Towards A Peaceful Afghanistan
Five years after naively occupying fixed defences along conventional lines and receiving the drubbing of their lives, mainly by B-52 bombers, the Talibaan have re-grouped in the districts around their original base Kandahar and are resorting to classic hit-and-run tactics, the hallmark of guerillas everywhere. During the 80s the Afghan Mujahideen outfought the combined might of the Soviet Union and a strong Afghan Army, multiple times more men, material and helicopters than that presently deployed by NATO. The Mujahideen could then count on a constant flow of arms, equipment and other supplies from (and through) Pakistan. Every one of the nine Mujahideen factions had a Talibaan contingent. After the Soviets left in 1989, the excesses of brutal warlords, corrupt officials appointed by the Northern Alliance led by the Tajiks who controlled Kabul, the general anarchy prevailing and the emergence of a charismatic one-eyed cleric in 1993-94 made them into a unified force.
The Perception of Impartiality
To end the political impasse that was rapidly bringing the country to economic apocalypse as well as civil war conditions, the COAS Pakistan Army Gen Waheed brokered an agreement between the President and the PM that accepted the demand of the Opposition for the conduct of free and fair mid-term elections. A significant part of the unpublicised agreement was that the COAS became the guarantor of the terms accepted by all the sides. The former PM felt that as long as the President was able to carry out extra-constitutional interference in the day to day running of the country, fair elections were hardly possible. GIK and the Opposition reciprocated this mutual feeling of distrust as long as the former PM called the shots in the Federal Government. As the ultimate compromise it was agreed that both the President and the PM would step down in favour of a generally neutral regime. The Army’s role as guarantor would hopefully restrict the propensity of the various security agencies to influence the results in the manner that they would deem fit.
The choice of Moeenuddin Qureshi to head the Caretaker Regime was motivated out of a genuine need to have an impartial non-controversial but effective person responsible for the affairs of Pakistan in the interim period. That the Caretaker PM is a man of some international stature and known integrity as well as a world respected economist was an additional plus point. There are those who decry his lack of experience within Pakistan but in the present state of extreme polarisation where anybody who is anybody has got involved in one way or the other with one side or the other, one considers that particular “inexperience” to be a necessary virtue. Spelling out his first priority as the holding of free and fair elections in Pakistan, Moeen Qureshi gave out the sorry state of our economy as his second priority. This dual capability is a bonus for Pakistan. On a brief private visit to Washington for a medical check-up, the PM kept up a busy schedule of official engagements arranged at short notice, primarily including US Vice President Al Gore and the major international finance institutions, the World Bank and the IMF. Before leaving for the US, Mr. Moeen Qureshi laid the base for the concept of impartiality by inducting into Cabinet office such eminent persons as are generally considered to be without any party affiliations, both in the Federal and Provincial set-ups. With respect to his choice, to his credit there has been no criticism as yet. A number of subsequent steps need to be taken to ensure that the concept of neutrality remains paramount throughout the election process and the capacity of those who are past masters of subverting a neutral process to their nefarious designs is restrained.