Foreign Affairs Committee on Nov. 29th, 2007

[Deepak Obhrai, Conservative, Calgary East, AB]

The Kite Runner.

What I'm saying is it's important to recognize what the international community, through the Afghanistan Compact, which goes to 2011, is doing to achieve some milestones.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Are there any comments?

Mr. Nahzat.

[Mirwais Nahzat]

Thank you, Mr. Obhrai, for the question and comment.

I think what I alluded to during my presentation was a complete focus on supporting the Afghan government to achieve its national development strategies. As you rightly pointed out, the London compact and the Afghanistan national development strategy were presented together at the international conference. The Afghanistan Compact is the international donors' and the Afghan government's commitment to rebuilding Afghanistan, but the core document that dictates that compact is actually the interim Afghan national development strategy, ANDS, which is currently being worked into a full program.

I can speak on behalf of WUSC. Care Canada might have other perspectives. For example, the program we have for 2,000 vulnerable widows in Kabul directly contributes to the Afghan social protection strategy, which is a part of the Afghanistan national development strategy and tied with the London compact.

My recent trip to Afghanistan was to sit down with the government ministries to make sure the Canadian effort is in line with the strategies of Afghanistan. I know that is the effort that's being deployed by a lot of Canadian organizations, not to replace, but as I've emphasized, to build the capacity of Afghan institutions.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you.

Mr. Goldring, you only have a minute.

[Peter Goldring, Conservative, Edmonton East, AB]

Mr. Isch, thank you for being here today.

According to World Vision, more families want their daughters to attend school. Progress on this front has been slow. Mr. Nahzat, you commented that there's a 34% literacy rate for adult males and 12% for females.

I would suggest that adult literacy starts with school. My understanding is that over six million Afghan children are now in school, and that 40% are women, which is a 500% increase over the past years. To me that would indicate real progress under trying circumstances in challenging areas. I'm surprised you would say that progress on this front has been slow.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Goldring, unfortunately we don't have time for the answer. They can maybe incorporate it in someone else's response.

Mr. Dewar, please.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I thank our guests for coming here today and providing us with updates and insight on the mission in Afghanistan.

One of the concerns our party has is that the mission we're currently in, the counter-insurgency kind of search-and-kill mission, is not helping. In fact it's doing more harm than good. We're hearing that today. According to local reports, 14 workers who were engaged in building roads were killed by NATO bombs today. We hear about civilians being killed, not by the Taliban, sadly, but by allied forces. To be clear about that, this is not the intention, but this is the result.

My concern is when we hear statistics like that of the investment of the Canadian government of $1.36 billion in official development assistance in Afghanistan over a one-year period and that only about 31% has a local impact. I think it speaks to the problems you've outlined. We're having problems plugging in the money. In other words, we don't seem to know, notwithstanding the money and the commitment, where to put the money.

I'm hearing from you, as a group, that we need to look at grassroots. We need to look at NGOs to help plug in the money. I couldn't agree with you more.

We talked about the compact. I must remind friends from the other side that part of the compact is to promote regional cooperation, to combat corruption, and to ensure public transparency and accountability. I'm not seeing that from our own government in terms of accountability and transparency of where the money is going. I'm sure the intent of the compact is to do what you're advocating for.

How do we get over this dilemma of having security trumping development? How do we plug in at the local level?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Dewar.

Mr. Isch.

[Emmanuel Isch]

I think that would partly answer the earlier question. In French we say rééquilibrage . We have to readjust some of the priorities, and that includes CIDA.

There has been an overemphasis on certain types of activities that are confined within the framework of security. I think we have to recognize those issues. But if we broaden our reach, our sectoral approach, and the partners we connect with, I think we will be able to achieve some of these.

With respect to the progress we're noting with education, we have to recognize that at the end of the day it's not about the number of kids who are enrolled in school, although that has to be recognized; it's about the quality of education. These are some of the nuances we have to look at. It's not the quick fix approach that we're building x number of clinics or schools that's important; it's what happens within the schools. It's the ability for children to not only go to school, but the future they have in terms of livelihoods and jobs.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Isch.

