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Peace with Hekmatyar: What Does It Mean for Battlefield and Politics?

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Peace with Hekmatyar: What Does It Mean for Battlefield and Politics? Peace With Hekmatyar: What does it mean for battlefield and politics? Author : Borhan Osman Published: 29 September 2016 Downloaded: 6 September 2018 Download URL: https://www.afghanistan-analysts.org/peace-with-hekmatyar-what-does-it-mean-for-battlefield-and-politics/?format=pdf The peace deal signed today by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of Hezb-e Islami, and President Ashraf Ghani, has been hailed by the Afghan government as the first major peace achievement of the last fifteen years. However, expectations should be tempered. Given Hezb-e Islami’s almost total absence on the battlefield, the deal is unlikely to significantly lower the current levels of violence. It is also unlikely to inspire the Taleban to follow Hezb’s example, considering the completely different trajectories and aims of the two groups. Even so, says AAN’s Borhan Osman, Hekmatyar’s outsized ‘jihadi credentials’ could present a challenge to the legitimacy of the Taleban insurgency and his eventual return to civilian life can only be expected to leave its mark on Afghanistan’s politics. How did this peace deal come about? The agreement is the climax of six and half years of negotiations which included dozens of meetings between the two sides. It was a turbulent process, fraught with interruptions and breakdowns only to be followed by resumptions. Contacts with US officials were initiated even earlier, in 2008. That year, the Hezb-e Islami faction led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar (often 1 / 13 abbreviated as HIG: Hezb-e Islami-ye Gulbuddin) published its outline for a peace plan and two years later it handed over a 15-point plan to the government (see this AAN analysis). Despite the long trajectory, it was not until spring of this year that a deal finally looked imminent. The negotiations that culminated in the current draft agreement started in March 2016, and in April, HIG dropped its most substantial condition for an agreement, the withdrawal of foreign troops; chief negotiator Karim Amin called the full withdrawal of foreign troops a goal, rather than a condition for an accord. In May 2016, a draft agreement between the two sides was initialled by Amin and HPC chair Pir Sayed Ahmad Gailani (AAN analysis here). In the following month, however, the fate of the agreement was thrown into uncertainty, precisely at the time that Hekmatyar was supposed to endorse it. HIG claimed the breakdown was because the government had added new demands, most importantly the explicit acceptance of the Afghan-US bilateral security agreement, which provides the legal foundation for the presence of foreign troops in Afghanistan in the post-2014 period. However, according to members of the HPC and western diplomats closely following the process, it was HIG that had added new conditions to the draft. HPC deputy chairman Mawlawi Ataullah Salim told a parliamentary session in July 2016 that HIG delegates had presented these additional conditions directly to President Ghani, bypassing the HPC. These conditions included a specified timetable for the withdrawal of foreign troops, representation of HIG in the election commission and a share in government. Talks resumed in August 2016 with none of the mentioned extra conditions making it into the draft agreement in the form of a commitment. There was also a brief hitch earlier this month when HIG claimed that the deal was to be signed on 10 September but that circles around Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah were trying to sabotage it. During an Eid ceremony on 11 September, President Ghani seemed to be alluding to this when he said that the peace deal with HIG would go ahead and that “unjustified hurdles” were not acceptable, although he did not clarify who was trying to put up such hurdles. There are indications that Abdullah’s camp was indeed not happy with the text of the agreement and wanted to change it, but on 19 September Abdullah publicly backed the deal. Two days later his powerful ally Atta Muhammad Nur, the acting governor of Balkh and head of Jamiat party’s political council, followed suit. This was the first time that both partners in the National Unity Government publicly voiced a consensus about the peace deal. President Ghani and Hekmatyar had already approved the final version of the draft and the agreement was then made ready for an initial signing ceremony of the draft on 22 September 2016. HPC chair Gailani, who was initially supposed to be the only one to sign the draft agreement, insisted that NSC chair Hanif Atmar co-signed, presumably in an attempt to raise the profile of the event and to properly showcase the achievement of the HPC, it first major one since it was created in 2010. There were two