BY NORM DIXON
The speed with which the forces allied to the Northern Alliance (NA) took control of northern and western Afghanistan in the wake of the Taliban's retreat from Kabul on November 12 left Washington flat-footed. The US is now scrambling to bring its excited "liberators" under control.
For all the endless repetition in the capitalist media of claims that there is a "power vacuum" in Afghanistan, imperialism's real problem is the lack of one. The NA's unexpectedly sudden gains came before a "broad-based" government — one that is both acceptable to the Pakistan military dictatorship but not too distasteful to Washington's new-found friends in Russia and central Asia — could be cobbled together.
While it may not be apparent from reading the mainstream press and listening to the statements of senior United Nations and Western government spokespeople, NA leader Burhanuddi Rabbani has long been recognised by the UN and the vast majority of the world's states as the legitimate president of Afghanistan.
Yet, before the NA swept across the country, Washington, London, Pakistan and other supporters of the "war on terrorism" were insisting that Rabbani and the NA factions should not be permitted to reclaim control but instead should wait for the decisions of a UN-sponsored meeting of Afghan factions on the make-up of a new "broad-based, multi-ethnic" government.
Preparations were in the early stages for a UN-endorsed international military force of troops from Turkey, Indonesia, Jordan, Bangladesh and Malaysia to prevent the NA taking control of Kabul and impose a "broad-based, multi-ethnic" government.
Pro-Western government
"Broad-based" and "multi-ethnic" are code words for a government in which members of the Pashtun ethnic minority would play a major, if not dominant, role. Not for the first time, imperialism and its allies were attempting to manipulate and exploit the "national question" in Afghanistan to create a pliable, pro-Western regime.
While Pashtuns account for around 40% of the Afghan population, they predominate in the country's south and east. Pashtun society is largely based on tribal structures.
The Pakistan military dictatorship, Washington's key ally in the region, demands that any new government in Afghanistan must be friendly to it. Islamabad insists that an Afghan government in which Pashtun interests are heavily represented is the best means to that end. Afghanistan's Pashtun people have strong ties with Pakistan's much larger Pashtu-speaking minority across the border in Pakistan.
The Northern Alliance is composed mainly of Afghanistan's smaller ethnic and religious minorities — Uzbeks, Tajiks and Shiite Hazaras — and are concentrated in the north and west. The Uzbeks have close ties with their kin in Uzbekistan, as do the Tajiks with theirs in Tajikistan. Iran and Russia have close military and political ties with the NA.
Since 1978, Washington has worked with Pakistan to impose a pro-Islamabad, pro-Western government on Afghanistan. Despite Pakistan funnelling billions' worth of support from the US and Saudi Arabia to its Afghan surrogates, led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, they failed dismally in their attempts to overthrow the left-wing government of President Mohammed Najibullah, which survived for three years after the final withdrawal of Soviet troops in February 1989.
It was only after the collapse of the Soviet Union at the end of 1991 that the factions that now form the NA managed to topple the Najibullah government. These factions then turned on each other, plunging the country once again into civil war.
With Washington's approval, Pakistan then trained, funded and championed the Pashtun-dominated Taliban. Following a vicious four-year civil war, the Taliban drove the NA factions out of Kabul in 1996.
Understandably, with that history in mind, the NA was not willing to give away what it has just won on the battlefield and accept a subordinate position in a post-Taliban regime. Rather, it moved rapidly to strengthen its hand in coming "negotiations" to decide how Afghanistan will be ruled and to block any major influx of foreign troops.
The NA disregarded the pleas of its powerful ally, and entered Kabul on November 13. On November 16, the NA took control of the key levers of power in the capital and other major cities. In Kabul, NA fighters commandeered the Taliban radio station and began broadcasting propaganda, interspersed with pop music — sounds that were banned when the Taliban took control of the city in 1996. The NA placed its people in key government offices.
Rabbani entered Kabul on November 17 to reclaim his position as president of the Islamic State of Afghanistan, much to the chagrin of the Pakistan dictatorship and the disapproval of Washington and London.
Handpicked armed NA fighters were placed on "police" duty and they enforced a ban on fighters carrying weapons in the city. All other NA guerillas who were not assigned to be inside Kabul were, after a few days, shepherded to camps on the city's outskirts.
NA-aligned warlords have rapidly taken control of the key cities of Mazar-i-Sharif in the north, Herat in the west and Jalalabad in the east. The Taliban's last outpost in the north, Kunduz, was reported to be close to falling on November 22. Only Kandahar in the south remains in the Taliban's hands.
High and dry
As soon as the NA entered Kabul, Western government spokespeople and the Western media immediately began to prepare the ground for a possible military occupation of Afghanistan to stall the NA advance.
The NA factions' appalling record of human rights abuses and incessant bloody feuding were suddenly rediscovered by journalists who only a week before were painting the NA as valiant freedom fighters and downplaying the atrocities they had committed when they seized Mazar-i-Sharif.
Large numbers of troops were now needed to "prevent a repeat of the bloodbath" of 1992-96 and to protect convoys of food aid, the media and Western governments agreed.
Britain was quick off the mark and deployed 120 elite Special Boat Service commandos to the Bagram air base near Kabul on November 16, while more than 4000 British troops were due to arrive "within days". Their mission, claimed a British Labour government minister, was "to bring order and bring confidence to the Afghan people". London claimed that the deployment had been approved by Washington.
