[PEACEW RKS [ DESIGNING A COMPREHENSIVE PEACE PROCESS FOR AFGHANISTAN Lisa Schirch, with contributions from Aziz Rafiee,N ilofar Sakhi, and Mirwais Wardak PW75_Cover_3a.indd 1 9/13/11 10:27:11 AM [PEACEW RKS [ ABOUT THE REPO R T This report, sponsored by the Center for Conflict Management at the U.S. Institute of Peace, draws on comparative research literature on peace processes to identify lessons applicable to Afghanistan and makes recommendations to the international community, the Afghan government, and Afghan civil society for ensuring a more comprehensive, successful, and sustainable peace process. Research for this paper was undertaken during five trips to Kabul, Afghanistan, and one trip to Pakistan between 2009 and 2011. Funding for the research in the report came from the Ploughshares Fund and Afghanistan: Pathways to Peace, a project of Peacebuild: The Canadian Peacebuilding Network. ABOUT THE AUTHO R Lisa Schirch is director of 3P Human Security, a partnership for peacebuilding policy. 3P Human Security connects policymakers with global civil society networks, facilitates civil-military dialogue, and provides a peacebuilding lens on current policy issues. She is also a research professor at the Center for Justice and Peacebuilding at Eastern Mennonite University and a policy adviser for the Alliance for Peacebuilding. A former Fulbright Fellow in East and West Africa, Schirch has worked in more than twenty countries in conflict prevention and peacebuilding. Schirch has written four books and numerous articles on conflict prevention and strategic peacebuilding. Photo taken by members of Peace Studies Network of Department of Peace Studies (NCPR) from Psychology and Educational Sciences Faculty of Kabul University in 2009. Used with permission of the National Center for Policy Research. The views expressed in this report are those of the author alone. They do not necessarily reflect views of the United States Institute of Peace, and do not rep- resent official positions of the United States Government. United States Institute of Peace 2301 Constitution Ave., NW Washington, D.C. 20037 Phone: 202.457.1700 Fax: 202.429.6063 E-mail: [email protected] Web: www.usip.org Peaceworks No. 75 First published 2011 © 2011 by the United States Institute of Peace PW75_Cover_3a.indd 2 9/13/11 10:27:11 AM CONTENTS PEACEWORKS • SEPTEMBER 2011 • NO. 75 Summary ... 3 From “Peace Talks” to a “Comprehensive Peace Process” ... 5 The Case for a Comprehensive Peace Process ... 6 The “Who” of an Afghan Peace Process: Key Stakeholders ... 8 The “What” of an Afghan Peace Process: A Negotiation Framework ... 12 The “How” of an Afghan Peace Process: Mechanisms for Structuring Public Input, Technical Support, and Coordination ... 22 Conclusion and Recommendations ... 33 [ Peace processes that include a wider range of voices are more likely to lead to success, legitimacy, sustainability, and democratic governance. ] DESIGNING A COMPREHENSIVE PEACE PROCESS FOR AFGHANISTAN Summary ■ Current negotiations to end the war in Afghanistan fail to build on lessons learned from peace processes in other countries. Exclusion of key stakeholders, especially diverse sectors of civil society, and exclusion of key issues underlying the current conflict create a recipe for failure. In addition, the exclusive focus on either top-down negotiation between armed groups or bottom-up reintegration based on financial incentives is insufficient. ■ Half of all peace agreements fail in part because too few people support them. History shows a peace process is more likely to succeed if it includes a wide spectrum of armed and unarmed actors. Building a national consensus to transition from war to peace in Afghanistan requires participation by diverse stakeholders. ■ Current negotiations focus on a narrow agenda on conditions for the Taliban to lay down their arms and for the United States to leave Afghanistan. This agenda does not address significant root causes of the current conflict, such as government corruption and ethnic tensions. ■ A comprehensive Afghan peace process would orchestrate work in three areas: developing a politically negotiated settlement, increasing legitimacy for the Afghan government, and building a national public consensus on the future relations between diverse groups. ■ An Afghan peace process requires creating, coordinating, and sequencing a set of struc- tured mechanisms, forums, and negotiation tables for participatory deliberation and decision making involving diverse stakeholders, regional countries, and all levels of Afghan society. A successful peace process combines high-level negotiation with “vertical” processes that link high-level negotiations with public dialogue processes in a way that is transparent, impartial, and inclusive. ■ A comprehensive peace process in Afghanistan requires a much more deliberate design than currently exists. The hope of a quick and tight negotiation process is as illusory as the fantasy that firepower will achieve victory for either side in Afghanistan. 