Need of a third mediate party for peace process!

Hekmatullah Zaland

Hopes have strained for Afghanistan’s peace building process since years, but there are countless obstacles preventing this process from even getting started and now it looks like the governmental authorities are just taking their political advantage from this process nothing more.

During past decade Afghan government occasionally had activities under the title of peace building process; amongst them they founded high peace council and called on neighbor countries for cooperation as even president Karzai recently preconditioned the bilateral security Agreement with a constructive step towards peace building, which is still pending.

Meanwhile, neighboring countries like Pakistan and Iran or the countries in the region like India with friendly relations with Afghanistan are also not paying respect to this process as Afghanistan wants, and it looks that their interests are not meeting with peace building.

However peace is a realizable significance which can be achieved, but the current activities and scenarios are not at the right direction of achieving this significance.

“The very reason of failure of peace efforts is the lack of genuine in these efforts” says PhD Abdul Baaqi Amin the director of CSRS in an exclusive interview with media group of the center. But according to him, the peace process needs a new third mediate Afghan party.

Abdul Baaqi Amin adds: “However public opinion believes in no other way but peace, but the need is a mediate third Party who can meet each side and convince them to peace, so that the positions become close and they could achieve a Comprehensive plan through which the involved parties make steps towards stopping the war, withdrawal of foreign troops and achieving a National reconciliation which can be result in solving the country’s internal problems” 

According to him the war in the past one decade proved that no one of involved parties can defeat each other through military force and cannot achieve absolute success, and it is now realized by Afghan government, Americans, Taliban and others.

He added: The realization of this fact resulted in letting the peace process get started and Taliban also agreed to negotiate with America and open an office for talks in Qatar, but they all not responded to the needs of peace, which was to come down from their preconditions for peace talks.

He says: however all parties announced their preparation for peace, but their perspectives about peace vary from each other, government thought that the Taliban commanders who are tired from war can join the government after some privileges, and for doing so they used money, the pressure from neighboring countries and military operation, but this vision of Peace building posed several problems to the peace process and the high peace council in past three or four years failed in giving the hope of even getting the talks started.

PhD: Abdul Baaqi Amin says: if the government of Afghanistan and the high peace council don’t bring a change in their visions their efforts cannot be effective in this regard and cannot play a good role, on the other hand Taliban also have the vision of restoring their Islamic Emirate and they believe that by the withdrawal of American troops they can take over the government. 

He believes that by the signing of Bilateral Security Agreement with America the armed opposition will continue their armed conflict and other people will also support them which will be a big obstacle before the peace process and the war may continue.

Afghan government founded high peace council with the hope to achieve peace, but peace is still a dream, but what is the main cause? Mr. Abdul Baaqi Amin says: high peace council thinks that with the pressure from several countries can convince the Taliban to negotiate with them, which I think is not effective. Taliban are not under the control of Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

The other mistake is that they want to encourage Taliban’s individuals to join the peace process instead of their leadership and they are trying to divide Taliban by this way which has caused a crucial rejection of Taliban to these efforts, so the High Peace Council is not sharing the proposition as it must be, and this is the reason of the failure”

Mr. Abul Baaqi Amin thinks that the better way for fruitful efforts towards peace and reconciliation is forming a new third mediate party from some scholars and personalities who are committed to peaceful future of Afghanistan and ignoring their own and their parties’ interests in such a national and significant process.

Mr. Abdul Baaqi Amin adds: “this third mediate party should be able to negotiate with Taliban, foreigners, government and the political oppositions and also request from the nation to break the current silence and support a fruitful movement of peace and reconciliation, and spread this message to people that the symbolic councils and symbolic efforts cannot resulted in peace and reconciliation; Afghans should use the pressures in order to make foreign troops to leave the country and make Afghan authorities to try their best for peace and stability in the country”

But in an answer to the question that how would this third mediate party get formed? Mr. Amin explains: “each achievement needs efforts, we in CSRS are trying and previously we were trying to make a gathering of scholars in which we discuss the very need of  peace and the mechanism to bring it, their suggestion was also the formation of such a third mediate party, and these days we have plan of another gathering in which we will suggest that achieving this goal needs motivation and practical efforts; anyway we are trying our best in facilitating such a formation and therefore we are in contact with different parties.”

the contradiction between that new third mediate party and High peace Council is another issue, whether Afghan government will accept it or not?, he says: “I think if the government have more influence on this third mediate party it will lose its effectiveness and Taliban might consider it as an another initiative of the government, therefore this third mediate party must be of those who are considered as governmental body or Taliban representatives or a party which can be claimed as puppets of Pakistan or Iran or other foreign countries; government and high peace council also must recognize this movement and support them, there is also the need of support from Islamic Cooperation Organization and some other parties who can facilitate travels and conferences, Taliban must also cooperate with them and hear what they say and at all, all the parties must cooperate.”