Did anyone else want to touch on that? If not, Mr. Dewar, you have more time.

[Mirwais Nahzat]

Very briefly, I would emphasize that while that percentage of progress has been made in education, we also must understand that almost half of the Afghan children of primary age are not able to go to school, and that's their fundamental right--to have access to schools in a safe environment.

We must also emphasize the long-term commitment to education. I have been involved with development efforts in Afghanistan. What happens is that the donors contribute a six-month package for a school, and after six months the project priorities shift, and those children are left alone without schools and without teachers. Where does that take us in terms of the future of our country? The emphasis must be on long-term commitment, and on making sure that those who are left behind are actually put into the front lines of development.

[Paul Dewar, NDP, Ottawa Centre, ON]

Mr. Chair, this is for whoever would like to take this question.

A rude, kind of crude analogy is that we our folks have a gun on one shoulder and a shovel on the other, and that's what you see if you're an Afghan civilian. You're probably going to see the gun over the shovel, and I guess that's kind of where we're at.

In your opinion, are the security provisions we're providing—and I'm talking about the Canadian government—making things more dangerous or less dangerous?

[Gerry Barr]

The answer is more dangerous. I don't think we can emphasize strongly enough, but I'm happy for the chance to do it, that this confusion in role between humanitarian and development projects and military projects is a toxic brew. It is dangerous. It leads to failure, and it is an actual mistake. Development is hard to do, of course, and one sees problems and reversals everywhere one looks, partly because of the circumstances in which the development is going on. But there are very few things that are actually exclusively a mistake. This is a mistake, and it puts aid workers and civilians at risk.

If I could leave you with only one message, it would be this: negotiating humanitarian access, protection of civilians, and Afghan-led development, which is both long-term and sustainable, is what we want to see, and it is crucial that we correct this fundamental error that we have made in putting the security foot first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you very much to our panellists for being here this morning.

We are going to suspend for a few moments to allow you time to switch places with the new witnesses. There is lunch provided for the committee first, so if you want to avail yourselves of that very quickly, my intentions are to come back here within two minutes to hear from our next guests, and then to have committee business beginning at 12:45.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Committee, welcome back.

For the second hour of our committee meeting we have before us Gerry Olsen, who is with the Group of 78; Graeme MacQueen, who is with McMaster University; and Stefan Lehmeier, from the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee.

I think you all are part of the umbrella group, but welcome here. We look forward to your opening statements and then also having question time.

Mr. Lehmeier.

[Stefan Lehmeier, Coordinator, Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee, Afghanistan Reference Group]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson.

Members of the committee, ladies and gentlemen, my name is Stefan Lehmeier. I am the coordinator of the peace operations working group of the Canadian Peacebuilding Coordinating Committee.

Before I begin with my presentation, I would like to inform you that all the witnesses who appear before you this morning, as you've said, are part of the Afghanistan Reference Group, a network of Canadian civil society organizations with involvement in Afghanistan.

The views shared by the witnesses have been informed by a large number of Canadian NGOs, but they do not necessarily represent the views of all the agencies involved in the Afghanistan Reference Group.

The following three presentations will focus on the military, political, and diplomatic dimension of Canada's engagement in Afghanistan.

It is clear today that the West's involvement in Afghanistan has contributed to an ongoing deterioration of the situation as far as national security in Afghanistan is concerned. In September, the secretary general of the United Nations declared that, based on statistics, 2007 was the worst year since the fall of the Taliban regime when it comes to public safety. There was a 20% increase of violent incidents compared to last year. Several NATO commanders publicly stated that there was no military solution to solve the multitude of problems facing Afghanistan. Without a fundamental review of the international community's efforts in Afghanistan, foreign forces will remain in the country for decades and will be caught up in increasingly difficult and intense combat operations against the insurgents.

