Hundreds of delegates from across Afghanistan have arrived in Kabul to take part in the loya jirga, or grand national assembly, that meets from this Monday until next Sunday to select the next government. Contrary to the rules, many of these delegates have been handpicked by warlords determined to defend regional fiefdoms. The fate of the process, and the country, hinges on whether warlord representatives will outweigh delegates who seek a stable civilian government. An institution that promised the start of a democratic future could instead legitimize a return to the abusive past.
A Human Rights Watch mission to southern Afghanistan late last month uncovered numerous instances of warlords subverting the election process through threats, beatings, imprisonment and intimidation. In the provinces of Kandahar, Zabul, Oruzgan, Helmand and Nimroz we heard of warlords selecting their own delegates and forcing them on the population. According to criteria guiding the voting, warlords and others with blood on their hands should be excluded from the process. In fact, the local United Nations office and the special commission for the loya jirga, the Afghan body that designed and oversaw the process, lack the resources adequately to monitor and enforce these criteria.
To challenge the creeping power of the warlords, the international security force now confined to Kabul should have been extended to the rest of the country, along with greater numbers of local and international monitors.
In the absence of such security, armed regional commanders have filled the power vacuum with their Kalashnikovs and rocket launchers. One of the worst areas was Zabul Province. There authorities associated with Hezb-i-Islami, the radical party of the ruthless former prime minister Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, have openly subverted the loya jirga process.
In the provincial capital of Qalat, the space reserved for the election process was surrounded by armed men. The provincial governor, Hamidullah Tokhi, a senior Hezb-i-Islami figure, arrived with a list of preselected delegates. When one independent figure persisted with his candidacy, provincial authorities threatened to kill him.
Not all tampering was so overt. We heard regularly of warlords who simply told the locals that the election observers were only temporary while the warlords would stay on to reckon with anyone challenging their rule. A young man from Gizab told us that "after 23 years of fighting, people ... have a great fear of the commanders." Such fear is aggravated by local perceptions that Washington supports the warlords. Its desire to minimize the commitment of U.S. combat troops has led it to rely for security on local commanders regardless of their human rights records. The U.S. government does not consider this cooperation to constitute active support for warlords, but the distinction is often lost on civilians.
To make matters worse, many ordinary Afghans suffer under the false impression that American communications equipment provided to local commanders is directly linked to the fearsome B-52 bombers.
In many ways, Afghanistan today resembles the country in the early 1990s. Then the Soviet-sponsored Communist government had just been toppled and regional commanders were consolidating their power before the onset of a savage civil war. A decade later, many of the actors, domestic and foreign, are the same. However, this time the international community has a direct stake in, and considerable influence over, the country's future. It needs to use that influence.
Now is the make-or-break time for Afghanistan. If the special commission can ensure that the loya jirga is not dominated by the warlords' delegates, the meeting could go a long way toward creating a better, more inclusive future. But if the warlords are allowed their way, the loya jirga could end up legitimizing and reinforcing their rule. That would move Afghanistan one step closer to renewed civil war.
Saman Zia-Zarifi, a senior researcher at Human Rights Watch in New York, contributed this comment to the International Herald Tribune.
