Crisis in Afghanistan
Security crisis in Afghanistan
Afghanistan has suffered horror and anguish in the last decade. The nation is characterized by high percentage of illiteracy, less than 25 million people, homelessness and hunger. Many of the Afghanistans population have been displaced as a result of continued civil war. Studies show that about a quarter of the afghan population live in refugee camps outside the border. The vicious anti-communist bating in the 1980s caused Afghanistan become United States foreign policys cynical tool. Afghanistan was on the front line in the United States war against the Soviet Union. The nation received many war machineries which were being purchased by the CIA. Fighters and royalists were brought together by combination of Islamic opportunities and virulent anti-communism. These royalists and fighters came from Islamic and Arabian nations under the leadership of Pakistans military, secret service, and the CIA operatives.
The soviet troops were later withdrawn and the Union disintegrated, but the civil war in Afghanistan continued to be plugged. As the CIA competed with the US pentagon for supremacy, many different Islamic factions entered the nation. The industries and infrastructures that were built in the years when collaboration with the Soviet existed were destroyed. As the ideological contradiction developed, the Islamic fighters and anti-communism collapsed. (USAID, 2003).
The Pakistan secret service, military and Islamic clerical elite aided the rise of Taliban. These supporters looked forward to emergence of a faction that would consider the interests of Pakistans Gulf Arabs and Saudi. Afghanistan was consistent to the Talibans society vision, a factor that enslaved children and women. Mean that empowered women to survive without depending on men were limited. They were stopped from working, going to school, leaving homes without a male companion, and were forced to cover the entire body. This ensured that women depended on men for survival. It was hard to survive for women who had lost their male family members whose survival option was prostitution.
Taliban became a political threat in the region in its efforts to spread Islamic Jehad into neighboring republics such as India Russia and Soviet Central Asia. Neighbors such as Iran was not happy with the mistreatment the Afghanistan population faced, thus viewed Afghanistan with suspicion and great fear. Taliban intended to ascend northwards but the Afghans occupying the northern part resisted, increasing civil war. (Robert Amin, 2008). The Afghanistan could not escape Islamic fundamentalism and war terror because the Pakistan could not give shelter to more refugees. After the Soviet withdrew in defeat, the fight continued as many Afghan factions wanted to control the country. The Taliban emerged and controlled Afghanistan. The international community was not happy with the Taliban who allowed al-Qaeda members such as Osama Bin Laden to live there. After the 2001 US attack, the Taliban refused to hand over Osama Bin Laden thus the US-led war. A bombing campaign against the Taliban was launched by the United States in collaboration with its allies in October 2001. This launch marked a start of the Americas war on terror. The local fighters together with troops led by US drove the Taliban from power, forcing them from Kabul. Osama Bin Laden and the Taliban leader escaped and it is believed that they survived the offensive. Their escape has made foreign troops including thousands of US troops to continue staying in Afghanistan as they hunt Taliban supporters.
In December 2001, the Afghan Diasporas and opposition leaders met in Germany where they drew plans for political transition. Provisional government structure started the transition with Hamid Karzai as the Afghan Interim Authoritys (AIA) chairman. In June 2002, AIA held a national wide grand assembly in which Karzai was elected as a president of Islamic Transitional State of Afghanistan (ITSA). In December 2003, a second national wide grand assembly was held by the Transitional Authority. The Assembly debated on a draft constitution which was adopted later in January 2004. In October the first direct presidential elections were held following threats of violence, boycott and fraud claims. In September 2005, provincial and parliamentary elections were held the electoral process did not include political parties and this was feared to compromise the legislatures strength. In august 2009, President Hamid Karzai elected. This was followed by widespread fraud making the provincial and presidential polls to be repeated, and the governments legitimacy to get a critical blow. However he was re-elected in November 2009. The public confidence in the electoral process and in commitment of the international community to Afghanistans democratic institutions has been eroded by the flawed polls. The Afghanistans governance has been broken by the power concentrated on the executive while excluding the judiciary and legislature. Security in the polls has been deteriorating steadily, raising the violence level. Since 2001 invasion, 2009 polls have recorded the worst violence levels in Afghanistan. Despite the Taliban violence prior to the poll date, the United States and Afghan government declared the presidential and provincial elections held in august 2009 successful. Many campaign workers and provincial candidates were killed and on the day of election, at least 30 people were killed. Female candidates withdrew from the contest due to intimidation. Insecurity Afghanistan lowered the turnout f the presidential elections of 2009 compared to the 2004 turnout. This decrease in turn out was due to absence of female observers, agents and electoral staff due to insecurity. There were reports of intimidation, ghost polling stations and interference by the IEC staff. Even after the polling date, security cases continued to increase. According to the UN figures, between January and July 2009, about a thousand and thirteen Afghan civilians were killed.
The preliminary results of the election released in September 2009 indicated 54.6 of Karzai votes and 27.7 of Abdullahs votes. When the independent Electoral Complaints Commission carried out a protracted investigation on the results, about 4 of the Karzais votes were fraud. Abdullah announced that he would not stand again as he claimed fair vote was impossible with existence of biased heads of IEC who Karzai had refused to sack. These elections caused doubts about the presidencys legitimacy. This has moved along way. Currently Karzai has a critical test of how willing he is to end cronyism and corruption. The probability of him failing the test are high because it his difficult for him to accommodate demands from factional leaders, tribal strongmen, his allies, regional power breakers, and powerful businessmen. (Frank, 2003).
