Talking to the Taliban

4 september 2009

"Talking to the Taliban," is a recurring mantra in the international media. Recently, UK Foreign Secretary Milliband, NATO's new Secretary-General Rasmussen and the head of the UN in Afghanistan, Kai Eide, publicly said we should talk to the Taliban. Talking to the Taliban was a key issue in the Afghan elections: the main candidates all spoke about how to engage the Taliban.

Today I asked the new US Ambassador to NATO, Ivo Daalder, whether talking to the Taliban was part of America's new strategy for the region. "Bombs and bullets are not enough," Obama said in March when he presented his new AfPak strategy. Ambassador Daalder responded that that there is the issue of reconciliation, which is up to the Afghan government, and reintegration of former Taliban fighters who had decided to lay down their arms, which was a top American priority. "The US does not need to reconcile with the Taliban," Ambassador Daalder said, "It is the Afghans who need to reconcile."

The Afghan government, with Saudi backing, has been talking to the Taliban for years and a formal policy to reconcile with Taliban willing to renounce their links with Al-Qaida and work within the framework of the constitution has been in effect since the Bonn Peace Accord in December 2001. However, according to a recent analysis, only twelve of the one hundred and forty two UN-listed senior Taliban figures of the previous regime have reconciled.

It is easy to say that we should talk to the Taliban. But who do we talk to? The Taliban are not a neatly structured organization with identified representatives to talk to but a loose network of affiliate groups and persons. They have no bureaucracy, no headquarters and rely predominantly on verbal communication.

According to Ambassador Jawad, Afghan Ambassador to the United States, who visited The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies during the Afghanistan big tent meeting in The Hague in March this year, ideologically, the Taliban can be divided into three groups. Taliban who are affiliated with Al-Qaeda, mercenaries and 'paycheck-Taliban.' The goal of the first group is to defeat the West and drive western -infidel- forces from Islamic lands all over the world. This is what most people think off when we refer to 'hardline' Taliban. These Taliban are driven by religious zeal, conservatism and fundamentalism. There have been talks with these groups of Taliban, for instance, in the border region of Warziristan, and, more recently, in the SWAT Valley in Pakistan. But the agreements that were reached have mostly led to a strengthening of the Taliban's position.

The second group of Taliban comprises of Afghans that are in it for the money, that have suffered casualties from US and NATO military operations or who have been maltreated by Afghan officials. According to Ambassador Jawad, these Taliban can be reconciled through "dialogue, buying-off, bribary and coercion." The third group he calls 'pay-check Taliban,' people who join the Taliban out of economic necessity. These groups don't need talking to, they need recognition, reparation, jobs, economic opportunities and the basic necessities of life. Geographically, Taliban operate in Afghanistan and Pakistan. They are separate but have connections. In Pakistan, according to a recent study by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies, an Islamabad based thinktank, the Taliban has developed from what was regarded as a reactionary, temporary movement, motivated by the events in Afghanistan, to a full-blown insurgency, with the potential to threaten the Pakistani state and linked to global terrorist networks. Amir Rana describes the Pakistani Taliban as "not a distinct organization but an alliance of different groups, which have common goals but different agenda's, making it a complex phenomenon." In FATA, the federally administered tribal areas in Pakistan, there are more than 50 local Taliban and many other violent religious groups. Tribes set up their own Taliban-affiliated militias. Many of these groups are loosely knit together under the umbrella organization of a Pakistani Taliban. Yes, we should talk to the Taliban. But this should be part of an integrated strategy towards the Pashtun areas in Afghanistan and Pakistan, aimed at separating the insurgents from the population, addressing the legitimate grievances of the population, strengthening local government and creating economic and development opportunities in the tribal areas where the Taliban recruit. Only then does it make sense to talk about talking to the Taliban.