Is the threat made by Hamid Karzai to join Taliban meant only for pleasing the Taliban fundamentalists who might again take on Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw? Or has he now tasted the friendship of the West and the Afghan in him has awakened? Or America now does not need him?
Afghan President Hamid Karzai has threatened to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform. Karzai government has for long been accused of corruption but his western allies continued support to him as it was expected that at least his government will root out Taliban from the country. Social and economic reforms of course were not the priority.
It seems as if the things did not go as per the plan. The immense efforts by Karzai government and the non-Afghan allied forces turned to be nothing but a wild goose chase as the Taliban now seems to have more Afghans in their favour than they used to have while they ruled whole Afghanistan with the exception of a tiny part.
Apprehensions are being made that after the American and NATO forces withdraw from Afghanistan the destiny of the country will be in the hands of Taliban. Probably, Karzai has sensed the situation and as precaution he is trying to befriend the future rulers of Afghanistan so that Taliban do not harm him.
The immense efforts by Karzai government and the non-Afghan allied forces turned to be nothing but a wild goose chase as the Taliban now seems to have more Afghans in their favour than they used to have while they ruled whole Afghanistan with the exception of a tiny part.
The reason for Karzai’s unexpected statement proves that that he does not want to be left helpless after U.S.A. goes from Afghanistan. It is alleged that Mr Karzai and his brother Ahmed Wali Karzai have been involved in opium smuggling in know of the United States. Some days ago this was revealed by an American official. The need of America for a puppet from the Afghan nation was the factor that Karzai’s involvement in the illegal trade was ignored. Now when America is leaving Afghanistan, some analysts believe, it no more needs Karzai and hence all his evils are being exposed. And the apprehension of Karzai is that he will be left at the mercy of the Taliban if his benefactor U.S. leaves him. Hence, the need to attain Taliban’s sympathy.
At the time the U.S. had attacked Afghanistan to overthrow the Taliban; Afghans had expected that they will now be governed by a good government keen in their prosperity. But the subsequent situation proved that it was but a dream. Poverty still rules in the country and peace has not yet come. Bomb Blasts occur on a daily basis.
The need of America for a puppet from the Afghan nation was the factor that Karzai’s involvement in the illegal trade was ignored. Now when America is leaving Afghanistan, some analysts believe, it no more needs Karzai and hence all his evils are being exposed.
The aid provided by other countries was not spent entirely on welfare activities. In March this year, a senior EU parliamentarian, Pino Arlacchi claimed that a staggering 70-80 percent of the $34 billion in aid earmarked for Afghanistan since 2002 never reached the Afghan people due to corruption, waste and donors withholding funds. Major part of the aid, instead of being spent on common mans welfare was used to train the police.
According to the Afghan government, $36 billion has been “spent” by foreign donors in Afghanistan since 2002. Of that total, $19 billion was allocated for training and equipping the Afghan police and army and the remaining $17 billion for development and reconstruction. More than half of the $36 billion, therefore, was never destined to reach “ordinary” Afghans in the first place.
Even the motive of the organizations working in Afghanistan is in question. A U.N. report on corruption last January found that 54 percent of Afghans believe international aid organisations “are corrupt and are in the country just to get rich”.
“This perception risks undermining aid effectiveness and discrediting those trying to help a country desperately in need of assistance,” the United Nations said in the report which was based on interviews with 7,600 Afghans across the country.
All this was known to the international community and there has not been any effort to set this right. Rather Karzai was adulated and called the only Afghan well wisher of his country. But when the same President could not live up to the expectations of his patronisers and seems to be fed up with them, he no more deserves the same status and has fallen from their eyes.
The threat by Karzai if visualized will change the status of the Taliban from ‘rebelling’ into ‘resistance’. Then everyone will consider the Taliban as a movement which is resisting against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government.
The threat by Karzai if visualized will change the status of the Taliban from ‘rebelling’ into ‘resistance’. Then everyone will consider the Taliban as a movement which is resisting against a foreign occupation rather than a rebellion against an elected government. It will be like two groups of the same community struggling against invaders in their country. The situation could change for the US.
On the threat of Karzai joining the Taliban, the White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said that it was troubling. "On behalf of the American people, we're frustrated with the remarks," Gibbs reportedly said.
Meanwhile, Karzai has launched a bizarre attack on the UN and Western powers and accused them of committing "fraud" at the Afghan presidential election of August 20th last year. It indicates that now that there have emerged differences between present Afghan government and the allied forces on the front in Afghanistan.
Nowadays negative remarks about Karzai have started surfacing. The newspaper The Australian recently published an article by one William Maley in which the writer maintains that Karzai ‘possesses some of the skills required to be an effective political leader, but not all.’
“In the early phases of Afghanistan's transition, his inclusive rhetoric, strong linguistic skills and personal decency served him well as a symbolic focus of loyalty, and in 2004, 64 per cent of Afghans surveyed by the Asia Foundation said the country was moving in the right direction.
As time went by, these symbolic strengths became less relevant to Afghanistan's problems, which increasingly needed to be addressed through rigorous policy development and implementation, and moves to prevent nepotism and corruption. These were not Karzai's strengths, given that he had grown up politically during the 1980s in the "state-free" environment of the Pakistani city of Peshawar, where Afghan mujahedeen politics was based on networking and connections,” he writes.
Why is Karzai so irritated that he is ready to go to the extent of a compromise, with those whom till yesterday he was waging a war against? Why have differences emerged when both Karzai and the US were together against the same common enemy? What has given Karzai the courage to speak against the US? And most importantly, why has the same Karzai, whom they installed now being condemned by them?
Junaid Maseeh
No comments:
Post a Comment