International involvement to the crisis in Afghanistan
These many years of continued a fight in Afghanistan has left the country in great ruin. According to the global ranking, Afghanistan is among the poorest countries in the world. They have relied on international donors who have continuously poured billions of dollars for many years. (WHW, 2003).
Since 1950s throughout 1970s, there was active involvement of United States in Afghanistan. It was until the assassination of the Adolph Dubs the US ambassador and the invasion of the Soviet in 1979, when the US presence ended. Involvement of the United States was indirect as it provided military aid to afghan who resisted the Soviet especially in 1980s. After the 2001 terrorist attack in the United States the US congress passed a resolution to the US president consider military response against the attack. The Taliban government resisted to expel Osama Bin Laden. This made the United States to launch a bombing campaign toward the Taliban political and military installation. (Taylor-Ide, Taylor, 2002).
According to the international community, stability can be restored through strengthening institutions, constitutional reforms, formation of impartial commission of inquiry into the flawed election and the restructuring of the UN mission in Afghanistan in order to restore credibility. Failure to build adequate capacity of government institutions influenced electoral fraud. The afghan government and the international community failed to strengthen legal framework, build IE, and to provide sustainable registration of voters after the successful elections in 2004. Increase in popular dissolution has been influenced by the failure to strengthen wider institutions such as police and judicial reforms, and disarmament programs. The consequences of these failures should be used to enhance more strengthened process for the district election and National Assembly planned to be held in 2010. The countrys future stability is uncertain due to booming trade on drug, presence of warlords and Islamic militants. (ICG, 2003)
The international community must put intense pressure for anti-corruption measures. Due to the international communitys intense pressure to Karzai, in his inauguration speech he made on 19th November 2009 promised to concentrate on curbing corruption. He also announced creation of anti-graft body of a high level. According to the international communitys perception, Afghans are active participants of a flawed electoral process. According to the United States report, the Afghanistans political system needs serious reform. Currently, the system is greatly based in patronage and centralized. This has move policies to the end leaving the fore for personalities. Continuous growth of impunity culture is facilitated by President Karzia who holds great powers as the states head. A focus on ways of making the political system more representative and functional is required. A broad agreement on power balance is important. Power should be balanced among the states branches for better relationship.
According to the international community, although Taliban has greatly influenced insecurity in the past two year, a lot is also stemmed on the failure of Kabul to engage competent soldiers and police in sufficient number. After the elections there was a notable increase of foreign troops into Afghanistan. Before the elections, the United States committed twenty one thousands extra military personnel, and after the elections. NATO gave out five thousands more. These military troops were deployed in the east and south of Afghanistan. In December 2009, the United States President Obama deployed more thirty thousands US troops as new Afghanistans strategy. He also announced a July 2011s tentative exit plan. (ICG, 2010).
The UN has played a role in Afghanistan by introducing an election operation. The Afghan authorities are working with the election operation to organize election, and to register voters for 2009 and 2010 elections. The international communities a re restlessly involved in ensuring that Afghanistan has good governance, competent police and rule of law. However drug production, violence, warlordism, and the intense suspicion to foreigners in Afghanistan continue to drawback the efforts of the international communities. It is feared that unless Afghanistan gets stable Afghan-supported peace the efforts of the international community to have prospect of progress and effective electoral system might fail.
The western governments have provided a number of rationales for global war against terrorism, corruption, inefficient public administration, and poor governance. President Obama has shown his support for multilateralism especially in foreign affairs since he was elected. He has created greater space for chief organizations and international community to engage in regional dialogue about Afghanistan. The international community including the western countries, NATO, Gulf States and other countries in the region have given considerable financial contributions to Afghanistan particularly the security sector as away of sharing the burden.
The international community is making proposals on creating regional contact group. The group is intended to include Afghanistans neighbors in conducting multi-party diplomatic efforts. The regional contact group will isolate strategic regional issues relating to Afghanistan. A wide contact group would involve all states threatened by the Al-Qaeda and Taliban such as Russia, China, Japan and Saudi Arabia. Although creation of the contact group will have a number of positively influences, its major role is to address the Pakistan security concerns as a way of encouraging cooperation with the military in controlling the areas along the western border. The international community expected the regional dialogue to give rise to a more flexible and creative approach. Considering the alternatives that have been failed in the past eight year, they argue that the dialogue e had to be attempted. The contact group was to be kept small and the discussions would take place in private to avoid the public scrutiny. (Robert Fionnuala, 2009).
In 2002, the United States moved into Afghanistan to restore economic, military and political ties. This was initiated by reopening of the US Embassy in Kabul, and Afghan embassy in Washington DC. There was increase in the US military troops in Afghanistan, which rebuilt the Soviets airbase at Begram.
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) led the United States reconstruction efforts which aimed at reconstructing the Afghanistans damaged infrastructure, and to deal with immediate needs such as provision of shelter and food to the displaced, returning widows and refugees, rebuilding the education system, transportation system in interurban highways as well as restoring the agricultural reproductively. The United States involvement in the Afghanistans reconstruction was marked by the Kabul-Kandahah road. (USAID, 2003).
It is unfortunate that Afghanistan has suffered as a result of fight between other countries. Some countries have been fighting indirectly using Afghanistan as the centre for their fight. The challenges present in the region were not developed entirely in Afghanistan, and solutions to the challenges need to involve all the countries that might have contributed. It is only in this way a longterm solution to the issues and problems in Afghanistan can be sort. Issues between countries in the region and with the western countries must be addressed in order to get a long-term solution.
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