3 DESIGNING A COMPREHENSIVE PEACE PROCESS FOR AFGHANISTAN From “Peace Talks” to a “Comprehensive Peace Process” The transition from war to peace in Afghanistan requires much more than high-level nego- tiations and low-level reintegration efforts. The current negotiation agenda between U.S. and Taliban representatives holds potential for establishing conditions for an end to the war. Yet it does not lay a foundation for a sustainable peace. The current approach muffles other critical conflicts that are obstacles to peace in Afghanistan and the region and overlooks Afghan civil society’s capacity to support a national peace process. The June 2010 National Consultative Peace Jirga called for the creation of a National Peace Council and a redesign of reintegration efforts in the new Afghan Peace and Reconciliation Program (APRP). Noting concerns about the lack of democratic representation first in the Peace Jirga and later in the National Peace Council, civil society leaders continue to flag the exclusion of public interests in current peace talks.1 Public participation in a comprehensive peace process is an essential component for successful transition from war to a stable peace.2 Half of all peace agreements fail—and once they fail, the underlying conflicts have an even greater chance of becoming intractable. In the history of successful transitions from war to peace, one lesson is clear: go slow to go fast. Rushed peace processes that limit or exclude public participation and interests are more likely to fail than those that build a solid foundation for a sustainable peace. Too often international diplomats seem to throw all of their eggs in one basket with high-level peace negotiations to achieve a quick settlement. When these efforts fail to produce immediate outcomes, the stakeholders return to the battlefield convinced that diplomacy was tried and exhausted. Peace agreements thrown together quickly often unravel in a way that results in an even longer process, less trust among key stakeholders, more costs to the international community, and more death and destruction on the ground. The jumble of terminology in Afghanistan fogs the complicated landscape of peace ef- forts. (For purposes of this report, the definitions found in box 1 are used.) In Afghanistan, the concept of “reconciliation” often refers to high-level negotiations between the Taliban, Karzai government, and international forces.3 But in other contexts, such as in South Africa, rec- onciliation has traditionally referred to a national civil society–led process following official, political negotiations. More recently, media reports signal that there are high-level “peace talks” under way. Peace talks aim to reach a “peace agreement,” a statement that would lay out the conditions and steps for a transition from armed struggle to a politically negotiated process. The term “reintegration” refers to low-level disarmament efforts to entice foot soldiers with jobs programs and other economic incentives. And at the same time, Afghan civil society calls for a national “transitional justice process” with an agenda contrasting from that found in the formal peace talks. All of these terms and processes have a place within an Afghan comprehen- sive peace process. A “comprehensive peace process” is distinct in that it includes a much wider array of activi- ties, actors, and forums aimed at achieving peace.4 Comprehensive peace processes are mul- tilevel, dynamic efforts to build a public consensus around a shared future. A peace process may or may not lead to a peace agreement. In Afghanistan, for example, a comprehensive peace process could help address root causes of the conflict whether or not a peace agreement between the country’s armed, political, and ethnic groups ever materializes. Building a national consensus on the country’s future among civil society could aid in achieving a political settle- ment between armed groups. A comprehensive peace process requires a careful look at who participates in a peace process, what issues are on the table, and how the process is structured. In short, a comprehensive peace process requires creating structures for wide participation and 5 PEACEWORKS 75 Box 1. Definition of Terms Reintegration refers to low-level efforts to offer incentives to disarm and return armed individuals to community life. Reconciliation refers to a process between conflicting groups to understand core griev- ances and identify mutually satisfying solutions with the goal of