Читать книгу The State-Building Dilemma in Afghanistan - Haqmal Daudzai - Страница 8

The terrorist attack on September 11th was a human tragedy for the people of the United States, whereas for the people of Afghanistan, the United States’ subsequent military intervention that led to the toppling of the Taliban Emirate created a window of opportunity for lasting peace, democratization, and economic development. In November 2001, while the U.S. was still conducting its military operations (Operation Enduring Freedom) in the Afghan soil, the U.N. Security Council issued resolution ‘1378’, convening an international conference in Bonn Germany aimed at forming a new government between the warring factions in Afghanistan (United Nations Security Council, 2001, p. 2).

The Bonn agreement (December 5, 2001) – also known as the Bonn Accord – produced a series of sequencing state-building steps including a six-month interim government, the emergency Loya Jirga (grand council) for the formation of a two-year transitional government, and the constitutional Loya Jirga for establishing a new Afghan constitution for a permanent government (Rubin, 2004).

Nevertheless, the Bonn peace and state-building opportunity were damaged right from the beginning by hasty and reckless policy decisions of the U.S., Afghan, and U.N. key stakeholders between 2001-2004. The Taliban – one of the key conflict groups – were not only excluded from the talks but were also mercilessly tortured at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp or killed throughout Afghanistan. The Taliban’s almost defeated enemy – the ex-Mujahidin warlords, were brought back to state power overnight. This undoubtedly led to the rebirth of the Taliban insurgency in the following years, more violent than ever. Empowering the warlords and bringing them into the government led to a corrupt and weak government establishment in Kabul. In the following years, this caused civilians in many rural areas of the country to turn to the Taliban for maintaining justice and security.

The U.S. intervention in Afghanistan could be justified based on what Eric A. Heinze (2009) would call ‘self-defense’ or as Andrea Kathryn Talentino (2005) quotes, ‘global security’. Nevertheless, it should be equally criticized for its subsequent ill-advised peace and state-building policies in the Afghan complex sociopolitical context. As Berit Beliesemann de Guevara (2012) also notes, that state-builders often attempt to export modern ‘liberal peace’ and democracy to non-western societies aims at building states and (good) [18] governance yet ignores local historical and social dynamics and processes. According to Beliesemann de Guevara (2012), since state-building is a complex interaction between local, national, and international actors, the institutionalization of power as a legitimate rule/actor requires the utilization of ‘strategies and tactics.’ The application of which often produces diverse ‘reactions’ including ‘resistance, cooperation and manipulation’ (Bliesemann de Guevara, 2012).

In the Afghan context, while the warlords collaborated with the U.S. and the international community for their own political and financial interests, the Taliban resisted for their survival. The U.S., in euphory of winning the Afghan war quite easily, did not bother to take the fundamental steps for restoring sustainable peace and government order.

Among the fatal peace and state-building flaws, one was the implementtation of a contradictory state institutional design in the 2004 Afghan constitution. According to Rubin and others, the Afghans were divided based on the ethnopolitical identity of Pashtuns versus non-Pashtun (this includes mainly the chief groups Tajiks, Hazara, and Uzbek), in which the former insisted on a unitary centralized state system, whereas the other opted for a parliamentary decentralization, some among them even demanding federalism (Rubin, 2004), (Maley, 2013) & (Malejacaq, 2016). It was the interventionists – the U.S. and its NATO allies – which pushed the Northern Alliances warlords and the Zahir Shah diaspora group, to align on some state governmental modality. Eventually, a heavy unitary centralized system was agreed upon in the 2004 constitution, whereas in practice, an ethnolinguistic power-sharing government of mainly non-Pashtun warlords and the diaspora Pashtuns headed by Hamid Karzai continued until late 2014.

