Kabul signs peace deal with warlord
AGREEMENT WITH ‘BUTCHER OF KABUL’ MARKS SYMBOLIC VICTORY FOR GANI
Agreement with Gulbuddin Hekmatyar paves the way for him to make a political comeback despite a history of war crimes and after years in hiding |
Habiba Sorabi | Deputy chief, HPC
Afghanistan yesterday signed a peace agreement with notorious warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, paving the way for him to make a political comeback despite a history of war crimes and after years in hiding.
Hekmatyar, who heads the largely dormant Hezb-i-Islami militant group, is the latest in a series of controversial figures that Kabul has sought to reintegrate in the post-Taliban era.
The deal with Afghanistan’s second-biggest militant group marks a symbolic victory for President Ashraf Gani, who has struggled to revive peace talks with the Taliban.
A Hezb-i-Islami delegation shook hands with members of the High Peace Council (HPC), responsible for reconciliation efforts with militants, and the national security adviser at an official ceremony in Kabul.
“This agreement is signed after two years of negotiations between the High Peace Council, the leadership of the Afghan Government and the Hizb-e-Islami,” deputy HPC chief Habiba Sorabi said at the ceremony.
Formal signing
The agreement will come into force when it is formally signed by President Ashraf Gani and Hekmatyar, the government has said, though no date has been set.
Hekmatyar, derided widely as the “butcher of Kabul”, was a prominent anti-Soviet commander in the 1980s who stands accused of killing thousands of people in the Afghan capital during the 1992-1996 civil war. He is widely believed to be living in hiding in Pakistan, but his group claims he remains in Afghanistan.
The deal paves the way for him to make a comeback in mainstream politics in a pattern well established by other warlords, such as General Abdul Rashid Dostum, the country’s first vice president.
But it has sparked revulsion from rights groups. “His return will compound the culture of impunity that the Afghan government and its foreign donors have fostered by not pursuing accountability for the many victims of forces commanded by Hekmatyar and other warlords that laid waste to much of the country in the 1990s,” Human Rights Watch said last month.