POINT OF VIEW/ Daisaku Higashi: Creating jobs for Afghan insurgents key to peace

International Herald Tribune/ The Asahi Shimbun August 13, 2009

I did my own field research on peace-building in Afghanistan for two months last year. I interviewed top government officials, including Cabinet members, and conducted an opinion survey of 260 ordinary Afghans in the provinces of Kandahar, Kapisa, and Wardak.

I concluded from these interviews and the opinion survey that there is a consensus among the Afghan government, the United Nations, the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) and ordinary Afghans that there will be no peace in Afghanistan without reconciliation with the insurgents.

The presidential election on Aug. 20 in Afghanistan could provide a critical opportunity to start the reconciliation process as the leadership chosen in the coming election will obtain legitimacy in the eyes of local Afghans, who will have new expectations for political leadership and better governance.

With regard to the current government of President Hamid Karzai, almost all the Cabinet members I spoke to emphasized the importance of reconciliation with the insurgents. The civilian representative of the ISAF also supports reconciliation under the condition that the insurgents accept Afghanistan's new Constitution.

It is also crucial that ordinary Afghans strongly endorse the reconciliation process. According to my opinion survey, more than 90 percent of Pashtun respondents said the first priority to achieve peace in the landlocked country is to reconcile with the insurgents, including the Taliban. Pashtuns are the ethnic majority in Afghanistan, and the Taliban are mainly of Pashtun origin. Surprisingly, 86 percent of Tajik respondents, who are in the minority in Afghanistan and have been in conflict with the Pashtuns, answered that reconciliation with the insurgents--including the Taliban--is the first priority for making peace in Afghanistan.

This indicates there is a broad consensus on the need for reconciliation across different ethnic backgrounds.

Given the impressions of the Taliban rule in the 1990s, some might think that all Taliban members are committed to radical Islamic ideology. However, most of the insurgents are currently fighting because they are paid $100 each month by the Taliban. Many Afghan government and U.N. officials share the view that almost 90 percent of Afghan insurgents are fighting so as to earn a living.

Thus, it is possible to reconcile with these non-ideologically committed insurgents and stop the violence, if the Afghan government can provide “security” and “an alternative livelihood” to those insurgents.

In fact, the Afghan government tried to reconcile with Taliban militia forces by establishing a “national reconciliation program” in 2005. Unfortunately, the program was not very successful because (1) there was no substantial cooperation by the U.S. administration of former President George W. Bush, and (2) there was no mechanism to support the livelihood of these insurgents after they decided to lay down their weapons and reconcile with the government.

However, the current administration of President Barack Obama explicitly asserted in its new strategy for Afghanistan that “it is indispensable to reconcile with non-ideological insurgents who are fighting for a price.” Due to this explicit principle, it has become realistic to initiate a new reconciliation program.

The background of this new strategy by the U.S. government is its experience in Iraq. Since 2007, the U.S. forces have made progress in reconciling with almost 100,000 Sunni insurgents by paying $360 per month to individual insurgents who cut their links with al-Qaida. This policy resulted in a drastic curtailment of the insurgency in Iraq after 2007. When the Afghan presidential election is over, it will be a critical moment to start the reconciliation process based on economic incentives.

I proposed in my report to the United Nations that we should initiate a “vocational program for reconciliation” across Afghanistan. Under this mechanism, both Afghan insurgents and ordinary villagers would obtain training for their future livelihoods in vocational centers. They would also receive salaries during the training period.

Japan is able to play a central role in this process. The Japan International Cooperation Agency has already established nine vocational centers in Afghanistan, and the employment rate for those who completed their training at these centers has exceeded 70 percent. If Japan can utilize this experience to link “job creation” and “reconciliation”, and succeed in improving security conditions in Afghanistan, it will be appreciated by both the Obama administration and the Afghan people.

It would show that Japan has contributed to Afghan peace-building efforts using its own initiative.

※This article is printed here with the permission of the Asahi Shimbun and cannot be reprinted elsewhere without the specific approval of the newspaper.