Afghans Bemused by Mixed Messages from Musharraf

Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf has been on a diplomatic drive to convince the world his government really is serious about curbing the Taleban in Afghanistan. But Afghan commentators have been left confused and angered by a string of apparently contradictory statements that seem geared to appease different audiences – Kabul, the West and the Pakistani public.



When Musharraf arrived in Kabul on September 6, the talk was of a common effort to halt the insurgency on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border.



Most of the 2,200 kilometre frontier consists of rough mountain country where, nearly five years after the Taleban government was ousted from Kabul, the insurgents operate with impunity, crossing back and forth at will.



The Afghan government of President Hamed Karzai has repeatedly accused Pakistan of not doing enough to combat the Taleban, and the evidence suggests that the insurgents use the North West Frontier Province, NWFP, for training and recruitment and as a haven from pursuit by the United States-led Coalition and the Afghan National Army.



Islamabad has frequently suggested that the Taleban – including their leader Mullah Mohammad Omar – are actually in southern Afghanistan, not Pakistan. So Afghan officials will have found it refreshing to hear Musharraf tacitly acknowledge that his own country was part of the problem.



“There are al-Qaeda and Taleban both in Afghanistan and in Pakistan,” he said in a September 7 speech at Afghanistan’s foreign ministry, where the audience included Karzai. “They are certainly crossing from the Pakistani side and causing bomb blasts and terrorist activities in your country.”



He also made it clear it was time to go after the top Taleban leadership, saying, "We must destroy the command structure."



The Pakistani leader went on to insist that his government – including the Inter-Services Intelligence agency, ISI - would never meddle in Afghanistan, and that the two states must work together to restore stability.



"If we want peace and stability in the region, we have to be together. We do not have other options - just one option, to stick together."



So far, so good: Musharraf’s remarks sounded like a pledge to work on the two countries’ often troubled relationship. His suggestion that Pakistan was going to hunt down Taleban forces present in the country chimed in with repeated demands Kabul has made in the past.



Karzai’s spokesman Mohammad Karim Rahimi told IWPR later that “the security situation was the main point in the talks between presidents Karzai and Musharraf, and they discussed the matter in detail…. We’ll have to wait and see the results of the talks. I am hopeful that the results will be positive."



However, Musharraf’s next major public statement on the issue displayed a major shift in emphasis from what he had said in Kabul. Addressing members of the European Parliament in Brussels on September 12, he emphasised the threat posed by Taleban forces consisting of ethnic Pashtuns rather than foreign fighters.



The “centre of gravity” had shifted from al-Qaeda to the Taleban, he argued.



Musharraf went on to say that the reinvigorated Taleban had “roots in the people” – specifically the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, who he suggested could be provoked into “national war” against outside forces.



This characterisation of the conflict as one troublesome ethnic group taking on all comers appeared to ignore the many complexities of the insurgency: the Taleban’s presence on both sides of the border, its links with Islamist factions in Pakistan, and persistent allegations that elements of the ISI retain links with the group they originally helped bring to power in Afghanistan.



The Afghan foreign ministry was swift to react, saying that the Taleban continued to receive support from outside Afghanistan, and recalling the ISI’s role in founding the Taleban movement.



The ministry said it was “deeply saddened” by the attempt to identify an entire ethnic group with the insurgency.



"Such unfriendly remarks are far from reality, and run contrary to the promises the Pakistani president made to the Afghan people during his recent visit to Kabul," said the ministry statement.



Afghan commentators expressed their outrage more openly.



"Musharraf wants to exploit the Pashtuns of Afghanistan, who are currently dissatisfied with their government,” said Fazul Rahman Orya, the chief editor of the Payam monthly magazine.



Another analyst in Kabul, Mohammad Qasim Akhgar, saw Musharraf’s speech in Brussels as part of an established policy of sowing dissent among Afghans.



"By making such remarks, Musharraf wanted to create mistrust among Afghan ethnic groups and tribes," he said.



