Pashtun Nationalist Leader Calls on Afghan Taleban to Renounce Violence

Pashtun nationalist leader calls on Afghan Taleban to renounce violence

Text of report in English by Afghan independent Pajhwok news agency website


Kabul, 10 August: A veteran Pashtun nationalist leader from Baluchistan (in Pakistan) has reminded the United States and the international fraternity of their responsibility to rebuild war-torn Afghanistan before they walk away from it.

There was absolutely no justification for Washington and its allies to leave the Central Asian country in state of devastation in the wake of the 1989 Soviet withdrawal, the Pashtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PkMAP) chief told the four-day regional peace jerga here on Friday (10 August) .

In his typically blunt style, Mahmud Khan Achakzai remarked the US being the sole superpower would not lose sight of its responsibility this time around if it was really determined to rid the long-suffering country of terrorists and miscreants.

The seasoned politician touched a raw nerve while asking jerga president and (Pakistan) Interior Minister Aftab Ahmad Khan Sherpao to request President Gen Pervez Musharraf to swing into action to drench the fires raging in Pakistan. If remedial steps were not initiated immediately, he warned, the whole region would be engulfed by the devouring flames of strife.

Pakistan's tribal areas, where political agents were armed with sweeping powers, were in the throes of trouble never seen before. He particularly cited the perturbing situation in Khyber Agency, Hangu, Waziristan and elsewhere in a country run by intelligence agencies. All of us know what these agencies have been doing, he added.
Pashtuns or Afghans had historically been a peace-loving and tolerant nation that never resorted to terrorism for achieving their goals, claimed Achakzai, who challenged historians to find a single instance linking the community to acts of brainless violence. But their land had been the scene of a war that knew no bounds and inflicted untold suffering on them, he regretted.

From the epoch-making reign of Ahmad Shah Baba to this day, he maintained, Pashtuns had been living by a code of life that set store by peace and co-existence and abominated beheading elders, abducting women and killing innocent civilians.

He urged reclusive Taleban supremo Mullah Mohammad Omar to shun violence if he desired peace and prosperity in his country. The fugitive ought to take his cue from Pakistan's opposition leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman, who contested elections to get that position.

At the outset of the proceedings on day two of the jerga, Achakzai's party colleague Abdorrahim Mandokhel referred to deadly militant attacks in Charsadda, Swat, Waziristan, Lakki Marwat, Kohat, Bajaur and Mohmand Agency, where the security situation was on a nose-dive.

Mandokhel, tending to ridicule Pakistan-Afghan recriminations over terrorist sanctuaries, wondered where the killers - with an obscurantist agenda - came from. Should the neighbours continue to temporize in their fight against the rebels, he warned, both would slide further into chaos.

He deplored an ongoing wave of kidnappings and decapitations by a band of hard-liners intent upon imposing their credo on noted tribal elders and law-abiding citizens. Who had allowed the miscreants to kill people on the amorphous charge of spying, set alight schools, take over mosques and brazenly humiliate individuals in a self-styled drive against vice.

If the Taleban were interested in a political struggle to realize their objectives, the PkMAP leader suggested, they should renounce violence and register as a political party in accordance with Afghanistan's constitution. Let it be clear, he reasoned, the fighters could not attain their goals through terrorist activities.

Another Pakistani delegate, Jamil Hasan Bangash hailed the grand tribal gathering as a positive beginning that should continue as long as the twin menace of terrorism and extremism was not banished from both the countries. The thrust of his speech was that the jerga must be empowered to take independent decisions on the common woes of the two peoples.

Minister of State for Education Anisa Zeb Tahirkheli recalled the firm support and cooperation Pakistan extended to Afghanistan after the Soviet invasion. Through all thick and thin, she continued, her country stood by the Afghans in a show of good neighbourliness.

Nawab Aurangzeb Jogezai from the Baluchistan Province believed the distinction between the jihad against the erstwhile Soviet Union in the 80s and the war on terror today had become blurred. Pakistan's stability was directly depended on peace in Afghanistan, he opined. The two, therefore, should jointly explore ways of forging friendly relations, forgetting past differences.

(Description of Source: Kabul Pajhwok Afghan News (Internet Version-WWW) in English -- Pajhwok Afghan News, established in April 2004, provides daily news and features in Pashto, Dari, English and Urdu. Self-described as "independent," it often reports on security matters and the Taliban activities. It claims to be staffed, managed, and led entirely by Afghans. According to the site, it receives financial support from USAID's Office of Transition Initiatives (OTI) and the International Organization for Migration (IOM).)