Back to the old ways

The Karzai administration's honeymoon period is over and Afghanistan is slowly but surely descending into chaos, reports Iffat Malik from Islamabad
No one believed that bringing peace and stability to a country racked by war and civil conflict for more than two decades would be easy. Now, after an initial honeymoon period of relative calm, Hamid Karzai, head of the interim administration in Afghanistan, is seeing for himself just how difficult it can be.
It is still not clear who was responsible for the brutal murder of Karzai's Aviation and Tourism Minister Abdul Rehman at Kabul airport last week. Conflicting explanations keep coming out of the capital. Karzai himself blamed a personal vendetta by security officials in the administration. Blaming this faction or that is a dangerous game for Karzai, but he claimed to have the backing of Abdullah Abdullah and other Northern Alliance ministers -- all of whom belong to the same Jamiat-i Islami faction as the accused.
But Karzai's version of events was rebutted by Abdullah, who blamed a mob of frustrated pilgrims. Whatever the motive behind Abdul Rehman's murder, it has fuelled speculation that a rift in the interim administration is developing between the so-called Rome group -- led by Hamid Karzai and comprised mostly of ethnic Pashtuns -- and the 'Panjshiri' group which holds the most powerful ministries.
Significantly, Karzai appointed two non- Panjshiri ministers to head the investigation into Abdul Rehman's death. The move indicates that he clearly does not have confidence in the Jamiat-i Islami-dominated police force.
As well as political factionalism, Karzai faces the wider and chronic Afghan problem of tribalism and warlordism. Now that the nationwide iron fist of the Taliban has been dispatched, local rulers have emerged to take their place. Often there are rival claimants to power, inevitably leading to in-fighting.
Gardez in Paktia province, for example, 60 miles south-east of Kabul, was the site of violent clashes at the beginning of February. The governor appointed by Hamid Karzai, a local warlord called Bachca Khan, was rejected by the Gardez town council. Clashes between the two sides left more than 60 people dead.
Further clashes occurred last weekend in the eastern province of Khost, with pro-government forces exchanging fire, not with Taliban or Al- Qa'eda opponents, but with non-Taliban rival claimants to power.
Further fighting near the northern city of Mazar-i Sharif took place between Tajiks, under the command of Atta Mohamed, and Uzbeks loyal to Abdur Rasheed Dostum. And in the west of Afghanistan, there have been persistent reports that warlord Ismail Khan is arming himself to resist the imposition of control from Kabul.
Such widespread reports of fighting from different parts of the country show that the interim administration has failed to establish its authority throughout Afghanistan. It rules on paper, but it seems that in practice its writ is really limited to the capital. And even there -- as the murder of Abdul Rehman, violence at a football match, and two incidents of firing on International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) troops demonstrate -- it has not been able to establish total control. The promised peace and security has not yet been delivered. Kabul, like the rest of Afghanistan, remains a dangerous place.
Karzai's problems do not end there, however. United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) officials in Pakistan are reporting a new exodus of Afghan refugees -- long after the collapse of the Taliban and the end of large-scale US military action. The UNHCR officials, expecting people to return from Pakistan to their homes in Afghanistan, were taken by surprise by the exodus.
The new migrants were mostly Pashtuns living in the non-Pashtun-dominated northern parts of the country and fleeing persecution at the hands of Tajiks, Uzbeks and other ethnic groups. The scale of the problem can be gauged from the fact that, last week alone, 20,000 tried to cross into Pakistan.
The humanitarian suffering of the Afghan people also continues. Rain and snow offer the hope of a harvest -- but that will come many months down the line. Hunger cannot wait, however, and the people are desperate for food now.
The situation is so bad in some parts of the country that fathers have been giving away daughters as young as 10 or 11 years old in marriage in return for 60kg sacks of flour. Afghans have always married their daughters off for a bride price -- but not at such a tender age, and not for food to survive.
Finally, an old menace has reappeared. Under the Taliban poppy production had been banned, but as soon as it became clear that the regime would collapse farmers started planting the seed again. The UN has confirmed that poppy planting has taken place on a massive scale. There are predictions of a bumper harvest in 2002 -- in the region of 4,600 tons of raw opium.
Hamid Karzai did impose a ban on poppy growing last month but -- as all the in-fighting demonstrates -- he lacks the authority to enforce it. Afghanistan has not descended to the anarchy, lawlessness and endemic fighting of the pre- Taliban days -- at least not yet. But it could very well do so.
That was the conclusion reached in a classified CIA report, made public by the New York Times. Its basic message was that civil war is not imminent but "there is a medium-term potential for a renewal of civil conflict."
The question, of course, is how can such a disastrous scenario be averted? Many of Afghanistan's problems are a legacy of the years of war and conflict, coupled with natural disasters such as drought. But many also stem from two specific weaknesses in the interim administration: lack of force, and lack of funds.
Without these two vital elements, there is very little the new government can do. Hamid Karzai has repeatedly appealed for the International Security Assistant Force to be increased in size, for it to be deployed beyond the capital and for it to be kept on for longer than the proposed six months. The international community, however, appears reluctant to make a greater commitment.
The US, in particular, is opposed to a bigger international force. It sees the solution to Afghanistan's security problems as lying in the formation of a national Afghan army and police force. Britain and the US are taking the lead in training the former and Germany has been delegated the latter, but progress has been very slow. One reason is that recruiting, training and maintaining an army takes money -- something the Karzai administration is very short of.
The international community did pledge $4.5 billion in Tokyo for the reconstruction of Afghanistan, but that was for long-term projects over the next five years. The interim administration has received very little immediate cash. By contrast, local warlords, many of them armed and funded by the US to fight the Taliban and Al- Qa'eda, have the resources to run their private militias.
Lack of funds is also preventing the administration from providing for other basic needs -- electricity, water, and so on -- that would give it popular credibility and acceptance.
Unless either of these factors changes rapidly -- if the international community sends in more troops, for example, or the Karzai administration receives funds to recruit its own army, as well as provide for the needs of its people, Afghanistan's degeneration into civil war appears inevitable.
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