Remembering the
Sacrifices of the Afghan People
Shaida M. Abdali and M. Ashraf Haidari
May 18, 2010
Eighteen years ago in early May, Mujahideen resistance fighters entered
Kabul, laying claim to Afghanistan’s capital after the collapse of the Communist
regime. At the time, the city had not been severely damaged by warfare and
Soviet occupation. The 18 years since then have not been kind to Kabul, though.
One reason that no one has been able to put a stop to Afghanistan’s cycle of
violence is that regional and international political interests have, for the
last 30 years, eclipsed the best interests of the Afghan people.
Placing the people of Afghanistan at the center of the ongoing debate about
how best to fight extremism and terrorism should be seen as a key to success in
the international effort to stabilize Afghanistan.
Unfortunately, popular concerns seldom have figured into discussions about
the past, present, and future of Afghanistan. The moral obligation of helping
Afghans build a strong state and a secure future appears to be a secondary
consideration for foreign powers as they strive to defend their national
security interests in Afghanistan.
It’s very likely that the Afghan people would have long ago built a
functioning, even prosperous state had the country not become the cockpit of
Cold War confrontation between Russia and the West. Not only that, it’s also
likely the September 11 terrorist tragedy would never have occurred.
Afghans made extreme sacrifices during the 1980s on behalf of what was then
deemed “the Free World.” It is dismaying, then, that those Cold War-era
sacrifices are hardly remembered, or recognized in some NATO countries today.
The tremendous loss of life and civilian displacement in Afghanistan (2
million killed and millions more turned into refugees) during that bygone era
seems completely forgotten by many in the West. In addition, once the Soviet
army departed Afghanistan in 1989, Western interest in the country evaporated.
As a result, reconstruction was completely neglected back then.
So it’s easy to see why Afghans are wary of international motives in this
latest phase of Afghanistan’s 30-year war. They increasingly believe that
international involvement has hardly been about them, about their rights, about
their very basic expectations for peace and justice, or about their overwhelming
demand for the institutionalization of peace and democracy in Afghanistan.
As they daily listen to the official statements of our foreign partners,
Afghans may begin believing that international involvement in Afghanistan is
more about the national security or geo-strategic interests of the countries
involved. These divergent and conflicting interests, Afghans may think, seem to
determine what should or can be done, or what should not or can not be done to
stabilize and rebuild the country.
Despite their wariness, Afghans have not lost hope in their partners, or in
the future of their country. A BBC-ABC-ARD poll released in January, 2010
confirms that a widespread mood of optimism and sense of unity exists among
Afghans. It showed that 70 percent of respondents thought Afghanistan was going
in the right direction, while 90 percent wanted the country run by the current
government, and only 6 percent favored a return of the Taliban regime. The same
survey showed President Hamid Karzai with a 72 percent approval rating, and 60
percent viewed government performance favorably.
If the state-building enterprise for Afghanistan is to succeed over the long
term, it has to be Afghan-centered and Afghan-led. In other words, international
peace building efforts must henceforth be driven by Afghan hands, and not simply
have an “Afghan face.” Without building peace by and for the sake of Afghans,
the current drama will most likely turn into a tragedy again, not just for
Afghanistan but for its nation-partners as well.
Shaida M. Abdali is Deputy National Security Adviser and Special Assistant to
President Karzai, and M. Ashraf Haidari is the Political Counselor of the
Embassy of Afghanistan in Washington, DC.
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