Shoots of peace take root in Taliban’s backyard
Every phase of Afghanistan’s four decades of war has left traces around the rocky Ghargi police outpost overlooking the Panjwayi district in Kandahar. Rusting tanks sinking into the stony slopes date to when Soviet troops battled Mujahideen in the surrounding orchards and vineyards.
A brief drive away is Sangisar, the birthplace of the Taliban, where Mullah Omar first raised his militia of religious students to fight the warlords who thrived after the Russians left.
More recent sandbagged trenches and bullet-pocked buildings date to when Western troops fought the Taliban. For the past seven years, the outpost has been manned by Afghan police guarding mobile phone towers.
Years of fighting have extracted a heavy cost in Panjwayi.
Haji Mohammad Rassoul, a local elder, lost a brother, a police chief in nearby Shorabak district; and a son, also a policeman. “I am preparing food for their children,” he said over a lunch of mutton and aubergine. “Every home is like that.”
Eighteen months of negotiation in Doha between America and the Taliban has produced the beginning of a peace process.
A seven-day semi-truce has begun, which, if it holds, will tee up a formal accord on Saturday. US troops will begin to withdraw and the militants will sit down with Afghan leaders to begin lengthy and difficult talks.
Diplomats are cautious, but say the accord is the best chance the country has had yet to find a political settlement to the conflict.
The latest UN tally of civilian casualties found the conflict killed or injured around 10,400 people last year.
Haji Mohammad recalls well when the Taliban arose in the autumn of 1994, in response to the lawlessness of civil war. At first they were welcomed as they disarmed bandits and secured the countryside. Later their punishments, including hangings and the cutting off of thieves’ hands, and their rules and austere interpretation of Islam began to alienate residents.
“They had good security, but nothing more. They ruled by cruelty,” he said. Despite that, he will welcome them if they lay down their weapons and join Afghan politics.
“If I don’t forgive them, then peace can’t come again,” he said.
Sirajuddin Haqqani, the Taliban’s deputy leader, last week used the opinion pages of The New York Times to try to reassure the West about the group’s intentions. Haqqani, a wanted terrorist known for ordering car bombings, said the militants now wanted an “inclusive political system” and they would guarantee women their Islamic rights to study and work.
No one The Daily Telegraph spoke to wanted a return to the strict rule of a Taliban-led government. But powersharing or an admittance to parliament could work, they suggested. “If they come and join the government, then we don’t have a problem,” said Abdullah Khan, a police commander in Zangiabad.
Some predicted the Taliban were no longer as strict as at their founding.
“I think that this next time, they will be changed,” said Abdul Ghafur, 60. “They will not insist that people have big beards and turbans and stop girls from going to school.”
Whether Panjwayi’s women were as confident was unclear. Few could be seen during The Telegraph’s visit.
Residents also have mixed feelings about foreign troops in the country. In Panjwayi, the thousands of first Canadian and then US troops who patrolled from 2006 onwards are blamed for making violence worse, not better. Locals liken the Taliban to flies attracted to foreign troops.
Americans built the large district compound centre from where Nasar Mohammad, the deputy police chief, leads his men. The walls are still bland beige, but he has added his own touches. A greenhouse holds his collection of flowers while a corner where armoured vehicles once parked is now an enclosure for his menagerie of iridescent pheasants and small deer.
The chief voices a familiar criticism of foreign forces. With all their technology and might, why were they unable to defeat a rag-tag band of religious students?
“It was very easy for the Americans to push the Taliban out, but they did not want to. They said their cameras meant they could see something tiny all the way from Kandahar airport, 30 miles away. Why couldn’t they do anything in Panjwayi?” he said.
He would be keen to see the back of foreign troops as part of any deal, but others want Americans to stay, albeit conducting aid work, not fighting.
Security in central Panjwayi has already improved. The replacement of troops by locally recruited police smoothed over tribal differences that fanned the insurgency, residents said.
During the Americans’ time, Nasar Mohammad often needed a convoy of up to 40 armoured vehicles to cross his territory. Now he simply jumps in a car and has not lost a man in Panjwayi for seven years. Much of the rest of Afghanistan is not so fortunate and, there have been heavy casualties in neighbouring Maiwand.
If the truce holds, talks between Taliban and Afghan leaders are set to begin quickly in Norway or Germany. They are likely to be the most difficult part of any peace process.
The government of Ashraf Ghani has been shut out of negotiations, with the Taliban rejecting him as a US puppet. As US troops withdraw, his negotiating hand weakens.
Moreover, Afghanistan’s politicians are at loggerheads over the disputed result of September’s presidential election. Mr Ghani was declared victor, only for Abdullah Abdullah, his rival, to reject the result and threaten a rival government. Just choosing who should negotiate with the Taliban is expected to be fraught.
Rogue Taliban factions, Isil and even players in the government may try to sabotage the talks.
Diplomats caution that talks could take years, if they do not grind to a halt. Yet in Panjwayi, where the fields will soon be thick with grapes and pomegranates, residents are also hoping to see shoots of peace.
‘It was very easy for the Americans to push the Taliban out, but they did not want to’