/2013_Global_Peace_Index_Report.pdf (accessed: 2013, July 21)

House of Commons (2012, July 09) ‘Afghanistan: The Timetable for Security Transition’, available at:http://www.parliament.uk/briefing-papers/SN05851 (accessed: 2013, July 12)

ISAF (2013, June 24)‘ISAF: Key Facts and Figures’, available at:http://www.isaf.nato.int/images/stories/File/Placemats/20130624_130624-mb-isaf-placemat.pdf (accessed: 2013, July 06)

Military Technical Agreement, 2001 private security monitors. (University of Denver), available at: http://psm.du.edu/media/documents/us_regulations/sofas/us_isaf_military_technical_agreement.pdf (accessed: 2013, July 18)

New York Time (2012, May 02) ‘Obama Signs Pact in Kabul, Turning Page in Afghan War’, available at: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/02/world/asia/obama-lands-in-kabul-on-unannounced-visit.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print (Accessed: 2013, July 10).

NATO (2013, June 06) ‘Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF)’, available at:http://www.nato.int/nato_static/assets/pdf/pdf_2013_06/20130604_130604-mb-ansf.pdf (accessed: July 06)

Strategic Partnership Agreement (2012, June 01), ‘Enduring strategic partnership agreement between USA and IRoA’, available at: http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/2012.06.01u.s.-afghanistanspasignedtext.pdf (Accessed: 2013, June 30)

UN (2001; December 25) ‘Agreement on Provisional Arrangements In Afghanistan Pending The Re-Establishment Of Permanent Government Institutions’. UN organization, available athttp://www.un.org/news/dh/latest/afghan/afghan-agree.htm (accessed: 2013, July 18).

Wentzell Tyler D, (2012) ‘security system reform in Afghanistan, THE CANADIAN ARMY JOURNAL VOLUME 14.1

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Disclaimer:

This is document is not checked for compliance with plagiarism, grammatical accuracy or any type of academic integrity. Use it with your own risk; author is not responsible for any kind of liability whatsoever.

Category: Peace Building

peace building in afghanistan

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