The root causes of the problem, which has only got worse, are linked to the international community's inability to understand the nature of Afghan society and its internal conflicts, which go back decades, even centuries. These conflicts were further complicated by the arrival of foreign forces in 2001. These foreign forces openly became allies of the various parties involved in the conflict. In my opinion, it must be stressed that the armed violence we see in Afghanistan today is much more than local insurrection in southern Afghanistan. It indicates that civil war between the Taliban and Hizb-e Islami, and also the Northern Alliance, has not been resolved.

No provision was made in the Bonn agreement in 2001 for comprehensive reconciliation and inclusive peace negotiations involving all key parties to the conflict. Part of the reason for that was that al-Qaeda, the Taliban, and Pashtuns were conflated with each other and considered spoilers that could only be dealt with by means of violence.

In the absence of a comprehensive political settlement, the engagement of the international community in Afghanistan's reconstruction and stabilization has been fragmented and therefore weak and incoherent. From the beginning, there have been two distinct and fundamentally incompatible military missions: the U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom and the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force.

The primary mission of Operation Enduring Freedom was and is counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency. It came to Afghanistan to assure first the security of Americans from al-Qaeda, and only then the protection of the Afghan government from the insurgency. This approach is fundamentally different from ISAF's mission of providing a secure environment for the establishment of a self-sustaining, democratic Afghan government able to exercise its sovereign authority throughout the country.

In the beginning, in late-2001 and early-2002, there was a strict separation between the two operations in terms of both geography and mandate. But after ISAF's expansion to all of Afghanistan, which took place between 2004 and 2006, its nature began to change, and it got more and more drawn into Operation Enduring Freedom's counter-insurgency campaign, which was, as I said, not part of its original mandate.

One of the results of this unforeseen transformation of ISAF has been that NATO is today more divided than ever over the purpose of its presence in Afghanistan and over an acceptable way to share the military and financial burden.

Just as the international military intervention in Afghanistan is fragmented, so is the political effort. The UN was initially confined to a very narrow humanitarian coordination role, while key stabilization tasks were parcelled out to a series of individual lead nations that turned out to be unequipped to handle their responsibilities. I think the reform of the Afghan National Police has been the most striking example of these challenges.

Despite all these lessons learned over the years, even the recently established coordination mechanism to oversee the implementation of the Afghanistan Compact, the Joint Coordination and Monitoring Board, is proving to be largely ineffective in its current set-up and with its current procedures.

Regionally, Afghanistan has long-standing conflicts with Pakistan over relations with India, the border, ethnic issues, and transit trade. The issue of Taliban insurgents receiving safe haven in the tribal areas of Pakistan is inextricably intertwined with fundamental issues of governance in those areas. These are political issues that will not be resolved militarily, yet few attempts have been made so far to bring relevant parties to the negotiating table to find political solutions.

In view of the above, we believe that a reorientation of the international focus from the current counter-insurgency campaign to the development of a comprehensive multi-dimensional peace process is urgently needed, and the following two presentations will elaborate on that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

We'll go to Mr. MacQueen.

[Professor Graeme MacQueen, Associate Professor, McMaster University, Afghanistan Reference Group]

Thank you, Mr. Chairperson. I'm privileged to be with you today.

My name is Graeme MacQueen. I'm from the Centre for Peace Studies at McMaster University.

This is part two of this presentation and will follow directly from Stefan's.

What changes might we Canadians make in our approach to peace and security in Afghanistan? Once we are clear that our chief goal and highest priority is the well-being of Afghans and Afghanistan, we must acknowledge that this goal cannot be achieved until the root conflicts in Afghanistan have been identified and addressed. We have heard much over the past few years about the need to increase humanitarian assistance, to contribute to the reconstruction of the country, and so on. l support these aims. But there are reasons countries are reluctant to increase these forms of assistance: they do not want their new building blown up; they do not want their aid workers killed; they do not want their contribution to come to nothing. Before we can expect these positive contributions—meaning, for example, humanitarian aid—to increase, we must address the country's root conflicts.

