Thank you.
Honourable committee members, I'm thankful for the opportunity to share my observations and the results of my research and work on Afghanistan. This comes from my living in Afghanistan. I was born there, lived there, studied there, worked there. I am living in Burlington now, but I have a job in Afghanistan and have worked for the last six years with the Government of Afghanistan.
My observations and opinions do not reflect the position of the Afghan government. Rather, they come from my involvement with the peace movement, my career at McMaster University, and negotiations and talks I have had with members of the Taliban and their supporters, Hekmatyar, political leaders, and a network of people with access to cabinet members, including the president of the country.
I would like to start by saying that the war in Afghanistan cannot be won without a peace track, a political track. Why? Because there is a big political component in the conflict in Afghanistan, and a political component cannot be resolved through war alone. The political component has at least two dimensions: one is the unresolved civil war; the other is the regional factor in the conflict.
I want to take you back to pre-September 11, 2001. In Afghanistan, before September 11, there was a nine-year-old civil war and a five-year-old conflict between the Taliban and the Northern Alliance. These parties and factions were not much liked by the public. Both parties, both factions, were seen as failed, whether viewed as governments, parties, or groups.
Both sides of the civil war committed crimes against humanity and violated human rights. There was no al-Qaeda or war on terror then, but there were two parties killing each other's members. This created a deep political fragmentation. Later, it became predominantly ethnic. Ethnicity was not really part of the agenda, but the composition of the groups that were fighting each other became more and more ethnic.
My observations take into account the government and the politics around the government. The civil war is hampering governance and civil service reform. Good governance is impossible to achieve unless this conflict is resolved. There is a winning side and a losing side: the winning side is in and around the government; the losing side became affiliated with al-Qaeda in 1996 and is still fighting against the government.
Not everyone who fights against the government and its international allies is a terrorist. There are hundreds who do not share the objectives and the vision of al-Qaeda and international terrorism. There are national grievances. They feel they have been treated unjustly. They're not included in the Bonn agreement, the Bonn peace process. Their enemy won, and the international community is supporting their enemy. They are not treated as citizens of this country, and they are discriminated against because of their identity.
Now, I want to turn this discussion to the Manley report, a great work. Lots of issues are brought to light, including recommendations for diplomatic efforts.
I want to remind everyone here that the war in Afghanistan is not continuing because we have 1,000 fewer troops. It's not going on because we have less coordination among allied forces. It's not going on because we have too few helicopters. It's going on because of a mixture of determinants, one of which has not been addressed. To fight poverty is quite a reasonable effort. Lots of investment and meeting the basic needs of the people is good. Improving development is very good. Improve governance, yes. But unless you create a political track, you're not going to win the war. Why? Because you're fighting a mix of ordinary Afghan citizens who are in the hands of Al-Qaeda and terrorists.
With war alone we are producing, most likely, more recruits for Al-Qaeda. We may be supporting Al-Qaeda by not breaking up the lines of Taliban and Hekmatyar followers, those who are not terrorists and those who are interested in peace negotiations. There is no medium or mechanism for peace negotiations that can address the issues. What are the issues? Which issues can we resolve without compromising the values and the accomplishments we've had?
Going to the regional dimension, in the civil war, Afghanistan had support for the warring parties from Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia, and the Arabs. That surrogate war, somehow fought in Afghanistan, is still affecting the dynamic. Pakistan, India, and Iran all have some legitimate concerns, and there is no medium or mechanism to address those. There is no way, no dialogue, no process, no team, no mandate for the United Nations to develop and establish a peace track to try to find peaceful resolutions for those who are not terrorists.
What do I mean by peace track? First of all, you may know that the UN is not mandated to do peace work in Afghanistan. The UN mandate is not war, but it's not to lead peace negotiations and peace processes either. Afghanistan needs multi-level dialogue with those who are interested in peace and have no agenda--who have no terrorist and Al-Qaeda agenda--to integrate them into the political system.
Remember, we did integrate half of one side in the civil war in Bonn in 2001-02, and they were as good or bad as the Taliban or Hekmatyar in terms of ideology, in terms of the Islamist view they have. Sayaf is an example; Rabani is an example. They were brought into the political system. They are doing okay. They are shouting in their parliament instead of shooting on the mountain. The others will be okay, too, we can safely assume. So one level of dialogue is for integration.
The other level of dialogue is to bring the parties in the civil war to a reconciliation. The winning party is destabilizing the government, and they might do more of that if they feel they're going to lose their monopoly on power--because they know only one thing, that the Taliban is on one side of a win-lose game. Either you win and have everything or you lose and have nothing. So the winning side is also nervous, and both sides have been put in a very helpless position: the winning side has to stay in power and keep the enemy away and sabotage the peace processes, and the losing side has to fight, no matter who they get weapons from. If it's Al-Qaeda, so be it.
The third level addresses the regional dimension. We have no mechanism except military coordination between Afghanistan, Pakistan, and NATO for that.
The last point is that without the political process, war is not going to win. Why? Because you are fighting against non-terrorists, against people who are ordinary Afghans in the south. And they feel that their warlords and criminals are treated unjustly. While the other side's warlords and criminals are generals and marshals and are in the government, our criminals are treated differently. That's why you will not have public support in winning peace and stability, and when you don't win peace and stability, how can you do development? Because of the tension between the two parties, the winning party is now using all its energy to keep itself powerful so it can survive. That's why the governance is not going to happen.
My last point is that Canada can take the lead in creating a peace track, a political track, for political resolution. That might require revising the mandate of the United Nations in Afghanistan to make it a mandate for peacemaking. That might require revising the blacklist, because we have people who deserve to be on the blacklist, and they are on the government side as well. We have to treat everybody across the board in the same way. Those who are interested in a political solution might need to be removed from the blacklist temporarily.