Good afternoon. My name is Surendrini Wijeyaratne. I am a Peace and Conflict Policy Analyst with the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. I am also a fellow of the Walter and Duncan Gordon Foundation.
I wish to thank you for the opportunity you are giving me today to present some comments about the prospects for peace in Afghanistan. These comments are based on findings from interviews I carried out in January and February of this year with diplomats, staff members of international agencies and Afghan civil society organizations as well as community leaders and government representatives in Afghanistan.
I'll do the rest of my presentation in English. Thank you.
Calls for peace efforts and a political solution to the conflict in Afghanistan are gaining more attention. The Manley report recognizes the need for political and social reconciliation, and it calls for greater coordination of international efforts on the political and military fronts and a coherent strategy toward the region. But much more needs to be done to ensure that supporting a political solution to the Afghan conflict and enabling reconciliation receive the priority they deserve in Canada's whole-of-government approach. It is well past the time to rebalance Canada's mission to play a much stronger diplomatic role, but also to ensure that Canada's diplomacy leads to support for the conditions for a peace process.
I'd like to highlight five current areas in which there are peace initiatives that, with further support and some reform—because there are challenges with them—could help foster the conditions for a peace process in Afghanistan.
The first area I'd like to talk about is the area of political outreach or political reconciliation. Current political outreach and reconciliation efforts are best described as nascent peace talks undertaken by the Afghan government with the support of the international community. These talks seek to persuade individual combatants, who are generally low- to mid-level commanders of the Taliban, as well as other armed opposition groups, to leave the insurgency and to accept the legitimacy of the current Afghan government and the constitution, and ultimately to stop fighting.
There are serious concerns regarding the lack of coordination between political and military actors in the current outreach and reconciliation efforts. According to the interviews I undertook for the study in January and February of this year, this lack of coordination has sometimes resulted in the individuals and opposition groups who are participating in these political outreach and reconciliation efforts being attacked or harassed once they've returned to their communities of origin.
Most of the Afghans and members of the international community I spoke with support some kind of peace talks with the opposition—and when I say “opposition”, I mean armed opposition groups—but they also stated that before the Government of Afghanistan proceeded with more substantial talks with the Taliban and other opposition groups, the government itself needed strengthening and greater coherence.
It is also quite clear that any future peace process should not be reduced simply to negotiations with the Taliban or even other armed opposition groups. Certainly this will be one important and integral element to a peace process, but people placed equal consideration on finding avenues to engage the Northern Alliance and other Mujahideen groups; the government and Parliament; civil society organizations, and women's groups in particular; religious figures; and even former communist allies, to build a national vision for the country and to address the legacy of war.
Afghans must clearly be at the centre of these peace efforts. Canada and the international community can help support the conditions necessary for more substantial peace talks to take place.
This brings me to the second area of current peace efforts focusing on transitional justice and social reconciliation. These efforts are undertaken primarily through Afghan civil society organizations and the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission—already referred to today. It is clear from interviews that the legitimacy of any future peace process is linked to these issues of transitional justice, human rights, and women's rights being addressed. For the Afghans I spoke with, a peace process is not only about negotiations, as I already said, but also includes accountability and justice for serious human rights atrocities.
In 2005, the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission developed a time-bound action plan on peace, justice, and reconciliation, ending in June of this year. The plan outlines four priorities for transitional justice: symbolic measures, truth-seeking and documentation, institutional reform, and reconciliation.
Afghan civil society representatives, as well as diplomats, said that transitional justice in general and the action plan in particular have been dearly neglected areas of current peace efforts. There are a number of Afghan NGOs working in the field of transitional justice, human rights, and women's rights, and Canada can certainly do more to assist these organizations to help ensure that this difficult work receives both the financial and political support it deserves.
Another area of the current peace efforts relates to the disbanding of illegal armed groups. There are at present an estimated 1,800 to 2,000 illegal armed groups throughout Afghanistan. Afghans and members of the international community alike recognize the need for some form of ongoing disbandment work, particularly in lead-up to the 2009 elections. Canada, once again, could play a much stronger role in supporting such security sector reform efforts.
You've likely heard quite a bit about the peace jirga that was held between Afghanistan and Pakistan in August 2007. This was aimed at building confidence between the two countries. One of the outcomes of the peace jirga was a joint declaration recommending further cooperation between Afghanistan and Pakistan, including a recommendation, once again, to talk to opposition groups. Canada has indicated its support for continued peace jirga activities, and it should also ensure that its policies toward both Afghanistan and Pakistan are complementary and consistent.
At the community level, a number of Afghan non-governmental organizations, as well as some international organizations, work in the area of community peace building, helping to address local level disputes over land, water, and pasture, for example. A recent report from Oxfam International highlights the need for greater support for community-level peace building, as well as its potential to help develop the foundations for peace.
So if there are already peace efforts under way, is there a need for a more developed peace process in the future? Well, the answer is clearly yes. There's clearly a need for a more coordinated effort to support a political solution, social reconciliation, and transitional justice in Afghanistan. Current efforts are too disconnected to have the kind of impact needed to support long-term peace and reconciliation.
Why then hasn't a more systematic peace process emerged? Findings from this research suggest that more international support is needed to work with the Government of Afghanistan, opposition groups, and Afghan civil society organizations, including women's groups, to create the conditions necessary for a more coordinated and systematic peace process. Clear strategies to achieve peace and reconciliation, including transitional justice, will not evolve on their own. The prospect for peace in Afghanistan grows more remote as violence continues unabated and no concerted efforts are made to engage all parties in a dialogue for peace.
Canada is indeed in a leadership position in Afghanistan, and it should make the most of that position by becoming a strong advocate for peace. To do this, Canada can do four things. It can rebalance its diplomatic, development, and military strategies to place greater emphasis on development and building the conditions necessary for an eventual peace process in Afghanistan. It can encourage the international community and the Government of Afghanistan to strengthen the conditions for a future peace process and to coordinate current efforts. It can promote an immediate peace-making and national reconciliation mandate for the UN envoy, which is under negotiation right now. And it must support a recommitment to the action plan on peace, justice, and reconciliation.
Canada can also fund innovative and independent channels—the community-based peace-building work in Afghanistan—including through women's groups and women's networks and civil society organizations.
Afghan men and women desperately need peace and stability, and Canada should ensure that its mission is doing everything possible to support the goal of peace and reconciliation in Afghanistan.
Thank you.