Having acknowledged this, we must next admit that seeking military victory is not the best way to address Afghanistan's root conflicts. This may be a painful acknowledgement, but it is time we made it. We need not debate the morality of seeking victory, because the fact is that victory is daily becoming less likely. It is time for a new approach.

As we adopt the new approach, we must change the public discourse about our mission in Afghanistan. Why not stop speaking of victory? Why not abandon counter-insurgency language such as “winning hearts and minds”? Why not emphasize the goal of sustainable peace, the need for a serious peace process, and the necessity of a comprehensive peace agreement?

A planned, phased peace process for Afghanistan need not take the familiar three-stage form of ceasefire, face-to-face negotiation, and peace agreement. Rather, we might think of the process as dialogue and problem-solving, first stage; negotiation, second stage; and reconciliation, third stage. It would probably be very unwise, in fact, to go directly to negotiation between leaders of main belligerent groups. This would encourage undemocratic backroom deals, which is not what we are advocating.

A serious peace process might start with numerous dialogue and problem-solving sessions throughout the country. Afghanistan is a complex society with many conflicts and many grievances. The process of identifying these and seeking solutions should not be restricted to elites and armed adversaries but should be extended widely. It should reach all ethnic groups and political tendencies, and it must, in accordance with justice and in the spirit of UNSC 1325, include women.

If all this sounds ambitious, it is; but it need not be chaotic. The dialogue process can be carefully framed, given clear guidelines, set on a timeline, and led by trained facilitators. The purpose of this phase of the peace process is to give people safe spaces in which to express their feelings and be heard, to begin building trust, and to encourage a culture of listening and problem-solving instead of the culture of anger and blame that tends to dominate societies, not just Afghan society, that have suffered long-standing warfare.

Everything suggested here, by the way, everything I have mentioned, belongs to the best practices of peacemaking developed over the years by conflict practitioners and set forth in numerous publications and practical manuals. But are such dialogue and problem-solving sessions really possible in Afghanistan? Can Afghans get together in groups and speak about their conflicts? The organization to which l belong, based at McMaster University, participated in numerous dialogues of this sort with Afghans during the period 2001 to 2003—actually, that's incorrect, because it began in 2000; we began to work well before the events of 9/11—with financial support from CIDA. We have found Afghans to be creative and enthusiastic in addressing their conflicts.

It's important to note that this stage of the peace process should include not only groups inside Afghanistan but also regional powers, as well as other states, such as those in NATO, that have decided Afghanistan is important to them. What would be the point, for example, of coming up with a proposal that Pakistan would immediately reject? It is better to listen to the perceived needs of Pakistanis at the outset.

Only after the dialogue process has had time to unfold should the more formal phase of negotiation begin. The aim of the negotiation is to strive for a comprehensive peace agreement, especially among armed belligerents, that will address key conflicts that have been identified. Negotiations should build on the prior stage of broad-based dialogue and problem solving, and the negotiation partners should be accountable to the wider society.

Now a key question: should the Taliban be partners in the negotiations? Answer: yes. While we recognize the concerns of groups that wish to exclude them, the Taliban must be included as valid stakeholders if there is to be a meaningful peace agreement. Impartial and expert third-party facilitation will be a key element at this stage of the peace process, which should result in a peace agreement that lays the political, security, and socio-economic foundations of a sustainable peace.

Thirdly and finally, a process of national reconciliation should be launched in order to address the deep individual and social wounds of the last three decades of war, and to bring Afghans together in striving for a common future. The 2005 action plan on peace, reconciliation, and justice in Afghanistan by the government of Afghanistan is an excellent step in this direction. It will have more meaning, however, once the crucial conflicts of the country have been identified and addressed. Reconciliation engages the human heart, but it requires that the mind also be engaged in actively resolving key conflicts and outstanding issues.

Thank you.

