What is the Rationale Behind Hekmatyar’s Provocative Ethnic Remarks?
By Khaama Press - Thu Dec 21 2017, 2:00 pm
By: Sabera Azizi
The opinions expressed herein are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of Khaama Press News Agency.
The Author of the story is a graduate student at the City University of New York. She is studying international relations and can be followed on twitter @saberaazizi.
“War is ongoing in every part of Afghanistan. It’s the same war from yesterday. A big number of Ghor residents are involved in this war. Sit with them and ask them who is involved in this war? It is between two ethnic groups! In Taiwara, the conflict is not between security forces and insurgents; it is between two ethnic groups. It is the same in Kunduz, in Baghlan, in all northern parts of the country. The real situation of the war is like this across the country,” claimed Gulbuddin Hekmatyar during his party’s, Hizb-i-Islami, assembly.
Hekmatyar is a warlord, notoriously known for intentionally shelling civilians with
his D30 122 mm cannons in the 1990’s. After fighting against all the governments in Kabul since 1973, he made peace with the National Unity Government earlier this year.
Hekmatyar’s remarks are false. The Taliban and Pakistan’s intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), are the main drivers of the conflict.
The current stage of the Afghan war began in 2001. In October of 2001, the United States and United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, an Afghan political-military alliance dedicated to fighting the Taliban, conducted joint operations that led to the toppling of the Taliban regime. As the United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan was making significant gains on the ground, approximately 3,000 members of the Taliban and Al Qaeda retreated to Pakistan. In 2002, with the help of the ISI, the Taliban re-launched its insurgency.
The Taliban is a proxy force for Pakistan. The Taliban is committed to fulfilling Pakistan’s objectives in Afghanistan. In 2015, Parwez Musharraf, former president of Pakistan, said that his government cultivated the Taliban to counter India’s influence in Afghanistan. Similarly, a Taliban commander told the Crisis States Research Centre that, “If any one rejects that the ISI backs or controls the Taliban, he has a mental problem … all our plans and strategy are made in Pakistan and step by step it is brought to us, for military operations or other activities.” The current war in Afghanistan is a proxy war. It is an imposed war by outside forces. It isn’t an ethnic war. Given these facts, why did Hekmatyar fabricate such remarks?
Hekmatyar has returned to Kabul, eying the Arg, the Afghan presidential palace. In his own words, “The next president of Afghanistan is someone who Hizb-e-Islami wants.” However, Hekmatyar has been defeated politically. He lacks domestic support. Hekmatyar took refuge in Iran and Pakistan for nearly 20 years. Because of that, he was alienated from Afghan society and lost his power base. To illustrate: in the 2014 Afghan presidential election, his party’s candidate mustered less than 3% of the votes.
Jack Snyder, a renowned academic who specializes in international relations, noted in his book, From Voting to Violence: Democratization and Nationalist Conflict, that when domestic politics are not in favor of a political elite’s political ambitions, the elite tends to use ethnic rhetoric as a means to gain popular support. Hekmatyar is doing exactly that. He is creating a false narrative based on ethnic deprivation as a means to garner domestic support.
Last week, at a gathering in Khost province, Hekmatyar deployed highly inflammatory language as a means to advance his political ambition: he alleged that there are more people in the government from the Panjshir, Bamiyan, and Daikundi provinces than from Loy Paktia (Paktia, Paktika, and Khost province); asserted that the Zadran Tribe is being deprived of their political rights because the founder of the Haqqani Network, Jalaluddin Haqqani, was from that tribe; claimed that “in Ghor province, two tribes [the Bayan and Pahlawan] are fighting against each other. One of the ethnic groups is backed by foreign forces and the other is forced to migrate with families.” He depicted one ethnic group as the aggressor and the other as the victim. Also, Hektmayar declared that politicians have carved out their own spheres of influence inside Afghanistan, which he labeled as “sovereign islands of power”. According to him, such practice has caused a disparity in the opportunities available to various ethnic groups. In other words, the ruling elites don’t provide equal opportunities to all ethnic groups.
In response to Hekmatyar’s provocative statements, Dr. Abdullah Abdullah, Chief Executive of Afghanistan, said that “ethnic and religious divisions are not for the interest of the country and is good for enemies. Talking about ethnic and pitting one province against others is not encouraging anyone towards any positive goal.” While misleading narratives of ethnic deprivation may not be in the interest of the National Unity Government, it is an effective tool for self-serving politicians. Hekmatyar is one of them.
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