Daily Times

Gulbadin Hekmatyar, one of Afghanistan’s most controversial warlords and a former prime minister, arrived in Jalalabad a week before he set his foot in Kabul this Thursday. As much as it has sparked strong reactions from women’s groups and progressive sections of Afghan society, there is no dearth of people who can’t help but hope for a sustained peace through a man who once won the title of ‘the butcher of Kabul’.

Ever since his days as a university student, ‘Engineer Gulbadin Hekmatyar’ made himself conspicuous by his glorification of and, later, use of violence even on campus. A Kharoti Pashtun from northern Kunduz province, Hekmatyar soon claimed Jihadi leadership while fighting against Daud Khan’s regime in early 1970s. His biggest competitor at that time, though much senior in politics, Burhanuddin Rabbani, used to call him ‘maktabian’ (schoolboy) because he had no background in either the jihadi politics or religious education.

From that point onwards, Hekmatyar rose to becoming the most-noted warlord, who enjoyed Pakistan’s backing, during the war with Soviets, especially after the Saur Revolution. In January 1992, he assured the people of Kabul that he won’t attack them if they rose up against the Najib government. But in April that year, he alongside other mujahideen fighters bombed Kabul, killing many innocent civilians and looting their properties.

However, it is also a fact that Hekmatyar had been demanding elections ever since the withdrawal of Soviet forces. In fact, this demand was one of his famous four-point proposal in March. Despite many agreements and peace deals, Hekmatyar kept resorting to violence whenever he felt being sidelined or not getting enough share in power. His capacity for militancy, though considerably curtailed after NATO forces attacked Afghanistan in October 2001, did not completely dwindle until after the Badakhshan Massacre of 2010. By the time when the US started negotiating with him for peace, Hekmatyar had exhausted himself on the battlefield and was operating from his refuge from an unknown place.

On Thursday, when he arrived he was received by the Arg, Karzai, Ashraf Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah. A fourth man to Hekmatyar’s immediate left was Abdul Rasul Sayyaf, the formidable warlord of jihad era who was close to Osama Ben Laden and had trained people like Ramzi Yousaf and Khalid Sheikh Mohammad. Sayyaf was probably the first Afghan leader who internationalised jihad. David B. Edwards documents in ‘Before Taliban’ that in 1981 Sayyaf was heard saying, “Afghanistan provided a school of Islamic jihad” that “would determine the future of the Muslim world”. His support and training of al-Qaida recruits was on record when he made peace with the ‘occupying’ NATO forces and became part of the new government after declaring that he had turned against al-Qaida and Ben Laden when the Taliban became their comrades.

It might be interesting to recall that Sayyaf, along with Hekmatyar, was riding roughshod through Kabul in the pre-Taliban civil war period of early 1990s. He was also accused of worst war crimes and human rights violations during that period, which among other factors prompted the establishment of Taliban. Abdul Rasheed Dostum, another Uzbek warlord infamous for human rights abuses, remained Afghan Army’s Chief of Staff during President Karzai’s regime, while currently he is the first vice president. Although under house arrest presently for torturing and sexually abusing one of his opponents, Dostum still holds the public office and is an influential member of Afghanistan’s ruling elite.

These are but a few names of those in the Afghan polity who have committed similar, if not more heinous, war crimes like Hekmatyar and Taliban. It was just a matter of time that they expressed their politically correct ‘remorse’ at a politically correct timing and became darlings of those who claim to be the ‘civilized world’. The Wolesai and Masherano Jirgas are full of these people who have been committing crimes against women, religious minorities and political opponents quite charitably throughout the 1980s and 90s. The return of Hekmatyar, thus, is not some ground-breaking or unprecedented development in Afghanistan.

Whether the aging warlord would be able to stabilise the war-torn country is however a moot point. He has returned after losing relevance in the battlefield. Although, looking at the crowd that turned out at the Ghazi Stadium of Kabul on Friday, it is clear that the old man has got immense political support. For Afghan government and the US, his return is a strategic victory and would be flaunted as a big blow to the Taliban or it might even be used to engage them.

Both Karzai and Ghani — ethnic Pakhtuns — come from educated and urban classes and claim to represent the Pakhtun majority in Afghanistan. When the Soviet forces were attacking Afghans or Mujahideen were committing war crimes, the Afghan people did not see both these leaders fighting for them. Karzai was in Peshawar at that time after completing his studies from India, and Ghani was pursuing his studies in the US. Hekmatyar thus, has a huge space available to him if he is able to charm the Pakhtun population of Afghan heartland, which has been gradually falling to the lap of Taliban for want of a viable Pakhtun alternative.

But comparing Hekmatyar’s return to the surrender of the TTP-JuA leaders would be naive, at best, and intellectual dishonesty, at worst. Afghanistan is a country under warlordism since almost four decades now. Before that, practically autonomous tribal leaders were governing the countryside even when they were under the King. These warlords, who became terrorists post 1993 (first attack on the World Trade Centre), were their politicians and, thus, brokers of legitimate power too.

TTP-JuA splintered from Taliban because we allowed the latter to consolidate their ‘manpower’ and propagate their religious narrative on our soil. After the military action on Lal Masjid, their hub that flourished under the nose of Pakistan’s political and military power centres, these war-hungry followers of Afghan Taliban turned against the state of Pakistan and committed worst possible atrocities against our civilians and soldiers.

Alongside more toughened Taliban summer offensive in Afghanistan, Hekmatyar’s return may intensify debate in Pakistan for seeking a Hekmatyar-style return of terrorist leaders, who are expected to ‘surrender’ in droves after Ehsanullah Ehsan. This highly dishonest and misplaced debate would be offered in TV talk shows and planted opinion pieces to manufacture consent for a grand scheme of peace-making through mainstreaming of terrorist leaders. This will be more disastrous than allowing these leaches on our soil pre and post 9/11 — because this come with mainstreaming of the terrorists’ narrative as well.

Marvi Sirmed is a staff member and can be emailed at marvisirmed@gmail.com, accessed on Twitter @marvisirmed