To ensure his winning, Karzai – an ethnic Pashtun – had chosen both of his vice-presidents from among the most influential Tajik and Hazara warlords during the 2004 and 2009 presidential elections. To secure the consent of his Uzbek ethnic-ally, Karzai had to award General Abdul Rashid Dostum the post of Afghan National Army (A.N.A) chief of staff. Moreover, Karzai had to share cabinet positions with both of his vice-presidents and General Dostum. Likewise, to maintain his government’s sub-national power, leading warlord commanders of all major ethnic groups were promoted to governorships and other high-ranking government positions.

Meanwhile, the heated divide over a state governmental modality never ended even after the approval of the 2004 constitution. As soon as Karzai [19] purged some of the non-Pashtun ethnopolitical elites from government positions, these elites went on to building political alliances and demanding the change of a unitary centralized system to parliamentary federalism. The establishment of Etelaf-Mili or Afghanistan National Front by some of the former Northern Alliances warlords during 2010 and 2012, for example, was widely supported by the anti-unitary centralization advocates in the country. The U.S. Republican congressmen headed by Dana Rohrabacher were also backing the initiative (Ruttig, 2012).

The formation of the National Unity Government (NUG) in September 2014 officially recognized that a unitary centralized state system was no longer acceptable for the majority of the non-Pashtun political elites. Following a long-disputed presidential election, Abdullah Abdullah, the losing candidate refused to accept the result of the second-round elections. Alleging widespread fraud, Abdullah and his supporters warned of violence and the formation of a parallel government if the election commission were to announce, his opponent, Ashraf Ghani, the winner (Wörmer, 2014). Hence, the U.S. and the U.N. intervened to sort out a political settlement that resulted in the formation of the NUG. In apparent contradiction to the Afghan constitution, the NUG agreement created a Chief Executive position equivalent to a prime minister post for the losing candidate Abdullah along with fifty percent of the cabinet seats. The agreement also stated that within two years of the NUG, the Loya Jirga (Grand Assembly) would be convened to amend the state constitution to change the present presidential to a semi-presidential system.

No doubt, the NUG agreement facilitated a peaceful handover of power. Nevertheless, it clearly undermined the young Afghan democracy among the ordinary citizens, who besides all security challenges went to the polling centers, hoping to elect their next president. Furthermore, some critical articles agreed that the NUG document remained unimplemented, including the inauguration of the Loya Jirga for amending the constitution. While the next presidential elections are scheduled for early 2019, the fate of the NUG agreement in general and the Chief Executive post in particular, remain unclear.

Thus, taking the above stated institutional design puzzle and the ethnopolitical divide over the issue into consideration, this dissertation partly attempts to find reasonable answers to the questions on state institutional design in Afghanistan in the long run.

[20] Another major theme this dissertation deals with is the elected Afghan provincial councils and their increasing role at the subnational administration. Adopting a heavy centralized administrative structure in an ethno-politically divided society like Afghanistan causes political instability. The increasing role of the elected provincial councils and the influential warlords at the subnational governance has repeatedly challenged the central government authorities. The heavily centralized administration adopted in the 2004 Afghan constitution gave executive authority only to sectoral ministries and independent directorates in the capital, Kabul. In theory, the Afghan province, designated as the ‘local administrative unit’ sub-nationally in the constitution (2004, Article 136), holds no real political, administrative, and fiscal autonomy of its own. In practice, however, depending on which warlord has influence in the province, the local councils may have a larger role.

For the first time in Afghan history, the 2005 fully elected provincial councils (PCs) increasingly changed the local versus central political dynamics. Though constitutionally weak, and still heavily influenced by major local warlords, the PC’s fully democratic nature created a vibrant political transformation locally. Its political representation role at the province level created deep political awareness among the local citizens. Their limited oversight authority not only challenged the local government administrations for accountability but also repeatedly alerted the central government for reviewing its sub-national policies.

The PC’s role and functions are very much significant to the Afghan subnational administration. No matter which (centralized or decentralized) administrative system the Afghan government might adopt in the future, the present democratic provincial councils would prove more effective in local governance if equipped with real power and precise mechanisms for implementation of that power. Supplemented with qualitative field research, this dissertation has studied the Afghan PCs, painstakingly, in a separate chapter.