All the king's men

Both the West and the Afghan opposition to the Taliban regime are looking to the exiled Afghan King Zahir Shah for leadership, Samia Nkrumah writes from Rome
Barely a week before America and Britain bombed Taliban command centres and training camps in Afghanistan, a flurry of diplomatic trips from Rome to Islamabad and across the Atlantic gathered pace.
The diplomats are trying to find an alternative government for Afghanistan in the wake of the September attacks on New York and Washington. Their efforts have quickened as they are desperate to find a viable candidate before the fall of the Taliban throws Afghanistan into chaos.
Italy finds itself actively involved in this diplomatic exercise. The former king of Afghanistan, , happens to have lived in a suburb of Rome since the 1973 coup that ousted him from power.
The 87-year-old former monarch is too old to govern and, by his own admission, has no wish to be "restored to the throne." But last week, he signed an agreement with the leaders of the anti-Taliban National Alliance, also known as the United Front, under extremely tight security. Zahir Shah has indicated that he "sees his role as that of a father figure," a symbolic head of the new nation.
With his support, the Alliance now hopes to secure more than its five to 10 per cent control of Afghan territory in the north-east, as the Taliban unhinges.
The agreement came on the heels of meetings between the former king and Western diplomats and politicians. Within a few days, Zahir Shah met Francesc Vendrell, the UN envoy to Afghanistan, US Chargé d'Affaires William Pope and British Conservative members of the European parliament. The day after the agreement, a delegation of US Congressmen and women also paid a visit.
Zahir Shah and the Alliance leaders have essentially agreed to replace the Taliban with a "transitional unity government," that will hopefully lead to free elections in the near future.
This government, ideally, will be an intra-Afghan body, representing the leaders of Afghan's tribal, ethnic, military and political groups, as well as the exiled coalitions in Cyprus and Germany. But this hope will only come to pass if the ex-monarch's call for a great assembly, or Loya Jirga, of the leaders is heeded.
The former king has called for such a meeting before: the last time was less than a year ago. But it is only today that his chances look anything but dismal, now that he has the backing of the Western powers.
But it is unlikely that the Loya Jirga will take place before an assessment of the damage to Taliban forces is made and the shifting loyalties of ethnic and political leaders tested. Many will watch to see how events unfold before deciding how to act.
Zahir Shah is part of the majority Pashtun, (the ethnic group from which the Taliban are also drawn), and so is seen as having broad appeal. He also played no part in the civil war and is seen as above the divisions that have ravaged his country for over two decades.
Unlike other prominent Afghan leaders, Zahir Shah's political weight is not dependent on military might. The different militias are, therefore, likely to regard him as a neutral, representing the broadest possible positions. Indeed, the ex-monarch has not ruled out including Taliban supporters in a unity government.
Efforts had been under way to assess his chances well before the terrorist attacks on American soil last month. One American poll released several months ago showed that a significant number of Afghans, tired of war, factional fighting and poverty, would be willing to give Zahir Shah a chance. UN diplomatic activity to persuade different Afghan groups to accept Zahir Shah also complemented US efforts. UN Envoy Vendrell told the former king last week that the UN has been working to impress upon the different Afghan groups the need to form a multi-ethnic government under one leader, and that Zahir Shah seems the most acceptable to most people.
Other voices also speak in favour of Zahir Shah. A spokeswoman for the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), Marina Malin, told Italian daily La Repubblica from Islamabad that RAWA believes "Zahir Shah is a better choice than the Taliban or the Alliance," as "he could guarantee a democratic transition of the country that would restore the dignity of Afghan women." RAWA, an underground Afghan movement that provides clandestine schooling for women in the country, is as fiercely opposed to the Alliance as it is to the Taliban.
Yet Zahir Shah's credentials are not without blot. He has been absent from Afghanistan for almost 30 years. Some anti-Taliban groups fear his will be a puppet government, its strings pulled by the United States, without which it will be impossible to create a post-Taliban regime. Nation-building in Afghanistan will be costly: politically, financially and diplomatically.
Nor is it yet clear if the ex-monarch has the full backing of influential Afghan leaders. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a former prime minister and warlord who lives in Tehran, doubts that Zahir Shah can ever return to his country without American troops. The exiled President Burhanuddin Rabbani, recognised by the UN as leader of the legitimate government of Afghanistan, initially commented that, "any government imposed from outside Afghanistan would not be acceptable." But he has since lent his support to the idea of a grand assembly under Zahir Shah. Rabbani, an ethnic Tajik, the Alliance's political leader, and president of the Mujahedin-led government of 1992, fled the country in 1996 when Kabul fell to the Taliban.
There may be uncertainty about the former king. But there is total agreement that the United Nations must be involved in any post-conflict settlement. Afghans, including the almost four million refugees in both Pakistan and Iran, are united on this issue, according to UN sources. Expanded UN involvement, even with the US prodding behind the scenes, would be welcomed. Zahir Shah told the delegation of 11 US Congressmen and women who met him in Rome this week that he wants the UN to have a role in the transition in Afghanistan, preferably with Muslim troops.
On these and other matters, Zahir Shah is expected to listen to the advice of foreign powers; it is these outside powers who will help him return and will remain involved as long as the neighbouring countries from Uzbekistan and Tajikistan to Iran and Pakistan, and, of course, the US, sense that their countries' security is at stake.
For example, any settlement must include the Pakistan government's input. The US will insist on a Kabul government friendly to Pakistan, as a reward for Pakistan's political support for the US-led war against terror.
To this end, Italian Foreign Ministry Undersecretary, Margherita Boniver, was in Pakistan this week to enlist the government's approval of the former king. Boniver met Northern Alliance leader Younis Qanooni on the eve of her Islamabad visit. Boniver returned from Islamabad with a written message from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf to Zahir Shah requesting the former king to send his representatives to discuss the political future of Afghanistan. Boniver also brought to Pakistan $8 million of aid for Afghan refugees tended by an Italian charity. "Emergency," a non-governmental organisation run by an Italian doctor, Luigi Strada, which runs a hospital in Kabul, is one of the few foreign operations still running in Afghanistan.
The former king was briefed on the importance of good relations with Pakistan in a meeting between Zahir Shah and Richard Haas, senior adviser to US Secretary of State Colin Powell, that came on the heels of Boniver's trip to Islamabad. He was also promised substantial humanitarian aid and financial assistance in rebuilding Afghanistan and assisting the hundreds of thousands of displaced Afghans inside the country. USAID (the US Agency of International Development), which is guided by American foreign policy, is already air-dropping food in Afghanistan, particularly to areas not controlled by the Taliban.
Meanwhile, analysts caution that efforts to set up a government that favours one country alone, or replacing the Taliban with simply another militia, will end in failure.
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