He added that Musharraf's speech also contained a different message for the international community - that it was the Afghans who were responsible for the fighting, and that Islamabad was blameless.



Akhgar suggested that even the seemingly conciliatory remarks Musharraf made during his trip to Kabul contained a veiled threat.



"Musharraf actually displayed his power by admitting that the Taleban cross into Afghanistan from Pakistani…. What he meant was that they [Pakistan] have the power to disrupt the situation in the region, and that the international community should not ignore them or their power," said Akhgar.



Like many Afghans, Akhgar is deeply cynical of Islamabad’s good faith. "Look, there were no explosions in Kabul as long as Musharraf was in Kabul - but soon after he departed from Afghanistan, there was a blast near the US embassy in Kabul."



Oddly, the Taleban themselves seemed irritated by Musharraf’s depiction of them as Pashtuns. Although the movement has always drawn much of its support from Pashtun areas, it has always been at pains to base its claim to legitimacy as an Afghan movement driven by a commitment to Islamic principles.



"The Taleban has its roots not only among the Pashtuns, but all the ethnic groups of Afghanistan," Taleban spokesman Mohammad Hanif told the Pajhwak news agency. He added, "Pakistan has one problem - it involves itself in everything."



A third, complicating factor in identifying Islamabad’s true intentions is the deal Musharraf signed with the so-called “Pakistani Taleban” just one day before his trip to Kabul.



Thousands of Pakistan government troops have been deployed in NWFP in recent years as part of Islamabad’s commitment to help the United States-led “war on terror”. North Waziristan, one of the “tribal agencies” where the reach of central government is weakest, is seen as a hotbed of support for the Taleban.



Under the September 5 deal signed with an assembly of Waziri Pashtun tribal chieftains, Islamabad pulls back its armed forces from the region, and the locals pledge themselves to prevent militant activity, including raids into Afghanistan.



The agreement may go down well in Pakistan, where Musharraf has to take the views of Islamic parties into account, and military casualties are unpopular. But it raises questions about how such local deal-making fits with the principle of a coordinated Afghan-Pakistani war on insurgents.



In Kabul, analysts Akhgar and Orya agreed that the deal was bad for Afghanistan.



"The Pakistani government ends its military casualties, saves on military expenditure - and paves the way for further Taleban activities," said Akhgar, explaining that the insurgents would no longer be fighting a rearguard action in North Waziristan and would be able to concentrate their forces on attacking Afghanistan



Orya added, "Signing an agreement with the local Taleban in Waziristan means the Musharraf administration is recognising the Taleban.”



One of the top Taleban commanders, Mullah Dadullah, confirmed that the deal would give his movement greater freedom to operate in Afghanistan. In remarks circulated in the Pakistani media and reported in the Afghan press, he warned Islamabad not to breach the North Waziristan agreement unless it wanted more trouble there.



All in all, the Afghan analysts interviewed by IWPR conclude that the latest developments put Pakistan in an even stronger position internationally, with Musharraf outflanking Karzai on all diplomatic fronts.



"Musharraf's trip to Kabul was a symbolic one that he made because of pressure coming from the international community – yet he got a lot of advantages out of it,” said Orya. “He was able to deliver speeches to senior Afghan officials and parliamentarians and clear himself of the accusations the Afghan government has frequently brought against Pakistan. He was also able to make President Karzai call him his “brother”.



“But Afghan officials got nothing in return, bar a chance to applaud him.”



In Orya’s view, Kabul has always been uncertain about how to frame its view of Pakistan – as friendly neighbour or as foe.



The Afghan and Pakistani leaders are both due in Washington in late September. But while Musharraf will be able to tell President George Bush about his talks in Kabul and his peace deal in North Waziristan, Orya predicts that Karzai will go empty-handed.



Hafizullah Gardesh is an IWPR editor and Wahidullah Amani a staff reporter in Kabul.