Now we turn to Gerry Ohlsen for Canada's specific role.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. MacQueen.

Mr. Ohlsen.

[Gerry Ohlsen, Vice-Chair, Group of 78, Afghanistan Reference Group]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

My name is Gerry Ohlsen. I work with a group called the Group of 78, which is a foreign policy development, analysis, and advocacy group. I spent 35 years as a diplomat without ever setting foot in Afghanistan, so I'll state my expertise.

I'd like to elaborate a bit on what Professor MacQueen has spoken about in terms of the overall direction that must be taken in Afghanistan, and I'd like to elaborate on a more promising role for Canada than what we have followed over the last six years.

As Professor MacQueen said, Afghanistan does not need another back-room deal forged by political elites to save their political hides. But that's what it's going to get if the international community doesn't change direction soon. What Afghanistan does urgently need is a UN-supported, broadly based political dialogue, one that engages all sectors of the society and all communities of interest. They didn't get it at Bonn or at London. They need it now.

The words “UN-supported” are key. The UN may or may not ultimately lead the peace negotiation. UN blue helmets may not ultimately provide the security assistance during the implementation of a peace agreement. But only the UN, only the Security Council, can actually mandate a multi-dimensional peace operation. Equally importantly, only the UN can notionally lead that peace implementation process, if for no other reason than that it's the only body that is acceptable to the international community.

An operation of that nature will be required to oversee and assist in the implementing of an agreement that the parties to a peace agreement might sign. Simply put, only the UN can mandate a political framework to legitimize international action and bring about peace in Afghanistan. That's where we have to turn.

Regardless of how we proceed with peace negotiations, the needs of those people who have suffered in the conflict will have to be met. That means that the fundamentals of a justice system must be put in place, that general amnesties must be discouraged and that arms control measures must be taken with a view to the disarmament, the demobilization, and the reintegration of combatants. All of that is crucial. All these steps must be taken as part of a robust international undertaking where the necessary resources are guaranteed. This cannot be achieved without those resources.

As this process goes forward, it will have to address the needs as well of the internally displaced, of refugees. Community level peace-building will be needed to resolve local disputes and to support reconciliation and social cohesion.

From this moment, from right now, we need to begin the pre-negotiations and support them with inter-ethnic and inter-group dialogue at the local and national level. Capacity, mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution have to be developed at all levels. Afghan civil society, in particular Afghan women's groups, will have an integral role to play in this whole process at the national level, but at the village level as well.

Canada, Mr. Chair, has really made an extraordinary commitment to Afghanistan. Janice Stein's recent book tells us that this was as much by accident as by design, but we're there and we've committed. Hundreds of young Canadians have been killed, scarred forever by what they've seen and done and what they've suffered physically. Billions of dollars have been spent. The prospect, if we continue in the way we're going, is for more of the same.

But that doesn't need to be the case. It's time for Canadians to give a new direction to that commitment. It's time to infuse it with political energy and the tangible resources needed to support Afghans as they themselves seek a sustainable peace.

Mr. Chair, if Canada wants to exhibit international leadership, as our political leaders tell us it does, there is a vacuum right now when it comes to constructive, responsible promotion of a political settlement in Afghanistan. It's never had one, and no one is doing it now.

Canada can—and we should—fill that vacuum. We should take the lead among our NATO allies, including the Americans: within NATO, within the UN, within the region, and with the Afghan government, as well as with the Afghan people. We can help lead to shape a comprehensive peace process.

To do that, we should be prepared to provide the political and military support it requires, on a scale that reflects the huge investment we have made in time, money, and the lives of young Canadians to build a stable Afghanistan.

At the military level, we can lead in the preparation for the redirection of ISAF from its current combat role to what it was meant to be: a robust peace support operation, an operation deployed to facilitate negotiation and implementation of a peace agreement.

Among Afghans, we can support the creation of conditions favourable to dialogue and negotiation. We can provide technical and financial resources to the political class, to women, and to others in civil society that will allow them to participate in the peace process at all levels.

