Many Afghans view Saturday’s expected signing of a US-Taliban peace deal with a heavy dose of well-earned skepticism. They’ve spent decades living in a country at war, some their whole lives, and wonder if they can ever reach a state of peace.
The deal is meant to set the stage for a US troop withdrawal and to usher in talks among Afghans on both sides of the conflict about their country’s future.
There’s been bitter squabbling among political leaders, concern of a temporary truce being undermined, and the challenge of uniting a fractured country remains daunting.
Arash, an Afghan policeman in the capital of Kabul, was 7 years old when a US-led military coalition ousted the Taliban government in 2001. The US was retaliating for the Taliban harboring Osama Bin Laden while he masterminded the Sept. 11 terror attacks. “We’ve had no escape from war,” said Arash.
Afghanistan’s economy has been wracked by 18 years of fighting, despite billions of dollars spent on nation building. Some 55% live in poverty, or less than $1 a day, up from 34% in 2012. He said the vast sums pumped into Afghanistan have “gone into the pockets of our leaders.” Transparency International last year ranked Afghanistan 173rd of 180 countries it monitors, scoring it 16 out of 100. President Donald Trump has been critical of Washington’s spending in Afghanistan. “We’re really serving, not as a military force, as we are a police force,” Trump said earlier this week while on a visit to India. “They have to police their own country.”
The Taliban and representatives from Kabul, including the government, are to sit together within 10 to 15 days of Saturday’s signing. They’ll try to negotiate the framework of a post-war Afghanistan. Negotiators will try to figure out how to re-integrate tens of thousands of Taliban insurgents and thousands more militiamen loyal to warlords in Kabul who have grown powerful and wealthy during 18 years.
Hamid Gailani, an Afghan negotiator in preliminary talks, said that “the biggest challenge that I see is the political turmoil.”
The Taliban now control or hold sway over half the country, and are at their most powerful since the US invasion. Only one militant group ever signed a peace agreement with Ghani’s government. The group’s leader, warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, said many of his fighters faced harassment, intimidation and even prison when they attempted to re-integrate.
Pakistan Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi will attend the signing of a landmark peace deal between the US and the Taliban in Doha on Saturday aimed at ending the brutal war in Afghanistan, a top official said on Friday.