The NA criticised the deployment and said the British troops had not been invited. They said a peacekeeping force was unnecessary and pointed out that UN officials had stated that aid was flowing relatively smoothly into Afghanistan. The greatest hindrance to aid deliveries was not bandit attacks but the refusal of Uzbekistan to reopen the bridge across Afghanistan's northern border.
According to the November 16 New York Times and the November 17 British Independent, US, British and French strategists had met at Operation Enduring Freedom headquarters in Florida and agreed that France would take "responsibility for security around Mazar-i-Sharif", together with German and Italian troops. French Legionnaires were to land 60 troops in Mazar-i-Sharif on November 19, with "significant numbers" to follow. Canadian, Italian, German, New Zealand and Australian troops were also ready for deployment.
However, at the last moment Washington had second thoughts about deploying such a force. All further Western deployments ground to a halt. This has left the British troops high and dry at Bagram, surrounded by 1200 NA soldiers. While the British troops seem to be in little danger, they may be forced into a humiliating withdrawal unless Washington changes tack again.
Washington's dilemma is that, while it would not be altogether satisfied with an NA-dominated post-Taliban regime, there is no other effective fighting force in Afghanistan. The US still needs the NA to help it finish off the remaining organised Taliban forces.
Pakistan, having put all its eggs in the Taliban basket until it was forced to abandon the ultra-fundamentalists after the September 11 mass murders, has not been able to foster a credible alternative Pashtun political or military force to which Washington could turn to as a counterweight to the NA.
Early in the US assault on Afghanistan, Washington and Islamabad had hoped that the Taliban would split, dump the top leadership around Mullah Mohammed Omar and join the anti-Taliban cause. This did not eventuate.
For all the speculation among US ruling class pundits that the "Vietnam syndrome" has been finally put to rest, the US government remains wary of deploying significant numbers of US ground troops and risking significant casualties. Washington considered it rash to insert a large foreign "peacekeeping" force in the face of opposition from the NA.
The US also signalled that it is willing to allow the NA to take responsibility for security in northern Afghanistan. Joseph Collins, a deputy assistant secretary of defence, was quoted in the November 16 New York Times as saying: "I would not discount the possibility that most of the security work will be done and continue to be done by the Afghans themselves."
At this stage, the US seems ready to accept the NA's assurances that it will cooperate with UN-mediated efforts to bring about a "broad-based" Afghan government. Implicit in this is also an acceptance that NA will not play a subordinate role.
The NA has agreed to meet with other Afghan factions in Bonn beginning November 26 to discuss the formation of a transitional administration that will eventually organise elections. At this stage, the only other attendees will be a delegation of supporters of the exiled king and two rump groups of Pashtun exiles, a monarchist group based in Pakistan and another based in Cyprus, reported to be supporters of Hekmatyar and backed by Iran.
Washington and Pakistan's hopes for a viable Pashtun counterweight rest on the royalist tribal leader Hamid Karzai who has taken charge of Orozgan province, north of Kandahar. Karzai may attend the Bonn talks.
It seems in the dying days of the Taliban's rule, Washington's goal of rehabilitating a substantial core of the Taliban (minus Omar) may bear fruit. In the southern provinces of Paktia, Nangahar, Logar and Ghazni, warlords close to the Taliban, or formerly with the Taliban, have abandoned Omar. Only Helmand and Zabol provinces, to the west and east of Kandahar, remain in Taliban hands.
There has been relatively little fighting around Kandahar as Karzai has attempted to sew up deals in which Taliban commanders in the area simply discard their black turbans and declare themselves for the Pashtun cause. The Taliban's Mullah Omar is holed up in Kandahar but is reportedly considering transferring control of the city to Pashtun warlords friendly to both the Taliban and Karzai.
As a carrot for participants, representatives from 21 governments and the World Bank met on November 20 and promised to provide any new administration with billions of dollars, over 10 years, to reconstruct the country.
Lesser evil
While wary of the newcomers, there was no mistaking the fact that the people of Kabul were delighted to see the departure of the Taliban. Most Kabulis, even though they experienced the NA factions' violent feuds and their non-existent commitment to democratic rights in 1992-96, for now regard the NA as a lesser evil to the fanatical religious dictatorship of the Taliban.
It was widely reported that men immediately thronged to barbers to have their beards — compulsory under the Taliban — shaved off. Music suddenly boomed from tape decks across the city. Televisions and ghetto-blasters that had remained hidden by traders during the Taliban years suddenly reappeared; within days the latest DVD players were also on sale.
Some of the braver women lifted their burqas to reveal their faces to Western reporters (but quickly replaced them once the journalists had moved on). The NA has declared that women will be allowed to work and study. A march by hundreds of women demanding peace, education and women's rights was held on November 20 before NA security told the organisers their safety could not guaranteed. The first face to appear on the resumed television broadcasts was that of a woman.
The NA's relaxation of the Taliban's medieval social customs is no doubt necessitated by its urgent need to win some degree of popular backing among the long-suffering urban masses for its claim to a predominant share of positions in a future government.
From Green Left Weekly, November 28, 2001.
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