A Lopsided Loya Jirga
The fundamental premise of any agreement is that it should be fair and equitable to all those who may be affected by it. Six months into the induction of the Afghan Interim Government (AIG), a traditional caucus, the LOYA JIRGA (Great National Assembly of Notables) is supposed to assemble to choose the representatives of the Afghan people. Hungry for peace, the Afghans accepted an overwhelmingly Tajik (and Panjsheeri Tajik at that) dominated AIG, putting their faith in Loya Jirga Commission that was mandated to complete the process of choosing the representatives according to a complex formula, but one which was mainly rooted in the democratic concept of apportioning delegates on the basis of percentage of population, provided, of course, that they had individual reputation for integrity and acceptability to those whom they sought to represent. Even a cursory look at the procedural document issued by the Loya Jirga Commission showed that the Northern (Tajik) and Western (Uzbek) Districts have been allotted a much higher number of delegates. The Panjsheeri Tajiks who actually wield power in the AIG (having the all-important Ministries of Defence, Interior and Foreign Affairs) manipulated an artificial majority for Tajiks in the number of delegates while denying the same to the majority Pashtuns. While Pashtun Hamid Karzai has kept the disparate but heavily Tajik-weighted coalition together, the seeds of discontent may reverse all the gains made in removing the Taliban from power. The Eastern and Southern Regions are Pashtun and densely populated, they should have been given greater representation.
Back to the Past
According to US Defence Secretary Rumsfeld, Mullah Umar, who is making a last stand in Kandahar, will probably go down fighting as he is “not the surrendering type”. Or so he is hoping so that Umar does not become a hot potato in their hands. In the meantime Osama bin Laden scurried away to find cover in some hole, probably the Tora Bora cave complex near Jalalabad, leaving in his wake dead and dying strewn across the Afghan countryside, the consequences of his many deeds, viz (1) distorting the Taliban interpretation of Islam and (2) leading them into collective suicide in militarily opposing the mightiest nation on earth. For the sake of his own hide, this man sacrificed not only his trusting hosts but those from foreign lands who believed his spiel, a latter day “Pied Piper” leading a naive and gullible people down the one-way road to death and destruction. Meantime about 1,500 US Marines near Kandahar are carrying out high-visibility exercises around their desert forward base, meant to keep the defenders of Kandahar on edge expecting imminent attack. The idea is to bomb and bluff the Taliban out of their stronghold and avoid casualties. Unfortunately some of the US casualties have been self-inflicted due to misdirected or stray bombs (“friendly fire”).