Peace-building must be a key element of Canada's civilian effort in Afghanistan and of CIDA's programming in Afghanistan. The stabilization and reconstruction task force established by CIDA and by the Department of Foreign Affairs provides us with a tool that already exists to carry that kind of work forward.

Canadian civil society organizations have roles to play in this activity. They can build capacity and skills, both in government and with their civil society counterparts. They can support grassroots peace-building. They can apply conflict-sensitive community development programming across the gamut of activities in Afghanistan.

Mr. Chair, Canadians have a profound interest, one we purchased at great cost, in the future of Afghanistan, in its peace and its stability. Let's work together; let's work with Afghans, our allies, the global community as a whole, to bring peace and not a continued war to Afghanistan.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Ohlsen, and indeed, thank you to all our presenters here.

We'll quickly move into the first round.

Mr. Patry, you have between three and four minutes. We break at a quarter to one.

[Bernard Patry, Liberal, Pierrefonds—Dollard, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

My question will be for the group. Thank you very much for being here, Mr. MacQueen and Mr. Lehmeier.

You talk about dialogue, peace agreements, negotiations, and trying to reach a comprehensive peace agreement. But my question—and you touched on it a little bit—is dialogue with whom? Dialogue within the different ethnic groups, the Tajik, the Pashtun, etc., living within the country, or with the warlords, in a certain sense—because there are many warlords over there—and also with the drug dealers? Why not with the drug dealers in a certain sense?

In my comprehension, the problem also includes all the neighbouring countries. You start with Russia, Iran, and mainly Pakistan. Since the partition of India and Pakistan and in 1949, you will see that Afghanistan doesn't recognize the Durand Line there. You say you need to negotiate these things, but there's a lot of geopolitics over there.

My question is very simple. You just mentioned that we should negotiate with the Taliban. Fine, but can you tell me, who are the Taliban? Are they coming from the Middle East, or where do they from? Who are they? They're not an ethnic group. I just want to know with whom you're going to negotiate in the Taliban. It's as simple as that.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Thank you, Mr. Patry.

[Prof. Graeme MacQueen]

Well, I'll briefly start us off.

To your question about who we will dialogue with, I would say yes, with all the groups you mentioned. What we're thinking about here is very widespread dialogue throughout the country, which would certainly involve ethnic groups. It would involve different political tendencies. I've attended such sessions, so I know very concretely what they look like.

What you're trying to do is to have an impact on how people are thinking about their country. Instead of getting up and speechifying, which is their initial tendency, you try to get them to think about problem solving. So, yes, the dialogue process is serious. It has a time limit; it's not going on forever. But it's crucial before you move into formal negotiation.

Now when you ask the second question about who the Taliban are, I think most of them are, for sure, Afghans. I know the Taliban movement grew up in Afghanistan, in Kandahar. It was in fact welcomed by many people in Kandahar at the time in the early nineties, for very clear reasons, given what it offered. It is in that sense a stakeholder in Afghanistan. It is certainly not sufficient to dismiss it as a terrorist group, as we have tended to do. It did not arise as a terrorist group; it does not have an ideology and theology of terrorism, and especially of international terrorism. Yes, by our standards, it is fundamentalist. It had a limited aim of an Islamic Afghanistan. It's quite different in its origins and aims from al-Qaeda. If it has been driven together with al-Qaeda, that's because of necessity: they both feel attacked. But it can be separated from al-Qaeda.

Furthermore, you're right that the Taliban is a fractured organization or, more properly speaking, a fractured movement. It's quite likely that some are complete rejectionists and would not accept the offer to dialogue and negotiate, but we know from our own contacts in Afghanistan that some groups certainly were open. I hope they still are—they certainly were open a year ago to dialogue. If we haven't made a proper effort to speak to them, how can we blame them for not dialoguing?

Those are my comments.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kevin Sorenson]

Mr. Ohlsen, very quickly.