other signatures from the government side. The first was Mawlawi Salim, who had taken part in the current negotiations, since coming into the HPC as one of the six new deputies appointed in February 2016 following a re-shuffle. More importantly, 2 / 13 he is a member of Jamiat-e Islami who had also negotiated with the Taleban on behalf of Ahmad Shah Massud’s forces in the late 1990s. Salim’s co-signing seemed aimed at illustrating the support of the Abdullah and/or Jamiat camp for the agreement (Jamiat’s rivalry with Hezb-e Islami dates back to even before the anti-Soviet struggle of the 1980s, although Abdullah’s choice of Hezb-e Islami stalwart, former intelligence chief Muhammad Khan, as his running mate in the 2014 elections already indicated an easing of tensions). Another HPC deputy, Habiba Sarabi, read a short joint statement after the signing, in an effort by the government to emphasize the inclusiveness of the process, at least on its side, both in terms of gender and ethnicity. What was the signing ceremony like, did Hekmatyar attend? The actual agreement was signed on 29 September 2016 in front of a packed audience of senior Afghans during a lengthy ceremony in the presidential palace that was broadcast live on Afghan TV. President Ghani signed in person, while Hezb party leader Hekmatyar spoke and signed in a pre-recorded video (see the video here). The other speakers were again picked to portray a broad consensus and included Chief Executive Abdullah Abdullah, Pir Gailani and former minister and female senator Seddiqa Balkhi. The ceremony on 29 September was attended by a much larger and broader crowd than the earlier signing of the draft. Political leaders from across the spectrum as well as dozens of Hezbi-e Islami members and heavyweights participated. Among the influential figures in attendance were former president Hamid Karzai, prominent ‘jihadi’ leader Abdul Rab Rasul Sayyaf, Jamiat’s most powerful man and Balkh governor Atta Muhammad Nur, Hazara leader and Abdullah’s deputy Muhamad Mohaqiq and Wolesi Jirga speaker Abdul Rauf Ibrahimi. Hekmatyar, in his 36-minute long speech, had something to say for all the different parties in power and in conflict, with varying tones. His message was full of veiled references. He frequently touched upon those he blamed for establishing a monopoly of power with the support of foreign forces and for pushing others from power. He returned to this theme five times in his on-script speech. His message was thus less conciliatory than one would have expected at such an occasion. Calling those he chastised a small clique (tolgey in Pashto), he left little doubt as to whom he was referring to (he has used the same term in past messages, interviews and articles to refer to his longstanding political rivals Shura-e Nezar/Jamiat-e Islami). He further condemned them as having invited the foreign forces to invade Afghanistan, and then having joined them in a war against their own nation. He urged them to correct their course of action and to compensate for their mistake. He lambasts the opponents of peace as having been “bought by foreign forces” and using war as “a tool for obtaining power and resources.” Hekmatyar further explicitly asked the Taleban to follow his example and to enter into Afghan- led talks with the government, even if as an experiment for few weeks that should be observed with a ceasefire, while asking the government to be the first to take action by releasing Taleban prisoners. Then, turning to the first person plural, he came with a suggestion that diametrically contradicted the essence and spirit of the agreement he just signed. Suggesting to the Taleban to test the workability of direct talks, he went on to say: “If [the talks] did not yield a result, then 3 / 13 nobody can stop us from jihad and armed resistance. Whereas we need the permission and agreement of others to enter the cities, we do not need such permission and agreement to climb the mountains.” He, however, did not spare the Taleban either from his harsh language, hinting that for those who fight with foreign weapons, their decision to end a war will also be dependent on their foreign supporters. “In their fight, 999 of those who are killed are Afghans, only one is occasionally a foreigner. We tell them that such fights are not the act of the wise, nor of the faithful mujahedin.” He also blamed the Taleban for providing the US with an excuse to extend its military presence in Afghanistan by overrunning Kunduz city last year. In his message, Hekmatyar made it clear that he would continue his struggle for the full withdrawal of foreign forces, now through political means, as the Iraqis had done through a parliamentary decision. He commended the peace agreement as a desired step towards changing the tradition of gaining power through violence and hailed the successful negotiations as an outcome of intra-Afghan talks with no external mediation.
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